* Phaeus

A 100-YEAR-OLD FOLK SINGER

—TASS Photo

A 100-year-old ashug (singer), Ibragim of Azerbaijan, has per-
formed his.songs in nearly every town in Transcaucasia, ac-
Companying himself on a musical instrument called the saz.
He has composed many songs, some of: which are published
IN special song’ books and others in newspapers and magazines.
This people’s singer, despite his age, has given a number of

Concerts in Moscow.

OPEN FORUM

Proper Pensions

Bob Daniels, Secretary, District
Union of Disabled Persons, writes:
On dangerous jobs it would be
Very unwise to employ an epi-
leptic person, since he could pos-
Sibly injure his fellowmen if he
ad a seizure at the wrong time—
Such as if he were driving a car
ob truck, Yet there are many jobs
Which an epileptic can easily per-
form, and what is more, work
does improve his condition.
Therefore the kindest thing so-
“lety could actually do for such
handicapped people is to provide
Es with jobs they can do, and

ich do not endanger other peo-
Ple. Instead however, we take
these handicaped people and shove
them into a mental institution
and thereby assign them to a
living death—all the more horrible
cause of. their proximity to un-
ortunate people who are insane.
se our Workmen’s Compen-
“son Board rules that an epi-
leptic is a “disabled oe-son,’’ it
Should naturally follow that he
Should receive a disabled person’s
allowance of $89.90 yer month
a5 IS paid ow: by federal and pro-
Vincial governi: Bu feud
the eplieptic receives the pu. 22
Sum of $66.00 a month from lis
Welfare agency, that is, he is
Eobbed of $23. As things

WORTH —
__ READING

Decision in Africa, by W. Al-
Hunton. Price $2.00.
ae for anyone who wants an
Africa e reference work on
aac Aais work portrays the
hove Structures and freedom
~vements from the Cape to the
€diterranean.
ees the background and
Stake Is of the growing economic
in aes American corporations
aha Sania mining, transport, oil
~™ stribution.

OK

now stand he becomes a
partial ward of, and an unneces-
sary expense to, the Vancouver
City Welfare department. Inside
a mental institution he does the
heavy work of making mattresses,
farming, laundry work, etc., and
is paid the handsome sum of one

package of tobacco per week.

Should he refuse to do such work -

for such ‘‘pay’” he is deprived
of all ‘‘recreational privileges.”’

It is the vesponsibility and duty
of provincial and federal govern-
ments to pass legislation which
will allow all epileptic and dis-
abled persons to collect the pen-
sions which are rightfully theirs.

To this end the B.C. Union of
Disabled and Handicapped Per-
sons seeks the assistance of the
public, and of other unions and
organizations including the sup-
port of members of Parliament,
to expose such barbaric treat-
ment and to fight the case of the
Disabled Handicapped persons
through to its just and proper

end.
Changed Character

L.A., Vancouver, writes: T have
often wondered if what Dr. Al-
varez talks about in the enclosed
(the Alvarez syndicated news-
paper column on “Changed Char-
acter Often Due to Stroke’’),
might have accounted for the
apparent change in the character
of Stalin?

Some years ago I read an
article which claimed that the
late U.S. president Woodrow
Wilson changed overnight from
a friendly extrovert to a mis-
anthropic introvert during the
Versailles Treaty sessions. This,
according to other claims ex-
plains _ Wilson’s disappointment
following Versailles.

(Ed. note — Sorry we can’t
enlarge on the Dr. Alvarez diag-
nosis. All we know is that the
aftermath of Versailles, as the
aftermath of World War II, was
a damn bad “stroke” in the at-
tainment of world peace).

‘

Important film buried

Pressure Point. A United
Artists release of a Stanley
Kramer production. Screen-
play by Hubert Cornfield and
S. Lee Pogostin. Based on a
story by Robert Lindner. Di-
rected by Cornfield.

e

or some reason which
i should not be too difficult
to figure out, this important
film was buried (at least in
San Francisco) by its release.
in a neighborhood theatre
and a drive-in. For it is one
of the most important state-
ments on Negro-white rela-
tionships ever made in or out
of Hollywood.

Adapted from one of the
case histories in a best-selling
book of popular psychiatry by
the late Dr. Robert Lindner
(“The Fifty-Minute Hour’),
the story probes chauvinistic
prejudice against the Ameri-
can Negro on more than one

level.
* * *

Since the original story was
one of Dr. Lindner’s cases—
that of a young American
who joined the German-Am-
erican Bund and wound up in
prison for sedition — jt<1S
obvious that the screenwrit-
ers made the psychiatrist a
Negro in order to sharpen the
confrontation, indramatic
terms.

Though it is doubtful that
there is a single Negro psy-
chiatrist in any American fed-
eral penitentiary, once you
accept his presence you are
swept into a taut person-to-
person (and ideological) dra-
ma that does credit, once
more, to the generally pro-
gressive ideas Stanley Kra-
mer has been making into

film.
* * *

For the opposition to the
psychiatrist comes not only

from his aggressive young
American Nazi patient but
also from the white prison

staff, which overrules his re-
fusal to recommend parole
for the prisoner.

The psychiatrist (Sidney

“Red Flag’”’

Another blow in the Red Flag
tune battle going on in Britain
has been struck with the publi-

cation, -by the Workers’ Music
Association, of a long-needed
high fidelity recording of the Red
Flag and the International, to-
gether with Edward Carpenter’s
wonderfully stirring hymn, Eng-
land Arise.

Until a few years ago, few
people realized that there was any
other tune for the Red Flag but
the well-known Maryland or Tan-
nenbaum melody. But Jim Con-
nell, who wrote the words in a
train between Charing Cross and
New Cross in 15 inspired min-
utes, was quite definite about it.

“There is only one air which
suits the words of the Red Flag,”
he wrote in 1920, ‘‘and that is
the one which I hummed as I
wrote it. I mean the White
Cockade. I mean, moreover, the
original version known to every-
body in Ireland 50 years ago.

“Since then some fool has
altered it by introducing minor
notes into it, until it is now
nearly a jig.”

Poitier) says he has shown
some improvement (he no
longer has blackouts, insom-
nia or wild nightmares) but
‘he remains a Nazi.” The
prisoner (very well played by,
of all people, Bobby Darin),
cons the white prison doctor
and the other custodial offic-
ers into effecting his release.
* * *

Some of the Freudian de-
fects of the Lindner interpre-
tation of the Nazi “mentality”
are carried over into the film,
even though Poitier at one
time reflects on the fact that
there are at least a million
Americans who come from
similar family backgrounds,
but have not turned out this
way.

The young Nazi hated his
brutal, butcher father, and
wished him dead; he despised
his weak and recessive mo-
ther; and he had been rejec-
ted by the (Jewish) father of
a young girl to whom he was
momentarily attached during
the Depression.

If you read Lindner’s book
you will find another case his-
tory of an American Commu-

nist and discover that Lind-
ner (like other Freudian anal-
ysts) equates parental rejec-
tion — and its corollary, de-
fiance of authority — with a
predisposition to “joining a
cause,” apparently, no matter
what .the cause, whether it

be Nazism, Communism or
plain and fancy religious
Mania.

* * *

Psychiatry has gone far be-
yond this over-simplified ex-
planation of human motiva-
tions, and it is to the credit
of the screenwriters that
they demonstrate the Nazi
ideology (sic) in action, and
show how ignorant and al-
ready prejudiced people can
be attracted by a glib dema-
gogue who channels their
frustrations into hatred of
Jews, Negroes and the gov-
ernment itself.

Sidney Poitier, as usual,
demonstrates that he is one
of the most powerful actors
and genuine artists on the
American scene and Darin,
who is better known as a pop-
singer appealing to teen-ag-
ers, shows considerable
strength as’ a performer in
many scenes.

The direction, by Hubert
Cornfield, who also worked
on the screenplay, is at all
times flexible and imagina-
tive, and the camera work is
generally excellent.

This is a film that deserv-
es your support, wherever it
may be shown, and protests
might well be directed to-
ward United Artists if the
film has not been displayed
in major movie houses* in
your city.

—DAVID ORDWAY
(People’s World)

That long, lost gold mine in the sky

Astronauts of the future should
beable to bring asteroids—tiny
planets—worth millions of dollars
back to earth, an American scien-
tist said in Los Angeles recently.

Dandridge Cole, consulting en-
gineer to the General Electric Co.
of America, said one asteroid
known as Ivar was_ probably
worth $50 million million in plat-
inum.. But the cost of bringing

it back to earth was under $10,
000 million, he told a meeting of
the American Astronautical So-
ciety.

Astronauts could land on an
asteroid and, if it were found
valuable, knock it out of orbit
and steer it to earth with nuclear
explosions, said Cole.

Ivar, about three miles across,
comes within 45 million miles of
the earth as it orbits the sun.

Apathy and The Bomb i

They have fooled you to think of a craven escape
in a shelter that will be a tomb.

When that blast from the furnace of Hell is released,
there is nothing to save you from doom.

Now you sit with a grimace of fear on your face,
in the throes of dejection and shame;

By your selfish neglect of your duty to man
and to children who were not to blame.

When the marchers for peace were parading to foil
an attempt of demoniac wrong,

You complacently revelled in daily defauli—
trusting justice and law to be strong.

Were you ready to stay the assailant of peace,
to protect generations to come?

Pleading voices of sanity rang in your ear,
but you didn’t hinder The Bomb.

In ominous silence—our planet is still
with the spectre of destiny clear:
Unleashed will be legions of demons from Hell
and the end of, humanity near.

In searing denouncement of hatred and fear,
YOU could rend their atrocious plan

Of appaling cremation to life on our earth,
show that dignity still is in man.

Now the crucial hour of decision is near
for the masses on sanity’s side:

Shear the slavering fangs of the brazen depraved
who in war can see glory and pride.

® MARTIN BERNTSEN

Jan. 25, 1963—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page