Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 April 22

= April 22 =

How is Commanders and leaders in template:Infobox military conflict defined?
For example, should Adolf Hitler be included in the "Commanders and leaders" in Battle of Berlin?--Inspector (talk) 03:32, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Instructions at the page you just linked state " the commanders of the military forces involved. For battles, this should include military commanders (and other officers as necessary)." If Hitler was in active command of troops at that battle, then yes.  If not, then no.  -- Jayron  32  04:19, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: Hitler was not the commander in the Battle of Berlin. OsmanRF34 (talk) 13:06, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, Hitler had assumed overall command of the German army on 19 December 1941. During the initial stages of the battle, it seems that Hitler was solely responsible for the disposition of IX Army and IV Panzer Army, and for constantly sacking and replacing commanders whom he thought were being disloyal or defeatist. So it's a moot point. Alansplodge (talk) 19:47, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Presidential Cycling
What is the connection between presidents and cycling in the Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey?Curb Chain (talk) 05:41, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The guidebook for the tour says that it is organized on behalf of the President of Turkey (currently Abdullah Gül). Looie496 (talk) 06:20, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I have done a tiny bit of googling and used Google translate for the corresponding Turkish article, but without finding something that seems to be the rationale for the term 'presidential'. My 'stab in the dark' answer, would be that this could be a republic's parallel ot the use of 'royal' in certain monarchies, i.e. it doesn't necessarily mean that there is a very strong connection between the presidents and cycling, but that the office of the presidency is invoked to give credence and prestige to the event. V85 (talk) 17:30, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * In other words, it has presidential patronage. Alansplodge (talk) 17:52, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Finding a US Congress passed law from 1872
Hi all, been bothered by trying to track down this law. I have checked wikipedia here and followed some of their links to here and others but no luck. Thanks for the help in advance.  Market St.⧏  ⧐ Diamond Way  09:07, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm really no expert on US federal regulation, but a quick google on 'interstate commerce 1872' has given me Commerce of the Schuylkill River. (To accompany bill H. R. 1769.) Resolution of the Select and Common Council of the City of Philadelphia, relative to the commerce of the Schuylkill River and a book, The Struggle for the Adoption of the Interstate Commerce Commission, 1872-1887. Do either of these give you a lead? - Cucumber Mike (talk) 09:29, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You won't find this law, at least not in the form described. The article's source seems to be Tarbell's History of the Standard Oil Company, an excerpt from which, linked in our article, says that Rep. James H. Hopkins presented "the first Interstate Commerce Bill which promised to be effective."  The same excerpt says that the railroads succeeded in pigeon-holing the bill for the time.  It isn't clear from the excerpt exactly when this bill was presented, but it appears to be after (not in) 1872 and before 1876.  As our article on James Herron Hopkins indicates, Hopkins was a U.S. Representative in 1875 - 1877 and 1883 - 1885.  John M Baker (talk) 15:36, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks CucumberMike but it would be a federal (i.e. nationwide law) though some of those links may hold some promise, yes John M Baker I am fearing that someone took some liberties with the actual reality of 1872-76 in that source, not to say its false just not quite the "whole truth". Any other ideas or resources would be most appreciated.  Market St.⧏  ⧐ Diamond Way  21:25, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Go to the University of Pittsburgh law library (Forbes Avenue on the western edge of campus, near UPMC Oakland) and ask how to use the Congressional Record; Pitt's library catalogue says that some or all of their CR collection is available there, and some or all is also available at the main library. Find the indices for the 44th and 48th Congresses; if they're anything like the indices published a century later, the index's section for Hopkins will list the places where he appears and the bills that he introduces.  If that doesn't work, try looking up Standard Oil and the railroads, since bills are also indexed by their subjects.  A major library system like Pitt will likely have additional resources, so if you can't find anything with the methods I've suggested, the librarians will probably be able to get you lots more information.  Nyttend (talk) 01:15, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You don't want the CR... you'll want the Public Laws and/or the Statutes at Large (all law libraries will have these on campus), although this may be before the SaL. As far as I know those (that far back) aren't even on Lexis or Westlaw, so you'll have to hit the books for them. Finding a law librarian (not some undergrad paid to work the front desk) and asking them would be your best first start. Shadowjams (talk) 10:59, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh and by the way... that statement's slightly overbroad in the article you linked. I think it's referring to the Interstate Commerce Commission (or some early predecessor; you can bet that it had to do with railroads) which is widely known as the first law of that sort, although any eager 2L could easily find some case to usurp a claim that bold. But I have a hunch the law you're looking for is the ICC. Shadowjams (talk) 11:05, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * As long as it was really Hopkins that sponsored the bill in question, the CR will give the details needed to find the law — it's going to list the details for the law, which was passed before the Public Law system was started, although the Statutes at Large had existed since 1845. Nyttend (talk) 11:55, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * If you think finding things in the CR is easy then I need to go back in time and hire you as a research assistant. But If that works, great. I think to find the bill he's going to need to get at least a critical date. I found many a weird statements by focusing on the date. Shadowjams (talk) 11:59, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Is it different for the earliest years of the CR, in the 1870s? I used the CR every day while working on the 1972 portion of this project; my supervisor arranged for us to have the 1972 indices on indefinite loan from the GovDocs section of our library because we were using them daily to look up bills, both those that were enacted and those that weren't.  Nyttend (talk) 12:58, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * There doesn't appear to be any interstate commerce bill introduced or discussed in the 42nd Congress. There was debate about an interstate commerce bill (HR 1385) in the 43rd Congress       I see no indication whether that bill passed or that Hopkins had any involvement. Unfortunately, the online LOC records don't go past the 43rd Congress. older ≠ wiser 12:48, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, the William S. Hein & Co. is the only company crazy enough to scan in and OCR the entire Statutes at Large (and a lot of other old legal materials) all the way to the beginning in 1789. However, only the largest universities can afford a subscription to HeinOnline, though, and only the wealthiest ones can subscribe to all parts of their database. --Coolcaesar (talk) 07:20, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Elizabeth II
In the unlikely event that she woke up one morning and decided she'd had enough of playing by the rules and went on a murderous rampage, how/would she be prosecuted? She couldn't be tried by the Crown Prosecution Service, she is the crown, she couldn't be tried abroad, she has diplomatic immunity and trying to force her to abdicate could be risky as she is commander in chief of the armed forces of 16 countries who all pledge allegiance to her. Do the countries governments where she is monarch just hope and pray that no psychotic person accedes the throne, or are there measures in place to ensure prosecution? --Andrew 16:01, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * She would probably be deposed as monarch, and then tried like anyone else. Blueboar (talk) 16:07, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * There have been "psychotic" monarchs before: George III of the United Kingdom, Maria I of Portugal, Christian VII of Denmark, Joanna of Castile, Charles VI of France (the latter two conveniently named "Joanna the Mad" and "Charles the Mad" respectively), etc. Even in absolute monarchies, such as the 18th-century Denmark, there were always means to deal with such situations. Surtsicna (talk) 16:26, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * But, as far as I understand, none of them has murdered one of their subjects? --Andrew 16:51, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * There have been English monarchs implicated in murder, however. See Henry II of England and Thomas Becket, as well as Richard II of England and The Princes in the Tower.  While neither of those directly did the killing, it is widely supposed that the killings happened as a result of their direct orders, which would make them criminally culpable in most modern legal systems.  -- Jayron  32  17:02, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Several English Monarchs were deposed or killed in battle during internal wars. These include Edward II of England, Richard II of England, Henry VI of England (multiple times), Edward IV of England (multiple times), Edward V of England, Richard III of England, Charles I of England and James II of England.  You could also include in there situations like Henry III of England, who was deposed in all but name by Simon de Montfort, as well as monarchs left off the "official list" but which de jure ruled England or parts thereof, including the Empress Matilda and Lady Jane Grey.  So, there has been a long-standing precedent in English history for deposing a monarch.  -- Jayron  32  16:59, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Even if she were deposed though, she'd still have been sovereign when she committed the crime, and therefore unable to be prosecuted? --Andrew 18:23, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Couldn't she be tried in the House of Lords? μηδείς (talk) 18:27, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I believe that the legislation allowing trials in the House of Lords was replaced by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 which established the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in its place. No sense of tradition, these socialists!
 * King Charles I was famously tried before a court which had been specially created by Parliament, however the constitutional legitimacy of the proceedings has never been fully resolved. The most likely answer to the question is that she would be confined under the terms of the Mental Health Act 2007 and Parliament would appoint Charles, Prince of Wales the Prince Regent, by means of the Regency Act 1953. This is more or less what happened to King George III, who was replaced by his wayward son when the old king started behaving rather oddly. By the way, given the amount of security surrounding Her Brittanic Majesty (whom God Save), the chances of her killing more than one person before somebody noticed seem rather remote. Alansplodge (talk) 19:13, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Perhaps security around the British queen is stronger than that which used to surround the king of Nepal, but in any case, royal killing sprees do happen; e.g.: Nepalese royal massacre. — Kpalion(talk) 20:55, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * "How unlike the life of our own dear Queen". Alansplodge (talk) 22:23, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * If it happened within Buckingham Palace or Windsor or Balmoral Castles, the public might never get to hear about it. I've read stories that when the Shah of Iran was on a state visit to the UK, he had occasion to sentence to death one of his staff, who was executed and quietly buried in the gardens of Buck Palace.  I cannot testify as to the accuracy of this story, but if I've read about it, I'm sure the Queen has too.  For every story we've heard that has no foundation in truth, there are others that are true that we've never heard anything about.  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  21:25, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Definitely a myth - the corgis would have dug the poor fellow up by now. Alansplodge (talk) 22:23, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I take it all back - but it wasn't the late Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, but a totally unrelated predecessor, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, who visited the Palace in 1873. Apparently, "...a servant was charged with guarding his bedroom throughout the night, but was later discovered to be asleep on duty. His master ordered him to be beaten, and the bodyguards took the order so literally that he died from his injuries. His body is said to have been buried in a far corner of the palace gardens, near Hyde Park Corner, where, it is claimed, no flowers have ever blossomed since". Alansplodge (talk) 22:42, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * There you go then. It wasn't the Shah, but a Shah. Shahanshah alike.  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  00:58, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * That's ridiculous, everyone knows there's no better fertilizer than a dead body. μηδείς (talk) 01:52, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Depends what it was ensarcophagated* in. --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  02:00, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * * I assert primacy in the use of this word. It gets zero google hits.  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  06:08, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, I was going to make a joke about Americans coming up with "sarcophagized", but then I did a Google search! Alansplodge (talk) 10:24, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think we'd be more likely to say "coffinated". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:03, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * No thanks. I prefer mine decoff. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:39, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Would you like a mug of exhumed coffee with that? --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  08:57, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Only if it's fresh ground. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:37, 24 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I emailed the Crown Prosecution Service today asking them to clarify what, if any, procedures are in place if an incident involving the Crown vs the Crown were to occur. When I get a response from them, for those of you who are as curious as I am, I'll post their reply on here --Andrew 00:18, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

The Most Beautiful Things List - Authors
Hello. I'm trying to compile a list of things claimed to be the most beautiful by authors and artists, thinkers. The only one I can recall offhand is Poe saying something to the effect of the most beautiful thing is a dead girl. Any ideas or quotes would be very helpful! Thanks! 129.3.151.74 (talk) 16:16, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * You could Search Wikiquote for "beautiful"? Some other online quote collections: Bartleby, Brainy Quote (includes modern celebrities) and Good Reads. 184.147.125.78 (talk) 17:09, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.  "The Philosophy of Composition by Edgar Allan Poe".. I don't think it means quite the same thing as "the most beautiful things are dead girls".. Vespine (talk) 04:46, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * During Prohibition, alcohol fans took to the idea that cellar-door was the most beautiful word in the English language. Though not, as you might have gathered, for purely aesthetic reasons. Evanh2008 (talk&#124;contribs) 04:58, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * John Ruskin: "Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance" (in The Stones of Venice, Vol. 1, Chapter 2, Section 17, or so the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations asserts). --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  05:12, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

19 regional councillors in France MRC and candidates
Who are the 19 regional councillors in France from MRC (Citizen and Republican Movement party)? and also who were the candidates for the 2012 legislative elections? Thanks.--Donmust90 (talk) 16:42, 22 April 2013 (UTC)Donmust90
 * English Wikipedia has an article titled French legislative election, 2012. On the left of that is an interlanguage link to the French Wikipedia article on the same election, which has even more information than the English article.  About 2/3rds of the way down the French article is a map in the section titled "Résultats par département et par circonscription"  On that map you can select every single French Department which will take you to a page that lists every candidate for every riding within that department.  Do so for every single department, and you'll have the candidates for every party for every one of the 577 seats in the National Assembly.  -- Jayron  32  16:49, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay I got two regional councilors and they are Jean-Marie Alexandre from Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Etienne Butzbach from Franche-Comte. I cannot find the other 17 who are they?--Donmust90 (talk) 17:33, 23 April 2013 (UTC)Donmust90


 * Regional concillors from MRC. Auvergne: 1 (Jean-Marc Miguet), Franche-Comté: 2 (Etienne Butzbach, Alain Letailleur), Ile-de-France: 7 (Pierre Dubreuil, Eric Chevaillier, Jean-Marc Nicolle, Béatrice Desmartin, Jean-Luc Laurent, Daniel Guérin, Guillaume Vuilletet), Languedoc-Roussillon: 1 (Béatrice Négrier), Midi-Pyrénées: 1 (Marie-Pierre Gleizes), Nord-Pas-de-Calais: 3 (Françoise Dal, Claude Nicolet, Jean-Marie Alexandre), Picardie: 2 (Sandrine Goffinon, Michel Vignal), Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur: 1 (Ladislas Polski), Réunion: 1 (Christine Soupramanien). Found here. — AldoSyrt (talk) 17:41, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Euro
Why is Russia listed as European, but Turkey listed as Asian? It can't be sources since there are sources:, Geographically Turkey appears closer to Europe. Pass a Method  talk  20:28, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Russia is European, and Turkey not. Turks seem to feel ashamed of their Middle Eastern culture, but that's where they can be better classified. OsmanRF34 (talk) 20:38, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * (ec) Where is Russia listed as 'European'? Although most of Russia is in Asia, the most populous part is in Europe, including Moscow, the capital. Turkey, on the other hand, has only a tiny bit of land inside Europe, and half a city. Both Russia and Turkey are partly European and partly Asian, according to the conventional border between Europe/Asia, but I don't think there is any universal definition of what constitutes Europe/Asia. - Lindert (talk) 20:39, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * There is a very definitive geographic/geological definition of the "European Continent" which if I remember correctly does include that tiny slice of Turkey and Instanbul and Russia to the Ural Mountains. I think some of what your trying to classify is not pure geography but culture and ethnicity.  There are "Middle Easterners"/"Asians" who since 1453 and the conquest of the Byzantine Empire have settled in the Balkans and the part of Turkey in the geographic Europe, and Russians of European extraction (though many interbred with Mongols and some Persians/Arabs because of conflicts dating back hundreds of years) went east into Siberia.  "European" doesn't exactly mean "White" and "Asian" doesn't exactly mean Arab or of Mongol/Persian or Turkish extraction.  European and Asian are at their core geographic definitions that have cultures, foods, music and ethnicities attached to them in some contexts but their are exceptions.  Market St.⧏  ⧐ Diamond Way   22:07, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * "Russians of European extraction interbred with Mongols and some Persians/Arabs because of conflicts dating back hundreds of years" - what a bunch of nonsense! --Ghirla-трёп- 11:29, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * What a bunch of truth! The Russian people are an amalgam of different historical people, being as they were, at a major crossroads of Eurasia.  Everyone from the Vikings (see Varangians) to the Slavs to Central Asian peoples (such as the Scythians and Sarmatians), to Uralic peoples, to Mongols, Khazars, and Tartars at one time occupied and ruled and lived on the land that became the core of Russia (i.e. the Russia of the Kievan Rus' through the establishment of the Tsardom of Russia).  Slavic culture came to dominate what became the Russian people, but there have been clear contributions from many different peoples over the centuries.  Every modern ethnic group is an amalgam of many different earlier ethnic groups that coalesced over time.  There has not been an isolated, distinct, and unique "Russian" culture since time immemorial, rather Russian culture evolved (as every single culture does and has) through changes and contacts and intermixing between various other cultures.  -- Jayron  32  21:36, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Apart from all those cultural things (although in general Russian culture is mostly common European in character with Slavic substratum and Byzantine/Greek and West European adstrata, and only with very shallow Turkic, Uralic and so on elements), there are many genetic and anthropological researches which clearly show that the great bulk (at least 80%) of the ethnic Russian population neither "interbred" with "Mongols" (I suppose Mongoloids were meant here), nor with "Arabs/Persians".--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 07:30, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Per the Kurgan hypothesis, the Slavs occupied the PIE urheimat longer than any other Indo-European group. Actually, the Russians still occupy the Great Steppe that gave birth to the Indo-European stock. Unlike the Germanic, Italic, Greek peoples that were prone to large-scale westward migrations. There never was a period when the Russians or any other Slavic nation "interbred" with either Persians, Arabs, or Mongols. --Ghirla-трёп- 08:17, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The Russians may not have moved, but other people did move all over the Russian homeland. Maybe not Persians or Arabs, but the entirety of Russia spent centuries as a Mongol vassal.  -- Jayron  32  00:12, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Pass a Method -- Turkey has a very small part of its land area in Europe, and in fact its European borders were pretty much defined so as to contain the minimum feasible area in Europe consistent with including the cities of Adrianople and Constantinople. Russia has more land area in Asia than in Europe (according to conventional definitions), but the bulk of its population, as well as the historic Russian cultural heartland, are in Europe... AnonMoos (talk) 22:23, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Given that Europe and Asia, and indeed Africa, form one huge contiguous land mass, it's always going to be arbitrary where any artificial divisions are drawn. And the Europe/Asia and Asia/Africa divisions are just that, arbitrary.  It seems to make sense to separate Asia from Africa at the thinnest point, the northern end of the Red Sea (which is why they dug the Suez Canal there and not somewhere else).  That's akin to deciding that North and South America are naturally separated by the Isthmus of Panama (which is why they dug the Panama Canal there and not somewhere else).  But splitting Asia from Europe is a far more vexed question.  There is no geographical split except for entirely arbitrary ones like the Ural Mountains.  There is, however, a profound cultural and ethnic split, which explains why people from Norway see themselves as very different from people from Thailand.  But it's possible to walk from Norway to Thailand without ever leaving the continental land mass you started out on.  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  22:36, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * See also Anatolia. Vespine (talk) 04:36, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Samizdat in the Russian gulags
Encyclopaedia of Literature and Politics: Censorship, Revolution, and Writing Vol. 1 A-G. Greenwood p.21 ISBN 0-313-32939-7 states that some new works of poetry were disseminated by samizdat in Russian gulags - in secret, person to person, often written out after memorising or passed on small scraps of paper. An editor has stated that it was not possible for any external works to have reached or be passed within the gulags. Do you know of any sources/authorities that discuss this? Thanks Span (talk) 23:19, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Some referenced information at Art and culture in the Gulag labor camps. Memorised poetry would have been impossible to confiscate. Alansplodge (talk) 23:56, 22 April 2013 (UTC)