In the newspaper today is yet another picture of the top dogs of some company or other bowing deep apologies to the press. I’ve I had only know about this sort of thing when I first arrived, I would have started cutting all those pictures out and stuffing them between the walls of my house. That way, if nothing else, all those apologies would at least be insulating me in the winter.

This time it’s Snow Brand Foods, who apparently didn’t get enough attention when they poisoned several hundred people by recycling expired milk products last year. Now they have capitalized on the BSE (mad cow disease) scare by milking (ha ha) government subsidies granted for buying up and destroying domestic beef. They brought in a load from Australia and relabeled it as domestic to seel to the unsuspecting government. In the end someone must have noticed the Aussie accent.

So here they are, three men in boring suits (I’ve never noticed any women in this position, though I suspect it’s a question of demographics rather than gender differences in corruptibility) bowing deeply in front of a grove of microphones. I’ll admit that looking at the tops of their heads almost makes me feel better, but only when I picture everyone injured by their cheating being given free shots with a nerf bat on those distinguished, graying pates. In this case, that’s everyone who pays taxes in Japan, which is a lot of thwock-thwock-thwocking. That might make the apology worth something. But then again, to paraphrase Groucho Marx, corporate apologies are to apologies what corporate welfare is to welfare. And you can call me cynical if you want to.

Of course, the last time these same guys were bowing to the nation, I think special dispensation would have to have been given to all the potential nerf beaters who were lying in hospital beds with food poisoning. Or perhaps those CEOs would simply like to join the people in a class of reconciliatory milk. And the company who gave people alkali poisoning by dumping in a heavily fished area should be sent for a swim after their apology. After that we can ship most of the government off to that island where they used to keep the lepers; in twenty years we’ll send someone out there to check on the progress of their apologies. Then, with these precedents in mind, if the police ever apologize for ignoring that guy who kept an abducted girl in his room for nine years, I’m sure the next decade sharing his cell should be ample apology. (Or maybe that gun-toting gangster who got the same officers to release his girlfriend can get them out too. I’m sure if they apologize to him for confiscating his uppers, his gun, and his girlfriend, he’ll be glad to help them out.)

Of course I realize that my being unimpressed by these apologies is largely cultural. Of course I realize that Japanese society has it’s own way of doing things. And for it’s symbolic value, I suspect you would have a hard time getting the execs at Enron to bow for the cameras. (If you don’t know about Enron, it was a fabulously wealthy energy reselling company that helped float US President Bush’s campaign(s). Wall Street was swooning over it’s stock until somebody noticed that it was doing so well because it was hiding all its debts and liabilities. When things began to implode, the execs propped it up long enough to sell their then-much-sought-after stock. Then, in the ensuing shitstorm, Enron shredded all it’s auditable documents, and left all its shareholders empty-handed and its employees unemployed and pensionless.) But while I know that Enron and it’s people will never be seen or heard from again, Snow Brand is still making food products, even if most of them have been taken off of supermarket shelves. They will get a slap on the wrist for fraud, and that will be the last of it. I can’t help but wonder how the case would be different in the US. Snow Brand would probably have to build some kind of refugee camp for people waiting in line to sue them. And though no one is likely to get any jail time, they are likely to spend the rest of their lives in court, which in many ways is close enough, not to mention cheaper for the taxpayers. And Your Honor, let the record clearly show that that the defendants are very, very sorry.