Clerk-magistrates, with lifetime tenure and no mandatory retirement age, rule the roost in Massachusetts courthouses.
Some say Civil Service is the way to rid government of patronage hiring. But is the cure worse than the disease?
The scrappy Merrimack Valley city has never had it easy. These days things are even tougher than usual.
Jill Lepore says the Tea Party movement has embraced an approach to American history that is more rooted in religious fundamentalism than in any serious examination of the past.