Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 January 8

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

January 8

Identities of the two ministers who betrayed Liliuokalani

Who were the two ministers who betrayed Queen Liliuokalani to the Committee of Safety (Hawaii) before the overthrow? Her ministers at the time were Samuel Parker (Foreign Affairs), William H. Cornwell (Finance), John Francis Colburn (Interior) and Arthur P. Peterson (Attorney General).--KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:09, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Erotic asphyxiation

Hello.

My english is not god, but please try to figure out what i write.

There have for many years been believed that Erotic asphyxiation, is about,is the intentional restriction of oxygen to the brain for sexual arousal. This is because this is what people think. Or what the people who write about it thinks. They only trying to find a reason,because they dont really know why. Of course some people also like that. But this is not the main reason for many.

Its about something else, Its about masochism. Many masochist want to be helpless, tied up and used for different stuff. The feeling of being tied up and dragged to a waiting noose, and then hang there helpless waiting to die. This is what it,s really about.

That you cant breath is also a big factor. Some people also get turned on by this.

But i dont think that many people really like that the blood cant reach the brain. Because this will only make you faint\pass out. Its acctually the biggest problem with being hanged, you pass out very fast. When the blood dont reach the brain. I watched many "videos" of people been hanged (Iran etc.). Most of them, allmost everyone, pass out, right away!

So as i see it there are not only one simple explanation to things. The reason i know this is that i,am a masochist. And being tied up and draged to a waiting noose, and then hang there helpless waiting to die. Is my biggest and best fetish. Not that i actually ever been hanged up(suspended). But the noose is being pulled until i cant breath. One thing more to mention (i give all the facts), the first time i,am strangled i faint fast. Because my brain dont get blood. But the other 9-15 times I,am being strangled, i will not faint. But would actually die of suffocation before i faint. (of course my girlfriend know to stop, when i start to struggle for air.) So now you got it from the horses mouth.

Hope you believe this too be correct, as it is. And that you use the information on Wikipedia. I,am only so tired of that the hole world going around not knowing all the facts. But I,am also used to that people don't believe me, and that wrong information is the standard. Except Wikipedia, you have a fantastic god concept going here. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.74.36.31 (talk) 20:12, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

It's well-established that erotic asphyxiation can produce sensations of euphoria. But you may well be right that some people enjoy it for other reasons. If you believe this isn't fully covered in the article, you should post a comment on the article's talk page Talk:Erotic asphyxiation. Your theory can't be added to the article unless there are published sources that agree with you, but by all means write on the talk page, which is the proper place for discussing the content of an article. (You can write a comment on the talk page exactly the same way as you post questions here.) --Colapeninsula (talk) 20:59, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

my english is not god MahAdik _usap 22:18, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Ron Paul's military service

In last night's debate, Ron Paul mentioned having served in the US military. Our article says he was an Air Force flight surgeon. Any idea where he served? His service years would have been at the beginning of the Vietnam War. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 20:18, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

His own website says "Ron Paul is a proud Air Force veteran. He served as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force from 1963 to 1965 and then in the U.S. Air National Guard from 1965 to 1968. During his military service Ron Paul spent time on the ground in Iran, Pakistan, South Korea, Turkey, Ethiopia and other countries."[1] I can't find independent confirmation.

I can only speculate as to what he did. Turkey and South Korea had long-term USAF bases; Iran and Pakistan were US allies at the time (receiving US aircraft, etc); and the US military had various (largely peaceful) roles in Ethiopia (e.g. training and mapmaking). He later qualified as an ob-gyn, for which there is perhaps less call in war-zones, but he would have been able to do a wider range of work in his early years. --Colapeninsula (talk) 21:17, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 22:08, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

You raise some excellent points. I would be very much interested to know the details of Ron Paul's military service. I would recommend logging on to mises.org. There are a lot of Ron Paul supporters there. They might be interested also and help you in your search.

Canadian

I'm confused about this statement: "According to the 2006 census, the largest self-reported ethnic origin is Canadian (32%),[Note 3] followed by English (21%), French (15.8%)..."

I'm pretty sure that almost all Canadians are descendants from either British or French people. To me Canadians are descendants of British and French people. Why is there something like ethnic origin Canadian? Is there native Canadian like native America before the British or French came in? Are they really the majority of Canadian?Trongphu (talk) 21:40, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

You are wrong in thinking that "almost all" Canadians are descended from British or French immigrants. Canada had a sizeable aboriginal population, and as mentioned in our Canada article section Demographics and the fuller Demographics of Canada article, "There are 600 recognized First Nations governments or bands encompassing 1,172,790 people." This number doubtless excludes many who are not officially members of such nations/bands but are nevertheless also at least partly descended from those aboriginal peoples.

However, the main source of your confusion is that the ethnicities listed in the census are, as stated, self-reported. Evidently a great many Canadians choose to describe their ethnicity as Canadian, rather than whatever their European immigrant ancestors of anything up to 350 years ago were. Also, many Canadians will be descended from a, probably not precisely known, mixture of English, French and other ethnicities, so "Canadian" may be a better description of them. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.166 (talk) 23:14, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

The OP is implying that a person's ethnic origin should be defined by the place from which one's ancestors came to the present country of residence. The obvious question is "How far back does one look?" Obviously the First Nations people in Canada have ancestors who arrived from eastern Russia, but we don't count that. I have mostly Scottish ancestors, but some were Huguenot people, who had previously emigrated from France to Scotland. That was over 300 years ago. The Scottish folk left there 170 years ago. I don't think of myself as ethnically French or Scottish. Should I? HiLo48 (talk) 23:32, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Unless someone else is requiring your description to conform to particular criteria, it's up to you. Ultimately, we're all African (probably). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.166 (talk) 01:14, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Sure, modern Canadians descend from people who came there from somewhere else. But 'English' people, and 'French' people do likewise - 'England' in particular is a mongrel 'nation', being formed of successive waves of Celts, Romans, Saxons, Vikings, French - ultimately we're all human, what you describe as your 'ethnic origin' is a political opinion of with where you wish to identify - as Canada grows older, it stands to reason that its inhabitants will more want to deem themselves 'at home', rather than people who've settled. --Saalstin (talk) 23:36, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

• The OP's question reminds me of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. When the young girl protagonist, Francie, goes to school the teacher asks each child what their ethnicity is, each kid says things like "Irish" and "Italian". One of Francie's classmates answers "American"; everyone is incredulous as if that child doesn't understand the question, however it turns out that all of her relatives that she knows about, including her parents, grand-parents, great-grand-parents, etc, have all been born in the U.S., so the teacher and classmates concede that she really is genuinely American. Ultimately, ethnicity is a self-defined trait: if a person self-identifies as Canadian, who is anyone else to decide that they are not. --Jayron32 02:14, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

• I am Canadian (And so can you!) :D-- Obsidi♠n Soul 04:51, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

• I see this all the time. Some of my clients identify as aboriginal, yet many of them don't have what would be considered "typical" aboriginal features. To me, that's a "so what" issue. But as far as some of my colleagues are concerned, they're claiming a status that is not accurate, or only true to a limited degree. The argument is always about how much "aboriginal blood" they have - 1/2, 1/4, 1/64, 1/256, whatever - and in my colleagues' minds there's some magical percentage below which one cannot legitimately claim aboriginality. I tell them it has less to do with "blood" and much more to do with their self-identification and their acceptance by the aboriginal community as a member of that community. If they meet those criteria, and they do have some aboriginal DNA no matter how little, then they are aboriginal and, to echo my esteemed colleague Jayron's words, "who is anyone else to decide that they are not?". -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]}
• Everyone should simply answer any "ethnicity/race" questions with: "Human". Eventually they would get the point and stop asking such stupid and irrelevant questions. Blueboar (talk) 03:19, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

If we resorted to that sort of silly political correctness, we wouldn't be able to calculate many people's glomerular filtration rate. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 05:14, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

• • Except that the question is not necessarily irrelevent. It only seems irrelevnt if you come from a privileged ethnicity/race/group. People who come from cultural groups who are systematically discriminated against by their society, either in an official context, or merely socially, are acutely aware that their ethnicity matters, and matters a whole bunch. Wishing that it didn't matter in those ways does not make such a wish true. Insofar as a government seeks to end discrimination against people because of their ethnicity, and insofar as a government needs to know what a person's ethnicity is to know whether or not they are being treated badly because of that ethnicity, that data is useful to collect. If you don't want to answer the question when asked, that is quite your prerogative, and I will not begrudge you one bit for it, but that does not mean it is an invalid question; or that ethnicity doesn't "matter". It matters a lot. Maybe it shouldn't, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't. --Jayron32 03:26, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
    • It works the other way, too: governments, academic institutions, and workplaces use ethnicity for affirmative action policies. In the name of promoting equal opportunity, they actively discriminate against high-achieving ethnicities like Asians, while placing less emphasis on factors like parental income, parental achievements, residential area that also disadvantage minorities. "Knowing whether or not they're treated badly" is one thing, but governments often use such data to justify affirmative action policies that are even more racist than society as a whole. --140.180.15.97 (talk) 22:23, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The fourth-most-frequent answer in the US census for "ancestry" is "American." It's an especially popular answer in the South, where a lot of people used to answer "English." -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

This "American" and "Canadian" business reminds me of a news story from a few years back: in Israel, there was a small movement of people demanding to have themselves registered as being of "Israeli" ethnicity, instead of "Jewish". Since no such ethnicity officially existed, they were denied and were taking their grievance to court, on grounds of freedom of religion I think. Don't know what happened, or if it's been decided yet.--Rallette (talk) 07:11, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I am one of those people who identifies as Canadian. Canada is the home of me, my parents, my grandparents, half my great grandparents, and in some cases beyond that. I have no one European "homeland" (though at one point or another, that's my provenance) and can't claim any attachment to any of the ones I do know about. I have no "home" to claim beyond my hometown. Canadian is the perfect choice for me, if not white/caucasian. And while I'm on it, what about my niece? She's part Filipno, part whatever me and my brother are. She can only be Canadian, really. Mingmingla (talk) 18:42, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes in the U.S., the term Euro-American is used to describe someone whose ancestors primarily came from Europe, but long enough ago and from different enough places that they don't identify strongly with one particular European nation or culture (your generic "white person"). In Canada, you get the term French Canadian that really doesn't describe ethnic ancestry so much as it describes the current culture that you live in. Buddy431 (talk) 20:57, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I wonder what the OP thinks defines an ethnicity. Ancestry? As mentioned above, what if grand-parent #1 is British, #2 is French, #3 is Japanese, and #4 is Aboriginal? Why should it be that the British and French get their own ethnicity despite being an intermixing of various tribes within the past 1000+ years, whereas Canada doesn't, despite being an intermixing of various tribes/immigrants within the past 500 years? Culture? Canada certainly has a distinctive culture, or at least claim to, that's different from British or French culture. --140.180.15.97 (talk) 22:23, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Another perspective I take is that if I packed my bags and tried to emigrate "back to" any of my "ancestral" homelands, I would be send straight back here. If they don't want me any more, how can I feel any attachment? HiLo48 (talk) 22:39, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

There's a difference between an association with a sovereign nation and an association with a people. My roots are Irish, Scottish and English. I know much more about the English line than the others, and have traced my English genealogy back to 1635. But I have always felt a strong kinship with the Irish line, and am proud to consider myself both an Irish Australian and a Celt. I do not consider myself English or Scottish in any way at all, although the evidence is there to support such a claim. Now, my sons have a mother who was born in Australia to people I'll call Russian immigrants (to cut a long and messy story very short). My sons and their mother regard themselves as Russian Australians. Neither of my sons claims any particular connection with the Anglo-Celtic heritage they get from me, so as far as they're concerned, they are not members of that group of people. So, individuals decide which groups they belong to, and nobody in the world can gainsay them. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 07:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Quebec

I know this province in Canada has French as an official language. I wonder how can this province communicate with other provinces like discussions in the government? Is there a mandatory to learn English as a second language at school?Trongphu (talk) 21:42, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Children of traditional English-speaking communities have a right to be taught English as a first language in school, but this does not extend to immigrants and others... AnonMoos (talk) 22:29, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean? I'm asking about school in Quebec, where they mainly speak French!Trongphu (talk) 22:30, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

What he means is that there are English-speaking communities in Quebec, and in those communities, schools will teach in English. To answer your question, as noted below, all Quebecois who are educated enough to take an active role in government almost universally speak English. A disproportionate number of recent Prime Ministers of Canada have come from Quebec, and they all speak English just fine. You may also be interested in reading the Wikipedia article English-speaking Quebecer. --Jayron32 02:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

In my experience, most people in Quebec also speak English, with the exception of those at the low end of the socioeconomic ladder, who may only speak French, but also don't have much interaction with those who only speak English. The reverse is also true in the rest of Canada. That is, in addition to their first language of English, most people also speak some French, again with the exception of those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. It's interesting to ponder if failure to learn a second language causes their lower status, or is a consequence of it. StuRat (talk) 23:41, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Sessions of Parliament, committee hearings and I suppose other such meetings always have simultaneous translation into English or French when someone is speaking the other language. Federal government documents are always made available in both languages. As stated above, all of the head guys in Quebec speak English just fine, even if they may prefer not to. All of the recent prime ministers have also spoken French no matter what part of Canada they come from. All kids in the country are supposed to learn both languages but most people actually only speak one or the other. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:55, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

In response to the OP's specific question: "Is there a mandatory to learn English as a second language at school?", the answer is yes. French-language public and private schools in Quebec teach English as a second language, and English-language schools teach French as a second language. Both the French-speaking and English-speaking communities have a very high percentage of bilingual members, with the percentage being particularly high in areas such as the island of Montreal and western Quebec, where there is a lot of interraction between the two communities. In areas where there are few English speakers, there is a lot less bilingualism, but even in those areas it's difficult to find a university graduate who speaks absolutely no English. --Xuxl (talk) 09:13, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

And all Canadian retail packaging[2] has to be bi-lingual by law[3]. This must annoy the hell out of American companies that want to sell their goods across the border. Road signs in theory only need to be bi-lingual in "French-designated areas", but in practice, it's all very complicated. Alansplodge (talk) 12:21, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

"All kids in the country are supposed to learn both languages but most people actually only speak one or the other." but it's not mandatory that they do. According to Education in Canada it is a provincial matter so there would be nothing to force . I would note that schools in Nunavut are supposed to be bilingual but that is with an Inuit language and either English or French. I suspect other than the one school in Iqaluit all will use English as the second language. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 16:39, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

There is some relevant info at Education in Quebec, particularly the language section. BrainyBabe (talk) 17:19, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Although virtually all people in Quebec learn at least some English in school, and although most Quebecois politicians who are active outside the province or deal with other provinces can speak English, there is no need for them to do so, because all of Canada's national institutions are required to accommodate French speakers and to employ translators as necessary. The provinces on either side of Quebec have significant Francophone communities and therefore staff who can understand or translate any French communications from Quebec. If Quebec's government had reason to communicate directly with a province with few Francophones, such as British Columbia, they would no doubt use a staff member who speaks English. Incidentally, in my experience, the English abilities of Francophones in Quebec are quite variable, and often quite minimal even among middle-class Francophones, at least outside of the tourist sector. When I have traveled to Quebec, I have made a point of venturing outside of the tourist ghettos in the historic city centers, and I have definitely had to speak French on many occasions, even when someone said "Yes" in response to "Parlez-vous anglais?" but then struggled to communicate in English. I have had this experience even on the island of Montreal (albeit the eastern part of the island). Marco polo (talk) 17:52, 9 January 2012 (UTC)