Nicole be Thinking...

I've said it before: I enjoy Twitter. It gets me through long shifts at work, it gives me interesting articles to read, it inspires me to write. I like the people I follow. [Mostly.] They're like my favorite drinking buddies. It's great. However… In all its glory, Twitter provides a platform to people who don't deserve one, leaving me to throw up my hands, "grrring" at no one in particular. And so… I present to you 5 types of people who make me want to say, "Fuck Twitter."

(from Gail Hill) On Monday, December 06, 2010, my son was escorted by police officers upon entering his school and held in the Hillsboro High School auditorium for TWO hours for being TARDY. He missed TWO classes and was made to sign a form affirming a "new" policy that requires him to bring a note for any absences. As far as I know, the note for absences has always been the policy. Further, my son was not absent; he was tardy. My husband was told that this sweep and holding process is a new, district-wide policy. This is a problem! Is it policy for Metro police to be at the school for tardy students? My son is a good student with no discipline problems. My husband, his father, was told he “probably got caught up," implying this is nothing to be concerned about. We should all be concerned! Why are these students being criminalized? If my son has an issue with tardiness, notify me. Don’t waste two hours of a school day sitting in the auditorium waiting for the OK to go to...

(from C. Michelle Wilkerson) I’m writing to you regarding the recent forced resignation of Ms. Lisa Howe. Until today, I had always been proud of my association with Belmont. I was the recipient of the William Randolf Hearst Scholarship, I was an active member of the student community, and two years ago I graduated with a degree in Entrepreneurship. I cannot believe that the same institution that helped to mold me into the professional I am today is responsible for such a blatant act of bigotry and hate. I am disgusted, at the very least. As an active alum, I would like to know who is responsible for deciding that Ms. Howe was in some way violating university policy. Who made her feel so uncomfortable that she was forced to resign? I want the persons responsible to step up and be recognized for the bullying bigots that they are. You should be ashamed for what you have done. How do you rest at night knowing that you are the reason that this expectant mother is now without a job? Appa...

I'm pretty tired of dudes dictating what a woman should be or do. I also can't stand dudes who bash other dudes thinking it'll get them points with women. For this reason, I've never been a fan of Lyfe Jennings. Recently I slipped up, listened to the radio, and heard one of his songs, "Statistics." I felt my face frown. After all, this black man is going back to prison for a domestic dispute with the mother of his child. (Yes. Digest all that …) But for some odd reason, he feels he's qualified to "teach" a woman how to expose bad men and keep a good one. Hmmm… Let's look at his "rules." "RULE #1 - Don't be a booty call, If he don't respect you girl he gon' forget you girl," For one, grown women are capable of having sex just to have sex. It takes two make a booty call happen. If he wants it and she agrees, guess what? That's consensual coitus between grown folks. Why do folks assume that women are ...

I've been in Nashville for a while now. It doesn't even come close to my hometown, but I am here for a purpose and I have learned to make it my own. Since I decided to stay in Nashville, I am going to make it as awesome as I am; therefore, I have fun everywhere I go. I'm super tired of hearing (or seeing, as the case may be) people complain about how wack Nashville is. So… This Terrible Tuesday I give you 5 stupid points Nashville Naysayers make: 1. There's Nothing to do Here This isn't a travel blog, so I'm not about to list all the fun stuff there is to do in Nashville. A lot of the stuff I do isn't "every-person" friendly so I'm not about to list all the fun stuff  I do in Nashville. What I can say is that I've never had an issue with anything closing too early (except the liquor store). Once it's gets started, I've never had to stop my fun too early. There is a lot to do in Nashville whenever you want to if you're open m...

If you know her at all, you know her as Kat Stacks. You probably hate her. I wanted to know why so I followed her on Twitter for a week to see if I could gain some insight… Her background is familiar … Basically she's a little girl lost. Been on her own since a young age, doing what she can for money, somehow got into urban modeling and music videos. Something pissed her off and she took to airing out young rap's dirty laundry. She notoriously "screwed the entire Young Money crew" then started posting YouTube videos featuring their private phone numbers and addresses. You may not agree with her, but here are 5 ways Kat Stacks is just like you... 1. Cash Rules Everything Around Her She's motivated by money. She has successfully found a way to make her name valuable. People call her a groupie and hate her, but she is making money off of what she's doing. Having sex for money is prostitution, but aside from that… she is in demand. Clubs want her to host partie...

The Boondocks lost me with their last episode and they are officially adding to the ignorance of this younger generation. I understand the episode was taken from an MSNBC segment from a few years ago. Believe it or not, most of the words are verbatim. Starting the episode this way made me think it would be more about pedophilia, but then again, I was focused on To Catch a Predator , not the man raping Chris Hansen. Anyway… I have three main problems with this episode: the homophobia that has become a Boondocks staple, the misogyny, and the glorification of prison. The episode starts by saying that Tom is a "friend of the gay movement," but he has a fear of going to prison and being anally raped. What does that fear have to do with being a "friend of the gay movement?" Is Tom afraid of random gay men raping him? No. Does Tom think all gay men want to rape him? No. He has a very specific fear. What does it have to do with being a "friend to the gay movement?...

So… Avatar won the award for Best Drama at the Golden Globes this weekend. To date the movie has made $1.6 billion. Second only to James Cameron's other epic, Titanic. Sad to say $10 in there represents me… Of his win, Cameron said, "Hopefully, this is part of a trend of the acceptance of science fiction as a legitimate dramatic form of cinema." But this win is not about accepting science fiction. In Avatar, a paraplegic marine, Jake Sully, has to take his twin brother's place in the avatar program on the moon Pandora. Humans want to mine Pandora for the precious mineral "unobtainium," but the inhabitants of Pandora, the Na'vi, don't want to allow humans to mine and ravish their land, to which they have a spiritual connection. To try to win over the Na'vi, human create avatars that look like the Na'vi but are controlled by humans that are connected to a machine at an army base. This marine sucks as a human. Bad marine. Not smart. Paraplegic. ...

For my Modern Grammar class I had to look up three sources that have something to do with the history of the English language or some relevant cultural phenomenon related the development of English. In my quest, I came across an article by Jack Sidnell about African American Vernacular English. AAVE has been around for a while under other names, most notably "Ebonics." (D'you remember when Oakland Unified Public Schools was considering using Ebonics to teach Standard English as a second language for black kids? Yeeeah…) The problem I have with most things that are labeled "African American" or are designated for use by black people is twofold. First… More often than not, these inherently "African American" attributes aren't all that inherent; the traits can be found in other ethnic groups also. Second, and possibly most offensive to me, is that the characteristics they give to black people are commonly found in poorly educated people across all c...

Everybody will probably say the Vietnam War was the worse war ever, the deadliest, the most pointless (until this business in Iraq...) The man behind the Vietnam War died yesterday at the age of 93. I had only heard the name Robert McNamara because he's from the Bay Area and some call the Vietnam War "McNamara's War." I know very little past that. In fact, since I so rarely hear his first name, I've been known to call him "John." I was listening to NPR yesterday and started reading about him today. Here are 5 things I didn't know about Robert McNamara: 1. McNamara began his career working for Ford Motors. He had a major hand in both shutting down production of the Edsel, the big commercial failure in automotive history; and pushing forth the widely popular Ford Falcon concept. He also worked on a team to stop losses for the company and implemented a lot of the organization and planning they probably still follow today. 2. The US entered the Vietnam W...

Unless you've been under a rock since December, "Bernie Madoff" should sound familiar to you. And unless for some reason you didn't watch any news yesterday (shame on you), you know that he was sentenced to 150 years in prison for his crimes. Bernard Lawrence Madoff was born in 1938 into a Jewish family in Queens. He became a stock broker in 1960 when he opened Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC. He started his firm with $5,000 and by the time of his arrest he had swindled about $65 billion out of investors. Huh? What'd you miss? Five things/connections I didn't know. Did you? : 1. According to his sons and the plea deal they made, Bernie confessed his scheme to them after they questioned how he could possible afford to give early bonuses when he couldn't pay returns to investors. They took this information to their attorneys and worked out a deal to turn Bernie in to the Feds. He was arrested the next day. Bernie says he started h...