So Rush Limbaugh and The Bad Terry Jones graduated from Cape Girardeau Central High School together, class of ’69. Cape Girardeau has a lot to answer for.

It’s been at least forty years, if I’m remembering right, since I’ve been in Cape Girardeau, but I remember it as a pretty town on high bluffs overlooking the Mississippi. It’s a college town, believe it or not, home of Southeast Missouri State University. It was the state teachers college way back when. And it’s not all that small, as towns go. The 2008 population was 37,370, Wikipedia says.

Full disclosure, I graduated high school in ’69, also. Depressing. At least I didn’t live in Cape Girardeau.

As I understand it, the book burning stunt is suspended but not canceled. So we don’t know if it will happen or not.

The interesting thing about the Bad Terry Jones story is the role of media, which is explored today in the New York Times by Brian Stelter. The Bad Terry Jones has been pulling Islam-bashing stunts for at least a year, apparently, and everyone ignored him until Islamophobia became hot news. And then Jones and his stunts became fodder for the News Beast That Must Be Fed.

Quick, somebody, find a pretty blonde having an affair with a married congressman and kidnap her to distract the Beast. Just kidding.

According to Justin Elliott at Salon, the Bad Terry Jones saga has been a big story in the Middle East since July. The Middle East press picked up the story before major U.S. media did, says Elliott. Thanks to the magic of the Intertubes, a tiny local story can be a fart heard round the world.