JINN MAGAZINE

PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE

Issue No. 3.04

02/12/97 - 02/23/97

CONTENTS

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

When Help Means Life or Death -- Where to Draw the Line Between Family and Stranger
By S.W. Omamo

Not just in Africa but in more and more areas of the world where economic liberalization policies are underway, individuals with decent incomes must face life-and-death decisions when it comes to responding to pleas for help. PNS commentator Steven W. Omamo is a writer and agricultural economist based in Nairobi. He is a Rockefeller Foundation Social Science Research Fellow at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute.

Writers of the Purple Sage -- Homer on the Range -- Cowpokes and Rappers Find Common Ground on the Range
By Jon Christensen

A Cowboy Poetry Gathering in a remote Nevada town recently drew nearly 10,000 poets, would-be poets, and poetry lovers -- and at least one easterner who is eager to bring the show to the Big Apple. The idea is not so outlandish as it first appears: cowboy poets may share some roots and some feelings of defiance with the city's toughest rappers. PNS Correspondent Jon Christensen, a freelance writer based in Carson City, Nev., is the Great Basin regional editor for High Country News.

Voices - The Invisible World of Work Just Around the Corner
By Yuni Mulyono as Told to David Bacon

As AFL-CIO members gather in Los Angeles to contemplate the future of unions, with talk of pensions and benefits, other workers labor out of sight -- away from the eyes of regulators or organizers -- at jobs paying below minimum wage under conditions denying the most basic employee rights. For years, many of these workers have found their way to the offices of the Labor Defense Network to tell attorney Michelle Yu stories like Yuni Mulyono's story of her first three years in the United States. In at least one sense, Mulyono was fortunate: she was the Network's last client -- cuts in federal funds for legal aid to the poor have forced the office to close. PNS associate editor David Bacon writes widely on labor and immigration issues.

HERESIES: Thinking the Unthinkable About the Future

Gulf War Syndrome -- It's A Bug
By David Zimmerman and Kenneth E. Goldstein

While doubts about the reality of Gulf War Syndrome have been put to rest, the search for a cause continues. But this search has focused on chemical or biological weapons and other exotic agents while it is entirely possible the troubles can be attributed to common microorganisms. At least one researcher has found it hard to attract support for this line of inquiry while public pronouncements focus on conspiracy theories such as a "coverup" of poison gas exposure. David Zimmerman is editor and publisher of The Probe Newsletter; Kenneth E. Goldstein is emeritus professor of journalism (science-writing) at Columbia University.

PACIFIC PULSE: The Pacific Century and Its Impact on the Americas

Deng's Model Rests on Vulnerable Base
By Sanjoy Banerjee

Sanjoy Banerjee is a professor of international relations at San Francisco State University, and an expert on east and south Asia.

Deng -- Prophet of Myth of Science and Materialism
By Cobie Kwasi Harris

Cobie Kwasi Harris is a political scientist and chair of African American Studies at San Jose State.

The Death of China's Last Strongman
By Chen Mingjie

Chen Mingjie, a political scientist at Beijing University, came to the United States in 1992 where he writes and sells insurance. This article was translated by Franz Schurmann.

Deng's Fall and Rise -- A Model of Chinese Survival
By Franz Schurmann

Franz Schurmann is the author of several books on contemporary China and former head of U.C. Berkeley's Center for Chinese Studies

Japanese Laud Deng's Asian-Style Economic Diplomacy
By Yoichi Shimatsu

Yoichi Shimatsu is a free lance journalist based in Tokyo and former editor of the Japan Times Weekly.

Deng -- Securing the Most Fundamental Human Rights to Shelter and Food
By Ling-Chi Wang

Ling-Chi Wang is the former head of ethnic studies and a specialist in Asian American history at the University of California, Berkeley.

THE AMERICAS: The Growing Enmeshment of the U.S. and Latin Worlds

Traumas in the Family -- Hidden Costs of Border Patrol Raids
By Samuel Orozco

For thousands of people without papers in the United States, the knock at the door is here. INS has launched its campaign to deport close to 100,000 undocumented people. Already, there are clear signs of social and psychological disruptions, especially among children. PNS correspondent Samuel Orozco is a Kaiser media fellow and news director of Radio Bilingue, a Spanish language radio station based in Fresno, CA. Radio Bilingue has maintained an open phone line for callers to report on their experiences since the 1995 immigration law was passed.

Weinberger Got it Half Right -- Mexico Sliding Towards Lawlessness But Not Towards War
By Andrew Reding

Former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger's warning that the U.S. should be prepared to invade Mexico sometime in the next decade is, at best, a self-serving argument. But his portrayal of Mexico's instability is more accurate than the rosy prognosis of reform coming from the White House. PNS associate editor Andrew Reding, a freelance writer specializing in Latin America, writes for Newsday, the Miami Herald and other publications.

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

O.J. Trials -- The Last Great Conversation Between White and Black America
By Richard Rodriguez

White America is strangely flattered by the black and white dialectic that has dominated the debate over the O.J. Simpson trials. If black resentment forces whites to be responsible for sins of generations past, black obsession with white racism also places whites at the center of the racial paradigm. But we live in complicated times, much more complicated than the white-and-white description of our nation suggests. PNS editor Richard Rodriguez, author of "Days of Obligation: An Argument with my Mexican Father," writes regularly for the Los Angeles Times Sunday Opinion, Harper's, and The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.

Labor Joins Environmentalists -- California's Teachers Battle Fund Managers Over Forest's Fate
By David Bacon

When California's teachers joined the anti-apartheid divestment campaign a decade ago, they learned an important lesson about the political leverage of pension funds. Today they are seeking to use the power of their multi-million dollar pension fund investments to help prevent the logging of one of California's last remaining old-growth redwood forests. PNS associate editor David Bacon is a Bay Area writer specializing in labor and immigration issues.

YOUTH OUTLOOK: The World Through Young People's Eyes

All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Go -- Looking for My Secular Church
By Andrea N. Jones

For a young African American woman raised on the memory of Billie Holiday and the promise of disco, "21" was a magic number. That birthday would open the door to a collective celebration of urban life, a "secular church" masquerading as a black nightclub. But by the time she was old enough to enter, the city of San Francisco had lost a quarter of its black population to housing pressures, job loss and the gentrification of black neighborhoods. The experience she sought was already a memory. Andrea N. Jones is an editor of YO! (Youth Outlook), a youth newspaper produced by Pacific News Service.

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