Putin's Russia

So this morning I finished reading "Putin's Russia" by Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist who was brutally gunned down in her apartment building elevator last October. Critics of Russian President Vladmir Putin believe he either ordered the hit because of her highly critical work on his lack of ethics, or that someone close to him did it as a present for the president, since she was murdered on his birthday. Either way, it was a very haunting book, like hearing her crying out from the grave. The tales of mass and rampant corruption in every system, murder, blatant injustice...very scary stuff indeed. It makes me grateful to be in America, where journalists and everyone else can be openly critical of leaders and not live in fear of being executed.