Apologies Accepted

Two postdocs wrote an article on gender differences in hiring rates in the sciences and discovered that men had a much easier time than women in getting articles published and getting hired.  The article went out for peer review prior to publication and the critical feedback they received was that the article would have been better had a man helped them write it.

Perhaps, the reasoning went, the two postdocs allowed their own lady-biases to color their interpretation of the data. Because it just so happens that the two postdocs were lady-scientists. There was some more stuff about how male scientists can run faster than lady-scientists and eventually the publisher, PLOS One (Public Library of Science) issued an apology.  PLOS was sorry, after news broke on Twitter (remember how great Twitter was before the Nazis took over?), that their reviewer had been so heavy handed and that the ladies had some hurt feelings - but also PLOS was going to take some action.  And they did - but was it enough and most important were any men's feelings hurt in the issuance of the apology?

Peanuts, Popcorn, Crackerjacks and Queers!  It's Pride Night at the Ballpark but all was not gay.  The Los Angeles Dodgers (Brooklyn still hates ya!) celebrates diversity all year round.  There is Black Heritage Night, Korean Heritage Night, Asian Pacific Islander Night - everyone gets a night, even the Alphabet Mafia!

Pride night wasn't a homerun for the Dodgers.  They'd invited The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a charity-street-performance-advocacy group that dresses in drag as nuns.  The Sisters have been performing charitable acts for marginalized communities for 27 years and the Dodgers wanted to give them an award for their community service.  But an organization that calls itself "Catholics for Catholics" (you know anything fun is only going to start going downhill from here) was upset because the Sisters dress up like Catholic nuns and have been labeled an "Anti-Catholic Hate Group" by the Catholic League (who are the only ones who are allowed to hate!). 

There were a ton of Catholics protesting about Catholic concerns and the Dodgers finally gave up and said "OK Catholics, we'll listen to your Catholic concerns and dis-invite the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence so can you now all go back to your rosaries and confessionals?"

But a number of other LGBTQIA+ groups said "oh hey wait a minute that's not cool" and decided not to attend the Pride Night event.

So the Dodgers re-invited the dis-invited Sisters of Perpetual Mercy to Pride Night and issued a public apology.  The Sisters graciously accepted the second invitation, issued a statement of forgiveness where everyone gets hot dogs and beer, and the festivities were back on schedule!

And in a lesson that all American corporations are learning the hard way (winky face), if you are going to embrace diversity you are going to upset some other groups aside from Catholics for Catholics - the Nazis for Nazis and the Klan for the Klan are going to take their business elsewhere!

Who among us hasn't wanted to kick in the front door of a bakery and run out with a half dozen free cupcakes?  We are all pastry thieves at heart.  One lucky Canadian hero got to live his best life when he kicked his leg through the glass front door of "Sweet Something" bakery of Vancouver (that's in Canada and is the Los Angeles of the North).

He was a polite burglar, he cleaned up after himself and then ran off into the night with cupcakes.  Again, who among us would be strong enough to resist the temptation of attacking an unguarded bakery at night?  After a few days and a viral hit video, the thief called the store to apologize.

In a crime that is too Canadian to be believed, everyone hugs it out and a news story is born!  But is everything as sweet as it seems, or could it be even sweeter?  There's only one way to find out, kick in that podcast door and treat yourself to a cultural shift away from Nazis and towards a feel good lesson in the history of cupcakes.

Encore presentation! 

The Hallmark Channel is famous for its loving take on life.  It's the feel good channel with all the feel goods.  But that changed in December of 2019 when One Million Moms took offense to some commercials that were airing on Hallmark, commercials that featuring a lesbian couple getting married. 

The one-woman force behind One Million Moms started a petition to criminalize and destroy the Hallmark Channel forever, unless they did what she demanded.  Hallmark pulled the commercials, but then after hearing from One Million Lesbian Moms decided that they had overreacted and put the commercials back on the air.  Then they decided to show that they were inclusive and signed two gay themed Hallmark Movies - mostly about some gay baker who accidentally delivers a cake to the wrong address and when the guy who opens the door says "how did you know it was my birthday and my mom always made me a honey-lavender cake every year until she died in my arms yesterday" and somehow his birthday is Christmas Eve, well the baker falls in love but then his evil...step sister?  Sure.  His evil step sister comes in to take over the bakery and almost succeeds, but happily the birthday guy is a business lawyer with two degrees from Yale and drives over her with his car but makes it look like an accident - oh wait, that's Lifetime channel but anyway everyone falls in love are you still reading this?

The warm and loving messages of the Hallmark Channel are open to all.  But are they really?  Are there some spaces that should only belong to some groups of people?  Is it right, fair, do you care - when is it ok to have a club that is "only for us" and when is it not.  Does throwing a sassy black friend into the mix somehow equal inclusion?

We don't solve any of these questions, but we have fun trying.  Bakers unite!  Everyone eats love.  (Everyone also buys cards so Hallmark, we are on to you, but also one of us is still watching you because damn you and your messages of love and hope!).

Matty Healy (Government Name: Matt Healy) is the lead singer for The 1975, a British pop band that was formed in 2002 by a bunch of guys who met in High School and formed a band and then got famous and are still at it - kind of like the Beatles but way less famous.

Matty is a bit wild card, a bad boy, a provocateur - or that's how his publicist present him to the press.  Who is he?  We all need to know because he is dating Taylor Swift and this has spun pop culture into crisis mode.  Can she save him or will dating him ruin her?  That's sort of the theme of every Taylor Swift album and fans think she's just dating him to collect material for her next album - upon whose release another member of the Royal British Family will then coincidentally die because it has happened 3 times already (3 times moves it from urban legend to the world of facts).

Did Matty Healy apologize for dating Taylor Swift?  No.  He apologized for taking part in some racist humor on a podcast.  He apologized for it and for a number of other things he's said or done over the years.  Fame is hard and he's finding his way and should a quasi-famous 34 year old multi-millionaire be held accountable for the things that he says and does?

Everybody is so creative, but  not everybody is so nice.  Tom Sachs is an artworld darling with his own production studio, deals with Nike, and lots of servants who work for him in order to be close to the creative fire that burns bright within his darling-artworld-mind.  Oh wait, not servants but staff.  No, not staff, employees.  Whatever you call them it doesn't matter because they don't matter.  At least that's the story that comes out of studio. 

Tom Sachs is accused of underpaying and undervaluing his employees while at the same time being the poster-boy for liberal values and wokeness.  The gossip that Tom isn't so nice hurt his deal with Nike (can anyone say Kanye?) and Tom decided he'd better speak up and address the criticism by way of offering a public apology.

Tom's a creative genius, can he apologize his way back into the Met Gala?

It turns out that people in Guatemala do not eat guinea pigs on the street, but they were used as guinea pigs in the 1940s by the US Government.

The US really needed some human subjects to observe the effects of syphilis on the human body so they injected sex workers in Guatemala with syphilis and then sent them into the local jails to help spread syphilis to the prisoners.  The sex workers were injected with syphilis without their knowledge or consent, and the prisoners only knew that someone had opened the door and let the sexy times roll.

If this sounds familiar, you're thinking of the Tuskegee Experiment and for good reason - Dr. John Cutler was involved in both human experiments.  After Tuskegee was made public in the 1970s, no one thought to say "oh yeah, and in Guatemala we also injected people with syphilis."  It wasn't until 2005 that someone discovered the study and went public with it.

Come with us down the rabbit hole that is syphilis - what is it, what are its effects, and most importantly, who is to blame for it!

Gentle Listeners, kindly Note: Our title is NOT taken from Urban Dictionary and do not look it up.

Furniture is big business and big money - at least if you are the CEO of MillerKnoll.  MillerKnoll makes office furniture, including that famous chair made out black mesh that everyone loves so much.  But sales have been a bit soft lately and the sales team was worried about not making their bonus.  During an all staff Zoom call (beware of those Zoom calls!) the question of bonuses came up and Andi Owen, CEO and passionate believer in equality, reminded her entire staff that there was a $26 million dollar goal to hit and that "you can visit Pity City but you can't live there" (sort of like Disneyland).

The staff did not take it so well and the clip of Andi sharing her motivation skills went viral online and then came the apology.  Was Andi Owen right to challenge her team to stop thinking about money and instead think about her money?  Andi gets a pretty sweet bonus if the corporate gods smile upon her, so she may end up apologizing all the way to the bank.

Dylan Mulvaney is a trans woman who isn't campaigning to be the face of beer, she's just trying to do her thing and live her life.  But Bud Light thought working with Dylan would be a perfect way to show solidarity to the queer community (and market themselves to GenZ beer drinkers) and so they gave her a ceremonial case of beer with her face on 24 cans.

Dylan posted a couple of lovely videos talking about how honored and excited she was and graciously thanked Bud Light.

And some people lost their minds.

They bought steamrollers and crushed cases of bud light.  They brought out their guns and shot cases of bud light.  They vowed to never drink bud light again.

The markets got nervous, bud light beer stock dipped, and then a quasi-apology floated off the keyboard of the CEO at Anheuser Busch. The woman behind the marketing campaign, Alissa Heinerscheid, has been put on some kind of administrative leave.

All this over 24 tin cans that dared to display the face of a person who has never once shot a defenseless beer can.

John McPartland is a member of the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) Board of Directors and was censured in January 2023 for for using a racist expression.  McPartland told three Black staff members at a meeting Jan. 12 that their work on BART's ongoing racial equity initiative was "cotton-pickin' inspirational."

McPartland apologized after learning that people were offended by his choice of words.  He had never intended for his words to be racist.  It's not his first embarrassing brush with racist language or situations - and it turns out that racist expressions are a mainstay of American English.

America was built on racism and it appears everywhere from children's toys to popular food brands to popular expressions.  From the ice cream truck jingle to pancakes, racist imagery and ideas are everywhere.