Humanities desk
< June 23	<< May \| June \| Jul >>	June 25 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

June 24

Coco Chanel

In the second to the last section, there are a couple of statements to the effect that: Coco Chanel was a dangerous serial killer of young fat children. Upon completing the kill, she would eat her victims. When I pulled up the section to edit this obviously false information, the sentences did not appear in the edit window???? Can you see this, and any idea how to fix it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.235.56.191 (talk) 01:03, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just garden variety vandalism; someone else fixed it within a minute, and beat you to it. You can always click on the "history" tab to see what's happened to the article. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 01:07, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

LDS and Jews

As a non-LDS Christian reading Doctrine and Covenants for the first time, I was surprised to see that (if I understand it rightly) male LDS members who are literal descendents of Aaron are automatically qualified for the bishopric. Does this mean that a kohen who becomes LDS will immediately be ordained a bishop? It's not like this would apply to me, if you wonder; my family claims to have Levitical ancestry, but not priestly. 71.182.134.18 (talk) 05:15, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as the LDS is concerned, your ancestry is whatever someone tells you it is in your patriarchal blessing. It may or may not be related to any actual ancestors- it's a "spiritual" thing, not expected to comport with fact. - Nunh-huh 22:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Query on Australian culture and Location of Indian restaurants

I am a new student at Australian campus, what are the rules of compliance there? Is it similar to the US , & what are the Indian restaurants for Indian food?

What —Preceding unsigned comment added by Garb wire (talk • contribs) 06:30, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Who what when where and why? Thanks Julia Rossi (talk) 08:41, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My query pertains to the australian culture Is it similar to the US? Are there good American and Indian restaurants? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Garb wire (talk • contribs) 14:34, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In answer to your first question, have a look at our article on Culture of Australia. To answer your second question, it might be helpful if you told us where in Australia you are living. --Richardrj ^talk ^email 14:44, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Richard,nothing in that link, explicitly mentions about the living style of aussies and how they perceive asians or about racism....... By the way i am living in Melbourne..... The only thing that caught my eyes in that link was about Fox studios moving to Melbourne......Very keen on knowing their lifestyles Is it similar to the US? 15:44, 24 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Garb wire (talk • contribs)

This question will be hard for us to answer, as it is subjective. How do we compare or quantify racism? If Australian culture is similar in some ways to U.S. culture but different in others, how do we assess how similar it is? Finally, to answer the question, an editor would need a sound knowledge of both Australian and U.S. culture and particularly of racism in each. I am very familiar with U.S. culture but am not Asian and so do not have that experience. I can say that U.S. culture varies enormously from place to place and from ethnic group to ethnic group. In fact, there really is no single U.S. culture. When it comes to racism toward South Asians or other Asians, this too varies enormously from place to place and group to group. So it would be hard to compare the U.S. in this regard to Australia, even if Australian culture and the incidence of racism in Australia is uniform across that country, which I doubt. I will say that I have been involved in a discussion forum for immigrants to Canada. Most of the participants in this forum were of South Asian descent. Some discussions had to do with racism toward South Asians in different countries that attract South Asian immigrants. The consensus on the forum was that Canada was comparable to the United States as a country that welcomes South Asians and that both countries are more welcoming than Australia. Some forum participants had experienced racism in Canada or the United States, but there was some agreement that racism was stronger in Australia. This amounts to OR and is in no way authoritative. Marco polo (talk) 16:05, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article on Melbourne describes the city as very multicultural. It has a high Asian population. Tourism in Melbourne lists the locations of some of the ethnic restaurants. Sounds like a great place to eat out. As for the degree of racism experienced by residents, I agree with the above comment. Melbourne might be an easier place to live as an immigrant than some other Australian cities, but there are many subjective factors. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly in Canberra there are a variety of Indian restaurants, some specialising in North Indian, Urdu, South Indian, Sri Lankan and also Australian/Indian fusion cuisine. There is a vibrant Indian immigrant community here, large enough to sustain two temples for the Hindu community, as well as a lot of Indians who come here just for study at the universities. The same applies to the other major cities, but smaller towns (including university towns like Armidale) won't necessarily have Indian restaurants. Steewi (talk) 01:09, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some reflections: a friend who lived in both Canada and the States thinks Australians are more similar to Canadians in their cultural "feel" (no gun culture for example) and in some ways, being more English. I don't live in Melbourne so can't help much more except to say it's a hotbed for the arts in all forms – the best comedy by reputation is from Melbourne, the tv rock music show, RocKwiz is set in a Melbourne pub, St Kilda's Esplanade Hotel, drama series such as Wildside and Underbelly) and visiting there my experience was an openness and friendly attitude to newcomers and a mad love of culture in all forms including live performance. The city has a lot of public art with sculpture and mosaics in the streets. Googling Indian eateries and Indian restaurants shows a concentration from St Kilda up through the city northwards. There's one in Lygon Street, a famously Italian area. Racism? It depends on which is the latest group to move in who tends to get a hard time from the others (all OR here), but in respect to racial pride, most groups like to keep themselves and their culture distinct from others. Depending on your university, you have probably discovered the international student groups and possibly accommodation designed for an international mix. For tips on being Indian in Melbourne, there's this forum at IndiaGrid.com[1] and maybe others. I'd be looking at lists of temples too[2] and on the net. Enjoy your stay, Julia Rossi (talk) 01:36, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Saint

I need help identifying a saint. Everything I remember about her:

-name sounded something like Clara
-her husband was murdered
-her two sons were murdered
-her family was feuding with another (thus the murdering)
-she ended the feud, forgiving her family’s murderers
-she lived in either Italy or Spain or possibly Portugal 71.174.16.91 (talk) 09:18, 24 June 2008 (UTC)Charity[reply]

Perhaps Rita of Cascia, although her sons were not murdered but died of natural causes. --Richardrj ^talk ^email 10:20, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's her! Thank you!71.174.16.91 (talk) 10:38, 24 June 2008 (UTC)Charity[reply]

Does Clara sound like Rita? GoingOnTracks (talk) 09:40, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose... Spencer^T♦^C 14:56, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

asya

<Moooved to the language desk here[3] where maybe someone can do Tagalog is it? about Asia?Julia Rossi (talk) 11:11, 24 June 2008 (UTC)>[reply]

Bold text== India vs china == lobalizatio

India and china are viewed as global emerging giants.... So will India overtake the chinese or will it be the chinese victory over the indians on issues of religion and communal harmony?

Is the globalisation in india restricted to the wealthy and the rich? Does it trickle down to the poor?? 15:47, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

It's very hard to decide now...only time will tell.--Faizaguo (talk) 16:40, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Will India overtake the Chinese?" In what respect?

Globalization gets everywhere and does good as well as bad. Xn4 20:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would say yes, India will do better in the long run, because China has many problems that India doesn't have:

1) They have a "demographics bomb" due to their "one family, one child" policy. Eventually (around 2030) all the parents and grandparents will be too old to work, leaving the relatively small population of only (grand)children to support them and their children.

2) They lack democracy. This makes government less responsive to the needs and wants of the people and eventually leads to social disruption, as this is the only way for the public to get their government to act.

3) They face severe pollution problems due to a lack of regulation and booming manufacturing.

4) They face a severe inequality of wealth due to lack of basic protection for workers which allows them to be exploited. Real unions are illegal.

5) They face shortages of fuel due to their increasing manufacturing base. This leads them to do things like support the genocide in Darfur in order to get oil from Sudan. However, such actions as this make them unpopular and can lead to sanctions against them.

India does have some problems, like the trouble with Pakistan over Kashmir and with the Tamils in the South, but China has similar problems in Tibet, with Taiwan, with the murderous government they support in Burma, and with Muslims in the western provinces. StuRat (talk) 21:43, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What does lead you to the opinion that problems 1, 3, 4, 5 are absent or significantly less urgent in India? I'll leave aside the question if 2 is a media-produced Western illusion. In particular,

1) is it really better to have children starving or malnourished instead of a population decline?

3) Have a look at Criticism_of_Coca-Cola#Environmental_issues or Bhopal disaster

4) Please see the 2nd paragraph of Child_labor#Recent_child_labor_incidents

5) Who, pray tell, does not face fuel shortages nowadays, except the one country with the reserve currency enabling a disguised inflation?

Finally, from your illusions regarding India, are you perchance a British citizen? --Ayacop (talk) 09:39, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as 1 is concerned I have to agree. India may not have the ageing population problem, but they have an increasing population that cannot be sustainable in the long run. I think it is extremely difficult to say which will do better in the long run, India has a potential population problem and a real water-shortage problem as their green revolution has been based on unsustainable use of ground water. Arguably they are politically more stable, but this could change if there are mass shortages. -- Q Chris (talk) 09:47, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, there already were peasant suicides because even those groundwater pumps couldn't bring up any more stuff. But the groundwater level is sinking in Pakistan---and the U.S., too.

The Republic of India is one of the top twelve nations in the world in terms of biodiversity. Featuring nearly 8% of all recorded species on Earth, this subcontinent is home to 47,000 plant species and 81,000 animal species. Simultaneously, India is home to the largest network of indigenous farmers in the world. Yet biotechnology has led to extreme environmental degradation in the region, threatening to replace its diverse ecology with corporate hybrid monoculture. The original Green Revolution was supposed to save 58 million Indian hectares. Today, 120 million of the 142 million cultivable hectares is degraded- over twice the magnitude that the Green Revolution attempted to save! In the Indian state of Punjab, 84 of the 138 developmental blocks are recorded as having 98% ground water exploitation. The critical limit is 80%. The result has had devastating impacts on the agricultural community, leaving exploited farmers with little choice of action. In the past six years, more than three thousand farmers have committed suicide in Andrha Pradesh, that is six to ten farmers everyday! [4] --Ayacop (talk) 10:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The original question appears to assume that the China-India question is a zero-sum game. Try asking, instead, what happens if both succeed in achieving sustainability.

(StuRat provides a quite extensive list of the most negative factors facing China, without actually pointing out that many of them are issues India faces, too. The comment about democracy shows a strongly pro-Western bias; the lack of any recognition that the last 30 years have seen the largest increase in standards of living, for the largest number of people, of any time in human history just confirms that the perspective is what one just might term “one sided.” ) DOR (HK) (talk) 06:32, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Commercial Revolution

Hello...I'm working on the Commercial Revolution article, and there's a question on the Talk Page about the source of this term, and I'm coming up with nothing. Not even a good starting point. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks! Hires an editor (talk) 20:58, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's a bit of a problem in that google books reports there's a new Commercial Revolution along every few hundred years: http://books.google.com/books?q=%22Commercial+Revolution%22&btnG=Search+Books but you might try to pin the whole thing on Laurence Bradford Packard who had the temerity to use the The word: The Commercial Revolution, 1400-1776: Mercantilism--Colbert--Adam Smith, 1927 - 105 pages. Of course his date range does not quite match the article's. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:50, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I've come across that problem, too, since I've seen that it began in the 1200's and that it began in the 1400's and I'm not honestly sure anymore. I'm thinking of my European History text book from high school here, but I'm not sure that's completely authoritative anymore. I'll be heading out to the local college library to see if I can find this book. Thanks! Hires an editor (talk) 02:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, gives good context for Economic history of medieval Europe— admittedly a less snappy title. On a recent read-through the present text didn't seem to be a report of published information but a more of a reflected memory of an American high school. --Wetman (talk) 22:49, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Christopher Columbus's first voyage

Columbus's Letter on the First Voyage to the New World was written on February 15, 1493. It was written to Luis de Santangel covering the narrative of his voyage. A second letter was written to Don Raphael Sanchez whom was the treasurer to king Ferdinand from Aragon. Santangel was king Ferdinand's "finance minister" also from Aragon. Are these definitely two different people with similar titles from the same place at the same time? Columbus's original February 15 letter of Santangel's is basically the same "to Sanchez", except for a postscript at the end that is dated March 14, 1493. I can find material on Santangel, however can not find material on Sanchez. Here on page 375 of this reference it says that Columbus immediately first writes a letter to "the magnificent Don Raphel Sanchez", which appears to be this second person. It would seem he would write first to Santangel (and perhaps he did) since this is the person that was able to get the financing for him. Two persons? What is this title "Don" as otherwise he is always referred to as just "Raphel Sanchez"? Is there additional reference information on "Raphel Sanchez"? --Doug ^talk 21:56, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

According to the last footnote in this, it may have been a translators error. Fribbler (talk) 22:07, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That is an excellent lead on perhaps solving this issue. The way I understnad it then based on this evidence is in fact these are one and the same person? Treasurer = "finance minister"? The Spanish version giving the name "Santangel" and the Latin giving the name "Sanchez" for the same person. Would that be correct? --Doug ^talk 22:41, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The way I read it, it seems there were two posts. One "finance minister" (Santangel) and one "treasurer" (Sanchez). When the translator seen that the message was addressed to the finance minister he confused it with the post of treasurer and added Sanchez's name. I could be totally off here, so I hope someone else reads the footnote.Fribbler (talk) 22:52, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The news of the first voyage spread throughout Europe with enormous speed, largely by means of the so-called Letter to Luis de Santángel...There are several problems associated with the Santángel letter, not the least of which is the fact that Santángel's name does not appear anywhere on the document. The opening salutation is simply "Señor", and the printer's colophon merely states that the letter was sent by Columbus "al escriuano de ración" (i.e., Luis de Santángel) and that it was "contenida a otra de Sus Altezas". The Latin version interprets the holder of this post as Gabriel (or Rafael) Sánchez. It has been argued that Columbus must have sent two letters, one to Santángel and another to Sánchez, but since the texts are virtually identical (allowing for the translation), and since Columbus was deeply indebted to Santángel but not otherwise known to have had any contact with Sánchez, we can assume that Sánchez's name appeared in the Latin letter in error. Ife, B. W. (1993) Breaking the News: Columbus's Letters of 1493. Romance Quarterly, 40(2), 70-1.

—eric 03:13, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

According to M.Hirsch Goldberg's book "The Jewish Connection" (Shapolsky: New York, 1986) p.112, "Of the 120 men on Columbus's three ships on the first voyage, 5 crew members are generally identified as Jews: Rodrego Sanchez of Sergovia, a relative of Gabriel Sanchez who was probably sent along to oversee the investment...." Simonschaim (talk) 07:18, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Three-armed swastika - Neo Nazi flag?

This is a link to a picture of something bearing similarity to a Nazi flag. It's from the BBC website as you can tell. What's with the symbol? Where can I find out about this design and its origins? --78.150.161.93 (talk) 22:21, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

triskelion - Nunh-huh 22:25, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Close. See Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 22:31, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a matter of "close", but of whether he's curious about the symbol (as asked) or the flag (as you inferred). - Nunh-huh 22:33, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The symbol on the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging flag is clearly a form of triskelion. Xn4 22:55, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An intentional white supremacist echo of the Nazi flag, differentiated just enough to fly it in public, IMHO. Compare the unconnected triskelion. --Wetman (talk) 23:39, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since it's the BBC, is this perhaps neo-Nazis or white supremacists in the Isle of Man? Nyttend (talk) 21:35, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, "[[Saith Iffrica". --Wetman (talk) 22:42, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]