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COUTING FOR TROUBLE She is also full of contradictions. For instance, she complains about the ridicule suffered by her son at the hands of his classmates while she herself is the queen of ridicule. Anybody doubting this can tune in to her weekly cable access television show. The entire half-hour of every show is spent ridiculing religious groups and religion in general. I have watched a number of episodes, and I still could not tell you what her principles are because she doesn't spend any time discussing them. In your article, she goes on to say, "My beef isn't with the Boy Scouts but with discrimination." Then, in her very next statement, she goes on to label the Boy Scouts "narrow-minded and discriminatory." That's like me saying, "My beef isn't with atheists, my beef is with people who don't believe in god." I do feel sorry for Ms. Powell's son. However, he is not a victim of his classmates or his school, but rather his own mother, who does not have a life other than running around the community sowing seeds of discontent. Personally, I think that Ms. Powell just has too much time on her hands. If she really cares about helping the community, she might consider signing up as a volunteer with Catholic Charities. I hear they need people to deliver meals to shut-ins. Steven Conner, South State Street, Lake Oswego WORKERS OF THE WORLD, STRATEGIZE I am encouraged by the Neighborhood Partnership Fund's recent efforts to help create just such a strategy similar to one implemented by the City of Minneapolis more than a decade ago. Minneapolis has an effective network of community-based organizations that has placed more low income people in good jobs than have many centralized bureaucratic systems. Our city needs to do far more to support such efforts. Thank you for your article. It helped provide a framework for our policy discussions at the City. Jim Francesconi, City Commissioner APPLES AND ORANGES Further, the story you refer to was restricted to the use of watermarks for audio copyrights and did not address watermarks for still imagery, an area in which we dominate. Although Digimarc's patents cover audio applications, we have not released products to date nor made any announcements regarding impending products in audio. Therefore, it is to be expected that no mention of Digimarc would be made in this cursory overview of early attempts to protect Web-based audio. Apples versus oranges. In essence, you were demanding to know why our sports cars weren't mentioned in a story on tractors. Had you called us you would have learned that Business Week did interview Digimarc extensively for this story to get our "take" as the overall industry leader. The magazine also interviewed our clients and partners. The impression was left that the magazine felt Digimarc likely merited its own, more complete story as the industry leader, which we trust is in the offing for the near future. Finally, a disparaging tone is left with your characterizing our marketing and sales efforts as "hawking the technology for more than a year"--the implication being that there are few takers. To the contrary, in a short nine months Digimarc has come to totally dominate the still imaging market for copyright communication. We are now bundled in over 90 percent of the professional digital imaging software being released on a worldwide basis. And, from America's PC Magazine to Germany's prestigious C't computer journal, we are designated as "the new industry's standard." I humbly suggest that these are rather impressive accomplishments for a homegrown Portland company. And certainly deserving better of Willamette Week's reporting efforts. Lawrence L. Logan, Director, creative marketing, Digimarc Corp. |
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