On Saturday I went to the Geek Dinner hosted by a NOLA blogger named George Williams (aka 'Loki) and had a great time (see photos). Many of the people on this list of NOLA Bloggers were there. These are people that do cool grassroots stuff like creating the New Orleans Wiki, and organize the Rising Tide Conference, and create a blog like Think New Orleans, or hosting Internet Workshops to teach people here how to gather and disseminate information more effectively. By the way, most of these online sites were created by Alan Guttierez, whom I met for the first time this Saturday. I enjoyed meeting everyone that I had the opportunity to talk to, and I'm looking forward to seeing most of them at the Rising Tide Conference this Saturday. These are people that are passionate about helping the city rebuild, and they aren't waiting for the government to direct their passion.
The Aug 21st edition of the New Yorker has a great article by Dan Baum entitled Letter from New Orleans, The Lost Year. Baum has written several pieces on New Orleans for the New Yorker. In fact, the New Yorker has a special page devoted just to Katrina related stories that is available here. Kudos to that great magazine for making those stories available online. I still can't get the New Yorker delivered to my house, which is weird because it comes to my dad's house which is only 6 blocks away. Oh, and tonight I'm going to try to watch the Spike Lee special on HBO: When the Levees Broke - A Requiem in Four Acts (well the first two acts are tonight and the next two are tomorrow night; both nights at 9 pm EST).
Lastly, next Monday I'll be hosting the 72nd edition of Blawg Review, which will be the anniversary week of Katrina (see post here for more info). Blawg Review is a weekly roundup of interesting law related blog posts that is hosted by different people every week. I have no idea what I'll be highlighting, but if you want to send me an idea please do, and if you would follow these submission guidelines it would help a lot. Thanks!
Nice to meet you there...too bad my children hit their internal sanity timers for the night, or I would have liked to have spoken with you a bit longer.
Posted by: ashley Morris | August 22, 2006 at 12:22 AM
I'm sorry I missed meeting you. I was held captive by Lisa, Dangerblond, Schroeder and Loki.
Posted by: Adrastos | August 22, 2006 at 01:31 AM
Great to meet you. Geek Dinner 3, lets pray for Air Conditioning. Alan thanks you for the mention, he is up to his ears in work
Posted by: Karen | August 24, 2006 at 05:22 PM
I beg to differ on Dan Baum's piece. The New Yorker's fact-checkers blew it on this one. Check my breakdown of the inaccuracies here.
Posted by: swampytad | August 25, 2006 at 08:27 PM
Ernie - We were going to get together tomorrow, or rather, later today, to discuss the Internet Help Desk. I'm trying to organize this through blogs, rather than email, as best I can. There's a post about Rising Tide Outcomes at Think New Orleans. Let me know here or there when you'd like to meet.
Posted by: Alan Gutierrez | August 30, 2006 at 02:38 AM