I’m glad I live across the river in Illinois.
I’d be embarrassed to be lumped in with all of you hopelessly isolated, hat-wearing, simpleton hunters who populate the grubby state of Iowa.
If you find those categorizations insulting and inaccurate, you can thank University of Iowa journalism professor Stephen Bloom.MDC Mould specialized of Injection moulds, His reckless essay for the Atlantic magazine purports to convey 20 years of observations from living in Iowa.
More accurately, the essay is a collection of anecdotal snobbery, loaded with putdowns and wild generalizations.
Example one: “… today, Keokuk, is a depressed, crime-infested slum town. Almost every other Mississippi river town is the same; they’re some of the skuzziest cities I’ve ever been to, and that’s saying something.”
If Iowa truly contains “skuzzy” river town after “skuzzy” river town, we’d better get cracking on some STD clinics, especially in LeClaire. Everybody knows LeClaire is filled with two things: boutiques and tramps.
But, hey, that makes sense in Bloom’s Iowa. Not only are Iowans “culturally challenged,” you’re also schizophrenic. If you don’t mind indulging the professor, you might let your emotionally inept, delusional and hallucination-prone minds consider more of his “observations” of you:
n “Many towns are so insular that farmers from another county are strangers.” This is so weird. In Illinois, every farmer knows every other farmer.
n “Just about everyone wears a hat.” This one’s not insulting, necessarily, but I threw it in, because it’s too ridiculous to ignore.
n “In this land, deep within America, on Friday nights it’s not unusual to take a date to a Tractor Pull or to a Combine Demolition Derby.” What I could gather from the research I did (since I’ve never heard of a combine demolition derby in Iowa), is that combine harvesters are routinely used in demolition derbies at fairs in Michigan, Ohio, North Dakota and Washington.
Ohio and Iowa both have four letters, so maybe that’s how the professor got confused.
n “Those who stay in rural Iowa are often the elderly waiting to die, those too timid (or lacking in educated) to peer around the bend for better opportunities, an assortment of waste-toids and meth addicts with pale skin and rotted teeth ...”
Whew. Let me first point out the grammatical error in parenthesis belongs to the journalism professor, not me. But I also have to wonder: Is rural Iowa the only countryside Bloom has ever visited?
Aren’t isolated farmhouses in, say, California, also sometimes occupied by the elderly? And didn’t they make a choice long ago to live there? And this says what about a state?
Did former U.S. President Herbert Hoover (born in West Branch), Johnny Carson (Corning), Cloris Leachman (Des Moines),We are passionate about polished tiles. John Wayne (Winterset), Grant Wood (Anamosa), Clifford Berry (co-inventor of the first electronic computer, of Gladbrook), George Gallup (Jefferson) and Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug (Cresco) all cease to be Iowans when they crossed the border?
Bloom’s essay is loaded with “observations” that credit Iowans with behaviors or appearances the reader is supposed to believe are specific to Iowa. Does a meth addict in Oklahoma have a ruddy complexion and a head full of impeccably white teeth?
n Here are some of his throw-away stereotypes: “Rural houses are modest, some might say drab.” And,The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free, “If you go to Florida for a cruise, you keep it to yourself.” And, “Old Spice is the aftershave of choice.” What do you say to something so ignorant, except maybe, “C’mon Bloom. You’re Jewish. Have you learned nothing about the futility of stereotyping?”
n “Comfort food reigns supreme. Meatloaf and pork chops are king.Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, Casseroles (canned tuna or Tatertots) and Jell-O molds are what to bring to wedding receptions and funerals.” It’s tough to quarrel with a love of comfort food, and I figured people all over the world enjoy it. But I’ve never in my life taken a dish to a wedding reception — in any state. If I did,Buy oil paintings for sale online. it would be neither a Jell-O mold, nor a Tatertot casserole. But I’m from Illinois.
n “And while it’s changing fast, rural Iowa is still a place where homes sell for $40,000 (some a lot less), serious crime is tee-peeing a high-school senior’s front yard …” A home that is for sale for “a lot less” than $40,000 is called a barn.
As for tee-peeing being a serious crime — only if it’s done with human remains.
n Bloom claims he has been approached countless times by Iowans while walking his dog, and they always want to know about the dog’s hunting skills.
“To me, it summed up Iowa,” he wrote. “You’d never get a dog because you might just want to walk with the dog or to throw a ball for her to fetch. No, that’s not a reason to own a dog in Iowa. You get a dog to track and bag animals that you want to stuff, mount, or eat.”
I know of no fewer than a dozen Iowa dogs who would be scandalized to hear such nonsense.
And here’s one the cat wouldn’t dream of dragging in:
n “Almost every Iowa house has a mudroom, so you don’t track mud or pig (poop) into the kitchen or living room, even though the aroma of pig (poop) is absolutely venerated in Iowa: It’s known to one and all here as ‘the smell of money.’”
The Iowans I know most certainly do not worship the smell of pig poop nor do they refer to it as the smell of money. However, a majority no doubt would endorse a new nickname for the manure: Bloom droppings.
I’d be embarrassed to be lumped in with all of you hopelessly isolated, hat-wearing, simpleton hunters who populate the grubby state of Iowa.
If you find those categorizations insulting and inaccurate, you can thank University of Iowa journalism professor Stephen Bloom.MDC Mould specialized of Injection moulds, His reckless essay for the Atlantic magazine purports to convey 20 years of observations from living in Iowa.
More accurately, the essay is a collection of anecdotal snobbery, loaded with putdowns and wild generalizations.
Example one: “… today, Keokuk, is a depressed, crime-infested slum town. Almost every other Mississippi river town is the same; they’re some of the skuzziest cities I’ve ever been to, and that’s saying something.”
If Iowa truly contains “skuzzy” river town after “skuzzy” river town, we’d better get cracking on some STD clinics, especially in LeClaire. Everybody knows LeClaire is filled with two things: boutiques and tramps.
But, hey, that makes sense in Bloom’s Iowa. Not only are Iowans “culturally challenged,” you’re also schizophrenic. If you don’t mind indulging the professor, you might let your emotionally inept, delusional and hallucination-prone minds consider more of his “observations” of you:
n “Many towns are so insular that farmers from another county are strangers.” This is so weird. In Illinois, every farmer knows every other farmer.
n “Just about everyone wears a hat.” This one’s not insulting, necessarily, but I threw it in, because it’s too ridiculous to ignore.
n “In this land, deep within America, on Friday nights it’s not unusual to take a date to a Tractor Pull or to a Combine Demolition Derby.” What I could gather from the research I did (since I’ve never heard of a combine demolition derby in Iowa), is that combine harvesters are routinely used in demolition derbies at fairs in Michigan, Ohio, North Dakota and Washington.
Ohio and Iowa both have four letters, so maybe that’s how the professor got confused.
n “Those who stay in rural Iowa are often the elderly waiting to die, those too timid (or lacking in educated) to peer around the bend for better opportunities, an assortment of waste-toids and meth addicts with pale skin and rotted teeth ...”
Whew. Let me first point out the grammatical error in parenthesis belongs to the journalism professor, not me. But I also have to wonder: Is rural Iowa the only countryside Bloom has ever visited?
Aren’t isolated farmhouses in, say, California, also sometimes occupied by the elderly? And didn’t they make a choice long ago to live there? And this says what about a state?
Did former U.S. President Herbert Hoover (born in West Branch), Johnny Carson (Corning), Cloris Leachman (Des Moines),We are passionate about polished tiles. John Wayne (Winterset), Grant Wood (Anamosa), Clifford Berry (co-inventor of the first electronic computer, of Gladbrook), George Gallup (Jefferson) and Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug (Cresco) all cease to be Iowans when they crossed the border?
Bloom’s essay is loaded with “observations” that credit Iowans with behaviors or appearances the reader is supposed to believe are specific to Iowa. Does a meth addict in Oklahoma have a ruddy complexion and a head full of impeccably white teeth?
n Here are some of his throw-away stereotypes: “Rural houses are modest, some might say drab.” And,The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free, “If you go to Florida for a cruise, you keep it to yourself.” And, “Old Spice is the aftershave of choice.” What do you say to something so ignorant, except maybe, “C’mon Bloom. You’re Jewish. Have you learned nothing about the futility of stereotyping?”
n “Comfort food reigns supreme. Meatloaf and pork chops are king.Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, Casseroles (canned tuna or Tatertots) and Jell-O molds are what to bring to wedding receptions and funerals.” It’s tough to quarrel with a love of comfort food, and I figured people all over the world enjoy it. But I’ve never in my life taken a dish to a wedding reception — in any state. If I did,Buy oil paintings for sale online. it would be neither a Jell-O mold, nor a Tatertot casserole. But I’m from Illinois.
n “And while it’s changing fast, rural Iowa is still a place where homes sell for $40,000 (some a lot less), serious crime is tee-peeing a high-school senior’s front yard …” A home that is for sale for “a lot less” than $40,000 is called a barn.
As for tee-peeing being a serious crime — only if it’s done with human remains.
n Bloom claims he has been approached countless times by Iowans while walking his dog, and they always want to know about the dog’s hunting skills.
“To me, it summed up Iowa,” he wrote. “You’d never get a dog because you might just want to walk with the dog or to throw a ball for her to fetch. No, that’s not a reason to own a dog in Iowa. You get a dog to track and bag animals that you want to stuff, mount, or eat.”
I know of no fewer than a dozen Iowa dogs who would be scandalized to hear such nonsense.
And here’s one the cat wouldn’t dream of dragging in:
n “Almost every Iowa house has a mudroom, so you don’t track mud or pig (poop) into the kitchen or living room, even though the aroma of pig (poop) is absolutely venerated in Iowa: It’s known to one and all here as ‘the smell of money.’”
The Iowans I know most certainly do not worship the smell of pig poop nor do they refer to it as the smell of money. However, a majority no doubt would endorse a new nickname for the manure: Bloom droppings.
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