“Utilities earn substantial profits because regulators allow them to require ordinary people to pay more. Far from responding to an affordability crisis, electric utilities are helping to create it.” @nickbowlin.bsky.social on the soaring costs of utilities.

From this month’s Harper’s Index. harpers.org/harpers-inde...

“I did not see any Palestinians, but I read the Arabic scrawled on our cell walls. Beside one of the bunks, a previous prisoner had etched hon: ‘here.’” @vv1lder reported from a humanitarian convoy to Gaza, originally published in @JewishCurrents.

“A nonfiction book about fatherhood. Pages of notes, quotes, then ran aground, partly because everyone seemed to be thinking of writing the same book (but also never did). (2009)” From a list of projects undertaken and abandoned by Adam Smyth.

“The itinerant Friend’s spectacular style drew a steady drumbeat of new followers, many of them well-to-do merchants. In addition to offering the usual spiritual counsel, the Friend instructed them on cooking, farming, and tailoring.” —Dan Piepenbring

“In slot-machine experiments, we identified cognitive features of human gambling addiction, such as illusion of control, gambler’s fallacy, and loss chasing.” From a preprint study conducted by the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology.

“Perhaps the Trump-orchestrated ceasefire will stem the decline in Israel’s standing despite the country’s serial violations of the agreement. But the rot may have spread too far.” Andrew Cockburn reports on Charlie Kirk and the GOP’s cracked consensus on Israel.

“For about a month, nobody had any idea who had felled the tree, and nobody could work out why it had been done.” Rosa Lyster on the trial of the Sycamore Gap killers.

“For a night, lost treasures returned A chorus Pointing out the window one huge blurry arm Gifting me solitude and plenty” From a manuscript in progress by Riley Jones.

“Fireworks,” a photograph of Fort Knox, in Prospect, Maine, by Anastasia Samoylova, from her book Anastasia Samoylova: Atlantic Coast, which was published in November by Aperture and the Norton Museum of Art © The artist. Courtesy Aperture and the Norton Museum of Art

“Democrats resumed their old habits and capitulated to congressional Republicans to end the government shutdown, reminding everyone that despair is, in fact, a persistent theme of liberal politics.”—Thomas Frank

Oslo, a silk twill scarf by Salvatore Ferragamo, from the book It’s Snowing: Fashion, Art, Design and Winter Sports, which was published this month by Marsilio Arte. Courtesy D.A.P. buff.ly/IZbbNOC

“I have been here almost a year. I spend an afternoon transcribing agreements and I miss a comma. I know I have missed a comma, but I don’t go back to fix it. I like the missing comma. It gets me in the mood.” —Shane Kowalski ( @dieddisappointed.bsky.social )

“This is the frame of mind in which I am now turning once again to the completion of my work: I want to be destroyed by my Siegfried—in order to live for ever! O beauteous death!” —Richard Wagner

“The death or aging out (or buying out) of the final generation of serious and erudite editors has deeply changed the literary wing of trade publishing.” Vince Passaro on Malcolm Cowley and the dream of the American canon.

“Utilities and their investors will continue to benefit tremendously, thanks to a regulatory system that allows them to extract enormous profits from everyday people.” — @nickbowlin.bsky.social

“He would have made Dostoevsky’s head explode. He lied beyond the point of sense or even reason, conceding that, yes, that was his car at the site, and, yes, the video of the tree being sawed down was on his phone, but that none of this proved a thing.”

“The strength of the Republican appeal to isolationism is essentially one of political revenge, a feeling that now is the time to settle old scores and old grudges.” From Harper’s Magazine’s April 1951 issue.

“Vartkessian has spoken to jurors who meted out the ultimate penalty, and some of them wouldn’t think twice about doing it again. ‘Some people just need killing,’ one man told her.” Dan Piepenbring on Elizabeth Vartkessian’s The Deserving.

Little Storm, a painting by Laura Footes, whose work is on view through February 7 at SHRINE, in New York City © The artist. Courtesy SHRINE buff.ly/IZbbNOC

Every month in our Findings column, Rafil Kroll-Zaidi presents a constellation of the most—and least—important scientific discoveries. buff.ly/X67fmL3

“A change in the nature of isolationists should be noted. They certainly are no longer primarily anti-war and may even be more pro-war than other Americans.” From Harper’s Magazine’s April 1951 issue.

“Pundits and policy experts have likewise followed political science in its quest to marginalize humanistic learning. Political campaigns recruit technocratic wunderkinder, not humanists.” Jason Blakely on political science’s failure to grasp Trumpism.

“Her goal is not to proclaim their innocence but to explain who they were before they broke the Sixth Commandment, and who they have become since. She’s an all-in-one biographer, detective, therapist, chaplain, and hospice aide.” —Dan Piepenbring

“A New York Times/Siena College poll in September revealed that more Americans supported the Palestinians than Israel, and 40 percent believed that Israel was deliberately killing civilians.” Andrew Cockburn on Charlie Kirk and the GOP.

“A sense I’d tumbled Comically there from the sky Into my worn nest of cotton On my knees like new” From a manuscript in progress by Riley Jones.

“They’re like a shadow but with somethin’ in the shadow. I can’t say much more than that. Except it’s how they move across. They sorta drift like a balloon somebody’s lost.” From “Aliens in Mingus,” a new story by David Searcy.

“Very shortly, I shall be back at my work again like a man reborn. It is a marvelous passage I now have to resume composing!” Richard Wagner in a letter to Ludwig II, the king of Bavaria, who had paid off the composer’s debts.

“The satisfying melodrama of Trump as a figure of cartoonish evil had given way to an ugly, mundane reality: the forces of American conservatism had returned to Washington, and this time they seemed to know what they were doing.” —Thomas Frank harpers.org/archive/2026...

“I never get to know the heads’ names, nor do I see the heads attached to actual bodies. For all I know, they are floating heads passing by Frank’s old office.” From Are People Out There, by Shane Kowalski, which was published by @futuretensebooks.bsky.social.

“The Score is about the quantification of our achievements and essences—both in real life, where such quantification is soul-sucking, and in games, where it’s soul-expanding.” —Dan Piepenbring

“From a distance, it had seemed only baffling. Up close, though, I could see exactly why they might have done it: because the tree had been special.” Rosa Lyster on the trial of the Sycamore Gap killers.

“Chalma, Mexico,” a photograph by Graciela Iturbide, whose work is on view at ICP through January 12, 2026. Her monograph, Graciela Iturbide, was published by Editorial RM and Fundación MAPFRE last fall © The artist. Courtesy D.A.P. buff.ly/IZbbNOC

“Commitment to memorizing poems, aiming for one per week. Started with W. H. Auden’s ‘Musée des Beaux Arts,’ and did learn it, but didn’t find time to do any more poems and after a month couldn’t recall much of the Auden poem. (2020)” —Adam Smyth

“Beneath the sector’s undeniable need for new and upgraded infrastructure lies a deeper problem concerning how the industry makes its money.” @nickbowlin.bsky.social on the utility industry’s regulatory failures and the soaring cost of electricity.

BREAKING NEWS! Shane Kowalski has a story in Harper's Magazine. 🪇🎉 This is from @dieddisappointed.bsky.social's spanking new collection, Are People Out There. Check it out here, or read it at your grocery store soon...

“It is not a moral nor even an aesthetic requirement to dazzle, of course. The requirement is to be smart and, for the most part, correct.” Vince Passaro on Malcolm Cowley and the dream of the American canon.

“When LLMs were given the freedom to determine their own target amounts and betting sizes, bankruptcy rates rose substantially alongside instances of irrational behavior.” From a preprint study conducted by the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology.

“When it comes to Israel, there is no doubt that the Republican Party is facing a revolt spearheaded by its young supporters, a shift that has been long in the making.” Andrew Cockburn reports on Charlie Kirk and the GOP’s cracked consensus on Israel. buff.ly/m0Ij69M

“My sole reason for living is the wondrous love that descends upon me like drops of dew from the heart of my royal friend—as though from the lap of God—fructifying new seeds of life within me!” —Richard Wagner harpers.org/archive/2026...

“Why would they come to Mingus, anyway? Which is pretty close to nowhere. Wouldn’t nowhere do as well? Or maybe it does.” From “Aliens in Mingus,” a new story by David Searcy.

“Those with more refined tastes, such as a visiting French diplomat, found the Friend appealingly theatrical: ‘This soul from Heaven has chosen a rather beautiful body for its dwelling place.’” Dan Piepenbring reviews Nina Sankovitch’s Not Your Founding Father.

“The ‘soft’ approaches of the humanities (erudition in languages, history and culture, textual interpretation, philosophical awareness, and so on) were demoted in favor of a set of hardheaded, data-driven theories.” —Jason Blakely

“This complicates a desirable (and marketable) portrait of the Universal Public Friend as a queer torchbearer; the truth feels much more tangled.” Dan Piepenbring reviews Nina Sankovitch’s Not Your Founding Father.

“A museum director may have an easier time scraping together fifty million dollars for a new building than half a million for new toilets. Thus, unnecessary expansion is one of the shrewdest ways of funding necessary repair.”—Jackson Arn

In this week's Top 5: • Midair mayhem @newstatesman1913.bsky.social • Know when to fold 'em @slate.com • For art's sake @Economist.com • Breech of trust @theguardian.com • May it trees the court @harpers.bsky.social longreads.com/2025/12/19/t...

Power bills are sky-high, and data centers are to blame, right? Well, yes, but there's something else, upstream of the AI boom: a utility sector beholden to financial interests, resulting in massive corporate profits. I looked into this dynamic for @harpers.bsky.social harpers.org/archive/2026...

“Why would they come to Mingus, anyway? Which is pretty close to nowhere. Wouldn’t nowhere do as well? Or maybe it does.” From “Aliens in Mingus,” a new story by David Searcy. harpers.org/archive/2026...

“When utilities earn substantial profits, one might expect customers to see some relief in their monthly bills. But as a result of the ownership model of the utilities that serve most Americans, this is rarely what happens.” —@nickbowlin.bsky.social

“I felt that what I was hearing from the crowd was MAGA youth’s revulsion for America’s disastrous twenty-first-century wars, a seismic shift brought to a head by Gaza.” Andrew Cockburn reports on Charlie Kirk and the GOP’s stance on Israel. harpers.org/archive/2026...