Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2015 January 16

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January 16

Pacific Line Islands (Howland, Baker, etc.) National Widlife Refuges

Google Earth contains Wilkipedia information on suject Refuges and attributes managment by the U.S. Fish and Wilddlife Service of the U.S. Department of the U. s. Department of the Interior as part of the Pacific Remoe Islands Marine National Monument and notes the individudal islands are visited every two yerss byt he U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I do not know the date such National Monument was established but I doubt the resources available to the USFWS allow them to physically visit these remote islands and suggest that if their agents do make such visits it is probably the U. S. Coast Guard who provides the transportation. My position derives from the fact that as Navigator/Operations Officer and acting Excecutive Offficer of the USCGC Buttonwood, I made the periodic "Line Islands" trip in 1952 from Honolulu to Canton, Enderbury, Baker and Howland islands, going ashore for a few hours or several hours, painting day beacons etc., and logging our visit to establish what I understood at the time to be a U. S. State Department requiremnt to maintain continuity of the U. S. oversight of these islands. I do not recall USFWS agents being on board, although we occasionally transported them for research purposes to Hawaiian leeward islands and other locations. Peerhaps the differences beween my recllecction and the information in the Wikipediaa description relate eentirely to the passage of time and differences in U.S. policy, but still inconsisitencies would still remain.174.26.230.110 (talk) 00:23, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument was only established in 2009 and our article does not mention anything about two year visits. Rmhermen (talk) 02:12, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

saratoga casino and raceway

Percy Davis was at Saratoga Harness racing most of my life...my dad was a driver there. Why was he not mentioned honorable for drivers in the honorable mention area Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.236.21.178 (talk) 03:52, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

The simple answer is because no one has added him to the article. From a quick google search there seems to be no reason why he should not be included, given his training record. Why don't you add him yourself with an appropriate reference. Richard Avery (talk) 07:56, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I have added him now. It is usually better to leave a note on the talk-page of an article if you have a query with it. Richard Avery (talk) 08:39, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Jail bird syndrome

It's well documented that in male dominated institutions, instances of consensual and non consensual homosexual contact happens.

However, what about female institutions. Do incarcerated women display the same sort of homosexual tendencies? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.90.26.38 (talk) 14:09, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Probably, males and females aren't that different. Situational homosexual behavior by women in prisons is supported by our articles, but I see no direct citations on the topic. Check out our articles on situational sexual behavior (specifically the section "Harem Effect"), prison sexuality, and LGBT people in prison. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:19, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Just one data point: Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison (the memoir by Piper Kerman...not the fictional Netflix show that's based on it) clearly shows that, at least in the Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury, it's quite common. SteveBaker (talk) 16:27, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

They certainly do...in any movie I would care to watch, at least. :-) StuRat (talk) 05:35, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

See situational homosexuality. StuRat (talk) 05:43, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I can't find a youtube for it, but one time Michael Landon was on the Tonight Show, and Johnny Carson asked him about all those men together with no women. Landon took the hint, and said, "No, we were not homosexual... Thank God Hop-Sing was!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:48, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Yep, that's probably the better-quality article but prison sexuality has some good references for further reading. St★lwart¹¹¹ 08:03, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Here are 6 Ways Women's Prison Is More Horrifying Than It Looks on TV. According to her, the sex is even more common in real life, but nowhere near as sexy. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:38, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

That's why you should ignore the TV series and read Piper Kerman's book...fiction versus non-fiction. SteveBaker (talk) 18:26, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

No thanks to either. I'm very well acquainted with a woman who knows regular prison and the "hospital" kind. She wants to write, but her grammar sucks and she's impatient. Well-spoken, though, and has nice hair. Maybe she could act. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:28, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

tramp

Does not appear to be question, rather a long anecdote. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:24, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I remember a tramp I met at a time when the owner of my local pub had died. I went to the pub owner’s funeral with the whole pub. I met this tramp in the street on a bench at the waterside below, near where I live. He made me aware of even worse stories taking place around the corner that haven’t left me, too horrible to contemplate, I lost my appetite for my neighborhood a few steps away. In the end all the tramps used to gather there. This man whose name was Leon, was Irish and knew an Irish, Mike, the writer I knew in town, but didn’t mention him. Mike did when I told him, for he knew everyone in the Irish community. Leon had been in prison half his life since he was a teen, he was still a minor then. He had killed a man for stealing his horse, that was his sentence. In prison he had studied music, and he had learned to play the guitar. He played ballads. He played several for me. It was surreal with this story in mind. He said he knew Bob Dylan and had played with him too. I didn’t know how, perhaps after his release from prison. He explained to me what happens if you die, physically that is, and he told me about the tramps who had died below the bridge next to the maritime museum. Their corpses were taken in the morning by the marine police so nobody saw them. This was a few steps from where I lived. He said he was a tramp, but he washed himself every day, with soap. It was all horrible, but the man was so stable I could handle it. I later found that even Irish Mike seemed to be a little in doubts, about this man. He couldn’t place him that well. His music was touching, the height of it was that he played In the port of Amsterdam by Jacques Brel that he had transposed in English. It was perfect, it was not even chilling, it was merely surreal. I met this man several times. Later a fence was put at a passageway under the bridge where he slept, to inhibit rough sleeping. So this is my neighbourhood! I have taken him to my local pub where one barkeeper often used to have this tune played from a CD he had with him, in French. But to my increasing trauma he didn’t seem to be that welcome there even on the terrace, and I wasn’t helping my own reputation hanging out with such people. It was a nightmare. The pub owner, a woman was ruthless. She started to kick people out, including me after a while. Her husband I saw with their kids in the street not long after. A girlfriend of the neighbour living next-door to the pub had suddenly got a deadly disease, she had helped him in these hard times consoling him, she died, and they started an affair. Her husband I saw walking around in the neighbourhood not far away with their children like a tramp. He didn’t get near the pub where he had sometimes worked. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.157.10.37 (talk) 14:25, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Swiss franc

I just checked the xe.com page after hearing about the latest developments of the Swiss franc, and it turns out it's actually worth more than the euro now, a little bit less than 1 euro and half a cent. Is this the first time this has happened? And more interestingly, now that the Latvian lats and the Maltese lira don't exist any more, does this mean the British pound sterling and the Swiss franc are the only European currencies worth more than the euro? JIP | Talk 20:41, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

xe.com will answer your first question: since 2005, the swiss franc has not been worth more than 1 euro (except for today). It got above 0.95 euro in early 2011 [1]. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:44, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

JIP said "ever", not "since 2005". But since the euro is a fairly new currency, we only have to go back a few more years. OANDA will do that, and the answer is indeed yes, it's the first time. --65.94.50.4 (talk) 01:29, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

It depends what you mean by European. Azerbaijan is usually treated as an Asian country, but it does belong to the Council of Europe, and parts of it lie north of the main Caucasus watershed and therefore inside Europe. It's worth mentioning then that the Azerbaijani manat is worth €1.10275. --Antiquary (talk) 11:28, 17 January 2015 (UTC)