Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 December 11

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December 11

parks in canadian largest cities and Ontario largest cities

Do Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Montreal, Hamilton, Mississauga and Brampton have a website for their parks? Also, do they list parks that have benches for sitting? Please and thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.29.32.221 (talk) 03:58, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

If you type "XXXX Parks" (replace XXXX with the name of the city you want) into the little bar at the center of the page at http://www.google.com, you can find the answer to your question. This will work for almost any city. --Jayron32 04:16, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Toronto parks benches

Is there a website that shows the list of parks that have benches for sitting? Please and thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.29.32.221 (talk) 03:59, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

There is not. But if you plan to visit a specific park, you could call Toronto Parks first to confirm there are benches in that park. Taknaran (talk) 13:59, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Trying to locate title of book I read a couple years ago

I'm not entirely sure if this is on-topic, but I'm trying to find the title of a book I skimmed through a couple years ago, and have not had much success so far on Google. I probably read it at some point between mid-2008 and the summer of 2013 at the very latest, at a Dymocks branch. The novel is set in the UK, with the following plot points:

• The narrator is a secondary school girl in the UK, who probably is at her last year prior to university. She is said to be a good student - there is some mention of a scholarship (or something of the sort) at Oxford that she was supposed to take up, but does not because of the events of the novel. Later, towards the end, when someone asks her about her plans for university, she says something to the effect of "Maybe I'll go to East Anglia or something."

• Her parents have separated at some point in time. Somehow, she meets her father, and without letting on her identity, begins an affair with him. Her father has a long-term girlfriend or a wife at this point.

• Her father possibly does painting - either as an intensive hobby or as a job.

• There is some episode where her father paints her nails blue/

• After their first instance of sex (where it seems a condom wasn't used), the narrator says something about her father's semen trickling in abrupt bursts out of her.

• The novel ends with the narrator's mother finding out about the affair and confronting the father, who dies for some reason vaguely connected to this (but not from murder). The narrator ends up being put somewhere for psychiatric treatment, and is visited by her late father's partner, who makes some mention of painting.

Might anyone be able to shed some light on this? --Morningcrow (talk) 04:26, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, that's essentially the story of Oedipus, so one option would be to Google for modern Oedipus novel or similar to see if anything familiar sounding comes up. I looked at the first few hits and there was apparently an American novel named Ed King, but maybe yours will turn up later. Matt Deres (talk) 14:40, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

But "backwards" you mean. An anthropological note on this though: father-daughter incest seems to be a lesser taboo overall than mother-son; at least judging from the fact that father-daughter incest is found in a few societies as an acceptable practice in some circumstances (e.g. Azande kings marrying their daughters), whereas mother-son is unacceptable everywhere. So the situations are not completely symmetrical. Thought I'd mention that just for the record. Contact Basemetal here 22:17, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Good point. I'm not sure about whether or not she was aware of her "true" relationship though (I suspect she was), but in any case, I'll take that into consideration. --Morningcrow (talk) 20:55, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

If you can remember an exact and distinctive phrase from the novel, you can try searching for it in Google Books. For instance, I just went to http://books.google.com and typed "Maybe I'll go to East Anglia or something." into the search box (including the quotation marks, to make it an exact-phrase search). It found no hits (and, uselessly, repeated the search as if I had not typed the quotation marks). I also tried semen "abrupt bursts", searching for a single word together with a phrase. Nothing useful there either. This isn't surprising since Crow was paraphrasing when using those expressions, but maybe this will be a useful line of inquiry. Note that * can be used to stand for an uncertain part of a phrase. Google Books often has books indexed even when it will not make the contents available to the user, which can be handy if all you want to see is the title and author. --65.94.50.4 (talk) 18:42, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Somehow searching for "british novel father daughter affair incest" in Google Books finally did the trick, and worked a lot better than web searching. For anyone interested, it's most likely Anne Pelle's Repeat It Today With Tears. --Morningcrow (talk) 21:06, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Anne Peile. Contact Basemetal here 21:45, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Israel - Palestine, China - Tibet

If you look at a map of the Middle East, the borders of the West Bank and Gaza will have dots around it to indicate it is not actually owned by Israel (rather controlled). If you look at a map of East Asia, Tibet does not have dots around it. Instead, it is the same colour as China. Why is this? Why is Tibet not mapped the same way as Palestine? 121.90.198.50 (talk) 04:30, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Because the political situation of China with regards to Tibet is different than the political situation of Israel with regards to Gaza and the West Bank. --Jayron32 04:40, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

121.90.198.50 -- You will find dotted lines on most maps of Kashmir and Aksai Chin made outside Pakistan, India, and China... AnonMoos (talk) 05:07, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

But the political situation of Kashmir is also different from the political situation of the West Bank. The use of different kind of lines results from different political situations, but the use of the same kind of lines does not imply identical political situations. Contact Basemetal here 16:03, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Don't worry, in a few years the technocrats will create a world government so that we can save on useless expenditures. (Part of why the American 50 states could do so well economically instead of bickering with each other like the European countries did.) Then there will be dotted lines everywhere, showing historical divisions only, like the states of America. 212.96.61.236 (talk) 15:50, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Don't count on it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:39, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Actually, a lot depends on which map you are looking at, and what political message they wish to convey. Not all maps show Palestine and Gaza with dotted lines (see for example: this one). And there are maps that show Tibet with dotted lines. Blueboar (talk) 16:36, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• I remember maps from decades ago that did show Tibet marked that way; I think this was because people thought China might eventually give up control of it. Nobody expects that today. --65.94.50.4 (talk) 18:45, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps thats the reason then, nobody believes China will ever give up Tibet so they don't bother trying to free Tibet, unlike tiny Israel which could give up Palestine. 49.227.176.125 (talk) 20:19, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Because while the relationship of Palestine with Israel is complex, and Palestine is recognized by many nations and the UN as independent from Israel, Tibet is unambiguously part of China. There is no recognition of its independence, and it has not declared any independence. Your question is like wondering why there isn't a dotted line around Texas. --Golbez (talk) 20:28, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

That's true, considering the Republic of Texas was annexed by the Union. But Tibetans would doubtless resent the Chinese invasion, and want an independent country - they don't say so in independence movements of course, because they are too scared of what the Chinese authorities will do to them, unlike the intifada convictions of Palestinians. 49.227.176.125 (talk) 20:33, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

It's not the job of mapmakers to countenance invisible or imaginary independence movements. Tibet is part of China, and no authority figure in Tibet has disagreed for a very, very long time. --Golbez (talk) 21:39, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

The disputed borders of Tibet are mapped with dotted lines, see [1]. As Israel has never outlined their borders and claims to own lands belonging to a few of her neighbours, it is impossible to draw borders for Israel. 76.68.49.155 (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

That's the disputed borders between China and India; it has nothing to do with Tibetan independence. --Golbez (talk) 21:39, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Isreal does have fairly well-defined defacto borders, though. See Green Line (Israel), often called the "Pre-1967 borders". --Jayron32 02:06, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Jayron32 -- However, these boundaries were not accepted by the Arabs (as being anything other than temporary military armistice lines) until long after 1967, and there is a very solid consensus among the great majority of Israeli Jews that some things are simply not going to go back to exactly the way they were before 1967 (i.e. the Latrun Salient threatening the Jerusalem road, the Jewish Quarter of the old city of Jerusalem, some other aspects of Jerusalem, the old British Mandate ten-meter strip along the east shore of the sea of Galilee, probably the Etzion bloc, etc.). The 1949-1967 lines are a solid starting point for a future agreement (with some probably relatively minor adjustments), but they're not really as definitive as you seem to be implying. AnonMoos (talk) 07:22, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh, not definitive at all. But they're something. --Jayron32 16:10, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Borders can be defined in various ways. The border between Saudi Arabia and the countries along the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula was undefined for a long time, being in uninhabitable desert, and was typically approximated by a big dashed line on the map. The border was only officially defined within the last 20 years or so. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:17, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Like the Rub al Khali? 49.224.168.98 (talk) 06:02, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

the Queen overruling a Governor of a realm

In Geoffrey Robertson's book the justice game he decribes a scene in Trinidad where a man was being informed of his imminent execution:

"In the name of Queen Elizabeth the second by grace of God of Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and the British Dominions beyond the sea, Queen, Defender of the faith, Greetings!"

Following this grotesque salutation from the monarch, the condemned man heard a great deal of archaic language to the effect that someone bearing his name ('the said man') must be hanged from the neck until he be dead, the execution of which remains to be done, but will be done the following Tuesday...

(At the time, Trinidad and Tobago were commonwealth realms. They have since become republics).

My question is this: would the Queen, IN THEORY, have the right to say "not in my name!", and overrule Trinidad's Governor by deciding to commute the condemned man's sentence, even if the Governor protested?

I'm well aware that such intervention in the internal affairs of a Commonwealth realm would be highly "unconventional" nowadays, where Governors are given full autonomy from their supposed royal masters, but my question remains: Does the Queen theoretically retain the power to overrule a governor of a Commonwealth Realm?

(I'm aware that the privy council could and did exercise authority in this situation, but my question relates to the authority of the monarchy itself). 121.219.43.121 (talk) 09:10, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Clemency is a royal prerogative. I imagine that if the monarch felt so disposed, a pardon would be granted. Having said that, just how many Commonwealth Realms retain the death penalty? Is this a possibility nowadays? Not in Australia, to be sure. --Pete (talk) 09:20, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

See Reserve power#United Kingdom and Royal prerogative of mercy. Basically, the Queen has the right to grant pardons under her reserve powers. In practice (as opposed to formally), this power has been delegated by the Queen (as with the rest of her powers) to officials within each of her realms, so the ACTUAL power to pardon rests with those designees, though the Queen does have the power to do so, if she chooses. --Jayron32 13:05, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Per [2] Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Jamaica, Grenada, Belize, Barbados, The Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda have people on death row. If [3] is accurate, the most recent execution was in Saint Kitts and Nevis in 2008 with The Bahamas before that in 2000, and then the other two Saints in 1995 and then Antigua and Barbuda in 1991. Per that article and Capital punishment in Papua New Guinea, PNG also has the death penalty with people possible on death row although hasn't executed anyone since either 1957 or 1954, although there have been recent moves to reimplement the death penalty . As with NZ, Australia, Canada & the UK, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu have abolished the death penalty for all crimes [4] [5]. (You can include Cook Islands although per Capital punishment in the Cook Islands they only formally abolished it in 2007, and Niue.) So anyway, per number of countries most (10/16) of the commonwealth realm retain the death penalty although it's quite far in the other direction on a per capita or geographical size basis.

Edit: Came across List of most recent executions by jurisdiction which seems to concur with my figures above. Also forgot to mention but even Barbados, Belize and Jamaica who last executed someone in the 1980s remain considered retentionists countries by Amnesty International as per the earlier lists. Despite their recent moves and unsurprising criticism from AI [6] (which confirms they have people on death row), they remain considered abolitionist in practice on those lists, but 9/16 is still 'most'. However Grenada who's last execution was in 1978 is consider abolitionist in practice so you could also say it's evenly split.

Per [7] and [8], it seems decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council have endorsed the abolotion of the mandatory death penalty (by the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal, part of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court) and only allowed the death penalty itself in the rarest of the rare cases, so only Belize and PNG can currently theoretically apply it in cases which aren't such if their laws allow it. However per that article, there has been attempted moves away from the JCPC in the Carribean at least partially due to the death penalty cases. Also, it occured to me that the Saint Kitts and Nevis case was after the first ECCA & JCPC decisions abolishing the mandatory death penalty (but before the ones in 2009). Taking a look at Charles Laplace, it seems there was some controversy there as he was executed before he could appeal to the JCPC. It seems like emergency stays probably put a stop to that [9].

Nil Einne (talk) 14:20, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Legal tactic - winning lawsuits by subjecting the opposition to a legal fee burden that they cannot shoulder

As per title. I believe there's a name for the aforementioned. Any ideas? Matt714 (talk) 23:46, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

It's not quite a match, but perhaps Barratry (common law) or the things listed in its see-also section (supporting, champerty) are what's on the tip of your brain - but they're all for litigation that is itself somewhat vexatious, rather than costs which are vexatious. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 00:42, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Strategic lawsuit against public participation seems like a good match to what you're thinking. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 01:31, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

If you're thinking about a non-meritous legal move performed in bad faith, you're probably thinking of barratry. That sort of frivolous or vexatious conduct would probably be classed as barratry, though barratry includes non-strategic vexatious conduct. It's probably not champerty, which deals with lawyers funding a client's legal action in exchange for a cut of the proceeds (which is sometimes applied to certain contingent fee arrangements). SLAPP lawsuits, as Kurt suggests above, are also a related concept, though like barratry it's a slightly broader concept (though also narrower in other ways—the intent is to prevent public participation, not merely to outspend the opponent into giving up). —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 06:26, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

There's a difference between starting an action in bad faith (e.g. I sue you for something which I know I won't win, but I also know you can't afford), which would possibly be barratry (or malicious prosecution), and continuing an action started in good faith to the point where your opponent cannot afford it (e.g. you sue me, I realise I probably won't win, but I drag the action out to the point where your lawyer's fees bankrupt you), which would probably be an abuse of process. I don't know of a specific term in either case for racking up the costs. MChesterMC (talk) 09:47, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Aggressive litigation tactics are not considered inherently improper and do not have a special name. However, legal action which is brought, regardless of its merits, solely to harass or subdue an adversary is known as vexatious litigation. Barratry and SLAPP suits, already discussed, are related concepts. You may also be interested in strike suits, which are suits brought with the purpose of gaining a private settlement before going to court that would be less than the cost of the defendant's legal costs. John M Baker (talk) 14:53, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your inputs. I don't think what I'm searching as been mentioned yet. Maybe an example would help? Let's say a big corporate software company uses the intellectual propriety of a small, relatively unprofitable, independent company without attribution. The IP turns out to be worth a lot of money with the marketing power of the large corporation. As such, the small company decides to sue, but as the large corporation decides to fight to the bitter end (many years long & continued appeals), the small company is forced to abandon legal procedures due to the mounting astronomical costs they cannot afford. Matt714 (talk) 15:48, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, honestly, if you reasonably believe your position has merit, that sounds just like zealous representation. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 16:01, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Plea bargaining. —Tamfang (talk) 17:12, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• Is Vexatious litigation the term you are looking for? --Jayron32 17:25, 12 December 2014 (UTC)<

We have winner! Thanks all. Matt714 (talk) 18:30, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Really? What is the winner then? "Vexatious litigation"? I thought the term you were looking for was far more specific. I thought "vexatious litigation" could mean lots of other things than specifically trying to win by forcing your opponent to give up because of mounting legal costs... Besides "vexatious litigation" had been proposed before by John M Baker and you answered that you didn't think what you were looking for had been mentioned yet. In any case, does anyone have a specific example of what the OP was talking about? That is, a case where it is commonly agreed that's what happened. Contact Basemetal here 18:47, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Vexatious litigation has the specific meaning of bringing meritless cases before the courts out of pure malice. Persons judged to be vexatious litigants have the same problem as the boy who cried wolf, but they would not be vexatious if they won. So it's not the term you're looking for. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 23:51, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Interesting that the linked article does not even mention malice other than in a reference to one particular case. Are we missing something in the article? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 17:54, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

"Harass or subdue", obviously non maliciously. Whatever pedantry is applied, it doesn't alter the irrelevance of vexatious cases (which are thrown out with contumely) to cases which are won because the opposition can't afford to fight them. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 23:47, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Basilica of St Denis

Basilica of St Denis - "The effigies of many of the kings and queens are on their tombs, but during the French Revolution, these tombs were opened by workers under orders from revolutionary officials. The bodies were removed and dumped in two large pits nearby and dissolved with lime. "

Are there any descriptive accounts or sources of how the Basilica was ransacked?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 23:59, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

French Wikipedia has an article on the Profanation des tombes de la basilique Saint-Denis with references to testimonies and witness reports. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:07, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Some information in English at The Politics of Iconoclasm: Religion, Violence and the Culture of Image-Breaking in Christianity and Islam By James Noyes (p. 105), but didn't find much else. The Corpse: A History By Christine Quigley (p. 262) describes the relics of saints that were also destroyed there. Alansplodge (talk) 11:35, 12 December 2014 (UTC)