The Similkameen News Leader
Editorial
THE OTHER 'O' WORD
EDITORIAL - May 15, 2007
The News Leader 'News Cruiser' has new license plates.
The plates have been there for just about three weeks and we haven't made too big a deal out of it but ours was the first vehicle in town to sport those new specially designed plates to commemorate the 2010 Summer Olympics set for Vancouver and Whistler.
Of course, because the 'O' word is a registered trademark of the IOC, we really aren't supposed to refer to them in such a casual manner. In fact, we really aren't supposed to even hint at the name even when referring to the sporting event itself.
To be clear, we are talking about the 2010 Summer Games. Dull, we know, but apparently a few years ago the IOC got ticked at other special events using the 'O' word and basically banned the use of the word outside of official usage dictated by that committee.
We think it's silly, as most of us know that every four years this international sporting event comes around somewhere in the world at both winter and summer.
It's like us saying that since the Similkameen News Leader is a registered trademark, customers can't ask for it by name. That would surely boost sales and make our bookkeeper so proud!
However, we think the license plates are pretty cool.
They also contain a serious change: The simple, yet precise slogan of "Beautiful British Columbia" has been dumped in favour of the new Liberal slogan of "The Best Place On Earth." Talk about re-branding something we already know.
Another cool feature of these 'O' plates is the curious colour combination of dark blue on, well, light blue. This must make it hard for the RCMP to read from a distance, which makes us think maybe Gordon Campbell had something to do with this part of the design.
