Guest Commentary
Although I left the Catholic Church many years ago, I have a great deal of respect for members of the Society of Jesus Jesuit priests and brothers. As one of their missions is education, Jesuits have a reputation for being first-rate scholars who take on controversial issues regarding the Catholic Church. Pope Francis is a Jesuit, the first pontiff from the Society of Jesus. Writing in America The Jesuit Review magazine, Fr. James Martin posits that some Catholic clergy helped give rise to mob violence at the U.S. Capitol in January. He provides numerous examples of vitriolic anti-Joe Biden-Democratic Party YouTube presentations, sermons, writings and remarks by Roman Catholic clergy.
To the editor: As millions of people were shivering in the dark after an Arctic blast knocked out much of the Lone Star State’s power system, Mayor Tim Boyd of Colorado City had choice words for his fellow Texans. “No one owes you or your family anything. … I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout. … Think outside the box to survive.” Individuals who camped out in their frigid homes waiting for help were “lazy.” For Boyd, the big freeze was survival of the fittest, which no doubt included “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” Sen. Ted Cruz, who went to Mexico with his daughters. Makes you wonder why everyone in Texas didn’t head to a Mexican resort to sit out the storm, a margarita or Corona in hand.
Guest Commentary
Doomsday cults and peddlers of conspiracy theories can be traced back to the Middle Ages. The most recent “We’re on the eve of destruction” group is QAnon, supposedly from “Q,” an “anonymous” internet poster. QAnon claims there is an international cabal of Satan-worshiping, child-eating pedophiles bent on ruling the U.S. and the world. Members of a “deep state” hidden government (socialist, atheistic Democrats), allegedly control politicians, their mass-media backers (including the Daily Enterprise, no doubt), left-wing university professors and everything that comes out of Hollywood. QAnon can be considered a doomsday group  in addition to a global conspiracy theory  because adherents believe if the “deep state” is not destroyed, life as we know it in this country (dominated by conservative white males and a few token females) will end.Â
Jan 15, 2021
The first medical system to care for soldiers wounded in battle was created by Dominque-Jean Larrey (1766-1842), a surgeon in Napoleon’s Grand Army. Larrey saw that men were dying of treatable wounds because there was no mechanism for retrieving them until the fighting was over. He organized an ambulance system that brought men from the battlefield to mobile hospitals behind the lines. Priority was given to soldiers who would die without immediate medical treatment. This was the first step in the development of medical triage from the French “trier,” to pick or sort. In 1846, British surgeon John Wilson (1780-1856) approached the sorting of wounded soldiers in a different manner with a different goal. Wilson believed army surgeons should initially focus on men who needed immediate treatment and for whom that treatment was likely to be successful that is, would save their lives. Of secondary importance were the less seriously wounded and those so gravel
To the editor: A survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in August found that 75% of young adults (ages 18 to 24) stated they were struggling with at least one mental health or drug related problem. Just under 26% reported they “had seriously considered suicide in the past 30 days.” The great French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) coined the term “anomie,” a condition of relative normlessness that occurs when societies undergo drastic and rapid social, economic and/or political upheavals. Anomie is a prolonged situation wherein the norms, values and standards that regulate human behavior have been dramatically altered or broken down. The hitherto “world taken for granted” has fundamentally changed.