Humanities desk
< July 21	<< Jun \| July \| Aug >>	July 23 >

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.

July 22

Charities

In most charity organisations, do volunteers do most of the frontline service delivery with paid staff doing office admin and high level management? 2A02:C7D:B945:6400:2897:1BD0:7DBA:B99D (talk) 10:21, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That is very variable - and it rather depends on the type of work the charity is doing. Some make a lot of use of volunteers, with very few paid staff, while others who undertake more complex work requiring professional skills may have mainly paid front line staff (with volunteers more involved in fund raising and support roles). In the UK, where I have worked for several charities, the majority of registered charities are, in fact, quite small, local organisations. Those tend to be very dependent on volunteers - some may have no paid employees at all, while others may only have one or two. Wymspen (talk) 15:18, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In the UK I expect most charities are as you say but some surprising institutions have charitable status. Most (all?) public schools (exclusive private schools in any other part of the world) are charities[1]and I suppose just about everyone is paid. I used to work for a scientific research institute which was a charity and we all got paid at rates comparable to the public sector. The only volunteers would be (1) young people getting work experience, (2) people doing PhD and MSc research (are they volunteers?), (3) people who have retired but want to continue with their research and (4) members of the public volunteering to take part as subjects in scientific experiments. Thincat (talk) 17:37, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Could the reported rape rate in Sweden be partly attributed to an increase in immigration?

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

The closing of the discussion above doesn't help understanding, learning and dismissing racism. That's why I feel the need to rephrase the censored question. In order to make a point that perhaps more Swedish girls report rape, because they are not used to machism which is considered rape to them, while to the immigrants it is considered normal, required, good-faith behavior when it comes to date girls. I know my question is poorly phrased and needs to be completed, and I hope someone here will address it in a constructive way without just closing it. Thanks. Akseli9 (talk) 12:46, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Any increase in population could be expected to increase the absolute number of rapes. However, the rate, as in percentage of women raped each year, would not be expected to change unless the new immigrants are more likely to commit rape or be raped. There could also be a factor that rapes committed by or to the new immigrants are more or less likely to be reported, due to cultural factors. In the case of male immigrants from fundamentalist Muslim nations, there may well be a factor that where they came from, any woman out alone at night with her face uncovered was a prostitute, and they treated them as such. Doing the same in a Western nation is a serious crime. StuRat (talk) 14:21, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Prostitutes aren't usually raped. They provide a service for which they get paid. Do you know that Muslims are more likely to rape prostitutes or are you just guessing? I know of one case where a woman (not a prostitute) was raped by immigrants. 194.66.226.95 (talk) 14:44, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Could we please stop assuming facts not in evidence. First there was absolutely no mention of immigrants or Muslims being part of Sweden's rape rate in the original thread. The idea that there is a culture where "date rape" is considered "Normal, REQUIRED or good faith behavior" is misogynistic claptrap. To quote two items from WP:RD/G "The reference desk is not a chatroom, nor is it a soapbox for promoting individual opinions. Editors should strive to accurately and fairly represent significant views published by reliable sources" - that is not happening here - and "The reference desk is not a place to debate controversial subjects. Respondents should direct questioners to relevant information and discussions, but should refrain from participating in any extended, heated debate." - that is also not occurring here. To put it another way how has the reporting of the UNODC statistics in the original thread jumped to speculation about immigrants and Muslims being the problem. When the above thread veered in this kind of xenophobic territory it was closed and is the reason that this one should be as well. MarnetteD|Talk 14:58, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Our article Rape in Sweden says that the rape rate was up to 69 per 100,000 in 2014. It also says that in 1996 it was published that between 1985 and 1989, half the rapes committed were by immigrants. The catch is that when I take this document and put it into Google Translate, I'm seeing something about 15 percent and 18 percent. I would highly appreciate it if someone who actually speaks Swedish could check this fact; and I would also highly appreciate it if the troll fighters would take less interest in saving the Refdesk from bad questions and more in saving readers of our articles from bad answers. Wnt (talk) 18:25, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you want things in article fixed then the talk pages for said articles is the place to post your concerns. MarnetteD|Talk 19:06, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Wnt I speak Swedish. As a cross check to Google Translate, I recommend www.freetranslation.com for translating your Swedish source. The nature of ~~your~~the heading question is too tendentious, in that it invites an inflammatory answer "yes, it could partly" on the flimsiest of possible grounds, and it is therefore closed for discussion here. AllBestFaith (talk) 21:30, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The reported rape rate is increasing. That does not mean that the actual rape rate is increasing. It could even be a positive sign, if you assume that less and less women are letting rapists get away with it. Hofhof (talk) 18:03, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. It's even possible that white men are significantly less likely to be accused because they tend to be in positions of power more frequently than immigrants, which discourages rape reports because survivors of rape are often in some sort of dependency relationship with their rapists. This could give the misleading impression that immigrants commit disproportionally many rapes (or other crimes) when they are really just much more likely to be accused, caught, or convicted. (Same with black men in the United States.) White (and male, etc.) privilege is a thing, folks. Scepticism does not mean jumping to the "politically incorrect" conclusion. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:10, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Who pays to test drinking water for THC?

There is a headline going around currently about a town in Colorado with tetrahydrocannabinol, the active principle of marijuana, supposedly in the drinking water. As described in this report, the idea is ludicrous. It seems more probable that somebody collecting the water or in the lab lit up while working. But there's still a mystery here --- why would any town be paying to test for THC in drinking water? I mean, there were a lot of people in Flint, Michigan drinking water with tremendous levels of lead for a year because no one was testing, and here someone is paying to test for a substance that could not possibly be added to the water in sufficient quantity to be detectable? What budget is this under? Wnt (talk) 14:55, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You aren't asking the more important question, which is best answered with understanding that the The dose makes the poison. I would expect non-zero quantities of THC to be in any major metropolitan area's drinking water. The question not being asked is if meaningful amounts of it are found in drinking water. One part per trillion would still mean a glass of drinking water would have over a trillion THC molecules in it; but I'm not sure that one part per trillion is enough to have any meaningful effect on the consumer. --Jayron 32 15:29, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The cited article reports a statement that THC was first detected in a vial of tap water meant to serve as a negative result in a drug test. The article about Cannabis drug testing mentions thresholds of 50-20 ng/mL used in urine and saliva tests, though detection levels as low as 0.5 ng/mL may be required for the latter. It would not be ludicrous but a genuine concern to Forensic chemistry labs (whose work is routinely funded by law enforcement) if tap water gave indications near these levels, which appears to have been the case in Hugo, ~~Ohio~~Colorado. AllBestFaith (talk) 15:40, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

More likely the vial was contaminated. THC is not even water soluble. Reporters are not known in this day and age for getting their facts straight, they prefer to make headlines. HighInBC ^{Need help? {{ping|HighInBC}}} 15:55, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's not new - it's always been a problem. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:32, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

AllBestFaith Just wanted to let you know that the town of Hugo is in Colorado. I couldn't find a town of that name in Ohio though I'm sure there are at least a few people who go by that moniker in that state :-) Cheers. MarnetteD|Talk 16:54, 22 July 2016 (UTC) Thanks for the correction. AllBestFaith (talk) 21:02, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

They probably sent this to the same lab that tests parolees, and a certain number of false positives is part of the contract... Seriously though, the science here is no great mystery to me; it's the funding. If someone is actually doing some kind of GC/MS on the water they must have all sorts of peaks to explain from various biological sources, and I'd think it would cost a fortune to figure everything out; yet if they just pulled out some cannabis testing kit, then I have no idea why they'd think to do such a crazy thing. It seems like either the town is being much, much more careful than I thought anyone really was with their drinking water, or else it's doing some kind of weird political stunt, and I don't have any idea which. Wnt (talk) 17:59, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think this has already been answered, both in the cited article and by AllBestFaith above. It was "meant to serve as a negative result in a drug test". I interpret that to mean that they were testing a person for THC use, and concurrently with testing his/her sample, they also tested some tap water so they could compare the person's test result with that of a sample that was presumably known to not contain any THC. The test wasn't done because anyone suspected that the tap water might contain THC. CodeTalker (talk) 21:05, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Whoooooops! Looks like I gotta learn to read more carefully! Wnt (talk) 01:18, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In a followup report it turns out the original tests were false positives. MarnetteD|Talk 18:35, 24 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Given the situation, I'd say there is no excuse for them to have announced a problem with the water anyway. You should judge water quality based on a water test, not a positive result on a negative control in a test kit for bodily fluids. In any case, it does not sound like any great amount of funds were expended on the test itself. Wnt (talk) 20:16, 25 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Shocking. HighInBC ^{Need help? {{ping|HighInBC}}} 23:01, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle

Now that my 7 years of bad luck are over, I'd like to bring to this forum some questions I asked @Talk:St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle#Funeral of Lady Gowrie in 2009, but got no replies.

The 2 questions are:

Was some special permission required for Lady Gowrie's funeral to be held in the chapel of a royal castle, and if so, why was it given?
Was Dame Joan Hammond the first woman ever to sing in the Chapel, and if so, why were women previously banned?

Thanks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:31, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe they wanted to see if her voice could shatter a mirror? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:55, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I take your comments with a grain of (spilled) salt. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:59, 22 July 2016 (UTC) [reply]

This is a very good question Jack, and one which leads me to question our entry. Having looked at the official website of St George's Chapel, I can not see her listed as having received a funeral there. Now it may be that they only list the Royals who have had a funeral at the chapel, and I think that to answer your question properly you would have to contact them yourself and ask them. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:35, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This book confirms Lady Gowrie's funeral at St George's Chapel and Joan Hammond's attendance there. I've not been able to find any answers to Jack's specific questions, though. Tevildo (talk) 12:38, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I see that he was Deputy Constable and Lieutenant-Governor of Windsor Castle 1945-53. Maybe that came with certain privileges. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 12:48, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's the most likely answer; the chapel of the Order of St Michael and St George (Lord Gowrie was a GCMG) is in St Paul's Cathedral in London. A reference supporting the funeral at Windsor is at The Governors of New South Wales 1788-2010 edited by David Clune and Ken Turner (p. 504). As to women singing in the chapel, the English choral tradition was an entirely male-voice affair until quite recently, so it's quite plausible that Dame Joan was the first, although why permission needed to be sought is a bit of a puzzle; perhaps nobody wanted the buck to stop with them. What Did Women Sing? A Chronology concerning Female Choristers, by Laura Stanfield Prichard, Northeastern University, Massachusetts, USA discusses the role of women in western choral music, finding the Anglican Church to be particularly reluctant to include female voices in their choirs, but just because they supposed that male voices sounded better rather than any religious conviction. Alansplodge (talk) 15:32, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't just Anglican churches that were antipathetic to women singers. A case in point is Frédéric Chopin: he died on 17 October 1849, but the funeral could not be held until 30 October, when the Catholic Church of the Madeleine in Paris, after almost 2 weeks of holding out, finally acceded to Chopin's express wishes and permitted the singing of Mozart's Requiem, which includes women as soloists and choristers. The inordinate delay meant that large numbers of people from distant parts, who would not otherwise have considered making the journey, did so; so many came from afar, that the church was full to capacity and many found they had travelled in vain. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:15, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]