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Opinion
m
The Battalion
Page 5 • Tuesday, June 24,
Saving Spike TV
Spike Lee’s claims to the word ‘spike’ wrongly deny
Viacom channel launch
F or those who were anxiously
awaiting the premier of
Viacom’s new cable channel
Spike TV, last week came as a bit
of a shock. State Supreme Court
Justice Walter Tolub granted an
injunction, barring Viacom from
using the name after entertainer Spike
GEORGE DEUTSCH
Lee filed suit, claiming that the
word “spike” was indicative of his
image, according to The
Associated Press. Amazingly, not
only did Lee — whose real name
is Shelton Jackson Lee — win an
injunction, but Viacom’s appeal
last week to the New York State Supreme
Court was denied. This is nothing short of an
embarrassment for the U.S. legal system and
a bad joke at the expense of Viacom — an
expense currently estimated at around $17
million in wasted ad revenues. Lee should have
absolutely no legal right to the exclusive use of
the common word “spike,” and the New York
state ruling claiming Viacom was trying to
profit off of his name is. groundless and only
sets a negative legal precedent.
With all-star lawyer Johnnie Cochran calling
the shots on Lee’s behalf, the argument was
simple: Viacom was planning on changing The
National Network to Spike TV to capitalize
off Lee’s edgy, irreverent image. But
apart from the loose and highly
questionable connection to the
word “spike,” there is no
actual proof that
Viacom and TNN had
such plans.
Think first about all
the things associated
with Spike Lee, the direc
tor and performer. His work
consists of movies such as
‘Malcolm X,” “He Got
Game,” “Do the Right Thing”
and “Jungle Fever.” There’s
no denying that Lee is a
talented filmmaker, but his
movies often deal with
racial issues, specifically
those affecting the black community. Lee by no
means exclusively makes race-related films,
but the majority of his movies feature promi
nent black actors, such as Denzel Washington
in “Malcolm X.” Lee is a champion of civil
rights to some degree, but the injunction
against Viacom will do more to infringe upon
civil liberties than to protect them.
Besides, all of Lee’s movies fea
ture the prominent tag line, “A
Spike Lee Joint.” There is generally
no confusion that if a program is cre
ated by Lee himself, one can easily
tell.
Now, look at the histo
ry of Viacom’s TNN,
which was the channel to
have become Spike TV
before the injunction.
TNN started out as The
Nashville Network until
Viacom’s buyout in
2000, when it became
The National Network.
Spike TV’s tag line was
to be “The First Network For
Men.” And currently operating under the sta
tion name TNN, its programs consist of “WWE
RAW,” “Stripperella,” “Most Extreme
Challenge” and “Ren and Stimpy’s Adult
Cartoon Party.” Do any of these programs
bring Spike Lee the director to mind?
Absolutely not.
As Viacom has rightly pointed out, “spike”
is a very common word. A quick look through
Webster’s New World College Dictionary will
lend multiple definitions ranging from a type of
nail to a football maneuver. Lee, however, is
never mentioned. TNN would have to literally
call itself “Spike Lee TV” or “Shelton Jackson
Lee TV” to infringe on his name. Despite the
Supreme Court justice’s and Appellate Court’s
rulings, Lee’s claims are baseless and flimsy.
The only party being wronged is Viacom.
In this world, the bottom line is always dol
lars and cents. Lee’s apparent cupidity and
belief that Viacom and Spike TV would profit
off his image is flawed and would be even if
the name change went as
planned. Spike TV was aimed at
men, not at Lee’s wallet.
/£?___ So far, the only group
losing money is
Viacom. The $17 mil
lion already lost is predicted to
increase to “the range of hun
dreds of millions of dollars”
if the name change never
takes place, according to
documents filed by Viacom
in the New York State
Supreme Court Appellate
Division. Viacom had made
advertising commitments
well into 2004, commitments
now jeopardized by Lee.
Viacom’s next appeal is slated
for September, but until then, America
deserves its Spike TV, regardless of Lee’s
exaggerated, money-driven claims. Lee told
reporters at last week’s hearing that he “(did
n’t) want to be associated with some
‘Stripperella’ crap.” It is doubtful anyone was
making such an association. No, now Spike
Lee brings to mind new associations — like
frivolous lawsuits.
George Deutsch is a senior
journalism major.
Graphic by Seth Freeman.
From homemaker to corporate scapegoat
Claims against Martha Stewart exaggerated, others pose more serious threat
M artha Stewart is
essentially no
more dangerous
than any other home
maker. The most offen
sive thing to come from
her was the hilarious,
“Martha Stewart Topless” parody on
Saturday Night Live, where a topless
Stewart character went about various
homemaking activities ranging from
making a Jack-O-Lantem to baking a
turkey for Thanksgiving. But in the
last six months, Stewart has gone
from the high-powered definition of a
stereotypical homemaker to another
Michael Milken (the infamous junk
bonds magnate who defrauded
investors and was put in jail in the
1980s). But prosecuting her will be an
empty charade of trying to restore
investor confidence, a charade that
will not work.
Clearly, Stewart — the queen of
perfection — is in some hot water. In
fact, she might say she’s in a Teflon
coated, 10-gauge steel, nine-quart
stockpot full of boiling
water. That pretension
is the very reason
Stewart is now prepar
ing to face a long
expensive trial for
insider trading. From
Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton,
Americans love seeing people at the
top of their game come tumbling
down. Stewart was perfect; women
emulated her and men wanted a wife
who would take the role of home
maker with such ease and precision.
Before this debacle, Stewart was
running a successful corporation,
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia,
which included magazines, television
shows, a contract as spokeswoman for
a major retailer and many home prod
uct lines. Now Stewart stands accused
of using insider information to time
her sell off of stock in ImClone, a
company whose CEO, Sam Waksal, is
a close friend of Stewart’s. Waksal has
since been prosecuted.
Claiming no expertise as a prose
cutor, a judge, a securities fraud
investigator or by any means an
expert on this case, but speaking as a
concerned citizen, there had to be a
scapegoat for the corporate looting,
and there is: it’s Stewart, the woman
who likes pastels at Easter.
Since the turn of the century, the
United States has experienced the
biggest bankruptcies in its history. In
fact, according to the L.A. Times, five
of the top 10 bankruptcies of all time
occurred in 2001. These staggering
numbers have led to a large depletion
of money that individuals had invest
ed in the stock market. There has
been a public outcry to do something
about the blatant assault of the blue-
collar investors by management and
major investors.
If justice is served, history will
record what the White House,
Congress and the Department of
Justice have done to solve this prob
lem — jailed a homemaker.
Some might dismiss such a con
cept as ignorant, but think about how
preposterous it is that Ken Lay is not
in prison while those who worked for
him and trusted him have lost their
retirement and their livelihood. Lay
might be a bad example, considering
he obviously has friends in high
places, or maybe this is just a clear
illustration of reality. CEOs and exec
utives of Tyco, World Com, Global
Crossing and Enron ruined people’s
lives with their lying and deceptive
business practices, but the Department
of Justice refuses to use the full extent
of the law to make sure all the crimi
nals involved pay for looting
America’s retirement.
With the Stewart debacle, the jus
tice department has taken another
wrong turn in its attempt at cleaning
up crime in America. Outside of burn
ing American's civil liberties at the
stake, cracking down on people who
sell pipes on the Internet and covering
up naked statues with overpriced
drapes, John Ashcroft has seemingly
given corporate criminals a green
light to pillage and plunder the hard
earned money of the American work
er. Whatever the United States does,
it cannot fool itself into thinking pros
ecuting Stewart is any real sign of the
reform and justice needed to clean up
American corporations.
Gratification will come when peo
ple — such as Lay, Dennis Kozlowski
of Tyco and Bernie Ebbers of
WorldCom — are behind bars for
what they did to their employees.
Americans have lost trust in the mar
kets, and using Stewart as an example
of corporate reform will not have the
effect needed to restore confidence.
If Stewart is guilty of insider trad
ing, then she should be punished. But
it is a sad day when Americans bla
tantly turn a blind eye to those with
illegally gained capital and personal
connections while carefully selecting
to indict those who pose only a mini
mal political risk.
Justin Hill is a junior
management major.
JUSTIN HILL
Healthy Forests Initiative hurts U.S. forests
Initiative would allow contractors to keep unspecified amounts of lumber
D uring the last few years,
forests in the United States
have increasingly become
infernos that only endanger people,
property and the forests themselves.
The White House reports that “last
year’s fire season — among the
worst in the past four decades — saw 88,458
fires burn 7.2 million acres.” The reason that the
fires in the last few seasons have been so
extreme is because the underbrush in the forest
has been allowed to grow, making the forests
increasingly dense. The Bush administration has
rightly identified these fires as a problem, but the
president’s Healthy Forests Initiative, which he
urged Congress to act upon on last month, is the
wrong way to go about solving the problem.
According to the White House, the Healthy
Forests Initiative calls for “new procedures pro
vided for under the National Environmental
Policy Act.” These new procedures “will enable
priority fuels treatment and forest restoration
projects to proceed quickly, amending the agen
cies’ administrative appeal rules to expedite
appeals of forest health projects, and expediting
consultation by federal agencies on
the impacts that fuels treatment
projects may have on endangered
species.”
All of these plans look pretty
great on paper. However, when
one looks deeper, the truth is not
all that it seems.
The Healthy Forests Initiative states that
forests should be cleared in a short amount of
time without Washington, D.C.,-based agencies
having to go through endless rolls of bureau
cratic red tape. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if
these agencies could cut down whatever part of
the forest they deem necessary whenever they
want to without having to answer to anyone?
Not hardly.
This provision would mean that almost all the
decision making would be taken out of the hands
of the people. Greateryellowstone.org claims that
it would “severely limit or end citizens’ ability to
challenge poor management decisions on fuels
treatment and so-called ‘restoration’ projects.”
The people who live in areas near the forests will
have almost no avenues to question government
officials on the best ways to proceed with taking
down the forests.
In a speech President George W. Bush made
to Congress on May 20, he said “that not all the
smarts exist in Washington, D.C.,” and he is
absolutely correct. There are many smart people
who exist outside of Washington and these peo
ple should be allowed some say in what happens
to their forests.
Furthermore, this initiative gives the job of
thinning out the forests to private timber compa
nies instead of government agencies. Why would
the administration do this? So it does not have to
raise taxes to pay for the clearing projects. If the
administration is not going to pay for thinning
projects with taxpayer money, then how is it
going to be paid for? They won’t have to pay for
it because the Healthy Forests Initiative passes
this off to private timber companies.
These companies are not wholly magnani
mous groups, though, that will simply do the
work for free. This is why, as the White House
states, this initiative will “allow contractors to
keep wood products in exchange for the service
of thinning trees and brush and removing dead
wood.” For the timber companies to take the
problematic underbrush out, they will be able to
take an unspecified amount of healthy lumber
that only bums in the hottest forest fires.
This way of clearing the underbrush and dead
trees that act as tinder in forest fires has been
done before. According to the U.S. Department
of Agriculture Forest Service, more than 2.25
million acres were treated last year. However,
Timothy Egan of The New York Times reports
that areas that have already been developed or
logged account for 90 percent of the acreage
identified as most vulnerable to wildfire. This is
likely to keep happening if logging companies
are allowed to clean out America’s forests
unchecked.
While thinning the forests is the only way to
prevent devastating long term effects on the
forests of the United States, Bush’s Healthy
Forests Initiative will most likely hurt the forests
more than it will help them.
Timothy Gilbert is a junior
sociology major.
TIMOTHY GILBERT