Nuggets & bites.

"People need to be allowed to be themselves, even if it's not unanimously approved.... We can pick our favorite teams and athletes, but we can't pick what they do after the game.

"Perhaps [Sheryl] Swoopes herself made the most sensible point, and it's one that's hard to argue with: 'I can't help who I fall in love with,' she told [ESPN's] magazine. 'No one can.'"

--From an editorial by staffer David Hall published in Kinston, N.C.'s newspaper The Free Press, October 28

"I realize that male athletes show affection all the time, mostly in their macho, manly, XY-chromosome kind of way.... But a gentle smooch on the cheek to convey 'Atta boy' or 'Job well done'? Now, that's unusual. No. It's extraordinary."

--Columnist Dawn Turner Trice, on seeing Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen congratulating players with "a nice little peck on the cheek," in her Chicago Tribune op-ed. October 19

"[Law & Order] creator Dick Wolf has become famous for blending fact with fiction.... He went the limit on last week's episode [of Law & Order: SVU] about a 'superstrain' of AIDS and somebody murdering gay men who have it. In the first place, it has now been proved there is no superstrain of AIDS.... More disturbing, the thrust of the episode seemed to be on the side of the killer... This was one of the most misleading and dangerous shows I've ever seen on TV. Where is GLAAD when needed?"

--Liz Smith, in her syndicated column, November 1

"VH1 reality train wreck Danny Bonaduce says he still likes to get into brawls even though he's sobered up.... 'My 1991 brawl with a transvestite is still the classic. He was a big guy, so once I got him down, I kept decking him. Then I saw the cops and thought, Hmmm. Danny Partridge beating the [bleep] out of a transvestite hooker. I should probably run.'"

--The New York Post's Page Six, reporting on Bonaduce's interview in U.K. magazine FHM, October 25