Ho Shit: The Disney Edition

First Kiely Williams started off being "tired of your broken promises promises" as she sang with 3LW... at least until she allegedly threw a plate of food in the face of former group member Naturi.  She moved on to Disney's Cheetah Girls. Now, she's taken another step in her career- she's moving on to HO SHIT! Yep I said it.  Two nights ago someone on twitter posted a link to her new video.  I was not ready for what I saw.  If you haven't seen it yet:




I don't even know where to start on this shit! First of all, what the fuck. Yeah that really sums it all up. One twitter friend did bring up a point though, maybe working for Disney (or even Nickelodeon) as a child or teen leads to ho shit!  Kiely, Brittany Spears, and others.  This however, is the worst ho shit I've seen in a while.  And what about a young girl who was a fan of the Cheetah Girls, what would that girl think of this? Would she think it was cool? Will this song be playing on the radio? The reason I generally don't listen to the radio is because they play the same songs OVER AND OVER AND OVER, so will young girls walk around singing this because they hear it twice an hour on the radio? I hope this video isn't picked up by the major music networks, and hopefully the song won't be in heavy rotation either.  I mean seriously? How can anyone condone the activities spoken of in this piece of crap? Saying you don't know if he wore a condom, etc? What about pregnancy and STDs including herpes which have no cure and HIV which will eventually kill you?   I don't know how old she is, and I don't care either- her mother needs to make her go to a tree to pick out a switch, then proceed to beat the ho shit out of her.

3LW Days: 

With the Cheetah Girls: 

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

"Home training" isn't what it used to be.  For the most part it just seems to be nonexistent!  I am in a professional degree program.  Some of my classmates are young, and by young I mean they weren't old enough to drink when we started school last semester.  Some are much older.  You would think that 95 grown, educated people would know how to act in public, but alas, they do not.  It's like being in a room full of 1st graders.

Picture it: the lecture hall, 8am.  It is the first class of the morning.  After spending a few minutes preparing a power point presentation and making sure the microphone is functioning, the professor is ready to get started.  She steps from behind the podium.  Nothing changes.  At least half of the room continues talking, laughing, and carrying on as if there was no class about to take place.  The professor has to make motions with her arms while saying "settle down, settle down, let's get started."  Class lasts 50 minutes.  With only five minutes left, the professor asks for questions, or makes an announcement, or finishes the last parts of the day's lecture.  People start loudly zipping bags, putting desks down, talking, rattling papers.  A "shhhh" is heard coming from the front of the room.

What's wrong with this picture? How about EVERYTHING!  In a room full of grown ass individuals, this should not be happening.  The professor should step in front of the class and get the kind of respect that Denzel received in Malcom X or Mr. Clark in Lean on Me when he came out from jail and quieted his students.  She should step out and silence should fall over the room without a word being spoken! And what's so important that everyone has to start talking before class is finished? Yes, everyone probably has whispered here and there during class, but the blatant disrespect of several people talking, slamming things around, and moving while a professor is up talking is immature, disrespectful, and just plain ignorant.

I swear if I had children and they acted this way, I would send them outside for a switch, but maybe that's just me!

Christ Arose on Easter Day.

It was the simplest of Easter speeches.  An over zealous mother decided that her two and a half or three year old just HAD to say an Easter speech.  Meanwhile the kid normally doesn't say more than two words. I didn't go to church for Easter this year, and honestly, I didn't miss being there.

You may ask why? I've become more and more cynical about "religion."  Cynical literally means "contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives."  BOY does that fit!  when I was in high school I went to church a lot. I was on the praise dance team, in the inspirational choir (where I held position of secretary), secretary of the Sunday school and even taught the little kids Sunday school class. I enjoyed it. With the exception of attending Sunday School, none of this was forced on em by my parents.  I'm not a morning person so waking up in enough time to be ready for Sunday school was very hard... but I digress.

Just as I was nearing the end of high school, things changed drastically for me.  There were things going on at my church- Pastor probably misusing funds, a battle about women preachers because it is a Primitive Baptist church and the rules are against women in the pulpit (which could really be a separate blog post- maybe one day), people attacking my mother's character, and more. Add to that another local preacher who was also misappropriating funds at his church and supposedly committing adultery with the church secretary, and drama at my dad's church, and I started to wonder about things.  All of this was going on as I went off to college, and it was a time where this instability wasn't helpful.  So I distanced myself. Sometimes when I came home for weekends I didn't even attempt to make it to church.  I could probably count the number of times I attended church during my four years at college.

I am a Christian, and I love God.  I have been blessed more than I could ever explain.  I know that the blue sky, the birds that sing, the wind that blows are because of Him. I don't wake myself up each day or make the brakes on my car work when a car pulls out in front of me! But I know that God is everywhere.  I feel that as Christians there is a huge difference in giving your testimony and letting people know how good God is and trying to force people into believing what you believe!  Going to church every Sunday won't save you!  I see people on Facebook or Twitter on Sundays accosting those who chose to stay home.  Meanwhile, while you are posting Twitpics or Facebook status messages, you aren't listening to the word from the man of God.  I'm tired of being told that I "need to go to church." Maybe you should pay attention while you are there and stop spending so much time worrying about me!   I just don't want to get back into the full activity of going to church, being in the choir, doing other activities, only to find out the pastor is screwing the deacon's wife, or that he used the church's money to buy his wife that gaudy pinky ring.

Speaking of the man of God, another reason I am skeptical of churches these days is all of the ministers that are popping up.  I never understood people who want to be a minister and just start preaching.  I've always felt like God calls  those he wants to use to share his word.  Every person in a pulpit was not chosen by God. And it can be very hard to tell who is really there to share God's word with His people and who just wants a check every Sunday and a BIG check on the Pastor's Anniversary.  (Not to mention the big churches that buy houses, cars, etc for these folks).  Add to it all the general judgmental nature of Christians. (Does me calling Christians judgmental make me judgmental?)  Some things I understand () but a person shouldn't feel embarrassed or scared to go to church because of what the "church folk" might say to and/or about them.

There is hope.  The newest pastor of my church is a wonderful man. His sermons move me, without a lot of yelling and jumping around.  He's a sincere and kind-hearted individual.  But even he can't make me feel like this whole "religion" and "church-going" thing is for me.  I do want to strengthen my relationship with God, and maybe start going back to church more, but I think that I may forever be really skeptical about it all.  Besides if God is everywhere, then he's at Bedside Baptist too!

Product Review: Case-Mate Smart Skin for Blackberry 8900

This is my Blackberry Curve 8900 in the Case-Mate Smart Skin in pink.  My camera's flash makes the case look lighter than what it truly is.  Now I am no phone expert or one of these people who writes fancy reviews for cell phone blogs.  I am just a girl who loves her Blackberry and needed a better case.  I am ROUGH on phones.  I like the idea of protection that is cute, efficient, and doesn't make my phone feel twice it's size.

I give this product 4 stars out of 5.  It fits the phone wonderfully.  The case is thin and does not add bulk to the phone.  It still slides in and out of my pocket very easily.  The textured pattern gives the phone a nice feel in your hand, but I don't like the way it looks.  I'd prefer it it if the silicone was smooth.  The texture makes it feel as if you have a good grip on the phone though, which is what I need with my tendency to drop stuff.  

This and other Case-Mate products for Blackberry can be found here:  Case-Mate for BlackBerry  They carry cases for iPhone and other phones as well.

Debbye Turner: Former Miss America, Veterinarian, Journalist

I actually stumbled upon Debbye Turner. I'd never heard of her. She was crowned Miss America in 1990 but let's face it, I was 7. I probably didn't care at that time, and surely wouldn't remember it. So how did I find out about Debbye? I was looking for information about Black veterinarians. I found some statistics from the American Veterinary Medical Association that said that if you look at the total number of veterinarians that graduated in 2009, less than 2.5 percent of them were black. So finding a Black female veterinarian, who was also Miss America is AWESOME to me. She received her DVM from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1991. Starting in 2001 she has worked for the Early Show on CBS, often doing a segment called Pet Planet.

Read more about her at her website:  Debbye Turner

Marva Collins: Educator

EVERYONE knows (or should know) who Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Thurgood Marshall and Malcom X are.  So I decided that for Black history month I'd talk about some other important people in our history. This is something I want to do all year, actually.  When I have time, I'll try to randomly write a little bit of info about someone who may not be well known, but contributed greatly to society.

Marva Collins.  I first heard her name last semester when my favorite professor was doing an exam review.  Our class had recently had an exam in another class.  Half of us didn't do too well and were in return belittled and ridiculed by the main professor of that class.  So we sit there waiting to get started on the review for this next exam.  He started by calling out the only 3 Black people in our class and asking if we knew who Marva Collins was.  We figured she must be Black, but that was about it.  He goes on to tell us about her.  She grew up in Alabama, graduated from Clark Atlanta University, and taught in Alabama for a couple of years.  Then she moved to Chicago. She was disappointed in the school at which she worked (and in the education her own children were receiving).  Marva decided that she would open her own school.  The first students she had were labeled troublemakers, learning disabled, and one was even called "borderline retarded."  After a year, these children's grades were highly improved, showing that the labels they were given were incorrect.  Our professor told us that we shouldn't listen to the person telling us that our veterinary careers were over.  We may have been labeled one way, but he believes in us and knows we all will succeed.

For more on Marva Collins, check out her biography here.

Let's All Have Babies! We can dress them in cute outfits!

So a Saturday or two ago I watched the "Pregnancy Pact" movie on Lifetime.  Surely you remember in the last few years that some teen girls up in Massachusetts decided that they'd all have babies.  They wanted the unconditional love and someone to dress up in cute outfits and they could all raise their kids together.

 Let me first say I've been there.  I have ALWAYS wanted a baby, but I knew that it wasn't just like playing with a doll, so no matter how strong the desire was, I waited. I had people who talked some sense into me.

The problem here is that these girls thought it would be a cake walk.  You dress up in matching outfits and take your kid to the park and everything is peachy! But it's not! And I can only hope that any teens out there wanting babies saw this and realized it's not the greatest idea! What if your baby is born sick? What if the daddy leaves? What if your family abandons you? So many things can go wrong in that equation.

i think the moral is that parents need to talk to their kids more about sex. Not just telling them not to do it- because that won't work- but also letting them know what kind of consequences are in store for them.  Find a teen mom that is struggling, and let them spend the day with her to see what could be their fate.  But also let them know that if they decide to use sex, to just protect themselves. "Here's some condoms just in case. Don't bring me no babies."