Dear Mark Whicker:

What in God's name were you thinking?

So how do you follow that up?

A. Release an "apology" in which you express regret for the people who got offended without doing the two things you should have done, which are (1) say you were wrong and (2) say you are sorry.

B. Have your employers also accept culpability for your idiocy.

C. Make flippant remarks while being interviewed about your idiocy.

D. Continue to be employed as a professional writer.

E. All of the above.

(By the way, a busy Labor Day schedule at a newspaper is why you see dangling participles and misspelled words in your print edition; that's no excuse for running a horrific piece of words jumbled together that makes light of quite possibly the worst thing short of death I can think of happening to a young woman like Jaycee Dugard.)