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May 7

Anyone ever "speak now?"

Like in how wedding ceremonies, when the one who's doing the wedding says to speak now or forever hold your peace. Is there any famous mid-wedding objections throughout history? Bellum et Pax (talk) 00:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I know of at least one, in fiction, admittedly! Clio the Muse (talk) 01:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

In the Vicar of Dibley, in a dream that the vicar had when she was about to marry David Horton. Sean Bean comes and rescues her. Does that count...? :) PeterSymonds | talk 05:26, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The Vicar of Dibley has an even funnier one, during the wedding of Alice and Hugo (a sweet, innocent, dumb couple) where a woman appears at the back of the church at the critical moment and says something like: "He is already married to me and has three children.". As the shocked congregation turns to her she says: "Oh sorry. Wrong church.". DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:43, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Hahaha, yeah, she has to pick Alice up off the floor! Love that show, shame it's gone. :( PeterSymonds | talk 20:52, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The Graduate! Corvus cornix_talk 19:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, in The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman's character, Ben, is too late for the "forever hold your peace" part. He gets to the church right at the "you may kiss the bride" moment. Elaine apparently is married but she goes off with him anyway. --D. Monack | talk 19:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure I remember another occasion when the groom said 'I do' at that point and was told he was to early, but really he wanted to object. I think it might have been the modern remake of one of Shakespeare's plays, but I forget which one. And Coronation Street and Eastenders have probably both had this happen lots of times. But it seems noone knows of any famous real weddings where it happened, which is a shame.HS7 (talk) 20:24, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

In most places where that is a part of the service, it is usually the last chance to respond to the previously published Banns of marriage. Most objections, I would imagine, are brought to the attention of the officiant prior to the service itself - that is the reason for publishing them prior to the service. Pastordavid (talk) 20:27, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

"In many traditions if banns are read this is not asked.

I seem to remember, from my long time ago legal studies, that, in the UK at least, if you do this as a joke you can be fined; it's a minor criminal offense. --Major Bonkers (talk) 09:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Clinton's vs. Obama's plans

I know that Senator Clinton plans to but a cap on college tuition prices. Does Senator Obama also plan to do this if elected? If so, what is the difference between their plans? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.233.8.220 (talk) 05:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Neither one can do that if elected. A cap on college tuition prices would be the result of a law from Congress. As President, he or she could only agree to the law, not create it. Even if he or she were to veto the law, Congress could still enact it. -- kainaw™ 14:50, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Since very few colleges are federal institutions (and those don't have any tuition), it is not clear how easily this could be done. U.S. colleges are generally private or state-run. Rmhermen (talk) 15:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

A large proportion of the College-going students in the US rely on Federal Student Aid. The government probably has some clout and leverage by denying student loan payments to Colleges and Universities which do not toe the line with their policies - and it's hard to run a successful school if you do not get students. This is reminiscent of how 21 is the national drinking age. Technically, the federal government does not have authority to regulate the drinking age, as that is left to the States - however, Federal money for road repair is tied to having a 21 year drinking age, so unless the States want to lose billions, they all set the drinking age to 21.

As far as what a President can and can't do, while Kainaw is correct that a President needs Congress to pass a law first in order to sign it, a large number of laws actually originate from the White House. (That is, the President drafts a law he/she wants, then gives it to loyal members of Congress to "officially" present.) Additionally, the President may deem that a law already exists which gives him/her the authority to regulate student loans. Thus, he/she may not need an additional law but may accomplish the same thing with an executive order. Most of the federal agencies are part of the executive branch, and are thus under the (indirect) control of the President. Although Congress is needed to authorize the creation of the departments, and give them their mission statements, the day-to-day operations and regulations are not covered by legislation, but by internal rules created by the government agencies (to the fulfillment of the duties set out for them by Congress). As such, they can (usually) be altered by the President without having to involve Congress. I don't know if the Clinton/Obama plans fall under this category, though. -- 128.104.112.85 (talk) 17:50, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=3671 --this is what I was referring to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.233.8.220 (talk) 19:10, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

That isn't putting on a tuition cap, that's giving a $3500 tax credit, which is a drop in the bucket when it comes to tuitions, and doesn't do anything to keep the colleges from increasing tuitions. Corvus cornix_talk 19:20, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

BTW, according to http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/#higher-education, Obama is offering a $4000 tax credit, but it's still a drop in the bucket. Corvus cornix_talk 19:22, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sorry I thought I heard her mention a tuition cap in one of her speeches but I guess it was just tax credit. Thank you. Anything else either of them is planning on doing to help families send their kids to college? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.233.8.220 (talk) 22:04, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

No Revolution in Britain

Marx and Engels always used Britain as the example of the most developed capitalist country, a place where the revolution would come first in accordance with their theory. Yet, not only was there no proletarian revolution but the country, unlike Germany, never even developed a mass party organized on Marxist lines. What is the reason for this? Big Sally (talk) 05:46, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

In a meeting of the General Council of the First International on January 1, 1870 a resolution was passed - of which Marx is assumed to be the author - that said that "[t]he English have all the materials requisite for the social revolution; what they lack is the spirit of generalisation and revolutionary fervour." (Not much of an explanation really - why do they lack the spirit and the fervour, that is the question - so maybe he just didn't know.) 194.171.56.13 (talk) 08:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Could it have anything to do with us being the 'nation of shopkeepers', that so many people here base their income on capitalism that a communist revolution wouldn't help much? Or maybe we're just such nice people that we don't go around doing stuff like that, and just let our government gradually pass laws leading toward socialism and a better life for average people.

Maybe being foreign he didn't understand what it means to be british, and didn't know to include that in his theory.HS7 (talk) 18:57, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Even until this day Britain retains a deep respect for their monarch. The monarchy in the United Kingdom has always been advanced and modern (despite what people say!). The monarchy in Britain has learned to evolve and adapt to the people's needs and desires. That is a very brief summary, you may also want to read Monarchy of the United Kingdom for more information on the evolution of the institution...--Cameron (t|p|c) 19:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep. While the German Empire, Russian Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed during WW1, the monarchy here adapted to the people's desires, and therefore managed to avoid the same fate. It changed its family name from the heavily German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor, and even blocked Nicholas II of Russia from coming to Britain (which would have saved his life) in the face of public opposition. The key thing, as Cameron says, is being able to adapt and change. Probably if Queen Victoria had been alive during WW1... well... but her successors certainly saw the monarchy as an institution of guidance, continuity and moral support, rather than autocracy, authority and power. That's why, I believe, there has been no revolution here, because our monarchy is able to respond to public opinion, and the public love them for it. PeterSymonds | talk 19:26, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

According to our article on the House of Wettin, "Saxe-Coburg and Gotha" was the British Royal Family's Royal House name, while the equally German "Wettin" was their personal surname. Both were changed to "Windsor" in 1917 for the patrilineal descendants of Victoria and Prince Albert.  --Lambiam 10:51, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I suspect the supposed British love of the monarchy has very little to do with it - there is very little evidence of such a love amongst the common folk for most of the period from the time the British lopped off their king's head (some 150 years before it occurred to the French to do this) up until the later years of Victoria's reign. The fondness of (certain) Britons for the monarchy only began to emerge around the time the monarch largely withdrew from political affairs and became a figurehead (i.e. between the beginning and end of Victoria's reign).

What the United Kingdom had by around 1870 - and what Germany, Russia and Austria all lacked - was a constitutional monarchy with an enfranchised middle-class who could elect actual governments. The best that Germany, Russia or Austria managed before 1918 was a partial franchise that voted for legislatures who could be over-ruled by a monarch-appointed government. The potential educated middle-class leaders of any revolution were therefore separated in the UK from the discontented masses. Of course Marx talked of a proletarian revolution but in practice the Marx-inspired revolutions in Europe, successful and unsuccessful, of the years from 1917 onwards were largely led by members of the educated middle-class, not horny-handed autodidacts. In addition, in the late 19th and early 20th century the franchise in the UK was repeatedly extended so that the number of those who were cut off from having a say in their own affairs was reduced repeatedly - and even those who had yet to be enfranchised could see the possibility that they might obtain political power soon and so were less likely to turn to violent means to attempt to obtain it.

To this gradual spread of political power (as a result of which those who also sought greater economic power might also see a way to obtain this through evolution rather than revolution) must be added the fact that the UK did not suffer the same degree of economic, military and political failure as Germany, Russia and Austria all did by the end of World War 1 and it would seem that a great societal breakdown - a sense that things have got worse and only radical change can fix this - is generally required to precipitate a revolution. The people of Britain in contrast generally saw their material conditions improve throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries (and World War I and its aftermath did not change this). I am sure more learned posters will be able to add more detail and probably with greater succintness. Valiantis (talk) 21:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Before proceeding to my own answer I would like second what Valiantis has written here, particularly in relation to the monarchy, which has not always been 'advanced and modern'! For much of the nineteenth century the institution was, in fact, highly unpopular, particularly in the shape of the viciously caricatured George IV and William IV, his equally unprepossessing brother. The institution regained some of its popularity in the early years of Victoria, but declined again in stature and estimation after the Queen disappeared into exaggerated and morbid forms of mourning following the death of Prince Albert. This was a time when the republican movement began to gain ground in Britain. It was really only in the later years, as she came back into public view, that the 'Widow of Windsor' managed to restore the reputation of the crown. Clio the Muse (talk) 22:50, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

As I am (supposed to be) working on a very boring report, I wonder is it too late to have one now? -- Q Chris (talk) 13:01, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Sally, Marx arrived in England in August 1849 with high expectations that the 'British Revolution', long in gestation, was shortly to be born. After all, this was the most industrialised country in Europe with the biggest proletariat. He placed particular faith in the Chartists, a mass movement which aimed at the democratic reform of the whole British political process. Before arriving he had written "The most civilized land, the land whose industry is the most developed, whose bourgeoisie is the most powerful, where the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are divided in the sharpest fashion and stand most decisively opposed to one another, will be the first to witness the emancipation of the workers of all lands. That land is England.".

Chartism, however, was not to be the vehicle of emancipation. Already in decline when Marx arrived, he held on to his unrealistic hopes as long as he could, but eventually agreed with Engels, who had a far better understanding of English politics, that the proletarian movement "...in its old traditional Chartist form must perish completely before it can develop in a new vital form."

This, in fact, is a key moment in Marx's personal and intellectual evolution; of the transformation of the young optimist into the ponderous critic of capitalism. A new crisis would come, that was always his belief, but if the revolutionary phoenix was to arise it would only do so through a proper understanding of the "law of motion of capitalist society." Das Kapital, volume one of which appeared in 1867, is not an analysis of capitalism in general: it is an analysis of English capitalism, or at least it is from this that he draws most of his practical examples. However, just as the English economy encouraged Marx in his model of historical development, his observations of English politics made him increasingly pessimistic. And here we have the key to the very thing that was to perplex not just Marx but generations of Marxists thereafter: namely, what was the precise relationship between objective economic forces and subjective revolutionary action? English capitalism may have been 'classic'; but English politics and the English working class was 'unclassic' in every degree!

The greatest puzzle for Marx was that England's political clothes simply did not fit its economic body, at least in the terms his theory prescribed. For Marx parliamentary republicanism was the political form best suited to advanced capitalism; but England retained not just a monarchy but a powerful aristocracy, which should have passed away with feudalism. It was the capacity of the English to absorb change without revolution that perplexed him most. England had a capacity for reform which;

...neither creates anything new, nor abolishes anything old, but merely aims at confirming the old system by giving it a more reasonable form and teaching it, so to say, new manners. This is the mystery of the 'hereditary wisdom' of the English oligarchical legislation. It simply consists in making abuses hereditary, by refreshing them, as it were, from time to time, by the infusion of new blood.

It was the English working class, which preferred to work within the existing system, that was to cause him his greatest annoyance, particularly in its support for the bourgeois Liberal party, parliamentary reform, moderate trade unions and the co-operative movement. The English had all the material necessary for a revolution but what they lacked was "the spirit of generalisation and revolutionary fervour." He became ever more pessimistic, towards the end of his life, seeing the English working class as no more than the 'tail' of the Liberal Party. Worse still, he came to agree with Engels that the English proletariat "was becoming more and more bourgeois, so that the most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat as well as a bourgeoisie."

Alas the 'Red Doctor', as he came to be referred to in the British press after the Paris Commune, never understood the country he lived in for over thirty years of his life. His last recorded words were "To the devil with the British." Ah, well; Marx is dead, but capitalism lives! Clio the Muse (talk) 22:50, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Sally, as several posters have already said, the answer almost certainly lies in the nature of change. The Marxian theory of revolution is predicted on increasing contradictions within society that will end with revolution. This would require political power to continue to be concentrated in a smaller and smaller oligarchy, as economic monopolies grow. In England, as in one or two other countries, this did not happen - probably because of Marx's youthful hope, the Chartists. Periodic extension of the franchise served as a pressure valve to control growing unrest over economic inequality. This, the current consensus in political science, is summed up in one of the most-cited and influential research papers of recent years here. --Relata refero (disp.) 11:13, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

List of United States Presidents by genealogical relationship

The above article is one of my favorites. I was curious if our 3 candidates for president could be linked in such a way to the former presidents as listed there. Bill Clinton isn't listed there, but perhaps Hilary is related in a closer fashion? Obama being linked would be surprising and extremely unlikely. Mccain would be interesting to see. If anyone can help me out with this that would be amazing. I've tried looking around here for some info but couldn't find much. Chris M. (talk) 06:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Obama and McCain are cousins. One of their relationships (common descent from King Edward I of England) is delineated on this page. For further info, see McCain's ancestry, Obama's ancestry, Clinton's ancestry, and Reitwiesner's notes on the ancestry of the presidential candidates. The first two have royal descents; as far as I know, there's no known royal descent for Clinton, though she is a cousin of Alanis Morissette and Madonna. - Nunh-huh 06:28, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it's my browser playing up, but not a single one of those links works for me, Nunh-huh. -- JackofOz (talk) 06:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... I don't know what's up...I just clicked on each of them, and each opened for me. Maybe copy and paste the urls into your browser? - Nunh-huh 06:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Still no luck, I'm afraid. I've cut and pasted them, to no avail. I must have this matter investigated. -- JackofOz (talk) 14:01, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

(All the links are fine for me) Wow, what a fantastically speedy and informative response. These links will bring up some very exciting discussion, thank you very much, anyone else with anything, feel free to add. Chris M. (talk) 07:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Obama is also related to George W. Bush, and McCain is related to Laura Bush - [1]. Corvus cornix_talk 19:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, this must surely count among the higher forms of silliness! Obama and McCain are descended from Edward I?! Why, of course they are; who could possibly doubt such a thing?! But why stop there? Why not Henry III and through him to King John? But let's be really ambitious. After all, there is Conqueror himself; there are even links back to Alfred the Great and the old Saxon monarchy of England, perhaps all the way to Hengest and maybe even to Horsa, to say nothing of Gog and Magog! Guys, I hope you won't think it an awful cheek if I tell you that people in England think the American obsession with 'roots' verges just a tad on the ridiculous! Clio the Muse (talk) 23:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Of course not. Why would we care what people in England think? They completely misunderstand football. And they talk funny, too. On the other hand, I think it's a bit difficult to square the success of, say, Who Do You Think You Are? with your assertion about the British opinion of genealogy. I suspect it's a bit less monolithic and a bit more nuanced than you claim. - Nunh-huh 23:26, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

That show you've linked, Nunh-huh, is far more about celebrity, the contemporary religion, than genealogy. Sorry for treading on your toes, but the American obsession with links and roots seems to me to arise from a sense of personal insecurity; a feeling of not quite being sure of one's exact place in the great order of things. The silly attempt to draw a link between Osama, McCain and, of all people, Edward Plantagenet would seem to be a perfect example of this. Ah, but it's fun, is it not? And it makes no difference to me; for I, at least, know who I am, all said in my best plummy accent! Clio the Muse (talk) 00:14, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

You're certainly entitled to your opinions, which never fail to entertain. - Nunh-huh 01:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I assume you mean Obama -- come on, the "S" and "B" aren't that close together on your keyboard. Anyway, your critique of the American obsession with their "roots" is fair enough, but I find it strange that someone who has dedicated so much of her time to the history of kings, queens, emperors, dictators, wars, treaties, elections, social movements, authors, artists and revolutions would be so nonchalant about discovering her own history. I guess it's different when your family may have lived in the same village for 900 years. Until I discovered distant relatives on the Internet, I had no idea where my ancestors lived in the 19th century. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:53, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Ooops, I slipped on a 'B' and landed on an 'S', or perhaps I simply can't tell my Osamas from my Obamas; how silly of me! Oh, but there again, I think dear-old Osama has as good a right as anyone to claim descent from Edward I, or Genghis Khan or Messalina, or whomsoever he chooses. I suppose my own history, as you put it, has really never commanded that much importance because I have a comfortable sense of where I belong in space and time; of where I have come from and where I am going. My precise 'roots' just never seemed all that relevant when there was a far bigger picture to examine; things altogether more exciting. I'm sure you are very pleased to learn of your Lithuanian antecedents, Mwalcoff. I would just ask you please not to take that extra step and tell me you are the twenty-ninth cousin, six times removed, of Gediminas! Clio the Muse (talk) 22:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure I'm more likely to be related to this person, this person or even this person, all of whom trace their origin to the same area. But as far as kings go, this guy is a more likely match than a pagan Lithuanian. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:16, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

For some, like me, genealogy is interesting as a kind of semi-personal way to look into history. I once read somewhere that the westward migration of Americans tended to occur along particular, generalized routes -- and usually kept relatively close to the same latitude as people went west. I figured I'd see if this held true for my own paternal/surname line. The results were striking enough that I made a rough map -- due west indeed. Pfly (talk) 06:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I confess, Pfly, that I have always viewed genealogy with, I suppose, more than a touch of snobbish condescension, as one of the lesser breeds of historical inquiry. I have to say, though, that the information you have uncovered clearly has a more general relevance with regard to patterns of migration and the like. Clio the Muse (talk) 22:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the snobbish condescension towards genealogists is a fairly well-known disease of historians. It probably makes them more comfortable in their sense of knowing "who they are". :) - Nunh-huh 00:09, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Given that mathematical models seem to predict that the most recent common ancestor of all Western Europeans (and due to migration those Americans with Western European ancestry) may have lived as recently as 1000 AD, it's not at all surprising that so many US presidents and presidential contenders may have common ancestors. The point is that if you go back to the people who lived in the 14th century - say 20 generations ago - they will either have no living descendants at all or probability would suggest they will have hundreds of thousands of descendants. At 20 generations remove I have 2²⁰ ancestors - that's 1,048,576 potential ancestors. It's thus hardly a revelation if many people who appear to be unrelated turn out to be my twentieth cousins. This is a clear example of something that is mathematically obvious being newsworthy - I've seen these purported relationships reported in the press on this side of the Pond too - simply because most people don't have a grasp of mathematics. Indeed if you factor in that most US presidential contenders come from WASP backgrounds (including Obama on his mother's side) and the number of individuals of this background who actually migrated to the US is relatively small, then the likelihood is that most US presidential contenders, past and present, are related to each other at a distant remove. Valiantis (talk) 13:28, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

It's certainly no surprise that we're all ultimately related to each other, and that indeed we're all related to everyone who's ever lived. But those are mundane and dull facts, and they're not what drive genealogists. In this case it's finding out the precise connections between notable people whose paths have crossed at historic moments in this lifetime. Analogy alert: It's not enough to deduce that there must be other populated and civilized planets out there somewhere - we want to know exactly where they are and precisely what life forms inhabit them. -- JackofOz (talk) 14:01, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that genealogists' interest is in tracing the link. However, what is considered newsworthy by the public at large is that there is a link at all. Such reports are quite common - in the UK some years ago the "revelation" that Margaret Thatcher and John Major were distant cousins made the national press - and the tone is consistently that it is surprising and even amazing that this might be so. The news reports generally give relatively little time to the work of the genealogists in determining what the links are (and the article linked in the title of this section also presents the relationships as a fait accompli rather than showing the actually genealogies). Clearly many people do not understand the mathematics of the matter when even such an erudite person as Clio the Muse dimisses as ridiculous the suggestion - fairly well supported in the form of a full genealogy at the website linked to - that McCain & Obama are both descended from Edward III. The maths makes it likely that many many people of English ancestry are in fact his descendants (and thus descendants of his royal forebears). Valiantis (talk) 13:47, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Number of trains daily from Vienna to Magdeburg in 1889

Can a reader please let me know how many trains ran each day from Vienna to Magdeburg in 1889? Thank you. Simonschaim (talk) 07:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I doubt that there were any direct trains from Vienna to Magdeburg in 1889. A rail journey from Vienna to Magdeburg would almost certainly have involved more than one change of train, at Prague, Dresden, Leipzig, and possibly at Halle and one or more points between Vienna and Prague. Information on these train schedules is probably not available online. If it is available at all, it is probably only from archival timetables, which might or might not be available from one or more state libraries or archives. This may be beyond the capacities of the Reference Desk. Considering that rail travel was relatively costly and time-consuming in the 19th century, particularly over long distances, I would be surprised if there were more than two direct trains per day between Vienna and Prague. I would not be surprised if there were only one per day or even only three or four per week. Marco polo (talk) 18:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

According to [this document] (p4), In 1879, (the Verein Deutscher Eisehnbahn Verwaltungen) united 110 railway administrations from Germany, Austrio-Hungary (sic), Luxemburg and the Netherlands, representing in total a network of 53.385 kilometres. There was, it appears, coordination of many aspects of railway administration in northern central Europe. SaundersW (talk) 19:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I stand corrected. According to the German Wikipedia's article on Schnellzüge (express trains), there was in fact a direct train from Vienna to Dresden beginning 1862. Very likely, such a train would have continued on to Berlin by 1889. However, I still think it unlikely that there would have been a direct train from Vienna to Magdeburg. To get from Vienna to Madgeburg, you could have taken the express to Dresden, but you would most likely have had to change at least there, if not also in Leipzig. Marco polo (talk) 19:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I see this question follows on from Simonschaim's previous question, Journey from Vienna to Magdeburg in 1889, posted on 13 February 2008, when Angr thought that the journey would probably have taken about two days. Pending the timetables turning up, I'm inclined to think she may be right. Xn4 21:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Dr Simons. There is a railway museum in Vienna which may have historical timetables and other suitable data for your research, address is archiv@eisenbahnmuseum-schwechat.at. The person responsible for the archives is Dr. Dietmar Ganzinger. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 10:42, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you.Simonschaim (talk) 07:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Anti-Defamation League Role in Great Sedition Trial

In the following [2] article David Baxter, an individual who was indited during the Great Sedition Trial in the United States in 1941, states that "actually, the Anti-Defamation League was the catalyst behind the entire Sedition Trial. I couldn't prove it then but I can now. A few years ago I demanded, through the Freedom of Information Act, that the FBI turn over to me its investigation records of my activities during the early 1940s leading up to the Sedition Trial.... Oddly enough, in a great many cases, it wasn't the FBI that conducted the investigation but the Anti-Defamation League." This is an extract from a memoir published by the the Journal for Historical Review (a questionable journal I know) in 1986. Furthermore, it was originally presented at a "revisionist" conference. I know practically nothing about the Great Sedition Trial, and was wondering if someone who did could confirm if there is even a sliver of truth in the statements Baxter made. Was the ADL involved in any way in calling for or carrying out the investigation of those who were tried? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.174.0.10 (talk) 08:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

198.174, on a small point of information the said trial was in 1944, not 1941. As far as your question is concerned, unfortunately I cannot give you a precise answer. It seems to me, though, from a reading of Baxter's paper that he is remarkably vague for a man who is claiming that an interest group, like the Anti-Defamation League, was able to exercise such power and influence over the whole criminal and judicial process in the United States. It simply wafts up, once again, the old stale odors of 'conspiracy theory'. On a more general point, and in the full awareness that I am expressing a purely personal prejudice, if the Journal of Historical Review said that the world was round I would immediately send off for the literature of the Flat Earth Society! Clio the Muse (talk) 23:08, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Silly mistake on my part. There were investigations related to the Smith Act (the legislation behind the Great Sedition Trial) in 1941. Baxter's testimony does seem pretty worthless; I'll try to find more reputable resources. One reason I asked was because that link came up third (after two wikipedia articles) when I searched for the Great Sedition Trial on Google. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.174.0.10 (talk) 05:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Support organisation or information on rape victim compensation in Germany

Does anyone know about where one can obtain free information or advice about the system for compensation of rape/sexual assault victims in Germany - and specifically, in Munich? I'm contemplating something like community legal centres/citizen's advice bureaus, legal aid, rape crisis centres, or university services in or around Munich? Thanks in advance. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:44, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

A rape victim is called "Vergewaltigungsopfer" in German. "sexuelle Gewalt" is a more general term including rape probably equivalent to sexual assault. I can't tell you if any national organization dedicated to this topic exists. The German wiki didn't say. Most cities have a phone-helpline "Frauennotruf," Munich even seems to have several. Victims of domestic violence can find shelter at a "Frauenhaus". For citizens below a certain income level there is a free public legal advice center "öffentliche Rechstauskunft" operated by the government. Given however that the German legal system is one of the most complicated ones there is, one should really try to get a lawyer. As far as I know only lawyers and that government "Rechstauskunft" may give legal advice in Germany. As far as university services go, you'd have to ask at the student committee "ASTA" or the student services office of the respective university. Most university hospitals (Universitätsklinikum München) have a sort of ER for psychological trouble. ( I thought that was called Sozialpsychologischer/psychosozialer Dienst, but could not verify either of those.) Both the catholic and lutheran churches offer counseling for victims as part of their community service. "Frauenhilfe" and "Wave-Network" are two organizations offering help in Munich. Compensation is "Schmerzensgeld". The vicitm may either choose to obtain a judgement on that as part of the criminal prosecution or file a claim separately. By law all victims of sexual assault are entitled to compensation. (since 2002) Apart from that there appear to be thousands of self organized groups offering help and counseling. --71.236.23.111 (talk) 15:28, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the detailed answer. They look promising! --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

This may or may not be of use: in the United Kingdom a rape is both a criminal and a civil offense. The criminal bit is handled by the police, who must prove the case to a criminal burden of proof ('beyond reasonable doubt'). A victim also has the right to sue the rapist, in a personal capacity, for damages, based on trespass against her, on the civil burden of proof ('on the balance of probabilities'). As the case will usually already have been proved to the more stringent criminal burden, any subsequent civil case is simply a formality.

Examples of taking civil action for criminal wrongs include the Yorkshire Ripper; the families of the victims managed to get his house made over to them, and the case of Nicholas van Hoogstraten, where he managed to avoid a criminal conviction for murder, but was found liable to pay damages in the civil courts. You'll have to consult a German lawyer to se if a similar situation applies. --Major Bonkers (talk) 10:01, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Other Minds

A question about the problem of mind. How do we know, how can we prove, beyond intuition, that other beings have minds? Is the qualitative character of the world, how things are felt and experienced by others, beyond the scope of philosophical ionquiry? Not too difficult, I hope! Steerforth (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 08:58, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

That's one of those big questions, isn't it? I don't think we can ever prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt, any more than we can prove that everything we experience isn't just a really complicated hallucination or a dream. (This is the old "am I man who just dreamed that he was a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?" thing.) Articles like dream argument and simulation hypothesis touch on this, although they really are more about reality and existence in general than about whether other individuals really have minds -- but it comes down to the same thing, pretty much. Of course, you can always employ a bit of Occam's razor here -- is the simplest explanation really that you happen to have a mind, but everyone else around you doesn't? Wouldn't you have to come up with something pretty weird and convoluted reasoning for why these people who look like you and, to a great extent, act like you, wouldn't also have minds? (I'm going to assume that you have already concluded beyond a shadow of a doubt that you yourself have a mind; cogito ergo sum and all that. If you're questioning that, too, you're probably way beyond any insight I might have. =))

But while this stuff is very interesting, in the end it easily comes down not seeing the forest for the trees. On a practical level, we just have to accept that we probably aren't hallucinating when we go about our daily lives, and that the people we interact with are not some kind of automatons, simulations or hallucinations. I mean, I know you can get very, very deeply into this whole thing, but in the end, on a purely practical level, the way you know that your friend has a mind and that he experiences emotions and has free will of his own is that you see him express these things, and that it makes sense that they have minds just like you do. Either you believe it or you don't.

And if you honestly don't, you're probably living a very challenging life... -- Captain Disdain (talk) 12:28, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Our article on Problem of other minds covers some of this, and Solipsism touches on some as well. --Delirium (talk) 17:01, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

What makes you think that other beings, such as myself, have minds? Of course we don't have minds. You're just paranoid, that's all. -79.71.252.66 (talk) 17:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Look at Analogy and Deductive reasoning for one approach to your question. Most of us would apply a variation of "Looks like a duck , walks like a duck, quacks like a duck ... It's got to be a duck." to evaluating the possibility of the other individual having a mind like one's own. Note that common language would describe the phrase "out of his/her mind" when the qualifier "acts like he/she has a mind like mine" is no longer met. 71.236.23.111 (talk) 21:45, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a problem, Steerforth, that has been addressed by both Bertrand Russell and A J Ayer. Russell puts forward one solution: the argument from analogy. We see that other people's behavior resembles our own, and we know that our own behaviour arises from mental processes, so it follows that other people also have these processes, though, of course, this proceeds from intuition, it might be said, rather than proof. The example here is that if I experience pain on the basis of certain unpleasant experiences, then if someone else reports pain I assumer that they are having the same unpleasant experience.

It's not a particularly strong argument, as Ayer was quick to recognise. To assume that it is possible to generalise one's own thoughts to those of other people is not a justifiable inference. Ayer also rejects a behaviour-based version of the argument from analogy. We learn what words like 'pain' mean by observing the behaviour of others. This means that our justification for attributing pain to them simply comes from the fact that their behaviour exemplifies what pain means. Put this way pain doesn’t refer to a particular type of inner sensation at all. It is, rather, whatever causes a certain type of behaviour. In other words, if the behaviour is present so, too must pain, as pain is simply the cause of the behaviour. In such ways is the problem of mind dissolved.

But for Ayer this is quite wrong, because he sees no reason to suppose that the meaning of words should be strictly determined by the way in which they were learned. Just because we learn what mind-words mean by observing behaviour, this does not imply that the meanings of these words can be exhausted by what can be observed in behaviour. It is a mistake, as Ayer sees it, to confuse the method of learning a word with its actual meaning. You may learn what a tiger is from seeing a photo of a tiger, but it does not follow that 'tiger' means 'photo of a tiger’. So, on this basis, it does not follow from the fact that we learn about mental concepts from behaviour that the manifestation of certain kinds of behaviour ensure that which the mental concepts refers to are present.

The argument between Russell and Ayer gets ever more complex to the point where it seems impossible to discuss the problem of mind on any common philosophical grounds. But Ayer offers a solution in the work of Hilary Putnam, who argued that the belief that others have minds like mine is justified because it explains human behaviour. More than that, there is no other rival theory which explains human behaviour so well.

I suppose it's a solution, it might be said, of simple exhaustion; it is because it is! For, as with all other sceptical problems, we simply cannot prove beyond all doubt that other people have minds. In the end the words of Aristotle have abiding relevance-"It is a mark of the trained mind never to expect more precision in the treatment of any subject than the nature of that subject permits." Amen! Clio the Muse (talk) 00:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely BRILLIANT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Steerforth (talk • contribs) 08:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

One thing I've never understood about philosophical discussions of these problems is that they always seem to use such facile examples. It's not hard to imagine an unconscious explanation for the observable pain response, but that hardly seems to matter. If one's theory of mind is any good it needs to explain even the most surprising human behavior, and it seems to me that the most surprising human behavior in this context is talking about our subjective experiences. What compels us to do that? If we don't have minds, or if the mind can't influence the body, then there must be some unconscious unit in the brain which produces the behavior of claiming explicitly to have subjective experiences and writing philosophical essays analyzing the "problem of mind". What would be the evolutionary purpose of such a unit? It seems to make no sense. I can imagine that there might be a counterargument to this. What I don't understand is why philosophers of mind don't spend all of their time on those counterarguments and rebuttals to them. It seems a waste of time to digress into anything as trivial as the pain response.

In any case, that's why I personally think that other people have subjective experiences—because they say they do. If they were unconscious, I'd expect them to say so, or simply show incomprehension when I raise the subject (either of which would create an observable difference between them and me). -- BenRG (talk) 16:17, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

What did Pablo Picasso think about Israel and Zionism?

As much as I know Picasso and his friends in Paris appreciated the foundation of Israel in 1948. But I really wasn´t able to find reliable sources for that. Can anybody help? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.2.121.214 (talk) 11:08, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

During the Six-Day War, Picasso was one of hundreds of left-wing intellectuals in France (including Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Marguerite Duras) who signed a statement supporting Israel and condemning the leftist line of thought identifying Israel with imperialism and aggression. This statement appeared in Le Figaro on May 29 and Le Monde on June 1. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 12:00, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Mwalcoff, interesting. But anyway if somebody knows what Picasso thought and did in 1948 I would still be highly interested. 77.2.100.115 (talk) 09:31, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Themes in The Octopus

Hello. I'm writing a report on The Octopus by Frank Norris and would like to make a comparison with Tolstoy's War and Peace, in that both books display a sense of fatalism concrning human actions, placing strong emphasis on the impersonal forces of history. Is this a reasonable view? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.147.184.112 (talk) 11:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Depending on what subject your "report" is for, it really doesn't matter much if it is reasonable. If I write an essay on my grandmother having green hair and supply well phrased solid arguments and examples, who's to argue? What they usually want to know when they ask "is it reasonable" isn't "does it make sense" but rather "can you supply enough evidence to support that view?" So put you view in the intro, then look at support for your argument put those in your outline chart and then find similar aspects in the other book. For example answer these questions: What actions are fatalistic? Why? What methods does the author use to create this feeling? (look here for other question ideas [3]) Do this for at least 3 scenes or situations. Compare to the other book : (same questions). If not enough material or strong enough evidence can be found then your view isn't "reasonable". Make sure, though that your instructor is not looking for a certain style of essay. "Book report" may be strictly defined and may not include comparison in their view. (look at [4]}. Purdue has some excellent pages on writing online. Unfortunately they are a bit spread out and not that easy to navigate. [5] But they do have a "search" feature. You could run your ideas for an outline by the desk, but once you have one, I don't think you'll need to anymore. Hope this helps. --71.236.23.111 (talk) 13:39, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's an interesting thesis, and you might very well be able to sustain it, just as long as you do not make the parallels too close. Just as in War and Peace history has its own dynamism and logic, pushing people forward in a relentless fashion, so in The Octopus rancher and railroader alike must serve the impersonal forces of supply and demand. Remember Shelgrim's words to Presley? -"Men have little to do with the whole business. Can anyone stop the wheat? Well, then, no more can I stop the road." All Presley’s radical convictions are shattered by this encounter. The next time we see him is at a railroad executive's dinner party.

If you are looking for a key to Norris' thought, to understand why the great conflict ends in resolution, fatalism and acceptance, then you should realise just how important the work of Joseph Leconte was on his thinking. In was Leconte's view, expressed in books like Religion and Science and Evolution, Its Nature, Its Evidences and Its Relations to Religious Thought, that Divine Will was operating in nature through evolution. Science offered one perspective, religion another, but both science and religion merely sought to comprehend the will of God in the natural universe. Evil can never be considered an isolated phenomenon. Nature might break some, but only in pursuit of the greater good. So it is that Norris, Leconte's former student, is able to write at the end of The Octopus:

...the individual suffers, but the race goes on. Annixer dies, but in a far distant corner of the world a thousand lives are saved. The larger view always comes through all shams, all wicked-nesses, discovers the Truth that will, in the end, prevail, and all things, surely, inevitably, resistlessly work together for that good.

So it is with Norris as it is with Tolstoy; people are carried forward by History, by Destiny, by God, by Fate by Nature or by what you will. Clio the Muse (talk) 00:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

The Crimes of Kaiser Bill

How accurate is the traditional view of the Kaiser as a pantomime baddy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.151.240.240 (talk) 18:22, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

He was pretty bad, yes, but not perhaps intentionally. He was an incompetent ruler, stubborn, strongly suspicious and jealous of anyone who seemed "better" than he was. At the end of the First World War, he abdicated, effectively stabbing the generals that had supported him in the back. The Treaty of Versailles signed in Paris the following year was one further humiliation that the German blamed on the now ex-Kaiser. Before that, there was an incident called the Daily Telegraph Affair, in which he aimed to promote Anglo-German relations. During the interview, he made emotional outbursts, and managed to aggravate the British (by calling them "you English are mad, mad as March hares"); the French and Russians; and also the Japanese, by admitting that the German naval build-up was meant for them, and not for Britain! In Germany, serious calls were made for his abdication, but he kept a low profile and survived. He was popular in Britain until the death of Queen Victoria, but reports soon emerged that he began a naval expansion; he was attempting to negotiate with Russia and France, so Britain naturally assumed that it was meant for them, and B began its own process of re-armament. As mentioned, during the First World War, he was incompetent and relied too heavily on his generals, so much so that the Empire became an effective military dictatorship under Paul von Hindenburg. His abdication was thus a shock for the Generals that had remained loyal.

The key thing to remember is the "pantomime baddy" image is mainly stemmed from British anti-German feeling after the First World War. He was portrayed as "Wicked Willy", responsible for the deaths of thousands of British soldiers. Queen Alexandra had a particular hatred for Germans, but that stemmed back to the Second Schleswig War of the 1860s. He did have some successes to his name, but his incompetence and flight after World War I was the reason for his ridicule. PeterSymonds | talk 19:44, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Peter, I think you might be just a little confused over some of the issues here. The Kaiser did not, as you have put it, stab 'the generals that had supported him in the back' by abdicating; it was the generals who were telling him to go! If anything it was the generals, particularly Wilhelm Groener, Erich Ludendorff's replacement, who betrayed the Kaiser, by saying that he could no longer count on the army’s support. I know of no source that says the Germans 'blamed' the ex-Kaiser for the Treaty of Versailles. Why on earth should they? Indeed many Germans thought that, in the absence of their former ruler, their new democracy would get a fair peace, one based on Wilsonian principles. The ensuing diktat was blamed on the supposed hypocrisy of the Allies, not the Kaiser. Clio the Muse (talk) 01:30, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm pleased to say, 86.151, that the old-fashioned image of Kaiser Bill as a cardboard villain is giving way to a far more nuanced view, represented, most particularly in the likes of Giles MacDonagh's The Last Kaiser: William the Impetuous (Widenfield and Nicholson, 2001). He was far from being the archetypal Prussian militarist and warmonger. Indeed as Europe rushed towards conflict in 1914 Wilhelm urged caution. As the war progressed he was effectively sidelined, a spectator to all the major events, both military and political. The suggestion in his Wikipedia page that he personally arranged for Lenin to return home, thereby ensuring the death of the Russian royal family, is quite laughable in its absolute absurdity.

The real problem was that Wilhelm, an intensely vulnerable character, was a little man called upon to play a big part, one for which he was temperamentally unsuited. His tactlessness and his bluster were all too often ways of making up for his own perceived deficiencies as a man and as a ruler. He was in every respect the perfect imperial counterpart to Heinrich Mann's Man of Straw, an actor, as one spectator put it, "effusive, voluble...striving for effect." In many ways, with his withered arm and his periodic bouts of clinical depression, he was a quite pitiable figure; a teenage Emperor of a teenage Empire, full of sound and fury that signified nothing. Clio the Muse (talk) 01:30, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Imagine: a country going from a leader with a withered arm to one who could hold his arm in the air for extended periods. Edison (talk) 04:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

The recent biography, and its nuanced treatment of the Kaiser's psychological condition, is indeed useful. It is also useful to remember that if he is remembered as a pantomime bully, it is because German royalists of the time expected that their emperor be something of a bully. I wish I could remember which of those royalists it was who said of the possibility of strengthening parliamentary democracy in the German empire that any system that did not permit him to march into the Reichstag and shoot its members if the Kaiser so demanded was unacceptable.

Clio, the Lenin section in the article is gone. --Relata refero (disp.) 11:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Relata. I suppose I should have done this myself, but I'm always wary of starting yet another of those tiresome Wiki-Wars! Clio the Muse (talk) 22:27, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Issues natural resources

What were the issues in Canada regarding with the iron ore, nickel, zinc, copper, gold, lead, molybdenum, potash, diamonds, silver, fish, timber, wildlife, coal, petroleum, natural gas, hydropower? the previous questions did not get any right answers. Please refers this questions to any website that has the answers for this question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.30.202.21 (talk) 18:24, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by 'right answers'? If you know the answers already why are you asking us? DJ Clayworth (talk) 19:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I guess we just have a language problem. The OP seems to be in a Toronto public library but is clearly struggling in English. For 'right', try reading 'good' or 'helpful'. Xn4 21:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I think what you may be looking for it this Economic history of Canada. Economy of Canada also holds some clues. Canadian and American economies compared is worth a look. But Geography of Canada will probably get you closest to picturing what went on. --71.236.23.111 (talk) 21:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

BTW could s.o. have a look at Extreme communities of Canada there seems to be something missing in "Furthest west entirely within Saskatchewan is ??." Since that phrase has looked like that ever since the table was created it doesn't seem to be vandalism. (Anyone got a map?) --71.236.23.111 (talk) 21:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The "??" is a blank asking for someone to complete the sentence. It means "of communities entirely within Saskatchewan (i.e. excluding Lloydminster), the westernmost is (please fill in the blank)." No, I don't know the answer. For all I know, the answer might be some place too small for typical highway maps to show. --Anonymous, 00:12 UTC, May 8, 2008.

Literature

Who is the author of the poem Alladin's Lamp? The first section of the poem reads "When I was a beggar so poor, and lived in a cellar so damp, I had not a ? nor a ? but I had Alladin's lamp" 76.101.255.137 (talk) 20:36, 7 May 2008 (UTC) John R.

Thomas Henry Huxley. [6] It's number 43 in that list. Thanks, PeterSymonds | talk 20:39, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

It's James Russell Lowell's poem "Aladdin's Lamp" that is being referred to in that footnote:

When I was a beggarly boy,

And lived in a cellar damp,

I had not a friend or a toy,

But I had Aladdin’s lamp.

When I could not sleep for the cold,

I had fire enough in my brain,

And builded, with roofs of gold,

My beautiful castles in Spain!

The second stanza is here.

--Wetman (talk) 23:43, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

May 8

Conservative sociologists

Many of the pionneers of sociology were 19th century leftists such as Comte, Durkheim, Vilfredo Pareto, Max Weber, etc. They advanced the views of positivism, naturalism, dialectic materialism, etc.

Were these sociologists completely in line with their time or were they forward thinkers, indirectly responsable for the social systems of today ?

Why have their been so few non-leftist, non-communist, non-socialist, non-atheistic sociologists ? It seems that many of these folks were unhappy when the Berlin Wall fell down.

Also, since the Welfare State has been largely achieved thanks to many sociologists, what is the general mood in the socio-community about the decline of this socio-paradise (ie free economy + aging population) ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.157.246.246 (talk) 02:11, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding your second question, one of the most famous Conservatives of our time perhaps summed it up best: "you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families." If you don't believe in the concept, then its unlikely you will chose to study it! Rockpocket 02:24, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I think most sociologists would take issue with your statement that they though the end of the Cold War was a bad thing or that they supported either the USSR or the GDR. Most American leftists in any case were not pro-Soviet, even if they were self-described socialists. There's a big difference in thinking socialism is a more just system of government and believing the implementation of that in Russia or East Germany was a good one.

I don't really know how to answer the question about them "forward thinkers", but you've set up a false dilemma. It's highly possible, perhaps most likely, that they were both not in line with their time but not very much responsible for the social systems of today. Just because one is not "completely in line with their time" (whatever that means) doesn't mean one is actually influential in the sense you mean.

Is the "welfare state" in decline? The very term "welfare state" is a pejorative coined by those who think it is in decline, so you're biasing things from the beginning then. Personally I think there's a strong argument to be made that the idea of some state care of its people is not in decline even if some implementations are currently inefficient or purposefully failing (there have been many attempts to purposefully botch many of the elements of the "welfare state" in the US by those who would like to see it fail).

I am also, personally, not sure how one puts positivism and dialectical materialism on a scale of "leftist" ideas. It strikes me as a rather crude application of modern day political debates to rather complicated 19th century concepts about the nature of knowledge.

Lastly, as to professional biases among sociologists: 1. I'm not sure I buy that there is one; just because a few of the big names in the discipline fall into a given category doesn't mean that the entire discipline does, but if it did, 2. sociology is an approach that cares more about the collective than the individual, the point where the idea of individual free will is implicitly ignored in favor of aggregate understandings. It's not too much of a leap to assume that such an approach would be more naturally appealing to people of one political stripe or another. But again, I would be dubious of such an easy dismissal. It's true that for many reasons academia itself currently leans left, but whether sociologists are more left-leaning than, say, historians or anthropologists, I am dubious. I am not sure we need to create a special explanation just for sociologists, is all I am saying. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:56, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, a 'question' that already suggests a desired response! Before I proceed I have a confession to make which you may feel, 69.157, invalidates my answer. You see, my boyfriend took a sociology degree at King's College, Cambridge and is now advancing the world revolution as a junior partner in a firm of City of London stockbrokers. Venceremos!

Anyway, I sympathise with your need to deepen your understanding of the nature of sociology as an academic discipline, because it really is most terribly weak as it stands. Anyone who believes that August Comte, Emile Durkheim, Vilfredo Pareto and Max Weber were nineteenth century 'leftists', whatever that is supposed to mean, really is in need of some serious enlightenment. Pareto, for example, was one of the proponents of elite theory, and was greatly admired by the Italian Fascists. Mussolini himself is alleged to have attended his lectures at Lausanne. After the March on Rome he honoured Pareto by appointing him a Senator of the Kingdom of Italy.

The one obvious 'leftist' that you did not mention is, of course, Karl Marx, whose notions of Historical materialism have had some influence on certain branches of sociological inquiry. Dialectical materialism, in contrast, a later invention, belongs to the arena of philosophy and political polemic, not to sociology. The political thought of Marx was, of course, the inspiration for twentieth-century Communism, though I seriously doubt that he would have recognised or understood the 'social systems' established in his name. Pareto, I suppose, might be said to have given the loosest credibility to forms of right-wing authoritarianism. So far as I am aware there are no Comteist, Durkheimist or Weberist social systems!

Now, if I think of sociology as a modern discipline I think primarily of its expansion in the United States, where a strong tradition of Functionalism was established under the influence of Talcott Parsons, that well-known leftie! Taking the opposite approach (in methodology, if not in politics!) is the ethnomethodology of Harold Garfinkel, as well as the other currents of microsociology. Latterly the Postmodernism and Post-structuralism have become important, but the positivist tradition is alive and well in the likes of the American Journal of Sociology and the American Sociological Review. Have a look, why don't you?

Yes, I'm sure that there must have been 'some of those folks' who lamented the fall of the Berlin Wall (surely there must?) though I suspect most sociologists in the Marxist tradition were not that enamoured of the hide-bound and bureaucratic forms of Stalinism prevalent in Eastern Europe, a doctrine never that sympathetic to original thought, or social inquiry, of any kind.

I have no idea which 'Welfare State' you are referring to, but I can assure you the variety established in England owed nothing to sociologists and everything to old-fashioned Liberals, like William Beveridge. I can offer no comment on the 'socio-community' or the 'socio-paradise' because I have not the least idea what either of these terms means. Clio the Muse (talk) 00:24, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Afroamerries

Why are most African Americans from the Southern states? Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 10:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Start with African American history and come back if you still have and questions Nil Einne (talk) 11:37, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Additional information: the plantations where the African slaves were put to work were located in the Southern Colonies, whose area constitutes largely the current Southern United States. The reason they were located in the South and not in the North is primarily the climate needed for growing tobacco, rice, and later cotton, the main cash crops. In the Southern Colonies, winters were mild and summers were hot.  --Lambiam 14:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

University

What is the age range for university students? Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 10:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

8 to 95.--droptone (talk) 12:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

For age 8, see Song Yoo-geun; and here is one at age 9: [7].  --Lambiam 14:56, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Although there is no age limit, the usual range (at least in the US) is the four years immediately after high school - this works out to around 18-22. Note that even within the "usual" there is some flexibility, with 17 year old high school graduates, super seniors, and people who take a break from education for a number of years after high school to join the military, work at a company, or travel the world. -- 128.104.112.85 (talk) 14:47, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I should also mention that after completion of the bachelor's degree, some people choose to pursue advanced degrees like a Ph.D. or an M.D.. The time for these degrees is much more variable than the bachelor's, ranging from 4-8 years (or even longer). Although these people are technically considered "students" at the university, usually when people refer to "university students", they usually are thinking of bachelor's level, not the Ph.D./M.D. level. -- 128.104.112.85 (talk) 14:53, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, yes, but if we exclude outliers we can provide a more useful answer. In England many students start universiy either straight after school or after a gap year, so a typical age on entering university is 17 to 19. Most undergraduate courses are three, four or five years (including a gap year in industry for some courses such as enginneering), so a typical age at graduation is 21 to 24. There are, of course, many exceptions. Medical degrees take longer. Students studying for a second or higher degree will tend to be older. It is possible to go to university at any time during your adult life (financial constraints permitting), and become a mature student. And the age profile of students enrolled at a distance learning university, such as the Open University, will be very different from the norm. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:47, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Gandalf, I'm confused, surely you've got this wrong. In England you're in the upper sixth in the academic year of your 18th birthday, so even the youngest members of the year would have turned 18 by the time they are freshers. Surely that makes 17 unusually young (if only a little). I know my hall of residence had a bar, without worrying whether the residents were old enough to drink at it. AndyJones (talk) 19:27, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Students in Scotland take their Highers at 17, and Scots with good enough grades can get into English universities. (Although they have to pay fees, which they would not hva to in Scottish universities.) Scots students regularly start university at 17 in Scotland. SaundersW (talk) 20:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Tin Drum 2

who is the guy marching in to the fanfare that oscar turns into a dance? L S M M (talk) 11:25, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

It's Parteigenosse Albert Forster, Gauleiter of Danzig. Clio the Muse (talk) 22:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Eva the Jew Hater

Did Eva Braun share her husband's views? L S M M (talk) 12:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

You probably mean his political views? According to some informed accounts, such as Speer's, Eva Braun was indifferent to politics but completely devoted to Hitler. It seems she would have agreed with almost anything he said or did, and no doubt much of her charm for Hitler was that she didn't question or challenge him at all. So I think it would be a mistake to say she actively agreed with him, but true that she was happy to accept the worst sides of him with the better.

You say "her husband". In the day or so of their marriage, Hitler's mind was focussed on what to do in complete failure, and his new wife evidently agreed to die with him. Is there a more complete agreement than that? Xn4 23:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Angela Lambert touches on this issue (the question of possible anti-Semitism) in her The Lost Life of Eva Braun (Arrow Books, 2007). A lot of this book is, given the nature of the subject, really quite tendentious, and all the author says is that anti-Semitism was not part of Eva's emotional world. It would hardly be possible to describe her as having any kind of intellectual life, at least not that we know of; for she left no traces. Personally I can see no reason to dispute Lambert's subjective conclusion, though I think I would have preferred to say that there is no evidence that she expressed any form of hatred towards the Jews, Hitler's views notwithstanding. It's as well to remember that goodness is sometimes just as banal as evil. Clio the Muse (talk) 00:53, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Prisioners in the English Civil War

Please can someone help me. My name is John Evans. I am doing a project on the english cival war of the time of Charles the first. We have all been told to select some aspect of this and present a report. I thought I would write about how prisoners of war were treated. So far I've not found an awful lot of information. If you can give me an outline and sugest where else I can look I would be really pleased. I hope this is alright. —Preceding unsigned comment added by John D Evans (talk • contribs) 13:01, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi John, it's fine. And a good question, because our prisoners of war article skips right over that period, and our two civil war articles this one and this one don't say much about prisoners (though they do say a bit, so you might want to check). As to where you *could* look, here are some starting suggestions. I'm sure you'll get more and better soon.

• Although this is after the war, Samuel Pepys in his diary discusses prisoners of war fairly often – mainly I think how much it costs to look after them, so you can infer they weren't eating well.
• Ask at the library for these books: The Oxford History of the Prison and Encyclopedia of Prisoners of War & Internment.
• Or if your library has a subscription to British History Online I see there are some documents from the period on the topic.

Best on your project WikiJedits (talk) 16:13, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

John, you may be interested to know that the first book that WikiJedits suggested, The Oxford History of the Prison, is viewable at google books, in case your local library doesn't have it.Snorgle (talk) 13:48, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

John, it's a good topic, though I suspect that you may find it difficult to discover the kind of secondary sources that you obviously need.

The first thing you should note is that the opposing armies a adopted formal Articles of War, based on the Laws and Ordinances of War published during the Bishops' Wars with the Scots. Under these Articles a soldier surrendering in battle had a right to quarter, though, in practice, this was frequently violated. Even troops who had been guaranteed safe conduct were often robbed, even of the clothes they were wearing. After the Battle of Naseby in 1645 soldiers of the New Model Army massacred a number of women in the Royalist camp on the pretext that they were 'Irish and of cruel countenance.' The year before Parliament amended its own Articles of War by forbidding the granting of quarter to Irish soldiers captured in England. This was only rescinded after Prince Rupert, Charles I's leading commander, hanged thirteen Parliamentary prisoners in February 1645 in retaliation for the hanging of thirteen Irish Royalists.

As far as the bigger picture is concerned, the taking of prisoners en mass, you must remember that the seventeenth century state had neither the means nor the ability to take care of large groups of captives. There were, in other words, no prisoner of war camps. One way round this was to release captives on parole, on promise that they would not take up arms in future against whatever side they happened to be fighting. Alternatively, many might opt to join the enemy army. Where this was not possible, or practical, then the outlook for the prisoners could be quite bleak. Here you might consider the fate of the Scots taken captive in the Battle of Dunbar in 1650. Most of these were marched south to Durham, and there incarcerated in the Cathedral, where a great many died of starvation or neglect. Of the 5000 or so men taken at Dunbar it is thought that over 3500 subsequently died, more than had been killed in the battle itself. Those that survived were transported to the English colonies in the Americas, or to the Caribbean, as slaves. The same fate awaited those taken at the Battle of Preston and the Battle of Worcester.

So, prisoners of war died in their thousands, less because of deliberate cruelty and more because neither side had the apparatus or the means to deal with the problem of large numbers of captives; but they still died.

I have one interesting piece of trivia that you might wish to make use of. The phrase to Send to Coventry, meaning to ostracise someone, is thought to derive from the Civil War period. In his History of the Rebellion and Civil wars in England, Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon says that Royalist prisoners captured at Birmingham were taken to Coventry, a Parliamentary stronghold, where they were shunned by the local people. The best of luck! Clio the Muse (talk) 01:46, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Serving as Vice-President & Secretary of State Concurrently

Is there any legal reason that prevents the President of the US from nominating the Vice-president of the US for another cabinet level position such as Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense? Is there a reason a person could not hold both posts at the same time? Could a person serve as both US VP and Director of the National Security Agency(NSA)?

Could Barack Obama offer Hillary Clinton the VP slot on the Democratic ticket with the understanding that she would also serve as Secretary of State? In effect, upgrading her role in his administration.

129.230.236.1 (talk) 14:43, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

The Constitution doesn't allow the same person to hold two Constitutional positions at the same time. Corvus cornix_talk 19:08, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

You sure about that? It doesn't allow members of Congress to hold other offices; I don't see where it says that about the Veep. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 15:15, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

The veep is the president of the senate, voting in ties, so he holds two offices by the constitution. The cabinet is mentioned only as "principal Officers in each of the executive Departments" appointed by the president, with the "Advice and Consent of the Senate.", so I don't think there's anything illegal about it.John Z (talk) 05:03, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

How is that two offices? President of the Senate is a duty of the VP, not a separate position. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 05:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The Constitution forbids members of Congress to "hold[] any office", and forbids the President to "receive ... any other emolument" than his salary as President, but I don't see any such restriction on the VP; nor does this forbid the President to act as unpaid Secretary of Anything. The other executive officers are the President's deputies anyway. —Tamfang (talk) 17:50, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Aelia Capitolina

Was Hadrian's foundation of this settlement, which led to the Bar Kokhba revolt, a deliberate act of provocation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.147.191.139 (talk) 16:59, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Hadrian, prior to the revolt, was notably sympathetic to the Jews, and his promise to rebuild Jerusalem should be seen in that light. In retrospect, putting a giant temple to Jupiter at the centre of the plan, while hardly surprising in that it followed the template of imperial cities elsewhere, was probably unwise. It was after the bloody battles of the revolt that he turned against the religion, believing it to be the cause of frequent revolts in Syria Palaestina. --Relata refero (disp.) 19:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not at all sure that is the case; I can certainly detect little in the way of sympathy towards the Jews on the Emperor's part. From the outset Aelia Capitolina was intended as a wholly pagan city, to be populated by Roman soldiers. Hadrian must have known that to erect what was for all practical purposes a military garrison on the sacred city of the Jews was an immense provocation. There was no magnanimity or generosity in the action, no attempt to pacify the local people, or to remind them that their Emperor had their well-being at heart. Jews were specifically forbidden to enter the new settlement, except for one day a year. But the most serious affront of all was the erection of the Temple of Jupiter on the foundations of the Second Temple, an unmistakable symbol of Jewish subjugation and humiliation. It would seem that Hadrian could not have done more to provoke the Bar Kokhba revolt, whether that was his intention or not. Clio the Muse (talk) 02:05, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Darkness at Noon

Did Koestler base the character of Rubashov on any particular individual? Yermelov (talk) 19:57, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Darkness at Noon#Characters has some discussion. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:01, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Nikolai Bukharin is the generally accepted candidate, though Stephen F. Cohen, his biographer, has exploded the connection. In practice Darkness at Noon is Arthur Koestler's own confession. He is Rubashov, not Bukharin. Clio the Muse (talk) 02:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Stalin

Did Stalin play ping pong? 99.226.26.154 (talk) 20:17, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

The only scenario I can envision in which Stalin would have played ping pong would have been if Mao introduced it to him when he visited Moscow - which did not happen. Mao was too busy talking about his political and social ideas and, in my opinion, Stalin was just trying to get him to go home. So, they had no play time. -- kainaw™ 21:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

It could be argued that sometimes he played ping, and sometimes he played pong. But never in a row. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:40, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

No, but he's great at Hip hop! Clio the Muse (talk) 02:17, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe the Soviets actually banned ping pong between 1930 and 1950, because they thought the rapid movements of the ball would cause eye damage in spectators (this is briefly mentioned in the Table tennis article). So my guess is he wouldn't have played it in public, anyway... Dooky (talk) 09:27, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

GDP

How do organizations get the information to calculate GDP? I suppose tax reports must help, but what other resources do they use to compile the figures? Especially in developing countries, even if they make estimates, what evidence do they base it on? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.226.26.154 (talk) 20:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

See GDP. The most-used raw equation is the "expenditure method":

GDP = consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports), or,
GDP = C + I + G + (X-M) Spencer^T♦C 22:48, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

He/she's not asking what formulae they use, he's asking where they get the data for the formulae from. Where do you get raw data for "gross investment" and "consumption" and "exports"? ("government spending" is in the government's budget, obviously). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:57, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict, covered by above too) Be aware there are two separate ways to calculate GDP. One, the market value of all final goods and services produced in a country, and two, consumption + investment + government purchases + net exports. To calculate GDP the second way is relatively easy, because its components can be estimated or calculated from readily available tax-related information, specifically, the wages of consumers, the budget of the government, and the investments of firms.

In developing countries, these statistics are usually available as well, but are less accurate, because developing countries generally have a large informal economy of goods and services produced that are not monitored by the government. The problem appears in Western countries as well: if I mow my lawn, it is not counted in GDP. If I establish a holding company for my lawn, and I lease my lawn from that company for €1, then employ myself there to mow the lawn for €1, GDP suddenly increased by €1. User:Krator (t c) 23:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Further to the above: Following links from our GDP page gets you to this UN site [8] which should help answer the question. 71.236.23.111 (talk) 23:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Painting, Art, Heralding the Dawn

I am looking for an art painting, which is on a wall or dome/ceiling. There is Prophet Ezekiel in the painting. He is standing on the right. There is also Prophet Jonah in the painting. He is standing besides Prophet Ezekiel. Prophet Jonah is naked. There are two angels in the painting. The angels are on the left of Prophet Jonah, and they are flying horizontally towards him. One angel is seraphim angel, who is blowing a trumpet. The trumpet indicates it is not very old painting. The other angel is cherubim angel, who is blowing air. On the left of the angels is a hand. This hand is presumed be that of Jesus. This hand is just one hand, it includes the whole arm. Behind the angels are other people. The Prophets, the angels, and the other people are Heralding the Dawn, welcoming the dawn. I have seen this image in a magazine, years 2004, 2005 or 2006, in the early part of the year. The magazine is either Newsweek, or Harvard Magazine, but I am not sure which one it is. I do not clearly remember the painter, but I think it is someone called Rainer; just one name was given in the caption of the image. This name indicates it may be a French painting. Can you help me locate this painting either on the Internet, Wikipedia, or a book, which I can purchase?

Manilal.daya (talk) 23:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I only know of Arnulf Rainer but his work doesn't really match your painting, that I can find. Julia Rossi (talk) 00:57, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Crime vs. social phenomenon

There is a tendency within the legal system to employ social science to an extent which declares that certain crimes are no longer crimes anymore, but have become mere social phenomenon.

How does one correctly draw the line between the two ? Is all crime sociological, being the product of an interdict ? And currently, isn't there a legal campaign to have declare that pedophilia is a mere fact of society, and that some pedophiles are socially acceptable, as was previously done with homosexuality and abortion ?

Is it possible to live in a society which recognizes no crimes, merely social trends, or is that a utopia ? 69.157.246.246 (talk) 23:04, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

How does one correctly draw the line between a crime and a social phenomenon? In the simplest terms, the line is drawn by having a government declare it illegal. For example, domestic violence is a social phenomenon until someone makes a law that says it is a crime. Most human activity can be safely classified as social phenomena. As to how that is done "correctly", that pretty much depends on the system of government, the moral atmosphere and other related things, but that's getting to be another discussion.

As for a legal campaign to declare pedophilia a "mere fact of society", there are probably a number of them out there somewhere, but seeing as I don't even know what country you are in, I couldn't begin to comment on that with any degree of accuracy. Suffice to say that organizations like NAMBLA have campaigned to legalize relations between adults and children. However, it should be pointed out that there are always campaigns to declare something something else, and that doesn't necessarily mean that they are significant, influential or reasonable -- and in any case, views towards homosexuality are not necessarily compatible with views towards abortion, and neither view may be compatible with pedophilia. They are not related issues, except on the level that at some point in time, they were or are illegal in various cultures. But that's not much of a connection, really; a lot of things that used to be illegal are now legal, and a lot of things that used to be legal are now illegal, all over the world.

It's theoretically possible to live in a society which recognizes no crimes, but I'm not at all confident that it would be a utopia. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 23:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Let's just cut to the chase, 69.157-Sociology is the root of all evil. That's what you want to hear, isn't it? Clio the Muse (talk) 00:58, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, looking at the edit history, it does kind of look like there's an agenda here. Ho hum. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 02:29, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

See Decriminalization. -- Deborahjay (talk) 07:16, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

May 9

data on international or global food prices going back 50 years or so

I'm looking for a spreadsheet or table of an index or indicator of global food prices (either international trade or local prices globally). I'm interested in the last 50 years, but can't find the raw data anywhere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.189.98.44 (talk) 00:39, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

That's part of the Consumer price index This link [9] may have what you need.--71.236.23.111 (talk) 09:41, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Killing Theives

In Michigan, can you shoot someone if they break into your house? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.119.61.7 (talk) 01:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

According to the Michigan Legislature, and more specifically, House Bill 1542, that appears to be the case, provided that you have "reasonable fear of imminent peril or great bodily harm". There are apparently some exceptions to this, such as if the person breaking in happens to be the house's owner or resident or a police officer. If you feel that this is something that applies to you in any way, I'd suggest you check with somebody knows Michigan criminal law, as not only is the reference desk the wrong place to ask for actual legal advice, it's entirely possible that there are other laws that also impact on this in one way or another that some guy on the internet -- me, that is -- is unaware of. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 02:50, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't know about Michigan, but in some areas you can register your property with the police. You then put a sign up that says "posted property". That's sort of an exaggerated form of "No trespassing". If then someone climbs your fence and you shoot them or they drown in your pool you're not liable. But you really should check with a lawyer for details. --71.236.23.111 (talk) 09:34, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

You can shoot at any people anywhere if you have any loaded and working long range weapon, but you might get arrested/shot back at for it.HS7 (talk) 20:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I remember one time there was a case, where a guy in the UP rigged his house with a booby-trap so a shotgun would fire when the door was opened. Someone broke into his house, the trap went off, and shot him. The burglar's family sued for millions, and the guy who trapped his house got pwnzed. Ziggy Sawdust 01:22, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Booby trapping a house is very different than standing there and shooting a guy. I sorry I don't have a reference right now but I'm pretty sure that deadly booby traps are illegal in all of the USA. And for good reason. It does not take very much imagination at all to come up with a reasonable scenario where innocent people would fall into them. (Firefighters, police officers, paramedics, next of kin after the trapper dies, or even some passing motorist in life-or-death need of a telephone.) In any case, booby traps involve killing someone who is not threatening your life at that moment, the courts frown on that. APL (talk) 13:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

That's why they came up with that "posted property [10]" stuff. Swimming pools can be a "booby trap", so can the hole of the tree stump you removed. So I'm not so sure we have any unambiguous laws prohibiting booby traps on your own property. Particularly if you'd post a sign warning people entering your property. Think vicious dog instead of booby trap. Both intended to cause bodily harm to trespassers. But the whole issue is definitely not federal level, or even state level legislation. My guess would be county ordinances. You also have to distinguish between criminal indictment and a civil suit for damages. If I can substantiate a claim that my neighbors utterly legal actions (e.g. digging a well on his property) cause me bodily or financial damage (e.g. my house collapsing) then I can sue for damages. Lisa4edit (talk) 21:23, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Socrates and Buddhism or Taoism

I know there are some similarities from Socrates to Buddhism such as the Phaedrus and his don't know mentality is similar to Taoism. Overall, how similar, do philosophers consider Socrates and Buddhism kindrid? What other areas do they have similarities or not? Thanks--208.102.189.190 (talk) 03:35, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello?--208.102.189.190 (talk) 21:18, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

JC-1 H2 Literature set texts

I asked this question a few months ago, but I transferred to a different junior college, so I am studying different texts.

I will still take Othello. Last time, a few of you said it was like Macbeth, which I studied in secondary school.

My other four texts are:

The Handmaid's Tale Great Expectations Brave New World Edgar Allan Poe

I started reading the first two already. They are difficult to understand because there is a lot of complex description, so it is difficult to follow the plot and events.

Any advice for studying these texts?

--166.121.36.232 (talk) 08:20, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

A good start can be had at The Handmaid's Tale, Great Expectations, Brave New World and Edgar Allan Poe. These (well, the first three) outline the plots and characters, so you can get them sorted in your head before you read; refer back whenever you get confused. The above articles also contain brief thematic discussions, and critical comment (some better than others), which can get you thinking about the issues (but you'll need to go deeper). Start with one book rather than reading them all at once, so you don't get them mixed up. Write down notes as you read: queries and things to look up later, first impressions, what it reminds you of, phrases and themes you've read elsewhere in the book. It can often be good to buy a cheap copy (from a second hand shop, for example) and make notes on the actual pages, underline significant passages and so forth. Brings back memories! I have a rather old, dog-eared, page turned, note-strewn Handmaid's Tale somewhere... Gwinva (talk) 11:33, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I teach writing and always say to my students dont take reading too seriously: because you will kill the book or the book will kill you. Instead, read the book quickly once and dont worry about taking notes or what you should be thinking. Just skim on through and try and enjoy it. Reading novels is after all supposed to be both intellectually stimulating and a pleasure, but we in academia do try and make it useful work for us and unfortunately work too for our students! Then think about what you think. Then read what others think of the book. Then read it again more slowly, and think about what you think and what others think. Then think about those conflicting thoughts, and read a bit more about what others think of the book, then write an essay thats about all those conflicting thoughts. And I know I have repeated the word think a lot, but thats what we have to do in academia, hopefully though we won't kill the simple enjoyment of reading. By the way, I love The Handmaid's Tale and Brave New World, its definitely worth reseaching dystopia. Mhicaoidh (talk) 09:14, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Famous Virginians

What is a Famous Virginian with a last name that startes with Y? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.10.65.190 (talk) 10:30, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

See Category:People from Virginia and select Y. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 11:03, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

More directly, this link. Spencer^T♦C 13:58, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Mosley's Mentality

Is there a key to understanding the personality and the politics of Oswald Mosley? What I would like to know if there was some theme to his career, related perhaps to a personal ideology, or ambition, or overall attitude, which explains why he changed party so many times? How could a one time Tory and then a Socialist end up as a Fascist? What was it in his that allowed him in the end, a man of his background and education, to associate with a collection of violent thugs, both before the war and after? Thanks for your help.217.43.14.177 (talk) 11:27, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Clio the Muse reminded us not long ago of Stanley Baldwin's biting remark in 1929, "Tom Mosley is a cad and a wrong 'un and they will find it out." (By 'they', he meant the Labour Party.) For P. G. Wodehouse's more charitable view of Mosley, see Roderick Spode. Rightly or wrongly, I've always seen more Spode than cad in Mosley. So far as he was a racist, that was how he (and thousands like him) were brought up. He was a prima donna with a towering ego, but so was Churchill. Mosley believed passionately in his own vision and leadership and in his power to do good. Even after the War had effectively discredited him, he was puzzled that his country didn't want him in public life. Perhaps the key to him is egotism. In the twentieth century, he was a fish out of water. He played for one team after another because he just wasn't a team player but had no hope of getting to the top without a team. Again, an echo of Churchill. Xn4 19:48, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Wittgenstein and Schopenhauer

How exactly did the work of Arthur Schopenhauer influence Wittgenstein? Jet Eldridge (talk) 12:31, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

No? Jet Eldridge (talk) 10:16, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I intended to leave this for Clio, but just for now she has sailed into the West. Wittgenstein read Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation at the age of sixteen. Schopenhauer seems to be the source of his insights into ethics, aesthetics, the will, and the metaphysical self, and he later told Georg Henrik von Wright that his earliest philosophy was a Schopenhauerian epistemological idealism. While writing his Notebooks and his Tractatus, Wittgenstein is thought to have re-read much of Schopenhauer, and A. Phillips Griffiths notes that "...some of the remarks there [in the Notebooks], some of which are repeated in the Tractatus, are so exactly Schopenhauerian as to appear culled from the text." For instance, the ladder image of the Tractatus is Schopenhauer's. Xn4 13:40, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, of general relevance, is that Wittgenstein didn't think of Schopenhauer as a particularly "deep" philosopher, claiming that, unlike Kant, he could "see the bottom of him." This is from the appendix to the other translation of Die Welte als Wille und Vorstellung, entitled The World as Will and Idea, which I don't have in front of me, but I think my memory serves me just this once. 203.221.126.227 (talk) 06:07, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Becoming a jew: the easy way

A jew is someone who has a jewish mother. As I was born my mother was not jew, but what would happen if she converts to Judaism? Will I be automatically be jew (not convert) or will I still be what I am now? 217.168.1.109 (talk) 12:44, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I have no authorized answer to your question, but the article on conversion to Judaism led me to "What is the status of a child when the mother converts to Judaism during pregnancy?". The discussion there seems to imply that your mother's religious affiliation is only relevant from conception to birth. Once you're born, you are your own person, and your mother's postpartum conversion does not make you Jewish, unless you convert as well. The article on matrilinearity is interesting as well, and mentions different views on the stringency of matrilinearity in modern Judaism. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:10, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

The phrasing of your initial question is problematic; consider that a Jew is someone born to a Jewish mother (not "who has..."; the Judaic status of a child adopted into a Jewish family is a separate issue with its own protocols). The status is relevant under Jewish law observed by the Orthodox stream of Judaism and in the State of Israel. If you're interested in other forms of Judaism (e.g. Reconstructionist, Reform, and Conservative), try the "Contact Us" feature of their websites (External links on those pages). -- Deborahjay (talk) 16:48, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I haven't read it lately, but Who is a Jew? might clarify it. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:25, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Popish Plot

Resolved

Has anyone read your page on the Popish Plot. It's REALLY TERRIBLE, full of errors and POV judgements. Please can some expert help sort out this mess? I thought I would find someone here, rather than leaving a message on the talk page. The reputation of Wikipedia is at stake. You must help!!!Pere Plex (talk) 13:05, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you could detail some of these errors, POV judgements, &c, on the talk page. I've read the article, and it does not stand out as especially poor; on the contrary. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:33, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid I agree with Pere Plex, there are bad errors and POV judgements. For instance, it's too simplistic to say that Oates was "a low level clergymen" [sic]. He was a rogue, but we don't need to hurl unfocussed abuse at his professional status. The nonsense begins with the claim that Charles II was married to "the Queen of Portugal"... perhaps someone will get on and correct that, so don't be surprised if you read this and it's gone, but there's a lot more that's wrong. Xn4 14:34, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I fixed the Queen of Portugal, but ...eewwww.... we really need to start over. - Nunh-huh 22:27, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll begin a rewrite tomorrow, here. Thanks, PeterSymonds | talk 22:24, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I've just remembered something I said here on the desk last August... Xn4 03:57, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

For anyone who has the inclination to work on the Popish Plot article, here are links to two good online resources. Xn4 21:44, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

• The second parliament of Charles II Eighteenth session at british-history.ac.uk
• Oates's Plot at the Catholic Encyclopedia online

Overview of 1700s-era naval uniforms?

Hi all, I'm trying to help an artist friend do some research on what things looked like on the high seas in the 1700s, with a particular focus on British, French and Spanish naval uniforms. I've looked at the Wiki articles on the navies of these respective countries, but they're (obvious) overviews of hundreds of years of history and can't really get into uniform specifics for a particular era. Any ideas on how I wouldt go about finding images of this era of naval combat? Thanks!

Try the Museum of Costume. The National Maritime Museum has excellent online image resources, e.g. [11]. And you could contact the archivist of each country's navy. BrainyBabe (talk) 16:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

In the Royal Navy, there was no uniform for officers until 1748, when new regulations created the 'best uniform' or 'dress uniform' (embroidered blue coat with white facings over white breeches and white stockings) and an 'undress uniform', commonly called the 'working rig', which was similar but plainer. See here. Uniform regulations for the Royal Navy's seamen didn't come until 1857, but before that a ship's crew did look much the same, as the men were generally supplied with the materials to make their own clothes. Xn4 16:28, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

When I was young I had a copy of what was called the "junior edition" of the Britannica; it had illustrated uniforms for at least the British and French navies through the modern era. You might want to look around in your local public library for an old edition of that. --Relata refero (disp.) 18:16, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Some Spanish naval infantry uniforms, and you may find the Anne S.K. Brown Military collection helpful, too. SaundersW (talk) 18:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Osprey Publishing are an excellent source for matters military; their books contain detailed illustrations of uniforms, weapons, technology and so forth from all eras and disciplines. Check out their catalogue at [12] Some are available as limited preview on google books: see [Royal Navy 1790-1970, for example. Gwinva (talk) 20:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

French Revolution

Why do the French celebrate the revolution of 1789? The whole thing seems quite ugly, something to be ashamed of, gruseome and bloody, an episode that marks the beginning of all modern tyranny, from facism to communism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.162.194 (talk) 15:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd answer this now, but I'd prefer to wait till Clio agrees with you and then swoop in and explain why bliss it was in that dawn to be alive. --Relata refero (disp.) 18:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Good strategy, Relata refero. I'll hold off as well. Marco polo (talk) 18:35, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

To be fair to the French (not always an easy thing, I know), what the Fête nationale actually celebrates on 14 July is (informally) the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 and (formally) the Fête de la Fédération of 14 July 1790, which marked the creation of a constitutional monarchy in France. At the time, that was widely seen as a satisfactory outcome to the Revolution, and the King took part in it (the 1790 celebration, that is). I've been in different parts of France on 14 July (that's to say, in conservative and more radical parts) and I've never seen a public celebration of the Terror, although I know there are some hotheads who still defend it. It has to be remembered that the French Revolution is one of the sources of Animal Farm - the Revolution's beginnings were idealistic, and those ideals are still the foundation of the modern French state. Xn4 20:27, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

For the same reasons the Americans celebrate their revolution? Matt Deres (talk) 20:31, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

The American Revolution (which wasn't really a revolution) was about independence from colonial rule. The French Revolution was about freedom from the rule of an absolute monarch and about democratic ideals, even if later excesses were not in keeping with those ideals. It is the ideals (liberty, equality, fraternity) that are celebrated on July 14. Marco polo (talk) 00:26, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Note that if refrained from celebrating anything that has historically inspired people to be wicked, it is hard to say what we could celebrate. Christianity and Darwinism would have to go out the window one and the same as well. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:15, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

If any of you are still waiting for Clio to swoop, she has left for more exciting locations User:Clio the Muse. ៛ Bielle (talk) 01:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Out there perhaps is the Great Game, but in here can also be a few thrills and spills. Clio quondam, Clioque futurus. Xn4 02:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Offer excludes Northern Ireland

I'm not British but I've lived in the UK and I have listened to a lot to British commercial radio. Many radio advertisements ends with the fine print statement, "Terms and conditions apply. Offer excludes Northern Ireland". I have never heard ads that excludes Scotland or Wales. Are there any reasons for this treatment of NI? Thuresson (talk) 17:32, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but it may be a matter of the added shipping cost. Or, if the offer is dependent on some kind of contact with a local retail outlet or distribution infrastructure, many firms may not have extended their network to Northern Ireland for similar reasons. For example, you can set up a central warehouse and a small fleet of lorries in Leeds to service England, Scotland, and Wales, but sending a lorry on a ferry to Northern Ireland and back would add considerable expense, not least for the driver's time. On the other hand, Northern Ireland's population (1.5 million) and income might not support a warehouse and lorry fleet there, whereas the 58 million or so potential customers on the island of Great Britain might well support such a distribution infrastructure. Marco polo (talk) 18:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a shipping and distribution issue, much like US companies that exclude Alaska and Hawaii from some offers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.100.32.211 (talk) 22:32, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Are the adverts for insurance? I've noticed most TV adverts for car insurance in England have "excludes Northern Ireland" on the bottom of the screen in the closing seconds - presumably because car insurance rules are different for NI but the advert can still be seen there (either that or the insurance companies have the mistaken belief that "The Troubles" are still a part of everyday Northern Irish life). I've also seen some financial services adverts (usually for IVAs) say "not available in Scotland". Astronaut (talk) 09:08, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

It may also be an issue of differing standards or regulations which the company doesn't want the cost or hassle of having to deal with. We get the same thing here in Canada, where the offers often exclude Quebec, which has more stringent language regulations for 'most everything. Different taxation rates could also be a factor. Matt Deres (talk) 13:49, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Tax rates are the same in all parts of the UK, but thanks to the 49 years with a separate legislature from 1922, Northern Irish law can be quite different from the law in England & Wales, and Scotland - in Trade Union law, for example, the laws on opting in or out of a union's Political Fund if it has one are diametrically opposite from the laws which apply in the rest of the UK. It is, however, mainly a matter of distribution costs - it's also not unusual to see adverts excluding the Scottish Highlands and Islands (Hebrides, Orkney, and Shetland). -- Arwel (talk) 20:39, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Best source for Ibn Battuta's travels

I pulled these references from Ibn Battuta's main article. Which one of these has the best description of his travels?

• Mackintosh-Smith, Tim (ed.) (2003). The Travels of Ibn Battutah. Picador. ISBN 0-330-41879-3. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
• Dunn, Ross E. (1986). The Adventures of Ibn Battuta. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-05771-6. Reissued and revised in 2004 ISBN 0-520-24385-4
• H. A. R. Gibb, translator (1929), Ibn Battuta Travels in Asia and Africa (selections) London: Routledge. Reissued several times.
• H. A. R. Gibb (1958, 1962, 1971, 1994, 2000), Ibn Battuta Travels in Asia and Africa (full text) London: Hakluyt Society. 4 vols. + index.
• Ibn Battota's Safari : Tuhfat Al-Nothaar Fe Gharaa'ib Al-Amsaar , ISBN 9-953341-80-X

• OR if anyone knows of other works better than these.

The reason I ask is because I've owned multiple books on a certain subject and one always stands out among the rest as the best. This is more of a personal preference thing, but I'm sure there are specialists out there that can make a well-informed choice. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 17:34, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, since the fourth item on your list (Gibb's multivolume translation) contains an English rendering, with commentary, of the entire text of Ibn Battuta's work, it would seem to be the fullest possible account of the travels. I own a set, and it's pretty fascinating. Deor (talk) 22:24, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

not an advise but since you have lots of info regarding Ibn Battuta you might be interested in sourcing Urduja. Thanks! --Lenticel ^(talk) 01:06, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

May 10

National Service League-United Kingdom

Good evening. In the course of some reading on the National Service League, set up in Britain in 1902 to campaign for compulsory military service, I came across a suggestion that an army raised in such a way could be used to overthrow the government. Were there any good grounds for this fear and did the League itself embrace a particular political perspective? My thanks in advance. G F Shee (talk)

Sorry can't help with the question, but it gives me a good idea.....--Artjo (talk) 05:37, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

A new one to me. In days long gone even in 1902 it had been a professional army, Housman's Army of Mercenaries, loyal to their paymaster, who were seen as a threat to the political order. The case of the New Model Army and James II's attempt to establish a Catholic and substantially Irish army prior to the Glorious Revolution were seen as particularly relevant. Going further back, there were endless examples of military men seizing power in Italian city states, and, probably better known to classically educated Britons, in Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece. But in 1906, that was not a very effective bogeyman. Britain had had a large-ish professional army for over a century and there had been no man on horseback. The National Service League was largely a conservative group, but a populist one. Their members were likely to be interested in eugenics, in public health, in mass education, and other ideas which put them on the progressive side of the conservative movement. It certainly wasn't some sort of Boulangist trojan horse aiming to replace Edward VII with Bobs. Angus McLellan (Talk) 00:34, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Cultures/ groups forbidding or objecting to cutting hair

I came across a "Dear Abby" column where parents complained about other parents not allowing their child to get a haircut. The columnist encouraged the party asking the question to convince the other child's parents to concede. I found that a rather intolerant position, considering that there are groups that ban hair cutting as part of their practices. Thinking more I came up with the Sikh. I also seem to have a couple of orthodox Jews who seemed to not cut theirs although our article doesn't seem to mention, maybe it's a subgroup or a personal preference. Could s.o. clarify and are there any others? Thks.Lisa4edit (talk) 01:18, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I know some Christian denominations here in the Philippines forbid the cutting of hair in females. Too bad I don't have an online cite so I can't name them here.--Lenticel ^(talk) 01:22, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

For the Orthodox Jewish tradtion, see payot. - Nunh-huh 02:23, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

See Long hair. Wrad (talk) 02:32, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks yalls. Obviously a hairy subject. :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.236.23.111 (talk) 03:42, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Niuean boys do not cut their hair until they become become teenagers, in a ceremony where women tend the hair for the last time before it is cut. Members of the extended family plaster the youth with banknotes – all part of a large informal Niuean economy that links families and ensures the community looks after its own. This is a tradition continued wherever Niueans live, especially in New Zealand where many Niueans are now, indeed my young sons went to a friends first hair cut last year. We need to expand the rock's entry to acknowledge this well known custom Mhicaoidh (talk) 08:43, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

The biblical Nazirites did not cut their hair. The nicest story dealing with the subject is the one on Samson. User:Krator (t c) 18:02, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Pentecostal women do not cut their hair. Same goes for followers of the splinter groups of the Latter-Day Saints such as those who were recently detained in the US state of Texas. Dismas|^(talk) 18:47, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Likewise Rastafarians. And there are other groups that discourage or prohibit the cutting of beards, and yet others that encourage or require the removal of certain types of body hair. All ways of identifying "our people" as different from "those others". BrainyBabe (talk) 18:50, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

My grandparents were Pentecostal and I attended their services frequently when visiting them, and there was never any prohibition against hair cutting among them. Corvus cornix_talk 22:55, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Not Pentecostal, but the Exclusive Brethren proscribe cutting the hair for women[13]. Oddly I can't find it in the article or the Raven-Taylor-Hales branch, though the women are identified easily by long hair and head scarves. Julia Rossi (talk) 01:36, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The ancient Chinese only shaved their head once at birth, and never after, as a sign of filial piety. Confucianism says that one's body and hair is given by one's parents, and so as a sign of filial piety, one should never damage them (身体发肤，受之父母，不敢毁伤，孝之始也). In Pre-Confucian times, cutting of one's hair or nails was an important religious ritual, with the cut-off hair and nails offered to the gods as sacrifice.

After the advent of Confucianism, the importance of hair did not diminish. In the Han dynasties, one of the five corporal punishments in the Imperial Code was that of cutting the hair (髡刑).

By contrast, the nomadic tribes of northern and western China who did not subscribe to Confucianism had different customs for cutting or shaving parts of their heads. When the Manchus conquered all China, they sought to implement their custom (which was to shave the front part of the head and weave the rest into a queue). They met great resistance from the Han Chinese, and implemented a policy of "if you want your hair, you lose your head; if you want your head, you lose your hair" - i.e. a death penalty for those who do not dress their hair in the Manchu custom. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:58, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Bad grades and grad school/master/PhD

I got a low grade for my first University degree. Is it acceptable to apply for a master degree? Would a good GRE grade solve the problem? Should I try publishing something in serious but unknow magazine? 217.168.4.133 (talk) 10:02, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

If your grades aren't strong enough to apply for an MA program, you could go back to undergrad for another year as a "special student" (or whatever the equivalent for you is) and pad your grades. (Worked for me!) Adam Bishop (talk) 12:26, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

At what university was it? What was the official name? "special student"? 217.168.4.133 (talk) 12:32, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

The situation will be different from country to country and university to university and even program to program. Some Master's programs are almost like an intense version of the Bachelor's - there are regular classes, etc. and the thesis is less important, more like a capstone to the whole thing. Getting into that kind of program would be difficult with poor grades; I would suggest following Adam's advice. On the other hand, some Master's programs are more like a apprenticeship, where a professor agrees to personally take you on and guide you through the steps to writing a well-received and published thesis. There may be few or no regular classes. For that kind of thing, a good rapport with the prof is much more important than the grades you got... keeping in mind that good grades help create that good rapport. :) Those are only a couple of examples; there are more. Publishing anything in a peer-reviewed journal will certainly help your cause, but that's because it's hard to do; getting something published in a regular magazine wouldn't hurt your cause, but it probably wouldn't help much either. Matt Deres (talk) 14:01, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

And just to reaffirm a point: it will matters what type of program you are trying to do. There's a very different attitudes towards grades in, say, the sciences than there are the humanities. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:37, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, what is the attitude in humanities and what is the attitude in science? In what field are universities more liberal? 217.168.4.133 (talk) 15:15, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

My experience is in Canada if that helps. Publishing something, as Matt said, is hard, and if you don't have an MA or PhD you likely won't be taken seriously, so that's an unlikely route (there were a few discussions about this in the past couple of months on the reference desk, actually). Adam Bishop (talk) 16:10, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry if this comes out a bit blunt. One question that comes to mind is why your grades didn't come out better. If you want to join a Master's program just because you dream of getting a degree, that's most likely not going to work. Unless your low grades had some specific cause that no longer exists, you have markedly improved your organizational skills and study habits, Master's aren't handed out after a couple of years on the merit of being present. If you felt that your focused interests and abilities in one subject have limited your academic achievements so far and you would be able to contribute significantly to the advancement of the field, you might be able to convince the professor or the acceptance committee of some program to let you in despite your grades. Your reaction above indicates that to be a rather unlikely scenario since you're not even sure what you'd like to focus on. As the other posters said there are many paths to overcoming low grades, but they all involve that you prove that you can handle the requirements of the program you are applying for. The first one you'd have to prove that to is yourself. Publishing "something" is only going to help if you'd like to go for something like writing or journalism. Lisa4edit (talk) 21:08, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, indeed my low grades had a personal cause that no longer exits. Besides that, they were not systematically low, just a part of it. 217.168.0.94 (talk) 21:57, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

There are lots of second echelon schools which offer Masters degrees. Anyone who received a Bachelors degree from a respectable (non-diploma mill) college should be able to enroll at one of these lesser schools with a Masters program and take some courses as a special (non-degree program) student. If one area of your undergrad program was weak (say mathematics) and you passed these courses in your new academic career with good grades, you should be able to write a convincing application saying that you would do better this time. Just the intent to do better would have little weight, absent evidence. You could also take courses at an "open" college, such as a community college, and a couple of semesters of good grades in hard courses should be convincing. Test scores alone would not be completely effective in overcoming a poor track record, since the brightest person can be a goof-off slacker. If you have a good excuse as you suggest (there was some impediment to scholarship which has been removed) then a letter of recommendation from a respected person with knowledge of your circumstances would help. Good luck. FairmontMN (talk) 02:53, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Annual economic growth rate

Hello, is there a website with countries' past economic growth rates? Since, say, the 1990's? The specific countries I am interested in are Canada, Singapore and China. Any help would be much appreciated, thanks in advance. 79.78.35.112 (talk) 10:52, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

This is the best I could find. Hope it helps.Anonymous101 (talk) 15:47, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Good sources for economic data are the websites of: IMF, World Bank, OECD and the Fed St. Louis for the US ([14]). User:Krator (t c) 18:12, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

The UN has lots of data, but maybe not exactly what you were looking for. Try http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Default.aspx or http://unstats.un.org/unsd/databases.htm. Hope this helps. Lisa4edit (talk) 20:26, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Deaths in Medieval England

Manorial records show that manslaughter rates were particularly high. Is there any known reason for this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.162.162 (talk) 12:33, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

It's difficult to speculate unless we know which manorial records, and when (and what their definition of "manslaughter" was). Do you have any more info? Adam Bishop (talk) 16:08, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Experience

If some one never had a girlfriend and they are gay, do they have the right to become gay? I think they should experience a woman first before they go on that side, don't you. Mr Beans Backside (talk) 14:32, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I nominate you to be in charge of enforcing that rule. Good Luck. Makey melly (talk) 14:33, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

As an after though, I have to disagree. I would really not like it if I had to sample some gayness before I earned the right to be heterosexual. Makey melly (talk) 14:34, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

This isn't the place to judge people or their actions, so please do not do so. Thanks, PeterSymonds | talk 14:38, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

The question is a little confused. If a person "is gay", then they've already arrived. Sexual orientation is not about rights, it's about our personal nature. Some young people are unsure which way they're heading, sexually speaking, so it makes sense for them to try various things before they identify whether they're straight, gay or whatever. But if they know from an early age what their orientation is, why should they be forced to try alternatives that they already consider undesirable, a turn-off, or even repulsive? -- JackofOz (talk) 23:24, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

presidential nominees

When was a presidential nominee selected by the super delegates over the popular choice? Has this ever happened? Mr Beans Backside (talk) 14:54, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

• Nope. Note that there have only been six primary seasons under the superdelegate setup. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 15:11, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Gender Equality in Education

Today, there is much discrimination around the world when it comes to females receiving an education, particularly in underdeveloped nations. Does anyone have any unique ideas that could help solve this problem?

-Julio

In places where gender inequality is prevalent in education, it is usually part of an overall lack of gender equality, and cannot be solved without tackling the greater issue. Do you have any examples of countries where inequality in education is a lot more prevalent than in other areas? A specific 'unique idea', as you phrase it, Julio, could be necessary in that situation. User:Krator (t c) 18:07, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

The internet is making knowledge a lot more accessible. One needs access to a computer, though, and someone to help up to the level of basic reading skills. But that's only part of the equation. If gaining knowledge is discouraged and an education can not be applied later this opportunity only helps a little. Unique ideas there are aplenty. The problem is that any good idea can turn things for the worse just as easy as it can improve the situation. Lisa4edit (talk) 20:13, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Job interview success

What would you recommend for job interview success, I'm only 17 and this is my first job interview, so a little nervous. Thanks in advance Hadseys 17:33, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

On one aspect, dress in something you've worn before, i.e. do not buy a new suit for the occasion. Depends on what the job's about though. User:Krator (t c) 17:55, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

• Lol just a sales assistant for Marks and Spencers, I've already done a list of possible questions and prepared my answers though, so I'm well prepared --Hadseys 18:11, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Speak intelligently, don't use any slang, say "yes" instead of "yeah", and don't slouch. I've no idea what a Marks & Spencers is but just basic courtesy and things like that help anywhere. Dismas|^(talk) 18:36, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

If it is not already part of your life, buy and practise wearing a couple of articles of their clothing, and buy and consume a couple of types of their food, and be prepared to talk about what you liked about them. But don't wear an entire outfit of brand new M&S clothing to the interview. BrainyBabe (talk) 18:53, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Even for a sales assistant job, dressing smartly will count in your favour - don't for heaven's sake go in jeans, t-shirt and trainers as someone did to an interview at my employers' last year! -- Arwel (talk) 20:44, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to reiterate the issue about speaking clearly and intelligently. As someone who deals with a lot of college-age young adults, I have noticed that most are entirely un-selfconscious about the fact that they speak with huge amounts of slang, as well as very poor grammar. Avoid unnecessary use of the the word "like" if possible. Remember, you want them to think that you will be a good person to sell things to others — you need to sound like you know what you are talking about at all times, even if you don't. Part of that is speaking clearly. Unfortunately it's a skill that is not very much extolled these days; even Ivy League undergraduates often "like like like" their way through a seminar and it's hard (as the instructor) to avoid thinking of them as idiots just because they don't put very much care into how they express themselves. (Of course, I am speaking of what is probably a specifically US example here, but I'm sure there's a similar one in the UK.)

Also, I should maybe point out that I'm not opposed to the new suit approach. Sure, it looks affected, but that's not bad: you're projecting that you care enough about the job to do something extra. Some people show up to job interviews wearing the same slouchy clothes they'd wear to school or around the house; that might look more "natural" but it doesn't show you care very much. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm with Brainiy and 98 on the suit. Preparing a little "sales pitch" about yourself is a good idea. Don't go with I am, I can, I want to. Instead say: (you want me because) I've done /achieved this applying these qualities/skills (that you are looking for).

Run this by as many people as you can. The more familiar you become with the "product Hadseys" the more confident you'll be and then a lot of the nervousness will pass. (Don't worry if you still have a bit of the jitters, everyone does.) Lisa4edit (talk) 19:56, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

And you should have a list of questions you want to ask them too. Apparently if you write a list of everything you want to know and go through it at the end, finding all the stuff that hasn't yet been discussed, that impresses them.HS7 (talk) 20:12, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

In the US at least, a job interview is a two-way affair, where the applicant decides whether or not the job and the employer, and the employer decides whether or not they like the applicant. If you spend too much time asking about the pay, benefits, time off, etc., then the employer will think thta yuo don't really care about the job. Therefore, Try to ask questions about the actual job and try to show some enthusiasm about the actual work. -Arch dude (talk) 21:24, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

You look reasonably intelligent and smart (actually I liked your old photo much better) and seem to have wide ranging interests and a solid personality.

I would not worry too much about the interview. Your potential employers will understand that you are nervous, but you would not have been invited for an interview unless your CV / application has already implied your suitability for the position.

Good luck. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:35, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Hidden secret 7. It's an inter-view, not an interrogation. You're entitled to ask about them, just as much as they're entitled to ask about you. But apparently it's considered bad form these days to ask about how much they're going to pay you, unless they raise the issue and want to negotiate about it. If they just say "The pay is $X; does that suit you?", or something like that, then it's a take-it-or-leave-it statement. Only if X is seriously lower than your expectations would you say anything other than "Oh, that's fine, thanks". Also, if they ask you what you've been doing lately, for heavens sake don't do what someone did on a panel I was sitting on once - she replied, "I don't do nuffink [sic] much. They don't give me enough work to do and I spend half the day reading a novel". At least pretend to be industrious and proactive even if that doesn't quite resemble your operating style. This is all about impressions; what actually happens in the workplace on a daily basis is far more complex than any interview can ever hope to capture. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:59, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

It is an inter-rrogation. You ask too. If it were a proper inter-view you will only see and be seen. 217.168.0.94 (talk) 00:29, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow! Touché. Next time I'm being grilled by the cops under a naked light at 3 am, I'll ask them if this is an interrogation. If they answer in the affirmative, I'll say "OK, in that case I've got a few questions for you" and see what happens next. But seriously, how amazing that I've never noticed that this word never means what the inter- prefix implies. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:13, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

No one's yet mentioned what I think is key advice before a job interview: Do some research about the company ahead of time. Visit the company's website. Definitely read the Wikipedia article. If you're not a regular shopper at Marks & Spencer, walk through the store. Pay close attention to the employees: how they act, dress, relate to one another and the customers. It can't hurt to talk to a few employees about their job and the company. Once you've done your research, demonstrate what you've learned in the interview. For example, the Wikipedia article mentions that in February Marks & Spencer started charging 5p for plastic bags. You might want to mention that like the company's commitment to the environment and ask how the policy is working. Are more customers bringing bags from home? Don't fake interest though. If you think this policy is stupid, don't pretend it isn't, just don't mention it. If you like one of the company's products, mention that. Most often, what an employer is looking for is a sign that you're enthusiastic about the job. Showing you're interested in the company is one of the best ways to demonstrate that. --D. Monack | talk 07:26, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

• I read Marks & Spencers annual review and I've compiled a list of job interview questions they might ask me; I've mentioned some of the statistics they've used in their annual review, and hopefully they'll be impressed, I'll publish them on a subpage on my user space on here and maybe you guys could give my responses an appraisal, if you don't mind? --Hadseys 10:37, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

• Here are some questions I anticipate being asked during my interview and also listed there are my responses to them, please feel free to scrutinize them :-) --11:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The mind in ancient Greece

Did the Greeks really think the mind was in the heart? I've heard this a lot but I can't find a source anywhere. Anyone know? Michael Clarke, Esq. (talk) 18:40, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

"Tell me, where is fancy bred, / or in the heart, or in the head?" A cursory search via Google didn't give me the best evidence, but this link gives some good info, and suggests that both Aristotle and Homer would be places to look for citations. Perhaps someone else will be able to offer a more direct citation to ancient authors? User:Jwrosenzweig editing as 71.112.32.46 (talk) 19:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

The link above is nice, and here is an account of the subject, from a referred journal, with references, tracing the topic from all the way back to ancient Egypt. SaundersW (talk) 20:27, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys, those were both great. Michael Clarke, Esq. (talk) 22:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Why is Tsutomu Miyazaki still alive??

Hello friends, I have seen I can ask on here about laws. Tsutomu Miyazaki, a Japanese serial killer was sentenced to death in 1990 for the murders of four little girls. My question is: why isn't he dead?. Why if he was sentenced to death in 1997 (however, he was in prison since 1990) he's still alive in 2008?? Thanks a lot! 201.254.89.87 (talk) 18:45, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like he (or his lawyers) have filed for appeals many times; the most recent one being ruled on in 2006. I know nothing about the Japanese court system, but assuming it is somewhat like the American court system (a big assumption, but since the US did help re-draw the Japanese government after WWII, maybe not a stupid one), death row appeals drastically extend the amount of time until execution (which is not necessarily a bad thing, given the problems of false conviction in the US at least), and even after appeals have been exhausted it can take quite some time for the actual execution to get scheduled and enacted. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:58, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm always amazed at the delays built into the US legal system, given that by the time people are executed many seem to have been in prison for as long as they would have served for murder in Britain and then been released on licence. Back in the first two-thirds of the last century, when Britain had the death penalty, the average length of time from conviction through appeal to execution was about ten weeks; John Amery, who was the first person in 300 years to plead guilty to treason and therefore could not appeal, was hanged exactly three weeks after his trial. If you're going to have the death penalty, at least get it over with quickly. -- Arwel (talk) 20:54, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it the death penalty in Japan is often used symbolically, but rarely then actually executed...? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.128.220.202 (talk) 21:27, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

We can compare this with the way these things were done in the 18th century. James Hackman killed Martha Ray on 7 April 1779, was tried at the Old Bailey on 16 April 1779, found guilty of murder the same day, and hanged three days later. Xn4 22:37, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't mean to start a debate about the death penalty but I thought I'd respond to Arwel's comment about "get(ting) it over with". I heard a story on NPR last week some time that was talking about the death penalty in Texas. Texas is known for its use of the death penalty and carrying out the sentence more than most other states. Apparently, with the prevalence and ease of DNA testing, a number of lawyers have asked for help from various local law colleges in the Dallas area to sift through all the records of those who were sentenced to die in Dallas. So far, they've been able to get the sentences thrown out for many men because their DNA didn't match was was on file in evidence lockers. Dallas is the only area that they're concentrating on since Dallas is the only city where evidence with DNA on/in it (hair, skin samples, blood, etc.) is actually preserved for any great length of time. Most every other jurisdiction destroys evidence in a more timely fashion. Dismas|^(talk) 01:42, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, to the OP, you might want to check out Capital punishment in Japan. I haven't looked at it due to my internet connection being horrible tonight but it might shed some light on the subject. Dismas|^(talk) 01:49, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

battleship diplomacy

What is battleship diplomacy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.128.220.202 (talk) 21:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

There is some (obviously biased or even biassed) information under the entry for cowboy diplomacy.

--Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:10, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

The usual term for what you mean is gunboat diplomacy. Xn4 22:25, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Redirect created, so the OP's link is no longer red. SaundersW (talk) 15:59, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The role of committee members in a small club

I am the secretary of a small club. The President tries to take over what I understand to be my role. Exactly what is my role? Islofts (talk) 21:28, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Normally, the role of the club secretary is to deal with matters (especially correspondence, taking minutes, making arrangements for meetings and events, less often supervising permanent or temporary staff, if there are any) on behalf of the Committee. Decisions are normally taken by the Committee, unless the club's Rules specifically delegate them to someone. Xn4 22:24, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Such squabbles are why clubs draw up "club rules", a "club manifest" or some such. Maybe you'd like to put that on the agenda for the next meeting. You could fix such things as quorum, roles of officers (e.g. the president, the secretary), membership, etc. If you already have club rules you might want to expand them. Google for "club rules" to get ideas of what you might put in. They don't have to be cast in stone. You can fix in the quorum rules how many people have to agree to make changes. There are people who object to having rules instated, feeling they would unduly hem them in. That only delays having to make decisions to the point when conflicts arise. Lisa4edit (talk) 07:54, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Definition of the mind

I know this question is a little bit languages and a little bit psychology (which goes under science, apparently), but I think it's more suited here. Can anyone give me some different definitions of the mind? I'm basically looking for one from ancient Greece, one from Freud or a contemporary and then a sort of "medical standard" one from nowadays if one exists. Thanks in advance. Michael Clarke, Esq. (talk) 22:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

You're just not a believer yet, are you? Wikipedia has an article on everything. Mind has several definitions and links that should suit your question. Philosophy, which includes most of the "mind" debate, goes under Humanities. So your were right on the first try. --71.236.23.111 (talk) 06:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Essentialism and Enlightenment Tolerance

In philosophy, essentialism is the view that, for any specific kind of entity, there is a set of characteristics or properties all of which any entity of that kind must have. This view is contrasted with non-essentialism which states that for any given kind of entity there are no specific traits which entities of that kind must have.

Does the Enlightenment specifically reject most kinds of essentialism ? I've heard it said that essentialism was at the root of all forms of bigotry and was thus rejected by the 18th century philosophy of Tolerance. In other words, is it right to claim that essentialism is essential to non-enlightened people ?

What I find most difficult with this view is that essentialism can mean a lot of things, it can mean some strands of ancient Greek philosophy, it can mean certain religious views, it can also mean outright racism and nationalism. 69.157.246.246 (talk) 23:04, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the generalization that the Enlightenment was anti-essentialist, any more than it is correct to say that the Enlightenment it was anti-racist or pro-tolerance (other than religious). Many fine treatises on racial inequality came from Enlightenment minds, and cries for tolerance were usually restricted to religious and political tolerance at most. On the other hand, essentialism is at the core of much Aristotlean philosophy, and underlines much of the philosophy of the Enlightenment as well. As to whether it is the root of all bigotry, that's sort of like saying bricks and wood are at the base of all death camps, in my opinion. It may be necessary for bigotry, but it not sufficient, and bigotry has much more to it than believing in shared properties or kinds. Some of the greatest works of the Enlightenment were all about finding the shared characteristics, and some of those same works were early works in racism as well—see Linnaeus, for example. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:58, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

May 11

artist/painter A.F. Gerstmayr

Hello, I am having difficulty finding anything about an oil painter by the name of A. F. Gerstmayr. I have an oil painting signed A.F. Gerstmayr that belonged to my Grandfather. I first saw it in his home in the late 1950's in America. My Grandfather was well traveled so it may not be an American painter. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, lowkeyturner,<> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.214.182.243 (talk) 00:39, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Googling around revealed no record of an A. F. Gerstmayr. Combinations with common first names also didn't reveal much promising material. (Someone bought a farm and someone else filed a patent.) That makes it rather unlikely that it was done by a talented amateur. I found an artist Hans Gerstmayr from Austria. He was born on April 14, 1882 in Rubring an der Enns and lived in Maulhausen. He died Oktober 1987. (Not a typo, he did get that old.) He would fit your timeframe. Problem is he didn't do oil paintings. He was noted for doing something called "stahlschnitt" (Steelengraving). Since it's also not a match on the first name, this might either not be the one or it's a one off. Maybe it was done in the course of his training. Given the fact that there were 2 wars there in his lifetime he might have done it by special request in exchange for something useful. --71.236.23.111 (talk) 06:58, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

There is one Alfred Frank Gerstmayr, born 1893, naturalised 1907-24, died in 1968 in Florida, probably buried in San Mateo Cemetery, Putnam County, Florida. Additional info on him require signing up with www.ancestry.com. There is nothing I could find about the person himself, unfortunately.

A whole stack of Gerstmayrs seem to have immigrated to the USA (probably from the Mühlviertel / Upper Austria / Austria) early last century, settling mainly in New York and Chikago. Sorry, this is not much, but maybe it helps in your further research. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 13:41, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Guthrum II

Ahoy the ref desk! I have a problem with Guthrum II, supposedly a king of East Anglia in the time of Edward the Elder. The link to Johann Martin Lappenberg's book in the Guthrum II article takes you to the right page (87), where footnote 4 refers to "Anc. LL. and Inst.", or, Ancient Laws and Institutes of England; Comprising Laws Enacted Under the Anglo-Saxon Kings ... With a Compendious Glossary, Etc. edited by Benjamin Thorpe. The 1840 versions on Google books don't seem to contain the relevant material, the supposed "Laws of Edward and Guthrum", but the 2003 version does. The footnotes say that John of Wallingford mentions a Guthrum in Edward's time, but John of Wallingford is hardly to be believed over the evidence of Guthrum II's absence from modern lists of rulers and in any case John explicitly states that it was the same Guthrum (I) as in Alfred the Great's reign. (Yes, you've guessed, Google books also has a C19th edition of John of Wallingford.) In his defence, there was another Guthrum [PASE] active at about this time, an important man who witnessed a number of charters in the reign of Æthelstan, Edward's successor. Historians today are just as keen to reduce the size of the cast by identifying people. We can only hope that they're rather more successful.

So far as I can tell, at some point in the past historians banished King Guthrum II back into nothingness. The "Laws of Edward and Guthrum" were, so various modern books plausibly say, written by Wulfstan II, Archbishop of York a century after Edward died. My problem is that without some sort of statement along the lines of "Guthrum II didn't exist" we are left with an article which is patently wrong, but entirely unfixable. The only option would be to delete it, but someone would add Guthrum II back again eventually, and we'd be back at square one again. Someone, somewhere, and probably in the C19th, must have demolished the idea of a Guthrum II. But who, and where? Help! Angus McLellan (Talk) 02:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

It looks like we are now in a murky mess. Your analysis is a work of (excellent, thanks!) original research assessing the veracity of our (problematic) secondary sources. As a matter of policy driven by the inherent structure of "an encyclopedia anybody can edit." we use original research and we cannot use original research. We must use citable secondary sources. but you are questioning our secondary sources, so we now have a meta-problem: how to handle OR about secondary sources. Ideally, you will publish your research in a peer-reviewed journal, and then we can use the result to modify our articles. -Arch dude (talk) 03:17, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not quite up with all the "policy" directives. This reminds me though of other pages where patently implausible things have the better sources than logical conclusions. I think what should be done is that Angusmclellan's proof should be included in a very carefully worded paragraph entitled something like "Inconsistencies in the historical records". Cite the sources you've mentioned, including a couple of the "various modern books." If you leave out any terms indicating any comparison or weighing of various sources you'd leave it to the reader to come to the same conclusion as Angusmclellan and could maybe avoid OR accusations. --71.236.23.111 (talk) 05:20, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this is similar to what I said on the talk page, roughly: Perhaps we should create a category for Persons of Dubious Reality cf. The Fourth Bear, (or People of Doubtful Historicity) Honestly, I can't see what's seriously wrong with the article as of now, and would vote to keep it. In its current state it's neither wrong nor unfixable. The OR is optical rather than essential. It could be rewritten to make its source dependence clear, and the conclusions drawn obvious and/or cited, especially using the 'succession to Guthrum unclear' quote. Anyway, there's no such thing as a readable non-blank article without OR. At best there are only ones where making the accusation is impossible with a straight face.John Z (talk) 05:45, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't have anything which says Guthrum II didn't exist, but I do have a 1998 biographical encyclopedia which claims he did, but with no direct bibliographic note to show the original source. "We know little about him, but it is evident that he remained a resistance leader aiding and abetting other armies intent on conquering England, just as had his predecessor." [etc]. Claims he died at Tempsford in 916, with no recorded successor. Ashley, Mike; The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens, London: Constable Publishers, 1999, ISBN 1841190969 The DNB only lists one Guthrum (our Guthrum I). Gwinva (talk) 22:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Although it does involve research, it can hardly be called "original" research (in the negative sense of WP rules) to identify the source of a published statement. That process is called Verification, which we are encouraged to do.

The question of when Guthrum II ceased to be considered historical presupposes that he must be mentioned somewhere, perhaps as Angus identifies, in 'john of wallingford' (one of the two of that name) in order for the very worthy Benjamin Thorpe to have cited him. Guthrum's historical/existential identity-crisis is therefore a scholarly-textual one. As there was certainly some interesting East Anglian data flowing around St Albans, Thorney, Peterborough, Ely, St Neot's, etc in the 12th century I don't see why we should discard Guthrum II from the record if he is from John of Wallingford. The record found by Gwinva above is enough to show that he is not yet 'dead', even if he was never actually born. I suspect he is omitted from modern lists as being 'too legendary'. He is not in Roger of Wendover, though the death of Eohric (s.a. 902) and the deaths of Togleas, Manna and his brother at Tempsford, are. I think the present article is good but should mention the paper-trail through Thorpe to John of W., and if possible should include whatever the original statement in john may be. Eebahgum (talk) 16:23, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I have just absorbed the point about John of W's comment on G I and II. The source doesn't quite say what Thorpe implies that it said. So Ashley is just perpetuating a mistake by Thorpe. In order to avoid the OR problem of saying this in a wikipedia article, I suggest that the Guthrum II article should (after a brief explanation of the supposed historical context, as already seen) contain accurate quotes of the sources in question:

i.e. "Lappenberg says....and refers to Thorpe." "Thorpe says.......and refers to John of Wallingford." "John of Wallingford says......" with wherever possible ext links to the exact locations. If John of W is online he is a quoteable source in my opinion! Then the OR is in the mind of the reader, while the sources for the statements are plainly stated for everyone to see. That would be my approach. Eebahgum (talk) 16:59, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

COPPA compliance

OK, so I'm setting up a forum for Strawberry Shortcake fans. It's likely that kids are into joining such sites, but the problem is that the regulations require that parents need to submit a written, as in hard copy form, and I have trouble dealing with such stuff, fearing that this might raise confusion from my parents. Am I allowed to ask for an email form instead, provided that I'm following the guidelines, and I'm not into collecting data from kids maliciously? Blake Gripling (talk) 04:05, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

We're not supposed to give legal advice here, I'm afraid. But I did notice that your userpage says you're from the Philippines. You do realize that US law only applies in the US, right? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:46, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I know. But it's an international forum, that's why I'm asking you guys something... Blake Gripling (talk) 06:37, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps COPPA's page on compliance can satisfy what you want to know. Like Mwalcoff said, US law only applies in the US. Most forum managing software, like phpBB, and vBulletin have special settings for COPPA compliance, so you can probably use those. Make sure to remove any fields during registration that you do not want children to have the opportunity to place personal contact information in, such as home address, phone number, email address. Mac Davis (talk) 18:43, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Su vegetarianism, Fruitarianism, and dharmic religion.

The article on Su vegetarianism looked like nonsense and I'd intended on fixing it, merging it somewhere. I redirected it to Buddhist vegetarianism, but since it's based on a traditional Hindu diet, I second-guessed myself.

I did some digging and found that some claim the traditional Hindu diet is fruitarianism -- to avoid bad karma from harming even plants, only fruits and nuts which can be harvested without harming the plant should be eaten. I also read, alongside with this, that there are the fetid vegetables (the Sanskrit term used is "tamas"). Any vegetables which are salty, bitter, or pungent are considered tamas, which includes things like garlic and onions.

Now, here's the question: What should be done about Su vegetarianism? Is Su vegetarianism distinct from Fruitarianism and, if so, is there a Hindu diet which advocates eating fruits and vegetables, aside from the fetid ones? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 07:38, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Historical understanding of static electricity

Hi all, before the invention of electricity, did people come across static electricity, and if so, how did they explain it?? 203.221.126.227 (talk) 07:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

There is an article on static electricity which you may like to view. The Greeks applied the term ηλεκτρον (electron) to amber, known for this property, so the awareness of the phenomenon goes back to classic times. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 08:26, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

To pick a nit or two, the name "electron" for amber predates the naming of electricity, and appears to be related to "'elios" (helios), the bright shiny sun. SaundersW (talk) 12:08, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

thanks, I did have a look at the article, but couldn't find anything on the history of awareness of s.e. Thanks for your answer; any more stuff from anyone else, eg. about other societies, would also be most welcome. 130.95.106.128 (talk) 09:51, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Just picking nits here but electricity wasn't "invented". "Discovered" is better but still not quite accurate. Dismas|^(talk) 21:03, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The Static electricity article has a rubbish History section. History of electricity is better. --Heron (talk) 18:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Kent State and American Law

I am trying to solve a little conundrum, and hope someone out there can help. It concerns the Posse Comitatus Act

The act generally prohibits federal military personnel and units of the United States National Guard under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress.

The Kent State shootings of 1970 were committed by members of the Ohio National Guard, who were ordered to Kent State by the Governor.

So, were the ONG acting in a law enforcement capacity (in breach of Posse Comitatus)? OR was the deployment expressly authorized by the constitution or congress? OR, were they acting as a military force?

I thought the Insurrection Act might cover their deployment, but it states that the President has to order their deployment.

Am I missing something? (It wouldn't be the first time!) My interest stems from the fact that no successful prosecution for either murder or manslaughter has ever occured as a result of the KSU shootings.

Samilong (talk) 09:28, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

As a foreigner, I only know it from a historical point of view - surely the Posse Comitatus Act relates specifically to the former Confederate states? They don't include Ohio. Or was the application of the Act extended to the whole of the US? Xn4 10:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

No, the Posse Comitatus Act applies to all states and is still in effect. But the National Guard has been often used to put down whatever the local authorities call "insurrection" (I can remember passing through the National Guard lines at University of California, Berkeley when then-Governor Reagan called them out when he felt that the University was in danger (well, there HAD been a bombing...). Of course, the Guard's use of tear gas actually acted more to disrupt classes than the protestors did, but Reagan wouldn't admit that...Corvus cornix_talk 21:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

By the way, the National Guard is a state unit, it's under the control of the state's governor as commander-in-chief, until such times as the President "federalizes" them, as when Guard units are currently being used in Iraq and Afghanistan. But there have been calls for some states, in particular Calfornia, to de-federalize the state Guard and bring them home. Corvus cornix_talk 21:01, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I think your answer is already in your question. Posse applies to federal actions but this incident was a state action by the state militia. Rmhermen (talk) 21:26, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks, guys... you've helped me clear that up in my mind Samilong (talk) 09:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Day saver for trains in the UK

In the UK if you get on the bus you can purchase a daysaver which allows you to get on any bus at any time during that day for a fixed fee, is there a same thing for trains because I really do not want to have pay like £60 to get to London from Birmingham then another £60 to get back again --Hadseys 13:57, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I typed "trains uk" into Google and then just followed the signs to this page about different tickets - if nothing else, you should consider getting a railcard since it gets you a third off and should cost less than a third of your travel (not to mention that its valid for 12 months) ----Seans Potato Business 20:23, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Buying a 12-month railcard for one return journey is probably unnecessary unless you intend to do lots more travel by train. A quick check at nationalrail.co.uk for Birmingham New Street to Euston, revealed "Advance" fares for £10.50 each way, or "Cheap Day Return" fares for £39.50 (compared to £38.50 "Cheap Single"!!). The £60+ each way is only for fully open, refundable & changeable tickets. You will have to check out the specific rules for each fare type, but as far as I can tell the "Advance" fares are available if you book a few days ahead and the "Cheap day return" fare is only valid if you leave after the rush hour (10:30am?). Astronaut (talk) 00:05, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Rail tickets in the UK are a nightmare. I have been on a train where my company has paid £180 for a return and someone else paid £14 (admitedley they had to take the outward trip after the rush hour). The BBC article [BBC article 10 legit ways to get cheaper rail fares] shows how splitting the journey (even without leaving the train) can save you money. -- Q Chris (talk) 09:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Chiltern Railways do cheap Brimingham – London deals, but that's on the slow line from Moor Street to Marylebone. In which case you might as well catch the bus: there are departures every 30 minutes and tickets cost from £1 from National Express or Megabus.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 18:12, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. The Chiltern Railways service is not especially slow - most trains take between 2h 10m & 2h 20m compared with 1h 30m to 1h 45m on the Euston line - and its cheap deals are "walk-up" fares. In other words you can just turn up a few minutes before the train departs and buy a ticket. You are not obliged to only travel on a specific train so the ticket is flexible. If you're travelling after about 11.30 am and don't need to return during the evening rush hours the ticket is £18.00. To get a £1 ticket on the coach you have to book well in advance and specify a particular time - no turning up on the day, no flexibility. For an open-ended return bought on the day on National Express you can expect to pay £23.00 and the journey is around 40 minutes longer. Most people find train travel a good deal more comfortable than coach travel and if you are able to book in advance (about a week normally), can be flexible about exactly when you travel, and don't mind having to specify a particular train, an Advance fare on the service into Euston as meantioned above is probably the best deal in my experience. Valiantis (talk) 13:43, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Pictish History

Are the Picts still an enigma? I'm trying to piece their history together and it seems pretty much impossible... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.77.35.53 (talk) 14:59, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

According to those academics who write about them, no, not really. Given the state of the historical and archaeological record there are very many unanswered questions. Actually, there are probably a huge number of unasked questions. This publisher's blurb for the delayed-again Caledonia to Pictland volume of the "New Edinburgh History of Scotland" will at least give an idea of what's in it. Picts appear in the Late Roman Iron Age, or even later. A little bird tells me that the author will argue for a 7th century origin of Pictish identity. Blame the EnglishAnglo-Saxons.

If you can't wait for Fraser's book, the second edition of Sally Foster's Picts, Gaels and Scots is pretty up-to-date. The early part of the second volume in the "New Edinburgh History", Woolf's Pictland to Alba, might be helpful. Google books has excerpts. The Picts article on Wikipedia is pretty rubbish.

The most "mysterious" things about the Picts - matriliny, weird languages - have been largely discarded, matriliny because that's not what Bede says and because it doesn't seem to fit the record, weird languages because non-Celtic place names are like hen's teeth and far more ogams can be read now than was once the case. The Picts, current wisdom says, were rather like the Irish and the Welsh. They appear in Irish stories and poems without any exotic elements. Great Pictish kings are given Irish origins. Pictland seems to have been a common destination for Northumbrian exiles from the sons of Æthelfrith in the 610s to ex-King Osbald of Northumbria nearly two centuries later. If Pictland had been an exotic place, some contemporary should have have told us, but nobody did.

[Added 16:47, 11 May 2008 (UTC)] If by history you mean "narrative history", then yes, that is problematic. There are sources, mainly the fossils of an annal kept at Iona which survive in the Irish annals, which allow a narrative of sorts to be constructed for the seventh century and the first half of the eighth, and the end of Pictland in the time of Kenneth MacAlpin's son Constantine can be pieced together from external sources and later "Scottish" ones. But in between there's little can be said with much certainty. What, exactly, is it that you are trying to do? Angus McLellan (Talk) 16:16, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Room of the house

Assume you have a bondage dungeon in your home. When you come to selling your home, how would the Realtor describe that room? Mr Beans Backside (talk) 17:12, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The most captivating area of the home, sometimes even breathtaking? 82.35.162.18 (talk) 17:13, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Hard to beat? -- Karenjc 19:01, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

A bondage dungeon can be just a nuclear bunker. Simply state that your house have that. 217.168.0.149 (talk) 19:16, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Something great for the kids? PeterSymonds | talk 19:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

When selling a home, it's a good idea to remove any sense of yourself from it. Remove family photos, the kid's art projects, etc. Basically making it so that Mr. and Mrs. Anyone could live there. This makes it easier for potential buyers to think of it being their house instead of someone else's house that they're wandering around in. So the selling realtor would probably suggest removing all of the equipment and such, thus making it just look like another room, albeit empty. Dismas|^(talk) 21:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

How about the "den"? --Lenticel ^(talk) 00:12, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Ideal for entertaining irritating people. hotclaws 00:21, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Thankfully I'm not in real estate, but if I were, I'd be minded to call a spade a spade and describe it as a "bondage dungeon". I'm sure that would attract far more enquiries and visitors than some euphemistic alternative. Mind you, the police would probably be among the ones asking questions, so that may not quite work in your favour. -- JackofOz (talk) 13:14, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not illegal to have a bondage dungeon, unless you are assuming that having a special sex-play area means one is actually going to be kidnapping people, but my understanding was that the term "bondage dungeon" was only used by people who were referring to it in a sex-play sort of way, as an allusion. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Most of what would be in such a dungeon would be furniture, which you'd move out with you just as you'd move out your sofa. It seems that all that would be left after you moved would be a gloomy paint scheme, and some mysterious hooks in the ceiling and walls that could easily be mistaken for plant hangers. I'd just count it in with whatever function the house's architect intended for it- 'basement,' 'attic,' 'spare bedroom.' -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 18:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Plant hangers in the cellar? Have we been overindulging in our whipping exercices, your piscine Highness or is this a red herring? --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 20:04, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Just as an aside. Whether such things would be legal or illegal would greatly depend on the local jurisdiction. Although such laws, if still on the books, may be rarely enforced. If someone were holding a grudge against you, they might be able to get you into trouble. You might want to contact a lawyer before you "out" such use. You should also decide whether you don't want to rather spend a couple of "monetary units" on self-storage, furniture rental, spackle and paint, stage the place and get a better price on the house. Lisa4edit (talk) 23:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Wine cellar or vintage photo darkroom (be careful not to get locked in, or you might die of exposure). Edison (talk) 04:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Finding progress of lawsuit, lacking news coverage

Following the UCLA Taser incident, the student Mostafa Tabatabainejad filed a lawsuit against UCLA, UCPD, and the individual police officers. Paul Hoffman, one of his attorneys, had said that a February 2008 court date had been set. February has come and gone, with no news coverage that I could find. What sort of reliable sources may exist? If the case was quietly settled, would there be official records of it being withdrawn?

I have a PDF of the complaint which was made available online at the time of filing in January 2007. The copy I have lacks a case number. It is headed United States District Court, Central District of California, and dated January 17, 2007. The lead firm is Schonbrun DeSimone Seplow Harris &Hoffman LLP. Flatscan (talk) 18:23, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

You need to get an account with PACER, where you can track the docket of and read documents from a case. You need a credit card because it's eight cents for each "page" of material, up to, I think, $2.40 for a single document. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 18:31, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

It's been filed but not heard as of yet, see here for the case number. 84.68.174.214 (talk) 22:54, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Meaning of 'either'.

Moved to WP:Reference desk/Language, where there are many language experts. PeterSymonds | talk 20:20, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Darius

What inspired Darius the emperor of Persia to revised the Persian legal code? Mr Beans Backside (talk) 20:51, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I know little of the Persian Empire, but I think our article Darius I of Persia will tell you enough about his life to give you a feel for his reforming drive. Xn4 01:30, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Art of our time

What are the major concerns people will be able to discern in the art of our own time? Are we hopeful and Romantic? Materialistic and self-centered? Concerned about injustices and willing to sacrifice for change? Mr Beans Backside (talk) 20:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes. hotclaws 00:21, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Agressive.--Artjo (talk) 07:11, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Childish. Xn4 19:33, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Schitzophrenic. Ninebucks (talk) 01:36, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Quote by Charlemagne

Hello there, I have been trying to find quotes by Charlemagne, but have only found about two or three. Does anyone know where I can find more? 75.162.139.58 (talk) 20:57, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikiquote has a couple. Corvus cornix_talk 21:04, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, those were the ones I found along with another one that was something like "having a second language is like having a second soul" but I was wondering if those were the only ones? 21:16, 11 May 2008 (UTC)75.162.139.58 (talk)

Notker the Stammerer's life has a fair number of "quotes", but the likelihood of many of them being genuine is not huge. But the complaint about short English cloaks (p. 133 of the Penguin edition) has the ring of truth about it I think, the sort of story people might well tell for years and years. Alcuin's letters also include some quotes, and these are more likely to be authentic. For example, Alcuin says that Charlemagne was enraged when he heard of the murder of King Æthelred I of Northumbria and called the Northumbrians "that treacherous, perverse people...who murder their own lords". Asser's life of Alfred the Great reports a supposed conversation between Charlemagne and Eadburh, daughter of Offa of Mercia and sometime Queen of Wessex. Whether there's very much truth in Asser's stories of Eadburh is less than certain. Dame Janet Nelson supposed so, but Pauline Stafford and Barbara Yorke were less convinced. Even if happened, the chances of the words being the ones Charlemagne used are very small. Some of Charlemagne's diplomatic correspondence survives, but there isn't much of him to be found there. Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:17, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Einhard may have recorded some quotes, although if there are any there the likelihood is small that they are genuine, as Angus said (which is true for every pre-modern quote, really). Adam Bishop (talk) 01:23, 12 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.210.170.49 (talk)

Isn't there another quote by him saying that had he known the pope would crown him roman emperor, he would not have set foot in the church. I am looking for exact quotes, or places I could find them. 75.162.139.58 (talk) 02:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Einhard, chapter 28, but Einhard's biography is a classicising piece. We would expect Einhard's Charlemagne to be a rather unwilling emperor, happy to remain a king and patrician. I skimmed through the Royal Frankish Annals, which Einhard may have had a hand in, but no speeches are reported there. Notker remains your best bet for quote mining. Angus McLellan (Talk) 11:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

SS Enterprises

I got a very good answer to a question I placed here earlier this month, for which I am most grateful. I'm sorry for not expressing my thanks sooner, as it seems that the main respondent has now left Wikipedia. I have another, related, question which perhaps someone else can assist me with. I need to know exactly how the SS profited from the wealth they acquired in the process of the Holocaust? They set up various industrial enterprises, I know, but how were the profits invested? In foreign banks, perhaps? I assume also that there must have been a high degree of 'skimming' and other forms of corruption? Thanks for any answers.Karl Hanke (talk) 22:19, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you'll find the following helpful, it's Clio the Muse's answer (from our 26 November 2007 archive) to a slightly different question. Xn4 01:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

...it is a story of mass expropriation as well as one of mass murder. From the very beginning Heinrich Himmler had an eye out for commercial and financial opportunities, designed to support and extend his SS empire. There was a certain degree of necessity to this, inasmuch as the organistaion from the very beginning was expected to be largely self-financing. Even after the seizure of power in 1933 matters did not noticeably improve. Wilhelm Frick, the man who controlled state funds, was an old enemy of the Reichsfüher; and Franz Xaver Schwarz, the man who controlled party funds, was notoriously tight-fisted. Though the SS was given the task of running the new concentration camps, these were expected to be run at no cost to the state, with prisoners even required to buy their own bowls and spoons. Before the war it was even possible for those rich enough to buy their freedom.

The outbreak of war opened fresh commercial opportunities, with Himmler taking control of several confiscated enterprises. In 1942 he began a campaign against beer consumption in Germany, aimed, so it was said, at reducing drunkenness by promoting mineral water. The truth is that by this time the SS was the main distributer of mineral water in Europe. The more mineral water consumed, the higher the profits for Himmler; it's as cynical as that.

But the real break comes with the formal launch of the Holocaust. The purpose of the infamous Wannsee Conference was not to announce the mass-murder of Europe's Jews-that was already in progress-but to discuss and co-ordinate strategy and financing. Adolf Eichman was given the task of ensuring that the mass deportations would proceed with the minimum financial burden to the organisation. He did this by getting people to pay for their own transports. In other words, the deportees would be carried to the death camps with tickets paid for by themselves, at special excursion rates agreed with the Reichsbahn, half-price for children.

Of greater interest to Himmler was the disposable wealth that these people would leave behind, which is why, a few weeks after the meeting at Wansee, the SS Wirtschaft und Verwaltungshauptampt (Economic and Administrative Head Office) or WVHA was set up. With Operation Reinhard underway Odilo Globocnik was also given the task of accounting for the wealth that would naturally fall to the SS administration. Under Globocnik's direction the Reichsbank had to open seventy-six separate acconts to cope with the huge deposits accrued. By January 1944 he estimated in a report to Himmler that Aktion Reinhard had yielded up 178.7 million marks in cash and gold coins, as well as 16,000 carats in diamonds. What he did not say was that he, along with a great many others, was on the take, keeping one set of books for himself, and another set for the organisation.

But despite the skimming SS enterprises was now operating at a profit. The whole camp system was now functioning as one huge commercial enterprise, where wealth, if not stolen, was created by slave labour, worked to death in the process. Workers were also leased-out to adjacent businesses in the private sector, I. G. Farben being among the biggest of these customers. The whole thing was the economy of death. Clio the Muse (talk) 02:40, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

May 12

How might an undefended Asante town in 1701 deal with a British landing?

Hi

First a little background. I play a historical play-by-email game. I play the Asante Union. Now please note that this is a game, and whilst based in history (and adhering to historical concept) there is room for manoeuvre.

Now then. I have received a report that a British fleet has docked at Accra and has unloaded British forces. I do not know how many, how big the fleet is, or what their intentions are.

I have a large force in Kumasi which I am sending to Accra. In the meantime I can only assume that the British are there for hostile intent.

Could anybody advise me of historical scenarios where an undefended town has been able to hold off, or deal with a foreign army (once the foreign army is inside the town)? Alternatively, any suggestions or comments would be welcome. For example, I have considered ordering the townspeople to escape north toward Kumasi, or to rise up against the British.

Thanks

Joseph (Osei Tutu) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.246.78.50 (talk) 08:58, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Guerrilla warfare might give you some ideas. Basically try to determine what the attitude of the local population would have been and then imagine them taking/ or not taking action with local resources available to them. I assume there would be an Assante equivalent to "toadstool casserole". It may not come out in a role playing game, but troops can not operate in a vacuum. Particularly not that far from home. That offers many points of attack. If, however the local population used to be subjected to strict rule, or includes many different sub-groups, it is a lot less likely they'd act. (One oppressor's as bad as another.) Lisa4edit (talk) 23:03, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Is there a barrier (like a wall or a hedge of thorns) around the town? If so, the inhabitants could keep the gates closed & refuse entry to these newcomers, even if they had no soldiers to help them. While the British commander could force his way in, he might lose a lot of men & lose time when his intent is to march towards that army in Kumasi. (ISTR a number of stories of walled cities holding out against an enemy army, defended by only a half-dozen soldiers or only a group of determined women, children & elderly men -- but they kept the gates closed & the enemy had no siege equipment.) But if the enemy has entered the town -- or there are no defensive works, the best thing to do is grab what they can & flee to the bush. (Which is what the inhabitants of Massawa did in 1522, when the Portuguese arrived with a diplomatic mission to the Emperor of Ethiopia. Massawa had no defensive works) -- llywrch (talk) 23:08, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips thus far - what is meant by "toadstool casserole"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.246.78.50 (talk) 16:07, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Why doesn’t Tarzan have a beard?

What was the reason for the writers of Tarzan not to portray him with a beard. I mean he lives in the forest so how could he shave? And he thinks that he is monkey and monkeys don’t shave so there for how does he not have a hairy face? Mr Beans Backside (talk) 10:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Because it's a work of fiction and the writers didn't want to deal with writing around it or they didn't even think about it. Dismas|^(talk) 10:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a source for that? Mr Beans Backside (talk) 10:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, no. But it seems the simplest solution and with the help of Occam's Razor, seems the best. Writers do it all the time though. Many movies, books, etc never mention many bodily functions such as eating or going to the bathroom. Or hygiene, such as taking showers. It doesn't move the story along any, it's not important to the plot, and it can easily be done away with by just never bringing any attention to it at all. Dismas|^(talk) 10:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Read the book. It has been a while since I read it, but as I recall, he found his parent's cabin— untouched since the great ape killed his father and the female ape carried him off. He found his father's knife and picture books for a child. He learned to read and write using the books. From the pictures, he decided that men do not have facial hair and and learned to shave using the knife. Burroughs wrote some fantastic stuff, but he paid attention to detail. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 10:55, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

...But it seems the simplest solution and with the help of Occam's Razor, ha ha ha..... this just had me in hysterics!

I have a weird sense of humour! I read it as a sort of pun, Tarzan trying to shave with Occam's razor. This gave me the mental picture of Tarzan swinging in through the window of William of Ockham's priory on a vine and swinging out again with a razor, shaving brush and soap. -- Q Chris (talk) 15:09, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Glad I could entertain. And I took "portray" to be in the visual sense and thus was referring to the films and such that show Tarzan. Dismas|^(talk) 12:47, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Tarzan was a British lord at the turn of the 20th century. Beards were not in style at the time. Corvus cornix_talk 23:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

And I think it could be argued that it is fairly important to the Tarzan story that he is a clean-shaven white guy jumping around in the trees as a "savage". If he was hairy or non-white he'd be much less interesting to a white audience, he wouldn't be the "white guy in a non-white situation", and he might even appear fearsome to an audience in the 1910s-50s. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppression

What is the true nature of oppression ? Various theories go on and on about oppression of workers, oppression of minorities, oppression of women, oppression of power, and so forth. 69.157.246.246 (talk) 10:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Ecological feminism is an area of study that attempts to find patterns in the oppression of various groups.--droptone (talk) 13:08, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Michel Foucault's theories address the question of oppression in general. He is a difficult writer, particularly when translated into English, but there are some books on his thought for beginners. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Here's some recommended reading, quite accessible in English translation; you might consider these lively descriptions of historical (and current) situations reflecting the realities of many people's lives, rather than "theories that go on and on":

• The Colonizer and the Colonized by Albert Memmi
• Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

-- Deborahjay (talk) 09:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The Ottoman Empire in the 16th century

What held it together? Such a big question and so little time to answer it.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.147.166.181 (talk) 10:58, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

It had a strong ruler in Suleiman the Magnificent who reigned for 46 years. He could draw on a strong military & a relatively efficient administration to support his rule, although there was at least one revolt against him -- which he was able to put down. Then Suleiman died, & the Empire started to fall apart. If you want further details, find the time to read the relevant Wikipedia articles, & the books & articles these articles refer to. -- llywrch (talk) 23:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Cybernetic mind control

How many cases have gone to court claiming the government or military have been subjecting civilians to remote mind control technology, and have any been won? Mr Beans Backside (talk) 11:39, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

• What do you mean by "have gone to court"? Why don't you ask the courts? Please specify. Mieciu K (talk) 15:04, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

• I find it extremely unlikely that any court anywhere has ever ruled that a government or military is guilty of subjecting civilians to remote and/or cybernetic mind control. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 15:39, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

• Most mind control technology (education / religion / advertising / media / et al) is remote. Remote in the sense that no wires are poked into your cortex or no funnel is stuck into your brain.
• As a result, there have been numerous court cases where schools, sectarian movements, cigarette companies, public media and the like have been accused of manipulating the opinions or the behaviour of "civilians".
• In the proper definition of communication / control / feedback between complex systems, these are cybernetic processes as sensory perception, individuals, society, language, technology, commerce, industry and political systems interact.
• --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 16:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

• I very much doubt the original poster meant anything other than that of actually directly or semi-directly controlling the behavior of people. Obviously, there are a thousand ways of manipulating and influencing people, but that's not what "cybernetic mind control" would be reasonably expected to refer to. YMMV, of course. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 17:38, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The original questioner didn't ask how many courts have ever ruled on the subject. The question is, how many cases have gone to court? Corvus cornix_talk 23:47, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I can't help with cybernetic mind control, but there have been several cases about mind control. For instance, in a Federal Court case in Canada the civil liberties lawyer Joseph Rauh won compensation for about two hundred victims of brainwashing experiments by Ewan Cameron, a Scottish doctor working for the CIA's Project MKULTRA in the 1950s and 1960s. He carried out mind-control experiments using electric shocks, LSD and other drugs, using techniques like those portrayed in the book The Manchurian Candidate, attempting to brainwash and reprogramme people. A distinguished fellow, Cameron became President of the World Psychiatric Association. Xn4 00:09, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Belgian Power

I have always felt that Belgium was a rather inappropriate country to lead the European Union, especially at a time of crisis. The country has some huge internal political problems of its own, and yet it still claims to be a leader in European unification.

To what extent does Belgian culture influence the culture of the EU ? If it splits, as it seems to be doing now, what message would that send to candidate members and allies who have internal separation problems of their own ?

Belgium also has some significant sociological issues to deal with, such as one of the lowest marriage rates, low birth rates, high euthanasia/suicide/abortion rates, large Morrocan and Turkish immigration, a very large bureaucracy and other cultural difficulties.

More than a model for the EU, is Belgium supposed to be a model for the whole world ? If it is, I guess it's a very belgian world we live in. 69.157.246.246 (talk) 13:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

In what sense does Belgium lead the EU? The Presidency of the Council of the European Union is currently held by Slovenia and the President of the European Commission is Portuguese, while France and Germany are often (in the UK at least) seen as the leading powers. What does Belgium do other than host a few institutions? Algebraist 14:23, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

There are two main ways in which Belgium influences the European Union beyond its capacity as a member. Both follow from its role as principal host for EU institutions.

• A disproportional amount EU civil servants are Belgian.
• A disproportional amount of EU interest group members are Belgian (for example, political party membership, particularly active members, of EU-wide parties).

User:Krator (t c) 15:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

To move the headquarters in a physical manner would, one can safely assume, lead to the same problems arising in any new country that hosted the headquarters (here pointing to what Krator says). Is this a solution so long as the new host country meet your criteria for what seems acceptable - id est to have no public debate regarding ethnical groups gaining independence and their own state? The sociological issues you, 69.157, state, are not unique to Belgium. All countries have domestic problems in one sense or another. Would France be any better? Or England? I can immediately think of arguments akin to yours against both of these, but I can't honestly say I think they matter. What Krator mentions, and specifies, are perhaps true "problems" - but unavoidable so. Scaller (talk) 16:21, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

A civilization which can inspire Hercule Poirot can't be all bad. Xn4 23:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

British Naval power in the eighteenth century

Why was the navy neglected in the first half of the eighteenth century? What were the factors, financial and political, leading to its recovery? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.157.194.89 (talk) 16:26, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Was it neglected? In 1713 Queen Anne handed control of the navy to a parliament eager to develop naval dominiation. But even before 1713 the navy was practically controlled by the cabinet and, in particular, Sidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of Godolphin and John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Between 1691-1715 159 ships of the line and 113 cruisers were built despite financial problems. The War of the Spanish Succession solidified British naval power in the Mediterranean and created a Blue-water navy, with victory at Battle of Vigo Bay and the destruction of the French fleet at Toulon. After Anne's death in 1714 the navy developed considerably under the house of Hanover. By 1755 the navy had 200 ships in commission (88 of the line) and personnel of 40,000 men. In 1759 it had 300 ships and 80,000 personnel.

Think of Pope's lines in 'Windsor Forest' 1713:

'While by our Oaks the precious Loads are born,

And Realm commanded which those Trees adorn.' Yours, Lord Foppington (talk) 18:51, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Noam Chomsky Books

What would be considered Noam Chomsky's 4-5 most important books in the area of Politics? --Ckdavis (talk) 17:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

It will largely depend on which areas of politics you consider important. For a starting point, here are links to some of Chomsky's books (in chronological order) which have their own Wikipedia articles - The Responsibility of Intellectuals (1967), American Power and the New Mandarins (1969), The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians (1983), Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), Necessary Illusions (1989), Deterring Democracy (1992), Class Warfare (1996), Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (2003), Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship (2003), Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (2006) Xn4 18:23, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Probably the most influential and discussed of these are Manufacturing Consent and Hegemony or Survival. Marco polo (talk) 00:57, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Why was I born to my parents in my town at a specific time?

(Hello, I was told to move this question here. Is this where the philosophy questions go? If so, I'll stop posting thiese kinds of questions on the science board. Anyways, here it is, in progress,)-

What I'm trying to ask is why was I born in this exact situation? It seems strange to me that fate (or whatever) chose to begin my life exactly where, when, and with who it did. Is there a scientific reason for this? Now I'm not religious, but it seems to me that we came from somewhere. I dont think we were just thrown into existence from nothing ,otherwise we'd be inanimate and wouldn't be able to articulate this question. --Sam Science (talk) 18:50, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

That's more the realms of philosophy than science. I'm not sure if it really answers you question, but you might be interested in the anthropic principle. --Tango (talk) 18:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The only 'scientific' reason for you being born in your exact situation is that your parents chose to have sex at a certain time and as a result you were directly conceived. You were then given birth to 9 months later. Any 'fate' involved is in the realms of philosophy or religion. Regards, CycloneNimrod^Talk? 18:57, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Well if you think you're not inaminate then I agree you have a problem. Much easier to discount the possibility. Not just easier - more interesting. Try and think of how you could 'articulate this question' while being inanimate. --90.203.189.22 (talk) 20:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Given that you seem to exist, then either you had an origin or you did not. Based on human experiences every one nowadays is born. You had to be born somewhere at sometime. Ask your mother why, it was mother's day yesterday! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:38, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that you may get an interesting variety of answers on the Humanities reference desk. -- Q Chris (talk) 07:12, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't this relate to the origin of life? Since you could ask the same question of your parents, their parents, their parents' parents, etc. until you reach microorganisms. See also determinism. --Mark PEA (talk) 16:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

If you weren't born to your parents in your town at a specific time then you wouldn't be you. Since you are you, then the rest follows. Vranak (talk) 18:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Because when a mommy cat and a daddy cat love each other very much they ... --Ghostexorcist (talk) 18:48, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Providing a definite answer to this is quite impossible. If you want to read some good food for thought on the subject, you may want to read Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics, I, 1-6. [15] The guy is very religious but this text is a good starting point for any philosophical inquiry into this subject. User:Krator (t c)

And karma would be another good article to read. 64.228.89.230 (talk) 23:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the error -- or perhaps the conceit -- in this question is in the underlying assumption (which, in my experience, is very common, and of which people are commonly unaware) that their present circumstances or existence are somehow exceptional -- that isn't it amazing that you happened to turn out to be just this person, in just this situation, instead of any other? But that's a terribly solipsistic view to take, because the only thing that's exceptional about you is that you happen to be you -- but that's just because it's the only experience you have. The exceptional thing isn't that you happened to turn out just like that, or that you happen to be thinking this, but that you alone can experience this particular life. They only thing that's strange or unusual is that you happen to be there to think about it, and even that is a purely subjective thing -- we just think that we're terribly unique, because we don't and can't know any better, so to speak.

Of course, that's particularly true if you're a bit of a nihilist. Or even just a harsh realist, really. But there are other ways to look at this -- you may be someone who prefers to make things meaningful to them by their own actions, not by the circumstances they happened to come to this world in or the circumstances they find themselves now, for example. If we conclude that there's no intrinsic meaning in our lives or existences, that doesn't mean that we can't decide to have some anyway. It might be argued that it's more useful and important to find that meaning ourselves than wait for someone else to hand it to us from on high.

The less you mind getting a little sentimental and optimistic, the truer that probably is going to be for you. A pretty classic example of that is Alan Moore's Watchmen, which contains a scene in which Dr. Manhattan, a godlike being who has lost interest in humanity, human emotions and human fates is talking with his girlfriend, who considers her life to be a complete and meaningless waste. However, to her surprise, the previously immovable Dr. Manhattan suddenly disagrees, and goes on to explain: "Thermodynamic miracles... events with odds against so astronomical that they are effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such a thing. And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that exact daughter until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged. To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold, that is the crowning unlikelihood. The thermodynamic miracle. [...] But the world is so full of people, crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace, and we forget... I forget. We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another's vantage point, as if new, it may still take the breath away. Come... dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly."

Or you can just conclude that God, or some equivalent force/entity, really wants you to be just where you are, but I personally have a pretty hard time swallowing that... well, except for causality. I guess I'll buy that. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 23:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Classics

What is the criteria for a classic? Not a classical book as in written in the classical era but a classic novel, like Chronicles of Narnia. What makes them classics? Mr Beans Backside (talk) 18:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

One definition is that it is a book that is part of the canon, something that has been read and written about and has influenced people in a significant way until knowing it is useful for a literate person who wants to understand history or the arts. Another definition is that it is a book that is so well written, with such depth and complexity, that the reader's understanding is richer with every re-reading, and that generations will be able to write about it and discuss it without running out of things to say. "Hamlet" is such a work; we've been writing about it, talking about it, and re-interpreting it for 400 years, and still there is more to say about it. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 18:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Division Bell in Parliament

Does anyone know if there is a sound file on the web where I can listen to the Division Bell which is rung in Parliament. I tried searching but all I get are sound files from the album by Pink Floyd. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackdegus (talk • contribs) 18:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

This isn't really what you're looking for but there's this BBC Radio program where you can hear the Westminster division bell in the background (link). Thuresson (talk) 04:56, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Mind you, there's more than one parliament in the world, and there's no reason to assume all their bells (that's those that use a bell system) sound the same. -- JackofOz (talk) 17:22, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Christianity and kosher foods

Are there any modern Christians who still adhere to the Biblical food laws presented in Leviticus? If so, do any Christian sects require this, or is it more of a personal matter? 207.233.87.203 (talk) 19:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Our article on Messianic Judaism might be of interest to you. It indicates that many Messianic Jews follow kosher dietary laws. However, the article also mentions that there is some dispute as to whether this group in considered a part of Christianity. GreatManTheory (talk) 21:27, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

(EC) In Acts 10, Peter has a dream which is interpreted as meaning that there are no restrictions on clean and unclean food for Christians (thus that the kosher laws no longer hold for Christians). However there are two kinds of modification on the "anything goes" food message. One is that Christians should not knowingly eat food offered to idols (1 Corinthians 8), and the other is that they should refrain from eating blood (Acts 15). But Christians still eat bloody steak and black pudding (blood sausage). Go figure. SaundersW (talk) 21:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The Ethiopian Church are the largest group of Christians who observe these dietary laws. (The Wikipedia article needs a lot of work. I only wish I had the time to do it in.) These practices are enforced not only by their priests, but by the cultural beliefs of the members. Obviously some Ethiopian Christians may not be as devout as others, but this matter is taken seriously. Some experts believe this unusual practice is because there was a large Jewish community in Ethiopian before their conversion circa 350, who introduced the practice. Personally, I wonder if these customs weren't introduced by early missionaries, most of whom came from the pre-Islamic Near East where there were survivals of many old Christian traditions. -- llywrch (talk) 23:28, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at the Noahide laws, particularly the one pertaining to eating, and then check out which Christians abide by this.-- Deborahjay (talk) 14:15, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

UK prime minister

How much freedom does the UK prime minister have to do as he pleases with regard to his function? ----Seans Potato Business 20:08, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Have you read Prime Minister of the United Kingdom? It goes into much more detail than my quick answer will. The Prime Minister really has little statutory authority in their own right, but are required to "form a government". They have power of appointment, so choose people to take the various important roles, (like the members of cabinet, which are generally from the elected members of his political party), and will often wield a lot of influence with them. The PM and cabinet still need the support of the House of Commons and, to a much lesser extent, the House of Lords. And, the media are always quick to condemn the PM, so he/she can't do whatever they please! Gwinva (talk) 23:44, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Far be it from me to point out the appearance of sexism in your question, Seans Potato Business! See Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Xn4 23:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Some key accountability mechanisms limiting the Prime Minister's powers include: the confidence of his or her own party, both the parliamentary party (as in the MPs in the PM's own party) as well as the rank-and-file party "out there"; a possibly hostile House of Lords; public scrutiny through the media and the Opposition, which will dilligently report anything that can possibly damage the government's standing; the electoral process, since unpopular policies would damage the party's electoral chances in the next election; the judiciary, which can strike down legislation; and finally the Monarch's reserve powers. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The Prime Minister article only briefly mentions the Royal Prerogative; which is actually quite significant in the United Kingdom, as among those powers, it gives the PM authority to declare a state of emergency and to declare war, without consulting Parliament, or, in theory, consulting the monarch or the cabinet. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:18, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. It should be noted that the Royal Prerogative has been effectively deferred to the Prime Minister over the last twenty years, but the Queen still holds the powers de jure. PeterSymonds | talk 11:24, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The PM is essentially an Elective dictatorship, the formal checks on his or her power are few and far between. I suppose though, a Westminster-fan would argue that the best elements of our system are the informal elements, and that it is these that keep the whole system functional. Ninebucks (talk) 01:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Roadside Park

In Canada and the United States the idea of a roadside park is quite popular. How popular is it in Europe and is it a worldwide phenomenon? --Doug ^talk 21:13, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

In France, the Netherlands and Germany, rest places on the major highways are common. Not all of them are parks though: something called an Autohof or Reststatte in German is just a big parking lot with some snackbar and a total lack of trees or anything park-like. It usually does have picnic tables though. User:Krator (t c) 22:43, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

In Australia there are frequent roadside parks. Government campaigns for people to take a break while long distance driving, sometimes have stops where there is free tea on offer called "Stop, revive, survive" or something like that, around holiday times. Julia Rossi (talk) 23:11, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

"Ghost Account" phenomenon

Websites which provide social content and some form of community interaction (MySpace, FaceBook, Yahoo, Wikipedia...) are relatively new. However, as time pass by, first-generation users will inevitably die, leaving Terrabytes of personal information, photos, conversations filling server space in abandoned accounts. Will companies adopt some unethical policies in order to deal with this problem? Will the internet world face a "Ghost Account" phenomenon? Just curious about your ideas and thoughts :-) Eklipse (talk) 22:30, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe most social networking sites have policies governing the death of the owner. Facebook converts these pages to a “memorial account” for a short time before ultimately deleting the information. That’s what I’ve heard at least. --S.dedalus (talk) 23:43, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

A friend of mine, who owned a Yahoogroups group, died recently, (RIP). I am a co-owner of the group. I asked Yahoo what needs to be done to replace her ownership, and they said that they require a copy of the death certificate. That, to me, was a burdensome requirement, although I do understand their need for verification of some sort. So, the group will remain unowned for the known future. Corvus cornix_talk 23:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

May 13

Advantages and disadvantages diplomatic immunity

What are the advantages and disadvantages of diplomatic immunity? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.64.131.152 (talk) 01:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The article on diplomatic immunity may help you find the answers to this. - Eron^Talk 01:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

1931 to 1945 world map for allies and axis

cant seem to find maps or map that has names of countries and the allies or axis that controlled them.this is for school project .. help I am stuck! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lilleno (talk • contribs) 04:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi Lilleno, I guess you've seen our map of the countries that show countries as Axis, Allies and neutral in the article Participants in World War II. You might have to read through the articles Allies in World War II and World War II, and work out which countries they controlled until someone more enthusiastic comes along. Julia Rossi (talk) 06:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

(Later) The best article I see is Axis leaders of World War II which shows the puppet states controlled by Germany, Italy and Japan, and Allied leaders of World War II gives you the countries involved with the UK, Greece, France and China, (with flags in a table bottom left) but you might have to map this across a world map of your own. Julia Rossi (talk) 06:51, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Myanmar/China response to disaster

Two totalitarian countries in Asia, both experienced natural disasters. Myanmar couldn't do less to help the people while China went all out. Why? F (talk) 07:24, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Some simple reasons: China is very wealthy; Myanmar is very poor. China has well-developed infrastructure; Myanmar does not. China has a legitimate, well-functioning modern government with a large bureaucracy (though I'm sure certain people would dispute "legitimate" and "modern"); Myanmar has a military kleptocracy. China wants the rest of the world to see it as a happy friendly place, especially now; before this week, did the average person even know Myanmar existed? In China there is no risk of a popular uprising at any moment; in Myanmar there is, and apparently they are afraid that the presence of international aid workers will make that threat worse. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:00, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if the average person knew Myanmar existed, but maybe as Burma they might, and Aung San Suu Kyi put it on the map at one level. I for one didn't know how extensive it was in size until the cyclone. Julia Rossi (talk) 08:20, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems the average journalist still doesn't know that the capital has been Naypyidaw since 2005. Most of them are referring to "the capital, Rangoon", unaware that even Rangoon is now called Yangon. -- JackofOz (talk) 17:17, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I consider myself better informed than the average person, & both points you mentnion, Jack, were a surprise to me. I guess, to paraphrase Will Rogers, everything I know about Burma Myanmar is what I read in the papers. -- llywrch (talk) 18:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of changing capitals, were you aware that the capital of Sri Lanka is not Colombo, as most everyone seems to think? It was moved to Sri Jayawardenapura-Kotte (generally known simply as "Kotte") in 1982. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:52, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Characterising both China and Burma (the Junta seized power illegally, and so none of their actions in government have been legitimate, thus, according to both mine (and the opposition/legitimate government's) opinion, the nation is still called Burma and its capital is still Rangoon) as totalitarian seems misleading. China is authoritarian, but I would say that it desires to control every aspect of its citizens' lives in the same way as the Burmese Junta. In response to your question, I would say that the tragedy is mostly the result of the Burmese Junta playing politics with peoples' lives. The Junta has been organising a referendum on a new constitution, a constitution that will essentially leave the Junta in charge indefinately. The Junta's first instinct was to cover up the news of the cyclone and tell its people further upland that everything was completely fine. After that, their plan has been to hijack all incoming aid donations and use them as leverage to make sure people vote as they should - as opposed to professional aid workers, who are trained in distributing aid according to need, the Burmese military will use aid to bribe dying people into voting them into power permenantly, and will deliberately deny aid to those suspected of voting against their constitution (the dead, after all, cannot vote). Ultimately, the Burmese military is an organisation that is dedicated solely towards its own interests, and not towards Burma as a whole. Ninebucks (talk) 02:06, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Identifying statues on the Albert Memorial's frieze

I've been working on the article Albert Memorial, and one of the things I have been doing is trying to identify all the poets, musicians, painters, architects and sculptors found on a feature of the memorial called the Frieze of Parnassus. I'm now at the stage where I need help for the last few links. See Albert Memorial#Frieze of Parnassus. The first two parts of that list was obtained from here. A full list was obtained from here. Unfortunately, that full list, despite being from the official history of the memorial, sometimes only gives surnames and has transcription errors as well. I've been working on the list at Talk:Albert Memorial, and I think I've managed to identify or link to nearly all the 169 individual people featured on the frieze (the talk page list is still a bit untidy, so use the main article to see which poets, musicians, painters, architects and sculptors I've linked to), but if people here could help with the following, I'd be very grateful:

• (1) If possible, go through the list in the article and click on the names and see if you think the right person's article has been linked to - the original source is on the talk page, sometimes with initials, sometimes not. The names are also carved on the memorial itself, so photographs could also be taken to show what was carved.
• (2) The architects and sculptors are arranged chronologically, but the poets, musicians and painters are arranged "by national schools". Could anyone help identify the schools involved here, and if possible link to the relevant articles?
• (3) Three of the historical figures are mentioned in the list of architects are Sennacherib, Nitocris and Cheops. The architectural achievements of Sennacherib and Cheops are fairly clear, but Nitocris seems to be here because at one time it was thought that she built the "third pyramid at Giza", but now that pyramid is attributed by "modern historians" to Menkaura. Does anyone know when this change occurred and what people thought at the time the Albert Memorial was being built?
• (4) I've drawn a complete blank on three names (they could be transcription errors). Does anyone know who the following refer to?
  • (a) R. de Courcy (from the list of architects, I redirected this to Richard de Courcy, but that looks wrong for the dates, unless it is for Norman castle architectural achievements - another possibility is John de Courcy, if you assume the "R" was a transcription error.)
  • (b) Giuliano de Ravenna (sculptor, I found Giuliano da Maiano, and Giuliano Finelli, but neither of these seem to have been associated with Ravenna, and they don't fit the chronological order - this Giuliano needs to be very early medieval, at the time of or before the 13th-century Nicola Pisano. I was hopeful about Severo Calzetta da Ravenna, but the date is still wrong and it is difficult to get from Giuliano to Severo. One more try threw up what might be the most promising possibility so far: John of Ravenna, mostly theological, but unlike the 1911 Britannica entry, the Wikipedia article has an extra possibility, an 11th-century abbot of Fécamp Abbey - that is famous architecturally, and there is also an earlier abbot, Guillaume de Volpiano (William of Volpiano) whose article says he was an architect, of Mont St Michel. Still not 100% convincing, but does anyone think this is getting closer?)
  • (c) W. Tonel (sculptor - I'm drawing an utter blank here. Tonel is a football player, but the Tonel we want should be 15th century.)

I'll check back here to see if anyone has any answers or comments, but people can put stuff at Talk:Albert Memorial#Redlinks and disambiguation pages instead or as well, if they want. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 09:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Update - turns out that W. Tonel was a transcription error. It is William Torel, though the carved name is TORELL. And R. de Courcy may turn out to be Robert de Courcy (though that is not 100% - can't find any big architectural connection) - the carved name is ROB DE CODCY, in case that helps. Also, still don't know what Giuliano de Ravenna is about - the carved name is GUILIANO DI RAVENNA. See here for the four pictures of the friezes: 1, 2, 3, 4. Carcharoth (talk) 15:35, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I've nailed down William Torell and John Bushnell. --Wetman (talk) 23:57, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Why (and when) did Britain's John Lewis Partnership start calling itself a co-operative?

The second sentence of its 2008 annual report says :

It is also the country’s largest employee co-operative, with over 69,000 employees.

It has traditionally described itself as an employee-owned company and as a partnership. Its structures of democratic governance are more complex than the one-member-one-vote that is conventional in the co-operative movement, and as far as I know, they haven't changed since the 1930s.

Not only have I recently noticed it calling itself a co-operative, but organisations like Co-operatives UK and the International Co-operative Alliance have included it on their recent lists of the world's largest co-operatives. At least one John Lewis executive has become a co-operative development activist.[16]

Is this co-operative identity something new for John Lewis? If so, it seems that for some reason it has become more acceptable for John Lewis and the British co-operative movement to associate with each other. How and when did this happen? Has it officially joined any co-operative federations? --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:07, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The size of the atom according to the ancient atomists

Hi, this question was sent to the Science Desk, but I'd like to try you guys now.

From this article, [17] I got this quote:

Some controversy surrounds the properties of the atoms. They vary in size: one report—which some scholars question—suggests that atoms could, in principle, be as large as a cosmos, although at least in this cosmos they all seem to be too small to perceive

Can anyone tell me more? Who was it who suggested atoms could be so huge? Were they suggesting another universe populated with a single gigantic atom?

Thanks Adambrowne666 (talk) 11:47, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

How do i get involved in fighting poverty in Angola

I am extremely interested in travelling to Angola and working to help fight poverty. How do i get involved? Erin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.84.146.221 (talk) 12:00, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

You could seek out a charity (see also Category:International charities), or a volunteer organisation like Voluntary Service Overseas, or approach your nearest Angolan embassy or consulate (best search the phone book or yellow pages for their contact details). If you're not quite so "action" orientated or busy with your normal work, you could simply donate to a charity instead. Astronaut (talk) 13:46, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I would recommend steering clear of the Angolan embassy or consulate unless you need an official document and/or you want to grease an Angolan bureaucrat's palm. Corruption in Angola is so serious a problem that it has merited its own Wikipedia article, and government corruption, including corruption at embassies, has undermined international relief efforts according to this article. A list of poverty relief programs sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is on this page. If you intend to travel to Angola, you will need to speak some Portuguese and/or one of the local African languages, since English is not widely understood there. This article lists some of the international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that operate in Angola, many of them on poverty-relief programs. Marco polo (talk) 18:42, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Ranks in 16th Century Venetian Navy

^{Hope it's ok to pose two questions at once...}

Can anyone list for me the ranks of the men on the naval ships of Venice in the 16th Century?

ta Adambrowne666 (talk) 12:02, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

They had Capitani (Captains) who each commanded a ship, and the commander of the fleet was Capitano Generale da Mar (Captain General of the Sea, or Chief Admiral). Below the captains were chief and petty officers. Nobili di poppa, noblemen of the poop, were rather like midshipmen: that is, they were young gentlemen learning the crafts of navigation, seamanship and naval warfare. Xn4 00:50, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Aha, I see there's much more detail of the Venetian naval ranks in an article of the Italian Wikipedia, Marineria veneziana. If you don't read Italian, I can give you a summary of what it says about ranks, please let me know if you need it. Xn4 01:11, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Earliest mention of Lord in a religious context

Does anyone know what the earlies mention of the title "Lord" is in a religious context? What I mean is: When was the first time the title Lord was used to describe God or Jesus. In the English language please (I don't mean Adonai and all that = ))! Thanks --Cameron (t|p|c) 13:16, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

1549, according to The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. I take it you mean in England? It was used in the 1549 Prayer Book of Edward VI. PeterSymonds | talk 13:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually forget that, that's the Lord's Prayer. :S Sorry. PeterSymonds | talk 13:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, it depends what you mean by "English." Bede would have used the word in his partial translation of the Bible late in the seventh century, in what we now call Old English or Anglo-Saxon, as would have Adhelm in his translation of the Psalms around the same time. Basically, whenever you pinpoint the beginning of the English language, is where you will find the first use of the word Lord in a religious context. Remember that the persons most likely to be literate in the Middle Ages are the religious scholars, and their writings are very likely to use that word in that particular context. Pastordavid (talk) 13:48, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm yes I see the difficulty posed by my question now. Thanks for the info though, I think it will suffice! Thanks again! Regards --Cameron (t|p|c) 13:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

If it's any use, the earliest known example is Cædmon's hymn. Hamer's A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse says that some [who?] read Bede's account as implying that Cædmon was the first to compose Christian verse in Old English. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:17, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Actual first use in relation to god recoded in the OED is from the homilies of Ælfric of Eynsham c.1000 and the first use of lord for a ruler comes from the glosses to the Lindisfarne Gospels c.950. The Lindisfarne Gospels though do not use Lord to refer to god they use instead the word drighten which seems to be its first religious use although it is used to mean ruler in Beowulf. meltBanana 23:09, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Aelfric (the one abovementioned) uses 'hlaford' (which becomes modern English 'lord') as a translation of the Latin 'dominus', which was used for both secular and religious meanings of 'lord'. 130.56.65.25 (talk) 01:32, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Sailing east: any poems, songs or nicknames?

Let's say an Arab, Chinese, or Portuguese merchant travels far from home for trading opportunities. Did these people having a popular poem, song or nickname for sailing home (particularly in a easterly direction)? --Ghostexorcist (talk) 18:07, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

UK court-dress changes

Anyone know where I can find a large/hi-res pic of the newly revealed British judges' gown? Thanks —TreasuryTag—t—c 18:33, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

What I don't understand is why when Elizabeth Bowes Lyon married George VI she became Queen consort, but why when the Duke of Edinburgh married Elizabeth II, why did he not become King consort, and was instead made a Prince/Duke? --Hadseys 20:16, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Men aren't traditionally granted the title "king consort". The last one to do so was Philip II of Spain when he married Mary I in 1554. A king is seen as higher than a queen, for obvious reasons, so if Philip were king, he'd outrank Elizabeth in status. That's why he's given the lower title, because the Queen is the Queen, and there can be no one higher. Queen Victoria wanted her husband to become king but her ministers blocked the idea, because he was a foreigner of supposed "low birth" (as far as German princes are low!). Best, PeterSymonds | talk 20:21, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Many people view King to be higher than Queen (they obiously have no regard for the "regnant"/"consort" bit) and thus people deem it inappropriate to have somebody who has only married into the royal family (ie Philip) to hold a title seemingly higher than the monarch herself. The same goes for most titles of the nobility: If a Duke marries a woman (even if she is common as muck) she becomes a Duchess, however if a Duchess marries a man (even if he is the Prince of X) he does not become a Duke. You may wish to read articles such as King regnant,King consort, Queen regnant and Queen consort and even Prince consort.--Cameron (t|p|c) 20:32, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

PS: When Peter says "Men aren't traditionally granted the title "king consort"" he speaks for the UK...some other countries do grant men this titles, though nowadays there are few. --Cameron (t|p|c) 20:32, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

The wife of a king becomes a queen, unless prevented from doing so by being a king's wife in a Morganatic marriage, whereas by marrying a queen regnant a man doesn't acquire any title at all ipso facto. Often, such husbands of queens hold a princely title already, as Philip did. The Crown, as the fount of all honours, can grant a queen's husband the title of prince consort or even king consort, or else a rank in the peerage, but that's rarer than you think and needs a political consensus as well as a willing queen. In the case of Queen Victoria, it was many years before she even gave in to Prince Albert's aspirations to see state papers and to have a share in royal duties, let alone creating him Prince Consort. That came many years after their marriage. Xn4 20:35, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe Philip had to renounce his Danish/Greek princely title as a precondition of marriage to the then Princess Elizabeth. He was not recreated a Prince - this time of the United Kingdom - until 1957 although he was inaccurately referred to as Prince Philip in common parlance before then, as he was given an HRH and made Duke of Edinburgh at the time of the marriage. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh#Marriage goes into this at some length while Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh#Royal Status makes it (reasonably) clear that contrary to the assumption of the OP and other posters, Philip is not the Prince Consort (although that term is also commonly used erroneously). (I happen to have read the Philip article about 2 days ago - I don't make a habit of knowing this kind of thing!) Valiantis (talk) 21:58, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Strictly speaking Elizabeth Bowes Lyon married the Duke of York, and only became Queen consort 13 years later. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 20:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

.. and likewise Prince Philip didn't marry Queen Elizabeth II. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 20:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

In fact, if Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon thought that the Duke of York would become king one day and she become queen, it's likely she would not have married him at all. The 1936 abdication of his brother Edward VIII to marry "the woman he loved" was unimagineable in 1923; Edward was healthy and there was every reason he would father an heir and, barring a meteor strike, would be king for a long time and then be succeeded by his heir. Although she seemed to cope well in public after fate played its hand, it seems behind the scenes she always hated the position that Edward's decision placed George and her in, and she never forgave Edward for what she considered to be his treacherous behaviour to the family and the country. She refused ever to see Edward again, and I believe she refrained from even attending his funeral in 1972. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:45, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Norse Mythology

Was there a Norse goddess of gateways? If there wasn't one, what would she have been called if she exsisted? Emma Hordika (talk) 20:26, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

No there wasn't but this list may interest you. --Cameron (t|p|c) 20:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

What's the difference between "Natural Rights" and "Human Rights"???

Is there any response to the claim that these sorts of "rights" are an outgrowth of Hume's Is-ought fallacy?--Goon Noot (talk) 21:42, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Mine is that natural rights are based on the concepts of natural law and go back much further than Hume, to Aquinas, Hobbes and Grotius, among others. While Human rights are claimed to have ancient beginnings, their main origins in the 18th century are at least as political as philosophical. There's a system of international human rights law, but no one has promulgated any international natural rights law, because natural law just doesn't take such forms. Xn4 00:31, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

How do I tell if someone in my class is gay?

He's Asian and I'm wondering. If he is, should I tell everyone or try to convert him? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.135.42.219 (talk) 00:24, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Pardon my French, but you should mind your own damn business. Ninebucks (talk) 02:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Convert him to what? Non-Asianness? Corvus cornix_talk 02:11, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Honestly if your thinking of outing a gay classmate or even trying to "convert" him i would suggest you take a look at your ethics. And idk for the first part but the second is defintly a no. RoyalOrleans 02:14, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Obscurantism

Is there anyone known for praising obscurantism? Like someone who was so anti-everything that they purposely used it because they didn't want anyone to understand, or something to that effect. I personally think obscurantism is really funny and kinda cool haha. Evaunit♥666♥ 00:38, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The liberal media are sometimes accused of being obscurantist, because

• 1) they tend to claim that all knowledge comes from investigative sources.
• 2) they further argue that only the information élite has the ability to gather sources, and that most contemporary knowledge comes from themselves.

There are various kinds of obscurantism, but they could be divided into two categories :

a) the élitist brand which limits knowledge to very specific categories of human activity, say philosophy, physical science, economics, history, medicine, politics, religion, exploration, etc. b) the populist brand, much more common, that says that all knowledge is an emanation from the people, at that everything which is not democratic, popular, collective, is presumably false.

So, one could argue that obscurantism is much more common than is generally thought. Any person or any collective who claims to be the guardian of truth, freedom, modernity, etc, could theoretically be accused of obscurantism. 69.157.239.231 (talk) 01:34, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Standby Power wastage

The television when on standby consumes up to 10 watts doing absolutely nothing. So why isn't there a $1 million dollar X-Prize for inventing a standby mode which consumes less than 0.5 watt of power? 202.168.50.40 (talk) 01:12, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Darwin and Eugenics/Social Darwinism

Was Charles Darwin a proponent of either Eugenics or social Darwinism? --Begantruetwo (talk) 01:13, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

From our article on Social Darwinism: Darwin himself gave serious consideration to Galton's work, but thought the ideas of "hereditary improvement" impractical. Aware of weaknesses in his own family, he was sure that families would naturally refuse such selection and wreck the scheme. He thought that even if compulsory registration was the only way to improve the human race, this illiberal idea would be unacceptable, and it would be better to publicize the "principle of inheritance" and let people decide for themselves.--droptone (talk) 01:43, 14 May 2008 (UTC)