There's about 8,200 kilometres that separates the furthest teams in the Kontinental Hockey League. This distance—between Zagreb, Croatia, and Vladivostok, in Eastern Russia—stretches from Central Europe to the Sea of Japan. In between exists a historical-linguistic patchwork that belies easy description. It is the territorial home of cultures that predate recorded history and which are as distinct from one another as the swamplands of St. Petersburg are from the smog of Beijing. This fractured expanse of civilization now has a common thread in hockey.
But according to some reports, this thread is susceptible to breaking. Quoting from an interview given by KHL president Dmitry Chernyshenko to R-Sport last November, several North American publications speculated about the league contracting teams. The KHL vehemently denied this to VICE Sports, and said Chernyshenko's comments were taken out of context.
This disconnect—between its frequently negative representation in the Western media and the KHL's version of reality—destabilizes the idea of the league as a serious business with lasting power. Truth exists somewhere in the gulf separating these two camps, but it remains shrouded in cultural suspicions that go beyond the game.
The Vladivostok goaltender gets sprayed as Anton Volchenkov looks on. Photo courtesy KHL
The KHL's second season started last week. Its 16 playoff teams are marching toward a trophy named after astronaut Yuri Gagarin—the first human to venture into space and once a potent symbol in the USSR's ideological war with the United States. Declared a "hero of the Soviet Union" by Nikita Khrushchev, Gagarin was killed in a plane crash seven years after his triumph. His remains are entombed in the Kremlin.
The institution for which Gagarin is a badge of Russian virtue has a range only slightly less expansive than his cosmic flight. Twenty-nine KHL teams are spread across eight countries and two continents, and with the addition of Beijing's Kunlun Red Star, its member nations are home to over 1.5 billion people. It is regarded as the second-best hockey league in the world and features much of the finest skill outside of the NHL. This season, Pavel Datsyuk—a former Detroit Red Wings superstar and one of the most beloved NHLers in recent memory—returned to Russia, where he plays in St. Petersburg alongside Ilya Kovalchuk, who was a longtime star in North America, scoring 50-plus goals twice with the Atlanta Thrashers. The league also possesses a trove of talent most North Americans have never heard of.
On the season finale of our VICELAND series HATE THY NEIGHBOR, host Jamali Maddix goes home to Britain to confront its most deep-rooted fears about the future of the country and Britain's acceptance of multiculturalism and racism in the shadow of Brexit.
HATE THY NEIGHBOR airs Mondays at 10 PM on VICELAND.
Want to know if you get VICELAND? Headhereto find out how to tune in.
The "Spanish Sex Tsar" sounds like one of those wacky made-up sex acts like a "Cleveland Steamer," but the sex position is all too real. In an effort to help correct Spain's population decline, the country's government appointed Edelmira Barreira to serve as its official "commissioner for the demographic challenge," Spain's ABC reports.
Last year, Spain saw the number of deaths outpace the number of births for the first time, which means that its total population shrunk. Spain's total fertility rate is one of the lowest in the developed world: Women between the ages of 18 and 49 have an average of 1.3 children, which is below the EU average of 1.58 children and America's average of 1.82. A representative from Spain's education ministry told ABC that birth rate decline "aggravates other economic imbalances and generates important impacts in the welfare state."
Barreira, a demographics expert, is currently tasked with creating a national strategy to correct the demographic imbalances and present it to Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy. It will most likely be something boring and technical, rather than a super sexy suggestion, like playing Barry White over the national radio or giving out tax credits for lingerie purchases.
Many believe that declining birth rates in industrialized nations are due to women being more involved in the workplace, waiting to have children later in life, the increased cost of having children, and a variety of other factors, but no one has pinned down the exact reason for Spain's low output.
Rafael Puyol, a professor at the IE Business School in Madrid, thinks that the problem is people are too tired after working long hours. "They do not help with making a family. Then a child arrives and it is even worse," he told ABC. Maybe Spain could try offering people a paid one-hour break during work to go home and have sex, like a councilman in Sweden proposed for government employees recently.
Other countries with low birth rates have tried some inventive ways to boost couples' sex lives. In Denmark, the government created "Do It for Denmark," a 2014 ad campaign to persuade couples to take romantic vacations to have sex. In 2010, South Korea ordered the lights in all office buildings to shut off at 7:30 PM once a month to encourage people to head home and see what happens with the lights off. And in 2012, Singapore's government created a "National Night" for couples to stay home and "make a baby, baby," which was sponsored by Mentos.
What is Britain? Britain is taking tea seriously and taking the Queen seriously and being in a sincere kind of love with Peter Andre, and it is half-glossy televised singing and dancing competitions and it is villages that pride themselves on their hanging basket competitions and it is the RAF and it is cavalry soldiers and it is voting Conservative and it is driving to France just to buy a boot full of wine and it is the QE2 and Heathrow needs a third runway and it is a bally good roast dinner after a bally good hunt, and it is Barbour jackets and grisly weather and it is the Antiques Roadshow, and it is pomp and ceremony and class and classlessness; it is the most unoriginal cuisine in the world defended as though it is Michelin-starred, it is a green-grey island that is small and inward-looking but gigantically ego'd and self-important, it is brilliant, it is terrible.
It's also this video (via) – every single second of it; every single glorious, wonderful moment:
You're asking me to explain what's happening here and I can't explain what's happening here, nobody can. Roughly: an entire train carriage of adults are Losing Their Goddamn Minds over a bagel/multiple bagels. I do not understand how something like this escalated into an entire train carriage of people chanting and laughing. I do not know what giddy euphoria overcame an entire train carriage in such a way that the police had to be called. I do know that this feels extremely important, this video, arguably the most important video of the year, and there are at least five vital flash points throughout which deserve our special attention. Onward to them:
TWO GIRLS FIGHTING BUT NOT QUITE FIGHTING BUT BASICALLY SAYING THEY ARE GOING TO START FIGHTING AND THEN STANDING UP AND SITTING DOWN A LOT
Most times you have witnessed a fight, this is actually what you've seen: two people saying "Come on then! COME ON THEN!" while more and more people stand in between them, until maybe six, maybe 100 people are now standing between the persons supposedly fighting, and then the people become like dominos: one decent push or stumble can unbalance the entire group, and everyone starts swaying around and half falling over but then not, grabbing urgently at clumsy pieces of clothing or limbs, grabbing someone's shirtsleeve to stop them from falling over, fully embracing someone's hip. This is why, arguably, real fights get so much spotlight: when two lads have a set-to in Grimsby, or when a televised boxing match ends in a knockout, our collective bloodlust is sated. We want to see fights that end in someone getting their nose exploded. But they rarely, rarely do
That is what a fight normally is – a non-contact sport – and that is what is happening here. The blonde girl – and we have no idea why! – is in a fight with a brunette girl. The brunette girl, to start, is laughing while the blonde is restrained. At this point she has won the fight. The blonde girl is being pinned to a train seat by someone we have to assume she has never met. She keeps trying to talk smack but hair keeps getting in her mouth. She has lost the fight. The brunette girl is in an unassailable winning position. Here is what winning looks like:
But then also – suddenly, without warning – the mood turns, and now the brunette girl has gone fully radge, and now she's not winning any more:
And now like a thousand people are standing in between them both, doing that thing people do when they try to keep a door open on a windy day with their hands full, which is plant one leg firmly on the floor and then sort of twist their buttocks in the direction of the aggressive force in an attempt to override it, which is what people do when they're trying to break up a fight. Trust me. Watch next time. Watch the forceful butts come out.
Now, here's a crucial clue to what's really going on, and it's hard to tell exactly what's being said here because the woman at the front is hissing "BE THE BIGGER PERSON; BE THE BIGGER PERSON," but our friend Bagel Boy is walking away, chuckling something about how "I just want to enjoy my burger in peace, leave me alone!" half-joking, bless him, just having fun with it all, tutting at the state of it, this train, what an evening, what a way to go home, and this will become important later, when he goes mental.
BAGEL BOY GOES MENTAL
There has never been a better illustration of the breadth of human emotion than these ten seconds of Bagel Boy's life, where he goes from "chill with it in-on-the-joke arm folding":
"Going full radge and saying 'GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY FACE!' in such a way that he sort of loses a lot of momentum in the word 'face', which makes me think he's about a half second away from crying":
I think the best thing about #Bagelgate, and what is making us all love it in a way we don't quite understand, is the pure vision of watching a carriage full of adults revert entirely to the school bus. At the school bus, there was a quiet hierarchy we never could escape: hard boys at the back, popular girls in the rows in front of them; the hype boys of each of the hard boys' crews there in front of them, the archers, who would nibble the edges of the end of candy necklaces and ping them at you like a trebuchet, always there to shout "woo!" or "yeAH!" or "he's got a ba–gel, ON HIS HEAD" when things got rowdy; huddles of teenaged girls, in knots of five or six on each two-seat, giggling at some joke you would never get. And then, at the front, the nerds: the fat and the wheezing, the weak and the breakable, the boy who would always cry if you bullied him so much he would be forced to shout "fuck OFF!", the girl who walked funny. This was the hierarchy we all settled into and respected: there was no climbing the ladder, no going from front-of-the-bus asthmatic nerdlord to back-of-the-bus hardened fingerer. You knew your role, you knew your bus seat and you stuck to it. It was a wild land, there on that bus. Those who survived it are better people.
So it's sort of funny and sort of heartbreakingly weird to see people reduced back to it again in adulthood. I mean, these folk are grown-ups. They have jobs. Some will have kids, families. Some will own houses and cars. And yet, here, for one crystalline moment, they are 13 again, all shouting "wooooOOOOOOAH!" when someone gets in trouble with the teacher. It sort of makes you wonder: is this pack psychology hard-wired into us? Are we all just a few drinks and a wrongly-placed bagel away from losing our minds? What does it take for sane humans to devolve into lawless 12-year-olds again? Is there just something about public transport – the strange, stiffly bristled seats, the rigid seating arrangement, the lack of legroom, the tacky grey-flecked floors, the windows that only open a half inch at the top – that makes us this way? We will never know. We will never know.
HOW MANY BAGELS ARE THERE ON THIS FUCKING TRAIN, MY GOD
The incident is called #Bagelgate and we are certain that bagels are involved, but we don't know exactly how, which can lead us only to speculate as to what happened before the camera started rolling: I am going to go ahead and say the two women behind Bagel Boy, half tipsy, put a bagel on his head, and everyone laughed at him and the situation, and he made a big show of putting the bagel out of the window, and that's when they knew they had him: they had found a man who did not like having a bagel put on his head. How, exactly, this turned into a blonde one aisle over gunning for a brunette and, bafflingly, nine unconnected people fighting on a train platform… I don't know.
But we need to talk about how many bagels the Bagel Gals had available to them. We can assume at least one bagel was put on Bagel Boy's head before the camera rolled. Then two or three more during the incident. That's four bagels. Those suckers are shaped like they were bought from a bakery, the kind you get a dozen from. But if you buy a dozen bagels, you tend to want a dozen bagels. You don't tend to want to put four of them on the head of a stranger. Which leads me to speculate that the Bagel Gals – as they must forever legally be known – had enough bagels to both i. satiate their bagel needs and ii. be deemed so excessive a number of bagels that they could easily lose four bagels to a man's head and then a train window without any negligible impact on their overall haul of bagels. Which, long story short, makes me think they are rocking a double-dozen, or 24 bagels, in four paper bags all stuffed inside one blue bag. That is my guess.
WHO THE FUCK ARE THESE LOT
Hey: who the fuck are these lot? As best I can tell, none of them are major players in Fight #1 (Blonde vs. Brunette) or Fight #2 (Bagel Boy vs. Bagel Gals + Everyone Else), which makes me… think… they are just nine people… unconnected to the bagel incident… who decided to get off the train and start fighting? Were they pumping some sort of insanity gas into this train carriage? And why?
THIS CHANT, BOTH THE BEST AND WORST CHANT IN HISTORY
The reason chanting is such a sacred, ancient art is because there are only about six chants – there is not much room for nuance and harmonising when 50 people are shouting the same words slightly out of time with their own clapping – and they just get repurposed for every situation. The fact that everyone on this carriage is so rapidly on the same page with this chant – "he's got a bagel / on his head" to the tune of "whole world in his hands" – is a beautiful example of the ingenuity of the human mind: that we can take the skeletal bones of a chant we already know the tune to; that, within one or two hearings of the new chant, we can learn entirely the words to it; that, within seconds, spread like a meme, 50 people are shouting "HE'S GOT A BAGEL / ON HIS HEAD" at a man with a bagel on his head. The thing is: you do not want to be Bagel Boy, on the receiving end of this. But as an anthropologist, observing this phenomenon from distance, that chant is beautiful. That chant is art.
BUT WOULD YOU EVER DO SO WELL YOURSELF
I think if I were trapped in the prison of a train rocking to the noise of a lad having a bagel put on his head then I, too, would cope about as well as almost everyone on board, which is badly. Firstly: if the girls sat behind me on the train put a bagel on my head then I would almost certainly start angry-crying, even before I stood up and made a show of throwing a bagel out of a train window, even before people starting chanting; I would definitely try to throw a punch at someone really weakly and then get my arms pulled behind my back and then get my balls kicked in. When the police arrived I would just sob and snivel in my chair and tell them "everything's fine, officer". I would let the chanting boys call me "wuss baby" and "piss shit boy". I would get a black eye trying to stop two girls from fighting. I would call in sick to work the next day with the stress of it all. So yes, definitely we can laugh – we can definitely, definitely laugh – but also, thinking about how we all would do in a similar situation, can't judge too hard. Not too hard.
THE BEST BIT
The best bit, though, is when the police come in and everyone suddenly goes silent and well behaved, like when you're in a classroom and your teacher goes away for a sec – they have to go and tend to another class, they have to soothe a crying student, something like that – and there is this moment of tension that slowly builds to a more rabbly, rowdy sort of thing, and one of the bigger boys gets up from his chair – that's when you know It's Fucking On – and soon it all starts to break: paper balls are thrown, pens are stolen, arm punches given out; shouting, someone drawing on the blackboard, girls have sat on their desks with their shoes on the seats, strictly prohibited; and then maybe one of the kids with glasses and a neatly-tied tie and straight As, perhaps they have their coursework snatched out of their hands, and now you all have an international incident on your hands – "give it BACK!" the weak kid is saying, with all his little might, "right NOWWWWW!" – and everyone is laughing and joking even when he launches at the bigger boy who stole it, who casually gets him into a headlock; and when they emerge from the scuffle an agonising half minute later the smaller kid is all red and furious in the face and the big kid has taken a rib hit but he's trying not to show it, and there's this stand off, blood in the atmosphere, and the room's changed; and then someone at the window in the door says "teacher's coming!" and you all scrabble back to your chairs, put on a show of domesticity even though the air in here is electric. And that's what it's like when the police come in. All these grown adults, tense about a bagel. Schoolyard stuff that we've all been a part of. Absolutely phenomenal.
In the latest eruption of hate targeting Jews in America, Jewish community centers and schools around the country received bomb threats Monday, spurring evacuations in multiple states.
"Members of our community must see swift and concerted action from federal officials to identify and capture the perpetrator or perpetrators who are trying to instill anxiety and fear in our communities," Jewish Community Center Association of North America's David Posner said in a statement.
Though no one appears to have been injured, the calls fit into a broader trend of anti-Semitic threats so far in 2017, which has already seen dozens of bomb scares across the country. And the hate has spilled over into actual violence: In the last week alone, hundreds of headstones were vandalized at two Jewish cemeteries—roughly 170 in Missouri and some 100 more in Philadelphia this past weekend.
President Trump, the self-proclaimed "least anti-Semitic person" there is, commented on the recent rise in anti-Semitic threats last week, intoning, "The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible and are painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil." That statement fell short in the eyes of the Anne Frank Center, which after the Philadelphia grave attacks called on the president to make a televised address about the broader climate of fear in America.
"The FBI and the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division are investigating possible civil rights violations in connection with threats to Jewish Community Centers across the country," Carrie Adamowski, Philadelphia's FBI public affairs specialist, said Monday. "The FBI will collect all available facts and evidence, and will ensure this matter is investigated in a fair, thorough, and impartial manner."
The Rorschach Test, conceived 100 years ago by a young psychiatrist at a Swiss asylum, continues to divide the scientific community and fascinate the public. From Hillary Clinton to Andy Warhol, Jay-Z to DC Comics and Ted Cruz, the Rorschach is ubiquitous and almost constantly misunderstood: The famously evocative inkblots have come to represent a hidden meaning, a reflective tool, a matter of perspective, or, in Warhol's case, an inversion.
With his new book, The Inkblots: Hermann Rorschach, His Iconic Test, and the Power of Seeing, writer and translator Damion Searls strives to take the ambiguity out of the Rorschach, both the test and its creator. In the first in-depth biography of Hermann Rorschach, Searls chronicles the life of the Swiss psychiatrist from his birth in Zurich to his untimely death at the age of 38, leaning heavily on previously untranslated letters, writings, and archives. Searls then follows the pop-culture appropriation and scientific debate that has surrounded his inkblot test in the century that's followed.
Even during Rorschach's lifetime, the inkblot test was viewed warily. Although it worked—he could perform blind readings based on inkblot answers that consistently matched with other psychiatrists' understandings of their patients—the Swiss psychiatrist didn't have a robust theory of why it worked. Freud had his id, ego, and superego; Carl Jung had his collective unconscious; Rorschach, a younger contemporary of the two, had ten ambiguous paintings—the images were actually painted, not spilled—that consistently uncovered hidden parts of the patient's mind.
Draft of Card III. Courtesy of the Archiv und Sammlung Hermann Rorschach, University Library of Bern
The creation story of the inkblots is part of the appeal and much of the problem—that Rorschach drew ten inkblots that seemed preternaturally effective emboldens the faction of the scientific community that view them like horoscopes. But Searls's book traces the development of Rorschach's psychological chops, as well as the artistic, literary, and philosophical influences that helped him make aesthetic choices (for example, creating horizontally symmetrical images makes it easier for humans to recognize familiar shapes).
Still, Searls found in Rorschach's own writing that the psychiatrist recognized the issue with his test having no theoretical underpinning. Because he died so young, he never had the chance to create an overarching theory of the visual mind—instead, his test was treated like a technique or tool. "You don't really care why it works, you just try and get the statistics solid so you can be sure that it works," Searls recently told me, over the phone. "And I think in America, that's been most of the history of it."
The inkblots have been treated as something like the psychological community's state secret.
Because the follow-up research has focused on bolstering Rorschach's specific inkblots through empirical evidence—adding a mathematical legitimacy to the visual test—the inkblots themselves have taken on a sacred status. It was strange, and somewhat miraculous, that Rorschach painted ten inkblots that happened to work as a window into the unconscious mind. But now, with a century of research focused on them, those specific images have become incredibly valuable. For that reason, the inkblots have been treated as something like the psychological community's state secret.
At least they were until 2009, when an ER doctor from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, posted all ten images on Wikipedia, creating a panic in the psychiatric world. If the average person could see the images and learn about the most common answers, the theory went, he or she could hack the test. By answering only standard responses—bats, animal hides, humans—people could fake sanity; they could also purposely fake psychosis.
A New York Times article from that year quotes a spokeswoman for the Rorschach test's publisher, who had threatened to sue Wikimedia for copyright infringement. "It is therefore unbelievably reckless and even cynical of Wikipedia," she said, "to on one hand point out the concerns and dangers voiced by recognized scientists and important professional associations and on the other hand—in the same article—publish the test material along with supposedly 'expected responses.'"
Dr. Dale Siperstein, a clinical psychologist who teaches the Rorschach test to students at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California, remembers the uproar about the publication of the inkblots online. "And then, of course, the images started to show up on mugs and plates and clothing," she says. "The community was concerned, but it turns out that simply having been exposed to the inkblots does not compromise an assessment."
The information in Searls's book could be much more damaging than leaked images, but it has at least as good a chance of actually bolstering the Rorschach by adding rich detail to the test's creation story.
Even websites coaching correct responses are not catastrophic, according to Siperstein, though the availability of that information makes it important for an examiner to be on guard for people attempting to distort their answers and achieve a certain reading—either offering exclusively "popular responses" to obtain a job or feigning psychological disturbance to be deemed unfit to stand trial. Context matters and can inform the examiner's interpretation, so she coaches her students to ask themselves: "Why? What are the stakes? In a particular evaluation, what would be the motivation to do that?"
Impressively researched and richly detailed, The Inkblots breaks down the relevance of certain types of responses and the way the scoring of specific answers has changed over the years. Taken as a tool to beat the test, the information in Searls's book could be much more damaging than leaked images. "I've had my moments of wondering about that," he admitted, "but the latest research seems to show that exposure doesn't ruin it. Because it's not like a word association test, where your first flash gut reaction is what matters."
Despite these worries, the book has at least as good a chance of actually bolstering the Rorschach by adding rich detail to the test's creation story. By explaining the psychiatrist's influences and reasoning, and debunking popular myths, Searls makes it hard to justify viewing the inkblots as fake science. Furthermore, the book makes a compelling case for the biography as a worthwhile tool toward understanding output. As the editor of Rorschach's own 1921 book, Psychodiagnostics, wrote in the preface: "The method and the personality of its creator are inextricably interwoven."
Rorschach rowing on Lake Constance, 1920. Photo courtesy of Penguin Random House
Descended from a family of artists, Rorschach's artistic upbringing and visual mind helps explain his test. The young psychiatrist was obsessed with the way that other people saw the world, and created his inkblots to be able to finally know. As Searls explains, what makes Rorschach and his test such an outlier in the psychology world is that "alone among the pioneers of psychology, Rorschach was a visual person and created a visual psychology."
This aspect is what makes the test so alluring—Searls explains the blots as "not not art"—while also spectacularly confounding. The ten inkblot designs are delivered one by one to the patient on 9.5"-by-6.5" white cardboard cards. The images are ambiguous, and the examiner asks the intentionally open-ended questions: "What might this be?" or "What do you see?" The patient's responses can uncover anything from psychosis to suicidal tendencies to personality traits. Searls explains in the book that, for a time, it was thought of as an "X-ray of the soul."
In Inkblots, Searls avoids that kind of hyperbole, although he does admit that he views the test as somewhat magical. He opens his book with a story of a man applying for a position working with children who is given a psychological evaluation. The man passes several comprehensive tests only to fail the Rorschach, where his answers expose a deranged and troubling psyche. Later, his psychologist calls the examiner, astounded that she understood personality aspects it took two years of therapy to expose. Incredibly, the Rorschach scoring (accounting for everything from how the patient physically interacts with the cards to the questions he asks the examiner) remains too subtle and technical to trick.
The mystique of Rorschach's blots has somehow weathered a century of controversy and two decades of exposure. Though Searls's book could possibly draw a roadmap to beat the test, these inkblots continue to provide a window into a hidden place in our minds and collective imaginations. Even the way we misunderstand them, or overestimate their power, tells us about ourselves. With Searls's book, we finally see that like a bat, a moth, or an animal hide, the doctor and the inkblots themselves have always meant something more.
As part of our special travel series on Chile, VICE's Simon Coutu went to one of Santiago's best pisco bars and learned how to make the country's most popular cocktail, the pisco sour.
Nicole White, like most women, knows how embarrassing it can be when your period comes and there are no tampons or pads around.
That anxiety of bleeding through your clothes, or deciding a wad of toilet paper will do for now, is a feeling all too familiar.
But for some Indigenous women it's not a momentary fear, it's a monthly crisis.
"Who wants to say, 'I don't have money for pads. I don't want to have a big wad of toilet paper in my underpants,'" White, a Métis woman who lives in Saskatoon, told VICE. "We know those stories, I'm sure many of us have been there."
Having your period is just not affordable for a lot of Indigenous women in Canada. While prices vary across the country, in Iqaluit a 40-pack of tampons is $14.99, in Attawapiskat it's $17.89.
Down south, the same pack at Walmart is only $7.97.
That's part of why White started Moon Time Sisters, a community-based group that collects feminine hygiene donations to distribute throughout Saskatchewan's northern communities. As a community organizer, she often works with people who live their lives below the poverty line.
"I know feminine hygiene products are a luxury. This is something tangible that we can all work on together," she said.
The feminine hygiene aisle in Iqaluit. Photo by Angela Hill
Northern Saskatchewan Member of Parliament Georgina Jolibois says in her riding she's been told girls and women have stayed home from work or school because they don't have money for tampons, pads or pain relief during their menstruation. She says stigma stops many girls and young women from discussing it.
Of course, tampons aren't the only items that are pricier up north. Last year, a study by Food Secure Canada said the cost of feeding a family in northern Canada is twice as much as in the south. Paying For Nutrition: A Report on Food Costing in the North looked at communities in the Mushkegowuk territories along the west coast of James Bay, including Moose Factory, Fort Albany and Attawapiskat.
It showed that people needed to spend more than half of their income on food in order to meet their basic nutritional requirements. The average cost of groceries for a month in Attawapiskat in June 2015 was $1,909 compared to $847 in Toronto, the study said.
At the same time, the 2011 National Household Survey said the median income of Aboriginal women was $19,289, about $5,500 less than that of their non-Aboriginal counterparts. That means tough choices when it comes to the pocket books of Indigenous women—like choosing between groceries and tampons.
"Choosing food over feminine hygiene products—these are choices that we really shouldn't be putting on our women's population, especially our Indigenous women's population who are already living in situations that can be borderline homelessness or poverty. It's unfair to them," Native Women's Association of Canada president Francyne Joe told VICE.
When tampons and pads aren't affordable, it sends a negative message to women about the importance of their bodies and their role as women in society, according to Joe.
"We are putting them in a position where they almost feel ashamed for being a woman and that's not what we should be doing."
Canada already saw a big push to make feminine hygiene products more accessible, but it didn't address the challenges faced by Indigenous women in the north. In 2015, the federal government killed the "tampon tax" by removing the GST on products that are "marketed exclusively for feminine-hygiene purposes" (although it didn't kill international trade tariffs) after a campaign pointing to the gender-based taxation called it unfair and discriminatory.
More than 74,000 people signed a Change.org petition and the tax removal was applauded globally.
But there also needs to be action on basic human rights, like menstrual hygiene, that aren't accessible, Joe told VICE.
Nicole White, founder of Moon Time Sisters
Back in Saskatoon, White has compiled a giant pile of pads, tampons, pain medication and even reusable menstrual supplies. She gets excited talking about how many people have donated and how she's working with a group in Regina, YOUR TIME women's empowerment foundation, to collect Diva Cups.
But the excitement drains when she thinks of permanent solutions. As a previous candidate for the provincial NDP, White said having more women in positions of leadership could help lead to change more quickly since tampons are less likely to be on the immediate radar of men.
"We want to build long-term capacity within those communities but in the meantime we are going to be leaving them with massive stockpiles of product," she said.
Lead image by Tamara Lynn/Moon Time Sisters Facebook
We all learned two very important lessons this weekend: Don't trust the Oscars, and don't get on Remy Ma's bad side—the Bronx rap legend dropped one of the most savage tracks in recent history, "ShETHER," which tears apart her foe, Nicki Minaj.
The single—titled after Nas' classic diss track, "Ether"—takes no prisoners, and features lyrics about Minaj's brother, who is going to jail for child molestation. Remy doesn't play around.
On Monday night's Desus & Mero, the hosts debated whether or not Nicki will release an equally brutal clapback track. Although it's likely she will respond in some way, there are some topics that might be too taboo even for a brutal track. But if Remy Ma was willing to call out Nicki's brother, who knows how far Minaj will go.
Are Remy Ma and Nicki Minaj the new Jay Z and Nas? Only time will tell.
You can watch last night's Desus & Merofor free online now, and be sure to catch new episodes weeknights at 11 PM on VICELAND.
You never forget your first time. Playing rugby, that is.
Although men and women alike have been scrumming it down and shooting the boot since the 19th century, the rugby world has seen an exponential growth in female players over the last decade. It's considered one of the fastest growing sports across the planet, with more than two million women regularly booting up worldwide as of last July, according to World Rugby, the sport's global governing organization. The United States has quickly become a women's rugby mecca; according to country-specific participation figures released by World Rugby in 2014, there are over 24,000 registered female players in America. Of those, about 15,000 are adult players.
But numbers are just the beginning when it comes to the significance rugby holds for women. In a society that hastily assigns female athletes a plethora of stereotypes, rugby allows those athletes to challenge them in a nuanced way. And significantly, rugby cultivates a space in which females can explore their identities in a safe and empowering manner—something queer female ruggers I spoke with acknowledge as being a major draw of the sport.
While gay and queer-friendly male rugby teams are as prevalent today as ever, queerness in women's rugby operates under a different, more fluid mechanism. Most women's teams do not brand themselves as queer, whereas an international network of men's teams does exactly that. Queer female ruggers, like their non-queer teammates, nonetheless embrace rugby as a channel to challenge, define and embrace their own understanding of what it means to be both a female and an athlete.
"Rugby is a safe space, first and foremost, for queer folk," said Sky Knight, a player for the Life West Gladiatrix, a Bay Area-based women's club team. Knight, a seven-year rugby veteran, said the sport has allowed her to become both confident and intentional in the way she expresses her queer identity. In many ways, Knight said other sports pale in comparison when it comes to fostering a welcoming and inclusive community. "Rugby teaches you to be big and bold," she said.
Although youth rugby teams do exist, many female ruggers first encounter the sport in college, joining with little to no experience. Taking up a new sport can be daunting regardless of gender or sexual identity, but rugby's culture is often unique in welcoming players into the fold without pretense or expectation—it levels the playing field in a way many others don't. Portland Pigs player Lynne Stahl, who first played in her sophomore year in college, credits her then-coach for fostering an inclusive and positive environment for new players, particularly through her use of humor. "It sounds counterintuitive, but her way of keeping people from taking themselves seriously created a space for profound confidence among people society generally works to tear down in various ways," Stahl said.
Coming out is often anxiety-inducing, and Stahl noted that rugby can work to alleviate some of those concerns for queer players. Stahl said rugby creates something of a neutral space for lesbian, bi and otherwise queer women to engage in a dialogue about their identities around others who want to do the same. "Queer social groups can be wonderful, but they're not for everyone, and sometimes it's nice to have a less formal environment that's queer-heavy but not formally focused on sexuality—it's a good atmosphere for casual conversation," Stahl said.
Because rugby players come to the sport in all manner of sexualities, sizes and gender presentations, it provides a unique space where female are allowed to be unabashedly themselves. "Once females recognize that we're in a space where they're not going to be judged for their size or sexuality or gender presentation," said Stahl, "we can relax psychological defenses we don't even know we always have up."
Such spaces can allow females who may not consider themselves feminine to reclaim their identities, and allows all players to exercise fluidity with their gender and sexuality. It embraces and normalizes the varying spectrums of sexuality and gender players bring to the field. Portland Pigs player Ariel Acosta said the sport allowed her to explore and understand her own sexual identity in an encouraging and supportive culture. "It allows you to be fluid," she said. "Nobody's prying, nobody's poking. If you show up to the social with a guy, awesome. If you show up to the social with a girl, great."
"Rugby definitely is very accepting of whoever you are," said USA Olympian Kelly Griffin. "Everybody can be themselves. It has a culture of respect." To her, the game lets players express their individuality while working towards a greater goal, which allows players to find a family within their teams (a phenomenon by no means limited to rugby). As with finding a family, the sport eventually becomes an inextricable part of one's identity. "I'm a rugby player. That's what I do. That's what I love. It's been a big part of my identity," Griffin said.
Rugby extends beyond welcoming queer women with open arms—players stress that ruggers actively urge their teammates to reach their full potential both on and off the pitch. Teams become advocacy groups for women to come into their own as women, athletes and as human beings. They serve as platforms for women to build confidence, explore their identities and kick ass along the way. Spaces like that aren't always easy to come by. And at the end of the day, we all want to be seen and taken as who we are, especially if you're sticking your face in someone's ass on a regular basis (don't make it weird) and if you're drinking libations from your captain's sweaty, dirt-filled cleat. Sometimes, all it takes is a nudge. Or a stiff arm to the face.
Before she turned 18, Anne*, a nurse, had endured at least five major surgeries, all without the use of post-op medication stronger than ibuprofen. As a child in Birmingham, Alabama, she had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, but eventually learned that she actually has primary generalized dystonia, a genetic disorder that causes frequent painful muscle spasms and rigidity. By 19, she says, she had tried pretty much every treatment available, including a spinal implant that made matters worse.
Then she was given a prescription opioid.
Here is where your typical American news story might turn into a parable of addiction and dysfunction, even though the evidence we have suggests the vast majority of pain patients don't become addicted. But Anne's story is different, and there are millions of patients taking opioids for pain whose voices are rarely heard.
Their ability to live and function well is now in danger because doctors and insurance companies have turned what were supposed to be voluntary guidelines issued last year by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) into inflexible rules. Soon, Medicare plans to follow suit, with potentially massive implications for how pain is treated—or not treated—in America. This relentless focus on cutting medical use of opioids in the face of a real addiction crisis is starting to damage the middle- and working-class people it was intended to help. And because so many are also facing job-loss and wage stagnation, we can't really help until we recognize how economic, emotional, and physical pain are intertwined.
In Anne's case, opioids seemed like a godsend. Thanks to this class of drugs, she says, she was able to complete nursing school and become a hospice nurse. And even when her disease progressed and she could no longer work, opioids allowed her to live independently. When she decided at one point for herself to go for months without them, Anne tells me, she lost the use of her hands.
In a letter to a local medical board explaining why access to these medications matters, Anne wrote that during six months without opioids, "I was in the worst shape of my entire life—reliant on a power wheelchair, losing weight rapidly, with severe rigidity… unable to sit without support, with clenched fingers that rendered my hands useless."
Now 36, Anne fears she will be forced to go back to that straitened way of life. Over the last few years, doctors who prescribe high doses of opioids for patients like her have been increasingly targeted by law enforcement and medical boards, leaving some physicians terrified that any unusual prescribing pattern will put them at risk of losing their license or going to prison. And interviews, news stories, blogentries and emails from numerous pain patients—as well as surveysandsocial media posts—suggest Anne's case is far from unusual.
After one of Anne's doctors stopped prescribing, she says, she called more than 60 physicians before finding one willing to prescribe the medication that works for her, despite a documented medical history without signs of addiction. But the CDC guidelines—which were supposed to be flexible and to be used by primary care doctors (not specialists)—have increasingly taken on the air of law. To protect themselves, some pain specialists have stopped prescribing any opioids at all or cut back patient doses to fall within the guidelines, regardless of whether their current doses are helping their patients.
Worse, just this month, the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) announced that it will soon apply the CDC guidelines to everyone insured via Medicare, which means that patients on high doses may find themselves cut off without much—or any—notice.
Doses outside the guidelines—except in end-of-life care—could soon trigger a process that prevents pharmacists from filling prescriptions. Yet that process for other exceptions is not yet clear, according to Stefan Kertesz, associate professor of preventive medicine at the University of Alabama, who has corresponded with the agency. (VICE reached out to CMS for comment, but the agency did not provide comment prior to publication.)
"If a doctor could anticipate the need for special approval and if he or she could obtain it in a rapid fashion, this process might not cause serious harm to patients," Kertesz says. "However, we have no basis for expecting that kind of fluid rapid and clear communication in the history of managed care… I'm worried that the mechanics of how this will be implemented would result in patients being thrown into acute withdrawal, which would be medically risky."
The Medicare plan seems to be based, at least in part, on a white paper written in collaboration between insurance companies and academic researchers. And according to Kertesz, insurers often extend policies that originate in Medicaid and Medicare to their private patients. What this means is that soon, anyone—either on Medicare, Medicaid or privately insured—who takes a dose of opioids that is outside the CDC's acceptable range may be pressured to cut down or stop the medications entirely, even if the same meds are keeping them functional and productive.
"It's like a runaway freight train," says Pat Anson, a journalist who covers these issues for a specialist publication, the Pain News Network.
Indeed, in every other area of medicine, personalization and individualized care are the buzzwords—but not when it comes to opioids.
Meanwhile, the crackdown isn't curing people with addiction, even if it does seem to be shifting them to heroin. The result, among other things, has been more death: Just this past week, in fact, the CDC released data showing yet another jump in the overdose death rate, even though prescribing has continually fallen since 2012. According to the study, the proportion of overdose deaths involving heroin has tripled since 2010, while those involving prescription opioids have fallen. It's not really in dispute at this point that being cut from medical opioids can send people in search of of riskier street drugs, sometimes cut with the super potent fentanyl and its derivatives.
But In the regions hardest hit by opioid problems—yes, these are some of the same areas that fell unexpectedly hard for Trump—opioid deaths are not the only kind of mortality on the rise. Deaths from suicide and alcoholism have risen, too—and the rise has been so large for whites that it has paused what once seemed like inevitable increases in lifespan in successive generations. Neither of these causes of death can be blamed solely or even mostly on increased opioid supply; instead, the trend points increasingly to an underlying common cause: the slow-motion economic collapse of these communities.
"These tend to be places that were once dependent on manufacturing or mining jobs and then lost a chunk of those," explains Shannon Monnat, assistant professor of rural sociology at Penn State, who has published research on the Trump-voter-death-rate connection. "They tend to have experienced a decline or stagnation in median income. They have higher rates of poverty. It's really that these are downward mobility counties."
Check out our interview with director Barry Jenkins, whose film 'Moonlight' won Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards.
Opioids seem to be hitting these communities hard for the same reason crack was so devastating in black neighborhoods in the 1980s and early 1990s. Basically, not only did the drugs themselves provide escape and relief from distress, but they also offered one of the few avenues of economic opportunity: jobs in the drug trade.
Overwhelmingly, these rural addictions do not start with medical use, which reflects national patterns. However, a critical factor in their stories is childhood trauma, according to Khary Rigg, assistant professor in the Department of Mental Health Law And Policy at the University of South Florida. "These are folks who primarily are using painkillers, but also heroin," he says before describing how the interviews he conducts with participants involve telling their stories chronologically. "They start talking about really, really intense traumatic experiences: rape, things like child abuse, molestation, witnessing someone die."
Traumatized people seeking emotional relief are not going to be fixed by cutting off one source of their drug supply. Nor are patients like Anne. To wit: When yet another doctor recently stopped prescribing and she was forced to lower her dose to near the CDC-recommended levels, Anne fell out of her wheelchair and broke two crowns she'd just had placed on her teeth.
"My whole body was like, one shaking, jerking mess," she says.
The Medicare changes are open for public comment until March 3 at this email address.
*Last name withheld to protect the patient's privacy and to avoid undue scrutiny falling on her current doctor.
Dating shows used to have this weird disconnect between how they presented themselves (fun frothy family entertainment) and what they're actually about (pairing off horny fame-hungry 20-somethings to fuck in a cheap holiday resort). Take Me Out, for example, is based around a pretty callous cold-hearted conceit: "No likey, no lighty" is basically another way of saying "you're so unattractive I'd literally rather fade into darkness than be near you", but tempered with Paddy McGuinness' dad parlance – "Let the salad see the cream!" "Let the poppa see the dom!" – and the occasional acoustic guitar cover from a socially awkward fishmonger, it maintains its fun PG feel.
Things have moved on in the past few years, though. As we've all got carpal tunnel from Tinder and become more relaxed about casual hook-ups, dating shows have struggled to keep pace with our more matter-of-fact attitude to sex. We've had Naked Attraction, which allowed you to choose your date just by how nice their cock looked, and Undressed, which skipped the dating all together and got two people to lie down naked in a bed next to each other and see what happened.
But those shows still have the unfortunate restraint of dealing with real, everyday humans in whatever misshapen form they show up in. Now, as we get closer to fucking robots and VR sex, comes Game of Clones, a new E4 series in which ordinary folk design their ideal partners with a computer programme that looks suspiciously like the "build a character" mode from The Sims. After they've picked out exactly how they want their potential mate to look, the producers then scour the country for people who fit the bill, dress them up exactly the same and pack them off to a house together to vie for the affections of their "creator".
The date creator. Credit: Game Of Clones/E4
The series kicked off last night, with 24-year-old Charlotte from Worcester asking – nay, begging – the magic computer for a quirky mixed-race guy with good dress sense and a perky bum. Charlotte probably had a young Lewis Hamilton in mind, but instead she got a gaggle of failed X Factor auditionees who looked like they shop exclusively in Blue INC.
"I'm really going to struggle to differentiate between them," she says, profoundly, as she meets Ben, Kalern, James, Matthew, Dom, Jamal, Kamel and Ryan. Herein, unsurprisingly, lies the first problem with the format: it's a struggle for the audience to work out who's who, too. We can't smell the three litres of Versace Blue Jeans that Kalern's doused himself in, or tell the difference between Matthew's Huddersfield accent and James' Leeds one. If it's a struggle for Charlotte, it's nigh impossible for those of us watching at home.
Everything in this show looks like an X Factor VT. Source: Game of Clones/E4
Anyhow, there's a slightly bigger problem facing Charlotte as the competition gets underway. The Mancunian voiceover guy (because there has to be one of those; this is E4) reminds us that, with looks perfected, all that remains is personality. But with eight blokes hanging around awkwardly like the end of a very weird, very dark two-day sesh, how on earth will Charlotte get to know them all?
Cue a three minute speed-dating session with each of her suitors. Dom (or is it James?) is talking about fairy lights (yawn). Ben's talking about his private parking space (double yawn). Matthew declares that he's not "one of those typical mixed race guys", which seems kind of like internalised racism and also is a weird thing to say on a show in which being typical is basically the whole point.
Being put on the spot doesn't bring out the best in the boys, bless them, but it also highlights the fact that they've been chosen simply because they match a "type".
So what does it say about the world of dating that so much emphasis is put on the exactness of this, right down to the boys' matching black snapbacks, red trainers and geek glasses (which they're contractually obliged to don at all times)? What if the right guy for Charlotte is actually a ginger-haired French guy who thinks Stone Island was the prison Nelson Mandela was kept in? At least over on Tinder – with your poor, aching thumb – you get to see a range of all that humanity has to offer. Maybe my matches found me individually attractive, you can tell yourself, and not just a decent enough doppelganger for another, now-ghosted match or even an ex.
But then, it seems there's a breakthrough. After a faltering conversation with square-jawed former footballer James, Charlotte declares that "a lot of good-looking guys don't have personality..." Could things be about to take a turn for the interesting? Will she start judging the lads solely on their brains rather than their bods? Will one of them say something half-intelligent to help her on her way? Oh no, too late – she songs Kamel, right after he tells her that he was once mistaken for Ashley Cole in a shopping centre.
I won't spoil the next four episodes too much, except to say that Charlotte cries. A lot. The boys try some pole dancing in an attempt to show off that all important personality. Charlotte sends home the two who actually genuinely seem to like her, but are a bit weedier (read: nicer) than the rest. Her mum turns up to watch them cook pasta for no apparent reason. Almost no effort is made to really delve into the boys' personalities, apart from an awkward show and tell session where Kalern talks about finding a giant conker. I had to rewind and check there was definitely a contestant called Ryan.
No, there's nothing subversive here – just a girl standing in front of some boys, asking them whether they'll live up to her very narrow expectations. That upcomingBlind Date reboot could really do us a world of good.
What is it? The thing, I suppose, with this series is that the format – the format being this bit, the bit with the bold text and the question marks – the format serves us so well during ordinary LROTW stories, but when we waver slightly outside the lines of that, the format, like a paperback book dropped inelegantly into a bath, folds and crumples completely, which is what is happening now; Where is it? So again I suppose we do have to go through this, to mark this story out as being ostensibly a London Rental Opportunity of the Week story, despite it not being about a particular London Rental, but being instead about the housing market in general, and the complete lack of hope around it; What is there to do locally? Also this story is four days old, I should probably mention that here; Alright, how much are they asking? So see finally we have made it to the end of this bit, but the pacing – the pacing that marks this out as a LROTW story, and not just a "mad about the housing situation" story – the pacing has been established. And that's so crucial. So you think you just wasted 20 seconds reading all that, but you didn't. You didn't. You didn't waste it.
Parents should put aside a quarter of their children's pocket money and gifts from birth to enable them to buy a house, a study claims.
Is that not the Toriest sentence you've ever seen? I realised something recently, and that is this: the Toriest comment anyone can ever leave on an article online is to call a human being a "creature". Imagine it: a Daily Mail photo story of Marnie from Geordie Shore, heartbroken anew, and Dave from Bramley logs on to say: "and who is this tart? horrible creature." Or: a hard-done-by couple on benefits are being ejected from their flat, and, in desperation, pose on their sofa and tell their sob story to the local newspaper, who circulate it around the tabloids, and Roy from Chiddingfold logs on to say: "vile creatures!!!! and who is PAYING for all this?" That is just something I realised, about Tories, and Tory sentences.
The second-most Tory sentence behind that is: "Parents should put aside a quarter of their children's pocket money to enable them to buy a house."
A fifth of 18 to 25-year-olds think they will never afford to buy a home and almost 70 percent of parents worry about their children getting onto the property ladder.
Yet experts have suggested parents are not making the most of lucrative pocket money and childhood gifts in order to provide for their kids' future.
The study said children should save 25 percent of their "earnings" from birth until aged 25 in order to be able to afford a deposit.
The figures, published by HSBC, suggests the average child receives £131,832.94 in the first 25 years of their life through pocket money, tooth fairy donations, gifts and money for odd jobs and part time work.
Now, my fucking dude: how in the fuck is a child making £5,240 a year from tooth fairy money, lawnmowing money, the odd crisp £20 note in a birthday card from grandma? And how you gonna sit a kid down – the child, in this instance, the imaginary child that you and I have together, Dear Reader – our child is six, and sticky-handed and excited to spend his pocket money – we had a boy, his name is Noah – and our child, our beautiful strong stupid boy, he has two hot little pound coins in his tiny chubby palm, and we are sitting him down, you and I, and saying: "Now, Noah: give daddy 25 percent of your earnings to put in a tracker ISA for you to finally unlock when you're 25."
And our boy says – his language isn't quite as developed as the other kids in his year, and we both fret over it but love him anyway – and our beautiful stupid sweet boy says: "BUT NOAH WANTDOUBLE DECKER"
And we have to say to him – patiently – we have to tell him: Now, boy, please stop prioritising short-term gains over long-term goals.
And we take 25 percent of his pocket money away and he runs to his room and has a tantrum.
And we know that we have done the right thing as a parent.
It advises that, by saving one quarter of these "earnings", every 25-year-old could have enough to put down the average deposit of £32,000.
Yes I'm sure stealing a child's pocket money now, in big old 2017, is really going to do them well in 2042, when £32,000 will be roughly the equivalent of one bus fare.
Tracie Pearce, HSBC UK's Head of Mortgages, commented: "The findings are really quite astonishing. We have shown that it is possible to get onto the property ladder reasonably quickly, even by the age of 25.
"For parents, the key is to start saving for your child early and to encourage a savings habit so when they are old enough to make financial decisions by themselves, they can see the benefit of saving towards their first home.
"We're not suggesting that children and young adults shouldn't spend any of their pocket money or enjoy themselves, but they should be aware of what money they have and receive, and regularly save some of it."
"We're not suggesting children and young adults… shouldn't… enjoy themselves" is a kind of unusual thing to say, though, isn't it, because that's very much exactly what you are saying.
The data, published in conjunction with the HSBC Deposit Dash study, suggests children receive about £3,600 in pocket money by the age of 18 and a further £4,844.60 in handouts between the ages of 19 to 25.
I do love the idea of money given to children as being described as "handouts", because "handout" is a very loaded term when it comes to money – it is always used, basically, when talking about people on benefits, as if the government is just scattering money from the top of skyscrapers for the poor to jump at and scrabble for and spend on cigarettes, as if the concept of human beings needing money to buy the fundamentals is distasteful, somehow, that the government is just fickle, handing money out willy-nilly, just so the jobless don't die – and just the idea of a child being given a £5 note and someone going "you should save at least a pound of that, you lazy little fucking wretch" is deeply amusing to me.
But then I suppose I am starting to look for tiny pinpricks of light wherever I can find them in this darkness, because please recall that this is an actual bank – HSBC, who commissioned this nonsense to draw a news story up about it, to bring more attention to them, a classic media trick I have fallen hook, line and sinker for – but this is an actual bank, here, saying this. Like: if any of us need a mortgage, ever – and it's impossible, let's be real, but let's play an imagination game – we have to go, cap in hand, to a bank for it. And we turn up at HSBC in our best clothes and with our most wholesome faces on, and hold hands with each other and sit straight-backed, and little Noah is there, no chocolate on his face for once, we've taken the big plaster off his lazy eye for the day to make him more appealing, and we go, "Please, HSBC," we say it together, "please: lend us the money to buy a house. We will spend the rest of our natural born lives paying it back to you." And the HSBC lady will smile sweetly and say: but did you save all your pocket money up from when you were five? And we will say: no. And she will say: do you know how much money has been just handed to you since 1987? £131,000. And we will say: I did not know that.
And she will lean closer, her legs folded over one another, her face a façade of calm, and she will lean closer so we can only hear her whisper.
And she will hiss: well get the fuck out of my fucking face then, you snivelling little shit.
McDonald's food is the pinnacle of human achievement. Calories per dollar and speed of delivery aside, the flavours might be evidence that aliens once visited us and left behind advanced burger and fry technology. I'm not even being paid to say that: these are facts. I don't care about modified ingredients or my well being when I eat McDonald's. Big Macs taste like hugs. That's why when McDaddy announced all-day breakfast in Canada, my heart palpitated. Joy-pain shot down my left arm and my vision blurred just thinking about Egg McMuffins and hash brown delights. I was overjoyed I could eat McDonald's breakfast at any hour in my hometown of Regina, Saskatchewan, probably just like Americans do. And so, I decided to eat McDonald's all-day breakfast for every meal for one week to find out if heaven is real.
Firstly let's get this out of the way: Super Size Me star Morgan Spurlock and his shameful film are likely responsible for McDonald's saddest creations: the "healthy" menu. If you buy kale salad at McDonald's, I assume you also enjoy telling kids Santa killed their pets. Why would you do that? Secondly, McDonald's breakfast items are relatively healthy, at least that's what I assumed when I started this journey. After all, it's mostly eggs. Eggs are good, right?
My goal was to stick to one breakfast item for each meal over seven days. For example, day one I would only eat Egg Muffins, day two would just be bagel sandwiches, and so on. That plan fell apart like a soggy pancake. This was due to both difficult McDonald's menu policies and constant bowel spasming. Turns out, with enough sausage patties, your ass becomes a piñata full of flaming snakes. What started as a simple food stunt became a heartburn odyssey of self discovery. For each day I tallied my total consumption as well as the nutritional information provided on the McDonald's website.
Day 1: Egg McMuffins
I started by measuring my physical abilities to prove if breakfast is indeed the most important meal of the day. Would all-week breakfast give me superpowers? As a benchmark, I rode a stationary bike for 20 kilometres as quickly as possible, clocking a time of 36:06. I did pushups and situps until I couldn't handle any more, racking up 35 pushups and 62 situps. I weighed in at 144 pounds. Then I ate Egg McMuffins. Egg McMuffins are pure and holy. The first one sat in my mouth like the words of Jesus Christ. By comparison, the side hash browns slid down like the Devil's greasy tongue. As I ate my final Egg McMuffin that day, I felt like damage was already being done. To my soul.
Total consumed: Four Egg McMuffins One hashbrown One coffee
Nutritional information Calories: 1,320 kcal Carbohydrates: 132 g Fat: 54 g Sodium: 3,400 mg Protein: 65 g
Day 2: Wolfish
This day was supposed to be McGriddle day. I got one for my first meal, swallowing my hatred of the thing. McGriddles have an egg and ham slice, but instead of bread—get this—they use French toast with maple flavouring. I got mine with sausage for texture, and it tasted like diabetes-themed tentacle porn. McGriddles are weird.
Something bad happened at lunchtime: The restaurant I was at said they didn't have McGriddles. Not wanting to break my vow of eating themed foods each day, I ordered pancakes and a McMuffin to construct my own McGriddle. I ordered enough to do the same at supper time. I ate my homemade lunch sandwich at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum while looking at a stuffed wolf exhibit. A plaque near the area said that a wolf's cunning doesn't "always guarantee success and survival." My gut growled as I swallowed my improvised McGriddle.
Total consumed: Sausage, Egg & Cheese McGriddle Three Bacon 'n Egg McMuffins Three pancakes Two hash browns One coffee
Nutritional information Calories: 2,400 kcal Carbohydrates: 257 g Fat: 186 g Sodium: 4,780 mg Protein: 78 g
Day 3: Date Night
So far, I had to face all-day breakfast alone. My wife, Jill, was out of town. She wasn't happy about my new diet, but she supported me. On the third day, I set out to eat McDonald's bagel sandwiches for every meal because Jill likes bagels. After she spent a long day on the road, I thought a bagel-themed date night would be equal to renewing our vows. However, tragedy struck at lunchtime. It turns out, McDonald's all-day breakfast does not include their entire breakfast menu lineup. You can only order McMuffins, pancakes and hash browns after 11 a.m. The McGriddle fiasco from the previous day wasn't due to a shortage of supplies; it was caused by McDonald's dictatorial rules over breakfast. My wife said she was fine with her McMuffin meal. But I could tell, as I gazed across our candle-lit table into the eyes I fell in love with so many years ago, I let her down. My stomach turned with sorrow.
Total consumed: One Egg LT Bagel Two Sausage McMuffins One coffee
Nutritional information Calories: 1,380 kcal Carbohydrates: 124 g Fat: 70 g Sodium: 2,510 mg Protein: 60 g
Day 4: The Breakfast Wolf Howls
The next day, the sorrow in my gut had morphed into rage and aggressive diarrhea. McDonald's wouldn't push me around with their "select" all-day breakfast menu. I needed answers and several antacid tablets. For strength, I ordered a Sausage & Hash Brown More-Ning McWrap for my first meal. Stuffed with two sausage patties, hash brown loaves and too many eggs, this thing weighs as much as a toddler. Not a nice toddler, either. One of those shitty ones. For lunch and supper I made my own McWrap using the contents of Sausage McMuffins combined with hash browns inside a pancake roll. Ever cunning, I became the wolf.
Feeling bold, I emailed McDonald's headquarters to ask why they would limit their breakfast selection. They have yet to send me an official response. During lunch, I asked an insider at one restaurant about their lacking all-day breakfast options. The clerk said, "It's because of the way the food comes. We can't." A manager yelled from the back ordering the clearly shaken clerk to stop chatting and get back to work. What are you hiding McDonald's? All-day breakfast? More like all-day lies. I stood outside of the McDonald's holding up a sign that said "all-day lies" to raise awareness. I almost shit myself in traffic on the way home. Probably from stress.
Total consumed: One Sausage & Hash Brown More-Ning McWrap Two Sausage McMuffins Three pancakes Two hash browns One coffee
Nutritional information Calories: 2,920 kcal Carbohydrates: 287 g Fat: 153 g Sodium: 5,310 mg Protein: 168 g
Day 5: Cheat Day
These breakfast politics were getting intense; I needed a break. On cheat day, I got to pick any one non-McDonald's meal I wanted. During the noon hour, I went to Mr Breakfast, an independent all-day breakfast restaurant in Regina. Family run by Stan and George Perentes, it has been around since 1989. I ordered a Denver sandwich with hash browns, and they were ecstasy. After my meal, I asked co-owner Stan Perentes what he thought of McDonald's all-day breakfast coming to Canada. Perentes said, "They are a bit behind the game of giving people breakfast all day, every day. They should stick with what they're good at. When it comes to breakfast, it's a different ballgame." Mr Breakfast has spoken.
Total consumed:
One Mr Breakfast Denver sandwich and hash browns Four Egg McMuffins One coffee
Nutritional information Calories: 1,790 kcal Carbohydrates: 178 g Fat: 79 g Sodium: 4,360 mg Protein: 83 g
Day 6: Ruined Brunch
I woke up to the scent of bacon. My wife thought it would be funny to make a homemade brunch with traditional Belgian liège waffles topped with a fried egg and fresh fruit on the side. I, of course, couldn't eat any of it. Jill's mischievous eyes glittered like caramelized pearl sugar. As I sulked off to McDonald's for my daily dose of watery eggs, I was reminded of my bachelor years. Sitting in the drive thru, I realized my car, littered with spent McDonald's wrappers, had begun to smell like oily sadness.
Total consumed: Five Egg McMuffins One hash brown One coffee
Nutritional information Calories: 1,610 kcal Carbohydrates: 161 g Fat: 65 g Sodium: 4,160 mg Protein: 81 g
Day 7: The Brunch Mac
On the final day, I thought my transition off breakfast food might be too much of a shock. Using my newfound McDonald's food hacking skills, I invented the Brunch Mac. Basically, you deconstruct a Big Mac and swap the bread sections with pancakes. The result is a delicious way to replace emotions with cholesterol. To finish this breakfast marathon, I tested my physical abilities again. I improved my bike time by 1:34, completed 10 more pushups, three more sit ups and unleashed approximately 8,000 farts. For my final weight, I lost three pounds. This new diet not only gave me a new body, it taught me the value of determination. While McDonald's limited breakfast menu left my appetite wanting at times, I learned how to nourish my spirit. Sometimes you just have to crack a few eggs.
Total consumed: Two Brunch Macs One Egg McMuffin One coffee
Nutritional information Calories: 1,850 kcal Carbohydrates: 241 g Fat: 55 g Sodium: 2,580 mg Protein: 64 g
Does It Suck? takes a deeper look at pop cultural artifacts previously adored, unjustly hated, or altogether forgotten, reopening the book on topics that time left behind.
Remember the days when cinema would cast its spell in silence? When the fusion of fantasy and aspiration would sustain our imagination, and allow us to surrender completely to the wordless magic on screen? No? Me neither.
The Artist feels like both Hollywood schlock and a weird sort of video art. It's so saccharine that its sincerity dates it more than the fact that it's a silent film. The Artist tells the story of Hollywood between 1927 and 1932, arguably one of the industry's biggest transitionary periods as it moved out of the silent era and into "talkies." It pushed the culture forward, and pushed an entire generation of performers to the sidelines.
In The Artist, a silent film actor falls for an up-and-coming young actress whose ascension coincides with his growing antiquity. The plot cements The Artist as a postmodern Hollywood collage, but it also places it in direct conversation with classics like Singin' in the Rain, which also used the evolution of sound in cinema to tell a story about both people and Hollywood itself. That's just one of its many references; others include Sunset Boulevard and Citizen Kane. It even sampled the score to Vertigo, an act Kim Novak compared to rape, proving The Artist's theory that all actors are inherently extra.
The word most used to describe The Artist was "charming," and it's hard to disagree. The Artist is certainly charming in a "Rodgers and Hammerstein meets the Westminster Dog Show" way. At its best, the movie achieves an overall feeling of ease—one that Hollywood often struggles to make seem natural. There are moments of genuine sublimity, such as when Jean Dujardin's George Valentin is giving a performance that attempts to be Astaire adjacent. His footwork recalls an older generation of performers, but his look—that jaw, the smile, the grease mallet hair—sits him squarely in the midcentury of American exceptionalism. He looks like Cary Grant drawn by Disney.
The film's sporadic use of sound is particularly inspired, most notably in a dream where Valentin interacts with his surroundings, taking in the sounds of a phone ringing and faucet dripping as if for the first time (in the film's diegesis, it's the first sound we've heard aside from the score). It feels like a Twilight Zone episode by way of a musical number, and it gives the film a sudden sense of radical purpose.
When it was released in 2011, Michel Hazanavicius's film was something of an outlier. The phrase "French silent film" sounded like it would have about as much broad appeal as "Italian Western." All of those things ended up working out just fine, thus insuring that The Artist be able to charm its way to the front of the awards season pack thanks largely to buzz built out of Cannes, where it was screened in competition in 2011.
And charm it did. The Artist is an inarguably inoffensive movie meant to make us feel more than think. Would Carl Sagan watch The Artist and then go into his room to "reconsider some things"? Probably not; this is not exactly life-affirming and earth-shaking art. It's an example of the sort of movie that film fans call "love letters." Anything can be a love letter to anything: a love letter to New York, to Paris, to old Hollywood. It's a lovely image, but while watching The Artist in 2017, I wonder who this letter was addressed to.
When The Artist won the Best Picture Oscar at the 84th Academy Awards, it was seen as a polite and predictable win. At the time, the other big Oscar contender was The Help,a feel-good movie about black maids in the South that was designed just as much for TNT reruns as it was award season. At the time, the face off between the two films wasn't really much of one at all. The Artist was an actively uncomplicated film, which used to be enough. Now, it's akin to firing a shot.
Its closest proxy is this year's divisive La La Land which, much like The Artist, borrows flourishes and textures from a different era, albeit with a decidedly more commercial and contemporary lean. In La La Land, musicals of yesteryear serve as a well of inspiration to dip into; in The Artist, Hazanavicius throws us into the deep end of the pool, placing us in the era itself. And in retrospect the image of The Artist and The Help in competition is tense: a film celebrating Hollywood's golden era up against a film in which three black women play maids—the only kind of role available to black actresses in that same "golden era."
The Oscars, as with most cultural events, are now imbued with an overwhelming pressure regarding optics. When it comes to the Oscars, good storytelling makes for good entertainment and can nab you a few golden statues in the process. But what is the story that the Oscars are trying to tell about Hollywood, about culture, about us? This year, the Academy found itself in a tug-of-war as The Artist vs. The Help, with rightfully adored fan-favorite Moonlight up against the vocal mob-like suspicion of La La Land. Just what, everybody seems to be asking, is this movie trying to get past us?
The Artist is a safe film, but "safe" in a way it no longer should be. It feels culturally agnostic in a moment in which everything is loaded. The Super Bowl becomes a microcosm of a divided nation; the Grammys were another example of racial conflict. Meanwhile, revisiting The Artist and reassessing it feels less about quality and more about context. It feels like an artifact both of the silent era and the era just before this one—before the hyper-politicized moment we find ourselves in, in which a film's success speaks to another film's failure. The Artist reads about as enjoyable as it did the first time I saw it, but it no longer pays to be silent.
Hooliganism, like racism or electro-swing, is something you'd imagine humanity might have evolved beyond by now. But here we are.
Although organised violence between supporters might have peaked in Britain near the end of the 1980s, it's still pretty common to see burly blokes bashing each other's heads in purely because they each support different teams. Take, for example, the battle in Marseille between the two titans of hooliganism – Russia and Britain – during the 2016 Euros. Or what happened just last weekend when Wolves played Birmingham.
In Greece, organised violence among football supporters started appearing during the 80s, and had its "golden age" in the 1990s. One of the people involved in the riots every weekend was Niko, a hardcore PAOK Thessaloniki fan. I've known him for years and I've never really understood that side of him. I've also never asked him about it – so I decided to sit down with him to find out what it's like to cause mayhem and destruction because you think your football team is good and other teams are shit.
VICE: Do you remember the first time you got into trouble for being a PAOK supporter? Niko: It was in high school, with a "Martian" – that's what we call fans of Aris Thessaloniki FC. We got into a fight about the basketball teams of both clubs, because back then Aris was the only rival basketball team of PAOK. I don't remember exactly how we got to the point that we were fighting each other. I only know he later became an Anchovy – a fan of Olympiakos.
Do you ever contemplate the pointlessness of throwing punches and doing so much damage just because your team is playing a rival team? Well, yes. Sometimes I do, especially when I'm outside the context of the match, like in a shop or a bar. I've been attacked while just having a drink with my friends. That's just stupid. It wasn't too bad in the end, because I was able to explain to the guy who attacked me that the bar wasn't the right place for fights – save it for a match. Generally, taking part in this kind of violence is a form of release for me, but only if it happens when and where it should.
Why did you get involved in this scene? When I was younger my father took me to our local team playing PAOK. We were in the stands. Until that moment, I had no idea fandom like that existed. They won me over with their energy, their slogans – just the whole vibe gave me the goosebumps.
What's the worst thing you've ever done to a fan of a rival team? The worst thing I can remember happened on another night when I went for a drink with a friend. Out of nowhere two rival supporter groups popped up and began chanting. They lit flares and I didn't know what was going on until some guy punched me and I hit the ground. When I got up I saw that my friend was down and four people were beating and kicking him. I didn't think, I just grabbed an empty beer bottle and ran towards them.
But just before I got to them, the guy who punched me appeared in front of me and I immediately brought the bottle down on his head. I hit him twice, hard, since the bottle didn't break the first time. He was drenched in blood and I froze for a second. After that, my friend and I ran away because the bar owner had called the cops. The strange thing is that the next day that same guy found my number and rang me to apologise for everything. So that's how the matter ended. It was all good times.
Have you ever been severely beaten up? I have been beaten up and I have beaten other people up – never with weapons, though; always just with my fists. Although, thinking about it now, the body can be a terrible weapon. Someone head-butted me once, which left me with a broken nose.
Can you hang out or have any kind of relationship with someone who supports another team, or does that always end in blood and tears? Oh, it's definitely possible. When I meet people who like the same music as I do, for example, it doesn't really matter to me what team they support. You'll tease each other a bit when their or your team loses, but that's about as far as it goes. I'm married to an Olympiakos fan, but she doesn't get involved. She'll just say her team is and will always be the best. If she sees that I've taken the bait, she'll stop there.
So say you're in this big fight between supporters of your team and another, and you suddenly see a friend who supports that other team – what would you do? Well, fortunately, that hasn't happened yet. I certainly have friends who support other teams, and I guess that what would happen depends on what they would do. It would be complicated, for sure.
What, in your recollection, is the most extreme damage you've ever done? I think that must have been one time when a group of us went looking for a guy who had messed with a kid from our group. He was supposed to be at a bar, but when we got there it turned out he wasn't. Since we were already there, we trashed the bar anyway.
Which of your sworn enemies do you hate the most? The worst – in my opinion – are the Martians [fans of Aris Thessaloniki FC]. They can't be trusted – they're all talk and propaganda. After them, the Anchovies [Olympiakos supporters], definitely.
What was your craziest day as a football supporter like? One day, after we'd seen the PAOK football team play a match, we went from Thessaloniki to Trikala to watch the PAOK basketball team play – knowing full well that they wouldn't let us in. When we arrived and I saw some friends collecting rubbish bins to set on fire, I knew it was going to be a long day. We kept going at it with the cops; I think it lasted for about two hours. We completely wrecked the city centre. I remember just standing there, in the middle of all these people, bars and cafés, just throwing flower pots at everything and everyone.
Everything you need to know about the world this morning, curated by VICE.
US News
Trump Accuses Obama of Being 'Behind' Protests President Trump believes Barack Obama and "his people" may be organizing the outbreak of angry town hall protests across the country. In a pre-taped interview for FOX News, Trump said, "I think President Obama is behind it because his people certainly are behind it." Trump also suggested Obama's allies are behind White House leaks to the press, adding, "Some of the leaks possibly come from that group."—CNN
Wilbur Ross Confirmed as Commerce Secretary Billionaire Wilbur Ross has been confirmed as the Trump administration's commerce secretary following a vote of 72–27 in the Senate. Although Ross faced no serious opposition from Democrats, Senator Elizabeth Warren pointed out his "extensive ties to Russia" and described him as "practically a cartoon stereotype of a Wall Street fat cat."—AP
Feds Drop Opposition to Texas Voter ID Law The Department of Justice has dropped its objection to a pivotal part of a controversial voter ID law passed by Texas in 2011. Under Barack Obama, the DOJ had argued that the law—which among forms of ID often possessed by Republicans allows gun permits but not college IDs at polling places—was intended to discriminate against minority voters.—The New York Times
No Significant Intelligence Gathered in Yemen Raid, Officials Say President Trump's Navy SEAL raid in Yemen did not lead to any "significant" new intelligence despite 25 civilian deaths along with that of a SEAL, according to multiple US officials. Although the White House press secretary claimed "an unbelievable amount of intelligence" was gathered, most officials say they have seen no evidence of it, other than an old bomb-making video.—NBC News
International News
Women Will Be Charged with Killing of Kim Jong-nam Two women will be formally charged with the murder of the North Korean leader's half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, this Wednesday: Doan Thi Huong, 28, from Vietnam, and Siti Aisyah, from Indonesia, face a mandatory death penalty if convicted, according to Malaysia's attorney general.—Al Jazeera
At Least 12 Officers Killed at Afghan Police Station Up to a dozen policemen in Afghanistan's Helmand Province are dead after militants assaulted their headquarters. According to a police source, an infiltrator is believed to have allowed Taliban militants inside the police station in Lashkar Gah Sunday night, before fleeing with the militants after the killing of the officers.—BBC News
Australian Man Charged with Aiding ISIS Missile Efforts An Australian citizen has been arrested and charged with terrorism offenses, suspected of giving ISIS advice on developing "high-tech weapons capability," according to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Police will allege that Haisem Zahab, 42, was offering "fairly sophisticated" guidance, federal police commissioner Andrew Colvin said.—The Guardian
Samsung Chief Charged with Bribery and Embezzlement Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee and four other top Samsung executives will be charged with bribery, embezzlement, and, in a few cases, hiding assets overseas by South Korea's special prosecutor. The charges were announced on the last day of the probe that has rocked the national political scene.—Reuters
Everything Else
Tourists Sign Up for SpaceX Moon Mission SpaceX has announced that two paying customers will take a trip around the Moon in late 2018. Founder Elon Musk did not reveal the identity of the pair who paid a "significant deposit" but did reveal "it's nobody from Hollywood."—USA Today
Jackie Evancho's Sister Wins Bathroom Case Jackie Evancho's sister Juliet and two other transgender students in Pennsylvania have won the right to use school bathrooms matching their gender identity after a federal judge ruled in their favor. Jackie Evancho sang at President Trump's inauguration, and her sibling's lawsuit will continue making its way through the courts.—Billboard
Lorde Teases Fans with New Video Clip Lorde has dangled what seems to be a clip of her new single, out in two weeks, in a TV ad shown in New Zealand. The artist is seen in the back seat of car hurtling down a tunnel in the clip, which also features a snippet of new music.—Noisey
Internet of Things Teddy Bear Exposed 2 Million Recordings Spiral Toys, makers of the "smart" teddy bears that allow parents and kids to exchange messages, apparently left 2 million recordings exposed online. Naturally, hackers appear to have attempted to hold the data for ransom, according to security researchers.—Motherboard
Spain Appoints Sex Commissioner Spain has appointed a "sex tsar" to come up with a strategy to get more people making babies, in order to combat the country's low birth rate. Edelmira Barreira's official title is "commissioner for the demographic challenge."—VICE
