# 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:** 55
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1081 "2015-10-02T22:05:03Z")
I can’t believe this is how the thread ends ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1082 "2015-10-02T22:09:02Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > I can’t believe this is how the thread ends You can’t seem to believe that anything ends at all. Why don’t you just keep posting in the thread by yourself for another few months, just to show that you can? ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1083 "2015-10-02T22:12:00Z")
The story ain’t dead yet. > **['Clock boy' had 'racked up weeks of suspensions'](https://www.wnd.com/2015/09/clock-boy-had-racked-up-weeks-of-suspensions/)** > > A former teacher of Ahmed "clock boy" Mohamed is speaking out on the student's past – and it isn't pretty. Ralph Kubiak, 62, taught Mohamed's history class in seventh grade at Sam Houston Middle School in Garland, Texas. He told the Dallas Morning... ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1084 "2015-10-02T22:25:57Z")
Muckraking horseshit from WND in no sense ever constitutes a story. But I imagine you knew that. Can’t resist trying to stir up shit, huh? Is your life that boring? ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1085 "2015-10-02T22:38:53Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Muckraking horseshit Debunking horseshit is always part of the story ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1086 "2015-10-02T22:41:36Z")
I bet if we got \*\*curlcoat \*\*and **FXMastermind** in one thread we could create a singularity. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1087 "2015-10-02T22:42:33Z")
Who the fuck is curlcoat? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1088 "2015-10-02T22:47:29Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > The story ain’t dead yet. > > ['Clock boy' had 'racked up weeks of suspensions' \* WorldNetDaily \* by Douglas Ernst](http://www.wnd.com/2015/09/clock-boy-had-racked-up-weeks-of-suspensions/) From their disclaimer. > [@](#): > > WNDR assumes however all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website – even those based on real people – are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any persons, living, dead, or undead is purely a miracle. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1089 "2015-10-02T22:54:08Z")
A much better way to end the thread. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1090 "2015-10-02T22:54:21Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Muckraking horseshit from WND in no sense ever constitutes a story. > > But I imagine you knew that. Can’t resist trying to stir up shit, huh? Is your life that boring? World Nut Daily also likes to make shit up, they claimed that the clock was “similar to the one shown here”. Yep, making shit up. [QUOTE=World Nut Daily] Irving, Texas, Mayor Beth Van Duyne said on Glenn Beck’s The Blaze TV Sept. 22 Mohamed’s family refuses to allow the school district to release records that would exonerate police and school officials. [/QUOTE] Exonerate them from what? Appearing foolish? ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1091 "2015-10-02T22:56:14Z")
[Ahmed Mohamed’s “history of trouble” included getting caught blowing soap bubbles in school](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fox-host-teen-clockmaker-ahmed-mohamed_560e4826e4b0dd85030b8ae4). ---
**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:** [October 2, 2015, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1092 "2015-10-02T22:59:23Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > I can’t believe this is how the thread ends With a whimper? ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1093 "2015-10-02T23:05:47Z")
Quoting a report published in The Dallas Morning News, Kooiman explained how Ahmed’s seventh-grade history teacher, Ralph Kubiak, had described the teen as a “weird little kid” who had allegedly been suspended from school after being caught blowing soap bubbles in a bathroom. The teacher called Ahmed “one of those kids that could either be CEO of a company or head of a gang,” Kooiman noted. She added that Ahmed had been caught making mischief in school, such as creating “a homemade remote [which] he used to prank a teenager by shutting off a projector in class.” > **[Fox News Host: Teen Clockmaker Is 'Not As Innocent As He Seems'](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fox-host-teen-clockmaker-ahmed-mohamed_n_560e4826e4b0dd85030b8ae4)** > > Ahmed Mohamed's "history of trouble" included getting caught blowing soap bubbles in school. ---
**Author:** ![canned\_mayhem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/53a042/32.png) [@canned\_mayhem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/canned_mayhem)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1094 "2015-10-02T23:18:40Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > The story ain’t dead yet. > > ['Clock boy' had 'racked up weeks of suspensions' \* WorldNetDaily \* by Douglas Ernst](http://www.wnd.com/2015/09/clock-boy-had-racked-up-weeks-of-suspensions/) Shocked I tell you… SHOCKED!!! ---
**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:** [October 2, 2015, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1095 "2015-10-02T23:24:54Z")
Easy to dismiss FOX News or WND; not so easy to dismiss the [Dallas Morning News,](http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150926-before-ahmeds-fame-fantastic-inventions-and-a-fight-with-authority.ece) which reports that Ahmed did indeed “rack up weeks of suspensions”: > [@](#): > > [Ahmed] once built a remote control to prank the classroom projector and bragged of reciting his First Amendment rights in the principal’s office. > […] > Detention wasn’t the worst of it. While his discipline record is confidential and his father didn’t want to discuss it, the file was thick by some accounts. > […] > “I told you one day I’m going to be — and you told me yourself — I’m going to be really big on the Internet one day,” Ahmed said. > > The day after Kubiak and Ahmed spoke, a public relations consultant walked into Ahmed’s house with plans for a national tour: Google and California, the United Nations and Dr. Oz. > […] > The next time Kubiak tried to reach the boy, he had to leave a voice mail. > > He phoned again the next day and didn’t hear back. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![canned\_mayhem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/53a042/32.png) [@canned\_mayhem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/canned_mayhem)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1096 "2015-10-02T23:32:39Z")
My magic 8 ball says the apologists will attack the source, claim racism, blame Bush and then abandon this topic for the next scam MSNBC “discovers”. In 3, 2, 1… ---
**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:** [October 2, 2015, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1097 "2015-10-02T23:32:39Z")
The Dallas Morning News story seems to tell the tale of a weird, socially awkward and nerdy kid who made a friend with a teacher and was probably hoping to make the same from his engineering teacher in his new school. It also says that he made numerous “inventions” in his previous school which pretty much discredits the whole “He knows nothing about electronics!” nonsense. The WND photo showing the “clock” mounted on C4/clay/putty saying “Ahmed’s clock was similar to this” was pretty hilarious. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1098 "2015-10-02T23:40:54Z")
Also from that Dallas _Morning News_ article: > [@](#): > > It didn’t take Ahmed long to learn fluent English. Once he did, he had a habit of overusing it — trying to impress classmates with a nonstop stream of chatter, teachers said, and often annoying them instead. > > “I love him dearly, but sometimes it got to be a little much,” Kubiak agreed. “He just went on and on.” > > :snip: > > Ahmed said he was suspended for several weeks in sixth grade. A family friend, Anthony Bond, said the boy and a cousin were blowing soap bubbles in the bathroom, and the school overreacted. > > “Kids are kids,” said Bond, who has known Ahmed since he enrolled at Sam Houston. “He was a little boy in a new environment, and they were acting out.” > > :snip: > > By eighth grade, the young inventor was complaining of bullying — not just by students, but by staff. > > In November, Bond wrote a letter to the superintendent, school board president and other officials, protesting that Ahmed had been suspended for defending himself during a hallway fight. > > A larger boy had been choking Ahmed, Bond wrote. What’s more: “Ahmed also alleges that everyday, students in the school are calling him ‘Bacon Boy and Sausage Boy and ISIS Boy.’” > > Ahmed blamed an administrator at the school who, Bond wrote, the boy felt “has been terrorizing him since the 6th grade” — hindering him from praying in school and unfairly punishing him. The News is not naming the administrator because it has not yet been able to investigate Ahmed’s complaints. > > Bond’s letter called the boy’s treatment “Muslim bashing” — previewing outrage from people across the world after Ahmed blamed Islamophobia for his handcuffing this month. > > Bertha Whatley, who was Irving ISD’s attorney last year, said “high-level” officials at the district reviewed Bond’s letter. Bond said the principal overturned the suspension after meeting with Ahmed. > > :snip: > > Kubiak was no longer Ahmed’s teacher in eighth grade, but he said the two still talked in the hallways nearly every day. Discussions of politics or religion sometimes turned to his resentment at the powers that be. “His eyes were pretty watered up” the day he told Kubiak he was being bullied, the teacher said. > > “This kid was being pushed. At least he thought he was being pushed,” Kubiak said. “He’s got a habit for attracting or being in situations — being on the outside.” > > Ahmed wasn’t the only one. > > Kubiak, the eternal civil rights ideologue, was growing uncomfortable with Sam Houston’s administration. He complained to the superintendent that the school was too quick to suspend children and said he refused to use a new student evaluation system that “wrote some kids off.” He was booted down to teach sixth grade last year — and he knew he was done. ---
**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:** [October 2, 2015, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1099 "2015-10-02T23:40:57Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > The Dallas Morning News story seems to tell the tale of a weird, socially awkward and nerdy kid who made a friend with a teacher and was probably hoping to make the same from his engineering teacher in his new school. It also says that he made numerous “inventions” in his previous school which pretty much discredits the whole “He knows nothing about electronics!” nonsense. That it does. But then you have to ask why someone who can make real inventions would pass this off as one. Is there really any remaining dispute that father and son are publicity-seeking provocateurs? > [@](#): > > The WND photo showing the “clock” mounted on C4/clay/putty saying “Ahmed’s clock was similar to this” was pretty hilarious. It really was. ETA: Yes, **Skywatcher** –unlike many Ahmed “truthers”, my position is not that the school is blameless. I think Ahmed was clearly itching to expose their bigotry, get his revenge, and get famous on the Internet. Mission accomplished. Sometimes people use shortcuts to create “evidence” for guilt they know exists but otherwise cannot prove (think Mark Fuhrman and the bloody glove he likely planted). ---
**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:** [October 2, 2015, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/1100 "2015-10-02T23:47:38Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > That it does. But then you have to ask why someone who can make real inventions would pass this off as one. Because he wanted something quick he could bring? Because he thought it was cool? Doesn’t ring as all that damning to me. I mean, if he WAS trying to fake a bomb as part of a larger hoax, why would a kid who was legitimately interested in engineering half-ass it? > [@](#): > > Is there really any remaining dispute that father and son are publicity-seeking provocateurs? Sure. More to the point, there’s still zero evidence that the clock was intended to be mistaken as a bomb as part of a master scheme. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454.md?page=54) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454.md?page=56)