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Scionti's old Tampa style
Mike Scionti, the Democratic Party boss in Hillsborough County, who died unexpectedly Thursday, was one of the last links to the old world of rough-and-tumble Tampa politics. His idea of running a campaign was not to sit in some bunker punching numbers into a computer. Scionti rustled together everyone he knew, stuck a sign and a Cuban sandwich in their hands and expected their precinct to come in. And when it did, neither Scionti nor anyone else forgot.

Editorial
Money would help school the poor
Public schools face special challenges in educating poor, minority students. The population often comes to school with problems typical of a home-life mired in poverty, and are simply less prepared to learn than their rich, suburban counterparts. You would think these added troubles would translate into additional resources, but a new education funding study indicates just the opposite. In a majority of states, school districts charged with teaching low-income students are actually given less money per student, in some cases thousands of dollars less.

Editorial
Times Recommends: Cannon for state Senate
Democrat Lee Cannon hinted at a run for the state Senate two years ago, the very evening he lost his Pasco sheriff's seat to an unknown Republican backed heavily by Rep. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey.

Letters
Let drug death be a lesson on dangers of heroin
Re: Heroin kills man in treatment, Aug. 12

 

Columns today
Sandra Thompson
Should we hire police who collect and serve?
I live in a neighborhood that is considering private police protection -- at least the Sunset Park Area Homeowners Association is considering it and has mailed out questionnaires to everyone who lives here.

Ernest Hooper
Bealsville reverence; endorsing everybody
When Sam Horton speaks of his hometown, you can hear the reverence.

Lucy Morgan
Fretting about views when we need results
I have a confession to make.

Gary Shelton
Gruden vs. Spurrier: Let the comparisons begin
If your lights flicker around 7:45 tonight, do not be alarmed.

 

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.