Columns

Imagine if you told someone 30 years ago that they would spend thousands of dollars on devices that remove them from reality, that place control over their persons in the hands of corporations, that cede access to their nervous system, that chart their every location and activi-ty, that invade not just their privacy but the inner workings of their minds, and that they would do so willingly, even enthusiastically. People would have thought you were ludicrous. Yet that is what has happened, and I often visit with people that just parrot information that comes out of electronic devices without thinking.

With Republicans regaining majority control of the Senate, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is making his bid to become that chamber’s majority leader. U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, had previously announced he would step down as party leader. Republicans will hold at least a 53-45 edge in January, with Senate races in two states still undecided as of Friday morning.

As the decades have rolled by, most people rarely remember one of the most controversial decisions made by the Supreme Court, “Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas” in 1954 that state sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th amendment and was therefore unconstitutional. This decision is still reverberating through our society today under different code words.