Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2008 August 27

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August 27

Lovecraft/Cthulhu Mythos.

I've not much time to spare, and this seems like an interesting setting (and author :)). Any recommendations as to what I should read from Lovecraft? Thanks in advance... · AndonicO ^Engage. 01:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, the ref desk is for answering questions, not giving recommendations, but I'll have a go. The Cthulhu Mythos, per se, is really an invention of August Derleth and other HPL epigones; however, "The Call of Cthulhu," "At the Mountains of Madness," and "The Shadow Out of Time" should give you a good idea of the material they took as their starting point, and of Lovecraft's style. The latter two stories are generally considered to be among Lovecraft's best work. (I myself find HPL's writing pretty uncongenial, but your mileage may vary.) Deor (talk) 01:36, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

This will not take much of your time because we're talking about short stories/novellas. My opinion is that if you read just one item, it should be "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", and then followed by the stories listed above. I'd say that Lovecraft's masterpiece is "The Colour Out of Space" or "The Shadow Out of Time", but that you shouldn't start with those—save them for dessert after reading other stories. If you really have very, very little time to spare, read the short masterpiece "Ex Oblivione". —Kevin Myers 01:41, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Alright, thanks very much. :) · AndonicO ^Engage. 02:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

WTC steel cross

I've learned that a Christian cross made out of steel from the World Trade Center has been erected near the United Airlines Flight 93 crash site in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The cross was dedicated on August 24, 2008. Where can I find more information about the cross?72.229.139.13 (talk) 06:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Here, for example. Type "cross shanksville" into Google News and you get lots of hits. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 08:15, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Hearing aids

" Has anyone experience of the effectiveness of hearing aids that are incorporated in the arms of spectacles please? " I asked this question on the Miscellaneous page and had no replies, perhaps no one there is deaf! --Artjo (talk) 06:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Or, perhaps no one had any experience. — OtherDave (talk) 10:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Pardon?--88.110.157.156 (talk) 15:35, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be better to ask a doctor or specialist about this? The risk at this desk is that you would only get speculative answers. Bessel Dekker (talk) 23:34, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I've no experience of this myself, but I do know that the actor Eric Sykes has used such aids for many years - his specs are for hearing, not for seeing - so there's at least one high-profile, long-term user. Karenjc 19:28, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Government sans parties

Is there a modern government, with fair elections, that doesn't involve parties? Dismas|^(talk) 13:13, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The Maldives sort of. I think parties just seem to naturally develop. Fribbler (talk) 13:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The Canadian Territory of Nunavut has a party-free government. DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:08, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

City-level elections in Canada (councils, mayors) are generally non-partisan also, as far as I know. Certainly here in Ontario they are. --Anonymous, 20:06 UTC, August 28, 2008.

Hmm. Thanks. So nothing really at the national level except that of the Maldives. And even that is iffy. Dismas|^(talk) 03:50, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Bhutan, until recently. My name is anetta (talk) 21:37, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Nebraska, officially. --ColinFine (talk) 23:06, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

The electoral college (USA)

Hello,

I've just been reading Michael Moore's election guide 2008 and he says that, in effect, in some states the vote of the people can be ignored as electors of the electoral college are free to vote for whomever they want. I know MM is a little controversial stateside (so i don't really want to discuss him) but i've checked it out on Wikipedia and, worryingly, its TRUE! Only 24 states have rules in place to stop 'faithless' electors. Aside from more general questions like 'WTF?', i'm just wondering if any of these 26 states have just thought, sod it, and elected 'the other guy' (or if any electors have actually switched votes in an election). And secondly, why no one has done anything about this (surely glaring) discrepency? Is it a bit analagous to the house of lords whereby, whilst in thoery quite auto/theo-cratic, it actually works quite nicely?

Thanks 82.22.4.63 (talk) 13:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

See faithless electors. Nobody has altered an election by voting for "the other guy" and nobody has been punished for doing so. This is just fear-mongering by claiming that the people have no power. The truth is that the electors are appointed by the state government that the people elected. Why would people elect a state government that would appoint electors that would purposely defy the will of the people? -- kainaw™ 13:33, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

(e/c)See Faithless elector for examples of vote-switching. It's actually more like the British parliamentary system than you think. In britain you don't choose the government. You choose an MP. There is nothing stopping the MP from changing sides once elected. Close to home here, Jeffrey Donaldson did just that. Elected as an Ulster Unionist Party MP, he defected to the Democratic Unionist Party. Fribbler (talk) 13:35, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

In addition, you could argue that in almost states, the vote of many people is ignored, since it's a winner-take-all system except for Maine and Nebraska. The Electoral College article points out that despite the congressional-district method used in those two states, neither has yet split its electoral votes, probably because of their relatively small size.

As a tangent, an enterprising firm in Maine markets sportswear and accessories from "America's Original Party School," Electoral College. — OtherDave (talk) 15:28, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

That is a very weak argument. The definition of "ignored" means that the people are not given any attention at all. They are not ignored. The votes from those people are recorded and counted. If the complaint is that a state uses a direct democracy to elect their electors, then the complaint is that democracy is bad - which is valid. A democracy suggests that the majority is right or the majority knows best. That is not true in any way. -- kainaw™ 16:05, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

A small correction to Kainaw's post: The electors are not appointed by the state government, but by the political parties in each state. Each state's political parties select (some through conventions, some through primary elections) a slate of electors nominated to serve in the Electoral College, depending on the outcome of the popular vote. Most states have a "winner-take-all" system in which a party's entire slate of electors goes on to the Electoral College if its candidate wins a plurality of the popular votes in that state. (A couple of states elect electors proportionally or by congressional district.) Electors are selected by a party (or its voters) typically based largely on their loyalty to the party, often because the electors are major contributors to the party or officeholders dependent on good relations with other party members. As a result, it is extremely rare for an elector to vote against his or her party's candidate in the Electoral College. States might want to give their electors the freedom to do so in the event that no candidate were to win a majority in the Electoral College. (Because just two parties dominate U.S. politics, that has not happened in over 100 years.) In that case, one party might want to form an alliance with another party (similar to a coalition in the Westminster system) and throw its electoral votes to the other party's candidate. This is a built-in potential of the Electoral College and many states might want to leave that possibility open. Marco polo (talk) 16:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not an issue of direct democracy. Indeed I don't think direct democracy comes into it at all really. It's a winner takes all or first party past the post system. Note that some sort of proportional representation is still a form of democracy. The difference is that with proportional representation, if one person wins 50.000000000000000000000000000000001% and the other 49.999999999999999999999999999999999% and there are two EC seats then likely each person gets one seat. With a first party past the post/winner takes all system, the guy who got 50.000000000000000000000000000000001% get's both seats. Both are a form of democracy. In some regards you can say that the votes for the person that got 49.999999999999999999999999999999999%are ignored in a fptp system. Note that there are always going to be some votes that effectively don't count, it's just that with a proportional representation system it's less. Nil Einne (talk) 20:25, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The excess votes for the majority party can also be said to be ignored - it doesn't matter if you win by 0.0...01% or 49%, you get the same result. With PR, votes are only ignored due to the need to round things to the nearest whole number of seats, which usually results in far less votes not counting. --Tango (talk) 01:56, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Fribbler - Actually there are quite a few differences between a parliamentary system and the US Electoral College. Firstly, most parliamentary systems have the voter ability of recall if unhappy with MP - Electoral College does not. Second, if an MP is not acting "in the spirit of parliamentary conventions" he can removed or banned from the parliament. Yes, this rarely happens (but it has!) - at least there are a few failsafe mechanisms. Electoral College does not. Most importantly is the open and plain disclosure of all MP activity and voting records through Hansard. Electoral College is purposely secretive (forefathers wanted to protect them from overbearing governments). Try looking up your Electoral College representative. Not that easy. At the end of the day, the US system relies on historial conventions and a little faith. If there was some massive corruption, then I'm sure something would have to be done about it, but as of right now there are no laws on the books forcing EC reps to vote a certain way or punishment if they do not. In fact, (although can't remember the source at the moment) I believe the key clause states that EC Reps "have full power of discretion but wishing to follow their political mandate" will vote accordingly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bwebster99 (talk • contribs) 18:32, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

An elector who does not vote as expected is referred to as a faithless elector. There are laws to punish faithless electors which basically require the elector to pledge (publicly) to vote for a specific candidate and then, if he or she fails to do so, face punishment. -- kainaw™ 18:36, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I just wanted to point out that, despite Nil Einne's example, there are no states in the Union with over 100 decillion registered voters. Though if we admitted one, it would get about 391 electors, not two. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:06, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Identifying 17th century portrait painter

The attached is a potrait of Antonio Pietro Alvarez Gomez, Marchese di Astorga, Viceroy of Naples 1672-1675 which has been in our family for decades. Can anyone suggest who the painter might be, or suggest who we could contact for further help?

Jblln1234 (talk) 14:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

C.f. Wikipedia:Reference desk archive/Humanities/June 2006 Part 2#Marchese Dias Torqas, Viceroy of Naples for some background. BTW, do you have a high-res image of the whole painting? Does it have a signature or initials anywhere? On the back? Lupo 15:17, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. The background you refer to was posted by me easlier when I was trying to find out the identity of the person in the portrait. Now I am trying to find out the identity of the artist.... no signature or initials, only the inscription on the front. Will put the full portrait on this page. The painting is approx 70x55 cm.

A high res image of the whole painting is now on "Commons" but I am still having trouble uploading images here ("unauthorised")

84.208.130.2 (talk) 20:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Constitution Party (United States)

I want to know some some information about the paleoconservative movement in the United States and the Constitution Party. Conservatism in the United States is dominated by neoconservatism and the Republican Party gain the votes of American conservatives. My question is why the Constitution Party has not become able to draw votes from Republican supporters? Why the conservative movement in the United States is dominated by the Republicans, not by the Constitution Party? Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 21:32, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Mainly historical inertia, plus it's really hard to get a third party going in the US because it has to be a national party all at one time in order to have any impact. US Greens have small successes at the local level, but have yet to make any impact on the national level. Corvus cornix_talk 21:35, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

See Duverger's Law. Basically, in the US, hardly anyone votes for "third parties" because they think that will split the left-of-center, or, in this case, the right-of-center vote, and help the party on the other side of the ideological spectrum win. There hasn't actually been much of a push for a third party on the right in recent years because the Republican Party is pretty loyal to conservatism. On the other hand, there has been quite a bit of talk on the left about voting for a third party... or at least there was until 2000, when Ralph Nader and Al Gore split the left-of-center vote, allowing George W. Bush to win with 47.8% of the popular vote. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:38, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Republicans tried to implement those policies in Congress between 1946 and 1948 under the leadership of Sen. Robert Taft, and then Barry Goldwater largely ran on that platform in 1964 -- and both times, the voters delivered stinging electoral rebukes. It's really a little too late to dismantle the New Deal legacy now -- even Ronald Reagan conspicuously refrained from trying to do so... AnonMoos (talk) 22:39, 27 August 2008 (UTC)