Cool ads, hot globe.

[February 7th, 2007] WINNERS

Although Prince rocked in the Purple Rain at last Sunday's Super Bowl, the pop star's shadowy phallus-guitar solo wasn't the only entertainment to create a post-game buzz. In the world of advertising, Portland ad agency Wieden & Kennedy's commercials for Coca-Cola are stimulating reviewers with their feel-good vibes.

Billionaire Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen has finally acknowledged what bankruptcy lawyers and sportswriters have long known: Surrendering the Rose Garden to creditors in bankruptcy court in 2004 was dumber than signing Darius Miles to a long-term deal. Allen announced plans last week to buy the arena back in a move that would help the Blazers' bottom line by channeling all the ticket revenues to the team.

Screw F. Scott Fitzgerald—there are second acts in American lives. Eight years on the Portland City Council and one failed million-dollar mayoral campaign against Tom Potter later, Jim Francesconi has risen again to hold public office. Last week, Gov. Ted Kulongoski appointed the lawyer to the State Board of Higher Education.

LOSERS

Self-proclaimed state climatologist George Taylor ("Hot or Not," WW, Aug. 24, 2005) and global-warming critics don't have an ice floe to stand on. A new report by scientists from 113 countries says there's little doubt man is to blame for problems like Oregon's declining snowpack.

Like a spreading food fight, the state prison system's kickbacks-for-food-concessions scandal grew wider last week when The Oregonian reported evidence of scant oversight by the Department of Corrections.

The House of Umoja, a troubled Northeast Portland nonprofit in the business of keeping kids out of gangs, lost a big source of public funding because it couldn't locate anybody who needed counseling or tutoring services, The Oregonian reported. Maybe the nonprofit should sign itself up for those services?

Missiles for sale? Robert Caldwell, a

56-year-old Portland man, was arrested

last week after allegedly trying to buy

five batteries for ground-to-air missile launchers from an undercover agent in San Antonio. Caldwell (not to be confused with the Oregonian editor who shares his name) is accused of trying to export weapons systems to Iran.