I believe in …
… a holy and just God.
… love at first, second and third sight.
… a good work ethic.
… things not being given to you without you putting anything out.
… family.
… having fun.
… doing the right thing.
… setting goals.
… changing your goals.
… changing your mind.
… having the first word and the last word.
… knowing your story.
… knowing others’ stories.
… remembering the past, living in the present and planning for the future.
… being yourself.
Congratulations to Hank Klibanoff for winning the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for History along with co-author Gene Roberts. Klibanoff is a Florence, Alabama native. Congrats!
From www.pulitzer.org
Awarded to “The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation” by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff (Alfred A. Knopf).
orence native, Hank Klibanoff, wins Pulitzer Prize for History
Florence native Hank Klibanoff has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History.
From TimesDaily.com
Klibanoff was recognized for his book, “The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation.”
He wrote the book with Gene Roberts.
The book details the attention the media, both print and television, gave to the plight of black Americans as they sought civil and voting rights in the 1950s and 1960s.
Klibanoff, who grew up in Florence, graduated from Washington University in St. Louis. He spent 20 years at The Philadelphia Inquirer, serving in various positions, including deputy managing editor. He was also a reporter for the Boston Globe and spent six years at newspapers in Mississippi.
Klibanoff is now the managing editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
He is scheduled to appear at the Florence-Lauderdale Library at 11 a.m. Saturday.
She must have been pretty hungry…
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Here’s the article in its entirety. I have just one thing to say – this is the American Dream at its finest. You go with you grillz Mr. Warren. You Go. My favorite part is the “touch of class” quote. Priceless.
Midas touch
New York man brings urban edge to Florence
By Trevor Stokes
Staff Writer
His business card may be a glossy postcard that advertises “FDA-approved” Hustla Grillz and Gold Grills (“over 5,000 styles available”).
His business sign may make the simple proclamation scrawled in black Magic Marker on white poster board: “King of Gold Teeth.”
But Donielle Warren’s modus operandi is to bring urban edge to Florence with the latest fashion labels LRG, Red Monkey and Coogi straight from New York City. And, oh yeah, grillz.
“It’s jewelry for your teeth,” said the entrepreneur who splits his time between Florence and Queens, N.Y. “Anything you can think of can be put on your teeth.”
The 29-year-old, raised in Hempstead, Long Island, had his first grill (“grillz” in singular form) as he entered his teen years in the early ’80s.
Grillz come in two types: dental and cosmetic. Dental grillz are molded for a person’s teeth and come with a lifetime warranty. Cosmetic versions clip on as a one size fits all. No matter the type, after fittings, Warren uses pliers to tighten up the grillz.
“The thing I like about it is you can take it out the next day and be president,” he said.
Push-on, pull-off grillz are the temporary tattoos of the urban dental trade. Like tattoos, some prefer permanence, but not Warren.
“I’m not trying to knock dentists, but I do not recommend getting permanent gold teeth,” he said.
Warren warned that food could get between the tooth and the gold plate and cause tooth rot.
“When you’re a 50- or 60- year old, you’re going to wonder why your breath is stinking,” he said, “I can do the permanent teeth, all it is is some glue, but I don’t want to do that.”
Ronald Ratliff, a University of North Alabama custodial supervisor who got a single gold tooth made from Warren, agreed. “America is so much about glamour, but it’s only temporary,” Ratliff said. “I wear mine when I go places just to get a little class.”
Grillz take three days. First, Warren makes dental impressions with cherry scented, dustless dental grade alginate gel.
The impressions are next sent to Queens-based jeweler Steve Afshin, who said the trend reached its height in New York about four years ago and that the latest bling is nameplates on a chain.
“Used to be good before; not that good now,” said Afshin, “Now, not that much.”
No matter. For Warren, grillz are here to stay.
“That’s what’s in right now, the gold teeth,” Warren said. “This is a thing that’s going to be around forever.”
Why here? First, Warren came to Alabama in 1996 to play football on a scholarship with Alabama State University in Montgomery. Second, his mother is from Tuscumbia. And lastly: “Why go up there and be in the rat race when I can be here and be my own race?”
Now, he makes grillz for any and all clients who pay up the bucks.
“I don’t discriminate, I sure don’t,” he said with a camera that flicked past pictures of multi-ethnic clients and their wares.
But it doesn’t stop at grillz. Warren’s future plans include getting an oven plus accessories ($3,500) so he can make gold rings and medallions; you name it.
For now, Warren focuses his attention on grillz.
Chris Swag, a 23-year-old music producer, was fitted Wednesday for his grill: four-toothed, white-and-yellow gold with diamond cross-hatching.
“They shine with the sun out,” smiled the former Chicago resident.
He chose his design, a new one in the catalog, because, “I like to get new things that nobody else got.”
“Pretty comfortable; just gotta get used to it,” he said. Was the $140 worth it? “Pretty much,” he said.
The most expensive set Warren has produced cost $2,200 for six teeth that were made of platinum.
But for the starter-set, basic grillz cost $35 a tooth: “Those are the ones you can eat with,” Warren said.
Warren doesn’t own a pair of grillz himself. Bad advertising? Nah. “My girlfriend flushed mine down the toilet,” he said, “because I was getting too much attention.”
Staff Writer Trevor Stokes can be reached at 740-5728 or trevor.stokes@timesdaily.com.
Copyright © 2007 TimesDaily
Where has spring gone? I was very happy with the 80 degree temps last week, but now things have changed. It’s windy. It’s cold. It’s rainy. I have permanently affixed myself to the couch all weekend and watched a multitude of enigmatic programming. I still can’t believe that there are people whose job it is to come up with this stuff. Even more unbelievable is that I have spent 72 hours watching it. It’s a sad life I lead when the weather’s bad.
I feel even worse due to new medication that I am taking for a little health issue that I am dealing with. Nothing major, just not interested in going in to detail about it here. I could possibly have become anemic over the last few days. No..en..er..gy..blah.
Even worse is that my poor puppy has been cooped up in his backyard playpen for days now because it’s been too cold and rainy to take him on his much beloved walks. I am just not interested in walking a muddy, wet dog for a mile in the rain and cold. Luckily he’s got a decent enough running area in the backyard. He’s pissed though. I can tell. But, yesterday he looked like and Oreo – half white, half black – from the rich mud in the yard and his incessant need to lie in mud puddles or his kiddie pool filled with muck. Sometimes I don’t understand canines.
Also, it’s been quite a weekend. If I believed in all the hocus pocus of Friday the 13th this weekend would have been a perfect example of its witchery. My poor pug woke up Friday morning sounding like a seasoned smoker suffering from emphysema. Mother took him to the vet. He has bronchitis. So I have had to remind myself twice a day to trick him into taking his meds. Tasty bread and peanut butter do the trick, but then I have to make a treat for our rat terrier as well because she’s the alpha dog and gets pissy if you don’t give her something as well. Again, I sometimes don’t understand canines.
Work starts again tomorrow. My officemate will be out all next week due to some elective surgery. I am looking forward to being cut off from the world in my warm office. Just me and John Mayer singing the blues. I promise I’m not depressed. It’s just the weather.
There is really nothing funnier than a thug with money. And, rednecks too. As you flip through the MTVs, E!s and VH1s, you see the immense humor in the spending sprees of people who have suddenly come in to money and have no idea what to realistically do with it all.
Example #1: MTV Cribs
Episode after episode after obscenely overindulgent episode, viewers get a glimpse into the lives of rap artists who have 17-bedroom mansions, 42 sports cars and 15 SUVs loaded with the latest and greatest in gadgets. DVD players are mating with iPod ports and having baby gold-plated seat-belt buckles. Is it really necessary to line the interior roof of your BMW 700 series with Swarovski crystals spelling out your latest album title? I mean, really?!
Example #2: Any young celebritante
Houses, cars, closets the size of a small independent country – these are what young celebritantes are made of. They have so much money they don’t realize it when they buy that third house in Malibu, that fifth Mercedes convertible or that 600th pair of Louboutins. When do they stop?
And, there excesses don’t stop at material things. They purchase booze and drugs by the truckloads then spend months in “rehab” at a retreat in the hills of Malibu, drinking Diet Coke and smoking their Marlboro Lights while they get pedicures and accupuncture.
Example #3: Britney Spears, Kellie Pickler and others
Britney Spears is in general white trash. I should know, I grew up with a dozen girls like her. They have no social graces, and the more money you throw at them the more obvious is their lack of sophistication. Kellie Pickler gets a country hit and buys the biggest fake breasts her advance check will get her. Then, she displays them on national television and acts like she didn’t spend her money on anything but shoes.
The guys are just as bad. Pick any one of the number of quick-rich skateboarders, bikers or “rappers” and you will see a heavy-pocketed redneck. No amount of money can teach you to be decent.
My suggestion to all you future richies – get etiquette training and don’t be so blatantly obnoxious when it comes to your spending. It leaves a bad taste in our mouths.
I have a hard time letting myself write. I want things to be perfect, to flow out of my brain, down my arms, through my fingers and onto my keyboard – perfectly. This rarely happens. I get caught up in the structures that I’ve been taught throughout my years in school. I constantly have the voices of teachers and professors in my mind telling me where to put the adjectives, how to link two thoughts, how to begin a paragraph.
The amount of time I spend writing is transverse to the amount of time I spend thinking about writing. If I wrote as much as I thought I’d have volumes and volumes of work. I guess the main theme is fear. I’m afraid. I’m afraid I might be bad. I’m afraid I might be good. I’m afraid to get corrected and afraid that in the attempt to correct my writing the corrector will destroy the art of it.
I don’t consider myself an artist. I try to think of writing in less lofty ways. The act of writing is simple in that I take thoughts and put them on paper. It’s no different than talking. Interestingly enough I prefer the way I write to the way I talk. My thoughts flow clearly onto paper but in the act of speaking my words often get jumbled. Or, worse yet, I get interrupted. The best part about writing is that you can’t get interrupted. You say what you have to say and then someone reads it. You don’t have to stop mid-sentence, wait for the person who’s interrupted you to say what they have to say and then try to remember what the heck you were trying to say in the first place.
I’m easily distracted. I guess that’s my weakness. One of them at least. I get distracted by noises and the television. I get distracted by the silence when I rid myself of the distracting noise. I get detracted by my thoughts and my typing. I get distracted by hunger or thirst. But, with distractions come new ideas, new theories. And with those come writing. My love. My life.
I started the new year with grandiose resolutions – writing on this blog everyday, exercising everyday, eating healthier, being more thoughtful, being more creative. I’ve accomplished most of those things but you can tell from my posts that I’ve put off the “writing on this blog everyday” thing. I had intentions to do so but something my brother said to me the other day made me realize that everything doesn’t have to be perfect.
After complaining that I was upset with myself because I didn’t feel I was putting 100% into everything I’m doing – working, writing, exercising, creativeness – he told me this: “You only have 100% to put into things. If you put 100% into writing you can’t put even 10% into anything else because you don’t have it to give. You have to put what you got into what you’re doing at the time and hope everything else floats along until you have something to give to them.”
God Bless that Boy.
Where the fa-la-la is the Christmas spirit? Forget the presents and tinsel. Where is the humanity and respect for your neighbor? In the town I currently live, as with most decently sized
U.S. cities, there is a certain population of people with no home. Some of these citizens walk the streets in the downtown area where my office is located. These same 10 or so men walk up and down the sidewalks every day and are passed by as non-entities. There coats tattered and torn, their pants dirty and ripped, people brush past them as though they weren’t even standing right in the middle of the sidewalk. I am guilty of this too. At least I was guilty of this until yesterday.Yesterday, I was taking a walk down to the pharmacy to get a soda when I passed one of these men. Being a young woman, I am a little chary of unfamiliar men in general when I am walking by myself. I am fully aware of the number of young women that go missing every year because they were oblivious to their surroundings and too trusting of strangers. Being as I would like to continue to live my normal, comfortable life, I try to remain un-kidnapped, un-robbed, un-raped and un-murdered. I do this by being wary of unfamiliarity around me.Anyways, back to my story. I was passing by this man and trying my best not to make eye contact yet remain fully aware of his movements. As I came into his “personal space” he greeted me with a “Merry Christmas” and a smile. It was an innocent smile; not one that gave me the wary-ness I was anticipating. I returned his greeting and went on my way. I had never before seen this particular man before nor have I seen him since. I’m not saying one way or another but angels do walk among us. And, though simple, that one greeting has altered my outlook on things of this nature. Rather than go through life oblivious to the world around me, living in my own little world of selfishness, I should at least think of others – even the man walking down the street with no home to call his own. What would happen if everyone took the time to think of just one person, a different person each day? What kind of wave could we create? What if we stepped outside our comfort area and took the time to think of someone other than our friends and family – a stranger, someone we have never met? You may not think a simple “hello” and well-wishing could change someone’s life. I didn’t either until it changed mine.
Today Miss USA was allowed to keep her crown. Though the allegations against her were stacked, Donald Trump and the Miss USA Organization gave her a second chance. With accusations of underage drinking and drug abuse, it was all but guaranteed that she would be dethroned, being replaced by first runner-up Miss California.
However, she was given another chance. Some people may think that she doesn’t deserve it. Some people may think that she is a bad role model for young women. However, I think that she deserves a second chance. Rather than being a “perfect” person, Miss Conner has admitted her weaknesses (in her own words-alcohol). She’s not an uneducated starlet that is famous because her parents are rich or because she did a few movies as a kid. Most people wouldn’t have even been able to tell you her name if it weren’t for this incident.
Think about this – How many high school and young college go-ers are under the age of 21? How many of them drink every weekend or at least on a fairly regular basis? Now, throw that same kid in the fast-paced life of New York, slap a title on her that makes her an instant celebrity and see how much alcohol is thrown at her. Wouldn’t you be tempted?
I think it’s more than fair to give someone a second chance when they are truly in trouble. Give the girl a break. Let her go to therapy and work out her crap. She’s probably the most honest and real Miss USA we’ve had in a long time. At least now girls can look at a truly successful and beautiful woman and see that she has demons too and that even though they themselves have demons they can’t let those things get in the way of their dreams.
I actually think she’s a better role model than the normal run-of-the-mill Miss USA. Who can live up to that? At least now we can see someone who’s a little more real.
