Elliot: Going to heck in a hand basket

What’s up with the Hawkeyes? What’s up with the election? And if Hawkeye fans form a caravan to go to a bowl game, will the president call out the troops?

DI columnist Beau Elliot

Beau Elliot, Opinion Columnist
November 7, 2018

Dear Doc Grammar:

Is there any hope for the Hawkeye football team? Or should I go hide out in the library and lose myself in the classics?

Dear Faint of Heart:

Of course there’s hope, unless by the classics you mean Harry Potter and Spider-Man.

You want a dearth of hope for the Hawkeyes, take the Frank Lauterbur-Bob Commings years. Please (as the old joke goes). According to local lore, interest in the classics skyrocketed (if “classics” and “skyrocket” may be used in the same sentence) during those football seasons. Although many longtime Hawkeye watchers believe that if you use the word “football” to describe those seasons, you deserve some hard time in the grammar mines.

So cheer up, Faint. The Hawks should be fine, if the offense and defense ever show up in the same stadium on the same day. And besides, we hear that Nashville in late December is just fine. It doesn’t get nearly so cold and rainy as the weather history suggests.

On the ever-present other hand, these Hawkeyes are not the Red Sox.

Dear Doc Grammar:

How concerned should we be about a blue wave on Election Day and Democrats taking over the reins of government?

Dear Science Fiction:

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

Excuse us. Even if there was a blue wave on Tuesday, you shouldn’t be concerned a whit. Or a wit, even if it’s your last one. Democrats have all the organizational ability of two cats with a roll of toilet paper.

Besides, Democrats think it’s “rains” of government. As opposed to Republicans, who think it’s “reigns” of government.

Or, in the metaphorical world, which doesn’t exist but is fun to visit anyway (it’s great this time of year), the Democrats will rain on your parade. The Republicans will prohibit your parade on national-security grounds, chief among them that the parade might turn into a “caravan.”

Dear Doc Grammar:

This country is being invaded by a caravan of 7,000 immigrants and terrorists — at least according to President Trump. Is this true, or is it more electioneering gas? And what should we do?

Dear Caravan Watcher:

Somehow, electioneering gas sounds like yet another emission contributing to yet more global climate change. Putting us on the level of cows and methane. Which is uncomfortable, among other things.

You could sing the body elected, we suppose, but that’s probably been done. So much has. Even while so much hasn’t.

Ah, the caravan. There are around 3,000 people (not 7,000) in the “caravan,” largely women and children, according to some reports. There is no evidence of terrorists. More electioneering gas.

There will be somewhere around 10,00-15,000 U.S. troops, plus who knows how many ICE, Border Patrol agents, and other various official Pooh-Bahs on the border. So, you should be safe. Unless, of course, the U.S. forces and their leaders start operating as if the southern border were Afghanistan, in which case the U.S. will be involved in some kind of war there when your grandchildren are ready to go to college.

Of course, you have to remember that the “caravan” is 800 or 900 miles away from the U.S. border, and the people in it are moving at around 25 to 30 miles a day, so it will be several weeks before they get anywhere close to the U.S.

By that time, perhaps a lot of the military troops will be back in their bases, if for no other reason than the election will be history. Funny how history is made, isn’t it? Even funnier is how history is unmade.

Dear Doc Grammar:

Everything in the world seems to be going to heck in a handbasket. What to do? Besides hunker down in a bomb shelter?

Dear Hunker:

We’re not sure there’s a handbasket big enough for all the heck in the world. What to do?

Clap for Tinkerbell.