JINN MAGAZINE

PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE

Issue No. 4.11

05/25/98 - 06/07/98

CONTENTS

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

Where's The Monster? New Godzilla Gains Gloss, Gives Gravity
By Patrick Macias

To grow up with Godzilla was to recognize the nightmare possibilities of " the atomic age." But the most recent version, according to PNS commentator Patrick Macias, is rich in production values and woefully thin in understanding. Macias, who has seriously embraced the lizard's lessons, is on the staff of YO! (Youth Outlook), a publication by and about Bay Area youth produced by Pacific News Service.

HERESIES: Thinking the Unthinkable About the Future

As Globalization Foes into High Fear, The Left Goes Into Reverse
By Walter Truett Anderson

As the world moves more and more toward global interconnections, opposition comes more and more from those long identified with an internationalist view -- the left. In the process, words and forms associated with the right have been adopted wholesale, a process that PNS commentator Walter Truett Anderson finds ironic and sad. 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.

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

World Cop Returns -- India/Pakistan Nuclear Tests Could Blow a Major Hole in New U.S. Gulf Strategy
By Franz Schurmann

U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf are now at levels like those near Vietnam before 1965. But U.S. strategy now stresses isolating a troublesome nation by befriending its neighbors -- a strategy badly shaken by the exchange of nuclear tests between India and Pakistan. Pacific News Service editor Franz Schurmann, author of "The Logic Of World Power," writes extensively on the Middle East and China.

Nuclear Tests -- A Call for a New World Order
By Sarita Sarvate

An ancient civilization is calling for a new world order in which the powerful nations of the world will sit down with the less powerful to negotiate arms reduction on all sides. There is more to the call then rhetoric, as the nuclear tests on the Indian subcontinent underscore. But so far, the U.S. and the other superpowers of the world are more intent on keeping the old world order in place. PNS commentator Sarita Sarvate, a Bay Area writer who trained as a physicist, was born and raised in India.

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

Indians Take Bomb Tests in Stride as They Cross Bridge Into the World of the 21st Century
By Sandy Close

Americans see India as a country mired in tradition, and are alarmed at news that it controls a weapon of mass destruction. But India's citizens see their country moving into the realities of the next century and in their world ancient rivals are more important than U.S. opinion. PNS Executive Editor Sandy Close just returned from India where she spent several days talking with a broad spectrum of Indians.

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

Gleanings from California's Ethnic Media-- Ethnic Press Speaks With Rare Unity for Bilingual Education
Edited by Alfonso Serrano

Perhaps no initiative on California's June ballot stirs emotions like Proposition 227, sponsored by Ron Unz, which would replace existing bilingual education programs. But what do communities most affected by the initiative -- Latino and Asian -- think about the measure? Whatever the polls show, press coverage in the ethnic media has been one-sided. The following is a sample of news articles and editorials on Proposition 227 in California's ethnic press compiled by PNS editor Alfonso Serrano. Serrano is formerly the editor of El Mensajero, a bilingual weekly published in San Francisco.

Diversity of Reconciliation? Sleeping Giant Stirs in California
By Richard Rodriguez

If we were less afraid of one another, we would recognize that the growing interest in politics among Latinos and Asians -- evident in California's recent campaign -- is the key to our reconciliation, not the obstacle to it. PNS editor Richard Rodriguez, author of "Days of Obligation" writes for the Los Angeles Times Sunday Opinion section, Harper's and other publications and is a regular essayist on PBS's "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer."

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

Indian Nuclear Blasts Designed to Rattle an Enemy That Isn't Listening
By Batuk Vora

Although they may have had some payoff in terms of domestic politics for India's ruling coalition, the recent nuclear tests are widely seen as a sort of warning finger pointed at China. But an examination of China's actions over the last decade or so indicates that it sees India as insignificant, at least in terms of nuclear strategy. PNS commentator Batuk Vora writes for newspapers and magazines from New York to Hong Kong. He lives in Advadam, Gajurat, India.

Coping with Reality -- India's Nuclear Tests Carrt an Important Lesson About the Future of Nonproliferation
By Michael T. Klare

India's recent nuclear tests have elicited righteous reactions from leading political figures. That response, says PNS commentator Michael T. Klare, reflects a policy of willful ignorance about nuclear proliferation -- a policy that stands in the way of creating a less dangerous world. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Massachusetts and author of "Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws."

News From Ghana -- When Kids Pay for Poverty
By Samuel Sarpong

State visits and World Bank decisions seem to make up the lion's share of news that reaches us from Africa. Here PNS correspondent Samuel Sarpong reports on matters a little closer to everyday life, and in a way that reminds us that there is more than one understandable English in the world. Sarpong is a journalist who writes for a variety of publications from Accra, Ghana.

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