But wait there's more!

Look what else is happening at Rising Tide X

Taking Action: Building the Movement in Our Communities and Beyond

Open discussion with Dr. Jill Stein, community organizer, physician, environmental justice activist, presidential candidate.

3rd floor boardroom
  11:45-12:30PM

Rising Tide X is August 29 at Xavier University. Check out the rest of the website for details about the extensive program. You can go for free this year but please register here. If you'd like to help defray the cost of production, there's a separate GoFundMe page here.    

If you're coming to Rising Tide X

Maybe you're coming by RTA or by bike or by helicopter if you are Donald Trump. There are many ways to get where Y'at. We'll be discussing all of them, in fact.  But if you're coming by car, most likely you'll want to know where to put it.

In which case you'll want to consult this map of the Xavier campus. The University Center, where RT will take place, is highlighted in red and convenient parking in green. Parking designations for faculty or staff, etc., do not apply on the weekend.

The conference welcome will begin at 9:30 in the third floor main ballroom.  After that, you'll want to consult the cubes.

Panel Discussion: Education in New Orleans: The Next 10 Years

 


Rising Tide X
Aug. 29, 2015
3 p.m.

Xavier University
1 Drexel Drive

For the last 10 years, New Orleans has played the blame game in education.
 

Reformers have shamed the past to argue for change. In return, reform has been charged with destroying public education for future children. The aftermath of Katrina should have incited passions. However, everyone seems to have profited from the debate except for public school families—the people who need more than just words.

Durable arguments have concretized into an immovable tableau that gets in the way of both justice and progress. Pointing fingers to say who did what to who doesn’t solve problems. Progress forces us to ask where do we go from here. 

This session will ask participants where should New Orleans education head in the next 10 years. 

Moderator: Andre Perry, Columnist

Amanda Aiken, Principal of Crocker Elementary

Sharon Clark, Principal of Sophie B. Wright Charter School

Karran Harper Royal, Parent Advocate

Jamar MckNeely, CEO of the Inspire Network

Dana Peterson, Deputy Superintendent, Recovery School District

Lamont Douglass, Parent and PTA Member at Wilson Elementary 

The Education panel will begin at 3:00 pm in the UC ballroom. 

Rising Tide X is August 29 at Xavier University. Check out the rest of the website for details about the extensive program. You can go for free this year but please register here. If you'd like to help defray the cost of production, there's a separate GoFundMe page here.   

Environmental Panel: Are we any Dam Safer?

Rising Tide X
Aug. 29, 2015
11:30 am

Xavier University
1 Drexel Drive

Rising Tide V (Howlin Wolf 2010 Fantastic time was had by all) featured a presentation on levee standards by Tim Ruppert. The presentation was cleverly titled "When can we get some Dam Safety in New Orleans?" The presentation does not appear to have been filmed. Luckily, Tim's annotations are still online. Here's the summary.

The thrust of my presentation is this: As long as we think of levees as protection for houses and furniture, there will be no motivation to increase the level of protection. Houses and furniture can be replaced and the government underwrites the insurance to cover those losses.

We need to talk about levees as serving a higher purpose: levees are often life-safety structures. When levees fail, people die. That’s what’s important and that’s what we should be designing for.

Five years after this talk and, of course, ten years after the catastrophic failure of New Orleans's flood protection system, Lens environmental reporter Bob Marshall writes that our standard is still inadequate. 

Of all the questions being asked about New Orleans’ progress 10 years after the disaster that killed nearly 1,500 residents and clouded its future, the most persistent has been this: Is it safer now?

Interviews with engineers and storm experts resulted in answers filled with caveats and concerns such as Luettich’s.

The best summation: It’s safer for houses, but not necessarily for the people who live in them.

That’s because the new system is the city’s best engineered and built ever, but it was designed to a lower level of protection than the one that failed. It’s also less than what Congress ordered in 1965. It was built to provide property insurance, not save lives. And experts insist it’s insufficient for an important city sitting on a sinking delta in hurricane alley during the age of climate-induced sea level rise and mega storms.

The legal standard for determining the safety of a dam is measured in lives. But "when levees fail, people die" also. And still we're building levees only rated to a standard that satisfies property insurers.  Shouldn't we be asking for more dam safety?

At Rising Tide X, Bob Marshall will participate in a discussion about flood control and about the deteriorating South Louisiana coastal marshes without which the entire system is moot. Here is the full panel.


Anne Rolfes, Founding Director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade , began her career in Nigeria, collaborating with local communities to address oil companies’ destruction of the Niger Delta. She returned to Louisiana in 2000 and founded the Louisiana Bucket Brigade to end oil pollution in her home state. The organization has created cutting edge tools, including the iWitness Pollution Map, the Refinery Accident Database and in street based artistic performances.  Anne was born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana where many people made their fortunes from the oil industry. She has seen the wealth and the poverty created by oil production and seeks to make the industry more equitable.  She has a Masters in International Development from Tulane; she has twice testified before Congress. Her work has been recognized by local and national awards, including the Jane Bagley Lehman Award for Public Advocacy and the Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leader Award.

Bob Marshall covers environmental issues for The Lens, with a special focus on coastal restoration and wetlands. While at The Times-Picayune, his work chronicling the people, stories and issues of Louisiana’s wetlands was recognized with two Pulitzer Prizes and other awards. In 2012 Marshall was a member of the inaugural class inducted into the Loyola University School of Communications Den of Distinction. 

Jonathan Henderson manages the Gulf Restoration Network's  field operations in the Gulf region. By air, sea and land, he searches for, documents and reports pollution incidents such as leaking pipelines, well heads, platforms, and ongoing BP disaster impacts. He also documents the extensive O&G industry destruction of Louisiana wetlands. He is a founding member of the Greater New Orleans Water Collaborative of which he serves on the interim steering committee and as co-chair of the Advocacy working group. Jonathan is also the Founding President of Vanishing Earth advocacy consulting photography. Born and raised New Orleans, Jonathan grew up fishing and canoeing in Louisiana's bayous and creeks, visiting family along coastal Mississippi, and vacationing on beaches in Alabama and Florida. Jonathan has a Bachelor’s degree in Theater from LSU, a Master’s of Business Administration from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and a JD from Southern University Law Center.

The Environmental panel will begin at 11:30 am in the UC Ballroom. 

Rising Tide X is August 29 at Xavier University. Check out the rest of the website for details about the extensive program. You can go for free this year but please register here. If you'd like to help defray the cost of production, there's a separate GoFundMe page here.   

Panel Discussion: Transportation: How'd ya Get Where Yat?

Freelance writer Megan Braden-Perry created the popular Public Transit Tuesdays feature for Gambit Weekly where she became your friendly guide to the often daunting task of getting around New Orleans via RTA. Megan will moderate a conversation about how New Orleans makes infrastructure an obstacle course.

• Rachel Heiligman of Ride New Orleans
  
  
• Dan Favre of Bike Easy
  
  
• Jeff Januszek of Fix My Streets
  
  
• Amanda Soprano from #NOLATwitter @AmandaSoprano

This panel will begin at 10:30am in the UC ballroom.

After the Transportation panel, Amanda Soprano's taking over the classroom for a breakout session on New Orleans RTA issues specifically.

Rising Tide X is August 29 at Xavier University. Check out the rest of the website for details about the extensive program. You can go for free this year but please register here. If you'd like to help defray the cost of production, there's a separate GoFundMe page here. 

Author and Journalist Gary Rivilin Speaks at Rising Tide X

Gary Rivlin, author of Katrina: After the Flood an investigative reporting fellow at The Nation Institute, is a former New York Times reporter and the author of five books, including most recently Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc.—How the Working Poor Became Big Business. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, GQ, and Wired, among other publications.

Rivlin has spent the past decade in and out of New Orleans researching the city's recovery. Katrina: After the Flood was recently reviewed by Gambit.  

Katrina: After the Flood

By Gary Rivlin (Simon & Schuster, $27)

Rivlin covered the aftermath of Katrina for The New York Times and pieces together a tapestry of portraits and tales that should place this as one of the definitive books on the subject. He was a fly on the wall at meetings of the Bring New Orleans Back Commission (which was, of course, about bringing back some neighborhoods and not others), and examines the 2006 mayoral race, which brought 21 challengers against Mayor Ray Nagin, who had made headlines with his "chocolate city" comment. Along the way, Rivlin tells personal stories of New Orleanians just trying to get by, like that of Cassandra Wall, who believes the stress of the storm contributed to her mother's death from cancer, and the late Mack McClendon, who worked on his destroyed house all day and slept in a formaldehyde-poisoned FEMA trailer at night.

There are fascinating quotes on nearly every page, from real estate developer Pres Kabacoff ("It took a Katrina to finally turn things around") to Nagin, who allowed talk show host Oprah Winfrey to enter the Superdome only after swearing aloud, "I, Oprah Winfrey, promise not to hold the city liable financially or otherwise as a result of me going into this doggone stinky-ass Superdome."

Rivlin also resurrects a 2006 story by The New York Times' Adam Nossiter, who described boosters imagining a New Orleans that has become "an arts-infused mecca for youthful risk-takers, a boomtown where entrepreneurs can repair to cool French Quarter bars in ancient buildings after a hard day of deal making." You be the judge.

In Rolling Stone this week, Rivlin reports on a generation of young New Orleanians whose lives were affected by the disaster.

Gary Rivilin's talk will begin the day at Rising Tide X in the Ballroom at 10:00 am. 

Rising Tide X is August 29 at Xavier University. Check out the rest of the website for details about the extensive program. You can go for free this year but please register here. If you'd like to help defray the cost of production, there's a separate GoFundMe page here.  

Civil Rights leader DeRay Mckesson to keynote Rising Tide X conference

The organizers of Rising Tide, the premier annual new media conference in the GulfSouth, are proud to announce that civil rights activist DeRay McKesson (@deray) will deliver the keynote speech at Rising Tide X (#RTX), Aug. 29 at Xavier University.

Since the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, McKesson has used social media to amplify protest and advocacy against oppressive systems. In the past year he has become one of the most widely-recognized civil rights leaders of his generation. His keynote, scheduled for 2pm, will highlight a full day of multi-track content at Rising Tide X.

Rising Tide organizer Mark Moseley said, "Part of Rising Tide's mission is to use technology to transform advocacy into action. No one has done that better over the past year than DeRay McKesson. He is at the forefront of an innovative digital movement to expose and resist systems of racial oppression. We thank him for accepting our invitation and look forward to his speech and presence in New Orleans on August 29."

Fortune magazine rated McKesson #11 on its list of “World’s Greatest Leaders.” The Los Angeles Times hailed McKesson as one of the “new civil rights leaders,” and New York Magazine profiled him in May and said he helped build the "nation’s first 21st-century civil rights movement."

For more on @DeRay, see his bio page here.

Rising Tide X will be free admission. Organizers aim to have free lunch for attendees, as well, but this will be contingent on the amount of donations received on the RTX Go Fund Me page gofundme.com/7y3bpndfw

Rising Tide X registration
Rising Tide website
Rising Tide X FB
Rising Tide twitter

The 10th annual Rising Tide New Media Conference will be held from 9am-5pm at the University Center at Xavier University of Louisiana, 1 Drexel Drive, New Orleans, Louisiana 70125 on August 29, 2015.

Announcing: Rising Tide 8 Panel Discussion

The eighth Rising Tide Conference will take place on September 14 on the campus of Xavier University. Register today at http://risingtidenola.com/

Beyond Tourism Beyond Recovery

In a recent editorial, Governor Bobby Jindal became the latest in a growing string of commenters to call New Orleans “America’s Comeback City.”   Since 2007, its population has grown faster than that of any other American city. And over the course of its long recovery from disaster it has largely bucked the trend of national economic downturn.

As the recovery period draws to a close, how is the city preparing to maintain this momentum? According to the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, “the New Orleans area has experienced notable growth in knowledge–based industries, including higher education and insurance services, while maintaining older industrial strengths.”  In 2012 New Orleans led the nation in business startups per capita.  The New Orleans Business Alliance has completed a strategic plan to take advantage of these assets and build a stronger more diverse economy as the city moves forward.

But even with these developments in progress, New Orleans remains as reliant as ever on tourism.

Tourism has been the city’s traditional calling card and remains so through the recovery.  But its dominance is not without consequences. Tourism wields tremendous influence on the city’s business community, on its politics, and ultimately on the day to day life of its residents.

Residents often complain that the city prioritizes the needs of the tourism business over those of neighborhoods with regard to streets, lighting, transit and other basic infrastructure.   Meanwhile, within those neighborhoods, businesses dedicated to fostering New Orleans’s trademark cultural cache can create livability issues for nearby residents who have to deal with the noise, litter, and other inconveniences associated with city’s famous amusements.

Finally, the very act of turning the city’s unique cultural heritage into a set of mass produced touring experiences can diminish the authenticity of that very culture.  Is it worth it? According to a recent Loyola University study, the average salary in tourism and hospitality is only $26,000.

Can we do better by the waiters, cooks, musicians, artists, tour guides and the like who support the “cultural economy”? Does the industry  have too heavy and influence on the city’s major land use and infrastructure decisions?  How do we balance the demands of the tourism industry with the needs of neighborhoods and those of us who just like to live here?  And is the city doing enough to diversify its economy beyond tourism as it moves beyond recovery?

Moderated by Charles Maldonado: Staff Writer at The Lens

Charles Maldonado is The Lens’ government accountability reporter, covering the city of New Orleans and other local government bodies. He previously worked for Gambit, New Orleans’ alternative newsweekly, where he covered city hall, criminal justice and public health. Before moving to New Orleans, he covered state and local government for weekly papers in Nashville. In Knoxville, Tenn., Maldonado received numerous awards for his reporting of a billion-gallon coal ash spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant. A native of Detroit, Maldonado and his wife are expecting their first child.

Kevin Fox Gotham, Ph.D. is a professor of sociology and associate dean of academic affairs in the School of Liberal Arts at Tulane University in New Orleans. He has research interests in urban redevelopment, real estate and housing policy, tourism, and post-disaster recovery and rebuilding, and sustainability studies.

He is the author of several books including: Race, Real Estate and Uneven Development (2014 SUNY Press), Authentic New Orleans: Race and Culture in the Big Easy (2007, New York University Press), and Critical Perspectives on Urban Redevelopment (2001, Elsevier). His new book (co-authored with Miriam Greenberg), Crisis Cities: Disaster and Redevelopment in New York and New Orleans (Oxford University Press) will be released in early 2014.

Brice Miller is a New Orleans jazz trumpeter and cultural engagement and public humanities specialist. For many years he taught jazz education for New Orleans Public Schools and created K-16 music and art education programs. He is presently an assistant director with Community Affairs at The University of Alabama, specializing in intercultural and diversity issues on campus, community/scholarly engagement and outreach using the arts and public humanities.

As a jazz artist and performer, Miller has enjoyed a phenomenal career as a musician and entrepreneur, traveling internationally since age 17. He is also the leader of Mahogany Brass Band, one of New Orleans’ only young brass bands maintaining the legacy of the tradition while still pushing the genre forward. Miller has performed at Carnegie Hall on three separate occasions, Kennedy Center, festivals throughout Europe including Umbria and North Sea jazz festivals, and Tivoli Gardens in Denmark to name a few.

Miller is a two-time graduate of Xavier University in New Orleans, where he earned a Bachelor’s in Music Education and a Master’s in Educational Administration and Leadership. Miller works for The University of Alabama Crossroads Community Center, an initiative of the Office of Community Affairs.  He is an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. candidate at The University of Alabama with a concentration in community and scholarly engagement using the arts and public humanities.

Meg Lousteau is the executive director of the Vieux Carré Property Owners, Residents and Associates (VCPORA), a non-profit neighborhood advocacy group formed in the 1930s to protect and preserve the French Quarter. Lousteau also serves on the board of the Historic Faubourg Tremé Association, and on the PRC’s Property Advisory Committee.

Lousteau earned a Masters degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of New Orleans’ College of Urban and Public Affairs. She worked as assistant director of the Preservation Resource Center’s Operation Comeback program, and later became founding executive director of the Louisiana Landmarks Society. After Katrina, Lousteau became involved in real estate and renovations. However, her love of preservation and advocacy lured her back to the non-profit world, and in November of 2008, she accepted a position as the first executive director of VCPORA.

Robin Keegan is a professional planner at GCR Inc. with over 18 years of experience in housing, economic development, community planning and housing program design. She is currently managing the New Orleans Economic Development Plan for the Business Alliance and spearheading housing recovery efforts in New York post-Hurricane Sandy. Before joining GCR, Keegan served as Director of Real Estate Planning for the Housing Authority of New Orleans and Executive Director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, overseeing $14 billion in funds for housing, infrastructure and economic development initiatives.

Keegan earned an M.S. in Planning and Preservation from Columbia University and a B.A. from Macalester College. Before moving to Louisiana, Keegan provided economic development consulting services in New York, serving as Deputy Director for the Center for an Urban Future and Project Manager for the New York Industrial Retention Network. She has served as Adjunct Professor in Economic Development at Columbia, instructing on economic development through the arts.

Mark Romig serves as President and CEO of the New Orleans TourismMarketing Corporation (NOTMC), the city’s official leisure travel promotion agency. He is an established public relations and marketing professional and is accredited (APR) by the Public Relations Society of America. Romig has been involved in a variety of historic and milestone events throughout his career, including the development of the Hotel Inter-Continental New Orleans, the 1984 Louisiana World’s Fair, and the wildly successful Idea Village New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. Romig was recently tapped by the Saints to succeed his father Jerry as the Stadium Announcer for the home games in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. He was Co-Chair of the Media & PR Committee for the New Orleans Super Bowl XLVII Host Committee.

Romig is a member of the Board of Trustees and Board Secretary for Xavier University of Louisiana and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Emeril Lagasse Foundation. He currently serves as a member of the New Orleans City Park Board of Commissioners and on the board of directors for Covenant House New Orleans. Romig taught public relations courses at Tulane’s University College for several years.

Romig graduated from Brother Martin High School and attended the University of New Orleans, where he received his B.S. from the School of Business Administration (School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Administration). He was named the school’s outstanding alumnus in 2012.

Reserve your hotel accommodations for Rising Tide by August 4th

Remember, the preferred hotel Rising Tide 6 is the Marriott Courtyard at 300 Julia Street in the Warehouse District. Rooms are $69.00 per night, but only through August 4, so reserve today by calling 504-598-9898 or 1-888-236-2427 and ask for the Rising Tide Group Rate.

Rooms should include air-conditioning, so it won't get too hot!

Greg does it again.

Greg Peters has come up with a great T shirt design for Rising Tide 4 I'm pleased to present it to everyone.


If you haven't already registered and bought a T shirt click on the image above to do it NOW!



Rising Tide Nola
Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Think New Orleans Louisiana FEMA levees flooding Corps of Engineers We Are Not OK wetlands news rebirth Debrisville Federal Flood 8-29

Timothy Ruppert - In Levees We Trust

But should we? The New York Times has an article today about the inadequacies of our levee protection system. Questions remain about where all the money has been going. At Rising Tide 2, on Saturday, August 25, Timothy Ruppert will present a comprehensive report on the level of hurricane protection currently existing in New Orleans.

Tim will lead a discussion of the components of the hurricane protection system, where we are now and what it will mean once we have the "100-year" level of protection. It will include a comparisson of what other industrialized nations do, and how levees compare to rivers or dams when it comes to safety. Tim is the current president of the American Society of Civil Engineers Louisiana Section. He will be speaking as a civil engineer and a local representative of ASCE.

Tim is also a NOLA blogger (Tim's Nameless Blog), and a resident of Gentilly. His family's home was flooded by the London Canal breach, with the dried-out remains later burning up in a fire. He and his sainted wife are rebuilding their home, but this time it's raised on pilings.

Rising Tide Schedule

Friday, August 24, 2007 - Buffa's Lounge, 1001 Esplanade Avenue, corner of Burgundy.

7:30 - 10:00 p.m. - New Orleans on Video

Rising Tide 2007 presents video by artists inspired by the federal flood that followed Hurricane Katrina and its devastation of New Orleans. Cash Bar.

==

Saturday, August 25, 2007 - New Orleans Yacht Club, Municipal Yacht Harbor, in Lakeview. Map here.

8:30 - 9:15 - Registration and coffee

9:15 - Opening Remarks, Mark Moseley

9:30 - 10:30 - Louisiana Politics
Kim Marshall moderates a panel discussion featuring Michael Duplantier, Peter Athas, and Mark Moseley

10:30 - 10:45 - Sustainability presentation by Morwen Madrigal

10:45 - 11:00 - Break

11:00 - 12:30 - What is the State of New Orleans' Levee Protection?
Presentations by Timothy Ruppert, NOLA blogger and current president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Louisiana Section, Matt McBride, author of the blog "Fix the Pumps."

12:30 - 1:30 - Lunch from Dunbar's

1:30 - 2:30 - Keynote address by Dave Zirin. Zirin is the 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. His weekly online column is www.edgeofsports.com.

2:30 - 2:45 - Break

2:45 - 3:45 - How We Write Now
Greg Peters moderates a panel of New Orleans writers discussing the impact of the flood and its aftermath on their work. Featuring Joshua Clark, Dave Brinks, Valentine Pierce, and Sam Jasper.

3:45 - 4:45 - Making Civic Sexy
Maitri Venkat-Ramani moderates a panel discussion by New Orleans community activists Karen Gadbois, Bart Everson, Dr. Eban Walters, and Sarah Elise Lewis

4:45 - Concluding remarks - Mark Moseley

==

Sunday, August 26, 2007 - Service Project for New Orleans Public Schools

Rising Tide will offer an opportunity for its participants to help the New Orleans Public Schools, many of which will be opening for the first time this year. Details coming soon.