First one, then t’other.
Some of the comments following the Dallas Morning News’s article about these events make for rather ‘interesting’ reading.
His “handlers”? Wow.
“Those evil Muslims tricked us into being racist!”
Teachers operate under a great deal of pressure to report anything that might be suspicious. The English teacher in question obviously didn’t feel threatened by the clock (or she would have acted differently), but she really had no good options after initially questioning him about it. If she’d let the issue drop and then something *had *happened later in the day, she would have been in serious trouble with an obviously unreasonable school administration.
The first failure in this whole chain of events starts with the engineering teacher. He knew exactly what would happen if a layman saw the clock. He should have taken it from Ahmed, put it in his office, and had the kid return at the end of the day to pick it up before going home. Or he even could have written Ahmed a lousy note to tape to the clock for any other teachers who might see it.
At the end of the day, this is a very positive story for Ahmed. He’s getting a lot of great support and might even get to meet the president. Pretty cool.
His “handlers”? Wow.
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This was absolutely not planned by Ahmed and there were no “handlers”, but I have to say if that were the case, then I’d say good for him. Good for him for making these people show what they are and using their ignorance and bigotry against them and to benefit himself.
I just hope that when Ahmed gets to the white house, and has his moment with the president, he looks to the camera and says, “I’d like to say hi to my English teacher, Principal and the fine folks at the Irving police department. Without your help, I’d never have made it this far.”
Seriously–if he planned this whole thing out and achieved such a thorough victory over his enemies, I want him to get a full scholarship to West Point.
Tell me about it.
Being clever enough to build a clock from scratch: we need to encourage that kid.
Being clever enough to manipulate your teacher, the school’s administration, the police and the mayor’s office in order to gain money, fame and a trip to the White House: Holy crap, the kid is a genius. We either need to elect him to office or keep an eye on him in case he turns into Lex Luthor.
Pssssst, everyone at West Point has a “full scholarship.”
This part didn’t seem to be much of a challenge. 
What’s on the menu, chicken nuggets? What an inspiring message to send the nation.
George Takei just posted an amazing open letter to Ahmed on his facebook page. Talking about his own experience being a kid in an internment camp in the USA during WWII. Well worth a read.
Stop confusing me with pesky facts!
IME that kind of thing doesn’t die down; the principal and police will prolly be racist, bigoted and stupid for the rest of their lives, IMO.
Oh, not long – teenage attention spans, y’know.
Peter principle. Google it, grok it, live with it. Every second of every day.
Seriously though, the police and schools (and the armed forces and the postal service, for that matter) have one thing in common : a budget that wins the limbo competition every year and salaries to match. Competent administrators go somewhere they expect to earn at least a little more than one Mars bar (second hand), a handful of old socks (no match among them) and all the lint you can fit inside one pocket. Per annum.
In Texas? You don’t need that to be governor.
I thought that the school should cancel the suspension, but he needs the time to respond to the White House and just about every CEO in Silicon Valley who are saying building clocks and stuff is exactly what made them successful. He has already been offered one internship.
I didn’t see the debate last night. Did this come up?
While I support Ahmed, and wish him well, and think that what happened to him really sucked, I also think that the adulation that is being heaped on him is a bit over the top and kind of embarrassing for our side.
He’s not a great hero, or some electronic genius, he’s a bright kid who soldered a few bits together and got mistreated by a bunch of bigots for an afternoon. He deserves an apology from the administration, a reversal of his suspension, and possibly a minor legal settlement, not a trip to the white house, Space camp, MIT tuition and a year supply of rice-a-roni or what ever other wonderful prizes are found behind door number 2. At this point he is pretty much being used by all those groups who want to appear to be “doing something” about the cause of the moment. Its not really that different from the $840,000 that was raised by homophobic pizza, with the exception that Ahmed seems like a nice kid and isn’t actually asking for the shower of gifts.
The problem with this is that all the attention a resources go to one lucky person rather than spread out among the general need. It reminds me of the Red Cross after 9/11. They recieved more donations than they could possibly spend on the 9/11 victims but when they tried to shuffle some of the money to other causes that actually needed it they got smacked down hard. Far better to give to a Muslim anti-defimation league than to send Ahmed to MIT which he may or may not even what to go to.
He’s said he does dream of going to MIT.
As for the suspension, since he’s looking to transfer out of there anyway, it doesn’t really matter.