For someone who deals with death on a constant basis, Dr. Rebecca Hsu is shockingly bubbly and vivacious. A seasoned forensic pathologist, Hsu has dedicated over twenty years to examining the post-mortem, offering insight and analysis into the many ways the body dies while debunking myths perpetuated by her Hollywood counterparts on Law & Order and CSI.

As dedicated as she is to her work, Hsu's life isn't totally consumed by the dead. In the most recent episode of Balls Deep, we get a glimpse into her everyday life as she juggles raising two children and caring for her aging father while managing her freelance forensic pathology business. Dealing with the departed is a daunting feat, but it's taught Hsu the importance of remaining optimistic.

Photo courtesy of VICELAND

VICE: How did you get interested in forensic pathology?
Dr. Rebecca Hsu: I actually wasn't for a very long time. I was going to be a psychiatrist until I realized just how boring the day-to-day was. You're not working on the Hannibal Lecters of the world—most of the time you're just evaluating a criminal to see if they're fit to stand trial, or if they know the difference between right and wrong. I knew I couldn't do that every single day.

Do you have any fascination with serial killers?
I find the psychological dynamics of serial killers to be interesting, but far from interesting enough to find them fascinating. I'd say they are disturbing. I find it even more disturbing that our society plays a large role in their formation, and that our failures in the justice system allow them to carry out their fantasies for longer than should be allowed. I find it even more disturbing that so many people find them fascinating. They are mentally ill persons who need treatment, not publicity.

What type of people seek out a freelance forensic pathologist?
I am hired by anyone who needs the skills of a forensic pathologist but do not qualify for whatever reason to be a medical examiner's case. Generally speaking, coroners and medical examiners who examine the deceased victim will testify for the prosecution in court. The investigative information is provided by police and other agencies, and there are multiple laws in every state that allow the medical examiner or coroner to refuse cases that families may want autopsied. Not everyone gets an autopsy, since offices are very busy and can't afford the time or money to fully work up each case. That's where private practice physicians come in.

As a private practice forensic pathologist, I also harvest tissues for research departments who need tissues for crucial research, as well as offering "second look" autopsies and exhumations. I often assist lawyers with their evaluation of cases by reviewing medical records and work with defense attorneys to testify as an expert witness to evaluate their client's story and case.

What are some of the frustrations you have in your line of work?
Do you have all night? I could go on forever. Our field pays very poorly compared to equivalent physician jobs that also take many years of extra training—it pays roughly a third of what surgical pathologists can make with less training. Most people don't want to spend an extra year or two to subspecialize in forensics and make well under $200K when they can do just a few years of surgical pathology and have a starting salary of over $300K with set hours, little to no court time and no smelly crime scenes to go to.

The discrepancy in salary is generally due to the fact that tax dollars pay for forensic salaries—they're overworked, underpaid government workers. In the private sector, it's frustrating because you're called a "WHORE" (Witness Having Other Reasonable Explanations) regardless of the fact that you might be helping people avoid a medical malpractice case. The private sector is also difficult because the work is sporadic, you may have to travel on short notice, and running the business in addition to being a physician takes a great deal of effort.

How do you keep the suffering of your clients from permeating your own life?
I have a very good off switch. Working with grieving families can be hard because they want to share the person with you. They want to talk about their interests or their latest ski trip, and to tell stories about them. It makes it hard for me because I don't just examine the body and throw a report at them.

What's one of the most interesting cases you've worked on?
When you're working in this field, you realize how there are some truly smart people in the world. I've examined the bodies of people who committed suicide in the most creative ways that would have never crossed my mind. There was an engineer who killed himself by crawling into the liner of a waterbed, attaching a vacuum to the nozzle, and sucking out all the air. Unfortunately he was dealing with severe depression that led him to that, but the man was a genius.

You work with Nancy Marlow, a forensic medium.
She's great for when people have questions that I can't answer. Family members will ask me what the person felt or thought as they were dying and there's no part of the body I can examine to find the answers. That's where Nancy comes in.

Next of kin have the option of burying, cremating or even turning their loved ones into diamonds when they die. What do you want to be turned into when your time comes?
I want people to do as little as possible with me. Why waste the money?

Follow Layla Halabian on Twitter.

You can catch Balls Deep on VICELAND. Find out how to watch here.

This story was co-published with the Marshall Project.

New data released Thursday from the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows a stark difference in how white and black inmates are dying in the nation's prisons and jails.

Deaths of all prisoners rose slightly from 2013 to 2014, the latest year for which the bureau has compiled data. Of the 4,980 people who died in custody of federal and state prison systems and about 2,900 local jails nationwide, most were non-Hispanic whites.

Illness accounted for a vast majority of the deaths—heart disease and cancer were among the most common causes—but a closer examination shows significant racial differences in two causes of death.

Between 2001 and 2014, the percentage of state and federal prisoners who died from AIDS-related illnesses decreased dramatically, from a high of 9.6 percent down to 1.8 percent. Local jails saw a similar drop. At the same time, the number of prisoners living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, also decreased.

Despite the decrease, the rate of AIDS-related deaths differed significantly between white and black people in prisons. White inmates died of AIDS-related illnesses at an average rate of 6 per 100,000 prisoners each year. The rate for black inmates was 17 per 100,000, nearly three times that of whites. In jails, a similar pattern emerged. Hispanic and Latino prisoners had roughly the same mortality rate as whites in prisons and jails.

There are similar disparities for suicide, which overall has increased slightly in prisons since 2001. It is the cause of death for 7 percent of white prison inmates, compared with only 3.5 percent of their black peers.

In 2014 alone, suicides represented 7 percent of all deaths in state and federal prisons—the highest percentage since 2001.

This mirrors the overall increase of suicide among white men between the ages of 45 and 64 in the general population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But it is also reflective of the problem with mental health treatment in jails and prisons. Michele Deitch, a senior lecturer at the School of Law at the University of Texas at Austin, says there are ways to prevent suicide among the incarcerated.

"Look at facilities that have been sued," Deitch said. Afterward, "they tend to implement good prevention strategies," she said.

For people who are already living with mental health challenges, the loss of a family member, a stint in solitary, being the victim of violence or being denied parole can lead to a state of depression, said Deitch, who urged better staff training in all areas of corrections.

Meet the Internet's Most Famous Coroner:

Suicide is more prevalent in jails, occurring at a rate more than double that in prisons. Suicides were the cause of death for more than 35 percent of jail inmates who died in 2014, the highest since reporting began in 2000. White jail inmates commit suicide more than five times as often as blacks in jail, the data found. Hispanic inmates commit suicide at a rate of about 23 percent higher than black jail inmates.

The jail suicide of Sandra Bland in Texas in the summer of 2015 brought national attention to the problem and led to some changes. The new federal data released, however, covers only through the end of 2014, and would not reflect any shifts since Bland's death.

Although more than one-fifth of suicides in local jails happened in segregation, nearly half occurred among inmates housed in the general population.

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

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

Things were easier in the 90s. Unless you're basically a teenager now, you may have faint memories of a time when British pubs banned children in the main bar. A time when kids would have to sit in a separate area with chairs and table to eat their pub food, then be asked to leave in the evening before the grown-ups presumably got weird.

Then, in 1995 the ban on kids in pubs in England and Wales was overturned and we fast-forwarded to what happens now: the screams of children wobbling over your cliched pounding headache on a Saturday afternoon in your local. Young parents dragging their kids into the pub to prove to their friends that, yes, they are still fun and do things they used to before "the little one" arrived. Now you have to just sit there while a child you don't know stares at you intently in silence for a solid 40 seconds.

Mums and dads have to eat too, and so young children end up in restaurants as well. This week, a restaurant owner was labelled a "disgrace to motherhood" for implementing a no-toddler policy in her establishment (which has only been open for about three months). She's got a young child of her own, but people have kicked off anyway – predictably, thanks to a thread on Mumsnet. We took the question to the streets, and asked people around east London whether, definitively, restaurants should be able to ban children.

Matt, 33

VICE: Do you hate screaming toddlers and if so would you ban them from restaurants?
Matt: Everyone hates it but we can't ban them. Maybe we should provide them muzzles... Or leashes. I'm from the US and over there under-21s can't be around anywhere where there's alcohol, which makes it easier.

Tigerlily, 18

VICE: What would you do if there was a screaming toddler where you were eating?
Tigerlily: It depends on how far I am into my meal and where I am. If I've just sat down I'd go and eat somewhere else if it's a posh dining experience, but if it's casual then I might just bear it. We're all going to get to that stage at some point in our lives where we want to be adults but also have to be parents. I don't think it's fair to shun people.

So if you were on a date in a Michelin-starred place with your boo you wouldn't tell the management?
I'm never going to be that shady in life. I might give you a shady look, but I don't feel the need. It might ruin my evening but at least they got to have a night out.

That's very diplomatic.
I know, I'm great.

Sayed, 35

VICE: Should toddlers be banned from restaurants?
Sayed: I don't think they should be banned. I've got kids and if you're going out as a family it's part and parcel of the experience.

Do you like eating out with them then?
Yeah.

Are they messy?
Yeah.

So why do you like it?
It's the company, it's going out as a family. One is 10 and one is six, so they're a bit older now but the six-year-old is still a really messy eater.

Ben, 30

VICE: Would you ban toddlers from a restaurant?
Ben: I mean, I would never order a toddler to eat so ban them, definitely ban them... I'm joking, if you were to do that you limit your customer base. I used to work in a pub where toddlers were only allowed in certain areas and it was kind of silly.

Nabila, 22 and Suaad, 20

VICE: How would you feel if you had to sit next to a crying toddler in a restaurant?
Nabila: You know it's really bad but, actually, I used to think, oh my god, why isn't that mother getting that child to be quiet?

Suaad: But it's so hard – how can you control your child?!

Nabila: Yeah, the child is supposed to be free and scream. Obviously there's discipline. but we don't know if the child is in pain, or hungry. That's their release, they can't talk yet so if they want to be loud, let them. The mother will be feeling embarrassed that their child is being loud and everything. That person who's banning people was once a toddler in a restaurant.

So what would you say to the woman with the restaurant ban?
Suaad: I would say that everyone should ban her and not go to her restaurant at all, whatsoever. You're limiting the people coming in, and your own business. The lady or the man who has the toddler, they want to eat your food too so you should be happy.

Ben, 33

VICE: Would you kick a screaming toddler out of a restaurant?
Ben: Not on its own!

OK, with the parents.
I mean, it's bad form to bring toddlers to certain glamorous restaurants. There's a time and a place for children.

Fair enough, thanks Ben.

@charliebcuff

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We set off from New Orleans at 11 PM—23:00—on Thursday, December 1. There are only four of us in a 12-passenger van, but it still feels cramped, packed as it is with everything we need to survive water cannons and rubber bullets in blizzard conditions. There are sub-zero sleeping bags, food and water, blankets, extra clothes, gas masks, helmets, and military-grade body armor. A handmade dreamcatcher dangles from the rearview.

The veterans I'm traveling with are Adrienne Lahtela, 36 and a former Army captain who served in Afghanistan; Jonas Hair, 39, a former Navy navigation specialist; and Tom Anderson, 30, a former Navy medic deployed to Iraq. They are three of thousands who answered a call put out on November 11 by former Army lieutenant Wesley Clark Jr. and ex-Marine and retired Baltimore cop Michael Wood Jr., asking veterans from all over the country to come to North Dakota as human shields for the "water protectors"—activists who have been camped out near the Standing Rock reservation in an effort to block the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), a controversial project being built by Energy Transfer Partners (ETP).

Veterans for Standing Rock, as the group calls itself, was just the latest voice to be raised against the pipeline, which critics said would endanger the water supplies of local Sioux—but the protests were about more than that. As they grew in size and as media outlets and celebrities took notice, the camps seemed to symbolize a stand against corporate greed, against white people ignoring the wishes of Native Americans, against all sorts of injustices.

Supporters donated $1.14 million to the Veterans for Standing Rock GoFundMe, which will eventually pay for the travel of just under 2,000 veterans. (According to Ashleigh Jennifer Parker, a spokesperson for the movement, "hundreds of thousands of dollars" have been reimbursed and all of the money should be distributed by January.) An estimated 1,000 to 1,500 more came separately, finding their own funds.

The goal, per Clark on the GoFundMe page, was to "defend the water protectors from assault and intimidation at the hands of the militarized police force and DAPL security," who had become notorious for using aggressive methods—including firing water cannons in freezing temperatures—against the activists. Ultimately the veterans won't get a chance to do this, since the Army will deny a needed permit and force DAPL to be rerouted before they even march. But the trip wasn't just about a narrow political goal. It was about the expectations of thousands of veterans who showed up wanting to do something good, in many cases wanting to redeem themselves for things they did in the service—and coming away confused, angry, inspired, and energized.

Jonas in the van. All photos by author.

The first six hours, Tom drives and Adrienne chatters. She's tired from dancing to Dolly Parton at an arena show the night before, but she hates sleeping in cars. She talks about Afghanistan, how her unit smeared powdered donut sugar on each other when they slept, how they faked seizures to mess with medics, how Afghans worried that soldiers used sunglasses to see through their clothes.

Tom is from Long Island and has its outline inked on his forearm. He has a poli-sci and philosophy degree, sells e-cigs, and is contemplating a masters. He's here because he views the DAPL pipeline as a treaty violation. "The part of me that really does love my country thinks we should be good enough to uphold the obligations that we made," he says.

Adrienne speaks Japanese and runs a transport business with her wife. She's lived in ten states, one territory, and three countries. "This is a gut-check on integrity," she says. "If a group of us that have been ambassadors for our country feel that this isn't right, I think people should listen... I'm a nobody, I get it. But if enough nobodies are tired of something, it'll change."

Jonas, who signed his government contract straight from high school, is on a midlife vision quest. Ten months ago he was working nearly 100 hours a week, managing nightclubs in his home state of Pennsylvania. "I knew I would be doing the same thing at 49 if I didn't stop," he says. He moved to New Orleans to bartend and has been following the protest for months. "I've always been kind of searching, wondering what else is out there. Guess I'm still trying to identify what that is."

While everyone else sleeps, he plays New Orleans punk-electronica, ROAR, and Tribe Called Quest, before settling on a bluegrass station. That's when, in the spindly-treed, winter-hills of Arkansas, he has an encounter with what he terms "spirit animals." Over barbecue in Kansas City, he tells us about the birds, thousands of them rising en mass, swirling the sky into blackened chaos before dispersing in geometric patterns. He's sure it's a sign.

At a truck stop in Iowa, Adrienne meets two hunters who recount an incident with a sasquatch. She hopes it isn't a sign. America goes on, the accents getting better and the truck-stop vegetables getting blander.

In the early hours of December 3, we arrive in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, our registration point. Local Lakota serve us fry-bread tacos, and we toss our sleeping bags on the first of many gym floors and sleep with the overheads half-lit. The first leg of our trip is done.

A line of cars descending into the Oceti Sakowin camp

When we awake three hours later, hundreds more veterans have arrived. Jay Cooke, a Cheyenne River Lakota, speaks to the group; without a hint of irony, he thanks the US Army and the Morton County Sheriff for bringing the tribes together. Tom, sensitive to ritual, stands apart. Many vets steal bites of breakfast while Cooke speaks, but Tom listens with his head bowed, cameo baseball cap dangling from his hands.

Things seem organized. We sign rosters and are briefed on frontline and arrest protocol. Around 17:00, we follow a convoy that includes two U-Hauls containing 35,000 pounds of donated vegetables. We pass 130 miles of empty winter fields before joining an inching line of cars, then we're on a bridge and suddenly, there it is—the Oceti Sakowin (Seven Fires Council) camp, a sprawling teepee city of roughly 10,000, directly beneath us. It's bookended by the thinly frozen Cannonball River and the sun setting against distant hills. This is the land that the Army Corps of Engineers and North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple recently recently ordered evacuated, and our home for the next three days.

Adrienne in the van

Shortly after descending into camp, our van gets stuck and we tumble out into chilled air smelling of sage and smoke. Headlights and strung holiday lights punctuate the twilight, and people cluster around a fire where colorful towels dry on a line. Pipes poke through tents and yurts. Kids sled and adults bustle, chopping wood or heading to kitchen tents. We've lost 40 hours and 40 degrees since we left New Orleans—the camp feels like a different universe. It makes Adrienne think of Westworld, even though she's not sure she should say so.

Oceti Sakowin is the largest of several camps, formed to manage overflow after Sacred Stone, a mile east, reached capacity. It's closest to a burial ground that Lakota call Turtle Island, which also happens to be ETP's construction site. Just across the Cannonball River is a third, smaller camp, Rosebud. The main drag of Oceti Sakowin is Flagpole Road, where you can find the primary medic tent and the Sacred Fire, which serves as camp center. Often there's drumming or prayer near the fire, and there's always a booth offering free coffee and sometimes cedar tea, also called "Indian Pepto-Bismol." Campsites are sometimes organized according to tribes or states and sometimes organized according to nothing in particular. There are medic tents scattered throughout the camp, along with a handful of "kitchens," sweat lodges, a shelter for lost pets, and a "free boutique" of donated and abandoned outerwear. There's a glowing dome used for films, meetings and art events and an assortment of construction projects, including compostable toilets.

We find the veterans tent, large and heated by a wood stove, sign another list, and ask for info. There may or may not be a meeting in Fort Yates, about 40 minutes away. There may or may not be a debriefing here after. We've arrived.

The camp at twilight

The Standing Rock reservation has its origins in the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, in which the US government granted the Sioux rights to land that became the Great Sioux Reservation. However, a good portion of that land was taken from the tribe in 1877, when whites suspected that the Sioux's sacred Black Hills contained gold. In 1980, the Indian Claims Commission ruled that the government owed the tribe $102 million for the land—but the Sioux have refused the money ever since, even as the amount has grown to $1 billion thanks to interest. Instead, they're holding out for the return of the land itself. This sort of conflict exemplifies the sometimes tense relationship between the Sioux and the US government.

In April, members of the Standing Rock Lakota tribe started the camp known as Sacred Stone in the path of the 1,000-mile pipeline designed to transport oil from the Bakken fields in North Dakota to a port in Illinois. The DAPL was slated to go within half a mile of reservation land, and the Lakota worried that a leak would threaten their water supply; they say they were never consulted, though legally they should have been, and they claim the pipeline has already cut through sacred grounds.

Protests against the DAPL intensified over the summer and fall, and the national media slowly began to take notice. In late October, 141 activists were arrested after some of them blocked roads by setting fires and locked themselves to vehicles. Then, just before Thanksgiving, on a 28-degree night, the police used water cannons, tear gas, and rubber bullets on the activists. And something (whether it was a concussion grenade or a "friendly" propane tank is a matter of dispute) nearly blew the arm off a 21-year-old woman from New York.

The veterans who've come to North Dakota have varying opinions on the pipeline, but none of them are comfortable with that sort of force against civilians. It's the violence, above all, that they've come to oppose.
 And now they're here. But what next?

Adrienne, Jonas, and Tom set off for the Cannon Ball Rec Center, about four miles from camp, where they were told to register back at Eagle Butte. Adrienne wants to hunker down, eat soup, and lay out our sleeping bags. But Tom is hell-bent on finding his "orders," so we drive to Fort Yate's Sitting Bull Community College, 40-minutes away.

They sign another list ("More loose-leaf paper!" Adrienne groans) and find a room packed with veterans listening to speeches, drums, and chanting. There are no orders here. We end up driving around Fort Yates for another half an hour, looking for yet another gym, before cranking the volume on the only station we get—an amalgamation of skating rink rock and Ozzfest metal—and cruising back to Cannon Ball.

Adrienne announces that tomorrow, she's heading to camp on her own—"That way y'all don't have to deal with my nagging ass." Screw the orders, she thinks. She's not in the Army anymore.

People celebrate after the announcement that the DAPL will be rerouted

At 05:00 the next morning, December 4, we shake awake, dressing in layers. About a dozen vets are walking to camp before dawn to participate in a water ceremony, which is beautiful and unfamiliar to us. People line a steep hill leading to the banks of the Cannonball River, chanting and singing. Some of the songs are spirituals: "Wade in the Water" and "This Little Light of Mine." Others are in indigenous languages.

At the bank, people kneel and sprinkle tobacco. One man makes the sign of a cross. The sun rises over the frozen water and Rosebud camp, across the way.

While we are gone, a short itinerary is emailed to the vets. It lists a few ceremonies and a single march on the Backwater Bridge, the sight of several conflicts between water protectors and the police.

"It's like a cruise itinerary," Jonas muses.

"That's it? Three days of culture and one day of action?" Adrienne mutters. They gather their things. Tom can stay, but no way are they spending another night in a gym.

There's still no word from "higher up," so a few veterans assume leadership and organize others. Jonny Gorido, a 30-year-old former Marine from New York, starts a list for frontline volunteers. But most of the self-appointed leaders urge people to wait.

At Oceti Sakowin, Adrienne finds some members of the antiwar nonprofit Veterans for Peace (who have answered the call "unofficially") camping and building wooden barracks. She pitches a tent and is improvising insulation with hay bales and cardboard when a woman sprints by, shouting that DAPL is over.

Confused, Adrienne tries to find information on her phone, but can't get a signal. So, task-oriented, she finishes winterizing the tent. Today the weather is mild, but she's thinking about tomorrow. There's supposed to be a storm.

At the Sacred Fire, the news is confirmed by elders. Jo-Ellen Darcy, the Army assistant secretary of civil works has called: Necessary permits were denied. The DAPL will be rerouted. For the water protectors, that means dancing, drumming, singing, flag and staff waving, smudging, tobacco offerings, and repeated calls of " mini waconi" ("water is life"). Drones buzz above as the sun lowers, painting the crowd in a red glow.

People celebrate after the announcement that the DAPL will be rerouted

Celebrations continue that night, with fireworks blooming over teepees, even as the wind picks up and the temperature drops. There is a small drum circle just outside our favorite dining spot, called California Kitchen. Voices harmonize, pushing against the drums and sounding ancient and wise, before melding into a hand-clapping jig. As the group finishes, a green star arches across the sky, just over their heads.

That night, Adrienne and Jonas discuss the veterans "mission," and how it's changed.

"What's the new directive?" Jonas asks. Is the march still on for the next day? Should they stay in camp or drive 30 miles to the muster point as planned? The timing of the announcement has discombobulated people—it's a Sunday, the day before Oceti Sakowin was to be evacuated and the veterans were supposed to gather on the front lines. Was this decision made because "authorities" didn't want media images of freezing veterans being shot with water cannons?

"I think the vets showing up definitely had an effect," Adrienne says. "Like, it's OK to beat up on Native people but not veterans?"

A veteran addresses a group from the top of a woodpile

On Monday, December 5, a group of vets prepares for the planned march at 13:00. It's going ahead, despite the Army decision on the DAPL. They gather around a woodpile, some clad in helmets and gas masks. The temperature is a single digit.

An older vet climbs the woodpile, taking charge.

"Under a ceasefire, my corps has never walked into a camp... in an aggressive manner, which is exactly what we are doing when we put this battle gear on," he says. "We are giving those sons of bitches up there...the opportunity to put a black mark against us and this organization." He gestures to the news trucks lining the ridge.

Most vets take off their military-grade equipment. But there is a dissenter.

"We can't defend ourselves?" the man shouts. "They've been shooting rubber bullets for fucking six months."

"They said stand there with us, peace and prayer. This morning Wesley Clark Jr. said in a press conference, no direct action!" a woman calls.

Someone else asks the million-dollar question. "Where is Wesley Clark? Raise your hand Wesley Clark!"

Wesley Clark is not at the woodpile.

"Who's in charge?" someone yells.

"The elders!"

As the veterans raise their voices, Adrienne walks away. "I'm not going to march with this," she says. "I'm not going to do anything that's not what the people want."

It's already begun snowing when the veterans march, about 1,200 of them walking calmly along the ridge for two hours. Some carry flags, some wheel the disabled, and everyone steps aside when Lakota come by on horses. Wesley Clark, we later learn, went to the Prairie Knights Casino, about ten miles outside of camp, for a "forgiveness ceremony" during which he and an entourage of vets apologized on behalf of the US government and military for breaking treaties, taking land and minerals, and blasting the face of presidents "on your sacred hills." The feel-good moment, which goes viral on social media, may be the climax of the Veterans Stand, though fewer than half of the vets are around to witness it.

During the march, the weather becomes unbearable. Snow blows horizontally and shards of ice pierce exposed skin. Without goggles, it's impossible to gaze anywhere but the ground. Dozens of journalists scatter up a slope, trying to get perspective shots, and some photographers clamber atop one of the burned-out trucks. Vets struggle to hold whipping flags in screaming wind.

When he reaches his tent, Jonas plunges his numb hands into his sleeping bag to warm them. His goggles are fogged, so it takes a long minute for him to realize that his hands are actually in a pile of snow. The entire inside of his tent is a pile of snow.

He slurs his words as we crank the van and pile in, blasting heat.

People, one in an Anonymous mask, stand in the snow

That night, we sleep in the van. The Vets for Peace make rounds, checking on tent sleepers every few hours. The next morning, a Native vet from Houston named Marissa Rocha pounds on our window and tells us to find a heated tent. Camp organizers want everyone accounted for.

At Rose's, the nearest kitchen, we hear rumors (later discredited) that there were hypothermia deaths last night. Someone says the dome caught fire and collapsed with 20 people inside. The elders are asking those without heated structures to leave.

We break down camp rapidly, packing gear in the back and anything life-sustaining—food, water, the propane heater—up front, in case we get stranded on the road.

"Has anyone heard from Tom?" Jonas asks.

"He texted from the casino about 17:00 yesterday," Adrienne says. Now he's not responding to texts. Calls go straight to voicemail.

On the main road, in the first 20 minutes we pass at least a dozen cars wrecked or stuck in massive snowdrifts. We skid by cars that need help, because the roads are too icy to stop. A snowplow passes and after that, it's a smooth path to Fort Yates, where we find the gym housing vets. We sign another paper and ask about Tom. His sleeping bag is here, but he's not.

We discover that after the forgiveness ceremony, bus drivers weren't willing to chance the road back to Fort Yates. The elders squabbled about what to do with the vets. They were given buffet tickets, but should they also be given drink tickets? Wasn't Veterans Stand an alcohol-free event? Ultimately some of the vets drank and some gambled, and most slept on bleachers or on the floor in an auditorium without blankets.

We change our socks, drink tea, and call the casino to have Tom paged.

Veterans march in the snow

In Fort Yates, the vets are restless. Some of them have been in gyms for days and never saw camp. They're debating whether or not Wesley Clark Jr. is actually a veteran. (In fact, he was in the Army for four years.) They're wondering why they haven't been reimbursed from the GoFundMe account. They don't know which elders authorized the march because they say other elders wrote a letter, co-signed by Clark, stating that it was inappropriate and asking vets to go home. (Days later, Clark denies this via a tweet.)

"It's like we're purposely not given information and kept away from the camps," says John Hales, 48, an Army and Navy vet from Virginia.

"You got us mobilized... now we can't get to camp, can't get any feedback," says Sam Deering, 28, another Navy vet from Virginia. "It seems like we brought the cameras, and now they're kicking us out."

Later, some veterans and members of the tribe will complain about this disorganization to the media. Clark will admit that some aspects of the operation were "atrocious and chaotic," blaming a bigger-than-expected turnout, the horrible weather, and the confusion after the unanticipated victory. According to spokesperson Parker, GoFundMe had to loan Veterans Stand $150,000 to pay immediate expenses, while the majority of the funds remain tied up in banks.

As for the three vets I travelled with, they were paid before we left town, and the Louisiana-based vets don't seem disgruntled.

Tom finds us later that night, at 21:00. He spent most of the day, December 6, sitting and waiting on a bus that was supposed to take him from the casino to Fort Yates. Finally, it did. "I missed a lot of stuff at camp, but some of the ceremonies I saw were super heavy," Tom says. "I feel like, I don't know, like I went to a therapy session or something. I was crying half the week."

Adrienne is interested in helping construct an eco-village, a movement spearheaded by LaDonna Bravebull, the founder of Sacred Stone Camp. She doesn't care that she never saw the frontlines. "We were there for the fight, but we didn't have to go into battle the same way," she says. "We were able to shift our focus."

She loves the camp, where she "really felt like part of a movement." And she had her picture taken with her wife's hero, Cornel West, when the activist made a brief appearance at the Cannon Ball Rec Center.

Jonas, though, seems the most changed. Even his voice is different—lower, more hoarse. He keeps breathlessly recounting what he calls "frontline action." He's the only one of us who made it to the contested Backwater Bridge, an area elders discouraged water protectors from entering because they're trying to avoid direct conflict. But on Sunday, Jonas and some Chicago veterans who called themselves a "medic team" (one of them actually is a nurse) were allowed through. Jonas never saw law enforcement, but there were a couple of mysterious white SUVs among scattered concrete barriers and a handful of aggressive veterans they had to dissuade from crossing the bridge.

The next day, during the veterans march, he "held the line," meaning he joined a row of Natives who linked arms to keep the crowd from approaching the construction site. The drama of being a gatekeeper ignited some long suppressed sense of urgency. He'd felt this excitement in his months backpacking once he left the Navy, but years of handling petty employees had reordered his priorities. He's already talking about going back to Standing Rock.

"Whatever I'm doing from here out, I'm going to take part in the things I'm passionate about," he says. "Not just sit on the sidelines and watch it all pass by. It's not gonna happen any more."

Cheree Franco is a writer and photographer, mostly working in Arkansas, Mississippi, New York, and Pakistan.

A guy who's made a career out of getting arrested for selling weed just added another high-profile arrest to his rap sheet.

One day after opening six pot shops across Montreal, Marc Emery was hauled off by police Friday and detained overnight. He was released Saturday afternoon on $5,000 bail, according to the CBC. He faces drug trafficking, possession for trafficking and conspiracy charges.

Emery's wife and business partner Jodie Emery caught the arrest on camera, before being arrested herself later that night.

A 30-foot-high stone wall slinks through the residential streets of west Philadelphia. It connects to four bruised watchtowers, one at each corner, to create a sort of citadel. Across the street, on Fairmount Avenue, patrons of coffee shops and bars either don't notice or pay much attention to the former prison hulking in their city.

After the City of Brotherly Love deemed it no longer fit to hold inmates, Eastern State Penitentiary closed in 1971, with problems of mental illness, overcrowding, and abuse having grown rampant. A century before, the neo-Gothic structure was believed to be on the cutting edge of incarceration, birthing the modern-day practice known as solitary confinement, where inmates are held in isolation for (roughly) 23 hours a day. Over time, hundreds of prisons worldwide mimicked the same radial layout, where cells fan out from a central hub, like a wagon wheel.

Now Eastern State Penitentiary—with its asylum aesthetic and grim interior reality—serves as a stark reminder of what went wrong with crime and punishment across America.

That made the prison the perfect backdrop for the Vera Institute of Justice, a criminal justice think tank based in New York, to launch its "Reimagining Prison" initiative, an 18-month-long program that will bring together stakeholders in the system, like formerly incarcerated individuals, correction officials, researchers, and elected officials, to brainstorm a future for mass incarceration—and reflect on the mistakes of the past.

At the launch event, which included a brief tour of the decaying cells and an exhibit on how America became the most imprisoned nation on Earth, VICE grabbed a few of those players for a chat about what that future should look like and what it'll take to make it happen.

Before coming to work for JustLeadershipUSA, an NYC-based criminal justice program with the goal to cut incarceration numbers in half by 2030, Ronald Simpson-Bey was incarcerated himself for 27 years in a Michigan prison. Eventually, his conviction on assault-with-intent-to-commit-murder charges was overturned, thanks in part to his own legal studies. Now, he's dedicated his life to the system that took most of his youth.

At the conference, Simpson-Bey called for a restorative, rather than rehabilitative, system, and a rethinking of the decades-long mindset that got us here in the first place. "I think our elected officials need to be as tough on solutions as they've been on crime," he said during the panel.

When we spoke, Simpson-Bey added that one of the first steps in that process is to recognize who actually needs to be in prison and who doesn't. "When I was in there, on the inside, I saw that there was actually a need for prison in our society," he said. "We just use it the wrong way.

"We use it in a punitive way, and we use it too much," he continued. "So what I see is smaller numbers, and smaller sentences, in the future."

John Wetzel, Pennsylvania's secretary of corrections, agreed. Under his tenure, the former corrections officer and semi-pro football player has taken an entirely different approach to incarceration. He's been reluctant to build more prisons in the state and, more recently, changed the way Pennsylvania labels ex-prisoners by not referring to them "offenders" and "felons." And, since taking the job in 2011, his office has seen a historic drop both in incarceration and recidivism rate. Last year witnessed the state's largest prison population decrease in 40 years.

So, those at the conference wondered: What's his secret?

"I just think we need to use incarceration with precision. I don't think it's ever 'either or.' I think it's always both ends," he said. "So some people need to be locked up—some, maybe forever—but not this many people, and not for this long.

Do we want a system where it's more likely that a mentally ill individual ends up in prison than in a hospital?

"I think there are some things going on, like the heroin epidemic, which people are starting to see. We look at everything through a criminal justice lens," he explained. "So when we talk about drug courts and diversion, why are we putting addicts in the criminal justice system in the first place?"

That's essentially the same question being posed about the mentally ill in America's jails and prisons. And then there's the more existential question: Do we want a system where it's more likely that a mentally ill individual ends up in prison than in a hospital?

Now, since those two locales seem to often serve the same purpose (an issue we discussed earlier in this series), it was inevitable that overlap would crop up when a bunch of experts are in a room. Mentally-ill inmates not only take up a good chunk of who's behind bars in this country, but also provide serious challenges when it comes to staff unequipped for the challenge.

The outgoing sheriff Michael J. Ashe Jr., who oversees the county jail in Hampden County, in Massachusetts, is considered to be a pioneer in this field—someone who witnessed massive incarceration growth throughout his time there, since he started in 1974. He reacted with measures that are just now becoming the mainstream, like stress rehabilitation, college-level classes, and required hours of rehabilitation, or vocational training.

"As state hospitals continue to close—and even though we still have some of the best mental health hospitals in the world—the last place these individuals need to be is in a correctional facility," Ashe told the room. "So I really feel these things will need to be addressed in the years ahead."

For guidance on what is, perhaps, the best way to punish, Baz Dreisinger traveled around the world to see, and maybe even learn from, how other countries treat their prison populations. Her journey resulted in a book, Incarcerated Nations, which sheds light on the philosophy behind American incarceration and how it stands apart globally.

In Singapore, Dreisinger, who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said there's an ad campaign aimed at hiring formerly incarcerated individuals, sort of like a "ban-the-box" promotional. In Norway, she added, one of the prisons actually seems more like a cattle farm, with open space and no bars. And in South Africa, she attended a restorative justice seminar in a prison that is considered to be one of its nastiest.

"The future of incarceration is to not be called incarceration," she told me after the panel. "I think what I wanted to emphasize is that it's about reenvisioning and reimagining justice."

"So for me, the future has little to do with prisons—the word 'incarceration' itself, and the space we're standing in," she continued. "So I envision a system that is grounded in community courts, reparative systems, truth and reconciliation commissions, and 'facilities,' insofar as absolutely necessary, which is always involving a really small number of people."

"It was quite bizarre, walking into a prison and you're bathed in sunlight. You walk into American prisons, like this one, and it's a dungeon! It's completely different."—Vikrant Reddy

Nearly everyone at the conference agreed that the current layout of America's correctional system will have to be drastically redesigned in the years ahead, as downsizing and reform efforts continue. To that end, Vikrant Reddy, a senior research fellow for the Charles Koch Institute, said that tweaking even the aesthetic of a facility can have a long-lasting impact on the inmates inside. As a result, every last detail of what a prison looks like, he said, will have to be scrutinized to ensure effectiveness and health.

Reddy, too, encouraged the United States to look abroad for role models.

"I visited Germany, on a trip with the Vera Institute last year, to see their prisons, and people ask me, 'What struck you the most?' And it's very easy to answer that question, because I always say the sunlight. It was quite bizarre, walking into a prison and you're bathed in sunlight. You walk into American prisons, like this one, and it's a dungeon! It's completely different.

"They've done research on how sunlight affects a person—in places like Seattle, you're a little bit more depressed because of the amount of sun," he added. "Some of this stuff really matters. So I want us to think very broadly about physical space inside of prisons."

The conference itself was more abstract than technical. Panelists discussed larger themes of what it means to punish, what the public wants out of a correctional system, and how they intend to fix it in the coming years. But these underlying questions, as demonstrated in this series, are just one part of the criminal justice system. Sure, prisons and jails are where people end up (even if, as many would argue, they shouldn't be), but what's going on right now is a full-on reevaluation of modern mass incarceration, from the moment a person first enters the system to when, at least in most cases, they leave.

"Our prison system is doing something that time has proven, over and over again, does not change someone's behavior."—Vivian Nixon

While serving time for falsifying documents, Reverend Vivian Nixon was a peer instructor to her fellow inmates, and she quickly realized that incarceration had set up barriers to what they could accomplish once free. The system had achieved a never-ending cycle, and rethinking this wagon wheel—just as lawmakers had done with Eastern State Penitentiary over a century before—was the only way of breaking it.

"Our prison system is doing something that time has proven, over and over again, does not change someone's behavior," Nixon, who leads the College and Community Fellowship, which offers scholarships to formerly incarcerated women, told conference attendees. "So prisons need to be a place where people can reimagine themselves, to be in different places, have different opportunities, and to perform different behaviors.

"If I were queen, prisons would be places where people could envision the best possible life for themselves," she continued, conscious she was standing in the middle of a decaying old prison. They would be places that give "people the instruction, the education, and the support they need to achieve" their dreams.

This article is part of the VICE series The Future of Incarceration. Read the rest of the package here.

Follow John Surico on Twitter.

The caption for this is quite literally "As I took this someone was getting thrown in the back for shoplifting!" (Photo by Flickr user Police_Mad_Liam via)

I used to shoplift all the time as a teen – we all did, right? – but gave it up. My change may have had something to do with getting caught once in M&S, and being dashed in a cell by the police for a day. It was time to fly straight. At the time, I was broke, desperate and probably being really obvious about my thieving intentions.

At this time of year, that's the general trend. In the buildup to Christmas, where consumerism is king and capitalism shoved in our faces so hard that January debt is practically a tradition, police forces tend to see an uptick in shoplifting attempts. In fact, retailers are set to lose £1 billion of goods to shoplifters in the final two months of the year, according to a merchandise availability report. In honour of the time of year when people feel the most pressure to buy things – and steal others – I talked to people about all the times they've been caught doing shoplifting.

MILLY, 25

I was 14. It was the first time my Mum had let me go shopping on my own with a friend, and we were in the Watford Boots. And yet I didn't just take, like, a little Maybelline mascara. I went on a heist. I stole about £200 worth of stuff like a dickhead and they "picked me up" as I was leaving, while my friend ran away.

The worst thing was, after a huge bollocking they were like, "OK, you have half an hour to have an adult come and collect you. Otherwise we will have to charge you and take you down to station because of the value of the goods". I tried to call both parents but got no answer. So I started freaking the fuck out, which only made me then desperately proceed to call every single adult in mine and my parents' lives, and still none of them answered. But obviously I left panicked voicemails, so basically not only did I get arrested, but I ratted myself to every grandparent, auntie, mum's friend and friend's mum I could think of.

VANESSA, 37

Once, about seven years ago in Primark, I was nicking some jeans that I needed for work. I was starting my own business and was so, so skint. I was so embarrassed when I was caught – that hot dread creeping over me, while getting frog marched to the office like a dick. I genuinely felt remorse for getting caught but I didn't feel bad about stealing from a company like Primark. I would never steal from a corner shop or independent business, but Primark? Fuck it. I got bollocked but I was honest with the security dudes and said I was broke, that I knew it was wrong, but that my circumstances had essentially forced me to steal as I literally did not have any money.

Even now I'm tempted to nick a bottle of water from a supermarket if the queue is big. But I think a lot of Brits are like that because most have been in desperate times at some point in their lives and it's made them feel less guilty.

GLENN, 40

I was in Woolworths in Bolton when I was growing up and I was just shoplifting some records; I think I was about 13. I thought I'd managed to pull it off because I'd got out the front door but then the fucking store detective nicked me as I was about to leave. They called the police while they kept me behind in the back, all stern looks and that. Two police then came and walked me handcuffed all the way through Bolton town centre, from the store to the station – it was pretty shameful.

I was only a child at the time so I was fucking scared. When they got me down the station they just gave me a bollocking, the classic, "Listen son, you're on a slippery slope with this type of behaviour" sort of thing, but it had me shaken up for a bit.

(Photo by Mike Mozart via)

LAUREN, 28

I was 21 at the time and had just nipped down to Topshop on my lunch break. This was back when it was super-easy to jack things from there: no accessories were ever security tagged so you'd just stuff something in your bag and you were done. I got a bit too full of myself and was very bait about chucking some jewelry in my bag, so got stopped by a plainclothes security woman on my way out.

She said: "Do you have anything from Topshop in your bag?" and I immediately said yes. I knew I was caught, so didn't want to make a scene. I said: "I'm so sorry I'm having a really hard day!" which is hilarious – I think I was going for the Winona Ryder defense. They took me into this back room with three security guards, and I said I'd pay for everything. I managed to basically charm the room until this fucking jobsworth head of security came in and said, "Police Camera Action were here yesterday, and we wouldn't have to blur your face because you're over 18, how would that make your mum feel?"

They're a lot nicer to you when you're a teenager. As a 21-year-old they make you feel like a broke bitch.

TED, 26

It was a few years ago, on a night when my brother and I both got pretty hammered. We went to a Tesco to get something to eat but I had no money. So I was stood there, laughing, talking to this podgy security guard – little did he know, I had a spiced Moroccan tortilla wrap stuffed in my man bag. I eventually decided I didn't actually want anything but, as I go to leave, the guy grabbed me, twisting my arm around my back. He led me to this little temporary paddock by the tills, made up of those cages people pack shelves from. He told me to wait there, as he's calling the police.

I was in shock and clocked my brother, stood in the queue. We exchanged a few looks while I basically cried inside. Then my brother threw down his shit and started tearing this paddock apart shouting "this isn't right!" The security guard tried to stop him but he shouted, "run, Ted, run," and after a tussle we both sprinted out. We were running for a while down the side of the Thames, sort of laughing to each other and shouting "fat cunt" back at the guy. Then we saw the podgy security guard coming up behind us and shat ourselves and had to split up to lose him. I totally didn't learn my lesson.

@williamwasteman

More on VICE:

Inside the World of Britain's Professional Shoplifters

Does Christmas Really Come Earlier Every Year?

A Handy Guide to Drugs During the Festive Season

Check out Allison Conway's Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.

Merry fucking Christmas, everybody. Photo via Flickr user Dan Century

There is no genre of music I hate more than Christmas music. It's sappy, annoying, overly reliant on the musical charm of bells and creepily religious. Like it's 2016. Just because I'm in the mall buying multiple copies of the same book for all of my loved ones doesn't mean I need to hear about how God's baby has come to bless all of us sinners.

But I know that I am in the minority on this. The closer we get to the holidays the more people feel comfortable, at work or while preparing dinner, with listening to Christmas music for hours on end until I get snow blindness in my ears. Well I decided no more. I will not take this lying down so I made a list of what your favourite shitty Christmas song says about your shitty self and I hope all my fellow yuletide haters can enjoy this little bit of holiday bile.

Deck The Halls

You will celebrate Christmas morning the same way you did last year: by having to lie down in the shower.

Here Comes Santa Claus

You are a really into Santa-as-a-badass-barbarian cosplay.

Winter Wonderland

You think that as long as it's a man and woman, it's perfectly fine and normal to be married by a snowman.

I'll Be Home For Christmas

Sometimes you go to the airport and watch newly reunited people embrace in the Arrivals area until security asks you to leave.

The Christmas Song ("Chestnuts Roasting on...")

Nobody ever wants to try the chestnut and chevre appies you bring to Christmas parties and you laugh it off and call them all Scrooges but deep down it hurts.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

You think evolution is just one theory among many.

Silent Night

You describe any baby you meet as 'tender and mild' and it's discomforting to the parents.

Jingle Bells

Your death will involve a fatal mixture of Red Bulls, vodka and tobogganing.

Hang in there, Joy. Photo via Flickr U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Joy To The World

If your worthless, unappreciative sons buy you one more candle as a present, you are getting a bottle of wine, a hotel room downtown and they can figure out how to cook a fucking turkey themselves.

O Come All Ye Faithful

Your secret Santa gift is always a charitable donation in the person you got's name.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

You have spent thousands of dollars on designer long johns.

Hallelujah Chorus From The Messiah

You have thrown up in the bathroom at a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert before.

White Christmas

You don't think Steve Bannon is racist, just provocative.

O Holy Night

You are a pedophile hunter.

Fairytale of New York

You are very cool and pierce your own ears.

We Wish You A Merry Christmas

You spent all last night trying to take a selfie with your dog wearing fake reindeer antlers but your dog kept knocking them off his head and you got so frustrated you started crying and that's been happening a lot lately.

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

Just because it's Christmas doesn't mean you can't make this a key party.

The Little Drummer Boy

You give everyone in your family twenty bucks in an envelope. No card just the cash.

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

You haven't been the same since Clarence Clemons died.

The First Noel

You are a monster that has fancy house parties and pause them in the middle to make your guests watch your son sing his original songs on an acoustic guitar.

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer

Your year began falling apart when you had to cancel the Magic The Gathering tournament at your house due to a lack of attendance.

Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree

You are a very fun mom and last year you completely forgot to buy any presents for one of your sons.

Do You Hear What I Hear

When you watch a movie with other people you always ask them to explain things in the plot that the movie hasn't explained yet.

Let It Snow

Whenever it's an unseasonably warm winter day you can't help but bum people out by saying, "Sure it's nice out but that's because we're all straight fucked man."

You're not fooling anyone, Gene. Photo via Flickr U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

A Holly Jolly Christmas

Sometimes you let somebody have a sip of your eggnog and they go, "Jesus Gene, is there any nog in that thing?" and you both laugh but for a second you see the worry in their eyes and now you can't stop thinking about it.

Frosty The Snowman

You bought some cigars to celebrate the holidays but had no idea how big a commitment they are. Seriously this thing is going to take like half an hour to smoke and it's freezing out, what the fuck are we doing?

Jingle Bell Rock

Your favourite places to eat are authentically grungy diners that used to be scary but then got new owners and are now filled with beautiful people eating chorizo.

Feliz Navidad

You think the best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill.

Silver Bells

You've teared up before at the mall's Christmas decorations.

12 Days of Christmas

You are in a viciously codependent relationship.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

You have a plan. Your crush is coming to a holiday party at your place. You got mistletoe everywhere and eventually the two of you will be standing under it and you'll sheepishly tilt your head up toward it. Then you will shyly kiss and she'll see that what she has been looking for this whole time has been standing there in front of her all along.

All I Want For Christmas Is You

You are right. This is the best one.

Follow Jordan Foisy on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

Politicians have said some fun things recently. That child refugees seeking entry to the UK should have their teeth age-checked. Or that flag burning in the US should be met with a revoking of citizenship. And slowly, these ideas have come to replace what we thought was normal with a new kind of politics.

By now you've probably seen that meme, where any comparison drawn between Hitler and something in the present day is met with a colourful scoff. But with right-wing authoritarianism on the rise in Europe, and law-and-order fan Trump president-elect in the US, might there be more to the way people sling the term "Nazi" around online? And people have thrown around the word "Nazi" a hell of a lot this year – but is there any foundation to their worry?

Amazon Prime show The Man in the High Castle's onto a second season of exploring that ever-present – and increasingly pertinent – question of what may have happened if Hitler had won the war. We asked counterfactual 20th century historian Professor Gavriel Rosenfeld, about whether he thinks Nigel Farage, Donald Trump and Marine le Pen really are ushering in some kind of fourth Reich, or if we are all just overreacting a bit.

VICE: Hi Professor Rosenfeld, why do people like imagining that England is run by Nazis so much?
Professor Gavriel Rosenfeld: There's a basic psychological tendency to wonder "what if" in our personal lives, depending on how we feel about the present. If you feel content and grateful about the present you might construct nightmare scenarios where, 'boy if you'd made a different decision, things would have turned out worse,' so it's it great that things are the way things are.

Unlike "what ifs" about us losing a war, in reality can a singular pivotal event really radically change the course of history?
The basic disagreement in history is whether it's the "Great Man" theory, where the Jesuses and Napoleons change history, or whether change derives from deep structural and economic forces. Counterfactual history often revolves around political assassinations happening or not happening, or military battles going one way or another way. But when historical events seem to be the result of very, very close calls where it could have gone the other way very easily, it is easy to imagine that chance contingency could have played an important role. Not everything is inevitable.

But then sometimes you have to have long lead-ups to make situations possible. The strength of European democracies today isn't what it was 40 years ago when their economies were booming, so they're more easily toppled by right-wing or left-wing extremists. Or take the decline in the standard of living of huge swathes of people in England or the US' Rust Belt. A Donald Trump 30 years ago wouldn't have gotten anywhere but today he can get further because of deeper structural changes.

Do you think people will be writing about 2016 in the future as a pivotal year?
The key years in history we only appreciate looking back on them, but 2016, depending on what happens in the next few years, could easily be seen as a turning point. Just like how we look now at 9/11 as the start of a new era in Western history.

What kind of parallels can you draw between now and the collapse of democracy at the end of the Weimar Republic? An obvious one feels like is the scapegoating of a particular group during a time of economic difficulty.
Of course, it's the usual bait and switch routine - distracting people from their deeper sufferings and projecting that dissatisfaction onto scapegoats who have nothing to do with it. Whether with traditional forms of antisemitism or racism, or Islamophobia, there is usually some group that's going to be blamed for the plight of others.

The problem in inter-war Europe in the 1920s and 30s was that the liberal, Parliamentary democratic order of the 19th century was more or less discredited by World War One. And a lot of people became skeptical of that world, so they turned to the political extremes. I would usually make the case that people don't tend to gravitate to the political extremes and outlandish solutions if the centre works for the majority of people. And I think the analogy today is that, certainly since 2008 with the world's financial crisis, and with the worsening problems of terrorism and a general breaking down of the world order, people are losing faith in political elites.

But the idea that outsiders can automatically make things better often tends to be naive. So while in the 1920s and 30s while it was hard for people to imagine things getting worse by voting for left- or right-wing extremists, that is in fact what happened. Things did get worse. And even though the Great Depression was a huge problem and most people abandoned hope in the liberal system, they probably should have stuck with it, because what ended up happening was a catastrophic alternative.

But are the events and main players of today really that similar to the Nazis?
I think one of the reasons why people study history is to make sure the mistakes that led to World War Two are never repeated. That's led to someone sounding the alarm bells every time there are rumblings of a new Hitler emerging, to make sure it doesn't turn into what everyone is afraid of. But by invoking the Nazi analogy, we often end up going down the path of alarmism.

There have been countless people who were compared to Hitler and never turned out to be anything like him, like Nixon. Some comparisons are alarmist, and some are more on target, but the peril is to be naive and think "everything is going to continue as it always has". If you aren't on guard against the erosion of democratic norms and traditions you can find yourself one day waking up with the world not as you imagined.

So what's your advice to people tempted to look back at history for guidance today?
I would say that making historical comparisons is always a good intellectual exercise, but it gets debased when it is merely to score rhetorical points against your opponents, or to smear someone. That's when people tune out, because people are just like "here's someone trotting out the Nazi card, which has been used so many times and hasn't panned out, why should we pay attention anymore?"

I would personally like to think that we should have a stance of eternal vigilance to protect democratic norms. It should always be our default position, but not only when those norms are being threatened. The tendency to take democracy for granted, and to engage in protest voting because you assume things will always more or less be fine, that's a pretty reckless mode of behaving. I don't blame people in the UK or America for voting to junk the system, if they feel that they have no other way of getting attention than by acting out.

On the other hand we have to see that as a sign. When someone develops a fever that's a sign that there's a deeper sickness in the body. And I think that when we see political outsiders being voted in, it's a sign that political bodies have some problems. We need to deal with the source, rather than just ring alarm bells like "look who's coming back."

Thanks, Professor.

The Man in the High Castle Season 2 is available on Amazon Prime Video now.

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Populism Barely Got Started in 2016 – Just Wait Until Next Year

How 2016 Became the Year That Voters Stopped Following Politicians' Big Plans

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Pixote's legacy has been permanently etched into graffiti lore. The Brazilian-born artist's larger-than-life inscriptions have lined the walls of New York City since his arrival in the 1990s, a time many regard to as a golden age for the arts in downtown Manhattan. Though his work may be more closely associated with spray cans, his most recent exhibit finds him veering beyond aerosol towards water bottles, paint splashes, actual paintbrushes, and even his bare hands.

"State of Awareness" finds the artist, also known as Joao Salomao, in full introspective mode, exploring what he refers to as the "essential elements of life and consciousness: where spirituality and energy meet colors, shapes, movements, and figures in abstract composition."

I caught up with Pixote over email in advance of his solo debut at Manhattan's Ludlow House to talk about his approach to painting and the idea of art as an awakening.

Pixote. Photo by Soren Solkaer

VICE: How does your work in graffiti relate to your painting? Do they converge?
Pixote: My in the studio, its a completely different approach. There is a deep communication with the paint and the canvas, like a ritual... I dance around the paintings. I talk to them, too.

What role do you feel the body has in your work?
I feel like when I dance around the canvas, I am connecting with spirits, freeing my body and mind so I can do the work. Painting for me is like a ritual, I set the intention then I just paint. I don't think too much. I just paint.

We're living in politically tumultuous times. Does the title "State of Awareness" have an explicit political dimension to it?
No. It has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with the awareness of oneself.

How do you feel that graffiti art and artists change when they are placed in galleries?
I don't like to talk for others. But for me, its very clear. Graffiti is graffiti. And the paintings are paintings.

How do you feel the contemporary graffiti scene in NYC has changed since you first moved here in the 90s?
I think one big difference between now and then is social media. Back then, artist were inspired by art that they passed by or caught wind of. However, the new age graffiti influence is social media.

This year was pretty shitty for many people. What do you think was the most redeemable aspect of it?
For me, 2016 was a growing year. I was able to create this amazing project that I am excited to share at Soho House. Every year has great aspects of it. It's all about what you make of it .

What's your overall mission with your art?
To generate positivity, awareness, and love through my work. We live in a weird society so divided by races and religions. Through my work, I want to deliver more awareness that the revolution needs to happen inside first.

This interview was edited for clarity and length.

Mark Hughes photo by Jackie Dives

There is no easy way to bring up Vancouver's opioid crisis in casual conversation, but for comedian Mark Hughes, that's exactly the point, and why more of us need to do it. For too long, the problem has wandered between various levels of government, like a giant Sisyphean rock pushed only by the people who see it every day—either as users or frontline workers.

To bring the overdose epidemic outside the world of health care and advocacy, Hughes decided to bring together a bunch of professionally funny friends to raise money for a community-led overdose prevention tent in the city's hard-hit Downtown Eastside neighbourhood. The "Safe Injection Comedy" show came to Vancouver's Rickshaw Theatre exactly one week before the deadliest night we've seen in British Columbia so far.

VICE caught up with Mark before and after the show, to talk about his personal struggle with heroin addiction, and how shining light on the issue has already changed the way people think about "junkies."

VICE: Why did you want to do this comedy show? What's your story?
Mark Hughes: I'm a recovering heroin addict myself, and I was down on the Downtown Eastside as a teenager. I spent a lot of years here. I've been clean for a long time now, but I'm only clean for today. Who knows where my life could go? That could be me out there, maybe overdosing every time I'm about to get high. So I thought I've got to be able to respond to this, because it wouldn't sit right with me to not help out... I'm a comic who knows how to produce shows, so I thought if I could put on a show that could respond to the opioid crisis, that's using my skills for the forces of good, rather than evil. It also balances out karma for all the people I offend with my act.

Is the opioid crisis impacting the people in your life?
Absolutely. I know 15 people in the last two months that have died. Because I'm in recovery, a lot of people I know end up relapsing sometimes. Now if somebody has a bad night and says "Dammit, fuck I gotta get high," they could be dead. And literally it's 50/50.

That's super heavy. So how do personally make light or laugh at this stuff?
Well I always laugh at everything. I've had a fucked up life. My head's a war zone at the best of times. Humour for me is like a release valve, it lets the steam out. Laughter takes the edge off. This is a sad time down here right now. Lots of people are dying and lots of family members are left behind, so jokes can help... A lot of people that I know who have spent time down here, laughter was all we had when we weren't getting high. It doesn't cost any money, it's cheaper than heroin.

Read More: Supervised Injection Sites Are On the Way

The event raised a few thousand dollars for the Overdose Prevention Society. Are you happy with that? What was reaction like?
I feel really good about it, glad we were able to raise that much, glad people rallied together to support it. It was cool to be part of something like that, to go down and drop the money off down at the Downtown Eastside market. There were a few negative reactions, like when the online stuff came out—"Why are you helping junkies? Fuck them!"—that kind of thing. That happens anytime the subject of drug addicts and money and overdose comes up, but not as much as it used to. Those people aren't the majority anymore, but it's a not-tiny minority—like maybe 30 percent of people. They'll say ODs are just the problem sorting itself out, or that addicts are just a burden on the taxpayer.

Just this week the Downtown Eastside saw it's deadliest night, with nine killed. How did you take that news?
I was not shocked. Even though the government brought in its own overdose prevention sites, it's still not getting any easier. It just goes to show that this isn't an easy problem to solve, I think they could even throw tons of money at it, and it wouldn't solve it or make it go away.

Is there something you think needs to happen?
I'm going to pick on Vancouver here. This city is super desirable—people come from all over the world to live here, and I see a lot of vanity and shallowness everywhere except the Downtown Eastside. There's a type that won't go down there, who would pretend it doesn't exist. To pretend it's not there, I think, is super irresponsible. If you want to live here and only talk about craft beer and the latest indie rock band, that's not enough. Not to get too hippy about this stuff, but society is a living organism, we're all connected, so we all have .

Are we going to see another comedy night like this in Vancouver?
I'll definitely do it again. It's something I think I need to do, even if it doesn't go to the Overdose Prevention Society. It will probably be directed in that area.

Follow Sarah Berman on Twitter.

As 2016 slams the brakes on, editors the breadth of the land put their feet up on the desk and just serve you some reconstituted yesterdays: top-10-20-30-50-100 countdowns of stuff that happened over the past 12 months.

But as you grind your way through multiple end-of-year music supplements banging on about A Tribe Called Quest's triumphant and necessary return, your eyes go oblong and there's a sense of intense, giddying deja vu. Haven't we seen it all before? In every other magazine/paper/webzine/cereal box? Like, every year? Forever?

Well, here's us helping you slice through the crap: this is The Only Top 49 Albums of the Year Countdown You'll Ever Need.

49: An artist "musing on mortality" but still alive.

48: An artist "musing on mortality" who died just after this was released.

47: Really should be musing on mortality a lot more, but hey, 25 always feels immortal, y'know, and sizzurp can be so insidious.

46: Was doing all that identity politics stuff years before it went mainstream.

45: "Originally written as an imaginary soundtrack for" oh fuck off.

44: You really tried with this one.

43: Everyone else gets it.

42: If you had time to listen to this in 2016 then we're all really sorry for whatever happened in your life.

41: Kate Tempest.

40: Return of artist whose raw public confession of homosexuality wasn't quite as good as Frank Ocean's because he had the misfortune not to work in a genre that hates gays.

39: Lucy Dacus or Tancred.

38: Van Morrison or Paul Simon.

37: Confessional Mental Health Redemptive Arc Thinkpiece with Boxout: Writer pens long memoir on how this record "saved" her from anxiety/depression/OCD issue.

36: Tireless cheerleading for Hillary was decisive in her losing three states.

35: So apparently we're all still pretending to like Savages this year?

34: Writer, carried away with weaving housing crisis narrative, forgets artist is actually the scion of billionaire property dynasty.

33: Parquet Courts.

32: Never high, never low, always there, always diaphanously spooky: yup this spot is reserved for hyper-dependable indie ox-person Bat for Lashes.

31: Actual bullshit.

30: Artist "announcing to the world exactly who he was, and that everyone needed to shut up and listen", apparently.

29: Sia.

28: Angel Olsen. Yes. And for this entire decade, you still haven't bothered to spend just five minutes googling who the fuck she is, have you? And even now you're not going to read this little appraisal to find out? No? Fine.

27: Thank god for Radiohead. At least someone's still making good old fashioned straight-down-the-line weird music.

26: The album of the year, a year ahead of its time.

25: Someone being lukewarm about The Avalanches.

24: "His anger at society's hegemonic structure provided the fuel to create an album that works to burn down oppression while celebrating his blackness."

23: Needless reference to Sade influence as signifier of so-uncool-its-cool, seemingly unaware of years-long project of Sade critical rehabilitation.

22: "Despite everything, somehow, it works." Where "somehow" = "because the editor needed this one in here to stand a chance of securing an interview next year".

21: Writer just ranting about Trump for first five paragraphs before tenuously-tied-to-artist point finally emerges.

20: Thankfully, this is the only moment of the year the term neo-soul ever has to cross anyone's radar.

19: Someone "coming of age".

18: Mentions "the narrative" of two stars dating in a way that doesn't even deign to respect the pretence of it being a real relationship; instead openly critiques the aesthetic/artistic "truth" of said dating "narrative". Yup, we're there already.

17: Skepta, with think-piece boxout: "The Year of the Grime Renaissance." Fifth straight year of same boxout.

16: Young Thug.

15: Someone trying to be Young Thug.

14: Someone trying to be the guy trying to be Young Thug.

13: Even this one is actually only the third-best album of the year with a track referencing Harambe.

12: Over-styled pop muppet, designed to show staff are still "in touch" with the charts, even though contrived new streaming-plus-radio-plus-downloads formulae mean that the charts themselves haven't been "in touch" with the public for four years.

11: Position of Sia album if she hadn't given all these songs to Rihanna as usual.

10: Beyonce. Boxout: "Are We at the Dawn of the Visual Album?" TL;DR: No.

9: Yes, it's a sentimentally high-placing for a posthumous release. Great. But everyone writing these warm revisionist elegies about the man's recent output really should be forced to do so while listening to Earthling.

8: Solange strategically a couple of places higher than Beyonce. Yup – suck on it, conventionalists.

7: October release date, croaky Americana, snow-dappled heartache, proof that End of Year List Music is now as real a genre as Oscar Bait – with the string arrangements done by many of the same people.

6: Thinkpiece: "Kanye's Cubist Masterpiece". Boxout timeline: "Kanye's Mad Year".

5 - 2: A few high-ranking albums of the year on Metacritic that the lazier hacks swotted up on and voted for to obscure the fact that they basically spent 2016 listening to nothing but Be Here Now, Doggystyle, In an Aeroplane Over the Sea and Room On Fire.

1: Album of the Year: Kings of Leon (Q); The 1975 (Nu-NME); Sven Vath (Mixmag); Neil Young (Uncut); Neil Young (Mojo); Neil Young (Classic Rock); Neil Young (Home & Garden); people humming transcendentally over distorted tape loops of concrete being laid (The Wire).

@gavhaynes

(Collage photos: Jenny McCambridge; Jarle Vines; Flickr user Charice L; Michael Straubmuller; Abby Gillardi; Kim Metso; Jon Elbaz; Batiste Safont; Kirk Stauffer)

More on VICE:

Which Philosophy Can Best Explain 2016?

2016: When the World Fucks You and Leaves

Don't Blame '2016' for Your Shitty Year

A mystical dagger, or keris. All photos by Iyas Lawrence

This article was originally published on VICE Indonesia

Indonesia's House of Representatives (DPR) proposed to outlaw dukun santet, or dark sorcerers, this past November with a highly controversial set of measures that critics call an outright bizarre attempt to legislate the supernatural.

Under the proposed law, which was included in an update of Indonesia's Criminal Code, it would be illegal for a person to claim they possess the ability to cast spells for evil, or vindictive purposes. The law criminalises the intent, not the act itself. It's the third time the government has proposed a black magic law. Previous attempts to outlaw black magic died on the floor of the House as lawmakers argued over how, exactly, police would be able to prove the existence of santet (black magic).

"What we want to outlaw is the person who claims they can do santet," said Arsul Sani, a lawmaker with the DPR's commission on law and justice. "The person who declares they are a dukun santet – that's the one who gets convicted. That's it. If it's about the act of santet itself, well, that's very hard to prove."

It's hard, but not impossible. The belief in witchcraft is so widespread in Indonesia that some dukun are treated like mystical celebrities. Former presidents like Gen. Suharto, prominent politicians, top businessmen have all been rumoured to seek the help of shamans and witch doctors – often rewarding the sorcerers with substantial payments for services rendered.

The Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI), the country's leading Islamic organisation, tried to dampen beliefs in black magic by issuing a fatwa against witchcraft that declared the practice haram. But it's done little change the minds of many Indonesian Muslims. A survey by the Pew Research Center in 2012 found that 69 percent of Indonesian Muslims believed in witchcraft.

"Santet itself is the immaterial energy of inanimate objects like nails, screws, iron, anything really. The energy is then transferred into the target's body to cause harm."—Dewi Sundari

Sometimes, the belief in black magic can have deadly real world implications. In the late 90s, the country was gripped by a bloody and mysterious witch hunt that left more than 100 dead. In East Java, residents of the city of Banyuwangi barricaded their doors and organised patrols to defend themselves against the marauding black-masked "ninjas" who would appear at night and leave the dismembered or decapitated corpses of dukun santet in their wake.

Witch killings are rare in modern-day Indonesia but every year the odd sorcerer slaying still occurs. In March of this year, a 70-year-old woman was murdered, her body left dismembered by a mob of 30 people, in North Sulawesi's Sula Island. Locals believed that the woman had cast a santet spell on a man, causing him to fall ill. When traditional healers failed to cure the man, he asked to be taken to the woman's house, where he collapsed. The next day she was dead, hacked to pieces by machete.

This is why Indonesian politicians are taking the law seriously. Arsul, the lawmaker who helped draft the law, told me that even making a joke about santet would be enough to land a person behind bars.

"No you can't," Arsul said. "If someone jokes about it, they are taking a risk ."

The proposed law has a deep history in Indonesia. Officials first broached the subject in the 1990s, but it quickly led to a debate in the halls of the National Law Development Agency (BPHN), where critics argued that it was impossible to outlaw the black magic without first agreeing that black magic exists.

The issue re-emerged in 2013, but it was quickly the subject of a heated debate. Lawmakers agreed to float the issue in the press to gauge reaction. It took three years for the proposal to resurface once again.

The proposed law could mean less money for the country's white sorcerers: men and women who use white magic to counter santet spells. I found Dewi Sundari on a website advertising her skills as a white sorcerer. The website looked pretty legit to me. It had an official seal and images of Dewi next to lightning and fire. She promised, on the site, to reverse dark spells with a form of magic that straddled the line between sorcery and healing.

"Santet itself is the immaterial energy of inanimate objects like nails, screws, iron, anything really," Dewi told me over the phone. "The energy is then transferred into the target's body to cause harm. There is another version called teluh, which is the immaterial energy of living organisms like maggots, worms and insects. A combination of the two is called tenung."

Dewi told me that she comes across sicknesses that are caused by santet all the time. The malicious magic is often used as a weapon in business or family disputes. Others use it to get revenge on someone who wronged them in the past, she said. It's a dangerous practice but that doesn't mean Indonesia needs to outlaw black magic.

"We don't really want this law creating false accusations," Dewi said. "What if the person is just bragging, but they can't really do it ? Clearly there are other issues that are more important for the government to deal with. I don't think this will have much effect. I think it won't be an effective law."

Dewi makes some of her money by reversing santet hexes but she said the law won't have much impact on her business as a whole. She charges on a sliding scale, with her poorest clients receiving her care at little-to-no cost.

But there's another side of Indonesia's sorcerer scene where magic is big business. Famous dukun like Agung Yulianto, who goes by the name Ki Joko Bodo, routinely brags that he is paid billions of rupiah for his services. There is a whole class of celebrity sorcerers in Indonesia – men with names like Ki Gendeng Pamungkas, Ki Kusomo and Ki Narto, a self-proclaimed expert of the metaphysical.

Ki Narto

I met Ki Narto in the waiting room of a small television station where he hosts a show on the supernatural. He was dressed in a black vest and a white and red striped button-down shirt with red framed glasses. Ki Narto is a modern dukun, a man who believes that mystical powers are actually a form of energy that comes from a different dimension. Only those with the right training and experience can access this energy but the barrier to entry isn't insanely high. He likens it to playing guitar or cooking – anyone with a strong will and some innate talent can become a successful dukun.

"People are commonly trapped in a scientific mindset, but there are things outside our senses," Ki Narto said. "It's what you might call it the sixth sense."

Ki Narto sipped a glass of water infused with flower petals – a common drink among dukun for some reason. "Indonesia is full of fake dukun, people who use tricks to convince others that they possess mystical powers," he said. He's made a career of debunking "magical acts" on Indonesian television. He's also wary of anyone who advertises their powers online: "If you were a real dukun who could perform santet, you surely wouldn't need to use advertisements to promote yourself," he said.

Of course he also claimed to possess special skills himself. Ki Narto showed me a photo on his phone of a keris – a traditional Indonesian dagger – standing upright. It was one of his daggers, an antique imbued with metaphysical power. "I can do this," he told me.

I asked to see it in person. Ki Narto took a kris, a long antique-looking dagger with a smooth wooden handle, and tried to get it to stand upright. "I hope it will work," he said. "Come on! Stand!"

The dagger immediately toppled over. Ki Narto moved around the room, trying the trick on the table, on the floor, and then finally on coffee table in the centre of the room.

"I think this will work," he said. "Yeah, it seems to work."

He removed his hands. The dagger stood upright. But it was leaning slightly on a wooden sheath, which was jammed against a stack of single-serving water cups. Ki Narto held his hands at a distance and struck a magical pose. It was unclear whether he was trying to show me that magic was real, or that this was how people use tricks to deceive others into thinking it's real.

I asked if he ever used dark magic. No, he said, at least not on purpose. He explained that years ago he was struggling to deal with a friend of his who was incredibly rude. The man would doubt Ki Narto's abilities and talk ill of his institution. One day, Ki Narto wished that the man would just die. He just visualised his death and then went on with his day.

"He was a really rude man – not only to me, but to everyone," Ki Narto said. "So I asked my friend, 'what kind of vehicle does he drive?' He told me the man rode a bike. 'All right,' I said, 'He will die in a collision!' I went home and visualised him getting into a bike accident. 'Bam! You die!'"

Years later, Ki Narto received a call. The man was dead.

"A friend called me up, 'hey he's dead. He got in an accident,'" Ki Narto recalled.

He hung up the phone and smiled.

"Thank God. He's finally dead." he recalled thinking. "I counted, one, two, three, four. It took four years for him to die. So I did not hex him. But I must tell you. My words can be used as a blessing or a curse. I mostly use it as a blessing, but at any time my mouth can also become a curse."

To a certain extent, this was all real to Ki Narto. But then how did he feel about the proposed law? I mentioned that it would criminalise even jokes about santet. Does it go too far?

"You know how you're not supposed to joke about a bomb in an airport?" Ki Narto said. "The same goes with santet."

The number of people taking their own lives in England is unacceptably high – a fact recognised in a new report by the Health Select Committee. There was a downward trend in the suicide rate between 1981 and 2007, but since then there has been a worryingly steady increase. The number of deaths by suicide was 4,820 in England in 2015 – part of a UK-wide figure of 6,188.

Most disgraceful is the news that one in three people who commit suicide are in contact with a GP before death, but are not given enough help. MPs said long delays for specialists and a failure to identify mental health problems meant too many people at risk weren't getting help. The report said: "There are serious concerns about the ongoing long waits after referral from primary care to specialist services, and we urge the government to address in its suicide prevention strategy how this situation will be improved."

This report reflects what we already know – that suicide can be preventable with the right intervention and proper short and long-term care. Currently, people are not getting that. It's a complex issue, but on a practical level it's cause and effect.

The committee said support needed to be more accessible to those at risk. They called for the NHS to "embrace innovative approaches", such as online services; said that GPs also needed more training in spotting people at risk of suicide; and that there should be more support after patients are discharged from psychiatric services.

The new government suicide prevention strategy is due to be announced in January. The committee said the government needed to do better than last time, as the "2012 suicide prevention strategy has been characterised by inadequate leadership, poor accountability and insufficient action".

In 2015-16, 252 people took their own lives, or were suspected of having done so, on the railways. Network Rail has recruited academics to study the communities around high risk areas at railways to understand what can be done to prevent deaths there, which is a change in suicide research approach – something that usually relies on psychologists.

But this alone will not be enough to lower the suicide rate. The focus has to be spread across helping people with their mental health from before the onset of illness to when they're severely unwell. This loss of life is about a lack of funding from the top and the continuation of a mental health crisis that is utterly failing people.

@hannahrosewens

(Image by Helmut Januschka, via)

More on mental health:

The NHS Can Only Help the Mentally Ill If They're Desperate

Should You Tell Work About Your Mental Health Condition?

Has CBT Had Its Day As a Treatment For Depression?

Gaza Surf Club is a documentary about the nascent surf scene in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory about twice the size of the District of Colombia stuck in a no-man's land between Israel and Egypt. Situated in the eye of the needle of the Arab-Israeli conflict, it's a region that Noam Chomsky has called "the world's largest open-air prison." In stark contrast, surfing is one of the ultimate expressions of freedom—just ask the Beach Boys, whose songs equated surfing with free love and youthful vigor. So what happens when these opposites are combined? That's what German filmmaker Philip Gnadt wanted to explore by making a film about the handful of surfers in Gaza. Joining forces with Egyptian-born Mickey Yamine as a translator and co-director, the two met with the men and occasional women who belong to the so-called Gaza Surf Club.

The film follows three protagonists whose stories merge through their love of riding the waves. There's fisherman Abu Jayab, who, at 42, is the old man of the sea, mentoring young surfers. Twenty-three-year-old Ibrahim is trying to get a visa to go to Hawaii where he can learn to make surfboards. By far the most interesting character is 15-year-old Sabah, who must navigate her way through gender stereotyping before she even reaches the waves.

Gnadt and I recently spoke at the Dubai Film Festival, while drinking alcohol-free beer alongside Yamine in a swanky hotel. It was the birthday of prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and so even the bars aimed at tourists were running dry for the night. We talked about the documentary, women who surf, and why he wanted to tell a positive story about one of the most precarious places on Earth.

VICE: Can you tell me why you wanted to make this film?
Philip Gnadt: First of all, despite what some people may assume, the first interest was not surfing, it was the Gaza Strip itself. A friend of mine, Hossan Wahbeh, who came from Gaza and studied in Germany, he got me interested in the region and the conflict.

How so?
He is a very political guy, so if you sit with him for five minutes having a beer, or at a barbecue, he's always chatting about the conflict and the war. On the one hand, he got me interested in the region, the conflict, and the history—and on the other, he bored me, because the stories were quite repetitious. I was fed up, and then I saw an article in a German sports magazine about surfing in the Gaza strip and I thought, This is something different, this is something new. Surfing is a sport that stands for personal freedom, and Gaza is one of the most isolated countries in the world.

"Surfing is quite an individual sport. But in Gaza, they surf as a community and they enjoy the waves together."

When you speak about surfing and freedom, one thinks California and the Beach Boys. But the surfing you discovered was very different. Was the surf scene what you expected?
When you hear the word surfing, you have certain images in mind, whether it's California or Hawaii, and the same applies to Gaza, but in a different way. Culture-wise, surfing doesn't fit in the Arab region. When we approached surfers in Gaza, we found out that the difference between surfers in the West and those in the Gaza Strip, is that surfing is quite an individual sport. But in Gaza, they surf as a community and they enjoy the waves together. It's like a group happening, which is not the way in Hawaii.

They also don't seem to do it because it's part of a scene.
In the film, we have this wide-angle shot from the beach. What is so different is that you see so many houses at the beach, and there is not one single bit of advertising.

Did you think that the Palestinians would be better at surfing than they are?
We are on this journey with Ibrahim, who goes to Hawaii in the film. The thing is that they are good at surfing the waves that they have, but the problem is that they don't travel, so they never experience different waves and situations. So in different countries they find the waves hard to handle. When Ibrahim went to Hawaii, he found himself in a bit of trouble because the waves are totally different. I think they do an OK job. They don't get trained, and there are no workshops, so we never really expected to find the best surfers in the world in the Gaza Strip.

So how did the surf scene start?
In Arab culture, water sports is not a big thing. A funny fact is that even though they are living next to a beach, it's not in their culture to swim. It's not in their culture to have fun and play in the water. If you are in the water, then you're a fisherman. The first people who went surfing in Gaza were fishermen, because they could swim and they were not afraid of the water, because a lot of people are afraid of water. These fishermen were used to the water and then on television they saw some surfing and they adapted it to what they could do there. Of course, we asked who was the first surfer. Everyone we spoke to said, "I was the first surfer." We found at least five people claiming to be the first surfer.

"This film has two things, a look at a very pure, untainted surf scene, and a window into a society that is normally just covered by tales of conflict."

Pretty quickly you veer away from the sports doc and deal with some of the social issues. We hear the story of a girl who refuses to get married because she doesn't want to live in the Gaza strip.
It was never meant to be a pure surf film. So the surfing is actually a vehicle to tell a different story from the region. At least we tried to tell a positive story. But, of course, you need something to begin with. I think surfing was something special—it's interesting and you can relate with it—and then you can start telling different stories. This film has two things, a look at a very pure, untainted surf scene, and a window into a society that is normally just covered by tales of conflict. These little stories are hidden behind headlines.

One of the three stories that you follow is about female surfers and how they could only surf until they reached marrying age. Their dad is really progressive. How did you find them?
We had a female producer with us, who tried for four weeks to get in contact with the female surfer that we had been told about. She had to build trust with her and build the bridge between her and us. It took time to convince them that we don't want to just expose them and leave them. Actually, the father was never meant to be in the film, but when we met him, we found out he is such a funny guy and in the first rough cut, he was a much bigger character in the film because he had so many fun stories to tell everyone. He's very progressive in allowing his daughters to surf, but on the other hand, he is also a very conservative and religious guy.

Throughout the film, you give the impression that people in the surf scene are actually conservative. Like all of the guys think girls shouldn't surf once they reach puberty. Were you disappointed that the surfers don't see surfing as an expression of freedom?
I'm guessing that because they are in a different situation and in a different part of the world, they have to find their own way of dealing with the sport. I like the fact that, from a Western perspective, we would assume people who do this sport are not that religious. So the fact that they can combine those things is surprising. When it comes to the boys' attitude to the girls, they support them. There is this rule: As a young girl, unmarried, it's OK if your parents are fine with it. You can do a lot. There is this thing, and it's not so much about religion but the conventions in society, that when you are married, it is the decision of the husband. We heard that women surf, but they do it in private, on a boat very far from shore. Not where it can be seen from the beach.

So, they are not rebels. But you feel that they think they are rebels?
They don't surf to fuck up politicians or someone else. They do it because they like it and it gives them a sense of freedom. I think none of the surfers would say, "This is my thing and I do it because I hate this and this and this, and I do it as this is my way of expressing my hate about something." The philosophy behind surfing is different to the scene that developed in California in the 60s and how it was a rejection of society, where they would just eat food from the sea, refuse to earn money, and smoke drugs. It's totally different. The philosophy behind it is different. To be honest, I don't know how much the Gaza surfers know about the history of surfing.

Did you ask them who their favorite surfers were?
I discovered that they like heroes. They love Kelly Slater. If I started surfing in a special region, I would try to read about the history and whatever, but they are just into the big stars on the scene now. This was something we learned while being there. I thought that as a Palestinian living in Gaza, you would probably like underdog heroes. But no, they like the hero heroes. We asked them why and they said, "It's because we are already kind of weak and we love to see strong heroes." So this principle of the underdog hero doesn't work for them.

Gaza Surf Club will play the Santa Barbara Film Festival in March.

Photo of anti-Trump protestors last November in Philadelphia. Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images

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

US NEWS

Tillerson Had Key Job at Russian-affiliated Oil Company in Bahamas, Documents Reveal
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Anti-Trump Protestors Rally Ahead of Electoral College Confirmation
The Electoral College was expected to formally settle on Donald Trump as the next president of the United States Monday, despite a post-election campaign urging members to think again. Around 2,000 people marched in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday carrying banners that read "Stop Trump" and "Make America Think Again."—Reuters

Gay Rights Groups Ask Court to Keep Blocking Mississippi Law
Activists are urging a federal appeals court to continue blocking a Mississippi law that would allow employees to deny services to gay couples and transgender people based on religious objections. The law, championed by Republican Governor Phil Bryant, was already halted by US District Judge Carlton Reeves earlier this year.—AP

McCain Says US 'Paralyzed' in Response to Russian Hacking
Senator John McCain criticized President Obama's response to Russian election interference and said US leadership has been "totally paralyzed" following the cyber attacks. The Arizona lawmaker also renewed his call for a select committee to conduct an investigation into Russia's hacking of the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton's campaign.—VICE News

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

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The evacuation of civilians and rebel fighters from eastern Aleppo has resumed after a weekend delay. More than 5,000 people were evacuated on buses Monday, following 350 others leaving for safety late Sunday night. —AFP

Jordanian Forces Bring Castle Siege to an End
Security forces have ended a siege of Karak's hilltop castle in Jordan, killing four gunmen. The "terrorist outlaws," as the government described them, had taken refuge in the castle Sunday after shooting dead nine people in the city, including a Canadian tourist and at least five police officers. At least 29 people were injured.—Reuters

Amnesty Warns of 'Crimes Against Humanity' in Myanmar
A new report by human rights group Amnesty International accuses the Myanmar military of callous attacks on the country's Rohingya Muslim minority that may amount to "crimes against humanity." Amnesty accused the military of killing civilians, raping women and torching villages in Rohingya areas.—BBC News

Trial of Presidential Confidante Begins in South Korea
Choi Soon-sil, a long-time friend of President Park Geun-hye, has denied corruption charges as her trial gets underway in South Korea. Soon-sil's lawyers say she did not lean on companies to give millions of dollars to her own charitable foundations, though Soon-sil added, ""I'm sorry for causing trouble."—Al Jazeera

EVERYTHING ELSE

'Rogue One' Takes $290 at Global Box Office
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story enjoyed a huge opening weekend around the world, taking in $155 million in the US alone. Somber drama Collateral Beauty sold only $7 million, a career worst for star Will Smith.—The Hollywood Reporter

Zsa Zsa Gabor Dies At 99
Zsa Zsa Gabor, the actress and legendary Hollywood socialite, has died of heart failure. Gabor and her family emigrated to the US from Hungary just before the Nazi invasion in 1936, and she married nine times.—BuzzFeed News

Ex-Clinton Staffer Keeping Tabs on Trump Conflicts of Interest
Matt Ortega, who was the digital director for communications for the Hillary Clinton campaign, is touting a website documenting Donald Trump's possible conflicts of interest. Calling it Corrupt.af, Ortega snagged the domain suffix from Afghanistan.—NBC News

New Nine Inch Nails Music to Drop Before Christmas
Trent Reznor has announced a new Nine Inch Nails album EP, Not the Actual Events, will be released on December 23. Reznor also revealed deluxe vinyl reissues of the NIN's 90s albums will be issued in 2017.—Noisey

Six New Species Identified on Indian Ocean Floor
A bunch of new species discovered on the floor of the Indian Ocean have been formally named in a new paper published by Nature. The worms, snails, crab and mollusk were culled from hydrothermal vents.—Motherboard

California Attempts Crackdown on Contraband Phones
The California state prison system is launching a new program to stop the flow of contraband cell phones. It will install more than 1,000 devices including surveillance cameras, X-ray machines, and decryption devices.—VICE News / AP

Looking back at 2016, it was inevitable that our contentious presidential election, featuring polarizing icons Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, would sear itself into the fabric of American style. We all watched as our media pundits fixated not just on the policies and perspectives of the presidential candidates, but also on the clothes they wore and why. We saw identity politics stretch from the campaign trail out to the closets of everyday citizens and the runways of New York Fashion Week. And we witnessed the way hats and T-shirts and sneakers became an ideological battleground for Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, SJWs and alt-righters.

Since so much has happened at the intersection of style and politics this year, we thought it'd be good idea to take a trip back down memory lane and revisit some of the most significant events of 2016 that involved our politics and the way we express ourselves through the stuff we wear.

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

We've always been interested in what American politicians wear and the signals those clothes send, from the towering presence of Abe Lincoln's hat to the freakout over Barack Obama's sharp khaki suit. Fittingly, in 2016 the wardrobes and appearances of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were almost as hotly discussed and dissected as the clothes of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.

Long before Hillary Clinton put her bid in for the White House, Americans have been fixated with her wardrobe. From her early days as a lawyer in the 70s, Clinton has defied gender stereotypes with her adoption of pantsuits over skirts and dresses. Over the years, the two-piece sets have have empowered many and angered some who felt she should dress more "feminine." Tim Gunn once famously claimed she was "confused about her gender."

Hillary Clinton participates in the Democratic Candidates Debate on January 17, 2016 in Charleston, South Carolina. Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Because of this past controversy, through much of the 2016 election season, it seemed as though Clinton was trying to take the spotlight off of her clothing. Instead of her usual brightly colored pantsuits, during the Democratic debates she opted for a muted colors of navy, brown, and black, much like her male counterparts. In January, Venessa Friedman of the New York Times claimed that the presidential candidate had ended the chatter over her style by "boring everyone into silence."

Unfortunately, it wasn't long before the gender-driven obsession with Hillary's look was reignited. Following the Democratic candidate's speech on income inequality in June, her outfit made almost as many headlines as her proposal for fixing the economy. A big part of the internet's fascination was over her Armani jacket's $12,000 price tag—regardless of the fact that Trump's go-to suit designer, Brioni, can cost as much as $17,000. Before accepting the Democratic nomination in July, "What will Hillary wear tonight?" was the top-trending search term on Google associated with her name.

But, Clinton's suits weren't just a point of controversy, they became a symbol of solidarity for her supporters. Prior to election day, a Facebook group with millions of members called "Pantsuit Nation" revealed their intentions to wear their power suits as an ode to Hillary. Its social media accounts were flooded with pictures of people donning their pantsuits as they headed to the polls.

Donald Trump arrives at the USA Thank You Tour 2016 at the Wisconsin State Fair Exposition Center December 13, 2016 in West Allis, Wisconsin. Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images

Donald Trump was also no stranger to creating buzz with his look. Throughout his campaign, the president-elect got plenty of flack for everything from his Cheeto-colored tan to his idiosyncratic combover.

The media even launched investigations into how he could master that unnatural hue of orange skin. According to the RNC's makeup artist, the recipe involves a mixture of tanning beds and artificial tanners. His mystifying combover was another stumper. Over the years, there has been plenty of speculation over the evolution of Trump's locs and it continued through 2016. His signature blonde hairdo had people likening him to everything this year, from a fur-covered Gucci shoe to a Chinese pheasant with an uncanny resemblance. Many have accused his strange-looking mop of being a wig, but he attempted to debunk those rumors in September by letting Jimmy Fallon aggressively tousle his hair on television.

Much like Hillary, Trump was also criticized for his suits. Even though he is willing to dish out thousands on one outfit from Brioni or famed New York City tailor Martin Greenfield, the fit always seems to be off. The Washington Post's fashion critic Robin Givhan perfectly described his suiting as, "a little too roomy, the sleeves a tad too long. So much so that they look cheap."

Despite becoming winning the election in November, it doesn't look like being the president-elect has improved his fashion sense. In December, a powerful gust of wind revealed that our future president uses Scotch tape to fasten his tie together.

As he prepares to take the keys of the White House from Obama, let's hope he also inherits Obama's tailor.

CAMPAIGN MERCH

Tee-shirts supporting either US Republican presidential nominees at Philadelphia International Airport on October 20, 2016 . Photo by Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

This election cycle, presidential hopefuls didn't just battle on the debate stage and in TV campaign ads. They also duked it out via their supporters by using their bodies as walking billboards. Never before in electoral politics have we seen candidates spend more money on branded merchandise than the most recent presidential election. In January alone, Clinton spent approximately $147,399, while Trump dished out $912,397 on promotional goods. All together, the six candidates that were still in the running in January 2016, spent $2,228,204 on campaign products in that month alone.

"Usually, bumper stickers would be the most popular form of support for a candidate, but this year it was different," said Michael Cohen, a retail expert with NPD, a group of market research experts. "The ability to merchandise it, billboard it through that merchandise, and raise money selling the merchandise was also unlike any other."

By May, Trump had invested $4.3 million on merchandise, in comparison to Clinton's $1.4 million. In the thick of his campaign, Trump was spending nearly $2 million on a slew of red, white, and blue gear emblazoned with his controversial slogan "Make America Great Again" that he sold on his website. To put it all in perspective, Obama only spent a total of $1.3 million on swag during his entire 2008 campaign.

But the Donald wasn't the only one pushing pro-Trump goods. As the Republican nominee made his way across the country in 2016, so did independent vendors selling anti-Hillary gear. Similar to Trump's campaign, the merch was filled with hateful slogans like "Trump That Bitch" and "Hillary sucks but not like Monica" plastered across the chest. Many Trump fans loved the hateful merch, making it a staple at his rallies around the US. These bootlegs reportedly made the dealers hundreds of dollars a day.

"It wasn't good enough to support your choice on the car, it had to be shouted and discussed," said Cohen. "By wearing your support, it brought on conversation. It went with you wherever you went and didn't stay in the parking lot."

Although not on Trump's level, there was plenty of pro-Clinton merch being shelled out, too. Styles like the red "everyday pantsuit tee," which featured a screen-printed version of Hillary's suit jacket and the iconic "I'm with Her" tee became popular designs for her supporters. Clinton also enlisted designers like Diane von Furstenberg, Jason Wu, Prabal Gurung, and Joseph Altuzarra to create a more fashionable range of merch for her. Still, her investment in apparel was dwarfed by her competition.

By October Trump had reportedly spent $13.5 million dollars on merchandise, with a hefty $3.5 million spent on "Make America Great Again" hats alone, which is more than he spent on polling or direct mail.

The unofficial Trump merch market was also booming as election day grew closer. It appeared the D.I.Y. designs were growing even more popular and getting even more offensive, too. After "pussy gate," one woman was spotted wearing a shirt that said "Trump Can Grab My..." with an arrow pointing to her crotch, a man on the street was photographed donning an "I wish Hillary had married OJ" tee, and a father attending a rally with his children sported a "Hillary is a Cunt. Vote Trump" shirt.

A 22-year-old Home Depot employee received death threats for wearing an "America Was Never Great" hat and a nine-year-old was banned from wearing his signed "Make America Great Again" hat to school because it was attracting negative attention.

As the campaign raged on, it seemed the presidential candidates couldn't say anything without it being turned into a wearable product. After Hillary referred to Trump supporters as a "basket of deplorables" during her speech at a LGBTQ gala, the slogan "Deplorables for Trump" was printed on a T-shirt. When Trump called Clinton a "nasty woman" during the final debate, merch with the viral comment flooded sites like Etsy and Amazon.

While politicized clothing was being embraced by those wanting to showcase their support, it was also making them targets. A 22-year-old Home Depot employee received death threats for wearing an "America Was Never Great" hat and a nine-year-old was banned from wearing his signed "Make America Great Again" hat to school because it was attracting negative attention from other students.

After the election, it became clear that supporters on both sides aren't willing to give up their politically-driven wardrobes. Clinton fans designed new shirts with slogans like "I'm still with her." And days after being named president-elect, Trump sent an email to his supporters urging them to pick up their "piece of history" in the form of his official MAGA hats and "big league" T-shirts. Fans continue to crowd around the gift shop in Trump Tower, where his T-shirts sell out regularly. Even irrelevant celebrities like Kid Rock joined the Trump merch train in December, releasing a line of tees and hats just in time for the holidays that say ridiculous things like "Make America Badass Again" and "God, Guns, and Trump."

But even though the election is over, the contention around all of this politically themed merchandise has not ceased. In November, a man in New York City was allegedly choked because of his MAGA hat.

THE FASHION INDUSTRY

A model walks the runway at Namilia fashion show during New York Fashion Week. Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for New York Fashion Week: The Shows

From designers to retailers, those in the fashion industry weren't shy about broadcasting their political alliances—and Clinton was the clear favorite. Early on in the campaigns, designers like Marc Jacobs, Tory Burch, and Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osbourne of Public School joined forces with Clinton to create a collection of unisex tees inscribed with messages like "Make Herstory" and "Women's rights are equal rights." The shirts were sported by some of her most influential fans in fashion from Kendall Jenner to Anna Wintour.

Wintour, the infamous editor-in-chief for Vogue, was one of Clinton's biggest celebrity supporters. Not only did she act as a style consultant throughout the Democratic nominee's campaign, which might explain some of Clinton's style choices, she also hosted fundraisers around the world from Washington D.C. to London. One star-studded event hosted by Wintour in New York City raked in $2 million in one night. Her co-sign of Clinton also lead to Vogue's first-ever presidential endorsement.

Of course, Trump is no stranger to the industry himself. In 2004, he launched a line of suits and men's dress clothes called the Donald J. Trump Collection, which is sold at department stores around the country. But his ties to the fashion world seemed to do more harm than good in this election. Macy's publicly dropped his line in June of 2015, after his offensive remarks about Mexican immigrants and refused to bring him back in 2016. The Trump Collection also faced backlash early this year when it was discovered that many of his dress shirts, suits, and jackets were made in countries like Indonesia, China, and Mexica—which came off as a direct contradiction of his rhetoric about creating more jobs for American citizens.

Following Trump's presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in July, brands started coming forward to express their distaste for him. Brendon Babenzian, the former Supreme creative director who launched his own brand Noah in 2015, announced on social media that he would give any Trump supporters their money back.

"For those of you in the comments who said you feel strongly enough to not shop with or support us, we will gladly accept your Noah merchandise back for a full refund," Babenzian wrote on the now-deleted Instagram post.

International retailers like American Apparel also got political with a "Make America Gay Again" collection that included a range of apparel emblazoned with the new take on Trump's slogan and rainbow flags. Even Urban Outfitters took sides this election by selling anti-trump shirts with slogans like "IDK NOT TRUMP." Their first run of 300 shirts reportedly sold out in 24 hours.

When New York Fashion Week rolled around in September, the fashion industry was getting more vocal about the 2016 election and their fear of a Trump presidency. Instead of presenting a traditional runway show, Humberto Leon and Carol Lim of Opening Ceremony put together a "Pageant of the People." The designers wanted to use their platform to discuss the importance of issues like LGBTQ rights, immigration reform, and the Syrian refugee crisis. The topics were addressed on stage by famous guests like Rashida Jones, Whoopi Goldberg, and Diane Guerrero, who also simultaneously modeled OC's latest collection.

Kerby Jean-Raymond, the designer behind Pyer Moss, also used his NYFW show to make a political statement. The presentation titled "Bernie vs. Bernie," used the dichotomy between Sanders's socialism and Madoff's capitalism as inspiration. The collection, which was a take on the Wall Street uniform with pieces like deconstructed suits was meant to offer commentary on the election, capitalism, and the economy. However, Raymond refused to use any references of Trump in the show. "I won't make any graphics about him. I won't give him any more fame," he told Fashionista.

Other designers were more explicit with their anti-Trump stance. R13 opened its NYFW show with a red and white silk mini dress emblazoned with a "Fuck Trump" print, it appeared again on a pair of pants and sweatshirt in the collection. "To all the Trump supporters...#sorrynotsorry," the brand wrote on Instagram prior to its show.

Photo courtesy of Pyer Moss/Chapter 2

The Berlin-based brand Namilia also used its Spring/Summer 2017 collection to voice their stance on Trump. Several of the pieces throughout their NYFW presentation featured images of the Republican nominee dressed in bondage and being dominated by women with the words "Take Down Trump."

"We had these references of chains and fetish and we thought who else do we want to take down and chain to the ground, and it just hit me—Donald Trump," said Nan Li, the co-founder of Namilia told me after the show. "In Germany you would never see a T-shirt with the Prime Minister on it, it is just so scary that here Donald can become an idol," added his partner Emilia Pfohl.

Despite Trump's win in November, the fashion industry's protest of the former reality star didn't stop. Several designers made it known that they would not be providing clothes for his wife Melania. Sophie Theallet, who has dressed Michelle Obama, wrote an open letter explaining her refusal to dress the former model and future first lady:

"As one who celebrates and strives for diversity, individual freedom, and respect for all lifestyles, I will not participate in dressing or associating in any way with the next first lady. The rhetoric of racism, sexism, and xenophobia unleashed by her husband's presidential campaign are incompatible with the values I live by," Theallet wrote. She also called for other designers to follower her lead, while Tom Ford shared that he has been refusing to dress Melania for years.

Some Americans called for a boycott against stores that carried not only Trump's merchandise, but also his daughter Ivanka's clothing line, which included big name retailers like Nordstrom, Amazon, Neiman Marcus, and Lord & Taylor.

But not everyone was protesting a Trump win. Following election night, New Balance's vice president of communication Matt LeBretton told the Wall Street Journal, "We feel things are going to move in the right direction" under Donald Trump. Many were so outraged over the comment, which was apparently made in reference to Trump's opposition of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that they threw out and even burned their New Balance sneakers.

Conversely, the Daily Stormer, a neo-nazi site, was so pleased with the sportswear company's support for Trump that they proclaimed their sneakers "the official shoe of white people" and urged its readers to buy its sneakers and apparel.

While New Balance became a signal for "white power," wearing a safety pin became a symbol inclusivity. Following the devastating election, Americans took cues from the UK and adopted the safety pin to show their solidarity with people of color, immigrants, and the LGBTQ community. The idea originally came from a woman named Allison, who implemented the safety pin campaign after Brexit, when marginalized groups felt they were being targeted. Although the act came with some criticism, thousands of people across the US sported the silver accessory—including LeBron James on the latest cover Sports Illustrated.

WATCH: Venus X Wants to Party the Pain Away

There's no telling how essential fashion and style will be to our political discourse as we enter the Trump era in 2017. But considering Trump's daughter Ivanka is emailing "style alerts" to her followers after interviews with 60 Minutes to hawk expensive style accessories, and men's fashion icon Kanye West is kissing up to the president-elect at the Trump Towers, it seems like we're headed for another year where our style is fueled by unprecedented nature of our politics.

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It took about an hour of standing outside of Trump Tower for me to see someone smile, which was odd considering how many people were having their photo taken. Japanese tourists posed stoically in front of its jagged facade, then were shuffled along by cops and replaced with similarly unhappy-looking Midwesterners thumbing their noses and solemnly, dutifully cataloging the memory.

Like me, these out-of-towners found themselves drawn to the gaudy, sky-scraping phallus that became a somewhat unlikely locus of world power on November 9. Trump Tower had been a destination ever since its namesake made the unlikely transition from reality TV star to full-blown political movement leader, but when he became the president-elect, a selfie in front of the tower became a can't-miss New York souvenir. The foot traffic on that stretch of New York City's Madison Avenue was already intense, but the ensuing fervor (and the security that came with it) led a small army's worth of beat cops, counter-terrorism units, and secret service agents being deployed at a daily cost to the city of about $1 million, according to a November CNN report.

But I didn't come to Trump Tower for a quick pic. I wanted to know what sort of person is drawn to it—the type of person who doesn't just stop by to check it off a list that includes the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, and 9/11 Memorial but instead spends hours hoping to catch a glimpse of Donald Trump or one of the generals and billionaires he's appointing to top cabinet positions. I wanted to rub elbows with the entrepreneurs, media folks, Trump fanboys, and protestors who had become tower regulars.

All photos and GIF by Jason Bergman

Anyone can come see Trump Tower for themselves. Despite what the police barriers suggest, it's not closed off to the public––the pageantry of the K9 units and security checkpoints seems designed to merely minimize the amount of people loitering near the entrance. Although my press badge provided one excuse to get inside, a civilian couple came in behind me by saying they wanted to get some hot chocolate at the Starbucks in the tower's food court.

Kit and Margaret, who hailed from the Virginia suburbs, didn't stay long, though. They thought New York City was a fine place to visit every once in a while, but it was way too chaotic. And as the Naked Cowboy––Times Square's most famous street performer, whose description is in his name––ran past them in the lobby, they realized that the scene at TT was perhaps not for them. I headed to the Trump Grille, where the 45-year-old was nursing a vodka with a splash of orange juice.

For the uninitiated, the Naked Cowboy, a.k.a. Robert Burck, is a guy who's been standing in Midtown Manhattan with a guitar over his dick since 1998. And for the past 73 days, he's been coming to Trump Tower at around 11:30 in the morning. He says that he relishes the opportunity to meet influential people like senators, but the main draw seems to be that he can drink at a real bar before working instead of in a parking garage.

Here's how his day goes: Have a drink at Trump Grille, then head up an escalator to the Trump Bar, which apparently has nicer seats. After he's sufficiently lit up, he takes his schtick outside to take advantage of the tower crowds before taking his act back to Times Square around three. None of this is to say that he doesn't also completely adore the president-elect. Trump reminds Burck of his father, who, he says, has been on his village council for 30 years, has served as a volunteer firefighter, and dutifully changes his 98-year-old mother's diapers every morning.

"He's an All-American big strong white man," Burck said of Trump. "Not that he has to be white, or that he has to be a man. He's just a winner."

Although years of busking have weathered his face and physique, the guy still draws plenty of admirers, like a woman named Tracie, who was getting a headshot autographed when I pulled up a stool between them. Burck was also trying to pawn off a Naked Cowboy bobblehead to the bartender so that she could re-gift it to her boss. Burck, who also just launched an oyster company, explained the artfulness of this deal: "He buys my drink. You save money. I save money."

Tracie told me she lived in Georgia, but had a business consultant husband who often worked in the area. That week she joined him, and was glad she did, because that's how she ended up drinking a mimosa a few feet away from the Naked Cowboy, who was more than happy to flirt back despite being married to a woman he referred to as "an illegal from Mexico City" who he later showed me a picture of to ensure me she wasn't fat.

Trump Tower

Deciding I shouldn't get in the way of what might transpire between the day-drinking maybe-lovebirds, I headed back up the escalator and into the lobby where there are pens of media people and civilians standing and watching the golden elevators, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone famous and yell something at them. In the civilian corner, a man named Pier openly laughs at a (OK, admittedly lame) protestor reading quietly aloud from The People's History of the United States.

"Don't mess with Donald Trump," Pier yelled, like the human embodiment of the people who reply to Trump's tweets. "Hillary Clinton, most corrupt trash in the world. Get me away from these people––they stink!"

The 77-year-old had Willie Nelson hair, a Donald Trump shirt, and a Super Mario accent marred from a former habit of smoking three packs a day. Every day he commutes from North Bergen, New Jersey, in a Russian military motorcycle with the hope of speaking to Trump. In a past life, he was a construction foreman who earned the nickname Animal. Although he now walks with a cane, Pier aspires to build the border wall, and cites his credentials as being a ruthless taskmaster who speaks Italian, French, Spanish, and a little Arabic.

"I used to fire like flies," he cackled. "Smoking a cigarette? 'You're fired, you son of a bitch.'"

Pier wanted to show me pictures of his children, whom he had a habit of describing as "good looking motherfuckers." He kept trying to pull up their Facebook pages on his phone, but kept being rebuffed by a prompt from the IvankaTrump wi-fi network. After I helped him navigate the technology, he asked me to help turn his life story into a screenplay and insisted on exchanging phone numbers. When I decided to get lunch, I left him tapping at his screen and muttering to himself about Hillary Clinton.

NYPD officers stand guard at Trump Tower

I decided to try the Trump Bar this time, but was told that it was closed despite being full of diners and drinkers. At first I thought I was being gaslighted by the employee, but when I headed back to the Trump Grille with hopes of getting the infamous taco bowl, I was told that everything was in the process of closing for a private event.

The only place that remained open was the press area, a human zoo of my hard-working colleagues hunched over keyboards and spilling each other's coffees. At this particular moment, the goal was to shout questions at Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook after they left a meeting with Trump. (This was Wednesday, when Trump was hosting meetings with leaders from the tech industry.) Although no one responded, and the reporters didn't get their quote for the day, they kept at it. What else was there to do?

As my stomach grumbled, I had a thought: Holding a bunch of reporters captive in your gilded tower is a pretty good business strategy. There were about 60 journalists and camera people there, and it costs about $30 to eat two meals at Trump Grille. Multiply that for every day between the election and inauguration, and that's... well, look, I didn't come here to do math. Point is, as Trump has learned over the years, getting a lot of people's attention pays pretty well.

At about 4 PM, well before some of the more famous attendees of the meeting departed, members of the media were asked to leave. I lingered for a bit inside the barricade, pretending to shop for jewelry at the adjacent Tiffany's, where diamonds are advertised as things to "collect during life's most meaningful moments" and watches are described as "treasured symbols of a lifetime." Pretending to be rich was also a stalling tactic; I hoped to stumble into someone like tech titan and lawsuit funder Peter Thiel when I headed back out into the cold. Unfortunately, almost all of the fanfare from the daytime had dissipated and I was met with an almost-empty street. I also had a voicemail from Pier asking me to come to his hotel room: "I hope you call me sometime. Bye-bye!"

Meanwhile, a changing of the guards had occurred across the street. The sole liberal protestor I had seen in the morning was replaced with one that a cop described as "the resident crazy" to the other cop taking over her shift. A couple of guys normally hawk comedy club tickets on the street had set up shop selling anti-Trump pins for $3 a pop. One of them, Paul Rosa, who was covered in oddly placed patches for bands like Rush, said they'd been doing this for about seven months after protesting and realizing they might as well make some money for their efforts. Now, he claims that the side gig is lucrative enough to be a full-time job.

Two lonely conservatives stood holding an American flag decorated with Trump-Pence stickers. One of the flag-holders was busy telling a gay man why he should prefer Trump to Clinton, which gave the other man––an Israeli––the opportunity to tell me in broken English that he was getting paid. When I pressed him to find out how much he was making, he suggested instead that his fetish was having women yell at him. (Ultimately, I couldn't tell if he was joking about either of these things.) He flashed a mischievous, bone-chilling grin as a woman passed by and spat, "Shame on you!"

By then, the night had turned freezing cold. I tried to go inside the Abercrombie & Fitch but was smoked out by the stench of whatever fragrance those stores fill themselves with. I leaned against the facade and was soon approached by David, a 23-year-old who worked at a private equity firm that invests in technology start-ups. His Trump-supporting grandmother had worked at Sak's Fifth Avenue her whole life and lived a couple of blocks away. He was on his way there, but despite not having a hat or a scarf, found himself lingering near the tower. He's a celebrity-watcher, too, the kind of person who tells strangers about their sole encounter with an A-lister a few minutes after meeting them. We talked about Justin Long finding his phone in a cab. He showed me the selfie they took together.

But after a little bit, he got to the real reason why he was mesmerized by the tower. David is from Virginia and is still registered to vote there; the Democratic incumbent in his congressional district ran unopposed this year. Since then, David has realized that he'll be 25 soon and that he should just run next time as a Republican, even though he isn't registered as one and voted for Clinton. None of that matters, he said, this election proves it. What's important in politics is likability, salesmanship––David said he can sell anything to anybody, run in any circle. For instance, he says "y'all" convincingly and often enough that people think he was raised in the South even though he's basically a product of the Northeast. He studied finance and political science in college, so he likes to think he knows a little bit more about this stuff than the average citizen. Hell, maybe he can even become president someday.

"If he could do it, anyone can," David told me. "All he did is smile and say basically nothing." Then he pulled out his phone to take a shot of the tower for Snapchat.

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

Lime Street in the Ouseburn valley. Photo by John Lord

This post originally appeared on VICE UK

Stefano Congiu seems pretty relaxed for a guy who knows his cafe is going to be flattened.

"It's done now," he says, resting a knee on the arm of a knackered chesterfield sofa and shaking his short ponytail with a pained smile. "It's a shame, a shame."

His Tower Café in Ouseburn, Newcastle is a pleasant jumble: the burnt orange and slightly queasy purple walls, plus one violently lemon patch by the door, are covered in an esoteric collection of artworks. In the yard, an industrial-sized bobbin doubles as a table. While we chat a stringy 20-something with glasses and an enormous Roy Wood beard wanders in. He's a T-shirt printer, one of the 18 or so independent business owners based here.

Well, for the time being at least. In five years time it'll be a five-story student block, next door to a four-story student block, and about 50 meters from two more enormous, blank, bloodless, dour blocks. There are more being built across the road in Shieldfield. There are more at the top of Stepney Bank. There are more everywhere in the city: 34 went up between 2010 and the end of 2015. At the start of the year there were 24 more at various stages of planning. Ouseburn, close to both colleges and full of brownfield land, is hot property.

In November the council planning committee gave developers the Adderstone Group the go-ahead to knock down the former schoolhouse the Tower Cafe is in, Uptin House, and replace it with a five-story block of student apartments. Up to this point, the anxiety over the pace and planning of student blocks on brownfield sites had been quietly simmering: now that an existing building full of the arty types who made Ouseburn a cool place is being razed, it's starting to boil.

Kate Hodgkinson is at the vanguard of the campaign to save Uptin House. She's an artist who runs Ernest, a cafe and bar in the center of the new developments, and Cobalt, a complex of DIY artists' workshops around the corner which faces Adderstone's offices across the street. She's helped organize the campaigners' crowdfunding for legal advice, their petitions, and a vigorous campaign on the council's planning portal—of 231 public comments on the plans, 211 are objections. With the coming apartments at Uptin House to its rear, Ernest will be flanked by six blocks. "We feel very, very vulnerable. We are literally an island now," she says.

The Ouseburn valley in 1906

Ouseburn's a valley. The lower area used to be full of warehouses and lead works, but since the 1980s it's bloomed into an enclave of independent pubs and venues. In the upper part of the valley things were much the same until a couple of years ago. What used to be brownfield land and empty shacks is now apartments. And hey, that's fine—nobody misses brownfield land and empty shacks, right?

But there's a wider context, involving a long and frankly quite boring planning saga.

Basically, in 2007 the Lib Dem council floated the idea of draining students out of the traditional go-to suburbs like leafy, affluent Jesmond and terraced, multicultural Heaton and put them in purpose-built blocks around the city. The buzzword was "destudentification." Ouseburn was due half a dozen or so. But, says Stephen Powers, the Labour councillor for Ouseburn, "Because there was nothing put in place to stop only a few developments coming forward, it sort of opened the floodgates."

"The policy failed to encourage developments to happen outside of what would be noticeably really attractive areas such as Ouseburn, with close proximity to the universities," he says. "It really set the precedent for many more developments to then come forward."

So now there are absolutely loads of student beds in Ouseburn. That wouldn't necessarily be a problem, but now the developments are being plonked on vital components of what makes Ouseburn what it is, it's becoming one.

Adderstone's CEO, Ian Baggett, wasn't available to talk to us, but he's been bullish in the local press. "In the Newcastle I was brought up in, jobs, homes, and investment can never be the wrong decision," he told the Chronicle after the planning decision was made. "It is not the critic who counts."

Stepney Yard, built by Adderstone, is typical. Bald, voguish light bulbs, and fresh nut-brown sofas can be seen through large windows. On the opposite side of the street, where there's a car windscreen repair shop in a lock-up, spiked metal fencing, and graffiti.

You can see the appeal of the new, all-bills-included luxury blocks: ensuite bathrooms, fresh paint. and no having to harass roommates for not paying the water bill. Some have theaters and gyms onsite. Louise and Savannah, two third years who moved into Stepney Yard with a group of friends at the start of the academic year, are big fans.

"We personally really, really like it. We get on really well here," says Louise as Savannah nods. She likes the security of parking her car inside Stepney Yard's high gates.

Stepney Yard. Photo via Adderstone

Traditionally, students in Newcastle head to classic student houses—cheap furniture, endless damp, a weird slug problem—in the suburbs. "If you live in Jesmond it's really expensive and you don't get anything like what's in here," says Savannah. "We all have private ensuite bathrooms in each room, so it's much nicer than a house share where you've all got to share everything."

Chantelle, a fourth year Business Studies student at Northumbria, isn't sold on the campaigners' demands. "I see their point, but I think, if anything, Tower Café and Ernest will get a lot of customers from this being open, because it's so convenient for us." She pauses. "I've never been to them myself, like."

Nor have Savannah and Louise. "I don't personally do anything in Ouseburn, even though it is quite a nice area," says Louise.

Savannah concurs. "That Ernest café we walk past every day, and we go, 'We've got to go, we've got to go,' but you just never get around to going."

The promise of student business is one that "trips off the tongue of developers," Kate says, but it's not one that's born out in reality. "We do not see that at Ernest. That does not translate into the local economy," she says. "I think they've chosen to live in these safe, sanitized units, and they will go to the safe, sanitized, gated shopping areas."

Powers is worried about what living in a gated complex does to a student's chances of hanging around after graduation, too. "I came to Newcastle for university, and I lived in a community, and I fell in love with living in Heaton, so much so that I wanted to stay after university. Students aren't getting that now; they're almost divorced from the city," he says.

Savannah certainly didn't know much about the area before she moved in. "I only found out it was called Ouseburn the other day," she laughs.

This is happening in cities across the north of the UK: Durham, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool. Developers can't get enough of high-density student blocks. Whether or not their cloistered environs are really good for students and the areas around them is uncertain. For Kate, the campaign is about protecting the identity of the post-industrial city from this weirdly superficial gentrification.

"We've lost our shipping, we've lost our mining, and now we've lost a lot of funding—are we going to sit back crying into our cobbled streets and hobnail boots, to fit into what everybody expects the North to be, or are we going to say, 'No, actually, we're fucking great and we're going to stick our necks out and celebrate what we've got and protect what we've got; we're going to be the city that doesn't bite the hand off every developer, but can protect these things much more'?" says Kate.

She pauses. "But I don't think we are going to be that city. I've fallen a bit out of love with Newcastle. And I just feel very, very disempowered, because I thought good would win out. And it definitely hasn't."

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