A Week Goes Kablooey!

[May 17th, 2006] WINNERS

Opponents of the long-defunct Trojan nuclear plant will celebrate with a bang on Sunday, May 21. That's when the giant white monument to the failures of the nuclear age gets blown to pieces.

Credit The Oregonian with forcing the U.S. Army to admit it screwed up. Army officials announced last week that an 18-year-old autistic high-schooler won't have to serve. The decision came days after the paper reported how the boy's mother tried to tell officials her son was disabled. (See Murmurs, page 11, for a sketchier result from another Oregonian story.)

Portland is a loser when it comes to Major League Baseball, but it's a winner in the softball scorebook. Portland State's softball team got its first NCAA Division I tournament invitation. And the Vikings need only travel down I-5 to Corvallis, where Oregon State's softballers also made the tourney and will host the regional.

Oregon's printing companies and broadcasters must be swimming in cash after the last-minute barrage of mailers and radio ads from candidates in the just-concluded primary election. Too bad low voter turnout indicates most of us used the extra glossy paper to pick our teeth.

LOSERS

What is this, Chicago? Portland's Office of Transportation is changing policies after a city audit found it broke the law. The blunder: failing to ask around for outside cost estimates before doing $3.6 million worth of paving in-house.

Physicians' Hospital got shut down for the second time this year over safety concerns. A surprise inspection last week led to the decision, which follows a WW cover story last year ("Doctors Inc.," WW, Oct. 19, 2005) that sparked the feds' concern about the Northeast Portland hospital.

Verizon is hearing a Beaverton man loud and clear after he filed a $1 billion federal class-action lawsuit against the communications giant. The suit claims violations of his privacy, and that of 1 million customers, by Verizon giving the feds information about his phone calls.