Is CTIVIS DE D? See Weekend Magazine Vol. XCVI - No. 121 Copyright 1986, The Michigan Dail 4ir .4.,firbi 9 ttn IE3aIIQ Ninety-six years of editorialfreedom Ann Arbor. Michiaan - Friday. March 28, 1986 Ten Pages n ....r .....v. .......' . ...... . .. .. Muenchow takes MSA election By MARY CHRIS JAKLEVIC Meadow party candidates Kurt Muenchow and Darrell Thompson emerged as the new executive officers of the Michigan Student Assembly during yesterday's tabulations after a close battle with the Student Rights party candidates. Muenchow and Thompson, who will take over as president and vice president, respectively, will lead an assembly split between the more con- servative Meadow candidates and the Applwants to answer RA offers. today By EVE BECKER Students who were offered resident. advisor positions for next year must respond by today due to a more ef- ficient selection process developed this year. The new process cut a mon- th off the time it usually takes to select RAs. The Housing Division implemented a centralized process in an effort to standardize the RA application process. Instead of sending applicants all over campus to interview at all the dormitories they're interested in, the new system focuses on candidates' performances in two informal classes in programming and crisis interven- tion in residence halls. ANOTHER CHANGE means that applicants. will receive no more than one job offer. In the past, it was com- mon for some candidates to receive offers from several dorms, which prolonged the selection process because the openings that were tur- ned down had to be filled by applican- ts on a waiting list. Alan Levy, building director for See MORE, Page .5 more liberal Student Rights can-' didates, as well as numerous in- dependent and write-in represen- tatives. WITH 1996 votes, the Meadow ticket beat out Student Rights candidates Jen Faigel and Mark Weisbrot, who had 1,844 votes. Muenchow is a senior in the School of Natural Resources, and Thompson is an LSA junior. The new assembly will take over in two weeks. INDEPENDENT candidates Kurt VarnHagen and Steve Savoy earned 179 votes, and Indispensable can- didates Mark Soble and Marc Strecker received 161. All figures are based on preliminary counts, and results will not be certified until after a recount is completed over the weekend. Total voter turnout was 4,889 students, whichwasslightly lower than election officials and candidates expected, and about 1,000 fewer than last year. MEADOW PARTY candidates took every representat e seat for the College of Engineering, which is a moderate and conservative stronghold. The strong turnout of engineering students at the polls, an estimated 25 percent of the college, helped to swing the election in favor of the Meadow presidential ticket. The Student Rights party fared well in Rackham, where its candidates took six out of the seven represen- tative seats. RESULTS of the LSA race have not yet been determined, but election workers indicated last night that both Student Rights and Meadow will earn some of the 18 LSA seats. This year's election was marked by hostilties between the Student Rights and Meadow parties, which some fear may make cooperation between the new representatives difficult to achieve. "Students attacking students is! exactly what the administration likes. to see. We can't afford to continue in- fighting," Faigel said yesterday. FAIGEL, who has worked on the MSA Women's Issues Committee for two years, has not decided if she will continue her work under the new assembly. Faigel said the Meadow party's at-, tempt at "red-baiting" Student Rights See MUENCHOW, Page 5 'U' Council makes progress By KERY MURAKAMI The University Council yesterday informally finished its recommendations on how the University should deal with life-threatening crimes. The council, which has been working for more than a year on an alternative to the controversial code of non-academic conduct, will meet again next week to polish its proposals. COUNCILMEMBERS will then formally release th'e "procedures for handling violent acts" for input by others at the University, including the Michigan Student Assembly. The assembly has rejected six proposals written by the University administration or previous councils for a set of guidelines on student behavior outside academics. Students opposed to the code have said that police, not the University, should deal with crimes ranging from murder to civil disobedience. The council is expected to discussopposition and suggestions from around the University before formally presenting the University's executive of- ficers with its plan in the fall. BEFORE September, councilmembers also plan to form recorriendations on how the University should deal with non-life threatening crimes. But the "emergency procedures" currently being discussed are only meant to "protect members of the University community from violent acts, in- cluding arson, or the threat of such acts." Last week councilmembers agreed that after a student is accused of a violent crime, a University + k Doily Photo by ANDI SCHREIBER Benched Ann Arbor resident Kenneth Bischoff rests in the spring sun on a Liberty Plaza bench yesterday. See 'U,' Page8 Hunger expert says mistrust of Nicaragua is By JOSEPH PIGOTT Americans suspicions about Nicaragua's Sandinista government are unwarranted and based on misinfor- mation, world hunger expert Francis Moore Lappe said last night. Lappe, author of-Diet for Small Planet and Food First, spoke in Rackham Auditorium of about 350. The crowd interrupted her several times with applause and rose to a standing ovation at the end of the speech. ACCORDING to Lappe, new land reform laws and a national assembly give Nicaraguans freedom they did not have under the Somoza regime. "What we see in Nicaragua is not a fiat pushing the peasants in a radical direction, but the peasants deman- 'misinformed' ding certain base rights denied to them before," she said. Lappe condemned the Reagan Administration's policy in Nicaragua and urged Americans to help remove the ob- stacles to democracy for the Nicaraguan people. . "MORAL courage is required to say the unpopular, to say the emperor has no clothes, to say that the President is lying through his teeth," Lappe said. Lappe defended the Nicaraguan government's human rights violations and press censorship. Although Nicaraguan troops have committed abuses, all the responsible parties have been put in prison; the Contra See LAPPE, Page 3 Oil prices continue plunge as OPEC fails Lappe ...speaks on hunger Robert Kennedy killer denied parole By PHILIP LEVY Because of increased oil production levels, the price of crude oil has been falling since last November, affecting gasoline prices at local service stations. Within the past few months, prices at the pump have fallen from approximately $1.20 per gallon to around 80 cents per gallon. Last week the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) attempted to reach a production cutback agreement that would stop the plunge of crude oil prices, but the meeting broke up Monday in failure. ALMOST immediately after the meeting, the price of crude oil fell, and analysts are predicting that the price decline will continue. The price of crude oil is fast ap- proaching pre-1973 levels, after ad- justment for inflation. In 1973, the OPEC nations started an embargo that sent prices skyrocketing. While crude oil prices have more than halved in recent months, con- sumer gas prices have not. Tony Canino, spokesman for Shell Oil Co., explained that the crude oil price is only one of several factors that determine the final price of gasoline. FOR EXAMPLE, the gasoline that ends up in Ann Arbor originates as crude oil from domestic or foreign wells. It is then refined into gasoline and transported by pipeline to a regional distributor, who distributes the product to independently owned dealerships. The costs of all these in- termediate processes have remained stable, cushioning the fall in the overall price. Because of the time in- volved in producing and transporting gasoline, it may take up to three weeks for a fall in crude oil prices to be reflected at gas stations. Difficulty in enforcing production agreements led to OPEC's recent failure, said Theodore Bergstrom, a University economics professor. "Economists were surprised that OPEC had as much power as it did for as long as it did," he said. According to University economics prof. Stephen Salant, OPEC aimed its 1973 embargo at countries such as the United States that supported Israel in the Arab-Israeli war that year. The OPEC nations cut production, but could not direct the embargo at the See OPEC, Page 2 SOLEDAD, Calif (AP) - Sirhan Sirhan was denied parole for the * eighth time yesterday, and the parole board called the 1968 murder of Sen. Robert Kennedy "An attack on the aemocratic system of the United States." The convicted assassin flinched as the ruling was announced. His eyes appeared to fill with tears as he listened to the board's statement, which called for him to undergo inten- sive psychiatric testing and therapy and to be transferred to the state medical facility at Vacaville. Sirhan, who will have another hearing next year, apologized to the parole panel during a hearing, but a prosecutor argued the Jordanian im- migrant should not be freed because his crime was "an enormous offense against the American people." "I'm sorry it happened," said Sirhan, 42. "I wish it had never hap- pened." Los Angles Deputy District Attor- ney Larry Trapp told the panel, the eighth to consider freedom for Sirhan since he first was eligible for parole in 1975, that it should "send out the message this is a crime that will never be tolerated or treated with mitigation." "This was not an average homicide," Trapp said as the morning hearing ended. "It touched an entire nation. It affected the entire political fabric of the nation.'' Kennedy was appearing at a cam- paign event at a Los Angeles hotel during his bid for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination when he was slain. Attorney Luke McKissack, who represented Sirhan at the panel meeting at Soledad prison, said his client has learned political assassination can't solve the Middle East's problems. "Sirhan is ready for release and I will encourage you to set him free as soon as possible," he said. But Trapp suggested that Sirhan, who premeditated and planned the killing, could kill again. TODAY- Return to sender EING A MAIL-ORDER bride wasn't what Jill Bewdock had perhaps expected, and she says Tom Williams can go back to Alaska But she said Wednesday, "Me and Tom, it just didn't click." Their three-month romance gained attention after she answered an ad by Williams for mail-order brides for him and several men in remote Paystreke. They were developing a Gold Rush-era mining camp there to attract tourists. She said she left because it was too lonely and there weren't many modern con- veniences. She said she is writing a book about their Wednesday, said she's not spending any of it on 10- year-old Stray. And she said she's not going to let her husband retire early, either. "I don't want him hanging around the house. The dog and the kids are enough," she said as she accepted the check from actor Lorne Greene, who appears in Alpo commercials. However, McCaskey did say she'd venture some of the cash on a trip to Las Vegas "to see if I'm hot." She won the money --INSIDE INVASION?: Opinion questions Nicaraguan in- cursion. See Page 4. ROMANTIC: Violinist Ricci brought back a _ *w ** A e A P A na DanSP a7_ i i r