How this NBA lockout is affecting the fans...especially Me?

      As a girl who loves sports, I've always looked forward to the beginning of the NBA season, especially the holidays when they play big games, like the Christmas day game with the Los Angeles Lakers against the Boston Celtics but this year I have nothing to look forward to.

     As I watch reports of the players and owners still in limbo about a deal which would end this lockout I began to wonder why they're being so greedy, none of them are thinking about the fans. Fans who buy their memorabilia, purchase season tickets, attend or watch games, those who devote their hard earn money and valuable time to cheer on their favorite team or player.

     As someone who is a fan and spends my money supporting my favorite team I have started to feel left out, like they don't care. So with the feelings I have started to wonder that if they don't consider the fans then why should we consider them. If the lockout ends today they expect things to go back to normal when it shouldn't, for we have missed games, great plays, good food and heartfelt cheers, because they can't make up their minds.

     So what if we acted like them and decided to not come back when they want us to, to watch international basketball and support our players that had to play overseas because of the lookout. Missing basketball has made me so furious that I've considered boycotting the 2011-2012 season....If we have one!

A Different Angle

       As the Penn State Child Sex Abuse Scandal continues to evolve I can't help but to think why the media and the school is making this all about Coach Joe Paterno. Ever report involves him when it should be about the victims and Sandusky. The media has made it such a frenzy that you forget that Sandusky is even involved in the situation.

       With the recent firing of Paterno the scandal has really taken a different angle placing him in the front for not reporting the alleged 2002 incident to the police however what I don't understand is why McQueary was not fired. He's the person who actually witnessed the incident. With the incident going unreported the question asked is "Why?"

       I think the way in which Joe reported the situation was accurate because he didn't witness it and who's to say that what was actually reported to him is true. I mean McQueary could have had it out for Sandusky...he did end up with his position after the incident. McQueary not reporting the incident when he witnessed it begs to ask "did he really see anything and is he telling the truth?"

Why are we so homo-phobic?

         In a recent conversation with my boyfriend about gay rights, he revealed that he's homo-phobic. I always knew that he didn't feel comfortable when talking about the subject but I never knew he felt this way. Upon learning this I asked him why, he told me 'because they annoy him."

         At first i thought this dude is weird but he's entitled to his own opinion, so I continued by asking him why they annoy him he said "because they're gay and that's not right."

         I asked him what would he do if one of his children turned out to be gay he told me he'd send him or her back to Africa. This completely shocked me because my boyfriend is a Nigerian and in his country people are beaten and sometimes killed for being homosexual or having homosexual tendencies. I also did some research and saw a documentary where an African male was describing what they do to the women who are lesbian. In Africa a women is rape for the belief that raping her will make her not want to be gay.  

         After this conversation and seeing the documentary I began to wonder why we as a society are so homo-phobic, is it because we don't like when someone is different, is it because of our religious beliefs or is it because we fear that we may actually be what we're so against. I mean if we saw it as love and not their body parts would will still hate them cause at the end of it all that's all they're trying to do....love the person they're with regardless of their gender.

McDonald's Beat Down

     After watching the McDonald's Beat Down video I am extremely pissed and disappointed.

      I don't believe the employee should have lost his job and been arrested. I mean when does it become a crime to defend yourself, maybe he shouldn't have used the rod, but what do you do in that situations. I know that if I was in his position I most likely would have found the closest item to me to use in helping to defend myself. 

      A lot of people would say I'm wrong because those are women but they attacked him first. All of this happened because he was simply doing his job of making sure a large bill was not counterfeit. Also at the end of the video the reporter lists his charges and the two female charges but what concerns me is why they(the females) were not charged with. So I ask "were the right actions taken against him for what he did?"

From a victim to a survivor

As a child I thought like a victim now that I am an adult I think as a survivor.

Having my father taken from my life at the young age of eight, I thought as a victim that revenge was the best solution to the situations. I wanted the person who murdered him sentenced to death or far worst, for someone to kill him and watch him die slowly as my father had, but after I recently visited Angola prison my outlook on the death penalty and life imprisonment has changed.

Due to the amazing experience I had at Angola I am able to think as a survivor and see that revenge is not the best decision for it does exactly the same thing that was done to me, takes someone from their family. Seeing and speaking to several prisoners was like talking to the dead, for most of the individuals I spoke to are going to die there. Before going I had a pre-existing conception that prisoners never change and they deserve to rot in the hell they created from the actions they committed. Since I got to talk to several and hear their stories my opinion has changed. One particular gentleman had a great impact on that opinion, he is 47 years old and serving a life sentence for a murder he committed when he was 17 years old. I asked him if he thought being in prison had change the way he looked at life and he told me “no, it’s not prison that has changed him its life.”

I asked him how. He said “because some people been in prison just as long as he has and they’re still acting and doing the things they did when they were out while some changed because they were tired of doing the same thing.”

After thinking about what he said I began to realize that even though we as a society thinks it is retribution to confine an individual to an eight by ten cell with someone telling him when to eat, shower or anything else is the best decision, it is not because no matter what he is still a human being. For a judge and jury to decide what someone’s punishment should be is the same as the murder who decides how his next victim should be killed. We are committed a crime for another crime. So when I think about the young boy who took a father from a young girl and six boys who needed a man in their life, I think he shouldn’t have to spend his life confined because that want change him. He will only change when he’s ready, jail does reform prisoners it just houses them, keeping them from society but it also produces a war zone.

What is this blogging thing all about?

Blogging is driving me insane. At the beginning of ever week I find myself panicking, loss, trying to figure out what to blog about. Sometimes I think “why did Beth have to require me to do this, is it really helping to improve my writing?” I watch the news, read magazines and newspapers only to realize that there is nothing that interesting to me that I would like to blog about, so I decided to blog about how blogging is beginning to driving me insane.

 Blogging is causing me to lose sleep for my mind is racing, thinking about all the possibilities of topics I can write about, however when I put a pen to paper I get writers block which usually ends with me having only written one sentence. I also find myself “feeling lucky” when searching recent news event on Google only to be told that my luck has ran out. The constant reminder that attention span is very short is causing me to pull out my hair for the frustration of receive a bad grade from not blogging. So please if anyone could, will you explain to me what is this blogging thing about?    

The Blues...

At three o’clock in the morning I found myself scratching this out of my head

I had to find a way to write it so that it wasn’t so red

So I put it to some music and this is what BLEED…

As I watch my mom fight the fight that so many lose

I catch myself singing the blues

Trying to figure out how this pain keeps finding its way…

Into our homes,

Into our bones

As I watch her fight to keep tonight’s supper down

I find myself asking God “why so many of us got to suffer”

NOW…

It’s not as if we wished for this

Thing or expects it to seep through

We just find ourselves

Finding it in our sleep

It’s so hard not to weep

 But as we see them suffer we began to REALIZE

That weeping won’t make this MINIMIZE

It only MAGNETIZE

Taking it from something we thought so simple to something BIG                                                       

We find ourselves letting it take our dreams

Cause we’re so busy focusing on what’s so SUPREME

LIFE…right now is our focus

But if we DON’T take the time to let this PROVOKE us

We’ll NEVER find a cure and life will NEVER be so pure

 Cause we’ll find ourselves

LOST in the RAIN

DROWNING in our PAIN

As we watch so many fight the fight only to LOSE

Cause we STEADY singing the same old BLUES

PLEASE Donate to find a CURE!!

Is it ok to talk about a politicians weight?

Yesterday, during New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie's press conference, in which he announced that he would not participate in the Republican presidential race, the issue of him being obese was discussed and whether it is appropriate for a reporter to write about it and if it affects his job performance.

Since he is a public figure and a role model, I think that his weight is an issue that should be discussed, especially with the invention of recent government programs like first lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Campaign, which was created to help get our youth active and reduce the extremely high rates of childhood obesity found in America.

 According to the statistics, over the past three decades, childhood obesity rates in America have tripled, and today, nearly one in three children in America are overweight or obese. The numbers are even higher in African American and Hispanic communities, where nearly 40% of the children are overweight or obese. In his state alone the obesity rate is 28.1 %. As governor how can he promote programs like Let’s Move when he’s not doing anything about his own weight issues. So for Christie to say “it is ignorant for the people who consider themselves to be serious commentators to say that he is undisciplined because of his weight,” is ridiculous, when it is actually an issue that should be discussed; because he is creating the illusion to some children that it is ok to be obese and unhealthy just because he is a politic.  

My marriage rant.

Growing up I always fantasized about the day I would get married and start a family. Now that I am 24 and looking forward to it, I find myself getting extremely pissed at the way people my age are treating the institution of marriage like a joke. As I watch my peers plan for their wedding only to end up in divorce court I can’t help but to ask why they want to go through with it knowing the outcome. Some are doing it because they think it is the only way to give their children a family life but they’re not thinking about how hard it’s going to be to explain to their children that mommy and daddy are getting a divorce. Others are marrying for money or just to throw an extravagant party.

I’m not someone who is against the institution of marriage however I think that love should exist before someone does it. I also think that you must know the individual you’re going to marry and be able to accept who they are because if you’re expecting them to change they are not. The statistics say that the divorce rate amongst young people is extremely high in the 21^st century than the rate of our parents, maybe their parents married for love.

Try the marriage calculator.

PROGRESS....Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repealed

       To some people Barrack Obama’s presidency is a big moment in our nation’s history, however to me September 20, 2011 is an even bigger moment, for it changes the lives of thousands, maybe even millions. This particular day made me extremely proud to say I am an American because I have family members and friends who were directly affected by this policy. The repealing of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy went into affect today, allowing our servicemen and women to serve openly gay in our armed forces. Since World War II (check out the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell timeline here http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/dont-ask-dont-tell-timeline/), our nation has been against this sanction resulting in the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell bill being signed into law in 1993 by then president Bill Clinton. 

      This policy prohibited people who "demonstrate a tendency or intent to engage in homosexual acts" from serving in the armed forces of the United States, because their presence "would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability. The act prohibited any homosexual or bisexual person from disclosing his or her sexual orientation or from speaking about any homosexual relationships, including marriages or other familial attributes, while serving in the United States armed forces. The act specified that service members who disclose that they are homosexual or engage in homosexual conduct should be separated (discharged) except when a service member's conduct was "for the purpose of avoiding or terminating military service" or when it "would not be in the best interest of the armed forces." This policy led to the harassment of individuals who were perceived by others as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, the discharging of over 14,000 service men and women, and even the death of one soldier, Barry Winchell (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rowe/taps-for-barry-winchell-r_b_226004.html). 
       This was not an easy task but with the guidance of Congressman and veteran Patrick Murphy and many others this task was completed. The repealing of this policy changes the way we as a society perceive, work with, and react to individuals who are gay, lesbian, or bi-sexual. It also gives them the freedom to marry their partners. This change shows that we as a nation are no longer ignoring the issues homosexuals face and are willing to fight for their first amendment rights. As someone who is an activist for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transvestites this is great progress in a long and hard struggle to provide individuals and couples who are homosexual with the same rights as individuals and couples who are heterosexual.This gives me hope that in the near future we as a nation will be less discriminative towards someone because of his or her sexual orientation. It also instills in me that my children will grow up in a more diverse society where they want be judge for who they are, but instead for the thing they can do.  

If you are interested in more on this topic , please check out the HBO documentary The Strange History of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. 

My experience with having "the talk" with my parent.

         After reading the article "Our Teens Secret Sex Lives" about the things teenagers are doing today in the October 2011 issue of Essence, I began to think about my experience of "the talk" and whether it affected the outcome i had. It also had me questioning if I would be so candid when discussing this topic with my children in the future.

        My experience was awkward and not very informative. I got "the talk" at the start of my freshman year in high school, since I was a late bloomer and did not officially become a woman until then. My mom was the person who gave it to me. She began by asking me was I active; after discovering that I was not, she went on to explain to me that this is not something that you do to make a boy like you or for attention. She also told me the consequences I could face if I chose to do it like pregnancy, disease and even ridicule from others but most of all she told me, more like demanded, that I not do it until I was ready and after I have first told her. After "the talk" we never discussed this issue again beside her constantly checking to see if I had became active. Since we didn't talk about much on the issue I never felt the need to ask any questions because of the fear of her thinking that I was active or considering it. However the following year I had my first experience because I thought I was ready and I knew enough not to get pregnant or contract a disease but what i didn't know is that the person you chose to give this to will forever be "that significant person" therefore he should be very special. After realizing that I made a mistake that I could not change I decided to go back and have a more in dept talk with my mom. This time she let me ask the question and she answered as a friend instead of a parent. I think that by her doing it this way she enlighten me and also helped me to realized that this is something that I should not be ashamed to talk about with her. It also helped me make the decision to not do it again until I felt that the person was worthy. 

       Now that I am approaching the age of 24 I think that "the in dept talk" had a great affect on how I look at sex today, as something special and not easily shared, it also helped me to enjoy my teen and college years by not have any unplanned pregnancies or diseases.Now that I am able to have "the talk" regularly with my mom without feeling awkward it encourages me to be more open when I have my own children, to not create the fear that I once had.