Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 January 28

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.

January 28

Black women single?

Is there any book or website that talks about why black women are single, the causes and recommendations? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.107.218 (talk) 04:36, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

That would be the same book that talks about why women in general are single. One of the causes is that they are not interested in being married and one of the recommendations would be that this requires no advice. Here's an article for your consideration. Bielle (talk) 05:31, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I know many married black women. I would guess the cause of being single would be those who aren't married. --Jayron32 05:32, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

That explains the "cause(s)". The "recommendations" part could get trickier. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:58, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

There is social science research on race-based disparities in marriage rates, so the previously glib answer are perhaps out of place. However, the OP isn't exactly articulating what exactly they're after. Shadowjams (talk) 08:08, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Here's an interesting article by a social scientist on why black women are single: [1]. In short, Ms. Stanley says that black women tend to marry later rather than earlier. The reason is that the war on drugs has swept millions of black men into prison, causing black women to significantly outnumber black men in colleges, so men and women are often not in the same physical, emotional, or professional spaces. Secondly, black men with a criminal record are considered less desirable mates. Thirdly, negative stereotypes of black women reduce their attractiveness to people of other races, further reducing their dating pool. --140.180.15.97 (talk) 08:51, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Another factor is unemployment. Most black women want to marry an employed black man, and these are hard to come by. StuRat (talk) 19:57, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Wow. Joefromrandb (talk) 05:13, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

140.180.15.97 mentioned a website about black women being single. Thanks 140. I needed that. but still i am looking for a book. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.89.40.91 (talk) 16:27, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

By "black people", perhaps you mean African-Americans? It is my impression that most African women do indeed marry, relatively young, and stay married. You may be thinking of the American book by Ralph Richard Banks, Is Marriage for White People?, which, despite the title, is not about white people, but about African-Americans, and why that demographic group has a low rate of marriage. It doesn't, from what I can tell without having read it, say much about Native Americans, Chinese Americans, and so on. BrainyBabe (talk) 13:12, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

On that same note, 140 should specify where they're talking about. Africans may have different opinions & social conventions than Americans, Europeans, Australians, etc. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 22:04, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Interracial love

The preceding question made me very curious about interracial love. Which racial group is considered most attractive, and which is considered least attractive, according to other races? I've noticed that it's common for a Caucasian to think an Asian is cute, or vice versa, but few non-blacks consider blacks to be cute.

A related question is that, according to interracial marriage in the United States, Asian women marry white men far more often than Asian men marry white women. Is this due to racism and sexism in the Asian community? A plausible explanation is that Asian women are more submissive, meaning that they're preferable to both Asian and white men; at the same time, Asian men don't like the independence and assertiveness of white women. Another plausible explanation is that Asians consider people of other races to be less worthy, but because of sexism, it's appropriate for women to settle for a less worthy mate, but not appropriate for men to do the same. Is either explanation correct? --140.180.15.97 (talk) 09:24, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

What's an Asian? HiLo48 (talk) 09:32, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Assuming that's a serious question, in colloquial usage, it refers to someone of Chinese/Japanese/Korean descent, or who looks like someone of that descent. Respondents are welcome to include Indians/Pakistanis/Pacific Islanders/Turks/whoever in the definition if that makes it more convenient. --140.180.15.97 (talk) 09:35, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but the question annoyed me in several ways, including the use of the name Asian, which to many Americans and Australians really just means slanty eyed people. It's simplistic, and offensive to not be willing to get a little closer to someone's background. I also get annoyed with the way (some?) Americans seem to obsess over interracial marriage. Be aware of and interested in the cultural (I hate the word race) background of whoever you love, but don't make such a drama about it. The assumptions and generalisations behind the question made it pretty meaningless. HiLo48 (talk) 09:46, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

1. I don't really care what "many" Americans and Australians think. You'll note that "Asian" is the term used in our interracial marriage article, and it's also a common term used by Asians themselves to identify their ethnicity.

2. I'm not American, and I don't obsess over interracial marriage. As I said, I only asked the question after reading the preceding question.

3. Assumptions? Generalisations? I challenge you to point out a single one. All of my supposed "assumptions" and "generalizations" are in fact requests for evidence. I also question your aversion of generalizations, because I consider statistical phenomena to be very illuminating, even if not every data point is close to the mean. Also, if I'm interested in a certain subject, and somebody else has an answer, you have no right to say that the question is meaningless. I couldn't care less about Mormonism and the US presidency, but I didn't object to you asking about it earlier on this reference desk. --140.180.15.97 (talk) 10:16, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

The concept of race is a very poorly defined one, generally based on superficial features such as facial features and skin colour, leading to very sloppy generalisations such as Asian. I also found "it's common for a Caucasian to think an Asian is cute, or vice versa, but few non-blacks consider blacks to be cute" to be unsourced generalisations. HiLo48 (talk) 18:17, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

And what do you think people base their judgement of attractiveness on, if not superficial features such as facial features and skin colour? Anyone who thinks love is rational should get a sanity check. --140.180.15.97 (talk) 04:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually the 'colloquial usage' varies quite significantly from country to country, see Asian and Asian people. For example, here in NZ it often includes most South Asians, South East Asians (usually including Malay and Indonesians not just Thai, Vietnamese or Filipinos) and East Asians. Possibly including Afghanis, but generally not other Central Asians or those from the Middle East. In some cases it may exclude South Asians, but this is far from universal even in colloquial usage. See also [2]. Pacific Islanders are of course not included (and this term doesn't include Māori). In the UK of course, it often refers to South Asians exclusively. In Malaysia, if the term is used it will generally include South Asians and East Asians (and of course South East Asians) and may include Central Asians or even West Asians as well. Nil Einne (talk) 12:17, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

OkTrends, an "online-dating research blog" by OkCupid, has some data on race and dating: [3], [4]. --::Slomox:: >< 10:55, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

race is usually only relevant to marriage in an inclusive sense (e.g. it's not about other races, but rather that there is sometimes intense pressure in a given community to marry within that community). Outside of that, stereotypes of wealth and status are far more reliable indicators of interracial marriage than race. For example, if you watch BBC entertainment you'll find they frequently portray black/white relationships - something you almost never see on US tv - and rarely if ever show relationships between asians and caucasians. Britain doesn't have the negative stereotypes of blacks that are prevalent in the US, or the 'exotic' stereotype that many americans associate with women from Asian cultures. --Ludwigs2 18:35, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh my there's a lot of soapboxing going on in this thread. What I've "learned" is that Americans view "asians" (a term that's HiLo's decided to run with in a diatribe during which he uses the phrase "slanty eyed people") as exotic, the BBC's much more advanced than American television, and that race is so poorly defined we can't be bothered to really answer this question. And of course, stereotypes tend to be simplistic.

Thankfully some more pragmatic people realized that people do make dating decisions based upon race, consciously or not, and however poorly defined, and that there are dating preferences that differ between races. The Ok Cupid blog post above I was going to reference... but somebody beat me to it. That's an excellent, if colloquial, summary of some dating trends taken from a large, real world sample. Shadowjams (talk) 19:23, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm quite happy if I have shocked some people into thinking a bit more deeply about "race" issues, and their own ignorance and prejudices. It can only be a good thing. Can you give a more accurate definition of the US usage of Asian than "slanty eyed people" in five words or less? One that actually matches how people really use the term? Oh, and does OkCupid operate outside the USA? HiLo48 (talk) 01:18, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

The US usage of Asian is as a substitute for the former term Oriental, which is now a somewhat risky word, not as offensive as outright slur words but not something you can say without considering your audience, unless you're very old in which case people might let it slide. These things usually have little real logic to them, but just have to be memorized. Someone once said that a gentleman is a man who is never unintentionally rude. --Trovatore (talk) 05:46, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

That someone was dear Oscar Wilde: A gentleman never insults anyone unintentionally. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 11:23, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

The OkCupid data is very interesting. For one thing, it seems to imply that the frequency of interracial marriage is similar across all races, which apparently contradicts our article on interracial marriage. If we take both at face value, it implies that although interracial "attractiveness" is similar across all races, the ability to sustain a relationship and turn it into a marriage is not. Does anyone have more statistics to support/refute this hypothesis?

@HiLo: since it's clear that you don't have an answer to offer, please refrain from making further comments. I don't care that you think race is a poorly-defined concept, or that you're not interested in interracial marriage, or that you have problems with the word "Asian". For the record I agree with you on all three points, but other people do define themselves and others based on race, are interested in interracial marriage, and have no problems self-identifying as Asian. If you think the question is meaningless, don't answer it, but also don't clog up the entire thread. --140.180.15.97 (talk) 04:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

One data point, or linguistic clarification: in British English, "Asian" means "someone from the subcontinent" (or someone descended from them). That is, British Asian is a product of the British Empire, people who would be demographically described as South Asian in American English (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka). East Asians are referred to in Britain as Oriental (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc.). BrainyBabe (talk) 13:21, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Oriental is definitely the more appropriate term in English, but in recent years it somehow came under attack by political correctness, leaving people without a usable word. Comments like "I'm not a carpet" can come up. But yes, the Orient being to the east seems by far the best way to orient the classification.

I should add that I've found that perceptions in this regard can change pretty drastically over time. Until I was around 27, I really didn't perceive East Asians as even potentially attractive (a much larger difference than between male and female); but then over some years my attitude changed until the distinction seemed pretty minor. I am actually prone to attribute the beginning of this change to the pheromones emanated by a breeding colony of mice I was working with, which tended to make any female whatsoever distractingly attractive for about five to ten minutes after exposure, as they made me see some of these women in a new way. (Still wish someone would try that stuff on pedophiles and see if it could work the same way) Wnt (talk) 16:02, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

@HiLo48: does OkCupid operate outside the USA? Yes, it does operate worldwide, but it's an English-language site and it's focus is certainly the US. So the data in the blog posts mainly reflects the opinion of the people in the USA. (A real world-wide statistic wouldn't be too useful, because each country and each culture has it's own standards (and mostly separated dating-pools), that can heavily differ and a world-wide statistic would just be a big muddle from which you couldn't draw any clear conclusions.)

@140.180.15.97: The OkCupid data is very interesting. For one thing, it seems to imply that the frequency of interracial marriage is similar across all races Careful here, the blog does not speak about "marriage" at all. It's a dating site and they only have data about first messages and replies to first messages. The low "reply rate" for Black males in theory could even mean that Black males are more successful, if their first message disproportionately more often is something like "Hey, if you are interested, call me at xxx-xxxxx". I don't think that holds up, but we need to be careful with raw data. And not all online daters are interested in marriage, some might only look for a hook-up or stuff.

But looking at the original question whether some races are perceived to be more attractive, and the OP's guess that Asian women are favored and Blacks are disfavored, I personally would say the OKCupid data supports this guess. Asian women have good reply rates (although clearly beaten by Middle Eastern women), while Black women just like Black men have a really bad reply rate. And Black women are the most responsive to messages from all races. White females seem to be the most racist, or at least race-aware group at all.

I could only find data about reply rates but not about the rate of first messages. That would be an important point of data too. The rate for a White man responding to a message from an Asian woman does not necessarily match the rate for a White man contacting an Asian woman.

And a disclaimer: These are statistics. They are generalizations. These generalizations can tell us things, but only in a very limited scope and they certainly break down if you apply them to smaller groups or even individuals. --::Slomox:: >< 09:52, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

One point which no one seems to have raised is that 140.180.15.97 seem to be unduly limited. Remember in many developed countries both parties are involved in the decision on who to marry. Under the list of 'plausible explainations', the OP seems to have excluded the role of women. For example, they missed the possibility that the choice of white women to often exclude Asian men, for whatever reason, something which is less common among white men or Asian women, is one of the reasons why there is an imbalance. (I purposely didn't give any specifics as there are a whole host of possibilities, e.g. the don't like the assertiveness the OP mentioned can obviously be connected to the female's choice.)

Also there is the possiblity immigration patterns and marriage trends plays a part, for example I believe here in NZ it it's often suggested that more Asian men will immigrate with their partners or families then Asian women, which means a greater percentage of Asian women migrants are single. (E.g. see [5] [6] [7] (only really mentions nurses vs doctors but I'm pretty sure migrants trends shows a greater percentage of migrant nurses are female then doctors)) I believe it's often also suggested that Asian men are more likely to return to their home country (or the country of their parents if they are second generation immigrants) to find a partner then Asian women. While the reasons for this may be related to some of the aforementioned possibilities, it's likely other factors are at play. (In NZ, it's also suggested this also may happen with returning kiwi migrants with the women often returning single, and the men returning with families, if at all, often held partially responsible for what's often called the 'man drought' [8] [9].)

There are of course other plausible explainations for the trends, my intention here is solely to point out the OPs list of such explainations seems limited.

P.S. I came across [10] which relates to the more general stat question, although not the US which the OP seems to be concentrating on. I would however urge caution with the intepretation (as opposed to the stats they discuss) as the New Zealand Herald isn't known for the quality of their science reporting and I don't see any indication they have evidence for their claims other then the correlation.

Nil Einne (talk) 20:12, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Ark of the Covenant makes you implode? Can't the suicidal test this?

So the AotC is stored in some orthodox church in Ethiopia. Legend says (or perhaps some verse in the Bible says, but I don't know which verse) that anyone who even LOOKS at the Ark, shall implode, unless it's the monk who is entrusted in it.

I watched a news vid recently that the church holding the Ark was needing renovations to the roof or else rain would leak through and contaminate the ark, hence the Ark needed to be moved. Then they mentioned this legend about one's body imploding.

Would any biological science buffs explain how looking at an artifact would cause an implosion? AFAIK, it is just not scientifically plausible.

Moreover, there are wealthy suicidal individuals in various places worldwide. If I was Kurt, I could have just boarded a flight to Ethiopia to look at the Ark. If the Monk (and his cohorts?) wouldn't have let me in, I would have hired guards to shove them out of the way so that I'd get in and see it anyhow.

Then Kurt would have been one of the most legendary rock stars in history (more so than he already was) because he would have disproved or proved the legend of the Ark's effects.

So why can't there be anybody who is brazen enough to test such lethal legends as these? --70.179.174.101 (talk) 10:39, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that you'll find a likely explanation for how looking at something will make you implode. Perhaps kill you, but not make you implode without a lot of other strange happenings. I could be mistaken, but I thought that in the Bible it had to do with either touching it or opening it, not looking at it, and I don't remember it being an implosion. It's not something that I looked at too closely. In any case, that, as with the Egyptian Pyramid curses, is a legend until proven otherwise. The ark may have well existed (while it's possible, I would be somewhat surprised if it still does), but I think it likely that the consequences for mishandling it have been a little bit exaggerated. Of course, if you take the Bible literally that's a whole different affair. Maybe it was a law that if you were to touch it you would be put to death [by other people] and that morphed into what is written today and in legend. As for suicidal people, I have no comment. Falconus^{p t c} 12:14, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

(e/c) The basis of magic, myth, miracle, and legend is that things don't have to be scientifically possible in order to be 'possible' or to 'happen' in terms of the legend. This is a significant difference between say religious belief and science. FWIW there is little to no solid evidence that the Ark even exists in this location, or frankly that it (still) exists at all. Re your final point, I am certainly not suicidal, but I'd be more than happy to 'test' this legend as I'm sure would many others, with some preliminary scientific tests implemented beforehand, for example that they weren't concealing a highly radioactive or some other toxic substance in their box, but in terms of imploding per your legend I'd not be concerned at all. I'm willing to bet Mythbusters could make a good episode out of it. It's not so much a case of there not being anybody brazen enough to test these legends, as it would be of the church holding the 'artifacts' being unwilling to have it tested, as by having it disproven it could lead to some loss of face and more importantly loss of revenue (Ark of the Covenant#Ethiopia even discusses such an incident in 2009). Just goes to show you though, don't believe everything you see on the news. --jjron (talk) 12:32, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Numbers 4:20 just says that the person viewing will die not implode. That was what happened in Raiders of the Lost Ark wasn't it? CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 13:07, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

The Ark isn't necessarily in Ethiopia. The Bible is rather silent on what the ultimate fate of the Ark is, and the "It's in some old church in Ethiopia" thing isn't a well respected theory. Its main proponent is The Sign and the Seal author Graham Hancock, the same guy who thinks An alien civilization based in Antarctica taught Egyptians how to build pyramids and stuff like that. --Jayron32 13:39, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

That's a bit unfair. It's not just one crank author; it's been a central tenet of the Ethiopian Church for centuries that the Ark is in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum. 78.146.193.122 (talk) 13:58, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

The standards for historical truth are distinct from the standards of faith. I have no doubt that the Ethiopian Church believes they have the Ark, and I do not doubt their earnest faith, nor fault them for it. However, that doesn't mean that the existance of the Ark in that church has been established to a level of reliability normally expected of historians who wish to establish a supposition as a likely truth. --Jayron32 01:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Considering that the standards of faith are non-existent, it's not surprising that the standards for historical truth, or any other truth, are higher. --140.180.15.97 (talk) 04:14, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

It may be a particularly large chunk of Uranium. :D -- Obsidi♠n Soul 16:35, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

"lest they die" doesn't mean they will die. But I think that the key incident here might be "Korah's rebellion" [11]. One can interpret such things in... various ways.

Also note that in the Ethiopian church every congregation has its own Ark of the Covenant. Also I think that just like the Jews, the Samaritans had their own Ark of the Covenant and their own Mount Horeb and so forth. I might hazard a guess that some people have an Ark of the Covenant which they believe to be real, which is ancient... but might not be the precise Ark of the Covenant from the temple in Jerusalem. For all I know there might have been more than one of those... Bear in mind that materialism is a modern religion; what makes an Ark of the Covenant the Ark of the Covenant in the past (or a Mount Horeb the Mount Horeb) might not have been strictly the history of the actual physical atoms involved. Wnt (talk) 05:32, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Why did pre-Columbian civilisations arise in such odd places?

In Europe, Africa and Asia, the major civilisations all arose and were centred around fertile lands with a mild climate (the Nile, the fertile crescent of the Middle East, the Chinese coast, the moist regions of the Indian subcontinent, the Mediterranean and so on). However, in the Americas the most advanced historical cultures in terms of technology and social organisation were the Incas (barren mountains), the Mayans (malarial swamps and virtually un-cultivatable jungle), the Aztecs (baking-hot desert) and the Iroquois (rugged hills, and buried under 10 feet of snow for a large chunk of the year). Meanwhile, the native tribes of places like California, the Argentine pampas and the Great Plains, never advanced far beyond the mud-huts-and-spears stage prior to European arrival. Why is this? Somewhere like the Los Angeles basin, with excellent farmland and fishing, no harsh winters and mountains providing a natural defensive perimeter, would seem like the ideal place for an advanced culture to take off. If harsh climates were the trigger for city-building in the Americas (because they forced people to cooperate in cities rather than just live off the land as hunter-gatherers), why did the same thing not happen in the rest of the world? 78.146.193.122 (talk) 13:55, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

One word - agriculture.

Also you seem to have certain misconceptions about the Central and South American civilizations. Incan, Mayan, and Aztec civilizations at the height of their glory were in anything but wastelands. The Inca civilization for example, spanned a great deal of territory in South America with an advanced network of highways connecting various cities.

Aztecs did not develop in deserts either. Both Aztec and Mayan civilizations were in Central America, with the Mayans being more ancient than Aztecs. The stone structures of the Mayan and Aztec city-states were not in the middle of jungles as they are now. Most were in the banks of bodies of water, surrounded by smaller perishable settlements and vast cultivated fields. The jungle surrounding them today is simply the result of abandonment. The Aztec city of Mexico itself was once a virtually impregnable city-state built in the middle of a lake with satellite cities and fields surrounding it. Compare the ruins of Angkor Wat or Borobudur for example.

North American peoples on the other hand, never became city builders due to the simple fact that there were plenty of food without resorting to agriculture. Food that migrated and thus necessitated a nomadic lifestyle - animals. The most important of which is the American bison which once roamed N. America in vast herds. The rest were hunter-gatherers or subsisted on fishing, including the Chumash people of the Los Angeles area.

The few that discovered agriculture out of necessity (corn mostly) developed small civilizations that were nevertheless limited by the harshness of their environments and constant warfare with neighboring nomadic peoples. Examples of which are the Ancient Pueblo Peoples, the most famous being the Anasazi.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 14:53, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Also, the climate in the fertile crescent can not in any way be considered mild. It consists mostly of barren desert, so out of necessity it was centred naturally around the only fertile areas, which was the narrow riverbanks that provided the water and natural fertilisation needed for agriculture. --Saddhiyama (talk) 15:07, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

There were plenty of city-builders and farmers amongst native North Americans. Many of them were even still in place by the time the Europeans arrived. Charles Mann's 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus and its sequel describe this quite well. The reason that Jamestown colony, for example, was positioned in such lousy land is because the rest of it was densely occupied by large numbers of the Powhatan Confederacy, who farmed extensively as well as hunted and fished. One of the reasons that Europeans considered them so uncivilized was because their farms were not the monocultured, fenced-in areas that were common to Europe. (It's amazing how important fences are to European peoples, in claiming something as civilized. It's a side-effect of having grazing animals, and nothing more. Because the North Americans did not have grazing animals, they had no fences, and the Europeans did not recognize their farms as such.) --Mr.98 (talk) 17:29, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh true. I guess I'm guilty of defining "civilization" in the more popular manner of those that leave behind lasting structures. The sheer number of Native Americans killed by the introduced diseases might have even decimated some of them before Europeans even made contact. -- Obsidi♠n Soul 17:56, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

The city on the site now called Cahokia Mounds, in the Mississippi valley, had 30 000 inhabitants at its height, and lasted for several hundred years. --ColinFine (talk) 00:17, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Those swamps were not malarial before 1492 — malaria came from Europeans (via Africa). The Incan mountains were anything but barren — they were the site of the most immense irrigation systems in the world at that point, farming dozens of varieties of potato, which is practically a miracle food (it gives you 4X the calories per weight that a cereal grain does, and also gives you a huge amount of vitamins). (Keep in mind that your definition of "civilization" is in part "an agricultural production system that allows for distribution of labor" — the connection with agriculture is anything but incidental.) Anyway in general I think you have a somewhat confused and definitely out of date picture of this history. The Mann books are really quite excellent at describing what is now known about these peoples and civilizations. The initial impression of Europeans (that these areas were sparsely inhabited by pastoral people) have been shown to be exactly wrong by archaeology. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:36, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Just to boil down what everyone else has said, large civilizations require one thing first and foremost: water. large numbers of people consume large quantities of water via drinking, irrigation, and maintaining herds, and boats/rafts are the only form of bulk transportation before the invention of the wheel, and the most efficient form of bulk transportation before the railroad. large cities in the early world could only by built on more-or-less well-behaved rivers, on lakes, where there where easily accessible aquifers or springs. large cities died when those sources dried up. I'd even argue that early political organization was mostly developed to manage water resources (collective construction and maintenance of large irrigation system, or as in early Egypt collective organization of farming around cycles of flooding. note that one of Moses' first acts after taking the tribes out of Egypt was to draw water from a rock in the desert (assumedly meaning he brought them to a natural spring); if he hadn't, the tribes would have been forced to break up into small far-ranging groups looking for water in small quantities, and they would have been absorbed into other, more settled cultures.

check out water politics. --Ludwigs2 18:18, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that civilization "arose" with the Aztecs, as they had conquered a large number of other peoples. By analogy, the Huns and Genghis Khan ruled over vast swathes of land, starting from the most barren haunts - yet it doesn't mean civilization arose there. Certainly there was, say, a Mississippian culture by the Mississippi, a Chumash people near modern Los Angeles; I don't see any obvious reason to say they were underdeveloped in civilization compared to the others. I do suspect that Indians who dwelled on fertile lands were made to go away with exceptional vehemence, and that their history may be underappreciated. Wnt (talk) 05:16, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, it's not quite right to say that the "Aztecs" (a vague category) just conquered. Strictly speaking what we mean by the Aztec civilization is the Aztec Triple Alliance, and as the article points out, that's a lot of different groups coming together over about a century. Tenochtitlan was a city of immense infrastructure (freshwater brought in by huge aqueducts; dikes that kept brackish water segregated in the lake; lonnng bridges; lots of artificially-added land) whose population was larger and richer than any city in Europe at the time the Spanish arrived. I don't know when all of these marvels were constructed, but I'd call that civilization. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:12, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

True - I didn't mean to downplay the Aztecs' engineering, and perhaps I chose too extreme a counterexample to the suggested idea. Maybe the Romans, who I suppose looted more than invented their technology, might be a more appropriate comparison. Wnt (talk) 15:43, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

As others have suggested, your understanding of Western Hemisphere geography is a little lacking. The Incan homeland was very fertile, and they were able to take advantage of microclimates at different elevations in the Andes to grow a wide range of crops. Likewise, Mesoamerica (central and southern Mexico, northern Central America), home of the Mayan, Aztec, and various other civilizations, has a delightful climate and ample water supplies. The Aztec homeland is in the mild highlands of central Mexico. They built their capital city on an island in a freshwater lake, where they also farmed on artificial islands. As for the Los Angeles basin, that is actually a semidesert, devoid of water for 9-10 months out of the year. It typically rains there only in the winter, when the sun is too low and days too short to grow much. When European American settlers arrived there, they were able to farm only thanks to extensive and intensive irrigation, involving technologies far beyond the scope of a neolithic culture. Finally, the Iroquois homeland is not under 10 feet of snow much of the year. It is in a snow belt, but snow typically doesn't pile up much more than 4-5 feet most winters. It gradually reaches its maximum height between early December and mid-February, and then the sun starts melting it during the day most days. It is generally gone by April. So there are eight solid months with no snow on the ground, very fertile land, and a decent growing season. Marco polo (talk) 01:38, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Rivers of the British Isles Map

I'm looking for a image -- similar to [12] -- prominently showing the rivers of the British Isles, for free personal use. Thanks. --90.220.162.175 (talk) 14:07, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Would this be what you have in mind? 78.146.193.122 (talk) 14:13, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Blue-red-green flag

Where to use the horizontal stripes blue-red-green flag with a gold rim and white dragon in the center? Странник27 (talk) 15:37, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid I can't find any flag similar to what you describe - there are countries with horizontal blue-green-red flags, but none have dragons on. Did either of those links help any? --Saalstin (talk) 16:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

It could be a variant on the Flag of Azerbaijan, similar to the Presidential Standard or the Army Flag but if it is, it's not a widely recognised one. In the US, a gold edge on a flag indicates it's a ceremonial flag, but doesn't have any real meaning (despite what conspiracy theorists claim), so it may not be a vital part of the design of this flag either. Smurrayinchester 16:30, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Does the dragon have wings? A dragon with wings is a western dragon and a dragon without wings is an eastern dragon. The gold fringe on a flag is not part of the the flag.
Sleigh (talk) 08:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

In the wings of a dragon is. A sechetanie given elemntov found no results? And like a gold fringe on some flags there? Странник27 (talk) 13:22, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Gog and Magog

HELLO AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND TIME PEACE.IN YOUR EXPLANATION OF GOG AND MAGOG,IT WAS SAID IN A PASSAGE FOLLOWING THE QURANIC VIEW ON THE TOPIC,THAT A VERSION OF ANOTHER HISTORICLE ACCOUNT OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT MENTIONED IN YOUR ARTICLE ACTED AS AND I QUOTE"THE BASIS FOR THE QURANIC TALE OF DHUL QARNAYN.I HUMBLY REQUEST THE PROOF AND BASIS FOR THAT TALE,ESCUSE ME THAT CLAIM.THANKS AGAIN — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.14.113.70 (talk) 17:30, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Please don't use all capital letters in your posts. It is hard to read, and is regarded as shouting on the Internet. HiLo48 (talk) 18:09, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

The article gives a citation for that claim. It says it comes from page 123 of this book. --Tango (talk) 19:23, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Links Alexander romance, Dhu'l-Qarnayn, Alexander the Great in the Quran would probably have more information than "Gog and Magog"... -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:00, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Following these links, note that the Book of Ezekiel, written several centuries before Alexander the Great, mentions Gog and Magog. The interpretation of those, or the Dhul-Qarnayn, is apparently not so clear. Wnt (talk) 05:03, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Serbian Orthodox church

Within your articles relating to the Serbian Orthodox Church, you list Longin as the Metropolitan of Libertyville and Chicago. Longin is not a Metropolitan, but rather a Bishop of New Gracanica and Mid-Western America.

The Metropolitan of Libertyville and Chicago was +Christopher until his death in August 2010. In June of 2011, the Holy Synod dissolved the metropolitinate and the St. Sava Monastery (Libertyville) was elevated to stavopegial status under the Patriarch Irinej. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.167.192.215 (talk) 19:09, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top.
The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). --Tango (talk) 19:25, 28 January 2012 (UTC)