Wednesday, September 16, 2015

DIGITAL CLOCKS FINALLY REACH IRVING, TEXAS

It's really quite charming to realize that there are some parts of this great country where the modern age has been slow to penetrate. So slow, in fact, that much that we take for granted in our arrogantly superior coastal urban crust is completely unrecognizable.

Like technology.

Places where people still rub two sticks together to make fire. Or, in the mistaken belief that somehow it matters, rub two sticks together to tell time.

Places like Irving, Texas.


AHMED MAKES A CLOCK

In an effort to speed the march of progress, Ahmed Mohamed, a fourteen-year old highschool student, built himself a digital clock. Justifiably rather tickled with his own cleverness -- as well he should be, because lord knows most of us couldn't build a digital pair of shoes, let alone a digital clock -- he took the device to school.

And showed it to people who only understand analog.

Not digital.


[For the benefit of folks who were born during the modern age, I drew a quick illustration of an analog device. The long black line points to the top of the hour, the shorter one at the sequential number of the hour. In this illustration, the clock tells you that it is two o'clock. Hope this helps.]

Naturally, they took one look at all the complicated doohicky inside, and at Ahmed's guilty brown Muslim face, and blew a gasket.

[Photo from Geekdad, who lifted it from Ahmed's Twitter Stream.]

It's a bomb, it's a bomb, it's a bomb, it's a bomb, it's a bomb, it's a bomb, it's a bomb, it's a bomb, it's a bomb, it's a bomb, it's a bomb, it's a bomb, it's a bomb, it's a bomb, it's a bomb, it's a bomb, it's a bomb, it's a bomb, IT'S A BOMB!

You will note that in this photo, Ahmed looks remarkably like a Mexican. But, as is well known, Mexicans with Spanish names are mostly rapists and criminals, whereas Mexicans with unpronounceable names are all Meslums.

[Simple rule of thumb: Spanish name = rape and cocaine party packs. Unpronounceable name = Meslum, and a bomb.]


According to the police in Irving, Texas, the device is not a bomb (they figured that out), but a 'hoax bomb'. Real bombs can explode.

CITE:
Ahmed Mohamed — who makes his own radios and repairs his own go-kart — hoped to impress his teachers when he brought a homemade clock to MacArthur High on Monday.
Instead, the school phoned police about Ahmed’s circuit-stuffed pencil case.
END CITE

[SOURCE: No charges against Ahmed, and race played no role.]


FURTHER CITE:
Update at 11:20 a.m. Wednesday: At a press conference this morning, Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd said Ahmed Mohamed was arrested for bringing "a hoax bomb" to school -- and not a clock, as Mohamed said he repeatedly told his teachers.
END CITE


Attentive readers interested in minutiae may remember Irving, Texas, as the soapbox for fractious anti-Muslim activist Beth Van Duyne, who may be a distant relative of mine, as many Americans with unpronounceable Dutch names are.


SEND THEM NOTHING

Now, a sarcastic evil person who wanted to drive the point home to folks in Irving, Texas, that fourteen-year old technologists are largely an innocent force for good, might strongly suggest sending mayor Beth Van Duyne, the Irving Police Department, and the principal of MacArthur High more digital clocks, in hopes that frequent exposure would lessen their fear and hysteria, and slowly acclimatize them to the modern age.

But I shall not do that.

Do not send them anything!

Because if you do, they will sic the FBI on you lickety split, and there will be warrants filed with the Texas Rangers, who will arrest you the moment you set foot in Texas.
Which would be bad, because eventually everybody visits Texas.

So I repeat: do NOT send them a thing!


Ms. Beth Van Duyne, City Hall
825 West Irving Boulevard
Irving, TX 75060


Mr. Larry Boyd, Irving Police Department
305 North O'Connor Road
Irving, TX 75061


Mr. Daniel Cummings, MacArthur High School
3700 North MacArthur Boulevard
Irving, TX 75062


Please note that this data is provided purely for informational purposes.

I am not a sarcastic or evil person.

My name is pronounceable.





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2 comments:

optimistically amphibious said...

I think we can discern real progress in the good folk of Irvine, Texas: fifteen years ago, if confronted by a homemade digital clock, they probably would have tried the culprit for witchcraft.

e-kvetcher said...

It's not like he said "Bomb" on an airplane.

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