Screening schedule:

• Sunday, March 12 at Alamo South - 5:30 pm
• Tuesday, March 14 at Alamo South - 2:45 pm
• Friday, March 17 at Alamo Downtown - 11:00 am

I didn’t see it mentioned in the Chron’s articles, but there’s also a whole track of sessions on Digital Convergence, coordinated via the Texas Technology Corridor’s Digital Convergence Initiative. (DIsclosure: I worked on that track, so this is a shameless plug.)

The trick with this year’s Interactive Festival will be keeping up with all the compelling subjects and speakers. Even keeping up with the BLOGS about it all will be tough. One great resource: the SXSW Community Blog.

The Gammage campaign spam is some of the worst I’ve seen. First, the periodic mailings are annoying, ankle-biting screeds that just attack his primary opponent. Worst of all, there is no way to stop them. The campaign does not put an “opt out” link in the emails. If you try to respond to the email to ask them to stop, your message just bounces. This goes beyond annoying into the realm of incompetent, which is not a quality I want in my Governor. (By the way, I hadn’t a position of any kind in this race until Gammage started spamming me.)

I’ve seen this happen before: eager political consultants get their hands on whatever lists they can and treat them like gold. What they don’t realize is that gold turns to ash if you don’t handle it properly. This may be less a reflection on Gammage than on whoever he’s hired to handle his campaign, and it’s not always easy to find out who those guys are, because they’re working behind the scenes. I note that Gammage’s site has the obligatory blog front and center, but without comments or any other interactive options. When will politicos learn that it’s time to stop talking, and start listening?

Digital Convergence means many kinds of media on many devices, and the Digital Convergence Initiative of the Texas Technology Corridor isn’t just talking about it… DCI’s put together a Mobile Content Festival March 14. If you make films, apps, or games for mobile devices, submit ‘em for a chance to win valuable prizes - check out the rules and administrivia here. If you’ve got nothing to enter but want to join the Connect/Converge/Conquer party and see the big winners, you can RSVP here.

I set up a blog for my pal Ed Ward several months ago, and he’s become a blogger extraordinaire, posting some of the best writing on the web from his headquarters in Berlin. What’s the Austin connection? If you’ve been around for a while, you’ll remember Ed’s former gig as the Austin American-Statesman’s music columnist and his contributions to the Austin Chronicle, as himself and as Petaluma Pete. Before that, Ed wrote for various rock magazines (Rolling Stone, Creem), and since then he’s become a regular on Terry Gross’ NPR show, Fresh Air, where he speaks from his voluminous knowledge of rock. [Link]

“Conspiracy and money laundering are going to be difficult to prove,” says [Lou] DuBose. “But it seems to me that Ronnie has the facts and the law on his side. When you have the law, you pound them with the law. And when you have neither, you pound the table, and that’s what DeLay and these guys are doing.”

The article’s a good profile of our District Attorney, who “can seem like a walking, talking contradiction.”

He grew up in a Baptist church and was a high school football player, Student Council president and Eagle Scout. Yet he practices yoga and frequently quotes poets and philosophers alongside old-school Texas adages.

But rather than try to make the case, I’d like to hear comments, and there’s a whole range of possible responses - Austin is great, and here’s why. Or Austin doesn’t need to be great. Or Austin could be great, here’s what we have to do. Thoughts?

Austin’s pulling together resources to help victims of Katrina from New Orleans and elsewhere. The Burger Center, Palmer Auditorium and Convention Center will be accepting refugees from the area; the City of Austin’s web site has info about local relief efforts. If you want to volunteer, read this first. Gary Chapman of the 21st Century Project has set up AustinHelpingNewOrleans.org, a web site for aggregating information about local resources.