JINN MAGAZINE

PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE

Issue No. 2.25

12/02/96 - 12/15/96

CONTENTS

VOICES: First-Person Essays Linking the Private to the Public

Don't Worry Be Happy -- On Film, On the Tube, African Americans are Our Favorite Cheeleaders
By Michael Datcher

These are volatile times for Black Americans, but TV and film viewers around the world get not a hint of that. Instead, music-loving, good-hearted, inoffensive African-Americans fill the screens -- almost as if they were an antidote to the reality of the news pages. PNS correspondent Michael Datcher is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and co-editor of "Tough Love: The Life and Death of Tupac Shakur".

CALIFORNIA COLLAGE: California as Trendsetter for the Country and the World

The Mouse That Squeaked
By Richard Rodriguez

The news that Disney intends to co-produce and distribute a film about the Dalai Lama, despite disapproval from China, was greeted with cheers. But the mouse isn't known for its courage. Had the news about China's displeasure not come into the open, Disney might have complied with Beijing's will. And once the acclaim dies down, Disney might, like the rest of the industry, revert to its traditional self-censorship. PNS editor Richard Rodriguez, author of "Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father" (Viking-Penguin), writes regularly for the Los Angeles Times Sunday Opinion section and is an essayist for The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.

California Runs Out of Jail Space as Voters Worry More About Schools than Crime
By Mary Ellen Leary

With prisons jammed to capacity after the state's much-ballyhooed crackdown on crime, California voters jarred the pundits by voting down a $700 million bond issue to expand jail capacity last month. Recent polling results and votes on other issues indicate that the vote may reflect a change in priorities. PNS correspondent Mary Ellen Leary, a veteran political observer of California, writes for the London-based Economist.

MOVEMENTS: Strategies For Survival, Identity and Direction by People on the Margins

How Some Inner Cities Are Finding Pathways Out of Misery
By Joan Walsh

Recent gains in quality-of-life indicators in some inner city neighborhoods suggest that a social revival of sorts is underway, led in part by a new strategy for combating persistent poverty. At the core of that strategy is the recognition that human relationships are the key resource for turning lives around. PNS associate editor Joan Walsh is author of "Stories of Renewal: Community Building and the Future of Urban America" (The Rockefeller Foundation).

World Food Summit Fails to Reassure Our Oldest Fear
By David Bacon

As inevitable as trouble are conferences about trouble -- international or global or hemispheric meetings or summits or congresses on particular problems, in Rome or Geneva or Brussels, filling hotels and reporters' notebooks. Unfortunately, most do no more than describe how much troubles have grown since the last conference and set the stage for the next one, as PNS associate editor David Bacon reports on this roundup of the recent World Food Summit in Rome. Bacon is a freelance writer specializing in immigration and labor issues.

What Do Rural Women Want?
By David Bacon

Rural women brought their own special perspective to the recent World Food Summit. Although their voices were largely excluded from the formal proceedings, the concerns they expressed revealed much about the plight of the world's food producers and the keys to guaranteeing their survival. PNS associate editor David Bacon is a freelance writer specializing in issues involving immigration and work.

Tacky Traditions -- Tourism Reshapes World in Unpredictable Ways
By Andrew Lam

In the Cold War era few would have foreseen that tourism would become one of the most potent forces transforming the globe. But today, global travel is not only fueling whole economies but preserving traditions, often in tacky ways. PNS associate editor Andrew Lam is a journalist and fiction writer based in San Francisco.

CIVIL CONFLICTS: Interpretive Reports on Ethnic, Religious, and Inter-National Conflicts Worldwide

Reversal of Fortune in Serbia -- Five Reasons to Hope
By Eric D. Gordy

Has the ghost of democracy finally come alive in Serbia? After two weeks of anti-government demonstrations, it is difficult to predict the future and the popular uprisings of the past offer little reason for hope. But crucial changes have occurred over the last five years which may have shifted the advantage away from President Slobodan Milosevic to the street. PNS commentator Eric D. Gordy, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in the former Yugoslavia, lived in Belgrade for much of the last five years.

Warning Signs from Washington and Mexico City -- Trouble Brewing South of the Border
By Andrew Reding

As Mexico's rural, impoverished south drifts every further apart from its increasingly urban, industrialized north, the ruling political party remains impervious to change. Next year's congressional elections offer the one glimmer of hope that the social and political unraveling in the country can be reversed. PNS associate editor Andrew Reding directs the North America Project, a joint venture of the World Policy Institute in New York and Pacific News Service.

The Most Misunderstoof Witch in Mexico
By Joel Simon

Mexico's most notorious witch says she is also its most misunderstood witch. Francisca Zetina Chavez, once a spiritual advisor to Raul Salinas, is now under siege as Mexican prosecutors pressure her to "tell all" about the ex-president's brother's secret life and the body found on his property. PNS correspondent Joel Simon's book on the Mexican environmental crisis, "Endangered Mexico," will be published by Sierra Club Books next spring.

YOUTH OUTLOOK: The World Through Young People's Eyes

On the Grapevine, Over the Internet -- Tupac Still Lives
By Michael Datcher

Across African American communities, the grapevine has it that Tupac Shakur, gunned down in Las Vegas last September, is still alive. Why do so many black people insist on this? PNS commentator Michael Datcher, a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and co-editor of "Tough Love: The Life and Death of Tupac Shakur," offers his thoughts on the need to believe Tupac did not die.

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