ONLINE EXCLUSIVE See photos of Dwight Lewis, a rising USC men’s basketball star.
Student Newspaper of the University of Southern California Since 1912 | VOL. 163, NO. 10 | www.dailytrojan.com WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30, 2008
From hitler to playboy
Annenberg exhibit traces magazine covers as they
grow and change through the years. 5
Strong start
The No. 6 USC men’s tennis team
wins its third straight dual
match of the season. 12
Climate Change
Guest lecturer Dale Jamieson
said climate change is more than
just an environmental problem,
but a moral problem as well.
In an lecture given for the
Levan Institute for Humanities
and Ethics, Jamieson combined
his knowledge of philosophy and
environment to shed new light on
the issue.
Above: In a passionate speech
about climate change, Jamieson
tells students in Doheny Memorial
Librabry about the future of the
planet. SEE PAGE 3
WARMING UP
LAUSD to build
fewer schools
By NICOLE DAILO
Daily Trojan
The Los Angeles Unified School
District’s plan to scale back its
$20 billion school construction
and renovation program is ex-pected
to affect schools through-out
the district, including those
that belong to the USC Family of
Schools.
The program, conceived in 1997,
relies on state and local bond mea-sures
for funding which originally
included plans to build 150 new
schools.
After significant decreases in
enrollment, LAUSD has decided
to downsize the construction to
132 schools.
“It’s been a program that’s
evolved over time, and that evolu-tion
has included identifying new
projects,” said Ed Van Ginkel, se-nior
development manager at the
facilities division of LAUSD. “We
revised our program because of
shifts in demographics and differ-ent
goals that the district is trying
to achieve.”
Those goals include stopping
the practice of involuntary stu-dent
busing and standardizing the
academic calendar throughout the
district, Van Ginkel said. Some
schools remain in session for a
shorter period of time than others,
and many are on a year-round sys-tem
because of overcrowding.
James A. Foshay Learning Cen-ter,
a member of the Family of
Schools, is one of the institutions
whose high enrollment requires it
to use a year-round system. The
school has 3,500 students, but can
only accommodate 2,400 at one
time.
“As a year-round school, as an
overcrowded school, we have any-where
from eight to 17 teachers
who have no classrooms. We have
more staff than classroom space,”
Assistant Principal Dimone Wat-son
said.
Decreased enrollment, Watson
acknowledged LAUSD’s trend,
but said it was no reason to stop
construction of new schools, es-pecially
since overcrowding is still
a significant problem in many ar-eas.
“Because property values have
gone up, people can’t afford to
move out. People are staying, so
we’re starting to exhaust kids. You
can’t just clear ground and leave
LAUSD enrollment
drops, but officials say
overcrowding is a problem.
| see LAUSD, page 2 |
Former USC student’s
music website a hit
By TAREN FUJIMOTO
Daily Trojan
As a senior in the School of Cine-matic
Arts with one semester left un-til
graduation, James Miao decided to
take a leave of absence — to develop
a music website.
The website, called thesixtyone, is
a music discovery game that launched
this December.
“I knew if I continued on, I would
have to take a job that I didn’t want,”
said Miao, a former Interactive Media
Division student. “If I do something,
I need to do it really well.”
Miao created thesixtyone with the
help of California Institute of Tech-nology
graduate and friend Samuel
Hsiung. They named it after High-way
61, the road Elvis, B.B. King and
Bob Dylan traveled on to play and
share their music with the world.
The website, which he called a “col-laborative
filter based on user taste,”
rewards members of the online com-munity
who help others listen to
good music.
Musicians from different genres
add their music to the site, and lis-teners
can choose to bump up a
song’s popularity. Users are not able
to bump down a song because a song
that does not get bumped up by lis-teners
speaks for itself, Miao said.
Each time a person bumps a song,
it costs them points, but if other
listeners bump the same songs, the
person earns points. Collecting more
points increases a person’s skill level.
Points drive interaction and are like
virtual currency, Miao said.
Miao, who was a residential advi-sor
at the time, he took a break from
college. He said his decision to leave
school shocked his friends and resi-dents.
“It was really awkward at the
time,” he said. “While people were
moving in, I was sitting there packing
all my stuff.”
Miao said he wrote a letter explain-ing
why he left school to stop rumors
circulating about his disappearance,
­­which
included everything from aca-demic
trouble to death.
But Miao said he had been think-ing
about leaving school since his
sophomore year of college. After
Website allows listeners to
promote music in an online
community.
| see music, page 11 |
DPS to increase use of security cameras
By CALLIE SCHWEITZER
Daily Trojan
Surveillance cameras recording
the neighborhood surrounding cam-pus
have contributed to a reduction
of crime at USC over the past year
and a half, Department of Public
Safety officials said. The cameras
have been so effective that plans are
in the works to have as many as 70
cameras recording the surrounding
neighborhood, DPS Chief Carey
Drayton said.
One DPS officer watching a closed
circuit surveillance camera noticed
two males acting suspiciously near
Jefferson Boulevard and Orchard
Avenue early last Monday morning,
DPS Capt. Dave Carlisle said.
At approximately 1:20 a.m., the of-ficer
reported the behavior to patrol
officers who sent another officer to
the scene. The officer then detained
one of the suspects and the other
was detained when additional offi-cers
were called into the area, Carlisle
said.
DPS officers discovered that the
suspects, men ages 18 to 20, had just
robbed a victim who was a nonstu-dent
and not a member of USC fac-ulty
or staff.
DPS recovered the victim’s prop-erty
and a handgun from one of the
suspects, Carlisle said. In addition,
one of the suspects was riding a re-portedly
stolen student bicycle.
“I’m pleased that our officers saw
these two on the surveillance camera
and were able to call our officers to
the scene,” Carlisle said. “To me it’s
just an example of the value of those
cameras.”
Once the suspects were detained
and arrested by DPS officers, Los
Angeles Police Department officers
arrived at the scene and took over the
investigation. The suspects were then
transferred to the Southwest Divi-sion
Station where they were charged
with armed robbery, and an addition-al
charge of receiving stolen property,
was filed against the suspect with the
bicycle.
Drayton said the DPS cameras
would only continue to improve to
help them make similar arrests.
“We let where crime is occurring
drive where we place the cameras,”
he said.
Drayton said the 15 cameras DPS
currently has installed are used to
survey the areas surrounding campus
and detect people committing crimi-nal
acts such as robbery and tag.
DPS Officer Sonya Hudson, who
was at the incident at Jefferson and
Security cameras around
the USC campus help to
decrease crime, DPS says.
| see cameras, page 11 |
SPORTS |
The USC squash
team heads to the
West Coast Collegiate
Invitation. PAGE 15
LIFESTYLE |
Columnist Patrick
Skelly lists the
10 toughest film
characters. PAGE 7