Source: Shutterstock

From YourTango

Ever ask a friend ”What does his text mean?” Or how about ”Why does he only text on the weekend?” You’re not alone.

Text messages with a potential partner (or even current one) bring up countless miscommunications, plenty of overanalyzing and unnecessary arguments. Wasn’t the service supposed to help us connect?

We spoke to Dr. Wendy Walsh, author of The 30 Day Love Detox, during our love and technology Facebook event yesterday all about the tech habits we need to break. One of the biggest ones? Texting! “Texting may be instant but it’s far from intimate,” Dr. Walsh writes in her book.

Step away from your iPhone and find out how you can improve your texting behavior.

1. Responding To Late Night Texts
See his name pop up on your iPhone at 12 AM? Ignore! When your potential love interest is messaging you late night, Dr. Walsh explains it “shows you are up and available during booty call time.” Instead, if you really like him and it’s a new relationship, limit text between 7 AM and 9 PM.

2. Sexting
Have you ever sent a sext? Nearly 41% of American women have sent them. And sure, it’s a good way to keep the spark going when you’re in a trusting relationship, but remember unclothed photos are dangerous when you’re not in a committed relationship. “They have a digital life that lasts forever,” Dr. Walsh explains, “guys even have websites where they dump unclothed pics of their ex girlfriends to share with the guys.” Is that horrifying or what?

3. Disclosing TMI
It’s easy to get wrapped up in a text convo with someone you like. It’s easy, quick and convenient. But it’s also a way to  easily reveal much more than you normally would with someone. Dr. Walsh explains texts should be used for planning a get together, like enable “see you at 7″ or “I’ll be a couple minutes late.” Save the intimate stuff for the phone or a chat in person. “If you can’t talk on the phone, you aren’t actually in a real relationship,” Dr. Walsh explains.

Read more at YourTango.com 

The case of Kiera Wilmot, the 16-year-old student at Bartow High School expelled and charged with a felony count for a bottle bomb/unauthorized science experiment, has inspired a number of petitions on Change.org from concerned citizens who are  demanding that the charges be dropped and she be admitted back into school.

Despite what could have transpired around this ill-advised “science experiment” of hers, Wilmot is by most accounts, an above-average teenager, who gets good grades and is generally well-behaved in school. That’s why many folks have expressed outrage over the severity of her charges from the local district attorney. Even her principal, who because of the district’s zero tolerance policy, reported the incident to police, has come to Wilmot’s defense. And as one of the petition creators suggested, Women make up only 20% of computer science jobs, 23% of graduate students in engineering, and only 25% of the STEM workforce. We are not going to resolve the gender gap in science and math fields by punishing girls for pursuing the fields.

I will co-sign that her inquisitive mind should be encouraged – perhaps in more controlled environments – however, I wouldn’t go as far as to christen her the next Marie Curie. By most accounts, she heard about a bottle bomb (also known as a work bomb) from a friend and wanted to try it for herself. She ended up scaring the crap out of a bunch of people, which is not a smart thing to do, especially not after the school shootings and recent bombing in Boston. However, I don’t exactly go around expecting 16 year olds to always do smart things. And that is why I am so happy that there has been public push back in this case. For me, Wilmot’s story gets at the heart of the problem with zero tolerance, which is not only an attitude, but as we see, a firm policy in some towns and school districts.

Ja’Meya Jackson

Ironically, the night before I read about the Wilmot case, I started watching on Neflix Lee Hirsch’s documentary, Bully. This is the controversial documentary about the often unforeseen effects of schoolyard bullying on the lives of young people. The documentary was controversial because it initially received an “R” rating, which meant it couldn’t be shown to young audiences who might need to see it most, but after some public nudging by Harvey Weinstein, the film was re-rated to a more teen-friendly PG-13. I’ve been avoiding this documentary because I just knew that it was going to make me upset. And as suspected, I was right. One of the stories, about 14-year-old Ja’Meya Jackson from Yazoo County, Mississippi, is the one that really got to me. She was an honor role student, who was facing heavy time for brandishing a gun on a school bus. According to Ja’Meya, she decided to get the gun, which belonged to her mother, after growing tired of being picked on by a few students on the school bus. Among her tormentors was a boy, who bragged about how he was not scared to fight girls. The whole incident was caught on the bus camera, and seeing the video and hearing her account provided some context to how this could happen. And yet, with this context, the local district attorney felt that there were “no excuses” for her bringing a gun on a bus, and he felt justified in charging her with 45 felony counts, including 22 felony kidnapping charges.

I turned the film off at that point so I can’t tell you her fate. I was just too angry to even finish watching after listening to the district attorney justify why this level of prosecution was needed against this child. Did she act recklessly? No doubt. Could she have seriously hurt someone and herself? Yes. Are there consequences to be had for her actions? Yuppers. But who says that those consequences have to be jail? And what value does it serve society in throwing an otherwise straight-arrowed child in prison for years? I can’t think of any.

There is a discussion to be had here about how this heavy-handedness towards our children contributes to the school to prison pipeline. Neither Kiera or Ja’Meya fit the stereotype of youth, who most folks would associate with felony crimes. As far as we know, they are not vicious and cruel. They don’t have a bunch of tattoos or baby daddies. They were not beating girls up and then uploading videos of it to WorldStar. They were, for all intents and purposes, what most people would describe as good kids, who deviated off from a pretty good path. Rehabilitation and the proper guidance to show them the error of their ways could probably have more results than a lengthy prison sentence. But that’s if producing well-rounded citizens is the motivation…

I think what is most unnerving about these stories is that I can recall about several incidences from my youth, which could have landed me in the same position as Kiera or Ja’Meya. I would name them but they were pretty boneheaded and by today’s zero tolerance standards, likely criminal. And it wasn’t like I was a bad kid; I just did stupid things at times. I didn’t always think about how my actions would effect other people. And that is at the core of what’s wrong with zero tolerance as a practice. It doesn’t recognize what is an essential part in growing up human; and that is making mistakes – even intentional ones. It provides no room for differences and nuances; that since you have the same outcome as someone else, how you both got there is the same. And that’s not true in any respects in life, and it is certainly not true for teenagers.

DMX is the reason why sometimes you really don’t want to know all the sordid details behind the making of the art.

Seriously, anybody with the first two DMX albums already knew the man had problems. The prayers? The good angel/devil voice fluctuation he used to do? His obsession with pit bulls? I mean, we kind of always knew there was something ’bout X that was hurting. But he was also a good looking, bald-headed black man who could rap and liked to bark aggressively on tracks. Not to mention the bedroom scene from Belly put many women on his side. In the past, most of us took DMX as unbalanced, but in a fun way – sort of like John Malkovich. But now that the covers have been pulled back on Earl “DMX” Simmons the person – thanks to his various appearances on reality television – it kind of puts a damper on DMX the artist. He is no longer the black and hip-hop version of the misunderstood eccentric we once thought. Instead, he is just like a Gary Busey.

But I still have love for DMX and I definitely extend my deepest well-wishes to Earl Simmons.

Based off of Saturday’s episode of Iyanla: Fix My Life with Iyanla Vanzant, DMX certainly is embittered by his past and fearful of facing his own mistakes. But so was his son Xavier, who had been estranged from Simmons for a number of years. Despite father and son claiming that they desired a relationship with each other, both claimed anger and pointed fingers at each other for why their relationship didn’t work. Simmons said it was because his son was distant. Xavier, however, charged that his dad was a controlling womanizer, who made him feel “valueless and like nothing.” His intention on the show was to confront his father; to make him own up to what he did. But as Vanzant asked, and then what?

Vanzant challenged Xavier to search for the root of his father’s faults; to understand that Simmons is likely of “diseased mind and a wounded heart.” His breakthrough came when he realized that his own anger towards his father and about his upbringing was sending him down the same destructive road as Simmons. And his father’s behavior might not be intended, but rather a reflection of how Simmons too learned to love from past pain. Instead of meeting and confronting his father in anger, Vanzant advised Xavier to instead go into this meeting with an open and compassionate heart.

I have my questions about the platform in which Iyanla Vanzant chooses to dish her brand of self-help, mainly about how she tries to squeeze months of intensive counseling into only a few hours of taping, which makes for good self-help television, but maybe not for good therapy for those direct recipients of her counseling. And I definitely cringed at the sheer exploitative nature of the whole #SupportDMX hashtag, which she promoted periodically throughout the show. While a great use for fan engagement (i.e., marketing), what a horrible way to really show your support of DMX. I mean, sure there was some really nice well wishes and thoughtful advice given, but there was also a lot of gossip and jokes made at both DMX and his family’s expense. But I have to give her credit for the delivery of a very powerful message about what it truly means to show compassion.

Compassion isn’t just about having sympathy for someone’s circumstances, but rather an acknowledgment that the pain and suffering from such circumstances is not exclusive and is likely a shared experience by many. Therefore, when we extend leniency or even forgiveness towards others forgiveness, we are actually offering compassion to the vulnerable part of ourselves, which has also been wounded and scarred by similar pain. Right before I watched Saturday’s episode, I was throwing things around in my place. As usual, I waited until the last moment to file my taxes and as usual, one of the important documents I needed to file was missing. I thought I had it with all my other tax documents but it was not there. I had no idea where it was, so there I was, running around, frantic, tossing around papers and screaming about how this always happens. “Things just always get up and disappear,” I’m yelling to no one in particular. I’m so mad, I want to take this anger out on someone. The IRS for requiring that I file taxes; the document-maker for not making the paper harder to misplace; basically anybody or thing else but me. That’s the hard part about accepting responsibility. I had to admit to myself my place in not only mismanaging my important documents, but also waiting until the last minute to file. And I have to admit that all the similar judgments I have placed on others for similar infractions now land squarely at my own feet. Not only will I have to admit that I am wrong, but I might also have to admit that I am a hypocrite too. The weight of imperfections and faults can be a very heavy mental and emotional cross to bear at times, and it is very tempting to want to hide from the responsibility. But then you have to also have mercy on yourself. To understand that you are going to make mistakes and that’s okay. And sometimes, those mistakes will have consequences that you will have to deal with and that’s okay too. The best thing to do is not to harp on what was done (can’t change it anyway), but rather what needs to be done next. So I stopped throwing angry fits and tearing up my place; owned up to my mistake, forgave myself, and got some filing folders for next tax season.

It is a lonely place when you are embittered by mistakes in your life. And as the show progressed you could definitely see that father and son were becoming aware of that very fact. For Xavier, being compassionate enabled him to meet with his father, not only to confront him about his feelings, but also to listen to what his father had to say in response. Being open to possible criticism enabled Xavier to then go and have those same objective conversations with people in his life, for whom he might have been unconsciously treating as he had been treated by his father. In a very emotional part of the show, Simmons apologized to Xavier, saying, “I tried. Really sincerely tried. I’m sorry. I tried.” It was a really emotional scene, which I imagine took lots of courage for him to commit to. It was also the start of some healing on the part of Simmons. Unfortunately, he has yet to be able to garner the necessary compassion needed to forgive himself for his mistakes. And until he does, he will continue to make excuse after excuse and wallow in the pain of it all.

Source: shutterstock.com

We’ve all had those moments…you’re running late for work or some big event, and just when you start feeling relief that you’re on your way, then it hits you. Wait a minute! I forgot my…yup, you know the feeling. In some cases, its no big deal, but in these cases, you might be in for a terrible day! Let’s have a look at those forgetful mistakes that happen when you’re in a rush to get somewhere. Unfortunately with these mistakes, you’ll still be in a rush…a rush to get back home!

I have a friend… let’s call her Kim, who had a cousin who was murdered in 2010.  The two men who stabbed him were caught and convicted.  For anyone who’s been through something like, you probably knows that at the sentencing hearing, you’re allowed the opportunity to read a victim’s impact statement, which is pretty much a letter that you write, detailing how the loss of your loved one has negatively impacted your life.  You read it in the courtroom and it allows the family members who are hurting an opportunity to tell the person who’s up for sentencing how their actions made them feel, and allows the judge to hear from the grieving family; which helps him/her to make a decision for how long the person will be sentenced.

But there are rules to impact statements and you can’t read your impact statement until your lawyer reads it to make sure that the letter follows all guidelines.

So, the night before the sentencing hearing her aunt, who was the mother of the deceased, asked if Kim could help her write the statement and email it to the lawyer.  Kim and her aunt worked for hours perfecting the words that her aunt wanted to say on behalf of her son, how she felt whenever she saw his daughter, and how the entire situation could have been avoided.

Finally, the letter was done, a copy of it was printed and a copy was sent to the lawyer.  Afraid that she might have mistyped the email address, Kim looked back and made sure that it was identical to the email address that her aunt gave her.  She rechecked her email two more times after she sent it, felt satisfied that it was actually sent and probably received, bid farewell to her aunt and called it a night.

The next morning she wakes up happy, sun is shining, birds helped her get dressed that morning, and she goes to her computer, checks her email and sees the dreaded “Mailer-Daemon” email three hours after she sent the impact statement, alerting her that the email had never been sent.

Though the day was beautiful, immediately, she felt horrible.  She tried contacting the lawyer and the courthouse to figure out if she could resend it, but it was too late.  They needed it before that day.  A dark cloud of depression came over Kim and followed her the rest of the day.  She fought back tears as her family went to the courthouse and she stayed home not wanting to witness the hurt that her aunt would feel by not being able to express how she felt for losing her son.

At the end, the two boys got seven years.  Even though Kim knew that if they would have gotten the maximum (22 years in her state) it wouldn’t have brought back her cousin, she couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt.  She kept on wondering:  How could I have miss-typed the email address?  If my aunt got a chance to express how she felt, would the judge have given the boys more time?  Oh my God, this is all my fault…  

After two days of feeling extremely guilty, her family and friends tried to convince her that it wasn’t her fault.  Her aunt shouldn’t have waited until the last minute to do it. Kim did the best she could.  The judge probably had what sentence he was going to give already made up in his mind, and it probably wasn’t going to change.

About three weeks have passed and I’m not too sure if Kim is completely over it, but the only thing she feels she can do is block it out, because no matter what, she can’t change the outcome. She can’t flip the past.

I said all of that to say this: There are times when things are going to happen that might directly or indirectly be related to your actions. During the times that you actively caused someone pain, those are the times that you need to take responsibility, make amends and try to do better.  For those times where you tried your best, and the resulting failure caused someone else pain, after you apologize, try to give yourself a break. Obsessing over what happened, how you could have fixed it and what you did wrong isn’t going to change what already happened. It’s tough, indeed, trying to move on with your life after making a big mistake, but it’s even worse when you’re bogging yourself down with guilt over something that you can’t change and know was unintentional.  In those moments, learn from the situation and give yourself the opportunity to move forward. You can’t do that if you dwell on the past.

Kendra Koger is on twitter.

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Some of us are flawless at flirting: suggestive winks, courteous nods and charming smiles are mastered in order to rouse the intricate interpersonal footwork that is flirtation. But, for most women, it’s difficult to know what’s right and what’s wrong when it comes to doing such a dance. We get so caught up in trying to impress someone that all of our cool points go out of the window. Fortunately for you, we’ve made a list of mistakes that women have been known to make when giving someone the eye, so you can try avoiding making them yourself–again.

Being Too Sexually Suggestive

forharriet.com

While it’s alright to show a bit of flesh and tease a bit, you never want to lure a man with pure sexual innuendo because, to put it nicely, he might think that you’re a h*e, and that you would be down for taking things back to his place (and hitting the bedroom). Erotically licking your lips, talking up your sexual experiences, performing the breathy and deep ‘Adult Video star’ voice and visible undergarments are all quick ways for him to get the wrong idea and think that you’re easy.

Source: mrsgrapevine.com

The brothas released some very entertaining music recently about love and life. Chris Breezy tried his hand at rapping again in the honest track, “How I Feel.” In it, he expressed his thoughts and feelings about the downside of fame. He also discusses the people as well as the media’s treatment of him since the big domestic abuse incident with Rihanna back in ’09, and how he’s tried to move forward since. He also covers a variety of other things in the two-minute track, but what stuck out to me was the fact that he said, “Fame ain’t freedom.” Uh, of course not, but unfortunately sir, the media hounding you, the world being in your business and what not, everybody knows that pretty much comes with the territory.

Speaking of dancing and singing fellas, Usher also dropped a video for his Diplo-produced track, “Climax.” In the video, he’s found himself caught up in a messy situation with a very much taken woman as he croons about a love that’s reached its peak, and is inevitably going nowhere. Who hasn’t found themselves sitting and wondering if that’s the state of your own boo-ship? The track is definitely a lot better than all the dance mess material he has been doing lately, so I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. Check out both of the mens’ work below:

And Usher…

*Feature image courtesy of rap-up.com.

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Let’s face it we all make mistakes whether we want to admit them or not. We are far from perfect and we certainly don’t know it all. However I do think it’s important for us to acknowledge the difference between a mistake and a bad choice. A mistake is an act committed without any knowledge of a possible negative outcome. A bad choice is being aware of the possible negative outcome but choosing to ignore it or hope for the best.

Be honest, how many times do we choose the latter and think it won’t happen to us, only to realize we were so wrong? Bad choices and mistakes happen to the best of us, but we have to do better in identifying the difference between them. I know it’s easier to admit you made a mistake than to admit you made a bad choice. No one really wants to believe that they weren’t smart enough to avoid a disaster, but denial won’t get you any place darlings’. Both errors can be learned lessons; it’s up to you to be honest with yourself.

Mistakes are almost inevitable, but bad choices can be controlled. If you know deep down in your gut that something just isn’t right, trust yourself, don’t second guess it or ignore it due to your fears or insecurities. Don’t let your dream or fantasy of something block your common sense. When we know better we do better, so make sure you are making decisions that is not only beneficial to you now but in the long run as well. Many of our bad choices don’t necessarily affect us in the beginning but in the long-run we feel the pain. Raise your hand if you’re still suffering and dealing with the consequences from a bad choice you made years ago?

Woman to Woman, don’t beat yourself up over spilled milk now, just be honest and know the difference between a mistake and a bad choice.

Want to talk to me Woman to Woman or have a topic you would like addressed? Email me at rhooks@madamenoire.com or you can follow me on twitter @rashanahooks

(Kiplinger) — Whether due to confusion or carelessness, credit card mistakes are all too common. The fallout can be costly, no matter what the cause. Even a single slip-up can result in higher interest rates, lower credit limits, unwanted fees or dings to a credit score.  New rules put in place by the Credit CARD Act of 2009 and the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 help, as does the formation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which monitors the credit-card industry. But ultimately it’s up to you to use credit wisely.  Take a look at 11 of the most common credit card mistakes and learn how to avoid making them.
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(Wall Street Journal) — Some people start their own business to escape a bad boss. Albert Ko became one after launching his.  The owner of DealPerk LLC, a year-old coupon website in Irvine, Calif., Mr. Ko admits that he developed a habit of shouting at his three employees whenever they made mistakes, which created a toxic work environment.  ”They were scared,” says the first-time entrepreneur, who’s since changed his approach to discipline. He now pulls offenders aside to discuss what went wrong and offers suggestions on how they can improve. “I could see that it hurt morale.”

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