TakePart hero Al Gore is speaking tonight at the Democratic Convention tonight! Seems like a good time to remember his challenge to us all!

1) Remix: Al Gore’s Challenge to Repower America

For the Cinema YouTube Video of the Day, Click here >>>

Read the rest of this entry »

Forbes just put out their list of the Top 10 World’s Most Powerful Women. And while I am 100 percent in support of promoting women in the workforce, especially in the corporate workforce (where most of the listed ladies are and often ladies are not recognized for), I am not 100 percent in support of what a lot of big corporations (like the ones listed) do.

And more than that, there are a ton of awesome powerful ladies using their power for good! In fact I’ve listed 10 of them below - in no particular order.

1) Michelle Bachelet - Hillary Clinton’s (a powerful woman in her own right) opening paragraph to the piece she wrote on Bachelet for Time Magazine’s 100 Influential People, says it all,

“When I heard that Michelle Bachelet — a doctor who devoted her life to helping the people of Chile, a daughter who lost her father to the violent regime of Augusto Pinochet and a leader who experienced personally the brutality of dictatorship but never lost hope in the people of her nation or the promise of democracy — was running for the presidency of Chile, I was enthralled.”

Bachelet went on to become the first woman president of Chile. Before that she was also the Health Minister and then Defense Minister - she was the first woman in Latin America to hold those posts. A breaker of barriers, Michelle Bachelet has used her internal power to gain actual power and inspire young girls everywhere.

Read the rest of this entry »

In writing this post on Google Earth and Cows yesterday, I came across this amazing video of Sir David Attenborough talking about the power of Google Earth to empower communities and keep tabs on the environment through mapping technologies. It is totally worth your 8 minutes and 41 seconds:

The possibilities and potential are pretty amazing - especially considering we could all stand to be in touch with the natural world a bit more.

Read the rest of this entry »

Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing and writer of Charlie Wilson’s War, is moving out of the political realm and onto the internet. His next project will be about none other than FACEBOOK! A wonderful killer of time and a sometimes (unwanted) portal into our past lives, Facebook has no doubt changed how we network and how we keep relationships.

Sorkin’s film will focus on the beginnings of the social networking giant:

‘I’ve just agreed to write a movie for Sony and producer Scott Rudin about how Facebook was invented,’ Sorkin wrote in his introduction on the group page. ‘I figured a good first step in my preparation would be finding out what Facebook is, so I’ve started this page.’

The film is likely to look at how, following its creation in 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg in his university dorm, Facebook quickly became an internet, business and social phenomenon with more than 100 million users worldwide. [Guardian UK]

Do I really need Facebook invading my movie world? One of the reasons I love movies is that I’m able experience and visit places that are not my computer..

Read the rest of this entry »

OK, OK, the cheese factor is definitely high here - but what can I say, I love Armin Mueller Stahl and will see almost anything he is in. And hey, the kids of today could stand to watch an old fashioned movie about art and pursuing ones dreams - actually a lot of adults could probably stand to watch a movie like that.

Read the rest of this entry »

In so many ways New York City is all about more. We’ve got everything here and we’ve got more of it than other cities (except clean air and trees perhaps). Unfortunately this also means HIV is spreading in bigger ways as well.

In fact, “the virus that causes AIDS is spreading in New York City at three times the national rate — an incidence of 72 new infections for every 100,000 people, compared with 23 per 100,000 nationally — according to a study released on Wednesday by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.” [NYTimes]

It should be noted that the method of estimating infections was new - so it’s hard to know if the number of new infections increased or decreased. Regardless, this upsetting and something that needs to be addressed.

Harlem. Photo by Cpt. Obvious. (Creative Commons)

Go after the jump for a summary of the study and for information on how you can help in the fight against AIDS.

Read the rest of this entry »

With the DNC underway, the RNC around the corner and big names taking the stage every night, we need to remember the issues that are defining this election - like the war in Iraq, Darfur and Peace.

1) Price of Peace from A Better World Campaign

For the Cinema YouTube Video of the Day, Click here >>>

Read the rest of this entry »

The Onion has a fine list up of 26 awful tv/movie teachers. It’s full of some great guilty pleasure favs - like Mrs Tingle from the Katie Holmes flick Teaching Mrs Tingle, Vic Racine from My So Called Life and of course Principal Vernon from The Breakfast Club. And as fun as these are, there are some totally awesome teachers that have been on TV or in the movies - and I don’t mean just the uber cheesy Dangerous Minds or Mr. Holland’s Opus type.  I mean teachers that actually made the students on the show along with you as a viewer think.

Here’s 10 that I think are pretty great. Let me know if I missed one and be sure to takepart and learn how you can actually improve the quality of teachers in schools these days by getting involved with Teach for America.

1) Mr. Collins from The Wonder Years - I would have had this list up sooner but I somehow found the entire episode about Kevin and his great math teacher Mr. Collins. Needless to say I watched it and tears are still fresh on my cheeks.  I would write more, but you should probably just watch

Part 2 after the jump

Read the rest of this entry »

Diddy in coach? In case you ever doubted that we need new environmental solutions and that gas prices are too high, Diddy’s video below should convince you:

Of course oil is not the answer - but finding new energy solutions is. So takepart to help support the environment with We Can Solve It.

And let’s hope Diddy offset his travel using Terra Pass - takepart to offset your own carbon footprint when you travel.

Read the rest of this entry »

” Morning cows”photo by James Jordan. (Creative Commons License)

I’ve always thought cows were awesome (not for eating…) and now it seems there is scientific proof. An article on NPR is talking about a new study that says cows can sense the Earth’s magnetic field and more than that, they use it the magnetic field to line up their bodies so they face either north or south for eating, grazing and resting.

Hynek Burda of the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany didn’t intend to study cows at first and kind of happened upon them.

Eventually, his team used Google Earth to look at more than 8,500 cows, over 300 pastures all around the world, according to a report in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

By analyzing the images, the team found that cows tend to face either magnetic north or south when grazing or resting. [NPR]

Google Earth is so amazing!

Read the rest of this entry »