I met Adele Siegel when I interviewed her for a project that, regretfully, never saw the light of day. But her personal story was so inspiring to me that due to her, I came up with the seed that would one day be This Brave Nation. She passed away last week, with her family at her side. Her obituary, below, was published on the front page of the Culver City Observer and written by Mitch Chortkoff.

My mother is a strong woman. She is someone who can demand attention and who can also take charge when shit happens. But she is also an incredibly caring woman who taught me how to be good and encouraged me to be independent and strong in my own way. I've always admired her and respected her. And as a result, I am inspired by others who have those characteristics, especially women.

So, when it was arranged that Bonnie Raitt and Dolores Huerta – two people who are the epitome of strong women – would appear together in This Brave Nation, I immediately called my mom to tell her. It just so happened Momma Sprinkle is a huge fan of Bonnie’s and always respected Dolores for her incredible work (while raising eleven children). And since we’re all continuously looking for parental approval, I was thrilled that my mom was thrilled.

Dolores Huerta was the co-founder of the United Farm Workers (with Cesar Chavez). She is a woman who stood up for thousands of migrant laborers and fought for years to help protect their families, all while creating a life for her own family that could certainly be described as “different.” Bonnie Raitt is, of course, the multi-platinum selling musician, but she is also a tireless crusader protecting the environment, as well looking after the lives of some of the talented musicians who mentored her.

This week’s This Brave Nation with Strong, Talented, Independent women. You won't want to miss it.

Go to bravenation.com to see the new episode, to get copies of This Brave Nation on DVD, and to nominate a young woman you know for the first ever Brave Nation Young Activist Award.

And call your mom. She'll appreciate it.

This Brave Nation premiered last Thursday here in Los Angeles as part of a Young Progressive Majority event. The response was beyond my wildest dreams. And then just three days later, the first episode of the series starring Van Jones and Carl Pope was given life and set free upon the world.

I get an email every time someone donates to This Brave Nation in order to receive a DVD copy of the series. My Blackberry has been vibrating steadily ever since, to the tune of well over 1000 DVDs already!

I first came up with the idea for This Brave Nation just over a year ago while carpooling to work with the Vice President of Production, Leda Maliga. The idea sprang from a desire not just to spread information — which, as a documentary producer is exactly what I do for a living — but to spread positive and inspiring information. And not only to those of us who already go to sites like bravenewfilms.org. I felt it very important to get the information, the positive information, into the hands of the next generation of activists and progressives.

I specifically remember the moment I chose the green pill over the red pill (to use a Matrix metaphor) and I made it a point to ask the remarkable collection of people who star in This Brave Nation what was their moment.

We all start out young, baby-faced, fresh. We absorb this culture around us and it shapes us and forms us. Most people actually become part of the culture that modeled them. But a few of us, deep down, have something inside that makes us care a bit more, or to use Van Jones's words, "It didn't affect every one, but I guess it affected me."

And my goal all along was to reach those of us who share that quality because I know had I been reached while still in high school, or when I first went to college, I would have found a group of people with whom I could have identified  and worked to create change. Instead, I got here on my own.

But my dream is that This Brave Nation will help others get here to join me. It's really beautiful here. There might be some work needing to get done to make it even better, but we are not afraid of getting our hands dirty. The future is what we make it.

Don't forget to go to bravenation.com and nominate one of the young activists who is already making the future a better place.

My cousin's husband just sent me this. He wrote, "I had been a supporter, but after reading this, I gave money, then signed up for the Venice office and hit the phones and the pavement in the week up to Feb 5."

Obama inspired my cousin-in-law. The man has a PhD in European Intellectual History from UC Berkeley. He lives and breathes political and sociological thought. And he has never actively campaigned for a political candidate. And after one quote, he did something he'd never done before.

With all this talk of momentum (or O-mentum), it is easy to let slip the fact that Obama is actually getting people moving, getting people inspired, and getting people to doing things, to take part. I'm sure Hilary is too, and hell, even Old Man McCain, but I have never seen people respond to a politician in exactly the way people respond to Barack Obama.

Erikka posted a Kennedy campaign commercial the other day. We were joking that all we had to do was change the name "Kennedy" to "Obama" and the commercial was as relevant today as it was back then.

Here, then, after much ado, is - according to my cousin-in-law - the best Obama quote. Ever.

"Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all . . . Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what's possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing."

Sneak peak at the new documentary series from Brave New Foundation and The Nation coming out Spring 2008.

This may be my favorite "special comment" yet.

Fred Thompson. He's such a wonderful, gosh-golly-gee-whiz kind of guy. (Now that he's running for president, of course.) We here at BNF are real big fans. We recently took his presidential announcement and crafted it into a bit more honest message.

Sometimes though, there are messages even we can't make better. This is from the Associated Press this afternoon:

"Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson seemed taken by surprise when asked Tuesday about oil drilling in the Everglades, apparently unaware it's been a major Florida issue.

"Before answering, he laughed at the question.

"Gosh, no one has told me that there's any major reserves in the Everglades, but maybe that's one of the things I need to learn while I'm down here," Thompson said after talking over state issues with Gov. Charlie Crist.

"Thompson, who has called for seeking U.S. oil resources wherever they exist, was asked by an Associated Press reporter whether that included drilling in the Everglades.

"I'm not going to start out by taking this, that or the other off the table in terms of our overall energy situation," he said."

Seems someone needs to shuffle his advisors around. Again. For the third (or is it fourth) time.

Jeremy Scahill, author of "Blackwater: The Rise of World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army" talks to CNN International after Blackwater was banned by the Iraqi government for opening fire in Baghdad, killing at least nine civilians and wounding 18.

We're in the midst right now of a discussion about a surge, and about troop withdrawls, and we hear conflicting messages, but there's been a surge on for 4 years of the private sector in Iraq.."