Newspaper of the University of Southern California
Tuesday January 31,1995 Vol. CXXIV, No. 12
Japan quake reverberates on campus
MTA to raise fares beginning Feb. 1
The Metropolitan Transit Authority will raise its fares beginning Wednesday, due to the lifting of a court injunction that had prevented the increase for five months.
The new cash base fare on the MTA will be $1.35. Transfers will continue to cost 25 cents, and discount tokens will still be available in bags of 10 for $9. The express zone charge will be 50 cents.
Although the original proposal had also included the elimination of regular monthly passes, they will continue to be available for $49 at MTA service centers and sales outlets.
The semi-monthly pass, formerly $25, will now be available for $26.50. Express stamps will increase to $15. College and vocational student monthly passes will now be $20.
By Susan Deemer
Staff Writer
On the first anniversary of the Northridge earthquake, Japan's 7.2 magnitude Kobe temblor sent emotional aftershocks to Southern California.
The result has been an outpouring of concern and affection from many local organizations including the USC Student Senate and Japan Club.
Dixon Johnson, director of the Office for International Students and Scholars, said there were 235 Japanese students enrolled at USC in the fall 1994 semester. Of those students, two were from Kobe and eight from Osaka, which is about 20 miles away from Kobe, the epicenter of the quake.
There were few reports of students whose families were affected, but OISS reported there are two international students from Tokyo whose relatives were also reportedly killed in the devastating earthquake.
Two USC students are known to have suffered losses as a re-
sult of the quake and have flown home to be with their families. The grandmother of one woman, an undergraduate majoring in sociology, was killed. A spokesman for the Japanese Consulate said the majority of quake victims were elderly people.
The other USC student who returned home lost her father in the quake. Both students are said to still be in Japan, but are expetted back at USC to continue the semester.
Although many Japanese students may have not lost a relative, some have lost friends.
Yugi Ioriya, a 24-year-old alumnus, returned home to Osaka on winter break on January 12. He was scheduled to fly back to Los Angeles on January 17, the day of tne earthquake.
"My one friend is missing; he lives in Kobe. I think he is okay because I didn't see his name on the dead list. But unless he calls us, we have no way to contact him," Ioriya said.
The Japanese Consulate has
been a link for many Japanese nationals living in the U.S. The first week after the quake they received over 5,000 calls from people wanting to know what happened to their family and friends. The consulate supplies people with current lists of victims and have been directing calls from people who want to donate money to outside organizations like the Red Cross.
Nobue Watanabe, an undergraduate international relations major, said that her parents in Osaka were not injured in the uake, but there was minor amage to their home such as broken dishes and glasses. She said her family has sent money and her mother is going to Kobe to do what she can.
After seeing Kobe on television Watanabe said it was very disturbing; she hardly recognized the dty which is usually dominated by tall buildings.
"I have visited Kobe many times, and I know the dty very well, but it doesn't look like the place that I know, it has totally
changed," she said.
Another USC student, 23-year-old Hisako Yanaji, from Hi-gashi, Osaka City, had just returned to the United States from Japan on January 8. Though she missed the Kobe quake, she did experience last year's Northridge earthquake.
Like other Japanese students at USC, Yanaji was worried about her family back home after learning of the Kobe quake.
"I kept on calling (my parents) the whole night, and I couldn't get in touch with them ... I kept calling them, two or three times an hour; after eight hours I finally contacted them," she said.
Although her family lives a safe distance from the epicenter, her aunt's house was damaged severely and was forced to evacuate to a local hospital. She said Los Angeles seemed to react better to its 1994 quake than Japan did in the Kobe quake.
Her mother walked for two hours from the nearest train sta-
(See Kobe, page 13)
Homecoming for dance theater
Lula Washington's dance troupe, the Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Theater, returns to South Central to launch their 15th season with "This Lttle Light."
Diversions, page 8
Winning matter of chemistry
USC baseball coach Mike Gi-lespie will have to do his best professor impersonation in order to blend in a nucleus of veterans and group of newcomers to the team if the Trojans are to contend. Sports, page 16
Extremism: your horrors, defined
An unwillingness to accept and tolerate differing ideas and opinions, coupled with some devious mail fraud, has Hector Wong pondering the perils of political extremism, with pontifications a la Dennis Prager.
Viewpoint, page 4
USC policy for on-campus filming causes problems
By Allison Vana
Staff Writer
Although film crews are a common sight at USC, alumnus John Singleton's "Higher Learning" was not shot on campus because it failed to meet university administrative approval.
"We won't allow movies to be filmed on campus which contain explidt sex scenes, overt racism, violence, etc.," said David Giannovario, a film coordinator with USC Public Relations. "There were some problems with the content of the ("Higher Learning") script. And even though the university
in the movie wasn't USC, the way they portrayed the school would have been bad public relations for USC."
Singleton requested USC as a location in the fall of 1993, became upset when he was turned down and appealed unsuccessfully to other administrators, Giannovario said.
"We turn down projects if they portray a university in a bad way, even if the scenes aren't shot on campus," Giannovario said. "Then there are spe-cific polides that apply to each building. For example, if you want to film in Doheny, there is a rule that you can't make fun of librarians in the movie.
"One crew wanted to shoot a sex scene in the stacks of Doheny, and we wouldn't let them."
(See Filming, page 3)
And raw Puptua / Dally Trojan
Cameramen shoot on campus.
Singleton’s request denied
And raw Puplua I Datty Troian
The cast and crew of Fox’s Party of Five prepare for a scene at Bovard Auditorium In which Claudia (Lacey Chabert) has her first date.