HumidCity

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

The second annual Rising Tide conference will be held August 24-26, 2007, at the New Orleans Yacht Club. This is a NOLA blogger-organized and supported conference featuring speakers, panels, breakout sessions, and other dialogs on the future of the city of New Orleans.

This year’s emphasis is on ground-level, grass-roots efforts. It has become clear to those of us in south Louisiana that we will have to watch the watchmen, as well as take the upper hand is setting the city back on track. To that end, there will be presentations on local politics and how to influence them, making civics sexy, sustainability, levee engineering, and media outreach.

The keynote speaker is Dave Zirin, author of Welcome to the Terrordome, published by Haymarket Press, a columnist for SLAM Magazine, a regular contributor to the Nation Magazine, and a regular op-ed writer for the Los Angeles Times. Timothy Ruppert, president of the Louisiana Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers, will give a comprehensive report on the status of our levee protection two years after the failure of the federal levees brought catastrophe to New Orleans. Matt McBride of Fix the Pumps will present via video conference. Panelists will include community activists Karen Gadbois of Squandered Heritage, Bart Everson of b.rox, and Peter Athas of Adrastos, muckraking blogger Mark Moseley of Your Right Hand Thief, New Orleans political sage Michael Duplantier and author Joshua Clark Heart Like Water

On Friday, August 24, there will be a party at Buffa’s Lounge featuring the work of New Orleans videographers, and Sunday is reserved for a hands-on service project in aid of the NOLA school system. At the Buffa’s party, we are serving cocktail party-type food, but there will be a cash bar.The weekend’s events costs $20 per person. This includes admission to the Friday night party at Buffa’s, Saturday’s events at the New Orleans Yacht Club (including morning coffee and croissants and lunch from Dunbar’s), and participation in the Sunday service project. Please register to attend using the PayPal link on the website. If you don’t use PayPal, feel free to call or e-mail me to reserve your space at the conference and, more importantly, your lunch from Dunbar’s. We have no problem with people paying at the door, we just need to know that you are coming.

There will, f  course, be liveblogging of the event, and materials available online. If you can’t come, there is also a paypal link if you'd care to donate (this is a non-profit endeavor). Feel free to contact us through the website, or ask questions by replying to this e-mail. Rising Tide’s toll-free phone number is: 866-910-2055.

Although I am sending this e-mail to over 200 people, I’m sure I’m missing some. Please forward this to anyone you think might be interested. Unless they have a blog or have expressed interest in the past, they are probably not on my e-mail list. Also, bloggers, please spread the word on your blogs!