Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 February 27

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February 27

Christopher Hitchens conversation with Chris Hedges at UCLA

I WAS WATCHING THE INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS HEDGES WHICH RECENLTY AIRED ON CSPAN2. IN IT HE TALKED ABOUT THE DEBATE HE HAD WITH CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS AT UCLA AND ANOTHER ONE HE HAD WITH RICHARD DAWKINS AT EITHER THAT LOCATION OR ANOTHER. MIGHT THERE BE ANY WAY THAT WIKIPEDIA COULD FIND THOSE CONVERSATIONS AND CREATE A LINK TO THEM AND INSTALL THEM ON THEIR RESPECTIVE WIKI PAGES? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.193.72.10 (talk) 01:16, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Please avoid SHOUTING with all capital letters; it breaks internet decorum and it's very hard to read. Magog the Ogre (talk) 03:26, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Have you tried googling "christopher hitchens and chris hedges". You can do that and it will give you a lot of results through which you can look to find the one you want - if it is there. On a slightly different point Wikipedia is you and me and some other folks. If the video is notable as opposed to interesting to some people, (that's important) and there are no copyright issues then somebody, and that could be you, may get around to linking it to an appropriate page, either Chris Hedges or Christopher Hitchens, because I have a tiny feeling that this discussion will not merit its own page. Richard Avery (talk) 14:45, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

If you think that debate was tough, you should have seen Benson and Hedges. I tell ya, they were smokin'. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:44, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Assembly of Experts

There are contradictions about this, it is said that the assembly of experts can overcome the power of the supreme leader of Iran and they were elected based from popular vote. Then that's basically like democracy, the citizens of Iran vote for some people that have power over the most powerful man in the nation. Which it is not the case, i know for the fact that Iran is a dictatorship country where the supreme leader can basically do anything he wants. So the assembly of experts are just like the puppets to appease the people of Iran? And it is there is just to make the people of Iran think that they actually have human rights but in reality they don't? So it's a big trick?Pendragon5 (talk) 03:26, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

And as i read about Iran's government, i see all of the important figures in the government are based from popular vote except the supreme leader but who is supposed to control by assembly of experts, which were elected by the people of Iran. So as i can see it's all in check so the Iran's government as far as i can tell they have a pretty fair system basis, why a lot of countries around the world say that Iran is a dictatorship country? Does the supreme leader just fake everything up to trick the Iranians?Pendragon5 (talk) 03:44, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Only cleric-approved candidates are allowed to be on the ballot in the first place. They may be democratically elected, but not democratically nominated. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 04:10, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

That's the same thing in the United States. Each party nominated their own candidate then everyone will vote one those on the ballot. That's fair enough. Unless there is a big cover up behind this otherwise i think Iran is a pretty fair country with no dictatorship.Pendragon5 (talk) 04:26, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Not the same thing at all. The people vote for candidates in the US primaries. You may have heard of the current four candidates for the Republican nomination for President and multiple others who were running? No party bosses or clergymen put them on the party ballot. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 04:54, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Still, according to what i have read, the party in Iran was elected by the people. It's ultimately the same thing, you elect for the people in the party then they will nominate their own candidate and people vote on it. It's like the people decided A and A decided B. They all connected somehow, the people can always elect someone that will favor their choices.Pendragon5 (talk) 07:42, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

There is a rather persistent analysis of primary selection and success, and access to finance capital funding. This is a persistent analysis across a variety of theoretical backgrounds. The connection between presidential candidates and "market" machine funding does go back to the Gilded Age in the documents I've read. Causative explanations of this link vary from class analysis through to a liberal "corruption" of democracy analysis. Under these, or the more stringent analyses at least, Pendragon5's supposition that at a particular level of analysis Iran has a similar democratic structure to the United States bares out. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:25, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

What i don't understand is Iran's government seems to be fairly base off from the popular vote then why so many countries in the world considered Iran as a total dictatorship country?Pendragon5 (talk) 07:38, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Since all candidates are selected by clerics alone, this guarantees that you will never get a secular or reform government, as clerics would never nominate them. To continue the comparison with the US, that would be the same as if there was only one legal party, and the party selected it's own nominees, rather than having primaries to elect them. The result would be that this party would have total control over the nation. Iran also lacks Freedom of the Press, so people aren't even aware of problems in the government. Due to new social media, they became aware of some of them recently. When this resulted in protests, the protesters were shot. See Death of Neda Agha-Soltan for one example. StuRat (talk) 07:47, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

One complementary (but possibly also contradictory) analysis would also point out that the freedom of election in the United States is for two parties that share the broad programme of Anglophone and American-European capitalism. Iranian capital, often in alliance with the hegemony of a particular group of clerics, tends not to want to open the Iranian economy to untrammelled access by Western capital. In these circumstances, within such an analysis, Iranian media would portray the US as undemocratic (which I believe they do?) and the commercial US media would portray Iran as undemocratic. As StuRat notes, two key differences are: 1) there is more political, but not commercial, space for dissident media voices in the US; 2) far fewer people are shot dead in US protests than in Iranian protests. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:17, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Also note that people in the US are free to vote for other parties, and sometimes a third party makes a major impact in the outcome of an election. If people were so dissatisfied that they stopped voting for the Democrats and/or Republicans, those parties would either reform or cease to exist. In Iran, if nobody voted for the clerics, nothing would change, they would just vote for themselves. StuRat (talk) 08:35, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

This tends to be more of a "formal" than a substantive right... I'm reminded of the existence of Peasants and even Petits-bourgeois liberal parties in the soviet-style societies. Of course you're right. The US party system does have a tendency to "reconfigure" itself, even while remaining a two-party system. The party-system before the New Deal, and After Reagan were remarkably different to the party system in the intervening years—even though the names remained the same. Similarly, a Third Party could become a Second or First Party if the US political system reconfigured. The same is not true regarding the Iranian political system. Perhaps the example of a large political population experiencing significant disenfranchisement in the substantive process of politics, is the example of the British working class prior to the final development of the Labour Party in the 1920s. Even without a Party, the political working class used mob-violence, the charter, and the Lib-Labs to force a measure of power onto the system. The best hope for more substantive, than formal, democracy in Iran without a major change in Iran's constitution would be a similar process of an existing force mediating an unexpressable demand. Correspondingly, I have high hopes regarding electoral reform charters in the US particularly around electoral voting system change. Change within the dominant party systems seems more etherial as regional variations have been increasingly smoothed over. Fifelfoo (talk) 12:39, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

There are certainly important differences between the political systems of Iran and the United States, such as the robustness of the party system in the United States, the fact that there is a real contest in many elections for statewide or national office (less so in elections for legislative seats other than US Senator due to gerrymandering), and the relative lack of violent repression (people can attend demonstrations or write pieces sharply criticizing the government without too much fear of serious injury). However, there are important similarities between the two systems. In both systems, a small elite effectively controls the mainstream media and the political process. In Iran, it is the clerical elite, perhaps in alliance with elements of Iranian capital (including the Revolutionary Guard). In the United States, it is the rich and especially what are sometimes called the superrich, that is, people in the top tenth of the top percentile of the income distribution, and especially those in the top hundredth of that percentile. It is essentially impossible for a presidential candidate to win a party's nomination without substantial backing from the superrich, and very difficult for a candidate to win other top offices such as U.S. senator or state governor's offices without that backing. Most legislators also depend heavily on the backing of the superrich, both through direct donations and through corporate and other lobbying groups, for campaign financing. As a result, policy in the United States almost without exception favors the superrich, just as policy in Iran favors the interests of the clerical elite and their allies. It simply isn't true that if people in the United States stopped voting for Democrats and/or Republicans, they would reform. In fact, people have already stopped voting for Democrats and Republicans. Turnout in most elections is below 50%. Even in presidential elections, where turnout occasionally exceeds 60%, people grumble that they don't have much of a choice and cast a resigned and unenthusiastic vote. However, neither party has acknowledged low turnout or a lack of widespread enthusiasm for their candidates as a reason for reform. The lockhold of the superrich on both the political process and the media (which they of course own) practically guarantees that no real reform to the U.S. political system can occur. Marco polo (talk) 15:37, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

To clarify, the 40-50% that don't vote for Republicans or Democrats would have to vote for another party, in order to reform the two older parties. StuRat (talk) 22:44, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Since this is a reference desk, let me say that Democracy Index places USA in the lower end of the highest of four categories, Full democracy. Iran is in the lower part of the lowest category, Authoritarian regime. See also Iranian Assembly of Experts election, 2006#Candidates and Human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:03, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

However, Democracy Index is a project of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), an entity whose controlling owner is Pearson PLC, a multinational corporation based in London but deriving most of its revenue from the United States. The EIU also depends on corporate customers for its revenue and is unlikely to explore topics that would cause discomfort to the superrich who own and run those corporations. Not surprisingly, the index largely measures formal democracy and systematically ignores structures of power behind the formal arrangements. It is these structures of power that the original question seemed to concern. Marco polo (talk) 17:10, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

The answer to the question "Is Iran's democracy a sham?" is not "American democracy is a sham." That's a separate question. The questioner didn't ask for a comparison. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:37, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

If you're opening this up to normative or historically materialist analyses then: Iran is not a democracy, workers do not control the means of production or society generally. All societies claiming to be democratic while economically governed by the action of value form will be sham democracies. In particular, Iranian democracy is more of a sham than other democracies due to particular features of the formal and substantive system of political elections, and due to the extremity of limits placed on workers' self-organisation at work. There appears to be no major disjuncture, or structural difference, between the sham of Iranian democracy and the sham of other democracies; except if these are viewed from a normative framework of Western bourgeois imperialism. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:23, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

The OP tried to compare the governments and elections of the US and Iran, and is apparently not open to listening to disagreements with their proclamation. The discussion of the US system was an attempt to explain how their protestations are incorrect, but I gave up a couple of days ago when it appeared to be worthless to try to explain to them. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 04:37, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Can fair use apply to trade secrets or computer code protected by copyright?

I'm not sure if this will qualify as legal advice or not, but anyway, I know that many programs have their source code protected by copyright and trade secret laws. But in this case, can fair use or fair dealing be used? For example, a person reverse engineered a computer program to copy a short piece of code to demonstrate how this program can work (but not copying the entire code), or publishing part of a secret recipe of a food product for the purpose of reporting its effects on health. Is this allowed by law? They probably wouldn't do it anyway, but can they do it in the first place? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 10:38, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

You'd need to consult a lawyer if ding anything like that in practice but yes that's the sort of thing that's meant. The code example I believe they'd be allowed even in a commercial setting if it was necessary for interworking. Dmcq (talk) 13:00, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Fair use only applies to copyright. That's a completely separate body of law from trade secrecy. So there's no connection there. Now you can "re-discover" trade secrets on your own, or derive them from published products. Nothing against that. What's illegal is industrial espionage — paying someone to give you secrets, or breaking into a place to get them, for example — not reverse engineering (which may violate terms of use, patents, and/or copyrights, but doesn't violate trade secrecy protections). Even then, if you're revealing the secrets in order to show abuses or wrongs, it can fall under whistleblowing protections. (This isn't legal advice so much as it is a clarification of basic legal concepts. As with everything legal, the devil's in the details. And I speak with assurance only of a US context.) --Mr.98 (talk) 13:04, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

However, the question also involves copying a piece of original code from the program, and the code itself is definitely copyrightable. Nyttend (talk) 03:22, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Statues of British PMs in the U.S.

How many statues of British Prime Ministers are there in the United States? I just saw a mention of one in Margaret Thatcher's article, apparently next to Hillsdale College, and a quick Google search turned up a mention of one of Winston Churchill next to the British Embassy in Washington. Are there any others in the U.S.? Mark Arsten (talk) 16:57, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

There are several Churchill statues in Missouri (site of the "Iron Curtain" speech), including this and this. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 17:04, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

There's a statue of William Pitt the Elder in Charleston, South Carolina (though I cannot find one in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, his namesake city). See here for the one in Charleston. --Jayron32 17:41, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

This page says that there's one of him in the Pittsburgh City-County Building. I'd be surprised if there weren't others of him scattered about. Deor (talk) 17:48, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I sorta figured there would be; but my preliminary google searches turned up mostly statues in the UK, the only American statue of him I found was the one in Charleston. --Jayron32 17:55, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Right-wing university Hillsdale College has put up a statue of Margaret Thatcher: [1]. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:34, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

That was stated in the OPs remarks. Dismas|^(talk) 02:43, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Huh, interesting, thanks. I hadn't realized about Pitt. I half expected to see a statue of Tony Blair go up during the Iraq War, since he was so popular in the U.S. then. Mark Arsten (talk) 21:57, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Good research on social network analysis of cell phone networks?

Is there a good survey of the field? I'm particularly interested in social graph analysis from Cell phone provider data. Ryan Singer (talk) 18:18, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

George Bancroft and Alexander Bliss

Hello,

By Chance I was reading the page on Alexander Bliss (1827 - 1896). A statement is made by the author as follows: "His wife Elizabeth Davis was married to George Bancroft, the eminent American Historing after Alexander's death"

The problem is that George Bancroft's dates are (1800 - 1891). In this case, Elizabeth Davis would have been marrying a man who had been dead for 5 years.

A couple possible resolutions seem obvious: 1.) Elizabeth Davis and Alexander Bliss divorced and she married George Bancroft. 2.) Elizabeth Davis was originally George Bancroft's wife and then married Alexander Bliss, after George's death.

Any idea on how to solve the chronological inconsistency?

Andrew. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.165.188.130 (talk) 20:15, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

There's a third possibility, which seems to be the correct one: Elizabeth Davis wasn't married to the Alexander Bliss our article's about; she was married to his father (also named Alexander Bliss) and was in fact the younger Alexander's mother. See this page and this which say that she married the elder Alexander in 1825 (he died in 1827) and then married Bancroft in 1838. Deor (talk) 20:46, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Antipope Clement VII

I notice our article says Robert of Geneva murdered some 4,000 Cesena citizens in 1377. Then he was promoted to being a Pope in 1378 by the French cardinals. Why would a Christian religious group promote an executioner to such a high position? Why wouldn't they select someone with much higher morals?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 21:00, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Back then the pope was a political leader as much as anything else (and politics in general was a lot bloodier back then, since the concept of human rights and such hadn't been fully worked out). He had a large army and control over significant amounts of territory. So you wouldn't expect the pope to be any more moral than any other medieval political leader. Meelar (talk) 21:29, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

When the Church was the unquestioned authority, they were often downright evil, promoting the Crusades, sale of indulgences, execution of "witches", the Spanish Inquisition, persecution of scientists and those with differing religious views, supporting bloodthirsty conquistadors, etc. Only when they were cut down to size did they start behaving in a more "Christian" manner. Other religions with that level of control over society (like Islam in Iran) also behave just as immorally. StuRat (talk) 23:54, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

The people he had killed were rebelling against papal rule. This sort of massacre was very common in medieval and early modern warfare; there wasn't the modern concept of human rights or protecting civilians. The Papal States were involved in a lot of wars, as you'll see if you read that article; and read about Pope Julius II, "The Warrior Pope". Today the Vatican tends to promote pacifism and oppose war, but that wasn't always the case: read Just war theory: you could be a warlike ruler like Louis IX of France and still be a saint, as long as your battles were in defence of Catholic Europe. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:55, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

He also didn't kill them all himself, he was just in charge of organizing the people who did. Another example is Arnaud Amalric, who is the origin of the "kill them all, let God sort them out" story. Anyway, for more background about what was going on in the church at the time, see Avignon Papacy and Western Schism. As usual, it's a lot more complicated, and a lot more interesting, than the StuRat's simplistic "the church was evil". Adam Bishop (talk) 10:08, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I did say "often". I suppose there must have been times when the medieval Church did something that they knew would decrease their power, just because it was morally the right thing, but I can't think of an example, offhand. StuRat (talk) 06:45, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Landlords in the USA

Do American homeowners who rent their homes out typically (in practice) tend to reserve the right to sell to a buyer who can then have all rights to kick out renting tenants and move into the house that they now own and don't want to rent out? 69.243.220.115 (talk) 22:15, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but they have to give some notice to the tenants. Depending on the lease, this could be a long or short period. If near the end of a one year or month-to-month lease, the notice could be quite short (state laws may limit how short). If at the start of a one year lease, then presumably they can't break the lease, meaning they can only sell the house if the new landlord agrees to honor the existing leases. StuRat (talk) 22:21, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

It depends on the lease, as StuRat says. In general any buyer would have to honor a fixed-term lease until the next renewal, but obviously a clause can be written into the lease agreement that permits a sale to an owner-occupant, with appropriate notice. This can happen when a seller has moved into another place and needs to rent the old place to cover expenses, without encumbering the property more than they have to for a sale. There are a wide variety of local regulations that may influence such an event, particularly in major cities, and I doubt that there is any jurisdiction that countenances less than a month's notice under any circumstances. Acroterion (talk) 22:26, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

As a California Real Estate broker owning many houses my experience on this is like StuRat has said. IF there is a one year lease, the new buyer has to agree to honor the lease and can not kick the tenants out - however they could "buy" them out, if the tenant agrees on the money. IF on a month-to-month "rental", then all that is needed is a 30 day notice (in California).--Doug Coldwell ^talk 22:30, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

StuRat says yes but basically means no to your original question. In most cases the subsequent buyer would take the property subject to the lease... of course they're probably under no obligation to renew the lease... but that'd be a separate contract. I suppose you could write a contract that worked whatever way you want... but I suspect that's unusual. Shadowjams (talk) 02:19, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

And then of course there are rent controlled properties, where all sorts of Byzentine regulations come into play. New York City is probably has the most well-known rent control policies in the United States. George Will wrote an editorial a couple weeks ago about a case in New York City, where one James Harmon is arguing that the process to evict his tenants (so he can let his Grandson live in one of the apartments) is so onerous that his property has effectively been taken from him without just compensation. A couple courts have dismissed his claim so far, and it looks unlikely that the Supreme Court will take the case. Buddy431 (talk) 04:18, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

George Will isn't at the top of my list of scholars when I ask for politically charged legal opinions... though in this case he's probably right about Rent control, as are most modern economists... rent control is largely a form of rent seeking either directly or through proxy. It's good if you can get it, but everyone else is more worse off for it than you are better off for it.... and OH YES, we can quantify these things.

The Supreme Court's Takings Clause jurisprudence is downright disgraceful, and I mean that from a rather apolitical position. But since the Hawaii decision, the rest seems to follow, for better or worse. Shadowjams (talk) 09:37, 28 February 2012 (UTC)