We had a Medal of Freedom winner poet writer architect declare the USA we have known “bankrupt and extinct” way back in the 1980s and no one dared report on it. That’s when I realized “land of the brave home of the free” was just joking. I’m not seriously sad that nation-states have faded out in tawdry tabloids. Gossip channels. Soaps. It’s all various blends of TV, which we do need, to stay on cue.