The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

TakePart Gang:

Chasing the DNC Flame by Fonda Berosini

TakePart at Slow Food Nation by Wendy Cohen

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Nicole Hughes:

State Fair Having Trouble Keeping It Green

TOMS Wrap Boot: Shoe Addicts Saving Lives

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Andy Kondrat:

Mexican Gov Spends $16M to Save Endangered Porpoise

Wilco Offers Section on Website for Carpooling to Shows

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Jon Popham:

Portland Gym Utilizes Human Energy

Angkor Wat Threatened by Tourism Boom

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Gina Telaroli:

10 Powerful Women Using Their Power for Good

10 A+ Worthy Movie and TV Teachers

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.

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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..

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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 >>>

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In some ways it seems this is old news - but Hillary Clinton’s speech rocked! Even if you’re not a Democrat and don’t agree with what she said, you have to admit that she gave a stellar speech. One full of humor, intelligent attacks and of the spirit of unity. She even mentioned Stephanie Tubbs Jones - which touched this Ohioans heart.

When she made the statement that her daughter was able to vote for her mother for President I couldn’t help but smile - that is pretty powerful given that 89 years ago women couldn’t vote at all. Give a watch to her speech below (which I’m sure you’ve already seen - but watch again!) and takepart to get involved with the Clinton Global Initiative - one of Clinton’s charities.

After the jump some fun Hillary SNL clips from the primaries (I’m glad everyone’s on the same team now though)

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George Clooney and Brad Pitt are in Venice at the Venice Film festival to premiere their new film, The Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading.  But they are also there to help out Not On Our Watch - a group that has raised more than $7 million to help victims both in Darfur and in Burma (from the cyclone).

Now On Our Watch was launched by Pitt and Clooney and some of their Ocean’s Thirteen friends (including Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Jerry Weintraub and David Pressman) to fight human right’s abuses and to bring attention to them. Pitt and Clooney will walk the red carpet together in Venice to support their cause and their film.

takepart to get involved with Not On Our Watch and be sure to check out the trailer for Burn After Reading (which as a former gym employee I am quite excited about) below:

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The group of 6 Americans, including Alive in Baghdad’s Brian Conley and artists James Powderly, that were detained in Beijjing last week have been released and were put on a plane home.

According to Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) - “James Powderly, Brian from Alive in Baghdad, and everyone else all arrive at LAX around 6 or 7pm tonight,” A group of Tibetan expatriates and pro-Tibet activists plan to greet them at the airport and welcome them home.”  This was released yesterday, so everyone should be safe and sound now.

This is good news, although it’s sad that the artists and documentarians didn’t get to voice their opinions. takepart to get involved with Students for a Free Tibet and watch an episode of Alive in Baghdad below:

This year’s Democratic National Convention is boasting Change as its primary message so TakePart is hitting the streets of downtown Denver to get the scoop. What are the biggest issues being addressed at the convention? Who are the people and groups working to create change? And more importantly, how can you get in on the action – literally, we’ll let you know what you can do to make a difference.

Read more of TakePart’s exclusive Convention coverage »

With the start of the Democratic National Convention today, it seems a great time revisit a story NPR did back in February about Brett Morgan’s Chicago 10 - a film that uses a archival footage, animation and music to tell the story of the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the protesters who were arrested and tried during it.

Up on NPR is an interview where, “Morgen plays court audio recordings from the 1968 trial, rarely heard since the trial. And he explains his film’s title, which echoes an observation from lawyer Jerry Rubin, who recalls that attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass received contempt sentences in connection with the case.”

Also up is a piece from Fresh Air where they recollect the 1968 convention and play some old awesome audio from the time. Listening to the beginning of the piece, it’s hard to imagine something like this being able to happen today - even with the similarities between the times.

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Tonight marks the starts of the 2008 Democratic Convention (DNC). No matter your political persuasion, this is an important event, just as the RNC will be next week. In fact it was the 2004 DNC that made Barack Obama a household name.

I’d have to think that Denver will be a crazy intense place for the next week with tons going on (including some awesome movie screenings) and I can only imagine what will be going on behind the scenes. I can’t help but remember the last season of The West Wing, when there was no presumptive nominee come convention week. In fact, the speech that Jimmy Smits gave (as Santos) in the convention epeisode seems to me to be a pretty great reminder about what political conventions are for:

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