Mao and Stalin greet us from the small town of Lindsborg, Kansas

By Steve Otto

My friends from Spain, Mark Davis and Pedro Esbrit, along with my wife Cam Gentry and I, have been travelling around our home state of Kansas (except Pedro who has never lived here) viewing the sites and small towns. We went to the town of in Lindsborg, KS, which is a small Swedish community. We stopped for lunch at the Swedish Crown Restaurant, on the main street of that town. While we were having lunch I noticed they have small carved statues of famous people, such as past US presidents and famous foreign leaders such as Charles de Gaulle, Mao Zedong (毛泽东) and Joseph Stalin (Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин/ იოსებ ბესარიონის ძე სტალინი).

 

This photo of Lindsborg, with the restaurant, was taken by Mark Davis. 

I was quite surprised to see Mao and Stalin. Kansas, as a whole, is a very conservative and reactionary state.[1] Those who call themselves socialists are growing in number, here in Kansas. There are a handful of Marxist-Leninists in the state. I just had to take some pictures of Mao, Stalin and de Gaulle.

I also took some pictures of Kansas wildlife. Kansas may be conservative, but the state dose have some remarkable natural resources for those who take the time to admire them.

Here is a picture of a lizard I took. It is a skink. 

We saw plenty of bison, or buffalo, at the Maxwell Wildlife Refuge.

This photo was taken by Mark Davis. 

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[1] With the possible exception of Lawrence, KS which is a medium sized college town, known for being a pocket of leftism.