The International Olympic Committee needs to lighten up a bit...

Wonderful column rant by Joel Connelly in yesterday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Olympics bosses need to take a time out
In a delicious, likely deliberate, gaffe, Sen. Warren Magnuson of Washington once addressed imperious International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage at a hearing as "Mr. Average Brundy."

The Olympic movement of 40 years later has gained massive corporate sponsorship. But it has not lost its haughty self- importance: Witness the legal water torture to which the U.S. Olympic Committee has recently subjected a young Olympic National Park seasonal ranger.

Jason Bausher spent the winter compiling a 56-page guide to the U.S. 101 loop around the peninsula. Using little Olympic Peninsula maps -- at first I thought they were a whale's tail -- he marks out "Best of" places to eat and stay.

The Lake Crescent Lodge, which played host to first lady Laura Bush, has two little whale's tails beside it. The Lake Quinault Lodge, where Franklin D. Roosevelt marveled at the Olympic Rain Forest, gets one.

In January, however, Bausher received a letter from an assistant general counsel at the U.S. Olympic Committee.

"Congress has granted the USOC the exclusive right to use and control the commercial use of the word 'OLYMPIC' and any simulation or combination thereof in the United States. See the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act," wrote Kelly Maser, the USOC's assistant general counsel.

Yep, it's the same Ted Stevens -- the tantrum-prone, self-enriching, pork barreling senator-for-life from Alaska.

"Uncle Ted" did include the narrowest of exemptions. He lets businesses use the word Olympic if it "refers to the naturally occurring mountains or geographical region of the same name."

However, such businesses are required to keep their operations, sales and marketing to "the State of Washington West of the Cascade Mountain Range."


In this age of the Internet -- which Stevens called a "series of tubes" -- such a marketing restriction is akin to requiring that all promotion of Mount McKinley and Denali National Park take place in the state of Alaska west of the Parks Highway (it provides access to the park).

The U.S. Olympic Committee confronted Bausher with five conditions. Some were reasonable. He had to disclaim any affiliation with the USOC, and not use "any torches, wreaths, medals or athletes" in its advertising.

But then came the corker: "You and/or your company agree to limit your use of the 'Best of the Olympic Peninsula' trademark ("the Mark") to the geographic area outlined above."

Talk about heavy handed behavior. I can understand wanting to protect your franchise and name but a little examination before blindly jumping in might serve you well; if only for the negative publicity an act like this will generate...