It's another planet out there:
After slaving over long columns of per-capita statistics on crime, divorces, church membership, Playboy readership and the number of bars, I can officially announce that the most moral county in Iowa, by my subjective measure is . . . Sioux County.
To some, it's a comforting place, relatively free of muggings and troubles, bound together by faith.
To others, Sioux County is more like one giant gated community, where people are the same, grass the same length and the righteous and judgmental rule.
Don't count on statistics to sort that out.
It also happens to be the most Republican county in Iowa. If we could have given it to Nebraska or South Dakota, John Kerry would have won the state.
Notice that the Register didn't ask what the LEAST moral county in the state was. The rousing chorus of "People's Republic of Johnson County" would have echoed across the newsroom. I recall once, in response to a letter to the editor he'd written to the Register, a friend of mine got mail addressed to "Sodomy City."
The post office knew that meant Iowa City. And he got the letter.
So what's morality? I grew up in Wisconsin and it took me several years here before I noticed that all the corner taverns were missing. In my home town, every four blocks or so in residential neighborhoods you'd find a corner tavern like the one my grandfather went to after work. There were literally hundreds in my home town. But Iowa grew out of a Prohibitionist tradition, and not the beer-drinking ethnic tradition of Wisconsin. I'd say there are about two or three bars in this town that could legitimately be called "corner taverns."
And I wonder if Sioux County has a homeless shelter, or a free medical clinic, or a domestic violence house, or the kind of cultural opportunity and diversity that my Johnson County has. Is morality a lack of bars, or a warm bed at night?
By coincidence - or is it? - we're also the most Democratic county in the state.
Iowa
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