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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 22, 2016)
5A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 Redskins, rock band The Slants form Just how much sugar do Americans consume? unusual alliance in trademark ight Answer is complicated By SAM HANANEL Associated Press WASHINGTON — Simon Tam has openly criticized the Washington Redskins team name as a racist slur that demeans Native Americans. But Tam and his Asian-American rock band, The Slants, have formed an unusual alliance with the NFL franchise as they both battle the U.S. gov- ernment over trademark protec- tion for names that some con- sider offensive. The Supreme Court could decide as early as this month whether to hear the dispute involving the Portland-area band. And if the football team has its way, the justices could hear both cases in its new term. At issue is a First Amend- ment challenge to a law barring the U.S. Patent and Trademark Ofice from registering trade- marks that disparage minority groups. The ofice denied a trademark to the Slants in 2011 after inding the name dispar- aged people of Asian descent. Less soda pop consumption a factor in drop By CANDICE CHOI AP Food Industry Writer Anthony Pidgeon/Redferns The Asian-American band The Slants, from left, Joe X Jiang, Ken Shima, Tyler Chen, Simon “Young” Tam, Joe X Jiang in Old Town Chinatown, Portland. The Supreme Court could decide as early as this month whether to hear the dispute involving the Port- land-area band. And if the Washington Redskins football team has its way, the justices could hear both cases in its new term. that the cases should be con- sidered together. Otherwise, he says, a future ruling against the Redskins could end up affecting the band’s status. Not to offend The Slants say their goal was not to offend anyone, but to transform a derisive term about the shape of Asian eyes into a statement of ethnic and cultural pride. The band won a major victory last year when a divided federal appeals court in Wash- ington, D.C., ruled the law pro- hibiting offensive trademarks violates free-speech rights. The Obama administration has asked the Supreme Court to overturn that ruling. The Redskins, too, say their team name is meant to honor American Indians. But the team has faced years of legal challenges, and a testy pub- lic relations ight, from mem- bers of the very group they claim to salute. The Redskins case involves the trademark ofice’s move last year to can- cel the team trademark that was irst registered in 1967. A fed- eral judge has agreed with that decision. Unusual alliance AP Photo/Nick Wass Washington Redskins foot- ball helmets are seen before an NFL preseason football game between the Washing- ton Redskins and the New York Jets, in Landover, Md. A federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, has not yet considered the team’s appeal, but the Redskins are urging the Supreme Court not to wait. If the high court agrees to hear the Slants case, the team wants the justices to hear both disputes at the same time. Such requests to leapfrog lower courts are rarely granted. Tam, in a legal brief, agrees The legal alliance may seem surprising to anyone who has been on The Slants’ web- site. One section has a lengthy list of reasons why the cases are different. No. 1 is “unlike REDSKINS, THE SLANTS is not an inherent racial slur.” The website says the word Redskin “has a long his- tory of oppression” and “the football team treats the peo- ple as mascots.” By contrast, The Slants “breaks stereo- types about Asian-Ameri- cans, especially in the enter- tainment industry.” Tam does not mention those distinctions in his brief to the court, and he declined to be interviewed. In the Slants case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fed- eral Circuit ruled in December that the First Amendment pro- tects “even hurtful speech that harms members of oft-stigma- tized communities.” “The First Amendment for- bids government regulators to deny registration because they ind the speech likely to offend others,” Judge Kimberly Moore said for the majority. The administration argues that the law does not restrict speech because the band is still free to use the name even with- out trademark protection. The law “simply relects Congress’ judgment that the federal gov- ernment should not afirma- tively promote the use of racial slurs and other disparaging terms by granting the beneits of registration,” the government said. Jeremy Sheff, a professor at St. John’s University School of Law who specializes in intellec- tual property, said the Supreme Court could be interested in the cases because it has been “pretty aggressive” in protect- ing First Amendment speech — even remarks considered highly offensive. NEW YORK — Sugar has become the nutritional villain du jour, but just how bad is our addiction? The answer is tricky. Philadelphia recently passed a tax on sugary drinks, sev- eral other places have proposed them, and the government this year recommended we limit our intake of added sugars to 10 percent of daily calories, under- scoring how signiicant elected oficials believe the problem is. But while determining exactly how much sugar we’re con- suming is a complicated busi- ness — government igures are estimates— the data and indus- try trends indicate we’ve actu- ally made progress in cutting back. On average, Americans’ total consumption of caloric sweeteners like reined cane sugar and high-fructose corn syrup is down 15 percent from its peak in 1999, according to government data. That’s when we consumed an average of 111 grams of sugar a day (423 calories). After plateauing in recent years, consumption was down to 94 grams a day (358 calo- ries) last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agricul- ture, which calculates the ig- ures by estimating how much of the caloric sweeteners pro- duced are never eaten. But that level is still higher than the 87 grams Americans consumed on average in 1970. Soda drop A major factor for the drop appears to be the decline in soda consumption, as the high-fruc- tose corn syrup used to sweeten drinks like Sprite and Mountain Dew has been on the decline. Thomas Farley, the health commissioner in Philadelphia, said it could take many years before the positive effects from the reductions in soda consumption to turn up in health data. But he also noted that factors like the growth in snacking, the availability of food in more places, and over- sized restaurant dishes can fuel obesity. “Sugar is a problem, but sugar is not the only problem,” Farley said. And though it’s lower, sweetener consumption of 94 grams a day is still the equiv- alent of roughly two and half cans of Coke. That far exceeds the government’s recommen- dation to limit added sugar to around 50 grams a day (200 calories) for someone on a 2,000-calorie diet. Notably, a per capita con- sumption igure doesn’t account for the wide dispari- ties in intake among individ- uals. The way the USDA esti- mates sweetener consumption also means the speciic igure could be higher or lower. The agency changed its methodol- ogy in 2012, which meant a sharp reduction in how much sugar it said we consume. Emails obtained by the Center for Science in the Public Inter- est, which supports soda taxes, show that a sugar industry group wanted the change and hoped for “as low a per capita sweetener consumption esti- mate as possible.” There’s always room for “improvement and reine- ment” in making food con- sumption estimates, said Michael McConnell, an agri- culture economist who spe- cializes in sweeteners at the USDA. But he said the change in methodology was applied retroactively, so any trend the numbers show would still be consistent. Even if the num- bers are inexact, others agree the downward trajectory in sweeteners makes sense.
