Jessica Fitzpatrick, an educational consultant who focused on family literacy, died at home in Calverton on Feb. 6. Formerly of East Hampton, she was 77.

The Montauk Inlet holdup is a good illustration of how Americans depend on the federal government to fund critically important work — the kind of necessities threatened by a two-headed presidency’s frenzied rush to cut spending.

The old saw “strange bedfellows” and political expedience are no decent explanation for the cast of unsavory characters our president and his administration go out of their way to call “friend.”