Sunday, March 24, 2013

Ga. woman says she's certain suspect shot her baby

This photo provided Friday, March 22, 2013 by Sherry West, of Brunswick, Ga., shows her son Antonio Santiago celebrating his first Christmas in December of 2012. West says a teenager trying to rob her at gunpoint Thursday asked "Do you want me to kill your baby?" before he fatally shot 13-month-old Antonio in the head. West was walking with Antonio in his stroller near their home in coastal Brunswick. The mother was shot in the leg and says another bullet grazed her ear. Police are combing school records and canvassing neighborhoods as they search for the gunman and a young accomplice a day after the slaying Thursday. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Sherry West)

This photo provided Friday, March 22, 2013 by Sherry West, of Brunswick, Ga., shows her son Antonio Santiago celebrating his first Christmas in December of 2012. West says a teenager trying to rob her at gunpoint Thursday asked "Do you want me to kill your baby?" before he fatally shot 13-month-old Antonio in the head. West was walking with Antonio in his stroller near their home in coastal Brunswick. The mother was shot in the leg and says another bullet grazed her ear. Police are combing school records and canvassing neighborhoods as they search for the gunman and a young accomplice a day after the slaying Thursday. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Sherry West)

This Friday, March 22, 2013 photo provided by the Glynn County Detention Center shows De'Marquise Elkins, 17, one of two teenagers arrested Friday and accused of fatally shooting a 13-month-old baby in the face and wounding his mother during their morning stroll in Brunswick, Ga. Elkins is charged as an adult with first-degree murder, along with a 14-year-old who was not identified because he is a juvenile, Police Chief Tobe Green said. (AP Photo/Courtesy of the Glynn County Detention Center)

Sherry West breaks down in tears as she describes the incident the day before where her 13-month-old son was fatally shot and she was wounded Friday, March 22, 2013 in Brunswick, Ga. West said Friday a teenager trying to rob her at gunpoint asked "Do you want me to kill your baby?" before he fatally shot her 13-month-old son in the head. (AP Photo/The Brunswick News, Bobby Haven)

Luis Santiago tries to comfort Sherry West at her apartment Friday, March 22, 2013, in Brunswick, Ga., the day after their 13-month-old son, Antonio Santiago, was shot and killed. West says she was walking her baby in his stroller when a teenage gunman demanding money shot the baby in the face and shot her in the leg. (AP Photo/Russ Bynum)

Authorities investigate the scene of shooting in Brunswick, Ga. on Thursday, March 21, 2013. A young boy opened fire on a woman pushing her baby in a stroller in a Georgia neighborhood, killing the 1-year-old boy and wounding the mother, police said. The woman, Sherry West, told WAWS-TV that two boys approached her and demanded money Thursday morning. Brunswick Police Chief Tobe Green said the boys are thought to be between 10 and 15 years old.(AP Photo/The Morning News, Terry Dickson)

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) ? The mother of a baby gunned down in his stroller says she has no doubt a teenage suspect is the man who killed her 13-month-old son, but family members say he wasn't anywhere near the scene.

"That's definitely him," Sherry West said Saturday when she saw the jail mugshot of 17-year-old De'Marquise Elkins, who is charged as an adult with first-degree murder. Police also arrested a 14-year-old who has not been identified because he's a minor.

"We're trying to determine which one actually was the shooter," police spokesman Todd Rhodes said Saturday.

But West said she was certain the gunman was the older suspect. "He killed my baby, and he shot me, too," she said.

On Thursday morning, West was pushing Antonio Santiago in his stroller after a trip to the post office. She said a teen, accompanied by a smaller boy, asked her for money.

"And he kept asking, and I just said, 'I don't have it.' And he said, 'Do you want me to kill your baby?' And I said, 'No, don't kill my baby!'" she said.

One of the teens fired four shots, then walked around to the stroller and shot the baby in the face.

Police announced the arrests of Elkins and the 14-year-old Friday afternoon. But Katrina Freeman, Elkins' aunt, said Saturday that he couldn't be the killer because the two were together at the time of the shooting.

Freeman said Elkins dropped by her home about 8:15 a.m. ? roughly an hour before the shooting ? and she cooked them grits, eggs and sausage for breakfast.

They stayed at her home until about 11 a.m., Freeman said, and then Elkins accompanied her and her children on some errands for about an hour. After noon, he left for classes he's taking to earn his GED, she said.

"He was with us the whole time," said Freeman, adding that she gave police the same account of her nephew's whereabouts. "There is no doubt in my mind that he is innocent."

Brunswick police have said little about what evidence led them to Elkins or the younger suspect. Police spokesman Todd Rhodes said Saturday that he's not surprised Elkins' aunt would try to protect him.

"That's what she's saying, but the evidence we're looking at says something else," Rhodes said. He would not elaborate. He said investigators still can't say what motivated the shootings.

Elkins' older sister said her brother had been living in Atlanta and returned to Brunswick only a few months ago. On Friday morning, as her brother made his way along the sidewalk to her home, police came to her door, she said.

"The police came pointing a Taser at him, telling him to get on the ground," she said. "He said, 'What are you getting me for? Can you tell me what I did?'"

On Saturday, police released recordings of three 911 calls made by West's neighbors right after the shooting.

One caller, sobbing, tells the operator she heard three gunshots. The woman says she saw the mother lay the child on the ground to try to revive him with CPR.

"Yes, I heard the shots. Somebody shot this child," the caller said. "She's got him on the ground. Please, we need everything we can get."

One caller solemnly tells an operator: "No, the baby's not breathing." He says the child was shot "right between the eyes."

A woman can be heard screaming in the background just before police arrive and sirens drown out her cries.

No callers reported seeing the shootings, and police said the three calls were the only ones they knew of.

At her apartment Saturday, West had filled several bags with her son's clothes and diapers to donate to charity. She said she hopes prosecutors pursue the death penalty in the case.

"My baby will never be back again," West said, sobbing. "He took an innocent life. I want his life, too."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-03-23-Baby%20In%20Stroller%20Slain/id-d909fef571954f7ea7d81cbcb2136082

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Friday, March 1, 2013

languagehat.com: IN PRAISE OF MINOR WRITERS.

IN PRAISE OF MINOR WRITERS.

I've long been a fan of the Dictionary of Literary Biography series (Wikipedia, publisher's site), now up to Volume 366 (Orientalist Writers), but I've had to consult them in libraries, since the damn things cost over $300 each. New, that is; a while back it occurred to me to add the ones for Russian writers to my private Amazon wishlist, and sure enough, they occasionally show up used for only a few bucks. So far I've accumulated volumes 198 (Russian literature in the age of Pushkin and Gogol: Prose), 238 (Russian novelists in the age of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky), 272 (Russian prose writers between the world wars), and the most recently acquired, Early Modern Russian Writers (Volume 150, covering the late 17th and 18th centuries). It may seem odd to spend one's time reading biographical articles on obscure writers no one's given a thought to in a couple hundred years, but I find that in some ways reading about minor writers is more interesting and revealing than reading about major ones. You read about Tolstoy's life to understand Tolstoy, but you read about Andrey Bolotov or Vasily Kapnist to understand their times. These were people struggling to get by, most of them, who used literature as a means of getting a little money and renown at a time when that was just becoming possible. Irwin Titunik's introductory paragraph on Vasily Ruban (Russian Wikipedia) will give an idea of how these articles expand one's idea of Russian literature:

Vasilii Grigor'evich Ruban was an enterprising and prolific participant in eighteenth-century Russia's equivalent of Grub Street?a host of professional literary men willing and able to undertake any writing task, equally adept at producing manuals on agriculture or card playing, at composing panegyric odes to the high and mighty or Russifying the works of Homer or Horace, and at performing as compilers, editors, and publishers. Such hackwork was by no means necessarily of poor quality; reputable writers were produced in this way. In Ruban's case there were works compiled, edited, published, and also translated by him that received wide approval and appreciation. However, Ruban was notorious among his contemporaries for producing great quantities of occasional poems, especially those written for or to patrons whose protection, gifts, and monetary support he solicited and often gained. Ruban's more distinguished and independent fellow writers reviled and mocked these "obsequious" verses, and he was subsequently condemned as a sycophant[...] Although that reputation has survived into the twentieth century, an unbiased assessment, without denying his reprehensible traits, must also acknowledge Ruban not only as a literary entrepreneur of extraordinary energy and versatility (not to speak of productivity) but also a competent writer typical of eighteenth-century Russia and of interest in his own right, especially as a poet.
One of the sad aspects of literary history is the tendency of writers blessed with a good position in society, from Pushkin to Virginia Woolf, to sneer at the lowly scribblers who are unable to match their leisurely grace.

Some other tidbits from this volume: of the religious figure Gedeon (Russian Wikipedia), "the first to preach in Russian rather than Church Slavonic," Victor Zhikov writes:

Having become a grandee in his way, Gedeon also adopted the accepted cultural codes dictating how a magnate should act. One element of such behavior at mid century was apparently petty tyranny, and anecdotes about Gedeon ascribe such behavior to him. For example, it is said that while walking through the Trinity?Saint Sergius Monastery with his prot?g? Platon Levshin (the future metropolitan of Moscow; at the time a simple priest), Gedeon noticed the valuable silk cassock Platon was wearing and pushed him into a pond. Afterwards he reportedly made an admonition that someone of a lower rank should not be upset when a superior jokes with him and thereupon presented Platon with two expensive cassocks to replace the one that had been ruined.
Antiokh Kantemir had problems as a young man because his father "named as his heir whichever son excelled the most in his studies by the time of his coming of age," at the same time calling Antiokh, the youngest, "the best of all in intelligence and learning"; as you might imagine, "the indefiniteness of the will regarding the inheritance later resulted in lengthy family disputes." And it was fascinating to read David Gasperetti's article on Matvei Komarov (Russian Wikipedia), forgotten now but in his day "Russia's first best-selling literary figure," whose 1779 Van'ka Kain "reached more readers than almost any other Russian novel, with a publication history spanning close to one hundred years," and whose Milord George was even more successful: "Belinsky went so far as to call the novel immortal, and [...] Leo Tolstoy observed that the people were far more interested in Milord George than in the belles lettres and philosophy that the leading lights of Russian culture would have them read. Komarov's tale of the English lord remained a best-seller in Russia until the newly established Bolshevik state did what the cajoling of previous generations of critics never could: it confiscated an edition of the work that was at press in 1918, thus ending its remarkable 136-year publication history." Posted by languagehat at February 28, 2013 04:06 PM

Belinsky, apparently, was totally in the dark about the author of the "Milord", asking himself who was this lucky author of immortal fate, when did he live, if he was for real at all:

?????? ???? ??? ?? ??????? ? ???????????, ??? ?????? ?????. ?? ?????? ????? ???? ????? "??????????? ???????", ?? ???? ?? ???? ??? ? ?????? ??? ?????: ?? ??? ?? ??? ??????, ? ?? ?? ??? ??? ?????????? ? ????????? ??? ????? ???? ??????! ???? ???? ?? ????, ??????? ????? ??? ????? ?? ???: ?????? ??? ?? ????? ????, ?? ????? ?????. ??????? ?????! ??????? ????????? ? ?????? ?????? ???? ??????, ???? ??????? ??????????? ? "??????????? ???????". ???? ?? ??? ????? ????? ?????? ? -- ????????????? -- ??????? ??? ???, ? ?????? ? ?????? ??? ?????? ??? ???? ?? ??????????!

The book has been reprinted again in 2000

I find that in some ways reading about minor writers is more interesting and revealing than reading about major ones. You read about [famous writers] to understand [them], but you read about [less well-known ones] to understand their times.

This is also my attitude in general.

I think this is also true of other forms of art: the great musicians, painters, etc transcend their times, the minor ones reveal them. You need to know some of the minor ones to realize what a difference the major ones made.

I was mostly thinking of those people's works, not just their lives.

One of the sad aspects of literary history is the tendency of writers blessed with a good position in society, from Pushkin to Virginia Woolf, to sneer at the lowly scribblers who are unable to match their leisurely grace.

I couldn't agree more with the sentiment but I'm surprised by the examples. What about Pushkin's "???????? ????????????? ? ??????"? And doesn't Woolf see Shakespeare's hypothetical sister as tragically and unjustly denied the leisure to write?

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Reminds me of how I had a lot of fun adding minor writers to the French Wikisource (gotten out of that lately, though). I wandered about pursuing works and writers alluded to in the texts I added or authors' biographies. It added a lot to my appreciation when I read Madame Bovary: I had read a bunch of sappy, pious early-nineteenth-century stuff, so I knew what Emma Bovary fed her mind on, I knew what Flaubert was reacting against, and I had a sense why his contemporaries were shocked.

Source: http://www.languagehat.com/archives/004925.php

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BP exec back on the stand in oil spill trial

Lamar McKay, former president of BP America and current chief executive of BP's Upstream unit, leaves Federal Court after testifying in New Orleans, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. McKay testified Tuesday that BP and its contractors share responsibility for preventing blowouts like the Macondo well blowout and rig explosion off Louisiana that killed 11 workers on April 20, 2010, spawning the massive spill. (AP Photo/Bill Haber)

Lamar McKay, former president of BP America and current chief executive of BP's Upstream unit, leaves Federal Court after testifying in New Orleans, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. McKay testified Tuesday that BP and its contractors share responsibility for preventing blowouts like the Macondo well blowout and rig explosion off Louisiana that killed 11 workers on April 20, 2010, spawning the massive spill. (AP Photo/Bill Haber)

Lamar McKay, former president of BP America and current chief executive of BP's Upstream unit, leaves Federal Court after testifying in New Orleans, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013. McKay, who was president of BP America at the time of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, became the first BP executive to testify at the federal trial intended to identify the causes of BP's Macondo well blowout and assign percentages of blame to the companies involved. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Lamar McKay, former president of BP America and current chief executive of BP's Upstream unit, left, leaves Federal Court after testifying in New Orleans, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013. McKay, who was president of BP America at the time of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, became the first BP executive to testify at the federal trial intended to identify the causes of BP's Macondo well blowout and assign percentages of blame to the companies involved. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Lamar McKay, former president of BP America and current chief executive of BP's Upstream unit, leaves Federal Court after testifying in New Orleans, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. McKay, who was president of BP America at the time of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, became the first BP executive to testify at the federal trial intended to identify the causes of BP's Macondo well blowout and assign percentages of blame to the companies involved. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

(AP) ? Another BP executive was expected on the witness stand Thursday to face more questions from attorneys for the U.S. government, which is trying to prove the oil company is mostly to blame for a deadly explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig that led to a massive oil spill.

Mark Bly led the company's internal probe of its 2010 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, but said the investigation wasn't intended to look at the disaster through the "lens of responsibility."

"I think people should share information that could help learn about accidents," Bly said.

Attorneys for the U.S. government and lawyers for Gulf Coast residents and businesses have accused BP of putting profits ahead of safety on a project that was over budget and behind schedule. BP has said drilling in the Gulf is a team effort and its partners should share in the responsibility for the disaster. The trial is designed to assess the fault of each company involved, and billions of dollars are at stake.

On Wednesday, a well design expert and geophysicist who worked for Conoco and Exxon, said BP withheld critical information from oil and gas regulators and continued drilling despite clear signs of trouble before the blowout of the Macondo well.

Alan Huffman, the federal government's expert, said BP continued drilling in dangerous deep water conditions without keeping the Minerals Management Service fully informed about changes in its plans.

Huffman said his review of internal BP documents and MMS records showed the London-based oil giant engaged in a "consistent pattern of misreporting" to the federal agency and gave it a "very false impression" of what was happening on the drilling project.

"And this happened on multiple occasions ... not just on one or two," said Huffman, the second expert witness at a trial that started Monday and, barring a settlement, could last several months.

During his cross-examination, Huffman acknowledged he had never been asked to make a similar comparison of regulatory records before the Justice Department hired him.

"Are you in the business of determining whether or not regulations have been violated?" BP attorney Matt Regan asked.

"That is not my normal practice of work, no," Huffman said.

Regan also questioned why Huffman didn't thoroughly examine the actions of Transocean rig workers or compare BP's conduct to that of other offshore operators.

Huffman said BP did seek permission from MMS to change its drilling plans on some occasions. Other times, he testified, the company's engineers forged ahead with drilling the well when it was in a potentially unsafe condition without informing the agency.

"And that is not what a prudent operator does," he said.

Huffman said it was "unwise" for BP to continue drilling after rig workers detected a "kick," or unexpected increase of pressure in the well, the month before the April 20, 2010, blowout.

"This drilling ahead in this environment was not only unsafe, it violates every standard I can think of in how wells are drilled in the deep water and elsewhere in our industry," he said. "It is truly egregious to drill that extra hundred feet knowing that you could potentially lose the well in the process."

Former BP chief executive Tony Hayward also made a cameo appearance Wednesday, but he didn't attend in person. Instead, he showed up just briefly on a videotape in what may be his only appearance in the courtroom.

Hayward, who infamously said "I'd like my life back" at the height of the spill, isn't expected to take the witness stand in the high-stakes trial because he didn't have direct knowledge of the drilling operations on the Deepwater Horizon.

Still, attorneys for the U.S. government and Gulf Coast residents and businesses showed a 20-minute snippet of his deposition, projecting the video on a large white screen in the courtroom.

"I believe that the role of leaders is very important in shaping the culture of an organization," Hayward said in the videotape.

Rig owner Transocean Ltd. and cement contractor Halliburton also are defendants and their lawyers have tried to minimize their roles in the disaster.

___

Follow Kunzelman at https://twitter.com/Kunzelman75

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-02-28-Gulf%20Oil%20Spill-Trial/id-3d79c4fee78c4d1ba213eede16209f42

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