MAY 16, 2012 - I came across this video this morning, a young couple in Lawrence Kansas was walking with Jacob, their blind and autistic 8-year old son, and encountered a street musician playing "Midnight Special" and the most amazing thing happened. Jacob started to go up to the guitar and touch and feel the music. Watch the video below.

MAY 16, 2012 - Giorgos Germenis, a neo-Nazi heavy metal Greek musician from the band Naer Mataron, noted for his rabid anti-immigrant stances, has won a seat in the Greek Parliament in the recent elections. He was elected along with 21 other members of the "Golden Dawn" party. In a PRI.org interview Germenis said, "In order to rebuild Greece...Greece can stand on its own two feet. We won't need the European Union or anyone else. We'll just need the Greeks." Read more on PRI.org here.

MAY 15, 2012 - In an interview with CNN, Jay-Z has come out and praised Obama for coming out in support of gay marriage saying, "it was the right thing to do." He added, "I've always thought it as something that was still holding the country back. What people do in their own homes is their business and you can choose to love whoever you love. That's their business. It's no different than discriminating against blacks. It's discrimination pure and simple." Watch the interview below.

MAY 14, 2012 - The band Dropkick Murphys has asked Wisconsin Republican Senate candidate Jeff Fitzgerald to stop using their song "Shipping up to Boston" at his rallies. Dropkick Murphys have written a song in support of Wisconsin workers, and are a big part of the recall election of Republican Governor Scott Walker. So naturally they were upset when they found out an anti-union politician was using one of their songs and said in a Facebook post, "The stupidity and irony of this is laughable. A Wisconsin Republican U.S. Senate candidate - and crony of anti-Union Governor Scott Walker - using a Dropkick Murphys song as an intro is like a white supremacist coming out to gangsta rap!" Fitzgerald has agreed to stop playing their song. Check out their song "Take 'em Down" in support of unions and Wisconsin workers below.  (photo credit: darkterp/Wiki)

MAY 14, 2012 - More of The Nightwatchman and the Guitarmy from cool clips I found on the Internet.The first one is from NewYorkRawVideos with a montage of May Day.

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MAY 14, 2012 - Tom Morello led a Guitarmy through the streets of New York, with everyone singing "This Land is Your Land" in support of the 99% and Artisan News Service has a great video including an interview and him leading the troops to battle with their songs. Check out the video below.

MAY 14, 2012 - I wrote this a few years back, and decided to bring it out of mothballs when we had the BP oil disaster in the Gulf in 2010. I put the capo on the the second fret, updated the lyrics, and filmed the video shots at Great Falls Park, Maryland. The song is called, "Rise Up", and I hope it can help inspire more people to "Love our Mother", and support sustainability. Go Green!

MAY 14, 2012 - Zhanna Arshanskaya Dawson had a talent for playing the piano even from an early age, starting at 5. She even played Bach’s Invention Number 1 in public, encouraged by her parent’s love of music. Unfortunately she was a Ukrainian Jew living in Kharkov, and the year was 1941. German troops stormed her house, and marched her and her family towards a death camp She and her sister somehow managed to get away from the guards, and ended up in an orphanage. There, a caregiver heard her talent for playing piano, and offered her and her sister a chance to play with a musical troupe entertaining Germans, and they used their talent to stay alive, and eventually make it to America in 1946.

In a CNN article by Moni Basu Zhanna says about playing for the Germans, “I was playing for the memory of my parents. I was playing to survive.” She ended up hiding in plain sight entertaining the Germans with her music, and even was taken with the musical troupe back to Berlin at the end of the war. After the war in 1946 in a camp for displaced persons run by the Americans, she met Larry Dawson, a musical lover and viola player himself and he arranged to have a concert for the survivors of Dachau. She remembers fondly of finally playing for her people, and said, “These were such special people”.

Her and her sister’s musical talent helped them get to America, and even win scholarships. Zhanna now lives in Atlanta, and is being honored with a doctor of letters from Oglethorpe University. Her son Greg Dawson has wrote a book called "Hiding in the Spotlight" recounting the events, and has also made a mini documentary (watch below). You can read the full article over at CNN here.