I, Terrorist!
So the cause celebre of the last week was a scrawny 14 year-old South Asian Muslim-American kid named Ahmed Mohamad who built a (rather messy) digital clock and got arrested for bringing it to school when one of his teachers (NOT the one he was showing it to - and I will say that I'm impressed a 14 year-old even has an engineering teacher) thought it was a bomb. Despite it not being wired to anything that would go "boom". The school (and likely the town) is now a laughingstock to a degree I've not seen in a while.
In our overheated political culture, both "sides" now claim absolute certainty that the whole thing was a setup, though for what depends on what prisims you're wearing. Both arguments hinge on the school not calling the bomb squad.
One side claims that this was a setup to humilate a Muslim kid.
My problem with that is that there are probably a multitude of ways to do that which are far less spectacular, and that probably occur to this kid every day already. If this was the plan, it kind of, well, blew up in their faces. So to speak.
The other "side" claims that this was all a plot by the boy's father, "a known Muslim activist", and that the kid simply tore apart a Radio Shack clock, and made the school look stupid. And (of course) is was all probably Obama's doing (wow, he really *is* a busy guy, especially in Texas).
My problem with that is, well, then, the school is doubly stupid for taking the bait and making a fuss over something not a bomb; if they’d been smart, they'd have just said “Nice try, kid, give our best to your Socialist Kenyan Muslim master"
Or, the immortal scornful words of noted terrorist Magneto, "I thought you people lived at a school….."
What both of these fevered scenarios overlook is that he was under threat of having a fake bomb. Which says to me the cops didn't bother evacuating the school or calling in the bomb squad because they knew it wasn't a bomb; they thought Ahmed was trying to scare people with a fake bomb. And it wasn't even that. He could "not be forthcoming" as the cop in the press conference said, because there was nothing to forthcome. It was a clock.
On the Nightly Show, Ice-T told a rather amusing story of being detained (and then skipping out on) the same charge (his story is even sillier).
And then today I realized - I'm guilty of the exact same crime. I, too, am a fake-bomb terrorist.
The year was (so long ago I don't really remember). A somewhat emotionally distraught artist, upset over a vote - I think it was to open Westlake Park to traffic - rolled his truck into the intersection of Westlake and 4th Ave., and popped all four tires. Now, there was a graffito on the truck's front bumper that read "(something something) is Da Bomb!!!" So, naturally, that brought out the bomb squad, who tied up downtown Seattle traffic, trying to defuse a bomb-less truck. Fun all around, that evening.
A little while after that, as one my last events for the Cacophony Society (which, as per usual, no one showed up for), as a practical joke I stuck some rope into some bowling balls (the classic cartoon
"bomb") and wrote, on masking tape "Not a Bomb" on these and left them in the planters at Westlake. Naturally, no one noticed. But I'm sure today I'd be up on "fake bomb" charges (if that's even a thing in this city and state).
So.... yeah, I already stand with Ahmed, whichever way he’s titling.
And I'm glad you're getting out that school, kid!
In our overheated political culture, both "sides" now claim absolute certainty that the whole thing was a setup, though for what depends on what prisims you're wearing. Both arguments hinge on the school not calling the bomb squad.
One side claims that this was a setup to humilate a Muslim kid.
My problem with that is that there are probably a multitude of ways to do that which are far less spectacular, and that probably occur to this kid every day already. If this was the plan, it kind of, well, blew up in their faces. So to speak.
The other "side" claims that this was all a plot by the boy's father, "a known Muslim activist", and that the kid simply tore apart a Radio Shack clock, and made the school look stupid. And (of course) is was all probably Obama's doing (wow, he really *is* a busy guy, especially in Texas).
My problem with that is, well, then, the school is doubly stupid for taking the bait and making a fuss over something not a bomb; if they’d been smart, they'd have just said “Nice try, kid, give our best to your Socialist Kenyan Muslim master"
Or, the immortal scornful words of noted terrorist Magneto, "I thought you people lived at a school….."
What both of these fevered scenarios overlook is that he was under threat of having a fake bomb. Which says to me the cops didn't bother evacuating the school or calling in the bomb squad because they knew it wasn't a bomb; they thought Ahmed was trying to scare people with a fake bomb. And it wasn't even that. He could "not be forthcoming" as the cop in the press conference said, because there was nothing to forthcome. It was a clock.
On the Nightly Show, Ice-T told a rather amusing story of being detained (and then skipping out on) the same charge (his story is even sillier).
And then today I realized - I'm guilty of the exact same crime. I, too, am a fake-bomb terrorist.
The year was (so long ago I don't really remember). A somewhat emotionally distraught artist, upset over a vote - I think it was to open Westlake Park to traffic - rolled his truck into the intersection of Westlake and 4th Ave., and popped all four tires. Now, there was a graffito on the truck's front bumper that read "(something something) is Da Bomb!!!" So, naturally, that brought out the bomb squad, who tied up downtown Seattle traffic, trying to defuse a bomb-less truck. Fun all around, that evening.
A little while after that, as one my last events for the Cacophony Society (which, as per usual, no one showed up for), as a practical joke I stuck some rope into some bowling balls (the classic cartoon
"bomb") and wrote, on masking tape "Not a Bomb" on these and left them in the planters at Westlake. Naturally, no one noticed. But I'm sure today I'd be up on "fake bomb" charges (if that's even a thing in this city and state).
So.... yeah, I already stand with Ahmed, whichever way he’s titling.
And I'm glad you're getting out that school, kid!