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May 7

non-profit fundraiser limitations

Can a non-profit organization auction off marijuana to raise moneyin the state of Washington?74.220.246.155 (talk) 04:27, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

We can't really answer legal questions like this. Calidum ^{Go Bruins!} 04:29, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

But we can give you somebody else's "How to Form and Maintain a Nonprofit Corporation in Washington State". This one's by Washington Attorneys Assisting Community Organizations (aka WAACO) and the King County Bar Association Young Lawyers Division. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:47, May 7, 2014 (UTC)

As far as I see it, the Washington State Liquor Control Board oversees the licensing of retailers and such. So, they would likely be the best people to contact about their own rules. Their web page about I-502 (the law that allowed for the decriminalization of marijuana) has quite a bit of info including rules and, if you need it, contact information. Dismas|^(talk) 06:45, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if it would be legal under Washington State law... but there would certainly be problems under Federal law... I suspect that the IRS would probably cancel the organization's federal non-profit tax status. Blueboar (talk) 21:22, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Full Day Kindergarten

Hello,

I found the article on Kindergarten but found it lacking in a great deal of useful information. The article is very generic, does not describe how the classrooms and curriculum have changed in recent years, and does not mention the debate in the united states currently between full day kindergarten and half day kindergarten.

I was hoping to find a complete article, including many citations on the research and statistics involved in kindergarten in the United states documenting the debate and the many 'hot' topics associated with it, (use of worksheets for example and length of a 'full' day, being two major issues). Please see the following links for potential inclusion in a more in depth article on the subject:

http://www.naspcenter.org/assessment/kindergarten_ho.html - National Education Association article on the subject, includes 'what constitutes a good full day program'

http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=134 - Early Childhood Professional Resource for Teachers -

"There are two fundamental problems with worksheets. First, young children do not learn from them what teachers and parents believe they do (Kostelnik, Soderman, & Whiren, 1993). Second, children's time should be spent in more beneficial endeavors (Willis, 1995).

Many preschools, child care centers, and kindergartens, young children spend their time on worksheet paper and pencil tasks. Teachers who use worksheets believe they are demonstrating children's learning progress to parents. Unfortunately worksheet activities are not developmentally appropriate and can cause many problems. Early childhood education experts agree that the years from birth to age eight are a critical learning time for children (Bee, 1992; Kostelnik, Soderman, & Whiren, 1993; Willis, 1995). During these years, children have many cognitive, emotional, physical, and social tasks to accomplish (Katz, 1989). Only later, when they have achieved the necessary finger and hand control, should they be asked to write words or numerals with a pencil. The timing of this accomplishment will vary among children. Some six-year-olds may be just starting this task. If they are encouraged, rather than criticized, they will continue to learn and grow and feel confident. There are many active, and far more interesting, ways for children to begin understanding words and numbers than via worksheets (Mason, 1986). Children are born with a need to move (Kostelnik, Soderman, & Whiren, 1993). They wiggle, toddle, run, and climb as naturally as they breathe. When we insist that children sit still and do what for them may be a meaningless task, such as completing a workbook page, we force children into a situation incompatible with their developmental needs and abilities

http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Recent_Research_All/ - research which backs up national education article, "it is important to remember that what children are doing during the kindergarten day is more important than the length of the school day. Gullo (1990) and Olsen and Zigler (1989) warn educators and parents to resist the pressure to include more didactic academic instruction in all-day kindergarten programs. They contend that this type of instruction is inappropriate for young children."

http://www.macleans.ca/general/why-full-day-kindergarten-is-failing-our-children/- Although this is article is in Ontario, it is backed by research performed in California. "Full-day kindergarten does nothing to permanently improve academic performance. It may stunt the emotional and social development of many kids. Even those gains identified for some kids are likely to be temporary, a phenomenon that’s been identified in numerous other studies." http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/04/us/education-more-and-more-kindergarten-means-a-full-day.html New York Times Article - Curriculum of Kindergarten - 'From birth to age 8, kids learn best through direct experiences and by directly manipulating materials, said Anne Mitchell, associate dean at Bank Street College who is the author of Early Childhood Programs and the Public Schools (Auburn House, 1989). The best thing is to build with blocks, to weigh things, to actually experience the math and not to copy numbers on a work sheet.

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/what-happened-kindergarten Scholastic - What Happened to Kindergarten? - Research consistently backs what early elementary teachers know: Imaginative play is the catalyst for social, physical, emotional, and moral development in young children. With guidance from an observant teacher, kindergartners can use imaginative play to make sense of the world around them—and lay the critical groundwork for understanding words and numbers.

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/classroom-solutions/2011/11/characteristics-great-kindergarten-classrooms Scholastic Characteristics of great kindergarten classrooms - Teachers can no longer expect healthy 5– or 6-year-old children, with all their energy and enthusiasm, to sit at their desks or to be quiet all day. Kindergarten gives children the opportunity to grow and develop through play — the way children learn best.

http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Top_10_Signs_Good/ Top 10 Signs of a Good Kindergarten Classroom - getting kindergarteners ready for elementary school does not mean substituting academics for play time, forcing children to master first grade "skills," or relying on standardized tests to assess children's success Children are playing and are not forced to sit quietly. Children are not all doing the same things at the same time.

http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/2/1/2158244012442677 Formal Sage Study - Full-Day Kindergarten Effects on Later Academic Success - Using all available assessment, there were no significant differences in the scores of students who attended an all-day kindergarten and those who did not

http://angievillaartwork.blogspot.com/2014/04/full-day-kindergarten-is-bad-idea.html A Teachers Perspective - All full day K programs should include an afternoon of napping, snacking, unstructured play, outdoor recess, singing, dress up, toys, blocks, painting at easels, and the classrooms should be set up in this way. That's not happening, and it's a tragedy.

http://pernillesripp.com/2012/01/19/i-know-worksheets-are-bad-and-yet-i-assigned-one/ Teacher Blog - I know Worksheets are Bad

http://www.macleans.ca/general/why-full-day-kindergarten-is-failing-our-children/ Recent Research performed out of State Regarding Full Day programs as a whole - "Although this is article is in Ontario, it is backed by research performed in California. "Full-day kindergarten does nothing to permanently improve academic performance. It may stunt the emotional and social development of many kids. Even those gains identified for some kids are likely to be temporary, a phenomenon that’s been identified in numerous other studies."

A Child's perspective - http://www.activekidsclub.com/fresh-air-living/feature/all-day-kindergarten-a-childs-perspective.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.165.172.119 (talk) 15:26, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

You do not seem to have asked a question. If you want to discuss the article you should use the Talk:Kindergarten page. Remember also that this is not an article on U.S. schools but a worldwide subject. 75.41.109.190 (talk) 15:44, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

These articles may make a good source for Kindergarten in the United States. However, as the OP may not be aware, Wikipedia only exists because people who care write articles. That means since the OP seems to care, they are the best person to write the article. --Jayron32 17:58, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Pope of royal descent

How many Popes were of royal descent?--170.140.105.16 (talk) 20:40, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, given that almost every person with any European DNA is probably descended from Charlemagne, the answer is probably "All of the Popes since at least 1600" ... but in each case, the descent is rather tenuous. Popes with a more direct descent? I would guess: None. Blueboar (talk) 21:02, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Some.For example, Pope_Calixtus_II.

To answer "how many" exactly will depend on what you mean by "of royal descent". If all you mean is that they had some royalty in their family tree, then probably very many Popes will qualify. I'm not sure how reliable a source this is but it suggests a lot of possible royal linkages that fall somewhere between "born a prince" and "descended from Charlemagne, just like everyone else."

If you mean how many were recognized members of royal families at the time they became Pope, then I will have to defer to the expertise of others. (That, or trawl through all 266 of them via List of Popes but I don't have time for that today.)

I'll close by reversing your question and noting that Pope Alexander VI is "an ancestor of virtually all royal houses of Europe." - Eron^Talk 21:23, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I didn't find any sites giving reliable figures, and sites focusing on royal-papal connections were usually looney-toon conspiracy theory websites, but:

• Pope John XII was the son of Alberic II of Spoleto, but he's self-made royalty.
• Pope Gregory V was the grandson of Otto I the Great
• Pope Benedict VIII was the son of Gregory I, Count of Tusculum

And then I got bored and quit searching further. It was pretty common in the middle ages for noble families to train their oldest son for war and their second oldest for the priesthood. But, almost everyone is descended from some sort of nobility if you go back far enough (what with your ancestors increasing exponentially every generation you go back). Pretty much anyone with a patronymic surname is descended from some sort of royal. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:25, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

The House of Medici produced four popes. OttawaAC (talk) 21:29, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

(ec) I'm equally certain the answer is: at least 5. The earliest example I can find off-hand is Pope Gregory V who was a great-grandson of the emperor Otto V. Popes John XII, Benedict VIII, John XIX and Benedict IX were all closely related to each other and descended from King Hugh of Italy. Additionally, the Antipope Felix V was otherwise Duke Amadeus VIII of Savoy, and was a great-grandson of John II of France. Of recent papabili, Christoph Cardinal Graf von Schönborn has the most conventionally illustrious ancestry, but I couldn't tell you off-hand who his most recent royal ancestor was. Of course, any random European, or person of European descent, these days is statistically very likely to be descended from Charlemagne, so the question breaks down a little when very remote descents are allowed. AlexTiefling (talk) 21:40, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I noticed a few hereditary dukes and counts in the list of popes. A Borghese, a Chigi, a Fieschi... I'm very ignorant of the ins-and-outs of Italian nobility I have to confess, though.OttawaAC (talk) 21:52, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Most of those were not of immediate royal descent - the Medici, for example, were bankers who led Florence/Tuscany as a crowned republic that latterly became hereditary. But yes - you're right that there are lots and lots of those among the popes. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:07, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but the Medici also were prolific (there's tons of them) and they tended to marry well. Two were wives of the Kings of France, for example; it would not be unreasonable to suspect that some royal daughters were married into the Medici family. --Jayron32 23:51, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

However, the era of the Medici Popes took place before the family started to marry into royalty. In other words while later royalty were descended from the Medici family... The Medici Popes were not descended from royalty. Blueboar (talk) 00:42, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

May 8

"these dark Satanic mills" vs "those dark Satanic mills"

In adapting William Blake's poem into the hymn "Jerusalem," Sir Hubert Parry quite definitely changed the line "these dark Satanic mills" to "those dark Satanic mills," as is noted here. Is anyone sure why? Have any literary critics (or musicologists?) taken a crack at what the rationale behind the change was? I suppose it could have been unintentional. After all, it breaks the poetic parallelism of the verse. Once you change "these" to "those," the only way to preserve the parallelism would be to change "here" to "there," so Parry's full second verse would best read:

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded there,
Among those dark Satanic Mills?

But if it were unintentional it seems as if the change would have been caught early on. Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:51, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

And here is a performance of "Jerusalem" that sounds as if it uses Blake's original "these" rather than Parry's "those." It's the only one I've come across so far. Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:56, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I've just looked up the text in two hymn books: one retains Blake's "these" and the other uses Parry's "those". Perhaps Parry thought that those mills were no longer "Satanic"? Dbfirs 08:51, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

That was my thought as well, and the only plausible reason I can come up with for the change being intentional. Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 13:31, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if anyone ever asked Parry this while he was alive, but my speculation is that Parry's milieu (or that of his audience) was the posher parts of London and the South East, and from that perspective, the dark satanic mills of the Midlands and the North were "there" and "those mills", not "here" and "these mills". Marco polo (talk) 16:26, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Mmm. Yeah, I see the logic there. In that case, though, why not go ahead and change "here" to "there?" Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 17:44, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

That would rather imply that he believed Jerusalem had been built in the North of England. I don't know that Parry understood Blake to have meant by "mills", but Blake almost certainly wasn't referring to soot-stained factories. BTW, I don't see any conflict between "here" and "those", where "here" includes those things that are (or were) "here", but identified as alien to "Jerusalem" (i.e. the ideal city/nation): essentially the question is: "how can it have been here, among those things". 'These' and 'those' both work. Paul B (talk) 18:27, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Blake was absolutely referring to soot-stained factories. Looie496 (talk) 13:29, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

So you think saying so makes it so? How silly is that? Have you even read Milton: a Poem? I have. He repeatedly uses the term "mills" in contexts that clearly do not refer to factories at all. Any Blake scholar will tell you that. Paul B (talk) 13:59, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

It may have been purely because he felt it sounded better (see Ma Baker!), or even a simple mistake. The verses were sent to Parry by Robert Bridges, who agreed to set them as a wartime patriotic song. It wasn't Parry's personal choice, and he wrote the music in a single evening, if I remember correctly. The words were not well-known at the time, so it wasn't, as it were, a "canonical" work of literature. It does appear to have been Parry's own decision (or possibly mistake). The lines appear with the original "these" in Bridge's own 1915 publication of French and British "great thoughts" The spirit of man: an anthology in English & French from the philosophers & poets. The line is clearly written as "those" in the original 1916 publication of the sheet music by Curwen & Sons. Paul B (talk) 18:11, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I think the explanation is far more simple. Both these and those are demonstrative pronouns. Just as here' is geographically (or by some other metric) closer to there. Thus those is correct because it refers to the subject over there and not over here. Blake was first and full most an artist that also wrote a little poetry and not a poet that could draw and and paint a little.--Aspro (talk) 23:35, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

• Nobody seems to have pointed out yet that "there" and "those" are simply wrong. God's countenance might have shone on the clouded hills, but that isn't where the Dark Satanic mills were built. They were built in the valleys. Looie496 (talk) 13:29, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

This comment is beyond ridiculous. Blake had no knowledge of valleys, except those in the vicinity of Felpham, where he lived at the time, and where there were no factories. Paul B (talk) 14:10, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

What were the "mills," then? Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:33, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Whichever mills Blake was thinking of (these or those), he obviously had an abysmal knowledge of geography, because the line begins with the question: "And was Jerusalem builded here?" (referring to England)... the answer (as anyone here at the Reference desk could have told him) is: "No, Blake, Jerusalem wasn't builded in England... it was builded in Israel, which is thousands of miles from England". And while Jerusalem was builded to include the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite within its walls, we can hardly call that a "Mill" (Satanic or otherwise). Blueboar (talk) 22:25, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Yep. And "builded" isn't even a word. The proper past tense of "build" is "built." Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:44, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

See poetic licence. HiLo48 (talk) 00:47, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

My reply above was facetious. I think/hope Blueboar's was too. Duncan nailed it below. Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:50, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

"Builded" would be what I believe is called a hypercorrection, and it scans better. Anyway, Jesus of course came to Cornwall and Glastonbury as a young lad (with his Uncle Joe), and that, together with ideas of the New Jerusalem was what Blake was on about. DuncanHill (talk) 00:50, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

A quick check of the Authorized Version and the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" suggests that "builded" was the simple past tense of "build" at one point, while "built" was (for a time) exclusively the past perfect form. Franklin Delano Roosevelt used it in a speech on the Hoover Dam as well. Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:02, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

David Crystal's blog has an interesting piece on builded/built in the Authorized Version here. DuncanHill (talk) 00:22, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

And as for dark satanic mills, our article And Did Those Feet does mention the Albion Mills, which seem a likely inspiration. See also, e.g. this and this for more on the mills. DuncanHill (talk) 01:11, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

So, what does this boil down to. Sir Hubert Parry had a better grasp of English grammar than did Blake.--Aspro (talk) 22:22, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I think it's likely a difference in intended meaning. Neither "these" nor "those" is grammatically incorrect, but I still maintain that substituting "those" for "these" breaks the verse's ideal parallelism, something Blake tended to pay a lot of attention to. Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:10, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

"These dark satanic mills" has a greater immediacy than "those..." - the mills are here and now and among us, not "over there somewhere" where we can ignore them. DuncanHill (talk) 00:14, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. So "those" mills (whatever Blake meant them to be and whatever Parry understood them to be) were, for Parry, at a somewhat more comfortable distance than for Blake. Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:17, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Jakob Lorber

Hi. Still working on Jakob Lorber, and having trouble finding personal info about him. Susan Youens' digression about him is great and answers some questions, especially how he made a living, but is there any record of him getting married, any romances, children, anything like that? The only accounts I can find are very partisan and theosophical.

Thanks Adambrowne666 (talk) 04:04, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I've moved this to the bottom, and restored the Reference page formatting you deleted when you asked this question. Rojomoke (talk) 05:47, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

About the 30-day SSI rule - could I just visit a US diplomatic mission once a month to get around it?

So I can't leave the USA for 30 consecutive days and still receive SSI. There are plenty of safe countries where $721/month would go quite a bit farther and leave me a more comfortable life.

Now, at first, I thought of living in a border town near the US so I could walk over for a brief monthly visit, in order to stay within SSI guidelines. However, I can't live near the border in Canada because their rents are probably too high! I could live near the border in Mexico (what are their home or apartment rents anyway?), but I don't know of a "safe" border town. I could still walk across for a monthly visit as long as I had my passport. However, we know border towns are where the drug cartels conduct a lot of activity to get their products across. I'd hate to get robbed and such, or even have the fear of it, by the drug cartel gangs. Anyone looking American would be deemed an easy target to mug.

That's why I thought of instead, living in Belize. It has that exotic combination of English being the official language, lower suicide indices, higher happiness indices, and a lower cost of living. What say I live close to a US Embassy or Consulate, and pay them a visit once a month in order to not run afoul of SSI's 30-day rule? After all, a US diplomatic mission is considered "sovereign US soil," which makes me assume that as soon as I walk onto US diplomatic mission grounds, it's like walking back into the United States, thereby making good on not staying out of the USA for more than 30 days at a time. --2602:30A:2EE6:8600:44D3:8C1D:83B3:61C5 (talk) 10:48, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

You would need to contact a lawyer. Wikipedia cannot give advice in this realm. --Jayron32 11:47, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Embassies are not the sovereign territory of the incumbent nation, US or otherwise. See Diplomatic mission#Extraterritoriality. Rojomoke (talk) 12:17, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

So I suppose if Social Security doesn't count setting foot on embassy grounds as "returning to the United States," what say I live in a Mexican border town and revisit the other side of la frontera once a month? --2602:30A:2EE6:8600:F54B:B279:33F6:C1D7 (talk) 12:27, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Does it count as legal advice to remind someone their IP address is permanently attached to their potential plan to milk the government? If it does, I won't. InedibleHulk (talk) 12:47, May 8, 2014 (UTC)

Except for disability claims, SS is basically them giving back money you contributed while working, so it seems like the reverse, that them refusing to return your money because of where you choose to live is them milking you. StuRat (talk) 13:46, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Aye, both sides milk each other. But one has a lot more milk, and decides most of the rules. This is like the "I'm not touching you" defense, if the kid explained to the world throughout how his finger was only almost in your eye, so you're powerless to resist. In a strict legal sense, he's right. But in another sense, the rulebook goes out the window. Maybe a bit farfetched.

But if they have the rule, they obviously want you shopping domestically. That chocolate bar from the gas station across the river once a month is technically fair, but just a phallic gesture. In the other hand, there's this and these. Again, maybe farfetched. InedibleHulk (talk) 14:50, May 8, 2014 (UTC)

A few points related to living inexpensively:

1) Yes, there are cheap places to live abroad, but those are generally not places an American would want to live, and tend to lack the basics, like indoor plumbing, reliable electricity, window screens to keep bugs out, access to medical care, internet, etc. There are also nice places to live abroad, but those are more expensive.

2) There are many cheap places to live in the US. The cost of living here in Detroit is quite low, for example. Many rural areas are also inexpensive. Perhaps you might consider US territories, like Guam, the Marshall Islands, and Puerto Rico. Presumably staying there would satisfy the SS.

3) For $721 a month, you'd probably want a room-mate, or to rent a room, rather than a whole apartment. Cars are also a major expense, so you might want to find a place where you can get around on foot, bicycle, or public transportation. StuRat (talk) 13:38, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

You didn't mention your age, but in many parts of the US, there are subsidized rental units for seniors that set your rent at 25% or so of your income. Often, there is a waiting list of a year or two for such units. You might try moving to a region with low costs that is walkable or has good public transportation. (Though low costs and good public transportation tend not to occur together in the US, so maybe your best bet is a town or small city small enough to be walkable but large or regionally important enough to have a range of services, maybe someplace like New Bern, North Carolina.) Then live there with one or more roommates while you wait for your subsidized unit to become available. I have a relative in this situation, and he supplements his income with part-time work, even though he is 79. That might be something to consider too, if possible. Marco polo (talk) 16:21, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

The OP is asking about Supplemental Security Income, not the actual Social Security (United States) which seems to have no residence requirements. Rmhermen (talk) 18:44, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Which of those two does your "which" refer to? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:18, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

added comma. Rmhermen (talk) 20:45, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Preferring faith over personal evidence?

Has there ever, in recent history, been any notable cases where a religious person has seen by their own very eyes something that is in conflict with their religion, but still rejected their own personal evidence and continued to believe what their religion says anyway? JIP | Talk 17:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Believing in a religion, a heliocentric round world, and evolution myself, I'd consider this a matter of "science versus pseudoscience" instead of "science versus religion", but modern flat earthers and geocentrists usually claim quasi-religious grounds for their belief (although even St Augustine would have to say they must be reading the scriptures wrong if they have to argue against mainstream science). I could also bring up evolution (particularly Theistic evolution) versus Young Earth Creationism, but the YECs usually respond that the "evidence" for evoluion is either misunderstood, the devil's lies, or only proof of "microevolution" (YECs being the only people who think that acknowledging that microevolution's 2+2=4 doesn't also acknowledge macroevolution's 2+4=6 or 4+4=8). Ian.thomson (talk) 18:50, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

The classic example is Galileo's telescope and the moons of Jupiter. Many Catholics refused even to look through it, but of those who did, many decided that they preferred to believe the word of God's chosen leaders rather than the evidence of this instrument whose workings they did not understand. Looie496 (talk) 13:17, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Of course, Galileo's telescope was quite lousy, so it took some faith to actually see the moons of Jupiter ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:29, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

In their defense, if they didn't understand how the telescope worked, it wouldn't make logical sense to just assume that Galileo hadn't rigged the whole thing. Scientists' personal observations also require some faith. The "canals of Mars", for example. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:09, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Seems like that was a case of too much faith in one's own imaginations, not too little. --Bowlhover (talk) 15:30, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

The point is that you must not just "see" the facts with your eyes, you must also have an honest mind. Huge numbers of evangelical christians have the evidence of evolution all around them and have had it explained to them, but they still believe otherwise. For a notable case, pick any currently notorious televangelist. Similar situations hold true with most other religions, many political beliefs, and even amongst sports fans (cf. famous fans of the Chudley Cannons!). Most people lie to themselves most of the time. RomanSpa (talk) 17:41, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

To be fair, the phenomenon of rejecting facts that conflict with ones firmly held beliefs is not confined to religion. It happens in politics... people often reject a fact that conflicts with their political viewpoint. It even happens in academia, when new facts emerge that causes doubt as to the accuracy of a long accepted theory. There is a natural human tendency to ignore, dismiss and reject "facts" that don't fit one's world view... no matter what field of endeavor you are talking about. Blueboar (talk) 03:21, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Indeed - you'll see that I specifically mentioned politics above. Academia is slightly different, in my experience. I think every academic has his own view of the world, and will subscribe to a particular set of theories. However, an "honest" academic will change his view if evidence to the contrary arises. This isn't always an easy thing to do, even for the very open-minded. It usually takes me several weeks to change my mind on something, even once I've been shown the evidence, because I hate admitting I was wrong. I can only think of one or two cases where I've changed my mind about something in an instant. The point, though, is that academics do change their minds in the face of evidence against their position - that's kind of the touchstone for being an academic. Indeed, you might make the case that the fact that some "academics" have no meaningful way of identifying whether a proposition is true or false and thus cannot be persuaded from one position to another by rational means is an excellent indicator that they are really charlatans. RomanSpa (talk) 07:43, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Surely every time a prayer doesn't work is evidence against religion. HiLo48 (talk) 03:49, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

"The Lord works in mysterious ways", or, more graphically, "Zeus was so worn out be Hera that he fell asleep".--Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:21, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Did you mean "God Moves in a Mysterious Way"? Alansplodge (talk) 17:44, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I was out for the meme, not the hymn... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:55, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Or evidence for the rather old position that God isn't Santa Claus and that prayer is meant to be meditative. Even Apollonius of Tyana (purportedly) taught that, and accounts of his life are completely unbelievable. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:33, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Tell that to the Christians who publicly pray for very concrete (and often quite selfish) things. Is their faith tested when their god doesn't deliver? HiLo48 (talk) 22:58, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

The point is that the Bible doesn't promise that God will say "yes" to a prayer; I could give you plenty of examples if you cared. Please remember that the RD isn't a soapbox, however. To go back to the original question, you may find the Great Disappointment relevant. I'm not sure, though, if that's the case: those involved in the incident soon began to believe a modified idea (if they didn't leave the faith); they began saying that the basic Millerite idea was right, but that Miller had been quite mistaken in interpreting the result. A vaguely comparable event happened in 1914, when the Jehovah's Witnesses said that Jesus would return; they later announced that he'd returned in a not-so-physical way. Perhaps this is what you mean, or perhaps this is the opposite because the beliefs got modified. Nyttend (talk) 14:04, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what you think the Bible means. Many think differently. Some ask for concrete, selfish things in prayer. They don't get them. That seems to match the OP's question pretty well. HiLo48 (talk) 20:56, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

That wasn't your phrasing though. It was that "every time prayer doesn't work" (as if that is the sole purpose of prayer) "is evidence against religion" (in general, as if all religion is founded primarily upon the concept of praying for things). "When people pray for things and do not get them can lead to examples of persons preferring faith over evidence" would have been a non-soapbox-y phrasing.

It's as soapbox-y as if someone asked "are there ways faith and science cooperate," and someone replied with "when a person practices meditative prayer, their health improves." Yes, there can be some small benefits for certain persons, but it's a broad overstatement meant to push a unilateral (even fundamentalist) view of an extremely complex subject. Your remark that "It doesn't matter what you think the Bible means" cuts both ways. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:36, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

You have chosen to interpret what I wrote in an extreme way. Read it again, and don't assume the worst. HiLo48 (talk) 00:48, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

My old next-door neighbour was an evangelical Christian. She used to pray all the time, for the most minor things. Every time she went to the mall, she would pray for a good parking spot. I remember asking her once if the times that her "parking" prayer weren't answered proved that god wasn't listening all the time (I didn't have the heart to make the claim that it meant that god did not exist - she was a nice lady after all). Her answer was that god listened to all prayers all the time - just that the ones he didn't answer "weren't a part of his grand plan for you/the universe/whatever". Now why god would be worried about parking at the mall I don't know, but the point is that anything can be rationalised anyway very simply if you want. Her faith in god was totally not shaken when her prayers weren't answered. I know this because she often told me that her prayers went unanswered. I think if you look at prayer anyways it is not a demand but a request. Your parents don't always buy every Mars Bar you ask them for, and Christians feel that they have the same kind of relationship with god, as far as I can tell from the Christians I've been associated with. 59.167.253.199 (talk) 05:24, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Crafter too good, King cripples him.

I am trying to remember where a tale is from. I think it is from Norse Mythology, but I might be wrong. My google-fu has failed me.

A craftsman (a dwarf?) does some amazing craft work for a king (a giant?). The king wants no one else to have this crafter, so the crafter is crippled and forced to work for the king. The crafter eventually builds a new set of legs and escapes.

Any ideas? Tdjewell (talk) 18:00, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Isn't that the opening plot (roughly speaking) of Iron Man? --Jayron32 18:15, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Isn't that the opening plot (roughly speaking) of Genesis? --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:01, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

It sounds familiar to me - also a sculptor blinded by the king comes to mind. I wouldn't know it from Iron Man, pretty sure either Norse or Greek. But, alas, for once my Google-fu has failed me too. DuncanHill (talk) 18:36, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

It was parodied in The Colour of Magic. The craftsman built silver golems for a king, then was blinded. He learned to use his other senses to craft and built a great palace, only to have his right hand cut off. He built a new hand, then after his next project he was hamstrung, so he built a flying machine from bamboo and silk to escape. After completing his next great work he was shot through the chest with an arrow. His last words, after inspecting the tip of the arrow, were "shoddy workmanship." Unfortunately I don't know the original source of the story either. Katie R (talk) 19:42, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

L-space has a couple of suggestions for the origin, neither of them are quite what I was thinking of. DuncanHill (talk) 19:56, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

It's often associated with the architect of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow. Ivan the Terrible supposedly thought the onion domes were so impressive, that he had Postnik Yakovlev blinded to prevent him from building anything superior. The legend probably predates Ivan, I suspect. OttawaAC (talk) 21:40, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I guess that's what happens when you try to gain a psychopath's favor. You can't win. Or maybe he could've saved his eyes if he had held back. He wanted to enjoy his passion and the 1560 Russia alternative of working for the king (farming) was so boring to geniuses, you almost can't blame him. I wonder if most geniuses didn't put a full effort till only a few hundred years ago, at least for the crazier kings? Especially (ironically) after the period (Renaissance) that planted the seeds of end of common torture? By not being obsessed with religion and not having to expensively write each book by hand when only like 1% were literate, that made hearing of a story like this more likely. How much has this set humanity back? Maybe even in technological development, not just art? (see what mechanics skill supposedly got the 1490 guy below) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:49, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

The crippled craftsman is a fairly common motif in mythology. See, for example, Wayland the Smith (possibly the example you're thinking of) or Hephaestus. --Carnildo (talk) 02:46, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Wayland the Smith is what I was looking for. I remember now it was specifically hamstringing. Tdjewell (talk) 11:28, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

For another example with blinding: Prague astronomical clock#History dates to 1490 as "legend" but I've read it elaborated by a 20th C. author, probably European.

Or Nicolas Fouquet who built a stunning mansion at Vaux-le-Vicomte to impress Louis XIV, but only incurred royal jealousy and was banged-up with the Man in the Iron Mask for the rest of his life. Louis went off and built Versailles so as not to be outdone. Alansplodge (talk) 17:41, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Funding PhD students

The topic of funding for PhD students arose at the end of a symposium and apparently at my university:

• the majority of science PhD studentships are paid (students gets money)
• the majority of humanities PhD studentships are unpaid (student gives money!)

How are the humanities students funding their studies? What are their motivations? --129.215.47.59 (talk) 18:50, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Which country are you referring to? Paul B (talk) 19:03, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

IP geolocates to Edinburgh. Don't know how the humanities people are funding themselves, but I would think the reason is that there is far more money for actual research than for humanities studies. Rightly so, of course. Fgf10 (talk) 19:23, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't know how it works elsewhere, but in Canada I got tons of funding for a humanities PhD. I think it was something like $20,000 a year, or a bit less I guess. But of course the school greatly encourages you to win funding from the government or from other scholarships. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:40, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

The easiest way to find the answer to that specific question is to check the website for your university. It should provide information about the nature, size, and requirements of the funding packages for its various graduate programs. Better universities guarantee a survivable stipend for their graduate students, but not all schools do. Students that aren't provided a (full or partial) stipend from funds provided by the university, their department, and their supervisor are expected to make ends meet by applying for scholarships, bursaries, and grants, and by teaching (generally undergraduate courses). Students who can't come up with enough funding from those sources are left with the same options they had during their undergraduate years: part-time jobs outside the university, relying on the largesse of relatives, and accumulating personal debt. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:46, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure someone, somewhere, has done a PhD in "funding models and motivations of doctoral students in the humanities". DuncanHill (talk) 21:53, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Motivations can be so broad... for a mature student who is mid-career, a humanities PhD can be a good career move and well worth the investment. Remember, humanities encompasses a wide range of fields in addition to the liberal arts.... having said that, I've known people who took out huge student loans to fund liberal arts PhDs, then faced limited job opportunities and ferocious competition. I'm not sure what the allure is in those situations. OttawaAC (talk) 21:55, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

The thrill of the hunt! The thrill of doing pointless research no one will ever read! (I actually do love that second one.) The job search in my field was once compared to dating, which is more terrifying than anything else. Adam Bishop (talk) 23:23, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

In the United States it is not the case that the majority of PhD studentships are unpaid in the humanities. Most PhD students receive funding with a small stipend guaranteed for a certain number of years, typically requiring teaching, research, or other activities. Anecdotally, of the maybe 50-60 current or former grad students I know well enough to have this information, the only ones that paid their way through a program did so because they were working a separate job at the same time. --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  06:05, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

May 9

Screaming at concerts

I was listening to The Kinks on one of their early live albums (probably Live at Kelvin Hall), and noticed the incessant screaming that was a hallmark of the era. It made me wonder, and not for the first time, about the history of this odd behavior: in particular, when and why did it stop? Did it stop being tolerated by the performers (I know the Beatles hated it, and I'm sure others did too), or was it a fad that just faded away? Have any rock scholars covered this topic? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 14:46, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Do they scream at Justin Bieber concerts? (Or did they before he started accumulating some bad press?) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:02, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

It never stopped. Some bands attract screamers and some don't. Remember that the Kinks were a pop act that attracted young people (who tend to do the most screaming, especially the girls). They are old now. New bands attract the screaming, like One Direction and acts like that. Mingmingla (talk) 15:52, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• This article from 1993] does a pretty good job of giving the overview of scholarship on girls screaming at concerts. It cites the works of sociologists and psychologists who have looked at the phenomenon. --Jayron32 17:58, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

  More: I've seen a few blogs and discussion forums (like here) that note that Erich Fromm discussed this very phenomenon in his work The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. --Jayron32 18:02, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Here's another interesting article that traces music concert "mania" back to... Franz Liszt and the Lisztomania of the 1840s.[1] (The young Liszt actually did have a pretty amazing head of hair along with his musical talent...) Charles Lindbergh and Rudolph Valentino had hordes of screaming fans too. OttawaAC (talk) 21:01, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

It still happens on TV singing competitions. As soon as the audience recognise the song, they start screaming (as if to drown it out), then they tend to grow quiet (as if to actually listen to the the performance), until the "climax note", when they all scream again (as if to drown it out once more. Crazy. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:36, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Given the manufactured nature of such shows, and the fact that live TV shows often have audience warm-up phases where the producers get the audience into the state desired for the broadcast part of the show, the screaming is presumably a desired behaviour. It doesn't impress me, but then I'm not normal. I wonder who it does impress? HiLo48 (talk) 22:44, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Vince McMahon. His top dog this last decade has been raking in the cash, primarily on his ability to make low-voiced people want to outscream high-pitched ones. It's acoustically impossible, but the resulting cacophony is good for business (and what is pro wrestling, but the concert business with less music?) InedibleHulk (talk) 23:24, May 9, 2014 (UTC)

Resting place of Kings of Naples

Where are all the kings of Naples descended from Ferdinand I of Naples and their consorts buried?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 15:00, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

According to the Italian wikipedia they are all buried in the sacristy of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples: "According to tradition, the whole Aragonese dynasty (1442-1503) was buried there and among the bodies was also present that of King Alfonso V of Aragon, called the Magnanimous, who died in 1458, whose remains however were transferred to Spain in 1668 [my translation]." --Cam (talk) 15:24, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I have more details (monarch, burial place):

Ferdinand I, San Domenico Maggiore [2]

Alfonso II, Messina Cathedral [3]

Ferdinand II, San Domenico Maggiore [4]

Frederick, "chiesa dei minimi di Plessis-les-Tours" (Couvent des Minimes de la Place Royale?); in 1562 his tomb was broken into and the bones scattered. [5]

--Cam (talk) 15:42, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Why is the Vice President not Acting President while the President is out of the country?

Why does the American Vice President not become Acting President while the President is out of the country? I ask, because most Lt. Governors become Acting Governor while the Governor's absence from the state. Wouldn't it be more logical the other way around, as federal business is more "important" than the states'? --78.50.240.5 (talk) 20:12, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I think it has to do with the Constitution. It states that the Vice President's role is head of the Senate, and only becomes Acting President when the current one is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office", according to the 25th Amendment, which I don't think applies when the President is, say, traveling to Serbia or wherever. And plus, the rules vary from state to state because of different constitutions and junk. today too, i don't necessarily think that it's more logical that way in the federal government, because the president and vice president are more and more frequently out of the country and what happens then/? ~Helicopter Llama~ 20:31, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Not only the constitution, which is the correct answer, but also the fact that presidents attend foreign funerals and conferences as heads of state, while governors don't, and the most recent amendment, the 25th, addressing this after Kennedy's assassination, was written in the instant telecommunication age. μηδείς (talk) 20:48, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Governors attend out-of-state functions too. Every constitution is different, and part of it probably is date, but part is probably the importance of the president: Changing presidents is a big deal (the acting president could start a war), while it generally doesn't matter too much if a LG officially takes over once in a while. Most people won't even be aware that the LG has taken over, but imaging the uproar if Cheney had been acting president. — kwami (talk) 20:52, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Bad example. "If"? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 22:23, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I see what you did there...--Jayron32 02:12, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Note that until the 20th century it used to be that US presidents never did leave the country. The first to do so was Theodore Roosevelt, who visited Panama in 1906. Then at the end of WW1 Woodrow Wilson spent months in Europe, primarily at the peace talks leading to the Treaty of Versailles. If Roosevelt felt he could leave the country and still be president, and Wilson felt he could do it for a period of months, then the precedent was set and it would take a constitutional amendment to change it.

P.S. In the CAPTCHA that I had to pass to post the external links here, the first word was teddy. Cute! --50.100.193.30 (talk) 07:20, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

The Associated Press is wrong here; Wilson was the first president to travel outside the United States. See Canal Zone, a US territory, which is what Roosevelt was visiting. Nyttend (talk) 13:54, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

How did TR get from DC to Panama without leaving US territorial waters? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:11, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Why are SATs and ACTs at like 7 am?

What the hell is wrong with them? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:09, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

the brain is more active and efficient in the morning, long tests need plenty of time, and college board simply loves torturing their american teenagers <3 ~Helicopter Llama~ 22:13, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Don't mornings usually involve things like being at least 30 minutes after the minimum physically possible full-sleep time (8:30 for teenagers), to allow for travel? Although it'd be possible with prescription medicine. Or flying 1 or 2 thousand miles to the west (if allowed), or traveling slowly to the east spending enough time to acclimate to the local astronomical and horological conditions followed by a mad dash to the test, similar to mountain climbers. I'm serious. I know I'm not exaggerating because I went east by bus at age 15.4. It took me all of 4 hours to notice the 7% faster time. "Why'd it get dark so soon? Oh, local solar time". I didn't notice 2 straight days of 25 hours on the way there. I feel sorry for people who live in my time zone and 10° to the west. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:17, 10 May 2014 (UTC) (Also, I didn't notice the change to 24 hour days in between (I had 2 1/2 of them) so this is definitely a circadian incompatibility to losing as little as 18 minutes from a 24 hour day. The next 2 days felt short, like slight time traveling — they were 23 hours. I didn't like them.) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Also, my other question got late morning as the time of peak performance. The test proper starts about the time otherwise known as brushing your teeth or sleep. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

The test is administered by people whose biological clocks consider that a decent time to be up and about, instead of taking into consideration that teenagers are naturally more awake a couple hours later. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:16, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

It's good preparation for jobs that demand high level performance over very long and inconvenient hours. HiLo48 (talk) 22:36, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

And who's forcing you to choose to work 7-5? Work 9-5, live within 15 minutes, eat in the train or car, and you get a full sleep up 30 minutes later than the minimum you're capable of (midnight) to. So the reverse affirmative action for a group already favored by life (teens physically capable of sleeping b4 11; teens who's parents would find a doctor or buy a few points with medium-haul air tickets thus showing cash, convinceability and helpfulness that'll help them all life) and hour minimum of sleep deprivation is a purposeless prep for something that doesn't have to happen. An infringement of liberty, too. G-d, if any parents would let their Eastern Time kids test in Denver instead of taking the drugs because they heard the hour of medicated sleep is slightly less restorative than natural sleep then those kids won't ever need their diploma.Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Not if your shift's usually from 3 pm to midnight. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:38, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't think any other English-speaking countries would start tests quite as early as that. Some children must be having to get up and five, and probably not have any breakfast. Is there a logistical reason for it? Itsmejudith (talk) 00:57, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

In the US's defense it's actually 8am but no one would arrive that late, and I just could not perform well on the Formula One-like ACT without time to relax first which is why I remember the dreaded 7 (I arrived 7:something). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

That's still earlier than any exam I've taken. GCSEs and A-levels generally start at 9am if they're morning exams, with a few exceptions at 11am and things like that. 9am is the time most people expect to start a workday or a schoolday (most schools start roughly half an hour earlier, but in such a way that lessons start at roughly 9): why would you start an exam earlier than that? Does the exam take more than 6 hours to complete? 86.146.28.229 (talk) 10:10, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

It takes some time for the teachers who are administering the test to ensure that everyone has number 2 pencils... then hand out the test material... then read the test instructions out loud, and make sure that everyone understands how to correctly fill in the little ovals ... etc. etc. Only after all these (mandatory) preliminary steps are done, can the actual testing begins... and by then it is a more reasonable hour. Blueboar (talk) 02:58, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

That still doesn't solve the problem that it's physiologically impossible for some to fall asleep before ~11, except in cases of prescription medicine or much worse preparatory sleep deprivation that I didn't want to do (I might've needed up to 2 hours of undersleep for up to 3 days to achieve 10pm, I don't remember, I tend to not make up sleep on that side). I remember feeling sleep deprived at least an hour after the preliminaries started. The ACT starts with a 45 minute barrage of almost a hundred questions and the SAT has harder questions, that's what you want to do sleep deprived? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Ever travelled to a different time zone? HiLo48 (talk) 06:16, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

By bus at age 15.4, in mid-February. I went due west of New York for 2 days. I did the reverse after 62 hours. So 2 dusks were an hour late (gaining 2 hours), then 2 were on-time. I didn't feel anything. I learned that could live in 25 hour solar days for the rest of my life. I didn't even think of time after that, until dark came only 0.3 hours early and I suddenly realized it "The day's over already? Oh right, local solar time" It took me only 4 hours to notice and dislike "107% speed time". If the Earth accelerated to 23:42 I might not be able to keep up. The next 2 days felt short, like slight time traveling — they were 23 hours. I didn't like them. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 11:51, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not a teen anymore but I still don't mind a 4am bedtime. If it doesn't pass 4 then sleeping an hour later is as easy as staying still. 2 hours is still easy. I've gone from 12 to 4am in one night a few times. (sometimes that's mediumly hard but 2-3 times it was easy) I still can't sustain evening sleep. Or go backwards (note my reaction to 23:42 days). Non-prescription sleeping pills can only help like 15 minutes and just make me uncomfortable for nothing before that. I wanted a quicker fix so I found out what the side effects of going above the standard dose were and what would warn me that I'm nearing irreversible damage. I just could not sleep more than unless it felt close to surgical anesthesia. That would've worked awesome, I wish I could have something that felt like that did. I took 1 more pill every 11 till I reached 10 pills. I hoped that by 10 (10!) the irresistible force might finally move the immovable object and I'd finish the bedtime relocation in one night. Instead I just got sleepier then I've ever been in my life and it could never be ended by sleep. I'd always fell asleep fast when I was very sleepy before. The anxiety might be psychotropic. I think I even got sleepy and alert at the same time. And the worst flavor of sleepiness, maybe even worse than 2-5 hour sleep-deprived sleepiness. I think I felt a little like falling. It felt like an illegal drug. I didn't get "high" but they don't all make you "high". It was starting to make my lungs uncomfortable. I thought this might be like a weaker version of what a lethal injection feels like, with a different heart drug. My eyes got sore from the closing, and I only did that when it was working. My heart was beating twice as fast and even though the way it was decelerating maybe 100 pills wouldn't fail a heart from exhaustion and that was "the sign" I decided to never take this drug again. (Prolly hell on earth if you were conscious 100 pills, though) It only made it easy to sleep after I woke from sufficient sleep. Fucking pills. It was hard not to nap then. Don't do this, it's very unpleasant and I don't know what effects this has on the liver, though it was brief.

After that, I took 10 melatonin pills and listened to the most sleep-inducing song ever made, according to scientists, thrice. A song which has a non-zero chance of making you involuntarily sleep while driving. I thought this was guaranteed to make me sleep 4 hrs early in one swoop. Didn't work. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 11:51, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm certain that there's a gender difference here and that boys' brains have been proved to function best later in the morning than girls', but I can't find a reference at this moment (maybe it's too early!). Alansplodge (talk) 08:28, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Confirmation! I'm male. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 11:51, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I got relevant Google search results from these papers: Gender, the Brain and Education: Do Boys and Girls Learn Differently? by Angela Josette Magon, Do Later School Start Times Really Help High School Students? Evidence supports later school starts for high school students. John Cline, Ph.D. and A’s from Zzzz’s? The Causal Effect of School Start Time on the Academic Achievement of Adolescents, USAF Academy. I'm afraid you'll have to read them to find out if there's anything pertinent to your query - good luck. Alansplodge (talk) 17:35, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

My high school classes started at 6:45 AM, the bus picked us up at 6 AM, I had to leave home at 5:30 AM to get to the bus stop in time, and it took me a couple hours in the morning to shower, shave, eat breakfast, get dressed, etc., so I had to be up at 3:30 AM, and had to set my alarm to 3 AM to get up then. To get 8 hours sleep, then, I had to be in bed by 7 PM, even when it was light out and people were making lots of noise. It was like a conspiracy to deny me my sleep. I ended up napping for hours every day after school.

I think the reason the high school started so early was that they used the same buses for high school, starting at 6:45, middle school, starting at 7:30, and elementary school, starting at 8:15. Still, you'd think they could have shifted everything at least an hour later. StuRat (talk) 01:49, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Adriano fiorentino

What is this File:Adriano fiorentino, medaglia di ferdinando d'aragona principe di capua.JPG? It is not a coin. --The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 23:48, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I think 'megdalia' translates as 'medal or 'medallion'. Our article on Medals notes that "In Europe, from the late Middle Ages on, it became common for sovereigns, nobles, and later, intellectuals to commission medals to be given simply as gifts to their political allies to either maintain or gain support of an influential person. The medals made be made in a range of metals, such as gold, silver-gilt, silver, bronze, and lead, depending on the status of the recipient. They were typically up to about three inches across, and usually featured the head of the donor on the obverse, surrounded by an inscription with their name and title, and their emblem on the reverse, with a learned motto inscribed round the edges. Such medals were not usually intended to be worn, although they might have been set as pendants on a chain. From the 16th century onward, medals were made, both by rulers for presentation and private enterprise for sale, to commemorate specific events, including military battles and victories, and from this grew the practice of awarding military medals specifically to combatants, though initially only a few of the much higher-ranking officers." Such medals/medallions seem to have been common in Renaissance Italy. Adriano Fiorentino was the sculptor who created the medal. [6] AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:53, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

May 10

Carlist and the Pragmatic Sanction of 1830

Was the Pragmatic Sanction of 1830 created with a mind to the tradition of Spanish male-preference cognatic primogeniture?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 01:51, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

According to our article, yes. The succession of the Bourbon monarchs of Spain was an open question; Spanish tradition allowed daughters of the King to inherit if there was no sons; in fact the various Spanish kingdoms had numerous regnant queens throughout history. The problem came when the Bourbons (a French dynasty) inherited. The French did not allow women to inherit (or even to trace a line of inheritance through a woman). It wasn't a problem until Ferdinand had two daughters and became very sick; he didn't want his brother to inherit, so he made explicit that he would follow Spanish (not French) tradition in the matter. --Jayron32 02:24, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Kangar paintings

Ok folks, any art experts up for a challange?

Recently, I took another look at File:Shamirpu1.jpg

and found an identical artwork was mentioned here:

http://blog.artoflegendindia.com/2010/12/kangra-paintings-painting-art-of-kangra.html

Is the image a specfic work, if so whose the artist? Sfan00 IMG (talk) 08:16, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

You'll find the details you need here: http://www.artoflegendindia.com/summer-p-4293.html

From the description: "This beautiful Indian painting "Summer"of Kangra style, depicts ... an illustration from a baramasa (the twelve months) series of the month of March-April, which is the first month of the traditional Indian calendar. The verses describe the splendor of the blossoming spring landscape and the sexually exhilarating effect of the season on peacocks and maidens. The painting depicts Krishna standing on a garden terrace with Radha who is trying to persuade the blue skinned lord to stay with her rather then goes traveling during the month. In the background of the painting is a landscape."

You will see that the painting is attributed to a Mr Gopal, and is described as being in the style of Kangra painting. I suspect that it's simply a modern painting in a classical style, rather than an original piece from the 17th-19th century.

RomanSpa (talk) 09:40, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

You will note that the description is wrong, as the picture does not actually contain any peacocks, sexually exhilarated or otherwise. RomanSpa (talk) 09:41, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

RomanSpa, the description doesn't say the picture contains any peacocks, just that the poem it accompanies does. Rojomoke (talk) 11:54, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Excellent point. I was obviously too exhilarated myself. :-) RomanSpa (talk) 11:56, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

OK Tagged the file above as F7 (given that it's not an old image.), There are presumably public domain examples of Kangara paintings? Sfan00 IMG (talk) 10:07, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Schools making kids tour hardened Correctional facilities

I've been reading and watching videos about crime and punishment especially in the U.S. And I can't help wondering, if kids from neighborhoods with a history of youth delinquency were made to see these facilities for themselves, surely the experience would deter them. In particular just imagine being made to tour a facility such as Angola, in Louisiana. Perhaps this would solve the problem of 'black ghettos' which have a reputation of broken families leading to a cycle of youth pregnancy, gangs, narcotic abuse etc that seems to repeat generation after generation.

So my question is are as follows.

1) Have trips to correctional facilities been organised before?

2) Does it offer a deterrent to individuals especially in areas with a history of juvenile gang violence, homicides, robberies etc.

3) Would shipping kids off to see how bad it is getting locked up really be a feasible deterrent.

4) Would it likely have the support of voters. This might be a bit more complicated though in areas with racial tensions.

5) What loop hole could be used to justify such trips (part of humanities classes, or some other class)

If all else fails, it begs the question. What is prison in the U.S. If it's not a deterrent then it's simply punishment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.6.96.72 (talk) 10:15, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Students studying Legal Studies at the higher levels in Australian high schools do such visits, but that's a somewhat special subset of students.— Preceding unsigned comment added by HiLo48 (talk • contribs)

As for 3) the problem is that kids are really poor at risk assessment, especially when it comes to things that might happen in the far future. If you tell kids that smoking might kill them ten or twenty years in the future, it wont stop them from smoking. But tell them that smoking damages your complexion right away, and it will have an effect. I'm sure that we have an article on that, but my wikipediasearch-fu has failed me. Sjö (talk) 10:45, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

For (1), you want them to be Scared Straight! and Beyond Scared Straight. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

With America having 24% of the world's prison population, you might consider that putting so many people behind bars is part of the problem. See United States incarceration rate and list of countries by incarceration rate. Ssscienccce (talk) 11:51, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

15-25% of America's prisoners are unfazeable psychopaths physiologically incapable of feeling fear or anxiety who would literally disembowel a child with a chainsaw if it's the easiest way to get a dollar and feel that's normal. Only if they don't think that they're going to get caught, though. Some amount of the rest are sadists, who do have empathy but their victims' pain of sodomy causes the same feelings in them as our love's affection or cunnilingus reaction does to us. Remember that American who caught teen boys and killed them with injections of acid into their conscious brains? Clearly we are doing a good job. Despite having the same genes as everyone else we have more broken homes than industrialized Europe and East Asia because they didn't have slaves which they never helped enough and are more advanced. Many of the rest are only in for drug addiction and should be in rehab. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 12:51, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

1. Got a source for the claim in that first sentence, and for "we are doing a good job"? 2. Europe had slaves for much longer than the USA. HiLo48 (talk) 17:59, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

That figure still leaves (up to) two thirds you're not sure about, just in the quarter you seem to be sure about. That's about 230,000 individual brains you deemed not worth counting with one hyphen. If a source does exist to back that up, it's not worth much. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:32, May 10, 2014 (UTC)

Are you including the citizenry of North Korea in that count? There, pretty much the entire nation is incarcerated. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:53, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

As for the effectiveness of long prison terms, it does seem to work in one respect, "removal from society". That is, while incarcerated, most criminals are unable to commit crimes on society outside the jail. They can, of course, still attack each other and the guards, and could theoretically commit wire fraud, but there are protections against that. A drug kingpin could also arrange killings and such from behind bars. But, your average house thief won't be breaking into any homes while incarcerated. StuRat (talk) 21:22, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure the Aztecs before us could give many an explanation for how their sacrifices made the Sun rise each day. Much the same thing, for the same reasons, by people thinking the same way. Perhaps the same things will end it. Wnt (talk) 22:02, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

The one theory has nothing to do with the other. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:08, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, I'll admit, I'm not an expert on the ancient Aztecs ... but I bet that a lot of their ideas about the merits of forced sacrifice and the sort of smug satisfaction in imposing it on the lower races would seem very familiar to American judicial tradition. Prison is ultimately a religion - it doesn't teach anything, doesn't do anything, costs a fortune, we know full well other countries do without it, but nobody cares, because it's some kind of divine moral duty to inflict pain on people. Wnt (talk) 22:17, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I should add that the OP's suggestion sort of plays into this - its something done to those people from those neighborhoods for their "own good", in the futile expectation that teaching kids to expect prison as normal for their class - and race - won't inure them to the idea. Meanwhile, no government has the money to offer basic support to the hookers they find on the street, or immediate access to drug rehabilitation, or to offer equal (let alone better) patrols for the poor neighborhoods as for the wealthy; but they can afford to put people who sell "look alike substances" in jail so that you can count on your right to drive into a slum where you've never been before and probably the person selling you dope is selling the real thing. Not to mention, of course, the broader range of funds to keep the drugs illegal and the neighborhoods run by gangs in general. Nobody really cares about what those people have to deal with - they care about their own crooked bottom line, their employment in the industries that the present system creates, and keeping their own neighborhood nice. So it's like any cruel pagan rite, all unreasoning belief in magic around a rotten core of privilege and deception. Wnt (talk) 22:24, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Back to the original question - an educational charity in the UK called The No Way Trust organises some limited prison visits for children over 13,[7] so the idea is not unprecedented. Alansplodge (talk) 22:46, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

It seems if it can be made possibly reasonable regarding psychological consequences it's because of the particularity of Uk schools (School uniforms in England). --Askedonty (talk) 09:20, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Anyone have access to the following Italian source?

I don't know if this is the correct place to ask this, but here it goes. Does anyone have access to the following Italian source?

Zamagni, V (ed), Come Pedere la Pace e Vincere la Guerra, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1997

An editor (developing a reputation for fabrication, plagiarism, and misusing sources) has input information into an article from this source, but refuses to provide any additional information or verify what exactly has been said. From what I can make out, as I do not speak Italian and was only able to find the intro online, the book is a collection of six essays each from different authors.

The editor claims that on page 53, one of the historians states "Italy's limited incursion into south-eastern France had been, despite initial setbacks, relatively successful from a military, strategic and political point of view." (pulled from the article, so I do not know if it was a direct quote from the book).

If anyone has access to this source, can they please clarify:

• If the above was stated on page 53
• If so, why (what is the greater context)
• Which of the six historians actually stated the above

Thanks for your timeEnigmaMcmxc (talk) 11:12, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Resource exchange might be a good place to ask. --ColinFine (talk) 11:05, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks very much Colin, I will try there.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 21:15, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

UK Base rate vs lending rates

Hi there, I am trying to find historical information on banks' (mortgage) lending rates vs the base rate. For instance if the base rate rises up to 2-3% I am interested in what kind of lending the banks will offer based on old data. I am also interested in anecdotal evidence from anyone (obviously knowing this does not constitute advice in any way) Thanks 82.17.99.92 (talk) 12:09, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

A couple of links with what I think you are looking for, the first one has a nice graph too. Base rates and bank interest rates, Graphs > UK Interest Rates - HousePriceCrash.co.uk. DuncanHill (talk) 15:42, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Venetian ceremonial galley of the 1700s

I've been working on galley for quite a while and I've looked a lot at images of the bucentaur. In many paintings in from the 1700s, there is a very large, bright-red galley moored bow first in front of the Molo on Saint Mark's Square. It's on paintings from the 1730s up to the 1780s and is always depicted covered (as though not unused at the time). In seems to be the same vessel in each of the paintings, or at least the same design. Here are the paintings:

• File:Luca Carlevarijs (Italian - The Bucintoro Departing from the Bacino di San Marco - Google Art Project.jpg
• File:Francesco Guardi - Departure of the Bucentaur (detail) - ca 1765-1780 - oil on canvas - Museu Calouste Gulbenkian.JPG
• File:Canaletto - Return of 'Il Bucintoro' on Ascension Day - Google Art Project.jpg
• File:Guardi, Francesco - Bucintoro-festen i Venezia. De venezianske dogers pragtskib "Il Bucintoro" vender tilbage efter "Sposalizio del Mare"-ceremonien på Kristi Himmelfartsdag.jpg (it can be seen behind flagpole on the bucentaur itself)
• File:Canaletto - Bucentaur's return to the pier by the Palazzo Ducale - Google Art Project-x1-y1.jpg (detail from larger Canaletto painting)

Considering it's size and position, it's obviously not a normal war galley or anything like that, but rather a vessel of official improtance. Does anyone know the identity of this particular galley?

Peter ^Isotalo 13:23, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Who was David Murdoch referenced on page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_frontier#Prostitution

On the above page there was a quote attributed to "David Murdoch" and I am curious who he is / was. The quote: "No other nation has taken a time and place from its past and produced a construct of the imagination equal to America's creation of the West". Again, the source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_frontier#Prostitution 71.57.135.253 (talk) 18:33, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

David Hamilton Murdoch, who Amazon identifies as "Principal Teaching Fellow in the School of History at the University of Leeds". The book was published in 2001; a search of Leeds' website suggests he no longer works there. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 19:18, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I was about to answer this with: "Well, David Murdoch is just this guy, you know?" :>) Blueboar (talk) 20:22, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

He was born 1937, which suggests probably now retired: VIAF. Publications seem to be heavily about American history, and that book in particular seems to have been well-regarded. Andrew Gray (talk) 13:26, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Female United States Navy SEALs

Am I correct in reading that only males are eligible to be in the United States Navy SEALs? That's what it says in United States Navy SEAL selection and training. If that's the case, how does the federal government get around the discrimination laws against females? Has this situation ever arisen (i.e., a female contesting this rule), or not as of yet? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:57, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I googled "why are navy seals only men", and it came up with a Navy FAQ[8] which says that it's a legal restriction. And if you check out some of the additional references, you'll find justifications along with the fact that it's under discussion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:17, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. What "additional references" are you referring to? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 00:54, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The references you can see when you google "why are navy seals only men". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:01, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh, OK. You mean the other "hits" that come up in that Google search. I thought you meant that there were references in that Navy FAQ article; and I did not see any there. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:02, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I meant. You get a reasonable cross-section of opinions on the matter. The bottom line seems to be that the nature of the SEALs is not conducive to having women in the mix. And one site pointed out that at least 99.9 percent of American men aren't qualified to be SEALs either. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:38, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if there has ever been an actual case of a woman challenging the regulation... but for what it's worth, there has been a fictional account (See: G.I. Jane). Blueboar (talk) 13:46, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The question would come down to whether there's a constitutional right to be a SEAL, or at least to try out for the job. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:23, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Congress has the constitutional authority “To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.” U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, clause 14. Capitalismojo (talk) 15:39, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Here is a good overview of the issue from the Congressional Research Service. Capitalismojo (talk) 15:41, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The British are debating at this very time; weather or not to allow women to do combat.[9] And why not? I'll stay a block or two away from the wife when she is waving her rolling pin at me. Forget John Wayne and The Green Berets (film). Had she been 20 years older and sent to Vietnam, she would have soon had Hồ Chí Minh begging for forgiveness and promising to buy her a new evening gown. During the Second World War, some of the most fearsome Italian and French resistance operatives were female. So don't think that a woman can't do what a mans got to do (as John Wayne liked to say every time he just got shot in the shoulder and said ah, it just a scratch) (why did he not get shot any were else?).--Aspro (talk) 23:44, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Going into combat is one thing, being a SEAL is another. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:05, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

May 11

Battle of Berlin footage

In this video [10], at 35-36 seconds, a Soviet troop is seen firing a canon while another soviet troop is falling on the ground probably because of absorbing the blast. Is it the case? And how a soldier can fire in such a way that cause freindly fire? --EditorMakingEdits (talk) 06:42, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

That does seem to be the case. We don't see if the soldier gets up again afterwards or if he was seriously injured. The Soviets were well known for their callousness to their own troops, machine gunning those who retreated without orders, see barrier troops and Shtrafbat. This seems to be just carelessness however. Alansplodge (talk) 09:51, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Wikpedia errors becoming an Internet meme: Peter Katin

Is s there a phrase for cases where an error in Wikipedia has ended up being treated as authoritative and widely quoted, with or without attribution? The pianist Peter Katin was educated, as our article now says, based on a published source, was educated at private schools in Balham, Caterham, East Grinstead and Clapham. Up to 17 December 2009 the article said nothing about his schooling but on that date an anonymous editor altered the article to read "He attended Whitgift School in South Croydon..." No reference was given for this change. On Googling for Peter Katin, one finds a number of websites that state that he was educuated at Whitgift, but on examination they nearly all seem to be word for word copies of our article. One of these websites was in turn used as the reference when Peter Katin was added to the list in the "Notable Alumni" section of our Whitgift School article. This list then seems in turn to have been copied lock stock and barrel to the list at Old Whitgiftians website which many people would no doubt consider to be authoritative. I wonder, does this happen often? --rossb (talk) 10:24, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I can't say how often it happens, but it's often enough to have been referenced in popular culture. See also Reliability of Wikipedia#Information loop. Sjö (talk) 10:28, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

It happens often enough that we have had to specifically address the issue in our WP:Verifiability policy (see WP:CIRCULAR). What I would like to find out is how long it takes for a correction to a Wikipedia article to make it onto the internet. Blueboar (talk) 13:34, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

His web site is down but I found a Wayback Machine snapshot, that has a contact page with an email address. Maybe someone could write to it and ask whether he went to Whitgift. Regarding Wikipedia's error rate for this type of info, Roy Rosenzweig examined Wikipedia biographies in 2005[11] and found that while not error-free, they were more accurate than the commercial Encarta encyclopedia, and a Nature assessment of WP science articles found their accuracy comparable to Encyclopedia Britannica. That always seemed like a good target level to me. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 22:37, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

As it happens I'm acquainted with Peter Katin and asked him about this. He e-mailed back and said "So far I've failed to convince Wikipedia that I had nothing to do with Whitgift School! I suppose the major one was Henry Thornton, then known as the South West London Emergency Secondary School, through the forties." (Henry Thornton School is in Clapham.) I mentioned this on Talk:Peter Katin but I imagine it might be classed as Original Research, so have not referenced this on the article itself. --rossb (talk) 22:58, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Yeah, just taking out the info and putting a clarification on the talk page handles the Whitgift issue. WP:FEFS has some more guidance if Peter Katin wants to ask for other corrections or changes. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 00:16, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Ray Kassar

After being accused of insider trading, Ray Kassar settled a case with the relevant government agency, "returning his profits without acknowledging guilt or innocence" according to the article. How/to whom would one return profits? One could figure out who'd bought the shares from him, but since the sale would have a ripple effect, lots of people would have experienced some result of Kassar's sale, and one couldn't return profits to all of them. Alternately, I can imagine him being required to pay the profits as a fine, but that wouldn't exactly be "returning". Nyttend (talk) 14:12, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

He disgorged his profits into a government settlement fund as a fine. The link is to the legal documents. Capitalismojo (talk) 15:56, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

From the SEC boilerplate of such funds: "To receive money from such a settlement fund you make a claim against the fund. To be potentially eligible to participate in the SEC Fund, claimants must submit a completed Proof of Claim Form. Investors whose claims are deemed eligible claimants with so long as those approved transactions calculate to an Eligible Loss under the Plan of Allocation for the SEC Fund. If you are a custodian, trustee or professional investing and claiming on behalf of more than one potentially eligible claimant in a pooled investment fund or entity, you will be required to complete a certification attesting that any distribution you receive will be allocated for the benefit of current or former investors and not for the benefit of management. " Capitalismojo (talk) 16:00, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you; I didn't even know where to start looking. Do you know where you could find a secondary source about this? I'd like to modify the article, but I'm loth to use the legal documents, and Google's returning nothing useful. Nyttend (talk) 19:16, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Glad to help. There's a book Atari, Inc: Business is Fun that talks a little bit about this. I'm not sure its what you need, though. Capitalismojo (talk) 19:35, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Belligerents' diplomacy during WWII

I imagine there must have been some communication links between the Allies and the Axis belligerent nations during WWII no matter how frosty and hostile. But how were they conducted and by whom? And what if the messages were not to the recipients' liking? Was the intermediary in danger of himself being regarded as hostile or partisan? 94.174.140.161 (talk) 16:18, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I believe this kind of thing is typically conducted by diplomats of each side, meeting in neutral territory. See Switzerland during the World Wars; it was probably more relevant during the First than during the Second, because both sides had borders with Switzerland throughout World War I, but it was surrounded by Axis territory during World War II — however, it would have been useful/relevant before France was conquered. The concept of a protecting power may also be relevant: here Country A takes care of Country B's negotiations with Country C. Nyttend (talk) 19:23, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Oops, I failed to read that article myself; note that it has an entire section on Switzerland. I get the impression that it would work as follows:

• Mussolini needs to negotiate something with Roosevelt
• Mussolini calls up the Swiss Embassy in Rome and gives them a message
• Message is sent to Bern, which sends it to Washington
• Swiss Embassy in Washington contacts US State Department and gives them the message
• US State Department receives message and responds in the same manner

Note that Country A can represent Country B in Country C without representing Country C in Country B, but it's entirely possible that Switzerland could have helpe dboth sides this way. Nyttend (talk) 19:30, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

You can see examples of this in the first few notes transcribed here. The first note is from Max Grässli, a Swiss diplomat, to the U.S. Secretary of State, relaying a message from the Japanese government. The next two notes are from the U.S. Secretary of State to Max Grässli, replying to the Japanese government.--Cam (talk) 20:36, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

There is a scene in the 1969 film Battle of Britain in which Baron von Richter (played by Curd Jürgens and apparently a fictionalised portrayal of Joachim von Ribbentrop) pays a visit to the British Embassy in Switzerland, where Sir David Kelly (played by Ralph Richardson), provides a nice cup of tea while von Richter delivers Hitler's terms for Britain's surrender. Whether such a meeting actually took place, I don't know. Alansplodge (talk) 00:32, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Forty Martyrs

I passed a Forty Martyrs church yesterday in Tuscola, Illinois, your typical rural county seat in the midwestern USA. The cornerstone bears the current name of the church, together with a date of 1925. At this time, were churches being dedicated to the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales yet? I see that the martyrs were canonised decades later, but I suppose that there could have been a popular conception of forty martyrs even without official recognition or an official definition of who was included. The only alternative is the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, killed in 320; they seem to be celebrated more in the Orthodox Church, not in the local Catholic parish for a typical Midwestern town (their website gives no indication of being Eastern Rite, for example), and these small-town churches definitely tend to be dedicated to well-known saints or (occasionally) recently canonised ones, rather than a group from 1600 years earlier who are very little known, at least in the West. Nyttend (talk) 21:26, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Oops, never mind; I just discovered this document (see page 2) while looking for information on something else. Apparently they did dedicate it to the ancient martyrs. Nyttend (talk) 21:40, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Only forty? In London, we have had a church dedicated to St. Mary, St. Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins. Apparently, Saint Ursula and her 11,000 handmaidens all had their heads chopped off by those wicked Germans. A church in Cologne marks the spot. Alansplodge (talk) 00:40, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Ancient Peru

Why did the first American civilization develop in Peru? What special conditions (climate, geography, etc) explain its development?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 22:42, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

To answer your question, you'll want to start at the Wikipedia article titled Norte Chico civilization and then follow links from there to more in-depth scholarly studies. --Jayron32 22:58, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

What is the real per capita income of the USA?

I'm doing some research, and there seem to be different figures for the per capita income in the USA:

The 13.7 trillion here would make personal income about $43,217 per capita for a population of 317 million. The figure is confirmed here.

However, the figure here is $28,051[12].

Can someone tell me why the figures are different?

It's easy to get median income for "families" but I'm looking for per capita average income of every man woman and child in the USA. I'm not sure where to get authoritative figures. B^e——C_ritical 23:04, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm guessing that your answer and the Census Bureau's answers are both right, and the difference is that you and they are measuring different things. You've calculated the mean income, but Census Bureau financial demographics generally seem to pay attention to median income; see median and arithmetic mean if you're unclear what I mean. If one person earns $1,100,000,000 annually, and ten people earn $10, $9, $8, etc. annually, the mean income is going to be $100,000,005, but the median income is going to be $6. Nyttend (talk) 01:38, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I think I get it... tell me if I'm right: the CB is calculating the per capita median income, not the per capita income? And this is different from the usual median income we hear about of about $52,000 because it's for individuals. Half of individuals have income less than $28,000 and half have more? B^e——C_ritical 02:31, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but I'm not entirely sure what they mean, either. Tons of people (most children, lots of elderly, prisoners, etc.) don't work and have no income. Are they counted toward the median? Or does the median only track people with a non-zero income? As far as the CB is calculating the per capita median income, not the per capita income, not quite: they're tracking one definition of the per capita income, and you're tracking another. Nyttend (talk) 02:59, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

May 12

Religions with inferior Creators?

The main ones seem to hinge on the idea that the creator god is bigger, older, wiser and just better than its subordinate creations. Is there one (or more) that holds life as we know it resulted from some tinkering gone awry by simpler creatures (which may or may not have survived), like how humans might be kickstarting fancy robots?

Doesn't have to be a pure "religion". A "school of thought" is fine. But I'm not talking about any sort of natural selection. There has to be intent involved in the creation. Like someone physically, hopefully building the first cell, then adding bits and pieces until the bits and pieces automated and recursively self-improved.

I've looked at List of creation myths, but nothing's popping out at me. Don't want to read them all. Any hints? InedibleHulk (talk) 02:01, May 12, 2014 (UTC)

Your "tinkering" bit makes me think of the origins of the Khazad in Tolkien's legendarium (Aulë doesn't want to wait for the Eruhíni to awake, so he makes his own race, and God ultimately accepts them), so if you're familiar with that story, could you please say whether that's basically what you're looking for? Meanwhile, as far as actual religions, Yaldabaoth seems to fit what you're talking about: this is the name of the Demiurge in some ancient Gnostic variants (see the Pistis Sophia, for example), and in general the Demiurge of Gnosticism sounds like he'd qualify. Nyttend (talk) 02:09, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Never heard of that Tolkien story, but I'll look into it. I don't care for stories where humans are some sort of special life (like in Yaldabaoth]], or the creators are omnipotent/immortal/judgmental (like Sophia). Evolution should still happen as "science" says, but the basics must have been built by a strange, intelligent (by the time's standards) group. I found these "nuts". Has a lot of helpful keywords, so consider this mostly resolved. Answer for others, if you want. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:20, May 12, 2014 (UTC)

I remember reading in my American Lit class some Native American legend about Coyote and some other spirits having to make multiple experiments at making something neat, eventually creating with humanity by just messing about, but heck if I know where the book is. I'm pretty sure it was from the western deserts tribes. The Dionysian Mysteries might have taught that we're the ashes of titans nuked by Zeus after they ate his son Sabazius (who later becomes incarnate as Dionysus). Still special (in that we have the divine spark of Dionysus in us), but still an accident.

Going into the realm of fiction, Lord Dunsany's The Gods of Pegana are almost unaware of humanity (and interactions between the two don't necessarily turn out good for either side). It's been a while since I've read it, but I think they kinda just saw humans and said "where the hell did all these little things come from?" Ian.thomson (talk) 02:25, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I had an Ojibwe step-dad for a bit, and heard quite a bit about Coyote, Raven and Grandmother Moon. Not bad (especially when your brain is melting, but again, humans had their own story. There may have been tales where Starving Eagle looked closely into Water Food which would grow and multiply itself, in new forms each season. But oral history fades and morphs so quickly. Especially when your brain is melting. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:40, May 12, 2014 (UTC)

I'm thinking I might've been reading a Navajo creation story. If not them, one of their neighbors. What I'm finding with a slight glance at the first page of the Google search rings bells, with the creators having to actually make multiple worlds because each one just isn't quite right. Ian.thomson (talk) 02:48, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

They all seem to share a the same characters (natural spirits), but the details went all over the place, even from band to band. It's like Tolkienish or Lovecraftian subcultures, but without even a post office, let alone the Internet, for a consensus to take place. They just call it like they see it. Wolves, foxes, salmon, trees, streams: they all project consistent basic attributes, wherever they're seen. Just a matter of brain-melting imagination after that. The good ones get repeated, and the stupid ones go the way of the Jackalope. The Grimm Brothers have a good one on why and how man lives exactly seventy years. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:19, May 12, 2014 (UTC)

The origin of the Khazad (the Dwarves) appears in chapter II of the Quenta Silmarillion, the main part of the Silmarillion. Judging by your comments on Yaldabaoth, I don't think it's what you're trying to find. Nyttend (talk) 02:52, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

No, but the word "Silmarillion" is probably stuck in my head now, so I might check it out. Thanks. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:19, May 12, 2014 (UTC)