The Future of News™

[May 18th, 2005] WINNERS

Investors in the Whizzinator couldn't pay for the free publicity they got thanks to the bust of ex-Oregon Duck footballer Onterrio Smith. Smith, however, won't be offering any testimonials for the contraption, a gross-sounding device designed to thwart drug tests. He claims he bought the whiz-rig for his cousin.

Salem's Republicans and Democrats may still be fighting like Montagues and Capulets, but Oregon's fiscal health suddenly looks less dire. State revenue for the next budget came in $218 million more than expected. Add to that the biggest growth in jobs since 1997, and state legislators are rolling in the unexpected green. Be afraid, very afraid.

The Archdiocese of Portland , otherwise reeling from its notoriety as the first Catholic outpost to go bankrupt, gets one of its top alumni on the inside of the Vatican. Former Portland Archbishop William Levada snagged a top Vatican post where he'll oversee sex-abuse claims as well as crack the whip over theological dissenters.

LOSERS

Earth to David Wu! Earth to David Wu! The west side's apparently orbital congressman wrote a letter to federal prison officials on behalf of imprisoned "friend and constituent" Andy Wiederhorn last week. Wiederhorn, just to review, is in the jug for his role in the largest union pension fraud in history. Helping Wiederhorn-who has been buying Marshmallow Mateys from the prison commissary despite his diabetes-seems unlikely to win Wu many friends in organized labor. Or anywhere else, except possibly Wiederhorn's company Fog Cutter-in which Wu, it so happens, owns stock.

The Portland Tribune needs a new marketing slogan; with its HQ moving to Clackamas County, Bob Pamplin's moribund twice-weekly can't really use "Closer to Home" any more. A few suggestions:
-"Closer to Fuddrucker's!"
-"Another Question Mark on the Front Page?"
-"Really Zeroing In on the Meth Crisis!"
-"Even More Totally Out of Touch Than Before!"

Speaking of the 'burbs, Washington County drivers stared into a double-barreled crisis this week. Not only must they contend with Bridgeport Village, the monstrous "lifestyle center"/sovereign state that opened this week; they also face the potential meltdown of the oft-stalled, ever-more-expensive effort to build commuter rail between Wilsonville and Beaverton.