Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 September 4

= September 4 =

home prices in the us
are houses right on the shoreline generally more expensive than inland homes in the united states? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.152.105.6 (talk) 00:08, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Valuable, yes. μηδείς (talk) 02:41, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Having a career as a real estate agent for many years, I can say that houses right on the shoreline in the United states (especially California) are considerably more expensive than inland homes. --LordGorval (talk) 11:46, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * According to this website  there are at least ten U.S. cities where the average listing price for a home in the first six months of this year exceeded $1.2 million. The majority of these are located on or near the California Coast.  --LordGorval (talk) 11:52, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * When you compare similar houses, the shoreline is considerably more expensive. When you compare average shoreline houses versus average inland houses, the difference becomes bigger. Shoreline lots are expensive and tend to get expensive homes. People who can afford an expensive lot usually don't want a cheap house on it. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:41, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Lietchenstein
How did Lietchenstein survive German mediatization? It was smaller than many of the secular states which were mediatized. Was it because of their connection with Austria?--The Emperor&#39;s New Spy (talk) 00:47, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Liechtenstein was elevated to a Reichsfürstentum by the Holy Roman Emperor in 1719, and was thus a fief of the Holy Roman Empire. When the empire dissolved in 1806, it no longer had any imperial overlord. Liechtenstein stayed on friendly terms with the Habsburgs both when they were Holy Roman Emperors, and when they ruled as emperors of Austria, and Liechtenstein is only accessible from Austria and Switzerland. At the end of the day, it is probably the isolatedness that saved its independence. Valentinian T / C 01:18, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * The Germans probably had a hard time finding Lietchenstein on the map. As for Liechtenstein, it didn't border Germany proper, just Austria and Switzerland. μηδείς (talk) 02:45, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Liechtenstein was proclaimed a member of the Confederation of the Rhine and hence a sovereign and independent state on 12 July 1806 by Napoleon. After the battle of Austerlitz Napoleon was at the culmination of his power and did not ask Johann I Joseph, Prince of Liechtenstein or the Emperor in Vienna for advice on this matter. Hence it was Napoleon's strategy that made Liechtenstein survive the German mediatization. Interestingly the Wikipedia article on the Confederation of the Rhine has a figure of 4,000 soldiers to be contributed by Liechtenstein to the Confederation of the Rhine in case of war. This number is so extremely unlikely that I perused the original document: Article 38 of the constitution of the Confederation of 12 July 1806 states "... and all other princes shall contribute in case of war together 4000 men" (source text, source text). Hence all the figures for the smaller territories (each listed with 4000 men) are nonsense. Liechtenstein contributed say, about 40 men, not 4000 men. It contributed 55 men to the army of the German Confederation in 1818 (source text). --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 21:52, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I changed Liechtenstein's contingent from 4,000 to 40 men: contribution, (source text). --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 17:29, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Discrimination against people on the basis of how they smell
Is there a term for it or even research? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 111.65.29.23 (talk) 03:34, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * in general most protected classes in discrimination are becuase it's not something a person really has that much control over: that would seem to me to mean that you can usually discriminate based on smell. (This is not legal advice).  For example, if someone smells due to their refusing to shower, you can probably discriminate.  However, I can imagine a situation where their "natural" smell, could just be an excuse or a proxy for really discriminating on a different basis; e.g. 'smelling like a woman'.  (i.e. based on whatever moisterizer, shampoo, or whatever else a person uses - women's products can probably be differentiated by smell from men's products, for example.)  I would imagine it's definitely illegal for an employer to state "I'm firing you because I don't like the way you smell" when in fact this is a basis for discriminating on an actual protected basis like being a woman.  Otherwise anyone could decide they don't like the smell of women's products and successfully fire all their female staff on this basis, without actually firing anyone 'for being a woman'.  178.48.114.143 (talk) 04:11, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * The question is not coherent. Does the OP mean discrimination against individuals based on their actual individual body odor?  Does he mean discrimination against groups of people on their collective ability to distinguish odors?  If this is a serious question, it needs to be stated clearly. μηδείς (talk) 22:03, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * One relatively recent example of your first interpretation which also made into a number of news media was the "'Smelly' Family Kicked Out Of Paris' Musée D'Orsay". ---Sluzzelin talk  22:08, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * There is certainly research on how we react to body odours of various kinds, positive and negative ones. See Pheromone. Many animals certainly "disciminate" using smell. However "odorism" and "odourism" get no google hits. The story linked by Sluzzelian does come up when you type in "smellism" Paul B (talk) 17:51, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

financial projections
If for whatever reason we historically subtracted from each U.S. state budget the same proportion of that state's GDP, that the CIA and NSA have as a proportion of the national budget today, and we replayed history with this subtraction in place (no other chnage), from the founding of the United States until today, would America still have been able to grow 1) to its continental size, 2) a global superpower?

What I mean is that imagine that all the 13 colonies and then the states, each had to have the financial burden (no other change) of that extra cost.

That is the text of my question, for context I am thinking about all the stupid spying, intelligence, counterintelligence, coups d'etat (assassinating each other's congressmen and replacing them etc, protecting against same) etc etc etc that America saved by not having its 50 states have to have a budget toward each other the way it does today versus foreign powers.

This seems to me (along with border stuff) a HUGE savings!!! But how big...just a few percentage faster growth or America, or could America have risen as a power under that baggage?

Note: I am ONLY interested in the financial part. i.e. I'm not asking about actually creating those interstate departments; rather, what happens if that money disappeared from states' budgets

That's why I narrowly titled my post about financial projections. 178.48.114.143 (talk) 04:08, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * China, Brazil, Canada and other countries with multiple sub-national governments (states or provinces) don’t spend vast sums on one province spying on another or seeking to overthrow a rival governor. Hence, the basic premise needs to be rethought. On your implication that the activities of the US intelligence agencies are ‘stupid,’ I suspect that it is extremely unlikely that successful intelligence operations would be selected by those who revel such activities for the purpose of making ALL such operations appear counterproductive.DOR (HK) (talk) 05:53, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Right, neither China nor the US states spend money spying on provinces/states within themselves. I am asking about if they did... Ho wmuch would this have slowed their development as nations?  178.48.114.143 (talk) 06:45, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * So you're asking... if, somehow, the individual states of the Union were paranoid enough toward each other that they would spy on each other, but not enough to levy funds to install border controls, interstate tarriffs, substantially larger state militias, and all the other baggage and costs they saved by subsuming those functions to the federal government as prescribed in the Constitution? So, pretend that the states have an interest in clandestine surveillance or even occasional wet operations here and there amongst each other, but that they nevertheless still have open commerce and migration and never need to fear war with each other?  It's pretty hard to imagine a set of circumstances which would give rise to such a situation; the fears that would lead to spending money on intelligence would first lead to spending money on border protection and military capabilities.  Be that as it may, we don't actually know what the true budgets of these departments are: a lot of it is hidden in extra incidental costs for other appropriations, black budgets, and the like (to say nothing of their extracurricular activities...).   ☯.Zen  Swashbuckler  .☠  14:49, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Not really - I'd like you to imagine the things you describe and come up with a number - then simply subtract that number from the states' coffers, without any actual change. (i.e. no actual paranoia, spying, etc.)  Let me make an analogy.  Obviously if every year one penny disappeared from each state's coffers, that would not have had a material affect on History.  Now instead of one penny, I'm asking you to imagine the amount of funds disappearing that is the same percentage of each state's budget at that time, as the NSA and CIA are a percentage of the national GDP today.  In other words, the only thing that interests me is the financial consequences of removing that amount of money.  No ACTUAL policy consequences interest me.  It would be as if I considered the NSA and CIA doing nothing but draining money and doing zero with it.  If we multiply that for 50 (and one for each state historically) and replay history, would that 'drain' (without any benefit) have affected the state's capacities materially?  (Due to their budgets being that much smaller with that money disappearing.) 178.48.114.143 (talk) 22:37, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Have you postulated a reason why the individual states would feel the need to conduct (counter-) intelligence operations against each other? States, national or otherwise, tend to avoid spending money on nonexistent threats.DOR (HK) (talk) 07:49, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

French revolution death
I want to know the approximate death numbers during the French revolution, not just those who were executed (not a guess but a number from a good source). All the deaths that were not natural must be included.184.97.201.174 (talk) 06:17, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * According to Charles Issawi, The Costs of the French Revolution, 58 American Scholar 371 (Summer 1989), the number of victims was well over 100,000, perhaps close to twice that number. Issawi suggests that to this should be added the casualties of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, which were probably over one million Frenchmen, with the combined casualties of France's enemies probably of a comparable order of magnitude.  René Sédillot, Le Coût de la Révolution Française (Paris 1987), which I have not seen personally, apparently put the human losses at about two million.  John M Baker (talk) 15:00, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

red baiting/lavender baiting
You have listings on red baiting and lavender baiting, but you don't actually say what the baiting consisted of - how it was done. Has anyone more information on this topic? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.25.4.14 (talk) 12:51, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * The red baiting article describes it perfectly well. It's nothing more than the hyperbolic partisan trash-talking; whenever you hear some talking head on TV who claims there's no difference between Obama and Stalin, that's red baiting. 87.115.114.201 (talk) 15:16, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Or equating Bush to Hitler, which could be called blue-baiting, if there is such a term. But what's lavender-baiting?
 * Oh, I see - lavender scare. And having found that article just now, there's a bit of editorializing there: "Because the psychiatric community regarded homosexuality as a mental illness..." No, it's because there was a social and legal stigma that could lead to blackmail. What the psych community may have thought was only a part of that. And there's still a social stigma, despite the progress made in the last 40 years or so. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:27, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

German or American insignia
I have a picture from 1995 showing Lee H. Hamilton meeting with Volker Rühe in his capacity as minister of defence. In the background stands a man wearing what appears to be a military dress uniform (he has stripes at the ends of his sleeves), but other than these stripes and his buttons, the only distinctive element is an insignium, and that's what I'm trying to identify. There's an anchor with "arms" (or whatever you call the broad parts at the bottom) that are placed at a rather shallow angle: if the point of the anchor were placed in the middle of the clock, the arms would point between 9 and 10 o'clock and 2 and 3 o'clock respectively. The anchor is inscribed in a circle, and three short horizontal lines come out from the bottom of the circle; it's basically the following ASCII drawing, with an anchor included:

X X  X            X      |      X           X        |        X         X         |         X         X         |         X         X         |         X =========Xq       |       qX========= ===========X     |      X=========== ===============X X  X===============

The pipe characters are the vertical part of the anchor, while the arms go from the bottom of the vertical part to the spots where the "q" characters are located; they're only there for the illustration, since I can't draw the arms with ASCII.

All this being said, can anyone identify the insignium in question? As I noted above, it's a meeting of German and American leaders, so the guy could be from either country. He wears the insignium on his right breast. His sleeve stripes are a group of five stripes adjacent to each other, with two larger stripes above and separate from each other; it's basically like what you'd get if you mixed the two top stripes from File:US Navy O9 insignia.svg with the stripes of File:19 - kpt zs.GIF. I couldn't find anything relevant when looking through sources on American insignia (either military or otherwise), and everything on German insignia from Google talks about World War II, as if 1945 were the last time that Germany had any military or diplomatic ranks whatsoever. 2001:18E8:2:1020:E930:DADC:A843:594D (talk) 14:39, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Did it look anything like the Seefahrerabzeichen pictured in the article on German Wikipedia (see link)? --Sluzzelin talk  15:29, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * That's definitely it! It's a slightly flatter form of File:Seefahrerabzeichen der Deutschen Marine in Silber.jpg.  Thanks a lot for the help; I asked for help at my library's reference desk, but they couldn't help.  2001:18E8:2:1020:7DD1:77A7:107C:D07F (talk) 20:25, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Off-topic remark: I notice that you used the word insignium as the singular of insignia.  Not a bad guess, but not correct &mdash; the actual singular is insigne.  Third-declension neuter, I think, after a brief search to refresh my Latin declensions. --Trovatore (talk) 19:17, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Didn't know that. I can't remember ever seeing "insigne" before, but the OED agrees with you.  2001:18E8:2:1020:7DD1:77A7:107C:D07F (talk) 20:27, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * BTW the "arms" at the bottom of an anchor are actually called "arms", the blades at the end are called "flukes". The device of an anchor with a rope snaking around it is called a "fouled anchor". Alansplodge (talk) 07:43, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Are Catholic priests allowed to consume delicacies, sweets, and spicy foods?
Are Catholic priests allowed to consume delicacies, sweets, or spicy foods, or are these types of food too luxurious for clergymen? 164.107.102.228 (talk) 17:21, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I've known several priests and I've never seen them pass up food just because it's too luxurious. In fact one priest I knew loved cooking and was pretty much the only one that cooked for all the other priests in the parish. Dismas |(talk) 17:27, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I do not believe there is a blanket prohibition of any food item in Catholicism. Rather, food prohibitions in Catholicism tend to take the form of time-specific things. At least historically, there were a number of fast days in the Catholic calendar, where all Catholics were told to abstain from luxuries, particularly food luxuries. Lent was one of the big ones. With Vatican II most of those restrictions were lifted, at least for the laity. I would not be surprised, though, if there various fast days still in place specifically for priests. I'm guessing also that a fair number of older priests, who were ordained prior to Vatican II, still adhere to the old prohibitions even though they technically don't have to. (I know a few catholic non-priests who still do the whole-year no-meat-on-Friday thing.) Even younger priests may voluntarily fast for spiritual reasons. ("I will voluntarily give up sweets, using my small sacrifice to reflect on the greater sacrifice Jesus made.") - "To luxurious for the clergy at any time of the year" isn't really at thing in Catholic theology, though. -- 205.175.124.72 (talk) 18:56, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Add me to the "I never heard of such a thing, in general" list. Priests take a vow of poverty, but that doesn't generally seem to mean they're not allowed physical comforts.  There might be some ascetic orders that would require abstinence from such foods, but I'm speculating there. --Trovatore (talk) 19:09, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * There are a number of monastic orders such as the Benedictines, Carthusians, and Cistercians for whom austerity is part of the vow, but the rules often tended to relax over time. Mendicants groups such as the Dominicans and Franciscans were also supposed to live a simple life, but became notorious for abuses.  There is no rule of austerity that applies to Catholic priests in general, though. Looie496 (talk) 19:48, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * All this while keeping in mind that gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. --Xuxl (talk) 09:34, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Charles II of Navarre
Where was Charles II of Navarre buried? Did his remains survived the fire that killed him? How true it is the story of his death? Was the servant girl punished for killing the king?--The Emperor&#39;s New Spy (talk) 18:46, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * According to findagrave.com (wonderful name!), "The Bad" Charles II of Navarre is buried in Pamplona Cathedral. Alansplodge (talk) 15:00, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Although Navarre & La Rioja, Spain: Frommer's ShortCuts says that his heart is buried at the Church of Santa Maria in Ujué. Alansplodge (talk) 15:23, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I found The common tomb of kings and queens of Navarre at Pamplona - there doesn't seem to be much elbow room! Alansplodge (talk) 16:45, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Cutting in movies and literature
What was the first movie and book to depict self-harm as it is known today. Religious self-flagellation and actual suicide attempts don't count. I'm talking about straightforward cutting.

One possible candidate I can think of is The Brothers Karamazov, which has a scene where a troubled girl deliberately slams a door on her fingers until her fingers bleed. But that's not exactly cutting.--24.228.82.34 (talk) 19:28, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Your distinction is arbitrary. "Cutting" is what they call it nowadays.  There's no reason to think the psycho-physiological cause is different in things like wearing hair shirts or beating oneself with straps. μηδείς (talk) 21:57, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Sigh. That isn't helpful.  My point is that it's easy to find depictions of religious self-flagellation, going back many hundred of years; that's not what I'm interested in.  I am just interested in researching the history of depictions of secular self-harm and when were the earliest examples.  Thank you.--24.228.82.34 (talk) 22:54, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * You're entitled to draw your own arbitrary lines in the sand, but accounts of self harm are documented from Leviticus 19:28 "You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead" through Hieronymus Bosch and early insane asylums. The fact that a source like Leviticus is a religious source doesn't mean it depicts a sacrament rather than a mental condition. I don't know what your interest is (you can explain), but my lack of knowledge of your context doesn't justify your making bodily noises. μηδείς (talk) 01:47, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I cannot find a precise definition, but I believe our OP is looking for the cutting behavior that I will describe as so: A person, typically a teenager or young adult, cutting him/herself, on the upper arms or legs where the wounds may be hidden, not in an attempt to commit suicide, but as a way to deal with stress or depression. The person may report that he/she cuts him/herself "So I would feel something - feel anything". The OP is suggesting that this is distinct from people who are cutting themselves or religious reasons, or because they are so insane they do not know what they are doing. It is often associated with emo culture. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:11, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I am not unfamiliar with that depiction of it in the press, even though it occurred and was known publicly a few millennia before there was such a thing as goths, let alone emos. Even birds and mammals in distress will engage in this behavior in captivity.  (Presumably animals not in captivity do so also, but get eaten by predators before being noticed by naturalists.)  If the IP OP is not interested in this phenomenon before the 90's (or maybe 80's) when it became a topic under the name "cutting" in the modern press, that's fine.  But it would be a disservice to let him think the phenomenon didn't exist before the name he gives it existed, any less than it would be intellectual fraud to pretend homosexuality didn't exist before the term gay did. μηδείς (talk) 02:52, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I think a big point you're missing is just because some stuff are related doesn't mean someone has to be interested in it, there's nothing wrong with being mostly interested in particular aspect of something. To use your example, a person who wants to learn about modern Western gay subculture isn't pretending homosexuality didn't exist beforehand just because they don't want to hear about what the ancient Greeks did. I also question your assumption that these behaviours are highly related, to me cutting as we're talking about here probably has more similarities to some cases of teens stealing their parents car and going joy riding at very high speeds (particularly those who don't want to get caught or invite friends) or some cases of a teen who regularly gets in to fights or who uses drugs to an extreme level than many cases of religious self-flagellation. Nil Einne (talk) 22:29, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The book Cutting and the Pedagogy of Self-disclosure, discusses cutting in literature. In the page I can read in preview, it mentions five novels, the earliest of which is Girl, Interrupted (1993), but presumably there is more in the actual book. It was based on a 2004 master's thesis at the University of Albany called "Contagion in Cutting" by Patricia Hatch Vallace. 184.147.119.141 (talk) 23:45, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Addtion: References to self-injurious behavior can be found as far back as the writings of Herodotus. He describes a Spartan leader as publicly mutilating himself over most of his body (Favazza, 1998). In the bible, a man is described as crying aloud among the tombs and was said to “cut himself with stones.” (Mark 5:5)184.147.119.141 (talk) 01:27, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * That said, "self harm" was not something that I was aware of as a teenager in 1970s London; although there were some quite disturbed individuals at my school, it didn't seem to enter anybody's heads to cut their arms up. I don't remember hearing anything about it until well into the 1980s when it seemed to become a common thing for teenagers to do. I can't cite any references for this but it seems to fit in with the idea of a "contagion" quoted above. Alansplodge (talk) 15:44, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * There are a couple of candidates for the first article or book (from a scholarly point of view) at Self_mutilation. --NorwegianBluetalk 21:05, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I remember being quite shocked at what Rod Steiger's character did to his hand in The Pawnbroker (1964). Others no doubt were noticing the lady flashing her big boobs, so they may have been temporarily blinded and missed it.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  05:07, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Where do Catholic priests live?
I know that Catholic monks and nuns live in monasteries. The monasteries become their home, where they work and eat in simplicity and frugality. However, Catholic priests do not appear to be so confined to the spiritual retreats and would regularly interact with laypersons. So, do they live in the cathedral, and if so, what part of the cathedral? Is it possible for an orphan child to be raised in the monastery and grow up to be a monk or nun, working as a scribe and illuminating manuscipts all day long in fancy calligraphy? 164.107.103.94 (talk) 20:32, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * They can just live in a normal house like everyone else, but they usually live in a rectory attached to (or close to) the church (not inside of it). A bishop with a cathedral would have a larger house, although it's not inside the cathedral either. The richer and more powerful bishops typically used to live in a large manor, and we have several articles about Bishop's Palaces. As for orphan children, I don't know if that's possible now (monks do not usually copy out manuscripts all day anymore), but yes, that certainly would have been possible in the Middle Ages. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:05, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Can they, and do they, live with their families? You know, mothers and fathers, siblings, cousins, nieces, and nephews? 164.107.103.94 (talk) 21:24, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Some Catholic priests are parish priests, who typically live in a presbytery or similar house near their parish church(es). Some Catholic priests are "religious" priests, who join religious communities and hence are choir monks. 86.163.2.116 (talk) 21:09, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Here is an interesting article that discusses the proper age of entering the monastery throughout the ages: here. 164.107.103.94 (talk) 21:24, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * In some places, dioceses have mandated the construction of rectories. This happened in Cincinnati in the early twentieth century, for example.  Go to Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches and read some of the parish articles that it links; some of them have sections on the parish rectories.  Entry #2, Cassella, is particularly relevant because it talks about the pastor's change of residence.  2001:18E8:2:1020:E054:F577:E495:113D (talk) 15:32, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * The punchline is "in the woods", right? μηδείς (talk) 00:17, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

I forgot the name, help me please
Which is the method of socio-economic inquiry based upon a idealist interpretation of economic development, an empirical view of social change, and an analysis of ethnic/race-relations and conflict within a society? Thank You. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.252.216.220 (talk) 23:14, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:27, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Hey, I hear that very question almost every day. It seems to come up a lot, around the water cooler. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:59, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

It is not homework. Im just curious. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.252.216.220 (talk) 21:19, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Liberalism. 71.246.154.137 (talk) 14:09, 6 September 2013 (UTC)