Rob Christensen:The city of Raleigh has paid a lot of attention to the razzmatazz of urban life -- a new convention center, a new downtown Marriott and a city-backed restaurant where one can wash down one's butter-poached lobster with a $250 bottle of a French burgundy.

Rob Christensen:If you grow tobacco, own a house on Kerr Lake or visit the state art museum, you have a John Kerr to thank.

Rob Christensen:Jesse Helms and Bill Friday were products of the same red clay soil -- part of of the old cotton, Bible-Belt South.

Rob Christensen:Obituaries usually only skim the surface of a person's life.

Rob Christensen:Jesse Helms was perhaps the most influential North Carolina politician of the 20th century.

Rob Christensen:North Carolina is the least unionized state in the country, with 3 percent of the work force belonging to unions in 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Rob Christensen:I kept running into Ben "Cooter" Jones last winter in Iowa barns and in one-stoplight South Carolina towns.

Rob Christensen:Ted Kennedy and Jesse Helms were the Hatfields and McCoys of recent American politics. The U.S. senators spent much of the last four decades feuding and sometimes demonizing each other.

When "Miss Amy" Womble hobbled to the front of the room at Jonesboro Heights Methodist Church in Sanford to speak one day in 1965, the angry crowd fell silent.

If North Carolina's Republican nominee for governor were chosen in a party convention or caucus, Bill Cobey would likely dominate the way "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" swept this year's Oscars.

Reflecting on his recent quest for the White House, U.S. Sen. John Edwards mentioned his former colleague and fellow Raleighite in less-than-flattering terms.

Fortunately for Patrick Ballantine, North Carolina has a history of picking governors who still have all their hair and most of their teeth and can still see their feet. Jim Holshouser was 38, Jim Hunt and Bob Scott were 39 and Terry Sanford was 43 when they were first elected governor.

Dick Cheney was shocked when the president took a whupping in North Carolina.

Dear President Bush, Was it something we said? Do we need to take a breath mint?

'Scum" is how U.S. Sen. Furnifold Simmons of New Bern described the immigrants from eastern and southern Europe during the early 20th century.

The great guessing game in Democratic circles these days is whether there will be two Johns at the podium at the party's national convention in Boston in July.