When it comes to music for the Department of Homeland Security, if it’s nae Scottish, it’s crap!  Or at least that’s the impression given by Wednesday’s posting by the department of a solicitation for a proposal to outfit an entire pipe band for its Customs and Border Protection Agency.

But hold on since less than 24 hours after it was posted at 10:03 a.m. EDT it was cancelled at 8:11 a.m. EDT Thursday after being prominently featured on Drudge and mocked by insiders in the piping community, a more clannish bunch of devotees to an arcane musical art form you’ll never find.

What a difference a day makes, eh what?

In the age of sequester, getting caught with your kilt up shopping around for an entire pipe band kit is bad form, especially while Medicare patients are being denied cancer treatment at the same time. Let’s not mention that what you’re looking to buy with tax dollars is near-Rolls Royce in comfort and cost.

The feds were asking  for about as complete an inventory of what a fair-sized band needs, all the way from 14-each long polypenco practice chanters (recorder-like instruments upon which pipers practice), horsehair sporrans (“sporran” is Gaelic for “purse” – the pouches worn on the front of a kilt) and sgian dubhs (Gaelic for “black knife” indicating concealment, it’s worn in the hose to assure others the properly attired Highlander bears you no ill will at the moment or until you criticize his piping).

Odd, however, that the inventory only called for 10 Highland bagpipes while asking for four Blackwood smallpipes, a bellows-blown parlor instrument ill suited for band use. Perusing it, the bagpipe world’s equivalent of the sun, moon and stars is on this list – some stuff that this old piper has not only never seen, he’s never heard of. Santa must have been a Scot.

But no kilts or jackets – must already have those. The horsehair sporrans and spats made the venture suspect in the music department since the world’s best bands don’t mess with such foolishness.

Here’s a secret: In every pipe band I’ve ever seen, most of what’s on the list is supplied by band members themselves – your individual pipe, practice chanter, reeds, some apparel items, etc. – with the rest belonging to the band – drums, technical equipment, etc. – and paid for out of funds earned performing gigs – St. Patrick’s Day to a pipe band is like Christmas to retail – or from dues band members pay to be in the band.

Apparently the federal government thinks pipe bands belong on the dole as they are sometimes in Scotland despite the best efforts of European socialists to ban piping outright.

The agency already has a pipe band (pictured – see the horsehair sporrans and spats) made up of Customs and Border Patrol agents from around the country, which makes going to weekly band practice more than a tad problematic. Who pays the airfare for that? If they don’t regularly practice, then you end up with a pipe band-equivalent of the “Fast and Furious” gun-walking scandal — a bagpipe in the hands of an unqualified player is more dangerous than all the guns in the history of Christendom.

Good bands – world class bands – don’t need a government handout, nor do they wear spats. Consider the Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band from Northern Ireland, crowned top band at the 2012 World Pipe Band Championships last August in Glasgow, Scotland. Because of the quality of their music, they can secure private sponsorship from companies eager to have their names associated with a world champion.

Is there any wonder with a 2012 World’s medley performance like this?

Now that’s pipe band music from a band worthy of private, voluntary support. “Pretty good,” as my old pipe major used to say.

Homeland Security is English (an ultimate Scottish diss) in its understanding of pipe bands and pipe music, clueless when it comes to setting spending priorities and hapless when it comes messaging.