The latest fiscal buzzword is a real thriller: “Zombie Banks.” All this scary phrase needs is a secondary title, something like, “The Economy of the Living Dead.”So-called zombie banks are financial institutions now on the federal dole. Without taxpayer support, they would collapse. Instead, they exist between the private and public worlds, neither alive nor […]

Last week, Gov. John Baldacci introduced a $306 million bond package to allocate funds for infrastructure, economic development, land conservation and energy programs. In another year, this smallish bond package would be considered conservative.This year, it should be considered conservative, for just one area: offshore wind power.Offshore wind is slated to receive $7.5 million from […]

The problem with survival of the fittest is it’s unfair to the unfit. They always die.When we humans know we must adapt or suffer, we are often incapable of doing so. We marinate and mull. This inefficient process becomes worse in large organizations with deep-seated traditions, which can act like lumbering dinosaurs.And we know what […]

For about 20 years, the “broken window theory” has prescribed this obvious scenario: If a broken window is allowed to remain, the rest of the house will fall into neglect. In short: If somebody doesn’t care for the community, the community eventually won’t care for itself.This theory has many followers and almost as many detractors. […]

Cheers and jeers from around the news:• Jeers to the Lewiston and Auburn city councils. Repressed frustrations between them – and among their members – exploded into finger-pointing, statement-reading, pen-tossing and accusation-flying.We support collaboration between the cities. Yet after Tuesday’s catharsis in Lewiston, in which councilors from both cities aired grievances about who really killed […]

Hypocrisy, thy name is John Nutting.The senator from Leeds has proposed legislation to prohibit hospitals that get funding from MaineCare from buying advertisements. “This is all paid with state money,” he told a legislative committee this week. (The committee later voted unanimously against the bill.)His assertion was problematic for one big reason: It wasn’t true.MaineCare […]

The U.S. Supreme Court has made the Second Amendment clear: Americans have the right to bear arms. This doesn’t mean, though, that Americans have the right to return fire.Maine’s public colleges, right now, can set policies on gun control. Yet as public institutions, these policies may fail in legal challenges against the crystalline Second Amendment. […]

Although everything now seems like an economic issue, deciding what’s right for Maine and its people is not always measured in dollars and cents.There are two such examples percolating right now. One is same-sex marriage, the proponents of which recently released a study estimating that allowing the controversial practice in Maine would equal the return […]

Long ago, battles over Maine’s forests had the strategic simplicity of revolution. On one side, an empire – in Maine’s case, paper companies. On the other side, rebellion – conservationists, environmentalists and ecologists. It was simple. But today, with paper companies reeling, their vast landholdings sold off to developers and speculators and new generations of […]

Please join Editorial Page Editor Anthony Ronzio and the Sun Journal’s new “Political Animals,” Will Fessenden and Scott Lansley, for a live, online chat at noon today on sunjournal.com.Everything is on the table. Fessenden and Lansley will talk about their new feature, their backgrounds, politics and their first columns coming March 8 about gay marriage […]