We hereby bestow: ROSES on Goodwill Industries for demonstrating that it practices what it preaches: understanding.

Locally, Goodwill Industries of the Columbia Willamette long have provided physically and mentally challenged adults with employment. Bargain-hunters can delight in finding treasures at its resale stores.

Now Goodwill has extended a helping hand to the Business Enterprise Center. The BEC, the region's only business incubator, ran into a serious dilemma. A construction delay at its new building location in Philomath meant the BEC would have no place to go after its lease at Northwest Ninth Street and Starker Avenue expired in July.

Goodwill bought the BEC's property from its New York-based owner with plans to build a new resale store there. However, before the BEC had to scramble for an interim location, officials at Goodwill's Portland headquarters told them that they can stay at their current site until construction on the resale store begins. That's good will in action.

• RASPBERRIES and a "What were you thinking?" on the over-zealous security personnel at the Crossgates Mall in Guilderland, N.Y.

Monday two mall security guards ordered customer Stephen Downs to remove the "Give Peace a Chance" T-shirt he had purchased moments before from a mall vendor. When the 61-year-old refused, he was ordered to leave. When he wouldn't leave, mall security called city police. They arrested him for "acting poorly."

The arrest was a poor move indeed. To say Downs is aware of his Constitutional right to free expression is an understatement. Downs is a legal ethicist for the Albany, N.Y., office of the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. In other words, he decides when judges have been behaving poorly.

The arrest has exposed mall security to criticism from as far away as Melbourne, Australia, for its failure to give free speech a chance.

• ROSES on Rev. Bill McCarthy at the Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan for starting his congregation's annual sojourn into Lent by flipping flapjacks at the traditional Shrove Tuesday pancake dinner.

Apparently, filling up on pancakes the night before Lent is an old English tradition. McCarthy is an expert cook, a skill that he perfected in the 1960s cooking for his Oregon State University frat brothers.

McCarthy's grill skills have lured even non-pancake enthusiasts to his Shrove Tuesday feast since he became pastor at the church in 1989. He delights in getting his congregation both physically and spiritually stoked for Lent, the 40-day fast that ends with Easter. McCarthy said the pancakes help his congregation endure Lent, which he calls "spring training for Christians."

• RASPBERRIES on the Oregon Lottery Commission and its former deputy director, Lee Moore. It cost Oregonians more than $100,000 to get rid of Moore, the $112,272-a-year support services administrator who refused to leave even after Lottery Director Brenda Rocklin and former Gov. John Kitzhaber sent Moore a pink slip.

Moore contended that Rocklin had no power to fire him because she was only interim director at the time. Moore's $100,000 settlement was part of a deal to keep him from filing unspecified "unlawful employment practices" charges. Nobody is talking about why Moore was fired in the first place, or why the commission was willing to pay him $100,000 to be rid of the bad penny.

It's about time someone started talking before the public starts thinking that their Lottery Commission is running a rigged game. Moore is the third high-ranking administrator to leave the lottery commission since an audit last fall turned up nearly $800,000 spent in 2001 for "questionable administrative expenses." Most were authorized by former Lottery Director Chris Lyons, who resigned in November. Agency spokesman David Hooper left in December.

Rocklin should shed some light on the Lottery Commission's recent activities. The agency is supposed to operate in the open, not as a back-room dealer playing inside games.

RASPBERRIES on Andrew Burnett of California. The poster child for road rage, Burnett is in prison for becoming so infuriated when Sara McBurnett's car bumped his that he threw her tiny bichon frise, Leo, into traffic and sped off. The dog was killed.

Burnett is serving a three-year jail term for his behavior. Reviled far and wide as a heartless maniac, he now has filed a lawsuit seeking more than $1 million in damages from McBurnett and the San Jose Mercury News, which broke the story. His suit contends they caused him "mental pain and anguish and humiliation" as well as lost wages.

A judge has refused to consider his case, saying it is "pretty much the definition of a frivolous lawsuit" - and proof that a fool never learns.

ROSE (roz) n. One of the most beautiful of all flowers, a symbol of fragrance and loveliness. Often given as a sign of appreciation.

RASPBERRY (raz'ber'e) n. A sharp, scornful comment, criticism or rebuke; a derisive, splatting noise, often called the Bronx cheer.