Even people who would describe themselves as consistently happy can run into issues with a marriage partner. We are different people, and some friction and disagreements are inevitable between people who spent a lot of years together. It may be even truer now that we're living longer, and many of us are determined not to add to the divorce statistics compiled by our parents' generation. Psychologist Daphne de Marneffe used the obvious phrase for her book title: The Rough Patch . The author

The Modoc War of the 1870s gets lots of attention from historians, archaeologists, and just folks. It was a major episode in the defeat of Native Americans at the hands of the federal government, resulting in their movement to reservations. And it is the focus of this month's edition of Underground History, our regular visit with Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology (SOULA) . Chelsea Rose and Mark Tveskov bring in Eric Gleason, who's been doing research on the Modoc War.

If there was any doubt, our series of interviews "Out in the Cold" has confirmed that every part of our region includes homeless people among its inhabitants. We turn our attention to Klamath County, taking in issues for homeless people both young and old. Older people face challenges with age-related health issues, in fact sometimes end up homeless because of those issues. Meanwhile, families with children struggle to keep up with school when permanent shelter is an issue. Klamath and Lake

Put the United States 2016 election aside for a moment and consider the rest of the world. Countries that we once thought of as reliable democracies are taking turns for the autocratic and nationalistic. Even Germany has far-right groups in parliament for the first time since the demise of the Nazis. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt track the longstanding erosion of political norms in their book How Democracies Die .

Bit by bit, emergency service providers and families in the region prepare for what could be a very big earthquake: a movement along the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Other parts of the country do not have the localized risk we face. But they do have something we don't: a major increase in seismic activity in recent years. The more frequent quakes appear to be "induced" quakes, caused by human activities like wastewater injection at petroleum sites. U.S. Geological Survey spends money and staff time

Maybe you're the kind of person who appreciates winter weather far from the beaten path. If so, would you mind measuring some snow while you're out there? No joke here; Community Snow Observations is a citizen science project enlisting the help of backcountry skiers, snowshoers, and other winter recreationists to measure snowpack. Scientists and telemetry sites can't cover all the places where snow fall, so this is where the amateurs come in.

As one of the more-populated counties in the region, Jackson County also has a higher population of homeless people. A Homeless Task Force formed years ago, with the goal of getting street people off the streets. They remain, and have been the target of new laws, like exclusion zones in Medford and Ashland. Our survey of homeless people and services, Out in the Cold, surveys Jackson County issues and offerings in this joint interview.

Ski season took a while, but it's finally getting close. Shasta Ski Park announced plans to open for the season on Wednesday (later pushed back to Friday, January 26), while Mt. Ashland Ski Area could open the slopes to visitors later this week if the expected storms deliver the expected snow. Both ski areas are geared to open between Thanksgiving and mid-December, but the weather did not cooperate... and even with recent storms, snow coverage figures to be less than optimum. Hiram Towle is the

The Northern spotted owl seems to get it from all sides. Habitat loss and the encroachment of the barred owl have contributed to a continued decline in spotted owl numbers. Now the illegal marijuana trade appears to be having an impact as well. Spotted owls that gobble up rodents poisoned at illegal grow sites test positive for rodenticide. A study from the University of California-Davis tracks the occurrence in Humboldt, Mendocino, and Del Norte counties.

Being able to communicate with each other by speaking made a big difference in our development as a species. But when we turned our pictures into words and communicated through writing... that opened up a whole new dimension. Martin Puchner, editor of The Norton Anthology of World Literature, takes us on a writing appreciation tour in his new book The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, Civilization . His survey covers stories from the earliest civilizations, through