Cheers and jeers from around the news:

• So, collaboration is dead, huh? Stick a fork in it, some say? Pshaw!

Just ask the Lewiston and Auburn public libraries how it’s done. Cheers to them for introducing a Twin Cities library card; a press conference about it is scheduled for Oct. 1.

(Full disclosure: the Sun Journal did underwrite the cost of the new library cards.)

A joint library card had made sense for years. Both facilities participate in other programming and are less than two miles apart. Opening their collections to all local residents makes them true community libraries.

Collaboration is easy when tried. The libraries are doing it.

City councils, take note.

• Jeers for half-truths in political ads. An example comes from pro-Oxford County casino group, Vote Yes on 2, whose television spot blames CasinosNo! for stopping Maine from reaping millions in revenue through their strong opposition to previous gaming referenda.

It’s a nice line, but untrue. In 2007, a racino in Calais was defeated by more than 12,000 votes. In 2003, a resort casino in Sanford was rejected by more than 176,000 votes. Yes, CasinosNo! politicked against those campaigns.

But CasinosNo! didn’t actually defeat them.

The people of Maine did.

• Jeers to the imbroglio over Maine television anchor Cindy Michaels, who’s at the center of controversy over her resemblance to Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. Her shortsighted critics need better things to do.

There was a time when politics was about issues. Now a television anchorwoman – who looked like Palin when the nation had neither heard of Wasilla, Alaska, nor its mayor – is accused of being part of a media conspiracy based on her hairstyle and trendy eyewear.

Get real. There’s an election to worry about. Focus on the candidates.

Not people who look like them.

• Cheers for observant loggers in our midst who noted, in our cover story Sept. 21 about cutting on public lands, a lack of safety precautions by participants. Professional loggers, they said, are subject to stringent safety standards.

The public should accept similar standards. Correct tools and techniques should be prerequisite to cutting on state land. The government is doing right by the people by letting public forests be culled for cordwood.

It shouldn’t allow them to do it wrong.

• Cheers: extra federal funding for the Low Income Heating Assistance Program, overdue recognition for what-would-you-do-without-them LifeFlight of Maine, and MaineOpenGov.org, a new Web site from the Maine Heritage Policy Center for monitoring state government spending.

• Jeers: Tropical Storm Kyle for ruining the first weekend of fall, $48.7 million in DirigoHealth savings that still isn’t enough to re-open enrollment, and MaineOpenGov.org, for providing a wealth of information, but a dearth of context.