Still a Little Hard to Say What's Going On

Well, since I had two posts yesterday, both of which used lyrics from Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World", we had two different readers name the Song of the Day. Those are the mysterious "V" and the more well known "Chicago". Now, I'm pretty sure that the protagonist from V for Vendetta and my friend from the Midwest are the most diverse pair ever to win the Song of the Day contest. Thanks for being part of history my friends.

It's been an interesting week for apologies. First, Don Imus issued an apology to the Rutgers women's basketball team for his oft-repeated, ill chosen remarks, but he was still canned by NBC Corp. and CBS Corp.

Now, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong has issued an apology to the 3 former Duke lacrosse players. The apology comes a day after the North Carolina Attorney General's office dropped all remaining charges against the athletes. Nifong is currently under investigations for possible ethics violations and faces possible disbarment.

I have a few questions:

• Where is the line between forgiveness and retribution?


• How much of the consequences that have been suffered by Imus were demanded by the members of the team, and how much simply arose from those who "took up their cause" (Sharpton and Jackson specifically)?


• The previous question can be also be asked in the Duke lacrosse case: Do the players just want to put the whole incident behind them or do they also really want to see Nifong disbarred?

Part of me believes that once the apologies were issued to both sets of players, they understood that what had happened to them was improper, but they were ready to move on from these events. They probably realize that words of apology do not always heal the wounds that have been created, but they do provide some sort of closure to a situation.

The cynical part of me believes that the press to seek additional retribution after the apologies is coming almost entirely from others besides the players, but here's another set of questions:

• Is that okay?
• Is it alright for the players to wish to move from these incidents, but that others can continue to press for additional penalties such as Imus' firing from CBS/NBC and Nifong's disbarment?
• How much of what happened to Imus and should happen to Nifong should have arisen from the desires of those who received the brunt of the comments/actions and how much should come from a desire to prove a larger point?