Georgia Gazette

I'm Bruce Norton and this is Georgia Gazette. Coming up on today's program, after they came last week, all my fourth graders want to play saxophone next year. Meet the tower quartet. The four New York musicians have been blowing around mulchery, sharing their passion for chamber music with all who will listen. There's no need to get on anyone side of that fence. Left them worked that out themselves, and let's have both. Brave's baseball is back, and so are the fans, more or less, will take you to the stadium for the Brave's season opener. Plus, Georgia Gazette remembers the holocaust, those stories, and much, much more ahead today. But first the news from National Public Radio.

Good afternoon and welcome to Georgia Gazette, I'm Bruce Norton. On today's edition, the words of two Nobel laureates in their own voices. Chamber music fills the air in mulchery, meet the group responsible. Brave's baseball is back, but other fans will find out. Plus sports talk with Herb White, the arts calendar, and a whole lot more. Georgia Gazette, it's a radio magazine, enjoy it, then pass it on. This week, the largest gathering ever of living Nobel laureates was held in Atlanta. It was billed as the most important cultural event leading up to the 1996 Summer Olympics,

and it owes its success and scope to the Georgia Review, the literary quarterly published by the University of Georgia. Two of the laureates visited Member Station W.U.G.A. in Athens and Melinda Ware profiles the two world-renowned writers. And asked how he could be world-famous, and yet at the same time remain provincial in his writing. The Polish-American poet, Chesslove Miloš, credited William Faulkner for inspiration. But Faulkner's characters, in Yachtna Patafa County, didn't have the cold war to contend with. The Lithuanian-born Miloš could work in any of his many adopted languages. But the language he chooses, he says, has an enormous impact on the outcome. He can write essays in English, for example, but his poetry is usually written in the Polish of his childhood. It seems to me that poetry is so intimately connected with the language of one's childhood. And since Polish happens to be the language of my childhood, I continue. Besides a change of the language really leads to a change of personality.

So if you want to be faithful to your roots, you're right in the language of your childhood. Active in the Warsaw Resistance during World War II, Miloš became a diplomat in the Polish government after the war, and then in the 50s was granted political asylum by France. A decade later, he moved again, this time to the United States. Speaking to the University of Georgia's Anna Kubutska, Miloš reflected on his influential book of political essays called The Captive Mind, originally published more than 40 years ago. Of course, I have very vivid remembrances of writing that book and the number of cigarettes I smoke writing that book. But I am very glad that I did it. It became a kind of a classic, because communism is a revolved issue, it belongs to the past, and it captured the essence of some fascination with history and with the electrical materialism.

Yet Miloš believes political writings, like those in The Captive Mind, can only scratch the surface. Poetry, he believes, is where the real inquiry takes place. Miloš won the Nobel for Literature in 1980, the year of solidarity in Poland. Despite the Swedish Academy's reticence to make political statements, Miloš used his acceptance speech to speak out on issues he felt were important. That was the time when an invasion of Poland was a real danger, a Soviet invasion. So I was very, very careful not to formulate current political opinions. But in my Nobel speech, I had to touch things which I knew and which were in my bones, to say, because I witnessed all those events, beginning with a lot of re-bentropact, which unleashed

the Second World War and deportations from Lithuania and cutting massacre. My answer to your question is to politics of a poet, is that he should avoid it. But when he is absolutely cornered, he has to take a stand. Czeslav Miloš, Nobel-winning poet and essayist. Nigerian playwright Wojli Shoyinka has been cornered by politics before. In the late 1960s, Shoyinka spent 27 months in solitary confinement for his opposition to the Biaffron Civil War. Although his imprisonment sparked international protest, his captors didn't budge. As Shoyinka told the University of Georgia's Stanley Longman last week, the military leaders considered him a threat. We response of the military to much of the protestations outside, to make sure we were just to send me to solitary confinement and place me out a reach of any kind of reports from anybody

to the outside world, so they could make all sorts of statements that I wrote in one of my poems. The propaganda was that I was allowed everything, there's allowed books and so on. While every single scrap of writing material or reading material had been removed from myself. But political prisoners can be resourceful. And Shoyinka managed to do his writing on toilet paper and match books. The poems he wrote during those two years are collected in the 1972 book, A Shuttle in the Crypt. After many other acclaimed volumes of poetry, plus plays, novels and essays, Shoyinka was awarded the Nobel for Literature in 1986. This marked the first time an African writer had received the award. When asked about his tendency to portray his diverse characters with a rich sense of irony, and to allow no one to be in the absolute right, Shoyinka had this response. I hope that comes out because that certainly is for me, in fact, the foundation of which am I called human freedom in its most profound sense.

One lives a life which can be described as being free, simply because one frees oneself intellectually to continue to explore the possibilities of truth. The moment you think you have arrived at absolute truth, you have situations like the kind of fundamentalist insanity which is threatening the entire piece of the world. Maybe that's where peace comes into your writing of me, of mine. The certitude which enables human beings to go out, I don't care whether it's on ideological terms, like during the rigid Marxist orthodoxy which controlled vast, millions of abstracts of land and millions and millions of people, whether you're talking about religious certitude, which enables individuals and groups and priests to order their zombies out to murder writers, like attempt to murder writers like Mahfuz, threatened the life of Taslim Nasrim,

kill hundreds of journalists, women for daring to dress in a particular way. That kind of certitude for me is a kind of insanity and it's anti, it's totally contrary to my concept of humanity as an inquiring species of animal. Bully Shiyinka, Nobel winning playwright, poet and novelist. The gathering of eight Nobel laureate writers took place in Atlanta this week as part of the cultural Olympiad. For Georgia Gazette, I'm Melinda Weir. After eight months on strike, major league baseball players returned to their ball parks across the country this week. Here in Atlanta, the brave reception by fans was Luke Warn at best and instead of an opening day sellout, Atlanta found itself playing to a stadium that was half empty. Mike Savage reports on an opening day that was far from business as usual. Usually team officials aren't worried about fans' support, especially on opening day.

Over the past four years, the Atlanta Braves have been one of the top teams in baseball and winning was all that was needed to attract fans from miles around. And the baseball strike has changed all that. This year, Braves officials have pulled out all the stops to bring attendance back to the sellout levels of years past. As the small crowd made their way to their seats, a Dixieland Jazz band played in the background, welcoming back Braves fans to major league baseball. In addition to jazz music, a barbershop quartet decked out in matching striped vests and straw hats was on hand to help create a festive atmosphere. Team officials had hoped that the Jazz band and the barbershop quartet, along with other perks like free souvenirs, would appeal to fans who felt betrayed by the eight-month

old player strike. The strategy did not work as well as Braves officials wanted it to. Only about 24,000 fans showed up at the stadium, the smallest crowd in opening day in five years. Many of those who attended the game said they hold no grudges against the players of the owners. They were just happy to see major league baseball back in Atlanta. It appears to me there's been a little bit of common sense put in there because if you'll notice the free agents ain't getting the big booming millions, instead of taking the bushel baskets with them, they're taking the little purses and they're keeping them all shut and taking what they can get, I think what they're doing now they're saying, hey, let's go to work. Let's make something because after all a lot of my married got families, you know, I know how it was when it back in my working days, I'm retired now. I took anything I could get, I think that's what they're going to go for. Baseball's baseball, baseball's America. I'm here to watch a game, you got nine guys competing against nine guys and I'm a Braves fan and, oh, five years, it'll never make a difference whether it's replacement players

or the guys who are here, wouldn't have made any difference. That's why I'm disappointed. That's right. And drink beer. Where are you from, sir? I'm right here from Atlanta for 86, 88 years and how long you been a Braves fan? Ever since they've been here before the full Braves were the crackers that passed the Lynn Ballpark, operated by Mr. Spiller, a soul peanuts, popcorn, and cracker jack. No reason you wouldn't let me sell soft drink because I was too little to carry a whole crate up. What do you, what do you think about the strike, that dampen your, well, my, my, does not forgive and forget. What's your, it happens in life. You can't hold a grudge, you've got to, you've got to give a little and take a little. You've got to get on with the show, that's play ball. You've got to try to come to most every game or you, oh, no, we just come whenever we

kind of we can and it's a good day, yeah, we've got tickets, two fans at the strike, doesn't bother at all. No. That strike, that's a two way thing. There's no need to get, no, any one side of that fence, left him, worked that out himself and let's have ball bearing. Those who were out the stadium said they were going to attend regardless of the strike. However, there was one fan who created his own picket line to protest the strike. David Green of Griffin, Georgia, carried a sign which said he was a fan that was on strike. He based back and forth inside a small police barricade, which was located just outside the stadium. Green said he was there to vent his frustrations over what he called the greediness of the players and owners. They went on strike and from what I understand, they didn't, they didn't settle anything on strike and they just came back before they, the other players decided to play ball.

I don't think that's right. I was going to go on strike, why don't you get what you're trying to get or get a little of something at least. But I don't understand they got anything at all, so I missed the World Series, did you miss him? I missed him. I missed the playoffs. Been a brave fan most all my life, so just one man speaking his mind, I guess. Green said that he doesn't know how much longer he'll stay on strike and admits that he'll probably attend a few games this year. He also believes that most of the fans will eventually come back. Many players agree with Green and they are taking steps to bring the fans back as quickly as possible. They are attempting to reach fans by making themselves more available for autographs before each game. But signing autographs may not be enough.

Many fans are still angry at the players and it may take a while to smooth over some of the bad feelings created by the baseball strike. That was clearly evident during the pre-game introduction of a Braves player who was heavily involved in the strike negotiations. Lavon has been one of the most popular players on the Braves roster, but his position as a union spokesman during the strike damaged his popularity. Lavon says he expected to be booed by the fans, but even he was surprised by their reaction on opening day. During a post game news conference, Lavon became angry when he was repeatedly asked questions about the earlier incident. Lavon in the rest of the players admit they have an uphill battle ahead of them if they are going to gain some of the strong fan support of past seasons.

The players and owners do agree on one thing they are going to have to work together to bring the fans back to the stadium. Braves outfielder Marquis Grissom and shortstop Jeff Blauser say they are willing to do their part and team president Stan Caston says he will as well. You know it is going to get better as baseball going. A couple more ESPN highlights and hopefully get them back out here. These people want to come out and see baseball for what it is. It is a game. It is a game. Hopefully played well by players and that is how it has been for 100 some out years and hopefully they will stay that way. Sure people, these people have some sort of anger towards players, maybe even hatred towards players. We have all had dilemmas in our lives where we have had to forget and certainly baseball is something that is not as important as other things in people's lives. It is really up to us to get them to want to see our product but I think we can do it because I think the game is terrific and I think the players that we have, not just here but

all the other cities are terrific and they will attract the fans but it is up to us to keep pushing because we cannot take any of them for granted. This is Mike Savage. I guess no, sports entrepreneur, connoisseur, rack on tour, herb white, hi herb, how are you? Good to see you Bruce. Boy we are having great time in sports right now. A lot of things happening. Let's talk first about the Hawks. They really did not deserve to lose that ball game. They played their hearts out. Yeah they did. They played with a lot of heart and the only discouraging part about of course besides the fact that they lost is how much better can they play. Maybe they can shoot a little better and Mookie Blaylock of course was in foul trouble in a second half and that hurt them because without Mookie Blaylock in there they really lose a lot but great effort but I am afraid Indiana is again like last year just a little too strong

for them. I am not going to write off the Hawks so not after last night you know if they can put a couple more efforts like that together I think they are going to really make a run for it. Well you can bet they are not going to quit. Lenny Wilkins doesn't have any quit in them and either do the Atlanta Hawks and by the way congratulations Lenny Wilkins named 1996 Olympic coach so when the Olympics come to Atlanta it will be our guy. Okay tennis big weekend for tennis. Sure is all kinds amateur and professional tennis. The University of Georgia, men's and women's men's team ranked number one in the country. Women's team ranked number two I believe they are playing in the SEC tournaments this week in respective cities I think Auburn Alabama for the women in Baton Rouge for the men and then the NCAA finals will be coming to Athens about the middle of May which is always a great event. We'll wish them all the best. Then you got Andre Agassi number one player in the world come into Atlanta AT&T challenge he's won it four times Michael Chang will be here some great players in Atlanta it's Clay Court tennis a lot of fun to watch.

Agassi is really coming to his own. He really has he's been impressive since he came off that wrist injury last year. He and Pete Samper's are playing above everybody else right now and they have tremendous matches. On Clay a guy like Michael Chang and Malavai Washington's back he beat Agassi in the finals here last year great Clay Court player. The points are much longer there's more action I think the fans really enjoy the Clay Court tennis more than the hard court. And last but not least let's talk baseball first thing you were telling me about a possible cancellation of the all-star game well there's there's word out it was in USA yesterday we talked a little bit about it on our show Gene Orza associate counsel for the players association said yesterday in USA today that there's a possibility if the $8 million that was not paid into the pension fund by the owners during the strike is not put in there soon or by a certain date the players may strike and there will not be an all-star game. I'd like to know who's doing the public relations for the players why even talk about that in public those are the because all it's going to do is alienate the fans even more

and it's still a few months down the road sure. And the Braves off to a two-and-all start doing quite well the best team money can buy they say and it looks like we may be getting our money's worth at least in the power and pitching categories the Greg Maddox has a misdebeat went out pitch five and his other day gave up one run looked tremendous Tom Glavin had to be a gutsy move you know performance for him because he was booed when the team was introduced the first night and he was booed when he went to the mound last night but he hang on hung in there and pitched well he didn't get the win but he did perform well Fred McGriff is off on a Terry's hit two home runs in the first game David Justice already has two home runs he's five for five the Braves look awesome right now I think I'll finish to Tom Glavin let's hope that some of the fans turn those booze into cheers for him. Well maybe the people that would be rough as son of aren't even there because the crowds are not big right now. Well Herb White sports commentator for WCNN Radio and also contributed to Georgia because that we thank you once again and we'll talk to you next week always a pleasure Bruce.

Still to come on Georgia Gazette um I would ask about the number on his arm and he would tell me that he got that at a concentration camp at Auschwitz in this holocaust remembrance Joseph Cohn talks about his father's life and the Jewish ghettos and Nazi death camps during World War II unfortunately child abuse is a generational problem we tend to parent as we were parented April is child abuse awareness month find out things you can do to help keep Georgia's children alive and safe plus the tower saxophone quartet stay with us. With this hour a ceremony at the state capital in Atlanta marks holocaust remembrance weight.

Joseph Cohn and his family traveled there from Augusta to one of the memory of his father Abraham Cohn before his death Abraham Cohn wrote down the story of his life in the Jewish ghettos and death camps during World War II Abe's story a holocaust memoir is now out in print. St. Hoskinson talked with the son Joseph about his father and his father's book. Abraham Cohn was just 16 years old when Nazi soldiers invaded the Polish town where he lived comfortably with his parents and his two younger sisters. The family lost its possessions and after a brief time in a Nazi created ghetto the Cohns were transported to their first camp. It soon became apparent to Abraham that he could be of more help to his family if he escaped. Joseph Cohn says reading about his father's separation from his family was difficult. And this one scene I don't relate to my father. I relate to my father's father. I put myself in my grandfather's place. Would I have the courage to send my son Jason out in his circle in that same position? And would I have, I just don't know, that's the part that's very difficult for me.

One more trying than facing death itself was facing my parents and sisters with the news that I was planning to escape. My heart broke as the moment of departure and separation from my family neared. I ran to meet the outstretched arms of my mother. Her frail, weakened form convulsed with sobs as she embraced me and kissed me goodbye. She held on to me with a grip that expressed volumes. It said go. It said stay. It said how sad it said how much I love you now and forever. It said God please watch over my son. It said the unspeakable it spoke of a mother's love for her only son. My sisters cried and held on to me as if to hold on to the memory of this moment and to life. My father who had always been my strength and shield waited until last to come over. He removed his pinch spectacles, fell on my shoulder, hugged me with all of his might,

then abruptly let go. Don't ever forget us, he said. Don't ever forget who you are and what our religion teaches us. Watch yourself and may the eternal who watches over all of us mercifully protect you. I had to summon all my strength to make my feet take me away. I was never to see my family again. Abram's father could give his son nothing but a pair of shoes. He knew that he needed to hold on to those shoes. They were a new pair of leather shoes and even when he was marching in the snow and worn out shoes or that no longer protected his feet, he still wouldn't wear those leather shoes because he wanted to hold on to them. They're like, he carried them through the holocaust. Even when his other shoes were no longer good, he marched in tattered shoes and then he begged for new shoes from the Nazi guards, always hiding his good shoes and he got new shoes

or he got another pair of shoes anyway and that's the story in itself but he really just hung on to those. His father gave them to him as he said his last goodbyes to them. Those shoes would save his life. Abram never wore them but used them to bribe his way out of a work camp where he surely would have died. But Joseph Corn says it was his father's youth, his strong work ethic, his faith and his profound belief that people are basically good that sustained Abram. He really had an incredible capacity to look straight at the person, only judge the person by the person and if it weren't for that ability, I don't think he could have survived the way he did anyway. I know he couldn't have. He had a lot of help from Germans, let's say.

He has a whole chapter in his book dedicated to Germans, to good Germans. If he couldn't have looked at people the way he did, he wouldn't have been able to get the help that he did from those people. Joseph says he learned the truth about his father's life only after his death in 1972 when he read Abram's unfinished manuscript. He says the memories were always too painful for Abram to share with his children. I would ask, you know, what's wrong with your toes? He had frostbitten toes and he had lost a part of one toe and they were all crooked and you could tell something was wrong. And he would say that it happened when he had to march in the snow in the Holocaust. But that would be it. It would be a short, quick answer and that would be it. I would ask about the number on his arm and he would tell me that he got that at a concentration camp at Auschwitz.

But that would be it. He wouldn't have elaborate. Abram Corn was a prisoner at Buchenwald when it was liberated by U.S. soldiers. The day was April 11, 1945, Abram was 21 years old. His book, Abe's Story, A Holocaust Memoir, was edited by his son Joseph and published by Longstreet Press of Atlanta, I'm Sid Hoskinson. My guest now on Georgia Gazette, Rita Morgan, the Associate Executive Director of the Georgia Council on Child Abuse. Rita, thanks for being with us on Georgia Gazette. Oh, it's my pleasure. April is Child Abuse Awareness Month. Correct. And what are we doing in Georgia during the month of April to bring out more awareness about the problems of child abuse? Well, the Georgia Council is a statewide volunteer-based organization and we have about 59 councils

located around the state. And those councils are doing all kinds of activities to highlight April as child abuse prevention month. The activities will range from golf tournaments, charity golf tournaments, radio shows like this in their local communities, television, affairs in the park, whatever will get people out and generate discussion on the topic of how to prevent child abuse. I've been told that child abuse has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. I think that's a fair statement. Here in Georgia, I understand in 1993, there were more than 76,000 child abuse cases reported, almost one every 30 minutes in the state of Georgia.

What can we do? What is the first step I, my friends, my colleagues can do to help prevent child abuse? What is the first thing we need to do? Awareness and self-education is the first thing. I think that we all need to look at ourselves, look at our relationships with the children in our lives. What do we model for our children in terms of how you express anger, how you handle stress, how open are we to our children talking to us? So many times, after a child has been abused, the parents will say things like, they never told me, I had no idea, well, are we leaving ourselves open for our kids to talk to? When you come home from work after a hard day at work, how do you respond to your children's attempts to talk to you? That's number one. I think we need to do a lot more work on ourselves, educate ourselves, and then protect our children.

It's not difficult, it's really fairly simple. If we know the adults in our children's lives, if we know what their relationships are, if we're open enough for our children to tell us the things that happen to them that disturb them or make them uncomfortable, we won't have these problems. Children is key, we, unfortunately, child abuse is a generational problem. We tend to parent as we were parented. Just spare the right and spoil the child, so to speak. Unfortunately, yes. And we, as an agency, oppose corporal punishment, but we try not to get into arguments with people about that. But the key is to look at what are you trying to accomplish when you are punishing your child?

Are you venting your anger or are you correcting behavior? And I think most times people will recognize that what they're really doing when they're using corporal punishment is venting their own anger. And we say they're better ways, and it's just that simple. Beyond that, abuse goes so much farther than what we typically mean by corporal punishment. And it's because, as you said, it's epidemic proportions now, but it's because our society has so many problems. You know, 15 years ago, the problem wasn't this bad because there was no crack cocaine, for instance. We are quickly disintegrating as a society. And I think we need to take a step back and take control of our lives again. Most people, when they think of child abuse, they think of physical abuse, but that is just one type of abuse.

Am I correct? Yes, exactly. Can you define some of the others? Sure. There's neglect, which is the largest category in terms of the numbers that you quoted from the Department of Family and Children's Services. And neglect is simply the withholding or failure to provide the basic necessities, food, shelter, clothing, medical care. And protection earlier too? Yes. What are the types of there? There's emotional abuse, which is generally excessive demands on a child beyond their capacity to perform. Again, parents need to be taught a little bit more about child development. You know, sometimes it's almost funny, the expectations that parents have of their children at certain ages, you know, a two-year-old is expected to dress themselves and to be a little adult.

Well, that's not realistic. So of course, the child is never going to meet your expectations, and that just engenders frustration, and we end up in extreme cases with a case of child abuse, with a physical abuse. As a neighbor, a friend, or a relative, how could I identify some of the signs of child abuse? Well, when I look for, without perhaps making a mistake, crying wolf, so to speak. Yeah, that does bother a lot of people, and is one of the reasons that people don't report as often as we would like them to. But generally, it's the extremes of behavior. The same signs that are there for any kind of stress in a child's life, bed wetting, temper tantrums, depression, or withdrawal. The extremes of behavior. A child who is normally quiet is suddenly boisterous and demanding and aggressive, that's

a sign. The opposite for the child who was normally very outgoing, who is now withdrawn and won't talk. Usually, teachers will notice differences in behavior and may try to talk to a parent about it. Okay, if I think a child is being abused, what should I do, and what can I do? Okay. Well, if you have a close relationship with the parents, and you get the nerve, you might approach the parents, and especially if you think it's stress-related abuse. If you don't want to do that, then you can contact your local police or the Department of Family and Children Services in your county, and they will be happy to do an investigation. Is this an anonymous situation?

Yes, it is anonymous. All right. Rita Morgan, Associate Executive Director of the Georgia Council on Child Abuse. This is Child Abuse Awareness Month, and Rita, I'd like to take a moment and thank you very much for being with us, but I know you've got a very busy schedule. Okay, thank you. And again, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Well, if you're still making your weekend plans, perhaps our arts calendar will help. Good afternoon. I'm Kim Tiernan with a look at scheduled events in your area for this weekend and the coming week. The Augusta Symphony Chamber players present their final concert of the season this Saturday night at 730 at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church. The Augusta Symphony Woodwind Quintet will perform works by Beethoven and Ebert. The Macon Symphony welcomes the women's voices of Wesleyan College for a concert Saturday night at Porter Auditorium in Macon. The concert to feature the Georgia premiere of a work by John Adams. Next Wednesday, members of the Savannah Symphony will be on Wilmington Island for a concert to feature music by voice, kulao, and Mozart.

The concert will be held at the Wilmington Island United Methodist Church. A wonderful opportunity to hear quality music across the state is through music, faculty, concerts. In the new arts complex of Eisenhower Parkway in Macon, the Macon College's music faculty are presenting a recital tonight at 8 in the complex's new theater. Another free concert is offered at Clayton State College's Spivey Hall. This is a concert hall that was specially built to provide a variety of musical entertainment for the community. This is Joy-Line Taylor, she'll be the featured soprano on a program of German leader tonight. We're doing a group of chubert, a group of vol, and a group of Strauss. And then from there, we sort of branched out to some of the other composers. And those are Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonio Bivaldi. It's a free concert beginning tonight at 815 at Spivey Hall on the campus of Clayton State College in Morrow.

Finally, the Love Affair Arts Festival is underway in Tifton. The Arteria Spring Quartet performs this Sunday at 2 at St. Anne's Episcopal Church. And next Thursday night, the Mia Trio will be at St. Anne's with composer and residence Stephen Cox for the Royal Premier of the new piece for the trio. If you have any questions concerning these or other events in your area, call us for details at 1-800-654-3038. For Georgia Gazette, I'm Kim Tiernan. For the past eight months, the Tower saxophone quartet from Rochester, New York has been living and performing chamber music in mulchery as part of the National Endowment for the Arts Royal Residency Program.

Susanna Capeludo traveled to South Georgia where she spent some time with the musicians. On this day, the Tower saxophone quartet is playing for the Children of Baker County Elementary in Newton. 340 children go to this school, which is surrounded by trailers because last year's flooding in South Georgia left many of these children and their families homeless. But today, the kids laugh again as the Tower saxophone quartet wanders through this young audience holding the saxophone bells in front of the children's faces all the while playing Texito Junction. I'm 23 years old and I graduated in 1993 from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.

I played tenor saxophone. My name is Terry Bacon, I play soprano saxophone, I'm 23 years old, originally from Rochester, New York, and I also graduated in 1993 from the Eastman School of Music. My name is Jeff McEckney, I'm from Feeding Hills, Massachusetts, I play the alto saxophone, and I graduated from the Eastman School of Music in 1993. I'm Rick Wyman from Hampton, Massachusetts, I play the baritone saxophone and I graduated from Eastman School of Music in 1992. We have played for anybody and everybody, we have played in the prison here, we've played in the detention center, we've played in several senior citizen homes, we've played all the major civic organizations from the United Daughters of the Confederacy to the Rotary Club, the Lion Club, the Kwanis Club, we spend most of our time working in schools, we spend about 12 hours a week going to each elementary school, there's ten in this county and we've performed a concert and two in classroom follow-up sessions for every single child and we're

also doing concerts for the older grades. As soon as they have the students' attention, the tower saxophone quartet is ready to introduce them to chamber music and quietly, with your hands in your laps, this next piece is called Pavan, it's very slow, very relaxing and I think you'll enjoy it, don't fall asleep though or you'll miss some good things, okay? We could just decide we're gonna play for people who we know for sure appreciate it and that would be the end of it but I don't think that that helps as much as what we're trying to do, which is to have young kids appreciate this music or to have people who maybe have heard of chamber music and have said oh I don't like that kind of stuff and come to our concert and say yes I like it because we use non-traditional ways, we're trying different

things to adapt to the fact that people today aren't as much into chamber music as in the past, so we try doing different lively things to get the audience involved and we're not afraid to put a dress on and do a little skit and yet educate them at the same time, it is worth it to be here if people are gaining an appreciation and it seems like as each class comes in this morning there's people gaining an appreciation, like when you ask do people, do you like the Pavan and everyone raises their hand minus a few people? I mean that's rewarding. It's been a lot of fun and it's very rewarding to see kids getting really, really excited over classical music and jazz music, music that they've probably never heard before, especially down here where it's either country or rap, when we ask kids what have they heard it's either country or rap. This is the second time the quartet played at Baker County Elementary and they have made

quite an impact as music teacher Elaine Love. After they came last week all my fourth graders want to play saxophone next year, see? You don't have that many, you guys, somebody's going to play something else, but you can see how it influences the children when they say something that they like and that they enjoy. They all want to be saxophones next year. Tim Martin is the school's PE teacher. I'm glad they came to the school and we have really enjoyed them. A lot of our kids don't know about the music or never really hear this type of music so I think it's really been a feature and we're glad that they came here. The Lions Club of Maltry is opening its regular meeting in a back room of the Western Sizzling

restaurant. Tonight the tower quartet will add their part to the musical entertainment. The reason why we're called tower quartet, it goes along with our mission that we're trying to reach so many different types of people that we think of our mission being like the tower, trying to reach people from the penthouse to the very bottom and all levels in between with our music. Let me say welcome, it's good to have you at the Maltry Lions Club meeting tonight. We look forward to our program tonight. We some of us have heard these gentlemen play before, some of you haven't, but if you haven't, you lift a treat, you're going to get a treat tonight. The Lions Club members will get to hear a special piece written for the tower quartet by Dana Wilson.

The reason it's called a escape to the center is because the beginning and the end of the piece is pretty crazy with all this rhythm and fragmentation and all this stuff going on but in the middle the piece comes quite peaceful and serene so this is the center that we want an escape to and I hope you enjoy Dana Wilson's escape to the center. When we first came here, we didn't know for example where Maltry was to begin with or what to expect for that matter but once we got here we found that we haven't really had to adjust our repertoire or the types of programming decisions that we want to make just

because we're in rural area I think that people have been extremely receptive to all of our concerts and what's been nice is that we've been able to introduce them to pieces that have been more challenging to listen to. We can say that we're three time White House performers. We were invited at Christmas time in 1993 and there we ran into totally by accident President Clinton and got to perform for him and speak with him briefly and things went over so well.

We were invited back for Easter egg roll last year and things went so well that we have a friend who works at the White House that we have made through our trips and so many people were saying hey can we get that saxophone quartet back that we were invited back for a third trip and we were invited to perform at a special party for the Vice President and Mrs. Gore for adult friends of theirs. When we went to go perform at the prison how nervous all of us were to go there here we were on a prison I'd never been inside one we had no idea I just pictured you know scenes

of bar scenes like us sitting there needing chicken wire in front of us because the guys you're playing classical music and jazz and they're going to be going crazy saying oh you know get out of here you dummies and all that but it was amazing because we started we played for about an hour we started with classical music and progressed to jazz and then did some pop type things at the end the classical music I would look out and these guys would just be entranced by this they loved it they even knew not to clap between movements many of the lines club members of veterans of world would too so the towel quartet also brings them the music they grew up with we worked out this dance show we're going to give

you a little sample of that right now with a Glenn Miller medley I'm sure you'll recognize some of these tunes oh the Glenn Miller part that was during World War II and all of us of World War II veterans that stayed with us long in the middle of the era music and heavy is this the first time you've seen the towel quartet or have you seen them before I've seen them before at church of course they didn't play Glenn Miller at church yeah I mean I would church down at Archivale Baptist Church one Sunday they played for us and this first time I've seen them other than that they are real good the tower's saxophone quartet will play next Tuesday at noon in downtown tifton as part of the

love affair arts festival they will give their final concert in mulchry on June 1st we've become a part of this community and it will be very difficult to leave here we've made some lifelong friends here people that will remain in contact with families ministers individuals couples that will remain in contact with I'm sure long after we're gone and that's Georgia Gazette for this week production help on today's program provided by Susanna Kapaloodle, Sid Hoskinson, James Argroves, Mike Savage and Melinda Ware coming up next week find out what effect congressman Nathan Diel just switched from Democrat to Republican could have on Georgia politics in the future Lee May so seeds of contentment in his garden of vegetables flowers and memories plus meet Georgia

author Janice Dirty that's Georgia Gazette for this week I'm Bruce Thornton have yourself a nice day and a nice week broadcaster Georgia Gazette is made possible in part by a grant from West Point Stevens if you have questions or comments about this program please write to Georgia Gazette Peach State Public Radio 1540 Stuart Avenue Southwest Atlanta Georgia 30310 or call us at 1-800-654-3038 you can also reach us online our internet address is printed in your program guide preview Georgia Gazette is a public affairs presentation of Peach State Public Radio a brief history in the last year we have read totaled a 1993 240 Volvo and also a 1994 Chevy S10 Blazer

and I heard last week you're talking about the Mercedes being as safe or you you preferred it over the Volvo and I was wondering we want to buy a car and I was wondering if we could buy an affordable Mercedes if there is such a thing there is going to be a safe and also as reliable as the Volvo you've you've totaled two relatively new cars in a year too hard to total cars too too hard to total cars yeah how'd you do that who did those cows was it you personally are well you gotta understand too we've moved three times from Chicago to Cedar Rapids Iowa to the upper peninsula of Michigan got that did it we totaled a car in each area and that's why you left the embarrassment well are you guys on the witness protection program or something similar to that good god you're dangerous people that's why you sound like such a sweet little thing

but no good well I mean you probably had your run of bad luck I mean how much how much worse could it get on the other hand if you think that the dark cloud is hovering over you then I would certainly not hesitate to buy a Mercedes if safety is an important issue and if you guys are really car records and they are seems to be seems to be the case I mean the answer is yes you can get a reason well reasonably somewhat reasonably priced Mercedes that is pretty safe well you can get a used Mercedes so would they still have the airbags and the safety features certainly oh yeah you could you could get a 94 or by when you're ready to buy it a 95 and you could we were good all of the side airbags that the Volvo came out and that's not quite appealing to us yeah for records like you yeah of course it's appealing so I'm not sure whether the the Volvo with the side airbags would be any less safe than the small Mercedes

okay and it's certainly within your price range I'd go for it okay and more more than that we're interested in having reports on the side impact deployment so I figure with you buying one of these we've got a pretty good shot of hearing some you know first any information like every week you know in the kids in the hereditary factor there I'll have to let you know how they do too I'm sure they're going to have this year of excitement as well longitudinal study here on the side impact that's right yeah maybe the Volvo with the side airbags is for you yeah see if they can put extra ones in yeah in the back to everywhere you're back on the roof to see a second I just want to tell you the only NPR station my kid liked to listen to so we enjoy you a great deal sure well thanks and thank you kids see you bye bye well you've squandered another perfectly good hour listening to card talk our steam producer is Doug punk and lips berman our associate producer in dean of the college of auto musicology is Ken baby face rogers our engineer and assistant producer is Jennifer jiffy lobe our chief bottle washer is Ken Okano our technical advisor

I got a little high preferentialing for this is John Bugsie Sebastian Mr. Height sweet cheeks free lunch trick of toes hula hips donut breath gigabyte make that two triple cheeseburgers walk excellence uh our public opinion pollster is paul murky of murky research our automotive medical research research is dark content defender our fleet manager is Oscar de la rental the manager of our employee refrigerator is carbon dating our director of congressional funding is Fred not our mission tester is Justin heild of fifth our personal trainer is Jim shorts our staff marriage counselors marry and haste our international lubrication expert is CV butro's butro's galley assistant this week by Fidel Castro our congressional lobbyist our orange hatchback Paul Simon Eisenhower fonts dim bulbo our wardrobe is by Natalie attired and of course our chief counsel from a law firm of dewey treatment how is you lose dewey known around the company parking lot as you we do we we're clicking collect the tapping brothers thanks for listening and don't drive like my brother drive like my brother we'll be back next week bye bye

car talk is a production of dewey treatment how and wwe are in Boston and even though robert see the hangs is heading shame here's a say it this is npr national public radio from national public radio I'm Steve Kerwood with earth they plus 25 a checkup on the planet a special series on the issues and problems facing the environment 25 years after the world mark the first earth today a look at the environmental movement 25 years after it first took the name how far has it come what problems does it still face stay tuned

in the past 25 years a new environmental awareness has moved into the mainstream of American society a blend of the historic conservation movement with new concerns about pollution and sustainability today nearly everyone is talking about how the environment affects nearly everything our homes our schools our jobs our food and water the cars we drive and the clothes we wear many observers consider this realization to be one of the greatest successes of the modern environmental movement reporter tariff its Patrick takes a look back at how the environment moved to center stage if you look at the headlines of nineteen sixty you'd never think america was on the verge of an environmental revolution if i'm elected president or whoever may be his

journal Kennedy was promising a new generation of leadership he was also stressing the need for economic development not conservation the development of the resources of this country to prepare the way for the 300 million people who are going to live here in 40 years i think is an essential requirement but shortly after Kennedy took office the environment edged into the popular culture the book silent spring revealed the dangers of pesticides another book the population bomb became a best seller musicians like tom lear we're singing about pollution if you visit american city you will find it very pretty just two things of which you must be where don't drink the water and don't breathe the air pollution pollution i got smog and sewage and mud turn on your tap and get hot and cold running crud

still the environmental movement had yet to coalesce the issues of clean air and water were viewed as intellectual concerns banning atomic bomb tests and creating wilderness areas weren't seen as related issues activists like Dennis Hayes felt limited all of this was coming together but they were separate strands nobody sort of put them together in a concerted effort that got them a higher priority in people's minds or linked them all together as being emblematic of a shared set of values ironically one of the crowning technological achievements of the 60s president Kennedy's space program would inadvertently provide america with a shared experience that helped inspire the environmental movement this transverse is coming to you approximately half way between the moon and the earth it was christmas and for the first time ever people could see pictures of the earth as one planet a fragile home in a forbidding blackness

and from the tree of the fall right we close with christmas good luck a very christmas and god bless all of you all of you on the good earth the image of one earth helped to unify the country in an april 22nd 1970 concern for the health of the planet exploded in an unprecedented display of support this is a cbs news special earth day a question of survival with cbs news correspondent watercrung kite good evening a unique day in american history is ending a day set aside for a nationwide outpouring of mankind seeking its own survival earth day was part teach in part mass mobilization its organizer denis haze spoke at a rally in washington we are systematically destroying our land our streams and our seas we fall our air dead in our senses and pollute our bodies that's when america's become that's where we have to challenge it was a challenge not

everyone was willing to accept some quarters are more than coincidence in the fact that earth day occurred on the 100th anniversary of the birth of lennon the father of soviet communism and the controller general of georgia james bentley set out sixteen hundred dollars worth of telegrams warning the earth day might be a communist plot but earth day events attracted 20 million participants more than enough to dispel the critics and create the political momentum that denis haze was seeking but we wanted to have this people at the end of it who understood these issues cared about them passionately were prepared to vote on the basis of such issues were prepared to make changes in their own lives and everything from the number of children that they had to the kind of automobile that they drove on the basis of what they learned it worked it grabbed the attention of congress leon billings then chief of staff for the senate air and water committees says earth day turned environmentalism into an unstoppable political force there was a tremendous

wellspring of of uh goodwill among young people who were looking for something to be for after the bloodletting of the vietnam war demonstrations and so on and and the environmental issue was a perfect it was a perfect opportunity politicians had to support the environmental cause simply to survive even president nixon because there are no local or state boundaries to the problems of our environment the federal government must play an active positive role we can and will set standards we can and will exercise leadership we are providing leon billings says nixon didn't really care about the environment what he cared about was the environmental vote which was lining up to support senator edmund muskie's bid to challenge nixon for president the whole white house strategy was to try to cut muskie off from that constituency through preempting the those issues we got into one of those wonderful points in american

politics where you had political one-upsmanship is between congress and the president in short order this one-upmanship resulted in the clean air act the clean water act the endangered species act the environmental protection agency all these environmental landmarks were approved in just three years the early seventies had become an environmental renaissance the environment was even the province of musical superstars suddenly here was a movement in which a a middle class housewife who had never done anything activists before in her life but cared passionately about

the kind of world she was passing under her kids there was a role in this one for her denis haze and other activists won praise from all directions even republicans like william ruckel's house had of the newly formed EPA as a society we owe a debt to those who have made the environment a call to action they are for the most part sincere dedicated and fair-minded advocates of environmental responsibility but it wasn't an unbroken string of environmental victories there were major defeats the first big fight under the endangered species act was lost when congress approved a damn that wiped out a fish called the snail daughter in the wake of the opek oil embargo the transalaska pipeline was approved as the seventies drew to a close environmentalism had lost some of its magic but then came love canal an unusual hostage incident is underway in agra falls new york tonight no weapons are involved as two officials of the environmental protection agency are being

held against their will by members of the love canal homeowners association at the group's headquarters the two hostages are residents of Niagara Falls america's honeymoon capital we're getting sick because of chemical leaks from the love canal dump site angry homeowners were fighting back this was a blue collar town people like lowest gives hadn't been part of the environmental consciousness that swept the country when i lived in Niagara Falls and we smelled chemicals and we had black clouds we had brown clouds we have white clouds i mean it was terrible we smelled that and we thought good economy we didn't think air pollution poisoned because we didn't understand because nobody was talking about it at our level but soon the entire nation was talking about toxic waste this was just the first of many communities to learn that chemical dumping could threaten human health love canal was evacuated so was times beach Missouri then the super fund list was developed detailing america's worst hazardous waste sites

the release of the list woke up america in a way that they had never been woken up before because every local paper took the list and talked about the sites in their community everybody said i've got a love canal and so people really became concerned they saw their their self interest and they wanted something done immediately lowest Gibbs founded a clearing house to help others who were fighting toxic dump sites it was the beginning of a second wave of environmental awareness among working class people none of us were trained organizers none of us had at any experience and even being an environmentalist if you were to ask my neighbors today if they were an environmentalist they would say no what we're about is fighting for justice other events continued to strengthen support for the environment most notably the nuclear power accident at three mile island but suddenly in 1981 the movement was on the defensive Ronald Reagan took over the white house to Reagan environmental groups were special interests that hurt the economy it was time for business to have a stronger voice leading the charge

was secretary of the interior james want business men pay taxes business people have rights all americans won in november and those liberals from the special interest groups are furious that the positions of power have been opened up to america for americans and that's our objective what wanted to roll back environmental programs and open more public lands to things like mining and grazing but the Reagan revolution founded when it came to the environment congress was unwilling to water down the landmark legislation that leon billings had helped to craft a decade before we survived the Reagan what era these policy survive because of their militancy people the american public saw what they were proposing is too radical what unwittingly helped

his opponents he showed a remarkable lack of political finesse such as this comment when announcing his appointments to a federal commission i've pointed the lenos commission five members three democrats to republicans every kind of mix you can have i have a black i have a woman to do to do in a cripple and what undermined the administration's credibility on environmental policy even vice president george bush distanced himself from the Reagan record in his run for the white house in nineteen eighty eight bush said he'd be the environmental president later events like the exon valley's oil spill hardened public resolve to protect the environment but as the movement approached its twenty-th anniversary activists were worried by the lesson they'd learned during the Reagan years that legislative gains are vulnerable to changing political tides denis hayes was steering the emphasis of earth day nineteen ninety toward a broader societal goal and away from a focus on

government there was a widespread correct perception that some of those laws had not worked terribly well and that we probably had to do some things that affected the culture affected the society in ways other than than by placing legal restrictions and regulatory restrictions upon some of the reached and do people's behavior we have three types of trash in the round they're not hard to miss we have one for aluminum only one for bottles and one for just trash so help us trash your trash then earth day nineteen ninety focused on individual environmental responsibility things like recycling waste reduction energy conservation the event revitalized the movement but it felt more like a festival than political rally it was a place to take the kids we are a student group showing adults that kids care about the environment to your exhibits called the next generation why because we're the next generation it's our it's going to be our

world in about thirty years so we better make sure it has a future what does the future hold one of the nation's premier environmentalists is now vice president but advocates for property rights and economic growth seem to control the political agenda activists like lowest gives say to meet this challenge the movement needs to build its grassroots support among minorities working people and others directly affected by environmental problems historically we talked about rivers and air and endangered species and trees and so forth this next twenty five years is going to be really looking at people and people are going to become the endangered species and people are going to be the ones who define the laws that affect our environment and affect the way we do things long time organizers like Dennis Hayes think the movement should also rekindle the ideals of nineteen seventy he feels earth days big message building an environmentally sustainable economy has largely been

lost this has been much more a reformist movement its achievements start from a presumption that the fundamentals are good what we need to do is scrub up around the edges and make things a little bit cleaner and partly as a consequence of that most of our heroic victories and expensive victories over the last twenty five years have stopped the nation from getting very much worse during that period but we haven't really profoundly improved in very many areas profound improvements as Hayes includes a lowering of the birth rate and a dramatic drop in the use of natural resources he says we must change the way we think about the earth a spiritual transformation although the environmental revolution has come a long way in this fundamental regard the revolution has just begun I'm Terry Fitzpatrick reporting and

five years ago to mark the 20th anniversary of earth day we asked commentator crocker snow to give us his views on how the environmental movement evolved he said it evolved from the individual not the government nor business nor any other group now five years later with congress threatening to roll back many environmental protections snow's observations seem particularly poignant we thought we'd share them with you once again environmentalism is the ism of the 1990s transcending communism capitalism and hopefully materialism and unlike most isms it's evolved as a movement without a guru there's no Adam Smith or Karl Marx no Mahatma Gandhi or Maldsai tongue or even Madonna there's no Bible or little red book or mine comp but rather Gaia

an Atlas of planet management whether in India or Japan or Costa Rica environmentalism has most appropriately been fertilized grown blossomed and germinated from the ground up from grassroots concerns the 1970s chip co movement in India stem from village women hugging the trees that loggers were cutting down and whose loss was causing soil runoff that undermine their subsistence farming in Japan it was the protests of a few fishermen in the village of Minimata that was the first shot in what has become a global campaign against mercury pollution in brazilian Malaysia it was native tribesmen who first raised the anti about unwanted destruction of the rainforests not scientists or government officials we are as we reflect on earth day well advised to realize that the environment movement is a true citizens one that it is truly global and that we should not first look to governments to identify the problems and stimulate solutions but

rather to ourselves commentator crocker snow junior is editor of the world paper how did you celebrate earth day 25 years ago and how of your celebrations changed today give us a call on our listener comment line the phone number is 1-800-893-3377 that's 1-800-893-3377 you can also reach us through the internet our email address is l-o-e-n-p-r dot org that's l-o-e-n-p-r dot org over the years as environmental awareness grew so did the number of rules regulating pollution industry became a prime target for environmental activists factories account for much of the air

and water pollution poured into the environment and regulation has gone a long way in cutting back those toxic emissions some business leaders object to environmental regulations claiming they cut into profits but other business folks say going green pays off the Belgian company ECOVER sells what it claims are environmentally safe cleaning products and they're made in what the company calls an ecological factory in Belgium reporter Stephen Beard found that the factory is not only good for ECOVER's image it saves the company money as well ecology comes first in the ECOVER factory but business isn't far behind Gunter Pauli president and chief executive officer of the company doesn't waste his words waffling on about global warming and the ozone layer this type of production system that we have put in place with our own manufacturing technologies is very efficient energy efficient employee efficient manufacturing efficient no wastage

we got no time to waste we got no waste ECOVER has been making phosphate free cleaning agents and detergents for a decade anxious to cash in on green consumerism in the late 1980s supermarkets in Europe Japan and the states began stocking the product the company's annual turnover is now 15 million dollars last year the owners decided that an ecologically sound product should be manufactured in an ecologically sound factory built out of the right kind of materials the bricks that are we using are these bricks being manufactured had they have they been two weeks in the oven or have they been two days in the oven well our bricks only have been four hours in the oven because we found the brick which is made partially of wood dust partially of residues from the coal mines and partially of clay the bricks are important so are the beams and rafters that support the roof no energy depleting steel or plastics here just glued strips of Scandinavian pine sustainably

harvested of course the overarching beams create an almost spiritual atmosphere inside the factory ECOVER's information officer Dures Badamaka it looks like a church when you come here when the work is finished you're all alone here you really get the impression of being even in a gothic cathedral makes you feel hollow these wooden stairs as everything is in wood here it takes us take us up to the grass-covered roof the largest ever the crowning glory of the ECOVER factory is on top of the roof a huge undulating lawn on this roof garden and then if we go up again we have this grass-covered roof which is a turned roof the insulating properties of turf have been understood since Viking times but as Ilsa Seagas points out this is the largest lawn ever to be laid on a single rooftop six thousand square meters you can imagine this is a small football

field so why we did this mainly because it saves us between 10 and 30 percent of the energy it is a warming winter it's cold in summer other environmental features include a system for recycling waste water solar powered rotor engines enrich the water with oxygen which is then filtered through a series of read beds planted behind the factory that reduces the taxes they have to pay for discharging effluent into the sewage system the water is returned for use in the factory by means of a windmill pump a further energy saving Gunter Pauli owns 50 percent of the shares in the factory the other half is owned by a large multinational company that runs a security guard service profit is important there are says Mr Pauli sound financial reasons for ecological manufacturing it is obvious that when you can eliminate 60 percent of the heating bill year in year out

the grassroots which is an additional investment of 10 million actually pays the sellback in three years it is clear that when you can reduce your taxes on water by a factor of 10 the investment in the solar powered water purification system well that's paid back as well in approximately five years so I think this is still a net positive contribution to the economy for all his talk of payback times and the bottom line Gunter Pauli is a dedicated environmentalist indeed the corporate video suggests an almost messianic further this factory is only a drop of water the staff of 45 earn only average wages but appear equally committed to the company purchasing manager cloudier yes bar it's more than a job it's a philosophy it's a way of life could you earn more elsewhere yes I could this gives me more satisfaction we are in the first place dedicated to ecova isn't only intent on running the factory

along ecological lines they're trying to make the workforce more eco-friendly too smoking is absolutely banned on the premises employees get a generous travel allowance only if they come to work by bike another thing we're trying to do here is actively promote some of the principles that we had heard to for example are you eating meat every day or shouldn't you go for some vegetarian meals so once in a while I mean I am complete vegetarian I'm not imposing it anyone else but there is a very strong peer grub pressure here that does sound as if it's a little totalitarian here I don't think it's totalitarian it's so enthusiastic in its approach that it's contagious well not entirely I did spot two or three workers furtively smoking behind the factories bicycle shed and I did hear the occasional heresy uttered beyond the earshot of the boss are you a vegetarian no not at all I like a good piece of meat for living on earth this is Stephen Beard at the ecova factory in Belgium

in just a few moments we'll get a glimpse into the life of the mother of the modern environmental

movement Rachel Carson and one example of how her toxic predictions may have come true earth day plus 25 a checkup on the planet is a joint production of sound print living on earth and homelands productions you can receive an earth day activity guide from sound print in the National Science Foundation by sending email to nstw at soundprint.brandyline.american.edu type the keyword earth day in the subject line you'll automatically get earth day activities for children ranging in age from pre-kindergarten through the eighth grade that email address again is

nstw at soundprint.brandyline.american.edu the keyword for the subject line is earth day we'll be right back welcome back to earth day plus 25 a checkup on the planet I'm Steve Kerwood we spray our elms

and the following springs are silent of robin song not because we sprayed the robins directly but because the poison traveled step by step through the now familiar elmly earthworm robin cycle that's Rachel Carson author of silent spring the 1962 bestseller which blasted the widespread use of chemical pesticides the book turned out to be a wake up call for environmental activism and Rachel Carson became known as the mother of the contemporary environmental movement what moved her to write silent spring very little was known of Rachel Carson's personal feelings and motives until recently on a book of correspondence with her closest friend or the Freeman was published the two met in 1952 on south port island off the coast of Maine in the years that followed the pair shared nearly all the joys and sorrows of their lives in frequent letters

from their winter homes in Maryland and Connecticut when Dorothy Freeman died she left several hundred of these letters to her granddaughter Martha Martha Freeman has now published them in a book called always Rachel I spoke with Martha Freeman recently and asked what she remembers of spending summers as a young girl on south port island with her grandmother and Rachel Carson I remember them as my guides to that beautiful place to walking in the woods with the both of them to having them just want me to experience the beauty of the sun through the trees the salt in the air the moss under feet the little starfish and periwinkles in tide pools these letters go through so many aspects of Rachel Carson's life and your grandmother's life and there's a section that they talk about the creation of silent spring itself I'm wondering if you could take us back to February 1st 1958 when Rachel first tells your grandmother Dorothy about her idea for the book sure Rachel writes about the book it was comforting to suppose that the stream of life

would flow on through time in whatever course that god had appointed for it without interference by one of the drops of the stream man these beliefs have almost been part of me for as long as I have thought about such things to have them even vaguely threatened was so shocking that as I have said I shut my mind refused to acknowledge what I couldn't help seeing but that does no good and I have now opened my eyes and my mind I may not like what I see but it does no good to ignore it and it's worse than useless to go on repeating the old eternal verities that are no more eternal than the hills of the poets so it seems time someone wrote of life in the light of the truth as it now appears to us and I think that may be the book I am to write oh a brief one darling suggesting the new ideas not treating them exhaustively from these letters Martha what is it about Rachel Carson that allowed her to have this insight that no one else up until her time had

my feeling is that part of Rachel's genius was that her understanding derived from the point at which intellect and intuition thinking and feeling intersect in a person that she brought a wealth of scientific knowledge to bear on the problem and her love for nature and her love for people as part of nature too there was this enormous backlash against the publication of silence spring did Rachel and your grandmother write much about this at all they did write yes they did write some about it and it's amazing Rachel was just not daunted by the attacks they did not seem to throw her off center she just replied to them she kept getting her message out in speeches in articles she just was very certain of what she understood now the years in which silence spring was in the making we're talking what 1958 to 1962

we're pretty difficult years both for your grandmother Dorothy and for Rachel Carson can you tell us what was going on for each of them well for my grandmother her mother's health was in decline and she died within that period and my grandfather's health was in decline for Rachel Rachel's elderly mother also lived with her and her health began declining in that period Rachel's niece died a woman that Rachel had supported throughout her life and Rachel adopted the niece's five-year-old son so Rachel was taking care of a youngster and an elderly mother in ill health at the time when she was trying to write silence spring and also discovering that she herself had cancer the book is finally done she sends off what will be printed in the New Yorker and she gets a letter back from the New Yorker magazine editor William Sean and the letter that she writes to your grandmother about the acceptance

from Sean and what it all meant to go through this is is very powerful I wonder if you could read that for us now yeah I'd be happy to there are two names mentioned in here that I should clarify for people one is Roger her grand nephew who's now her adopted son and Jeffy her cat so Rachel writes to my grandmother I longed so for you last night to share my thoughts and feelings it was odd I really had not been waiting breathlessly for Mr. Sean's reaction yet once I had it I knew how very much it meant to me you know I have the highest regard for his judgment and suddenly I knew from his reaction that my message would get across after Roger was asleep I took Jeffy into the study and played the Beethoven violin concerto one of my favorites you know and suddenly the tensions of four years were broken and I got down and put my arms around Jeffy and let the tears come with his little warm rough tongue he told me that he understood I think I let you see

last summer what my deeper feelings are about this when I said I could never again listen happily to a thrush song if I had not done all I could and last night the thoughts of all the birds and other creatures and all the loveliness that is in nature came to me with such a surge of deep happiness that now I had done what I could I had been able to complete it now it had its own life and those are the thoughts I would have shared had you been here I wish you were ultimately congress president Kennedy acknowledged Carson's ideas and they've had great staying power over these last 30 years and by the spring of of 63 it was pretty clear at least to your grandmother and she wrote to Rachel to tell her so I'm wondering if you could read from this letter of May 15 so my grandmother wrote to Rachel now I think your fame will rest on silent spring when people talk about you they'll say oh yes the author of silent spring I doubt if there is a household

in this country where your name is unknown how could it be from peanuts to CVS reports not to mention all the lawns which have become a major concern now what to do for crabgrass because Rachel Carson says oh darling the woodthrushes and orials have been sounding your praises while I've been writing this spring is far from silent and because of you there is a chance now that future springs need not be bless your heart I don't suppose you can put into words how you feel about all this so I shall just try to feel with you Martha Freeman reading from her new book always Rachel a collection of letters between her grandmother and Rachel Carson it's alligator breeding season in the Okifinoki swamp in southeast Georgia a male gator lifts his head from the marshy bog and roars the sound like a Harley Davidson motorcycle being kickstarted is the alligator's mating call

and the way he stakes out his territory the alligator's breeding behavior has helped ensure the species survival for 250 million years alligators have outlived the dinosaurs survive the ice ages and so far they've even endured predation by humanity the Okifinoki swamp is one of the refuges the federal government has created to protect the ones endangered animals hunting alligators here in the primitive swamp is strictly prohibited but dr. Timothy Gross a zoologist from the University of Florida and a team of government and university scientists have special permission and have waited months for this opportunity to hunt young alligators from the Okifinoki Dr. Gross helps push a swamp airboat into the water tonight the researchers will try to gather evidence of a new and insidious threat that could in the generation or two in danger the

population of alligators in the refuge in research elsewhere dr. Gross has found that toxic chemical pollutants can interfere with the sexual development of young alligators producing bizarre effects and disrupting their ability to reproduce these contaminants exert huge effects on the embryo and the embryo therefore as it develops doesn't develop normally it looks like a normal animal externally but internally certain systems are abnormal mainly the endocrine system and we find that these animals are not normal primary the males are very altered which are not normal they look semi female semi male they're halfway and they're probably non-functional the second generation reproductive effects and alligators were first observed on Lake Apopka in central Florida in 1981 90 percent of the lakes alligators were dead from a pesticide spill the lake was supposedly decontaminated but a decade later the alligator population wasn't rebounding as the scientist expected something was terribly wrong with the offspring of the surviving animals

dr. Gross dr. Greg Massen the scientist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and I bored the bright yellow airboat it's crowded we loaded it with burlap sacks plastic specimen bags syringes test tubes a scale duct tape and a tape measure dr. Massen perched high above in the pilot seat steers a course down a narrow canal towards the headwaters of the Suwani River made famous by the Stephen Foster saw dr. Gross passes out ear plugs and hard hats with lights fixed to the top like the ones used by miners the lights pierced the darkening canal where spanish moss hangs from the cypress and scrub pine along the marshy banks dr. Gross says the best time to hunt gators is at night when they're more active and you can see their red eyes floating just above the water when you're going to find gators is once it gets pitch black you see the eyes glow look like somebody's tiny little pen

light flashlights a pair of and you'll see them and that's how we'll know where they're at the last night there's big guys swimming across the water up there that's how you find them gators can grow to 13 or more feet and live 50 years and longer as the airboat picks up speed the alligator slowly submerge into the water dousing their intense fire red blowing eyes help yourself if you need insect repellent the mosquitos get pretty bad out here they'll chew you up the scent of honey suckle and magnolia overwhelm the smell of bug spray dr. Greg Masson pushes hard on the throttle swings the powerful cubie in an arc pairs of red eyes

watches as we head nine miles deep into the swamp nearly an hour later we enter a swampy prairie the moon lights up the lake the boat slows as the propeller pitches down now this is beautiful this is totally beautiful this is what a swamp is supposed to look like our airboat pushes through some tall reeds and stops at the mouth of the prairie here's some peatbots this is the type of stuff gators love to hang out in the water is cool and clean but it's the color of tea and tastes like vinegar acidic from the decaying vegetation okey finoki is the native american word for land of the trembling earth 600 square miles the okey finoki is one of the largest primitive swamps in the

united states some nice out here though beautiful this is really tranquil i love it dr. Masson knows the way through the primordial okey finoki swamp better than Tim Groves so dr. Groves is elected chief gator grabber so now it's the approved method here of catching a gator hang off the front of this boat he pulls up on it and you basically reach in it and you simply want to grab them right behind the head but in front of the front legs you know i'd grab the tail huh don't want to grab tail no that's when they can swing around and bite you Tim checks his life vest and helmet life we're looking for young animals five feet or less in a few minutes Greg spot something in the distance four footer you see right there i see him okay you ready for him

Greg pushes hard on the throttle i'm almost tossed into the water Tim crawls on his stomach to the edge of the boat as we approach the pump of trees where we spotted the gator we turn off the powerful light we don't want to scare the alligator off Greg throttles down Tim lies in the bow his hands in the water but in the dimmer light of his head left he catches a better glimpse of the animal and pulls back it's too big i was gonna try to see if i get behind him see how wide he looked but he probably was good six foot we move on gliding over lily pads and past p-dylons we spot plenty of gators but they're all even bigger than the first Tim says he's never gone this long without catching a gator he thinks a lot of young gators died in the previous year's drought

an hour later and still no luck the stars are beginning to look like blinking frog eyes stuff is not the easy stuff to find him and is it Greg Tim gross and Greg mass in her frustrate dr. mass and hops down from the pilots chair and lights us a guard dr. gross stretches out on the deck it's time for a break dr. gross starts telling us the story of how he and dr. mass and became interested in the reproductive problems of alligators it began when dr. mass and was studying turtle eggs collected from lake apopka in florida it had been more than a decade since the devastating pesticide spill and the lake had been cleaned up but the turtle eggs weren't hatching their sexual development had been disrupted we simply fell into this basically it was serendipity we began to look at turtles and we saw abnormal sexual development

yeah the anatomy is different we found that the grown ads were not differentiated you couldn't really tell a male from a female turtle and their hormone levels were off also as far as the estrogen testosterone ratios because of that we went back and we looked at gators and we saw abnormal sexual development before that it was just we were trying to we were basically porn straws trying to find out why they weren't doing as well contaminants was all any one of the many theories we had and reproductive development was one of the things we hadn't even thought of looking at neither dr. gross nor dr. mass and new at the time that other scientists were also discovering similar bizarre reproductive effects in other animals in the great lakes a high number of go legs weren't hatching many of the birds that were born were unable to reproduce British scientists were finding male fish from polluted rivers were producing huge amounts of female hormones and US government scientists studying the nearly extinct florida panther

found that the male panther seemed to be chemically castrated doctors mass and in gross are among a growing number of scientists who believe that these effects are due to some synthetic compounds which can mimic the action of hormones during fetal development basically I think you would agree Greg we're finding that a number of contaminants can alter various physiological functions mainly the endocrine system and the endocrine system is more and more important regulatory systems within any physiological system it helps to regulate neuroendocrine function or in our brain function it helps to regulate immune function it also regulates reproduction stress fire order metabolic function and when you have various agents that can mimic and alter the functions of the system you have rather far ranging major potential effects one of the most surprising aspects is the large number of chemicals that seem to be able to produce endocrine disrupting effects they include some of the most common industrial compounds many are

organoclorines including pesticides and plastics made from chlorine so what do you think how does what makes it work what makes work like an estrogen or an endogen or any of the bodies hormones looking at the structure I wouldn't predict it's a guy an estrogenic effect would you Greg and unfortunately most of these effects are subletals so we don't have any indication that something's going on either now people look at toxicity testing or carcinogenicity it either has to kill the animal or become cancers and they're just now becoming aware that there are subletal effects that don't manifest themselves to the human eye and the quantities required for these these non-fatal effects are pretty tiny is that what your research says extremely small most most contaminants we measure at a level of one part per million or multiple parts per million hormones characteristically are measured in parts per billion and even more specifically very often the case of estrogen parts per trillion they're extremely small they're

picogram amounts it obviously doesn't take a lot of mass to possibly create a problem and unfortunately a lot of the compounds they're using nowadays have other compounds mixed in with it so there's an additivity or even a synergism we don't know about and some of these compounds the dioxins and some of the fur ants are in parts per quadrillion and we know they have an effect at that level which is extremely minute and the whole system gets exacerbated a little bit by the fact that in addition these compounds have a long life in the body estrogen's for instance don't last more than several hours on the average in the body they're cleared they remove their excreted and they're gone they're broken down altered so they're no longer biologically active at least these calm natural hydrogens these artificial estrogenic like contaminants or other endocrine descriptors stay in the body long term they get stored the body has no natural mechanisms to remove them so they can continue to exert an effect again and again and again

much more so the natural dr. mason spots something flicks on his search light and jumps up right there you see he's going under the water it'll be up in a minute Tim almost falls into the water who comes up with a smile and a gator finally how about a four year old so what are you doing now take this mouth shut then he's pretty well under control all right you're going to take a look at his business department this is what Greg's going now we're all over check him out good so what do you have agenda a little boy

see yeah now how is that that's about average size it's not bad not bad at all he sure can that was an alarm call to say you know they were in some kind of distress so they give that alarm call for the female just take his eyes down and we'll drive over to the dam okay you just either put him in a bag or we can process him right away when you say process and use right away what do you mean we're going to basically go ahead and take a blood sample we've already sexed it we'll get a body length and snap that length and uh obviously with no more than we're having luck finding a lot of them he'll be one of the five that we're going to take off the lake and sacrifice to take samples from that actually find out what kind

of pesticides and their contaminant levels are actually occurring within his tissues I don't like sacrificing any animals and if we do have to sacrifice animals then we get as much information as we can from that animal and get as many people to collaborate on that as we can our luck improves and within an hour we catch four more small alligators they're placed alive in burlap bags and stowed in the bow of the boat a gentle rain falls the next morning in a field not far from where our trip into the oaky finoki began the night before you have a scalpel laid by a chance you got to scuffle but y'all need to go get those back containers out of the boat the back of a pickup trumps serves as a makeshift a section table dr. gross is assisted by dr. massen and Beverly Arnold Hill a graduate student from the University of Georgia so what are you cutting through there? cartilage and

normal fashion fat muscle four of the animals seem normal later tests would confirm this but it's immediately obvious to dr. massen that one of the small female alligators has a serious problem he holds up a specimen jar inside is a pearly white fleshy lumpin from aldehyde it's one of the gators ovaries she had the sexual development of an alligator twice as old as she was well on this one it's amazing we have this tissue is about three times the diameter of the other tissue we got out of this same size female and approximately two times longer that's tremendous amount of growth in this one compared to the others so something that have to stimulate this growth oh definitely and that it would have to be an estrogen or estrogen like compounds that stimulate this type of granadol tissue development dr. tim gross believes the estrogen or estrogen mimicking chemical that might have caused this young female alligators unusual

reproductive development came from her mother the effects between the generation that's I think the most important thing that this worker showing is that these effects are not affecting the mom or dad or basically us at this point what they're affecting is your subsequent ability to reproduce adequately and more so the subsequent ability of your offspring to reproduce and function in a normal physiological reproductive pattern so it means that you may get exposed you won't see any effect in your lifetime but your children you'll see an effect in once they reach puberty and once they're reproducing there are lumber mills and farms not far from here they're potential sources of endocrine disrupting chemicals but these scientists don't believe they're the problem Beverly Arnold Hill says the okey finoki is clean if there are pollutants here she says they're coming from somewhere else carried in the air and deposited by the rain if it's accumulating in this area which is very pristine no point sources no farms no

dumps or anything that we know of then what about some of these rivers and streams and wetlands that are right near towns and where all the stuff is being dumped I mean if we have a problem here and there's there's got to be a bigger problem elsewhere people should take heed I mean they should be scared it's frightened earlier I had joked with Dr. Greg massing of the US Fish and Wildlife Service about the okey finoki how many of us knew the place only through Walt Kelly's cartoon strip pogo we have met the enemy pogo warned and he is us I asked Dr. massing about an equally prophetic book with a similar message you know 30 years ago Rachel Carson wrote a book silent spring yes what do you think she would say about this she were here did that she had the foresight to see what was going on at that time and to see that it's been magnified

over the last 30 years not knowing her but in her writing she doesn't seem to be too facetious but I think she can easily say I told you so and the gentle almost silent rain falls on the okey finoki swan and a gator's roar fills the air with an eternal call earth day plus 25 is produced by living on earth sound print and homelands productions original music from Valentina pias Deb Hardy and the ruram gassam we had helped today from Moira Rankin Alan Wiseman Nancy Postero and the Maria de Freitas Deborah Stavro Jessica Bella Mura David Dunlap Alex Garcia Ren Gell and Betsy Gannins associate producers for earth day plus 25 are George Holmesy Cecilia

Weissman Sabra Aaron and Francesca Raymond the executive producer is Sandy tolla I'm Steve Kerwin funding is provided by the National Science Foundation the W. Alton Jones Foundation Stonyfield Farm Yogurt the Joyce Foundation the Ford Foundation the John D. and Cafferty MacArthur Foundation the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the George Goon Foundation This is NPR National Public Radio