Today on a September wind

This is it. This is the day I remember from somewhere. The wind is too familiar, the air too perfect. Voices run through it, places, old love, old music. Today a miracle happens outside. Overhead, just above the people walking. The way the light touches down lightly before moving on, softening. The way the wind touches. A voice somewhere speaks. To me? An old voice in me churned up by this certain change, this weather. Today is the first day of cold to come. How do we show gratitude upon the arrival of old company? The chill wakens our sleepy flesh. Oak and pine leaves burn somewhere on a backyard altar recognized only by children. Cold nights will come, rain. Asters, goldenrod. Who else knows that this is sacred? Who else knows that this day must written? When I was just a boy, I wrote poems, tried to draw maps to get back to this place. The flat blue of sky, the wind coming down out of it, hushing the streets, the people, surrounding one body, one mind, a silk falling around me, a cocoon for overwintering. Where do I go? Where am I? I could as easily wander. Down the streets, back past apartment, through the fence to the field and along the edge of the forest. I could easily forget myself, an unknown prayer on my lips. Why, in all such imperfectness, this beauty remaining? Who am I? Perhaps, a wind came and took that away too.

Holding Back the Flood: the Flow of Information in Louisiana's Civic Landscape (draft 4)

Throughout Louisiana's history, we have built a reputation for holding back the nourishing, land-building waters of the Mighty Mississippi.

As you may know, the construction of the levee system in the 1930s has fundamentally changed the hydrology of our state and is one of the reasons we are considered the fastest disappearing land mass in the world, at an alarming rate of one football field per hour.  Natural, though some destructive process, floods are vital to the health of our states coastal wetlands. We are learning now that nature will find its way and that by working against natural processes we are doomed to spend billions of dollars. "What you gain at one end you lose at the other" as Mark Twain might say. 

Today, we come up against a different kind of levee that is impeding the flow of a mighty river called the Age of Information. Good information and innovative solutions exist here and now. We have all the tools we need to begin remedying many of the fundamental failures of local and state government.  Louisianians everywhere, regardless of political affiliation, will agree that our government is not as efficient or effective as it needs to be.

What is this barrier I am speaking of? In Dave Meslin's cathartic and spot-on TED Lecture he outlines 7 obstacles and barriers and invites the modern citizen to reject the popular myth that people are selfish, lazy and stupid. He asks us to redefine "apathy" in the light of barriers that reinforce cynicism and disengagement, identifying the obstacles and working together to dismantle those obstacles.

A barrier I've chosen to focus on recently is at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, where information regarding conservation and non-game species is difficult to find. If you look at other state wildlife agencies (as I did here in a previous post) you will find some frustrating contrasts between our website and most others. This is where I've noticed the best and brightest in Louisiana usually shrug and say something to the effect of, "Yeah, Louisiana is a little backwards." or "We're the last in the country to catch on when it comes to innovation."

Another issue I have had difficulty with is learning about the different officials responsible for LDWF programs and administration. A list of foresters I needed to contact once before were not linked anywhere under Forestry. Many other state employees responsible for essential programs in the conservation and management of public resources are not represented online by a photograph, email, mailing address or office number. If these people were easier to find and contact, people could more easily give them feedback on the work they do.

I made an exciting first step today concerning my hopes to be heard about the website issue. The conversation was encouraging. I spoke with Joel Courtney, a gentleman who has worked in the LDWF Public Information Office for 14 years, who says LDWF is eager to get more feedback about the website. I encourage you to contact him with suggestions for improving the educational value of the LDWF page. If you value quality non-game species information, intuitive web design and navigability that encourages learning, you can contact others in the department and let them know. (If you don't know what your missing, please visit my previous post here)

Public Information Office

Public Information Director, Marianne Burke, 225/765-2917, mburke@wlf.la.gov
Public Information Assistant Director, Joel Courtney, 225/765-2927, jcourtney@wlf.la.gov
Audio/Visual, Joel Courtney, 225/765-2927, jcourtney@wlf.la.gov
Publications/Graphic Design, Becky Redmond, 225/765-2618, bredmond@wlf.la.gov
Web master, Cassandra Washington, 225/765-2842, cwashington@wlf.la.gov
Public Information Officer, Gabe Giffin, 225/765-2496, ggiffin@wlf.la.gov
Louisiana Conservationist magazine, Gabe Giffin, 225/765-2496, ggiffin@wlf.la.gov
Office Manager & Coordinator, Janice Slaughter, 225/765-2925, jslaughter@wlf.la.gov
Receptionist, Pat Wilson, 225/765-2800, pawilson@wlf.la.gov


(Oddly I found the above information on an external site, not the LDWF site!) 

Improvement will ultimately depend on the input of the many educators, researchers, naturalists, citizen scientists and everyday people willing to break through that barrier. People who love information and are willing to work for it will be the ones to break the levees and allow the natural process of "nutrient" exchange to take place.

LDWF (and many other Louisiana departments and commissions) surely has accumulate a great wealth of information that could be could inform and empower the public to become more invested in its mission. This information has to be "curated" or mediated

Ultimately, the deluge of the Information Age will overpower the "levees" that hold it back. LDWF and other government websites in Louisiana will have to adapt to the new expectations for online materials: websites should be representative of a diverse audience, clean and clearly designed, rich with information yet simply organized. I say "No online information, without representation" Government websites, furthermore, should encourage the input of the community at large and empower them to become involved in the civic process that shapes our conservation laws, management plans and land use. It is a matter of openness that, for people my age, is second nature, common sense.

I imagine a high price will be paid in the after math of this "catastrophic flood" (the paradigmatic shift). You can expect the laws of self-preservation to apply to state employees for whom such changes constitute a threat. Perhaps the time is upon us to demand certain policies of online transparency, so that the work (budgets, projects, etc) of our government can be seen and appreciated and so folks who are not performing can be held accountable. There could be many entry points for contributing to and enhancing the efforts of government programs that are responsible for shaping our natural and human communities. A single "Contact" feature creates an unnecessary bottleneck that slows down the machine for individuals who know what they want to say and who they want to say it to. 

It is foolish to think that government will take care of all of our needs. This is especially the case if we are not directly involved in shaping its policies and infrastructure. But how can we become more involved if not through the most basic means we understand: people talking to other people. Government will continue to be the enemy so long as we are not invited into it at the human level, so long as partisan macropolitics distract us from the real local challenge of fundamentally transforming the mechanisms of civic engagement.

The innovators and ideas are here and I'm excited to continue my search to identify the obstacles and work with public officials and fellow citizens to dismantle them, for the benefit of education, communities and civic life.