For me, the most refreshing and positive part of the Imus mess has been that basically no one has accepted any apologies, at least not in the conventional sense of, ok, you're forgiven, now let's all try to get along. Instead, Imus has been punished, and his enablers have been publicly shamed, not as much as I wish they'd been, but still, it's a small step forward.

Kos has certainly been guilty of a lack of empathy, but is that a crime? If only all the packets that have been switched to excoriate him and bemoan his insensitivity had been instead used to track down the supposedly "anonymous" men who've made Serra's life hell. Wouldn't better lessons be learned if there were pictures online of those guys being packed off to prison for a few years (or decades, if they made the threats in the U.S.)?

The older I get, the less I believe in redemption and the more contempt I have for "regrets" and "apologies."