Liveblogging as usual, so keep checking back here for updates.  Also follow the #risingtide and #rt4 hashtags on Twitter.

Lunch from Café Reconcile was excellent, especially the white beans on rice.  Yummy!  On to the politics panel: Adrastos moderates Clancy Dubos of The Gambit & WWLTV, political cartoonist John Slade, Lamar White of CenLamar and Ethan Brown, journalist and author of Shake The Devil Off.

Thunderous applause for the Mose Jefferson verdict.

On Mose Jefferson conviction – Clancy says Mose conviction more important than Dollar Bill’s; Bill was brain, Mose was the muscle.  John Slade warns against this opportunity to blame Black Machine Politics and says “We can’t cherry pick black people [to throw rocks at].”

Upcoming mayoral election – Clancy: The last time, 72% of voters were not strongly committed to a candidate and that’s how we got Nagin.  “If there ever was a time New Orleans needed a great mayor it is now, Nagin is the worst mayor in 100 years.”; Slade: “Anybody that says, ‘We need to run New Orleans like a business,’ just walk away from that!” (Can I just say John Slade is da bomb? He nails it again and again.)  Lamar White: “need a mayor who’s going to honor and restore integrity because that’s what’s been eroded.”

Public safety platform – Slade not worried about crime, but mental health.  Touches on importance of public-input channel when it comes to decisions like Charity.  Panel split on importance of candidate running on public-safety, anti-crime platform.

Bobby Jindal, good or bad for Louisiana? – Clancy: Bad. He’s making decisions that have nothing to do with Louisiana; John Slade: “Jindal’s a Rhodes Scholar, he’s got to have taken a geology class.  He got re-elected because there a lot of people in North Louisiana who hate New Orleans.”  Lamar: “Hindsight is 20/20, but knowing what I know now, Blanco would have been a much more effective leader for the state.” Ethan: “Whatever is in [the Republican interest] is not in your interest.  Anything that’s for the public good, they’re against, that’s what the modern Republican party is about.”

On David Vitter: Did Adrastos just put Keith Richards and David Vitter in the same sentence, even if he refers to Vitter as the human cockroach?  Blasphemy!  And did Slade just croon “Love to love you, baby?!”  What is happening here?  Lamar: The state Democratic party is completely broken.  “Now [Mary Landrieu] doesn’t need/have the party’s permission to vote how she wants to vote.”  Ethan: “Vitter is a real political animal.  My wife got a Vitter robocall inviting her to the anti-ObamaCare meeting.”  [Note: David Vitter sent an invite to a Louisiana anti-ObamaCare meeting to my OHIO ADDRESS. Tell me taxpayer money wasn’t used there.]

On Anh Joseph Cao: Slade doesn’t feel that he is a one-timer and isn’t going to represent the district well.  Especially when he puts personal “moral” ticks over healthcare for all.

Q&A: James Perry may be the sleeper mayoral candidate but Clancy thinks he’s got to raise some serious money and people’s support.  Cliff raises a good point in his question about undue media influence: Does the media follow public opinion or vice versa? Panel ends with discussion of everyone running for (major) office in Louisiana right now.

Thank you, panelists, for a most lively time!

Update 1: I’m just not in the mood or right frame of mind (sleep-deprived) to take offense at anything right now, but John Slade referring to Bobby Jindal as Haji doesn’t sit right with me.  Overall he’s a very funny, erudite guy who did a fine job on the panel and there is a fine line between comedy and slur, art and blasphemy, free speech and bad taste (and I occasionally refer to myself as a dothead, mostly when people ask me what kind of Indian I am), but it’s like calling a black person Sambo or Shaneekwa, ok?

Update 2: John Slade offers an apology.

Liveblogging as usual, so keep checking back here for updates.  Also follow the #risingtide and #rt4 hashtags on Twitter.

Harry Shearer takes stage.  “I’m delighted to be anywhere, any time I’m in New Orleans.”  I can’t decide whether it’s Mr. Burns, Smithers or Ned Flanders talking to me and it shakes me to my very pop-culture core.  No, wait, it’s Principal Skinner.

“If they could get Geraldo Rivera in here after the storm, why couldn’t they get food and water in?”

“We have lost the media battle of what happened to us.”  A lot of comments from “people who don’t wish us very well.”  N.B.: In my time in Ohio, I’ve received only one “That city should never have been rebuilt” but not a lot of folks realize that the hurricane did not cause the majority of the damage here and that the whole city is not below sea level.

Laziness of mainstream media: “They did not seem to get to St. Bernard, Lakeview, Gentilly … They get a sense of what the story is, a template [and stick to it].”  Talks about time as a Newsweek reporter sent on “template” assignments, e.g. rooftop living in Los Angeles.

On Johnette Napolitano’s fact-finding visit: “They’ll never be able to build a levee big enough to withstand Katrina?  Really?”  Pssst, visit the Netherlands.  For shame.

On blogging for Huffington Post: “The important point is I have the luxury of not rushing to print with [a story], a luxury a journalist does not have.”

On being conduits for information: “Robert Novak was known, on the one hand, for being a parasitical conduit for his inside sources but there’s a complicated relationship. Every whistleblower has an agenda; no source feeds you information without an agenda.  We have an obligation to … what may elevate us over mainstream journalism is taking a second look at the issue.  If I am going to pass this along to my readers, [I have to let them know] what [the source’s] interest is and what our relationship is.”

The bad news: “At the beginning of the Obama administration, I started getting the same messages from the Left as I was from the Right.  Some of the Obama commenters said, ‘Why are you blowing off steam in the Huffington Post? You’re  a celebrity, go talk to the White House.'”  [Impersonation of Mr. Burns talking to President Obama.]  Recites his odyssey of contacting White House and being rebuffed.  Mentions attending The Dutch Dialogues.  Finally reached “David Washington” and, in two weeks, got a call from the legislative liaison for the Army Corps of Engineers.  *headsmack*  Was advised not to talk to David Axelrod or Rahm Emanuel “because all they want to do is destroy Bobby, just like their predecessors wanted to destroy Kathleen.”

Brian Williams finally told Shearer the truth: “Honestly, we feel that the [raw, contextless] emotional stories are more compelling for our business.”  According to Shearer, the emotional stories are our job.  “Can’t fight water, water always wins. We need to learn to live with water.”  Was this in reference to the Army Corps or nature?  If it was said with respect to nature, it contradicts what he said before.

Shearer is done playing the Inside The Beltway game and intends to write about it (look for upcoming articles /interviews in Times-Pic and WWNO).  Again stresses that bloggers have the luxury of time, to dig up facts and take advantage of those time resources.

Liveblogging as usual, so keep checking back here for updates.  Also follow the #risingtide and #rt4 hashtags on Twitter.

Jessica Rohloff, of Net Squared New Orleans (@NewJess on Twitter), up there talking about social media in New Orleans.  Call themselves “nerds* getting together for a project.”  Attended last SXSW conference to show that “New Orleans is on the map, New Orleans is not under water, people live here, there are tax credits perfect for startups.”  20th Net Squared meetup group in the world, preceded Net Squared Austin by a day.  One of the largest Net Squared groups in country.

Meetings ==  First Tuesday of every month at the Bridge Lounge.

Links: Net Squared, TechSoup

* You’re geeks, not nerds.  There’s a difference.

Prologue: Hugging, kissing, huggingkissinghugging my friends. Tears came on seeing Slate. I’m here, people, I am here!  Liveblogging as usual, so keep checking back here for updates.  Also follow the #risingtide and #rt4 hashtags on Twitter.

Emcee Loki is up there!  Watch out, wake up, etc.  Introducing Wet Bank Guy, the moderator of the Culture Panel.  Panelists are Edward Buckner of The Porch Seventh Ward Culture Organization and the Original Big 7 Social Aid and Pleasure Club, Susan Tucker, editor of New Orleans Cuisine: Fourteen Signature Dishes and Their Histories and Bruce Raeburn of the Hogan Jazz Archive and author of New Orleans Style and the Writing of American Jazz History.

Raeburn: About 60% of the music population has returned, but with fewer paying gigs.  “If you are making $100 a night, six nights a week, you’re not going to make it … What happens if the culture doesn’t come back?”

Buckner on music and culture: “Kids relate to [musical heroes like Kermit Ruffins, Trombone Shorty].”  Buckner contends that Mardi Gras Indians and musicians need the means to record, photograph and archive themselves so they can make the money instead of writers and photographers.  Alex Rawls tweets, “No one’s making money off MG Indians, writers and photogs included.”

Raeburn: “Displacing musicians” into neighborhoods that they are not from disrupts musical culture.

Tucker on food: “New Orleans was the first gastronomic statement in the US … Expensive food and no neighborhood stores is a problem.”  Reads from 2007 obituary of local musician: “He didn’t eat pork unless it was on a muffuletta!”  Emphasizes support for local food.

Buckner: “How much damage are we doing to the culture of New Orleans?”  Lists everything from crime, lack of quality education, everything we know and have talked about that keep New Orleans culture from “blossoming.”  “We as a society need to embrace each other just as we embrace the music.”

Tucker: “People in exile thought about [New Orleans food] a lot.”  Tucker keeps mentioning talking and thinking about food.  We do that on blogs and should do it more.  The lovely Swampwoman reads my mind and asks Ms. Tucker about it.

Food, music, family, neighborhood, community.  This is vital to New Orleans recovery and survival.  Red beans & rice on Monday.  Large family- and friend-centric meals.  The only two places I’ve experienced this are with my own large Indian family and my larger New Orleans family, witnessed last night in culinary spread and friends that came together to welcome D and me back.  This is special.

Please visit and donate to The Roots Of Music – New Orleans’s only free, year-round music education program.

Thank you for a great panel!  Makes me want to go home and cook, and blog about it!