Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 June 28

= June 28 =

William Lafayette Strong
Did William Lafayette Strong ever have a son named Putnam Bradlee Strong?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 00:52, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, Major Putnam Bradlee Strong of the Hope diamond saga was the mayor's son.--Cam (talk) 04:54, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Interpretation of Canadian Charters of Rights and Freedoms
Is there any website where it can explains the Charter in details to understand? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.229.41 (talk) 02:10, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The article Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms explains most of them. Bielle (talk) 02:37, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Have you looked at Wikipedia's article on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and its links? (Look along the left-hand side for versions in French and other languages.) But if they don't give you what you're looking for, of course, don't hesitate to come back and ask here. —— Shakescene (talk) 02:45, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Rights in Canada
What are the rights does Women and LGBT community have? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.229.41 (talk) 02:14, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Everyone (or almost everyone) has the same rights: Under the Charter, people physically present in Canada have numerous civil and political rights. Most of the rights can be exercised by any legal person, (the Charter does not define the corporation as a "legal person"),[3] but a few of the rights belong exclusively to natural persons, or (as in sections 3 and 6) only to citizens of Canada. From Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Bielle (talk) 02:40, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * For some more specific information and some history, see Feminism in Canada and LGBT rights in Canada. Warofdreams talk 10:43, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Types of rights in Canadian Charter Rights and Freedoms
Which rights are natural rights? Which rights are legal rights? Which rights are claim rights? Which rights are liberty rights? Which rights are negative rights? Which rights are positive rights? Which rights are individual rights? Which rights are group rights? Which rights are civil rights? Which rights are political rights? Which rights are economic, social, and cultural rights? Which rights are linguistic rights? Which rights are three generation of human rights?
 * Start with:
 * Natural rights;
 * Legal rights;
 * Claim rights;
 * Liberty rights;
 * Negative rights;
 * Positive rights;
 * Individual rights;
 * Group rights;
 * Civil rights;
 * Political rights;
 * Economic, social and  political rights;
 * Linguistic rights; and
 * Three generations of human rights.
 * Bielle (talk) 03:15, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * And also Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms of course. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:01, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

You guys didn't understand my questions. my questions are meant to be answered as Section 23 are linguistic rights for example. So my questions are which section of the Charter are natural rights? which section is legal rights? which section of the Charter is claim rights? which section of the Charter is liberty rights? which section is negative rights? which section is positive rights? which section is positive rights? which section is individual rights? which section is group rights? which section is civil rights? which section is political rights? which section is economic rights? which section is social rights? which section is political rights? which section is linguistics rights? which sections are three generations of human rights? Please answer my questions properly and thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.29.32.179 (talk) 16:03, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * => Bielle and Adam Bishop already gave you a number of starting points. If you're confused about something, we're more than happy to clarify points, but don't expect us to fill out a checklist. -- 174.24.222.200 (talk) 16:13, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

War poets
Richard Aldington, Laurence Binyon, Edmund Blunden, Rupert Brooke, Wilfrid Gibson, Robert Graves, Julian Grenfell, Ivor Gurney, David Jones, Robert Nichols, Wilfred Owen, Herbert Read, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, Charles Sorley and Edward Thomas.

Which of these war poets (WW I) praised the war or maybe praised and condemned the war at once. (I'm no native speaker.) Thanks for your help. -- 178.5.9.202 (talk) 08:27, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Is this a homework assignment? It's not usual in normal English discourse to just fire a long alphabetical list of names and then ask such a question. Have you read the articles which you wikilinked? If you had read those articles, then you could have grouped at least some of the poets in a more logical and less arbitrary order to ask more specific questions; for example, from my very limited knowledge, Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon had been very close, but then fell out (quarrelled) after Graves published Good-Bye to All That. —— Shakescene (talk) 10:29, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Im looking for similarities between the nations in WW I. Marinetti, Giuseppe Prezzolini and Giovanni Papini (Italy) "praised" the war, so did Walter Flex and others (Germany). Which of the English war poets would be comparable? -- 178.0.144.56 (talk) 06:09, 29 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Of the British war poets, I can't think of any that praise the war. The only ones to show the loss of life in any positive light were Laurence Binyon, "For the Fallen" and Rupert Brooke, "The Soldier". Both poems were written in 1914 before the trench-warefare stalemate had set-in. Brooke was in action at the Siege of Antwerp but died of natural causes before he got to Gallipoli. So neither work represents the Western Front experience of the later poets. Alansplodge (talk) 08:16, 29 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Henry Newbolt is the standard contrast to the English war poets. Although he wrote Vitai Lampada a couple of decades earlier, it was used heavily during the first world war. I seem to recall he also wrote a poem about pitying the weak constitution of the conscientious objectors, rather than hating them. But even his stuff, written before the first world war, can't really be taken as praising war as such, more praising the honourable sense of duty and bravery made necessary by war. This is the basic idea that is then satirised by the war poets. 86.164.67.252 (talk) 14:08, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) can hardly be considered a War Poet (he didn't serve in World War I), but in his prose he was generally, I think, pro-war or at least pro-war-effort (he wrote a short story, "Mary Postgate", that implicitly agrees with a war-bereaved English mother denying aid to a dying German aviator.) I think his attitude might have changed somewhat after he lost a son at the front (as did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Theodore Roosevelt). Among non-British war poets writing in English, one should remember Pete Seeger's uncle, Alan Seeger, famous for "I Have a Rendezvous with Death" (at some disputed barricade) and the Canadian Dr John McCrae who ended In Flanders Fields"Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands, we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields..."There were poets who served at the front and supported the war, but I don't know how much pro-war poetry they wrote, and how much of it was notable and for how long. —— Shakescene (talk) 21:01, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Werner Sombart accused the English of being merchants (Händler), while the Germans allegeldly were heroes (Helden). In German literature of WW I we find a heroic existentialism, for example in the works of Ernst Jünger. I'm searching for English examples, that might show, that Sombart was wrong. Does somebody know any Secondary source on this matter (English war poets)? -- 178.5.9.232 (talk) 08:53, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not quite sure (knowing even less of philosophy than I do of literature) what a heroic existentialism means in this context: is it similar to fatalism or the notion that though the purpose has vanished, conditions are impossible and defeat is certain, one must continue to fight on heroically?
 * shopkeepers: Napoleon dismissed the English as a "nation of shopkeepers" (une nation de boutiquiers), and a section of George Orwell's World War II essay England Your England is subtitled "Shopkeepers at War". It must be remembered that Britain did not have conscription until 1916, and only after a major political crisis. The Empire had been garrisoned and defended by a small professional (or mercenary) army of volunteers enlisted for long periods and officered by a section of the country gentry and the non-inheriting younger sons of the nobility. During alarm about possible invasion by Napoleon III's France in the 1860's, many of those same shopkeepers and clerks (including the small manufacturer Friedrich Engels) volunteered for and trained in a citizen-originated militia movement (somewhat analogous to, but less radical than, similar German movements in the 1830's and 1840's). During the South African War (Boer Wars), volunteers came from the same commercial, clerical and industrial classes (see Kipling's poem "The Absent-Minded Beggar"), and also from other parts of the British Empire, such as Australia (see Breaker Morant) and Canada (see Kipling's poem "Our Lady of the Snows"). At the start of World War I, there was a similar enthuaiastic wave of voluntary enlistments, often on the "Mates" principle of allowing members of the same neighbourhood, workplace, school or profession (e.g. The Artists Rifles) to enlist and serve together. But, as in the United States, there had been (ever since Oliver Cromwell) a long-standing distrust of a large, standing, permanent conscript army, together with a corresponding passion for peace, a strong Royal Navy to guard it, and undisturbed farming, trade and commerce. Orwell pointed out in (I think) England Your England that, while military dictatorships are common, "there is no such thing as a naval dictatorship." One of Kipling's most famous poems, "Tommy" defends the common English soldier "Tommy Atkins" against anti-military prejudice among the general civilian population.
 * existentialists: Some of the poets, writers and artists who might come closer to an existential or nihilistic position were active in 1914-18, but not at the front, such as the Americans Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot and the Irishman James Joyce. Also see Wikipedia's articles on the Bloomsbury Group and on Vorticism with its magazine BLAST, a cultural/artistic movement that was essentially aborted by the war.
 * sources: While I wish I could answer your question more directly, some sources I would recommend at least looking at (and in some cases studying closely) are Orwell's essays, especially "England Your England", "Rudyard Kipling" and "Inside the Whale"; and Robert Graves' and Alan Hodge's The Long Week-End (e.g. the chapter on "Reading Matter"). —— Shakescene (talk) 21:10, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Downtown New York City?
On a previous question I posted here, I mentioned that I just came back on Sunday from my first trip ever to New York City. After doing some reading about the city on Wikipedia, looking at the city on a map while there, and driving around the city, I couldn't find anything on the map nor any signs that said "downtown New York City." I know that there is a downtown Manhattan just like there is a midtown Manhattan and an uptown Manhattan. I also know that there is a downtown Brooklyn. There should be an official downtown New York City somewhere because every city that I've been to, including Tampa where I live, has 1 downtown at or near the center of the city, so where is the official downtown of New York City? Willminator (talk) 16:27, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * New York has several "centers", from the financial center on Wall Street to the theater center on Broadway to the fashion center, etc. So, for an overall "downtown", I'd say that downtown Manhattan qualifies. StuRat (talk) 16:32, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Also note that the downtown area of a city frequently isn't at the geographic center, particularly when the city is constrained by a geographic or political border. In Detroit, for example, the downtown area is on the Detroit River, which divides Detroit from Windsor, Ontario.  So, downtown Detroit is right on the border, although perhaps close to the center of the Detroit-Windsor area. StuRat (talk) 16:38, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Metropolitan areas can also have multiple centers, especially when they started as two cities (or more) that later grew together, like Minneapolis-Saint Paul. StuRat (talk) 16:41, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm an Upper-Eastsider, but I think the downtown area is basically everything below 14th Street. It's not as fancy as our area or some of the nicer bits of Midtown, but it does have some interesting points. As StuRat said, some cities started as two, and in the case of New York, four (New York - Manhattan and Bronx, Kings - Brooklyn, Whatever they called Queens, and Richmond - Staten Island.) Though in NYC, most of the action is in Lower Manhattan. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 16:47, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Many cities also don't have "downtown"s at all. Charlotte, North Carolina has an Uptown, but no Downtown.  The distinction depends a lot on local terminology, and exactly how the city developed, and since there are literally hundreds of different patterns for city growth and development (many such patterns are unique to just a single city, like the New York model) defining what a "downtown" is for every city is impossible.  The term that urban developers use is "central business district", but there is nothing confining a city to just one CBD, or even having an easy to define a CBD.  New York City is so huge and sprawling, it has several districts which could be called CBDs.  What is the CBD of, say, Paris?  Is it La Défense, which is the modern business district (i.e. where all the big buildings are) even though that is essentially on the outskirts of town?  Is it the Île de la Cité, which is the historic heart of Paris?  What is the "downtown" of Paris?  What about Washington, DC?  The heart of the city lies on the National Mall, but the largest business district in the metro area is centered on Arlington County, Virginia which isn't even in the District of Columbia.  What makes a "downtown" a "downtown" is really hard to determine, unless you just go on the name itself, and take it at that. -- Jayron  32  19:21, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * New York is unique among American cities in that the area known as Downtown New York is not the city's main commercial core. In New York, the area known as Midtown would be a bit more important than the area known as Downtown.  Historically, before about the mid-20th century, Downtown New York (meaning, roughly, Manhattan below about 14th Street) was the commercial core. The word downtown (which originated in New York) referred to the position of the southern tip of Manhattan, downstream from the rest of the island along the Hudson River.  In New York, today, you can still use the word downtown as a directional adverb.  For example, if you travel from Upper Manhattan to Midtown, you can say that you are going downtown, even if you are not going to the part of Manhattan known as Downtown. The use of the term downtown to refer to the central business district originated in New York during the 19th century and was copied in other American cities.  However, many businesses migrated during the 20th century to Midtown Manhattan, which had previously been an elite residential district.  (There has long been a pattern in the United States of businesses moving closer to the residences of senior management.) The main exception was the financial sector, which has remained mainly in Downtown Manhattan to this day. Marco polo (talk) 19:26, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * One other quick comment: If you were driving around New York, you wouldn't see signs for "Downtown" because the area is large enough that no highway exit would offer good access to all of it.  Also, most highways don't go to Downtown New York, they go around it.  However, if you took the subways, you'd see that the signs in most subway stations in Manhattan direct you to either the "downtown" or the "uptown" platforms.  This is a case of the directional use of these words.  Marco polo (talk) 19:34, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * So, NYC apparently has more than 1 "downtown" then. Ok, One more question. I know that there are "downtowns" for Brooklyn and Manhattan. I was told on a previous question that the Bronx, Staten Island, and Queens were towns before New York City's consolidation. Why don't they have "downtowns" reflecting on what they used to be before consolidation? What happened to their downtowns? Willminator (talk) 15:26, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Let's take these one by one. If you look at the History of the Bronx, you will see that the Bronx was not one single town before its annexation to New York, which occurred in two stages.  Instead, three former towns were annexed in 1873 and all or part of three more towns were annexed in 1895.  The center of each of these towns (except for towns whose centers were not annexed) is now a local commercial district in the Bronx.  The Bronx was never a unified city, so it doesn't have a single downtown, or really any area known as "downtown Bronx".  Likewise, Queens and Staten Island were a collection of independent towns or (in the case of Rockaway Peninsula) parts of towns centered outside of the New York City limits after annexation.  Three of the Queens towns (Long Island City, Flushing, and Jamaica) now have areas known as "downtown".   Staten Island was just a collection of rural districts and villages when it was annexed, none of which were big enough to have developed a downtown. It remains polycentric, without any area known as "downtown".  Marco polo (talk) 16:05, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Unlike most cities where downtown is a place and the term refers to the vital center, in Manhattan it is simply a direction the avenues and subways travel in. North is uptown, south is downtown, and the Upper East Side is downtown from Spanish Harlem. 02:16, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

White House thrill seekers
Has anyone not authorized ever gone wandering around the residence level of the White House like what happened at Buckingham Palace years ago? Googlemeister (talk) 18:42, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * We have an article on everything. White House intruders documents a few dozen of them, though not all of them had access to the residential areas of the White House, some may have.  Sadly, the article could use some fleshing out and some more refs.  -- Jayron  32  19:26, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but this thread is the most racist thing I've read in a very, very long time. Shame on you.  --188.29.22.13 (talk) 03:13, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Would you care to explain what led you to that conclusion? -- Jayron  32  03:16, 29 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Upon rereading the thread, it might not be the most racist thing I've read in a very, very long time. I had initially thought the thread referred to the commander-in-chief et ux, if you get my drift.  --188.29.22.13 (talk) 03:18, 29 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Now, that is humor. I had thought you were using "THAT'S RACIST" in the jocular fashion which the upper-crust white folks at NPR informed me yesterday is all the rage among the children. Of course, now that NPR has done a story on the meme, it's dead to the kids.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 03:31, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I consider the Obama family to have been authorized by the 2008 election. Googlemeister (talk) 13:36, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Even if you didn't, that would be no more anti-black racism than it would have been anti-white racism for Al Gore to say that an unauthorized intruder arrived about ten years ago. Nyttend (talk) 11:55, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It surely depends on the reason why the person believes whoever is the president. If someone believes Bush was not the legitimate president as they didn't actually win of the 2000 election because they 'stole Florida' there's most likely no racism in that, whether true or not. If someone believes Obama is not the legitimate president because he was born in Kenya that's not inherently racist although such claims often seem to have a bit of a racist bent. If someone believes Obama is not the legitimate president because only humans can be the president that's very likely a racist claim. Nil Einne (talk) 13:06, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see how even that can be racist, Nil. Nowhere does it say that an alien can't be president.  As long as an alien meets the constitutional requirements of citizenship and residency etc, they're in like Flynn.  And if such a person were indistinguishable from a human, as Obama is, then questions of racism do not arise.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  21:29, 30 June 2011 (UTC)