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Editorial: Dirty work over the telephone
In politics, smear-job campaigns have a way of blowing back on the people who stoop to use them. That's why the telephone trash-talk this week against Tampa mayoral candidates Frank Sanchez and Pam Iorio may have unintended consequences for City Council member Bob Buckhorn, whose campaign was responsible for the calls.

Editorial: An avoidable nuclear scare
Almost a year ago, a nuclear power plant near Toledo, Ohio, was shut down just in time to discover that a disaster was literally a quarter-inch away. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is supposed to protect the public from danger at the nation's 103 commercial nuclear reactors, had delayed a shutdown order in Ohio after the power company complained it would lose money.

Editorial: Keeping families intact
The DCF system needs a lot of help if it hopes to meet Secretary Jerry Regier's goal of keeping more kids in their homes and out of foster care.

Letters: Death penalty process is full of fatal flaws
As a judge of the Supreme Court of Missouri, now retired, I participated in many death sentence appeals. You are to be commended on your two articles on the devoted efforts of Attorney Linda McDermott on behalf of a man who spent many years on death row, resulting in his release (The Innocence Defense, Feb. 9 and 10).

 

Columns today
Sandra Thompson: If the worst happens, there's no way out
Talk about anxious!

Steve Bousquet: A 'Pork Chop Gang' kind of idea
Democracy was agonizingly slow in coming to Florida. This state had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into supporting the idea of one man, one vote.

Ernest Hooper: State fair venue; top praise; cheap men
I was struck by the fact that Civitan presented its citizen of the year award last week just before the Florida State Fair Authority met to discuss its proposed amphitheater project at the fairgrounds.

 

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.