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NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
FORECAST
(€omiiif Out Week starts with keynote
Lecture: Author and journalist on gay culture speaks about the changes of coverage in media
FOOTBALL FANFARE
A Trojan tail
Local grade-school kids show enthusiasm for programs
Knocked out. USC* defense held ASU in check throughout the fourth quarter, thanks to the efforts of several players.	tooms 16
Change did good. Sheryl Crow gains a little confidence in her musical abilities on her new album The Globe Sessions.	■*
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A local stray dog who became USC’s most adored mascot in the *40s is a legend today
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By JENNIFER KELLEHER
Staff Writer
Photo eourtssy <X Al VHttunet
A Trojan's beat (Hand was what Al Vistaunet considered George Tlrebiter, a stray dog-tumetRISC mascot in 1946. while he was as a ^yearotd boy living on Portland Street.
By SHARON STELLO
Staff Writer
To kick off National Coming Out Week on campus, best-selling author Michelangelo Signorile spoke Monday night about his career as a gay journalist and the public's changing attitude toward gays. He said that the closet is enforced from the top down, making it difficult for people at the bottom to deal with these issues.
‘We’ve come enormously far in the last 100 years and 1 think wm
we’ve come further in the Ust 15	*
years than in the last 50 years, w*	*
Signorile said to an audience of | about 100 people in Taper Hall of	\ JmOk
Humanities.	jL	$
The Gay, Lesbian & Bi Assembly at USC sponsored Mlchetangwto Signorile's speech and co-sponsors signorile include the Jesse E. Unruh Institute of Politics, the Gender Studies Department and the Speakers Committee of Program Board. They will be sponsoring events all week leading up to Sunday, which is National Coming Out Day.
Signorile, who has written about gay life and culture, said that the AIDS epidemic has changed gay lifestyle, from the parties and cross-dressing of the ‘80s to wearing black and doing more quiet things.
His books include “Queer in America: Sex, the Media, and the Closets of Power,” “Life Outside: The Signorile Report on Gay Men: Sex, Drugs, Muscles and the Passages of Life* and ‘Outing Yourself: How to Come Out As Lesbian or Gay to Your Family, Friends, and Co-workers.”
Erik Sanjurjo, a member of the executive board of GLBA who coordinated the event, said he thought about bringing Ellen DeGeneres’ mother to speak, but decided on Signorile because he is a controversial figure.
As a columnist for magazines such as Outweek, The Advocate and Out, Signorile, who grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., has been controversial for ‘outing’ prominent people such as Malcolm Forbes and Pete Williams, the assistant secretary of defense under the Bush administration.
(see Lecture, page 2)
elementary to high schools, has its fair share of comedy, tragedy, drama and triumph.
Although the Family of Five Schools program was organized in the tall semester of 1994 through USC to promote the quality of life for local families and children, many are unaware how more than
8,000	students in the neighborhood spend their days.
Every week, special educational, cultural and developmental opportunities operate for the five schools in the USC surrounding community: Vermont Avenue Elementary School, Foshay Learning Center, Lenida B.
Weenies Elementary School, 32nd Street/USC Magnet School and Norwood Street School.
Some of the programs include Mission Science, After-School Sports, USC Readers and Academic Enrichment.
The morning bustle at any of these schools is something like the chaos of the backstage of a play before a performance.
At Vermont, parents act as agents as they drop off their children, making sure they are at the right place at the right time. Volunteers wearing bright yellow ‘Kid Watch* T-shirts act as ushers, escorting kids safely to and from
the school grounds. And on the play yard, students, the actors of this complex system, laugh and cheer as a warmup for their daily performances.
Meanwhile, the producers, parents and community members, gather in the auditorium to discuss how to include all the actors. Because of overcrowding, many students have had to find their calling elsewhere — that is, at another Los Angeles Unified School District school.
Rushing to join in, students who are tardy submit their excus-
(see Schools, page 3)
■	Part 2: it day
in the li/eof Family Five students involved in the program. (Today)
■	Part 3: How USC has affected the community.
(Wednesday)
TIM
Octobar 6, IMS
Vol. CXXXV, No. 23
Stray dogs probably don’t aspire for much. Just a few nice morsels of food from the trash and a dry corner to sleep, and they’d get by.
That’s probably all George Tirebiter expected when a Trojan Knight rescued the sickly stray dog in 1946 from a beach in Santa Monica and brought him to USC.
Little did George or the Trojan Knight know that this luckless dog would leap from mutt to mascot over the course of the year.
George Tlrebiter was a common sight on campus in the late ‘40s. And this dog soon became famous for chasing bikes and cars along Trousdale Parkway, formerly called University Avenue, a street that was open to traffic at the time.
He liked to bite on tires, hence the surname Tirebiter. He was friendly and full of energy, said Al Vistaunet, who was a 9-year-old boy living on Portland Street when the Knights found Tirebiter. Vistaunet’s parents rented out rooms in their house to USC stur dents, including the Knights, one of whom found George.
Tirebiter stayed with the Vistaunet family for almost two years before taking off with the graduating Knights, Vistaunet recalled. What ever happened to him after that remains a legend.
“My mom, being a dog lover, nursed him back to health,” Vistaunet said from his home in Lake Forest, Calif.
He is now a retired engineering manager for Hughes Aircraft who graduated from USC in 1961 with a degree in industrial design.
Vistaunet’s mom made a sweater for Tirebiter that became a trademark. He
(see Fanfare, page 6)
Education: The sound of early morning bustle means the start of a long but progressive day
By NADA EL SAWY Assistant City Editor
The reason that dozens of USC students are volunteering to help with the Family of Five Schools this semester is because every day provides the excitement of an impromptu {day. USC volunteers are finding that the experience of helping students, ranging from