Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 May 1

= May 1 =

Wendi Deng
why she married Rupert Murdoch, i mean a person who is 40 years older that her? --HoulGhostjj (talk) 05:07, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Because she wanted to. -- Jayron  32  05:29, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * After his money, clearly. (I hope the OP gets irony.) HiLo48 (talk) 06:20, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Whether she married him for love or money (or both) is no one's business but hers and his. Still, women marrying very rich, much older men is a tradition that must be millennia old. Another recent example is Anna Nicole Smith, who married a man 62 years older than her. —Angr (talk) 08:12, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Maybe a link to Age disparity in sexual relationships is called for here. Dismas |(talk) 09:42, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Isn't there an old adage 'December sees Spring in May and May sees Christmas in December'? Dru of Id (talk) 13:32, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Taiwan politician wearing vests?
What's with Taiwan politicians always wearing vests with their names on it? When did this start? Is this done in other cultures? F (talk) 09:26, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * same reason that US politicians all wear flag pins - it's symbolic/expected. -- Ludwigs 2  18:04, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * They're political campaign vests. A jacket saying 'vote for me'. Nanonic (talk) 20:52, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * In the UK it has become popular for politicians, especially very senior ones, to visit factories or schools or even conventions without a jacket and with the sleeves rolled up. The purpose presumably is to give the impression that they are "working hard" and/or "down there with the ordinary people". If only! Caesar&#39;s Daddy (talk) 15:33, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Prince William's medal
Does anyone know, specifically, what medal Prince William when he's in dress military uniform?  Swarm   X 09:37, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It's the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal. Proteus (Talk) 09:44, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It's one up from a Blue Peter badge. Caesar&#39;s Daddy (talk) 15:28, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Oxford Group
The Oxford Group, it says, was founded by a Lutheran pastor, but is the group itself a "sub-group" of Lutheranism? If a person follows most of the group's ideas, is the person a Lutheran more or less? Geschichte (talk) 14:31, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * No, the group had ideas that were not in sync with Lutheran doctrine. Blueboar (talk) 14:54, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Encouraging diplomats to defect
Hi, I'm wondering... if I contact ambassadors, consular officers or other diplomats from repressive regimes serving here in my country (Australia) and encourage them to abandon their brutal masters and seek political asylum here in Australia, am I breaking any laws?

What will be the likely reaction of the Australian government? Need I fear any repercussions to myself?

Also, why is this (attempting to encourage defections) not done more often - either by governments of human rights groups?203.45.95.236 (talk) 16:24, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Unless it ends up as actual harassment, you're most likely to be ignored. However, encouraging people to defect is not that easy. Diplomats are typically doing fairly well in their home country. Moreover, they will most likely have been pre-screened for reliability. And they will have their own justification for serving their government - they may disagree about the "brutal and oppressive", or they may view this as unfortunate but necessary, or as the lesser of two evils compared to the alternative (which, very often, is not Swedish model democracy, but another oppressive regime). That said, I always thought that for the money the Iraq war consumes, you could probably give a few million to each insurgent, give them Skiing lessons, and resettle them to Aspen, Colorado. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:02, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Not exactly likely to discurage more people from becoming insurgents. Googlemeister (talk) 13:33, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Ambassadors defecting usually happens when their country's government is collapsing and they want to get out while they can (that's what's happened with Libyan ambassadors recently). As long as their home country is still working well, they probably aren't going to be persuaded by a few letters. --Tango (talk) 17:16, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I normally despise respondents asking OPs things like "Why do you care?" or "What does it matter?". But in this case, I'm tempted.  Surely the ambassador can get exactly the same news and information about their country that's available to you, and probably a whole lot more that's not available to you.  If they were remotely minded to defect, they know the diplomatic channels to approach, better than you do (unless you just happen to work for DFAT), and the only encouragement they're likely to pay any attention to would be trusted friends or colleagues of theirs, not random strangers.  If I were an ambassador being encouraged to defect by a total stranger I'd never even met, from the country I was being encouraged to defect to, I'd be extremely suspicious, which would tend to negate any thoughts of defection I was already having.  But that's just me.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  19:40, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Note... if you are a citizen of the nation with the repressive regime, and are encouraging one of your own diplomats to defect away from your country ... the regime might well charge you with a crime (such as treason). Blueboar (talk) 19:51, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Any guesses someone makes on the impact to yourself and the reaction of the Australian government would be pure speculation, because we don't know how things would play out. Encouraging defection, especially on the part of a government, would be a very risky move. Said government would probably, assuming they permit free speech (and if they don't... why defect?), receive quite a lot of flak from within as well as without. sonia ♫  20:38, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Particularly if we are talking about the embassy of a large country say China, I doubt the ambassador will even see the letter. I'm pretty sure that as with many people in high positions, they don't actually read all the mail addressed to them. Someone else opens it and reads it and does whatever they think is best (which may occasionally mean sending it on to the ambassador). In the case of a letter encouraging the ambassador to defect they probably aren't going to send it on to the ambassador, far more likely they are just going to junk it or perhaps send a reply defending their country (perhaps getting the ambassador to sign it probably still without bothering to show them the original letter, perhaps not ) and perhaps also send it to their security person if they think the person is a security threat (not because they think the person is going to convince the ambassador to defect but because they fear the person who sent it may harm them in some way). P.S. For those who saw the Chaser's War on Everything episode where they snuck into the APEC security cordon dressed as Osama bin Laden will know in the same episode they tried to get the Chinese consulate to pay for bullets to assassinate Hu Jintao, I don't think anything happened from this other then getting kicked out of and perhaps banned from the Chinese consulate. Nil Einne (talk) 12:51, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Consult a solicitor Fifelfoo (talk) 00:57, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

If Australia still finds it useful to have diplomatic relations with such countries, then they would want these countries to be represented by diplomats in their embassies. So, if you were to convice diplomats to defect, that would only frustrate your own government. Count Iblis (talk) 22:20, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Time travel - becoming a historical figure
I'm not a big fiction reader. Has anyone ever written a story about someone traveling back in time to become a historical person? Like if someone traveled to ancient Macedonia and switched their baby with the son of Phillip II of Macedon. This would mean their own son would grow up to become Alexander the Great. Or, a person adept in an ancient language traveled to the past to become the hero they read about in history books. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 20:37, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * This TVtropes page mentions a few examples of "person goes back in time to become significant figure"; it's not historical, which I think you were looking for, but Night Watch pulls the trick off very well. Shimgray | talk | 21:43, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * That example is fine. I was just wondering if anyone had done it before. Thanks. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 22:11, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * (EC) Several writers of Science Fiction, in which Time travel is a popular theme, have used plot devices of this type (time-traveller becoming historical figure): just off the top of my head, there's Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man; Robert Silverberg's Up the Line; and Harry Harrison's The Technicolor Time Machine. I have purposely refrained from giving any details of those works to avoid giving you or others spoilers, but you may choose to follow the links and read their individual articles, which themselves hopefully do not over-spoil the works. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.100 (talk) 22:25, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * An interesting twist on this theme is Simon Hawke's TimeWars... at one level, the novels are standard "time commandos" trope (a team of police/military types are sent into the past to prevent the bad guys from changing history)... but each novel also follows the basic plot of a classic work of fiction (Ivanhoe, The Three Musketeers, The Prisoner of Zenda, etc.). The time travelers end up becoming main characters in those fictional works.  Blueboar (talk) 23:59, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * In one of my editor rejection letters for my own novel (stating that it was too common of a plot), I was given that series along with a list of about 20 other books that involve replacing historical figures with people from the future as that was a key plot element in my novel. I figured that if you have access to all humans throughout time, it would become trivial to find someone with duplicate dna (a dude) and use that person to replace someone. It is so common, that Paul McCartney is replaced just to show how it works at a "take a vacation in a historical person's life" resort. -- k a i n a w &trade; 12:36, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * A fairly early example was in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series (an agent becoming Cyrus of ancient Persia, greatly helped along by timeline inertia or rebound -- the idea that except at certain critical points, history tends to resist being changed in any major way). AnonMoos (talk) 02:22, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * There was at least one episode of Quantum Leap where the lead character, Sam, 'leaps' into the body of a historical figure. The one that comes to mind is where he leaps into the body of Buddy Holly.  Dismas |(talk) 02:31, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * He did that a lot, I seem to recall the network thought it boosted ratings (I don't remember Buddy Holly, but he did become Elvis and Lee Harvey Oswald, at least). Adam Bishop (talk)
 * I have read quite a few books where the female protogist is hypnotised and regressed back to her past life as an historical person such as Maud de Braose and the Countess of Buchan.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:52, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * However, alleged memory of past lives is not really the same as "active" time travel into the past. AnonMoos (talk) 08:29, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There was a Star Trek Deep Space 9 episode where this happened and the captain ended up as some kind of historical revolutionist. Googlemeister (talk) 13:31, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I can only very dimly remember the specifics of The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World, and I think the time travel rather convolutes things. But if memory serves the hero is chasing a time meddler named "He", and I'm almost certain I remember a cliffhanger (perhaps from the 2000AD rendering of it) where the characters are shocked to discover that some historical figure (my 30 year old memory says Oliver Cromwell, the article suggests Napoleon) is really He. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 15:32, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * If memory serves, The Star Diaries by Stanisław Lem dealt extensively with time paradoxes in several chapters, including one chapter in which a 'time patrol' had agents going rogue and becoming many of the worst historical despots. Dru of Id (talk) 13:25, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Smokey Clegg
hello was in the paper today as well that Nick Clegg is still smoking is there a way yo find out which brand he smoke?? and if not is it a ligitimite freedom of information act to find out so? Thank You Sally james langley (talk) 20:47, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I doubt very much that the Freedom of Information Act 2000 applies to which brand of cigarettes Clegg smokes, as he is not a 'public body' (e.g. a government department, school, council etc). If he smokes, he does so in a private capacity. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:27, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It does not seem to me that it would be a valid freedom of information request - the FOI legislation is designed to allow documents held by government bodies to be released to the public, not to acquire information on the personal habits of politicians. Were the Cabinet Office to be buying the cigarettes for him, then there might be a FOI aspect, but otherwise he himself isn't FOIable! Shimgray | talk | 21:31, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It is definitely not a valid FOI request, as no public body 'holds' the relevant information (Clegg buys his own ciggies, I'm assuming, rather than having the Cabinet Secretary nip out to the corner-shop for him) This guidance from the Information Commissioner's Office has the technical details. ╟─ Treasury Tag ►  voice vote  ─╢ 22:19, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Nick Clegg smokes Silk Cuts, I believe. See This article from the telegraph. Hope this helps! 119.225.16.46 (talk) 08:01, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Painting in The Other Guys
Anyone know the title/artist of this painting, seen in the movie The Other Guys?Reflectionsinglass (talk) 22:24, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't know but it reminds me of the work of John Martin. I couldn't find a matching image but it might be worth investigating.