Word: sargent
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...pulp fiction goes, Karen Carpenter is quite enjoyable. Cynthia Gibb (who lip-syncs Karen's syrupy hits like Close to You) and Mitchell Anderson are convincing as the sister-brother act. Director Joseph Sargent traces their rise to fame in brisk if superficial strokes. The film (which lists Richard Carpenter as executive producer) is blunt about the troubles the young stars faced: overprotective, underaffectionate parents (Louise Fletcher, Peter Michael Goetz), Richard's drug problems, Karen's growing obsession with losing weight. The scrubbed duo make drug abuse look positively wholesome, but the movie deftly grafts the morbid thrills...
...1950s to give rudimentary treatment to sewage simply could not cope with rapid growth in the Boston area, and the Metropolitan District Commission, charged with maintaining the sewage system, was a nest of political cronies. "It was a place that employed everybody's cousin," recalls former Republican Governor Francis Sargent. As early as 1972, Sargent had committed the state to cleaning up the harbor, but had to fight a recalcitrant MDC every step...
When Dukakis began his first term in 1975, there was little pressure to continue Sargent's efforts. The EPA, which turned the screws on other cities, was lax about Boston. It waited nearly five years before rejecting an application by the Dukakis administration for a waiver from the Clean Water Act. "Dukakis wasn't there, but no one else was either," recalls Judge Garrity. As a result, the proportion of adequately treated sewage dropped from 4% to 2% between 1976 and 1980; in contrast, Illinois took advantage of 90% federal funding so that Chicago could increase its treated sewage from...
Massachusetts has finally begun construction of sewage-treatment facilities to be completed in 1999. Estimated costs: $3 billion to $6 billion, to be financed largely by a quadrupling of the fees households payfor water. It didn't have to be this way, according to former Governor Sargent. Had Dukakis pursued a cleanup effort during his first term, Sargent asserts, the cost would have been under $1 billion, the burden would have been borne by the Federal Government, and Boston would today be complying with the law today...
...solid, valuable reform, imitated in other states, hard to dramatize, but for that reason amenable to sustained argument of the sort Dukakis is good at. On the other, emotional issues of the time, Dukakis voted "correctly" for a liberal. After all, in Massachusetts even Republican Governor Sargent signed a law challenging the constitutionality of the Viet Nam War. But Dukakis did not march or protest. He agreed with most of the goals, but did not think "demonstrating" an effective tool. Emotional binges are like staying up all night -- they throw one's schedule off. Vote, if that will...