The whistle and the camera within everyone's phones have become emblems of resistance.

Ai Tsuno released a song about all of my albums being deleted from YouTube Music, and so there had to be one about my channel being deleted, too, for good measure.

It never ceases to induce shock and awe to consume the western media's coverage of Israel, which more and more bears all the characteristics of stenography rather than journalism.

As Mark Zuckerberg was preparing to go to court, the muses struck.

The Labor Heritage Foundation's weekly Labor Heritage Power Hour radio show/podcast hosts an annual "Labor Grammys," where listeners vote among the entries on the winner. I'm very gratified to say that this year Ai Tsuno's "No Contract, No Coffee" was the winner (with one of my favorite living artists, Maria Dunn of Alberta, Canada, the runner-up). During the first half of this latest episode, host Chris Garlock and I talk in between songs about Minneapolis, music, AI, and other fraught subjects.

My latest collaboration with the Ai Tsuno Project drops on all the music streaming platforms on February 1st. Here's a guided tour of the album.

Chad Westover is a man around my age, who also lives in Oregon. David first learned about Chad because of having kids, and living in the same city as Chad’s extended family.

Chad’s extended family is full of kind and loving people, which, by the accounts of all of them and many others, Chad is, too.

Chad’s generous nature was exactly what led him to want to stick up for his friend, who was being threatened and bullied by his friend’s neighbor. In the ensuing confrontation, the neighbor pulled out a knife and stabbed Chad three times.

Chad then managed to get a hold of the knife and stab his assailant, who, very unfortunately, was killed that night in September 2024.

Press reports have tended to paint a picture that, naturally enough, positions the deceased, Tristan Thomas, as the victim, and Chad as the murderer. A simple scenario involving a perpetrator and his victim. But if you look a little closer at the details of the whole encounter, it all becomes much more complex.

It’s obviously incredibly tragic that anyone was killed that night. There are a lot of things that everyone involved could have done differently, that might have avoided anyone getting hurt in the first place. But that’s not how things played out, and ultimately, Chad was not the one who pulled out a weapon, and he clearly does not deserve to be charged with murder.

If there is to be justice in this case, Chad should be with his family, rather than in jail in Clackamas, facing a possible murder charge, and a potential sentence of decades in prison.

“Song for Chad Westover” will drop on all the music streaming platforms on February 1st, as part of the latest album of the Ai Tsuno Project, War with the World.

Just before our Berkeley show last night, Kamala and I spent the hour with Dennis Bernstein as guests of Flashpoints on KPFA Community Radio. Along with us there were appearances via phone from the brilliant poet, Anita Barrows, and a report from the streets of Minneapolis as well.