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In August, Iraqi soldiers and Kurdish forces known as Peshmerga began advancing toward Mosul, Iraq, where ISIS has held control for the past two years. ISIS-occupied towns line the route there. Near the village of Hawija, Peshmerga fighters encounter a refugee fleeing the conflict. Before allowing him to pass, he lifts his salwar kameez to show that he is not wearing an explosive vest beneath it.
Everything you need to know about the world this morning, curated by VICE.
Tulsa County jail records show that officer Betty Shelby turned herself in early Friday, hours after prosecutors charged her with first-degree manslaughter in the death of Terence Crutcher. Tulsa County Inmate Information Center via AP
Tulsa Cop Charged with Manslaughter in Crutcher Killing
Tulsa County's district attorney has announced that charges of first-degree manslaughter have been filed against Betty Shelby, the officer who shot and killed Terence Crutcher, a 40-year-old unarmed black man, last Friday. She turned herself in on Friday. Video shows Crutcher with his hands up before Shelby fired at him, but the officer claimed he was "non-compliant." —VICE
Protesters Defy Midnight Curfew in Charlotte
Protesters took to the streets in Charlotte for the third night running, defying a newly imposed curfew that went into effect at midnight Friday. These demonstrations have stemmed from the fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, a 43-year-old black man; demonstrators chanted "release the tape" in reference to the video of his shooting. The protests remained largely peaceful. —CBS News
Allegedly State-Sponsored Attack Hits 500 Million Yahoo Users
Yahoo believes "state-sponsored" hackers stole information from about 500 million users, one of the largest publicly disclosed cyber-breaches in history. Yahoo did not say which country it holds responsible for the 2014 hack. The stolen data includes email addresses, telephone numbers, and encrypted passwords. —VICE News
Michelle Obama Passport Copy Posted Online
A picture that appears to be a scanned copy of Michelle Obama's passport was posted online Thursday. The authenticity of the passport copy could not immediately be verified, but White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the administration was taking seriously the latest information dump by the group DC Leaks, which some officials say has ties to Russia. —Reuters
Syrian Army to Launch Offensive on Aleppo
The Syrian army has announced the start of an offensive to retake rebel-held districts of Aleppo, as international powers failed to revive a collapsed ceasefire. Syria's defense ministry called on city residents "to stay away from the positions of terrorist groups" and claimed it had made efforts "to receive civilians and secure their shelter." —Al Jazeera
South Korea Has a Plan to Assassinate Kim Jon-un
South Korea has "elite" troops on standby ready to assassinate Kim Jong-un if the country feels threatened by North Korean nuclear weapons, the country's defense minister has revealed. Asked in parliament if there was a plan to eliminate the North Korean leader, Han Min-koo said: "Yes, we do have such a plan." —CNN
Netanyahu Invites Abbas to Address Israeli Parliament
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at the UN General Assembly, invited Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to address Israel's parliament and said he'd talk to the Palestinian parliament in return. He called on Abbas to work for peace rather than "stoking hatred." Abbas had called on the UN to declare 2017 the year "to end the Israeli occupation" of Palestinian land. —BBC News
Three Policemen Killed in Thailand Bombing
Three Thai policemen were killed and two were wounded in a bomb attack in the southern province of Yala. Police were traveling in two pickup trucks when the first truck was blown up by a roadside bomb. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Muslim separatists have been waging an insurgency campaign in southern Thailand. —Reuters
Rihanna Tweets at French President
The singer took to Twitter to ask President Francois Hollande about a letter that she had sent him regarding the #EducationCannotWait campaign: "Did you see my letter? Waiting on your answer!" The EducationCannotWait campaign is devoted to raising money to help educate the world's poorest children. —TIME
Cops Resign After Man Allegedly Forced to Eat Marijuana
Three Phoenix police officers have quit the force after a man claimed they forced him to eat marijuana found in his car. Two of the cops are under investigation over the incident, described by Chief Joseph Yahner as "appalling." —ABC News
About 14,000 Uber and Lyft Drivers Want to Unionize
Nearly 14,000 Uber and Lyft drivers in New York want to join the Amalgamated Transit Union, according to the union. The group will rally at the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission HQ next week to demand a vote on unionizing. —BuzzFeed News
Clinton Puts Out Twice as Many Ads As Trump
Clinton has pumped out more than 50,000 ads for around $35.5 million over the past month, while Trump has put out only 27,000, spending $14 million, according to a study by the Wesleyan Media Project. –VICE News
Teenage Hacker Jailbreaks the iPhone 7
A teenage hacker has found a way to circumvent the iPhone 7's security restrictions. The 19-year-old known online as qwertyoruiop has demonstrated online how to jailbreak the iPhone 7 running iOS 10 and install apps not approved by Apple. —Motherboard
The First Trans Sex Toy Is Here
The first masturbation aid made for people who have transitioned or are transitioning from female to male hit the market this week. The Buck-OFF, invented by trans activist Buck Angel, is now being distributed by male sex toy manufacturer Perfect Fit. —VICE
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The weed industry is getting to know a time-honored tradition of the American business world: corporate fraud.
Federal prosecutors in Colorado last week charged the men behind FusionPharm, a publicly traded hydroponic marijuana farming company, with securities fraud over an alleged plot to pocket more than $12 million from the sale of phony shares.
Regulators first caught wind of some suspicious behavior at FusionPharm back in 2014—enough to suspend trading of its shares, along with that of four other businesses. But there were no criminal charges filed against the company until this month.
The case is moving ahead at an auspicious moment, with a growing number of states edging toward legalizing marijuana for recreational use and thereby opening the floodgates for corporate capitalism to assert a grip on weed in America. As the industry lumbers from straight-up criminality toward a hazy, quasi-legal status (with an infusion of cash from Wall Street and Silicon Valley), some companies have begun to list on major and minor stock exchanges around the country, providing the public with the opportunity to essentially invest in the future of weed—for better and for worse.
The details of the alleged corporate conspiracy in Colorado are arcane, to put it mildly. According to the charging papers, executives William Sears and Scott Dittman, Sears's brother-in-law, manufactured fake shares by forging documents funneled through dummy corporations they controlled. Shares in hand, Sears and Dittman then allegedly sold the stock on the public market, using the proceeds to line their own pockets before pumping some of the cash back into FusionPharm in order to provide the illusion of revenue.
Rinse and repeat, and you've got yourself a serious cash cow.
To put it in the simplest possible terms, Sears and Dittman stand accused of tricking investors into buying stock in FusionPharm when the company's financial health was a fabrication. The alleged fraud is not nearly as massive as in the case, say, of the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme or recent Wells Fargo shenanigans, but it does involve a healthy amount of cash in America's favorite new industry.
Attorneys for Dittman and Sears—who each face up to up to five years behind bars for conspiracy to defraud—did not return voice mail messages from VICE requesting comment on the case.
FusionPharm's main business was supposed to consist of converting old shipping containers into hydroponic grow houses that could be used for pot—or, theoretically, other stuff. "They had a good idea, and they had units," Jason Spatafora, a marijuana savvy investor who runs Marijuanastocks.com, told VICE. Spatafora says he invested $10,000 in the company, buying shares on the over-the-counter market, or pink sheets.
He eventually lost about 75 percent of his investment, Spatafora claims.
"When their financials came out, they looked awful," he told me. "But, the stock traded up, and I took a closer look and was like: What the fuck is this? The financials might as well been done in crayon."
At the time, to weed out bad stocks and shit companies, Spatafora would often meet with execs in person. But the SEC suspended trading of FusionPharm's stock the same day Spatafora flew to Colorado to meet with Dittman, the CEO, he told me.
Spatafora added that he never met the guy, and when he arrived at FusionPharm's offices, it was eerily quiet. "I met some employees, one of who I think was the brother of the CEO," Spatafora told me. "He just had that look of, 'We're totally fucked.'"
Despite the appeal of marijuana as a potentially massive emerging industry, many new investors—who may or may not have ever been stoned—don't seem to understand it. That leaves plenty of room for greed to rear its head. "The industry has arrived," said attorney Matt Kumin, a veteran San Francisco–based attorney who's worked extensively on marijuana cases. "It's engaging in the same types of crimes that other industries are engaging in. It shouldn't surprise anyone."
Along with the alleged crooks, there are also dozens of pot businesses that are legit-as-can-be given the current regulatory environment. It's possible to make pharmaceutical-themed marijuana investments on NASDAQ, for example, though not in a company that is directly growing and selling bud. Over-the-counter markets, where FusionPharm traded (think Wolf of Wall Street penny stocks), are teeming with businesses that produce equipment the cannabis industry uses to grow and process marijuana; they are considerably riskier than stock on a major index like NASDAQ, however.
In addition to the public markets, there is a fast-growing cadre of venture capital projects of all shapes and sizes looking to cash in on widely anticipated legalization in major markets such as California, and existing ones like Colorado, Oregon, and Washington State.
Even though most public marijuana businesses shy away from handling weed directly, some do not. In early 2015, the feds granted a request from California-based Terra Tech, a company directly involved with growing and selling marijuana, to register its stock for sale to investors. Other businesses closely involved with marijuana, such as Aquarius Cannabis, have filed similar requests with the SEC.
But with the good comes some bad. That the alleged scheme engaged in by FusionPharm executives is as complex as it is unexciting is sort of the point: Corporate-misbehavior Americans have become accustomed to has seeped into what was once a clandestine—and fun!—industry.
Today, it's looking like the marijuana criminal kingpins of the future might be more adept at boardroom hijinks and stock market manipulation than smuggling dope in a Cessna across the border.
"FusionPharm strikes me as kind of garden-variety securities fraud, and that the marijuana industry is stable enough to have garden-variety securities fraud at this point shows it's mainstream," said Matt Kaiser, a seasoned white-collar criminal defense lawyer. "It's the same way you see investment fraud in other industries, which is cool today and probably won't be in two years. It will be just how the world is."
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Serge Simon, left, Grand Chief of Kanesatake, Ghislain Picard, Chief of the Assembly of FirstNations of Quebec and Labrador listen to drummers during a treaty signing ceremony. Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press
Across North America, more than 100 Indigenous leaders have signed a treaty against Alberta's tar sands, effectively putting those who want to build oil sands pipelines—including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—on notice.
By signing the treaty, Indigenous nations agree to help other nations when they face a fight against a major tar sands pipeline.
The expansion of the tar sands "can only happen" if new pipelines are approved, the treaty states. The treaty's signatories are therefore against the following pipelines that would carry oil sands products to North America's coasts: Enbridge's Northern Gateway and Alberta Clipper pipelines, TransCanada's Energy East and Keystone XL pipelines, and Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain expansion, "any of which, if allowed, would lead to a major expansion of the Tar Sands."
Trudeau is under pressure from petroleum advocates and Canada's Conservative opposition to approve a major pipeline that would carry Alberta oil to international markets—something he has repeatedly said he is in favour of doing, as long as it's done in a "responsible" way that includes First Nation consultation. But that pressure comes at the same time that a groundswell of Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island (the Indigenous name for North America) are rising up against pipeline projects, using both legal challenges and encampments on traditional territory, as seen at Standing Rock, to assert their land rights and delay pipeline construction.
Read more: Justin Trudeau Can Fully Back Pipelines or Aboriginal Rights, But Not Both
At the treaty signing in Vancouver, the line of chiefs in regalia waiting to add their names "filled an entire room," according to the National Observer. Leaders were invited to sign in Vancouver, where part of the Trans Mountain pipeline would be built, and Montreal, which sits along the proposed Energy East route. Treaty signatories included Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of BC Chiefs, Standing Rock's Sioux Tribe, and Grand Chief Serge Simon of Kanesatake, who has stridently opposed Energy East, and who represents a reserve that famously stood up to the RCMP during the 1990 Oka land crisis.
"We are going to stick together and we're going to protect each other right across the country," Simon told reporters Thursday, according to the Canadian Press. Simon added that the pipeline resistance would aim to be peaceful.
Alberta oil is currently carried by train and by trucks in addition to pipelines, but the petroleum industry has urged the Canadian and US governments to approve major pipeline projects because they say existing pipelines have exceeded their capacity. Petroleum proponents say energy and oil consumption needs are increasing, and they need to extract more fossil fuels to meet those needs. Pipelines are safer than other transportation methods, they assert.
But the treaty also takes aim at other methods of transporting oil, stating that "every single Indigenous Nation on Turtle Island will suffer terrible harm if such pipeline, rail and tanker projects move ahead because, by the leading to the expansion of the Tar Sands, such projects will unquestionably fuel catastrophic climate change."
Scientists describe "catastrophic climate change" as the point at which the earth warms enough to trigger feedback cycles that will contribute to runaway warming. For instance, if the Arctic permafrost melts due to a warming climate, it will release additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
"The world might not be able to immediately stop using oil tomorrow, but the last thing we need is more oil," the treaty states.
First Nations in British Columbia have used similar treaties in the past to oppose pipelines. The 2010 Save the Fraser Declaration brought together 60 undersigned nations against Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline that would run from Alberta to the BC coast. The alliance of nations that signed the treaty was later monitored by the RCMP for "acts of protest and civil disobedience," the Toronto Star reported.
Though treaties can be criticized as symbolic, they also pave relationships between nations that can lead to partnership in court action, and tangible support for anti-pipeline encampments, including donations of food and supplies, and volunteers.
The treaty states that Indigenous leadership is "the only solution" to the expansion of the tar sands:
"While Indigenous Peoples have contributed the least to climate change, they stand to lose the most," it states. "This Treaty will take the fight to the final step by ensuring that the Tar Sands are not able to escape by another pipeline route and thereby cripple the efforts to fight the climate crisis."
"Otherwise, none of our peoples will be safe."
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Images courtesy of Activision
Tell me if you've experienced this feeling before. You walk away from a game you enjoyed for a long time, and months later, right when you've got the urge to jump back in, the pressure of re-learning everything scares you off. That's part of what kept me from The Witcher 3's expansions for so long, it's prevented me from finishing other games in the past, and that annoying sense of dread immediately overwhelmed my return to Destiny earlier this week.
I didn't expect my first hour with Destiny: Rise of Iron, the newest expansion for Bungie's MMO-inspired space shooter, to be spent exploring layers of menus that I'd forgotten about, trying to decipher the junk in my quest log (What's the Festival of the Lost, again?), and doing anything but playing the game. So much of Destiny—how to play, what to do—had become a distant blur. I found myself doing Google searches just to wrap my head around it. There has to be a better way of handling players returning to an old friend.
Part of what makes video games so incredible is how complicated they are. It's easy to take such depth for granted in the moment, as a game rewards the dozens of hours we've put into mastering every nuance. But like many skills, they can disappear without regular maintenance, and given how many shooters are released each year, they can all start to blend together.
As a casual fan of Destiny, I haven't meaningfully invested time into the game since the last major expansion, The Taken King, was released more than a year ago. So when I loaded up Rise of Iron, what struck me was how little I remembered of the more than 40 hours I had put into it.
Which random drop did I need for that exotic quest? What faction was I grinding to unlock that set of loot? Does the currency I was collecting a year ago even matter anymore? Why is the game still popping up hard versions of missions from a two-year-old expansion? A huge part of Destiny's appeal, besides the best-in-class shooting, is the loot grind, and that grind purposely pulls you in a million directions at once. Even while knee-deep in it, it's easy to lose the thread. (I'm usually playing with YouTube guide videos nearby on my phone.)
Rise of Iron and The Taken King are tentpole events for Destiny, reasons to lure players who have drifted to other games. Small events have taken place in Destiny in-between expansions, but they didn't grab me—each seemed focused on keeping the most hardcore players happy, folks who wanted something, anything to do in Destiny, even if it was mostly superfluous. This explains why I'm only now remembering that the Festival of the Lost was a Halloween event.
Video games used to be pretty simple: You played what was in the box. These days, a growing number have embraced the concept of "games as a service," where they ask players to return (and not-so-coincidentally, pay more money) over several years. For diehards, this can be a pretty decent proposition. It means you can continue to play your favorite game long after it would have normally been discarded in favor of a big-budget sequel made over several years.
With TV shows and movies, catching up on what you've missed is as easy as loading up a Wikipedia page. There's no equivalent for video games, and I'm not just talking about a 30-second spot that explains the plot. I'm talking about a few minutes where the game politely asks, "Hey, do you remember how to play this game, what's going on? Here, let me walk you through it." Otherwise, the game's presuming you're picking up where you left off, which often isn't true.
Maybe it's as simple as the game saying "Here's the new stuff in Rise of Iron. You can ignore everything else, and if you want to track that stuff again, you can find it over here." Maybe not! I'm sure the smart people at Bungie could come up with something much better than that.
Some of this, such as the convoluted and messy quest log, is specific to Destiny, while some, like the inability to get reacquainted with basic functionality without starting a new game, isn't. But don't mind me, I'll just be here looking for more calcified fragments, because... Wait, god damnit, I'm looking for dormant SIVA clusters now?!
These days, every minute I have with a game counts. My newborn child could start crying, the dog might need to go for a walk—life adds up quickly. So when I make the choice to return to a game, the last thing I'm looking for are obstacles to me immediately getting to the reason I chose to return in the first place. Rise of Iron, like many other games, could handle this better.
Follow Patrick Klepek on Twitter, and if you have a news tip you'd like to share, drop him an email.
This article originally appeared on VICE Netherlands
Let's face it, most phones are filled with selfies. If you scroll through the photo feed of the average smartphone, you'll find an endless stream of self portraits – on the couch, on the train, in front of the mirror in the bathroom – punctuated by the occasional group photo, sunset at the beach, a pair of tits or a close-up of a weird mole or bruise. But we wondered if there aren't some hidden gems in that avalanche of narcissism; if there aren't a few works of art breaking up the inanity of your Camera Roll.
To find out, we went to the opening of the Unseen Photo Festival in Amsterdam and asked the visitors to show us the most artsy photo they have on their phone.
VICE: Hi, Frederike. Tell me about your
photo.
Frederike: I was in Germany with friends, in the
Ruhr region. We went to a light museum there. They had a dark room with a
waterfall, and a guy put his hand in the water. That was when I took this
picture. It is a bit out of focus and you can't really make out the details,
but I actually like that.
And what does this photo tell us about
life?
That you should always stick your hand in the water, because it is nice and
refreshing, especially when it's hot outside.
Imagine that this photo is being displayed
in a gallery. How would you title it?
'Madam'.
Why 'Madam'?
During the weekend that I took this photo, my friends and I kept shouting the word "madam" at each other, for no reason. This hand doesn't belong to a madam, but I
think it would make a nice title for a photo.
VICE: Hi, Nathan. What's the story behind
this photo?
Nathan: This is my father-in-law lifting my girlfriend's
matress into a van during a recent move. I think it's interesting because of
all the different planes in the photo. And it's nice and symmetrical. And it
raises a lot of questions: What's that guy doing? Will the mattress fit into
the van?
What would you name the photo?
I'd need to think
about that. Maybe, 'The Struggle'. That is a bit of a cliché – but it's kind of
hard to come up with a title on the spot, and I don't really think photos
should have titles. But, eh, maybe 'Sleeping In'?
VICE: Hi, Maarten. What are we looking at
here?
Maarten: This is a photo of Richard. Richard is the love of my
life. I met him in March this year, and immediately fell for him. That's why
I bought him and had some great adventures with him. Richard is a Volvo V70.
The great thing about Richard is that we're really connected and have been
through a lot together. He's also gotten me into trouble a few times – fines
and stuff – but let's not dwell on that.
Right. And what do you like about this
picture?
There's a Russian guy in
there, we're all striking a pose, and you can discover lots of Swedish flags in the
picture, too. You have to look at it really hard, and then you see them. There's
always something new to discover, and that's great.
And what does this photo say about life?
That you shouldn't
take life too seriously.
VICE: When did you take this photo?
Steven: On the 27th of August, in Rotterdam. I was in town for
a fashion show, and we were staying in a hotel by the river Meuse. I went for a
walk, and suddenly saw these two. So I quickly snapped a photo.
Did you ask them what they were doing?
No, I was just going
for a quick stroll and smoking a cigarette. I took the photo as I was walking
past them.
Why do you think this is an artsy photo?
The funny thing is
that it looks staged, but it's a documentary picture. I like the composition
and there's something mysterious about it... I don't know if I should analyse the
entire photo.
What would you call this piece?
'Be from Luv'.
VICE: Hi. What are we looking at here?
Robbert: A photo of the sun disappearing behind the wing of a
plane. I took this when I was flying back from Stockholm last summer. I was there visiting my sister.
What do you like about this picture?
I was surprised by how
dynamic the light is, considering it's an iPhone pic. I like how the blue of the sky bleeds
into the warm yellow of the sun. The wing accentuates the contrast. The details
of the wing itself are clear as well, which I find interesting because mobile
phone photos can often be a bit unclear. But everything's in focus in this
photo.
If you were showing this in an exhibition,
what would you call it?
'Float'.
VICE: When did you take this photo?
Angel: I was having a party for fresher's week at
our school with some friends. We had quite a few photos and video from that
week, and we were going to watch them on a projector that we borrowed from the school.
I knew in advance that if you shoot the light of a projector from the right
angle, you get a rainbow effect. I like the shadows and the different waves and
lines in the composition.
You took the photo exactly at the right
moment?
Yes, I was
experimenting, but I knew that I wanted to create a rainbow.
What would you call this piece?
"A digital pot of
gold".
VICE: When did you take this photo?
Maria: In August, in Japan.
I was in the city of Nara with some friends. Nara is famous because deer are
sacred there, and walk around freely in the town. This is a room in one of the
holy temples. The lamps are dedicated to the deer. And maybe you can't see it
in the photo, but there are deer shapes painted on the lamps.
What do you like most about this photo?
The contrast between
light and dark. It reminds me of the moment I entered that room. Outside it was
sunny, and in there it was pitch black. When you're standing there, it feels
like the lamps are endless, and this photo gives that same impression.
The Unseen Photo Festival takes place from the 16th until the 25th of September in Amsterdam. Visit their website for more information on the programme and exhibitions.
Illustration by Julia Dickens.
The very first time I experienced my version of perfection was when I met a gorgeous man in Monaco last year. He's young, a multimillionaire (I mean, you have to be to live in Monte-Carlo), and during our date at the Hermitage Hotel terrace he made a comment during our conversation that he thinks biologically, deep down, all women want to be dominated. I raised my eyebrow at him and quickly disagreed. There is nothing about me, or my life that wants to be controlled by a man, outside of the bedroom. I left that last part out in my objection because quite frankly, I didn't want to give him a bone in this debate that would only encourage his views on women being in a position of servitude. Little did he know, I was soaked all the way through my panties. We didn't sleep together that first night, but when I went to say goodbye to him the next day before my flight, he came up behind me as I was looking in the mirror and turned me around and kissed me. I took a deep breath and convinced myself "Oh my God yes, just YOLO this one time please." And I felt my usual anxiety of sleeping with a stranger vanish. He was absolute perfection. In every word he said, in every placement of his hands around my hips, neck, hair, face; it was pain and ecstasy at the same time, and I have him to thank for finally realizing my fantasy and making it come true.
Life's rough when you're a feminist who likes to get fucked. And I say that with every single pun intended. On a day-to-day basis, you really can't tell me shit. But behind closed doors, I'm trying to look like an unchoreographed Olympic gymnast getting her freak on.
It can be an embarrassing task to reveal these desires, especially when we live in a world where women demand equality. I pursue what I want, I'm not shy to share my feminist views on a first date, and most importantly: I cannot be told what to do. I've been suspended from school for "disobeying authority" more times than I can remember so it's safe to say I have an issue with anyone policing my actions. So navigating through this mentality while having to admit that I just want my brains fucked out while you say nasty shit to me is hard enough to explain to myself, much less another person.
Gone are the days where I thought I just don't really get that wet. I realized that much of my arousal was hindered due to inadequate foreplay and assertion from my partner. And not voicing my concerns basically led me to having to settle for vanilla sex with lots and lots of lube. "Well why didn't you just tell them you want them to be more dominant?," I've been asked. Seems like the logical thing to do right? Absolutely not. No later than the words "rough" or "dominant" leave my mouth, they try to ram their dick in it, and I get their novice version of a 50 Shades of Grey scene, coupled with some reenactments of some fucked up shit they saw on Pornhub. I guess the challenges of kink are that it's a broad term that covers everything from light spanking to needles, electrocution, and other extreme methods of inflicting pain.
Rough doesn't always equal BDSM, and BDSM does not always equal rough.
It's a scary thing trying to find a man who understands this fragile balance and makes me feel safe enough to let them take control of my body, without them bringing in their own premeditated ideas of what they think it should be for the both of us. I mean, how do you tell the man you asked to be in control, to not do what they want to do to you?
I understand that it can also be difficult for some men to get into the swing of things. I've had the ones who are nervous and so intimidated by me that they don't know what to do, so they just hammer away like they're having a seizure. I've had the ones who have no clue what it means to be sexually assertive, so they request such a carefully calibrated routine, that I might as well be directing porn and getting paid to write a storyline. And worst of all are the ones who think I want to be punched in the face and licking the bottom of their feet. Hell. No. Red flags go off and I abort mission immediately if there is even any mention of this in the itinerary.
Read More: I Hated Being Touched Until I Found Latex
Domination is all in the actions, the movements, micro-insinuations, and the placement of hands and body parts with clear intent and control. It's a delicate dance with someone who knows how to lead. That carnal feeling that somebody wants me, desires me, and finds me sexy is something new to me that I never felt growing up. Being teased for being petite and flat chested—I'm still currently working with 32A cup breasts—I never got chosen for seven minutes in heaven, and throughout my teen and adult years I had sex with my shirt on or at the very least a bra. It took me a very long time to feel sexy, and even then it's not all of the time.
Tiptoeing on the line of being hurt just enough is thrilling. When a man is taking his time to explore me and push me, he is giving me his undivided attention; and that is ultimately what turns me on. When my body physically reacts to something my brain normally rejects, it's confusing yet overpowering, and I can't deprive myself of that based on principal. I'm afforded the opportunity to make a decision to relinquish control of my body, and that gesture in itself is powerful and liberating. The real test is just finding somebody who can perform these almost degrading acts, while still recognizing that after I swallow your load, I am not to be fucked with.
All photos by author
Earlier this year, Harambe—the late gorilla prince from the Cincinnati Zoo—reached a critical level of meme fame after coverage of his murder spawned a hyperbolic discussion of ethics around animal captivity. For anyone with a brain, it became quickly apparent that for every legitimate PETA-sponsored ad or post from an animal rights activist, there were 99 other people who didn't actually care that he was killed at all. To many, the outrage itself was the joke.
In just a week, posts began to show that the serious discussion around Harambe was, like the gorilla himself, dead. What was once a flashpoint to talk about endangered species quickly devolved into Harambe being photoshopped into portraits of Jesus Christ. People made tribute songs and videos about Harambe in heaven—some even made social media pages in his honour, comparing him to generational greats like Barack Obama and Steve Jobs.
Yesterday evening, almost five months after the tender animal's death, I found myself standing in the middle of Lake Devo—a man-made pond in the middle of Toronto's Ryerson University campus—waiting for a Harambe candlelight vigil to begin. I wasn't expecting much: at 6:50 PM, ten minutes shy of when the Facebook page said the event would start, there was no crowd in sight. Instead, the only people identifiably there for the event were a few guys taping up the letters H-A-R-A-M-B-E to one of the large stones in the middle of the now dried-out pond.
By that time, 2,000 people had signed up for the event on Facebook. Even at the most pointless of social media events, one can generally expect five to ten percent of their RSVP'd audience to show (at least, that's been my experience when throwing last-minute birthday parties). But here, there was nobody. Students passed by, some stopped to take photos of the gorilla's name, but life went on as usual. People didn't care for Harambe as much as they did for his online memeage.
Right before I was ready to pack it in, however, there was a howl.
A man-bro, no more than 20-something-years-old and rocking a terrible American Eagle graphic tee, ran into the concrete bowl with a cameraman in pursuit. He scaled the large rock quickly, ripped his shirt off, and began to beat his chest while howling in a perched position—much like Harambe would have when he was alive. It was at this time that the first wave of people stepped out from the passing masses of people on Gould Street and began to collect around the centre of the pond.
"DICKS OUT," one man yelled, followed by the sound of a microphone crackling on. Other people began to pipe in as well. "DICKS OUT! DICKS OUT! DICKS OUT!"
"Everyone, please come and grab your candles," Mustafa Mallick, a Ryerson student and the event's organizer, said calmly through the speakers.
"For those who have lit their candles already, please blow them out. We want to light them all at once. Have respect for Harambe."
Within minutes, nearly 100 people had filled the pond, almost all of them with candles in hand. Phones began to unlock like popcorn throughout the crowd—some took selfies, others began to record their friends' poor attempts at stand-up comedy via Snapchat. The commotion was so evident that people nearby began to stop in the street, trying to figure out what the fuck was happening.
"Is this for Drake?" one woman asked me, curious if it was a redux of last year's surprise concert from Drizzy that happened around the same time. "It's for Harambe," I told her, which I thought would cause confusion but actually got her excited.
"Harambe? This is for Harambe? Oh my god! I'm gonna call my friend."
Over the course of the next hour, there were speeches, poetry, song, and dance. At one point, a guy who was clambering to have the microphone went up to read off a copy-and-pasted remix of Kanye West's "I Love Kanye," where "Kanye" is replaced by "Harambe." Before he could finish mumbling his way through the text on his phone, the crowd drowned him out.
"DICKS OUT! DICKS OUT! DICKS OUT! DICKS OUT!"
At the end, no dicks actually came out (although one guy did suggest doing it, which the crowd decided was a bad idea), but one thing was clear: people really did care about Harambe.
Follow Jake Kivanc on Twitter.
The big film festivals are mercifully over so we can go back to our big budget Hollywood garbage like the happy plebes we are. This week's roundup has something for everyone, space romance, Netflix sex, and Owen Wilson.
Gold
Ever since he won that goddamn Oscar, Matthew McConaughey is always ACTING so hard in his movies. I mean, every single movement and look and wig is like so fucking over the top. Chill out buddy, you made it. People take you seriously. You'll never have to do another trash b-list romcom again. No more Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. This movie looks a lot like that Leo DiCaprio quaaludes movie but with gold instead of whatever they were selling. Penny stocks?
Passengers
OK I'm gonna be honest with you: if I was just unexpectedly woken up 10 years into a 100 year cryo-sleep hurtling through space likely on my way to an early death I would probably not want to then fuck Chris Pratt. I'd prob just get drunk at the space bar until I gathered up the courage to throw myself out of the ship and chill out in a black hole until I died. But that's just me, you know—this movie looks fine. Jennifer Lawrence is just a parody of herself at this point. She trips a lot, she's so normal! K, whatever she's a bratty millionaire.
Easy
Hmm I'm getting major New Year's Day, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day vibes from this. You know those movies centred around a dumb holiday no one cares about but they cram so many famous people into them that you feel obligated to watch because whoa, it's got Julia Roberts! But I'll forgive Netflix its desire to frontload the talent so you'll watch what appears to be a saccharine look at love, life, and sex. I mean, I'll watch. In fact, Easy started streaming yesterday so fuckit, I'll probably binge watch all of it this weekend.
Nocturnal Animals
We finally have a trailer for Tom Ford's second feature film, Nocturnal Animals. The TIFF reviews were solid and his latest foray into movies looks every bit as moody, stylized and electric as his first one. Amy Adams is a reclusive insomniac who receives her ex-husband's novel in the mail. His fiction gets lost up in her reality and Michael Shannon is a sheriff. What's not to love?
Bastards
LOL. Into every trailer roundup a little garbage must fall. Why are studio execs so obsessed with goofy brothers? Also in what universe do Owen Wilson and Ed Helms have the same genetic makeup? Anyway, two adult men feel like they've been robbed of a father because their mom lied to them and isn't she a slut and here's a road trip movie about the hunt for their real dad. I feel like the trailer pretty much shows you the entire movie except for the dad reveal and I'm gonna throw it out there right now, they realize that they don't need to know who their dad is because their mom is enough parent after all.
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Surete du Quebec police crest on police cruiser door. Mario Beauregard/Canadian Press
A Montreal journalist, whose computer was seized by Quebec police earlier this week, is awaiting a court's decision on whether or not it can be legally searched.
This latest test to press freedom in Canada comes as VICE News is embroiled in its own battle to have an RCMP production order for notes and correspondences with a suspected terrorist quashed. And in July, a Supreme Court of British Columbia ordered a Vancouver journalist to hand over his notes on Thomas Harding, a lawyer he'd written an article about to the Law Society of British Columbia, which is investigating the personal injury lawyer.
The latest case revolves around Journal de Montreal reporter Michael Nguyen, whose computer was seized on Wednesday by Quebec police, at the request of Quebec's Judicial Council, which hears complaints about provincially appointed judges.
Read more: Government Lawyers Seek to Block Free Speech Groups in VICE's Court Battle with RCMP
In June, Nguyen wrote a story about a complaint against Quebec judge Suzanne Vadboncoeur, who allegedly made some abusive comments towards special constables at a Montreal courthouse Christmas party.
His story detailed the complaint and was accompanied by surveillance video of the alleged incident.
" alleging that our reporter hacked into their website and got access to confidential documents," managing editor George Kologerakis told VICE News. "We are responding that that is completely false. Our reporter did nothing whatsoever illegal to get access to that story."
The judicial council is "trying to find out how our reporter got embarrassing information about one of their judges," he added. "They're trying to find out where we got our story because they're embarrassed by it."
Fédération Professionnelle Des Journalistes du Québec, the province's professional journalists' association, released a statement on Thursday, condemning the seizure.
"Journalists are not informants of the police and the police should not use journalists to carry out their investigations," said the statement "The FPJQ Ethics Guide also stipulates that the journalistic material, whether published or not, is intended only to be public information and can not be transmitted by journalists to the authorities want the use for other purposes."
"It is unacceptable to search journalists or news media to try to unmask their sources when it was revealed in the public interest, as in this case," said Jean-Thomas Léveillé, president of the FPJQ, in the statement. "The public has a right to know how behave state officials, moreover when they are responsible for applying the law."
VICE is appealing an Ontario court's decision to uphold the RCMP's production order for national security reporter Ben Makuch to hand over all notes and correspondences related to alleged Islamic State fighter Farah Shirdon. The appeal will be heard in February.
Follow Tamara on Twitter.
Photos courtesy Robert Prest
Robert Prest hasn't bought No Man's Sky yet, but in a way, he's already played it. For the past three weeks, the man has used his spare time to build a version of Hello Games's ambitious—and controversial, depending on who you talk to—space exploration game in id Software's Doom, released back in 1993.
Yes, that Doom.
"The main reason for working on it was just to see if I could do it," Prest said recently.
He hasn't settled on a name for his mod yet, wavering between No Guy's Sky and Doom Guy's Sky. (My vote's for the latter.) The mod is more than an aesthetic makeover; Doom Guy's Sky tries to replicate the core features of No Man's Sky, right down to applying random generation algorithms to the creatures and planets. You can even mine resources to provide additional fuel for your ship, allowing you to leave a planet. Alien languages are randomized, too.
How No Man's Sky algorithm works is a bit of a mystery, but Prest did his best to explain his approach.
"The algorithm is incredibly basic," he said. "Every has a base water level that rises to a random level. Any holes that go lower than this will have water in them. The game then randomizes the tree type and bush type for the level, then spawns it at random locations based on tones of predefined possible locations. The grass and rocks are spawned in the same way. It then changes the color, floor texture, sky texture and fade, changes and resets the aliens, and then by the time it finishes doing this, your spaceship has traveled to the world and it comes down to land."
The result of that algorithm is a planet looking like this:
Or this:
As Prest hasn't played No Man's Sky, he based his entire mod on the game's trailers. When he'd initially show early versions of the mod to friends and colleagues, they'd have to correct him on how features actually ended up working in the game. He even found time to needle the original developers of No Man's Sky over the backlash the game endured in the weeks after its release.
"Don't worry, the patches will make it fun," reads one message as you quit the mod.
Doom Guy's Sky started as a three-day project, but much like the feature creep that seemed to impact the actual No Man's Sky over its several years of development, Prest worked on the mod for another three weeks. The mod built upon his previous work applying randomization algorithms to Doom, having worked on transforming it into one of the most popular survival games of the last five years, DayZ. Prest is still actively developing DoomZ today.
I hope they don't sue me, and I hope they get a laugh from it as I have. And don't sue me. —Robert Prest
Making video games isn't Prest's day job; he works network operations for a broadband ISP. As a kid, he would make Doom levels in his spare time, but walked away from the series for ten years before being drawn back by the ridiculousness of trying to bring DayZ into Doom.
"This way, I'm free to work on whatever I like whether anyone else is interested, and that keeps it fun to do," he said. "Several of my friends went into game development, and I follow their work really proudly—must be great to have your name on a full game. It would be great to work in games development, but I'd feel uncomfortable ever taking money for it, as it might take some of the fun away from it."
The reason Prest chose Doom as his medium of expression, rather than a modern engine like Unity or Unreal Engine 4, is precisely because the technology limitations require getting creative to solve problems. It helps that Doom mod tools have continued to evolve since the game's release decades ago, meaning amateur coders can tackle ambitious ideas.
Ultimately, Doom Guy's Sky, like DoomZ, is for fun, and Prest just wants it to stay that way.
"I hope they don't sue me," he said. "And I hope they get a laugh from it as I have. And don't sue me."
You can download Doom Guy's Sky on Prest's website right now.
Follow Patrick Klepek on Twitter, and if you have a news tip you'd like to share, drop him an email.
Video recorded by the wife of the late Keith L. Scott was released Friday, offering new insight into the Charlotte, North Carolina, police killing that quickly sparked violent protests after the fatal encounter on Tuesday.
Rakeyia Scott's recording was released to the New York Times by family lawyers. In the footage, the woman can be heard trying to explain to police officers that her 40-year-old husband does not have a gun, and that he took medication for a traumatic brain injury (or "TBI"). She pleads with the cops not to shoot him, but the officers repeatedly ask Scott to "drop the gun" and to put his hands up, before firing.
While the two-minute cellphone video provides new details about what happened, it doesn't clearly depict the officers actually firing at Scott—and it doesn't speak to official claims that he was armed at the time of the altercation. (His wife can be heard repeatedly insisting he was not.) Police dash- and body-cam footage of the incident has only been shown to Scott's family, and Charlotte police chief Kerr Putney has said the department will keep it under wraps until "there is a compelling reason" to share it with the public.
Police shot Scott in the parking lot of his family's apartment complex after arriving there to serve a warrant for another man. The incident followed another fatal police shooting in Tulsa, Oklahoma, last Friday, where officer Betty Shelby shot and killed Terence Crutcher, an unarmed 40-year-old black man, after his car had stalled. Authorities released two videos of that shooting on Monday, and Shelby was charged with first-degree manslaughter on Thursday.
Read: What We Know About the Police Killing That Sparked Riots in North Carolina
"There's never been a really good documentary on rock 'n' roll bands," Kurt Cobain once said—to which Dave Grohl responded, "except Spinal Tap." While clearly a spoof, Christopher Guest's This Is Spinal Tap nonetheless is a mockumentary that reveals aspects of culture more truthfully than some documentaries do.
Not all mock-docs are whimsical in nature: Others reveal the darker sides of society and offer commentary on our morbid obsession with violence, celebrity, underlying political corruption, and conspiracy theories. The last topic's explored in Canadian filmmaker Matthew Johnson's Operation Avalanche. Distributed by VICE Films, the "lost footage" mockumentary follows a group of novice filmmakers-turned-CIA agents tasked to fake the moon landing in 1969.
Johnson went to extreme lengths to capture some of the film's footage, going as far as to film at NASA without authorization by posing as an actual documentary filmmaker. Filled with wit, humor, and sharp historical commentary, Operation Avalanche explores the common tinfoil-hat notion that there's more to government activities than meets the eye. (If you're looking for more from Johnson, his webseries Nirvanna the Band the Show is making the leap to VICELAND next year.)
If Operation Avalanche leaves you thirsting for more mockumentaries, here's five more that are worth your time.
The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash
Six years before Spinal Tap, there was this mock-"rockumentary" following the Rutles, an obvious parody of the Beatles that first appeared on British television (and later, Saturday Night Live). Although the 1978 cult film didn't gain much traction in the US, All You Need Is Cash directly inspired Spinal Tap and dialed up the popularity of the rock-mockumentaries to eleven. (Quizzically, the Rutles eventually went on tour and created their own music, with two of their singles ending up on UK charts.)
Bob Roberts
As this truly bizarre election day rapidly approaches, the political satire Bob Roberts is more relevant than ever—a great watch if you want to both laugh and cry over our current political climate. Directed by and starring Tim Robbins, the film follows the corrupt, right-wing, titular character as he runs for President of the United States. With money and ambition on his side, the conservative candidate does anything to win—including intense scheming and unabashed pandering to voters. Remind you of someone?
C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America
C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America takes political satire a few steps further, presenting an alternate history of what would happen if the South won the Civil War—a dystopia where black people are sold online, electronic shackles are advertised on TV, and the most popular entertainment program is a Cops-inspired show about runaway slaves. While clearly absurdist in nature, the biting satire uncomfortably reflects some of their daily horrors that occur in the United States. Some of the products featured in the film's faux-advertisements actually existed in the past, suggesting that the film isn't as farfetched as we'd hope.
What We Do in the Shadows
Many mockumentaries so closely straddle the line between reality and fiction that viewers could be conceivably tricked into believing they're actual documentaries. That's definitely not the case with What We Do in the Shadows. Directed, written, and starring filmmaker Taika Waititi (who's helming the upcoming Thor: Ragnarok), the offbeat comedy follows vampire roommates living in New Zealand and gives an "insider's look" at what it's really like as supernatural creatures adapting to the 21st century. If you want to find out what happens when vampires stop being polite and start getting real, this bloody good mockumentary is it.
Man Bites Dog
On the other side of the mockumentary spectrum lies Man Bites Dog, a controversial, utterly disturbing horror movie. The 1992 Belgian film follows a documentary crew who gets sucked into a life of crime while profiling an unapologetic serial killer. Featuring graphic scenes of brutal murder, gang rape, and various other sadistic acts, Man Bites Dog is hard to stomach—because of its disturbing nature, the movie was banned in Sweden and earned a NC-17 rating in the US—but it's also become an important piece of modern cinema.
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Photo via Wikimedia Commons user Henryk Kotowski
Cursing is, as you already know, fucking great. It turns bad jokes into good jokes, it signals to nieces and nephews that you're the fun one, and if you do it in a restaurant, it makes stuck-up people slam their forks down and look over at you. And, as VICE has already reported, dropping a lot of swear words into every conversation doesn't make you stupid—it's just evidence of a colorful vocabulary.
But more than just a fun hobby, cursing is an integral part of human communication, according to a new book, What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves. The author, Benjamin Bergen, points out that brain damage victims who become mute often retain the ability to blurt out profanity. He also demonstrates that there's no evidence that most swearing harms anyone at all, even children—which is why Bergen often curses in front of kids, and thinks you should too.
"But not all profanity is equal," Bergen writes in the book, "and all signs point to a strengthening in the United States of one specific class of profane language, namely, slurs." He explains how slurs are unlike other words, insofar as they have tangible, measurable negative effects. And "in the last two decades," Bergen explains, we've all been having fun dismantling the taboos around curse words involving shitting, fucking, and Jesus, but meanwhile "all manner of sexual or ethnic epithets have become unspeakable."
To find out more about what this shift means, I got in touch with Bergen, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego. We talked about the large amount of profanity on the fucking awesome website you're reading right now, and the future of cursing in general.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
VICE: When was the last time you cursed in front of your kid?
Benjamin Bergen: It was probably this morning. I don't know what it was, but somehow I couldn't get the wrapper for my teabag open, and I said something like, "I can't get this fucking thing open."
And he's OK?
He's still intact. I guess most two-and-a-half-year-olds are perfect angels, and he's not. So maybe that's because of the profanity. He hasn't started imitating those particular words, in large part I think because we don't make a big deal out of it.
If you distill it down to one thing, what makes a word a curse word?
The biggest part is the social convention—agreements that we don't use these words in certain contexts. These are words we don't say about kids, or don't allow kids to say, that we don't say over the public airwaves—although maybe we say them in VICE magazine.
It's more than that! We even have a show on our TV channel called Fuck, That's Delicious. What's happening when we put profanity out in public like that?
You, the publishers, are doing something that hooks into the same thing that comedians who "work blue" are hooking into. There is social capital to swearing. You're violating a taboo. That makes you a rule-breaker. That makes you cool. That makes you appear to have power and confidence. And this is the same way that people judge swearers—individual people who swear—in the workplace. These are the same things that we judge people to have, these personal attributes. You're hooking into that same belief.
Is there a downside?
You guys should be really worried that the "F" word is gonna lose its power, because in a way, you're using that taboo as a way to create a brand. This is a really exciting time, because language is becoming democratized, whereas 20 years ago, pretty much everything you would hear or see was filtered through the FCC or the MPAA. Now, most of what pops up on your mobile device is straight from someone else's thumbs, with no intermediary. That means when a younger generation recreates the language in their own image to serve the purpose that they want, they're going to use it in exactly the way that they want, and these conventions start to melt away.
But that's not happening with racial slurs, right?
The "N" word is the word of our times. I think a really interesting thing that's happening is that these words—and I guess I can say them—"fuck," "shit," "cocksucker," "motherfucker," the really strong ones, the , "There's a chair folded up over there, and could you please set it up so that you and this other student can have a conversation?" The researchers measured how far apart the students put the chairs. If they'd been primed with "faggot," they put the chairs ten centimeters further apart than if they'd been primed with "homosexual." That kind of physical distancing is the most concrete manifestation of the kind of discrimination and dehumanization that these words create.
On the other hand, you've described other types of curse words as helpful. How does that work?
It makes you seem to fit in, makes you seem powerful, and makes you seem confident. It also helps alleviate pain. There've been a couple experiments showing that when people have to stick their hand in near ice-cold water, the half of people that are told to swear during the immersion are able to hold their hands there about twice as long as people who don't swear.
But what happens if words like "fuck," are too common to be used as that kind of emotional vent?
The words can lose their power. The reason they can do all of those things is because I—and maybe you—were taught that these aren't words that we say in this house, young man, and we internalize that. People around us internalize that. That's why people get the electrical jolt that they get when we say or write them. That's why the heart rate starts to increase and people's palms start to sweat, they have blood pressure increases, there's a fight-or-flight response of emotional arousal. And obviously part of your brand that you use that physiological fact, it puts you in a tricky situation. If those words are slipping—if those words become normal, typical, normative, what do you do? Do you have to go to slurs? And are you willing to go there?
What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves is now available.
Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.
The Baphomet monument at TST's HQ. All photos by the author
The Satanic Temple debuted its new international headquarters in Salem, Massachusetts, this week. The multi-use space—the group's first location available to the general public—will ultimately include the temple's offices, an art gallery, a lecture room, and a gift shop. It will also house the temple's controversial Baphomet monument, a one-and-a-half-ton, nine-foot bronze statue of the goat-headed satanic figure.
But when the new HQ opened for business Friday morning, it was a far cry from the reaction the group got when it unveiled the "most controversial and politically charged contemporary work of art in the world" in Detroit last year.
This time, there were no marching protesters, no death threats, no local reverends organizing mass prayers. Aside from some local media, there was just one fan waiting when the doors opened—a young woman named Gwen, a local who arrived early for a chance to take a photo with Baphomet. Other visitors trickled in throughout the afternoon.
"The Boston Globe reported that the mayor's office only received four concerned calls," Satanic Temple spokesman Doug Mesner—a.k.a. Lucien Greaves—tells VICE. "It's a lot different." (The Temple HQ has a cork bulletin board hanging in its gift shop to collect hate mail, just in case. On opening day, there was just one typed letter posted.)
Mesner says the new headquarters, a former funeral home, was donated to the temple by a benefactor last year. The first floor serves as the Salem Art Gallery, which currently features work by the Baphomet sculpture artist Mark Porter, in addition to other satanic sculptures (like a more traditional—and graphic—hermaphroditic depiction of Baphomet by artist Chris P. Andres). That Baphomet monument is stored in an unassuming shed outside, available for viewing only via purchase of a ticket at the gift shop.
The interior is sparse, accented by blood-red curtains and other gothic touches. "A lot of this was already here," Mesner explains. "Above the windows, it has this sort of bat wing motif going on. It seems like something we must have requested. But it's actually not. It's funny. It must have been here since it was a funeral home. You'd think they'd go for something sunnier."
Mesner says the city is investigating the building's zoning, which is currently certified as a place of assembly with a capacity of 50 people. But the official limit doesn't really matter, as he hopes to reach a wider audience by airing lectures and other happenings held at the space. "This will be kind of a focus point where we're going to have livestreamed broadcasts, lectures, and events that people can also participate in online," he says.
Whatever restrictions the donated building might have, Mesner believes the pros outweigh the cons. "It wasn't so much chosen by a group acknowledgement—it came our way," he tells me. "That said, there are obvious benefits, I think, to being in Salem."
Doug Mesner, left, shortly before the Satanic Temple opened to the public
That's because the history of Satan is inextricably baked into the history of this city, thanks in no small part to the infamous Salem witch trials of the late 17th century. The Puritans may have come to Massachusetts in search of their own religious freedom, but that didn't stop them from executing about 20 people, including 14 women, accused of acting under satanic influence as part of a wave of mass hysteria in the 1690s.
But since that dark period, Salem has come to nurture a culture that is rather inclusive and tolerant of fringe religions. In fact, the city has become a tourist destination of sorts for fans of the occult. There is a significant population of witches, or Wiccans, living here, along with numerous shops offering potions, healing crystals, tarot cards, and psychic readings.
"The average person in Salem that isn't a witch at least understands what witchcraft is, as opposed to other places where people aren't exposed to it," explains Thomas Vallor, a Salem historian—and himself a witch. Vallor guides the Salem Witch Walk tour through Crow Haven Corner, Salem's oldest witch shop.
Vallor adds that Salem's modern-day status as a hub of the occult stems from a confluence of its dark pre-colonial history and the allure of 20th-century television: In the 1970s, the cast and crew of the TV series Bewitched came to town to shoot a story arc. Soon after it aired, tourists were flocking to Salem in search of real witches—only to find a sleepy New England town.
Around the same time, an enterprising woman named Laurie Cabot decided to open a witch shop. "She didn't realize how big it was going to be," Vallor says. "She became like rock star." Cabot went on become one of the world's most famous witches, and Salem rose to prominence as a sort of witch capital.
That's not to say the area's witches don't have haters. Vallor says that during the city's peak tourism season around Halloween, fundamental Christian protesters are known to bus in from out of town. "They're never from Salem," he insists. "They're people with signs saying, 'Catholics, fags, Jews, and witches are all going to hell.'" Vallor adds that the locals—witches or otherwise—are known to take the protests in stride. "A lot of tourists, just seeing that—that reminds them of the witch trials immediately."
Despite Salem's religious tolerance, Mesner has taken what he describes as a "fatalistic" approach to security for the Satanic Temple HQ, installing an alarm system, surveillance cameras, and bars on the windows. After all, the building will serve as a permanent resting place for the Baphomet monument—as long as it isn't needed elsewhere.
Although fundamentalist Christians might paint both groups with a broad brush, Satanists are distinguished from witches—the former tend to describe themselves as adhering to a non-theistic religion opposed to superstition, while the latter decidedly embraces it. However, both Mesner and Vallor believe the two groups have overlapping interests.
"I think more and more people are starting to realize that by fighting for our religious liberty—we're fighting for everybody's freedom of religious liberty as well," Mesner says of his fellow Satanists. He adds that the history of the Satanic Panic of the 80s and 90s—when sensational child-abuse allegations, many since debunked, rocked America—will also be featured in an exhibition at the headquarters, a reminder that moral panics are never too far in the rearview mirror.
Meanwhile, bolstering this most unholy alliance, Vallor points out that the figure of Baphomet is significant to witches, too—a fixture in tarot card decks and other artwork. "This is something that Satanists and witches almost agree on, that the devil can be a representation of the darker parts of you," he says. "But we don't look at the dark as evil, but rather more naturalistic or primal."
For more on the Satanic Temple, visit its website.
Follow Leyland DeVito on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on VICE Italy
IT technicians are basically our generation's gods. You might live 90 percent of your days online, yet as soon as one of your three devices breaks you are at the mercy of Ben from IT.
Ben, who you run to, broken phone in hand, manically deleting the stream of belfies you took last night, silently despairing at the thought that they might still live somewhere else on your phone or laptop. Ben, who has access to all your emails, and iChats and maybe soon your mind too. Ben, who sees everything but never speaks of it. Or, does he?
We asked a few IT technicians we know to tell us about the most revolting things they've found in people's devices. Since stories about 60-year-olds being unable to plug in the monitor are not that funny, the following anecdotes focus on the more NSFW side of the game.
One day a customer, who was a surgeon, asked us to replace his hard drive. I started to copy his files to an external storage to then pass them on the new HD and, among the many operating videos, I spotted some with a "dirty" preview. It wasn't just one or two clips: there was a whole collection of amateur sex stuff – some downloaded from the web, others shot by him and his wife.
After a few minutes the surgeon came back to the store with a colleague, wanting to show him footage from an operation, so I paused the copy and left them in front of the computer. After browsing through his folders he found the video and hit play, but he didn't notice it had moved to the "dirty" playlist I had just looked into. As soon as the first video finished, a video showing his wife fingering him begun to play.
We were four in that room, the two doctors, myself and a colleague of mine. A deep silence fell, as the surgeon went white, muttered something – then shut his laptop and ran outside the room. My colleague and I were left staring at each other in disbelief, while the other doctor stood there, with his mouth open and his hands on his cheeks.
—Marco
One day the 20-something son of our boss came to our office. He was friendly and easy-going, and very kindly asked us to copy his files to an external storage and format his laptop. Even though we usually only work with our company's staff, we made an exception and I immediately started to work on his case.
Skimming through his files – which I had to do manually, according to his request – I found one titled "4ME". Thinking it was a residual of some programme, I opened it to check what was inside and possibly remove it. Instead, I found myself staring at a sort of journal of evil, a Word doc full of terrifying thoughts and details. I obviously showed it to my colleague immediately, and in a couple of minutes our whole desk was forwarding bits from the journal to each other. We just couldn't stop but the more we talked about it, the more terrified we got of the content.
There were dozens of pages of transgressions, curses and phantasies of harming friends and family. He wished they'd all die or get some terrible diseases – including their babies! When he came back to collect his laptop, no one spoke a word. I just gave him back his laptop, wishing that he go away as fast as possible.
—Andrea
That job was a routine one, and the customer was a lady we had already worked for before. She came in at the scheduled time and left us with her laptop, asking us to check it and – if necessary – to update it. She left the laptop in its bag.
After completing some other work, I was ready to dedicate myself to her case. I opened the bag, took out the computer and grabbed for the charger. Instead, I grabbed something whose shape was clearly not that of a charger. It was a long, pleated cylinder.
It was in fact a dildo, with a vibrating base, plus a little box of lubricant. When she came to pick up her laptop she didn't say anything – and neither did I, of course. But she has never come back since.
—Federico
Once, while I was tearing open a PC to substitute a broken hard disk, I found the wrap of a condom inside. I have no idea how it got there but it was in fact responsible for the damage, as it slowed down the CPU fan causing the device to overheat.
—Andrea
Tuesdays are the worst. I don't know why, but they always start badly. Once, we got a call from a health clinic because their entire network had gone down – from the medical machinery to the reservation system.
We tried to find out what had happened by logging in to the server rack, and we discovered that the internet was working, but the intranet was not. Once we'd verified the physical devices were working – if isolated from the intranet – we assumed that the problem was not in the structure, but in what was streaming in it.
Long story short, one of the practitioners working in the clinic had a habit of watching porn while on-call and had ended up downloading a bug that had infected 25 computers. When we confronted the doctor, he said: "I didn't mean to do it, the web is full of self-installing shit!" The thing is, that programme required manual installation.
—Filippo
A photograph of Gabriel Oprea.
This article originally appeared on VICE Romania.
More than 2,000 people gathered in front of the Romanian Parliament on Thursday night, in what looks like the beginning of a new series of protests in the Eastern European country. Hundreds of people also gathered in several cities around the country to chant, "We want the rule of law, not political immunity!"
The cause of everyone's outrage is the parliament's insistence on protecting the former minister of internal affairs, Gabriel Oprea. Back in March 2016, Romanian prosecutors opened two cases of abuse of power against Oprea: one for illegally using motorcades, and one for purchasing a limousine using government funds. According to the prosecutors, Oprea used his influence to avoid traffic by riding with a motorcade of police cars and motorcycles more than 1,600 times, in less than a year. He allegedly used the motorcade to get faster to both business meetings, as well as dinner dates.
At one point, one of the officers driving a motorcycle that was part of Oprea's motorcade hit a pothole he didn't notice because of the rain and lost his life. According to a press release by the Romanian Supreme Justice Court, he had been used in three motorcades on just that day and was exhausted. The prosecutors are now trying to indict Oprea for manslaughter in this case, because the police officer was allegedly ordered to drive that motorcycle by the former minister. The parliament, however, has decided that he should keep his political immunity until his term as senator is over.
Oprea and the rest of the government he was part of were forced to resign last year, after tens of thousands of angry protesters took to the streets, to protest the deaths of more than 60 young people in a nightclub fire. Now people are worried that Oprea will use his influence to escape the law and take the reigns of the government again, after the upcoming general elections in December.
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Whether you're on a laser-focused trajectory toward a successful life or simply feeling the sting of a low score on an online IQ test, the pursuit of increasing one's smarts will always be a noble one.
Though we've come a long way from aristocracy-only hallowed halls of academia, the pendulum seems as if it's beginning to swing back in that direction. Apparently, the so-called college bubble experts were predicting isn't a thing after all, so don't count on any tuition fire sales anytime soon.
So, what's a knowledge-hungry millennial to do should he or she want to get smarter without taking on a heap of debt? Here are a few suggestions to get you started on your path to enlightenment that don't involve you playing any ineffective, mirthless, "brain training" video games.
There was a time when a student working part-time at burger joint could pay for a semester's tuition and still have enough money left over for a muscle car and a case of those beers you open like a tuna can. Now, of course, the idea of being able to even cover the cost of textbooks from your 16 hours a week of American Apparel cashiering is laughable.
Fortunately, a number of liberal arts "work colleges" exist that allow you to earn your degree with elbow grease in addition to studying. Robin Taffler, the executive director of the Work College Consortium, explained that academic work is still the top priority—but all students also have jobs.
"Students hold on-campus jobs doing everything imaginable—from working in accounts payable, to food services, to grounds, to human resources, etc.," Taffler told VICE. "Student work is evaluated and assessed just like academic classes are. Wages earned by students directly help contribute to the cost of their education. Students gain valuable work experience while helping to serve their college community and beyond."
Think of it like being a crew member on an old ship, where the destination is a degree and scurvy has been replaced by "the freshman 15."
If you can scrounge up the money for a one-way flight, you can escape the high-tuition prices in the United States and study in a country where tuition is cheap or even free. Sweden, Germany, Slovenia, France, and a number of other EU countries have become education destinations for students who are content to earn their degree without taking on thousands of dollars in loans or becoming subsumed in NCAA sport fandom. Some, like Norway, are entirely tuition-free, even for foreigners.
As if this deal wasn't already sweet enough, many of these European countries offer coursework in English, so your lazy ass doesn't even need to assimilate that much.
Even socialist utopias have their limits, however. You'll be expected to pay for your own food, shelter, and other essentials that don't fall under the bursar's office purview, so plan on working over the semester. Or just "accidentally" fall asleep while studying in the library if you really want to keep housing costs down.
If you believe in Jesus (or can convincingly pretend to for the duration of your schooling) Barclay College in Kansas offers free full-tuition scholarships to all the lambs accepted into their flock.
If you're going the con artist route, though, be aware that most of the majors offered by this accredited college have a religious bent—like theology, ministry, and whatever "worship arts" is. Fortunately, there are a few options like business administration and psychology that you could probably take out into the secular world after graduation once you trim some of the Christ fat out of their teachings.
All you need is a WiFi hotspot and tenacity, and you can learn just about anything these days. A number of reputable nonprofit online educational resources like Khan Academy, Socratic, and edX offer comprehensive educations in both STEM and pleb fields.
Who cares if they they're unaccredited when billionaires like Bill Gates and Carlos Slim are touting Khan Academy's benefits (and backing that talk up with funding)? If name brands are that important to you, take solace in the fact that edX courses are pulled right from legit university curriculums—MIT, Berkeley, and Harvard, to name a few.
Some of you probably remember those Muzzy commercials that played on Nickelodeon all the time, but few of you likely recall the $168.48 price tag that came with those tapes. And that's in early 90s money when that kinda scratch could've bought you a yacht.
I bring this VHS relic up only to highlight just how amazing it is that apps like Duolingo and Memrise offer comprehensive, fun, and free language courses that you can chip away at in the time it takes you to develop a hemorrhoid.
If language isn't your bag, there are scores of similar apps on the mobile platform store of your choice that cover physics, anatomy, math, and all the other subjects that you probably blew off in high school.
While initial entries into the educational categories of the app stores were somewhat suspect in their efficacy, science has come a long way in the past few years in determining what makes for a worthwhile app. In an article published by the Association of Psychological Sciences, a group of researchers pinpointed the four key pillars that make for apps with merits for educating children: active, engaged, meaningful, socially interactive. Applying these metrics to your own app selection process might not be such a bad idea, even if you're out of grade school.
Besides, smartphone games have devolved into indistinguishable dopamine release vehicles, begging for your real-life money and ad clicks. Why not delete all that garbage from your already-too-full phone and install something that will offer you lasting value instead?
If you've seen the pharma-scifi opus Limitless (and not read Flowers for Algernon) you might think the idea of a magic pill that makes you smarter would be pretty cool. Nootropics are a subset of supplements that many claim to be that very magic bullet that ups their concentration and retention game. And unlike Adderall or Ritalin, you don't need a prescription to get them.
These cognition-enhancing supplements are stimulants, nutraceuticals, racetams, and other substances extracted from their food and natural-product sources and pressed into pills or poured into vials. When taken, these chemicals offer your brain the nutrients it might be lacking from your normal diet, thus allowing it to fire on all cylinders. You're not overclocking the engine as much as reducing drag.
Long-term effects are still unknown for most, though the FDA does a pretty good job about pulling anything off the shelf if there's even a whiff of danger. What's less researched, however, is the true efficacy of nootropics. Clinical studies tend to conclude with a call for further research, which is the scienctific Magic 8-Ball's "reply hazy, ask again later." So, like with all things in life, caveat emptor. You might be buffing your brain or might just be shitting away your limited funds.
Follow Justin Caffier on Twitter.
If you really sat down and tried, you could turn a lot of pages in the span of 30 days. While we provide you with about 120 of those pages every month, it turns out VICE isn't the only magazine in the world. This series, Ink Spots, is a helpful guide to which of those zines, pamphlets, and publications you should be reading when you're not reading ours.
There aren't many people these days committed to making 350-page glossy independent magazines—you know, the kind that give you arm-ache when you lift them. But Danish powerhouse team Simon Rasmussen, Zenia Jaeger, and Jesper Lund are an exception to the publishing world's aversion to those expensive, profit-losing passion projects of yesteryear. Their biannual Office magazine is about to drop a fifth issue with a line up featuring Harmony Korine on the cover, a shoot with the insanely beautiful musician Maxine Ashley, and interviews with designer and Kanye-collaborator Virgil Abloh, the musician Peaches, and artist Jason P. Grisell.
Office magazine is about arts and culture, sure, but with its profile pieces and "in conversation" features, it feels more like a beautiful collection of chic New Yorkers' lives at best, and a smart exploration of individuality and creativity at worst. Not bad for a small team of people with other jobs on the side, especially when you consider that the mag is stocked in 20 countries around the world.
We caught up with Simon, Zenia, and Jesper to find out more about how Office came into being, what some of the toughest moments have been for the publication, and what to expect from the team's latest issue.
Photo by Steph Mitchell
VICE: So first up, how do you
guys know each other?
Simon Rasmussen: We're all from Denmark, but live and work in NYC.
Zenia Jaeger: I was buying my drugs from Simon back in the early 2000s.
Simon: Yeah, Zenia and I were raving together in Copenhagen since we were in our early 20s, and then we met Jesper after moving to NYC through mutual friends here.
What are your "day jobs"?
Jesper Lund: Besides working on Office, I do creative direction and photography, Zenia works as a makeup artist, and
Simon does styling and consultancy.
Where was the idea for Office born?
Jesper: On
a hot August afternoon in 2014, Simon sent me an email about an idea he had for
a magazine—Zenia and him had been discussing it for a while. We all met up
the next day for a walk and talk in Central Park and we were generally feeling
uninspired with most of the fashion magazines in New York and decided wanted to start
our own publication.
What was the editorial
directive? Besides featuring the fashion, music, and culture you were into,
what would make the cut?
Jesper: Anything
with integrity, wit, irreverence, and honesty.
Simon: We are always looking for a point of view. The content—whether written or visual—has to have an opinion.
Zenia: Yeah, I think it needs to get reaction. It doesn't matter whether you like it or not, just as long as you can't help having an opinion about it... That's Office.
One cover from the first issue of 'Office'
Were
there ever any qualms over name? How did you come to it?
Zenia:
Not really, once we had it pinned down that that was it. We like how dry it is and
like the many title options that can start with office.... Office Slut, Out Of
Office, Office Trash. We have an
Office people Q&A section where
all the portraits are shot in people's offices.
What did issue one look like?
Jesper:
From the beginning, we decided to do three covers per issue: a male, a female, and an alternative, whether that be art, set design, or still life. Issue one's covers
featured Wiz Khalifa, Camille Rowe, and an empty office space in the outskirts
of Paris. In terms of design, it was important for me that the magazine didn't
feel too art directed. Some of our editorials are visually very overwhelming
and I didn't want the design elements to compete with the images.
How do you approach someone like Wiz Khalifa
or Camille Rowe and get them on board for a mag that doesn't exist yet?
Simon: We have been
working with Camille Rowe's model agency for a long time, and they know us
individually, so there weren't any trust issues. I guess they also understand
that sometimes you have to take risks, which also goes for the people behind Wiz
Khalifa. We all had many years of experience in the business before starting up
the magazine, and I don't think it would have been possible without our
pre-existing network.
And what about the Harmony Korine conversation with James Franco in the latest issue—how did that come up?
Jesper: I have always been a huge fan of Harmony, so we hit his
agent up. We knew that he had been spending more and more time in Miami after
Spring Breakers and were curious about what he was up to. Initially, we
wanted James to interview someone else for the issue, but that didn't work out
so we thought it would be interesting to have the two of them talk. They cover
a wide range of issue from the difficulties with Harmony's latest movie
The Trap and his fascination with Florida,
to the process of filmmaking, violence in movies, and Gucci Mane.
Photo by Steph Mitchell
Issue five also has an insanely beautiful photo
story on strippers in Atlanta. Simon, you styled it—where did the idea come
from, how was the experience, and who was the photographer?
Simon: Since I was a kid growing
up in Denmark, I've been intrigued by American culture from Hollywood to hip-hop music to fashion and food. When I moved here, I wanted to explore that
more. I found that strip clubs are a big thing here, and that strippers are not
looked down upon as they are in Denmark. In the US, they have power, they have
money, and they provide for their families. I wanted to see it with my own eyes
and meet some of them. We did some research, and Caitlan, from our
Office team, got through to Katrina, a
manager at Magic City. We flew down to Atlanta, stayed for a couple of
nights, and shot around ten different dancers in their home court. They were
being themselves, fooling around naked.
The idea was to shoot them in their element, but style them with some high-end designer clothes, something that didn't seem too far from something they would want to wear. The Magic City dancers did their own make up, styled their own hair, and came up with ideas for styling. It was a super fun shoot—probably one of my best work experiences ever. Not only were the Magic City dancers the sweetest and most fun girls you'll ever meet, but they could also pull some tricks out of the hat, like giving you a head-stand lap dance while doing a split. (I'm still in love with the dancer White Russian.) I shot the story with a very cool female photographer named Steff Mitchell . She's used some of the images in a recent photo exhibition and we are working on turning the whole project into a book.
That sounds like a definite
high point. What have your biggest lows?
Simon: That
it takes time, effort, persistency, a lot of emails, a lot of
rejections, broken relationships (Jesper lost his girlfriend), divorces (I was
divorced after issue two), couples therapy (Zenia is trying), maxed out credit
cards...
Zenia: There have been a lot of tough moments. When our last printer refused to print a beautiful image of a blowjob, I was really sad, surprised, and naively never thought that it was going to be a problem.
Jesper: And it often happens that we have to cut pages or editorials that either don't fit, or, for some reason, don't live up to our expectations. This is really tough and something I will never get used to.
Harmony Korine. Photo by Steph Mitchell
From your own personal experience, what would your advice be to
someone who wants to have their name on a masthead?
Jesper:
Start your own magazine
Simon: Please don't, honestly.
Zenia: Come intern for us—we are always looking: info@officemagazine.net
And finally, what does the
future (near and distant) hold for
office?
Simon:
We recently launched our
web shop, and in the beginning of November we are opening a coffee shop and newsstand at Canal Street
Market
. We are also planning on
doing a sports supplement for issue six, focusing on the intersections among sport, design, and fashion.
Jesper: We are also expanding our web presence and starting to do daily content later this fall... stay tuned.
Office magazine is stocked here.
Follow Amelia on Twitter.
