OUR COUNTRY IS SO F**KED! Excuse my language, but I had to get it out. For the past week or two, I’ve been avoiding Facebook because the news and commentary I see there gets me so stressed and fuels the constant low-grade anxiety I’m feeling most of the time now. However, I do like to maintain some level of information literacy, so I read updates on email from NYT and CNN and listen to NPR news programs from time to time. There is another news source I trust, Heather Cox Richardson, who is a history professor at Boston College and writes daily Letters from an American. I don’t read them every day, for the reasons I just mentioned. I did read her letter today, which prompted my topic sentence here. Our country is being run by a would-be dictator who is being backed by the megalomaniac Senate Majority Leader. Both are obsessed with their own power and self-interest. Today’s letter from Richardson focused on a number of frightening issues, among them the actions of Trump’s newly appointed head of the USPS, who is restructuring the postal service in such a way as to slow the mail and consolidate his own power over it. Trump is opposed to mail-in voting and wants to privatize the postal service. The changes made by his appointed crony endangers the former and moves things closer to the latter. The details are appalling and reinforce my conviction that our dictator in chief and his wealthy associates and supporters will do anything to further their own wealth and power. And the most heart-breaking aspect of it all, and the fuel that is feeding my unconquerable anxiety is that millions of ordinary Americans still support them. I fear that their unfettered power and corruption could result in the unthinkable re-election of Trump. And even if he is not re-elected, he can continue to perpetrate irreversible damage to our country. Oh, and did I mention the pandemic?