Every year around this time, people of all walks of life (but mostly rural, middle class, white walks) take the religious-like journey to Parker to take part in one of South Dakota's great traditions: The Turner County Fair. The fair is a mix of agriculture, entertainment, food, family, political campaigning, photo taking, and good ole South Dakota fun. Personally, the Turner County Fair is a huge family reunion. Every year I walk to the old picnic table next to the chislic stand (chislic=cooked lamb on a stick). There at the table, my Grandpa Johnson holds court like the Don himself. 
All of the family on my mom's side comes so I get to see all the uncles and aunts and cousins, as well as family friends and other more distant relatives like the chislic owners themselves! It is a great chance to catch up and have some summer time fun. This year, like most years, started by throwing down as much chislic as possible. I took down 18 sticks before chasing them with a pork sandwich from the Lutheran Church food booth. While eating, we all do our best to sound knowledgable about agriculture. We talk about the drought or the flooding (it's never perfect you know) and the corn and the beans, and fortunately, Uncle Paul is kind enough not to make fun of my own lack of knowledge and to help me know what's going on at the family farm.
After a lot of great conversation, the young cousins finally drag us to the carnival area where we have close encounters with lots of scary looking Carnies and random rides and games.
Although it seems like we do fewer and fewer rides each year, I had fun watching the cousins almost puke on the Octopus ride, and did my best to display my weak abilities at Ski-Ball and Ski-Ball Horse-Racing. Fortunately, I think that all of our hard earned play eventually helps one of the cousins to win a huge stuffed tiger, or something that resembles a wild cat of some kind.
After the games and Carnies, it's time to grab some homemade ice cream, made by the Mennonites. Always large because it goes down like applesauce. Usually the ice cream is half-way gone by the time we finally squeeze onto a wooden bench for the night's true activity: VFW bingo.
VFW bingo is an amazing experience. Wood benches surround a rectangular area where members of the local VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) stand around and collect 25 cents for each bingo card someone is playing. The head honcho VFW member is the caller, while the "younger" more "inexperienced" VFW members continue their training for the glorious day when they can be a caller. 
Everyone squeezes onto these benches in hopes of getting bingo and winning the 10 dollar prize! Of course, the Johnson clan takes up about 1/4th of the bench space and usually turns the relatively tame game of bingo into a competative sport that far exceeds the World Series of Poker. People are shouting "YESSSSS!" every time they hit a number and everyone gets really angry if someone finally screams "Bingo!" and forces the game to start over again.
This year the Johnson clan, (which can be subsequently split into sub-clans such as the Blues, the Browns, the Paul Johnsons, the Meyers, and even the honorary Thompsons), cleaned up at the bingo table. Elliot, Jennifer, and I all won Bingo rounds, bringing in 10 dollars each. I was especially lucky because I won bingo at the same time as two other people. Usually, they would split the prize among the winner, but the VFW old boys club thought that dividing 10 three ways was difficult, so they let us all get the full award. 
After the regular bingo rounds finally draw to a close, the VFW ends the night with a bang: blackout! This is the variant of bingo in which every number on the card must be called to win. It not only requires luck, but also stamina. This year Brian demonstrated those characteristics. He perservered through over 5 minutes of numbers to come out victorious with the the $50 prize. On top of the that, the VFW men either miscounted or thought that Brian really needed the money because he was handed four 20 dollar bills! Boo yeah! We left the bingo table very satisfied having supported our troops in the best way I know how.
The Turner County Fair is a great summertime tradition, and I am happy I was attend this year. It's so much fun! It's interesting that when I take photos or stop and look at the fair objectively, how absolutely strange it really is. It looks like something from a generation gone-by where people gather together, (for free), to take time to eat unhealthy food without feeling guilty, to walk around looking at animals and 4-H awards, to play bingo with at least 3 and probably 4 different generations, to ride ridiculous rides run by even more ridiculous people, to spend wads of cash to win simple prizes that represent hurculean efforts, and to just enjoy time together. Parker's city slogan is "A Great Place to Live," but I think that on the week of the fair it should be "A Great Place to Lose Yourself" because that's what we do, and it's great.
I saw one of the most thought-provoking movies I've ever seen today called "Why We Fight." It was a great documentary about exactly that question, what pushes the United States into war. It looked mostly at the military industrial complex beginning with a stern warning from President Eisenhower as he left office that the Military Industrial Complex must be carefully managed so it does not gain control over the President and Congressional bodies in Washington, DC. The documentary takes a look at the military industrial complex (the business of making war) and at its power over politicians and presidents of both parties and its power over society in general. It was a scary look at America.
Additionally, the movie looks into conflicts of the past 50 years, especially the War in Iraq, and the influence of the MIC and the actual results. The most thought-provoking part to me was about the media and think tanks. It talked about how Vietnam essentially failed and that now the Pentagon and military has extensive training in giving interviews and goes to great lengths to "embed" reporters and give them a sympathetic look of the military instead of having them shoot images of body bags. I just thought of the news we constantly see and how all the reporters we see are in a sense, manipulated by the military. Scary stuff. Without the free press, it is much easier to convince a nation to go to war. The think tank component was also scary. It talked about how the majority of policy decisions now come from think tanks where researchers, high ranking officials, and other well-known people are gathered to find justification for their policy goals, which in the movie is going to war. It looks into the Iraq War and notes how not only was the Axis of Evil speech taking ideas form think tank papers published BEFORE 9/11, but that members of certain think tanks were actually given an office in the Pentagon and an official position as advisors. Thus, war is justified by these think tankers on numerous shaky grounds and facts are spun into ideas like Iraq aided terrorists, Iraq has WMD, and Iraq tried to acquire nuclear material from Niger. All of which were based in some sort of report, except the facts were taken out of context without qualifiers to make it say what the think tankers and according to the movie, the MIC wanted.
I feel suddenly embolden to research and find a way to dig deeper on these trends. It's a problem not of one party, but rather of our democracy. If we want to have elected officials do what the majority wants, we need to eliminate the power that think tanks and military businesses have over them while simultaineously educating citizens with what is actually going on. Free media + people + voice = power.
It's been a bit of a throw-back week here in Brookville, USA. I headed down to Kansas City on Saturday and went to the Twins game and my brothers and I were pumped because my dad spotted a woman he thought he knew: Jason Kubel's mom! For everyone else in the world who doesn't know who Jason Kubel is, he is a young prospect for the Minnesota Twins baseball team. Anyways, he spent a few years of his life in Tyndall, South Dakota where my dad grew up and his mom went to school with my aunt. So, after some urging (and after her husband had left to get food), my dad snuck down and talked to her. He found out that it was actually his aunt, but still, cool enough. Then, on the way back to the hotel on a city bus, we were surrounded by Twins fans, including the aunt and uncle of Josh Rabe, another young player for the team. We were almost as excited as the one time we met Dennis Eckersely in the hotel lobby. funny stuff.
Well, on top of baseball (which is obviously not only childhood, but also a current passion), my bros and I busted out our old Magic cards. These are the nerdy cards that are used to create some sort of fantasy-battlefield where we fight with wizards and mythical creatures. The best part is just laying down and card and all of us going, "Oh yeah, I remember THAT card!"
Finally, I figured out how to run old mac programs on my laptop, so I dusted off the old Civilization II game in which you build empires from a single settler. So, today I have been working on putting the Lakota Sioux in charge of the world. Instead of having treaties broken, I'm doing the breaking! Oh my Machiavellian world! So, back to ruling the world while my brother touches his website up next to me.
