Why Java, because it's not difficult and it's useful. It's easy to create enjoyable little applets to learn the premise of object oriented programming while still learning some basic programming things like operators and statements and loops and data structures. I haven't compiled Java in a while but I remember it being a little more strict about what it lets you compile, compared to C++ and especially C.
And if you becom a competent Java programmer, it really is NOT hard to learn other languages. hey in C, you have to handle memory allocation and deallocation. you can write to low level graphics memory. if you're talking from one platform to another, you'll have to handle stuff the Java Virtual Machine did for you. it's not hard, it's just more stuff to learn and be good at.
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"would a sausage by any other name smell as sweet?"