Longreads

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Roger Fidler, in jeans and a black turtleneck, is watching Steve Jobs, in jeans and a black turtleneck, introduce the iPad. Fidler is sitting in his stark white office —…

Phillip Herr finds the USPS fascinating: ubiquitous, relied on, and headed off a cliff. Its trucks are everywhere; few give it a second thought. "It's one of those things that the public just takes for granted," he says. "The mailman shows up, drops off the mail, and that's it." He is struck by how many USPS executives started out as letter carriers or clerks. He finds them so consumed with delivering mail that they have been slow to grasp how swiftly the service's financial condition is deteriorating. "We said, 'What's your 10-year plan?' " Herr recalls. "They didn't have one."

It was visiting hour at Broadmoor psychiatric hospital and patients began drifting in to sit withtheir loved ones at tables and chairs that hadbeen fixed to the ground. They were mostly…