chickens - WINNERS

After the tractor-trailer carrying them overturned in Oregon City on Monday, hundreds of chickens had a brief taste of freedom only to have their unlikely, heroic bid te escape the frying pan foiled by local police. The Man spent hours rounding up the oppressed poultry to be shipped to an Orwellian-named "processing plant."

In other Clackamas County liberation news, 'burb crooks may have a new way to challenge their prosecutors, after a Milwaukie police technician was accused of falsifying evidence reports last week. The tech resigned after being placed on leave a month ago. Bonanza, meth heads!

"Healing, Teaching, and Discovery" came closer to Pill Hill last week. On Wednesday, OHSU Shop-Vac'ed $4 million in federal anti-terrorism funds to research tuberculosis. Thirteen other institutions shared the $73 million windfall.

LOSERS

PitBullGate, the unfolding tale of a man and his best friends, sunk to a new--but probably not rock-bottom--low last week, when The Oregonian revealed that the room above Blazer forward Qyntel Woods' garage had bloodstained walls. Woods, an admitted marijuana addict who is suspected of staging dog fights, remains on suspension for both cannabis and canine excess.

While she's getting a lot of credit for returning the state Senate to Democrats for the first time in a decade, Portland's Kate Brown failed to get the Senate presidency over the weekend. The marathon caucus session ended in unanimity, but only after a deadlock and multiple secret ballots to break the tie between Brown and her rival, Salem's Peter Courtney.

He climbed aboard the Nantucket Express early, he steered a victorious Oregon campaign, and some thought he might be Cabinet material. No getting around it--Rep. Earl Blumenauer, the bow-tied wonder who coasted to another term representing the People's Democratic Republic of East Portland in Congress, took a tough loss when John Kerry went down to defeat. On the bright side, maybe that transportation appropriations bill will finally pass.