Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 January 11

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

January 11

Apotheca - is it part of ancient roman houses?

There is a Hungarian article about apotheca what state it was a chamber over fumarium where the smoke helped to conservate and aging especially the wine in amphoras. There are references in the article.
Question: why not mentioned in the domus article? Was this in separated buildings? --hu:Rodrigo (talk) 01:31, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

All I can tell from Latin dictionaries is that an apotheca (a Greek loanword, by the way) was a storage room, especially one for storing wine. I don't know why smoke would help wine (as opposed to meat)... AnonMoos (talk) 10:26, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

It's explained here as a way of accelerating the ageing process by the application of steady heat, rather like the estufagem process in Madeira winemaking. The smoke was just a by-product if this author is to be believed. --Antiquary (talk) 11:58, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Jose Serrano 22nd amendment?

Why does José E. Serrano want to repeal the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution? Simple googling doesn't turn up any explanations. Staecker (talk) 02:59, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

He told this website in 2009 that he does it because he doesn't believe in limited periods of office for anyone. He's not the only person to propose such changes as Snopes makes clear. Nanonic (talk) 03:11, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

It was passed by Republicans in order to prevent another FDR situation. During Reagan's term, some Republicans talked about repealing it, but nothing happened. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:20, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

"It was passed by Republicans" is a considerable oversimplification. In order to get out of Congress it needed a 2/3 vote in both houses, that is 64 out of 96 senators and 290 out of 434 representatives. The Republicans had a majority in both houses in 1947 but that still included only 51 senators and 248 representatives. It then had to be ratified by 3/4 of the states, that is 36 out of 48 states. It was actually ratified by 41 states and while I haven't tried to find out how many of them had Republican-controlled legislatures at the time, I would be surprised it it was as many as 36. --65.94.50.4 (talk) 04:52, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Read the article and note the hyperbole of Thomas Dewey about what a "threat to freedom" it was to allow the people to keep their president more than two terms. Also, it took four years to get ratified, so they had to do a persistent sell job. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:03, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Sources on a historic U.S. bank

I'm looking to research the history of an national bank in Philadelphia, which existed approximately 1875-1956 (as far as I can deduce). Where might I find information about incorporation, annual profits and capital, bank presidents and directors, etc.? Even just knowing the date and reason for the bank's closure (or merger, I'm not sure) would be nice, but I'm not sure where to look. The FDIC database wasn't helpful, so perhaps it was never FDIC-insured, but that's just conjecture. Knight of Truth (talk) 07:42, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Do you know what its name was? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:55, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

It concerns the Centennial National Bank. I'm happy to do the research myself, I'm just not familiar with sources in this field. Knight of Truth (talk) 08:04, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Holocaust & the Kadoshim

Hi.

This is an Holocaust related question. Are those converts to Reform Judaism whose conversions were not recognized by Orthodox Jewish law and who were murdered in the Holocaust considered to be Kedoshim (Jewish Martrys)?

Prsaucer1958 (talk) 16:15, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Pretty sure "yes". Even converts in the other direction -- they were killed for their religion too, even though they'd renounced it. Check out this. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 16:35, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

By whom? הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) 18:39, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, the "naming" was done by the State of Israel in 1952, so their opinion is the only one that matters. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 19:42, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

That may be what the OP meant, but the use of kedoshim as a term for "religious martyrs" or "Jews murdered with anti-Semitic intent" dates to medieval times and is not dependent on the State of Israel's formal definition. (That being said, Israel does not (yet) recognize Reform conversions, so why would they accord them a Jewish-specific title?) הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) 19:50, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Because their murderers did not care by which method they became Jewish? I'd like to see the 1952 declaration; haven't been able to find it yet. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 20:53, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

True, but the question implies interest in the Orthodox point of view. I doubt Orthodox sources would use a term implying Jewishness in reference to people who, according to Orthodox Judaism, were never Jews in the first place. הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) 01:38, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

USA politics

1. When in the business cycle do Republicans start getting a tailwind? There might be a hurricane of other things impeding them (or a weak breeze) but point in the business cycle is still a wind component.

2. Are the kingmakers (swing-state open-minded persuadable to eternally undecided actual voters) voting for their choice or against the opposite more often? (to the extent that you can separate the two motives) (I've heard that the eternally very undecided usually don't vote that year (or at least contest), though)

3. Is there a ties win for the incumbent bias? Where the undecided to the last minute just end up picking the old guy?

4. Would Democrats on average have a harder time if third parties were illegal? Not that such a law would be good or democratic or fair or anything but who gets the short end of the spoiler stick? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:31, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

On the first point, maybe the GOP got a "tailwind" for this past fall's election, from (1) the economy improving, along with (2) too many apathetic Democrats not voting, which vaguely addresses your second point. There were enough incumbents turned out that I don't think your third point works. And finally, if there were no "spoilers" it probably wouldn't matter much, because apathy would still lose. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:56, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I dunno about that point 4. If there hadn't been third party candidates, Al Gore would have been elected in 2000, and GHW Bush would likely have been re-elected in 1992, and Humphrey might well have won in 1968 (a lot of the Wallace voters were drawn from the ranks of yellow-dog Lincoln haters.) --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 22:32, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

• Are you starting a debate, SMW, or asking for a reference? See Have you stopped beating your wife for the problem with your questions. μηδείς (talk) 22:36, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Oh yes, if I got references I would either swear to God to only read the non-referenced writing or believe them over the references if I did.</sarcasm> I've noticed that a lot of the third party votes since '92 have been to stuff that right of center people would be interested in and wondered if this would hold true where it mattered (i.e. majority of swing states counted by electoral college votes). I didn't realize that that Green party guy was the Independent when Bush was President both times. My mistake, I should have said that this is why I wondered (4).

Come on isn't it a reasonable guess that last minute undecideds who still chose to vote would probably not choose change on a whim for no reason?

I did not have a guess for (2). One has to be first.

It is well known that when times get real good people become greedy and don't want to pay as much taxes. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:30, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

And going back to 1984 it appears to be 5 to 3 for my guess going just by the nationwide results in the articles so my guess might still hold. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:47, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

1980 and 1976 agree, too. 1972 still had a racist conservative Democrat splinter party so that's about when what is a Democrat/Republican starts to become muddy and paradoxical (for us young'uns). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:59, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

We can't really make any assumptions about who (if anyone) the third-party voters would have voted for if there were no third parties. Consider the 2008 Senate race in Minnesota. The incumbent Coleman and the challenger Franken each got about 42 percent. The third-party candidate Barkley got a bit over 15 percent. Had Barkley not been in it, there's no way to know how the vote would have fallen. Any number might have voted for one of the other two, or not voted at all. All we know for sure is that on election day at least 57 percent didn't want Coleman, and at least 57 percent didn't want Franken. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:32, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay but over 1 million people voted for the Libertarian Party last time (despite Ron Paul telling them to vote for the Republicans I think). I think it's reasonable that many libertarians wouldn't vote at all if Lib. wasn't available but I really wonder if more would choose Obama over Romney thus helping Obama. I don't think it changed the outcome this time though or would've made a bigger fuss about it. Maybe they're young and hip enough to know about vote pairing sites. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:12, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

It would depend on which states they voted in and whether it would have made any difference in the electoral vote for those states. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:12, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Of course. Some third party vote splitting situations are easier to guess than others. That's probably the term that should be used because spoiling only implies successful (unintentional) election sabotage (like '92, '00). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 07:34, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

The presense of third party candidates can also influence media coverage, donors, campaign decisions of the main candidates and so on, so saying what would have happened without third party candidates isn't merely a question of what their voters would have done otherwise. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:42, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Name of non-monetary transaction

I can't recall, what's the name for a non-monetary transaction, where one hires, for example, a homeless man to clean up his backyard and in exchange offers food and drink instead of money (certainly, this is something other than barter). As a side note, I've read about instances where girls voluntarily "paid" with sex instead of money for renting an apartment, I also wonder whether there's a name for this type of transaction. Brandmeister^talk 22:41, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Paid in Kind? Uhlan ^talk 22:53, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Agree, consideration-in-kind sounds right. St★lwart¹¹¹ 23:24, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, thanks. Brandmeister^talk 00:13, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• Nope. The word is barter. μηδείς (talk) 02:20, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
  • AFAIK, barter typically involves exchange of one good/commodity for another instead of money, whereas in kind payment may involve services in exchange for goods or other benefits. Brandmeister^talk 09:45, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

The in kind article that you linked to says that both terms, "in kind" and "barter", can be used for goods or services. Barter says that as well in the first line. Dismas|^(talk) 09:58, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

There's also the fact that barter describes the transaction as a whole, whereas payment in kind regards payment in something other than cash, LIke Atticus Finch being paid in chickens. Finch didn't show up with chickens in order to win your case for you. μηδείς (talk) 20:58, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

What Should She Have Said?

Read this excerpt from the Loaded Question article:

Madeleine Albright (U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.) claims to have answered a loaded question (and later regretted not challenging it instead) on 60 Minutes on 12 May 1996. Lesley Stahl asked, regarding the effects of UN sanctions against Iraq, "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?"

Madeleine Albright: "I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it."

She later wrote of this response:

I must have been crazy; I should have answered the question by reframing it and pointing out the inherent flaws in the premise behind it. … As soon as I had spoken, I wished for the power to freeze time and take back those words. My reply had been a terrible mistake, hasty, clumsy, and wrong. … I had fallen into a trap and said something that I simply did not mean. That is no one’s fault but my own.

• Madeline Albright clearly wanted to say something different, so my question is, what should she have said? Thanks, Uhlan ^talk 23:07, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

The elided part of the quote is telling; "nothing matters more than the lives of innocent people." That's what she says she should have said and that's what Loaded question leaves out. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 01:16, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Ok, let's rephrase. What was wrong with the question in the first place? Uhlan ^talk 01:22, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm trying to figure out that too. Perhaps a read of Albright's book might clarify, since Loaded question says Albright claims to have answered a loaded question, but does not provide enough context to show where she made that claim. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 01:33, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Her other options appear to me to be limited to a) repudiating the .5M claim, and/or b) repudiating the connection between sanctions and any additional deaths in the period. --01:39, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• What source are we looking for? There are ethical theories that hold all sorts of ridiculous ideas, such as that the blame for the death of innocents lies on the shoulders of those who instigate a war of aggression, not on those who end one in self defense. What exactly is the request here? μηδείς (talk) 02:19, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

What was wrong with the question was that it blamed those who placed the sanctions on Iraq for the horrific outcome rather than blame those who felt the horrific outcomes of the sanctions. Like the Germans placed the blame for German actions on Lidice, Albright places the blame for American actions on Iraq. She believes Iraq chose to cut off imports of life sustaining goods. 174.95.40.40 (talk) 02:31, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Imposing sanctions on a country always poses a moral dilemma, because we seek to punish the government, but it's the common citizens who suffer. But they also suffer under the rule of their dictator. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:38, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

There's also a couple ways the sanctioned nation may intentionally kill it's civilians, and blame it on the sanctions:

1) If there aren't enough food and meds for all, they may make sure that those minorities they want to kill off anyway get the brunt of the shortages, rather than spread the shortage evenly, so all would survive. I believe North Korea used this method during sanctions over their nuclear weapons program.

2) There may not be shortages at all, but they keep the food and meds in warehouses to reap the PR benefits of dying civilians they can blame on their enemies. I believe Saddam used this method during sanctions. Specifically, the oil for food program was designed to prevent civilian casualties, but the Iraqi government used it to enrich themselves instead.

StuRat (talk) 05:09, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Your account directly conflicts with the relevant articles on Wikipedia; perhaps you should add your sources to the articles. 174.95.40.40 (talk) 05:47, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Saddam did all manner of stuff to the citizens of Iraq. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:10, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

The problem with the question is that it contains extraneous and gratuitous information. In responding, Madeleine Albright should have started out by stating that she knows what the number "half-million" means. She then could have asserted that it is unfortunate and that it grieves her deeply if it is correct that a half-million children died in Iraq as a result of UN sanctions against Iraq. And finally she could have restated the original reasons for the sanctions, including possible dangers to human life posed by the brutal and expanding regime of Saddam Hussein. The suggestion that a "half-million" children in one time and place is equivalent in every respect to a "half-million" children in another time and place should not have been accepted by Madeleine Albright. This bears a relation however imperfect to the legal concept of "leading the witness" insofar as it "puts words in the mouth" of a person to which a question is posed. Madeleine Albright should simply have started out by saying that yes, she knows the significance of the number 500,000. Doing so would have put the questioner on alert that she would not readily accept the comparison, but she could have then responded to the question on her own grounds. Bus stop (talk) 06:27, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

The wording happens to touch on one of my pet peeves. (I'm the Crazy Cat Lady of language peeves.) To me, "X is worth Y" means "the value of X is equal to or greater than the value of Y." Literally, then, Albright said that the price (half a million children's lives) equals or exceeds "it" (presumably meaning the benefits resulting from the sanctions). What's shocking about that? —Tamfang (talk) 01:40, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Murder Most Contradictory

I was watching an episode of The Mentalist, where a murder is committed by two people. One stabs the victim, the other stands watching. They both claim the other murdered the victim, though both accept they were there when it happened and that they conspired to blame it on a break-in. Given it's a police procedural they don't go into the legal aspects, but I'm curious - in such a situation, what charges might be filed against the murderers, given they both claim innocence of the actual act, and there is no evidence to support one over the other? -mattbuck (Talk) 23:24, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Conspiracy (criminal). AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:46, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

In the UK both can be done for murder - see Common purpose (aka Joint Enterprise). Here's a contemporary story on the issue. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:53, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, criminal conspiracy and probably felony murder as well. μηδείς (talk) 02:14, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Thankyou all. -mattbuck (Talk) 13:56, 12 January 2015 (UTC)