Off the Record

Jogging Their Memory. One unexpected twist of the just-ended case of the black youths who raped and brutalized the jogger in Central Park was a press release issued by the Third World Caucus of Clergy and Laity Concerned. Formerly concerned with nuclear arms, CLC has expanded its scope to complain about the “racism” of the press, citing as evidence the different coverage accorded the Central Park jogger (an “older European”) and Tawana Brawley, the black teenager who became a cause célèbre when she fabricated a story about having been kidnapped, raped, and covered with dung by a gang of white racists. As far as Cato can see, the real purpose of the CLC’s press release was to get reporters to publish the name of the jogger—featured prominently throughout the release.

Politics of Obscenity. It turns out that one of the chief opponents of restrictions on NEA funding of pornography is not a McGovern Democrat but a Rockefeller Republican. He is Roy Goodman, a state senator from Manhattan, who helped dump conservative gubernatorial candidate Herb London off the GOP ticket earlier this year in favor of Pierre Rinfret. Goodman’s other hat is as a member of the National Council on the Arts, the advisory board to the NEA, where he has led the charge against restrictions that would help prevent funding of works like Piss Christ.

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Jogging Their Memory. One unexpected twist of the just-ended case of the black youths who raped and brutalized the jogger in Central Park was a press release issued by the Third World Caucus of Clergy and Laity Concerned. Formerly concerned with nuclear arms, CLC has expanded its scope to complain about the “racism” of the press, citing as evidence the different coverage accorded the Central Park jogger (an “older European”) and Tawana Brawley, the black teenager who became a cause célèbre when she fabricated a story about having been kidnapped, raped, and covered with dung by a gang of white racists. As far as Cato can see, the real purpose of the CLC’s press release was to get reporters to publish the name of the jogger—featured prominently throughout the release.

Politics of Obscenity. It turns out that one of the chief opponents of restrictions on NEA funding of pornography is not a McGovern Democrat but a Rockefeller Republican. He is Roy Goodman, a state senator from Manhattan, who helped dump conservative gubernatorial candidate Herb London off the GOP ticket earlier this year in favor of Pierre Rinfret. Goodman’s other hat is as a member of the National Council on the Arts, the advisory board to the NEA, where he has led the charge against restrictions that would help prevent funding of works like Piss Christ.