Talk:California
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questions about the sources used on this page
I'm sceptical about the claim that CA has the 6th largest economy by GDP. The BEA has it's GSP (gross state product) at $1.4 trillion in 2003. By either nominal or PPP, with the numbers that appear here on Wikipedia for 2005, CA would have to have annual growth of over 12% to maintain its position. - Mu Cow
- What do you mean? To stay at 6th, it only has to stay ahead of France, and France's economy is stagnant. The only economy that's really booming at the moment is China, and everyone agrees that China's economy is far larger than California's. --Coolcaesar 07:09, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
- France's estimated nominal GDP for 2005 is 2.2 trillion, for California, which had a GSP of 1.4 trillion in 2003, to match this would require annual growth of 25%, which is utterly impossible. Basically, from what I can find, CA was never 6th, it's more than likely 8th. - Mu Cow
Where are you getting that number? I just searched on Google. The CIA World Factbook estimates France's 2004 GDP at $1.737 trillion. On the other hand, the State Department's Bureau of Foreign Affairs is giving an estimate of $2.018 trillion for 2004. The California Legislative Analyst's office has posted an estimate of $1.5 trillion for California's GDP for 2004. So California is a little behind France, but probably not by as much as you are asserting. --Coolcaesar 05:51, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
- Bureau of Economic Analysis (www.bea.gov) says California's GSP was $1.4 trillion in 2003, so $1.5 trillion in 2004 isn't unreasonable, but that's still not enough to make it the 6th largest economy in the world. The estimate I got for France came from the Wikipedia article List of countries by GDP (nominal), however it's for 2005. The difference in estimates you got was from the fact that the CIA uses purchasing power parity and the State Department uses nominal GDP. - Mu Cow
There is a statement in here that I question. "The vast majority of the population lives within 50 miles(80 kilometers) from the coast".
Where does this stat come from? I very well be correct as I construct a map in my mind of the population centers of California, but the term "vast majority" is is too general and vague. How about a more precise stat?
JeremyCastle
- It's basic geography. Any detailed California map shows that California's largest metropolitan areas (the San Francisco Bay Area, Greater Los Angeles, and San Diego) are all within 50 miles of the coast. The inland cities (Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno, Bakersfield) are still much smaller than the huge coastal cities. --Coolcaesar 07:09, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
Wondering how to edit this State Entry?
The WikiProject U.S. States standards might help.
An event mentioned in this article is a September 9 selected anniversary.
There seems to be some major political bias in this document, particularly the information concering the Vietnam War and teachers' unions.
What is a biotope? -- corvus12
As to political bias- the events actually happened. The positions described were real, and no position is advocated, therefore it conforms to the NPOV. The characterization of teachers unions as political patronage is insulting, but accurate. They maintain one of the largest, best funded lobbying efforts in the State, and consistently oppose anything that would change the union's power or income.
A biotope is an area with distinctively different animals and plants. It's a discredited ecological term, but it is helpful to describe the regions. They really do look very different.
To whom it may concern- the stuff about mosquito-borne disease is real, and remains a real problem everywhere south of the frost line in the U.S. It was historically one of the most important reasons for the differential population growth rates between the South and the North- i.e. it's why the South was less populous and less industrialized. It's why the South lost the Civil War, despite having been settled first, and having richer land. Ray Van De Walker
"U. S. national leadership under President Richard Nixon firmly removed the U. S. from Vietnam's war." makes it sound as if Nixon were the leader in getting the US out of Vietnam. He was a proponent of the war, not an opponent. If we're going to address the war, which doesn't really seem necessary in an overview article about California history, there should be more about anti-war demonstrations. --corvus13
- Richard Nixon's role in the Vietnam War was ambiguous. Nixon first escalated the war, then pulled the US out of it.
California wasn't "neutral" during the Civil War: it remained in the Union and supplied thousands of volunteers, and a large quantity of gold, to the Union war effort. I'm making the change. --Vicki Rosenzweig
This article has become a bit of a monster. I propose chopping it up a bit into smaller more digestable pieces. For example, instead of having the entire history of California on the main page, how about have a short overview of the history with a link to /History right below it? That way, one can get a good feel for the State, before having to make to decision to dive into the detailed information. maveric149
- I heartily agree. I'll start on doing this... --Brion VIBBER 23:09 Jul 23, 2002 (PDT)
There is no Workers Compensation "tax" in CA. Insurance is required of all employers. Cost varies.
CA does not have an 8% sales tax. There is a state-wide sales tax of 7% (I think) and additional taxes in various different localities.
My $.02: The current section on the state ecomony seems to be a political editorial, as well as being a tad incorrect. Perhaps we should stick to the facts.
Also, the inclusion of a state ranking done by the "Small Business Survival Committee", a political lobby group, is a bit biased. --echidna
- I quite agree. The section on economy is POV and cites no sources. This article would be a lot stronger if the "facts" in it were backed up by citations. Fred 00:52, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Well, under Demographics i'm not going to volunteer the defense for every word i changed, but there was enough subtlety (and a doubt) to my slicing and dicing that i'm gonna hit the high points:
"With a 2000 population of ...." A 2,000,000 population makes you a small state; a 2000 population makes you a small town. Ambiguity eliminated.
"... lacks a clear ethnic majority. " Probably reflects thinking of an election plurality as an "unclear majority", which it's not. (A plurality is a clear non-majority, even tho in most cases it clearly wins the election.)
"Hispanics lead ...." Some Californians may be in a population race, or concerned with winning elections, but this 'graph is not about that.
" The group with the largest birth rate...." Hispanics may be the standard ethnic group that's highest, but once you stop restricting the discussion to the 5 ethnic groups named, the largest-birth-rate group is called "women pregnant with sextuplets". I made a guess at what this was supposed to mean, concluding that Hispanics, not Catholic ones, are expected to become a majority. (Someone should edit promptly if i made a bad guess.) --Jerzy 06:59, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I just heard from KQED (PBS station), The name California is in an native American language where Cali = Gold, Fornia = Would you have some? Any confirmed source for such claim?
- First question is "Which native American language ?". Without that there's no way of checking. If we look at Spanish/Latin we get Cali- meaning hot and -fornia meaning furnace. So California could mean Furnace-hot land which seems reasonable given that the area was probably named by Spaniards/Mexicans. -- Derek Ross 00:21, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
California: A ficticious island, from a Spanish romance named Las Serges de Esplandian.
Thats what i found so far, i was also under the impression it might be derivative or a Moorish name. Ill keep looking. GLopez 03/24/05 Im sorry i did not have an account when edited this, but now i do.
Flag and coat of arms background
I've changed it to gray because the flag looks really bad when the background is white. Could someone find a coat of arms that would not have a white background?
If you choose to revert it, explain why.
San Diego
San Diego has a little over 1 million people, San Diego County has 2.8 million. Neither are even close to 10 million residents, so I moved it back. Gentgeen 07:27, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The way the sections are labeled, all of the cities in the second section should have less than 1,000,000, which San Diego does not. Technically it belongs in the less than 10,000,000 section. If for whatever reason someone doesn't think this is right, you can at least create a new population grouping for San Diego or change the headings to read "approximately" instead of less than. For now I'm putting it back in less than 10,000,000. --Nabber00 18:04, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- I think this is a matter of someone using the wrong symbol, as the LA urban area has 12-17 million residents, so it's not smaller than 10,000,000. I'll go fix this. Gentgeen 21:07, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
suburban
This term seems to be applied incorrectly on this page. The word specifically refers to "a residential district located on the outskirts of a city". Cities like Oakland and Berkeley are not suburbs in any way. I feel that the category should be changed. Any thoughts? Echidna
- I would suggest, at least, moving Oakland and Berkeley to the appropriate categories (cities over 100,000). I was just about to comment on the same thing.--Ewk 02:11, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- The list is of metropolitan areas, not cities. While Oakland could be moved up (and probibly into the greater than 500,000 section), Berkeley is not the center of a metropolitan or urban area, and is in fact just a large suburb. To keep things in perspective, Long Beach is larger than Oaktown, and is also listed as an important suburb, while Fremont, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara are all larger than Berkeley, and not included on the list at all. Gentgeen 02:31, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- I would dispute the classification of Berkeley as a suburb. Typically, suburbs refer to areas with relatively low population densities, particularly bedroom communities; Berkeley is quite densely populated and maintains an existence independent of the surrounding cities. In fact, one could argue that Albany is a suburb of Berkeley. Also, by your definition, Emeryville would be considered a suburb, a classification I would also dispute (as Emeryville is the locus of significant commercial and industrial activity).--Eric 02:48, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- There's nothing in your statement to distinguish Berkeley from other Bay Area suburbs. Daly City has a higher population density than Berkley (and a higher population, too), and one could argue that Pacifica is a suburb Daly City (or that Stanford is a suburb of Palo Alto, or that Dublin is a suburb of Pleasanton, or that Newark is a suburb of Fremont, ect.) That doesn't make Daly City the center of an urbanized area, nor Fremont, nor Pleasanton, nor Palo Alto. If you think Everyville is the locus of commercial and industrial activity, come look at Santa Clara or Sunnyvale, which at over 15 times the population of Emeryville, each, are definatly suburbs of San Jose. The traditional definition of "suburban" doesn't translate well to the Bay Area, but that does not make each of the scores of cities and towns the center of their own little urban areas. What I think is more important is that some urbanized areas are not on this list at all, such as Salinas, Santa Barbara, Modesto, and Eureka.
- Berkeley is not the "center" of an urbanized area, but is most definitely part of the urban "core" of the East Bay. Have you travelled up San Pablo Avenue lately? Berkeley has an inner city. It may look nicer than, say, Oakland, but that does not per se make it suburban. Are we defining "suburb" as "any region or municipality not considered the center of a major metropolitan area?" If so, we should make that clear, as the definition used in Suburb does not immediately qualify Berkeley as such, and also potentially qualifies large parts of Oakland, San Francisco, et. al. as suburban. Note, also, the use of the phrases "outer elements of a conurbation," and "the density of habitation is usually lower than in an inner city area." A large part of this problem is an ambiguous definition of "suburb" and "suburban."--Eric 05:54, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- I should clarify: Since those are urban areas, Berkeley, not being the center of a major MSA, shouldn't be included. But I don't think it's a suburb, so it should probably not be mentioned at all, unless we change "suburb" to "other cities" or something like that.--Eric 06:09, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- Our article on suburb continues to state, Now, partly due to increased populations in many greater metropolitan areas, suburbs can be densely populated and contain apartment buildings, town homes, in addition to office complexes and light manufacturing facilities. It is not unusual for suburbs to house several hundred thousand people. It then lists, The largest suburbs in the United States, in order, based on Census 2000, are Mesa, Arizona; Virginia Beach, Virginia; Oakland, California; Arlington, Texas; Santa Ana, California; and Anaheim, California. Based on these two quotes, our article recognizes that the role of suburbs has changed as urbanization has spread. The inclusion of Oakland on that list can be disputed (in fact, I don't think Oakland is a suburb, for various reasons), but it does support that the term "suburb" can be applied to areas that don't fit the traditional definition. Gentgeen 01:00, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- I think we're agreed that Oakland is not a suburb (being an Oakland native, I take great exception to the idea that it is considered one). The dispute now seems to be centered around Berkeley. How does Berkeley qualify as a suburb, in your opinion? You raised the objection that it's not at the "center of an urbanized area;" does that make Richmond a suburb, also? I'm trying to understand how you define suburb, as I see Berkeley as definitely qualifying as Inner-City.--Eric 21:57, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- The list is of metropolitan areas, not cities. While Oakland could be moved up (and probibly into the greater than 500,000 section), Berkeley is not the center of a metropolitan or urban area, and is in fact just a large suburb. To keep things in perspective, Long Beach is larger than Oaktown, and is also listed as an important suburb, while Fremont, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara are all larger than Berkeley, and not included on the list at all. Gentgeen 02:31, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
official languages
Should there not be some mention of Spanish just next to this? As a practical language? Of course, on an informal level we might also suggest it helps to be able to speak German these days. --AlainV 17:35, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I think the author is refering to Acticle 3 Sec. 6 of the California Constitution which states "(b) English as the Official Language of California. English is the official language of the State of California."
No mention is made of Spanish. I assume somewhere in the text, it is mentioned that there is a large number of immigrants from Latin America. One could infer from that, that they speak Spanish. But mentioning the fact might be useful. I am curious though why you think it is useful to speak German. The German community, in which I have taken part, is pretty small. I think it might be more useful to know a number of Asian languages: Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Hmong, or one of the languages of the Indian subcontinent. --imars 10:35, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
"non-agricultural central counties"
The Economy section includes the following sentence: "the non-agricultural central counties have some of the highest poverty rates in the U.S.". Does anyone know which counties this refers to? Tom Radulovich 23:27, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The name California
Just for the record, Let it be said:
The name California meant "Land of The Caliph" in Moorish Spain, which is the background of where "Las sergas de Espladián" originated from. I urge anyone interested to check original Moorish records to verify this.
User:Coolcaesar deleted this fact, calling it "speculation".
Of course, I understand how offending this must feel to some that the name California MAY originate from the same peoples we are at war with now.--Zereshk 17:35, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Also for the record, as I've already pointed out on Zereshk's talk page, a simple Google search indicates that there are only four pages with ("land of the caliph" and "California"), of which three are non sequiturs. The fourth, where a connection was actually made between the two, happens to be a transcription of the ramblings of a homeless man.
Of course, we are all aware that there are many historical sources that have not yet been scanned in and put online. So I challenged Zereshk to cite a specific hard copy source (as in a book or academic journal) and he admitted that he had no such source.
From his replies, it appears he is attempting to infer causation (the idea that one evolved from the other) from correlation (the perceived similarity of the word to the phrase). While serendipitous discoveries often occur that way, no competent scientist, historian, linguist, or attorney would ever actually publish such ideas (in any medium, let alone a supposedly neutral one like an encyclopedia) until and unless they can reinforce their inference with extensive supporting evidence. But then, he's only an engineer.
--Coolcaesar 22:22, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- My claim (for now) is purely based on a linguistics and etymology.
- I dont know why Coolcaesar insists on mentioning Google searches as an academic source?!
- Id like to see the claim that "it is suggested that the word may signify a place hot as an oven", reinforced with "extensive supporting evidence". It didnt feel like an oven to me when I lived in Davis. Coolcaesar seems to be perfectly OK with this silly claim appearing on the main page of California.
- It is even failed to be mentioned here. Even a sentence?--Zereshk 00:23, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Linguistics? Etymology? Oh, that's hilarious. Have you ever actually read a book by a linguist? Have you talked to one? Do you know the names of any famous linguists (like Noam Chomsky or Benjamin Lee Whorf)?
No tenured linguist would publish unsupported speculation, let alone stubbornly claim it is true, without at least one citation to an actual physical source (that is, authentic documents from the time and place in question that illustrate the evolution at issue). Furthermore, the more recent in time, the easier it should be to get evidence. We're not exactly talking about some ancient language for which there is no direct written record (like Proto-Indo-European).
Perceiving a correlation in the sounds of two modern phrases (both of which are continuously evolving like all language components) and claiming they are related, without more, is just childish. It leads to nonsense conclusions. That's what schizophrenics like the aforementioned homeless man do all the time; in fact, it's a hallmark of the disease to make bizarre connections all over the place like that. You're not schizophrenic, are you?
Second, whether the other claims on the page as to the origin of California are valid is irrelevant to the validity of your claim. But since you insist on raising the issue, I don't know who put that idiotic "hot as a oven" claim there. Perhaps you may have a point that it is unsupported and should be deleted as well. Of course, it sounds like you've never been to Southern California, especially the vast inland desert parts, which every summer and fall are "hot as a oven."
Finally, I never contended that Google searches are an academic source. But as every competent researcher knows, Google searches are a good first step. Nearly any important bit of information nowadays is at least summarized on someone's blog or personal Web page somewhere, even if the original source document hasn't been posted yet. Google can often turn up at least a summary that can point one in the right direction to an authoritative primary source. If no one's bothered to at least summarize something for the Web, then it must be really unimportant, or really obscure or technical (so that no one thought it was worth posting because it wouldn't appeal to a general audience).
Only if Google doesn't turn up anything relevant, then it's time to delve into the so-called "deep Web" that is completely beyond the reach of search engines---the private periodical databases like LexisNexis and Infotrac, and the huge library catalogs like WorldCat---and then follow up with carefully planned visits to particular libraries and archives that may hold useful primary sources. That's how historical research (and by extension, historical linguistic research) is done. I've visited over 100 libraries (and one archive) in the course of an ongoing history project of mine, so I know full well what I'm talking about. --Coolcaesar 07:00, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Coolcaesar,
- I dont care how many libraries youve visited, or how many books youve read. Youre not the only one who is educated here. I studied at UC Berkeley and and UC Davis and worked at LLNL and Neurological Surgery Dept in UCD Sacramento Medical Center. And I have published papers on Middle Eastern Architecture and Politics as well.
- Noam Chomsky is not exactly an authority on Moorish Spain.
- Southern California does not represent California. In fact, up around Mt Shasta and The Redwood areas, it's pretty darn chilly. Im taking out that stupid "Hot as Oven" statement unless you provide "extensive supporting evidence" for that claim. Period.--Zereshk 14:19, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
If I might intervene here, I've been following this small dispute for a few days now. Although I can't lend any extra information on California's namesake, I think we should not put anything in the entry about it until there is a definite agreed upon origin for which there is a primary source or multiple secondary sources. You both seem like very educated people so let’s do more research and come to a consensus. I'll look into this and offer my findings. oo64eva (AJ) 15:36, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)
- If we were truly educated, we wouldnt be bragging about credentials, would we now. :) --Zereshk 20:44, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Since you keep wandering away from the core issue we've been discussing — whether you have valid linguistic evidence to back up your claim — I will point out that just because you've studied at places full of mature intellectuals doesn't mean you know how to think like one. An true intellectual stays on issue rather than swerving into ad hominem attacks, or even worse, stubbornly trying to construe every reasonable counterargument as an ad hominem attack against himself. Only children, talk radio hosts, and sleazy politicians looking for sound bites do that. I used to do that up until I was about 17 or so. I strongly recommend reading several books on critical thinking; there are also excellent magazines out there like the Skeptical Inquirer. If you were to argue like that in a court of law (or indeed in the context of any formal public debate), you would destroy your own credibility very quickly.
- Getting back to the point, what I was trying to get across is that if you're going to invoke "linguistics" and "etymology" as the foundation of your claim, then you need to have at least some passing familiarity with those fields and with their leading experts, and with the work of the experts who are doing research in the specialty relevant to your particular claim.
- I make no claim as to be familiar with whatever linguists are experts on the Spanish language as it evolved during the time of Moorish Spain; I simply cited Chomsky and Whorf as examples of famous linguists in general. If you insist on going around raising such an outlandish claim as fact, you should be able to point to: (1) primary sources that could reasonably support it (by showing a direct causation link where A directly was based on B); or (2) some well-established theory of linguistics that would support a reasonable inference that A evolved from B. Either way, until actually proven, your contention is only speculation and should stay out of an encyclopedia like Wikipedia. Interesting, perhaps, but speculation nonetheless.
- Finally, although I agree with your removal of that "hot as an oven" reference, I should point out that with regard to the historical perception of California's average weather, the original province of California included the entire area from the top of the Central Valley down to the tip of what we now call Baja California. What Americans call California was once Alta California. This is taught in every California public school in the third or fourth grade (at least the ones staffed by competent teachers). If you look at any decent terrain map you'll see that the "hot" part of the original California makes up more than half of the original province. --Coolcaesar 09:24, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Damnant quod non intelligunt.
- Absit invidia. :) --Zereshk 22:32, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
population update
The LA Times reported today, 3 May 2005, that California's population is now 36.8 million. I tried updating the information in this article, but couldn't figure out how to make the figure appear correctly in the table. Feel free to update if you know how. Thanks.
Golden State
I honestly thought that the term "golden state" referred to the wildflowers (particularly poppies) rather than the precious metal. After all, the reasoning given in the page would lead one to call it the gold state, rather than the golden state. Or maybe that only applies to "golden gate"...can someone check this?--Joel 17:55, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
- State Nickname: "Golden State "The Golden State" has long been a popular designation for California and was made the official State Nickname in 1968. It is particularly appropriate since California's modern development can be traced back to the discovery of gold in 1848 and fields of golden poppies can be seen each spring throughout the state..."[1] (http://www.library.ca.gov/history/cahinsig.cfm) Seems like it's both, it's probably just that gold is easier to explain than California poppy yadda yadda... ;) jengod 00:20, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
Yes indeed, California is the “Golden State” not the “Gold State” and the nick name is a reference to the native California grasses that turn a golden brown during the summer months. The Golden Gate is a play on the same idea where the “gate” is a reference to the two peninsulas that create the opening to the San Francisco bay, the Marin peninsula and the San Francisco peninsula, and the “golden” is a reference to the native grasses that turn a golden brown.
William of Lodi, Ca. May 29, 2005
Issue with current religions
-74% Protestant
-20% Roman Catholic
-0% Other Religions (Judaism, Buddhism, Islamism)
-2% Non-Religious
(1) Not sure this is true, and (2) the numbers don't add up to 100%. No source is listed for the info, but http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_judaism.html says 2.2% of Cali is Jewish... jengod 00:19, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
John D. Sloat
It says in the article he sailed into San Francisco bay, but over at California Republic, it says he sailed into Monterey. Which one is true? ----UsaSatsui 20:05, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)