Blunt instrument
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When I was going through the TSA checkpoint in Philadelphia at the beginning of this run down the Mississippi, something very unfortunate happened. The TSA agent who was going through my carry-on belongings approached me and said, "Is this your stick?" "Yes, sir," I replied.
"I have a problem with your stick," he said.
"What's wrong with it?", I asked him.
"It's a blunt instrument."
"It's my walking stick," I said.
"You can't fly with this stick," he insisted. "It's a blunt instrument."
"But, sir, I've flown with it dozens of times, often right through Philadelphia, through this very checkpoint."
"Well, I'm telling you it's a blunt instrument, and I have an issue with it. You can't fly with this stick." he said, glaring at me with hostility.
"Let me speak to your supervisor."
Whereupon he took me to the platform at the end of the line.
I repeated the whole story about how I'd been through that very checkpoint with the same walking stick many times. I told the supervisor that the stick had great sentimental value for me, since I had run thousands of miles with it, and I really did need it for balance and traction, also to protect myself from angry dogs and during other dangerous situations, especially in remote and isolated places.
The supervisor looked a little uncomfortable, but knew she had to support her agent's assertion. Half-a-dozen other TSA agents who were standing nearby witnessing what was going on also looked sympathetic.
In the end, they confiscated my beloved walking stick. I felt as though a part of my soul had been torn away.
Looking back on what happened that day, it was very much a matter of definition and subjectivity. The TSA agent subjectively defined my walking stick as a blunt instrument. End of discussion.
BACKGROUND
During the first half of my transcontinental run (spread out over 2019-2024), when I never flew anywhere, I always carried the precious walking stick that I found on Mount Hiei outside Kyoto in Japan. It is about 7/8 inches in diameter and 4 feet long. It is from some special kind of tree that is light but strong as iron. It has a unique wabi-sabi esthetic quality and was probably used for many years by the person who lost it on Mt. Hiei (the tough bark — slightly peeling off and worm-eaten in places — glistened from human skin oils in a very subtle and attractibe way).
When I started flying to the beginning point of sections of my crosscountry route during the second half of my crosscountry run (from Omaha onward), I dared not risk having my Mt. Hiei stick confiscated, so I bought a backup stick at Menards (home improvement store like Home Depot and Lowe's). It was a 3/4 inch dowel made of Wisconsin oak. It was a beautiful piece of wood, with appealing grain and pinkish / light salmon color. As I did with the Mt. Hiei stick, I wrapped red and green fluorescent reflective velcro bands around the top and bottom. That was the stick I finished my transcontinental run with at Astoria, Oregon (roughly following the Lewis and Clark trail during the last part). It meant much to me, and I will miss it dearly, an arborean companion for years and miles.
AFTERWORD
On September 12, 2001, I flew from Philadelphia to Laramie, Wyoming to deliver a lecture at the University there. I was carrying a 6+ foot long, 2 inch diameter pole. Aside from the skeleton crew, I was the only person on the big jet plane. Nobody stopped me. Instead, they seemed to respect me doing so. When I transferred at Denver, I don't recall seeing any other people in the cavernous airport. It was eerie to walk all alone to the gate where the small plane was waiting to take me to Laramie.
TSA began on November 19, 2001.
Selected readings
- "Terrorism and the magical power of words" (8/31/06)
- "Fact v. Assertion" (10/23/11)
Lucas Christopoulos said,
June 19, 2025 @ 6:21 am
What a strange country. They let cowboys with their guns in supermarkets, but confiscate pilgrims' staffs from travellers' cars…The walking stick is almost a part of oneself. At the Rokko Mountains in Hyogo, I made two that I have kept for fifteen years. A long Japanese ash Tree (Fraxinus lanuginosa – アオダモ- 梣) against wild boars and bears, and for the practice of Gansu 棍法, and a Magnolia (木蘭) cane for walking.
Philip Taylor said,
June 19, 2025 @ 6:40 am
Forgive me, please, if I don’t address the issue of the theft of your belovèd stick, but I am intrigued by the fact that on more than one occasion you addressed the TSA agent as "Sir". Whilst we do not have a TSA in this country (as far as I am aware), I cannot think of any situation in which I would address an analogous person as "Sir". I frequently address hotel guests as "Sir", to indicate respect, but apart from addressing the judge (or a barrister) as "Sir" during a court appearance, I would not normally consider "Sir" to be either required or appropriate. May I ask if you would similarly address a police officer as "Sir" if you were stopped for an alleged traffic offence ? I ask because (a) I would not, and (b) I have seen several YouTube videos in which an American driver addresses a police officer as "Sir".
But to return to your sad loss — I empathise. I once had a belovèd pair of surgical scissors confiscated prior to boarding, and have never since found a comparable pair with which to replace them.
David Morris said,
June 19, 2025 @ 7:26 am
What if it had been a medical walking stick?
Michael Vnuk said,
June 19, 2025 @ 8:13 am
In the 1990s, I was flying from one Asian country via another back to Australia. When I went to board the plane after the transit stop at the second Asian airport, security complained about a sharp knife that I had in my hand luggage. It was a knife for cutting fruit that I had forgotten to pack in my larger suitcase that went in the aircraft's cargo hold. (I don't know why security didn't detect it in my hand luggage at the first airport. I'm pretty sure that they had X-ray machines there.) Although security wouldn't let me take the knife on the second plane, they packaged it up and I was able to collect it from a desk soon after my plane arrived in Australia.
So, when Victor had his stick 'confiscated', I was expecting to hear that it travelled on the same plane separately, like my knife. However, when I read on, I found that the stick was not temporarily confiscated (ie available for collection at some other time when not travelling by plane), but permanently confiscated and never seen again, which doesn't seem fair. Especially because the stick had never been confiscated before.
David Marjanović said,
June 19, 2025 @ 8:55 am
American police are all armed, they get very little training, and the advocates for letting everyone carry firearms everywhere never tire of reminding people that "an armed society is a polite society"…
Philip Taylor said,
June 19, 2025 @ 9:49 am
"an armed society is a polite society" — Hmmm… "No comment" is the only comment that I can make. But to return to my original point, I would have expected the TSA agent, police officer, etc., to address the passenger/driver/etc. as "Sir" rather than vice versa.
Circeus said,
June 19, 2025 @ 10:11 am
> American police are all armed, they get very little training, and the advocates for letting everyone carry firearms everywhere never tire of reminding people that "an armed society is a polite society"…
Except TSA are not law enforcement. Which is also certainly why he was not addressing them as "officer".
Charles in Toronto said,
June 19, 2025 @ 10:29 am
In general, American officials who have enough power to ruin your day/week/life can often turn out to be very hot-headed and have fragile egos that require soothing. The "Sir" is because you don't want them to decide you are rude and then screw you over.
Dave said,
June 19, 2025 @ 10:54 am
Couldn't you have it mailed back to yourself?
Miles Archer said,
June 19, 2025 @ 11:08 am
I used to fly a lot, domestically and internationally. One time, I'm returning to the US via Heathrow and there was security set up before you could even check in. The security man looked like an experienced bloke who was well chosen for his post.
He asked the usual questions include "do you have any weapons or anything that could be used as a weapon". I started to answer that anything could be used as a weapon and he gave be a subtle shake of the head and I quickly amended my answer to a simple "no".
David said,
June 19, 2025 @ 11:19 am
Are you sure your lonely flight wasn't September 13? My recollection is that commercial air travel didn't resume until the 13th. I had a flight canceled on the 12th myself.
I hope you are able to arrange to get your stick back.
Chas Belov said,
June 19, 2025 @ 3:15 pm
@Philip Taylor:
(Side note: Every time I need to type the name Philip/Phillip, including this one, I have to go back and ensure I have counted the right number of Ls. It doesn't help that they are surrounded by i's – and urk, technically i plural is "is" and not "i's" but I fear I need to type "i's" to make it unambiguous that it is not the word "is" – which makes the L-counting job much harder.)
I try to be egalitarian, so if someone sirs me, I tend to sir or madam them back as best I can. In this day of nonbinary identities, I do worry about accidentally misgendering them, but they did, after all, take the risk of misgendering me when they sirred me – they didn't misgender me, I identify as male, but it was a risk – so I can take the same risk back and be open to being corrected.
However, if they have not sirred me first, I tend to null address.
arthur said,
June 19, 2025 @ 3:45 pm
The event described in your Afterward did not take place on September 12 2001. Airspace was closed, and all non-military flights in the U.S. were cancelled, around 9 a.m. on the 11th, and remained closed until the 13th.
stephen said,
June 19, 2025 @ 4:29 pm
I asked ChatGPT about this and got this information
TSA auctions confiscated property through the General Services Administration (GSA) at:
govdeals.com
gsaauctions.gov
So maybe you can get it back; you could consult within an attorney. My condolences and good luck with it.
Victor Mair said,
June 19, 2025 @ 7:39 pm
@arthur
Then it must have taken place on the 13th. It was the first day after 9/11 that any planes were permitted to fly.
Andrew Usher said,
June 19, 2025 @ 8:08 pm
Michael Vnuk wrote:
> So, when Victor had his stick 'confiscated', I was expecting to hear that it travelled on the same plane separately, like my knife. However, when I read on, I found that the stick was not temporarily confiscated (ie available for collection at some other time when not travelling by plane), but permanently confiscated and never seen again, which doesn't seem fair.
This is standard in the USA, despite the fact that we are supposed to believe that we are the freest society on Earth. This practice was originally justified by the legalistic argument that you were giving your 'consent' to the confication by engaging in the activity, here flying on a plane; that argument, which could never have been very meaningful, is certainly not now, when attempting to withdraw your 'consent' in such a situation would not be recommended. If an item were only temporarily taken and could be retrieved later, we would not describe that as confiscation.
There's no doubt it is unfair and Philip Taylor's description of it as 'theft' is justified in the full sense of that word. It is a legalised form of theft practised by the government or at their behest. The fact that Americans regularly encounter this, generally do consider it unfair, and yet still feel nothing can be done about it is a failure of democracy. Their implicit acceptance of it can be seen by the adoption of similar policies of confiscation by some privately-owned activities, undoubtedly copied from the government practice, which would never be tolerated were it not for its already being familiar.
And another failure is shown by Victor's account when he states that (of course) the supervisor would have to back the agent's original decision. While that may have been a correct assumption here, that is not the way it should be. The very point of appealing a decision is the ability to have it reversed if the original decision applied the rules incorrectly or unreasonably (without considering intent); the ability to so appeal it a necessary check on arbitrary power, and its effective lack tyrannical. If a rule is deemed so vague (and I am not certain that would ever be correct) that such a test could not be applied, it is not a legitimate rule at all but the lack of any, so also tyrannical.
It would not here seem appropriate to address any further linguistic issue even if it would otherwise have sufficient interest.
k_over_hbarc at yahoo.com
Keith said,
June 20, 2025 @ 1:56 am
[blockquote]
"I have a problem with your stick," he said.
"What's wrong with it?", I asked him.
"It's a blunt instrument."
[/blockquote]
"If you would be so kind as to lend me a knife, I can sharpen the stick so that it is no longer a blunt instrument."
Arthur Baker said,
June 20, 2025 @ 6:42 am
"It's a blunt instrument".
Hmmm. So is my shoe. And my fist. And my foot, if you take my shoe off. And my elbow, as Canadian hockey-players have amply demonstrated while keeping their stick on the ice. I have a book in my carry-on baggage. Ruffians where I come from, especially the more ardent football fans (Americans, inexplicably, would call it soccer) use their heads as blunt intruments. That's called "nutting" someone. A knee, applied to certain male parts of the body, can be blunt but cripplingly painful for a while.Just how many of my blunt but normally undetachable bodily instruments would you like to confiscate?
Chas Belov said,
June 20, 2025 @ 2:03 pm
@Victor Mair: Wishing you a speedy retrieval (or at least successful) of your beloved stick.
@Arthur Baker: I'd never heard that usage of "nutting," only in a sexual context.
Kormac said,
June 20, 2025 @ 2:44 pm
@Philip Taylor: As fun as it is to display anti-authoritarian bona fides, I have found it more practical to show deference to the various people with uniforms and weapons and government granted authority to detain and harm me that I have encountered in my life. That deference includes verbal cues, saying words such as 'Please', 'Thank you', and yes, even 'Sir' and 'Ma'am'. That being said, I have to say that on my first trip to China in 2005, I was surprised to find that most of the uniformed guards in the airport seemed to be made up of pretty young ladies, whose reactions to my poorly pronounced 'xie xie' was adorable. If this hiring practice was a strategy to keep people in good behavior, it worked with me.
Philip Taylor said,
June 20, 2025 @ 4:29 pm
Well, to my mind, "please" and "thank you" are not only unexceptionable but are virtually mandatory in spoken English if one is not to be considered impolite. "Sir", however, seems to imply a deference which I feel is not required, justified nor warranted.
Sadly I have not encountered your "pretty young ladies" — those I saw in Tibet may have been both pretty and young, but their deliberate refusal to establish any eye contact whatsoever with hoi polloi and their arrogant goose-stepping in a land which had been taken by force from one of the most peaceful nations on earth made me totally blind to any charms that they might otherwise have had.
SlideSF said,
June 21, 2025 @ 3:25 pm
@Philip Taylor – At certain establishments in the service industry, particularly less than high-end bars and restaurants, the use of "sir" and "ma'am" denotes sarcasm, though not usually voiced in a sarcastic manner. That would be overkill. The word "sir" itself can conveniently be translated as "asshole". It seems quite appropriate in the case of many, though certainly not all TSA agents.
Tom said,
June 21, 2025 @ 7:58 pm
I've had two similar experiences. I flew from the East coast through Denver to Japan as the Coronavirus pandemic was ramping up. I changed my flights to get ahead of flight cancellations, but my initial flight was cancelled anyway while I was driving to the airport. Only one airline desk remained open, so I had to buy a ticket there. Only two people on that flight, and Denver very empty.
Once, I returned to the USA with an unopened gift in my carry-on. It turned out a Japanese man had gifted me a very expensive wagashi knife for using in tea ceremony. While technically a knife, a wagashi knife is tiny. Any terrorist attempting to terrorize with it would simply be laughed at. TSA man confiscated it.
However, my best TSA story is flying in the early days. Staff wanted to open my bag, which was packed very, very full and tightly. I said, "sure, but be careful because the clothes are going to explode out of the bag". I immediately realized what I had said and clarified what I meant, but it was too late. As this was the early days, three law enforcement agencies got involved, and the plane was delayed two hours while my background was investigated. Apparently, in those early days, multiple databases had to be checked individually because they weren't integrated yet. They were still waiting to receive word back from one inquiry but decided to let me get on the plane anyway with the warning that I had to call to check in with them from my arrival destination or face possible arrest in the future. Luckily, I think the "lists of names" were not a thing at that time, as I have never been harassed subsequently.
Andrew Usher said,
June 22, 2025 @ 7:20 am
With respect to Chas Belov's post:
I am certain he is not thinking he will ever see the stick again, and won't barring an incredible coincidence. There is no need to pretend otherwise; what happened was grossly unjust and can't be made any less so.
Also, I am not familiar with 'nutting' in any sense; without a clear context, I might not understand
SlideSF:
Surely that's an overstatement. Yes, 'sir' can be used sarcastically and as a rough synonym of 'asshole', but so can almost any term of address, though normally it would require a certain tone of voice. And by the way 'please' and 'thank you' can also be used sarcastically; in the case of 'please' the impoliteness indicator is almost a standard sense of the word.
Returning to the original topic, as I feel I must, the incident is not just unfair in the way described earlier; I would call it, legally, a violation of due process when the item is one that could not reasonable be expected to be confiscated, as with that stick, as if is effectively subjecting one to a 'law' of which one could not have been aware, and that is not generally permitted.
Victor Mair said,
June 22, 2025 @ 8:49 am
Yesterday afternoon, upon returning my rented car to the agency lot, I had to hop a shuttle bus to go back to the terminal to take a taxi home. The shuttle bus driver helped the twenty or so passengers to put their luggage on the racks that were meant for holding them in place. Even though the driver was not in a position of power or authority, many of the passengers said, "Thank you, sir", and he sirred them back.
When I got in line for the taxi at the airport terminal, I refused to take the one driven by the first driver because he was arrogant and bossy. The second driver was nice. He sirred me and I sirred him right back. All very natural. We had a pleasant conversation during the 15 mile ride to my home.
Philip Taylor said,
June 22, 2025 @ 2:33 pm
May I ask (I am genuinely interested) whether you both sustained the use of "sir" throughout the 15-mile trip ? I ask because, not long out of school (i.e., a couple of years at most), where we had been taught to treat dustman and duke alike, I said "sir" to a beggar who was soliciting alms. His reaction was both unexpected and heart-warming. Paphrasing (it is too long ago to recall his exact words), he said something along the lines of "Gawd bless yer guv, I ain't been called "sir" in over 20 years. Keeps yer money, yer've made me a very happy man". Now I had addressed him as "sir" without thinking (but with my school's ethos obviously somewhere in the back of my mind), but I very much doubt if we had then chatted for however long it takes to drive the 15 miles to your home I would have used the word again, except perhaps when we parted.
gao xia en said,
June 22, 2025 @ 11:33 pm
Get wheelchair service if it's uncomfortable to walk. Your walking stick/cane won't be questioned, plus you go to the front of the line. Just remember to tip.
Kormac said,
June 23, 2025 @ 9:11 am
There is, in this conversation, a double meaning to "blunt instrument". Of course there is the beloved walking stick, but there is also the general use of uniformed personnel by governments to keep people in line. Such personnel are used by governments as their "blunt instruments". Blunt instruments don't set the policy, they don't make the rules, they are human beings given a certain authority over others, but they too are under the authority of the regime that gives them their powers. People given power can easily slip into abuse of that power. The greatest way to counter this is to see each other as human beings, and to show others recognition and respect (at least until the tear gas starts flying, then all bets are off).
Ross Presser said,
June 23, 2025 @ 1:44 pm
@Dave: He could certainly have mailed it / shipped it ahead, or even packed it in checked luggage, if he'd thought of it, but by the time of the confiscation, in order to mail it to himself, he would have had to leave the TSA line, retreat into the departures terminal, locate suitable packaging and a place to mail it from, and finally he'd absolutely miss his flight. Having travelled with it numerous times before, there was no reason to think this time would be different.
Andrew Usher said,
June 23, 2025 @ 11:08 pm
Yes, exactly. He'd done it many times before and had no reason to think he was getting away with anything wrong, and certainly it could not have been a secret.Yet a single lowest-level worker could reverse that in the name of 'security' – and, well, when that kind of thing happens and there is no useful appeal, there's only one concept that could describe it.
Kormac:
Well, that sounds nice, but that's all it does. When power is involved, such platitudes are meaningless. You're right of course that 'blunt instrument' is also used metaphorically, and in that case 'blunt' has a slightly different meaning (namely, unsubtle or undiscriminating) than when describing a putative weapon.
Ryan said,
June 23, 2025 @ 11:34 pm
Andrew, it’s a core precept of de-escalation, calming yourself, showing respect and offering the interlocutor a calm path of interaction. Calling the ref sir typically allowed me to express my disagreemrnt without being carded for dissent.
Ryan said,
June 24, 2025 @ 8:23 am
Whoops, I over-relied on the first sentences of Andrew’s post in thinking he was commenting on the use of ‘sir’. I’ll let my previous comment stand but it’s not really a reply.
Philip Taylor said,
June 24, 2025 @ 1:03 pm
I would say that a "blunt instrument", used to refer to a putative weapon, carries exactly the same connotations as in the metaphorical sense. A "blunt instrument", when used to strike someone is unsubtle and indiscriminating — it doesn't matter too much where it hits, it does enormous damage (if wielded with sufficient force) and will almost certainly disable the opponent no matter what or where it strikes.
Andrew Usher said,
June 27, 2025 @ 7:42 am
This does not lack merit, but I still feel the two metaphors to be distinct, at least mostly.
Also: what is 'Ryan' talking about? I haven't seen him post in this thread at all, for any reason. In any case, I actually _would_ have no particular comment of the use of 'sir', making him accidentally right.
Peter Taylor said,
July 8, 2025 @ 4:07 am
To a linguistic matter raised in the comments: nutting is also used in (association) football for kicking a ball so that it passes between someone's legs.
I have two anecdotes about blunt instruments and security restrictions. The simpler one is that I had a brand new umbrella, purchased as a souvenir in Brussels, confiscated at Brussels airport. The other one also relates to souvenirs: I bought some machetes in Ecuador as gifts for my brothers, and tried to send them home by post but was told that blunt instruments (armas blancas in Spanish) could not be sent internationally. So I somehow squeezed them into my luggage and flew home with them, arriving 20 years and 1 day ago in London. British readers will realise that that was the day of the Tube and bus bombings. A week later I went by train to visit my parents and took the machetes along to present them. I had to go through London, and met one of my brothers on the train. He told me that that very morning he had been subjected to a random bag search on entering the Tube and had been told off for carrying, but allowed to keep, a small penknife. I thought about the two large machetes in my bag and laughed.