Apologies Accepted

Alan Turing was a British mathematical genius, known today as the Father of Artificial Intelligence.  He famously broke the Nazi's "Enigma Code," a discovery which helped end WWII.  His work for the British government was top secret, so when he was arrested for being gay, he couldn't pull the "but I'm a hero card" to save himself.  He endured two years of chemical castration before killing himself (or eating an apple laced with cyanide due to an accidental cross contamination - which feels more likely?).  His tools for testing computer development are still in use today, 80 years later, and the "Turing Test" remains the measure of determining the level of consciousness in a machine.

The British Government issued an apology in 2009, with Prime Minister Gordon Brown offering an apology on behalf of the government.  The Alan Turing law is now the unofficial name for the pardon issued by Britain for the thousands of queer people it imprisoned.

Laws against being gay have a long root (OK, allow us one bad pun) in British history and we're here to discuss their origins and their changes over time.

In this encore episode we take you to the fabled land of Utah and revisit the world famous Skinwalker Ranch!  Skinwalker is a ranch in Utah recently owned by a billionaire who wanted to study the paranormal.  Before that, the ranch was owned by a different billionaire who was studying flying saucers.  Before that, it was owned by a nice ranching family who did not care for UFOs or the paranormal, they just wanted to raise some cattle in peace and quiet – not have to fight off scary monster-wolves and deal with UFOs. All. Of. The. Time. Every. Day!

Our apology this episode comes from a hiker who accidentally seems to have wandered into a Skinwalker’s lair…and he wants to go back and apologize for trespassing.

Skinwalkers are Navajo witches who can assume any shape they want.  In the ancestral lands of the Native American Ute peoples, the most popular Skinwalker form seems to be a large hungry, angry wolf.   So for sure this hiker should go back, maybe covered in ketchup, and offer an apology.

It is said that Skinwalkers are seen at the ranch – but not just Skinwalkers!  No.  Also flying saucers.  And lots of other strange and scary beings.  The ranch has been studied for nearly 20 years, the two billionaire owners have each employed teams of scientists to observe and record occurrences at the ranch.  There are books, and podcasts, TV shows, magazine articles, and probably video games (sure, why not?!).  It seems like the real mystery behind Skinwalker Ranch is not the paranormal but rather, when will the Summer blockbuster movie be released?

Or maybe the mystery behind Skinwalker isn't so mysterious after all? 

Graza is a startup company that really understands olive oil - and apologies.  The company launched in January 2022 and by December they had over 35,000 orders for olive oil.  It was a tiny bit more than the 5-person company was prepared to handle, but they tried!  The orders were mostly gifts and a number of shipments arrived after the holidays and some of the bottles were dented.  If that wasn't enough, some of the cute artwork on the labels started to flake off.  People were upset and they let Graza know.  You do not mess with people's olive oil!

The owner sent out an apology email that had some typos and misspellingz (nobody's prefect!).  He sent it to every customer, not just the ones who complained.  And his apology worked.  People found the apology to be sweet and authentic and not oily at all.  The media attention helped and Graza claimed an apology victory!  Good for them!

Other brands have also found success in saying "sorry" and have become notable for their exceptional handling of difficult situations.  Not every success story is a happy one (we're looking at you, Toyota) but as long as it was successful who are we to judge?

We're apologies accepted, that's who!  In this week's episode we bring you corporate apologies that worked even after people died (or couldn't find tampons).

Not Hollywood exactly, but one of the most important filmmakers in Hollywood!  Steven Spielberg apologized for the role his movie, "Jaws," played in turing public opinion against sharks.  Back in the 70s people didn't know that sharks were important to the ecosystem, or survivors of every apocalypse to ever hit the planet Earth, or gentle kind creatures who don't kill humans as often as toilets or cows!  No one understood that sharks were among the first creatures on the planet, and that we should respect them and not fear them.

We know better today - thanks to the efforts of biologists and conservationists (like Spielberg) and if whales are any indication, sharks are in for something of a renaissance.  So get ready to fall in love with the oceans' most misunderstood creature!

This was definitely not written by a shark.  We cannot write.  Hear that, it's the ocean - you should come for a swim!  It will be fun and relaxing!  Do you trust us yet?

How about now?

It's a New Year but same old slander and muckraking for UK tabloids!  This time "The Sun" apologized for an article written by Jeremy Clarkson where he said he hated Meghan Markle more than some serial killers.  He would like to see her paraded through every street in England, naked, with crowds of people shouting "shame, shame" and throwing excrement at her.  He was referencing a Game of Thrones episode (or his secret fantasy, he never specified in the article).

What is wrong with Jeremy Clarkson?  Better yet, what is wrong with the British Press? They keep throwing vitriol at a woman whose only crime appears to be that she didn't love Britain but did fall in love with a British Prince. 

The answer is money.  The British public eats this stuff up like Americans feast upon Donald Trump news (hey, we can't throw stones at our British cousins!).  "If it Bleeds, it Leads" is a famous editorial guideline for determining what story is headline news and Meghan Markle unfortunately is bleeding all the way to the bank for British tabloids.

Newsflash: doctors are people and they have feelings.  Sometimes they make mistakes and feel bad about the errors and apologize.  In some States, those apologies are admissible in court as evidence.  California recently passed a law that allows doctors to express human feelings of regret and to say things like "I'm sorry that your mother died because I forgot to sew her back up and all her organs fell out when she stood up," and their expression of regret is not considered evidence.  The doctor could even say "I'm sorry that your mother died because I forgot to sew her back up and all her organs fell out when she stood up - see I used all the surgical thread to sew a button on my ski suit and I'm pretty bad at sewing so probably I shouldn't be stitching people back up anyway so..." and it still won't count against them in a court of law.

Doctors are traditionally discouraged from expressing regret, even sympathy, for fear of being sued.  Malpractice is big business in the US and thoughts of poverty frighten people with $500,000 in student loans to pay back.  Are these laws helping or hurting Big Medicine?  Stanford claims to have the answer, but it's Stanford so really the truth is anyone's guess.

Russ and Phylis have been victims of Christmas pranksters since 2016.  One year the baby Jesus was stolen out of their nativity scene, later returned thanks to the miracle of faith and a very passive aggressive 3-foot-tall sign that Phylis posted on the front lawn.  Another year baby Jesus was stolen and never returned.  In 2019 the merry pranksters struck again, stealing the entire nativity scene…only to return it a few days later with a note of apology (surely returned thanks again to the miracle of faith and yet another giant passive aggressive note signed by Phylis).

We’re here to rate the apology note the thieves left behind and explore the mystery of the nativity: how accurate is our modern day understanding of the birth of the baby Jesus?  What about the Wise Men, or the animals in the manger, or even the year and day of the birth?  What is true and what is fiction? We take a deep dive into first century Christianity and all the things around the two completely different birth narratives found in the Bible.

Note from Phylis: Do not listen to these two heathens discuss my nativity set or any of the words they can muster out of their mouths. (Note on the note: please note this is not an actual note from Phylis).

So it's come to this, an Italian Bishop told a group of school children that Santa Claus did not exist.  The Church has resorted to lies to win the war against Christmas!  The Bishop's assistant apologized and explained that the Bishop meant to remind everyone of the true meaning of Christmas (again, lies).

The War on Christmas has some deep roots, the commercial versus the religious aspect has troubled people for over 200 years - people have been downing on Santa for years and it's time to stop.  In 1897 the war against Santa troubled one 8 year old girl so much that she wrote into the most important newspaper in the US, The Sun, to ask the question "is Santa Claus real" because "if you see it in The Sun it's so".  The most famous line in Christmas history was born when Francis Pharcellus Church (lay writing here, his last name is Church?!) replied "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."

Truly, the case is closed.  But still the war wages on and we're here to give you some of the background on the reality of Santa and the sad little apology coughed out by one tiny-hearted Bishop's assistant.

What are satanic sex purses and how much do they cost you ask?  Well Balenciaga, the fashion house, decided to turn some teddy bears into purses and dress the bears in S&M gear, mostly leather harnesses and chaps because teddy bears aren't hard core into S&M (this is a science fact that everyone knows). Then they had some little kids stand on some beds and hold the purses.  People freaked over the sexual implications and suddenly Balenciaga turned from a fashion house into a devil worshiping sex cult that advertised its existence to the world through an advertising campaign.  To be clear, the campaign wasn't "hey we are here to worship the devil and have sex with toddlers." No.  It was more subtle.  It was children standing on beds holding teddy-bear purses and the teddy bears had button eyes and leather harnesses - all dressed up for the teddy bear S&M ball.

That's bad enough, and also dumb, but by this point the internet was on fire to examine every Balenciaga campaign ever and boy did they find things.  Clues were everywhere that led to a secret cabal of devil worshipping Hollywood types and politicians who are after children.   It turns out that the key to understanding the big picture was the S&M teddy-bear purses.

Balenciaga learned the hard way that you can't outrun stupidity, either your own or other people's, so they did what every great fashion house does when they expose their secret devil worshipping lust for young blood, they issued an apology and we're here to review the stupidity and the apology.

Kristallnacht - heard of it?  It's The Night of Broken Glass, the night many historians say was the start of the holocaust.  It's the night when the Nazi party ran wild in the streets, terrorizing innocent civilians.  91 people died and 30,000 innocents were arrested and sent to the camps.

What better way to commemorate the start of the holocaust than with a delicious crispy chicken sandwich from KFC?  That's what a marketing bot coughed out onto social media...in Germany.  KFC was pretty quick to apologize and we were pretty quick to take them up on their apology and rate it.

Attention skippers: the story begins at the 3 minute 30 second mark (you are welcome!).