A doctoral student at University of Houston has unearthed a long-lost novel by Walt Whitman that the poet published under a pseudonym in the early 1850s, the New York Timesreports.
The grad student, Zachary Turpin, discovered a clue leading to the 36,000-word book when he came across an advertisement in a newspaper from 1852 that promoted the serialized novel. The book was called Life and Adventures of Jack Engle, and Turpin recognized the plot and character names from Whitman's other notes and scraps from the time period.
Like a literary Indiana Jones or whoever Tom Hanks plays in Da Vinci Code, Turpin tracked down the newspaper that serialized the book, found a copy archived at the Library of Congress, and hit gold.
"Something about it just seemed right," Turpin said. "The name Jack Engle. The year. The newspaper [to which we know Whitman had contributed before]... I couldn't believe that, for a few minutes, I was the only person on Earth who knew about this book."
The novel is not a forgotten masterpiece, by any means—it's a corkscrewing, Dickensian story about an orphan in the big city that failed to make any kind of splash on first publication—but it gives fascinating insight into Whitman's evolution as a writer.
"It's like seeing the workshop of a great writer," Ed Folsom, editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, told the Times. "We're discovering the process of Whitman's own discovery."
Turpin found Life and Adventures of Jack Engle last summer, but it is now available to read for free online at the Whitman Quarterly Reviewsite.
We're still waiting to see how exactly the Trump administration will replace Obamacare, but one thing already appears certain: Sexual health is unlikely to be a big priority, with plans to defund Planned Parenthood and ditch no-cost birth control already in motion.
One question that arises—among many—is what such a repeal could mean for HPV, the most commonly spread STI in the United States.
Given the increasing influence of anti-vaxxers on the GOP's agenda, it's not out of the question to imagine that coverage of the HPV shot could be at risk—despite the fact that it can help prevent cancer, and has been proven to lead to less risky sexual behavior.
And up until now, the ACA and the HPV vaccine have paired well together. A 2015 study found that Obamacare had a generally positive impact on getting people vaccinated: It's estimated that 1.1 million women initiated the series of treatments, and another 854,000 completed them. (Ideally, boys and girls get two doses at age 11 or 12, and it protects them against the nine strains of HPV that cause certain cancers—cervical, anal, penile and genital warts.)
Last July, the novelist Jerry Stahl contacted me with the idea of going on a Holocaust-centric package tour through East Germany and Poland. It was to be an immersive and deeply personal trip. Jerry had long been fascinated with the Second World War, he told me, and tagging along with a tour group to gawk at the sites of one of humanity's worst atrocities was sure to be a fitting—and bizarre—addition to the armchair research he had done over the years.
At the time, Donald Trump had just been officially named the Republican presidential nominee, though he had clinched the nomination in June. While the trip wasn't inspired by Trump's upset win in the primaries, the rhetoric he was using against Muslims, Mexicans, undocumented immigrants, women, and other marginalized groups gave the assignment added relevance. What would it be like to go on a sightseeing tour of the remnants of history's most famous example of unchecked nationalism at a time when "America First" had become the unofficial campaign slogan of the Republican presidential nominee? The parallels were almost impossible to ignore—in Nazi Germany a line in the national anthem (removed after the war) read "Germany, Germany, above all, above all in the world." The trip was set for mid-September.
In the weeks leading up to the tour, Trump had become something of a national joke. He was growing more erratic and angry, and he seemed utterly incapable of running a functioning campaign. The gaffes and anonymously sourced embarrassing stories piled up, and Trump's poll numbers plummeted. When Jerry left for the trip, the possibility of a Trump victory felt about as plausible as the crackpot theories suggesting Hitler escaped to Argentina after the war.
And then, November 8.
While the idea of embedding with a gaggle of international tourists on a macabre getaway such as this would be a fascinating read at any time, Jerry's account of this trip turned out to be especially prescient. This is a glimpse at the carcass of the Nazi regime at a moment when swastikas are popping up in American cities with an alarming frequency. It is a reminder of the hell unleashed by policies designedto benefit one group at the great expense of all others. It's especially urgent at a time when it feels like some of the lessons learned from that experiment have been forgotten, or at least disregarded.
We will be presenting this six-part series, called A Tour of Hell, from Hell, as diary entries. You can read them in daily installments on our homepage, or dive in all at once here.
This is part one of a six-part series. Read the other installments here.
So I'm shambling out of a crematorium during a tour of Auschwitz when suddenly these teen girls in matching Bowie tees come running toward me squealing "The Kramah! The Kramah!" I can't place the accent, but after a second I realize they're saying "Kramer," and they think I'm Michael Richards. My first thought is, No one should squeal in a concentration camp. My second: How creepy is it that I look like Michael Richards?
I feel like an egregious asshole even thinking about it. Here. I have just stumbled from one of the stained, airless chambers in which, 70 years ago, a million men, women, and children spent their last 20 minutes naked, foaming from the mouth in screaming agony as prussic acid scalded their lungs until they asphyxiated. The corpses, I've learned, formed a pyramid. Victims struggled for the last inch of air beneath the ceiling. Parents tried to lift their children as high as they could. The top layer was always babies.
Jesus! Before the Kramer thing, waiting in line for death camp tickets, the back of my neck got sunburned. (Who brings sunblock to Warsaw?) When I catch myself whining about being burned, at Auschwitz, I want to take my brain out, soak it in lye, and roll it in broken glass. After the gas chamber this feels like the right response to just being part of the human race.
I let the girls take a few selfies with me just to get rid of them. I glance nervously at the rest of my tour group, hoping none of them are witnessing this mortifying episode.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.The tour, I should probably explain, is the reason I'm here. The one I've signed onto is WORLD WAR TWO SITES OF EASTERN EUROPE. Fourteen bus-riding days and nights, in Poland and Germany. Highlights (if that's the word) include three camps: Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Dachau, along with a polka party, authentic bratwurst dinner, and other festivities. And I'll be sharing all of it with 19 regular folks I've never even met.
Normally I would never participate in this kind of thing. It's my idea of hell. But these aren't normal times. With a deluge of Trump-inspired alt-right-fueled Jew hate and racial animus spewing from social media like shit from a clogged toilet, I felt I was becoming numb to the horrible realities creeping across our country (and this was before the election). I wanted to give a shock to my system, to visit a place where something truly horrible had occurred on an unimaginable scale. And just to make things more uncomfortable, I decided to do it with a tour group.
Truth be told, it's not the camps that scare me. It's the bus.I don't like being in close quarters with other people (or other people generally), and since kicking heroin (long story) I get car sick. Nevertheless, I fly to Warsaw, dump my bags in the hotel and, per instructions, glide into the lobby of the swanky Warsaw Hilton at six sharp to meet my fellow Holocausters.
I'm not trying to look good here, so I'll just tell you that I judge everyone immediately upon stepping out of the elevator. The four hearty, open-faced gentlemen standing by the front desk are surely 4-H Club alumni, I think to myself. Solid Midwesterners who, if they have not recently milked cows, look like they'd know how. Glancing to the other end of the room I spot a group of elderly women sitting in chaise loungers who are surely terrible mothers. As I step sheepishly over to join the 4-H crew, a pair of six-foot Polish ladies strut through the lobby, legs up to their cheekbones in see-through fuck-me heels and micro skirts, escorted by a no-neck bodyguard from central casting. I see the look they shoot our way and die a little. Oh, look at the American farmers!
All of these normal, mild-mannered people getting ready for a nice, old-fashioned Holocaust tour and me, a cynical asshole here to write about the whole spectacle and hopefully capture the ridiculousness of it all.
That night, we venture out to have dinner in some kind of kielbasa grotto. After the meal we go around and say a bit about ourselves and why we wanted to come on this tour. At the table are retired school teachers from Omaha, a backhoe operator from Perth, a 60-ish former New Jersey state policeman and his wife, who manages a law office. Shockingly—to me, at least—a good majority reply with some version of "I love the Jewish people," or "I've always been fascinated by the Jews!" If I had to guess, I'd say a lot of them probably haven't ever met an actual Jew (here I am!). And the way they say "the Jews" brings to mind a Trumpian echo of his professed love of "the blacks." But who cares? Everyone is just so earnest. Reflexive contempt melts away at such relentless niceness.
Truth be told by the time it's my turn I feel like a snitch. All of these normal, mild-mannered people getting ready for a nice, old-fashioned Holocaust tour and me, a cynical asshole here to write about the whole spectacle and hopefully capture the ridiculousness of it all. But after I explain that I'm here on assignment, a dapper Chicago septuagenarian named Shlomo tells me he always planned to write after he retired, too. Look at us! Just a couple of retirees!
Shlomo goes on to describe his adventures as a six-year-old, in the 30s, placed in a Polish DP (displaced persons) camp before traveling in steerage to the States. An hour later, my pork sausage congealing on the plate, my new pal slides his seat closer. He tells me about his wife's colon situation—"Thank God we didn't have to get her a bag"—and I tell him about my grandpa Max, who got a colostomy back in the 60s. "They put this bandage on his stomach. When he had to go he'd step into another room, take the bandage off and pull out what looked like a little pink dog penis and drop a deuce in a saucepan my grandmother carried around in her purse."
Shlomo's face goes sour and I can tell he's a bit shocked at my level of detail—I've been hanging out with sick fuck artist types for so long I've forgotten how to talk to normal people—but he lets it go and within minutes we're back on track.
I must, for reasons of bus-ride congeniality, learn some kind of verbal restraint. Note to self: Don't be an asshole.
For more than 20 years, Rachel Schlueter had been a teacher in the Milwaukee public school system, and—like all her colleagues—a member of the teacher's union.
"I paid my dues, and if I had a problem, I would call the union, so usually I really had very little contact," she said.
That was before 2011, when the Wisconsin Legislature passed Act 10, Republican governor Scott Walker's plan to drastically reduce the power of the state's public sector unions and reduce the budgets for public schools. Because of Act 10, Schlueter said, her take-home pay dropped by $8,000 thanks to her being required to make increased contributions to her health and retirement benefits. But it also made her realize how important fighting for their union was. Suddenly she was going to rallies, spending whole days at the state house waiting to testify before committees, and meeting a whole new group of activist teacher friends on Facebook. When there was a proposal to replace many Milwaukee schools with charters—something she believed would hurt the city's students—she and her new friends beat it back.
Kim Schroeder, president of the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association, said that as devastating as Act 10 was, it forced the union to rethink the way it functions. The law restricted its ability to bargain with school district officials, so rallying large numbers of teachers to publicize their grievances became more important. Teachers no longer automatically join the MTEA, reducing the unions' numbers, but Schroeder said the silver lining is that those who do join are more committed to the movement.
There's no sugarcoating the monetary losses for members, or the difficulties that have come with reduced pay. But Schroeder said the union has also found new energy.
"In a lot of ways, ironically—and don't take it the wrong way—we're stronger than we were before," he said.
When Schlueter talks about her union now, she sounds upbeat and excited. She runs workshops on topics like social media for colleagues at the union office, campaigns for local officials, and acts as the union representative for her building. Last summer, her fellow teachers chose her to attend the convention of her parent union, the National Education Association (NEA).
"It's changed me a lot," she said. "Now I feel like I'm a stronger person. I'm not afraid to stand up in front of these legislators and tell them what I think, because it's for my students."
Schlueter's story isn't unique—as unions across the country decline in influence, some workers are fighting harder than ever for their rights. Unions that had grown complacent are finding a source of fiery energy in the defensive battles they've been forced to wage. And other forms of labor organizing that don't depend on old institutions could be on the rise.
This is a dark moment for the labor movement. Union membership has been dropping dramatically for decades, and today less than 11 percent of US workers are union members. Republican-run states like Wisconsin have passed bills to strip unions of their power, even public sector unions like the NEA. Donald Trump appealed to building unions turning his campaign by touting the good construction jobs that would come with restarted pipeline projects—and, more broadly, promising to bring back well-paying blue-collar jobs—but his administration is poised to decimate unions' legal rights with anti-union appointees to the National Labor Relations Board and the Supreme Court. Congressional Republicans are pushing for a national right to work bill, mirroring laws that have driven union membership, and worker wages, down in many states. And just this past Wednesday, a high-profile union driveflamed out at a South Carolina Boeing plant.
But formal unions aren't the only groups that advocate for workers. The most prominent example of this may be Fight for $15, a campaign started in 2012 and funded by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Workers in fast food, home care, and other low-wage sectors have had remarkable successes winning new minimum-wage laws through strikes and other direct actions. These employees generally haven't unionized their workplaces, but a rising minimum wage will benefit them just as if they had gone through the traditional steps of organizing and bargaining with management.
Watch a VICE News Tonight segment on one family separated by their mother's deportation:
Then there are worker centers, which generally organize low-income immigrant workers without bargaining formal contracts and have helped pass laws on wages and working conditions in many cities and states since the 1990s.
"I would say that, in terms of public policy, they were fighting way above their weight class," said Janice Fine, who studies labor at Rutgers University.
Fine told me that beyond their concrete achievements worker centers have helped make the struggles of immigrant workers visible to other Americans. That continues on a larger scale as the centers have begun collaborating through national groups like the Restaurant Opportunities Center and the National Domestic Workers Alliance, which try to form alliances with consumers.
In Chicago, a worker center called Warehouse Workers for Justice represents a workforce that's largely employed through temp firms—an arrangement that makes traditional union organizing particularly difficult. Mark Meinster, the group's executive director, said the workers use strikes and other kinds of direct action to put pressure on the retailers that ultimately have the power to address their job conditions. WWJ takes credit for winning paid sick days and raises for workers in Walmart's supply chain through tactics like a 2012 strike by warehouse workers held in conjunction with Walmart strikes across the country.
Meinster said WWJ's organizing efforts are bolstered by a growing interest in unions among young people since the Great Recession. A recent Pew survey found that 75 percent of adults under 30 approve of labor unions, compared with 60 percent of all adults.
"I've been doing this for 20 years, and there's no question that the environment is completely different than when I started in the 1990s," he said. "The economic crisis just completely changed everything."
The question for organizations like WWJ is how it pays for activities. As with most worker centers, the dues it collects from its low-income members are far too low to pay for its expenses. The group gets support from private foundations and established labor unions. As unions continue to decline, their ability to subsidize alternative labor groups diminishes as well.
Meinster said he looks to labor's past for the solution to that problem.
"In the 1920s, 1930s, the resources were really people's commitment," he said. "The labor movement at some point needs to move away from a model that's heavily dependent on paid staff to get the vast majority of the organizing work done."
If the new incarnation of the labor movement needs to find passionately committed volunteers, some groups that address workers' rights issues have found a potential ready-made solution in just the past month.
Michigan United is a coalition of unions, faith-based groups, and other progressive institutions that works on a variety of causes, including immigrant workers' rights and finding jobs for ex-cons. Since Trump's inauguration, executive director Ryan Bates said, there's been an influx of people who want to offer support.
"We've seen a deluge of activism in the past month," Bates said. "We've built five new chapters across the state. We have hundreds of people coming out of the woodwork who have never taken any action on anything before, and now they're storming their congressmen's offices."
Michigan United sees a clear role for itself in channeling new, inexperienced activists into the movement for progressive causes. Bates said the group now holds eight to ten events every week, including trainings every Thursday for new people who want to be part of the movement.
"It's kind of a manic pace," he said. "But the community is demanding it."
Some members of traditionally structured unions are also feeling a new urgency in the Trump era. Even before the election, the Writers Guild of America East had been on a run of successful organizing drives at digital media organizations, including Gizmodo (formerly Gawker), MTV News, the Huffington Post, and (full disclosure) VICE. Executive Director Lowell Peterson said workers at those companies were eager to address their pay—a concern of practically anyone who's ever joined a union—but also to ensure their editorial independence in a revenue-driven media world. Now, Peterson said, the shock of Trump's victory has many of the union's members, new and old, worried about even bigger potential threats to their professions. He said that's true not just of journalists but also the television writers he represents.
"They really want to get active," Peterson said. "We have more people turning up for meetings, more people calling or emailing or turning up."
Peterson said he sees energy coming not just from opposing Trump but from a growing understanding of how people are suffering as unions edge closer to extinction.
"I think there's a sense that what the labor movement does is make sure that people who work for a living, which is almost everybody, get a share of what the economy produces," he said.
I think we can all agree that day drinks taste better on a roof. In a flat university town like London, Ontario, this is one of a few simple pleasures you can count on every summer.
So of course, city councillors are trying to revise bylaws to make this illegal. And maybe worse, there's an apparent effort to rebrand the rooftop party as "brewfing."
(Please, whoever you are—likely a newspaper reporter who heard it said once—stop trying to make "brewfing" happen.)
The move adds to a public nuisance bylaw that was put in place after students inexplicably rioted on St. Patrick's Day in 2012, another half-baked attempt to outlaw stupidity. A report to be presented in council this week cites risk of falling (duh), and collapsing roofs as reason to impose up to $750 in fines.
"It's a matter of protecting people from themselves," Ward 6 Councillor Phil Squires told the London Free Press. "I was amazed at the number of people up on very steep roofs, and inebriated. It seems to be an attraction. I don't know why."
I would invite Squires to half-drunkenly climb a fire escape, jump across a three-foot gap between buildings, and not feel like a fucking super human. Honestly, what is the point of fun if you don't risk breaking a limb to have it?
It is rare that I advocate for any part of the hyper-bro culture that my hometown is known for. But I can't let one of the few good things about summertime in London go undefended. I would equate the social application of rooftop parties to the way West Coast people go camping. There's a ritual to setting up and tearing down; it gives young brains a new endorphin-soaked mental space that's totally separate from boring retail/student life.
Secondly, I think police might have a harder time than they think enforcing this. How will they identify these rooftop drinkers without climbing up there themselves? And who will pay this $750 fine if said roof belongs to a local business, not a tenant?
Certainly the people living in central student ghetto houses are going to have the hardest time. I have many fond memories of passing joints on dilapidated rooftop additions on the corner of Cheapside and Richmond. As the most visible spots in the city, they'll probably face the most heat.
But in my humble opinion, those eight-and 12-foot stretches of slanted shingles always ranked second to the more elusive downtown roof. In my later student days I lived on Horton Street—the so-called wrong side of the tracks—which was host to some of the best and never-busted rooftop shenanigans. These were also the more dangerous spots to access, requiring us to toss magnums of terrible whisky to friends scrabbling along the side of an abandoned garage.
When I think back to all those dumb kid risks, I wonder if knowledge of some bylaw would somehow change our plans.
To that I say, nope, no fucking way. Some things are best left to Darwinism.
Lead image: The Replacements' Let It Be—good advice to London city council, tbh.
In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage must be available to gay and lesbian couples across the nation. But between 2004 and 2015, 35 states had already declared the practice legal, a move that not only put them on the right side of history but potentially saved hundreds of thousands of lives according to a new study, the Washington Postreports.
On Monday, researchers from Johns Hopkins and Harvard published findings that suggest that there's a link between legalizing same-sex marriage and a drop in attempted teen suicides, particularly for LGBTQ youth. Knowing that suicide affects gay, lesbian, and bisexual teens at four times the rate it does straight teenagers, researchers wanted to understand how the suicide rate was affected in different states, before gay marriage was legal nationwide.
Researchers scoured results from an annual CDC survey that studies health, diet, drug use, and sexual activity among American high schoolers. They reviewed the 762,678 responses between 1999 and 2015 and found that the number of students who reported having attempted suicide decreased by 7 percent after their states had legalized same-sex marriage. For LGBTQ students, that number decreased by 14 percent in the states that legalized the practice. Researchers found no change in the states that outlawed marriage equality until the Supreme Court ruling.
Although they can't apply any direct causation, researchers believe the drops have to do with stigma.
"Stigma is one of the most frequently hypothesized risk factors for explaining sexual orientation disparities in suicide outcomes," Mark L. Hatzenbuehler, a Columbia University professor not involved in the study, wrote in an editorial that was published alongside it. "[This study] suggests that structural stigma—in the form of state laws—represents a potentially consequential but thus far largely overlooked [factor in suicidal students]."
While one would extrapolate that making same-sex marriage legal across the country would lead to a drop in teen suicide rates nationwide, that hasn't necessarily been the case.
"There are major regional differences in whether your life has become better or worse," David Bond, vice president for programs at the Trevor Project, told VICE last year. "If you live in a major urban center, things have gotten better, because acceptance is on the rise and protective policies and interventions are going up. But that's not always the case in isolated, conservative communities."
Donald Trump has visited his golf courses six times during his first month as president, but his aides are being pretty tight-lipped about whether or not he teed up—especially since Trump gave Obama so much hell for golfing on the job.
Back in 2014, Trump called Obama out for spending a day playing golf in the midst of "all of the problems and difficulties facing the US." Trump continued to berate Obama for golfing during his 2016 campaign and promised during a speech in Virginia that he will "be working for you" and won't "have time to go play golf" if elected.
Apparently he's found some time. According to CNN, Trump has spent most of his weekends as commander-in-chief around one of two Florida golf courses he owns, both near the Mar-a-Lago estate where Trump hosted that already-infamous national security dinner with Japanese prime minister Shinzō Abe.
But Trump's aides have been coy about when and if he's golfing, frequently refusing to comment on if the president was currently whacking small balls around.
But social media posts make it pretty clear that Trump's played his share of rounds. A photo on golf blog No Laying Up shows Trump on the links with Rory McIlroy last weekend after playing "18 holes," according to the pro golfer.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders initially claimed that Trump only played a couple holes, but said he "decided to play longer" when asked about McIlroy's comments. "He also had a full day of meetings, calls, and interviews for the new [national security adviser], which he is continuing today before returning to Washington, DC, tonight," Sanders continued.
No one wants to think about their own death. If they do, they're probably artists, and they tend to do so in an abstract, poetic kind of way, rather than an "I should probably file paperwork confirming the administrator of my estate and intellectual property" way. Which is perhaps why, when Prince died suddenly at the age of 57 last year, he didn't have even the semblance of a will.
With his death, then, came months of legal complications and hearings over who should manage his estate. And because the stakes were so unusually high, the eyes of the world looked on eagerly as the mess was slowly picked apart like a ball of tangled iPhone headphone cords. Would the silver lining of Prince's untimely end, his fans wondered, be the unveiling of the contents of his infamous vaults? The answer, it emerged last week, is yes.
After his estate was placed in the hands of bank Bremer Trust, and an extensive search for a will proved fruitless, the announcement everyone was waiting for—either hopefully or with trepidation—finally came: Prince's vaults were to be opened, and at least some of the contents, including outtakes, demos and live recordings, were to be released to the public.
Donald Trump on Tuesday finally addressed the growing wave of anti-Semitic attacks in the US, calling them "a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil."
The president's comments come just one day after another 11 Jewish community centers received bomb threats and a historic Jewish cemetery in St. Louis was desecrated, with as many as 170 headstones knocked over.
For weeks, Jewish leaders have voiced concern over a rising tide of anti-Semitism in the US, which they described as "alive and kicking. "
The bomb threats this week, which all turned out to be hoaxes, follow three separate waves of similar threats in the month of January, bringing the total to 69 threats targeting 54 centers in 27 states since the beginning of the year, according to the Jewish Community Center Association.
The FBI said it was "investigating possible civil rights violations in connection with threats to Jewish Community Centers across the country."
Growing up in rural Romania, I was always surrounded by pigs – as most of us in Romania were. For generations, pigs have been the most popular animal to keep in the countryside.
I remember watching my grandparents carrying out the tradition of killing a pig every year before Christmas. They'd prepare for the killing by neatly placing a burner, a couple of knives and some wire next to the pig, in a shed that I remember as a sort of rural torture chamber. They would put some straw under the pig to catch the blood, and I would hold the pig by its tied-up legs while either my grandmother or my grandfather gave the animal a so-called "neck pocket" with a knife, which translates to: slitting its throat.
I can't say I particularly enjoyed seeing a creature die in front of me, but whenever I was there to help my grandparents kill the pig they'd praise me profusely for taking my first steps into manhood. That filled me with enough pride to take part in the ritual. And I know it's not pretty, but my moral apprehensions about it mostly disappeared the first moment I tasted pork crackling.
My grandparents are very old now, and the tradition of ritually slaughtering your own pig is slowly dying out with them. That's painfully clear from the state of the annual Brănești pig fair near Bucharest, just before Christmas. It's one of the oldest pig and livestock markets in the country, and it used to be an enormous affair. Everybody in the area would come there to buy the pig they would slaughter for Christmas. But these days, the market only hosts a dozen or so merchants, selling two or three pigs from the back of their pick-up trucks.
Last December I strolled around the fair and spoke to some of the pig sellers about the state of their trade. It was a very cold day and the few buyers there were trying to keep warm by briskly walking back and forth over the market, trying to find their perfect pig. The pigs at the market were generally acting pretty hysterically – they probably had a hunch of what was to come.
One merchant called out to me, promising to give me a great price if I chose his pig. "Her name is Maria, but no one will remember that once she's been eaten," he said. He went on to complain about the "damn vegetarians" who are supposedly ruining his business. "This is what our ancestors ate, and they were much healthier than we are. There weren't so many diseases in those days."
The guy next to him had the same choice words for people who choose not to eat meat. But that wasn't the only thing that worried him – as droves of people have left rural villages and moved to the city, buying, feeding and slaughtering your own pig has become pretty uncommon. "It's easier to just go to the supermarket and fill your cart with meat, but that's unnatural. Not just the food and the conditions the pig was raised in, but the way it was killed, too," he told me.
That said, according to another seller, even at this very rural market you'll find pigs that were "raised in a factory". He nodded to one of his competitors a few stalls down. "A good pig that was born and raised in the countryside doesn't look like that man's pigs over there. They're too white and clean. Honest, rural pigs don't look like they've been rubbed down with Vanish."
At the end of the day I met a family that had made an outing to buy their own Christmas pig. They had a strategy for getting the best price – they walked around the fair and waited until the dead end of it, when the sellers desperately wanted to avoid bringing their unsold pigs back home and were willing to drop their prices considerably.
In the family's village you can count the amount of people who keep their own cow, pig or goat on one hand. That's a world of difference compared to even five or six years ago, when everybody had their own animals.
Given the lack of customers and trade, none of the sellers at the Brăneşti pig market can escape the reality that people in Romania have stopped buying and killing their own pigs. The market might go on for a couple of years, but it's likely it'll be gone for good soon enough.
Selfies are already to blame for ruining art museums, memorials, gyms, and vacations in general, and now, apparently, even Central Park. On Monday, a bunch of kids were trying to get a group selfie when they fell through the ice on a frozen pond near 59th Street and Central Park South and had to be rescued.
According to NBC 4, two noble skateboarders cruising by saw the selfie-takers—who ranged in ages from ten to 16—on the ice and heard them splashing as they fell into the water. The skaters promptly dove in to help get them out.
"I look over, I saw six heads just trying to get to the shore," Bennett Jonas, one of the skating Samaritans told the broadcaster. "The back one was probably a good 20 yards from dry land."
Jonas and the other skater, Ethan Turmbull, had successfully rescued all the kids by the time the New York Fire Department arrived at the scene. Six of the seven would-be selfie-takers were treated for hypothermia at nearby hospitals, and the FDNY posted a picture of a diver investigating the pond to ensure there were no other victims in its icy depths. There's no word on where the kids' parents were when they were potentially drowning in Central Park.
In 2015, more people died from selfies than shark attacks, including people who fell off cliffs, were shot posing with guns, and one man who had a heart attack after falling down the stairs at the Taj Mahal. Things got so bad in Russia they launched a campaign for "safe selfies." The city of Pamplona, Spain, even outlawed them during its annual running of the bulls, and Mumbai, India, banned them at 16 of the city's major attractions after a spike in deaths.
Maybe regulations for Central Park aren't far behind, or maybe kids should just think twice before going out onto a frozen pond on a 50-degree day.
More than 6,000 people have been killed in Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's now-infamous war on drugs. The President built his popularity on a tough–on–crime approach, running a campaign that included the promise to kill 100,000 criminals, and dump so many bodies in Manila Bay that "the fish will grow fat". Since he won the election last July, he's begun making good on those promises. We spoke to award-winning local photojournalist Jes Aznar about the situation in the Philippines now, the nature of the killings and the work of journalists to document it.
When we spoke to Jes, he'd been out working for around five months straight, sleeping days and heading out at night to document the killings on the streets of Manila. His photographs of the drug war and its aftermath have appeared in the New York Times, Getty and Der Spiegel.
VICE: Hi Jes. Maybe you could start with just telling me, when you go out to do coverage, what does that look like? Are you following the police, visiting communities, what happens? Jes Aznar: So basically all of us are holed up inside this press corp office of the Manila Police—one of the biggest police precincts in Manila. So everybody's there, local journalists, foreign journalists, photographers, there's a press office we can hang out in. But we don't really have any chance of going out with the police—the police wouldn't allow any media to go with them during operations. They would say lots of reasons like safety, they don't want their operations to be compromised, security, stuff like that. I really don't know any instance where the media was allowed to cover actual police operations. We only get to cover the event after the fact: when there's a dead body. After the gunfights. Most of the time those who are really helpful to us are the funeral parlours. They know if it's a drug related case, they're going to be picking up the bodies, so they'd call or text us and say hey, there's a dead body in this area, we're going to be going there to pick up the body.
A coroner loads the body of Paul Lester Lorenzo, 32, after being killed by police in a sting operation in Manila, August 17, 2016. Lorenzo's common law wife, Aileen Ferrer, 32, claims that Lorenzo was last seen alive by neighbours handcuffed by police before being killed. JES AZNAR
Since you started you must have interviewed a lot of families and loved ones of people who have died. Are there any specific stories you could tell about people you've met? Most of the time right after the shooting, right after the family member gets killed, the family members are emotional, they don't want to talk. What we do is we go back the next day, do our interviews. Most of us try to respect their space, especially in that moment when they see a loved one getting killed. We ask some questions, but mostly small things: what's your name, can we come back. We don't go more emotional in that moment, we try to respect their space. But for those of the families we interviewed, there are a lot.
It's very hard to pick just one that strikes you, because all these cases… It strikes you every night. There's really no way to rank all the killings that have been happening. So far there's an average of 10 killings we might go to at night, since July last year. So you can imagine how many people have died and how many crime scenes. But the most striking for me are probably those cases where the victims are killed summarily. Most of the time we find these people without any IDs with them, without any identification marks, and they're just there lying in the street. Wrapped in tape, in packaging tape. Their faces wrapped in packing tape, their hands tied and bound. He's just another John Doe. That scene, those particular cases, they strike me because–he is a person, you know? He got killed, and he didn't even have the chance or the dignity to be identified. You know. Just dumped there, like some kind of animal, not like a human being at all. Those were the moments that I would really be so sad. And disturbed. Because for me, for example, I don't want to end up like that. Nobody wants to end up like that.
A .38 caliber revolver lies near the hand of a lifeless drug suspect after a shootout with police in Manila, August 17, 2016. JES AZNAR
How many cases, or killings like that do you think you will have attended over the last five months? Oh, I don't have any idea. Probably dozens.
So recently, Duterte announced that the drug war is being put on hold. Do you think that there's any hope that that will actually occur? Yeah, sure. But spoken words are different from what is happening—different from the actions. Although they say the war on drugs is temporarily on hold, it's still happening. But the police have changed their wording. For example the other night, there were some people killed, but the police say oh no, it's not drug related. It's related to car–napping, other crimes.
How does a killing usually happen? Is it just an anonymous guy on a motorbike? How does it play out? Yeah, there are many ways that it's happening. One would be these anonymous or unidentified hitmen riding on motorbikes. Riding in tandem, two of them. They stop, kill the person point–blank in the street. But people say for days before, they see unidentified people going around the area, maybe casing the person, learning his schedule, things like that. Another way is when dozens of men in balaclava come into a community, barge inside a house, and kill the person or persons. Last year—before Duterte announced the suspension of operations—the police would conduct these legitimate operations. They would go into a neighbourhood, say they have a lead, that there's a drug user or a drug pusher in this house, in this area. And they would arrest that person. Then after they arrest the person, a couple of hours, we might get a call—the person is already dead. And the police are saying the person tried to escape, they tried to grab their gun. More often than not that is the reason. There are already hundreds of that kind of case, where the person would allegedly try to grab their gun and escape—while in handcuffs.
Another type of killing is the person would disappear for days. Nobody would know where they were, or who did the abduction. Then after a couple of days they would see the person already dead, lying somewhere.
Nestor Hilbano comforts his wife, Alma, after seeing their son inside a body bag in a dark alley in Tatalon. They are the parents of Richard Hilbano, 32, who was shot by police in an operation against illegal drugs. Police on the scene reported that Richard was in a pot session with three other persons when they were all shot at and killed. JES AZNAR
Right, so someone might just disappear from their community, no–one knows what's happened, and then they turn up dead a few days later. Yeah, and then they're found in a dark alley somewhere with cardboard pasted on their body, saying I'm a pusher, I'm a drug addict, stuff like that. So basically here in the Philippines, if you hate somebody, you just abduct him, kill him and put a cardboard saying he's a drug pusher, and nobody would care to investigate.
And last week there was also this talk about the responsibility transferring to the AFP from the police force—the army joining the police in the drug war. Does that mark a significant change? It's very significant. The AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) is a military organisation. The PNP (Philippine National Police) is a civilian organisation—its mandate is to handle local peace and order in the community. It's the same anywhere else—you cannot employ the military to do civilian work. Here in the Philippines we've seen lots of military atrocities, ever since the Marcos times, ever since martial law, the time of Cory Aquino after that, the presidents after that. The military really have a reputation for these human rights violations, wherever they are and whatever they're doing in the communities. So I mean given that, I just think we would kind of know what to expect after Duterte said that the military can now join in the efforts of the war on drugs.
So do you think it will significantly change the approach, the military involvement? Like what would that even look like, in somewhere like Manila? How would it play out? Well, the military have presence in the provinces and far–flung communities. So the way I see it, it would give this order more reach. The war on drugs can now be implemented in far–flung villages, in the mountains. In the countryside, farms, all those places. The killing would not be confined to urban areas. But that's just my personal opinion—that's how I see it.
It's interesting watching from another country—Duterte's popularity ratings are still incredibly high in the Philippines. Why is that? I'm not really surprised. People are really tired of what's been happening here. People got tired of how the previous administration handled the country, economy, poor people still getting poorer, and these oligarchs, these rich people who are in control of everything. People just got so fed up, and now you have someone who is not from any traditional politician family. Probably people see him as a kind of hope.
And do you think he's fulfilling that? What's the mood now with everything that's happened since he took power? Well, there are people in his cabinet that are really doing their jobs. Implementing programmes for the poor, for the peasants. The environment secretary closing these big mining firms that are really destroying the environment, stuff like that. It's very hard condemn the government in one package.
And what about the environment for you and your peers—for journalists doing this coverage? To start with, the Philippines is already one of the most dangerous places for journalists in the whole world. Globally I think we might be in the second spot, right after Syria, as the most dangerous place. We have an average of two journalists being killed every week. But as of now, there's been no report yet of any journalist being killed while reporting the war on drugs. But it's interesting, if you look at social media, you see how journalists are being demonised and undermined—if a newspaper would publish a story critical of anything about Duterte and his policies, some people would automatically say: "That's not true, you're spreading rumours, you were paid by the opposition." Things like that. People are very quick to demonise—even the New York Times, people say the New York Times is being paid by the opposition. The New York Times, Der Speigel, Al Jazeera, CNN, BBC, they would claim they all were paid off. And that's really crazy—but not just crazy, it's outright dangerous, undermining the press freedom, undermining even the safety of journalists.
Ever since I've been covering this, I've got hate messages, threats online. The very first coverage I did was for Open Society, I think that was last year. It was just an Instagram takeover, just on Instagram. We didn't expect dozens of hate messages pouring in. Then after that, the series of reports for the New York Times, and this video we did, a video of this witness who used to be a member of the Davao Death Squad, which was allegedly created by Duterte way back in Davao. And that's where the shit really hit the fan—thousands of really angry people. These past few weeks I've been trying to slow down. I stopped covering it for a lot of January. I was just too tired. It was heavy for me, seeing dead bodies and crying families every night. I thought I would have a quick break and regroup, just to have a respite of all these gory images that you see every night.
And what about what you're hoping for for the future? Do you have any hopes for how this might all wind up? Well, we all have certain hopes. We all hold on to something. But as a journalist, what can you do, really? All you can do is be vigilant, report on what is really happening. Tell the people, that's our job. Whatever help that might bring is out of our control, out of my control. We'll just do our jobs.
You can see Jes' work at www.jesaznar.com or follow him on Instagram at @jeszmann
My first introduction to Dr. Maya Angelou was in middle school. While watching the film adaptation of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, I absorbed the images of poorer black people in the deeply segregated South. Before seeing Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise, I merely understood her to be a celebrated author, a poet, and an eloquent speaker with a steady, luscious voice. But after watching the new PBS documentary, I walked away understanding who Dr. Angelou as a person: her sensuality, her talents, her travels, her tragedies, and her triumphs.
The documentary, which premieres on PBS tonight as part of the network's Black History Month programming, guides viewers from Angelou's childhood through her journey to motherhood—the former of which many people are familiar with due to the book and film adaptation of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Through rare archival footage and photographs, the documentary delves into more personal details of Angelou's world, including her marriages and her notable close friends like James Baldwin and Langston Hughes. Still I Rise also touches on her activism and her artistic talents as an entertainer. By the time the film is over, it has become clear that Angelou lived multiple lives in one lifetime.
The documentary unpacks key plot points of each of those lives, but not in a way that merely lists her many accomplishments. Instead, it provides a well-rounded, in-depth depiction of Angelou. The film, which originally was supposed to be 90 minutes long, spends about two hours humanizing Angelou, showing everything from her travels to her struggles as a single mother and a victim of sexual abuse.
"Pulling it all together was a challenge," said director Rita Coburn Whack. "I wanted more than anything for people to see her as a whole person—her frailties, her strengths—so that you knew that this is something you could do." Still, as Whack and co-director Bob Hercules narrowed down the footage into a cohesive narrative, they noted they weren't able to include everything, like small details such as Angelou's love of country music.
"She was not trying to be Maya Angelou, she was trying to survive," Whack said. "It was important to humanize her... You're not just defined by being nominated for the National Book Award or getting a Grammy, but you're also defined by what hurts and hits us."
While researching and digging for new details of Angelou's life, Whack sifted through several thousand photographs given to her by Angelou's family, some of which were sorted and cataloged with the help of Howard University. Other filmmakers had approached Angelou about doing a documentary, but she declined, not wanting to collaborate with filmmakers she didn't know well.
But Hercules and Whack, who had both had professional relationships with the celebrated author—and in Whack's case, got to know the family—developed a friendship that became critical for making a film that did Angelou's story justice. Whack, a former producer on Angelou's talk show on Oprah Radio, spent a great deal of time with Angelou, often sitting with her as she talked or drafted books. Hercules said he first came across Angelou's writing in while in college and later got the chance to work with her on a separate project.
And Still I Rise follows the recent documentary I Am Not Your Negro and airs on the anniversary of Malcolm X's assassination. And though Whack and Hercules were unaware of Raoul Peck's movie about James Baldwin—nor did they intentionally choose this release date—it's divine coincidence that these all coincide. The film mentions Angelou's friendship with Baldwin and Malcolm X—as well as Martin Luther King Jr.—each of whom influenced Angelou's writing and activism. The inclusion of these profound figures provides even more historical context for Angelou's efforts as a protester and coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
"She felt that [Baldwin] was a brother to her," said Whack, elaborating on Angelou's relationship with the author. "He was small like her brother, Bailey. And he took charge of things, and he made her feel protected. There were all sorts of stories about making her feel protected."
It's details like that that help shape And Still I Rise as the documentary unearths several surprises along Angelou's journey to fame. Another notable anecdote explains that despite spending time with soon-to-be great American writers and influencers—and experimenting with writing short stories and poems—Angelou initially did not want to write I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Although the filmmakers had conducted extensive research of the Angelou's work and life, there were still some surprises and interesting perspectives uncovered during the interviews they conducted. While producing the film, which features interviews with Hillary and Bill Clinton, Hercules learned that it was Clinton's familiarity with Angelou's hometown of Stamps, Arkansas, that played a role in his decision to have her write the famous presidential inauguration poem.
Outside of the interesting, and often intimate details, the overarching theme of the documentary, as its title implies, is perseverance in the face of many obstacles. According to Hercules, it is meant to be an inspiration to people who want to learn more about their history and who endure setbacks in their own lives. By really diving into Angelou's life—rather than just her accomplishments—it provides solace to viewers who have also lived through rough times but share similar aspirations—or who just need inspiration.
"What I always wondered was how she accomplished all these things," Hercules said. "I realized that she had for whatever reason instilled in her—maybe by her grandmother, maybe by having to go through the trials of racism, the trial of the rape—she had amazing courage: The courage to take on things that others wouldn't."
Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise airs tonight on PBS.
It seems like Nero has finally been consumed by the fire he started.
Far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, who just stepped down from his position as Breitbart's tech editor this afternoon, had a very bad couple of days, with his keynote speaker engagement at CPAC pulled and a book deal worth over $250,000 cancelled. Yiannopoulos, who went by @nero before being the rare media personality actually kicked off Twitter, saw his troll empire finally burn him after videos of him making what has been described as "pro-pedophilia" comments resurfaced.
"We get hung up on this child abuse stuff, to the point where we're heavily policing even relationships between consenting adults," he said on a podcast called The Drunken Peasants in January of 2016. Later, in the same conversation he said that relationships "between younger boys and older men … can be hugely positive experiences."
On an episode of Joe Rogan's podcast in July of the same year, Yiannopoulos made similar comments and also hinted that he has personally seen minors being sexually abused at a party and not reported it.
Yiannopoulos, for his part, has vehemently denied the allegations, saying that his comments were taken out of context and that he was being humorous. Yiannopoulos apologized during a press conference today saying that he regrets the comments, but that "as a victim of child abuse" the concept of him being a supporter of pedophilia is "absurd." He went on to say that this was a conspiracy by the media to bring him down.
"Let's be clear about what's happening here," said Yiannopoulos. "This is a cynical media witch hunt from people who do not care about children, they care about destroying me and my career and by extension my allies. They know that although I made some outrageous statements, I've never actually done anything wrong."
"They held this story back, they held this footage back, footage that has been out there in the wild for over a year because they don't care about victims, they don't care about children, they only care about bringing me down. They will fail."
Oddly enough, some of the more well-known players in the alt-right have come out against Yiannopoulos. Richard Spencer and Tim Treadstone (Baked Alaska), the latter of whom claims to be Yiannopoulos' former manager, both shat on their former British king.
"The guy is totally done," said Spencer on Twitter. "No sane person will defend him."
However, it seems, even if Richard Spencer (a self-avowed white supremacist) won't defend Yiannopoulos, the pizzagaters will.
Cernovich during his online call-in show. Photo via screenshot
Mike Cernovich, best known as that pizzagate guy, dedicated his online radio show to defending Yiannopoulos last night. His main argument is that Yiannopoulos was joking about the comments, but he also has some rather strong thoughts on how the video came to be. Towards the end of his show, Cernovich tail-spins into a theory that this is all a systematic takedown by the "deep state"—influential but unknown members of the military or government agencies (CIA, FBI)—because "citizen journalists" were onto their pedophilia rings. Look, it's not that easy to summarize something that is crystallized stupidity brought to life so here it is in full:
"One third of the deep state are pedophiles, to get at that high level that they get at they have all kind of initiation rituals that a lot of people that wouldn't believe are possible but it's how they control you," Cernovich said.
"What they do, if you want to be at the highest level—the highest power level—they make the new members molest children and record it. That accomplishes two things, one it gives them blackmail material on everybody for the rest of their lives but, even bigger, they know that if you harm a child, then you will do anything for them.
"That's why they became really nervous when citizen journalists began investigating pedophile rings in DC, they got shaken up. The fake news media freaked out and now they want to tar everybody that they possibly can to try and distract from their true crimes, that's what's really going on here, 100 percent what's going on here."
The theory that this is a deep-state psy-op has taken hold in many of the circles of the alt-right. Jack Posobiec, another prominent alt-right social media figure, tweeted that a source told him $250,000 was spent on opposition research on Yiannopoulos, where "they" hired PIs and video editors"—former independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin is somehow involved as well. Lauren Southern, a 21-year-old Canadian media personality for the northern equivalent of Breitbart, also tweeted out that it was a hit job but later deleted her tweets.
Many, many blog posts have been written supporting this idea that Yiannopoulos is the victim of a smear job conducted by the deep state and mainstream media. However, these videos were out publically on YouTube for quite some time, which would mean that these "deep-state operatives" must have a hell of a budget to be able to go back in time and force Yiannopoulos to make those comments publicly on the podcasts.
That said, there is significant online chatter worrying about about further takedowns of members of Yiannopoulos' brethren. Cernovich later tweeted that "Deep State is going after everyone with a large social media following" to which Paul Joseph Watson, of conspiracy theory and Infowars fame, tweeted "can confirm."
Alex Jones ranting on camera. Photo via screenshot.
Which brings us to Infowars founder (and apparently semi-regular Trump advisor) Alex Jones, who posted a doozy of a video, entitled "Milo Is A Victim Of Sexual Abuse, Does Not Promote Pedophilia," last night. The video is mostly him yelling in the dark about Yiannopoulos, yet is, somehow, the most sane defence of the bunch.
In the rambly clip, Jones calls Yiannopoulos a "beta gay guy" and seems to suggest that he's gay because of abuse and has Stockholm syndrome. He calls the stories about Yiannopoulos a "witch hunt" and goes on a tirade against people who support trans rights. In the video he suggests that journalists should be going after the big pedophile rings in Hollywood and DC instead of Yiannopoulos.
"On a scale of one to ten—zero being a really good person with your kids and a good life where you're standing up for what's right. On the compendium, on this whole spectrum, most of us are a one or something," said Jones. "Then you got a Sandusky or these type of people that are nines or tens.
"Milo is like a three or four, so if we're going to fry Milo we better go ahead and fry everybody else who is involved in this."
Jones concludes that this is "absolutely the Republican party trying to roll up the grassroots support of the nationalist and populist movement that is taken place" and then compared Yiannopoulos to PewDiePie.
The whole situation seems to have taken place in the Upside Down. For several years now, the alt-righters have never seen a pedophile conspiracy they couldn't sink their teeth into. At one point, Cernovich repeatedly targeted Vic Berger as a pedophile and sicced his merry band of trolls on him.
So it's interesting to watch these people, who see pedophiles around every corner and, like Yiannopoulos, have weaponized pedophilia accusations, scrambling to explain away Yiannopoulos' own comments.
Sometimes it's hard to tell when the call is coming from inside the house.
Since the beginning of the year, reports of refugee claimants hopping the US-Canada border to seek asylum in Canada have multiplied rapidly. The first, most-notable instance of this happening was when two Ghanaian men—facing deportation from the US—trudged through waist-high snow to cross the Manitoba border. The two were eventually found by authorities in the town of Emerson, suffering from severe frostbite, now at risk of losing their hands at feet.
The reason for refugee claimants crossing the Canadian border illegally is due to the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA)—a joint border policy requires refugees to make their claim in the "first safe country" (in this case, the US). That prevents Canada-bound refugees from seeking asylum at the US-Canada border and Canadian airports. Claimants are thus forced to illegally enter Canada, get arrested by authorities, and claim refugee status once inside the country's borders.
While the RCMP could not provide exact numbers to VICE, estimations given by local authorities to other media outlets of how many refugees have fled the US to Canada since the start of President Trump's crackdown on immigration are in the high hundreds. In Emerson, that number reached 99 this weekend, after nearly two dozen asylum seekers were caught sneaking over the border.
In Ottawa, some Conservative MPs—such as Michelle Rempel—have balked at the idea of providing refuge to individuals entering Canada illegally. However, critics of that narrative say the cost of crossing is already incredibly high as it is.
"Canada appears to some people to be Disneyland for refugees," Raj Sharma, a Calgary immigration lawyer whose firm has been working overtime due to the number of new claimants, told VICE Tuesday.
"There is a very difficult process here, it's not like people are just being given a pass to do as they wish," Sharma told VICE, adding that many who have been arrested are still awaiting hearing, and that there's no guarantee that they'll win their case.
The three key areas in which authorities are targeting their efforts are in Abbotsford, British Columbia; Emerson, Manitoba; and Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Québec. Each area poses its own risks, and have seen varying levels of new claimants. The RCMP declined to comment when asked by VICE about how each of the different provinces were being monitored, but noted that they are advising anyone trying a DIY border crossing to turn back.
"Unfortunately, some individuals who are illegally entering Canada are not aware of the extreme weather conditions and geography they may encounter which can have dire effects to their well-being," the RCMP told VICE via a statement Tuesday.
"This issue is one of great concern to the officers responding to these types of incidents."
Out of all three regions, the RCMP says that Quebec has had the greatest influx of refugee claimants attempting to cross the border. The RCMP would not provide VICE with comment as to why they believe this is is, but Sharma says it's likely because of the lack of environmental impediments (such as snow and off-road terrain) that have already caused so much harm to those who have tried to cross in places like Emerson.
According to Sharma and the RCMP, many of the individuals arriving at these unintended border crossings are coming only partially by foot—for many refugees, much of the trip leading up to the border is by cab or truck. These rides can reportedly cost anywhere from $100 a head to $4,000, depending on the severity of the situation and desperation of those trying to cross.
Sharma also said that, based off anecdotes from claimants he's worked with, many are coming to more-rural areas like Manitoba and British Columbia because they offer two vital features: the possibility for work and community.
The point where country's meet, shot near Emerson, Manitoba. Photo by Caroline Wintoniw.
"Migrants and refugees are going where other migrants and refugees have gone," Sharma told VICE. "It's a little bit self-perpetuating, but people will follow in the footsteps of others who have paved the way."
Online, images of RCMP officers playfully hoisting up children who crossed the border last week drew both applause and criticism from social media—with some saying that the images were misrepresenting what was actually happening, which is that the refugees were being, as some authorities have put it, "gently arrested."
"It is unfortunate to say, but think about it this way: these folks are likely going to have hearings very quickly. Weeks, maybe months, but it will happen fast, and now, instead of the US deporting them, that burden may just fall on Canada to deport them," Sharma told VICE.
"Those Ghanaian men who lost their fingers to frostbite? They will have their hearing soon, and it may very well be that they have went from the frying pan to the fire."
A 70-year-old Japanese crime boss has been accused of ordering an attack on a nurse in 2013 who was involved in his "failed" penis enlargement surgery, according to the Tokyo Reporter.
In court on Monday, prosecutors claimed that Satoru Nomura, head of the Kudo-kai syndicate, conspired with senior gang member Yoshinobu Nakata to go after a woman who was working as a nurse during the cosmetic procedure back in 2012,Japan Todayreports. Something must have gone terribly wrong, because Nakata allegedly stabbed the nurse in the head, neck, and chest while she was walking down the street a few months later, although she escaped with her life.
Nakata, who's on trial for committing two additional attacks allegedly ordered by Nomura, said he had "given a lift to a perpetrator" in the nurse attack, but wasn't trying to kill the woman. He also claimed he didn't know if the order had come from the Kudo-kai boss. Prosecutors argued, however, that tapped phone records between the men prove otherwise.
It's not clear exactly what Nomura had in mind when he went under the knife, or what went wrong, but the man still has some options should he avoid jail time. If he's still not happy with the results of the surgery, he could always hit up one of the doctors creating robo-cocks or sewing dead guys' penises onto living men.
The history of American hardcore film is scattered across Jerry Douglas's Upper West Side apartment. Stacked in his bedroom are production and press books from the string of 1990s gay hardcore films that won him a shelf full of awards—films like Flesh and Blood and More of a Man. In a closet, there are bound volumes that document the Yugoslavian shoot of the 1975 bisexual-chic landmark Score, which he wrote; a poster for his earlier play version, featuring the young Sylvester Stallone in a supporting role, graces the living room wall. And buried somewhere are outtakes from The Back Row, his gay milestone from 1972.
The collection is fit for an archive. Thankfully, it's headed to one—eventually. At 81, porn pioneer Douglas says he "can see the end of the tunnel more and more clearly." Now, he's thinking seriously about history and how it's preserved.
"I don't want my life's work to end up in a garbage dumpster," he told me.
A series of pornographic film posters in Jerry Douglas's New York apartment. Photo by Whitney Strub
When it comes to porn, that's exactly what usually happens. I've heard firsthand accounts of the records and letters of now-dead pornographers departing for landfills in trash bags. When Douglas's papers enter the holdings at New York University's Fales Library, as they will upon his death, it will offer a virtually unparalleled documentary record of modern hardcore history.
Porn archives are, paradoxically, everywhere and nowhere. It's relatively easy to find smutty Victorian novels and mimeographed sex stories in places like the British Museum and even the Library of Congress. It's the behind-the-scenes material—the scripts, storyboards, and production memos—that remain elusive. You can find such documents for mainstream American film in numerous collections held at UCLA, USC, and elsewhere, but if you're looking for the counterparts in the history of pornography, where do you even begin?
There are a few early examples: There's the Samuel Roth papers at Columbia University, which offer a rich window into mid-century print sleaze. Roth, who published the tawdry Violations of the Child Marilyn Monroe in 1962, lost a 1957 Supreme Court case that created modern obscenity doctrine, and his papers are both fascinating and detailed. Ralph Ginzburg, who served federal time for publishing smut like Eros and The Housewife's Handbook on Selective Promiscuity, gave the Kinsey Institute a collection of 1960s hate mail he received. It's a window into the anger thousands of Americans directed at his Jewishness, his depictions of interracial sex, and more. (The collection also contains the single oddest thing I've ever encountered in an archive—a biohazard bag containing the human shit that was mailed to Ginzburg and then dutifully preserved.)
But archival collections dry up during the 1970s, when hardcore cinema moved aboveground. I recently co-edited a book, Porno Chic and the Sex Wars: American Sexual Representation in the 1970s, and the contributors dug up material that greatly expands our historical narrative beyond the obvious canon of Deep Throat and The Devil in Miss Jones: Shaun Costello's 1975 hardcore Christmas Carol adaptation, The Passions of Carol; Bob Guccione's failed "Penthouse for women," Viva; forgotten magazines like Female Impersonator News; and the autoerotic gay smut of Peter Berlin. All of these left texts to study, in the form of movies and magazines. But none left an archive of its production, distribution, or reception.
Jerry Douglas's porn awards. Photo by Whitney Strub
The single best repository for hardcore history is probably Rialto Report, a collection of oral history podcasts and deeply researched essays about the 70s and 80s. But scholars have been slow to make use of it, probably out of misplaced anxiety about the fact that it's housed online rather than in a university library. Indeed, the only extensive archive of a hardcore filmmaker that I know of is the Candida Royalle Papers, still being processed at Harvard's Schlesinger Library—where the pioneering feminist pornographer's records join those of her opponents Andrea Dworkin and Women Against Pornography, the 1980s feminist sex wars preserved in archival amber, forever counterpoised.
This absent hardcore archive is felt by historians. For most of the quarter-century since Linda Williams's groundbreaking study Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the Frenzy of the Visible, academic porn studies was dominated by film scholars, more committed to textual analysis than historicization. But a coalescing movement of porn historians has grappled with how to do justice to the complexity of porn's undocumented past. In her recent book, A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography, Mireille Miller-Young scoured everything from privately held stag-film collections to internet message boards to recover lost histories, brilliantly detailing, for instance, one unnamed woman's on-screen labor negotiations with a money shot in the 1930s. In another recent book, Smutty Little Movies: The Creation and Regulation of Adult Video, Peter Alilunas crafts an entire methodology, which he calls "trace historiography," to unearth the adult film industry's transition to home videos in the 1970s. He's literally doing scholarly research through eBay auctions at times, but imagine what the business records of a sex motel, or the diary of that unnamed stag performer, would add here.
That's effectively what Jerry Douglas's collection offers. His papers hold screenplay drafts, memos to actors about their characters, his life's correspondence, and more. Not everything has been preserved—the full script for his 1993 film, Jock-a-Holics, for example, was left on top of a car and blew away. But what's there is invaluable in fleshing out porn history, on multiple levels from the material legacies of smut (crystal butt plugs from Beyond Perfect, Douglas's second-to-last film in 2005 and purchased over the producer's cost objection) to the personal lives of those lost to the AIDS epidemic (Gerald Grant, who performed in straight, gay, and bi porn, is commemorated through a beautiful scrapbook compiled by his lover). Shooting logs show Douglas carefully plotting performers' orgasms (marked with an "o"), and among his abundant outtake footage is apparently a climactic would-be threesome in More of a Man (1991) in which a horny extra decided to make it a foursome and Douglas interrupted the orgy to obtain a mid-coital release form. Thirty-eight boxes remain unpacked from when Douglas and his partner moved in 1994, so who even knows what else is there?
Douglas's archive came to NYU by way of Marvin J. Taylor, the head of special collections at NYU's Fales Library. In addition to collecting everything from punk history to cooking books, Taylor is a strong advocate of archiving smut—silver print French photographs of two young men having sex from about 1905, more than 1,000 gay and lesbian pulp novels, and 40 cubic feet of porn with a BDSM emphasis in the recently obtained Richard Marshall collection, all grace Fales. Taylor acknowledges the "occasional raised eyebrow" about his acquisitions, but he doesn't mind. This is important historical material, and after all, he said, "It's just sex. Lighten up."
Looking back at his life's work, Douglas told me he feels more like Salieri than Mozart. But I think he's looking at it wrong. Through his archives, he's poised to be a rare and unique tour guide to the history behind the hardcore lens.
Whitney Strub is the author of Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Right and Obscenity Rules: Roth v. United States and the Long Struggle Over Sexual Expression. He blogs about pornography here.
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