Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 July 5

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July 5

When was Vostok Island claimed by the UK?

The best sourcing I can find is that a "Mr John T. Arundel" claimed Vostok Island for the United Kingdom in 1873. Does anyone have any idea if it's possible to find the specific date and what it might be? The best I can conceive is going through the archives of Parliament for 1873-4 and seeing if it was mentioned but that seems an excessive amount of work that may not even pan out. --Golbez (talk) 02:44, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Arundel also claimed Flint Island for the UK in 1881, again without any specific date; would love to know that as well. --Golbez (talk) 03:10, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

We do have an article on him: John T. Arundel, which lists several sources. Rojomoke (talk) 06:22, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I wonder if it was related to the Challenger expedition, which was in those parts in early 1874? Alansplodge (talk) 17:02, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I found an official looking 1940 Report on the Phoenix and Line Islands with special reference to the question of British sovereignty (link to pdf at bottom of web page). See page 40 of the Report for details about Vostok Island.--Cam (talk) 18:35, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Order of competing claims

(I am not sure if this is the right place, if not, I would be happy if someone directed me to the correct place)

In many articles, in WP:ARBPIA, there are competing claims. The UN says something, Israel says something, the Palestinians say something etc. Is there some guideline as to which order these claims should be presented in a section? See for instance, the dispute here. Kingsindian ♝♚ 09:18, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Bumping thread. Kingsindian ♝♚ 09:40, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Suggest you ask at WT:NPOV... that would be the policy that best applies (as DUE WEIGHT may have an impact on the order of presentation). Blueboar (talk) 12:03, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I've asked there. Kingsindian ♝♚ 17:41, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Raymond Lubitz

Resolved

The final chapter of the book Anarchy, State, and Utopia lists a number of individuals. One of them is "Raymond Lubitz". Who is Robert Nozick likely referring to? The name could be misspelled (for example the same list includes "Hugh Hefner" spelled with two "f"'s). If it helps, the entire list is as follows: "Wittgenstein, Elizabeth Taylor, Bertrand Russell, Thomas Merton, Yogi Berra, Allen Ginsburg, Harry Wolfson, Thoreau, Casey Stengel, The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Picasso, Moses, Einstein, Hugh Heffner, Socrates, Henry Ford, Lenny Bruce, Baba Ram Dass, Gandhi, Sir Edmund Hillary, Raymond Lubitz, Buddha, Frank Sinatra, Columbus, Freud, Norman Mailer, Ayn Rand, Baron Rothschild, Ted Williams, Thomas Edison, H. L. Mencken, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Ellison, Bobby Fischer, Emma Goldman, Peter Kropotkin." Gabbe (talk) 10:11, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

The economist Raymond Lubitz (1937-1984). He was Assistant and Associate Professor of Economics at Columbia University (from 1967-1973), a member of the Federal Reserve Board (1973-1984), and Chief of the FRB's World Payments Economic Activities Section (Division of International Finance). In 1971, he co-authored International Economics with Peter Kenen. Nanonic (talk) 10:24, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

One of the essays of Socratic Puzzles was dedicated to Raymond Lubitz, the economist. So it seems you are spot on. Thanks for the quick response! Gabbe (talk) 10:55, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Pansexuality and Cochin

How come the so called Pansexual pride flag is directly copied from the flag of the Kingdom of Cochin? Is this just a coincidence or is there any Indian spiritual inspiration for the new flag which has led to this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.251.77.222 (talk) 14:50, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

It was conceived by JustJasper on Tumblr in 2011. Might be worth asking her there. Nanonic (talk) 15:57, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

No. According to the sources here at Wikipedia it was concieved in 2010. 83.251.77.222 (talk) 16:52, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Well that's odd because I got that info directly from the sources on the Wiki page itself. Even now, if you go to the original Tumblr page here it states that JustJasper created it in 2011. Nanonic (talk) 16:59, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Flags Of The World has different shades for the colours for Cochin [1].
Sleigh (talk) 16:02, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

No source make any claim to have the right colours, as far as I can see. 83.251.77.222 (talk) 16:59, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I can't find anything on LGBT topics and Hinduism either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.251.77.222 (talk) 16:33, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Is there any reliable source for even the existence of that Cochin flag anyway (let alone the precise shades)? I can see none. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:30, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

This site traces the flag (with the colours "red, yellow, and turquoise", rather than pink, yellow, and blue) back to a book entitled "Nations Without States", written by James Minahan in 1996. We don't have an article on Minahan, but his works are frequently used as references here. The site mentions that (for this book) Minahan does not cite any sources. Apart from that, all references are to the image on Commons and our article. Tevildo (talk) 21:46, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

But even the crwflags site says that Minahan is describing that tricolor as "the Keralan national flag", not the flag of Cochin. And the difference between red and pink is too big to make this count as the same flag anyway. Plus, we are talking about a state established in the 13th century; the idea that such a state (outside Europe) should have had a tricolor "flag" (of any color combination) falls into the category of "extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence" (the tricolor format being a decidedly modern, European convention); the same goes for the European-style "coat of arms" given on the page. I'm removing both from the article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:05, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Maiden names as middle names

When did it become established that married woman use their maiden name as middle names, e.g. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Michelle Robinson Obama? I'd never heard of this practice before, but it seems to have become common in recent years. Zacwill16 (talk) 13:09, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, the articles about middle names and married and maiden names are pretty poor about things like that, aren't they? My impression is that this sort of naming has been going on for some decades in the US, but has become more common there. But do I have a cite for that? Certainly not. --174.88.133.209 (talk) 19:15, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

It was certainly a common-ish practice in C19th Britain. It can be a useful aid to tracing family history. Mjroots (talk) 19:18, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Double-barrelled name has some relevant information. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:23, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Not quite the same thing, but having the mothers' maiden name as the childs' second forename is not unusual in Wales - my mother, her brother, and her sister all had "Jones" as their second forename (dating from around 1920). --Arwel Parry (talk) 00:13, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

The same happened in my family (Scotland and Cornwall) - although my mother's middle name is MacKay, her grandmother's maiden name. Alansplodge (talk) 09:14, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm reluctant to add WP:OR, but this might help direct further research. When my American parents (Mother from Georgia, father from New York) married in 1947, my mother took her maiden name as her middle name, and while she is no longer around to ask, my father says that it was not an uncommon practice at the time. -- ToE 00:03, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Not WP:RS, but this discussion suggests that it is a long standing Southern tradition. -- ToE 00:13, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

And this article says that about 25% of American women marrying today follow this practice, and that it is most common in the Northeast and the South. -- ToE 00:20, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

In my family (Northeastern US) the custom certainly goes back to at least the second half of 1800s ... All four of my Great-grand mothers took their maiden names as a middle name when they married. Blueboar (talk) 01:26, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Both my mother and my aunt use their maiden names as a middle name, replacing their former middle names which were chosen as confirmation names. Neither of them were given middle names at birth. For what it's worth, they are also from the Northeastern US and first-generation Americans. Helene O'Troy - Et In Arcadia Ego Sum (talk) 17:19, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Has a confederation of nations ever been stable when it has central law/monetary policy but not redistribution of resources?

Looking at the Greek crisis, I find myself doubting that the Greeks are part of Europe presently. I mean, they might be EU members and part of the euro and such, but when Europeans hear they have a 25% unemployment rate and 25% contraction of their economy, their response is typically to ask what the Greeks can cut to pay interest on debt, i.e. thinking of ways for money to flow out of Greece. This isn't how I'd expect one's fellow countryman to think. Fundamentally, in a federation of poor and rich countries, I'd expect that the rich will find ways to write law, monetary policy or whatever to suit their needs; this means that the poor countries must either receive some kind of free money, or else it is in their benefit to leave the union altogether. Only if the confederation were maintained by brutal force (Ireland in the UK), or else in name only, or maybe just a free trade pact or alliance, would it be possible to maintain, I'd think. And in practice, of course, to get NATO off the ground there was the Marshall Plan, and the U.S. likewise put money into Puerto Rico to encourage development, and West Germany poured a fortune into East Germany after unification as I understand it. Contrarily, the U.S. under the original Articles of Confederation, and quite probably the Confederate States of America, were what I would think of as unstable.

But is this any sort of valid observation, or can you point to a counterexample? Wnt (talk) 22:00, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Switzerland has very limited redistribution among its cantons, which, like European countries, also may differ in language. The main difference is a shared identity and a federal government with a small redistributive role. Marco polo (talk) 14:50, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Instead of redistributing wealth you can redistribute population. That is, instead of moving wealth where the population is poor, the population can move where the wealth is. Clearly for the free movement of people you need some sort of union. So that could be another recipe for stability. How much redistribution there really was in the US in the first say 150 years of its existence? But the population was very mobile. The Greek should try to solve their problems by helping all of their unemployed move to Germany. Now how about that? Would they, as EU citizens, be entitled to German benefits?

I'm surprised to hear that Switzerland doesn't have much redistribution. I'd always thought of Switzerland as a country with relatively few economic disparities (compared to say the US). Maybe there is very limited redistribution because the country is very homogeneous and a lot of redistribution is not needed?

Incidentally: "Else it is in their benefit to leave the union altogether". You're talking as if a country has some kind of monolithic will. But usually, even in democracies, countries are run for the benefit of a small proportion of their population, and you discover that the "national interest" is in fact the interest of a small proportion of its population. What may not be in the interest of the general Greek population may have been in the interest of a Greek elite.

Contact Basemetal here 16:10, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

If it's "clearly" true that "for the free movement of people you need some sort of union," the definition of some sort must be very broad. Absence of political obstruction is not a positive act. —Tamfang (talk) 23:22, 11 July 2015 (UTC)