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Look for my column in this Sunday's Ideas section for the revelation of the 2012 News & Record Town Square Community Columnists.

There were some hard choices from among a field of more than 120 -- in fact , many more qualified applicants than we had avaliable slots.

But we believe we've got a good group with a very wide range of backgrounds, interests and perspectives. Two of their columns will debut Sunday.

Stay tuned.

An ill-considered remark on Twitter gets another person in trouble.

This time it's a seasoned journalist, Roland Martin of CNN, TV One and "The Tim Joyner Morning Show."

He should know better.

But tweets are impulsive by nature, and the urge to be flip and spontaneous in a sentence is a recipe for embarrassment ... or worse.

Really, who knows, given how excruciatingly inconsistent both teams can be.

But if the good Carolina and Duke teams both show, Carolina should win by, oh, 10 points or so.

A side wager: No school or elected official gets booed at halftime.

When the City Council takes up a resolution tonight against a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in North Carolina, Trudy Wade almost certainly will be the lone dissenting voice.

But she’s got to be loving the fact that the issue has come up.

It helps her stake out her position on a cultural issue that seldom arises on a municipal level.

And to seal her credentials as a conservative running this year for state Senate.

She’ll probably make an impassioned speech about “family values.” Then she’ll later link to the video on her campaign website.

And the voters in her district will be pleased as punch.

The resolution passes. Wade can say she fought the good fight.

Everybody wins.

Wade couldn’t have scripted it any better, though she might have preferred the resolution came up closer to the May primary election.

One things is for sure now: There's no shortage of grocery stores in Greensboro.

Next up: Another local Aldi planned for New Garden Road.

The Trader Joe's issue, meanwhile, remains unresolved.

And the Bessemer Shopping Center still would kill for a store ... any store.

How does the song go? "Them that's got shall get. Them that's not shall lose."

What's up with all those empty seats in the ACC this season?

Virginia Tech plays Duke in Blacksburg and can't come close to filling the place.

Carolina plays at Wake and Deacons fans stay away in droves.

As Jeff Mills reported last week, some conference officials blame high-defintion TV. I blame boring, uncompetitive games and downright bad basketball.

The ACC is Carolina and Duke and maybe Florida State and a bunch of other schools.

OK, Virginia's pretty good, but overachieving. The rest of the league is mediocre to terrible.

Hokie fans probably didn't come to see Duke because they figured they had no chance to win.

Don't get me wrong, I love the ACC. And many other leagues are like this — or much worse — year in and year out.

But we're not used to this. We're been spoiled for so long with drama and grace.

Now we've got precious little of either.

This might be pretty darned good year for the tournament to be somewhere other than Greensboro.

Yet even the very best conferences are entitled to a down season every now and then. The again, after ACC football imploded last fall, we really, really  needed some good hoops.

Get well soon, ACC. You're just not yourself these days.

If you ask me, Mitt Romney got a bum deal on his comment about poor people.

I think he could have chosen his words more carefully (especially since he's been pegged as a rich guy who's out of touch with regular people).

But he did speak of fixing holes in "the safety net" for the poor. I'm happy to see a Republican at least acknowledge the need for a safety net.

Yet I hope that wouldn't be all. Job-training programs, day care assistance and other self-help boosts provided by, yes, the government actually can help.

Yet, to be fair to Romney, none of the candidates in recent years (aside from the now-disgraced John Edwards) have even paid lip service to the poor, including President Obama.

It's all about the middle class, who are an endangered demographic. But the poor seem largely forgotten. Or when they're mentioned, they're disparaged for being poor.

Finally, a shout-out to Newt "Food Stamp" Gingrich for immediately pouncing on Romney.

The Greensboro City Council will create a task force and a timeline for providing "a razor-sharp focus" on a proposed new performing arts center.

The task force will be guided by an executive committee that will hire a consultant "to develop an economic report and create a business plan."

It also will recruit a wide variety of stakeholders to take part, including Keith Holliday of the Carolina Theater, Matt Brown of the coliseum, Richard Whittington of Triad Stage and Tom Philion of the United Arts Council.

Other committees will be devoted to “Economic Impact and Feasibility,” “Development” (as in private fundraising) and public relations.

This is more like it.

Yes, there will be lots more moving parts and points of view.

Which means this initiative won't happen as fast as a top-down, seat-of-the-pants process.  But, in the end, it should have a much better shot at succeeding and earning public trust.

How do you increase chances for your letter to be published?

Where and how to submit an op-ed?

What's the difference between an op-ed and a Counterpoint?

Why can't you write a Counterpoint in response to a letter?

How do you let people know you've published a new book?

Find these answers and more in the new online User Guide for the daily Opinion, Sunday Ideas and Books pages

Click here for a look. It's a work in progress, so your suggestions are more than welcome.

I was saddened to hear of the death this morning of Bill Snider, the former Greensboro Record and Daily News editor and editorial page editor who was a friend, a mentor and a consummate scholar and journalist.

The funeral is scheduled for 11 a.m. Monday at First Presbyterian Church.

Bill was smart, thoughtful, courageous and deeply principled. He was also generous with his time and his advice.

He wrote two books. “Helms and Hunt: The North Carolina Senate Race, 1984’’ recalls the fierce and iconic U.S, Senate race between Jesse Helms and Jim Hunt.

"Light on the Hill: A History of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’’ was a labor of love, published in 1992.

Bill also wrote a regular column for the Sunday op-ed pages until 2005. He played tennis well into his 70s. As for courage, Bill's tough, defiant Greensboro Daily News editorials during the civil rights era earned him a burning cross in his yard and a brick through his front window. He hired very, very good people, including Ed Yoder, Jonathan Yardley , John Alexander. and editorial cartoonist Hugh Haynie.

He held strong views and convictions, but he respected the opinions of others, and counted among his many friends people whose beliefs were diametrically opposed to his own.

My predecessor as editorial page editor, John Robinson, suggested that one of the wisest first moves I could make was to sit down for lunch with Bill. JR was right. Bill was a helpful and constructive critic and cheerleader. Sometimes he'd gently tweak me. More often, he'd offer warm words of encouragement and pride for something he thought we'd done especially well.

The first words of every call, always marinated with a Southern accent, were, "Allen, this is Bill Sniduh."

The last time I heard from Bill was that kind of a voice mail, left out of the blue, I think, in 2011.

He and his lovely wife Flo graciously invited me into their home more than once. Once after church and Sunday school we convened there for an early dinner and a spicy debate of the issues. Another time I coached Bill, who typically pounded out his columns on an old-fashioned typewriter, and delivered them in person, on how to email his pieces.

I am blessed to have known him and to have been able to call him my friend.