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“It’s easy to forget now, when we’ve come so far, where now marriage is equal under the law—just how much courage was required for Ellen to come out on the most public of stages almost 20 years ago. Just how important it was not just to the LGBT community, but for all of us to see somebody so full of kindness and light, somebody we liked so much, somebody who could be our neighbor or our colleague or our sister challenge our own assumptions, remind us that we have more in common than we realize, push our country in the direction of justice. What an incredible burden that was to bear. To risk your career like that. People don’t do that very often. And then to have the hopes of millions on your shoulders. But it’s like Ellen says: We all want a tortilla chip that can support the weight of guacamole. Which really makes no sense to me, but I thought would brighten the mood, because I was getting kind of choked up. And she did pay a price—we don’t remember this. I hadn’t remembered it. She did, for a pretty long stretch of time—even in Hollywood. And yet, today, every day, in every way, Ellen counters what too often divides us with the countless things that bind us together—inspires us to be better, one joke, one dance at a time.” —President Obama awarding the Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian honor, to Ellen DeGeneres yesterday, along with 20 other Americans who have contributed to their fields.

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See the best tennis courts from the pages of Vogue, just in time for the French Open: here.

Photographed by Arthur Elgort, Vogue, 2003.

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Italian promotional poster for The Empire Strikes Back.

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Oh, sir, you were great.

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Touchdown dance.

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Delta takes us back to the 80s for its in-flight safety video.

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, New York

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In 1980, Burger King/Burger Chef released these Empire Strikes Back posters. The art was done by renowned fantasy artist Boris Vallejo.

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Chris Hadfield is a hero. A boss. The real deal. Not simply because he was Commander of the International Space Station, but for what he did while up there. Not content with being just “an astronaut,” he assumed the role of rock-star spaceman, conducting regular science-experiment videos from space, answering questions like, “What happens to tears in space?” Then, he gave us this: the first video from space. Watching Hadfield’s rendition of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” while orbiting the Earth is nothing short of sublime. Mr. Hadfield, you win 2013.

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The evolution of Miley Cyrus in one gif (via @iamandymcdonald)

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The Incredible Shrinking Man: Dutch artist Arne Hendriks is proposing “shrinking the human population to an average height of 50 centimetres as a way to reduce the amount of food and natural resources we consume.”

Brilliant.

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NYTimes: In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters

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