Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 April 2

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April 2

The first woman cabinet minister in South Africa?

Who was the first female cabinet minister in South Africa? Did South Africa have a woman in any government before the abolition of the apartheid system? Thank you--Aciram (talk) 01:39, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

According to Worldwide Guide to Women in Leadership: First Female Ministers, it seems to have been The Hon. Dr. Rina Venter who was Minister of Health and Welfare from 1989-94. 184.147.116.201 (talk) 14:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you!--Aciram (talk) 21:08, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

UK and France elections political parties and regional councils in France

In United Kingdom, besides Parliamentary election last one in 2010 and local government elections last one in 2012, what other elections do political parties participate in to get elected by the citizens? In France, besides National Assembly elections, what other elections do political parties participate in to get elected by the citizens? According to Citizen and Republican Movement article, it says 19 for regional councils. Who are these 19 people in the regional councils what are regional councils? Thanks.--Donmust90 (talk) 02:15, 2 April 2013 (UTC)Donmust90

There's the elections for the European Parliament in both countries. That's the only other British one I can think of. Rojomoke (talk) 05:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

You can refer to Regional Council (France), and more on French WP: [1]. In the latter, it is written: the number of [elected] members varies from 31 (French Guiana) to 209 (Île-de-France). — AldoSyrt (talk) 07:52, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

In 2010 the MRC (Citizen and Republican Movement) got 19 regional concillors (in total). — AldoSyrt (talk) 08:15, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The English electoral system's quite multi-layered, you know. Where I live we have a parish council, borough council, county council, national government and European parliament representative. All of these have been elected. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:49, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, as I type this I'm looking at the poll card for my town council (a glorified parish council) election in two days' time. There are also of course the elections to the Scottish Parliament, Welsh, Northern Irish, and London Assemblies, and the Mayor of London and some other towns and cities, and Police and Crime Commissioner. -- 12:25, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Does anybody know who are the 19 Citizen and Republican Movement regional Councillors in France? --Donmust90 (talk) 01:48, 8 April 2013 (UTC)Donmust90

Catholic Württemberg

What was Duke Alexander of Württemberg (1804–1881)'s religion? Why did his descendants become Catholics?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 03:24, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Württemberg was on the dividing line between Protestant Northern Germany and Catholic Southern Germany, and its rulers tended to switch between the religions on more than one occasion. The Duchy passed between brothers Ulrich, Duke of Württemberg (a Protestant) and Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor (a Catholic) a few times during the middle 1600s. The last of the Protestant branch of Ulrich was Louis III, Duke of Württemberg, who died childless, and the Duchy passed around through some various cadet branches for a few generations (information of which I can't find much about the religions of the various Dukes), however near as I can surmise, the Duchy remained in Protestant hands until the death of Eberhard Louis, Duke of Württemberg, when Eberhard's Catholic Nephew was his heir, he inherited the Duchy as Charles Alexander, Duke of Württemberg, being the first Catholic duke in some time. The Duke Alexander you note would have been a great grandson of Charles Alexander, and so it is likely he was also Catholic. --Jayron32 05:21, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

But the line that became king was also descended from Charles Alexander (he converted) and I am certain they were Protestant judging by the fact fact they married Protestant women (Catholic monarchs tend to marry within the limited reigning family that were still Catholic). Did Duke Alexander's marriage to a French princess prompted him to either convert or raise his son as a Catholic.--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 12:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The German Wikipedia article on Duke Alexander supports your theory; it says: Er heiratete am 17. Oktober 1837 die katholische Prinzessin Marie Christine von Orléans (1813–1839), die zweite Tochter von Ludwig Philipp, dem König der Franzosen. Das einzige Kind dieser Ehe war der 1838 geborene Herzog Philipp von Württemberg, der die katholische Linie des Hauses Württemberg begründete. (He married, on 17 October 1837, the Catholic Princess Marie Christine of Orléans (1813-1839), the second daughter of Louis Philippe, king of France. The only child of this marriage was Duke Philipp von Württemberg, born in 1838, who founded the Catholic line of the House of Württemberg.) The German Wikipedia article on Princess Marie says she married den evangelischen Herzog Alexander von Württemberg (the Protestant Duke Alexander of Württemberg). (Neither article gives a reference, unfortunately.) 184.147.116.201 (talk) 14:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Linguistic fluency of cardinals and popes

Can a cardinal be elected pope if he is not fluent in Italian?

Of course, under canon law, the answer is "yes". For four centuries before 1978, only Italians served as pope. In 1978, a cardinal from communist Poland became Pope John Paul II during the cold war. In 2005, a German became pope. In 2013, an Argentine became pope. All of the above, moments after being elected, stepped out onto the balcony of St. Peter's basilica and addressed the crowd in fluent Italian.

What are the levels of fluency in multiple languages among the cardinals? Are bishops fluent in numerous languages favored over others for elevation to the status of cardinal? Michael Hardy (talk) 05:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

As discussed recently on the "Language Desk", the language of papal decrees and official pronouncements is Latin, but a lot of the lower-level administrative work is carried out in Italian, and it seems it would be very difficult to navigate the internal politics of the Vatican administrative agencies and gain firm control over the work of the Curia without a practical working knowledge of Italian. So under current circumstances, Bergoglio's ability in Italian was probably a definite plus. AnonMoos (talk) 08:18, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

At least in the last two elections, they didn't appear until about an hour after being elected, so presumably they had a bit of time to practise a short Italian speech. Ratzinger also worked in the Vatican for over 10 years before becoming Pope, so he had more of an opportunity to learn Italian first. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

You think it's possible to become fluent in Italian, even for one speech, in an hour? Have you ever learned any language? --140.180.254.209 (talk) 14:00, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I suppose we have a different idea about what "fluent" means... Adam Bishop (talk) 01:38, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

If he'd had a year of instruction in Italian a couple of decades ago and occasionally encountered that language, he could probably learn to read a speech in it in a half-hour. The hard part would be deciding on the content of the speech. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:59, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

But Ratzinger was already pretty old then. Can you learn a new language at 70? OsmanRF34 (talk) 13:15, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I would expect that papabili would be expected to have at least some knowledge of Italian, and it seems to me a skill that ambitious young monseigneurs should acquire.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:35, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Michael, I find it very hard to believe that canon law has anything to say about the matter at all. What you probably meant is that there's nothing in canon law that would prevent a person not fluent in Italian from being elected pope. That is a very different thing from saying that it's permitted by canon law. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 11:30, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Re your second question, "What are the levels of fluency in multiple languages among the cardinals?" Short of reading every name linked from College of Cardinals, I checked just those appointed in 2007, as a sample. You get:

• Leonardo Sandri - "speaks English, French, German, Italian and Spanish"
• Giovanni Lajolo - article does not say, but has lived and worked in both Italy and Germany
• Paul Josef Cordes - article does not say, is German and has lived and worked in the Vatican and Central America
• Angelo Comastri - article does not say, has always lived in Italy
• Stanislaw Rylko - "Besides his native Polish, the Cardinal also speaks Italian, English, and German"
• Raffaele Farina - is Italian, and "fluent in German, Spanish, Japanese, and French"
• Giovanni Coppa - article does not say, is Italian and a Latin scholar

It seems being multilingual is just what most cardinals do, perhaps from serving in various countries on their way up. 184.147.116.201 (talk) 14:51, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

England's Vincent Nichols, not yet a cardinal but surely on the way, attended the English College, Rome for 7 years, so must have picked up a few phrases. Alansplodge (talk) 22:18, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Fascists in Football.

It has been in the news here in the UK that Sunderland F.C in the UK has appointed an apparently self confessed Fascist into a club role.

This got me thinking, have their been any other teams in recent football history that have had openly Fascist officials or players?

Sfan00 IMG (talk) 18:11, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Former Fallschirmjäger, Bert Trautmann would have been in the highest category of POWs, but went on to play for Manchester City F.C. However, he kept his political views (if any) to himself. Alansplodge (talk) 22:25, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

There has been an occasion when the whole playing team seemed to be a bit to the right. Of course they were just humouring Mr. H so as not to cause a hoo-ha. Richard Avery (talk) 14:03, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Fascinating , Both are things I didn't know about. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 20:41, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

federal corruption laws

This news item says federal authorities arrested people involved in corruption in local politics. Why is bribery of or by state or local officials prosectued under federal rather than state laws? Michael Hardy (talk) 20:28, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

You may be interested in the "Federalism" section of our article about federal prosecution of public corruption in the United States. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 20:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Interesting ---- That does address the question.

Thank you. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:54, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the reason is that the culture of corruption might well extend to local prosecutors, who can't be relied on to do their jobs, when prosecuting their fellow cronies. (A "culture of corruption" is where such a large percentage of officials are corrupt, it becomes the new norm, and it may no longer become possible to hold office in such a place without being in league with the corrupt politicians.) StuRat (talk) 23:12, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

how did they know where the little stones in the mosaics go?

how did the ancients when putting a mosaic together know where the little stones or shards go? meaning what was the technique. 178.48.114.143 (talk) 20:33, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

A simple explanation can be found at Timetrips - How were Mosaics made?. Alansplodge (talk) 21:17, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I would think that it's the same way artists do things now: By visualizing it. Some folks are better skilled at that art than others are. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:39, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

They don't have to visualize it all at once, though.

Like a modern artist, most of them would sketch the design onto the floor with chalk or charcoal as a guide before putting down the tiles. APL (talk) 17:45, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Most of the sites that I visited looking for the link above, suggest that the area was given a layer of cement first, into which the design was drawn with a sharp implement. When this had hardened, a skim of wet lime-and-water plaster was applied. Then the tesserae would be pressed into the wet plaster along the lines in the underlying cement. The artist would make up the tesserae (from old tiles, bricks and natural stone etc) that he needed beforehand, so that he had them to hand once the work had started. Alansplodge (talk) 18:24, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

How many people take Conservapedia seriously?

How many people take Conservapedia seriously? What percentage? Does it have any significant following? Surtsicna (talk) 21:18, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

A very big following. WP:Statistics gives internal statistics and the history page or articles has a link for page view statistics. Alexa top 500 sites has it at 6th most used, and it tends to be believed [2] and provides a useful service [3] ;-) Dmcq (talk) 22:03, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether Dmcq is joking or doesn't know Conservapedia. A comparison of http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/conservapedia.com#reach and http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org#reach (all language editions together) shows Wikipedia's "Reach" is around 5000 times larger. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:09, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry I completely misread the question as referring to Wikipedia. Yes I am all too aware of Conservapedia and a constant question about it is whether it is a joke or parody site. Nope it is quite serious and quite a few people do actually believe that sort of stuff. Jsut think how many people are fundamentalist Christian, think the Tea Party was a wonderful idea, that scientists invented climate change to make money for themselves, that homosexuals should be stoned and abortion is murder and Obama is not American but a closet jihadist, that Einstein didn't discover the theory of relativity and anyway that is a corrupting influence and the Grand Canyon was carved out by the great flood. Yep there are actually a lot of people who accept all that and Wikipedia is definitely not going to change their minds. Dmcq (talk) 22:46, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

"Just think how many people..." Well, that's the hard part. Being European, I have no idea how many US citizens do believe in all that (and thus take Conservapedia seriously). Surtsicna (talk) 23:00, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Conservapedia is considered extremely fringe even by conservative Christians. At a guess, I'd say that the people who take it seriously consist entirely of a few of the editors there. --Carnildo (talk) 00:54, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm a conservative Christian and I consider Conservapedia to be lunacy. That being said, Conservapedia is pretty mellow when compared to Metapedia [4]. Ryan Vesey 01:07, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Considering the holocaust denial (I can't link to it because of the spam filter) "The Holocaust™ — introduced by Elie Wiesel✡ to describe folk accounts of Jewish casualties during World War II, disputed by revisionists" according to their DABpage for Holocaust, I wonder if that website is illegal in Germany. Ryan Vesey 01:13, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to hazard a guess that there haven't been any (scientifically credible) studies or surveys of whether people take it seriously, since none are mentioned in the Wikipedia article. -- BenRG 22:20, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

It's not fair to judge all American political conservatives, or all American fundamentalist Christians, or even the intersection of those two sets, by Conservapedia. Conservapedia does not appear to be about conservatism at all, but about a very specific and politicized interpretation of Christianity. (On the other side, it's not fair to judge rationalists by RationalWiki either.) --Trovatore (talk) 22:56, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Any estimates then? To be honest, I am looking for a confirmation that a great majority of people find it as ridiculous as I do. The fact that such ignorance exists is disturbing enough, so it would be nice to know that it is widely seen as bizarre or as some kind of a joke. Surtsicna (talk) 22:44, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The only public numbers are those regarding its Alexa "reach," which may or may not even be valid indications of traffic (which is not the same thing as "traffic who agrees with it"). But if you're looking for numbers on the sorts of people who believe the sorts of things that Conservapedia advocates, you can find all sorts of sources for opinion polls as to Americans who believe in all sorts of things. My general rule of thumb is that one out of ten Americans believe anything, no matter how silly or obviously wrong, and certain hot-button issues can raise the number quite a bit. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:21, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

As to the general beliefs that Conservapedia espouses, i.e. people who believe the majority of what Conservapedia says even if for instance they think Obama really is an American, I would say that is probably in the same order as those believing in Young Earth creationism, i.e. those who believe the earth was created within the last 10,000 years, and that people lived alongside dinosaurs until the dinosaurs were killed by the flood. Surveys say over 40% of Americans believe that, and I wouldn't be surprised if an even larger percentage of muslims held to the same beliefs. Dmcq (talk) 08:24, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Thinking again about it, I would say less than half that figure as it looks like you need to be quite right wing as well, and belief in young earth creationism is fairly evenly spread between the parties. Dmcq (talk) 08:46, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

• It would be interesting to know where someone would get the idea that Conservapedia has anything to do with conservatism, or the impression that more than 1% of Americans had ever even heard of that site. I never heard of it till I heard some bizarre conspiracy theorizing on Wikipedia talk pages. Where would a European come across such notions? μηδείς (talk) 01:33, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

The simple answer is that many Europeans find much of what happens in the US - and much of what many Americans appear to believe - at least as incomprehensible, and terrifying, as what seems to be believed in, say, North Korea or Iran. So, we wonder why that is the case, and find out about sites like Conservapedia. It's made worse by the fact that we speak the same language, so understand it. The apparent fact that, for example, "over 40% of Americans" believe that "the earth was created within the last 10,000 years, and that people lived alongside dinosaurs", is worrying, to put it mildly. Obviously, there are many even more extreme examples of what we Europeans are given to believe is mainstream US thinking, but this isn't the place to debate them. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:38, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I guess then things like Science lessons should tackle creationism and intelligent design and Creationist groups win Michael Gove's approval to open free schools fill you with a bit of apprehension. Dmcq (talk) 09:23, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:19, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

There are plenty of things in the European mindset that we Americans likewise find disturbing. As to the original question, I would be surprised if anyone outside the conservapedia users themselves (if even that many) take it seriously. Basically it's the choir preaching to the choir. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:15, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, such lunatic beliefs are indeed mainstream in the US, and to a lesser extent, in Europe as well. See this graph of belief in evolution. Only a few countries do better than 80%, Eastern Europe is comparable to the US, and Turkey is way down in the dumps. I suspect the same is true for other Muslim countries, although none of them are European. See Islamic views on evolution: "A 2007 study of religious patterns found that only 8% of Egyptians, 11% of Malaysians, 14% of Pakistanis, 16% of Indonesians, and 22% of Turks agree that Darwin's theory is probably or most certainly true". It's frightening what religion can do to people. --140.180.250.241 (talk) 15:08, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

It's not religion per se; most mainstream Christians in the UK are perfectly happy to accept the theory of evolution. The naysayers are generally members of US inspired evangelical churches that are a comparatively recent innovation here. I met my first creationist last year and I was frankly astonished, although I tried (out of politeness or cowardice; one wouldn't want to make a scene) to pretend that it was a perfectly acceptable alternative view. Alansplodge (talk) 16:36, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

It only matters if it has some negative ripple effect - such as refusing to help the poor because Jesus said "The poor will always be with you." I've worked with plenty of religious folks, and it didn't seem to impair their ability to do their jobs. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:36, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

You'll find the Conservapedia parable of the good Samaritan quite interesting then! And there I was thinking it was just about answering the question of who is your neighbour. I don't doubt though that being religious they'll be more generous in general with charity whatever about funny interpretations of parables like that. Dmcq (talk) 16:11, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Simply repeating one's paranoia about what American's believe is not giving the source for where such paranoia originates. The fact that conservapedia exists is not evidence of anything except that the US has a free press. What source (some leftist European blog, or whispers from person to person, perhaps) is the origin of the notion that anyone takes that site seriously? μηδείς (talk) 19:30, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't see why you're saying that to me. I provided statistics on beliefs. Nobody said that Conservapedia was the original source for any of that, just that they reflect common beliefs even if they are more strident about them so why shouldn't people take them seriously? A lot of people find it hard to understand how different other people's values and beliefs can be, even for those they meet every day under other circumstances Dmcq (talk) 21:20, 3 April 2013 (UTC)