Yesterday, from a reader comment, I learned was the anniversary of D-Day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings. I also saw a article on the home page of either msn.com or yahoo.com or something similar. If you read our open lines for yesterday, you’ll notice it didn’t say anything about D-Day, it was about the anniversary of the first drive in theater.
The open line introductions are provided by the US Census department in their multimedia section called Profile America. It’s an easy blurb for me to put on our open lines as timely news, and it’s quite informative. The statements are written months in advance, for example you can get a sneak peak at our open lines for the rest of June here. http://www.census.gov/multimedia/www/radio/profile_america/
I used to take quite a lot of time every night writing on the open lines, but it was one of the least read articles of the day, every day, unless anyone started any discussion on it. Then it became popular, but still not much conversation about what I would actually write about during the open lines. I used the open lines as my own ‘editorial’ section, but since they weren’t read, I’ve backed away and just focusing on the news and events postings.
Anyway, so I was sort of surprised when I learn that the official US Census wasn’t about how many served in the military type thing instead of the first drive in theater.
What really struck me as odd though was Google’s celebration of the day. They also celebrated the anniversary of the first drive in theater. If you visited Google’s home page, the Google logo was replaced with a new animation video you can view below:
President Obama also caught flack about the celebration of D-Day yesterday, in that he did not celebrate it. There was no speech anywhere by Mr. Obama or Mrs. Obama about it.
Google gained some attention as well by having a ‘doodle’ for the theaters and not D-Day.
It struck me as odd though because Google’s celebration of the theaters was the same as the America Profile. There are many other things Google and the US Census could have celebrated on June 6th, other than theaters or D-Day, like:
1889 – The Great Seattle fire destroys the entirety of downtown Seattle, Washington.
1939 – Judge Joseph Force Crater, known as the “Missingest Man in New York”, is declared legally dead.
1946 – The National Basketball Association is created, with eleven original teams.
1971 – Soyuz program: Soyuz 11 launches.
1971 – Vietnam War: The Battle of Long Khanh between Australian and Vietnamese communist forces begins.
1982 Lebanon War begins: Forces under Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon invade southern Lebanon in their “Operation Peace for the Galilee“, eventually reaching as far north as the capital Beirut.
1984 – Tetris, one of the best-selling video games of all-time, is released.
Us geeks would have loved for Google to doodle a small Tetris logo to play with.
But they choose Theaters, the same thing as the US Census chose to highlight. Of the other media reports criticizing Google like here: http://www.seroundtable.com/first-drive-in-theater-15255.html or criticizing Obama like here: http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2012/06/06/obama-scheduled-commemorate-dday/ no one drew the connection between Google and the Profile America both showcasing the first drive in theater. Just in case I was the only one that noticed, I wanted to be on record for the thought!