God, meet Don Corleone.

[July 7th, 2004] WINNERS

Good news for Portland's local doughnut kingpins. Sales at korporate kartel Krispy Kreme have kratered after last summer's frenzy surrounding the opening of Oregon's first KK branch in Klackamas. Now that the hoopla has faded, the invading dough moguls face a decline of about 8,000 transactions a week. That sound you hear is thousands of waddling feet, as the appeal of raised glazed shifts from nationwide back to neighborhood.

With the resounding thud of 244,000 signatures landing in Salem's elections division, gay-marriage opponents made a bigger statement about the strength of their campaign for hetero-only unions than many imagined possible. Their ballot measure to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage--and, presumably, save the known universe from immediate total destruction--will hit ballots this fall.

Oregon's bounty of beavers brought smiles to conservationists as numbers continue to grow. The Beavs are reportedly busy damming, felling and burrowing through metro Portland, to the dismay of some property owners. Beavers: 1, Landscape Architects: 0. Finally, a state animal that kicks ass.

LOSERS

Is time running out for the Rosarian regime? The Rose Festival saw its ballyhooed new executive director pull the eject handle after just four months. Susie Gross was hired to inject some 21st-century business glasnost into the creaky 97-year-old festival, but ran for the borders of the Realm of Rosaria after butting heads with its 100-member Supreme Soviet. The defection threw the future of the oppressed Rosarian people into doubt.

The pedophile-priest scandal engulfing the Catholic Church claimed another first this week, as the Portland Archdiocese prepared to file bankruptcy to shield itself from looming lawsuits. If the archdiocese proceeds, it will be the first in the country to seek bankruptcy protection. Meanwhile, a rare trial in an abuse case threatened to shed even more light on the Church's soiled vestments.

Multnomah County--a political entity that couldn't buy a break from a Mafia kneecap specialist--finds itself more than $25 million short on expected returns from the special income tax voters approved last year. The shortfall, which is equivalent to approximately 166 library directors' salaries, may grow even worse.