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Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 October 18

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October 18 edit

Stephen Fry - Out there edit

Please make an article on this new documentary that explores homophobia across the world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.140.89.214 (talk) 00:46, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You could create a user logon, and do the work yourself - provided the article passes muster for notability. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:05, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, for more information see WP:BOLD. Market St.⧏ ⧐ Diamond Way 01:21, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If it's the same one, there's already an article Stephen Fry. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:23, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's the one Bugs, although the OP was requesting an article about this specific television programme, which is covered in a single sentence in our article.
86.140, you could also go to Wikipedia:Requested articles if the prospect of writing one yourself is a bit daunting. Alansplodge (talk) 07:22, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It was a mildly interesting programme with quite a lot of puff and waffle from Stephen but in my opinion far from a notable programme. Going round the world meeting 'characters' tells one little of the street scene and hoi polloi attitudes towards homosexuality. Richard Avery (talk) 13:50, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why is Santa Muerte a saint rather than an angel? edit

The cult of Santa Muerte always seems to be described as the veneration of a saint, even though the saint is considered to be a personification of Death rather than a human being as saints typically seem defined. Yet there is a long tradition in Christianity of recognizing an angel or horseman of death, arguably dating all the way back to the Exodus. Would the tradition even be officially condemned by Catholicism if it were veneration of an angel? Wnt (talk) 14:22, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's basically idol worship or "devil worship", and that's why the Church opposes it. You've got a point about the angels (e.g. "Saint Michael"). Ironically, though, the personification of death is often referred to as the "death angel". I think this is somehow not the same thing, at least not in the eyes of the Church. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:56, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The article notes the connection between Santa Muerte and pre-Columbian Mesoamerican beliefs; the fact that it got mixed up with Catholic terminology is unsurprising. See related practices such as Santeria (which is African rather than Mesoamerican in origin) or Syncretism for the general concept. I'm rather surprised that syncretism is not more expressly linked in the article on Santa Muerte. --Jayron32 15:55, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Despite church teachings to the contrary, the human tendency to anthropomorphize objects and ideas persists. How many times have you heard people, sometimes even meteorologists, refer to "angry" storm clouds? Clouds don't have emotions. But it's fun to pretend they do. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:09, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Earliest written record of the leg transplant of Saints Cosmas and Damian edit

The article on Saints Cosmas and Damian mentions their legendary miraculous leg transplantation of a deceased Ethiopian slave onto Justinian; however neither that article nor the articles for organ transplant or transplant-able organs and tissues have a source for that legend. Also, would the image be appropriate to add for the page on anachronisms? CensoredScribe (talk) 17:21, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The source quoted in our Saints Cosmas and Damian article is The Golden Legend which was compiled in about 1260. You can read it here - it's not a perfect link and you have to scroll down a few entries. If I'm reading it correctly, the miracle occurred a considerable time after the death of the martyrs, perhaps 300 years later. The subject was a man who served the church that had been built to the memory of Cosmas and Damian by order of Pope Felix IV, 526 to 530 (it says the eighth pope after Saint Gregory, but I think it means before - see List of popes), and who was afflicted by a canker (= cancer?) of the thigh. "And as he slept, the holy martyrs Cosmo and Damian, appeared to him their devout servant, bringing with them an instrument and ointment of whom that one said to that other: Where shall we have flesh when we have cut away the rotten flesh to fill the void place? Then that other said to him: There is an Ethiopian that this day is buried in the churchyard of S. Peter ad Vincula, which is yet fresh, let us bear this thither, and take we out of that morian's flesh and fill this place withal. And so they fetched the thigh of the sick man and so changed that one for that other. And when the sick man awoke and felt no pain, he put forth his hand and felt his leg without hurt, and then took a candle, and saw well that it was not his thigh, but that it was another." I suspect that whoever really carried out the operation wouldn't want to be identified, as digging up corpses for spare parts would have been rather frowned upon. Also the Ethiopian part of the story would have been handy when the transplanted leg was rejected and turned black. Alansplodge (talk) 19:11, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I had to look up morian. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 19:32, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't know what it meant, but I guessed it wasn't very politically correct. Alansplodge (talk) 19:43, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I dunno. "Barack Obama is the first morian US president" sounds kinda cool. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 19:50, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think Obama's black ancestors were Moors; they were Kenyans, moor or less. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:22, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We aren't quite sure who his actual father is, since his original birth certificate hasn't been released, but even if it was Barack Obama Sr., the word Moor derives ultimately from the Greek amauros, "black". Mauretania was the Latin name for the province, not a native one. μηδείς (talk) 02:12, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of who the birth certificate claims as the father, we can't prove who anybody's father was without genetic testing. The newspaper birth announcement at the time routinely reports Barack Jr.'s birth as being to Mr. and Mrs. Barack Sr. Meanwhile, there's another potential historical first in the future, as (with the possible exception of Chester Arthur) Ted Cruz would be the first Canadian POTUS. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:38, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, I can't find any reference to the recipient of the leg being Justinian outside of Wikipedia. Alansplodge (talk) 21:06, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, the words "canker", "cancer" and "chancre" all derive from the same crabby root.[3] ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:52, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I thought so, but a number of sources (including our article) suggest that the problem was ulcers or sores, perhaps after the modern usage canker sore. Alansplodge (talk) 23:03, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Inferring from EO, that's the reason the terms separated, ca. 1700, as they acquired more specific meanings. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:19, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, are there any accounts of surgeons in ancient Greece, Rome, or the Caliphate reattaching severed limbs? I can't believe someone would try to do a transplant until the idea that a limb could be reattached at all had been put out there. I don't see why they couldn't have, though. Wnt (talk) 23:56, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I expect attempted reattachments would be common enough (sew it back on and hope it works), but successful limb reattachment requires microsurgical techniques that weren't available until very recently. Reattachment of partially-severed body parts (eg. something still attached by a flap of skin that happens to include the major blood vessels) would probably have the same success rate as surgery in general. --Carnildo (talk) 02:15, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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