My two cents' worth

As everyone is no doubt aware, a "pastor" in Gainesville, FL (where I spent many fun years) is planning to burn a pile of Korans on September 11. This pastor, who in no way represents the teachings of Christ in my humble opinion, has preached a hatred of Islam for years. This stunt is just his latest bit of hatred. His "church" has a mere 50 members, so his influence wasn't exactly widespread.

Except . . .

The world media is now beating down his door for interviews, every politician in the country is being asked to take a stand (and John Boehner took the coward's way out this morning on GMA), and members of the armed forces are pleading with this man not to hold his burning out of fear that it will incite further violence against our troops.

This man, whose name I refuse to write, now has more attention than he knows what to do with, and his message of hatred and intolerance is being spread far and wide. He even has a fan page on Facebook.

But here's a thought - what if we all just ignored him? What if the press closed up shop and went home? What if the protesters with their signs and shirts and megaphones went and did volunteer work elsewhere? What if we didn't pay any attention to him? Then what?

He'd walk outside of his "church" on September 11 to find his band of 50 followers and no one else except for a few lonely crickets chirping away. His perverted view of Christianity would go no further and all the fun of setting a pile of books on fire for an audience would be gone.

And if this small experiment works, we could take it up a level. We could ignore the former governor of Alaska next. The media could stop reporting her inane and inaccurate tweets and Facebook posts as news. We could stop buying magazines that publish unverified and non-sourced profiles of her (no matter how fun and gossipy they are). And then maybe she'd just go back to Alaska and shut the hell up already.

There's an old Simpsons "Tree House of Horror" episode where the advertising logos - the cigarette guy, the giant donut guy, etc. - come to life and stomp all over Springfield, wreaking havoc on the town. Lisa goes to the agency that created the ads and asks how to stop them, and the answer is to ignore them. She convinces the whole town to turn their backs on the advertisements, and sure enough, they go back to being inanimate objects.

So that's my proposal: let's all turn our backs on these people - the racist pastor, the former governor, the overly tanned politicians, anyone who uses the phrase "Ground Zero Mosque" - and once they stop getting all the attention from the media, good and bad, they'll just go away.

It's so crazy it just might work. Who's with me?