Leave it to CNN to find a new and charming tidbit on the single piece of summer Ivy League news everyone is already sick of hearing about. Apparently, Henry Louis Gates sent a bouquet of roses to neighbor Lucia Whalen as an "expression of gratitude" for calling the police, albeit mistakenly. Perhaps Gates felt a little guilty for all the racial and political brouhaha he and the Cambridge Police stirred up. After the incident, Whalen was accused by the media of racism and received multiple threats to her personal safety. At the recent press conference she held on July 29 to clarify what had been written in the police report, she defended herself by saying that she did not assume the two men in front of Gates' house were black before she dialed 911. Cambridge Police spokesman Frank Pasquarello lauded Whalen for her actions:

She did the right thing. I applaud her. She did what we tell people to do: call when you see something suspicious. She did her civic duty.

Obama himself felt a little remorseful about the entire stupid situation, so--as everyone on and below Earth is aware of by now--he invited Gates and his arresting officer James Crowley to a beer summit at the White House last Thursday to promote better race relations. But perhaps in another poor act of judgment, Whalen remained the only person in the controversy uninvited to the reconciliation picnic hosted by the Commander-in-Chief. After being asked about the gathering, which has the entire American beer industry questioning its legitimacy/promoting their products, Whalen's lawyer Wendy Murphy responded that her client "doesn't like beer anyways."

Is a gender discrimination debate heating up to add to the racial profiling fire?

What with some members of Boston area police departments busy arresting innocent black professors, not apologizing, getting suspended for penning racist e-mails about said incident, and having beers with the President there doesn't seem to be much time left in the day to investigate the deadly shooting that occurred in May in Harvard's Kirkland House.

One suspect, Jabrai Copney, turned himself in shortly after the shooting, but it took the NYPD to bring in the other two alleged murderers. Blayn "Bliz" Jiggetts was arrested in June, and according to The Crimson they placed Jason Aquino under arrest on a Massachusetts warrant just yesterday.

Copney recently pled not guilty to all five charges he is facing in connection with the death of alleged Cambridge drug dealer Justin Cosby, who died shortly after what the Middlesex DA described as a failed drug robbery.  The other two suspects are in New York jail awaiting extradition. Case closed. The arrest scoreboard now stands at Cambridge police 0, NYPD 2, criminals 1, Harvard 1 expulsion. It's probably safe to say it hasn't been a good summer for the Cambridge police.

In the news conference that preempted Wipeout last night, the Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times asked President Obama about Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s arrest and what it says about race relations in America. Here is his response (in text here):

Two minutes later, fat people were getting knocked around by giant bouncy balls. Read the rest of this entry »