Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 October 17

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October 17

Malcolm Lowry eating Harriet Lane

WHile researching James Johnston Abraham, the author of a book I've just acquired, I ran across the following quotation from the Malcolm Lowry novel Ultramarine "Now I was telling you about this hungry ship. We were carrying a cargo of Crosse and bloody Blackwell's plum puddings and tinned chickens and all sorts out East for the Christmas season. Ruddy murder it was to think of all that food under the hatches and us poor twats forward eating Harriet Lane all the time. What did he mean by "eating Harriet Lane"? DuncanHill (talk) 00:22, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

This post from the Gutted Arcades of the Past blog explains it:

"Harriet Lane" refers to sailors calling canned meat by that name after a famous murder in 1874. Henry Wainwright was a brushmaker who murdered his mistress Harriet Lane in September 1874 and buried her body in a warehouse he owned. When he was declared bankrupt the next year, he disinterred the body in September 1875 and attempted to rebury it with his brother Thomas and another brushmaker, Alfred Stokes. Stokes was suspicious of the contents of the parcels he had been given to carry, and opened one, revealing human body parts, which he immediately reported to police. The crime was given more publicity at the time than those of Jack the Ripper. Henry Wainwright was sentenced to death and hanged on 21 December 1875.

Might be worth mentioning the Harriet Lane-canned meat connection at the Henry Wainwright article. There is a shanty about Harriet Lane at www.shanty.org.uk/pdfbox/andy_mckay/HarrietLane.pdf and an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang here --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 00:42, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Splendid work, many thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 00:52, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Rebury it where? Bus stop (talk) 03:25, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

• Royal Navy slang often repurposed the names of famous murder victims to describe unpalatable food - Fanny Adams is the most famous example, but there's also the generic Jane Shore (rhyming slang for "whore"). Smurrayinchester 12:07, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

It occurs to me, based on the initials, that perhaps the language is also suggestive of Hellish Leftovers. Bus stop (talk) 13:24, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Dark magic in kabalah

Can any dark magic be found in kabalah?AndrewAngel1024 (talk) 03:09, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

That would depend entirely on your definitions of dark magic and Kabbalah, as well as which authors you consult. Concerning just the latter two issues, do you mean just Jewish Kabbalah, or are you including Hermetic Qabalah? If you're including Hermetic Qabalah, are you restricting yourself to just its adherents who also identified as members of Abrahamic religions, or are you including Theosophists, Neopagans, Thelemites, and Chaos Magicians?

Someone like Isaac Luria might deny that real Kabbalah has practical magic (and that any practical magic is not truly Kabbalistic). Someone like Samael Aun Weor or Helena Blavatsky might say that true Kabbalah can only lead to some kind of white magic that brings enlightenment and maybe some sort of parapsychological benefits but not any sort of practical rituals. Someone like Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Aleister Crowley, or Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers might say it depends on how you use it or that it's unrelated but still necessary for understanding practical ritual magic. Someone like Malaclypse the Younger might instruct you to find the answer by dancing like a turkey. Someone like Thomas Karlsson, Andrew D. Chumbley, or Michael Howard might say that if you're not using Kabbalah for black magic, you're not doing it right. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:16, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I can't provide a source, but as a jew, I've heard that in Jewish kaballah, there is a concept of "practical kaballah" - calling upon the angels to do your will, or using certain holy divine names to make things happen. An actual example, according to the authorities, is Moses killing the Egyptian who was beating the Jewish slave - according to some, he uttered the holy name of god, and the Egyptian dropped dead. However, Jewish teaching is that to actually make use of "practical kaballah" is to play with fire, and those who do such things have bad things happen to them, such as their children going astray from Judaism (or other horrible things perhaps). Generally, assuming you have these skills, it's something you just don't do if you know what's good for you. Also note, that according to Jewish teaching, most people should be extremely cautious about studying kaballah at all - many who do so die at a young age. Notable examples from different eras would be Isaac Luria (The "Arizal" - died aged 38), Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (the "Ramchal" - died aged 39) and, in recent times, Aryeh Kaplan (died aged 48). None, to my knowledge, dabbled in "practical kaballah". They stuck to teaching how to get close to god, and how god runs the world. They never tried to manipulate god or the angels. But nevertheless, all were noted kaballists (and the first two were extremely holy people, according to Jewish teaching), and all died relatively young. So basically, if you want a long life, stay away. To study this stuff is to enter the presence of the king (i.e. god) himself, so to speak, and judgement of those who do so can be harsh. The ONE famous exception in Jewish teaching was Rabbi Akiva - Jewish tradition is that he entered the most sacred realms, and was alone in being allowed to leave unscathed. Others who tried his path in his time either died, went mad, or abandoned Judaism. 110.140.69.137 (talk) 14:00, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Why's Australia much less conservative than America?

Australia: "No American republican would stand a chance in any other developed country except maybe a moderate republican in maybe Australia. Maybe. But I doubt it." - (Ashley John Land)

US: 43% of Americans tell pollsters they'll vote for Trump. He's winning most non-coastal states. [1]. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:43, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

See Conservatism in Australia. In Australia, the conservative movement has historically been dominated by liberals (in the European small-government, free-market sense) which meant that there was less room for social conservatism. That's changed a bit recently, as Australian politics has adopted more European/American ideas - the left has shifted to a pro-market Third Way position, which has meant that the liberals had to take a more conservative standpoint to differentiate themselves - and, as it came to rely on fossil fuel and mineral exports, under John Howard the government took a very US-Republican attitude to environmental issues. Smurrayinchester 3:55 pm, Today (UTC+8)

Not sure about your reference to Europe: the Conservative Party (UK) has been pretty small-l liberal in recent years, in terms of concrete policy positions in many ways it's significant further left compared to the Liberal Party in Australia. I'm not sure there is any major Western European country where the conservative party is as far on the spectrum as the US Republican Party. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:29, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I more was talking about the Australian left picking up Clinton/Blair-style social democracy, which then necessitated a corresponding shift from the Liberals. Nevertheless, most European countries have a socially-conservative, anti-liberalism Christian Democrat-type movement which fuses moral conservatism with social democracy (including the British Conservatives pre-Thatcher - see One-nation conservatism - and even when Thatcher came along, she didn't really change the back-to-basics morality). The British Tories remained old-fashioned (and increasingly out of touch) on social issues through the leadership of Hague and IDS, started to modernize under Michael Howard, but only really became liberal on social issues under Cameron post-2005, which is after John Howard lost power in Australia. There's never been an a major analogous movement in Australia - see Christian democracy#Australia - but under John Howard the Liberal/National alliance did start to become Thatcherite (as our article notes, John Howard is the first Australian PM to call himself "conservative" instead of "liberal"). Of course European and American conservatives aren't the same, but that there is a common thread of social conservatism that was less significant in traditional (pre-90s) Australian conservatism. Smurrayinchester 10:31, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

(Also, it may be more pertinent might be to ask why America is so much more conservative (or at least, why American conservatives are further right) than other European and Commonwealth countries, which America's political system is otherwise quite similar to. As Conservatism in the United States says, US politics actually followed a similar trajectory to Australia, but social conservatives did a better job of taking control of the formerly classical-liberal party. Maybe it helped that the US has a stricter separation of powers than Australia, and between 1980 and 2000, the two main branches of government were almost always opposed (Democratic House of Representatives until 1994, then a Republican House but Republican Presidents until 1992, then a Dem President), which created the governmental deadlocks that allowed culture war to thrive. In Australia, the PM always controls the House, so political polarization matters less.) Smurrayinchester 10:35, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

[Banned user's contribution deleted]

A conservative paper supporting Brexit suggests the Tories have moved further to the right? How does that compute? Does the fact that the Lib Dems were the strongest Remain supporters suggest they are now further left than Labour? By all accounts there were more Brexit supporters amongst Tory voters than amongst Labour voters, and given that a majority of the country ended up voting for Leave, it should not have been surprising that the Telegraph endorsed "Leave". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:27, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

For about the 25,926th time, a majority of the country did not vote for Leave. 37% of the electorate voted for Leave, 35% voted for Remain, and 28% did not vote at all. Those figures should be engraved on every Brit's heart. Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:47, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

An optional voting system gives you the option to abstain, and those who abstain, like the insane except voluntarily, don't count as part of the body politic for the purpose of counting this vote. 52% of the body politic voted for Leave. This is the same in every British election or referendum, it seems to me that your beef should be with the optional voting system rather than anything to do with this particular referendum, so I'm not sure why 35% is any more worthy of engraving on body parts than 48%. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:52, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

My boeuf was the fact that you claimed that "a majority of the country ended up voting for Leave", which is untrue - unless you regard people who didn't vote, children, etc., as not "of the country". Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:53, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

One must also factor in that the "Bible Belt" phenomenon is uniquely American. No other country has a significant population of gun-toting bible bashers. The types of hot button political issues for this sector of American society such as gun rights, opposition to abortion, creationism, etc. barely feature in the political agendas of any other western democracies. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:08, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

This is a good point, although it's interesting that until the 70s, this community wasn't all that influential in the political mainstream (they were just another brick in the New Deal Coalition). But when the Democrats went desegregation, the Republicans swept in with the Southern strategy to pick up the alienated white working-class Southerners, and Moral Majority picked up from there. Smurrayinchester 11:30, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

My sense is that it wasn't until the US started to experience its now-regular mass shootings that the gun lobby became so powerful. After people began to argue for much more stringent gun control in order to limit the possibility of more shootings, the gun lobby argued that defence of life and limb in the face of the shootings was exactly why ever more guns were needed. While ever one side sees the ready availability of guns as the cause of the problem and the other side sees it as the solution, there will be no resolution. After the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, Australians by-and-large willingly agreed to surrender their guns for destruction. Twenty years on, there has been no repeat of such an event here. Otoh, Category:Mass shootings in the United States by year tells a radically different story. Just 2016 alone in the USA has had more mass shootings than Australia has had in its entire history. Whether this difference in approach/outcome can be characterised by different levels of conservatism in our respective countries is an open question, but it must play some role. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:18, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I wonder what role geography plays. Those on the coasts (primarily the US East and West coasts, not as much the Gulf coast) had constant exposure to new immigrants, and their ideas, so the more recent liberal ideas may have made more inroads there than far from the coasts, as in Iowa, which kept to the old ways. Comparing with Australia, isn't it true that the Outback has a low population, and thus little influence on the politics of the nation ? The US interior, on the other hand, has a larger population, and even more political power than their numbers would indicate, because every state gets 2 Senators, regardless of population. And Australia, being an island, has coasts on all sides. StuRat (talk) 14:08, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Are you saying that all US immigrants come from the sea via the coasts and none of the come from the Canadian or Mexican land borders? Wasn't this question partially relating to Trump? Nil Einne (talk) 14:16, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

All, no. Most, yes. And the more liberal immigrants tend to come from Europe, not so much from South of the US (Hispanics tend to vote Democratic not because they are liberal, but because Republicans like Trump make them feel most unwelcome in that party). Canada does tend to be more liberal than the US, but the immigration from Canada is fairly small, and it might tend to favor conservatives, as liberal Canadians should be happy to stay put. StuRat (talk) 20:40, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

About Hispanics not being liberal. I didn't see evidence of conservative values in the people I went to school with (mostly Hispanic). In church sure, one likely wouldn't go to Catholic Mass every Sunday if one was liberal right? Is there a regional difference in this? There's probably also a generational difference. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:48, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

You're missing my point. You've implied that Australian being all coastal somehow makes immigration easier or more likely which flies in the face of many immigrants come from the land borders, especially in recent times, in the US. (In modern times many immigrants who aren't coming by land don't come by sea, they come by plane.) Further, you've muddied your point even more by now bringing up politics. How many European immigrants are going to be coming by boat to the West Coast of the US? Speaking of Australia although coastal a lot of it is actually not very close to any land where immigrants are likely to come from. While I'm not an expert on the sea currents and ocean voyages, I'm pretty sure I'd be easier for immigrants to make it to the northern part of Western Australia or the Northern Territory or Northern Queesland or in some cases even Perth, then it would be to make it to Melbourne or in some cases even Sydney. However the later 2 are where they tend to go. Of course the White Australia policy was only completely dismantled by 1973, by which time it's likely most were arriving by plane rather than sea. In a place like Australia with limited transport over land, travelling to Melbourne or Sydney by boat is generally easier than over land, but still talking about "Australia being all coastal" but the US isn't "all coastal" but instead has land borders is clearly excessively simplistics. The differences between population distributions could be a factor but there are many reasons for this and putting it down to Australia being all coastal is again too simplistic. Nil Einne (talk) 00:47, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

File:Asiatic Barred Zone.png

The Asiatic Barred Zone of 1917-1952

The US had a similar policy from the early 1920s to 1965. A series of laws were passed with names like the Emergency Quota Act. They set low annual immigrant quotas which were very low for non-white countries. A correlation with settling in or near port cities and Mexico continued even after the disappearance of oceanliners. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:42, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

There are conservative values that go along with being Catholic, like opposition to Roe v. Wade. StuRat (talk) 00:39, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Even my mother's very devout 70 year old Polish Catholic friend didn't say did you vote, she said did you vote for Kerry like it was a no brainer. She was the kind of person who thought morals had gone so bad that Revelation might happen within decades and hopes God will make the world like the old days before electricity. She told us if she had Bill Gates' wealth she'd use nearly all of it to build a cathedral 2 or 3 times as tall as the Twin Towers (so 1/2 to one mile tall and long basically) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:10, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

As for your first point, sure and that re-enforces the view that making a big deal over the coastline is confusing. As for the second point, yes there are reasons why this can occur but it's complicated, e.g. Dallas isn't a coastal city [2]. (This is even clearer if you look at other countries. E.g. London isn't coastal.) Nil Einne (talk) 08:53, 18 October 2016 (UTC) P.S. In retrospect Lyon or even Paris is probably a better example than London. I'm sure you can come up with even more inland examples though. Of course the geography, nature of transportation in Europe, freedom of movement, etc means as we've seen a lot in recent times that immigration over the land borders was and remains a decent prospect for France or much of continential Europe. Nil Einne (talk) 15:38, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

I was in a bit of a rush when writing the above so I should clarify I was of course primarily thinking about immigrants from Asia, although I expect immigrants from Europe are likely to find the listed places easier to get to too if going by sea. Immigrants from North America may not find Sydney too bad although I expect North Queensland is still better. NZ is one of the few places from which immigrants by sea may find the coasts of Melbourne or Sydney a good target, but even if the entirety of NZ's population migrates to Australia it would only increase the Australian population by 20%. A big amount for sure, but this does indicate there are ultimate limits to migration from NZ. Also I should mention that despite the increaing migration from Asia and the weird view of those opposed to migration, the UK and NZ are still the biggest source for the resident population born overseas (Immigration to Australia#Country of birth of Australian residents). Nil Einne (talk) 08:53, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

The part of the coastalness that matters is presumably whether passenger ships let you get off there and whether they're one of the bigger cities in the industrialized portion of the continent after passenger ships get replaced by airplanes. People often want to go big for some reason. Los Angeles is a popular destination even though San Diego's in the way and close enough to walk in one day (before they built fences everywhere). Many Puerto Ricans weren't content to fly to the closer Miami but settled in the largest city in America instead. I've heard of someone South American immigrating by flying to Miami then sitting on a bus for over 2,000 kilometers just to get New York (though the bus was pointless as the extra food equaled the fare saved). Dallas is the biggest US city without a port by metro population (#7). It's the biggest city by metro pop in Texas which has a border with Mexico so if there's a lot of immigrants there that's not a surprise. Immigrants will be less and less correlated to port metro areas and border zones as time goes by. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:14, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Immigration patterns suffer from a social form of the founder effect. There isn't always a logical reason for a particular group to settle, in a concentrated way, in one area excepting that there were a few pioneers from that particular group that settled there. Some settlement patterns make total sense (Latin Americans in New Mexico and California and Texas, French Canadians in New England) because of proximity effects. However, if you have to cross an ocean to get somewhere, there isn't any inherent rational reason why one city or area of a country is better than another excepting "they have jobs" and/or "there are people nearby who are like me", which is the biggest such factor. Consider places like Dearborn, Michigan (Middle Eastern), Lowell, Massachusetts (Cambodian), Morrisville, North Carolina (South Asian). There's nothing particular about, say, Lowell that would indicate it to be a likely locale for the Cambodian diaspora; and yet outside of Cambodia, there are more Cambodians in Lowell than any city in America except Long Beach, CA, which is a much larger city in a much larger coastal port town. Why Lowell? Because some refugees showed up in the 1970s, probably rather randomly, and then more followed. That's about it. It isn't a port town, it isn't on the West Coast, it isn't otherwise a major city for immigrants in general. --Jayron32 19:04, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

We can be more specific than "Middle Eastern" when describing the population of Dearborn. It's largely Arabs Americans: Dearborn,_Michigan#Arab_Americans. Not many Israelis there, for instance. They live in other Detroit suburbs. StuRat (talk) 20:44, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

(StuRat beat me to it) The states on the Mexican border are indeed turning Democratic. California hasn't gone Republican in a presidential election since the Cold War, New Mexico hasn't gone Republican since 2004, Arizona could go Democratic for the first time in a while this year and Texas probably has too many conservatives for newcomners to dilute them quickly enough for the Democrat to win by 2016. 27.5 million people live in Texas and only 18% of white Texans voted Obama last time. They'll be a swing state by an Olympiad or three.

Most of the states bordering Canada are liberal but many would still be liberal without Canadians and most are coastal anyway (many immigrants got off the boat on the western tip of the Great Lakes). Canadian immigration is not a big factor. Only 2% of foreign born residents are Canadian and only 1% of Americans claim Canadian descent or birth. The interior states bordering Canada are cold like the other side, have pretty Rockies like the other side, are less rich than Alberta, have oil like Alberta, have prairies and farms like Saskatchewan, have rural life like the other side, have rivers and lakes like Manitoba, play similar sports .. there's not much the interior border states have that Canada doesn't besides.. Republican-strength conservatives. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:33, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

The Canadian emigres include the good, the bad and the ugly. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:55, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Another element is the migration of British industrial workers to Australia, who brought their values with them. "Trade unionism began to take root in this country [Australia] in the 1850’s following the abolition of convict transportation. Tradesmen and mechanics coming from Britain established craft unions in the building and engineering trades.... From 1860 to 1890 the young unions displayed great militancy and won many concessions from the employers. Seamen, waterside workers and other sections formed unions. Up to 1890 conditions favoured the unions; capitalism was expanding and it was cheaper for employers to grant concessions rather than face lengthy stoppages". This quote is admittedly from the Marxist Internet Archive but seems to hit the nail on the head. Mass British working-class migration continued into the 1970s, see Ten Pound Poms. Alansplodge (talk) 14:19, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Menzies Dickson

I am trying to corroborate Menzies Dickson obituary which said he served in the navy during the American Civil War but after searching the list of enlistment of men from Massachusetts who served in the Union Navy I can't find his name. He also lived in Cincinnati but I don't think he was there until after the war. Can someone help to find more sources speaking about this individual? Also a possible obituary for him in Massachusetts or New England newspapers?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:16, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Google says he was an acting Master's mate [3]. Nanonic (talk) 2:47 pm, Today (UTC+8)