Minnesota State Fair New Foods for 2013

The Minnesota State Fair is just a few months away!

The MSF is the Granddaddy of ’em all. Not only is it one of the oldest state fairs – since 1859, the only years it missed were 1861, 1862, 1893, 1945 & 1946 – it’s also the most well-attended, and the land where it all occurs is quite large. In fact, it’s ginormous!

The good people in Texas claim theirs has the highest attendance, and I suppose if the Minnesota State Fair was TWO WEEKS LONG like the TSF is, it’d put the Lone Star State to shame. However, the MSF is a 12-day event, and for that time, it draws a bigger crowd than the TSF.

Minnesota State Fair – Thursday August 22 Labor Day, through Monday September 2, 2013

Apologies to those Longhorns.

I’ve been to the MSF once – just once –  and, I’d like to go again.

Yes, I would. It’s HUGE!!

Of course, in all fairness – yes, it’s a bad pun, but hey! It works! – I’d also like to go to the Texas State Fair, as well.

I happened to see the menu for the “new” foods appearing this year at the 2013 Minnesota State Fair. It’s

Suicide, Libertarianism, and Religion -or- Why “No man is an island.”

FACT:
Las Vegas has the highest metropolitan suicide rate in the U.S.

“I’ll add that there’s one more feature here, of Las Vegas, which I think bears mentioning. And that is what I kinda’ think of as a sort of “frontier culture” mentality among residents, and I think, even among visitors.

“That Las Vegas is this sort of place of place of total license. You know… its the ‘Wild West,’ it’s an open frontier for all kinds of immorality and exploration of vice, and… the entire self-branding of Las Vegas as this place where that is not only tolerated, but actually sanctioned.

“You know, the “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” kind of mentality – produces, I think, a kind of… sort of libertarian ethos of ‘go it alone, do it yourself.’ And help seeking in this sort of framework is perhaps not accepted or valorized the way it is other parts of the country.

“These kind of cultural arguments are always very hard to make. They always sound deeply unscientific. But, in a lot ways, I think that’s exactly where a lot of the explanatory power comes from… is in this understanding the culture and values underlying people’s behavioral sense.”

– Matt Wray, sociologist, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, and co-author of a 2008 paper entitled “Leaving Las Vegas: Exposure to Las Vegas and Risk of Suicide” / excerpted from Freakonomics Radio, episode #92 “Gambling With Your Life,” released April 27, 2011

Of late, attention has been increasingly given to the suicide rate of veterans returning home from the horrors of war in the Middle East, specifically, from their numerous extended tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While in retrospect, many acknowledge that

U.S. officials: Attack on consulate in Libya may have been planned

By Karen DeYoung, Michael Birnbaum and William Branigin, Published: September 12

U.S. officials and Middle East analysts said Wednesday that an attack that killed four Americans at a U.S. Consulate in eastern Libya may have been planned by extremists and inspired by al-Qaeda.

The U.S. Ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans were killed Tuesday in an assault on the consulate in the city of Benghazi. President Obama strongly condemned the attack and pledged to bring the perpetrators to justice, vowing that “justice will be done.”

The attack followed a violent protest at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo over

Osama bin Laden’s Corpse Rotting on Ocean Floor

Osama bin Laden - 10 March 1957 -2 May 2011 - formerly the World's Most Wanted Terrorist

Obama Declares ‘Justice Has Been Done‘

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 2, 2011 – “Justice has been done,” said President Barack Obama in announcing the death of Osama bin Laden in a U.S. military operation in Pakistan.

An American counterintelligence and counterterrorism team killed bin Laden yesterday during a firefight near Islamabad, the president said during a short statement from the White House late last night.

“Tonight I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida, and a terrorist who is responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children,” the president said.

The attack ends a manhunt of almost 10 years. Bin Laden and his henchmen