Patriotism Not Found: Google Ignores Memorial Day
Yesterday, on NRO’s The Corner, Jonah Goldberg reported:
It’s kind of sad. They change their homepage logo for all sorts of holidays and occasions. Just last week they paid tribute to Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday. But Memorial Day doesn’t seem to rate anything at all.
Update: A reader sends this along:
It’s worse than you think. Google doesn’t always do logos for the same days every year, but they’ve never changed their logo for Memorial Day.
We’d call that more than “sad.” It’s utterly disgusting.
What corporate policy could Google possibly have in place that acknowledges “Persian New Year,” but ignores Memorial Day? Is it personal politics, or are they worried about offending customers by honoring America’s veterans? In either case, it’s deplorable.
The young founders, Russian-born Sergey Brin and Larry Page, are multi-billionaires thanks to America, land of the free and home of the brave. You’d think they’d start every day with a Pledge of Allegiance. Our democracy and capitalist system afforded them the opportunity to realize their entrepreneurial dreams, and yet they refuse to simply acknowledge a day of respect for those who fought for and continue to preserve our way of life. Evidently, they have no algorithm for shame.
Instead, they’re coddling communist China, where they don’t see red just greenbacks. No pride for America.
By contrast, we’d like to recognize the retailer Sierra Trading Post for being proud to be American.
On Monday, customers received this email:
From: “Sierra Trading Post”
To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Subject: Remember our Heroes
Date: 29 May 2006 04:06:49 MDT
Two sentences say it all and so beautifully. Perhaps more companies can follow this example.
It’s not about politics. It’s about heritage. It’s about honor.
Google is still searching for it.
UPDATE:
Ask.com gets it (via Instapundit)
More history on Google’s bias
Technorati Tags: Google, Memorial Day, Democracy, Patriotism
May 31st, 2006 at 4:43 pm
So is it better if you, say, have a factory in China AND publically acknowledge Veteran’s Day? Either way, you’re furthering China’s agenda but at least in the Google model you aren’t being a hypocrite about it.
June 1st, 2006 at 10:39 am
No Memorial Day logos -or- Veteran’s Day logos, in 7 years. That’s horrible! In fact, I don’t recall seeing Flag Day or Armed Forces Day for any year. At least they remembered to do Independence Day, and labeled it correctly.
July 19th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
Google Veteran’s Day?
Now we know the man behind Google’s designs of the day: Dennis Hwang may be the most famous unknown artist in the world — his work doesn’t hang in galleries or museums, but hundreds of millions of people have seen it. The 28-year-old webmaster desig…