by sumac | Nov 28, 2016 | Historical Apologies
When the late poet Maxine Kumin had to defend her Radcliffe thesis, the committee asked questions about the thesis – “Amorality and the Protagonist in the Novels of Stendhal and Dostoevsky” – and also questions to test her general knowledge. She called it “torture.”...
by snarly | Feb 26, 2016 | Funny-on-Purpose Apologies, Historical Apologies
According to the charming web site The Irish Aesthete, this framed item hangs in a bathroom at Birr Castle, County Offaly. As a lowly American Jewess not of the peerage, I don’t know whether the contrite Earl of Rosse is the current Earl (the 7th, for those...
by sumac | Nov 17, 2015 | Historical Apologies
SorryWatch hopes it will not give reason to apologize because one of its members (Sumac) is off to Antarctica for several months, under the auspices of the NSF and the US Antarctic Program. But SorryWatch is not worried yet. At Palmer Station, Sumac will have email...
by sumac | Oct 21, 2015 | Historical Apologies, Religious Apologies
In 1880, when Charles Darwin was 71, he got a letter asking if he was a Christian. The letter-writer, worrywart F. A. McDermott, fussed, “If I am to have the pleasure of reading your books, I must feel that at the end I shall not have lost my faith in the New...
by snarly | Oct 11, 2015 | Historical Apologies
(Actually, a little searching for the source shows me that this image is a doctored version of this one. BUT STILL. Not sorry for sharing it. Be nice to your...
by sumac | Oct 8, 2015 | Historical Apologies
Eliza Hamilton, widow of Alexander Hamilton, had come to visit her daughter in D.C. She was chilling in the back yard with her teenaged nephew when a maid brought James Monroe’s card. (I am guessing this maid was an employee, as the Hamiltons were strongly...
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