Cut corners, my ass!! For over two years, Madonna has been given grief about using her celebrity status to getting a quickie adoption. Some have merely dismissed as nothing more than an attention seeking shopping trip when it's clearly more than that. Not even Angela Jolie has been given such grief when she adopted her children.

Back in 2006, when Madonna visited a visited an orphanage in a small African Malawian country, she instantly connected with an 18 month Malawian boy who she discovered was deathly ill. Her intention was to get him medical help, instead she did even more and decided to start a grueling process of trying to adopt him. Meanwhile, the media and critics criticized and rights activists tried to prevent her from adopting, claiming she was avoiding the laws of Malawi which usually prevents non-citizens of adopting. Not only that, the media swooped in, harassing the true father of the boy, who gave the child up for adoption after his wife and family all died of aids.

Finally after much delay, on Wednesday, a Malawian court finally granted Madonna and her family adoption rights to their new son David, who has been living with her for almost 2 years now. During this whole process, Madonna has had people come into her home, to prove she and her family are fit to adopt. Also, like Oprah Winfrey in other African communities, she's donated millions of dollars to improving the orphanages, medical centers and schools in Malawi.

Madonna has stated in numerous interviews regarding being accused of trying to cut corners in the adoption process that it's just all nonsense and stated, "if so, why has it taken this long to finalize the adoption?" And she's right, it's only because she's this huge celebrity that some decided to give her a hard time when they should be thanking her for saving this boy's life. The fact is; if Madonna didn't try to adopt David, he would have been dead by now. It's amazing to me how people will try to twist this as if Madonna has done something awful when in reality she went out of her way to go to a country she never knew existed until a few years ago, pour millions of dollars to improve conditions (and still does) and adopt an ailing child, saving his life from a country which is hit badly by the AIDS epidemic.

Madonna has been back to Malawi multiple times and has documented the impoverish conditions in a new film she narrated and produced called "I Am because We are". She has been in Cannes last week promoting this film. As mentioned, a few years ago, Madonna didn't even know where this country was located when received a phone call, asking for help. The woman who called became frustrated and hung up on Madonna when Madonna asked "where is Malawi?" Madonna has stated, she could have easily dismissed this call, but decided to do research and here we are several years later, putting her pride aside, helping humanity. Now, isn't this what we've been asking celebrities to do? Rather than just boast about their stardom, put their money and celebrity status to use by taking on real causes and issues??

Congrats to Madonna and her family!!

A couple of weeks ago, I recorded a cover of The Carpenters' "Close To You". You can currently hear it on my profile's jukebox (2nd song!). Now, I am not particularly a fan of The Carpenters. But they have a couple nice classic songs. I was hoping to cover a "rock" song during this session, but the old voice wasn't up to it, so I took on a sappy ballad instead. LOL!

I layered a few vocals. You'll hear a couple lower layered voices as well as a high one in the background. (Trust me, listening to just the high one alone without the lower voices... it was plain awful.) It's amazing how nice a song comes together when you layer the voices.

I'm pretty happy how the track turned out. It was a quick song to record. I was expecting it to sound really bad, but it's a nice listen. Am I ready for the pros? Probably not!!! LOL!