The heat is keeping me indoor by the AC this weekend, and I’ve given up even thinking of attending any local celebrations. So I’m sitting this one out, sadly. I hope you all at least enjoy some barbeque and maybe watch the young folks run around with sparklers, if young folks still do that.
The more I hear about the so called “Great America State Fair,” the worse it sounds. It obviously was put together by people who had no idea what a state fair is really like. They seem to have thought a state fair is something like an exhibit hall attached to a convention, but with a little rodeo and a Ferris wheel.
And what makes this even more of a bleeping shame is that Congress put together funds and a commission to plan for the 250th anniversary ten years ago. Among other things, they were going to help fund a lot of celebrations around the country. DOGE stripped them of a lot of funds last year, causing a lot of plans to be scaled back. Then Trump siphoned off more money and managed to fraudulently redirect donations to the official commission into his own plans. And the result is just awful. So we’ve been robbed of the 250th celebration we could have had.
Do read ‘I’m Mad at Trump’: Even Trumpers Can’t Stand How Shoddy the Great American State Fair Is by Josh Kovensky and Allegra Kirkland at TPM.
After the Freedom Truck, we spotted, visited, and avoided a Budweiser Truck ($12 Michelob, no thank you), and then moved on to a tent with a religious theme. A “Great Awakening” booth had books and DVDs on the essential fakeness of the COVID pandemic, the country’s Christian founding, and more. My friend and I stopped to speak with an attendant at the stall; she immediately began to try to convert us. She asked if we really knew what would happen once we died; I replied that I didn’t think anyone knew the answer to that question. Her eyes now burning, she told us that she knew, asked our names, and started to pray for us. Once she asked if we could repeat after her that Jesus Christ was our lord and savior, we walked away.
I believe I would have walked away a lot sooner.
Real state fairs are pretty amazing. Back in the early 1970s when I was a student at the University of Missouri school of journalism, I got a summer job working for the Missouri State Fair. It was a hoot. I even lived on the fairgrounds while the fair was open, so it was a 24/7 experience. Most of my job involved writing press releases of the livestock competitions, an assignment I got because I was the only college student they hired who knew what a steer was. But there were also stock car races and a big carnival with lots of rides and a real old-time sideshow. There were some decent entertainers, and Bob Hope was the headliner. I got to go to a Bob Hope press conference. I also vividly remember the Coon Dog Water Races and the Mule Show. The whole thing was a great experience; I still get a kick out of thinking about it. Too bad about whatever that thing is in D.C.
My Dad used to take us into every freak show.
The heaviest human. The giant steer. Sword swallowers.
But the one I’ll never forget was turtle boy. He had no arms or legs and his trick was opening a pack of cigarettes and striking a match and lighting up.
Thankfully those seem to have all gone away.
This is why fascism always fails. People don't actually *like* patriotic displays for the sake of patriotism. It might "own the libs" for Trump to appear to be ready to use the American flag as a masturbation device, but, no one thinks it's America-loving, or good, or, something you want to tell your children about, if they can't see it for themselves, which you hope they can't.
Trump did a fascism-command performance, of all the things he thinks is necessary to explain how great America is, so, he finds a state that can lay claim to Paul Bunyan, and they get axes, and paper mache giants, and the American Forest Raping Lobby will play John Phillips Sousa marches, and then, Trump can't think of anything interesting about Pennsylvania, so they get someone selling chocolate Liberty Bell replicas, and so forth.
Now, he wants to break the world record for fireworks displays, and it has all the planning that went into his artificial arch, which looks like a cheap, tacky, slapdash job, and, looks many times better than the actual arch *ever* will, and, for some reason, I'm remembering when I was in Philly, and they decided to drop *one* grenade, on *one* house, to blow *one* hole in the roof, and they burned down an entire neighborhood.
So I hope it blows up in his face in an embarrassing way that leaves DC mostly intact.