Editorials
The court's duty
Until redistricting is turned over to an independent commission, Floridians will have to depend on the state Supreme Court to ensure that their votes mean something.

A fond farewell to the whoopers
No one who has followed this month's amazing migration of five whooping cranes from Florida to Wisconsin will ever use the word "birdbrain" as a derogatory term.

Letters
Class seems to overlook basic purpose
Re: The real-life lessons about the plight of migrant farm workers, April 14.

Philip Gailey
McBride's education priorities take lead in governor's race
The polls are finding that education is by far the most important issue for Florida voters this election year, and so far Bill McBride is the only Democratic candidate for governor who deserves to be taken seriously on the issue. Janet Reno, the front runner in polls of Democratic primary voters, continues to offer little more than platitudes, leaving voters to wonder if she is even aware of the critical needs of the state's public schools, which fare poorly in national rankings.

Robyn E. Blumner
It's a pretty good time to be a woman, despite what feminists say
Ever since Betty Friedan's 1963 book The Feminine Mystique blasted away the suburban myth of dishwasher bliss with an emancipation proclamation for America's bored housewives, women have tended to be defined in bestseller parlance. Publishers rush to put out the next, new explication of women's lives and what is wrong with them -- as if the vastly different ambitions and desires of each American woman can be lumped together, summarized and analyzed between two screaming covers.

Martin Dyckman
FCAT should oblige disabled
TALLAHASSEE -- Seventeen-year-old Gary Lester of Port Orange is a student any college would want. Straight A's. National Honor Society. Junior Class president. Winner of a writing contest. President of the Atlantic High School chorus. Winner of a $2,500 Discover scholarship and contender for a grand prize.

Bill Maxwell
A handful of black criminals makes the rest of us look bad
One thing most white people will never understand is that the individual