Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Dumb dumb

An email from “Trademark Coordinator” Kathleen Robbins of John Wiley & Sons to Jason McCabe Calacanis reads in part:

As you may know, Wiley has over 100 trademark applications and registrations in the United States and other countries for the FOR DUMMIES® trademark, including the FOR DUMMIES® black and yellow trade dress, and many Dummies formatives.  The FOR DUMMIES® mark appears not only in Wiley’s books and magazines, but also on trade and consumer advertising, catalogs, t-shirts, DVDs, points-of-sale displays, websites and other promotional and licensed materials distributed world wide. The FOR DUMMIES® series has been in existence since 1991 and has enjoyed tremendous success.

Due to the significant efforts undertaken by Wiley to promote and protect its trademarks, and because of the potential for confusion or dilution regarding the FOR DUMMIES® mark in the manner tvsquad.com has used Wiley’s trademark, Wiley requests that tvsquad.com and all other blogs in the Weblogs, Inc. network include the following attribution language at the end of any postings that may refer to the FOR DUMMIES® brand, and that you provide Wiley with written assurance of the same.

Attribution Language: FOR DUMMIES® is a registered trademark of Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Jason asks, incredulously, “you’re kidding right?” Kathleen clarifies that bloggers are free to use the phrase so long as we include the attribution language in the post. Says Jason:

Now, there is a long standing tradition of publications using slogans and trademarks in headlines (think of all the “Empire Stikes Back” headlines about Microsoft in tech magazines). That is *not* a trademark violation and it does *not* require trademark attribution--it’s a news headline. You are allowed to use a slogan or trademark from Coca-Cola or Pepsi in a headline as well. I hate these chilling effects bozos… get a clue dudes!

Marty @ The Trademark Blog says:

[T]he original letter resembles a demand letter in that it starts out with a recitation of legal rights, and asks for written assurance that Weblogs is complying with the request.

On these facts, Weblogs does not have to provide attribution. If you write a letter asking someone to do something they do not have to do, then you are asking them for a favor. When asking for a favor, If you do not use magic words such as ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and ‘we respectfully request,’ then do not be surprised when your letter gets posted on a website.

Kevin, Esq. suggests Kathleen should have read Trademarks for Dummies.

Evangelical climate change?

Christina Larson at Political Animal reports that:

A week after the National Association of Evangelicals announced that it would not take a stance on global warming, a group known as the Evangelical Climate Initiative this morning released of a statement signed by 86 evangelical leaders, including Rick Warren, author of the The Purpose-Driven Life; David Neff, editor of Christianity Today; and Leith Anderson, former president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Here’s an abbreviated version:

Claim 1: Human-induced climate change is real.

Claim 2: The consequences of climate change will be significant, and will hit the poor the hardest.

Claim 3: Christian moral convictions demand our response to the climate change problem.

Claim 4: The need to act now is urgent. Governments, businesses, churches, and individuals all have a role to play in addressing climate change - starting now.

She says print, radio and TV ads are coming with the tagline, “Our commitment to Jesus Christ compels us to solve the global warming crisis.”

At a press conference this morning in Washington, a half dozen evangelical leaders talked about why they had decided to support this campaign. One undercurrent of the discussion was the belief, among some religious leaders, that the faith community had in recent decades retreated from its historical role advocating for positive government action, except on limited and often divisive issues. Dr. Duane Litfin, president of evangelical Wheaton College, said it was a mistake for religious leaders shy away from public initiatives on issues such as global warming because of a perception that “that’s what liberals do.â€Â�

MORE from Salon.

Focus on the UnFamily

Well, well. Look at this:

Yesterday, Dr. Paul Cameron, Chairman of the Family Research Institute in Colorado, condemned Dr. James Dobson’s endorsement of Colorado SB 166, a bill sponsored by state Senator Shawn Mitchell.

SB 166, entitled “Concerning Reciprocal Beneficiary Agreements,” would extend the “rights and related responsibilities” of unmarried couples. The bill enumerates emergency and non-emergency medical care, decision making for terminal care and organ donation, funeral arrangements and property. The bill would grant many of the legal rights that are already available to unmarried people, but are automatic only for married partners.

Via Steve Miller:

[I]t may be that Focus, unlike Cameron, realizes it must make some accommodation to “nontraditional” households if it’s going to maintain credibility. Or maybe its leaders aren’t the Nazi-like monsters of gay fundraising letters and are seeking some sort of (from their view) fair compromise.

More interesting still, however, is that by supporting a measure that can apply to shacked-up straights, the group really is endorsing a “marriage lite” that grants state-provided bennies to those legally entitled to marry but who just don’t wanna make that level of commitment, and which could thus weaken the institution of matrimony. But Focus would rather risk this than allow legislation which specifically recognizes that gay people exist and are entitled to at least some semblance of spousal rights, which might then pave the way for gays to actually wed.

I’d change Steve’s could to would. That’s why I believe gay marrriage would strengthen all marriage.

Who’s Hormonal? Hillary or Dick?

Mo today:

Now, in the distaff version of Swift-boating, [Republicans] are casting Hillary Clinton as an Angry Woman, a she-monster melding images of Medea, the Furies, harpies, a knife-wielding Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction” and a snarling Scarlett Johansson in “Match Point.” ... Republicans think that men who already have nagging, bitter women in their lives will not want for president the sort of woman who gave W. a dyspeptic smile or eye-rolling appraisal during State of the Union addresses. [...]

The hit on Hillary may seem crude and transparent. But in the void created by dormant Democrats, crouching in what Barack Obama calls “a reactive posture,” crude and transparent ploys work for the Republicans. Just look at how far the Bushies’ sulfurous scaremongering on terror, and cynical linkage of Saddam and Osama, have gotten them. [...]

The gambit handcuffs Hillary: If she doesn’t speak out strongly against President Bush, she’s timid and girlie. If she does, she’s a witch and a shrew. That plays particularly well in the South, where it would be hard for an uppity Hillary to capture many more Bubbas than the one she already has.

The G.O.P. honcho Ken Mehlman kicked off the misogynistic attack on George Stephanopoulos’s Sunday show. “I don’t think the American people, if you look historically, elect angry candidates,” he said. Referring to Hillary’s recent taunts about Republicans, he added, “Whether it’s the comments about the plantation or the worst administration in history, Hillary Clinton seems to have a lot of anger.”

Hillary did not sound angry when she made those comments - she’s learned since her tea-and-cookies outburst in the ‘92 campaign. A man who wants to undermine a woman’s arguments can ignore the substance and simply dismiss her as unstable and shrill. It’s a hoary tactic: women are more mercurial than men; they get depressed more often and pop pills more often. As a top psychiatrist once told me, women are “hormonally more complicated and biologically more vulnerable.”

But as the G.O.P. tars Hillary as hysterical, it is important to note that women are affected by lunar tides only once a month, while Dick Cheney has rampaging hormones every day.