Changing times

Some things I think I think:

After this week's health care fiasco, maybe Washington DC should focus less on the art of the deal and more on the art of the compromise.

I know, I know. I may be picking nits here in my definitions of "deal" and "compromise."

To  me, deals are consummated in smoke-filled chambers, in back rooms littered with boxes of pizza and empty bottles of beer. Deals occasionally rely on deceit, bullying and chicanery and sometimes end in a handshake where somebody still feels taken advantage of. Kind of like buying a car.

In my definition, compromises are consummated in smoke-filled chambers, in back rooms littered with boxes of pizza and empty bottles of beer. Compromises generally involve adult give-and-take discussion to reach a common ground that end in a handshake and where both sides feel reasonably comfortable with the outcome. Kind of like a marriage.

My definitions of a deal and a compromise are separated by nuance. But what nuance...

Didn't government once work that way? Or was that just in a Jimmy Stewart movie I once saw?

•  •  •

President Trump suggested that with the demise of the Republican health care bill on Friday, the Democrats now completely and totally own health care.

But I don't think that's necessarily true.

The Affordable Care Act, with all of its flaws (which I believe could be cured with government by compromise), is still the law of the land. It rests under the purview of Dr. Tom Price, the newly-installed head of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Which puts both Trump and Price in politically delicate moral dilemmas. Do they actively try to undermine the ACA along party lines and hope for its eventual collapse, or do they work to make the ACA succeed for the benefit of the people by whom they were elected? Both have taken oaths to faithfully uphold the Constitution (and, thus, the laws of the land).

Stay tuned.

•  •  •

We were in Salisbury Saturday to run a few errands.

While we were there, we made a visit to West End Plaza because that's where K&W is, and we really like the food there — and, for me, especially the chicken pie.

But afterwards, we made a quick stop at the nearby Dollar Tree for a couple of items. That's when it hit me — the once thriving West End Plaza (which one time offered a Belks, bookstores, candy stores, specialty shops, etc) has been reduced to just a couple of stores, of which the Dollar Tree apparently is now the anchor business (if you don't count the stand-alone K&W). Not even the empty Big Lots, sitting next door, could survive the shifting (socio-economic) times.

It kind of reminded me of the suggestion that in the event of a nuclear holocaust, only the arthropods will survive. Or something like that.

•  •  •

I heard the powerful hum of a four-engine prop airplane above me the other day and glanced up to see what it was. I was hoping for a B-17 or a B-24, but what I ended up with was a DC-6 instead.

I didn't know it at the time, of course. While I was straining to look at the plane lumbering through the sky, I noticed that it was heading in the direction of the Davidson County airport, so I hopped in my car and raced out to the field.

The plane wasn't there, but I asked the person behind the desk if he saw what I saw about 15 minutes ago.

"That was a DC-6," he said. "I flew in one of those about 50 years ago."

Cool.

This resembles the plane I saw flying above me on Friday.