Fellow TakePart blogger Gina alerted us about Stand Up to Cancer back when the news broke,  but as the date approaches here’s more. Stand Up to Cancer, The Show, will be coming to a television near you the evening of Friday, September 5th. Major television networks ABC, CBS and NBC will all be running this hour long history-making, interactive special, uniting the country against the deadly disease.

The broadcast will include over fifty of the biggest stars from film, television, music & sports manning the phone bank to take viewer donations. Segments from celebrity-journalists such as Brian Williams, Katie Couric and Charles Gibson will inform the viewing public about cancer and the current state of research. Stand Up to Cancer also plans to auction off video chats with celebrities with all proceeds going toward cancer research.

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After being “caught” on NBC’s Dateline: To Catch a Predator show, William Conradt Jr. killed himself and now Conradt’s sister has successfully filed a lawsuit against NBC blaming the TV show for her brothers death.

The suit was brought by the sister of William Conradt Jr., an assistant district attorney in Rockland County, Texas, who shot himself in the head after a local police SWAT team, accompanied by a Dateline crew, surrounded his house and moved in to arrest him in November 2006.Conradt’s suicide was at the center of an ABC News 20/20 investigation looking into troubling questions for both law enforcement and the news media raised by the popular Dateline series.

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Monday night the film Emile Norman: By His Own Design debuted on PBS. Emile Norman is a self-taught California artist, who at age 90 is still working on his craft. 

The film tells the story of Norman’s independent spirit—how it developed from his early days on a walnut ranch in the San Gabriel Valley and brought him success in New York City in the 1940s and

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I just discovered Sarah Haskins on Current TV and I’m officially a fan. Her take on feminist issues and media is honest and hilarious. Check out her latest regarding the “female friendly” presidental campaign.

Watch the video here : http://current.com/items/89019993_target_women_suffrage

Current TV is an independent media company featuring “pods”, or short programs, of which a portion are created by viewers and users. takepart and check out currenttv.com for more shows to watch and ways to get involved.

As I type this my home team, the Celtics, are down by four. I never thought I’d be so into a sporting event. I mean, I’m usually a girl who usually picks which team to root for based on thier uniform colors (not only are the Celtics and I both from Boston but we both like to wear vibrant shades of green) but these NBA finals have drawn me in. And in addition to playing awesome games, both the Celtics and the Lakers take part and do some pretty cool charity work too.

The Celtics Boston have the Celtics Shamrock Foundation  benefiting area children directly, through programs that provide education and support. The Shamrock foundation also partners with community based organizations that provide healthcare, shelter and vital services for children in need. takepart  and get involved at http://www.nba.com/celtics/community/community-index.html.

The Lakers through The Los Angeles Lakers Youth Foundation’s which assists nonprofit community organizations based on need. With the Foundation’s focus on the use of sports to promote education, teamwork and self-esteem among Los Angeles area youth, The Los Angeles Lakers Youth Foundation’s  fundraising directly supports these initiatives by providing financial assistance to children and local youth programs. Check them out and takepart by visiting http://www.nba.com/lakers/community/foundation.html.

Ooh the score is 55 Lakers, 52 Celtics. I gotta get offline and get back to my couch, this game is getting good!

Tim Russert, award-winning NBC political news anchor, died of a heart attack Friday.

Russert, 58, was a political operative before he was a journalist. He joined NBC a quarter century ago and ended up as the longest-tenured host of the Sunday talk show “Meet the Press.”He was an election-night fixture, with his whiteboard and scribbled figures, and was moderator for numerous political debates. He wrote two best-selling books, including the much-loved “Big Russ and Me” about his relationship with his father. Russert was also a senior vice president at NBC, and this year Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. [Associated Press]

Friends and fans share thier thoughts on Russert in this video from the Associated Press.

John Coleman, the founder of the Weather Channel and meteorologist for one of my local news stations, spoke to the San Diego Chamber of Commerce (I believe) yesterday in order to discuss global warming.  Or, as far as he’s concerned, the lack thereof.  As Coleman states quite bluntly,

“There is no significant man made global warming.  There has not been any in the past, there is none now and there is no reason to fear any in the future.”

He can’t get much clearer than that.  The “silliness” of the global warming frenzy, as he calls it, is “an amazing fraud…a scam.” 

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Nerve.com has assembled fifty of the best commercial parodies for you. Unfortunately, many of SNL’s most infamous are no longer available online, due to NBC’s copyright-enforcing blitz a while back. However the folks at Nerve did muster up lots of classics and plenty of favorites from Chappelle’s Show, MADtv, In Living Color and SCTV. Enjoy Nerve’s #4 pick ( and one of my favorites) Buhweet sings:
Funny Cartoons at JibJab

And after you enjoy Nerve’s 50 takepart and check out mediamatters.org. Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.

Today is the first full day of Planet Green broadcasting!  The channel went on the air last night at 6pm with the first episode of Hollywood Green with Maria Menounos (or as the website describes her, “the popular Maria Menounos”), and now is officially the only 24hour network devoted to green programming.  As we’ve previously mentioned, we can look forward to a lot of great stuff on this network.  Like, I don’t know, this:

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About a month ago, I posted something about Greensburg, Kansas rebuilding into the model green community following tornadoes that destroyed the town.  Well, apparently I’m not the only person that’s heard about this.  Go figure. 

In fact, Leonardo DiCaprio, when taking a break from being Mr. Environmental Guy (actual nickname), is producing and hosting a 13-part series on the town for Planet Green, the new channel we’re all pretty pumped about. 

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