Donating $10 to buy a mosquito net to save an African child from malaria has become a hip way to show you care, especially for teenagers.

Like his beloved Rocky Mountains, TJ Lynch is a walking, breathing testimonial to persistence, grit, and good old fashioned stick-to-itiveness.

In less than nine months, SingleStop has raised $35 million from some of the smartest philanthropic investors, including Tipping Point Community, the Robin Hood Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies, and the Blue Ridge Foundation.

A group of 16 striking writers have crafted a series of short plays called "TV Takes the Stage" that will run for five performances; the resulting profits will be funneled into the Motion Picture and TV Fund to help non-writers struggling since the beginning of the strike.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Time Warner Inc.'s HBO will soon make its content available on the Internet, The New York Post reported in its Monday editions. The service, HBO on Broadband, will roll out in Green Bay and Milwaukee.

I just finished reading a wonderful book called Cagney & Lacey...and Me: An Inside Hollywood Story by Barney Rosenzweig, who produced all seven seasons of the seminal TV show about two women who were police officers (rather than two cops who were women--there's a big difference). The 387-page book is published by the print-on-demand company iUniverse ($22.95 paper, ISBN 978-0-595-41193-1) and became available in May to tie-in with the DVD release of the first season of Cagney & Lacey starring Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless.

JAMIE OLIVER'S heading up my suicide watch; so far I'm still alive. Between the Food Network and his many cookbooks, I have managed to eat my way through three months of the writers' strike, the first four months of my pregnancy - and now the initial hours of a tentative deal between the directors' guild and the producers. Yes, I'm getting fat.

Google.org, Google's philanthropic venture, has started stating its ambitions and placing some of its $2 billion in funding. In keeping with the search giant's style, the initial investments are low and the ambitions are global.

Despite the Hollywood writers strike, the big TV networks have more than 100 episodes of scripted series ready to roll out over the next few months.

The bad news for viewers: Few are fan favorites.

"Desperate Housewives" is done, the dust barely settled from a tornado that hit Wisteria Lane. "Grey's Anatomy" has no more episodes left, as does Thursday competitor "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." No more laughs are coming from "Two and a Half Men," "30 Rock" and "The Office." "Heroes" is also done.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs says he might have overcome the two biggest stumbling blocks facing digital movie downloads: a dearth of things to watch and a reluctance by consumers to fire up their computers to watch a movie.

On Monday, the striking Writers Guild of America announced interim deals with Spyglass Entertainment and Media Rights Capital that allow its members to write on those companies' projects. These agreements join previous one-off deals with Worldwide Pants Inc., the Weinstein Co. and United Artists in opening up a few avenues for striking writers to get back to work under new contract conditions that the guild has been seeking from their studio and network employers through the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

On a hot summer day in 1989, Sudhir Venkatesh, a callow sociology student with a ponytail and tie-dyed T-shirt, walked into one of Chicago's toughest housing projects, clipboard in hand, ready to ask residents about their lives. Sample question: "How does it feel to be black and poor?" Suggested answers: "very bad, somewhat bad, neither bad nor good, somewhat good, very good." Actual answers: unprintable.
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Melanie Dunea/Creative Photographers

Sudhir Venkatesh

GANG LEADER FOR A DAY

A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets

By Sudhir Venkatesh

302 pages. The Penguin Press. $25.95.
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Excerpt: 'Gang Leader for a Day' (January 16, 2008)

Recent statistics about the growth of Chinese wealth caught mainstream-media attention in the U.S., with both The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times gasping at the number of Chinese billionaires (106, second only to the U.S.) and the number of Chinese households with investible assets of at least $1 million (310,000, fifth after the U.S., Japan, U.K. and Germany).

Tammy Signorile, a sharp-witted 95-year-old with a klaxon voice that seldom rests, is one of the stars of the documentary "Andrew Jenks, Room 335." Late in the film, in a rare moment of sentiment, she offers a philosophy of life: "It doesn't take much to make somebody feel good. Say something nice to them, tell them how nice they are instead of looking for defects, instead of looking for something they're not doing right."

Writers have started creating Web-based companies in an effort to create new business models that don't rely on studios. These companies would model their sites along the lines of Myspace and YouTube, allowing members of each site to communicate with each other and profit from the use of advertising, as long as the business models don't promote over-spending, as a company like Icebox.com did, and as a result narrowly avoided filing for bankrupcy.

These days we don't want to hear from poor folk. Today's motto is: The poor should not be seen, nor heard. It's survival of the richest.

The force majeure ax has swung at ABC Studios, which today notified nearly two dozen writers and non-writing producers that it was terminating their overall deals as a result of the strike.

While all the major studios had previously suspended deals for their scribes, the ABC Studios action reps the biggest move yet by a major to cut ties to talent.

At last year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, most of the 140,000 attendees were buzzing about the future of the cell phone-and how Apple Inc. (AAPL) had stolen the spotlight by announcing the iPhone at its own Macworld conference. But this year, the hot topic at CES is the future of video entertainment, and there's a lot less fear in the air about what Steve Jobs may have planned. "I have great admiration for Steve," says Comcast (CMCSA) CEO Brian Roberts. "But I also like cable's position as the video leader. We offer more movies, TV shows, and video content than anyone else-and we intend to expand our position."

Earlier than most of his rivals, Barack Obama sensed that a youthquake was rumbling deep inside the American electorate. For months, his campaign has put a premium on reaching out to YouTube (GOOG) disaffecteds. So far the strategy is paying off, helped along, no doubt, by the candidate's hip, un-boomer persona. The 46-year-old Illinois senator's surprise victory in the Iowa caucuses and close second-place finish to New York Senator Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire Democratic primary were fueled largely by hordes of twentysomethings in hoodiesÑthe oft-pierced-and-tattooed generation that has come to be known as the Millennials, or Gen Y.

In June 2006, Peter Hopkins, a civic-minded and idealistic 2004 Harvard graduate, trekked up to his alma mater from New York for a meeting with Lawrence H. Summers, the economist and former Treasury secretary. Mr. Hopkins, who finagled the appointment through his friendship with Mr. Summers's assistant, had a business idea: a Web site that could do for intellectuals what YouTube, the popular video-sharing site, did for bulldogs on skateboards.

First he became a top rap artist. Then he turned his talents to the movies as an actor. Now Ice Cube has a new line to add to his résumé: Internet entrepreneur.

Cube and his partner DJ Pooh, a record producer and screenwriter who also is a self-described techie, are the latest entertainers to launch a new website showcasing all sorts of videos, original to music to user-generated.

Idle hands are the devil's playthings, and writer's hands are no exception. That's why some of them have occupied their time on the Internet, creating short films about the strike, and, in some cases, seeking deals to make Internet content for pay. If this trickle becomes a flood, it could herald a sea change for the industry, as Thom Taylor argues in an LA Times Op-Ed. (Water metaphors are on my mind after the torrential weekend rains here)

I've long been an admirer of Gary Hirshberg, the idealistic and iconoclastic "CE-Yo" of organic yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm, which he co-founded in 1983. I first met Hirshberg a decade later, in 1993, when researching my book about corporate social responsibility, Beyond the Bottom Line. I recall being impressed at the time by his passion and commitment, but also his humbleness and honesty. "I think whatever your definition is of social responsibility," he told me at the time, "if the message is, 'Look how great we are,' then you're missing the boat." It was a refreshing change from so many companies' arm-waving, self-congratulatory approaches to social responsibility, both then and now.

In cubicles across the country, lunchtime has become the new prime time, as workers click aside their spreadsheets to watch videos on YouTube, news highlights on CNN.com or other Web offerings.

The trend - part of a broader phenomenon known as video snacking - is turning into a growth business for news and media companies, which are feeding the lunch crowd more fresh content.

In support of the WGA Writers' Strike, I am happy to announce that 100% of affiliate sales commissions site-wide for Firefox News through December 1st, 2007 will be donated to the Actor's Fund. I wanted to help out, and since my forte is web development, I thought I'd apply a few of those skills to a good cause.

Bottom line .... because many of those writers are parents of autistic children, and the residuals that they are fighting for will go to support their autistic children for years and years to come.

Paul Hawken was launching natural foods and organic gardening businesses long before either industry was established or popular. Although his best-known business, Smith & Hawken, has changed its colors since Hawken left more than 15 years ago, "from an organic company to a company that pushes herbicides and pesticides for people's lawns," as he puts it, Hawken has been an activist since his 20s, and continues to champion environmental causes.

On Tuesday, July 31, Shara Karasic's world came to a temporary halt. Facebook was down. She could not follow the fortunes and foibles of her friends. She could not see if any photos had been posted that were tagged as including her. She could not even know if anyone had "poked" her (which is not a sexual act, but just a little cozier way of saying "hey, you" online). Even though she had the entire Internet to entertain her and connect her, she felt the loss. "Over the course of those four hours," Karasic says, "I probably tried to get in five or more times."

Blog posts tagged with "Giving Back."

Autism's been much in the media lately, with creative types sharing their stories, raising funds, and touting remedies. So maybe it's not so surprising to see a connection made between the issues film and television writers are fighting for and the struggles of families of children with autism.

At 29, Timothy Ferriss seems to have life licked.

Not only does he march to a different drummer, he's likely hired someone to do the marching for him while he's off learning a seventh language or mastering a rare form of martial arts in Mongolia.

It's an anomaly for me to even pick a business book up off of the bookstore shelf, much less read it and write about it. Perhaps it was the tempting promise printed so brashly across the gold and white cover of Timothy Ferris's The 4-Hour Workweek: "Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join The New Rich." I'm not alone in taking this bait either as The 4-Hour Workweek has recently spent a number of weeks at the top of the Wall Street Journal's bestseller list. So what is it that makes Timothy Ferriss's book better than so many others claiming to deliver a panacea to the tedium endured daily by American cubicle dwellers?

A hopeful book being offered by BuzzFlash?

Yes, it's true.

Paul Hawken, who has written several books that have gained international attention -- and who is a life-long innovative activist and socially responsible entrepeneur -- has penned his latest tome that argues that there is a rumbling in the world that is about to erupt. It is the coalescing force of advocates for environmental preservation, economic justice, and civil societies -- and it is reaching critical mass.