The San Francisco School Board recently confronted perhaps the greatest crisis in the city’s history. Forget fire, earthquake, fear of Japanese attack, and murder of the mayor by a disgruntled ex-city councilman. Washington High School sports an extensive mural of…

A century ago, in July 1919, Germany began its journey to the lowest reaches of Hades. Another 26 years would pass before a previously civilized, enlightened people finally emerged, their nation in ruins, its cities bombed and its countryside occupied….

The Islamic State’s attempt to set up a Middle East caliphate has failed spectacularly. The group never had much of a chance, since it has targeted virtually every government in the region. But most of the Arab states were vulnerable…

On June 15, 1864 the Army of the Potomac established what became the siege of Petersburg, which acted as the gateway to Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederate States of Virginia. Although the city was not enveloped, Gen. Ulysses…

Joe Biden, the crazy uncle that many people try to hide in the attic, so to speak, is a “good guy,” even if he didn’t have enough backbone to defend his use of that phrase to describe Vice President Mike…

World War I resulted in two seemingly minor events which had epochal impact: a little known army operative took over a small, radical, racist political party in Germany and an exiled political agitator returned to Russia. The consequences of the…

A moving burial ceremony in Berlin on Monday reminded us of the high cost of those who stand against evil. Those executed for resisting Adolf Hitler and his monstrous death state suffered the final indignity of secret, anonymous disposal of…

The Easter bombings in Sri Lanka offered a reminder both dramatic and tragic that religious minorities suffer brutally around the world. What made that instance unusual is that members of a minority faith, Muslims, targeted members of another minority faith,…

Kansas adopted its constitution in 1859. Abortion was largely illegal then, as it was in most of the country. Who counted as a person mattered then. The state was born in violence, as pro-slavery forces unsuccessfully attempted to impose their…

With President Donald Trump seemingly vulnerable politically, you would expect the Democratic presidential nomination process to attract the best and the brightest. Here is one of those fabled political inflection points, a moment the next president might engineer a major…