LOCAL/STATE The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, October 23, 2002 - 3 THIS WEEK a Oct. 23, 1909 Fear mounted that University women were losing the equity battle. Citing the fact that no women were enrolled in engineering and only three women were to be enrolled in the Den- tal School, women activists wondered if the "general uproar among the weak- er sex had been for naught." Oct. 23, 1964 The State Court of Appeals ruled that persons accused of marijuana posses- sion can be convicted even if no physi- cal evidence of the substance involved is produced by the prosecution. Oct. 23, 1968 The Pro Black Organization informed the University Activities Center it would not recognize UAC's choice for the 1968 homecoming queen, charging that the contest was discriminatory. The judges had picked the queen from among five white can- didates. Oct. 23, 1970 A crowd of 1,000 gathered on the Diag to begin a half-day moratorium to express support for 25 Kent State Uni- versity students indicted for protesting against U.S. involvement in Cambodia in May. Three Kent State students spoke at the rally and noted "increasing signs of repression," citing laws forbid- ding demonstrations, parading, leaflet- ing and outside speakers. Oct. 24, 1961 The Inter-,Quadrangle Council was preparing to vote on a motion that would allow female students of at least sophomore standing to visit men's rooms from noon until 30 minutes before their curfew. The resolution passed.unanimously. Oct. 24, 1975 After the Athletic Department over- sold tickets for the Michigan-Ohio State football game and returned money to 9,000 ticket holders, two University law students sued claiming that there had been a breach of contract and that by not attending the game they would suffer "irreparable damage for which there (could) no longer be adequate relief" Oct. 25, 1920 The University Athletic Associa- tion and Ann Arbor Police joined forces to stop football ticket scalping "once and for all." Their only arrest of the day was the 60-year-old presi- dent of Adrian Ice Company, who was caught selling a single ticket to the Illinois game for $20. Oct. 25, 1970 Sen. George McGovern, speaking at Hill Auditorium, charged President Nixon with failing to eliminate "the real obscenities of American life." McGovern was referring to Nixon's attack on pornography, saying the pres- ident should concentrate on ending the Indo-Chinese war. Oct. 26, 1970 The office of Student Services called on University administrators not to prevent the Gay Liberations Front and Radical Lesbians from holding a Midwest conference on homosexuality at the University. Oct. 27, 1917 The Student Government Council voted not to recognize the School of Medicine's class of 1917 after it declined to hold class elections. They were banned from all campus activities until they conformed to campus regulations. Oct. 27, 1947 House mothers at the Michigan League threatened to let their con- tracts lapse if a proposal to give per- mission for upper class women to stay out late was approved. The new rule would have allowed junior and senior women to stay out until 11:30 p.m. four nights a week, instead of only weekend evenings. Oct. 28, 1939 The 1939 Miss America spent a day touring University fraternities and attending the Michigan-Yale football game. At the end of the day, she said, "Michigan men are cordial, handsome, clever, fine football players, original gentlemen and much nicer than any Yale man I've ever met." Oct. 28. 1982 Green Party criticizes corporate influence By Jordan Schrader Daily Staff Reporter Members of the Green Party say to under- stand Michigan government, you've got to fol- low the money. Fueling Republican and Democratic politics, state party chair Marc Reichardt said, is cash from corporations that pollutes the political process. One of the party's main goals, as it looks to the Nov. 5 election, is to replace big business with indi- viduals as the foundation of Michigan elections. The Green Party is fielding 35 Michigan candi- dates from its state headquarters in Ann Arbor, in an attempt to defeat what many members consider to be rule by a Democratic-Republican coalition. "We have one party in this country - it just has two different names," U.S. Senate candidate Eric Borregard said. Borregard said no substantial differences exist between his major-party opponents, incumbent Democrat Carl Levin and Republican Andrew Raczkowski. Both are all too willing to condone military aggression against Iraq when the United States should instead be lifting economic sanctions and no-fly zone regulations, he said. "I'm running against two Republicans," he said. "I'm the only liber- al in the race." Levin voted no on a successful resolution earlier this month that authorized President Bush to use military MICHIGAN force against Iraq. He supported another reso- ELECTIO lution that would have made the authorizationU conditional on U.N. sup- port.Oil companies are dictating defense policy in the Middle East, and the United States must encourage the use of alternate energy such as bio- fuel and wind power to break that stranglehold, Borregard said. The government should also compete with energy companies by producing electrical power itself, he added. To even the playing field that disparities in money have created, Greens want public funds to finance political campaigns, Reichardt said. Campaign finance reform should be paralleled by election reform that strengthens third parties and eliminates the stigma of "spoiler" often attached to them, he said. The Green solution is instant runoff voting, which gives voters the option to rank candidates instead of picking one. It would allow "people to vote for who they really want rather than who they dislike least," Reichard said. Priorities are skewed in Lansing, Reichard said. Despite budget shortfalls that are straining the state economy, he said funding must increase for many areas including environmental protection, welfare, public schools and higher education. He said protection of an aquifer in Big Rapids is one of the Greens' top priorities. Perrier's attempts to drain water for bottling under its Ice Mountain brand will damage the watershed, he said. i Public universities like the University of Michigan are becoming too focused on research and development and must return to their original educational mission, Reichard said. He said the state should also prohibit tuition from rising faster than inflation. Rackham student Ryan Jonna, a member of both the Student Greens at the University and the Huron Valley Greens, said the party is dedicated to student involvement in higher education. Its candidates for the University Board of Regents, Susan Fawcett and Matt Petering, are University students. Corporate influence determines much of what the University researches, Jonna said. He said the breakup of the Biology Department into two disciplines, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Molecular, Cellular and Develop- mental Biology, has led to an increasing focus on corporation-approved projects by MCDB. The new department does not pay enough attention to ecological goals in its research, and spends its time working to obtain patents, he said. New library service helps students find resources By Victoria Edwards For the Daily In addition to sending an instant message to your friends and family while online, you can also now IM University librarians. Besides reference services allowing students to either e-mail, call or come in to ask librarians for help, the Univer- sity has added an instant messaging service for students to access librarians, said Barbara MacAdam, Harlan Hatch- er Graduate Library reference and instruction head. "The service provides not only immediate help for basic questions, but it will help connect faculty and stu- dents with other information that we provide," MacAdam said. Service is available Sunday through Thursday from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., she added. "The Graduate Library answers, between questions asked at the desk and the telephone and e-mail reference, roughly between 5,000-6,000 questions a month," MacAdam said. "So if our experience here is typical of other aca- demic libraries that started this addi- tional kind of service, we would expect to have a traffic of possibly 500 ques- tions a month" The user can access the instant mes- sage service through the library home page using any computer. "When you click on the button you are told how many people are ahead of you in the queue and wait until the librarian contacts you," MacAdam said. "Then in a moment or two you get a message from the librarian that says 'Welcome how can I help you today?"' The number of messages the librarian can answer simultaneously depends on the type of question he or she is being asked, MacAdam said. "We've had relatively few situations with several people at one time trying to use the service," MacAdam said. "However, when it happens the librari- an gets a warning saying there is a new person in the queue. As a patron, the system will tell the user there is one or two people ahead of them." When a student logs in they are asked to provide an e-mail address so after they are done a transcript of the interchange is sent to them automati- cally, MacAdam said. She added that the questions asked of the instant messenger service fall into four different categories: students trying to find a particular electronic resource, a particular book, citation verification and general questions, like library hours. LSA freshman Sean Dailey said he would definitely use the service because he doesn't know how the library works. "I think the service is a great idea. It makes it easier for students to get infor- mation about using the library and dif- ferent resources in the library," Dailey said. But other students said they think the service is unnecessary. "It seems kind of unnecessary because either you're in the library and can look for books or you're in your room and you can use Mirlyn," LSA sophomore Jason Taylor said. TOM FELOKAMP/Daily Linda TerHaar, head of the Shapiro Undergraduate Library, demonstrates the new instant messenging feature improving communication between students and librarians yesterday. Conservationists ask 'U' to change paper pollcy By Dan Trudeau Daily Staff Reporter The American Lands Alliance held a pres- entation in the CC Little Building last night to raise student awareness of specific environ- mental issues on campus. The presentation centered around a contract between the University and Boise Paper Prod- ucts, a lumber company and paper producer known for large logging operations in old- growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, and in endangered forests in other parts of the world. The ALA is a national organization that works with grassroots environmental agencies to educate citizens on issues unique to their local communities in addition to lobbying Congressmen to vote in favor of pro-environ- ment legislation. "We're trying to use economic forces to shift large institutions, such as the University, toward alternative means (of paper produc- tion)," ALA Midwest organizer Joshua Mar- tin said. "We want to shift the wood and paper mar- ket away from old growth and virgin forests and toward alternative methods, such as recy- cling." Martin also said that students can help meet these goals by pressuring University officials to cancel their contract with Boise Paper and to seek paper companies more interested in distributing recycled products. This in turn would cause companies like Boise Paper to seek new methods of produc- tion to meet the demands of the changing paper market. Representatives from Boise Paper said that they are taking these environmental concerns into account in their current logging policies. "Boise currently derives an extremely small amount of our wood supply from old-growth forests - less than 1 percent in 2001," according to a statement on Boise Paper's website. "Given the direction of federal forest man- agement policy, we expect that percentage to continue gradually to decline. We intend, therefore, to phase out harvesting from old- growth forests by 2004." In spite of these assertions, the ALA and other environmental organizations are not sat- isfied with the company's commitment to the environment, citing the company's sustained old-growth operations in Oregon as evidence of their insincerity. Aside from using the presentation to edu- cate students on this issue, Martin offered advice on how to mount a potential public campaign and encouraged students to- seek involvement in the ALA National Day of Action Oct. 29. "Students have a ton of power and can change the world," Martin said. Many students present at the presentation enthusiastically supported Martin's assertions. "I believe that the University community is highly influential in this campaign because it is so large, and I think that we definitely need to reconsider out paper supply," said RC Sophomore and Public Interest Research Group In Michigan member Carolyn Hwang. Some students also praised the presentation and reinforced its importance to the commu- nity. "I thought this was a very informative pres- entation. I believe a lot of other students would have found it interesting," SNRE soph- omore Brianna Knoppow said. University energy use increases as global warming heats planet By Lauren Kadwell For the Daily Though analysts say natural sources of energy may be diminishing, Univer- sity consumption continues to rise. Following a 9 percent increase in the campus population in the past decade, University energy consumption grew 11 percent between 1990 and 2000, according to the Center for Sustainable System's Sustainability Report. Con- versely, in a presentation earlier this month, analysts said the amount of cheap oil and environmental resources used globally is decreasing. "As summers in Washington, D.C. get hotter and wetter, (global warming) will get the attention of policy makers," Harvard Director of the Program of Science, Technology and Public Policy John Holdren said at a seminar series. He added that politicians will feel pres- sure from constituents complaining about effects of global warming, like their coastal property being submerged due to rising sea levels and increasing outbreaks of diseases such as the West Nile virus, malaria and cholera. "It seems like things are coming to a point where (climate change) matters," "It took 600 million years to get all the fossil fuels we'll get," Walter said. All supplies will be exhausted by 2600 if people continue to use them at the current rate, she added. To promote the fight against global warming, Holdren said students can "start harassing (their) representatives in Congress" and work for election campaigns. "I would encourage students to real- ize that they are not powerless," he sa'id, advising them to buy energy-effi- cient windows, insulation and to not drive sport utility vehicles. Each year, the United States avoids emitting half a gigaton of carbon dioxide emissions due to the use of nuclear fuel, Walter said. This helps to reduce the greenhouse effect, but current levels of nuclear usage are not enough. "I think nuclear power has been a good thing," said Richard Garwin, a senior fellow of science and technolo- gy at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. "But it has saved only a tiny tiny bit of carbon from going into the atmosphere," he said. Nuclear power is the cleanest, surest and most efficient way to provide ener- m