State of Grace

A year ago today...

...the great citizen journalist/feminist/mommyblogger/poet and all around excellent soul, Liz Henry, was blogging from the Houston Astrodome and assisting displaced Americans victimized by Hurricane Katrina.  Liz was in the thick of it, lending Astrodome residents the full force of her geek/tech superpowers and her giant, glowing heart.   She helped folks find lost family members, apply for aid, pull their lives together.   And, when she couldn't help enough, she was regretful, if not mournful:

A Sincere Apology
From Badgerbag
September 7, 2005

To all the people that we spoke to today and failed to help. I am sorry that we could not find your people, that no one answered your intercom page, that you heard they were here or you saw them on cnn and then we could not find them. I am so sorry. There is no way to fix it when we fail. The next people might not drop the ball, the dice might roll your way, please keep trying and keep telling your stories.

If you didn't read Liz's accounts of  in the Astrodome last year, I encourage you to peruse her archives.  Liz's service inspired me to create the Hurricane Katrina Direct Relief blog, now the Hurricane Disaster Direct Relief blog.  For this, I will always be deeply and humbly grateful.

And, as for me...a year later....

I'm interested in developing a network of bloggers to assist in a disaster/crisis.   If you're interested in this, please come to the WoolfCamp gathering at my house the weekend of September 15th where we'll be talking about online disaster relief strategies and other heady topics.  The WoolfCamp link is to the wiki where you may sign in if you'd like to participate.  If you can't make this meeting, please email me at gracedb@yahoo.com and I'll put you on an information email list.

Many blessings to you, Dear Reader.

Opportunities

Hurricane season on the Gulf Coast is less than two weeks away, so, I've revived Hurricane Katrina Direct Relief, which will morph into the more general title of "Hurricane Disaster Direct Relief" on June 1st.

I'll be working with many of my old contacts, but if you know of any groups or organizations needing visibility through the blog, email me and I'll get these good folks up on the site.

Another reason to get the relief blog up and running - the publicity we can harness through this very extraordinary panel at BlogHer Day Two (and a most extraordinary opportunity for your humble mommyblogger):

SAN FRANCISCO, May 22, 2006 —  BlogHer LLC (http://blogher.org), the Web’s number-one guide to women bloggers, today announced keynote speakers for day two of BlogHer Conference ’06, to be held July 28 – 29 in San Jose, CA. The keynote panels feature prominent women in online publishing, technology and public service. Now in its second year, BlogHer '06, which is nearly sold out, has doubled in size, growing into a two-day conference and targeting 750 attendees.

The second day of the conference focuses on community, conversation and the culture of blogging. The closing keynote panel, called “Creating Your Own Platform,” features women who have led and inspired movements of their own. Moderated by web publisher Chris Nolan of Spot-on.com, the panel features Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor of The Huffington Post, Caroline Little, CEO and Publisher of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, Mena Trott, co-founder and President of Six Apart, and Grace Davis, mother, professional blogger and creator of the Hurricane Katrina Direct Relief blog.

I am thrilled and honored beyond measure to be sharing the stage with these distinguished women.   My role on this panel will be as one who utilized blogs as a vehicle for grassroots movements, or, what the always clever Nancy White calls  "kitchen table activism".   Certainly this is apropos for the relief blogs, as they took flight from my laptop on our big wooden dining table.

My goodness.  This is all very heady.  We're taking as many deep cleansing breaths as we can over here,  asthma notwithstanding.

Dear Readers, I send my very best to all of you.
GraceD

In service to others - BrainJams in New Orleans, May 4, 2006

BrainJams_Nola_4
Originally uploaded by chrisheuer.

Inspired by  Chris Heurer and Kristie Wells, I will be attending their extraordinary "un-conference", BrainJams New Orleans on May 4.

What's BrainJams and why will one be happening in Nola?  Chris says it best:

"BrainJams is about people sharing what they know with one another - people helping people, treating one another with respect and working to understand each another's unique ability to contribute towards a common goal.

If you are interested in working towards revitalizing New Orleans, won't you join us for a conversation between the business community in New Orleans and people who understand emerging Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, tags, open source software such as Drupal, and other Web services?"

Yes, I want to be part of that conversation.  And, last year, I was part of the beginnings of that conversation, in creating the Hurricane Katrina Direct Relief and Family to Family relief blogs.

However, after working three months straight on the relief blogs, I had to let the sites go dormant.  My family, particularly my kiddo, needed more of my time and energy, which was in dire short supply because of the blogs.   The blogs are still up; critical contact information remains on the sites and good folks continue to correspond with me, asking where they can volunteer their labor on the Gulf Coast during their Spring Break, where their company can continue to send supplies, what they can do to help. 

People still want to help.  Lots of people.  And I need to be of service to them.  Hence, I want to revive the relief blogs but in a manner and process that would be more efficient, sane, and basically enable me to take a daily shower and make sure my kid does her homework because I love her, but man oh man, can she slack.

So, going to BrainJams in New Orleans will kick my ass and get it moving.  Just going to New Orleans and seeing what's going on for myself will kick my ass but good.

I hope to meet these goals for this trip:

*  Attend BrainJams with an open, listening heart.  With that same open heart, share my relief blog experience with BrainJam participants.  Assist in establishing similar blog relief networks, perhaps to incorporate the Hurricane Katrina Direct Relief blogs in with a consortium of relief blogs.

* Rent a car, and go to places the locals recommend, places that may not be covered by the press, places that are still fucked up, and, yes, I'm using the 'f' word with the full bloom of its profound meaning.  While in the Still Fucked Up places, take pictures, make copious notes, and open up the audio tools on my MacBook and record interviews with folks

* With the aid of mass quantities of beignets, pralines and coffee with chicory, blog everything I experience, create podcasts from the interviews, upload pics from my camera phone and digital camera.

I believe I can follow through on all of that, though a tour of a Katrina ravaged area will likely take my breath away and infuriate me.  My anger, however, can be transformed into action, and that is the primary reason why I worked long and feverishly on the Hurricane Katrina blogs. 

Now, Dear Readers, can you help me help others?  Can you help BrainJams?  If you can, please, here's my Pay Pal button:

I'll do whatever you wish with your donations.  I'll pass your offerings over to Chris and Kristie  towards the costs to produce this BrainJam.   If you want me to donate money over to a church, a relief group, a shelter, or an earnest individual I meet in my path requiring our assistance, I 'll do that.   Your donations will be handled with integrity, honor, and utter, utter gratitude.

Dear Readers, Dear Friends, many thanks.  Namaste.

From South by Southwest to Swiffer!

I have returned from the capital of the State of Texas back to the capital of the State of Grace, my kitchen table.  There's more I want to write about  SXSW, and I swear my discussions will extend beyond reports of after parties and drunk dialing my daughter.

Before I launch into the SXSW debriefs, I am pleased to share some pretty rad news:

My homie mommyblogger, the much loved  Crystal, nominated me for the Swiffer Amazing Woman of the Year for my work on the Hurricane Katrina Relief blog.  The ever-awesome Mindy also threw my name into the hat; this was sporting on Mindy's part because I got to touch and be touched by Andrew Shue and she didn't.   

So, this morning the Swiffer folks called Crystal to let her know that I'm a semi-finalist.

**gulp**

Now before some of you cynics start snickering, this is the very excellent deal:  The  Swiffer Amazing Woman of the Year winner will receive  $5000 towards the charity of her choice.  Let us say rosaries, perform Wiccan rituals and cross our fingers that I will emerge a finalist. Then, I will pimp shamelessly and hard for your votes, so I can pass the cash over to our hard working folks rebuilding their communities on  the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Furthermore,  the winner also receives a year's supply of Swiffer products.  Hellooooo, cleaning closet full of sweet Swiffer Wet Cloths in Fresh Citrus Scent! My second favorite household product next to Windex and that's saying A LOT.

Crystal, you have been a loyal and loving friend to me for as long as I've been blogging and I thank you with all of my heart.  Mindy,my deepest gratitude for being bigger than all that Andrew Shue business.  Many, many blessings, to both of you wonderful women.

And now, a visual tribute to Swiffer:

Swiffer savvy!

   

Swiffer sensuality!

Swiffer love!

More shameless self-promotion - but for a worthy cause, I swear to you!

Thar she blows, mates -  Pam O'Connell's article in today's New York Times 'Giving' section, about regular folks like me using the Internets as a tool for good and not just for ebay deals and snarking on political blogs.

   
   

Look!  Photos of my  heroes!  There's Sunny Wilson, who fed the town from her deli in Gautier, Mississippi. And, Victoria Powell,  the Mississippi Power Mom, my sister in hair spray, and my beloved partner in our mighty little blog  projects.

And me.  In the Fussy shirt.  Mrs. Kennedy's message getting the bigtime mainstream media coverage it richly deserves.

Also, an homage to flickr.  See the round sticker with the flickr dots on my laptop?  It's almost subliminal, this teeny little product placement for Caterina Fake's wonderful tool for  photo sharing and tagging.

 

Finally, a happy shout out to Anne Dowie, New York Times photographer and my former neighbor in San Francisco.  Anne, you captured me with my mouth shut.  Bravo to you for that fast shutter work!  And, best of all, thank you most kindly  for Photoshopping that fatty, nasty zit off my face. 

Okay, Dear Readers, back to the relief blogs.  I have some fresh Wish Lists posted on Family to Family, and we can't get enough supplies over to our friend Cindy at the HANDS distribution center, a featured entry on  the Hurricane Katrina Direct Relief blog.  Things are hopping because of this new rush of publicity, so  I'll probably end up in  my jammies all day. .

Dear Readers, dear friends, many blessings....many blessings to all of you.

Love,
GraceD