… and speculating when Rehnquist will announce his resignation:

* Miss America, formerly without a network to call home, has been picked up by Country Music Television and will air on the basic cable channel in January. Lisa de Moraes writes in the Washington Post:

CMT’s vice president of programming, Paul Villadolid, had this to say: “Miss America is an important institution that really appeals to heartland sensibilities.

“We share their core values and reflect their lifestyles,” he said, which includes “celebrating small-town sensibilities,” rooting for the underdog and “remaining very positive and optimistic.”

No word on whether those core values include increasingly skimpy swimsuits; last year the show raised eyebrows for aggressive conservation of fabric in the suits the contestants were made to wear.

* “I think that the Miss America pageant has run its course,” Lisa Ades, director of Miss America, a PBS American Experience documentary, tells the Washington Post in a separate story. “I wish I could say that the audience has waned because there are so many opportunities for women and we don’t need beauty pageants as a way to get ahead. But the truth is that interest has waned because it’s simply not sexy enough.”

* “Whether they call it a victory for porcelain proportionality, squatters’ rights or potty parity, wait-weary women — and their impatient male companions — are greeting a new [New York City] restroom-equity law here with a deep sigh of relief,” writes Lisa Anderson in the Chicago Tribune. “New York City is the latest in a lineup of several municipalities, including Chicago, and more than 20 states where problems with public privies have prompted politicians to provide facilities for women that still may be separate but, finally, are more equal. In this case, equality means making access to toilets as timely for women as it is for men.”

Don’t miss page 2 of the article, where there’s some good historical discussion of the bathroom as battleground.

* These tots are preparing early for public privies: meet the kids of the diaper-free movement.

* “While its frustrating that the burgeoning third-wave feminism of the early ’90s underground gave way to poetaster acts like Jewel and Sarah MacLachlan, and while it pains me that I have to discount everything Morissette has since said and done to maintain this belief, I still hold that Jagged Little Pill is pure feminist punk rock,” writes Jodie Janella Horn. Just don’t expect her to buy the acoustic version exclusive to Starbucks.

* Add to that “Breaking Up Is Not BreakingAway: The Pseudo-Empowerment of Kelly Clarkson” from PopPolitics.

* Did you know Pink proposed to her boyfriend? He said yes. Mazel Tov!

* Women are hot. When they grill, of course.