Happy new year?
Links
If you want to understand what unfolded, I found this detailed timeline and map of the riot at the Capitol incredibly helpful for thinking it through.
These accounts from New York Times reporters and a photographer who were on the Hill Wednesday are horrifying — like something out of a movie or The Trial, where nobody comes to help and the police don’t believe you. (And if you haven’t seen this video Igor Bobic filmed of people entering the Capitol or this one of a photographer getting repeatedly pushed and shoved, it’s quite alarming.)
If you haven’t read about former senator Jack Danforth really exhaustively saying how much he regrets helping Josh Hawley, it’s interesting in this piece, which also has some interesting comments from newly elected Rep. Cori Bush.
This photo is really how I’ll always picture this whole thing.
My colleague Elamin Abdelmahmoud wrote a great piece about a very weird detail of the riot: that the mob got inside and spent so much time creating content for social media.
A Pennsylvania reporter rode a bus down to Washington with one of the people who died at the Capitol. The scene on the bus ride back described in this piece is also notable.
I was — weirdly — in Wilmington with Joe Biden on Wednesday, serving as the print pool reporter. A few thoughts on what it was like there.
This piece by McKay Coppins came out just before everything blew up, but has a bunch of interviews with people like Mitt Romney about why exactly — even without the violence — what was going on was a terrible idea.
Unrelated to the national situation, this is an incredibly lovely piece about the tennis writer Tom Perrotta, who died from brain cancer this last week, in particular in its description of a perfect night in Paris. His last piece for the Wall Street Journal is also worth reading.
And in pure, lighter material: Check out this before + after of a dining room in New Mexico.
Light book commentary
For work, we kindly got a holiday gift where we could order $100 of books. So I’m currently reading Uncanny Valley by Anna Weiner, and more on that soon.
A note on all this
Thanks for subscribing. Hope you enjoy. The goal here is just to offer up some links you may have missed, and maybe the occasional commentary on something in politics or a book I may have read that you, the reader, might enjoy. If you have thoughts on any of this, hit me up at katherinemillernyc@gmail.com or just tweet at me.