faboo mama

Over at Seesmic, Craig Manganello is offering guitar lessons. This project arose from a conversation where people expressed interest in learning their guitars. So Craig, a singer and songwriter from Long Island, has offered to tutor. There are 5 lessons all together, culminating in the guitarist playing Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.

Though I’m posting the lessons here, you can also follow Craig’s lessons at seesmic under the user name ‘guitarlessons’:

Lesson 1: Tuning Your Guitar

Lesson 2: The G Chord

Lesson 3: The D Chord

Lesson 4: The C Chord

Lesson 5: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door

Yay! Thank you Craig. Everybody give Craig a big round of applause.

That title goes to Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. (h/t to Booman)

Short story: Indiana city has always bused their seniors eligble to vote to go vote. It was a civics lesson and one that any teacher, parent or American should be proud of. This is getting students involved in democracy. Mayor McDermott, a Clinton supporter, has decided that this is a bad idea. Oh. The students are black.

“To me it seems like an orchestrated effort on behalf of the Obama campaign to take kids who should be in school learning to read and write, instead giving them a day off and telling them to vote for Obama.

“When you corral kids together and ship them to polling places, it’s completely unethical. I think Sen. Obama should distance himself from this type of behavior,” McDermott said.

I don’t know what kind of leap of logic you take to get from point A to point crazy-assed moron, but he did it superbly.

Washington said Lew Wallace students have been bused to Crown Point to vote for three years now. “The entire board thought this was a great idea. We told (Dr. Mary Steele-Agee) to make sure all the high school seniors are able to go out and vote.

“Whatever the cost of gas, for helping a young person exercising their right to vote, that is a cost I don’t think anybody on this board or the state would have a problem with.”

Mayor McDermott is so not on board with kids exercising their right to vote:

LaSota said they wouldn’t turn away potential voters of any age. Fajman said, “Students don’t have time before school opens on election day to vote and they have extracurricular activities at the school. I think it’s a good idea.”

McDermott, whose city hosted Hillary Clinton’s March 28 visit to the region, disagrees. “These kids come from the worst performing schools in the state of Indiana and we are giving them a day off to go vote for Obama. They can vote on election day like everybody else.”

What this brilliant politician fails to mention is that election day is on Tuesday. That would be a school day.

I’m always in awe of people who want complain about children’s books. I mean, I got other things to worry about. If I spent most of my time complaining about books that sucked (Coulter, Hannity and O’Reilly sludge come to mind), then I’d have no time for important stuff. As far as kiddie books are concerned, it seems to me that most of them that receive complaints are usually pretty good books, but leave it fringe groups like AFA to focus on the stuff that doesn’t affect them directly. The book that received the most complaints so far this year is titled And Tango Makes Three, a true story about two male penguins who kick it together all the time and raise a baby penguin.

I’m sure you remember the book hoopla from MA about parents being pissed off about the book being available. I immediately got the book and couldn’t see what the fuss was about. Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t read the book as having “homosexual undertones”, I saw it as two guys, best friends who did everything together. I’m sure I’m in the minority in that view. Now, reading the article, you have people being utterly “polite” in the, “there’s nothing wrong with being gay, as long as they don’t flaunt it” stripe (I hate those people). But this is American, where nutjobbiness abounds and they call that the Republican base. Here’s some tripe from a “concerned” parent:

My wife unwittingly sat down to read it with the kids, halting the story midway. We later found out that our 6 year-old had already read it. We spent an hour undoing the damage (ed. note: HAHAHAHA) and it ruined not just storytime but the whole evening. My 6 year-old readily understood that the book was wrong. In fact, he knew when he read the book that it was talking nonsense and that it wasn’t right. My daughter was unnerved to discover that same-sex couples, apparently in all species, can adopt children.

Oh noes! Teh gays are raising kids! What will we tell the children? Idiots like this kill me. I mean, the kids of gay parents understand what’s going on. Why would it be so hard to explain it to their own children? Are their kids such complete and total morons that they can not understand the concept of two mommies? But read the passage this guy wrote. What kind of twit just starts reading a book to their kids without reading it first? I may be busy, but I’ll be damned if I just start reading crap to my 4 year old without vetting it. Okay, I’m running into rant mode…Anyway, there are idiots and this guy is clearly in their ranks. Maybe Grand Dunce or something.

I think that I’m pretty lucky to not only have LGBT friends, but many of them are in loving and long-term relationships. My kids get to grow up seeing different types of relationships and learning that people can love each other and be different than one another and still get along. Despite all the gender conditioning she’s getting at school (I can’t stand that crap either), my daughter completely understands that Todd and Frank are together just like mommy and daddy. That’s all she needs to know right now. She’s 4. As she gets older, then she’ll get a little more information. That’s the root of the problem. You’re not going to teach your 4 year old about birth control, so I don’t know why these people act like they have to get into detail about gay couples. Silly.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww]