Editor's note: Gentle readers,

In my Friday article on SoundExchange, (an organization that I still believe in by the way), I seem to have misquoted Ms. Ragoowansi on an important point about the distribution of unclaimed funds. This caused a little bit of controversy, and so some clarification is in order. There is no formal program by which an artist can donate their money to the "less fortunate". That was my misunderstanding. Ms. Ragoowansi informed me instead, "That at the time of their release, any unclaimed funds would go towards SoundExchange's operating costs, thereby lowering the administrative fee charged. This would, then, in turn result in a larger payment being made to the featured artists and sound recording copyright owners who are paid by SoundExchange. There have been some artists who, upon hearing this explanation, chose not to claim their funds and opted instead to have their payments in essence redistributed among other featured artist and sound recording copyright owner payees in this manner." The views reflected in my columns are solely my own, and not those of BeyondChron.

E. "Doc" Smith



Randy,

Thank you for the respect -- your own response to the letters was very classy.

If this has moved you to want to come to New Orleans to do first-hand reporting on the rebuild, we'd love to have you. There's nothing like seeing the duality of the real story here -- how our tourism areas such as the Quarter are open for business and need tourists ... but how our housing stock is still decimated. Someone with your unique reporting perspective will no doubt have a unique voice in telling a story that your readers will be served to read.

Regards,
Ann



Editor

I read your Beyond Chron story about the Code Pink and ANSWER protests on Jan. 11. There was also a MoveOn protest that day (noon, City Hall west steps). There may have been other MoveOn-inspired protests in or around SF. I'm under the impression that the turnout for all these protests was less impressive because it was divided so many ways. I was at the noon MoveOn protest, didn't hear ahead of time about the ones mentioned in your article.

Victoria Tedder



Hi Paul.

I am from Australia and like many people around the world have an interest in US politics. I read your article Barack Obama's on our side and enjoyed it. I can tell you there are many people in Australia who long for world leaders with the intelligence, thoughtfulness, and ability to unify that obama has. The contrast with president bush is stark. Is there currently a better choice for president? We all have to make some compromises unfortunately. I hope Obama is successful and believe he will remain true to his beliefs.

Have a good day,

Dan



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