Welcome to another edition of “We’re all thumbs,” an occasional feature in which the editorial staff of Current Publishing picks proverbial winners and losers, heroes and villains from recent news stories:

• Thumbs UP to the Maine Military Museum in South Portland, whose founder and curator, Lee Humiston, held a ceremony last Saturday afternoon awarding Gold Stars and Silver Stars to Maine families whose loved ones were wounded, held prisoner or died in combat. Humiston, a vet himself, has worked tirelessly to expand the museum on Peary Terrace and takes great pride in it. We share his enthusiasm in awarding families who have been impacted by war.

• Thumbs DOWN to Maine Medical Center for not appreciating the difference between donating a kidney for the express purpose of raising money and donating a kidney and then having people help you for the medical-related expenses of doing so. The ongoing attempt by Windham’s Josh Dall-Leighton to donate a kidney to a total stranger, Christine Royle of South Portland, is frustrating to all involved. A GoFundMe donation campaign has raised about $50,000, much more than the family needs for medical expenses. However, hospital staff is worried the donations are violating laws that ban the sale of organs, or profiting from it. We think their hesitation is really an arcane form of red tape that could derail this needed donation. They say it’s an unprecedented matter and therefore difficult to navigate, but in this day and age of people funding online efforts of all kinds, we think the ethical qualms are baseless since Dall-Leighton had already decided to donate prior to the fundraising effort. Case closed. It just shows how bureaucracy isn’t just gumming up government works, health care is rife with it as well.

• Thumbs UP to the Spurwink Rod & Gun Club in Cape Elizabeth for bending over backward to please neighbors who’ve complained of noise and errant shots. While Maine gun clubs are not required to muffle their noise levels, the club has installed tens of thousands of dollars worth of sound-dampening and shot-containing measures to appease neighbors’ concerns. Last week, the club submitted a license application with the town, the first new license since opening in 1954. Here’s hoping the neighbors, who said they’d donate to the upgrade effort but haven’t, appreciate the club members’ efforts, and that the town grants the application, post haste.

• Thumbs DOWN to Gov. LePage’s proposal to cut $10 million worth of positions from the Maine Center for Disease Control’s budget. Critics of the plan say the state won’t save any money since most of the positions being cut are federally funded and will leave the state vulnerable in case of disease outbreaks. We also wonder why the director is declining all media interviews about the topic, which obviously has mass appeal in this age of quickly spread infectious diseases.

• Thumbs UP to the part of the newly released Democrat tax plan that doesn’t eliminate municipal revenue sharing and doesn’t tax nonprofit organizations. We hear it has $100 million worth of tax increases, but, that aside, we’re against shifting more of the local tax burden onto property taxpayers, which is what would happen if revenue sharing is cut. We also believe all the good things major Maine nonprofits do would be hindered if those with $500,000 worth of property were forced to pay taxes. We hope Republicans stand up to LePage’s thinly veiled efforts to balance the state’s books by shifting the burden to towns. By the way, LePage is calling for a 3 percent budget increase. That doesn’t sound very “conservative.”

• Thumbs DOWN to the winter of 2014-2015. We’re happy for the recent warming trend, but come on now, this winter was nasty, brutish and, unfortunately, not short. Snow on April 9 blanketed Hadlock Field, canceling the Sea Dogs’ opening day. April 9? That’s just foul.

• Thumbs UP to the mysterious market forces that are lowering the price of gas. Gasbuddy.com is predicting a national average of $2.35 this summer, and we hail whatever is causing the price reduction. Is it an oversupply in nouveau oil-rich America? (We still can’t quite believe America, long reliant on outsiders to make its wheels go round, is now a gas exporter.) Or is it the Saudi Arabians – afraid of what the Middle East is becoming – trying to keep Americans on their good side by not cutting production? Maybe it has something to do with Russia? Whatever it is, we oil-dependent Mainers appreciate it. At the same time, we can’t really enjoy much of it knowing at any time those same mysterious market forces will make prices rise again.

• Thumbs DOWN to the Apple Watch. Yeah, it’s got a nice display and comes in an eye-catching gold, but the battery only lasts for a day and you’ve got to sync it to a iPhone. (Hey, early adopters say, at least you don’t have to wind it.) Apple devices have literally changed the cultural landscape in the last 10 years, but this doesn’t seem to be one of them yet. We’ll stick with checking the time on our cell phones.

-John Balentine, managing editor