Searching for patriotism

I would certainly never suggest that veterans of the United States Military do not deserve recognition for their service. The men and women who have served this country, even those who returned home safely, have made significant sacrifices in the name of protecting the rest of us. They fought bravely and they deserve our respect.
It's just, in "lets support the veterans" efforts, as in war, it's important to pick your battles.
Livable conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center and efforts to help Iraq and Afghanistan veterans adjust to life at home? That's an important way of supporting veterans. Patriotic logos on the home page of search engine Google for Memorial Day and Veteran's Day? I mean, that's got to be a little bit farther down the priority list, doesn't it?
Possibly not.
Several conservative groups seem to have gotten themselves worked into a tizzy in recent years over the fact the search company, which frequently modifies its logo for special occasions, had until this year not made an effort to recognize either Memorial Day or Veteran's Day. In a web log posting last year a group called California Conserv-atives called it "utterly disgusting" that Google would fail to recognize U.S. veterans while using its logo to pay tribute to such obscure events as Persian New Year and the birthday of Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
If that's the group's reaction to the lack of a military-themed cartoon, I'd hate to see it's reaction the local paper ever pulls Beetle Bailey.
The questions about Google's perceived lack of patriotism have gotten so serious that the Los Angeles Times last month published a story about the controversy. In the story, a conservative blogger named Giovanni Gallucci who clearly gets too emotionally involved with his Internet searches, calls Google's logo shortcomings "A kick to your belly."
The story also quotes Joseph Farah, whose worldnetdaily.com site clearly has issues with Google. The site has no fewer than 15 stories about the evils the world's most popular search engine has visited upon this country and the world at large. It's a lot of anger to build up over targeted advertising.
Google's response to the controversy had been to suggest its logo alterations, generally light-hearted doodles, were not solemn enough to capture an event like Veteran's Day. According to the Times a web site called zombietime.com took that as a challenge and sponsored a contest to solicit suggestions.
Certainly we must take something called zombietime.com seriously as a source of political discourse. If you'd like to see the suggestions they're on the site somewhere among links to photos of San Francisco's World Naked Bike Ride and a topless protest at a Hillary Clinton rally.
A word of warning: You really, really don't want to click on those links. Talk about utterly disgusting kicks to the belly.
This isn't the first time the lack of overt displays of patriotism have caused problems. Presidential candidate Barack Obama took heat recently for failing to wear a U.S. flag lapel pin, and shortly after 9/11 a women's college basketball player caused a stir by choosing not to face the flag during the National Anthem.
I'm all for displays of patriotism, but wearing a flag pin so everyone knows how much you love America is a little bit like driving a Toyota Prius instead of a more traditional-looking hybrid so everyone will know how much you love the environment. Saying the Pledge of Allegiance out loud doesn't make me any more patriotic in my heart than reading the Vikings' playbook out loud makes me qualified to play quarterback in the NFL.
(OK, that's a bad example. At this point, I think I might be a better option at quarterback than anyone currently playing the position for the Vikings. And I can't even throw a decent spiral.)
For the record, this Veteran's Day Google's logo sported World War I-era Army helmets on both of its Os and its E.
Now that we've got that taken care of we can turn our attention to the next blatant example of disrespecting this country: McDonald's, which honors St. Patrick's Day with a Shamrock Shake but has yet to introduce red, white and blue McNuggets.
Shame on you, Ronald.

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