Banner Graphic, Volume 5, Number 300, Greencastle, Putnam County, 20 February 1975 — Page 12
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A COUNTY BANNER-GRAPHIC, EEBRUARY 20/21/1973
Luxury pension
By DICK SODERLUND KUMLA, Sweden (AP) The new Swedish prison system, often described abroad as a crook’s “luxury pension” while assailed by inmates for inhumane concrete bunkers, is beset by a new problem a steadily dwindling number of inmates that is forcing the closing of cell blocks and creating employment difficulties for guards. Late in 1974 this trend even resulted in the closing down for some time of the whole prison in a medium sized city. In another prison Sweden’s bestguarded prisoner, a German narcotics kingpin, got a whole empty cell block meant for 20 inmates as his own private “suite.” The Swedish Board of Correction, which runs both maximum security concrete forts like the large central prison at midSweden Kumla as well as some of the world’s most advanced experiments in open correction, admits to serious headaches with reassigning some staff. Following a legislation reform last July even fewer people are put before courts and committed to prison. Although the crime rate is tending to rise in most categories, the number of inmates in Swedish prisons has been on the decline, at a recently accelerating rate, for about 25 years. Prisoners currently average 3,500 or slightly fewer at a time, a very low figure by international comparison for a country of more than eight million people.
Queries don’t stump the experts
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) What are the boojums of Baja? What is the “Procul Harum”? Why isn’t “Alamo” in the dictionary? Where did the word “OK” come from? What is a “distelfink?” These are just a few of the questions that pour into the editorial offices of dictionary publishers, reports Dr. H. Bosley Woolf, editorial director of G. & C. Merriam Co., which receives 2,000 letters a year at its headquarters here. The correspondence, Woolf says, comes from people in all tfalks of life engineers, cankers, housewives, judges, iditors, librarians, students. Some want a term paper Axitten, but are turned down, others take great delight in 'inaing real or imagined tyoographical errors in the dictionary. Some have coined new words and expect to be paid. And others offer new definitions for existing words. One man wrote that he had a 50-year-old dictionary and wondered if he should get a new one, Woolf recalls. Another writes regularly to ask questions only about Poland. One woman wanted Merriam to find an outlet for her hand-cro-cheted handerkerchiefs. Some correspondents become pen pals of individuals on the staff and provide useful information. Most questions deal with the general vocabulary and very few with the language of science or technology, says Woolf, adding that more women than men write and that California
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Swedish prison reforms change nature of system
Of the 9,963 persons sentenced to imprisonment in 1973, more than 35 per cent were convicted of drunken driving, 22 per cent of larceny, 12 per cent of violent crimes. Only about 3 per cent were convicted of drug offenses, although the number of drug addicts among prison inmates sometimes runs around 20 per cent. Of newcomers to prison close to 70 per cent were sentenced to less than four months’ imprisonment and only 3 per cent to more than one year. Only 310 youths were commixed to youth prison, 187 of them first offenders. The daily average of youths in prison during the year was 359, according to statistics released by the board. On the other hand close to 20,000 persons conditionally sentenced, parolees and youthful offenders are on the outside under control of the correction board. This is a trend that will be even further marked in the future, according to prison board director-general Bo Martinsson. The large central prisons are being reserved almost exclusively for hard-core habitual criminals while practically all first offenders and lesser lawbreakers will receive more or less open correctional treatment. There are, however, no special prison institutions for first-timers. The relatively insignificant number of female criminals have their own prison. The Board of Correction, with an annual budget of around 500
provides more correspondents than any other state. Among the letters recently received is one from a man who complained that Nietzsche and Karl Marx were designated “philosophers” in the biographical section of one of the firm’s dictionaries. In answer it was pointed out that both men satisfy the definition of philosopher as “one who seeks wisdom.” Another disliked the fact that “irregardless” was in the dictionary, and he was assured that enough people use it for the word to be included, but with a nonstandard label. An Oklahoma writer wanted to know why “bleep” wasn’t included in his dictionary and was told it would probably be in the next printing. Another wanted an up-to-date definition for “flaky" and got it. A writer from Belgium wondered why “to cuss out” wasn’t in the dictionary and was told that “out” in this case was an adverbial intensifier, and that both “cuss” and “out” were listed separately in the dictionary. Another wanted to know where the word “maven” came from and was told it is of Yiddish origin and means “expert.” Many well-known people have written over the years, some to provide a useful bit of information. Mark Twain, for instance, exploded the theory that the word “stateroom” came from naming ships’ cabins after states: “With 15 state-names on a side it would have taken a man the rest of the night to find his own, even if sober. Which he wasn’t in those days,” he wrote. And about those boojums they are spiny trees that grow in Lower California, including the Baja peninsula. The “Procul Harum” is a rock group, and while the words may be garbled Latin, the group is not a dictionary entry. “Alamo” isn’t in the dictionary because it’s a proper name, like “Buckingham Palace,” and there is no space for the hundreds of thousands of proper names in the world. Various etymologies have been proposed for “OK,” but the one given in Merriam-Web-ster dictionaries is that it’s an abbreviation for “all correct” (or “oil korrect”) and dates back to the 19th century. A
million kronor (sllO million) and a regular staff of about 5,000, currently runs close to 70 institutions. They are with few exceptions small local units, housing 30-50 inmates.
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PLEASANT PRISON—Stig Wennerstrom, Sweden’s most notorious spy and traitor in modern times who sold defense secrets to the Soviets, spent the last two years of his prison term in this villa, before being released last year.
“distelfink” is a traditional And flaky? The dictionary dePennsylvania Dutch design in fines the slang sense as the form of a stylized bird, usu- “slightly eccentric: screwy.” ally found on barns.
New approach to hair care is preventive
By VIVIAN BROWN AP Newsfeatures Writer Preventive hair care may become one of the newest trends in beauty, predicts Paul Mitchell of New York whose salon is into foiling some of the aging traps in hair and skin. “We are really taking a paramedical, scientific approach,” explained Jason Paul, 34, director of the salon, as he showed off machines and concoctions used in diagnosing the health of hair and skin. These aren’t gimmicks, he quickly explained. He has spent the last 12 years studying hair and skin health, much of it with experts at a California laboratory where the science of beauty is being explored, he says, and where many beauty products used in salons are prepared. In addition to this affiliation with Mitchell, he has his own hair clinic in Long Island. In treating hair, the inner and outer person is considered because it can’t all be done merely by rubbing something over the scalp, he emphasized, as he showed bins containing yeast, vitamins, nucleic acids, essential fatty oils, blackstrap molasses, sea water and the like which are used in various ways. “They have found that nucleic acids can line up with amino acids in about 45 seconds,” he was saying, “and it can now be put into the hair quickly.” Many teen-agers have gray hair, which he attributes to nervous tension, processed and other foods “with nutritionally empty calories” that lack B vitamins. “They don’t manufacture good hair because they don’t eat properly. We give them suggestions for vitamins wtiith they can discuss with their own doctors and they are told what kind of shampoos they require.” The hair won’t take a good haircut or anything else until it is nourished, he points out. For starving hair he goes the pantothenic acid, paba (para amThe U.S. Postal Service has been promoting via advertising particularly TV its 1974 souvenir mint set. It contains all the U.S. commemoratives issued during 1974 and is available at most post offices. The three-panel folder sells for $3.50. There were 15 subjects commemorated in 1974 and a total of 29 individual stamps. The cover design highlights the Skylab orbiting space laboratory. The souvenir mint set can also be ordered by mail from the Philatelic Sales Division, Washington, D.C. 20036 for the $3.50 price plus a 50 cents handling charge.
There are only a small number of large central prisons. The largest by far is the top modern maximum security Kumla prison in Central Sweden with room for close to 400
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HEALTHY HAIR and a good cut combine for good looks and easy care. (Style designed by Paul Mitchell.)
ino benzoic acid) route often recommended by doctors, and he has found “a certain amount of protein can stop hair from
Creating art takes some risk
By MARY CAMPBELL AP Newsfeatures Writer A fan tells pianist Arthur Rubinstein that he will never forget the sight of him, on the stage at Carnegie Hall, sitting erectly on the piano bench, stage light making his white hair glisten, and then Rubinstein lifting both his arms up high, holding them an instant and bringing them dramatically down to play his first notes. “I’m glad you remember that as a dramatic moment,” Rubinstein says, “but I do it for another reason. “When you want to be very cautious and never to strike a wrong note, you push the keys. You keep your fingers very close to the keys. It gives a very harsh, hard sonority and I don’t like that. I was taught from youth that when you make a big impact on tne keys, you get a soft sound even if you make the greatest fortissimo in the world. There is risk involved, but I don’t care.” Rubinstein had said, one time before, that he sometimes tries out new ideas of phrasing during a concert rather than doing it the way he did it the last time, because each concert deserves “at least one drop of fresh blood.” Laurence Olivier has said that nothing is really interesting in theater unless the
inmates but with actually only about one third of that number at present. No more such widely debated “concrete fortresses,” sur-
Flea Market in Rome has carnival atmosphere rain or shine
ROME (AP) “Signori, Signori,” 14-year-old merchant Carlo de Rosa screamed as Rome’s big flea market for small spenders swung into action on a recent Sunday. “There is no better bargain than this.” He was selling tiny chicks at 15 cents a head with a plea: “You grow them in your terrace or backyard and make yourself a chicken dinner a month later.” In a carnival atmosphere, he sold them by the dozens with bargain hunters in these austere times not questioning the cost of raising the chickens for a month. And a few yards away, German shepherd puppies went for 15,000 lire, or $25, with the shrewd slogan that “this is your best burglar alarm,” as Romans were told that over 90 per cent of burglaries in the city go unsolved. Come rain or shine, bitter cold as this winter or steaming heat in the summer, Romans and tourists by the thousands begin to flock at dawn to the Porta Portese Flea Market on the banks of the Tiber, still a miracle mile of bargain hunting for anything and everything. Rugs advertised as Persian but probably made in a Naples suburb go for under SIOO. Pure silver silverware, origin untold, is equally cheap. A Sunday outing to the openair flea market is becoming as
falling out.” Blackstrap molasses is touted as the food that can help return the sulphur bond in hair.
actor, in some degree, risks sudden death, another way of stating Rubinstein’s philosophy. “My namesake, Anton Rubinstein, a pianist who was a rival of Liszt, was famous for playing more wrong notes than right notes in a concert. There was a saying that he could make another concert of his wrong notes. Yet nobody objected, because the impact was so musical and so great. “There is a story, not very nice, but sc artistic in my way of thinking. Toward the end of his life he was giving a concert in St. Petersburg, the ‘Appassionata” of Beethoven. As they toid me when I was young, those who had been present, he played it as never before, something absolutely incredible. They couldn’t believe it; pupils were sitting on the edge of their seats. When he reached the big staccato at the end, his hands became stiff and he couldn’t do it. “A minor pianist would somehow get to the end, would do something. But he couldn’t stand that. He stood up, dropped the lid with a great noise, spat and walked away. He got the greatest ovation of his life. It’s something like a sculptor who would cut the head off a marvelous torso he had made, if the head wasn’t
rounded by 23-foot high grey walls, are going to be built. “Retaliation” is a banished dirty word in the Swedish prison system which has brought
much a Roman tradition as going to mass, picnic or the soccer game. The market boomed during the war years with the sale of goods smuggled or stolen during the week, and some say it is still the chief outlet for thieves trying to unload their goods in a hurry. But burglary victims searching for their jewels will never find them. “If something is stolen in Rome, it will never be sold in the Rome market,” says a Roman.
Plans to dub foreign films stirs debates in Brazil
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) The controversial project for the dubbing of foreign film productions in Brazil seems to be heading now toward a “cooling-off” period. With the position taken by education minister Ney Braga, who voted for the films to continue to be shown “with subtitles and in their original languages,” the campaign to dub films, spearheaded by Brazilian filmmakers, has suffered a serious setback. The filmmakers declare that the law would bring great benefits to the Brazilian film in-
Pampering the hair begins with a diagnosis at a meter which indicates the hair’s tensile strength and stress quotient. After that, recommendations are made for scalp treatment, shampoo and a diet which is not given to correct personal health problems, he insists, “only those relating to beauty.” Paul Mitchell, an Englishman who had worked with Vidal Sassoon in England, opened the salon less than two years ago with a friend, Robert Pierson, after he had been “surprised to see American women with plas-tic-looking hair that had been damaged by spraying, rolling and teasing.” His aim was to recondition hair and concentrate on better cuts. Meanwhile, Robert Pierson is supervising the hair finishing room where orange and white decor is punctuated by mobile carts and barber-like chairs with contoured seats of clear plastic that may be raised a.id lowered as one’s hair is treated and cut. Overhead infra-red lamps can be pulled down to assist in brush drying. In a skin niche, diagnostic suggestions are made from a
good enough and the torso lives. It is real art.” Rubinstein praises recordings in several ways, one that they were his real professors. “When I’m playing, I don’t hear what I’m playing. I hear what I want to hear. I’m moved. I want to give out something. What the result is, that is for the objective listener, not for me. “Then later you hear a record. What did I do? No accent here; this is too loud; that is too soft. I learn. “You can only learn from yourself if you are an artist Otherwise you are an imitative fellow and become Paderewski No. 2. You must be Yourseli No. 1.”
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such innovations to correction as villas, holiday camps and market wages for felonous convicts, including lifers such as Sweden’s most notorious mod-
More than 90 per cent of items offered from clothing to birds are new, enabling some Rome shops and boutiques to enjoy an extra day of selling since shops are closed on Sundays and many consider their week day sales insufficient. Antiques are aplenty, too. “If you collect art items, you can’t beat this,” remarked one salesman, offering what he says was a bust of a 4th-centu-
dustry, an opinion with which critics and many moviegoers do not agree, arguing that “dubbing is a crime against the art.” To some people, seeing Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Natalie Wood, Elizabeth Taylor, Lucille Ball, Jerry Lewis and other film favorites speaking as a Brazilian native “is the end of it all.” Others support the idea, insisting it would be an excellent measure, “as dubbing in Europe and in the United States is now a common thing,” as film producer Luis Carlos Barreto
cosmetics viewpoint. Clients are not obligated to pursue the program suggested. In fact, one may be queried on how long it has been since one has seen a dermatologist. Jason Paul has learned a great deal about wrinkling and is intrigued by the idea that it is caused by a lack of minerals and vitamins which can cause the little rivulets that form wrinkles in the skin.
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ern traitor ex-Col. Stig Wennerstrom who was released in the summer of 1974 after spending two years in a prison board villa.
ry Etruscan figure for $35. “Don’t ask how I got it,” he says, “just buy it.” But if you buy it outright, he would probably be disappointed at not having the chance to bargain a bit. Ready acceptance would mean that the merchant of Rome, although getting what he wants, would miss the chance to display the convincing argument he has practiced all week.
claims. Former initiatives for the dubbing of foreign films were made in the ’6os, but all the maneuvers for the approval of the projects were turned down by the Chamber of Deputies. Those who favor the approval of the project claim that “if dubbing of foreign films is ordered, it will certainly open a new working market for actors and radio announcers, will force the expansion of local studios and will call for the movie theaters to improve their usually weak sound systems.” On the other hand, those who are against it say that “dubbing a foreign film is an attack on a work of art and its author.”
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JOAN H.&M.