Statue of Liberty - Norman Rockwell, 1940

The Tiger of Ryōkoku - Utagawa Hirokage, 1860 Woodblock print

Still one of the best Norm Macdonald jokes: www.youtube.com/shorts/Zyaf1...

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

ATTN: great things are again happening in China, ice level 🇨🇳

To some young people living in democracies, authoritarianism may seem like a long-forgotten part of their country’s history.

Woman With Serpent — Kajetan Stefanowicz, 1915

This. Don’t help Republicans suppress The vote. We are going to vote. We are going to win.

Je découvre l'architecte Freddy Mamani et je suis fan. Apparemment ça s'appelle le mouvement néo-andean et c'est trop beau.

Gloria Swanson in Manhandled (1924)

Such is the outrage in Denmark over both Trump’s desire for Greenland and disparaging remarks about NATO that one of the country’s leading newspapers devoted their Saturday front and plenty of room inside to the bios of all 44 Danes slain during NATO missions in support of the US

For most of human history, people only ever experienced awe commingled with ignorance and fear, from which they distracted themselves by calling it “god” or “gods” or “spirits”. We have the unprecedented privilege of experiencing awe commingled with understanding.

TRIPOD WALKER (2016)
 Acrylic on Watercolor Paper - 19" x 13"

 Painted on the back of a misprinted Dark Tower image I was using as a mixing palette of mostly white, yellow ocher, and raw umber. 1/4

i think this is exactly right. fascism is the Death Drive as ideology. it's why the catastrophic end of the Nazi Party does not deter people from worshipping Nazis. that the Nazis destroyed Germany along with the rest of Europe is part of the appeal.

Another sci-fi art legend leaves us. Goodbye Bob Layzell, Terran Trade Authority titan 04/05/1940-29/01/2026

friend of mine is an undocumented immigrant and has been hiding in Melania theaters bc he knows people assume no one is in there

"A society that mocks virtue prepares its own collapse." — Anonymous

Why I don't believe Jeffrey Epstein Killed Himself (Part 2) NEW: Epstein claimed he was being extorted in prison. A look at the incident and the mysterious note that Epstein slipped into a book inside his cell. open.substack.com/pub/jkbjourn...

Bob Layzell

“It’s not the painting, it’s the energy BEHIND the painting.” Ethan Hawke — on the limitations of AI art — is very good. 🔥 @vulture.com

Wikipedia is an antidote to an increasingly poisoned information ecosystem go.nature.com/4pXIv2d

JD Vance Places Candle Outside Hooters Where ICE Agents Were Heckled

WINDOW TO THE SUN (2006) Acrylic on Watercolor Board - 13" x 11" After my resolution to devote time to my gallery work, I obsessed with painting these passageways. It doesn't take a Sigmund Freud to figure out why. 1/3

Conservatives buying/smothering struggling legacy media platforms is a bit like the Grinch thinking the holiday spirit is just Christmas trees and decorations. Media is a function of all of us, we don’t “need” the Washington Post or CBS News. It’ll find a way.

There's a predictable approach to denial that we're already seeing, which I call the Four Pillars of Disordered Doubt, which allows actors to constantly question evidence that don't fit their preferred narratives.

I found this song for Renee Good and Alex Pretti moving and powerful. open.substack.com/pub/theunpop...

No comment on the NYT OpEd, but after reading all of Harry Potter aloud to my kids the first time as a parent I just started doing it again… and it’s great. Vivid and exciting and imaginative and perfectly pitched to a child’s perspective: everyone tells you you’re Special, but you don’t know how!

“What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.” — Albert Einstein

My nomination for the most influential scientific visualization ever produced. 🧪🌿🌎🪶🐡 #scicomm #sciviz #visualscicomm #sciviz #dinosaurs alwayssomethingtosee.substack.com/p/the-age-of...

Gold has overtaken the U.S. Dollar as the largest Global Reserve Asset 🚨🚨🚨

We are not going to have "GOP administrations forever" unless we descend into full chaos and dictatorship. Which is, to be clear, an alarming possibility, and higher probability than in recent memory. But it's still a tail outcome going forward, and treating it as a certainty strips you of agency.

One of the best things I’ve read in a while:

A relative of the sea elephant (Pterotracheoidea) is slowly gaining popularity in Japan🫧 ͛.* It drifts through the ocean, but despite its jellyfish like look, it’s actually a type of sea snail 🐚✨️

"The visions we offer our children shape the future. It matters what those visions are." — Carl Sagan

In this week’s newsletter, we examine an alternate approach to categorizing my art that goes beyond illustration and fine art. theartofmichaelwhelan.substack.com/p/a-question...

Bellingcat does good work. They're the ones who proved Russians shot down Malaysia airliner and who tracked and identified Russian attempted killers of Alexei Navalny. bsky.app/profile/did:...

Last chance to sign up for my art blog newsletter before the next issue's out tomorrow! 70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io It's about unusual depictions of dragons - some examples here from James Gurney, Philippe Caza, Max Henkle, and Den Beauvais.

"We lived happily during the war," Ilya Kaminsky

That tech oligarchs are noisy and incensed about the remote possibility of a wealth tax and utterly silent about the murder of a man who was only using the phone they invented to chronicle the thuggish government goon squads should tell you everything about these desiccated souls.

Gold is now 1.6x bigger than the Mag 7 by market cap (and way bigger than bitcoin, obviously) Augur Infinity

Nation Yearns For Relative Calm Of ‘President A Giant Pedophile’ News Cycle

it’s the part people overlook in Fukuyama’s End of History and the Last Man.

"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them." — Frank Herbert, Dune

In “simulation,” the functions invert. Verification becomes loyalty testing. Deliberation becomes spectacle. Accountability becomes partisan punishment. Democratic form remains, but democratic function is gone. Sound familiar? 🇺🇸

"In Chicago & Minneapolis we have seen bravery & initiative from normal people I never would have predicted. Democratic politicians & our business & technocratic elites should be shamed and humiliated by how normal people have met this moment" - @jvl.bsky.social www.thebulwark.com/p/how-the-me...

Tomorrow’s front page of the Minnesota Star Tribune: Jan. 23, 2026

DREAMSEEKER (2016) Acrylic - 24" x 18" The first of a possible series of paintings exploring my disillusionment with the "progress" of society. 1/2