Life without Google

I slipped off my anti-Google wagon yesterday. It would have been day four of my life without Google if I hadn’t regressed. Like other addictions, Google use becomes a habit before the unsuspecting victim even realizes it.

Every morning, and every time I open a new browser window thereafter, I peruse Google News, which I’ve customized, of course. When I need information, my cursor jumps to the little Google search box on my browser toolbar: it’s simple and convenient. And when I need to speak to a neighbor in Spanish, I often consult Google translator in advance. I’m the first to admit the company has a superior product.

Nonetheless,  I’m going to resist, and eventually, I’ll smash that habit like a watermelon at a Gallagher concert.

Why did you make me do it, Google? Why did you bankroll the dark side? Why are you in bed with political terrorists Grover Norquist and Ted Cruz; the nefarious Koch brothers; and the most anti-American coven imaginable, ALEC?

Say it isn’t so, Google, and while you’re at it, please deny the claim that you supported Heritage Action for America, the group that worked hardest to shut down the government over health care.

Everyone knows Google’s famous motto: do no evil. Perhaps it’s time the company found a more appropriate one, like: greed is good, but evil is better!

It’s easy to see what happened to Google— breathtaking wealth changes people, and aren’t corporations people? Just kidding, but there are increasingly wealthy people behind the 350-billion dollar behemoth, and they’ve apparently decided to join the malignant club of corporations who are currently raping the rest of us, and destroying the planet in the process. Nothing personal, I’m sure: it’s about profit.

I used to think that Google was a liberal and innovative company. They created a mindfulness-based, emotional intelligence curriculum for employees, with the help of a Zen master, of all things. That program led to the publishing of the successful self-help book: Search Inside Yourself. A company that supports and encourages emotional intelligence and mindfulness must be moral!

Talk about a model company. I remember a TV special about them that featured a company campus— a modern green center that offered perks like onsite haircuts and massages, exercise and game rooms— it’s not for nothing that Fortune found them the number one company in the country to work for. But Google is a two-headed creature, and the head in charge is a psychopath.

So, good bye, Google. I’ll miss you, but I prefer not to associate myself with rapscallions. My browser now opens to BBC World News; I use Duckduckgo.com to search anonymously; and for my translation needs, Spanishdict.com serves me well.

By the way, I slipped yesterday in the service of finding out what I was missing by looking at BBC instead of Google. Philadelphia news was the only casualty. I can live with that.