SO MUCH FOLLY, SO LITTLE TIME ...

When you miss a day of work in this business, it takes a week to catch up.
So let's get busy:

Is there anyone in Georgetown who was surprised by the news that the town's
mayor once in a while - not very often, and only a puff now and then -
smokes pot?

And voted for her anyway?

Is there anyone who is surprised that the new superintendent of Denver
Public Schools, Jerry Wartgow, is creating a "task force" to recommend how
school administrators should handle the reporting of crimes committed in
the schools?

Why don't they just pick up the phone, call police and provide a report to
the responding officer?

And, if he feels it's necessary to create a task force to come to this
simple conclusion, why doesn't he appoint former DPS board member Rita
Montero - who seems to have grasped the concept - to be its chair?

And while we're on the subject, is there one - just one - member of the DPS
board who has the courage to suggest that a study be done to determine how
much larger the cadre of administrators has grown since Wartgow has become
superintendent, after promising that one of his priorities was to trim the
administrative ranks of the district?

And, while we're still on the subject, how much more money is being spent
by DPS today - compared to two years ago - on consultants, just another
layer of administration?

Now, back to Georgetown.

First, the mayor said she was glad the Colorado Bureau of Investigation was
called into the case of her assault, since she couldn't trust the local
police to do an honest job.

Then, after the mayor said she was attacked by someone with a sharp
instrument, she speculated that the weapon instead may have been a strand
of barbed wire, and lately wonders if the weapon might have been a can opener.

Have you ever tried to open a can with a strand of barbed wire?

And did you notice that the prosecutor - relying on forensics evidence
provided by the CBI - has decided to prosecute the mayor for falsifying a
police report? But the mayor insists that the CBI is no longer trustworthy.

Oh, so much material, so little time. And so let's get to the best item of all:

Cold-blooded murderer Frank Rodriguez, who still is living on Colorado's
death row for killing a bookkeeper 18 years ago, is dying of hepatitis
C-induced liver failure, and his taxpayer-paid lawyer wants us to feel
sorry for him.

Not only have the taxpayers, including the survivors of the kind woman
Rodriguez brutally and mercilessly killed, paid for his legal defense and
his board and room and heat and lights and medical care and laundry and
transportation and phone calls and guard service, but now he and his
attorney might want us to pay $20,000 a year to treat other killers and
child molesters and robbers and drug dealers and sexual perverts who also
contract hepatitis in prison.

I've got a deal to offer:

If Rodriguez and his lawyer, David Lane, will reimburse the friends and
relatives of bookkeeper Lorraine Martelli for her loss of life, we'll pay
for treatment of his and others' hepatitis. Otherwise, let them all die a
slow and agonizing death, which would be merciful compared to the torture
he inflicted on her.