GREETINGS! WELCOME TO another issue of the Michigan Review! This time around, we're taking a good hard look at the Michigan Student Assembly (MSA). With the MSA elections closing fast, we have a large news feature extravaganza featuring interviews with all of the candidates vying for the open MSA seats. In addition, we have our opinion and analysis.

Our aim in this issue is to educate the student body, if only a little bit, about MSA. Basically, the story is this: they get about $250,000 of our money, and only about ten percent of us show up to elect the people who have the power to spend it. The result? MSA's President Fiona Rose and Vice President Probir "Funk Lord" Mehta get to fritter away over $100,000 of our student fees on things like office supplies (they spent over six thousand dollars on OFFICE SUPPLIES for this year. I'm not even sure it's going to cost me six thousand dollars to print this paper all year), sending four MSA representatives to do a bit of pointless lobbying (lobbying for what, they never bother telling us) in Washington, D.C., and on committees and commissions that ignore the ideals of public service by campaigning for political parties, but don't do a hell of a lot else.

In contrast, only about $90,000 is spent on the one worthwhile thing that MSA does: funding student groups.

MSA exists for one purpose, ideally, and that is to serve students. How this can be accomplished by passing resolutions concerning California's Proposition 209 (which neither affects MSA nor can be influenced by it) is beyond me. In reality, though, MSA exists in order that a bunch of pretend politicians can having practice padding their rŽsumŽs and their egos while stabbing each other in the back. And the sad thing about it is that they don't even do a really good job of politicking. For example, the exalted Fiona Rose has proven herself to be very childish and unprofessional in response to criticism. For example, a student asking honest questions about the indiscretions in the MSA budget was invited by Rose to "go home and read Archie comics," while a critique of MSA's World Wide Web Page was answered by Rose inquiring if the critic was "on crack."

I'd like to think that if people knew more about what goes on in MSA, they might take a more active part in choosing its members. That's where this issue comes in. I hope you find it both enjoyable and educational.

In closing, I feel I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that you might not even be able to enjoy this issue were it not for the help of Karl Lewis of the Computer Aided Engineering Network's (CAEN) Repair Center, who came to our rescue when one of our computers decided that our disk drive would cease to function. Thankfully, Karl was able to quickly and efficiently locate and fix the problem, and get our computer back to us in time to go to production. Those folks in CAEN really have their acts together -- perhaps ITD could learn a lesson from them.

Anyhow, thanks for picking up the Review, and enjoy!

Sincerely,

Geoff Brown

Editor- in- Chief