Barry Saunders:What a crock. Duke University had a chance to do the right thing last week, but instead it did the white thing.

Saunders:It was one of the catch-phrases that defined the decade of the 1960s. The refrain "Don't bogart that joint" was on a lot of lips in the 1960s. So were joints.

Saunders:Vada Fiegler of Holly Springs used to play a mean piano. Now, she thinks, she's too old or too busy to elicit beautiful sounds from it the way she once did.

Saunders:Can you do a drive-by on a whole city? Probably not, but the recent report on a local station's 11 o'clock news was close.

What does it mean when you frequently see five or six cop cars zooming down your street, sirens blaring, lights flashing, en route to a crime scene?

Saunders:My proposal, which will not only save water but create jobs, is for cities to hire -- get this -- sniffers.

Saunders:The kid approached the piano reverently. He sat down on its bench and interlocked his fingers, stretching them the way every piano virtuoso from Van Cliburn to Blind Mellow Jelly has done.

Barry Saunders:As a Durham journalist, I want so very much to know.

Saunders:Maybe, just maybe, this is why NAACP membership is down and the once-mighty civil rights organization is regarded as an afterthought -- if it is regarded at all.

Saunders:Maybe it's because I've been told I look like Denzel Washington -- it was, admittedly, only once, and the lights were low, and she had a really bad squint and had downed six or seven rum-and-cokes -- that I sympathize with him.

Saunders:When he was a state representative, Melvin Creecy wasn't what you'd call a "quote machine." His utterances rarely made the news.

Saunders:Adam Shepard wanted to get one thing straight when I talked to him about his book, "Scratch Beginnings."

A silver lining in an Election Eve shooting that left a boy dead at the entrance to the Durham Public Library's main branch?

Saunders:Remember that great line from "The Godfather": Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?

Saunders:Psst. Can you keep a secret? Here goes: When men gather around the campfire and tire of talking about women and football -- hey, what else is there? -- the talk invariably turns to Baby Mama Drama.

Saunders:The last thing the dude needs is another enabler, someone to do his bidding unquestioningly.

Saunders:Go to enough of these things -- ribbon-cuttings, political debates, wakes -- and you can pick them out at a glance: people who show up to get out of the cold or partake of free grub.