Editorials
Proliferating plates
With questions arising about the program and motorist interest declining, it may be time to start phasing out the state's specialty license plates.

Adding to the outrage
On Thursday, the Board of Immigration Appeals issued an indefinite stay of an immigration judge's decision to release Mazen Al-Najjar on $8,000 bond. The former University of South Florida teacher has been in a Bradenton jail for the past 3 1/2 years on the basis of secret evidence of alleged terrorist activity.

The kindness of dog lovers
Not all America is obsessed at the moment with chads and shopping and holiday parties.

Letters
Race distinctions often unavoidable
Re: Race distinctions don't really help, by Robyn E. Blumner, Dec. 3.

Robyn Blumner
Caution to courts in considering circus of an election
With the Florida Supreme Court's shocking decision to order a recount of the undervote for president and the state Legislature moving forward with its pre-emptive special session to pick Florida's 25 electors, the U.S. Supreme Court will likely be called on again to ringmaster this three-ring-circus of an election. Here's a warning: By pushing around performing elephants and donkeys, you're bound to step in some, err, manure.

Martin Dyckman
Legislature on its way to ensure future corrupt elections
TALLAHASSEE -- If all the Floridians who thought they had voted for Al Gore had actually done so, he'd be naming his Cabinet now. (And he may yet get the chance.) On that, the exit polls were right. Even Republicans admit it.

Bill Maxwell
The cure of gangsta rap is in our hands
A healthy but loud debate is taking place among African-Americans nationwide. The source of the debate is captured in a recent cover story of Jet, a magazine about black life in the United States: "Is Hip-Hop Culture Hurting Our Youth?"

Books
More Season's readings
Still looking for the perfect holiday gift? Here are some books for the voyeur (and gossip) that lurks in all of us.

Children's books
MOISHE'S MIRACLE: A Hanukkah Story, by Laura Krauss Melmed, illustrated by David Slonim (HarperCollins, $15.95)

Soul food
HOLIDAY SOUL: If the holiday season seems every year to lose a little more meaning as we get caught up in its headlong rush to shop, decorate, eat, drink, do and cram more activities into a day than 24 hours can hold, then stop. Take some time to relax and put the meaning, and the reason, back into the season with Christmas in My Soul, edited by Joe Wheeler (Doubleday, $15.95).

The many faces of Harlan Ellison
The Essential Ellison is a wide-ranging, solid collection that is more than 1,200 pages long.