Thread: Livid Americans Blast Back over Pearl Harbor Snub -Calendars

A DATE WHICH WILL LIVE IN INFIDELS

Livid Americans blast back over Pearl Harbor snub

Many 'incensed' by U.S. calendars promoting Islamic New Year Dec. 7th

Posted: January 10, 2010
5:07 pm Eastern
By Joe Kovacs
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

"A date which will live in infamy."

That's how President Franklin Roosevelt immortalized Dec. 7, 1941, the day Japanese forces stunned the U.S. with a sudden attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, prompting the U.S. to jump into the Second World War.

Just don't expect to find any mention of that on your calendar this year.

Nearly seven decades after the onslaught, many U.S. calendars produced by American companies are ignoring Pearl Harbor Day, and are displaying instead the Islamic New Year on Dec. 7.

Even calendars promoting the Holy Bible take note of the Muslim observance, while completely omitting the day on which more than 2,000 Americans lost their lives in the surprise attack.

"I have a Psalms calendar, which has a Bible verse on each month's picture, made by BrownTrout Publishers, Inc., and it also has Dec. 7 as the Islamic New Year. No mention of Pearl Harbor Day," said Donna Brandt of Marshalltown, Iowa. "I am incensed and will be giving the BrownTrout Publishers a piece of my mind! Thank you for calling my attention to this blasphemy."

There they go again, trying to remake America! Put Ronald Reagan on your car or in your office and fight the socialist nightmare before it kills the American dream!

Jim Jones of Waco, Texas, also bought a BrownTrout calendar, and says, "We are going to get rid of it. I think I am going back to the store where we bought it (Petsmart) and ask for my money back. I do not want to honor a bunch of fanatics who are trying to kill us infidels. My thinking is all Islamists, if they believe and follow the Quran, are fanatics, and I have no use for them."

WND obtained several calendars from a variety of publishers, including San Francisco-based BrownTrout, which bills itself as the largest calendar publisher in the world, producing about 1,000 separate varieties each year.

In its 2010 Bible calendar, which features a 1563 painting of the Tower of Babel on its cover, the Dec. 7 entry specifies "Islamic New Year," with Pearl Harbor Day completely absent.

Perusing the rest of its December page, the BrownTrout calendar notes Dec. 23 is the "Emperor's Birthday" in Japan, Dec. 26 is when Kwanzaa begins as well as St. Stephen's Day in Ireland, and Dec. 27 is a "Bank Holiday" in the United Kingdom. Popular observances such as Christmas Day and New Year's Eve are also included on Dec. 25 and 31, respectively.

"Pearl Harbor day is not a federal holiday," said Mrs. Wendover Brown, owner of BrownTrout, which excludes mention of Pearl Harbor from all its datekeepers. "It's a day of mourning which is not normally indicated as a holiday."

She admitted, "We've had many, many letters questioning our patriotism," and called it an "unfortunate overlap" that Islamic New Year, which is a floating, lunar-based observance, happens to fall on Dec. 7 of this year.

"I apologize to anyone who feels we were unpatriotic or dismissive of Pearl Harbor Day. We're not," she told WND. "We're a very patriotic company and we're very American. Tolerance is a good quality of the plurality of our country."

"We feel that the purpose of a calendar is to alert people when regular business is closed," she continued. "We certainly don't have a political agenda to impose. We apologize if our products have not reflected the wonderful country we all enjoy. We will be reviewing holiday citations on our products for future editions. We will promise to be responsive to what our consumers tell us."

Brown, 56, says her own brother is a 27-veteran of the U.S. Marines, and is about to retire next month from his post at the Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida.

She also points out that within 10 days of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, her company produced two special calendars to raise some $741,000 for the Uniformed Firefighters of Greater New York to help families of the heroes killed in the line of duty.

"We gave so much money to that fund, they said they couldn't take any more because they were having trouble distributing it," she said.

BrownTrout, founded in 1986 by Wendover and her husband, Marc Brown, previously did include Pearl Harbor Day when it was just a small company dealing with American clients. She says as the firm expanded, its calendars became more international-oriented, and Pearl Harbor Day became a victim of the globalization.

Regarding which days are included and which are not, she says there's an eight-week process editors go through from Jan. 1 every year through the end of February, when they do a thorough polling of major buyers, bookstores, pet stores as well as public comments through social-networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Mrs. Brown says the 2011 calendar is already being printed and does not include Pearl Harbor Day on Dec. 7, so the next possible chance to include it would be for the 2012 edition. The company does provide refunds to those who request them.

Meanwhile, popular 2010 calendars published by Blue Mountain Arts of Boulder, Colo., including "A Sister's Love is Forever" and "Mom, I Love You So Much," all cite Dec. 7 as the Islamic New Year without any citation for Pearl Harbor Day.

Bob Gall, president of the company, was initially unsure when WND first asked why Pearl Harbor Day is not included, saying it was "really interesting why we don't. I question the same thing. It is a significant event in our lifetime. Good question. I don't know."

After investigating the matter, he discovered the company has never included Pearl Harbor Day in its publications, but added, "we probably will in the future," since many other days have been added over the years.

Other observances Blue Mountain Arts currently deems worthy of inclusion are:

March 1: National Women's History Month begins
April 11: Holocaust Remembrance Day
April 21: Administrative Professionals Day
April 22: Earth Day, as well as Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day
May 1: May Day
May 4: National Teacher Day
May 5: Cinco de Mayo
Aug. 11: First Day of Muslim Ramadan
Aug. 26: Women's Equality Day
Sept. 21: U.N. International Day of Peace
Nov. 16: The Muslim Eid-al-Adha
Dec. 26: First Day of Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, St. Stephen's Day in Ireland

The company did not completely ignore the military, though, as Armed Forces Day is noted on May 15 in addition to federal holidays such as Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

Gall admits the company has made errors in the past, such as producing a calendar displaying Nov. 31, when such a date does not exist. He says a bride-to-be contacted the company complaining, "I scheduled the wedding for Nov. 31 based on your calendar."

"The fun of calendars became a reality where you just can't make a mistake," Gall said.

Blue Mountain Arts was co-founded by anti-war activist Susan Polis Schutz, the director and executive producer of "Anyone and Everyone," a film about parents of homosexual children.

Concerning her film, she stated, "It is a lot easier for gay people to come out now than it was 15 years ago. However, there is still prejudice. In some cases the prejudice is flagrantly overt, in other cases through more subtle biases of the mind. And there remain antiquated laws and unequal rights that inhumanely and negatively affect gay people all over the world."

She created Blue Mountain Arts with her husband, Stephen, and employed her son, Rep. Jared Schutz Polis, D-Colo., the first openly "gay" congressman elected as a freshman to the U.S. House. Jared actually changed his last name to Polis to honor his mother's maiden name.

According to Denver's Westword, Jared Polis in recent years has donated heavily to Democratic campaigns and left-leaning organizations, including giving $200,000 to MoveOn.org.

As WND first reported last week, Publix Supermarkets, a major chain in 5 Southeastern states, pulled its free, 2010 calendar from shelves after outraged customers flooded the company with complaints for citing the Islamic New Year at the expense of Pearl Harbor Day.

The forward magazine of USS Shaw explodes during the 2nd Japanese attack wave on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Dec. 7, 1941. To the left of the explosion, Shaw's stern is visible, at the end of floating drydock. At right is the bow of USS Nevada, with a tug alongside fighting fires.

A South Florida radio station, WFTL, brought the matter to light with its midday hosts, Joyce Kaufman and Jeff Katz, urging listeners to bombard Publix with their concerns.

Ironically, while Publix did not include Pearl Harbor Day, it did find space for National Boss Day and Administrative Assistant's Day.

The inclusion of those non-holidays contradicts a statement last Wednesday by Publix spokeswoman Kimberly Jaeger who explained, "Traditionally, our calendars have solely noted holidays. Due to the number of holidays in a calendar year, days of remembrance have not been noted."

By Friday, another statement isssued by the chain claimed those non-holidays were added "based on customer requests."

Publix also found room to list independence days for many foreign countries such as Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Central America, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay and Trinidad and Tobago.

In the wake of WND's national exposure of the matter, the supermarket has taken on a more apologetic tone, telling its customers, "We would never knowingly disappoint you. We truly regret and apologize for having done that. Our intent was never to exclude important dates or to reduce the importance of any one day. Since our customer base is very diverse, we make every effort to do the right thing, for the most people."

Concerning the calendar flap, Kathleen Riley of Rochester, Mich., wrote WND to stress the bigger issue, in her opinion, is that immigrants must assimilate into American culture, not Americans into foreign cultures.

Little by little, inch by inch, the folks from the Middle East countries are promoting their values, ideals and culture on us, some by force, some by insistence, some by their clothing style, and some merely by perseverance. (I live in the Detroit area; first they took over Dearborn, then Hamtramck and now are flooding Southfield. The Dearborn schools stop for prayers six times a day, creating an uncomfortable situation for anyone non-Muslim. Consequently, people move out of the area and sell their homes to other Muslims. ... This is the impact of adding their holidays to our calendars. Excuse me, but the last time I looked (despite what Obama tells the world), the United States of America is a Christian country. This multi-culturalism hoax must go away.

According to WND readers, another calendar maker citing the Islamic New Year over Pearl Harbor Day is Myron Corp. of Maywood, N.J.

But not all publishers have omitted the World War II attack. The National Pen Co. of Shelbyville, Tenn., as well as the National Rifle Association are among those who take note of Pearl Harbor Day, while excluding the Islamic New Year for 2010.

According to the Naval History and Heritage Command, Americans losing their lives on Dec. 7, 1941, numbered 2,403, including 68 civilians, most of whom were killed by improperly fused anti-aircraft shells landing in Honolulu. There were 1,178 military and civilian wounded.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=121392

"Pearl Harbor day is not a federal holiday," said Mrs. Wendover Brown, owner of BrownTrout,


But I guess the Islamic new year is?