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It’s Good To Be The King And owning the rights to his name isn’t half-bad either, particularly when litigation is involved. Last Thursday, a New Orleans appeals court ruled in favor of Elvis Presley Enterprises in a 4-year-old trademark dispute with a Houston bar known as “The Velvet Elvis.” The judgment reverses part of a 1996 district court ruling that upheld EPE’s claims of trademark infringement and unfair competition with regard to the bar’s advertising and promotion – which, prior to the case, regularly featured images of Presley along with phrases associated with the King – but, in a rare loss for EPE, not with regard to “The Velvet Elvis” name itself. In that decision, the court ruled that there was no basis for consumer confusion since, once in the bar, it was clear that it was not an officially sanctioned tribute, but was instead a parody. Thursday’s decision, on the other hand, ruled that parody is not a sufficient defense against claims of trademark infringement and found that the name was sufficient to cause consumer confusion and therefore violate EPE’s trademark. Indicating how tightly EPE holds the reins on Presley’s name and image, the decision was handed down despite the fact that bar owner Barry Capece has held a service mark registration for his bar’s name since 1993. Goofus In Gallatin Late last month, the News-Examiner newspaper in Gallatin, Tennessee, lost a $950,000 libel verdict for an incident last February, reported here, involving a fake quote that a reporter inserted into a story as joke, expecting it would be removed by his editor. It wasn’t. To recall, the fake quote claimed, among other things, that a high-school soccer player engaged in sodomy with donkeys. The quote was attributed to the player’s coach. The player and coach were awarded $800,000 and $150,000. respectively. So how did the mistake happen, anyway? According to a report in the May2nd issue of Editor & Publisher, a newspaper trade magazine, the sports editor testified that he never saw the quote because he only edited half of the story, because editing the other half would have forced him to miss a deadline. E&P further reports that management felt the editor’s real mistake was “his failure to do a spell-check, which would have flagged the words ‘dicks’ and ‘shit.’” Verbatim “There’s plenty of money for me. / Plenty of money for me. / Plenty of money. / Plenty of money. / Plenty of money for me.” – from Offbeat Prayers for the Modern Mystic by local “minister, speaker, writer, metaphysical teacher, rebirther, and counselor” Anne Sermons Gillis, MS. This particular song for “enlightenment and fun” is titled, appropriately enough, “Plenty of Money,” and is meant to be sung to the tune of “Happy Birthday.” For further enlightenment and fun, see page 37. |
Activists Act Up
As disability-rights activists filled Court Square Sunday dressed
in T-shirts emblazoned with the ADAPT logo – a person in a wheelchair
breaking free of the shackles on his wrists – the message to legislators
was very clear: Free your minds.
The disability-rights group ADAPT demonstrates in Court Square.
About 500 national ADAPT members chose Memphis for their four-day protest because they claim Tennessee is one of the 10 worst states for providing home- and community-based care options. Traditionally, many states hold an overriding nursing-home mentality and resist paying for the type of long-term care that would allow disabled individuals to remain in their homes.
“If we could just take 25 percent of the money spent on nursing homes and push it toward community-based services, we could be living at home like normal people,” says Dennis Jackson, who traveled to the event from Topeka, Kansas.
More than 42,000 people live in institutions in Tennessee, and many of them could be cared for in their own homes if some of the money was redistributed. ADAPT, which stands for American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, wants national legislation that would require it.
Sunday’s event was peaceful, full of speeches that were delayed
briefly because the electric wheelchairs interfered with the sound
system. On Monday, the group carried its protest to Gov. Don Sundquist’s
Memphis office, staying inside and outside the state building
downtown all night. The building was closed Tuesday. 
– Jacqueline Marino
Healing Center Breaks Ground
At 10 a.m. on May 18th, the Church Health Center will break ground on its long-awaited Hope and Healing Center. But the term “ground-breaking” is a bit misleading. The building exists already – it’s the former Baptist Healthplex, which Baptist Memorial Hospital is leasing to the nonprofit for $1 a year (the fitness center is moving to Baptist’s College of Health Sciences at 1003 Monroe).
What’s being launched Monday is a complete interior and exterior renovation of the warehouse-style building, including a new front-entry complex. The 76,596-square-foot facility will retain some fitness areas, and will feature a heated indoor pool to provide arthritic patients with therapeutic exercise, but the overall focus is as much on healers as it is on the sick. Part of the center will be devoted to teaching young physicians to write what CHC founder Dr. Scott Morris calls “prescriptions for health” – not to simply command patients to lose weight or quit smoking, but to give them the means to do so. Another area will work with Memphis congregations to develop health-promoting programs within their churches.
Nothing like this has ever been tried before, and no one is sure
how it will work. But then, the same was said about the Church
Health Center 10 years ago, and it has been phenomenally successful
in providing health care to Memphis’ working poor. “Scott Morris
had a vision of the Church Health Center,” says CHC spokesperson
Helen Norman, “and now he has a vision of this.” – Debbie Gilbert
Nehemiah Changes Plans
Realizing their ambitions were originally too high, the developers of the Nehemiah housing project have scaled back plans to build and sell their low-income homes.
Shelby County Interfaith (SCI) predicted three years ago that it could build a 166-home development at South Third and Fairway streets by the end of 1996. The city provided the project, dubbed Nehemiah, with almost $1 million in public infrastructure improvements.
Organizers are now looking at the project as two stages. First, 81 homes will be built and sold, then – hopefully – the rest.
“We’re just kind of talking about the second phase, so nothing’s solid about it at all,” says Lisa Young, project coordinator of SCI’s subsidiary. “We’re just trying to get this first phase done.”
So far, 42 housing lots remain unsold.
An independent realtor was hired three months ago to sell the rest of the homes for SCI. The agency has nine contracts signed, though construction on those houses hasn’t started.
Young, who has been in her position for two months now, says SCI
decided to hire realtors as part of an effort to reorganize its
housing project. “I guess [SCI] was just trying to figure out
what would be a more professional way to handle the whole process,”
she says. “They [the realtors] are very professional. We feel
very comfortable that the houses will sell in no time.” – Phil Campbell
Building Homes
A program of the Shelby County Division of Corrections recently attracted the attention of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, which helps administer the Innovations in American Government awards. The Shelby County program may even attract some award money.
Minimum-security inmates involved in the program, Building for the Future, help local community development organizations build low-income housing. Medium-security inmates build panels for the houses without leaving the prison. In five years, inmates have helped build 44 houses.
“They [the inmates] have been very proud of their work. They’ve been signing their names on the panels,” says Julia Desiderio, deputy administrator of inmate services/programs. “Many times the houses they work on will be in their own neighborhoods. They’ll tell their families to drive by and see them.”
The program serves a dual purpose of providing community service and helping inmates gain home-building skills, such as carpentry. In June, the division is scheduled to add a masonry program.
The Division of Corrections was chosen as one of three semifinalists
in Tennessee. If it is named as one of the top 10 national finalists
in October, it will receive $100,000 from the Ford Foundation.
– Jacqueline Marino
