WGBH Journal; Election Reaction

Good evening and welcome to GBH Journal. I'm Greg Fitzgerald and tonight results of the Boston elections are in. We'll have some Monday morning quarterbacking the Clamshell Alliance begins a permanent site occupation of Seabrook on October 6th. Reflections on Catholicism for the practicing former Catholic and Betty for Dan kicks out this year's activities of the women's Student Coalition at Harvard. And finally comments on gadgets and inflation from the airlines have all this on tonight's journal right after a look at some local news headlines. Almost 60 percent of Boston's registered voters went to the polls yesterday and gave many political observers a mild shock as mayor Kevin White received more support than those same observers felt was possible in these times of anti machine politics. Why trounced all three of his Democratic opponents in the preliminary election leaving many to believe that state senator Joseph Campbell t has an uphill struggle to even achieve parity with the results of the same political match held four years ago. In 1975 Timothy lost a wife by 11 percentage points. Last night

he lost by 14 points. Eliminated from the race where a black candidate Mel King who turned in a surprising amount of support beating out school committee president David Finnegan for third place. The big question now is where will the. It where the king and Finnegan votes will go and how candidate Tim will day after rebuff from Boston voters will be able to sharpen his image as an issues candidate also running against wide in the preliminary were Larry Sherman of the Labor Party and Luis Castro the Socialist Party. Neither of the alternative party candidates won more than 1 percentage point total in the city council race all nine incumbents survived. The paring down process with two new faces also showing support that a former Suffolk County Sheriff John Sears and New England telephone executive James Brett said. Meanwhile veteran school committeeman John McDonough topped a field of 13 candidates in an issue list school committee campaign with black school committeeman John Bryant taking a strong third place. In other news by an overwhelming margin the Massachusetts

House today killed the controversial blud bill just last month droves of state lawmakers supported the legislation. But last week when hospitals in the Red Cross threw their support against it the bill lost its popularity. The bill would have given Medford business executive GI Joes of Beatrice permission to operate commercial blood banks in competition with the Red Cross and hospital banks. Opponents argue that commercial licensing would lead to a substantial increase in the risk of hepatitis. Massachusetts is one of two states barring commercial blood banks. Communities not able to implement the classification amendment before the legal deadline can breathe a little easier tonight. Governor King today signed into law legislation delaying necessary implementation of the amendment. The bill however will permit 18 committees which have already received clearance to proceed with the taxation process. And great tonight Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy is in satisfactory condition at a Boston hospital following a hernia operation. She was admitted to Baptist New-England hospital yesterday for what doctors called

routine surgery. The U.S. Navy has withdrawn work from South Boston's Braswell shipyard claiming the use of inappropriate material in a vital portion of a Navy ship and Navy said it will move the frigate through it to the Bethlehem Steel shipyard and he's Boston. The Navy's action will result in the layoff of three hundred twenty shipyard workers. And finally the president of the University of Massachusetts veterans service at Amherst will seek a restraining order to bar Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden from speaking at the university next Sunday. The action came after the Board of Selectmen in Amherst refused to reconsider approval for the speech. And that's the news. Today days after an election was a time for the Monday morning quarterbacks as the candidates the political observers and even we reporters become political pundits.

Why did Kevin White do so well. Why did David Finnegan do so poorly. How did a black candidate with one fiftieth of the financial support of KEVIN WHITE get one third the support that the mayor got. And of course where will the support of the losers in yesterday's preliminary election go come November. We asked two prominent Boston politicians to comment on some of those questions. First State Representative Sander Graham from Cambridge. I thought that the Boston election won a good rebounder term and the result when the black overwhelmingly they voted for a black. Mayor who wanted the black vote. And I think that a significant one I think it did around the country. I know on the point.

Candidate because I was either pressured into or because they try a white candidate tries to come into the black community only at election time to talk about what they're going to do for me. I think that at the beginning of a movement around this country and I think you will see it in the presidential election in terms of no longer are the black people of this country going to be taken for granted. Do you think that the black voting populace in Boston has somewhere to go with their votes. I think that's a question that too warily to answer. I think that what has happened now is that a lot of people you know kind of tragedy strategies put together well not vote because they don't see an alternative. And if you back out and look at mouth kind of thing a lot of people voted him because he really didn't want any kind of candidate and not just because he was a popular person or because he had a machine not enough to go out and buy that

I don't know where that growth is going to go we've been talking about it all day and I'm glad the candidate can come out and talk and address them static issues that relate to the people that that voted for now I think that a lot of people will not vote and eventually he would wind up with the same name. Cambridge State Representative Saundra Graham. Meanwhile Back Bay State Representative Barney Frank has the unique distinction of having been part of Mayor White's political machine several years ago. But this summer he endorsed black mayoral candidate milking white correctly perceived that we may be in the post post Watergate period in Boston that 1875 White was very baby hurt politically and I think personally as well by telling his corruption which I might say seemed to me to have been grossly exaggerated the charges made against me so many facts and almost lost a very big I mean it was a very tight IQ at the end because people were saying that he was abusing the political crisis but can't thank God to be here. I think that it turned out that we were really in

a Watergate sensitizing period this time around a number of people thought that would make white vulnerable and there's been a lot of. Focus in the media and from political figures and others on what seem to me to be abuses of the democratic process by white in terms of the use of the public sector for private political gain but I tell you John I think that the electricity that elected turned about that to me if you like to it is now more concerned about competence about ability to govern about decisiveness and white political credit correctly I think that was a major reason why he did well yesterday. And I can He had an excellent campaign and we keep very much capitalized on the efforts that he put into this election. Now some of us thought it might be somewhat of a kick back at it. The obvious politicization use of work and everything might be a problem when it turned out that wasn't the case. It turned out that he got the benefits without the help of course that kind of intensive use of the

city for political purposes. He also had an excellent media campaign a whole lot of money in those two things can't be discounted I mean I think that a million dollars we could double as a State Representative Barney Frank. Despite the growing concerns of local residents and massive demonstrations over the years plans for the construction of the nuclear power plant in Seabrooke New Hampshire continue. On October 6 the Coalition for direct action at Seabrook plans to occupy the construction site. Many anti-nuclear groups see this action as a crucial point in their efforts against nuclear power. A shift in tactics has led to some changes in organization however for the movement statement Dara's filed this report.

To date nearly 4000 people have been arrested during demonstrations to halt the construction of the Seabrook nuclear plant. But in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident last spring the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance decided that it was time to take more serious action. The result has been the formation of the Coalition for direct action at Seabrook a conglomerate of affinity groups affinity groups or small groups with individuals having direct input into a larger organization. It is the coalition of these groups that plans to occupy the Seabrook site on October 6th. The direct action is to occupy the site and actually establish a permanent community to physically block construction although the tactic has been successful in Europe. This is its first attempt in America because of the nature of the occupation and its decentralized organization. There are many details that require careful planning. They've Slesinger and Jeff make novela to coalition organizers are optimistic that the coordination of the affinity groups will be successful.

It's built on small affinity groups of 15 to 20 people under 20 people and these people have trained together for weeks. I've gone through nonviolence preparation. You know the action and the tactics you know to be used to to keep it nonviolent and so that. If every If the police don't cause any violence then there shouldn't be any. Because we certainly want to initiate it in other terms. Our Unification unified action different groups are choosing what approaches they want to make and then as they choose which approach they become linked up with other groups in regions doing similar approaches and then they coordinate that among themselves too. So it's a very decentralized action. But we're you know very concerned about keeping it unified. Do you have apprehensions about October 6 and it's would seem to me that the better we do it blocking construction the more. Likely that the government is going to

try to take some more severe action against this. So we're dealing with our concerns we we don't want to get overly preoccupied with the fact of the government is going to try to stop us because you know we could just have a lot of mistrust in the organization and I think that the trust in the organization is one of our great. You know strength right now and all of the groups will be participating in the same direct action. But some groups have also planned special projects. The Boston committee to challenge anti-Semitism but Kos is sponsoring an affinity group with an unusual plan. The occupation date coincides with Jewish Succot festival a holiday that celebrates the harvest because plans to celebrate the circus by constructing a sucka the traditional open air hut on the occupation site Mordecai LIEBLING A member of the class is pleased that the two events can be planned together coincided perfectly with the occupation because it is more dangerous to the survival rate than nuclear power and

what is the creation of the nuclear waste being put into the earth bring forth and bring the Earth could be no more strongly by putting an opposing nuclear power. Our intention to be part of the occupation and to celebrate many affinity groups and we tend to educate people on what we're doing. If we're lucky enough to occupy it then we you know it's traditional to have your meal in and we were invited by people at a party to look at the Coalition for direct action at Seabrook is uncertain of what awaits them on October 6. But they are prepared for a variety of situations. All the New England states have sent law enforcement agents to New Hampshire to discuss the occupation but it is uncertain how officials will deal with demonstrators who plan to stay on the Seabrook site for GBH Journal.

I'm Stephen Moore. Women in my generation who were did not ask themselves or were not asked as you have the end what do I want to be when I grow up. What do you want to be when you grow up a little girl. You know they said that they said what do you want to be when you grow up little boy. And he would say doctor your agency for whatever that oh you're a pretty little girl the boys were like you you know you will be a mommy like mommy daddy for Dan speaking last night at Harvard University. Although the women attending the lecture may have more opportunities to pursue their academic and professional careers. Women at Harvard still face discrimination in their educational experience. In response a group of women from most graduate departments at Harvard

have formed the women's Student Coalition to examine the discrimination they face. Their first action was to endorse a questionnaire in the eye or enclose a questionnaire in the registration packets of all women graduate students which they will evaluate and then report on. Yesterday four women involved in the coalition described their experiences to a need to mix. Most of us shared a pervasive sense that something was wrong in our graduate education and it had to do with being women at Harvard. Most of us had experience at one point or another. Some kind of group in which we had talked about something being wrong and sort of sitting around trying to figure out what what it was but we had no way really to act on the sense that we had that there was something about being women at Harvard that made our education somehow not quite all there. If you read the women's room we had Marilyn French come last year and we all were discussing how true to life some of the the

various visions were I mean maybe not quite dreaming about blood and everything but when you go in for oral there's like a trauma you don't know whether to dress professionally or dress you know so to hide the fact you are a woman you don't know whether to make any jokes when they're sexist or you know or just pretend that they never said anything or what you don't know in situations where people have a lot of power over you how to react. So I think a lot of people think that that's sort of very true. I just like to come out a little bit on Carol's remark about. How many of us have experienced this kind of uncertain feeling as to uncomfortable but not quite understanding what was going on and I think it was in reading the medical school report that provide a kind of framework for thinking about some of the things that happen on a micro level that is on a personal basis. Micro inequities do not refer to an IC in equities that are small necessarily necessarily but rather on the micro or personal level. Other kinds of things that they

analyzed were such things as role stereotyping sexual innuendo and in some cases explicit explicitly on equal educational opportunities. The things that they said at the medicine medical school in particular were that women were constantly questioned about why they were becoming doctors particularly in obstetrics they were asked in some ways why they were on the the doctoring side of the giving birth to babies rather than on the giving birth to babies and also women sometimes were questioned when seen in white garments why they were doctors rather the nurses are actually asked if they were the nurse Roman doctor. Another thing that's particularly pervasive but people don't really pay attention to it women that is don't find it something worth noticing. Yet it bothers them is the way in which they're referred to in classes and the way in which they find women refer to women. Find

that they're referred to as deer or honey and not given the same kind of respect that they feel men are given in the classrooms. Members of the women's Student Coalition a group dedicated to consciousness raising at Harvard University. They were speaking with the journals. I need to make that. Someone once said that you never really leave the Catholic Church whether practicing non practicing or next an ex-Catholic say the teachings the myths and the values of the church stay with you sometimes for life. Obviously the religion is a powerful spiritual and psychological experience. We're going to hear about that experience from two Boston area women

tonight. Here's Amy stands with more. You know Wiki has been a practicing Catholic all her life. She lives in Weymouth with her husband and children would you know Wicky Catholicism has in recent years come to mean a very personal closeness with her God and a joyous celebration of the Catholic Mass a mass means a lot to me especially since it's in English because we know more of what we're saying but. That's one thing I really like about being a Catholic is the mass. It's so complete it's giving our software asking forgiveness receiving forgiveness offering ourselves to God and God showing us how much he loved us. This praise to us just a whole complete cycle of God sharing with us and giving ourselves to him. I think there's so much beauty in the mess and I love the singing The praising the Songs of Praise the hymns of praise. Yeah that's my favorite part in fact if they don't sing the whole song I

get annoyed because now they're singing like one verse. How do you feel when you're singing you know to praise God what was your feeling. Oh I feel really good. I I sing right out and everybody dies because I can't see it but I don't care. I really feel warm and giving and like there's no problems there's no struggles it's like really relax. Joyous feeling. Sounds like it must be the most restful moment of the week. That's a good way to put it yeah that would be one of the things about being Catholic that you've rejected that you don't feel right. Well now being a Catholic there are so many good changes. As I was brought up the fear

that we were taught it was god of fear. That I did not like it all and we were afraid of God there was that fire and brimstone type of teaching at times. What were you afraid of what was the specific fear when you were a child burning in hell. Yeah it was really a biggie. It sounds like you've really changed a lot. Yes I really I really I think I have. I'd say What has changed is my good feeling about myself and God being part of me and him being a loving person and knowing that as a human being if I can't solve it then you know it's nice. And that's why I like him being there all the time that talking to him all the time. It's like he's my partner Gino wiki of women. Melinda too who's left the Catholic Church 12 years ago after 19 years of devout Catholicism she is a socialist now and is raising a 14 month old daughter in Jamaica

Plain for her Catholicism demanded unattainable perfection. I was the most single damaging thing for me was the idea of perfection that you had to be perfect and if you weren't going to be you never could be perfect. And that you know not being perfect here I was sort of suffer for it you know if you can ever feel good about yourself is you really deserve to feel. Though there were there specific things that you had to be perfect in with the specific sins or something like that. Well I mean this sort of broke down. I remember going to confession every couple of weeks and saying exactly the same thing every time. And they sort of revolved around for me. It revolves around fighting with my brothers and you know talking back to my parents things like they're not big major thing I was a very good girl and I mean I was very good girl because I couldn't imagine not being a commander or Hampton if I wasn't one person told me that like if she were to parochial schools something she told me that every night the nuns would go around to make sure that their hands are outside the cover so that

they wouldn't be caught masturbating. And that shocked me that there was no point. You know when you're going to sleep there was no point that they had any kind of privacy the privacy that I felt the way I felt that issue was sort of. In the idea that God is everywhere you know that God knows every thought every you know like I would try to if I had the most fleeting thought which I thought might be impure I would like. Try to cover all over what I could think all these other things you know like to try them to try to mix them up you know so God would be able pick out that one thought. But I mean I mean how it starts very often I mean I don't even know what it impure thought was you know for years and years. I mean this I mean that was obviously I think one of the things that I resent the most is that the way it dealt with my section or didn't deal with my sexuality in that I still suffer a lot from from that from growing up feeling like my body was a dirty thing and that. You know that I didn't

control my body that you know that it was like an instrument that some people acted on. What have you taken away from being a Catholic that like has been a lasting value to something that you would say is good and valuable to me. Something that is really important that I took out of the religion was was the idea that it's not every person for herself or himself that that we are a community of people and that also that there's. There's a lot that you look for the good in people. But there is a lot of good in every person and you try to find that and build on it. I think a lot of things like the Gospels. I was raised with there were certain you know in Mass every Sunday talk a lot about you know the Jesus minister Church of the poor and saw the dignity and human beings you know whether it was a prostitute or a beggar you know didn't have to be you know a king or judge or somebody like that.

And I think that the sense that I've also always had as far as I can remember of it having a very strong sense of injustice and wanting to do something about that. You know I think comes from cancer being raised Catholic. Melinda too who is an ex-Catholic. Tomorrow night we'll be hearing from some remarkable Catholic nuns about the position of women in the church. High energy costs and rapid inflation have raised the battle cry of conservation throughout the country. But today's consumers haven't responded. They've been spoiled by unnecessary gadgets convenience products and wasteful habits Lou Lyons comets frying a lot of slot announces a new local shop called gadgetry payout that advertises to fix things such common household utensils as

toasters blenders lamps vacuum cleaners. Welcome enterprise. It gave me a twinge to think of all the things we've thrown away when they get out of whack. We've come to accept that when anything gets out of order the only answer is to throw it away and buy a new one. Does gadget or passage just a possible revival of the old fashioned reality use it up wear it out make it do. Probably that's wishful thinking but it reminded me of the scissors shop you know used to call about once a year and set up in the backyard while we collected our knives and scissors to have their efficiency restored at 25 or 35 cents a piece. Sometime he stopped coming and we hardly had a shot right in the house since say for a gift of two friends now I guess. If I could date the end of his visits it might mark the close of our free information economy. The news today is that inflation rose another whole percent last month. We all contribute to inflation. Some by rushing the bar before prices rise further some by and want to play casual spending as a shrinking dollar

holds less meaning for them. Frugality is increasingly hard to practice. Even recycling Cambridge stopped collecting old newspapers separated from the trash. It cost too much to save. So also the local bottling plant has closed its bins that invited disposal of used bottled. Most of our trash is the wrappings from packaged foods. Almost everything we buy at the supermarket comes packaged whether it's contents needs packaging or not. Stores make it easier to charge them to pay cash. We live now on a credit card economy. People used to look askance at buying on time. To buy an auto or install a new refrigerator you save up for the hand-me-down system used to be the common practice in families with children's clothes so swiftly outgrown while still in perfectly sound shape and so with toys that didn't break the week after Christmas but lasted from one generation to the next. It's shocking to read that a 20 year old building used to be torn down for one

million or more returned on the spades this discards the virtue of the one harsh i.e. that lasted 100 years to the day. Historic homes were built to last lagging productivities cited as a serious factor in inflation. The shocking number of auto recalls for flaws is blamed by some of the slack workmanship by others to corp failure to put enough profits into improving equipment. Inflation is profitable for some mock ups based on percentages. Expand the retailer's margin tips double with the doubled cost of the meal and meals taxes too must a diner include the tax as the basis for figuring the tip. That question is made much post-prandial conversation. The Food and Drug Administration requirement that drug stores make the lower cost generic drugs equally available with the fancy price brand names should educate consumers to one easy economy. But who has shoes have

sold anymore hats clean or would know where to find such repair shops that have been pushed off the main street by inflated rents to meet inflated taxes and real estate prices. In the day of the coal burning fun is the household of sifted the ashes and saved the senders to back the fire overnight. An economy that quiet no presidential Lexx Artesian when I Lawrence know about the hive and houses for under-graduate he also had groups of single family homes built for married students. Then a new phenomenon saying they should learn to attend their own fantasies. I have a feeling that a generation that has grown up in a pension era is less pained by rampant inflation then Allister's who have seen life time savings eroded but their children have not felt driven to save for a rainy day. Over the hill to the poor house is only a line of a forgotten poet. Commentator Louis lines.

And that is GBH journal for tonight our producer and director was Marcia Hirtz with engineering by Perry Carter we had production assistants ally from back here or a cult will call it Walker and me. I can still do that.