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December 8, 2000

Editorials
A bad move
The Florida Legislature's special session today to guarantee a president is an unwise move, and lawmakers should turn back while they still can.

Workable school plan
U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich got her message across two years ago with a blunt ruling against the Hillsborough School District. In December 1998, Kovachevich told the district to quit its whining; she would not end the desegregation order, nor would she explain to the district what steps were sufficient to end federal oversight of the schools. "It is not the role of the court," the judge explained, "to engage in strategic planning."

Letters
Struggle over election kindles interest in politics
Weekday mornings at the Butler household begin at 6 a.m. The routine is similar to that of many families in Pinellas County: a shower, getting dressed, a quick breakfast with the family followed by a mad dash on U.S. 19 to drop my teenage daughter off at school before driving on to work.  

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.