Hi folks, What has surprised me about negative reactions to the Ben Stiller apology is that we as a community do not experience many ferret-bashing people or entities making public apologies...or any apologies, for that matter. Verizon Wireless, anyone? Our letters and emails didn't budge their ferret commercial one bit nor earn any apology for the harmful image of an "attack ferret" clinging to a screaming man's face. When "Jane" magazine ran a piece that was ferret-negative, the letters they received only prompted their editor to write a follow-up piece about how ferret owners were crazy, irrational people, and they did not retract their negative comments about ferrets, only printed choice letters that made the ferret people sound like uneducated, illiterate, Neanderthal idiots. On his radio show, Mayor Rudy Giuliani cut off the president of the New York Ferret's Rights Advocacy when he called to ask for ferret legalization, then railed on and on about how people who liked "weasels" were "sick" and "deranged". He has never apologized, nor budged from that opinion, that I am aware of, despite hundreds of ferret owners writing and calling to express their outrage and hurt over his comments. Ben Stiller has now made TWO very public displays of interacting positively with a ferret in addition to what impressed me as a well-delivered, sincere-sounding apology. While his Conan stunt may have been sillier than his ferrety interaction on The Today Show, it is still a boost for the reputation of ferrets that a person who was bitten by a ferret was willing to handle them and interact positively with them on two very prominent shows. The Today Show interview was a serious interview that offered a serious apology - let's remember that Conan is a very different kind of show with a different atmosphere and different expectations of its guests. If it had not been for the outcry from ferret folks and the subsequent change in Ben Stiller's attitude, imagine what kind of awful remarks he might've made on Conan! Instead, he followed up his morning apology by making a joke about ferret OWNERS, not ferrets, and again interacting in a perhaps silly but still positive way with a ferret. While I may not love the remark, I also cannot deny that ferret owners, when riled, CAN be scary, particularly to someone who did not know what kind of hornet's nest he was poking with a stick when he made comments about ferrets. After hearing that "ferret owners are scarier than ferrets", I too had a moment of offense. Then I reminded myself that the fairly strong emails he read on The Today Show were only a tiny sampling of what he received. I'm quite sure that not all the communications he received were as polite and well-written as Kim Schilling's. I do not doubt that he received more than a smattering of emails that were probably very emotional and got rude or downright insulting . Did he deserve them? Probably. But can we deny that ferret owners can be scary when defending their pets? We may not like the remark, but we may also have earned it for ourselves. Do I agree with Mr. Stiller using this ferret business to further his career and extend his publicity junket? Of course not! But as a ferret owner and lover who's spent a lot of time writing, emailing and calling various people and places that have made hurtful or negative comments or decisions about ferrets and gotten absolutely no response, let alone an apology, the much more positive press that ferrets have had in the last two days in regard to Mr. Stiller, and the initial apology itself, have been like manna from Heaven and have given me a very positive feeling that sometimes, defending the pets I love gets someone's attention and they admit they were wrong. The ferret community is not exactly deluged with apologies from those who hate ferrets, speak against ferrets, or seek to make ferrets illegal. In six years of writing letters and sending emails to address "ferret wrongs", this has the distinction of being the first full-fledged apology I have witnessed and I suspect many other ferret folks could say that, too. I think that Mr. Stiller's comments about the California ban were ill-advised, stupid, and potentially very harmful. But he retracted that statement, said that he has no intention of advocating it, and apologized for the remarks. While I do not at all defend his remarks nor do I condone them, I have to remind myself that a non-ferret person would not have a sense of how volatile or sensitive this issue is, and while in retrospect he realizes it was not appropriate joke fodder, it was a mistake and he said as much in his apology. If we refuse to acknowledge or accept a very public apology that was coupled with the positive images of the human interacting with the ferret, we risk becoming the irrational, unforgiving, crazy people that we're already reputed to be. More importantly, if we insist on sticking to the negative and refuse to acknowledge the positive aspects of this public, high-profile apology and subsequent efforts made to cast ferrets in a positive light, we risk being no better than all the people and organizations who have refused to offer the ferret community an apology when it was well-deserved and needed, or retract their harmful remarks or attitudes, and I KNOW that we are better than those cads. While the majority of us will probably never make a huge error in judgement and say things out of ignorance and misunderstanding that get broadcast on national TV and picked up by the AP wire service, I think that it behooves us to remember that apologies are often hard on any level and while I still grumble over the remarks, I applaud not only the apology but also the high-profile-ness of the apology. All of my efforts thus far to educate those who speak out against ferrets and harm their image have fallen on deaf ears. Mr. Stiller's apology, whatever its motivation, be it genuine regret or simply fear for his movie career, has given me new hope that ferret owners can make a difference in how their pets are viewed if they speak up and speak out. Let's not ruin it by refusing to accept a good apology, and when it comes to the silliness on Conan...c'mon, guys! We're FERRET owners!! If anyone has a sense of humor and the ability to laugh at ourselves a little bit, shouldn't it be us?? -Heather W. in Massachusetts [Posted in FML issue 4395]