Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 June 24

= June 24 =

Nature of ownership and consent
A restaurant owner has a right to admit only customers who consent to having their private parts groped by any stranger who sneaks up behind them.

A restaurant owner has a right to admit only customers who consent to having their wallets stolen by strangers while they are there.

I agree with both of the propositions above.

THEREFORE if I am admitted to an ordinary restaurant whose owner has not elicited such consent from me in advance, and one stranger reaches into my pants to grope me, and another into my pocket and absconds with my wallet, I must not complain, but rather inquire about the owner's policy. He may retroactively set such a policy, and my presence is my consent. So I am told frequently.

If I disagree with that conclusion, I am a socialist who opposes property rights, a nut-case, a crazy person, a person with no credibility.

Oh. I forgot. This doesn't apply to groping or stealing. It applies only to ONE activity. But that doesn't mean practitioners of that one activity are being accorded any special privileges. I would abandon all my credibility if I said that.

Why do so many people agree with the conclusion following "THEREFORE" above, including the next two paragraphs (at least when it applies to that one activity)? Michael Hardy (talk) 00:55, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * If this "doesn't apply to groping or stealing" then what is the actual activity you are referring to? Bus stop (talk) 01:08, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Don't anybody tell Michael Hardy about the social contract now! He'll rave on all night about how he could possibly have signed anything in the womb.  --188.29.15.168 (talk) 01:17, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Michael Hardy: If you have a question about smoking in restaurants, you should just ask the question.  Disguising the question by false analogy only makes it hard to answer your question.  -- Jayron  32  01:25, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, is that what the OP's nebulous question is about? Well, here's the thing: Smoking in restaurants would be just fine, IF there was some way to keep the smoke confined to the physical space occupied by the smoker. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:55, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Smoking is sometimes banned on the grounds that it's an occupational hazard for the employees. An establishment where patrons could show up and freely grope employees would undoubtedly attract the attention of local officials. APL (talk) 02:03, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Mister Hardy could be complaining about any number of things, however. For example : People who text, phone, or shout in movie theaters are often surprised that many theaters ban those activities and will throw you out without refund. However, in other theaters making noise in encouraged, and many people are surprised to learn that people aren't being thrown out. Both types of theaters are common, but tend to exist in different types of neighborhoods. APL (talk) 02:08, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Good point, he might be talking about cellphones. It's not dissimilar to the smoking thing, in that you have to give up some "rights" to balance the rights of others not to be subjected to that stuff. The cellphone issue could also include the problem of camera phones being used to steal images from the film, but that's another story. Now, if it's purely the annoyance factor, the cellphone user could switch it to "vibrate" and then he wouldn't be bothering anyone. Oh, but the whole point of having it ring is so that everyone in the theater will think that you're a big-shot. Although you'd think they'd be over that by now, since most everyone has one now. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:33, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * As a bystander, I'll note that both of Michael Hardy's propositions above are probably incorrect, especially the second one, in most or all places in the US. Law overrides contracts.  It's illegal to steal a wallet.  A restaurant that does what Michael Hardy mentions above is aiding and abetting whatever theft laws exist in that particular state, which is illegal.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 02:20, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * But ... if the 'victim' goes into it willingly, doesn't it become a skill-based game?  A sort of pick-pocketing club with wagers?  I would totally join a pick-pocketing club.  (Probably not a groping club, but that would depend on who the other members were.) APL (talk) 05:01, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure some people don't understand what I'm talking about.

Yeah. Right. Michael Hardy (talk) 06:26, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe you could lower yourself to actually telling us peons what you're talking about. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:33, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * "Excuse me, I ordered a Zima, not an emphysema." Adam Bishop (talk) 07:23, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You're probably talking about smoking. That makes sense if you're from one of the states or nations that still allow it in businesses. But, you could be talking about a number of other things. Especially since I've never in my life been to or heard about an establishment that makes up smoking rules on the fly.
 * I find it difficult to even remember that some states still allow smoking in restaurants. It always comes as a surprise when I'm traveling, and it honestly was not the first thing that came to mind when I read your post. The theater example was. Primarily because it fits your goofy metaphor better. (Even though I now see that smoking is more likely.)
 * However, why should we try to guess what you're on about? Especially since you just seem to be soapboxing and/or trolling and/or otherwise wasting our time and not asking a ref-desk question at all?
 * In short: Your parable is poorly constructed and it doesn't belong here anyway.  APL (talk) 07:48, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * About consenting to have your wallet stolen - you can consent to any number of infringement of your property rights. If the wallet is yours (and doesn't contain, for example, something you are keeping safe for someone else), then it is open for you to invite or consent to someone "stealing" it, because then it is no longer "stealing".
 * About getting groped - in most jurisdictions there is a limit to how far you can consent to have what would otherwise be a crime against your person. In Australia, the limit is "grievous bodily harm", so you can consent to being punched lightly but you can't consent to being repeatedly stabbed in the chest with a big knife. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:01, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a good point. Right at this moment I probably couldn't consent to having my wallet stolen because it contains things that aren't strictly mine to give away. I'm sure there are laws against giving away official forms of ID like drivers licenses and library cards, and I've got a number of other cards that say "non-transferable" on them. APL (talk) 18:42, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

To answer your metaphor with a metaphor: Boxers (the pugilists, not the dogs) consent to being punched when standing in a boxing ring. If a journalist interviewing a boxer inside a boxing ring decided to punch him in the mush, the journo could expect to find themselves losing a legal case some time. (If the boxer hasn't actually killed them in retaliation). Someone agreeing to a in circumstances y does not make them a hypocrite for denying them in circumstances z. However, not all jurisdictions recognise this argument in all aspects of their law. If you'd like a straighter answer, you'll need to ask a straighter question, because I cannot understand what you're driving at. --Dweller (talk) 12:40, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Michael, by your statements you should be "a socialist who opposes property rights, a nut-case, a crazy person, a person with no credibility" if that is your condition for disbelieving that a restaurant owner may not retroactively set such absurd policies. To assume that many people agree with your laboured strawman rhetoric does not make it so. A cursory look at your Talk page convinces me that you are capable of finding for yourself references about "Nature of ownership and consent" if you genuinely want them, without trolling this ref. desk. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:57, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * "Light Current" usually asks better questions than the one posed by the OP here. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:33, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * This is what happens when a Mathematician strolls into the Humanities. Read some Bertrand Russell essays. --188.28.47.94 (talk) 21:18, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

US Presidents and Illegal Drugs
Bill Clinton claimed he didn't inhale the marijuana smoke; Barack Obama said he tried cocaine; and it's believed by many that George W. Bush was a cocaine abuser whilst an alcoholic, though the latter is all speculation (as far as I know).

Have any other US presidents used drugs that were illegal (at the time, if that's necessary to specify)? Comet Tuttle (talk) 02:22, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Many of these drug prohibitions are relatively recent. In the cocaine article it says that coke wasn't a controlled substance until 1970! ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:37, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That's misleading. Recreational, non-prescription use and sale of cocaine was outlawed in 1914. APL (talk) 07:56, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Alcohol use was pretty common during prohibition, especially among the wealthy. I'll bet many presidents and people who would later become presidents used it.
 * (In fact there's the Legend that illegal booze importing was what catapulted the Kennedy Family from very rich to extremely rich. Who knows how true it is. ) APL (talk) 07:56, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That's what I always heard too, that Joe Kennedy was a "rum-runner". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:22, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * According to the Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. article, there was a kernel of truth to the story, but it's significantly off-target from the reality. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:26, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * It's widely rumored that Warren G. Harding kept bootleg liquor in the White House (unsourced claims ); Harding also had links to bootleggers such as New Jersey crime boss and Republican politician Nucky Johnson, who sold liquor in Atlantic City during prohibition. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:12, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The analogy to the Prohibition era is a bit off. Consuming liquor was not illegal during Prohibition... what was illegal was the purchase, sale and transportation of liquor. This contrasts with more recent drug laws where both the purchase/sale and the use is proscribed. Blueboar (talk) 13:07, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Manufacturing was also prohibited, by the Volstead Act, with certain built-in exceptions. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:22, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * So, you couldn't generally buy it, sell it, or make it. What could you do? Could you give it as a present if you happened to have some stored up?  Could you drink from your own store of liquor?  Could you serve it to dinner guests? --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  21:36, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * (On Bush's various substances, see George W. Bush substance abuse controversy.) --Mr.98 (talk) 12:53, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Probably the most doped-up President in recent memory was John F. Kennedy, who was on a slew of painkillers, amphetamines, and god-knows-what-else for many of the most stressful periods of his presidency. However they were all administered through a physician, related to his considerable back pain, though whether the dosages and so forth would pass critical scrutiny, I don't know. (I still find it very disturbing that the Cuban Missile Crisis was being hashed out by a guy on the functional equivalent of speedballs!) --Mr.98 (talk) 12:56, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Why should that worry you? The pilots that drop the bombs today are still flying on "speed" (unless the practice has changed since 2003 in Afghanistan). Rmhermen (talk) 16:32, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * A single pilot (or five) on speed poses little danger to an entire country. (Even those who have nukes — and I'm not sure there are any live nukes being purposefully flown around these days — have a lot of barriers between them using them, and nuclear weaponeers have probably the closest scrutinized medical records of any humans on earth. For example, if you work on a nuclear missile base, and your doctor prescribes you codeine, you enter into a status where you are not allowed to come within a certain number of feet of actual nuclear weapons until your doctor says you're out of them. Nuclear weaponeers get no doctor/patient confidentiality.) It's not quite comparable to a drugged out President trying to negotiate perhaps the closest call in human history. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:08, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know how far back speed use for pilots goes but they had remarkable fewer safety mechanisms on nuclear aerial bombs and even nuclear subs until quite recently. SAC had 20 bombers airborne during the Cuban Missile Crisis flying 24 hour long missions with mattresses onboard for pilots to get some sleep.. The bombs on the bombers did not get the PAL lockout system until 1967. Rmhermen (talk) 14:35, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I still trust the individual doped-up but highly-trained, screened, and monitored pilot (who faces the consequences of his actions immediately) to the informally doped-up political negotiator in Washington, who has the power to screw everything up at once. In any case, you can always deny the actions of an individual pilot, and hope to avoid full-on confrontation. You can't do that with a President. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:51, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Judgment in the Wilders case
Is the text of the judgement in the Geert Wilders criminal case available online? Apokrif (talk) 16:13, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * for the original Dutch version, for the official English translation. Tevildo (talk) 10:40, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I added it to the article (but unfortunately I don't know the correct citation format). Apokrif (talk) 13:14, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Cooking / culture question
Food is a humanity so this is the correct desk, right? Driving around yesterday, I noticed a sign for a typical "cooked food" shop where the most prominent word was "Donair" and lower down was "Jerusalem Food". This sparked a conversation and I checked a few of our articles. Donair is a popular Canadian variant of a Middle East(ish) dish. Looking at our (not-so-great) article on doner kebab, I don't see Israel (or Palestine or Galilee or whatever, don't wanna go there!) mentioned. So question 1 is, is there a connection, or is this a place that mainly sells donairs because people buy them, but also makes other food that you could presumably buy in Jerusalem? And question 2, the one that has me more curious: is the "Jerusalem" meant in a Jewish or Muslim/Christian sense? Specifically, donairs/doners use a dairy-based sauce on a meat dish. I'm not clear after reading about kosher cooking, if a rabbi had inspected this little shop, then would it be OK for an Orthodox Jewish person to buy and eat that food? But they wouldn't be allowed to cook the same thing at home? My own hazy understanding of kosher was that never the twain shall meet, so I'd appreciate some education here. Thanks! Franamax (talk) 19:31, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If you're keeping kosher, you don't mix milk with meat. Hence you don't have cheeseburgers, for example. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:27, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what dairy-based sauce you're talking about and whether it could be essential to doner kebab in any place. At least our article makes it clear that doner kebab varies a lot depending on where you eat it. I tend to avoid it in England, but I do know that it isn't usually offered with any dairy-based sauce. I sometimes eat it in France (where it is made with pieces of meat rather than with minced meat), and you get a choice of sauces, none of which are dairy (ketchup, mayo, chilli sauce, or "white sauce" that has garlic in). Belgium is similar to France. So the straightforward answer is that Jewish people who keep kosher can fill up on the meat, the bread, the salad, the chips, and a non-dairy sauce. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:36, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The Middle-Eastern version of doner, usually called shawarma, does not have a dairy sauce, so it could be made to be kosher, if all the other ingredients are chosen properly. The Turkish döner sometimes has a yogurt sauce (there are countless variations on the basic concept). A lot of "Israeli" cuisine is actually Middle Eastern cuisine, which has caused Palestinians to complain about Israelis "stealing their food". The interesting thing about the "Jerusalem Food" label is that the place could be either Israeli or Palestinian, would serve very similar food in either case, and the main difference would be the origin of the owner. --Xuxl (talk) 20:43, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * (ec)Israeli cuisine is a fusion, or maybe mishmash, of several Jewish and several middle-Eastern cooking styles, so doner kebab would be a likely food. Many Israelis don't keep kosher, so kebab with dairy would be fine.  My experience (in California) is like Judith's — kebab is not usually served with dairy, and so could be kosher if all the other rules were followed.  Note, though, that dairy and kosher kebab could not be served from the same kitchen: the dairy contaminates everything it touches.  My guess is that "Jerusalem" on the sign just suggested Israeli cuisine.  Either that or they were serving topinambours. PhGustaf (talk) 20:58, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Besides the tzatziki sauce (based on yogurt) used in gyros, Iskender kebab mentions the use of melted butter to prepare the pita which would be "un-kosher". Rmhermen (talk) 00:20, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Where were you driving around? If you see a "Jerusalem Kebab" or "Jerusalem Falafel" restaurant somewhere in the West, 'Jerusalem' likely refers to Jerusalem as a Palestinian city and that the owners would be Palestinians (perhaps having stayed in Jerusalem prior to the foundation of the state of Israel). The statistical likelyhood that Christian/Muslim Arab immigrants run fastfood restaurants is way higher than that the restaurant would be run by Israeli Jews (I've seen "Israeli" fastfood places, with Israeli flags, in NYC, but I think that would be one of very few such locations outside Israel itself). I think there are multiples issues here: one is the centrality of the claim of Jerusalem in Palestinian nationalist discourse, but also that it is a name that has largely positive references in Western public perception that has positive connotations (together with say Bethlehem and Nazareth). If you are a Palestinian entrepreneur wanting to start a fastfood restaurant in Europe or N. America, names like 'Qalqiliya', 'Gaza', 'Khan Yunis' and 'Ramallah' will not really do it. 'Jerusalem' enables the owner to assert his/her Palestinian identity without scaring away subconsciously Islamophobic customers. There are similar phenomena amongst other nationalities. Many restauranteurs of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin will avoid giving overtly Muslim names to their restaurants ('Taj Mahal', whilst being a 'Muslim' name is however not identified as such), the food is labelled 'Indian Food' (inspite that 'Indian Food' as understood in the West actually corresponds to Muslim/Mughal food and is just as Pakistani as Indian), often Hindu references are used in naming and decorations (in spite of that being 100% haram for Muslims) etc.. --Soman (talk) 02:05, 25 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Note that Jerusalem isn't just a Jewish city, it has a large Muslim population, and a fair amount of Christians, too. StuRat (talk) 02:49, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Bangladeshi american enclaves
Which part of New York City does a lot of Bangladeshi-Americans live? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.18.67 (talk) 20:40, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Jackson Heights, Queens---Lazer Stein(talk) 22:12, 24 June 2011 (UTC)