Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 April 10

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April 10

David Cameron question

trolling question by banned user μηδείς (talk) 18:19, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Is David Cameron circumcised or uncircumcised? 117.168.228.228 (talk) 00:50, 10 April 2015 (UTC) Yes. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:20, 10 April 2015 (UTC) Who cares and why? Cullen328 Let's discuss it 01:47, 10 April 2015 (UTC) Even without looking, I'm fairly certain that the condition of David Cameron's penis is not a matter of public record, so the question is unanswerable. --Jayron32 12:13, 10 April 2015 (UTC) I gave it a Google. Your hunch checks out. The context I found suggests asking him personally won't get a straight answer, either. No matter how a politician phrases it or what the climate, talking about his dick will come out wrong in the media. Even Bill Clinton, given every opportunity, kept the finer points to himself (unless you trust The Onion). InedibleHulk (talk) 17:08, 10 April 2015 (UTC) Why David Cameron (Tory Leader)? Ed Milliband (the Labour leader) has Jewish heritage, and has said the he is a Jew. I don't know if it is on public record that he has been circumcised, however it is very uncommon in Britain, except for religious or medical reasons. LongHairedFop (talk) 09:43, 10 April 2015 (UTC) Anecdotally, the operation was supposed to be more popular with the upper classes in the UK, see Circumcision is one of the oddities of the Royal Family. Alansplodge (talk) 08:34, 11 April 2015 (UTC) Even more anecdotally, at school I had to share showers with several future peers, and can confirm that a surprisingly high proportion of them (after adjusting for religion) were circumcised. Not that I was particularly looking, you understand... RomanSpa (talk) 15:26, 11 April 2015 (UTC) In somewhat of a contrast, in the American Midwest, so many of my generation had been circumcised that seeing one that wasn't looked weird. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:53, 11 April 2015 (UTC) Turtlenecks weren't that popular in America during the 20th century, apparently... --Jayron32 17:40, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

What are the dropout rates of school children in Guangdong and other provinces in China?

I like to know what are the dropout rates of school children from Guangdong Province and Guangxi. At what grade do most of these children start dropping out from schools? Please provide me with some sources of reference. Sonic99 (talk) 02:09, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Start with Education in China, which gives nine years compulsory education. China is a dictatorship, so information won't be as easy to find as some countries. Further, not attending compulsory schooling could be quickly addressed by the government. School is a convenient propaganda tool, so it is in the government's interests to do so. 'Drop out' can mean either not attending school when it is compulsory, or to voluntarily pursue a different path - eg. work.--Crazy Aberdeen Guy (talk) 15:39, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

A question for territorial evolution

I am working on a rewrite of Territorial evolution of the United States and am including all of the territories this time around. This leads to an interesting situation: During World War 2, when do I consider a region as disputed/occupied? This is not a war map, and I have no interest in including lines of combat and control (if I did, the 1860s would have day-to-day changes and ... just no.) This is a political map. Here's what I've come up with so far in searching for an objective, solid measure to go by:

• For nations occupying U.S. territory: If there is at least a nominally civilian government installed, or if there is ever a government in exile, then it will be included. This allows for the Philippines but omits Guam, Attu and Kiska. And it of course allows for the CSA. (Why government-in-exile? That would only occur for a major occupation of a major place. So, not a small island and not a purely military target.)
• For the U.S. occupying other nations: This will be included solely if there is at any point in its history a civilian administration. That is to say, either the region gets representation in Congress (like the modern territories), has a governor appointed by the civilian structure of the U.S. government (like the earlier territories), or is under administration of a civilian department (like the insular areas). Regions purely under a military occupation, with no presence in the civilian structure of the U.S. government, will not be included. This means Germany, Okinawa, Korea, Haiti, Cuba, Iraq, etc. would all be omitted. No one would say Iraq was U.S. territory, but some have said that could apply to Okinawa.

Basically, again, this is not a war map, and I'm not going to follow the lines of combat and control, hence the reliance on there being civilian control at some link in the chain.

My main concern is Guam - that's the only one I'm really waffling on here. To include occupation or not to include? My thought is, would I include Guam on a map of Japan? And I don't think I would, it never having been annexed. Yet it had no civilian government either. So who would I label as the administrator? Any thoughts? I don't know if this is the best place to ask but I watch this page and it seemed at least vaguely relevant. :) --Golbez (talk) 13:52, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

To be clearer here, you're including Unincorporated territories of the United States at any time in history, excepting those which were purely under military control at a time of war. Is that correct? If that is the case, Guam qualifies, it was a U.S. controlled territory prior to WWII. The U.S. took control of Guam from Spain in 1898 and received rights to it as confirmed by the Treaty of Paris (1898). Thus, from 1898 until the Japanese seized it in 1941, Japan then lost it in the subsequent recapture of it. In my decidedly layman's understanding of international law, Guam would have been a recognized territory/possession/etc. of the U.S. from 1898 to the present day, the occupation by Japan during WWII would not have been seen as a legitimate administration thereof, as the U.S. never ceded the territory to them, as had been done in the Treaty of Paris. Thus, the control by Japan was just, as you put it, "lines of combat and control" and not legal, recognized possession thereof. --Jayron32 14:07, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I was unclear. Guam is of course being included; my question is, at any point in the 1940s do I label it as "Guam (Japan)" or "Guam (Occupied)" and give it the 'disputed region' color? I am doing that for the Philippines because there was an actual competing civilian government that controlled the country for several years, so that was truly a case of 'claimed by US, administered by someone else'. But Attu and Kiska had no government at all during that time, just foreign military occupation, so that shouldn't be included. Guam, unfortunately, falls squarely in the middle of these easy extremes - it had a not-insubstantial civilian population, but during wartime it appears to have been completely a military occupation, with no civilian governing structure. I don't want to omit it unless I can find no objective way of including it, but I don't want to include it based on a subjective "well it seems like I should" if that means I have to include all wartime occupations. --Golbez (talk) 14:34, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

I deal with this problem a lot in my real job. For maps covering areas controlled by states (basically the entire world since about 1890), you want to choose a cartographic criterion that allows you to assign every territory clearly to one state or another. Depending on your criterion, you might want to allow a category for disputed control. For every map, you have to pick a single, consistent date; otherwise your map contains anachronisms and conflicts due to change over time. Then you have to choose a criterion for assigning territories as of that date. Your criterion, which I'm not sure I understand but which requires a functioning civilian government specific to each territory and which shows the allegiance of that government, runs into problems during wartime, when there are territories that have no functioning civilian government. Which areas have functioning civilian governments is seldom the main concern of map users. The cleanest and most comprehensive criterion, and the most informative one, is de facto control. Then, for dates during wartime, you really do have to show lines of control. If you are trying to do a time series, you just have to offer a series of snapshots. Unless your resources are unlimited, there is no way that you can produce enough maps to capture the daily shifts in territory. During World War II, you might pick a series of key dates, with maps showing areas of control after various turning points. Marco polo (talk) 18:58, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm concerned with the civilian thing because this is purely a political map. It's the evolution of the borders of the country. And a handful of times, those borders have overlapped with others' borders, and that has to be acknowledged, but I wasn't sure if Guam counted as 'overlapping borders'. --Golbez (talk) 20:13, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

I think I've got it, and it is objective but not symmetrical:

• For the subject of the map (in this case the U.S.) occupying other lands: Rely on the same civilian rules as above.
• For the subject of the map being occupied: Include the dispute only if 1) there is a civilian administration, 2) there is a government in exile, or 3) there was a surrender. The first one includes long-term deals, the second one includes major falls, and the third one keeps this from being day-to-day movements, and also prevents uninhabited lands or partial occupations from being included. So in that case, Guam's occupation would be included on this map, but would not, for example, be included in a map of Japan for the same time period. I'm good with this. I'll work with it and see if any issues pop up. --Golbez (talk) 20:13, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Golbez, as I see it, you're merging two issues: occupation and alternate political control, and they don't necessarily go together. For example, did Japan consider Guam to be US territory that they were occupying, or did it annex the territory or grant it independence? This happened in the Philippines, but I don't know where else. Or look at the North African territories that the US and UK conquered in Operation Torch: they weren't annexed, but considered still to be French. Again, this happened in Poland, but not in France. Nyttend (talk) 00:51, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, the logic is, if Japan annexed Guam, that would obviously be mentioned as conflicting borders; if they granted it independence, that implies a civilian government and thus would be mentioned. But neither of those happened, which is what is complicating things. And yes, it happened in the Philippines which is why I've always been solid that the Philippines will be marked as disputed. :) I think this new logic will work, only real way to find out is to try and see if any holes appear. --Golbez (talk) 01:35, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Why does it matter if Jesus was married or not?

I have read over the Wiki article on Christian Views of Marriage. One section is "Jesus on marriage, divorce and remarriage." Within that section the following is noted: "There is no evidence that Jesus himself ever married, and considerable evidence that he remained single." So, this led me to wondering why it is so important in more traditional Christian practices that Jesus was single and HAD to be. It is sort of like whether or not Mary (mother of Jesus) remained a virgin all her life or if she and Joseph had a sexual relationship. To me, what difference does it make in the scheme of Salvation, etc. if Jesus was married or if Mary remained a virgin (OK. two topics. Sorry). 216.223.72.182 (talk) 19:26, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Simple answer: Because sex is sinful, and Jesus was without sin. As was Mary, at least at the time she conceived Jesus. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:46, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Mainstream Christianity has never held that sex per se is sinful. Some Gnostic or Manichean variants may have held that view, and Paul seems to dance around the idea at times, but never affirms it outright.

I think a more standard answer would be that a wife and a family would have interfered with his ministry. That seems to be analogous to the Catholic justifications for priestly celibacy. --Trovatore (talk) 19:52, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

First, it is important because in Judaism, in which he was raised, you are supposed to marry, so it is important to know whether Jesus was a "good Jew" and got married or not. If he wasn't married, that can be used as an argument against his being a "good Jew", and, in fact, that has been an argument against him in the past. Another related matter, as per The DaVinci Code, is that a "good Jew" not only married, but did he have kids. So, the question of whether Jesus had kids is also important relative to his Judaism, and, of course, knowing whether they were conceived within or without marriage would be important as well. And, of course, a third question, just how "divine" would children of a (maybe) God be?

It is of course worth noting that the Christian choosing to neither marry nor have kids seems to have been first arisen in the Abrahamic families with (maybe) Jesus and Christianity, and it has become a bit of a unique characteristic of Christianity, with the later development of monasticism. But the primary point of interest is to determine just how closely Jesus did or did not adhere to the Jewish convention of having children. John Carter (talk) 19:59, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

An answer you'd hear from typical USA evangelicals would be something like: The Bible doesn't say he was married, so he wasn't. This relies on the (probably reasonable) assumption that Jesus's marriage would've been mentioned if there was one. (Obviously it also relies on the assumption that the Biblical story about Jesus is accurate.) Staecker (talk) 20:03, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

• There are two different concepts getting intermingled here. Jesus as a historical and living human (and rabbi) figure and Christ the Savour on which the faith and new testament is founded upon. It does not matter what relationships that the real man that Jesus was. This prophet (Jesus or more properly Ἰησοῦς) was born several years before the conjunction that that gave raise to the astrological new age (there was no 0 BC). Mary represented the Egyptian virgin earth. Don't confuse historical real people with the idolized concept of perfection – it will screw your mind up.--Aspro (talk) 20:08, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

It "matters" because Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh (author) wanted to make money selling a book about made up bullshit and later, because Dan Brown is pretty ignorant about Christian and Gnostic doctrines on marriage and the Incarnation.

Re marital matters: The first thing God tells Adam and Eve is have kids. The relationship between God and humanity is regularly compared to a marriage, even by Jesus. Jesus liked kids way more than I do. Early Christianity didn't have a problem with married sex, just objectifying lust and extramarital sex. The Gnostics, however, were opposed to procreation, because that was trapping souls in more matter. The Gnostics even denied that Jesus had a body, and so would have been way more pissed at the implication that Jesus had children. Sex as some metaphor for spiritual enlightenment? Sure, the Gnostics were down with that (so long as the imagery was so hallucinatory that you knew nothing happened). But giving the thumbs up to having children was more of an Orthodox/Catholic position. Because of that, the early Orthodox/Catholic Christianity actually would have been the biggest proponents to Jesus having kids if they had had any evidence to support it.

Re the Incarnation: Jesus is referred to as the Son of God because God's role as savior (God the Son) and God taking human form (the Incarnation) derives from God's role as creator (God the Father), not out of any sort of belief in a Hercules-style demigod. His kids would not be God, any more than Jesus's mother or siblings would be half-God by association.

Re evidence or lack thereof for Jesus being single or married: The Bible is pretty silent on a lot of aspects of Jesus's life. Given that Jesus regularly preached about focusing more on being a loving person than following religious laws, it would have been a bit hypocritical of the New Testament's authors to spend a lot of time focusing on personal details that people could confuse for some divine example to follow. I mean, "love thy neighbor" somehow resulted in the Crusades and the witchhunts, so how the hell would humanity have handled knowing that Jesus's preference on cats vs dogs, or which vegetables He didn't like? Ian.thomson (talk) 20:12, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

The Marriage at Cana is regarded as theologically important because it's where Jesus performed his first miracle (turning water into wine). But there are some who believe the marriage was Jesus's own, to an unnamed bride. The argument goes that all his other miracles were about healing people or a demonstration of his divinity to his followers, but in this case he was supposedly simply a guest at an obscure wedding and was not doing any active teaching, preaching or proselytising, so that would have been a strange place to start making the world sit up and take notice of him. Hence, the argument goes, the real reason for his presence at the wedding was something more basic: he was the groom. Besides, why would Mary his mother tell the attendants to do whatever he said when they reported they'd run out of wine? Why would they not be under the control of the bride's family and/or the groom's family? Why would they be reporting to Jesus and/or Mary at all? Unless ... -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:27, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

" What difference does it make in the scheme of Salvation, etc. if Jesus was married or if Mary remained a virgin?" For modern theology, by and large, none at all (though the Catholic church insists that Mary remained a virgin all her life - a position not held by the Protestant and Orthodox branches). At the time of the early church and right through the Middle Ages, quite a lot. From the 1st century on, Christians saw sex as sinful, since sex transmitted original sin. For that reason Christians were advised to refrain from sex, and to marry only if they couldn't achieve celibacy. In the Middle Ages, sex between married couples was very strictly constrained (not on holy days, not on Sundays, not at Easter, etc etc). The body itself was held to be evil and shameful. A whole theological system was built around the sinfulness of sex, and only in quite recent times has that begun to break down.PiCo (talk) 23:41, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Back to the original question: have you seen Bride of Christ? Several different biblical passages, in particular the one linked at the beginning of the section "Comparing the church to a bride", speak of the Church as the "Bride of Christ"; this mystical concept completely falls apart if he literally had a human wife. Nyttend (talk) 00:40, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

True. And priests and nuns also talking about being "married" to the church. The Church therefore appears to be a bisexual polyandrist. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:18, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Which is why all of that stuff should be taken as a metaphor. "Jesus couldn't be married because He is married to the Church" is internally inconsistent (can't be married and is married are incompatible). "The spiritual relationship between Jesus and the Church is comparable to a marriage, regardless of Jesus's historical marital status" is internally consistent. Jesus being married would no more invalidate His relationship to the Church than the earth not being a raised platform invalidates the unsatisfactory and transient nature of our mortal existence. Ian.thomson (talk) 02:30, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Huh? Nothing contradictory about "mystically married to the Church, so he couldn't be literally married to a human". The concept falls apart if there's a human who already had claims on him, or if he married a human when the Church already had claims on him. Nyttend (talk) 03:36, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

• To the original question, I think you'll find a diversity of opinion within Christianity on the question. There are certain nondenominational doctrines which hold "Speak as the Bible speaks, be silent where the bible is silent" which hold that open questions not mentioned in the Bible remain open questions. Since the Bible doesn't say that Jesus is or isn't married, the question is unanswerable, and such doctrines would hold that one cannot say one way or the other, and as such, doesn't matter one way or the other. On the other hand, other denominations say that because it doesn't say he was married, it must mean he isn't. Without regard for which is right or wrong (which as a meta-question, is entirely unknowable), just know that Christianity doesn't speak with one voice on the matter. There are Christians who say he definitely wasn't married, Christians who say he probably was, and Christians who don't know and are okay with not knowing. Christianity is a diverse faith. --Jayron32 03:42, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

There was a significant strand of early Christianity that was apocalyptic, that expected the world to end soon and therefore thought it futile to concern yourself with worldly things, including marriage and children. Celibacy wasn't compulsory for early Christians, but it was certainly admired, and the apparent celibacy of Jesus in the gospels was taken as a model. --Nicknack009 (talk) 17:16, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Jail holding cells in the 1930s/20s?

If someone were to be arrested for a minor crime in the 1930s, what would the jail cell they would immediately be taken to look like? What would be inside said cell? 76.216.209.128 (talk) 19:45, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Just a bunk inside, I would think. They would therefore need a jailer to take them to the toilet, or maybe use a bucket. The bunk would likely be attached to a wall, with only the bedding removable for washing. StuRat (talk) 23:17, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

I think the first holding cell that one would enter would be extra large and not for overnight stay thus no bunk bed. Other individuals might be in the cell too, probably for unrelated types of crimes. It would merely be a holding cell for the duration of the processing of paperwork by prison staff. There might be a ledge running the perimeter for seating. It would likely be un-upholstered. There would be a minimum of privacy in such a cell because all walls might be of steel bars. This would be a cell that is transitional between an entrance to a facility and its inner areas. Though not for overnight stay it would be possible for the processing of paperwork to take several hours. Such a cell might be transitional for those being processed into a facility as well as those being processed out of that facility, thus it is possible that those entering could be meeting those exiting. It would probably take longer to be processed in than processed out. Bus stop (talk) 23:55, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

There must be lots of old films that show that type of cell on YouTube, but I can't think of any at the moment. A common meme was that a weedy guy would get arrested by mistake and put into a holding cell with several large and violent looking criminals and then upset them by saying the wrong thing. A modern example is Trading Places but there are others from earlier decades. Alansplodge (talk) 08:53, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Louis Theroux: Miami Mega Jail has a few scenes like that. Not old, but that part hasn't changed. Here, he learns about "the paint". InedibleHulk (talk) 14:45, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

“In the old jail, when I talk about ‘linear,’ you’d have cells and cages and bars and those big Folger keys you see in the movies,” she said. “You’d go around every 30 minutes, but what do you think was happening the other 29 minutes we weren’t standing there? The weak guy was losing his lunch, people were being assaulted. By the time we come back around after 30 minutes, they were all sitting there playing cards getting along and you might have one guy in the game scuffled up saying, ‘I need out of here.’ But that was the old jail and the old philosophy of a linear system.”

Now, assuming it doesn't fail 70% of the time, 24-hour surveillance keeps prisoners (and guards) much safer. InedibleHulk (talk) 14:34, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

This will vary enormously depending on where in the world you are interested in (as it does today) and there will also be enormous variation within any given country. Here are some pictures: 1910, Minnesota USA, 1923, Bavaria Germany, 1923, St. Louis USA, 1924, Baltimore USA, 1930, New York USA, 1932, Bombay India, 1935, Los Angeles USA. 184.147.117.34 (talk) 17:36, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Sing Sing is a prison. No distinction in some countries, but you had to be a proper criminal with a recommendation from a fancy judge to sleep in a (relatively, contemporarily) fine establishment like that. Not the sort of place any old cop can toss any old drunk.

But yeah, good finds! InedibleHulk (talk) 02:48, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Basic cookbook written in Italian language

Does anyone know where I should look in order to find a basic cookbook written in the Italian language? I did some internet searches and basically only came up with cookbooks written in English for making Italian meals and such. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk)

You could try typing "ricette" (recipes) in the search box of amazon.it. Cfmarenostrum (talk) 20:08, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

There may not be as many basic cookbooks, for Italians, as you might expect. This is because it's assumed the basics would already have been learned just by growing up in an Italian home. (I don't believe they have the large portion of "non-cooking" households that the US has, for example.) So, it would be a bit like a US book explaining how to order a pizza. StuRat (talk) 23:20, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Try looking for "Ricettario", the Italian word for "cookbook"; I found several results on Amazon.com. You can also run a Worldcat search: just find the relevant subject heading (it's "cookbooks"), go to Worldcat's main search page, click "advanced search", and specify "cookbooks" in the subject dropdown and Italian in the language dropdown. You'll get more than 100 results; some of them are bilingual English and Italian, but some are only in Italian. Nyttend (talk) 00:57, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:07, 12 April 2015 (UTC)