Music Center revives rarely seen Rossini opera Tancredi’ / 5
) Sioux should be repaid now / 4
j Batters face No. 2 Wildcats / 8
dSteSfe’ trojan
Volume CVIII, Number 29
University of Southern California
Friday, February 24, 1989
Trojan wide receiver Eric Affholter (far left) and Miss USC Erin O’Malia (far right) help congratulate (left to right) Tracey Bailey, Gerilynn Arline and Nancy Wagner, participants in the Spirits in Action games held Sunday, an athletic event for disabled students. USC Yell Leaders are In background.
Disabled athletes win medals, get special taste of Trojan pride
By Bill Swindell
Staff Writer
Many of the 65 disabled athletes who participated in the "USC Spirits in Action" games Sunday at Cromwell Field hoped to come home with a medal. But for one competitor, a Trojan baseball cap sufficed.
The competition is student-run and helps local disabled people, said Minh Chau Nguyen, event chairwoman.
When Nguyen visited all of the agencies for the disabled to explain the games and the prizes that would be passed out. Bill, a 43-year-old mentally retarded man at the Hoover House,
asked, "Are you giving out baseball hats?"
Not this year, Nguyen said.
Bill didn't like that answer. In fact, while the rest of the athletes enjoyed all the attention they were receiving, he was depressed all day, said Karen Grewar, the student volunteer working with Bill.
But when Bill said he wanted a baseball cap, Grewar, a freshman majoring in international relations, decided to go to the bookstore and buy him a Trojan cap.
"He smiled, his eyes lit up and he laughed for the first time all day," Grewar recalled.
University to sell book despite Islamic anger
Store will stock novel in defense of writer’s rights
By Tracy Imes
Staff Writer
The University Bookstore will not bar copies of Salman Rush-dies's novel The Satanic Verses from its shelves, despite the example set by bookstores such as B. Dalton Booksellers, a store official said Thursday.
"I don't believe in censorship. Writers have a right to say what they want to say," said Josy Ca-toggio, manager and buyer of the general book department.
'Tiction is a work of art. I felt the same way about The Last Temptation of Christ. This is a university and an academic setting — the book will be displayed."
Catoggio ordered the novel when it was released six months ago — before the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini condemned the book, ordering a $6 million price placed on Rushdie's head and rejecting Rushdie's public apology.
B. Dalton Booksellers, the nation's largest chain, has ordered the book banned from its shelves in response to possible terrorist action. The Walden-books chain has opted to keep its copies hidden from view, of-
fered only to customers who request the book.
However, the publicity generated by the threat has boosted sales of The Satanic Verses, and many bookstores and distribution houses have run out of copies.
"I originally ordered one copy of the book, since it is hardcover fiction and his other works weren't big sellers," Catoggio said. "We didn't receive it because the publisher sold out on the East Coast. I spoke to the sales representative and we've ordered 20 copies that should be in next week or by the middle of March."
Fathi Osman, professor of religion, said he understands why many Muslims want the book banned.
"In the book he describes Mohammed, Abraham and God in sarcastic and insulting ways," Osman said. "Freedom of speech, belief and expression is accepted by Islam, but you can offend others when using your freedom."
Osman said he has no personal objection to sale of the book on campus, but "other groups may object to it, since it could disrupt the harmony of the university community," he said.
The book has been banned in countries with large Muslim populations, including Iran, Pakistan, India, Egypt and South Africa.
Professors, authors protest by reading ‘Satanic Verses’
Condemn Khomeini’s call to find, execute hiding British satirist
By Jordana Bieze
City Editor
Salman Rushdie may be the only author who is the object of death threats by the Ayatollah Khomeini, but he's not the only one who feels the world is in need of an awakening.
Two university professors joined Future Shock author Alvin Toffler and other internationally acclaimed writers Wednesday for a reading of Rushdie's works in protest of America's reluctance to defend freedom of the press on behalf of the British author.
"The kind of protests that we're doing tonight show that these kinds of threats would not be tolerated in a country where free speech is of great value," said professor Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique.
A passage read from The Satanic Verses, the novel that has brought the wrath of much of the Muslim world on Rushdie's head, dealt with the writer's role in society.
"The poet's work is to name the un-nameable, to point at fraud, to take sides,
start arguments, shake the world and stop it from going to sleep," Rushdie wrote in the book. "And if rivers of blood flow from the cuts his verses inflict, then they will nourish him."
Rushdie has come under fire for the novel's satire of the Islamic religion, the prophet Mohammed and the Muslims' treatment of women.
Protesters supported Muslims' right to be offended by the book, but condemned Khomeini's death threat as an abridgment of his authority.
Toffler said Americans should reach out to Muslims who, though they find the book offensive, still condemn the Ayatollah's actions.
"The notion that one has a right to kill someone for what he has written strikes most Muslims as shocking and medieval," he said.
"The Ayatollah claims to speak for one billion Muslims in the world. We should not let this propaganda go unchallenged. Most Muslims in the world reject his leadership, and we should be reaching out to them," he said.
In a rare public appearance, USC professor and noted author T. Coraghessan Boyle read from The Jaguar's Smile, written by Rushdie about three years ago.
(See Reading, page 2)
In Brief
STATE
Police chief films cops secretly in restroom
CONCORD, Calif. (AP) — Police Chief George Straka said Thursday he made a mistake when he ordered a hidden camera placed in the station restroom, trying to catch a vandal.
The camera was placed in the ceiling July 1986 but officers became aware of it just three weeks ago, said the president of the Concord Police Officers Association.
The association is considering legal action against the chief, the president said.
WEATHER
Today —
Fair skies, sunny and cooler, high in m*d-70s Saturday — Continued sunny, high in 70s, low in 50s
NATION
20-foot hole opens up in road, swallows car
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A 20-foot hole opened up in a roadway and swallowed a car, leaving two people hospitalized, authorities said Thursday.
A 20-foot-square section began to give way when a bus traveled over it Wednesday, firefighters said. The car. was behind the bus and fell in.
Charles Robinson, 58, and Marcella Calvin, 29, were pulled from the 15-foot-deep hole. Calvin suffered a broken leg and pelvis, and Robinson suffered cuts and bruises.
INSIDE
Viewpoint..................................... 4
Komix............................................I 2
Security Roundup____________________ 2
Performance.................................. 5
Sports___________________________________________12