MY NEW HERO
Jacob Isom
Over the past few days, we’ve been treated to a veritable hategasm of epic proportions. All manner of unbalanced wackjobs bent of sowing hatred and anger have demagogued Islam as if it was the stepchild of Satan. That most of these idjits claim to be Christians is beyond abhorrent, but that’s a story for another time. Today, I’m celebrating Jacob Isom, an 23-year-old Amarillo resident who probably had no idea that his 15 minutes were about to be queued up. By one simple act of decency, Isom showed what can happen when good people stand up to those who would traffic in hatred, disrespect, and self-righteousness.
A planned Quran burning Saturday in Amarillo was thwarted by a 23-year-old carrying a skateboard and wearing a T-shirt with “I’m in Repent Amarillo No Joke” scrawled by hand on the back.
Jacob Isom, 23, grabbed David Grisham’s Quran when he became distracted while arguing with several residents at Sam Houston Park about the merits of burning the Islamic holy book. “You’re just trying to start Holy Wars,” Isom said of Grisham after he gave the book to a religious leader from the Islamic Center of Amarillo.
Grisham is a member of Repent Amarillo, a group that could and should be described as Texas Taliban. I’ve written about these knuckle-draggers before, and I don’t really care to revisit that again, other than to say that it was just a matter of time before one of these zealots tried to call attention to themselves.
Isom just happened to be in the park skateboarding when he came across Gresham about to burn a kerosene-soaked Koran. In a split second, Isom managed to transform himself from slacker to hero…all by merely doing the right and decent thing in snatching the Koran from Grisham’s hands.
Sometimes, it really doesn’t take a lot of preparation and time to do the right thing. It just might be, and often is, that doing the right thing is just about making a split-second decision to do the right thing…and then doing it. Simple, eh?
