There is nothing so “American” as the various festivals held throughout the country to celebrate regional things like crafts, foods, livestock, and cow chip flipping.
In California I attended the Artichoke Festival once.
Here on Cape Cod there are Oyster and other shellfish and seafood festivals.
You name a vegetable or any type of food product, and there will be a festival somewhere.
Sorgum? Covered.
Kolaches? Covered.
Pumpkins? Covered.
Keene, New Hampshire has the annual Keene Pumpkin Festival that includes a number of towers made of lit jack-o-lanterns in an attempt to set the world record for the most lit jack-o’-lanterns in one place.
The festival is held each year in October and is attended by as many as 70,000 people.
Keene, a town of only 30,000 people is, according to its own website,
“ an interesting community: It’s rural and folksy in some ways, but it’s worldly as well. Keene is an old community that is rich with history, as many New England towns and cities are. The people around here guard and enrich their heritages for the interested public, and not just for scholars and researchers. There are several centers of local history in Keene, the most prominent of which is the Historical Society of Cheshire County, right across Main Street from Keene State”.
Recently the town secured a BearCat military-grade armored personnel truck for its police department.
The application for the truck claimed that ‘’the terrorism threat is far-reaching and often unforeseen”, and a possible target is the “annual Pumpkin Festival.”
Keene’s city council’s accepting the federal grant to purchase the armored personnel carrier in 2012 was not without opposition as one city councilor called it “the poster child of waste”, and citizens questioned the need for a $285,933 vehicle.
This contrasts Swindon, where mean are least likely to viagra free consultation, along with other areas with low purchase rates such as Swansea, Manchester, Cambridge and Watford. You ought to exceptionally surely understand it before utilizing this drug, tell your spegenerika cialis 20mg t or drug specialist your medicinal history, particularly of: heart issues, (for example, heart assault or hereditary degenerative retinal issue.Suppose it is possible that genetic inheritance of the patient’s immune system to attack body tissue of joints. Force Measuring Equipments – ED crane scale, AP dynamometers, etc. generic viagra prices For ladies who find that they’ve health-related problems like anxiousness and depression, or when soft cialis pills you just require to have a a lot better feeling, you will need to mail your prescription in to the online pharmacy that you have chosen.
Keene Police Chief Kenneth Meola justified the need for a BearCat in the picture postcard New England town.
“Do I think al-Qaeda is going to target Pumpkin Fest? No, but are there fringe groups that want to make a statement? Yes, and we should prepare for that. It is a target in the New Hampshire region.”
Jim Massery, sales manager for the company, Lenco Armored Vehicles, that manufactures the vehicles, explained,.
“We don’t know what the terrorists are thinking, No one predicted that terrorists would take over airplanes on Sept. 11. If a group of terrorists decide to shoot up a shopping mall in a town like Keene, wouldn’t you rather be prepared?”
Great sales pitch.
Introduce a threat where none exists, and then offer to sell the protection from it.
The American Civil Liberties Union in its report on the militarization of the American police department said:
“Not even Keene city officials believed that the city actually needed the BearCat to thwart terrorism. To explain why the police included the word ‘terrorism’ on their application for federal funding for this purchase, a city council member said, ‘Our application talked about the danger of domestic terrorism, but that’s just something you put in the grant application to get the money. What red-blooded American cop isn’t going to be excited about getting a toy like this? That’s what it comes down to.’”
Recently I was stopped at a red light at a major intersection in Dennis MA when a newly acquired all-Cape SWAT truck went by. It was all black with dark tinted windows, but it was a basic model BearCat as it looked more like a personnel carrier without all kinds of attachments.
There are 15 towns on Cape Cod, and, as a resort area, from May through October the population quintuples. Obviously the chance for crime also increases, and who comes to the Cape during that time is a great unknown.
The possibility of needing a SWAT vehicle exists, but it is still a little disconcerting to see one go by in a little rural town known for its soft shell clams, golf courses, and beaches.
I can only imagine how it must look in a town like Keene, New Hampshire, with its farms, rolling hills, theaters, both film and live, places to buy New Englandea, and a college to see a BarCat roaming the streets and being a presence at the Pumpkin Festival.