Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 August 14

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August 14

North York Federal Ridings Canada

In Toronto, which Canadian federal ridings are part of North York, Ontario? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.29.33.11 (talk) 04:49, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

York Centre, York West, York South—Weston, Don Valley West, Don Valley East, Willowdale, and Eglinton—Lawrence are all in North York, or parts of it. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:27, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course, there is no North York any more, but we can talk about where it was.

Now, in the spirit of giving sources... curiously, Wikipedia seems to have maps showing each individual district in relation to the others but not a map showing all the districts with their names. However, these are available on the Elections Canada web site under this page and the map for Ontario, with a Toronto enlargement, is here. By comparing that map against this one showing where North York was located, we see that the list given above is essentially correct. Specifically, York West, York Centre, Willowdale, and Don Valley East ridings are entirely in the former North York; also more than half of Don Valley West and Eglinton—Lawrence, less than half of York South—Weston, and a tiny bit of Beaches—East York. --Anonymous, 13:47 UTC, August 15, 2010.

People do still talk about "North York" as a separate place though, like the other pre-amalgamation cities. You can even address mail there (of course, the postal code is more important than the name of the place). I know people who still give their address as "East York" or even "Weston"! Adam Bishop (talk) 14:19, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

North York certainly still exists as a geographical subdivision for property definition and administrative purposes, as well as the territory served by the North York Community Council. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:19, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Consecration of Nero

The emperor Nero apparently did not accept a temple to Divus Nero, and his memory was damned. Was he ever consecrated after his death? Is there any sources stating that Nero was indeed made a Divus or called Divus in or after his lifetime? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.217.120.75 (talk) 09:28, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

What we have is at Imperial_cult_(ancient_Rome)#Julio-Claudian. AnonMoos (talk) 10:14, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

"... Alienated from... " in 17th century English history

What event triggered the "... alienated from the see of Ely in 1600."? Something to do with Bishop Heton? It seems to be applied to manors (e.g. Little Thetford) and churches (e.g. VCH-Stretham) --Senra (talk) 10:52, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

This google books result seems to explain it. Algebraist 11:04, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

thank you. Much appreciated --Senra (talk) 11:20, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Question about miscegenation

If it is more common for a white woman to date (marry, have sex with, have children with) a black man than vice versa by a disparity of it being about 5 times as common than black woman with white man, wouldn't it be in the genetic interest of all white women of reproductive age (regardless of how cruel this might be to white males and black females) to have offspring with black males? See sexy son hypothesis.--Cherchez la natation (talk) 13:46, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

This is especially significant given Europe's low birth rate and the fact that 50 million Africans are projected to enter the EU by 2050.--Cherchez la natation (talk) 15:36, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Can you clarify what you mean are causes and/or effects here, and what the question is? Are you asking a hypothetical question about what would be in the genetic interest of women if your initial assumption was true? Or, are you asking if it is true? Or, are you asking if what you refer to as the "genetic interest" is the cause of the disparity? Or, are you suggesting a scheme to combat the low birth rate? Personally, I doubt that your assumption is true, and fail to see how projected immigration numbers are relevant. Both birth rate numbers and ethnic make-ups of couples are far more affected by attitudes in society than genetics./Coffeeshivers (talk) 16:21, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Non sequitur. You make broad assumptions based on a pattern you discern in a small, well defined fragment of the population. You also completely fail to encompass social patterns - Europe has a low birth rate for socio-economical, not biological reasons. TomorrowTime (talk) 17:32, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused about your logic here. Sexy son hypothesis would suggest you'd want to have offspring that were considered sexy, and would choose your mate accordingly. OK, let's just go with that for the moment as a given.

What you've shown with your statistics — assuming they are correct about 5:1 ratio — is that the more common "mixed" relationship is black male + white female, rather than white male + black female. You haven't addressed non-mixed relationships (e.g. black male + black female, or white male + white female), which are surely far more prevalent. So it's not clear to me, from the beginning, that considering the mixed case makes much sense by itself, if one is trying to figure out what is "desirable".

Lastly, I don't see how this connects with sexy son at all. Are you implying that the advantage would be because the offspring would black males, and thus be more attractive to future mates? That seems like a stretch — your statistics, again, are only between groups. It's not unambiguously clear that black males in general have better reproductive success. And, of course, you're assuming the child will be a male anyway, and you've already indicated that you don't think black females have as much reproductive success. (Which I think is also false, and just an artifact of looking only at mixed race relationships).

I might not be expressing myself as clearly as I could, but do you see the problem with your reasoning, here? If the 50 million Africans were going to all be men, then maybe considering only mixed race relationships would make sense (because you'd be assuming, I guess, that there would have to be a large racial disparity), but I'm not sure that's a reasonable assumption. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The OP also fails to consider that since contraception is widely available how many children you have depends more on choice than on how many partners you can attract.Sjö (talk) 08:07, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

That's very true. It's probably worth noting that for the most part, very few people seem totally unable to find partners willing to have children with them these days on the basis of skin color alone. I doubt it has any bearing in modern society on whether one can reproduce or not, if one is not very picky. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:29, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Free Movement, Work and the Schengen Area?

In the article, on the Schengen_Area, it says that people are free to travel without border checks -- but does it also mean that people from one Schengen country can live and work in another? e.g. France to Norway? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.220.46.47 (talk) 14:58, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

No, Schengen isn't about the right to work. But Norway is part of the European Economic Area, which does allow citizens of other countries of the European Economic Area and European Union to work there. As a counterexample, Great Britain does not take part in the Schengen agreements, but any EU citizen is allowed to work there. I'm not sure whether EU citizens are allowed to work in Switzerland (member of Schengen, but not EU/EEA) Unilynx (talk) 17:13, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

That's not quite true. Currently, citizens of member states other than A8 and A2 may work freely in the UK. Citizens of A8 states may work but must register the work once they start. Citizens of A2 states are restricted in the work they can do. --Phil Holmes (talk) 11:39, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, of course, I forgot about the transitional measures for the new member states. Unfortunately the A8/A2 links above point to disambiguation pages, but I presume those refer to the Eastern Europe countries? Freedom_of_movement_for_workers#Free_movement_rights_of_nationals_of_new_member_states has a nice table showing when current transitional measures are set to expire. Unilynx (talk) 12:52, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Some questions from someone not that knowledgeable in economics.

Hello I would like to know the answer to these questions: 1) How would one country bailing out another weaken their shared currency? 2) what's the situation in Ireland and Spain at the moment? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.251.199.121 (talk) 18:42, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

1) Quickly and very crudely, that depends on exactly what form the bailout takes. Normally, part of the rationale for bailouts in currency unions is to protect the common currency - the EU bailout of Greece, while expensive, was designed, in part, to protect the Euro from collapse. However, given how massive modern bailouts have become (the EU/Greece bailout in May approached $1 trillion), inflation becomes a near-certainty. Inflation reduces the ability of a certain amount of currency to buy goods, thus weakening the currency.

2)Both Spain and Ireland are in dire economic situations. Spain, with ~20% unemployment, is trying to institute austerity reforms to cut public spending. Ireland now has the highest level of household debt relative to disposable income in the developed world at 190%. The Rhymesmith (talk) 01:17, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

RANKS WITHIN THE CHURCH

I'm trying to learn some basics about the church and christendom, and at the moment I'm finding it a little hard to get an overview over positions and ranks within the church. So if someone who possesses some more knowledge than me on the subject could help me making a little list of the positions within the church in a ranking order, i would be most grateful. (of course, i know things might vary a little bit from the catholic church to the eastern and the western ones but a general overview over who outranked who would be very helpful.

The Pope (the Highest rank)

Arch-Bishop (Outranked only by the pope, am i right?)

Bishop (outranked only by the two above, am i right?)

and so on... if you could help me extend the list with more positions within the church; Chaplain, chancellor, cardinal, curate, minister etc. Krikkert7 (talk) 20:26, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

If by this you mean the CAtholic church, here is the article we haveCatholic Church hierarchy. It includes all levels. Your order is missing a few steps, notably Cardinals, immediately below the Pope. 24.83.104.67 (talk) 20:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to answer. I did not mean the catholic church in particular, or any of them more than the other, but getting an overview of the catholic church positions is very helpful

The question is only possible to answer for a specific church- every church has its own hierarchy, and they're different from one another. For example, the Pope (who you put at the top of your list) is only Pope of the Catholics- he has no place in any other church's list. My own childhood church had a much shorter hierarchy - 1. Elders 2. Deacons 3. Everybody else, including the preacher. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 20:59, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes i know a pope is only part of the Catholic church. But i'd like to learn who was the higher-ups and most prominent members of the clergy in all of the churches. Maybe I asked in a clumsy way because my knowledge on the matter is limited and i find it very difficult to get into it, and i'm very confused by how complicated it all seems.

Forexample : I have always thought bishop to be one of the highest and most prominent positions to be obtained in the church (in both catholic and others) but then i learned that there are INNUMERABLE variants of Bishop, then i learn that cardinals are higher than bishops, only to then learn that cardinals are in fact usually some sort of Bishop. So it suddenly seems that a bishop can be very high up or farther down in the ranking order... Now i notice I mention Bishop a lot, but it is not only about Bishops but other important positions as well. And what i forgot to mention was that I'm most of all interested in these things as they were during the middle-ages. I suppose things can have changed a lot since the 12th to 14th century Krikkert7 (talk) 21:18, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

If you want a pan-denominational view, then it's hard to be much more specific than first "minor orders", then priests/ministers, then bishops of varying kinds (of course, some denominations don't have bishops at all). Ca. 400 A.D., things were kind of formalized into a hierarchy of bishops and archbishops, under a "pentarchy" of the five patriarchates of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, but that scheme excluded the eastern Arian and Monophysite churches from the beginning, and over time the pentarchy came to be more and more irrelevant as an overall organizing scheme (and nothing else accepted by all prominent churches ever replaced it). AnonMoos (talk) 23:09, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

If you want to know about the middle ages, it will not really be any less complicated...actually it might be even more complicated depending on when and where in the middle ages. They were very interested in this sort of thing, for precedence at church councils, etc. There is a surviving list of participants at the Fourth Lateran Council which gives you an idea of the order of precedence, at least in 1215. Adam Bishop (talk) 03:48, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Not all churches have ranks. Consider, for example, congregational churches, which don't share any organization. Paul (Stansifer) 13:07, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Of the Protestant churches, the Anglican Church mainly follows the Roman Catholic setup except there are no Cardinals and of course, no Pope. See Anglican ministry for full details. The Lutheran Church also has an episcopal system (ie one based on bishops). However, both these churches are governed at a national level by a General Synod (like a church parliament) in which bishops, priests and congregations are all represented. Most other Protestant churches, following the teachings of John Calvin and others, have varying systems of elected leadership. Alansplodge (talk) 13:45, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

You also have the Orthodox churches, which have hierarchies specific to them, mostly with either an archbishop or a patriarch at the top. There's at least the top echelons listed here. Just as a curiosity - there's even one Pope among those, his full title is (brace yourselves):"His Most Divine Beatitude the Pope and Patriarch of the Great City of Alexandria, Libya, Pentapolis, Ethiopia, all the land of Egypt, and all Africa, Father of Fathers, Shepherd of Shepherds, Prelate of Prelates, Thirteenth of the Apostles, and Judge of the Œcumene" TomorrowTime (talk) 17:41, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

That refers to the Greek Patriarch of Alexandria -- and despite the grandiose titles, it's very noticeable that the Greek Patriarch of Alexandria has far fewer followers than the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria... AnonMoos (talk) 19:11, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, it's Lutheran churches that have the episcopal structure; there's no primary Lutheran organization. For example, the ELCA and the Missouri Synod are two "top-level" Lutheran organizations that aren't structurally connected in any way. Paul (Stansifer) 15:09, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The other (upward) way to approach it is from the evangelical, fundamentalist or "Bible Christian" point of view (I'm none of these myself) and ask what orders were in the Primitive or Early Church, as related in the Epistles and Acts of the Apostles. While there's much room for interpretation and debate, the three orders that are generally recognized were bishops, deacons and elders (presbyters). See Early Christianity#Organization. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:44, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

where can I read John Wayne Gacy's petitions from death row

Near the end of the John Wayne Gacy article it says "John Gacy spent much of his time on death row studying books on law and filing numerous, exhaustive appeals and motion" saying he had just "some" knowledge of 5 of the murders. I would like to read the text of any of these appeals or motions? Can someone provide a link where I may do so? Thank you. 92.230.64.158 (talk) 20:49, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The appeals cases are traceable backwards through the final appeal, which cites others. I doubt they are all online; that kind of legal minutiae is not usually digitized. Apparently the bulk of the Gacy legal files are in the Cook County Circuit Court Clerk. If you Google "People v. Gacy" you'll find some of the later appeals rulings online. There is even a law journal article on the legal legacy of his appeals, which apparently established some precedent. --Mr.98 (talk) 03:15, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Name change after Hajj?

I have heard from few sources that after one performs Hajj, (the pilgrimage to Mecca for Muslims), There is a name change or title that one carries for having performed this. The article doesn't seem to mention it, however. Is this a true statement or disinformation? ^Avic_ennasis @ 23:41, 4 Elul 5770 / 14 August 2010 (UTC)

See Hajji ^{Rojomoke (talk) 02:07, 15 August 2010 (UTC)}

Facepalm Thanks. ^Avic_ennasis @ 03:04, 5 Elul 5770 / 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Don't feel bad. Wikipedia is a Hajj-Pajj. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:55, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

We need a File:Rimshot.ogg. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 13:13, 17 August 2010 (UTC)