NEA AND NEW ORLEANS

This week and last I traveled to New Orleans to work with Closed System Media at The National Education Association’s (NEA) Annual Meeting and Representative Assembly. This was my first time to work with this client and to be in New Orleans. RA meeting hall during set up The work was long and involved, working with Closed System Media usually is. During the conference I spent most of my time ingesting photography from 3 great Florida based photojournalist’s; Calvin Knight, Scott Iskowitz and Rick Runion, into an efficient workflow with Photoshelter. I haven’t captioned and identified subjects on a daily basis since I studied photojournalism at The University of Kansas and worked at The Kansas City Star. My commercial work just doesn’t require embedded metadata other than a copyright or a licensing agreement. The NEA conference is in one large convention center where delegates vote on amendments to their constitutional bylaws and gather resource information. The NEA is the largest labor union in the United States representing over 3.2 million people and approximately 8,500 delegates from around the United States gathered in New Orleans. They use a method of debating and voting with a call and response method to pass or veto a measure. When the president or vice president asks those in favor to say ‘I’ as many as 8,500 delegate voices yell ‘I!’ The same roar can come for a ‘No’ vote. It’s a little jarring at first and leaves a lasting impression. The work this organization does is vital for public education to succeed. I’m a product of a good public education. However, the path our public schools have done down since I graduated in 1999 is saddening, thank you very much No Child Left Behind and The Bush Administration. I will keep the soap boxing brief but please support public education and email your representatives in Congress and the Senate to pass measures to increase public school funding on state and national levels. The NEA staff must be commended for all the hard work they put into this annual event and to the daily promotion of public education. I look forward to going to Chicago next year for the 2011 NEA Annual Meeting and Representative Assembly. Martin O'Malley, Maryland's Governor RA Floor and Dennis Van Roekel, NEA President NEA Delegates exiting the RA Floor New Orleans was not what I expected. I assumed it would be humid. It was. I assumed there would be rampant debauchery in the French Quarter. There was. What I didn’t expect was to what degree the humidity and debauchery would be. At one point while walking around at night it was unclear if it was raining or if that was just the density of the atmosphere that was making my face moist. The Fourth Of July brought extra people and revelry onto Bourbon Street with it’s Hurricanes and Grenades to go. It was good to see New Orleans busy. Mother Nature (or Bp…) knock this city off its feet on a regular basis but it just keeps standing back up. It is a testament to the human spirit. The food in New Orleans was also not what I expected. I don’t know what I expected but I ran the gamete from a wonderful dinner at Cochon with a Hartford Zinfandel to fried crawfish at Coop’s Place and a breakfast of grits and debris at Mother’s. I’ve eaten very well over the last week and am looking for a great grits recipe to add a little New Orleans comfort to my San Francisco diet. Mother's Grits and Debris