February 03, 2004

Judge sentences man to listen to opera
posted by Sullivan 20 years ago
  • I find it interesting that an opera lover would impose it as a punishment on someone else.
  • "Punishment" should have been for him to sit through the 17+ consecutive hours of Wagner's complete Ring Cycle.
  • It's quite a common sort of sentence, really... with good behaviour, he'll get released before the fat lady sings
  • No one should be forced to listen to Wayne Newton's Greatest Hits.
  • When I want to punish my boyfriend, I have a full compliment of Barry Manilow, Nelson, Debbie Boone, and Pat Benatar songs to sing for him. And those are just the top 4. Mwooohahahahahahaha!
  • Sounds like a good way to introduce the kids to the classics.
  • *bananas in ears* LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA LA!
  • I think this was a relatively good sentence. One of the reasons, I believe, for crimes of disruption is the lack of appreciation for meaning in other people's cultures and values, and a lack of understanding of the world as a whole. La Traviata is a good step in this direction, although the judge should not 'impose' the music, rather offer it as a valuable oppotunity. naxosaxur, I think the Ring Cycle might make things worse!
  • Re: introduce kids to the classics Hmm, good idea, but if we do it too much with juvenile delinquents, we could get some Clockwork Orange associations going on. Unrelated question: Do you suppose the judge just had La Traviata in his chambers at that time....or has he used this type of sentence before?
  • There's something so ....parental.... about this decision. In Toronto there used to be a problem with gangs hanging out at Kennedy subway station. They started playing classical music there, and the gangs cleared out.
  • The ruling just seems so weird to me: "You played your music which I hate really loud and we don't like that. So to punish you, I'm going to play my music which I hope you hate for you." It's so eye for an eye. Because lets be honest, this was not in the spirit cultural education.
  • No, it's a good thing. The punishment was cheap and presumably convenient to deliver. Nobody went to jail; nobody paid a fine that could be better spent elsewhere. The perp got an opportunity either to experience what he was dishing out -- and so, to understand why the community might have noise ordinances -- or to experience a little culture outside his own. Either way, it could seed empathy for his neighbors, in a way that no term of reluctant community service or writing "Sorry 2 b jammin 2 loud" 500 times could seed. And a lack of empathy, I posit, was the factor underlying the infraction.
  • I don't want to live in a country where my judges are polka and Wayne Newton fans.
  • Orange Swan - I remember that, and they played classical music in Bathurst station as well. But all it did was make my teenage friends and I stand around wishing they would play the Vivaldi a little bit louder so that we could hear it properly. Okay, maybe we weren't the rowdy type.