Purely out of curiosity...

[John Bailey]

The Jon Ronson book is a fun light read. It made me think twice about
how I use social media, and how I read stories that are ultimately
inconsequential if you take three seconds to think about it. He
doesn't go far enough in some cases, especially when it comes to
considering who recovers most easily from public shaming (rich white
guys - Trump even knowingly goes for the kind of ridicule that would
slaughter someone not already in a position of power).

I've been astonished by how Dawkins has gone in guns blazing against
the clock kid. First you take down God, good for you, but then you
follow up by targeting some teenage boy? I'm far more interested in
why people get all het up about Ahmed than I am his supposed crimes.

Also: try taking apart a clock then putting it back together. It's frickin hard.

On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 7:45 AM,  <rbollinger at austin.rr.com> wrote:
> Please cite your statute governing reassembled clock parts...
>
>
> Rob Bollinger
> Austin TX
>
> ---- ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Was the clock a school project? In other words, did a teacher, a club
>> adviser, any adult in the school assign a project, and did the clock fit
>> the assignment? Or did the young man make a clock and bring it to school?
>>
>> As far as I can tell the young man did not build a clock or make a project,
>> or in any way bring something to school that was part of an assignment from
>> any adult in the building. It was not a project. It was not show and tell.
>> It seems the student took apart a clock, re-fashioned it and put in in a
>> box and brought it to school.
>>
>> Why did he do this? What was his motivation?
>>
>> Whatever his intentions, if he re-assembled clock parts in a box and took
>> them to school, he broke the law. While 14 year old boys, and sometimes 14
>> year old girls, are instructed that bringing a clock in a box, a plastic
>> gun, a plastic sword, a paper bomb or dynamite  etc..., even on Halloween
>> is dangerous and against the law, young people do make these kinds of
>> mistakes, from time to time. Best if they make them in school as school is
>> the safest place in the world for students. Obviously, doing so in the
>> street may get one killed by a police officer or even a gun toting citizen.
>> In a school the child, age 14, will be interrogated, handcuffed, probably,
>> and asked to write a statement explaining his or her intentions and the
>> police will contact the guardians and book the kid. This is the law. It
>> matters not the race or religion of the child.
>>
>> From time to time, a  brave administrator, more likely an experienced
>> teacher will protect the child with a slap on the wrist, but the current
>> mood in the country and in schools is making this a rare act of....welll
>> not courage, but decency.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 9:02 AM, The Jonathon Hunt Experience <
>> newtalkingwall at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Is there any evidence that the kid "only" took apart a store bought clock
>> > and put it back together, beyond people online pointing out that doing so
>> > is a thing that people can do? Beyond that, if the child acted as
>> > maliciously as Richard Dawkins and others would like to believe, this means
>> > his whole plan hinged on the knowledge that his teachers and police would
>> > confuse a circuit board and some wires with something that can explode. If
>> > our teachers and police are this stupid (which seems to be the case, here),
>> > then we are lucky in getting off with a $15 million dollar fine.
>> >
>
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