Rising Tide 5: There’s still oil in the Gulf and devastation in the Lower 9

Good Morning from The Howling Wolf in New Orleans on this fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I’m live blogging from Rising Tide 5: A Conference on the Future of New Orleans. I’m sitting among the blogging community of New Orleans (and people who love New Orleans) who are readying themselves with coffees and good stuff for several panels today to discuss what’s going on and how we can make things better. The first panel is on public safety. The politics panel comes after lunch. We’re also going to have a panel to discuss the HBO series Treme. I’m sitting in front of an avid Treme Blogger (watchingtreme from Seattle) but have to admit I haven’t been able to face watching the series since I continue to live the entire ordeal IRL. Another panel will talk about environmental issues.

The key note speaker will be Mojo’s Mac McClelland. She’s been avidly blogging about BP recently and I’m assuming we’re going to hear her stories of being chased off the story by local officials. She also covered the direct aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

I’m just going to be posting to this thread all day. I’ll let you know which panel is up and taking questions if you want me to ask any one anything. Since you know the topics, just lemme know if something’s on your mind.

update: you can listen to Mac McClelland’s speech here. (f bomb s bomb warnings) worth listening to her stories on BP.

Well, I’ve settled back into my spot here after having talked to a buncha  people.  Harry Shearer is here and you can undoubtedly read his take on HuffPo later.  Mac is great. There’s also some one here from Bloomberg so there’s some media around the place with an actual audience.

I’m looking forward to the Political panel although so far it’s all been very informative. Activism isn’t dead here.   I voted before I came.  Keep your fingers crossed for Charlie Melancon and for Juan LaFonta.  If I’m still standing, I’m heading to victory celebrations post conference.

Again, the consensus here is that Bobby Jindal is the worst thing to happen to New Orleans and Louisiana which is great to hear!!!  I’m glad some folks know how he is devastating higher education here as well as all public health facilities.  I just hope some of these folks can have some impact in their communities so we can get rid of him shortly.  Unfortunately, he wants to run for president so his plans to re-establish plantations may go national.

So, I’ll be here for a bit.  After the political panel there will be a discussion of the levee system.  The last panel is over the HBO series Treme.

Laissez les activism roulez!!!

(Note: this post compiled from two posts that I did for TC: live blogging and questions from TC people here: http://wp.me/paJiI-b5r and here http://wp.me/paJiI-b5E)