I recently saw two excellent documentaries on television. I highly recommend both.
One was narrated by Fareed Zakaria; its title: “Terror in Mumbai.” It appeared on HBO. I vividly remember the horrible events, when 10 terrorists landed in Mumbai in 2008 and killed dozens of people–at the train station, in hotels, in a Jewish center, and at other sites. At the time, there was great confusion about how many terrorists there were, what happened, and why. Now we know. The Indian police were totally unprepared. But most interesting was to learn that the Indian intelligence service managed to tune into the frequency used to communicate between the terrorists and their controller, who gave them instructions and constantly reminded them to create as much havoc as possible. He also reminded them that they would succeed only if they died.
The second documentary is called “The Hunting Ground.” It appeared on CNN. It is about sexual assaults on campus. A number of young women (and some young men) have organized to tell their stories and to expose their universities’ indifference to their reports of rape and other assaults. What’s shocking about this story is the hypocrisy of the universities, all of which claimed that took these reports “very seriously.” Yes, very seriously. If the alleged assailant was a star athlete, the chances of a genuine investigation were slim to none.
PS: sorry about the earlier blank posting!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I highly recommend The Hunting Ground, especially to education activists. See the trailer here http://www.thehuntinggroundfilm.com. I have been singing its praises since I was fortunate enough to see a screening hosted by the California Women’s Law Center last summer. These women turned tragedies into a national movement including federal legislation. Their tactics were absolutely inspiring to me. I follow some of them on Twitter now where they are very active.
Karen Wolfe
Karen@PSconnectNow.org
@kwolfepack
I saw “Terror in Mumbai.” The sounds of the terrorists cheering each other via social media, real time, was amazing, and some of the last reports praised the terrorists for the power of the imagery they created, circulating internationally, of the hotel going up in flames.
The overall strategy, not perfectly executed but effective, appears to be similar to the open use of social media to plan and to monitor the progress of the attacks in Paris.
Here’s one I thought was great – “A Dangerous Business”
It’s about how federal and state lawmakers ignored safety violations at a facility where they make pipe for 20 years, which resulted in more than 4,000 serious injuries and even deaths among the people who worked there.
The one and only reason the owners and managers of the place were ever charged (and then convicted) was because they (eventually) violated the Clean Water Act.
It’s shocking how little regard there is for the basic safety and lives of working people and this isn’t in a far-off developing country- it’s in Texas. No regulator at the federal or state level did anything, for decades, and thousands of people were seriously and permanently injured at work.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/workplace/mcwane/