Hot endorsements, cool revenge.

[October 18th, 2006] WINNERS

Did you get the memo? Sunday was opposite day in Portland, apparently. Even though The Oregonian disagrees with Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron Saxton on key ballot measures and other major issues, the Northwest's largest daily gave Saxton its endorsement over the window. Also worthy of note: so did the smaller, more enthusiastic dailies in Bend and Medford.

Bearcats, get your pong table ready! An anonymous donor has dropped $8 million on Willamette University —to pay for 145,000 kegs of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Just kidding. The donation, announced Saturday, actually will go toward a new building for math, computer science, rhetoric and media studies. A building to study us media folks?! Thanks.

Power to the people. The business association on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard got Commissioner Sam Adams to stop his talk of putting parking meters on the street (see "Street of Schemes," WW, Oct. 4, 2006), which they said would drive shoppers to Lloyd Center and other places with free parking. As for Adams, he pledges to "keep putting quirky ideas on the table."

LOSERS

Perhaps revenge is a dish best served with "naked brown chocolate," to steal a phrase from the emails of former Police Chief Derrick Foxworth. Last week, the City of Portland got served with notice that Foxworth wants $1.3 million for demoting him "for improper reasons, including his race" after a steamy affair with a co-worker became embarrassingly public.

(Bak) Sheesh. Schnitzer Steel, the local metal-recycling giant, agreed to pay $15.2 million in penalties on Monday to settle bribery allegations against one of its subsidiaries in South Korea. Although the company didn't admit guilt, the SEC says Schnitzer violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by bribing Chinese and Korean mills to buy scrap.

Metro, our region's trash police, fined East County Recycling $78,000 after a six-month investigation found the company reduced, reused and recycled tax credits for more than 3,900 loads of material over three years. The agency says those loads didn't exist, but the recycler chalks it up to an accounting error. Must have gotten lost in the trash.