North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue is contemplating the possibility of privatizing the booze business in our state, something I've been complaining about since pretty much the day I moved here.

They found Andrew Koenig in a Canadian park, about two weeks after he'd killed himself. It's a tragedy all around: a young man, 41, from a successful family who showed early promise and then lost his way.

In a non-descript strip mall not too far from the YES! Weekly offices, at a storefront tucked between a DQ and a nail salon, I purchased $20 worth of internet time. I then sat down in front of a computer screen, gripped the mouse and began playing slots. For money.

Just a week into its mission, the International Civil Rights Center Museum has already accumulated gravitas on the corner of Elm and February One as a bastion of the movement that caught fire here so long ago. But a mile or so down Market Street, another marker on the journey for equality humbly awaits discovery and, perhaps, recognition.

For the first time since the days following Hurricane Katrina, a group of New Orleanian expatriates and aficionados got together Sunday on West Market Street to pay homage to the city they love.

The blanket of whiteness draped over the city on Saturday has by Monday morning turned to jagged ice on the roads that lead downtown. And on this Monday morning in Greensboro, it seems, all roads lead downtown.

There's an old joke they tell in south Louisiana about a couple Cajun fellows named Boudreaux and Thibodaux - actually, there are a lot of Boudreaux and Thibodaux jokes, but this one seems particularly apt today.

On Friday night in the Smokey Bones barroom, our crowd was starting to get a little rowdy. "I want strawberry lemonade!" one said. "Me too!" "Me too!" So a round of strawberry lemonades is procured for the bulk of our party, who range in age from 2 years old to 14, while their dads make do with pitchers of Red Oak.

I am sitting here puffing on a big, fat cigar in the middle of downtown Greensboro just one week after the statewide ban on smoking in bars and restaurants went into effect.

he warm afterglow of Christmas lasted exactly eight days in my house, just eight days of exultation in the fellowship and goodwill that usually lingers long after a successful multi-generational family gathering, which also means that the...