Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 January 3

= January 3 =

Federal reserve comic books in public domain?
I recently ordered some comic books from the Federal Reserve ; are these works in the public domain? I can't find any copyright information on them. Thanks! 69.207.132.170 (talk) 02:58, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * All works created by US govt employees in the performance of their duties are uncopyrightable -- so if you don't find a copyright notice, it's pretty safe to assume they are in the public domain. Looie496 (talk) 03:49, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * It's unfortunately much more complicated than that. See copyright status of work by the U.S. government. If the work is done by a contractor, it can be copyrighted, and almost all of this kind of work is done by contractors these days. You cannot assume it is in the public domain simply because copyright information is lacking. In this case, the ones I have seen are credited to the PR departments of the various local Feds, so they should be public domain. But you could always e-mail them and check, which is the prudent thing to do if it really matters. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:34, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

It's actually quite simple because the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is a private bank, not a US government entity. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recognized this fact in the case Lewis v. United States 680 F.2d 1239 (9th Cir. 1982). The comic book is mostly likely not in the public domain. Gx872op (talk) 14:57, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * A ha! An important distinction. What a confusing name for a bank. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:52, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "For these reasons we hold that the Reserve Banks are not federal agencies for purposes of the Federal Tort Claims Act" [emphasis mine] --Nricardo (talk) 01:24, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Last time I checked (not recently!) works of which the U.S. federal government was considered the author were not subject to copyright. But the federal government can own a copyright is it buys it or receives it as a gift from someone else who is considered the author or other previous copyright owner. In cases of a "work made for hire", the employer may be considered the "author" for purposes of copyright law. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:43, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Base and superstructure, Dialectical materialism and historical materialism
Can anyone explain the theory of Base and superstructure, Dialectical materialism and historical materialism in Marxism? I have problem understanding the concepts, particularly Base and superstructure. --LibertarianWarrior (talk) 04:25, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Historical materialism and dialectical materialism are both terms for variations on Marx's broad concept of historical development - basically that historical developments are determined by the underlying modes of production. Thus primitive tribal groups might sustain themselves by gathering wild fruits and vegetables and hunting, and these forms of production of the necessities of life will dictate multiple aspects of their existence (e.g, hunting might require them to follow seasonal game, which means the group must be mobile: no permanent structures or firm land ownership).  major historical changes occur when new, more efficient forms of production are developed - e.g. hunters learn to domesticate cows and sheep and then settle down into more permanent pastoral communities, changing not just how they get meat, but broad aspects of their culture.  new occupations are developed, old ones disappear, power shifts from one group of people to another.  Dialectical materialism tries to key off of Hegelian dialectics (different social classes with different forms of production becoming thesis and antithesis in the historical system); Historical materialism doesn't, but sticks a bit closer to what Marx actually discussed.  Marx never used either term (according to our - somewhat badly written - articles on the topics).


 * Base and superstructure are terms from structural Marxism, which developed a bit oddly. As I recall, the structural Marxists only had translations of some of Marx' writing when they began theorizing, so there's a bit of a disconnect.  at any rate, base refers to the underlying economic relations which are the 'true' relations between classes in a society.  Superstructure are the overarching social and political structures that serve to maintain, obscure or defend the relations laid out in the base.  so, for instance, structural Marxists would say that the base in a modern society such as the US or UK is a capitalist relation, in which the dominant capitalist class exploits the labor of lower classes for their own profit - that's the 'true' relation in the society.  However, the US and UK have liberal democratic political structures, judicial systems that assert broad equality, cultural elements such as religion (promising happiness in the afterlife) or entertainment (promising distraction in this life) - all of which are designed not to promote actual equality, but to obscure and excuse class discrepancies so that people are content with the exploitive system.  They would point to things like, say, the American cultural assertion that with hard, conscientious, dedicated work everyone can rise (rags to riches) to a position of wealth and power (which is self-evidently not true, but which is a marvelous incentive to continue working hard).  Some of those theories got well out there. Poulantzes (I think) even argued that democratic voting itself was a superstructure mechanism for disenfranchising the populace - it gives an individual the illusion of control over the government while actually reducing his input to a negligible cipher.


 * Does that help any? - Ludwigs 2  05:28, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with the above but would simplify it and expand it as follows: For Marxists, the "base" is the set of economic relations that, for Marxists, define a society.  A society's base includes its private property relations, circumstances of work and employment, and the allocation of the surplus value generated by workers.  (Surplus value, defined imprecisely, is the value that workers produce that they do not receive as wages.  In most modern capitalist societies, this surplus is divided among managers—who receive it as salaries that exceed the real economic value of their own work; shareholders—who receive it as profit, part of which they may decide to reinvest, and part of which they may collect as dividends; and government—which collects a portion of the surplus value in taxes.) On the base created by these economic relations, societies construct superstructures.  A superstructure is not limited to political institutions, such as those discussed by Ludwigs2, though it does include such institutions.  In fact, the word superstructure for Marxists has a meaning very similar to that of the term culture for anthropologists, minus economic relations.  A superstructure is everything that is supported by an economic base, including political institutions (the state) and political discourse (including ideology), gender relations and other cultural norms, religion, and high culture, including literature, music, and the visual arts.  Marco polo (talk) 15:10, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

California law
Is it true that in California you can't appeal from the judgment of a small claims court? Is so, do California lawyers generally know that their state differs from others in that respect? Michael Hardy (talk) 06:24, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Half true. According to this link, defendants who lose at the trial level can appeal, but plaintiffs cannot.  I wouldn't be able to comment on what California attorneys know about the legal situation in other states. --Trovatore (talk) 06:34, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * But surely California attorneys know the ins and outs of their own state peculiarities. All states have aspects of their laws which are different than others', and any savvy lawyer knows how to take advantage of them. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:41, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Statistics on Egyptian tourism
This is an editor looking for sources usable in an article. If there is a place on WP specifically to request sources, I don't know where to find it. (I did post this on the talk page for WikiProject Egypt, but given the level of activity there I don't hold out much hope.)

I am looking for information about the Egyptian tourist industry—specifically, how many people visit specific tourist sites. I've tried searching on Google and Amazon.com but haven't found what I'm looking for. A. Parrot (talk) 07:40, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * According to this paper, which lists sources of data on tourism in Egypt in an appendix, the published data on tourism in Egypt do not seem to include numbers of tourists who visit specific sites. Marco polo (talk) 15:23, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Resource_Exchange/Resource_Request  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.230.167.170 (talk) 16:51, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

regarding Rajaraja chlan
Who is the mother of Rajaraja cholan? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sankarkumar41 (talk • contribs) 09:44, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * According to our article Raja Raja Chola I, "Rajaraja was born as the third child of Parantaka Sundara Chola and Vanavan Maha Devi". This information is not cited to any source, however.   Ka renjc 11:15, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Buying French Guiana and France's Oversea Islands
Has any country, organization or a person ever wanted to purchase French Guiana and its oversea islands from France? If it had ::happened, what was the purchase offer? 174.114.236.41 (talk) 17:02, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Not according to History of French Guiana, such an event would have probably born mention in that article, had it happened. French Guiana, before it was actually French Guiana, changed hands several times between the French, English, Dutch, and Portuguese, but most of these exchanges were the results of conquest and/or treaty.  In 1946, the area became an integral part of France itself, akin to the relationship between Hawaii and the United States.  -- Jayron  32  20:16, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Would France want to sell French Guiana for a big offer today? What would France say? 174.114.236.41 (talk) 02:16, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I doubt it. Countries don't like to sell their territory these days, whatever the price. The U.S. got a lot of good bargains in the 19th century (Alaska Purchase, Louisiana Purchase, Gadsden Purchase), but I can't think of any such transactions in the 20th. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:29, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Let's flip the question the other way: Why would France want to sell it? What would France gain by selling it?  -- Jayron  32  04:10, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Presumably France would gain billions of Eruos or another form of currency from selling it. They would also get to stop subsidizing French Guiana.  Of course, they would lose their spaceport.  Googlemeister (talk) 14:35, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Does France need those billions of Euros? Does any other county have the impetus to spend billions of Euros for the privilege of subsidizing French Guiana?  -- Jayron  32  21:44, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it has to do with the solidification of national identity in modern times. Napoleon didn't consider Louisiana part of France, nor was Alaska thought of as Russian. You'd be hard pressed to find any land (outside of maybe Antarctica) that meets that criterion today. Consider List of territorial disputes. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:49, 4 January 2011 (UTC)


 * If France want to sell French Guiana, what is the process of buying it and who do you talk to? 174.114.236.41 (talk) 13:17, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The hand? France doesn't even want to give up (among other places) the Glorioso Islands, a total of five square kilometers. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:20, 8 January 2011 (UTC)


 * How did you know France doesn't even want to give up the Glorioso Islands and the other oversea lands? 99.245.73.51 (talk) 22:56, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Logic as basis of system
In 1966 North Vietnam claimed they would win the war because their system was based on logic and logic was superior to God. Does North Korea or any other country now-a-days claim logic to be the bases of their system, including Vietnam and if so do they include their legal system in their claim? --Inning (talk) 17:18, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Have you got a ref for that claim? It sounds awfully like something anti-atheist media would simply make up as a strawman argument - rarely do atheists personify Logic as an antipode of God, but theists do that a lot. In fact, when I put the first sentence of your question into google, the only hit I got that claimed this was a site that some of the regulars here will remember, and the ref for the quote on that site says nothing to the effect. In fact, you could claim that a majority (if not all) of the world's governments are based on "logic" rather than God. TomorrowTime (talk) 18:06, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Further searches led me to this refdesk question. Again, no confirmation of the statement actually ever being made. TomorrowTime (talk) 18:10, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Tomorrow/Time for your response. The reason for this question is because I can find no governments which make such a claim that publish their laws in the form of a polychotomous key. Surely if logic were really the basis of any system, especially law, the expectation of obedience would depend on nothing else. --Inning (talk) 19:15, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I just read the article polychotomous key, and it probably left me more confused about this topic than I was before. Could you please elaborate your last post? --Saddhiyama (talk) 19:24, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * A polychotomous key is nothing more than a dichotomous key which has node with any number of branches. For instance, a dichotomous key has two branches like and on-off switch whereas a polychotomous key can handle decisions such as yes-no-maybe. --96.252.216.102 (talk) 20:37, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I read that article and I think (if I understood it) what is meant is a key where you look through options to find a solution. For instance, like the troubleshooting charts some user manuals have - "is the cable plugged in?" "if not, is the TV set turned on?" "if not, are there batteries in your remote control?" etc. That said, I'm likewise confused as to what Inning is saying. That there are no law systems where all possible options are covered? If so, I'm not sure I agree - you can have traffic laws where all options are covered - you can either drive too fast or not. If you drive too fast, you will get fined. Simple as that. The second part of Inning's statement, I have no idea about. Obedience depends on nothing other than logic? What does that mean? I suspect we've had hard to cope with debates with Inning before BTW, here. TomorrowTime (talk) 20:05, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you both for the clarification regarding the polychotomous key, but my main confusion did indeed stem from the rest of Innings post, the similar points which TomorrowTime has already pointed out. --Saddhiyama (talk) 20:45, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Law is not always cut and dry and leave many variables unconsidered. This is why courts exist to hear variables (conditions) which are not in the law (statutes). In many cases the intent is to keep the statute vague but is such instances the law is at risk of being violated due to lack of specificity. If you want people to obey the law then the best way is to make the law as clear and as specific as possible. This is what publication of the law in the form of a polychotomous key accomplishes. --96.252.216.102 (talk) 20:50, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The OP has been on here at length before. He/she believes that you should be able to reduce all law to an expert system that doesn't require any interpretation. It's not how the law has ever worked and there's not a lot of reason to suspect that it ever could work this way. There's not even evidence that a cut and dried legal system is what people even want — in the few instances that Congress has tried to make things black-and-white (e.g. mandatory minimum sentencing), there have been strong legal and humanitarian objections to the usurpation of the discretion of the judge and jury. The real world is more complicated than a branching tree of variables. The legal system, and lawmaking system, is generally speaking set up to acknowledge that as it is. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:54, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I was just about to make a similar comment. Googling "polychotomous key" and "law" mostly only bring up similar sounding posts as the OPs on various websites (including the ref desk archives). Does indeed seem like someone that is very insistent on something that sounds extremely implausible (to put it mildly). However we still need an elaboration about what the OP meant with the last sentence: "Surely if logic were really the basis of any system, especially law, the expectation of obedience would depend on nothing else". I can't really crack the code on that one. --Saddhiyama (talk) 21:07, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I tried googling those two together and sure enough, another hit is an extension of the link I already gave in the first answer to this post, the one that in many many words basically says: "I can imagine the existence of God, therefore He exists. Nobel prize, please!" This only serves to strengthen my belief that the "Vietnam uses logic instead of God and is therefore superior" quote is a complete fabrication. The only thing that is changed is that now I think it might be the fabrication that is published and maintained by only one person, the author of that article, who I also suspect is our OP here. Also, the example for what a polychotomous key is is a user manual chart for a printer. I feel so smart now :) TomorrowTime (talk) 22:00, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The North believed they would win because they were prepared to fight longer and harder than the U.S. The view that the Vietnam War was between "North Vietnam" and "South Vietnam" is also a bit sketchy.  Throughout the war, there were always Communist forces native to and fighting in the South.  The U.S. and ARVN forces probably did more fighting against the Viet Cong than against the NVA.  In hindsight, the sum total of the NVA and Viet Cong, coupled with civilian sympathisers to them, may have outnumbered those loyal to South Vietnam even in South Vietnam, which is why they ended up winning the war.  For most Vietnamese, the war was about overthrowing an invading force (the U.S.) and their puppet government (the South) than about defending the North against the South or anything like that. -- Jayron  32  18:50, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Though the appeal to logic versus religion, if true, is probably more along the lines of Marxist materialism than it is about a specific force assessment. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:54, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Does any country now-a-days NOT claim logic to be the bases of their system? I would be quite surprised if the answer is yes. --140.180.26.37 (talk) 21:15, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I've spent ten minutes trying to parse that, since its more than a double negative. I've got it down to "I expect all countries claim logic to be the basis of their systems." 92.29.114.99 (talk) 22:00, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Logic is not the basis of any law system I can think of. Logic exists within the system to some degree. But the bases are usually more vague things, like social norms, values, shared morality, what have you. Sentencing and so forth falls to judgment of judges and/or juries. The law generally cannot be reduced to simple flowcharts. Whether a given legal term applies in a given situation (e.g. "fraud", "infringement", "premeditated") is generally a good deal of the dispute, and that often relies on pretty subjective factors. Logic plays a role! But it's not the "basis". It is not from whence the legal system is derived. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:54, 3 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Only a few nations make explicit reference to God or a divinity in the construction of their laws - largely these would be theocratic nations (Islamic and Hindu states, and I believe Israel would qualify as well because of the close relationship between secular and religious law). most other states use some combination of common law and positive law (both being law based in established precedent with the second adding rationalized rules of evidence).  common and positive law are largely deontological, but often contain  core elements of religiosity, both ritually (as in swearing people in on a bible) and presumptively (in that they are secular instantiations of core cultural religious principles).  A number of socialists states tried to remove religious elements entirely from their cultures - religion was seen as an impediment to the development of the true socialist state - and I think it was fairly common for such states to claim that their system was superior because it was based in scientific rationalism, but none of thse states would have made the explicitly religious statement that scientific rationalism was superior to God, any more than a physicist would claim that the chariot of Helios was affected by gravity; that would just be silly.  -- Ludwigs 2  03:55, 4 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Israel doesn't have a constitution, and religious affairs are governed by a continuation of the old Ottoman Millet system, under which each separate religious community governs its own affairs. Israeli laws outside the limited millet zone are not religiously-based in any very meaningful sense... AnonMoos (talk) 16:19, 4 January 2011 (UTC)


 * What about the planet Vulcan? 67.122.209.190 (talk) 09:10, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

UK TV drama, about 25 years ago
Can you help me to identify a tv one-off drama from many years ago? It was a scary story about two young boys interested in football. I think they were wandering the streets of Liverpool, possibly Liverpool FC fans, but with a big interest in Manchester United player George Best. I think they were trying to get into a match between 'Pool and United. They met with a scary guy, possibly a paedophile, but the older boy was just about savvy enough to save them. I would like to see it again, but have no idea what the programme was called or how to get hold of a copy. Thanks for any help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.155.96.38 (talk) 22:45, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it's Scully by Alan Bleasdale.I have the book I've had for years but no idea about the program,sorry.Hotclaws (talk) 19:26, 5 January 2011 (UTC)