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Worth watching: this interview with Dr. Maya Angelou that aired on tonight’s CBC News Sunday. A few key quotes:

When asked how she was able to make the distinction between race and gender in politics (which she thinks is irrelevant):

“I’m an intelligent person. I don’t have to follow what is done by other people. I have intelligence, and so I act intelligently.”

When asked whether Oprah Winfrey had asked her why she chose to support Hillary Clinton’s candidacy:

“She knows me. She knows I have a reason.”

When asked whether Oprah had asked her to justify her own political choice:

“Of course not. She knows I have a reason.”

When asked how she would answer critics who claimed she was betraying the African American community by choosing to support Clinton:

“I’m going to do what I think is right. I will do it because I have the courage to do so. Without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.”

She ends the interview by reciting an excerpt from “Still I Rise.”

(I still think Evan Solomon’s a twerp, but for the most part he did well in this interview.)

Obama’s vision of a ‘post-racial’ future seemed present in the crowd itself. Blacks and whites, young and old, all crammed into a grassy park in the centre of town. Hundreds more gathered outside, peering through the railings. One student wore a Kappa Alpha T-shirt, meaning he was from a college fraternity society who consider Confederate general Robert E Lee as a spiritual founder. ‘Now that is an amazing sight at an Obama rally,’ said one stunned local journalist.

Now, anyone who went to a predominately White university in the deep South (*raises hand*) knows why this is such a brain mangler, but for those of you who were fortunate enough not to have encountered any KAs in your life (that you know of), let me explain a bit about them.

This is the same fraternity that celebrates “Old South” days in which its members throw a parade, dress in Confederate gray, and generally make a racist rebel nuisance of themselves on campus. Robert E. Lee is their “spiritual founder”, ferchrissakes.

I have a little past history with KAs. Once, after the Clinton/Gore victory in 1992, Chuck, his roommate, and I took a celebratory lap through campus at Georgia Tech in Chuck’s car. We were honking the horns and had the windows down. As we drove past the KA house, someone threw something at the car.

My high school best friend and I used to make taunting KAs a sport. Once, we drove down to the University of Georgia, parked ourselves right out front of their big honking “way back down in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten” looking house and catcalled all the “fine and tasty looking white boys” that passed. Kim is a 6′1″ black woman and quite imposing. Me? I was short, dark, and round, sort of like a cannonball, if that helps you secure the picture in your mind. Did I mention that this was homecoming weekend at UGA?

But I digress.

That there are KAs attending an Obama rally doesn’t make me think of progress.

It makes me think they’re checking for weak links in his security detail.

(Via The Guardian.)

Michael David Murphy’s multimedia presentation of the Obama New Hampshire Returns Party in Atlanta, GA is definitely worth a look. I like that Murphy uses clothing to represent the diversity of Obama supporters.

Murphy recently had his gear stolen, but thanks to the power of the Internet, folks loaned him enough gear to shoot the Obama party, and will be able to cover campaign events in South Carolina over the weekend. Sometimes I love the internets.

(And yes, I’m going to photograph the serial numbers of all my gear right now. Thank goodness for my Polaroid camera.)

Frances Kissling, a 2007-2008 Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and former president of Catholics for a Free Choice pretty much sums up my own reasons why I can’t bring myself to support Hillary Clinton’s Presidential bid in “Why I’m still not for Hillary Clinton”:

When John Edwards stepped up to the podium to concede victory to Barack Obama, he said, ‘The one thing that is clear here in Iowa is that the status quo lost and change won.’ I do not want a feminism that is part of the status quo, and so I do not want the first woman president to be a Clintonian. Every time Hillary Clinton puts on the mantle of the Bill Clinton presidency and reminds us of how important it is to be practical and work with the other side to get things done, I think of every cowardly practical choice that Bill Clinton (or should I say the Clintons together) made. The ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ sellout of gays in the military; the abandonment of Lani Guinier; a failed healthcare reform package that would have sacrificed women’s reproductive health to the Catholic Church’s demands as moral arbiter; a welfare reform bill that actually hurt poor women and their families; and presidential approval of a permanent ban on Medicaid funds for poor women seeking abortions.

(Via Salon.)