Jonah Goldberg: “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.”
I must admit, it’s kind of odd. They have logos for such obscure events as “Persian New Year – March 21, 2006,” “Lunar New Year – January 29, 2006” and even “Birthday of Percival Lowell – March 13, 2006.” But nothing for Veterans Day or Memorial Day. Not now, not ever. Going back to 1999, one finds such remarkable commeorations as ” Dragon Boat Festival, China- June 15, 2002″ and “On November 15th, Shichi-go-san is celebrated in Japan.”
My guess is this has to do with the whimsical nature of the logos or perhaps some strange political correctness rather than any enmity toward fallen soldiers. Indeed, unlike a commenter at Kevin Drum’s site, I’m not sure failure to mention Memorial Day is a sign of much of anything.
Still, Glenn Reynolds is on to something when he notes, “It’s not a huge deal, but judging from my email it seems to be the last straw for a lot of people. As I warned earlier, Google seems to be engaged in a Dell-like squandering of its goodwill, which strikes me as very unwise given that goodwill is its biggest asset, really.” From a customer goodwill standpoint, companies who commemorate Bastille Day and Ray Charles’ birth might consider a token homage to America’s heroes now and again.
(In Google’s defense, they do have an Independence Day logo for every 4th of July since they started operations.)
