This Week in PurpleAmerica (4/6-4/12)

Ely Parker, O.J., Caitlin Clark, Religion/Science Feedback! Its all Here!

This man played one of the most important and pivotal roles in American history. There should be monuments and statutes made to him. Yet, he continues to remain a bit in obscurity. We’ll get to what he did in a moment…

I always love this week, every year. To me, it’s always when we really get to a new spring, change is in the air and the potential for real, meaningful progress turns a corner.

They say history doesn't repeat, it rhymes. No bigger change in US history occurred than what happened this week back on April 9th, 1865, in a tiny court house in Appamattox. VA, General Robert E. Lee formally surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant. The four year bloodbath known as the American Civil War¹ was coming to a close. Abraham Lincoln was ecstatic; a deep depression that had followed him throughout the course of his Presidency suddenly seemed to be lifted. To help celebrate, that weekend he and his wife were to go to a play at Ford’s Theatre, and we all know how that turned out.²

But getting back to Lee’s surrender, present at the surrender was Grant’s adjutant, a Lt. Col. named Ely Parker. Here he is seated on the left to Grant:

Parker was a member of the Seneca Tribe of upstate New York. He taught himself to read and write and became an engineer, eventually helping work on the Erie Canal. He worked on government projects out in Galena, IL before the war, which is where he met a young Ulysses S. Grant. When the war started, he tried to enlist but was told by the Secretary of War that as a Native American, he was not allowed. After contacting his friend Grant, Grant commissioned him as a Captain and he became the chief engineer of what would be the Battle of Vicksburg. He would later become the Secretary of Indian Affairs once Grant attained the Presidency. But on that day of surrender all those years ago, it was Parker’s job to actually write up and document the official terms of surrender, a pretty monumental and noteworthy task. If you ever see the surrender documents in Appamattox Court House, they are written in his hand.

But what I really love about this event, and about Parker particularly, is that in one seemingly anodyne statement, he captured the nation’s healing, unity and what makes this country so special, and he did it in the classiest and most dignified of ways. In Parker’s own words, upon hearing of Parker’s heritage, Lee “… extended his hand and said, ‘I am glad to see one real american here.’ I shook his hand and replied, ‘We are all Americans, sir.’” In one brief retort, he 1) acknowledged the status of the South again after surrender, once again a part of the United States; 2) acknowledged Lee’s higher rank addressing him as “sir”, a military courtesy that as now part of a rejoined army noting that Lee outranked him; and 3) stated a singular universal truth about what makes this country great—that regardless of your background, beliefs, heritage or social status, we are all Americans. There’s not many more profound statements in American History that have been said, unless by Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln.

So as we head into the weekend, and as we enter the contentious election season, let me reiterate Ely Parker’s wise words and sense of graciousness— We Are All Americans. Let’s continue to treat each other as such.

PurpleAmerica’s People of the Past Week

The Good

Caitlyn Clark and Women’s Basketball. It goes without saying that Women’s NCAA basketball this year was much more exciting than the men’s. Clark had developed a fan base and a following and people tuned in to see if anyone was going to stop her from a Championship. The undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks³ eventually did.

Getting the spotlight thrown on them demonstrated real talent. South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley, who had won three championships as a player, been to three championships as a coach, coached the USWNT to a 45-0 record, and now an undefeated season as coach of SC. And this week, the all time winningest coach in college basketball at any level, Tara Vanderveer, announced her retirement, after going 1216-271 (.818). That’s LEGENDARY. Godspeed in retirement Coach V.

Larry David and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Went out with a bang and somehow managed to make the Seinfeld finale better at the same time. Loved it.

The Bad

Women’s Basketball Fans. Folks, I understand the excitement, but no, Caitlyn Clark is not as good as the men at her age level. She would get crushed playing with the men at that age.⁴ If you don’t think so, here is what happened when all time tennis GOAT Serena Williams and her sister former #1 Venus Williams, went against the 203rd ranked man:

As Serena says here, when she was talking to David Letterman, its an entirely different game.

The size, speed and strength are just too much for women at the same level to overcome. If they could do it, we wouldn’t need Title IX or separate divisions for men and women to begin with. Just appreciate the level of competitiveness and quality of play they demonstrate against each other, and not throw in pipe dreams about how the levels of play are identical, or even similar.

“The Rock” Haters- This past weekend Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in an interview on FOX News said he wasn’t endorsing anyone this year. The Online Left collectively lost it’s minds. Folks, he’s a multi-millionaire business owner promoting a new football league on a channel that covers it; sometimes it’s just smart business to not get too political. Chill out.

The Ugly

Arizona’s Abortion Law— In a way, the Arizona Supreme Court actually made the right decision based on the laws on the books, and that right decision is what makes it ugly. You see, the state’s total ban was on the books right up and through Roe v. Wade. The Roe decision made the state law unenforceable, but it was never repealed. Then, a few years back when it was trendy in conservative circles to pass state laws chipping away at Roe in various ways, the state passed a 15 week abortion ban (only for the attention), but never repealed the original complete ban, a completely redundant bill under state law and questionable under Roe anyway. So when Dobbs comes along and sends abortion back to the states, BOTH laws are on the books still. The AZ Supreme Court looked and said that since it was never repealed, the 1848 law is still legit. All hell breaks loose. But what makes it REALLY ugly is the ramifications it has for millions of women in Arizona. Its an outdated, unnecessary and frankly dangerous law that should be repealed and addressed immediately, and a reminder of how bad laws were toward women 175 years ago.

Marjorie Taylor Greene. I swear, she would be on here every week for the way she routinely makes an ass of herself, but let’s be honest, she has just been a little bit moreso lately, trying to get Speaker of the House Mike Johnson canned, for essentially doing his job and keeping the government working.

Benjamin Netanyahu. He’s managed to do the practically impossible. As leader of Israel, a country that was horrifically attacked by terrorists last October and had the wrold’s sympathy, he’s managed to squander it and actually get the world’s sympathy to favor his opponents. That’s what happens when you indiscriminantly level complete cities with no sense of proportion to what started it.

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 Random Things About the OJ Trial

Acquitted murderer and former Hertz spokesperson O.J. Simpson died on Thursday. People forget just what a circus his trial was. Here are five things to reflect on.

5. Kato Kaelin. Who’s that? Just some stoner rando looking like Brad Pitt from True Romance crashing in the Juice’s guest room. The bloody glove was found just behind the room.

4. The Dancing Itos. The Tonight Show would have on a group of dancers dressed as Judge Lance Ito in his judges robes every night.

3. “The glove didn’t fit, you must acquit.” Simspson, already wearing rubber gloves to not taint the evidence, tried on the bloody glove. It failed to fit on his hands.⁵

2. The Jury Deliberations. When the jury was sent to their chambers and everyone was like, “THANK GOD” we were all expecting a few days, maybe a couple of weeks before they decided. It took the jury barely a couple hours to acquit OJ.

1. The Chase. The story of the murders came out the day before, but it kind of just hovered in the air they would arrest O.J. at some point. When the word got out that he refused to turn himself in and he was found going down the highway in a white bronco, and a slow speed police chase ensued, the whole fucking country shut down and watched. It was a surreal story unfolding. I still remember where I was when it happened.

Everyone who grew up after the trial has no memory of O.J. being a national icon. Prior to 9/11, the trial was THE iconic flashbulb moment (more like years really, but…) for millenials and completely changed America.

PurpleAmerica’s Cultural Corner

As you’ll see in my Subscriber Mail, the Science/Religion article this week touched a nerve.

I don’t see why, I didn’t really say anything particularly controversial in it. For the most part, I just pointed out that you need to think about BOTH of these things, and what they do, how they interact and just not except everything fed to you in either without working it out in your head. They both have beneficial attributes.

But for some people, they still seem stuck on perceptions of religion in a very narrow way, usually in the way they were brought up as a Christian or similar. Religion and spirituality are broader than that, and far more entertaining when you venture outside the circles of churches and Bible camps. My suggestion to you all is to either watch or read the excellent movie/book, Life of Pi. It kind of nailed it for me when I read it and the movie was one of the best adaptations of a book I’ve seen in years. I’d love to give it away, but instead, I’l just put the trailer below.

The interesting thing about this movie/book is that I know there are a lot of smart, intelligence driven, science advocates out there who love this movie. I do too. But it is largely in line with everything I said in my article earlier this week. It just does it better because, well, I’m not Yann Martel or Ang Lee.

PurpleAmerica’s Subscriber Mail

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

Lot of feedback on my Religion/Science article….

“Fuck you purpleamerica— you don’t know what we go through. Religion pollutes people into thinking their always right…”

First, it’s “they’re.” Grammar people.

You seem nice, but also seem to think the same thing. Hypocrite much?

“…religion is just an excuse for old men to molest kids and try and convince young gay youth there is something wrong with them….”

Sounds to me you have a particular problem with a certain religion and probably certain people. I mentioned in my article how organized religion often does things more for the good of the organization than the religion, and hiding pedophiles was certainly antithetical to Catholicism’s teachings. Religion is broader than just Catholicism, or how people choose to express their faiths collectively. Frankly, the most spiritually uplifting thing for me each Sunday is to go to a coffee shop with a book—that’s my religion.

Didn’t mention anything about sexuality in my article, but maybe you might consider religion and spirituality are just broader than your very narrow view of it.

“I can’t believe someone who seems as intelligent as you believes in the idea that there is an almighty powerful being that controls everything. You disappoint me.”

When you describe it like that, I don’t. What I believe is that despite science’s best efforts to explain things, they will never be able to explain everything, and in some cases what they’ll describe is even incorrect. I believe some things you just have to take on faith, and that you don’t NEED to know the answer to. The eerie coincidences that happen among all forces at molecular levels and cosmic ones, all occuring simultaneously without our knowledge, and yet everything still goes on fine. That the beauty of the moon passing before the sun doesn’t need explanation, that you just have to look up and be awed at the beauty of world and the universe. As for someone “in control,” nah, nobody’s in control. It’s a universe traveling along the cosmic road like a drunk driver careening from one side to the other dodging and engaging with all sorts of things that could bring it to an end in a second, confined only by the rules of the physical universe. You know why I don’t panic? Because I have faith everything is going to be just fine.

“…THOSE FUCKERS MOLESTED ME AS A KID AND YOU SIDE WITH THEM? YOURE NOTHING BUT A FUCKING ENABLER OF PEDOPHILIA…”

You seem to be fixated about what happened to you as a kid and broadbrushing that against anything even remotely related to religion, organized or otherwise. I think you need counseling.

“You’re just flat out wrong. Pluto is not a planet. Science says so.”

I was hoping someone would pick up on that little nugget I put in there.

One of the more frustrating things about science is it’s seemingly insatiable appetite to put things into categorizable buckets. Take living things for instance. Sponges get their own category, mammals another, and within these are various subcategories.⁶ The practice of this is called “taxonomy” and when it comes to living things scientists have generally done a pretty decent job in organizing these buckets based on various characteristics. Nontheless, problems still occur when something doesn’t fit neatly into a predetermined bucket. Take slime molds for instance. Or platypi. Or how about the idea of whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable?⁷ What’s important to remember though is that regardless of which bucket taxonomists put things in, nothing about what they are categorizing changes. Taxonomy just makes it easier to categorize and generalize, which scientists find handy.

Fast forward to when astronomers discovered Eris and found it to be larger than Pluto. They were left with a choice—either add Eris⁸ into the category of “Planets” or find a way to kick Pluto out. Pluto had always been a little anomalous, it wasn’t like the four terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars) and certainly not like the gas giants. It’s small size means its diameter is only as wide as the United States. Quite lazily, scientists at the IAU chose to make the taxonomical decision to kick it out, and made the definition of what makes a planet specifically to omit it. That’s not science, it’s exclusion and mental apathy. You know what didn’t change with this definitional change; absolutely nothing about Pluto itself. Now scientists point to that definition and say “See, by definition Pluto isn’t a planet.” It’s kind of offensive and galling how they do that, specifically when they made the definition the way they did.

It’s all good Pluto, you’re still a planet to me.

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

PurpleAmerica’s Historical Note from This Week

The Lincoln Assassination occured on April 14, 1865, 159 years ago this Sunday. Everyone knows that Lincoln was shot by flamboyant actor John Wilkes Booth, but most don’t realize that there was a conspiracy to kill not just Lincoln, but also Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward that same evening. Booth friends, Lewis Powell was supposed to kill Seward and George Atzerodt was supposed to kill Johnson.

Powell found Seward at home recovering from an injury and claimed to have medicine. He was guided to Seward’s bedside where he stabbed the Secretary, though Seward survived. He eventually returned to the Surratt Boarding Home where they had previously met with Booth and the other cospirators, was arrested and along with the Boarding House owner Mary Surratt, was hung.

Atzerodt chickened out and chose instead to get drunk. Upon hearing how the other parts of the conspiracy had actually followed through with it, he went to his cousin’s farm outside Washington. He too was caught and also hung.

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

My wife keeps complaining that I don’t listen to her enough. She says I should do something or other but I never remember what she says when she’s talking.

And with that…

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. I had always thought everyone had called it that until I met a new kid in our high school from Mississippi who said HE had never heard of it called that, and growing up for him it was always “The War Between the States.” Not to be outdone, when I lived in DC (which was great since I would often travel to many of these Civil War Battlefields) a friend I met out there grew up in small Spencer, VA, and they had always heard it referred to as “The War of Northern Aggression.”

2. I’m not one who regularly likes counterfactuals, but America would be an entirely different place today had Abraham Lincoln remained President through 1868 and not his Democratic VP Andrew Johnson.

3. Why do I always giggle saying that?

4. Although an interesting story; one of the reasons Clark is so good is that in her small town growing up there weren’t enough girls to put together a team, so her dad, the boys coach, had her play with the boys. Needless to say, she got better.

5. Based on the documentary OJ: Made in America, OJ had not taken his arthritis medicine for days, causing his hands to swell.

6. The breakdown goes 1) Kingdom, 2) Phylum, 3) Class, 4) Order, 5) Family, 6) Genus, 7) Species. So for humans its 1) Animalia, 2) Chordata, 3) Mammalia, 4) Primates, 5) Hominidae, 6) Homo, 7) Sapiens

7. This “controversy” actually arose from previous definitions of what made a fruit and what made a vegetable and their subsquent changing of the definition…which seems familiar when it comes to Pluto.

8. The reason the planet was named “Eris” is that Eris was the Roman God of Discord. Once they realized it was bigger than Pluto they knew it would start some arguments.