Ever since I can remember, I've seen words in colors. These colors are constant and unchangeable, and as much an intrinsic property of the word as the arrangement of the letters. The word "pal," for instance, is always neon green. The word "bollocks" is always light blue. The word "agreeable" is always pillar-box red, and so on.

I had no idea this wasn't the way everyone perceived language until I once mentioned to my mate that "Wednesday is so obviously yellow," and she looked at me as if I'd just offered to sacrifice my first-born child. After some frantic googling, I discovered I had a mild and relatively common form of synaesthesia—"grapheme-color synaesthesia"—and not an incurable brain tumour, as I'd briefly suspected.

What's less common, however, are other forms of synaesthesia. Lexical-gustatory synesthesia, for instance, is experienced by less than 0.2 percent of the world's population, and refers to when people can taste sounds. In other words, that new Stormzy track might taste like ginger biscuits and barbecued meat, or your fave Aaliyah jam might conjure up the sweet deliciousness of blueberry pie. We wanted to know more about this very strange, almost super hero-style phenomenon, so we contacted the UK Synaesthesia Association. They put us in touch one of their committee members, James Wannerton, who can taste sounds to a pretty extreme level. As such, we sent him a playlist, he listened to the tracks, and then he kindly told us the flavors of each.

Read more on Noisey

I got invited to a screening of a movie, which shall remain nameless, about a woman who learns to accept her body and then goes around teaching body acceptance to other women. On the poster was a hot yoga-MILF-y looking blonde (the one who had accepted her body) seated nude. In researching her story, it appeared as though her body acceptance occurred as an epiphanic moment that had somehow then sustained itself through time. This has not been my experience with epiphanic moments, particularly in regards to a lifelong struggle with body dysmorphia and eating disorders. Rather, my epiphanic moments are usually of the self-destructive variety. If I feel dramatically inspired to do something, it's probably a bad idea.

Seems easy to radically accept your body when you're that hot, I thought.

Of course this is reductive. My experience with eating disorders has never been solely about hotness. Sure, hotness is some sort of North Star, guiding me toward an unattainable illusion of "okayness." But the ship itself (and one might say, the rowers thereon) are about creating an illusion of safety in what feels like an unsafe world. Give me something within my control, in spite of all the chaos. Give me something that is mine all mine, which no one else can touch.

Upon declining the invitation, I ate two 100-calorie muffin tops, a pint of diet ice cream, and a half a cup of cereal measured out in a measuring cup. It was 6:30 PM. This was the first thing I had eaten all day, aside from another 100-calorie muffin top and a yogurt at 1:00 PM. I restrict my eating throughout the day and allow myself mini-"feasts" of diet junk food at day's end. Later that night, I also had a chocolate protein bar, another pint of diet ice cream (my diet ice cream habit runs between $150-$200 a month) with a full measuring cup of cereal in it. The day had been difficult, but the evening was delicious. Every calorie had been counted.

This is not the first time I've written about my fucked up relationship/ongoing journey with food and body image. It isn't the second time, either. What's more, not much has changed for me since I've last written about it. I am still unwilling or unable to change—perhaps because I have not reached my rock bottom with these behaviors: the place where the pain of the behaviors outweighs the comfort.

On Twitter I very rarely share about my eating disorder. This is because I get a lot of pushback when I do, particularly if I do it in a humorous way. More than tweets about anxiety, depression, addiction, or romantic obsession, it's the eating disorder tweets that get the most negative reaction. I don't want to hurt anyone (or be perceived as hurting anyone) so I usually hold back.

But the truth is, when I tweet or speak humorously about my eating disorder, I'm not promoting eating disorders. I'm sharing my own experience and using humor to find some empowerment in an otherwise painful narrative. Through being truthful, I'm practicing my belief that what is kept in the dark is always more dangerous than what is brought out into the light. If one has an eating disorder, why should she have both an eating disorder and shame around it? Secrecy has never benefitted anyone's recovery.

How well do we have to be in order to speak about something? Can we only speak about it when we are safely on the other side, having been there done that? Is it wrong to speak from where we are when it's an imperfect place? What if having a sense of humor about it helps both ourselves and others to feel less alone?

"You are not a mistake. You are not a problem to be solved. But you won't discover this until you are willing to stop banging your head against the wall of shaming and caging and fearing yourself," says Geneen Roth in her book Women Food and God.

When I say I'M FUCKED UP! in a way that embraces where I am (and where other people are as well), I'm not creating an advertisement for fucked-upness or trying to convert anyone. I'm reporting from the trenches: turning on a light for others who are here too, so that we can see each other.

"When you believe without knowing you believe that you are damaged at your core, you also believe that you need to hide that damage for anyone to love you," says Roth. "You walk around ashamed of being yourself... You become an expert at finding experts and programs, at striving and trying hard and then harder to change yourself, but this process only reaffirms what you already believe about yourself—that your needs and choices cannot be trusted, and left to your own devices you are out of control..."

There seems to be an idea in wellness circles that we can fix ourselves and be forever rendered whole, OK, and sane. We forever have the before-and-after shots: I was where you are but now I am not. I'm a new person. You too can be a new person. But does that mean that until we get there, if we ever get there (assuming "there" really exists) that we should remain silent? What if we never get there? What if we die before we finish our journey to perfect wellness?

And who is that perfectly well person anyway? Is that even real? Show me a perfect person and I'll show you a paper doll. Show me a perfect person and I'll show you someone I'd never want to know.

If you are struggling with an eating disorder, contact the National Eating Disorders Association.

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

Illustrations by Joel Benjamin

Did you know the Playboy bunny costume, that iconic bodysuit with the accompanying ears, was designed by a black woman named Zelda Wynn Valdes? During the 1940s and 50s, Valdes was the seamstress of choice for the silver screen sirens of that golden age; from Dorothy Dandridge and Josephine Baker, to Mae West and Ella Fitzgerald. On a scale of things to know that might save your life, this little piece of sartorial trivia probably falls in the single digits, but that does not decrease the value of such a cultural achievement. For black people, our imprints on culture have been erased to the point of historical insignificance. This has left us combing through archives to find the stories and experiences that celebrate our genius. That constant archeological dig is exhausting, and, for me, never more so than during black history month.

The word amnesia taken from Greek -a- meaning "without" and -mnesis- meaning "memory" is a psychological condition that much of civilization suffers when it come to black history. I'm not talking about remembering the epic stain on humanity that was slavery; the courage of Turner, Tubman, and Wells; or the civil rights legacy of both Kings, Malcolm, Rustin, and Chisholm. I'm talking about the intentional and severe lack of memory regarding the black folks who achieved greatness even as the only avenues to our survival were compounded by racism, death, and pain.

Playboy Bunny costume designer Zelda Wynn Valdes poses next to Hugh Hefner (left). AP file photo

We will call this Retrograde Amnesia. The inability to retrieve information that was acquired before a particular date, usually the date of an accident or operation. In this case the "accident" being black excellence, and the operation being to cease and desist from highlighting said excellence. When Black History Month rolls around with the "I'm blackity, black black" memes (thanks CB4) and the "Why is there no white history month?" gaslight (where did that question land you, Stacey Dash?), I feel both empowered and overwhelmed by the amount of black history showcased during this time that we are begrudgingly granted to pay homage to the fact that WE ARE HERE. All twelve months of the year I am hyper aware of the amount of space black people are allowed to take up, be it when we mourn or when we celebrate. During Black History Month, I find myself doing both. I am deeply proud of all that has been achieved by black folks in times when their physical, mental, and social safety was in peril. But I mourn for the fact that for every milestone we celebrate there are ten more we will never know about because there has been a systematic and violent erasure of black lives and experiences defined by blackness.

Without your history, it's incredibly difficult to carve your future, and for black people, futures were something we were never meant to have—and we know are still not guaranteed. 

In February I get a free anthology filled with black stories. Some short and some long, but compressed within 28 pages—29 every four years—are different chapters, detailing accomplishments achieved by black people throughout the years. I like reading, and this book is always a must-read, but the sad part is, it is digital documents that make up much of this education. Articles found online as you scroll through Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. The information I consume about black history comes not from institutions of higher education, the preschools shaping young minds, or the museums housing artefacts of past decades; it comes from the social media sites which have emerged as digitized versions of school. 

I have learned more about black history from social media than I ever did in my years as a student. I guess that's exciting news for social media mavens, but it's an exhausting process of scrolling, reading, and filing. I find myself drained from the amount of information I take in. Information so depressingly obscure and a reminder of how thorough and efficient the process of removing all reminders and evidence of black history was. Without your history, it's incredibly difficult to carve your future, and for black people, futures were something we were never meant to have—and we know are still not guaranteed. 

Today I learned about Augusta Savage, the most prolific black female sculptor of the 21st century. Savage's work was known for its intimate and stunning portrayals of black people, and one of her most well-known creations, "The Harp," was commissioned for the 1939 World's Fair. It depicted black people as ascending strings on the instrument, standing proudly with heads held high. Her work brought her media attention, and she was accepted to the Fontainebleau School of the Fine Arts outside of Paris in 1923, but her place was rescinded once the school learned she was black. We know about Degas, Picasso, Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, and Pollock. These white men are revered figures in an art world that, then and now, does not know nor care to make room for black people. For black women.

These are the exhausting moments of Black History Month. The empathy I feel as I learn about those whose greatness was seen as sub-par because of their blackness. And when empathy is in constant rotation it becomes redundant instead of affirming. Black History Month is such a clear indicator that until black people took it upon themselves to celebrate our humanness, the world was perfectly content to only categorize our lived experiences as one of two things: aggressors and agitators. We were aggressive, so we were slaves. We fought for civil rights, so we were bitter agitators. History has erased our complexity and our rights to be layered, whole, and fragile.

And so when February rolls around, I happily look and absorb all the information I never learned in any curriculum or from any curator. But I inhale deep and exhale heavily because I know in these few weeks I will learn so much about the things we did that we were never supposed to. When we were not allowed. And it is exhausting to be annually made aware of the ways in which my blackness was and is still not seen as worthy of remembrance, documentation, and reverence. To be black, is exhausting.

Follow Tari Ngangura on Twitter.

In the first semester of her freshman year at the University of Portland, Clara Ell claims she was sexually assaulted by a male student in her dorm room after a night of heavy drinking.

The way the night ended is difficult for her to remember, but the way it started is crystal-clear: Clara—a lanky girl with big brown eyes and a long mane of curls—wandered a few blocks off-campus to a house party. She and her high school friend-turned-roommate, Krista Baldwin, were recent recruits to the women's lacrosse club team, and on this night, the captains were hosting a "team bonding" party. The theme of the party was "Star Spangled Hammered"; Clara wore denim cutoffs, a blue and white striped tank top, and a red sweatshirt. She borrowed a hardhat from a friend, decorated with an all-over flag print.

Around 9 PM, the 18-year-old girls walked five blocks from their dorm on the small Catholic campus to the party. The all-girls party was still quiet when they got there, and the freshmen joined in a round of a drinking game called "Rage Cage" with their teammates, a flurry of ping pong balls bouncing into red Solo cups filled with beer. Like most drinking games, it ends with one player drinking a lot of beer from the filled-to-the-brim "bitch cup" at the center of a table.

Read more on Broadly

Fadwa Alaoui, a Muslim Canadian citizen who was originally born in Morocco, says she was denied entry to the US over the weekend after border officials grilled her about her religious views and thoughts about Trump.

According to CBC, Alaoui planned to go shopping in Burlington, Vermont, with her family on Saturday, but was detained at the Highgate Springs/Phillipsburg border crossing. Alaoui says border agents asked her to hand over her phone and password—which sounds awfully close to those new extreme security measures floated by Homeland Security this week—and that they then questioned her extensively about her religious practices. Border Patrol also asked if she knew anyone killed at the the recent Quebec City mosque shooting.

"I felt humiliated, treated as if I was less than nothing," Alaoui told CBC. "It's as if I wasn't Canadian."

Alaoui says the questioning lasted for four hours, before she was finally turned away. When they denied her entry and returned her phone, border agents told her they had found troubling videos.

"They said, 'You're not allowed to go to the United States because we found videos on your phone that are against us.'" According to Alaoui, the videos on her phone were of daily prayers.

CBC reached out to US Customs and Border Patrol about the incident, which denied that Alaoui was not allowed entry because of her religious affiliation. "[Customs and Border Patrol] does not discriminate on the entry of foreign nationals to the United States based on religion, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation," David Long, a spokesman for CBP, said.

For decades, Haiti has endured coups d'états, authoritarian governments, complex political conflicts, and international interventions that have left behind weak institutions incapable of providing the basic needs of its people. The fragility of the country has forced thousands of Haitians to migrate in search of better living conditions. Most recently, massive displacement have been caused by both the 2010 earthquake that destroyed Port-au-Prince and the cholera epidemic that was brought over by UN peacekeepers and is responsible for 10,000 fatalities.

Many Haitians have immigrated to Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Ecuador, and the United States. None of these countries have accepted them under the international legal definition for a refugee. The US, however, has offered them a temporary protection status, and Brazil continues to grant them a humanitarian visa, allowing them a stay in the country, but with limited protection compared to a refugee.

In Brazil, many initially found work in construction, building the infrastructure for the 2014 Soccer World Championships and then the 2016 Summer Olympics. Meanwhile, youngsters attended local universities, and the service industry employed many women. By spring 2016, the first wave of Haitians coming from Brazil began to arrive at the southwestern border between the US and Mexico. Later that year, after the Olympics finished and the Senate impeached President Dilma Rousseff, more Haitians left, seeking entrance into the US. Most ended up in border cities like Tijuana, Mexicali, and Nogales, overwhelming local shelters. The Mexican government opened its doors to all and coordinated with US migration authorities to keep those crossing to a limited number. However, the burden of maintenance, food, and housing costs during the waiting period in these Mexican cities fell to local municipal and state offices, as well as NGOs, churches, and others offering private donations.

According to César Anibal Palencia Chávez from the Tijuana Municipal Migration Affairs Office, close to 4,000 Haitians were distributed among 27 shelters in the city, and slightly fewer were in the neighboring Mexicali, awaiting a date to cross into the US in December 2016. By the end of the month, those who arrived were told they would have to wait up to five months.

The photographs below show the everyday lives of Haitians stuck in Tijuana. Some look for work to earn a few extra pesos; others constantly worry about what to wear, hoping to always look sharp, should they get tapped on the shoulder and granted entry into America. Not all of the shelters are able to maintain the standards they want. Temporary shelters now include a church where 300 migrants sleep on the floor and one that had to acquire 70 additional tents for 200 migrants, when it initially expected to only hold 45 people.

And the general situation is getting worse. Trump's immigration issues with Mexico have created further uncertainty, making an already urgent situation even more dire.

All photographs are by Hans Museilik. You can follow his work here.

A migrant holds his son, John Wesley, in his arms while he tries to get into the US at the international crossing station of "El Chaparral." Every day, dozens of Haitians meet at this gate but are not allowed to cross.

A panoramic view of Tijuana's downtown with the arc and the existing US border wall in the background. Tijuana is a cultural melting pot of thousands of migrants form all over the world.

A Haitian migrant steps out of his tent at the "Juventud 2000" shelter. After the arrival of thousands of Haitian refugees, concerned citizens created small camps in patios and inside churches. More than 27 temporary locations now offer shelter to these migrants, and this one in particular had to acquire more than 70 tents for them to sleep in. In contrast to Central American and Mexican migrants who rest at the border shelters for a few days and then jump the "line" into the US, Haitians have to wait for up to five months to be able to present themselves for an interview with US immigration officials.

A Haitian migrant leans against the US-Mexico border wall, listening to some stranger that started talking to him in French. The Friendship Park in Tijuana is the only place where divided families by the wall can actually speak and (sort of) see one another on weekends.

A Haitian migrant gives another companion a haircut outside a shelter.

A group of Haitian migrants play dominoes in a room under construction at a Christian church that's giving them shelter. This is just one way that they kill time while waiting to cross the border.

Two Haitian migrants help build a kitchen.

Tijuana, Mexico. Posters of House Rules at the "Casa del Migrante" shelter in different languages, including French. Ever since the wave of Haitians and migrants from African countries, shelters had totranslate information into French.

As part of the Christmas celebrations at the "Casa del Migrante" shelter, a man breaks a piñata with a stick. Different volunteers donated food and presents, so migrants and deportees, regardless of their nationality, had good time over the holiday.

During a Christmas celebration at the "Casa del Migrante" shelter, a Haitian migrant shows his enthusiasm after receiving a gift.

Dozens of Haitian women and children share the old section of the a church, which not only serves as a huge dormitory but also as a playground for all the children.

December 28, 2016. Tijuana, Mexico. A Haitian woman and her child, carefully walking through a construction site, pass other Haitians who are busy erecting a plaster wall. Long waiting periods for their US-entry date push migrants to start seeking local jobs.

A Haitian child tries to grab the photographer's camera.

Another Haitian migrant dictates a text into his smartphone. Finding sleeping accommodations is not an easy task, and the quality always varies in these shelters. Some find beds, while others have to sleep in tents that offer scarce protection from rain and cold during the winter.

A couple of Central American migrants check out their planned route into the US on a map while holding candles during the traditional Mexican Christmas celebrations. Haitians comprise almost 80 percent of the shelters in Tijuana, but there are still some from elsewhere.

During a street celebration in front of one of the shelters, a Haitian migrant dances with a local girl who was volunteering. Different Christian groups or concerned neighbors would drop by the shelters and donate food, clothes, or even services, like a free haircut.

During lunch, food is served through a kitchen window at "Juventud 2000." Since most of the migrants are from Haiti, Haitian cooks took over the kitchen and started preparing home-style chicken.

A father feeds his baby on a clearing outside the shelter. Many migrants from Haiti came with children born in Brazil. Some women even did the trip pregnant and gave birth in Mexico.

A few Haitian migrants warm themselves up near a fire on a dirt soccer field.

Few Native Americans have made it to the highest ranks of professional boxing. Marvin Camel was the very first cruiserweight champion in 1980, and more recently, fringe contenders such as heavyweight Joe Hipp, cruiserweight Shawn Hawk, and middleweight George Tahdooahnippah have appeared on American television to varying degrees of success.

One unlikely contributor to this category is Miosha Wagoner. She's best known as an elite amateur boxer, having won silver in the light heavyweight division at the 2008 World Championships in Beijing. And although she continues to compete sporadically, her main focus is training other aspiring Indigenous fighters and students at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, where she is the head of student support services. This comes at a time when MMA fighting is growing in popularity among young Indigenous people in North America, a subject that's the focus of this week's episode of RISE, VICELAND's show documenting the indigenous communities across the Americas.

On the surface, it would appear Wagoner's vocations are at odds with one another. Academically, she has a degree in American Indian studies, and a master's in conflict management and dispute resolution.

In 2010, Wagoner concluded her master's thesis by writing "I truly saw we can now, as Native people have the opportunity to better ourselves and find strength from within conflict." Today, she works to prove that in a very literal sense.  

"It was very important for me to understand where all of these issues and problems our people face stemmed from. And not only to be able to identify those, but now what? You read a lot of literature and history of things that happened, but what are we doing now to address those? What are we doing to be able to find a resolution, rather than letting the genocide continue through our own hands," Wagoner told VICE. "Now that I understand the traumas, what can I do now to help? That's kind of always been my whole thing. To be able to heal, to be able to understand, and really reflect on that and build strength from it."

Still from VICELAND's RISE.

Half Navajo and half Chickasaw, Wagoner's childhood was split between reservations in Gallup, New Mexico, and Whitecone, Arizona. She describes the environment as being ridden with substance abuse, something she links back to the horrific era of Native boarding schools, a system her grandfather passed through.

"Yosh," as she is known, found her escape in athletics. In high school, she was a quarterback on the boys team, and later played rugby at Kansas University. Although her father was a boxer, he neither revealed that information nor introduced her to the sport at any point. It wasn't until she covered a local boxing event while working as a journalist that she discovered the "Sweet Science."

Not long after Wagoner made her discovery, she decided to give boxing a try herself, and two months later, had her first amateur bout. Within a year, she would go from being spooked by the ending of Million Dollar Baby and frightened by the muscular appearance of her first opponent, to winning the national championship and medalling on the world stage.

"It helps you see who you are. It breaks you down and forces you to face your fears. If you're not doing something right, boxing makes you feel that. You get punched in the face," said Wagoner.

Boxer and academic Miosha Wagoner (middle).

As she transitions into the second stage of her boxing career as a trainer, she does so with a purpose greater than simply helping people lose 15 pounds or learn combinations. Beyond the physical escape the boxing gym provides for Indigenous youth, Wagoner views it as a breeding ground for the confidence needed to resist and become involved politically.

"For our people, having that ability to fight again and take back, it means a lot. We're fighting for our people, we're fighting for something that's important to us," said Wagoner. "There's a warrior mentality to it. It empowers you to see your strength and the things that you can do. We're always in constant battle with things in everyday life."

As the people of Standing Rock continue to battle the Dakota Access Pipeline, the general public has once again been reminded of the unique and ever-mounting issues and persecution Indigenous peoples face to this day.

"Seeing those people fight and put themselves on the front line makes you think wow, what can I do? What can I do to help our people? If we can be organized for this cause, who's to say that we couldn't do other things outside of that?" said Wagoner.

As the relics of the "Stick To Sports" movement continue to shout in the echo chamber of sports Twitter, Yosh is out to prove that doing so isn't advisable. One can defend themselves inside a boxing ring, and defend the rights and traditions of their people, and those things don't have to be—or even should be—exclusive.

RISE airs Fridays at 9 PM on VICELAND.

Just two days after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, six Muslim worshippers at a Quebec City mosque were shot dead.

The alleged killer, Alexandre Bissonnette has been described as a xenophobic, right-wing troll. The response has been righteously furious. Thousands of Torontonians rallied outside the US Consulate Saturday, and in the days since, more than 4,000 people joined the newly-founded Coalition Against White Supremacy and Islamophobia, a group that says it wants immigration reform in Canada. Among its demands:

• Open the Canadian border to refugees and immigrants being rejected by the US
• Canada scrap the Safe Third Country Agreement which says that refugees can either claim asylum in Canada or the US, but not both
• Stop the detention of immigrants
• Grant pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants

Seemingly in response to Trump's Muslim ban, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted "those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you." However, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen later said Canada will not be increasing its refugee quotas for the time being.

As it stands, Canada accepts around 250,000 immigrants per year, with the goal of taking in 300,000 in 2017. By 2036, immigrants could make up a third of Canada's population, according to Statistics Canada, and half the population is expected to be either an immigrant or a child of an immigrant.

Graphic by Jane Kim

Not everyone is happy with Canada's fairly open immigration policy, however. Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch said she is in favour of screening immigrants for "Canadian values" and of abandoning immigration quotas.

But what would actually happen if Canada shut down immigration outright? VICE reached out to a bunch of experts to ask what the fallout of such a decision would be.

We'd die off

Canada's population was at 35,151,728 in 2016, according to Statistics Canada, an increase of 5 percent from 2011, with two-thirds of that coming from immigration and one-third coming from fertility. With Canada's birth rate at 1.6 kids per woman (the replacement rate is 2.1), we're no longer making enough babies to replenish our population. If we stopped immigration, we would literally start to die off as a population, which would lead to a whole host of problems, such as:

Economy will tank

"Immigrants are the economically active part of the population," said Arne Ruckert, a researcher at the University of Ottawa's Institute of Population, pointing out that many immigrants are in the 19-45 age range, who contribute to the work force. Without them, " the economy would essentially come to a standstill or decline."

Ruckert, who moved to Canada from Germany in 2002, said Canada's GDP with decrease 2 percent if we ceased immigration for just one year. (There are about 500,000 temporary foreign workers here at any given time.) Certain careers, including nursing, domestic work, technology, and low-wage, precarious jobs particularly rely on immigrants.

"Canada just does not produce enough graduates in certain areas."

Immigration also makes it easier to facilitate trade with other countries and garner foreign investment.

"We'll actually need more immigration than today," Ruckert noted. "If we don't have it, we'll simply have an economic collapse like they have in Japan."  

Read more: Could Americans Claim Refugee Status in Canada Due to the Trump Presidency?

Cuts to social assistance

Because we would have fewer workers in the labour market, there would be less money going towards social welfare programs like pensions, health care, and employment insurance, said Phil Triadafilopoulos, a political science professor at the University of Toronto.

"There'd be a lot of stress on our social welfare system," he said. "The money that would be put into the system would be to pay for an increasing number of older people."

Retired folks require more support for medical and at home care, and without immigrants, we would fail to meet those demands.

More racism, isolation, and violence

Debbie Douglas, executive director of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Refugees, told VICE shutting our borders would hurt immigrants already here with family overseas.

"Refugee families often don't have an opportunity to make plans and often times families are separated.  How do you manage through the kind of trauma that shutting the borders would cause, especially if you're family is in places where they're not safe," she said.

While Canada's view of itself as a "cultural mosaic" is an oversimplified cliche, Triadafilopoulos said stopping immigration in a country like ours would send a clear and negative message: "you're saying something's wrong with immigration which means you're saying something's wrong with immigrants."

He points out the fear and uncertainty that immigrants in the US are experiencing under Trump, with many expressing that it's the first time they've felt unwelcome.

"It emboldens people. It sends a message that being a racist or a bigot is acceptable because the person who has the highest office in the land goes on this way."

Douglas said there is already a growing sentiment of Islamophobia, and some immigrants are seen as "more deserving" than others. Leitch's vetting for values proposal is emblematic of that, she said, but cutting off immigration entirely would worsen the racial tension.

"I can very much see it growing social incohesion, which often leads to violence."

Innovation and culture would suffer

Immigrants make up 40 percent of academic chairs in Canada, said Rucker, and without them we'd see a massive decline in innovation.

In terms of culture, immigrants win a disproportionate number of literary and arts prizes, according to the Conference Board of Canada, accounting for 23 percent of Giller Prize finalists and 29 percent of winners. As well, immigrants make up 23 percent of Governor General's Performing Arts Awards.

While Canada typically performs lower than other rich nations when it comes to innovation, it can make up for that by bringing in highly educated immigrants.

Plus, our cities and towns (Toronto's population is 50 percent immigrants) would straight up be more boring without the shops and restaurants that come with diversity.

Other countries would be like 'WTF'

Nipa Banerjee, a University of Ottawa professor at the School of International Development, said Canada is admired around the world for its perceived diversity.

"The impression that people have is that Canada is a very open country, their values are to be cherished," said Banerjee, who often travels for work.  "They bring up the subject of our prime minister who is looked up on as a person who is very humanitarian, a people's person."

She said we only need to look to America's plummeting reputation in light of Trump to see what would happen here.

Triadafilopoulos said Canada has remained pro-immigration, despite growing resentment in places like Europe and the US, so barring it would cause other countries to "be wondering what the hell is going on."

"It would signal something has gone sideways in our political system," he said. "It would feed into this trend and be the final exclamation point."

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter

On a scale of one to ten, where does your anxiety about "ever owning a house ever in your life" chart? I would say might rumbles along at a pretty low two, and then occasionally – in those dark, quiet moments when I'm trying to sleep; or when I look at the bottom of my overdraft and think about taking my change jar to the counting machine at Morrisons; or when I have to interact with my landlord even at all – it spikes up to a hard 10 or 11, depending on my mood.

I think a lot of us are at this point with the housing market: absolutely resigned to the doom of it, the fact that – unless something absolutely gigantic happens to it over the next five years, which it won't – we are going to be broadly a generation without houses, and the best we can hope for is a reasonably fair rent agreement and a non-dickhead landlord and then, eventually, the sweet embrace of death. Maybe I'm projecting! Maybe I'm just projecting my anxiety onto you! Maybe I'm just sick of moving every single year of my life and not being able to put a nail in a wall without written email consent! I don't know!

Anyway, it doesn't have to be like this. The BBC, in its wisdom, has told us as such: if we, fickle millennials, just knuckle down and work hard, and watch our pennies and our pounds too, and bond forever to the first person of the opposite sex we ever meet in our lives, then we too could own a home in our twenties. I have read the article so you don't have to, and here's what it says:

LITERALLY GET MARRIED TO THE FIRST PERSON WHO EVER LETS YOU TOUCH THEIR GENITALS

I don't know if you even remember the name of the first person you ever had sexual contact with, but sadly if you have since moved on from them you are already behind in The Great Race To Buy A Three-Bed House An Hour's Drive From Manchester, because you need to couple up for this one. I am sorry about this.

What you should have done is: eased into a comfortable-like-an-old-jumper three-year relationship with them, either while you did your degree and they worked or while you worked and they did their degree, and then you should have both signed up to a Cineworld Unlimited Card ("It's the most affordable way for us both to have fun!" you said, right before you started watching four films a week) and started collecting Tesco Clubcard points and putting your collective salaries into the same shared savings account, and you should have looked into their dead, dead eyes, every night before you went to sleep, and thought, 'This is fine.' Thought, 'I never really wanted to experience life in any sort of diverse or interesting way anyway.' And then slept tight in the knowledge that you were 8 percent of the way towards a Help To Buy deposit and that you are never kissing anyone again, ever in your life.

THERE IS NO TIME BETWEEN EDUCATION AND WORK FOR YOU TO LIVE, SO JUST FORGET ABOUT THAT

The best day to start saving for your first house is the day you leave sixth form and immediately get a job. The second-best day is the day after you graduate from university and move in with the boyfriend or girlfriend you made there. There are no other times to start saving. If you had a week off after uni then, sadly, inflation has caught you off guard and you are now already £1,000 behind your goal. Buying a house is now no longer an option. Enjoy paying rent forever, you work-shy slob.

IF YOU DRINK COFFEE AGAIN I WILL SLAP IT OUT OF YOUR HANDS SO HELP ME FUCKING GOD

Is that a Pret latte in your hand? £1.99, is it? Do you know how many £1.99s a week that is? That's five, Darren. That's £10 that could go in the house fund. From now on it's two heaped teaspoons of Kenco, four of sugar and milk you pinched from the work fridge. If you boil more water in the kettle than you need I'll make you drink it from the fucking spout.

AND THAT GOES FOR LUNCH, YOU LITTLE SHIT

Ah, I'm sorry, but the only way you're ever going to afford a house is to stop going to Itsu and instead pack the exact same lunch every day for 24 months, and that lunch is "a corned beef sandwich that seems to exhale and sweat at the same time when you peel it from its lunchbox"; "one packet of Mini Cheddars that didn't do too well on the journey in today so is crushed down to dust"; and "a supermarket-brand Penguin equivalent". Visible scurvy is just a way of telling everyone your ISA is healthy.

NEVER SEE YOUR MATES EVER AGAIN AND IF YOU DO WANT TO SEE YOUR MATES PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT THEY HATE YOU NOW

Seeing your mates is fun, isn't it? Enriching for the soul. The one thing that separates us from the animals. A way of forgetting for a few hours that you are you, trapped in this body of yours and this mind too, sacrificing yourself up briefly to the group mind-meld, a brief escape from your ever grey and trudging life. Well, that's all gone now, because you need to save the £40 a week you spend in the pub and put it into your savings. Alright, fine: you can see your mates once a month, planned weeks in advance, and when you order a Coke at the bar, decant scotch into it from a Sprite bottle you bought along with you, then opt out of the rounds system and bore everyone who is living a life by telling them how many Barretts waiting lists you're on. "You can all come and stay!" you tell them, "when I buy my house!" They are not going to come to your house, mate. You're a twat now and they hate you.

EAT SHIT, WEAR SHIT, LOOK LIKE SHIT

"Sorry, love, you can't wear Mac if we're ever going to buy a house. No. No, I know the tiny insignificant luxuries are what makes life worth living. Yes, I know the negligible cost differential works out at about £30 a year. But you're a Barry M girl now. We both are. Eat your oven chips."

LIVE AT HOME FOREVER

Your mum's going mad. Your mum's going absolutely insane. You're just in the way all the time: when she's hoovering, when she's doing Davina, when she's cooking, there you are, always always always, eating a single slice of peanut butter toast over the floor she just mopped, opening the fridge just when she's walking through the kitchen with a hot tray of potatoes, taking up an entire sofa on your own, watching Your Programmes on The Main TV. This will be temporary, you told her. You want it just as little as she does. It's only for a bit, you said. While I save.

It's now been 14 months and you keep leaving the heating on when you go out and you haven't contributed to the Big Shop even once, and you're going through what scientists call "The Teen's Reprise" – that curious phenomenon where, when ushered into the thick carpets and warm womb of home or the house where your parents live, you just immediately revert to adolescence and shout at them when they buy the wrong crisps, and use all the WiFi in the house at once, somehow, and trudge muddy footprints through the hallway and refuse to tidy them up, and scream, "FUCK OFF! FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF!" down the stairs at them. But still. It's only for a few months, isn't it! While you're saving!

NEVER GO ON HOLIDAY EVER AGAIN

Holidays are important, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. If you don't think a literal and psychic break from the grinding drudgery of real life is some sort of indulgent whimsy, then you're probably the exact sort of person who boasts about "never being off ill, not even one day, and I've been here seven years", or is an active poster on the MoneySavingExpert forums. Our bodies crave and need Vitamin D. Our minds desire change. One week all-expenses in Tenerife isn't going to drive you into debt for the rest of your life. Five days away from your desk and the night shifts afterwards isn't going to reverse you irreparably away from your goal. Still: kiss fuck off to ever leaving the country again, because baby, you've got 10 percent on a new build in Dronfield to save up for!

GIVE UP ON EVER DECORATING YOUR HOUSE WITH ANYTHING OTHER THAN SQUIDGY GREY CARPETS, A 'LIVE LAUGH LOVE' SIGN AND THE EXACT SAME PINEWOOD ARGOS TV STAND

I don't know if this is a budget thing (if you put every spare pound you've ever earned into a 5 percent deposit, do you have anything left over for, like, even one tasteful lamp, or is your decorating budget reduced to exactly zero?), or it's just that the type of people who save up through their twenties to buy a house have the exact same basic taste in home interiors, but basically you're going to want a grey carpet, a Gumtree leather sofa, a £16.99 pine-effect TV stand and a small wire love heart that says "Live Laugh Love" in it, affixed with a ribbon to a spare white wall. This is what you have to look at now, forever. Welcome home.

WORK EVERY HOUR OF YOUR LIFE

That's what your mum and dad say, isn't it? They just worked hard, and then they bought a house. Lived in a different era and a different economic reality, where the fun things to do were less expensive, salaries were in line with inflation, house prices were realistic, mortgages were easier to get and jobs were too… but, fundamentally, all they did was worked hard and then bought a house. Why can't you do that, eh? Have you even for one minute considered working every single evening of the week as well as the daytime, too? Or is that too much for you, you snowflake millennial?

NEVER MOVE

I for one can't imagine Bolton being a far-exotic realm too absurd to countenance moving to, but yeah, once you've bought your house – pale, anaemic bricks; a smooth grey-blue tarmac driveway; a cul-de-sac similarly full of 23-year-old couples in F+F jeans; green turf; stairs and a hallway; and four rooms and no soul – you are, sadly, condemned to wherever you live now, forever, because your house is everything and everything is your house. Can you imagine selling up and moving somewhere else? No. Of course not. Settle deep and quietly into your prison, and sit on the sofa you bought, and drink a cup of tea and watch Corrie. This is the rest of your life. Forever and ever and ever. And ever.

You did it! You bought a house in your twenties! Prepare to die here as well as live!

LESSONS LEARNED

Work hard, eat dirt, fall in love with the first person you ever see naked, never have fun, but if you do have fun try to limit it to once a month, and – at most – for the net cost of £10, never move, never live and also buy somewhere in a satellite town a good 40-minute commute from the nearest major city, and nowhere south of Birmingham. Heh! It's great to be young!

@joelgolby

More depressing shit:

A Quick Rundown of the Government's Latest Attempt to Solve the Housing Crisis

What Kind of Housing Will 'Generation Rent' Be Able to Actually Afford?

The Anarchist Squatters Housing Manchester's Most Vulnerable Homeless People

FX's Legion, which premiered last night, is based on Marvel comics character David Haller, the mutant son of Professor Charles Xavier from the X-men. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Bill Sienkiewicz in 1985, the character has a form of dissociative identity disorder with close to 40 different personalities, each associated with its own superpower. Legion is one of those personalities, and has the power to warp time and reality. Throw in schizophrenia and autism, and you've got one complex character. Not only will it make for interesting television, but it'll provide excellent fodder about how we look at mental illness in America.

The first episode of Legion is a sprawling, beautiful 90-minutes with its quality only heightened by the accompanying music. I sat down with two-time Grammy and Emmy-nominated musician, Jeff Russo, to talk about his second collaboration with series creator Noah Hawley, with whom he worked on FX's successful Fargo television adaptation. We had a chat about comic books, the music-making process, and Pink Floyd.

VICE: Can you tell me about the premise of Legion?
Jeff Russo: That's almost difficult to describe. It's based on a character from a comic book. It's from the New Mutants series in the 80s, and the character's name is Legion. But really, that's where the similarity ends.

This character David Haller has been told that he's schizophrenic his whole life, but in fact, he's a mutant, and he has these powers. The idea of the story is he doesn't know what's real and what's not real. Things are in his hallucinating world and then in the real world, and you never really know where he is until you do, and then you don't again, and then you do, and then you don't again. There's that part, but really the core of the show, in my opinion, is this love story between him and Syd Barrett, played by Rachel Keller.

Were you familiar with the comic book at all? Did you read comics growing up?
I was kind of a comic-book fan when I was a kid. I did follow the X-Men. I never got into the New Mutants, which the Legion character comes from. I did know about it, but I didn't really get into it until recently, when I read the script and then went back and looked at some of the comics to see what it was all about.

How is the show different than other comic book shows or movies that have been out?
The comic-book movies that we know are the Marvel comic-book movies and the DC comic-book movies. And those two universes are quite dissimilar. As far as it being a Marvel thing, I would say that the movies and the other television shows tend to take the comic-book story and put [it] into a real-world context and make it feel very grounded and real.

In this case, I feel like Legion is more comic book-esque. It's a little more surreal; it's a little more hyper-real. I mean, aside from the fact that they have these powers and stuff—just in general, it's a more psychedelic look at the whole idea of people with powers and what that means for them and how that affects them as people, and then people coming to terms with that. Then how those people have relationships with one another and how they relate to the outside world and vice versa.

Tell me about your music-writing process for this show. Was it different than other shows that you've worked on?
I looked at it the same way that I do Fargo. I look at the characters and read the scripts and start sketching ideas for themes for these characters. At the beginning, I wrote a theme for David, and then I wrote another theme for David, and then I wrote another theme for David. I kept writing these themes for David, because what I realized was, he has so many different sides to him. In that way, it was much different because instead of it being lots of different characters, it's a single character that has many different facets, so I got to really explore how to augment and change and turn on its side and turn upside down and turn backward, a theme for a single character.

How did you make the transition for writing rock music to scoring and composing for TV and movies?
I would say magic. That's what I would say. I don't really know the answer to that question. It's like one day I was writing music for a little television show, and then I got a call from Noah. I had done two previous shows with him. He said, "We're doing Fargo, what do you think?" I said, "This is great, what is it about?" We talked about it, and then he sent me home with that in mind. I wrote the main theme for it, and I realized it had to be an orchestra because we wanted to make a big movie in the show. We wanted the show to be like a movie, making ten little movies.

When I say "magic," I'm only half joking. I just tried to figure it out. People have said, "No, no, no, no, you can't do that. If you do this with this thing, you can't do it with that thing." And I'm like, "Well, I don't really know that. Nobody ever told me that, so I'm going to continue to do this this way. And if it's wrong, then so be it." Because to me, if it sounds good, it must be right. And if it sounds good to me, it means it's right to me.

What's your collaboration process with Noah like, especially for Legion?
For Legion, we sat down, and we talked specifically about, "What if we have this very electronic sound, and we have this very orchestral, cinematic thing, and we go from one to another as a method of transition between the real and the unreal and back? How can we do that? What if David's theme has this really super electronic thing, and then there's this more orchestral thing that happens? How do we do that?"

Also we talked a lot about Pink Floyd, because we're both huge Pink Floyd fans, and both of us agree that Pink Floyd was basically the soundtrack for schizophrenia in the 70s. So I went out, and I bought an old 70s synthesizer, the same one that they used, apparently, on Dark Side of the Moon. I turned it on, plugged it in, started turning some knobs, and I'm like, "Wow, it really does sound like that."

The process is: We talk about it, and I go write, and then I send him stuff, and then we talk about it some more. He says, "I like this, I like that, this isn't really working for me, change this." Then I do that some more, and then we start figuring out how that is going to work to picture, once the picture's been put together.

It's probably not a coincidence that there is a character named Syd Barrett in the show.
Obviously, the homage is there. Both Noah and I talked very much about that soundscape being somewhat of an inspiration to how I go about writing the score.

What do you hope that viewers will take away from the soundtrack on Legion? What do you want the viewer to feel while they're watching the show?
I want them to be immersed; I want people to be immersed in the story. The music plays a part. It's basically a character. But it's a character as part of the fabric of the show. What you really want as someone who is writing music for a narrative, especially in this case, is for people to just become completely enveloped in the idea of the show, and to be drawn in. For the music to help draw you in, but not take you out of the moment, and to help you be in the music. That's the idea of film music, the idea of music for television or any narrative, is for you to really help the viewer be immersed in the moment. Not to tell you what the moment is, and not to take you out of the moment, but to have you not realize that you're so in it. I think that's what I would really like for people to take away from the show.

Follow Charles Moss on Twitter.

A bunch of psychologists in the UK have finally found more insight into a question that's plagued humanity for ages: What moves make someone a good dancer? And no, the answer is not twerking.

To conduct the study, published Thursday in Scientific Reports, researchers at Northumbria University asked 39 college women to jam out to a song by Robbie Williams, who, like tea time and nationalized healthcare, seems to be something from England that will never catch on in America. The researchers used motion-capture technology to track the women's movements and then mapped those onto digital avatars, like something out of a rudimentary video game. Both heterosexual men and women were then asked to critique each avatar's dance moves to determine who was the sexiest dancer.

Here's an example of a "good dancer" as determined by the study

It turns out that the moves judged the best for women involve wide swings of the hips and asymmetrical leg movements, where the right and left limbs are moving independently from each other. These should be coupled with moderate amounts of asymmetrical arm movements, although it doesn't sound very sexy when you put it that way.

Above is an example of the worst dancer, as determined by the study.

The scientists, who also did a similar study on men, wanted to uncover more about why people dance and what kind of evolutionary function it serves. Rather than extending someone's life or helping provide food and shelter, boogying down serves another biological imperative: finding a mate. Researchers believe that the hip-swinging that makes women good dancers is an inherent trait that signals fertility.

"So the basic idea that dance moves are able to convey honest information about the reproductive qualities of the dancer in question appears sound," says Nick Neave, co-author of the study. In the male study, the researchers found people were most attracted to guys who moved their upper body a lot, especially their neck and torso. This signals more muscularity, which biologically would make a male a good mate.

Of course, the anecdotal evidence that good dancing leads to sex is significantly older. Playwright George Bernard Shaw has been credited with writing that dancing is "the vertical expression of a horizontal desire legalized by music." Though today we know that dancing can serve other equally important purposes as well.

I don't know why anyone would want to make a replica of their cock. Doesn't it require a truly undeserved sense of self-satisfaction to believe your penis is unique enough to be permanently immortalized in rubber? Regardless, Empire Labs markets their do-it-yourself in-home penis molding kit "Clone-a-Willy" as a fun gag between couples who enjoy a bit of kink. I'm single, but I still had to try it.

When it comes to Empire Labs' genital-molding business, there are so many options available. You can make a lime green, glow-in-the-dark copy of your cock; there's also chocolate molding kits, and a version that will also let you mold your balls for $10 extra. The company has been around since the mid 90s, and at this point, it's clear these guys have thought of every hypothetical angle for immortalizing an erect penis.

The process is fairly straightforward: The kit comes with a long plastic tube, a bag of molding powder, and a jar of gelatinous rubber. You measure out a cup of 90-degree water and mix it with the powder, which gives you a lumpy, thick, starchy slurry. Then, you transfer that jelly into the plastic tube, get your dick hard, and shove it inside. When the mixture hardens, you pull your penis out, leaving a hollowed-out phallic cave. Pour in the rubber in the hole you just made, and voilà! You can retrieve your molded cock 24 hours later, marveling at your tremendous hubris.

That might sound pretty simple—but the entire process needs to happen in about two minutes. The molding gel solidifies really quick, so you need to get your dick hard and in that plastic tube fast. Empire Labs sent us three kits, but if you scroll through Amazon's user reviews (where 36 percent of users give just one star to the product), you'll see a number of frustrated people who fucked up the mechanics in some tragic way. On YouTube, you can find some truly Boschian monstrosities spawned from a simple miscalculation of physics or chemistry.

All photos Kelsey Lawrence

It seemed pretty difficult to quickly balance several enzymatic agents with a hard-on all by myself, so my friend Alex, my ex-girlfriend Kelsey, and I designated a lonely Saturday afternoon to perfect the alchemy. Our battle plan was simple: They'd do the mixing while I sat in the bathroom trying to get as hard as possible. When the mixture was ready, they'd hand off the plastic tube to me, I'd shove my penis inside, and we'd bask in my victory together.

Molding my cock was, without a doubt, one the most uniquely stressful trials of my life. That's the beauty of the experience: It offers a level of anxiety that will be forever unmatched by any horror movie or haunted house. So I was alone in my friend's bathroom watching porn on my phone, desperately coaxing my very average, very American dick. I was a wreck, like I was just asked to play in the Super Bowl.

I finally achieved a floppy, 75 percent erection. Kelsey and Alex told me the mixture was ready and handed me a curdled, lukewarm tube of plaster; I looked down at it and immediately went limp. I've never had any major struggles with performance anxiety, but apparently the pressure of the moment was greater than my virility. I knew I had maybe 45 seconds left before the plaster would become too solid to penetrate, so I engaged in one of the most harried jerk sessions in history.

My dick was still flaccid and the plaster was hardening, so the hopes of achieving anything resembling a respectable erection were waning. I could've taken an L and lived to fight another day, but instead, I crammed my sad wilted dong as deep inside the tube as I could manage. I sat there as the cold, floury water began to solidify, and my mind went blank. I thought about all my sins. I thought about my mother. I thought about the extra semester I took to finish my journalism degree.

I returned to the kitchen to mix the silicone and start the 24-hour process. I chose the hot-pink color, because I think that's how a mold of an enfeebled penis ought to look. Unfortunately, I must've blundered the science, because my mold never solidified. Instead, I was left with this weeping volcano of liquid plastic, which I like to imagine is God's way of rejecting me.

The error was probably on me: There were a number of jars of silicone on the table, and we probably mixed the wrong one. I tried a second time using a different cast and had better results (see video above). It doesn't look great, but at least it turned into a solid.

And you know what? I'm totally OK with not having more than one version of my cock around the house. It'd be different if I was dating someone, and she deeply wanted a dick-mold of mine for safekeeping—but if you're buying one of these for anything other than pure altruism, you should reconsider your priorities. Nobody should trust a man who thinks his penis needs a twin.

Follow Luke Winkie on Twitter.

This article was published in partnership with the Marshall Project.

The comment was startling, even for President Donald Trump. In a meeting with county sheriffs this week, the president suggested he would "destroy" the career of a Texas state senator who wants to curtail the ability of law enforcement to seize money, vehicles, and property suspected of being used in crime. A Texas sheriff had complained that the unnamed legislator's bill would be a boon to drug dealers. Later in the meeting, Trump told Dana Boente, the acting attorney general, to put the practice, called asset forfeiture, "back in business."

The exchange prompted laughs in the room and outrage on the internet, but it also exposed an important policy divide among two groups traditionally associated with Trump's rise: law enforcement and conservatives concerned about government overreach.

Under some state and federal laws, police can seize assets they suspect of being used to commit crimes—whether or not the owner is suspected of actual criminal activity—and funnel much of that money back into their law enforcement budgets. Police, sheriffs, and prosecutors often say such policies give them the money to fight crime more effectively and deprive drug dealers of the tools of their trade while they await trial.

But many conservatives and libertarians who are generally supportive of law enforcement have found common cause with more left-leaning advocates in attacking the practice, citing stories of innocent people who have lost their cars and houses with little recourse.

"We're looking at this as a teachable moment," says Marc Levin, the policy director of the conservative criminal justice reform group Right on Crime (and also a member of the Marshall Project's advisory board). He said he wants the president to know about a 2012 case where a Massachusetts motel owner had to fight in court to keep his property from being seized because guests were selling drugs.

"If someone is bringing drugs into Mar-a-Lago," Levin said, "police could try to seize it."

The new administration's policies have not been formalized. Trump's comments this week were his first discussion of asset forfeiture as president, though his new attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was broadly supportive of the practice while a senator and could rejuvenate federal support. (During his confirmation hearings, he was criticized for this by some conservatives.)

His comments came as what was once an obscure part of the Reagan-era drug enforcement push is reevaluated around the country. New Mexico and Nebraska recently abolished the practice of civil asset forfeiture, and roughly a dozen other states have come to require a criminal conviction before police can keep what they have seized. In 2015, then-attorney general Eric Holder restricted a federal program that supported police efforts to seize assets.

"There is certainly a strain of Republican thought that is fearful of the erosion of property rights and where that might lead," says Michael O'Hear, a Marquette University Law School professor who has polled conservatives on criminal justice topics.

Graphics by Yolanda Martinez

Law enforcement groups have urged caution, saying they need the money to operate. "Like any government program, there can be found instances of abuse," Fraternal Order of Police president Chuck Canterbury wrote last year in the Daily Caller. "We are confident that we can protect the due process rights of our citizens without losing the ability to use the profits of criminals and terrorists to make our communities safer."

Check out this VICE documentary about America's for-profit criminal justice system.

Still, many state lawmakers have considered increasing the burden of proof police and prosecutors must overcome if they want to keep what they seize. In Texas, a bipartisan group of lawmakers passed a measure in 2011 banning law enforcement from pressuring motorists to sign waivers allowing money to be taken on sight at a traffic stop, and restricting how such funds could be used by agencies (one district attorney had used seized money to buy alcohol for an office party).

The proposal the sheriff in this week's meeting was apparently complaining to Trump about—by Republican state Senator Konni Burton, a former Tea Party activist—would require a conviction before money can be seized.

Other bills in Texas are more modest. One would put the forfeited money into a fund to compensate victims of crime, undermining the incentive for police to seize money that will benefit their own departments. Another—filed by State Senator Joan Huffman, a Republican and former prosecutor—would not require a conviction but just raise the burden of proof prosecutors must meet when they ask a judge to approve the forfeiture of assets, and require that they go before the judge within 48 hours or give the property back. Currently, they have 30 days.

Kathy Mitchell, of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, has been tracking the issue closely and says she expects something to pass, even if it is not as far-reaching as the proposal Trump attacked. "Nobody is afraid of this conversation," she said.

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.

Last October, the Allegheny County Health Department, which encompasses Pittsburgh, announced a shocking finding: Between 2014 and 2015, the county experienced a 90 percent increase in syphilis cases, from 68 cases to 129. Of those cases, 93 percent were among men who have sex with men (MSM).

For a county with a population of 1.23 million people, that may not seem like a lot, but it's a startling statistical increase, and what's happening in Allegheny mirrors what's being seen in gay populations across the country: MSM are getting syphilis at epidemic rates, alongside other STDs like gonorrhea and chlamydia, and if something isn't done soon to address it, incurable forms of the diseases may soon wreak irreversible damage on the country's LGBTQ population.

Between 2014 and 2015, reported syphilis cases increased by 19 percent nationwide. Gonorrhea and chlamydia cases increased by 12.8 and 5.9 percent respectively nationwide over the same time frame, but combined, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said that total reported cases of all three STDs reached the highest number ever recorded. CDC also reported that MSM accounted for the majority of new gonorrhea and syphilis cases, and the report prompted the director of CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention to declare the findings represent "a decisive moment for the nation"—a turning point in how we must approach our country's STD treatment infrastructure.

In Allegheny, the jump led the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force (PATF), the region's largest and oldest AIDS service organization, to add rapid syphilis testing and treatment to its list of available services last month. And although PATF hasn't officially conducted research or analysis on the phenomenon, Dr. Sarah McBeth, PATF's medical director, has a few theories about the region's spike.

"Gay men here have a close-knit community," said McBeth, "and a lot of my patients are very open to talking about sexual health, so they may be telling partners or friends to get tested, and if they have a positive test, to inform their partners and encourage them to test, too."

"It's never a good thing to see an increase like that," she added, "but an increase in testing invariably leads to an increase in diagnoses."

Syphilis is incredibly easy to spread. Although it sometimes presents with one or more oral or genital lesions or a body rash, it's very common for people with primary- or secondary-stage infections to be completely asymptomatic, and it's easy to mistake its small, painless lesions for ingrown hairs or razor bumps. And unlike HIV, transmission doesn't require an exchange of bodily fluids—just skin-to-skin contact with a lesion via oral or genital contact.

Left untreated, the disease progresses through four stages (primary, secondary, latent, and tertiary), the last of which can cause irreversible damage to the nervous system, brain, bones, joints, eyes, and heart, and even result in paralysis or blindness.

At the national level, some have speculated that the rise of PrEP, the prevention strategy where HIV-negative people at a high risk of acquiring the virus take preemptive antiretroviral drugs, may be to blame for lowered rates of condom use among MSM—and, consequently, higher STD rates. But McBeth doesn't think that theory holds water.

"In general, patients who are willing to jump through all the hoops they have to jump through to get PrEP and take a pill every day because they're worried about their HIV risk are also going to worry about other STIs," she said. "In my experience, PrEP users tend to be very conscientious. I don't think those are necessarily the patients who are not using condoms."

Indeed, a recent study by the CDC concluded that condom usage has been steadily declining among American MSM for decades, suggesting that neither PrEP nor the prevalence of increasingly effective HIV treatments are to blame.

McBeth also said the CDC recommends STI screening every three months for PrEP users, which also points to her original conclusion—that an increase in testing may have led to an increase in diagnoses. She adds that when PrEP patients come in for screening every three months (far more often than her clinic sees many other patients), PATF doctors use the opportunity to reiterate the benefits of safe sex.

"And we always give them free condoms," she says. "Lots and lots of condoms. Always."

McBeth also notes that while syphilis is currently very treatable—it's one of the few things we actually still use penicillin for, so if that stops working, we have plenty of backup options to try—other STIs, like gonorrhea, pose a much more imminent threat of an incurable STD epidemic.

That's a sentiment echoed by experts at Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) in New York and Whitman Walker Health (WWH) in Washington, DC, two of the largest HIV/AIDS clinics in the nation.

"Incurable STIs are certainly on the horizon," said Matthew Rand, a health educator at WWH. "Many organisms evolve or adapt to their environments, and bacteria are particularly good at this, since they have shorter life cycles. Specifically with STDs and STIs, gonorrhea is one type of bacteria that is highly adaptable and is of concern for antibiotic resistance."

Rand and McBeth both point out that we're nearing the last line of defense against the bacteria responsible for gonorrhea, with the CDC recommending treatment using two powerful types of antibiotics.

"We have seen antibiotic resistance spread across Asia, and there have been documented cases in Europe," Rand said. "In a global society, it's only a matter of time before incurable infections make their way here."

Kelsey Louie, the CEO of GMHC, says he believes an incurable STD epidemic will only be prevented by "crafting public policy and providing adequate funding to expand access to screening, education, and treatment, as well as spur innovation"—all things that seem unlikely to become a priority under the Trump administration, which as of December had no plans for tackling HIV/AIDS. Key members, like Vice President Mike Pence and Tom Price, Trump's health secretary nominee, have lackluster records when it comes to dealing with the virus and reproductive rights.

"The highest rates of infection occur within our most vulnerable communities," Louie says. "In its recent report, the CDC noted that 20 health department clinics had closed in a single year. While these closures aren't wholly responsible for a lack of affordable access to healthcare, they do represent the continued struggle to ensure access to testing and treatment."

McBeth said that her patients seem more inclined to request syphilis testing now, or more willing to undergo testing if she recommends it.

"I think people are generally still pretty horrified to get a syphilis diagnosis," she said. "People have these archaic connotations with it, and it's a more dangerous of a disease if left unchecked, so it still carries a little more stigma than something like gonorrhea—even though that's actually the thing that's becoming harder and harder to treat."

Follow Kristina Marusic on Twitter.

We Canadians have like to complain about our undergrad university fees being somewhere in the ballpark range of $6,000. But that's nothing compared to the US, where it's possible to burn a $35, 000-sized hole into your wallet. No wonder people are paying off student loans well into their 30s.

Getting funding for schooling is hard as it is, given how strict loan requirements and popular scholarship standards are. But as it turns out, there actually are scholarships for virtually anyone… just not the ones you expected. Do you know how to make a mean PB&J sandwich? Are you a pro at bowling? There's a scholarship for basically anything under the sun and you will be rewarded for all the weird but cool shit you can do.

We at VICE have compiled a brief guide of the weirdest online scholarships to help you because hey, why not get rewarded for being passionate about potatoes.

Zombie Apocalypse Scholarship (Yes, really.)

This is basically Community's "Epidemiology" episode brought to life. This scholarship asks you to think about what you'd do if your school's campus was infected with a zombie virus and you were the lone survivor. Don't smirk just yet… $2000 is up for grabs with this one. Just keep an eye out for any Leonards.

Tall Clubs International Scholarship

Tall Clubs International is offering a scholarship for tall people. For women who are 5'10" and men who are 6'2" that are entering their first year of post-secondary education, there's a possible $1000 with your name on it.

Twin/Triplet Dorm Room Waiver

If you had a wombmate way back when, Northeastern Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College is prepared to waive dorm fees if you attend the school together. If you and your twin can't stand the sight of each other, fear not. NEO College says that you don't have to room together!

Chick and Sophie Major Memorial Duck Calling Contest

The creators of Duck Dynasty are doing backflips right now. Calling all talented duck callers - if you are willing to test your skills against other fellow duck whisperers and you win, you could be rewarded to the tune of $2000.

Clowns of America International Scholarship

For the few of us that don't fear clowns and have watched a clown act in full without cowering, apply for this scholarship. Jim "Soapy" Dixon is offering you cash to write about your experience after taking in a ten-hour educational, family entertainment program.

Brilliance Scholarship (Not so much about IQ)

No, this scholarship is not about intellectual rigor. It's actually about diamonds. The diamond-selling company, Brilliance, is asking you to draw up a design for a diamond ring. Anyone from any discipline is eligible for the $1500 this scholarship is offering.

A shit ton of scholarships based on hair color

There are indeed  scholarships out there that award you for your natural hair color. There were so many. Too many. But hey, for all you natural redheads and brunettes, you are in luck!

Scholarships for research on pot

It's no secret that millennials (and every other generation) are fascinated with marijuana. For all of you taking that fascination further and studying the agricultural aspect behind pot growth and development, there are high rewards.

Gamers in Real Life (G.I.R.L.) Game Design Competition

We've officially hit paydirt. San Diego's Daybreak Games is willing to offer $10,000 to aspiring game creators enrolled in game-related courses such as animation, video game art and design, etc.

Stuck at Prom Scholarship Contest

Duck Tape holds an annual scholarship contest where you and your prom date create your outfits out of only duck tape. I cannot imagine a scenario where taking this clothing off would not be painful but maybe $1000 will make it easier to bear?

Follow Ankanaa Chowdhury on Twitter.

Before comedy video collective Everything Is Terrible! started back in 2007, its members were just a bunch of B-movie-obsessed college kids, interested in one-upping one another with the weirdest VHS castoffs they could get their hands on. "The winters were not kind to us," founding member Dmitri Smiakis told NPR back in 2010. "So we'd spend a lot of time just indoors, sitting around, trying to outdo each other with the worst VHS tape or the most ridiculous movie."

Today, the video collective is one of the most beloved meme generators on the internet, having released more than 500 pieces of masterfully edited found footage on their YouTube and Vimeo channels. Their clips of cat massaging, yogi farmers, singing babies, and a yellow pedophile-hunting dinosaur remain some of the creepiest, weirdest, and most hilarious videos to come out of YouTube's first wave. While the collective continues to add new clips to their database regularly, they've also spun off in myriad directions, with frenetic live shows and film festivals, which have become institutions in their own right, featuring EIT members performing absurdist comedy acts and presenting curated found-footage collections. Meanwhile, their collaborations with Funny or Die and MTV have brought their idiosyncratic sense of cultural "vomit" to an increasingly wider audience.

Last month, the collective launched its largest experiential stunt yet: a month-long pop-up video store in Los Angeles's iam8bit gallery housing more than 14,000 VHS copies of Jerry Maguire, which they've been collecting for the past eight years. But the installation was just the beginning. In the coming months (or years), Everything Is Terrible! hopes to fulfill their long-running dream of building a pyramid to house all of these Maguire castoffs—or "Jerrys," as they call them—somewhere in the California desert. Following the close of The Jerry Maguire Video Store, and in the midst of their Go Fund Me campaign for the pyramid, I spoke to the 35-year-old Simakis about nostalgia, the "near-snuff films" of America's Funniest Home Videos, and that awful Tom Cruise sex scene.

On VICE American Obsessions: Meet the Masterminds Behind LA's New 'Jerry Maguire' Video Store:

VICE: What are some of your strongest memories of video rental shops from childhood?
Dmitri Smiakis: I grew up in Cleveland, and most of the Everything Is Terrible! members were all Ohio-based, originally. We had a couple of places—there was this spot called Columbia Video—but honestly, a lot of places were such ma and pa shops that their names were kind of secondary. There was this one spot on my corner where I grew up—it was literally walking distance away—and that was just the place to go, the thing to do. It wasn't until the mid 90s, when Blockbuster came in that everything shut down. I do remember one place in particular called B-Ware in Cleveland. I wish it was still around because that place changed everything for me. They stocked only B-movies and specialized in weird, hard-to-find shit. It wasn't even like Criterion Collection stuff. They had these terrible horror movies from the 70s, and these local finds, which were just low-budget movies people would make. That broke my brain a little bit.

Do you feel like you were always drawn to weirder, kitschier films?
I think so. Most of us are in our early-to-mid 30s, and so much of what we were raised on was recontextualizing other media. The Simpsons, Beavis and Butt-Head, Mystery Science Theater 3000 all revolved around people commenting on media commenting on other media. It was a weird post-modern, post-entertainment world, where everyone was referencing things I didn't necessarily get. I didn't watch Citizen Kane until I was 18 or 19, but I saw 700 parodies of it growing up. I learned about things by seeing a reference to something, not getting it, and wanting to know what the reference was. Things were already getting remixed back then, and everything we do is sort of an extension of that.

Does that make Everything Is Terrible! post-post-modern?
I don't even know anymore. We all agree that there was so much garbage that was given to us as kids—anti-drug commercials, afterschool specials, Christian kid tapes. It was just everywhere, and eventually, it got to a point where we felt like we had to do something with it, we had to spit it back to people. Everyone knows the vague idea of what a kid's show was in 1984—like the really fucked-up ones that were trying to be Jim Henson or trying to be Fraggle Rock, but also obviously being paid for by some creepy Evangelical offshoot. We love their insane version of whatever they thought they were trying to make, and that it turned out to be beautiful in an entirely different way than it was originally intended. We're all amazed by the production value of these things: Whether they're high or low, they all took love and care to create. We often say that we "want to live there" when we fall in love with a tape. It's like, you want to live with Kolby, or you want to live with Duane—I want to be on that dance floor for all of eternity. It seems like a weird hellscape, but for us, it would be heaven.

"I didn't watch Citizen Kane until I was 18 or 19, but I saw 700 parodies of it growing up. I learned about things by seeing a reference to something, not getting it, and wanting to know what the reference was."

You guys started the site in 2007. How big of a role did video stores play in that first era of Everything Is Terrible!?
Video stores were closing right as we were starting Everything Is Terrible!, around the end of 2007. We knew they were going away and it kind of rushed things for us. By the mid 2000s, it seemed like everyone was purging their VHS collections. At first it was like, well, jackpot for us because now we can find all these tapes. We didn't want them to close, but we felt like the upside was us bringing these things to a good home. There are still a few places standing, like CineFile, and I'm genuinely terrified if those places go away. But not many made it through, so for us it was a preservation thing. We talk to people at thrift stores who literally throw tapes away by the hundreds. It's like a daily holocaust of VHS tapes. So it's become an obsession of ours to try and archive everything—to have it all ingested and on our hard drives and safe, which is fleeting, but we're trying.

Do you guys see yourselves as picking up where those stores left off?
I think so. We'd love to have something like a library, or some sort of place where people can have access to all these tapes. We don't want to horde them necessarily. We have so much, and we just keep collecting. We joked about the idea of an actual video store where we just gave this stuff away. None of us are rich, so it would be impossible, but it would be nice. I know there are some colleges that are starting to archive VHS. I am happy to see stuff like that popping up, because I do think there's a finite amount of time to digitize it all. I don't know if these tapes are going to get so degraded that they'll just start to wipe out in 20 years. I don't know if anyone really knows. It's what vinegar syndrome is to 35mm.

"In a weird way, we all kind of hate nostalgia. We love what we're doing because it's not so much about, 'Hey, remember this?' as it is 'Don't trust anybody.' The media is a lie, don't ever trust it, it's a joke."

The Jerry Maguire Video Store ran for a month. What were some of the highlights?
I think the big thing for us is that we really like the idea of a community. We do a festival every year, and this was sort of equivalent to that. We want to bring likeminded people together with people who have no idea what we're doing and bring them all into our world. The nice thing about the store was the variety everyone brought to it. We had Brandon Wardell and Kate Berlant and Official Sean Penn and Alan Resnick from Wham City doing a comedy night, but it didn't feel anything like a shitty comedy night. It was really interesting to have all of these people, who are technically in the world of comedy, but who are so far removed from standing in front of a microphone talking about their dick. To see such a wide range of creativity that's all based around something as silly as a Jerry Maguire video store is sort of the greatest thing ever.

It's interesting to hear you say that. I feel like most people would see your work and peg you as nostalgia-obsessed.
They do, and we're really not like that at all. In a weird way, we all kind of hate nostalgia. We love what we're doing because it's not so much about, "Hey, remember this?" as it is "Don't trust anybody." The media is a lie, don't ever trust it, it's a joke. I feel like everyone's sense of reality is breaking right now, and we're all looking around thinking, No, it's always been like this. I'm actually kind of mad at everyone for being so shocked all of a sudden. It's like, "What did you think this was?" It's all been a joke this whole time, and now it's just bubbling to the surface. What we're doing is a reminder that everything is deeply fucked up, but also showing people a way to laugh at it. There's this police-training tape from the 80s that says, "Everyone wants to be treated with dignity and respect. Mexicans are no exception." It gets a big laugh, but it also says a lot about what got us here. We laugh at it like, "Oh, that was so long ago," but it really wasn't. Those cops are still around.

Do you remember the first time you saw Jerry Maguire?
Kind of? But I honestly couldn't tell you one thing about the movie. I'm not kidding. I just found out a few days ago that Cuba Gooding Jr.'s character is named Rod Tidwell. I remember going to see it in the theater when I was 14 or 15, and I remember the quotes.

I remember watching it with my parents and being freaked out by the sex scene.
Yeah. Wasn't that really intense? I think it's just weird to see Tom Cruise have sex, and he fucks really hard in that scene. It's really disturbing.

"We often say that we 'want to live there' when we fall in love with a tape."

How likely is it that you guys are actually going to build this pyramid?
I don't know, but we're not going to stop until it is done. That could take a year or ten years, or it could take the rest of our lives, unfortunately, but it has to happen, whether it's through an art grant or crowdfunding. The amount that we made at the store actually made a significant dent, so it's really becoming more realistic every day. We have some offers on land, but we're still taking requests. People, if you're interested in giving us land, we're down. The last thing I would ever do is say it's all a joke. We really do mean it. All of the money we've given to architects and designers—we actually can't stop. We sink ourselves a little deeper every day.

Finally, do you have some favorites from the EIT archives that you'd like to share?
Yeah. From Everything Is Terrible!, there's "Puffy the Pillow" and "Knives vs. Cops." Then there are some from the Memory Hole side project that Nick and I do that I love, like "Chinless Dance." Everything that we make for Memory Hole is from the archives of a certain home-video show where Americans would send in clips that were funny. We're not legally allowed to say where they're from, but that's what it is, and it's truly the most terrifying thing ever. We're obsessed with it. The archive that they have there is the most horrifying—like near-snuff film after near-snuff film.

Follow Aly Comingore on Twitter.

On an all new episode of Nirvanna the Band the Show, Matt and Jay create a plan to sneak into the music listings page of Toronto's alt-weekly newspaper and book their own gig.

Nirvanna the Band the Show airs Thursdays at 10 PM on VICELAND.

Want to know if you get VICELAND? Head here to find out how to tune in.

In Donald Trump's America, the White House has become a freelance ad agency.

On FOX & Friends Thursday morning, Trump administration official Kellyanne Conway responded to Nordstrom dropping Ivanka Trump's clothing line from its stores by saying, "It's a wonderful line. I own some of it… I'm going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online."

Here's a fun fact: This is probably illegal. Under a 1966 federal ethics law, the US Code prohibits federal employees from using public office for private gain, including "the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise."

Not only can Kellyanne Conway not promote "Kellyanne's Steaks" or anything else that grants her a personal benefit, but public officeholders cannot do anything that results in a private gain for "friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity." Conway shilling for Ivanka Trump seems to fall into that category; watchdogs like Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (and independent experts) certainly think so.

The catch, however, is that the law doesn't matter if nobody is willing to enforce it. And this shows how our Constitution and system of government isn't well-equipped to deal with someone like Donald Trump holding the nation's highest office.

The Office of Government Ethics (OGE) governs violations of the ban on endorsing products. But its ability to sanction employees is rather limited: It can investigate and make recommendations for enforcement, everything from suspending officials to docking them pay to firing them.

But somebody has to actually carry out the penalty. In this case, that would appear to be the White House counsel. Famously, the father of Ivanka Trump heads up the White House. You see the problem here. (Press Secretary Sean Spicer responded to questions about Conway Thursday by saying, "Kellyanne has been counseled. That's all we're going to go with.")

Public Citizen, another government watchdog group, optimistically wrote to the OGE requesting an investigation of Conway, saying that it "reflects an on-going careless regard of the conflicts of interest laws and regulations of some members of the Trump family and Trump Administration." But that careless disregard is precisely why nothing is likely to happen here.

I mean, Donald Trump is essentially pitching US companies from the Oval Office on an almost daily basis, whether it's computer chipmaker Intel or auto manufacturers or the major airlines. And Trump and his team have, at least in the past, had no problem touting businesses in which he has a personal stake.

Watch Sean Spicer try to defend President Trump's tweets about Nordstrom

During the campaign, Trump placed products named after him (most of which, to be fair, he never or no longer owned) on his podium during a news conference. And he held another news conference in front of his own hotel in Washington—which he does still own—spending several minutes extolling its virtues. White House press secretary Sean Spicer talked up that same hotel in his first press conference, the day before Trump's inauguration. First Lady Melania Trump complained in a libel suit that depictions of her in the media robbed her of the opportunity "to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multimillion dollar business relationships for a multiyear term during which plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world."

In other words, using public office for private gain is just what this family and their associates do. As Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, put it in a statement, "Kellyanne Conway's self-proclaimed advertisement for the Ivanka Trump fashion line demonstrates again what anyone with common sense already knew: President Trump and the Trump administration will use the government apparatus to advance the interests of the family businesses."

So watchdog groups and Democratic politicians can scream about this, and they should.
Even House Oversight Committee Chairman, Republican Jason Chaffetz, called Conway's actions "clearly over the line" and "unacceptable." But when a president is willing to ignore ethics laws, there isn't really an independent check on his power, practically speaking, unless, in this case, Trump's own party really goes after his staff. The Office of Governmental Ethics only has so much authority; ultimately it's dependent on federal agencies to carry out its wishes. And it's more likely that Ivanka would hop on QVC to sell handbags from inside the Oval Office than for Kellyanne Conway to face any real discipline for her free ad.

The most important principle in our system is that the laws be faithfully executed. Without that guarantee, the rule of law breaks down. We've all gotten so used to seeing different sets of rules applied in America depending on wealth and privilege, something like this might pass by unnoticed. But it shouldn't; it's a symptom of a real rot in our democracy.

Follow David Dayen on Twitter.

The first time we see Sergeant Eric Carter, the hero of FOX's new action extravaganza 24: Legacy, he's griping about his job "helping the One Percent sleep better at night" or some such thing. I can see a bunch of highly paid television scribes huddled in a room bursting at the seams with empty cans of La Croix, trying to sort out the fastest way to establish their protagonist's blue-collar, all-American bona fides. "Have him say something about the One Percent," someone cackles. Into the script it goes. Sergeant Carter is played by a black actor, Corey Hawkins of Straight Outta Compton fame, and he'll spend the rest of the show blowing up Arab terrorists for those same rich people. That the show pits one maligned demographic against another is both provocative and grossly ill-timed.

The original 24 series was a far more straight-ahead shoot-'em-up patriotic fantasy of the Bush-era variety. Muslim extremism got you down? Send ol' Kiefer Sutherland into battle, and he'll shove a screwdriver in a guy's pinkie finger until he talks. Even back in those "good ol' days" (which, by the way, weren't so good), the whole affair was more than a bit ghoulish, but it looked more like the typical American power fantasy. Give a grizzled white guy a gun, and your problems are solved.

There's an undercurrent of ethical complication when a black person stands up as a fictional representative of the established American order. For hundreds of years, our political and economic systems have either explicitly or implicitly worked against the interests of black people specifically, and minority groups more broadly. Slavery, segregation, de facto segregation techniques made possible by real estate scams like redlining, and restrictions on voting rights don't lend themselves to unabashed patriotism. This is not to say that black people as a group are anti-American. It's more that America has given them plenty of reasons to be that way if they so chose.

So maybe it's not surprising that the African American action hero varietal isn't often the avatar of Yankee exceptionalism. There's Will Smith's seminal performance in Independence Day, as Air Force captain Steven Hillard, in which he welcomes an alien to Earth by punching it in the face. In the 1980s, Carl Weathers was the macho black man of action, waving the flag against the nefarious Russian Ivan Drago in Rocky IV and fighting yet another alien in Predator. Weathers's characters in both of those films died in dramatic fashion, long before the white heroes vanquished the villainous foreign entity.

A 2012 Department of Defense report stated that 77.8 percent of active duty military in the United States are white. The next year, the New York Daily News reported that non-Hispanic whites in the US made up only 63 percent of the population. There's no clear correlation between the rate of minority enlistment in the military and a lack of patriotic fervor, but it does make one wonder why the numbers don't correspond more to the greater makeup of the nation.

Hollywood has an even harder time with notions of diversity. Every few years, we debate the lack of representation in movies and television. That nagging issue is presumably part of the decision to cast Hawkins as the lead in 24: Legacy. To its credit, FOX is home to the Lee Daniels stable of dramas— Empire and Star—which spotlight African American culture. ABC has the Shondaland shows like How to Get Away with Murder and Scandal. Those shows tend not to spend much time thwarting terrorism, which makes 24: Legacy unique. Its hero is a member of an oppressed minority, swashbuckling at a time when real-life Americans are at odds over the oppression of another minority—Muslim Americans.

The New York Times review of 24: Legacy by Neil Genzlinger points out this thorny issue, calling out Muslims as "President Trump's bogeyman of the moment." Our entertainment rarely, if ever, reckons with the fact that we seem hellbent on reinforcing the dangerous notion that our Muslim neighbors are secretly plotting to shoot up a public place or detonate a car bomb. One of the only situations in which American TV viewers see Muslims on TV is in terrorist narratives like 24 or Homeland. Perhaps that should have been an early sign that a large percentage of American voters would rubberstamp a politician who painted said group as intrinsically harmful.

On these shows, there's never much time to sit back and consider these issues, especially not on 24—a series in which the entire premise is that there's not enough hours in the day to do anything but shoot first and ask questions later. How would a black military hero feel when his or her government routinely turns a blind eye to unjustified police shootings of unarmed men and women of color? Would they all be able to, in good conscience, support such a lack of interest in clear instances of injustice? When I watched 24: Legacy, I couldn't help but think about a real-life American hero, Muhammad Ali, who refused to fight in a war he knew was unjust, for a nation that did not have his best interests in mind. Unfortunately, for the producers of 24: Legacy, I'm not sure I was supposed to be thinking at all.

Follow Dave Schilling on Twitter.

Just as humans have figured out how to harness the hallucinogenic properties of just about anything, dolphins seem to have found a vice of their own. A group of porpoises off the coast of Australia was recently caught passing around blowfish in an apparent attempt to get high, WAtoday reports.

Krista Nicholson, a researcher at Murdoch University who monitors dolphins just south of Perth, noted that the juveniles like to hold puffer fish—known in Australia as "blowies"—in their mouths for a few hours then pass them around because apparently it produces a narcotic effect. Blowfish contain a toxin called tetrodotoxin, which is extremely lethal in humans. However, scientists believe that small doses can put dolphins into a trance-like state.

The phenomenon isn't unheard of. Marine biologist Lisa Steiner noted the observation back in a 1995 paper about bottle-nosed dolphins off the coast of Portugal. The 2014 BBC documentary, Dolphins: Spy in the Pod, is credited for first filming the behavior on camera.

"This was a case of young dolphins purposely experimenting with something we know to be intoxicating," zoologist Rob Pilley, who was involved with the production, told the Sunday Times before the documentary's release. "After chewing the puffer gently and passing it round, they began acting most peculiarly, hanging around with their noses at the surface as if fascinated by their own reflection."

Nicholson, however, disputes that the toxin causes a trance, saying that the chemical might just make the dolphins feel numb. She also said that dolphins in the same area play with seagrass or crabs in a similar way as they do with blowfish, so the inflatable creatures might be more of a toy than an intoxicant.

Still there might be an addict in her midst. Nicholson said that one of the dolphins she tracks, named Huubster, has grown especially fond of playing with blowfish. She spotted him continuing to engage in the activity even when the rest of his pod traveled out to sea without him.

Dolphins aren't the only animals that are known to use different substances to have a good time. Reindeer in Siberia are fans of hallucinogenic mushrooms, Amanita muscaria, that grow wild where they live. (Can you blame them?) And wallabies in Tasmania have been known to eat poppies near their habitat, then run around in circles and pass out. While this may be inevitable for animals in the wild, but that doesn't mean you should give your pets anything stronger than catnip.