Your Virtual Front Page for Thursday, March 12, 2020

I found this image of the coronavirus on Wikipedia.

Hey, you think we’ve got bad news today — tomorrow will be Friday the 13th! I might follow the CDC recommendations for Methuselahs like myself and stay home tomorrow:

Stocks Plunge 10% in Dow’s Worst Day Since 1987 — That’s according to The Wall Street Journal, and I guess they oughta know. Evidently, traders were not reassured by Trump’s address to the nation last night.
No March Madness, no Broadway, no Major League Baseball, no bugger all! — The cancellations keep coming like a torrent. The SC Philharmonic will perform this weekend without an audience — something that might prompt ponderings that are way existential, or lead you to ask questions about trees falling in the forest.
Lindsey Graham will quarantine himself — He was at the same place where Donald Trump was also exposed to someone with COVID-19 — Mar-a-Lago.
Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have tested positive for coronavirus — This is an important milestone in the nation’s consciousness about the disease. We have now entered the “people we like and feel that we know” stage. I heard an expert on a podcast today say America didn’t fully take AIDS seriously until Rock Hudson died of it. He said we won’t take the measures that were effective in China and South Korea until something like that happens to someone we know and like. Is this COVID-19’s Rock Hudson moment, or a precursor of it?
Biden, Sanders Deliver Coronavirus Speeches to Contrast Trump — Biden pointed to the need for steady leadership, which we definitely don’t have now, in the face of such a national crisis. That other guy also said some stuff.
McMaster wants $45 million in SC surplus to go to fight coronavirus — The cash would go to DHEC. It would be used to save lives, instead of going to a vote-buying tax credit. Which is praiseworthy.

Yikes. Here’s some nice music to make you feel better. It’s the isolated vocals from a Beatles song that seems appropriate to the moment: “Help!” I never really heard the background harmonies before. I was impressed: