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Football ref Sergei Schmolik, here helped off the field of play, was suspended for being drunk.

Name-stickered city council members and planning commissioners from across the southeast must visit downtown Greenville by the vanload. I’m guessing that in North Carolina alone there are 6-8 mid-sized cities alone that have sent teams. And Greenville seems quite pleased and proud to accomodate, trade in its expertise, show off its success: “Bring us your Winston-Salems, your Greensboros and Durhams, even your High Points and Fayettevilles,” the sidewalks scream.

Not sure how much of what is going on will translate. Greenville is a mountain town, for one thing. Asheville is a short drive, and the Blue Ridge mountains are easily visible. That’s an appeal that Fayetteville won’t soon match. There is also a pretty heavy corporate presence in this area which, for good or ill, means that there is a healthy economy and a steady stream of visitors (like me) to come downtown. And it helps to have a focal point in the form of the Reedy River, which makes things infinitely easier.

I was pleased to see that not all of the mountain mad had been purged from the streets in the grand civic scrubbing. They’re a special breed, come down from the hills to shuffle along in sandals that seem stitched by the one nut in their hamlet who acquired special skill in sanitorium. Not that Greenville has embraced them, but from my perspective in Chapel Hill they are far more interesting and less agenda-driven than common panhandlers.

Went to the former Johnny’s Sporting Goods’ this morning - our second visit in two weeks. Great place. The essence of Carrboro. To prove the point: My wife got out of the car to run in and see what was avail this morning, and a Carrboro legend we know, we’ll call him Abraham Pumpernickel, immediately said to her, “are you divorced?” She claims she pointed to the car and told him her husband and two sons were inside, but who knows - youth being a fleeting thing, the temptation to return to it can be intense.

Great analysis of it in the Guardian.

A decent recap from the US News site.

Finally, as was apparent in his remarks last night, Obama has to decide how to deal with this guy. Former Times reporter Todd Purdum, working anonymous sources, has produced a fascinating description of Bill’s “cavernous narcissism”.

Caught John McCain oratoraborating off the teleprompter a month ago and was shocked at how wooden and ineffective he was. Known as a a formidable confabulator, he must remain seated at all times — from the lectern he’s a disaster. As many pundits pointed out, the difference in his speech and Obama’s was profound.

Finally, Hillary Clinton did not come close to conceding things in her speech last night, despite the fact that she officially lost. This provoked a frank, and spot-on, assessment of the Clintons from Jeff Toobin, referring to their “deranged narcissism, which in turn drew incredulous doubletakes from the genteel David Gergen. Watch it here:

Update: The Times is reporting through its caucus blog that on Friday Clinton will suspend her campaign, endorse Obama and pledge to get behind him.

Good read from WSJ on how beat reporters with lousy broadband access missed Clinton’s assassination reference, while those at home with better connections caught it.

If I could buy the domain name whitebored.com, which I’ve wanted for a while, I would post this to it:

I love to wallow at the movies. There’s a scene in the great melodramatic noir Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, directed by 83-year-old Sidney Lumet, in which the viewer is granted a self-indulgent break from the overwhelming suspense and cascading tragedies of the film. We witness one of the main characters as he performs a pathetic and overly slow ransacking of his apartment. Another bottom has dropped - rotted through, actually - and it’s expressed perfectly by the scene, which culminates with what seems like a minutes-long pouring of polished stones onto his beveled glass coffee table.

The film features standout acting performances by just about everybody who makes an appearance, but especially Philip Seymour Hoffman and, yes, Ethan Hawke. The great Albert Finney wallows, understandably, and roars, to drive home that this is a big Greek tragedy. There’s even a little troll character isolated in a dingy underground jeweler’s cage, reminiscent of the place inhabited by Rod Steiger in Lumet’s The Pawnbroker, who utters from experience the film’s capstone line: “The world’s an evil place. Some people make money from it, and some people are destroyed by it.”

This is a great, great movie. Those don’t come around often, so go treat yourself to the wallow.

By the way, before I rented the movie I went online to see what Ebert had to say about it and encountered this weirdest of lines:

“Although the film opens with Hoffman and Tomei ecstatically making love in Rio (say what you will about the big guy, Hoffman looks to be an energetic and capable lover), their marriage is far from perfect.”