Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

S is for Sikhism (ABC Wednesday)

There are roughly 700,000 Sikhs in the U.S. today

Everyone at my place of employment received this email message this past winter:

Special Reports: Sikhism

The word Sikh (pronounced “sickh”) means ‘disciple’ or ‘learner.’ The Sikh religion was founded in Northern India in the fifteenth century by Guru Nanak Dev Ji and is distinct from Islam and Hinduism. Sikhism is monotheistic and stresses the equality of all men and women. Sikhs believe in three basic principles; meditating on the name of God (praying), earning a living by honest means, as well as sharing the fruits of one’s labor with others. Sikhism rejects caste and class systems and emphasizes service to humanity.

Sikhs at a Glance

Sikhs have been in the U.S. for over 100 years
There are roughly 700,000 Sikhs in the U.S. today
Sikhism is the world’s fifth largest religion with 25 million adherents worldwide
Sikhs believe in one God, equality, freedom of religion, community service and nonviolence
Sikhism is a distinct religion, separate from Hinduism and Islam
99% of people wearing turbans in the U.S. are Sikhs from India
The Sikh turban represents a commitment to equality and justice
Sikhs cover their uncut hair with a turban

For more information:

Who are Sikhs

About Sikhism

System Administration Police recently had the opportunity to engage in an open conversation about Sikhism with a fellow SUNY colleague. Anyone interested in discussing an important topic can email SUNY University Police to set up a meeting.
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This, of course, begs the question: what the heck happened to prompt the Special Report?

While not comparable on most terms, I had heard people compare how they felt after 9/11 to how they felt after November 8, 2016. Right after 9/11, a Sikh man was killed, and in subsequent years, other Sikhs have been victimized. In early 2017, Sikhs were again targeted.

Perhaps that’s why Valerie Kaur offered A Sikh Prayer for America on November 9th, 2016.

Sikh Americans
Sikhism

Anniversary eighteen

The bottom landing and the first two or three steps have become a fire hazard

It was March 12, my parents’ anniversary as it turns out, when I mused how is it my bride and I were approaching anniversary 18. How is it that we’ve been married so long, since we obviously drive each other crazy?

Now, how I drive HER crazy is for her blog, which she doesn’t have. Sidebar on that: I’ve been in relationships where I had to argue both my side AND my significant other’s, which is REALLY exhausting, and thank goodness my wife does NOT do that.

The stairs to the attic: they are steep and narrow and have a 180 degree turn, so a real pain to traverse. Our modus operandi was that we put stuff inside the door to the attic, so that it would be carried up the stairs next time we have to go up. Instead, the bottom landing and the first two or three steps have become a fire hazard, the new home of boxes, but I don’t know what they are.

I hate that they are located there because, while I can see them OK going up, if I’m carrying something DOWN, I may not be able to view the obstruction at all, and am likely to literally kill myself. She carried some suitcases that had been in our bedroom up the stairs just fine, but I insist on dealing with this other issue.

“What’s in this box?” I ask. It turns out it’s knickknacks that had been found by the Daughter in the Wife’s closet.

“What do want to DO with this stuff?” “I don’t even know if I want it.” So up the stairs I take it. As I work on this project, she apparently doesn’t see my issue as a problem. And I’m doing this in lieu of dealing with the clutter in our bedroom – the ORIGINAL project, which we both acknowledge IS an issue.

The difference between this conversation and ones I’ve had in previous relations is that I see this as just one of life’s little irritations, rather than bemoaning, “Why doesn’t she understand me?” or some such drama. Even in the midst of a temporary difficulty, we know that, somehow, we will work it out.

Somehow, my parents made it to 50 years, before my dad died in 2000, so I’m looking forward to 2049.

In case you wondered, garnet is the traditional gift for anniversary, and porcelain the modern one. (No, I’m not angling for gifts.)

Flintstones – Happy Anniversary

Mother’s Day 2017

Mom in her red wig period.

HA! I was looking at my May posts I completed, and I assumed I’d written a Mother’s Day something about my mom. But I was misremembering. I had written about my sister Marcia for her birthday this week, and that post is largely ABOUT my mom.

So I decided the heck with it and picked some photos off Marcia’s Facebook, most of which I don’t believe I’ve posted before.


Here’s my mom with HER mother, Gertrude Williams, and my sisters Leslie and Marcia, in her red wig period.


My mother with her mother’s people, the Yates, including Gert (2nd left), her aunts Charlotte and Deana. I have no idea what she’s looking at. This is in Binghamton, NY.


Mom with our family friend Betty, probably at the latter’s home near Binghamton.


I could ask someone who Sammy is, but this predates my father being on the scene.


Mom with her middle granddaughter, Alex, Marcia’s daughter, in Charlotte, NC.


Mom with her eldest Yates cousin, Raymond.


Mom with her eldest child, in Binghamton.


Mom with her eldest child, in Charlotte.

I will say that, unlike THIS mom, my mom hardly ever swore, and not just in front of her kids.

Music Throwback Saturday: I Need You

I Need You is a VERY popular song title.

Ellen McKinnon, Lin Brehmer – Q104, Albany, NY in the 1980s
Back in the day when I listened to the rock station WQBK-FM in Albany in the late ’70s and early ’80s, the morning disc jockey, Ellen McKinnon, invited listeners to come up with four songs they thought would go together well, and she would play them as a “Q 104-play.”

The one submission I made was extraordinarily lazy; I picked four songs with the title I Need You.

The first was a George Harrison song (1965) from the Beatles’ Help! movie and album in both the US and the UK, only the second Harrison song to be recorded by the group that was in the canon, after Don’t Bother Me.

The second was a hit for the band America, a group formed in London and comprised of sons of US military personnel. From the debut eponymous album, it went to #9 in the US in 1972.

The fourth was a single by the singer Paul Carrack, who is one of my favorite vocalists ever. I even have this song on a 45 somewhere. It went only to #37 in 1982, and I must have submitted my list shortly after this, because the station started changing formats in the next couple years.

The third one I’m not sure of. Was it by The Who from the album A Quick One? Unlikely, since I never owned it. Or the Kinks? Nah, doesn’t sound right in the mix. It was probably Joan Armatrading, the last track on her Me Myself I album, one of my favorites from 1980

As it turns out, I Need You is a VERY popular song title, as you can see here. And I did not know this: “The progressive rock supergroup Transatlantic recorded a mix of two songs [Beatles, America] on their 2009 album The Whirlwind. The first part (America’s cover) is sung by Neal Morse while the Beatles’s part features vocals by the band’s drummer Mike Portnoy.

Listen to I Need You, all different songs, except the Transatlantic cover:

Tom Petty at a George Harrison tribute
America
The Who
The Kinks
Joan Armatrading
Paul Carrack (live)
Transatlantic

Movie review: Gifted

Fred, the one-eyed cat, features prominently in the storyline.

The Wife wanted to see a movie that the three of us could all watch, and Gifted seemed to fit the bill. From the IMDB: “Frank, a single man raising his child prodigy niece Mary, is drawn into a custody battle with his mother.”

This is a subgenre where its success is dependent on certain factors. In this case, one is the mutual love that Frank (Chris Evans, Marvel’s Captain America) and Mary (Mckenna Grace, from the TV show Designated Survivor) have for each other, without the kid being so obnoxious that you can’t stand to see him or her on the screen. On that level, the film succeeds.

Of course, one Frank stops homeschooling Mary so she can have friends her own age – all she has besides Frank is his landlady Roberta (Octavia Spencer) – it becomes obvious to her teacher Bonnie (Jenny Slate) that Mary has amazing skills.

Reading the Rotten Tomatoes reviews (64% positive), some critics think that Frank’s mother Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan) is “too vicious to be persuasive, and [writer Tom] Flynn undercuts her morally by stressing her lust for recognition.” That’s not my reading of the woman, as villain. She seems more wounded, estranged from her son, as she had been from her late daughter, and even from her current husband.

Fred, the one-eyed cat, also features prominently in the storyline. Yes, it’s all melodramatic, with a courtroom scene, and a Big Reveal, where Frank has to make a tradeoff to resolve the issue.

Gifted is a relatively simple, straightforward film, somewhat formulaic and almost certainly manipulative. But I laughed aloud more than once – to the irritation of the Daughter – and got sucked into the lives of the principals. It’s not a great film, but enjoyable enough on a rainy Sunday afternoon at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany.

Ramblin' with Roger
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