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JINN MAGAZINE

PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE

Issue No. 4.19

09/14/98 - 09/27/98

CONTENTS


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

    For Himself, For the Country-- Clinton's Only Chance for Redemption is to Resign
    By Hasan Zillur-Rahim
    Date: 09-14-98
    The president's problems -- now our problem -- go far beyond questions of perjury and impeachment. Clinton has in effect undermined the office of the president, and this can have devastating effects on young people, and hence on the future of politics in the United States. Hasan Zillur Rahim, a PNS commentator, is also the editor of Iqra, a national Islamic magazine published by the South Bay Islamic Association of San Jose, CA. One of a series on the crisis from the "new California."

    Starr's Version of the Truman Show Leaves Viewers Wanting to Escape
    By Ronald Takaki
    Date: 09-14-98
    The fuss in Washington has the flavor of a movie -- but that movie is not "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" or "Being There" but "The Truman Show" which features an elaborate, made-up world. PNS commentator Ronald Takaki thinks viewers will find this script less satisfying, and the hero less likable than in the movie. Takaki is author of "A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America." One of a series on the crisis from the "new California."

    Crime and Therapy
    By Richard Rodriguez
    Date: 09-15-98
    Grand themes are in the air -- sin and repentance and forgiveness -- but Americans seem willing to settle for soggy confessions and therapy. We may yet pay the consequences for the moral vacuity in the land. PNS editor Richard Rodriguez is author of "Days of Obligation" and the forthcoming "The Color Brown." He is a regular essayist for the News Hour with Jim Lehrer and the Los Angeles Sunday Times.

    Time to Recognize the Real Home Run Champ
    By Lee Hubbard
    Date: 09-21-98
    Breaking records is always the stuff of headlines, and breaking baseball records even more so. But amidst the ballyhoo of this year's home run derby, it is instructive to look at the story of the real champion -- a champion who did not make the headlines. PNS commentator Lee Hubbard is a writer on the staff of the San Francisco Bay View.

    What We See Is What We Get
    By Richard Rodriguez
    Date: 09-22-98
    The latest round in the continuing saga of the president, the public, the press, and the prosecutor may say more about media than malfeasance. Indeed, it is surprising that the Republican Party apparently did not see this coming, since one of their own was among television's first victims. PNS editor Richard Rodriguez is author of "Days of Obligation" and the forthcoming "The Color Brown." He is a regular essayist for the News Hour with Jim Lehrer and the Los Angeles Sunday Times.

    Interference! NCAA Reaching Down to High Schools -- With Unhappy Results
    By Joe Nathan
    Date: 09-23-98
    The National Collegiate Athletic Association, plays an important and valued role as the official regulating body of college sports and sponsor of major tournaments. But as gatekeeper of college athletics, it has taken on a policy of interference which has angered students, parents, and educators. PNS commentator Joe Nathan is a senior fellow at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.


* HERESIES: Thinking the Unthinkable About the Future


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

    U.S. Government's Porno-Spill Pollutes International Info-Waters
    By Andrew Robinson
    Date: 09-15-98
    The Internet has been sharing -- if not hogging -- the spotlight in discussions of the President's behavior, but most commentators have focused on domestic consumption. What effect will the glut of detail from Starr's report have on be on the millions of Internet users in other places? Andrew Robinson, a freelance writer, worked as a consultant on Internet-related issues in Bangladesh and India for three years.

    Experiment with Democracy's Unforeseen Costs-- Ethnic Vietnamese Fear Ethnic Purges in Cambodia
    By Joshua Phillips
    Date: 09-17-98
    Last May's anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia sounded the alarm that new ethnic massacres could erupt in that part of the world. Largely overlooked by the international community, ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia fear that they, too, will become scapegoats of political unrest as the country continues its experiment withdemocracy. PNS correspondent Joshua Phillips lived and traveled widely in Cambodia in the mid-1990s and recently returned from a one month trip there.


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

    Choosing Not to Remember-- A New Chilean Law That Seeks to Abolish History
    By Alfonso Serrano F.
    Date: 09-25-98
    Chile's Senate has voted to abolish September 11 -- the anniversary of the military coup that brought dictator Augusto Pinochet to power -- as a national holiday. Many Chileans wonder if the deep divisions aroused by that date can be eliminated so easily. But Chile's young people -- too young to remember or even care -- are already discovering new reference points for the future. PNS editor Alfonso Serrano F., a native of Chile, is a San Francisco-based journalist.


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

    The Cost of Becoming a Gringo
    By Richard Rodriguez
    Date: 09-21-98
    Recent studies have documented a deterioration in the physical and mental health of immigrants the longer they live in the United States. The findings turn the tables on the conventional wisdom that contamination comes from without. But no matter what new hazards immigrants discover, nothing will stop the world-wide movement of poor people, from village to city, from tradition towards change. PNS editor Richard Rodriguez is author of "Days of Obligation" and the forthcoming "The Color Brown." He is a regular essayist for the News Hour with Jim Lehrer and the Los Angeles Sunday Times.


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

    Why an Iranian Strike at Afghanistan Might Succeed
    By William O. Beeman
    Date: 09-16-98
    Iran appears to be mobilizing for a military strike on Afghanistan in retaliation for the murder of Iranian diplomats and journalists -- an incident largely ignored by the international community. Whether or not the U.S. approves, a "sharp blow" by Teheran at the Taliban may succeed and reshape the politics of the region for some time to come. PNS associate editor William O. Beeman is an anthropologist at Brown University specializing on Iran where he lived and worked for seven years.


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

    Economic Crises, War on Terrorism, Crippled Presidency -- A Conversation With Twenty Somethings on the New World Disorder
    Edited by Alex Moe and Peter Solomon
    Date: 09-18-98
    The last several months have seen global economic crises spread from East Asia to Russia and Latin America; the U.S. declare a war on terrorism; and the Clinton presidency crippled by scandal. PNS editor Sandy Close talked with four representatives of California's twenty-something generation about how they saw these momentous events impacting their lives. Each emphasized the importance of finding spiritual direction and discounted the role of politics or politicians. Jaqueline Keeler works with the American Indian Children's Health Service Center in Oakland, Ca., and is a former TV producer; Mimi Nguyen is a 'zine publisher, web site producer and grad student at the University of California, Berkeley; Alfonso Serrano an immigrant from Chile, is a journalist and former editor of El Mensajero in San Francisco; David Gaither writes for African American newspapers and teaches writing to incarcerated youth.

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