Poet Of The Wastes: Spilling the Beans

Today I listened to an episode of "Democracy Now" on my iPod while I picked trash on South St. It was a heated conversation between Gloria Steinem and Melissa Harris-Lacewell (Associate Professor of Politics and African American Studies at Princeton University) about their respective support of Clinton and Obama.

Harris-Lacewell's criticism of both Steinem and Clinton were, I thought, harsh; she said Clinton is trying to "have it both ways" by claiming to be qualified based on her own life's experience and at the same time profiting from her political exposure as 'Bill's wife'. I see no reason for her not to advertise both. But I appreciated and agreed with much of what she said about the overlooked intersection of race and gender and liked her broad perspective. I'll vote for Obama myself (if I don't vote for Kucinich). Steinem had great things to say about unity (that feminists need to maintain open discussion and good relationships in spite of disagreements) but, in the end, didn't seem to agree with Clinton on political issues (for example, the fact that she voted for war.)

This is one of my favorite trees, next to the barrel on Peter's hill: the honeylocust.