In July, it had a two part piece on the war in Afghanistan (Part 1, Part 2).  It’s something we hear and read about constantly but we rarely get to see images from the front lines.  It was a very moving piece.  In particular, photo #32 in Part 2.  I’ll warn you…if you don’t want to be moved to tears, don’t look at this photo!

As a musician, photo #15 in part 2 really caught my attention.  Here’s the caption from that photo:

DJ Ashiqullah works at the Garmsir radio station in Helmand province July 7, 2009. The DJs of Radio Garmsir in Afghanistan’s lower Helmand River valley knew their station had touched a nerve when the letters started pouring in. First a few, then more, and pretty soon 20 to 30 letters per day, hand delivered to a box outside the NATO base where they broadcast deep into Taliban territory from a desk in a tiny bunker. The letters showed what listeners are aching to hear most is music, banned as un-Islamic by the Taliban.

I was astounded that of all the things that people could be requesting (news, sports, celebrity gossip…), the one thing they wanted to hear more than anything else was music.

For those of us who live in places where we have the freedom to listen to any music we desire, anywhere and at anytime, it’s really hard to fathom a situation where that could be taken away from us.  Even more so for those of us who have been blessed with the ability to work with music everyday.  I know I often take music for granted…it’s always here for me, for better or for worse.  In a time where the music industry continues to be marginalized and artistic funding is constantly under fire, we still get to listen to whatever we want, whenever we want.  Something to think about.