Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 September 2

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September 2

Yemen and Iran

How come Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen didn't try forming a strategic alliance or at least closer ties with Iran like Bashar Al-Assad did? Saleh, just like Assad, was a Shiite (Alawites are Shiites) in a heavily Sunni neighborhood that heavily disliked Shiites. Futurist110 (talk) 00:12, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

The article has a very big clue: "Ali Abdullah Saleh was a long-time ally of Iraq's Saddam Hussein and supported Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990." If you're unsure why that wouldn't make Ali a friend of Iran, then you'll also need to read up on the Iran-Iraq war. Also, don't read too much into the Shia-Sunni thing in relations between the political leaders of Islamic nations. Yes, there are Shia-Sunni disagreements, but rarely can one predict with any reliability how political leaders will get along based merely on which strain of Islam they happen to adhere to. --Jayron32 00:24, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Allright, but why did he ally himself with Saddam in the first place? Did he think that the West was not going to stop Iraq from taking over Kuwait? Also, it's worth noting that Saleh and Saddam were on the opposite sides during the Cold War, with Saddam being a Soviet ally and Saleh being an American ally. Futurist110 (talk) 00:27, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Saddam wasn't exactly a Soviet ally. United States support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq war. True, Iraq received more support from the Soviets, and the U.S. technically supported both sides. But it wasn't like either Iran or Iraq were securely within the Soviet or American sphere. Again, I think you're oversimplifying the way in which the cold war polarized places. Certain areas (especially Europe) were quite polarized, but outside of those areas, there were many parts of the world which did not fit into that model. The Non-Aligned Movement included both Iran and Iraq as founding members. --Jayron32 00:41, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps I am oversimplifying it to some degree, but the main reason that the U.S. supported Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War was because they considered Iraq to be the lesser of the two evils at that time (Saddam was a secular nationalist pro-Soviet leader, while the Iranians were perceived as a bunch of fundamentalist religious nutjobs--which one of these seems to be the most predictable to you?). This is similar (at least to some degree) about how the U.S. supported the U.S.S.R. during WWII against Hitler and the Japanese for the same reason, only to have hostile relations with the U.S.S.R. return after WWII ended. (As far as I know), Saddam was much closer to the U.S.S.R. than to the U.S. during the Cold War, to the extent of being a Soviet ally. Heck, even Wikipedia's own map of the Cold War in 1980 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cold_War_Map_1980.png) shows Saddam as a Soviet ally. It's true that he wasn't a Soviet puppet during this time, like, say Bulgaria or East Germany, but he was a Soviet ally during the Cold War nonetheless. Futurist110 (talk) 00:49, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, the U.S. also supported Iran in the same war. Support for both sides was on the sly but the U.S. kept a finger in both pies, as it were. And it is true that Iraq had a close relationship with the Soviet Union. But I think you are overplaying that relationship in being somehow deterministic, as though every "friend" of the Soviet Union would hate every "friend" of the U.S. It wasn't so simple. Plenty of countries kept cordial relations with both. Plenty of countries disliked both (Iran, for example). Saleh's alliance with the U.S. was one of convenience to him; the existance of South Yemen as a communist ally of the Soviet Union meant that Saleh had good reason to wish for good relations with the U.S. But it is also incorrect, in your initial question, to say that Saleh didn't also have close ties with Iran. From the already linked article on Saleh "Iran continued to garner support from Yemen well into December 2010, with Mahmoud Ahmedinejad meeting with Saleh on Iran-Yemen cooperation, whereupon Saleh confirmed his support for Iran's nuclear energy program." And there's other stuff there too. --Jayron32 05:45, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Note that Sunni nations aren't always friendly with each other, either. And befriending Iran doesn't make you many other friends in the region. Then there's the US to consider. Al-Qaeda and affiliates are a threat in Yemen, and having US drones taking out their leadership is a definite plus. Being friends with the US and Iran at once would be difficult. StuRat (talk) 04:37, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Yet Afghanistan is able to do this trick and be friends with both simultaneously. Futurist110 (talk) 08:00, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

---

Futurist110 -- the Syrian-Iranian alliance is not based on Shi`ite doctrinal solidarity. Alawism can be considered to be a kind of offshoot of Shi`ism, but falling more under the ghulat or "extremist" type, and traditionally many Muslims have not considered Alawites to be Muslims at all... AnonMoos (talk) 18:34, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

True, but Iran probably was (and is) much more willing to work with Alawites like Assad than Saudi Arabia and other Sunni governments were. Futurist110 (talk) 06:08, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Urban-rural linked to liberal-conservative

In this map of the results of the 2010 UK election, it's not unreasonable to make this hypothesis: rural areas are more conservative than urban areas. London, West Midlands, South Wales, Glasgow-Edinburgh, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle - these areas are coloured red, to represent left-wing party Labour; on the other hand, the less densely-populated constituencies (which take up a larger area of the map) are mostly coloured blue (in England that is, the other 'countries' have their local parties for their own special reasons), to represent the right-wing Conservative party. Now, there are exceptions to this - you wouldn't call Ynys Môn urban, nor the City of Westminster rural, but generally the distinction can be made.

My question is this: why is this the case? Is this a well-documented trend? Has there been a study to see whether this trend is statistically significant, or to explain the different views of people living in urban and rural areas? I have searched online, and I found numerous websites where people had asked the question, but the responses tended to be less than helpful ('country people aren't as well educated', 'country people are incestuous', etc.). Many of the questioners were from the US, which suggested that this phenomenon is not confined to the UK. I am British, so I would find a UK-based answer rather more helpful than a US-based one. Thanks. Thelb4^(talk) 00:17, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I am an American, but the same reasons that apply to this phenomenon in the U.S. probably similarly apply to the U.K.. Some of these reasons are:

• Rural people are often more religious and have more conservative definitions of "family values"
• Rural people dislike big government
• Rural areas often have less young people and minorities, who are generally more liberal
• Rural people aren't as well represented among more liberal politicians

That said, I'm not an expert on U.K. politics, so I really can't elaborate much further. However, I hope that my response has at least helped you somewhat. Futurist110 (talk) 00:20, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The general phenomena of "liberal" urban votes is pretty well-documented. People have speculated on the exact reasons for this endlessly. In the US context, What's the Matter with Kansas? is one fairly well-known work on the subject. I'm not sure there is any universally-accepted answer. My experience in the US context is that "liberals" tend to support more or less collectivist outlooks (pool risk, pool benefits, pool taxes) where as "conservatives" are more of the go-it-alone crowd, and both of those experiences are reinforced by the particular situations of urban vs. rural living (no one who has lived in a very big city can possibly believe that such places would be livable as crowds of totally independent people — it is a collectivist experience; understandably, those in rural areas find government collectivist interventions to generally be a hassle and an intrusion into their preferred forms of collectivist activity, like religion). Education is generally a factor, too, to be sure, along with income levels, class, age, race, and other demographic markers. I guess what I'm saying is, yes, this is a pretty common political truism (though not always true, like most truisms — there are occasionally quite conservative urban areas), but as for the exact explanation, you will find many, many opinions and views. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:22, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with what Mr. 98 said, and Yes, education is a factor in causing people to have more liberal views. Urban and suburban people are on average more educated than rural people, and thus they are on average more liberal than rural people. Futurist110 (talk) 00:24, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

So long as by educated you mean indoctrinated. I am unaware of any truth that obeys racial lines, beyond Aryanism, and the like. That a certain ideology only applies to city dwelling minorities makes me think of Morlocks and Mein Kampf, and nothing else. μηδείς (talk) 03:38, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Both sides are of course indoctrinated with their respective doctrines...which I'm sure is what you meant :) Adam Bishop (talk) 07:41, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Obviously nobody is saying that, but once again you jump right into straw men and slippery slope arguments. People have known for thousands of years that living amongst the diversity of a city — cultural, racial, linguistic, ethnic, ideological, and so forth — tends to make people on the whole take a broader view of the human condition than people who live in small, relatively homogenous communities. (Similarly, when you know people who are of different groups — minorities, homosexuals, what have you — it increases your general level of tolerance of those sorts of cultures and behaviors; this is no shock, it is well established by sociology). In the United States in the last decade that has mapped on to "liberal" versus "conservative," but that's less rooted in any kind of deeply philosophical ideology than the the way the two-party system shakes out. In previous centuries that particular divide was expressed along different party lines. Since the 1970s, the Republican party has made an explicit point of being quite explicit that its idealized "American" is white, Christian, heterosexual, and some notion of a "rugged individualist" (which maps onto "rural"). When you base your party platform around such an ideal, it is unsurprising that those who fit outside of that ideal, or who experience people outside of that ideal on a regular basis, go the other direction. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:38, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Yet it was while living in multi-ethnic Vienna that Hitler became fanatically anti-Semitic. And most skinheads are from large urban areas.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:48, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

That is wrong. Hitler's anti-Semitic views are from his school days. Equally, German's anti-Semitic views are deeper than Hitler.

Regarding skinheads, it's not surprising that they are an urban phenomenon, in the same way as maybe all subcultures. OsmanRF34 (talk) 22:11, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Here's a map showing the same thing for the U.S. in 2008. The most Democratic (liberal) areas are the most urban ones and the ones with high minority populations:

• 
• Futurist110 (talk) 00:41, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

The comparison to the US is not necessarily helpful. Leaving aside the massive differences between the US and UK political systems, it's important to note that there are very few parts of the England that can be considered rural in the same way as much of the US can be considered rural. There isn't a single definition of urban or rural in use by the Office of National Statistics, but by one method of classification as much as 81% of England is urban [1] (scroll through to Appendix A). The actual divide is not so much between urban and rural as it is between large industrial (or formerly industrial) conurbations and everywhere else. The Labour Party has its roots in organised labour and the trade union movement and unsurprisingly organised labour was most organised and most able to get its candidates elected in the big industrial cities of the Midlands and the North and in London. (Similarly in Wales and Scotland, the industrial South East and Central Belt respectively have been where Labour was strongest, though there are complicating factors in both countries that I'll sidestep for the purposes of this response). The historical tendency for people in these areas to vote Labour continues to a significant degree even though the Labour Party nowadays is no longer principally the voice of organised labour (and the trade union movement is also much less important). It's probably fair to say that one of the reasons the tradition has persisted is that Labour has courted immigrant voters (initially the Irish, later Afro-Caribbean and Asian immigrants) who though relatively small as a percentage of the population as a whole are concentrated in London and the big industrial conurbations.

I won't spend too long pointing out the unhelpfulness of throwing in the terms "liberal" and "conservative" in reference to Europe when lots of Americans will insist on understanding them as though we were talking about the US. Suffice it to say, that the Conservative-led government in the UK is proposing to introduce legislation to legalise same-sex marriage, so they're clearly unlike US conservatives. I'd also warn against using the term "left-wing" to describe the modern Labour Party. There is some link between level of education and political beliefs and my understanding is that people with higher levels of education tend to be more "liberal" in certain ways (not necessarily in a US big-government sense of the word, I stress, more in areas of social and political liberalism that might be as readily be found in some strains of libertarianism as in left-liberalism). Someone else can find detailed references but here are a few (percentage of Americans in favour of death penalty lower for those with postgraduate education [2], support for gay marriage higher among those with college education [3] [4] - American figures all, as these are what I can find). "Rural people" may be on average less educated in the US (I don't know, but it doesn't seem improbable), but as I've already pointed out there a few "rural people" of the same kind in England, and people from rural areas of England in fact get better school qualifications than the national average and are more likely than the average to go on to higher education [5] (p.14-16) - though that report (from DEFRA) concedes that it does not show whether such people then move to urban areas. I'm slightly frustrated as I'm sure I've read that the educational level of the average Tory voter is higher than that of the average Labour voter, but I can't find a reference to confirm this. What however is clear is that a greater proportion of Tory voters are from higher socio-economic classes and (no great surprise), socio-economic class is one of the biggest factors in how people vote in the UK (for a brief rundown re: the 2005 election see here) and people in the professional and managerial classes ABC1, who are far more likely to vote Tory, are also more likely to have a higher educational level so I'm pretty sure this will be the case.

This issue of socio-economic class is the best explanation of the UK map. In order to turn an area on the map red or blue, only the plurality of votes is needed. Fairly few seats in the UK are actually won with an absolute majority as England has a three-party system with some meaningful support for minority parties and Scotland and Wales have a four-party system. Consequently, the very definite red-blue split disguises a more complex picture. People from the C2DE socioeconomic classes who are primarily from the old industrial labour class which Labour historically gets its main support from form a greater proportion of the population in the big conurbations and London. These are also the parts of the country with the largest number of people living in social housing, a group that is very solidly Labour (as much for historical reasons as reasons of current party policy, I'd suggest). Obviously there are significant numbers of C2DE people in the blue areas too, but they're less likely to be linked to an historical industrial base, and less likely to be in council housing. More importantly, the middle classes, who are in proportionally smaller numbers in the inner cities (apart from wealthy enclaves like the aforementioned Westminster), are in proportionately greater numbers in the suburbs, smaller towns, and the countryside (such as it is). Valiantis (talk) 05:55, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Just as an addendum, you may like to compare this map, which shows average household income by local authority area (the darker the map the higher the income). Not an exact correlation with the voting map (for starters this is by LA area rather than constituency), but there's definitely a link in much of the country between higher income and greater likelihood of electing a Conservative MP. This is absolutely not the case with income and political affiliation in the US, where the question is frequently asked - at least among those who believe that Democrat policies are better for the less well-off - as to why poorer people would vote Republican. In the UK - although there is now and always has been a working-class Tory vote - to put things very crudely, poorer people are more likely to vote Labour and richer people are more likely to vote Conservative, so the areas where there are more richer people (as indicated by higher average household income) correspond to the areas where Conservatives win seats. Valiantis (talk) 06:19, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Valentis. The big battle ground now in UK politics is the large number of voters who see themselves as coming from a working-class background, but who might be persuaded that they were now middle-class, the trick that Margaret Thatcher pulled off in 1979, and whom Tony Blair managed to swing the other way in 1997. Additionally, the Conservatives have messed-up in a big way in Scotland, and have lost their traditional rural support. Religion doesn't enter into it in a big way here, but the churches tend to be very liberal on issues like welfare provision and immigration. The days of the Church of England being "the Conservative Party at prayer" went 50 years ago. Alansplodge (talk) 20:09, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

That's a good (and detailed) answer. I think one factor you are missing is age: rural areas in the UK have a stark surplus of elderly people and a corresponding lack of people aged around 20-40 due to younger people moving to urban areas to work, and older people retiring to the countryside (see the population pyramids starting on page 63 of [6]). Older people are significantly more likely to vote Tory (I suspect this is largely down to social policies - elderly people tend to have an authoritarian approach to crime, are more religious, etc.). You mentioned same-gender marriage - I don't think that is really a very good example of the difference between conservatives in the UK and the US. Until very recently, the Conservative Party supported some fairly extreme anti-LGBT policies such as section 28 and even Labour didn't support full marriage equality, while there are prominent Republicans like Dick Cheney who support same-gender marriage, and it isn't completely inconceivable that this could become the party's policy in the next few years given how quickly public opinion is changing on the issue. Maybe a more clear-cut difference would be opinions on abortion? 130.88.73.65 (talk) 14:40, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

It's perhaps also worth mentioning that the most sparsely populated regions of the UK (places like the Scottish Highlands and Islands, Southern Scotland, the far North of England, Mid and West Wales, Devon, and Cornwall) are not especially conservative. I don't know if there is a general explanation for that - all of those places are fairly idiosyncratic. 130.88.73.65 (talk) 16:45, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Both North-West Wales and Cornwall have a strong mining and non-conformist heritage that has traditionally made them anti-Conservative and (again traditionally) Liberal-Democrat strongholds; however, they are both affected by large migrations of retired people that contradicts that. As previously mentioned, the Thatcher era lost the once strong Scottish rural vote for the Conservatives - "The Scottish Conservatives have yet to see a revival of fortunes following the 1997 wipeout; only one Conservative MP was returned to Westminster for a Scottish constituency at the general elections of 2001, 2005 and 2010." Alansplodge (talk) 00:08, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The issue with the areas 130.88.73.65 mentions goes back to my basic point; that the issue in the UK is not a rural/urban divide, but a divide between wealthier and poorer areas (i.e. a division on socio-economic class). Whereas the "rural" (more accurately perhaps ultra-suburban) areas of the South East, say, are both the wealthiest areas and strongly Conservative-supporting, the more truly rural areas are poorer and (consequently, I'd suggest) less strongly Conservative-supporting. As Alansplodge mentions, many are areas where the Liberals have traditionally won seats - or at least where the Liberals are often the main challenger to the Tories. This goes back to my point about Labour being strongest in the big industrial centres. Where labour was less organised, the Labour party was less strong historically and never obtained the kind of monolithic support it enjoyed at times in the Northern cities, and the Liberals were able to retain (or perhaps later regain) the support of less wealthy voters. Within England, you actually have, say, five different political battles. In (most of) London and most Southern and Midland cities, Labour are the dominant party gaining most of the support from lower income voters with the Tories as the challengers (having a degree of success) and the Liberals squeezed out - Birmingham would be a prime example; in Southern and Midland suburbs and larger towns, as affluence increases, the party balance moves from marginal seats which tend to swing between Tory and Labour depending on the overall support in the country - Swindon might be an example; in rural areas, the Tories are the main party but the main challenger is often the Liberal Democrats, who get the support of the lower income groups (or the anti-Tory vote splits relatively equally between Labour & Liberals); in certain Northern cities such as Liverpool, Sheffield and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the Tories are largely absent, with Labour dominant from the support of the less well-off and the LibDems picking up support and winning council seats, and occasionally constituencies, in more affluent areas which would tend to vote Tory in the rest of the country; finally, there are enclaves of wealth in urban areas - mainly London - (Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea) which are strongly Tory as they don't follow the general rule that the average income in inner-city areas is lower. Valiantis (talk) 23:02, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

130.88.73.65's point about age is well made. However, though age skews in favour of the Tories - older people are much more likely to vote Tory (see the reference re: 2005 I linked to above) - it doesn't impact strongly against Labour whose support is constant across the age groups, but rather against the LibDems, who have much lower support amongst the elderly (whose political views, I'm guessing, were formed during the period when Liberal support was in single percentage points, and who - I surmise again - are also less likely to change to a "new" party than younger people). The point I made about same-sex marriage was principally to indicate that the use of the term conservative in the British Conservative party should not be assumed by (principally) Americans to have much to do with the cultural conservatism that the term often refers to in American discourse. Section 28 (etc.) was very much a generational issue at a time when the country was run by people who came to adulthood when homosexual acts were still illegal. And also it was a sop to the socially conservative press and the blue rinse brigade who form a signifiant part of the Tory party at grassroots level. I'd suggest that when there remain countries in the world today that make gay sex a capital crime, a law that prevented local authorities promoting homosexuality - whatever that means - falls some way short of being extreme, especially as it didn't create any kind of criminal offence and no local authority's actions were ever successfully challenged in the courts under this law. Or to put it bluntly, though it had a deleterious effect due to self-censorship, in actuality it was a paper tiger which appeased the (mainly older) socially conservative wing of the party while probably (along with the party's continuing grassroots hostility to the EU) alienating the sort of young people who went on to become Orange Book liberals. Valiantis (talk) 23:02, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

How come there has been so few female dictators throughout history?

Besides sexism and misogyny, I mean. After all, there were some female queens throughout history, even in the pre-Industrial era. Futurist110 (talk) 01:02, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, there haven't been enough female leaders, period. Your besides is essentially the answer. And there have been female leaders who have been seen as brutal and opressive, but given the tiny fraction of leaders that there are female, there's even a tinier fraction of those that have been particularly despotic. Mary I of England didn't get the epithet of Bloody Mary for nothing. Catherine de' Medici wasn't exactly all flowers and peace. She's often implicated as the mastermind behind the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre and escalated the French Wars of Religion. In China, the Gang of Four was led by a woman, Jiang Qing. There's probably more, but that will give you a sampling. --Jayron32 01:27, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Sexism and mysogyny are rather modern pretenses. Why are all the monsters of Greek mythology female? They are the defeated deities who have become the chthonic demons of our dreams. Since the ascent of Indo-Europeanism, weapon wielding sky gods and worldy warriors have been the norm. Before that were the scheming bird and poisonous snake goddesses. Look at the Queen in Snow White, the Lady of Elche, Tanit, Hera, Tiamat, Echidna, Medusa. Look at Baba Yaga and the Harpy. At Circe, and Kali and the Sphinx. We call them witches now because their pre-Bronze Age reign has faded into myth. But merciless women poisoners ruled the world before men and their innocent violence. μηδείς (talk) 03:15, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Elena Ceausescu held a lot of influence over the Romanian state. Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency, removed opposition-led state governments, and ruled by decree for 2 years. Wu Zetian is famous for treating her inner circle brutally, including murdering her relatives. (My parents thought it would be cool to name me after her. I'm not a girl.) Lu Zhi, mother of emperor Hui of Han and de facto ruler of Han, "had Concubine Qi's limbs chopped off, blinded her by gouging out her eyes, cut off her tongue and locked her in the latrine, and called her a "Human Swine" (人彘). Several days after, Emperor Hui saw the "Human Swine", and after realising that it who the "Human Swine" was, the emperor was so sick of his mother's cruelty that he virtually relinquished his authority and indulged in carnal pleasures" (according to Records of the Grand Historian). --99.227.95.108 (talk) 03:31, 2 September 2012 (UTC) *

That's a great answer, and I have given you a star for it, 99.227.95.108. I am so tired of people assuming women are subhuman. μηδείς (talk) 03:33, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Wot, Medeis, you haven't mentioned any of the Ancient Rome female nasty pieces of work yet? I'm sure you can reel some off. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:14, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Well I have watched I, Claudius, and Siân Phillips is one of my favorite actresses. But I thought I had given enough examples. μηδείς (talk) 04:13, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Catherine the Great was not a woman to whom one would say "no".--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 08:33, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Her predecessors Elizabeth of Russia and especially Anna of Russia were not to be trifled with either. AlexTiefling (talk) 09:48, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Odd coat of arms

Does anybody have an explanation for Isaac Newton's coat of arms? At first I thought it was some weird vandalism, but no; Sir Isaac got two shinbones crossed on a black field. Arrr, be he jollier than I ever thought? Clarityfiend (talk) 05:52, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

The coat of arms had been used previously by the Newton baronets of Barrs Court, whom Isaac Newton claimed decent from. this answer at Wiki Answers says that Newtons had been using some form of that device for even longer than that, and that its origins are unknown. So the answer seems to be Isaac Newton used it because many Newtons used it, but no one is sure why the Newton family used it. I also found this reference from the article Sir John Newton, 2nd Baronet, which shows the shinbones on a Newton family crest (the Newtons of Barrs Court), on page 384. --Jayron32 06:14, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Then there be nothing sinister about this action. Thankee, matey. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:38, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd say it means that this is all that remains of those who double cross their family, but perhaps that interpretation is too black and white. StuRat (talk) 06:38, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd look for a family connection with the Shanks family - and no, that's not meant to be a joke. --NellieBly (talk) 02:12, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

There are Iberian families named Costa(s) with ribs for arms. —Tamfang (talk) 05:10, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

De Vrije Katheder, Nazi-occupied Netherlands

All I've been able to decipher from a search in the Dutch Wikipedia is that De Vrije Katheder was a student/Communist/underground newspaper. Archival material indicates it was active in early 1942, possibly earlier. Was it also the name of an Amsterdam-based resistance group? I'd appreciate help with:

• an accurate description of its nature and activity
• its name translated to English

Thanks, -- Deborahjay (talk) 06:32, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Translation: "The Free Lectern". StuRat (talk) 06:35, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

'De Vrije Katheder' was an illegal/underground newspaper started in 1940 under the Nazi occupation by communist students of the University of Amsterdam. They used the subtitle 'Bulletin for the defense of Universities'. Although their political ideology was closely tied to that of the Communist Party of the Netherlands, there was no formal connection. The group's stated goal was to stimulate the resistance among students and also to fight for democracy and social justice. The paper was initially distributed among students from Amsterdam and Leiden, but soon it spread to all universities/colleges in the Netherlands. During the war, two staff members of the newspaper (T. de Vries & H. Veldman) were arrested and died in a concentration camp. After Dutch universities were closed in 1943 and continuing after the war until 1950, the newspaper functioned as a platform for leftist intellectuals and artist. (taken from [this] and [this]) Some information available in English [here]. - Lindert (talk) 14:03, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Southern vs. Northern Whites in the U.S.

How come Southern whites are less educated than whites in the Northern U.S. and in the West Coast of the U.S.? Futurist110 (talk) 07:59, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Not to be that guy, but are they? Hot Stop 08:01, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, apparently. I am reluctant to offer any simple guesses as per below; I doubt a stock answer that was current 150 years ago is anything more than tangential at best now. — Lomn 13:48, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Probably a result of losing the Civil War, which left the South impoverished, due to destruction of property and loss of slaves. Some parts of the deep South have never quite recovered, economically, since then (such as Mississippi).

Another reason might be their reliance on agriculture during the industrial revolution, which was bound to leave them behind, economically and socially. StuRat (talk) 08:12, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that it's becoming an outdated stereotype, to some extent. Certainly places like North Carolina are becoming powerhouses, as evidenced by Obama having his coronation there.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:50, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Coronation? 69.62.243.48 (talk) 02:48, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

This is a short summary of the book Black Rednecks & White Liberals. Quote: Sowell traces this culture to several generations of mostly Scotsmen and northern Englishmen who migrated to many of the southern American colonies in the eighteenth century. The outstanding features of this redneck culture, ... included “an aversion to work, proneness to violence, neglect of education, sexual promiscuity, improvidence, drunkenness, lack of entrepreneurship, reckless searches for excitement, lively music and dance, and a style of religious oratory marked by rhetoric, unbridled emotions, and flamboyant imagery.” It also included “touchy pride, vanity, and boastful self-dramatization.” ... The great tragedy for much of the black population, concentrated as it was in the southern states, was that it absorbed a great deal of this white southern redneck culture, and has retained it longer than the descendants of those Scottish and English immigrants. /end quote. Personally I buy that argument but I'm sure not everyone will. Royor (talk) 15:27, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm reminded of Rhett Butler's comment in GWTW, something like this: "They've got factories, shipyards, coal mines and a fleet to bottle up our harbors and starve us. All we've got is cotton, slaves... and arrogance." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:43, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Here is a graph of education spending per pupil for various US states. The South here spends about the same as the West (except Arizona), but a lot less than the Northeast. Some of the data is misleading — Wyoming looks like an educational powerhouse, but it's likely just because the population is very small; California looks the same as Kansas, even though the public higher education possibilities are much broader in California — but it's not a bad place to start thinking about this sort of thing. (Certainly better than vague notions about the Civil War.) --Mr.98 (talk) 16:28, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but money availible to spend on education has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is usually an industrial base. The state can't spend money on schooling that it doesn't have. Lots of books on economics and history, both technical and popular, make a clear connection between extractive and industrial economies and development. I'm reading one right now (1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created). For economies that are primarily extractive (based on producing raw materials) there is little need to provide infrastructure or development. You basically want to get stuff out as cheaply as possible. Such a system promotes the existance of a landed elite (often absentee) and a large, uneducated and cheap workforce. Industrialization encourages urbanization, and cities breed innovation and devlopment, see this issue of Scientific American, the issue is also discussed in Malcolm Gladwell's work The Tipping Point, and he also has a good bibliography that leads to more source work that discusses the issue. So the urban, industrial North had the resources to provide for its people, and the people lived in places that of their very nature tend to encourage development and innovation. The rural, extractive South lagged behind because there were not enough resources to have excess to provide proper education and infrastructure. The South started behind, and got farther behind. It is urbanizing, and it is industrializing, and it is catching up, but that doesn't happen over night. See New South vs. Deep South comparisons for some ways in which parts of the South have improved their situation as a whole. But the core of the problem is that it takes resources to provide the system necessary to drag a population out of poverty, and those resources don't just magically appear when needed. You can't fund schools to educate people (white or black) without the tax base to collect money from. --Jayron32 19:54, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

More complex. Australia is an extraction economy, but has managed consistently high funding for education. Perhaps it relates to the rate of urbanisation. Australia is an extraction economy (according to the CPA-ML, an extraction colony or semi-colony), but has always had higher than average rates of urbanisation. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:05, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Nothing directly to do with the type of economy. The difference is that in the USA, with more decentralized government, education is generally funded at the state or lower level. In Australia, more/most funding comes from the central government. So what Jayron32 says is true about the USA, but not Australia, because the money the US states "spend on education has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is usually an industrial base." The individual states cannot create their own money - forbidden by the US constitution, and have to tax or borrow. But if the US or Australian central government spends on education, the money does "come from nowhere". It is created by the act of the central government spending it. (Or if one wants to speak badly, it comes from the central government's taxes & bonds.) Of course the real resources used for education or anything else, which the money operates as a claim on, must "come from somewhere". But if the US had run education, more like Australia, at a federal level, it could have equalized spending & outcomes if it elected to. John Z (talk) 22:59, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Australian education is state funded and controlled.* So your conjecture fails at the level of fact. (* I am deeply familiar with the funding model and basis, but the repay is about equivalent to the taxation powers lent, and states maintain effective curriculum control even over the state funded catholic system.) Fifelfoo (talk) 23:18, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

According to this: [7] "While most school funding comes from the Commonwealth through its wider tax base, the States’ share of these taxes (in terms of untied general purpose funding or specific purpose payments) is generally recognised as State funding of education.11 11- "The NSW government describes specific purpose payments SPPs as a means “to implement policies in areas which are the constitutional responsibilities of the States. An agreement between the Commonwealth and the State governs each SPP, and details the specific purposes. These agreements typically last three to five years, and are renegotiated after that time.” (NSW Budget Statement, 2003-04, Section 7.4)." If I understand correctly, this is saying most of the money comes from the Commonwealth, one way or another. The important thing is whether spending is equalized across the country - is it? - not the particular details. I certainly may be wrong about Australia.

My main points were trivial - it is not a law of nature depending on their tax base that US (or Australian) States differ in educational funding and outcomes, but a federal government decision to run things that way. And the spending doesn't depend on the type of economy, but the political goals & real capacities & wealth of the economy. The US tends to be an outlier in such decentralization compared to other countries, and I used Australia, which you brought up as an example, which may not be correct. Unfortunately the USA has moved in the opposite, unsustainable direction, away from Revenue_sharing#In_US_taxation, which IIRC was itself a reduction of the amount of fiscal support to states, instituted by Nixon, compared to earlier arrangements. Our articles in this area need work. In the US, federal support of education like the GI Bill and the Land-grant university have been, mainly in the past, a highly successful, productive counter to the general trend Jayron describes. John Z (talk) 00:49, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Under the U.S. constitution, education is basically the responsibility of individual states, and the U.S. federal government has a somewhat supplemental role (and definitely can't issue any orders to state governments on how much money to spend). AnonMoos (talk) 09:13, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Nothing prevents the Feds from giving money to the states (with strings attached) for some purpose, or spending money in that state for some purpose, as in the two examples I gave, and that purpose could include equalizing spending and outcomes across the states.John Z (talk) 00:36, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Theoretically it could, but nothing in the Constitution remotely requires it, and there's very little in U.S. politics or historical traditions to suggest that it might happen anytime soon... AnonMoos (talk) 05:05, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

It has also to do with patterns of immigration. Immigrants came to the US through NY, if they were educated they would stay and work and big cities, which had industry. Otherwise, they would move to regions with a farming economy in the south. The same still happens in the US, but immigrants come now to big cities. Poorly educated immigrants go to pick fruit in the countryside. OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:32, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Wrong. Not all immigrants (past and present) enter the USA through New York. Mexican immigrants would hardly take this route. Ellis Island did not become operational until the 1890s. My mother's ancestors arrived from Ulster, England and France at various ports, none of which included New York. They settled in the south and were educated and extremely literate thankyouverymuch.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 08:31, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

---

Before the Civil War in the U.S., Massachusetts was a strong pioneer in universal education (under the influence of Horace Mann and others), with New York following close behind. There were many educated people in the South, but the South fell far behind most of the Northern states in providing publicly-funded free education, because of differing ideas about the role of government, and also because the dispersed pattern of farms in many areas of the south (as opposed to centralized villages in New England) made it impractical to set up rural schools that children could walk to... AnonMoos (talk) 03:32, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

filtering coffee by pouring from one cup to another

I didn't have any coffee filters so I just put grounds in a hot cup of water, waited for it to settle and wanted to see if I could pour off just the coffee into another cup. It appears to have worked, although I stopped pouring near the end. If I wait for the second cup to settle and repeat the procedure, again stopping at the end, will I get coffee as good as if I had actually filtered it? Or does the filter catch something minute that wille like poison me if I do it this way? --80.99.254.208 (talk) 10:30, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I can't speak to the science-y parts of it, but I highly recommend a French press. I imagine you could substitute a cleverly folded paper towel for a coffee filter if you were really desperate (I wouldn't try it with toilet paper). But of course, that's not what you asked; I can also tell you with 100% certainty that you're not going to be poisoned by anything; sounds gross, though. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 10:38, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

One reason why I carry a plastic jar of instant coffee with me in my travels, especially since many hotels no longer give you a pot of coffee, just a cup. In this scenario, I would suggest stirring, waiting for it to settle, then carefully pouring to another cup leaving as much of the grounds as possible in the first cup, which you then rinse out. Repeat as needed.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:53, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Maybe you guys didn't read my question carefully, or I was just being unclear, but your "in this scenario I would suggest..." is EXACTLY what I am doing and which I asked you about :). So, I guess it's okay :) --80.99.254.208 (talk) 11:02, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Israelis in a workplace with a hot-water dispenser for making tea from teabags or instant coffee, prepare what's called botz (Hebrew: mud): place in your cup a heaping teaspoon of ground coffee and sugar to taste (or none), add hot water, stir briefly, then allow the grounds to settle. You quickly learn at what point to stop drinking. -- Deborahjay (talk) 11:14, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

The method you used is known as cowboy coffee. It makes excellent coffee if done well, but the disadvantages are (a) it works best if you use a coarse grind and wait for several minutes; (b) it works best for large quantities, because you lose a certain amount of coffee in the process. Lots of backpackers use that method because it doesn't require any special equipment. Looie496 (talk) 17:13, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

"Filtering", though, is a misnomer; what in fact is being done is decanting, not filtering. - Nunh-huh 17:31, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

...aaaaaaand I've just finally learned what decanting means. Thanks a lot guys! --80.99.254.208 (talk) 19:25, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

This is the original and traditional method; everyone used to do it. Then came percolators and espresso. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:09, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Unfiltered coffee has been shown to raise LDL cholesterol levels. Apparently the main culprit is cafestol, which is blocked by paper filters. See also [8]. So you may want to stick to filtered coffee if you have high cholesterol. -- BenRG (talk) 20:38, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Letting the brew settle, then pouring off the grounds-less liquid through one or two cycles as described should yield a fine cup of java. "Egg coffee," prepared by stirring one egg with a little salt and an appropriate amount of ground coffee, then dumping it into a large enamel pot full or boiling water, is the very best ever. 98.220.239.210 (talk) 05:21, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

??? Wouldn't you finish up with a large pot full of coffee, enough to serve dozens of people? When all you want is a cup or two? -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 19:57, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

How many Countries worldwide?

How many countries were there worldwide during Richard Nixon's administration?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 13:15, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

According to List of sovereign states by date of formation, when he took office in January 1969 it was 135. During his administration, some further countries became independent: Tonga (4 June 1970), Fiji (10 Oct 1970), Qatar (3 Sept 1971), United Arab Emirates (2 Dec 1971), Bahrain (16 Dec 1971), Bangladesh (16 Dec 1971), The Bahamas (10 July 1973). And Zimbabwe had declared independence in 1965 but was not officially recognized until 1980, so if you count that it was 136+7. 184.147.128.34 (talk) 14:05, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately that leaves out countries that have ceased to exist in the meantime -- most notably the USSR, but also including for example the GDR and Yugoslavia. Looie496 (talk) 17:09, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

The USSR, GDR, and Yugoslavia all still existed at the end of Nixon's presidency. — Kpalion^(talk) 18:19, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but they aren't in the list mentioned above, which only shows countries that exist now. Sorry for being unclear. Looie496 (talk) 19:01, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I counted all three of those countries as well as Czechoslovakia, but welcome someone else to do a recount. I was unclear - I meant I used that list to do the count. 184.147.128.34 (talk) 02:21, 3 September 2012 (UTC) (Here's my list in sets of five: )

5 Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Argentina

10 Australia Austria Barbados Belgium Benin

15 Bhutan Bolivia Botswana Brazil Bulgaria

20 Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon Canada Cambodia

25 Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia

30 Congo x 2 Costa Rica Cote D'Ivoire Cuba

35 Cyprus Czechoslovakia Denmark Dominican Republic Ecuador

40 Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Ethiopia Finland

45 France Gabon Gambia East Germany West Germany

50 Ghana Greece Guyana Haiti Honduras

55 Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran

60 Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica

65 Japan Jordan Kenya Kuwait Laos

70 Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein

75 Luxembourg Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives

80 Mali Malta Mauritania Mauritius Mexico

85 Monaco Mongolia Morocco Myanmar Nauru

90 Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger

95 Nigeria North Korea Norway Oman Pakistan

100 Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal

105 Romania Rwanda Samoa San Marino Saudi Arabia

110 Senegal Sierra Leone Singapore Somalia South Africa

115 South Korea Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Swaziland

120 Sweden Switzerland Syria Tanzania Thailand

125 Togo Trinidad Tunisia Turkey Uganda

130 USSR UK USA Uruguay Vatican City

135 Venezuela Vietnam Yemen Yugoslavia Zambia

136 (Zimbabwe)

You have to add an extra Vietnam and an extra Yemen.--Cam (talk) 03:57, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Panama and Taiwan are missing, as is Sikkim. Sussexonian (talk) 22:01, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

It also depends on how one counts the USSR. According to the United Nations, Belarus and the Ukraine were independent nations. According to their own official histories, the three Baltic nations were not part of the USSR either. So, depending on what your criteria are, you can count the USSR as 1,3,4, or 6 countries. --Jayron32 04:07, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Defining what makes something a "country" is not easy. Going with "sovereign states", as has been done above, doesn't seem a terrible option, but then again, I'm not from Scotland. You will also have to deal with politics. In today's world, deciding which of the following sample examples are or aren't countries and are or aren't sovereign states will depend on your POV: Somaliland, The Principality of Sealand, South Ossetia, Vatican City, Israel, Palestine. Our excellent article, List of states with limited recognition is of interest here, as perhaps is List of historical unrecognized states --Dweller (talk) 09:29, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for answers. Great help!--Doug Coldwell ^talk 22:39, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Chinese surnames and ancestry

Is there any study as to what percentage of the Chinese Han population have adopted surnames as opposed to surnames that stretch back ancestrally to a progenitor with that surname? How many Chinese could trace their ancestry through their surname?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 14:54, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Every surname had a first bearer! I'm guessing you mean something like: What's the average number of generations (or years) that a Han could count back as using the same surname? Or: what would a histogram of such numbers look like? —Tamfang (talk) 05:24, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Well know, every Smith in the world probably did not descend from one man or one family named Smith. Most Chinese surnames traced their beginning to a clan or family around the Zhou Dynasty (ignoring the mythical beginning during the time of Huang Di) when even commoners begin having surnames. My question is how manyt Chinese can trace patrilinealy to that period by their surname. In later periods, conquered southerns and settlers from barbarian/foreign regions came into China and assimilated into it, so they shouldn't count. Their were studies into the legendary origins of Irish surnames which proved that many Irish were descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 15:00, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Swedish House of Holstein-Gottorp

Since Gustav, Prince of Vasa's line died out in 1907 with his daughter Carola of Vasa? Who is the heir-general of the Swedish House of Holstein-Gottorp?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 18:13, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, the article itself states that inheritance passed to the House of Bernadotte via the children of Victoria of Baden and Gustaf V of Sweden. It appears that Victoria may have been the closest living relative of Carola. --Jayron32 19:42, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

The corresponding Swedish article shows descent ending up with the current king, Carl XVI Gustaf. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 20:06, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Here is the sequence, put together from WP articles:

• Adolf Frederick, King of Sweden (1710–1771)
  • Gustav III of Sweden (1746–1792)
    • Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden (1778–1837)
      • Gustav, Prince of Vasa (1799–1877)
        • Carola of Vasa (1833–1907)
      • Princess Sophie of Sweden (1801–1865)
        • Louis II, Grand Duke of Baden (1824–1858)
        • Frederick I, Grand Duke of Baden (1826–1907)
          • Frederick II, Grand Duke of Baden (1857–1928)
          • Victoria of Baden (1862–1930)
            • Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden (1882–1973)
              • Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten (1906–1947)
                • Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden (1946– )

—Tamfang (talk) 05:57, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

How Come the U.S.S.R. Didn't Annex Mongolia Like It Did WIth Tuva?

I was always wondering about this. Futurist110 (talk) 18:48, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Possibly because of China. That's what I am guessing. A sort of buffer state.--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 18:49, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

But the U.S.S.R. already bordered China and China's military strength wasn't anywhere near that of the USSR. Futurist110 (talk) 19:00, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Futurist, you may be quite interested in the following concept: "You can't prove a negative". Which is to say as it applies to the question "Why didn't So-and-so do whatever". You've been asking a lot of these questions lately, and such a question is fundementally unanswerable. Questions that ask people to speculate as to why somebody didn't do something are fiendisly difficult to answer satisfactorily, because unless the person was asked directly "Why not" at the time, then it would be impossible to say. This is especially difficult because all of your recent questions, and the responses you have given after people try to answer, indicate that you have reached the conclusion in your mind that reality should have worked out differently. It is much easier to say why things did happen. " Why did the U.S.S.R annex Tuva?" is an easier question to answer than to answer why they didn't formally annex Mongolia. Why didn't they? Mr. Spy's answer is quite a possibility, yes their absolute military strength may have been greater at the time than Chinas was. But there are still a billion Chinese, which is something to give any regime pause no matter how many bombs they have. The solution to international diplomacy is not "We'll do whatever the fuck we want because if anyone objects, we'll bomb the shit out of them." The Soviet Union may have had their differences with China, and they may not have gotten along very well, but that doesn't mean they were eager to instigate an actual war over any issue, or to escalate tensions against them. The Soviets were heavily involved in Mongolia, and the article and section titled Mongolian_People's_Republic#The_1945_Sino-Soviet_Treaty_and_Mongolia.27s_Independence explains how the Soviets and China negotiated over the status of Mongolia. Now, if you believe that the Soviet Union should have just said "Screw it, we're just annexing them", well I don't know what to say about that. But the fact remains that they didn't, that they negotiated with China over guaranteeing the independece of Mongolia, as the greater concern was that China would annex it, not that the Soviets would. --Jayron32 19:38, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Excellent answer, Jayron, on all accounts. See also Tuva. 02:55, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Blue Stripe in the Red South

• 
  U.S. Presidential vote by county, 2008
• 
  The location of the Black Belt (sociological sense) in the U.S.
• 
  African American percentage of the total population in each census tract, 2000.
• 
  Largest ancestry in each U.S. county, 2000; African Americans predominate in those colored dark purple (the key's first color)
• 
  Percentage of slaves in each county of the slave states in 1860
• 
  Upland cotton acres harvested as percentage of each county's harvested cropland acreage, 2007 (Agricultural Atlas of the U.S.)

So, this image of the 2008 US presidential election shows a near-continuous stripe of Democratic support from the NC/VA coast through Georgia and to the Mississippi Delta. Anybody know if there's a particular rhyme or reason to that, or is it just a quirk of coincidence? — Lomn 19:59, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

This is where African-American people live. That blue area covers such places as the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, the I-85 corridor in North Carolina (see North Carolina's 12th congressional district), Atlanta, Georgia and the Mississippi Delta region (that blue stripe along the Mississippi River) and the connecting strip across Alabama and Mississippi contains places like Montgomery, Alabama and Selma, Alabama. Those blue areas of the South are mostly either a) Urban centers (which tend to vote Democratic more, regardless of where they are) or b) rural areas where blacks outnumber whites significantly. These factors are accentuated in urban areas with high African-American populations, like the aforementioned Hampton Roads or Atlanta. --Jayron32 20:18, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

¶ I've taken the liberty of adding maps above of the African American population in 2000 (lifted from African American#Demographics) and the Southern slave population by county in 1860 (from Slavery in the United States#Distribution of slaves) —— Shakescene (talk) 05:19, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Good addition. The 2000 census map showing African American population overlays the southern blue areas quite closely. It shows what we've been talking about quite well. --Jayron32 05:21, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

See also this map of upland cotton acres harvested as a percentage of all acres harvested in the 2007 Census of Agriculture. This is part of a wonderful Agricultural Atlas of the U.S.. Perhaps, someone who regularly uploads files to Wikipedia/Wikimedia would like to add the cotton harvest map to the gallery above for comparison; I've done enough work for one night, and I don't upload images often enough to do it smoothly now.  Done —— Shakescene (talk) 06:09, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, basically what Jayron said. As for why blacks vote Democratic, many blacks have the feeling that Republicans don't care about them and Democratic policies such as more social programs and affirmative action are beneficial to most blacks. As for white urban dwellers, they generally vote Democratic either due to social issues (support of abortion and gay marriage) or due to economic issues, if they feel that the Democrats will handle the country's economy and debt better. Futurist110 (talk) 20:26, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Given the United States regular reconfigure which party houses the progressive vote, and how racist political machinery works, could you give a start date on the link between southern Democrat voting and urban and black rural progressive or liberal voting patterns? Fifelfoo (talk) 22:01, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

The changeover happened during the 1940s-1980ss. See Dixiecrat and Southern Strategy and Reagan Democrats for the major events that caused the most recent reshuffling of the party ideologies. The key changes in philosophy came when a) The Republicans abandoned civil rights and other progressive issues in favor of a business freindly policy, and b) the Northern Democrats abandoned labor and took up civil rights and social justice, broadly speaking. The first volleys came when the Democratic Party (which owned the South to the point where most Southern ballots didn't even have a republican on the ballot, see Solid South) shifted its power base to the North under the FDR administration. This left the Southern Democrats (White power elite in the south) feeling abandoned, they bolted the party to form the Dixiecrat movement. These southern White power elites were part of Nixon's "Southern Strategy" when he directly courted them in the late 1960s. The final shift occured in the early 1980s, when the socially conservative Northern Democrats, mostly union and former union workers, were courted en masse by Reagan. This redefining of party lines changed how the party system worked; it didn't happen over night (it took about 35 years or so), but that was the basic outline of how we went from the old system (Republican = Northern business + Progressives, while Democrats = Northern Old Money + Southern White Supremacists) to the modern system of Republicans = Social conservative/Economic libertarian and Democrats = Social justice & under-represented minorities. --Jayron32 23:28, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Northern Democrats abandoned labor? 69.62.243.48 (talk) 02:51, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Essentially. That's who the Reagan Democrats were: socially conservative working class northerners. AKA, labor. --Jayron32 02:54, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I think it would be more likely to say that blue collar workers abandoned the Democratic Party, rather than that the Democrats abandoned labor. The recent recall election in Wisconsin would show the truth of that. 69.62.243.48 (talk) 02:57, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Or you could say that if the Democratic Party had platforms that appealed to those voters, they wouldn't have had a reason to leave. It's all perspective. But whether you want to say the Democrats abandoned them, or they abandoned the Democratic party is probably unimportant to the main point, which is that it was a signficant effect in the makeup of the two parties. --Jayron32 03:10, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Blacks began voting Democratic in 1932. I think that most urban areas began voting Democratic in 1928 or around that time period, though I could be wrong on that. Southern Whites began voting Republican in the 1960s and 1970s. Futurist110 (talk) 23:20, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry, do we have a source that indicates Southern Whites vote 90%+ Republican? μηδείς (talk) 04:08, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Where did you get that number from? --Jayron32 04:18, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I didn't "get" that number, I posed a question. I do believe that blacks normally vote 90% Democrat, though. μηδείς (talk) 20:01, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I've never seen that number myself in any discussion or article or anything regarding racial and geographic breakdown of party affiliation, so I soubt you would find any source to indicate it so. It's a strange number to pull out of the air. There are certainly less whites in the Democratic party in the south than other parts of the country. Doing some digging, I did find this article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette which has some statistics, though none are formulated as "percent of white voters in south who vote Republican". The article is fairly recent (like, last week) so the numbers should be fairly current. --Jayron32 21:54, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

If the Republican vote among Southern whites were consistently that high, then the Democrats would never win a Southern election. Whites still form a majority of the population in every Southern state (although not in the District of Columbia), and I've read that Southern Democrats estimate they need to win or retain at least a third of the white vote to have a chance of winning (which they frequently do, even for President *). On the other hand, I've also read that the Republican vote among black voters, once almost-unanimous and still significant into the 1950's, is now so low as to be negligible. * [For example, every Southern and border state except Virginia and Oklahoma voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976, while Bill Clinton carried about half the Southern and border states in 1992 and 1996. In 2008, Barack Obama carried Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, which would have been impossible had John McCain won 90% of the white vote.] —— Shakescene (talk) 05:37, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure how much stock I'd put into that fourth map, given that it lists "American" as an ancestry definition. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:32, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd also be cautious about how to use that map [which I took from Black Belt (U.S. region), where you might also like to comment], but it does show that the counties where more residents (of any race) reported their ancestry as "American" than reported any other in April 2000 were also more likely to give more of their citizens' votes to McCain-Palin than to Obama-Biden in November 2008. —— Shakescene (talk) 02:15, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

This article sounds like exactly what you're looking for. In short, the blue stripe corresponds to an ancient coastline, when sea levels were higher. When water receded, the life in those shallow waters left behind excellent nutrients for cotton production, for which slavery was particularly economically attractive. After the descendents of the slaves who farmed those lands gradually gained the political power they were theoretically entitled to after Reconstruction, they showed up on map. Unsurprisingly, they rarely vote for the party which raised objections the last time the Voting Rights Act came up for renewal. Paul (Stansifer) 20:23, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

¶ There's an extensive discussion of the Black Belt's politics in The Emerging Republican Majority (1969), by Kevin Phillips, then an aide to Attorney General John N. Mitchell, one of the chief architects of Nixon's Southern Strategy. I'll add some comments after I re-read that section (Chapter III, Section A, part 1; pages 211-32 of my 1970 Doubleday Anchor paperback edition). —— Shakescene (talk) 21:14, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Was the Cuban intervention on african independence wars an act of solidarity or something else?

Here in Cuba we're proud of the role that we played in Africa, but in a Cold War context was the solidarity a major reason to fight?(sorry for my English isn't very good, not advanced at least)CubanEkoMember|(talk) 19:45, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

No preocuparse; that sentence was perfectly good English. —— Shakescene (talk) 04:27, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

...I think you meant to say no se procupe. --Soman (talk) 16:16, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

No nation ever does anything out of pure virtue. Nations do things because they expect to benefit from them. Looie496 (talk) 01:46, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

That nations try to act in some sort of vague self interest (if "nation" is the right unit of analysis, which I'm not sure it is) is in and of itself not exactly relevant to the question as asked.--Mr.98 (talk) 02:08, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what you mean by "an act of solidarity" — do you mean, did the Cuban government think that it should support African independence for ideological reasons alone? My understanding is that there were strong ideological reasons, but it was arguably also because "exporting revolution" was an ideological stance that also helped to increase Cuba's own prominence in the region and importance in the Cold War (which was important for guaranteeing continuing Soviet interest). This is a very American perspective though, and the American perspective tends to underestimate ideology when it looks like something positive and overestimate it when it leads to things we find negative. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:08, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. What is meant by solidarity? Christopher Hitchens went to Cuba and slept on an open-air cot as he laboured manually to plant doomed coffee seedlings. That was an act of solidarity with the party in power, if nothing else. See his memoirs, Hitch-22. Sending professional mercenaries to countries without even bourgeoisies in order to install friendly regimes sounds a lot more like Stalinism to me than anything else. Not that I am an expert. μηδείς (talk) 04:05, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

(Sending professional mercenaries (...) to install friendly regimes...Stalinist) Riiiight.92.226.26.242 (talk) 08:47, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

You could start by looking at Cuban intervention in Angola and Ethio-Somali War. 130.88.73.65 (talk) 13:43, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Also, Che Guevara was involved in Africa. He spoke at a conference in Algiers, and later worked as a revolutionary in The Congo. --Jayron32 15:30, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Generally, the role of Cuba is appreciated in African public opinion. The most striking feature of Cuban state activities is the medical missions across the continent, which (in stark contrast to Western aid agencies) come with no strings attached and are very hands-on. Regarding Ethiopia, clearly the military intervention is associated with strong links to the detested Derg regime but at the same time the general Ethiopian narrative of the war with Somalia clearly puts the regime in Mogadishu at fault. Notably, the monument for fallen Cuban soldiers in central Addis Ababa has not been removed since the fall of the Derg. --Soman (talk) 16:21, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Historical Religion Data for the U.S. Before 1948

I just created this article -- Historical religious demographics of the United States -- and I need some help finding historical religion data for the U.S. before 1948. I know that the U.S. census does not record religion, but have there been any polls or studies in the United States before 1948 that asked about religion? Thank you very much. Futurist110 (talk) 23:19, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

The article titled History of religion in the United States has lots of references. You could comb those. --Jayron32 23:35, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Maybe I'll use some of those references for my article later on. However, I was asking more about historical religious data (in %) for the United States, and unfortunately the article that you linked to doesn't have much of that. Futurist110 (talk) 00:09, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Have there really been no nationwide surveys and/or polls about religion in the U.S. before 1948? Futurist110 (talk) 21:44, 3 September 2012 (UTC)