Opinion

Ed. note: The copy pasted below was sent to The Advance by our esteemed local historian and retired professor, Rene Torres, who can usually find something of interest to send in every week. This issue’s bit of Valley history was published in the 1975 edition of “Southwest Features,” titled, “Discovering the Rio Grande Valley.”

I ran into a friend of mine last week with heart problems who’s had four trips to the hospital within the past several years. Two of the expensive trips were covered under insurance. The other two incurred hospital costs he’s responsible for paying to the tune of thousands of dollars.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine has stated that Europe is already in the midst of World War III. A number of conservatives (and Republicans) have disputed that and have come out strongly against entering into a third world war. The issue is whether or not we are willing to risk nuclear Armageddon. Putin continues to play the nuclear card and has now announced that Russia is withdrawing from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. That presumably means both Russia and the United States will begin building up atomic stockpiles to increase the number of times we can wipe each other off the map.