OPINION & EDITORIAL
Set ‘em up, knock ‘em down: 3 issues worth tackling
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Also by Ryan Masse:
- Public financing by way of semantics (April 24, 2008)
- Scream it loud: 'We want roof gardens!' (April 17, 2008)
- Mayor Dave rocking the suburbs (April 10, 2008)
- Health care not in Constitution (March 27, 2008)
Related Stories:
- Voicing healthy criticism of The Badger Herald (September 1, 2005)
- Nothing but net for basketball (January 31, 2005)
- From the desk of the editor (August 31, 2007)
- Herald displays hard-hitting news (September 15, 2005)
- Barrows story overshadows more salient issues (September 29, 2005)
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by Ryan Masse
Thursday, December 6, 2007
With another semester wrapping up, it's time to weigh in on a smorgasbord of local stories — all in one column.
Motion W
Not satisfied with trouncing Wofford in basketball this week, the University of Wisconsin is now going on the offensive against another obscure college — Washburn University in Topeka, Kan. The venue this time is not the basketball court but instead the courtroom, and the issue is Washburn's school logo, which UW says is a trademark infringement on its own "Motion W."
Washburn isn't having any of it, insisting its W is different from UW's. "A W is a W is a W," a Washburn spokesperson told The Badger Herald this week. "It's just our opinion that the W's are not the same. Ours is blue."
To be sure, this isn't Vanilla Ice trying to pass off the bass line from "Ice Ice Baby" as an original, non-David Bowie and Queen rip-off. Besides being blue, Washburn's "W" lacks the curved bottom of Wisconsin's and features slightly straighter edges.
Still, there are plenty of ways to symbolize the letter W. Washburn chose an upward tilting, block letter version extremely similar to UW's. UW is absolutely right to defend its trademark against a logo that bears far too much of a resemblance to its own.
One could question the veracity with which UW is pursuing Washburn. Although UW's Casey Nagy told The Badger Herald that UW "never threatened [Washburn], and we always intended to minimize their financial harm," the university is seeking punitive damages from Washburn, which is a funny thing to do when trying to "minimize financial harm." UW's lawsuit accuses Washburn of "willfully, intentionally and maliciously" appropriating its trademark. While there can be little doubt Washburn is well-aware of UW and its logo, it's pretty hard to believe they chose their "W" because of some malicious ill-will toward Wisconsin's flagship university. The two schools do not compete with each other athletically and are certainly far different academically.
It's hard to imagine a settlement not being reached in this case. Let us hope it is reasonable and that it results in Washburn players wearing a new logo.
Field Pass
Opening in University Square next summer is Field Pass, a massive sports bar featuring more than 30 televisions, seven pool tables, four dartboards, a dance floor, music stage and full service restaurant. Modeled after the "ESPN Zone" concept, Field Pass will occupy two floors and accommodate 550 people. To me, this sounds awesome. I'll go out on a limb and guess it even will have the NFL Network.
The story of Field Pass helps to further illustrate how silly of an idea Madison's Alcohol Density Plan is. The recently passed initiative prohibits the city from issuing any liquor licenses for new establishments between Blair and Park streets downtown. (Despite being located within that geographic region, Field Pass was exempted from the policy because it has pledged to generate 50 percent of its revenue from food and thus meet the city's formal definition of a restaurant.)
Some supported the density plan on the notion that the downtown bar scene was already saturated. "I don't think anyone can say with a straight face that there aren't enough places to get a drink downtown," City Council President Mike Verveer said to The Badger Herald in supporting the measure.
Maybe so, yet the addition of a bar the size of Field Pass would seem to indicate there's still substantial demand for more drinking establishments in the downtown area. The density plan restricts the market, meaning vacancies that could potentially become bars instead remain empty. University Square would still be looking for a major tenant if Field Pass didn't agree to sell enough food to qualify for the city's arbitrary restaurant designation.
Kaplan
It's a shame UW law professor Leonard Kaplan chose the Rotary Club as the venue of his speech yesterday, thus greatly limiting the people who were able to hear him speak. The speech entailed his thoughts concerning a controversial incident last semester in which he was accused of making remarks in class insensitive and offensive toward the Hmong community. Though the accusation was leveled by a student who wasn't even in the classroom at the time, various parties immediately, unfairly and ultimately erroneously attributed the comments in question as being Mr. Kaplan's own bigoted opinions.
Though a transcript of yesterday's speech reveals he talked about much more than the incident itself, Mr. Kaplan did spend time talking about the ramifications of the reaction to his comments in class. "Any claim of right that censures or restricts examination of unpleasant realities is at risk of becoming adverse to the very idea of a law school or university," he said.
True.
Ryan Masse (rmasse@badgerherald.com) is a first-year law student.
Anonymous (December 10, 2007 @ 12:41pm):
Ryan Masse:
You should know that a White student named Matt, who was in Kaplan's class and witnessed the incident said recently in a Capital Times public forum:
"As for those who took offense to his comments, I totally understand the outrage. Taken out of context and removed from the discussion the comments appear not just offensive, but down right despicable. In context, they serve a very important academic point."
You don't have believe the complaints filed by a student was NOT in Kaplan's class. Take it from someone who WAS in Kaplan's class. This student (Matt) was NOT denying those comments were indeed made! His argument is that they were made in context!
You're right, shameful is the right word to describe the actions of Kaplan. And it's not only because of the limit it impose on how many people can hear his speech...but of how this type of action just flies in the face of the Hmong American community all across Madison and the State of Wisconsin.
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