Musing on Fairs of States

Butter Cows
Originally uploaded by ribizlifozelek

How could I miss the State Fair for 10 years in a row now? I used to like going to the fair--particularly visiting the animal stables, and admiring how their owners had preened and spiffed up beyond recognition their cows or sheep or pigs. Further on, the chicken house was always unbelievably noisy, given that chickens are perhaps the noisiest bird known to man (save perhaps the previously-mentioned magpie) and not only cackle, but crow, and guffaw, and screech through most of the day. I also quite enjoyed going to look at the prize vegetables and wondered how in the hell they could get them to last not just through a county fair but through a state fair as well. It was a wonder of modern agriculture to me. Of course I never considered that they put in different vegetables to replace their county fair winning entries, but that would take the magic out of it. Then, of course, there are the oddities of the State Fair--the butter cows and the two headed pigs and, yes, the bearded ladies. Top that off with a heaping portion of fried food of every kind (yes they do make fried Twinkies) and you are set for one memorable experience.

After ten years, it eludes me how I could miss 3 whole weekends of State Fair. Why was I not drawn by the buttery goodness of the butter cows? Why did the cackling of the chickens not call me home?

(Photo courtesy of ribizlifozelek.)

Hard Times in the Heartland

Work took me to the midwest this weekend. I was in the middle of Illinois. The corn in Illinois was barely an inch out of the ground. When I commented how strange that seemed, the driver taking me from the airport to the hotel scoffed. "It has been so wet and cold here I'm surprised it is up at all." The farmers, it would seem, are worried. They are uncertain that they will get much of a crop this year. Compound this with the economic decline, and you can imagine that people's spirits are as low as their corn seedlings.

It was overcast and while not exactly cold, it wasn't exactly warm my entire time in Illinois. Like much of the country, there is a great deal of concern about where the country is going economically. The housing market is in the tank, and even farms are being effected badly. If you don't know, many farmers run their businesses off big seed loans (literally) from banks. The bank loans the farmer enough money to plant a crop, and the farmer harvests the crop and pays the bank back with interest. Since the banking crisis, the money is in short supply, and banks are worried that the Federal Government (which has been in the business of subsidizing crop insurance to farmers since the Great Depression) will not be in that business much longer.

The people I spoke to in various places, however, seemed to be optomistic. "We've been through this before and survived. We'll do it again," was the response from the old woman at the airport curb when I asked her how things were in Illinois. She took a long drag on her cigarette and added with a phlegmy laugh: "they've been telling me that cigarettes were going to kill me for a long time now, and that hasn't happened yet either."

I, Libertine

As we come up to the Forth of July*, I have to state that Jean Sheppard was indeed brilliant: WFMU's Beware of the Blog: The I, Libertine Hoax. May he rest in peace.

*One of Sheppard's works was the "Great American Forth of July and Other Disasters."

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Listening to: The Flaming Lips - Bad Days (Aurally Excited Version)
via FoxyTunes