Granny Power

Winners

1Gabriel can stay in America with the foster parents he loves instead of going back to Mexico with his grandma. Whoo-hoo! And 2-year-old Gabriel gets the added benefit of living in Toledo, Ore. What better place than a struggling mill town to learn about Third World life?

2 Thanks to the Trail Blazers’ eight-game winning streak and Brandon Roy winning Western Conference Player of the Week for the second straight week, fans can take their minds off the news that the Rose Garden will sell its naming rights. Playoff games in the “Wild Irish Rose Garden,” anybody?

3 Local lawyer Greg Kafoury experienced a litigator’s dream when he landed client Roysheeka Herring. She alleges an American Medical Response paramedic sexually assaulted her in an ambulance—a case that will draw plenty of press and swell Kafoury’s client list.

4 Rejoice, self-righteous geriatrics. The anti-war group Seriously Pissed Off Grannies (see “Surge Protection Brigade,” WW , Feb. 21, 2007) beat charges last week of criminal mischief and “causing substantial inconvenience to the United States” for placing red handprints on Portland’s Army Recruiting Center.

Losers

1 Young hipsters must make do with house parties and contraband Sparks after the OLCC turned down a proposal to let under-21-year-olds into live music venues (see story, and Scoop).

2 Want to sponsor a sheriff? Rural Oregon counties got Bushwhacked when Congressional horse-trading blew up a tentative five-year deal to restore federal payments in lieu of timber revenues. Several counties depend on the payments for basic services like libraries. Just don’t take their guns away.

3 Federal authorities took a court spanking last week: U.S. District Judge James Redden banged on the National Marine Fisheries Service for its continued failure to protect salmon. And the U.S. Supreme Court found that federal sentencing guidelines that distinguish between crack and powdered cocaine are unfair. Merry Christmas for tens of thousands of long-imprisoned crack dealers.