The Rising Tide Conference is an annual gathering for all who wish to learn more and do more to assist New Orleans' recovery. Leveraging the power of bloggers and new media, the conference is a launch pad for organization and action. Our day-long program of speakers and presentations is tailored to inform, entertain, enrage and inspire.
Harry Shearer: Comments at Rising Tide IV in New Orleans (22 Aug 2009) from Crystal Kile on Vimeo.
Some other accounts can be found at Maitri's here. It was much, much more than nola.com did: according to the local paper, the story was all Harry Shearer and nothing else.And here is where I am embarrassed. My one note, the one thing I most wanted to discuss, maybe even the most important thing to discuss within the context of health and New Orleans, did not get mentioned. I didn’t know where to put it in without sounding like the crazy loon in the armchair throwing off the conversation… so I waited for a question from the audience that would let me bring it up. Unfortunately, it didn’t come. So I didn’t say anything about the issue of race and class… and neither did anybody else.
Which is a shame because we cannot consider the scope of health challenges of any kind within our city — access, stress, mental health, behavioral concerns, nutrition, whatever health issue one can think of — without discussing race and class. Race and class shape any health experience irregardless of the location. But in New Orleans, it is a paramount issue. For one, before 2005, New Orleans was the only city in the country that had a defined two-tier system with separate and (un)equal medical facilities for the haves and have-nots. What has not returned post-Flood are those services for the have-nots. So what isn’t being said is that the reason these services aren’t here, or are being taken away, is because they are for a population that many do not want here in the first place. The rest of us work away at putting money and resources into community clinics (whose funding is not indefinite) and outreach and signing individuals up for public services — but how effective can we be in the long run if we never take a step back and look at the big picture?
What I would like to tell the people in this room is that you are all special. You all share a collective love for this city and are using your blogs and activism to shape a better vision of New Orleans. While we all may not agree on everything, we all….most certainly…..care. We care enough to pay attention….and that means everything to the health of a community.It was an honor to craft the Ashley for Ashe Dambala.
We all know that traditional mainstream media resources are facing some serious challenges with the advent of the internet and quite often blogs are portrayed as the nemesis to quality journalism. I don’t believe this is true. Blogs are just another tool for the 4th estate to perform it’s job. In a way, I think the internet is the ultimate evolution of the 4th estate. All of you…particularly you….New Orleans bloggers…have proven that in the years following Katrina. Nowhere have bloggers made such an impact as they have here in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina.
And for that matter, I think the MSM, investigative journalists in this city are head and shoulders above the national pack. I am personally not worried for their future as some….as I have faith that quality and integrity is always in demand regardless of the medium or technology used to relay the message. I hope our blogs continue to serve them in the future. After all…we’re on the same team.
2 - 2:15 PM
New Orleans Institute presentation by Ariella Cohen
2:15 - 2:20 PM
break
2:20 - 3:10 PM
Health Care panel: participating will be public health Ph.D. candidate and local blogger Holly Scheib, Cecile Tebo, crisis unit coordinator for the NOPD and one of New Orleans magazine's Top Ten Female Achievers; Dr Elmore Rigamer, medical director of Catholic Charities, and another panelist TBA.
3:10 - 3:20 PM
break
3:25 - 3:40 PM
presentation of the Ashley Morris Award for Excellence in Blogging by Oyster of Your Right Hand Thief.
3:45 - 4:35 PM
Sports panel, hosted by Jeffrey: Alejandro de los Rios, reporter/blogger for the Gambit, Leo McGovern, Editor/publisher of ANTIGRAVITY Magazine which is the only local alternative music zine I know of that features a regular sports column. Leo is also a character in Josh Neufeld's After the Deluge, Chris Wiseman (AKA Mr. Clio, AKA Dilly, AKA Lee De Fleur) Long-time local blogger, ever-enthusiastic member of the Black and Gold Patrol and locally famous Crescent City Classic participant.
4:35 - 4:45 PM
Concluding remarks, thank yous, etc.
Any preview of what you’re going to address during your speech?
“No because I don’t know yet.”
Big thanks to Susan Larson of the Times-PicayuneAlejandro de los Rios reporter/blogger for the GambitHope to see you all this year at the Avenue Pub on Friday and the Zeitgeist on Saturday.
Leo McGovern Editor/publisher of ANTIGRAVITY Magazine which is the only local alternative music zine I know of that features a regular sports column. Leo is also a character in Josh Neufeld's After the Deluge.
Chris Wiseman (AKA Mr. Clio, AKA Dilly, AKA Lee De Fleur) Long-time local blogger, ever-enthusiastic member of the Black and Gold Patrol and locally famous Crescent City Classic participant.
The big-picture discussion will be about the role of sports in the local cultural fabric and how that has helped sustain civic identity in the years after the flood. The rest, I'm sure, will be a knuckle-headed argument about the upcoming football season. It should be a fun way to finish the day.
According to (our emcee, Loki) Williams, blogging provided a forum for New Orleanians like Army Corps of Engineers watchdog Matt McBride and community activist Karen Gadbois to produce heavily researched citizen journalism that belied what was being reported in the national news, but didn't fit, as Williams puts it, "into a two-minute sound bite or a heavily biased Fox newscast." Others, like (Leigh) Checkman and Mark Folse, a New Orleans native who moved back to the city following the flood and wrote about his experience in his blog, Wet Bank Guide, offered a slice of life in the disaster zone.So I added the links myself.By late 2005, local bloggers were finding each other. An Internet discussion group began, giving bloggers a chance to share tips and news. Someone suggested a conference, and Mark Moseley, aka Oyster, who writes Your Right Hand Thief spearheaded the effort with others, including (Peter) Athas and Maitri Venkat-Ramani (Maitri's Vatul Blog). The inaugural Rising Tide conference was held Aug. 25-27, 2006, the weekend before the storm's first anniversary.
"The Rising Tide Conference will be a gathering for all who wish to learn more and do more to assist New Orleans' recovery in the aftermath of the natural disasters of both Hurricane Katrina and Rita, the manmade disaster of the levee and floodwall collapses, and the incompetence of government on all levels," Folse wrote on the first day of the conference.
Though local bloggers organize these conferences and the central theme is New Orleans' recovery and future, Rising Tide isn't for bloggers only, nor just for locals. Since the first conference, there has been an effort to get the information to a wider audience through live blogging, YouTube and other new media. Williams says he is promoting this year's event via Facebook and Twitter, two popular social media networks. Even if these efforts don't attract more attendees to the actual conference, it will create a permanent online record for anyone to access. Williams does, however, think this year's attendance could be the highest ever.
"This year we have the potential to break through and have a number of people there who wouldn't normally have come, simply because of the name recognition of Harry Shearer," he says.
Photo by Emily Ardoin
I am working with NOLA Slate on a panel on the state of New Orleans culture, with panelists who will speak on the state of parading, food and music culture in the city in Year Four after the Federal Flood. Speaking on parading culture will be Edward Buckner of The Porch Seventh Ward Culture Organization and the Original Big 7 Social Aid and Pleasure Club Our food panelist will be Susan Tucker, editor of New Orleans Cuisine: Fourteen Signature Dishes and Their Histories. Our music panelist will be Bruce Raeburn of the Hogan Jazz Archive and author of New Orleans Style and the Writing of American Jazz History.I myself am not without news:
After all this time, the results of a recent study have linked the stresses of post-federal flood life - including the scanty access to hospitals, pharmacies, and treatment by health care professionals - to a greater incidence of heart attacks in area residents...Keynoter Harry Shearer contributes to TPM Cafe and gets his Derek Smalls on for The Daily Show...
The health care panel at this year's Rising Tide conference will explore this sad fact of post 8-29 living, as well as many other related subjects. Moderated by public health Ph.D. candidate and local blogger Holly Scheib, the participants will be: Cecile Tebo, crisis unit coordinator for the NOPD and one of New Orleans magazine's Top Ten Female Achievers; Dr Elmore Rigamer, medical director of Catholic Charities; and Sean Fitzmorris, local EMT and administrator of New Orleans EMTs Sound Off!
I've been a busy bee organizing this year's politics panel, which thus far includes Clancy DuBos of the Gambit and WWL-TV, ace NOLA political cartoonist and WBOK radio talk show host John Slade, blogger extraordinaire Lamar White Jr. of CenLamar fame and perhaps a player to be named later. I'm not sure if Crash Davis is available or not. I'll be the immoderate moderator and along with throwing raw meat at the panelists, I'll offer some pithy and, hopefully, perceptive comments as well. We may even muss the eminent Mr. DuBos' well coiffed head for your amusement. It's just a joke Clancy, I may envy your full head of hair but I would never, ever muss it...Big thanks also go to Adrastos for his instrumental role in getting our keynote speaker's participation this year.
