Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 5, 1993 TAG: 9312050214
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A. No one seems certain exactly where the man is, or even of his name. Amnesty International officials, however, offer a guess, based on information from sources in China and various newspaper reports. They say the man might be Wang Weilin, the son of a Peking factory worker. At the time of the uprising, Wang was 19 years old.
"The bottom line is, we don't know for sure who he was," said Michael O'Reilly, a coordinator of Amnesty International's prisoner casework program. According to O'Reilly, Wang Weilin's friends say Wang was arrested after the protests and hasn't been seen since. "He has disappeared," O'Reilly said. "And there are allegations he was picked up and shot."
Officials of another organization monitoring the activities of the Chinese government, Asia Watch, refused to speculate on who the man was or his whereabouts.
"We've tried to find out more than once, but there's no way to know," said Mike Jendrzejczyk, the Washington director of the private, not-for-profit group that monitors human rights activity in Asia.
Q. What is the history behind the violence in Ireland? Why are the British in Ireland, and why does the IRA want them out?
A. Ireland's struggle for freedom from British domination is centuries old. In the 1160s, Norman invaders loyal to the king of England began seizing Irish land, and by the 1300s they controlled almost all of it. In the 1500s, England consolidated its hold on Ireland by imposing English laws, forcing Ireland's Parliament to recognize the English throne, giving Irish land to English settlers and trying to force Protestantism on the Irish by outlawing Roman Catholic services. Several revolts in Ulster, a large northern province, were put down in the late 1500s. England retaliated by seizing land in Ulster and giving it to English and Scottish Protestants, who to this day are a majority there.
In 1782, an all-Protestant Irish Parliament was allowed to rule the country, but in 1801, Ireland became part of the United Kingdom, and the Irish Parliament was dissolved. In 1916, a rebellion begun by republicans - Irish who favored total independence - was put down by Britain after a week of fighting. In 1920, the British Parliament divided Ireland into two countries, Ireland and Northern Ireland, provoking more fighting. In 1921, southern Ireland was allowed to become a self-governing country of Great Britain. In 1937, a new constitution proclaimed Ireland's sovereignty, and in 1949, Ireland cut all ties with Great Britain.
The ongoing violence is fueled by Protestant-Catholic hatred and by the desire of Irish nationalists, most prominently the Irish Republican Army, to reclaim Northern Ireland from British control. To that end, the IRA has waged a campaign of bombings, kidnappings and other terrorist acts in Northern Ireland, Britain and, to some extent, Ireland.
Q: Where does the expression "cold turkey" come from?
A: It probably comes from "to talk turkey," which means to speak plainly about the matter at hand. It was a frontier expression based on the fact that turkey gobbling was a distinct, natural sound on frontier farms. That expression turned to "talk cold turkey," which meant to talk in an unvarnished way about an unpleasant matter. "Going cold turkey" became a term for unaided drug withdrawal in the 1950s.
Q: Where was the first shopping mall in the United States, and when was it built?
A: In 1956, the Southdale Center in Edina, Minn., was the first fully enclosed, climate-controlled shopping center.
Q: What is a "caliber" in connection with ammunition. Is it the same as a millimeter?
A: The inside diameter of a gun barrel and the diameter of the projectile are expressed in terms of caliber, which is a fraction of an inch. A .45-caliber revolver has a barrel with an inside diameter of 45/100th of an inch. That translates to 11 millimeters.
Q: What is it that causes animals' eyes to reflect light at night? Why don't human eyes do the same thing?
A: Human eyes do reflect light, but not to the extent of animals'. The human eye contains very little reflective substance because we are not night creatures - apart from the pub crawler, a comparatively recent human mutation. There is a mirrorlike structure in the eyes of night hunters, called the tapetum lucidum, that reflects light onto the retina. It's this structure that makes animals' eyes appear to glow when light shines into them.
Q: During the past few years the number of worn, faded and torn $1 and $5 bills has increased so much that one gets them in change every single day. Has the government stopped replacing them?
A: Not at all. The government printed 3.5 billion $1 bills and 1.1 billion $5 bills in fiscal 1993, plus 641 million $10s, 2.2 billion $20s, 259 million $50s and 323 million $100s. That's about the same number of bills printed in each of the previous two years.
Five percent of those bills are printed to create new currency; the other 95 percent are replacements for old bills that are shredded. The government tries to replace $1 bills every 18 months and $5 bills every two years. If you don't like those old bills you keep getting, you can exchange them for new ones at any bank. Banks send them to the Federal Reserve to be destroyed, and the Federal Reserve keeps a tally and tells the Bureau of Engraving and Printing how many new ones are needed.
Q: Why is the "twentysomething" generation sometimes referred to as the "X Generation"?
A: It comes from a book titled "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture," by Canadian author Doug Coupland. It's a novel that chronicles a disaffected young man's journey to California, where he meets up with other soul-searching twentysomethings.
Q. What are the seven seas?
A. The phrase dates from antiquity, and is meant to refer to all the seas and oceans in the world. It has no literal meaning, but the phrase is generally held to mean the North and South Pacific, North and South Atlantic, Arctic, Antarctic and Indian oceans.
Q. After nearly a decade of expansion and refurbishing, a new and improved the Louvre Museum in Paris premiered Nov. 18. What was the Louvre before it became a museum?
A. The Louvre was originally designed to serve as a fortress when constructed during the reign of King Phillip II around 1200. It later became the residence for the king and queen of France until the royal family relocated to the Palace of Versailles outside Paris near the end of the 17th century. Following the French Revolution, the new government turned the grand structure into a public museum. The Louvre has undergone a number of expansions and reconstructions, once between 1546-1670, again in the mid-1800s and most recently during the last decade.
Q: Why must there be a hole in a bagel? During a recent trip to Tucson, Ariz., we had bagels with no holes in them. They were delicious - and there was more to eat.
A: If it's a bagel, it's got to have a hole, according to experts. Today's bagel-making machinery uses the same principle as early bagel makers, who wrapped the dough around their hands, thereby making the hole.
Q: What exactly does "per capita income" mean?
A: Per capita income is calculated by dividing the total income of an area by the total population, including children. It is a measure of financial well-being.
Q: Can the average Joe invest in the stock market without going through a broker and paying a fee?
A: Generally, you cannot buy individual shares of stock unless you go through a broker. But there are a few exceptions. You can buy shares from private individuals and have the shares transferred to your name at a bank. Many companies offer dividend reinvestment programs that allow people to buy one share - or even fractions of shares - at a time, but first you must own at least one share. You don't need a broker to invest indirectly in the stock market. You can buy mutual funds through one of the many mutual fund companies, such as Fidelity or Vanguard. These companies offer many kinds of funds, most of them holding equity stocks. Sometimes you pay a fee and sometimes you don't, depending on the fund you choose.
by CNB