Montreal, Canada has released its new Public Bike System (PBS) on its wacky two-languaged public.   The system is actually quite innovative in its implementation and ease of use.   From the PBS website,

It employs cutting-edge technologies to their best advantage: the entire system is solar-powered and uses wireless communication. All the components are modular. With no need for permanent installations or external energy sources, the technical platforms that constitute the base of the stations can simply be dropped off at any desired location without incurring expensive infrastructure work. No need to excavate or anchor the platforms to the street. And no need to install electrical or communication cables.

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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!

Katie Halper:

Brigitte Bardot Fine: Top 5 Bardotisms That Got Hot Sex Symbol In Hot Water

Obama Pound: In Historic Moment, White People Exposed To Fist Bump For First Time

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Nicole Hughes:

Get a Job: Top 10 Guides to Finding the Perfect Eco Career

Schwarzenegger Declares Drought in California

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Andy Kondrat:

Barcelona Fines Citizens for Using Drinking Water in Pools and Gardens

Coal Power Plants Waste Two-Thirds of Energy Input

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Jon Popham:

Megabus Expanding to the East Coast

Egyptian Blogger Freed from Prison

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Giulia Rozzi:

Diamonds In The Rough: A Ugandan Hip Hop Revolution

Cluster Bomb Ban

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Gina Telaroli:

Interview with Nina Davenport, Director of Operation Filmmaker

KidZui : Internet for Kids (and Those Young at Heart)

The Obama pound, exchanged between Michelle and Barack on Tuesday night marked a historic moment. Yeah, there’s that whole first black nominee for president thing. But perhaps as exciting, is the fact that the pound is finally being introduced to mainstream culture. I hope people not familiar with the pound will now realize that when the New York Times’ Ashley Parker wrote about Reggie Love “offering closed-fist high-fives to members of the news media….” she was not describing a painful caveman greeting, but the pound. But I think the Times owes Reggie a correction.

I can’t find an official history or definition of the pound, but here is what I found on Ubrandictionary.com

1. pound: a greeting between two mutual friends. In reality, a fist from one person is “pounded” against the fist of the other person, accompanied by both persons saying “pound.”
2. Pound: The knocking of fists as a form of greeting, departure, or respect
   see daps
3. Dap: The knocking of fists together as a greeting, or form of respect. He gave me a dap when we greeted.
4. dap: a fist-on-fist greeting, front-to-front as if each person is punching each other on the hand. He gave me a dap when we greeted
5. dap: The Dap includes simple to very intricate series of rhythmic hand slaps, clasps, hand and arm gestures exchanged between two persons as a sign of personal greeting, respect and group solidarity.

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Frontline: Hot Politics examines the United States goverment’s failure to act on the biggest environmental problem of our time, Global Warming. The award winning PBS series details how for decade after decade the Federal Government has avoided real action on Climate Change through methods ranging from parliamentary tricks, false scientific reports, suppressing real science, making excuses, P.R. spin, failing to ratify its own treaties, failing to enforce its own existing regulations and adopting half measures that have no hope of solving the problem - and that’s just for starters.

There is plenty of bipartisan blame to go around and it is spread over each Presidential administration dating back to George H.W. Bush’s in 1988. Interviews with Newt Gingrich, Frank Luntz, NASA Scientist James Hansen, former EPA head Christine Todd Whitman and many others depict an institution that is broken when it comes to fixing the enormous environmental problems that confront it.

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Yikes! The AP reports that seventeen of the nation’s 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent, with the lowest graduation rates reported in Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland. The report released Tuesday by America’s Promise Alliance, found that in the nation’s largest cities only about half of the students in public school systems receive diplomas whereas students in suburban and rural public high schools were more likely to graduate than those in urban public high schools.

Nationally, about 70 percent of U.S. students graduate on time with a regular diploma and about 1.2 million students drop out annually.
“When more than 1 million students a year drop out of high school, it’s more than a problem, it’s a catastrophe,” said former Secretary of State Colin Powell, founding chair of the alliance.
His wife, Alma Powell, the chair of the alliance, said students need to graduate with skills that will help them in higher education and beyond. “We must invest in the whole child, and that means finding solutions that involve the family, the school and the community.” The Powell’s organization was beginning a national campaign to cut high school dropout rates. [AP]

A good education starts with a good teacher. The PBS documentary The First Year offers some insight into the challenges that teachers face when

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Since the premiere of “Brother Outsider” at the Sundance Film Festival, millions of people have been introduced to Bayard Rustin, who until now has remained somewhat of an unsung hero of the civil rights movement.

“Brother Outsider” is a film about the life of Bayard Rustin, a mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and one of the major architects of the 1963 March on Washington. His pioneering activist spirit penetrated his personal life as well, as he was an openly gay man in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. The film takes a many-sided approach to Rustin’s life, recreating a chronological and thematic portrait of his 60-year activist career through the use of traditional documentary and interview techniques. Historical research for the film was done by examining Rustin’s personal correspondence, papers, letters, archival footage, government propaganda films, stills, and paintings.

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Pete Seeger : The Power of Song is on PBS tonight! Remember to and tune in!

That’s right Mr. Reading Rainbow himself is celebrating a birthday today. As a huge Reading Rainbow and Star Trek fan, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Mr. Burton. Reading Rainbow was an early pioneer in showcasing the power of reading and television. I know that the mix of books and experience always made me more excited to sit and read. In honor of his birthday I’ve posted what is probably my favorite episode of Reading Rainbow - it’s all about Star Trek!!

Also, and see how the internet is taking Reading Rainbow to the next level.

Part 2, Part 3

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 Oscars are a hop, skip and a jump away (a week and a half!) so I thought it might be nice to look at the 4th nominee for Best Documentary, Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience (directed by Richard Robbins). The movie takes firsthand accounts from soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families and turns them into a movie. Their experiences are told to us in interviews and dramatic readings that are accompanied by real footage, photos and animations, to paint a portrait of what it is really like to be in the war.

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