4A - The Michigan Daily - Monday, September 9, 1996 i~jz rbigum &ii 420 Maynard Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Edited and managed by students at the Universit y of Maicihi.ganl RONNIE GLASSBERG Editor in Chief ADRIENNE JANNEY ZACHARY M. RAIMI Editorial Page Editors NOTABLE QUOTABLE, 'The game turned In our favor when we went ahead.' -- Nick Saban, Michigan State football coach, explaining his philosophy on how the Spartans beat Purdue two weekends ago Im LASSER SHARP ASr TOAST F N A 5)KPSEEMOVE, 108 VOLE HAS CHANG ED CAMPA1c-N ADVISER S.. . Unles otherwise noted unsigned editorials relect the opiyion of thmajort of te Dail's editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily FROM THE DAILY The wrong debate Michigan GOP succumbs to infighting W hat are the key issues in a University of Michigan Board of Regents elec- tion? Finance, education, student welfare and experience are among the most impor- tant. However, this year the Republican side has turned the fight into an abortion issue. At the state Republican convention this weekend, Gov. John Engler endorsed one of two Republicans to run for the Board of Regents in a statewide election - a move he even considered unusual. He claimed that Judy Frey of East Grand Rapids had worked harder and longer than Mike Bishop of Rochester Hills - and therefore Frey deserved the nomination more. But Frey lost in her own district, which cast the deciding votes for the spot. Members of the 3rd congressional district izstead nominated Mike Bishop, who won the nomination. fey lists membership in the Michigan Republicans for Choice association among herqualifications for nomination - in fact, she was president. Bishop enlisted members of the Christian Coalition and anti-abortion activists in his campaign. Somehow, the GOP used the regental nominations to cre- ate a public policy floor fight, with abortion at its center. Both Engler and the Christian Coalition should not have interfered in the decision - their actions were divisive and forced the nomination's central issues to the back burner. Engler has tried to interfere in the regental nomination process since he becane governor. In fact, he meddled in the other nomination spot; he tried to encour- age incumbent Deane Baker (R-Ann Arbor) to step aside. However, Engler felt the wrath of his own party, as it shunned his pick. Engler had no choice but to endorse Baker, as Baker was uncontested. But he played for control of the other spot. Engler's meddling highlights his desire to gain more control over state politics than he ought to. Often, this pursuit of power makes politics more important than policy. Engler should have quietly presided over the nomination for regent; instead, his desire to stock the board with his choices helped divide his party, cause more prob- lems than necessary and shift the focus of the nomination away from substantive issues that affect the University. Meanwhile, the conservative Christians are also guilty of dividing the party. They have pitted themselves against mainstream conservatives - and the result is squabbles over who controls educational boards, which has little to do with abortion. Frey was ostracized because she is pro-choice, and the Christian right wing disagrees with her stance - however, her abortion politics have little to do with running a university. It seemed as if those who voted against her lost sight of her qualifications for the job. The GOP must resolve its intra-party instability - the internal strife has caused the important issues that affect the University community to take a backseat to abortion politics and gubernatorial muscle flexing. University students want regents to work on their behalf- not Engler's and not the party line. e e r I5NE7 TNE ~ DAMB v 'I I VIEWPOINT Path to peace is still rocky Cooperation h City, 'U' need to create more parking t Jiappens every year: Students return to scenario, the burden falls squarely - and campus in September and are met with unfairly - upon the shoulders of student the parking problems that plague Ann motorists. Arbor until May. For visitors to campus and Right now, the University can take one downtown Ann Arbor, the lack of parking small step on its own. The area formerly space is a nuisance, often forcing them to occupied by the Sigma Epsilon fraternity park far away from their destinations. For house, which was destroyed by fire last those who live in the city - including stu- September, is slated to be a parking lot. dents - the parking shortage represents However, the University plans to desig- one bf the most negative aspects of life. nate the lot as another Staff Paid lot, a The number of parking spaces available proposition that gives no relief to student is inadequate for the amount of traffic flow- motorists. If the University is serious about ing through the city. Lack of student park- alleviating the perpetual crisis, it should ing is a problem that arises each year - and open this lot so everyone affiliated with the each year the University fails to resolve stu- University - including students - can BY RONNIE GLASSBERG After months of negotia- tions, Israel's hard-line prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu of the conservative Likud Party, finally met with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat last week. While this is an impor- tant step forward, true peace in the Middle East is far from fulfillment. At the current time, the West Bank cities of Bethlehem and Jericho - both important religious cities - are in the control of the Palestinian Authority. While technically part of Israel, their infrastructure and internal security are under Palestinian control. Israeli redeployment of Hebron, another West Bank city, was delayed last spring by then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres after a series of suicide bus bombings in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Current talks between Netanyahu and Arafat will focus on Hebron and the future security of Israelis living there. The opening of talks between Netanyahu and Arafat was a critical point. It showed that the progress in the peace process did not rep- resent the will of only two political leaders. Rather, the Middle East process is the commitment of the Israeli and Palestinian people - along with the rest of the world - to peace. While Likud ministers have been extremely critical of Netanyahu'smeeting with Arafat, the prime minister wisely recognized the politi- cal value, at least on an inter- national level, of restarting the peace talks. Just a week before Netanyahu's meeting with Arafat, I visited Israel with a group of campus newspaper editors. In a meeting that Glassberg is the editor in chief of The Michigan Daily and an LSA senior He visited Israel in August. week, Moshe Fogel, the direc- tor of the Israeli Government Press Office and a spokesper- son for the Likud Party, said that the prime minister would not meet with Arafat just for the sake of a meeting. The prime minister, Fogel said, would only meet with Arafat to discuss substantive issues. With the peace at such a frag- ile stage, it was extremely detrimental for Netanyahu to shun Arafat in an attempt to earn political points with his supporters. Despite the prime minister's campaign rhetoric, much could have been accom- plished in the past few months through direct negotiations between the two leaders. Although the path to peace has reopened, the most diffi- cult issues have not been dis- cussed yet. First, the Palestinian Authority wants to establish a sovereign state known as Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, while the Israeli government wants to retain control over the area to prevent a new mil- itary threat from forming on its border. In a meeting in Bethlehem during my trip, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Salah Tamari, expressed his opposition to Israeli control of the Palestinian areas. "How can you normalize relations with occupation? It cannot happen. We need to be free," he said. However, it would not be a simple step for Israel to give up control of the West Bank. Since 1967, Israelis have been moving into undeveloped areas and forming advanced communities, and construc- tion continues at the present time. Such an action would be similar to our government asking those in the Western United States to leave their homes so the land could be returned to Native Americans. While this may be a morally appropriate course, it defi- nitely would not be easy to convince Westerners to leave their homes, and the Israeli government faces the same obstacles. Beyond the West Bank dispute, other issues will like- ly be more difficult to resolve. Syria will not even enter into peace talks until Israel is will- ing to give up its control of the Golan Heights, a move that is extremely unpopular among Israelis. In 1967 Israel gained control of the region, which overlooks the Sea of Galilee. Returning the area would give Syria a huge strategic advantage over Israel - opening the entire width of the country to the threat of Syrian shelling. Peering at the Golan Heights from Israel, it is understandable why Israelis fear the possibility of Syrian control. The only possibility for peace would need to be coupled with disarmament zones that expanded into Syria. But the issue that will probably be the most difficult to resolve is control of Eastern Jerusalem - a holy city for Jews, Muslims and Christians. After the 1967 war, Israel added the control of the holy sites in Eastern Jerusalem to Israel, and near- ly all Israelis want it to remain the undivided capital of Israel. For Tamari, however, East Jerusalem is the "occupied part of Jerusalem, and I stress occupied." Many of the Arab-Israeli conflicts are political in nature -- tracing back to British mishandling of the region; however, control over Jerusalem is a religious and far more emotional issue. While the path toward peace may have moved for- ward last week, the region is left with more conflicts. The world will likely soon find that getting Bibi and Yasser to shake hands last week was the easiest part in the process, and most of the conflicts will be far more difficult to resolve. CYCHEST / Student housin theory 101 I have a theory. It may be a somewhat paranoid theory, but stick with me and at least read down to the fold. Student housing is a giant experi- ment. We are all rats in a maze, driven to madness by the aroma of mvisibl Gruyere cheese. We think theres prize - spacious apartment, decent landlord, privacy - at the end. But we have to find the end. And where's hope when you start out in a 3-by- 2-by 5 dorm room? Yes, dorm. DOR-MI-TOR-Y. ADRIENNE A term as distin- AREN guished as "resi- JANNEY dence halls" just doesn't apply to Velveeta. Gosh, I have a great idea. Experiment phase one: Let's take hun- dreds of displaced high school seniors with scattered ideologies and place them in little tiny boxes - and see i they all get along. Then we can call th University "diverse!" A friend of mine was lucky enough to share his dorm room with a nice boy named Fish. (His name was actually something normal like Mike or Joe. Maybe he was trying to discover his new identity.) Fish was special. He liked electron- ics. He liked to build things. He did some extracurricular reading. He built a pickle machine. No, really. Imagine coming home to the over- powering smell of burnt pickle - in your clothes, your sheets, your favorite teddy bear. Mmm, pickles. You see, the pickle machine consist- ed of two electrodes at either end of the pickle. Flip a switch, and the pick- le glows faintly. But Fish - being a special boy - wanted a BIG glow. So he skewered the pickle (actually, went through an entire jar of Vlasics) on a coat hanger and plugged it into the electrodes. The pickle gave off a very special glow - until the fuse box gave up and blew. But Fish persevered. A Dr. Frankenstein aspire, he spent all his time refining his creation. And my friend lived in a virtual pickle barrel. (Hey, it's better than dorm food.) If you survive the dormitory cages, you can graduate (oops, didn't mean t taunt) to apartment living. Choose th two very-best-friends-you've-ever- had-in-your-life that you just met last year and set out to find a slumlord. My personal favorites: Slime Realty and Campus Slimeballs. If you think their "joint and several" clauses are confus- ing, wait until your kitchen pipes explode. They'll fix it two weeks later and take it out of your security deposit,. claiming you should have told the' sooner than five seconds after you go sprayed by recycled dishwater. (Hint: The Ann Arbor Tenants Union in the Michigan Union puts out helpful pamphlets, including "How to Evict Your Landlord." Nice people. Pay them a visit.) Sometimes you have to get creative. One year we had furniture that must have been left over from a burnt-down Boy Scout camp - it was SO ugly... The couch sunk when you sneezed; v constantly hit our heads on the ha d armrests and backs. Did I mention that it was ugly? While our third roommate was away, the two of us took the situation into our own hands. We jumped up and down on the couch like it was a tram- poline, cackling and giggling until our feet touched the floor. The new couch was an exact copy o the old - only an even uglier plaid. Incidentally, roomie #3 is probably at her desk reading this information for the first time, and I am in so much trouble ... Maybe you'll have to get a bit more creative than we did. Or maybe you'll try an alternative sort of landlord: the co-ops. They're cheaper and friendlier than your aver- age landlord. Why? Because every- thing is cooperative and democrati Everyone does their fair share an everyone gets a vote. Everyone solves problems cooperatively and nicely and for the greater good. WARNING: If you are a control freak - no matter how socialist you would like to be - stay away from the co-ops. Some hippie will cooperative- ly park in your space - despite the fact that she doesn't believe in cars because they are not good for yo4 karma -and you will feel very unco- operative. If you make it to phase four (your senior year, your fifth year, the year before you drop out), use your knowl- edge gained from running around in dent concerns on the issue. However, the University is not the sole culprit in the ongoing mess. Ann Arbor collects more than $1 mil- lion a year from the ticket- writing business. Mayor Ingrid Sheldon said the city would have trouble meeting its budget if this revenue were eliminated. The rationale behind her statement is disconcerting. Given that a substantial por- tion of the city's money r( MT WMSAT/Dily obtain a permit. Such a small lot would not solve the prob- lem completely. But the ges- ture would signify that the University is willing to work for student concerns. To date, the city and University have responded to student needs with tow trucks. The only cooperation between the two involves ticket collection methods. Before April exams, the Department of Public Safety and the city will hit the streets LETTERS TO THE EDITOR comes from student pockets, it means that Ann Arbor depends on students to break the law to fulfill fiscal obligations. Students always meet or exceed the city's expectations because Ann Arbor does nat have enough parking spaces to accom- modate students - both live-in and com- muters. To find parking and make it to class on time, commuters may resort to parking in Staff Paid designated lots, thereby risk- ing a punitive $17 ticket. If students are for- tunate enough to find a convenient metered to ensure that no one goes home without paying up. Students have proposed solutions in the past % including the reduction of outra- geous ticket fines. Students also have rec- ommended opening formerly restricted lots to wider use. A better collaboration: The city and the University could put their powers together to build high-rise structures, lower meter and ticket rates, and implement other cre- ative remedies. 'U' luxury projects To THE DAILY: Many returning and new students would have found that the North Campus is undergoing a major face-lift these days, and a significant part of this ambitious project is the new Media Union. It contains the Engineering Library, several hi-tech class rooms and research facilities, and a lot of study space. The former president, James Duderstadt said the Media Union will benefit the expected to see only in big department stores, glass walls with no insulation ability, and confusing space arrangement of the entire Engineering Library, it provides so much surplus convenience and a careless display of enormous space which, I doubt can be effectively used by anyone except to give us an aestheti- cal feeling. I wonder if this phenome- non reflects the poor man- agement ability of the University and why we have to pay one of the highest tuitions in the country. Now I can only hope for the best: that some kind of student culture can eventually E-maiI the ....:::::::.: .:.::.: 4 EE. = >_: