Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Got Leafy Greens?

One of the funniest stories I read while on hiatus was about a breastfeeding activist mom whose t-shirts for sale included the slogan "the other white milk." This led to a legal complaint from the federal government's National Pork Board, which sought to defend its property rights to the slogan "the other white meat." As this post at The Lactivist explains, the letter from the National Pork Board was outrageous, arguing at one point that The Lactivist was tarnishing the good name of the National Pork Board through sexual innuendo:
In addition, your use of this slogan also tarnishes the good reputation of the National Pork Board's mark in light of your apparent attempt to promote the use of breastmilk beyond merely for infant consumption, such as with the following slogans on your website in close proximity to the slogan "The Other White Milk." "Dairy Diva," "Nursing, Nature's Own Breast Enhancement," "Eat at Mom's, fast-fresh-from the breast," and "My Milk is the Breast."
This letter so offended The Lactivist that she publicized it across the blogosphere and sought assistance from a pro bono lawyer. The controversy brought a good deal of traffic to U.S. Food Policy's earlier reporting on the sale of the Other White Meat slogan. As The Lactivist reported in a later post, the fuss led to a very apologetic letter from Pork Board CEO Steve Murphy, and another letter from Pork Board staff offering to make donations out of their own pocket to an appropriate charitable cause, the Mother's Milk Bank of Ohio. Good for the Pork Board.

Now I can only hope no legal trouble will befall the organization for public health students in Massachusetts, whose recent fundraiser (nonprofit, of course!) uses the slogan "Got Leafy Greens?." The organization's Dustin Burnett, a graduate student at Tufts, told me -- as I was buying one for myself -- that they had taken care not to replicate the font or visual design of the federal government's checkoff program for fluid milk, which of course uses the slogan "Got Milk?." Perhaps that will suffice to keep the fluid milk board's lawyers at bay. If you would like to order a "Got Leafy Greens?" t-shirt and support the students, write Dustin at the email address: gotleafygreens@yahoo.com.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wonderful story!

Imagine.....
The National Pork Board acting like a bunch of sexist pigs.