As you may have heard, a small group of evangelical Christians are burning Qurans this weekend to protest 9/11 and to send a message to al-Qaida. Yes, this is an infantile response but what I want to know is. why does anyone care?

The media keeps reporting about how this could endanger lives of soldiers or Americans over in the Middle East but isn't the danger based mostly on the reporting of the story rather than the story itself? I mean, this is an obscure pastor with a congregation roughly the size of the Wu-Tang Clan who apparently thinks burning books is a good way to send a message about tolerance or something. (On a side note, hasn't burning books pretty much been condemned to nothing more than a sign of intolerance by the burners?) I could go on about the congregation but I think my main message to them would be, "Let he who is without sin, cast the first match."

Actually, I'd also echo some of the words of Glenn Beck, who recently wrote,

We must be the better person. We must be bigger than our problems. Bigger than the times in which we live. Burning the Koran is like burning the flag or the Bible. You can do it, but whose heart will you change by doing it? You will only harden the hearts of those who could be moved. None of those who are thinking about killing us will be affected, but our good Muslim friends and neighbors will be saddened. It makes the battle that they face inside their own communities even harder.
Let us rise above the current levels and elevate ourselves and our country. The only thing this act would prove is that you CAN burn a Koran. I didn’t know America was in doubt on that fact. Let’s prove to each other that while there are many things we can do, there are maybe many more things that we choose not to do.

Back to my bigger question: The bigger issue, however, is: why is this even a national story? I had a similar question a while back when Rick Sanchez on CNN gave airtime to some extremist who thought America should be a Whites Only! nation. He basically wanted this country to be to whites what Israel is to Jewish people or Japan to Japanese people (his examples, not mine.) I mean, seriously, this guy gets a national soap box and many charities that are working for legitimate causes can hardly get a passing reference?

Unfortunately, the partisan media has gone from just supporting their own side to now trying to point out the ugliest or most extreme corners of their opposition. For a good time now, everyone's so focused on winning the argument that everyone has lost sight of the truth but now they seem to be losing sight of the pertinent. One thing that was especially odd was how reporters seem to love to point out that this thing could cause uprisings in the Middle East and put soldiers lives in danger. Well, if that's the case, why not ignore it? A basketball team worth of extremists are doing something crazy that could make trouble for our soldiers; instead of asking why would they do it, reporters should be asking, "Why am I covering this?"

It's a shame that real journalism has fallen by the wayside and responsible reporting is a thing of the past. Anyone know of any legit news sources? Anyone have any sites, magazines, stations they recommend?

So, to sum up this rambling post, just let the idiots play with fire and donate some money to The Friends of El Faro