Published June 10, 2007 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
For instance, try this one from Yahoo News: “Hookahs may pose same health risk as cigarettes.”
A study by the World Health Organization shows that water pipes in fact do release dangerous toxins and should be studied for health risks. This contradicts a myth, according to the study, that hookahs aren’t as dangerous as pipes or cigarettes. Good thing I hadn’t heard of that myth, because back when I quit smoking I might have gone straight to the water bong. Maybe that’s why the caterpillar from “Alice in Wonderland” has one of those electronic voice boxes now.
Wow, hookah jokes are harder to write than you’d expect. Moving on to another headline: “Construction boosts demand for cranes.”
Yes, with their majestic wingspans and ability to capture fish, cranes are the “in” bird for construction contractors this season. From Whooping to Sandhill, builders simply cannot finish a modern house without the help of these tall, feathered …
Oh, cranes. THOSE cranes! Sturdy and metallic, cranes lift materials on the construction sites for large, tall buildings. They do NOT eat fish and my researcher is so fired. Oh wait, my researcher is a desk lamp named Lampy. I haven’t been paying Lampy so we’ll call it even. (Seriously, try Googling “cranes” and you’ll see a three-way Battle Royal between construction equipment, birds and a British gothic rock band).
Here’s the real story on the crane shortage. An AP story from May 29, 2007 indicates that a global construction boom has greatly reduced the availability of tall cranes used for building large structures like hotels and office buildings. This comes in combination with a shortage of workers willing to operate such cranes, a profession that features tremendous heights and tedious repetition. The result: delays and higher costs for new construction on big projects.
I am left picturing a comic (or tragic) one-act play. The setting: an enormous factory that makes extremely tall cranes. The characters: Rusty, the experienced line worker, and T. Ambrose Cranewell IV, owner of Cranewell Industries. Scene!
T. AMBROSE CRANEWELL IV: We’ve sold the last crane! I’ve never seen such demand for our cranes! Huzzah! I shall be at the club, chortling and sipping brandy like never before!
RUSTY: Fool! With no more cranes how can we finish assembling and loading these other cranes?! We’re ruined!
T. AMBROSE CRANEWELL IV: (pauses, weeps) Oh, how my family has fallen. Lo, how I have laid us to ruin! Indeed, as we have reached the pinnacle of our crane making, cruel fate picked us up, raised us to a great height, moved us over somewhat, and then gradually set us back down in a bad, bad way!
Enough about the cranes. I’ve clearly lost my mind. The point is that an active imagination can find intrigue in even the blandest of world business news. (Except for steel tariffs. Ain’t nothin’ funny about steel tariffs.)
Tune in next week for more fun with homonyms! Either that or something else.Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.