Interestingly, the profile of Prof. Banzhaf at his university’s own Web site paints a hardly less controversial picture, bragging “As a young lawyer, John Banzhaf brought a legal action which required all broadcast stations to provide free time for anti-smoking messages. Subsequently ... he helped drive cigarette commercials off the air, and started the nonsmokers’ rights movement by first getting no-smoking sections -- and then smoking bans -- on airplanes and in many other public places. Professor Banzhaf (has) played a major role in the war on smoking ... including promoting and helping to mastermind law suits against the tobacco industry. ...”

Professor Banzhaf teaches a unique course, the university Web site brags. In “Legal Activism,” his students “learn to become public interest lawyers by bringing their own legal actions. He and his students are widely known for bringing hundreds of innovative public interest legal actions including ... preventing dry cleaners from charging women more than men to launder their shirts, suing Spiro T. Agnew to recover the bribes he received ... smoke detectors in airplane lavatories, ... greater roles for blacks on television ... and many other victories.”

Most recently, the never shy Prof. Banzhaf returned to the public eye as he launched lawsuits against several of the largest chains in the nation’ $115 billion fast-food industry, claiming they harm Americans’ health by serving fattening food.

And now, Rich Tucker of The Heritage Foundation reports professor Banzhaf has sent registered letters “styled as a legal notice” to four D.C. area television stations, warning them to limit their use of the term Redskins “or risk a legal challenge to their broadcasting licenses.”

What a giddy rush of power the gentleman must experience as he gets to suck his sustenance from those who earn their livings by actually generating commerce and wealth.

Professor Banzhaf’s latest foray follows an appellate court ruling that will allow American Indian groups to challenge the Washington football team’s trademark on the name “Redskins,” based on a bureaucratic finding that the word is racially derogatory and offensive.

In fact, it seems unlikely professor Banzhaf -- a middle-aged white man -- is actually “offended” by the team nickname, any more than he would really feel any personal outrage if there were no quota for black characters on television shows, or believe himself personally harmed if some desperate cigarette smoker sneaked a few quick drags in an airport bathroom during a five-hour flight to Vegas.

Does he care if his lawsuit simply means men pay more to get their shirts cleaned? Will he next insist men be charged as much as women to have their hair cut?

He doesn’t really care. This is all about gaining the power to manipulate the behavior of others -- and making them pay dearly for professor Banzhaf’s little lessons in humility.

In the nickname case, Mr. Tucker points out, the professor is warning the stations that “If they even dare to speak a word he finds offensive, he’ll attempt to put them out of business.” And he’s not subtle about his threat: “Broadcast stations whose licenses are challenged often face a major and very expensive legal battle,” he notes in a news release.

Frontiers of Freedom Vice President Kerri Houston points out that professor Banzhaf’s version of “public interest law” replaces personal responsibility with a “blame others” mentality. “Individual freedom and the accountability that goes with it is one of our nation’s cornerstones,” she says. Indeed, the linkage is vital. If people aren’t responsible for their own actions -- if some third party can be sued to spare them paying the consequences, themselves -- then it follows government entities will move in to restrict the freedoms that previously allowed them to make such “bad” decisions. After all, it’s “for their own good,” and would seem to be required, once we’ve given up the old notion that their bad results will discourage others from copying their mistakes.

The progress of the good professor’s quixotic campaigns is worth examining. Offer non-smokers some relief from having to breathe others’ tobacco fumes during dinner? Fine. But with no one to draw a line and tell him where to stop, the good professor has now come to resemble the out-of-control sorcerer’s apprentice.

Cross that line -- attempt to limit the freedom of others to make their own decisions about smoking -- and eventually you’re extorting billions from the tobacco industry, supposedly to treat the smoking-related illnesses of Americans who knew the risks of smoking when they started ... though Nevada’s own Millennium Scholarships demonstrate professor Banzhaf and his ilk didn’t really care where the money went, so long as the lawyers got their share.

Do fast food restaurants -- many now offering salad choices, others having given up when we refused to buy the stuff -- force us to eat french fries? Should they have to pay us damages if we choose to eat too many? Shall American corporations be robbed of the fortunes they’ve spent establishing such brand names as Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben’s and “Godfather” Pizza? Would Barrister Banzhaf really be assuaged if they took a head count and re-named Washington City’s NFL football franchise “The Negroes”? Would he approve -- or sue -- if one of the surviving descendants of Jim Thorpe’s Carlisle Indian School figured turn about was fair play, and re-named its sports teams “The Genocidal Drunken White Men”?

Is there no judge, anywhere, not only to throw out such nonsense, but to finally make these stinging insects pay the expenses of those they unjustly seek to victimize?