Winners

1. Deputy School Superintendent Don McElroy was in the news more than bomb-squad robots last week, but came away unscathed by news about the $627,000 golden parachute he received from the Portland school board.

2. No-growthers hit the jackpot twice. Pollster Tim Hibbitts unveiled a survey showing that most Oregonians think it's "very important" to protect forest and farmlands; then Portland's first anti-growth conference was packed with 600 people, some of whom sported "Thank You for Not Breeding" buttons.

3. The two members of the synth-pop band Sukpatch got a lucrative publishing deal out of last week's NXNW conference, with Sony paying to buy future song rights from the Minneapolis duo.

Losers

1. Multnomah County Sheriff Dan Noelle took three strikes last week: An inmate died after being tranquilized and strapped into a restraining device called a "backboard"; a male jail guard was accused of fondling a female inmate and charged with official misconduct; and Noelle's 1998 election opponent, Tom Slyter, stepped up his mud-slinging campaign of press releases critical of Noelle.

2. Even at the gentle hands of his own public editor, Michele McLellan, Oregonian publisher Fred Stickel couldn't help but look foolish in his paper's Sunday Forum section. In McLellan's column, Stickel defended his policy of accepting cigarette ads as free speech, yet admitted that he refuses condom ads, which he finds "offensive." (Fred, here's a hint: One product kills people; the other saves lives.)

3.Professional bike thieves had to be disappointed to hear that local do-gooders want to revive Portland's free "yellow bike" program. Hey, why pay for a stolen bike when you can just pedal a free yellow one into your garage? (Maybe this explains the disappearance of the 350 yellow bikes three years ago.)