When I was in fifth grade, I remember standing on the playground one day, near the back of the field, where honeysuckle and this one tree that always spewed sap grew. A fight had broken out, because one girl said another girl was ugly. Not just lowercase ugly, but the upper case kind of ugly you spell out, slowly, tauntingly.

It was brutal, wretched fisticuffs. Fistfuls of hair. Biting. Eye gouging. By the time a teacher reached the nether regions of the playground, there was actual, bona fide blood involved. 

After sorting out  the reason for the melee, the teacher insisted the insulter apologize to the insultee.

The insulter looked at the other girl, grinned in the cocksure way only a girl sporting a shiner can, and said, "I'm sorry you're ugly."

I'm reminded of this incident for two reasons: Joe Barton's infamous nonapology he's since taken back, and another brouhaha that I've found myself embroiled in, with a Dallas columnist.

This columnist, Steve Blow, wrote a blog post today that has since been taken down. But you can get the general feel for it here, at another blog I write for.

Blow was writing about a story in the paper that employs him - the Dallas Morning News. The story was about a woman who came forward to say that a Catholic priest had touched her inappropriately when she was 12.

In the post, titled "Refreshing Pervy Priest," Blow said, "This is sad to say, but it's almost refreshing to read about a priest accused of good, old-fashioned heterosexual perviness. The dreadful stuff between priests and boys has been going on for so long that I almost forgot that some priests have more mainstream sexual hangups."

He then adds that this fact is why priests should be allowed to marry. 

Rightfully so, several people took him to task, including me. The post was wrong on so many levels. For one, the word refreshing has no place in a discussion of molestation. Two, wanting to molest young girls is not a mainstream sexual hangup. Three, married people molest children, too.

He didn't get it. First, he told everyone we just didn't get his humor. Then he "apologized."

But, just like Joe Barton, his apology was more in the vein of "sorry you're so ugly," than "sorry I said you were ugly."

He wrote:

"If you have to explain humor, it has failed. My attempt here at some sardonic humor has obviously failed with a number of readers. I apologize. No offense was intended - except toward the pervy priests of any persuasion." 

In other words, "I'm sorry you people are daft and can't understand my obviously sophisticated sense of humor, where molestation jokes are real gut-busters. I wish I had smarter readers."

But it would be one thing if a few readers and a few media professionals found his choice of words distasteful. But tonight, everyone learned that the victim found Blow's words hurtful as well.

 Mary O'Dell told the Dallas CBS affiliate that she had been a fan of Steve Blow's work before she read today's blog post. Now she feels hurt that he would make light of a situation that has brought her sleepless nights, agony, and pain.

And even though he "apologized," she too, thinks it wasn't enough.

"You're a man of words," O'Dell said. "You ought to be watching them a whole lot more carefully than that."

But I think the most hurtful thing is that many don't see anything wrong with Steve Blow's blog post.  They don't see the homophobic undertones, the misogynistic sleight of hand. It was a funny observation, they insist, and everyone that is all worked up about it lives in a world frought with political correctness.

Someone needs to go back in time and tell that to 12-year-old Mary O'Dell, and her brothers and sisters in pain. Because I'm assuming they felt, and still feel, nothing akin to refreshment.