Google Honors Veterans Day, Finally 693
theodp writes "It took nearly a decade, but Google has done a turnabout and is honoring Veterans Day with a special holiday design for its famous logo. Users who log onto Google's home page are greeted with three World War I-era helmets capping the letters 'o' and 'e' in Google's name. The decoration is a marked departure for the company, which has come under fire from veterans' groups for ignoring American holidays such as Veterans Day and Memorial Day since Google's inception in 1999."
Re:World Nut Daily (Score:0, Interesting)
Give me one good reason (Score:4, Interesting)
Halloween, ok. It's more or less international by now. Christmas? Ok, as long as it's done in a way that isn't Christo-centric and includes other religions' celebrations (you know it's actually Midwinter, right? It's not like the Pope invented that one). I can see Chinese new year, as it's celebrated by Chinese people all over the world and not just by people in the PRC. Even the Sputnik launch makes sense, less in a commemoration of the achivements of the Soviet Union as rather a stunning achivement in technology (personally, I don't give a rat's behind who does something great as long as someone does it).
But memorial day (or whatever it is)? Hello? Ask anyone in Europe when that day is and you get a "What's Memorial day? Did they move our national holiday again?"
So what's next? Will we get pressure from other special interest groups to celebrate "their" holiday on Google? A special Ramadan frontpage? And one for Martin Luther King day? Hey, I'm quite pissed there was none for our great national holiday! Rant! Whine! Tantrum! I want one!
Could we concentrate on holidays that at least a sizable portion of the planet cares about?
which veterans' organizations are pushing this? (Score:2, Interesting)
The article doesn't say which veterans' organizations have been putting pressure on Google, but I bet it was the American Legion, and if it was, and I were Google, I would refuse to put up a special logo for the sole purpose of spiting them. The American Legion is a nasty, greedy, warmongering organization. None of the vets in my family or circle of friends will have anything to do with them. Remembrance Day here in Canada (I'm a dual citizen and have lived in both countries) has a very different feeling from Veterans' Day in the US.
Re:As a Veteran... (Score:2, Interesting)
When the next draft comes around, how many of you will run to canada and claim you're a Consienance Objector (sp?). How many of you will encourage your children, if they're of age, to go fight for this country?
Hell, how many of you have used our resources such as financial aid? It would be nice to give back by defending your nations freedoms. I STRONGLY believe in something the Germans currently do, where (and I may be wrong about the specifics) once you're like 18 you must do a couple years in either the military OR the civil service. Manditory. That would definitely build some national pride and respect.
The point is without our veterans, we would all be speaking German right now. Veterans day is more than just WWI/II Iraq,Nam,Etc. It a rememberence of every war that we, as Americans, have fought so that our way of life - our freedoms (albeit a lot more limited now that GW is at the 'throne') - and our ability to prosper.
In closing, let me recite to you all the Sailors Creed. Think about the meaning of each and every portion and honestly look inside yourself to see if they mean nothing to you, if you're an American:
I am a United States Sailor.
I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America and I will obey the orders of those appointed over me.
I represent the fighting spirit of the Navy and those who have gone before me to defend freedom and democracy around the world.
I proudly serve my country's Navy combat team with Honor, Courage and Commitment.
I am committed to excellence and the fair treatment of all.
Re:As a Veteran... (Score:3, Interesting)
The effing day someone actually gives a fuck about my in my government is the day I might start considering serving for the country. As it stands now, everything I have comes from personal struggle or through our combined efforts to exploit others. There is nothing to be proud of of your country. Patriotism is a plague.
Honoring a day of the dead... (Score:2, Interesting)
All wars kill innocent people. As such, no war should be taken lightly, and the cost to innocent lives should always be on the forefront of our minds.
I would much rather see a holiday that honored the millions of innocents slain in all the wars the US has engaged in in the 20th century (as well as the recent Afghanistan and Iraq wars), rather than honor the instruments of the taking of those innocent lives.
Is it unpatriotic of me to want to honor the innocents rather than the soldiers? If "patriotism" means the slaughter of innocents, then I will be "unpatriotic" every damned time.
Unless they are landing on our shores, we shan't be fighting wars.
And now, let's see if humanity can aspire to being something better than the animals they currently show themselves to be.
Re:yeah, but remember what? (Score:2, Interesting)
That's splitting hairs. Apart from maybe the immediate families of the soldiers concerned, people either remember and honor the people who fought in wars, or they don't.
Then there's Labor Day. Virtually nobody even KNOWS anymore what that was originally supposed to be, but in practice it now serves exactly the same purpose as Memorial Day: a lot of people get a day off work and probably have a barbeque with their families or something. (Not that this isn't several orders of magnitude more worthwhile than New Years...)
The thing about national holidays is that, politically, you can never reduce the number of them. It's relatively easy to add one, but pretty soon you have too many. One per month is clearly far too many, but there's no way to cut back without deeply offending someone, and sooner or later there's going to be another push to add one for something... You pretty much need a full-scale revolution every few hundred years just to reset the count, and that's just messed up.
Re:And since it's been slashdotted... (Score:2, Interesting)
Step right up [jesusland.com].
Re:And since it's been slashdotted... (Score:2, Interesting)
(I know that was likely a joke -- but given the vast differences in political ability between Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, the South really should spit on the grave of Booth every chance they get. Reconstruction would have been VASTLY different if Lincoln had been around to rein in the Radical Republicans.)
Re:Progressive Elitism (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's *still* the face of "progressivism" (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, Fred Phelps is a Democrat. Just as the Log Cabin Republicans. [lcrga.com] (actually, there are many others I could have chosen, but I thought the LCR would be most fitting)
Here, I'll even correct your first sentence for you:
Those of us on the right will unlump these guys from the progressive movement as soon as we see some progressives criticize them.