Cover story
In this economic battle, we cannot afford to be timid
As the stock markets plunged in the aftermath of the Attack on America, investors kept asking: "Where is the bottom? Where is the bottom?" But the more appropriate financial question facing this nation is: "Where will the economy bottom?"

Editorials
School choice warnings
The school choice plan that is to move Pinellas County's schools beyond a 29-year court order has already produced some unanticipated complications.

Politically incorrect and protected
Bill Maher is host of the late-night talk show Politically Incorrect -- a program that frequently lives up to its billing. Maher badly misread the public mood recently when he compared the courage of terrorists with that of the U.S. military and found the military on the short end.

Letters
Problem is incompetent government
Re: The outdated principles of less government, Sept. 23.

Robyn E. Blumner
When we give up freedoms
It would be easy for those of us who care about American freedoms to get behind a counterterrorism bill, like the one under consideration in Congress, if we knew that every member of our law enforcement and intelligence services could be trusted to target only potential terrorists of the type who attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Bill Maxwell
When crisis hits, blacks asked to be patriots
Black historian W.E.B. DuBois spoke of African-Americans' dual identity in the United States. He called the condition "two warring souls in one black body." Although it sounds academic, DuBois' message is simple: Black people are permanent outsiders and American citizens at the same time.

Don Addis
No patriotism on campus?
You all saw the story.

Martin Dyckman
Why we need more security in airports
TALLAHASSEE -- In February 1995, a month after the Republican takeover of Congress, the House Aviation Subcommittee met to do its part toward fulfilling the party's "Contract With America." The topic: "Ways to reduce unfunded federal mandates and regulatory burdens on the aviation industry without affecting the safety of the traveling public." Since Sept. 11, many of its members may have been wishing that they could erase all traces of that hearing.