I remember when I was a kid and I would occasionally torment my sisters. It was especially easy to torment my youngest sister - five years my junior and very prone to temper. I could, and did, provoke her just by looking at her. Literally.

So I would look at her, and she would scream, and our mother would say, 'Charlotte, stop looking at your sister!' And I would say, 'but I'm not HURTING her! And besides, she broke the legs on my Malibu Barbie yesterday!' And Mom would say, 'Look, you're older and you know better! Now stop looking at her!' And if I didn't, I got my ass busted.

I've been thinking about this for a couple of days - pretty much since I heard about the church in Florida that wants to have a big Quran burning. In case the parallel isn't obvious - the pastor of that church is a lot like my 12 year old self harassing my 8 year old sister just to hear her scream. He, and others, try to justify this in a variety of ways - the upshot generally being that 'this doesn't cause any real harm and besides, THEY'VE done worse!' But for cryin' out loud - that shit would not fly with my mother.

They know better than that.

And even though it's been a long time since I was a church-goer, there are a couple of things I remember pretty clearly. 1. Love one another. 2. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I am 100% certain that Jesus would NOT burn a pile of Qurans - because when you get right down to it, even though the consequences could be much graver, it's just a variation on the theme of sticking your tongue out at your little sister. It's petty and provocative.

And I'm tellin' Mom.