The 2008 elections are crucial for all, particularly so for the young and the frail elderly. It's time for both parties to get specific about poverty, education and health care. Both Bill Clinton and the Bush's endorsed welfare cuts, giving the choice of "work or no welfare" to many needy. What choices do they have ? The young and old cannot work, yet if they have no wage earner or political support, they are dropped from the safety net. In education, "No Child Left Behind" failed in Bush's Texas. Middle class Americans can pay high school property taxes which ensure good school with facilities for young minds and bodies, but these are not the needy families with deprived and undernourished children. They and the poor elderly desperately need our attention. It's a common sense investment to offer disadvantaged kids a chance to learn a living wage skill. Discrimination and second class schools do not a well adjusted adult make. It only reinforces the old cycle that "we are not good enough or worthy enough for your best efforts." We are not mean people, nor unfeeling politicians seeking profit. We are generally kind to the less fortunate, but we need to be reminded that our immigrant forefathers were given opportunities that we now deny some citizens. ...more

February 21, 2008

Dale Jarrett is in. His five-race farewell tour will begin Sunday as planned. It was touch and go for a while Thursday, or at least it seemed that way, but the 51-year-old, soon-to-retire driver of the No. 44 Toyota made it into the field for the 50th Daytona 500. ...more

February 15, 2008

More than 100,000 of Florida's poorest and most vulnerable residents could find themselves out of their rental homes the next few years if property owners exercise their right to discontinue providing federally subsidized and other affordable housing once commitment periods end. ...more

February 4, 2008

It's a game of one step forward, three steps back. ...more

January 8, 2008

It's a game of one step forward, three steps back. In the Hernando County School Board's annual financial audit for 2006-07, released last month, the district has shown major improvement in an area where it has been historically cited. ...more

January 8, 2008

SEBRING — Those suffering from morbid obesity now have another option locally available at Highlands Regional Medical Center. Since 1993, more than 120,000 LAP-Bands have been inserted in obese patients around the world. Last year, HRMC introduced the program for county residents. "The goal is not to become a beauty queen, but happy and healthy," said general surgeon T.C. Lackey II. "We're changing the whole mindset." The next closest places to go for the procedure is Orlando or Tampa, he added. ...more

January 8, 2008

The collision of a statewide campaign to cut property taxes with Florida's worst budget crunch in decades could give hospitals that treat the poor and uninsured a double dose of trouble next fiscal year. ...more

January 3, 2008

Uninsured cancer patients are nearly twice as likely to die within five years as those with private coverage, according to the first national study of its kind and one that sheds light on troubling health care obstacles. ...more

December 20, 2007

In an op-ed article, "The War For GOP's Soul" (Other Views, Nov. 3), Michael Gerson argued that "the Republican Party is in the midst of an ideological identity crisis." Perhaps because of his experiences within the Bush administration, Gerson falsely portrayed the choice as between libertarianism (or "anti-government conservatism") and the "social teachings of the Jewish and Christian traditions," arguing that the former ignores the plight of the most disadvantaged. But that misunderstands the nature of the true conservative's reluctance to rush headlong into large, new government programs. ...more

November 23, 2007

Veronica James left one war and came home to another. ...more

November 22, 2007