The Michigan Daily - Thursday, April 5, 1990 - Page 5
Winter 1991 CRISP will give
preference to concentrators

by Ian Hoffman
Daily Staff Writer
Students registering for classes in
Winter term 1991 will be queued
with a slightly different priority
system than is presently used, said
Assistant LSA Dean David Schoem
yesterday.
Beginning with registration in
November, students will be divided
into eight credit-determined
categories, instead of the present
system of three categories.
The initiative for the new plan
came from the results of a survey
conducted two years ago by the LSA
Student Government (LSA-SG)
which showed students were
unsatisfied with the current
registration priority system, said
Jennifer Clough, president of LSA-
SG.
Clough said students who have
declared popular concentrations such
as political science or psychology
and are registering for their fourth
term at the University cannot get the

classes they need for their major
because they are already filled by
non-concentrators.
"Students who are sophomores
often have trouble registering for
classes they want for their
concentration because first-year
students are taking spaces one could
argue the sophomores deserve," said
Robert Wallin, director of
Checkpoint Counseling.
The plan will attempt to roughly
divide students into groups based on
the number of terms of credit they
have accumulated.
The categories in order of
ascending priority will be 0-24
credits, 25-39, 40-54, 55-69, 70-84,
75-99, and 100+ credits, according to
a press release issued from Schoem's
office.
While the CRISP system has
gone through many changes since its
introduction in 1973, Schoem called
the latest modification a minor one.

"It's a helpful change, more of a
refinement really, an attempt to fine
tune the registration system," said
Schoem.
Wallin agreed. "It's relatively
small in the scheme of things."
In addition to changing the
registration priority process, LSA-
SG and the Office of the Dean of
LSA will be working on other
CRISP problems, Clough said.
She said LSA-SG will analyze
the problems which arise when
classes are offered only at popular
times. She said a pre-registration
system, similar to one used at
Michigan State University which
measures the number of students
interested in individual courses, may
be instituted.
"It takes a long time to get
things done in this University," said
Clough. "This is definitely just the
first step."

Ready for action
Armored vehicles pass through Umlazi, yesterday, as faction fighting between the United Democratic Front and
Inkatha supporters continues in Natal province. Hundreds have lost their lives in recent weeks.

4

Panelists address issues of Great Lakes pollution

by Claudine Coulon
Time is running out to save the
Great Lakes, said J. D. Snyder, direc-
tor of the Michigan Office of the
Great Lakes. Snyder spoke with
three other panelists about their con-
cern over environmental damage to
the Great Lakes to 50 students in
Angell Hall last night.
The Great Lakes provide nearly
3.0 million people with drinking wa-
ter, lake fish for consumption, and
recreation. However, the increasing
use of pesticides and air pollutants

has jeopardized the ability for Great
Lakes basin residents to use the
lakes for anything besides a pic-
turesque view, panelists said.
Panelist Dr. Richard Liroff, se-
nior associate of the Conservation
Foundation, shocked students at the
discussion when he noted that nearly
90% of the water pollution and toxi-
city levels are a result of air pollu-
tion.
"A large proportion of DDT en-
tering the lakes is believed to come
from Central and South America,"

he said. But if we tell the Mexicans
they can't use DDT, then they are
going to ask us what they should do
about Malaria, and we just don't
have any alternatives to offer them
right now.
Liroff also mentioned the hazard
to anyone, especially pregnant
women, who eat lake fish. Children
of mothers who eat lake fish suffer
smaller skeletal structures, and short-
term memory problems, he said.
Yet J.D. Snyder saw the Great
Lakes clean-up issue "not as a matter

of international conflict, but a basis
on which we can begin international
cooperation."
Panelist Rebecca Leighton, a
Green Bay regional director of the
Lake Michigan Federation, won the
respect of the audience as she argued
for the need for grassroots interven-
tion in environmental issues.
"If there isn't individual and citi-
zen action, we won't see true
progress because by its nature, gov-
ernment can not work on it's own,"
Leighton said. The ultimate goal of

the Lake Michigan Federation is to
eliminate the discharge of toxins, in-
cluding mercury and lead, into Lake
Michigan, she added.
The fourth panelist, Dr. Michael
Parsons, director of Michigan Sea
Grant, is using education as a means
of solving the Great Lakes contami-
nation problems. "Education of stu-
dents to work on policy issues in the
future is the most important thing
we do," he said.
First-year student Katie Gibson
said she came to the panel discussion

Ping asserts strong,
Chinese leadership


BEIJING (AP) - A confident,
smiling Premier Li Peng asserted
yesterday that China's leadership is
united and strong and that the public
does not want a renewal of the mas-
sive pro-democracy protests of the
last year.
Li's comments to reporters were
iis first since the protests were
crushed in June. Also yesterday, the
Chinese Parliament wrapped up its
two-week annual session with mea-
sures calling for freer business prac-
tices but tougher law and order poli-
qies.
The 3,000-seat National People's
Congress, which largely rubber-
stamps decisions by top Communist
Party and government officials, also
gave final approval to the basic law
inder which Hong Kong will be
governed after Britain returns it to
China in 1997.
Legislators in Hong Kong imme-
diately said the law was not demo-
cratic enough and asked that it be

amended.
Li was among top leaders on the
rostrum at the congress' final meet-
ing in the Great Hall of the People.
Afterward, he told the annual post-
congress news conference that the
session was "inspiring and hearten-
ing."
The army killed hundreds and
possibly thousands of people in June
while crushing the pro-democracy
movement.
While other officials have lost
their tempers while answering for-
eign reporters' questions about the
killings, Li merely smiled and re-
fused to answer.
"Isn't this question out of date?"
he said when asked who gave the
army the order to shoot at protesters.
Li predicted that Beijing's
Tiananmen Square, at the center of
the protests, will remain peaceful to-
day. Today is when Chinese cele-
brate the Qing Ming Festival, a day
to honor the dead.

"because I live in the state of Michi-
gan and I go to the beaches." When
asked if she would ever eat lake fish
again, she replied, "Well, I don't re-
ally like fish anyway.."
WEEEND
MAGAZINE
Fridays in The Daily
763-0379
Clean-air
controls
meet
objectioni
WASHINGTON (AP) - Au-i
tomakers said yesterday the clean-air
bill approved by the Senate is too
tough on their industry in spite of
the defeat of amendments that would
have imposed even stricter auto pol-
lution controls.
"These requirements are even
tougher than those adopted for the
mid-1990s after careful study by Cal-
ifornia, the state where the need is
greatest," the Motor Vehicle Man-
facturers Association said in a state-
ment.
The association which represents
the Big Three U.S. automakers, said
it would push for concessions as the
House continues working on its ver-
sion of the bill. The Senate approved
its bill Tuesday night, 89-11.
Senators Carl Levin and Donald
Riegle, both Michigan Democrats
said the Senate bill strikes the proper
balance between clean air and indus-
try needs. Both voted for it.
"The bill is tough, but fair to the
auto industry. It identifies the chief
polluters and requires them to use.
the most effective pollution-control
equipment available. It's also going,
to help keep acid rain out of Michi-
gan and clean up the Great Lakes,"
Riegle said.
The bill would require a 39 per-
cent reduction in tailpipe emissions
of hydrocarbons and a 60 percent cut
in nitrogen oxides by 1995. Both
gases are leading components of
smog, unhealthy levels of which
have been recorded in more than 100
cities.
An additional 50 percent cut in
both would be required if 12 of the
27 cities now considered seriously
polluted continue to violate health
standards for smog in the year 2001.
The House bill requires only that
automakers show they are capable of
producing 1 million clean-fuel cars
by 1997.
The industry contends that tech-
nology to build cars that meet the
second-tier emission standards is in
its infancy. Automakers also have
voiced concern that the alternative-
fuel provisions would force them to
build cars that consumers wouldn't
by.
The Senate defeated amendments
that would have demanded even

Disabled protest
Invalids and disabled people attend a
Vilnius, Lithuania, yesterday, at left a
independence.

protest meeting in front of the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet building in
protester proclaims in sign language their support for Lithuanian


_i

Living will issue continues to ignite controversy

By Ruth Littmann
Daily Staff Writer
Death isn't a popular conversa-
tion topic, say some University
Medical Center faculty.
"It's taboo to talk about death in
this country," said Dr. Richard
Swartz, a professor of internal
medicine and kidney specialist at the
University Medical Center. "When
gomeone is sick, they're afraid to
tplk about dying."
Swartz believes people can
broach the topic with advance direc-
tives - documents giving doctors
durable power of attorney to decide
when a patient's treatment should be
terminated.
A specific type of advance direc-
tive, the living will, is a document
many people draft while still
healthy. In the will people outline
qnditions under which they would

want medical professionals to dis-
continue or forego treatment.
Advance directives have been the
target of national controversy for
over a decade. Though the American
Medical Association (AMA) sup-
ports them, right-to-life groups and
some legislators are concerned they
will make it too easy to "pull the
plug."
Though currently allowed in
Michigan, advance directives are not
legally-binding. Last Tuesday, a
House decision on Representative
Perry Bullard's (D-Ann Arbor) right-
to-die bill was stalled due to contro-
versy. The bill would legalize one
type of advance directive, a measure
many doctors believe is necessary to
protect medical professionals against
lawsuits. Similar bills have been
pending in Lansing for almost 16
years.

University Medical Center peer
counselor Sally Joy - who has dia-
betes and received a kidney transplant
- drafted a living will and believes
everyone should have an advance di-
rective.
"What if my chronic illness takes
me down the path of getting sicker
and sicker?" she asked. "I want to be
able to say, 'No thanks. I don't want
treatment anymore."'"
Joy and Swartz agreed that when
a patient is fatally ill and medical
treatment is more painful than help-
ful, the patient, doctors and family
members might decide to terminate
treatment.
The advanced directive is "a way
of facing the future in a reasonable
way," Swartz said.
"I've decided that I'd rather talk
about it now - when I've got all
my marbles," Joy added.

Swartz, Joy, and University so-
cial worker Mary Norris emphasized
that the final decision to terminate
treatment should rest with the pa-
tient, doctor, and families - not
with the courts.
"I don't think families should
have to go to court to force the med-
ical professionals to withdraw treat-
ment." said Norris. "When a per-
son's health begins to fail dramati-
cally, we need to begin to talk to pa-
tients and families about how they
will judge when enough is enough."
Opposition to advance directives
comes on several fronts.
Pat Rose, a Washtenaw County
Right-to-Life member, said advance
directives are "too vague."
"There is no way that you can
make a will ahead of time that would
cover all possibilities," she said.
Yet some object to living wills

for religious reasons. "No one has
the right to state that they have a
right to die... God is the author and
taker of life," said Pastor David
Jones of Ann Arbor's Bethany Bible
Church.
Others have reservations about
advance directives because they say it
is impossible to determine a
"hopeless situation."
"There are rare instances where a
person recovers and comes back to a
functioning, but not necessarily
normal individual," said State Repre-
sentative Robert DeMars. "We
should allow for those instances."
Joy responded, "People have dif-
fering definitions of hopeless, but in
my mind, there's some kind of sta-
tistical bias that says when chances
are I won't have a reversal and get
better, I'll gamble and say: I quit!"

Panelists address women's views on the environment

Oy Erica Kohnke
Women's "perceptive and sensi-
tive" perspective of nature should be
a'herished by environmentalists, said
Mary Sinclair, a doctoral candidate in
the School of Natural Resources,
yesterday. Sinclair was one of three
panelists who spoke to about 30

ronmental activists, giving advice on
how to increase awareness about en-
vironmental problems. The speakers
also stressed the political views sur-
rounding environmental problems
and explained how women can effec-
tively participate in these politics.
"Trust your inner voice on the is-

frivolous and silly, you know the
problem is there," Ackerman added.
Perfecto used the examples of the
plight of the rainforests in Central
America, which are raided by impov-
erished, displaced farmers, and the
degradation of the environment
caused by overuse of pesticides to

environmentalists must work on the
grassroots level. "Always keep your
cool, and know your facts."
Sinclair was named as a Ms.
Magazine "Woman of the Year" in
1985 for her grassroots efforts which
helped to eliminate some legislation
which made private nuclear waste a

public responsibility on a state
level.
"Women's perspectives (and the
environment) weren't thoroughly
combined, although I enjoyed the
feminism integrated within the dis-
cussion," LSA senior John Seavitt
said about the panel.

I