Unconventional Wisdom

A great video from the 1980s based on a very classy song written by Irving Berlin. This version of the video most probably didn’t see in the 1980s because of the performers in black face. They were thought to be offensive. Think minstrel shows like Amos & Andy for instance.

Aside from that a good video. But let look at this song from musical history. Here are the original lyrics…

Have you seen the well-to-do
Up and down Park Avenue
On that famous thoroughfare
With their noses in the air

High hats and narrow collars
White spats and fifteen dollars
Spending every dime
For a wonderful time

Now, if you’re blue
And you don’t know where to go to
Why don’t you go where Harlem flits
Puttin’ on the Ritz
Spangled Gowns upon the bevy of
High browns from down the levy
Always spits
Puttin’ on the Ritz

That’s where each and every lulu-belle goes
Every Thursday evening with her swell beaus
Rubbin’ elbows

Come with me and we’ll attend their jubilee
And see them spend
Their last two bits
Puttin’ on the Ritz

- short instrumental break -

(Boys, look at that man puttin’ on that Ritz)

Now, if you’re blue
And you don’t know where to go to
Why don’t you go where Harlem flits
Puttin’ on the Ritz
Spangled Gowns upon the bevy of
High browns from down the levy
All misfits
Puttin’ on that certain Ritz

Come with me and we’ll attend their jubilee
And see them spend
Their last two bits
Puttin’ on the Ritz

Come with me and we’ll attend their jubilee
And see them spend
Their last two bits
Puttin’ on the Ritz

This song was written at a time when Harlem was certainly a place to go when things were boring everywhere else. And guess what Harlem was and still is a mostly black neighborhood in New York City. So who knows the blackfaces were a knock against that. Well I don’t know, but I hope you enjoy the video. I’m glad that videos today don’t drag on like they seemed to do in the 1980s. Then again my knowledge stops in the 1990s.

Maybe I’ll present my favorite videos from the 1990s next. We’ll see!

I’ve sort of agonized over the campaign finance reform. Or I should say the role of money in campaigns. I don’t think money should be a determining factor as to whether you campaign is viable or not. In fact it should be what a campaign stands for that counts unfortunately the more money you have the more you can put out what you believe in. Though the more money you have and the less your opponent has the less likely you might put out what you stand for.

The idea of public funding bothers me too though. This comes to me because former Senator John Edwards is planning to seek matching federal funds for his campaign…

Live from the John Edwards presidential campaign press van comes confirmation that the former North Carolina senator will accept public matching funds for both the primary and – if he makes it – the general election.

The former Democratic senator from North Carolina announced the decision today in an interview with CNN, in which he called on rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to join him in accepting public funding. Both Clinton and Obama have outraised Edwards by large margins so far this year; the third fundraising quarter ends Sept. 30.

This afternoon, Edwards’ campaign said the decision to take matching funds came from principle, not financial weakness, and that he is on track to raise raise $40 million this year. A spokesman attempting to link the public financing acceptance to Edwards’ refusal to take donations from lobbyists and political action committees.

Edwards is taking public funds “to help do his part to curb the influence of money in politics” and “to make a statement that the influence of money is rampant in politics and has gotten to the point where it dominates the race,” said Kate Bedingfield, an Edwards spokeswoman.

I don’t know I can respect Edward’s attempt to do the principled thing but I wonder about the federal matching funds. I would rather that this money not come from the taxpayers. I think a citizen should use their own hard earned cash and give it to the candidate of their choice. Well that just me.

Other than I can support any restrictions that can be made to curtail the role money plays in campaigns. That is, they can restrict certain people from donating or limits how much money a candidate can raise. Most importantly these regulations should be fair. The thing is politics can be sort of a quash match of sorts these days (and if you watch wrestling you’d know what I mean ).

No one should be surprised that Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani as Republican candidates are denouncing the visit by Iranian President Ahmadinejad. What about the Democrats. Let’s start with Sen. Obama…

ABC News’ Jonathan Greenberger Reports: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., defended the right of his alma mater, Columbia University, to invite Iranian President Ahmadinejad to speak, but he also said that if were president of the university, he would not have made the same decision.

“One of the values that we believe in is the value of academic freedom. They have the right to invite people to speak,” Obama said during an on-camera press conference Monday. “It’s not a choice I would have made, but we don’t need to be fearful of the rantings of somebody like Ahmadinejad. All we need to do is just to know what our values and ideals are and be clear about what America stands for.”

Obama said he would have denied Ahmadinejad the opportunity to speak at Columbia because the Iranian president has “other forums” available to him in New York, including his speech at the United Nations.

Still, Obama continued to insist that as president, he would be willing to meet one-on-one with Ahmadinejad.

The we follow with John Edwards…

Edwards spent an hour today discussing his health-care plan at a forum hosted by Families USA and the Kaiser Family Foundation in downtown Washington, DC. After the forum, he was asked about Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s appearance at Columbia University. “I think denying him the ability to go to Ground Zero is clearly the right decision,” Edwards said. “I personally find the things that he speaks about extraordinarily objectionable. And he is, he denies the Holocaust, he talks about wiping Israel off the face of the planet, he diatribes against America and what America represents. I find all those things abhorrent. I think this is for Columbia to decide whether they want a man like this to be able to speak at their university.”

From hotair.com.

The post that accompanied this video there questions how much room Hillary has assuming that the Democrats believe that they have a lock on the Latino vote.

I don’t touch this story a lot around these parts, since a major focus of this blog is the 2008 race then I’ll bite. I cover it a bit more over at my other blog.

Anyway here’s goes. Obama is actually talking about the Jena 6 although one of his supporters Rev. Jesse Jackson was said to have called Obama white for not really speaking out forcefully on this issue. From ABC News’ Political Radar Sen. Obama makes a statement…

“On this day when we are outraged over the disparities of treatment in the criminal justice system, in a time when in Jena we are puzzled over by how it is that a schoolyard fight gets charged with attempted murder, we wonder how it is Scooter Libby doesn’t get any jailtime, and you’ve got young men in a fight getting charged with attempted murder,” Obama said to loud cheers from the 2,000-person crowd. “People are weary of that. They know we’ve got to bring about a change.”
…
“A lot of the mainstream media was surprised by what happened in Jena,” said Obama. “But what they fail to understand is that all across the country, people have been wondering why it is that conviction rates, and arrest rates, and the number of young people who are put on the adult system instead of the juvenile system, varies oftentimes for the same crime.”

I’ve never thought it made sense for those without a major medical emergency to go sit in an emergency to wait hours to be able to see an actual doctor. It’s messed up and I wish an ER can only be for the emergencies and those who do have immediate medical issues well, there’s gotta be a way they can be seen immediately. Especially if the attention given to these patients can be in a timely matter.

Anyway another idea is to throw in the house calls. Why don’t doctors do house calls anymore? I don’t know but I know one thing Democratic candidate Gov. Bill Richardson wants to bring house calls back…

Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson proposed a “house calls” medical plan Thursday that would allow senior citizens to get health care at home they now can only get at the hospital.

The New Mexico governor unveiled the plan, called “Independence at Home,” at the Divided We Fail/AARP/Iowa Public Television presidential candidate forum on health and financial security. He said it could save $13 to $16 billion a year by reducing emergency room visits and hospital admissions.

“Through electronic technology, they can get their care at home,” Richardson said. “They can do it instead of having 13 doctors and having to go to the hospital the healthcare would come to them at home.”

Richardson spokesman Tom Reynolds said the program would be entirely voluntary and would fall under Medicare, at no additional cost to the system.

Hillarycare 2.0, though the articles I’ve seen on it makes it seem much different than the original Hillarycare that we saw during President Bill Clinton’s first term. This plan might be different but it seems like we’re going in circles…

Hillary Clinton on Monday unveiled her plan to provide universal healthcare for Americans, in a speech that took on the critics who derailed her first attempt at reform in 1993 and 1994.

The speech was partly aimed at neutralising the New York senator’s biggest vulnerability among swing voters – a reputation for proposing big-government solutions. But it also addressed the widespread voter desire for reform.
…
“My Republican opponents will try to equate healthcare for all Americans with government-run healthcare,” she said. “Don’t let them fool you again. My plan expands personal choice and increases competition to get costs down.”

Speaking in Iowa, which holds the first caucus to select presidential nominees next January, the former first lady outlined a plan that would cover the 47m Americans who are currently uninsured while reducing costs and improving quality for the rest.

Admitting that she still bore the “scars” of her failed 1993 healthcare plan – undertaken during Bill Clinton’s first presidential term – Mrs Clinton set out the degree of deterioration in the US health system in the intervening 14 years.

Since 1993 the number of uninsured had risen from 39m to 47m, while the amount the US spent on health had risen from 14 to 16 per cent of gross domestic product – or $2,100bn (€1,510bn, £1,050bn), she said.

“I believe everyone – every man, woman and child – should have quality, affordable healthcare in America. I intend to be the president who will do that.”

The $110bn plan, which would rely on a choice of private and public providers, is centred on an “individual mandate” that would compel people to take out health insurance, much like car drivers are obliged to take out vehicle insurance.

The insurance companies, who played a critical role in lobbying against her 1993 plan, would no longer be able to “cherry pick” the healthiest customers while spending $50bn a year screening out higher-risk patients. “I know that my proposals will not make me the insurance industry’s woman of the year,” she said, adding that they would still be able to make profits.

The plan, which she said would partly be paid for by scrapping some of George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest, was immediately attacked by Mrs Clinton’s Republican critics.

It should be important to note the differences of these two plans, OK…

However, Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Foundation, a non-partisan healthcare research group, said her plan could not be described as socialised. “Nobody in American politics, including Mrs Clinton, is putting forward European-style healthcare where the government owns the hospitals and is the sole provider,” he said.

Mr Altman said there were two key differences between Mrs Clinton’s 1993 plan and the one she put forward on Monday. Monday’s plan was based around a concept rather than detail, in contrast to her 1993 plan, which ran to 1,342 pages and was incomprehensible to all but healthcare experts.

And second, it did not require Americans who were satisfied with their existing insurance to change providers. Mrs Clinton’s 1993 plan would have required everyone to join a new “healthcare alliance” – a proposal derided by critics as a charter for bureaucrats. “Mrs Clinton appears to have learned those lessons,” Mr Altman said.

The plan differs little from those already put forward by John Edwards and Barack Obama, her two closest rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination – although Mr Obama’s lacks an “individual mandate”. But both have implied that Mrs Clinton is too controversial a figure to push healthcare reform through.