NAACP Image Awards, Academy Awards, Grammy’s are nothing new to the actor/activists Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. But for the first time ever, the dynamic duo win my Valiant Valentine Award. Valentine’s Day Week, kicked off my Valentine’s week-long series on the 5 coolest activist couples. I honored activist & actor Susan Sarandon and her partner, activist, actor & director Tim Robbins with a VVA, that’s a Valiant Valentine Award, for those of you just tuning in. Now I’m awarding another VVA to a couple who have shown their love for each other and for civil rights, human rights, and peace. And the award goes to…

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee were not only award-winning and distinguished actors, but social change-winning and distinguished civil rights activists. The couple, married for 56 years, won NAACP Image Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and was honored by the Kennedy Center, not only for their roles on stage and screen, but for their roles as trailblazers who opened the door for so many black actors who came after them.

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is now here to give you the very best of Katie, Nicole, Giulia, Gina and Kerry! If you worry about missing your favorite bloggers’ posts as they push their way down the page each and every week - Never Fear! Check out our most popular posts of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites.

Katie:

Woody Guthrie: This Grammy Is Your Grammy / This Grammy Is My Grammy

Rambo Fights for Burma’s Freedom + 5 Steps You Can Take To Help Burma In 5 Minutes

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Nicole:

“Yes We Can” Obama Music Video a Unique Celebrity Endorsement

Top 10 US Grant, Scholarship and Fellowship Awarding Foundations

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Giulia:

Ba-Da-Bling Commercials Pulled in New York

“Safe Sex or No Sex” Shirts Get Teens Suspended

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Gina:

10 Internet Videos Featuring Celebrities Advocating For A Cause

Close Up: An Introduction to Iranian Cinema and Cinematic Rainbows

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Kerry:

Sheryl Crow’s Apocalyptic Peak-Oil Song

Solar Powered Soldiers Wear Uniforms with Built-In Batteries

L Word Trippple L awards are back. Last week, I brought you episode one of the LLL awards, in which I hypothesized that the show gave its stars like Cybill Shepherd and Pam Grier, longevity, youthfulness, and beauty, as well as new careers.

Well, here is episode II. And these women are not only as beautiful as they were 20 years ago, but MORE beautiful, which is why they get an additional award: The SS Award named after Susan Sarandon, for becoming more attractive over time.

She may have won an Academy Award for her performance in Children of a Lesser God, but move the Oscar out of the way and make room for the LLL award. As television’s first deaf lesbian character, Jodi Lerner, the the bohemian, iconoclastic, sculptor, helps Bette loosen up and give up some control. Whether she’s seducing or sculpting, this heart breaker signs, seals, AND delivers. Unless she’s rocking crimped hair, which she did in one scene in a restaurant… IN PUBLIC… ON A DOUBLE DATE! Let’s hope Marlee lets go of the 80’s and embraces the 2000’s as much as they’ve embraced her. Because she used to be cute, but she’s now beautiful, the child of a greater goddess.

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Watching The L Word on Showtime on demand reminded me of the great adage, immortalized by Matthew Mcconoughy in Dazed and Confused: “That’s what I like about high school girls: I keep getting older, they stay the same age.” Except “what I like about L Word girls” is “they keep getting older, they stay the same” or as beautiful” or even more beautiful.” But the L word does more than just make its stars youthful and beautiful. In the case of the four “thespians” discussed below, it actually resuscitates the dead careers of former it girls, turning them into L women, taking years off their lives, and giving them new leases (or contracts) on life.

So here are my top 4 tripple L’s (Longevity L-Word Ladies.)

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