TRE ARROW: a man on the lam

WINNERS
1) The City of Portland's quest to rescue Portland General Electric from the clutches of Enron got a boost from state regulators. The Oregon Public Utility Commission warned that it would block any attempt by Enron to break the utility into little tiny pieces, and--more importantly--it laid down ground rules for the sale that favor public bidders like Portland.

2) Rare good news on the health-care front! Last week, the federal government announced approval of a plan to extend Medicare coverage to 60,000 more low-income Oregonians, at no additional cost to the state (which doesn't have any money anyway). Starting in February, families with incomes up to 110 percent of the poverty level of $18,100 will be eligible for coverage under the Oregon Health Plan.

3) Literary legend Mark Twain rose from the dead to score a victory against censorship last week, when the Portland School Board refused even to consider board member Derry Jackson's request that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn be removed from the district's English curriculum. Jax complained that the book doesn't foster a "culture of respect."

LOSERS
1) More trouble for Michael Scarpitti, a.k.a. Tre Arrow: A federal grand jury indicted him last week for arson for the second time in a year, this time for allegedly destroying three Ross Island Sand and Gravel cement trucks in April 2001. Scarpitti camped out on a federal building ledge in 2000 and ran for Congress later that year (a midcampaign shoplifting bust diminished his appeal). Arrow later narrowly avoided death last fall when he plunged out of a tree in the Tillamook State Forest while besieged by lawmen. His whereabouts remain unknown.

2) Last Thursday, Tom Calkins got the news he'd been dreading when a Multnomah County grand jury indicted him for arson for allegedly burning down his own business, the Burlingame Grocery--once the most celebrated beer store in the Northwest--last September.

3) The reputation of the City of Eugene (rhymes with mean), where things are normally "all good," took a beating after national TV aired a school-bus surveillance tape showing middle-school boys thrashing a classmate. The notoriety was déjà vu for the patchouli-scented hackeysack hotbed. Last month, Eugene scored headlines when University of Oregon parties morphed into street riots.