For those who are suffering from Olympics withdrawal, Jason Jones anchors another games right here in the USA in the town of Hebron, Maine that is as diverse and exciting. They supposedly even have my favorite event, dressage, though Jones did not show it.
(This clip appeared on August 9, 2012. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report outside the US, please see this earlier post.)
Wait wait wait. “Olympics” is not a copyrightable word. They aren’t the Red Cross, there’s no excuse for no one to be able to use the word for something of theirs.
Redneck culture is so alive and well in New England. A friend of mine from Vermont was telling me about how she and her friends used to escape down back roads and hide from her town’s two cops. “Just like them Duke boys” I said. She agreed that her youth was exactly like The Dukes of Hazzard.
OrangeDrake said:
In the United States, the Amateur Sports Act of 1978 gives exclusive rights to use the words Olympic and Olympiad to the U.S. Olympic Committee. The Committee has used this act to sue other organizations attempting to use the term “Olympics”, for example the Gay Olympics, which had to change its name to the Gay Games three weeks before its inaugural event in 1982.
I’ve looked at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office‘s list of trademarks for the word Olympic, and a number of non-Olympic “Olympic” trademarks are still alive. However these are for things like bread and machinery where there’s no chance of confusion with the athletic competitions.