I'M PROBABLY THE ONLY LIBERAL NON-TEXAN WHO FEELS THIS WAY, AND I DON'T CARE!

I do NOT agree with my President and every single one of my liberal friends when it comes to the young Texas mechanical genius and his infamous clock. In fact, I strongly disagree! 

I don't blame Texas, or the Irving police, or the school authorities for doing what they did. And I certainly don't blame the young man. I blame his parents. After all, he was, from all I've ever read about him, a normal 14-year-old, except he was a mechanical genius. And 14-year-old kids are just that: They're kids.

Let's use an analogy: Let's say a 14-year-old black girl, living in a Crip-infested ghetto, babysits, saves her money, and buys a classy red outfit, complete with red-bottom high-heel shoes. It's a beautiful outfit, and one which she worked hard, saved, and paid for herself. Be that as it may, could she wear that Very Red outfit in her pro-blue, anti-red Crip neighborhood? While she might want to (unlikely, but this is just an illustration, remember), if her parents are at all good, caring parents, would they let her? Would she be safe doing so? Could she not be seen by the Crips running her neighborhood as being an invading Blood, or the girlfriend of a Blood? I don't care how nice she looked in that outfit, if she went out and got mistaken for a Blood, whose fault would it be if she got attacked? Oh, sure, I know it would be the fault of the Crip who assaulted or shot her, but would wise parents have even let her wear that outfit in that neighborhood?

I happen to have been lucky in that I didn't grow up in a time or place where gangs ruled supreme, so my parents never sat me down and had the "Police" talk with me. But I hear all the time about how black parents these days routinely have "that" talk with their young sons. It shouldn't be that way, but it is.

There's Idealism, then there's Reality. There's The Way Things Should Be, and then there's The Way Things Are.

With things as they are in the world today, it was at least foolhardy for that boy's parents to have allowed him to take that gadget to school. Yes, he was proud of it, as he probably should have been. But come ON: A young Muslim male, going into a crowded public place, carrying a gadget with wires and a clock attached? And no one should have said or done anything? Come ON.

Recently, I got onto the subway here in L.A., and at the first stop a rather swarthy, Middle Eastern - looking guy got on, babbling to himself. He took his backpack off, laid it in a side seat, then backed away from it, all the while staring at it and babbling something I couldn't understand. I couldn't wait for the train to get to the next stop (which wasn't supposed to be my stop), and I got off. I've seen that guy since that evening, and it turns out that he's just a nutcase who happens to look vaguely Middle Eastern. But, I don't care about that; I got my ass off that train as soon as soon as I could. I doubt if any of the real terrorists ever acted as strangely as that guy did, and we've been asked to be super-vigilant. I don't care if you call me xenophobic and racist, or remind me that the terrorists in the Boston and Oklahoma City events weren't Middle Easterners; I don't care. I got off that train.

The school authorities in Irving, Texas, did what they thought was prudent, and I agree.

Ahmed, I think his name was, knew that he wasn't a terrorist, and he was proud of his invention; he just wanted to show it off. I get that. But one of the adults he trusted told him not to show it to anyone else. That adult knew him, knew it wasn't a bomb, but he also knew what's happening in the world, what's being threatened here in America, who're being recruited, and how the school and police authorities might view this. Wisely, he or she told the kid not to show it to anyone else. Well, the young man did show it to someone else --- and here we are.

His parents could and should have stopped this fiasco. I blame them.