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May 4

Suicides among writers

The list at Writers who committed suicide is shocking. What is the suicide rate among writers? Could the first impression (that writers are prone to suicide) be confirmed by careful analysis of the data? --Hofhof (talk) 13:20, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

How many writers have there been? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:26, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

The question is how many famous writers have there been? Non-famous won't get into such lists. Category:Politicians who committed suicide is much shorter.--Hofhof (talk) 13:33, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

So how many famous writers have there been? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:43, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

See this resource: Writers who committed suicide--Hofhof (talk) 13:54, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

You could count the number in both, then compare with the overall suicide rate, then run a statistical analysis to see if there's a significant variation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:56, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

I googled "suicide rate of famous writers" and this article turned up:[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:58, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

There seems to be a clear correlation. But correlation is not causation. For example the link between creativity and mental disease is usually conceived as "people afflicted with a psychiatric condition are more creative". But could it be the other way round: "Creativity pushes you towards mental disease for some reason". Why not? I remember someone telling me about a television program on a French-language Belgian or French channel back in the 1990s 2000s 1990s or 2000s 1990s about schizophrenia where one of the guests was a high school professor teacher with schizophrenia who was recounting how he thought schizophrenia actually helped him deal with a dreary life, a thankless job, idiotic students, a moronic bureaucracy, an impossible wife. He even said something like "if I wasn't schizophrenic I would have gone crazy" ("si je n'étais pas schizophrène je serais devenu fou") which made everyone in the studio crack up despite it being a program about a fairly somber topic. Basemetal 15:14, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Schizophrenia is rather common in the wider population. "In 2013 there were an estimated 23.6 million cases globally. Males are more often affected, and on average experience more severe symptoms. About 20% of people do well and a few recover completely. About 50% have lifelong impairment. Social problems, such as long-term unemployment, poverty and homelessness are common. The average life expectancy of people with the disorder is ten to twenty-five years less than for the general population. This is the result of increased physical health problems and a higher suicide rate (about 5%). In 2015 an estimated 17,000 people worldwide died from behavior related to, or caused by, schizophrenia." Dimadick (talk) 15:45, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

@Hofhof: An answerable proxy for your question may be phrased as: what proportion of anthologized (or prize-winning) literary writers may be reliably diagnosed with a serious mood disorder? Such major mood disorders account for most suicides - see Suicide#Mental_disorders. I'll add: "Fully 70 to 90 percent of all suicides are associated with bipolar or depressive illness; therefore, if an individual has died by suicide, it is usually the case that a mood disorder was at least contributory." (Goodwin and Jamison, 2007, n,3, p. 403. See below). And creativity and mental illness have long been associated, but note confirmation bias flaws many studies. (Note, too, the politics of mental illness is as rampant as its stigma: some well-intentioned academics - and some WP editors, apparently - do not acknowledge the beneficial effects of mood disorders for at least some highly-functioning persons.) So qualified, one can now compare an operationalized "famous writer" sample with the general population, comparing prevalence of diagnosis and suicide rates. It has been done, most notably and carefully controlled by Kay Redfield Jamison

Not all major mental illnesses are created equal: prevalence, lifetime suicide risk, and association with recognized creative work differ markedly amongst them. I will only allude to a few salient issues here. See the chapter cited below for a very full discussion, with numerous tables of suicide rates of writers by genre and diagnosis.

Schizophrenia, with, as cited in WP article, about half the prevalence of bipolar disorder is not as widely associated with recognized literary creativity (acknowledging numerous, esp. poetic, exceptions) and, crucially, is far less than half as lethal due to suicide.

Major depressive disorder, even with many times the prevalence of bipolar disorder is also nowhere near as lethal, even accounting for its greater prevalence. It, too , however, is more likely to be present in the literary writer sample than in the general population.

In contrast, the suicide rate for people diagnosed with bipolar disorder#suicide (or, more poetically and descriptively, manic depression) is at least an order of magnitude that of the general population. The prevalence rate is somewhere between 1-2%. The association with culturally recognized forms of artistic creativity is highly disproportionate. (Not that all or most BP sufferers are particularly creative, but a disproportionate percentage are so recognized; see citations below).

See the well-researched books by the co-author of the standard medical textbook on manic-depressive disorder, Kay Redfield Jamison:

• Jamison, Kay Redfield (1993). Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. New York: The Free Press. ISBN 0-02-916030-8.. This association is deemed controversial in current state of WP article: bipolar disorder#creativity But sole cited article acknowledges, " Jamison’s classic treatise has had a major influence worldwide in the shift of the creativity literature from schizophrenia to bipolar disorder. This monumental work, apart from its intellectual interest, has helped in destigmaizing manic-depressive illness." (Akiskal, Hagop; Akiskal, Kareen. "The Genius-Insanity Debate: Focus on Bipolarity, Temperament, Creativity and leadership". In Lakshmi, Yatham (ed.). Bipolar Disorder: Clinical and Neurobiological Foundations. Wiley. doi:10.1002/9780470661277.ch9. ISBN 9780470661277.) But see esp. Jamison's detailed discussion of acknowledged complexity of methodological issues and meta-analysis of numerous studies in later (2007) standard medical text:
• Goodwin, Frederick K.; Jamison, Kay Redfield (2007). "Creativity". Manic-Depressive Illness: Bipolar Disorders and Recurrent Depression (Second ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 379–407. ISBN 978-0195135794.

Shoot me an email if you want to study that chapter and the cited paper. The Touched with Fire book is readily available at your library - and highly recommended. A fascinating question, one I've pondered (not suicide, but the question of writers' suicides) for many years, ever since reading The Savage God: A Study of Suicide (1972) by A. Alvarez. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 19:22, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

@Paulscrawl:: that's a fantastic answer. Hofhof (talk) 00:28, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

@Hofhof: Thanks, I was hoping you had seen it. Thanks for asking: writing response has inspired offline drafts to correct some relevant articles. (Email offer still stands, if interested.) -- Paulscrawl (talk) 06:44, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

References

Coffee shop inside reading places

I once watched a film before. I forgot the name of it. It mentioned that the first newspapers were started in some type of Western European country or Western-European-influenced country. It's probably England. Basically, the coffee shops were places of gossip and political debates and the like. Then, as time passed, people decided to put the neighborhood gossip into a piece of paper, and the first newspaper was born. Maybe it wasn't a coffee shop. It might have been a tea-drinking place. British people have a tradition of drinking tea; Americans have a tradition of drinking coffee. Both eat some kind of sweet pastry on the side. One popular American imagery is a person, typically male, drinking coffee and reading a newspaper. Or maybe the association of coffee and reading has to do with the fact that there is a Star Bucks in Barnes and Noble. I'm not sure which came first - Star Bucks inside Barnes and Noble (or a generic-looking coffee shop inside a public library) or the association of coffee and reading. SSS (talk) 14:15, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Lloyds of London and Lloyd's Coffee House might be a good start. Also English coffeehouses in the 17th and 18th centuries. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:32, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

From the links in List of the oldest newspapers there's not one indication the oldest newspapers came into existence in any such place as suggested by the OP. Also the oldest European newspapers were mostly in German and Dutch (plus one each in French, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Spanish and Polish). No English in sight until 1665 after some 15 newspapers had come into existence in other parts of Europe and 60 years after the first one had (in German, in Strasbourg, now in France, back then in the Holy Roman Empire). Basemetal 17:26, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

See also History of newspaper publishing. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 19:19, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

The association of coffee houses and reading is at least partly influenced by the Viennese coffee house culture.[2] Rmhermen (talk) 12:45, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Button's Coffee House in Great Russell Street, London, is sometimes credited with starting the modern style of popular journalism in the first two decades of the 18th century. Early newspapers concentrated almost solely on reporting political news, but the titles published from Button's by Richard Steele and Joseph Addison included literature, entertainment, fashion. social news and gossip. Readers were encouraged to post letters through a lions-head letter box outside the coffee shop, and these could be either published or helped shape the editorial stance of the papers. These included The Spectator, Tatler and The Guardian - none of them related to their modern namesakes. See New age of journalism: The Tatler, The Spectator and The Guardian Alansplodge (talk) 17:19, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Why did Prussia adopt the Gregorian calendar so early and so much ahead of all the other Protestant states?

Prussia adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1610 already, which is much earlier than all of the other Protestant states. Is there an explanation? Basemetal 14:41, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Where does that come from - according to the article on Adoption of the Gregorian calendar Prussia made the change in 1700, along with the rest of the protestant states in Germany and Scandinavia. Parts of the Netherlands and Switzerland did so even earlier. Wymspen (talk) 15:26, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Here: List of adoption dates of the Gregorian calendar per country. Some clown put the Russian flag there, but it's clearly supposed to be Prussia. Also I'm wondering if you might not be misinterpreting the Dutch dates. That business about some Provinces adopting the Gregorian calendar in 1582 seem to be edicts issued by the Spanish Catholic authorities that still had nominal authority there (Spain only gave up on its claim on the United Provinces at the treaty of Münster in 1648) but were soon overturned in practice or remained without effect. I frankly doubt some Provinces in the United Provinces used the Gregorian calendar and others the Julian calendar. Lindert? Basemetal 15:52, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

The 'clown' appears to have done the correct thing. The table only has a flag for the the present country. The table itself says "back then small area around Königsberg" in any case, a check of the Prussia article will show, as also mentioned below now, that Prussia at the time was the Duchy of Prussia. That article says the territory that was part of the Duchy of Prussia is now in Russia, Lithuania and Poland. I don't know enough to say for sure, but I think there's a good chance most of the territory from 1610 is now in Russia. Königsberg the capital obviously is. In any case the only correction that could be made would surely be to add Lithuania and Poland to the table so if you were expecting some other flag despite the design of the table, you'd be wrong. The table could be changed to also add a flag for the place at the time or remove the flag for country where the territory is in the modern day, but that's a distinct issue. The list itself seems to be a translation of fy:List fan ynfieringsdata fan 'e Gregoriaanske kalinder per lân and largely copied the conventions from there. Nil Einne (talk) 09:47, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Nil. I might have been influenced by East Frisian jokes but I shouldn't have used the word "clown" Sorry about that. Now this list came from the West Frisian WP y'all. Ok? So no worry. And even if it had come from the Saterland Frisian WP, so what? Incidentally, you should never tell an East Frisian joke to an East Frisian after 6 PM on Saturday. Do you know why? Basemetal 10:15, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

The Duchy of Prussia (only a part of what later became known as "Prussia") was at the time a fief of the catholic kingdom of Poland (and not part of the Holy Roman Empire). The Polish king apparently forced the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, coming into effect in 1612 (German language source). Cheers ✦ _hugarheimur 17:22, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Is this a Kepler quote?

I've seen the following quote attributed to Kepler (regarding the failure of the Protestants to adopt the Gregorian calendar): "Protestants would rather disagree with the Sun than agree with the Pope". But the Kepler Wikiquote page doesn't have it. A Google search delivered nothing. (I'm not certain my quote is literal but that's the gist of it). I've also checked quotes attributed to Tycho Brahe (just in case) and nothing came up. Are you familiar with this saying? Is it really Kepler? Is it apocryphal? Thanks. Basemetal 14:52, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

It appears that that remark was made by Voltaire (source). - Lindert (talk) 15:20, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I can see you searched "Google Books" which I did forget to search but even now that I know, and even with numerous combinations of "Gregorian", "Calendar", "agree", "Pope", "disagree", "Sun" I am still unable to generate your result. What query did you use? Basemetal 15:58, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Actually Kepler sided with the Pope, against Protestants who went on to introduce the astronomical Easter in the Verbesserte Kalender of 1700. His comment was "Easter is a feast, not a planet". 88.104.157.205 (talk) 18:01, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

I used the exact query (simply on Google Search; I did not search specifically for books): protestants "disagree with the sun" agree pope, and the fifth result was a link to page 88 of the book The Measure of Reality: Quantification in Western Europe, 1250-1600 by Alfred W. Crosby, to which I posted a link above. - Lindert (talk) 18:52, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Marriage of a divorced Roman Catholic

The article Karen Pence says she was married and divorced before she met and married Mike Pence, long before he became US Vice President. They were both Roman Catholics at the time of their marriage, and apparently were married in a Catholic Church. Years later they became evangelical Christians. Without ferreting out the Pences’ particular facts, but in general, how would a divorced Catholic get permission to remarry? If the first marriage was in a Protestant church, or was a Jewish ceremony, or a civil ceremony would that mean it was not “the sacrament of marriage” and could be ignored with or without a civil divorce, or would there have to be a Catholic annulment on some ground such as bigamy by the other party or lack of intent or ability to satisfy the Catholic expectations in a marriage? Does the Roman Catholic Church even grant annulments for non-RC marriages? Are annulments listed in some viewable register like civil marriages are? Edison (talk) 21:47, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

In theory, the declaration of nullity on the part of the Catholic Church should have nothing to do with the desire of one of the parties to remarry, whether to a Roman Catholic or otherwise. Either the marriage was valid or it was not; that is a question of fact. See also Pauline privilege and Petrine privilege for nuances, but I don't think either of those would be relevant to this case. --Trovatore (talk) 22:03, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Actually, it occurs to me that I don't know anything about Karen Pence's first husband. If he was not baptized, then it is possible that the Petrine privilege is relevant. --Trovatore (talk) 22:12, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Within the church, it's possible the marriage was annulled. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:08, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

So, are RC annulments secret, or does the Vatican publish a register so that a Priest or potential spouse can verify that their beloved is eligible to get a Catholic marriage? It seems dodgy otherwise, for the Priest and the intended to rely on their beloved’s honesty or some certificate of annulment which could be forged. Edison (talk) 04:14, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

The section Declaration of nullity#Process has a lot of information but doesn't address that specific point. However it definitely sounds very official and procedural, so I would infer that there's a record somewhere that could be looked up in case of doubt, whether or not it's actually public. --Trovatore (talk) 06:20, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

They're recorded at the parish level as with most Catholic records. See e.g. page 43 of this source [3]. According to that, it is likely recorded both at the parish where the marriage was performed and also the parish of baptism of the Catholic spouses of the marriage (see page 42) if these are different. I don't think these are records which any random person can examine, see page 8. See also [4]. The discussion here suggests it's not generally possible for some other random person to find out if an annulment was granted [5]. A Catholic priest would obviously have no problem although I'm not sure if that's generally performed if the spouse has the records themselves. While yes, nowadays even the church'sparish's seal would be fairly simple to fake them there's a good chance the Catholic church hasn't real moved on and I wonder how much of a problem it actually is. I also think faking these in 1985 would be a lot more difficult too. Note this doesn't just apply to marriage records anyway, if it's a different church, how does the parish priest know that the person has been baptised and confirmed? I mean even with a lot of university records etc, AFAIK it's still quite common that these are not independently verified by employers etc. Nil Einne (talk) 08:27, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

P.S. It's true of course there's more reason to fake an annulment. If you fail to get a declaration of nullity you're basically screwed when it comes to trying to get married in the Catholic church. (Well there are appeal processes but ultimately there are plenty of situations where it's not going to be granted.) If you haven't been baptised or confirmed, you can undertake the process for these to happen. Nil Einne (talk) 11:08, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

P.P.P.S. Somehow it didn't occur to me but it's largely a moot point whether or not the church checks before marriage that your records match those where you were baptised. Once your info is sent to the parish where you were baptised after marriage for the update of their records, they're going to notice if you were married without a declaration of nulity or if you were never baptised or confirmed and will I presume send an urgent "Houston, we have a problem" message to the church where the marriage took place. Of course this won't work if the marriage is not in the church's records in the first place because it was not a Catholic marriage [6], but that applies whether or not they check before or after. (Likewise if you 'steal' someone's record.) Interesting according to this [7] visiting priests and others who aren't the parish priest sometimes do witness a wedding without the proper permissions resulting in an invalid marriage so I wouldn't assume there's never an error just because a priest is involved. Anecdotally, I know of a couple who got married on a beach in a ceremony performed by a Catholic priest, I have my doubts that the appropriate dispensation was obtained for this (especially since all I've read suggest it's not likely to be granted), and I've also heard it suggested that the priest did it as a personal favour to mother of the groom. And yes I do believe this the only wedding, it's not that there was a proper sacramental wedding in church. Nil Einne (talk) 13:07, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Malcolm Thomson, biographer of Lloyd George and of Churchill

I am trying, with little success, to find out about Malcolm Thomson, author of David Lloyd George: The Official Biography and of Churchill His Life and Times. Can anyone here help please? DuncanHill (talk) 22:47, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Was this the Scotsman "George Malcolm Thomson" 1899-1996 who wrote "The Prime Ministers" in 1980 and worked for Beaverbrook and was Chief Leader Write of the Daily Express ? MilborneOne (talk) 10:28, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, on the face of it a plausible suggestion, but George Malcolm Thomson always seems to be "George Malcolm Thomson" on covers and title pages, Malcolm Thomson seems to be just "Malcolm Thomson". DuncanHill (talk) 15:27, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

"Lloyd George has attracted several biographers: one of his secretaries, Malcolm Thomson, Frank Owen, a journalist, Thomas Jones of the Cabinet Office, his renegade son Richard..." Great Britain Since 1914 (p. 97).

"Lloyd George commissioned Malcolm Thomson, his former literary secretary, to write David .." (snippet view) Bounder from Wales: Lloyd George's career before the First World War {p. 268)Alansplodge (talk) 17:52, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, tho' looking more closely it was Frances who commissioned Thomson. DuncanHill (talk) 18:29, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

One more mention in Lloyd George: Statesman or Scoundrel? by Richard Wilkinson: Of LG's 1931 project to write War Memoires and The Truth About the Peace Treaties: "His house at Churt became a vast, chaotic document centre, managed with some difficulty by his secretaries A. J. Sylvester and Frances Stevenson. Expert advisers such as Captain Liddell Hart and Malcolm Thomson were recruited".

Thanks again. Have just found him mentioned in Frank Owen's Tempestuous Journey - Lloyd George his Life and Times on page 724. The context is LlG deciding to concentrate on writing his War Memoirs "Malcolm Thomson, who lived at Bron-y-de [Lloyd George's house in Churt] while the work was going on, and Frances Stevenson did much of the research and helped with the Memoirs". DuncanHill (talk) 14:02, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Some more mentions at The Lloyd George War Memoirs but frustratingly, still no clue about who Thompson was or what he did before or afterwards. Alansplodge (talk) 14:29, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

• He was a per this) "for many years on the staff of the Liberal Party Organization" And indeed, he was acting secretary of the Liberal Campaign Department. That's all I can find. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 23:08, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Thank you all. I just found a mention in The Journal of Liberal History 51 Summer 2006, page 11. It is in an article about A. J. Sylvester's The Real Lloyd George. "Her [Frances Lloyd-George's] choice of biographer fell on Thomson, an old acquaintance whom she liked and who had worked alongside her as one of the team of researchers responsible for preparing the War Memoirs. Thomson, born in 1885, had served as a Baptist army chaplain from 1917 until 1920, and had earned his living as one of LG’s team of secretaries from 1925 until 1940. He was, as a result, fully familiar with the extensive Lloyd George archives". DuncanHill (talk) 09:17, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

What's the "Weixi era"?

On the wiki page for Puyi, last emperor of China, I found a reference to the "Weixi era". There seem to be no references to this era anywhere else, so can anyone shed some light on what it is, and who "Weixi" refers to? Wikbuntu (talk) 23:35, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

I can't find that term (via CTRL-F) in the article, and a cursory web search finds only references apparently related to recent internet applications. Possibly a piece of vandalism now removed? (Though I can't see anything in the article's recent history either.) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.217.209.143 (talk) 04:51, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

The Chinese translation doesn't make sense either. It is literally Grand Emperor period (no source for that either) and none of the character sounds like Weixi (whatever that is). --KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:24, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

For clarity, the Weixi era was removed by KAVEBEAR [8]. It should have been there are the time the IP above looked at it, not sure why it didn't show up in a search but it was only in the infobox and also it referred to an era called "Weixi" rather than a "Weixi era". So I suspect either the infobox was excluded from the search or the IP looked for the phrase "Weixi era". It was added here [9] by User:黑暗奥利奥. I have reverted all those edits as well as all 黑暗奥利奥's remaining edits Special:Contributions/黑暗奥利奥 elsewhere as these are all highly questionable. Mostly the addition of the name 'Duke' all over. I do not believe this is an English language issue as even their Chinese stuff appears nonsense e.g. 杜珂 in [10] is simply a transliteration of duke and the actual person's name is Yang Zhenwu. (The date is also off by ~year.) Even if the person has duke as their nickname (which I highly doubt), there is no 'Chairman of Indonesia' who also has such a name [11] etc. They also created an article 34rd Hundred Flowers Awards which uses sources from the 33th awards and info which is a combination of duplicates from the 33rd award and likely nonsense (including the famous 'duke' and a best film winner which has the same title except for a word difference from the 33rd award). There was another article on some Shanghai duke awards that was another partial or complete duplication that has already been deleted. I wrote a report for AIV [12] but ended up not submitting it reasoning it may be better to see what happens with User:黑暗奥利奥 then wait for some IP like User:117.136.46.14 or some other new name to come around and add more dukes all over. Nil Einne (talk) 07:53, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

The editor also appears to be a cross wiki vandal [13]. They've already been blocked on wuu and zh-classical and I think their edits reverted (well I didn't look a great deal, it looks like some of their edits e.g. [14] are actually beneficial) but mostly duke/dufu nonsense. On pt, their edits were more duke nonsense and I reverted them. Nil Einne (talk) 10:56, 5 May 2018 (UTC)