Published: November 24, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
If You Disturb The Peace You Will Be Sentenced To Listen To Barry Manilow
By Robert Paul Reyes
You're stopped at a red light and the joker next to you is blaring hip hop - the thumping bass giving birth to a migraine. As you wait for the light to change you are thinking of the most cruel and usual punishments you could inflict on the insensitive creep: Boiling him alive, tar and feathering him, and blowing up his car with a nuclear-tipped missile.
There's a judge who's even more sadistic than you, and the punishment he conjured up for noise violators would make the Marquis de Sade smile.
"Barry Manilow's 'I Write the Songs' may begin with the line, 'I've been alive forever,' but for noise ordinance violators, listening to Manilow may feel like forever.
Fort Lupton Municipal Judge Paul Sacco says his novel punishment of forcing noise violators to listen to music they don't like for one hour has cut down on the number of repeat offenders in this northwestern Colorado prairie town.
About four times a year, those guilty of noise ordinance violations are required to sit in a room and listen to music from the likes of Manilow, Barney the Dinosaur, and The Platters' crooning 'Only You'." The Associated Press
Forcing idiots who blast their music at ear-damaging levels to listen to music they don't like is poetic justice. Now they know how we feel when we are forced to endure their lousy choice of music.
But I must come to the defense of Barry Manilow, I know it's not cool to say this, but I love Manilow. It's unfair to put Manilow in the same category as Barney the Dinosaur.
Judge Sacco has the right idea, but he needs to go a step further. If a loser is caught blaring his music so loud that it makes his car vibrate, his auto should be confiscated on the spot. The car should be sold and proceeds should go to buy hearing aids for senior citizens and poor folks.
Robert Paul Reyes is a NewsBlaze writer on Politics, Pop Culture and Pointless Pontificating. Contact him by writing to NewsBlaze.
* The views of Opinion writers do not necessarily reflect the views of NewsBlaze
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