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December 1, 2001
Editorials
Saving kids by computer
Florida children will suffer if lawmakers pull the plug on the state's bungled child-welfare computer system instead of insisting on a plan to fix it.
New diplomat heads to Rome
Mel and Betty Sembler leave this weekend for Rome, where he will take up his post as U.S. ambassador to Italy. This is the second plum diplomatic assignment for the St. Petersburg developer and Republican fundraiser who served as ambassador to Australia in the first Bush administration.
Teachers' insurance a boondoggle
When Gov. Jeb Bush said new programs should be the first ones sacrificed to the deficit, did he really mean it? Not exactly. On Nov. 19, his Department of Management Services awarded a $1.2-million contract for professional liability insurance for teachers, a new program, even though the Legislature had voted in the first special session last month to rescind the appropriation. In the new special session, only the Senate still wants to kill it. The House voted 68 to 50 to defeat an amendment aimed at using the money to restore deep cuts in programs for deaf, blind and developmentally disabled children. Merely seven Republicans voted for the children. Bush's press office says he regards the insurance program as an aid to teacher recruitment and retention.
Letters
State's approach to education is shortsighted
I have lived in the St. Petersburg area for more than 20 years. My two children attended public school here, and one graduated from the University of Central Florida. I am not a teacher. I grew up and was educated outside Florida.
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.
© Copyright 2001 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.
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