Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 March 13

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March 13

Name a Musical Instrument

I want to identify a musical instrument. It is a small, hand held "accordion" which can be played by a woman. It has two hexagonal "boards" with bellowswork between them. It has one register as I understand on the right and a few bass buttons on the left. I saw it played in this movie shown recently on TCM (the movie's title is simply "M"). I think someone is also playing it in My Fair Lady in a bar scene. What is the name for it? Thanks, --AboutFace 22 (talk) 01:30, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Concertina? --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:33, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

And if not, see Template:Squeezebox --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:34, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Concertina! That's it. Thank you. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 13:52, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Said to be the only musical instrument ever invented in England, although the Germans claim it too. Alansplodge (talk) 16:09, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Not even the English horn, apparently. StuRat (talk) 16:48, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

How about the Northumbrian smallpipes, the harp lute, Irish flute, theatre organ, and the magnificently named logical bassoon? DuncanHill (talk) 17:09, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Okay Duncan, I'll accept the harp-lute as English although I've never heard of it until just now. The Irish flute seems to be erm, Irish; however a derivative called the "Pratten flute" was designed and made in London. The Northumbrian smallpipes are distinguished by being operated by bellows, but "Pipes blown with bellows appear to have come into use in Europe generally about the 16th century", see A Short History of the Bagpipe. The ingenious Robert Hope-Jones had emigrated to the United States before inventing the theatre organ (a concert organ with sound effects) although he did devise the electric organ bellows in London, making redundant the small boy that had done the job previously (BTW, the parish church of St Germanus, Rame still has a hand-pumped organ, since it has no electricity). I'm not sure that the logical bassoon counts as an entirely new instrument, but I also like the name. The other contender is the The Gizmotron invented by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, aka Godley and Creme, which saves a guitarist the effort of strumming the strings. Again, whether this constitutes a new instrument or just an accessory is a moot point. Alansplodge (talk) 20:38, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

What? Are you suggesting that Wikipedia is wrong? The Gizmotron isn't exactly about saving the effort of strumming, it generates a rather distinctive sound. I forgot to mention the tuning fork. DuncanHill (talk) 20:44, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia wrong? How very dare you! However, I see that the BBC is a little more circumspect than me; it only claims that "...the English Concertina , probably the only musical instrument to be invented in this country in the nineteenth century." See The Concertina Man. Alansplodge (talk) 20:51, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to have to admit defeat on this one. Apparently, Charles Wheatstone besides the English concertina also invented the "flute harmonique", the "Acoucryptophone", something called the "New Musical Instrument", the "Wheatstone symphonium" and finally the "Wheatstone Nail Fiddle", an example of which is preserved at King's College, Cambridge. See Charles Wheatstone and the Concertina Alansplodge (talk) 21:04, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for that link, fascinating reading. DuncanHill (talk) 22:21, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

What happens if no candidate receives the required number of delegates in the Republican Party presidential primaries for 2016?

This question is about the Results of the Republican Party presidential primaries, 2016. If some candidate gets to the "magic number" of 1,237 delegates, then what happens? He automatically gets named as the Republican nominee? And if no one reaches that magic number, what happens exactly? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 02:35, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Either way, they would hold a vote among all the delegates at the convention. If someone wins the majority on the first ballot, they would be the nominee. If no one gets a majority, it's a whole new ball game. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:06, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand. Don't we know before the convention what the delegate counts are? So, what is there exactly to vote on? In other words, right at this moment, we know already how many delegates each candidate has (up to this point, at least). Also, my second question: if no one gets the magic number of 1,237 delegates, then what? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:51, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

There is always at least one round of voting. If a candidate gets the needed number of votes, they get the nomination. Otherwise, the voting continues until one candidate gets enough votes. See United States presidential nominating convention for how the convention works. After the first round (and sometimes in the first round), delegates can vote for any candidate. In recent years, only one round of voting has been needed. Sometimes it takes more than one. One year it took 103 rounds to select a candidite. RudolfRed (talk) 04:14, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Then what exactly does it mean when we say today that Trump has x number of delegates; Cruz has y number of delegates; and so forth? What does it mean to "have" that number of delegates? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:45, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

It means that number of delegates are committed to the candidate on the first ballot at the convention. It's just anticipating the results. Like on election night when one candidate will be declared the winner of the presidential election, although technically he hasn't won anything until the electors vote and the votes are counted in Congress. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:10, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

I am using hypothetical numbers here. So, if today Trump "has" a total of 500 delegates, that means that those 500 delegates must vote for him at the convention's first round. Correct? They must do so? And what about in subsequent rounds, if more than one round is needed? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 06:44, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

It's assumed they're going to vote for the guy they're pledged to, in the first round. If there are subsequent rounds, typically they can vote for whoever they want to. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:19, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Every state has different rules for how pledged delegates are required to vote. Some states "release" their delegates from their pledge after the first round of voting, while others require their pledged delegates to continue to vote for their required candidates for several more rounds. See This excellent overview from the New York Times on how such voting would work in a brokered convention. Interestingly, there's also a lot of vetting going on with the delegates themselves, to ensure (for example) that a delegate would be more likely to continue to vote for their pledged candidate even if not required to do so. The article covers that sort of political maneuvering as well. --Jayron32 14:58, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

For context you need to understand the history of U.S. presidential nominations. See the above articles for more details, and maybe these previous Ref Desk questions (1, 2), but in a nutshell, the nominations used to be decided at the conventions by the party bigwigs. The delegates were free to vote for whoever they wanted. The extent of the voters' input was selecting who the delegates were, and sometimes not even that much. After the political turmoil of the 1960s (including notably the 1968 Democratic National Convention), the two major parties retrofitted the system to make the process relatively democratic. They kept the convention, but now the delegates are "bound" based on the votes in their state's primary or caucus (excepting superdelegates in the Democratic Party, who remain free to vote as they wish like before, but superdelegates are a small minority of delegates). However, this "binding" only applies to the first ballot. If a candidate has a majority of delegates, they win the nomination on the first ballot, and the convention is just a formality. The 1,237 "magic number" mentioned above is the number of delegates needed for a majority in the Republican convention. But if no delegate candidate has a majority, no one will win the first ballot, and then we go back to the 1960s where the delegates pick the nominee themselves. A point to stress here (and one that often seems strange to people not from the U.S.) is that in the U.S. political parties are, legally, private organizations, and the nomination process is considered an internal function of the parties, no different than, say, your local chess club electing officers. After all, there's no law that says only the two major parties' nominees can become President, though a bunch of factors combine to make that the likely outcome. So it's up to the political parties themselves how they pick nominees. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 05:02, 13 March 2016 (UTC) Edit: mixed up my terms there --71.119.131.184 (talk) 05:28, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

It doesn't seem odd that nomination is an internal process of the parties, it's the whole palaver of caucuses and conventions and registered voters and what-nots that seems odd. Why not just have one member, one vote? DuncanHill (talk) 22:26, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Note that the process is somewhat analogous to the Electoral College. In 2012 there were 332 out of 538 electors pledged to vote for Obama, so everyone knew Obama was going to win, but they still had to actually vote. The difference with the Electroral College is that if no candidate has a majority on the first ballot then a completely different set of people get to vote on the winner.

As to "Why hold the convention when it's known who will win", there are two important reasons: (1) It's valuable publicity. (2) The delegates get to vote on other things. At least, the Republicans do; if the Democrats also do, Wikipedia doesn't mention it. --69.159.61.172 (talk) 05:42, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

The Convention is also typically where the prospective nominee announces his choice to run as Vice-President, and that has to be ratified as well. Xuxl (talk) 08:34, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

The convention also decides the party's "platform", i.e. its theoretical list of positions on various issues. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:21, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Something else critical that may happen at this year's Republican convention is that everyone has to decide if they will support whoever wins, withhold support, or maybe run as a third party candidate. It's happened before. See Bull Moose Party. StuRat (talk) 17:00, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:15, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

"Kangaroo Courts" etc.

Hello, hopefully this is the appropriate area of the RD to place this question. The recent events with Nadiya Savchenko and her "trial" in Russia have been on my mind and while reading the article Japanese war crimes here on WP, I ran across the following: " Eight Doolittle Raiders captured upon landing in China ... were executed by firing squad on October 14, 1942."

I checked out kangaroo court, but I was wondering if somebody could help point me to (if it exists) a list of such types of "trials" that have taken place since the Hague Convention of 1907. Specifically I'm interested in neutral (ie: no bias of who's the one presiding over the trial, be they USA, European, SEA, etc) lists of cases in which a sort of "kangaroo court" was used. To whatever extent that might be possible, given bias in reporting, interpretation, etc. Thanks, PiousCorn (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:02, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

• Judge Roy Bean was famous for fining people whatever they had in their pockets, making it obvious he was more interested in emptying their pockets than in dispensing justice. StuRat (talk) 17:11, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

• Or suggesting that he accepted the principle that unit fines are appropriate justice. --69.159.61.172 (talk) 21:14, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

• During the McCarthyism of the 1950's in the US, highly questionable methods were used to find people "guilty" of ties with communists. While not technically a trial, being "blacklisted" destroyed the careers and lives of many. StuRat (talk) 17:16, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

• Under communism, show trials were common, where the verdict had already been decided before the trial. StuRat (talk) 17:17, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

See Moscow Trials. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 23:05, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

We have a category of Category:Soviet show trials that might be of interest to you. We don't seem to have a list or more general category for other countries' show trials, but the category for Category:Trials of political people has several that would seem to qualify (and many others that were probably legit). Matt Deres (talk) 03:28, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

There is a recent practice in China, of parading someone accused of political "crimes" on China Central Television, where they admit their "guilt" and pledge to be good in future, before a trial (or sometimes, just releasing them without a trial). This seems similar to the show trials in the past. I wonder if we have an article about such things? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:54, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

There can be a similar issue with plea bargains, in the US. That is, if somebody is innocent, but feel they will be found guilty because they are poor, don't speak English, are in a minority, and/or there is fabricated evidence against them (like somebody else taking a plea bargain to implicate them) they may plead guilty for a reduced sentence. Thus, they lose their right to a fair trial, if they ever had that possibility in the first place. Also, their court appointed attorney may well advise them to take the plea, because that's less work for them. StuRat (talk) 16:55, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

The Nazi People's Court or Volksgerichtshof was set up entirely to conduct show trials. This newsreel shows the court in action under the direction of Roland Freisler. Alansplodge (talk) 21:24, 14 March 2016 (UTC)