It's rare to see a straightforward public apology with nary a weasel-word in it, but that's precisely what Jeff Bezos has produced. Good for him. Not that my concerns are assuaged, but good for him.
The New Atlantis Blogs:
- Text Patterns
- Futurisms
- Practicing Medicine
Friday, July 24, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
About
Commentary on technologies of reading, writing, research, and, generally, knowledge. As these technologies change and develop, what do we lose, what do we gain, what is (fundamentally or trivially) altered? And, not least, what's fun?
Alan Jacobs
Alan Jacobs is Distinguished Professor of the Humanities in the Honors Program of Baylor University and the author, most recently, of How to Think and The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography. His homepage is here.

Sites of Interest

How to Read Well in an Age of Distraction
Watch video of Alan Jacobs discussing his book in a Washington, D.C. lecture in June 2011.

Frequently-Used Tags
Blog Archive
-
►
2016
(115)
- December (24)
- November (20)
- October (16)
- August (6)
- July (13)
- June (18)
- May (16)
- April (2)
-
►
2014
(142)
- October (12)
- September (20)
- August (22)
- July (17)
- June (5)
- May (14)
- April (12)
- March (15)
- February (10)
- January (15)
-
►
2011
(135)
- August (9)
- July (8)
- June (14)
- May (28)
- April (13)
- March (24)
- February (16)
- January (23)
-
►
2010
(331)
- December (28)
- November (19)
- October (21)
- September (25)
- August (20)
- July (33)
- June (54)
- May (44)
- April (19)
- March (24)
- February (19)
- January (25)

He admitted fault! Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of litigation!
Hmm. On reread, I see that he did no such thing. He says they were "stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles" which sounds humble and all, but he doesn't actually name anything that they did wrong.
I'm not sure this is materially different from a weasel apology of the "I'm sorry you were offended by what I did" genre. I'm tempted to say that an apology that doesn't make you vulnerable to a lawsuit is not a real apology. A real apology ought to demonstrate you understand what harm you did and why it was wrong.