Back on the Soapbox

I was so busy fussing and fuming over the ridiculously lavish spending of those non-profit organ transplanting nincompoops yesterday that I almost missed the biggest controversy to sweep the net in ages.
In case you are the last person on the planet not to know this, let me break the news: Ravelry was hit with a cease and desist from the US Olympic Committee for hosting the *Ravelympics! Seriously. I'm not kidding.

That means people like me who have used the words "Olympic" in their patterns or based a pattern on their trademark rings are in the deep stuff. You can't even use part of the word Olympic to describe events or things without infringing on their rights. The Olympic Spirit mittens I designed in 2008 will, in their actual words, " denigrate the spirit of the athletes". I am not kidding. They really said that. You can read the original nasty and mean spirited letter they sent to Ravelry here.  Like so many of us naive knitter folk, I thought that the Olympics belonged to the people of the world. I had no idea it was an issue of corporate ownership. It was like finding out Santa Claus is a CEO. What a bummer.

The Ravelers, however, did not wither in fear from this harsh demand to withdraw. Oh no. Quite the contrary. Throughout history large crowds of people with pointy sticks have been a force to be reckoned with and the USOC found that out the hard way when the yarn folk attacked them via Blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. I literally spent all day in front of the computer trying to keep up with the drama. Two different apologies were issued by the USOC on Facebook to try and calm things down but the fever was at such a high pitch, things only went from bad to worse. By afternoon, NPR  jumped on the bandwagon and even theYarn Harlot's call for peace couldn't stop people from screaming at each other in all caps all over the web. Ouch. It got ugly. By late evening there were two distinct camps. Those who were still mad as hell and those who were mad as hell because other people were still mad as hell.

I can only imagine what the Olympic sponsors were thinking. They had 2 million crafty viewers who were ready to just sit quietly on their duffs and do their thing and now they went and made them all mad as hell.
 

I just hope the Tour de France people were paying attention. The Tour de Fleece starts next week.

*For those who don't know what this is, and I'm talking to you Sandy, the Ravelympics is a knitting and crocheting competition that takes place during the time of the Olympics on Ravelry. You compete for medals in different categories like the mitten medley and the sock put. It's all fun and we have been doing it for years.