St. Petersburg Times Online: Opinion

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Crow for the Florida House
The candidates for Florida House District 49 in north Pinellas County do not differ dramatically on the issues. Larry Crow, the incumbent Republican, favors campaign finance reform and certain gun-control regulations and opposes dismantling the state growth management agency. Sue Humphreys, the Democratic challenger, holds similar views on those subjects and others. Both oppose the giveaway of state-owned waterfront land to private landowners. One of the few issues that they take opposite sides on is the death penalty: Crow supports it, but would allow more money for appeals; Humphreys opposes the death penalty.

Bill Maxwell
A show of generous citizenship by many
When a St. Petersburg Times article reported a few months ago that the James B. Sanderlin Center's buildings had roofing problems serious enough to shut down the facility, many individuals and several companies were alarmed by the news and sought ways to help.

Editorial Notebook: Robert Friedman
North Carolina's politics
WINSTON-SALEM -- For casual observers, North Carolina politics begins and ends with Jesse Helms and tobacco, but that's not really fair to the state. Tobacco is still a major crop, but agriculture has ceded much of its hold on North Carolina's politics and economy to the Charlotte-based megabanks and the high-tech industries of the Research Triangle.

Editorials
Open the door
Now the St. Petersburg City Council that once wanted Bayfront Medical Center to be public about its dealings with the BayCare Health System has shut the door on the public.

Letters
Cheney became prosperous with government help
Re: A decorous debate, Oct. 7.

Perspective
Taking jobs, alienating customers
For weeks Americans have been told that the outsourcing of high-tech jobs is good for our economy. So said Greg Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in a recent report signed by President Bush. So, too, writes Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in articles praising the rise of call centers in India used for everything from making airline reservations and reading medical X-ray films to providing tech support for American computer firms.

Philip Gailey: Democrats fall off campaign finance reform wagon
Well, what do you know. Soft money is back, and it's making hypocrites of all those Democrats who fervently championed the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law, not to mention those Republicans who objected to the law's restrictions on issue advocacy.

Bill Maxwell: Who is for the farm worker?
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is touting legislation to improve the lives of Florida's 300,000-plus farm workers, who endure institutional and systemic injustices each day in our fields and groves and their personal lives.

Robyn E. Blumner: For some defendants, an American gulag
In Bernard Malamud's masterpiece The Fixer, inmate Yakov Bok was subjected to psychological torture in a Soviet gulag through the humiliations of constant shackling and repeated strip searches.

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