The Michigan Daily -Monday, November 26, 1990- Page 3

Engler
plans to
!overhaul
prisons
LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Gov.
elect John Engler plans a top-to-bot-
tom overhaul of Michigan's correc-
tions system, starting with the
ouster of director Robert Brown.
But the Engler administration
can't directly force Brown's resigna-
tion, since he was named to the post
by the corrections commission.
Engler spokesperson John Truscott
said.
t Gov. James J. Blanchard ap-
pointed the commission, which con-
trols the state's largest department.
The corrections system has 13,339
employees.
"There's been a lot of misman-
agement over there. There's been a
breakdown in the system," Truscott
said.
Corrections department
spokesperson Leo Lalonde said
Brown wouldn't discuss the matter.
Truscott said that leaves the decision
to the commission.
"We have said we would like
someone new who could run the de-
partment better and eliminate some
of the problems that have occurred
over the last several year," Truscott
said.
Recent problems include the early
release of drug dealers who mistak-
enly were given sentence reductions
for "good behavior" from several
*days to several months. The releases
sparked an investigation this week
by the lame-duck Blanchard
administration.
Blanchard ails ordered corrections
officials to round up the dealers. By
late Tuesday, 62 people were re-
turned to finish minimum terms.
Other incidents include a deputy
warden included a deputy warden at
the State Prison of Southern
Michigan pleading guilty February
to accepting a bribe to arrange an
inmates transfer. An official at
,Huron Valley Men's Facility was
fired after he lost the prison's master
key.
- Aside from Brown's resignation,
Engler wants cutbacks in the $770
million corrections budget, about 7
percent of the state's total 1990
expenditures.
He wants to stop building expen-
sive prisons and put more emphasis
on less-costly community core-
tions centers and boot camps, work
camps in which inmates can reduce
their terms.
No decision has been made on the
idea of turning over prison manage-
ment to private companies and
whether Engler will end Blanchard's
moratorium on 90-day sentence re-
ductions to ease chronic crowding.
"We're going to be very clear on
our policies," Truscott said. "John
Engler is action and not rhetoric.
Governor Blanchard spoke about be-

ing tough, but the action wasn't
there."
Although spending will be pared,
which areas will go under the knife
remain under debate, Truscott said.
"We haven't made any decisions
as far as what will be cut and what
will be kept," he said. "But one
thing we have said is that we're


Assailant fires at
Israeli bus, kills four

EILAT, Israel (AP) - A man with a
gun slipped across the Egyptian border
yesterday and fired an automatic rifle at a bus
and three military vehicles, killing four
Israelis and wounding 27, the army said.
The attack was the third from Arab
territory in two days. At least four
Palestinians were killed and two Israeli
soldiers injured in Israel's self-declared
security zone in southern Lebanon and off
the Mediterranean coast.
The dead in the border attack, three
soldiers and a civilian bus driver, were shot
on a road running along the Israeli-Egyptian
border about 15 miles northwest of the
Israeli Red Sea resort of Eilat, the army said.
It said most of the wounded were civilian
workers at an Israeli air base.

The man, who was described as wearing a
uniform, escaped back into Egypt. He was
shot by an Israeli security guard and trailing
blood the army said.
An Israeli army patrol chased him, firin,
but did not pursue him across the frontier,
the army said.
A senior Egyptian security source in
Cairo said an Egyptian border policeman
stationed in the area had been arrested as the
suspected assailant.
Israeli army radio said the assailant's
blood stained flak jacket with "Allah"
written on it was found in the area. It said
the attack was claimed by the Moslem
Fundamentalist group Islamic Holy War-
Jerusalem in a statement issued in Amman,
Jordan.

Potent cooler marketed

College Press Service
A powerful new "fortified" wine
reportedly is gaining popularity among
college students, prompting several national
alcoholism education groups to issue
warnings on campuses in recent weeks.
The wine Cisco, which some students
refer to as "liquid crack" because of its
strength, is becoming a preferred drink
among college students "in some places"
because it offers "a cheap and powerful
high," said Jeffrey Hon of the National
Council on Alcoholism and Drug
Dependency.
The group circulated letters about Cisco
at the State University of New York
(SUNY) College at Brockport recently,
warning students of its effects.
BACCHUS International, another
campus alcohol awareness group, is
planning to send letters to its campus
chapters to warn them of Cisco's new
popularity.

"Cisco is a fortified wine product beiig
marketed as a wine cooler," agreed Hon.
Like wine coolers, Cisco comes in 12-
ounce bottles and flavors like red, peach,
orange, berry and gold.
In a statement, the Canadaigua Wine
Company in New York, makers of Cisco,
denied it is marketing the product as a wine
cooler.
"Cisco is higher-priced than low-alcohol
wine coolers and is not sold in four-packs.
Moreover, it is clearly labeled '20 percent
alcohol by volume,"' the statement says.
One bottle of Cisco is equal to five shots
of vodka, enough to make a person 150
pounds or less legally drunk in every state
except Georgia, Hon said.
Drinking two bottles in less than an hour
could kill a person of 100 pounds or less, he
asserted.
"We're alerting individuals of the
possible dangers" of consuming Cisco, said
Joe Franek, SUNY's director of residential
life.

Holiday decorating
Larry Vasquez hangs garland with light-up bells at the Liberty Street parking structure. He
spent all day making the structure look ready for the Holidays.
Gortari welcomes Bush

to Mexico City to

discuss improved relations

MEXICO CITY (AP) -
President Carlos Salinas de Gortari
welcomes President Bush to his
hometown today for a discussion ex-
pected to center on developing closer
relations through trade.
The two nations are negotiating a
free trade agreement, which Salinas
hopes will help Mexico grow out of
the Third World into the ranks of de-
veloped nations.
Bush is to arrive in Monterrey

about noon and travel 55 miles by
helicopter to Agualeguas, the
Salinas family hometown of 5,000
people, where they will attend a
rodeo and meet privately for two
hours. They plan to return to
Monterrey afterward.
Another private meeting is
scheduled for Wednesday, and Bush
will speak to businesspeople in
Monterrey, the country's industrial
capital.

A Mexican bishop was quoted re-
cently as saying: "it is like dealing
with sharks" to negotiate a free trade
arrangement with the United States,
but a government official said:
"Bishops don't know much about
economy."
The official, speaking anony-
mously, said the Salinas government
feels it can strike a satisfactory deal
with the United States.
Otto Granados, the presidential

through
press spokesperson, said: "We think
that within a year we can have the
basis of the agreement."
Salinas hopes Mexican industrial-
ists can produce more and better
products to compete with an ex-
pected flood of American-made
goods, and also find markets in the
United States. Years of hiding be-
hind high tariff walls has hurt the
competitive ability of some Mexican
companies.

rade
"Ten years ago, if a Mexican
president had suggested a free trade
agreement with the United States,
people would have hanged him in
the middle of the main plaza," a high
government official said, on the con-
dition of anonymity.
"I think Mexican society has ma-
tured," Granados said. "There is less
fear of the United States and we have
a more pragmatic vision of our relg-
tionship with the United States."


Students nestled on fault line celebrate predicted quake

*

College Press Service
At Southeast Missouri State
University, December 3 is a student
theme party. They're calling it the
"It's Not Our Fault" gala.
At Memphis State University, a
local bar called The Fault Line is
running an Earthquake Escape trip
contest, to be settled in time for the
lucky winner to get out of town by
Dec. 3.
"I think as December 3 gets here
there will be a panic," said Mary
Robinson, a student at Shelby State
Community College in Memphis.
December 3, it turns out, is the
day one scientist has predicted a gi-
ant, destructive earthquake will heave
through the central Midwest. While
earthquakes are notoriously difficult
to predict, many residents clearly are
worried.

For the approximately 980,000
college students in the region, the
prospect of a term-ending earthquake
has lent this semester a strange un-
easiness.
"One of our residence halls sits
on the fault," said Vicki Nenninger,
a student at Southeast Missouri in
Cape Girardeau. Students who live
there "are worried about it."
"Most students are taking the at-
titude: if it happens, it happens,"
Nenninger added.
The countdown began when Dr. Iben
Browning, a climatologist who lives
in New Mexico, predicted there is a
50-50 chance of an earthquake of at
least a seven magnitude on the
Richter scale occurring along the
New Madrid fault on Dec. 3, give or
take two days.
The earthquake that struck the

San Francisco area last October mea-
sured 7.1 on the Richter scale.
Browning focused on the increas-
ingly unstable, 120-mile New
Madrid fault, which starts in south-
ern Illinois and continues through
southeast Missouri, northwest
Tennessee and northeast Arkansas. It
causes two major earthquakes in
1811 and 1812. Both were stronger
than eight on the Richter scale.
More recently, tremors of 4.6 and
2.6 respectively originated at the
fault on Sept. 26 and Oct. 30, shak-
ing up many Missouri residents.
While earthquakes in the area
may not be unusual, what is unusual
is how seriously Midwest residents
are taking this prediction.
As a result of Browning's fore-
cast, at least nine school districts in

Arkansas, Missouri, and Kentucky
are giving students December 3 and
4 off.
However, colleges and universi-
ties in the area are not following
suit.
"I'm not aware of any (special
plans for Dec. 3) at the moment,"
said John Lynch, spokesperson for
Shelby State.
Administrators at Murray State
University in Kentucky used the pre-
diction to address the school's level
of earthquake preparedness, but are
not canceling school, reported uni-
versity spokesperson Dwain
McIntosh.
"This projection has heightened
everyone's awareness" of the poten-
tial for an earthquake, McIntosh said.
"Some (students) are taking it se-

riously, and some are not too wdr-
ried about it," said Bart Schofield, a
student at Murray State.
Those who aren't panicking nQte
many scientists have discredited
Browning's logic.
"You'd do just as well throwing
darts at a calendar," said Duncan
Agnew, a University of California at
San Diego professor; who was one
of the 11 scientists brought together
to evaluate the validity of
Browning's methods.
Browning claims to have picked
the correct dates of four large earth-
quakes- including the quake in
northern California on October 17,
1989- two volcanos and a day with
both an earthquake and a volcanic
eruption.


THE
What's happeningi
Meetings
UM A SC (University of Michigan
Asian American Student Coalition),
weekly meeting. For info, Weston
Woo (995-7008). 2439 Mason Hall,
7:00.
Circolo, The Italian Conver-
sation Club, weekly meeting.
MLB Fourth Floor Commons, 3:00.
Indian American Students As-
sociation, weekly meeting. Union
Tap Rm., 8:30.
Undergraduate Philosophy Club,
weekly meeting. "Philosophy in the
Law schools," Law Prof. Phil Soper,
speaker. 2220 Angel Hall, 6:00.
Indian and Pakistani Amer-
ican Students' Council, weekly
discussion. Trotter House, 6:30.
Revolutionary Workers League,
weekly current events study. E.
Quad, 52 Greene, 6:00.
lpf"I~ L.t... A a Qn i_

LIST
in Ann Arbor today
Dow Bldg., 3:30-5.
"Hsppiness and Pleasure in
Medieval Judaism," Hava
Tirosh-Rothschild, speaker. 3050
Frieze Bldg., 4:00.
"The Intifada: A Search for
Solid Ground," film about the
Israeli view-point. Hillel, 1429 Hill
St., 7:00.
Furthermore
Safewalk functions 8-1:30 am
Sun.-Thurs., 8-11:30 Fri.-Sat. Call
936-1000 or stop by 102 UGLi.
Northwalk functions 8-1:30 am
Sun.-Thurs., 8-12 Fri.-Sat. Call 763-
WALK or stop by 2333 Bursley.
ECB Peer Writing Tutors avali-
ble to help with your papers Sunday-
Thursday, Angell/Haven Computing
Center, 7-11:00.
U of M Shorin-Ryu Karate-do
Club. For info call (994-3620). Ev-
erv Mondav. CCRB. Small Gym. 8-

Iraq residents search JoinoDaicyaStff
out American currency 'a16-52frif

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The
dollar, the hated and admired symbol
of American power, is the currency
of choice on the streets of Baghdad,
where United Nations sanctions have
rattled the already shaky Iraqi
economy.
In ever-increasing numbers, Iraqis
approach foreigners, risking lengthy
prison sentences to buy dollars at
black-market rates that have almost
doubled in three months.
And some merchants play the
dangerous game of asking customers
to give them something other than
the new 25-dinar notes bearing the
likeness of President Saddam
Hussein.
Western:diplomats suggested that
reflects a fear the dinar could lose its

value if Hussein is toppled after an
American-led attack or in a coup.
"The common man is concerned
about his future and the future of his
family. He recognizes the possibility
that Saddam might fail and places
his bets accordingly," said one Asian
diplomat, who spoke on the condi-
tion of anonymity.
At official rates, one Iraqi dinar is
worth $3 in Iraq. But on the streets
of Baghdad, one American dollar can
buy five Iraqi dinars and in some
outlying areas, the going rate is re-
portedly six or seven dinars.
One Western diplomat said some
major figures in the Iraqi business
world are turning vast amounts of
their assets into cash and turning
that cash into dollars.

The Office of International Programs
Information Meetings for
Study Abroad
FRANCE (Aix-en-Provence)
Tues., Nov. 27, 1990
4:00 pm B-113 MLB
GREAT BRITIAN (Essex, York, London, St. Andrews)
Tues., Dec. 4, 1990
7:00 pm 443 Mason Hall


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