Burning Topic

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/09/09/loony-pastor-still-a-loon-but-no-longer-a-fire-hazard/

This chick has it right. A round of applause for a journalist with a brain.

I appreciate people who think like she does. Pastor Jones has been the topic of media hype for the past week and indeed a burning topic for months before that. Pastor Jones wants to commemorate the 10th year of September 11 by setting alight a pile of Qur’ans. Of course this little event of his has caused a major uproar and sparked age old debates on the freedom of religion, persecution of religion and culture and the generalizations that go with it.

But this journalist is right, and the same goes for a number of other issues. Leave Pastor Jones alone, let him do what he does in the quiet of his own home. Drawing this much attention to the quack is only giving him more power and feeding the beast, so to speak. Her plea to journalists and media around the world ‘we can do the right thing by letting this hatefulness play out on a homemade backyard stage instead of a global media platform.’The same goes for a couple of unmentionable politicians (or wannabes) in South Africa. We feed them and their narcissism by giving them a nice little platform from which to preach.

Take the platform away and all they’re left with is a street corner on which to stand, where during the hustle and bustle of traffic, only a few people stop to listen.