HumidCity

I want to call out two blogger initiated relief campaigns for people suffering from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. First, the blogger Patrap who writes on a blog hosted at Weather Underground and frequently contributes in the comments on Dr. Jeff Master’s tropical weather blog, is organizing a truck of relief for Texas.

He is co-ordinating with a 501c3 so donations will be tax deductible, and working with a local blogger in the Galveston area to make sure the supplies are what is needed and get to people on the ground who need them most.

Since this is an effort coordinated by a fellow New Orleans blogger, I want to encourage the NOLA social media (bloggers and readers alike) to step up to assist Patrick in his effort.

The details are below:

Updated 4:27 pm with a new mailing address. Be sure to mark checks for Texas Hurricane Relief to ensure they are routed to Patrick’s effort.

We are coordinating a Relief Push for the Galveston area by Thursday.
We are renting a 16ft Budget truck to fill with relief supplies.
If you want to help you can contact Patrap via the Weather Underground site mail (if you have a Wunderground.com login), or you can donate cash support: Read the rest of this entry »

On WTUL FM’s Community Gumbo tomorrow morning at 9am. I’ll be talking about Katrina, media democratization, and the social web. Go here and click “listen live” in the morning.

Ladies, Gentlemen, and Undecided,

The schedule of events and speakers for Rising Tide III is now available! In this third year of our “blogger conference” there is much of interest, as can be seen below. More details and online registration are available at the Rising Tide Conference Blog. Come on down and get the skinny on Year 3K, from levee failure to living in the aftermath this one has it all. Even better, if you wish to levy abuse upon yours truly then you can do so at the Conference as I will be liveblogging the proceedings for HumidCity and Katrina: An UnNatural Disaster.

-Loki, HumidCity Founder

Friday night, 8/22, 7:30 PM - Meet and Greet at Buffa’s Lounge, 1001 Esplanade Avenue. Pick up your badges, grab some refreshments, and chat with other bloggers. Drinks are not included in the conference fee.

Saturday, 8/23, 9:00 - Conference begins at Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center, 1618 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd - coffee and pastries are served.

The following presentations include 15-minute Question and Answer sessions:

9:30- 10:30 - Keynote speaker: John Barry, author of Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America and commissioner for the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority - East

10:45 - 12:00 - The Past, Present, and Future of Elementary and Secondary Education in New Orleans.

Panelists:

· Dedra Johnson – author, professor and blogger, author of Sandrine’s Letter to Tomorrow

· Jeffrey Berman - teacher, Booker T. Washington High School and Schwarz Alternative School

· Grayling Evans - teacher, Coghill Elementary School

· Leigh Dingerson - Education team leader of the Center for Community Change, editor and contributor to Keeping The Promise?: The Debate Over Charter Schools

· Clifton Harris - concerned parent and blogger

· Christian Roselund - UTNO Communications, blogging at Dirty South Bureau

Moderator: Patrick Armstrong, former Recovery School District teacher and blogger

12:00 - 1:00 - Lunch provided by J’anita’s

1:00 - 2:15 - Journalism and Blogging: Intersections and Digressions

Panelists:

· Lee Zurik: WWL-TV investigative reporter

· Kevin Allman: author, journalist, and blogger, frequent guest blogger at Gambit’s Blog of New Orleans

· David Winkler-Schmit: journalist and frequent contributor to Gambit Weekly and the Blog of New Orleans

· Eli Ackerman: blogger at We Could Be Famous

Moderator: Jeffrey Bostick

2:30 - 3:45 - Local Politics Panel - Panelists and Moderator TBA

Refreshments can be purchased at the Zeitgeist concession stand for the duration of the conference.

Sunday, 8-24: Community Service Activity TBA

I’m a bit older than some.

I remember when there was no internet.

Shocking, I know, but there was such a time.
Today, people are on line everywhere, connected at coffee shops, bars, home & work, by blackberry, Iphone, et al.
And we have a phenomenon called Bloggers. I think of myself as a writer, a columnist, but I suppose I fall into this categorey, as well.

One of the symptoms of Blogger Society appears to be Blog Wars, feuds of words, wherein various bloggers attack each other with what they believe is biting sarcasm, cutting edge one-up-manship, taunting and slander. What a huge waste of human potential.

Is this who we are?

Really?

At our fingertips is the greatest tool ever known to humanity, a conduit where we can come together, learn each others ways, circulate information…and we get adolescent ego tripping, like a bad rap movie?

Right now, you could be at the Benefit for Chris & Otter, witnessing some of the best music and art in New Orleans, helping some artists who had a bad turn.

You could be attending a roller derby match to help support the family of Hana Morris, a woman who lost her husband and has three tiny children. Her husband was a vibrant and compelling voice for us all.

You could be signing on to SilenceIsViolence.com, as yet another youth dies, unprotected, in a hail of bullets.

Right now, a child is wondering if they should stay in school or sell drugs. A kid with a brain that could cure cancer is afraid of the crack dealers on the corner, and dropping out. A mother is trying to explain to her children why daddy isn’t coming home from Iraq. Someone is so lonely they are staring down a bottle of pills, wondering who would notice. All of us, at one time, reach out, often too late, for friendship, for love, for hope. By clicking the keyboard we could find one another, answers to our questions, something like the truth, another way to go, another like us.

Instead, I find myself beset by this Biggie vs Tupac Blogger mentality.
Is this who we are?
Really?

At our fingertips is the greatest tool ever known to humanity, a conduit where we can come together, learn each others ways, circulate information.. and change the world.

Next time you start reading that crap, do us all a favor;
Turn it off & simply walk away.
Paint something.
Read a book.
Teach a child to play a musical instrument.
Roll on the grass with your dog.
Tell a stranger they’re beautiful.
Find yourself….

Because this is NOT who we are.
Really.
I know you better than that.
You can do just about anything.

Just do what you dream.

Don’t waste another second on this foolish game.

It diminishes us all.

And you deserve better.

Lord David
Pirate & Artist
Skull Club
New Orleans

7am tomorrow I head out towards the Fairgrounds as Jazz Fest launches. This year is going to be very busy as I am not only acting as AP to the Program Manager for the continuous live broadcast / webcast (stream here) of the event, but I am also cordinating and producing a group blog of postings by the DJ’s, myself, and possibly a few others.

It will be a nonstop run unitl 2am Monday night when we wrap Piano Night. Then its the prep and craziness of weekend two.   By the way, for my out of town friends who may have escaped exposure to it WWOZ is worth checking out, its not like any other station on earth and its all New Orleans sound. Check out the Wiki , The Site , The Flickr Photo  Group, and (of course) wwoz_90_7fm

I should hopefully have some good pics and stories to share when its all over, in the meantime I will be out of the loop until after the first weekend of May.

I am repeatedly asked about what tools I use in blogging, and for advice on how to do so more easily and effectively. The following is a rundown on useful web based tools that I use on a regular basis which I offer as a semi-comprehensive answer to these questions.

Flickr - Lets start with something colorful, like pictures. I use Flickr, and wholeheartedly recommend it. The free version is useful although limited. On the good side the paid version is only $25 a year. With a paid account you have 2 GB of upload for pictures and can store a near infinite number of them. My own account has over 10,000 images. It integrates a number of useful features, but the two most important for a blogger are the ability to blog an image directly from with Flickr and the ability to instantly generate source code for inserting images into posts in your normal editor.

Picnik - This is an online image editor which can pull an image directly out of your Flickr account and allow you to edit it. Its no Photshop, but its really good for basics like brightness, contrast, sepiatone, etc. When you are done you can either overwrite your original image or add it as a new one. Picnik fully supports image tagging and Flickr sets.

Flickr Toys - Another wonderful resource that ties directly into your Flickr Photostream. Its actually a collection of image manipulation toys thta allow you to do a number of things. You can make motivational posters, magazine covers, trading cards, and more. Tons of fun and terrific for those with a satirical bent.

Flock - Flock is a new browser, built on the Firefox core (if you are still using IE check out Flock and Firefox, you will switch I promise you!). It is a beautiful tool for a blogger. It has a built in feed reader which you can load up with feeds from sites you constantly refer to using a simple drag and drop interface. It also can integrate your Flickr or Photobucket pictures, showing them in a top bar where they can easily be dragged into posts. If you use del.icio.us (a social bookmarking service), the bookmarks can be configured to post to your online bookmarks. It also has a built in blog editor (which I do not use, see the write up on Performancing below).

Performancing - this is a blog editor extension for Firefox and Flock. It can be configured to post to multiple blogs on multiple platforms ranging from Blogger and LiveJournal to WordPress (there is even a MySpace plugin for it) While you’re in your browser just hit F8 and it opens in the lower half of your browser window. Using this in Flock with the photobar and the newsreader makes it extermely easy to craft a detailed post with pictures and attributed quotes. It is the only editor I use lately.

Hopefully this will be useful to someone out there. If it is let me know. If you have something to add that I missed let me know.
Now all you need is something to say…

my spam catcher has now caught over 25,000 spam comments since the transition to WordPress last June

California Appeals court has now overturned that ruling, clearly saying that web publications are covered under the same protections as offline publications. Hah! So there!

Well, as I perdicted a few posts ago the torrent of anit-NOLA sentiment is strating to really rear its head in the wake of the election. Now only a fool would say that there is no blame to lay at our own doorstep, there is plenty enough to go around. The thing that you just cannot understand until you’ve been here (and even then some people do not get it) is that this transcends partisian politics. It is a simple matter of what needs to get done.

The refrain is usually “corrupt Louisiana politics,” but I see very few talking about the corrupt Fedral politics that have exacerbated the situation from day one. When money is sent down here only to be eaten up by layer upon layer of subcontractors (can you say “No Bid contracts?”) with questionable Federal connections (shoot anyone lately, Dick?) it sounds more like the problem is in DC. Yes, we re-elected Nagin. In DC they re-elected a crack smoker for Mayor, does that sound localised to La.?

Greg Peters gives some great comments on his blog. Read the entire post over on his site, it is a rousig and neccessary call to action!
Suspect Device Blog: Get used to this.
For those out there who think NOLA/Louisiana bloggers have become “so negative”, try Instapundit and Malkin or Bendan Loy today (Be sure to check out the warm and fuzy comments on Loy’s post). This is what a good portion — perhaps a majority — of the rest of the country thinks of New Orleans. It started with yammering nobodies like Bay Buchanan, but they’re the point people: they say the outrageous first, and when no voices rise in protest, the mainstream feels free to lay on.

The Food Network is on and Rachael Ray’s voice captures my attention as she says,”…or you could ride the scenic streetcar down beautiful St.Charles Avenue.” I stop what I’m doing and look up.

I remember when she was in town, I was a manager at one of the restaurants she went to. Seeing New Orleans as it was, an evening I participated in directly, was extremely surreal. The streets were so bright and well populated, the atmosphere robust and full of Joie de Vie. I remember it vividly, the music, the dancing, tripping over camera rigs the whole time. It seemed almost glaringly bright compared to the city around me now.

We now dwell in a bizarre parrallel reality, one painted in a palette of debris and ranting politics. John Folse over at WetBankGuide gives his view of the mirror universe:

“With all of the festivals of winter and spring behind us and the Big Day staring us in the face, it seems that everyone is down. Matri reminds us that blogging traffic is off, and some NOLA bloggers like Dangle and Jaybirdo are just letting go. I haven’t talked to most of my local peeps in weeks, the steady dribble of emails from the fall and winter having ground to a halt. Everybody is too damned busy or depressed or angry. Or busy and depressed and angry. “

This is our downfall. We must work together, me must communicate. No matter what happens or which way things go this will be a New New Orleans. Beginings are delicate things. Let’s all get involved. Let’s try not to screw this up…
Tomorrow we will venture out into this blasted realm and cast our ballots. I can’t say I’m fond of the choices, not at all. The Spanish burned us to the ground and we came back. To hell with FEMA. Vote your conscience and cross your fingers.