Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 March 13

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March 13

A fruit as the main course

In the frozen food aisle, there may be frozen dinners. Most of them are centered around chicken, pork, beef, or fish. There may be a tiny "vegetable" section. Why are the body parts of plants lumped together as "vegetables" instead of selecting one tasty fruit or root of a plant (eggplant or lotus root) with veggie or meat side dishes? 107.77.192.34 (talk) 14:08, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

We keep trying to explain this to you, so here's one more attempt. What qualifies as a fruit to a botanist or other scientist is different than what qualifies as a fruit to a dietitian or nutritionist or chef. Botanically, a fruit is the seed-bearing body of a plant. Culinarily, a fruit is a part of a plant which typically is used in sweet or sour (NOT savory) applications. A vegetable is used culinarily as any part of a plant or fungus that is used in savory applications. The term "vegetable" has no meaning outside of culinary applications. So, if you are asking "what foods are considered vegetables" vs. "what foods are considered fruits", the answer is "plant/fungus parts used in savory applications are vegetables, and those used in sweet applications are fruits" Lots of things we call "vegetables", including maize, green beans, eggplant, cucumber, chili peppers, etc. are ALL botanical fruits, but are NOT considered culinary fruits. Culinary fruits are those such as berries, apples, citrus, melon, etc. all of which are used for their sweetness. --Jayron32 14:17, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Think it may be simply sales and marketing going for the lowest common denominators of peoples buying habits. Just have to shop around. You also missed out Okra etc. Google around and find local outlets. Buy in bulk (cheaper) and store in the deep freeze.--Aspro (talk) 14:22, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

They sometimes are - a Baked Potato is generally treated as the main component, with whatever other vegetables/meat accompanying it treated as the side dish. Similarly, with baked peppers, aubergine, marrow, etc. Iapetus (talk) 17:08, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Peas, beans and lentils are often the centre of main courses. Perhaps the OP should look up some vegetarian recipes online. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:43, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

One issue with packaged food is that they want the packages to be small, so more will fit on the shelf. A salisbury steak does that, but a salad, with the same amount of calories and protein, would be much larger. Also, some salad ingredients can't be frozen. StuRat (talk) 21:20, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

How many frozen salats are there and when did "they" stop deceiving us with larger than needed packaging and how related is your "input" to the question of the OP and do you have any citations to back up your claims?--TMCk (talk) 23:23, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Do you have a ref that says you can spell salads that way ? Do you really need a source to prove that meat is more dense in calories and protein than salad ? OK, then. Here's nutrition and weight data for a salisbury steak meal: [1]. Here's the same info for a garden salad: [2]. I get about 6 times as much protein per gram in the salisbury steak meal. If you have a source saying that every food package is deceptively large, then I'd like to see it. As for irrelevant, your link to another Q certainly won't answer the OP's Q. Regarding freezing salads, I find many of the ingredients can be frozen, although there's some change in texture. Leafy greens fare the worst. Beans, diced tomatoes, and many other ingredients fare quite well. I regularly freeze some of the salad ingredients, so they will last, and then thaw and mix them with fresh salad ingredients that don't freeze well. StuRat (talk) 04:25, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

What are you mumbling? Nobody has asked you about density of food. Looks like you're pulling a "Conway response", mostly unrelated to the question. And salat=Hindustani.--TMCk (talk) 15:01, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

You asked me for info on protein density in foods when you asked me for refs for my claims, as that was one of them. If you wanted refs for something else, you should have said so. And you didn't actually provide a source to prove that "salat" is valid, but I won't be as annoying as you and insist on one. I would like a source showing that all food packages are deceptively large. (Certainly some are, but others are designed to pack as much product on the shelf as possible.) StuRat (talk) 19:12, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Per the ref desk talk page, the both of you should take your barbs to each others' talk pages rather than posting them here. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:21, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree. If she will keep her attacks off this page, I will keep my responses off it, as well. StuRat (talk) 20:22, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Think we can rely on the OP's common sense to know which foods can be frozen. There is a point though, that when from freezing from fresh – blanching is often necessary.--Aspro (talk) 21:49, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

• I think I understand the OP's question; if they are asking about dishes with plants (rather than meats) playing the main course, besides various vegetarian and vegan dishes, there are several well-known dishes where vegetation takes the main role; the Levant-based dish falafel, the Italian eggplant parmigiana and its Greek counterpart moussaka, the French ratatouille, the Caribbean red beans and rice, the Puerto Rican Mofongo, etc. --Jayron32 02:58, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

"The Helicopter Song" - banned?

Our brief stub article on The Helicopter Song claims the song was banned in the UK (or Ireland, I'm not clear). No source is given, but this claim is frequently reported on the net.

It's unclear if the song was simply banned by the BBC from being broadcast on its station, or if it was a full ban on importing and selling recordings of the song.

Can someone try to track down which legislation the song was supposedly banned under? I know that "glorifying terrorism" is an offence under the Terrorism Act 2006. But firstly, that's a recent law, and secondly, a prison break is not in itself a "terrorism act", one would assume. Nor would hijacking an aircraft, if the hijacking was not "political, religious, or ideological" in itself, even if the criminals freed were terrorists. But anyways, I don't want speculation here, I want sourced answers. The author deliberately chose an episode which did not involve violence (nobody got hurt in the incident), just to make his point about thumbing one's nose at Government, without endorsing violence.

(For those curious to hear the actual song, you can hear it at [3])

So, which law back in 1973 allowed the song to be banned?

Also, does it remain on the banned list today, even if only "technically"? If yes, which UK or Irish Government department would make the decision on any request to lift the ban? As in, whom does one submit a request to?

I don't think this is "legal advice", as it can presumably be answered from public domain sources. Eliyohub (talk) 17:26, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

War and Peace: Ireland since the 1960s by Christine Kinealy (2013) says that it was "immediately prohibited from being played on RTÉ stations" (sorry, it's and e-book, so no page number).

A Four Nations Reception History of The Wolfe Tones says: "...there was sufficient concern about the effect of ‘Up and Away’ for the national broadcaster RTE to severely restrict the playing of the song, reflecting anxieties among elites about the propriety of explicitly nationalist culture. Although their concerts in England were well attended by Irish emigrants, particularly in London, the vast popularity of the Wolfe Tones in Ireland was not replicated in England, and the band never charted. Furthermore, despite the English being the target of greatest scorn by the Tones, the level of concern among political elites (as manifested in the restrictions imposed by RTE) was also far less significant. In The Guardian, the band received a rather favourable review, comparing their ‘punk-like excitement’ to The Pogues. Even disparaging reviews focused on the band’s aesthetic inadequacies more than their political potency. Writing in The Times, one reviewer wrote that ‘their general amusement made itself felt in the audience’ but that the performance was ‘more a collection of tuneful anecdotes’ and that ‘more important work was elsewhere’. The political views expressed by the Tones did not touch on the same sensitivities in England as in Ireland, where debates on the propriety of nationalist music were well rehearsed, and so were seemingly interpreted more as a harmless novelty".

I couldn't find any reference stating that it was banned in the UK that doesn't look as though it came from the Wikipedia article. However, it's possible that it was banned by the BBC, which at that time had a monopoly on domestic radio broadcasting; the first commercial radio station in the UK was Capital Radio which launched in October that year. Our List of songs banned by the BBC shows that they have a considerable track record in the censorship department, although Up and Away (The Helicopter Song) is not mentioned. Alansplodge (talk) 18:29, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

So it wasn't banned from being sold on records (the common format in the pre-CD era), just public broadcasting on the Irish national radio station? Eliyohub (talk) 18:43, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, the Irish Singles Chart at that time was based entirely on the retail sales of single records, so yes. I found a full breakdown on a site blacklisted by Wikipedia: Up and Away (The Helicopter Song) came straight in at No 1 as a new entry on the chart for November 29th, 1973 (sales for the week ending Saturday 24th November 1973) and remained at the top of the chart for four weeks until December 27th, 1973 (w/e Saturday December 22nd 1973) when it dropped down to No. 2. The Kinealy 2013 source which I linked above states that 12,000 singles were sold in the first week. Alansplodge (talk) 19:16, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

I have removed the "banned in the UK" claim from the article and added some details from the references linked above. Should anyone find a source about banning in the UK, please feel free to reinstate it. Alansplodge (talk) 22:32, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Walking across Manhattan

If an average adult starts at the East River midtown, like somewhere between 40th and 55th Streets, and they walk to the Hudson River, how long could they expect to take if they walk between 9 and 5? According to Google Maps, it takes about 40 minutes for the two-mile walk, but it says 40 miles for a two-mile walk in small towns, too, where they don't have lots of traffic like in midtown Manhattan. 208.95.51.38 (talk) 17:58, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't think walking is affected by traffic, except slightly, waiting for the light to turn green. (I think you meant to say "...but it says 40 minutes for a two-mile walk in small towns...") Bus stop (talk) 18:33, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

I used to live in Manhattan, Hells Kitchen, and I never really noticed people stopping for traffic. Instead, traffic tries to avoid pedestrians. Pedestrians try to avoid the bikes. Tourists stand in the middle of it all and look up at the tall buildings. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 19:03, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

It'd depend on how aggressively they jaywalk and their jaywalking skill level and how fast they walk. Here's a guide: 0-3 mph: tourist 4-5 mph: New Yorker. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:13, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

So lots of pedestrians walk regardless of the traffic and the "Don't Walk" signs, and they just expect not to get hit? 208.95.51.38 (talk) 19:45, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

No, it is not zero skill. Learning to full blown weave through traffic without affecting others' safety or making cars brake or change lanes too hard would take judgement, experience, quick good geometric prediction intuition, and the ability to never pass a point of no return where you could end up trapped with no way out (unless car(s) evade unsafely) no matter what you do next. Newcomers should jaywalk with their head, not over it (though staying 1 foot behind and 1 foot downstream of someone and switching to 1 foot dead astern if that becomes unsafe (i.e. bike passing you) as long as you can accelerate, sprint, stop and retreat at least as fast as him and his judgement's sound probably always works without looking at traffic (instead, look at the dude). I don't use this no-look trick much cause what if the dude's insane?) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:57, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

208.95.51.38—Manhattan is not vehicle-friendly. The timing of the traffic lights seem skewed to disadvantage vehicles, and to favor pedestrians. Bus stop (talk) 20:03, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

In my experience (yes, this is WP:OR) as a repeat visitor, pedestrians in Manhattan frequently ignore "Don't Walk" signs if the street they have to cross is only two lanes, which means most of the east-west "Streets". The north-south "Avenues" are four lanes or more, and people crossing those usually do respect the lights. So traffic lights will indeed slow you down in the case in the original question. --76.71.6.254 (talk) 20:36, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

If you are a tourist, travelling 2.5mph in a high traffic time period, there are 17 intersections on 55th Street between the East River and the Hudson. So, assuming you hit every green light, you could make the 2 mile trip in about 48 minutes. According to this article from the NY Times (almost 20 years ago), green lights change in intervals of 60, 90 or 120 seconds. Since this is a street and not a main avenue or artery, odds are its going to be 90 or 120 seconds which could add 26 to 34 minutes if you hit every single red light (and don't flagrantly break the law). You would be looking at a 50-80 minute trip to walk 2 miles. uhhlive (talk) 19:57, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

A walking pace of 3 miles an hour seems normal. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:19, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Baseball Bugs, have you ever needed to get through 1.00 miles of this area at this time within 15 minutes and decided to save transit fare? You have to run like hell. It's only 4 mph pace - not hard to sustain a mile at with a normal walking gait but the cars and crowds slow you down that much. My intuition would be it'd take an hour on a workday maybe more if you go the lesser of 3 miles per hour and what's possible without jaywalking. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:47, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it depends on the day of the week and the time of day. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:38, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

• Manhattan is almost entirely laid out in a grid with avenues "east-west blocks" laid out 5 to a mile and streets "north-south blocks" being laid out at 20 per mile. I see no real reason to discuss or debate this further, especiaclly given most New Yorkers entirely ignore red lights, if not traffic. μηδείς (talk) 22:05, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

"Senator for" vs. "Senator from"

I've noticed that here in Australia, we use the title "Senator for Western Australia" etc. whereas in the USA, they use "Senator from Michigan" etc.

Why is is different? Paul Benjamin Austin (talk) 19:52, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

One can also ask why in most Australian states and federally, ministers are "Minister for ...", but in South Australia it's "Minister of ...". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:10, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

A cynic might say that this is because Senators in the US aren't "for" their state, but rather for the lobbyists, campaign contributors, and whoever promised their relatives jobs for passing whatever legislation they were told to pass, while opposing the rest. StuRat (talk) 21:12, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Probably from the British tradition. Members of Parliament in the UK are always described as the MP for a certain constituency - perhaps reflecting the fact that there is no requirement that an MP actually be from the constituency. Although today most will have a home in the area they represent, historically that was not the case, and there are examples of MPs who rarely, or never, visited their constituencies. Wymspen (talk) 21:45, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Like that Canadian who was elected without ever having been in her riding? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:51, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

That is the strange case of Ruth Ellen Brosseau. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:10, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Because Australian English and American English are different dialects and, thus, can be expected to sometimes use different words or phrases. --Jayron32 03:07, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Buddhism in China

Why did Buddhism become popular in China after it was introduced? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uncle dan is home (talk • contribs) 22:53, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Whole books have been written on the subject. As an extremely basic (and no doubt oversimplistic) generalization, before the spread of Buddhism, China didn't really have "religions" in the meaning of that word as it commonly applies to Europe, the Middle East, and India, but rather philosophical systems. Buddhism also imported organized monasticism into China... AnonMoos (talk) 23:21, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

What about Chinese polytheism? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:57, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Sagittarian Milky Way -- By the time we know much about it in detail, it seems that most educated Chinese didn't take it seriously as an overall theology, though certain individuals could be strongly devoted to certain mythic figures, and forms, ceremonies, and rituals were often considered important. AnonMoos (talk) 14:44, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Buddhism, in the form in which it was introduced to China, was not much different in nature from the existing philosophical systems. The proliferation of gods and idols in contemporary Chinese Buddhism to a large extent reflects influence from traditional Chinese folk religion / polytheism. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:34, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

• Does anyone intend to be useful by directing the OP to read Chinese Buddhism or are we all just going to make up our own answers? --Jayron32 12:17, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

That article only has 4 or 5 sentences on the subject. I wasn't making anything up, but loosely paraphrasing from passages by William H. McNeill: "Confucianism as it emerged under the early Han managed to appropriate elements from most of its rival philosophical schools... the Chinese expressed in private life the sentiments which other civilized societies incorporated into organized religion..." etc. etc. The basic fact is that before China imported Buddhism, it was conspicuously lacking in the ecumenical religions of individual salvation which had developed by the early centuries A.D. in the other major civilizations or empires of the old world. McNeill also suggests that official Confucianism was less attractive during the long period of political turmoil following the decline of the Han dynasty, which may have in part opened the way for Buddhism... AnonMoos (talk) 14:44, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

The reference desk! -165.234.252.11 (talk) 19:36, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

What industry is Chicago

Los Angeles is the centre of the film industry,San Jose the computer industry,Detroit the automobile industry,and New York the finance industry. What about Chicago? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uncle dan is home (talk • contribs) 23:01, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Traditionally famous for its stockyards and meat industry, as you can read in Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle"... AnonMoos (talk) 23:11, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

As emphasized by the Cows on Parade and also by the Chicago Bulls. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:36, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Commodities exhanges? The Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The tallest building in mid-20th century Chicago had an aluminum statue of Ceres, the Goddess of Agriculture at the tip (Chicago Board of Trade Building). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:54, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

• Take a look at Economy of Chicago.--TMCk (talk) 00:08, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

If you wanted to boil it down to a single industry, I would say "transportation". Its central location makes it pretty much the hub of the North American rail network and it has one of the busiest airports, and it also links to the Mississippi River system and the Great Lakes. One page I found says at least 1/4 of all rail traffic in the country passes through Chicago. However, much like any other city with a population north of, oh, 200,000, it's pretty well diversified. --Golbez (talk) 03:15, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

That makes sense. While it's economy is very diversified, transportation was originally Chicago's raison d'etre. This article covers a lot of the history of Chicago's economic past, and notes "From its start, Chicago was a city built around transportation.", originally near one of the easiest portages between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River (see Chicago Portage), such a site was a natural location for a transportation hub, the portage was later crossed by the Illinois and Michigan Canal and then the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal which famously reversed the flow of the Chicago River. As a water-transportation hub, it later made sense to grow into a rail hub as well. Being a transport hub also made sense for it to later develop industries close to transportation, so Chicago's industrial base noted above grew up around its transportation network. --Jayron32 03:30, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Interesting. There's almost nothing in many azimuths from LA, the major routes out of New York are fairly short except the I-80 and I-95 South corridors and Chicago's much better. 200,000 city or metro area? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:48, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Regarding New York: New York is clearly also a transportation hub as well, with three of the busiest airports in the world in its metro area, the Port of New York and New Jersey is the busiest on the entire East Coast, and the road network is well connected to routes in all directions; it is true that I-80 and I-95 are the two long-distance route numbers that converge on New York, but the New York Thruway/I-87 provides a straight shot to I-90, I-78 gives you a straight shot to the I-81 corridor down the Appalachians, etc. You can take a bird's eye view of New York to see it as an obvious hub of a highway network that distributes vehicles in all directions quite efficiently. --Jayron32 04:01, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

The difference is the destination — New York has plenty of road and rail connections, but they're largely on the East Coast and secondarily to central cities, while Chicago connects by land to almost everyone. New York's a huge international transportation center, while any international trade directly to Chicago, aside from stuff coming from Canada that can go to lots of different Lakes ports, requires stopovers in or through Canada (and without transshipment, this was impossible before 1959) or very-long-distance flights that could easily go to other cities if they had some reason to do that. The biggest international trade advantage that Chicago has, compared to places like Duluth or Buffalo, is that it's very much in the center of the US, more than Milwaukee, and much more than any other Lakes port cities (again, why it's so critical for domestic transportation), so Canadian shipping headed for parts of the central US has a much shorter land journey than if it stopped in any other major Lakes port cities. Nyttend (talk) 01:30, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Here's how Carl Sandburg described it [4]:

 "Hog Butcher for the World, 
  Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, 
  Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler" StuRat (talk) 04:17, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

• That Economy of Chicago article is woefully inadequate. Abductive (reasoning) 06:30, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Flugtag airshow

I was reading about the Ramstein air show disaster and was wondering whether the "Flugtag airshow" was ever held again at the Ramstein Air Base after 1988. ECS LIVA Z (talk) 23:35, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

I found this source from 2008 saying: "Nothing has happened since," said Wolfgang Hofmann, a spokesman for U.S. Air Forces in Europe. "At Ramstein, we’ve never done [aerobatic] flying again.".--TMCk (talk) 23:59, 13 March 2017 (UTC)