Some of the people at the

Durham Rescue Mission's

recent annual fall banquet

had tales of woe, tales of

decades-long battles with

booze and drugs that cost them family, jobs and self-

respect.

      Funny thing, though: only one person at the banquet made me feel sorry for him: Gov. Roy Cooper.

      That's because Gov Cooper had the misfortune of addressing the hundreds gathered in the Sheraton Imperial banquet room...

          Hey y'all. Listen up. Don't go being mean to Rae Carruth.

      As he left prison recently after completing an 18-year bid for conspiring to kill his pregnant girlfriend, Carruth's concerns weren't with apologizing to the woman whose daughter he had killed, or even to the son his act of depravity left mentally and physically disabled.

      No, his concern was about all of the "negativity" he anti...

Okay, now that Bill Cosby

is ensconced in a prison

cell, wondering why he didn't liquidate his assets and

flee to a country with no extradition treaty - and,

presumably, offering to tell jokes in exchange for some

extra Jell-O pudding - let's ask ourselves this: do

we get to ignore everything he said simply because the 

man now known as "Pill" Cosby said it?

      Do we have the luxury of tossing into the trashcan - alongs...