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March 25

Who can buy land/property in Cuba?

With the current softening of relations between the US and Cuba - I believe it's still not legal for US Citizens to buy land or other property there - but what about people from other countries? I'm a British citizen - I don't think the UK government disallows it - but what about the Cubans? SteveBaker (talk) 14:41, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This explains some of the legalities.--Phil Holmes (talk) 15:11, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We don't give legal advice here and this is an area where Caveat emptor means what is says. My barber bought a villa in Spain some years ago (we are all in the EU aren’t we?) only to find he didn’t own it! Same with Cuba. As the opportunities are really great for the early investor -so are the risks. One has to have both eyes open and WP is not the place to do your homework. Go up and visit the the Cuban Embassy in London. Stay clear of the sharks. Double check everything the embassy official tells you. Forget referring this to your family solicitor (he only understands normal house conveyancing), find one that understands overseas property purchase. Then go-for-it. If you have the odd £100,000 to spare, you can escape UK death duties and leave your dependents with some tangible assets that the taxman can't take away.--Aspro (talk) 15:43, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is little chance Steve will travel about 5000 miles to visit the UK Cuban embassy and sadly the Cuban embassy in Washington DC is not likely to be much help any day soon. Richard Avery (talk) 07:51, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. What I was inferring, that when buying property over-seas one needs info from RS. These days, we have the benefit of instantaneous-world-wide-communications and if the OP has relatives in the south of the UK (which for US reader, is a small insignificant island community just off the coast of mainland Europe). Then, if the OP is anything like an entrepreneur ( and face, it he must be, to up-root to now live west of Watford). He should have no trouble in either contacting the UK Cuban Embassy directly by phone or asking a relative to pop-in to pick up the necessary paper work. This is where the sharks have the advantage. They convince the unwary that this is all so very difficult and complicated– and they 'only' can cut through all the red tape. What red tape? Cuba wants foreign investment. Sharks what easy money. So, the process require only the same caveat emptor caution as when buy some other high value item. For a long term investment (35-40 years plus) a better investment may be in the lower town districts of Havana. Just look at the lower town districts of San Francisco during the 1960's. Because, rents where cheap they only attracted beach-bum that wanted to surf and hippies (that wanted to do, whatever hippies wanted to do). Now these areas have regenerated and the owners are sitting on millions of dollars worth of property. The difference between those that retire on a meagre pensions and those that don't is sometimes to do with the Parable_of_the_talents_or_minas#Parable_of_the_Talents Parable of the Talents. Unless one sows, one can not reap. But one has to take the risk of breaking new ground first, so that ones seeds have fertile soil in which to grow.--Aspro (talk) 13:03, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Photography density

I read somewhere that considering all of humanity, there are now more photographs taken per minute than there were taken per year in the 19th century. Is this true? I also remember reading something about more photographs being taken now per minute (or at least per day) than there were taken during the entire 19th century. Is this true? I would imagine the total number of photographs taken during the 19th century must be at least several hundred, but probably less than one hundred thousand. Nowadays, people take many millions of photographs every single year. JIP | Talk 22:11, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how you'd measure it, but there were certainly more than 100,000 photos taken in the 19th century. By the 1890s, photography studios were a thriving business, even in the small towns where many of my 19th century relatives had their pictures taken. I'm just one guy, and I have at least 100 family pictures dating to before 1900. I recall someone a few years ago, possibly Norm MacDonald, talking about how in the old days everyone had like one picture that they would carry around; and that today, everyone has hundreds or maybe even thousands that they can carry on their hand-held device. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:33, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cinematography entails taking multiple photographs in sequence. 19th century: In 1873 motion picture pioneer Eadweard Muybridge would have needed weeks to capture as many as 24 images on glass-plate cameras. In 1882 Étienne-Jules Marey could shoot 12 (occasionally 60) consecutive frames a second. The 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene is the a rare surviving film from the time before routine availability of 35mm celluloid strip movie film. 20th century: Following the popularisations of Edison and Dickson's Kinetoscope in 1893 and the Lumière brothers' Cinematograph in 1895, the century began with Movie theaters in operation in western capitals and continued with virtually continuous production of new movies by increasing numbers of cinematographers. It is unlikely that there was ever a moment in the 20th century when a movie camera was not taking pictures somewhere at 16 to 24 frames per second, whose accumulation outpaces all still photography both in the 20th and, of course, the 19th centuries. AllBestFaith (talk) 15:59, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that the original claim more likely referred to still photos alone. --69.159.61.172 (talk) 21:33, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It seems kinda meaningless to compare movie frames in the past to still pictures in the present - and if you include movies in the present, YouTube alone would overwhelm movie production in the past by a spectacular margin. SteveBaker (talk) 04:16, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

JIP, your original statement that "I would imagine the total number of photographs taken during the 19th century must be at least several hundred, but probably less than one hundred thousand" is a spectacular underestimate. Photography became widespead in 1839 and only gained in popularity during the remaining six decades of the 19th century. Local business directories published in the 1840s sometimes listed more daguerrotypists than dentists. By 1853, there were 86 photo portrait galleries in business in New York City. On page 34 of his book The Daguerrotype in America, the eminent historian of photography Beaumont Newhall wrote: "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts officially reported in 1855 that 403,626 daguerrotypes had been taken in the state during the past 12 months", and he also states that in 1860, the U.S. Census reported that 3,154 Americans were employed as photographers. The U.S. Civil War that began in 1861 led to a boom in photography, and the inexpensive Carte de visite photo portraits became ubiquitous. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 21:21, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Considering this, I must have vastly underestimated the number. It must rank in several millions, at the least. Nevertheless, I think my point still stands, the photography density today is vastly greater than in the 19th century. "At least many millions per year" seems also a vast understatement. I myself have taken a quarter of a million photographs in five years, and that's just me. Professional photographers take even more photographs, and then there's the hordes of cellphone camera snapshot/selfie enthusiasts. I would imagine today humanity takes at least several million photographs per day. JIP | Talk 21:40, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Again, your estimates are low, JIP. According to this article in The Atlantic, well over 600 billion photos a year are uploaded, which is almost two billion a day. Including those that are not uploaded, the figure probably exceeds a trillion a year. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:01, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

March 26

Intermarriage in israel

How do the majority of Israelis view intermarriage between members of their people with Arabs living in Israel? Do they think of it favourably or negatively? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.49.84.225 (talk) 23:41, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You may find your answer in Interfaith_marriage_in_Judaism#Israeli_opposition_to_mixed_marriages_between_Jewish_women_and_Arab_men. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:21, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any reasons for why more than half would oppose intermarriage between Israelis and Palestinians?108.51.116.34 (talk) 17:08, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You'd have to ask them. --Jayron 32 01:59, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Besides the link provided by User:Baseball Bugs above, the question as posed is impossible to answer without rewording. The Palestinian Arabs living in Israel (among them Muslims, Christians, and Druze) are Israeli citizens. If "intermarriage" refers to their marriage to non-Arabs and "Israelis" refers to Jews: the latter would be influenced by religious teachings if any, taking into account that the Israeli Jewish population is heterogeneous: secular, traditional, religiously observant, and the minority Haredi ("ultra-Orthodox") which nevertheless has a great deal of influence on other groups due to its rejection of less strict observance. More to the point is that unmarried Jews and Arabs rarely have social contact: Cities, towns and villages are overwhelmingly exclusive to Jews or Arabs, and in the few "dual-population" cities (Jerusalem, Haifa, Acre (Akko),Jaffa, and Ramla-Lod, plus Nazareth/Upper Nazareth and Maalot-Tarshiha) integrated neighborhoods are extremely rare.; Jewish children attend schools in the Hebrew language and further separated according to secular, state-religious, and Haredi curricular content, while Arab children of all faiths attend a separate school system (or particularly for Christians, private schools by denomination) with instruction in Arabic. Traditional, rural Arab young women would be unlikely to meet any Jews at all. Marriage laws go according to formal religious affiliation and there is no civil marriage in the State of Israel, which does recognize marriages performed abroad. The Jewish religion doesn't solicit converts. Druze don't intermarry with non-Druze. So Arab/Jewish intermarriage is quite uncommon in Israel regardless of opinions and theoretical preferences. -- Deborahjay (talk) 16:12, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Are the Aramaic - speaking Christians in Israel, i.e. Assyrians, Chaldeans, Jacobites, Maronites (I presume there are some) Arabs? I would have thought not. 78.149.118.97 (talk) 16:52, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Jews and Arabs are the two largest population groups, not everyone is one or the other. Minorities in Israel are [self-]defined by various characteristics: religion, country of origin, ethnic-cultural background, and language. For example, see Circassians in Israel. Hebrew, for example, was only shared by religious Jews regardless of geographic origin; secular Jews spoke a local vernacular or several plus a Jewish national language by region: Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic languages for the Ashkenazi, Sephardim, and Mizrachim respectively, the latter called by some "Arab Jews". -- Deborahjay (talk) 17:15, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So it's kind of like how things used to be in the southern United States before the sixties.108.51.116.34 (talk) 19:29, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

March 27

Supernumerary urogenital numbering system

When it comes to human excretory functions, "number 1" is a euphemism for urination and "number 2" for defecation.

But what about other stuff? Could menstruation be "number 3", or ejaculation "number 4", or childbirth "number 5", or some such system? Has anyone ever used these extra numbers? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:51, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to be a little-kid thing, and the average kid is not likely to be very aware of or care about those other biological functions. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:25, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

if this isn't a 'trolling' question, nothing is..68.48.241.158 (talk) 01:32, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Jack is not a troll. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:41, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 04:40, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, no you're not at troll, but we should not judge questions based on the username, in my opinion. If Jack had not been logged in and asked this as an IP, I'd hope we could treat the question in the same manner. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:00, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

he might not be but that question....I'd like to take a vote on that...68.48.241.158 (talk) 01:45, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Jack often raises what could be called "whimsical" questions, about oddities that pop into his head randomly and which might not necessarily be so easy to research. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:49, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What he said. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 04:40, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So can other people raise whimsical questions and not be called a troll? If not, why not? Who is to judge the excuse of whimsicallity? Either a post (not the poster) is trollish, or its not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.111.96.35 (talk) 03:32, 27 March 2016 (UTC) --178.111.96.35 (talk) 03:33, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just a slight comment on Jacks Q: Defecation is not a urogenital function. (At least not in this hemishere)--178.111.96.35 (talk) 03:52, 27 March 2016 (UTC)didn;t[reply]

Thanks. I didn't know an expression that covers all expressions of "matter" from the body. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:00, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Biological elimination waste products". StuRat (talk) 13:43, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of number 3... watch the first 20 seconds. (Clip from Home (film)) EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 03:57, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm ... -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:00, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Wiktionary's "Appendix:English toilet slang" assigns "number three" and "number four" to flatulence and vomiting, admitting that the both can be both, while "only numbers one and two are generally accepted as standard". Not referenced. ---Sluzzelin talk 06:26, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Sluzzelin.

Right, so that makes at least 7 ways of expelling stuff from the body. Is there a general term for them? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:28, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

On a Fluid balance chart, the general term is "output". I'm not sure that would cover childbirth, though. Tevildo (talk) 09:49, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There are other excretions such as tears, saliva, snot, sweat, earwax, and possibly pus or blood. Would you even count dead skin flaking off, or hair growing? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:28, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In one of Bill Cosby's early recordings, he talked about elementary school, and how if you had to leave to go to the restroom, you would raise your hand and display 1 or 2 fingers. Presumably this would have been around the mid-1940s. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:26, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OP might be fine in general but this "question" at least goes against the not a chatroom guideline...it's more of a proposal for the sake of amusement with goofy title to boot..the firt part of the "question" isn't a question at all: yes, of course anything could be called anything if one wanted to...and the second part of the "question" is: please try to find examples of my goofy proposal for my amusement...CLOSE/DELETE 68.48.241.158 (talk) 13:16, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There was some comedy show where they went into numbers for all the various "outputs". StuRat (talk) 13:43, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fine, I'll definitively answer this genuine "question": "could they be 3,4,5...?" Yes, nobody owns the rights to these numbers such that they couldn't be used by you or somebody else for such a purpose. "have they ever been used." Unknowable..but unlikely someone who is menstruating ever stated, "I just did a #5." or someone who is sweating stated, "I'm doing a #7." Hope that helps. Please let me know if I can be of more assistance.68.48.241.158 (talk) 14:07, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Next time I have a whimsical query, you will be the very first person to whom I will trip lightly in search of instant illumination. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:31, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

John Varley's SF novel Golden Globe mentions a radio (or some future equivalent) show which challenges the reader to name the 36 substances which can come from a human body. You can find a discussion about it at straight dope.-gadfium 19:52, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fascinating. They get up to 38 substances. I get queasy just thinking about it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:31, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Nothing human disgusts me, unless it's unkind." [1] :) SemanticMantis (talk) 15:07, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Was that Terence "Nothing human is alien to me" Williams? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:51, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Jack, you might want to look up perineum and the cloaca from which it evolved, and for which monotremes are named. μηδείς (talk) 17:21, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The death of the Donald

What would happen to the caucuses, the Republican party and politics in the US period if Trump 'died'. Somehow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.32.51.253 (talk) 23:59, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Read This. It should answer any question you have. --Jayron 32 01:58, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, it doesn't address the question of what happens if a candidate dies or withdraws after there have been primaries and caucuses, but before the party's national convention. --69.159.61.172 (talk) 09:42, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

At the convention, they would decide what to do. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:23, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For a historical precedent, see 1968 Democratic National Convention which took place after the assassination of candidate Robert F. Kennedy, who had won a number of primaries. It was messy, for all sorts of reasons. --Xuxl (talk) 11:41, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's a campaign now to allow guns in the Republican convention, which is in Ohio, an open carry state. If this happens, combined with the hatred of Trump by many Republicans and the hatred of those Republican by Trump supporters, then the killing of one or more candidates seems like a real possibility. StuRat (talk) 16:08, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Don't get your hopes up. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:10, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Damn! Alansplodge (talk) 21:34, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

While I don't wish violence upon anyone, there would be a certain poetic justice if the party that demands everyone should be able to carry a gun anywhere suffer the consequences of their actions. But, my guess is that they are too smart to expose themselves to the dangers they expose the rest of the nation to. (Their position, of course, is that everyone having guns makes everyone safer, but they don't actually believe this, or they would have guns in their conventions. It's just a way to get support from the National Rifle Association.) StuRat (talk) 22:56, 28 March 2016 (UTC) [reply]

In discussing the rival contenders' chances of winning the GOP presidential nomination a journalist makes reference to "a brokered convention". Can someone explain this term? 78.149.118.97 (talk) 16:35, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

When nobody gets a majority they go back to the old way, where they wheel and deal and try to get each other's delegates by promising political favors. See brokered convention. StuRat (talk) 16:39, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The 1968 DNC (cited above by Xuxl) really is the best example. The parties make their own rules, so it wouldn't play out the same way, but the gist of it is, Trump's delegates would all show up to the RNC as "unbound" delegates. The convention starts with the rules meeting. At that rules meeting, someone would bring up the RNC's peculiar, new eight-state rule, which requires someone to get the "support" of 8 states' delegations in order to even be nominated. If this rule were interpreted super-strictly, it could result in Ted Cruz being the only legal candidate. If it's interpreted in a way that lets the unbound delegates coordinate in advance to try to get 8-state coalitions, then we'd have a "brokered" convention, which means that the real action would happen in secret off of the convention floor. If the 8-state rule got weakened or eliminated, we'd have a "contested" or "open" convention, which means that the real action would happen live on the convention floor, because there would not be any rule that would let a "broker" force any delegate to coordinate with anyone else. --M @r ē ino 21:34, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

March 28

Dolomiti Direkt

Does the Dolomiti Direkt Bank belongs to Südtiroler Sparkasse? I can´t find the Bank in this list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%BCdtiroler_Sparkasse_%E2%80%93_Cassa_di_Risparmio_di_Bolzano but on the website of Dolomiti Bank Direkt there is the Logo of Südtiroler Sparkasse--Ip80.123 (talk) 12:02, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it appears to be a brand of theirs. See the Sparkasse's corresponding page on direct banking: [2] (in German) or [3] (in Italian). ---Sluzzelin talk 12:33, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is eating sweet corn really dangerous?

Apparently my body has a hard time digesting sweet corn. In fact, I wonder if I'm able to extract any nutrional value out of it at all. This got me wondering, what if I was stuck on a desert island where the only thing that grew was sweet corn? Wouldn't this be incredibly dangerous and kill me pretty quick. Much the same as swallowing beach pebbles would. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.5.255.114 (talk) 18:04, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

sweet corn is not dangerous at all, of course....unless you're allergic to it..it may not be as healthy as other things relatively speaking, however...according to the google nutritional display for sweet corn, you could get just about all your nutritional needs if you ate a dozen or so ears a day, including fiber, protein, vitamin C...you could live a very long time on this alone...the human body can withstand A LOT...68.48.241.158 (talk) 18:33, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's one of the least healthy veggies, for several reasons. It has little protein, and it's nutritional completeness score is only 48/100: [4]. However, it can take people several months to starve to death when eating nothing, and babies can survive for years on human milk alone, which is even more nutritionally incomplete (29/100): [5]. So, I'd predict it might take years to actually die from a sweet corn-only diet. Lack of sodium might be one of the biggest problems. (We aren't used to thinking of sodium as being critical, but it really is, it's just that in our culture we get way too much.) Boiling the corn in seawater would solve that, provided you had a pot and way to build a fire. If not, you could just dip it in seawater and eat it raw, but that would subject you to microbes and parasites in the seawater, which could possibly kill you before starvation would have. StuRat (talk) 18:49, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Things go bad on any single-ingredient diet. Corn has its own special problems though. See Nixtamalization. The indigenous Americans all knew to slake their corn, but when white Europeans showed up, they thought it was fine to eat it without any treatment. In the short term, and with an otherwise diverse diet, that is fine. However in the long term, if you subsist largely on un-slaked corn, you would likely get Pellagra. See the "history" section of that article for more details on how it affected Europeans in the Americas. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:28, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

bottom line though: if otherwise healthy you'll die in a matter of several weeks if you eat nothing at all...whereas eating just corn you'd live at least many, many months and possible many years...you'd be thanking the corn for all that it was providing you instead of dwelling on what is wasn't..68.48.241.158 (talk) 19:38, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think the "apparent assumption" is at least questionable. Very often, the shells of whole kernels are not digested and passed out again. It looks as if the kernel has not been digested at all, but in reality, the internals have all been consumed, leaving just the outer shell. There is a Naked Scientists discussion here and an article here. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:07, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Unless you swallow it without actually chewing :-) Alansplodge (talk) 21:32, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In that case I would still assume stomach acids are able to dissolve the internals. See stomach acid. No references though. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 22:27, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that stomach acid takes time to dissolve the contents, and the less the surface area for the reaction, the longer it will take, and it's only in the stomach for a few hours. So, chewing helps to squish the contents out to where they can be digested and more acid can get inside the kernel to dissolve anything left in there. Also, slitting each kernel with a knife while on the cob can help to increase the surface area and thus make it more digestible. StuRat (talk) 22:50, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Urine

This word confuses me.

What are the origins for it.

When I say it, it's like I'm saying "yer rine"

It's like I'm saying it's someones rine (rine is like germanic for rhine, the name of a river)

So Im saying its your river.

In effect when refurring to my pee, I should say myrine

I dont understand this language. what gives? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.252.206.39 (talk) 18:13, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=urine 68.48.241.158 (talk) 18:36, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The similarity in sound between urine and you is coincidental - urine is from the latin word urina, but the latin for you is vos or tu. Totally different. 217.44.50.87 (talk) 20:07, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, we Brits, for no apparent reason, generally pronounce it as "your-in", but the other way is heard sometimes too. Alansplodge (talk) 21:30, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The traditional British pronunciation is still /ˈjʊərɪn/ (you're in), Alan, but I agree that you southerners probably say /ˈjɔːrɪn/. It comes from Old twelfth-century French, by the way, from Latin ūrīna and related to Greek οὖρον. Many European languages have a similarly-derived word. Dbfirs 07:08, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

March 29

Cheek kissing

I've read over the cheek kissing article and it only alludes to the answer to my question. When people do the double cheek kiss in greeting or such (I see it mostly with celebrities such as Heidi Klum or Gordon Ramsey), are they just touching cheeks and making a kissing sound with their mouths?

As someone who thinks hand shakes are unnecessarily ceremonious, the length of time this greeting takes bothers me to even see it. To think that the kisses are simply produced for the sound effect... It's absolutely ridiculous!

Rant aside, are they just "air kisses"? Dismas|^(talk) 01:53, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Italians I met a couple months ago indicated that it is indeed just "air kissing" near the cheek in most instances instead of planting one. They did say this in response to someone who asked was overly excited at the prospect of having two strapping lads kiss her, but I recall hearing the same elsewhere. Ian.thomson (talk) 01:58, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Handshakes too time-consuming? This must be a horror movie to you.

The Quixotic Potato (talk) 04:51, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think he's saying it's the "air kissing" that takes longer. And it's an old custom. I think of it as European, but in The Wizard of Oz when the Wizard awards the lion he medal, he gives him a couple of cheek kisses, though they might be actual kisses instead of air kisses. In the Tour de France, Tour of Spain, etc. the young woman presenters also go through a pair (or triple) of air kisses as part of the routine. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:31, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Good point.[6] I need to get some sleep. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 05:56, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Having lived for some years in France, I think it is fair to see that the degree of physical contact involved in cheek kissing varies in line with the degree of intimacy between the people doing it. It can just be kissing the air - or it can be real lip to cheek kissing: the closer you are to someone, the more contact there is likely to be. 217.44.50.87 (talk) 08:12, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Chelyuskin

Is there any truth to reports that the Soviet icebreaker SS Chelyuskin was escorting a second ship which was carrying political prisoners to Zekistan (more specifically to Kolyma), and when the ships got stuck in ice several of these prisoners escaped and made their way to America? 2601:646:8E01:515D:F88D:DE34:7772:8E5B (talk) 09:55, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]