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Bio-fuels in Bloom
A British-Malay joint venture has announced plans for a new bio-diesel plant in the eastern province of Sabah. The announcement is the latest step in the rapid development of bio-diesel manufacturing in Malaysia.
Though such projects are good news for the producers of palm oil, a primary ingredient in bio-diesel, there are concerns about how the palm oil industry will be able to meet long-term growth in demand for bio-fuels.
The RM140m ($38.3m) bio-diesel plant will be located at the Palm Oil Industrial Cluster in Lahad Datu in Sabah. The announcement follows two days of intense negotiations among officials from the primary partners, Kuala Lumpur-based Zurex Corporation Sdn Bhd and Biofutures International PLC (BI), a renewable fuels firm from the UK. BI officials indicated to Sabah's Industrial Development Minister Datuk Ewon Ebin that they would provide development plans in the coming months.
Recently, Malaysia has embraced investment in bio-diesel. In 2005, plans were made for the construction of three bio-diesel plants. According to the Malaysian Industrial Development Authority, the government has approved 32 bio-fuels projects since the beginning of 2006. Last week, at the ground-breaking ceremony for a bio-diesel plant in Pahang, Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak emphasised not only the need for alternative fuels, but also how Malaysia's production of palm oil creates a positive outlook for Malaysia's bio-fuels potential.
Indeed, Malaysia is the world's leading supplier of palm oil - delivering half of global supply. The industry has long sought value-added ways to compete with growing palm oil rivals, particularly in Indonesia. The turn to bio-fuels to address this need is not unique to Malaysia. Other countries have also harnessed the fuel potential of their own commodities to boost agricultural sectors. For example, Brazil's advanced bio-fuels sector is a result of its abundant sugarcane, and the use of maize for ethanol in the US is on the rise, although President Bush has also touted switchgrass as an alternative. Unlike these, however, Malaysian producers have been increasingly sending its palm oil abroad for use in bio-fuels, particularly to European and Asian markets.
Malaysia has tapped into the Australian market, which is relatively developed in its use of bio-fuels, and Europe, particularly Germany, where the local biomass, rapeseed, is not available in sufficient quantities for large-scale bio-diesel production. The EU imports about 3.5 m tonnes of palm oil annually, and has set a target of 5.75% bio-fuel content by 2010. Just this week Bernama, Malaysia's national news agency, reported that several Chinese firms have sought Malaysian palm oil waste for bio-diesel production, and exports of palm oil to that country have increased by 20% in 2006.
In Malaysia, the government began using bio-diesel in many of its vehicles this year, and officials have consistently encouraged research and development of alternative fuels. And the onus is not merely on palm oil producers. Last week, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi urged major oil corporations to reinvest part of their profits into the research and development of renewable energy.
But the future of bio-diesel does not rest solely on securing investment in its manufacture. Palm oil growers are concerned that they will not be able to maintain sufficient palm oil production for food and other non-food purposes. Palm oil is a popular cooking oil, and is an important component of fat-substitute products and oleochemicals. Dato' Sabri bin Ahmad, the chief executive of Golden Hope Plantations, Berhad, one of the largest palm oil producers in Malaysia and a pioneer in bio-diesel manufacturing, told OBG that palm oil producers must be careful. "While we want to push bio-diesel, we must not overdo it so that it attacks the food sector," Sabri said.
Some land issues within the plantation sector also limits the potential of palm oil production. The total arable land in Malaysia is 12m ha, and while palm oil accounts from 5m ha, many believe that the maximum area for palm oil should be capped at around 6m ha. Widespread clearing of forests for agriculture is completely out of the question for Malaysia, and companies are reluctant to turn to genetically-modified means to increase yields. As a result, many of Malaysia's large plantation companies are currently operating palm oil plantations in Indonesia, to help offset the shortage.
Other exports such as cocoa, rice and rubber vie for growing space, and many question the wisdom of turning over too much land to a single, non-staple crop.
Such concerns could be justified if bio-diesel sceptics are correct. Many believe that the shelf-life of "first generation" bio-fuels technologies will be short-lived, as accelerated development could quickly lead to new and more efficient second-generation products. Such a scenario could lead to a rapid reduction in demand for the current biomass products, if not a total lapse. On the other end, car manufacturers are particularly uninterested in expensive redesigns for a technology that could be surpassed in a decade.
Bio-fuels' viability in the market is also uncertain. Though current high petroleum prices will likely endure, it is still not clear if bio-diesel prices can compete with those of fossil fuels without government subsidies or tax breaks to make them more attractive to consumers. Such measures are widely practiced in Europe and consequently, the continent is the world's most lucrative bio-fuels markets.
In the short term, however, construction of bio-fuels facilities continues. Earlier this month, construction began on a RM100m ($27.4m) bio-diesel and glycerine purification plant in Pahang. That project, an investment by Australian-listed Mission Biofuels Ltd., is set to produce 100,000 tonnes of bio-diesel per year, and is planned to be operational in July 2007.
The new plant envisioned for Sabah will be capable of producing 200,000 tonnes per year. The operation will employ 60 workers at full capacity, and will be financed through a public offering of Biofuture International's shares on the London Stock Exchange.
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To what extent are sustainability goals tied to the success of a business?


Typically only the rs_agent:type and rs_agent:mime_include_url tags are used in order to bootstrap RightLink. To do this, the image must contain a suitable cloud-init that supports user-data retrieval from the cloud. The MultiCloudImage (MCI) must be tagged with rs_agent:type=right_link_lite. The MCI should be tagged with a suitable rightlink.boot.sh script, such as rs_agent:mime_include_url=https://rightlink.rightscale.com/rll/10.5.3/rightlink.boot.sh. As a convenience, more generic versions such as 10 or 10.5 may be specified as a way to install the latest GA version for a lineage. To use, add tag rs_agent:mime_include_url=https://rightlink.rightscale.com/rll/10/rightlink.boot.sh. See the releases page for full list of supported versions to install and release notes.
The RightScale platform supports the following tags.
rs_agent:mime_include_url=<url> Optional: downloads and execute the contents of the URL using x-include-url. This is the mechanism used to accomplish (2) above and install RightLink at boot time. This tag is NOT compatible with the rs_agent:http_proxy tag.
rs_agent:hashbang_shellscript=<url> Optional: simulates x-include-url with a simple canned shell script. This better supports older/alternate versions of cloud-init and is also compatible with the rs_agent:http_proxy tag.
The properties available on the rs_agent object depend on whether the MCI is marked as RightLink or RightLink 10; the properties are named consistently with the key names that would normally be injected as query-string or MIME user-data (e.g. RS_rn_id is one property name if rs_agent:type=right_link and client_id is one property if rs_agent:type=right_link_lite). It is assumed that Liquid rendering will only be used for RightLink 10 agents and only those values are documented here.
ExecStart=/usr/bin/bash -c "/usr/bin/curl -s https://rightlink.rightscale.com/rll/10.5.3/rightlink.boot.sh | /usr/bin/bash"


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Home » NBC-2 | WBBH » 2 migrant teens killed in Tijuana robbery attempt
2 migrant teens killed in Tijuana robbery attempt
Two teenagers who were staying at a migrant center in central Tijuana, Mexico, were killed in an attempted robbery, a law enforcement official said late Tuesday.
Jorge Alberto Álvarez Mendoza, deputy attorney general in the state of Baja California, said the two boys, estimated to be ages 16 and 17, were stabbed and strangled Saturday. Their bodies were found shortly after 7 p.m., he said.
A third boy with the victims managed to escape, he said.
The bodies were found in an alley in a neighborhood named for the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, Álvarez Mendoza said. Authorities believe the trio were headed to another migrant shelter, the Benito Juarez sports complex, which was officially closed down after heavy rains doused the open-air encampment earlier this month.
The Honduran government confirmed in a statement that it had been informed by Mexican authorities that the deceased teens were from Honduras and said it was working to have their bodies returned home.
"At the moment, all we can say is that the three boys were taken to a place," Rivera told Reuters. "Two of them were brutally murdered, and one of them is a survivor of the incident, who is being protected by Mexican authorities."
Tijuana saw a record number of homicides, 1,744, last year and was seeing a similarly bloody one this year, experts say. The cause is a drug trade that has disintegrated from the high command of a few cartels to hand-to-hand methamphetamine dealing in the shantytowns of the city's industrial fringes.
The violence highlights the dangers faced by migrants in Tijuana — some of whom were part of a caravan that was politicized during the midterm congressional election in November — as thousands await a slim possibility of pleading their case for asylum at the U.S. border.
The administration of President Donald Trump has pushed a policy of blanket denial of asylum while at the same time admonishing Central American migrants, who are often fleeing murderous gang violence in their homelands, to seek legal means of coming to the United States.
In the case of 7-year-old Jakelin Caal Maquin, who died Dec. 8 after her father took her from Guatemala to a remote stretch of the New Mexico desert near the Antelope Wells Port of Entry, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Friday on Fox News that her father "chose to cross illegally."
Legal scholars say U.S. law allows migrants seeking asylum to come to a point of entry and request it from officials, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP.
Nicole Alvarez, a lawyer with Al Otro Lado, a migrant advocacy organization, said unaccompanied minors are generally intercepted by Mexican and U.S. authorities before they can seek asylum at a popular port of entry in San Diego.
"The fact that these children died was an avoidable tragedy," she said. "Their blood is on the hands of CBP. This case is a prime example of the dangers faced by unaccompanied children and why CBP should not be impeding the most vulnerable of asylum seekers from accessing the legal and protection systems which can literally save their lives."
The state attorney's office is continuing to investigate the teens' deaths.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Taking care of your physical body is such an important part of taking care of your mental health; I talk about this quite often with the clients I see for counseling. Our bodies, minds and souls are all connected; we are a whole human being. The different parts of ourselves all impact and influence the other parts. If I'm not taking care of myself emotionally, at some point that will manifest itself in some way in my physical body. However, if I'm taking care of my physical body, then my mind and emotions have a better potential for being healthy as well. Healthy nutrition and exercise are such important pieces of good mental health. Exercise releases chemicals in the brain that help us actually "feel" better; this is just one great benefit of regular exercise. A healthy, well-balanced diet is essential to great mental health as well. Eating junk and not getting enough vitamins and nutrients our bodies need causes things to run more sluggish inside our bodies and minds. There are great ways to be healthy, inside and out. I love going to the Farmer's Market (they are open 7 days per week) and stocking up on fresh, local fruits and vegetables for the week. I really enjoy supporting local farmers and eating what is in season and knowing I'm also giving my body some of the vitamins and nutrients it needs to function as it is designed! For those of us that work, live and play in Downtown Raleigh, there is a great farmer's market there too in City Plaza on Fayetteville Street on Wednesdays from April-October. Exercise can be fun as well and really helps boost mood and take care of our bodies. Grab a buddy (or just some headphones) and head to Lake Johnson; it's a gorgeous place to walk or run! Try incorporating some healthy eating and exercise into your weekly routine. It can be hard to implement new changes but they are so well worth the effort!


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È nota soprattutto per aver interpretato il personaggio di Sheree Greegan nella serie televisiva neozelandese Outrageous Fortune - Crimini di famiglia.

Biografia
Tyler-Jane Mitchel è nata a Wellington nel 1975 e recitò per la prima volta nel film Le ragioni del cuore del 1989 (venendo accreditata come Rebecca Clark). Mitchel si formò come attrice presso la scuola d'arte Stella Adler Studio of Acting di Nuova York dopo essersi laureata presso l'Università del Nuovo Galles del Sud di Sydney.

Tyler-Jane Mitchel ha recitato in varie serie televisive neozelandesi, come The Amazing Extraordinary Friends e Outrageous Fortune - Crimini di famiglia, e ha lavorato come commentatrice all'emittente radiofonica George FM di Auckland.

Mitchel è stata anche una promotrice pubblicitaria. Nel 2007, in particolare, ha presentato la campagna pubblicitaria virale "Nothing to Hide" del marchio di prodotti per la cura della pelle Elave: questa campagna pubblicitaria è nota per aver generato non poche controversie dal momento che tutte le persone apparse nella pubblicità del prodotto, Mitchel compresa, sono raffigurate completamente nude, senza alcuna censura.

Filmografia

Cinema

 Le ragioni del cuore, regia di Dominique Deruddere (1989)

Televisione

 The New Adventures of Black Beauty - serie TV, ep. 2x4 (1990)
 Marlin Bay - serie TV (1993)
 Hawaii missione speciale - serie TV, ep. 1x3 (1994-1996)
 Le redini del cuore - Riding High - serie TV (1995)
 Hercules - serie TV, ep. 1x9, 2x7, 2x10 (1995-1996)
 Stingers - serie TV, ep. 2x10 (1999)
 The Market - serie TV, ep. 1x4 (2005)
 The Amazing Extraordinary Friends - serie TV (2006-2007)
 Orange Roughies - serie TV, ep. 2x12 (2007)
 Outrageous Fortune - Crimini di famiglia - serie TV (2007-2010)

Note

Collegamenti esterni

Attori neozelandesi

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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a reply to: Irishhaf
I almost learned that the very hard way a few years back.
A friend of mine convinced me to go hog hunting with handguns. OK...what the Hell, right? Uh-huh...
I was carrying a Desert Eagle .357, with nine in the mag, and one up the spout.
I found, or was found by, not sure which, by a big ol' pig. Well, you could almost hear the bugle sound the charge. Squeal of rage, and it was on. I double tapped it, it stumbled a bit, and regained its balance and continued the charge. I unloaded my remaining 8 shots into it, finally dropping it about 15 feet away--seemed a lot closer--from me.
That was just a tad bit too close for comfort. Never, again. I will not use anything smaller than .308 from a rifle on a hog.
I've hunted just about every fairly large game animal in North America, and that's as close to death as I've ever come. That pig dressed out at around 200 lbs if I remember correctly. Tasted really good.
It makes for a great story, but man...it could have been really bad.
The Scottish Government and Police Guesstimated 500,000 air guns were in circulation in Scotland before the new licencing laws. Just over 32,000 were handed in.
They ramp up the figures to make it sound as though the nation is armed to the teeth and the public ( mostly cats and swans) must be protected.
edit on 28-12-2019 by Soloprotocol because: (no reason given)
TheRedneck
a reply to: chr0naut
To be fair, there are lots of countries that don't have the dreadful history of the US.
To be fair, that all depends on what you consider "dreadful." Read on.
There are countries that abolished slavery completely and don't leave loopholes in their law (read the 13th Amendment).
I have read the 13th Amendment. It abolishes slavery in any form.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
There are some countries that never had slavery, right from their founding.
Only very newly-formed countries. Some still have slavery.
There are some countries that incorporate human rights into their actual statutes of law.
Like the USA. Read the Bill of Rights (the first ten Amendments).
There are some countries who don't slyly support big crime because it is so lucrative. There are some countries who prosecute the banksters instead of bailing them out time and time again.
Name 'em.
When you're through with that, try to understand that the majority of the country does not want the banks bailed out. That's the government acting against the will of the people... believe it or not.
In the 20th and 21st Centuries, there has been no country as involved in as many wars as the US, and, here's the thing, in none of them has the continent of the US, or the people living there, even been slightly threatened.
You're right. And in all of them (save a couple), had the people known the real reason for the war, they would have opposed it. There's that "benevolent" government again, lying to the people. You know, the government you trust with your very life.
When your allies called for assistance during the Second World War, where the hell were you? You didn't commit any real help until you were directly attacked.
Minding our own business for once... like you just insisted we do in the last paragraph. Now you're complaining we didn't get involved fast enough. Make up your damn mind, man!
You don't get to complain that we go to war too fast, then immediately complain we take too long to go to war. Pick a side.
Could you possibly conceive of a government for the people and by the people? You know, like a government that administers and protects its nation instead of being adversarial enemies of it own people?
Why, yes I can. But it would have to be a government that has a good reason to fear the people, else it has no incentive to act in the best interests of the people.
Can you conceive of any group of humans who are truly altruistic and still able to obtain political power? I can't. Such a group has never existed in human history.
No, but even if the smallest fraction of a percentage of a heavily armed populace do intend to shoot, then you have a massive problem.
How do you stop that happening? Do you expect to do it by handing out more guns at random?
Actually, yes. People who have a tendency to shoot without just cause are far, far less likely to do so when their target can shoot back.
Not sure where you got the "random" comment, but whatever.
39,773 gun deaths in 2017 and rising each year sounds fairly legendary to me.
Of course it does! Can you read? The vast majority of those deaths are from law enforcement actions (exempted under all gun ban proposals) and suicide (which a gun ban would not prevent as other methods are also available). More of them happen when a person defends themselves against criminal attacks. Out of those almost 40,000 "gun deaths," only a tiny fraction of them are the result of some loose cannon with a gun going postal.
This has already been pointed out in this very thread.
It has, and does happen. Refer to any figures on total gun deaths per year. Most people may be sensible but there are always those few...
Proliferating more guns is not a solution.
No, you read those figures... you seem to not have. Every city where guns are heavily restricted has turned into an actual bloodbath, whereas the areas with little to no gun bans remain mostly crime free. Every. Single. One.
Please provide one example of anything more valuable than a human life? Say, your life, for instance.
That's easy: the safety of my children or my wife.
You make the mistake of thinking that I don't know those in government in my country. I know quite a few.
And will you know "quite a few" should the present government be voted out of power?
And our government isn't likely to fall to tyranny either. In Australia and New Zealand we operate our government under a modified Westminster Parliamentary system which is (IMHO) immensely superior to your pseudo-Romanesque republic.
Is your government run by humans?
The same humans you don't trust to have a gun?
Historically, republics have always devolved into tyrannical leaderships such as dictatorships or an emperor. Read a bit of Roman history, then look into some other notable republics to see how they fared.
I am fairly well-versed in history, thank you. I know about the Roman Empire. It fell due to corruption from within and then succumbed to enemies from without. The whole point of the conservative movement in the US is to try and prevent that from happening to us and return to a more pure form of republic. You know, the same movement you are constantly against, even if it means skewing statistics and stating outright lies?
I will give you this: you are consistent in your inconsistency. Too bad you usually don't understand a single word of what you type.
Xtrozero
originally posted by: chr0naut
Hmmm:
Gang Action Plan details announced - New Zealand Law Society
The problem is our gang numbers are 1/2 the population of your fine country. Add in the sheer size of America and it is much more open than NZ for foreign gangs coming here that makes our problem ten fold to anything NZ might have. BTW the 9,000 they kill is mostly themselves...
edit on 28-12-2019 by Xtrozero because: (no reason given)
Irishhaf
a reply to: seagull
Yup family friend ran into a large boar unloaded his 12 gauge and nadda, thing chased him up a tree he eventually had to hang off a lower branch and get an up close hit with his .357 behind the ridge plate.
acquaintance ran into a pack of razor backs, kept him treed for a day before they got distracted by something else, at one point he started to climb down because he thought they were gone and they had just gone and lay down and waited thankfully for him he paused and listened and they rushed out before he touched the ground.
Nasty animals but good eating.
a reply to: TheRedneck
Bang on in everything you said...
While I cant say an entire group, the ring leaders of our founders were pretty darn close.
chr0naut
originally posted by: TheRedneck
Really, didn't you read past the first five words?:
That word, 'except' provides a legal loophole. It means that a convicted criminal (& note that the 'crime' is undefined. That means any charge, even a minor misdemeanor, can be sufficient) can be enslaved. That's a MAJOR loophole, eh?
America, at 232 years old, is a new country. At the time the US Constitution was written, most of the world had already abolished slavery.
Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom
- See that entry at the end of the list about what the State of California did in 2018? How could that be if the US had actually already fully abolished slavery? Face it, what most Americans believe about their country, is fiction.
Where is the US Constitutional clause guaranteeing assumption of innocence in a court room? And, apparently, the US Constitution does not extend to the complete abolition of slavery. Where is the right to education? Where is a right to having access to food, shelter or medical care (I mean, these are the very basics of human existence, right)?
And that is a positive?
The only ones who want the very rich, to stay very rich at the expense of the general populace, are the very rich.
It isn't my government. It isn't my country.
What of ethical reasoning or motivation?
You don't betray your friends. You don't attack the near defenseless. You don't take what isn't yours. It's all so many confusing grey areas, right?
A true democracy is the people. It gives voice to the majority of its citizens and also tries to listen with empathy to minorities, but not at the expense of the majority.
It is happening all across the world and has been doing so since well before the Americas were 'found' by Columbus. the Greeks started out in the right direction but their system was overridden militarily by the Romans.
He who shoots first has a decided advantage. The dead cannot return fire.
Suicides by firearm vastly outnumber the other gun deaths. There is actual data showing that suicidal people who do not have access to the rapid death by gun, reconsider their actions and choose, instead to live. If you reduce easy access to guns, you reduce the total number of suicides. You cannot simply assume that gun suicides are not part of the gun death statistics.
I dispute those figures and, as explained, free travel means that regional differences in the rules are largely ineffectual.
They don't have human lives?
They have been voted out of power, but as I said, small government...
Are all humans the same to you?
< sarcasm on >
Clearly, I am wrong, after all, you said so.
< sarcasm off >
originally posted by: Xtrozero
Ah the numbers game.
Surely you also have more law enforcement officers.
If your government cannot do its job because of big numbers... sorry but that just seems like they are probably not even trying.
People: 32 seconds ago
Video Games: 19 minutes ago


text:
Travelers descend an escalator to the ticketing floor at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport on Monday, Feb, 5, 2018. (John Autey / St. Paul Pioneer Press)
Minneapolis-St. Paul airport gets top billing in North America
By St. Paul Pioneer Press on Mar 7, 2018 at 12:08 p.m.
Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Tuesday, March 6, was named the best airport of its size in North America by the Airports Council International.
This is the second consecutive year that MSP has topped the council's rankings, which are based on passenger surveys, according to a news release issued by the Metropolitan Airports Commission.
Brian Ryks, the commission's CEO, said it was airport and airline employees who deserved credit for the award.
"Our vision is 'providing your best airport experience,' and receipt of this coveted award validates our efforts and those of our partners in the MSP Airport community," Ryks said in the news release.
To compile its rankings, Airports Council International surveyed 600,000 airline passengers in 84 countries, asking about check-in, security screening, restrooms, restaurants and other performance indicators. MSP ranked first in North America among airports that serve 25 to 40 million passengers a year.
Business, Transportation, Minnesota, Travel, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport


The first ever commercial aimed at dogs has been created for UK television. The advert features high-frequency noises (above 17'000Hz) that can only be heard by canine ears.
The advert, which is a spoof on the classic film "The Italian Job", is interwoven with sounds including barking, whistling and doorbell-ringing to entice the attention of dogs.
The one-minute commercial, by dog-food firm Bakers, will debut on ITV this week.


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Oaxaca's Art and Food Rebels
While tracking down art for a provocative exhibit, writer Douglas Anthony Cooper discovers fabulous recipes from this Mexican city's great restaurants and cafés.
Oaxaca de Juárez has long been a city celebrated by cultural travelers: revered for its complex cuisine (among the most sophisticated in the world), its contributions to folk and modern art and—no trivial matter in Mexico—its safety. But during the second half of 2006, violent protests against the despised state governor turned ugly: Locals took to the streets, set buses on fire and erected barricades in the Zócalo, the central square. Restaurants closed their doors, and travelers stayed away. But art flourished. And once the army restored peace toward the end of the year, the postmodernist painters, sculptors and conceptual artists who congregate in Oaxaca helped the city's restaurants recover. When the recent swine-flu panic threatened to paralyze Oaxaca's businesses once more (after a few fearful weeks, tourists rightly returned), the artists again showed their support by continuing to frequent their favorite food hangouts.
It turns out that many of Oaxaca's visual and conceptual provocateurs care deeply about protecting the city's food traditions. Indeed, when McDonald's planned to open an outpost in the Zócalo, renowned artist Francisco Toledo and his friends set up a stand in front of the proposed location and gave away tamales, atole (an indigenous drink made from ground corn) and other deeply regional foods—and McDonald's skulked away to the suburbs.
RELATED: How to Make Tamales
Church in Oaxaca, Mexico. © Maura McEvoy
When I arrived in Oaxaca three years ago, I was immediately drawn in by this subversive atmosphere. In my work as a writer I often collaborate with visual artists. Also, I am a troublemaker. And so, as I explored the terrific restaurants, cafés and bars where artists and intellectuals gather, I formulated my own idea for an art exhibit.
My concept was inspired by the intriguing tug-of-war taking place daily on my street: Artists would put up exquisite political graffiti on the walls one day; the authorities would whitewash it the next. My idea—for which I could have been deported—was to create a fictional curator: El Sargento Detective Jorge "Saúl" Converso, the policeman responsible for whitewashing the city walls. Converso would invite local artists to submit work to a gallery, which he would then tastefully censor and put on display.
More Amazing Recipes & Articles
A Lesson in Mexican Flavors Quick Mexican Recipes Where to Stay and Eat in Oaxaca
One of the first artists I roped in was Guillermo Olguín, who offered a towering, bannerlike painting for the show: a man hanged upside down, communing with a carrion bird. (Art in Oaxaca has become increasingly violent, now that the violence itself has evaporated.) Olguín is a famous painter, but also a connoisseur of spirits and a leader in the intellectual underground. His newest project is Mezcalería Los Amantes, a tasting room that he calls a "library of mezcal." Made mostly in the state of Oaxaca, mezcal is distilled from the bulb at the center of the agave plant, the sugary piña. Ingredients from the earth enter into almost every stage of the process, so mezcal ends up tasting, quite literally, like Mexico. The piñas are roasted over wood charcoal in a stone-lined pit covered in plant matter and earth, then ground, fermented in wooden vats and distilled into a husky, fiery liquid. The commercial rotgut with the worm pickled inside can be as pleasant as, oh, formaldehyde. At its best, however, mezcal is as sophisticated as the finest single malts.
Mezcalería Los Amantes looks like a hip alchemical laboratory, with bottles and jars of mezcal lining the tiny storefront that opens onto the street; behind the wooden bar, glass cases contain surreal curios, like a vintage mannequin. All of this is a theater for the presentation of the dozens of artisanal mezcals Olguín has discovered, as well as his own high-end brand of mezcal. Also called Los Amantes, it is now poured in top New York City bars and restaurants, like Death & Co. and Mayahuel; it is also available at Olguín's Manhattan restaurant, Casa Mezcal.
Artist Gabriela León. © Maura McEvoy
During the political unrest, Olguín turned his painting studio into a shadowy bar called El Salón Central, which was routinely shut down by the authorities. At first the issue was ostensibly the liquor license, so Olguín turned the bar into a private club he renamed Colectivo Central. He has reopened the bar now as Café Central, a mezcal-drenched, cheerfully decadent lounge with plush red curtains and upholstery, loud music, dancing and politically charged art (and artists).
Less boozy than Central but equally important to the art scene is Café Brújula, which opened a few months after the riots ended. Owner Kyle Dromgoole, a Texan married to a vivacious Oaxacan lawyer, concocts drinks made from fresh local ingredients, like a tart-sweet frappé of cucumber and lime. With Oaxaca's famously good coffee and a gallery that shows the works of Mexico's best printmakers, Brújula is favored by artists who work in experimental media. Jessica Wozny knits provocative signs and objects out of wool; Gabriela León (left) has made sculptures out of liposuctioned fat (it helps to be friends with a rogue plastic surgeon). I organized much of my exhibit there, with half the artists I was showing sitting nearby. And those who weren't in Brújula with us were hanging out two blocks away, at La Biznaga.
This open-air restaurant and its ambitious Oaxacan dishes seem to appeal more to artists working in paint, Oaxaca's long-dominant medium. La Biznaga was, in many ways, what convinced me to move to Oaxaca: I had stumbled across it years ago and decided I could happily live in a town with a restaurant that has this kind of atmosphere. The place is a nice mix of colonial and radical bits: A traditional Mexican courtyard is topped by a retractable roof; stuccoed walls are painted in warm earth tones, except for one with a green mosaic that looks like something out of a 1950s lounge bar.
La Biznaga is named for an endangered species of cactus, which chef Fernando López Velarde tells me tastes like an artichoke and is used to make candies. López is known for using local ingredients that most Mexican cooks ignore, such as mushrooms. "In Sierra Norte, they have portobellos but never eat them. They have porcini, boleti, shiitake. The Japanese come by helicopter and take the mushrooms away," he says. But Velarde includes portobellos in a soup that gets its smoky flavor from bacon and poblano chiles.
Entrance to Casa Oaxaca El Restaurante. © Maura McEvoy
The dish Oaxaca is best known for is mole. Mole poblano, the original chocolate version of this complex, gorgeous sauce, was created by a nun in 17th-century Puebla. It was in Oaxaca, however, that mole evolved into high art: Here there are seven varieties, which come in a surprising spectrum of colors with a vast range of ingredients. Though the restaurant Casa Oaxaca has a reputation for serving inventive Oaxacan dishes, chef Alejandro Ruíz Olmedo also makes a magnificent chicken with black mole—traditional in nearly every way, except that he roasts the breast and serves the sauce alongside it for a more elegant presentation, instead of stewing the bird directly in the sauce. Ruíz is also known for superb pork dishes, particularly his pork loin with orange-and-herb sauce. He steeps herbs in freshly squeezed orange juice and uses them to roast the pork loin, and also in the accompanying tangy sauce.
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Painter Francisco Toledo is a regular at Casa Oaxaca—Quetzalli, the gallery that represents him, is in the same building—and "because of him," Ruíz says, "other artists come." Writers visit from all over Latin America, including Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, who often dines here and stays at the boutique hotel a few blocks away (also called Casa Oaxaca).
My modest curatorial project eventually filled a converted video store, a huge space called Tinoco y Palacios. Toledo offered me a large piece of handmade watercolor paper with his signature (worth a fair bit, actually); I obliterated it with white paint and signed "Sergeant Detective Jorge Converso, in collaboration with Francisco Toledo." Demián Flores Cortés created an almost invisible portrait of Ulises Ruiz— the unloved governor—in white paint on a white background.
It is illegal for a foreigner to get involved in local politics, but the exhibit was only subtly irritating, and it managed to close before the police could figure this out and arrest me. I've kept a low profile since.
Douglas Anthony Cooper's most recent novel is Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help. He currently lives in Oaxaca.


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