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JINN MAGAZINE

PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE

Issue No. 3.19

09/08/97 - 09/21/97

CONTENTS


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

    Watching the Old Neighborhood Slip Away
    By Joseph Simon
    Date: 09-08-97
    Over 15 years or so, one corner of San Francisco has moved from ghetto to glimmer. The few who have lived through it all, from days of neighborhood through the pit of crack and into the land of coffee houses now find themselves being pushed firmly away. One of the survivors is PNS commentator Joseph Simon, who was born in San Francisco and lives and writes essays in that city.

    Rosh Hashanah Memories: Farewell to a Synagogue -- My Gateway to America
    By Esther Cohen
    Date: 09-16-97
    The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, falls on October 1 this year. It will be the first time in nearly a century that the Jewish residents of four small towns in Connecticut will not be able to go to their own synagogue -- a synagogue that served as both refuge and gateway for generations. The closing has spurred a flood of memories for PNS commentator Esther Cohen.


* VECTORS: A Regular Column on the Ideas and Directions Behind Today's News

    Don't Cry for Me, Inglaterra
    By Richard Rodriguez
    Date: 09-09-97
    The most-watched funeral in history may be seen as marking the death of stiff-upper-lip England itself. We have turned away from stoicism toward a mass middle-class culture that honors sentimentality in the name of spontaneity, and gestures and images in place of constancy and memory. PNS editor Richard Rodriguez, author of "Days of Obligation: An Argument with my Mexican Father" (Viking-Penguin), is a contributing editor of Harper's and the Los Angeles Sunday Times.

    Who's Right About Human Rights?
    By Walter Truett Anderson
    Date: 09-17-97
    "Rights" -- the very word makes the concept sound simple and durable, but in fact human rights are complex inventions with a number of sometimes inconsistent meanings. The most basic of these differences involves group rights and individual rights, according to PNS commentator Walter Truett Anderson, who notes that the one sure thing about rights is that they will continue to be a matter of negotiation. Anderson, author of "Evolution Isn't What It Used To Be" (W.H. Freeman), is a political scientist who writes widely on technology and global governance.


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

    Women Still Gaining Ground Despite End of Affirmative Action
    By Colleen O'Connor
    Date: 09-12-97
    As California does away with gender and race preferences in higher education, female enrollment at institutions of higher learning continues to gain ground. Just how many of those women students are women of color is unclear, however, because the statistics for minorities aren't broken down by gender and those for women aren't broken down by race. PNS correspondent Colleen O'Connor writes regularly on issues of culture and religion.


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

    Mother Teresa as the Despised Saw Her
    By Michael Kroll
    Date: 09-11-97
    Comments on the death of someone as well known as Mother Teresa tend to involve predictable statements from recognized authorities. The recollections of the men on California's death row offer a distinct and particular view. To them she was the most famous figure in the world to vigorously oppose the death penalty. Michael Kroll, founder of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, DC, is a Bay Area writer.

    Coming into America Through the Five and Dime
    By Dorothy Chin
    Date: 09-18-97
    Woolworth stores will soon be only a memory -- but it will be a very rich memory for some. For Dorothy Chin, who came to this country in 1971, Woolworth's was a storehouse of accessible riches that symbolized the essence of life in her new land. Chin is a psychotherapist and writer now living in southern California.


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

    End of BART Strike May Be a Cease Fire But Brings No Peace
    By David Bacon
    Date: 09-15-97
    San Francisco commuters had a miserable time last week as striking workers closed BART, the area's subway system, forcing people onto inadequate bus lines and already choked highways. At the heart of the dispute were important issues affecting the future of life in the Bay Area but newspaper coverage ignored this and focused on angry citizens instead. PNS associate editor David Bacon is a former union organizer who writes widely on labor and immigration.


* YOUTH OUTLOOK: The World Through Young People's Eyes

    The Rating Game
    By YO! Staff
    Date: 09-10-97
    As young women head back to school this fall, many face a grading system they have learned to fear -- ratings by their male classmates, which rank women mostly in terms of physical attributes. Three young writers examine several aspects of the rating game: Caille Millner finds that the practice is much more widespread than people realize. Lyn Duff describes the effects of being low rated and Stephen Gaines suggests that it is possible to move beyond the game. Millner, Duff and Gaines are on the staff of YO! (Youth Outlook), a monthly newspaper by and about young people produced by Pacific News Service.

    Why Women Call Men Sluts
    By Stanley Joseph
    Date: 09-19-97
    While adult institutions from the military to corporate America turn to "sensitivity training" to heal the rift between the sexes, young women are resorting to a simpler method: turning the tables. Writer Stanley Joseph, 23, explains why more young women are pinning the "slut" label on men.

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