This is year 1 of “You Can’t Start School Until The Fair Is Over.” This is one of Iowa’s ways to keep kids and teachers’ unions from getting a big head thinking that education is really a priority in Iowa.

As reinforcement to that idea, education governor Terry Branstad cut a massive amount from the education budget this summer when he thought no one was looking. If they wanted to push academics down yet one more notch in Iowa they could force the high school kids to listen to the soap box speeches made at the fair by the Republican presidential candidates.

As for us let’s see if our brains were engaged last week:

1) BOOM!!!! A massive explosion so big they were recorded by seismographs, at a “dangerous goods” warehouse rocked what Chinese city Wednesday?

2) Which Republican presidential candidate who has decried use of fetal tissue for research has been found to have done research on fetal tissue in the past?

3) Sorry, kid, you want to see it, you got to pay. The debuts of what kids’ educational series will now take place on HBO?

4) Did someone throw a giant sparkler into the sky last week? No, it was what annual phenomena that just ended its run til next year?

5) Order early. This coming December will see the publishing of a biography as what Iowan sets a record for longevity?

6) Happy Birthday to you dear – what major Democratic social program turned 80 last Friday?

7) Which Republican candidate blasted the media for its obsession with Donald Trump in Waterloo last week?

8) VJ Day was 70 years ago Friday. How long before the last Japanese soldier surrendered?

9) In Paraguay, an 11 year old girl gave birth after being denied an abortion. Who is the father of the baby?

10) A militia group named what was seen carrying assault rifles on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri during commemorations of Michael Brown’s death?

11) He may look smarter with the glasses, but what Republican candidate appears to be broke already?

12) Many people remember her from “Little House On The Prairie.” Now what child star wants to move up to the US House from Michigan?

13) Here’s a name from the past. What mail-order music company from the 60s on filed for bankruptcy last week?

14) A county clerk in Kentucky is still in the news because she still refuses to do what?

15) Be careful what you ask for. Looks like California may get drenched this winter by a super strong what?

16) Forty-six years ago yesterday the kids gathered at Yasgur’s farm for what celebration of music?

17) The Davenport school district may dip into its reserve account to do what?

18) Mike Huckabee kicked off a long line of presidential hopefuls that will be speaking from what Iowa State Fair institution?

19) The EPA accidentally caused a breach at an abandoned gold mine allowing what to be spilled into the Animas River?

20) This week’s Darwin nominee is a man who jumped the fence of a roller coaster to retrieve what at Ohio’s Cedar Point amusement park?

Have a great time at the fair if you go. Try the fried beer on a stick – kidding.

Answers:

1) Tianin

2) Ben Carson

3) Sesame Street

4) Perseid Meteor Shower

5) Branstad becomes America’s longest serving governor in December (not on my wish list)

6) Social Security. This is a landmark year for many Democratic programs

7) can’t remember his name – oh yeah- Jindal.

8) in 1974 some 29 years later.

9) The girl’s stepfather who raped her. Draw your own lessons for the US. Religious groups praised her not being allowed an abortion.

10) Oath Keepers.

11) Rick Perry. Stopped paying his staff

12) Melissa Gilbert

13) Columbia House

14) issue marriage licenses to same sex couples

15) El Nino – already being called a “Godzilla El Nino.”

16) Woodstock

17) equalize their per pupil spending with other districts

18) the Des Moines Register’s soapbox.

19) heavy metals especially lead, arsenic, cadmium, beryllium and mercury

20) his cell phone. Got hit by the roller coaster

Just read these inspirational word from Sen. Cory Booker: