You know how when you’re driving down a busy street, or in a quiet residential neighborhood, it doesn’t matter, and the car or truck pulling alongside of you at the stop light has one of those 20,000 watt car stereo amplifiers that you can hear for two blocks in either direction? Ever feel really angry when that happens, like you’re actually a peaceable person, but the type of “human being” who does this brings out feelings of primitive revenge and even, dare I say it, simmering rage and incipient thoughts of violence that you thought evolution and higher thought processes had squelched?

Well, yep. There are actually people like this. They are young or youngish, middle aged or worse, car-stereo/hearing impaired, and bordering on deaf (but that’s no excuse). And, remarkably, they seem to have not one smidgen of guilt or shame or human decency, or whatever you want to call it, and proceed to make life miserable for others, for seconds or unbearable minutes at a time, blaring their car stereos so that glass in windows vibrates and buildings seem to shake.

In Detroit, a teenager, one Justin Rushford, 18, was just unlucky enough to be in a suburb with a noise pollution ordinance that was enforced, and to pull up next to a police car while rap music was blasting from his truck sound system.

The judge was not too sympathetic. In fact, he must have been one of those hardliners we hear about. He sentenced Rushford to listen to the compact disc, “Wayne Newton’s Greatest Hits” three times in a jury room in the courthouse in Troy, Mich.

“This young man shouldn’t be imposing his music on others,” the judge said. Rushford could have been sentenced to 90 days in jail and up to $1,000 in fines for violating the noise ordinance.
Now for people in, shall we say, a certain demographic group, this punishment not only fits the crime, it does so exquisitely.

After two hours of listening to Newton belt out “Danke Schoen” and “I’ll be With You In Apple Blossom Time”, the young miscreant was apologetic. (“Red Roses for a Blue Lady” isn’t half bad, actually, but that’s another story). According to the news article, he said, “It makes me think about other people’s styles of music. I probably wouldn’t appreciate it if some old man drove past me blasting this music.”

Rushford had his 15 minutes of fame, too. He appeared on CBS’ early morning show.
And for the rest of us, we can read some good news in the paper for a change.

And finally, this comment from a reader:

“…And if the kid becomes a repeat offender, the judge should then make him listen to Tiny Tim singing “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” for three hours.

Amen!

One of the most famous and popular entertainers in Las Vegas history sings his signature song.

https://youtu.be/LRPILZS1hc8?si=FZu_rEeSvBlMewsg