Clocks and Bombs - Ahmed Mohammed and Stupid Media

By now everybody has heard about the 14 year old Muslim student, Ahmed Mohammed who made a clock, brought it to school, one teacher thought it was a bomb and he was taken out in handcuffs. I don't usually write about these types of news stories because there is too much out there already. To tell you the truth, I didn't even bother reading any of the news about this until today. I read the story because a famous Atheist named Richard Dawkins decided to write about it and actually said that people should have been scared, then Bill Maher said that the teachers should have been scared because Muslims are responsible for all the bombings in the last 30 years. These two morons were not alone in their stupidity. Others have claimed that this was all done intentionally to make a viral sensation.

Now here is where the garbage story falls apart. The first teacher in the school to see it was the engineering teacher. He actually told the kid he had done a good job. It was an English teacher that thought it was a bomb. That might make sense; but, here is what does not. The kid told them it was for his engineering class, didn't anyone bother asking the engineering teacher before arresting the kid? When they opened it and didn't find any EXPLOSIVES, why did they arrest him anyways? If he really wanted it to look like a bomb wouldn't he have put phony dynamite sticks or clay that had C4 written on it, something that looked like an explosive? I should also point out that the media claimed it was in a suitcase, it wasn't, it was in a large pencil case.

The schools explanation was that the student handbook prohibited kids from bringing in "suspicious" looking items. Huh? If kids take engineering classes and build stuff it would all look homemade and weird. I should also point out that the school gave the kid a 3 day suspension even after they knew it was just a clock made to impress his engineering teacher. While the school invited the kid to return they never apologized. Now, we can look at this as anti-Muslim, Arab paranoia or any other racial thing; but, in my opinion they would have arrested a white looking Christian too. The real paranoia involved was school paranoia and increasing restrictions and control of students.

Here is the thing about the media anymore, everything is put into very small boxes. Everytime a cop kills an unarmed black man, it is a black versus white thing. The conservative media makes it about people being anti-cop. It is neither. The fact is that the police have increasingly been shooting all people, whites, Asians, you name it; however, it is disproportionately blacks. The problem is bigger, it is police who shoot first and ask questions later. The police have become increasingly militarized and increasingly oppressive.

The media focuses it all on race and ignores the bigger issues because racial tensions get better ratings and people allow their responses to be more polarized. About the only reason I still write this blog is because I continually hope that people will begin to see how the media manipulates us  to miss the real issues.