Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 December 25

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December 25

Crime rate of Canadian blacks versus American blacks

Is there a significant difference in the crime rate of blacks in Canada versus the US? 74.15.137.253 (talk) 04:17, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Define "blacks". μηδείς (talk) 04:40, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

[ec]: From these two sources I get African Canadians 8% of population and "nearly 27 per cent of all violent charges"[1] versus African Americans 13% of population and about 26 percent of violent single-offender crimes.[2] Of course these aren't exact apple to apples comparisons but even U.S. jurisdictions reporting methods vary enough that comparisons are difficult. Rmhermen (talk) 04:43, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Is there a significant difference in the crime rate of historically oppressed minorities in Canada versus the US? HiLo48 (talk) 08:39, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Christmas morning waiting for the family to wake up, so no time for references, but the First Nations ("Indian") population has a much higher rate. Mingmingla (talk) 16:05, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

And "historically oppressed minorities" is indeed where relative comparisons are appropriate and revealing: Comparing crime rates of blacks in the U.S. to those in Canada which, although statistically similar, is distortionate because the comparison groups are being selected purely on racial grounds, ignoring the broader shared basis for those similarities. If you look at the crime rates (and rates for school dropouts, incarceration, substance abuse, infant mortality, low income, unemployment, etc.), the similarity that appears across much of the world is between descendants of conquered peoples vs mainstream citizens vs descendants of voluntary immigrants. Blacks stand out in North America because they have survived and increased (being imported largely because of adaptability to alien environments, and remaining distinct because of the One drop rule), whereas Native Hawaiians, Native Americans and First Peoples have shrunk in numbers under colonization or slipped across the color line, abandoning their native cultures. But the circumstances of Native peoples relative to descendants of colonizers and voluntary immigrants is similar whether you are looking at the Aboriginal Australians, the Maori of New Zealand, the Sami of Scandinavia, the Ainu of Japan, the blacks of the U.S. or Native Americans. Descent from conquered peoples and poor socio-economic profiles correlate, the former apparently tending to generate "resistance cultures" which maladapt their peoples to success on the conquerors' imposed terms. See the works of John Ogbu. PlayCuz (talk) 02:06, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Stats like that are misleading. Whether someone steals a dollar or a billion dollars, it's still just one crime. "The one percent" are in position to commit massive crimes with massive impact. Imagine how many gazillion street robberies would have to take place to approach the amount stolen by Madoff and crew. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:27, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

I'd probably rather lose my retirement than be shot in a carjacking and left a quadriplegic. μηδείς (talk) 16:30, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Folklore of Romania, link The 12 Sisters and the Demon Bride

Hi everybody! I've tried to fix one of the issues in the article Folklore of Romania. I would need some extra information from previous editor who suggested and edited the tile - link The 12 Sisters and the Demon Bride. I've made research myself and I couldn't find anything related to this subject in Romanian folklore. Thank you Simona

Bună ziua! Am încercat să rezolv una din problemele articolului Folclorul românesc. Am nevoie de informații suplimentare din partea editorului care a sugerat titlul Cele douăsprezece fete și mireasa necuratului / diavolului (?). Am căutat eu însămi și nu am găsit nimic legat de acest subiect în folclorul românesc. Mulțumesc Simona — Preceding unsigned comment added by Simona33 (talk • contribs) 06:54, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Bună ziua, Simona! The edit in question was made in February 2008 by an IP (a user not logged in), so I'm afraid it's very unlikely you'll be able to find them. Your best bet is to start a discussion on the talk page Talk:Folklore of Romania; or if you're confident that there is nothing to be found about that title, just be BOLD and remove it from the article. --ColinFine (talk) 11:27, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

BOOK: Osler's Web (1996)

Back in the late 1990's I remember a book called Osler's Web was published and both the national media and the U.S. medical community reacted very strongly to it. People at my work talked about it a lot. The mainstream news program Primetime Live even ran a full segment on it. I recently saw the name on the talkpages of another article and then was very surprised that a book with such (back-in-the-day) popularity/notoriety did not have even a stub article here. When I went looking for sources I was even more surprised that I could not find any reliable sources except the following two:

• Primetime Live segment (YouTube video)
• Publishers Weekly article

I think I need a better source for the TV show -- ABC's website is no help for this -- but essentially these two certainly prove notability. I am looking for any other reliable sources to use to create and flesh out an article for this book. F6697 ^{FORMERLY 66.97.209.215} _TALK 08:52, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Some partly relevant stuff at Rintatolimod... AnonMoos (talk) 21:27, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately not anywhere near the threshold needed for an article on this book. F6697 ^{FORMERLY 66.97.209.215} _TALK 05:07, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Charitable Costs

I am looking into expanding my charitable work into Africa and other similarly under-developed areas, however I see that there are a wide variety of ways in which help can be provided for these areas. From the basics like provision of food, clean water and medicines, through the training of new medical staff and teachers and on to the building of schools and hospitals and setting up improved infrastructure for water supplies, electricity, communications and transport. I have a variety of reasons for wishing to at least look into the possibility of running the project by myself rather than supporting any of the myriad existing charities, and as such would like to research the variety of different areas within which I can be of help, and am wondering if anyone here can direct me towards resources detailing estimates of the cost, both financial and in terms of man-hours of work, for these different initiatives, such that I can better understand the cost:benefit ratio analysis and the requirements involved in setting up a full campaign for improvement in these areas.

For example, how much funding, and how many people, would be needed to build a single school, and how much to supply required classroom resources, how much would it cost to supply a certain number of people with basic food and water, and so on... of course such things could only be a rough estimate, and would vary considerably by region, but a reasonable order-of-magnitude idea would still be of use to me here.

Many thanks,

90.212.105.156 (talk) 18:25, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

The difficulty with helping you find information is that "Africa and other similarly under-developed areas" is a massive chunk of the world. The costs of infrastructural projects will vary enormously from one country to another. And you want to do so many things. It's a fact that most of the information and expertise is in the hands of the NGOs, UN agencies and governments that are already involved. And these bodies work together because they find that to be the most efficient and effective way of getting things done. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:41, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

The costs would also vary dramatically depending on how you do things. Let's say you want to build a school. If you bring in construction workers and equipment from the developed world, and pay them normal wages, the costs will be huge. If you use local labor and construction methods, and pay the local rates, the costs will be much lower. Better yet, if you can find some abandoned but still usable building and get permission to use that, you might not have any construction costs at all.

Also, bringing in outside builders might cause resentment, while hiring local workers will make you more popular, and also help the local economy. However, there could be a morass of local customs to deal with in either case, like needing to get permission of the local elders to start building. They may expect "gifts" to give their blessing. StuRat (talk) 13:20, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

I understand, there's a lot of different figures, and none of them are going to be very accurate until I've done a lot more research and narrowed down to one particular area. From my own research, though, I've found that building railway lines will cost in the order of a few billion, whilst schools can be set up and supplied for a few tens of thousands each, it's things like this that are helping me narrow down which areas it is worth looking into in more detail. 90.203.228.217 (talk) 15:17, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

One of the biggest bang for the buck options might be vitamin pills. While people in the developed world usually don't have a severe problem with a vitamin or mineral deficiency, in undeveloped nations, especially where they are dependent on a single food source, those deficiencies can be common. You might not even need to go there, just arrange with the local authorities to send them vitamin pills and have them do the distribution. In some places, though, you might find they distrust pills from foreigners. StuRat (talk) 15:34, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

But this just shows why you need to do proper economic development in partnership with local people and with the existing agencies. Why dole out vitamin pills instead of ensuring that people can get nutrients from real food sources? OP, a very simple thing that you could do would be to set up a fund to which people can apply for projects. You don't have to supply full funding, but can ask for matched funding and thus try and ensure maximum leverage. It will work best if you can find a niche and not try to do everything. Itsmejudith (talk) 00:15, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

There's probably a good reason they don't grow a wide range of crops. Poor soil could mean they have few crops that will grow in the quantities needed to feed their people. And isolation due to poor infrastructure could prevent them from trading for other foods with other villages (by the time they can transport the food it rots). These problems would take far more money and time to fix than sending in vitamin pills. StuRat (talk) 12:30, 27 December 2013 (UTC)