Archives › 2006 › July
School-Lunch Monitoring
Should parents be able to prevent their children from buying certain items in the school cafeteria? Newsweek reports on a new cafeteria checkout system that monitors what each child eats so that parents can view the information online. This could provide the opportunity for discussion about healthy eating choices, although it does seem a bit
Allied Against the Mommy Wars and for LGBT Rights
Like most observers of a war that doesn’t directly involve them, I thought I was safe. The “Mommy Wars” pitting employed mothers against stay-at-homes, accusing the latter of betraying feminism, didn’t seem to apply to me. While I was indeed a stay-at-home mom, I thought that by doing so as a lesbian I was transforming [...]
Weekly Political Roundup
This week’s headliner was the unfortunate Washington marriage ruling, about which I wrote earlier. It’s on to the legislature for our friends in the West. In other news: In politically relevant religious news, the Episcopalian Bishop of Arkansas has endorsed “blessing ceremonies” for same-sex couples. He notes that no formal rites exist for such ceremonies, [...]
Writer Seeks Stories on Outings With Kids
From ParentHacks comes a note about writer Barbara Aria, who is seeking stories about how to take young children on “grown-up” outings—to museums, restaurants, shopping, etc. She’s using them in an article for an unspecified women’s magazine. I think it’s important for us lesbian moms to have our voices heard on general parenting issues, as [...]
HRC Redesigns Site, Adds Resources
The Human Rights Campaign launched a redesigned Web site this week, going for a cleaner, bolder look, with news items front and center. It’s more, well, blog-like. Truth be told, I kind of miss the organization by issue—work, family, community, coming out—that they used to have. These topics are still there, in a “Hot Issues” [...]
Ways to Avoid Domestic Boredom
There’s been some buzz around the blogosphere today about moms who are either bored by their children, or (less controversially) by the domestic tasks accompanying motherhood. Both Blogging Baby and MotherTalkers already have good comment threads going on the subject (and opinions are strong), so I thought I’d take a different approach, and share some [...]
Overdoing It
Word to the wise: Never work out the day of a marriage-equality defeat. Doubly so if you watched Workout the night before. Creaking to the bathroom to pop some Ibuprofen. . . . Will post again later, if my arms still work.
Monopoly Offers Visa Debit Card Instead of Cash
A fun, somewhat nostalgic post to take our minds off the dismal Washington marriage ruling. If you’re in the U. K., you can now buy a version of Monopoly with a Visa debit card reader instead of cash. (Thanks to Boing Boing for the tip.) The electronic version is priced around twice as much as [...]
Washington Supreme Court Upholds Same-Sex Marriage Ban
Well, they’ve done it again. Just like the New York Court of Appeals, the Washington state Supreme Court upheld the state’s same-sex marriage ban, citing “the State’s legitimate interests in procreation and the well-being of children.” News flash: We’re here, we’re queer, and many of us are procreating. In some cases, we’re raising children other [...]
Washington to Announce Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Tomorrow
Tomorrow, the Washington state Supreme Court will announce its decision in Andersen v. King County, a consolidated case regarding Washington’s Defense of Marriage Act. (Thanks to Pam’s House Blend for the heads up.) Equal Rights Washington has information on events and gatherings around the state, which they will keep updated. As lesbian moms, we’re used [...]
Coloring-Page Picks
There are a ton of kids’ coloring pages on the Web. Google “coloring pages” and you’ll get enough to use up an entire box of 64 colors (or 96, or whatever they’re up to these days.) The quantity can be overwhelming, so here’s a roundup of some topic-specific pages I particularly like. The Official FDNY [...]
In the U. K., the National Union of Teachers (NUT) says teachers should challenge gender stereotyping and intolerant language as early as preschool. Pinknews.co.uk quotes the NUT’s report: Research shows that children as young as five begin to display disapproval of peers’ role-inconsistent behaviours and are self-critical when judging how they would feel if they [...]
Hormone Supplements May Carry Breast-Cancer Risks
New findings add to the evidence that certain hormone supplements, particularly those combining estrogen and testosterone, increase women’s risk of breast cancer, strokes, and heart attacks. This week’s Archives of Internal Medicine reports on a study that found post-menopausal women who took such pills more than doubled their risk of breast cancer, even taking other [...]
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie: Free Musical in NYC
I usually steer clear of posting about strictly local activities, but New York City gets enough visitors that I though this might be of more general interest. Let’s hear it for sponteneity. My partner read a review of the new, free, summer theater production of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie in Saturday’s New [...]
Free Super Saver Shipping Now at Amazon Baby Store
A weekend penny-saving note: Amazon has relaunched their Baby Store, and for the first time, baby products qualify for free Super Saver Shipping and Amazon Prime. They also have a new Baby Registry. (The registry equitably asks for the gender-neutral information of “You” and “Co-registrant.”) If you’re expecting or adopting a baby for the first [...]
Weekly Political Update
The U. S. House of Representatives defeated a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. The Senate had earlier done the same, making the House vote purely political. Indeed, Republicans are already promising to use Democrats’ opposition to the amendment as fodder for this fall’s congressional elections. By a slim margin, Patricia Todd (D) appears to [...]
Sunday Is National Parents’ Day
President Bush has declared this Sunday, July 23, to be National Parents’ Day. He says, in part: I call upon citizens, private organizations, and governmental bodies at all levels to engage in activities and educational efforts that recognize, support, and honor parents. Recognize? When some states ban LGBT people from foster parenting, second-parent adoptions, or [...]
Book Recommendations: Trains and Fire Trucks
My son’s book collection is full of classics, like the works of Dr. Seuss and Eric Carle. He has a number of Caldecott and Newbery Award winners. Sometimes, however, it’s fun to find books that may be just shy of top-tier classics, yet still have something to recommend them. Often, these books, especially if they’re [...]
Quotable Quotes on Same-Sex Marriage
From the New York Times’ coverage of the Federal Marriage Amendment defeat in the House: Georgia Representative Phil Gingrey (R) said support for traditional marriage “is perhaps the best message we can give to the Middle East and all the trouble they’re having over there right now.” Yes, because when people are blowing each other [...]
Atticus Circle Organizes Straight Allies for LGBT Rights
It’s nice to have allies. A new grassroots network of straight allies, Atticus Circle, is expanding their fight for LGBT rights beyond their home state of Texas. The organization hopes to have national impact on education, policy development and legal advocacy to achieve equality for all parents and partners, regardless of sexual orientation. Its founder, [...]
Workout Premieres Tonight
Unless you’ve been completely out of touch with lesbian culture in the past week (and if you are, you probably aren’t reading this blog), you’ll know that tonight is the premiere of Bravo’s new docudrama, Workout, starring Hollywood fitness trainer and out lesbian Jackie Warner. If you want more of the inside scoop, you can [...]
Technical Difficulties
Apologies to those of you who tried to visit the site last night but couldn’t. My Web host was having some serious problems. This is the first major issue I’ve had with them, so I’m going to give them another chance. Web outages are never fun, but it’s hard to avoid them entirely, no matter [...]
History Is Written By the Winners
Just when I think I can’t get any more exasperated at educational policy after President Bush’s No Child Left Behind program, along comes his brother. Jeb Bush and the Florida legislature are embracing the victor’s privilege of dictating history. Last month, Jeb signed a bill stating that “American history shall be viewed as factual, not [...]
FMA Defeated in House
Ignore the last post. The forces of good have prevailed, and the Federal Marriage Amendment was defeated in the House 236-187. You can use the HRC Web site to find out how your representative voted, and thank or chastise him or her.
House FMA Vote Is Today
A quick alert that the House vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment is today. The Senate voted a month ago not to proceed with a full vote on the amendment, effectively killing it. This means the House vote is purely for political posturing. Given the recent state-level setbacks, though, a defeat of the FMA in [...]
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