Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 18, 1973, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg Hult press thursday october 18, far East notes felons and Fortune by Dennis blood Worth differs Crooks correction is the and Prim above All reject soft pleas for a permissive the pampering of Dpi quests and the mini state of Singapore is no exception to the Rule. The outside May abolish capital punishment but on this Island new Laws Are be Jig metro diced that will Only a killer but All hit accomplices unless they Ciruti prove that they to Stop him from rising a lethal weapon. A death mar also be the sole penalty for a armed robber who shoots but does not kill. Iffie is Wise enough not to up the trigger at All he will Only get life imprisonment and a minimum of six lashes. And if he plays it safer by brandishing a toy pistol he will earn the Booby prize of 10 years in jail and three strokes of the Cane. Singaporeans Are divided Over this Issue but the crime late is rising the gun is steadily gaining in popular Tyr and the government has shown that it does not be Lieve kindness cures crime. In the course of one week in september the state executed four murderers and set two records by stringing up the first woman Ever to be hanged in Singapore and since her husband was be Side her at the last the first married Ifo uple too. All appeals for clemency were Down by the pres ident. The police also give no Quarter. Armed with five round .38 Smith and Wesson revolver s and trained to shoot Fri style they won 10 out of 11 fights with violent criminals in the second half of .1.972, killing or wounding and capturing their Man in each Case. But they gained a reputation for being Quick on the trigger and earlier this year the Public was solemnly warned not to attack officers of the Law As the results might be fatal. Nevertheless a determined gangster subsequently shot at Point Blank Range a policeman who was Only try ing to break up a quarrel took his pistol which was still in its and coolly drove off in a stolen car in front of 30 people. The duly displayed such prudence in the face of an armed Man that for four Days not one of the Eye wit Nesses came Forward even to information anonymously despite repeated appeals from the outraged police and a promised Reward of Over crime has its lighter Side however. One singaporean wanted in connection with a payroll grab wrote with great to a local newspaper that the police of him did hot do. Kini Justice. An sought for questioning about a series of armed Rob boldly visited a police week exhibition but was so disconcerted to see his photograph in the rogues gallery that he gave himself up. Fountain of youth in China the disapproval of the Singapore government is not reserved exclusively for killers and Crooks but extends to jitterbugs and Long haired hippies and Loose Liv ing in All its forms. After being addressed in August by the foreign minister Sinnathamby Rajaratnam the master tailor s association Here has resolved to discourage customers from ordering the sharper styles in Western suiting altogether. While discoursing on the sometimes deleterious influence of dress and adornment make the man1 what kind of men do you want to however or. Rajaratnam cited the use of Rouge and lipstick As exam Ples of fashions with a Shady the Box by John Crosby London complaints that television is a prime cause of illiteracy among children have been denied by Monica Sims head of Britain s bbl children s programs. Big Surprise. Some Day the head of bbl children s programs will admit that television is bad for kids Reading habits and the world will blow up the next Day. Miss Simms trotted out All the a r g u m e n t s we have heard before that television actually increases Reading among children because the minute the bbl does Emma there is a run on Jane aus ten at the Library. Similarly the bronzes. Or Galsworthy. If children look at the bbl Long enough they will be Cul tured witty Wise beyond their years. Also handsome healthy six feet tall and enormously Rich. If you believe any of this Malarky you Are out of your tiny mind. The fact is that All to Levi s i o n including bbl Chil Dren s programs which 1 am prepared to admit Are the world s Best although the French Are pretty Good causes illiteracy among Chil Dren. Television should be banned from the Nursery set. No not rationed. Banned. Al together. Forbidden. I have reared two sets of children and believe me i know whereof i speak. Television is not just a substitute for Reading it is an entirely different extremely rudimentary and very much worse method of information gathering. The images flow out of the Box like a wave of molasses and envelop the child. He becomes blotting paper not a sentient human being at All. Television is mind crippling. On the other hand when you read any thing this column shake Spear e pornography it does t matter which a very complicated enormously intricate bundle of responses Are set in motion. Try a word any word say it s nothing but a hieroglyphic to a child. To you it starts a Chain reaction in v o 1 v i n g memory instant alarm even muscular action. Try girl Good word blood Money. T h e y instantly suggest a dozen things the mind is alive vibrant. Just a Squiggle those words meaning less until you learn to read. It s a Little Miracle what a word on a piece of paper can do to the literate. It s what sets us off from the animals to Coin a phrase. One More word on Tho same subject. The other Day minister of state Mark car Lisle of the Home office said that television bears a major responsibility for the in crease of violence on the streets. Well Well i thought. We re going to hear All the old arguments again. My goodness violence on to does t make you commit violence. Not at All what it does see is release your own pent up sadism you did t know you were a sadist but you Are you Are harmlessly into the air like a belch. Instead of actually going out and raping a lot of Little girls you just watch it on to and that gets it out of your system and you actually become a better Man for it. Television people have to say things like that and what s More believe them or How would they face them selves in the Mirror next Day. But you Don t have to believe such bloody non sense. Observer past that had nonetheless been redeemed and domes this apparent Concession was not surprising in an asian. Foreigners brought up to believe that cosmetics Are Only for adults and corpses May be shocked even when visiting the Plain and whole some China of chairman Mao to see five year old tots As heavily made up on fes Tive occasions As the 40-year old tarts would be in the de cadent West and soldiers Gay As toy guardsmen with Cherry red lips and painted Cheeks performing in divisional song and dance shows. It is simply another Orien Tal difference and it applies i notice not Only to the Man but to his photograph. The appearance of leading personalities at the recent tenth party s Congress in. Peking suggests that China watchers can now add a new Dimen Sion to their dubious Art particularly when trying to establish who is ahead of whom in the political Hierarchy. In the pictures published in the peking r e v i e w a smooth cheeked rejuvenated 79-year-old Mao t s e -1 urn g with gleaming Jet Black hair could pass As the ebullient younger brother of i. 58-year old general of less importance who appears on the same Page. At 74, Premier Chou in Lai i s portrayed As a Well preserved 58 himself and these two men at the top seem to be exchanging loud confident and virile banter like characters in the prime of lift and a commercial for some particularly masculine Brand of whisky or possibly on the other hand the moderate vice Premier Lihsien ii Inen whom until now i have always regarded As a fixture in the communist upper crust has been ominously neglected by the re Toucher and Chiang Ching Madame who has sipped slightly on the party ladder also looks correspondingly older but Chang Chun Chiao the Spruce sex Genaria fellow leftist beside her All signs of care painted out could be in his thirties. He was made Secretary general of the Congress and is a member of the All powerful standing committee of the politburo. Yeh Chien Ying the senior Soldier present number five in the Hierarchy and a close personal Friend of Chou in Lai has the prosperous seamless air of a bespectacled merchant banker. On their Way to the Congress All had to pass col ored portraits of Marx e n g e 1 s Lenin and Stalin Hung in the great Hall of the people. Here it is a Little More difficult to solve the pecking order. Being dead All four look even younger than most of the living. Death has no Dominion the dead Are not out of the rat race in China however and they can still Rise and fall in the Hierarchy of history. The fortunes of the an Tique and venerated Sage confucius have fluctuated since the communists took Power but now he has been definitely damned. The peking press has denounced him As a Champion of the Feudal system and in his Day the enemy of All Reform that would reprise the slave own ing aristocracy of its ancient prerogatives. Confucius exhorted men to be humanistic virtuous and Loyal to their ruler their teachers and their parents. He saw life As a ritual whose Observance would ensure uni v e r s a 1 Harmony a ritual which demanded noblesse oblige from those above and re Spect from those below. But he was born into a Feudal framework and since he looked to the ancients for Wisdom he could never be a progressive. This is the Ideo logical Achilles Heel that the maoists have seized him by and condemned As a hairy Hoof. Almost simultaneously the chinese communists Are now dusting Down the image of c h i n Shin Huang to the first emperor who unified China in 221 dec. Shih Huang to s record is that As the King of one of seven states into which the country was earlier divided he created a single Empire by conquering the other six with a combination of almost unprecedented treachery and ferocity. Among other achievements he had All the books in China burned except for a few works on Agri culture and and buried alive several Hundred scholars who resisted the order to destroy them. He was no humanist like confucius but the Patron of a ruthless legalist school of philosophy that advocated total War and total Rule by the tyrant. The most despotic among the emperors who succeeded him governed according to a formula whereby confucian teachings were twisted to lend respect ability to , just As Christian doctrine has been quoted to Sanction Tor Ture and massacres the argument of the communists is that Shi Huang to nonetheless overthrew feudalism and United China. He therefore represented Progress. Their judgment on the two men is logical if sin ister. But for confucius who lived years ago the eclipse of his philosophy Dur ing a single generation by a chinese political movement no More than 50 years old would seem ephemeral enough. And after he would doubtless be the first to agree for he was not appreciated by his own Genera Tion either you can t win them All. The observer focus the fates seem to have been kind to the leaders of China. Not Only have Many of them been blessed witly Long lives but also apparently with eternal youth or so the average chinese might think who sees Only such Youthful pictures As the one of Mao tse Tung at left. Two Speed automatic Washer five Wash cycles two Wash t spin Speed combinations water level control Matching dryer 3 cycles Perma press fluff timed Cycle safety Start switch factory Sale net Many Rotnor factory Sociol i of fallowing do Olori to sort Row Fontaine electric Provincher 233-7425 Wiens furniture Village in Virvilis Manitoba . 214-1663 Kavanagh electric co. 4is St. Mary s re. Wit Snowdon co. 2j3 hindu son Hwy. 66m262 Home appliance co. 670 Portnoi Avi. 711-1296 stones radio Ltd. 916 main St. Sm-6072 Norwood television Manitoba furniture 3ssiuiciavi. 943-3449 Lockport appliances we. Direct 214-2104 ;