Miles Davis, photographed in 1957, the year he went to Paris and recorded the soundtrack for the French film  Ascenseur pour l'échafaud.

The original 1959 cover of Kind of Blue, by Miles Davis.  Interestingly (if you're Thee Optimist), the cover has the song list on it.  L...

The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band plays during the 2022 Highland Park Fourth of July parade.  At first, the musicians didn't hear the gunf...

The six conservative members of the United States Supreme Court emerge to announce their ruling on  Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Org...

Thomas D. Rice, a white entertainer in blackface, depicted as his popular minstrel slave character "Jim Crow," circa 1830s.

Look familiar?  This woman does not exist.  She was generated by an artificial intelligence that combines random human features, based on pa...

Thee Optimist in the cockpit, giving the thumbs up.  All systems go.  Welcome to the blog post where Thee Optimist simply uploads GoPro (kno...

This is David Achter de Molen, singer of the now-defunct Dutch rock band John Coffey, walking on the crowd at the Pinkpop Festival in 2015. ...

  "Who can stand before his indignation? Who can confront the heat of his fury? His wrath pours out like fire; the rocks are shattered ...

Life isn't always like this.  Which is too bad.

This is 18-year-old Payton Gendron, the young man who killed 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket on Saturday.  He chose this image, posing wi...

This interview with Thee Optimist appeared on a website called Disinformation, in September of 2015.  It is about the implications of my nov...

Guest Post by Brian Whitney   Author Brian Whitney doing what he does best. "I am what is commonly known as a binge drinker." 

 

Pepe the Frog looks out at a nuclear inferno over his city.  Pepe was a popular right-wing meme during the Trump years, although Thee Optimi...

It's been clear for some time that IQs are dropping across the Western world.  Now, at least in America, we have a hint about one of the...

  Click to enlarge. Words of Wisdom “Accept the truth from whatever source it comes.” - Moses Maimonides

Ruh-roh.  Turns out the BIG 5 nuclear powers aren't as stable as we might like.  And the others (call them the small 4)?  They are all a...

Click to enlarge.   Words of Wisdom "A nuclear weapons free world is not a dream, but a necessity for human survival.  We need to stop ...

Remember how she said that we would meet again some sunny day? Has Putin had a stroke?  He seems a little off these days.  Nuclear threats a...

The gruesome faces of evil: Mortimer Sackler Jr., and his wife Jacqueline Sackler.  The 40 or so members of the Sackler family have been th...

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  Click to enlarge.

Fahrenheit 451: Followers of Christian pastor Greg Locke toss books onto a bonfire in Nashville suburb Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, on February 2...

DJ Ferguson is a 31-year-old Massachusetts man, a father of two children, with a third on the way.  He is in heart failure, and is being den...

A tearful William Shatner (yes, of Captain Kirk fame) bleats on about something while vulture capitalist Jeff Bezos daydreams of tearing int...

Earthrise, a photograph taken from lunar orbit by the Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders , on December 24, 1968.  At the time, this pic was t...

This hideous piece of trash cheapens the symbol of America.  It is also against the law.  And yet, they keep doing it, over and over again. ...

Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy.  Memphis Minnie wrote the original version of "When the Levee Breaks," and recorded it in 1...

Albert Einstein, age 42.  Einstein may have been the smartest human who has ever lived.  To paraphrase No Country for Old Men : "If he ...

A Nazi storm trooper holds a gun to the head of the 13-year-old boy Flyora in Come and See, the most harrowing war movie you will ever see. ...

I feel lucky already.

Khloe Kardashian is one of the world famous Kardashian sisters, who are wonderful influences on girls and women everywhere.  Khloe consisten...

Giant sequoia trees at Calaveras Big Trees State Park in California.  We have a lot to learn, and trees can help us. 

April 15, 1912 edition of The World newspaper.  Headline, "above the fold," as people used to say.  More than 1,500 people died in...

We have another winner: 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long of Georgia is a young guy with a bad beard.  He shot and killed eight people at Atlant...

Studies show that being thankful for things will change your life.  Ready?  Me, too.

Elephant in Kruger National Park.  Southern African elephants are the largest land animals, and thought to be among the most intelligent ani...

Mug shot of Rush Limbaugh after a 2006 arrest for possession of more than 2,000 pills obtained under fake prescriptions.  Opiate addict, out...

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Christopher Thomas Knight, aka the North Pond Hermit, in custody of beefy Maine game wardens, April 2013.  Knight spend 27 years without hum...

Unfortunately, you don't usually get this kind of early warning when you have high blood pressure.  But if you do, one way to beat it is...

  This week, the ageless wonder Tom Brady is back in the Super Bowl for what seems like the 57th time, and with a different team.  No one un...

They be some COVID-19 cowboys in Texas.  Texans were early adopters of the Great Reopening of America, once again proving that big hats do...

Unidentified old man lays on the ground and bleeds from the head in Buffalo after tough guy cops half his age pushed him down.

No doubt about it, Donald Trump is the President of the United States.  He is therefore in charge of the Great American Coronavirus Res...