As many of you are by now aware, President Bush today named Judge Samuel Alito as his next nominee to the Supreme Court, replacing Harriet Miers. Here’s what the Human Rights Campaign and Lambda Legal have to say about the choice, seeing Alito as a choice of the far right and raising a number of “red flags” for GLBT Americans. The National Stonewall Democrats the grassroots Democratic organization, has raised concerns because of Alito’s conservative record, but urges cautious judgement. No statement by their Republican counterpart, the Log Cabin Republicans, as of this writing.

Let’s face it: You’ve probably gotten your kids costumes weeks ago, in time for all the pre-Halloween Halloween parties. Now the big day is here, and you have nothing to wear to greet trick-or-treaters at the door. Here are a few ideas, all cheap and easy.

• Transform a white bedsheet into a ghost or (if you don’t want to cut eyeholes) a toga. Toga accoutrement: Crown your head with a circle of houseplant for a real “Julius Caesar” look. (Bay leaves glued to a hairband will work, too.)
• Cut a few yards of raffia into six-inch lengths, and use packing tape to secure them half underneath the cuffs and collar of an old flannel shirt. Put a bandanna around your neck and voila! You’re a scarecrow. If you own a lipstick you can paint red circles on your cheeks. Bonus points if you can get your partner to wear a blue gingham dress and red shoes.
• Out-of-place sports equipment is always good: snorkel mask and flippers, or ski mask and boots.
• Basic black and a couple of construction-paper triangles make a good cat. (If you don’t have tail material, tell people you’re a Manx.)
• Cut leg and arm holes into one of those orange leaf-collection bags that have pumpkin faces printed on them. Stuff with newspaper and secure (loosely) around your neck. (Don’t try this one for a kids’ costume.)
• A fat indelible marker and a white t-shirt can be almost anything: a lab coat (draw lapels and a pocket), a cell phone (buttons and a screen), a road map–you name it.
• Write a to-do list (”Fold laundry,” “Pick up groceries,” etc.) on a large piece of paper, and tape it to your chest. You’re the homosexual agenda.

Don’t let the kids have all the fun (and make sure to save a few pieces of candy for yourself, too).

All you busy moms out there: Don’t forget that you should have changed your clocks back last night. Yes, it’s that time of year when you get out of work in the dark and your kids have approximately five minutes of outdoor playtime after school, daycare, or nap. On the positive side, you may have had the opportunity for an extra hour of sleep today, if you remembered and your kids are of an age when they won’t wake you up early anyway.

Don’t forget to use this as a reminder to change your smoke detector batteries.

WNBA multiple-MVP winner and three-time Olympic medalist Sheryl Swoopes has just come out in an interview with ESPN The Magazine. She joins Michele Van Gorp and Sue Wicks as the only out members of the league. Swoopes’ announcement coincides with an endorsement by Olivia Cruises and Resorts, who also endorse Martina Navratilova and golfer Rosie Jones. Swoopes will be traveling on Olivia’s Mexican Riviera Cruise October 29-November 5. (Funny how I got the 2006 Olivia catalog in the mail today, too. Those clever marketers. I’ll give Olivia an unsolicited plug, however, and say my partner and I had a great time on their Eastern Carribean Cruise last year, even though we’re not really cruise types.)

This also means, of course, that Swoopes is a mombian. (Small “m”; she’s not affiliated with this site, though if she wanted to be, we’d be happy to have her.) She and her partner of seven years, Alisa Scott, are raising Swoopes’ eight-year-old son by a previous marriage.

I’ve always enjoyed watching Swoopes play ball, although I’ve been a New York Liberty fan, not a Houston one, since the league started. She has a grace beneath her power that makes her a joy to watch. (I’ll stop there; my partner reads this blog, too.) Kudos to her for her courage in coming out.

The Olivia site has links to more news coverage of Swoopes’ announcement.

The moms’ group I belong to had a thread on its message board recently about using duct tape to secure diaper tabs. I happened to mention this in an e-mail to Erica over at Lifehacker, and she said it’s a trick she’s used herself. She was kind enough to mention me in her post about it. (My own recent duct tape accomplishment was to wrap a two-liter soda bottle in the stuff to make a “fire extinguisher” for my son’s Halloween firefighter ensemble. Mostly silver, with two stripes of the trendy new red color.)

Posted on my Salty Snack science and technology blog: Periods, Brain Activity, and a Female President, a note about some recent research on our favorite (!) monthly event.

The Guardian has a lengthy article today on the effect of advertising, particularly food advertising, on kids. (It has a U. K. perspective, and mentions some U. K.-specific findings, but most of its major points apply equally to the U. S. and elsewhere.) While some blame advertising for children’s obesity, unhealthy materialism, and dissatisfaction with what they (or their parents) have to spend, others say there are many factors that impact these outcomes. Advertising, they claim, can in fact help children learn to become discerning consumers.

I feel that advertising to kids should be limited, especially when it comes to food items that can have a direct impact on their health. I’m also realist enough to believe that advertising to children is not going to go away anytime soon. Let’s face it, with the government cutting (or threatening to cut) funding to PBS, I’m reluctant to stop McDonald’s from sponsoring Sesame Street and putting a short promo at the end of each episode. At the same time, I’ll be there with the remote control to turn off the TV before the promo plays. My son has yet to eat at a McDonald’s, and I’m happy to keep it that way.

Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks has died of natural causes at age 92. As we continue to fight for civil rights for all, may we not forget those who have gone before us.

As National Breast Cancer Awareness Month draws to a close, I want to mention that Melissa Etheridge is donating all of her record royalties from her new song “I Run for Life” to breast cancer charities, along with 100% of of the proceeds from download sales of the song at www.fordcares.com and the iTunes Music Store for the month of October. The song appears on her new album Greatest Hits: The Road Less Traveled. (If you don’t know who Melissa Etheridge is, you’ve probably stumbled upon the wrong blog.)

The Huggies Baby Network recently featured an article by Lisa Beamer titled “The Greatest Things About Girls.” It horrified me, frankly, to see yet another example of how people even now smother their children in traditional gender roles. Here are some select quotes:

I loved having my boys, but after several years of trucks, dinosaurs and dirty fingernails, my thoughts immediately jumped to all of the things that typified little girls for me: dresses, hair ribbons and shopping sprees, just to name a few. I’ve not been disappointed, as my daughter loves pretty clothes as well as accompanying me to the mall. She’s my shadow when I cook and clean, and we enjoy “girl time,” painting our fingernails and playing with her dolls. . . .

Overwhelmingly, little girls invoke memories of playing dress up with dolls from our younger years. April Schmidt says of her now grown daughter, “It was like my favorite dolly from childhood came to life.”

. . . Aside from playing with dolls, there are other fun activities that seem tailor made for moms and their girls. Says Betty Kunze of her elementary-aged daughter, “She enjoys baking and cooking. Since these are some of my favorite activities too, its [sic] a lot of fun to do them with her.”

. . . “Although the modern generation might not agree with my thinking,” says Terry, “It is nice after spending so much time teaching my boys to be tough, to turn around and teach my girls that softness is not a weakness,” a lesson our daughters need to learn.

Hmm. So girls should be treated like dolls, taught to shop and paint their nails, cook and be soft. Granted, there are many girls who like frills and shopping–but how many would like trucks and dinosaurs, too, given the chance? As far as cooking, my son loves to help me in the kitchen, and I don’t view this as a gender-specific activity at all. Furthermore, shouldn’t we teach both our boys and girls that there’s a time to be soft and a time to be tough?

This is not to deny that gender differences do exist, but they are not so absolute as this article proclaims. I do think children tend to gravitate towards one parent or the other for different needs. For children of opposite-sex parents, this may work along gender lines, or it may depend, as it does for children of same-sex parents, on the specific personalities and interests of each person.

Towards the end, Beamer does make mention of the increased opportunities available for women these days, but the point seems weak after such a fine defense of traditional roles. Do we as same-sex parents have an easier time exposing our children to the full range of options open to them, because we ourselves have gone down non-traditional paths? Or do we risk going too far in the opposite direction? I’d like to think that if I had a girl, and she wanted to wear pink and play with a Princess Barbie, I’d let her do so–but I admit, part of me would wince. I hope I’ve struck a balance with my son, who is nutty about backhoes, fire engines and trains, but also likes to cook, helps me with the grocery shopping, and makes his teddy bears kiss each other. There’s always a three-way tug-of-war between what society expects from our children, what we want for them, and what they want for themselves. I hope all parents, of whatever orientation or identity, are able to guide their children through these competing forces in a way that lets them thrive as their true selves.