$6 million committed to revamp Coliseum, L.A. Sports Arena / 24
I Tower: Victim of partisanship / 4
j Paying tribute to Astaire, Kelly / 9
trojan
Volume CVIII, Number 33
University of Southern California
Thursday, March 2, 1989
Makin’ Music
CLAY WALKS) / DALY TROJAN
Bassist Glen Gltfln (left) and singer Dorian McDougall, members of “The BearCats,” perform Wednesday at Tommy Trojan. The Hollywood band’s concert was part of Asian Pacific Heritage Week.
WORLD
Shamir, right-wing gain power in Israeli election
JERUSALEM (AP) The Israeli right wing scored a decisive yictory in municipal elections here, and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said Wednesday that voters had vindicated his refusal to deal with the PLO.
The elections Tuesday extended the power of his Likud bloc on the local level and gave major gains to Jewish and Moslem fundamentalists.
At stake in Tuesday's elections were 147 mayor’s offices and city councils. Labor had won 54 in 1983, Likud 26 and the rest went to local or religious parties.
INSIDE
Komlx......................
Security Roundup.
Performance...........
Sports.....................
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WEATHER
Today —
Mostly cloudy with chance of rain, high in mid-60s Friday — Continued cloudy with low in 40s, high in low 60s
Professors aim to save Indonesian farming ways
Computer program may help traditional irrigation system
By Kyra Phillips
Staff Writer
Exploring the mysterious irrigation and planting system of the Balinese, two university professors have dived into “the religion of holy water" and designed a computer program aimed to understand and preserve one of the world's most efficient farming operations.
Anthropologist Stephen Lansing and ecologist James Kremer have combined their areas of expertise to develop a state-of-the-art computer program that they hope will bring together rice-growers, government officials, and temple priests in Bali, an island state of Indonesia.
The computer program simulates scenarios of differing amounts of rainfall and cropping patterns, and predicts the resulting crop yields and pest damage.
Lansing discovered that local groups of farmers, called subaks, had been organized into a hierarchical structure by an ancient network of temples. This structure allows subaks to control pests and use irrigated water more efficiently. The positioning of temples parallels die network of irrigation canals.
The water temple network is a small but important part of the Balinese religion, Agama Tirtha — "religion erf holy water." The
farmers strive to please the water goddess, Dewi Danu, who resides in the crater lake near the top of the volcano Batur.
"The organization of the water temples and priesthood serve as a liaison between farmers and the water goddess, who is believed to sustain the agriculture and crop growth," Kremer said.
Lansing discovered the water temple network in the '70s while doing strictly anthropological research, but he came to realize that the system has an ecological base. The traditional methods seemed to strike a balance that could conserve water, preserve soil and control the spread of pests.
However, when the Asian Development Bank began a multi-million-dollar project to modernize the irrigation system, crop yields decreased because of pest damage.
Lansing said the foreign consultants told the Balinese to quit using their water temple method and start planting the rice contin-ously. This sparked an "explosion of pests," he said.
The main purpose of the modernization, Kremer said, was "to fix the dams and get the water, but they encouraged the farmers to plant modem, high-yield varieties of rice, ignoring the traditional schedules of coordination."
The traditional system ensured that adjacent fields would lay fallow at the same time, thus con-troling pests by depriving them of food, Kremer said. Under the
(Sk Bali, page 6)
Police search ties student to theft, forgery
Kevin Cullinane
Staff Writer
Police found a cache of stolen IDs, credit cards and other property Tuesday in a Troy Hall resident's apartment, one day after the student had been arrested for trying to cash a forged check, police said.
David Ducharme, a 21-year-old majoring in business administration, was booked Monday at the Parker Center Jail and released Tuesday on $1,000 bail, said Detective Don Mattingly of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Ducharme has been charged with forgery, using a stolen credit card and receiving stolen property, Mattingly said.
"He opened up the bank account with a stolen, forged check," Mattingly said. "He then tried to pass another check."
On Monday, Western Federal Bank officials identified Ducharme as the person who opened a $400 checking account under the name of Brett Jenkins, another student, Mattingly said.
Ducharme, a resident of Holyoke, Mass., tried to cash a $392 "double-endorsed check" from the account of a student at Bendey College in Massachusetts, Mattingly said.
Ducharme also tried to withdraw the remaining $400 in the account, but because the check was double-endorsed, the bank refused to cash the check and sent it to Brett Jenkins' parents, Mattingly said.
The Jenkinses, already aware that their son's driver's license had been stolen, mailed the forged check to security for investigation, Mattingly said.
University Security and police worked together on the case.
On Tuesday, police obtained a search warrant, Mattingly said. In a search of Ducharme's residence they found three credit cards, three student identification cards, four California driver's licenses, a Social Security card — all belonging to other students, he said.
An American Express card owned by another student had been used frequently for purchases by Ducharme, Mattingly said.
(See Fraud, page 6)
USC professor loses
Catholic U. may ban priest, court rules
From Associated Press
The Rev. Charles Curran, a visiting professor at USC, lost his suit against Catholic University in a Superior Court ruling Tuesday.
The court ruled that Catholic University's ties to the Vatican gave it the right to ban Curran from teaching theology there because his teachings conflict with Catholic beliefs.
The case raised questions of academic freedom and the separation of church and state, after Curran charged that the Vatican-chartered university breached his contract as a tenured professor.
"The question presented is whether his contract gave him the right to teach Catholic theology at Catholic University in the face of a definitive judgment by the Holy See that he is ineligible to do so," Judge Frederick Weisberg wrote. "The court holds . . . that it does not."
Curran lectured to Catholic University students on sexual ethics such as birth control, homosexuality, divorce and masturbation — all of which conflict with traditional Catholic interests.
Curran said he will not appeal die court's decision, have fought for academic freedom at Catholic for more than 20 years," Curran said. "I As far as I am concerned, this was the last
to this report.