As the staggering scale of the Asian tsunami tragedy sank in, Portland do-gooders swept into action. In particular, Mercy Corps and Northwest Medical Teams are on the ground in wave-ravaged Aceh, Indonesia, and elsewhere. Both organizations also reported nabbing millions in Internet donations.

Tom Potter and Sam Adams, after spending seeming gilded eternities on the campaign trail, tasted the sweet fruit of POWER this week. Portland's first new mayor in 12 years and first openly gay city commissioner in history took office as 2004 expired--and Potter promptly took the reins of all the city's bureaus.

Protest-happy radicals (and people who just like, y'know, the First Amendment and whatnot) hailed an Oregon Court of Appeals decision last week that should make it harder for the Man to jail rabble-rousers. The court ruled that you can't be charged with a crime just for disobeying a cop's orders; it was concerned that the fuzz might use the law to stifle legitimate speech and assembly.

Toothless prospectors, frontier throwbacks and people who got a little too into the HBO series Deadwood can take great joy in this odd news from east of the Cascades: THERE'S A GOLD RUSH ON! According to an Oregonian story (possibly just reprinted from an 1860 edition), gold claims have doubled in eastern Oregon and Washington in the past year. Rising prices have boosted interest in the pretty but more or less useless yellow metal.

LOSERS

Kids, when you talk to those Army recruiters, caveat emptor. As Sgt. Emiliano Santiago of the Oregon National Guard discovered, the bill of goods they're selling might not be what you get. Santiago, whose eight-year enlistment expired as his unit prepared to ship out for Iraq, lost his battle against a "stop-loss" extension of duty in a Portland court last week. According to Judge Owen Panner, the Army can keep Santiago through--that's right--the year 2031.

Nicotine junkies who like to dodge state taxes by scoring their fix online learned they should greet the New Year with new budgetary plans. Oregon revenue agents--bane of bootleggers and their brethren--say untaxed Internet tobacky sales are costing our perpetually strapped homeland some $20 million a year. Along with state prosecutors, they're on the warpath, hunting that dough.