Winners & Losers

[September 12th, 2007]

WINNERS

Score a victory for sports traditionalists , who beat back the Portland Beavers’ misguided push to change the team’s nickname to something that wouldn’t be confused with Oregon State’s Beavers. Given alternative names like the Wet Sox and the Thorns, we’ll take the confusion—and the Beavers.

Medical marijuana patients torched efforts by a grand jury to subpoena their records when a federal judge last week called “bogus” on that fishing expedition. The judge’s decision, citing the need for patient privacy, thwarts the feds’ latest back-door attempt to kill Oregon’s medical marijuana law.

Their grandma is tougher than your grandma. Lost in the Baker County wilderness for 14 days and given up for dead, 76-year-old Sandy resident Doris Anderson was found alive by two hikers last week—minus her shoes and dentures.

LOSERS

Pushing on-the-job stupidity to new levels, Multnomah County Deputy David Thompson was busted by the Portland Tribune bragging on an Internet gaming site about beating up jail inmates and the joys of using a Taser—all from his work computer.

Also from the Botched Careers Department: As first reported on WWire, Peter Cookson quit as dean of the Lewis&Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling and resigned from the Portland Schools Foundation board after WW reported on his sexual-harassment settlement with a former employee.

Portland’s neurotic moms now have one more reason to lock their minivans and log onto their kids’ MySpace accounts. Admitted pedophile Jack McClellan made national news when he moved to Portland after being hounded out of both Washington and California.

Trail Blazers fans’ dreams of NBA titles in the years ahead got rudely awakened with news that rookie phenom-to-be Greg Oden must undergo exploratory arthroscopic knee surgery. Feels more like nightmares from years past with other injury-prone centers (see Bill Walton or Sam Bowie).