Apology

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg came to his senses and canceled the NYC marathon. But he didn't sound very happy about it. He can take credit for finally doing the right thing even if he had little choice. The visual juxtaposition of runners waiting for the race to start on Staten Island in warming tents with bagels and water, contrasted with nearby homeless Staten Island hurricane victims, would have been indefensible. In their joint statement Friday, Mayor Bloomberg and New York City Road Runners Director Mary Wittenberg blamed the growing controversy about holding the race as their reason for canceling it. The controversy, they argued, distracted from the recovery.

Given the trouble she's gotten into in recent years (think: trying to trademark the word "Hon"), one might presume Cafe Hon owner Denise Whiting would take special care to avoid unforced errors that cast her establishment in a less than flattering light. One might presume so. But one would be wrong. The Sun's Jill Rosen reported this week that Cafe Hon posted on its Facebook page a photo of one of its staff members in blackface for Halloween. That's right: a white person, in blackface, "dressing up" as a black person (in this case, the singer Whitney Houston)

Four years ago, a telegenic, charismatic senator from Illinois cobbled together a New Deal coalition of labor, environmentalists, progressives, African-Americans and young people to capture the presidency. It was an exciting time. America had elected its first mixed-race president. Another glass ceiling had been broken. Even those of us who opposed his policies recognized that the election of Barack Obama conveyed a positive message about America to the world. In D.C., a jubilant media speculated about a "post-partisan" Capitol Hill.

Katie Moody, the Baltimore-based Patriots fan, who is known on Twitter as @katiebrady12 and who has caught major heat after firing off an insensitive tweet to Ravens wide receiver Torrey Smith, has issued a formal apology. "I profoundly regret my thoughtless, tasteless, and completely inappropriate comment, and I deeply lament the pain that it has caused. I would like to apologize to Torrey Smith, his family, friends, and everyone who was distressed by what I said. I should have been offering sympathy and compassion for such a terrible and heart-breaking loss.

The attack on the American consulate in Libya that left four dead, including our ambassador to that country, Chris Stevens, is outrageous and deplorable. The senseless loss of life there should be a cause of mourning for Americans, not a flash point in the presidential election. That said, Mitt Romney has a point in criticizing some of the Obama administration's statements about the attack. The violence in Libya and simultaneous unruly protests at the American embassy in Cairo were ostensibly sparked by outrage over an obscure, unreleased film that is said to depict the Prophet Muhammad negatively and criticizes the Muslim religion.

Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown and Annapolis Mayor Joshua Cohen this week disclosed to The Sun how much money their administrations spent attending a May convention in Las Vegas, two months after the legal deadline to respond to a public information request.  Representatives for both men apologized for the lateness of the disclosures.  * Brown and his chief of staff spent just more than $3,000 in taxpayer money at the event, the Global Retail...

An image of Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's face on a roll of toilet paper recently circulated on the Internet has sparked turmoil within the local firefighters union whose members created it. The image, and another of Fire Chief James Clack's face in a toilet bowl, were determined to have been created and distributed online last month by two members of the Baltimore Firefighters Local 734 union who are now being disciplined, president Rick...

Although Mitt Romney is demanding an apology from the Obama campaign for spreading "lies" about him, it would seem that he should be the one apologizing. If he was still chairman, CEO, and president of Bain Capital from 1999 to 2002, as his own filings with the SEC indicate, then he is the one lying about leaving the company in 1999, not President Obama. If Mr. Romney is telling the truth about when he left the company, then he was lying to the SEC. And that is a felony for which he could face jail time in addition to owing an apology to the American people.

Is it any wonder why Southwest lost its top customer satisfaction rating when the airline seems to treat passengers with a lack of respect? I'm talking about a recent incident for which Southwest has already had to issue an apology, giving credibility to one woman's bizarre and buxom story. According to several reports, originally in Jezebel , a woman flying from Las Vegas to New York was deemed a bit too busty to fly on the airline. The woman, identified only as Avital, claimed she was told by a Southwest employee at a ticket kiosk that she would have to cover up her cleavage or she would not be able to get on her flight.

There are some things people who haven't served this country in the military should be real careful about. And one of them is opening their mouths on a national holiday dedicated to those who died serving this country to offer a freshman-level, introduction-to-cultural-studies deconstruction of an alleged link between the word "hero" and "justifications for more war. " Here is the statement MSNBC show host Chris Hayes made Sunday night on the...