A belated update: Sara Martin got her headstone.

The National Jug Band Jubilee and the Kentuckiana Blues Society were successful in collecting enough funds to provide a headstone for Louisville jazz singer Sara Martin (1884-1955). The photo is from the unveiling in 2017. I mentioned this way back on July 13, 2014. Unfortunately the link to Louisville Music News is broken.

 

 

Before LeBron James, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lawler ... before Kong itself ... there was King Oliver.

The song Sweet Like This may not be the very best example of Joe "King" Oliver's work, but as a cut included on an LP called Guide to Jazz, it was my introduction to his body of work. The album was intended as accompaniment to a book of the same name, by the French jazz critic Hugues Panassié, and was released in the mid-1950s. At the age of 10, or thereabouts, I checked it out from the New Albany-Floyd County Public Library and committed it to cassette tape.

You might say that I caught up with rock and roll a bit later.

Why think back to King Oliver? Because of Sara Martin. And who was Sara Martin? Louisville Music News explains.

A Headstone For Sara Martin, at Louisville Music News

Here’s a fundraiser for all Louisville music fans – and I mean EVERYBODY - to pay attention and donate a few shekels toward: Louisville blues singer Sara Martin, noted for her early 20th Century recordings which earned her the nickname of “The Famous Moanin’ Mama” (and “The Colored Sophie Tucker”), is buried in an unmarked grave in Louisville Cemetary. The Kentuckiana Blues Society and the National Jugband Jubilee have joined forces to raise money to buy a headstone for Martin’s grave ...

Read this now: "How Thor's Hammer Made Its Way Onto Soldiers' Headstones."

As we learned yesterday, the Hammer of Thor is included among the VA-approved emblems for federal military cemeteries cited yesterday.

The posting produced this comment from a blog reader.

The VA's list of available emblems for headstones and markers might help Dan Coffey choose invocation contestants.

So emblem 16 just demonstrates the intolerance and lack of respect shown by some elected members of New Albany's City Council.

The US government respects folks' religious opinions so much they even have a symbol for non-believers, allowing all to be equal in a federal military cemetery. No one's belief or non-belief is held up as better than any other.

Exactly why compulsory Council prayer to some one's notion of a "legitimate religion" is so repugnant.

Ranging back to the Hammer of Thor, reader KS provides this link, which helpfully explains ...

How Thor's Hammer Made Its Way Onto Soldiers' Headstones

... To summarize, Thor’s hammer represents heroism, nobility, self-reliance, and honor. It’s a symbol with a history that extends back a thousand years to pre-Christian Europe. And adherents of Odinism, the religion that Thor’s hammer represents, tend to make natural soldiers. Oh, and it also shares a pretty strong cultural heritage with a superhero who is, in his own weird, Technicolor, space viking way, as American as apple pie. How strange would it be, then, if the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs—the organization that oversees cemeteries dedicated to U.S. veterans and ultimately says which symbols can be used therein to represent your religious faith—had a problem with Thor’s hammer?

But for decades, the VA did have a problem with Thor’s hammer. Not so much for what Mjölnir stood for but because it was a pagan symbol, and pagan symbols were verboten.

With paganism usually viewed as an "umbrella term of convenience" covering numerous traditions, there isn't a single shared symbol or emblem.

What's more, "legitimate" religions like those venerated by Dan "Manic 7th Street Preacher" Coffey commonly denounce paganism, associating it with Satanism and witchcraft, thus complicating the decision-making process. In this instance, families of dead soldiers refused to compromise with the VA, and fought for the wishes of their loved ones.

 ... On September 25, 2005, Sergeant Patrick Stewart was killed in action in Afghanistan when a rocket-propelled grenade shot down his Chinook helicopter. An avowed Wiccan, it was Sgt. Stewart’s wish to be buried underneath the Pentacle. His widow, Roberta Stewart, petitioned for her husband to have his wishes respected by the Department of Veterans Affairs, but the VA stuck to their guns, claiming that the Pentacle was not a "recognized emblem of faith." The matter quickly came to a head, with Americans United for the Separation of Church and State filing a lawsuit on Stewart’s behalf in November 2006, arguing that the VA was showing favoritism for some faiths over others by having an "approved list" of religious symbols under which a soldier could be buried.

There was a settlement and the Pentacle was approved. Subsequently, "the Department of Veterans Affairs got out of the deciding game," but not until testimony from an embarrassing source was unceremoniously discarded.

On May 10, 2013, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs quietly made an update to its official list of approved emblems, adding Thor’s hammer, Mjölnir. "There was no press release, no announcement, nothing," Pitzl-Waters marvels. "They just dumped the symbol, and all of a sudden, there was Thor’s hammer."

It's an article worth reading in its entirety.

The VA's list of available emblems for headstones and markers might help Dan Coffey choose invocation contestants.

Yesterday, reader W took issue with 1st district councilman Dan "Wizard of Westside & Dispenser of Soulful Balm" Coffey's ongoing insistence that only "legitimate" religious institutions are eligible to offer invocations before council.

NAC Reader Comments 1: "The US Government has no list of 'legitimate' religions."

As Coffey contemplates the existence of various "official" religions, to be daintily arranged in precise order on his clipboard with a different color of Crayola for each, the very same blog reader who commented yesterday has provided the VA's list for the councilman's use.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
National Cemetery Administration
Available Emblems of Belief for Placement on Government Headstones and Markers

First, I've chosen a few of the more interesting emblems. The whole list follows.

You're welcome, CM Coffey.

I'm readying my stirring atheist's invocation as we drift toward irrelevance together.

ATHEIST (16)

HUMANIST (AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION) (32) 

FAROHAR (Zoroastrianism) (43)

INFINITY (49)

HAMMER OF THOR (55) 

WICCAN (37)

SANDHILL CRANE (57)

AVAILABLE EMBLEMS

LATIN CROSS (01)
BUDDHIST (Wheel of Righteousness) (02)
JUDAISM (Star of David) (03)
PRESBYTERIAN CROSS (04)
RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CROSS (05)
LUTHERAN CROSS (06)
EPISCOPAL CROSS (07)
UNITARIAN CHURCH (Flaming Chalice) (08)
UNITED METHODIST CHURCH (09)
AARONIC ORDER CHURCH (10)
MORMON (Angel Moroni) (11)
NATIVE AMERICAN CHURCH OF NORTH AMERICA (12)
SERBIAN ORTHODOX (13)
GREEK CROSS (14)
BAHAI (9 Pointed Star) (15)
ATHEIST (16)
MUSLIM (Crescent and Star) (17)
HINDU (18)
KONKO-KYO FAITH (19)
COMMUNITY OF CHRIST (20)
SUFISM REORIENTED (21)
TENRIKYO CHURCH (22)
SIECHO-NO-IE (23)
THE CHURCH OF WORLD MESSIANITY (lzunome) (24)
UNITED CHURCH OF RELIGIOUS SCIENCE (25)
CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH (26)
UNITED MORAVIAN CHURCH (27)
ECKANKAR (28)
CHRISTIAN CHURCH (29)
CHRISTIAN & MISSIONARY ALLIANCE (30)
UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST (31)
HUMANIST (AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION) (32)
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA) (33)
IZUMO TAISHAKYO MISSION OF HAWAII (34)
SOKA GAKKAI INTERNATIONAL - USA (35)
SIKH (KHANDA) (36)
WICCAN (37)
LUTHERAN CHURCH MISSOURI SYNOD (38)
NEW APOSTOLIC CHURCH (39)
SEVENTH DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH (40)
CELTIC CROSS (41)
ARMENIAN CROSS (42)
FAROHAR (43)
MESSIANIC JEWISH (44)
KOHEN HANDS (45)
CATHOLIC CELTIC CROSS (46)
THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST (Cross and Crown) (47)
MEDICINE WHEEL (48)
INFINITY (49)
LUTHER ROSE (51)
LANDING EAGLE (52)
FOUR DIRECTIONS (53)
CHURCH OF NAZARENE (54)
HAMMER OF THOR (55)
UNIFICATION CHURCH (56)
SANDHILL CRANE (57)
MUSLIM (Islamic 5 Pointed Star) (98)

Help buy a headstone for Sara Martin.

(July 17 update at Insider Louisville)

Before LeBron James, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lawler ... before Kong itself ... there was King Oliver.

The song Sweet Like This may not be the very best example of Joe "King" Oliver's work, but as a cut included on an LP called Guide to Jazz, it was my introduction to his body of work. The album was intended as accompaniment to a book of the same name, by the French jazz critic Hugues Panassié, and was released in the mid-1950s. At the age of 10, or thereabouts, I checked it out from the New Albany-Floyd County Public Library and committed it to cassette tape.

You might say that I caught up with rock and roll a bit later.

Why think back to King Oliver? Because of Sara Martin. And who was Sara Martin? Louisville Music News explains.

A Headstone For Sara Martin, at Louisville Music News

Here’s a fundraiser for all Louisville music fans – and I mean EVERYBODY - to pay attention and donate a few shekels toward: Louisville blues singer Sara Martin, noted for her early 20th Century recordings which earned her the nickname of “The Famous Moanin’ Mama” (and “The Colored Sophie Tucker”), is buried in an unmarked grave in Louisville Cemetary. The Kentuckiana Blues Society and the National Jugband Jubilee have joined forces to raise money to buy a headstone for Martin’s grave ...

 ... Watch this video recording of her singing “Death Sting Me Blues” with King Oliver’s Orchestra from 1928 ...