Anytime that my original hometown Trinidad, CO is in the news, I cringe. There is never any good news from the area picked up in press from the bigger cities here in Colorado. Never, ever. Trinidad only hits the radar when something really bad, or really stupid, happens.
This time around? Turns out it was both, of course. Apparently, a teenage boy was shot in the head while playing Russian roulette. No, seriously! The boy’s brother and mother had been toking on some weed in their car. Their mom noticed that they had a gun, and told them something along the lines of, “have fun, you two, just take all the bullets out of the gun before someone gets shot in the head.” The siblings decided it would be more fun to leave one bullet in the gun and play a little Russian roulette. The results were, at least, not tragic.
Now the best part of all of this? The family called the police and said that a masked man was the actual trigger person. Apparently they thought that the Lone Ranger didn’t like the boy’s skateboarding skills. Or something.
I tell you, there’s a reason that I don’t do pot!
Archive for April 30th, 2008
When now-Governor Bill Ritter was running for office, he promised to make a number of changes in Colorado, centering around education, health care and renewable fuels. We’re about four months into Ritter’s first term, and we are already seeing a couple of major initiatives on Ritter’s part, including:
College scholarships funded by the oil and gas industry: This is a very interesting initiative: basically this would recoup the tax credits given to oil and gas companies, and use that money for a few specific purposes. 60% of this money (or around $120 million a year) would be used to fund scholarships. This has to be approved by voters, but it sounds damned good to me.
The state budget for 2008-2009: Ritter’s first budget has some very interesting and promising allocations. The most encouraging of which is an increase of alomst 10% for higher education, increases in both the Chidlren’s Health Plan (enough to cover an extra 11,000 children) and programs for the developmentally challenged.
All in all, I am loving the way that Ritter is already trying to implement his campaign promises here in Colorado. Things are going to be very different - and a whole lot better - in just a few years.
