Thursday, December 24, 2009

We Have A Winner!

Winners (plural), actually. E-mails arrived simultaneously from Jack Lechner and Brian Carroll identifying the song I asked about as "Little Green Bag," recorded in 1968 (much earlier than I thought) by a group called the George Baker Selection. Needless to say, I had the lyrics all wrong. The part I quoted actually goes...

Lookin' for some happiness
But there is only loneliness to find
Jump to the left, turn to the right
Lookin' upstairs, lookin' behind, yeah!

Thank you, Jack and Brian. Now, that's off my mind.

• Posted at 9:56 PM · LINK

Name That Tune!

Okay, let's see if this works. There's a song I keep hearing on the radio that I can't identify...and I can't even make out most of the lyrics. I thought I'd describe as much of it as I can and see if anyone here can tell me what it is, who recorded it, anything. It's a loud, up tune and I'm guessing late eighties or early nineties. The vocal goes roughly like this...

Looking for some loveliness
But there is so much loneliness you'll find
(Something or other)
Look to the left
Look to the right

I probably have most of the words wrong but does that jog a memory for anyone? Maybe they're saying, "Lean to the left, lean to the right." I don't even like the song that much. I just need to identify it to get it out of my head.

• Posted at 8:48 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

If you still feel the health bill should have been a lot better, read Nate Silver. He makes a pretty convincing argument that it's pretty good.

• Posted at 6:13 PM · LINK

Today's Health Care Posting

I was up working at 4 AM Pacific Time so I got to watch live on CSpan as the Senate passed the Health Care Reform bill this morning. I have decided it's a good thing...or at the very least, it will become a very good thing with fixes and amendments yet to come. Conversely, I feel that not passing anything of the sort — and I see no reason to assume that the Republicans currently in power ever would — would be a bad thing. I am not as Liberal on all issues as some of my correspondents believe but, you know, they say a Conservative is a Liberal who's been mugged. A militant for Health Care Reform is a middle-of-the-road guy who's had friends go bankrupt or even (literally) die because they couldn't afford or qualify for health insurance. The statistics show it's a common malady verging on an epidemic.

Some of the criticisms of the bill strike me as out-and-out lies; of folks who'll say anything to kill it believing too fervently their own fibs. But some of the complaints are on-target and valid and will need to be addressed. For what it's worth, the Howard Dean contingent convinced me there are flaws but not that we shouldn't take what we can get now, commit to the goal and begin getting more people covered. An awful lot of human beings would lose their lives or homes while we waited for a bill that got all the bugs out...and it probably still wouldn't get more than 60 votes. Heck, if Joe Lieberman didn't see it as a way to make insurance companies richer, it wouldn't even get 60.

Jonathan Chait summarizes why he thinks this is a great bill. I'd like to be as enthusiastic as he is, and I hope he's proven right. Right now, I'm viewing it as just a real good start.

• Posted at 10:31 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

This will mainly be of interest to fans of the movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. It's one of my favorites, a passion I share with my Internet Pen-Pal, Paul Scrabo. Two years ago, Paul assembled this little video that concerns a comedy called Dhamaal, which was produced in India. Just watch. It's self-explanatory. (And no, I haven't forgotten I promised a new posting about the actual running times of Mad World. It's coming, it's coming.)

• Posted at 12:38 AM · LINK