Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 March 22

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March 22

Where's the busiest point of Interstate highway that's not in a metro or micropolitan area?

(of course the point is really a zone between access points which could be miles apart)

2. (a bit less restrictive) Is the least busy point of the main road route between Philly and New York busier than the same thing for any other pair of primary statistical areas? A lot of Boston-Philly, Boston-Baltimore, Boston-DC, NY-Philly, NY-Baltimore and NY-DC traffic passes that point so it seems like a good candidate. This point might be the New Jersey Turnpike east of Trenton but there's no gap between the NY and Philly metro areas so it's intermetropolitan but never leaves.. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:55, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

• At one point in the 1980's the stretch of Interstate west of Knoxville Tennessee was claimed to be the busiest non-urban interstate. This stretch carries I-75 together with I-40, and I-40 is carrying traffic that came in from I-81, so there is a lot of long-haul traffic in all directions on that stretch. (Sorry, I have no references, just a memory of news reports.) -Arch dude (talk) 03:00, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

There is no direct route by interstate from Philly to New York anyway, Taking I-95 will likely not be the shortest route, so I'd suspect the traffic is spread out between routes. When I was in college, we generally got off at Turnpike exit 4, to 73, 38 and 30 and across the Ben Franklin Bridge, but it might depend on where in Philly you are going.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:23, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Qaddafi's 50 million Euro campaign contribution to Sarkozy presidential campaign

There are various figures but the original investigative media report put it at 50 million, which is over twice the legal limit for presidential campaigns in France. If the figure is true, how is it possible that so much money could be sloshing around in a presidential campaign without raising a huge question mark about the amount of money available to the campaign? Wouldn't it be apparent that the Sarkozy campaign was spending way more than the limit permitted like much television advertising (or whatever takes the lion's share of the budget in the French presidential campaign context). Muzzleflash (talk) 01:59, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Televised political ads are banned in France. So, he would have spent in something else. Probably something where accountability is more difficult like election posters. --Hofhof (talk) 02:52, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

They obviously asked some Bookkeeping specialists how Money laundering works. There are hundreds of similar examples or scandals around the world and the press will likely shed a light on the way this one did when the investigations are done. --Kharon (talk) 08:01, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm more curious about the spending rather than concealing the source. How do you manage to spend way over the limit in a political campaign without raising questions about having way more funds than his campaigned should have had? Was he bribing other French politicians for endorsements/to lend him on the ground volunteer muscle or some other kind of spending that isn't visible like spending on campaign advertising? Muzzleflash (talk) 12:03, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

According to The Guardian: "campaign overspend, mainly on the lavish rallies and US-style stadium gigs that cemented Sarkozy’s reputation as a political showman." It was about 23 million euro over the legal limit of 22.5 million, which is easily spent renting stadiums for some hundred thousand, and maybe driving people there in buses. That's much less than what is common in the US according to Investopedia: " Hillary Clinton's campaign spent a total of $768 million, vastly more than the $398 million Donald Trump's campaign spent," He allegedly was "using false billing from a public relations firm called Bygmalion." according to Strait's Time. Anyway, whatever trick he tried to pull to hide the spending did not went well. He's being questioned by the police and had failed re-election. Hofhof (talk) 12:51, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Interesting article with a lot of clues about what the surplus money could have been spent on during the 2007 campaign even though the article describes campaign events of the 2012 campaign. Sarkozy did get elected in 2007 by spending Qaddafi's money so that much at least worked out for Sarkozy. I wonder if the Qaddafi regime had any decisive role in Sarkozy being exposed. Immediately after Sarkozy ordered the bombing of Libya, Qaddafi's son publicly denounced Sarkozy as duplicitous for taking Libya's money and then bombing the country, but no one believed the Qaddafi regime because of obvious credibility issues. There was an investigative media report in 2012 detailing the money trail. I wonder if the documents were supplied by the Qaddafi regime as revenge? Muzzleflash (talk) 13:05, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, completely OR, but I am guessing one way to spend the money without any visibility at all is to hire think thanks and marketing firms who will study which specific message pushes the right button across which demographics, and these are expensive if done in great detail. Then you can have a public marketing message that is the only visible part, which is finely tuned and much more effective, but the public part is within the allowed cost. As long as these people don't spill the beans, you would not know they were hired. Sorry no reference, just thinking aloud. --Lgriot (talk) 13:28, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

As far as I remember from news reports, Nicolas Sarkozy won the French presidential election, 2007 because he was seen as an anti-immigration candidate. This seems to be reflected in our article:

"* Immigration – The issue of immigration in France has split France. The number of deportations more than doubled since 2002, with Sarkozy as Minister of the Interior from 2002 to 2004 and 2005 to 2007. Sarkozy declared in April 2006 that immigrants who did not "like France" should "leave it." Opponents have labelled Sarkozy's attitude as repressive, in particular towards illegal immigrants, materialised by numerous police raids against illegal aliens, strongly opposed by the left. The main problem concerns illegal immigrants (sans-papiers, "without documents") who cannot obtain work permits without proper immigration documents and are therefore mostly found in the informal economy – construction, restaurants, etc. Although the right of foreigners to vote was a classic claim of the left-wing, it has not been an important issue of the campaign. On the other hand, Sarkozy has declared himself in favour of affirmative action which has been widely contested both on the left and on the right, on grounds that it would favour communautarisme – separation of communities – along ethnic lines, and that it means taking into account ethnic alleged memberships in statistics, which is legally prohibited and not done by the INSEE. Left-wingers argued in favour of social actions not based on ethnic factors, but on geographical situation and equality of territory; however, the traditional Universalism of the French Republicans has also been criticised on the left-wing by some intellectuals supporting a middle-ground between Republican universalism and multiculturalism."

Opponents of Sarkozy (and his anti-immigration policies) like to point out that his father was a Hungarian emigrant, and that his maternal grandfather was a Greek-Jewish emigrant from the Ottoman Empire. Dimadick (talk) 06:48, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

(I've added a {{reflist-talk}} at the end of this item so that that footnotes group with it, and fixed the <ref name="SarkozyRFI"/> reference that was copied from the other article without including its definition. I'll do the same thing next with the similar copy in some other items, below.) --69.159.62.113 (talk) 17:24, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

References

Translation of Chinese deity name

Zhu Bajie is known as Puji Shenghou (普濟聖侯) in Fujian. Would "Marquis Sage of Universal Salvation" be a correct translation? - 39.8.8.153 (talk) 02:11, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I am very wary of topolectic "written Chinese". Aside from Mandarin, written Cantonese seems to be a legitimate standard written language. Other topolects don't seem to have a formalized, standardized writing system. In the past, Chinese people didn't need regional written languages. They just got Classical Chinese, which united everyone who knew how to read Classical Chinese. So, it's very likely that the above example in "written Fujianese" may be a transliteration of the Fujian topolect using Standard Pinyin phonetics and Han characters. I did some searching and found this, which led me to this, which suggests that it's a Daoist god? SSS (talk) 04:07, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Why the Romans persecuted Christians

Our article Pliny_the_Younger_on_Christians includes the following claim, with two citations:

"Neither Pliny nor Trajan mentions the crime that Christians had committed, except for being a Jew ; and other historical sources do not provide a simple answer to what that crime could be, but a likely element may be the stubborn refusal of Christians to worship Roman gods; making them appear as objecting to Roman rule."

This doesn't seem to stack up. The Romans didn't persecute the Jews (who in those days shared a lot of similarities with Christians) unless and until they caused political trouble. And the Jews for certain stubbornly refused to worship Roman gods. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 17:03, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Source amnesia (in part because I've heard it from so many places), but I've always heard/read that it was for any combination of these reasons:

• the Christians referred to Jesus using titles belonging to Caesar.
• the Romans weren't keen on any Messianic sect.
• the mainstream Jews were willing to acknowledge that Caesar was a divinely appointed ruler, but the Christians would only admit (at most) a secondary and regnal role for Caesar.
• Jews didn't proselytize and were cautious about conversion, while Christians proselytized.
• Jews stuck to themselves and didn't do much to overturn social order, Christians were rather openly against a lot of popular stuff.
• Jews didn't have "love feasts" with their "brothers and sisters" in catacombs. The Roman equivalent of Fox News loved implying that the Christians were having borderline-necrophiliac incestuous orgies, and the One Roman News Network just outright accused them of it.

I would assume that it'd be feasible to find sources for those claims (but I'm about to eat lunch, so I'm not doing that). Ian.thomson (talk) 17:31, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Also there may have been cannibalism-related propaganda. It's obviously just symbolic (Catholics are a bit too literal) and no flesh involved but most people couldn't just go to a library and see if any polytheist says they're crazy but not quite cannibal crazy. And life was cheaper than the modern 1st world and more of the population was willing to believe a one true religion that doesn't make much sense, where the God(s) don't care about morality much and just do these rituals and get heaven. (Roman religion was mostly burn animals = heaven after all) To an ignorant illiterate the implication that this sect of this religious minority has serial killers that harvest enough flesh for everyone to have a bite and sip of blood every Sunday wouldn't have been as far-fetched as today. They always drank the blood in secret till Constantine so that certainly doesn't help making it look like they're not hiding something to someone willing to unquestioningly believe when a bullshitting pro-polytheist says they eat flesh. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:45, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

So many being believing they had to be eaten themselves, crucified for days and other painful martyrdoms rather than just denying God and maybe even surviving to donate livestock like a good Roman citizen and get the heat off you might've made Christians look crazy too. Christians traded livestock sacrifice for having to worry about Earth torture and Hell torture all the time (of course because they thought it was the right thing to do but the polytheist fundamentalist might say cause they're crazy) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:03, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Dweller -- The basic reason is that ordinary everyday customs and rituals in Roman society (including the common method of pledging allegiance to the emperor) involved acknowledging pagan gods, so that a strict monotheist would be somewhat socially isolated from all except his fellow strict monotheists, and be considered disloyal to the community by some (this is why Jews and Christians were sometimes called "atheists"). The Romans were to some degree prepared to tolerate this from Jews, a somewhat geographically-confined single ethnic group which was following its old traditional religion (though there were in fact constant tensions between Jews and Romans in Judea, which led to eventual armed conflicts, and a tradition of bitter hatred between the Greek and Jewish communities in Alexandria). The Romans were somewhat suspicious of innovations in religion on general principles, and were especially suspicious of a new religion which seemed to encourage social (and perhaps political) disloyalty, and which was spreading among the urban lower classes of multiple ethnic groups. Insofar as Christianity was distinguished from Judaism, it lost the limited Roman official tolerance which had been granted to Judaism. AnonMoos (talk) 00:43, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

No wonder today's New Testament is so Roman apologist.. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:28, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Note that persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire was overstated by later Christian authors. It did occur, but it was usually far from constant and universal. (I mean, it later became the state religion, so it's not like it was stamped out.) Though a matter of opinion, I'm not sure the Christians were persecuted more than the Jews, whom the Empire tried to straight-up eradicate after prolonged unrest. --47.146.60.177 (talk) 06:09, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

In part because Christians were widely seen as criminal and immoral, in part because they were convenient scapegoats for any disaster that befell the Roman Empire. And Christians were antisocial and shunned relations with their fellow Romans:

• "Christians moved their activities from the streets to the more secluded domains of houses, shops and women's apartments...severing the normal ties between religion, tradition and public institutions like cities and nations". This 'privatizing of religion' was another primary factor in persecution. They sometimes met at night, in secret, and this aroused suspicion among the pagan population accustomed to religion as a public event; rumors abounded that Christians committed flagitia, scelera, and maleficia— "outrageous crimes", "wickedness", and "evil deeds", specifically, cannibalism and incest (referred to as "Thyestian banquets" and "Oedipodean intercourse")— due to their rumored practices of eating the "blood and body" of Christ and referring to each other as "brothers" and "sisters"."
• "Much of the pagan populace maintained a sense that bad things would happen if the established pagan gods were not respected and worshiped properly."As the existence of the Christians became more widely known, it became increasingly clear that they were (a) antisocial, in that they did not participate in the normal social life of their communities; (b) sacrilegious, in that they refused to worship the gods; and (c) dangerous, in that the gods did not take kindly to communities that harbored those who failed to offer them cult. By the end of the second century, the Christian apologist Tertullian complained about the widespread perception that Christians were the source of all disasters brought against the human race by the gods. 'They think the Christians the cause of every public disaster, of every affliction with which the people are visited. If the Tiber rises as high as the city walls, if the Nile does not send its waters up over the fields, if the heavens give no rain, if there is an earthquake, if there is famine or pestilence, straightway the cry is, "Away with the Christians to the lions!"'" "Dimadick (talk) 07:06, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

References

naming perpetrators in the media

This is a pet peeve of mine. Whenever there is a shooting or a bombing or some similar horrible act, the news papers, news channels, etc. keep reporting ad nausium the perpetrators name and try to find out everything about him (or her . . . but mostly him). It seems to me that these perps want the publicity, their 15 minutes of fame, etc. I don't understand why the news people INSIST on giving the perps exactly what they want (usually to the exclusion of the victims). Any insight as to why the media does not make the perp personae non grata would be appreciated (other than the obvious greedy "sensationalism makes us tons of money, any ethics of re-victimization be damned"). 76.71.157.121 (talk) 22:29, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Some people in ancient times felt the same way you did, but it doesn't seem to have worked even then; see Herostratus... -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:53, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Hiding the names of the (usually dead, and hence not around to enjoy it) perps would seem suspicious. Why would the government be hiding such information? What are they up to? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:11, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

There is just one basic reason why the media publish anything - that is because they have a pretty good idea of what the public want to read! If everyone stopped buying or listening because of this, it would change. Wymspen (talk) 10:56, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

When I was younger, one of the major channels (there were only three at the time) refused to name Mark Chapman because they understood that all he wanted was to have his name all over the media. So, they referred to his as "the man who shot John Lennon." After a week or so, they went with everyone else and started referring to him by name. It turned out that most people cared more about hearing his name than refusing to let him get the popularity that he wanted. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 11:44, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Some European nations take it to the opposite extreme by allowing perps to eventually have their identity expunged. Either way, the perp wins and the public loses. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:03, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Can't English defendants be tried under hoods and keep their identity secret if they want? After trial too if they win? Why doesn't America do that? Well if he doesn't win everything then obviously since it's a public trial everyone will know he was accused of the others but that's logically unavoidable. As is someone figuring out who a person found innocent of everything is from the evidence or being at the alleged crime and recognizing him or whatever. I wonder how far they go, if hooding certain trial participants like accusers and witnesses would make it harder to figure out who the accused is do they have to wear hoods too? If anyone knows or suspects who a hooded person is do they have to not tell anyone? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:54, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

There's a movement called No Notoriety to this effect. Anderson Cooper of CNN is somewhat on board, sometimes. A silly policy, according to Michael McGough of The Los Angeles Times. People said it'd be careful to avoid it, whatever that means. It sure didn't hide Mark Anthony Conditt. It even mentions how it pestered the FBI for his name after police said they wouldn't release it. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:07, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

How do we know that these perps want the publicity, their 15 minutes of fame, etc? I don't think we know the motivation in most cases. The shooting suspect at Stoneman Douglas High School shooting doesn't seem to be basking in notoriety. In court appearances he seems to me to hang his head in shame. Bus stop (talk) 02:23, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Oddly enough, CNN pictures ol'-no-name hanging his head here, with zero mention, but speaks freely of the far-deadlier Call of Duty consumer Anders Breivik, who is likely quite thrilled about his recent feature film getting four of five stars from The Guardian, despite it not mentioning him. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:36, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

This Norwegian semi-automatic rifle ban story from The Independent is similarly OK with naming Breivik, while only picturing and describing what's-his-face. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:50, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

I will concede that my reference to "15 minutes of fame" is primarily an off the cuff assumption with no real validity as to a perp's motivation. But, it is still a factor that comes into play whether the person is primarily or secondarily (or, not at all) motivated by this. 76.71.157.121 (talk) 17:32, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Yoko Ono refers to her husband's murderer as "he who must not be named." DOR (HK) (talk) 11:30, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

There are different levels of "fame". Even if the major media suppressed the name of the perpetrator, there would still likely be local knowledge, and that could conceivably constitute sufficient motivation for those who want notoriety. Many parties close to an event would have access to the identity of the perpetrator. Bus stop (talk) 21:48, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

What might've that claim been talking about? (England to 13 colony immigration)

I saw an article about a book or something that said there's 4 main kinds of English emigration to Colonial America, each tending to settle in different colonies, be more likely to be from a certain part of England and possibly come for different reasons. I'd guess one was Puritans to New England from.. somewhere, planters to the South from.. somewhere, Catholics to Maryland from.. somewhere and Quakers to Pennsylvania? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:31, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Probably Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer. AnonMoos (talk) 00:22, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Many of the original New England Puritans, per our article Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony), came from Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, though they had spent some time in exile in Holland. Others of them may have come from East Anglia (which encompasses Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and also Essex by some definitions) since their 'spiritual founder' Robert Browne had been most active in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk.

Subsequently, some 20,000 more like-minded colonists followed them (see for example Massachusetts Bay Colony), doubtless from various parts of England; "East Anglia" is the default assumption in England.

I'll leave others to enlarge on the Puritans and the other groups you mention. Of course, we do have an article on the book AnonMoos cites, Albion's Seed. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.218.14.51 (talk) 00:52, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

It was in fact Albion's Seed. It's interesting how long you can trace the influence of 17th century British regions and denominations despite how much the religious beliefs of the Northeast and Midwest have evolved. Perhaps car mechanics' 17th century ancestors will have a statistically significant overaverage Quaker and North Midlands percent for centuries to come, lol. (at least if you could magically know the faith of the family tree of EVERY American) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:01, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

"Many of the original New England Puritans, per our article Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony)"

Several of the people in the Plymouth Colony were not Puritans at all, and there was religious-influenced conflict within it.:

• "The English in Plymouth Colony fit broadly into three categories: Pilgrims, Strangers, and Particulars. The Pilgrims were a Protestant group that closely followed the teachings of John Calvin, like the Puritans who later founded Massachusetts Bay Colony to the north. (The Puritans wished to reform the Anglican church from within, whereas the Pilgrims saw it as a morally defunct organization, and sought to remove themselves from it.) The name "Pilgrims" was actually not used by the separatists themselves. William Bradford used the term "pilgrims" to describe the group, but he was using the term generically to define the group as travelers on a religious mission. The Pilgrims referred to themselves as the Saints, First Comers, Ancient Brethren, or Ancient Men. They used such terms to indicate their place as God's elect, as they subscribed to the Calvinist belief in predestination. "The First Comers" was a term more loosely used in their day to refer to any of the Mayflower passengers."
• "There were also a number of indentured servants among the colonists. Indentured servants were mostly poor children whose families were receiving church relief and "many homeless waifs from the streets of London sent as laborers"."
• "In addition to the Pilgrims, the Mayflower carried non-Pilgrim settlers ("Strangers"). This group included the non-Pilgrim settlers placed on the Mayflower by the Merchant Adventurers, and later settlers who came for other reasons throughout the history of the colony and who did not necessarily adhere to the Pilgrim religious ideals. A third group known as the "Particulars" consisted of later settlers who paid their own "particular" way to America, and thus were not obliged to pay the colony's debts."
• "The presence of outsiders such as the Strangers and the Particulars was a considerable annoyance to the Pilgrims. As early as 1623, a conflict broke out between the Pilgrims and the Strangers over the celebration of Christmas, a day of no particular significance to the Pilgrims. Furthermore, a group of Strangers founded the nearby settlement of Wessagussett and the Pilgrims were highly strained, both emotionally and in terms of resources, by their lack of discipline. They looked at the eventual failure of the Wessagussett settlement as Divine Providence against a sinful people."

Our List of Mayflower passengers includes people who had no affiliation to the Leiden, Holland Congregation, such as:

• John Billington (an irreligious troublemaker, who was eventually accused of murder and executed)
• Peter Browne (an acquaintance of the Mullins family who decided to join them in emigration. No known religious affiliation.)
• Francis Eaton (a professional carpenter, hired by the Merchant Adventurers for his skill).
• Stephen Hopkins (a veteran adventurer with experience from Bermuda and Jamestown, Virginia, hired for his experience. Went on to establish his own tavern, and got in trouble with the Pilgrims for serving alcoholic drinks on Sundays. ).
• Christopher Martin (a wealthy merchant and former churchwarden, who came to the attention of the authorities for various financial irregularities. He wanted to emigrate to escape scandal. He got trusted with part of the colonists' funds and was again accused of financial irregularities. Possibly an embezzler.)
• William Mullins (a relatively wealthy shoemaker, who bought stocks in the Merchant Adventurers company and decided to join the emigration movement. He had gotten in some trouble with the English authorities, but their cause is unclear.)
• Myles Standish. (An Englishman who served as a soldier or mercenary of the Dutch Republic during the Eighty Years' War. His military service had ended and he was apparently unemployed, when the Leiden congregation hired as a military advisor for their new colony. He reportedly asked for less money than other available mercenaries).
• Richard Warren. (A relatively wealthy merchant, who joined the emigration movement and eventually brought his entire family to the colony. A relatively shadowy figure in the history of the Colony, almost nothing is known of his past, or his reasons for emigrating.)
• Edward Doty. (An indentured servant in his early 20s, who went to become a wealthy land owner. One of the Colony's troublemakers, he was known for duels and quarrels with fellow Colonists, a fiery temper, and for shady business transactions. He got involved in 23 trials, variously accused of "fraud, slander, fighting, assault, debt, trespass, theft, etc."). Dimadick (talk) 08:35, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

References