Last week, struggling Maine Times cadged enough alms from a couple of benefactors to keep the presses rolling a little while longer. This week, the journal for the Southern Maine smart set declares in its cover story that the east-west highway is a boondoggle that will not boost the boondocks. And who better, one might ask, to opine on economic development?

The latest caterwaul in Camden concerns the on-line local news outlet Village Green and its newest feature, a Main Street camera that beams digitized images of the town’s comings and goings across the World Wide Web 24 hours a day. Proponents say it’s the latest thing in technology and thus must be good. Detractor say it’s altogether too 1984-ish. The impartial observer, having taken in a few hours of unedited Camden on the monitor, can only conclude that if Big Brother was watching, he’s long since dozed off.

Aroostook County girded its loins this weekend for an invading horde of rowdy, hedonistic visitors, with locals worrying whether the ringing cash registers would offset the possible mayhem. Well, the County survived the 600 Democrats who came to their state convention, so 80,000 Phish phans later this summer should be a piece of cake.

Upon the fifth consecutive fizzle of the $15 billion anti-missile system known as THAAD, Defense officials asked scornful lawmakers to ponder how awfully difficult it is to, as they put it, “hit a bullet with bullet.” Considering that this THAAD got only a half-mile aloft before it went haywire and had to be destroyed, the Pentagon might want to take a few steps back and review, for starters, how to just fire a bullet.

Congress last week approved a get-tough measure making it a federal offense for a parent to skip out on child support by moving to another state. A few days later, it moved ahead with a revision of bankruptcy law that will make child support get in line behind credit-card banks for payments by the debtor. This is what is known as the give and take of politics.