Sometimes when you read the news, it’s almost as though you’re reading with your ears, because it can seem you’re actually listening to music.  It’s difficult at times like that to distinguish the images in the mirror – art and life and which is reflecting the other . . “live” or Memorex.

You know you’ve “heard” that news before, nearly forgotten lyrics from an old song that have stayed with you through beer or bong clowded memories.

“Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons
packed up and ready to go

I got some groceries, some peanut butter
to last a couple of days”

David Byrne and The Talking Heads – - “Life During Wartime“

I found an interesting piece on CNN Dot Com yesterday – - gun shop owners reporting a run on ammunition across the country.  Between swine flu concerns of a pandemic, and rumors that the Obama administration was planning to increase taxes on ammunition, gun owners have been hoarding bullets of every shape and size.

As a consequence of these high volume sales and scarcity of inventory, gun shops have begun imposing a limit on the number of boxes an individual customer could buy at a time.  Some calibers have been unavailable for months.

Did you know that Wal-Mart is one of the largest ammo retailers in the United States?  According to the CNN story, a spokesperson for the company acknowledged that sales in recent months have been brisk.

It’s unnerving enough to see folks in crowds with surgical masks across their faces. To think that some of them might have a stash of ammo to go with their “hunting” weapons, though, is unnerving squared. Oh, and sales of surgical masks is brisk, too.

Yes, yes, second amendment and all, as everyone wants to be a member of the local militia.  I wonder how many of that “militia” have had a gun pointed at them or pressed into their face, or heard the sound of unfriendly gunfire nearby.

“With your nerves in tatters,
As the cockleshell shatters,
And the hammers
batter,
Down your door,
You better run.”

Roger Waters and Pink Floyd – - “Run Like Hell”

Talk radio does all it can to enflame listeners because that’s how audiences are both built and retained.  The entertainers who host those shows espouse extreme views and appeal to radical elements, especially on what is called “the right,” as witness Rush Limbaugh and Jay Severin, the latter of whom has been suspended from Boston’s WTKK-FM for a hateful spewing against immigrants in general, and Mexicans in particular.

Although not exhorting their followers to hunker down in the bunkers with their guns and groceries, they nonetheless do what all the ignorant do – - tell them what’s wrong, make them scared, and then tell them who’s to blame.  It’s as far from reasonable discourse as one can get.

World-wide recession, unemployment, foreclosures, swine flu, pandemics, Mexicans and radio talk show hosts – - just enough to cause a run on guns and ammo.

“Here comes the helicopter — second time today
Everybody scatters and hopes it goes away
How many kids they’ve murdered only God can say
If I had a rocket launcher…I’d make somebody pay”

Bruce Cockburn – - “If I had a Rocket Launcher“

It’s fringe element stuff, yes, but it’s also very real.  Maybe no one gets hurt this time around.  Maybe the news stops at the hoarding of bullets and bread.  But it doesn’t change the readiness to shoot, or the willingness even just to consider it, for when the moment passes, that ready and willing attitude won’t.

Now it’s your turn.  Pick your favorite old song memories and see how close the news matches.  Hope it’s more benign than mine.