This Week in PurpleAmerica (2/3-2/9)

111 "Love" Songs to Celebrate Valentine's Day! And More!

It’s Friday, I’m in Love (The Cure). I Love You (Climax Blues Band). I will always love you. (Dolly Parton/Whitney Houston). So as it’s Valentines Week, I Have to Say I Love You in a Song (Jim Croce).

Oh, Love (Green Day). What is Love? (Haddaway). Do You Believe in Love? (Huey Lewis and the News). What about love? (Heart). I Think I’m in Love (Eddie Money). I Want to Know What Love is (Foreigner) so Let My Love Open The Door (Pete Townsend).

Is this Love? (Whitesnake). Why Can’t this Be Love? (Van Halen). Well, we can’t help falling in love. (Elvis). All you need is love. (Beatles). It’s this Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Queen) that leads us to Just call to say ‘I Love You.’ (Stevie Wonder). We’re Crazy in Love (Beyonce) and have A Groovy Kind of Love (Diana Ross). It’s the Power of Love (Huey Lewis and the News) that Love Makes the World Go Round (Deon Jackson). A Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin). You Can’t Hurry Love (The Supremes) and Can’t Buy Me Love (The Beatles). But Love Will Keep Us Together (Captain and Teneille), and is an Endless Love (Lionel Ritchie/Diana Ross). An Everlasting Love (Howard Jones). Elvis had Burning Love but also [Loved Me] Tender. How Deep is Your Love? (The BeeGees). Modern Love (David Bowie). The Method of Modern Love (Hall and Oates). A Higher Love (Steve Winwood). That’s The Greatest Love of All (Whitney Houston). Can’t Get Enough of Your Love (Barry White).

Now that we found Love (Heavy D and the Boyz), Who do you love? (George Thorogood and the Destroyers). You need to Love Somebody (Rick Springfield). Love the One Youre With (Crosby Stills and Nash). You can be Lawyers in Love (Jackson Browne). There’s The One I Love (R.E.M.). Can anyone find me Somebody to Love (Queen). Or just be an Electric Love (Borns). Just Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer (Kim Carnes).

It’s not always nice. Love is a Battlefield (Pat Benatar). It can be Tainted Love (Soft Cell), Crazy Love (Van Morrison) or even Bleeding Love (Leona Lewis) or Stubborn Love (The Lumineers). If You Love Somebody [you have to] Set Them Free (Sting). Love Stinks (J. Geils Band), Love Hurts (Nazareth). Love Bites (Def Leppard). You [can] Give Love a Bad Name (Bon Jovi). Love is Like a Rock (Donny Iris). Love is Blindness (U2). You’re Love Is Driving Me Crazy (Sammy Hagar). There’s 50 Ways to Leave your Lover (Paul Simon). One can be a Victim of Love (The Eagles).

How do we love? It’s in the way that you love me (Paula Abdul). You can be Crazy in Love (Beyonce). You have to Prove Your Love (Taylor Dayne) and Jump For My Love (the Pointer Sisters). You can be Addicted to Love (Robert Palmer), Accidentally in Love (Counting Crows) or Don’t Want Your Love (Duran Duran). You can be flat out Lost in Love (Air Supply) Love me Two Times (The Doors) or be a Stone in Love (Journey). There’s Delirious Love (Neil Diamond). Your Love is My Drug (Kesha). Love is Allright Tonight (Rick Springfield). You can have a Vision of Love (Mariah Carey). Madonna wants to Justify My Love, while Crystal Watters has 100% Pure Love. Real Love (Mary J. Blige). REO Speedwagon’s Gonna Keep On Loving You. Journey’s Lovin’ Touching Squeezin’. Love Don’t Cost a Thing (Jennifer Lopez). I Love It! (Icona Pop). Of course, there’s Love and Marriage (Frank Sinatra).

So, Where is the love? (Black eyed peas). Love is on the way (Saigon Kick) Or Love [just] Walks in (Van Halen). If you’re Looking for Love (Johnny Lee), When Love Comes To Town (BB King) it’s in the Love Shack (B-52s). Love in the Elevator (Aerosmith). On the Freeway of Love (Aretha Franklin). The Jungle Love (Morris Day and the Time). A Sea of Love (Phil Phillips). A Tunnel of Love (Bruce Springsteen). In the Sunshine of Your Love (Cream). In the Cradle of Love (Billy Idol). On the Love Train (O’Jays) or Love Rollercoaster (Ohio Players). There’s a California Love (Tupac) or even an International Love (Pitbull). Maybe you just need Radar Love (Golden Earring). Put a Little Love in Your Heart (Al Green).

But in the end, What’s Love Got to Do with it? (Tina Turner). I Would Do Everything For Love, But I won’t do that (Meat Loaf). It’s Only Love (Tina Turner and Bryan Adams). That’s the Way Love Goes (Janet Jackson).

So in closing, let me just offer this Love Song (Taylor Swift/ 311/ Adele/ The Cure/ Tesla/ Sara Bareilles and a host of others who wrote a song with this title) .

Happy Valentines Day from us at PurpleAmerica. Peace, Love and Understanding (Elvis Costello).

PurpleAmerica’s People of the Past Week

The Good

Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs gave this divided nation an important moment of harmony and empathy this past week at the Grammys.

We give a huge hat tip to Charlie Sykes at the Bulwark. Today is his last day and we want to thank him for all he has done to bring sanity and elevate smart individuals on the right and center right to show the world is not all crazy. That there are legitimate and thoughtful individuals out there on the right who are not hateful MAGA nitwits. We said this before and stand by it: “Charlie Sykes and The Bulwark are not Walter Cronkite, but they’ve found the ballpark he was in.”

This picture of a napping Polar Bear on a floating iceberg won the Wildlife Photographer Picture of the Year. Awwwwwwwwwww. Its like a Coke commercial.

The Bad

King Charles III announced he has an undisclosed form of cancer. As much as we are not fans of royalty, we do wish him a speedy recovery.

Country Music superstar Toby Keith died this week, succumbing to a long fight with stomach cancer. Mr. Keith, we all raise our Red Solo Cups to you and pour one out on the curb, brought to you courtesy of the Red White and Blue.

That annual mass worship of a cherub in diapers named Cupid, Valentine’s Day is next week and I still haven’t gotten my wife anything. Don’t tell her yet. I still have a weekend to look.

The Ugly

It’s hard to beat the entire Republican Party this week in every possible way. Let us count:

• The Federal DC Court of Appeals completely shot down Donald Trump’s inane “absolute Presidential immunity” claim in an airtight decision.

• Mike Johnson and the House GOP tried to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, the first impeachment of a cabinet official in over 100 years, and lost the vote.

• Republicans, negotiating a GOP Border Bill that gives them EVERYTHING they want as it relates to the border, is endorsed by Border Agents and gives Democrats NOTHING they want, and was likely to PASS both houses of Congress, announced the bill was DOA in the House at the direction of Donald Trump and now appears dead in the Senate as well.

• On a subsequent vote, they tried a backhanded effort to break Dems with Israel funding; that vote failed too.

• Serial bootlicker Ronna Romney McDaniel resigned as chair of the RNC.

• Tucker Carlson travels to Russia and gives a loathsome interview with mass murderer and dictator Vladimir Putin.

Have a nominee for us to consider? Send an email to purpleamericanunity@gmail.com!

PurpleAmerica Pop Culture Random Top Five

This week: The Top 5 Super Bowls Ever

This week, the annual “Holiday for Friends” the Super Bowl takes place. Everything in America will collectively shut down to watch The 49ers and the Chiefs in Las Vegas, an endless stream of commercials, Usher during the halftime and eat a bevy in a testament to gluttony. Nonetheless, there still is a game to be played. Which ones were the best?

Honorable Mention: Super Bowl XXXIV (34): St. Louis Rams 23, Tennessee Titans 16. This was kind of a dog of a game but the last 10 minutes were astounding, capped off by a final play that ended up 18 inches short of the end zone as time expired.

5. Super Bowl XLIX (49): New England Patriots 28, Seattle Seahawks 24. This was a tough back and forth affair that came down to the last few seconds. Seattle, from the 1 yard line with the best goal line back in football, stupidly decided to attempt a slant that got picked off to seal the win for New England.

4. Super Bowl LI (51): New England Patriots 34, Atlanta Falcons 28. Atlanta went up 28-3 and seemed like a lock by halftime. Watching New England come back and win it in OT only put Tom Brady on an even higher pedestal as the G.O.A.T.

3. Super Bowl XXV (25); New York Giants 20, Buffalo Bills 19. A great game from beginning to end, it’s most widely remembered for one play; “Scott Norwood, wide right.”

2. Super Bowl XLII (42): New York Giants 17, New England Patriots 14. What made this one excellent was everything that came before the game. New England, 18-0, seemed invincible and rolled every opponent throughout the year, including the Giants in the season finale. The first undefeated season since the Miami Dolphins seemed like it was destined. On 4th and long with time ticking down, Eli Manning somehow found David Tyree, who catches the ball against his helmet to set up the winning score. New England, 18-1.

1. Super Bowl XLIII (43): Pittsburgh Steelers 27, Arizona Cardinals 23. This game had it all. A 99 yard defensive TD as time expired at halftime. A huge comeback by Arizona. Great plays on both sides. But its the final play, a toe tapping 30+ yard TD pass in the back corner sideline of the end zone to win it that makes it the best. When you are a kid playing in the backyard with your neighbors, its the scenario you play in your mind as you throw and catch the ball. That’s what makes football such a great sport and why this is the best Super Bowl.

PurpleAmerica’s Best Articles of the Week

A pair of Atlantic Articles are really worth your time to read this week.

The first is George Conway III analysis of the D.C. Circuits utter takedown of Trump’s immunity claim. It really is masterful what the Court did and you can read Conway’s analysis of it in depth here.

The other is an interesting take from David Frum regarding Woodrow Wilson. No other President in history has fallen so far so fast in hindsight than Wilson, and it is largely because of his particularly (galling) racist views. However, he was also responsible for helping win the First World War, the first real regulation of Wall Street, developing the world order and establishing American hegemony around the world. The world would be a very different place without Wilson’s leadership. It’s a reminder that if we look at things one dimensionally, you can view things as either an unqualified good or bad, but the truth is often much more complex.

PurpleAmerica’s Subscriber Mail

When we here at PurpleAmerica Respond to the Teeming Millions (well, we’re still working on that first million)

PurpleTrash

Why is it so hard to give a queer black woman her sole due? Instead, like all the patriarchial cis bros out there you have to pair her up with a country hillbilly who only sang her song and deserves no credit whatsoever.

[Unsigned, but email tag was “Gemini_______”]

OK….Dear Castor or Pollux,

Reread the piece. I give her a whole lot of due. Its a great song. Always has been.

What’s interesting to me is how different groups are trying to take credit for it as if the song only relates to their group.

—The song is not gay or straight.

—The song is not black or white (or any other race).

—The song is not just folk, or pop, or country.

In fact, aside from references to homelessness, poverty and drunkeness, there’s not much specifically tying this to any group whatsoever. Those traits can be applied to pretty much any and every demographic.

It’s the universality of the song that is the reason so many people are moved by the lyrics. If it didn’t strike a chord with people outside of your very narrow demographics, it’s unlikely it would be as popular today. Fact is everyone can relate and understand the issues that Chapman wrote and sang about here. It’s why the song is a classic and one of Rolling Stone magazine’s best songs ever (#156).

And since we’re talking about popularity, the reason its being played now, at this point in time, is because this very good and popular country singer covered it and it became a huge hit AGAIN. An entirely new generation was exposed to how great this song was; so much so that it won the CMA for Song of the Year for Chapman (35 years after it was first released), and the day after the Grammy’s the entire debut album Fast Car appeared on by Chapman was #1 on iTunes. These are all good things; so many people are discovering (or rediscovering) a generational talent.

So seriously, instead of claiming pieces of art as your own or speaking ONLY to you and your chosen groups, reconsider and think what makes good art is how broad and universal so many of these issues actually are.¹

Sincerely,

PurpleAMERICA. (America being an amalgam of many different peoples, backgrounds, nationalities, and perspectives and unified in the belief that we can make the world a better place, not just label what we disagree with as Trash).

Have a question you want us to answer? Email us at purpleamericanunity@gmail.com

PurpleAmerica’s Historical Note from This Week

On February 10, 1996, the IBM computer Deep Blue defeated world chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in a worldwide watched chess match. It was the first tme that a computer had beaten a reigning World Champion in a match under International Rules conditions. Kasparov would recover though and win the overall match, 4-2. A year later, Deep Blue would beat Kasparov 3 1/2- 2 1/2, a match Kasparov initially resented but soon came around to as a sign of where the technology was headed.

Chess in itself is an easy game for computers to learn, as all that needs to be programmed is how the individual pieces move and the goal of the game. As technology gets better it could see more and more moves ahead and analyze better decisionmaking. It could incorporate past plays made in past matches by other grandmasters and integrate that into how to play the game. Computers have gotten so good at chess that they can regularly beat the best chess players in the world, and players have been caught cheating during major tournaments by using computer technology.

However, to demonstrate how AI works and how far its come so fast, in 2017 AI programmers at DeepMind created an algorithm called “AlphaZero.” Programmers basically taught AlphaZero the rules of the game and then had it play itself, learning what worked and didn’t work along the way. This helped it better understand gambits, defenses, attacks, and other strategies in which it could improve. Within 4 hours of training it had already achieved a level to beat the best standard computer program on the planet regularly and within 24 hours it achieved a superhuman level of play, analyzing millions of different scenarios and positions in a matter of seconds. In 2018, in a 1000 game matchup against another Chess Computer, it only lost 6 times. For those who have seen it play, including many chess grandmasters, they refer to it as “insanely aggressive” and “having a keen sense of positional power on the board.”

With the ability to analyze and assess and learn results from various openings, midgames and endings, it actually got more creative in how it played. Moves that human players wouldn’t consider as being detrimental or likely to lead to a loss, AlphaZero would regularly do and demonstrate ways to countermove that would benefit the player immensely. In this sense, AlphaZero, along with most computer programs today, easily exceeds and outdoes the best humans at playing the game; a harbinger of things to come in other areas as well.

PurpleAmerica’s Dad/Uncle/Cheesy Joke of the Week

Why do women think Tarantino is such a great Valentine?

Because he’s a Q.T.

And with that…

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. I’m reminded of clips of people in Liverpool upset that the rest of the world was discovering The Beatles. The world would be much lesser if the Beatles didn’t break out and reach as many people as they did. All You Need is Love.