Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 September 22

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September 22

remembering a fallen hero in an American national memorial

I wish to remember Jonathan T. Blunk in the U.S. Navy Memorial. But I still need to find out his rank so I can do so. If anyone out there has more information, please let me know. Thank you so very much.142.255.103.121 (talk) 05:29, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Do you have any info besides his name, like years of service and where he served ? StuRat (talk) 05:35, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

It seems the Google machine immediately spits back one of the 2012 Aurora shooting victims, see he served in the Navy 2004-2009 and there is a memorial page for him here but alas no rank is listed on any of the search results. Marketdiamond (talk) 06:07, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

A symbol to denote Adjusted for Inflation?

Is there a shorthand symbol to denote that an amount has been inflation adjusted to the current year? Thanks! Marketdiamond (talk) 06:09, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

When I was learning to calculate inflation-adjustments in school we used subscripts. The statement

10₁₉₈₂ ¤ = 15₁₉₉₃ ¤

means that ten units of currency ¤ in 1982 had the same purchasing power as fifteen units of the same currency in 1993. I have since then, however, never seen anyone use this notation to denote inflation-adjustment, so I think it's likely to be misconstrued. Gabbe (talk) 07:30, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I rewrote/translated your equation because "¤" apparently is not in TeX's repertoire. —Tamfang (talk) 07:35, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! I have MathJax enabled in my preferences, so I didn't see any errors in my preview... Gabbe (talk) 08:06, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks so much, is this symbol well recognized? If I denoted a number as such on a Wikipedia article and linked the symbol to the article on inflation it would be appropriate for encyclopedic? Thanks, any other suggestions are also welcomed! Marketdiamond (talk) 23:13, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

"¤" is the generic indeterminate non-specific currency symbol, which appears in a number of computer character-set standards (probably partly because Eastern bloc nations objected to giving the capitalist dollar symbol "$" too great prominence), but which has seen little real-world use. I'm sure that Gabbe only used it as a random arbitrary example of a currency symbol to be used in combination with date subscripts, not because "¤" is associated with the idea of inflation adjustment. (By the way, the date subscripts are vaguely reminiscent of General Semantics...) -- AnonMoos (talk) 23:43, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

AnonMoos is precisely right, and by using it the "¤" symbol I seem to have caused more confusion then I intended. If you (Marketdiamond) want to indicate that an amount has been inflation-adjusted in a Wikipedia article, you might want to read the {{Inflation}} template and the examples listed therein, or look at articles which transclude that template. Gabbe (talk) 08:47, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

July 19 1937 as the start of WWII

Are there any notable historian who argue that July 19 1937 was the starting date for WWII? There are several websites [1][2] that espouse this view, but none of them contain any references.A8875 (talk) 07:52, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

It's a date relevant to fighting that later merged into WW2, but was not quasi-global in scope or impact in itself... AnonMoos (talk) 08:05, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not here to argue whether the position makes sense or not. I am not knowledgeable enough on the subject matter to engage in such discourse. I'm simply asking for the names of historians, if there are any, who supported this position. A8875 (talk) 08:13, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

There's a bit of info in the chronology section at the beginning of our World War II article. This book (pg 64) says it started in 1937 ("in the Pacific theater"). I don't know the authors, but it's published by Cambridge University Press. (The other citation for 1937 in our article seems less reliable.) Our article also says AJP Taylor, who is certainly a notable historian, considered the European and Pacific theaters to be two different wars that merged into a world war in 1941, although there is no citation for that. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:41, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

In my humble opinion, a war between two countries (Japan and China) in the same region isn't a world war. It might be the cause of one, but not one in itself. At the start of September 1939, we have a war involving Poland, Germany, the Soviet Union, France and the French Colonies, the UK and the British Colonies, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. That is a world war. Alansplodge (talk) 13:37, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

True but that is more of an accident of colonialism. The war was still (mostly) confined to Europe in 1939. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:37, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Maybe, but the Dominions entered the war of their own volition, not because (like India) they were told to by London. I don't think anyone was in any doubt that they were involved in a world war in 1939. Is there a date for the first use of the phrase "Second World War"? Alansplodge (talk) 16:40, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, that's not the case in Australia's case. Chamberlain announced that a state of war existed between Britain and Germany. That was at 8 pm Australian Eastern time on 3 September. At 9:15 pm, Australia's Prime Minister Robert Menzies went on radio to fulfill his "melancholy duty" to tell the nation that Australia was, as a direct consequence, also at war with Germany. It was not a case of Australia deciding independently that she would also declare war on Germany to support the mother country; there was no time for such niceties as a parliamentary debate on the matter; it was Menzies' view that Britain's decision bound Australia, automatically. There was also a widespread national consensus that Australian could never remain neutral if the mother country was at war, so there was immediate acceptance of this state of affairs from the community. The other dominions did not have this view. They made their own decisions, and their own separate declarations of war. A full account is here. See also Military history of Australia during World War II. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 20:48, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

That's true, but Menzies did have the power to stay out of the war and chose not to use it. He was only compelled by his sense of duty. Alansplodge (talk) 22:35, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

No, it was more than that. Also, we didn't accept the Statute of Westminster till 1942. When we did, it was made effective from 3 September 1939. But on 3 September 1939, we didn't have that. At that time, as my ref reveals, the notion that the King could simultaneously be at peace and at war with Germany was one that Menzies found impossible to accept. He was on the record as considering himself and the nation "British to the bootstraps". Whatever proclamations, gazette notices or other formalities the Australian government went through did not amount to any sort of Australian declaration of war with Germany; they simply placed it formally on the record that Britain's declaration also applied implicitly, inherently, automatically to Australia. Menzies' radio broadcast only 75 minutes after Chamberlain's ultimatum expired was the informal, if public, announcement of that. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 23:07, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the information - it's a fascinating subject. I yield to your superior knowledge, however I still believe that Australia had greater autonomy than it allowed itself to believe. Alansplodge (talk) 00:21, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

You may well be right from the legal/constitutional angle. But remember, this was still 10 years before there was any such beast as "Australian citizenship" - that wasn't created till 26 January 1949. Prior to then, all resident Australians were legally British subjects. Even when the Queen visited in the 1950s and 1960s, it was common to see people waving Union Jacks rather than our own flag. We thought of ourselves as distinctly different from the British people, yet still somehow the same. Even post-war immigrants from every country of Europe and other places were supposed to feel just as British as Australian. Some even did so. It's kinda weird that a German who'd fought the British could migrate to a new life in post-war Australia, do good works for the community, and finish up with an award in the Order of the British Empire. We didn't get our own system of honours until 1975. Anyway, this is getting increasingly OT so I'll just shut up now. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 04:21, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

You could also argue that it started with the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, the German occupation of Czechoslovak territories or the start of the Spanish Civil War, on similar criteria. --Soman (talk) 15:14, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

The Marco Polo bridge incident was on the 9th, not 19th. I'm pretty sure many historians argue for that start date, just like many historians argue that it should be "color" and not "colour". What you call the date is irrelevant as long as everyone knows what happened, so I would be disappointed if any historian took significant effort in arguing that it should be called "the start of WWII". --140.180.242.9 (talk) 17:38, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Heck... one could argue that WWII started with the signing of the Peace of Paris in 1918. But the OP isn't asking us for our opinions as to when The War started... he/she is asking if there is an academic source that supports a specific statement he/she read online. Imagine that... someone actually asking about references on the reference desk! How original Blueboar (talk) 21:44, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Buddhism sources.

Can someone tell where these, or equivalent, ideas can be found:

1: "there is no spoon" (from Matrix). There is no spoon - the spoon exists only in the Matrix, which really means it doesn't exist as a physical object. This is an important lesson for Neo, to help him realize that manipulating the Matrix isn't about focusing on an object and trying to change it. 2:"there is no tragedy, just comedy" or something like that. In the same direction: after meditating for some time you'll discover that no tragedy happened to you. Ptg93 (talk) 19:22, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

The first idea has many sources in Buddhism, especially in Zen. My favorite is the following koan:

Gunin was the fifth Zen patriarch. One day he announced that his successor would be he who wrote the best verse expressing the truth of their sect. The chief monk of Gunin’s monastery thereupon took brush and ink, and wrote in elegant characters:

The body is a Bodhi-tree

The soul a shining mirror:

Polish it with study

Or dust will dull the image.

No other monk dared compete with the chief monk. But at twilight Yeno, a lowly kitchen worker, passed through the hall where the poem was hanging. Having read it, he picked up a brush that was lying nearby, and below the other poem he wrote in his crude hand:

There is no Bodhi tree;

There is no shining mirror.

There is no thing of any sort,

So where can dust collect?

Later that night the patriarch called Yeno to his room. “I have read your poem,” said he, “and have chosen you as my successor."

(Note: many versions of this can be found in various places -- I have tweaked this one, mainly for brevity but also for meaning.) Regarding the second idea, "there is no tragedy, just comedy" is not a Buddhist notion in the slightest. Looie496 (talk) 19:50, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

But there is the idea that there is "no tragedy happened to you", which sounds like nirvana. Although Looie's response to the first question is quite clear I was reminded of the metaphor of "painted rice cakes" that comes up in Zen writings, typically suggesting that a painting of a rice cake is not a rice cake and eating it would not satisfy hunger, then broadening this metaphor to all things and all hunger—ie, all things are just paintings/images, not actual, and none can satisfy the hunger for enlightenment. Dōgen talks about this, for example [3]. When introducing the basic concept he says "all rice cakes actualized right now are nothing but a painted rice cake". Perhaps this is similar to the idea that the spoon only exists in the Matrix. Of course this is only the starting point for Dōgen, who takes it farther to "painted rice cakes do satisfy hunger". When I saw The Matrix I was hoping that the "real world" in it would turn out to be just as "unreal" as the matrix. That would have been more in keeping with the Zen-like parts of the movie. But alas, apparently the real world of The Matrix is really the real world. Dōgen would have accepted that. Pfly (talk) 21:55, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Hehe, I stoppered Talk:The_Matrix_Revolutions#Did Neo die or ascend? three years ago, not a word since. But it's my interpretation that Neo doesn't die at the end of the third film, but rather escapes from the fantasy of the imaginary machine world to the next level. I assume that when he was first awakened from the Matrix he would likewise have appeared to die to observers there. I also take this to be what the final conversation ("did you always know" ... "but I believed") was actually about... Wnt (talk) 13:06, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Also, we have the article Reality in Buddhism. Pfly (talk) 22:11, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

The fifth patriarch of Chan/Zen was Hongren, the sixth patriarch was Huineng - I presume that corresponds to the "Gunin" and "Yeno" in Looie496's post above. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:44, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Economic Sources

How do people find sources and references for very specific economic data? For example, how many persons are involved in water treatment in France, or how many labor hours are spent on agriculture in the United States, things like that. Very usually, simple internet searches are not effective.

I've never been very good at finding the data I was looking for. Please help, thank you. --66.188.84.18 (talk) 20:14, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Obviously there can't be any answer with universal applicability. It's a combination of search sophistication (for example, searches in Google Scholar or Google Books often work where ordinary web searches don't), and topic-area expertise extensive enough to know which publications are likely to contain a given piece of data. Looie496 (talk) 20:21, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

It depends if you want data on just one country or if you want to compare different countries. For France go to Insee, if they don't have it, it probably isn't collected. For the UK start at www.statistics.gov.uk, and the website even has direct phone numbers to statisticians working on different topics. Most stats offices in developed countries do their best to help researchers. For comparative stats Eurostat for the EU, and OECD for a wider group of countries. If you want to ask a more specific question we might be able to point you in the right direction. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:51, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

For the United States, you could use the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, though I'm not sure if they would have it. Futurist110 (talk) 22:42, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Identifying an old Irish Abbey from picture/pictures I took and you could keep of an Irish Abbey not listed in your county list of abbeys

Gentlemen,

I have a number of pictures I took at an Abbey ruin in Ireland. We were in Co. Laois so the abbey would be rather close. I searched your county list but did not see it. If you could recognize if you could keep the picture for your files. I just want to know the name of it.

I would need instructions or permission to send a jpeg of the photo. I can make it whatever size you like.

Thank you, Pat Snyder — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.183.185.254 (talk) 22:19, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

You can always upload the pictures to Wikimedia Commons. Go to http://commons.wikimedia.org and select the option on the left that says "upload file". Any pictures you have taken will be availible for use on any Wikimedia project. Make sure to place the picture into categories to help identify them, do the best you can in selecting appropriate categories even if you don't know the name of the picture. When you do upload them, there will be options on how to lisence your pics for use on Wikimedia projects, this is usally the CC-BY-SA lisence. --Jayron32 22:35, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

As for size, I suggest you upload them at whatever size you currently have. Shrinking them down removes detail, while enlarging them takes up more space without adding any detail. If you have both thumbnails and full-sized images, then just send us the full-sized ones. Wikipedia can adjust the size, as needed. StuRat (talk) 23:34, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Non-Hispanic Black & Non-Hispanic Asian Populations for U.S. Cities Since 1970

http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0076/twps0076.html#dc

• This census paper above shows the non-Hispanic white population, but not the non-Hispanic black and non-Hispanic Asian population for all the big cities in each state. I tried looking at the U.S. Census reports that it listed on its bibliography but I couldn't find anything specific in regards to this. Maybe I'm bad at searching U.S. Census documentation, but if anyone could please help me out, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you very much. And Yes, I know that the Black and Asian Hispanic population for the U.S. wasn't that large, but I would still like to know its number for all (or at least most/some) of the big cities in each state. Futurist110 (talk) 22:25, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure you've got the right link there? It doesn't seem to give the information you say it does. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:10, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this is the correct link. I've checked it again (including the detailed U.S. state tables in it) right now and it provides race and Hispanic origin data for all the large cities in each U.S. state. However, it also gives you separate data for non-Hispanic whites, but not for non-Hispanic blacks and non-Hispanic Asians. This link that I posted also has a "Decennial Census Data References" at the bottom of it. However, I looked at some of those references for the 1970 Census, for instance, but I couldn't find what I was looking for. Futurist110 (talk) 03:30, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I did find this, which has a little bit of information for a few years. this report teases out hispanic vs. non-hispanic black, non-hispanic white, non-hispanic asian etc. as a projection to the future, but I can't as yet find anything on historic data. When did the Census start asking questions about Hispanic status? It may not date as far back as 1970. --Jayron32 02:13, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, the data is provided in my link above. I just can't find the original source for it. I've looked through some U.S. census documents/papers and couldn't find what I was looking for. The U.S. Census began collecting data about Hispanic status in 1940, but then it only asked about it from 1970 onwards. Futurist110 (talk) 03:49, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Football Coach quote "I'm not growing [type of flower] I'm growing men"

Waaaay back when I heard (probably from a High School or College lesson or even a CSPAN type coverage) of a legendary football coach pre 1950s (or 1960s) such as Pop Warner or Amos Alonzo Stagg, coaching for a stint out in the Pacific coast (U of Pacific, Stanford, Cal etc.) Story goes a lady of town (even a bit elderly) walked by this coaches house and called him out to compliment him on how well his flowers were growing and he thanked her. Later this same woman walked back past the coaches house as he was conducting practice with the team all over the yard, including where the flowers were and she shockingly called him out about all the damage that the team was causing to his flowers, to which he responded in a hardboiled way "I'm not growing (petunias, marigolds?) I'm growing men!". The quote is seared into my memory from a time before blogging or wikipedia was really around to confirm and catalog and hyperlink quotes like these and I remember it from a very reliable source (text book, VIP guest speaker, CSPAN, tv documentary, or professor). Please help I have searched all over for this, searching by college by era by coach names (tried a bunch). Thanks! Marketdiamond (talk) 23:31, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

A quick search for '"not growing" "growing men" football' finds this PDF [4] which includes the quotation about his a farmer and his children in the form "I'm not growing corn, I'm growing men." So I can't help but think this is one of the quotes attributed to a wide variety of people and if it was ever actually said in that manner (it's more likely apocryphal), the source is probably unknown. Nil Einne (talk) 01:34, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

BTW to be honest, the farmer story sounds slightly more plausible then the coach story which just sounds strange. Why would someone bother to put so much effort in to growing their flowers to be worthy of a compliment, if they knew they were going to be destroyed when they used their yard for coaching? Giving random quotations to old ladies obviously wasn't the reason, and it doesn't seem that they would aide the 'growing men' in any real way. It's possible the coach was bored during the offseason (although I wonder if this was likely in that era) or didn't expect their yard to be used (either there was supposed to be somewhere else to practice or they weren't a coach) or that the flowers were from who they purchased or rented the house from (or the tenants before them), but these don't seem that likely. A third alternative is it wasn't the coach who grew the flowers in the first place but their wife or similar (in which case the coach starts to sound more like a jerk then an inpiration). Nil Einne (talk) 02:49, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I couldn't track it down either; but here's some useful advice about growing a man. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 01:43, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

@ Nil Einne, thanks for the link! The story made it seem like the flowers were there when the coach moved in or he just had them put in as an afterthought. Yes I am increasingly thinking this was at one time an actual story that kind of took on tall tale status and although I remember a very credible source telling it and attributing it to a college football coaching legend. @ JackofOz, funny enjoyed it. Marketdiamond (talk) 02:56, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't know how widely spread this usage is, but if this story had occurred in Australia, I can imagine the statement being "I'm not growing pansies. I'm growing men". It would be a play on the slang meaning of pansy, being a homosexual. I'm sure Jack will be able to confirm the usage. HiLo48 (talk) 05:54, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

While it also has that meaning in the UK, I'm reminded of Pansy Potter who was a tomboy. I wonder therefore if in past decades the meaning was closer to transsexual? --TammyMoet (talk) 14:14, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Certainly. Funny how it's always a pansy, never a nasturtium or a daisy or a hydrangea or an agapanthus, or even a rose or a daffodil. Or a gladiolus. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 06:25, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

That term "pansy" didn't mean gay when I was a kid, it meant "unmanly" (as did "fag", by the way). The term for gay was "queer", and the term "gay" itself was under the radar in the general public until about the 1970s. However, those terms also carried further implications. Consider this little scene from an early 1930s film called International House: W.C. Fiels has just arrived in a fictional Chinese city called Wu Hu. Fields calls out to the fussy hotel clerk (Franklin Pangborn), "Where am I?" The clerk yells back, "Wu Hu!" Fields pulls a flower out of his lapel and says, "Don't let the posy fool ya!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:43, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

The way I remember the story being told it was not "pansy", the double meaning would have hit me, it was more along the lines of petunias or marigolds etc. The speaker/source may have changed it for effect, but the effect of the speech was that men grew up best rough and tumble etc. without any implied joke with double meanings. Marketdiamond (talk) 14:40, 23 September 2012 (UTC)