Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 December 28

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December 28

Radetzky′s politics

According to evidence available, would Radetzky be best described as a “conservative” or as a “progressive” of his era?--85.74.139.220 (talk) 01:29, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Do you see anything in his article which suggests his views were any different from the typical high-ranking military officer? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:28, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

That was very rude and I take the liberty of striking it.--85.74.139.220 (talk) 23:39, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

When someone asks something, we answer it. Fair and simple.--85.74.139.220 (talk) 23:39, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, we try to answer, we don't try to "strike out" fair questions. You have a very strange notion of what rudeness is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:32, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I struck out an unfair answer, if you please.--85.74.139.220 (talk) 12:55, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

It's difficult to determine what or how you have tried to answer the question, though. 178.42.169.226 (talk) 11:16, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

He was a loyal defender of the Habsburg monarchy against nationalists and democrats. The latter were generally seen as progressives in the early to mid-19th century; as a defender of the monarchy, Radetzky was certainly a kind of conservative. Marco polo (talk) 16:30, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Racism in Jamaica

Are alot of Jamaicans racist and homophobic? Venustar84 (talk) 03:07, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Define "a lot". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:40, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I spend a month teaching a class at UWI. I noticed neither homophobia nor racism. I might have missed the first, but as basically the only white person in class and one of two I noticed in the university or the hotel, I think I would have noticed the second. They do overcharge touristy looking people on jerk chicken, and the taxi drivers will curse you if you haggle the price down to native levels... ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:00, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

We have an article LGBT rights in Jamaica. Some Jamaican musicians are apparently incapable of stopping ranting on the subject... AnonMoos (talk) 09:44, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Mythology-Xena question

1. what do you people think Callisto on Xena was inspired by? 2. Since Callisto on Xena was from Cirra Greece was there any connection in mythology between Callisto, Adrasteia, Rhea, Adrasteia, Erinyes, Cybele, Nemesis, Atë, Dirae, Tyche, Fortuna, ect Venustar84 (talk) 03:28, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

@Venustar84: You know, I have never watched the show, but as far as I can tell Callisto was inspired by, well, Callisto. However, her myth was not really a peculiar one and had it not been for the moon of Jupiter named after her and her beautiful name (which means «the prettiest») we would not remember her today. I bet that Xena′s creators just wanted a great name that already existed and chose hers. Essentially her myth was this: Zeus was searching for yet another courtesan, he found Callisto, she bore his child Arcas, Arcas founded Arcadia, Callisto was turned into a bear and became Ursa Major, end of story. If you look at most Ancient Greek myths, you will realise that they are complex and plotty, while this is very simple and not at all peculiar. Rhea was the mother of Zeus and Adrasteia his nurse. The Erinyes were demons that haunted sinners and Dirae is their Roman name. Cybele is a non-canon member of Greek mythology, usually considered an eastern counterpart of Demeter. Nemesis was the angel of divine punishment. Atë was either the godess of lewdness or the act of displeasing the Gods. Tyche was the personification of luck and Fortuna is her Roman name.--85.74.139.220 (talk) 12:39, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Speaking of "plotty", if you look at it from a high level, is there any practical difference between classical mythology and modern soap operas? "The Immortal Bold and Beautiful", "All My Half-Human Children", "Days of Our Olympic Lives", etc. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:24, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Well.... yeah.... kind of.......?--85.74.139.220 (talk) 23:34, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Myths exist to explain natural and historical phenomena that were otherwise unexplainable at the time, while soaps exist to provide you with something that might pass for entertainment in between barrages of advertising. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:57, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

You're not fully clean until you're Olympically clean! Or so the story goes. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:31, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Currnet ethnic cleansing of Christians in the Middle East - is there an article about it?

Is there already an article dealing with the ethnic cleansing of Christians that is currently taking place in the middle east (is it only in the middle east?...)? Tshuva (talk) 11:03, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

It seems like a contentious article to write, until enough newspapers and historians have written on it, synthesising the individual events together for us. Wikipedia, after all, is not the news. The problem would be if editors were synthesising the events into an overall narrative themselves. I'm sure we do have articles on the Syrian Civil War, on the situation with ISIS, on the effects of the Arab Spring, especially in Egypt. We also have articles on topics such as the Coptic Christians, who are suffering the brunt of the effect, and Christianity in Syria. Between those articles, and the links within them, you should be able to build up a picture. 86.156.148.98 (talk) 11:40, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

We also have quite a lot at Anti-Christian sentiment#Middle East. --Antiquary (talk) 15:31, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Use of baptismal certificates

As I understand it, baptismal certificates were issued in the past like birth certificates. Would state churches (i.e. Church of England) issue a baptismal certificate to a Jewish family or baptize a Jewish baby (baby from a Jewish family) for nonreligious reasons? Maybe the baptism would satisfy the church's desire to save individuals or to keep a census of the population, even though the child is probably going to be raised Jewish. Or maybe Jewish families formally converted to Christianity for social and legal benefits while clandestinely observed Judaism? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 17:14, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Baptism is the marker of entry into the community of the church, so there is not any concept of a non-religious baptism, even today. Non-religious groups would call the analogous ceremony a "naming ceremony" or similar. Not in Britain, but in early modern Spain and Portugal, there was always suspicion that Jews who had ostensibly converted ("conversos") hadn't really converted at all but were going through the motions to avoid exile or execution. In England there was some fluidity between the C of E and other ("non-conformist") Protestant groups, so family history researchers can find a Methodist baptism followed by a C of E one and vice versa. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:26, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I find it interesting to find that Jews in Europe would be persecuted, while Jews that migrated to China flourished, while assimilating completely in Chinese culture but maintaining to some extent a Jewish identity. Taking imperial examinations allowed the Jews to be boosted up in rank, even though it considerably took away time to study Hebrew, because the learning was then focused on learning about Chinese literature, language, and history. See Kaifeng Jews. I also read a Wikipedia article highlighting the situation behind the Jew-eating-Chinese-food-on-Christmas stereotype, which explained how Jewish immigrants to America were persecuted and faced discrimination from other European immigrants, but not Chinese immigrants. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 17:46, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Jews were not "persecuted" in America. They came to America to escape the persecution in Europe. Discriminated against sometimes, yes. But not subjected to genocide. Also, the city of San Francisco had a significant number of founders who were Jewish (Levi Strauss, for one) and who were prominent citizens - and some of whom, ironically, participated in discrimination against the Chinese laborers who came to the area. (As per recent TV programs about Jews in San Francisco, and as discussed in some of the Finding Your Roots episodes.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:19, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

"Persecuted" doesn't necessarily mean "genocide". Jews were certainly seen as 'undesirable' by large segments of U.S. society through to at least the mid-twentieth century, and targeted by social and legal discrimination. While people tend to think of the Ku Klux Klan as an anti-Black organization, the early 20th century Klan was active and heavily into antisemitic attacks. One of the key aims of the Immigration Act of 1924 was to cut down on the number of of Jews entering the country. In the interwar and especially Depression years, linking Jews with communism was a popular antisemitic canard. During World War II, the State Department under (assistant Secretary) Breckinridge Long deliberately and extensively obstructed the issuance of visas to Jewish refugees, resulting in a couple of hundred thousand deaths. Numerus clausus restrictions on Jewish admissions to U.S. universities persisted well into the 1960s. The fact that there were some successful Jews, that persecution of Jews was worse in some other countries, and that the U.S. has had a worse track record with respect to some other minority groups, should not be misunderstood or misrepresented to mean that persecution of Jews did not occur in the United States. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:49, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Check out Persecution of Jews. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:29, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

For part of what you (and Itsmejudith) are referring to, we have an article about Crypto-Judaism. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:49, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

See Edgardo Mortara to find one of the possible outcomes of baptism in the catholic church. No official church intervention is required. 2A01:E34:EF5E:4640:ED6F:2AA4:ACE6:F618 (talk) 20:28, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

There certainly have been some fake Baptismal certificates used to "save" Jews in the past, but to save them from physical harm. E.g.

"Archbishop Cassulo's 1941 protest in Romania was in answer to a state ruling that a change of religious status by a Jew did not alter his legal status as a member of that persecuted "race". For the authorities had become suspicious, as did those in the Balkans, Hungary, and elsewhere later, of the number of Jewish "converts" to Catholicism. Until such a ruling was made in a Nazi-controlled country, however, a Jew who could prove himself a member of the Catholic Church could usually use the evidence of that membership-a baptismal certificate as a safe-conduct paper to leave the country. No records have been published regarding who conceived the idea or how it was implemented, but the existence of the false baptismal certificates, and they number in the thousands, is a fact. It is also a fact that the Vatican was well aware of the plan, and that members of resistance groups, apostolic nuncios, nuns, representatives of Jewish aid groups based in the Allied countries, and untold numbers of ordinary citizens risked their welfare if not their lives to promote the ingenious scheme."

[1] It's also well-attested that similar things were happening in Greece among the Orthodox. But everyone involved considered them fake Baptismal certificates. 86.156.148.98 (talk) 12:26, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

On Baseball Bugs comments about the Jews of San Francisco, I highly recommend a book called Cosmopolitans: A Social and Cultural History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area, by Fred Rosenbaum. Yes, I wrote that BLP. Jews have been subjected to many nasty individual incidents of anti-semitism in the United States, but never systematic persecution. That is why the U.S. is a beacon to Jewish immigrants, and along with Israel, has the largest Jewish population in the 21st century. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:16, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

roads forming shape in cities

Is Toronto the only city that has a road that forms like a peanut (Don Mills divided into separate ways and forming like a peanut from Van Horne Ave to Fairview Mall Dr) or objects in the whole world? [[2]]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.16.158 (talk) 18:18, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I can find a few references to peanut-shaped roundabouts on the web - for an example, find 'Birchwood Warrington UK' on Google maps, and look at the junction between the A 574 and Oakwood Gate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:48, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

For a very elongated "peanut" see East and West Drives in Central Park. μηδείς (talk) 20:15, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Or the "Double Roundabout interchange" in Vail, Colorado. Or the Metcalfe Park Roundabout in Omaha, Nebraska. There's also one in Chamonix, France; another in Gainesville, Florida; another in Coconut Grove, Florida. If you want to search for more, remember that in some places they're not called "roundabouts", but rather "traffic circles", and in some places they're not called "peanuts", but "groundnuts". --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 01:30, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

A traffic circle is also sometimes called a "rotary". StuRat (talk) 01:45, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

The examples with traffic circles aren't really the same thing. They do have a peanut shape, but they exist primarily as an alternative to a standard intersection. Although the Don Mills Avenue "Peanut" technically meets the description of a traffic circle, it has no significant traffic coming on from side streets; it's just a place where Don Mills Av. splits into separate northbound and southbound roads for a while, large enough to have the equivalent of a city block in the middle. (And in this particular case, the roads form a peanut shape.) Medeis's Central Park example is more like it in purpose, but less like it in shape. Another near miss is the University of Waterloo's Ring Road, but it's intended for access to the university rather than through traffic, and it carries two-way traffic on each side. --65.94.50.4 (talk) 05:04, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Given all the remarkable advances in technology, how is it possible that a major airliner can disappear without a trace?

In light of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 which has been missing for nearly a year and Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 which went missing today, how is it possible that a commercial could possibly disappear? I mean, why don't they equip airliners with GPS? You can buy a phone nowadays with GPS for only $20[3] And why store data locally on a blackbox? Why not just store the data in the Cloud computing It seems insane that given all the remarkable advances in technology that a major airline could possibly disappear without a trace. What am I missing? This seems like a pretty easy problem to solve. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:30, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

'How is it possible' seems to be a request for speculation. We don't answer such questions. This is not a forum. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:41, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

It can be very difficult to find a crashed airplane even on land. Finding something specific at the bottom of the ocean can be extremely challenging. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:13, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Remember that retro-fitting a plane to include new guidance and tracking systems (if they exist) is very expensive. It may be that the kind of tracking devices that Quest is musing about are possible... just not practical enough to be implemented. Blueboar (talk) 19:33, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Reading Global Positioning System, I don't think a GPS would work under thousands of feet of water. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:39, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Correct, probably not under thousands of feet of water. But, wouldn't the GPS coordinates just prior to its crash into the water be helpful in pinpointing at least a general area of the water into which it crashed? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 07:09, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

(ec) In the case of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, it seems the problem is that all the tracking devices except the engine ping were intentionally disabled, and the plane was flown by a route designed to evade radar. Making tracking devices that can't possibly be turned off is quite a bit trickier, and there might be times when you would want to turn them off, such as if North Korea declares war and says it will target civilian airlines. StuRat (talk) 19:37, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Put another way, even with all the advancements in technology in any specific area, anyone who knows the details of what that technology can and cannot do and under what circumstances it can and cannot do those things can find ways to circumvent the technology. Computer hackers do that on a pretty much daily basis, and someone really dedicated to finding ways to do defeat virtually any system can probably, if enough time and effort is spent, find ways to do so. John Carter (talk) 19:40, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, of course. You state that "anyone ... can find ways to circumvent the technology". But, that is only in the case of an intentional circumvention. That does not apply when there is some unintentional cause (i.e., an ordinary plane crash). In other words, just because the new technology can be circumvented (by "qualified" people) doesn't mean that it will be circumvented (or that it was circumvented) in any given specific situation. Thus, in the latter case, the new technological advances will indeed be helpful. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 07:14, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, you could put a transponder someplace the crew and passengers just can't get to it, like one on each wing tip, with their own batteries, in case power was cut. They could send out a jamming signal on that frequency, which would block the transponder signals (altitude, flight number, etc.), but the jamming signal itself could then be tracked. You'd also want to use shielded wires in the transponders, to protect against an EMP. (Yes, an EMP would likely crash the plane, too, but having a working transponder until the crash would help to locate the crash site.) StuRat (talk) 19:46, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

• See these 10 previous threads On the Malaysia airlines 370 disappearance. μηδείς (talk) 20:11, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

There are several aspects here. First, while it is easy to lose perspective with the internet and air travel, the planet really is a BigPlace (tm). An aircraft is about 50 by 50 m (the A320 is 30something, the A380 is 70something). That means there are about 2e13 aircraft-sized tiles on (or, in the case of the ocean, under) the surface. Looking at any sizable fraction of that, there is a lot of space to cover. Secondly, communication range with line-of-sight equipment like aircraft transponders is about 400 km under perfect conditions. And bandwidth for broadcast communication (like both voice radio and aircraft transponders) is severely limited due to interference. Continuous updates into "the cloud" is not currently feasible. The EM environment near major air traffic areas is already extremely challenging, with FRUIT making up by far the largest number of radar replies received by ATC systems. Satellite channels are also limited, and hence expensive - and putting up more satellites helps only to a small degree, since the problem is the overall capacity of the dedicated parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, not the capacity of any one transmitter or receiver. Tracking a single aircraft would be comparatively easy, but currently, there are several 10000 in the air at any given moment (and that's only guesstimating commercial air traffic, not private aviation and military aircraft, which also share the same spectrum). Finally, the typical lifetime of a commercial aircraft is 30 years, and that is about the time frame at which major equipment innovations move from experimental to recommenced to required. There definitely is a serious commercial aspect here, but there also is an inherent conservatism in air traffic - don't fiddle with something that works well enough. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:32, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

The other way to look at that is as a tombstone mentality. That is, large numbers of people have to die to get them to change. StuRat (talk) 05:37, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I like the idea of the deployable flight recorder. If an airline aircraft suffers an in-flight incident that will probably end in an accident, the flight data recorder is ejected from the aircraft on a parachute. It is equipped to float if it lands in the water, and it broadcasts a radio signal to facilitate its prompt recovery. Deployable recorders are already available and installed in some classes of military aircraft. A lot of work has been done on legislation to mandate its installation in certain civil aircraft. There is some good information at Flight recorder#Proposed requirements. Dolphin (t) 05:51, 30 December 2014 (UTC)