Hair-Pulling Misadventures: Apologies of the Week

A familiar college goof and a strange one involving a prime minister who should know better are among the week's notable apologies:

• This again: "Please note this email was sent in error. We sincerely apologize for any confusion."—Drexel University, to about 500 applicants mistakenly told they had been accepted.
• Annoying customer is who? "His actions were intended to be light-hearted. It was never his intention to make her feel uncomfortable and he has apologized to her."—A spokesman for New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, after a waitress wrote about his weird habit of pulling her hair every time he visited.

• General's mea culpa: “I do apologize if I’ve added to your grief.”—Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, to the mother of a Navy SEAL killed in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2006. She objected to his recent statement that Ramadi is "not symbolic in any way" in the fight against ISIS. He explained that he was trying to convey that "we are in a different fight now."
• Rude robot: "We’re sorry for this inappropriate user-created content; we’re working to remove it quickly."—Google, after an image of the company's robot mascot showed up on Google Maps peeing on the Apple logo. Google promises to tighten oversight.
• Actually not an apology: "I regret my initial thoughts that the issue of slavery not be included in the story."—Ben Affleck, in a statement widely interpreted to be an apology, after it emerged that he successfully lobbied PBS' Find Your Roots to conceal that he had a slave-owning ancestor. (In his explanation of what happened, Affleck points out that it's not a news show.)