Statehood and Aspect Ratio

Reporting from the year 1876:

I came in for a landing (I won’t even try to explain the chrono-geography of time-travel) above the high plains east of the Rocky Mountains. It struck me that no geological feature provides insight into the borders of the Union’s newest state, Colorado. As the Western Lands were parcelled into territories (and subsequently states), it is apparent that the delimitations were arbitrary.
Or were they?
I know my mathematics. I performed a school-boy operation of division, and have had my suspicions confirmed. Colorado is the harbinger of a new age. Is this, as the rush of miners might suggest, a new Golden Age? Far from it. A few short decades hence, and the prognosticative indications of Coloradan borders will be clear. What am I on about?
Aspect Ratio! Colorado’s ratio of width to height:

finds itself so neatly nestled between the two nearly-identical aspect ratios (actually, rationes) which dominated the 20th Century and have led to the format whose hegemony over our minds is complete. Yes, my device-obsessed blockheaded friends, I am talking about TV Screen/Computer Monitor and Cinema film standards.
If you know your mathematics, you can verify this.
Colorado, by its very geometric shape, revealed to unseeing eyes the advent of the age which is upon us.
The message couldn’t be clearer:
Turn off your screens and look at the land.

Colorado Dethroned

(Denver, Colorado) AP–Its eight-year reign is over, and the people of Colorado are devastated. Monday morning, before most Coloradoans were awake, a lone gunman brought Colorado’s place at the top to an end when a 23-year old student opened fire on a Virginia campus and killed 32 people before ending his own life.

“In your face, Colorado!” said one Virginian. “You had your time at the top, and now it’s us. Go Hokies!” Colorado spent eight years in the number one spot, following Littleton’s 1999 Columbine massacre title-grabber, in which 13 died before the two killers turned their guns on themselves. “Eight years is a good run. Really, we couldn’t ask for anything more. Nothing’s forever, and now we’ve just got to move on, rebuild, and see what the future holds for us,” said Colorado’s Governor, in a bold attempt to express optimism after the unexpected loss of the title.

“I say that we’re still number one,” said a long-time Colorado resident. “Look, it’s not even the same division. Columbine is a high school, Virginia Tech is a university. If the Broncos play my kid’s pee-wee league team, is that really fair competition?”

Virginians, however, would not let their triumph be diminished with excuse-making. “We did it with one guy. He even took a break between killings to go to the post office. Colorado, no wonder they lost it. It took them two guys, their bombs didn’t work, they showed mercy. They could have posted higher numbers, and they blew the opportunity.”

There still remains some optimism in Colorado. “We’ve produced these kinds of victories before, and there’s no reason we can’t again,” said Colorado’s Attorney General in an official statement. “All it takes is social isolation, class divisions, an industrial-style educational system, and the wrong guy. We’ve got all those things out here in colorful Colorado. Throw in some police incompetence, and you’ll see Colorado regain the crown in no time.”

In the meantime, it’s Virginia’s hour in the sun. “Right now, we’re the Champs. We rule!” a Virginia senator declared to the cameras. So, what’s Virginia’s strategy for the future? “That’s still undecided. Do we sit back and see what our competition has to offer, or do we take a more active stance in making sure we retain the title?” asked one sheriff. “It’ll take a lot of bodies to beat the record we set on Monday, and whether it’s Virginia or another state, whoever can come up with all those bodies will deserve the crown as much as we do today!”