Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• Before we get to the daily update of coronavirus cases, you must first be aware of something a faithful reader has shared with me. It shall be remembered as the greatest Wise County Coronavirus Pic of All Time. This was allegedly in Boyd yesterday. Frame it. Put it in the Wise County Historical Museum. Heck, put it in the Smithsonian.  
  
• Now to the board. There were 1,748 new cases reported yesterday. When I first started posting this graph on March 5th, the most recent bar represented 63 new cases.
  
  
  
• For a Republican anti-big government, no socialism, no bail out, Administration, we are about to see government handouts of Biblical proportions.  The dirty words of "government assistance" doesn't sound like that bad of an idea now, right? This ain't Oprah (although it is wild everyone might just get a check for $1,000.) But this is going to be brutal for all of us. 
  
• I don't like this: Greg Abbott has suspended critical portions of the Open Meetings Act. (Which he can't legally do, but no one particularly cares about the legalities anymore.)
• If today's Wise County court docket is any indication, Justice of the Peace #3 is the only one going full steam ahead. That's a big 2:30 p.m. docket. 
• I can't believe I turned on Dennis Prager yesterday, but he didn't disappoint. He's against the shutting down of America. Yes, he knows people will die but the number is, in his opinion, relatively few.  "At what number of deaths is it not worth shutting down the economy?" he asked.  In other news, I thought "every life is precious." 
• That looks like some real suffering right there. 
  
• His ability to lie knows no bounds. This tweet is from this morning. (He must have seen the new, and already viral, video from yesterday.)
  
• It looks like it was Jared Kushner who steered Trump down the It's-Just-The-Flu path and to treat it like a PR problem. The New York Times, Vanity Fair and The Washington Post all have independent stories on it today. Let that be a lesson to you: Never listen to a son-in-law.

  

  ****Nine Days Ago****

• A buddy told me yesterday that my new attitude about the coronavirus on this, the most read blog in the southwest proper, is very Trumpesque. I told him that's true but with one major exception: I put in writing that I had been completely wrong.
• Speaking of 180 degree turns, this video split-screening what Fox News hosts were saying one week ago and what they are saying now is fantastic. It's 1:42 long. 
  
• Breaking news. Heck, it might be End of Days. 
  
• Changing gears . . . 
• I saw this pic yesterday. Man, what a flashback. 
  
• Speaking of flashbacks, Lyle Waggoner, famous for The Carol Burnett Show, died yesterday. Fun fact: He once did a screen test for the 1960s Batman TV series. (If he had won the role, Adam West would have been absolutely fantastic in the Carol Burnett gig if he got it.)
  
• I know nothing about art, but I cannot get this painting I stumbled across three months ago in the National Portrait Museum in D.C. out of my head.  It's called The Recital depicting Denyce Graves -- an opera singer who I had never heard of but is actually even famous in pop culture circles. (She's been a guest on 60 Minutes, Larry King Live, and The Oprah Winfrey Show.) This photo, as can be expected, does not do it justice. First, even without the frame, it's a massive 7.5' x 4.5' work of art. It's also an oil on canvas with the detail -- especially of her expression which is mysteriously haunting -- is incredible. And the vibrant red dress contrasted with the drab background just exploded across the room when I saw it. 
  
• Messenger: Above the Fold.