Rainy Day News

Virtually the only thing we can talk about out here on the west coast these days is the weather — wave after wave of atmospheric rivers or bomb cyclones or whatever you want to call them have been battering us all year.

Trees are down, hillsides have slipped, roads have buckled, sinkholes have sunk. From that perspective, the place is one big mess.

And yet the rains just keep coming. It arrives in bursts as if some giant shower head in the sky has an urge to empty itself periodically. That’s not really much of an inconvenience in itself but when the winds gust in at 50 mph, driving the rain sideways, everything becomes a bit more problematic.

The ground, we are repeatedly reminded, is saturated, so the shallow-rooted invasive trees, like eucalyptus, simply fall over at some point, whereas the native redwoods generally stand their ground.

Wildlife mostly takes cover, though a few bold coyotes seem intent on walking the streets, perhaps less trafficked by vehicles than normal due to the storms.

Most of my kids and grandkids don’t mind the rain at all; some of them downright love it. They dance bare-footed through the puddles and send “ships” down newly flowing “rivers” that course through our yards.

Here on the western coast, the overwhelming portion of the rains will make their way through drains and pipes and ditches to streams, rivers and inlets to the large tidal estuary known as San Francisco Bay. It drains water from approximately 40 percent of the state of California.

It’s tempting to attribute this winter’s weather to climate change, but who knows if that’s true. In any event, there’s no real debate about the issue out here; we all accept that climate change is real, and if this what it’s like, so be it.

The only real debate is over how to mitigate the impacts.

I like the rain. It washes a dirty planet clean. I just wish we had a few more open “mouths” — reservoirs or other forms of catchments — to collect the rainwater for future use. In case you hadn’t heard, we are in the midst of a drought.

LINKS:

• Trump Org. fined $1.6 million after conviction for 17 felonies, including tax fraud (CNN)

• McCarthy says he will look at expunging Trump impeachment (The Hill)

• Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) says his party is "moving past" ex-President Donald Trump, who has announced his 2024 candidacy to return to the White House. “I can’t imagine him getting the nomination, frankly,” Ryan said. Ryan also described Trump as a "proven loser" who has cost the GOP many election losses over the years. [HuffPost]

• G.O.P. Leaders Stand by Santos as New York Republicans Call on Him to Resign (NYT)

• U.S. Rep. Santos says he won't resign, only leave if voted out in next election (Reuters)

• Biden approval rating highest since October 2021 (The Hill)

• More classified documents found at Biden’s Delaware home, White House counsel says (CNBC)

• Furor over documents creates unexpected political peril for Biden (WP)

• Idaho Murders Suspect Felt ‘No Emotion’ and ‘Little Remorse’ as a Teen (NYT)

• Coastal residents fear ‘hideous’ seawalls will block waterfront views (Guardian)

• California storms erase extreme drought from nearly all of state (Yahoo)

• The coming post-Feinstein cascade (Politico)

• U.S. and Japan's new defense strategy sends stark warning to China (LA Times)

• China set for historic demographic turn, accelerated by COVID traumas (Reuters)

• ‘Burying Us Alive’: Afghan Women Devastated by Suspension of Aid Under Taliban Law (NYT)

• Afghan girls and women who once played a variety of sports said they have been intimidated by the Taliban with visits and phone calls warning them not to engage in their sports. (AP)

• Afghanistan: Erdogan calls Taliban ban on women's education 'un-Islamic' (Middle East Eye)

• Taliban Say They’re Working to Resolve ‘Temporary’ Education Ban on Afghan Women (VoA)

• The Pro-Bolsonaro Riot Is Part of a Global Contagion (Politico)

• Rifts in Russian military command seen amid Ukraine fighting (AP)

• Soledar: Russia claims victory in battle for Ukraine salt mine town (BBC)

• Western Tanks Appear Headed to Ukraine, Breaking Another Taboo (NYT)

• Sudden Surge In Russian Navy Ships And Submarines In Black Sea (Naval News)

• Why Germany’s Olaf Scholz is reluctant to send battle tanks to Ukraine (Financial Times)

• Russian Army Is So Degraded It Won't Recover in 'Lifetime': Ukraine Adviser (Newsweek)

• Tesla turns up heat on rivals with global price cuts. Tesla has slashed prices on its electric vehicles in the United States and Europe by as much as 20%, extending a strategy of aggressive discounting after missing Wall Street estimates for 2022 deliveries. (Reuters)

• Scientists Have Reached a Key Milestone in Learning How to Reverse Aging (Time)

• Fathers Have Been Older Than Mothers For 250,000 Years, Study Finds (ScienceAlert)

• Ancient DNA Charts Native Americans’ Journeys to Asia Thousands of Years Ago (Smithsonian)

• UK Meteorite That Fell To Earth Contains Building Blocks For Life (IFL Science)

• Risk of Autism Associated With When and Where Forebears Lived (Neuroscience News)

• Extinct giant tortoise was the 'mammoth' of Madagascar 1,000 years ago (LiveScience)

• New imaging finds trigger for massive global warming 56 million years ago (Ars Technica)

• Traveling Back in Time Is Possible Inside Universes That Spin (ScienceAlert)

• The Pentagon office studying UFOs released a report this week. Nearly 200 recently reported sightings were “unremarkable,” but 170 were left uncharacterized, some of which “appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics.” (WP)

• Kamala Harris Assures Public No One Has Given Her Single Classified Document (The Onion)

 

Snowflakes in the Storm

Recently, while speaking to a group of incoming interns at a local media company, I found myself trying to make the point that the particulars of their individual lives will matter, sometimes a lot, during their upcoming careers as journalists.

To illustrate my point, for some reason I compared them to snowflakes. 

It was an odd moment, admittedly, but hear me out.

Each winter, even though about one septillion (or a trillion trillion) such snow crystals fall from the sky, the scientific consensus is that the odds that any two of them are identical is effectively zero.

There are far fewer of us people, I reasoned, trying to suggest that the interns were at least as unique as snowflakes and that that singular fact should inform the development of their journalistic voices going forward.

For almost the entirety of my 57 years in journalism, I’ve been trying to help guide younger, aspiring journalists. My inclination to do so has followed me job to job, company to company, over the decades.

And even now into retirement.

So for better or worse, by now there are at least hundreds of people out there practicing the craft who were at least marginally exposed to my ideas (and bad analogies) as to how to balance objectivity, fairness, persistence, commitment, thoroughness and pattern recognition in the gathering of facts and the telling of stories.

Heaven knows they are going to need all the help they can get. When it comes to trying to be an honest journalist in America, they will need to overcome the powerful headwind of the relentless conspiracy theories that drive suspicion, ignorance and extremism.

And there is nothing beautiful or unique about that.

LINKS:

• Garland appoints special counsel to take over Biden classified documents investigation (CNN)

• Discovery of More Classified Records Raises Questions Over Biden’s Handling of Documents (NYT)

• Biden’s classified documents, explained: What to know about the investigation (WP)

• Politics or by-the-book? Investigating Biden’s classified documents (The Hill)

• Special counsel subpoenas, grand jury appearances mount for Trump allies (ABC)

• Trump campaign officials got subpoena asking new questions about Jan. 6 (WP)

• Hunter Biden’s Tangled Tale Comes Front and Center (NYT)

• Ro Khanna says he’s looking at the Senate. His allies are talking about the White House. (Politico)

• Neighbor of Bryan Kohberger says suspect talked about Idaho student murders (CBS)

• Inflation slowed further in December for the sixth month in a row (WP)

• US inflation falls to lowest level in more than a year (Financial Times)

• Taliban ban on women workers hits vital aid for Afghans (AP)

• Ukraine said its troops were still holding out despite heavy fighting on a battlefield covered with bodies in a salt mining town in eastern Ukraine, where Russian mercenaries have claimed Moscow's first significant gain in half a year. (Reuters)

• Russia Replaces Commander for Ukraine War, as Signs of Dissension Grow (NYT)

• Putin made a big bet that energy sales would fund his war in Ukraine. A new report shows that he was very wrong (Fortune)

• Brazilian federal prosecutors requested the investigation of three congressional allies of former President Jair Bolsonaro for allegedly inciting the worst attack on the country's democratic institutions in decades. (Reuters)

• Climate change progress hinges on massive changes in behavior from both public and private sectors (The Hill)

• Breakaway iceberg raises concerns over Antarctica’s 'doomsday glacier' (New Scientist)

• The seventh consecutive atmospheric river since Christmas dumped more rain on Northern California, offering little relief for a state already battered by floods, gale force winds, power outages and evacuations of entire towns. (Reuters)

• What California’s excessive snow means for spring and the megadrought (Fox)

• Planetary defense and science to advance with new radar on a powerful telescope (Phys.org)

• Maryland girl finds ancient tooth from a 50-foot-long megalodon in the Chesapeake Bay (NPR)

• See the Largest Flower Ever Found Encased in Amber (Scientific American)

• The plight of the Japanese giant salamander: ‘23m years of DNA might die out’ (Guardian)

• Omicron XBB.1.5 does not have mutations known to make people sicker, WHO says (CNBC)

• What the ‘shower effect’ reveals about creativity and the power of a wandering mind (WP)

• Sherlock Holmes Enters Public Domain (The Onion)

 

Poetic Justice (It Don't Rhyme)

It seems like nothing will ever come easily for U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. 

This, of course, is the same man who in March 2016 became the only one since Reconstruction to be denied a hearing by the Senate after being nominated for the Supreme Court by a sitting President. 

Garland, by all accounts is a distinguished, scholarly jurist highly qualified for the court, but he was a victim of an unprecedented attack from the hyper-polarized politics of the era. Republicans led by Mitch McConnell, shattered all existing norms of political behavior by refusing to take up Garland’s nomination until after the presidential election in November 2016.

By then, of course, Donald Trump was President, and he successfully nominated Neil Gorsuch instead of Garland for the empty Supreme Court seat and over the next four years was able to pack two more appointments to the court as well.

Flash forward to 2020. Joe Biden won election as President and appointed Garland as the Attorney General.

But before Biden could even be inaugurated, the Jan. 6th riot happened at the U.S. Capitol; Trump was impeached but not convicted for that; and the Justice Department opened multiple probes into Trump’s activities — most particularly for his role in inciting the riot.

And who is the guy with the thankless task of overseeing those investigations, including whether to prosecute the former president? None other than the same Merrick Garland.

To date, Garland has proceeded cautiously and methodically, not tipping his hand as to whether Trump will face justice for any of his alleged crimes. Nevertheless, the probe into the discovery of classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate generated tremendous political controversy. Republicans called it a witch hunt.

Now comes the revelation that Biden somehow also had classified documents at a private office and also in his garage.after leaving his job as Vice-President, although apparently not at the scale of Trump’s cache. Whatever, this messy complication now also falls to Garland to handle.

I have no idea what to make of all this beyond the observation some people have a lot of bad luck. I’m guessing that the Biden revelation probably means that Trump will not being prosecuted over his possession of classified documents — simply because it will be politically impossible. The Republicans would scream bloody murder, further polarizing an already dangerously contentious environment.

We should not envy Merrick Garland his fate in life. It would appear at the moment there is precious little chance he will ever achieve any measure of justice, legally or politically, against his tormentors. 

Not even of the poetic kind.

LINKS:

• VIDEO: Biden Addresses Classified Documents Found at Private Office (AP)

• Biden ‘Surprised’ to Learn Classified Documents Were Found in Private Office (NYT)

• Additional documents marked classified found in Biden's Wilmington garage (Politico)

• Disgraced Rep. George Santos defiant after local GOP officials call for ‘immediate’ resignation over campaign lies (CNBC)

• Rep. Santos served with formal ethics complaint (CBS)

• Republicans Signal Cuts To Social Security, Medicare With New House Majority (HuffPost)

• House Republicans form committee to investigate the government (WP)

• Republicans controlling the U.S. House of Representatives voted to launch an investigation into what they term President Joe Biden's weaponization of the federal government, but Democrats branded it a partisan fishing expedition. (Reuters)

• House Republicans to vote on bill abolishing IRS, eliminating income tax (Fox)

• House Republicans turn their attention to restricting abortion rights (WP)

• The Near-Implosion of Kevin McCarthy Offers Lessons for the Left (Politico)

• Lawyers who enabled Trump in election plot face heightened risk of charges (Guardian)

• FAA system outage causes thousands of flight delays and cancellations across the US (CNN)

• Afghan women athletes barred from play, fear Taliban threats (AP)

• How the Taliban’s ban on women aid workers could deepen Afghanistan’s crisis (Vox)

• A Brazilian judge ordered the arrest of top security officials. Police have been accused of working with backers of far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro. They stormed the buildings of all three branches of government on Sunday. (WP)

• Bolsonaro eyes return to Brazil as US stay pressures Biden (AP)

• Russian and Ukrainian forces were engaged in intense fighting over the town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine - a stepping stone in Moscow's push to capture the entire Donbas region - with the Russians appearing to have the upper hand. (Reuters)

• Armenia cancels military drills of Russian-led alliance (Al Jazeera)

• From Brexit to Regrexit (NPR)

• Soaked and Battered by Repeating Rainstorms, California Girds for More (NYT)

• Storms relentless as California drenching goes on (BBC)

• Calif. storm updates: Nearly 37,000 evacuated from hardest-hit areas (SF Gate)

• The Last 8 Years Were the Hottest on Record (NYT)

• FDA vaccine advisers ‘disappointed’ and ‘angry’ that early data about new Covid-19 booster shot wasn’t presented for review last year (CNN)

• Hearing Loss Linked to Dementia in Older Adults (Neuroscience News)

• Twitter owner Elon Musk turned over access to internal company documents to a top source of vaccine misinformation who's been described as "the pandemic's wrongest man." Alex Berenson on Monday published a Substack article referencing the so-called Twitter Files, reprinting emails to Twitter’s team from Scott Gottlieb, who served as Food and Drug Administration commissioner in the Trump administration and joined Pfizer’s board in 2019. [HuffPost]

• Madagascar faces millions of years of extinctions due to human activity, scientists say (ABC)

• Lake Mead Water Levels Before and After Drought Is Sobering Shot of Future (Newsweek)

• Coalition scrapped pesticide monitoring program that found residues 90 times the limit on strawberries (Guardian)

• Coming soon: Beef, coffee, and chocolate, without a side of environmental destruction (Vox)

• The US and the Holocaust, review: a masterpiece account of America’s close brush with Nazism (Telegraph)

• Ranking all 14 NFL playoff teams by viability: Who's best positioned to reach Super Bowl 57? The 49ers. (USA Today)

• NASA satellite discovers second Earth-sized planet in habitable zone (ABC)

• Man Memorizes Several Awkward Remarks In Case Date Not Going Uncomfortably Enough (The Onion)

 

Secret Report 51 (Afghanistan Files)

This is the latest in a series of conversations I have been having with an Afghan friend about life under the Taliban. I am withholding his identity for his safety.

Dear David:

Last week, three Taliban representatives came to our office and held a meeting. One of them tried to persuade us not to shave our beards by reciting verses from the Quran and hadiths. Then a second man was more blunt. "In short, I will say that anyone who does not grow a beard and does not wear a hat will be dismissed from duty. There is no place for (that) here." 

In Afghanistan, before you can get a government job you have to pass a standardized test. But the Minister of Higher Education said in a news conference that fighters for the Taliban don’t need to take the test, because they are automatically qualified based on their experience in battle.

Recently, I listened to the audio recording of one of the Taliban commanders who is said to be one of the close associates of the top Taliban leader. He said that the main enemy of Islam and Afghanistan is a modern school system. In the schools, he said, topics of blasphemy are taught and the culture of blasphemy is promoted. 

Ever since the Taliban took control of the country in August 2021, they have been trying to force their extremist ideas on the culture, lifestyle, and political and religious beliefs of the Afghan people. Women have been deprived of all their rights, ethnic minorities have been excluded from participating in the government, and people are being persecuted under the pretext of “forbidding evil.” 

In response, the international community and the United States have tried to convince the Taliban through dialogue and soft policies to respect human rights and allow women to study and work. But history has proven that the Taliban do not respond to dialogue and logic, so these efforts to convince them will prove to be futile. 

The Taliban are not open to debate. The rest of the world needs to develop new ways to force them to respect our human rights or these types of abuses – both small and large – will continue.

LINKS:

• The Taliban Are Losing Some of Their Cash Cows —The U.S. and U.N. are halting aid as the Taliban ratchet up their atrocities. (FP)

• Deadly ‘suicide’ blast outside Afghan foreign ministry in Kabul (Al Jazeera)

• Taliban hard-liners consolidate control with crackdown on women (WP)

• FAA system restored after outage that halted all domestic flight departures in the U.S. (NBC)

• Biden Lawyers Found Classified Material at His Former Office (NYT)

• Biden and his legal team don’t know what’s in classified documents found in his private office, sources say (CNN)

• Rain to persist as storm weary Californians face evacuations (AP)

• Why California is getting slammed with storm after storm (SFGate)

• Flash flood warning in San Francisco after Montecito and Santa Barbara evacuations (Independent)

• California is getting drenched. So why can't it save water for the drought? (NPR)

• The House of Representatives adopted a package of internal rules that give right-wing hardliners more leverage over the chamber's newly elected Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy. (Reuters)

• Here’s why the House GOP made defunding the IRS its first priority (Yahoo)

• Biden Administration Plans to Ease Rules for Income-Based Student-Loan Forgiveness (WSJ)

• Trump's Attorneys Scramble to Keep His Testimony Private (Newsweek)

• Ron DeSantis Is Imposing Political Control on Schools (New York)

• Republicans Signal Cuts To Social Security, Medicare With New House Majority (HuffPost)

• At least 17 killed in Peru as anti-government protests intensify (Financial Times)

• Brazil’s ‘January 6 Moment’ Is a Warning (Atlantic)

• What Drove a Mass Attack on Brazil’s Capital? Mass Delusion. (NYT)

• America’s Trumpist export to Brazil: Election denialism (WP)

• The most chilling warning for Americans from Brazil’s version of January 6 (CNN)

• Brazil’s riot puts spotlight on close ties between Bolsonaro and Trump (WP)

• Newly elected GOP Rep. George Santos (N.Y.), who has come under fire for lying about his work and education history, is now being accused of extensive campaign finance violations. A complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission alleges he used his 2022 campaign funds to cover personal needs, lied about how his campaign spent money and hid the origin of those funds. [HuffPost]

• Russian troops have stepped up an assault on the town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine, forcing Ukrainian troops to repel waves of attacks led by mercenary forces, officials in Kyiv said. (Reuters)

• Ukraine war: Russia controls most of destroyed salt mine town, Soledar, says UK (BBC) 

• U.S. involvement in war grows with training of Ukrainian troops in Okla. (WP)

• Russian artillery fire down nearly 75%, US officials say, in latest sign of struggles for Moscow (CNN)

• Satellite images show crowds at China’s crematoriums as covid surges (WP)

• Bed Bath & Beyond Plans More Layoffs as Cash Dwindles (WSJ)

• 6-Year-Old Brought Gun From Home in Newport News School Shooting, Police Say (NYT)

• Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, who went into cardiac arrest and had to be resuscitated on the field during a game in Cincinnati last week, has been released from the hospital and flown to Buffalo, with his doctors saying he is "doing well." [AP]

• Cherokee tribes turn to K Street to fulfill a 187-year-old promise for a seat in Congress (Politico)

• This Technique Is Revealing a Hidden World of Biology We've Never Seen Before (ScienceAlert)

• Is It Human or AI? New Tools Help You Spot the Bots (WSJ)

• Zone of Uncertainty Enables the Brain to Rapidly Form New Memories (Neuroscience News)

• Forest lizards have genetically morphed to survive life in the city, researchers say (NPR)

• Wordle editor Tracy Bennett reveals what words get the most complaints (Today)

• High School Teaches Co-Parenting Skills By Having Students Fight Over Who Gets Egg For Weekend (The Onion)

Echo of a Bad Day

 The parallels between what happened in Brazil this week and at the U.S. Capitol two years ago are inescapable. In both cases, a would-be authoritarian president refused to concede when he lost the election, incited his followers to storm the government center in protest, and then fled to Florida.

The only difference is Trump is a U.S. citizen, unlike Bolsonaro.

Ever since January 6, 2021, there has been a danger that the events of that day in Washington would be repeated at other locations around the world and now it has come to pass. The world is so inter-connected that political poison infects nations across borders as surely as the coronavirus and the results are equally disruptive.

Stability in Brazil — the world’s seventh-largest country — is paramount for global reasons, including planetary survival. We all depend on the Amazon being preserved, which would not happen under continued Bolsonaro rule. 

That his coup fail is therefore or critical importance to us all.

LINKS:

• There’s no way to sugarcoat it – Brazil attacks were opening act of attempted coup (CNN)

• Authorities were picking up the pieces after thousands of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro's supporters stormed top government offices, seeking to either restore far-right Bolsonaro to power or oust newly inaugurated leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Brazil had been on edge since Bolsonaro's Oct. 30 electoral defeat. [AP]

• Brazil’s democracy now facing its most crucial test: Will military intervene? (The Hill)

• Videos Show How Rioters Stormed Brazil’s Capital (NYT)

• White House under pressure to expel Jair Bolsonaro after Brazil riots (Financial Times)

• The Brazil chaos was predictable and predicted (Politico)

• President Joe Biden condemned the events in Brasilia. “Brazil’s democratic institutions have our full support and the will of the Brazilian people must not be undermined,” Biden said on Twitter. At least 400 people have been arrested, eight journalists were attacked or robbed and several government buildings were damaged. [HuffPost]

• Assault on presidential palace, congress challenges Brazil’s democracy (WP)

• Ex-NATO chief: Russian forces in Ukraine will be ‘burned through and exhausted’ by end of winter (The Hill)

• Ukraine is strengthening its forces in the eastern Donbas region (Reuters)

• Now Fighting for Ukraine: Volunteers Seeking Revenge Against Russia (NYT)

• Aid chief: Taliban decrees against women paralyzing NGO work (AP)

• Afghan Ban on Women Aid Workers Could Push 6 Million Into Famine, Humanitarian Group Says (VoA)

• Biden inspects US-Mexico border in face of GOP criticism (AP)

• California storm kills 2, cuts power; next atmospheric rivers may be worse (WP)

• Satellites watch atmospheric river continue to drench California (Space.com)

• Biden declares emergency in California as more winter storms advance (CNBC)

• 10 Key Revelations in Idaho Murder Case (NYT)

• US farmers win right to repair John Deere equipment (BBC)

• The US government just took two big steps on abortion. Will they matter? (Guardian)

• Silicon Valley layoffs go from bad to worse (CNN)

• Facebook’s Bridge to Nowhere (NYT)

• Earth’s Ozone Layer Recovers as Airborne Chemicals Decline (WSJ)

• A start-up in California is trying to manipulate the climate. By sending particles high into the atmosphere, trying to reflect sunlight and cool the Earth. The first experiment was last year, and there are more tests planned this month. (WP)

• How Your Brain Distinguishes Memories From Perceptions (Wired)

• A college student created an app that can tell whether AI wrote an essay (NPR)

• McCarthy Elected Speaker After Far-Right GOP Minority Joins Rest Of Far-Right GOP Majority (The Onion)

Investigating Your Own Past -- Journalism as Memoir

 Want to write a memoir? How to begin?

There’s no need to be a professional writer but it might help to think like an investigative reporter. First organize your personal records. These are going to be valuable assets for your project. 

Grade-school report cards, college financial aid letters, tax returns, bank statements, tax bills, car maintenance records, even simple receipts can tell a story. When was it that you had that tire blowout on the freeway exactly? You remember the exit sign but which tow company came to help, with that nice man who turned out to know your cousin?

Records tell stories, you just have to allow them to speak.

An even more powerful treasure trove of your past lies in the letters, journals, photos, tapes and videos you've stuffed in an old box in the garage somewhere. Fifty times you almost threw them away; fifty times you didn't.

Now you're seriously contemplating your history they are suddenly five hundred times more valuable than they were yesterday.

Most of the letters were addressed to you from someone else among your family members, friends, or associates. But you also have of your own letters, like those you wrote overseas that your sister saved for you.

Pay attention to the language usage in these letters. Look at the stamps and the postmarks. Note the dates. In stories, certain details matter.

And there is your college application essay, your first job application cover letter, an angry “Letter to the Editor” of the local newspaper. Your own writing is always a window into your prior self -- how you presented yourself to the world back then, and how you used language to express your feelings.

As you ply through this mass of material, act as if you are conducting a forensic analysis, as if your former self were somebody alien to you now. The reason I say this is you need to try and be as objective about yourself as possible in this process.

It should be as if you are writing a biography of another person.

Photographic evidence is particularly revealing. Note the expressions, the body language, who stands next to whom, what's in the background, which smiles are natural and which are forced. Who snapped that photo?

Every picture tells not one but many stories. Much of what you are seeking can be glimpsed through the lens of cameras past but you have to be able to see it.

Beyond old physical records and most of us don't have many, you have a great tool in your computer. Your grandmother didn't have that when she wrote down her memories. So take advantage of it. More and more digitized history is available, as various efforts to catalogue the past and bring it online proceed here and there.

And of course there is original web content itself. Stories about you or your company that appeared here and there. More photos. More citations. If you published something, look up your name at academia.edu. You might be surprised how many scholars have cited your work. 

For the past 25 years or so, there's the Wayback Machine hosted by the non-profit Internet Archive. You can familiarize yourself with how to use it or there are articles to help guide you, Tips for Using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine in Your Next Investigation. 

While there is the frustration of dead links, you can sometimes find workarounds for that issue. For instance, try locating the author of any article you seek -- authors tend to maintain their own clip files apart from the web.

And when researching family history, please don't overlook obituaries. Many details of the lives of even people you knew well only appear in print at the end of their story.

For deeper forensic analyses, you want to probe legal files, including criminal and civil cases, divorce judgements, adoption papers and bankruptcy filings. Property records from the assessor and recorders offices are public records you can obtain.

If this all sounds scary, just give it a try. The clerks in most agency offices prove helpful.

Do not overlook the Freedom of Information Act, which allows you to find out what data government agencies collected and maintained about you. You may think only of intelligence agencies like the FBI and CIA but most FOIA files are far more mundane, but perhaps relevant to what you need to know.

Most states have some sort of sunshine laws; in California it's known as the California Public Records Act. There are non-profit organizations that can help you draft letters of inquiry and interpret the results when the agency in question sends you the records you requested.

But all of this record-seeking is only one aspect of investigating your life. It is other people who hold the majority of the information you with to know locked away in their memories.

To help them unlock those memories, you need to perfect your interviewing techniques. Fortunately there are many available resources to help you with this, from YouTube videos to journalism classes or  some friendly retired reporter, lawyer, investigator, insurance adjuster, historian or homicide inspector.

Many people know how to obtain information through casual conversation.

And conversations can be the fun part of all this. Like fossil fuels stored in the rocks beneath our feet, the memories locked in the brains of others need to be mined and released.

Just try not to be a reckless brain surgeon and try not to pollute the planet in the process.

The key to all of this, at the end, is to think like an investigator.

(Note: Earlier versions of this essay appeared on my blogs several times in the past.)

LATEST NEWS LINKS:

• What’s in Kevin McCarthy’s Deal With Conservatives (WSJ)

• Speaker Drama Raises New Fears on Debt Limit (NYT)

• Salesforce aims to cut costs by $3 billion to $5 billion (Fortune)

• Battle to dethrone Tesla heats up just as Musk is distracted by Twitter (WP)

• Biden to get a firsthand look at US-Mexico border situation (AP)

• Protests Erupt In El Paso Ahead Of The Visit Of Biden (CNN)

• Public Transit Goes Off the Rails With Fewer Riders, Dwindling Cash, Rising Crime (WSJ)

• Seattle's schools are suing tech giants for harming young people's mental health (NPR)

• As police in Idaho faced mounting criticism, investigators worked meticulously behind the scenes to nab a suspect (CNN)

• ‘It’s going to be dirty’: Republicans gear up for attack on Hunter Biden (Guardian)

• 2023 could be the year that exposes populism for the sham that it is (Fareed Zakaria/WP)

• The January 6 Attack Is Not Over (Atlantic)

• Donald Trump ordered by judge to face New York fraud lawsuit (Reuters)

• Bolsonaro backers storm Brazil’s congress, court, presidential office (WP)

• Brazilian troops clear Bolsonaro supporters' camp after capital stormed (Reuters)

• Military Investigation Reveals How the U.S. Botched a Drone Strike in Kabul (NYT)

• Great Salt Lake on track to disappear in five years, scientists warn (WP)

• Wild Weather Swings Are Robbing California of Its Trees (NYT)

• Strange New Snake Species Dubbed Primitive 'Relic of Time' (Newsweek)

• This Frozen Cave Lion Is So Well Preserved You Can Still See Its Whiskers (ScienceAlert)

• Scientists Report a Dramatic Drop in the Extent of Antarctic Sea Ice (InsideClimateNews)

• British Company Develops First Tractor in the World to be Completely Powered by Cow Dung (GoodNewsNetwork)

• This small box could be the future of building in outer space (WP)

• Maze With Cheese In Center Enters Human Trials Following Decades Of Testing On Mice (The Onion)

Isolating the Fringe

Let’s turn this on its head.

Having watched virtually every twist and turn of the GOP speakership drama, the main conclusion I can draw is not that the system is “broken” but that it held. It may have taken a long time and allowed figures like Gaetz and Boebert to get national media exposure, but in the end, the party that prevailed in the midterms elected its leader as speaker.

More importantly, the extremist faction of the Republican Party after a few moments in the spotlight was banished back to the shadows — for now.

Many are saying that the speaker’s role that McCarthy now holds is vastly weakened from what it was, but that is unclear at this juncture. Pelosi survived some close calls in her party’s fight to choose its leader in the past and that didn’t ultimately diminish her influence, which was substantial over many years.

Meanwhile, the ongoing threat to democracy was beaten back and forced into remission once again. Trump’s clones caused a fuss but were humiliated in the end. As a result, I doubt we’ll be hearing all that much from the clownish fringe for at least a little while.

And that, my friends, would be a blessing. Because the threat remains.

LINKS:

• House Speaker Fight Could Preview Months of Turmoil (WSJ)

• Inside the House GOP's speakership crisis (Politico)

• Kevin McCarthy, a divided GOP and the curse of Jan. 6 (WP)

• Biden aides struggle to respond to Taliban’s latest curbs on women (Politico)

• In Kabul, Taliban rulers are changing the face of the capital (WP)

• ‘Holy grail’ wheat gene discovery could feed our overheated world (Guardian)

• California’s not done. Three more atmospheric rivers are on the way. (NYT)

• California’s deadly floods won’t break the megadrought (Vox)

• Sex Trafficking Row Helped Fuel Gaetz’s Hatred for McCarthy (Rolling Stone)

• Bryan Kohberger case: Why didn't Idaho roommate call 911 after encountering masked madman? (Fox)

• What Snow Days Mean to Adults (Atlantic)

• COVID Is Doing Something to Our Sleep, And Even to Our Dreams (ScienceAlert)

• RSV recedes and flu peaks as a new COVID variant shoots 'up like a rocket' (NPR)

• China in talks with Pfizer for COVID drug (Reuters)

• China suspends social media accounts of COVID policy critics (AP)

• Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff hints at more potential layoffs after this week’s job cuts (CNBC)

• McDonald’s CEO says layoffs are coming (CNN)

• Harvard blocks role for former Human Rights Watch head over Israel criticism (Guardian)

• Sparrows and Bradleys for Ukraine (Reuters)

• Moscow’s war in Ukraine brought harsh tactics against gay Russians at home (NYT)

• Mystery of why Roman buildings have survived so long has been unraveled, scientists say (CNN)

• Space mining startups see a rich future on asteroids and the moon (Space.com)

• A New Approach to Halting the Effects of Aging: Boosting Immune Cells Improves Brain Waste Clearance (SciTechDaily)

• Alzheimer’s drug that slows cognitive decline gets FDA approval (WP)

• The ozone layer was destroyed during Earth's biggest mass extinction (New Scientist)

• Most species evolve by adapting to similar, large-scale environmental pressures, study finds (Phys.org)

• Prince Harry's memoir is anything but spare (Reuters)

• Shower Head Snarls Like Vicious Jungle Cat Before Turning On (The Onion)