Student Newspaper of the University of Southern California Since 1912 | www.dailytrojan.com | VOL. 165, NO. 44 | Monday October 27, 2008
InDEX
2 · News Digest
4 · Opinion
7 · Lifestyle
11 · Sudoku
12 · Classifieds
16 · Sports
Depression Depicted: Clint
Eastwood’s Changeling” isn’t
the director’s best. PAGE 7
Sizing up the student vote:
Check out the Daily Trojan voter
guide in tomorrow’s paper.
By alexandra tilsley
Daily Trojan
USC’s chapter of the Korean American
Pharmacy Student Association hosted a
health fair Saturday — the second culture-specific
fair this month — aimed at spread-ing
health awareness to members of the Los
Angeles Korean community and providing
basic health accommodations.
Earlier this month, the Vietnamese
American Pharmacy Student Association
hosted a similar fair aimed at the Vietnamese
community. Both events were manned by
students from the USC School of Pharmacy.
About 100 students volunteered at
Saturday’s fair and helped run screenings
and administer flu shots. Additionally, two
School of Pharmacy faculty advisers, Dr.
Susie Park and Dr. Emily Han, helped with
the immunizations and diabetes screen-ings.
Eleven professional pharmacists also
volunteered at the fair’s booths.
The services available to patients at the
fair included screenings for osteoporosis,
hypertension, diabetes, cholesterol and
body fat, as well as free flu shots. There were
also information booths aimed to educate
the Korean population about health risks
they might not otherwise know about.
Nick Choi, a pharmacy doctoral student
and KAPSA’s co-director of professional
projects, said in an effort to make the fair
run smoother and to increase awareness,
patients visiting the health fair were re-quired
to at least look at some information-al
booths before receiving their flu shots.
“There are a lot of people with only
A shot in the arm for Korean community
Students volunteered for a health fair,
the second targeted at minorities.
| see fair, page 11 |
By CA T HERINE LYONS
Daily Trojan
Victory Headquarters is hard to miss. Alongside a
giant window sticker of Gov. Sarah Palin’s smiling face
and Sen. John McCain’s austere visage are American
flags, strung from the headquarters’ second-floor bal-cony
overlooking Hawthorne Boulevard.
The McCain headquarters in Torrance, Calif., lo-cated
in a suburban strip mall, consists of one large
room directly above “The Healthy Bean” coffee shop,
and the room was bustling with volunteers Saturday
afternoon. Pro-McCain signs and editorial cartoons
cover the office walls, “Yes on Prop 8” yard signs lie
strewn on a table and volunteers showcase the latest
McCain-Palin merchandise.
Throughout the room, phone bankers sit at plas-tic
collapsible tables with their cell phones in hand,
checking off as many phone numbers on their lists as
possible.
“We’ve made 4,063 calls today!” said Pete Kesterson,
chair of the 53rd Assembly District for the McCain
campaign. The volunteers clapped and cheered. “We
have to make at least 2,000 more calls today. Keep
fighting the fight! We can only win this with you.”
The diverse group of volunteers, who ranged in age,
turned back to their cell phones and continued call-ing.
Though California has voted Democratic in the last
four presidential elections, Kesterson thinks McCain
can pull off a victory in California.
“We think we’ve got a shot in California, and we
know Obama doesn’t think we do,” Kesterson said.
“We’d like to keep it that way.”
To gain the necessary support for McCain to
win in California, Kesterson and his team of vol-unteers
spend their weeks phone banking and pre-cinct
walking to generate votes for McCain and for
local Republican candidates such as Tom Vidal, run-ning
for assemblyman of the 53rd District and Wendy
At McCain
HQ, this one
ain’t over yet
Polls show McCain is all but done in California,
but workers at headquarters aim for an upset.
| see mccain, page 6 |
By callie schweitzer
Daily Trojan
A commission judge has ruled
that the contractors of the new
Expo Rail Line cannot build a
pair of controversial crossings for
the train at street level.
The California Public Utilities
Commission Judge Kenneth
Koss denied the request of Expo
Authority, which is construct-ing
the line, to build a street level
crossing at Farmdale Avenue. He
also denied the request to build a
rail line over an existing pedestri-an
tunnel at Harvard Boulevard.
The Expo Rail Line has 38
crossings, 36 of which have been
approved. The final two have
created controversy because
of their proximity to neighbor-hood
schools, including Foshay
Learning Center and Dorsey High
School. Some community leaders
have argued the crossings would
disrupt the school day and pose
safety risks for the thousands of
students who would cross each
day. Damien Goodmon, coordina-tor
of the Citizens’ Campaign to
Fix the Expo Rail Line, a coalition
of local residents, administrators,
teachers and students, said he
was “jubilant” when he heard the
judge’s decision.
“It was the first time this com-mission
officially told the Expo
Authority that its designs were
not safe,” he said. “Rail safety ex-perts,
USC employees and the
community have been saying this
for decades. It was good to see the
judge recognize it at these two
Commission judge blocks light rail work at crossings
A judge agreed with some
residents who think the rail
would run too close to schools.
| see crossings, page 6 |
By jennifer smith
Daily Trojan
A student was robbed at gun-point
in the parking lot of a Row
sorority house Saturday night, an
armed robbery that police said
might have been linked to another
just 15 minutes later.
The female student was walking
north on University Avenue at 7:40
p.m. when she was approached by a
suspect in the parking lot of Alpha
Delta Phi, a sorority on The Row,
Department of Public Safety Capt.
Dave Carlisle said.
Pair of armed
robberies may
be related
A student was robbed at
gunpoint in parking lot of
Alpha Delta Phi, DPS says.
| see robbery, page 11 |
Nathaniel Gonzalez | Daily Trojan
120 over 70 · Students from the USC School of Pharmacy administered checkups for members of the Korean community.
8
Days Until
Election
COUNTDOWN
Disputed Expo Rail Stops
In a nonbinding
decision, a judge
advised that the
two crossings be
elevated or placed
below ground.
Courtesy of Google Maps