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I assumed this painting was pretty famous but there is no Wikipedia article on it to my knowledge, and its painter remains a mystery to me. It seems to be called The Sad Clown, going off the fact that it dominates the Google image search results for that term: http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=%22the%20sad%20clown%22&biw=1280&bih=641 . I do know that the painting is of Emmett Kelly and that his official painter was one Barry Leighton-Jones, but a scan of Leighton-Jones' website does not show this specific image and a Google search doesn't show it either meaning I doubt he actually painted the legendary "Sad Clown" painting I'm referring to. Any ideas? NIRVANA2764 ( talk) 03:50, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
The front page of the July 18, 1907, Pittsburg Press describes a horrible pogrom that had just taken place in "Skonitz," which the paper described as a Polish town on the border with Austria. I can find no other information on the Internet about this event, nor can I find anything about a town of "Skonitz" -- there is no place of that name in the JewishGen Communities Database. Chojnice, Poland, known in German as Konitz, is not in the right location. Does anyone know what town "Skonitz" might be or have any more information about this massacre? -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 07:09, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
No, I saw it in a graphical reproduction of the Press page. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 17:15, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
WHATS THE UPDATE ON MIKE WHITEHEAD mma fighter sry caps legal case. what did he plead he was arrested almost a year ago. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomjohnson357 ( talk • contribs) 09:26, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
File:CIA Memo.JPG is a now-declassified briefing that was prepared for George W. Bush in August 2001; with a few words redacted, it was made public in 2004. The bottom of the page bears a marking of For the President Only. Why would the Vice President be restricted from seeing such a document? Nyttend ( talk) 12:03, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
As to why the PDB is top secret, I'll add one point to the numbered list above: 5. If its classification level is known to vary, then people know which days the President is seeing things that are more highly classified. So it makes sense for it to always be the same level. (Of course, if I actually knew anything about this, I'd now have to kill you.) --Anonymous, 04:15 UTC, August 30, 2010.
Was Arturo Rawson a descendant of Amán Rawson? LANTZY TALK 12:17, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Looking at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Gettsyburginvitationpage2.jpg , I cannot understand the last sentence of the second paragraph (the one beginning "I am authorized..."). Where I lose it is after "... invite you to be present and participate in these ceremonies, which will...". Could someone with a better grasp of cursive please to transcribe it for me? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.120.0.81 ( talk) 16:26, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Hia. I came across the name of Benjamin Perley Poore in a book by Michael Kammen, where he is consistently spelled "Ben: Perley Poore". I found some other contemporary sources like this New York Times obit, but I still can't make sense of that colon; is this some unusual (or even usual) way of abbreviation or did this guy simply have a quirky name? -- Janneman ( talk) 16:57, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks all, that was helpful; I'd just never seen it written before (it seems Jefferson forgot the colon when signing the Dec Declaration of Independence...) -- Janneman ( talk) 11:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
The Wiki article concerning Pope Benedict XVI includes the following quote:
"Ratzinger then trained in the German infantry, but a subsequent illness precluded him from the usual rigours of military duty. As the Allied front drew closer to his post in 1945, he deserted back to his family's home in Traunstein after his unit had ceased to exist, just as American troops established their headquarters in the Ratzinger household. As a German soldier, he was put in a POW camp but was released a few months later at the end of the war in the summer of 1945."
These three sentences are completely unsourced. In particular, I am interested in the phrase "but a subsequent illness precluded him from the usual rigours of military duty." I googled this phrase and came up with over 6700 hits using this precise language, including the English spelling of the word "rigour."
What is the source for this? Is Wiki the source being quoted by everyone else (I don't think so), or is Wiki quoting another source without attribution? And from what "subsequent illness" did he suffer?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Nrglaw ( talk) 18:52, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
This is kind of language and society, so I'm putting it here. I'm an English upper-school student from Suffolk spending a semester in here the US as part of an exchange programme for children from well-off families to be exposed to the culture of other Anglophone countries. In History class one day we were discussing the English language and its international use, and the teacher asked why English was so widespread in use. A student said that this mainly was because of US influence around the world and somehow tied in the US 'winning' the World Wars!!! These weren't very young students either, they were 16 and 17 (albeit in a state school). I was dumbfounded, and more so when the teacher said that was correct!!! BEfore I could respond the announcements came on and the students started pledging their [blind] allegiance to the flag which is a totally different question in and of itself, and it was for some reason regarded as mandatory. What could have caused this total ignorance of a particular empire upon which the 'sun never set'?! 76.235.109.75 ( talk) 21:22, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
One can certainly make the case that although the British sacrificed far more to achieve the Allied victory in WWII, it was really the U.S. that, along with the Soviet Union, came out as the "winning country." Before the war, Britain was the world's leading imperial power. After the war, the UK was dependent on U.S. aid and credit and quickly lost its empire, while the U.S. became a "superpower" with involvement on all of the continents. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 00:13, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
76.235.109.75 -- It was rather striking that in the 1880's, 1890's, and early 20th century, when Britain's share of world industrial output started to significantly decline (from 22.9% in 1880 to 13.6% in 1913, according to Paul Kennedy), and there came to be strong rivals to Britain's naval predominance, the English language did not correspondingly lose momentum, but instead went on ever greater strengths. The main countervailing force inhibiting the peaking and eventual decline of international English usage was the influence of the United States... AnonMoos ( talk) 05:43, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Whereas I agree that the nationalism shown by the students was quite ridiculous, I 'essentially' agree with them. Prior to World War II, English, French and German where more or less equal in importance - probably French was somewhat ahead the other two as a lingua franca in international affairs. In the second half of the twentieth century, however, English quickly became the undisputed lingua franca - almost exclusively due to the rise of the US as the foremost world power. -- Belchman ( talk) 12:10, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Humanities desk | ||
---|---|---|
< August 28 | << Jul | August | Sep >> | August 30 > |
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. |
I assumed this painting was pretty famous but there is no Wikipedia article on it to my knowledge, and its painter remains a mystery to me. It seems to be called The Sad Clown, going off the fact that it dominates the Google image search results for that term: http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=%22the%20sad%20clown%22&biw=1280&bih=641 . I do know that the painting is of Emmett Kelly and that his official painter was one Barry Leighton-Jones, but a scan of Leighton-Jones' website does not show this specific image and a Google search doesn't show it either meaning I doubt he actually painted the legendary "Sad Clown" painting I'm referring to. Any ideas? NIRVANA2764 ( talk) 03:50, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
The front page of the July 18, 1907, Pittsburg Press describes a horrible pogrom that had just taken place in "Skonitz," which the paper described as a Polish town on the border with Austria. I can find no other information on the Internet about this event, nor can I find anything about a town of "Skonitz" -- there is no place of that name in the JewishGen Communities Database. Chojnice, Poland, known in German as Konitz, is not in the right location. Does anyone know what town "Skonitz" might be or have any more information about this massacre? -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 07:09, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
No, I saw it in a graphical reproduction of the Press page. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 17:15, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
WHATS THE UPDATE ON MIKE WHITEHEAD mma fighter sry caps legal case. what did he plead he was arrested almost a year ago. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomjohnson357 ( talk • contribs) 09:26, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
File:CIA Memo.JPG is a now-declassified briefing that was prepared for George W. Bush in August 2001; with a few words redacted, it was made public in 2004. The bottom of the page bears a marking of For the President Only. Why would the Vice President be restricted from seeing such a document? Nyttend ( talk) 12:03, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
As to why the PDB is top secret, I'll add one point to the numbered list above: 5. If its classification level is known to vary, then people know which days the President is seeing things that are more highly classified. So it makes sense for it to always be the same level. (Of course, if I actually knew anything about this, I'd now have to kill you.) --Anonymous, 04:15 UTC, August 30, 2010.
Was Arturo Rawson a descendant of Amán Rawson? LANTZY TALK 12:17, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Looking at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Gettsyburginvitationpage2.jpg , I cannot understand the last sentence of the second paragraph (the one beginning "I am authorized..."). Where I lose it is after "... invite you to be present and participate in these ceremonies, which will...". Could someone with a better grasp of cursive please to transcribe it for me? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.120.0.81 ( talk) 16:26, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Hia. I came across the name of Benjamin Perley Poore in a book by Michael Kammen, where he is consistently spelled "Ben: Perley Poore". I found some other contemporary sources like this New York Times obit, but I still can't make sense of that colon; is this some unusual (or even usual) way of abbreviation or did this guy simply have a quirky name? -- Janneman ( talk) 16:57, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks all, that was helpful; I'd just never seen it written before (it seems Jefferson forgot the colon when signing the Dec Declaration of Independence...) -- Janneman ( talk) 11:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
The Wiki article concerning Pope Benedict XVI includes the following quote:
"Ratzinger then trained in the German infantry, but a subsequent illness precluded him from the usual rigours of military duty. As the Allied front drew closer to his post in 1945, he deserted back to his family's home in Traunstein after his unit had ceased to exist, just as American troops established their headquarters in the Ratzinger household. As a German soldier, he was put in a POW camp but was released a few months later at the end of the war in the summer of 1945."
These three sentences are completely unsourced. In particular, I am interested in the phrase "but a subsequent illness precluded him from the usual rigours of military duty." I googled this phrase and came up with over 6700 hits using this precise language, including the English spelling of the word "rigour."
What is the source for this? Is Wiki the source being quoted by everyone else (I don't think so), or is Wiki quoting another source without attribution? And from what "subsequent illness" did he suffer?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Nrglaw ( talk) 18:52, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
This is kind of language and society, so I'm putting it here. I'm an English upper-school student from Suffolk spending a semester in here the US as part of an exchange programme for children from well-off families to be exposed to the culture of other Anglophone countries. In History class one day we were discussing the English language and its international use, and the teacher asked why English was so widespread in use. A student said that this mainly was because of US influence around the world and somehow tied in the US 'winning' the World Wars!!! These weren't very young students either, they were 16 and 17 (albeit in a state school). I was dumbfounded, and more so when the teacher said that was correct!!! BEfore I could respond the announcements came on and the students started pledging their [blind] allegiance to the flag which is a totally different question in and of itself, and it was for some reason regarded as mandatory. What could have caused this total ignorance of a particular empire upon which the 'sun never set'?! 76.235.109.75 ( talk) 21:22, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
One can certainly make the case that although the British sacrificed far more to achieve the Allied victory in WWII, it was really the U.S. that, along with the Soviet Union, came out as the "winning country." Before the war, Britain was the world's leading imperial power. After the war, the UK was dependent on U.S. aid and credit and quickly lost its empire, while the U.S. became a "superpower" with involvement on all of the continents. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 00:13, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
76.235.109.75 -- It was rather striking that in the 1880's, 1890's, and early 20th century, when Britain's share of world industrial output started to significantly decline (from 22.9% in 1880 to 13.6% in 1913, according to Paul Kennedy), and there came to be strong rivals to Britain's naval predominance, the English language did not correspondingly lose momentum, but instead went on ever greater strengths. The main countervailing force inhibiting the peaking and eventual decline of international English usage was the influence of the United States... AnonMoos ( talk) 05:43, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Whereas I agree that the nationalism shown by the students was quite ridiculous, I 'essentially' agree with them. Prior to World War II, English, French and German where more or less equal in importance - probably French was somewhat ahead the other two as a lingua franca in international affairs. In the second half of the twentieth century, however, English quickly became the undisputed lingua franca - almost exclusively due to the rise of the US as the foremost world power. -- Belchman ( talk) 12:10, 30 August 2010 (UTC)