Gun Control

That poster hung in my room as a kid. Instead of sports heroes, I idolized Jimi Hendrix.

Hendrix and bassist Noel Redding were pointing guns at each other -- probably pretend guns. Funny thing was, Hendrix and Redding didn't get along professionally -- but that's another story. Let's take a closer look at their hands:

Jimi held the reins in his right hand and the pistol in his left hand (he was left-handed). He had his trigger finger in the trigger guard on the trigger and his thumb over the hammer. Had the gun been uncocked, that would have been the deadliest pose to strike. Now let's look at Redding:

The Englishman used both hands to grip the pistol, but way, way down on the grip. Note that Redding (who was right-handed) gripped the pistol in his left hand. He held the reins in his right hand.

It seems obvious that holding the reins of power is symbolically more important than self-defense, though both are hopelessly entwined. 

"Hong Kong Protests Mark Twist in History of Umbrella Symbolism"

From 1930s England through the Kennedy and Nixon years in the U.S., to display an umbrella was to allege political softness, says Edward H. Miller, an academic at Boston’s Northeastern University. “If you are compromising, you are umbrella man.”

“It seems the umbrella is used for the opposite purpose (in Hong Kong),” Mr. Miller said in an interview with China Real Time. “It’s a symbol of strength, a symbol of defiance.”

When photos spread over the weekend of Hong Kong protesters unfurling umbrellas to protect against tear gas shot by local police, their protest movement earned the moniker “Umbrella Revolution.”