Here are the top news headlines that may interest you for Friday, May 24th, 2013. Read, be informed, discuss, and prosper.

Bride-to-Be Found Guilty of Murdering Fiance on Wedding Day “On Thursday, an eastern Pennsylvania woman was found guilty of first degree murder for stabbing her fiance to death just hours before their wedding last summer.”

Husband Ripped Away from Her in Oklahoma Tornado(VIDEO) ”The last time Jerrie Bhonde saw her husband was before powerful winds carried him away. She shares her story with CNN.”

Father Mourns Two Daughters Lost in Tornado(VIDEO) ”A father who lost two daughters in the tornado shares happy memories of them and describes his family’s strength.”

You Have No Idea How Many Calories Are in Your Fast Food ”A new study has found that Americans are absolutely terrible— I mean way, way off— when it comes to estimating how many calories are in their fast “food” meals. It’s probably better that way.”

Have You Heard of ‘Bang With Friends’? “As the name suggests, Bang with Friends brings the startup world’s obsession with “frictionless” service to the world of casual sex… Using therevolutionary new “double blind” formula (also employed by the dating app Tinder), users are only notified if the same friend also selected you as a potential indoor sports partner.”

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from TheSUNK.

I have my problems with keeping my cool during relationship conversations; let’s keep it real, we all do. This article came across our view and we think it is great. Check out the post and more after the jump.

One of the universal truths of a great relationship is that the partners involved are able to communicate with one another. It’s crucial to be able to discuss things that you are less than satisfied with. Discuss. Not interrogate, finger-point or blame. This requires two people who are willing to lay it all on the line, be vulnerable, and actually listen to one another.

But so often, when we sit down to talk about these things, it turns into an issue that we brought it up in the first place and rather than solving problems, more are created. Alternatively, some people leave their problems unaddressed until one day someone loses it and/or the relationship just crumbles. Here, my friends, are 7 principles to consider for effective communication:

1. Make sure you’re in a relationship where you can talk about your problems with someone who cares enough to listen, empathize and change… or at least make an effort to. Plain and simple: if you aren’t with someone who cares enough to work on things, you’re wasting your time.

2. Approach these conversations from the perspective of,hey, I really care about you, and I care about what we have together, so I’d like to share with you some things that are bothering me so we can talk about it.Not argue about it, not ignore the problem, but talk it through. You have to make sure you communicate that you are not attacking this person, rather you care enough about them to deal with the discomfort of talking about the things that aren’t so perfect between you.

3. The environment for these conversations must be a) neutral, b) private and c) when neither of you are angry. By neutral I mean don’t talk about these things in your parent’s house where they could possibly overhear and your significant other feels obligated to act one way or another because, for God’s sake, you’re visiting your parents. Which leads me to my next point of make sure you’re in private. These conversations are nobody else’s business. Lastly, and probably most obviously, nothing good comes of a conversation where one or both of you enter fuming.

Read the rest here.

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from Dr. J.

Oh.

So I came across this blog post today – and started to read it because a few high-minded folks I know were talking about it. It took me a long time to get through it, not just because of it’s length, but also because I got hung up thinking about the below except for a long while.

“He needed to confront white America with what they presumed at the time was their worst nightmare: a young black male who grew up in hell and no longer gave a single fuck, who used unfamiliar words and rapped about guns and money and drugs. You know, rapper stuff. (NOTE: When I say “white America” please know I am not being all-inclusive. Like, fuck, I’m white, I get that there are many white people who fully support and understand the racial and socio-political issues at hand here, and that I am being reductive by dichotomizing it into simply “black” vs “white” to begin with. Consider it shorthand for the type of non-black American unconcerned by or complicit in the perpetuation of these issues.)”

I have questions.

1a) When a white American uses the terms ‘black America’ and ‘white America’ in juxtaposition, while taking the time to describe ‘white America’ as something she does not seem to be a part of – what does that then make her?

1b) And… more importantly, if ‘white America’ is “shorthand for the type of non-black American unconcerned by or complicit in the perpetuation of these issues,” what does that make ‘black America’ in her mind?

2) Does a writer’s self-identification of how much they’ve oversimplified something as nuanced as the intersection of race, politics and popular culture absolve said writer of offense or preempt criticizing the oversimplification as lazy?

3) Should we be offended or just chalk this up to being one of the many annoying byproducts of the nationalization of our cultural creations?

4) Is Kanye’s art worth this sort of in-depth analysis?

It’s that last question that’s been nagging me these last couple days. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Kanye fan. I think he’s created some of the best music to come out of this culture we call Hip-Hop… like ever. I just don’t know that his music is all that “deep”.

Growing up, Hip-Hop music for me, was more than just entertainment. I can remember spending hours dissecting lines from my favorite songs, trying to find hidden meanings, trying to understand different references. I’d scour the music magazine racks in places like Tower Records and FYE, looking for interviews of my favorite artists, hoping to contextualize, and therefore better understand their work. I did it because I was sure that there was something deeper to what I was listening to. I knew that the answers the all of my world’s greatest questions lay between the lines of one of Common’s metaphors or Jay’s similes.

I even remember making one of my more progressive teachers sit down and listen to the words of Rass Kass‘ ‘Nature of the Threat’ – the whole time staring at him like… ‘SEEE… I told you… deep right!?’

Then something happened. I got older, I read a few books, got an education, experienced life as an adult and suddenly I realized – most rap ain’t really that deep. Are there artists out there who have the talent and dedication to craft to make truly thought provoking records – absolutely. By and large however, most rap can be taken pretty much at face value.

Which brings me back to Kanye West. Yeezy is an interesting character. He cares about his music, and no rapper alive takes themselves more seriously than Kanye. This was obviously apparent in him debuting ‘New Slaves’ by projecting its video onto 66 houses across the country, and it was also obviously apparent in his purposefully minimalist, and melodramatic SNL performance. All of this creates the illusion of depth, it’s all serious and dark so you think to yourself, ‘damn… he must be saying something.’

Writing for Noisey, Ernest Baker said this about ‘New Slaves’:

As “New Slaves” makes the rounds, I just want the general population to exhibit the awareness of the song’s objective that comes to me and other blacks so naturally. I know about “broke nigga racism” because I’ve been in the Louis Vuitton store in Monaco where motherfuckers told me not to touch anything if I wasn’t going to buy it. I know that they’re “trying to lock niggas up” because when I got my driver’s license in high school, my mother was just as concerned about my ability to not get my ass beat should I get pulled over by cops as she was about me putting on my seatbelt.

And writing for The Huffington Post, Ernest Owens said this:

Furthermore, this idea of black materialistic adoration is fueled by Kanye West’s very own efforts as well. Just as much as Mr. West speaks on issues such as racism and the paparazzi, he also does not hesitate to remind the rest of the world of his flashy accessories and massive wealth. And yet that is “rich ni**a racism”…the ability to feel the need to go in the store and be told “What you want a Bentley, fur coat and diamond chain?/All you blacks want all the same things”? However, these are the very same things the hip-hop industry continues to perpetuate as “The Good Life.”

And then there’s the blog I referenced above where the writer takes it to the whole ‘nother level with:

No figure in mainstream culture, with as universal and inescapable and unremovable a presence in the average person’s life, has challenged that very culture so blatantly in decades. The ideals of Public Enemy are as relevant today as they were in the 80’s, but hip-hop was nowhere near as dominant and omnipresent a cultural force as it is at this moment; to compare the reach of their messages is silly. Upper-middleclass white families did not have to deal with Public Enemy if they didn’t want to. …

The position from which Kanye is delivering his message is essential to the message’s power; for this same reason, while it may seem crass that a pop star be the one delivering these messages, from a logical perspective it’s perfectly effective (returning to “Crack Music”: “And we’ve been hanging from the same tree ever since/ Sometimes I feel like the music is the only medicine”).

It’s just a song. There is no real message. Sure there are a couple of awesome lines like “The DEA Teamed Up With CCA” but in sum, the song is really just Kanye being provocative – not Kanye being deep or trying to tell us something really important. And even if he is trying to tell us something it’s for the purposes of entertaining us, not enlightening us. Kanye is an entertainer not an activist. Being an activist requires a kind of dedication and commitment to improving the lives of those less fortunate that Kanye has never really shown. And you know what… I’m fine with that because I don’t expect a whole lot from entertainers. When you start expecting your entertainers to do more than entertain, you invariably end up disappointed.

This is why all of this high minded criticism — both positive and negative — of the ‘messages’ Kanye is trying to convey with ‘New Slaves’ is so annoying for me. He’s just a rapper. The idea that rap music would grow into some sort of tool for mass social justice and mass enlightenment was one born in the 70′s and murdered in the 90′s. What we have now, is what we have: a bunch of new slaves… and Yeezy, as great an artist as he is – is one of em’.

But those are just my thoughts. What do you all think? Check out the blog I linked to above. While it annoyed the hell out of me – for stated reasons, it’s still a worthwhile read. What do you believe to be  rap music’s greatest usefulness… entertainment or activism? And where do you think Kanye stands on that spectrum?

Looking out across the landscape of Hip-Hop, it’s hard not to long for the days when rappers gave you solid, real world advice – stuff you can actually use… stuff like:

stay low and keep firing.

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from Mr. Spradley.

Don’t forget that you too can have your question answered by one of the SBM staff, in addition to several thousand readers by sending a short, well written and explanative question to sbm@singleblackmale.org

Hey Single Black Male,

I am going to get straight to the point. I have known this guy since 2011 and we’ve never dated but we’ve had relations. The dynamics of our friendship is exactly how I like it. We have that type of friendship where we can fool around and nothing is interrupted [and] we can stay friends. I never tried to make it official or nothing like that but [when] I call him my friend and his whole demeanor changes like he catches an attitude. Or something, I know you are thinking that is because he likes you. I don’t think that is the case because when he introduces me he says, ” Oh this is ___”

I’m waiting for him to call me a friend but he won’t say it! Everyone always thinks we are together and when someone in public asks are we together or insinuates that we are a couple and I correct them and say that we are friends the atmosphere changes sometimes. But he doesn’t want to make it official; which I definitely don’t want him to. But the sex is great we get along perfect we debate and we can go long periods of time not talking to each other and start back being cool. Like we did not just not communicate for a whole year lol. Also when we are together we act like a couple and I pay attention to it and act like I don’t notice it for example we went out and he saw that I was wearing blue he was going to wear red but then he switched to blue.

I’m not good with signals can you tell me what’s going on?

First thing, congratulations on being one of the 17 women who are happy with their Friends with Benefits situation and don’t want more. I’ve been answering questions a long time, and finding a woman happy with her Friends with Benefits situation is like finding a Tyler Perry movie with an intelligent plot. Honestly, I could go on and on talking about this, but that wouldn’t be helpful to anyone.

I’ll keep is simple this time.

He likes you!

Out of your entire letter, you made one mention of him not wanting to be more. You say “But he doesn’t want to make it official”, and nothing more. I can’t help but believe, deep down, if you were really trying to convince me and everyone reading this of how perfect your FwB situation was, you would say more.

You would tell me about how he gets up and goes home immediately after “relations”. You would tell me about how he doesn’t acknowledge the physical nature of things in public. You would tell me about how you have never met his mom. Lastly, you would talk about how every outing is a group outing that ends with a secret text about how he wants to converse with your insides later on.

Instead … nothing

So, I’m going to wrap this up quickly so you have more time to figure out the situation that 75% of men have come across before, and that is handling the FwB who wants to be much much more.

There are a million ways to go about it, but I suggest the SBM approach … ignore it and enjoy the “relations” as long as it lasts. When “the talk” happens, just start giving some head until everything is forgotten. Eventually that won’t work anymore, and then you just say “the friendship means too much to me … I wouldn’t want to risk it with a relationship”. That’ll buy you another 2 months.

SBM aka Your best friend with the best benefits aka Guts

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from SBM.

SBM Contributor RealGoesRight takes a stab at answer why it is that men find it easier to say no than women. It’s difficult to say either way in my book. I know that it took me a long time to get to the point of being able to say, “No.” Probably longer than it does most women. I do believe there is a faction of women who will always struggle with this. That’s why baby daddies, exes, firsts, and night riders will always stay in the picture for them, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, check out the article and read more after the jump.

Why Is It Easier For Men To Say No Than It Is For Women? by @RealGoesRight

When it comes to telling people “no,” it appears easier for men because 1) women don’t take kindly to rejection so they’re more hesitant to do the same to their friends, 2) women can be a bit irrational when thinking about the consequences of saying “no,” and 3) men and women tend to have different standards when it comes to friendships.

The “slight” difference between men and women.

Men and women have different ways of dealing with requests made by friends. When asked for a favor both will determine whether they will say yes depending on 1) how reasonable the request is and 2) whether they’re actually capable of carrying out the asked favor. Women, by nature, tend to be more giving and take the feelings of the person into consideration. Also, women generally tend to be more willing to go the extra mile, even if it means sacrificing themselves in the process.

Women don’t like being told no. By anybody.

As I talked about in my earlier piece regarding women and rejection, women don’t like being told “no.” This is a key point as to why it’s easier for men to say no. If a friend asks me for a favor that I either cannot do or have a reason not to do, telling him no isn’t seen as a rejection of the person. If a favor cannot be granted, it simply means that favor cannot be granted. For men, it’s possible that because we experience rejection more often (like when approaching women) we simply don’t have an emotional reaction to it. Furthermore, unless it’s a “life or death” situation, we’ll simply resolve to either asking someone else to do it or handling it ourselves.

The gates of hell will not open up because you turned down a friend’s request.

While discussing women’s internal conflicts with telling someone no, I’ve found that women tend to be a bit more extreme with respect to the emotional ramifications. Not to be sexist, but women seem to be far more likely to think of worst case scenarios when saying no. I’ve witnessed stress and belief that the gates of hell will open up and swallow women whole for rejecting a favor. Or, in a more realistic case, they believe it makes them a bad person for not being able to help. Life, and these types of situations, are hardly, if ever, that serious.

If you can’t help, you can’t help. If you don’t wish to sacrifice yourself every time someone asks to help, that’s perfectly fine too. There are a myriad of reasons to refuse to help someone, even if it wouldn’t take the effort to text a response. Whatever the case, men tend to take a far more pragmatic view on these decisions than women, which is why it might appear men have less of a problem saying no than women do.

Read the rest of this article here, as well as many other contributions on MadameNoire as a part of their “Straight from His Mouth” section here.

Do you think it’s easier for men to say no to women? Do you feel that sometimes men have an inability to reject or dismiss women when it’s needed? What about women, do you think that women struggle more with “saying no” than men? What are some of the reasons why?

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from Dr. J.

Apparently Golfers Trash Talk Too “The verbal sparring between Sergio Garcia and Tiger Woods continued Wednesday after Woods tweeted back at Garcia in response to comments made by Garcia that could be perceived as a racial reference aimed at the world’s No. 1 player.

NY Times Attacks the White House “In a scathing editorial, the Times editorial board wrote that, “With the decision to label a Fox News television reporter a possible ‘co-conspirator’ in a criminal investigation of a news leak, the Obama administration has moved beyond protecting government secrets to threatening fundamental freedoms of the press to gather news.”

Man Linked to the Boston Bombers Killed “A man fatally shot overnight by an FBI agent in Orlando was being investigated for a possible connection to the Boston bombings, a U.S. law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the Boston Marathon case told CNN.”

Still Searching the Rubble in Oklahoma “Rescue workers with sniffer dogs and searchlights picked through the wreckage of a massive tornado to ensure no survivors remained buried in the rubble of primary schools, houses and buildings in an Oklahoma City suburb. The massive tornado on Monday afternoon flattened entire blocks of the town, killed at least 24 people and injured about 240 in Moore, Oklahoma.”

Anthony Weiner Wants to Run for Mayor “The move comes nearly two years after Weiner was forced to resign from Congress after he was discovered to be sexting with women who were not his wife. Last month, the ex-lawmaker kicked off a public amends tour, giving his first major interview since the scandal to the New York Times magazine. In the interview, he called the upcoming mayoral race a case of “now or maybe never for me.”

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from TheSUNK.

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from TheSUNK.

In this article, “Diet” doesn’t necessarily mean what you have been led to believe by all the fads and trends in the fitness industry. It DEF doesn’t mean to start cutting this and starving yourself from that.  Our new definition of diet is simply this: a consistent and conscious decision of what you are fueling your body with in relation to your fitness/health goal.

With that in mind…  Here are 3 quick  tips to enhance your “diet” starting TODAY!

A) Eat More Vegetables

50/50: Half (or 50%) of your main meals (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner) should consist of vegetables. You will be fueling your body with the nutrients it NEEDS, meet the daily requirements of the CDC (Center for Disease Control) and if your goal is fat/weight loss you don’t have to worry about counting those calories.

B) Snacks & Water

There is nothing wrong with snacking! The issue comes with what we choose to eat as a snack. In my opinion, the best snacks to fuel you between meals are assorted nuts (almonds, pistachios, walnuts etc) and fruits/vegetables. Be aware of the serving size when it comes to nuts, which can easily be overeaten.

Feeling hungry? Drink some water. Usually we confuse dehydration with hunger and therefore, OVEREAT. “Drink first, eat last” is a good motto to diet by if your goal is weight loss.

PS. It should go without saying that juices/soda (unless freshly squeezed by you or in front of you) are not your friend.

C) Portion Control (America’s biggest adversary when it comes to fighting obesity.)

Invest in a food scale. If you’d rather be a chef in your kitchen instead of eating out then you should be weighing/measuring your portions.  Here are a few rules or thumb:

Chicken/Turkey: about 3-4 oz. per serving

Fish: about 3-5 oz. per serving

Beef: No more than 6oz per DAY

Grains: 1 cup per serving

Vegetables: EAT IN ABUNDANCE per serving

Fruit: 1 whole fruit/1 cup per serving

If you are not weighing/cooking your own food here are a few visual contrasts you can make:

Chicken/Turkey/Fish: The size of your checkbook

Beef: a deck of cards/bar of soap (thickness also)

Grains: a baseball

Vegetables: EAT IN ABUNDANCE per serving

Fruit: 1 whole fruit/1 cup per serving

Be creative, have fun, TREAT yourself, and enjoy your BETTER diet!

- Mr. BeTheBetter

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from BarringtonBFit.

Here are the top news headlines that may interest you for Tuesday, May 21st, 2013. Read, be informed, discuss, and prosper.

At Least Twenty-Four Dead After Devastating Oklahoma Tornado ”At least 24 people are reported dead after Monday afternoon’s huge tornado, which destroyed whole neighborhoods of an Oklahoma City suburb. Authorities have released conflicting information about the death toll as survivors emerge from the rubble, moving away from earlier accounts of between 50 to more than 90 fatalities.”

Oklahoma Tornado Rubble “Even for a city toughened by disaster, Moore has never seen this kind of devastation. A massive, howling tornado pulverized a vast swath of the Oklahoma City suburbs Monday, chewing up homes and businesses, and severely damaging a hospital and two elementary schools.”

Judge Criticizes ‘High Error Rate’ of New York Police Stops “A lot of people are being frisked or searched on suspicion of having a gun and nobody has a gun,” Judge Scheindlin, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, said on Monday during closing arguments in the trial. “So the point is: the suspicion turns out to be wrong in most of the cases.”

Another Reason to Hate Hipsters Thanks to hipsters, the price of cheap beer like Pabst Blue Ribbon is on the rise. A recent study by Restaurant Sciences found that low-cost beers like Budweiser, Miller Light and Coors Light are going up thanks to the rise in popularity of Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR)– favorite among the community of bearded men in skinny jeans.

More on the IRS Scandal “New details emerged of what the White House knew about the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups, with spokesman Jay Carney disclosing Chief of Staff Denis McDonough was among the top officials made aware of the matter late last month.”

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from TheSUNK.

We have all been the proverbial rock in a hard place at one time or another. The past few days I have been in some thought about love. I’m very aware of how strong of an emotion love is. I also understand that love doesn’t always correlate into relationships at all times.

Many aspects of our lives are circumstantial. I realized that there are times that people could be with someone but their hearts might be with someone else.  The list of reasons for this could really be long as hell. What prompted me to write this piece today was the fact that I have never been in such a situation. So like any intelligent person would these days, I took to twitter to get a barometer of what a situation like this would be like. What I ended up getting was two totally different answers, and I wanted to examine them both.

Question: Have you ever been with someone but your heart was somewhere else? 

Janine:  Well it’s hard because I think about the person a lot; I even yearn for them to contact me. I try to focus all my feelings and love on the person I’m with and hopefully the next one will fade out of my mind.

Arielle: I left; I did what my heart was telling me to do and what felt good to me. It was what made sense then.

Obviously we’re all different, so I can only retort from a point of who I actually am. With Janine’s response I can certainly understand her. If you’re with someone currently you feel a certain loyalty to them. The idea of leaving someone for a past love can seem a bit mean. At the same token I always say that this game doesn’t come without casualty. It’s all part of how things go. Janine believes the more she focuses on her current lover the less she would think about the past one. What is evident is that the past fellow is still heavily on her mind. I don’t know the particulars of that past situation, but what she theorizes has not come to pass.

Arielle on the other hand followed her heart. She said she made the move that was truest to her. If I ever found myself in this pickle I’d probably lean more towards how Arielle handled things. When you really love someone I think it’s perfectly fine to see that through. If your prior relationship wasn’t one of a toxic or violent nature then I think you should test the potential for your emotions.

Everyone has their views on exes. I know that they vary and some are very brash in nature. I just know as a man that if I’m with a woman and I’m constantly thinking of an ex then something should change. I would just want to see the finality of something; knowing whether or not it was meant to be or not.

Have you all ever been in a situation as described here? What did you do? If you haven’t, what would you do? Let’s start the discussion, where should our loyalties lie? With ourselves or with someone else?

DamnPops is a guest writer on the staff at SBM. His bio: “I’m not a biter, I’m a writer for myself and others. ” Brooklyn born dude trying to figure out this life just like you. Come on this journey with me. Follow me on Twitter @DamnPOPS 

“Damn He Got A Point” (My Column) http://viralstatus.com/category/kahlilhaywood/

Original content from SBM. Click here to check out more from Guest Post.