From blocking debate on equal pay for equal work for women, to a head-in-the-sand approach to protecting our environment, the list of issues ignored by this legislature is as long as it is indefensible, argues Mark Ferrulo.
Commentary
Charlie Crist on Ending the Cuba Embargo: Not Flip-Flopping, But Facing Reality
Crist wants to lift the 53-year-old U.S. trade embargo on Cuba. He hasn’t flipped soft on the Cuban government, which he calls “oppressive,” “totalitarian,” and “wrong.” He just says that the embargo hasn’t worked and that it’s insanity to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result, argues Stephen L. Goldstein.
PERT: Why Flagler Students Are Forced to Take the Stupidest Test You’ve Never Heard Of
Why are a slew of high achievers at Matanzas High School and FPC who have already succeeded in various courses having to take the so-called Post Secondary Educational Readiness Test on top of all other tests? How many unnecessary, time-consuming tests are we going to continue to subject our students to?
Reflecting on Saturday’s Fatal Wreck on A1A: Untold Stories of Lost Lives
Journalists have long used accidents as a convenient device to study how lives can suddenly and terribly intertwine. “It’s been a long time since I had to ponder those questions professionally,” writes Steve Robinson, “but old habits are hard to break.”
Sheriff Manfre on Medical Marijuana: “I Am Receptive to the Arguments Favoring the Amendment’s Passage”
“For me,” Flagler County Sheriff Jim Manfre writes, “it comes down to whether medical marijuana has a medically beneficial effect and if it could help my Mom or any of our loved ones from the debilitating side effects of radiation treatments or the other diseases it claims to affect.”
Voucher Scams: Floridians Should Be Fighting the Privatization of Public Schools
We’re decades into a war waged by shadowy business interests and religious groups, working through “cooperative” legislators and governors to gradually undermine most of the state’s public schools and ultimately privatize them, argues Daniel Tilson.
Turned Down for a Job Outside the Classroom, a Teacher Rediscovers Her Mission
It’s a sad notion that administrators, school boards, human resources offices and so-called reformists have unfortunately inculcated in teachers over the years, this idea that if you want to be successful or be taken seriously, or make any sort of impact, that you must stop teaching to do so.
How Donald Sterling’s Apologists Give Private Bigotries a Pass
If racism and intolerance are learned, it is the Donald Trumps of the world who are the teachers. Our country can only move beyond its present ugly divisions when people who have attained power and influence actively work to promote tolerance. Doing nothing is no longer acceptable.
“Growing Up Fisher” Is Perpetuating Stereotypes About Blind People
“It’s hard for me not to cringe,” writes Kathi Wolfe, a legally blind writer, when the main character on Growing Up Fisher “does things that most blind people in real life would rarely, if ever, do. He hits cars in crosswalks with his white cane, checks his guide dog into a restaurant cloakroom, chops down trees with a chainsaw, and takes his clients’ cars for rides.”
Progress Florida Launches Executive Accountability Project as Culture of Secrecy Pervades Scott Administration
The culture of self-serving deal-making that grips many of our state capitals has operated essentially in secret, relying on tactics to avoid Government in the Sunshine laws and a lack of public attention. The Executive Accountability Project will focus on providing the public a never-before-seen look at the inner workings of how their elected officials are conducting “the people’s” business behind closed doors.