By Sabrina Völz

Before we get to our top­ic at hand, let’s get out that Karaoke mic and get ready to sing a song to the tune of “Ten Lit­tle Indi­ans.” One lit­tle, two lit­tle, three lit­tle can­di­dates, four lit­tle, five lit­tle, six lit­tle can­di­dates, sev­en lit­tle, eight lit­tle, nine lit­tle can­di­dates, ten lit­tle Repub­li­can can­di­dates. For Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, that is, if you haven’t yet heard. Well, not exact­ly ten. Jeb Bush, for­mer Gov­er­nor of Flori­da, just joined the race last Mon­day, and Don­ald Trump, a real estate tycoon, made his deci­sion pub­lic on Tues­day. And there are still a few poten­tial can­di­dates think­ing about throw­ing their hat in the race. So stay tuned. Now if you are seri­ous find­ing out who may make it to the Oval Office in the 2016 U.S. pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, then you’ll have some work to do. It won’t be easy, but there is no bet­ter time than the present to begin.

To be fair, I am going to intro­duce the oth­er can­di­dates in alpha­bet­i­cal order and in a blog-friend­ly way:

• Ben Car­son, for­mer Head of Pedi­atric Neu­ro­surgery at John Hopkins
• Ted Cruz, Sen­a­tor from Texas
• Car­ly Fio­r­i­na, for­mer CEO of Hewlett-Packard
• Lind­sey Gra­ham, Sen­a­tor from South­ern Carolina
• Mike Huck­abee, for­mer Gov­er­nor of Arkansas and ordained minister
• George Pata­ki, for­mer Gov­er­nor of New York
• Rand Paul, Oph­thal­mol­o­gist and Sen­a­tor of Kentucky
• Rick Per­ry, for­mer Gov­er­nor of Texas
• Mario Rubio, sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion Cuban Amer­i­can and Sen­a­tor from Florida
• Rick San­to­rum, for­mer Sen­a­tor of Pennsylvania

As you can imag­ine, hav­ing so many GOP can­di­dates in the U.S. pres­i­den­tial race does pose a few challenges.

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By Bobbie Kirkhart

Hillary Clin­ton is a strong, prag­mat­ic politi­cian. Mod­er­ate­ly hawk­ish, she cast a mean­ing­less vote to sup­port the Iraq War, which she now regrets—though she still pro­claims her sup­port of the war in Afghanistan.

Indeed, her pub­lic persona—her tone of voice, her pos­ture, the ever-present pants suit—gives the appear­ance of con­fi­dence and com­mand. She has always been assertive, many say to a point of pre­sump­tion. She start­ed run­ning for the Sen­ate when she was still our First Lady. No oth­er president’s wife has vied for pub­lic office. From the time she became the first woman full part­ner of Arkansas’s most pres­ti­gious law firm to her stint as a Sec­re­tary of State who advo­cat­ed “smart pow­er,” she has built a résumé that could only hap­pen with excep­tion­al abil­i­ty and dri­ving ambition.

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By Sabrina Völz

The scene is July 4, 2012. 8:56 p.m. Ira Wagler sends an e‑mail halfway across the world, answer­ing an inquiry from a uni­ver­si­ty instruc­tor in Ger­many whom he cor­dial­ly grants an inter­view about his book, Grow­ing Up Amish. “Thanks for your invi­ta­tion to come tour a few uni­ver­si­ties in Ger­many,” he con­tin­ues. “I won’t say ‘nev­er;’ the jour­ney of the book has led to many unex­pect­ed places already. But for now, well, I’m quite con­tent here where I am.”

Lit­tle did he know, and lit­tle did I know then, that his grant­i­ng of that very inter­view would take him not once but twice to Ger­many. And as irony would have it, he will be back exact­ly three years to the day I received that first email. The good news is that he won’t be alone. Your pres­ence is kind­ly requested.

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By Justine Fiebig and Saskia Heike

If images of blonde girls shak­ing their pom-poms and yelling at foot­ball games pop into your mind when you hear the word “cheer­lead­ing,” then you might just want to sit down: The first cheer­lead­ers were men.

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