<p>absolutly, positively at a glance this photo makes it appear Crowley is more concerned for Gates than O. Gates is clearly using the assistance, as Gates’ hand/ arm are behind Crowley and look to holding his back or arm.</p>
<p>However, has no one thought this “hekp” may very well been a planned photo-op?</p>
<p>the whole meeting was a well-planned photo-op. That’s not to say that gates and crowley didn’t accomplish anything, but there are definitely some planned pictures.</p>
<p>Oh good grief, this is ridiculous. That people would assign so much emphatic definition to a snap-shot in time that ultimately says virtually nothing definitive, shows where people’s agendas lay. It is indeed nice of Sgt. Crowley to try to help Prof. Gates down those few steps, but, if the prof. were routinely in need of help in negotiating stairs, I’m sure he would be rendered functionally disable with nothing more than a cane to assist him. </p>
<p>However, the very house at which the man was arrested has steps leading to and from its front door, steps which the professor must achieve each and every time he enters and exits his home. Flights of stairs, both long and short, steep and shallow, are ubiquitous fixtures in our society, and by virtue of this, I somehow feel certain that Prof. Gates has become practiced at their negotiation. Were that not the case, he’d probably need the aid of a much more enabling apparatus than a single cane.</p>
<p>I’m sure, given the familiarity of their friendship, that The President is aware of the parameters of the professor’s disability (whereas, Sgt. Crowley is not), and knew the man to be quite capable of handling the stairs unassisted. What’s telling is the desperation being displayed by those who are using this single photo to make political hay. Their agenda is showing in a most unflattering manner, as evidenced by the positively vicious anti-Obama comments that were posted by the readers of that blog. Yes, blog.</p>
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<p>LOL - parents aren’t the ones obsessing about #1 vs #2 vs #3, or starting threads about “rank the Ivies!” or “tell me your 15 most prestigious schools” or acting as though one is doomed to flip burgers for a living if you go to anything below #20. The only parents on CC who seem to pay that excruciating level of detail to the rankings tend to be the immigrant parents who haven’t quite learned that the rankings need to be taken in terms of general ranges, not minute differences.</p>
<p>Shame on you, StitchinTime, for posting Ann Althouse’s blog and suggesting that her analysis should be taken seriously. She also still believes that the still photo that supposedly reveals Obama looking at a young girl’s bottom is “telling,” when the full video clearly debunked any such notion. She’s the one who completely ripped a young female blogger a new one for having the nerve to wear a (high-neck!) sweater around Bill Clinton, accusing the blogger of “showing off her breasts” merely by means of wearing a normal, innocuous, everyday sweater that one might wear to church or work. I hope that isn’t the kind of person whose analysis you take seriously.</p>
<p>[The</a> White House - Blog Post - Over Beers](<a href=“http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Over-Beers/]The”>http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Over-Beers/)</p>
<p>Link to “Over Beers” pictures at the White House blog site</p>
<p>Without comments - in context</p>
<p>Pizzagirl- please stop paying attention to the liberal media’s views. they are obvious lies that the liberal media creates to cover for THEIR president. please listen to bill o Reilly, or better yet Glenn Beck’s point of view so you can uncover the truth</p>
<p>Food for thought? </p>
<p>Lol. The thought that occurs to me as I look at that blog with its ridiculously biased commentary is that if you’re anti-Obama, then you’re going to see everything, every single innocuous, meaningless thing through a negative filter. </p>
<p>What’s weird is the line in the comment about how this photo captured something about Obama’s character, about how he behaves when “nobody is looking.” It’s an official White House photo opp. The photographers don’t hide in the bushes, blogdude. The president knows they are there, taking pictures. And while it’s a nice gesture for Crowley to offer assistance, who says Gates needs his help? He was probably just fine without it, but doesn’t want to be rude by yanking his arm away.</p>
<p>This is just blindly biased, empty-headed punditry. </p>
<p>*I am stunned that the official White House Blog published this picture and that it is in the public domain. The body language is most revealing.</p>
<p>Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama, heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own. So who is compassionate? And who is so self-involved and arrogant that he is oblivious?</p>
<p>In my own dealings with the wealthy and powerful, I have always found that the way to quickly capture the moral essence of a person is to watch how they treat those who are less powerful. Do they understand that the others are also human beings with feelings? Especially when they think nobody is looking. *</p>
<p>I’d like to see what this guy has written for American Thinker that espouses compassion for the “less powerful.”</p>
<p>And then there was this gem of a comment made by one of Althouses’ readers, using what I am sure he/she imagines to be an example of “Ebonics”, and veritably dripping with racial resentment:</p>
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<p>Oh, but if asked, I’m sure this person would swear he/she’s not racist, and has no problem with the POTUS being a black man.</p>
<p>Uh-huh…:rolleyes:</p>
<p>“Lol. The thought that occurs to me as I look at that blog with its ridiculously biased commentary is that if you’re anti-Obama, then you’re going to see everything, every single innocuous, meaningless thing through a negative filter.”</p>
<p>you’re not above the positive/negative filter. very few people are</p>
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<p>Pinkslip, I’m not speaking for Pizzagirl 
but you are in HS, so what experience do you have so we can “uncover the truth?”</p>
<p>Maybe Crowley thought Gates needed help down the stairs because after Crowley cuffed him on his porch, Gates needed help getting down the stairs since he couldn’t use his cane well.</p>
<p>Since Obama and Gates are good friends, Obama probably knows that Gates doesn’t need help down stairs.</p>
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<p>Is that really what you wanted to say? This statement could only be true if its author relies on an entirely whimsical definition of … reasoning skills.</p>
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<p>Could it be that the students “get” what parents are trying to say, but have reasons to have different opinions and conclusion about what really happened? </p>
<p>And, based on the idle speculations posted on this thead, they might have very *good *reasons to stick to their own versions. After all, if it is absolutely true that the students do NOT know why they were accepted or rejected, it is even more true that none of the parents or other students who post here have more insight. </p>
<p>Only people who made the decision know … and nobody, nobody else does!</p>
<p>"Pinkslip, I’m not speaking for Pizzagirl but you are in HS, so what experience do you have so we can “uncover the truth?” </p>
<p>who are you to judge my experiences? you say high school in a condescending way like i’m some little sheltered kid, but you know nothing about me.</p>
<p>Good grief, some of us are the parents of high schoolers. You don’t have a lot of life experience. That’s not a slam, that’s simply the way it is. </p>
<p>BTW for those who are interested in takes on photographs of the day, bagnewsnotes (I can’t link to the blog, but google it) is a very interesting one. He’s into semiotics.</p>
<p>"CHILMARK, Mass. – Black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Sunday joked about his arrest by a white police officer, but also described receiving death threats and dreaming about being arrested at the White House.</p>
<p>In his first public appearance since sharing a beer at the White House on Thursday with the officer and President Obama, Gates said the national debate over racial profiling sparked by his arrest shows that issues of class and race still run “profoundly deep” in the United States…</p>
<p>But Gates also described how the incident and the subsequent national debate affected him personally. He said he had to shut down his public e-mail and change his cell phone number after receiving numerous death and bomb threats, including one that read, “You should die; you’re a racist.”…</p>
<p>Gates said that the night before he went to the White House, he dreamed about getting arrested there.</p>
<p>When the two first came face to face in the White House, Gates said that both he and his family and Crowley and his family “looked like a deer caught in headlights.”</p>
<p>He said Crowley looked “so relieved” when he shook his hand, and the two were able to find humor in the media frenzy unleashed by his arrest.</p>
<p>Gates said he and Crowley discussed meeting again privately – either going to lunch or taking in a Boston Red Sox or Celtics game – or having their two families go out to dinner together.</p>
<p>“I offered to get his kids into Harvard if he doesn’t arrest me again,” he said, drawing loud laughter from the audience."
[Gates</a> Jokes About Arrest At His Home; White House Visit - Political News - FOXNews.com](<a href=“http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/02/gates-jokes-arrest-home-white-house-visit/]Gates”>http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/02/gates-jokes-arrest-home-white-house-visit/)</p>
<p>Re Northstarmom’s post #1636.
So, on CC circa 2016: A thread
“Is this a hook for Harvard?
My dad only arrested Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. one time . . .”</p>
<p>LOL, QuantMech!</p>
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<p>I know pinkslip must be joking here.</p>
<p>Sigh, I guess it was too much to expect that the cop who sent the racist e-mails would have gone quietly off the force.</p>
<p>"BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) – A Boston police officer is suing the city after he was suspended for referring to a black Harvard professor as a “banana-eating jungle monkey” in an e-mail.</p>
<p>Boston police Officer Justin Barrett apologized for his e-mail about Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.</p>
<p>“If I’m charged with a crime I want a chance to answer. I want the chance for a fair hearing,” Officer Justin Barrett told CNN on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Barrett has apologized and denied he is a racist. His lawsuit claims his civil rights have been violated; Barrett’s lawyer said the words referring to Henry Louis Gates, Jr. were misinterpreted.</p>
<p>“The choice of words were poor; but they weren’t meant to characterize professor Gates as a banana-eating jungle monkey,” attorney Peter Marano said. “They were meant in a response to behavior and characterizing the behavior. Not the person as a whole.”
[Boston</a> cop who sent ‘jungle monkey’ e-mail sues - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/05/massachusetts.gates.lawsuit/]Boston”>Boston cop who sent 'jungle monkey' e-mail sues - CNN.com)</p>