Oakland, CA – Feb. 10, 2011: ‘OILPOCALYPSE NOW’

“OILPOCALYPSE NOW”: – Time for a 28th Constitutional Amendment for the SEPARATION OF CORPORATION AND STATE

A Benefit Evening for the Gulf Coast Fund, Ultimate Civics, and the Coastal Heritage Society of Louisiana

Thursday, Feb. 10, 2011, 7 p.m. at the exquisitely beautiful Grand Lake Theater, 3200 Grand Avenue, Oakland, CA 94610; (510) 452-3556. $10-20 sliding scale.

(Get there at 6 or 6:30 to check out the tables in the lobby by Matter of Trust, Burners Without Borders, For the Bayou, and the Ladies’ Guide to the Apocalypse Gulf Coast Water Altar…)

Dr. Riki Ott presents the documentary Black Wave — The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez

featuring 10-minute talks by

Dr. Riki Ott – community organizer, marine biologist, fisherma’am, author. Riki Ott, PhD, is a community activist, a former commercial salmon “fisherm’am,” and has a degree in marine toxicology with a specialty in oil pollution. The author of Sound Truth and Corporate Myth$: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill and Not One Drop: Promises, Betrayal, and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Dr. Ott is also the founder of three nonprofit organizations which deal with lingering harm from man-made environmental disaster. She is one of the heroines in the documentary, she has also been fighting tirelessly in the Gulf Coast. By the end of this brainstorm February 10th, the Bay Area should know the next steps to separating corporations from America’s government.

Lisa Gautier – Founder and President of the ecological public charity Matter of Trust est. 1998 (the group that uses waste clippings of hair, fur & fleece to soak up oil spills). This was the most prominent citizen-led task force in the wake of BP / Halliburton / Deepwater Horizon’s disaster. Overnight, this small non-profit ballooned into the most likely method for Americans to do their part in helping protect the Coastline. Tens of thousands of concerned citizens collected hair from salons in 30 countries. It was stuffed into pantyhose by hundreds of volunteers at the Gulf where tons and tons of “hairboom” were made and ready. These booms are a shockingly effective waste-stream method of soaking up oil, and BP’s boom department agreed. Then, to everyone’s surprise, BP’s $900-million PR department smeared and quashed the movement. Come hear the whole story.

Summer Burkes – writer and displaced New Orleans homeowner, author of “THE LADIES’ GUIDE TO THE APOCALYPSE” blog, who ran around fighting the bad guys and trying to get the hair boom in the Bayou to protect it, before too many facefuls of Corexit (the deadly dispersant) gave her TILT (Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance) and forced her to evacuate and leave everything behind. She is still homeless, waiting for the government-funded planes to stop spraying Corexit, which they haven’t.

Phoebe Sorgen – author of Berkeley’s resolutions to abolish corporate personhood, an eco- and anti-nuclear activist who, since 9/11, began focussing on peace. She risked arrest at Lockheed Martin, Bechtel, Chevron, B of A, San Quentin etc, and served on the KPFA LSB. When chairing the BFUU Social Justice Committee, she learned that abolishing corporate personhood is key to most of what we want. Resolutions she wrote as a Berkeley Peace & Justice Commissioner would rein in corporate rule, from addressing stolen elections (Diebold voting machines) to challenging unfair trade agreements, Haiti’s occupation (Hanes, etc. sweatshops) and wars inc. She organized a Bankster Picket at the SF Federal Reserve and, with the Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom, Citizens United protests.

Carol Brouillet – host of “Community Currency,” Deception Dollars publisher

Plus … a TINFOIL HAT CONTEST!!! (BYO tinfoil) judged by John Law – co-founder of the Cacophony Society and Laughing Squid.

doors open 6pm. talks 7pm. tinfoil hat contest. film 8pm. Q & A 9:30 ‘til 11 or ?. Tix $10 – $20 (whichever you can afford).

100% of the proceeds will help feed starving Louisiana families, and go to organizations doing vital work in the Gulf

Do you really believe the oil in the Gulf magically disappeared?

Did you know if the Valdez had spilled off the coast of California it would cover the Pacific Coast from Washington to Mexico?

Can you believe Exxon? BP? Halliburton? The President? The Supreme Court? Congress? The media? The military?

Is there a pattern to the assaults upon the people and landscapes of America?

What are we going to do about it?

Black Wave – The Legacy of Exxon Valdez is an exquisite documentary chronicling the struggle of the people of Cordova, Alaska, two decades after a drunk captain veered off-course and 11 million gallons of crude poured into the ocean. The stunning landscape and heartbreaking tales are moving and instructive. We are witnessing a similar, but much larger tragedy unfold in the Gulf as BP uses a near-identical litany of lip service, lies, litigation and disregard for humans and environment in service to their bottom line. The superficial, inadequate, toxic clean-up of Prince William Sound and the lengthy legal battle Cordova endured still falls laughably short of ‘making them whole’ as promised and exposes the deep biases and injustices of a broken system. Contrary to the rosy reports on tv, the people of the Gulf Coast are starving and exhausted, the Corexit planes still fly, and fresh oil rolls ashore every day.

SUPPORT THE 28TH CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT FOR THE SEPARATION OF CORPORATION AND STATE!

OILPOCALYPSE NOW: “I love the smell of Corexit in the morning”

To learn more and support people of the Gulf Coast, see – rikiott.com ultimatecivics.org projectgulfimpact.org

Brought to you by Community Currency, The Ladies’ Guide to the Apocalypse, and the Grand Lake Theatre.
If you want to help, please do! Spread the word, and we have posters, flyers, cards that need to get out…

Hope to see you there. Note: This isn’t a regular everyday tinfoil hat occasion, this is a fancy dress tinfoil hat occasion. Non-regulation tinfoil flair such as feathers, pipe cleaners, wire, tinsel, thrift-store jewels and LED lights will not be turned away. Fancy it up.

Here’s one of the Matter of Trust videos we made in the bayou. Guess who insisted we use Professor Longhair as the song in the first ‘un. #NewOrleansMusicPride … you can view the rest of the Matter of Trust‘s Youtube channel. Hope to see ALL yall at OILPOCALYPSE NOW.

UPDATE: Read Carol Brouillet’s review of the film Black Wave here, and her review of Dr. Ott’s book Not One Drop here.

Update 2: Former Vice President “Dick Cheney” has agreed to help John Law judge the Tinfoil Hat Contest!

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… and enjoy these mostly current links about the GULF OF MEXICO, MAY SHE REST IN PEACE… just for a while, until we magically figure out how to clean up BP’s mess and she bounces back.

Examiner.com: Dr. Riki Ott redeploys to the Battle of the Gulf

Diary of a Disaster – 6 Months in the Gulf by Riki Ott

Corporations.org/solutions/: How to overthrow corporate rule in 5 not-so-easy steps

Naomi Klein for The Nation: The Mystery of the Black Goo

2theadvocate.com: Marshes remain blackened by oil from BP blowout

HuffPo: Rocky Kistner – Questions the press needs to ask about the Gulf oil disaster

FOSL: “Scary” — scientists find evidence of “bizarre sickness” in phytoplankton and bacterial communities

TruthOut: The tragic state of the Gulf of Mexico – Sampling reveals oil and dispersants on Mississippi Coast

Raw Story Exclusive: Multiple independent lab tests confirm oil in Gulf shrimp

“I wouldn’t eat shrimp, fish or crab caught in the Gulf,” said Robert M. Naman, a chemist at ACT Labs in Mobile, Alabama, who conducted the test after being contacted by a New Orleans activist. “The problems people will face, health-wise, are something that people don’t understand.” Naman also found that the oil was at an unusual high concentration: 193 parts-per-million (PPM).

The initial effects of oil toxicity from ingestion include headaches, nausea, fatigue and rapid changes in mental state, according to Dr. Cyrus Rangan, assistant director of the California Poison Control System, who spoke to The Los Angeles Times in June.

Dr. Sawyer: “I don’t recommend eating Gulf seafood, not with the risk of liver and kidney damage,” he said. “The reason FDA has not made that advisory is because they’ve relied on this sensory test. You may as well send inspectors out to look at the fish and say they look nice. They’re sniffing for something they can’t detect.”

“Once oil enters, it can damage every organ, every system in the body,” Dr. Shaw concluded. “There is no safe level of exposure to this oil, because it contains carcinogens, mutagens that can damage DNA and cause cancer and other chronic health problems. Many people in the Gulf have been exposed for months — not just workers but residents. There are hundreds of health complaints from local people with symptoms that resemble symptoms of oil exposure. -Raw Story, 11.10.10

Global Research: Scientists say 40 times more cancer-causing toxics in Gulf than before spill … Dispersants to blame

WWL-TV: Man on knees begs Ken Feinberg for help

[Oceanographer] Sylvia Earle talks Gulf oil spill effects in exclusive interview —

There is no way to “adequately clean up” the consequences of the blowout any more than you can uncook an egg. Most of the efforts succeeded in magnifying, not diminishing the impacts.

In some ways, we are all responsible for this catastrophe. Our insatiable appetite for fossil fuels and the corporate mandate to maximize shareholder value encourages drilling without taking into account the costs to the ocean, even without major spills.

Nonetheless, the thousands of individuals who have done their best to protect areas that escaped oiling and have attempted to clean up areas damaged by the blowout of the Deepwater Horizon well deserve recognition. However, we need to hold accountable those who authorized massive applications of toxic dispersants, especially at 5,000 ft depth, as well as those who allowed beaches to be upended, scraped, bulldozed and otherwise altered to give the appearance that the oil magically disappeared. Deployment of hundreds of miles of booms did little to contain the oil but did succeed in creating hundreds of miles of oily trash now contaminating landfills. –Sylvia Earle

News4Us.com: New evidence suggests the oil spill in the Gulf could only be the beginning

HuffPo: Obama oil spill speech fact check

FOSL: USF researchers find layers “up to 5 times thicker” than in August – “Oil’s presence on the ocean floor didn’t diminish with time, it grew”

YouTube: “Man, look at all this oil,” says scientist on Florida beach

PhoenixRisingfromtheGulf: Alarming evidence of a leaking Macondo Prospect – The BP Gulf oil spill continues

YouTube: FDA admits NOT testing for mercury, arsenic, or other toxic heavy metals in crude oil (old footage; still stands)

FOSL: “Yellow foam” hits several beaches in southern England – “massive clean-up” of “oily material” underway (“castor oil”… right)

FOSL: Has BP’s crude reached Britain? BBC reports “thick black oil” found on beach near England’s southewesternmost point

Oilspillaction: BP and NOAA slam the door on independent research —

Independent research has been the bane of both BP’s existence and its cronies, correcting the “official narrative” time and again. The embarrassments began with the oil-flow estimates and continued through to the “all clear” on seafood contamination. But the company, perhaps sensing where its real long-term liability exists, is slamming the door on independent research by refusing to supply official samples of the Deepwater Horizon oil.

The samples are important because they allow scientists to connect the oil washing up on beaches or found inside seafood to BP’s runaway Macondo well.

That’s vital, because eventually, as bizarre as it might seem now, BP will begin asserting that nobody can prove oil fouling marshes and washing onto beaches was from its spill. That’s what Exxon did in Alaska, and it’s pretty much standard procedure in the world of Big Oil spills.

So, since September, BP has shut off distribution of its samples. Normally, you wouldn’t worry because NOAA and government agencies have plenty of samples – but NOAA is again operating as an ally of BP and not distributing samples either. In fact, distribution of the samples pretty much stopped back in September.

IPSNews.net: US – Sick Gulf residents beg officials for help (At least FIVE healthy people — and two dogs — on Grand Isle have unexpectedly passed away, with no pre-Oilpocalypse illness.)

Newscastmedia.com: Mysterious illnesses linked to BP oil spill aftermath

Disenfranchised Citizen: As problems persist in the Gulf, listening ain’t hearing

Science Daily: Dramatic ocean circulation changes caused a colder Europe in the past

Nature.com: Gulf oil studies stalled by scarce samples

Farm Wars: Secret highly toxic ingredients of chemical dispersant Corexit finally revealed

HuffPo: Rocky Kistner – Gulf residents to oil industry and government: Our health is not a tradeoff

WLOX-TV: Microbe spraying skimmers now on water (but not because of BP… ‘Moran is pushing BP to make sure this oil-fighting feature is used on the water. “We hope they will be proactive and come forward with a microbe product that they will accept and approve to be applied to the marshes if they become inundated with oil,” Moran said.’)

Oil Spill Action: Berms and boom were largely ineffective responses to oil spill, panel reports

Guardian UK: BP oil spill – Colombian farmers sue for negligence

Science Online: A surprise turn – how one scientist dropped everything to study the oil spill

YouTube: “Enbridge told our crew to cover up oil with dirt. My foreman was with us when it happened. Later on I asked him why and you can now read his text.”

NYTimesBlog: Court rejects claim of journalist’s privilege for documentary filmmaker (Spillionaires do what they want, chapter #562,893,008: “A federal appeals court says that Joe Berlinger, the filmmaker who was ordered to give footage from his 2009 documentary “Crude” to the Chevron Corporation, could not invoke a journalist’s privilege in refusing to turn over that footage because his work on the film did not constitute an act of independent reporting.”)

Mediate.com: Anderson Cooper slams ‘nonsense’ charges made against him in Deepwater Horizon oil spill report

HuffPo: Missed opportunity – spill commission rejected by drillers

Youtube: Matt Simmons – CFR & Big Oil insider – exposes massive BP coverup, fraud, & hoax

YouTube: GULF NEWS ALERT: Gulf crabs’ lungs / deadmen blackened by oil (from August but it still applies)

Innervisible: Dispersing fear – Allying ourselves with the second dimension (nice pep talk about tiny things)

Frozen Alaska oil pipeline a ‘nightmare scenario’

FOSL: Alabama’s Marine Resources director dies after staph infection – Played important part in state’s oil disaster response (staph is rampant on the Coast – with all those Corexit-eaten open sores)

FOSL: BP cleanup worker, age 25, needs high-risk open heart surgery after being infected with bacterial endocarditis – “If he doesn’t have it, he will die”

Andy Borowitz: Goldman Sachs reveals it shorted Gulf of Mexico (“The new revelations came to light after government investigators turned up new emails from Goldman employee Fabrice “Fabulous Fab” Tourre in which he bragged to a girlfriend that the firm was taking a “big short” position on the Gulf. “One oil rig goes down and we’re going to be rolling in dough,” Mr. Tourre wrote in one email. “Suck it, fishies and birdies!”“)

Earthjustice: Preventing more BP-type oil disasters

USNews.com: Methane from BP spill goes missing (Her team and others tracked plumes migrating out from the wellhead early in the spill. Deep and persistent, these diffuse clouds of oil and gas proved very localized and mobile, she says. From late June until early August, however, no one continued to track their whereabouts, Joye observes. So “the more parsimonious explanation” for why Kessler’s group found no BP methane: “They lost track of the freaking plume.”)

ClimateProgress: Flash back to 2008 Minerals Management Service sex-for-oil scandal

Sydney Morning Herald: BP, Rosneft announce share swap, Arctic exploration deal

This Is Money UK: Oil spill ‘good for BP,’ claims [new COO] Bob Dudley

 

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