Jess Lahitou

It’s early 2008 in Iowa. Hillary Clinton had been leading in the early polls, but her numbers have been steadily dropping when she is suddenly – shockingly – bested by a young, almost unknown senator from Illinois.

Every legal system in the world recognizes gradations of bad behavior.

What do you say? What do you say when the unthinkable happens?

Last night, the saga continued. Fox Business Network hosted the fourth Republican Primary debate, with a slightly winnowed set of contenders: the top eight candidates were on stage, compared with ten in the previous showdown.

Most Likely To Succeed: Carly Fiorina. One word: Yowza! On top of being the only candidate to move up from Fox’s conciliation debate to CNN’s main stage, Carly Fiorina kicked absolute butt. She went after Donald Trump, Chris Christie, every prominent Democrat, not to mention political pandering to women. Pundits agree: Fiorina won it.

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.

Bipartisanship is a rare bird.

The 2016 election has, for a while now, felt eerily akin to 1984 (lots ‘o doublespeak coming out of Trump and his supporters). Or The Hunger Games, to take a more recent example of dystopian genre fiction. Wherein, government becomes solely about politics and the media spectacle, rather than actual policies and ideas.

Yesterday was a smashing success for Donald Trump in the Presidential Primary. Of the five voting states – Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Rhode Island, & Pennsylvania – Trump won all five, with his biggest non-NY margins yet. I

So I’m writing today from Elevation 8,080 ft., here in Avon, Colorado.