WGBH Journal; Bottle Bill - Litter Dispute, Jan Fontain - Director Of Museum Of Fine Arts, Boston, Harvard Theology Professor On Eastern Religions, Louis Lyons

Good afternoon and welcome to GBH Journal. I'm Bill got. A look at the issues surrounding the controversial bottle bill discussion with the Boston Museum of Fine Arts director young Fontaine. An interview with the professor at Harvard's Divinity School. And commentary from the live features on today's edition of dbx Journal. In 1976 Massachusetts voters rejected a referendum question which would have mandated the use of return of all bottles in the Commonwealth. This year the legislature is considering two different ways of dealing with the beverage container problem. One bill would repeat the referendum question and mandate returnable bottles. Another would levy a tax on goods that make up litter and use the tax money to fund litter pick up and public education campaigns. A battle is now raging as to which of these best deals with the litter problem. Here with a report on the

situation is Alex outrage. The dispute between the litter tax and the bottle bill is not a philosophical debate. It is a fight over facts and in some ways it isn't a fight at all. Bottle bill supporters stress that a return of a container bill does not necessarily exclude a litter tax. Rather they contend that the litter tax does not go far enough in dealing with the refuse problem litter tax proponents on the other hand see their program as a viable and necessary alternative to the bottle bill. Basically there are four issues in this semi dispute which fights litter best. A bottle bill or a litter tax which would mean higher beverage prices which would cost the most jobs. And lastly which would save the most energy and resources. Would a literate tax do a better job than a bottle bill and reducing roadside litter. Yes we think it will Alex a much better job. Paul sofrito is president of the mass retail Grocers Association and a supporter of the litter tax. He compares litter adduction in Oregon which has a bottle bill to that in Washington State which has a litter tax.

You have official State of Oregon figure is that beverage related Lyta was cut about in half on their highways. So you had a total reduction of litter of an otter in total of 10 to 15 percent because beverage letter is 20 to 25 percent if you cut it in half you're going to get a higher half of that. We have official state of Washington studies that all the lead around Washington highways is cut about 50 percent to the same 50 percent but look it's 50 percent of the whole spectrum. So I think we can make a case that the results the anti litter results in the state of Washington have been superior. Mr. Serrano explains how money is spent under the Washington State litter tax program. It is not used to go out and pick up litter. It is used for public education programs it is used to involve the voluntary sectors of society the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts and the Audubon people.

And I have made it unpatriotic to live in the state of Washington. Does it work it would X you can go out to Washington and see that it wakes. But not everyone shares Mr. Sifry nose high opinion of the Washington State program. Well a litter tax picks up litter. It does that but it's at the cost of the consumer. Frank De Rosa a member of mass purge and a supporter of the bottle bill a bottle bill picks up the beverage contain a litter now beverage container litter is according to the Federal Energy Administration study and a number of other studies approximately 60 percent of the litter by volume. So bottle bill would reduce that at its source. A litter tax doesn't reduce litter at its source but it does pick it up. So while their tax does reduce litter it's an expensive process which we pay for.

Mr. De Rosa took issue with Mr sofrito statement that beverage litter is only 20 percent of total litter pointing out that 20 percent figure is one of item count and not volume. He also commented on the public relations campaign around the Washington State program. Well in the state of Washington there was a recent survey done and approximately 21 percent of the people in Washington had heard of the model litter Control Act which is the litter tax law. I mean if that's it that's a. If that's an indication of the success of their education program which they rely so heavily on well it seems to me an abysmal failure. Another issue in this dispute is that of beverage prices bottle bill proponents say that if returnable containers are used packaging costs will go down and beverage prices as well. However their opponents say that handling and cleaning costs would mean a price boost. Mr sofrito comments on post bottle bill prices. There is.

Quite fragmentary evidence that prices are a little bit higher in Oregon than in Washington and the prices are a little bit higher in Vermont than they are in New Hampshire. I'd like to see that evidence run down and analyzed. But there was a suspicion in my mind that the prices are a little bit higher in the two states that we know about of a ban on the bottle. Mr. DROs is response. That's not true in Oregon. The latest report issued by the governor's office in Oregon has stated that beverages have generally declined with returnable as the cost of returnable in Vermont there was a very detailed report done by the Vermont Public Interest Research Group that compared. Beverage container prices with neighboring Massachusetts and it clearly showed that a beverage in the Returnable where less than beverages in throwaways in Massachusetts potentially the most volatile issue in the dispute is whether a bottle bill would mean loss jobs

litter tax proponents say that a bottle bill would force bottling plant closings and throw hundreds out of work. But bottle bill supporters say that new jobs and distribution and handling would more than make up for the loss. Mr. Serrano speaks for the litter tax supporters but only canned plants in Northern California serving the Oregon market and in Washington are closed. They added an amendment to the bill. This is the lowest pines. All right. They added the amendment to the Bill of. Financial subsidies and retraining expands for those people who would lose their employment. So now you're going to tell me that isn't that a concession that jobs will be lost. The figures that we have seen figures from the Federal Reserve Board study that about twelve hundred jobs will be lost. This is the Federal Reserve Bank study which is quoted as an argument in favor of the bailout. Mr. sofrito statement on the Federal Reserve study was incorrect. The study said that about

700 jobs might be lost as a result of a bottle bill but added that upwards of 2000 jobs might be created for a net gain of up to thirteen hundred jobs. Yet the fact remains that bottle bill proponents have added a jobs subsidy amendment to their bill in the legislature. Why. Mr. De Rosa well there. We anticipate that there will be some jobs lost. And we think that it's only fair that these people be to be accounted for and provided for and they'll be a lot of jobs gained. There was a decline in bottle manufacturing employment in the state of Oregon because of the bottom because pretty much because of the bottle bill. On the other hand there was a net increase of over three hundred jobs in Oregon and most of those jobs where are your primary wage earner jobs. And one argument against the Bata bill is that it produces a lot of stock clerks and it puts high wage earning

glassblowers out of business. Well it does produce a lot of stock clerks but it produces an equal number of. Fairly high paying truck driver and a skilled machinist jobs for bottom washing and things like that. The last issue at hand is whether a bottle bill would save more energy than a litter tax program coupled with a recycling effort. Mr. Serino says that the current evidence is inconclusive. But Mr Rose and mass per disagree. The difference between a refillable system and a throw away system I know is about about 44 percent of the energy now used in the beverage industry would be saved with a fillable system. Not only would Energy be saved but natural resources would be saved. There would be less air and water emissions. Across the board it would be. A better system.

You can judge for yourself whether a litter tax or a bottle bill is the best way to fight litter and save resources. The Massachusetts legislature will soon be making its choice on the matter. Action on both bills is expected in the next two weeks and a fierce fight is expected between them for GBH Journal. This is Alex Eldridge. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is one of the oldest and best known museums in the country. It is also a museum but it had a reputation of being somewhat traditional So it is interesting to hear that the museum's director Yun Fontaine perceives the attraction of new visitors to the museum as one of his main goals. Reporter Vivian Dukat spoke recently with director Fontaine and put together this report although 50 or 100 years ago a director

might not have shared this view. The current director of the MFA yarn fund tain feels that the museum's major goal is to bring new people through its doors to attract a general public to a somewhat also former stronghold of Boston elitism is not as easy as it sounds. Director Fontaine many people. We come to the museum or we don't even get in feel somewhat intimidated by the monumental appearance of the museum. They say they have a real fresh fear. Well as it turns out you know they when you really show people that they are welcome or if you do something that's so interesting that they will run to come in spite of everything.

Then you get the people in and then you have a chance of really demonstrating what that museum is people who just got by. Huntington Avenue and see the big Indian sitting there on his horse outside. They don't really know what's going on. Once new visitors are drawn in by programs like the free weekend December which Fontaine has initiated all efforts must be made by the museum to make sure the first visit runs smoothly. The most difficult thing to achieve is this. These first time visitors to the museum who do not belong to our regular constituency you must see to it that they have a pleasurable experience. So that's the only way you can get them to come back to the museum if the people step on their toes or they get somebody else's elbows in their rib cage. You know they they don't like it and they won't come back.

And therefore especially now that we're mounting these large exhibitions such as the upcoming Pompei exhibit and in the fall of this year the Irish exhibition we do everything to regulate the flow of people through the museum so that everybody can see the objects and everybody can. Enjoy them and if they have to wait in line for the Book of Kells we will see to it that they will have something to do and something to look at and something to think about while they're waiting along with increasing its appeal. There are other non art related problems that the museum must face. Some of these aren't radical sees in parking areas. Public transportation in the safety of the neighborhood. Such problems are being confronted jointly by all the nonprofit institutions up and down Huntington Avenue. In terms of our issues top priority lies in preserving it not necessarily increasing the

collections. The challenge of the future is not going to be catches the last few remaining masterpieces that are still around at enormous prices. The challenge of the future will be how do we make. How do we use our collection to make the public aware of the arts. How do we make people enjoy what we have. How do we use our collection as effectively as possible now. For that's the first thing you have to do of course is to see to it that the collections are preserved for the future with the help of the National Endowment for the Arts and the proceeds of a very widespread and intensive capital fund drive. We are

installing in the museum a climate control system the works of ICT that we have come from all over the world from different climates and as you all know the Boston climate is especially inclement in that in summer it's hot and humid and in winter it's dry and cold. And many works of art made of organic materials simply cannot survive in such a climate. The only area where acquisition remains a priority is in the field of 20th century art Mustonen collectors as a friend once said to me that art stopped to be made somewhere around nineteen hundred and late no ness is about the last. They collected and you know they collect it and when they collect is an artist we have it here at the Museum as you can see from our thirty seven millionaires.

But the early 20th century in which really the arts of today are rooted is an area that is not well represented in the collections of museums. We had not had a strong champion for those art forms on the bird among our benefactors or on our staff. And the result is a kind of hiatus in our collection for that reason the acquisition last year because those perpetrators are women. And major work in early cubist art is such an important milestone in the history of the museum because it is a first step towards transforming a department of contemporary art. It's dangling somewhere in the air without

any visible routes into a department of 20th century art. And that's what we had in mind for the future cat. Harvey Cox professor of divinity at Harvard has added a new chapter to his chronicle of religion in modern America. He set out on an odyssey exploring the eastern spirituality that had remained largely mysterious to a Christian theologian. His account recently published as turning east describes a peculiar Americanization of eastern religion what he calls an Like moment. My take a try. He spoke with David Freiberg.

You walk into a bookstore and there are a hundred fifty books describing a hundred fifty different spiritual paths with one master contending with another and now you begin to get satisfied customers who say I tried this and I tried that then I found this. And you want to try that and the idea of the purchaser of a product underlies this that I'm somehow a person who now has the choice of taking this or that past the this or that master. And what I'm saying is that that whole frame of reference is a very distorted one. And as if there's anything underlying the eastern truth Eastern message at all is that what you really have to know is already within your grasp. What you have to know about yourself is already obvious if you'll simply be quiet and listen and look and know. And the main thing is to select something which seems appropriate to you and to follow it and to keep following it. To have a certain kind of fidelity toward it every

day every spiritual teacher that I know about who's worth anything knows that you're going to come to that time of dryness a time of what Saint John of the Cross called the Dark Night of the soul. And what the Buddhist masters describe very well is the time when there's just emptiness and boredom and and and. And that's the very time in which you stay with the path takes thought creeps in your mind well maybe I shouldn't be sitting this way maybe I should be doing something else maybe I should get a montra Maybe I should stand on my head maybe I should. God knows what I should do. Because there's some other goodie there that might be even better than the goodie you're now getting. And the whole idea is to overcome that constant need to go out for more goodies. I think it takes takes perseverance. You've written about the ostentatious newness the awkwardness the self-consciousness with which many Western novices take up eastern practices. And you've talked of the golden

laughter. What is that. Well there is a lot of ostentatious ness and. Kind of stylish. I think in the way a lot of young Americans suddenly put on meditation clothes or drop the name of their guru or walk around carrying their meditation cushion. And one of the ones first tendency here is to be angered or annoyed by this. But I think in the long cosmic range the way to think about it is is with with something very funny. And I like the idea of the Buddha. Or God. Finding this amusing and not utterly threatening because I think when people go through a stage like this it's an effort to. It's another it's another effort of the ego to want to appear to other people to be

seriously involved in the path or to be a spiritual person or is the one thing that is completely clear. For example in the Buddhist path is this if you want to appear to somebody else to be a spiritual person or a serious meditator you're a very very long way from from a proper motivation. That should be the least the last thing that should concern what do you care what other people think whether they even know you meditate. The ostentatious betrays a certain desperate need to have other people appreciate me. Following lines with a look at recent news the first crocus were sensational news last week have now become part of the scenery on the sunny side of the house. Another sign of spring. The newspapers that have been tucked

snugly inside the storm door through the winter already gone flying in the general direction of the front walk to be retrieved from under the shrubbery. One reads a newspaper this week where the sensor reading history in the making. The Israelis have accepted a cease fire in Lebanon and the first units of U.N. forces are already beginning to move in. In Washington an atmosphere of tension the president presses Israeli's Prime Minister Begin to break the impasse in negotiations while the Senate Foreign Relations Committee puts challenging questions to him. The kind of vegan meetings ended today in Rhodesia the reconstitution of the government has begun with the swearing in of three black leaders to share with Ian Smith the transition to majority rule. Whether the incipient new state can withstand the outside black guerrilla forces that control borders of the country or come to diplomatic terms with the British-American aim to extend black representation are among the rebels. To add

to the immensely complicated internal problems to create a biracial nation. In Washington the announced retirement of Senate Eastland of Mississippi will bring Senator Kennedy to the chairmanship of judiciary. A change as great as from night to day one of the most important areas of government. It breaks the Dixiecrat traditional hole of racist reaction on the most fundamental appointments and policies of government reports from the coalfields anticipate acceptance this time of the third settlement approved by the miners Council the mine districts all vote Friday. The operators this time a raise to 38 percent the wage rise over the three years of the contract. But what has been of most concern to the miners is their friends benefits pensions will be increased for those who retired under an earlier plan and the miner's own cost for the health fund reduced. The other strike of farmers the wheat and cotton growers won a

solid vote in the Senate yesterday to increase price reports on those crops and to pay growers to keep half their acreage fellow Senator Muskie protested it would destroy the budget making process and raise consumer costs next year by six billion dollars. The president is reported considering an attempt to block these amendments in the house but they have the support of key senators like Talmage whose votes he had just one of the first Panama treaty needs for the second treaty. Mounting inflation pressures have led the important joint economic committee of Congress to warn that wage and price controls may become necessary. We have long been on record as opposed to comprehensive wage and price controls says a Senate committee report. We do not recommend them now but we are deeply concerned that pressures will mount for such actions if we do not get inflation under control. They announced a time in the Senate Eastern is no less than a watershed in national politics.

As chairman of Judiciary his power is great and he used it to block civil rights legislation through the 50s and 60s and to exercise the most conservative influence on the appointments of judges and U.S. attorneys. His 37 years of continuance in the Senate and his twenty two years of dominance of judiciary has been the most flagrant example of one party rule in the Deep South it was Eastern to a veto to Attorney General Bell's promise to appoint U.S. attorneys by Merritt Easton forced retention of the practice that made such officers part of a senator's patronage. It was this that created the modern case that is so embarrassed the Carter administration. He's now in retirement following the death of Senator McClellan chairman of Appropriations leaves only his Mississippi's colleague Senator Stannis chairman of Armed Services as representative of the Southern dominance. Senator Kennedy is of course in everyway Eastlands opposite his chairmanship will open closed doors

so the wide ranging areas that come under that committee one current problem the change may resolve is the admission of more refugees from Vietnam. On the personal side it restores Senator Kennedy Kennedy to a leadership role that Chappaquiddick had blocked that cost him in the position of Democratic whip in 1971. That went to Senator Byrd to put the West Virginian on the road to majority leader. Kennedy has remained an immensely influential senator in the many areas to which he's applied himself. He now will have a command post the Lebanon chapter is only begun. It becomes a most challenging enterprise with the U.N. but already they have small units from numerous countries ready to move in. Some already on the ground and relations with the Israeli military apparently are accommodating the Israeli push had gone as far as intended. Palestinian forces have been driven from the immediate border area limiting their penetration the Israelis avoided a clash with the Syrians who have some 30000

troops in Lebanon enforcing such order as there is. Apparently both Israel and the UN are counting on an on written collaboration of the Syrians in Lebanon. The attendant governor of Kentucky acting as governor has created a constitutional issue that will probably need a court ruling in vetoing a resolution of the Kentucky legislature to rescind their earlier ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. She contends that a ratification vote cannot be rescinded in three other states legislatures have voted to rescind the issue of their authority to do so has not been tested. Some see it only as a political gesture. This is St. Paul's contention that a governor can veto a legislative resolution is also questioned by among others the vacationing governor Carol. That's GBH journaled for today producer Marsha Hertz our engineer very car here and I don't go

out and have a wish fulfilling Wednesday. At the.