Rieke Elementary IMAGE: martin thiel

1) Supporters of Rieke and Edwards elementary schools rejoiced at the news that those schools will stay open at least through the next school year. (Parents at Meek and Brooklyn elementaries, who are less affluent and less numerous, weren't so lucky.)

2) Death-with-dignity advocates are seeing their long battle pay off. According to figures released last week, 38 Oregonians chose physician-assisted suicide last year, an 81 percent increase from 2001.

3) Accomplishing what the Portland School Board couldn't, Beaverton lured a superintendent to the nation's black hole of education funding. Jerome Colonna, who currently heads Redmond schools, will take charge of Oregon's third-largest district.

LOSERS

1) "Hey, you got chocolate in my 'shrooms!" "You got 'shrooms in my chocolate!" Psychotropic chocoholics got a buzzkill when Portland police seized a 30-pound box of foiled-wrapped chocolate hearts and seashells laced with hallucinogenic mushrooms.

2) Daytime boozers shouldn't plan on drying out in the comfy confines of Hooper Detox after March 19. Cuts to the Oregon Health Plan have forced the sobering-up center to shut its doors between 9 am and 5 pm, leaving a projected 200 people soused on the streets each month.

3) Proving that no good deed goes unpunished (at least when it reflects badly on the boys in blue), the Portland Police Bureau suspended sergeant Dirk Anderson for five days. Alone among a score of his colleagues, Anderson blew the whistle on two officers involved in an off-duty beating--but he will be punished for doing so tardily.