A poor choice of letters in a previous column
Sex and Violence
Greg Karber
Issue date: 10/10/08 Section: Opinion
Following the publication of last week's column, I received quite a few hateful comments on The Arkansas Traveler Web site, some calling me a "self-indulgent loser writer" who "offers nothing."
But before you deride them for their heartlessness, you should know that it is actually I who am to blame.
You see, as hard as it might be to imagine, faithful readers, I seem to have made a minor mistake. Nothing major. But still, large enough that I feel compelled to issue a correction.
Apparently, I seem to have confused John McCain, a 72-year-old Republican senator from Arizona with a dubious reputation for being a maverick, with John McClane, Bruce Willis' character in the four Die Hard movies.
After considering this new information, I feel that I must withdraw my endorsement.
Sorry, Mac, but you're not the same guy I thought you were.
And I'm sorry to you, my faithful readers, but honestly, I have to admit I don't quite understand what the big deal is. I mean, it could have been a lot worse.
You may not know this, but many of history's greatest flub-ups were the result of seemingly insignificant typographical errors, many involving the exact same letter, the devious "l," as mine did.
For example, most of you faithful readers probably are familiar with the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, where their kamikaze pilots decimated our main Pacific Naval base.
What most of you probably don't know is that the Japanese pilots had actually been ordered to throw the American forces a klamikaze, or traditional Japanese clam-dredging festival intended to promote good will.
Unfortunately, someone's typewriter got stuck, and because those two words are so unreasonably similar, the Americans ended up joining World War II, beating fascism, saving Europe, and inspiring my fourth favorite Michael Bay film.
So in a way, a single "l," initially regarded as a horrible mistake, ended up changing the entire history of the world for the better.
But before you deride them for their heartlessness, you should know that it is actually I who am to blame.
You see, as hard as it might be to imagine, faithful readers, I seem to have made a minor mistake. Nothing major. But still, large enough that I feel compelled to issue a correction.
Apparently, I seem to have confused John McCain, a 72-year-old Republican senator from Arizona with a dubious reputation for being a maverick, with John McClane, Bruce Willis' character in the four Die Hard movies.
After considering this new information, I feel that I must withdraw my endorsement.
Sorry, Mac, but you're not the same guy I thought you were.
And I'm sorry to you, my faithful readers, but honestly, I have to admit I don't quite understand what the big deal is. I mean, it could have been a lot worse.
You may not know this, but many of history's greatest flub-ups were the result of seemingly insignificant typographical errors, many involving the exact same letter, the devious "l," as mine did.
For example, most of you faithful readers probably are familiar with the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, where their kamikaze pilots decimated our main Pacific Naval base.
What most of you probably don't know is that the Japanese pilots had actually been ordered to throw the American forces a klamikaze, or traditional Japanese clam-dredging festival intended to promote good will.
Unfortunately, someone's typewriter got stuck, and because those two words are so unreasonably similar, the Americans ended up joining World War II, beating fascism, saving Europe, and inspiring my fourth favorite Michael Bay film.
So in a way, a single "l," initially regarded as a horrible mistake, ended up changing the entire history of the world for the better.
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