Tough talk, soft serves: In an editorial published on Dec. 28, the Portland Press Herald takes the multitude of candidates for governor to task for criticizing incumbent Democratic Gov. John Baldacci without revealing how they would have dealt with the budget crises that have dominated most of his two terms in office.

“Candidates need to say how they would restructure government if elected,” the sub-headline reads.

Fiscal drivel: In my other job as a political columnist, I often run into people of various partisan persuasions who think they know how to solve the state’s ongoing budget problems.

“Just cut the size of the Legislature,” the more conservative of them tell me, “and get those lazy cheaters off welfare.”

Those of a leftist bent always suggest, “Cut the size of the Legislature, and end corporate welfare.”

MaineToday Media, owner of the Morning Sentinel and other newspapers in the state, issued a statement on Dec. 15 on the firing in November of Sentinel reporter Larry Grard.

Here is the statement, unedited and presented in its entirety exactly as it was received:

Misprint: The MaineToday Media newspapers did a better job covering this week’s changeover of the printing of the Kennebec Journal from Augusta to MTM’s South Portland plant than they did reporting on a similar move by the Morning Sentinel last week.

Better, but not good.

Firing? What firing? The dismissal of Larry Grard, the Morning Sentinel reporter allegedly dismissed for sending an angry e-mail to a Washington, D.C.,-based gay rights group, has gotten extensive play at national media outlets from USA Today to Fox News.

Questions, denials, reactions: The case of Larry Grard, the reporter for the Morning Sentinel in Waterville who was fired last month, allegedly for sending an anti-same-sex-marriage e-mail to a gay rights group, has attracted national attention, mostly from conservative online news services.

Larry Grard admits he had “a lapse in judgment.” But Grard – who’s been a reporter for thirty-five years, the last eighteen of them at the Morning Sentinel in Waterville – says the e-mail he sent from his personal account to a national gay rights group shouldn’t have been grounds for his dismissal.

Six months ago, the Kennebec Journal/Morning Sentinel editorial pages were filled with a feisty mixture of local opinions from a variety of sources, produced and/or assembled by Naomi Schalit.

Price gouging: Give the Bangor Daily News credit for the originality of its greediness.

On Nov. 26, the paper ran a small announcement on its front page explaining that it was hiking its newsstand price for that day from the usual seventy-five cents to two dollars. The reason:

“Packed with news, advertising, inserts and fliers, the Thanksgiving Day issue of the Bangor Daily News has similar production and distribution costs to our weekend paper, and it now will carry the same price.”

Syndication surge: Citadel and other big national companies that own lots of radio stations are experiencing serious financial difficulties due to declining advertising revenues and excessive debt. That’s prompted online speculation that Citadel’s eleven Maine stations in Portland, Augusta, and Presque Isle will soon undergo significant changes.