4.10.2020

Random Friday Morning Thoughts



  • The Board. Wednesday's new cases: 31,935. Yesterday's new cases: 33,536. 
  • Deaths. Wednesday's deaths: 1,940. Yesterday's deaths: 1,900.
  • Wise County confirmed cases: Still at 4.  (Some guy finally officially got counted.) Side note: If I got the coronavirus, I wouldn't keep it a secret. I'd tell everybody. 
  • Texas Deaths on Wednesday: 28. Texas deaths yesterday: 27
  • If we are entering the peak of the curve and you feel pretty good, this footage will be a bit disturbing. (I even initially thought it might be fake. It's not.)
  • Let's pause for a moment of silence.
  • TCU has announced it will conduct online classes only for the summer semester. That may be the first definitive plans I've heard about summer changes. 
  • Trump has completely abandoned calling it the "Chinese virus." I wonder who got to him? 
  • If you listen to any right wing radio, it takes only about 30 seconds to realize the vast majority of its callers absolutely believe the coronavirus pandemic is completely overblown. Most of the hosts won't go there, but they are having a hard time controlling what is normally an echo chamber. (But, man, the nutcases and conspiracy theorists on the coronavirus are out there big time. Death counts are fake. Dr. Fauci is a Hillary plant. There was even a "have you noticed that gold fringe on  the American flag in our courtrooms?" caller on Dennis Prager yesterday.)
  • If Trump does want to "open the country" on a particular day for some type of glorious event, he needs to absolutely have a MAGA rally in a packed house on that on date. No masks. No social distancing. 
  • "Wreckless"
  • Mrs. LL found an authentic mask and told me, "I know you probably won't wear it, but I want you to promise me you'll take it with you tomorrow."  I think that's a "hey, if you die it ain't on me" sort of thing, but I'm not sure. 
  • There's something not right about this mask worn by Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) this morning. It's like something out of the old West during a bank robbery yet made out of panty hose. 
  • Both New Jersey and Kansas are looking for programmers who know the old language of COBOL. You know who has in storage in Bridgeport a massive binder of computer programs he wrote in COBOL in the 1980s? That's right. The hardest working man in show business: Me.
  • I saw this picture of people lining up for food from a food bank in San Antonio, and I've got a lot of questions regarding the organization of the distribution here. And if you look closely, those lines go from neatly organized to chaos. I also wonder how the human phenomenon of being willing to wait forever for anything free, regardless of need, comes into play here. 

  • Yesterday, the Fort Worth Court of Appeals allowed a lawsuit in Wise County to continue. It's not remarkable other than you learned a family who owned an oil field service trucking company in Paradise sold it for $11 million a few years back. Here's a brief in the case that outlines the facts. (And, regarding the sale, that looks like perfect timing in retrospect.)