Apologies accepted, Randy. I was rooting for the Giants, anyway. I also want to apologize for my Anglo-Saxon ancestors as they raped and pillaged many a Celt in the 5th and 6th centuries. I won't apologize for those fould Jutes who did worse in Kent.

Not that any of this remotely has to do with travel but in response to an earlier post: What in the world is "white history"?

I agree that apologies can seem empty. However, in some cases it can help heal by showing that a nation is committed to doing things differently in the future. How would you feel if you were a Jew and the German government never expressed remorse for what the Nazis did. An individual's remorse is fairly meaningless if that person was not involved personally, but a government's apology can at least set the tone for an official change at least (of course, I don't recommend waiting 1500 years). Timing is the key. It is not going to help if the apology comes after the change has occurred.

I completely agree about the watering down of history. Students need the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It is becoming the case with all education, however. Take a look at math.

As far as football goes, I want an apology from the Washington Redskins because they led me to expect great things this year. Maybe next time.

An interesting theory I have read about recently posits that the myth of the gallant south fighting for honor, tradition, and freedom was perpetrated mostly after the Civil War. It was evidently embraced by both northern and southern romantics and taken to heart.

The gist of the theory, which I probably will state poorly, is that this myth was the smokescreen to justify the virtual reintroduction of slavery known as Jim Crow.

What followed was sixty plus years of repression of blacks that we as a nation still deny, much like the denial of the Japanese or Germans of their atrocities in WW2. What followed included laws prohibiting voting, widespread lynchings, lynchings as recreational events, segregation, it goes on and on. I cannot blame the NAACP for disliking folks romanticizing their "southern heritage."

C`mon Pat. States rights? What right was being denied to the Southern states other than the right to enslave others?

One little fact, Mr. Straw. 90% of government funding in the 1850s came from the taxes of Southerners through a very high tariff on exports, most of which was Southern cotton and tobacco. Southerners were naturally very upset that they were subsidizing the north and midwest. Abe Lincoln and the Republicans of 1860 wanted to raise tariffs even further. Northern industrial concerns were masters of the Republican Party (as it could be argued that they are today) and they wanted protection from competition. As it turned out, the Morrill Act of about 1862 raised tariffs to the roof, the South was mercilessly crushed in 1865, and a corrupt reign of industrial plutocrats began post-1865. The robber barons were born on the backs of hapless Northern and Western farmers, an impoverished Northern working class and the corpse of the agrarian South. Learn your history on your won, Mr. Straw, and not from some idiot, half-educated high school history teacher.

And now we got a corrupt regime of industrial plutocrats running the nation no matter which party's in power. Glad we either won or lost the war.

Exactly, Mr. Curmudgeon. In the last election, only Nader and Buchanan revealed that they know the truth. But Nader is persona non-grata on the Left and Buchanan was humiliated by his small vote.