Ammo

Did you know that when you are at the airport security and you try to send a harmonica through the machine, this raises all kinds of warnings? Amazing but true.

I learned that little lesson a few years ago when I was flying to the Midwest. The kind lady at the screening station told me that a harmonica looks suspiciously like a gun clip. Now that I look at it a certain way I guess it's true. Certainly depends on one's perspective, doesn't it?

When I watch the news, and especially when I listen to political rhetoric going back and forth in the media, I listen for fear bordering on panic. Once I tune my ears to hear those messages, I can hear them all over the place. I suppose an amount of the fear-tactics is warranted. This is not necessarily a safe world in which we live. That being said, I will still likely vote for candidates and proposals that I consider less involved with fear-tactics. I hope it's a good principle to live by. If it turns out to not be, I shudder to think what might happen ;0)

I have to pause and marvel at exactly WHAT is mistaken for a gun clip here. A harmonica of all things! I got into harmonica playing partly because of a love for the early Dylan music. Dylan considered Woody Guthrie to be one of his musical and ideological influences. Later in life, Guthrie was eyed with suspicion by his anti-communist government for his populist statements. I just like playing the harmonica from time to time. I also am very curious and interested in what made people like Guthrie "tick" when living in the midst of so much fear on a macro-level.

Music has a prophetic function. It definitely uncovers and even unseats deep-set ways of thinking. In that case, it really is ammo. In that case, a harmonica can cause more "damage" than a whole clip full of bullets.

For example, take a read of Woody's own song "Jesus Christ"

Jesus Christ was a man who wandered through the land,
A hard-workin' man and brave.
He said to the rich, "Give your money to the poor"
But they laid Jesus Christ in his grave...

In other words, the establishment doesn't own Jesus. These words have a possibility of enflaming some. Coming out of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, Guthrie's perspective was heavily influenced by the working-poor he met along the way.

The lady at security let me keep my harmonica. What was she thinking.