I’m going to a conference tomorrow. See here for details. I debated posting: the webcast and podcast pages don’t have any instructions … but maybe they’ll be live when the conference is going on, and if it is broadly availible, I wanted to give interested people a heads-up.
Local story/announcement in the Daily Illini describes the panels:
Thursday’s talks will be located at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications auditorium, and feature discussions on medicinal preparedness, the use of computers in an effort to prevent fallout, the rebuilding of New Orleans and the use of technology to create connections between peoples. Friday includes panels on social entrepreneurship, race and class issues, and social justice. The summit concludes on Saturday with a town hall meeting.
a list of the panel titles follows
Thursday, Sept. 28
A MOBILE HOSPITAL: WHAT EVERY COMMUNITY SHOULD CONSIDER FOR DISASTER PREPAREDNESS
Illinois experts who oversaw medical care in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, talk about what all community leaders should know about being prepared.
INSIDE THE DIGITAL STORM: USING COMPUTERS TO UNDERSTAND AND PREDICT DANGEROUS WEATHER
Learn how scientists use technology to better understand and predict deadly storms.
PLANNING THE REBUILDING OF NEW ORLEANS
Panelists discuss the challenges of quickly rebuilding a city while following solid principles of good planning in a highly charged environment.
THE WORLD IS OUR CLASSROOM: USING TECHNOLOGY TO BUILD GLOBAL UNDERSTANDING
Teachers from the Illinois International High School Program discuss using technology to facilitate cultural understanding.
FRIDAY, SEPT. 29
THE ROLE OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN COMMUNITY BUILDING/ REBUILDING
Dispelling the myth that entrepreneurs are concerned only with making money, this panel highlights the importance of entrepreneurship in building/rebuilding communities.
KALUMA YA SALAM: POSTCARDS FROM THE EYE OF THE STORM
Renowned poet expresses his feelings about the storm that uprooted his community.
RACE AND CLASS IN THE `NEW’ NEW ORLEANS SCHOOLS
Issues of charter schools, community, and social networks as they impact re-imagining education in New Orleans and Champaign-Urbana.
HOLES IN THE SAFETY NET: WHAT KATRINA REVEALED ABOUT SOCIAL JUSTICE
Champaign-Urbana community members discuss issues of social justice raised by Hurricane Katrina and faced in every community.
SATURDAY, SEPT. 30
NEW ORLEANS RISING: A TOWN HALL MEETING
Participants from Champaign-Urbana and sites across the country will come together to identify the challenges and opportunities facing our society, with a clear vision of helping to create strong communities that can effectively manage future disasters
From the descriptions and titles, I’m hoping some of these panels will be somewhat of an antidote for some of the programs I watched this weekend. My SO has been tivo-ing a lot of Katrina anniversary programs and reruns for me, and I watched/rewatched them while I was compulsively crocheting, as a kind of pre-conference homework assigment.
I watched the Greg Palast documentary that got him temporarily in trouble. The title is “Big Easy to Big Empty”, … and it put some visuals to things I had been reading rumors about here, including the lightly damaged housing on higher ground that was chained and boarded up and residents not allowed to reenter. Seeing it on film … the opportunism was so obviously transparent. It took significant resources to lock the residents away from those buildings, significant money. All that other stuff that needed doing and fixing and hasn’t yet been done … but they could spend that much on a disgusting, evil landgrab.
The “objectionable” Exxon pictures were right before the film of a FEMA trailer camp that the evacuee occupant called “like a prison” — fenced in, … and the available transportation only took her to Walmart and back.
Most of the other programs were trying to rewrite history to something less objectionable. “Extreme Engineering: Big Easy Rebuild” was only about fixing one of the drainage canal levees, dealing with a big crane from one place to another; some beached boats & a barge — the title was misleading. “Drowning New Orleans” mentioned the problem of less wetlands than before: but showed development (rows of houses) and canals for oil industry … but didn’t mentions wetlands erosion and subsidence. In general, multiple programs, if they mentioned wetlands, trying to handwave and distract from core causes.
“Katrina: Send in the Guard” actually mentioned “government failure”, but only in passing, at the introduction, with the implication/narrative that the guard didn’t fail. They worked really hard, and it was the largest operation ever, and trying to plant excuses for — for instance — what happened at the Convention Center. OK, I remember how much fuss was going on, and I was screaming at the TV, and this and that analysis here about how the excuses didn’t work. Watching this program shortly after watching the Palast piece — OK, I think they worked hard helping some people and other people got ignored.
I hope the talks & panels I go to are real discussion, not trying to whitewash.
