INDIGENOUS PERUVIANS WIN APPEAL IN FEDERAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL LAWSUIT AGAINST OCCIDENTAL PETROLEUM FOR CONTAMINATING AMAZON RAINFOREST, POISONING COMMUNITIES

LAWSUIT TO PROCEED IN U.S. FEDERAL COURT

Los Angeles, California – Indigenous plaintiffs from the Peruvian Amazon won their appeal today in the landmark human rights and environmental contamination lawsuit against U.S. oil giant Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the case should be heard in Los Angeles, Oxy’s hometown. A district court judge had previously ruled that the case should be litigated in Peru, but the Ninth Circuit disagreed, allowing the plaintiffs to proceed in federal court.

The lawsuit accuses Oxy of causing severe injuries by knowingly dumping a daily average of 850,000 barrels of toxic wastewater into the tropical rainforest inhabited by the indigenous Achuar people of northern Peru over a 30-year period, as well as inducing acid rain from gas flaring, and improperly storing waste in unlined pits. The plaintiffs allege that these outdated practices caused widespread lead and cadmium poisoning, among other serious health impacts.

“This is a major victory for the rights of indigenous peoples,” said Marco Simons, Legal Director of EarthRights International (ERI), who argued the appeal before the Ninth Circuit. “Oxy will now face justice in the U.S. federal courts, rather than in a Peruvian legal system that has never compensated indigenous groups for environmental contamination.” The Ninth Circuit’s opinion indicates that it was not convinced of “the ability of the Peruvian courts to satisfactorily handle this case,” citing corruption and “disorder in the Peruvian judiciary.”

Atossa Soltani, Executive Director of Amazon Watch, added, “The Achuar people continue to suffer the devastating health impacts caused by Oxy’s damaging practices, which were illegal in the U.S. at the time. This ruling means that the Achuar will finally get their day in U.S. court and signals the end of the era when companies could destroy indigenous communities and their environment with impunity.” Amazon Watch has advocated for the Achuar people for many years, and joined the case as a plaintiff to challenge Oxy’s allegedly fraudulent denials of responsibility for the pollution.

The Achuar case, Maynas Carijano v. Occidental Petroleum, No. 08-56187 (9th Cir.), was filed in May 2007 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. In April 2008, the district court ruled that the case should be heard in Peru under the legal doctrine of forum non conveniens. The plaintiffs and their counsel, including Washington, DC-based ERI, the Venice, CA firm Schonbrun DeSimone Seplow Harris Hoffman & Harrison LLP, and San Francisco lawyer Natalie Bridgeman, appealed that ruling. The Ninth Circuit’s opinion was issued by Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, joined by Judge Mary M. Schroeder; Judge Pamela Ann Rymer agreed with part of the opinion and issued a partial dissent.

According to A Legacy of Harm, a 2007 report issued by ERI, Amazon Watch, and the Peruvian legal non-profit Racimos de Ungurahui, Oxy’s operations discharged billions of barrels of untreated wastewater into local streams, caused numerous spills and resulted in many unremediated toxic waste sites in Achuar territory, with severe health and livelihood consequences for the Achuar.

The full report and the Ninth Circuit’s opinion are available at www.earthrights.org.

EarthRights International (ERI) is a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that combines the power of law and the power of people in defense of human rights and the environment. Focusing on earth rights, we work at the intersection of human rights and the environment. We specialize in fact-finding, legal actions against perpetrators of earth rights abuses, training for grassroots and community leaders, and advocacy campaigns that seek to end earth rights abuses and promote and protect earth rights. To learn more, including viewing a copy of A Legacy of Harm, please visit: http://www.earthrights.org/.

Amazon Watch is an environmental and human rights organization working to protect the rainforest and advance the rights of indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin. We partner with indigenous and environmental organizations in campaigns for human rights, corporate accountability and the preservation of the Amazon’s ecological systems. To learn more please visit: http://www.amazonwatch.org/.

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Do you hate bike thiefs or any other type of criminals for that matter?  This video might make you feel better, maybe.  In this video some citizens had enough with a local bike thief and they finally decided to take matters into their own hands.  They set up an ambush scene with a hidden camera and a bait bike to catch him in the act. After a couple of nights he gets caught ‘redhanded’ stealing the bait bike then gets blasted by dozens of paintballs.  He attempts to retaliate with a knife but that only makes it worse because the vigilantes had bear spray waiting for him.  Ever been hit by a paintball?? “Ouch” doesn’t do justice to the pain produced by one hit.  Yes, there is a possibility that this video is fake but after watching it closely a few times I am pretty sure it’s real.  Living in San Francisco I have gotten my bike seat stolen two times, my front wheel taken once and my car window busted twice only to take some old CD’s.  Needless to say I have experienced much anger at this situation and have actually thought about doing this same thing but never had the balls or motivation to actually do it.

This video is a first of a kind on even on You Tube.  Controversial?  Does the thief deserve this?  He deserves something that is for sure.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t somewhat excited by the vigilantes who decided to take matters into their own hands.   The thief, well, I am sure he spent a week in bed watching his bruises go down.  I hope he never ever steals another bike again.  Thiefs worldwide beware.  This type of activity might become contagious.

Calling all true underground dance music connoisseurs of San Francisco.  In case you missed the last one, the one and only Mr. Dan Bell aka DBX will be playing another 9 hour set this Saturday night at the most precious of all underground locations in North America, this is a fairly common opinion shared by those who have experienced it.

Who? What? Dan Bell is an underground dance music pioneer from Detroit.  Many will argue that he invented the minimal techno sound, he definitely owns rights to the original classics like Losing Control.  Check out his Discogs page. Dan inspired an entire generation of producers to bump those beeps and blips into a bliss of smooth rhythm, very basic, very primal, very deep, sexy. These days Dan Bell usually only plays for big crowds at festivals or at some of the world’s largest clubs like Tresor, Panorama Bar, etc.  On this very special night in San Francisco however Dan will deliver another exclusive 9 hour performance for 150 people, the max capacity of the venue.  Why are we so lucky?

Dan Bell loves playing at this special underground venue.  Here is an excerpt from the official invite by our great host Mr. G. Bird who describes it oh so passionately:

In late 2008, after playing for [KONTROL] four times between 2005 and 2007, Dan Bell approached me and told me he had an idea for a long-format special event in which he was the only DJ all night. Knowing this would truly be one for the history books, we secured SF’s most amazing intimate private location, and it was on. After promising an 8 hour set in which he was the “opener, headliner, and closer”, Dan delivered what was, without a doubt, one of the most memorable nights of music I have ever been witness to in well over a decade of steady partying. Flawless long mixes, incredible unheard gems both old and new, and a deep, sophisticated vibe that has rarely (if ever) since been replicated. At 7am, when he was scheduled to end, Dan asked if he could play one more hour, as he still had some great music he’d like to get to before calling it a day. He did. And many of us stayed to the very end. And through nearly 9 hours of mixing, he never lost his focus, never even stopped to use the bathroom! To this day, when people ask me about my favorite parties ever, this one immediately jumps to mind, and I suspect I’m far from alone in feeling this way.

We will leave the name of this underground locale out of this post to protect the integrity of the spot.  However it is ‘theatre in the round’ presentation,  the artist performs in the middle, and 150 lucky people are engulfed by the perfectly tuned state of the art 360 degree 16.1 dolby surround sound system.  OH YEAH BABY!  This place is a sound engineer’s wet dream and it requires going through some dirt roads to find it. (Awesome! anyone been to underground Detroit parties in the early 90’s? It’s a lot like that:-)  Again, I’d like to give a special thanks to our host G. Bird for putting together this event on for the second time.

Besides having have had Dan Bell play my college house party for 30 of us (thank you Lucas Ortega for hooking that up), this event is as intimate as it is ever going to get to the decadent sounds of Dan Bell over a high quality system in the best city in the world, San Francisco.

Want to know how to make it to this party?  First you must be on Facebook, here is the link the invite:

Photos by Gilbert Rizzo

Thursday November 19th at 9pm, Indy Spirits Expo Afterparty

Macchu Pisco and Combier Present

‘NOW AVAILABLE’ IN CALIFORNIA PARTY

1 FREE Macchu Pisco Daisy cocktail, Come celebrate

$5 Pisco and Combier cocktails

Top Shelf Music provided by Romanowski

@ 83 Proof, 83 First Street (between Market and Mission)

NO COVER

Special thanks to our new distributor in California, Wine Warehouse.

follow @piscosf on twitter for more news and info

The Facebook Invite: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/event.php?eid=176404807157&ref=ts

Join the Macchu Pisco Facebook Group for more goodies: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18760511406&ref=ts

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As best described in bullet points by Daniel Gritzer in his Time Out New York magazine article. “Pisco: Getting to Know Peru’s Grape Brandy”:

• Pisco comes in three main categories: puro (pure), acholado (blended) and mosto verde (green must).
• Puro piscos are made from one type of grape, and are themselves divided into aromatic and nonaromatic categories, depending on the varietal used.
• Acholados are blends of the distillates of various grapes, such as the delicate and floral La Diablada, produced by the Asher sisters.
• Mosto verde is distilled after it is only halfway fermented, resulting in a much diminished yield. It is best sipped alone.
• The most traditional grape for pisco is called quebranta, meaning “broken.” It was brought by Spanish explorers to South America from the Canary Islands, and was essentially “broken in” to survive the Peruvian climate, hence the name. Macchu Pisco is 100 percent quebranta, and it makes a less fruity and floral spirit. Other pisco grapes can be much more aromatic.
• Pisco is different from Italian grappa in that grappa is distilled from pomace (the solid remnants like skin and seed after wine has been pressed), while pisco is distilled from freshly fermented grape juice with no associated wine production.”

I found this item in the middle of nowhere during a long bus trip stop for food.  I know there is history with marijuana and the old Turkish culture but how did it end up in the form of marijuana cow bank with some big lips and a blunt is a mystery.  Hilarious nonetheless.

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This girl toy was spotted at another bus stop.  Turkey not only strives to be part of the EU but apparently they seek to inculcate the idea into their children to someday own their own “Modern Sweet Home.”  It is hard to read in this picture because of the web resolutionbut the yellow copy at the top of the box says: “Simulating the True Styles and Making Carefully.”

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This is the sign in the metro to give up your seats to those who need it.  Since I am a huge fan of foreign sign imagery I could not get over the depiction of what must be considered the classic old Turkish man, see bottom right.  I want to make a t-shirt of this.

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I laugh now but maybe someday when I step out of the shower I will think “damn, I wish I had a pocket for my slippers conveniently placed on top of my steez on this towel.”

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This restaurant marketed their lamb menu by making this stuffed sheep look like its eating a plant.  There was another one on the opposite side of the entrance facing this one in order to welcome their guests in.  Charming.  I definitely noticed women and children enjoyed this so the manager of this restaurant must know what he is doing.

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All I have to say about this is…. “Otel, motel Holiday Innn, when that b*** starts f**** up, Ill just f*** her friend”    But for real, this in Turkish a hotel is spelled ”otel” and I simply could not resist singing that famous hip hop lyric every time I walked by an otel.

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Finally, did I or did I now get lucky with this great picture of this Turkish cat.  This is best cat picture I’ve ever snapped.  I call it Night Rider.  Look at those eyes.

Absolute Power

I was walking across the Galata bridge late at night in Istanbul when I ran into a very old Turkish man wearing this hat.  It was unreal that someone that old could be wearing such a cool hat. I don’t mean to say anything agist, but I was not in San Francisco you know, I am just saying.  I went up and talked to him, his name was Salman and he spoke no English, but he could tell I liked his hat and the guy was obviously pretty cool and very young at heart where it matters most.  I told him I was originally from Peru and he gave me a hug.  If you look real close you can tell it was hand made, probably by some  local Istanbul designer.  Salman let it go to  me for 15 TL, about 10 bucks.   The best $10 I have ever spent, it’s golden like a crown.   I officially own the coolest baseball hat in the world.  If anyone has any information about the hat designer, please comment.