Our anti-virus subscription with AVG recently ran out at work, so I looked for an alternative before buying another 2-year subscription for $54.99. I found a great alternative which is free to personal and business users – Comodo. It has been running for a few weeks now and I am happy with it. My requirements are pretty simple. It has to be auto-updating and fast, and easy on resources. Comodo fits the bill. Highly recommended.
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As of this evening the CD Daniel: The Captivity and Restoration is up on gladsongs.com!
See the album here – you can listen to an audio sample as well.
This was a fun and very involved project by Christian Light Choir, a youth chorus directed by myself at the time. We did this much for our own enjoyment and decided to do a quality recording. Our abilities were amateur but the music was very interesting particularly as I was not able to find that the music is in print or is being used anywhere today.
There is one exception to this – the chorus “Sing O Sing and Magnify the Lord” which is in the Mennonite songbook Zion’s Praises.
Some are familiar with George Root’s cantata “David the Shepherd Boy.” Root along with William Bradbury wrote the music for the cantata. The words were written by C.M. Cady and the famous songwriter Fanny Crosby.
I found the music while browsing the Library of Congress web project Music for the Nation which has published graphic images of music in their files that is now in the public domain. This is a fascinating resource for music lovers and choir directors as you can use this music for free. It is a treasure trove of music for all sorts of musical groups and instruments, searchable by genre etc.
You can view the original music for Daniel Cantata at this website.
The print quality of the music in the LOC graphic files is not the greatest and I was discussing this with my friend Joseph Ebersole who offered to typeset the music in shaped notes and print the book. We were absolutely delighted with his work. Contact him at his website if you are interested in purchasing the book.
See the Daniel cantata CD at Gladsongs!
I recently found this paper in my files and thought it was mighty interesting. It was written by an old friend maybe twelve years ago or so. I will post it here without giving credit to the author who may or may not want any. 
Here goes:
Why I Didn’t Vote
What should a Christian’s attitude be toward politics, campaigning, voting, or holding office? There are obviously two opposing kingdoms in the world today, and I belong to the kingdom of God, the heavenly, invisible kingdom. But both kingdoms are claiming my time, resources, energy, involvement, and allegiance. In a conflict of priorities, to whom do I owe my allegiance? Let’s see first what we owe to our government.
1. Matthew 22:21 “… render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.” In context, this suggests that we owe our taxes to our government.
2. Romans 13:1 “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities.” This indicates that we owe our obedience to the laws of our government.
3. 1 Peter 2:17 “… honor the king.” Obviously we are to respect the position of authority held by our government leaders.
4. 1 Timothy 2:1,2a “… I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority…” We owe appreciation to and earnest prayer in behalf of our government.