Joggin' Joe Biden. Original images via Flickr users Marc Nozell and Cellule Communication

While Hillary Clinton tries to recover from a bout of pneumonia, the presidential contest has basically devolved into a bunch of elderly people screaming about which candidate is healthier. Right before Bill Clinton said he was "almost certain" his wife was healthier than her Republican opponent, 73-year-old vice president Joe Biden chimed in to invite Donald Trump on a quick run around the block, the New York Post reports.

"I'd like to jog with him," Biden said in South Carolina Monday. "I don't think he could keep up."

It's unclear if Biden's jab at Trump's physical fitness comes in response to the candidate's rushed doctor's note or those naked statues that popped up around US cities, but he seems pretty confident that he can beat the candidate in an old-fashioned foot race, no matter what Trump's physical records wind up saying.

Biden also said he thinks Clinton's health is just a byproduct of being a 68-year-old running for the highest office in the country.

"Look, when you run the schedule we run—14, 15 hours a day—I've had walking pneumonia, last year. And you know what it takes? It takes antibiotics and it takes getting through a thick skull like Hillary's and mine to slow down," Biden said.

Read: Hillary Clinton's VP Pick Is Fine, but He'll Never Be Joe Biden

Director Matt Johnson. Photo via Nirvanna the Band the Show.

It's really fucking hard to get a film funded in this country, exponentially so if you're a woman. And it's certainly not for lack of talent or effort—the sheer amount of creativity that comes out of Canada on every level is astounding, despite the many impediments. "It's important to remember that it isn't hard to find filmmakers here who are women, who are POC, who are queer or who belong to any other marginalized group," filmmaker Joele Walinga told VICE.

On this episode of Black Market: Dispatches, we investigate the poaching of pangolin—the world's most trafficked animal—and look into the systems that force people to poach for a living.

Black Market: Dispatches airs Tuesdays at 10 PM ET/PT on VICELAND.

A few years ago, photographer Naomi Harris spent the better part of a year driving around America with her dog, taking pictures of kitschy Americana, interesting characters, and a shit-ton of waffle houses. As a Canadian who'd been living in America for over a decade (and who'd already covered the swingers scene in America's Bible Belt), she brings a unique perspective to her adopted home, using only a point-and-shoot analogue camera to capture things like the way people interact with national monuments and the weird landscapes created by seemingly mundane items.

Twice each year, the bravest men among the Gurung villagers of Talo Chipla suit up in makeshift protective gear, like the netted hats worn above, for a traditional hallucinogenic honey hunt. All photos by Igor Kropotov

This story appeared in the September issue of VICE magazine. Click HERE to subscribe.

Every year, for centuries in Nepal, members of the Gurung ethnic group have climbed down the sides of cliffs amid swarms of bees—putting their lives on the line—to collect wild honey. It is not just any honey, of not just any bee: Nepal's Apis dorsata laboriosa is the largest honeybee in the world, and in the Himalayan hills, its nectar boasts hallucinogenic properties. Those effects are documented from 401 BC—when Greek soldiers, traveling through modern day Turkey near the Black Sea, indulged in a similar honey and were debilitated with intoxication—to today. I'd heard some fascinating but vague stories about this custom, and I'd seen amazing photos and videos of past hunts. Intrigued by this ancient culture and the mysterious psychedelic effects of the honey, I joined the Gurung in their excursion last spring.

It took nearly two days for me to get from Katmandu to the village of Talo Chipla in the foothills of the Annapurna Himalayan mountain range, where villagers welcomed me with flower garlands and an orange Buddhist prayer scarf. The Gurung know the honey to be a powerful medicine that alleviates joint pains, and if taken in small doses, to also produce mild highs. In larger doses, ingesting the honey can send you on a toxic, cold-sweat trip of hallucinations, vomiting, and diarrhea that can last for more than 24 hours.

There's a lot of talk these days of the global depopulation of bees, and its implications for the environment have recently become a concern among international conservationists. Data on current populations of these Himalayan bees in Nepal are scarce, but contrary to the last government survey conducted, which showed a slight population decline, men and women in Talo Chipla told me that their bee populations are actually thriving, and so the biannual quests for their honey—once in late fall and once in late spring—continue. The Gurung's honey-hunt tradition plays a central role in the cultural identity of those in this region, and they welcomed me warmly when I arrived.

"At first, I am very scared going down the ladder," Tulsi Gurung, one of this year's hunters told me. "But when I see the hives, I get filled with power and become fearless."

The rhododendron is Nepal's national flower, and its pollen, picked up by these gigantic bees, contains the chemical grayanotoxin, which can infuse their honey with its drug-like qualities. In spring, the pink flowers blanket the hills, at altitudes too high for domesticated honeybees to fly, so to harvest honey that contains grayanotoxin, locals have one option: to scale the cliffs. There's no way to control the amount of rhododendron pollen consumed by the bees, so the potency of the high-inducing honey varies from season to season, if there are any effects at all. Still, come spring and fall, the harvests continue as they have for centuries. To the Gurung, hunting for honey seems to be as much about passing on tradition as it is about the honey itself.

Most of the villagers come from families that sustained life through agriculture for generations, but these days, many in Talo Chipla are employed to maintain a hydroelectric dam that was installed nearby. Each year, an increasing number of Nepalis leave rural villages to work abroad, and honey hunting has become a way for the villagers to maintain a connection with their ancestors.

"Only those who can control their fears and remain unflinching in the face of death can be a honey hunter," said Bais Bahadur Gurung (all of the villagers in the region go by the last name Gurung), the 65-year-old chief of the district. The role comes with great risk, but it's matched with equal amounts of respect and honor. Many of the senior hunters in Talo Chipla no longer collect honey today, but the villagers have faith in the upcoming generation. "Old men may have experience," Bais Bahadur explained, "but the young men have balls."

The hunters empty baskets of hives and honeycombs, knocked from the cliffs, onto tarps. Once the bees are removed, the honey is strained and divvied into containers, and then it's ready to be consumed.

The night before the hunt, I laid in my tent thinking about the bees. Their hives are giant disks, the size of coffee tables, and hang from the cliffs in colonies of more than 50 hives. I drifted to sleep envisioning swarms of bees flying into my esophagus and making a hive in my hollowed-out chest cavity.

The next morning, I downed a cup of instant coffee and hiked an hour farther into the jungle with the villagers. We assembled in a small nylon camping tent for a breakfast of chicken and frog-leg soup for good luck. A bundle of dead frogs hung from the pole above our heads as we ate. About 30 hunters dressed in whatever protective gear they could find: Despite the heat, some wore winter coats to cover their forearms and torsos; some covered their heads by wrapping mosquito netting around plastic construction helmets and separated the mesh from their faces with beaks of bamboo.

From what I could tell, the ancient method for the collection is as makeshift as the hunter's outfits. I watched cautiously as the men anchored an enormous ladder constructed out of strands of bamboo and wooden rungs to the trunk of a tree on top of the cliff. Below, two men lit a massive fire of freshly cut wood and green leaves that created clouds of smoke that filled the hives and subdued the bees. In teams of two or three, the Gurung men descended the ladder. Others, using a rope, lowered a wooden basket lined with plastic, dangling them below the hives. Then, one by one, the hunters attempted to dislodge the hives from the face of the cliff, knocking chunks of honeycomb into the suspended basket beneath them. Nearly half of the hives whizzed past the baskets and exploded as they crashed onto the rocky crags below.

Sadly, in years past, some of the hunters have met the same fate. "Thirty years ago, when one of the hunters was on the rope, the fire below somehow made the ladder catch fire," recounted Yaocho Gurung, one of the village elders. "This man fell from the cliff, and his body smashed onto the rocks of the river."

This year's hunters returned safely, but the tragic stories linger. "At first, I am very scared going down the ladder," Tulsi Gurung, one of this year's hunters told me. "But when I see the hives, I get filled with power and become fearless."

They may be fearless, but the brave men don't go unscathed. When the Gurung emerged from the cliff, their hands were swollen with bee stings and looked like they'd been inflated with pumps. But the same wasn't true of their egos: The hunt is not a pissing contest, and the men were humble and nonchalant in their victory.

The Gurung use the honey they collect primarily as a sweetener or mild painkiller to dull the aches of agricultural work and alter their moods slightly. But recently, a large market for the nectar has opened up throughout northeastern Asia. There are buyers in China, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea (Nepal's Maoists have strong political ties to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea), where the honey is believed to promote erectile function.

Once back on top of the cliff, men sifted through the baskets of honeycomb with their bare hands. I watched as the hunters used sticks to mash their slurry of wax, honey, and half-dead bees through a bamboo filter and into a large metal pot. Wild Himalayan honey is darker and runs thinner than the honey produced by farmed bees, and as I swallowed the dose the hunters offered me, I could feel a tingling sensation in my throat. I ate two teaspoons, the amount recommended by the honey hunters, and after about 15 minutes, I started to feel a high similar to weed. I felt like my body was cooling down, starting from the back of my head and down through my torso. A deep, icy hot feeling settled in my stomach and lasted for several hours. The honey was delicious, and though a few of the hunters passed out from eating a bit too much, no one suffered from the projectile vomiting or explosive diarrhea I'd been warned about. Roughly 20 minutes later, still a little buzzed, we hiked back to the village with our spoils for a celebration.

When we arrived, the rest of the village was waiting, eager to hear about the hunt. They sacrificed a chicken, which we ate with dhal bhat (a rice and lentil soup), and performed traditional dances, fueled by endless cups of local firewater called raksi. We partied late into the night.

The next morning, I was groggy from the day's excitement and a night of raging. The hunters got to work dividing the honey among themselves and the rest of the community. Those who'd come from other villages to help asked for a little extra for their aging parents, to treat the aches and pains caused by arthritis. Each year more of the honey makes its way out of the village—nearly the entire stock of a recent hunt was sold to a Japanese man who brought the honey back to his home country.

As the season's collection came to an end, some villagers I spoke to said they fear that, like the declining populations of honeybees globally, the forces of modernization might threaten the Gurung honey hunters' traditions. Suresh Gurung, who at age 19 is the youngest hunter of the village, is not among them. "Those who are devoted will remain or return," he said. "Our culture will stay alive for many years to come."

This story appeared in the September issue of VICE magazine. Click HERE to subscribe.

Getting people to have sex with you is like exercise: when you're doing it all the time it feels super easy and fills you with endorphins, but if you stop for a couple of months it's basically impossible to start again.

We've all had dry spells, but what does it feel like when you find yourself in a period of involuntary celibacy for months or even years? Does it help you achieve a monk-like state of zen, forcing you to focus your finite energies on more wholesome activities? Or does it just turn you into a serial cry-wanker spending consecutive days on your sofa swiping right on everything with a pulse?

I spoke to some people who experienced long-term dry spells about what it was like and how they eventually broke the seal.

PABLO, 28

VICE: Pablo, talk to me. How long did your dry spell last?
Pablo: About two-and-a-half years. I'd just come out of a serious long-term relationship and felt the need to be a hermit.

How did you deal with the sexual frustration?
It was pretty intense, but I had a few hobbies I could let my rage out on. Skating was my main channel, but I was also smoking a ton of weed, cycling and was re-united with my right hand, which I was pretty content with at that point, to be honest.

Were you trying to hit on girls or did you just not care?
After being in a long-term relationship I really did not give a shit about girls and was content just hanging with my boys.

Having sex after so long felt euphoric, like losing my virginity again.

How did you eventually break the spell?
At the time I was living somewhere that was really close to a skate spot by the river. I had noticed this girl – she'd been hanging out there for a few days – and when she approached me for a lighter I thought, 'Fuck it,' and just told her I lived 15 minutes up the road and had weed and asked if she wanted to come kick it and smoke. We went back to mine and it went down pretty much as soon as we got in.

What was it like having sex again after so long?
It all happened really fast, but it was pretty good. The next day I felt euphoric, like I'd lost my virginity all over again.

BETH, 25

VICE: Okay, how long are we talking?
Beth: Well, I'd just moved away from London and had slept with someone quite quickly in my new city, but had decided I was disinterested. When I realised that I actually really liked them – their nose, their music taste and teeth – they'd completely changed their mind and gone off me. What then followed was seven months of absolutely nothing.

Were you heartbroken and hiding, or just having no luck?
The city I moved to was populated by really contented couples in walking shoes who make tabbouleh together. I didn't know anyone single, and was finding that maybe because it's smaller there wasn't such a breezy culture of meeting someone while out and going home with them. Either that, or no one fancied me and I was just trying to make excuses. I fancied a few people but it was all unreciprocated. Also, Tinder in that city was just full of boys riding ostriches, which I don't find attractive.

How did you deal with the sexual frustration?
Not so well, because my best friend and flatmate really enjoyed mocking me about it. It also makes you such a melancholy drunk. I think one of the weirdest side effects of it was that you don't necessarily realise how much of female small talk is based around people asking about your love life, so when you have nothing to offer in a club toilet conversation it makes you feel super dull, like you're not any longer privy to that level of female bonding.

Did you not throw yourself into any exciting new hobbies or activities to take your mind off it?
Looking at boys on ostriches on Tinder.

After seven months you lose all your inner thigh sinew so being on top feels like acroyoga

Can it be a self-perpetuating cycle? Like the longer it went on the harder it got to break ?
I think I was having the problem that a lot of people our age have. In your twenties, the rate at which you meet people stagnates.

How did you eventually break the curse?
I came back to London and went to a house party where a really unattractive man who looked like a butterbean was flattering me with a lot of coke, and despite being really repulsed by him, I went back to his and ended up having sex with him, drunk as a lord. Incidentally, I ended up having sex with two different people the week after, and then someone else the week after that.

What was it like having sex again? Did you regain your confidence afterwards?
The first time with the butterbean was more for the sake of self-esteem, which obviously backfires when you are repulsed by the person. In a way, it felt like losing your virginity, in that you are just doing it for the sake of sakes. Also, in seven months you lose all inner thigh sinew, so being on top feels like acroyoga.

ROBBIE, 26

VICE: Tell me about your dry spell.
Robbie: I'd been sleeping with my friend's sister. I'm generally quite shy when it comes to girls and it had taken me months of encouragement to make a move, but I eventually did it and we started sleeping together every time we saw each other, but she lived down south and I was at university up north. She put a stop to it when we started acting like a couple and getting closer. It was the right thing to do, but I took it badly and my dry spell started soon after that. In the next two-and-a-half years I slept with one person, once.

Why was it so hard to break?
I spent most of university mainly sitting in my room getting stoned and listening to music. I didn't go out much, and if I did, I would go to a club and get fucked up, so I wasn't really looking to pull, or in a suitable state to be taken home by anybody. Also, I showered once a week. I was pretty gross, to be honest.

How did you deal with the sexual frustration?
A lot of wanking. I also started going to the gym, but I would go after getting high and would spend most of the time in the gym being prang as fuck and concentrating on what other people were doing instead of actually working out.

It sounds like the celibacy was related to other stuff going on in your life...
Yeah, in the long run it really fucked with my head and partially led to a mental breakdown in the summer after I graduated. One of the things that was on my mind a lot was my sexuality; I was starting to doubt it and think that maybe the reason I wasn't getting with any girls was because I wasn't attracted to them, and that they in turn weren't attracted to me because they somehow knew my real sexual preference which I had not realised yet. My head was fucked.

How did you finally break the dry spell?
I moved back home and hit up this girl who I'd dated before I left.

What did the sex feel like?
I was really unconfident and worried. I remember asking her if she wanted to and my voice cracking from the fear of rejection, but also the fear of actually going through with it. I was worried I wasn't going to enjoy it, which in turn would mean my sexuality had changed or something. Physically it felt OK, but it was pretty soulless. She came over, we watched a film, we had sex, then she left to go on a date.

How do you feel about your sexuality now?
The doubts over my sexuality came back even stronger after that. It took me a while to accept that I just don't know what my "true" sexuality is, and I don't need to be concerned about it.

KIERA, 27

VICE: What led to your dry spell?
Kiera: After being rejected by an older guy following a short fling, my confidence was crippled. The rejection put me in a really unhealthy headspace, and coupled with the pressures of my final year of university, it meant that I ended up not hooking up with anyone for well over a year.

Did you withdraw from wanting to have sex or did you try but get turned down?
Well, I moved back into my family home after university, which wasn't exactly the most conducive space for casual sex. I'm fine with one night stands, but I just never found myself in a situation where the opportunity presented itself, probably because of how closed off I was both consciously and subconsciously. I definitely craved intimacy, but the longer it went on, the tougher it was.

Did you feel sexually frustrated?
Obviously, who wouldn't be? But the worst part was feeling pissed off about the fact that I was young, free, hot and not getting laid. That just made me more closed off and bitter.

Is it harder to break a dry spell when you're a woman?
I went out a lot in the hope that I would meet new people, but in my experience, a lot of guys aren't used to a girl hitting on them and typically don't like it and have no idea how to deal with it when it happens. Rather than just taking it at face value I would come off as desperate or like I was super into them when really I just wanted to fuck someone.

How did you eventually break the cycle?
I was on holiday and being in a situation where I didn't have to be concerned with any "who knows who" stuff or the consequences of my actions, I had fewer inhibitions. I went to a bar on my own and ended up hooking up with the first cute French guy I saw. We started flirting, but neither of us spoke much of the other's language, which actually ended up being a plus – you don't end up learning anything about them which might be off-putting, and it meant there wasn't much else to do but have sex, which suited me fine.

How was it?
The sex was great – he was great and super into it, which made me feel amazing both during and after.

Did you feel like your confidence was restored after?
I felt so much better about myself – it was validation that it wasn't just me being totally inept and that people do actually want me. I was relieved that I wasn't going to be celibate for the rest of my life, which I genuinely thought might happen at one point.

WILLIAM, 29

VICE: What was the longest you ever went without having sex?
William: I'd been living in Leeds and had a thing with this girl I was living with who I was super into, but these were the mephedrone years and I was doing drugs basically every day. She was really special, but I had to get away, so I moved to Norwich to get clean. I don't know if you've ever been to Norwich, but it ain't saying shit. I also got super into boxing, to the point I was training twice a day five times a week, and before I knew it I just went 18 months without fucking anyone.

Did you care or were you just engrossed in boxing?
I was so focused on training that it just kind of passed me by. But on a deeper level I was a bit sad about life, which is why I think I decided to put it all into boxing. It was a good way of dealing with the sexual frustration as well.

Did you ever unsuccessfully try to hit on people?
All the time, but I guess I was just such a boring dude at that time – honestly, I just thought about boxing 24/7. I had a banging body from all the exercise, but my personality was so lacking that chicks just weren't on it. I think they could smell the desperation. I don't think I really cared, though; Norwich chicks are dead-out – they didn't have the magic.

How did you finally get lucky?
It was actually the best friend of the girl that I loved in Leeds. It was her birthday and I went into her room to see if she was cool, and she just jumped me. She was super hot and had a massive back-off, so I wasn't complaining. It was pretty quick, I think – we were both smashed.

Was it a boost in confidence?
Massively. It made me feel like I was attractive again, but also just normal. Boxing is pretty manly, but there is nothing more manly than fucking a really beautiful girl.

More on VICE:

What It's Like To Finally Sleep With Your Long-Term Crush

We Asked People in Long-Term Relationships About Their Fantasies of Being Single

We Asked People to Review Us as Friends to Find Out How Awful We Are

(Photo: Christopher Bethell, via)

Honking on an e-cigarette – the hip new trend known amongst those in the know as 'vaping' – is Actually Good, according to science. As University College London (UCL) and Cancer Research UK research found this week, an estimated 18,500 people in England became "long term ex-smokers" in 2015 after trading cigarettes for e-cigs, with a reported 2.8 million e-cig users in the UK as of now. And as we know, cigarettes are bad (cue 80-reply thread in the comments section debating this throwaway sentence) and not having lung cancer is pretty much seen as good, so this move towards vaping is generally considered, on the whole, A Good Thing.

Sadly, every person who vaped in 2015 – all of them, every last one – walked around looking for all the world like they were sucking on a robot's dick.

From the Independent:

Thousands of people appear to have been helped to quit smoking by using e-cigarettes, according to new study hailed by campaigners as a sign that the controversial device is helping to improve people's health.

The researchers, from University College London (UCL) and Cancer Research UK, estimated that 18,000 people in England became "long-term ex-smokers" in 2015 as a result of taking up vaping.

They said that attempts to stop smoking had stayed roughly the same, but e-cigarette use was associated with a greater chance of success.

Here's that supporting quote from a doctor you wanted, too:

But one of the researchers, Professor Robert West, of UCL's Health Behaviour Research Centre, said: "England is sometimes singled out as being too positive in its attitude to e-cigarettes.

"This data suggests that our relatively liberal regulation of e-cigarettes is probably justified."

This comes a week after a Cochrane Report found that – tentatively, at least, because we're only about two years into The Great Vape Era and data is thin on the ground for now – that smoking e-cigarettes doesn't have any short- or mid-term impact on your health. There's a little offshoot of research that has found that smoking an e-cig with nicotine in it jolts the same vessel in the heart that smoking real cigarettes does, and further studies are a little muddled on whether e-cig usage alone is enough to make you quit smoking, but other than vaping seems mostly okay. To reiterate: for your health, at least. Vaping has an appalling effect on your outward cool, an impact science has yet to collect data on and study.

@joelgolby

More stuff on vaping:

I Went to the UK's Biggest Vaping Event and All I Got Was This Lousy Empathy

Hanging Out with Metalhead Vape Enthusiasts at the UK's First Vaping Expo

The New Anti-Vaping Rules Are Making My Life with Schizophrenia

Everything you need to know about the world this morning, curated by VICE.

Colin Powell photo via Wikimedia Commons

US News

Leaked Emails Show Colin Powell Called Trump a 'National Disgrace'
Former secretary of state Colin Powell called Donald Trump a "national disgrace" and an "international pariah" in a series of private emails. In emails sent to a former aide earlier this year, leaked by hackers and reported by BuzzFeed News, Powell also described the birther movement, popularized by Trump, as a "racist" movement. —BuzzFeed News

Guccifer 2.0 Releases Tim Kaine's Cell Number
The hacker known as Guccifer 2.0 has released more Democratic Party documents, including the cellphone number of vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine. Interim DNC chair Donna Brazile blamed the Russian government for the latest hack, which includes the cell numbers and emails of White House officials. —NBC News

Chelsea Manning to Receive Gender Reassignment Surgery
Chelsea Manning, the former soldier jailed for passing data to WikiLeaks, says she has ended her hunger strike because the army has agreed to provide gender transition surgery. Manning said the US military "is finally doing the right thing." A ban on transgender people in the armed forces was lifted in July.—ABC News

NY Attorney General Opens Trump Foundation Inquiry
New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman has opened an inquiry into the Trump Foundation after reports the organization may have broken financial rules governing charities. Schneiderman, a vocal Trump critic who is suing Trump University for fraud, said he was concerned that "the Trump Foundation may have engaged in some impropriety."—Politico

International News

Emergency Aid for Syria Expected Soon
Aid convoys are waiting at the Turkish-Syrian border for the government in Damascus to allow them to enter Syria, according to the UN. The UN envoy for Syria said emergency aid should be delivered on Wednesday, since a ceasefire that began on Monday appeared to be largely holding across the country.—BBC News

North Korea Able to Make Six Nuclear Bombs a Year
North Korea will have enough material for about 20 nuclear bombs by the end of this year, according to new assessments by weapons experts. A group of experts on the North Korea's nuclear program said the country's uranium enrichment facilities allow it to produce around six new nuclear bombs a year. —Reuters

Two Protesters Killed by Police in Kashmir
Two protesters have been killed and dozens of others wounded in clashes with Indian security forces in Kashmir, as a security lockdown prevented Eid festivities. One protester was killed after he was struck on the head by a tear gas shell, and another died after being hit by pellet ammunition fired from police shotguns. Protests against Indian rule—long a point of contention in the region, which is split between India and Pakistan—have been ongoing for more than two months after a rebel leader died in a shootout with authorities on July 8. —Al Jazeera

Shimon Peres Put in Medically Induced Coma
Former Israeli prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres, 93, was put in a medically induced coma after suffering a stroke, according to hospital officials. "Shimon, we love you and the entire nation is wishing for your recovery," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. —CNN

Everything Else

US Olympians Targeted by Russian Hackers
The World Anti-Doping Agency said a Russian group called "Fancy Bears" was responsible for hacking its database and revealing confidential medical data of gymnast Simone Biles, tennis star Venus Williams, and other female US Olympians. —CBS News

Nelly Fans Stream Track to Help Pay Alleged IRS Debt
After unsubstantiated reports that Nelly owes a large sum to the IRS, fans began a campaign to raise money by streaming "Hot in Herre" millions of times on Spotify. The rapper would need 287,176,547 streams to clear the alleged debt. —TIME

Japanese Volcano Due for Major Eruption
The Sakurajima volcano on the island of Kyushu is due for a major eruption in the next 30 years, according to scientists who have studied its magma build-up. The volcano is only 30 miles from a nuclear plant. —The Guardian

More Americans Have Health Insurance Than Ever
The percentage of Americans without health insurance has hit record lows, with more than 90 percent of people now covered, according to Census data. The uninsured population dropped from 33 million people to 29 million in 2015. —VICE News

Miguel Covers Beyoncé for New 'Fifty Shades' Movie
A new trailer for Fifty Shades Darker features a sultry new cover of Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love" by Miguel. Beyoncé sang a slowed-down version for the original softcore BDSM movie.—Noisey

Teenage Girl Proposes Headscarf Emoji
Rayouf Alhumedhi, 15, has submitted a proposal to Unicode's emoji subcommittee for the very first headscarf emoji. Alhumedhi said it would be a breakthrough allowing more people to feel "represented and acknowledged." —Motherboard

Andy Pardy, founder of the Police Pagan Association

Police Sergeant Andy Pardy is not your average British policeman. His philosophical touchstone is not the Daily Mail or The Sweeney. It's the Norse god Heimdall, guardian of the gates of Asgard.

Andy is a Pagan. More specifically, he's a Heathen. Not "heathen" as in the snobbish insult. Heathen with a capital H; a follower of the ancient northern European religion based on the worship of Norse gods and goddesses. When he's not patrolling the streets of Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, Andy runs the Police Pagan Association, a body set up amid much predictable media piss-taking in 2009 to support the needs of Britain's pagan coppers.

The PPA has 200 members, 80 of which have not "come out" to their bosses for fear of discrimination. On its website, the PPA says it "understands and promotes our co-dependency with the Earth and therefore promotes the tenets of community and the pursuit of peace and prosperity". Which is not something you see in Scotland Yard press statements very often.

With the Autumn Equinox – an important day of bonfires, feasting and dancing in the Pagan calendar looming next week – I had a chat with Andy about what it's like being a Pagan police officer.

VICE: I would never have put being a Pagan and being a police officer together. How did this all come about?
PS Andy Pardy: I found Paganism while rebelling as a teenager; my mother was a strict Jehovah's Witness, who, when I declared that I did not share her beliefs, threw me out at 14 years of age. I turned to other religions as a form of rebellion and I developed a genuine interest in Paganism. The Nine Noble Virtues of Heathenry mirrored almost to the word the tenets to which I had already attempted to live up to, and to which I refer in my job. I firmly believe that I would not be a police officer today if I had not found the Pagan path.

What is a modern Pagan?
Pagans believe all of life is sacred and there's a vital energy in every living thing. Instead of worshipping a deity, we see the earth as a living vital thing. We see our place in the cycle of life as divine, rather than a single creator. It's what people believed before the concept of God was introduced, recognition that the seasons have a direct impact on people's lives and their wellbeing. The 2014 census found there are just under 80,000 Pagans in the UK. But I suspect there are twice as many, as Pagans keep their religion a secret because of the stigma.

What does being a Heathen involve?
Heathenism is one of the four main paths of Paganism . Heathenism was brought over from northern Europe during Anglo-Saxon times. It's the only branch of Paganism which doesn't originate from the UK, and the only one with accurate records of its beliefs and traditions, such as the eddas, which are Norse poems.

As a Heathen I acknowledge the Norse gods and goddesses are relevant to my culture. I recognise that certain deities are relevant to differing aspects of my existence, such as the God Heimdall – often seen as an educated figure and an able communicator, to whom I often address my thoughts prior to public speaking, for example. I don't believe that a horned Norse God physically exists on a higher realm, rather that he is a manifestation towards whom I can direct my thoughts in times of need.

Andy on the job

How does Paganism impact on your job?
Almost by default the PPA has become an occult investigation team. We were called to a prominent cathedral in London last year. They contacted the PPA because the groundskeeper had come into work one morning and found an occult set up – a ram's skull on top of a photo of a woman's breasts, surrounded by 12 candles and an anti-church message – on the steps on the way into the cathedral. We were able to confirm straight away that it was not Pagan but a ritual likely to be the work of an individual with occult tendencies.

We often get involved when horses get maimed, because people suspect it's the act of Pagans carrying out a ritual. It's true, in the historical past, horse sacrifices used to happen, but I have to explain that nowadays Pagans don't believe in killing any living things – we've moved on. There was a sad case recently we were brought in to advise on where two men claimed to be Pagan priests and sexually abused vulnerable female members of the Pagan community. We've also been contacted in cases of African witchcraft and a cold case murder investigation with possible occult or Pagan links from the 1990s.

Earlier this year a young lad was searched by police and they found an athame . These knives are part of the religious uniform, a bit like Sikh knives, so he was released without charge.

How can I spot a Pagan?
It's not that easy. Depending on their path, most Pagans would wear a pentacle – a five pointed star – on a chain around their neck. Heathens often wear a mjolnir, a Thor's hammer symbol. I have a valknut, three intertwining triangles, which is another Heathen symbol.

What was your last ritual?
We had a day marking the end of summer, a recognition we are coming into harsher times. This time of year is seen as part of a cycle, with the sun that gives earth energy passing away. It's quite a solemn time, a time for remembering your past relatives. We have vegetable stew, light candles for dead relatives and drink a glass of mead or two. Morrisons sell their own brand, although it's a rather commercial form of mead. We brew our own. I highly recommend it.

How strong?
Depends on how long you leave it to brew and how much sugar or honey you put in it. It can be quite potent, believe me.

Andy and his wife at their handfasting (wedding)

Do you have a family and are they also Pagans?
My wife discovered Paganism by her own means, but we have always stated that we wanted to educate our children about all faiths, so that if and when they choose a path it is an educated choice. At this time, however, they have always celebrated the Pagan holidays with us and consider themselves Pagan; if they change religion for whatever reason, or do not choose to follow a faith, we will support them regardless. Most Pagan households have the hearth as the spiritual centre. We have candles, a written work from one of Norse poems.

Why did you set up the Police Pagan Association?
I found out Paganism wasn't recognised as an official religion in the police when I tried to take off Yule as a religious holiday. Also, there were some inaccurate guidelines about Paganism being handed out by one police force, saying things like: "If you enter a household and you find a naked woman tied to the table it could be part of a Pagan ritual." I knew Pagan officers from that force who did not like that, and they complained but were suppressed by a senior officer who was anti-Pagan. So we came up with a national association, able to circumnavigate local level and answerable to the Home Office.

In 2009, when you set up the Police Pagan Association you got teased in the tabloid press as "the one with the horns on his helmet, seconded to the raping and pillaging squad". Other members were accused of casting spells. What did you make of that?
The papers had to apologise for that, although I must admit I have one of the cartoons in my hallway. They raided my Facebook page and found an old fancy dress picture of me in a ninja outfit, which they showed on Have I Got News For You.

READ: British Police Officers Reveal What They Really Think About the War on Drugs

Do you get any grief from police colleagues, any anti-Pagan slurs?
Some police officers think we shouldn't exist and some officers have felt they have been passed over for promotion or not allowed opportunities because they are openly Pagan. Unfortunately, there are certain groups within Heathenry that misuse Paganism for white supremacist agendas and Aryan race ideals. A lot of the Norse symbols were appropriated by the Nazi party. You will get white supremacist groups who are pretending to be Heathens. So I've been called racist and a white supremacist quite a lot. We get called sexual deviants a lot. People think being a Pagan is all sex and nakedness. I keep saying to them if that's what it was there would be a lot more Pagans around.

Do Pagan police do naked rituals?
Sure, there are police officers who do worship naked, but not on all the eight religious days of the Pagan calendar, and only when it's suitable. It won't be in public view, usually in private estates, land where they have a right to be, or in their own gardens. By the way, I don't do it. Heathens do not believe in magic or nudity as a way of worship. It's mainly Wiccans.

Talking of Wiccans, what do you think of The Wicker Man?
The film was a great deal of help for the PPA when we were trying to get endorsed by the Home Office. We had to provide evidence that Pagans are misrepresented in popular culture, and The Wicker Man was by far the best example. It glorified historic acts of Paganism and represented them as contemporary culture. This is what the public think Paganism is: more of a cult than a faith, with sacrifice being a central aspect. You couldn't get a more inaccurate film, really.

Thanks Andy, and enjoy the Autumn Equinox.

@Narcomania

More on VICE:

Essex's New Privatised Police Force Sells Fear to Old People

Did Police Homophobia Allow a Serial Killer to Target Gay Men for Over a Year?

How to Stop Your Smartphone Getting You Arrested

Photo courtesy of Michael Nicholson

Michael Nicholson is a 75-year-old man who loves college. To date, he has earned one bachelor's degree, two associates degrees, 23 master's degrees, three specialist degrees, and one doctorate. He was enrolled in school for 55 years straight and has 30 degrees in total. Here is his advice to the class of 2020.

I get up at four in the morning and I walk two miles at that hour. That doesn't mean everyone has to get up at four in the morning, but you do have to have some kind of a routine. If you sleep through your morning classes, you'll be running around trying to make up for lost time.

When I was in seminary school, we had to wear shirts and ties and suits. It's not like that anymore. What I see in the classrooms of today—frankly, I'm embarrassed. Everyone look sloppy. They don't know how to dress. When I go to class, I wear khakis and I wear sport shirts. I would not wear a T-shirt, I would not wear Levi's, I would not wear shorts, and I would not wear sandals, like all the girls do. Fifty and 60 years ago, girls wore shoes and socks, skirts and dresses. They did things with their hair.

These days, a lot of eating goes on in class, during the lectures. People come with their lunches, their bottles of pop and water, everything. A whole spread, along with their computers. They seem to have a good time. I usually sit in the last row myself, and I can see what they're looking at on the computers. I can see why teachers get frustrated. They're lecturing and giving material out, and the students are looking at their computers, looking at a whole lot of other things at the same time. Back in my time, you didn't dare fool around. Today, anything goes.

I was in school for 55 years straight. I liked it, and I was getting credentials—so in that sense, I was accomplishing something. I got used to being in school, and I wanted to keep going for as long as I could. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know. I'd love to be in class right now, starting this week. But a couple of years ago I got shut down. As one doctor told me, "You're getting old." I'm trying to adjust to that, I guess.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with my life when I took my first college course, but I had general ideas about what I needed to know. I went to Detroit Bible College and every year, the president of the college would give the students a message entitled, "Don't quit too soon." He was trying to keep us all in school until we graduated. That would be my message to any young folks: Don't quit too soon.

It doesn't really matter what you study, but you should study something that truly interests you. Otherwise you'll probably drop it along the way. The important thing is to get a degree. Then you have the option of going to graduate school, or you can start a career that has nothing to do with your major. Like my wife: She's educated as a teacher, and she did some teaching along the way, but for the last 37 years she's been working in data processing.

I met my wife when I was at bible college. Then I went away to Dallas, to seminary, for three years, while she was up in Detroit going to school. We wrote letters, and there was the occasional phone call. We were married between my third and fourth year.

Michael Nicholson with his wife, Sharon. Photo courtesy of Michael Nicholson

Seminary was my favorite degree program. That's where I really learned to be a student. I was away from home, on my own, and I had to produce good work to be able to go home with some self-respect. That meant that I couldn't leave my assignments to the night before. If I had to write a term paper, I had to start three weeks in advance. It made a student out of me.

I didn't get along with my roommate. He was very expressive, very emotional, and I've always been a quiet person. He always had a lot to say about a lot of different things, but he showed me a lot of good things. He had been there for two years before me, so he passed off some of his books to me, some of his old assignments. Don't battle with your roommate if you don't like them; they probably have something that they can teach you.

It's amazing what you'll learn if you can keep your mouth shut. Most people want to talk. If I listen to people, they actually pay attention. And I ask questions. I don't try to tell them everything I know, because usually they know more than I do anyway.

You can learn quickly from the other students when you're in a classroom; you can get their view on things. Find out where they come from, what their backgrounds are, what they have to bring to the class. And the teacher can talk about his experiences rather than simply feeding you lecture notes on the computer.

That's the purpose of college, after all—to get a job, of course, but also to broaden your horizons, expand your view of the world. You learn what's going on in the world. How did the world originate? Where are we headed? What are the interrelations of people on this earth?

You should listen to your professors, too. It's the professor's class, so don't look to be challenging him. But if you strongly disagree, talk to him. For example, in order to graduate with my degree in criminal justice—my 30th degree—I had to write a final project of at least 75 pages. Because of my Christian background, I chose faith-based prison ministries as a topic. In my research I came across some information about a man who had turned toward Jesus Christ in prison. This man, I believe, is the person who fired the fatal shot from the grassy knoll during the Kennedy assassination. I have visited him in prison on two occasions in the past couple years, and I have 27 letters from him.

I had a number of conversations about this with the professor who was supervising my paper. We would talk about the Kennedy assassination, and I had to say, "My view is that it happened this way." If you come right out and say, "You're wrong, you don't know what you're talking about," well, you're looking for trouble. But if you tell the professor, "Here is my view, and here is the evidence"—and I always had some evidence to show him—you can at least discuss it.

I concluded my paper with a presentation of my view of the Kennedy situation, and his killer's turn toward Jesus Christ in prison. And my professor signed it. He was one of four PhDs, including one lawyer, who signed the paper, even though none of them agreed with me. That's because I made a convincing case, a case they couldn't disagree with. So that's how I go about dealing with professors.

I'm not in any debt. I started delivering the Detroit newspaper when I was 11 years old, and I kept that same paper route for 11 years, all through college. That's how I got through the first four years: delivering newspapers, every day of the week. Of course, back then, college didn't cost as much as it does today. But tuition has never been a problem. I had several teaching positions along the way, and I wrote parking tickets at one university for 11 years—but all the time that I was working, I was in school as well.

I know that the average student debt is $30,000 after four years of college. Is it worth it? I don't know. I'm afraid of debt. I never like to owe anybody anything. When you owe somebody something, you're under their control. But I don't know what else you can do, because you can't get the jobs you once could. I mean, I worked in the factory a couple of summers, but you just can't get those factory jobs anymore. The summer I worked at Chrysler, I just walked in. That was the 1960s. If you want those jobs now, I guess you have to go to China or someplace.

I would keep going for more college degrees if my physical condition didn't slow me down. So that's my advice: Stay in school. Stay in for as long as you can.

As told to Emma Collins. Follow her on Twitter.

Photo by Chris Bethell.

An anonymous man in Brisbane, Australia shut down an entire police station after bringing in two birthday cards he had received. He thought they were filled with anthrax; it was actually cocaine.

Who knows why this happened—maybe his grandma thought this would be a great way to cheer him up on his birthday, since drugs in Australia are so terrible and expensive, or a dealer out there was testing out some sort of sample sale. But the man, terrified, brought the cards into Boondall Police Station, thinking it was filled with a deadly powder.

The station was subsequently shut down as officers brought out the yellow hazmat suits and the do-not-cross tape to set up a 50-meter exclusion zone while they identified the powder. After a dip-test, ABC reports, forensics officers found that the powder wasn't actually anthrax, but a little birthday treat sent from an address in the UK.

Read: Joe Biden Thinks He'd Leave Donald Trump in the Dust if They Went for a Jog

Get the VICE App on iOS and Android.

This story was co-published with the Marshall Project.

The Harris County Jail in Houston is among the nation's largest, and it's also one of the most deadly. Within the last decade, scores of inmates have died, often from a lack of prompt medical care or staff misconduct, according to several independent investigations.

One report, by the Department of Justice, targeted poor medical and mental health care as factors in a string of deaths. "he number of deaths related to inadequate medical care... is alarming," said the department, which also found excessive force by guards and safety lapses in the violent and often overcrowded facility.

But it's hard to fix a troubled jail.

That report was issued in 2009, and in the seven years since, inmates have continued to die preventable deaths in the Harris County jail, despite the Justice Department's efforts to negotiate improvements. Sometimes the obstacles are local, with politicized budget battles and the effects of the way police and courts deal with arrest and detainment. But an undeniable part of the problem is also the department's chief weapon—a 36-year-old law with a cumbersome title: the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act, or CRIPA.

Enacted during the waning months of the Carter Administration, it was designed to be a state-of-the-art tool to help the federal government to protect people in state or local jails and prisons, as well as institutions designed for the elderly, the disabled, and the mentally ill. It focuses on allowing state and local governments to fix problems voluntarily, through negotiations with the Justice Department, rather than with the blunt force of federal lawsuits or takeovers.

So the result, at the Harris County jail, which has a population of about 9,000, and at some other large facilities, has been lots of talk, less action and, in some notable cases, scant sustainable improvement.

While the Justice Department is well-known for routinely using its power to step in and force police agencies to change their ways, its power to fix prisons and jails is more limited under CRIPA. Department lawyers can sue and try to force change through court order, but each step of the process triggers additional periods of review that can prolong the initial effort by months and even years. CRIPA is the only civil rights statute that requires the Attorney General to personally sign off on a complaint, while department lawyers on other civil rights matters have more autonomy. In 1996, Congress further restricted the DOJ by making it easier for resistant prison and jail officials to get Justice Department cases dismissed. (Two years into a court order, a defendant can move for dismissal, unless the Justice Department can prove the constitutional violation has continued. This forces federal officials to defend older lawsuits instead of working on fresher enforcement efforts.)

In Washington, government lawyers have found that the tendency for prolonged negotiations can wear down an office that barely has enough staff to keep up.

Jonathan Smith, who was chief of the special litigation section of DOJ's civil rights division from 2010 to 2015, said, "When I took over, we had something like 500 open matters and fewer than 50 lawyers." Over his five years there, he said, a hiring freeze reduced his staff, at the same time there was a push to make police-department reform a priority.

With CRIPA, some matters can stretch on for decades. An investigation at the Los Angeles County Jail began in 1996, and at the Baltimore City Detention Center in 2000. At both jails, reports of abuse and inhumane conditions continued. Justice officials eventually changed their approach in Los Angeles and Baltimore from one that relied on cooperation, to one that had an enforcement mechanism by taking both jails to court.

Smith said that during his tenure, the department's strategy shifted to more reliance on court sanctioned agreements, and less on voluntary resolutions, as in Harris County. However, even going to court doesn't guarantee a jail or prison will change. "There's not a great track record that litigation is a huge success," said Smith. "Fixing a jail takes a long time. The jurisprudence is hostile."

There are other places, similar to Harris County, where federal interventions have remained in the negotiation phase despite continuing problems. A report about federal jail oversight in Grant County, Kentucky, by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting recently found that "inmates have died needlessly, have been raped, abused and neglected... Meanwhile, the Justice Department responds with rebukes but no show of force, no push for a consent decree or a lawsuit to compel compliance." In Orange County, California, federal officials warned for years of "poor supervision," repeatedly putting jail administrators on notice that security at the jail complex needed to be tightened, yet the matter was kept out of court. In January, three inmates, all charged with felonies, escaped, but and their absence wasn't noticed for about 16 hours.

Still, there are success stories. The power of CRIPA was apparent this April, when the Justice Department closed an investigation into Pennsylvania's Department of Corrections after the state agreed to stop putting those with serious mental illness into solitary confinement.

Many of the conditions uncovered in jails and prisons over the years have been caused, at least in part, by pressures that are outside the Justice Department's authority, such as overcrowding. In Harris County, a lawsuit filed this spring alleged that hundreds sit in the jail on minor charges, simply because they can't raise bail. The jail is also seriously understaffed, pay is low, and there's been a high turnover rate, so staffers tend to be less experienced.

"In some places you go, the warden or the sheriff has been asking for extra money for medical care or other improvements for years, and isn't getting it," said Robert Driscoll, a former senior Justice Department official under President George W. Bush. "That becomes a political question."

While it may be hard to assign blame to any one agency or person, it's undeniable that scores have died in the Harris County Jail as these negotiations have dragged on. According to a November 2015 investigation by the Houston Chronicle, 75 people have died since the Justice Department's 2009 intervention, and 19 died from medical issues that were "either treatable or preventable, or in which delays in care, or staff misconduct, could have played a role in their deaths."

For some, patience with Harris County's slow progress is wearing thin. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Houston, has written to Attorney General Loretta Lynch twice this year, asking that the Justice Department return "to take immediate action and to conduct a thorough investigation" at the jail. In an emailed response to The Marshall Project, a department spokesman, David Jacobs, said that there remains an "open investigation into the Harris County Jail that focuses on their mental health care and use of force... Jail officials have worked cooperatively to implement corrective action plans that the Civil Rights Division helped develop. The department remains actively engaged in the reform process."

Ryan Sullivan, the public information officer for the Harris County Sheriff's office, said that over the past year and a half the jail has overhauled many of its practices. The minimum age to work at the jail has been moved from 18 to 21 years old; training for staff has gone from a two-week online course to a six-week academy; and the jail has doubled its capacity for those in acute mental crisis, from 200 beds to 400. Additionally, just this August, the jail finished installing $5 million in surveillance cameras. "It's a long ship to turn course," said Sullivan, adding that in the past year, jail administrators have become more aggressive in making changes, which he said have gone above and beyond the recommendations made by DOJ. "The wheels are turning, it's just a question of how quickly it will have its final impact."

The Harris County Attorney's office said the Justice Department is due back for another visit in a couple of months.

This article was originally published by the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that covers the US criminal justice system. Sign up for the newsletter, or follow the Marshall Project on Facebook or Twitter.

The cover for Young Thug's latest mixtape, 'JEFFERY'

Last month, when the rapper Young Thug released his latest mixtape, JEFFERY, it wasn't his singsong "post-verbal" hooks that got all the attention, nor its celebrity-studded track list, in which each song is named after his idols. Instead, it was the ruffled, periwinkle Alessandro Trincone gown and cocktail parasol hat he modeled for the cover that went viral.

It wasn't the first time Thug donned women's clothing for catwalk-inspired style. Since his rise to popularity, he has made flirting with gender fluidity and androgyny central to his image, going so far as to say he believes "there's no such thing as gender" in a recent Calvin Klein ad spot.

Fans and critics responded with starkly contrasting opinions. To some, Thug's gender-bending style was groundbreaking, especially in an industry defined by hyper-masculinity. To others, he was appropriating queer culture. (The latter is not an unfounded accusation, given some of the rapper's lyrics.) But the knee-jerk reaction of some social-media users was to question the rapper's sexuality, which raises a larger—and more interesting—question: Why do so many people label a man wearing women's clothing "gay" in the first place?

To be sure, Thug is far from the first male musician to wear a dress—the legacy of cross-dressing rock stars stretches back decades, from David Bowie to Prince. He isn't even the first rapper to play with gender expectations in his style. But examining the reaction to Thug's apparel choices underscores a specific fact: that a man who transgresses the arbitrary rules of what "masculine clothing" can be still spurs controversy in 2016. This stems from the fact that gendered clothing relies on the rigid constructs of masculinity and femininity. A man veering too far in the wrong direction on this binary is pejoratively deemed "gay," for example, not conforming to the relatively strict visual codes associated with "real men," a conclusion that seems to spring from the same fallacy that says gay men exhibit feminine characteristics, and that any man demonstrating effeminate qualities must be gay.

If the whole scenario sounds childish, that's probably because it's rooted, at least partially, in the recent origin of markedly distinct clothing for boys and girls.

Clothing historian Jo Paoletti, a professor of American studies at the University of Maryland, has spent nearly four decades researching gender difference in fashion. In 2012, she published a history of children's clothing, Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America, which chronicles the decline of gender-neutral apparel for babies and toddlers and the rise of highly gender-specific clothes in the mid 80s, explaining how consumerism helped drive the rapid move toward gendering clothing for young children.

In seeing the social-media response to Thug's apparel, she questions whether there's a childhood connection there.

"I wonder how much of that is us going back to how we were at four or five years old," Paoletti told VICE, explaining how toddlers acquire enough cultural capital to know whether they're something called a boy or a girl.

Children from the age of two to around six rely on cultural cues; they don't yet understand biological sex, Paoletti explained. "At that age, what makes a little boy a little boy is what he's wearing, what his hair looks like, what he plays with," she said. "And if he has long hair, wears something different or plays with something a girl would play with, that makes him a girl in their minds."

"We've got a whole generation of people—anyone born after 1985—who, from their earliest years, were surrounded by these very binary representations of gender," she added, more or less describing the vast majority of Thug's millennial audience.

Looking at how those listeners responded to the "JEFFERY" cover art makes clear a longstanding double standard: that women can openly wear men's clothes, as long as they don't go too far, but a man wearing a dress remains a social taboo. In fact, in female fashion, "tomboy" looks are more than acceptable—they're downright stylish. A number of brands, like WILDFANG, capitalize on the connotation.

That's not to say women who wear "masculine" apparel are completely within the bounds of social norms, but they're generally more accepted than a man who may wear "feminine" looks. Vera Wylde, the cross-dressing persona of a straight man in Vermont, believes the contradiction is rooted in sexism—toward women.

As a drag performer and vlogger, Wylde—who uses feminine pronouns when in character—often fields assertions that she must be gay. "People question my sexuality all the time," Wylde told VICE. "The popular belief is that men who dress as women, particularly if they perform for the public in drag, are attracted to men.

"I think this comes from the still deeply set belief that men are somehow superior to women," added Wylde. "If a woman wants to look more like a man, that might be odd, but it's almost aspirational. A man wishing to appear and behave more like a woman is seen as a downgrade, as the man choosing to be less than he is."

Some may think this issue is insignificant, but these power dynamics don't seem trivial when examined among children.

"This is why a girl dressing up as a pirate or a cowboy is just adorable, and a little boy wanting to dress up as a princess is shocking, scary, and grounds for beating the little kid — which happens," said Paoletti. "Maybe if people stop thinking the way they're thinking there will be fewer two-year-old boys who get beat up—by their parents, in many cases."

Indeed, in an interview with Billboard published online last week, Thug spoke to the ways in which his own parents could react to style that misaligned with gender: "When I was 12, my feet were so small I wore my sisters' glitter shoes. My dad would whoop me: 'You're not going to school now, you'll embarrass us!' But I never gave a f— what people think."

As society increasingly wrestles with the tangible influence gender and sexual binaries have in our lives, it's a good bet that musicians will continue to see how challenging these constructs prompts heated discussion. And whether you consider it expedient art or internet trolling, this won't be the last time we see a dude wearing a dress set on riling the masses.

As questions continue to swirl about whether Thug's fashion choices signify progress or exploitation or something else entirely, the incident makes one thing clear: "We are totally confused and misinformed," says Paoletti, "and we're still acting like a bunch of four-year-olds."

Follow Jon Shadel on Twitter.

Nepal's Gurung people live mostly in small villages in the country's vast Annapurna mountain ranges. In this remote region, they practice an ancient tradition of honey hunting where they descend towering cliffs on handmade ladders to harvest honey nestled under jagged overhangs.

During the spring, the Gurung's honey contains a rare substance called grayanotoxin, which is known for its intoxicating effects. While some say it's a deadly poison, others refer to it as an aphrodisiac, a powerful medicine, and a hallucinogenic drug.

On this episode of VICE Specials, we travel deep into the Annapurna mountains to join a Gurung village on its spring hunt and explore the honey's effects.

To read more about the Gurung honey hunt, check out our feature in the September issue of VICE Magazine

So young and full of promise. Photo via Flickr user University of Winnipeg

With the youth unemployment rate in Canada sitting at around 13 percent and broke young people moving back into their parents' houses in droves, it's never been more important to have marketable skills.

But is university really the solution? While few people doubt the value of a post-secondary education, it's also probably true that in practical terms, not all degrees are created equal. A business administration degree, for example, would generally be considered more handy when it comes to applying for jobs than a degree is semiotics (whatever the hell that entails).

On top of that, university tuition has gone up 40 percent in the last decade, according to Statistics Canada. If you're gonna be saddled with a bunch of student debt, you eventually want to be able to earn enough of an income to pay it off. VICE caught up with university grads who hold what are considered to be some of the most useless degrees to see how they fared in the real world:

Skyler Oxley, 35
Philosophy at Concordia University

VICE: Why philosophy?
Skylar Oxley:I was 19 years old and full of existential despair; I thought that studying philosophy would both help me understand what life is and that it would also be interesting.

Did that end up being true?
Yes and no. It certainly helped me clarify the questions I had about life and helped me realize that there are many other people out there asking these questions. But it didn't answer the questions; I still felt confused, just less alone, perhaps.

Hmm so what were your biggest questions that you hoped to answer?
I suppose: "Why does all this exist?" and "What, if anything, am I supposed to do while I exist?"

Read more: Debt, Depression, and Dud Degrees: Why Would Anyone Go to University?

Speaking of, were you ever worried about how you would incorporate your degree into the real world?

Well, not as much as I should have been. My parents kept warning me about that.

What were they saying? Did they pay for your education?
They seemed simultaneously happy that I was studying something I was interested in and worried because they knew how poor the job prospects were. They'd say things like "what are you going to do when you finish?" and "you'd better start thinking about getting some skills." And yes, they had invested in something since I was quite young, so while I did work during university I also did not have to take any loans.

So what did you end up doing?
After I finished philosophy I moved back to Vancouver and worked at Chapters. There seemed to be a lot of people there who had degrees in the liberal arts and who were doing retail. But eventually I did more university and got into a field at McGill, they had a two-year social work program, so I got into that and have been working in the mental health field for the last eight years. I eventually did a masters at the University of Toronto too in counselling psychology.

Wow you did a lot of fucking school
Yes, I did far too much. I'm actually embarrassed about having three degrees.

Where a lot of liberal arts grads end up, apparently. Photo via Flickr user G.e.o.r.g.e

Jessica Barrett, 33
Bachelor of Fine Arts focusing on contemporary dance, minor in philosophy Grant MacEwan College/Simon Fraser University

So what made you go into dance?
I had done it my whole life and went to a fine arts junior high and high school. And when I got close to graduating I still had no idea what I was going to do after high school. I wanted to take a gap year but my dad wasn't super keen on the idea, and he would be paying for my post-secondary as per my parents' divorce settlement. Then my high school dance teacher suggested I pursue dance at the college level.

Were you happy?
At university, no. I loved it in college, thrived even. But at university I felt lost. And I really just kept going because I was already halfway to a degree, this piece of paper that I was supposed to have.

How did you feel after you got your degree?
Meh. It was super uneventful. I didn't even go to my convocation. I found university to be impersonal and cold and kind of pointless. Or maybe just no one explained to me how to do it properly. Like how to pick classes and professors that were inspiring and good.

Where'd you end up after?
I taught dance and worked at Lululemon and saved money to travel to South America. And I did some choreography and other performing. About two years after I got my degree I went to Langara College as a "mature" student for journalism. I was 25. I think I realized my degree—and not just mine but most people's—was basically worth nothing from an employment standpoint.

Kinda nuts that you can get a degree in this tbh. Photo via Flickr user alyssa.becker

Knowing what you know now about degrees vs diplomas, college vs university, would you do anything differently?
No. I think part of me is a bit sad that I didn't get as much out of university as I could have, because I am super privileged to have been able to go, and have my parents pay for it. I do wish I had pushed harder for a gap year to figure out what I was interested in. And to be a little older. Seventeen is so young to be in that environment and if I hadn't gone to college first I would have drowned in it. Even at 20 I found it overwhelming. Universities to some degree kind of function like daycares for young adults we don't know what else to do with.

Jesse S., 37
Comparative Religions, minor in near and middle eastern civilizations, University of Toronto

So your undergrad sounds fairly .. unique. Why were you interested in that?
I was just following my passions at the time. My uncle is a well-recognized biblical scholar so there was some influence there, even if he never recognized my undergrad efforts. I was, and still am, interested in what makes people tick, and how we see the world around us. I also secretly wanted the degree so I could start a cult. I never got around to it but, at least I'm qualified.

What kind of cult?
Well, it would be a benevolent one, not the malignant kind that takes advantage of followers and requires that they give up all their funds and material possessions to the leader of the group.

So like the pastafarians?
Sure.

While you were studying did you ever worry about how the stuff you were learning would translate into the real world?
No, not really. I was surrounded by thousands of others of humanities students with not very practical degrees. We were all in it together. Strength in numbers right?

And you were enjoying what you were doing?
Yes, I still value academia. While I came to my sense towards the end of my undergrad and realized that going to study Buddhism on the beach in Hawaii for a master program, (or retreating to live in the caves with Saddhus in India, a boyhood fantasy at the time, which I may revisit one day) may not be the most practical use of my time, my thirst for knowledge is real

Did you pay for your own schooling?
No.

What are you doing now?
I'm currently working as a digital marketing specialist with a focus on social media. In the past I was an arts/culture/lifestyle journalist.

So not really anything related to your degree
It was a cultural degree. I work in culture. It's loosely based on it.

Graham Reeder, 25
Human ecology, College of the Atlantic

What even is human ecology?
My diploma may as well have just said: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Human ecology is an interdisciplinary self designed degree, so I was mostly drawn to the idea of taking liberal arts to the extreme, of fundamentally taking control of my educational trajectory by designing my own course of study.

Sounds interesting, did you enjoy it?
Yeah I loved it. It could get frustrating at times, there were people there who just took a bunch of intro classes and fucked around for four years and got an indistinguishable degree from me which sometimes felt unfair, but I made peace with that. The motivation of knowing that I had to make myself employable on different terms forced me to get off my ass and do cool things, which I did, and ended up with a far more impressive resume at the end of four years than most poli sci undergrads from universities with name recognition.

So you felt like by the time you got your degree you were prepped for the workforce?
Yes and no, I think I had a solid set of skills for the workforce but lacked some of the plush connections that people I know who went to bigger universities had. So I was ready to work but struggled to find it.

College of the Atlantic looks pretty lit. Photo via Facebook

Did you pay for school?
I guess that was a large factor as well. I had a full scholarship for all four years there. I was thinking of going to U of T, I had an entrance scholarship and a millennium scholarship, but it was still gonna be too much because of cost of living and the fact that I didn't have much saved up or a wealthy family to support me.

What are you doing these days?
Well, I went back to grad school last year, mostly because I knew the stuff I was doing wasn't what I wanted to do my whole life. I'm studying urban planning at the faculty of environmental studies at York University and my degree will be in environmental studies, so once again another pretty useless on paper degree. Apparently it's a habit for me.

Do you have a particular career in mind? Would you want to be a planner?
Not in a formal sense, I'd like to be a policy advisor for cities and urban regions planning for climate change impacts—a job that doesn't really exist yet in most places, but will as time goes on. Kinda weird banking one's career on our collective failure to stop climate change, but here we are.

James W., 38
English literature and film studies (double major), University of Toronto

How did you settle on that double major?
It just kind of happened. I'd finished high school, had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, so I signed up for everything. Art history, a biology course, Spanish. At some point I think I had Anglo Saxon in there. Like the dead language. Film and english were the two that stuck. I'm not sure Anglo Saxon would have been significantly less useful.

Did you enjoy it while you were doing it? Film and english—not Anglo Saxon
For sure. They were things I was interested in. To be clear: I didn't learn to make movies. I learned to watch movies. As in: how is the T-800 really Jesus? In what ways is Marilyn Monroe really just a giant talking penis? That kind of thing.

Read more: We Spoke to Students About the Weirdest Degrees You Can Do at University

Honestly how did your degree translate into the real world? Did it just make you more annoying to watch movies with?
It made me hate smart movies. There are only so many three hour shots of melting ice cream you can watch before you kind of get your fill. Job wise it wasn't a huge asset. I went back to do my masters in journalism. That actually came in pretty handy.

Interesting. Journalism is pretty frequently cited on those most useless degrees lists—how did it work out for you?
I got in before newspapers went extinct. I did an internship, got a job, later started a company. It's still useful when I want to make people believe I can write.

Did you pay for school?
Yeah. Jobs plus scholarships. I actually came out of undergrad $3,000 ahead. Free ride to U of T, including money for room and board. It was a pretty sweet deal.

Nice, so even though you had kind of a frivolous degree, you wouldn't do anything differently?
It's definitely easier to have a degree than not to have a degree. Or at least some kind of post secondary. I have a friend who stopped at a high school diploma. He's in his late 30's, he's smart, has a ton of work experience and useful skills, and the lack of letters still gives him grief. But if I could do it over again I'd probably do something useful like law or medicine. Would have made my life a lot easier. BAs are straight up stupid. No offense, BAs.

These interviews have been condensed for style and clarity.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

Still from 'The Eric Andre Show,' courtesy of Adult Swim

Fifteen years ago, on September 2, 2001, Turner Broadcasting Systems launched a late-night programming block of cartoons for grown-ups on the Cartoon Network. Opening with an episode of the now cult-classic Home Movies (co-created by Loren Bouchard, who went on to create Bob's Burgers), the network was rolling the dice on an odd idea that blossomed into an unprecedented experiment in absurdist comedy.

That gamble panned out pretty well for everyone involved. The time slot that we now know as Adult Swim has been a consistent ratings juggernaut, and the shows, voices, and surrealist tones featured on the programming block have influenced comedy and pop culture in profound ways.

To commemorate Adult Swim's 15th anniversary, we reached out to some of the comedic royalty that's appeared on Adult Swim over the years to look back on the best moments from a decade and a half of strangeness. Here's what they had to say.

Still from 'Rick and Morty,' courtesy of Adult Swim

Adult Swim's Impact on Television

Sally Skinner, host and creator of Stupid Morning Bullshit: Adult Swim paved the way for a certain kind of voice—one that cares very little about much, yet cares very deeply for the small list of things. Viewers of the network happen to be on that short list, and it's always been evident from the other side of screen. Those bumps always felt like they were speaking directly to me! Adult Swim always seemed less packaged and more honest, and I think a lot of networks are just now picking up on that tone.

Dan Harmon, creator of Rick and Morty: Adult Swim saved TV animation from being a "format" for families, restoring it to its rightful place as a medium without limitation. Its minimalist branding also lit the path for a post-DVR wasteland in which TV would have to live with less control over its audience. These days, even hacks know content needs to be addictive, personal, and omnivorous to survive the post-internet wasteland, but Adult Swim was Mad Maxing that apocalypse before the bombs even finished dropping.

Seth Green, creator and executive producer of Robot Chicken: Adult Swim was the first network since MTV to really create a versatile and inclusive culture. By tuning in, you knew you were getting a particular POV that was both young and a little dangerous. I think that's why teens and college kids made it theirs.

David Willis, co-creator/writer/EP of Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell,Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and Squidbillies: Adult Swim introduced a little more absurdity into the mainstream, proving that you don't always need story or structure or compelling characters or animation or dialogue or moving pictures or bright colors to fool people into watching television. I feel like a lot of current ads rip off the black-and-white bumps and the surreal tone of the shows.

Eric Andre, creator of The Eric Andre Show: Seeing Space Ghost for the first time blew my mind.

Erinn Hayes, star of Childrens Hospital: Someone has to give the truly weird a voice. The truly weird and the thoroughly stoned.

Still from 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force,' courtesy of Adult Swim

Adult Swim's Best Moments

Dan Harmon: When Mazzy Star, playing as Morty, is taught how to bury a dead version of himself in his own backyard before continuing the rest of his life as a biological imposter. I can't think of a better metaphor to prepare millennials for their 30s.

Matt Harrigan, writer and EP of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Adult Swim VP of Digital Content: When Space Ghost tells William Shatner that "outer space shows are for children and stupid people," George Lowe's voice breaks just a tiny bit, and it always kills me for some reason.

Seth Green: It's hard to pick a favorite, but I've always felt having Voltron lose a break dance battle was defining for the show.

Sally Skinner: Notorious pharma-bro Martin Shkreli phoned into the show and called me a bitch three times. He just got in a Twitter argument with Patton Oswalt, so I'm honored to be in such esteemed company.

Erinn Hayes: There are so many favorite moments, but there was one that stands out as particularly Childrens Hospital. We shot the final dance sequence to our "Do the Right Thing" episode, "Hot Enough for You," as the last thing of that season. The whole crew was outside behind the cameras, and one by one each cast member came out, did their solo dance in front of everyone, and was wrapped for the season. I remember we were all so nervous to get up in front of everyone. I'm not the best dancer, but I was backing my shit up, throwing in some running man, adding kicks, just really fucking going for it. They finally call cut, everyone cheers, I take a breath, and then they tell me that someone pressed record twice, and none of that was actually shot. Could I please do it again? So I did, but it wasn't as good. I think I might have been slightly pissed for a few moments, but now I'm actually pretty happy that all my best moves were just for our incredible crew.

David Willis: I'm proud of how we ended Aqua Teen. When Carl says, "It don't matter. None of this matters," it's pretty much the closest thing to being my personal worldview. But I also have fond memories of foleying meat-squish sound effects with a fistful of raw hamburger. Watching a rough cut of the fourth episode, laughing with Matt Maiellaro and our editors, and knowing it was going to work. Jim Fortier and I watching "The Possum" George Jones record the Squids theme song. Seeing Gene Simmons walk past my office in a trenchcoat and feeling a horribly cold wind whistle through my soul. Receiving an email from Wolf Blitzer saying that no, he was not at all interested in playing himself in an episode where he bites Meatwad and turns him into a wolfwad. It don't matter. None of this matters.

Still from 'Childrens Hospital,' courtesy of Adult Swim

What It's Like to Work at Adult Swim

Sally Skinner: We work in a super old building. There's the main Turner campus, where all the other networks live, and then there's our tiny brick outpost, across the highway. The power goes out a lot, so every time the power goes out, we all just run around like first graders.

Lake Bell, director and star of Childrens Hospital: Every year at Comic Con, Adult Swim allows me to live out my fantasy of being told it's OK—nay, encouraged—to drink beer and jump on an adult bouncy house.

Erinn Hayes: I don't quite get it, and to be honest never asked, why we were ever invited to participate in Comic Con for so many years, but man, am I glad we were. The panels were some of the strangest, most surreal moments. One year we ruined what was left of some kid's childhood when the entire room full of 1,500 people started chanting, "Show us your dick." The next year, Lake and I made our way through the Adult Swim Funhouse, crawled out through the huge balloon vagina, and I almost peed myself laughing trying to pull her back up a giant fun slide unsuccessfully.

Seth Green: One year, Adult Swim hosted a "shrimp boil" for creators and producers—kind of a social mixer, so all the show makers could meet and hang out. It was a great trip and really amazing bonding experience for the entire company. Then we all got stranded by a horrible ice storm and couldn't fly out for 14 hours, taken on and off four planes before we finally got in the air. Weirdly, all that drama only made the trip more memorable. Plus, we were all in it together, so it actually was bonding.

Matt Harrigan: The other day one of the FishCenter fish died suddenly. There was a surprising outpouring of commiserations from this unseen community that obviously felt something. That was kind of a nice experience, and definitely new.

Dan Harmon: Being flown out to attend their upfronts and seeing a giant inflatable Rick above Nicki Minaj's head was definitely an upgrade from five years of not being invited by NBC. Same size audience, very different network relationship.

Follow Justin Caffier on Twitter.

A young man at Tesagan Gin Je in Phuket. All photos by Giselle Natassia

The Nine Emperor Gods is a nine-day Taoist event, celebrated every year across Southeast Asia during the ninth months of the lunar calendar. In Phuket, Thailand, it's honored as Tesagan Gin Je or the Vegetarian Festival.

According to the festival's legend, a Chinese group occupying these parts once fell prey to a deadly epidemic. But upon adopting a vegetarian diet and praying to the nine gods, the group were cured. In commemoration, people today adopt a vegetarian diet and adhere to the festival's ten principles. These include abstaining from sex, alcohol, and dressing only in white clothing.

And then there is the impaling. Photographer Giselle Nastassia traveled to Phuket last September to experience the festival. Her images capture these mason—those who pierce their cheeks, tongues, and bodies. By inviting the spirits of the nine gods to possess their bodies, it's believed the gruesome body modification rituals draw little blood and leave few scars.

The common belief is the impaling helps the individual obtain pure peace of mind and good health. Locals also told Giselle that inflicting pain on oneself takes away the sins of the community and transfers them to the individual. An altruistic act, if you will.

Follow Giselle Natassia on Facebook

Dorob YANs in the video for "Wolf Side"

Tajikistan's rap scene has had a turbulent couple of years. Since 2014, hip-hop has been banned from buses, minicabs, public spaces, and state TV and radio, and the country's few private stations refuse to play it for fear of losing their licenses. Performers whose music is "alien to national and universal human values," as the mayor of the Tajik capital Dushanbe put it, are also barred from holding concerts, with authorities refusing to issue the necessary permits.

While many have fled the country, complaining of persecution, others have found a way around the media blackout: Just praise the president. Parading in front of the capital city Dushanbe's phallic flagpole, stars such as Boron now rap about how President Rahmon is "God's shadow paradise on Earth."

In this authoritarian nation, where any lingering idea of freedom of speech is fast disappearing, despite having been president for a quarter of a century, Emomali Rahmon is in no hurry to relinquish power. In a dubious referendum held in May this year, Rahmon secured 94.5 percent of the vote in favor of his being able to run for unlimited terms, as well as making his family—who own nearly all of the businesses in the country—permanently immune from prosecution.

A billboard of President Emomali Rahmon. Photo by the author

I spoke with a UN elections observer in Dushanbe about a video that had surfaced of Rahmon at one of his sons' weddings dancing drunkenly and performing karaoke. Gray cronies spinning around him like some nightmarish boy band on a reunion tour, a clip of his antics became an internet sensation. "So Rahmon banned YouTube from Tajikistan to 'prevent the misconduct of the people,'" the observer explained. "The site was down for three weeks while the president's gofers worked out how to remove the offending material from Tajik cyberspace."

I asked David Lewis, senior lecturer at the University of Exeter, why free speech is seen as such a threat in Tajikistan.

"Although dissenting voices might not seem to have much support, they undermine the model of a highly controlling but popular regime that President Rahmon has developed," he said. "Even a few voices disturb the self-image that the political leadership has developed, and the government is concerned that criticism can quickly develop into wider political opposition. Most alternative voices end up in emigration, one way or another. The regime has been very active in pursuing dissenting voices, both at home and abroad. It has tried to use Interpol to track and detain political opponents and radical Islamist activists alike. There have been credible allegations of violence against émigrés and cases of forced returns and imprisonment of Tajiks in Russia."

Born in the Tajik city of Khorog, rapper Dorob-YAN's family was forced to flee the country after the civil war of 1992.

"My father was a rebel, and he fought for the people, so he began to receive threats from the government," YAN's told me. "I lived in Kyrgyzstan until 2005, and then I moved to Russia, where rap has amassed a huge listenership."

Falling afoul of the security services in Moscow, YAN's was apprehended after releasing a track criticizing the Tajik president, "Do Not Be Silent," which features lyrics like:

Politicians with full stomachs / never get tired of the money in their bank accounts / Meanwhile, the people remain silent and believe / that one day the feast will come to their streets / I am the son of this city and of this poor country / and who, if not we, will be able to escape this darkness?

We are surrounded by construction, hotels, and boutiques / while our homes have no water or electricity, and all without reason / Why do our people have to be slaves in a foreign country? / My motherland gently weeps and waits, waits / to be liberated by its people.

"The people who detained me were employees of the Tajik law enforcement agencies, together with the Russian authorities," YAN's said. "They detained me three times. With the third detention, they began to threaten me: that they would put me away for a long time, that I would never have any chance to be free again, that I should not have put out the track, and also that they could just eliminate me—for example, have me murdered—and that's not even all the threats. At the same time, they wanted to open a criminal case against me and have me extradited. When they released me, they said, 'We're not saying goodbye.' They blocked my pages on social networks. I began receiving threatening phone calls, both from Russian phone numbers and Tajik ones. I realized that I had to lay low for some time, and I flew to Kyrgyzstan."

I spoke with rapper SOR—a resident of Dushanbe—about the problems inherent in being a musician in Tajikistan. Having raised the money to make his first record by carrying sacks of cement around a market, he spoke not just about the politics but also the economic dimension.

"I've been doing music for about 15 years," he said, "but from the beginning, it was very difficult as there was no studio. In music, especially with rap, it's impossible to live, impossible to earn money. Old school rappers aren't making music anymore, the reason being so they can live. You have to work because there are hungry people in the house. It's very important that there's an alternative scene, but unfortunately, no one will say that, and no one supports rap artists, including the Ministry of Culture. The 2000s were a different time; that was the time of real underground rap."

With freedom of expression and youth movements under fire, an oppressive air hangs over the streets of Dushanbe. There's little to engage young people. Blocking the road with whistles to their lips, by day the militsiya stop motorists every 50 yards along the main drag, grimaces followed by the presentation of bribes. By night, the city screeches, boy-racers revving their engines. In a country with extremely narrow perceptions of what's considered a good job, for many a career as a musician is a choice that falls beyond the pale. In this climate, some rappers have taken to pleasing the powers that be.

Outfitted in the national colors, posturing as they dance around heritage sites, the video for "Tajikistan" by Adaba, Mr. Skap, and Sam Salamov plays out like a tourist board advert, celebrating everything from the national airline to the Tajik soccer team. Interspersed with shots of the president, the track asks listeners to raise the flag and celebrate independence, achieved with "God's"—aka Rahmon's—help.

Taking this logic a step further, the video for Boron's "Dear Motherland" sees the rapper inspired by the words of the president, "leader of the Nation, Grandpa Emomali." The platitudes clearly worked; in April 2016, Boron's track became the first rap video featured on state TV for more than two years.

"In Tajikistan, there's a big industry of festivals, where people celebrate holidays, birthdays, and weddings together," explained an NGO source who wished to remain anonymous. "These artists that sing about 'sun' and 'God,' they simply want to be invited to these events. Government officials may well organize these festivities, and if they invite a singer, they'd like to listen to a 'proper song,' if you know what I mean. I think those singers are just following an economic perspective; they simply want to get a job."

Currently blacklisted from entering his homeland, YAN's remains a firm believer in the power of music to effect change.

"Without the youth, there's no future," he said. "The government doesn't pay attention to them, and this is their mistake, the effects of which will be felt later. Out of boredom, many have already gone off to fight in Syria, but don't even know what they're going to be fighting for. I'll continue to make political tracks to address the government of Tajikistan. When my father was 92 years old, he defended his people. Now it's our time. But our fathers had to protect their people's interests with guns, while today we only need a pen and paper."

Follow Stephen M Bland on Twitter.

Get the VICE App on iOS and Android

The Statue of Liberty is one of America's most famous icons, with a famous origin story: It was a gift from France, given to the United States around the centennial of the Declaration of Independence. Many people today think the purpose of 305-foot statue, which is planted on Liberty Island in the New York Harbor, is to welcome incoming immigrants. This is bolstered by the Emma Lazarus poem engraved on its pedestal, which reads," Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."

However, according to Ed Berenson, a New York University professor and author of The Statue of Liberty: A Transatlantic Story, there's a lot more to the origin of the Statue of Liberty that speaks to America's original sin. In the early stages of its creation, the initial intent for the building of the statue was to celebrate the emancipation of enslaved African Americans after the Civil War.

Bartholdi's design patent

Edouard de Laboulaye, French abolitionist and president of the French Anti-Slavery Society, is the undisputed "Father of the Statue of Liberty." After the United States's Civil War, Laboulaye conceived the idea of a gift to the United States to memorialize President Abraham Lincoln and celebrate the end of slavery. He enlisted sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who took an unused design he had created for a lighthouse near the Suez Canal and turned it into a monument for America. In the 20 years it took between the conception and the statue's dedication in 1886, as part of the effort to re-unify the country after the Civil War, the statue grew to take on the centennial symbolism and broader meaning it has today.

In an ironic twist, the Statue of Liberty has became a painful symbol of the rights and freedoms denied to the people whose liberation it was initially supposed to celebrate. Legendary black historian and civil rights activist WEB Du Bois wrote in his autobiography that when he sailed past Lady Liberty on a trip returning home from Europe, he had a hard time feeling the hope that inspired so many European immigrants because as a black man, he didn't have access to the freedoms she promised. And with so many people today asking out loud whether or not black lives actually matter, it's clear that the liberty celebrated by the statue continues to evade African Americans, even though their emancipation was a catalyst for the statue's creation.

I called up Ed Berenson, who's also the director of the French Institute at NYU, to talk about the Statue of Liberty's origins and why he thinks this history has been forgotten or ignored and what that says about America today.

VICE: How did Laboulaye conceive of the Statue of Liberty?
Ed Berenson: During his time, Laboulaye was the leading French expert and admirer of the United States. He felt more sympathetic to the American version of liberty than the one that came out of the French Revolution, which he thought was too radical and violent. And he wasn't blind to slavery, because Laboulaye was also the head of France's abolition society. So Laboulaye thought that the victory of the North in the Civil War was a great development because it abolished slavery once and for all.

The tragedy was that the architect of that abolition, Lincoln, had to sacrifice his life. And so when these two things happened—the assassination of Lincoln and the end of the Civil War—Laboulaye came up with the idea of giving the United States a major gift that would commemorate Lincoln and recognize the abolition of slavery.

Laboulaye was also an opponent of his own government, which he thought was very undemocratic. One of his objectives was to criticize his own government, but to do it in a way that wouldn't get him into trouble. So he was able to kill all kinds of birds with one stone. He was able to say, "What a great thing the abolition of slavery was." "What a wonderful thing American liberty is." And then, by implication, "What a terrible thing the lack of liberty in France is."

What happened next?
Laboulaye got together with a group of people who included Bartholdi and said, "Let's kind of think together about what form this gift should take." In June 1865, they all met at Laboulaye's house near Versailles. Because Laboulaye invited Bartholdi, it was pretty clear that Laboulaye had in mind some kind of sculpture.

Bartholdi got involved in other projects, and the main one was the Egyptian project at the Suez Canal. That project fell through because the Egyptian Khedive went bankrupt. So Bartholdi got the idea, I'm going to repurpose this Egyptian project and make it into the great American gift. And by this point, it's close to 1870, so that means we're just six years from the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Laoublaye and Bartholdi got the idea to shift from the original goal—which was to commemorate the abolition of slavery and the martyrdom of Lincoln—and move toward commemorating the 100th anniversary of American liberty.

In the summer of 1871, Bartholdi traveled to the United States. He brought with him some sketches of a new statue that were loosely based on the Egyptian sketches, but were more Greco-Roman since that was more appropriate for a Western country like the United States. And he had a couple of small clay models that he put together. Those early statues still had the original idea, because there were broken chains in the hands that symbolized the abolition of slavery. And as those sketches evolved, the chains shrunk until all that's left of them is what we see today, which is a chain under the Statue of Liberty's foot. So you get a morphing of the Statue of Liberty from mainly being about the abolition of slavery to now being more generally about American liberty.

When the statue was dedicated in 1886, did any of the original abolitionist symbolism remain?
No. It fell away party because a lot of time had passed. Now we're in 1886—more than 20 years after the end of the Civil War—but also it has to do with the way the Reconstruction period turned out. It's not likely that website is a very incomplete version. It deprives the history of its richness.

When the Statue of Liberty was unveiled, African American–run newspapers were not very sympathetic to it. There was a lot of commentary about why black people should be overjoyed about this symbol, supposedly of American liberty, when they never had it. So there's a fair amount of hostility on the part of black Americans—not exactly hostility, but a sense that the Statue of Liberty isn't their statue, because most American blacks didn't feel like they really had liberty.

But, in a sense, it originally was a statue for African Americans.
Yeah, absolutely. The original meaning of the Statue of Liberty was very favorable to the situation of African Americans in this country, to their future, to their membership in the nation. It really is, in a lot of ways, a symbolic celebration of their liberation. And most of that symbolism has gotten lost.

With all the racial issues we're having today, how do you think this would impact our current society if the Statue of Liberty's true origins were more widely known? 
I think it would be a really good thing. I think it would be consistent with the symbolism that most of us understand that the Statue of Liberty now to involve. With all of our controversies over immigration, with our racial animosities and racial conflict, I think that if the three important meanings of the Statue of Liberty—liberty, abolition, and welcome to immigrants from around the world—if all of those things were remembered more explicitly, it might be a way of injecting something positive into our political situation that has become so troubled today.

You can buy Ed Berenson's book on Amazon and follow Zachary Schwartz on Twitter.

Warning: Mild spoilers beware. But nothing that would ruin the movie.

It's easy to lose sight of what's remarkable about ArrivaI, the elliptical and eerily gripping slice of hard sci-fi from the French Canadian director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Sicario) that is currently doing the fall festival rounds before Paramount begins pushing it on us any day now.

Drawn from Ted Chiang's novella The Story of My Life, Arrival doesn't need showy effects to grab you, although when it does, the movie refuses to let go. It's perhaps the most heady and unusual science-fiction experience a major American studio has issued in some time. One can be forgiven for getting the impression, despite the backing of the studio that regularly brings you Star Trek, that Arrival feels like an anomaly in our hyper-sold-out, everything-must-be-franchised era of popular motion picture entertainment. Unlike Independence Day, this "alien-invasion" film will assuredly not spawn a bogus sequel 20 years from now.

Arrival is big on capital "I" ideas. Aliens can have seven legs, know the future, and only communicate in nonlinear drawings, for instance. But the film is, at its heart, a movie about a woman whose life has been upended by the loss of a child. Photographed with bitter elegance by the young maestro Bradford Young (Selma, A Most Violent Year), the slow-burn dread of the thing grips you from the jump, as the movie opens with a free-flowing, time-compressing montage that reveals the short life and grueling death of a young girl from a rare form of cancer. The sequence, similar to one Villeneuve employed in his criminally underrated Jake Gyllenhaal–doppelgänger picture Enemy, encapsulates the life of the protagonist with smooth and haunting fluidity, a pure cinema approach to exposition. The experience of loving, raising, and losing a teenager, all from the perspective of a single mother, is sketched so clearly and deeply in the opening, voiceover-laden passages, that the hard genre territory is all the more surprising and satisfying when it comes.

Villeneuve, whose muscular, melancholy thrillers are often drenched in a terse gloom, imbues the movie with a sleek but self-effacing style that lets his performers—be they capable and famous like Forrest Whitaker and Jeremy Renner, or solid character actors Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man) and Tzi Ma (The Quiet American)—have plenty of room to build characters in a fashion that shouldn't feel old but oddly does. This is a sci-fi film built on people as much as spectacle, especially the alabaster-hued face of Amy Adams, who carries nearly every frame.

Adams's Dr. Louise Banks, the mother of the deceased, is a vaunted linguist who is teaching a sparsely attended college course when the 12 strange aircraft, towering, half-peanut-shaped affairs that emit no noise and seem to transmit not signals to each other whatsoever, appear all across the globe, including one over a stretch of rural Montana. In short order, she is hauled in by a laconic military honcho (Whitaker) to figure out how to communicate with the visitors. She is joined by Renner's world-renowned physicist (and eventual love interest) in an attempt to grasp the situation.

Human nature being what it is, various governments and not a small number of right-wing media loons think we should attack. The world is working together, figures from various countries sharing intel—until they aren't. The aliens, giant seven-legged "heptapods," who speak by extending their sinewy tentacles and drawing symbols in what looks like free-floating ash, don't necessarily mean harm. But translating the soundless language becomes a matter of international debate. After one of their messages is interpreted by a Chinese team as a threat, a mysterious Chinese general, played by Ma, seeks to attack the aliens, causing dissension at the UN and international chaos. The coalition that has been spearheading humanities effort to figure out what is going on falls apart. Banks comes to believe the aliens she and the physicist have dubbed "Abbott and Costello" are benevolent, but she has to figure out how to convince her nervous government, whose pensiveness and trigger-happy fatalism is represented by Stuhlbarg's shadowy CIA operative.

The film played to raves at both the Venice and Telluride Film Festivals before arriving for a victory lap in Villeneuve's native Canada. Villeneuve, however, wasn't on hand for its unveiling at the Toronto International Film Festival. Instead, he was off directing the new Blade Runner movie under Ridley Scott's supervision. If his newest film is any indication, Dekker and the replicants have, in their return to the screen after three decades away, found just the right steward.

Follow Brandon Harris on Twitter.

Arrival will be released in theaters nationwide on November 11.