Jenkins:  As the plans geared up for last Saturday's rally and parade in downtown Raleigh in support of American military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan (and everywhere, for that matter), Cy King was preparing the contrarian view.

Jenkins:  Jim Hightower is a Texan through and through, cowboy hat and denim and all, but he's wiry and compact.

Jenkins:  So, will Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue's vow to stay positive in her advertising against Democratic gubernatorial opponent Richard Moore change the face of what has been up to now a knock-down-drag-out fuss between Perdue and the state treasurer?

Jenkins:  We never woulda thunk it, as they say. Liz Clarke is a merry soul who walked the halls here at The N&O 20 or so years ago, covering higher education.

Jenkins:  Well, well, well. After years of being ignored by presidential candidates because North Carolina's primary has been scheduled on a date that could be worse only if it followed Inauguration Day, we now find ourselves in the old catbird seat.

Jenkins:  We know it's true, reluctantly. What the television news analyst said this week: "Now that the death toll of American troops in Iraq is approaching 4,000, the public's attention may be focused more on the war during this stage of the presidential election."

Jenkins:  We are funny about our governors here in North Carolina.

Jenkins:  On occasion, when a classroom teacher hereabouts can't arrange a speaking date with top-tier talent at a school, your correspondent is called upon to make an appearance.

One day soon, you will be headed down Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh, and you will see a lanky bearded man standing before a giant pile of lumber, and you will stop to talk to him. "What are you doing, sir?" you will say.

Before your correspondent really gets rolling about what they call "grade inflation" on our college campuses -- over 40 percent of all grades last spring at UNC-Chapel Hill were A's -- a few words of patented, up-front candor. Not Bill Clinton candor, either. The straight stuff. Some of my classmates in the early 1970s graduated summa cum laude. Others cum laude. I was, as a friend put it, thank you laude. I blame some of it on lax instruction, of course, and not on study habits that had me averaging 10 minutes a night. It was also a peculiar time of experimentation with courses of study -- you could trade math against philosophy, or foreign languages against that same cursed math. I survived with a diploma, but to this day when others of my generation talk about basic training experiences, I say, "I know what you mean. I was at Chapel Hill then...but I don't like to talk about it."

In search of: one chancellor for North Carolina State University and one cure for Searchitis, an expensive and seemingly chronic illness that afflicts trustees at major university campuses. The malady is brought on by the resignation or retirement or departure of a university head. A feverish sort of panic sweeps down on trustees, who seek the cure by throwing tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes more, at search firms and other expenses to bring in "candidates with national reputations" for the job.

Whenever Hollywood and history walk the aisle, you know it's going to be a marriage akin to that (or rather, those) of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton. The ceremony is fine and the reception is plush; the couple is adorned in finery. The friends are breathless with anticipation and glowingly optimistic. But sooner or later, the yelling is going to start and art objects are going to become airborne. Inevitably, everybody winds up in divorce court talking about what a mistake it all was. History has been rewritten a multitude of times by the titans of Tinseltown -- sometimes with utterly no regard for facts, other times with some flirtation toward them, and on still other occasions when producers and directors stand somberly on some red carpet and boast that their latest offering is "historically accurate." This promise often has all the credibility of the kid next door who talked you into trading him your roller skates for his jelly beans, not that we're still bitter, of course.

Wellsir, all the president's men figure George W. Bush will raise about $200 million to finance his re-election campaign, which is one reason he came to North Carolina this week. Among other things, Bush was thanking his "Rangers," the people who raised $200,000 or so, and the "Pioneers," who raised $100,000. What happens is, you raise that kind of money, and you get your picture taken with the president and maybe have a couple of shrimp and a little wine. Actually, that's not fair. The fact is, the Bush campaign has a very well-organized compensation plan for donors to express its appreciation to them. It is not well-known, but your correspondent has of late been working the inside track on the campaigns of President Bush and presumed Democratic nominee John Kerry, that tall guy from Massachusetts. Thus, we have assembled information closely held in both camps as to how donors are rewarded for their support.

It was a typical example of the man's modesty. When Bill Friday had to back out of a dinner with those of us participating in a statewide editorial writers and editors conference last week, he apologized but said he had to attend an awards ceremony for Duke University historian John Hope Franklin. He didn't mention that he was also being honored. But when he came to the conference the next morning, the fellow who led the University of North Carolina system with a quiet dignity for 30 years was breathing fire on a subject, college sports, that has occupied his energies for some years. It might even be said that his concerns go back nearly a half-century, to the early days of his tenure as president.