Rising Tide III
I’m disappointed that I didn’t get to stay for all of Rising Tide III yesterday. And I don’t just have such a high opinion of New Orleans’ annual blogger conference because I was a panelist on the education panel. Not at all. First off, it was great to run into all the local bloggers and media-makers: G-Bitch, Patrick, Loki, Alan, Liprap, Oyster, Bart Everson, even Schroeder.
Second, the keynote speech by author John Berry, who wrote the original Rising Tide about the Great Flood of 1927, was amazing. I was thrilled to get to ask the man himself questions about the impact of the aftermath of the flood on the rise of southern populist leaders like Huey Long.
The few panels which I was able to catch were also excellent. I was particularly honored to be able to sit on the education panel with such an accomplished scholar as Leigh Dingerson from the Center for Community Change, but also the people who know so much from first-hand experience such as Cliff, G-Bitch and Jeffrey Berman. Getting to talk to Nation author and former Gambit Weekly editor Michael Tisserand definitely capped the day off.
But I must also note for the various bloggers covering this conference that I no longer work for United Teachers of New Orleans, so please do not list me as such.