:See [[Michaelmas]]. --[[User talk:Lambiam|Lambiam]] 21:26, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
:See [[Michaelmas]]. --[[User talk:Lambiam|Lambiam]] 21:26, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
== Famous Piece of Clarinet Music ==
I would like to know a famous piece of clarinet music however the only thing I know about it is that it is frequently played in tv etc with scenes or images of new york im not sure if this helps at all.
This is really a question for the Language desk, where it would get more answers... In brief, though, sinistrose is defined as a genuine medical condition, a psychological syndrome, whereas a malingerer is someone feigning sickness, usually for some selfish purpose. Someone found to be a sufferer from 'sinistrose' might be paid out under an insurance policy, but someone found to be a malingerer wouldn't. Xn404:55, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Visionary Writing
Hi again! I am back for a bit. Tonight I'm looking for classic works of visionary literature: the passage in Moby-Dick in which Pip sees God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and the "multitudinous, God-omnipresent coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs" is my starting text, but other works that would fall into this category are the poems of William Blake and the mystical reveries of writers like Emmanuel Swedenborg and Julian of Norwich and Walt Whitman.
In other words, writings that attempt to give concrete form to spiritual realities, as when a certain mystic catches glimpses of the Byss and the Abyss, or when Blake sees spiders crawling round the sun. Great visual imagery. Can anyone recommend a few more?
To those, I would add only Dark Night of the Soul and The Seven Storey Mountain by St. John of the Cross. Not only was Juan de la Cruz a mystic, but he attempted to translate a vision into words. This said, other than Juliana of Norwich, I have some trouble here. Most mystics don't describe the visions or even really try to offer paradox and metaphor for their visions, as it's impossible to do, and so they discuss the method (Stairway of Perfection and Cloud of Unknowing) or the meaning of the vision. For mystical description (where the description is mystical, or a description of the mystical state), I can only think of St. John of the Cross, Theresa of Avila, and the end of Dante's Paradiso. T. S. Eliot attempts it in both Ash Wednesday and overall in Four Quartets, but he goes at it kind of sideways (following Dante). Geogre13:12, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The mission was established in 1601 by the efforts of Matteo Ricci. His whole approach was quite subtle, interesting the Emperor and the Chinese authorities in aspects of western technology and learning as a point of opening. He also made attempts to reconcile Christianity with the Classic Confucian texts, though he was hostile, along with the other members of his order, to Taoism and Buddhism. Ricci died in 1610 but the Jesuit mission went on to become an important part of the Imperial civil service, right into the eighteenth century. In 1644 a German Jesuit, Adam Schnall von Bell, was appointed Director of the Board of Astronomy by the new Qing dynasty. Jesuits were also given posts as mechanics, musicians, painters, instrument makers, and in other areas which required a degree of technical expertise.
The Jesuits pragmatic accommodation with Confucism was later to lead to conflict with the Dominican friars, who came to Beijing from the Philippines in the middle of the century. Their leader, Dominigo Fernandez Navarrete, in responding to the question 'Was Confucious saved?' said that as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were all damned "how much the more Confucius, who was not worthy to kiss their feet". In responding, Antonio de Gouveia, a Portuguese Jesuit, said that Confucius was certainly saved, "which is more than can be said for King Philip IV of Spain!" Clio the Muse02:40, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm surprised you ask what it means, as your command of English seems excellent and the phrase is both widely used and fairly self-explanatory. In any case, the Languages Desk may give you expert information on its origins. --Dweller12:48, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the meaning is a little odd. I mean, if it means literally "you are causing embarassment to yourself," then it is an odd statement, since if that were true presumably the person in question would know it. What it probably really means is something like, "you are behaving in a way which ought to be causing embarassment to yourself, from my point of view", which is a little bit more subjective in its implications. --24.147.86.18715:11, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, people. I bet some of you remember me from last term when i asked some history questions and got GREAT help from Clio Muse, BRILLIANT help. Here I am back at school (aaaaarghh!!!) with a new history assignment. Here it is-Was Edward I the English Justinian or an imperial bully? Discuss with examples. Please do not hit me with 'we dont do homework'-i know, i know, and just need some directions along the road. Your stuff on Edward is not an big help, sorry, because there's too much bully and not enough Justinian (a law maker). I see you are still around Clio so i look forward from hearing from you, and anyone else, please dont hassle me like some person did last year. From Clio's friend ( I just LOVE it that she is a girl!!!) who is now, cheeky as ever, Kathy in redKathy Burns11:55, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure what level you're at, but you need to delve a little deeper into Justinian's character; "bully" gives you a clue, in that your teacher has opposed the two terms, so they're going to be two ends of a spectrum in some way. Other advice with Edward; 1) don't watch Braveheart (historically, it's the worst kind of toshvery inaccurate) 2) try not to fall into the question's trap by oversimplifying his complex character. He came mighty close to securing a huge empire for his son and he was a pretty shrewd man, capable of different types of response to different problems. Compare his actions vis a vis Scotland, Wales, France, the Barons (including early in his reign vs late) and the Jews. --Dweller12:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Kathy, how nice to see you back. So, you are now looking at the reign of Edward I, quite a change from your last area of study!
As you clearly have discovered, the Wikipedia page on Edward I does not really do proper justice to a seminal reign (Why, I would have to ask, is there such a large section on contact with the Mongols, a minor episode, out of all proportion?! And the picture of Patrick McGoohan as the absurd 'Longshanks' from Braveheart is grossly out of place!) The real point to hold in mind here is that Edward was a complex man. Do not, I urge you, fall into the trap opened by the question you face; for Edward was both law-maker and law-breaker; Justinian and Joshua! He was certainly a 'bully' when it came to dealing with the Welsh and the Scots, jealous in every way of his imperial and feudal rights. But he could also be quite overbearing when it came to his own subjects. At the beginning of his reign, determined to restore some of the rights of the crown eroded during the reign of Henry III, his politically inept father, he instituted a series of legal inquiries, known as Quo Warranto. By this he challenged holders of liberties, particularly those with jurisdictions, like that enjoyed by the Palatinate of Durham, to prove that they held these by legal title. These investigations were a source of much friction, and Edward was compelled to modify his legal offensive in 1290 under political pressure from his barons. But it also provides an insight into the lawyer-like and nit-picking mentality with which Edward doggedly pursued the prerogatives of the crown, a clue to his later attitude towards his feudal superiority over Scotland.
So, yes, something of a single-minded bully, without a great deal of interest in constitutional niceties. Yet consider this: in 1275, not long after the beginning of his reign, he wrote to the Pope, explaining that he could do nothing concerning the power of the crown without "consulting the magnates and the prelates." It was during his reign that Parliament began to be a regular feature of the English political landscape. In the summons for that of 1295 it was announced that "What touches all should be approved by all.", meaning that taxation could only be granted by consent, one of the great founding principles of English constitutional law. It was during this time that the census known as the Hundred Rolls was taken, the first comprehensive survey of English property rights since the earlier Domesday Book. As a result, the law was further refined in the Stute of Westminster, and other law codes issue subsequent to this document. So, here is your English Justinian!
In ever sense, therfore, Edward was the perfect feudal lawyer; therin lies his strength, and therin lies his weakness. For his notions of what was right were often so narrowly defined and pursued with a single-minded purpose, regardless of the political damage caused, and with hidden costs to the crown. Unlike his father, he was a good soldier; but his conquest of Wales, and the attendant castle building, was ruinously expensive. It would have been wise to consolidate and pause for reflection, but the vacancy of the Scottish crown following the death in 1290 of Margaret opened what was to be known as the Great Cause. It was, perhaps, the defining moment of Edward's reign, confirming that jealousy of privilege and title that marked the outset of his reign in England. He came to Scotland as a lawyer, and as a bully; and he fought his wars in Scotland as a lawyer, and as a bully. You see-and this is a point that is often overlooked-Edward never, at any point claimed the crown of Scotland for himself: he simply fought to maintain his position as feudal overlord, granted to him by the Scots in 1292. Even in 1305, when the conquest seemed to be complete, Edward produced Ordinances for the government of Scotland, of which he is Lord, not King.
So, Kathy; lots to go on. Think about it carefully; tailor your answer towards the question, writing in your own words, and with all subtelty. Just remember that Edward came, like most important people in history, in shades of grey; never in black and white. Good luck! Clio the Muse01:41, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent, Corvus cornix; my sincere thanks! Like Dweller, I really hate the distortions and corruptions of Braveheart; but that is quite beside the point. Patrick McGoohan has nothing whatsoever to do with the Edward of history. Clio the Muse22:47, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am preparing a 19th century travel diary by a Yankee for publication. He is in Florence during November, 1856 and writes:
"I was glad to conduct my sight-seeing in Florence somewhat more leisurely than during my rapid tour of the last few weeks. I found the city full of strangers, particularly of English tourists, whom recent political troubles have shut-out from the South of Italy."
Using the following website
http://researchitaly.us/historyofsouthernitaly/ad1801to1860.html
I composed the following footnote:
In May of 1856, Ferdinand II, the ruler of the Two Sicilies, was censored by the British and French governments for his tyrannical methods. Later in October, England and France withdrew their ambassadors from Naples.
I surmise that the English and French tourists were subject to some sort of harassment. Was this solely at the hands of government officials or did it also include the common folk?
69.201.141.4513:31, 31 August 2007 (UTC)Linnaeus[reply]
Not necessarily, 69.201; it just would not make good sense to go there in such politically unsettled times, with the prospect of no diplomatic protection if things went wrong. I certainly cannot see ordinary people in the south being in any way hostile to English or French tourists. Very few of the southern Italians had much in the way of sympathy for Ferdinand II, also known disparagingly as 'King Bomba', whose rule was famously described by William Ewart Gladstone as "The negation of God erected into a system of government." Clio the Muse03:06, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to all. I am surprised that I didn't catch the censor/censure mistake. Homonyms are well-known, but the near-homonyms (quasihomonyms?) are trouble to me because as I age, I tend to type phonetically. I think this is also a result of no longer writing in long-hand. (Remember Truman Capote's comment about another best-selling author, "She doesn't write books, she types books.") I will include in the footnote the fact that it is dangerous for nationals to travel in countries in which they have no diplomatic recourses. I guess this applies to U.S. citizens in Cuba.
69.201.141.4512:48, 1 September 2007 (UTC)Linnaeus[reply]
Leaving money to pets
Leona Helmsley was recently in the news for leaving millions to her pet dog after she died. Do courts actually recognize such actions, and how do they administer them? What happens when the dog dies? (I only care about U.S. law, really, but if someone has a take on it from another country, by all means, pony up.)
Additionally, Helmsley left what looks like long-term stipulations on some of the money (the grandsons lose half of their take if they don't visit her late husband's tomb each year) — exactly how specific can such stipulations be? Can you really require someone to do something each year or else half of some set of assets will be taken away? Do courts really recognize such a thing as valid? --24.147.86.18715:15, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Read something on this stuff, long ago, but here goes:
you can't leave money to a pet (or a car or house) as they have no rights to property. You can leave money to a person to be used for the care of said pet (or car or house), with the stipulation that if the person does not use the money for such, it goes to the red cross or your cousin or some such instead. I assume you can daisy chain it, leave the money to your brother to care for your dog and if he doesn't, then to your sister to care for your dog, and if she doesn't etc. etc. Lot's of times the money assigned for the care of the pet ends up buying a nice big house for the pet to live in, and incidentally the person who's supposed to care for the pet; that kind of thing.
when the pet dies, if there is money left and the will doesn't specify what happens to it, then it's just part of the general estate and goes to the legal heir like any other unspecified property.
generally you can stipulate most anything in a will, like taking care of your pet, but such stipulations are only as good as whoever is watching. Thus, it is advisable to have somebody at the end of the "and if he doesn't then the money goes to..." chain who wants the money and so will watch the beneficiary to try and catch them not following the stipulations, like a jealous brother, or the Red Cross, to keep them honest
however, some stipulations do get struck down for various reasons.
you do have to be careful, to some degree; if you leave the money to your son on condition he get a job or it goes to some charity, and the charity goes broke before the will is probated, then the son inherits the money even if he doesn't get a job, since neither of the conditions specified in the will are doable, and therefore the money would just go to your heir. Gzuckier15:55, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
An idle musing I've had has led to a convoluted question.
In this modern age we live in, I've noticed a number of married people with different surnames who double barrel their surnames for their children (e.g. the son of John Smith and Jane Jones would be Adam Smith-Jones). Now if this 2nd generation man married and had a child with another double barreled woman, would their child be quadruple barrelled (Adam Smith-Jones and Julia Stewart-White are pleased to announce the birth of Imelda Smith-Jones-Stewart-White)? And so on? I understand that different people would have different ways of dealing this but the crux of my question is: what's the most barrels anyone has come across and how far would you be willing to take it? - 212.240.35.4217:03, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Errr. I only count 5 barrels there (and its taking the piss slightly to have the same surname barreled three times and a variation for a fourth!) Rockpocket07:31, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. I count six, Rockpocket. I think this is in the form "A de B", where A is "T-T", and B is "O-P-T-T". Of course, this means that Tollemache is used 4 times, but that doesn't alter the fact that the surname comprises 6 distinct elements, separated by hyphens. (Smith-Smith, for example, is clearly a double-barrelled name.) I'd agree with Guinness's assessment that this monstrosity is a sextuple-barrelled name. -- JackofOz06:07, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
At any rate, the lack of hyphenation and the list of Ralph Tollemache's children's names suggest to me that all but the final Tollemache-Tollemache were given names, not part of the surname. —Tamfang (talk) 07:13, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The British tradition was that an heiress's maiden name was perpetuated when she married and her husband was considered to represent the family that had become extinct in the male line. Otherwise a double-barrelled name was a pretentious affectation. Some old fogeys believe this still holds true. Nevertheless, modern usage is a free-for-all: you can call yourself whatever you want. About half the babies born this year in the U.S. will have their mother's last name, things being what they are. --Wetman06:20, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
thanks for your effort
i'm from Egypt
there is a hospital in Benib called
national hopital
send to me to work and required fees before i travel through western union
i ask it is true or nor
is this a big lie or this true
what can i do ?
what is the guarantess?
pls help me
waiting for your reply
thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.205.121.105 (talk) 18:05, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We cannot give you meaningful advice on the particular, but it is a common scam and confidence game for people to claim to be speaking for an employer and asking for money up front. A real employer should not do that. First, contact the hospital directly and ask if this is their policy. Second, do not send the money, but request that it be deducted from your pay. That might get to the truth. Utgard Loki18:08, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Several websites list CENTRAL NATIONAL HOSPITAL AND UNIVERSITY - Porto Novo Cotonou Rep Du Benin as a common job scam.[1][2][3] The scammers even have set up a fake web site that looks very professional. The "contact us" will connect you with the scammers. Beware. --Lambiam20:55, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Mythological god with the ability to impregnate women with his stare
Yesterday at quiz bowl, someone mentioned a (hilarious) tossup we had last year on a mythological god (of fertility, I think) with the ability to impregnate women with his stare. I cannot for the life of me remember his name. I do remember at the time, I looked him up, and he had a Wikipedia article. Someone please tell me what his name is. Raul65418:40, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I found two unreliable and completely unreferenced mentionings that the peacock, with its many staring eyes, had this ability in "Chinese mythology". I found nothing else on this, just thought I'd throw it in, might well be a red herring though. ---Sluzzelintalk07:22, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I seem to remember something about Ra (or Amun - a solar deity, at any rate) using this technique to impregnate the pharaoh's mother. I can look through some books if Wikipedia's articles don't mention this, if you'd like... Random Nonsense19:46, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I could be totally wrong on some or all of this, but I seem to remember that it was some native american mythology (Hopi, maybe) and he, the god, was a dwarf or something. Also, I think his article was illustrated (again, making him look like a dwarf). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Raul654 (talk • contribs) 04:15, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Here is a site containing a story of the birth of Kumara (the Sanskrit name of this otherwise Tamil deity). Śiva, after becoming a beautiful six-faced form, looked at Parvati lovingly ... and "a dazzling lustre similar to numerous suns arose from the eye in his [Śiva's] forehead" and the lustre spread throughout the world; thus was born Kumara, of Śiva and Parvati (as recounted in the Skanda Purana. Antandrus (talk)17:35, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Capitalism and Communism
If I were to say "Marxist economics are the basis for Communism as Market economics are the basis for Capitalism", would this be accurate? If not what terms would you substitute for in place of Marxist and/or Market? thanks, --Czmtzc18:52, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To start, I wouldn't say that "market economics" is the basis for capitalism. In modern capitalist society, we have a market economy. Economics is the science that studies how economies work. Although capitalist societies have a market economy, the economic system of Western societies preceding the advent of capitalism was also largely market-based. Marxist economics does not specifically study the economic system of communist societies. On the contrary, the focus seems to be on the study of capitalism! Marxist economics is a schoolwithin economics, and other economists than Marxist study communism as well.
It is not clear that any of the states self-identifying as communist were actually a communist society; in the philosophy of Marx, the advent of communism would be marked by the "withering away" of the state. We are still waiting for that to happen. --Lambiam20:22, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. While true communism (which I will define as everyone sharing everything equally) could only exist, IMHO, in a small group, many countries have claimed to be communist that are really just the same old dictatorships with a new propaganda tool. I wouldn't take North Korea's claim to be communist (share the wealth equally) any more seriously than I take their claim to be democratic. StuRat20:32, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Capitalism" requires Smith (and then Marx) defining a system that was based upon a description of practice rather than outlining a theory of what should be. In other words, Smith begins and goes forward by looking at how capital moves at the present time (1770), and Marx sees this system described and theorized by Smith as having peculiarities that Smith does not address. Because Smith was descriptive before proscriptive, he doesn't design his system and doesn't see the problems of surplus credit and the disequilibrium of wage/cost that Marx would make hay of. Therefore, the basis of capitalism is simply the slow, accidental, and haphazard evolution of a trading system as it is then modified by certain accumulations of wealth and state power. In fact, I would almost say that capitalism is derived largely from Marx himself, as capitalists somewhat embraced his description and went from there. Well, maybe not. Geogre21:14, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Very difficult question, since it is about definitions. I think the following distinctions are useful to keep in mind:
control of the means of production in this economic system
the community or for it the state
private individuals
main device for distribution of property
state planning
free market
I hope this helps in explaining what
communism is: namely a radical brand of socialism, a political ideology
what marxist economics is: namely an economic theory
what capitalism is: namely an economic system
what free market economy is: namely a way to distribute goods
To answer you question, no this analogy is not correct since these are four different things and not two pairs of similar things. C mon22:41, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have only one or two tiny points to add to C mon's excellent submission here. First, Czmtzc, as others have indicated, Karl Marx has far, far more to say about capitalism than he does about communism. You will, however, find some sketchy references in The German Ideology and the Critique of the Gotha Programme, where he first used the phrase From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Second, and for more general reference, there has never, so far as I am aware, been a state that has identified itself as 'Communist', a clear contradiction in terms. There are, and have been, countries ruled by Communist Parties, but that is a different thing altogether. In these particular cases the economic system is defined as 'Socialism', as in Socialism in one country. I will also say that capitalism, and Karl Marx, requires David Ricardo as much as it does Adam Smith. Clio the Muse23:54, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Right, such as a trade economy. But that's not what people usually mean by economy. You can turn it around, though. In a true communist society there is no economy and therefore no money. DirkvdM18:32, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry; that is wrong. Economies can-and do-exist with a complete absence of money, or when the the fiscal and banking system has collapsed. At the most basic level an economy is merely the production, transport and exchange of goods. Even under the purest forms of communism these activities would have to continue. Otherwise communism means exactly the same thing as paradise: an ethereal world beyond both life and history; beyond hunger and want. Clio the Muse22:57, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
About the first bit: I already acknowledged that an economy can exist without money. About the last bit: Isn't that sort of the communist ideal? Or am I overstating the dreaminess of communists? Anyway, the exchange of goods will certainly not be an aspect of a communist society, because everyone just takes what they need (and nothing more) - no exchange needed. There is total freedom of the use of products, without competition over their use. Production and transportation will still be needed (although transportation will greatly decrease when there are no more low wage countries). In a capitalist society those are parts of the economy, but not in a communist society. No system for the division of labour or goods is needed. People decide for themselves what they do and take. They are all so educated and good natured that that would work - in the ideal communist society. So there is no economy. Note that this is a bit of an academic discussion because such a society will never work (on a large scale and in the foreseeable future, that is). This is why the economy article backs you up - it reasons from the reality we live in and treats communism as an aberration. DirkvdM07:19, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Overstating the dreaminess? Yes, I think you probably are; you are certainly far closer to concepts of a paradise not of this earth. Marxists have always had a notion of communism as an ideal goal, though you will search hard to find a detailed description of what shape a communist society would take; even the link between the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' and the 'withering away of the state' is highly problematic. But for a view of a perfect future that Karl Marx would almost certainly have dismissed as 'utopian' you could do no better that read Robert Tressell's Bunyanesque novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.
OK, now let's deconstruct your image of the 'economics' of communism (and we are talking, I have to stress, about an economic system). Everyone will take what they need, and nothing more? How does one define need? I need a rolex and a rolls royce; would that be OK? Yes, you might reply in terms of your ideal, because everyone can have a rolex and a rolls royce. Ah, yes, but this is in paradise, is it not? In the real world of finite resources decisions would still have to be made about how resources are used and labour allocated, on the assumption that things, real things, will have to be made. Now we are already seeing, even in the purest forms of earthly communism, an uneven distribution of power; because some will have to make the decisions about the allocation of resources and others will have to implement these decisions. Again speaking in earthly terms, and assuming no cornucopia, things will still have to be made, skills nurtured and labour divided. Goods made in one place will have to be transported to those places were such goods cannot be made, and handed over in some process of exchange. So you have, in other words, an economy. You also have the makings of disaster; for in a world of equal demand resources will be used up at a rate that makes our present problems over climate change, pollution and vanishing assests seem like the true paradise. A world where everyone has a rolex and a rolls royce is unsustainable. Even as a dream, Dirk, it goes beyond the limits of the possible. More than that, it is a dream that forever tumbles into nightmare. Perfection is only for the dead.
Anyway, I am sensitive to the fact that this discussion is going too far from the point of the original question, so I do not propose to add any more here. If you would like further clarification on any of the points I have made in the above you are welcome to come to my talk page. Clio the Muse22:41, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To summarize what Clio, DirkvdM and StuRat said about the distinction between communism and socialism in Marxist theory in a small table. Note that according to Marx history goes through phases, that are characterized by who controls the means of production.
time
name
control of the means of production
form of government
current time
capitalism
bourgeoisie
"liberal democracy" (dictatorship of the bourgeoisie)
near future
socialism
proletariat
dictatorship of the proletariat
distant future
communism
community
none (there is no state)
It is very important to note that the terms socialism and communism as used in this table are distinct from the use in the previous table. So communism both refers to a political ideology (a radical brand of socialism) and a future phase in the marxist theory of history (where there is no state, only community). To make confusion even worse: socialism refers to a political ideology (a very broad movement of ideologies actually), an economic system (where the state controls the means of production) and a future phase in the marxist theory of history (the dictatorship of the proletariat). C mon08:49, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To expand, the second meaning of socialism is actually state socialism, which, for even more confusion, was dubbed state capitalism by some 'real' communists who rejected the way the USSR functioned. The most common form of socialism is social democracy (a better term would be democratic socialism, but that is used for something different). Even the most hardcore capitalist democratic society (eg the US) has some of it, in the form of what one could call 'institutionalised charity'. Playing Robin Hood, basically, to combat the worst excesses of capitalism - without that, the poor would soon be so poor that they would have nothing to lose, which would make them very dangerous. One could say that socialism killed the communist revolution in western Europe. In the Netherlands, after there had almost been a revolution in 1918 (see Troelstra#Proclamation of the socialist revolution), the right-wing government got so scared they started taking all sorts of left-wing measures to prevent another uprising. DirkvdM18:32, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Witchcraft is mentioned, of course, and so is idolatry. However, the specific method of healing is irrelevant. In medieval medicine, people believed in both gems and plants based on their homologous forms (lung shaped plants were good for the lungs, and blood colored stones were good for the blood), and this was seen as being efficacious because of the divine plan. At the same time, believing that healing comes from anywhere but God's providence is forbidden, as it involves idolatry or holding other gods before the Lord. Thus, you can believe that a pretty rock will help your arthritis, if you think it's just because of hidden medical properties or God's plan, but you can't if you think that it's the Spirit of the Earth refashioning your body. Medicine is fine. Spiritualism isn't. Geogre02:03, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I did. In an Old Testament sense, all of that stuff fell afoul of the law. I also meant, though, what people now call "spiritualism" in distinction to religion. The term is sometimes used to say, "I believe in a thing that has no religion but has plenty of spiritual powers." That, in both an OT and New Testament sense, would be against Jewish and Christian doctrine. Geogre12:09, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've heard that 'amethysts protect against' drunkeness or some other minor sin - and that it is mentioned in the bible, though I've never read it myself.. Is that the sort of thing you were thinking of??87.102.87.1511:08, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Amethysts offering protection against drunkenness is not mentioned in the Bible, although amethysts feature in a few places. However, this doesn't mean the belief was not around at the time. Apparently the name referred to this supposed property. The Catholic Encyclopedia is a handy resource for this sort of thing, but you can also search online bibles for the word 'amethyst'. Skittle21:26, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
e-pol
There is an organization at www.e-pol.org which appears to claim some sort of jurisdiction over internet use. Can anyone confirm (a) Does this organization actually exist? (b) what, if any, legal status it has? or (c) is it some sort of hoax? I am not asking for legal advice - just information, thanks. DuncanHill21:35, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No article about it. Commercial company? If a hoax, why would someone make a hoax so boring? A hoax to me on - for example, the release of an Apple Mac kneetop (ie. mini) notebook, or something like the flying spaghetti monster (and to pretend it be aa worldwide, serious religion with millions of follower) sounds more fun.martianlostinspaceemail me22:32, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"e-pol.com" is a domain name from Go Daddy.com, Inc. out of Scottsdale, Arizona. I can't find anything else about it on the Net, but I know we have some ace searchers who watch this desk. Bielle22:46, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It appears to be related to UNNET and UNombud, two "organisations" which briefly had WP articles which have since been deleted. The websites (.org) are fake database frontends, and the ultimate host of the sites seems to be [a site which I can't link because the spam blacklist complains]. It's either some sort of scam, or a kid messing around with flash and javascript. Either way, no, it's not a real organisation and isn't anything to be worried about. FiggyBee09:20, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Coalition" is most often used for a temporary agreement of two political parties to work together, typically voting the same way in a legislature. The term "alliance" has a similar meaning but extends to many other fields, especially the military and nowadays also business, and may refer to a longer-term agreement (for example, NATO is an alliance that has lasted over 50 years). "Union" indicates a stronger joining, normally one that is intended as permanent and takes precedence over the interests of the individual members, which may not even exist afterwards. --Anonymous, 00:28 UTC, September 1, 2007.
September 1
Creating a new page
How do I create a new entry on Wikipedia? All I want to do is create one, very short and simple entry about a candidate running in a political primary race. I looked at all of the instructional pages and I cannot find this information anywhere. Please just give me a simple link to the page where I can create this entry.
When posting to the Reference Desk, please use the + button, which will remind you to put a title on your question. I have added one.
As to creating new articles, that is really a question for the Help Desk, but I'll answer. If you've read Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia#Create new articles, you may have noticed a link to Help:Starting a new page, which has a space right the top where you can type in your title. What it doesn't seem to mention is that this is actually the same as the ordinary "Go" box on every page. All you have to do is pretend the article exists and try to go to it, and there will be a "create this article" link. (As it says, you have to be logged in for it to work.) --Anonymous, 00:43 UTC, September 1, 2007.
And if the "Go" button returns results, click on the small, red link to the non-existant article beneath the page title ("Search").
NB - As a general rule, "a candidate running in a political primary race" is not considered to be notable (that is, a suitable subject for inclusion in an encyclopedia and thus for a Wikipedia article) unless he or she is already notable in some other regard. See Wikipedia:Notability. Xn403:04, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Amen to what Xn4 just said. Most candidates who are running for a seat are not sufficiently notable for a biography on Wikipedia. Those who win the race may be, but those who merely contend are not, unless they possess some other source of significance (e.g. Tom Tancredo has never won, but he did any number of things to make himself known and did quite a few extremely shady/controversial things). Some people believe that candidates on the ballot in multiple states might be ok. Geogre12:07, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Life in the Soviet Union
What was the quality of life for the average Soviet citizen from 1940's-1991? If I was living in the country during that time period, any idea what my home, workplace, school, environment, etc. would look and feel like? What kind of products would I be able to buy? I'm also curious about what the Soviet citizens thought of their government and the outside world.
Also, suppose a hobbyist wanted to buy high-quality electronics from Japan or the United States. Would this purchase be possible, assuming the potential costumer has enough money? --Bowlhover02:39, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's a long period encompassing several Soviet eras (WW2, the last years of Stalin's reign, Khrushchev, the era of Brezhnevite "stagnation", and post-Brezhnev attempts at reform). However, "hard" currency was scarce for most of it, and only a tiny privileged elite allowed to travel abroad would likely have any opportunity to personally own the latest tech toys. By the way, Japan didn't really become known for high-quality electronics until around the late 1960s... AnonMoos06:10, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That would be the latest tech toys from outside the USSR. The USSR had it's own technological development. Which may be an important reason for its (relative) economic downfall - it was a big country, but not all that big (around 150 million people - just over half the population of the US, for example). Other countries profited from each other in a way that the USSR couldn't - even big neighbour China wasn't much of an ally, despite similar ideologies. I said relative economic downfall, because the USSR saw major economic improvement after they got rid of the Tzars. It just didn't do well in comparison with other countries. For most (dissidents excluded), life must have been much better than under the Tzars. Or those living in third world countries.
I only visited Russia after the fall of the USSR (apart from a stopover at Moscow airport - but airports look the same everywhere, so that's no indication). What struck me was how 'western' it felt and at the same time not. People didn't hang around pointlessly, as they often do in poor capitalist countries, but were busy doing something or going somewhere. There was little luxury, but the basics were provided. Perhaps most indicative are the ladas and the metro. Personal property wasn't in high esteem, so purely functional, but the metro was a 'glorification of communion' - absolutely marvelous. Especially the Moscow metro. Public buildings in general were rather impressive. The new and the old. And the old ones were accessible to everyone (when my niece said in the Saint Petersburg summer palace "Wow, we don't have that in the Netherlands", I said, "How do you know - we're not allowed to visit our palaces."). But homes were very Spartan and 'functional'.
What the environment in general would have 'felt like' (vague term) will largely be determined by the nature of the people, because even with such a strong state, people make their own lives. It seems logical to ask someone who lived there and then, but then they wouldn't be able to compare with your reference framework, so if you got such an answer, you would have to be very careful how to interpret it if it deals with what it 'felt like'.
I once asked a Russian if they looked up to the West in the Soviet era, and he said that quite the opposite was true. Maybe that is one reason the Communist Party got so many votes in the mid 1990s. Of course, it was easy for the government to make people believe the West was a horrible place - just show films of the reality of the slums. Hell, even Hollywood provided those - a depiction of the misery in the US, depicted by the US. Perfect propaganda because it makes it perfectly believable. Actually, it's quite likely that the bottom 10% or so in the USSR was better of than the bottom 10% in the West (certainly the US). And crime would probably have been low, just the way it is in Cuba today, because of less extreme poverty combined with severe punishment. Ironically, that last bit is promoted by right wing parties elsewhere. :) Then again, one may argue that the USSR government was pretty right wing (state capitalism?). DirkvdM09:16, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
On a point of information, crime is as high in Cuba as it is elsewhere in the world, and drug trafficking and addiction are major problems, especially in Havana and the other urban centres. Clio the Muse23:04, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I understood differently, although I may be confused with crime against travelers. Then again, several Cubans asked me if crime is really so high in the US,which suggests it is low in Cuba, but that is about people's perception of criminality, which is not very reliable, especially if there is little knowledge of the reality of the other country (on both sides). Official figures will be hard to compare between Cuba and other countries as things are defined differently. For example, I can imagine there are more political prisoners in Cuba (per capita), but then I wouldn't count them as criminals. I was really talking about 'crime in the streets' and Cubans gave me the impression that that was very low. DirkvdM07:32, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Slight expansion: I've had lots of political discussions with Cubans and there was roughly a 50/50 division between supporters and opponents of Castro. But there are two things that all agreed about was a good thing about his rule: safety (for non-dissidents) and medical care. DirkvdM10:23, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks guys. DirkvdM: I suppose by "functional", you mean that the furniture and equipment are in adequate condition in terms of usability, but not aesthetics? What did the living spaces specifically look like?
Did the Soviet Union allow foreign tourists to wander freely around the country? If so, where can I find visitor accounts and their opinions? --Bowlhover04:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I was in the Leningrad area in the late 1980s (as a tourist), and spoke to others who were doing more adventurous travels. The deal at that time (which I believe represented a relaxation post Gorbachev's rise) was that tourists needed to book hotels and other reservations through Intourist (the Sovient travel office) in advance, and you were therefore limited to tourist specific places. Also access to rubles was limited (officially: everyone on the street wanted dollars or Deutchmarks), and therefore you were sent to tourist restaurants, bars, and stores. That said you were free to wander anywhere, and I spoke to people who were doing driving holidays in their own cars, as long as they booked offical accomadation ahead of time and checked in at each administrative center they entered (Oblasts?). I'd google "travel adventures in the Soviet Union" or somesuch, cause everyone from the west who went there earlier seemed to be writing about it. My Mom went to Moscow in the early 60s (first civilan charter flight of Americans since the end of WWII: a medical conference) and she said it was very tightly controlled. Often people she spoke to at parties or streets were 'asked' by officials desist.T L Miles14:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sidenote: When I visited Cuba in 2004 there was also an obligation to book state hotels in advance, but there was no obligation to actually stay there - one was free to travel around. I believe the same was true in St Petersburg (former Leningrad) when I was there in the mid 1990s, but me memory fails me somewhat. DirkvdM17:52, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
One place to look is Lonely Planet's thorn tree. Just Google 'USSR site:http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com/'. One story there about difficulties around reminds me of my niece who, after having studied in Russia for about half a year had enormous problems getting permission to get to from Moscow to St Petersburg, despite speaking almost fluent Russian. Only when after days of trying she broke out in tears, all of a sudden the official she was with quickly closed the door and arranged everything for her immediately. Russians are suckers for genuine emotions. Again, that's about post-USSR Russia, but it is an indication that a society doesn't quite change overnight - old habits die hard. DirkvdM18:05, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
the galveston hurricane
how is this regional feature connected to the local and global community physically, culturally, politically, symbolically, and personally?
And how does this regard perceptions of the feature? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.199.115.146 (talk) 03:19, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's quite a series of questions, and I am not entirely certain how one would attach them to a hurricane, even one as deadly as Galveston Hurricane of 1900. There won't be many around who can respond personally, and I am not sure about how to look at a real hurricane as a symbol. The article noted is a start. Bielle03:39, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The ultimate timeline?
I've been reading some of the historical timelines on Wikipedia and I was wondering if there exists any single consistent timeline that covers from the big bang up to the present day. Obviously not in great detail as that would be immense, but it would be great to just get a concise 'snapshot' of what the world (or certain parts of it) was like during a given era, just to see how all the different eras and events fit together and put things into context. I know I could just look up a certain date on here and be given a huge amount of info but it would be good to have it in a single continuous timeline. Sort of like a brief history of time (but not in the Stephen Hawking sense). --Ukdan99903:32, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago recently had one which was printed out and stuck on a large wall, like 30 feet long by 8 fet high. Not sure how far back it went, but it listed developments in religion, technology, politics, medicine, etc in each decade or so over an enormous span of time. A huge amount of detail. Edison00:40, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Time served in Polish Prisons
In western countries people found guilty of crimes and sentenced to prison time will often serve less than the specified sentence due to good behaviour, remorse and other factors. Does the Polish justice system operate in the same manner? or does it rely on Eurpean Union principles for time served or in fact do Polish prisoners serve the entire sentence?
A prisoner is normally eligible for parole after having served half of their sentence, but not less than 6 months. If this is their second sentence, this is only after 2/3 of the sentence served; if it's the third or more time – after 3/4, in both cases after not less than a year. If you were sentenced to 25 years of prison, you're eligible after having served 15 years; if you were sentenced to life imprisonment – after 25 years. In some cases, the judge may specify a longer period you have to serve before you can apply for parole.
During the second quarter of 2007, 14,489 requests for parole were filed by prisoners (or on their behalf by the prison director, prosecutor, judge or supervisor) throughout Poland. Parole was actually granted to 39.40% of them. — Kpalion(talk)08:50, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Is the assumption the question starts with correct? I know that in the Netherlands, a life sentence is exactly that - unless you can prove your innocence, you only ever get out of prison feet first. DirkvdM09:23, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is also generally true for the Netherlands, where early release is almost automatic, the exception being life sentences, which are rarely given, and only then when they really mean it. Still, even then pardon may be granted by Royal Decree, as happened in some exceptional cases. --Lambiam10:05, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Poland's current right-wing government with Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro had plans, so far unsuccessful, to introduce an absolute life sentence into the Penal Code. Leading Polish experts on penal law, such as Prof. Andrzej Zoll, argue that such a punishment would be inhumane. Moreover, such a punishment would practically render the convict unpunishable and make him dangerous to prison mates and the Penitentiary Service. [4] — Kpalion(talk)10:53, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Have patience, someone will provide a concise analysis later. Meanwhile, and to better understand the answers forthcoming, I recommend you read the articles on Religion in France (there's a historical overview), French Wars of Religion, and Huguenot. And of course, you can click on wikilinks to learn more about the relevant people and events. ---83.79.144.18410:53, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
On the assumption that you have now read the pages linked by 83.79, Pere Duchesne, all I really have to do is to put matters in some form of political perspective. To begin with Protestantism in France, largely Calvinist in direction, made steady progress across large sections of the nation, in the urban bourgeoisie and parts of the aristocracy, appealing to people alienated by the obduracy and the complacency of the Catholic establishment. This was a time when monarchs viewed heresy as a challenge to royal authority, as much as anything else. Francis I had initially maintained an atttitude of tolerance, arising from his interest in the humanist movement. This changed in 1534 with the Affair of the Placards. In an act of astonishing insensitivity a section of the Huguenot community decided to make their presence known to the wider Catholic population by denouncing the mass in placards that appeared across France, even so far as the royal apartments. The whole question of one's faith was then thrown directly into the arena of politics, and Francis had little choice but to support the popular reaction. It was the first major phase of anti-Protestant persecution in French history, which saw the creation of the Chambre Ardente-the Burning Chamber-within the Parlement of Paris to cope with the rise in prosecutions for heresy.
French Protestantism, though its appeal increased under persecution, now acquired a distinctly political character, made all the more obvious by the nobel conversions of the 1550s. This had the effect of creating the preconditions for a series of destructive and intermitent conflicts, known as the Wars of Religion. The civil wars were helped along by the sudden death of Henry II in 1559, which saw the beginning of a prolonged period of weakness for the French crown. Atrocity and outrage became the defining characteristic of the time, illustrated at its most intense in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of August 1572, when 30,000 Huguenots were killed across France. These wars only ended when Henry IV, himself a former Huguenot, issued the Edict of Nantes, promising official toleration of the Protestant minority, but under highly restricted conditions. A peace, yes, and a salvation for the Huguenots, but one that also embraced their future destruction. Catholicism was still the official state religion. Dissent could exist by the will of the king, just as it could be suppressed, also by the will of the king. Clio the Muse00:16, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. From a local view (Hull University) I am somewhat amazed by the vast numbers of Japanese students visiting.. Now I realise that foreign students visit universities all over the world, but Japan has good universities of it's own yes?
No real answer, just a few considerations. Life is expensive in Japan, so it would probably be cheaper for Japanese to study abroad (more than the other way around anyway). Also, the knowledge system that Japan has now is largely imported from the West, so it makes sense for them to learn it 'from the horse's mouth'. As a variation on that, with English being the lingua franca, it makes more sense for Japanese to study in an English speaking country than the other way around. DirkvdM07:39, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Are those students actually enrolled in the university, or are they just learning English in an affiliated program? The English language is a significant part of the Japanese school curriculum, but a large number of Japanese seem to find it very difficult to acquire much active conversational fluency in English while still living in Japan... AnonMoos12:02, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. A nephew did such an English course in Vancouver, and there were lots of Japanese students there. Problem was that the students hung out not with locals, but with each other, picking up each other's peculiar accents, which defeats the purpose. DirkvdM10:27, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
1930s press agencies and magazines
I'm currently researching the following statement:
The Hulton Getty Picture Collection (formerly the Hulton Deutsch Archive) scarcely needs an introduction. Based in London, this collection is universally acknowledged as the greastest library of photojournalism in the world. The collection comprises in excess of 15 million photographs, prints and engravings, including the work of such famous names as Keystone, Picture Post, Fox and Central Press. (HELIX (Higher Education Library for Image eXchange))
I've found our article Picture Post, but I'm drawing a blank on the others. Our disambiguation page on Keystone mentions a news agency called Keystone Switzerland, but that appears to be a subsidiary founded in 1953: "KEYSTONE was established in 1953 as the Swiss subsidiary of the American KEYSTONE View Company that was originally founded in 1891."[5]. The Keystone here could be Keystone Studios, but I'm now thinking that is it more likely this "Keystone View Company": "The Keystone View Co. was formed in 1892 in Meadville, Penn. by B.L. Singley, a former salesman at Underwood & Underwood. This company became the major publisher of stereographs in the world after 1920. In 1898 they organized their highly successful Education Department which produced boxed sets for school instruction of images and descriptive text illustrating culture, industry, commerce and politics world-wide. Although the company hired its own professional photographers, they also purchased rights to other negatives including several series of Underwood and Underwood negatives in 1912. Orders for Keystone sets continued to be filled by the company as late as 1970."[6]. On the other hand, Keystone View Company doesn't mention the Hulton Getty Picture Collection, so I'm not sure about this. 'Fox' is obviously not Fox News, but I think it could be Fox Film (one of the predecessor companies of 20th Century Fox), which produced Fox Movietone News. The real question I need help with, the one I'm drawing a blank on, is Central Press. The ubiquity of the phrase makes it hard to search for it. Can anyone help? Carcharoth12:51, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've found some more at: "the Keystone Collection, itself an amalgamation of the Keystone, Fox Photos, Central Press and the Three Lions press agencies."[7] and [8]Carcharoth13:19, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Fox Photos, Ltd., was apparently U.K. based, at the address 6, Tudor Street, London, E.C.4. It was owned by George Freston, who died in 2006.[9] Central Press Photos, Ltd., was also U.K. based, with address 6–7 Gough Square, London, E.C.4.[10] --Lambiam21:07, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Amazing! Thanks. What did the trick? Putting "photos" in the search term? Someone should contact Egby (from that second link) and tell him that his negatives might have gone to the Keystone Collection and then to the Hulton Getty Archive. Carcharoth22:21, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keystone: I once had to write something about Bert Garai, a Hungarian journalist who founded the Keystone Press Agency, which was active in London in the 1930s. His autobiography is called The Man From Keystone (1965). He was the great-grandfather of Romola Garai. Xn423:32, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
According to this site, "Keystone Press Agency was founded in the early 1900’s in London, by Bert Garai. The Canadian office, located in Montreal was founded in 1960 by Bob Moynier, who was a staff photographer at Keystone Press Agency’s Paris office. For the last 40 years, Keystone has accumulated an extensive collection, including over 2 million black and white, and over 2 million color images. Since 1960, international news has become more and more popular, and Keystone’s philosophy has always been..." Xn402:17, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Talisman" painting by Henryk Siemiradzki (1843-1902)
Please consider the following paragraph from A Yankee Engineer Abroad Part II: The East (I own the copyright, so I can reproduce it here):
"We rode across the fields a mile or two to the north-west and, reaching the base of the mountains, visited the Ain es Sultan, Fountain of the Sultan, the veritable Diamond of the Desert, so beautifully painted in the Talisman3 – a large spring of pure water, overshadowed by fig-trees, sending out a considerable volume to irrigate the fields. Farther back up the mountain, a leaping stream comes sounding down the steep slope in an artificial channel. Its waters are also conveyed to the fields, being partly conducted in the aqueduct whose arches we noticed last evening. This stream enjoys the reputation of being the Fountain of Elisha, whose waters the Prophet healed of their bitterness. The ruins of a pile of buildings, possibly a convent, are found on the hill-side near the fountain, half-buried in tangled vegetation. A bold precipitous mountain overlooking it to the westward, called the Quarantania, is considered the mount of our Saviour’s forty-days’ fasting and temptation. A small chapel occupies its summit. All over the face of the cliffs are numerous little caves, the abode of visionary enthusiasts in the day when such practice was in fashion, who endeavoured, as it has somewhere been expressed, to secure their title to Heaven by making earth a Hell. This method is out of date now, and the kennels are all vacant."
I found a reproduction of the "Talisman" on the Internet, but no description. I located the museum in Russia that displays it, but there was no response to my e-mail enquiry (in English). The New York Public Library on-line research service referred me to the Polish and Russian collection, but I'm illiterate in those languages. I took a chance and tied the work to Henryk Siemiradzki in a footnote. I hope to do a revised version of the book some day and would like for someone to verify whether a not the scene described above by Frederick Hubbard in 1857 is indeed the same as in Siemiradzki's painting. Frederick Hubbard lived in New York state. Was the painting ever shown in New York City?
69.201.141.4513:26, 1 September 2007 (UTC)Linnaeus[reply]
I've also found lots of references to The Talisman a novel written in 1825 by Sir Walter Scott. He describes the fountain at length. Have a look at this online text here: ""It is called in the Arabic language," answered the Saracen, "by a name which signifies the Diamond of the Desert."" It is a stretch, but I think Hubbard (the Yankee Engineer Abroad) is referring either to the book (which is using words to paint the scene), or, more likely, a painting inspired by the book, or maybe even published in the book. Carcharoth13:59, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're right. Even though F. Hubbard compliled his notes years after his travels (he died in NYC in 1895) it is more likely that he is referring to Scott's book (1825) rather than the painting (1880's). He refers to Sir Walter Scott in other places in the book. On re-examining the painting, it seems more likely that "the talisman" refers to a charm being held by the girl and she is not leaning against the wall of a spring. Thanks.69.201.141.4514:46, 1 September 2007 (UTC)Linnaeus[reply]
from the age of the sophist to that of quantum mechanics,we appear to be just delving in rhetorics,can the west take the time out and prove it not so? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.94.9.216 (talk) 14:55, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The case of quantum mechanics is a nice one for this — the Copenhagen interpretation's focus on language is specifically meant to imply that the limits of truth lie in perception, and that an overly realist approach to the world is not, in fact, truth. The enormous success of quantum mechanics in describing the world — success over more realist attempts — is a strong argument that indeed, epistemology ("how we know") must be given a strong, and sometimes primary, role in talking about ontology ("what is"). Most attempts to jettison epistemological discussions or limitations (what I am assuming you are calling "rhetoric") are failures, and the assertion of "truth" they provide illusory. Better to know what you don't know that to think you know everything, I would argue.
So I wouldn't include quantum mechanics in your railing against rhetoric or subjectivity. I probably wouldn't include philosophy, either. However if you want to argue that deconstructionism and rhetoric in places like politics and the courts is having an overall net negative effect on the operation of at least American society, I would probably agree, but I would argue that such was not really a new thing. The deconstruction of scientific facts in the political and legal arena has been going on for at least a hundred years, probably longer. --24.147.86.18715:18, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
one would believe that general relativity comes into play somewhere somehow in this multi-quantum world.truth ultimately wills out, but do we with all our sophisticated rhetoric suppress the elusive and life giving truth —Preceding better to understand what you dont know than to say you do unsigned comment added by 59.94.9.125 (talk) 17:53, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, you lost me on that last one there, the "elusive and life giving truth." There's little doubt that the quantum mechanical description of the world is in many ways largely accurate, even if it is unintuitive and makes large claims about what is knowable in physics.--24.147.86.18721:51, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
! Deconstruction is over. The Mai 68 generation's pique produced some interesting digressions, but can rhetoric silence truth? Truth? Truth? Rhetoric and "truth" are neither opposed nor antithetical. Can sophistry obscure a truth that would otherwise appear? Sure. Can such truths break out anyway? You betcha. Are we doomed to language? 'Fraid so. Are we limited by language? In social and political action, seems like it. Are these constructions limiting and meaningful? As objects, they certainly are, and as operative modes of life, they're inescapable and so they might as well be called meaningful. To posit a truth that is outside of rhetoric is a statement of faith. I have no problem with such faith, myself, but Wittgenstein said that we are like the fly in the bottle -- going around and around and around and never going up out the top of the bottle. Is there an escape from such determinism to the non-determined thing that we have no words for? Well, sure seems like it, if we suppose that all those mystics aren't liars. Is there a way to use language's toys to argue someone to it? You can try, if you like, but I'm with Kierkegaard on this one: leap of faith or happiness in the bottle. Geogre14:24, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It could be described as a 'butlins' for aryans. - It was part fo the Strength Through Joy program and as such part of the apparatus of the state political philosophy - but that's already mentioned in the article - perhaps you wanted more information...?83.100.249.22817:18, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(after unnoticed e.c.) Indeed there is. It was part of the Nazi program Kraft durch Freude ("health through strength strength through joy"), which had the self-declared goal of creating "a National Socialist Volksgemeinschaft ("people's community") and the perfection and refinement of the German people." It aimed to reach this goal by organizing tight and thoroughly structured recreational programs. Robert Ley, one of KdF's founders, quoted Hitler: "I wish that the worker be granted a sufficient holiday and that everything is done, in order to let this holiday as well all other leisure time to be truly recreational. I wish this, because I want a determined people with strong nerves, for truly great politics can only be achieved with a people that keeps its nerves."
Another less ideological goal was to boost the German economy by stimulating the tourist industry out of its slump from the 1920s, and it was quite successful up until around the outbreak of World War II. By 1934, over two million Germans had participated on a KdF trip, by 1939 the reported numbers lay around 43 million people. The Nazis also sought to attract tourists from abroad, a task performed by Hermann Esser, one of the Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda's secretaries. A series of multilingual and colorful brochures, titled "Deutschland", advertised Germany as a peaceful, idyllic, and progressive country, on one occasion even portraying the ministry's boss, Joseph Goebbels, grinning and hamming in an unlikely photo series of the Cologne carnival. KdF more or less collapsed in 1939, and several projects, such as Prora, never got completed. ---Sluzzelintalk17:41, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Those buildings look like tenements to me, who would want to go on vacation in such a drab place ? And, as for tourism, I can't see Nazi Germany attracting many foreigners (perhaps a few Austrians), which is who they really needed to help the economy. StuRat18:20, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure a derelict shell gives a true impression of what it would have been like - even if it had ever been finished, that said I'm not that keen either..83.100.249.22820:43, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, admittedly, Prora in particular was a less luxurious design, even for 1930's tastes, and didn't primarily target tourists from abroad. Ley wrote that Prora was originally Hitler's idea too. He wanted a gigantic sea resort, the "most mighty and large one to ever have existed", holding 20,000 beds. In the middle, he wanted a massive building. At the same time, Hitler wanted it to be convertible into a military hospital in case of war. Ley appointed Clemens Klotz (interesting aptronym, as "Klotz" means "block" and is also a derogatory word for massive cubic buildings). Hitler insisted that the plans of a massive indoor arena by architect Erich (Wilhelm Julius Freiherr Gans Edler Herr zu) Putlitz be included. As mentioned in the article, the entire combined design won the Grand Prix for Architecture in Paris in 1937, so it seems not every non-German person deemed it that ugly at the time. ---Sluzzelintalk20:38, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It certainly looks functional, but possibly a little more 'luxurious' than the early camps set up by Butlin! And it certainly dwarfs Butlin in the sheer scale of its ambition. Putlitz's 'Festival Hall' was intended to be able to accomodate all 20,000 guests at the same time. Those parts of the complex that were completed were used as a temporary shelter for people made homeless by the air raids on Hamburg. The Soviets later used it as a barracks. After the formation of the German Democratic Republic part of it was used as an army holiday centre, by the name of the Walter Ulbricht Home. What remains now has a formal heritage listing. Ah, well-Heil, die Heil! Clio the Muse01:03, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The ox in the belfry. (il bue nel campanile da Giotto)
I recall being told that the locals of Florence call the low-toned bell in Giotto's campanile "il bue," but have not been able to verify this. Is it true?69.201.141.4517:01, 1 September 2007 (UTC)Linnaeus[reply]
I was told this by my Italian teacher, Mary Borelli (circa 1968). She was a Scotswoman, but her husband, Luigi, was native Italian. They travelled extensively through Italy. I also remember her telling the class of coming across a remote town (in the mountains, I think) in which the people still pronounced "cento" with the "c" sounding as the Latin "c". A decade later I heard the big bell in the campanile in Florence. To me it indeed sounded like the braying of a bull (I've never heard an ox). It could be that the lower classes referred to it as "il bue," while the the "polite" classes referred to "il campanone." It is interesting how some "trivial" things stick in the mind while larger ones escape. Teachers are often surprised at what their students remember. 69.201.141.4512:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)Linnaeus[reply]
nougat,almonds - european culture
Background: a european based supermarket has opened near me (UK) recently - many of the products are sourced from europe..
I'm amazed at the number of products that contain nougat for examples - biscuits with nougat centres, breakfast cereals with nougat chunks, ice cream with nougat in - this is most un British.
Also Almonds - there is practically a whole row devoted to almond products - every other biscuit product contains almonds or is made from almonds..
Is love of almonds/nougat a continental european obsession? Why do so many products contain almonds - are there vast almond forests in the Bavarian alps producing a massive almond surplus perhaps. Or perhaps it is the opposite: do the bosses at lidl believe that the British are extremely fond of chewy nut based foodstuffs!?
Well, just to get us started, here's the article on what happens when Continental Europeans mix the nougat and the almonds together: Turrón. Wareh18:18, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nougat is not a german specialty its produced there and popular (amongst other sorts of chocolat) but its not originally from Germany.--Tresckow02:12, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, contrary to the point made in the Wikipedia piece on England and St. George, traces of the cult date right back to Anglo-Saxon times. He appears as early as the ninth century in rituals at Durham, and in a tenth century martyrology. There is evidence, moreover, of pre-Conquest foundations dedicated to St. George: at Fordingham in Dorset, at Thetford, Southwark and Doncaster. So he was already familiar to the English well before the Crusades, though it is not until the reign of Edward III that emerges as the most important national saint, replacing Edward the Confessor It is probably more accurate to say that the cult was identified specifically with the monarchy, rather than England as a whole. Edward I was the first king to display St. George's banner alongside those of Edmund the Martyr and St. Edward.
By the reign of Edward III he had definately emerged as a 'god of battles', in much the same fashion as Saintiago Matamoros in Spain. In 1351 it was written "The English nation...call upon Saint George, as being their special patron, especially in war." In this regard he was certainly more appealing than the unwarlike Confessor or St. Edmund, who had been defeated and subsequently killed by the Danes. But with the succession of Richard II George once again slipped down the ranks. Richard had little of his grandfather's warlike ambitions, and returned to the veneration of the two native saints. George was called back to national prominence during the Wars of the Roses, when his name was invoked by both sides in the contest. It was also at this time that his cult spread across the nation at large. Almost a hundred wall paintings featuring the saint date from the fifteenth century, almost always showing him in combat with the dragon. He also survives in pilgrim badges. His secular importance was finally confirmed by the English Reformation; for he alone survived the suppression of the cult of saints, which not even the Virgin herself had been able to do.
Now, I have a question. I see that a claim is made in the Wikipedia page that St. George was 'demoted' by Pope Leo XIII in 1893 as the patron saint of England and replaced by Saint Peter! I had no idea that Popes were ever in the business of promoting and demoting national saints. Besides, nobody seems to have told the English! A citation request has been put against this statement; but these things, as I am sure many of you are aware, can hang around forever and a day. I need to know if this is true or not, or if it is just a subtle piece of vandalism? Clio the Muse02:20, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Curious. I've never heard of this, Clio. Saint Peter#Patronage makes no mention of it, and googling produces only one source - our article. I suspect it's either vandalism, or a genuine mistake on the part of the editor who posted this. -- JackofOz02:36, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it's the Pope's business who he has as England's patron saint, just as it's the Pope's business who he has as saints at all. I could understand if such a thing happened, and I have often heard it claimed, since George is fairly mythological and the emphasis lately (in the Catholic Church sense of 'lately') has been on people who pretty definitely existed. You can, of course, have anyone you like as your patron saint, and declare anyone you like to be a saint, but how many people will follow you? If the government wanted to declare someone as a patron saint of England, they could. Quite what this would mean, I don't know. To be honest, your comment is really quite odd Duncan. Skittle23:32, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You are, of course, quite right, Skittle: that saints 'made' by the church can also be 'unmade', if that makes sense. But I do not believe that the Vatican has ever sanctioned, or created, national saints: saints who were intended to be identified with a given country. Patron saints are created for historical and political reasons; so it was with James and Spain; and so it was with George and England. Even now, living in a secular world, English people, whether Catholic, Protestant or of no religion at all, understand the significance and symbolism of St. George and England. I confess that I myself have become more and more aware over the last few years of a growing sense of 'Englishness', brought on in part by Scottish and Welsh devolution: the English flag is ever more evident and people now celebrate St. George's Day with an a new enthusiasm; I do, and so do my friends. The Pope may demote or promote all the saints he wishes; but he could not end the link between George and England. So once again I pose my question: where does the contention about Leo XIII come from? I now believe this to be quite spurious. Clio the Muse00:39, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I see what you mean. It's just that, since the whole deal of 'official' saints and patron saints is a Catholic thing, to say it's none of the Pope's business is really quite odd. That George is popularly considered the patron saint of England is, of course, unaffected and people are free to make their mascots what they want. Who the English have as their 'mascot' patron saint by no means has to match anything any church says, but what the Catholic Church says about these things is the church's business. I have often heard that many saints were 'removed' in the last century or so for being mythological, and that some were restored. However, I have never seen any authoritive evidence that this was the case. So it wouldn't surprise me, but it seems unsupported. Skittle12:37, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Catholic Encyclopedia calls him patron of England in the very first sentence of its article on Saint George,[11] while the Catholic Community Forum lists England as one of the beneficiaries of George's extensive patronage.[12] While not spealing ex cathedra, they are generally reliable sources in doctrinary matters. --Lambiam17:56, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps Duncan has it in mind that "The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England" - Article thirty-seven of the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563, which still have the force of law so far as the Church of England is concerned. Lambiam has raised a real doubt as to whether Pope Leo XIII did downgrade George from the Roman Catholic point of view. The Catholic Encyclopedia postdates Leo. I see someone has added the {{Fact}} template to that statement in the Saint George article, to challenge it, and I hope someone will get to the bottom of this for us. Xn400:41, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The other part of the equation is that Pope John Paul II is supposed to have restored St George as patron saint in 2000. Does anyone remember anything about this in the media at that time? I certainly don't, and I think it's something that would have been widely reported in the anglophone world. Google produces nothing about it. The edit that's sparked this discussion is this one, from almost a year ago. Amazing that this hasn't been challenged till now. The anonymous editor only ever made a handful of WP edits - all in September 2006 - then got pissed off by something, and has never come back. -- JackofOz13:48, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would not wish this issue to pass by default, and I do not personally believe that the citation request will ever be answered. We are now in a position where people could claim that St. Peter is the patron saint of England because the Pope and Wikipedia say so; and as we know both are infallible! So, how should I proceed? Would it be best to put this whole discussion on the article's talk page with an introductory comment, leaving it for a day or so for a possible response, and then making the changes? Clio the Muse23:53, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am looking to understand the US banking structure system. My frame of reference is the Canadian banking system and I want to understand the differences/similarities between the two. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.137.217.61 (talk) 20:13, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I got a question about the recent upset between app state and michigan. I thought that app was a division II team...so why are they playing division I teams? I went to the article on WP and it said that their confrence got bumbed up to division I, but when I go to other internet sites it still says that SoCon is a d-II confrence. So depending on what's right...why did they play michigan, or what division is the new conference in?
- Rentastrawberry21:22, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that Appalachian State is a division IAA team (pronounced One Double A). That is a subdivision of Division I. Occasionally division II teams play IAA teams, and occasionally IAA teams play IA (the top tier) teams. Please note that the NCAA recently changed the name of the top two divisions to something funny like "Bowl Championship Division" and "Tournament Division". The Evil Spartan21:44, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Division I-A is now the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, while Division I-AA is now the Division I Football Championship Subdivision. As Evil Spartan pointed out, there's no rule saying you can't play teams outside of your division. -- Mwalcoff23:37, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Are there any chromatically tuned brass or woodwind instruments?
I'm interested in playing exotic scales, and I was wondering if there are any chromatic brass or woodwind instruments. So far the only thing I've found is the melodica, but it seems to be mainly for solos, and I'd like to have something more flexible. I know that there are chromatic harmonicas, but the melodica seems superior.
I don't know how to answer that, exactly, and someone will, of course, but slide instruments have the potential for chromatic notes, and Ornette Coleman does harmolodic scales with a conventional trumpet. I realize that neither of these are chromatically tuned instruments but, instead, musicians who are overcoming their instruments to achieve notes between the notes, but it is possible. Those are masters, of course, and that's not what you were asking about. Geogre02:44, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Neither the harmonica nor the melodica are brass or woodwind isntruments, but free reed aerophones. I guess you're not looking for those aerophones which don't use breath, but other means for the air flow instead. Otherwise, of course, there's a great selection of chromatically tuned instruments to choose from (organ, harmonium, chromatic button accordions, and so forth). As Geogre pointed out, woodwind and brass instruments are not "chromatically tuned" in that sense, most change their notes (whether chromatic, microtonal or other) by a combination of altering the length of the air column and the harmonic within the same resonator. Some, such as the bagpipe, do have multiple resonators, and Adolphe Sax created several cornets with 6 or 7, and even a trumpet in C with 13 Bells [13], but these don't qualify as chromatically tuned brass instruments either. ---Sluzzelintalk07:31, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose the central problem here is that most wind instruments have a single source for the notes (tube or whatever). Harmonicas and organs have one for each note, so you can make as many as you like and therefore any scale you like. But with a single sound-source (is there a proper name for that?) you have to work with overtones. That works well for octaves, fifths, thirds and such, but a diminished fifth is based on such a high overtone that it would probably be very hard to play (I imagine - I don't play wind instruments). It also wouldn't sound too good in conjunction with other instruments that don't use the same fundamental frequency or equally tempered instruments. A clever mix of sound sources with different fundamental frequencies might solve that. Don't know if such a thing exists, though. DirkvdM07:57, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, upon reflection, I guess you could say that modern Western woodwind instruments such as the clarinet, bassoon or flute are chromatically tuned, in the sense that the positioning and size of holes, pads and keys are meticulously made to reproduce chromatic scales as precisely as possible. What confuses me a bit is that the questioner is looking for a chromatically tuned instrument to perform exotic scales. The most exotic scales to Western ears include quarter tones, microtuning or other systems outside equal temperament, so the melodica, or any other "chromatic" instrument not allowing for controlled playing of tones between the discreet chromatic steps seems a worse choice than the saxophone e.g., which let's you play chromatical and quarter-tone or other scales (with enough practice of embouchure and fingering techniques such as semi-closing pads etc.) ---Sluzzelintalk08:24, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My imp of the perverse keeps telling me to suggest a fretless guitar or the use of inexpensive electronic processing and amplification. Down, imp, down. Geogre14:17, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Unless I'm missing something, all those notes (and thus, all those scales) can be played on pretty standard orchestral instruments. I'm struggling to think of an instrument outside of percussion on which it wouldn't be possible to play these scales; I suppose it would be tricky on a penny whistle. (And you can sign by typing ~~~~ at the end of your comment. It will add your IP address and the date/time you made the comment if you're not signed in. If you're signed in it will put your username and the date/time you made the comment, just like at the end of my comment here!) What instruments can you already play? Skittle20:41, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't feel good at any instrument. I started on guitar, but I couldn't find a method for sitting. I eventually came to the conclusion that the problem wasn't with me, but the guitar. See http://buildingtheergonomicguitar.com/2006/10/ergonomic-guitar-design-why-resistance.html#comments. I couldn't find an ergonomic guitar in my price range and I didn't want to build one. I also started on keyboard at a certain point, but I felt like I would never be as good as a pianist who had started at seven. I didn't want to learn to play with two hands, because I figured that would involve learning a lot of other people's songs, which did not and does not seem very appealing. (I do almost zero conventional practicing, choosing instead to improvise and sometimes make recordings of stuff I come up with.) Right now, I'm looking for an instrument that is more compatible with my level of dedication. I borrowed a recorder, but it seems like you'd have to do a lot of rote work to memorize all the fingerings. So the melodica has looked really attractive: easy to learn, expressive, and obscure (always a plus for me. I don't understand the appeal of signature instruments.) Tigerthink03:40, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thinking about it, do you want to know an instrument that you could buy quite cheaply and learn quite easily to play these scales? I'm not sure that you'd better a recorder or a small keyboard for that, although you could also use a guitar or ukelele. If you're looking to invest more time and money in an instrument, you could pick just about any orchestral instrument. So: oboe, clarinet, trumpet, saxophone, flute, piccolo, cor anglais, bassoon, etc. Skittle20:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hello! The other day I was thinking about a painting that I had seen in a book. I've been trying to find it again since without luck, and turned here hoping someone might recognise it from my description. I believe that it was from the late-Nineteenth or early-Twentieth century; it showed a couple sitting on a couch, with the man slumped over the woman's lap, holding a hypodermic syringe. For some reason I was thinking that it had hung in the Musée d'Orsay, but it wasn't in my book of paintings from that museum, so maybe not. Wading through 60+ pages of Google Image results for various keyword combinations turned up nothing. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Thanks in advance. Heather00:49, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, unfortunately; this one was more realistic, and was from a perspective directly facing the couch and the couple seated on it. I think that the title may have been "Cocaine" or "Morphine" or something like that, and I think that it may have been French or Belgian. I am sorry that I can't provide more detail; I don't know a lot about art. Thanks greatly for the help, though! Heather15:23, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Germany's arrival in haiti.
when did they came to haiti, what year, why did they come?--arab 04:36, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't know what year the first German immigrants came to Haiti, but by the second half of the 19th century German businesspeople and their families seem to have had some influence in Haiti's economy. If you're referring to when the German Navy came to Haiti, this link (and several others mirroring the text) mentions one example on June 11th, 1873. At the time, several imperialist nations took a greedy interest in Haiti, and the German empire used two German expatriates' bankruptcy as a pretext to show off their military power in the Caribbean, demanding $ 15,000 from the Haitian government under Nissage Saget. Two German warships enforced the demand - Haiti's fleet was captured, and only returned after Haiti gave in and after some of the ships had been vandalized (see link for unappetizing details). ---Sluzzelintalk06:33, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not all that familiar with the unification of Imperial Germany, but you might try this e-text and search for Russia (Case sensitive to avoid highlighting "Prussia" as well.) A few minutes of this took me only about twenty pages into the document and revealed fears in Europe about aggression from Russia and Great Britain establishing another Hanover-like stronghold on the continent, as well as fears that Russia would assist the German states in the event of a war on the part of Napoleon III.
Also, it might be worth noting that Napoleon III lead France into the Crimean War against Russia, which would have almost certainly played a role in Russia's relations with France. (As well as the likely enemy of France, given that France was allied to Great Britain and the Germans accepted the Crown of Spain, putting them at odds with France. --Demonesque 06:49, 2 September ::2007 (UTC)
While we know Russia and the new German Empire became pals - Dreikaiserbund and all that - it may not have been obvious to people at the time that it would work out that way. An anonymous writer produced the short story "Der Ruhm" in 1871. That features a Russo-German War that the Prussians lose. It's reprinted in I.F. Clarke's Great War with Germany. Angus McLellan(Talk)19:37, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It tends to be almost completely overlooked just how vital the role of Russia was in the whole strategy pursued by Otto von Bismarck between 1864 and 1870, particulary in relation to France. We know with hindsight that the Franco-Prussian War was over relatively quickly; but there was no guarantee of this at the time. If German forces were, for any reason, bogged down in the west, then Prussia's eastern and southern flanks would have been highly vulnerable. With his usual skill, Bismarck moved carefully to sidestep the nightmare.
Since 1863 Bismarck had made efforts to cultivate Russia, co-operating, amongst other things, in dealing with Polish insurgents. His one great concern after the defeat of Austria in the War of 1866 was that a resentful Franz Joseph might enter into an alliance with Napoleon III, an alliance that might conceivably have included the south German states, resentful of the rise of Prussia. In 1868 he held discussions with the Russians, intended to prevent such a union. The Russian government even went so far as to promise to send an army of 100,000 men against the Austrians if the country joined France in a war against Prussia. Whilst at Ems in the crucial summer of 1870 Bismarck had meetings with Tsar Alexander, also present in the spa town. Alexander, though not naturally pro-German, was persuaded, as he told his mistress, that Napoleon was 'an adventurer.'
Bismarck also had talks at Ems with Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov, the Russian Foreign Minister, and was assured on 14 July, days before the French declaratiion of war, that the agreement of 1868 still held: in the event of Austrian mobilisation the Russians confirmed that they would send 300,000 troops into Galicia. More than this, they also applied pressure to Denmark to remain neutral. Bismarck now had all he wanted: a counter to Austria and the assurance of a one-front war. This was one of the great diplomatic coups of the nineteenth century, whose importance has still not been fully recognised. Germany, it might even be said, came into being by the grace of Russia! Clio the Muse00:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I came upon a site recently, didn't appear to save it. Anyway, one was able to randomly choose any station, in a web 2.0 manner, that was an actual station on physical radio somewhere in the world. Any help in finding it would be appreciated. Baseballfan07:20, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My cousin's wife is having a baby, therefore the child is my second cousin, when my second cousin grows up and has a child of his own, does that make my second cousin's child my third cousin? And when I have kids, what is the relation between my second cousin and my children called? Also between my children and my third cousin? --124.254.77.14811:37, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To answer the original question directly, your first cousin's grandchild is your first cousin twice removed -- and you are also his/her first cousin twice removed. Why "remove"? The word has a sense that is almost like "move"; this is pretty much obsolete in North America, but in Britain people still speak of "removing" when they go to live in a different place. And a cousin who is one more "remove" away from you is one degree of kinship farther away. --Anonymous, 12:16 UTC, September 2, 2007.
Gadzooks, Anon! To say "I'm removing to Exeter" would sound amazingly old-fashioned to me. Perhaps someone very old might use it? However, the term removal van is still in common use. Xn421:44, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
remove is from the same root as remote. I occasionally hear/see the phrase "at one remove" to describe a viewpoint less intimate, more neutral, than some alternative. —Tamfang21:32, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You will find all of the detail you are looking for, CountCasimir, in Breda 'Bravely Besieged' and article by F. S. Memegalos in the Ocrober 2002 issue of Military History (pp.63-9). For a more general political and strategic context try The Dutch Revolt by Geoffery Parker, The History of the Dutch-speaking Peoples, 1555-1648 by Pieter Geyl and The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall by Jonathan Israel. Clio the Muse01:07, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
history: bristol members of parliament
Who was the last bristol MP who was born and brought up in the city or who was at least closely associated with it for some time before becoming an MP?
i.e. NOT Tony Benn (who was not a Bristolian before 1950) or Ernie Bevin (who was born locally and was associated with the city before becoming an MP but was not an MP for Bristol)
One who was "born and brought up in the city" is William Wills, of the Bristol tobacco family, member for Bristol East in the 1890s, but I guess you should be able to find someone more recent. One who springs to mind as "closely associated with it for some time before becoming an MP" is Stephen Williams, the current Liberal Democrat member for Bristol West. After the University of Bristol (1982-1985), he worked in Bristol, served on Avon County Council and Bristol City Councils, and fought the 1997 and 2001 general elections there before being elected to parliament in 2005. Other current members who fit that description are Doug Naysmith, Labour member for Bristol North West, who was also a local politician in Bristol for many years and Dawn Primarolo, another University of Bristol student (early 1970s) who stayed on in Bristol and went on to become the member for Bristol South at the 1987 election. Xn418:50, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Cossack Dance
Maybe a silly question, but does anone know the name for the (apparently stereotypical) type of Russian dance in which the dancer squats on their legs, arms folded, and kicks their legs out forwards? I can't find a reference to it on the Wikipedia dance pages. Rusty200515:47, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How does it work? If the opponent swings a sword to slice off your head, you just squat and kick him in a tender place? Edison19:58, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The following is a footnote in an unpublished work:
"The baptistery/baptistry of the early Christian Church was located near the west end of the church-building. The early bapistries provided ample water for the immersion of adults. Near the end of the 6th century, it began to be incorporated into the church proper, but the Italians often retained the original location. After the 9th century, infant baptism, using little water, became the most prevalent form of the ritual."
When I visited the Duomo at Spoleto, the baptistery was decorated with Roman pagan designs. I was informed that the room was not considered part of the church proper. It had a direct entrance from the front of the church. The advantage/purpose of not being part of the church was that it allowed non-christians to witness the baptism. Was this folklore or fact? 69.201.141.4516:25, 2 September 2007 (UTC)Linnaeus[reply]
As far as I know being a non-Christian is not and was not considered an impediment to attending religious ceremonies by the Roman-Catholic Church. So the rationale given does not seem right. Traditionally baptisms were held where water was available, like from a spring, and originally just in the open air, while the main religious ceremonies like the Eucharist were held in houses, originally just private dwellings, later dedicated houses of worship. An obvious advantage of keeping the (often quite large) baptistery and the church building separate is that the church could be built on the best available piece of land, and that its architectural plan did not need to accommodate a large quite different structure. Most likely, the church builders saw no reason to unite the two kinds of structures, each serving its purpose by itself quite satisfactorily. --Lambiam17:16, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For much of the late Antique and early-early medieval period only the baptised were allowed in the nave (naos), and catechumens were supposed to stay in the narthex or porch, which was often a large feature. Hence also separate baptistries. Johnbod12:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Art destroyed by War / Il Campo Santo di Pisa
The following is a paragraph from an unpublished 19th century work:
The famous Campo Santo did not equal my expectations. It has more the air of a museum of antiquities than a place of sculpture. The cemetery at Bologna, for dignity and beauty, I think decidedly superior. Nevertheless, this spot is not without great interest. It is a simple cloister in the form of a long parallelogram; the open court within containing earth brought from Jerusalem. The monuments which crowd the corridors are a miscellaneous assemblage of Etruscan, Grecian, Roman, and a few modern sculptures. In many an ancient sarcophagus, the original dust has been displaced to give room for that of some modern hero, whose “fitful fever” occupied an age later in the world’s history by a score or so of centuries. The best modern works are a bas-relief by Thorwaldsen and a statue of Grief, called The Inconsolable by Bartolini. The latter excels for its execution rather than its good taste, while the former for both. The walls of the building are frescoed with scripture subjects, now much defaced.
I searched the article on the Camposanto of Pisa in Wikipedia and there is no detailed account of the survivors of the 1944 bombing. I visited the Camposanto, but have no recollection of a bas-relief by Bertel Thorwaldsen nor of the work by Lorenzo Bartolini, though I probably was suffering from the "Stendhal syndrome" at the time. Did these works survive? It is interesting to notice how much damage Italy suffered from Allied bombing and retreating Nazis. Yet it is hardly mentioned. If in northern Italy or Naples using a 19th century tourist guide-book, you will be surprised to find that many of the murals or churches in the book no longer exist. Is it for the sake of not offending the Brits, Americans, and members of the Axis (all tourists now)that it is "forgotten"? Is it part of the healing process to forget the material losses since the human casualty was so much greater? Is there guilt of fascism involved?
69.201.141.4519:41, 2 September 2007 (UTC)Linnaeus[reply]
Mind-Shattering Things
Alright, here is my second question of the week: can you direct me to literature, music, films, or works of art that can produce a vast explosion of consciousness and a sense of overabounding wonder? Things that are able to induce a state of sublimity without the use of drugs.
The examples that I've gathered from my own experience include:
archetypal psychology, visionary and mystical writing, Borges, Moby-Dick, Shakespeare, Shelley, the Bible, the Ancient Mariner, Gustave Dore's illustrations, Buddhist art, Hindu myth, Blake, Paradise Lost, world history, travel and nature writing, psychedelic music, really odd thoughts, magic, weird tales, and fantasy
I don't mean to be dismissive, but it sounds like you're trying to rediscover 1968. Ok. Folks then found Hieronymous Bosch to fit, and, of course, On the Road by Jack Kerouac. This is excepting pscyhedelic music, which I, for one, used to make. One theorist of the genre explained to me that the best drug music was made by people who didn't take drugs. Druggies, he said, made folk music and Grateful Dead music, while straight folks trying to get a druggie experience made trippy music. I don't know if that's true, but most of the mind-altering stuff has the air of a clean chemistry about it. Oh, and German Expressionism, both in film and in painting, can be pretty wild. Dada can do it, too, if you're in the mood. Andalucian Dog will certainly send you to another place -- as will Eraserhead and the music of The Residents -- but it might not be a very happy place. Geogre20:29, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My goodness; what a list, Keenan Pepper! Some of the 'mindfucks' would struggle to be defined-how shall I put it-as 'heavy breathing'; and, no, I am not prepared to say which! I think, Melancholy Danish, that you may have read Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano, the one 'mindfuck' that does not even appear on the linked list? If not, it's a great whirlwind of images, words and ideas; sublime in every degree. In my estimation it is the best English novel of the last century, and by that I mean of the novels written by a person from England. Clio the Muse23:23, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's funny, because Burroughs and Kerouac are often considered of the same type, but they're really totally different types of writers, people, mindfucks, etc.. I think it is unfortunate that they are so often put side by side, since they've really got very little in common other than some shared acquaintances and time period... --24.147.86.18723:30, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you're interested in something that'll raise your heartbeat, I found White Jazz to be pretty wonderfully frantic, in a "popped some bennies and shot a man" sort of way. As for film, Adaptation. really blew my mind as meta-meta-art, and one that played with the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction in clever ways (in the same way Ellroy's works do), though I know some people feel otherwise. --24.147.86.18723:30, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The things that blow my mind are books about science and history that make the mind boggle when being forced to contemplate the mysteries and wonders of the universe, the possibilities of eternity, and the vastness of space. Books include Profiles of the Future by Arthur C. Clarke, Atom by Lawrence Krauss, Tau Zero by Poul Anderson, and moments during TV documentary series such as Cosmos by Carl Sagan, The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski, and many of the archaeology and history documentaries by Michael Wood. Carcharoth02:02, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
π is enlightening, though it hurt my head (albeit probably not as much as it did to Max). Some people find Koyaanisqatsi and its sequels wonderous (others find them pretentious nonsense). For a darker awakening, the music of Godspeed You! Black Emperor is remarkable, especially F♯A♯∞. A part of East Hastings, one of the "movements" on the album, appears to be the movie soundtrack of choice these days to evoke foreboding. I heard it used in two trailers in a row recently, presumably reflecting the tension of its first evocative use in 28 Days Later. Rockpocket19:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Image:Koyaanisqats2002.jpg - "A life-altering experience, or a waste of 87 minutes? You decide." (not sure who added this image, but it is not free, therefore should only be linked and not displayed - I'm doing this for the second time after my previous fix was reverted, so I'm now explaining it here). Carcharoth10:56, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Do you mean still extant? If not, the Sicarii were around at the turn of the first millennium, but they're not still fighting the Romans. Probably. --Dweller08:55, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This question is unanswerable because by definition a secret society is a group which is not known to exist by the general public. If the group is known to the public then it is no longer a secret society. So your question has no meaning. 202.168.50.4006:12, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But I like the heading "To know me is to be me". I agree with that, actually. Only one question - what did it have to do with secret societies? -- JackofOz06:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Skill of the soldiers, and the fact that Great Britain stopped secretely supporting the Confederacy after the North gained an international abolitionist image? --99.245.177.11003:20, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In the first three years of the war the South seemed to more often have skillful generals in critical command positions. There's an interesting little book Why the North Won the Civil War which briefly examines several aspects of the question for a general audience. The most general conclusion is that if the South didn't strike a military knockout blow relatively early in the war, and wasn't able to wear down Northern morale or attract European intervention, then it was bound to lose, since in a long war of attition the North's numerical superiority in economy and population would become decisive. Of course, if Jefferson Davis had allowed the brightest minds under him (most notably Judah P. Benjamin on the civilian side and Robert E. Lee on the military side) full scope to exercise their talents -- instead of fussily trying to micromanage things, as he so often did -- then probably the Confederate cause would have been more successful over a longer period... AnonMoos04:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think they'd have had to take Washington DC in a surprise attack, at the outset of the war, then negotiate for peace from there. The other alternative by which the Confederacy could endure would be to avoid the war entirely. StuRat06:42, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wasn't there an early opportunity to take Washington, which the Southern commander declined? As for avoiding the war, the battle of Fort Sumter happened after Lincoln threatened to invade if tribute (his new tariff) wasn't paid. —Tamfang09:47, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The book "Reveille in Washington" described one day when Confederate General Jubal Early (iirc) was in a position to readily take Washington D.C., due to bad timing which led to a lack of adequate troops to defend the city. The defenders turned out clerks from the War department, uniformed militia and volunteers to show a presence in the ramparts and give the appearance of a better defense than they really had. Good spying (which the Cinfederacy usually had) would have told the Rebel general the true situation and the capitol could have been taken, with much of the government. But the bravado caused hesitation and eventually regular troops arrived sufficient to properly defend the city. Edison19:55, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
.110, saying the Confederacy failed because it lost British support strikes me as kinda like saying it failed because it never had Chinese support. The loss of foreign support merely unmasked the difference in strength (if it ever was masked). —Tamfang09:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Resources" is one way to put it. The North had won the seas thanks to northern steel. Once it had that, it could make iron clads like there was no tomorrow, while the South needed the few forges and sources for cannon, etc. The control of the seas meant steaming up rivers with invulnerable ships, and that made Vicksburg vital. On land, the North had one resource in vast superiority: numbers of humans. The South won all the way to the end of the war, in land battles with Lee, but it lost in the West with some inferior generals and with lack of control of the rivers, although the confederates did some amazing things to try to even the odds. However, in the east, in the Virginia campaigns, Lee won but lost, because Grant had tens of thousands more to lose at a given battle, where Lee had no reinforcements coming. The Battle of Cold Harbor is the most grim thing imaginable. Grant lost soldiers at a terrific pace. He would lose 10,000 to Lee's 1,000 and yet be able to replace those soldiers, while every loss to Lee was a loss for good. The British "secret support" was very small, as the blockade (see Navy: none in the South) choked it almost instantly. In the West: rivers, some bad Confederate leadership, some great Union leadership. In the East: darned-near human wave tactics. In the South, though, a yet different problem for the Confederates. Because the Confederacy was built on the idea of supreme state's rights, the states did not cooperate well with one another, and the Georgia governor Joseph E. Brown was really cute. He decided that none of his troops should be sent off to be commanded by Virginians, and so he cut off all support to Lee and kept all his troops at home in a "state militia" that had no leadership at all. The army that fought Sherman in Georgia was the Western army. Once Sherman gave them the slip, he only had to face a bunch of unequipped, poorly led rabble of Joe Brown's devising. The other component of the Southern campaign was Florida and Charleston, and the South defended these very, very well to the end. So, what was it? Resources, yes, both in terms of the farms of Indiana that weren't being turned into battlegrounds (if the south wanted food, it had to send its soldiers home to farm, and if it wanted soldiers, it had to depopulate its farms), the steel and industry that was never much imperiled, stable currency from a federal power, iron, saltpeter, and federated military commands. The defensive strategy the South adopted (not attacking Washington, except for one very brief cavalry raid) was hardly a mistake, as it allowed for many of the brilliant early victories, but it meant that the South had to win quickly or not at all. Geogre10:55, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I.e. William Tecumseh Sherman was a very good general, Robert E. Lee was a great general, and Ulysses S. Grant was a butcher. That's more or less the verdict of Shelby Foote, but he seems to admire Grant as a man who did what had to be done, and what had to be done was to win at any cost in lives. It's also one of those myths of the war that Gettysburg was when the Union won. In fact, Gettysburg was more or less a Confederate victory, but it is when the war turned and when the South's lack of supplies meant that it was already losing the war of attrition. (Foote also admires Bedford Forrest despite his own cruelty (and what he would do after the war, of course).) Some of those Confederate ship designs (rams, submarines, naval mines) were horrible and inventive. Utgard Loki14:20, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
By the end of the war, the north could ship soldiers and equipment to the front by newly laid train tracks, while the Rebels had little food or ammunition and no shoes. Shelby Foote said the north fought with one hand tied behind its back, and if the south started to win, the north could start using the other hand. The north had four times the white population of the south at the start of the war. The South was sending young and old into battle, while the north could spare college students from the draft. More early Confederate victories might have induced Europe to break the Union blockade and trade weapons for cotton and tobacco. But crop failures in Europe and availability of cotton from Egypt made norther grain more critical than southern cotton, and the Emancipation Proclamation made supporting the south morally less appealing than merely helping part of the U.S. to separate from the rest of the U.S. There were good, mediocre and lousy generals on both sides, and good and bad luck on both sides. Ruthless Union generals (like Grant was at the end) early in the war could have ended things a lot sooner. Good politicians on both sides could have prevented over 600,000 soldiers being killed. Per American Civil War, "Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6% in the North and an extraordinary 18% in the South." Edison19:55, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think Foote was being very seasonable with his suggestion that the North fought with one hand. That, I think, came in the Ken Burns documentary. In his three volume The Civil War: A Narrative, he covered the reasons why the North's hands were both pretty severely tied better. The population of the North did not like the war. There was a substantial copperhead population, and there were absolutely staggering riots in New York City when the Emancipation Proclamation was made. New York was not the only site of draft riots, either, and high and low society alike was at least ambivalent about letting the South go. As it was, Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus and faced extreme resistance from his cabinet, his generals, and the public at large. If we look simply at materiel, then the North could never have lost a defensive war, but the rule of warfare is that the attacker must win, or he loses, while a defender need only not lose to win. The military manuals of the day, as Foote relates, suggested that any attacker facing fixed works needed nearly a 3:1 superiority in numbers to prevail. Had the North felt that it was a war of it's survival, it could have brought both fists forward and would have from the start of the war. Field leadership was very clearly superior in the South for three years of the war, and it's only in the fourth year that the North had weeded out some of its peace time promotions and Mexican War old timers to get military leaders with flexibility. The South, starting from a disadvantage and having to assemble its army, had some big, big mistakes in leadership (the beloved "fighting bishop" of Leonidas Polk), but it generally had them overruled by more able generals. Yes, resources, but no, it wasn't as if they were playing while their youth lay dead on the battlefield. That simply makes no sense. Geogre02:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Utgard Loki, I'm not a little bemused by your suggestion that Gettysburg was 'more or less' a Confederate victory. Do you mean it was a 'victory' because Lee was able to get what was left of his army, including the remnants of George Pickett's Virginian division, safely out of Pennsylvania, much as he had withdrawn from Maryland after his defeat at the Battle of Antietam? Otherwise it can only be considered as the kind of 'victory' that that King Pyrrus himself might have understood! Clio the Muse01:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely pyrrhic, of course, and when Pyrrhus said "a few more such victories, and I shall be ruined," this is one where the victory was the beginning of the ruin of the Southern army. It was a win, in that the South not only managed a pretty amazing retreat, but also because the South generally inflicted more casualties on the North than vice versa. As a percentage of soldiers present, even the South did not lose. However, it was the first significant time that the North didn't lose to Lee. I don't think they won at all, but they did not end up with stolen supplies (commonly before, they did), flanked, or driven back. Also, both the Gettysburg Address and other documents from the time suggest that Lincoln didn't see it as a victory, quite. In the West, the Union was routinely winning or losing in the lower case. Gettysburg allowed quite a few Union commanders to rise, as well, and show themselves as the sorts of ruthless men Lincoln needed (even though that didn't really work out). Utgard Loki13:37, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Have you looked at the numbers? In casualties and dead, the South came out ahead, but in field objectives it was a loss. A defender who doesn't lose, wins, and that was the time when the North was on defense. Therefore the South lost, although they won the numerical game. Pickett's charge was horrible, but there had been Northern Picketts before, too. I think one reason that battle gets talked about (aside from its being a singular occasion when the Union forces don't look like bullies) is that it was an absolutely monumental failure on Lee's part. His normally excellent communications failed, and he pushed troops into untenable positions without knowing the lay of the field. (I had an ancestor at the battle who survived to the end of the war, minus a limb or two. He saved his amputated leg and insisted on being buried with it decades later, or such was family lore.) Geogre02:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In response to the original question, I would say that the Civil War has always seemed to me as if there were two styles of conflict being fought side by side: the great material battle that the Confederacy was bound to lose, and the search for the 'knock out blow', which it might conceivably have won. The first kind of conflict was to emerge in a fully developed form in the Great War, a struggle between nations; between strength of will and depth of productive capacity; the kind of 'struggle in depth' rarely effected by the outcome of a single battle, no matter how large. In the Civil War one can detect evidence of this in Grant's final campaign from the Wilderness to Petersburg, particularly at Petersburg. The other kind of conflict based on the single 'knock out battle', the kind of thing that had been such a feature of earlier wars, including the campaigns of Napoleon, was what Lee looked for time and again, and why the Confederacy pursued such a high risk 'offensive-defensive' strategy. That this kind of thing was not confined to the past was to be fully demonstrated not long after the conclusion of the Civil War by the Prussians, who defeated the Austrians in such a manner, and the French not long after. Lee never found his Waterloo. Clio the Muse01:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Catholic split: English and Scottish lines?
The Protestant Act of 1701 enabled Sophia of Hanover, a descendent of the Winter Queen of Bohemia and object of the English Gunpowder Plot, to succeed whereas the Scottish legitimists in the form of the Jacobites were left in the dust. What happened? How did an English Catholic plot result in a Protestant succession? How did a Scottish Catholic line of exiles descend from the Protestant Charles I? It doesn't make sense! Did the English and Scottish Catholics have no community and they were more politically united with their respective Protestant countrymen? Lord Loxley02:24, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What "happened" is that many influential Englishmen feared that having an openly Catholic monarch would result in some form of heresy trials or inquisition against Protestants within England, and the subordination of England to its main enemy France in international affairs -- and the actions of James II did absolutely nothing to allay these fears. AnonMoos03:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It wasn't an English-vs-Scots thing. Though the Stuart dynasty originated in Scotland, by 1701 no monarch had set foot there for fifty years (and that's only if we count Charles II as succeeding immediately on his father's beheading rather than at the Restoration). The only royal consort after 1603 with Scottish roots was the Late Queen Mum (daughter of an Earl of Strathmore). — James II was a Catholic convert, and (iirc) the first Catholic monarch since Bloody Mary Tudor (in England) and Mary Stuart (in Scotland); neither was a favorable precedent, and James himself had unpopular notions of his own authority. The move to depose him was triggered by the birth of a son to his second (Catholic) wife; until then, his opponents were willing to wait for one of his Protestant daughters (Mary II and Anne) to succeed him. — That the Jacobite revolt happened in Scotland may be simply because Scotland was a remote and neglected province. —Tamfang09:37, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Lord Loxely. I hope you do not mind me being so direct, but you appear a little confused over some of the issues here. Before proceeding to tackle your question it might help if I clarified things, for the benefit of other readers, as much as yourself.
There was no 'Protestant Act' in 1701. There was, rather, the Act of Settlement, by which succession to the throne of England was settled on Sophia of Hanover and her descendants. The aim, of course, was to secure succession in the Protestant line, thus excluding the Catholic James Francis Edward Stuart, the son of the deposed James II. Jacobite, from Jacobus, the Latin for James, was a term coined to describe the followers of the senior Stuart line; it is not therefore technically correct to describe them thus, as you have in the above. Nor should they really be described as 'Scottish'. The line certainly originated in Scotland, though by the time of James Francis Edward it had more French and Italian blood than anything else. Only the Catholic Stuarts, moreover, were 'left in the dust', to use your expression. Queen Anne, herself a Protestant and the younger daughter of James II, was, after all, the last of the Stuarts to occupy the throne of England. Indeed, it was the death of her son Prince William, Duke of Gloucester in 1700, and the likely extinction of the Protestant Stuarts, that precipitated the Act of Settlement.
In find it really hard to make sense of your connection between the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and the Act of Settlement. There is absolutely no causal relationship here. Nor do I understand what you mean when you say that Elizabeth of Bohemia was an 'object' of the Gunpowder Plot. It was the intention of the plotters to place her on the throne, that much is true, as a Catholic queen. But the Catholic descent from Charles I came with the conversion of his son James, while still Duke of York, in the early 1670s. In political terms this was certainly serious because of the suspicion of Catholicism and its links with Continental absolutism, though it would probably have passed without consequence if James had been remote from the succession. It became explosive because he was the only legitimate heir of Charles II, his elder brother. In the late 1670s the outbreak of the so-called Popish Plot saw serious attempts by the emerging Whig movement to have James removed altogether from the line of succession. But Exclusionism failed, and James succeeded peacefully enough in 1685, his Catholicism notwithstanding. Attempts to remove him in England by James, Duke of Monmouth, and in Scotland by Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll were a complete failure.
There matters might have stood but for James increasing arrogance and tendency to resort to extra-parliamentary action. In particular the trial of the Seven Bishops for seditious libel led to fears that the Church of England itself was under threat. Even so, James would, in all probability, have continued to occupy the throne so long as his heir was his Protestant daughter Mary, wife of William of Orange. However, the birth of James Francis Edward in June 1688, and the prospect of a permanent Catholic line, precipitated the Glorious Revolution and all that followed, as Tamfang has described in the above.
Finally, it should be made clear that the Jacobite rising of 1689 in Scotland did not come about because the country was, as Tamfang puts it, a 'remote and neglected province'. The Jacobite movement at that time was largely confined to the west Highlands, to those clans suspicious of the return of Campbell power, yet another feature of the Glorious Revolution.
One more small point of confusion can be cleared up - Elizabeth Stewart (later the 'Winter Queen of Bohemia') was not a Catholic. Her father, James I and VI, was brought up in the Kirk, and her mother, Anne of Denmark, as a Lutheran. This Queen Anne of Scotland, later of England, was sometimes suspected of Catholicism and managed to confuse people on the issue. She had sworn an oath at her Scottish coronation "...to withstand and despise all papistical superstitions", but also would not conform to the Kirk, nor later the Church of England. Many people (including Queen Elizabeth I in her last years) believed Anne had converted to Catholicism or else might do so. Elizabeth Stewart was only nine at the time of the Gunpowder Plot and so was seen by the Catholics as potentially malleable, especially given her mother's equivocations. However, when Elizabeth later married, her husband, Frederick V of the Palatinate, was a Protestant prince, and they brought up their many children as Lutherans, including Sophia of Hanover. Xn403:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Quibble: It became explosive because he was the only legitimate heir of Charles II, his elder brother. Do you mean in the male line? —Tamfang16:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The whole point was: The Catholic Gunpowder Plot's motives to place Elizabeth of Bohemia on the throne, led to the Protestant succession of Sophia's son. This was an English movement, through and through. Guy Fawkes was even a soldier of the Spanish Habsburgs, like other English Jesuits and opposed to the line of Margaret Tudor. King Henry VIII barred the Scots and the English Parliament apparently respected this, after seeing that King James VI of Scots (like his son Charles) was not going to follow English customs. There was no love of the Scottish side, which preferred a Stuart-Bourbon Auld Alliance renewal and totally different way of things. The Scottish preference (how many English Jacobites?) descended from the hated Charles I, beheaded by the English for his apparent Auld Alliance which was prejudicial against England but favourable to the Scots as allies of the French--think of Queen Henrietta Maria. The political ambitions of English and Scottish were diametrically opposed and regardless of religious differences between conationals, it appears that Catholics and Protestants in each country shared more than with their coreligionists across borders. I just realised this yesterday, which made me think differently on the events and as of English descent, I feel less "guilty" or whatever for the "woes" of the Scots. It rolls off my back. The Scots wanted things one way and my ancestors wanted another. Animosity only dissipated when latent frustrations were released onto the Irish, so it really took the Pope to realise how the Protestant (Sophia of Hanover) and Catholic (Mary of Modena) branches of the Hanoverian line were what united the British. It was the introduction of foreign dynasties which lulled internal violence throughout the Britain, exported to Ireland. It just leaves one thing: why didn't the English resort to an heir of Lady Jane Grey (descent from Mary Tudor), instead of use James's daughter's line against the Scots? Is it because Elizabeth had two lines from Henry VII, plus the two Stuart lines of Mary and Lord Darnley, so they could control Scotland as well? I think the English Jesuits already tried to recruit the heirs of Mary Tudor during the plots (Babington, Throgmorton etc.) of the time when Elizabeth Tudor was queen of England, but were rebuffed/exposed and which is why they chose Elizabeth Stuart. Lord Loxley06:14, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Lord Loxley, are you pulling all our legs? The Gunpowder Plot's motives didn't lead to the succession of the Hanoverians... I could go on, but it's enough to say that this looks like a castle built on sand. Xn423:09, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Lord Loxely, have you read or, more important, have you absorbed any of the responses to your original question? It would appear not, because you seem to be holding to the same errors. Your confusion over events even seems to be deepening. Please forgive me; I mean no offense; it's just that I have a Gradgrindish enthusiasm for facts. Anyway, addressing myself solely to empirical matters, and ignoring the 'manifesto' you seem to be offering here, I would, for the benefit of the community at large, as well as you, offer the following corrections.
I repeat: there is no direct causal relationship between the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and the accession of George I to the British throne in 1714. The latter event can be traced, in the first place, to the Glorious Revolution in 1688, and in the second, to the death of Prince William of Gloucester in 1700.
Guy Fawkes was not a Jesuit. Where on earth did that bizarre suggestion come from!? The Jesuits as an order were not opposed to the line of Margaret Tudor. Why would they be? They may have disliked a Protestant succession; but that is a different matter altogether.
Under the Succession Act of 1543 Henry excluded his sister Margaret and her Scottish descendants from the English succession, though this provision was later ignored, because by the closing years of the reign of Elizabeth I James Stuart emerged as the only generally acceptable heir. There was no opposition to James and Charles in Parliament because, as you put it, they did not 'follow English customs', whatever that is supposed to mean!
The Scots effectively abandoned the Auld Alliance in the sixteenth century during the Reformation. Charles I was most assuredly not executed for his preference for the antique links between Scotland and France, but for his perceived treachery in bringing about the Second English Civil War in 1648, and because his political obduracy had created a constitutional impasse. Indeed, earlier in his career he had tried to invoke the spectre of the Auld Alliance in his appeal to the Short Parliament for funds against the Covenanter rebels in the north. The fact that he had a French wife is quite irrelevant.
English sailors first caught sight of the Falklands in the late sixteenth century. In the following century the government was to make a half-hearted claim, though under the Treaty of Tordesillas they fell within the Spanish orbit. . . .
And that article confirms my guess, that the English state did not consider itself bound by a treaty between two Catholic powers. —Tamfang09:20, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
James I said he recognized Spanish sovereignty over the lands actually in Spain's possession, but not the Spanish claims to all parts of the New World beyond the line set by the Treaty of Tordesillas. This treaty was to some degree superseded by the Treaty of Madrid of 1750. Xn413:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
England may not have given 'a damn', as you put it Tamfang, about the Treaty of Tordesillas itself. What it would and did 'give a damn' about was the possible consequences of intruding in the Spanish sphere of influence. The intitial seventeenth century claim was not pursued because of the political implications. In an attempt to clarify matters the question of sovereignty was raised with the Spanish in 1748, who made it clear that they would take a hostile view of any English presence. After the Seven Years War England was immeasurably stronger; so while the affair of 1770 brought Spain close to war, the country was not prepared to act without French support; hence the fudge of 1771, which left the whole question of sovereignty entirely open
On the general question of Anglo-Spanish relations, there were times when London proceeded with considerable care. For instance, the failure of the Scottish Darien scheme, an attempt to establish a trading post on the Isthmus of Panama in the days before the Parliamentary union of 1707, was in part due to the fact that William III would offer no support, not wanting to alienate the Spanish. Though the region fell within the Spanish 'sphere of influence' they had no presence in the immediate area. There was, therefore, no Uti possidetis, though that made little practical difference to the outcome. Clio the Muse00:21, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to be overlooking the fact that all the English settlements in North America were in defiance of the Treaty of Tordesillas. Also, Uti Possidetis was a stated English policy, while the Darien scheme was a Scottish venture, at a time when England and Scotland were two separate kingdoms which happened to have the same king. And the Spanish did in fact make use of the Isthmus of Panama as an important seasonal Atlantic-Pacific trade link. AnonMoos03:22, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
North America, if you mean by this the Atlantic seaboard, was not within the Spanish sphere of influence-outwith Florida, that is-; the Falklands were. William was king of Scotland and could have extended help to the colonists, if he had been so minded. He was also, I have to stress, master of a British foreign policy, even if that was largely determined by English (or Dutch) interests. There was no Spanish presence in Darien in the late seventeenth century. As a final point I would ask you to note that there is a universe of difference bewtween observing tbe terms of a contentious treaty and understanding how specific spheres of influence operate. Anyway, I think I have pealed enough onion skins here. Clio the Muse00:32, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever -- North America equally fell under the terms of the Treaty of Tordesillas, to the same degree as all of the Western Hemisphere, Oceania, and the Indian Ocean, so that all English settlements in North America were in defiance of the Treaty of Tordesillas. James the Ist enunciating Uti Possidetis in letters which he sent to Philip III in connection with the Treaty of London (1604) was stating the grounds why England would continue to send ships to areas of the new world outside of Spain's effective control. And the Spaniards didn't have much of a year-round presence in Panama, but Portobello was a seasonally-used Atlantic-Pacific trade link of great economic significance within the Spanish empire (it was how the silver of Peru got to the Caribbean). I'm really not sure what the point of your remarks was supposed to be. AnonMoos08:00, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
They go back a long way – the earliest known use of a cockerel for the weather vane is from 820 A.D., on the San Faustino Maggiore in Brescia – and the origin is not really known. The German Wikipedia, in its article entitled Windrichtungsgeber, offers as a possible explanation that this is inspired by Matthew 26:74–75: "Then began he [i.e., Peter] to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew. And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly." The weathercock then supposedly admonishes us not to turn with the wind like Saint Peter did then. --Lambiam09:14, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Umm, the origin is kind of obvious, if you've ever lived on a farm with chickens (I suppose "free range" chickens). Roosters/cockerels/cocks absolutely love to go up high. Chickens can't fly, quite, but they can fly a bit. They can get up on the roof, and there is something quite masculine about a cock's desire to get up on top of everything to be king of all he surveys. The problem is that they're really hard to get back down, if they don't want to come down. Anyway, the roof is a common place for the rooster to go, although a bell tower is usually quite a bit beyond their range. Maybe it's more sophisticated than that, but they really do like to get up high. Geogre10:41, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In the UK, many church steeples have weather cocks. It's just one of those things some of us assume are done everywhere :) There's even a song we used to sing at school: "The golden cockerel crows in the morning./Wake up children welcome the day." etc in which the cockerel comes alive. I'm sure I've read other children's stories that involved the cock on the spire coming alive, and not all of them were originally from the UK suggesting it can't just be a British practice. Skittle22:55, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In architecture, a spire isn't quite the same as a steeple. A spire is a conical or pyramidal structure tapering upwards to a point, while a steeple is any tower (though usually a church tower), with or without a spire. Thus, a steeplechase was a cross-country race towards a church tower - a spire might help but wasn't essential! Xn400:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In some European countries Catholic churches carry a crucifix on their steeple, while the rooster sits on top of evangelical or reformed churches. This WDR site interprets the rooster as more than one Christian symbol: 1) The bible passage quoted by Lambiam, where the rooster stands for vigilance and a reminder of Peter's renunciation of Jesus. 2) As the herald of the morning light, the rooster can also be seen as symbolizing Jesus himself. The revolvable weather vane function is a useful side effect of necessity - strong winds might bend a fixed and rigid metal silhouette, even damaging the steeple. Some churches in Northern Germany have a swan instead of a rooster. Apparently this is traced back to Jan Hus's words on the stake, where he called himself a poor goose ("hus"/"husa" in Czech), but predicted the arrival of a swan whom his adversaries wouldn't be able to roast. Luther later came to be seen as the swan in Hus's prophecy, and the swans on steeples symbolize Luther. For literary reference, there's also Hans Christian Andersen's The Farmyard Cock and the Weathercock. ---Sluzzelintalk06:30, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(snicker) I couldn't resist the desire to excise these words from their context in Geogre's post above: "... there is something quite masculine about a cock's desire to get up ...". :) -- JackofOz13:25, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Social changes in the philippines during spanish colonizers?
I don't understand this topic and I need help about it. What are the social changes in the Philippines during spanish colonizers? Need answers right away because we will have a quiz about this topic in our Araling Panlipunan class(Social Studies)WikiPoTechizen09:34, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Have you looked at the History of the Philippines particularly the section dealing with Spanish colonization, PoTechizen? I do have to say that I find your question so broadly based that I find it difficult to produce a tailored answer, or one that could possibly serve a quiz-like format. Perhaps the main thing for you to focus on is the spread of Roman Catholicism among the people of the northern islands, and the resistance to such expansion by the Muslims of Mindanao and the south. Also the Spanish seemed to have behaved with greater sensitivity to local feelings, at least in the north, and there seems to have been none of the brutal subjugation and forced conversions that marked their passage through the Americas. The co-option of local elites led to the creation of the Principalia, an abiding feature of Philippine society and politics. In this regard Philip II of Spain's decree of June 1594 is worth quoting at length;
It is not right that the Indian chiefs of Filipinas be in a worse condition after conversion; rather they should have such treatment that would gain their affection and keep them loyal, so that with the spiritual blessings that God has communicated to them by calling them to His true knowledge, the temporal blessings may be added, and they may live contentedly and comfortably. Therefore, we order the governors of those islands to show them good treatment and entrust them, in our name, with the government of the Indians, of whom they were formerly lords. In all else the governors shall see that the chiefs are benefited justly, and the Indians shall pay them something as a recognition, as they did during the period of their paganism, provided it be without prejudice to the tributes that are to be paid us, or prejudicial to that which pertains to their encomenderos.
What if someone pays a no-limit credit card's monthly payments with the same credit card?
There are some cards out there without a spending limit, so the owner can theoretically spend as much as they'd like.
However, say the times get poor and the owner doesn't have a legitimate income. To keep living as he has been, he uses his limitless credit card.
Then to pay his minimum payments, he cashes it out from an ATM, deposits it into his bank account, and pays it from there. Or he does a "balance transfer" from his credit card to his debit card and back again. This routine could go on for the rest of his life, but would it? --Let UsUpdateSpecial:Ancientpages. 18:13, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As our credit card article says : "Many credit cards can also be used in an ATM to withdraw money against the credit limit extended to the card but many card issuers charge interest on cash advances before they do so on purchases. The interest on cash advances is commonly charged from the date the withdrawal is made, rather than the monthly billing date. Many card issuers levy a commission for cash withdrawals, even if the ATM belongs to the same bank as the card issuer." - so, no, you can't avoid interest by paying off a credit card bill with the same card or even with another card. Gandalf6118:27, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't ask about avoiding interest, I asked about whether paying the card's minimum every month with the same card would work. Also, what about balance transfers? Could the minimum payment be transferred to the bank account's debit card and back to the credit card to pay that off? Will anything happen when its owner keeps this up? --Let UsUpdateSpecial:Ancientpages. 18:34, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In the process described, a cash advance was taken and used to pay the monthly minimum. The downside is there is usually a fee for the advance, and then a higher interest rate than for purchases may be applied from the date of the advance. Money is money to the card company. But each month this is done, the monthly minimum will increase. At any time, the company may decide the borrower is a poor credit risk and disallow further cash advances, or the card may reach its max limit, then the house of cards collapses. User:Donald Hosek on August 29 coined a term for this that I like :"autoponzification," as in the classic Ponzi scheme. Individuals and businesses have sometimes fallen into this practice, leading to economic failure, or perhaps just postponin the inevitable, when they start out with the intention to only do it one month. One can also use a cash advance from a new card to pay the minimum on an old card, but a credit report for the issuance of a new card might trigger a drop in credit rating and a higher interest rate on the old card. The issuer of the card may well be able to take back the "no limit" provision and refuse to allow any higher borrowing level: check the card agreement. Many issuers state that they can change the terms of the agreement when it suits them, and your only recourse would be to cancel it and continue making minimum payments. People sometimes get stuck with a string of payday loans or even juice loans from the mob, with the balance and the payments constantly increasing, without even any additional borrowing, and it rarely ends well. Even bankruptcy is no longer the kind and gentle solution to the problem that it once was in the U.S. The ironic thing is that the less able the borrower is to pay, the higher the interest climbs, to 30% and beyond. Edison19:22, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Diary of a Farmer's Wife 1796-1797
The book Diary of a Farmer's Wife 1796-1797 (edited?) by Anne Hughes and published in 1964(?) is of unknown provenence. A Google search comes up with some pages saying it is fiction and some saying it is edited non-fiction. Anyone know which is correct please. -- SGBailey18:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is in the "Biography" section of the libraries that I checked. Most pull that data from the Library of Congress, which tells me that the LoC has it in the Biography section. As such, it would be non-fiction. Of course that doesn't necessarily mean it is all true. Many biographies are packed full of fictional information. -- kainaw™20:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikipedia article List of diarists calls this book "spurious, published 1964". If that's correct, then such made-up diaries were doing well at the time. The Diary of a Young Lady of Fashion in the Year 1764-1765 by Magdalen King-Hall is another example from the 1960s. Xn421:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
...fake diaries designed to deceive historians into thinking them part of the archival record. One such example is The Diary of a Farmer's Wife 1796–1797 (1964) by 'Anne Hughes' (Jeanne Preston), which was televised by the BBC and screened as an educational programme to show British schoolchildren what everyday life used to be like in rural Georgian England. Ruthven, K.K. (2001) Faking Literature, p. 45.
The Folio Society later published it as Anne Hughes Her Boke by "Anne Hughes [Jeanne Preston]". It was edited by Mollie Preston with an introduction by Michael Croucher (London, 1981). So a good-quality fake! Xn421:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You know, based on the his genitive, I'd have to say that the title of the latter, at least, is suspect. Did some people still insert artificial his genitives in 1796? I suppose. One can never rule these things out. However, if it were 1696 it would make more sense to have "Hughes Her Boke." Heck, that spelling of "book" belongs to an even earlier era. Most odde, if trew. Geogre01:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I gather Anne Hughes was said to be a Herefordshire farmer's wife without any formal education. You shouldn't underestimate the way Prayer Book spellings and turns of phrase hang on in rural areas, Geogre... Thou, thee, thy and their verbal forms can still be heard in everyday speech in some parts of England. Xn403:03, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
By no means am I being argumentative, but your answer begs an interesting question -- one I didn't seek when I was working on his genitive -- are there instances of his genitives in the King James Version? I don't think we can search electronically, without much labor, but I cannot recall any. I know the 1787 American BCP, because I got one some years ago, and the 1920 (of course...being a Rite II guy), but I could understand "boke" as an isolate better than "Hughes her." It could be a Middle English holdover, because there was a somewhat rare ME intensifier genitive. (Well, folks, someone has to be interested in things like whether "her book" occurs.) Geogre10:57, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, Geogre, I only meant it's more or less plausible as a fake, not that Anne Hughes her boke is a genuine survival. As I recall, the his genitive doesn't properly include a her genitive. No, I can't think of any his genitives in the King James Bible. If there are none, we can thank its translators again for being highly literate men: linguists, indeed. Xn411:50, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The his genitive article mentions briefly the OE and ME "her genitive," but I'll be honest and say that I never felt like we had good information. I was reading Baugh and others, and yet I just don't feel confident in the conclusions people reach. Even those old timers with their "A preface to the study of Old English personal pronouns in genitive and dative cases in West Midlands 900-980" seem shaky on this point. I didn't look at Krapp, but I don't have access to his books these days. Geogre02:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Utopia fonts
Hi. I've just used a font of the Utopia family for a presentation and started wondering about this font family. Who designed it and when? How did it get on my computer? I somehow remember that it is an older font, pre-dating the digital era, maybe from mid of the 20th century. Does anybody know more? An article on it would be great. Simon A.18:58, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That answer is wrong. Cua is Catalan, and this is a translation of it. I'm crossing out the answer. In fact, the word "cua" does not exist in Spanish. The Evil Spartan16:37, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There's also the word cuál. It doesn't sound exactly like quoi, but it's the closest I can get with my rusty Spanish. Xn402:13, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Consider the following written in 1856 when he was visiting a natural formation in Malta known as "The Devil's Punch-bowl." "I had to make a precipitate retreat from the Devil’s Punch-bowl, around which, as about the gaping tomb of Wizard Scott, beings not good to gaze upon were beginning to accumulate."
The following footnote was added: "Possibly refers to Sir Walter Scott who was known as “The Wizard of the North” after publishing several novels anonymously."
If the editor is correct in identifying the wizard as Sir Walter Scott, what does the "gaping tomb" refer to?69.201.141.4520:24, 3 September 2007 (UTC)Linnaeus[reply]
Sorry, I don't know how to edit you into a new question...
The "Wizard Scott" is referred to by Walter Scott in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto two, XIII
``In these far climes it was my lot
To meet the wondrous Michael Scott,
A wizard, of such dreaded fame,
Than when, in Salmanca's cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,
The bells would ring in Notre Dame!
Some of his skill he taught to me;
And Warrior, I could say to thee
The words that cleft Eildon hills in three,
And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone:
But to speak them were a deadly sin;
And for having but thought them my heart within,
A treble penance must be done.
He was a real person, living in the C13, and his burial place is disputed, maybe Home Coltrame, in Cumberland; maybe Melrose Abbey. However his books are supposed to be buried with him.SaundersW21:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sir John Gardner Wilkinson had remarked upon "The Devil's Punchbowl" in Malta some years earlier in his travels in Dalmatia: "The Yesaro, or lake, is a natural sinking of the rocky mountain surface, like that in Malta called "the Devil's punch-bowl' and others in similar limestone formations, where a border of precipitous cliffs surrounds a low piece of ground, which is either cultivable soil, or covered with water." (Wilkinson, Dalmatia and Montenegro: With a Journey to Mostar in Herzegovina... 1848: ch. viii:141) I suppose your footnote reveals the local name for the Maltese "Devil's Punchbowl", a familiar Anglophone designation for cirques and other features, but unlikely in lands where punch had been unknown before the quite recent arrival of the British.. --Wetman00:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Company owners
Don't know if this question belongs here or on the science desk but here goes... I'm tying to find the names of the owners of a company based in Shanghai, PRC doing business in the United States and going by the name of Golden Motor or Golden Island Machinery. I need this information because I suspect the company is selling products that do not pass line inspection in the PRC and instead of being held at the end of the line for repair are sold to this company which in turn dumps them on buyers in the USA. How do I find the name of the owners so I can write them a letter and ask them if this is what is going on? Clem20:48, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This page gives some details of a 'Golden Island Machinery Ltd', described as "a private company founded in 1996, located in Changzhou, Jiangsu province". On your last sentence, it seems a little naive to expect anything but a robust No to the question you are meaning to ask! Xn421:24, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In practical terms the Union introduced a dangerous imbalance in the politics of the 'whole Isle', so to speak. Scotland maintained its functional independence, including its own Parliament and Privy Council, though significant powers slipped away to the south, including control over matters of defence and foreign policy, which remained prerogatives of the crown. The Privy Council was left to micro-manage national affairs in the north, which worked well enough so long as there was no extraordinary developments. But the control and co-ordination of three separate kimgdoms, including that of Ireland, was difficult enough even for the British Solomon. The succession of Charles I brought to the throne a man whose wisdom was not of a highest order, to say the very least. His attempts to dictate religious policy to the reluctant Scots induced a crisis over which his northern Privy Council simply lost control. What happened next was to show the limitations of nations united solely by a personal union; independent yet centralised under an absolute monarchy. The Union of the Crowns was, in the long run, politically unsustainable. Clio the Muse01:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I initially read the question as "What was the political impact of the Union of the Clowns? and was looking forward to reading Clio's no doubt erudite and witty response about clowns uniting to form a workers' representative body to advocate for better pay and working conditions and how that affected the government of the day. Sadly, it wasn't until the reference to Charles I that it began to dawn on me that it was something else entirely. --Roisterer03:23, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Screams of homework but how about checking out Republican and Democrat for starters. Then look at areas such as conservatism and liberalism, socialism - also check out their respective websites and see how they fit into ideological systems such as these. The differences range throughout history form being striking to being barely noticeable. It all depends on the public/situation of the day. ny156uk22:38, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I live in North America so right now it's NOT HOMEWORK. You can go ahead and give me article references but I'm looking for a simple comparison. Thanks again. --24.76.248.19301:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
They slide around. On almost every issue, the two parties have swapped sides at least once over their histories. Specify historical period. Geogre01:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Really terrific work on this has been done by Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal[16] with their D-NOMINATE and DW-NOMINATE programs for multidimensional scaling, which find that Congressional roll-call votes over history can be mapped quite nicely onto two dimensions, and follow the individuals of each party along through time. If you can find the original animated gif of 1879-2000 online somewhere ([17] doesn't come up any more for me) it's a real hoot to "see the two great clusters circle each other, trying to capture the center".[18] "The first dimension can be interpreted in most periods as government intervention in the economy or liberal-conservative in the modern era. The 2nd dimension picks up the conflict between North and South on Slavery before the Civil War and from the late 1930s through the mid-1970s, civil rights for African-Americans. After 1980 there is considerable evidence that the South realigns and the 2nd dimension is no longer important... Finally, the past few Congresses are nearly unidimensional with correct classifications of 90 percent or better."[19]Gzuckier16:06, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I see that you haven't received a straightforward answer yet. I will give it: the Republicans are the conservatives of the United States. They generally support socially conservative measures: they are for the death penalty, and against legalized abortion or homosexual "rights" legislation. They are also economically conservative, meaning they tend to favor lower taxes and the well-being of companies over the individual, and oppose such measures as universal health care. The Democrats are liberals, meaning they favor legalized abortion and homosexual "rights", are ambivalent about the death penalty (but support it less than the Republicans), and tend to support greater government spending and favor the rights of the individual over that of the corporation. Liberals in general tend to be more pacifist (in whatever country they hail from), so Democrats are much less likely to support any armed conflict, particularly the Iraq war. The Evil Spartan16:35, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
One or two small historical observations here. It was a a Liberal Prime Minister who took England into the First War and yet another Liberal who led the country to victory; just as it was a Democrat who took the United States down the same road. It was a Democrat also who presided over American involvement in the Second World War, and yet another Democrat who was responsible for a huge escalation in the war in Vietnam. In general I would say that while liberals may be opposed to war as an act of policy, they are not beyond fighting if they believe the cause to be just. Clio the Muse00:20, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with almost none of that. Democrats are moderate and liberal. Republicans are generally conservative, with very few moderates left. There are many Democrats in office who oppose abortion, favor capital punishment, and/or oppose further gun regulation, but there are virtually no Republicans left with any variation. Democrats tend to be the party of social responsibility, and Republicans tend to be the party of business "rights" and laissez-faire, but they are also now the party against civil rights expansions in all forms. Other than that, little meaningful may be said. Listen to particular candidates on particular issues, and never trust anyone who says "Liberals want...." Utgard Loki19:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There seems to be a common theme that social-interest is ony pursued through social welfare. Both parties exist and are founded on systems that try and produce the best society - they merely have differing ways of helping. One party may believe legal abortion is the best route to a better society, another that it is not. I couldn't disagree more regarding moderate Republicans. This desire to paint one side as reasonable and another as unreasonable is foolish. According to the wikipedia article on republicans there are 55 million registered Republicans, it would be simplistic in the extreme to suggest that they all stand as one voice. The truth is that variety across the party (and its members) is huge, this is the same for the democrats and any other party out there. We the public struggle to comprehend this as it makes it difficult to generalise/make statements but be weary of tarring all people of one party with the same brush. In the Uk you have 'one nation tories', 'thatcherites', 'classic liberals', 'modernists', 'traditionalists' and many other factions all in one party! ny156uk22:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think the line was "few moderates left" (in office). Of course there are moderate persons who call themselves Republican, and on the local level there may be some like Michael Bloomberg who are in that party (no more, of course) and yet disagree with the planks of the national platform. However, in Congress, both House and Senate, there is extremely little variation among the Republicans and almost as little unity among the Democrats. Why this is is a matter for study. Most people attribute it to Newt Gingrich's use of funding, explicit threats, and the like when he was Minority whip that then got embraced as The Way. No one thinks abortion is the way to the social good, that I've ever met. They may think that it is the legal right of a mother to make the decision and that this level of freedom is necessary, but I don't know anyone, including NARAL who have ever said that abortion is good. Geogre02:39, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just a quick response...There is variance in voting habits of republicans (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_110_1.htm - look at few will show this). They think that legal abortion is better for society than it being banned (and vice-versa) - both believe that their choice creates a better society either because of increased freedom of choice for women, or increased moral standards for society. Again the republican party (and its representatives in power) has a wide variety of viewpoints, just as the democrat party does. ny156uk16:12, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'm glad we could have this question asked. Not that it stoked any partisan feelings or venting or anything - e.g., "I do not support abortion (hint: I never said you did) and there are no Republican moderates left. Perhaps I know to no longer answer honestly any question about politics anymore. The Evil Spartan18:16, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Right. It is just a shorthand to say "Republican Party." It's a little silly at this point; I don't think anyone worries about what it actual means, it just makes it easier to have headlines that say "GOP RILED BY GAY SEX SCANDAL" whenever the next self-righteous, homophobic politician is found to actually be a self-loathing closeted homosexual. ;-) --24.147.86.18701:45, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Can't answer your question exactly, but it crosses a deep gorge of the River Hérault and is said to be the oldest mediaeval bridge in France. There's an image here. Xn422:24, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's good, User:!!! Caroline's question may not be about the one I knew of and might make more sense if it's about one of those others in the south of France, especially the one at Valentré. I still don't know the answer to the question, but just look at the Valentré bridge, it's tall. Xn402:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for this input. It is the bridge crossing the River Herault to which I am referring. The reason for the interest is that my son decided to jump from the top! If anyone has any ideas, or estimates of likelies I would still be interested in a response - thanks Caroline217.38.125.25416:23, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Since Wikipedia's image shows people standing on the bridge, it's easy to make an estimate. Look at the man(?) near the center of the bridge in a dark shirt and white pants. From his belt to the top of his head is 12 pixels. He looks fairly tall, so let's estimate that height at 2.4 feet. Now look at the far end of the bridge where the base meets the water. It's just over 200 pixels from the waterline up to the parapet. Now we have to correct for these points being at different distances from the camera. Looking at the angles at the bases of the arch, I think the rock foundation comes higher on the center pier than on the far side abutment, so I estimate that the distance of 140 pixels from the near end of the far arch up to the parapet corresponds to maybe 105 pixels at the far end. So the height from water to parapet is about 2.4 x 200/12 x 140/105 = about 53 feet. Allowing for the inaccuracies in estimating, I would say it's pretty safe to say that the answer is between 40 and 65 feet (or between 12 and 20 meters). --Anonymous, 22:12 UTC, September 5, 2007.
I'm attempting to start a Librivox project to record the Quotations of Mao Tse tung as an audiobook. However before the project can begin I need to be sure that it is in public domain. Now while I realize the book was published in 1966 as far as I know the English translation was done by a government agency of the PR of China "Foreign Language Press". Since the 1980s I'm not aware of any new printings from that body. I would think that it would be in public domain just from it being a government document and thats further strengthend by the government basically abandoning any claims for the last 30 years. In addition just about every English translation currently availible in the web makes clear that it is in the public domain. http://librivox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10188 --Jacobin194923:44, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It could very well be in the public domain, but the determination of whether it's in the public domain would have very little to do with most of the factors you mentioned... AnonMoos03:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
1. Does it count as a government document? It is a work of Mao Tse-tung; whether it is considered a work in his capacity as general secretary (and thus a work of the government) is a question I can't ask, but that's the sort of question that would be asked if it were something like a The Quotations of George W. Bush.
2. Whether it is published in the 1980s or not makes no difference. Since China is a party to the Berne convention technically the original publication could still be copyrighted.
3. Whether the translations are public domain depends on whether the source material is public domain. If it is not, then the translations are technically not public domain, as they are derivative works.
All that being said, I have no idea what its copyright status is. Without definitive proof to the contrary I would lean towards thinking it is protected. There was an extended discussion on Wikisource awhile back about this, and they concluded it was probably not public domain, but you might take a look at it. --24.147.86.18701:58, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In the UK, all registered companies have to be independently audited. I imagine it's the same in most civilized countries. (It might be worth mentioning that if you have employed a "vanity press" to publish your book, you are unlikely to see any royalties.)--Shantavira|feed me08:35, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The case indeed involves what was previously called a "vanity press," but what is now referred to a POD (print on demand) publisher. I monitored sales as best I could using the internet. Amazon.com twice re-stocked. I saw some sites through ABEbooks.com display a quantity over 20, yet the publisher says that only 23 hardcovers and 4 paperbacks were sold. I've asked that they check the records of their printer (who I think is owned by the same company).69.201.141.4518:47, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Good luck. Despite the audits, at the end of the day you will have to take the publisher at their word. If you have hard evidence, they should be able to explain any discrepancies, but you won't receive royalties until the books are sold to the end user, and even then you will probably have to wait three months or more. Books are easily damaged in transit and some are likely to be written off as damaged stock. Please note that a vanity press, which is a type of publisher, is definitely not the same thing as print on demand, which is a printing service, though it does get a bit complicated if they are owned by the same company. (You will find more information in those articles.) Having a publisher, printer, and distributor under one roof means taking quite a lot on trust.--Shantavira|feed me09:25, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Paintings by Mary Shecut Sease
My great aunt, Mary Shecut Sease, gave my family two paintings that I know of. One was of a carousel, so my mother tells me, and was stored in a closet. The other I remember as it was hung in my father's waiting room (he was a general practitioner). That painting was an impressionistic scene of a stream in autumn with children wading into the stream. Since my father was a philistine, the paintings were not handed down to any of the children. Their fate is unknown to me. Is there a catalogue raisoné of her work? The only info that I found was http://digital.library.okstate.edu/chronicles/v017/v017p087.html69.201.141.4501:32, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
According to Generation Y, it's approximately 1978-2000 for the generation. These type of classifications are known to be imprecise; unlike the Baby boomer generation, there's nothing that really makes them any different from other generations, so it's usually whatever people make it up to be. As for the term millenium child, I am unfamiliar with it, and a google search shows it's not really a term with much use yet, and as such is probably undefined. The Evil Spartan16:26, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
[edit conflict] I would think that anyone born before 11:59:59 on December 31, 1999, could be called a 90's child. As for Generation Y, there is no commonly accepted end point for the birth years of this generation. Most sources seem to agree that members of Generation Y were born before 2000, while some put its end point several years earlier. So, it is not a clearly defined category. These categories, incidentally, are created and used mainly by marketers to refer to trends in consumption among different generational cohorts. Trends in consumption are often not clear for a generation until it has entered the wage-earning labor force around age 20, so the definition of Generation Y may be clearer 10 or 15 years from now, if marketers still find the concept useful. Incidentally, marketers define these cohorts in broad brush strokes that clearly are not accurate for all members of that cohort. The meaningfulness of these categories outside of the world of marketing is limited. Marco polo16:27, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(Also, anyone born before 11:59:59 on December 31, 2000, could be called a 20th century child.) We get similar questions about TV shows that started late in one decade but ran mainly in the following decade. Take a show that was first broadcast in 1979 and ran till 1988. "An 80s show" or "a 70s show" may both be accurate labels, but truthful statements do not necessarily give the whole truth. Labels have their place, but they also have their limitations. Many things really require multiple labels, but that's generally too hard for pop culture, so one has to suffice. -- JackofOz00:54, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
2. Doesn't having effectively ALL Tolkiens legendarium (stopping short of copying the books directly into the wiki), that is every single fact extracted from it, actually represent a real breach of a variety of intellectual property or copyright rules etc.
3. Further to 2, isn't it morally off, to build a entire section of wikipedia, around one persons, life work - what I see there is effectively a rip-off of tolkien's work. What do you think?87.102.21.23207:04, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
6. In general I would welcome any feedback on what is and is not derivative. Also any help with getting the entire middle earth project properly cited would be good - in general (at risk of repeating myself) It seems that all articles except those which have been labeled 'A Class' lack or are lacking citations.87.102.21.23209:03, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, my. "Isn't it true that you are a dirty rat and that your mother did not like you and that your first girlfriend accused you of body odor" sort of non-question question, isn't it? First, no. A good many are not "ridiculous cruft." A good many are. Trying to measure the whole of something that evolved over time by a single pronouncement is unwise and unproductive. Second, absolutely not. There is no "breach" whatsoever, and that's a pretty weak argument, to tell the truth, because it would mean that, for example, every Cliff Notes or Spark Notes ever made was a horrible crime. Further, it's contradicted by your first question. If it's cruft, then it won't replace the reading experience but rather merely reiterate it, and if it replaces the reading experience, it's not cruft. Third, no. We would have an article on every Shakespeare play, because each has an independent effect on the wider culture, and we would have an article on all the major protagonists for the same reason. The same argument cannot be made for all the items of "Middle Earth," and so I have always thought that many/most of the Tolkeinia needed merging, at best, but there is nothing immoral. As for your fourth point, that's a particular argument. Fifth is your answer to your own non-question question. Sixth, there is a Middle Earth project that is trying to merge, redirect, cite, and manage the proliferation. If they are not working hard enough or severely enough, take your concerns to WP:AN, not here. Geogre10:50, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: But the essence of "fuck off!" is that it is short-winded, irrational and discourteous. Geogre's answers to your questions, on the other hand, are clearly no more 'long-winded' than the questions and strike me as rational and polite, if also forthright. Abusiveness on this page should be reverted. Xn411:37, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It wasn't my intention to belittle the project - I've reasked below in a different way with some additions to try to make it clearer what I was saying and avoid flames!.87.102.21.23211:50, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There wasn't a flame. It looks to me like it was an explanation of the question that isn't a question. I would say that with a link, myself: Fallacy of many questions or Begging the question. In other words, he was saying that your questions weren't questions, that they were accusations, just like the hypothetical, "Isn't it true that you stink" questions one hears on the playground are. I.e. you were not asking a question that sought an answer, because you supplied the answer yourself. <shrug> It's not a flame as much as it is an objection to what looks like a prejudiced discussion. You believe that the project is all cruft and immoral, and you crafted questions designed to allow that answer. There are other venues for complaint. Utgard Loki13:27, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
First, it should be noted that the repeated association above of 'lots of Tolkien related articles' with Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth is incorrect. I started that Wikiproject with an eye towards having a group to clean up and organize the large number of Tolkien pages which already existed (pretty much since the start of Wikipedia). Obviously a work in progress, but I think we can all agree that pages like List of Middle-earth weapons are superior to a couple dozen short unreferenced articles on the same information.
Second, the claim that "every single fact" from Tolkien's work has been reproduced is clearly false hyperbole. Many of the things named in the texts are described, but various details about them and the vast majority of the story are not. There are literally millions of details not here incorporated. Nor is the story retold in more than summary form... and therein lies the flaw in your claims of 'derivative works'. Because Wikipedia, like all encyclopedias, is not creating another work of fiction incorporating elements from or copying the original. We have commentary and analysis about the original. Which is true of every article on every fictional topic in every encyclopedia. This is no more 'immoral' or a 'copyright violation' than The Complete Guide to Middle-earth or The Encyclopedia of Arda... or Britannica for that matter. It's what Wikipedia exists to do. The extent of the Tolkien related coverage is greater than some topics in Wikipedia, but less than others. You'll find the same proliferation of articles around Harry Potter, Star Wars, Star Trek, Pokemon, and dozens of other popular topics. As stated on the 'five pillars' page, Wikipedia incorporates the kind of information generally found only in specialized encyclopedias. Thus, whereas Britannica might have an article on Bats we've got hundreds of them... and hundreds more yet to be written. More referencing and organization is certainly needed, on this and every other topic, but less so now than a year ago and hopefully continuing in that trend. --CBD12:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've got to say I couldn't find any facts that weren't in this encyclopaedia! You can take that as a compliment if you want. And some facts I found here that I couldn't find elsewhere! For instance I didn't know that Elendil was 241 cm tall! Good luck with referencing all this.87.102.21.23213:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Accurate, but overly precise. My recollection is that Tolkien stated that Elendil was about two and a half rangar tall... it's in the Unfinished Tales section on Numenorean lengths and measures. There the 'rangar' is also defined as being about 3'2"... so 2.5 rangar would be roughly 7'11". Converting that to the equivalent 241 centimeters for the imperial-measurement challenged is undoubtedly kindly meant, but gives a degree of precision lacking in the original. As to the info itself, surely how tall someone was is a relevant bit of information... particularly in reference to the character said to be the tallest human ever. --CBD13:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
ok found it (p369-70 do these vary?) "more than man high by nearly half a ranga", man high =6'4" 6'4"+1'7" ok.. I accept that for an article about elendil his height is relevant - but worry about the additional "original research" (note the quotations - using the term approximately) - because the approximate original description does not really convert to a hard and fast figure even in imperial measurements..It's this sort of thing that bothers me in the newer articles (many of which have been created without any references) - it's not that easy to find this stuff. I just looked at a few of the unnacessed articles and found them needing numerous {{fact}} tags. Also "two ranga was taken to be man high" = 6'4" but (from the same page) this was a comment from a later time when men where shorter - so maybe he was taller? Anyway it was just an illustrative example of actually referencing facts and figures that have been infered from the text..I believe a similar problem exists for sizes of armies in some examples...87.102.88.21814:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that better references and specificity are needed... though I note that this "newer" article was created in 2002 and the height has been in there for over two years. It isn't at all 'original research' though, just inexact wording. Add the reference and the word 'approximately' and the problem goes away. Try it. :]
On the army sizes, I agree that some of them do drift into original research. One article in particular I've had on my 'to do' list for a while as I think it goes too far in drawing disparate facts together into conclusions not stated elsewhere. That's an issue with all topics, but not, I think, particularly prevalent on Tolkien related articles. You thought Elendil's height an invention... but it actually is in the text. I think you'll find similarly that most of this info can be supported. There is just a tremendous amount of work yet to do in citing it all. --CBD14:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it can be found in 'The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion' by Hammond and Scull, The Council of Elrond - reference to page 242 (page 229 of the Companion itself). "...Elendil and his son Isildur, both of whom had been seven feet tall..." --CBD22:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say not. I think most of Wikipedia is actually articles about people. There are approaching 400,000 biographical articles on Wikipedia. That number includes articles about music groups, but still, the sheer number of historical and contemporary people makes it logical that it is people (like you and me, just a bit more famous) that make up an exceedingly large proportion of Wikipedia articles. Other large chunks will be taken up by articles about places (from roads to small towns, to schools). I'd guess that fictional topics (books, TV programs, films) only take up about 10% of Wikipedia. That's a guess though. It should be possible to get an estimate for the number book/TV/film articles. My conclusions? Wikipedia is peoplecruft! I mean, what is more logical than for the monkeys to type about themselves? :-) Carcharoth16:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, "fancruft" is just fan cruft, not necessarily fictional fancruft. If the purpose is to say, as Chris Farley's character used to, "Hey, uh, 'member when he said, uh, Hosta la vista, baby? That was so cool," then it's fancruft. If it's there to be the ultimate collector and fan's revivium, then it's cruft. If it's there because, "Burke's Reflections refers to the History of the Great Rebellion, so we need to help people reading that widely read and important work know who Clarendon was and what this book was," then it's not cruft. A good many of the people articles are fancruft, too, in other words. "Stark Mark is the singer for the neo-goth-dark-numetal industrial dance Viking folk band Düfus" is just more fancruft. Utgard Loki17:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The question is imprecise, but the answer must surely be "not many". I'll use 1850 as a prototypical "Old West" year. According to the United States Census, 1850 only 27,019 of 2,244,602 foreigners (1.2%) lived in the West of the US. That same year, there weren't enough Romanians in *all* of the US to bother counting, and 50 years later there were still only 15,032. If we generously assume that there were as many Romanians as Russians in the US in 1850 (1,414), and that they like most Europeans stayed away from the West, we arrive at around 17 Romanian cowboys. You can't reliably do this kind of back-of-the-envelope calculation on numbers this low, so again: "not many". --Sean15:43, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As best I can tell from Historical Statistics of the United States, published by the U.S. Bureau of the Census in 1976, the United States did not distinguish Romanian-born residents from residents born in other smaller eastern European countries before 1900. Also, as of 1900, some foreign-born residents of Romanian nationality would have been listed by country of birth as Hungarian, since Transylvania was then a part of Hungary. According to this source, as of 1900, there were 15,032 U.S. residents born in Romania (not including Transylvania). Incidentally, the foreign-born population from other parts of southern and eastern Europe jumped sharply between 1890 and 1900. (For example, the Greek-born population in 1890 was less than one fourth of the Greek-born population in 1900.) If we (reasonably) assume a similar jump in the Romanian-born population during that decade, then there might have been 4,000 Romanian-born people in the United States in 1890, even including Transylvanians. Since the 1890 Census announced the closing of the American frontier, 1890 might be seen as an end date for the vague concept "American Old West", since the "old west" might connote the existence of a frontier. If 1890 was an end point for the "Old West", it would have marked the high point of the Romanian-born population, since immigration from southern and eastern Europe was accelerating rapidly in 1890. So, how many of the possible 4,000 native Romanians in the United States in 1890 would have lived in the "West"? This would of course depend on how you define the West. Certainly the "old West" would have included the Great Plains, and possibly Texas, but the region defined by the Census as the West excludes Texas and the Great Plains states. If we use the Census definition, then there were about 673,000 foreign-born whites in the West in 1890. This was about 7.4% of the total foreign-born population in the United States at that time. Applying this percentage to a supposed total of 4,000 native Romanians in the United States (assuming that Romanians were distributed regionally in the same proportion as other foreign-born whites), there would be about 300 native Romanians in the Census West as of 1890. If we included the Great Plains states and Texas (and assumed that their share of the foreign-born population in their regions was similar to their share of the total population), then this number could double to 600. However, it is unlikely that the native Romanian population was distributed regionally in the same proportion as foreign-born whites, because migrants from southern and eastern Europe had a strong urban bias in the late 19th century, and the West (particularly the "Old West") had few large cities other than San Francisco. So, most likely the number of native Romanians in the West (however you define it) in 1890 was below 300. At earlier points in the history of the West, the number would have been lower still. Since the U.S. government did not collect numbers of native Romanians before 1900, however, it is impossible to find an exact number for the "Old West", however you define it. Marco polo16:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
literature - notability - serious question (re ask)
Taking Macbeth#Characters as a guide it looks like the project middle earth has gone way too far (since there are no articles for minor characters, the 'walking wood') etc. (By the way I found this http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Earth which personally I think represents an approximate example of articles that would be notable..)
The current contractions of articles to lists doesn't seem right either.
What I was trying to ask was "should the project be this extensive?, or not?"
as well as "doesn't the extraction of every last iota of information from the text become dubious in various ways.."
This is not really the right place to ask this question. The WikiProject itself is a good start, followed by other venues. The question of whether to move content to other wikis, for this and other fictional WikiProjects, is as old as Wikipedia, and not likely to be resolved any time soon. I'll say more back at the WikiProject talk page. Carcharoth12:06, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's really not right to try to make an announcement on something that contains so many individual articles. Arguing from the general is a sure way to make a mistake. Let's suppose, though, that we were only looking for qualities that this particular fiction had that made it like or similar to others. We could compare it to Star Wars or Star Trek, if we were so inclined (although the former was influenced by it significantly), where similar variety has been presented in the articles. Ok, massive consolidation occurred in those areas, but deletion did not, and there were no questions of morality (despite MemoryAlpha and a dozen Star Wars projects existing). Or we can compare these works to Shakespeare. For qualitative purposes, I'd say that the Tolkein stuff has already exercised a much, much longer influence than TV-show-related stuff or most science fiction novel stuff. It has shown a deeper and longer influence than Foundation, and its world (adapted, as it is, from already archetypically approved tales told by the Germanic tribes) has inspired repopulation more than any other framework of tale since the Greek myths. Any particular is debatable or junk, but the whole looks like it ranks above America's Next Top Pop Tart Model contestants and Big Brother 25 Dutch edition participants. If overly granulated coverage is your top concern, we have much to choose from. Utgard Loki14:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's the depth of coverage that bothers me - and wondered if in the future such articles would be deleted as non-notable - Tolkien certainly has affect more than one generation of readers - so I'd expect some coverage, but this much? take a look at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Tolkien_literature_stubs_etc for some links especially "Category:Unassessed_Tolkien_articles" - I've asked there for unbiased input..87.102.88.21814:23, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
theft - that's why - sorry I haven't got a real answer to that - I'd be able to like them if they cited their sources, as it stands they make me unhappy - ok?87.102.81.18417:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of the older articles employed sources but did not "cite" them. Some of these were, in fact, far more expert than the "cited" articles coming along now. (An article built from book study usually impresses me more than one with a dozen footnotes to websites.) Wanting citation is laudable, but I'll bet what results is nothing like the original works being cited, but rather just corroboration. Utgard Loki19:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would hope that people realise that the original text is the only real choice for citation, unfortunately there do seem to be a few examples of mirrors of wikipedia (same content) being used as a reference..
Apart from the multitude of articles lacking references the primary problem here is lack of secondary sources, excluding fan-created tolkien wikis/encyclopedias etc. So in other words, yes, though I'd say that 'harry potter' has caught the disease known as tolkienitis.87.102.5.13712:54, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A Man's a Man for A' That
I'd like to find a list of recorded versions of the song A Man's a Man for A' That by Robert Burns. I've heard a version of it before and it's bugging me because I can't remember who the artist was. Wikipedia's article doesn't have a list of versions; anyone know where I might find one? (Or can you name any of the most famous recorded versions?) Thank you in advance. --60.241.217.14712:11, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I used to know part of the answer to this, but it's all astonishingly complicated, like everything to do with Reilly. The books to get hold of are Ace of Spies: the incredible story of Sidney Reilly (later called Reilly, Ace of Spies, to match the name of the TV serial based on it) by Robin Bruce Lockhart (1967) and the same writer's later Reilly: the First Man (1987); The Adventures of Sidney Reilly: Britain's Master Spy: a Narrative Written by Himself, Edited and Completed by His Wife (1931); Gordon Brook-Shepherd's Iron Maze: the Western Intelligence Services and the Bolsheviks (1998); Memoirs of a British Agent by R. H. Bruce Lockhart and his later The Diaries of Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart (ed. K. Young, 2 vols. St Martin's Press, London, 1973 & 1980); Andrew Cook's Ace of Spies: The True Story of Sidney Reilly (2004). Some of these contradict each other - you have to work out why their versions are different. Xn418:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's also called the Lockhart Plot. Essentially, it was a planned counter-revolutionary coup against Lenin. In some versions, Reilly intended to become the new head of government himself. I've looked at that section of the Sidney Reilly article, and it seems to me to give a good start to the thing for Ghirlandajo, although it lacks references. Xn418:28, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ireland and the English
In his campaign in Ireland Cromwell behave much more savagly than he did elswhere in the British Isles. His conduct was said to be based, amongst other things, on derogatory attitudes that had developed since early contacts between the two nations. What is the background here?Irishbard16:05, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Negative English attitudes date as far back as the reign of Henry II. You might begin, Irishbard, by looking at some of the things written by the chronicler Gerald of Wales, who visited the island in the company of Prince John. As a result of this he wrote Topographia Hibernia (Topography of Ireland) and Expugnatio Hibernia (Conquest of Ireland), both of which remaind in circulation for centuries afterwards. Ireland, in his view, was rich; but the Irish were backwards and lazy;
They use their fields mostly for pasture. Little is cultivated and even less is sown. The problem here is not the quality of the soil but rather the lack of industry on the part of those who should cultivate it. This laziness means that the different types of minerals with which hidden veins of the earth are full are neither mined nor exploited in any way. They do not devote themselves to the manufacture of flax or wool, nor to the practice of any mechanical or mercantile act. Dedicated only to liesure and laziness, this is a truly barbarous people. They depend on their livelihhod for animals and they live like animals.
When it comes to Irish marital and sexual customs Gerald is even more biting, "This is a filthy people, wallowing in vice. They indulge in incest, for example in marrying-or rather debauching-the wives of their dead brothers." Even earlier than this Archbishop Anselm accused the Irish of 'wife swapping', "...exchanging their wives as freely as other men exchange their horses." You will find these views echoed centuries later in the words of Sir Henry Sidney, twice Lord Deputy during the reign of Elizabeth I, and in those of Edmund Tremayne, his secretary. In Tremayne's view the Irish "commit whoredom, hold no wedlock, ravish, steal and commit all abomination without scruple of conscience." In A View of the Present State of Ireland, published in 1596, Edmund Spencer wrote "They are all papists by profession but in the same so blindingly and brutishly informed that you would rather think them atheists or infidels."
This vision of the barbarous Irish, largely born out of a form of imperialist condescension, made its way into Laudabiliter, one of the most infamous documents in all of Irish History, by which Adrian IV, the only English Pope, granted Ireland to Henry II, "...to the end that the foul customs of that country may be abolished and the barbarous nation, Christian in name only, may through your care assume the beauty of good morals."
All and every method was to be used in this 'civilizing mission' over time. In 1305 when Piers Bermingham cut off the heads of thirty members of the O'Connor clan and sent them to Dublin he was awarded with a financial bonus. His action was also celebrated in verse. In 1317 one Irish chronicler was of the view that it was just as easy for an Englishman to kill an Irishman as he would a dog. Later when the English control of Ireland shrunk back for a time to The Pale around Dublin, all beyond was considered as given over to savagery, hence the expression 'Beyond the Pale'.
What we see here is the same thing that appears time and again, throughout the whole world, and over all time: it begins when an entire community is condemned as barbarous; it ends with the justification of all and every method in the creation of 'civilization', no matter how barbarous. It is against this background that you must place the Cromwellian Conquest and all that followed, in both Hell and in Connaught. Clio the Muse02:06, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You've seen it. For example in the GPL3.0, point 15, Disclaimer of Warranty, there's the usual "...PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY
OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO..." yadda yadda.
Just curious, is there a legal requirement that disclaimers have to be in all caps? Or is it just common practice of people trying to cover their behinds as thoroughly as possible, as in "SEE, I'M DUMBING THIS PART DOWN AS FAR AS I CAN FOR YOU SUCKERS: DON'T SUE ME."? 84.129.163.1316:45, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, Wikipedia's own disclaimer prevents me from giving legal advice, but I've never come across any state or nation where all-caps would be treated any differently under the law. Personally, I think they hope to give the impression of "THIS IS SERIOUS. WE KNOW WE WROTE IT SO YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND IT, BUT IT'S SERIOUS." --M@rēino18:05, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My suspicion is that "IT IS REALLY HARD TO READ LONG SENTENCES THAT ARE ALL IN CAPITALS THAT IS WHY WE DO IT SO YOU WILL GIVE UP TRYING TO READ IT BEFORE YOU REALISE THAT THE WARRANTY IS USELESS AND GIVES YOU NO EFFECTIVE RIGHTS WHATSOEVER". But I may be wrong. DuncanHill18:12, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, this information on Soviet snipers might help: [20]. It says so in the fourth box (kills, country, name, fourth unnamed box) when they are female. I suspect you could google a few of them, see what comes up (or their regiments). · AndonicOTalk20:35, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Assuming you are not talking about military participants, Googling "Soviet Women World War II" comes up with a number of articles, references, etc. The basic story is that life was pretty darn hard for the Soviets during WWII, and as one might expect women felt a lot of that hardness directly. Wikipedia even has an article titled Soviet women in the Great Patriotic War (which is the Russian name for WWII), but it again is mostly focused on military participation. --24.147.86.18702:06, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You should also consider the role of women on the domestic front. Already in 1940 they made up 41% of the Soviet labour force, a proportion that increased in the years that followed: they worked in munitions factories; enrolled as air-raid wardens; dug anti-tank ditches. There was even a 'Special Woman's Brigade' delegated to paint newly assembled artillery pieces as they were being transported on flat railway cars to the front. Some 800,000 women saw service on the battle fronts, not just as soldiers, partisans and pilots, but as cooks, laundresses, sappers, nurses and doctors. On the land Russian women kept Soviet agriculture alive, often harnessing themselves in teams to plow the land in the absence of machinery. The tractors that remained, starved of spare parts, were kept going by female mechanics, using every ingenious method at their disposal. The female pilots who flew over the German defences in the dark, so effective in unsettling the enemy that they were called 'Night Witches', had their planes armed and maintained by female ground crews. These women were able to rearm planes within minutes of landing, sometimes loading 400-kilo bombs by hand. Joseph Goebbels preached total war to German women; it was Russian women who learned to practice it. Clio the Muse02:51, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure feminist studies have a lot to report about women in the Soviet Union, but I like this poster from before World War II. "8th of March is the day of the rebellion of the working women against the kitchen slavery. Say NO to the oppression and Babbittry of the household work!" ---Sluzzelintalk13:38, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Clio! I'm shocked! Wrong Sinclair (though there is a connexion). As to the Soviet's using the word, a possible clue in our article on the novel "In characterizing Babbitt's work, Lewis suggests a critique of capitalism. In the novel's opening chapter, we are told that Babbitt "made nothing in particular, neither butter nor shoes nor poetry, but he was nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay." Likewise, when Babbitt reflects on his career while home sick in bed, he exclaims to himself that his work is "Mechanical business — a brisk selling of badly built houses.""DuncanHill00:57, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Our articles for those countries do not appear to give sources for the quoted HDIs, but I notice that the .939 figure given for both Scotland and Wales is stated to be from 2003, and the .940 quoted for England is for 2006, and is the same as the 2006 figure for the UK as a whole. DuncanHill18:17, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
When Were the Nuremberg Trials Televised?```Momynym
I cannot find information on when the Nuremberg trials were televised. From when to when? I remember the end of it being televised when I was a child in the 1950's--but what, exactly was televised? It seems the all of the trials were actually concluded by 1949. I am not talking about any movie. Thank you for any information you are able to provide.````Momynym —Preceding unsigned comment added by Momynym (talk • contribs) 19:09, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Televised? In which country? And broadcast live, or broadcast from a recording? I suspect that any television broadcast of the Nuremberg Trials in the 1950s would be based on a newsreel or similar film-based recording. -- !!??19:17, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There certainly is some original film of the Nuremberg Trials. As you aren't thinking of any movie, it can't help that there are things about like Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg. Presumably some of the original film material did find its way onto some television networks at the time? If you can fathom this, you may wish to add something to the Nuremberg Trials article, with a reference to your source. Xn420:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It seems probable that in 1949 more people in the U.S. stilll got their visual news from newsreels in movie theaters than from TV's at home. (That was the era when TV's sometimes had a permanently installed magnifying lens in front of a tiny screen!) Certainly there was no way to transmit video images across the Atlantic in real time until more than ten years later. AnonMoos03:31, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I saw the trials in the U.S. Could the original footage have been rebroadcast in the 1950's as series--sort of pre-PBS? This would have been no later than 1956 or 1957, I think.````Momynym —Preceding unsigned comment added by Momynym (talk • contribs) 19:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Religious Studies vs Religious Education
I'm from the UK. Some people say Religious Education and some say Religious Studies. Are they different or the same thing? I think Religious Education may be for religious institutions (like a Roman Catholic school) but I'm not sure. --Staceytalk19:44, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm from the US, and it may be different here, but in US terms, "religious education" would be indoctrination or training in the beliefs of a particular religion. "Religious studies" refers to the academic study of religion, typically from a basically anthropological perspective. A person in a "religious education" class would typically be an adherent of the religion studying to attain a greater understanding of their religion or to attain a status within that religion through a process such as confirmation or ordination. A person in a "religious studies" course would typically be a university student, not necessarily an adherent of any religion, seeking to understand a religion or to compare different religions from a critical, external viewpoint. Marco polo20:00, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh over here you can do "religious studies" from ages 11+ (maybe earlier but I can't say I've spoken to many under 11s about it personally, although I did "religious education" since...forever) as my friend did it at her school, and another did it for A Levels. --Staceytalk21:39, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In England and Wales (probably Scotland and Northern Ireland too, tho' they have separate educational systems), all children in state schools must take Religious Education/Religious Instruction/Religious Studies unless their parents specifically ask for them not to. Also, all state schools must have a daily act of collective worship which must be mainly christian in nature. Freedom of Religion is all very well, but on no account should children be exposed to it! DuncanHill08:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That is a theoretical distinction, which I doubt always holds in practice. There are also a plethora of other names like "faith studies" etc. Johnbod21:05, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hallowed be that name. You either find it funny or not, but to me, notwithstanding its venerable tradition, the combination "studying Divinity" has a ring of New-Ageness. --Lambiam07:10, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's okay to laugh at studying Divinity, which indeed is a mix of old and new. We'll also let you laugh when we say divvers. Xn416:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Stacey. I'm not sure about the UK, but in the United States, a religious studies major would study religion, while a religious education major would notionally be preparing to teach in a religious primary or secondary school. Of course, many of the religious education programs are junk and lack accreditation. See, for example, "Dr." Kent Hovind's alma mater, Patriot Bible University. ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 05:02, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is a difference, at least in the UK. Religious Studies is learning about religions, but not attempting to convince you of their rightness. At my secondary school, for example, we studied Sikhism, Buddism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity (and it's various components) and a little bit on a few others. When we came to the GCSE, the teacher picked modules on Christianity because they thought we'd find them easiest, since we knew more bits and pieces about it than other religions. Religious Education is more concerned with teaching you about your religion, or the religion you are assumed to have. Hence it has more of an 'insider' aspect. Religious Instruction is the same, but more so. RI is an older term, rarely used nowadays (at least in state schools). This is further confused by people sometimes saying RE when they mean RS. Skittle13:13, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Perception of Sociology
I was wondering if anyone knew what sort of perception Universities/businesses(?) had of Sociology. I'm taking a degree in it shortly (not that it'll affect my enjoyment of the subject or my studies, I'm just curious). I've heard from various places that it's considered an "easy" A Level (and degree) or a "Mickey Mouse" subject along with some others. --Staceytalk19:50, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Social science is such a broad subject, I suspect that universities would find an A-level in Sociology an excellent preparatory subject for degrees in things like social-science, international studies, politics, economics, etc. I don't think businesses consider it an 'easy' subejct. Much is made of reducing certain degrees to easy compared to others being hard. The degree you study is valued dependent on the job you wish to pursue. A degree in a highly specialised subject such as medicine will suit you brilliantly for medical-based careers but its appeal for, say, a marketing role would be less-so - particularly compared to someone with a marketing degree. Obviously this is a generalisation and some will value the 'tougher' (so called) degrees over the more relevant one because they think it shows more potential/capacity to learn. To that end this article by Boris Johnson is of interest and (as always) an enjoyable read (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/08/23/do2301.xml). ny156uk22:27, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Stacey, my boyfriend has a degree in sociology. He is now a stockbroker; so anything, and everything, is possible! Get the most out of your studies. All else will follow. Clio the Muse22:37, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Good to know! It's also nice to know that there are male who take Sociology (unfortunately, I believe there was about 5 in my college and over 100 girls)! --Staceytalk00:41, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't heard of its being a crip class ("cripple class") or no account degree, but it's poorly defined in most minds. It's either viewed as so like Anthropology as to be almost the same or so close to Psychology as to be almost the same or so close to Economics as to be a poor version. I.e. its methods and foci are such that people can't quite be sure what's in it and what's outside of it. Most of the schools I attended saw Psychology and Criminology as the "easy A" degrees (among the classic University, that is; Education, Journalism, and Communications suffer a poor reputation as well). Sociology just seems to be difficult for anyone to get a bead on. Geogre02:32, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not regarding the subject itself, but in the early 1970s when I was an undergraduate at UCLA and a student advisor for its College of Letters and Science, of the 45 classes required for graduation (180 units min. at 4 units/class), the Sociology major had the fewest required classes, at 15; at the high end of the scale were Astrophysics and Music (31 and 30 respectively). With freedom of choice a premium value of the zeitgeist, Soc. was accordingly popular - not the least as a suitable pre-law major (law studies being post-B.A.). Incidentally, at that time Psychology was changed from a Social Science to a Life Science (with the addition of Statistics courses), and edged out English Literature as most popular undergrad major. -- Deborahjay06:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That, by the way, is why Psych. was the "easy major" at the U's I attended. It required the fewest hours in the major concentration, and so it became the catch-all for pre-meds who met their match in Organic Chemistry, pre-laws who managed to get dissuaded, and the various others. This was in addition to a reputation as being wishy-washy in its classes. One would suppose that the professional organizations of Sociology would work in concert to up the course loads, where I'm not sure that the APA would or has. Utgard Loki15:10, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Duke Of Wellington - what did he forbid his men to take into battle?
§This is a pub quiz question which is driving us mad!!! I have found out that it may have come from a Mastermind programme in 1976 when a specialist subject was the Duke of Wellington. we have tried rifles, muskets, their wives, love letters, the Bible all to no avail. Help someone!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Misty26 (talk • contribs) 22:04, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What is the single best-known and greatest(General supremacy ,actually most people can communicate with ,a perfect style ,powerful intelligence and creativity in whole layers and excellent technical characteristics, and no matter what it's genre is anyway its expressive and impressive.)episodes of radio dramas of all time?(for example I know Orson Welles-directed adaptation of The War of the Worlds.Flakture06:38, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you, War of the Worlds(radio) by Orson Wells 1938, although if you count non-fiction World War II wins hands down. I heard some of the Edward R. Murrow reels [CBS Broadcasting], very intense--with war background sounds. I assume the speeches by Goebbel's were pretty intense on the Volksempfänger --i am the kwisatz haderach20:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
World War II weapon "superiority"
In the RefDesk's opinion, which nations in WWII (Soviets, Germany, Britain, US, maybe Japanese) not sure had the "best" (subjective, I know) of each type of firearm:
I have seen some reports of Allied soldiers picking up the MP38 as it was superior to their own submachine guns. The SG44 was also a vast technological improvement, as the first real "assault rifle". I've browsed our "list of weapons of X in World War II" articles to try to answer this question, but wikilink at will! -Wooty[Woot?][Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!]09:15, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I cannot answer the question, but I can muddy the waters with two notes of caution:
1. Military technology advanced rapidly from 1939-1945, so the answers change as the war progresses.
2. Sometimes the "best" weapon is the one that you can manufacture by the truckload and teach a 17 year-old how to use in a day -- even if that weapon has technical flaws. --M@rēino15:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, essentially I'm looking for weapons that were the most unique and technologically advanced for their time, not necessarily the most effective in a general sense. This is for a game mod that will have some "unique units" beyond simple general rifles and machine guns and such for each side. -Wooty[Woot?][Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!]23:12, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What are you defining as "technologically advanced"? Again — beware your own normative prejudices, without analyzing them, at least! Interchangable parts is a form of technological advance, even though it looks more "simple" than a laser; the philosophy about what an "advanced" weapon is varied greatly between the USA and the USSR, for example (the former, in comparison with the latter, valued precision and power over cost and repairability, for example). --24.147.86.18713:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This rebellion brought about the end of both the East India Company's rule in India and the Timurid dynasty replacing it [them, surely? - ed.] with direct rule by the British government (British Raj) of much of the Indian subcontinent for the next 90 years, although some states retained nominal independence under their respective Rajas, or kings.
The very first thing to happen after the deposition of Bahadur Shah, marking the final end of the Mughal Empire, was that Victoria was declared to be Queen of India in August 1858. In January 1877 the titles was altered to that of Empress of India. Essentially the old East India Company bureaucracy remained, though there was a major shift in attitudes. In looking for the causes of the Mutiny the authorities alighted on two things: religion and the economy. On religion it was felt that there had been too much interference with indigenous traditions, both Hindu and Muslim. On the economy it was now believed that the previous attempts by the Company to introduce free market competition had undermined traditionl power structures and bonds of loyalty, placing the peasantry at the mercy of merchants and money-lenders. In consequence the new British Raj was constructed in part around a conservative agenda, based on a preservation of tradition and hierarchy.
The problem with this was that the whole Indian Army was also reconstraucted, giving it a much more European face. This had the effect of drawing in families and other civilians. Transport links thus had to be improved, as did communications in general, with a modern and European world arising alongside 'India in aspic', so to speak, making the contradictions and the tensions that much greater.
On a political level it was also felt that the previous lack of consultation between rulers and ruled had been yet another significant factor in contributing to the uprsiing. In consequences Indians were drawn into government at a local level. Though this was on a limited scale a crucial precedent had been set, with the creation of a new 'white collar' Indian elite, further stimulated by the opening of universities at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, a result of the Indian Universities Act. So, alongside the values of traditional and ancient India, a new professional middle class was starting to arise, in no way bound by the values of the past. Their ambition can only have been stimulated by Victoria's Proclamation of November 1858, in which it is expressly stated that "We hold ourselves bound to the natives of our Indian territories by the same obligations of duty which bind us to our other subjects...it is our further will that...our subjects of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to offices in our service, the duties of which they may be qualified by their education, ability and integrity, duly to discharge."
Acting on these sentiments, Lord Ripon, vice-roy from 1880 to 1885, extended the powers of local self-government and sought to remove racial practices in the law courts by the IIbert Bill. But a policy at once liberal and progressive at one turn was reactionary and backward at the next, creating new elites and confirming old attitudes. The IIbert Bill only had the effect of causing a 'White Mutiny', and the end of the prospect of perfect equality before the law. In 1886 measures were adopted, moreover, to restrict Indian entry into the civil service. The worship of 'Indian Tradition' was to go hand-in-hand with new forms of European exclusivenes and racism. Doors had opened, only to be shut again. With the formation of the Congress Indians began to look away from the new Mughal Empire, Kipling's realm of the Babu and the Sahib, towards their own authentic past-and to their own authentic future. Clio the Muse02:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
toyota in Europe
Hi,
i was reading your article on toyota which says that toyota's market share in Europe isn't that great. Why then, given that, and also given that Europe (I'm really thinking of the UK) has exorbitantly expensive petrol (especially when compared to the US) do Toyota not market more hybrids here? We currently have the Prius and one Lexus but you guys have loads! Any factors i'm missing? 195.195.248.25210:12, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This more emphasizes the above point than contradicts it -- Citroen does not sell any cars in America. Based on what I know about them, their strengths are very similar those of Toyota (and Honda, the other big fuel-efficient brand in the US). --M@rēino14:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
From an American perspective, the strengths of Citroen (fuel efficiency) are similar to those of Toyota and Honda, but in Europe, fuel efficiency in American terms is a given. So cars compete on other terms. For example, Citroen produces some very small models that are even more fuel efficient than most Toyotas or Hondas. Based on my limited experience, I think that European drivers often value a level of performance that Toyota does not generally offer outside of their expensive Lexus brand. (Honda might be a little better in this regard, but not clearly better than several European brands.) Marco polo14:57, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Marco, I guess it depends on what you mean by "performance", but if you mean that Europeans care more about the craftsmanship of their cars, that would not explain why American companies have larger market shares than the Japanese companies. --M@rēino15:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Also there is 'appeal'. Certainly most people acknowledge that Toyotas are very well made, reliable cars but they are also often considered quite boring (save for their t-sport/sports coupes). Things like the Toyota Corolla (now Auris?) are considered 'old' people cars so lose a beat against things like the Peugoet 307, Citreon C3 and other cars in the class. These brands have to market their cars with more 'toys' as standard (air-con/electric heated screen etc.) than their counterparts that can sell for more with less spec because of prestige/curb appeal. The mpg for Toyotas are not particularly outstanding compared to their rivals in the uk market. As noted above it seems that the US market is very different in its wants to the Uk/European market. Style, quality of interior, performance, prestige - all seem to vary. ny156uk16:03, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What does the Dept. of Agriculture have to do with my gas?
While fueling up the Jeep this a.m., I noticed a shiny gold colored sticker on the gas pump that read "Vermont Department of Agriculture" across the top. It had what appeared to be the state seal in the center and then the words "Customer Assurance" at the bottom. Thinking, "This has to be something someone just jokingly stuck on this one particular pump", I went 'round to the pump on the other side. The other pump had this as well, though the top of this sticker was in a bit better shape. It had a series of years at the top where, presumably, someone could mark down what year the sticker was placed there such as "2005|2006|2007|2008". This second sticker also differed in the words at the bottom of the sticker; it said "Customer Protection". So what are these stickers for? And what does the VT Dept. of Ag. have to do with gas pumps? Dismas|(talk)10:49, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Based on DuncanHill's research, it sounds like this responsibility goes back to the days when the only weights and measures that people cared about where those of agricultural products. --M@rēino14:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not necessarily. Agriculture needs to determine the size of a gallon, because someone selling a gallon of milk needs regulation. This is particularly true in a dairy state. Similarly, the state needs to specify exactly what makes a bushel, an acre, etc., so that buying and selling of food (which has yet to be antiquated) could be on the level. Thus, they might well be the ones involved in determining the "gallon" of gasoline the pump is putting out is an official gallon, and darned glad of it you should be. Utgard Loki15:06, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Templates
Does anyone know how to change/get changed templates?
The template I have in mind is {{ME-ref}} , specifically I would like added optional sections for <chaptername> <chapternumber> <subbookname> <subbookchapter> <publisher> <edition> <imprint> <volume>
The term 'subbookname' refers to a one 'book' of a number of 'books' contained in a single bound edition - someone may know a better description for this. Thanks.87.102.5.13710:59, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to learn how to create/edit a template for literature citation, for a specific project. The {{cite-book}} doesn't have enough fields for my purposes.
It isn't quite clear whether you want a table (or infobox) designed for a particular page or a new template to be used on a series of related pages. If the first, you can pick up a basic infobox from a page which has its own (there's one on Norwich School, for instance) and adjust it. If the second, if I were you I should start by looking at all the existing templates in Category:Citation templates to see if there's one which suits your purpose. If there isn't, then you can go into the edit page for an existing citation template (such as {{cite-book}}), copy and paste what's there into a new template, and adjust that. You create a new template just like any other new page. Please let me know on my talk page if you need more help. Xn416:07, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have not seen any American house. Just want to know what would be the size of an average American home in square feet of carpet area. Also tell me how much would an average home cost. Please explain.-Sandhya —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.123.194 (talk) 12:20, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What did you mean by "carpet area"? Did you mean interiors, or did you mean to exclude something? In some cultures, carpets are not used in certain rooms, like bathrooms and toilets... did you mean to exclude them? Or were you just using a euphemism for "indoors"? --Dweller13:14, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly many homes and apartments are still small, or have a lot of perple in a modest sized home. People can buy land in the country and build huge homes, but many need to be in a suburb from which they can commute to a city job. The suburbs may have been divided into building lots of a size which, with line setback restrictions and height restrictions, limit the ultimate size of delling that can be constructed. Homes on large lots in desirable suburbs are often considered "teardowns." Even though they might be nice enough older homes, perhaps architecturally distinguished, they are apt to be torn down and replaced by huge new homes. New homes in the U.S. are larger than new homes were in the post-World War 2 era, and cost more. There has been a trend toward people desiring larger and larger homes, up to 6,000 square feet in some cases for a family of 3 or 4. This would not be unusual for the wealthy's palaces or country homes in other countries or other eras, but the modern American "McMansions" or "starter castles" tend not to have the live-in help that would have been thought necessary in the former cases. Edison13:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to see a reliable number for the median square footage of all American homes. You can find such claims as "The median size for a new single family home in 2003 was about 2300 square feet (National Association of Home Builders)." I am suspicious of the NPR number quoted above, because elsewhere (1995 report) we read "While all units average 1,732 square feet, those built in the last 4 years have an average of 1,920 square feet." Is it really possible that in the last dozen years, the average of all the country's housing stock has gone up 36%? But again, a median number would be more interesting than the average, which is inflated by the McMansions Edison mentions. Wareh13:51, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
New houses being built today are certainly larger, on average, than the existing housing stock. I am certain that the median single-family house has less than 2,000 square feet (185 m3) of floor area. In older urban areas, 1,200–1,400 square feet (110–130 m3) is typical. Urban apartments (flats) probably average around 1,000 square feet (93 m3), with two bedrooms and one toilet. The cost of an average single-family house ranges from around $70,000 in depressed cities and rural areas to $700,000 in San Francisco and its suburbs. Outside of the west coast and the Northeast, I would think that $180,000 is close to average. Prices are two to three times higher on the west coast, in the Northeast, and a few other places with high-paying jobs, such as Denver, Colorado. Condominiums (basically, flats) also count as homes, and they typically cost about 40% less than a single-family house in the same area, though they also typically offer less floor space. Marco polo14:49, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I find that hard to imagine, I'm sure some inventive cavepeoples would have given it a shot. She may or may not have popularised it though.. I'll leave that to the better informed inhabitants of the desk to comment on... Capuchin14:23, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Invent? There really isn't that much technology involved, for most people, and the equipment is not modified in the process. If we haven't documents discussing the act, that does not mean that the act was not going on. Cleopatra had huge tracts of land, and that made her very, very attractive. She was the Kansas of the ancient world, plus the Baltimore, and controlling her was controlling reliable food supplies, huge navigational and naval assets, and massive numbers of people, and any attempt to explain her "mystery" in terms of particular sexual acts is just more smoke. Utgard Loki15:03, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Catullus (who predates Cleopatra by a few years) wrote about homosexual oral sex...we have an amusing article about the famous Catullus 16, actually. The Romans also borrowed the Greek word "cinaedus" which refers to (or can in one sense refer to) male-on-male oral, and you know those Greeks, a bunch of effeminate pederasts...I'm sure they had come up with it hundreds of years before Cleopatra. I wouldn't know where to look for a Greek source for it though. I don't know about the sex practises of any other ancient cultures, but I'm pretty sure anything you can think of doing, they would have already done, and more. Adam Bishop20:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have long argued that every great invention has a thousand fathers (or mothers) and every failure is an orphan. To substantiate that someone invented some useful thing, I like there to be a record of them patenting it, and of their having given well publicized public demonstrations before learned societies. Is there such evidence in this case? Edison22:01, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I do believe they give public demonstrations at zoos all the time. Alas, I doubt they filed a patent in the requisite amount of time, but it's rather easy to show prior art in this case! -- Kesh14:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Parents of Suresh Peters
Suresh Peters is a famous music composer.
I want to know which country Suresh Peters belongs to. Where he was born? Was he born to American White father and Indian mother? Or was he born to two persons of Indian origin who stayed in USA when he was born? What is his mother tongue? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.115.22 (talk) 19:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hearts and Minds
During the present campaign in Iraq there have been attempts-not very successful-by the west to win over Muslim opinion. Are there any past examples of this process? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.153.245.163 (talk) 19:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
One thing to bear in mind with these campaigns is that they fail to entirely succeed, but this does not mean that they have entirely failed. First, it's desperately hard to measure success. One never knows how many guerrilla's didn't take to the hills, how many bits of sabotage didn't take place. If one bomber detonates a bomb, it looks like a town is against the occupiers. That said, these efforts tend, when successful, to lead to emigration rather than quietism, and none of them can possibly persuade a people that they are not being invaded or occupied. Anyone who sets out those things as goals for a psychological operation is a fool, and I do not doubt that some of these fools are in office now. Geogre20:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Are there past examples of this form of propaganda? Yes, there are. When Napoleon landed in Egypt in 1798 he brought a printing press with him, with the specific intention of disseminating literature justifying his invasion among the Muslim people. When the British came the same way in 1956 they also distributed leaflets, saying that the quarrel was not with the Egyptian people, but with the 'dictator', Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Napoleon's proclamation is particularly interesting. Clearly concerned that his campaign would recall the ancient Crusader campaign of Louis IX, it was declared that the French army, far from coming to 'eliminate your religion', are themselves 'sincere Muslims', evidenced by the recent invasion of the Papal States. General Bonaparte himself, it was further declared, worshipped Allah and revered the Quar'an. His only enemy was the Mameluk regime. Abd al Rahman al-Jabarti, a local chronicler, found the whole thing 'illiterate and insincere', though he admired the discipline of the French troops while deploring their personal hygiene! But in fact the economic cost of the occupation was quick to turn the local people against the invader, with riots breaking out in Cairo in the October following the occupation. Order was restored, though the resentment continued. After Napoleon left both of his successors were assassinated. Clio the Muse00:12, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, indeed. Did you also know, Duncan, that when it looked as if the Ottoman Empre was about to join the war on the side of the Germans, the British authorities in India, fearful that the Sultan, in his authority as Caliph, would declare a jihad, issued a communiqué stressing that "Britain was the greatest Muhammaden power in the world and the staunchest friend of Turkey"? Clio the Muse00:39, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Peter Hopkirk's On Secret Service East of Constantinople is rather good on Haji Wilhelm Mohammed's nefarious shenanigans.I shall now have to re-read it! DuncanHill00:51, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please remember to a) sign your posts and b) create a new heading for your question. I have done the second one for you. And the answer to your question can be found here :) SGGHspeak!21:26, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Some would dare to mention the first child born in the Americas to English parents. The Spanish were here first, and there might have been children born to them. Some scientists who espouse the Solutrean hypothesis believe that Europeans came to America long before the Vikings, from 17,000 to 15,000 years ago, travelling in watercraft similar to those used by Eskimos, and hunting seals along the ice which covered the North Atlantic, providing the basis for the stone tools known as Clovis culture. So "unknown Spanish child" or "unknown Solutrean child" are also possible answers. See also Kennewick Man , Models of migration to the New World , and Pre-Siberian American Aborigines. Edison21:57, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The key to this question is surely that Greenland is geographically part of North America. Edison's "unknown Solutrean child" is certainly arguable, but the alternative to it (and the only answer for which there is clear evidence) is that the first European-American child was born to Norse settlers in Greenland in about 986, probably at Brattahlíð. According to the Icelandic sagas, 985 was the year the first colony was established there, by a fleet from Iceland under Erik the Red. Twenty-five ships set out, and fourteen arrived safely in Greenland. See History of Greenland: Norse settlement and Vinland. Xn408:33, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If "America" means the USA, then "unknown Spanish child" is Martín de Argüelles (referred to in first white child); but presumably other children of Spanish descent were born elsewhere in the Americas before him.
Cross burning didn't originate with the original, Reconstruction-era Klan. The article on cross burning states that it may have come from the early-20th century novels of Thomas Dixon Jr.. In The Clansman, which was set during Reconstruction and told of the Klan of that era, he described a cross burning and wrote "in olden times when the Chieftain of our people summoned the clan on an errand of life and death, the Fiery Cross, extinguished in sacrificial blood, was sent by swift courier from village to village… The ancient symbol of an unconquered race of men." Dixon may have been inspired by the works of Sir Walter Scott. When the Klan was revived in subsequent years - inspired in part by Dixon's novels and the movie Birth of a Nation, which was based on them - they adopted the practice. A modern "justification" for the practice can be found here. (Follow that link with care if you have a low tolerance for hate.) - EronTalk22:06, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
September 6
How democratic were the colonies? (And in particular: Algeria during the Fourth Republic)
Hello, I have been going through some of the articles on this site but I still haven't been able to find an answer for these questions:
- I know Algeria was an integral part of the French fourth republic after the second world war, but did everything get to vote? Or only those who had been given the French nationality? And if so, were they only "white" settlers, or did many Arabs get it as well? (I know that almost a million "French people" left Algeria and headed for France when the colony became independent.
- How about the rest of the parts of Africa ruled by France (and other countries in general)?
I have been reading about the war of liberation against the French and came across a puzzling reference to the 'day of the tomatoes', someting that seesm to have happened in the year 1956. What is the day of the tomatoes and what does it mean? Philip the Arab06:07, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In French, it's called "la journée des tomates". Guy Mollet was pelted with rotten tomatoes at a demonstration in Algiers on 6 February 1956, a few weeks after becoming prime minister. In the run-up to the general election on 2 January 1956, Mollet had built a coalition called the Republican Front out of the centre and left-wing parties. This Front won the election, largely thanks to a promise of peace in Algeria, based on negotiations with the FLN liberation front, and Mollet formed a government. He wanted independence for all the French North African colonies, but there were a million French people in Algeria who felt very threatened by this, and when the cabinet was formed it decided not to talk to the FLN. So Mollet's visit to Algiers a few weeks later was a stormy one, with almost everyone against him, and the tomatoes were a sign of that. According to most reports, the tomatoes came from French colonialist hard-liners who were anxious to carry on the war in Algeria, while others claimed they had been thrown by local working people who normally supported Mollet's Socialists but felt let down by him. In any event, he was between a rock and a hard place and vacillated between pursuing the war (he called up hundreds of thousands of new conscripts in February) and negotiating secretly with the FLN, while also getting embroiled in arguments about the situation in Algeria with French church leaders. Then came Suez, which was as much a humiliation for the French as for the British. Mollet went on pouring troops into Algeria, using extreme methods of counter-terrorism and raising taxes to pay for the war. The messy Battle of Algiers (January to October 1957) and the escalating taxes finally discredited him, and his coalition government collapsed in June 1957. Considering how short-lived his government was, with the benefit of hindsight some people later claimed that the day of the tomatoes was the beginning of the end for Mollet. Xn407:51, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
arbitration Act... India...
does acontract survive evn after the termination of the agreement its a art of, i had done some research on it an had put it on wikipidia.. but wanna have a detailed view on it....... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.138.120.38 (talk) 06:10, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Song ID help
I heard a song by eminem today in the Union building; it was set the basic tune of song "just lose it"; however, this song was definately not "just lose it". I know eminem sung the chorus, but he may have had a guest rapper for the middle parts. Any ideas on what the song may have been named? TomStar81 (Talk) 06:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
bookish question (trivia)
In the late 70's (UK) a paperback could be made out of a quite thin, smooth, white paper. Nowadays the equivalent paperback seems to be made out of a poorer quality thicker paper that is quite rough.
A huge variety of papers is available today, and nice paper is plentiful but no longer used regularly for paperback books. Paperbacks today often use recycled paper and so-called "woodfree" papers. See paper.--Shantavira|feed me15:59, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How do Americans refer to black people who aren't American? I see in African-American that one reporter did actually refer to some black French people as "African-Americans", but this surely isn't standard? --86.132.151.1711:23, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is no single standard. When the demonym suggests dark skin by default, it can be completely avoided, "Cameroonian" for example. Otherwise, and if it's important for the reader to know the person's skin color, the choices are "Black xyz-ian", "African-xyz-ian" or "Afro-xyz-ian", depending on usage and the author or publisher's preference. I randomly picked the letter "C", and sure enough, there's Black Canadian, African-Caribbean, and Afro-Cuban. The term African-American is reserved for people from the United States and applying it to citizens of any other country, including Antigua, Brazil, or Canada in the Americas, is misleading. Calling French people "African-Americans" is false. Typing Black French into the search box redirects to Afro-European. ---Sluzzelintalk12:56, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Generally, in the mainstream U.S. media, you will encounter the term "African American" as a fairly glib substitute for the term "black" (i.e., Definition One:A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa.). The former term acting as a direct substitute for the latter, as popularized by Jesse Jackson.
Of course, under the reasoning implied in your question; and for the reason that not everyone born on the continent of Africa meets Definition One above; and because "Africa" designates an entire continent (and not a nationality or ethnicity, such as "French", "Italian", "Serbian", and so forth). This terminology (although quite common in the U.S.) is imprecise and misleading at best, and in the extreme instance, incorrect. Nevertheless, that's what you can expect to find. dr.ef.tymac14:06, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This comes up regularly in my workplace. The preferred term is "Black", not "African-American". Most of the black people here are from Africa and are not Americans. The one I work with most often is Nigerian. He is married to a white British woman. He complains that calling him African-American fits him about as well as it fits his wife. There is also an undertone of ire for Americans who want to call themselves African without ever visiting the continent. If you leave tiny pockets of multi-nationalities like my workplace, the preferred term is always "African-American" for anyone who is black, regardless of nationality. -- kainaw™15:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
African-Americans are just Americans that are black. I'm white, but my heritage is Dutch. Please don't call me Dutch-American because I'm not Dutch. I'm just a white American. Beekone16:56, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Another Greek question, if I may. The Wikipedia entry on Adamantios Korais has nothing on his political writing, the most significant part of his contribution to the Greek national movement. Who has knowledge of this? Philoctetes M12:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Even after reading Consolidated city-county, I'm still not very sure how they work in places where some independent municipalities exist, such as Marion County, Indiana or Wyandotte County, Kansas. I don't understand really what it's like, for example, in Indianapolis' suburbs, such as Southport, Indiana: if the county and the city are consolidated, how is it that Southport is part of one but not part of the other? Can the city council tell Southport what to do, even though it's not part of the city? Do Southport residents have Bart Peterson as their mayor, as well as Nannette Tunget? Or is it somewhat like (not to say that it's Communist) the USSR in its later years, in which the non-Russian republics were less linked to the USSR than was Russia; for example, Russia not having its own Communist Party organisation, as did the others — in other words, Indianapolis in a roundabout way actually has fewer rights than the other municipalities? I've talked with friends of mine in Indianapolis, and I still can't quite understand it. Nyttend15:47, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think it works like this: Under Indiana law, counties have some competencies, and municipalities have others. Most of the municipalities in Marion County have ceded their competencies to the consolidated city-county. Apparently, Indianapolis has ceded many, but not all, of its competencies to the consolidated city-county. However, a few municipalities, such as Southport, have not conceded their municipal competencies to the consolidated government. The consolidated government has jurisdiction in these municipalities only over county-specific matters, while these municipalities have full jurisdiction in municipality-specific matters, such as policing. Marco polo16:08, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The even shorter answer: the USA has never had a standard way of allocating power among the various sub-components of a state. Each state is free to experiment wildly, and many do. --M@rēino20:12, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Michel Tournier researchers' forum
good morning. i am doing doctoral research on the works of the french writer Michel Tournier on the theme of quest. i would like to know if there are any forum where i can meet other researchers who do research on the same authour or similar subject. thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.11.44.148 (talk) 15:49, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know of one, although there's a Talk page for the Tournier wikibiography with nothing on it yet except formal notices. Similar discussion pages for articles on other writers have developed into the kind of forum you may be looking for (see Talk:Arthur Conan Doyle, for example). By chance, we answered a question about Gemini on the Language desk this week (see Gemini by Michel Tournier). Xn421:05, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Body Thievin'
I just finished Anne Rice's #IV book in The Vampire Chronicles series The_Tale_of_the_Body_Thief. Basically the main character Lestat de Lioncourt switches bodies with a sort of guru mystery man named Raglan James. I'm not ruining the story with spoilers considering the title. The book goes into details on how the procedure is done. Afterwards I did my WikiResearch onBody_swap & Mind_transfer, I also read the articles on, and I forgot the medical terminology for these, nor can I recall my search, the pyschological cases of people thinking their loved ones or others are not the same person. there were a list of these terms, and research done on the person with that thought, but not on the actual individuals that were questioned. My question is, is there any records or stories of people that actually said they were switched? --i am the kwisatz haderach17:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
An actor [23] of SCTV fame has recently been found guilty of criminal harassment in respect of his wife and children. The defence pled Capgras delusion on his behalf. It is a psychiatric syndrome that has the sufferer believe that those close to him/her are imposters. Bielle18:06, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wiki's Schizophrenia mentions the Greek roots being "to split" "mind". Could an entire nation have this split mind, lets say one half thinks wholey-minded and sound, and the other half a totally different wholey-minded soundness, but when the two are next/or against each other, then comes the bizarre delusions or disorganized speech and thinking? --i am the kwisatz haderach17:30, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You might find the work of Lloyd deMause interesting — in his Foundations of Psychohistory he talks a lot about the idea of nations suffering from delusions or from massive psychological disorders and the like, if I remember correctly (group fantasy?). I think it is mostly trash, personally—it seems to have no intellectual rigor whatsoever from what I can tell. --140.247.242.7919:01, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nelson Mandela's terrorism
to what extent was Nelson Mandela involved in the terrorist actvities of MK before his imprisonment? what sort of stuff was he trying to do? how apologetic has he been for what he did/planned? his wikipedia page has very little, and his autobiography is written by him (obviously) so from an NPOV, what were his crimes?
thanks 81.109.5.21218:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Mussolini's corpse
While we are on the subject of 'body thevin' I heard that Mussolini's had a particularly bizarre 'political postmortem'. There is a little info. on his page, though not very much. What's the story here? Captainhardy18:37, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Do you mean the "[his body] was stolen briefly in the late 1950s by neo-fascists, then again returned to Predappio" bit? That seems clear, if brief. His body was briefly stolen by neo-facists. Just think what they would have done with Hitler's body if he hadn't ordered his body to be burnt. Carcharoth20:08, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I must have seen hundreds relating to napoleonic battles eg see Battle of Austerlitz there's a few in there. I could go on - luckily War artist may do a lot of the heavy lifting for you post 1900.
The bayeux tapestry is an odd one though not a painting - worth considering..
Humanities-Religious-Locations of SAKTI PEEDAMS IN INDIA.-How many are there ?
I understand that some parts of Goddess Parvati- the other half of LORD SHIVA ,fell in various parts of India & these places were later considered as the places consecrated by the Goddess SAKTI & known as SAKTI peedams. I want to know the exact locations of these places & how many such peedams are there in India or elsewhere.I shall be grateful for a complete answer.If possible send the answer to my Email ID <email deleted> —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vrkrishnan (talk • contribs) 20:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to know a famous piece of clarinet music however the only thing I know about it is that it is frequently played in tv etc with scenes or images of new york im not sure if this helps at all.
