----------------------------Original message---------------------------- As promised, here is last week's NYT article which sheds some light on the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, run by cine-groups(s) member Mr. Larry Jarvik. Even though I initiated the thread (if you wish to call it that) of defending PBS & NPR against Gingrichian depredations, I think that there have been enough responses in our groups, the very huge majority, by my count,running in favor of PBS/NPR --which makes a lot of us liberals, an 8-letter word. My feeling now is that we ought to save our energy for real action, such as writing, calling, e-mailing our elected representatives, and, if possible,getting more and more of the media (print press mostly) aroused.Unless, of course, strong new info. and/or arguments come to light. To go on with the Defense of the Realm (i.e.Corporation for Public Broadcasting) among ourselves will probably amount to 1) preaching to the converted and 2) arguing with the immovable object of anti-CPB sentiment. ================================================= Subject: Gingrich/NYT/2-95 THE NEW YORK TIMES, Wednesday, February 1, 1995 HOLLYWOOD AUTHOR BECKONS GINGRICH by Katharine Q. Seelye Special to The New York Times under photo: Speaker Newt Gingrich, star of the new Republican majority in Washington, is being wooed by conservative actors, long a frustrated minority in Hollywood. Mr. Gingrich joined the film star Arnold Schwarzenegger - who called the Speaker "our leader" - outside the Capitol. WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 - Speaker Newt Gingrich likes to talk about renewing civilization, but did he mean Hollywood, too? Some in Hollywood think so. The movie moguls want to bring him out. Not to star in a picture, at least not yet. But to star at a gala dinner to give a lift to conservatives in Tinsel Town. "Newt is a huge celebrity," said David Horowitz, an author and former lefty who turned right in the early 1980's and now promotes conservative vies in Hollywood through his nonprofit Center for the Study of Popular Culture. Mr. Horowitz dropped in on the Speaker's press secretary the other day. Mr. Horowitz met Mr. Gingrich a few years ago, after Mr. Horowitz wrote a book called "Destructive Generation," a critical look at the 1960's. Mr. Gingrich read the book and invited him and his co-author, Peter Collier, to Washington for lunch. "In June, I want to bring Newt out to Hollywood," Mr. Horowitz told the press secretary, Tony Blankley, last Friday. Mr. Horowitz said he wants Mr. Gingrich, a Georgia Republican, to be the star attraction at a dinner with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kevin Costner, Delta Burke, Cheryl Ladd, Gerald McRainey, other actors and scores of "wheeler-dealers" whom Mr. Horowitz said he could not identify but nonetheless are eager to celebrate the Republican revolution on Capitol Hill. "Sounds fabulous," said Mr. Blankley. "Let's talk." Mr. Blankley had no trouble adopting the mogul lingo, having grown up in Hollywood and worked as a child actor in such movies as "The Harder They Fall" with Humphrey Bogart. "Hollywood is moving like crazy," Mr. Horowitz went on. "The liberals are all fed up with Clinton. Clinton is over. It's happening. We'll do Power Rangers. We'll have Newt. It's a way of saying, 'This is the new establishment, this is the new world.'" As it happened, Mr. Schwarzenegger - in town to promote the Inner City Olympics for poor youths - dropped in on the Speaker today. He said he chatted with Mr. Gingrich, whom he called "our leader," about the program. During a picture-taking session before the two went behind closed doors, Mr. Schwarzenegger was asked what fitness advice he might have for the Speaker. He said he was glad Mr. Gingrich was swimming every day. The Speaker said that if he did not exercise he would soon be starring in a movie called "The Last Couch Potato." "There were two radical movements in the 60's," Mr. Horowitz said in an interview after leaving Mr. Blankley's office. "One of them nobody ever writes about, and that's the one Gingrich came out of. Now, all those people are in charge of the House." Mr. Horowitz sees the new Speaker as the "breakthrough" personality who can "get the attention of nonpolitical people." "It's exactly the reverse of when Jane Fonda committed treason and came back and won an Academy Award," he said, referring to her visit to Hanoi during the Vietnam War. "That was a very significant moment in Hollywood. It made it acceptable to be extreme left. That ushered in the era of the Oliver Stones." "We want equal time," he continued. The Republication takeover of Congress and the elevation of Mr. Gingrich to the Speakership, he said, "is the breakthrough for a persecuted group of people who've been driven underground." Mr. Horowitz was accompanied by Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican and one of two members of the House who are surfers, and later had lunch with Representative Christopher Cox, another California Republican. Hollywood's interest in the Speaker comes at a time when the Speaker is demonstrating a strong interest in California, as does anyone with an eye on electoral politics. Mr. Gingrich has appointed a special California task force made up of Republican members of Congress from California. "Politically, culturally and economically, California is pivotal to influencing the direction of the country as a whole," said Mr. Rohrabacher. "Newt wants to make sure he's not behind the curve. He's setting up his structure so he has input. ___________________________