Sweetwater Reporter (Sweetwater, Tex.), Vol. 114, No. 052, Ed. 1 Sunday, March 18, 2012 Page: 3 of 20
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Sweetwater Reporter
Sunday, March 18, 2012 ■ Page A3
Obituaries
JAMES ERNEST GOSSETT
James Ernest Gossett, age 88, of Sweetwater, Texas,
passed away on Friday, March 16, 2012 at his resi-
dence.
His body was cremated. No services are planned.
Arrangements are under the direction of Cate-Spencer
& Trent Funeral Home.
South Texas man in custody
after triple murder
ALICE, Texas (AP) — A South Texas man was in cus-
tody Friday and charged with three counts of capital
murder after his girlfriend and her two sons were found
stabbed at her home in Alice.
Felix Jesus Chapa, 24, was arrested without incident at
his home hours after police found Michelle Hughes, 41.
and her sons, Ivan Joshua Hughes, 20, and 15-year-old
William Bryan Hughes, Alice Police Chief Daniel Bueno
told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
The 911 call came to police shortly before 4 a.m. Friday
and it appeared there had been an ongoing domestic dis-
pute, Bueno said. He said Chapa was under the influence
of alcohol when arrested.
Chapa was in the Jim Wells County Jail Friday 011 bond
totaling $2.25 million, jail official Patricia Torres told The
Associated Press. He did not yet have a lawyer, she said.
Ivan Hughes was found in the yard and pronounced
dead later at a local hospital. His brother, who neighbor
Patty Cardona said was disabled used a wheelchair, was
found inside the home. Police found Michelle Hughes on
a narrow strip of grass between two neighboring houses,
Bueno said.
Cardona said Hughes was a loving mother who had
been in a relationship with Chapa for less than a year.
Ag
Continued from pageAl
Star Ag Credit's administrative offices are located in
Fort Worth with credit offices located in Sweetwater,
Abilene, Stephenville, Weatherford, Cleburne, Denton,
Sherman, Paris and New Boston.
The local office will host a Sweetwater Chamber of
Commerce after hours event at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday,
March 21, 2012, at 400 E. Third Street.
Idol
Continued from pageAl
members will get the chance to enter one vote for their
favorite finalist to become the first Abilene Idol.
Tim Halperin, a semi-finalist from American Idol
Season 10, will also be at the event that night as a guest
celebrity performer. Funds raised by the event will ben-
efit Chorus Abilene.
Artist admits to shortcuts
in show about Apple
KAREN HAWKINS
Associated Press
CHICAGO (AP) — An artist admitted Friday to taking
shortcuts in crafting an often harrowing tale about Apple
Inc.'s operations in China after the veracity of his one-man
theatrical show was challenged by a public radio program
that had based a broadcast on his work.
But writer Mike Daisey said he stands by his monologue
and called what he does theater, and not journalism.
"It uses a combination of fact, memoir, and dramatic
license to tell its story, and I believe it does so with integ-
rity," Daisey said in a statement posted on his website.
Citing what he called "numerous fabrications," Ira Glass,
the host of the popular public radio show "This American
Life," said he could not vouch for the truth of a Jan. 6
broadcast excerpted from Daisey's critically acclaimed one-
man show "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs."
Later Friday, The New York Times said it had removed
a questionable paragraph from the online archive of an
op-ed piece Daisey wrote for the newspaper in October.
Daisey also twisted the truth about his time in China
during an interview with The Associated Press late last
year. Paul Colford, a spokesman for the news cooperative,
said the AP was reviewing its coverage of Daisey to deter-
mine what corrections will be necessary.
Daisey is currently performing at The Public Theater in
New York, which issued a statement saying it stands by
what it called "a powerful work of art."
"Mike is an artist, not a journalist," the statement said.
"Nevertheless, we wish he had been more precise with us
and our audiences about what was and wasn't his personal
experience in the piece."
In his monologue, Daisey describes meeting very young
workers who put in very long hours and were forced to do
crippling, repetitive motions at factories that make Apple
products in China. Some he claimed had been poisoned by
a chemical called hexane.
But "This American Life" says a China correspondent for
the public radio show "Marketplace" named Rob Schmitz
located and interviewed Daisey's Chinese interpreter, who
disputed much of the artist's claims.
Daisey, in an interview with Glass broadcast as part of
Friday's episode of "The American Life," admitted that he
didn't meet any poisoned workers and guessed at the ages
of some of the workers he met.
"This American Life" said in its statement that staff-
ers asked Daisey for his interpreter's contact information
while fact-checking the story. Daisey replied the cellphone
number he had for her didn't work anymore and he had no
way to reach her.
"At that point, we should've killed the story," Glass said.
"But other things Daisey told us about Apple's operations
in China checked out, and we saw no reason to doubt
him."
Apple has been rebutting Daisey's allegations for months,
to little effect. The Times also wrote an investigative series
in January on dangerous working and living conditions
for people who make Apple products in China, including
explosions inside factories making iPads where four people
were killed and 77 were injured.
An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment Friday.
Daisey spokesman Philip Rinaldi said Friday his client was
"not speaking to anyone about this right now."
The original "This American Life" episode, "Mr. Daisey
and the Apple Factory," has become the most popular
podcast in the history of "This American Life" with nearly
890,000 downloads.
Daisey also claimed in an interview with AP late last
year that he met Chinese workers whose joints in their
hands had disintegrated because they were doing the same
motion hundreds of thousands of times.
"I know that people in charge know about these things
and chose not to address them. And that's hard to swallow
when you see the damage it does and you know how little
it would take to ameliorate a high degree of human suffer-
ing," he said then.
The Times, which published Daisey's op-ed piece follow-
ing Steve Jobs' death in early October, removed a para-
graph from the online version that discussed conditions at
Apple's factory in China. The newspaper posted an editor's
note warning readers that the section had been removed
because "questions have been raised about the truth."
"The rest of the piece is his opinion as a performer and
a thinker," said Eileen Murphy, a Times' spokeswoman. "If
this were a news story it would be a different situation. It's
not. It's an op-ed."
In his original monologue, Daisey splices Jobs career
milestones and the transformation of Apple from a David
into a Goliath with more personal stories about his own
connection to the computer maker.
He has said that when he saw four photos posted online
taken by workers at a Chinese factory to test the iPhone
but mistakenly not erased, he suddenly realized people, not
robots, were putting the sleek devices together.
In interviews and on stage, Daisey has said he traveled
to the Chinese industrial zone of Shenzhen and interviewed
hundreds of workers from Foxconn Technology Group, the
world's largest electronics contract manufacturer, who suf-
fered from their work.
"It's like carpal tunnel on a scale we can scarcely imag-
ine," he said while performing the show in New York in
October.
In this weekend's "This American Life," Daisey tells
Glass he felt conflicted about presenting things that he
knew weren't true. But he said he felt "trapped" and was
afraid people would no longer care about the abuses at the
factories if he didn't present things in a dramatic way.
"I'm not going to say that I didn't take a few shortcuts in
my passion to be heard," he tells Glass.
Daisey has performed the monologue for some 50,000
people from Seattle to Washington, D.C., and it is at The
Public Theater until Sunday. Daisey was expected to take
the show on tour, but its future is now in doubt.
AP Drama Writer Mark Kennedy and Associated Press
Business Writer Ryan Nakashima contributed to this
report from New York.
Soldier accused 01 killings was amily man
LAKE TAPPS, Wash. (AP) — On a winding road of wood-
frame homes tucked amid towering pines, Robert Bales was
the father who joined his two young children for playtime
in the yard, a career soldier who greeted neighbors warmly
but was guarded when talking about the years he spent
away at war.
"When I heard him talk, he said ... Yeah, that's my job.
That's what I do'," said Kassie Holland, a next-door neigh-
bor to the soldier who is now suspected of killing 16 Afghan
civilians. -'He never expressed a lot of emotion toward it."
Speaking to his fellow soldiers, though, Bales could exult
in the role. Plunged into battle in Iraq, he told an interview-
er for a base newspaper in 2009 that he and his comrades
proved "the real difference between being an American as
opposed to being a bad guy."
As reporters swarmed Bales' neighborhood late Friday,
Holland and other neighbors shook their heads, trying but
failing to reconcile the man they thought they knew with
the allegations against him. Military officials say that at
about 3 a.m. last Sunday, the 38-year-old staff sergeant
crept away from the Army base where he was stationed
in southern Afghanistan, entered two slumbering villages
and unleashed a massacre, shooting his victims and setting
many of the bodies on fire. Eleven of those killed belonged
to one family. Nine were children.
"I can't believe it was him," said Holland, recalling a kind-
hearted neighbor. "There were no signs. It's really sad. I
don't want to believe that he did it."
Until Friday, military officials had kept Bales' iden-
tity secret and what little was known about him remained
sketchy. But with the release of his name, a still-incomplete,
but sharply conflicting portrait of the man comes into focus.
Part of it reveals the father and husband neighbors recall,
and a soldier quietly proud of his 11-year record of service,
including three tours in Iraq.
But it also shows Bales had previous brushes with trouble.
In 2002, records show, he was arrested at a Tacoma, Wash.,
hotel for assault on a girlfriend. Bales pleaded not guilty and
was required to undergo 20 hours of anger management
counseling, after which the case was dismissed. A sepa-
rate hit-and-run charge was dismissed in a nearby town's
municipal court three years ago, according to records.
Bales has not yet been charged in the killings in
Afghanistan. He was flown Friday from Kuwait to the mili-
tary's only maximum-security prison, at Fort Leavenworth,
Kan. When the Air Force cargo jet with the soldier aboard
arrived at Kansas City International Airport, about an hour
from the military prison, security was very tight, with the
terminal completely blocked off. It marked the tragic end of
Bales' fourth tour of duty in a war zone, one his lawyer said
he had hoped to avoid.
"He wasn't thrilled about going on another deployment,"
said the attorney, John Henry Browne of Seattle. "He was
told he wasn't going back, and then he was told he was
going."
A neighbor, Paul Wohlberg, recalled that when he last
saw Bales in November the two men talked briefly about the
soldier's imminent departure for Afghanistan.
"I just told him to be safe. He said, 'I will. See you when I
get back," said Wohlberg, who recalled attending barbeques
at the Bales' homes.
Wohlberg described Bales as a man who clearly loved his
country.
"I'm sure he still does," he said.
Bales told neighbors little about his brigade's three tours
of duty to Iraq. But in a 2009 article published in Fort
Lewis' Northwest Guardian, Bales told the interviewer
about finding many dead and wounded when his unit was
sent to recover a downed Apache helicopter in Iraq.
"I've never been more proud to be a part of this unit than
that day, for the simple fact that we discriminated between
the bad guys and the noncombatants and then afterward we
ended up helping the people that three or four hours before
were trying to kill us," Bales said.
After returning from his second deployment to Iraq,
Bales was elevated to staff sergeant. In three tours of duty,
Browne says his client was injured twice. One of those inju-
ries required the surgical removal of part of one foot. In a
vehicle accident, Bales suffered a concussion, the lawyer
said.
But by last year, the soldier had reached a disappointing
juncture. Bales received more than 20 awards and commen-
dations, including three Army Good Conduct medals. But
military files show a largely unremarkable service record,
absent the Purple Heart awards that would be expected fol-
lowing a significant injury or wound in combat.
Then he was passed over for a promotion, according
to a posting by his wife on her blog, The Bales Family
Adventures.
"It is very disappointed after all of the work Bob has done
and all the sacrifices he has made for his love of his country,
family and friends," Karilyn Bales wrote early last year on
the blog, which could not be independently verified. "I am
sad and disappointed too, but I am also relieved, we can
finally move on to the next phase of our lives."
The best case scenario for that next phase, Karilyn Bales
wrote, would be an Army assignment in an adventurous
location like Germany, Italy or Hawaii, and barring that,
possibly an assignment in Georgia, where her husband
could become a sniper instructor.
"We are hoping that if we are proactive and ask to go to
a location that the Army will allow us to have some control
over where we go next," Karilyn Bailey wrote.
By late last year, Bales was training to be an Army
recruiter. Bales' lawyer said. When he learned he would be
dispatched to Afghanistan, Bales and his family were very
disappointed. Still, the staff sergeant's family saw no indica-
tion sign of undue anger, Browne said.
"They were totally shocked," by accounts of the massacre,
Browne said. "He's never said anything antagonistic about
Muslims. He's in general very mild-mannered."
Bales departed with his unit on Dec. 3 and was assigned
about six weeks ago to a base in the Panjwai District, near
Kandahar, to work with a village stability force pairing spe-
cial operations troops with villagers to help provide neigh-
borhood security.
On Saturday, the day before the shooting spree, Browne
said, the soldier saw his friend's leg blown off. Browne said
his client's family provided him with that information,
which has not been verified.
On Friday, a senior U.S. defense official said Bales was
drinking in the hours before the attack on Afghan villagers,
violating a U.S. military order banning alcohol in war zones.
The official discussed the matter on condition of anonymity
because charges have not yet been filed.
Browne said his client's family told him they were not
aware of any drinking problem — not necessarily a contra-
diction. Pressed on the issue in interviews with news organi-
zations, Browne said he did not know if his client had been
drinking the night of the massacre.
Then, in the middle of the night last Sunday, shots rang
out in a pair of villages within walking distance of the base.
Soon after, a surveillance camera mounted to a blimp cap-
tured an image of a soldier the Army identifies as Bales
returning in the dark. A traditional Afghan shawl was
draped over the gun in his hands. As he reached the gates
of the base, the man in uniform lay the weapon down. He
raised his arms in surrender.
Browne said he did not know if his client had been suf-
fering from post-traumatic stress disorder, but said it could
be an issue at trial if experts believe it's relevant. Experts on
PTSD said witnessing the injury of a fellow soldier and the
soldier's own previous injuries put him at risk.
"We've known ever since the Vietnam war that the
unfortunate phenomenon of abusive violence often closely
follows the injury or death of a buddy in combat," said Dr.
Roger Pitman, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist who
heads the PTSD Research Laboratory at Massachusetts
General Hospital. "The injury or death of a buddy creates a
kind of a blind rage."
On Friday evening, Bales' neighbors said they did not
know what to think. They gazed toward the soldier's home,
where overflowing boxes were piled on the front porch and
a U.S. flag leaned against the siding.
"I just can't believe Bob's the guy who did this," Wohlberg
said. "A good guy got put in the wrong place at the wrong
time."
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Sweetwater Reporter (Sweetwater, Tex.), Vol. 114, No. 052, Ed. 1 Sunday, March 18, 2012, newspaper, March 18, 2012; Sweetwater, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth229716/m1/3/: accessed May 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Sweetwater/Nolan County City-County Library.