I must be the last Iowa blogger to weigh in on Stephen Bloom’s “Observations From 20 Years of Iowa Life” for The Atlantic.

Bloom’s sneering take on the provincials in flyover country made him an instant punching bag in the local blogosphere. Todd Dorman called the University of Iowa journalism professor “the Michelangelo of hick-punching,” and Bloom’s essay is quite the takedown. He ridicules the way Iowans walk, talk, dress, eat, and entertain ourselves. Most painfully, he mocks the people who choose to stay in our state’s rural wastelands:

the elderly waiting to die, those too timid (or lacking in educated [sic]) to peer around the bend for better opportunities, an assortment of waste-toids and meth addicts with pale skin and rotted teeth, or those who quixotically believe, like Little Orphan Annie, that “The sun’ll come out tomorrow.”

I’ve spent a couple of days thinking about how to respond to Bloom’s piece.

University of Iowa President Sally Mason played it straight with a press release distancing herself from the article: “I disagree strongly with and was offended by Professor Bloom’s portrayal of Iowa and Iowans. Please know that he does not speak for the University of Iowa.” Mason then listed the many qualities she admires in us and our communities.

Others have taken the humorous route: IowaHawk parodied Bloom’s writing here, while Mike pretended to be flattered at the RayGun blog:

it made me feel like kind of a bad-ass for living in Iowa. We not only have several “crime-infested slum” towns, but every day we stare in the face of “absolute and utter desperation” (absolute and utter!).

Kyle Munson of the Des Moines Register asked Bloom the obvious question (how can you stand to live here?) and chided the lack of fact-checking:

If you’re going to skewer the population of an entire state for a publication other than the Onion, please be precise. […]

He writes of “rifle-toting hunters stalking turkeys in the fall”: Using rifles to hunt turkeys is illegal in Iowa – only shotgun, muzzleloader or bow.

Munson should have collected quotes from regular folks showing that contrary to Bloom’s assertion, “the aroma of pig shit” is not “absolutely venerated in Iowa.”

I didn’t care for the way Bloom misrepresented an Easter Sunday headline from the Cedar Rapids Gazette to describe what he considers an “in-your-face” religious culture. The Gazette’s editor Lyle Muller posted a good response to that cheap shot:

The headline is not spread across an Easter Sunday front page at any time from 1986 to 2006. We checked multiple years. A small two-column Easter greeting exists in the 1994 edition below the masthead to the left with a Bible verse that contains the phrase “he is risen.” […]

A moment in time from a distant past does not illustrate a larger picture about the present. In The Gazette’s case, Easter greetings were on front pages in years past. Not every year, but some, and they have not been there since 1994. Cedar Rapids and Eastern Iowa have vibrant communities of Muslims and Jews, especially, but also other faiths. We try in our faith and values reporting to understand them all. To use the “He is Risen” example to illustrate the way Iowa, and The Gazette, functions in 2011 doesn’t jive with reality.

Looking at that 1994 front page, I’m struck by the fact that two reports from foreign countries made page 1 of an Iowa newspaper. Who are you calling insular?

Bloom set out to tell “geographically challenged” readers of The Atlantic “where Iowa is” and “what Iowa is.” Like many commentators, I recognized some of Bloom’s stereotypes (the largest and most elegant house in many small towns is the funeral home) and didn’t recognize others (we only value dogs as potential hunting companions?).

Many readers were put off by the author’s contempt for his subject. Iowa City-loving transplant John Deeth took issue with Bloom’s tone:

Bloom falls victim to something I’m sometimes guilty of: letting passion about a topic carry me over the line. All the legitimate points about young people abandoning the state for city jobs and Steve King’s politics of xenophobia will be lost to Iowans, and to many others outside the state, because he called Keokuk a skuzzy depressed, crime-infested slum town. The insults — which they are — will be remembered instead of the analysis.

Bloom defended his work when Munson called him for comment on the backlash:

“Maybe people are not accustomed to reading those kinds of things,” he said. “My message to readers is: Don’t take offense, you might shake your head but it behooves you to listen. A different opinion is good for you.” […]

“I don’t have to apologize to anyone for my observations in going to each of the 99 counties in this state over the last 20 years and writing my observations,” Bloom insisted.

“Gee, what is up with Iowans if they don’t have a sense of balance, a sense of humor, a sense of give and take, a sense of debate, if when they read something and it is so far to the fringe that they say, ‘That guy, why does he even live here?’ This is anti-intellectualism. This is provincialism at its worst, I must tell you.”

Bloom seems to be saying he was just kidding, so Iowans should lighten up. And truly, who hasn’t laughed at generalizations about a “foreign” culture? Even the SteveIowa blog, which slammed Bloom’s sloppy and lazy stereotyping, has indulged in a mocking profile of the archetypal “Tea Party Man.”

It’s pointless to try to prove Bloom is wrong about Iowans. I’m glad I moved back to Iowa. I know plenty of big city kids who settled happily here. Economists say small-town Iowa is no more depressed than small-town America. An east-coast native who moved to a rural Iowa county last year raves about the fairs and summer festivals Bloom ridicules. None of that negates Bloom’s opinion. To each his own.

As a Jew who was born and raised in Iowa, I do feel compelled to respond to this passage, though:

After years and years of in-your-face religion, I decided to give what has become an annual lecture, in which I urge my students not to bid strangers “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Easter,” “Have you gotten all your Christmas shopping done?” or “Are you going to the Easter egg hunt?” Such well-wishes are not appropriate for everyone, I tell my charges gently. A cheery “Happy holidays!” will suffice. Small potatoes, I know, but did everyone have to proclaim their Christianity so loud and clear?

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. One gutsy, red-in-the-face student told me in no uncertain terms that for the rest of her life, she would continue offering Merry Christmas and Happy Easter tidings to strangers, no matter what I, or anyone else, said, because, “That’s just who I am and I’m not about to change. Ever!” Score one for sticking it to the ethnic interloper.

My dad used to say that a rabbi’s sermon should have “more teaching, less preaching.” I don’t see a “Happy holidays” lecture as promoting the cause of religious tolerance. Bloom is trying to make his students feel bad about comments that are intended to be friendly. He could find a less judgmental way to communicate that not everyone in Iowa is Christian.

If a stranger wishes me merry Christmas, I smile. That person means no insult. Sometimes I say, “You too,” but depending on the situation, I might say, “We celebrate Chanukah in our house, but merry Christmas to you!” (Or: “We celebrate Passover, but happy Easter to you!”) If someone asks my son what he wants Santa to bring him for Christmas, I encourage him to answer by talking about what he wants for Chanukah. I have joked with stressed-out friends that the holiday season is the best time to be Jewish: no pressure to create a magical Christmas experience. There are ways to handle these exchanges without telling other people what to say or not say.

Final link before I open the floor for comments: the e-mail exchange between Garance Franke-Ruta, who edited Bloom’s piece, and Bloom’s University of Iowa colleague Robert Gutsche Jr. is worth a read.

UPDATE: The Atlantic published Lynda Waddington’s response to Bloom. Excerpt:

In the South, my birth-home, many will recognize the reaction as “bless his heart” syndrome. That is, in the South, it is generally acceptable to say pretty much any thing you like about a person provided you follow such an observation with “bless his heart.” For instance, “Merv’s and Alice’s boy doesn’t have the smarts God gave a piss ant. Bless his heart.” Following such a pronouncement, listeners are most likely to agree with solemn nods and regretful head shakes.

Provided in such context, the statement offers truth tinged with affection — an acknowledgement that no matter what we may think of each other, how spattered another’s life might be when viewed through our eyes of experience, we still understand that a certain level of respect for a fellow human is warranted. Bloom broke the rule.

SECOND UPDATE: Also worth reading: this post at The (Convoluted) Mind of a Single Man.

THIRD UPDATE: At the Columbia Journalism Review, Kirsten Scharnberg Hampton points out the Atlantic’s very weak correction of the misrepresented headline:

But elsewhere in its response to critics, the magazine has broken one of journalism’s golden rules: errors should be corrected forthrightly, and with as much fanfare as the original mistake was made. The piece erroneously stated that the state’s second-largest newspaper, the Cedar Rapids Gazette, ran an Easter Sunday headline in 1994 “splashed across Page One” that read, “He Has Risen.” The Gazette has since produced a copy of that front page. The top two headlines are actually about a murder in the state and ethnic cleansing in Croatia, with a small (albeit odd and journalistically inappropriate) box above the fold quoting a Bible verse that includes the words “He is risen.”

Rather than simply concede the error, The Atlantic added this note as one of a number of “corrections and clarifications”: “A 1994 newspaper headline both Prof. Bloom and his wife recall is different from the one on the edition of the Cedar Rapids Gazette unearthed by a reporter for the paper from its archives.” But there is no debate here: the story was wrong; no evidence has been presented that the dramatic headline exists. And the fact that Bloom remembers that small box as dramatically as he does perhaps says something about the lens through which he has viewed his adopted home state from day one.

THIRD UPDATE: Here’s an example of humorous stereotyping about Iowans: Fat Girls in Des Moines by Bill Bryson.