The Chainsmokers' 'Don't Let Me Down' Turns Tearjerker in New State Farm Commercial: Watch; Billboard, March 14, 2017

Kat Bein, Billboard; 

The Chainsmokers' 'Don't Let Me Down' Turns Tearjerker in New State Farm Commercial: Watch

[Kip Currier: Usually, I assiduously avoid watching ads. (No ads are marketed on my blogs either.) But the first 2-3 seconds of this ad caught my attention and snared me (darn you--cute little scruffy white dog!).

A very effective mix of imagery and music to deliver State Farm's message about "doing some good".]

"If you thought that Humane Society commercial with the Sarah Mclachlan song was tough, wait 'til you get a load of this new State Farm commercial.

The Chainsmokers' hit “Don't Let Me Down” gets the ultra-ballad treatment as a musical means to motivate you to do some good. State Farm captures that guilty feeling we all get throughout the day as we're constantly and rightly reminded how hard life is for others. We could all do more to help our veterans, our troubled youth, our elderly, our homeless, even the neglected animals of the world.

You may often say to yourself, “I don't have the cash to spare to charity right now,” but what's even better to give is time. State Farm wants to make donating your time easier than ever. Just head over to neighborhoodofgood.com, enter your zip code, and see what organizations can benefit from your energies whenever works for your schedule."

Asian-American Rock Band Denied Trademark For ‘Disparaging’ Name; KDKA.com, April 27, 2017

Julie Grant, KDKA.com; 

Asian-American Rock Band Denied Trademark For ‘Disparaging’ Name

"The government’s position is that the trademark registration program and trademarks generally have not historically served as vehicles for expression; they are meant to identify the source. The law is set forth in the Lanham Act which states that registration can be refused if a trademark is disparaging. Dr. Rooksby believes the provision is too arbitrary and will be invalidated by the court.

According to Rooksby, “I think Simon Tam should win the case. They’ve made a compelling argument that this provision of the trademark law is unconstitutional and this is because it’s too arbitrary. How do you apply it? What is something that’s disparaging?”

While the court weighs the arguments, the band has released an EP titled “The Band Who Must Not Be Named.” A decision is expected by the end of June."

Episode 76: X-Men – “The Dream”; ComicsVerse, June 10, 2016

Justin Gilbert Alba, ComicsVerse; 

Episode 76: X-Men – “The Dream”

"Joined by my friend, ComicsVerse X-Men writer and podcast co-host Marius Thienenkamp, Episode 76 of the ComicsVerse Podcast, “X-Men: The Dream,” explored the significance of the metaphor of the X-Men both in and outside of comics through discussions of race, sexuality, inequality, and “othering” in western civilization.  Podcast panelists Jamie Rice, Kay Honda, Nolan Bensen, and Corey Spanner weighed in on parallels between historical activists like Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Gandhi which lead to conversations about dominant cultural hierarchies and the nature of humanity itself.

X-Men comics and characters are rife with meaning and serve as a mirror of how society treats anyone who is, and feels, different and how those same people cope in a world that hates and fears them. The concept of the X-Men served as a perfect platform during this podcast to embark on an analysis of American culture as a microcosm of human nature and what it ultimately means to be American."

X-MEN GOLD IS LIKE ’80S CLAREMONT BINGO (AND THAT’S JUST FINE, BUB); Comic Book Resources, April 28, 2017

Kevin Melrose, Comic Book Resources; X-MEN GOLD IS LIKE ’80S CLAREMONT BINGO (AND THAT’S JUST FINE, BUB)

"The concept at the core of the X-Men, that they’re devoted to protecting a world that hates and fears them, is borderline brilliant...

In March’s “X-Men Prime” #1, Kitty Pryde moved the X-Mansion to Central Park, the very heart of Manhattan, where the newly minted Xavier Institute for Mutant Education and Outreach is literally surrounded by millions who hate and fear mutants, emotions fanned by the recent war with the Inhumans. Guggenheim gives voice to that sentiment with Lydia Nance, the media-savvy director of the Heritage Initiative think tank, who seems cut from the same cloth as William Stryker and Sen. Robert Kelly. However, he adds a new wrinkle with the added threat of mutant deportation, demonstrating that the themes of fear and prejudice in the X-Men titles are, sadly, once again as timely as ever."

'It's a lot bigger than the band': The Slants challenge ruling rejecting trademark for their name; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 27, 2017

Paula Reed Ward, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; 

'It's a lot bigger than the band': The Slants challenge ruling rejecting trademark for their name

[Kip Currier: Fascinating panel discussing Lee v. Tam case and broader issues of trademark law and free speech. The Slants performed after the panel. I spoke with the defendant, Simon Tam, who was a member of the panel and did a masterful job using "story" to make his points, and he insisted that the rest of the band sign the band poster I bought.]

"“I should be able to say what I want to say that my community doesn’t find offensive,” Mr. Tam said. “At the end of the day, it’s a lot bigger than the band.”

On Thursday, Mr. Tam and his bandmates — he describes their music as 80s-inspired synth pop — spoke at a panel discussion at Duquesne University before an evening performance. It’s part of a six-week tour that has hit clubs, law schools, intellectual property workshops and anime conferences.

The tour is to raise awareness of the ongoing court case, Lee v. Tam. In it, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office appealed a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which found in Mr. Tam’s favor in December 2015.

Mr. Tam’s original trademark application, made in 2009, was rejected because it was found to violate the Lanham Act, which prohibits a trademark if it “consists of matter which may disparage persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.”"

April 27, 2017 Panel: A Name Worth Fighting For? The Slants, Trademark Law, and Free Expression; Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

[Kip Currier: Looking forward to attending this panel--addressing very interesting IP and free speech issues--and hearing the band play afterwards]

A Name Worth Fighting For? The Slants, Trademark Law, and Free Expression

Event Date: 

Thursday, April 27, 2017 - 4:30pm to 7:00pm

Event Location:

• Union Africa Room (3rd Fl.)

Event Audience:

• Alumni
• Current Students
• General Public

Cost: 

$60.00 
$60 or $50 for CLE Program, Reception, and Music

Continuing Legal Education

A Name Worth Fighting For? The Slants, Trademark Law, and Free Expression 

Join Duquesne Law, the Pittsburgh Intellectual Property Association, and the Federal Bar Association’s Pittsburgh chapter for a special program about the rock band that is the subject of a current U.S. Supreme Court case. 

The continuing legal education (CLE) course focuses The Slants, an Asian-American musical group whose trademark application was denied for its use of a term deemed derogatory, and the case Lee v. Tam. 

The program features Simon Tam, the band’s founder and bassist, Hon. Cathy Bissoon of U.S. District Court, Western District of Pennsylvania, and Christine Haight Farley, a law professor from American University. Associate Dean Jacob H Rooksby, an intellectual property professor at Duquesne, will moderate a discussion about trademark law, including whether the band’s choice to claim the name should be protected by the First Amendment.

The CLE will review Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act of 1946, which the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office used to deny the band’s trademark application; the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s decision reversing the trademark office’s determination; and freedom of expression issues. 

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument on Lee v. Tam in January. The ongoing legal battle has been covered by the New York Times, NPR, and other media outlets. This CLE will offer insight into the fight by the band’s founder as well as an opportunity to hear the group’s music. A 45-minute concert and light reception will follow the CLE program.

4:30 p.m. – 6 p.m. CLE

6:15 p.m. – 7 p.m. Concert 

Chechnya’s Crackdown on Gays; New York Times, April 24, 2017

Editorial Board, New York Times; 

Chechnya’s Crackdown on Gays

[Kip Currier: I was recently thumbing through a file folder of comic strips and Op-Eds I've bookmarked over the years and came across this one by the brilliant political cartoonist Rob Rogers, featured frequently in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The cartoon is from 2007 but is eerily timely, and reminiscent of recent statements by Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov and his administration, denying the very existence of gays, while euphemistically threatening "such people" with death. Frank Bruni's Food, Sex and Silence trenchantly points out "how often oppression is an act of omission rather than commission". Chilling first-hand reports from Chechen gay men and human rights groups show how oppression is also waged through both strategies.] 

[The Guardian, April 21, 2017] "Previously, Kadyrov’s spokesman Alvi Karimov denied the reports of the purge, saying there were no gay people in Chechnya. “If there were such people in Chechnya, law enforcement agencies wouldn’t need to have anything to do with them because their relatives would send them somewhere from which there is no returning,” he said."

[The New York Times Editorial Board, April 24, 2017] 

"The crimes in Chechnya have presented the Trump administration with its first major test on this issue on the international stage. Last Monday, Nikki Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, issued a strong statement calling for a prompt investigation and accountability for the culprits.

“We are against all forms of discrimination, including against people based on sexual orientation,” Ms. Haley said. “When left unchecked, discrimination and human rights abuses can lead to destabilization and conflict.”

It would be encouraging to see Ms. Haley take on this cause with as much passion and perseverance as her predecessor, Samantha Power. Without American leadership, forging a global consensus that gay rights are human rights will take longer. Time is not on the side of gay people living in terror in places like Chechnya."

Food, Sex and Silence; New York Times, April 22, 2017

Frank Bruni, New York Times; 

Food, Sex and Silence

"The discrepancy between accounts of Beard up until his death and posthumous assessments like “America’s First Foodie” remind me of how often oppression is an act of omission rather than commission: not letting people give voice and vent to much of what moves them and to all of what defines them; not recognizing and honoring that ourselves.

I’m struck, too, by the nature of lies. They’re not just statements. They’re silences that fail to confront bad as well as beautiful things, often with grievous consequences.

[Ted] Allen thought about all the L.G.B.T. kids back then who were denied a role model. He thought about how the editing of Beard’s life shortchanged a minority group’s major contribution to American gastronomy. Claiborne, too, was in this minority, as the writer John Birdsall pointed out in a 2014 essay for the magazine Lucky Peach that was titled “America, Your Food Is So Gay.”

But Allen said that he thought in particular about all “the well-known people whose homosexuality was buried along with them,” and how that distorted and continues to distort our views of L.G.B.T. Americans."

O’Reilly, Ousted; New York Times, April 20, 2017

David Leonhardt, New York Times; 

O’Reilly, Ousted

"Rupert Murdoch tried to make his firing of Bill O’Reilly seem as if it were based on morality. In a letter to Fox News employees (obtained by CNN’s Brian Stelter), Murdoch wrote that “we want to underscore our consistent commitment to fostering a work environment built on the values of trust and respect.”

This claim is false, and Murdoch’s use of “consistent” is especially rich. O’Reilly’s pattern of harassing women has been clear for more than a decade. Megan Garber of The Atlantic has a useful review — incomplete, no doubt — of his behavior...

But if O’Reilly’s firing wasn’t based on morals, it is still a victory for morality. A man who spent years abusing people less wealthy and powerful than him has lost his large public stage, in a very public way. His legacy — like that of his old boss, Roger Ailes — will always involve his ugly abusiveness."

First Woman to Enter Boston Marathon Runs It Again, 50 Years Later; New York Times, April 17, 2017

Victor Mather, New York Times; 

First Woman to Enter Boston Marathon Runs It Again, 50 Years Later

"“The marathon was a man’s race in those days; women were considered too fragile to run it,” she wrote in an essay for The New York Times 10 years ago. “But I had trained hard and was confident of my strength. Still, it took a body block from my boyfriend to knock the official off the course.” Switzer recovered to finish in 4 hours 20 minutes...

“In 1967, few would have believed that marathon running would someday attract millions of women, become a glamour event in the Olympics and on the streets of major cities, help transform views of women’s physical ability and help redefine their economic roles in traditional cultures,” Switzer wrote."

Rooney Rule legacy touches entirety of NFL and beyond; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 14, 2017

Brian Batko, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; 

Rooney Rule legacy touches entirety of NFL and beyond

[Kip Currier: Standing across the street from St. Paul's Cathedral in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood today, the site of Dan Rooney's funeral, I overheard a news reporter filing a story behind me say "Dan Rooney said you can get just about anything done if you share the credit."] 

"Chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, a foundation promoting equality in coaching, scouting and front-office jobs for NFL teams, Mr. Wooten worked closely with Mr. Rooney to develop a league policy requiring teams to interview minority candidates. Eventually — and, as Mr. Wooten remembers, reluctantly — it would be named after an Irishman who grew up on the North Side.

“The thing about it is, he really didn’t want it to be called the Rooney Rule,” Mr. Wooten, 80, said over the phone from his Texas home on what he called a sorrowful evening for him and his organization. “I told him, ‘As much as I respect you, and will always do what you recommend, I don’t want to call it anything else but the Rooney Rule. Because you are the one that made it happen. You, and you alone, made it happen.’ ”

Undoubtedly, it was also the brainchild of people such as Mr. Wooten and the two attorneys he called on his victorious day in 2002 — Cyrus Mehri and the late Johnnie Cochran — but Mr. Rooney was the driving force behind it.

As Mr. Wooten sees it, no other NFL power broker would have been able to persuade the entirety of league ownership to vote in favor of the rule. But Mr. Rooney did, with alacrity, and now it’s viewed by many as a move that opened the gates for some of the sport’s finest coaches, including the Steelers’ Mike Tomlin."

Marvel fires artist Ardian Syaf over religious references in X-Men comic book; BBC News, April 12, 2017

BBC News; 

Marvel fires artist Ardian Syaf over religious references in X-Men
comic book

"Marvel has sacked X-Men artist Ardian Syaf after he hid religious references in a current issue of the comic.

The publisher says that Ardian's contract has been "terminated immediately" but that his work will still be seen on shelves.

Issues two and three of X-Men: Gold, where he was the lead artist, have already been sent to print.

Ardian referenced a verse from the Koran and the date of a Jakarta protest in the first issue of the comic.

He also drew X-Men leader Kitty Pryde, a Jewish character, in front of a jewellery store with only the first three letters of the word clearly visible."

‘Unwanted Advances’ Tackles Sexual Politics in Academia; New York Times, April 5, 2017

Jennifer Senior, New York Times; 

‘Unwanted Advances’ Tackles Sexual Politics in Academia

"Among the educators who recently found herself at the treacherous intersection of free speech and sensitivity politics is Laura Kipnis, a film professor, cultural critic and dedicated provocateur at Northwestern University. Responding to a new campus directive that prevented professors from dating undergraduates, she wrote an essay for The Chronicle of Higher Education in February of 2015 entitled “Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe.” Within days of publication, she was brought up on Title IX complaints for creating a “hostile environment.” She spent 72 days in the public stockade for it, until the university cleared her of any wrongdoing.

Kipnis has now written a book, “Unwanted Advances,” about feminism, relationship statecraft and the shadow world of Title IX investigations. It is invigorating and irritating, astute and facile, rigorous and flippant, fair-minded and score-settling, practical and hyperbolic, and maybe a dozen other neurotically contradictory things. Above all else, though, “Unwanted Advances” is necessary. Argue with the author, by all means. But few people have taken on the excesses of university culture with the brio that Kipnis has. Her anger gives her argument the energy of a live cable."

Chechen Authorities Arresting and Killing Gay Men, Russian Paper Says; New York Times, April 1, 2017

Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times; 

Chechen Authorities Arresting and Killing Gay Men, Russian Paper Says

"By Saturday, the paper reported, and an analyst of the region with her own sources confirmed, that more than 100 gay men had been detained. The newspaper had the names of three murder victims, and suspected many others had died in extrajudicial killings.

A spokesman for Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, denied the report in a statement to Interfax on Saturday, calling the article “absolute lies and disinformation.”

“You cannot arrest or repress people who just don’t exist in the republic,” the spokesman, Alvi Karimov, told the news agency.

“If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them, as their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return,” Mr. Karimov said."