I PREFER not to reward people for doing crazy, foolish things to get in the news, but the people who run most news outlets disagree with me, probably because the public at large does too. And since the public likes to read news about people who do foolish, crazy things to get in the news, the news is often dominated by people doing crazy, foolish things. Sometimes this leaves me feeling stuck; it's hard to find anything interesting to say about people acting foolish and crazy. But I did greatly appreciate today's headline in the San Francisco Chronicle: " Man scales S.F. tower to publicize his message ". In this case the reason for the nondescript headline was probably just that this fellow's agenda was too odd and complex to explain in ten words or less. But think about it: what a great way to report objectionable or violent publicity stunts, right? What could be more frustrating for a publicity-seeking extremist than to have the media refuse to report their cause? "Men set off bomb to publicise their message." "Youths insult people to publicise their message." Or, more recently, " Group will burn texts to seek media hype ."

It's a free country, and the right to burn Beatles albums, the American flag, or anything else you want to burn, pollution and fire-hazard regulations permitting, is part of our modern reading of the constitution. Nevertheless, David Petraeus is right to point out that Terry Jones's Koran-burning stunt is "precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems." It is, in fact, part of a global religious-extremist tag-team rally, in which provocateurs in the West gin up obnoxious anti-Islamic gestures that give extremists in Islamic countries an excuse to damage property and assault people, which in turn grants more publicity to the Western provocateurs. Extremists on both sides end up with more media prominence and more political and social power, and everybody wins.

It would be nice if Mr Petraeus's intervention persuaded Mr Jones not to do the foolish, crazy thing he's doing to try and get in the news. Ah, you say, so now we're supposed to back off from exercising our constitutional rights to freedom of expression and worship, in the interests of inter-religious sensitivities? What about Cordoba House, then? Why don't they move their mosque somewhere else in the interests of inter-religious sensitivities? And yet somehow, it seems to me that there's a subtle difference of tone between proposing to establish an interfaith dialogue centre and house of worship, and proposing to burn another religion's holy book. In fact, establishing an interfaith dialogue centre and house of worship, and making no particular effort to publicise it to the national media, doesn't even seem like a foolish, crazy thing one does to get in the news. Clearly these people don't understand how the game works.

(Photo credit: Wikimedia)