# RO: This is totally going to kill Bring Your Clock to School Day **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 16, 2015, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454 "2015-09-16T08:35:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 34
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/661 "2015-09-23T13:49:37Z")
How was there any risk of any of that? As people keep pointing out over and over: he never said it was a bomb, and there was no explosive. I mean, people, c’mon: make up your minds! ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/662 "2015-09-23T13:52:26Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > How was there any risk of any of that? Ask the people who arrested him. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/663 "2015-09-23T13:52:48Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > Indeed, the Irving mayor, who may very well be an islamophobe and a racist, has [pointed out](http://townhall.com/columnists/kyleshideler/2015/09/22/irving-mayor-ahmed-mohameds-family-blocking-release-of-records-obama-tweeted-support-even-before-clock-pic-released-n2055545/page/full) (right-wing site, you’ve been warned) that they’re unable to release their side of the story because Ahmed is a minor. Which may just an attempt at deflection; I’m not sure what could be in the report that would justify handcuffs. But I think she’s got a point in that we all seem very comfortable saying that maybe a dozen grown, professional adults all made a horrible, racist mistake just to avoid the mere suggestion that maybe a 14 year old was playing a prank. She issued two press releases and gave a press conference. How much more of “her side” could there possibly be? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/664 "2015-09-23T13:54:35Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > As people keep pointing out over and over: he never said it was a bomb, and there was no explosive. One of the reasons the police say they arrested him was _his refusal to admit_ it was, or was intended to be, anything other than a clock. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/665 "2015-09-23T13:55:38Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Awww…I saw those nice things you said about me before you understandably thought better of what they would do to your SDMB reputation. Aren’t you sweet! 😃 OK, I"ll repeat just the relevant things from that paragraph, with some paraphrasing to lose the irrelevancies: Your posts are coherent both structurally and thematically. You use language well, and present your ideas in engaging and often thought-provoking ways. Your problem, displayed in the more _dumfucted_\* posts of yours that I’ve seen, seems to be an overly narrow and restrictive viewpoint behind which you’ve entrenched your theses, and which you adamantly protect from contamination by other perspectives. \*not a real English word, use caution when appropriating ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/666 "2015-09-23T14:01:34Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > She issued two press releases and gave a press conference. How much more of “her side” could there possibly be? > [@](#): > > “As a juvenile, they can not release those records. The school district, a number of times, has asked the family, to release the records, so that you can have the balanced story out there. The family is ignoring the request from the ISD.” > > Van Duyne told Beck it would “help to describe why it progressed as it did” if the records were available. She can do all the press events she wants but if she’s prohibited from releasing certain info, they’re all for naught, right? ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/667 "2015-09-23T14:04:27Z")
> [@canned\_mayhem](#): > > Can you imagine what the lefts reaction would be if this was a white boy wearing an NRA t-shirt? Have we reached the point where objecting to stupidity and prejudice must necessarily come from a “left” stance? Also, since when is _NASA_ the sole province of leftists? Anyway, speaking for myself (never identified as a member of any party), the kid’s skin color and shirt, like his religious heritage, have nothing to do with my reaction. Can the school teachers, administrators, and the police say the same? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/668 "2015-09-23T14:12:15Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > She can do all the press events she wants but if she’s prohibited from releasing certain info, they’re all for naught, right? Did you read/hear the mayor and police chief’s statements? They gave all the details except the name of the student. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/669 "2015-09-23T14:13:34Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > OK, I"ll repeat just the relevant things from that paragraph, with some paraphrasing to lose the irrelevancies: Your posts are coherent both structurally and thematically. You use language well, and present your ideas in engaging and often thought-provoking ways. > > Your problem, displayed in the more _dumfucted_\* posts of yours that I’ve seen, seems to be an overly narrow and restrictive viewpoint behind which you’ve entrenched your theses, and which you adamantly protect from contamination by other perspectives. Even nicer. Thanks \<3 > [@Jophiel](#): > > Ask the people who arrested him. Fine–how about the imprisonment and expulsion? (Although he doesn’t want to go back to the school anyway.) My point is that in this scenario, his dad wasn’t risking any permanent harm to his son. I can think of many types of political activism that are far riskier. > [@steronz](#): > > She can do all the press events she wants but if she’s prohibited from releasing certain info, they’re all for naught, right? Can we all agree that Ahmed’s family should just clear the air and agree to release the records? > [@Peremensoe](#): > > Also, since when is _NASA_ the sole province of leftists? At the risk of going off topic, this is sadly on point. My mom is the perfect example of the kind of liberal (voted for Nader multiple times starting in 1996, is supporting Bernie Sanders now, etc.) who is actually pretty anti-NASA. She grew up with it being pretty tied in to the military-industrial complex, and argues that it spends a lot of money that would be better aimed at social programs and the like. (Not that I’m against social programs, but I don’t believe the two should be in conflict.) ETA: > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Did you read/hear the mayor and police chief’s statements? They gave all the details except the name of the student. What I have in mind is things he may have done or said in the past. Did they release those? ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/670 "2015-09-23T14:20:15Z")
> [@canned\_mayhem](#): > > Well I see the apologists have abandoned their argument in favor of childish attacks on an opposing opinion. > > Not much else to discuss huh? We’d pretty much treat anyone who posted about being abducted and taken to a parallel universe, for wild sex with 9 foot tall females, the same way. The difference is that their story would be a little more believable than yours, and a whole lot more interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/671 "2015-09-23T14:20:29Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Fine–how about the imprisonment and expulsion? (Although he doesn’t want to go back to the school anyway.) My point is that in this scenario, his dad wasn’t risking any permanent harm to his son. Right. Because if anything happened, he would absolutely be the first person mistreated by police, held unfairly, brought to court on false or weak charges, etc. Had the school stuck with “We think it’s a bomb or was intended to be presented as a bomb” story and the police collaborated, he could have been liable for “terroristic threats” under both the school policy (best result: special disciplinary schooling under Texas state law) and felony charges. Look, your argument is just incredibly weak and, frankly, sort of racist. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/672 "2015-09-23T14:20:51Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Can we all agree that Ahmed’s family should just clear the air and agree to release the records? Erm, well, no. It seems to me that if a city is going to pass laws protecting the release of information about minors, they shouldn’t then turn around and demand that the parents release that information voluntarily. Frankly, I think the mayor even asking that they release the records is going to far. I’m just saying, for us the public interested in learning the truth, it’s a shitty situation; all we have to go on is whatever the parents want to say. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/673 "2015-09-23T14:26:36Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > What I have in mind is things he may have done or said in the past. Did they release those? Ah. No, I don’t think so. You can bet your arse the _Daily Caller_ or Breitbart orsome other right-wing smear factory would have found somebody else willing to talk about it if he’d done something before, though (or even if he hadn’t). ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/674 "2015-09-23T14:26:55Z")
It kind of seems to me like the parents shouldn’t be \*able \*to say much to the press if they won’t let the school have their say. > [@Jophiel](#): > > Right. Because if anything happened, he would absolutely be the first person mistreated by police, held unfairly, brought to court on false or weak charges, etc. So you’re saying the parents of teenagers who made their way to D.C. in August 1963 were guilty of poor parenting if they helped them get there? ETA: > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Ah. No, I don’t think so. You can bet your arse the _Daily Caller_ or Breitbart orsome other right-wing smear factory would have found somebody else willing to talk about it if he’d done something before, though (or even if he hadn’t). As you say: “even if he hadn’t”. So there probably \*is \*something like that out there, but we have no real way to vet it. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/675 "2015-09-23T14:30:19Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Did you read/hear the mayor and police chief’s statements? They gave all the details except the name of the student. Nope; I’ve read snippets covered in news articles, I haven’t seen the full statements though. Got a link? ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/676 "2015-09-23T14:39:17Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > So you’re saying the parents of teenagers who made their way to D.C. in August 1963 were guilty of poor parenting if they helped them get there? I don’t believe I said anything remotely similar. I said that your argument is very weak. It is very weak because it relies on a tremendous amount of conjecture and making up motives that go against common sense. You have no evidence for it stronger than “I bet this happened” followed up by guesses that don’t make sense. If what you got from that is some random bit about 1963 then… sure. That actually helps explain how your thought process here works. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/677 "2015-09-23T14:44:59Z")
Fine, I’ll connect the dots for you. You said you doubted my theory of the case because it would mean the father was exposing his son to too much risk. I argued that the risk wasn’t really all that high, because he wasn’t committing a crime (or couldn’t be proven to be doing so). You retorted that any act that got him on the authorities’ radar could potentially escalate into risk of police violence or trumped up charges. My point then is that the same argument could be made against letting a teenager participate in any protest or civil disobedience, including the March on Washington. This boy’s father is pretty inarguably an activist; the level of risk this action would expose his son to is certainly less than that engendered by participating in the civil rights movement of a half century ago, and he presumably believes this anti-Islamophobia movement is every bit as important. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/678 "2015-09-23T14:47:16Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It kind of seems to me like the parents shouldn’t be \*able \*to say much to the press if they won’t let the school have their say. > > … Seriously with what the school did to Ahmed do you really think the parents want them near Ahmed again? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/679 "2015-09-23T14:51:41Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Seriously with what the school did to Ahmed do you really think the parents want them near Ahmed again? Near him? Why can’t they just messenger over a release? ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2015, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/680 "2015-09-23T14:55:18Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Near him? Why can’t they just messenger over a release? You know “near him” included referring to him, looking at him, even thinking about him. I’m pretty sure the parents, like most of us here, possess a strong vote of “zero confidence” in that school and it’s administration. They played their hand, and Ahmed survived it. Now let the child continue to develop and hopefully he’ll become a leader in his chosen field. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454.md?page=33) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454.md?page=35)