Noted & quoted.

• Position: SOUNDBITES

'This city will. be chocolate at the end of the day.... It's the way God wants it to be.'

--New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, on rebuilding efforts post-Katrina. He later apologized for his comment and called for people of all races to return to the city. (Associated Press, January 16)

'I am here because I want a change in my country. I have never been employed in my life. That is the change I want.'

--A voter in Haiti's presidential election on February 7, the first since former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in 2004. (The New York Times...