minnesota

Minnesota: an upper MidWest state, populated by Nordic descendants (hence the Vikings NFL team) and Native Americans. Located on the edge of the flat and seemingly endless praire, the state gets blast-chilled by polar winds for most of the year. The bulk of the people live in the Twin Cities (hence the MN Twins MLB team) and the surrounding cookie-cutter sprawl, while the rest of the state is scattered with God-forsaken iron mining towns (up north) or small, Lutheranesque farming communities that produce wheat and soybeans, which later get moved around by unsightly, rectangular barges down the Mississippi river or shipped to far-away places from the Duluth harbor. The state is characterized by high taxes, high welfare levels (possibly Scandinavian influences), strong economy (scores of large co.'s are HQed here, incl. Gen Mills that made the cereal you are for breakfast, 3M that made your lint roller, Medtronic that made your grandpa's pacemaker, Hormel that makes the Spam you grew up on, Polaris that made your uncle Duffy's snowmobile, Target, whose repulsive target-eye dog seems to be everywhere, etc.), changing demographics (growing Latino, Somali and Hmong enclaves), changing politics (a pronounced shift to the right). Vacationing generally means "goin' to the cabin up Nort'" for fishing and boating, while the winter is spent is super-luxurious ice fishing shacks with TVs and bunk beds, drinking the local Grain Belt beer. The people are overall Minnesotah-nice, meaning that anything that they disapprove of is glossed over as "oh, that's different". The state's public radio service (recently renamed AMerican Public Media) produces some of the most popular national programs, such as Prairie Home Companion, Marketplace, Speaking of Faith, St Paul Sunday, Futuretense, etc. Quite a feat for a semi-frozen swath of land that has about 5 mil people in it.