WGBH Journal; Giant Polaroid Camera

Good evening I'm Greg Fitzgerald and this is GBH Journal. Tonight on The Journal environmentalists are surprised to find that the Interior Department is leasing more land tracks off George's Bank since their first attempt to do so was such a disaster. The line speaks with the editor of the editorial page of The Boston Globe. We asked the question what's become of competitive sports. And finally a report on an instant camera that takes life size pictures been used to help visual artists at MIT. First a look at the news. They end up in ACP appears to have lost its discrimination suit against the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. In a memorandum received by the lawyers today federal district court Judge Walter Skinner said the NWC p. have not provided evidence that HUD is continuing to tolerate discrimination in Boston. The Endemol ACP is alleging that Boston's distribution of millions of dollars in HUD community development grants over the last four years has perpetuated racially segregated housing unequal employment and

racial violence in the city. The end of the ACP is holding HUD responsible for this alleged discrimination charging at the federal agency should have under federal equal opportunity laws attach strict anti-discrimination requirements to its grants. Judge Skinner has given the end of 10 days to respond to his memo before he issues a final ruling and double ACP spokesperson attorney Alan RAAM said today he expects the judge to rule against the civil rights organization and said the end of the will take the case to federal appeals court. Governor Edward King is moving quickly to replace Robert Kiley as head of the Boston Public transit system. I can confirm today Friday that he is nominating Robert Foster head of a Saugus trash burning firm to take a take over Kylies job as chairman of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. KING A critic of MBT a management had been expected to fire Kiley eventually but surprised many by initiating the dismissal immediately after his inauguration. Although

Carly had aligned with Republican candidate Francis Hatch during the campaign King made no mention of his political allegiance. King criticized Crowley's job performance and pointed to the rising deficit and equipment problems which plagued the transit system changeover in MBT a management to Robert Foster King's nominee will require the approval by the MBT advisory board a group of city and town officials chaired by Boston mayor Kevin White. Other appointments announced by King today were Dean Amadan is director of the Department of Public Works Anthony Cortez easy as commissioner of the Department of Environmental Quality Engineering. Alford for set as interim commissioner of the Department of Public Health and John Haggerty as commissioner of the Metropolitan District Commission. Women members of the Jaycees in Massachusetts won a court injunction today that bars the national organization from expelling them. The injunction was granted in Middlesex Superior Court by Judge Thomas R. Morse. It also prevents the organization from revoking the charters of local

J.S. chapters pending a hearing before the Massachusetts Commission against discrimination. The suit brought by 14 women alleges discrimination by the national organization which prohibits membership by females. Daniel Benedict is a lawyer for the women said there are about 1000 women in 80 of the 100 chapters in Massachusetts. She said it could be several years before the issue was resolved. Last July the National Jaycee's ordered all chapters with women members to expel them by December 1st 1978. And finally a court appointed master of monitoring the operations of the Boston Housing Authority says the current dept of the authority is 4.4 million dollars. The master claims to be a jail is about 2.8 million to the Boston water and sewer commission and 1.8 million to the master's Department of Community Affairs. The authority's acting administrator Kevin feely claims the water and sewerage figure owed is less but is certain uncertain by how much will be ha which pull back from the brink of

bankruptcy four years ago now faces the possibility of receivership. One year ago a U.S. district court judge in Boston bar the leasing of tracks of underwater land off Georges Bank two American oil companies for offshore oil and gas exploration. The Interior Department the lesser in the deal and the oil companies were sued by the Commonwealth and by the Conservation Law Foundation an organization supported by private contributions both plaintiffs felt that an Environmental Impact Statement performed by the EPA showed too much risk to the fish stock off George's Bank and to the seashore itself. Until the Interior Department established firm rules and

regulations over the proposed leases the plaintiffs wanted the leases halted. The federal court judge agreed and for 11 months there has been no action taken on those leases despite an appeal by the defendants. So it was not shocking to find an organization like the Conservation Law Foundation surprised over recent action by the Interior Department to initiate the leases for a second tract of land off Georges Bank. The department has asked oil companies to indicate which area among 17 million new acres the industry would most like to explore. Sarah Bates is attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation. This afternoon we discussed the original concern over the EPA study and what route their legal action is taken. Specific problems related to the chronic spillage of oil from tank ring operations in other words the tankers being used to bring the oil to shore. The possibility of a catastrophic accident on Georges Bank where you would have a massive spillage of oil in particular. There one would fear that that would coincide with the spawning activity and kill the larvae.

Thus decimating a stock possibly for instance the haddock stock which is very depressed if faced with an accident like that might be reduced far below recoverable levels. There was impacts on the scalloped fishery and then there were a number of secondary effects such as the conflict between fishermen and the oil rigs themselves in other words an inability to drag for fish over a certain area. The inability to prevent their gear from being damaged by the material that is used by the drilling companies themselves implementing legislation to OCTS Lands Act. Which was passed in September why was this not enough to take care of your concerns for the environment. Well there are really two reasons to answer that question The first is that the amendments themselves state that the Interior secretary of the Interior has a very high duty of care towards the offshore fishery and we feel that under that duty of care he cannot proceed with the George's Bank sale. Secondly the amendments rely on a detailed administrative structure to implement them. In other words the department

must promulgated regulations and must begin to apply them in the leasing process and until we have such a comprehensive and detailed regulatory system before us we cannot be at all certain that the safeguards contemplated by Congress actually will be effective and will apply to the lessees on the Georges Bank. What kind of safeguards are you seeking in the end it is the state seeking which if effectively implemented by the Interior Department would protect the coast. Well there are for instance regulations which will implement the section unable in the secretary of the Interior to cancel or suspend leases. We need to know exactly when the secretary will do that how he will do it how much role the state will play. The definition of environmental damage. This will enable him for instance if interior vigorously pursues this this opportunity to suspend leasing activities perhaps during times of spawning or perhaps during times of severe weather damage when the probability of a tanker accident or severe

weather conditions when the proper probability of a tanker accident will be noticeably higher. There are sections of the Act relating to the use of best available and safest technology. Depending on interiors interpretation of those we might find that in certain instances pipelines were required to transport the oil. There are sections referring to the operation of liability funds which we need to see in place. There are sections referring to the development of a lease schedule on the process of balancing the interests in oil development and interest in marine conservation. We would like to see the Georges Bank sail subjected to the full scrutiny of the Department of the interior and to see really whether it is a wise choice to jeopardise that fishery at the current time when we feel and the department seems to feel that there is a risk of damage. Sarah Bates an attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation the leasing process for offshore oil rights by the Interior Department is a lengthy one and Bates said that if

world rights are finally granted after the federal court injunction is lifted it could take anywhere from six to 10 years before the first oil is removed from beneath the ocean. If there is any in a related story Senator Edward Kennedy has filed a petition with the Federal Trade Commission asking that oil companies be prohibited from owning petroleum pipelines. The oil companies now determine the size of the pipelines. And Kennedy says that's costing mid-Atlantic state consumers 40 million dollars a year. With. One writer discoursed on freedom of religion another character a cartoonist pulls up.

Readers of The Boston Globe took over the papers two editorial pages this past New Year's Day. Following up on an invitation to do so by the paper's editors. The experiment interested our commentator Louis Lyons who was himself a Globe reporter for 20 years. So we talked it over with editorial page editor and Wyman today. Well Mr. Wyman like the Globe says its experiment of turning the page over to the readers on New Years worked. The experiment proved that informed consent is a line. Well that made me wonder what do you feel is the difference between reader written editorials and letters to the editor. Well I think that the biggest difference was that the people who wrote editorials organized them in terms of a constructive point. Most of the time and they weren't just a response to something somebody else had said which is the quality of a letter. But they were an initiative initiated idea.

Well you you had three hundred seventy submissions and ran 22 of them. I go by expressing surprise that you've got as many as three hundred and seventy. Well that's fewer than one of a thousand of your readers. But you gave me two pages instead of one. Well that was because the quality we thought was so extraordinarily high and the response surprised us because the invitation only was issued 10 days before Christmas in the middle of all the holiday rush and so on. Some people would rather write and go shopping and I'm not sure that. Well I wonder how representative these readers and writers. You are the go but classifies the topics. And only for on sports to which the globe gives enormous space and only seven I think on education that's been the dominant topic in Boston lately. And taxes are much the loudest as you get only one out of seven. As far as sports goes it's possible that the people who read the sports

pages don't read the editorial pages as much. And we've had a rather sad feeling lately that education an awful lot of people are just not interested in education any more they were interested in busing. But that problem is quieted down. Education per se people don't seem to get excited about you. You wouldn't say I was right in thinking of them as the kind of people who are grasping at a chance to express themselves. No we did have some offerings from freelance writers but by and large these people were not in any way in the writing business and they seem to be people who just genuinely. Felt moved by the season and the invitation and I was very struck by the fact that they seemed largely to agree with the Globe's position. We call one of our objectives was to try and find people who disagreed with it and published some of those views as to what the Globe wanted to get

out of it and what they they thought they thought they'd get out of it. You wouldn't think of this sample as a guide and a trial policy I suppose. No no I think we were mainly looking for interesting ideas and things that were fun to read and and to kind of express what our readers were concerned about and thinking about. And it seemed to me they were thinking quite a lot. Same way we were. And what about that view. You certainly are not as partisan as contentious as editorials traditionally were. Some sometime ago. How do you think of your attitude in general the tone style. Well I think the man who wrote the first editorial suggesting that we should let the readers make up their own mind has a has a very valid point in terms of what we think. That it's much we feel it's much less up to us these days to absolutely lay everything out in terms of

what should be done next. Mortis set down the issues and to point in directions rather than spell out illusions. Do you feel definite about any particular kind of evolution coming to the editorial page. If there is a direction that different from the one we're taking I think it would only be to make more people interested in reading it and to make it more helpful to readers and thinking about life that that they're living. And of course you feel that this experiment as the globe calls it has been doing that. Would you be have to do it again. Well we're thinking about what to do about it whether to do it again or whether to publish some of the other offerings that were left over which were also very good and would be helpful to us to know what the readers would like whether they'd like to see it done every year or

whether this is a one shot deal that has been provocative to everybody and that's enough. How that would be interesting to know what they think. Boston Globe editorial page editor Anna Wyman today speaking with Louis lines. Located in an old converted storage room in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts sits the world's largest camera. It was designed by the originators of instant cameras the Polaroid Corp. But unlike the cameras you may have in your own homes.

This one takes life size pictures. The museum was has used the camera to photograph details of paintings on exhibit and now the Masters Institute technology is using the same type of camera in an exhibit focused on faces in which three visual artists will explore the possibilities of working with large scale reproductions. Vivienne Dukat visited the museum's camera and prepared this report. Larry. Pulling up to the ceiling to get it out of the way then it will be cut in the back. But you're here now. Sense of material being at the top of the screen.

So it's not to expose that I'm wasting my time and presto with three and a half by seven foot photo has been shot and fully developed. The camera much like many of the art treasures housed by the museum is a one of a kind item it is capable of one to run representation of large works of art as well as detailed magnifications of small objects or limited areas of larger works. In terms of its physical makeup However the cameras just like any other Polaroid except that its larger Victoria Line explains the pull of color to material has been available for quite some time and the theory is still the same. It's the size that makes it quite different. And there are a whole new set of problems that come around logistic was when you get working with something that large. What are some of the problems. The sheer magnitude of of feeling a part of print for example in this in the small

pull of color to the material that people normally are used to you can yank it apart with your hands. It takes two people to pull this thing apart and that has to be timed exactly because the length of the spread takes 17 seconds to go through the actual camera rollers and peeling it apart takes that long. But it actually is like a Polaroid picture of the same kind of backing same kind of backing exactly the same thing. Can you actually transport it or is it now like a a room of the museum. Its built into one of the old storage rooms at the museum. It is a prefab room designed so it is in theory portable but with all the big heavy equipment it's not something that one would move every afternoon. Museums curators have found it especially helpful in explaining certain aspects of the artworks on display without having to be present in the galleries themselves.

Larry salmon is the curator of textiles at the museum. He put the camera to use this fall in a show entitled A medieval tapestry in sharp focus. He explained to me how the camera was useful in highlighting the details of one particular tapestry. You cannot show the public that for instance the front and back side of a tapestry such as this on exhibition. It has to be striped it has to be lined so that it can be supported and hang safely. So you are limited to show one side or the other at most. But if you can show people the back side you can show the unfaded colors that are still there from the original and you can also not show them what repairs have been made. What we were able to do with the camera was to take photographs of the complete front. A complete back of this piece while it was not strapped and lined and through comparisons of these front and back details we were able to show certain guys that had faded a great deal.

Over 500 years there were many repairs that had to be made because holes had opened up in the tapestry and these don't necessarily show from the front side but it's interesting to note that they aren't there. And you can see them in the back details. And it was these kinds of changes that we wanted to show the public. What other uses in the museum has this camera had it's been used a fair amount already for what would normally have been enlarged color prints only. Of course the camera can take contact prints that are actual size up to say seven feet by three feet approximately so that rather than having say a blowup of something for an exhibition you have an actual size print. Now the reason this is good is that the actual size print does not lose any detail by being blown up. And you don't blow up the paper stock that it was printed on so that you don't get any kind of grain showing up for GBH Journal.

This is Vivian cat. Well it all started when the Sox let get into the hands of the Yankees and bit by bit it got worse. Pete Rose got his $800000 a year. Chuck Fairbanks insulted the spirit of the Gipper. And then Woody Hayes hauled off and slugged an opposing player because he was too good. Certainly the aura surrounding professional sports has changed and to many it has changed for the worse becoming far too expensive with a bleacher fan and too complex for the novice to penetrate. The reporter knew Walker the sports world has become tainted by easy money and celebrity. You Piers it is falling apart. And like Chicken Little Bitch. Chicken Little beforehand

is tempted to wander about warning all that the Astrodome is falling and sort of temper his cynicism. You spoke with Northeastern sports historian Mark on it men who are short him at the more sports changes the more sports stays the same. Things like this have gone on all the time. What goes on now more than in the past is that there's more reporting of it now. The further back you go of course the fewer sports reporters there were the fewer sports talk shows and people in pain attention taking the Fairbanks thing for example a couple of people have called Billy Sullivan's taking him to court and getting an injunction against him to stop coaching in Colorado. Unprecedented and in no way is it unprecedented it went on and professional baseball back in the 1870s. People have been talking about salaries and how high they are in relation to workers wages forever. For a long time they back in Greece and Rome in fact there was a lot of discussion and a lot of people very upset about the special treatment

accorded athletes. So these things they're not. None of them really are new. Say you saying there's nothing in the air. There's nothing in the atmosphere of sports today that's that's made it less of a gentlemanly endeavor. Oh no that is a myth that sport it was was gentlemanly in the past and it's probably much more gentlemanly now than it has been and you can take any sport football. Going back to its inception American football anyway around the turn of the century was a much more violent game than now. It was described by a sports journalist at the time as people out on the field is punching each other or pulling each other's here and wrestling. Of course there were no helmets there were no pads but it was much more violent and gentlemanly business. That is a myth. Gambling there was much more gambling much more scandal it is continued sporadically and when things flare up like this people make a big thing out of it because they have no historical perspective in sports.

The cost of being a fan is going up steadily. Don't you think that's something fans feel that $800000 is too much for a baseball player to make. Yes some people feel that way. I don't know if I necessarily feel that way. If you put you're talking about Pete Rose Obviously if you put him in the context of his colleagues in a very general sense that is entertainers. Entertainers make much more money than he to take Robert Redford for example. He made a cameo appearance recently in a movie just a cameo and got two million dollars for that 2 million dollars for five or six weeks is a heck of a lot more money than a hundred thousand dollars a year isnt something happening to the teams themselves where people are more thinking of themselves as individual agents free agents so that the team spirit may be tearing. Yes that may be of course again years ago. This is what happened. People could jump in and out of you could literally play for one team in the morning and another team in the afternoon. But I think you're right. People are thinking more of themselves the athletes are the

individuals are they have to know what else is going to worry about them once they're gone. People tend to forget about them the less popular you were when you were around the quicker people forget about you and you have to make it now. If they're worth it they'll get it. If they're not they won't. And it's usually that simple. What about the quality of the place themselves. There's absolutely no way to tell because Babe Ruth can't face Ron Guidry and will never know. But it seems that in a way the technological advances I mean I remember watching the World Series and the warm up bats I mean they had propellers and they were made out of allies that you know were out of 2001 I mean that seems to be there more than that. I'm sure the composition of a baseball is probably different. Absolutely. Well that you know the baseball question the live ball question is has raged back to the 20s. You know the year in 1927 when Babe Ruth had 61 home runs there was talk about the rabbit in the ball then you know so this if you take any 10

year era in sport and compare it with any other there are going to be these differences turf is going to change the dimensions of stadiums the rules themselves. It's very difficult to compare anything further than last year with with what's going on you know Walker talking with sports historian Mark on it. Let's GBH journal for tonight this Friday night. The program is produced by Marcia Hirtz with production systems tonight by Howard Horton's. The engineer tonight is Margo Garrison I'm Greg Fitzgerald. I have a very pleasant weekend.