"And the assless chaps?"

At the 1985 Labour party meet, the motion to support LGBT rights as a party was passed due to a block vote from mining unions.

Weird Al is allowed to parody everything because he's operating under copyright law, not trademark law.

Trademark governs who can "trade" under what "mark" i.e. the brand identity of a company. Companies don't own their trademarked word forever, but they maintain the exclusive right to sell things under that brand in their specific market sector. Patagonia doesn't own the name of a geographical region, they just own the right to be the only company using that name to sell clothing and outdoor gear.

A drag queen name can be a parody of a clothing and outdoor gear company.

A company's trademarked logo can be used in parody creative works, with more leeway if it's not for commercial purposes. Trademark parody is allowed! Patagonia has been aware of and allowed Pattie Gonia's trademark parody for years.

Trademarks are specific to market sector. Actress Chase Infiniti could start a makeup line named after herself and her trademark would not infringe on the Infiniti car brand because they are different markets and there is no risk of confusion. Pattie Gonia could probably trademark her name to sell frozen veggie burgers and Patagonia would not care.

Drag queen Jan Sport did a collab with JanSport bags. What Jan Sport almost certainly did not do is independently apply to register "Jan Sport" as a trademark in order to sell bags on her own, because that would infringe on JanSport's own trademark in the bag market sector.

What Pattie Gonia is not allowed to do -- the thing that Pattie Gonia actually did do and is being sued for -- is apply to register "Pattie Gonia" as a trademark to sell clothing, because apparently Pattie is in talks with North Face and HydroFlask to sell "Pattie Gonia"-branded gear. These companies probably won't finalize anything unless Pattie shows that she actually owns the trademark. Unfortunately, "Patagonia" is already a registered trademark in the clothing market sector, and these two names are too similar to exist in the same sector (see: "likelihood of confusion" legal standard).

Your drag queen name can parody a clothing company. You can parody the trademarked logo of a clothing company. But you cannot use the same name to then go on to also become a clothing company.

In order to maintain their own trademark, Patagonia must sue for trademark infringement. If they don't sue, and Pattie Gonia gets her own trademark, Pattie could sue Patagonia for infringement on her trademark. You can see why Patagonia won't be dropping this suit no matter how much you harass them.

The new conflict is from Pattie Gonia using the Patagonia imagery and the Pattie Gonia name on her own merchandise. This is the email Patagonia sent, with the images they feel conflict with the 2022 agreement.

Pattie responded to that by disagreeing that she had broken any agreement, and also obliquely threatening to expose Patagonia for making tactical gear for the US military?

Pattie selling shit with her stage name on it Really Obviously isn’t going to have any negative effect on the continued lining of Patagonia CEO pockets, as if that even fucking matters, and no amount of waxing poetic about “well they have to 🥺🥺🥺” is going to make me say anything other than “fucking stupid if true then”.

In terms of whose pockets are being lined:

Rather than selling the company or taking it public, Mr. Chouinard, his wife and two adult children have transferred their ownership of Patagonia, valued at about $3 billion, to a specially designed trust and a nonprofit organization. They were created to preserve the company’s independence and ensure that all of its profits — some $100 million a year — are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land around the globe.

The unusual move comes at a moment of growing scrutiny for billionaires and corporations, whose rhetoric about making the world a better place is often overshadowed by their contributions to the very problems they claim to want to solve.

At the same time, Mr. Chouinard’s relinquishment of the family fortune is in keeping with his longstanding disregard for business norms, and his lifelong love for the environment.

(NYT Gift Link)

Since 2022, 100% of Patagonia's profits have gone to climate and environmental causes. They have completely restructured the ownership of the company so that this will continue in perpetuity.

Ok, it's finally done. Home is a place, home is a person.

This story is my first major piece after several years of art block, and I'm so glad I could finally get back to drawing.

This is such a neat piece of history, I reached out to Kalamazoo Public Library to try to learn more about it. Ryan Gage at their local history department took up the challenge. He had to do some digging to find it but he persisted and eventually found a trace of it in the library archive scrapbooks! Here's what he shared:

The Reading is Not Rationed card was produced by KPL's director of public relations. This was a two-color card placed in Kalamazoo buses beginning in the spring of 1943. Tire and gasoline rationing meant the trend of local bus travel would be definitely upward.

it was only within the past few months that i got to a point where i was like okay, this is reasonable. they’re not EASY, but if i pace myself i can take the stairs all at once without gasping for air. that’s not too bad. there’s room for improvement and i still get a little winded but that’s a reasonable amount of tired to be, i reckoned, it’s one staircase but it’s kind of a long staircase. i’d always known it was kinda long.

except i recently found out i was underselling it a bit, there. turns out it’s a VERY long staircase. it’s ‘appears in tour guides and news articles’ long, actually. it’s ’annual citywide step challenge event’ long. it’s ’i can’t tell you the number of steps without doxxing myself’ long. and for almost a year i had no idea, because it’s nearby and not very fancy looking and i thought it was just Some Stairs and i was really badly out of shape. but no, i’ve accidentally been doing insane superhell cardio this whole time. i’m pretty sure i’m currently in better shape than i was running cross country in high school. the big hill by my parents’ house feels like flat ground to me now.