THE ANTI-CZAR CZAR: Rep. Patrick McHenry helped Republicans rail against President Barack Obama's "czars," which he says are making huge decisions and should be confirmed by the Senate. Democrats were quick to mention that a few years ago, McHenry met with President George W. Bush's drug czar. It may be time to appoint a special czar to sort out this czar mess.

CHEF U: The N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law has sued the state over its support for Johnson & Wales University, a private culinary and hospitality school in Charlotte. The center says the $10 million promised by then-House Speaker Jim Black amounted to little more than a patronage gift from Black, who went onto to federal prison fame. The school will argue that educating students is a public purpose. Dome expects testimony to focus on proper hollandaise preparation techniques. The case is a real potboiler.

BREAKER, BREAKER: A last-minute letter from Gov. Beverly Perdue sure got the attention of the N.C. Building Code Council, which voted to keep a special circuit breaker in the building codes.

IN OTHER NEWS: The real "Norma Rae" has died. Former Treasurer Richard Moore has taken a gig at a San Diego investment firm. An appeals court ruled that former Gov. Mike Easley was wrong to borrow highway money to shore up the state's finances.

Crystal Lee Sutton, the retired textile mill worker who inspired the movie 'Norma Rae,' died Friday at 68 in Burlington.

Sutton campaigned for workers rights for decades, including her efforts to unionize workers at a J.P. Stevens plant in Roanoke Rapids, where she earned $2.65 an hour folding towels in the early 1970s, reports the Times-News of Burlington. A 1975 book chronicled her life and work and was turned into the 1979 Oscar-winning film starring Sally Field.

"Crystal Lee Sutton was a remarkable woman whose brave struggles have left a lasting impact on this country and without doubt, on me personally," Field said in a statement Friday, the newspaper reported. "Portraying Crystal Lee in 'Norma Rae,' however loosely based, not only elevated me as an actress, but as a human being."

The Crystal Lee Sutton collection at Alamance Community College contains papers, photographs and other materials that she left to the school, where she matriculated through the nursing assistant program in 1988.