Give me a Google break

Today is Patriot Day.

Yesterday was my birthday.

As a gift to myself I’m going to use my blog as a personal soapbox just this once.  Or, maybe this will become an annual tradition…my official complaint about Google, posted every year on September 11th.

Does anyone think it was important that UFO trended on Google last week?  Google certainly did.  They thought it was cool enough to change their home page anyway.

If you were given a list of the top ten events in the history of your generation do you think any of these would be on it:

Birthday of Beatrix Potter
World Cup of 2006
Persian New Year
Death of Michael Jackson
Nobel Prize Centennial Award Ceremony

Alright, I’ll give you MJ but I’m certainly not moved by it so it wouldn’t be on my personal list.  I was more moved by the death of Chris Ledoux in 2005.  Now that would be on my list!

It would seem that Google likes to celebrate our native holidays consistantly through the years:

Mother’s Day
Father’s Day
Halloween
Thanksgiving
Earth Day
St. Patrick’s Day
Valentine’s Day
New Year’s
Independence Day
Martin Luther King Day

This yearly list seems fairly extensive and specific to the US but then sometimes you’ll see:

Chinese New Year
Persian New Year
Summer Games in Athens
World Water Day
International Women’s Day
Lunar New Year
Large Hadron Collider
Bastille Day
La Fete de la Musique
Dragon Boat Festival
Children’s Day – Japan
St. George’s Day
Korean Liberation Day
Swiss National Day
Canada Day
Shichi-go-san – Japan

So maybe they like global stuff and maybe they don’t want to do something for a specific locale in the US.  But then comes Bloomsday.

How about a quick rundown of the random birthdays or individual accomplishments they’ve celebrated since 1999?

Rene Magritte
Marc Chagall
Diego Velazquez
Walter Gropius
Alexander Graham Bell
Luciano Pavarotti
Yuri Gagarin
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Louis Braille
Frank Lloyd Wright
Leonardo de Vinci
Vincent van Gogh
Ray Charles
Gaston Julia
Alfred Hitchcock
MC Escher
Albert Einstein
Michelangelo
Picasso
Andy Warhol
Piet Mondrian
Monet

I think this list is short-sided because good ol’ Beatrix isn’t on it; however, I distinctly recall the Google logo with Farmer Brown and Peter in it.  Oh, and let’s not forget that Google celebrates their own birthday every year.

Please tell me, after seeing the variety of only the ones I’ve listed here which of these dates is in our hearts as a nation more than September 11, which has come to be known as Patriot Day.  I can’t think of a single one.  Notice I said of the ones listed.  I can think of only one holiday that means more to me than Patriot Day and that is known to Google as “Season’s Greetings.”  In their ten year history Easter hit Google’s logo only twice.  For me, Easter ranks right up there with Christmas and Patriot Day.

If Google doesn’t want to go a religious route that is fine with me.  Leave out Christmas and Easter.  If Google doesn’t want to go heavily into holidays celebrated by the US that is fine with me too.  Neither of those is the point of me standing here on this soapbox.

September 11, 2001 directly impacted two-thousand-nine-hundred-ninety-three lives from ninety countries.  (Yes, I figure that is a violation of AP style.  I did it for emphasis while on my soapbox.)  Please notice I said d.i.r.e.c.t.l.y.  Indirectly the event impacted a nation of people and brought many nations around the world to tears.

I can guess what some of you are saying, “Oh, Sundi. It isn’t that big of a deal. They get to choose their celebrations and what they do to their logo.”  True, and I get to choose my search engine.  From now on, it is no longer Google.  “Hello new search engine. My name is Sundi and I’m a Virtual Assistant.”

If people in our country can walk around like this for a day, then I think Google can change their logo for a day.

Nibbling away -

Sundi