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^ Jerry Brownies A Titillating expose seeps from ABC News April 9 as the network reveals allegations that California governor Jerry Brown hosted parties brimming with drugs. This tale quickly devolves into a series of campaign drug tidbits, such as Bill Clinton saying he smoked marijua­ na but never inhaled, and dis­ closures that George Bush was a junkie on the controversial, perhaps mood altering, Halcion. The Riots Los Angeles burns. And we watch. After the Simi Valley' jury acquitted the guilty on April 29, the streets exploded, propelled by a desire for jus­ tice, fueled by looters' greed. In the inferno of the emeute, the images were too provocative, too surreal for immediate digestion. While condemnation of the rioters was universal, there was more than a tinge of understanding To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., the riot is the voice of the powerless. The statistics escalated: 60 people dead, hundreds injured, thousands unemployed, millions in damages. And even though the video camera captures the image, we control the interpretation. Ironically, people kept saying riots fail to solve problems, they only heighten them by set­ ting neighborhoods back, yet the riots meant that President Bush actually visited South Central Los Angeles and that Congress secured a bil­ lion dollars for inner- city restoration. If the people of South Central LA had simply marched peaceably down the streets, would we have given a damn? In the final analysis, pace Gil Scott Heron, the revolution will be televised. A Space Odyssey Author Isaac Asimov dies April 6 in New York Gity at 72. While considered a leading science fiction writer, the prolific Asimov veered out­ side the boundaries of that genre, and pub­ lished his 468th book a week before his death. Don't Cry For Me President Arthur Fujimori instigates a coup and dissolves Congress on April 5, stating that he will institute a new constitution for Peru which will curtail political corrup­ tion. Instead of applause, Fujimori is roundly chastised for his dictatorial stance. Sanctions are mentioned as a possibility, but Fujimori acqui­ esces, and tones down his decree. Stone Cold "In this America where Mike Tyson and I live together and bitterly, bitterly, apart, I say he became what he felt. He felt the stigmata of a prior hatred and intentional poverty. He was given the choice of violence or violence. The violence of defeat or the violence of victory." —June Jordan THE PROGRESSIVE, APRIL 1992 The much publicized "Basic Instinct" opens to big-time money and controversy, as the film is rebuked by many for reinforcing stereotypes popular in cinema of lesbian and bisexual women as men-hating psychopaths. Coming on the heels of "Silence of the Lambs," the film provokes debate on Hollywood's closet­ ed outlook to the gay lifestyle. Material Girl The mega-icon Madonna swings into Portland, setting off a frenzy bordering on the religious. While in town, the world's most fabulously adored star signs a contract with Time Warner which makes her the highest paid female performer ever. As evi­ dence of Madonna's over­ whelming stranglehold on soci­ ety's hearts and souls, when Marlee Matlin and Martin Sheen come to town the next month, nobody bats an eye. l s 31