Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 November 15

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November 15

Speaking in the House of Lords

The article on the House of Lords says "The Lord Speaker or Deputy Speaker cannot determine which members may speak, or discipline members for violating the rules of the House; these measures may be taken only by the House itself."

How does the House as a whole decide on speakers? If two speakers stand up to talk at the same time, how is it decided which will speak? Is it a case of 'oh no, old boy, you go ahead', by one of them, or do other lords take part in the decision? 92.30.205.40 (talk) 00:02, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

The prohibition doesn't seem to say "cannot determine the order" of speakers, but you probably want a Brit who actually knows what he's talking about. I just wish we had such an adversarial system in the US. μηδείς (talk) 01:53, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh, for the good old days, when the members of Congress would threaten each other with bodily harm. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:51, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Did more than just threaten didn't they? Fifelfoo (talk) 06:14, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

At least once, yes.. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:33, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

There's a provision in the Constitution which basically exempts congressmen from libel suits for things they talk about on the floor. Unfortunately, the founding fathers didn't allow for the possibility of attempted murder. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:13, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

We have nothing like the HoC's Question Period. If we did, there's no way Jimmy Carter, or, especially, Either Bush, or Barack Obama would have become president. None of the could speak on their feet or speak spontaneously when challenged. Our House only allows uninterrupted sequential speeches; i.e., blather and non sequiturs. μηδείς (talk) 01:26, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

JFK spoiled us. He was quick on his feet. Hardly anyone before or since has been that good. In Ike's day, the press conferences the public saw had been filmed and edited. JFK switched to live press conferences, and administrations since have followed suit, often to their eventual regret. (If Nixon's press conferences had been time-delayed, it's unlikely the world-famous quote "I am not a crook" would have made the cut.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:41, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan and Clinton could all have held their own. Reagan wasn't so swift by the end of his term, but he would have survived any no-confidence vote meant to remove him, assuming the Republican vote was what mattered. (Of course if we had a truly British system, Reagan would never have been elected, and Clinton would have lost office to Gingrich in 1994.) μηδείς (talk) 20:35, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

If we're going for a precise mapping, 1994 would have seen Tom Foley replaced by Robert Michel (who he? Ed.), but perhaps that's an alternate history we don't want to investigate too closely. Tevildo (talk) 21:31, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Adversity might require political differentiation. To this end I propose that the USLP and US Greens replace the parties now current as the new party system. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:14, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, as that passage implies, since 2005 the House of Lords has been self-regulating. I guess I would describe the role of the Lord Speaker as that of a minute-taker (although I believe they can end debates going over time on advice from the Table, i.e. the Clerks). Breaches of regulation and conduct would be dealt with by the House, under advice from officers of the parliament or the cabinet:

• The Leader of the House of Lords advises the house on procedure and order, assisted by the Clerk of the Parliaments and other Clerks
• The Government Chief Whip advises the House on speaking times in debates, and their office would issue a speakers list which outlines the list of speakers for most debates
• When two or more members rise to speak, the House determines who is to speak. This may, if necessary, be decided upon a motion that one of the members "be now heard". It is customary for speakers from different parties or parts of the House to take turns.

--Canley (talk) 06:03, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Not just since 2005 - since ever. The post of Lord Speaker was only created in 2005; before then the Lord Chancellor sat Speaker, but also with no powers to regulate behaviour. On major debates there are speakers lists for which peers put themselves down, and then speak in order; they're actually public and you can read them here. When debating legislation, there are few speakers and no strict time limit, so the order does not much matter.

Where it is critical is during the half hour question time at the beginning of each day's sitting, because the time limit is strict. What actually happens, if two or more Peers stand up and want to ask a supplementary question, is normally that one gives way to the other (if they have particular expertise in the subject, for instance). If they don't give way and there's a stalemate, a Government whip will intervene and say "My Lords, I think it is the turn of the X party benches", to indicate who should go ahead.

Some recent examples may help. Here, two Labour peers both wanted to ask a question, and neither would give way, so the Leader of the Labour Peers intervened to decide which of them got in. Here the Leader of the House indicates which party gets preference. Sam Blacketer (talk) 13:03, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Also sometimes peers will call out the name of the peer they think should speak. So if Lord Smith and Lord Brown stand up, and most people want to hear Lord Smith, you may hear a chorus of peers saying "Smith". Neljack (talk) 09:56, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Speaker of the House - power over introducing bills

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act passed the Senate recently, and there has been a lot of talk about John Boehner stating that he won't introduce it to the House. I don't understand why he has the power to unilaterally block a bill like that - are there any provisions for allowing a vote on this bill even if he doesn't want to let it happen? Katie R (talk) 13:34, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

This is the dilemma of the current schizoid status of the Republican Party, which is really two parties now and he's basically managing a "coalition", or trying to. It's within his power as Speaker to decide whether something comes to the floor or not - and if he doesn't have enough Republican votes to pass something, he won't try. What he could do is abandon the tea party and form a coalition with moderate Democrats. But he probably wants to get elected again in 2014, so he won't do that. There, in a nutshell (which seems an apt metaphor) is the cause of the deadlock in Congress. And as for the Democrats unilaterally introducing a bill, I expect House rules would prevent it. For one thing, nothing gets voted on until it comes out of committee. And since Republicans run the committees, it can't happen. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:50, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

What clause of the constitution would empower the congress to pass such an act, Bugs? Regardless of whether your answer points out the Houses are equal and autonomous so far as bills, except that the Senate can't originate a spending bill? μηδείς (talk) 00:44, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand your question. What act are you talking about? The House and Senate can create their own rules. I think that's established in the Constitution, but if it isn't, it happened anyway. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:36, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

What act is mentioned in the first sentence of this thread? Assuming that's obvious, what clause of the Constitution authorizes Congress to pass such an act? (You've agreed that each House sets its own rules according to the Constitution, so no need to repeat that.) μηδείς (talk) 20:28, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

See: Hastert Rule for more on this. Blueboar (talk) 15:00, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

In principle, if there are 218 votes to pass it, then those representatives could bring it to the floor via a discharge petition. It's a longshot, but yes, such a mechanism does exist. --Trovatore (talk) 02:43, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

A very long shot. Has it been attempted at any point since the tea party took over the Congress in 2011? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:48, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Leave Bug's political proclivities to the side, and your own, for that matter. Each house of the legislative branch can set its own rules within the bounds of the Constitution. Those rules give almost exclusive rights to them to set their own rules, so long as they don't violate the Constitution. Lest you forget, these branches, the house more than any other, are democratically elected. So, if they don't have a quorum, or majority, or filibuster super majority, or sorta-super-majority 60/100 (I'm convinced some early senators just didn't know how to do division) then look to the Constitution. That's the thing about rule of law. It relies on rules. If they're bad change them. Shadowjams (talk) 06:30, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

That's the dilemma: For a given proposal, there could be a majority of House votes that would support it. But Boehner won't bring it up for a vote unless the Republicans as a whole would support it - and due to the "civil war" within the GOP, that is increasingly not the case. That kind of thing has probably happened in the past, but not to this extreme. That's not democracy at all - it's tyranny of the minority, i.e. the tea party. And if you don't think this is the case, google the subject online and you'll see I didn't make this up. As to the general point, yes, the members of the House and the Senate, respectively, set their own rules. "If they're bad, change them" doesn't work, because again the tea party will block anything they don't like, so any such rule change will never come to a vote. And the houses have to be careful about making radical changes to the rules anyway, as the next time another party gets control, those changes could come back to haunt the ones who made them. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:29, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Nah... It's not the Republican's fault (nor is it the fault of the Democrats when they have the majority). They are all simply doing their best to follow the Constitution ... which clearly states (multiple times): "Congress shall pass no law...". Blueboar (talk) 03:54, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Telephone manners

Do people still say, "Hello. You have reached 123 Alphabet Court. This is Amelia Jones speaking," when they pick up their telephone, or is this what people used to do back in the '80s and earlier? I seem to remember a similar sort of thing occurred in The Babysitter's Club books, where people, even kids, would answer the phone like this, even when they are not answering a call for a business. Is this behavior of telephone ethics true? 140.254.227.50 (talk) 14:34, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Nope... back in the day, most people answered their personal phones with a simple "Hello...?" without identifying themselves (ie they answered the phone the same way they do today). Blueboar (talk) 14:52, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

That was a fairly common practice at one time, a courtesy to the caller; but thanks to all the bad guys out there nowadays, a plain "Hello" is one of the safest responses because the only thing it tells the telemarketer or scammer is that someone's at home at the number they called. The other safest alternative is to let the answering machine kick in for all calls unless you recognize the caller ID and want to pick it up. And your answering machine message need not present any personal information either. In a business setting, of course, you're most likely going to identify yourself both live and on Memorex. But that's a different situation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:56, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Bugs, perhaps things were different where you lived, but that's definitely not my experience of how we answered the phone back in the 60s, 70s and 80s. We simply picked up the phone and said "Hello" (with a slight questioning tone). The assumption was that the caller would recognize the voice of the person he/she was calling... and if they didn't, it was up to them to ask "Um... Is so-and-so there?"

In my experience, the only time you got more than just a blunt "Hello" was if the person you were calling had an answering machine ("Hello, this is Blueboar... I'm not home right now, so please leave a message at the sound of the beep".) Blueboar (talk) 15:20, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

And you were giving out too much personal information on that answering machine. A bare-bones "leave your message after the tone" is sufficient. Some folks will also state their phone number, as in "you have reached 123-456-7890", although that's somewhat risky also. In my day, kids were sometimes trained to answer the phone "Smith residence, Johnny speaking" or whatever. That's way too risky nowadays. They should be taught to simply say "Hello", and as soon as somewhat starts asking questions, turn it over to a parent. Two cardinal rules: (1) never tell the caller anything until or if the caller identifies himself; and (2) don't answer any probing questions. It was amazing sometimes to get a wrong number, and the caller would say, "Who is this?" and my answer was "Who's calling, please?" or "What number are you calling?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:29, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Yeah... most people did give too much information back when answering machines first came out. But the question was about how people actually answered their phones back in the day... not how people should have answered their phones. Blueboar (talk) 15:54, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

And the answer is that some percentage, at least, answered with information: "Smith residence, John speaking." rather than just "Hello". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:32, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

My mother almost always answers the phone by saying "London 123456" or whatever. My grandmother, a professional telephone operator, always said something similar but sometimes used the old London exchange names that were in use before the introduction of All-figure dialing. I once asked her about this and she said something about her training as an operator. Anyway, I stopped when I realized it was giving away too much information to the caller. Now, if the caller is lucky, they might get a "Hello" from me. Astronaut (talk) 15:27, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

A 1960s British telephone with letters allowing you dial a particular exchange (the dial is upside-down for some reason, but you get the idea).

Agreed; in 1960s London, we were taught to answer the telephone by reciting our number, starting with the name of the exchange - ours was Leytonstone which you dialled by using the letters "LEY". Wrong numbers were commonplace and not always the fault of the person dialling as "trunk calls" (ie from outside the local area) had to be routed by the operator. Because phone calls were relatively expensive, the caller could say "sorry, wrong number" and hang up, without the time and money consuming business of establishing if they had been connected to the right person. As selling (or swindling) was done door-to-door and not over the telephone in those days, nobody saw any harm in disclosing your number to an unknown caller. I don't think that I stopped doing that until the 1990s. I then took to using my first name, as my number was quite close to that of a mini-cab firm and it saved a lot of confusion with people wanting to order a taxi. Alansplodge (talk) 17:11, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Something's out of whack with that illustration. Not just that the dial is rotated 180, but also that the cord for the handset is on the wrong side. In any case, yes, we used to use 2-letter exchanges plus some digits. I recall in one TV show where they referred to an exchange as "Quincy"-something. That was kind of a joke, like having a 555 prefix, being as how the letters Q and Z were absent from phones in those days. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:05, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

This looks more like it.[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:10, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

That's the baby. Ours had the numbers and letters inside the circular finger holes, but it was the same principle. Alansplodge (talk) 18:34, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Note that even though it's reversed and upside down, the phone in the picture has the letter O where it belongs, on 0. Once it became possible to dial directly to foreigners who put their O in the wrong place we had to give up using letters. --ColinFine (talk) 02:47, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Well maybe, but when they introduced numeric STD codes, it made sense to make the whole sequence numeric too. "LEY" became "539" without any need for change. They also had to work quite hard to make the alphabetic codes match a geographical area without duplication. The Walthamstow exchange had to be called "Coppermill", after a locality within Walthamstow that few people had heard of and doesn't appear on most maps. Alansplodge (talk) 13:07, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

You mean people don't know about the walk to Walthamstow from Clapton along Coppermill Lane, seeing the birds on the reservoir? How sad. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:49, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

A select few ;-) Alansplodge (talk) 00:40, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

See BUtterfield 8 @ Title. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:22, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

See "PEnnsylvania 6-5000" and "Pennsylvania 6-5000 (song)". —Wavelength (talk) 19:54, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

See Call Northside 777. —Kevin Myers 09:10, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Even today I find it useful, the moment I think someone had a wrong number, to say what my number is. Otherwise the idiot is almost sure to call back in a few minutes. Wnt (talk) 01:08, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Then you could mess with him. Tell him, "OK, sir, the cab is on its way." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:46, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and have them ring back at all hours of the day and night to complain. Good idea. Alansplodge (talk) 00:40, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Turn your ringer off right after you tell them you're on your way. By the time they figure out that they've got a wrong number, they'll be sobered up and can drive themselves home. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:28, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Better to get them to tell you what number they thought they dialled. Usually it's not yours, and you just say "No, you've misdialled, as that is not this number", which you have not disclosed. If they tell you your own number, get them to check, and if it's still correct, tell them they must have written it down wrongly as there's nobody at this number with that name. Either way, the ball's back in their court, and if they keep on misdialling/harassing you, it's a reportable offence. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 04:04, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Affirmative. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:33, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Am I the only one confused by a lot of this conversation? I can understand the reluctance to give your name or any other identifying details like your address over the phone, but I don't get the reluctance to mention your phone number.

Sure if someone asks, it's sometimes easier to check what number they want rather then trying to tell them your number. But that doesn't equate to a general reluctance to disclose your number when someone has called you, as if you're giving away some private or dangerous information. (The only useful thing may be to get in to the habit of avoiding disclosing details, but many people would have no problem stopping themselve disclosing other details even though they may freely give out their number.)

Unless you have some sort of call forwarding or other complicated setup where the number they dialed may not be your number, then they already know your number because they dialed it. Particularly for telemarkerters etc, there's definitely no reason why they'd need you to confirm your number, it will be right there in their dialing system.

I guess it's plausible a prank caller will randomly dial numbers with a phone that can't display the number dialed, and then when they come across someone who sounds good to bother, they'll try to find out the number they dialed. And there may be related weird case when someone genuinelly dialed the right number but somehow got put through to you and similarly decides they want your number. And perhaps there's also drunks which will get confused. But these seem so rare, that on the whole, it doesn't seem be something to worry about.

Nil Einne (talk) 08:06, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking the same, and the only explaination I could come up with was from some apocryphal internet stories where a series of pranks was pulled on a person who was particularly rude after being wrongly dialled. When home phones without displays were common, it may not have been so easy to work out the number you just dialled, and giving yours away might open you up to such things. On the other hand, anyone wanting to scam you is probably sensible enough to write down the number they dialled, and modern phones will display it anyway.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if in schemes like SIP (used in 3G and later mobile networks) it was possible to reach someone via a temporay identifier without learning their standard telephone number MChesterMC (talk) 10:35, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Second most painted person in history

I assume the person who appears in most paintings in history is Jesus. Any guess who could be the second?--90.165.118.106 (talk) 16:37, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Mary. Looie496 (talk) 16:47, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) Category:Paintings of people would suggest Mary, but there may be some bias in our selection of which paintings have their own articles, unless you are talking about Western art exclusively in which case Jesus and Mary are probably the top two. ---Sluzzelin talk 16:49, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

It's safe to assume Muhammad is not high on that list. But do Hindu gods count? Or is the OP asking strictly about real persons? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:09, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Off topic. Looie496 (talk) 19:13, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, see our article Aniconism in Islam which is "a proscription in Islam against the creation of images of sentient living beings. The most absolute proscription is of images of God in Islam, followed by depictions of Muhammad, and then Islamic prophets and the relatives of Muhammad, but the depiction of all humans and animals is discouraged". Alansplodge (talk) 17:21, 15 November 2013 (UTC) They wouldn't be keen on the Sistine Chapel, then. I wonder what their doctors use for anatomy diagrams? Unless those don't count because they're not of any specific individual. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:56, 15 November 2013 (UTC) This chap dates from 1390 - I suppose that there are exemptions if the cause is worthwhile. But we digress. Alansplodge (talk) 18:59, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

For "paintings" I suspect there is no way to know -- most images of Jesus etc. are prints, and the number of separate "paintings" is not all that huge -- the person who has been on the most "prints" is almost certainly George Washington courtesy of many billions of postage stamps and dollar bills. Collect (talk) 20:23, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

What about Chairman Mao? HiLo48 (talk) 01:18, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

International trade in the 17th century

Why did Europeans and American colonists in the 17th century believe international trade was a zero-sum game?134.250.136.97 (talk) 18:39, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Why do you believe that they believed that? I don't think they did. Many of them believed that trade primarily benefits the people who ship it, and so they wanted to carry as much of the trade as possible using their own ships -- but I don't believe they thought trade harmed one party to the extent that it benefited the other (which is the definition of a zero sum game). Looie496 (talk) 19:10, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Homework question? HiLo48 (talk) 20:47, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Looie496 -- see Mercantilism. "Mercantilists viewed the economic system as a zero-sum game, in which any gain by one party required a loss by another." --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 21:04, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Jack's got the best link here. Mercantalism, the predominant economic theory of the day, is an article that pretty much explains all the OP needs to know. It's a fruitless to explain "why" more than to direct people to the facts of the theory. These questions lead no further than "at the time, the people were working with the best they had, and they did as good as they could." In the past, all sorts of stuff people "knew" in the past is known to be very wrong today: geocentrism, phlogiston, humorism. If the question is "Why did people believe things in the past since we know today it doesn't work that way", it's because they were doing the best they could do. 200 years from know, something we know to be true today will be laughed at as completely stupid by people who live then. It's called "progress". It's not helpful to try to explain the worldview of people who lived at a time where they don't have the knowledge we have today as though they should have, and thus mustn't have been that bright for not knowing it. Why did they believe it? Because it kinda worked, and they were really trying to get it right. That's why they believed it. --Jayron32 21:14, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

A lot of that can be covered by the old expression, "It seemed like a good idea at the time." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:30, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations is worth studying; he pretty much invented modern economics, which chimed the death knell for mercantilism. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 22:47, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

The history of ideas, the history of economics and the history and philosophy of science are "fruitless"? That sounds falsifiable. As far as theories for the reasons for the adoption of ideologies Foucault is quite popular at the moment and I've seen practicing historians of ideas in the field of economics and business usefully use Foucault to explain why people believed economic ideologies that they did. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:54, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

No, those are useful studies. The chauvinistic notion that the past is to be viewed through modern glasses and that people who lived in such times should be questioned "why?!?" for their stupidity is a fruitless endeavor. It is, of course, an excellent thing to understand what leads others, of any time, place, or culture to believe what they do. It isn't fruitful to ask why others don't know what we know, as though they should have, when they don't have access to the information we do. It's the assumption inherent in the subtext of the question that the people of the past should have known that is objectionable. --Jayron32 00:58, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

At your postulated point in time 200 years from now, they might well be asking why so many fell for the "trickle down theory" scam. As Will Rogers pointed out, money doesn't trickle down, it trickles up. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:45, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Nah... money neither trickles up nor down... it simply trickles away (away from me and to that undeserving bastard over there). Blueboar (talk) 16:42, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

That's one aspect of economics which will likely endure forever. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:12, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Matthew 13:12 Tevildo (talk) 22:00, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Our mercantilism article is the right place, but important viewpoints in it are scanted above. Perfect zero-sum is dubious as Looie496 says, but part of an answer to the OP's question is that people believed something like that - because it had significant truth in it. From the article: Indeed, Paul Samuelson, writing within a Keynesian framework, defended mercantilism, writing: "With employment less than full and Net National Product suboptimal, all the debunked mercantilist arguments turn out to be valid." Keynes' appreciation of the mercantilists in his General Theory is well-known. The OP should find his National Self-sufficiency somewhat relevant and worth reading. I (and perhaps people like Paul Davidson ) would say that the people of those times did a better job of detached scientific inquiry, doing the best with what they had, untainted by ideological "theorizing" in the interest of one social class, than modern mainstream or neoclassical economics; what has generally been inflicted on the students of the past few decades. And phlogiston is valence electrons.John Z (talk) 00:16, 19 November 2013 (UTC)