I used to buy into the propaganda. “Democrats kill babies.” But as I grew up and moved on into the “real world.” I started to meet some democrats. They weren’t the incarnation of evil after all.  I eventually became a huge fan of a TV show that had, as it’s main character, a Democratic President. Slowly and thankfully My eyes have been opened. And while I may not agree with some basic democratic principles there are a good many areas where the GOP would do well to sit down, shut up and take notes. As I look at Fox News and other people who represent the Republican Party (inside my family and out) I become more and more sickened. So many Republicans that claim to be so devout seem to leave their faith at the door when it comes to dealing with people with different political views. I have heard insults, lies, exaggerations and downright slander from supposed Christians that would make a sailor blush. Put it on FOX news and it must be true. Have O’Reily spin it his way and that spin must be true. Obama or Hillary said it …. it must be a lie.

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 ”One might have hoped that, with so gracious a creature as wine, even the most ardent religionists and secularists would have made an exception to their universal custom of missing the point of things . . . Consider first the teetotalers . . . Something underhanded has to be done to grape juice to keep it from running its appointed course. Witness the teetotaling communion service . . . Do they seriously envision St. Paul or Calvin or Luther opening bottles of Welch’s Grape Juice in the sacristy before the service? . . . One of the most fanciful pieces of exegesis I ever read began by maintaining that the Greek word for wine, as used in the Gospels, meant many other things than wine. The commentator cited, as I recall, grape juice for one meaning, and raisin paste for another. He inclined, ultimately, toward the latter. I suppose such people are blessed with reverent minds which prevent them from drawing irreverent conclusions. I myself, however, could never resist the tempation to read raisin paste for wine in the story of the Miracle of Cana . . . Does it not whet your appetite for the critical opera omnia of such an author, where he will freely have at the length and breadth of Scripture? Can you not see his promised land flowing with peanut butter and jelly; his apocalypse, in which the great whore Babylon is given the cup of the ginger ale of the fierceness of the wrath of God?

(Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb, pp. 89-90).

( HT: Douglas Wilson  )

What you see above is a widget for a new website created, in part, by my friend, singer/songwriter Derek Webb. The premise of this site is simple. “Artists want to know, connect with, and be supported by music fans. Music fans want high-quality, free (or variably priced) music and to be rewarded, not punished, for sharing the music they love with their friends. We believe that if artists and fans work together, everyone can get what they want. ”

“A great record is its own best marketing tool,” says Derek Webb, singer/songwriter and Co-Founder of NoiseTrade. “All the marketing dollars in the world can’t accomplish what one great record can, especially if it’s set free to roam around and connect with the right people.” In 2006 Webb gave away his ‘Mockingbird’ record for free online, asking in return for a little information (name, email address, and postal code), and as part of the process, for fans to invite their friends to download as well.

In three month’s time Webb gave away over 80,000 full downloads of his record and collected valuable information for as many new fans. In addition, Derek has since seen many sold out shows and increased merchandise and record sales, including a curious spike in sales of the very record that was given for free.

It was the massive success of this experiment that inspired Webb, with the help of a few trusted friends, to start NoiseTrade. Now any artist can freely distribute their music online, via NoiseTrade’s remarkable and embeddable widget, offering fans the choice to tell 3 friends or to pay any amount in exchange for an immediate download.

“Who needs peer-to-peer when you can have artist-to-fan?” Derek concludes, “If artists and fans realized how they could help each other and started making direct connections, without a middleman, the whole industry would change overnight. It would start a revolution.”

SO go check out the site. Come on…trade the noise!

• I am loving this.
• I just picked up the four volume set of J.C. Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (88% off FTW!!!!!)
  
• I’m really wanting an iPhone pretty bad
• I have had my iMac for just over 3 months now and I don’t think I’ll ever go back to PC
• I’m definitely glad that David Cook won AI
• I can’t remember the last music I got into as quickly and as heavily as Pedro The Lion
• Finally, It’s also Memorial Day weekend which means…

I hope this post finds you well. I want to start by thanking Travis for letting me crash his new blog party. I hope yall three of you that read this will be encouraged. If not, at least you will be entertained.