Did anything happen to that prick cop who said “That’s the one I though it was” (or something close to that)?
If that isn’t indicative of a bigoted mentality that has no business with a badge, I don’t know what is.
Not surprisingly, some of the IMDb board’s mouthbreathers are coming out against the student. Head over the their Politics board if you want a good laugh.
It seems to me that the embarrassment is just perceived by you. Yes, it’s tragic that they couldn’t spend money helping others. What does that have to do with this? Do you suspect that people aren’t being allowed to give money to the organizations you mention and are forced to give it to Ahmed?
The rest of your post just seems to be the common fallacy of “how dare you care about X when Y is more important?” but changed to money instead of caring. There’s nothing to indicate these people are giving to Ahmed in lieu of these other organizations.
And I don’t see any evidence that the President or Space Camp or these various organizations saving him a seat if he happens to come are really spending all that much money. They’re making a statement.
As for MIT, he just been offered a tour–again, not much money.
And it’s also an advertising expense. Sure, everyone knows about Space Camp. But did you know about all these hacker’s conferences? Now people like Ahmed know they exist.
What I think is embarrassing are the liberals that have to go looking for reasons that what’s happening is wrong. It’s no better than when the bigot I mentioned earlier did it.
The thing is that Ahmed is now at the center of a huge situation that is not in his control and was not created by him. The English teacher may have reacted stupidly, but is probably subject to zero tolerance “report anything unusual”. The stupid people in this situation are the administrators and the police.
Since he is at the center of a (now viral) situation there is bound to be reaction from major players. The White House, Google, Facebook, et. al are using this situation (and using Ahmed) to highlight the ridiculous discrimination going on. He is not being hailed as a hero, being offered jobs at Google or Facebook, or being given admission to MIT. The ticket to space camp was just a nice gesture.
Just want to point out that as far as President Obama and the invitation to the White House are concerned, this is definitely not just about one lucky person. The President invited Ahmed to White House Astronomy Night, which has been held every year of his presidency. He has also held the White House Science Fair for the past five years. Yes, Ahmed is getting attention for going viral, but this president has made a serious effort to support young scientists that goes beyond one internet celebrity.
I’m pretty sure MIT and Space Camp also do plenty for young scientists who aren’t in the spotlight.
Or Clock King.
This would have blown over and forgotten about if the school and cops admitted to making a mistake and trying to do the right thing.
The next day the school sent out a letter to every parent making it worse, and bigots are falling over themselves in support of this crap.
It isn’t just that this happened, it is the acceptance of this by a large group of Americans that makes this REALLY not ok and I don’t blame anyone for addressing that fact.
Bristol Palin Slams Obama For Inviting Ahmed Mohamed To The White House
Because if you point out bigotry, bigots just got to hate more.
Agreed. And I don’t even think the English teacher reacted stupidly. If a cellphone interrupted class instead of a homemade alarm I think it’s reasonable for the teacher to confiscate it until the end of the class or even the end of the day. With an unfamiliar item, it’s reasonable to reach out to the administration on how to handle the situation.
I mostly agree with Ahmed. Some will have your back. Not all. But some. At any rate I’m glad he left us with a positive message.
If the physics teacher had told him the real deal, and taken the clock for safekeeping until the end of the day, sending him home with a stern warning to never ever have strange electronics in your backpack, and especially not to bring that shit to school, a theater or any public function, we would have never heard about any of this.
Sometimes doing the wrong thing makes things better in the end. Or something. I don’t know.
In any case, he should have made damn sure the clock alarm didn’t go off during class. But then, if he had done that, once again, we wouldn’t know anything about it.
It’s a stranger and beautiful world
Yep, the kid is at fault for being creative and innocent. The engineering teacher is at fault for not protecting bigots from themselves.
While playing bigoted moronic Texans like a Stradivarius would be impressive for a ninth-grader, it shouldn’t be more than a weekend research project for a cadet…
Someday, after he’s invented a successful fusion generator, or warp drive, or whatever, this will be an amusing anecdote in his Wikipedia entry.
He is not going to invent any of those things. The level of technical skill he displayed is minimal. It looks obvious to me he made a gag bomb as a joke (I agree he is not a terrorist)–I don’t think in the age of smartphones he would be so naive as to think anyone would be impressed with something that large in a valise that only told the time.
Hey, slacker. You really don’t need to keep posting stupid stuff. Everyone already knows you’re stupid.
So’s your face. 
(Sick burn though. You done got me real good.)
Damn. I’ve lived outside of America for too long. That reaction is simply not on my radar at all.
Somehow, in her mind, what Obama does divides the nation, but failing to support a sitting president and openly repudiating every gesture he makes does not divide the country. :rolleyes:
How many digital clocks did you make as a teenager, and how big were they?