From information I have pieced together from The Florida Times-Union, Mayor John Peyton has a significant number of people on the city payroll with salaries of between $100,000 and $200,000. As per a web search, the average Florida attorney salary is $60,000 a year and the average salary for a Florida medical doctor is $72,000. Even senior attorney partners and medical doctor specialists do not earn as much as many of the people employed by the Jacksonville mayor. I consider these salaries excessive, considering the average Jacksonville taxpayer paying these excessive salaries earns within $10 of minimum wage.

Looking for quality control

Whoever is in charge of quality control [at The Florida Times-Union] needs to be replaced. You can't find the section you are looking for unless you read the front contents at the bottom of the page. It used to be each classified had a designated number. You found the number in numerical order and you found what you were looking for. Saturday's paper had no garage sales even listed. When garage sales are listed so are homes for sale mixed in with the garage sales. Sunday's last paper had the obituaries in the Business section instead of the Metro where they have always been as long as I can remember. There were no comics in my paper as well. It may be time to cancel the paper and read it online or just watch the news on TV.

Don't burn the flag

On Sept. 11 this year a church group is planning to burn numerous copies of the [Quran] on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks of the World Trade Center. General [David] Patraeus is asking the group not to carry out the burning as it may upset the Muslim community in the Middle East, especially in Afghanistan, and bring harm to our troops. I wonder if the [g]eneral has ever made a similar request of the people who burn our flag both here and abroad? Excuse me while I go outside and scream!

Thanks to store manager

Thanks to the Stein Mart district manager - what she did was priceless. After shopping at Stein Mart on University Boulevard, us two elderly people went to the car to find it wouldn't start. We had left our cell phone at home and didn't have the phone number to the AARP towing company. We went back into Stein Mart for help. A Stein Mart employee took us to the district manager's office - and then she took over! She spent a long time on the phone trying to locate the towing service and made sure they were coming to our rescue. We were heading to lunch when our car wouldn't start, so when the district manager found out we had missed lunch, she went and got us food while we waited and would not accept any money! We want to tell this very special person what a blessing she was and how much we appreciate her effort and kindness.

Punish texting while driving

Texting and driving is the newest and most dangerous hazard on the road. We have all seen it. The person in front of you will weave back and forth and then drift into the other lane, then wake up and pull all the way into the other lane like it was all planned. You think the person in front of you is drunk. But he or she is not ... just not paying attention to the road. This is worse than drunken driving. ... It's time to make the punishment for texting as stiff if not stiffer than drunken driving.

To rant or rave about something, go to Jacksonville.com's Opinion menu and select Rants & Raves; e-mail rantsandraves@jacksonville. com; mail items to Rants & Raves, The Florida Times-Union, P.O. Box 1949, Jacksonville, FL 32231; or drop items at the Times-Union office at 1 Riverside Ave.

link: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-09-07/story/rants-raves-may...