Eclecticity: Stuff I Love

Hillary is kind of a badass… thought so before, but this pic is just great.
textsfromhillaryclinton:

Original image by Diana Walker for Time.

theancientworld:

Ceremonial Chair (The Elgin Throne)

Greek, 400 - 300 B.C.
Marble

The J. Paul Getty Museum

“A rare surviving example of Greek marble furniture, the Elgin Throneoriginally was placed in a public space in Athens, perhaps in the Theater of Dionysos, where it would have been a seat of honor. The decoration on the sides of the chair appears connected with this official function.”

Another thing I love, very deeply. Our Town by Thornton Wilder. Sure, maybe it is a bit sappy at the beginning, but it deals both with the big issues in life; mainly, what do we do while we’re here? Do we really squeeze the most out of every second of ours on this planet, or do we just live every day in ignorance of the scope of the importance of what it means to be alive? It opens the door to so many questions - Why bother with this whole living thing anyways? What should we really go after in life? What do we lose with death? What, if anything, remains? What is it to be a good person? Who will remember us, you and me? Probably no one. Even our presidents, who’s gonna remember them, or us? What’s to say we won’t turn into Babylon to the people a couple thousand years from now? All I know of it frankly is that it was where Iraq is today and that it had hanging gardens, one of the wonders of the ancient world. Yet there were millions of Babylonians, and all are dead, and forgotten by all but a few highly specialized historians. This is a different age, that in which we live, surely, and our names and pictures will be preserved somewhere in some file, but for the people of the future, is it worth it to care, except that there was a state called the United States of America where electricity, industry, and, most importantly, the computer took off and spurred what will surely be the breakneck advancement of humanity in the next hundreds of years (where I hope to God we will be going into space more). Frankly, the United States may not exist in hundreds or thousands of years. Forget the scale of millions of years in which cosmic events are measured, but even on earth, civilization has been around only 10,000 years or so, and the United States some 234 years… Our Town makes you think, doesn’t it.

One of my favorite books… Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It gave me a real appreciation of Lincoln, of course, but also of William Henry Seward, his Secretary of State and former competitor for the Republican nomination. Also, it gave a great perspective on all the other major figures in his cabinet and in politics at the time, like the enormously influential Blair family (of the Blair House), or Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of Treasury.

My first reblog should be of this great whole cast scene from the beginning of the season. Such a wonderful image. Interesting to consider as a part of the characters’ psychological profiles how Dwight is the only one who is looking directly into the camera.

(via fuckyeahjimandpam)