AUSTIN — Texas, along with the rest of the nation and the world, continued to battle the COVID-19 pandemic last week as cases and deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus increased.
The human mind is mysterious and amazing, allowing people to perform the simplest tasks to imagining the great scale of the universe and possibilities yet unheard. But the heartbreak of when things go wrong with the mind can destroy lives if not treated. In the 1800s, very little was understood how to treat mental illness, and those with maladies that could be overcome with patience and kindness were so often tossed aside. One reformer, Dorothea Dix, saw their basic humanity and campaigned across the country and across the world to change the way they were seen and treated, transforming mental health care.
Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve reviewed the actions taken by the Federal Reserve System (FED) in their efforts to mitigate the economic downturn that is sure to follow the COVID-19 pandemic. The two most significant of which that we’ve seen taken over the past couple of months were the reduction of the federal funds target rate to near zero and the re-implementation of a monetary policy known as quantitative easing—involving purchasing long-term debt from financial markets in order to inject more money into the economy.
The movement of Texas from the territory of Mexico to independent country to statehood took careful diplomacy. The Republic of Texas found an unexpected ally in a dangerous time from the British ambassador, Charles Elliott. As the British representative in Texas, Elliott became one of the few friends that the Republic of Texas had in a time when it was cast adrift in the tides of diplomacy.
Linden is still recovering from the storms of Friday the 24th. I think my estimate of 500 large trees down in town was low!
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