Jess Lahitou

Silicon Valley companies defending sex trafficking has made me question if good people — or even baseline-human people — actually exist anymore.

Prejudice against women has existed in this country since its very inception. Indeed, prejudice against women has existed throughout all of history, long predating the presence of America, and sexism continues on unabated today, in most parts of the world. And it goes mostly unaddressed, much less eradicated.

All this means that, for the first time since 1992, a third-party candidate has a very strong chance of impacting election results. And if something truly wild were to happen (say, no candidate broke the 270-electoral vote mark needed to win the presidency), then there’s an outside chance that a third-party could actually win the White House.

Last night, Fox News hosted the final Republican debate before Iowa caucus goers cast their votes on Monday. Donald Trump, refusing to participate if Megyn Kelly was debate moderator, skipped the event. He instead held his own rally across town, scheduling his speech to coincide with the start of the Fox debate.

Tim Kaine and Mike Pence both showed themselves superior to their presidential ticket counterparts. Ouch.

Throughout this long and increasingly nightmarish primary season, an argument emerged from Republican candidates who were routinely getting their butts handed to them by Donald Trump.

Everyone but Michael Moore underestimated the level of economic angst and cultural upheaval occurring in the Rust Belt, that collection of states forming a sloped capital “E” along the Great Lakes: Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania.

Digital assistants such as Siri are not people. Yet, the way these female-voiced bots are programmed to react when being sexualized or sexually harassed paints a pretty bleak picture of how Silicon Valley organizes its values.

Back in my early twenties, I struggled financially. But more so in that much-mocked Millennial quest of “finding myself,” I made a number of questionable decisions.

As the headline article (“Anxiety, Depression and the American Adolescent”) points out, depression has been replaced with anxiety as the leading mental health struggle of today’s adolescent. The one possible cause that stood out to me most was the impact of social media. With smartphone in hand, teens can be reading harmless texts, or – as was the case for one young female interviewed – they could be viewing disturbing Instagram posts, or reading about distant tragedies, or scrolling through hateful Facebook comments. Maybe even comments about them.