Today in History: March 16

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Jerry Lewis is 90 today. In an interview published yesterday, he calls it a “monster number.”

He was already one the top comics and part of one of the top nightclub and movie duos (Martin & Lewis) when he and Dean Martin decided to add philanthropy to the act. His annual television extravaganza on behalf of MDA raised more than $2.5 billion for medical research over the course of four and a half decades.

He is one of the oddest of our great movie comics: so vulnerable and yet super-sensitive to being called vulnerable, as a kid from a tough neighborhood would be, that he masks it by being always “ON,” always ludicrous, always a step beyond silly. Which makes his characters yet more vulnerable. Here is a glimpse:
Read More

Help #SaveThe3

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

If the United States government truly stands for freedom and democracy, it must stop Saudi Arabia from carrying out this egregious violation of basic human rights. It must pressure King Salman to release all political prisoners, including Ali Mohamed al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoon, and Abdullah al-Zaher, who were all minors at the time of their arrest.—a petition, “Ban Weapons Sales to Saudi Arabia Until They End Juvenile Executions”

An online friend of this website, Esha P., started a petition today to demand the United States to “Ban Weapons Sales to Saudi Arabia Until They End Juvenile Executions” via the activist website MoveOn.org. (Full disclosure: mine is the third signature on it.) I urge readers to sign it, too.
Read More

Drip, Drip … Petrichor!

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

A 1964 article in Nature with the euphonious title, “Nature of argillaceous odour,” gave the world the not-as euphonious-sounding word, “petrichor.” In it, two researchers attempted to scientifically describe what it is we smell when we smell the world after a rain shower and to give it a name.

The two authors coined the word, “petrichor,” which I have been mispronouncing in my head since I first encountered it last year, when an article on the Huffington Post started making its social media rounds. It has a long “I,” so say it like this: “petra,” then “eye-core,” which is not how I hear it in my head, with a short “i.”
Read More