Apologies Accepted

Snoopy is cooking Thanksgiving dinner and everyone is invited!  Jellybeans and toast for all - including Franklin, the only black kid in the world of Charlie Brown and Peanuts!  Franklin gets a seat at the table all by himself as the other kids crowd around the opposite side of the table.  Some people see this moment in the show as emblematic of the black experience in America: included but excluded at the same time.  Other people see this as Franklin getting a place of honor: by sitting alone he stands out amidst all the chaos of a dog and bird cooking and serving everyone dinner.  Some people see racism, some see cartoon fun, but everyone can agree that a dog and a bird shouldn’t have to do all the work while a bunch of kids sit around and complain about the food.

What is Thanksgiving, where does it come from, what’s the fact vs. fiction in the history of Thanksgiving?  And what about Snoopy – is there racism going on and is there an actual apology being made by anyone for Franklin sitting all alone at a table crowded with white friends?

Get ready to dish (sorry) about the tasteful (sorry) history of Franklin, his first appearance, his meaning and importance in the world of Peanuts (sorry and yes, we’re using it as a food pun), and the sweet (sorry) teacher from Los Angeles who helped flavor (sorry) his creation.

FTX is a cryptocurrency exchange and "somehow" lost a bunch of digital money which means now they are in a lot of real world trouble.  Sam Bankman-Fried is the founder and head of FTX and he laid out a big apology on Twitter (yes, it's still up and running).  He's sorry for losing billions and billions of dollars and he's working to make things right.

What is Cryptocurrency, where did it come from, and when is it going away?  What is money for that matter?  We have the answers and it will only cost you treefiddy (that joke never gets old!) to find out.  Or you can listen for free and keep the $3.50 - we know a cyrpto exchange that might be up for sale soon and $3.50 real world money might actually be a good offer.

Nothing says "remember our fallen heroes" like a dinner menu!  At least, that's what The Clubhouse at Aquia Harbor thought when they created a Sunday Seafood menu with 9/11 themed menu options like the "Pentagon Pie" or the "Flight 93 Redirect" (it's a hot crab dip).  In September of 2022 the Clubhouse wanted to remind people of the importance of September 11th and mark the occasion of the 21st anniversary with some good old fashioned American seafood and booze (the remember-tini at $12.99).  The intentions were good and the food probably was good too but no one got to eat it because The Clubhouse had to take down the menu and put up a boring Football Sunday Seafood menu instead because everyone found the 9/11 menu to be in poor taste (yes it's a pun and you are welcome!).

Why is September 11th not a joking matter or a national holiday?  The answers may be a bit more complex than you think (money and feelings).  

As it turns out, Kanye has issued many public apologies.  Across the years he has been a never-ending wellspring of "sorry I said that."

In our most unfortunate story to date, Ye speaks volumes about his inner worldview while sharing his most recent apology story with a group of reporters in a parking lot.  He's been on an apology tour for antisemitic remarks and no one around him has the courage to slap the microphones away from Kanye's mouth. 

So now Kaney is building a road to obscurity made from his very own words, which is funny considering words are how he built his empire.  But now instead of creating money, his words have become an acid which eats away at his billion dollar fashion contracts, his fan base, his family, and worst of all, have led him to Apologies Accepted, the podcast.

Everything is recorded these days.  Every. Thing.  But that was a newsflash to 3 members of LA's City Council when they met behind closed doors to talk about redistricting.  And boy did they talk.  They talked about "the blacks," and "the jews," and Armenians and those "tan feos" Oaxacan people who live in Koreatown.  They mock a fellow council member who is gay and compare his 3-year-old son to a monkey.  That last bit is not so bad, right? 3 year olds are always running around like crazy and doing silly-funny things.  But the 3-year-old boy is black and being "raised like a white kid."  So the monkey comment leans just a teeny bit racist.  Just. A. Bit.

No one knows who leaked the secret recording - and in California it is illegal to record people without their knowledge so whoever our hero is, they will be in some pretty big trouble later.  Like legal trouble.  Or maybe not! Because "maybe" there is a billionaire industrial mayoral candidate who is behind the leaked tape. Who knows? It's wild speculation.  The only thing that is for sure is that the 3 city council people involved haven't said the tape is a fake, instead they apologize for what they said behind closed doors.

Racism, it's everywhere - and it's back again in this week's episode.

A hoochie is another name for a shack.  Merriam Webster doesn't know this and will tell you that a hoochie is a "sexually promiscuous young woman" (like that's a bad thing).  But the Oxford English Dictionary thinks that a hoochie is a WWII reference for a "lean-to" or a temporary shelter.  So, let's go with shack because OED is a more authoritative source than judgey Merriam Webster.  A Haunted Hoochie is therefore a haunted house and the most famous of all Haunted Hoochies is The Haunted Hoochie located in Pataskala, Ohio.  It's a family run Haunted House attraction and for 28 years running Haunted Hoochie celebrated "Swastika Saturday" - an event meant to make fun of Nazis, not to celebrate them.  But that distinction wasn't so clear in October of 2018 after a gunman opened fire in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11 innocent people.  Haunted Hoochie took a lot of criticism for holding their Swastika-Saturday-Not-a-Celebration-Event on the same day as the shooting.

Haunted Hoochie came out with an apology, which wasn't so great and didn't help things.  So they did what all reasonable people do when their first apology doesn't stand a ghost of a chance, they apologized again, hoping this time to settle the matter once and for all.

Hoochie  derivation: We love you, OED, but somehow Hooch (for booze) has got to be involved so we at Apologies Accepted say thank you for the praise and prizes your are going to heap upon us for discovering that boozy and floozy go with hooch and hoochie.  You are welcome.

Skin, it's what covers your bones and what you rub creams on to see how many blisters you can raise. If you don't rub poisons onto your skin to observe the after effects, you can thank one Dr. Kligman for doing the research for you.  Dr. Kligman discovered that prisoners have skin and that they were willing to sign up for experiments so he got them to sign a bunch of papers that they didn't understand and then he got busy.  For 20 years, starting in the 1950s and ending in 1973, Kligman injected the inmates of Holmesburg prison with poisons, had them rub cancer causing agents onto their skin, and charted the results.  He also sewed human organ tissues into their bodies to see what would happen - maybe the organs would regrow!  Maybe prison could become a farm for regeneration of human tissues and organs!

Dr. Kligman became a world famous dermatologist (there is one of a world famous anything and Kligman is it for skin doctors).  He discovered Retin-A (retinol) and every morning people across the world rub away their wrinkles and acne thanks to the work of Dr. Kligman - the hero of skin.

But the city of Philadelphia doesn't think he's such a hero and issued an apology in October of 2022 for giving sanction to the work of an unethical dermatologist.

Spectrum News provides a local cable news channel for every city with Spectrum Cable. It's rarely hard-hitting news and leans more towards inoffensive local stories about kittens in trees.  It would be the news channel for barbie dolls if they watched news.  Local Spectrum News channel 1 in NYC became an exception to that policy when they quietly fired Eric Adame, the local fan favorite weatherman on Channel 1.  They fired him for engaging in online sex in a private sex-webcam-chat-porn-site.  This wasn't an Only Fans account, it was a subscribers only adult web-cam-chat service and Eric was chatting in the privacy of his own home during his off hours.  Spectrum Channel 1 might have had a real reason to fire Eric if he had been inappropriate while reporting, but his clothes always stayed on when he was reporting the weather.

Someone, unknown and anonymous, took photos of Eric without his consent while he was naked online.  This unknown person sent those photos to Eric's boss and to Eric's mother.  Eric is a textbook case of revenge porn and is suing the webcam company for the name of the person who sent the photos.  He intends to file legal action against the person who took the photos.

Eric apologized to his fans, his boss, his co-workers, all of New York City, and the weather itself.  None of that mattered to Spectrum.  They fired him for whatever legal reason they could find to justify the firing and now no one knows what the weather is in New York City.

But everyone knows that Eric was fired unfairly and lost his right to privacy.

It's our 100th episode and we are celebrating by reviewing 4 of our lowest rated apologies!  No one is ever sorrier than when their apology gets reviewed a second time.  And what's worse, is reviewed and then followed up with updates.  Who honored their promises to do better and fell flat (hint: it's in the word "Better" as in better.com)?  Is it OK to like Chrissy Teigen again?  Did Alice Sebold get lucky with a second review of her apology?  And did that funeral home director say anymore about those bodies she sold?  Only one way to find out - and it's not Google - it's by joining us in our 100th birthday extravaganza!

Resham is one of Pakistan's biggest stars, having acted in film and TV since the 90s.  She's beautiful, talented, and a bit of a litter bug - if you want to judge her solely on one tiny video posted to her 600,000 followers on social media when there are so many bigger problems in the world! Resham will let you know that she is a force for good in the world and if you come for Resham, you better bring the receipts.  People did bring the receipts, and Resham apologized.

So what happened?  Resham works with numerous charities.  The floods in Pakistan deeply moved her and she wanted to help those in need.  She was on a mission for good, delivering food to flood victims, when she took a moment to film herself throwing bread and meat into the water to feed wildlife also impacted by the floods.  It was meant to be a gesture of compassion for the little animals who live in the woods and waters, a gesture to remind people that even the smallest act of kindness can bring social media value.  After throwing bologna to the fish, Resham threw some food wrappers and trash into the waters.  Many people took her to task for littering, and she reminded them all that there are bigger things in the world than littering, plus she had brain fog, plus her brother had died so she was not in her right mind.

Her act of selfless giving was meant to inspire people, instead it just reminded everyone how we drove the earth into climate change - reckless disregard for the environment.  Throwing garbage into flood waters that are the direct result of climate change was more than symbolic - it was a bad PR move.  Resham apologized a second time, and this time, she made sure everyone understood how sorry she truly was.