Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 March 28

= March 28 =

H. Renges, Swedish Consul to Hawaii, and wife (c. 1890s)
Trying to find out who H. Renges was and who was his wife mentioned here. KAVEBEAR (talk) 01:11, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * How do you know the Consul's first initial was "H"? It is not mentioned in the clipping. Do you have another source of information? Perhaps the Swedish Consulate in Honolulu can be of help. As this is a Honorary Consulate, their resources may be rather limited, though. --Lambiam 03:58, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * More often H. Renjes, Consul for Mexico, Chile, and Vice-Consul for Spain. fiveby(zero) 06:40, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Heinrich. fiveby(zero) 06:43, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Elizabeth Kekaeikapuokalani Renjes (Coney) from genealogy sites, Elizabeth Likelike Coney Renjes from fiveby(zero) 06:55, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Based on this clipping from the Evening Bulletin, Heinrich Renjes was Acting Chilean Consul to the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi on June 25, 1889. In another clipping from the Hawaiian Star of August 14, 1911, we read that he died at the age of 56 in Wiesbaden that day, as well as that he had been a partner in the firm of F. A. Schaefer & Co., Honolulu (also mentioned in "Hawaiian Ali'i Women in New York Society"). His age places his birth date in the range from August 14, 1855 to August 13, 1856. This genealogy record gives his full name as "Heinrich Herman Renjes". MyHeritage.com states that Elizabeth Coney was born on March 3, 1866, in Hilo, Hawaiʻi and that the couple had one daughter, Else Becker (née Renjes). Furthermore, Heinrich was apparently a German who emigrated to the US and applied for a US passport (the latter presumably after having been naturalized). Elizabeth's full name is given as Elizabeth Likelike Keka'ekapuokalani Renjes. --Lambiam 12:31, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

US state courts and their power to interpret the US Constitution
Do US state courts (for instance, the California Supreme Court) actually have the power to interpret the US Constitution? Futurist110 (talk) 05:47, 28 March 2020 (UTC)


 * The wording of your question is a little odd -- they're perfectly free to cite and interpret the U.S. constitution all they want in their rulings, but such interpretations would not be any form of binding precedent for U.S. federal courts. Of course, the state supreme courts are usually the final authority on the interpretation of those parts of their state's constitution which go beyond the U.S. constitution. AnonMoos (talk) 08:31, 28 March 2020 (UTC)


 * In its decision in Ex Parte Dickey, 144 Cal. 234, 77 Pac. 924 (Cal. 1904), the Supreme Court of California argued that "[u]nder the constitution of the United States and of this state the protection guaranteed in the possession of property, and in the pursuit of happiness is extended, as of necessity it must be, to cover the right to acquire property, and the right to acquire property must and does include the employment of proper means to that end". Since said extension is not explicitly stated in the US Constitution and one can hold a different opinion as to whether it must "of necessity" be extended as claimed, this is IMO an example of the Supreme Court of California interpreting the US Constitution. (And, assuming hypothetically they did not have that power, what would stop them from acting as if they do?) --Lambiam 16:46, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * If it is legal to own things ("possession of property") and persons can do as they will ("pursuit of happiness"), there is nothing to stop them from selling said property or another from buying said property as long as the transactions are legally conducted ("proper means to that end"). So, no theft, blackmail, extortion, or undue influence allowed. This is basically what the California court is saying. I don't see how you could say that that was not the obvious meaning of the US and California constitutions ("extended, as of necessity it must be"). The interpretation of the court will stand until either 1) the underlying law (said constitutions) is changed such that the extrapolation is not supported or 2) the judgement is overruled (by the same or higher court). I don't see either of those happening. --Khajidha (talk) 20:56, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The very thing under discussion was the legality of the employment agent's conduct. There was an act of the California legislature putting certain requirements on that conduct, which he violated, so the prima facie position would be that it was illegal, as it indeed had been judged to be by the Police Court of San Francisco. It is common to put requirements by law on the transactions of gun sellers, pawn brokers, and a multitude of other professions, and usually a violation of such requirements is punishable by law, and convictions will be upheld. In this case the Californian Supreme Court ruled that the act was unconstitutional, which made the conduct legal, but the argument that the agent's conduct was a priori legal is a form of petitio principii. --Lambiam 12:35, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * If a state supreme court makes a ruling that appears to be a violation of the US Constitution, that ruling presumably can be appealed in a federal court, where it could be overturned or upheld at some point. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:09, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

CoVid 19 statistics
I keep seeing charts depicting cumulative totals of cases and cumulative total deaths... but what I would like to see is a reliable source that charts the rise and fall (+-) of NEW cases (ideally on a per day basis), as this is what will best tell us whether we are beginning to come to grips with the virus. Most interested in US numbers (and especially NY). Any suggestions? Blueboar (talk) 21:45, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * According to all comments from health organisations, including the World Health Organization, unfortunately there is currently not any known process for getting at that information the kind of which you're seeking for. --Askedonty (talk) 22:36, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Huh? Literally all you'd need to do would be to obtain statistics for whatever jurisdiction you desire on a daily basis.  (For example, if a town has 239 confirmed cases on one day and 250 the next, there are 11 new cases.  Third day there are 294 confirmed cases, so there are 44 new cases.)  Ditto with deaths.  The Johns Hopkins map gives worldwide new-cases statistics — on the bottom right, there's a chart of total cases, and if you click the "Daily Increase" tab, you'll see how many new cases have been added on a daily basis.  The site's help page provides contact information for the team monitoring the map, and who knows but that they might have logged the daily totals for a while now, which should be all you need.  Nyttend (talk) 23:10, 28 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Note this thread on the Science desk and the WHO graph which suggests that changes in diagnostic criteria (and/or reporting methods) can skew statistics. 2606:A000:1126:28D:7175:62E7:40D1:A6E5 (talk) 23:19, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * if a town has 239 confirmed cases on one day and 250 the next, there are 11 new cases. -- no that's a serious part of the problem. Those numbers mean there are 11 new confirmed cases, but there is way too little testing to know how many actual cases there are.  There may be 10x as many actual cases as confirmed ones.  South Korea has decent data because of extensive testing but US testing is only now starting to happen at any scale.  You can see a list of public datasets here if you want to know what's available, though.  2601:648:8202:96B0:E0CB:579B:1F5:84ED (talk) 23:45, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, if you're distinguishing between actual cases and confirmed cases, yes, but when someone comes to a humanities desk to ask for information about cases under the heading "CoVid 19 statistics", I expect that the person's looking for assistance with statistics (which will be confirmed), not for assistance with determining actual case numbers. It's a part of the context in which the question is asked (the person has performed part of the reference interview for me already), and I have to depend on that to understand what's being sought.  Nyttend (talk) 13:16, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The OP user page states that he is living in NY City. I do not have the means to determine whether he does master the concept of Event in statistics when dealing with an ongoing process but what I do know is that the equation previously confirmed cases, reajusted equals number of new cases, to my eyes is missing at least one clause. --Askedonty (talk) 14:54, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * These numbers are widely reported. Here is the very first link that came up when I google chart "new coronavirus cases chart": . Rmhermen (talk) 01:11, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/#daily-cases Proteus (Talk) 21:09, 31 March 2020 (UTC)