Author: Dick

One would surmise that the phone prank was invented along with the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell’s words in his very first phone call were rife for a phone prank:

“Mr. Watson, come here. I want you.”

Hopefully, Mr. Bell didn’t say he wanted Watson “badly” or “right here.” Nonetheless, practical jokes were a natural for the telephone because the caller’s face is not shown. Thus, the classic practical telephone joke evolved along with popular culture, such as the joke with Prince Albert pipe tobacco.

“The brand gained widespread recognition, perhaps infamously, due to the classic prank call, where the caller asks if the store has ‘Prince Albert in a can’ and when the unexpecting clerk responds ‘yes’, the caller follows up with ‘you better let him out, because he is suffocating!” says this passage from Wikipedia. “Despite this negative publicity, Prince Albert is one of the more popular independent brands of tobacco in the US. More recently, it has also become available in the form of pipe-tobacco cigars.”

I don’t know how recent that information is. Since I have long since quit smoking and even longer since quit smoking pipes, I have no idea if Prince Albert tobacco is still being sold. I searched the Web for its parent company, John Middleton Inc., and all I can find is various lawsuit information. Wow, do you think Prince Albert finally suffocated?

Certainly not Prince Albert of Monaco. The son of the late Prince Rainier and American actress Grace Kelly just recently took the throne. I have no idea if anyone ever played that phone prank on him. I kind of doubt it.

The phone prank, as practiced by kids, has over time become more — involved. I hesitate to use the word “sophisticated.” Many morning radio shows employ phone tricks, some successfully, others quite hideously. Any number of entertainers have made their bones by phone tricks. The ones who come to mind are of the cracker-barrel type such as Roy D. Mercer and Willie P. Richardson. And then there was that show “Crank Yonkers” with the puppets on Comedy Central which I thought was pretty lame.

I don’t know. Not everyone can pull off a phone prank and some jokes are less funny than intimidating or even stupid. I think successfully executing such jokes have much more impact when you are 7 years old than when you’re 49. But then I never was much of a practical joker. Just an impractical one.

The view from KFDM-TV 6 weather cam at Pleasure Island

After a month or more of suffering through the Southeast Texas heat we finally have got a day like the one for which I moved here. It’s a rainy or otherwise cloudy Friday. The temperature and humidity taken together makes it feel a pleasant 87 degrees, the last I checked with the weather service.

It was nice enough for me to sit today, for the first time, on my landing while I read a military thriller by Stephen Coonts. Mind candy. I love it.

I plucked the above weather cam off the local CBS affiliate. The station has weather cams outside their station on Interstate 10 in Beaumont, Texas, and one at Pleasure Island in Port Arthur, Texas. I don’t particularly find I-10 attractive so I went with the marina shot.

Pleasure Island, about 25 miles southeast of here, is a man-made island about 18 miles long. It is surrounded by Sabine Lake — more a bay than a lake — and the Gulf Intracoastal canal. According to this history from the Pleasure Island Commission Web site:

“The U. S. Corps of Engineers created Pleasure Island from deposits dredged while constructing the Port Arthur Canal, completed in 1899, and the Sabine Neches Intracoastal Waterway, completed in 1908.

“In 1913 a dance hall and roller coaster were constructed. In 1941 a private investor built the Pleasure Pier Ballroom, a midway, an Olympic-size swimming pool, and the largest roller coaster in the south. A fine 18-hole golf course was enjoyed for years. Pleasure Island was Port Arthur’s playground for decades until the Pleasure Pier bridge, which opened in 1931 and was frequently hit by ships, was taken out of service in 1967, making it difficult to reach the island. Storms, fires, and erosion eventually destroyed all of the existing facilities.”

Of course, nothing will take the wind out of your sails like ships repeatedly ramming your bridges. And not to mention fires, erosion and storms. Pleasure Island?
It sounds more like the Island of Doom.

But there is nothing like the U.S. dollar to transform chicken shit into chicken salad. In recent years development has taken place and another bridge there, the Martin Luther King Bridge, now connects Texas and Louisiana.

Wonderful, marvelous. The empire is saved! I have only passed through Pleasure Island coming back from Cameron, Louisiana. Maybe I will stop and check it out sometime. In the meantime, I am content to read my book and enjoy a rainy afternoon.

President Macapagal-Arroyo
Seldom do I take a close look at spam but the “From” line caught my eye this afternoon. It said: “Imelda Arroyo.” Okay, knowing that Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is being accused of stealing votes during her last election and thousands are calling for her ouster, I thought I would bite. After all, Imelda is the name of the wife of famous Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. You remember, she’s the one with all the shoes. Their actress-model daughter, Imee, is a member of the Philippine House of Representatives and is one of those wanting Arroyo (GMA as they call her) removed from office.

Well, it turned out the spam was trying to sell me Cialis and Viagra, which was to be expected. Although I do not quite what to make of the text below the pitch for the drugs:

“Mrs. Chillips most impressive remarks. Mrs. Chillip, he whether I should pretend that I was not well, and fly – I dont any real service; but she is so attached to me that my visit will And yet, he added, Masr Davy, I have felt so sure as she was Oh. Personally. repeated Mr. Jorkins, in an impatient manner. indeed. She took her home, said Mr. Peggotty, covering his face with his man, is there anything that anyone can do for you? If know, sir, that I attribute my past follies, entirely to having him, with the majority of a lobster on his plate, eating his dinner … “

It gal and Rep. Imee Marcos

That spam message is all about as crystal clear as the strange and often deadly soap opera of “Who’s Governing the Philippines Today?” over the past 50 or so years.

Opponents want GMA — who attended Georgetown University with Bill Clinton and who is daughter of Diosdado Macapagal who preceded Ferdinand Marcos as president — gone regardless. Imee Marcos and others have said actress Susan Roces should be installed as president if GMA is toppled. Roces’ husband, the late actor Fernando Poe Jr., was defeated by GMA in 2004. You with me so far?

GMA took office in 2001 after Philippine President Joseph “Erap” Estrada (yeah, you guessed it, another actor)fled from office after a revolt in the wake of his impeachment trial for corruption.

Also among those who want GMA to go is former President Corazon Aquino. “Cory,” as she is known, became president after Marcos was booted from office in a 1986 revolt. You may also not be surprised to know that Aquino’s daughter, Kris, is (what else?) a movie star and is also known as “Queen of Talk” for hosting Philippine television talk shows.

With ever-present Islamic guerrillas kidnapping and killing people on the Philippine islands along with the political turmoil, there is no telling what is going to happen in the latest installment of this lovely Pacific nation’s history. But it ought to make for one hell of a movie. And, they’ve got plenty of actors who should know their parts.

I found out an answer to questions I had the other day concerning my area’s air quality. I mentioned how it was curious that Beaumont, Texas, seemed to have a bit better air quality than the national average, according to Money magazine’s calculations. And I also said how the air did seem to be much better now than when I first moved here more than 25 years ago.

It turns out the air quality has improved here. I e-mailed my question to Neil Carman, a former Texas air quality inspector who now heads the air program for the state’s Sierra Club chapter based in Austin. I’ve talked with Neil a number of times for stories that I wrote and found he really knows his air.

“Yes, overall there has been lots of improvement in the (Beaumont-Port Arthur) region’s air quality from the 80s to 90s to 2005,” said Neil “But there are still local hotspots around certain plants in Port Arthur, Port Neches, Beaumont, etc., where problems have continued, although it’s probably nothing like it used to be in the 70s-80s and early 90s.”

He said the improvements show that state and federal air pollution regulations do work over time. That is even though some deadlines have been blown on reducing pollutants in the area.

“No, it’s not the weather. Cleaner air is for real!” Neil said.

I do remember when the air was quite stinky in the area and that has surely improved. Now if only something could be done that would keep at bay the occasional stink from the paper mill about 20 miles northeast of here we’d be in bidness.

Lest the petrochemical industry, the government and ourselves all slap each other on the butts and give each other high fives for the improvement we all can do much better.

It has been somewhat alarming in recent years to hear calls for scrapping a lot of environmental protections because of what is perceived as “junk science.” Some of these same people questioning the science also do not believe global warming is taking place. President Bush does believe global warming is happening although he doesn’t seem too concerned about it. But whether you believe in global warming or you do not, you don’t want crappy air. Unless you are some kind of nut job you wouldn’t want to live in a house that is full of a thick, toxic, stinking cloud. So why would you settle for that outdoors?

We each have a hand in the destiny of our environment as well. I know it’s hard to remember some of the things you can do. But if you just do something to help reduce the Earth’s pollution that’s better than nothing. Okay, I’m boring my soapbox to splinters and the neighborhood woodpecker has fallen asleep, so I will just leave it at that. Well, no I won’t. Okay. Now I will.

Barney Bush won’t talk about Karl Rove either

Scott McClellan has not had a very good time of it the last couple of days. Besieged with questions from the White House press corps over revelations that Karl Rove outed a CIA agent, McClellan has had to reach deep into his soul to find different ways not to say anything of substance. For instance today:

Q Scott, you know what, to make a general observation here, in a previous administration, if a press secretary had given the sort of answers you’ve just given in referring to the fact that everybody who works here enjoys the confidence of the President, Republicans would have hammered them as having a kind of legalistic and sleazy defense. I mean, the reality is that you’re parsing words, and you’ve been doing it for a few days now. So does the President think Karl Rove did something wrong, or doesn’t he?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, David, I’m not at all. I told you and the President told you earlier today that we don’t want to prejudge the outcome of an ongoing investigation. And I think we’ve been round and round on this for two days now.

Q Even if it wasn’t a crime? You know, there are those who believe that even if Karl Rove was trying to debunk bogus information, as (Republican National Committee chairman)Ken Mehlman suggested yesterday — perhaps speaking on behalf of the White House — that when you’re dealing with a covert operative, that a senior official of the government should be darn well sure that that person is not undercover, is not covert, before speaking about them in any way, shape, or form. Does the President agree with that or not?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, we’ve been round and round on this for a couple of days now. I don’t have anything to add to what I’ve said the previous two days.

Q That’s a different question, and it’s not round and round —

MR. McCLELLAN: You heard from the President earlier.

That’s the way it went for poor Scotty today and the last couple of days. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to get out of bed does it?

Now I am sure all of those whose sympathies lie with President Bush and/or who don’t like the media see all the peppering by the White House press of questions as a disgrace or traitorous or whatever. You might even think of the White House press corps as sharks smelling blood in the water (can sharks smell?). I feel a little differently.

First of all, yes they are smelling blood in the water but it was only after Newsweek published a story that revealed an e-mail Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper sent to his editor saying that Rove had told him that Ambassador Joe Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent. In other words, they only started asking questions after being hit in the head with this information. Where were all the questions from the press corps during the run-up to the war in Iraq, when the president said we were going in because Saddam had weapons of mass destruction?

If the press had done some digging back then we might not be at the point we are today. Joe Wilson might not have wrote his Op-Ed piece in The New York Times criticizing the Bush administration over WMD. Karl Rove wouldn’t have outed Wilson’s wife. Overzealous special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald would still be back in Chicago. Times reporter Judith Miller would not be sitting in federal prison for not naming a source. And just perhaps we would not have 1,750 U.S. men and women dead from the war in Iraq.

But no, I don’t think the White House press corps has been disgracefully picking on poor Scotty, or Turd Blossom, as the president calls Rove. They have just been doing their job. Finally.