Upside Dow
You can put those “Dow 30,000” t-shirts back in storage. On Monday the Dow suffered its single greatest points loss in history, 2,013 points. That broke the record by more than 500 points, a record that was set less than two weeks ago. The Dow closed at 23,851.
Less than one month ago, on February 12, the Dow had climbed to its highest level of ever, 29,551.
One less thing you can boast about on the reelection campaign.
The Greatest American Nero
The Roman emperor had a fiddle. Donald Trump has a five-iron.
Let’s examine if there may be any cause and effect between what happened after the markets closed on Friday and the president’s behavior concerning the pandemic. First, he visited the CDC and gave an all-timer of a press conference, filled with lies, empty boasts and shatteringly tone-deaf ignorance.
I wouldn’t expect anyone to watch this entire video. Stephen Colbert condenses it here and you can go to 9:16 to see my favorite moment…
… as the president says, “I just think this is something, Peter, that you can never really think is going to happen.” He is surrounding by health-care professionals as he says, this, doctors who work at The Center For Disease Control. You know who really thinks this is something that you can think is going to happen? People who work at a place whose mission is in its name: Disease Control.
And he said this while wearing an updated MAGA ball cap.
Then he tweeted some.
I don’t believe that Donald Trump is gonna get us all killed. But he’s going to get a lot more Americans killed due to his handling of the coronavirus than any other president, Republican or Democrat (even George W. Bush), I can think of.
It’s funny what happens when you mix ignorance, arrogance, insecurity, pathological lying and craven self-interest and put them all into one person: the president. That’s one dangerous cocktail. Read this.
Gasp Mask
Karma is having quite a week, now that we know that a VIP-ticket attendee has coronavirus and has come in contact with high-profile Republicans such as Matt Gaetz, Ted Cruz and Doug Collins. And Gaetz, who is self-quarantining, rode on Air Force 1 with the president last weekend. And Mick Mulvaney didn’t look too well while speaking at CPAC, come to think of it.
More karma: The folks who supported putting children in cages and separating them from their families are now in isolation.
As we wrote at least two weeks ago, the coronavirus is the new Chernobyl. For both China and the USA. Government officials appear more intent on stopping the spread of information than they do on stopping the source of the disaster.
Lock Up: Italy
The greatest nation in Europe (the world?) and our ancestral home, Italy is closed. Pretty much. The president of Italy whose name no one knows has put the entire nation on self-quarantine. Finally, a manageable line for the Vatican Museum.
Is it time for a Roman holiday?
On Monday Italy’s coronavirus death toll jumped from 366 to 463. Only China has been hit harder.
Good Reads: The Big Goodbye
We finished Sam Wasson’s The Big Goodbye and so the first thing we’d recommend is seeing Chinatown (again, or for the first time). Then read this book on how the 1974 film that lost out to The Godfather II for Best Picture came to be made. One of the crazier aspects is how the murder of Sharon Tate had a direct and literal impact on parts of the film, including it’s most famous line.
Second, and here’s where Wasson blew us away, was the denouement. The film’s theme was very dark: corruption and evil will inevitably triumph over the earnest do-gooder. In the aftermath of the film, the four principle men behind it—director Roman Polanski, star Jack Nicholson, producer Robert Evans and writer Robert Towne—all in one way or another succumbed to their darker natures. And some in ways that mirrored the worst excesses and crimes of the characters in the film.
If you’re in any way a film buff, or are interested in Hollywood history, The Big Goodbye is a well-researched book and a fun read. And Wasson pulls no punches.
