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GRITtv: Tornado Devastates Alabama, Southeast
One of the deadliest tornadoes in US history, over a mile and a half wide, touched down in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, last week, with devastation extending across seven states. More than 350 fatalities have been reported, 80 people are still missing in Tuscaloosa alone, and over a thousand people remain hospitalized with critical injuries. The Alabama state Emergency Management Agency is calling the aftermath in Tuscaloosa “Katrina, without three days warning...” While the networks are wall-to-wall Bin Laden, with or without budgets or even homes - survivors are getting the story out.. To compile this piece GRITtv's Rebecca MacDonald relied on eyewitnesses -- many of them students of University of Alabama assistant professor Dr. Rachel Raimist. Student Trey Moe's graduation was to be this week. Distributed by Tubemogul.
Email this pageGRITtv: Brian Jones: Following King's Lessons for Students
What would Dr. King say about the racial achievement gap in our schools today? The most reliable national test data shows, for 13-year-olds, a 28-point racial gap in math scores, and a 21-point gap in reading scores. Distributed by Tubemogul.
GRITtv: From "Tough on Crime" To "Smart on Crime"
The United States incarcerates more of its population, both in aggregate numbers and per capita, than any other country in the world--four times as much as China, which has more people and makes no pretense at being a democracy. This is just one of the troubling facts about the prison industry in the US that Robert Perkinson uncovers in his book, Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire. He traces the modern prison complex to its Southern roots, and connects its racial disparities to the backlash against the civil rights movement. All this might sound depressing, but Perkinson and Leonard Noisette of the Criminal Justice Fund of the Open Society Institute note that the economic crisis and a new administration have combined for one of the best chances for real prison reform since the Johnson administration. They join Laura in studio to discuss.
GRITtv: John Nichols: Money For Jobs From TARP
In several regions of the United States -- Michigan, parts of Ohio and Indiana, stretches of New England and the rural south, historically depressed urban areas -- the jobless figures are so acute that they have become the definitional social, economic and political concern. John Nichols of the Nation has a suggestion for the President: use the bank bailout dollars to put regular Americans back to work.
GRITtv: Rural South Suffers Stigma of HIV
From RH Reality Check, this video looks at the state of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in South Carolina. Much of the state is poor and rural and suffers from a lack of both proper health care funds and proper education for the population. Activists in the state note that the stigma and the lack of information are still as bad in parts of South Carolina as they were in 1981, when the virus first hit the American consciousness. Activists are calling for a massive public health initiative to slow the spread of HIV and to treat people who have already contracted the virus.
