Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 July 19

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

July 19

Sumner's Island, Honolulu Harbor

Does anybody know where Sumner's Island in Honolulu Harbor is on a map? Is was by Sand Island (Hawaii)?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:21, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

There's a small island labeled "Sumner's" shown in the first map on this page. From the description there, it sounds as though when the harbor was dredged to make it more accessible to shipping, the dredged-up material was piled up to form what is today Sand Island, which absorbed Quarantine Island and Sumner's Island and perhaps other small islands. Deor (talk) 11:59, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Question about internet law

In the United States, is there such a thing as "virtual trespassing"? That is, if you have a website, and you ask someone not to post on it, yet they continue to do so, can you obtain a restraining order against them? I'm specifically interested in being pointed to actual statutes, if they exist. Thanks. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:43, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Without getting into legal specifics (which we don't do here), a quick search for "internet restraining order" reveals that such injunctions against online interaction are common in the US (remember, "freedom of speech" is not "freedom from consequence"). You should consult with a qualified legal professional in your jurisdiction for particulars about what is likely to be covered by such an order. — Lomn 13:36, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Supposing such a restraining order were obtained by Wikipedia, how would it be enforced? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:13, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

It's the same as any other court order. The experience of being served with an order should be traumatic enough for most people. If a person is especially hardy, the court's powers are normally backed up by coercive powers, such as arresting and imprisoning someone for contempt of court, or (if there is a financial penalty) using officials or (in some jurisdictions) barely disguised hired thugs to confiscate the perosn's property. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:21, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

How do you serve a court order to an IP-hopping anonymous user? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:04, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

You serve them by getting their information from the ISP that provided the IP address. This is how, for example, the RIAA gets real-world name and address information from an IP address. 18:58, 19 July 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.239.32.14 (talk)

Wouldn't they need a search warrant? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:23, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

If a court is willing to issue a restraining order, the selfsame court would very likely also be amenable to issuing the proper warrants necessary to discover the identity of the person being restrained. I've heard of such issues surrounding Cyberbullying and Cyberstalking, and courts are often willing to do what is necessary to allow enforcement of their own rulings. --Jayron32 01:12, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

I would think such bullying and stalking would have to reach some critical mass or threshold before the courts would go to such trouble. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:25, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

I would think that in most jurisdictions they would expect you to have set up some sort of moderation system so that the poster could be banned or at least their problematic comments would be deleted. Itsmejudith (talk)

That would be my expectation. The judge's first question would probably be, "What defenses do you already have in place?" If the answer is "None", the judge would probably say, "OK, move along now. Next!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:29, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Statutes are one thing but actual court precedence is what may be the most helpful. Knowing that there are several differences in what all 50 state laws have and federal laws have you may be helped most by A Google Scholar legal case search, just choose your jurisdiction (including federal) and search terms. Best of luck! ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 01:16, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Bednall Green

As an American from Michigan, I am not familiar with ancient English territories. My understanding is that Bednall Green is part of what is called today Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green. Is that correct?--Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:51, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

A better link is Bethnal Green, "Bednall Green" appears to be an erroneous spelling sometimes used for the Tudor ballad; The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green [1]. The link that you posted is the name of the former local government; since 1965 it has been part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The ballad (or its associated legend - not sure which came first) is commemorated by the Blind Beggar public house, which is notorious for a gangland killing in the 1960s but was actually fairly civilised when I last had a pint in there. I've just read that William Booth preached his first sermon there, which is regarded as the founding event of the Salvation Army. Alansplodge (talk) 12:23, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for setting me straight. Interesting history!--Doug Coldwell (talk) 12:46, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Correction: "Bednall Green" seems to have been the correct spelling for the place in the 16th to 18th centuries. Bowles's Map of Middlesex of 1733 shows "Bednall Green" [2] and I found a 1578 reference to "Bednall Greene". [3] (note for p.166). Bethnal Green - A village outside the City walls says "by the fourteenth century it was referred to by John Stow in his survey as Bethen Hall Green. Another hundred years and Samuel Pepys recorded his journey to Bednall Green, and on it went until it came to be known by its present name." Alansplodge (talk) 17:57, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional information.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 20:12, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Robert Kennedy in the 1964 presidential election

G'day; I know it's a little specualtion, but I found out that there was an enormous applause for RFK at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. So had RFK sought the nomination for the presidency, is it likely that he could have beaten President Johnson for the nomination, or was the President simply not to beat by anyone in the primaries as well as the election in that year? RFK was much more charismatic, but I also know that Lyndon Johnson had high political skills. --78.52.56.118 (talk) 20:15, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure Barry Goldwater wished someone else had run, as Johnson smoked him like Texas barbecue. I've seen political experts speculate that even in 1968, RFK's charisma exceeded his political savvy, and that he was probably doomed to defeat had he not been killed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:26, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Being a political science and American history double major Nixon was extremely concerned about RFK in '68 prior to his death but some have argued that Nixon was paranoid of the Kennedys period, maybe correctly or maybe incorrectly. To my knowledge RFK did have a very good chance at winning the general in '68 but the party conventions back then were still somewhat "closed door, back room deal" types.

As far as 1964 from remembering my studies RFK was locked into being Johnson's US Attorney General and because he was technically in the "Johnson cabinet" and in an era where party loyalty and loyalty to the office of the president was put above all else, probably calculated that 1964 was not going to be his year. Add to this the well documented depression/melancholy/withdrawal that RFK went through for a few years after the death of his brother and I doubt he felt up to the task of a major national campaign against a folksy incumbent that would necessitate a fight within the Democratic party that may brand RFK as not a "team player" for decades.

I did catch the C-SPAN "Contenders" series at the Goldwater Center where they spoke with both the curator and a beat writer that followed Goldwater for decades and it was telling that Goldwater later confided to friends on his landslide loss to LBJ something to the effect that the nation was not going to vote itself a 3rd president in 3 years in 1964. Although Goldwater rationalized his defeat with that sentiment RFK most likely concluded the same about 1964, it wasn't so much a vote FOR Johnson but a vote for stability and holding onto something when a massive loss was suffered by the nation. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 01:10, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Market timing by mutual funds

For purposes of clarity, consider a retirement account that prohibits "market timing" by its customers, enacting trades somewhere within a 24-hour interval. (I think this is pretty typical) You hold $100 in a hypothetical mutual fund with all its stock in one company "Inc.". The stock price of Inc. on Friday is $10/share. You call or write them on Friday with an order to cash out your $100 or to put it in another fund.

Now the way I understand it, if the company thinks the stock price of Inc. is going to fall to $9/share on Monday, there is nothing that could stop them from selling some of their own holding of Inc. stock on Friday, then waiting to process your order on Monday, purchasing the shares you sell (via selling the mutual fund shares) on Monday for $9 and returning $90 to you.

Question: suppose they wait until Monday, and the price surprisingly shoots up to $120 a share. Are they permitted to "get back word to you that they sold your shares for $100 on Friday" (i.e. the shares they sold from their own holding) and thereby save themselves $20?

Now suppose the shares are sold from one fund and reinvested in the other. Do the two have to occur simultaneously, and if so, how much discretion do they have to pick when it occurs?

In other words, before they actually send the report to you, does the transaction exist in some tangible, auditable sense, or can they fill in the details as they like?

Lastly: if any of this happens, I assume it is reflected neither in the data about the rate of return for the fund overall, nor in any reporting of its administrative costs, right? You just don't make what they say. Wnt (talk) 21:18, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Without providing investment or legal advice, I note that pretending to execute market trades without actually executing a purchase or sale in a timely way at market price sounds a bit like Bucket shop (stock market). A bucketeer could pretend to buy and sell and pay out your "profit" or "loss" but the if the trades were not backed by actual stock and you made a fortune, they would fly by night since they did not really buy and sell the stocks for their customers. US retirement investment companies I have dealt with accept buy or sell orders during the day and execute them at the closing price for the day, not at a random time that day or the next day which they choose to their advantage. See also Front running, where they take advantage of your large order which would affect market price, and execute their own trade before executing yours, a form of Self-dealing. Edison (talk) 01:34, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Units in mutual funds are generally priced and traded once on each business day. The fund administrator calculates the net asset value of the fund based on market prices at a set time, divides this by the units issued to get a price per unit and fills orders received since the last cut-off time at that price (this assumes the fund is open-ended; the process for a closed-ended fund is a little different). There is no market timing involved here. If your place your order before the cut-off time it will be executed on the same day; if after the cut-off time it will be executed on the next business day. Trading in fund units is quite distinct from trading in the underlying assets of the fund, which is done by the fund manager. Just because you sell units in the fund, this does not necessarily mean the fund manager will sell any of the fund's assets. If there are more purchasers than sellers of units on that day, the fund manager may be buying more assets to invest the net inflow of cash. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:05, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

In the US, the public can get information on a mutual funds profits and losses and its holdings at the end of each quarter. But some funds make unwise or illtimed market moves and lose asset value, then to avoid looking foolish before the end of the quarter they can sell the poorly chosen stocks which cost them value, and buy good stocks, so you can't see how they lost so much money. This is called "window dressing." Various websites and books discuss it, but Wikipedia has no article on it as a stock market term. Edison (talk) 19:37, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Church attendance in medieval Europe

What was the degree of church attendance in a city in medieval Europe?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 22:31, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Do you have a particular city in mind, and a rough time period? Not that I am trying to avoid answering, but it really depends on when and where... Adam Bishop (talk) 22:54, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Generally just an average figure over a period. But if you want to specific maybe Paris (pretty iconic city in my mind) from the 9th century to 1399. I just want to know when the hiatus of church attendance was in the Middle Ages, was there a period when it was complete attendance and if not what was the closest. Also Jews, and other non-Christians who don't attend Church don't count.--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 23:18, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, well first of all I can definitely say that according to the church itself, attendance was mandatory, but from the amount of proclamations that people should be attending church more often, it's pretty clear that people did not go regularly. The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 even said that priests should go to church more often, since nobody else went and the priests didn't bother to go talk to an empty church. In rural areas, church attendance was certainly very low. Maybe they went and received communion a couple of times a year, on special occasions. If the church was far away, people weren't going to spend all day getting there, and even if their village had a church there was no way to make them attend. But on the other hand religion was much more pervasive in daily life, so "going to church" now for example is just something people do on Sundays even if they don't really think about it the other six days. In a medieval village religion would have been everywhere all the time anyway.

For a city like Paris, it is helpful to remember that it would be full of priests, monks, nuns, and other ecclesiastics. There were churches and monasteries everywhere. The medieval French city I am most familiar with, Nantes, which was much smaller than Paris but still a major city, had a cathedral and six or seven churches within the city walls that I can think of, and several more outside the walls, plus three or four monasteries/convents inside the walls (an area of only about 2 square kilometres). Paris would have been similar, but with even more since it was bigger. That would raise the rate of attendance since all those clerics and monks would be doing ecclesiastical duties. In Paris there were also university students, who were all technically clerics as well. But assuming you mean the rate of attendance for laypeople in a big city full of churches, for example 13th-century Paris, then it probably still would have been relatively low. I'm still looking for statistics, but I don't think attendance was ever very high. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:48, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Apart from a sermon in the vernacular, the entire service was in Latin and uneducated lay people would not understand a word of what was going on. While the priest was mumbling private prayers in the sanctuary, they would not even be able to hear him. Apart from occasional communion, attendance at church was for private devotion, which you could do just as well at home or at work. And didn’t celebrants normally offer up prayers and praise on behalf of the whole parish or community, to whom the spiritual benefit would accrue whether they attended or not? --Hors-la-loi 07:32, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the chancel and sanctuary were separated from the nave by a rood screen, which was often a solid stone wall pierced by a single door through which the priest would appear at the Consecration and to distribute Communion. The nobility and gentry might be able to afford a stall in the chancel. At the back of the nave was an area called the narthex which could be used as a secular meeting place when there wasn't a service going on. Alansplodge (talk) 08:16, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

The many days when you were meant to attend church should be distinguished from special occasions when there would be great pomp and ceremony and large attendance. Corpus Christi would be one of those, when there might be mystery plays, and the various trades and guilds would show off their products. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:27, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Going off topic a shade; my favourite medieval church story concerns St Helen's Bishopsgate. It was a parish church which subsequently had a nunnery built alongside it. The nuns and the parishioners shared the nave for public worship. After several complaints about members of the public getting too friendly with the nuns during services, a second nave was added for the parishioners and a wooden screen erected so that the two couldn't mix. Alansplodge (talk) 12:15, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Allowing that any generalisation about European city churches throughout the medieval period 500 - 1500 CE runs the risk of creating questionable stereotypes, some significant features emerge. Church authorities imposed fines for non-attendance and Puritan settlers in New England (google "early puritan lifestyle") continued this practice into the 1600s. Responsibility for attendance lay with families rather than individuals, and families would be expected to show up in their allotted seats. An absence would be questioned and need an explanation which might range from the acceptable (died, in the throes of dying, away on crusade) to unacceptable (trying to get out of paying tithe, jewish, rumoured to be doing something impious, etc.). The feudal political power of a bishopric lay in the number of baptised souls from which an army could be raised. The population's degree of attendance that the OP seeks may not have been calculable in an age when Infant mortality was high and there were no census except baptismal records. In largely illiterate societies church congregations were the venue for official declarations and news of the world, uncomplicated by any independant media access to the latest Papal bull. Missing a session might cost one dearly, for example in 13th century Italy when Pope Gregory IX started the Inquisition by ordering that all copies of the Jewish Talmud be confiscated (1239) and tried more than once to excommunicate the militarily superior Emperor Frederick II. One did not want to be caught on the wrong side of such burning issues. Today there still exist a few places where church non-attendance is penalised but at least one can rant about it. DreadRed (talk) 18:47, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Our Recusancy article says that fines for non-attendance in England were introduced in the "Act for restraining Popish recusants" of 1593 and aimed to force Catholics to attend the new Protestant services, although they were later used against Non-conformists. I can't find a reference for penalties in the late medieval period, although I suppose it's possible. Alansplodge (talk) 20:05, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

In 1523 in Crediton, "the majority of the people were scarcely present four times a year at the principal Sunday mass". The Late Medieval English Church by G.W. Bernard. The author concludes that we don't really know how many people regularly attended Sunday worship. Alansplodge (talk) 20:26, 21 July 2013 (UTC)