$4 MILLION MAN

[harvey007]

Source: Eugene Oregon Register-Guard

Top executives at the Sikh-controlled Eugene food company Golden Temple drew excessive compensation in recent years — the CEO topped $4 million last year — while the company slashed its donations to Sikh religious and educational nonprofit groups, according to records disclosed in an ongoing lawsuit against the Sikh business leaders by state officials and Sikh religious leaders.

Read more: http://special.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/26214220-41/golden-temple-khalsa-sikh-million.html.csp

[Sonoman]

1. Looks like the Sick has gone repub. nt

[Johnyawl]

2. Greed is universal...

...it infests every nationality, ethnicity, and religion.

[tinrobot]

3. It's a complex story, actually

I'm on the outskirts of that community and have heard both sides of the story.

Yogi Bhajan was a spiritual leader, some call him a cult leader. There is some controversy that surrounded him, including sexual harassment suits. Regardless, he converted a lot of people to his personal brand of Sikhism and created a compound/headquarters in New Mexico. He helped a lot of people start businesses, including the people in Oregon. In return, they put his picture on boxes of Yogi Tea and paid royalties to his foundation.

When Yogi Bhajan died in 2004, there was a vacuum of power in the community, and it fractured to some degree. This included friction between the people in Oregon and those in New Mexico. The Yogi Tea people in Oregon broke with the community, took Yogi Bhajan's picture off the box, and stopped sending money to New Mexico. This resulted in the lawsuits and PR campaigns.

The money sent to New Mexico technically went to charity, but those charities are basically comprised of Yogi Bhajan's followers who want to continue their life of doing yoga, meditating, and writing books about how great Yogi Bhajan was. I must admit, his brand of yoga is pretty darn good.

Not sure who is right or wrong here. There's a lot of personal grudges that are getting played out like a messy divorce. Rather sad, actually.

[eridani]

4. There is a large Sikh community in WA State

No single person has that kind of stature in the local community, though.

[tinrobot]

5. Those are probably regular (Punjabi) Sikhs

Sikhism generally doesn't have figureheads. This particular sect is outside of the norm.

[eridani]

8. I guess every tradition has them. David Koresh was a 7th Day Adventist

This surprised the bejeezus out of me, as most of the Adventists I know are very kind and sane people.

[BrklynLiberal]

6. Thank you for filling in the blanks. Would be nice if the media had the ethics to do that as well.

[quakerboy]

7. My question after reading this

It notes that the same people got bonuses from another company, a security company. A security company which works nationwide providing security for "courthouses and military bases". If there were ever an institution that should be quite capable of providing its own security, and not relying on a quasi-religiously(no matter the religion) connected private company for security for a whole host of reasons, the military would be right there. And the courts would be very high on a list of that as well.

So why are we outsourcing security of military bases from military personel?