JAIL IS THE BEST DETERRENT

A heartening letter from a reformed criminal:

Somewhere in Toronto is an elderly man (or, if deceased, his offspring) who carries with him in his deepest memories of three decades past, an encounter with this wicked teenage street punk who crossed the line from being a cowardly purse snatcher, car thief and B&E artist, to a gun-toting robber. Thank God, just thank God. Oh, I had every reason to hate and steal and assault, according to the book. A product of a violent birth father, dumped into the Neil McNeil Orphanage in downtown Toronto shortly after birth and adopted five years later by an alcoholic couple, I committed my first house burglary when I was 7. I committed my last crime shortly after my 18th birthday and in between I spent exactly two days in jail.

When I was 17, a friend showed me where his police officer father stored his service revolver. The next weekend when they were at their cottage, I broke into this friend's home, "borrowed" the gun and found myself sticking it in the face of this absolutely stunned gentleman at Yonge St. and Bowood Ave. in North Toronto. He had no money, and I had no bullets -- thank God -- so I took off. I broke back into the policeman's home and returned the gun.

So here's the point of my story. I grew up with social workers "counselling" me ad nauseam. I had basketball courts and baseball diamonds and floor hockey. I chose drugs and alcohol and truancy. I didn't get my gun from U.S. gun smugglers.

What stopped me from my criminal path was a total abject fear of the law and jail -- and a streetwise older copper who picked me up on "suspicion" of house burglary. He looked this punk straight in the eye and said I was going to spend the rest of my life in jail or dead. Neither appealed to me. And so, after three years repeating, I got my Grade 12 diploma and set out on a straight path, without bleeding heart liberals trying to love me to death and without politicians trying to engineer my life. Since then, I have spent more than 30 years trying to make amends by living straight, serving others and obeying the law. And I've succeeded. Do you get it, folks?

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The limits of "transgressive" art

Salvatore Scuotto is an Italian artist from Naples who is famous for the nativity scenes he creates. His latest masterpiece is a nativity scene featuring naked women and transvestites standing near the baby Jesus. This highly respectful work, evidence of Scuotto’s great sensitivity towards Christians, is currently on display at Rome’s San Giacomo church where it has outraged church members who, strangely enough, view the work as blasphemous. In defending the nativity scene, Scuotto says,

“Such scenes are a part of reality. The real scandal is when figures such as Bin Laden or George Bush are used in nativity scenes.”

So Salvatore Scuotto has scored a leftist “two-fer” with his latest work by bashing Bush and defecating on Christianity – how original! How cutting edge! How transgressive! In his mind he probably justifies the action by reasoning that real artists “push the envelope” by rattling conventional sensibilities. Fair enough—I suggest to him a religious topic that will really rattle some sensibilities and “push the envelope” to its very limits: Mohammed’s marriage to a nine-year-old girl. Here’s how the Koran describes that event:

[Scriptural Evidence] Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64: Sahih Bukhari [the most venerated and authentic Islamic source] Narrated ‘Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years.

So how about it, Sal? Care to exercise your artistic powers by creating and displaying a graphic work of art based on Mohammed having sex with his pre-pubescent wife? (You can even play it safe by leaving gratuitous transvestites out of the depiction.)

Oh, wait-I forgot! If Salvatore Scuotto produced and displayed a work of art depicting Mohammed having sex with his child-bride, a realityat least within the context of the Koran- it’s quite likely that the Italian authorities would cave in to the resulting Muslim outrage by arresting him for “hate speech.” Either that or, for his own good, he’d be placed in protective custody. Those are the best case scenarios. A fatwa-based religious assasination would be the real downside. Just ask Theo Van Gogh, Sal.

It’s so easy for artists to garner attention by desecrating things that are sacred to Christians. Christians usually protest such desecrations mildly, or not at all. And the Left is always there to cheer on and, if necessary, defend the act of desecration. Salvatore Scuotto—iconoclast, trend-setter, art hero, and ultimately a disrespectful coward, knows those things well.

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