Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 April 2

= April 2 =

Cargo ship destination Toronto to Dubai
Is there a website that shows records of cargo ships going from Toronto to Dubai? In this case, I am looking at consumer goods being exported to Dubai. Donmust90 (talk) 01:22, 2 April 2021 (UTC)


 * This gives some general information on the route, but not individual ships. Alansplodge (talk) 13:38, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Scott Nearing's suicide
Why exactly did centenarian Scott Nearing commit suicide? Futurist110 (talk) 22:30, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The article seems to raise the question of whether it really was suicide. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:10, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * What makes you say that? Futurist110 (talk) 03:35, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The wording in the "Death" section. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:34, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * In her book Loving and Leaving the Good Life, his wife wrote: "He went with dignity, purposefully fasting, after a long and a good life." Also elsewhere she referred to his death as "his planned, dignified death". Scott Nearing was nearing the end of a long and active life, one way or another, no longer capable of much activity. The use of the terms "with dignity" and "dignified" suggests that in the view of the Nearings, the alternative, death in a protracted, gradual process of the body and possibly the mind failing more and more, confining one to a sickbed stay, was considered less dignified. --Lambiam 10:48, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * "These details were glossed over by Helen Nearing..." Is that a fair statement, or is it some subtle editorializing by a Wikipedia editor. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:52, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The sentence is not readily understandable; what is meant by "[T]hese details"? And who "felt that Helen hoped Ellen LaConte ... would set the record straight"? There were two relevant sequences of edits by the same editor. The first sequence was quickly reverted, but soon after there was a second, similar sequence. The latter introduced the term "glossed". At the time, the full sentence was,
 * However, later accounts by Nearing biographer Ellen LaConte and Jean Hay Bright reveal that Helen Nearing glossed over some of the painful details.
 * In this version there is no allusion to hope or records getting set straight. The added sentence is not properly sourced, and was removed two years latere as uncited. Basically the same claims were added another two years later by an IP, presumably the same individual as the earlier editor, reintroducing elements of the first two sequences of edits, including the term "glossed". I cannot access the book On Light Alone'', which means I cannot check whether LaConte indeed made such claims, nor evaluate them, but presenting them as factual, as said editor did, seems NPOV to me. --Lambiam 23:03, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I think it's at least arguable whether death by voluntary starvation is really "suicide". It's an omission rather than an act; I usually think of "suicide" as being something active.  --Trovatore (talk) 23:20, 3 April 2021 (UTC)