News-Record.com

First some preliminary business: if you sent me an e-mail over the weekend send it again. Apparently we did not make the correct sacrifice to the e-mail gods again last week and, well, bad things happened.

But life goes on. Here' a round up of what did make it into the ol' e-mail box and what other enterprising members of the fourth estate were up to this weekend:

• From the Friday appointments file, "Gov. Mike Easley has reappointed Carolyn S. Turner of Greensboro to the N.C. Advanced Energy Corporation (AEC). Turner is the associate dean for research at the N.C. Agricultural and Technical State University School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences... The duties of the corporation are to guide the AEC in developing projects to promote energy efficiency and investigate alternative means of using and producing power."
• Rep. Alma Adams, a Greensboro Democrat, apparently conducted the Greensboro symphony on Friday. I also hear tell she was supposed to sing. Anyone who was there, I'd welcome a review.
• The N+O's Rob Christensen wrote a pretty profile of Art Pope (along with a companion piece) in that paper's Sunday editions. Pope is one of those folks who are very important in the state's political circles - particularly Republicans ones - that most folks probably have never hear much about.
• Based on my conversations with folks who don't focus on politics professionally, a good deal of the population would be hard pressed to name the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. So why is Jim Black's name becoming a household word in North Carolina? Jim Morrill of the Charlotte O took a pretty good swipe telling us why the state House Speaker has become the focus of such attention.

You go read up while I get back to work.