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 our most popular articles of the week on a variety of subjects, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites.

Katie:

Helen Keller & Anne Sullivan Surfaces 120 Years Later

Hallelujah For American Idol, Jeff Buckley and Leonard Cohen

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Nicole:

Google Gives Free Voicemail to San Francisco Homeless

Gabriel Garcia Marquez Turnes 80

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Giulia:

Patrick Swayze’s Cancer Battle

Koby Bryant’s PSA for ASR

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Gina:

Reese’s Empowering Bracelet

“Chop Shop” - Dreams In a Place of Despair

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Kerry:

Bamboo Laptop: Will Apple Be Green with Envy?

The Explosive Truth About Twinkies

Jason Castro sang Hallelujah on Tuesday’s American Idol, which made Simon, a fan of Jeff Buckley’s cover of the song, a very happy judge. But the irony of the Hallelujah’s American Idol-level popularity is that when Canadian singer songwriter Leonard Cohen first recorded the song in 1984 on his Various Positions album, Columbia records opted not to release the record because, at this point, Cohen was not as popular as he once was in America. But Cohen remained popular in Europe and in his native Canada. And Hallelujah wound up being one of his most popular songs ever. It was covered by artists including Rufus Wainwright, Bob Dylan, Regina Spektor, Bono, K.D. Lang, Sheryl Crow, John Cale to name just a few. But it was the late Jeff Buckley’s cover which became the most well known, and was ranked #259 on Rolling Stone’s “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” and dubbed “the most perfect song ever” by Q Magazine.

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According to a recent UCLA study, California’s film industry is the state’s second largest polluter. (Next to the oil industry, adding insult to injury.)

And the AP newswire reported: “No amount of public service announcements or celebrities driving hybrid cars can mask the fact that movie and TV production is a gritty industrial operation, consuming enormous amounts of power to feed bright lights, run sophisticated cameras, and feed a cast of thousands.”

But fear not, many actors, actresses, directors and producers are trying to help environmental efforts and the Dailygreen.com has a wonderful article giving credit to many of the green moves being made in Hollywood.

Some are using humor to spread the green love like in this hilarious short by will Ferrell and friends (NOTE: this video has language and content that may be offensive to some):

And others are doing their green part by making significantly earth friendly workplace changes such as:

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