Rant #1,514: Tick, Tick, Tick ...

I know of no recent story that has shown how our country has gone cockeyed than the one that came up this week, related to a 14 year old Muslim student in Irving, Texas, who brought a homemade clock into his school.

He was proud that he was able to make this clock himself, and wanted to show it off to teachers and students.

The problem was that the ticking of the clock made some people nervous, including teachers who didn't know exactly what it was. In addition, the construction of the clock, with lots of exposed wires, made some people suspect that it could be and explosive device.

Suspicious that it was a bomb, the young man was suspended from school and arrested. However, all charges were dropped when it was found out that the device was, in fact, a clock, and nothing more.

The story found its way to social media, and the kid is now being looked at as some sort of hero, even being invited to the White House to show his clock to our President.

This story has a few sides to it. Let's look at the first side.

The kid makes this clock, and wanted to show it off in school. That is nice and fine and good.

But remember, schools have been battlegrounds lately. Have we conveniently forgotten Columbine, and the almost yearly mass shootings that occur at places of learning? How about the Connecticut massacre of a few years ago?

Schools have to be on the alert that this could happen within their environs. From what I heard, this kid was outed by not his science teacher, but by a gym teacher, who heard the ticking coming from his backpack.

What was the teacher to do, ignore it?

That would be putting all the students in the school in great danger, so it had to be reported, and swift action had to be taken ... even if it was wrong. Erring on the side of caution should never be looked down upon, especially in the school environment we have today.

Now, for another side to this story.

The kid just happens to be Muslim, and those backing him say he was profiled because of his religion.

Again, erring on the side of caution should never be criticized like this situation has been.

If he was profiled, well, so be it.

What would happen if, in fact, he had a bomb inside his backpack and not a clock?

I think we would be writing a different story today.

And for people like the President to be lauding this kid, well, if our President were sitting before me, I would ask him this question:

"If that kid were sitting next to one of your daughters in school, and that ticking sound was coming out of his backpack and she heard it and didn't know what it was, do you think that she would have felt entirely safe?"

I would ask a second question:

"Under the circumstances, as a parent, not as a President, would you have felt safe for your children if this kid was sitting next to one of your kids?"

Our President, and other members of the PC Police, have a false sense of being, a false sense of what is right and what is wrong.

The kid should have alerted the school beforehand about his project, and not scare the hell out of teachers and students, many of whom had no idea what he was carrying in his backpack.

Sure, there will be lawsuits, and sure, the kid is supposedly going to transfer out of the district, but for our President to make a mockery out of the school by actually inviting this kid to the White House ... again, I ask, what would have happened if this was a bomb? Does our President not understand that there are new and unique safety issues that schools have to deal with today?

Again, the kid may have done all of this innocently, but again, the school environment of today and that of just a few years ago can't even be compared.

Yes, the school made a mistake, but better to make a mistake than have a catastrophe, don't you think?