Ours is an era in which elected officials, like public figures more generally, have by and large abdicated their responsibility to model good behavior. Once, politicians felt compelled by the sweeping visibility of their office to demonstrate an outward sense of virtue, decorum, and etiquette. It would have been inconceivable for President John F. Kennedy […]

On a crisp autumn afternoon on Nov. 26, two blocks from the White House, the crack of gunfire shattered the routine of National Guard troops Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew Wolfe. Beckstrom, a 20-year-old enlistee from West Virginia deployed to bolster federal law enforcement, succumbed to her wounds hours later. Wolfe, shot in the leg and […]

The Netflix series Death by Lightning offers a compelling, dramatic look at James Garfield‘s rise to the presidency. It also explores the journey of Charles Guiteau, the man who assassinated Garfield when the newly elected president refused to give him a job in the administration under the “spoils system” that took shape over the previous […]

China’s people, as is sometimes said, are “trying to breathe,” hoping to find some freedom from central control. Four female college students in the central city of Zhengzhou tried to breathe in June 2024 as they decided to take an overnight 50-kilometer bike ride to Kaifeng, where they could enjoy a meal of soup dumplings. […]