Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 December 7

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

December 7

Child labour laws and environmental laws w.r.t. goods sold

Are there, or have there ever been, any jurisdiction that apply their child labour laws and environmental laws to all good imported and/or sold within the country?

As in, country A restricts import of goods manufactured in country B because country B's child labour laws and environmental laws are too lax compared to country A's laws. ECS LIVA Z (talk) 00:09, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

If you are happy with a partial answer, many countries (US, EU) restrict some garment imports from undeveloping (OK, under-developed, or less-developed) countries because they are made by children. Hats from Bangladesh comes to mind. No idea about environmental restrictions, though. The two aren't really related. DOR (HK) (talk) 19:34, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Do you have a source on the restrictions? I see T-shirts made in Bangladesh in supermarkets in the US, so it's only limited hats? Or just certain classes of garments? ECS LIVA Z (talk) 21:06, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

[1] suggests the US removed trade benefits to Bangladesh as result of their labour law problems although this didn't affect the garment industry anyway as they weren't eligible. Nil Einne (talk) 12:53, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Asma El-Bakry

Hi, I am looking for French and Arabic-language sources that cover Asma El Bakry, an Egyptian film director, in significant detail. Hack (talk) 00:59, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Maybe you want the Entertainment desk? —Tamfang (talk) 01:57, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

For starters, the French version of her article lists three sources. Also you can find several book sections and journal articles about her in French by changing the google URL to .fr - thus. Just scroll past the English entries. 184.147.120.192 (talk) 11:47, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

"winter weather to the Mediterranean in late November"

I was just reading the Suez Crisis and came across this sentence: "Additionally, the coming of winter weather to the Mediterranean in late November would render the invasion impossible, which thus meant the invasion had to begin before then."

But the climate chart at Port_Said#Climate shows an almost ideal weather in November there: average low of 17.5 C to an average high of 23 C, high sunshine hours and extremely low precipitation. I personally wouldn't mind a vacation in such a climate. So what's going on here? Is there some military weather factor that I'm missing here? ECS LIVA Z (talk) 01:54, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Wind and waves? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 176.248.159.54 (talk) 03:24, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

• This suggests that the problem wasn't really landing, it was getting the Royal Navy to Egypt in the first place. Plus, there was an additional problem that reservists and ships had to be released for other duty. Smurrayinchester 09:15, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

The cited source for the sentence in question is the book Suez 1956 by Barry Taylor, dated 2006, page 201. This edition is available in Google Books but only in snippet view. As far as Google Books can tell, the word "winter" occurs only on pages 43, 209, and 460, and the word "weather" only on pages 24, 335, and 410. Another edition is an ebook, dated 2012, which is available in preview mode if you don't pay to download it all. But searches in this edition don't work correctly for me; the hits I get are on the wrong pages, and there are no page numbers so I can't attempt to find a relevant page by number. --76.71.5.45 (talk) 17:38, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

In December 2010: "A luxury cruise ship has been left in disarray - and dozens of its passengers hurt - after it encountered unexpectedly heavy seas in the southern Mediterranean. The Brilliance Of The Seas is now limping to Malta after being assailed by giant waves - which caused it to rock dangerously from side to side - while sailing to the Egyptian port of Alexandria." [2]. I also found Mediterranean sea storm - vessel m/v Ice River (not sure what time of year but the video was posted in February). Alansplodge (talk) 10:35, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

To enlarge on my earlier and rather cryptic answer. In the Mediterranean, storms are fairly rare and short-lived in the Summer, but more frequent and sometimes quite intense in the winter months (as famously experienced by Odysseus, for example).

The following is a relevant extract from our article Mediterranean climate.

During summer, regions of mediterranean climate are dominated by subtropical high pressure cells, with dry sinking air capping a surface marine layer of varying humidity and making rainfall impossible or unlikely except for the occasional thunderstorm, while during winter the polar jet stream and associated periodic storms reach into the lower latitudes of the mediterranean zones, bringing rain, with snow at higher elevations. As a result, areas with this climate receive almost all of their precipitation during their winter, autumn and spring seasons . . . ."

{The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.136.117 (talk) 11:43, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

What is the name of the female singer that sing at some flaming lips songs?

What is the name of the female singer that usually sing for flaming lips lips songs? I tried to look at wikipedia article but it has just male names.~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.92.128.26 (talk) 10:36, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

You may be thinking of Yoshimi P-We, after whom the Lips album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is named and who sings on some tracks on the album. --Viennese Waltz 10:42, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

WWI: Why not tunnel across?

Why send cannon fodder above no man's land instead of below? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:29, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Will Rogers had an almost-as-practical solution to the U-boats problem: Boil the ocean. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:34, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

There were a number of aptly called mining operations; but there's a limit to the number of mines that can be dug, I guess - mining is a fairly skilled undertaking. See Lochnagar mine, for example. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:36, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

If I'm reading the article correctly, these tunnels were difficult, dangerous, and time-consuming to build. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:44, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

All of the above, plus possible to detect, potentially collapsible by heavy artillery fire, and unless you establish a good tunnel-head very quickly, you might just wind up surrounded. The Lochnagar mine mentioned above eliminates a lot of the risk, since you're sending a relatively small force through, the mine is not brought up to the surface behind enemy lines, and the purpose is merely to disrupt the enemy lines while the main force approaches. This reminds me of the famous Civil War Battle of the Crater. Someguy1221 (talk) 21:52, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

• The British did more or less this, with their successful mining campaign, particularly at Messines Ridge. Mines were dug and the German lines were broken by them. The difficulty was that the Germans were then better at occupying and holding the resultant craters than the British were. They made temporary gains, but couldn't hold them.

Anther method was the Livens Large Gallery Flame Projector, an underground flamethrower which could approach the enemy front line trenches undetected, then destroy their occupants immediately before an advance - and without allowing the re-emplacement time that a barrage allowed. At the Somme the sections with such a projector were successfully taken, unlike the others. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:14, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

• The concept is called Sapping, and has a long military tradition. It is also dangerous AF, which is why it isn't used as often. --Jayron32 00:24, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

To be precise, sapping is working towards the enemy using an open trench, while tunnelling under the enemy is called mining (military). Admittedly, the two crafts are closely allied and in the Napoleonic Wars, Britain had a force called the Corps of Royal Sappers and Miners. In the First World War, coal miners were initially recruited for the job, but it was found that tunnellers who had worked on the construction of the London Underground had better skills to work in the wet clay of Flanders. A good reference for Great War tunnelling is Beneath Hill 60 by Will Davies.

To answer the question directly, the problem would be getting sufficient men through the tunnel. In the Great War, any break in the enemy line would be swiftly restored with either a concentrated artillery barrage which would kill anybody out in the open, or by a counter-attack by the huge reserves which were kept close at hand, and if they were not sufficient, more reserves could be brought up by rail. At the Battle of Loos in 1915, the British managed to push 12 battalions (about 10,000 men) through a sizeable breach in the German lines, but the Germans chased the whole lot out the next day. Later in the war, the concept of defence in depth was developed, the Hindenburg Line was about 1 kilometre wide. Alansplodge (talk) 10:14, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Earthquakes in ancient Greece and Middle East, warfare against walled cities

If an earthquake was felt in ancient times, would opportunistic raiders immediately travel toward cities to see if city walls had fallen, hoping they could attack in the hours or days or longer before the wall was repaired?(I don't know how long it could take to repair a wall, whether stone or mud brick.) Thanks108.252.141.219 (talk) 23:37, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

A perusal of List of historical earthquakes doesn't show any documented examples of an invasion occurring after an ancient earthquake. The closest thing would be the revolts against Sparta after the 464 BC Sparta earthquake. Many of the earthquakes listed just don't seem to have struck cities that were under any particular military threat at the time. If this did ever happen, it looks like it wasn't recorded. Keep in mind that most ancient kingdoms and city-states did not maintain large standing armies to take quick advantage of such an unpredictable event, and even rapidly constructed wood-and-dirt fortifications can be quite resilient. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:46, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

As noted here, there is some speculation that the Battle of Jericho may have been aided by an earthquake. Highly speculative, of course. --Jayron32 00:23, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

An earthquake would certainly qualify as being from the hand of God. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:07, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

It would probably take longer than mere days. First the news would have to reach the enemy, then they'd send scouts, and finally raise an army and march over there. Not exactly a blitzkrieg. In the elapsed time, repairs would probably have already been made. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:07, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Depends on the elapsed time, and what kind of repairs are required, but probably, yeah. To put some numbers to it, Hadrian's Wall was built at a pace of about one mile per month. Going by this map, Ancient Rome's walls look to be about 25 miles in length. So at that pace, it would have taken a couple of years to fully build such walls to the same scale as Hadrian's, from scratch. So that's the worst possible scenario, the walls of a large city completely destroyed. Though presumably they could have sped up the process considerably if desired, starting construction in multiple spots instead of going from one end all the way to the other, as was done with Hadrian's Wall. As I suggested, wood and dirt fortifications could be constructed even more quickly. The Romans built about 10 miles of such fortifications as a prelude to the Battle of Alesia, and that most likely took them less than two months, and those fortifications faced both directions! So given that you'd have to learn of the collapse of your enemy's walls, verify it, raise an army, train the army, then transport the army to the enemy city...yeah, there is most likely going to already be considerably rebuilt defenses by the time you arrive. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:42, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, temporary repairs could be made quickly, such as the use of mud brick until proper bricks could be formed. Mud brick isn't as strong, and slowly erodes in rain, over centuries, but you could put a lot of it in place quickly, to provide a reasonable defense. Smart defenders might also put mud brick in front of all the walls, not just the damaged areas, to prevent the enemy from knowing where the weak spots are. StuRat (talk) 16:32, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm actually more surprised you don't see things like this in Medieval times, where large castles were often defended by only a handful of men, who did not really have a hope of guarding their post if the walls crumbled. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:47, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

I can think of one example - Shaizar was destroyed by an earthquake, and the Assassins took over the ruins. But the whole city was in ruins, not just the walls. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:31, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

• There's a popular theory that the Trojan Horse was originally a metaphor for Poseidon, god of (among other things) earthquakes, for breaking down the walls of Troy and letting the Greeks in. I don't think it's taken very seriously by academics, but it does appear Troy was hit by earthquakes at some points in its existence (as were most Mediterranean Rim cities). Smurrayinchester 08:40, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

• Another way to temporarily increase defenses is with sharpened wooden stakes, pointed towards the enemy and driven into the ground at an angle. This can make a cavalry charge impossible, and delay an infantry charge, allowing time to fire on them. Ideally there should be many levels of wooden stakes, all within range of your fire, to increase the defense in depth. It's possible the enemy could destroy these from out of range, using flaming projectiles, but that will take time, during which you can make further repairs to the wall. StuRat (talk) 22:18, 12 December 2016 (UTC)