Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2021 July 20

= July 20 =

"so help me god" in court
Soon I'm going to be asked to swear to a document in court. It ends in "so help me god". I want to say that I don't need god's help. Can I do that, and it be legal? (Like "I don't need god's help to tell the truth"). Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 21:48, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Why on earth would you ask that question here? Go and ask the court. --Viennese Waltz 22:24, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Because we can usually find the answer. Assuming that you're an American, then you have a constitutional right to affirm rather than take a religious oath. This article suggests letting the court officials know in advance that you intend to affirm rather than swear. We Britons have the same right despite not having a written constitution. Alansplodge (talk) 22:35, 19 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Because if they say "... so help you god" and I reply that I don't need god's help, I may be in contempt of court. I'm an American in a very red area. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 22:55, 19 July 2021 (UTC)


 * This is precisely why you should inquiring with the court, not random strangers online. The court is not there to make your life arbitrarily more difficult when you arrive to provide testimony upon which it may ultimately rely. Whatever your current point of contact with the court (is your testimony being sought by a party to the matter at bar, or at the request of the court itself?) inquire with them directly.  This may be someone in the office of the 'Clerk of Court', or someone else at the court staff, but regardless, if you received a summons, you should use the contact information you received with it. If you are providing testimony at the request of a party, their counsel may be able to make the appropriate accommodations for you--but ultimately the request does need to come from you in some capacity at some juncture of the process.


 * Beyond that, I'm extremely hesitant to provide you with direct feedback here insofar as this entire thread has pretty much ignored our proscription on providing legal advice here (apparently on the basis of a presumption that the issues here are too minor to be concerned about), and I don't really want to contribute to that further beyond telling you to communicate with the court. That said, I will say this much: I certainly would not just wait to get to the end of the swearing-in and then spring your own construction of the oath on the court: at worst, the court will be unamused (potentially up the point of considering a sanction if it is felt your comments were intentionally and/or unnecessarily disruptive--and at best you will just be wasting everyone's time. Speak with the court staff (ideally well before you make your appearance). You will not be able to say "I don't need God's help!" or anything so idiosyncratic and exclamatory as that, but there are standard alternative oaths for those without religious proclivities that the court can use instead: red state or not, I do not think there are any jurisdictions left in the U.S. which do not provide this option. Again, the court is not looking to make it more difficult for you to give testimony, or to prolong the work day by inviting a debate on the religious idioms in it's oath; it's only real concern is that you have the capacity and understanding to appreciate that your candor must be absolute. Snow let's rap 06:10, 20 July 2021 (UTC)


 * There is a risk that such an act, if not cleared in advance with the court, will be interpreted as being disrespectful toward the court, and that the presiding judge will declare you in contempt. In many cases Georgia state law uses the formulation "oath or affirmation" (e.g. Title 29, Chapter 9, § 29-9-9), but Title 17, Chapter 8, Article 3, § 17-8-52 (a) mentions only "oath" to be administered, for which the wording is prescribed and ends in the eternal damnation provision. Is this in criminal proceedings? § 17-8-52 (b) mumbles something about an oath given that "substantially complies with the language in this Code section", suggesting vaguely that some variation is possible. I think that the court is the ultimate authority. --Lambiam 22:53, 19 July 2021 (UTC)


 * As others have said, before your testimony, you would inform the court officers that you are an atheist and would prefer to take a form of the oath that did not require any religious affiliation. They will tell you how to proceed.  -- Jayron 32 11:24, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Bali Qiao
According to Baidu Maps, it take about 18 minutes to walk from Beijing Daxing railway station to Huangcun railway station metro station. It is marked as a transfer on the article for Beijing–Xiong'an intercity railway. However, it takes about 18 minutes to walk from Tongzhou West railway station to Bali Qiao station, yet it is not marked as a transfer on the corresponding article. Why is this, and shouldn't Bali Qiao be marked as a transfer for Tongzhou West? -322UbnBr2 (Talk &#124; Contributions &#124; Actions) 04:31, 20 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm not familiar with the Beijing–Xiong'an intercity railway but I wouldn't have thought an 18-minute walk would allow it to be called an Interchange station. The best place to discuss that classification would be on the talk page of Beijing–Xiong'an intercity railway. There may well be a good reason why that station is so classified and not the other. It may not be so much to do with walking times as facilites and convenience, e.g. a pedestrian tunnel between stations or shared facilities.--Shantavira|feed me 08:31, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
 * are you sure your search succeeded? It's very difficult for me to use Baidu maps since I can't read Chinese but when I tried searching for 北京大兴 my search seems to have failed. I see from the ref that the Beijing Daxing station seems to be Huangcun Station of the older Jingxiong Intercity Railway. When I search for 黄村火车站 I see a bunch of different stations. Is it possible Baidu simply hasn't renamed the station and what you thought you were finding wasn't actually the Beijing Daxing station? Nil Einne (talk) 08:03, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Similar to Nankou station, 北京大兴 doesn't appear if unless you search for it. On desktop, it only shows at a small subtitle. Daxing Station is located on the southwest side of the train tracks while Huangcun is located on the northeast side. On satellite view, I can't see any tunnel or bridge connecting both sides, so using roads will take 18 minutes. -322UbnBr2 (Talk &#124; Contributions &#124; Actions) 19:22, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Not sure then. BTW, you're sure you're looking at the right Huangcun station? From what I understand the relevant one here is a subway station so you won't be able to see any train tracks on satellite view related to that station. Nil Einne (talk) 20:32, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 * By "tracks" I meant the long distance/intercity rail tracks, not the subway tracks. I was looking to the west of the subway staion, where the Huangcun/Daxing Railway station is. -322UbnBr2 (Talk &#124; Contributions &#124; Actions) 20:41, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Wally Funk and the F-94 Starfire
Here and here are photos of Wally Funk in a flight suit and holding a helmet standing in front of a Lockheed F-94 Starfire. Do we know the context of those photos, and if she was ever a jet pilot? This biography mentions that "Her first job at age 20 was at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, as a Civilian Flight Instructor of noncommissioned and commissioned officers of the United States Army." but does not list aircraft she qualified on. -- 173.72.209.35 (talk) 18:13, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
 * There was something on the news recently where she said she had thousands of hours flying experience. Whether it was jet fighters or whatever, she didn't elaborate. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:24, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes. 19,600 hours and an amazing career.
 * I see from that Ninety-Nines bio (linked above) that she "Completed training at Cessna Citation Jet School, Dallas, Texas" and "Trained at Lear Jet School" (both presumably in 1978 -- though that section is a bit unclear as to chronology), but I've still not found anything about her and the Starfire. I suspect that she never piloted it, as otherwise it would be mentioned more prominently as part of her narrative, given that jet aircraft flight experience and engineering training was an early NASA astronaut requirement.  So it seems likely that she either paused in front of it for a photo walking to or from the aircraft she was training new pilots on, or possibly that she flew in it as a backseater on a demo flight. -- 173.72.209.35 (talk) 17:40, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
 * According to this article, NASA had their own Starfire, but it had "NASA" painted on the nose.  Alansplodge (talk) 19:11, 21 July 2021 (UTC)


 * This article from 2005 mentions Funk as a designated co-pilot for the first test flight of the Rocketplane XP, which is described as "a classic Lear jet pimped out with new delta wing and rocket engine." The flight was planned for late 2006, but I saw no evidence the rocket/plane ever flew. In any case, it is highly plausible that ability to pilot a jet was a requirement for being selected as a co-pilot for the test flight. --Lambiam 21:00, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Turns out that's not a Starfire, but a Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star (from which the Starfire was developed). See page 217 of Sue Nelson's 2018 Wally Funk's Race for Space: "I found a clipping from the Taos News, dated 1 June 1961. I recognised the photograph.  It was taken at Fort Sill military base, and showed Wally in a flight suit holding her helmet in front of a US Airforce T-33 jet.  Its headline was 'Mary Wallace Funk Passes Space Tests'.  It began: 'The first woman in space may be a Taos girl who already has put wings on her future.'"

(The T-33 & F-94 are similar, but the nose of the aircraft in question does seem to better match the T-33. "My bad" for the initial misidentification.)

A shot of that Taos News clipping appears in the video in this tweet by the account for Nelson's book. See time 0:52. (The article's photo is the first I linked at the top.) At time 0:40 there is a third photo of her with the T-33, on the ladder, standing level with the cockpit. The profile photo for that account appears to be a crop of a fourth photo from the same time.

I wonder if the photos might have been taken at a press event associated with a FLAT (First Lady Astronaut Trainees) announcement, and if they posed Funk in front of the T-33 or if she was about to backseat it with a fellow flight instructor. -- 173.72.209.108 (talk) 15:51, 22 July 2021 (UTC) -- 173.72.209.108 (talk) 15:51, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Could Jill Biden become a First Lady Astronaut Trainee? --Lambiam 20:40, 22 July 2021 (UTC)