Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 September 2

= September 2 =

Searching for Title of a book of Science-Fiction Short Stories and One other Story
I am looking for the title of a book of science-fiction short stories that probably came out in the 1960s - possibly later. Each story dealt with one of the planets in the solar system. I remember the story about Mercury having a sentient pool of liquid metal. There was even a story about an astronaut who was marooned in the asteroid belt and he had to stay awake or some malevolent spirits would take over his mind.

I am also looking for the name and author of a short story I once heard read on the radio (KPFK Los Angeles) probably in the 1970s or 80s. This dealt with some astronauts who had encountered a race of beings that were known for their advanced medical procedures. One of the astronauts had been severely injured and the aliens agreed to "repair" him if the humans agreed to a game. The landscape of the alien planet had pools of blood and creatures that looked like disembodied organs crawling around. After the astronaut was returned to the humans, the back of his head opened up and his brain crawled out and slid off to one of the pools of blood. I remember this story being very scary - in large part because of the dramatic reading. It may have been read by an actor named Dudley Knight or a man named Mike Hodel who hosted a show called, "Hour 25" on KPFK.

I have checked both of these questions online from time to time and have never been able to get an answer. I have even called some of the old-timers at KPFK to see if they might know anything about the second question - but no luck. 00:35, 2 September 2016 (UTC)130.166.200.12 (talk)
 * Was the sci-fi series Ben Bova's Grand Tour series? It's from the 1980s-early 2000s, but his novel Mercury does feature life on Mercury... -- Jayron 32 00:41, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Hugh Walters also wrote a series about each planet of the solar system; and he wrote in the 1960s. -- Jayron 32 00:44, 2 September 2016 (UTC)


 * To give some negative information for purposes of elimination, the book was not The Science Fictional Solar System (1979) edited by Isaac Asimov, Harry Greenburg & Charles D. Waugh – the Mercury story in that anthology (Alan E. Nourse's 'Brightside Crossing') does not match the OP's description. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.211.191 (talk) 08:52, 2 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Better news! The Mercury story must be 'Sunrise on Mercury' (1957) by Robert Silverberg. However, the other 12 stories in his 1983 collection of the same title do not have a Solar-systemic theme, so the volume the OP read was likely an anthology (of stories by various authors) which included Silverberg's. This will take more digging. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.211.191 (talk) 09:57, 2 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Further negative information: the anthology was not Exploring Other Worlds (1963), edited by Sam Moskowitz, which has a Solar-systemic theme but does not contain Silverberg's story. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.211.191 (talk) 10:07, 2 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Starting with Sunrise on Mercury, I found this publication history, which lead me to Tomorrow's Worlds, Ten Stories of Science Fiction, edited by Silverberg, with 10 Stories, one for each of the (then) 9 planets, number 10 for the moon. The Amazon description here matches. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:18, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Good find. Robert Silverberg bibliography and Robert Silverberg are the relevant Wikipedia links.  We do not have, as yet, an article on the specific story.  -- Jayron 32 13:11, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
 * In case any of the story titles may jog the OP's memory, the contents of Tomorrow's Worlds can be seen here. Deor (talk) 13:32, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, there isn't a story set in the asteroids in Tomorrow's Worlds . . . . Its ten stories are (as Stephan Schultz said above) set on the 9 planets (including Pluto) plus the Moon, so this can't be the OP's volume.
 * Another negative eliminated, it's not Arthur C. Clarke's Tales of Ten Worlds (1962), which contains no stories corresponding to either of those the OP describes. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.211.191 (talk) 17:01, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

James K. Polk photograph
I remember coming across the first photograph of Polk a while back ago, which is supposed to show the effect of presidency on Polk's face. It is undated and obscurely used. But the more famous photograph of him was made on February 14, 1849, so is there any possibility that the first is a misidentified person? I've copied a few description of the first photograph into the files description on the Wiki commons. Can someone else help me dig up a little more scholarship about the first image and possibly cast more light on it..--KAVEBEAR (talk) 04:29, 2 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Careful study of the subject(s)'s features gives me no reason to question that the two photographs are of the same person, KAVEBEAR. Different plates, lenses, techniques and lighting (not to mention makeup) can produce markedly different impressions, which is why prominent individuals employ expensive photographers to literally "cast them in a better light." In addition, everyone may look different from day to day depending on one's current states of mind and health.
 * Conjecturally, in the (likely later) "better" photo, Polk is momentarily feeling relaxed and cheerful through looking forward to his impeding retirement from office 18 days hence, and the consequent relief from its responsibilities. If, on the other hand, the "poorer" photo is the later, it might be quite close to his death from cholera (only 103 days after his retirement) and his health may already have begun to decline. {The poster formerly known as 9 87.81.230.195} 90.202.211.191 (talk) 09:20, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
 * S/he means 87.81.230.195, actually. 92.24.108.109 (talk) 09:44, 2 September 2016 (UTC
 * He does indeed, but he mis-typed – now corrected! {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.211.191 (talk) 16:11, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Jewish role in Bolshevik revolution
What role did Jews play in the Bolshevik Revolution? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.82.189.195 (talk) 07:18, 2 September 2016 (UTC)


 * We have two articles, Bundism, which describes the facts of Jewish participation in the Russian Revolution, and Jewish Bolshevism, which concerns the conspiracy theory used by of those with an anti-Semetic agenda. Alansplodge (talk) 07:51, 2 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Individual Jewish members of the Bolsheviks played various roles during the revolution. According to our article Jewish Bolshevism, "Jewish Bolshevik party leaders included Grigory Zinoviev, Moisei Uritsky, Lev Kamenev, Yakov Sverdlov, Grigory Sokolnikov, and Leon Trotsky. Kamenev was of mixed ethnic Russian and Jewish parentage." Note, however, that there is no evidence of these Jewish members (a relatively small number of the overall party - "On the eve of the February Revolution, in 1917, the Bolshevik party had about 23,000 members, of whom 364 were known to be ethnic Jews. According to the 1922 party census, there were 19,564 Jewish Bolsheviks, comprising 5.21% of the total." (Jewish people made up about 5%of the Russian population at the time)) were directed by their race or religion (in fact, most were atheistic) - they were simply Bolsheviks who happened to be Jewish. As former KGB colonel Vassili Berezhkov puts it, "The question of ethnicity did not have any importance either in the revolution or the story of the NKVD. This was a social revolution and those who served in the NKVD and cheka were serving ideas of social change."
 * Note also that much of the writing on this subject has been influenced by racist and/or anti-Semitic views, starting with propaganda from anti-revolutionary White Russians and continuing with Hitler and the Nazi's revisionist history and racial theories. As our Jewish Bolshevism article says, "Jewish Bolshevism is an antisemitic canard which alleges that the Jews were at the origin of the Russian Revolution and held the primary power among Bolsheviks. Similarly, the Jewish Communism theory implies that Jews have been dominating the Communist movements in the world. It is similar to the ZOG conspiracy theory, which asserts that Jews control world politics. The expressions have been used as a catchword for the assertion that Communism is a Jewish conspiracy, and it has often coincided with overtly aggressive nationalistic tendencies in the 20th century and 21st century." - Cucumber Mike (talk) 07:57, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
 * There were vicious pogroms before the Revolution.  The advent of Bolshevism didn't change that.   In fact the priests, whether Catholic or Orthodox, used to stand up in their pulpits Sunday after Sunday and urge their congregations to kill the Jews.   See Blood libel.   92.24.108.109 (talk) 09:32, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I will note that the last Emperor (Czar), Nicholas II of Russia, was a ferocious anti-semite who openly encouraged pogroms. This did tend to have some effect into encouraging many Jews (who thought they could only benefit from a change of government) to join movements seeking to overthrow the Czar. And just as the fall of Saddam Hussein ultimately led to many Iraqis finding out that the alternative might be even worse, so too did many Jews who helped the Russian Revolutionaries gain power come to bitterly regret their actions - if they managed to survive (many if not most were murdered in Stalin's purges once he came to power). 110.140.193.164 (talk) 13:10, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * So the Jews ultimate "role" in the USSR was the same as it was under the Tsars and under Nazi Germany: To be targets. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:16, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * The question of Jewish participation in the revolution is complex. Certainly, Jews were overwhelmingly affiliated with groups opposed to Czarist rule, but the Bolsheviks did not dominate Jewish politics in 1917. There were many different groups in the Jewish polity in Russia at the time of the Revolution (Bundists, Folkists, Orthodox, Zionists of various left-right tendencies, Territorialists). Whilst there were some prominent Jewish (or persons of Jewish origins) in the Bolshevik leadership who were generally opposed to Jewish identity politics, there were many other Jewish groups that tried to assert a Jewish identities within the framework of the Revolution. The Bundist movement went through a number of splits, at least three Communist Bunds were created, and eventually all merging into the Communist Party. The Poale Zion movement managed to retain legal existence for some time after the revolution, with its rightist tendency being a legal separate party all the way up to 1928 (Jewish Communist Labour Party (Poalei Zion)). This must have been the last non-Bolshevik legal party in the USSR. There were also the Fareynikte, the United Jewish Socialist Workers Party, who mobilized against the Bolsheviks in Ukraine but who also suffered a pro-Bolshevik split.
 * During the years of the Revolution, Yiddish revolutionary press and publishing expanded. This is true both for Bolsheviks as well as many other factions.
 * Lastly, the Bolsheviks opted not to recognize any separate Jewish national Communist Party in the Third International (unlike how the Social Democracy had allowed Bundists and Poale Zion to join the Labour and Socialist International) much to the chargrin of the various Jewish left groups that appealed for such recognition. The Communist Party eventually set up the Yevsektsiya (Jewish Section) as an experiment to foment a Jewish-Yiddish Soviet identity. --Soman (talk) 17:19, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Lastly, the Bolsheviks opted not to recognize any separate Jewish national Communist Party in the Third International (unlike how the Social Democracy had allowed Bundists and Poale Zion to join the Labour and Socialist International) much to the chargrin of the various Jewish left groups that appealed for such recognition. The Communist Party eventually set up the Yevsektsiya (Jewish Section) as an experiment to foment a Jewish-Yiddish Soviet identity. --Soman (talk) 17:19, 5 September 2016 (UTC)