Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2009 January 14

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January 14

Can the Democratic Party refuse to put candidates on the ballot?

Assuming a candidate has the required petition signatures, what recourse does the Democratic Party have to prevent the candidate from being placed on the primary ballot? Also if a candidate wins a primary is there any way for the DP to prevent him from being put on the ballot for the general election?

Where can I find NYS Democrat rules for Governor primaries?

Where can I find the Democratic Party of NY's rules and policies for getting on the ballot at the Governor and mayor elections? Cit council and state legislature info would also be appreciated. --Gary123 (talk) 06:09, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

The Democratic Party is a private organization, and is free to set its membership requirements and primary ballot access however it so chooses. If you have more specific questions about party rules, please see http://www.democrats.org for the national party and http://www.nydems.org for the New York state party. There is contact information at each of those webpages where someone will be able to answer your question more specifically. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:21, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

The official websites referred to above are the definitive source. Many candidates run within the party primary without the endorsement of the party. They are termed insurgents. A local congressperson with extremely impressive credentials did not receive the endorsement of the party. He won the primary and instantly became the darling of the party. In fact, NYC has a strong history of strong political appartuses running counter to the regulars. I imagine there are many articles concerning this in political science journals.75Janice (talk) 23:29, 14 January 2009 (UTC)75Janice

I can only speak for Ohio, but in that state, there is nothing a party can do to prevent an unwanted person from appearing on the ballot if that person has the necessary signatures. The rules are set by state statute, and the party agrees to abide by them when it takes part in the state primary system. New York may be different, but I doubt any state allows parties veto power over candidates in a primary. That would defeat the purpose of the primary system. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:13, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

parlor scenes

Most (it seems) of Hercule Poirot's cases end with a "parlor scene": the detective gathers the suspects and other concerned parties in a room, where he reveals the solution, sometimes by tricking the guilty one into a key blunder. My question: Is this trope older than Poirot? —Tamfang (talk) 06:10, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Aha! I see you are wanting to know, whodunnit? Julia Rossi (talk) 07:56, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

In a broader sense, the denouement is probably as old as storytelling itself. The true "detective denouement" you're asking about came in with Sherlock Holmes, according to our article. --Milkbreath (talk) 11:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Holmes never gathers everyone around, in my recollection (having recently finished the entire Volume I of the Barnes and Noble collection of Holmes tales). He exposits, at the end, about what happened, but that's not at all the same thing as gathering the suspects together the way Poirot does. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 16:28, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

You could make the case that, as a crafty fellow, Odysseus confronted a number of suspects in a dining room, skewering them with sharp... accusations. --- OtherDave (talk) 12:37, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

He doesn't gather them there. He happens upon them there. Very different. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 16:30, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

It's a very common thing in Agatha Christie's work. I'm not off the top of my head able to think of any notable examples earlier than her. Not Poe, not Conan Doyle, that's for sure. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 16:33, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Long ago, I read all of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories and I can't now remember a Poirot-like gathering of the suspects in any of them, although my memory may be letting me down. I think I remember one in a modern Holmes pastiche called something like The Secret of the Silver Earring or The Adventure of the Silver Bullet, but of course that would be long after the device was invented... perhaps by Agatha Christie? Strawless ^(talk) 19:55, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, me neither, now that I've thought about it, and the few I never read I must have seen with Jeremy Brett. I think our article is talking about the ones where we get a recap at the end, a "this is how it was done". Tamfang asks an excellent question. My first thought was that Christie must have invented the device herself, not too hard for the person who spawned a literary genre. (That lady just blows my mind—the craft, the crafty craft of it all.) The comedy of manners is adequate precursor, I think. God knows the imagined English country house is simply bulging with ready-made stock characters. --Milkbreath (talk) 00:52, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I seem to recall them occasionally showing up in some samples of early American noir. (It certainly is the case at the end of the movie version of The Thin Man, though I admit I haven't read the book.) Anyway, if Christie didn't invent them, she certainly gave them their life and modern style. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:16, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

That scene isn't in the novel. Deor (talk) 04:11, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Who said Contempt is blah blah something about good arguments

It was attributed to Ambrose Bierce, author of the devil's dictionary, but it seems not to have originated from him. I don't care, I just need the quote. The quote is said about someone who makes a good argument and makes everybody mad.

Upon second thought, the word may be resentment is something blah blah one who makes good arguments. I have tried wikiquote, and several dozen google search clicks. 198.70.210.143 (talk) 13:15, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

try here? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 16:26, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Which says "CONTEMPT, n. The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed." That doesn't say anything about "good arguments", though. StuRat (talk) 16:49, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Ann Coulter's been using this quote lately, attributing it to Ambrose Bierce, and using it to explain people's contempt for her incivility and general hatefulness towards single mothers in her latest book. I think she's been altering "formidability" to "good arguments" - certainly she's pretending it's her "good arguments" and not her "formidability" that people detest - perhaps she said her arguments were "formidable" rather than her as an enemy - but I can't swear to it. - Nunh-huh 20:50, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Exactly where I heard it from. You guys have been very helpful. Thanks to both of you. 198.70.210.143 (talk) 09:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Do Alan Greenspan really deserve all that blame?

In many articles I've read on the current financial crisis, people tend to put a lot of the blame on Alan Greenspan for keeping the Fed fund rate absurdly low at 1%, thus driving investors away from the nice and safe Treasuries and into super-risky (as it turned out) CDOs. I kinda think that that criticism isn't all that fair.

Yes, obviously, in hindsight, having the rate at such a low level was a colossal mistake. But it's not like that's the only thing that created this crisis. A huge number of things had to go wrong to cause the mess we're in. For instance: the creation of incredibly complicated securites like the the collateralized debt obligations, the creation of credit-default swaps, the unwillingness of Congress to regulate credit-default swaps, letting Lehman Brothers fail, housing prices becoming incredibly inflated (and increased real-estate speculation by regular folks), the rapid growth of emerging markets, the complete failure of rating agencies to do their jobs, the creation of idiotic new forms of mortages, etc, etc. I could go on.

Greenspans mistake clearly deserves to be on that list, but isn't he only a rather small part of it? I mean, there's lots of people that bear responsibility for this mess, all the way from speculating consumers to deregulating congresspeople. If some of those things I listed hadn't happened, there's a good chance we wouldn't be in the place we are now and Greenspans actions may have been not that damaging at all. Besides, it would be ridiculous to expect of him back then to think "Oh, I shouldn't do this, because that will lead to fifty other things happening that will plunge the world into financial apocalypse by the second half of 2008!". I mean, for Christ's sake, the man's not Tiresias!

Is he really as responsible as people make him out to be? Or is he just a convenient scape-goat, like I suspect? Belisarius (talk) 17:27, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Well it's a bit of both. It's not just the fed rate. He was also instrumental in aforementioned deregulation as well. He symbolizes much about the housing bubble, he, if I recall, many times urged people not to worry naysayers and pessimists. He was an enormously influential figure in the economic realm for quite a long time. As a more general point, he also took a lot of credit for things being good when they were good. When you take credit when things are good, you'd be better be ready to take credit when things are bad. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:23, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

It might not have anything to do with Alan Greenspan at all. According to the Wallstreet Journal, the cause of the mortgage crisis might be the Community Reinvestment Act[1]. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:31, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

The editorial and op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal are well known for their arch-conservative agenda and point of view and partisanship on behalf of Wall Street finance. As our article on the Journal states, media critics have repeatedly criticized its opinion pages for inaccuracy and dishonesty. It is no surprise to see an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal blaming the financial crisis on a legislative response to racism in the banking sector. The Community Reinvestment Act dates back to 1977, more than 20 years before this crisis began to develop. The problematic mortgages do not date from the early years of the CRA or even from the 1990s, but specifically from the period from 2002 to 2006 when Greenspan kept real interest rates negative and imposed a laissez-faire approach to financial regulation. Greenspan aimed intentionally to inflate assets as a way to counteract the collapsing Dot-com bubble, but in the process he created a much larger and more dangerous housing and credit bubble, a bubble that many observers identified while Greenspan was in office, but which Greenspan refused to even attempt to moderate. For a central banker, this was willful malpractice at best. We can only speculate about his motives, which might have included enriching his former colleagues and associates on Wall Street. Greenspan is not solely responsible for the present financial predicament, but he is far more responsible than any other individual. Marco polo (talk) 02:58, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

There is no single cause for this sequence of events. It will be interesting to see what the "one-liner" that history books use for this crisis though. I imagine it will be centered around ideas of "over-borrowing" and having too low of a net national savings rate. Personally I blame Alan, Ben and bank state and national bank regulators for the regulatory framework, not the rates. Bank regulation, especially pertaining to capital requirements, is designed to do more than protect bank depositors from the folly of over-leverage (a natural tendency in a world of deposit insurance and monopoly central banking). It is also responsible for protecting society generally. By allowing the financial sector to securitize and sell mortgage assets, these authorities were choosing to protect bank depositors from over-leverage, while turning a blind eye to the amount of total leverage in the financial system as a whole. NByz (talk) 09:08, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Political parties of North America

According to your list of political parties in North America, most of parties of Canada were in bold, same thing as U.S. and three of Mexico. Does it mean they were the main competitors for the nations' election? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.204.74.184 (talk) 18:44, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

That seems to be the case, but it would nice if one of the editors of that article would explain what their intent was. Tomdobb (talk) 19:10, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

You too can be an editor of that article. Feel free to make any changes at all that you think will improve the readibility of it. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I know, but that doesn't really clarify the original intent in bolding certain names but not others. Tomdobb (talk) 19:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Then fix it. If you can think of a better way to present the information, and want to do it, then do it. The encyclopedia was not made by people who sat around complaining that other people didn't do something the best way. If you have a better way, make it better! WP:BOLD is the first principal of building Wikipedia. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:30, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Spare me the lecture on how Wikipedia works. I am referring to the original question which was, "Why is it this way?" I can fix it however I want (although I have no desire to), but the OP asked why it was this way and without some indication of intent, there's no way to know for sure.Tomdobb (talk) 19:35, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

You or the OP could ask User:Guðsþegn (the editor responsible), but he hasn't been very active lately so he might not reply. Algebraist 20:23, 14 January 2009 (UTC)