More on today's column: Apologia
I've been thinking about what the Sorry award statuette should look like and, while I originally had something like a stylized olive branch in mind, I've not pretty much settled on a giant, golden replica of the pawn-like game piece from the original Sorry! board game.
And I myself would like to apologize for not having been able to work into the column a mention of the best apology-themed book ever written, Eating Crow.
The premise of the book, written by London Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner (read a sample of his work here) is that a notoriously brutal restaurant critic, after writing a particularly scathing review, which drives a chef to commit suicide, finds himself called, for once, to apologize. And he discovers, quite remarkably, that he's very good at it. And he even likes doing it.
This leads him to a radical career switch in which he becomes the United Nations' Chief Apologist.
Like all great books, Eating Crow creates its own world, one that is sort of like the one in which we live, but more so. There is, in the world of the novel, a UN Office of Apology and Reconciliation, referred to, naturally, as UNOAR. And this office is run by bureaucrats responsible for "overseeing the compilation and verification of hurts [and] the staging and financing of apologies."
There is also an accepted international doctrine of apology, which I'd like to adopt as the ground rules for the Sorry awards:
1. Never apologize for anything for which you are not sorry.
2. Never apologize for anything for which you are not responsible.
3. Only apologize to those who have suffered the hurt, or their legitimate heirs.
4. Never link the wording of an apology to the shape, scale, or form of any settlement that may follow.
5. Never blame others.
6. There is no statute of limitations on a hurt.
Comments
Eating Crow ordered pronto from OP library.
PICKETT replies:
Let me know how you like it!
Posted by: Jim Bowman | February 17, 2006 03:43 PM
The "Sorries" is an idea whose time has come. You can add two more candidates. Ozzie Guillen has apologized for calling Alex Rodriguez and Nomar Garciaparra "hypocrites". Something about their changing their minds about representing the Dominican Republic and Mexico respectively. Ozzie admits he was out in left field with his accusations. A genuine candidate for the "Sorries".
Another candidate is a little more bizarre. It's astonishing but Harry Whittington has apologized to Cheney and his family for "all they had to deal with". Quite a sport this lawyer.
This apology might open a new category of "Sorries": the reverse apology. The victim apologizes to the culprit. How masochistic!
Now what will the golden statuette look like?
PICKETT replies: I, too, am a big fan of the Harry Whittington "I'm sorry that shooting me has caused so much inconvenience for you" apology. I will have to come up with a new category for that one.
Posted by: Jerry | February 19, 2006 09:47 AM
I too hope Jim enjoys the book, for obvious reasons.
I'm also intrigued by the Whittington 'sorry I got in the way of your gun' apology. If I'd put it in the book it may well have been regarded as over the top. Then again, I thought quite a lot in of things there might be over the top. Until, on publication day in the UK when the Abu Grhaib scandal broke, and the airwaves were full of Bush and Rumsfield apologising. It was as if they were doing my PR for me. Friends suggested I was the only person to have benefited from the torture of Iraqi prisoners.
PICKETT replies: Wow - how cool are you? Thanks for stopping by.
Posted by: Jay Rayner | February 25, 2006 12:35 PM