Godfrey Daniels, somebody says.

Do you mean Godfrey of Bouillon? someone else says for a joke. I think. Typical of this joint that someone would know about Godfrey of Bouillon.

Or at least that’s what it sounds like. It’s jet-airliner-taking-off loud in the bar (the bass is reportedly disrupting flights in and out of the Eastern Iowa Airport, though those saying so are among the numerous dancers, who are not within 20 miles of the airport). This, even though the bar is 21 and over. Take that, City Council.

Turns out, those 21 and over can be just as loud — and dance better — than those under 21. (I am never going to suggest that those over 21 dance better because there are more African Americans, Latinos, and Latinas among their dancers; that would be acceding to bigoted beliefs. The “white” women seemed to hold their own, and one “white” guy — apparently known as “Tree-san” — did, too. Not that I’m a dance critic or anything. I was a musician; I never learned to dance.)

Godfrey of Bouillon — or perhaps Godfrey de Bouillon, which translates as Godfrey of beef/chicken broth, who invented them, if you trust my translation and sense of history — was born around the time of the Battle of Hastings. He was also, according to the *American Heritage Dictionary*, which has no reason to lie from what I can discern, the French leader of the First Crusade (1096-99).

Luckily for those of us in Iowa, we don’t have to worry too much about the First Crusade (it was a long time ago, as humans count time, as opposed to, say, tectonic plates, which count in some other time zone).

We can consider about hunting mourning doves instead. Under Senate File 83, which somehow made it through the legislative funnel — don’t ask, and I won’t tell — we would all have licenses to hunt mourning doves.

We Iowans have long been clamoring for killing mourning doves in these stringent economic times, what with cuts to K-12 education and higher education.

Every time I walk outside, I hear the clamor from the populace: Death to doves, death to doves, death to doves. (Explains why the doves have been in mourning.) Those doves are taking over our education system and social-support systems, such as we have them, and forcing our teachers, who otherwise would respond to human children, to listen to the doves’ incessant cooing. We need tough love, not cooing.

(Of course, the liberal in me — yeah, that pesky liberal; I don’t know how he got in there — points out that the Iowa’s dove population does not have the right to vote. Which is obviously unjust. We in Iowa have a plethora of bird-brained legislators and a governor so inclined [see education funding]; why don’t doves have the right to vote?)

Well, anyway, thank God our legislators are right on top of the mourning-dove problem.

Maybe they should turn their attention to the wheat problem or the case of the missing oysters. Oysters? you say. What do Iowa legislators know about oysters?

What do they know about mourning doves?

It turns that in France, someone stole a quarter of a million oysters. How exactly does one steal 14 tons of oyster? one wonders. Perhaps two wonder.

And what does one do with 14 tons of oysters? That’s more aphrodisiac than even Hugh Hefner needs. (Just guessing.)

It’s obviously a situation that needs the touch of Iowa legislators.

Meanwhile, back at the wheat desk, in the United States, according to NPR, the price of wheat accounts for only 3 percent of the price of bread. Which leads one (or two) to wonder, Where is the other 97 percent going? Not to the wheat farmers, obviously.

Yeah, we have the best agricultural system in the world. It rivals our health-care system.

If this all seems a bit backwards to you, well, it’s probably just the times we live in.

Sleinad Yerfdog, someone says.