YouTube personality Erika Szabo. Photo courtesy Erika Szabo

When Erika Szabo, a video game and anime YouTube personality, ordered an Uber on a Sunday afternoon following a guest appearance at a convention in Toronto, she was looking to get home quickly after a long day and shitty weather. Just as her Uber driver pulled up, however, her phone died. Thinking it was the right thing to tell him about her dead phone in case it meant the payment wouldn't go through, she did just that.

(Photo: Hannah McKay, PA Wire/PA Images)

There is a day, once a year, in the Native American community of Taos Pueblo, northern New Mexico, when the clowns come to town. Half-naked men, covered in black-and-white make-up with their hair tied up in bunches, the clowns appear in the town's central plaza screaming at the top of their lungs, pushing people over, throwing children into the river, drinking urine and exposing themselves to old ladies.

In a fascinating 2006 radio documentary, Stewart Lee notes that the clowns play an important role in the sacred life of Taos Pueblo, interviewing an anthropologist who notes that the clowns effectively enforce the norms and customs of the community by negative example: they show everyone exactly how not to behave. In his documentary, Lee uses this to suggest something like a general theory of the function of clowning, and indeed of the function of humour more generally – it shows us, as it were, the limits of the community we inhabit. Laughter demarcates the bounds of sense.

Nowadays, as we know, the clowns are suddenly everywhere. The "creepy clown craze" has spread from America to all over the UK. And yet, for all their fascination, all their menace, these clowns seem somehow lost. Nothing I have read about the clown craze, at least, seems able to ascribe to them any deeper meaning, any coherent purpose. The clowns wander the earth listlessly, frightening its inhabitants for no real reason beyond alleviating their own boredom.

Whereas the traditional culture of Taos Pueblo, according to Lee's documentary, needs clowns to enforce order through ridiculousness, for us, clowns are completely superfluous. We don't need clowns to show us, by negative example, the limits of what is acceptable in our community. We have politicians to do that instead.

Trumpism, Brexit and the like have often been said to usher in a new era of "post-truth" politics, where anything goes. But, of course, that label is a misnomer – implying as it does some hallowed era of "truth" politics in which all of our leaders were very honest. As the journalist Sam Kriss has asked, "In 2003, when we were told that half the world could be obliterated by Iraqi weapons within 45 minutes, were we still in pre-post-truth politics?"

What is actually going on is that Trump, Farage, Boris Johnson and their acolytes have managed – incredibly successfully – to disrupt what previously-established norms there were of coherent, acceptable political debate. This includes some norms of what might count as "true", absolutely – but it also includes a lot of rules of decorum, or of the sort of thing you are or are not allowed to promise the electorate.

Post-Brexit, the Tory right has been making all sorts of statements that, were they to have been uttered even a year ago, would have seemed like they must be some sort of grim satire. Women should have to present their passports before being allowed to give birth in NHS hospitals; supporting British membership of the European Union ought to be a treasonable offence carrying a maximum sentence of life in jail; all child refugees must have their age verified by being submitted to forcible tests of their teeth and bones – that sort of thing. These are now things that, increasingly, it is becoming perfectly acceptable for members of mainstream political parties to suggest, as genuine policy proposals, in our actual public discourse. No wonder, perhaps, that this has coincided with such a marked raise in clown attacks – their normal duties have been completely usurped.

It's almost as if, one day, the leaders of the Taos Pueblo had taken to drinking urine and throwing children in the river – not on the clown day, just on any normal day. People might protest, but if piss-drinkers persisted, eventually their behaviour would become normalised. Before long, people who found piss drinking disgusting would be too busy being horrified at the new trend for eating shit.

Of course, in many ways the easiest thing to do here is going to be to get up on our high horses and stay there. We could act like these people have transgressed some sacred limits – that they are sure to get their comeuppance eventually, and that we should therefore continue to respect the old limits regardless (thoughts turn to asinine Democrats crowd-funding the re-opening of Trump's campaign office in North Carolina). This, of course, is wrong. What we should do instead is treat what the "piss-drinking right" are doing as an object lesson in political strategy.

With ever-increasing force and speed, the right are stretching the limits of acceptable political debate rightwards. This is already having dire consequences: racism, it seems, is already back as part of the political mainstream. What we must do is fight fire with fire, or rather piss with piss. Serious career politicians from the left need to start going on the news, and straight-facedly declare: the workers must be given control of the means of production. All the banks must have their assets confiscated, to be redistributed among the people. The Brexit result needs to be torn up. The Royal Family should be abolished, Prince Charles must be sent to work in a factory to purify his soul. The sort of stuff the press imagine Corbyn and McDonnell are saying when they see them in their nightmares, as opposed to the fairly polite democratic socialism they in fact advocate.

Of course these politicians will be pilloried in the press, of course they will attract ridicule, anger, hate. But over time, the limits of acceptable discussion will be stretched out leftwards, and then maybe we will be able to achieve some sort of polite democratic-socialist consensus. The force of what is moderate, modest and "realistic" will only genuinely be felt when it is backed up by a dream that's wild and extreme, with our pyjamas drenched in piss.

@HealthUntoDeath

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In Defence of Remoaners

Source: Steve Woodmore

First they came for the migrants, and I did not speak up, because I was not a migrant. Then they came for the Marmite, and I was like "LOL WUT, TESCO HOW CAN YOU DO THIS?? I'M A #LOVER...MADDD 4 THE BROWN STUFF!!!"

Yes, it seemed for a moment as if the biggest casualty of the Brexit vote so far would be Brits' beloved yeasty spread. Unilever – the company that makes Marmite, as well as Hellman's Mayonnaise and Comfort fabric softener – wanted to raise wholesale prices by 10 percent to offset the money they were losing from the falling pound (they're an international company, so the £1.50 people spent on Marmite – which, last year, was worth as much as $3 – is now only worth about $1.84).

Tesco refused to cough up the extra cash, and instead responded by removing all of Unilever's products from their website. This prompted David Davies, Tory MP and seemingly a man who doesn't understand that more expensive things cost more money, to tweet this:

The two companies have now come to a resolution, but the struggle raises a bigger issue: how worried should we be that the pound is worth less?

Here's a cheeky bit of macro-economics that you have to know. Currency, like anything, has a value. The pound is worth less today than it was a few months ago. That means if you get paid £1,000 a month, that £1,000 is now worth less than it was before Brexit. That doesn't really matter when the £500 rent you pay is also worth less, but becomes immediately noticeable when you go to, let's say, America, and all the rainbow bagels and rare trainers you want to buy are way more expensive.

But it will start to become more noticeable here, too. For example, when Jacob's Creek pay their farmers in France and California, they're going to have to spend more pounds to pay them the same wages in euros and dollars. That means if you want to buy a lovely bottle of Jacob's Creek Sauvignon Blanc, you might have to pay a bit more. Or if you work at the Jacob's Creek head office, you might find your Christmas bonus looking a bit paltry.

The weaker pound is already affecting the prices of petrol, air fares, clothes and food, because these are sectors heavily reliant on international imports, and there are more rises predicted the future. This means most of us are going to feel poorer, particularly families on low income, because many government benefits and tax credits – which used to be linked to inflation – have been frozen until 2020, so while prices go up, these families won't receive any extra financial assistance. The Institute for Fiscal Studies reckons that more than 11 million households will, on average, be £360 a year worse off if inflation rises to 2.8 percent in the next few years. Families on lower incomes, who receive more in benefits, will experience a reduction of £470 a year.

All of which makes life harder for ordinary people. So why is everyone from the Spectator to the Guardian celebrating the weaker pound?

Well, for many years the UK has been running a current account deficit: we have been importing more than we export. That's not really sustainable, because it means our economy is propped up by borrowing, consumer spending (people taking out big credit card loans to go on shopping sprees) and foreign direct investment (selling various parts of Britain off to foreign investors, like Tata Steel). Much of our economic growth has also come from the housing price bubble.

Basically, our economy has been growing but we are spending more than we're making, and that has a tendency to lead to an economic crash. In fact, almost every economic crash in recent times has been precipitated by a large current account deficit.

A weaker pound should mean that it's easier for Britain to export its goods to foreign markets, because prices for buyers will be cheaper. Industries like tourism will boom, as foreign visitors flock to the UK for cheap prices (ironic, considering many people voted for Brexit because they wanted fewer foreigners in Britain) and companies should experience increased demand from international customers. Even at a basic level, if you sell homemade dreamcatchers on Etsy, for example, it will now be cheaper for someone in Oregon to buy one and you might find you sell more of them. Unfortunately, you won't be able to buy as much with your sweet dreamcatcher profits, but that's sort of good for the economy overall – it stops growth being so reliant on spending.

Put simply, a weaker pound means our economy will become less reliant on us buying stuff at the shops and more reliant on us selling our goods and services to other countries. This should create a more balanced economy, reducing the current account deficit. This was always going to happen at some point; the fact that it has come about from Brexit only means that it hasn't come about from some terribly damaging crash.

Of course, with economics, things aren't that simple. Some think tanks believe that reduced spending and rising inflation will fuck economic growth even if exports increase. Others warn that, because of the political implications of the Brexit vote, many foreign investors won't invest in Britain even if it's cheaper, because they're afraid our country is a shitshow run by a bunch of loons who will soon find it impossible to secure decent trade deals.

But it seems that most economists – including former governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King – think a weaker pound is long overdue and entirely necessary. That won't make much difference to you when Marmite inevitably does become more expensive, or if you work for an import-reliant employer that refuses to give you a pay rise because they're absorbing higher costs. But it could help redress big problems in the UK economy, a necessary change considering the turbulent and uncertain times ahead.

@samwolfson

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(Photo: Todd McCann, via)

A 22-year-old man is currently on trial for farting in a child's face. Gary McKenzie claims his gassing in the kid's mouth was an accident, but the prosecution has described it as an act of bullying. He's also accused of punching the boy and trying to suffocate another child.

The victim alleged: "He pumped. He was right next to me and bending down, he was wearing shorts, his shorts were right next to my face. I said, 'Why did you do that?' and he said he did it because he wanted to be nasty."

McKenzie allegedly put a pillow on another kid's face and sucked his eye, causing bruising – though says he was just playing. Prosecutor Paul Abrahams said: "It might be, at a rugby club, done to someone who had drunk ten pints and fallen asleep that one might think of this as horseplay. But this was a child at the time and was highly inappropriate."

McKenzie denies the allegations and the trial continues.

This isn't the only instance of supposed banter gone awry. Just last month a man was placed on the sex offenders register for pulling someone's trousers down in a pub. Paul Andrew Peggs of York will be on the register for five years for yanking at the 19-year-old's jeans in a pub smoking area.

"That sort of activity is deeply upsetting and deeply humiliating for that young man," said Paul Batty QC. "I do not consider it a prank. It was really rather more than that, and deeply distressing for the young man involved."

On the more righteous end of bad bants is Rian Bartwell, who, in 2015, washed a child's mouth out with soap after he spotted the kid trying to kick an elderly man's walking stick. Bartwell approached the six-year-old boy, who told him to "fuck off" and called him a "gay boy". The child – whose name is Alfi Forsyth – wasn't best pleased about this, so told his mother, who complained to the police. Bartwell got a fine of £100 and a 12-month conditional discharge.

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(Photo by Unsplash via)

You haven't truly lived until you've gone through a dry spell. Something about a period of unintentional celibacy and singledom brings your existence into sharp relief. Or, at least, that's what Josh Hartnett tried to teach us in 40 Days, 40 Nights.

But now, with all the reports of teens drinking less underage, taking drugs and smoking less often, and generally turning into a group of woke 40-year-olds by the time they've hit 25, we're starting to see sexlessness seep into relationships too. An August study found higher rates of sexual inactivity among millennials in the US, running against the grain of the "hookup culture" think-pieces that have tried to demonise the place where online dating and casual sex collide.

Dry spells aren't just a single person cliche, it seems, so we spoke to a few people about why they've ended up in sexless relationships and how it's going.

"I'd be more up for it if he were better in bed"

I would be more up for it than I already am if the guy I'm with right now was better in bed. Any time I go round to his, the foreplay's always pretty shit, so I've started to make excuses. He never goes down on me, either. I was shocked when we first had sex: he'd been in a long-term relationship, so just assumed he'd be a lot more experienced. I chalked it up to me having some really great sexual partners in the past, but I can't even bring it up as his ex cheated on him and he just can't take criticism. He even cried when I tried to break up with him. Now I just actively avoid having sex with him. I'm not really sure how long this can go on for.

— Laura, 24

"If I'm honest, I don't miss sex that much"

I lost my job around a year ago and then put on shedloads of weight, so sex was the last thing on my mind. My boyfriend had relocated not long after, and I saw him every other weekend, so not sleeping together wasn't too much an issue at first.

But we've barely slept together since and, if I'm totally honest, I don't miss it all that much. I've never had a particularly high sex drive as it is. Now I make excuses not to see him as much, as I know he wants to have sex. And if I do, I've tried to time it on my period. I can't get away with it entirely, though - there have been times when I've gone through with it just to avoid another argument, but then I end up feeling resentful. He occasionally brings it up whenever we fight about something like the dishes, so I know he's a lot more bothered about it than he lets on.

But honestly? I'm just not into it. I don't think I fancy him as much as I used to. There have been a few times where I've been tempted, but it was never with him – maybe a co-worker or a guy mate. The guilt got the better of me, though.

It isn't enough for me to finish with him – at least not now. We've been through a lot together and I couldn't start over again. Not to mention that I doubt any other guy would willingly put up with months of never sleeping together. I'm hoping I'll get back to the point where I want to, but will it happen anytime soon? I doubt it.

— Steph*, 25

"Nowadays I'm lucky to get a handjob"

I couldn't believe it when I first got with Emma*. I'd known her for a while, and we'd occasionally get together when we were drunk, but she'd recently come out of a shit relationship and said she wasn't really looking for anything else. To my surprise (and all my mates' surprise), she did. We made it official a few months later.

We had a great sex life at first. Sometimes she'd even be the one to initiate it. But after we finished uni and she moved back home, our sex lives become unexciting and basically non-existent. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to get a handjob. I know Emma struggles with depression so I've tried not to take it personally, but you don't feel too great about yourself when your own girlfriend doesn't want to have sex with you.

I've got my own place now, but whenever Emma stays round and I've tried to get closer to her it doesn't really go anywhere. I wouldn't complain if she instigated things a bit more, but I guess I can wait if it means still being with her.

— Jack*, 24

Screen shot from an episode of VICE's "People Who Just Had Sex"

"I might just not be that keen on sex with him"

Most of my friends are engaged or married now, and it's no secret that I've felt the pressure to settle down. I met my current boyfriend on a dating app. He ticks all the boxes on paper: he's got a great job, dresses well and it's great in every way, except for the fact we've barely slept together since we first got together. I do feel guilty, but there's never been a time when I've really been massively into it.

That said, I did meet a guy a couple of years younger at a bar about a month ago. We spent weeks flirting with each other on WhatsApp and finally pinned down a date to do the deed. It fell through at the last minute, but it did make me realise that it's not that I'm not interested in sex; it might be that I'm not that into him. I should end it, but I've got a long winter stretching ahead of me and, if I'm honest, I don't fancy spending it alone.

— Georgie, 26

"We never went 'all the way' – he was married"

Clichéd as it is, I fell for a married man. Although we "dated" for six months or so, we never went the whole way. As crazy as it sounds, I really did think that would have been one step too far. He was OK with that and we used to do other stuff, which suited me fine.

Ultimately, a sexless relationship just isn't going to work for me – it ended up causing a massive strain on the relationship as we were both constantly horny and I wasn't going to budge. And clearly he wasn't OK with it: I ended it when I went through his phone one dinner and found him sexting no less than five girls. I'm so glad I held off.

— Olivia*, 22

*Some names have been changed

@its_me_salma

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Karena Virginia is the tenth woman to come forward with allegations that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump touched her without her consent.

At a press conference facilitated by women's rights attorney Gloria Allred, Virginia spoke of the day in 1998 when she says Trump randomly walked up to her with a few other men and touched the inside of her breast while she was waiting for a car in Flushing, Queens.

"I was quite surprised when I overheard him talking to the other men about me... as though I was an object rather than a person," she read from her statement. She said after Trump made comments about her looks, "He then walked up to me and reached his right arm and grabbed my right arm. Then his hand touched the right inside of my breast."

"'Don't you know who I am?' That's what he said to me," she added.

Virginia, a life coach and yoga instructor, said she felt compelled to come forward about the incident following the release of the 2005 Access Hollywood tape and Trump's continual denial about the allegations at Wednesday night's presidential debate. She said she also wanted to support the numerous women who have come forward, including Summer Zervos, a former Apprentice contestant who gave a press conference with Allred just last week.

Wednesday's debate offered Trump one final chance to address the growing number of accusations against him to a national audience before voters head to the polls. Trump, for his part, said that the allegations were lies and that he hadn't even apologized to his wife, Melania, because he didn't do anything.

"I have been advised that Mr. Trump will probably call me a liar, just as he called all the other women liars who have made accusations against him," Virginia said. "Or perhaps he will label me as just another 'nasty woman.'"

Read: We Asked a Lawyer if Donald Trump Could Ever Get Prosecuted for Sexual Assault

The Nintendo Switch in all its portable glory, showing off the new Zelda game (screencaps via YouTube)

Nintendo has finally put to bed months, if not years, of rumours surrounding its next home console, previously codenamed the NX, by formally revealing, with a three-minute preliminary announcement, what the Switch is all about. Which is this, basically:

Under the proverbial hood, the system has... Actually, the video tells us nothing about the tech specs of this thing, although it does seem to show cartridges are used, rather than discs (see 0:52 of the video). And that's OK, for now – full specifics will be revealed before March 2017.

UPDATE: NVIDIA has posted a blog outlining how its Tegra processor is under the Switch's proverbial hood. The post concludes: "NVIDIA gaming technology is integrated into all aspects of the new Nintendo Switch home gaming system, which promises to deliver a great experience to gamers."

Here's the footage that Nintendo has released, showing off the console's unique look and functionality:

Regarding new games seen in today's video, the known factor of Zelda aside, that might be an updated Mario Kart 8, and there's previously unseen footage of both Splatoon and Mario titles, albeit without the context necessary to know for certain if they're Switch-exclusive projects. (We know a new Mario is on the way.) But one thing is for sure: that is Skyrim, on Nintendo.

Look, see: that is 'Skyrim'

The much-discussed play at home, and on the move aspect of the machine – "Interact with your game on the go" was the leaked marketing messaging at the start of October – has manifested as a rather nifty little slot and slide system which features detachable controller parts, a portable, tablet-sized screen, and a plugged-into-the-TV dock. (We don't see anyone touch the screen in the reveal, but that doesn't mean it's not a touch screen.) Meaning you're getting, essentially, the Wii U GamePad and Pro Controller with the same components. This is the "Joy-Con" controller, to use the official Nintendo name for it.

Reads an official statement on the controllers, from Nintendo:

"One player can use a Joy-Con controller in each hand; two players can each take one; or multiple Joy-Con controllers can be employed by numerous people for a variety of gameplay options. They can easily click back into place or be slipped into a Joy-Con grip accessory, mirroring a more traditional controller. Or, if preferred, the gamer can select an optional Nintendo Switch Pro Controller to use instead of the Joy-Con controllers. Furthermore, it is possible for numerous people to bring their Nintendo Switch consoles together to enjoy local multiplayer face-to-face competition."

Which sounds great, but perhaps more likely to break than a traditional pad? Build quality is going to be so essential with this kind of controller, if it's being repeatedly taken apart and put together in different ways. Also, those "single" pads are tiny: I don't have massive hands, but they're already cramping up in anticipation.

Of the new footage, Nintendo of Europe President Satoru Shibata says (via a timely press release):

"With this first look at Nintendo Switch, I hope fans are already imagining the possibilities of having the freedom to play when, where, and how they want to. Our teams at Nintendo, and many other developers, are all working hard to create new and unique experiences, and we look forward to showing you more."

Several developers are confirmed as working on projects for the Switch, including Bandai Namco, Telltale Games, Electronic Arts, Bethesda, Codemasters, Grasshopper Manufacture, PlatinumGames, Epic Games, Ubisoft, Warner Bros., FromSoftware, Sega, Capcom, Square Enix and Konami. That's some solid third-party support, right there.

The logo for the Nintendo Switch (image courtesy of Nintendo)

The famous Japanese company will be looking to the Switch to turn around its commercial performance in the home gaming market. While the 2006-introduced Wii sold in excess of 100 million units globally, placing it third behind the PlayStation and PS2 in terms of under-the-telly machines across history, the Wii U's 13 million units shifted since 2012 has been a painful thorn in Nintendo's side for too long. Its comparatively poor performance, affected by muddled pre-launch messaging (was this a new console, or a Wii peripheral?), has resulted in countless articles regarding Nintendo's future fortunes, and just how long it could be before the company, founded in 1889, crumbles and just makes games for its console competitors, Sega-style.

The Switch offers fresh hope that this oldest of video game industry pillars isn't close to collapsing. For one thing, even before the Switch's reveal we knew there was a beautiful-looking new Legend of Zelda on the way, scheduled as a then-NX launch title. Courtesy of Nintendo Japan, just drink in the delicious visuals of today's (perhaps accidentally, perhaps not) "leaked" footage from Breath of the Wild, and tell me you don't want to spend an age in that world.

That's just "in development" code, and apparently for the Wii U no less – but I want to go there now, to be quite honest. And just imagine how much more beautiful it'll be on Nintendo's new hardware. But I have to wait until March 2017, when the Switch is released to the public. Bummer. Still, until then there's the NES Mini to occupy my time – they told me that the classics never go out of style, and they don't, they don't.

VICE Gaming is now Waypoint. Our standalone website (think Noisey, Munchies, Motherboard – still VICE, but separate from the main site) is coming soon – at the end of October – and in the meantime you can follow our new socials: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch and more.

Donald Trump and his tiny hands at the debate. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

By far, the most talked-about moment from Wednesday night's final debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was Trump's telling moderator Chris Wallace that "I'll keep you in suspense" about whether he'd concede on election night if it became clear that he lost. Accusations about elections being stolen are common among all-caps types on both sides of the aisle, of course, but a presidential candidate theorizing that a vote might be invalid weeks in advance of the actual contest is unprecedented. It's the kind of institution-bashing that for a lot of people makes Trump look dangerous—and not "Steven Seagal in a movie" dangerous, but "broken fridge falling out a window dangerous." (On Thursday, Trump told a crowd that he'd accept the results "if I win.")

But a single apocalyptic exchange shouldn't obscure the larger fact that this was a lousy debate. Though both candidates were relatively good at staying on-message, those messages were filled with the same kind of viciousness that has run through the entire campaign. Combine that with Clinton's dodges on questions critical of her and Trump's penchant for talking comment-section nonsense until someone stops him, and you have a 90-minute TV program as grim as anything on HBO but without the nudity, violence, or literary themes.

Let's have a look at some of the lowlights:

Trump, on what Wallace called "late-term, partial-birth abortions": "If you go with what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby. Now, you can say that that's OK and Hillary can say that that's OK. But it's not OK with me, because based on what she's saying, and based on where she's going, and where she's been, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month on the final day. And that's not acceptable."

Part of the problem here is the phrasing of the question—as VICE News points out, "partial-birth abortions" is a term conjured up by a pro-life group to describe late-term abortions, which are rare and almost always performed for an urgent health reason. But here Trump takes a standard right-wing positions—abortions are bad—and makes it incoherent. "Ripping the baby out of the womb" on the "final day" is... a C-section? A stillbirth? Unsurprisingly, a father of five who once bragged about not changing diapers seems a little fuzzy on the details of reproductive health.

Trump, on deportations: "President Obama has moved millions of people out. Nobody knows about it, nobody talks about it. But under Obama, millions of people have been moved out of this country. They've been deported. She doesn't want to say that, but that's what's happened, and that's what happened big league."

As expected, during the immigration portion of the debate, Trump accuses Clinton of being soft and pro-amnesty, and Clinton paints Trump as heartless. But Trump also says that Clinton did vote for a border wall in 2006—which she admits—and referenced Obama's reputation as the "deporter in chief." First of all, people have been talking about this for years. But secondly, why portray your opponent as secretly agreeing with you? Is the idea that Clinton is a flip-flopper? Doesn't that dovetail with Clinton's emphasize that she is actually pro–border security. I honestly have no idea why Trump brings this up.

Clinton, when asked about a leaked portion of a speech transcript in which she said she dreamed of "a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders": "Well, if you went on to read the rest of the sentence, I was talking about energy... But you are very clearly quoting from WikiLeaks. And what's really important about WikiLeaks is that the Russian government has engaged in espionage against Americans."

Actually, in context, it's far from clear she just meant energy, and her "dream" of open borders would make sense given her documented support of free trade. (Though we would know more about the context if Clinton released the full transcript of that speech.) And though all the available evidence points to the hack of her campaign chairman's emails as being the work of Russia, the question of what she actually thinks about trade and the question of Russian cyberattacks are totally separate. Just as you don't need to love Edward Snowden to discuss the NSA programs that his leaking revealed, you can think that Russian hacking is bad and talk about newsworthy items in those hacked emails. But obviously, Clinton would rather talk about Russia than those speeches. As Trump says moments later, "That was a great pivot off the fact that she wants open borders."

Trump, on Russia: "Now we can talk about Putin. I don't know Putin. He said nice things about me. If we got along well, that would be good. If Russia and the United States got along well and went after ISIS, that would be good."

Even though he acknowledges she dodged the question, Trump lets the subject change—then gives Clinton a soundbite about Russia and the US getting along that just affirms the idea that he's Vladimir Putin's preferred candidate. This leads to a testy, interruption-filled exchange where he says, "Putin has outsmarted her in Syria." Later he'd say that Syrian president Bashar al Assad is "tougher and much smarter than her and Obama"—not the sort of praise candidates usually heap on regimes widely accused of war crimes.

Clinton, during an exchange on the sexual assault allegations against Trump:"America is great, because America is good. And it really is up to all of us to make that true, now and in the future, and particularly for our children and our grandchildren."
Wallace: "Mr. Trump..."
Trump: "Nobody has more respect for women than I do. Nobody."

This portion of the debate, on the "fitness to be president," is basically just a series of questions aimed at Trump about why he's such an unbelievable asshole. This has come up at every debate, and every time he's just asserted that he respects women—which is at this point a joke. If Trump could get through one of these things looking like a president rather than a combination of Rodney Dangerfield and Judge Smails, maybe these questions would come up less often.

Clinton, after being asked about allegations that she gave special treatment to Clinton Foundation donors while she was secretary of state:"I am happy, in fact I'm thrilled to talk about the Clinton Foundation, because it is a world-renowned charity and I am so proud of the work that it does. You know, I could talk for the rest of the debate—I know I don't have the time to do that."

This is the start of an exchange too long to reproduce here, but basically Clinton responds to questions from both Trump and Wallace about her family foundation by completely ignoring them and emphasizing instead what great work it does. She doesn't address the idea that there was special access given to donors—not even to deny it—and when Trump asks why the foundation took money from Saudi Arabia, she glides right past it. (Her defense, presumably, would be that the Saudis gave that money before she was secretary of state, but she was a senator on the verge of running for president in 2008.) Clinton is obviously not happy talking about all this, and tries to get the conversation to the Trump Foundation, which has its own problems.

Trump, on the offensive to take the Iraqi city of Mosul from ISIS: "So we're now fighting for Mosul, that we had. All she had to do was stay there, and now we're going in to get it. But you know who the big winner in Mosul is going to be after we eventually get it? And the only reason they did it is because she's running for the office of president, and they want to look tough. They want to look good... Iran should write us a letter of thank you, just like the really stupid—the stupidest deal of all time, a deal that's going to give Iran absolutely nuclear weapons. Iran should write us yet another letter saying thank you very much, because Iran, as I said many years ago, Iran is taking over Iraq, something they've wanted to do forever, but we've made it so easy for them."

Trump on foreign policy is an enigma wrapped in a riddle inside a man who still doesn't know what he's talking about. Is he against the offensive of Mosul? How does he think the operation helps Iran? What, other than time-traveling backward to stop the Iraq War from happening, does he actually think the US should do? The difference on the issue between Clinton and Trump isn't between a hawk and a dove but between a hawk and a hawk that has undergone a lobotomy.

Clinton, talking about Social Security: "Well, Chris, I am on record as saying that we need to put more money into the Social Security Trust Fund. That's part of my commitment to raise taxes on the wealthy. My Social Security payroll contribution will go up, as will Donald's, assuming he can't figure out how to get out of it. But what we want to do is to replenish the Social Security Trust Fund..."
Trump: "Such a nasty woman."

All three debates have been mud-slinging affairs, but the two candidates go low in vastly different ways. Clinton goes low by pretending she's not going low—remember, her best friend Michelle Obama said that "when they go low, we go high"—then launching attacks on Trump shipping jobs to Mexico, using Chinese steel, spinning conspiracy theories, and being a Russian puppet and too unstable to trust with nuclear weapons. But she never calls him names, unless you count "Donald."

Trump, though, skips the part where he pretends to give a shit about decorum. Maybe this is a conscious strategy on his part in order to not look like a typical politician, but here he manages to validate everything everyone says about him: He's easily baited, impulsive, a name-caller barely able to control his misogyny no matter how many times he reassures us he respects women. Oh, and in the process, he created a pro-Clinton meme. Not bad for four short words.

Transcript of the debate via the Washington Post.

Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.

Illustrations by Joel Benjamin

I don't like my inner child. I don't like her because I was taught from a very young age that my needs—particularly hunger—were unnatural, bottomless, too gargantuan for this world. I came to see my needs as something that would ultimately destroy me if I didn't keep them under control.

I dislike my inner child so much, in fact, that I can't even deal with the words "inner child." Like the words "self-love" and "self-care," I feel that this is a wimpy thing to say. I'm embarrassed, even, to use these words here. My inner child is telling me that I will be harshly judged for using the words "inner child," likely in the comments section.

My inner child always anticipates the worst possible kind of judgment. She does this to protect me from being hurt. She does this so that she'll be able to say later, Well, we already knew that would happen.

The concept of an inner child is said to have originated with Jung's "child archetype" or "the archetype of the divine child."

"It is a striking paradox in all child myths that the 'child' is on the one hand delivered helpless into the power of terrible enemies and in continual danger of extinction, while on the other he possesses powers far exceeding those of ordinary humanity," said Jung.

While I don't like my inner child, or even the concept of an inner child, I find myself listening to mine all the fucking time...

Jung's version of the inner child was sort of badass, and didn't reek of cruising the self-help section at Barnes & Noble on Saturday night in a pair of hemp pants. It was only when pop psychologist John Bradshaw adopted the child archetype for his exploration of "healing your wounded child" via guided meditations, affirmations, and letter-writing to said child that shit got woo-woo.

While I don't like my inner child, or even the concept of an inner child, I find myself listening to mine all the fucking time: the panic she emits, the sense of urgency, the idea that I have to do everything on my own, because no one wants to help me.

It's gross to ask anything of another person, she says. You'll get rejected, and that will cause you pain. It's better not to have needs. Let's just shut up and panic quietly.

My inner child has been saying these things for so long, and with such authority, that it really feels like she is protecting me from imminent danger, even as she terrorizes me. While I would live a much more peaceful life if I could put her to the side, I'm scared that if I ignore her—the warnings, calls for self-sufficiency and cautionary tales about people who want too much—that there will be no one left in control. What will become of me then?

My inner child is persistent. She doesn't want to go hang out somewhere else while I take care of adult shit. She doesn't want me to attempt to "heal" her or connect with her in a therapeutic way, via roller coasters, ice cream cones, art therapy, positive "re-parenting" (I don't even like parents), aforementioned affirmations, or however the people she perceives as "losers" talk about connecting to their inner children. It's also possible that my inner child isn't necessarily opposed to these things, but she doesn't believe that she's allowed to do them. What if, like most children, her strongest desire is to let go, be playful? If that's the case, she would have to be taught that it's OK, and totally safe, to not be in control. But what will motivate me to try that when this way has always sort of worked?

Sometimes we only change when we are in enough pain: when we reach the end of a particular road or have nothing in which we can hide any longer. I feel that way with my inner child. In the past, I reached for things like drugs, sex, food, ambition, and attention to soothe both of us. The narcotic effects of these things were the only way that we could continue to coexist—the only way I could find relief from the sound of her voice without killing her (and really, myself) entirely. But over the years, each of these things eventually led to a dead end. Even positive things like my meditation practice, running, or therapy only last a little while, and then she roars back to take charge.

"The archetype does not proceed from physical fact, but describes how the psyche experiences physical fact," said Jung. "One of the essential features of the child motif is its futurity. The child is potential future... Life is a flux, a flowing into the future, and not a stoppage or a backwash. It is therefore not surprising that so many of the mythological saviors are child gods."

I'd like to think of self-help in this way—not as a ten-day program, a book to complete, a juice fast to endure, a conscious rebirthing, or any other means to some imaginary perfect end where I arrive whole on the other side. Jung's sentiment is simple: within the symbol of the child lives an inherent hope and possibility. These elements arrive from an unknown future, a journey, rather than some predictable, definitive end.

Yet my child, as she exists now, demands to foresee exact results: to say the future will be precisely a certain way, so as to provide the illusion of safety from a terrifying unknown. But her predictions, and attempts to control outcomes, do not mean that other terrifying unknowns won't happen. And what if the unknown isn't a bad thing, but a thing of positive possibility?

When I think of these ideas, my inner child seems totally surprised, as if the possibility of something other than a shitty future had never dawned on her. It feels unsafe, foolish even, to just chill: to have a day without worry, protection, alarm, preparation.

What are we really protecting ourselves from? I ask her.

From suffering, she says.

Maybe that's true. But aren't we suffering now?

If you are concerned about your mental health or that of someone you know, visit the Mental Health America website.

Buy So Sad Today: Personal Essays on Amazon, and follow her on Twitter.

Chiron, in a still from the trailer for "Moonlight"

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Throughout my life I've struggled with what it meant to be simultaneously black and gay. Though my racial and sexual identity weigh equally on my overall being, it's easy to see them as sometimes at odds with each other. In our society, both "blackness" and "gayness" have commonly been dealt with in monolithic terms, and I feel a constant pressure to pick one over the other.

When black men denounce one of the most prominent activists of the #BLACKLIVESMATTER movement simply because he's openly gay, I struggle to see where I fit into the black community. But when white men mandate that "No Blacks" message them on dating apps, I struggle just as much to see where I fit into the gay community. I know that I live at the intersection of both identities, but sometimes it can feel like being black and gay is to live in between two mutually exclusive wholes.

It's for this reason that I was as scared as I was excited to see Moonlight, the second film by Barry Jenkins, who previously directed the critically acclaimed indie feature Medicine for Melancholy. It centers on Chiron, a gay black man growing up in a rough Miami neighborhood, and a variety of life circumstances specific to that experience: His mother is a crack addict, his father is absent, and he's forced to hide his sexuality throughout the course of the film for fear of his life. Even from the film's trailer, one could tell that many of those experiences would invite brutal violence against him, and it was promising to know that audiences would finally get a firsthand look at how not all gay lives are the same.

But as significant as it is to see a queer film that didn't focus on the quasi-privileged experiences of yet another white protagonist, I shuddered at the thought of what this movie could say about black culture as a whole and its connections with homophobia. In our current cultural climate, where innocent black men are being shot dead by police due to racialized assessments of how dangerous they might be, I knew how risky it could be to release a movie that depicted any black men as aggressive and violent.

But I also didn't see how a story like this could be told without being upfront about those harsh realities. For as important as I felt it was to curb the notion that all black men are inherently violent and aggressive, I felt it would be irresponsible to not look into those that are. Simply put, the potentially violent relationship that exists between gay black men and homophobic straight black men is central to understanding what it means to grow up as black and gay. It's not an enjoyable life.

And Moonlight confirms that. The film—told in three acts, documenting three different periods in the protagonist's life: his childhood, his adolescence and his adulthood—is utterly heartbreaking. When we first see Chiron, he's being chased through the street by young neighborhood boys, screaming "Get his gay ass!" Later, he gets stomped out to a bloody pulp by bullies during his lunch period. We see his own crack addicted mother taunt him to his face. Moonlight doesn't try to gloss over the severity of what it means to be gay "in the hood"—in fact, it firmly asserts that being gay in this Miami neighborhood means that you will be an outcast amongst your peers, that you will live in fear of walking by yourself, and will likely be bullied until you can somehow escape. These homophobic realities function as the emotional centerpiece of the movie.

But rather than let those realities overwhelm the script, Jenkins also uses Moonlight to point to an equally important fact: not everyone from the "hood" is bad. Poverty is not a monolith—there are levels to it, and Jenkins' trained eye draws out subtleties in the experience of his film's characters that render it much more vivid, tragic, and affecting than they might be otherwise. It's that ability to color those experiences in subtle shades that adds a much needed nuance to the marginalized existences being shown. Even if it is true that potentially violent homophobic attitudes are pervasive in black male culture, it's also true that this "culture" is not representative of everyone within it. Although Chiron's life is made undeniably hard by those around him, there are still some people—particularly men—willing to fight against those norms and accept him as a human being.

It's telling that the first character seen on screen is not Chiron, but the man who becomes near wholly responsible for shaping his sense of manhood and self. Juan—a buff drug dealer who commands deep respect from nearly all of his neighbors, a type of respect based less on money or intimidation than one's character—could easily have become a homophobic stereotype. But he becomes one of the only people in Chiron's life who loves him in spite of his budding sexuality.

In one scene, a young Chiron asks Juan, "What's a faggot?" Juan answers, "A 'faggot' is a word used to make gay people feel bad." When Chiron then asks if he is one, Juan assures the young boy, "You could be gay, but you don't gotta let people call you a faggot." It's a moment that works to dismantle the belief that all black men, particularly those from the inner city, are homophobic. Juan's role is one of Moonlight's most profound, as it shows the audience that just like anyone else, black men—even those that you might expect to be bad, like drug dealers—have the ability to be good people. Despite being seemingly entrenched in traditional notions of black masculinity, Juan saw a damaged boy that needed a father figure, and willfully decided to fill that role.

It is, of course, important to show the harsh realities of what it means to live at the intersection of being black and gay. People like us face very unique challenges that are frequently ignored in the wider conversation about what it means to live as a gay man. But even with that, those challenges shouldn't dominate the conversation in a way that perpetuates the false narrative that black people—and black men in particular—are inherently closed-minded and prone to violence. As Juan's character shows, there's much more to a man than where he's from or how he presents himself. It is possible to have a hard exterior with a caring heart.

By the film's third and final act, Chiron has matured into a reincarnation of Juan. After relocating to Atlanta, Chiron—who now goes by "Black"—got buff, started dealing drugs, and wearing grills. In an effort to explain the transformation, Chiron says, "I built myself from the ground up. I built myself hard." Of course, it's evident that the "hardness" he now embodies doesn't equate with the softness we saw when he was a child, one who was constantly bullied by his peers. But it's also this very tension between Chiron's inner and outer personas that reinforces the film's central idea: that we need to rethink how we categorize black men as a whole. After all, if the harmless Chiron can bench press and deal drugs too, is it ever fair to look at any member of a community and assume that you know everything about them?

Follow Michael Cuby on Twitter.

Photo by Steve Wadden unless otherwise noted

The Royal Canadian Legion sits on a main drag in Glace Bay, Cape Breton, dotted with chain stores and gas stations. Inside a dimly-lit basement, old men circle up to tell stories, drinking cheap beer in bottles. Younger visitors, maybe in their 30s or 40s, play on VLT machines against the wall. The women's washroom, lined with teal and white linoleum, is empty.

Wish Donovan sits near the bar. The 73-year-old retired coal miner holds his cane with authority, talking with his friends. Nearly every man he points out has had family who worked in the dark and cavernous underground known as "the pit"—including Donovan's own dad. But when he first got into the workforce, Wish planned to buck the trend. "I got a job at the post office," he says.

It wasn't long before he was bored out of his brain. "I saw these guys come up from underground all dirty, laughing and joking with each other, and I said, 'Well, it can't be that bad down there.'"

So Donovan told his father he was quitting his stable, safe, government-funded job to work in the mine. "He threw a knife at me."

Stories like these aren't hard to find on Cape Breton Island, where the last coal mine closed in 2001 after years of industry decline. One man told me he lost his arm in a mine explosion, then put his helmet back on and returned to work six months later. Another man, 15 years off the job, said he'd go back in a second if he didn't have two replacement knees; when he sleeps, he sometimes dreams he is trapped underground, unable to find a way out.

Now, an underwater mine about 200 metres below the seabed near the 500-person village of Donkin is set to bring coal back to the east side of Cape Breton. Supporters say the mine will hire over 100 people at full production and extract up to 3 million tons of coal a year. Other locals, however, are divided about whether it will be worth much more than a wet fart.

The mine is now owned by Kameron Collieries, a subsidiary of The Cline Group (owned by billionaire coal baron Chris Cline). Bucking approximately zero stereotypes about the industry, these owners and operators have been accused of some very shady activity. Recently, one developer resigned after journalists revealed his management over a West Virginia mine where an explosion killed 26. And the Cline Group, which owns Kameron, is infamous for safety violations in the American Midwest. An investigation into four mines where Cline had a majority stake found the company was charged with thousands of safety violations since January 2013.

But in late November, 2014, when the Cline Group got approval to operate the Donkin mine, the excitement was palpable. "It looks like Cape Breton is getting coal for Christmas," announced theCape Breton Post. At that time, the mine was expected to bring as many as 300 jobs to the area.

That news was a gift for Paul Pink and his partner Erin.

The island is "desperate for jobs," he says. "I don't want that to sound mean, but we are desperate."

Pink, who usually goes by Pinky, is an affable guy in a Harley t-shirt, with arms covered in tattoos. Tired of travelling from worksite to worksite, usually out west, Pinky and Erin say they both applied for jobs at the mine, hoping to stay home near family. "If there was work I don't think we'd ever leave," he says.

Pinky and Erin. Photo by the author

That need for work in Cape Breton is motivating unexpected supporters of the mine—like the 30-something manager at a local head shop, or the Vancouverite who'd moved across the country in order to open Sydney's go-to hipster coffee joint.

None of them think digging coal out of the ground is ideal for the environment. One person called it a "necessary evil." One in three Cape Breton children live in poverty. And the island's population is plummeting. In 2006, the island had almost 143,000 people; by 2011, that number was closer to 135,000. Meanwhile, Nova Scotia Power already burns coal in Cape Breton, shipped in from South America—coal that many call "blood coal" because of dangerous labour practices used in its sourcing.

If we're already burning the stuff, the thinking seems to go, let's least get a piece of the profit.

Other Cape Bretoners are more skeptical. We're talking about 300 jobs or fewer in a place with a 14 percent unemployment rate. Some people even question whether the coal will be extracted. Eleven years ago, Nova Scotia gave permission to another private operator, Xstrata, to start mining at Donkin; they sat on it for years, then left. Besides, operators can change their plans as quickly as coal prices fluctuate.

"I hope that other Nova Scotians don't think we expect this mine to change anything," says Nelson MacDonald, an award-winning Canadian film producer who lives in Sydney. "People I know just roll their eyes at it."

If the mine is all sound and fury signifying nothing, than Cape Breton's economy is dealing with the same question it's been struggling with for a generation. If not coal, then what?

"Personally, I see coal as kind of an archaic form of energy," says Mackie MacLeod. "We're left in the ruins of coal mining right now. So why would we turn back to that and think that it's a good idea?"

Mackie's building an upcoming bakery he co-owns in Glace Bay, 12 kilometres from Donkin. When he's not getting the bakery ready, he's often producing local music or doing marketing work for the nearby Miner's Museum.

Kind of like the diversity in his own job portfolio, Mackie would rather build an economy that can be resilient when employers leave or markets change. "I'm doing what I do... to create jobs in this community," he says. "Being a new generation of people sticking around here."

What, exactly, will that look like? Some folks point to new businesses like Marcato, which makes software for music festivals like Coachella, as the new kind of Sydney success story. Others look to the tourism industry for inspiration. Phillip Glass does have a place here, after all. And the town of Inverness, on the west side of the island, has become so renowned for its luxury hotel and golf courses that the Globe and Mail dubbed the place "Canada's Hamptons."

"I want jobs, but I think we need to focus on jobs that are in the creative industry, in the tourism industry, in the resources that we have that aren't going to damage us in the future," says Amanda MacDougall. MacDougall was just elected municipal councillor representing an area near Sydney, close to the mines. She won against her incumbent, a booster of the mine, by 55 votes. Now, she plans to focus on those creative jobs she considers so critical.

"We're sitting in Louisburg and we have a national historic site down the road. How can we keep those tourists in Louisburg outside the two-and-a-half hours they spend in the park?" she asks. "Culture and tourism for Cape Breton ... that's our coal mine. It's already here."

Even if the mine is a boon for the economy, it will be the return of a dirty, dangerous industry. Locals still speak of a fatal 1992 explosion in mainland Nova Scotia's Westray Mine like it was yesterday. And after Cape Breton closed its steel plant (which used coal) in 2001, the island spent years trying to figure out how to clean up ponds of carcinogenic sludge left behind.

Pinky still thinks that a mine operating in Donkin would be a good idea "if it's done right." By that, he means safely, with union representation underground.

But Pinky hasn't been hired, so he's still roaming. Kameron did have 300 contractors clean out the mine and prepare it for coal extraction, according to the CBC, but as of August 2016, that number had shrunk to approximately 50 people who were still working on site. When I met Pinky he was living outside Halifax, over five hours away from home; Erin was about to head to Toronto for another work contract.

"I was daydreaming about eating lunch on the beach," Pinky says. "That novelty wore off quick... Now it's like, what was I thinking?"

We asked Kameron and the Cline Group a series of questions about their safety record and the number of people currently working in the mine. They have not got back to us but we will update this story if they do.

Follow Katie Toth on Twitter.

It's super weird to like Tom Cruise in 2016. He exists in his own category: somewhere beyond man, or even human. He is beyond sexy, he is an alien object. He's in that Morrissey Androgynous Zone, with a neutral sexuality that commands a Hemingway-esque masculinity. The question looms over us: who is Tom Cruise?

Abandoned hotel, Desert Shores, California

Abandoned has been described (by us) as "part travel log, part epic skate vid, and part in-depth documentary series." It's also a treasure trove of visually stunning locations. When Rick McCrank and co. travel to various abandoned malls, industrial parks, and other places across the US and Canada to meet with locals and skateboard in these hollowed-out structures, there's often a haunting, creepy beauty to the surroundings. In an earlier interview, McCrank said, "We like to talk about how skateboarders see negative spaces as positive things." These pictures are what he means by that.

ABANDONED airs Fridays at 9 PM ET/PT on VICELAND.

While Barack Obama has limited time left as president of the United States, Michelle Obama will now and forever be our country's true queen—and she made sure to solidify that fact right before her grand White House exit.

During the Obamas' final State Dinner, the first lady totally upstaged her husband—and everyone else—by rocking a custom-made Versace gown and becoming a fashion icon rivaled only by Jackie O.

So, of course, during last night's episode of Desus & Mero, VICELAND's new late-night talk show, hosts Desus Nice and the Kid Mero talked all about Michelle's Snapchat-worthy night and how much they'll miss the Obamas. We feel you, Desus and Mero. We feel you.

You can watch the first three episodes of Desus & Mero for free online now, and be sure to catch new episodes weeknights at 11 PM on VICELAND.

A man rests after injecting heroin he bought on the street at the Insite safe injection clinic in Vancouver, B.C. Photo via CP.

Health experts are turning to a cheap drug test strip kit from a Toronto suburb as a tool to curb soaring overdose rates linked to fentanyl.

In July, Vancouver's safe injection site Insite became the first to offer free voluntary tests for clients to determine whether their supply of heroin or other drugs contained the deadly opioid. Though the kits were originally designed for doctors to test urine samples, Insite workers discovered they could be used by testing drugs diluted in water. Like a pregnancy test, the results are available within minutes. One line on the test strip means fentanyl is present, two lines means it's not.

Following the success of Insite's program, Markham-based medical diagnostic products company BTNX Inc. has received interest in the tests from pharmacies and harm reduction groups across Canada and parts of the US including New York and Washington. CEO Iqbal Sunderani told VICE News his is the only company in North America that manufactures them.

Starting next week, Brothers Pharmacy in Winnipeg will sell the tests for $5 each. The owner, Michael Watts, hopes the local health authority and other pharmacies will follow suit so the kits will reach recreational drug users, and frontline workers.

"The whole world of opioid addiction is very under-serviced right now," Watts said over the phone. "If overdose deaths are something that can prevent with this, then why not make it easily accessible."

Read More: It's Never Been Less Safe to try out Drugs

And the difference can be between life or death. The province of BC is under a state emergency over the opioid crisis and is expecting several hundred fentanyl overdose deaths by the end of this year. No other province or territory is tracking overdoses involving fentanyl in real-time, but it's believed around 2,000 people in Canada will die from it and other opioids this year.

Sunderani added that the kits come in packages of 100, but that no health ministry or big pharmacy chain in Canada has inquired about ordering them.

"I have a feeling that because this is going to drug addicts, don't really like drug addicts to come into their shops. I personally think this is more suited to people like Insite," he said.

He cautioned, however, that research hasn't looked at the effectiveness of using the kits this way.

"In order to scientifically validate us, we need real drug samples. We aren't a drug company, we can't get ahold of the drugs," explained Sunderani. "We aren't going out there to make a scientific case that it works, although Insite says it's working."

More than 330 tests at Insite on drugs ranging from heroin to cocaine have tested positive for fentanyl—around 85 percent of the total tests conducted so far. It's confirmed fears that much of Vancouver's drug supply has been tainted with the deadly opioid. While the tests can detect the presence of fentanyl, it can't determine the quantity. Even a small amount can be fatal.

Insite staff report that a positive fentanyl test rarely dissuades people from using the drugs, but that many users will lower the dose they consume.

Winnipeg has recently seen a spike in fentanyl overdoses around the city, and police there recently seized a massive supply of blotter papers containing carfentanil, the opioid that's far stronger than fentanyl and is meant to be used as a tranquilizer for elephants and other large wild animals.

The city has two clinics that prescribe methadone—a medication that treats opiate addiction by keeping the withdrawal symptoms at bay. And Watts' pharmacy dispenses the methadone to the patients. He says many clients have admitted to using other drugs, some laced with fentanyl, and he was looking for a way to help keep them safe from overdosing.

"You have to assume they are using fentanyl, some patients will admit it, while others swear up and down they aren't using it," said Watts. "And for our patients, it's piece of mind that the stuff they are using doesn't have anything laced."

He added that a group of local mothers who work on addictions awareness will be learning how to use the strips once they arrive at the shop. "It's interesting for parents who tell their kids that if they are going to use, then make sure your stuff is clean."

Follow Rachel Browne on Twitter.

A short time after touting how much respect he has for women during Wednesday night's final presidential debate, Donald Trump lashed out at Hillary Clinton while she was talking about her Social Security plan by calling her "such a nasty woman."

The phrase caught fire on social media, mostly thanks to feminists seeking to reclaim the gendered insult as a badge of honor.

Now, like Ken Bone before it, the meme-worthy phrase is a T-shirt that you can buy on Google Ghost for $25. They come in both men's and women's sizes, and according to the website, half of the proceeds from the shirts will be donated to Planned Parenthood.

Read: Why These Presidential Debates Have Been So Awful

Why is Trudeau so popular? Hmmm. Photo via Justin Trudeau's Facebook.

Take a picture, Canada: they grow up so fast. We elected Justin Trudeau's Liberal government one year ago this week. Hard to believe that 380 days ago we were all writing thinkpieces about how Canada was the most racist country on the planet and now we're all tripping over each other to craft a .gif of Trudeau and Obama krumping as they catapult Donald Trump into the sun. Time flies, man.

Justin and friends have racked up a pretty solid record in the year he's been prime minister. Because it was 2015, we got a decidedly multicultural and gender-balanced cabinet. We got the mandatory long-form census back, a new Child Care benefit, and the government finally launched an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women.

There are also some very real challenges on the horizon that the Liberals will need to handle: the Canadian housing market finally appears to be on the verge of melting down, there will be probably be a nuclear war with Russia when the Democrats win the US election, and they still need to end marijuana prohibition without making a total hash of it. It's all rough waters ahead.

But come what may, we're in great hands—or, at least, that's what most Canadians seem to think. According to Abacus' anniversary polling this week, the Liberals are more popular now than they were on election day last year. This may actually be Trudeau's most impressive accomplishment: keeping the romance fresh despite at least six months of op-eds warning that the honeymoon was going to end any day now, we swear.

Unfortunately, the prime minister seems to be fully aware of how popular he is (both at home and abroad) and he's let it go to his head. At this rate we're another three months of good polling away from a commissioned portrait of Justin Trudeau triumphantly crossing the Alps on a moose.

Canada's two favourite politicians. Photo via Facebook.

The dauphin's Napoleon complex is on full display in his recent comments to Le Devoir about electoral reform. Despite promising to banish Canada's First-Past-the-Post voting system to the dustbin of history during the last election, a year in power seems to have dampened Trudeau's resolve. To wit:

"Under Stephen Harper, there were so many people unhappy with the government and their approach that people were saying, 'It will take electoral reform to no longer have a government we don't like'. But under the current system, they now have a government they're more satisfied with and the motivation to change the electoral system is less compelling."

FPTP the post used to be bad, when it was giving false majorities to Conservatives. But now Liberals are winning false majorities again, so FPTP is good now. Why fix what isn't broken?

I wish I could inject this quote directly into my veins, it's so good. It's an amazing butchery of the discourse around electoral reform. The reform movement has always been more concerned with accurately translating voter intentions into seat totals than with producing "governments we like," which suggests Trudeau either never understood the distinction or never cared. I also can't remember the last time I heard a politician transparently muse about backing down from a major campaign pledge by citing his own popularity as the reason. It's so transparently arrogant that you have to wonder if the prime minister is deliberately trolling us.

To any ordinary politician, in any ordinary parliamentary session, this would likely be the moment their wings melted under their own sunny hubris and they fell into the sea. But this is Justin Trudeau, who somehow remains a preternaturally lovable scamp regardless of anything he does or doesn't do.

This is certainly helped by the fact that both the major opposition parties are drifting rudderless through their respectively tepid leadership contests. The Conservatives won't elect a proper leader for another seven months, and they are unlikely to fight the government much on this point anyway. Meanwhile, the NDP—the one party actually prepared to bring a gun to the Liberals' electoral reform knife fight—won't have a new leader until sometime next year. And given that you can more or less blame Tom Mulcair for passing the reform torch to Trudeau in the last election, it's unlikely there will be much challenge in the House to whatever the government decides to do.

Here is a likely scenario: the electoral reform committee will come back with its report on December 1st. The Liberals—who clearly do not see any fundamental, principled problem with a single member plurality voting system—will latch on to its more milquetoast recommendations (a mandatory voting law, some kind of online voting system, or maybe preferential ballots) and run with that as its major contribution to reform. Trudeau has indicated that smaller changes require less public input, while major changes (e.g. proportional representation) would require more. So whatever they opt for will be modest enough to avoid giving into Conservative demands for a referendum, while still noticeable enough that the Liberals can credibly say they did something to fix Canadian democracy. Trudeau will lead a new refrain of "promise made, promise kept" at his next over-capacity rally appearance and Ed Broadbent will continue to cry himself to sleep.

Does this hold up? Maybe.

Of course, since substantive reform was a major promise in 2015—and drew a lot of centre-left swing voters to the Liberals—it will piss a lot of people off if the government actually does back off from making #RealChange. But the hyper-engaged wonks who were radicalized for proportional representation at 18 by a sessional instructor and/or Green party campaign volunteer were only ever a small subset of the Liberal demographic anyway.

Which brings us to the other major insight of the anniversary polling. Ipsos reports that most of us know that Trudeau is more style than substance, but we're still pretty cool about it anyway. Canadians are actually as broadly boring and deferential to authority as the stereotype suggests.

Trudeau is likely right in his assessment to Le Devoir. People are broadly satisfied with his government. There is little appetite for change, especially for a change that might force us to become more entangled with the political gongshow instead of further tuning it out of our lives for some peace and quiet and meme-able prime ministers. You can't fix what isn't broken, and this country was never really designed for democracy anyway.

Happy anniversary everybody. Canada is back, in more ways than you know.

Follow Drew Brown on Twitter.

Photo by Jamie Lee Curtis Taete

As a relatively new vegan, soy is a constant, low-level source of anxiety for me. It's a plant, and it's ubiquitous, and I'm hungry, but I get this I-think-I-read-it-somewhere feeling like a soy-free existence is better, or healthier for some reason (other than soy being a fairly common allergy). I recall a report from Greenpeace ten years ago which said soy farming depleted the Amazon, but earlier this year, Greenpeace wrote that the deforestation problem looks like it's been mostly resolved.

The more urgent and personal reason to avoid eating soy—if you're a man—is that it will supposedly give you gynecomastia, a.k.a. manboobs.

Wherever soy is discussed on bodybuilding forums, or on Reddit, users wanting to avoid or reduce unwanted breast tissue claim to avoid soy "like the plague." Articles in publications like Men's Health tell horror stories about man's men with tender, throbbing breasts and enlarged nipples, lives basically ruined by the hidden dark side of soy. And for my part, I don't want d-cups either.

So do I need to go soy-free?

No I don't, according to Dr. Richard J. Santen, a medical professor at the University of Virginia with a focus on hormones. He explained to me that there is no reason for any man who wants to eat a big pile of soybeans, or even eat a steady diet of soy-based foods, to avoid them over a fear of growing boobs. In his lifetime of hormone research, Santen explained that his male test subjects have never exhibited anything like a clear connection between soy and feminization. "I have only seen one man where I suspected soy induced gynecomastia, but we measured the levels of soy products in urine in that patient and it did not support a causative correlation," he told me.

A 2010 review of medical literature by Mark Messina, a researcher at the Loma Linda University School of Public Health, agrees with Santen. The compounds in soy that supposedly give men boobs are called isoflavones, which can also be found in chick peas, and peanuts. The cause of all this suspicion around soy isoflavones in the first place is that they're phytoestrogens, naturally-occuring plant compounds that can be processed a little bit like estrogen. Estrogen is, of course, the central hormone involved in transitioning from male-to-female, but there's no sign so far that trans women can save money on hormone therapy by just switching over to phytoestrogens found in soy.

And according to Messina's paper, in all the lab work that's ever been performed on isoflavones with regard to feminization, "isoflavones do not exert feminizing effects on men at intake levels equal to and even considerably higher than are typical for Asian males."

The remark about Asian diets is there because according to conventional wisdom, and a detailed report from 2003 by the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, consumers in certain Asian countries get way, way more of their protein from soy than Americans. Japanese people, for instance, ate 8.7 times as much per day. In that case, one might expect more Japanese men to have gynecomastia, but in my research, I spotted no claims one way or the other about rates of gynecomastia in Japan compared to the US. But for what it's worth, I did spot some reports from 2013 that some Japanese men might have a growing interest in wearing bras.

The medical literature does include one notable case study in which soy consumption is linked—more or less anecdotally—to manboobs. A 2008 paper tells the story of a 60-year-old male patient suffering from gynecomastia, along with reduced libido and erectile dysfunction. It turned out he'd been drinking three standard cartons of soy milk per day—which is about 1,200 calories. "After he discontinued drinking soy milk, his breast tenderness resolved and his estradiol concentration slowly returned to normal," the paper says.

Virginia Miller, an estrogen researcher at The Mayo Clinic told me all that soy milk was "excessive," given that the guy was rolling the dice with phytoestrogens, but she noted that "the amount of phytoestrogens in various soy products varies by process method," and that "eating tofu is probably OK."

"There are estrogen receptor disrupters in environmental compounds and plastics which are probably more of a concern," Miller pointed out.

Santen agreed that it is reasonable to suspect that binge-level doses of soy might give men boobs given what we know about it. But that might be the least of your worries if you're planning to become the Takeru Kobayashi of tofu dogs. "In rats, soy can cause estrogen-like effects of breast cancer growth, so these is a concern," Santen told me.

But overall he was sanguine about the soy in my diet, telling me I can probably eat tofu and edamame to any reasonable extent that I want without sweating it.

In summary, according to Santen, "I do not think men should have any concern about this as a practical matter."

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Once in a while there comes a film that inspires so much praise, so much full-throated acclaim that you wonder whether it's all too good to be true. Barry Jenkins's latest, Moonlight—a Miami-set triptych about the life of a young, gay African American male—has been showered with adulation since its September world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival (where Jenkins has worked for many years as a programmer). It's been hailed as a masterful slice of storytelling, and a game-changer in the cinematic representation of black American masculinity. "o one in the 90s wanted to finance films about gay black men," wrote the New Yorker's esteemed theatre critic Hilton Als recently. "Twenty years later, I still don't know how Jenkins got this flick made. But he did. And it changes everything."

High praise indeed. Yet once in a while, the hype is entirely justified. It's taken Jenkins eight years—pretty much the entire duration of Barack Obama's presidential tenure—to follow up his lovely debut, the witty romantic drama Medicine for Melancholy, and the wait has been worth it. Like his first film, Moonlight is a patient, restrained, and minutely detailed work that finds beauty and pain alike in unexpected places and connections.

Based on the play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by playwright/actor Tarell Alvin McCraney, the film begins in 1980s inner city Miami, where the African American community is riven by drugs and poverty. Main character Chiron is at first seen as a shy young boy. A sudden ellipsis, and he is a teen, struggling against an aggressive, hyper-masculine school culture. Finally, Chiron emerges as a withdrawn, enigmatic grown man searching for human connection.

In each segment, Chiron struggles with his sexual identity while various figures drift in and out of his life: an unexpected father figure in dope dealer Juan (Mahershala Ali); his disturbed, drug-addicted mother (Naomie Harris); his flirtatious pal Kevin (brilliantly played as an adult by André Holland); and an alternative maternal figure, luminously manifested by singer Janelle Monáe in her first major film appearance. All three actors playing Chiron— Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes—are hitherto unknown quantities who give electric, potentially star-making performances. Each plays a vital role in making Moonlight feel so fresh.

With yet more praise ringing in Jenkins's ears, I recently caught up with him in London, where the film was receiving its European premiere at the London Film Festival.

VICE: Can you tell me about falling in love with McCraney's play in the first place?
Barry Jenkins: There were certain things in Tarell's life that completely overlapped with mine; most of those things are performed by Naomie Harris in the movie. So when I read it, the feeling I had was: These are things I know but I don't talk about very often—it's not that I've forgotten or willfully ignored them, they just don't come up. So to be more or less hit in the face with them in Tarell's play, it grabbed me. My intellectual thought process was that if I could read this, meet these characters, and have such a visceral, warm reaction to them, and then turn my back on this project, it would be a really cowardly reaction.

It's a bold move to take on a project with such sensitive subject matter for your second feature.
I started working on this about three and a half years ago. Within the first year of that period, I had the script. Once we had that, I have to say I had more doubt than anyone else: Can I make this film as my second film and still have a career? I even had friends say, "The script is good but are you sure you want to do this right now?" Sometimes you just have to be bold—I was thinking of this Goethe quote: "Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."

Once the script was done, we had two offers to finance the film within six months. Those opportunities didn't work out, but Plan B came in, followed by A24. They don't even finance films, but they created a space within their company just to allow themselves to work on this film.

A24's leap of faith must have been a huge confidence boost.
Yes, and that leap didn't come with strings attached. They didn't say yes, we'll make this film but it's got to be a little bit less gay, or it can't be a triptych, or you have to have a star play all three parts.

Or we'll have Chiron be a white woman.
Exactly! Because the way to up the international value would be to put Julia Roberts or Natalie Portman in it as Chiron. Which would be kind of an awesome SNL skit, but we'll see.

Photo courtesy of A24

It's fair to say there's a major shortfall in the representation of queer African American life in the media, let alone mainstream cinema. During the film, I was thinking of things like Tongues Untied by the late Marlon Riggs, but he was working in nonfiction. Your film tackles Chiron's sexuality in an understated way. Can you talk about your approach there?
I didn't want to make sexuality the overt theme of the film because there's so much other shit that Chiron's dealing with, including his relationship with his mother, and all the ideas we have in America about masculinity and what is acceptable as presented masculinity. It was never my, nor Tarell's, approach to have this really raging loud voice, "This is a movie about something that is really important to a lot of people!"

That said, it was hard to work on this film and not be aware that there was a void that it could potentially help address. It's an absolute fucking shame that I've never seen a film where one black man holds another black man's hand, or one black man cooks for another black man, you know? We don't see that often enough.

"It's an absolute fucking shame that I've never seen a film where one black man holds another black man's hand, or one black man cooks for another black man, you know?"

There was a Vanity Fair cover last year of Michael B. Jordan resting his hand on Ryan Coogler's head. It's a beautiful image, but I saw homophobic nonsense flying around on blogs and on Facebook, about "the media conspiracy to ' feminize' black men."
It's funny—I'm pretty sure we were in pre-production when that happened. We all sat up and started to pay attention. Because we realized, "Oh OK, if they're uncomfortable with this, then we 're going to make them un-fucking-comfortable." When we released our trailer, I got angry messages on Twitter basically saying the same thing. You know, "Who the fuck are you? Why are you trying to rob us of our manhood?" And I was like, "This isn't about you if it's not your story."

When I first saw the photo, it didn't even occur to me because I know those guys, I know how close they are: Talk about a positive, productive friendship between two black men. Like, just a gorgeous friendship. And to have the honesty and vulnerability inherent in that friendship—those guys are smart, they know these images go all around the world. I was very fucking excited to see the photo, and then when it turned, it turned very quickly. It was hurtful, you know?

Can you talk more about this performance of masculinity?
Everything in the world is teaching you that this personality, this identity that's forced onto these men, is not only acceptable, but dominant. And even stronger than that: It's literally a form of protection. It's such a problem because it's so insidious. I'm very big on nature versus nurture, and sometimes we just believe it's in these young black men 's nature to be hyper masculine, un-feeling, un-vulnerable. That's simply not the case.

You mention that idea of self-protection. It struck me that so many of the big films of the Obama era with an African American focus are related to trauma: Lincoln, The Butler, 12 Years a Slave, Selma, Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight. And now Ava DuVernay's 13th is literally a chronicle of black American suffering that brings us up to date with all the (filmed) police brutality happening. It's not to say that there isn't trauma in your film, but you unpick it with a tenderness that's disarming. Was that question of representing trauma on your mind?
Aside from 13th, every film you named is set in the past. I believe in this psychic trauma that's passed through our genes through generations, so I think it makes sense to want to go back and work it out; a lot of it is still carried in us today. By the same token, I think I'm making a contemporary film about contemporary characters in which the currency is not this overbearing trauma, but rather a very earned expression of genuine tenderness. We admit that this trauma exists deep within us, but we're not going to wallow in it. We are going to push past whatever psychic scars that trauma has inflicted.

The most transcendent scene for me is the swimming scene [when Juan teaches young Chiron how to float], which to me felt like a baptism. Also, the image of two black men in the Atlantic Ocean, when you can't see land for miles, as a black American, conjures a very particular vision. I do believe, however, that the trauma we're exploring in this is rooted in the systemic application of what is acceptable black masculinity. The kind of black man you have to be to survive in a society where Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin can happen.

I have to ask about the music. You kick off with a sample of Boris Gardiner's "Every Nigger Is a Star," which is sampled by Kendrick Lamar on "Wesley's Theory." What a way to start!
I'd never heard of Gardiner before Kendrick's album. I looked into it and realized it was an album unto itself, for an ultra-obscure Blaxploitation film that IMDB doesn't even know about. This album and movie were made as a piece of propaganda, meant to display how amazing black people are. I wanted to stamp on our film that this is going to be a very aggressive, radicalized depiction of my version of a black experience where I grew up. It's not gonna code-switch, we're not going to make concessions. Instead of bringing the hood to the art house, it's bringing art house to the hood. Starting with Boris Gardiner is planting the flag.

On Noisey: Watch 'Inside Bompton: Growing Up with Kendrick Lamar':

And the music is amazing throughout.
My filmmaking voice has been developed watching a lot of cinema, and yet my personal voice is rooted in the place I grew up: the place depicted in Moonlight. So I knew I wanted an orchestral score because a lot of the cinema I love—like the films of Claire Denis, scored by Tindersticks—incorporates a tender orchestral score. I didn't want it to be something that, when playing, would mix with the contemporary music; I knew when we got to the third story, which is set today, we'd have a lot of "chopped and screwed" hip-hop. There are music cues that appear from the first story to the second story, and as we complete the second story and move into the third, the composer Nicholas Britell began chopping and screwing the orchestral score: It was fucking amazing. We had session players from the New York Philharmonic applying these Houston, Texas, hip-hop principles to their cellos, their violins. We're getting a deep heavy bass rumble from these chamber instruments.

When you walk through the hood and a car goes by, you feel this boom boom boom boom, all this bass. In our film, the heaviest bass you feel is not from the trunk of any character's car, it's from a session player from the New York Philharmonic. There are some ancient civilizations that have a theory that the universe was created from speech, like it was spoken into existence. And today, when we talk about dating the universe, we do it from what? Radio waves. It's all vibrations, so I like to think that the reason why, in my community, people play this bass is to communicate. So I wanted to have a score that you could also feel in the same way. And to do that, we took the orchestra to the hood.

My final question. Will you please make a Prince biopic starring André Holland?
[Jenkins looks over to the hotel bar where André Holland is sitting] Hey 'Dre! C'mere. You gotta ask him. You can't ask me. [André strolls over ]

André, can he please make a Prince biopic with you in it?
André Holland: That is hilarious.
Jenkins: Sí, se puede. Yes, we can!
Holland: If you ready, I'm ready. Let's shake on it.

Barry Jenkins and André Holland at the London Film Festival. Photo by Ashley Clark

Follow Ashley Clark on Twitter.

Moonlight will be released in theaters on Friday, October 21.

Professor Jordan Peterson. Screenshot via YouTube

Trans students at the University of Toronto say they're still being targeted by hate and threats of violence online, and they're placing part of the blame on the school's "inaction" regarding a professor who is refusing to use gender neutral pronouns.

"It's been very uneasy, many people don't feel safe in light of the recent threats against trans, queer, and racialized—specifically black—students and members of the Black Liberation Collective," Denio Lourenco, the LGBTQ coordinator at the University of Toronto's Mississauga campus student union, told VICE.

The controversy erupted at the end of September when psychology professor Jordan Peterson posted a video lecture on YouTube titled "Professor against political correctness: Part 1," in which he criticized Bill-16, which would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code to include protection for gender identity and expression, and said he refused to use gender neutral pronouns.

"I don't know what 'neither' means," Peterson said in the video, disagreeing with the Ontario Human Rights Commission's definition of gender identity—a person's "sense of being a woman, a man, both, neither, or anywhere along the gender spectrum."

"I don't know what the options are if you're not a man or a woman," said Peterson, who defended his statements as free speech and told VICE today he would not apologize or retract his statements, even in light of a letter from over 250 faculty members that condemned his actions. "It's not obvious to me how you can be both because those are, by definition, binary categories."

Lourenco and others say since the video went up, they've received death threats and been repeatedly harassed through to this week.

"The current political climate is rapidly changing and soon there will be a time when the western world wakes up from its shackles and smites down people like you with perfect hatred," warned one Facebook message shared by Lourenco. "It won't be tolerance and kindergarten-land tomorrow. There will be blood. Be very afraid."

Information about some trans students, including their names, locations, and families, has been shared on forums like 4Chan and far-right subreddits, according to Qaiser Ali, who said he was attacked by a protester at a free speech rally last week, where Peterson was invited as a speaker.

"We can't make that information go away," they said.

At the rally, Ali said, trans students were "subjected to unending transphobic slurs and hate speech," and that members of the Black Liberation Collective had to shield trans students from "what had essentially become an angry mob."

"Ultimately, academic freedom is at the core of what the university does... so he's free to express his views," she said, adding that he's also free to criticize university policy and the law. "At the same time, he's also expected to follow U of T policy and follow the law, so while members of our community absolutely have the right to free expression, they also have a responsibility to foster a learning environment that's free from discrimination, and that means following the law."

Follow Tamara Khandaker on Twitter.