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A judge ordered the cancellation of the Washington Redskins' trademark. A loss for this losing team.

The Washington Redskins just lost a major legal battle in their ongoing fight to keep their name and logo.

There's a bit (a lot) of controversy surrounding the name and logo of a certain professional football team.

That team is the Washington Redskins, and in case you don't know, here's what their logo looks like.


Photo by Al Bello/Allsport.

A lot of people — especially Native American folks — have understandably been less than thrilled with the team's name and imagery. After years of trying to gently nudge the team to change the name, Native American groups took the team to court.

On July 8, 2015, a federal judge did something huge: He cancelled the Washington Redskins' trademark.

Why? Because "redskin" is an anti-Native American slur. As such, it can't be trademarked.

If you've been paying attention to the world of National Football League goings ons over the past few years, you'll have noticed that Washington's football team seems to have become better known for its fight to keep its name than for actually winning football games.

D.C. delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton speaks about the Change the Mascot campaign in September 2014. Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images.

Why is this a huge deal? Well, here's how Ian Shapira of The Washington Post explains it:

"The team has argued, however, that a cancellation of its trademarks could taint its brand and remove legal benefits that would protect it against copycat entrepreneurs."

In other words, without a trademark, anyone could could start selling gear emblazoned with the team's name and logo. In fact, this exact thing was the plot of an episode of South Park just last year.

Will it be enough to convince the owner to change the team name? Well, first the team is going to appeal the ruling. Little else has been effective, so maybe hitting the owner's bottom line might do the trick. He's been, to put it generously, very stubborn about this issue.

One man has been leading the charge to justify the name — very, very poorly.

This is team owner Dan Snyder. Last year, my co-worker, Adam Mordecai, referred to him as the "dude who might just have the poorest judgment in America" with a "dead-inside heart." That about sums him up, so I'll move on.

Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images.

Snyder has been bending over backwards trying to justify keeping the team name as is, and remarkably, he manages to sound more out of touch with each new statement.

In 2013, Snyder was asked whether he'd consider renaming the team if he lost the trademark ruling. His response:

"We'll never change the name. It's that simple. NEVER — you can use caps."

Later that year, he decided to try to argue that the name was actually a "badge of honor."

"The name was never a label. It was, and continues to be, a badge of honor. … It is a symbol of everything we stand for: strength, courage, pride, and respect — the same values we know guide Native Americans and which are embedded throughout their rich history as the original Americans."

And then last year, he tried playing dumb. Oh, "Redskin?" That's not about Native Americans; that's just a name for the football players and fans!

"A Redskin is a football player. A Redskin is our fans. The Washington Redskins fan base represents honor, represents respect, represents pride. Hopefully winning. And, and, it, it's a positive. Taken out of context, you can take things out of context all over the place."

One of the arguments in favor of keeping the name is that the team has a rich history and heritage — and that's true!

In the '80s and '90s, the team was actually pretty awesome! They won the Super Bowl three times — in the 1982, 1987, and 1991 seasons. That's not too shabby (and it's three times as many Super Bowl wins as my beloved Chicago Bears have under their belt).

Glory days! Here's Washington quarterback Doug Williams during Super Bowl XXII in 1988. They beat the Denver Broncos 42-10. Photo by Rick Stewart/Getty Images.

Even if the team changes its name, its heritage remains in tact.

It's not even as though "Washington Redskins" is the team's original name — they were called the Boston Braves. They've changed it before, so why not again?

And it's not as though they'd be only Washington team to change their name. The city's NBA franchise changed its name from the Washington Bullets (really, who ever thought this was a good idea?) to the Washington Wizards in 1997.

Believe it or not, this exists. Photo by J.D. Cuban /Allsport/Getty Images.

There's just one thing to do: Change the name. Now.

How can this be worth it? How can clinging to the name be worth the time, energy, or money they're putting into this fight? Maybe instead of focusing on the fight to keep their name, they should focus on winning a few games (the team won just four games and lost 12 last season).

If the team really wants to demonstrate the values Snyder listed above (strength, courage, pride, and respect) it can show the strength and courage it takes to set one's pride aside in favor of showing respect to the group of people it's hurting by changing the team name and mascot.

Planet

Easy (and free!) ways to save the ocean

The ocean is the heart of our planet. It needs our help to be healthy.

Ocean Wise

Volunteers at a local shoreline cleanup

True

The ocean covers over 71% of the Earth’s surface and serves as our planet’s heart. Ocean currents circulate vital heat, moisture, and nutrients around the globe to influence and regulate our climate, similar to the human circulatory system. Cool, right?

Our ocean systems provide us with everything from fresh oxygen to fresh food. We need it to survive and thrive—and when the ocean struggles to function healthfully, the whole world is affected.

Pollution, overfishing, and climate change are the three biggest challenges preventing the ocean from doing its job, and it needs our help now more than ever. Humans created the problem; now humans are responsible for solving it.

#BeOceanWise is a global rallying cry to do what you can for the ocean, because we need the ocean and the ocean needs us. If you’re wondering how—or if—you can make a difference, the answer is a resounding YES. There are a myriad of ways you can help, even if you don’t live near a body of water. For example, you can focus on reducing the amount of plastic you purchase for yourself or your family.

Another easy way to help clean up our oceans is to be aware of what’s known as the “dirty dozen.” Every year, scientists release an updated list of the most-found litter scattered along shorelines. The biggest culprit? Single-use beverage and food items such as foam cups, straws, bottle caps, and cigarette butts. If you can’t cut single-use plastic out of your life completely, we understand. Just make sure to correctly recycle plastic when you are finished using it. A staggering 3 million tons of plastic ends up in our oceans annually. Imagine the difference we could make if everyone recycled!

The 2022 "Dirty Dozen" ListOcean Wise

If you live near a shoreline, help clean it up! Organize or join an effort to take action and make a positive impact in your community alongside your friends, family, or colleagues. You can also tag @oceanwise on social if you spot a beach that needs some love. The location will be added to Ocean Wise’s system so you can submit data on the litter found during future Shoreline Cleanups. This data helps Ocean Wise work with businesses and governments to stop plastic pollution at its source. In Canada, Ocean Wise data helped inform a federal ban on unnecessary single-use plastics. Small but important actions like these greatly help reduce the litter that ends up in our ocean.

Ocean Wise, a conservation organization on a mission to restore and protect our oceans, is focused on empowering and educating everyone from individuals to governments on how to protect our waters. They are making conservation happen through five big initiatives: monitoring and protecting whales, fighting climate change and restoring biodiversity, innovating for a plastic-free ocean, protecting and restoring fish stocks, and finally, educating and empowering youth. The non-profit believes that in order to rebuild a resilient and vibrant ocean within the next ten years, everyone needs to take action.

Become an Ocean Wise ally and share your knowledge with others. The more people who know how badly the ocean needs our help, the better! Now is a great time to commit to being a part of something bigger and get our oceans healthy again.

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Family brings home the wrong dog from daycare until their cats saved the day

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Outside of collars, harnesses and bandanas, immediately identifying the dog that belongs to you has to be a secret skill because at first glance, their personalities are also super similar. That's why it's not surprising when one family dropped off their sweet golden pooch at daycare and to be groomed, they didn't notice the daycare sent out the wrong dog.

See, not even their human parents can tell them apart because when the swapped dog got home, nothing seemed odd to the owners at first. She was freshly groomed so any small differences were quickly brushed off. But this accidental doppelgänger wasn't fooling her feline siblings.

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OK, sure, there are no assigned seats, but you've been sitting at the same desk since the first day and everyone knows it.

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The 25-year-old money-saving 'bible' that millennials and Gen Zers absolutely need to read

This book has saved me thousands of dollars and changed my entire perspective on "frugality."

Photo by Josh Appel on Unsplash

"The Complete Tightwad Gazette" offers timeless money-saving advice.

Let me start by saying that young adults these days absolutely do have economics stacked against them. There's no question that stagnant wages, the unaffordability of housing, outrageous college costs, post-pandemic inflation and good ol' American corporate greed have all combined to create a tough financial reality for us all, but particularly for the millennials and Gen Zers who are starting off their adult lives feeling already underwater.

If you're in that boat, allow a Gen X auntie to give you some sage advice. Absolutely, rail against the man and shake your fist at the skyscrapers and vent on TikTok if it makes you feel better. But also, none of that is going to change super soon, so you've got to own what you actually have control over, and that's managing the money that you do have (however little it may be).

When my kids were little back in the early 2000s, my husband and I were living on one not-at-all-amazing income. I had been raised quite frugally, so I was comfortable penny-pinching as needed, but I was looking for more creative ways to stretch our dollars.

I had no idea how much one book would change my entire view of saving money—or how much money it would actually save me over the years.

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