Irving ISD Totally Bombs
As you’ve undoubtedly heard by now, the people at Irving’s MacArthur High School made idiots of themselves in front of the entire world this week by putting a 14-year-old boy in handcuffs because he brought a clock to school. Of course, the kid’s a Muslim, and Irving ISD seems to be scared of its Muslims, so everybody thought the clock looked like a bomb. I would gladly make a joke about this depressingly predictable development, but everyone on the internet beat me to it in the one day since it was picked up by the mainstream media. I mean, look:
Here is a crap statement by Irving School. I fixed it for them. #IStandWithAhmed http://t.co/oJgy2bjo4N pic.twitter.com/qW8abiiCgI
— heidi heilig (@heidiheilig) September 16, 2015
Irving Police dropped all the charges against Ahmed Mohamed. MacArthur’s principal gallantly blamed the kid. Twitter erupted. (Note: This is the only thing that Twitter ever does.) President Obama and Mark Zuckerberg invited Ahmed to the White House and Facebook, respectively. A trustee at Dallas ISD did some delightful trolling. Republican presidential candidates said that Kim Davis was the real victim. I imagine that the scene when Ahmed brought his clock to MacArthur looked something like this:
I’d have more sympathy for the school officials if the boy had pulled a stunt like the one at the 0:39 mark of this clip from the British comedy Four Lions. “Yeah, just because I’m a Muslim, you thought it was real.”
While Ahmed looks forward to attending a new high school, I’m looking forward to protests at MacArthur where Muslim kids march through the halls holding up timepieces and chanting “This is not a bomb!”
New Jury for Van Cliburn 2017
In the ongoing battle to prevent piano teachers from exerting undue influence on the outcome of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the Cliburn announced its jury members for the 2017 contest. The new jury head is Leonard Slatkin, who was brought on two years ago to conduct the final-round concerto performances. He’ll be taking up conducting duties in ’17 as well, though he’ll recuse himself from the voting once the final round starts. The jury for the competition will be made up entirely of first-time Cliburn jurors, with the exception of Joseph Kalichstein. The jury for the screening auditions will be entirely different from the competition jury. And composer/pianist Marc-André Hamelin will not only serve on the competition jury but also compose the new work that the semifinalists will be required to play, a first for the Cliburn. The Brentano String Quartet will be back to play the chamber music portion. It’s all fodder for discussion until the summer of ’17.
Mo’ Monet
The Kimbell Art Museum just announced that it’s getting in an exhibit called Monet: The Early Years in October 2016. The show focuses on the first phase of the painter’s career, leading up to 1872, two years before the first exhibit of the artists who’d go on to be called Impressionists. There’ve been enough Impressionist exhibits since then to make us wonder what new ground there is to cover, but we’re sure that the Kimbell will sell tons of tickets for this.
Noches en los Jardines de España
It’s been 25 years since Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra has toured outside the United States, but thanks to a $25,000 grant from the Fort Worth Promotion and Development Fund, the local band will be heading to Spain next May to play dates in Madrid, Zaragoza, Murcia, Alicante, Oviedo, and Vitoria-Gasteiz. Violinist Midori joins them to play Tchaikovsky, while Miguel Harth-Bedoya will conduct Copland, Gershwin, and more Tchaikovsky. We wish them buen viaje.
And Finally…
British actress Emily Blunt recently gained American citizenship due to her marriage to John Krasinski. She then joked that having watched the first Republican presidential debate, she was having second thoughts. The hosts over at Fox & Friends promptly threw a hissy fit and said she should go back to the U.K. She doesn’t have to do that, she can just vote Democrat now that she’s a citizen. Here’s the footage from Fox News:
https://youtu.be/uff06AdiQrI
Oh, that’s not it? My bad.
Kristina Lin Totally Bombs. The Left never misses an opportunity to cry racism. Students at George Mason University, randomly shown a photo of Ahmed’s clock, all said it looked like a bomb (and they were not shown a photo of Ahmed). President Obama’s tweet to Ahmed confirms his propensity to play the race card at every opportunity, but you can bet your race-card-playin’ ass that if Ahmed were to bring his clock into the White House, the Secret Service would pull him aside for questioning.
Gee, it seems like every time I speak up for a person of color, someone accuses me of “playing the race card.” Since I’m not a white person, I guess I’m doing that every time I speak up for myself, too. I can’t win, can I? So sorry to offend you and your white privilege, Tecolote.
Hey, dipstick, if your defense of a person of color asserts that the person’s circumstance arose BECAUSE of his color, without evidence establishing such causal connection; then, yes, you’re playing the race card. If your skin color entitles you to do so AND discount my opinion because of my skin color, then you’re asserting privilege based on YOUR skin color. Get real!
Really, sir, was that language necessary? Do you see me calling you obscene names? No, you don’t. That’s because I believe in carrying on public discourse in civilized terms. Of course, as a journalist, I’ve been called worse and expect to be called worse again in the future. That’s perfectly all right. I’m a big boy. I can take it. However, I would propose that your use of profanity serves no useful purpose here, being neither funny nor illustrative, and it only acts to debase the level of the conversation. That’s something you may want to think about.
Actually, I erroneously read “dipshit” for “dipstick” in your earlier reply. Never mind.
Lin, I called you a dipstick because your first response was patently dishonest. A person cannot be fairly accused of “playing the race card” merely for defending a person of color. It is only when the defense includes a claim of racism AND there’s no evidence of it that the charge of “playing the race card” may apply. Your reply informed readers of your skin color. Why? Moreover, your reply speculated on MY skin color. Why would you do so without any factual basis?
The level of conversation here was low because you made it that way. It’s simply more honest to call you a dipstick than to call you a journalist.
There’s a follow-up to this story. Ahmed, the Clock Boy, recently visited and posed for photos with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, aka the Butcher of Darfur. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/10/16/the-american-boy-arrested-for-making-a-radio-meets-sudans-president-an-accused-war-criminal/