Orange County Register sports columnist Mark Whicker has apologized for the recent piece in which he tried to catch up Jaycee Dugard on all the important sports developments she missed during the 18 years she was held captive and repeatedly raped by the man who abducted her when she was 11 years old.
Admitting he "miscalculated" the effect that his column had "on those who read, buy and advertise in our newspaper," Whicker acknowledges that
It's impossible to unring a bell or to bring back a column that has already been transmitted. In many ways the damage is done. I'm hopeful that I can be forgiven for this lapse of professionalism by those who were affected most profoundly.Then he does a little riff on how Derek Jeter's tying of Lou Gehrig's 2,721 hits is "a sad day for all the cripples out there who no longer have any records left to be inspired by," and compares the Pittsburgh Pirates' stretch without a World Series title to Nelson Mandela's time in solitary confinement.I'll try to earn back the trust of those customers in my future endeavors.
Here's my question, where is the editor's apology? Tht travesty didn't copyedit itself.
Or in fact, it did -- since the editor was obviously not doing their job.
He could probably make it better by personally bringing Jaycee a satelite dish. I would like to see that awkwardness.
Even better, he can bring nearly twenty years worth of VHS'd sports to her house in a Ryder truck, make a Tim McVeigh joke, and then have to explain the Oklahoma City bombing to her.
Better yet, just give her the complete Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Let Jaycee experience the Dancing Itos in peace.
I'm still waiting for their Style section to tell me what hair and makeup trends I might have missed if I'd spent my life in an Austrian incest dungeon.
"It's impossible to unring a bell" is actually a very Zen thing to say, so ... points for that, I guess?
Particularly (or particularly not) when you consider it in light of the occasional use of this phrase when referring to pregnancy.
It's also a pretty commonly used legal expression for when the jury has heard something objectionable. Sounds like they've gotten Legal on this!
What have we learned? Fuckwit sports commentators like this guy are generally not as funny as they think they are but they get inflated egos because their "customers" (note that they are not called "readers") are morons.
They should stick to their rants about whatever bad play or bad call happened in the recent game by their local teams.
I'm reminded of The Onion slogans. They need one that says: "Your local sports team is really not that important."
Poor little guy. He'll always be ashamed of this and wish he could be a blameless anonymous blog commenter instead.