August 7-13, 2008
editorial@boulderweekly.com

Dirty bomb scare
Denver’s City Council is considering every possibility when it comes to the dangers that protesters might present at the Democratic National Convention later this month, including the possibility that some protesters will try to use biological weapons. No, not anthrax or small pox or botulism, but rather pee and poop.

Yes, you read that right.

On Monday, Aug. 4, the Denver City Council passed an ordinance that makes it illegal to possess noxious substances — specifically buckets of urine or “feces bombs.” According to the New York Times, Councilman Doug Linkhart, who called the meeting, claims that a source he trusts warned him that activists are storing urine at a house somewhere in Denver.

Activists laughed at the notion that they were hoarding piss and accused City Council and the Denver police of deliberately depicting protesters as having criminal intent.

Glen Spagnuolo, an organizer with the Re-Create ’68 alliance, said, “The only feces I’m concerned about is the shit coming out of [Linkhart’s] mouth.”

Although Denver is now apparently safe from piddle and doo-doo, there’s no word yet whether the new ordinance covers boogers and farts or whether City Council will have to convene again to pass a new law specifically outlawing the possession of snot and to answer the important question, “What would happen if 30,000 protesters farted at once?”

Don’t drink and dial
It’s pretty likely that you’ve heard of drunk dialing. You may have even done it a time or two (or 40). You know, you’re at the bar having a great time with your friends and on the walk home, you have what, at the time, you think is the best idea: calling your ex-boyfriend at 2:15 a.m. to tell him how much you miss him even though he cheated on you. Yeah. Not a good idea. Not drunk, not sober — not ever a good idea.

And then, along came texting. Now, you don’t even have to slur your way to a bad idea. As long as your thumbs can find the right keys, you’ve got drunk texting down and morning-after-drunk-texting-regrets on the way. (You’ve gotta love waking up to find a reply to a drunk text that you have no recollection of sending.) Drunk texting = still not a good idea.

But a Minneapolis man recently demonstrated an even worse idea when he was pulled over for driving 80 mph. When the officer asked why he had swerved into the left lane, the 25-year old man’s excuse: he was texting. As if it isn’t bad enough to text while driving 80 mph, the dude was also drunk — drunk texting at its worst. Here’s hoping he wasn’t texting an ex-girlfriend to see if he could come over for a little something-something, ’cause we’re pretty sure he had somewhere else to sleep that night.

So let this be a lesson to you, Boulder. Don’t drink and drive. But just as importantly, please don’t drink and drive and text. It’s always a bad idea.

Hometown hero
Danika Bueno deserves her own parade. The 23-year-old mother was on her way home from the post office on her bicycle when a man on a bike drew up beside her, grabbed her breast, and then pedaled away. But it just wasn’t this dude’s day. He’d made the critical mistake of assaulting a woman who was more than ready to stand up for herself.

With her baby on her back, Bueno, who has twice cycled across the country, sped off after him, calling police from her cell phone and keeping them abreast (no pun intended) of the alleged assailants location until officers were able to zero in on him and arrest his ass.

Rather than feeling victimized by the assault, Bueno told a local newspaper that she felt empowered by the role she played in hunting him down. She said she wanted to make certain he wouldn’t get away with assaulting a woman who might not be able to handle it as well as she did.

Kudos to Bueno for her quick thinking, her athleticism and her willingness to fight not only for herself, but for the rest of Boulder’s women.

Let’s hope the other pervs are paying attention. In Boulder, chicks fight back.

Extra cheese, please
In what has been dubbed a “celebration of Colorado wheat,” Papa John’s is going to unveil a six-acre plot of artistically trampled wheat. That’s right, Papa John’s is in the crop-circle business and will show off a very large crop circle this week in order to promote the fact that it only uses Colorado wheat in its pizza crust.

Yeah, we don’t really get it either, and we don’t even have to add anything to make it strange.

Here’s a better way to celebrate Colorado wheat: Papa John’s could send several large pizzas to the staff in Colorado’s newsrooms. Reporters are always hungry, and wouldn’t sucking up to the media by sharing their product get the point across better than stomping on a bunch of grass way out in the countryside?

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