65 Freed in Egypt; Shawkan Remains in Prison

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

A journalist’s job is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

* * * *
The “Detained Youth Committee” that was established by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi this fall to “look into the conditions of pre-trial detainees arrested in cases related to freedom of expression” gave him a list of 83 detainees to grant early releases or pardons. Today, 82 were pardoned, and as of this morning, 65 were freed, but the Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid (“Shawkan”) was not among them.

He was not freed and his name was not on the list the committee submitted.
Read More

Today in History: Birthday Edition

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

At 6:37 p.m. EST on this date in 1968, I arrived. (Thank you, mom.) At that hour, I was a little late for dinner, which soon became a habit I cultivated through my teen years. Gary Sheffield, Owen Wilson, quite a few others, and I turn 48 today.

* * * *
Steamboat Willie, an animated short film by Walt Disney Animation Studios, premiered at Universal’s Colony Theater (now The Broadway Theatre) in New York City on this date in 1928.

It was Disney’s first animated short that featured fully synchronized sound, so it was an enormous success, and it also introduced two new characters: Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. Both Mickey and Minnie are 88 today. The film (after the jump):
Read More

Peter Cook: An Appreciation

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

John Cleese has said that for him it often took hours of “grinding” work to write several minutes of comedy, but that Peter Cook could write three minutes of top-quality material in just over three minutes. It appeared to come to him that easily early in his career.

But Cook did work hard. As a writer and performer, Cook worked hard at avoiding politeness for politeness’ sake if a laugh was available instead. When the Prime Minister of England, Harold Macmillan, wanted to attend a performance of the hot new West End show, Beyond the Fringe, either no one told him that one part of the show was the performance of a monologue by Peter Cook as Macmillan and that Cook made Macmillan sound like a sluggish dolt, or it was expected that Cook would simply skip that section of the performance in deference to the nation’s leader. He didn’t.

In the monologue, Cook’s Prime Minister Macmillan reports on a visit with President Kennedy: “We talked of many things, including Great Britain’s position in the world as some kind of honest broker. I agreed with him when he said no nation could be more honest, and he agreed with me when I said no nation could be broker.”
Read More