Eclectic, quirky, and sometimes edgy…this is how things look from my front porch.




Monday, April 1, 2013

Cesar Chavez' 86th Birthday - Are You Kidding Me, Google?

I admire Cesar Chavez as much as the next person.   I sympathize with the plight of migrant workers.  A San Diego Red Cross program I was affiliated with for 5 years served migrant workers. Such workers are exploited by farming operations both large and small which make a great deal of money from their efforts.

While living in San Diego, I often considered the cruelty of circumstances which gave me, born on one side, such advantages over folks born a quarter of a mile to the south.  Their education, immunization status, medical care, and life expectancy are all much poorer than we enjoy in the United States.  I understand why women in labor cross the border illegally so that their children will have a better life.  I don't approve, but I understand.

My late sister-in-law met Bruce's brother, Eric, when she was a migrant worker on the family farm.  I know her life was very hard before she met him.  Margaret was gorgeous.  Our niece, Heather, inherited her mother's stunning looks.  As an ardent watcher of The Big Valley, I always thought it interesting that she named her son "Heath," the name of the character played by Lee Majors.  Heath was the youngest son of the land owner, Victoria Barkley, just as Eric was my mother-in-law's youngest.

I'm always fascinated with the clever things Google does to recognize special dates on their opening page.  They make the Google logo move or light up or create a graphic in the style of Monet or Picasso to recognize an artist's birthday.  However, sometimes their political correctness is so extreme that they appear moronic. Easter was one of those days.

Yesterday, Google recognized the birth date of Cesar Chavez, union organizer, and champion of the rights of migrants.  That's fine, Cesar was in important figure in US labor relations.  However, Google failed to recognize the date as Easter, when Christians throughout the world celebrate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Not only is it short-sighted and, quite frankly, demented - it just makes Google look dumb.

Whomever you believe Jesus was and is, there can be no denial of his influence over the course of human history.  In fact, we divide time based on the birth of Jesus Christ, despite this BCE (Before the Common Era) nonsense.  AD, as in 2013 AD, is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase meaning, "Year of our Lord."

I find it fascinating that tolerance is extended in our present day world to everyone BUT Christians.  We are tolerant of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, gays, and lesbians -  as well we should be.

However, in the name of tolerance and political correctness, we Christians are not allowed now to use the term "Easter eggs" or "Christmas tree" at school.  This semantic nonsense is just absurd, especially considering that Easter eggs and Christmas trees actually have nothing to do with either holiday. Religious tolerance should be for everyone, even the Christian majority in this country.

I wonder sometimes if Jesus is looking down saying, "Yeah, Google, not so much..."   Kinda like when I go to small group and we put a DVD on the TV to sing praise songs to the television set.

Jesus said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation."  And they did, 12 uneducated, erratic, flawed men who deserted Jesus at the crucifixion went on to change the world after they witnessed the Resurrection - never mind how much Google would like to ignore it.