It's your last chance to vote for your favorite 2009 CNN Hero!A "Blue Ribbon Panel" selected the 2009 Top Ten CNN Heroes out of 9,000 nominations, and now you can choose the 2009 CNN Hero of the Year from their Top Ten. Voting ends Thursday, November 19 at 6 AM ET.

November 20, 2009 is the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). According to UNICEF, "The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the first legally binding international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rights—civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights."

I'm a big walker. Because of where we live, I can walk to the grocery store, drug store, post office, gym, library, doctor's office, and the BART, which will take me into San Francisco, where I can walk some more.Consequently, I was pretty excited when the Alliance for Biking and Walking asked me to spread the word about their People Powered Movement Photo Contest.

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, "lays out an agenda for the world's women and three major abuses: sex trafficking and forced prostitution; gender-based violence including honor killings and mass rape; maternal mortality, which needlessly claims one woman a minute."

Maybe it's the fact that I've been spending a lot of time with our cat this week, or because I've been trying out a bunch of recipes from my Veganomicon cookbook, but I've been thinking a lot about animals lately.Do we want a second pet? Would I enjoy being a vegetarian, or vegan again? How long will polar bears be around?