Your Super Sunday Vegetarian of Awesomeness for today is Paul McCartney (SIR Paul McCartney to you), of this band called The Beatles, because I am extremely lazy today and hey why not.  A while back, I purposely stopped listening to The Beatles for about a year just so I could rediscover them to hear how good the band really is.  It’s hard to really get how amazing The Beatles were, when you hear so much of it all the time.  But listen to this track, “Tomorrow Never Knows,” off Revolver, and tell me that drum part, and really all if it, couldn’t be released today, maybe as a Radiohead song.

That might be my favorite song of theirs.  It’s hard to decide which songs to highlight here…because, you know.  It’s The Beatles.

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It’s June 27th, I’m Gina Telaroli and this is TakePart.com’s look at the week in social action

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!

Nicole Hughes:

U.S. Media Ignores Link Between Midwest Floods and Global Warming

Top 10 Houseplants for Removing Indoor Air Pollution

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Andy Kondrat:

Dubai to Build Rotating Positive Energy Tower

Bioethicist Peter Singer Tackles World Food Shortage

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Jon Popham:

Americacorps Workers Assist Flood Ravaged Town

Australians “Out-Fat” Americans

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Giulia Rozzi:

Progressive Book Club

Oprah Recommends “A New Earth”

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Gina Telaroli:

Human Rights Watch 2008 Film Festival Update

SilverDocs 2008 Update

So far so good! It’s my last day at Silverdocs but so far it has been nothing short of amazing. Here’s a little refresher on what I’ve seen and also a list of what’s to come. Stay tuned for more Silverdocs 08 and for a comprehensive write-up stocked full of TakePart links about how you can connect to the issues in the films.

Thus Far:

• Silverdocs 08 : Head Wind
• Silverdocs 08 : Meet the Paro (Mechanical Love)
• Silverdocs 08 : Opening Night and All Together Now

To Come:

• A look at Up the Yangtze : http://silverdocs.com/festival/films/2008/yangtze/
• A discussion of the DocuClub screening of my film Stages
  
• Some shorts : http://silverdocs.com/festival/films/2008/shorts-program-4-disconnections/
• Corridor 8 : http://silverdocs.com/festival/films/2008/corridor-8/
• Frederick Wiseman’s Law and Order : http://silverdocs.com/festival/films/2008/law-and-order/
• A film that’s all about Dust : http://silverdocs.com/festival/films/2008/dust/
• More video!!!!
• Lot’s of pictures

For now, here are some pictures from pal Cheryl - who also has a film in this years’ fest!

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/23166402@N06/sets/72157605653795062/
  

Opening Night - All Together Now directed by Adrian Wills

I’m at the Silverdocs Documentary Festival with two purposes in mind this year, one to write about the films and the festival and share it with you and two to present my collective’s film Stages at a special work in progress screening. Being that Stages was written, directed and produced by a team of 12 people, the opening night film seemed especially intriguing to me.

All Together Now tells the story of LOVE, the Vegas collaboration between the Beatles and Cirque du Soleil. The plan being that Cirque would create a new show based on a special organization of Beatles music. Of course, with the Beatles and with Cirque, you’ve got folks that are the best at what they do, that are world famous and that don’t like to compromise. Surprisingly enough, while there were some fun moments where various parties involved had a conflict of interest in regards to the show, the film’s backbone didn’t lie in the process.

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Sir Paul McCartney is said to be “horrified” that his spanking new hybrid car was flown 7,000 miles from Japan to the United Kingdom. The aging British rocker received the car, the $170,000 Lexus LS600H hybrid, as a gift for promotional work he had done for Lexus, but was mystified when the automobile was loaded onto a Korean Air flight and flown to Britain rather than arriving via ship as originally planned.

Transporting the car via jet created a carbon footprint nearly 100 times bigger than if the car had been sent by sea. Carbon offsetting firm CO2Balance.com estimated thatsending the enormous car on the plane created a carbon footprint of 38,050 kg as opposed to a 397 kg footprint for the three week boat journey.

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PETA, in conjunction with their new veggie testimonials site, has announced a video contest! The contest asks folks to make their own “veggie testimonial” or video that explains why they are a vegetarian. Here’s an example:

Think you can make a better one?

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PETA has a new website up that consists mainly of “veggie testimonials” of famous folks explaining their reasoning for being a vegetarian. Here’s Casey Affleck’s video:

Order a FREE ‘Vegetarian Starter Kit’ at GoVeg.com

Also on the site is a great new ad featuring Paul McCartney in a hip vegetarian t-shirt.

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Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Safeway has adopted new policies to improve its animal welfare standards. This gigantic California-based grocery chain, with 1,743 stores in the U.S. and Canada, is bowing to some firm but gentle arm twisting from those friends to farm animals everywhere, The Humane Society of the United States:

“Safeway’s new policies represent important progress on basic animal welfare issues and will positively affect many thousands of animals,” said Paul Shapiro, senior director of The HSUS’s factory farming campaign. “Safeway’s move also sends a strong message to the agribusiness industry that it must rapidly move away from the worst factory farming abuses, such as intensive confinement systems and the conventional poultry slaughter method.”

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I don’t know how many rockstars spend their free time reading UN reports, but Paul McCartney’s apparently devoured and digested the UN’s study on the meat industry’s contribution to global warming, “Livestock’s Long Shadow.” He cites the report as the clearest evidence yet that a vegetarian diet is the most effective way that we, as individuals, can combat climate change. In a letter to the Press Association, McCartney wrote:

That this message comes directly from an authoritative body such as the UN (whose member states, it should be remembered, are not generally considered vegetarian) rather than an organisation committed to vegetarianism is significant.What I think is especially compelling is that this report should now encourage everybody to ‘do their bit’ for the planet… the evidence that the report gives is, frankly, stunning. It points directly to the striking detrimental effects of excessive livestock farming on the environment.

McCartney cites the study’s conclusion that 70% of the Amazon’s forests have been razed for grazing and that livestock now take up 30% of the entire world’s land surface, and adds:

By simply considering altering eating habits people can strike a blow for the environment, our children and the future. Such facts and data as those listed above can’t be ignored.

Will the beloved ex-Beatle prove to be a more effective advocate than his ex, Heather Mills? Mills, a vociferous vegan, caused a ruckus last month when she asked “ËœWhy don’t we drink rats’ milk, cats’ milk or dogs’ milk?’Mills also attempted to make some converts by offering the fifteen contractors who are working on her swanky new Sussex home a holiday feast. They were psyched until they peeked into her freezer and spotted the Tofurkey. One worker complained:

“It’s all strictly vegetarian - they’ve just shaped the stuff to look like turkey. What’s the point of that? It’s all in individual packs. All she has to do is warm them up.”

Nonetheless, he added:

“We will choke it down. After all, Heather’s not against alcohol. Apparently there’s going to be plenty to drink.”