Congress left last weekend for its annual August recess and when it did, it left behind important work yet to be done: passing the second package of economic relief legislation Democrats have been promising all year. As members travel their districts this month, they will see first-hand how people are hurting:

When I wrote on Monday that the media had failed to examine the sexist coverage of Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, I was remiss not to mention the effort that Katie Couric has made to bring attention to this issue in her role as anchor of CBS Evening News. Couric continued those efforts tonight in her Reporter's Notebook.

As a woman, each year I am more and more concerned by the portrayal of women in the media, advertisements, and entertainment. I wonder about the impact this has, not only on women’s perception of their role in society but also on their actual engagement in society. Men can be real – growing gut, thinning hair – but women almost always are portrayed as their ideal. When women aren't depicting the feminine ideal, they are frequently playing a caricature: a bimbo, a bitch, a slut. Lord knows you can't sell anything without a smiling, busty, underdressed woman in the ad (except for cleaning products – the women are still busty, but generally clothed).

The Washington Post ran an interesting article about the impact of climate change on our food supply. The concern is that new plant varieties must be cultivated to withstand the havoc that global warming is expected to wreak on agriculture, namely plants that are tolerant to drought, flooding, etc. Skip to the end and they reference the doomsday plan, a vault housing endless seed types for use in the event that plants do not survive future weather patterns. The vault is in Norway, embedded in a mountainside (much like the geologic cocoon afforded America's most precious commodity, nuclear waste).

Representatives James McGovern (D-MA) and Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO) initiated a Food Stamp Challenge in Congress, pledging to live for a week on an average food stamp budget - just $3 a day. They invited their colleagues in the House of Representatives to participate, and two other members have joined their efforts: Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Tim Ryan (D-OH).

The Supreme Court gave another boost to the cause of climate change this week when it handed down a 5 to 4 ruling against the Environmental Protection Agency. The court took issue with the agency's refusal to regard carbon dioxide emitted from vehicles as an air pollutant subject to regulation. This decision places new pressure on the administration to address global warming, adding to the momentum that has been building in recent months.

Media attention to global warming has increased considerably over the last year, thanks in large part to the success of Vice President Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth. More significantly, the outlook for congressional action on the issue improved dramatically when Democrats took control of Congress last fall: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi formed a Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming in March and has vowed to pass global warming legislation by July 4.

Despite these public demonstrations that the tide is turning on the issue of climate change, the most critical boost to the cause is one that has not commanded the headlines: the support of evangelical Christians.