The Internet is his refuge — and his attacker. He reads every story and long, rambling conspiracy theory about him. Countless blogs and videos have been dedicated to proving Ahmed’s clock was just a Radio Shack clock he put in a new box. (It was partially made of Radio Shack parts, but the design was all his own, he says.) Others insist that this was all a stunt masterminded by Mohamed to get attention. (“He can’t plan the reaction. And why would he want me to get arrested?” Ahmed says.) Still more have proclaimed that the Mohameds are terrorist sympathizers because they once owned a company called Twin Towers Transportation. (They did own a company by that name, because their offices were housed in a Dallas office building called the Twin Towers.)
Relevant to https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/shimmer/
Many themes attend the Ahmed Mohamed story involving the clock in a Vaultz pencil box. From NAACP activist Julian Bond, the first to “field” the incident, to Ahmed’s photo-op with Sudan’s infamous President Bashir, the most troublesome may be the ambiguity.
Why, among the many possibilities in electronics, “invent” a clock, i.e. a time device or, potentially, a timing device?
Why after having shown it to one teacher, who advised not showing it off again, show it again and again and again and finally plug it in and have the alarm go off?
Whatever the truth may have been, including the possibility that there had been no one truth, so many mixed motives attending human behavior at times, it’s sure to be covered in favor-currying trouble-avoiding explanations.
Credit Washington Post writer Jessica Contrera for going the distance with “Twin Towers Transportation”, perhaps settling one concern of the “Islamophobes” — or not (why choose / search out a “Twin Towers” property?).
And on this goes.
Language matters, and whether we indulge in the many layers of poetry, including punning, or technical empirical observation, peace, whether found in religion or in reason, needs must find its anchors in eventual consistency in the employment and reflection of symbols and their interpretation. That Texas law had already provisions for a “hoax bomb” tells how difficult discernment have become.
Of the virtues listed in the left sidebar of this blog, I would rank the last as first: integrity.
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Contrera’s article has this theme: Ahmed’s father seeks this publicity so as to promote his next run for President of the Sudan. Indeed, one of the captions for a photo in the print edition of Contrera’s article so states.
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What does that caption say?
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