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McConaughey beats Abbott in the battle for Texas’ soul; Treebeards closes downtown.

Now available on aisle six, coffee, crackers — and commencement speeches. H-E-B hosted a virtual graduation ceremony for high school and college seniors missing out on pomp and circumstance because of COVID-19. Those who tuned in to the grocery store chain’s YouTube channel on Wednesday night got a bevy of inspirational messages from Texas celebrities, including Eva Longoria, Mark Cuban and José Altuve. Capturing the overall spirit of the advice was Matthew McConaughey’s mother, who spoke “senior to senior” and urged the graduating class to celebrate the positives and remember that the outbreak isn’t going to last forever. The Thumbs wholeheartedly agree and wish all graduating students the best. McConaughey’s mom is not the only one who’s got it going on. Her famous son was on Fox News this week urging everyone to step away from politics and stick together during this crisis. “About a month ago I could feel that this united purpose that we all have as Americans to beat this enemy and this virus, that purpose got hijacked a bit by partisan politics,” McConaughey told host Bret Baier. Unless the star was angling for his second Oscar — Best Performance in the Face of a Pandemic? — his plea for common sense and unity is a call worth heeding.

Politicizing the pandemic is a bad idea, especially once you’re forced to move from talk to action. Texas Republicans are going ahead with their convention plans for Houston in mid-July, and while organizers are stressing the event will observe social distancing and respect for masks, what is a diehard Trump supporter to do when the president has cast covering one’s face as liberal snowflaking? Our advice to GOP activists is to think of their health first and wear a mask. (We’re sure they are available in eagle and American flag varieties.) Otherwise, peer pressure may not be the only thing they succumb to.

Gov. Greg Abbott needs to decide if he’s going to be the responsible public official we see in his pandemic news conferences asking for unity or the partisan troll we spot … well, everywhere else. Just this week he appeared on Fox News calling shutdown measures “government-enforced poverty.” He also tweeted out a chart comparing California and New York to Texas and Florida in an ill-advised attempt to dunk on the Democrat-led states over COVID-19 deaths. Classy. In a bit of a self-own, the poorly made chart misspelled mortality as “morality,” giving the coastal states the high ground in case there was any doubt that Abbott’s moral compass is pointing elsewhere. We usually focus on Texas, but if anyone can give us a good stretch, it’s NBA Hall of Famer Earvin “Magic” Johnson. The former Los Angeles point guard was running the show when the rivalry between the Rockets and Lakers began in the ’80s, and we (mostly) don’t hold it against him that one time they swept Houston in the first round of the NBA playoffs. Anyway, all will be forgotten if area business owners share in some of the $100 million in loans that Johnson is offering minority-owned companies. The goal is to help 100,000 businesses through the pandemic, proving that while Johnson hasn’t played professional basketball in more than two decades, he can still come through with a good assist. Hopefully, it will save some restaurants suffering mightily during this crisis. One is beyond saving. Treebeards owners announced that, after 40 years, their location on Market Square will close for good next month, apparently not due to COVID-19, but another set of dreaded digits: “a huge increase in rent demanded by the landlord.” Sure, there are other Treebeards locations, even downtown, to get your comfort food fix of red beans and rice and shrimp etouffee, but they won’t taste the same without the sunlit ambiance, historic architecture, small talk at the cash register and the acrobatic challenge of carrying a teetering tray of gumbo up a steep staircase without wasting a drop. For many downtown dwellers, the feel of the place, and the memories made there, were as rich as the Cajun spices. As another mourner said on Facebook, no one makes blackened catfish like they do — not even the other Treebeards locations. Au revoir to another Houston institution.