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People get intense about a lot of things on the internet. It's natural. We all have access to so much content, and we simultaneously have a platform that allows us to express ourselves to some kind of audience.

People with no chill online can actually be quite beautiful. The world can instantly lose its shit over a surprise Beyoncé album. We can all come together and cheer on Nazis getting punched out or root for the success of llamas on the lam. Brother can be pitted against brother in a glorious battle over whether the dress is blue or gold.

Then there are times when people get angry. Some things warrant anger. A lot of things warrant anger. The internet is an ugly place full of ugly things and angry trolls. Donald Trump is president. Women get harassed off of Twitter. Creepy politicians are really invested in where trans people pee. Rachel Dolezal still makes headlines. (Though, this last article is a must read.)

But sometimes people get upset over little things too. Or over literally nothing. This week, Starbucks announced a new drink: the Unicorn Frappuccino Blended Crème. Only available from April 19 to 23, the elusive unicorn frap changes colours and goes from sweet to sour as you drink it. At least that's what Starbucks claims. I tried one. It's not quite that weird, to be honest. It tastes like a tropical fruit milkshake for the most part. The pièce de résistance is the fairy powder sprinkled over the whipped cream. They basically pour Pixy Stix over your drink, which accounts for the sourness. I loved it! It's a mess, but a beautiful mess for anyone who loves excess sugar and novelty food.

(And yes, I realize that unicorns are having a bit of a moment right now, but that's another article.)

Going in for a cautious first sip. Photo by Max Ferguson.

The drink has been polarizing, to put it mildly. People on Twitter are losing it over how exciting this thing is:

A fair few blogs and websites are following suite, like Bustle's Lilly Feinn, who called the unicorn frap "the hottest drink of the season" and claimed that it has the ability to "bring back your childlike sense of wonder."

But then plenty of people expressed their discontent too:

This is fair. My sweet tooth aside, I get that the unicorn frap is objectively pretty gross. Things got weird when news and entertainment outlets got in on the hate though.

Buzzfeed and The National Post went the public service route, reminding us that, like every other frappuccino, the unicorn frap is bad for you. Thanks guys, good thing you stepped in with the cold, hard facts.

Celebrity chefs got in on the hate-fest too. If anyone thought their technicolour beverage was haute cuisine, boy did they get an ear full.

But the real winner in the unicorn frap content showdown has to go to The A.V. Club's Kevin Pang.

Channelling that Werner Herzog nihilism spirit, Pang makes it sound like the unicorn frap threatens our humanity, epitomizing the fundamental emptiness of capitalism that strips us of our individuality by making us succumb to a social media popularity contest.

(That said, this line: 'It matters only that you documented your having experienced this drink, thereby proving you're an active participant in the cultural conversation' is a very good burn that renders all future unicorn frappuccino content impotent upon arrival. But I carry on, for the likes.)

So I ask. Can we not just chill, much like the Unicorn Frappuccino Blended Crème itself? It's a multi-coloured sugary drink from Starbucks. It's a stunt to get people to have a public opinion, #unicornfrappuccino. People, and by people, I mean Millennials, know what they're buying, and they don't care what you think. We go through this with pumpkin spice every year.

It's just capitalism-cum-food porn. Like the cronut, it will have its day in the limelight, disappear, and we'll be left with a vague memory of indigestion. This opinion piece, however, is a diamond that will outlast the sun.

Follow Federick Blichert on Twitter.

"Why these eight? Why now?"

That was the question US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer asked Arkansas just hours before the state put inmate Ledell Lee to death on Thursday, the state's first execution since 2005.

Arkansas, which announced an unprecedented plan to execute 8 inmates in 11 days, battled a flurry of legal challenges that delayed its execution schedule until Thursday night, when Lee became the first inmate to die.Three other inmates were given stays, and a fourth was recommended for clemency. A drug manufacturer also sued to stop its product from being used in the executions; it won a temporary restraining order twice, only to have that order removed, twice. A separate federal court ruled to stop all the executions, only to see a higher court overturn that order, allowing the executions to proceed. Petitions were sent to the U.S. Supreme Court. Ultimately, a divided Supreme Court declined to halt the executions, but Breyer still wanted to know why this all had to happen in the first place.

Continue reading on VICE News.

On Tuesday, Ryan Zinke, the secretary of the interior, visited a lovely group of juniour park rangers at Channel Island National Park. According to Zinke, the kids wanted him to send Trump a video of them saying hello. But the boy sitting closest to the camera seemed to have a different message for the president.

Around the two-second mark, the young hero with the swoopy hair and the gray hoodie mouths something that looks conspicuously like "fuck you" to the camera and, by extension, the president.

Looks like the latest act of resistance from the National Park Service is coming from its next generation. God bless.

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The Little Hours
Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza and Kate Micucci star as the raunchy, sinning nuns in this Jeff Baena comedy based on The Decameron. They swear, they fuck, they're ruthless to the locals and when a labourer seeking refuge (played by Dave Franco) holes up at the convent, they add a new layer of horniness and substance abuse to the mix. The Little Hours had its debut at Sundance to critical praise and has already been derided as "pure trash" by the Catholic League. Nick Offerman, Molly Shannon, Fred Armisen and John C. Reilly round out the cast.

Wakefield
Honestly, who hasn't dreamed of disappearing from the inanity of day-to-day life? The 9 to 5, the endless commute, the drudgery of modern life, propelling you ever further into your own grim mortality. Managing the Sisyphean task of capitalist survival even as each monetizable hour heralds your physical body's ultimate and humiliating demise. Or I don't know, maybe you're chill with it all, that's fine too. In Wakefield, Bryan Cranston takes the suburban worker's fantasy to its limit by abandoning his job, his wife and his children to live outside of himself as a drifter. Each day he thinks of returning and doesn't pulls him further from his old reality and deeper into something perhaps more unhinged but potentially more free. I feel you Bryan. Jennifer Garner plays his grieving wife and Robin Swicord directs.

The Keepers
Riding the success of Making a Murderer, Netflix is hoping for similar raves for its new true crime series, The Keepers. Based on the disappearance 50 years ago of Sister Cathy Cesnik, the show looks into a cold case that has both mesmerized and terrorized those who knew Cathy best. It's a story about murder, abuse and a possible cover-up involving the Catholic church, local politicians and the police tasked with finding justice for Cathy.

Tramps
It was supposed to be an easy task, meet a driver, get a package, drop the package off to a waiting woman on the subway, make $1500. But when Danny (played by Green Room's Callum Turner) fucks up the drop, he ends up on two-day haul through New York City to make things right. Director Adam Leon's fast-paced sophomore feature film is a classic summer heist film with young lovers in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mike Birbiglia and Grace Van Patten co-star which premieres on Netflix today.

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Now that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced that marijuana will be legal for adult use in Canada by July of 2018, it's up to agencies like Health Canada to make sure cannabis users will get high-quality, untainted products. But recent weed recalls over banned pesticides have put licensed producers in the spotlight, and raised questions about how federal agencies will ensure weed is safe when it becomes much more widely available.

Health Canada regulations currently mandate that licensed producers have cannabis tested for its potency, cannabinoid profile (mainly, how much THC and CBD is in a given plant product), the presence of heavy metals, and microbes like bacteria or mold. They also plan to "standardize" the amount of THC that is sold in a single portion of cannabis and make sure THC amounts are on product labels. Beyond that, they're working on it.

"The regulations for the non-medical system are being developed, and in developing the rules that will apply to testing, Health Canada will take into consideration the requirements that are in place today," said a spokesperson.

Continue reading on Motherboard.

An internet friend and I share a deep interest in a specific type of internet culture. Our correspondence is exclusively sending one another really bad illustrations of childhood cartoon characters in street wear and people in off-brand character suits dancing (this was all sparked by our mutual love of this Bugs Bunny meme). While searching for more memes, my friend sent me this screenshot.

I responded, "He's black, duh."

After thinking about it a bit more, I realized that, for many, this wasn't an inherent fact. Bugs Bunny is a rabbit, and while he is anthropomorphic, the suspension of disbelief only stretches so far for some people. It might not be a widely held understanding for white people, so immediately after talking to my friend about Bugs Bunny being black, I turned to my (admittedly, mostly white) colleagues and asked around.

"Do you think Bugs Bunny is black?" I asked, only for many to not really understand the question. "Is this a trick?" one suspicious white man asked. "No." I responded, "It's a very simple yes or no question."

After many conversations that involved white people trying very hard to not to say the wrong thing, someone finally asked how I knew—a question I couldn't really answer. I just knew. Once I explained my vague reasoning (he just is), some understood but I left most of these interactions realizing it wasn't so simple.

There's no doubt in my mind Bugs Bunny is a black man. To me, it's as obvious as anything I've always known. The sky? Blue. Grass? Green. Bugs Bunny? Very black. It doesn't end with Bugs Bunny, either. While Bugs is arguably one of the most widely recognizable cartoon characters of all time, I've known in my heart that many other anthropomorphic characters are black. The best way to describe it would be like a type of synesthesia but for race and cartoons. Soon, I began obsessively updating a memo on my phone of all the characters I felt were black. I now have a list of over 20 characters from my childhood that I'm still updating. Bob from Reboot, Brain from Arthur, the Pink Panther, Elmo—all black.

Bugs Bunny
Tasmanian Devil
Tweety Bird
Goofy
Max
Spongebob (he's white passing)
Bob (from Reboot)
Elmo
Cookie Monster (West Indies)
Zaboomafoo
Arthur (half)
Brain (From Arthur)
Muffy (half)
Lola Bunny
Babar
Luigi (From Mario)
Jerry (Tom and Jerry)
Some Ninja Turtles (Michelangelo, maybe Raphael)
Scrappy Doo
Woody the Woodpecker
The Pink Panther
Optimus Prime

In case you're not convinced and think I'm crazy, I'm not even close to the only one who thinks this way. In fact, I don't know a single black person in my life who hasn't attributed race to non-human characters. The only time a black person I talked to about this didn't understand what I was saying were times when we would disagree on which characters are black (Foghorn Leghorn is a point of a major point of contention).

Earlier this year, Noisey published a piece stating A Goofy Movie was a black millennial classic. The piece argues that from an aesthetic point citing various indicators of the movie's blackness. "From the white female protagonist being a light skinned black girl named Roxanne, to the white boy named Bobby (voiced by Pauly Shore) getting in just as much trouble as Max, but somehow feeling way less worried about his parents finding out." It all makes so much sense.

It's also a much discussed topic online. On Twitter, Alyson, known as fillegrossiere, has tweeted extensively about the topic. After tweeting that Bugs Bunny was black, Alyson tells me, "Several men [tagged] me to let me know Bugs Bunny was a rabbit." Asking how she knew who was black (her characters, like many, include Skeeter from Doug, Goofy and Max) she said, "I'm not sure. It just seems obvious to me who's black."

Annoyed with white people around me not getting it, I put out a feeler on Twitter to speak to more black people about their reasoning and thoughts. While it's well established these feelings are so common and widely held, I needed to know why. Thinking about my own reasoning, I'm certain the general lack of racial diversity in children's entertainment plays a huge role.

Within minutes, my inbox was flooded with others wanting to talk about black cartoons — by the end of the day I received over 40 direct messages and emails from black people around the world. Some with subject lines, "Arthur was 100% black" and "Babar was black."

Brooklyn-based comedian Jaboukie Young-White emailed me with the highly intriguing subject line "Sandy Cheeks (SpongeBob) Piccolo (Dragonball Z) are Black." For Jaboukie, Piccolo's backstory was very black. "His homeland, Namek, was ravaged by colonizers, he always felt slightly out of place around his non-Namekian friends, single parent origin story. And he was always performing emotional labour for little reward." Many emails shared the same reasoning—characters they felt were black shared some similarities to traditionally black characteristics.

Piccolo via. YouTube

Speaking to Lisa Nakamura, a professor at the University of Michigan and author whose work focuses on race and how it's portrayed online, believes there are plenty of reasons why white people aren't familiar with the concept of racializing cartoons.

"White people don't want to see race anywhere," Nakamura told me. "They're discouraged externally and internally from noticing it because they're afraid they're going to get in trouble or they're straight up racist." Not only that, but Nakamura explained white people (as any person of colour can attest to) generally avoid conversations about race. "The risk of being shunned or seen as racist far outweighs the benefit of having [these] conversations," she added.

But also, why would they need to understand the need to identify with non-human characters by attributing them to a race? When it comes to entertainment, white people never have to imagine themselves as being the stars of movies or shows because they always already are.

In a Tumblr post, New York City-based artist Jayson Musson argues that Panthro from ThunderCats is an unsung African American hero. As a child in the 80s, Musson explains to me that alongside Panthro, Papa Smurf and ET (the alien) are also black. "I don't care what anyone says." For Papa Smurf, "He was just way more chill than the other smurfs, he's like their dad," he tells me. "I'm sure it has a lot to do with overtly black characters not being considered remotely marketable. In my childhood, it just wasn't on the table."

Another method of characterization most people I spoke to mentioned was that none of this was forced upon them—these characters weren't overtly coded as black. "It has to be embraced and not performed or shoved into the minds of kids," Musson tells me. "For me, it was something I had to understand myself."

Nakamura also believes a big part of finding these non-human characters black has to do with, "finding yourself in places where you're not supposed to be." It's almost an act of resistance. We didn't see ourselves reflected in what we loved to watch as a child, so we created our own narratives despite being showed our representation didn't matter. 

Optimus Prime - Image via. YouTube

For the last week, I've been thinking about Bugs Bunny and other characters being black almost non-stop. And while on the surface it's an extremely funny and silly thing to think about— there's also a layer of sadness that goes beyond silliness. Like Nakamura mentioned, it comes down to literally not seeing ourselves reflected in what we loved.

I have nine nieces and nephews and most of them are at the age where they now have their own favourite television shows and characters they love. When I watch TV or Netflix with them, it's obvious things are slowly getting better when it comes to diversity. I see more children of colour in movies and cartoons, though not as much as there should be. Still, as I become more aware of how affecting a lack of representation has been in my own childhood I make an effort to pick shows and movies that have overtly black or non-white characters. I want them to be able to see themselves on a screen.

Babysitting my niece one day recently, I wanted to put on a movie and scrolling through Netflix for kids was unbearable — there were about a dozen movies aimed at little girls starring blonde, white princesses. We put on Home, an animated film from Dreamworks about a girl named Gratuity "Tip" Tucci, who goes on the run after aliens invade Earth. Upon noticing the movie starred a young black girl, my niece was overjoyed.

"Wow!" she exclaimed, "She looks like me!"

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An iconic American tree is facing an extinction-level threat in the form of an iridescent green beetle called the emerald ash borer, which is devastating ash trees in forests and cities across much of the United States. The ash borer, a native to East Asia smaller than the diameter of a penny, was first spotted in North America in 2002 in Michigan, suspected of arriving via imported wood-packaging material. Since then it has firmly established its calamitous impact on the country's tree stock.

The beetle has now spread through nearly the entire Midwest, East Coast, and South, confirmed in 30 states and two Canadian provinces as of the spring of 2017. While individual trees can be treated by injecting a pesticide, so far there are no answers to stop the overall march of destruction. The borer has already killed more than 100 million ash trees, and virtually the entire national stock of 8 billion is at risk over the next decade. The consequences of the infestation range from the mundane (no more ash baseball bats!) to the existential (one step closer to ecological homogeneity!).

Adult ash borers live off the leaves of ash trees, but the real damage is done when they lay their eggs underneath the bark. When the eggs hatch, hungry larvae go to work burrowing through the tree's circulatory system where water and nutrients are transported through the trunk. "They eat their way through the cambium layer and destroy the connections," says Robert Adams, the TreeVitalize Watersheds regional manager for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. "It cuts the tree off from water and eventually kills it."

Since the borer is not native to North America, it faces few local impediments. "Woodpeckers will go after it, but by the time they realize it's there, it's already all over the tree," Adams says. "In terms of local predator insects to keep it in check, there aren't any."

In southeast Michigan, where the borer started its journey of annihilation, barely any ash trees are left alive. Regions where the pest has arrived more recently are bracing for the dieoff sure to follow, and arborists, homeowners, and municipal parks departments across the country are scrambling to address the threat. Ash trees quickly become brittle after they die, so it is both cheaper and safer to cut them down while still alive if they are too infested for treatment.

Jeffrey Iles, professor and chair of the Department of Horticulture at Iowa State University in Ames, says the borer first hit central Iowa in 2010. "We have a lot of ash out here," he says. "When you have huge populations of trees susceptible, you have a major problem on your hands.

"A lot of the cities in Iowa have decided to treat some trees, take others down, and ride the rapids with others," Iles says. "It's all about managing the tidal wave that's sure to come."

In Philadelphia, the ash borer was spotted within city limits for the first time in 2016. The city has been planning for its arrival since 2012 and is taking a preemptive approach. "I think it's smart to get ahead of it as much as we can," says Curtis Helm, a project manager at Philadelphia's Parks and Recreation department. "The insect can reproduce exponentially once it's in an area and trees start to collapse all at once."

An adult emerald ash borer. Photo via emeraldashborer.info

Helm led a team that identified ash trees located close to roads and trails, gathering points and other places where they could pose a danger to humans. They have started treating 1,500 trees ranked as high value and removed another 600 deemed unworthy of investment. The scale of the effort is illustrative of the sheer intractability of the threat. Even with plenty of warning and dedicated resources, Philadelphia expects to save fewer than 1 percent of its estimated 207,000 ash trees. "I would guess in ten years, most of our ash trees will be gone," Helm says. "It's a tremendous aesthetic and emotional loss."

"It's become already the most destructive and most costly insect ever to invade North America," says Deborah McCullough, a professor in the Department of Entomology at Michigan State University. The economic cost to treat or remove trees in cities alone is in the billions, to say nothing of the unknown ecological damage from eliminating a key part of our forests.

Fortunately, all hope for the ash isn't lost yet. Once the first wave of borers has passed, surviving trees have an opportunity to live on and repopulate. Remaining ash stands won't be dense enough to support such large numbers of borers, and predators will hopefully be more attuned to the beetles by then, controlling their population in the future.

"The long-term question is whether ash will continue to be a functional part of the ecosystem in some areas," McCullough says. "What will happen with younger trees remains to be seen."

As it marches its way across the country, the ash borer provides the most extreme example yet of the ongoing influx of foreign threats to native flora. The chestnut blight, a fungus originally from Japan, killed some 4 billion American chestnut trees in the first half of the 20th century, nearly eradicating a signature species that previously dominated hardwood forests in the eastern part of the country. Next, Dutch elm disease, a fungus also believed to have originated in Asia, took out the majority of American elm trees in the middle part of the century. The loss of the elm left a void in cities and towns, where it was popular as a street tree. Many municipalities planted monocultures of ash in its place, McCullough notes, creating a perfect environment for the ash borer to thrive.

The silver lining to the plague is the opportunity to strengthen and diversify urban forests, making them more resilient to the next invader. And the next one is almost sure to come. Even with stronger regulations and increased scrutiny of imports, says McCullough, there is so much movement of humans and goods between continents that it's only a matter of time before another major attack hits, be it an outbreak of a fungus, bacteria or insect we've already identified or an unknown peril lurking in a shipping container.

"I don't know if we'll ever be able to keep up," McCullough says. "We could end up with something as bad as the emerald ash borer again in next 20 years."

Follow Aaron Kase on Twitter.

When Motaparthi Vamshi Krishna—a married, cash-strapped travel agent living in India—realized his online mistress really wanted to go on vacation, he couldn't find it in his heart to say no. Instead, the 32-year-old crafted up a complex plan involving a forged plane ticket and a hijacking hoax in an effort to shut down his local airports and save his pride, CNN reports.

According to authorities, it all started last Saturday when Mumbai police received a troubling email from someone claiming to be a woman in Hyderabad, India. The woman explained that she had overheard a group of men discussing a plan to hijack planes leaving Hyderabad, Chennai, and Mumbai on Sunday.

"Hi sir am female here am doing this mail frim Hyderabad as i don't want to revel my details couse am a female and scared of issues [sic]," the email read. "There were 6 guys talking those guys are musclims, they were talking abt plane hijack tommarrow in Hyderabad chennai and Mumbai airport...i heard few conversations abt this, they were saying all us 23 people have to split from here and have to board flights in 3 cities and hijack them at a time."

Police then went into a frenzy and ramped up security at various airports, before looking into the IP address behind the anonymous email. Using CCTV footage, they saw that Krishna had used a computer with the IP address at a local internet cafe around the time the email was sent. When they went to go question him, he reportedly confessed that it was really he who had sent the email and concocted the hoax all because he couldn't afford to take his girlfriend on vacation.

Apparently Krishna's girlfriend, who he had met online, wouldn't stop begging him to take a trip with her. Instead of just saying "no," he used his experience as a travel agent to draft up a fake ticket. But to make sure she never found out the ticket was fake, he then decided to put the police on high alert and tip them off to a hijacking plan to ensure that the flights that day were canceled.

"He didn't have the money, but if he canceled because of that, it would have hurt his pride, and his friendship with the girl would've come to an end," Hyderabad's deputy police commissioner, B. Limba Reddy, said at a press conference. "So, his thinking was that if the flight was to be canceled and it was because of the airport, he wouldn't be at fault."

Krishna has been charged with impersonation and making a false report, and could face up to five years in prison, as well as just a $150 fine. On top of all that, if his wife didn't already know he had a girlfriend on the side, she probably does now.

Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.

Evidence about just how terrible diet soda is for your health is mounting. The latest? People who consumed at least one diet drink a day were nearly three times as likely to have a stroke or develop Alzheimer's disease compared to people who had them less than once a week, per new research in the journal Stroke. And you thought saving the calories and sugar would be worth it.

Before you spit your soda across the room, you should know how the study was conducted. Participants in the Framingham Heart Study filled out food-frequency questionnaires, which asked them to recall what they ate throughout the year. For instance, they might say they drank soda, on average, twice per day, once a month, or never. (As you can imagine, this can be an inaccurate way of gathering data. It's easy to forget what you eat. Quick: What did you have for lunch yesterday?)

Researchers had participants fill out these questionnaires three times over seven years. After ten years, they looked at how many cases of stroke and dementia occurred in two study groups: One group of 2,888 people over 45 were monitored for stroke, and a second group of 1,484 people over 60 were monitored for dementia; most of the participants were white (a notable fact given that people of colour have higher stroke risk in the first place). They found that about 3 percent of the participants had a stroke (97 people), while 5 percent were diagnosed with dementia (81 cases of dementia, 63 of which were Alzheimer's disease). Diet soda-drinkers were 2.96 times more likely to have a stroke and 2.89 times more likely to develop Alzheimer's.

Continue reading on Tonic.

Donald Collins, a transgender student at Emerson College, made national headlines in 2013 after his health insurance provider refused to pay for his top surgery. What happened after that is an unprecedented story of acceptance, brotherhood, and community fundraising in the face of bureaucracy and outdated thinking.

On April 25, Beacon Press will publish At the Broken Places: A Mother and Trans Son Pick Up the Pieces, a collaborative memoir by Collins and his mother Mary, a writer and professor of nonfiction at Central Connecticut State University. Uniquely structured, with each chapter alternating between mother and son's point of view, the book is a powerful account of family, parenting, and trans experience that has been hailed by Transparent creator Jill Soloway as "a necessary and beautiful book." Read an excerpt below.

—James Yeh, culture editor

Photo of Donald Collins by Darian Carpenter; photo of Mary Collins by Shana Sureck. Courtesy of Beacon Press

Donald Has Something He Would Like to Tell the Class

My first major coming-out happened when I stood up at my dorm's Christmas party and said, "I'm trans." It also happened when I spoke to my mother in our kitchen. And it happened again when I finally created a Facebook at 17.

Much like R. Kelly's infamous 33-chapter opera Trapped in the Closet, coming out is a process, with exhausting ups and downs, that continues to happen relentlessly.

Non-trans people sometimes express a strain of entitlement that goes something like this: "I deserve to know if anyone I meet is transgender." I'm trans. Being trans is a part of my identity. I'm also a writer, an amateur painter, and the proud owner of a used Ford Focus. The compulsion to "know" I'm trans wrongly assumes that this information is necessary for others to have, when most of the time it's not. The compulsion to "know" also propagates the idea that trans people are hiding something, that we are frauds or illusionists, that we are not real. Our gender is unfairly treated as if it were a costume that we must admit to wearing.

In her 1990 book, Gender Trouble, theorist Judith Butler famously asserted that gender identity is characterized by "a stylized repetition of 63 acts through time." This is gender performativity theory, the idea that gender is a kind of behavioural consistency both in and of a system.

Butler herself was quick to point out that this doesn't mean we all have the empowering ability to constantly change our gender depending on what clothes we put on in the morning. As Sarah Salih explains in her essay on Butler, our "choices" surrounding our gender exist within a "regulatory frame." Rather than artists with infinite supplies, daily creating new and exciting works of gender, we're kind of stuck with paint-by-numbers.

Being trans is a part of my identity. I'm also a writer, an amateur painter, and the proud owner of a used Ford Focus. The compulsion to "know" I'm trans wrongly assumes that this information is necessary for others to have, when most of the time it's not.

Many scholars and thinkers have expanded on Butler's theory or challenged other, more rudimentary "performance"-based theories. Julia Serano recalls her own experiences as a trans woman in doing so, asserting, "Many of us who have physically transitioned from one sex to the other understand that our perceived gender is typically not a product of our 'performance' (i.e., gender expression/gender roles) but rather our physical appearance (in particular, our secondary sex characteristics)."

If you do not fit easily into a visual gender category, you are complicating someone's constant categorization of all nearby bodies. You are challenging the entire system of gender on which the viewer's identity is built. Oftentimes, onlookers may seek to fix this processing glitch by avoiding ("Don't stare, honey"), clarifying ("Are you a boy or a girl?"), or accosting ("What are you doing in this bathroom?"). They might just burn you with their laser eyes.

It's important to establish the weight of both sides when it comes to the compulsion to "know" and the decision to share. On one side, we have curiosity. On the other, we have a potential minefield. Many, if not most, trans people do not get to opt out of the minefield.

Coming out scratches a variety of itches. It can be a personal deliverance or a medical or clerical necessity. The following are situations when I came out for one reason or another:

Coming out to a café cashier at a bus station to explain why the name on my credit card doesn't match my appearance.

Coming out to the bus driver a few minutes later to explain the same thing about my license.

Coming out to my tattooist, because I really liked her and it seemed chill.

Coming out to a new doctor in Hartford, Connecticut, and again when I move to Los Angeles.

Coming out at a party to the friend of a friend, whose own sibling is gender variant and who had some questions for me.

Coming out at two Departments of Motor Vehicles in one day trying to (unsuccessfully) get one of them to change my gender marker from "F" to "M."

Coming out in an essay to write about coming out.

There are many days when I don't come out to anyone. I just live my life, and some of the people in it know I'm trans and others don't. A lot of the time, sharing the fact that I'm trans is something I do to establish that I trust someone and want to know them better. Being "stealth" means I have to censor my stories, my history, and my stresses. I can most fully be myself by including "trans."

I'll admit that I often hate the moment when I tell people. I feel them look at me differently. I feel them explaining my behaviour with this new information, or at least I think I feel it. I imagine them scrutinizing my body, my voice, even my hobbies. Oh, that's why Donald bakes so much—he was raised as a girl! I've had people tell me I have "women's hands" and that I stretch better after a workout because "women are more flexible."

Gender is a system maintained by a ruthless neighbourhood watch (us). We constantly judge and disparage other people's bodies, both in and out of gender contexts. Are they too fat? Are they too thin? Are they short? Do they have acne? Is it severe? Are they bald? Are their boobs too big or small? I do it all the time in my own head, with the goal of not letting these runaway thoughts get legitimized by speaking them or acting on them. It's hard not to be obsessed with other people's bodies when you spend so much time obsessed with your own. And maybe that's why I sometimes hate that moment after I come out because it makes me feel so self-conscious about my own body and about the way I look at other people's.

My coming out: Part two (the reckoning) happened my junior year of college. I pledged a fraternity called Phi Alpha Tau, came out as trans on cable news, and ultimately found myself in possession of $23,000. I'll start at the beginning.

By the fall of my junior year, I had been on testosterone for almost three years, my name was legally changed, and I lived in my own room on campus as an RA. My mother and I were on decent terms but shaky ground. She knew I was pursuing top surgery to flatten my chest, another physical alteration she couldn't get behind. I proceeded in the planning stage without her. We were both completely emotionally exhausted. I tried to just keep my own shit together and keep it far from her door.

I like to think of my experience joining Phi Alpha Tau as some kind of daytime movie special. It's a feel-good story; it's a cautionary tale; it's a melodrama and a buddy comedy.

Tau (pronounced "Tah") is a single-chapter fraternity dedicated to the "communicative arts," which includes film, TV, journalism, theater, music, marketing, and writing. Emerson College, thankfully, has no frat houses, so Tau's sense of community operates on the organization and commitment of its brothers alone. When I joined, our membership was around 30.

I had never considered joining a fraternity before entering college, and I still can't fully comprehend I'm in a fraternity. Most people I meet can't either. They ask, "What kind of fraternity?"

My roommate pledged Tau his sophomore year. I became enamored with his new "brothers," realizing that many students I admired on campus were also members. A friend and I went out for Tau the following winter. We submitted letters and resumes, were interviewed casually by individual brothers, and then attended a "smoker," a more formal interview process with the majority of the active brotherhood.

Fraternities are fundamentally exclusive organizations. They accept the people they want and turn away those they don't. At any college, especially a smallish one like Emerson, this rejection, however politely worded, hurts. Everyone knows if someone didn't get a "bid," the term that describes whether a fraternity wants you or not.

Fraternity life first appealed to me because it was separate from my "trans" life. It was also a place where an only child and a trans guy could be called "brother."

Tau is inclusive of a variety of personalities: hard partiers, quiet scholars, dedicated entrepreneurs, and brilliant performers. It's also known for being gay friendly, and when I sought entry, already had one trans member. But like any fraternity, Tau turns people away. To this day, my personal experience of unconditional support from the fraternity clashes with its status as an ultimately exclusive, conditional organization.

My motives for joining Tau were actually a jumble of contradictions. Fraternity life first appealed to me because it was separate from my "trans" life. It was a place where I could socialize like the extroverted college kid I wished I was and meet people from all different majors. Yet it was also a place where an only child and a trans guy could be called "brother." I needed validation as a boy, and it felt great when that validation came from other boys. I craved the feverish declarations of this family. That we all loved each other, that our homes were always open to each other, that we were available at all hours for brothers who needed us.

My mom and I still kept up a tentative correspondence. When I informed her I was pledging, she was surprised but supportive once I told her more about the fraternity. She always encouraged me to expand my social comfort zone and knew I would benefit from the kind of brotherly support Tau could offer.

My friend and I gratefully received and accepted bids. Our pledge class of ten convened a night later to begin the "new member process," a two-week, highly secretive ordeal. Fraternity members joke that pledging is "the most fun you don't want to have again." I will clarify that though I was not always having fun during this period, I was never hazed.

While pledging, we wore khakis, a collared shirt with tie, a blue blazer, and a fresh white carnation during "business hours" and evening meetings. For me, the most taxing part of it was the sheer amount of clothing layers I had to wear. I was still planning my top surgery and wearing binders to flatten my chest.

About a week into the process I received some bad news on this exact issue. My insurance claim for the surgery, a veritable thesis of paperwork, including proof of my name change, hormone therapy, and official letters of support from a counselor and endocrinologist, was denied.

Many doctors' offices that offer gender-confirming surgical procedures don't even entertain insurance claims because, historically, it's pretty futile. Only recently are tides turning. Since being "trans" is something that still has to be "diagnosed" to be legitimate in the eyes of insurers, it's frustrating when medical-care systems won't actually provide care for the diagnosis they force on you. It's beyond frustrating; it's a kind of demolition.

My doctor's office did work with insurance, and when it called to tell me the claim was denied, I was devastated. I was also shopping for neckties in an H&M, and so I hurried outside to cry on the curb. My pledge brother Alex reassured me, and we plodded slowly back to campus.

The sweat pooling on my back and ribs under all my layers of clothing stung with each step. I had been doing so well, trusting that all my discomfort would be over soon. Yet every day I had believed myself closer to top surgery, my rejected claim was sitting in a clerk's outbox. I possessed some savings, but out of pocket, the surgery was going to cost more than $8,000. I didn't have $8,000.

A few months earlier, I switched from my mother's insurance to my school's. She and I had both agreed to the terms. My mom didn't feel comfortable having her insurance cover the physical changes she was opposed to, and by having me move policies, we were able to remove at least one point of conflict from the list.

My school's policy covered hormone treatment, but its attitude toward GCS was vague. Emerson's health-center director was tireless in helping me, and together we pored over the policy to find some way to appeal.

I couldn't really share my claim defeat with my mother because I thought it might be a kind of victory to her—not that I was sad about it but because the medical system was preventing the same thing she wanted to prevent.

I missed my mom, who as a single parent and often self-employed writer/editor always had a kind of doggedness and resourcefulness in dealing with bureaucracy. She knows where to apply pressure and never forgets to follow up. Indeed, no matter how hard I tried to keep my "shit" from her door, there were days when I broke down and called her. I needed a ride somewhere or I needed help with a bill or I was just really depressed. These calls were our white flags, proof that our bond was intact.

My fraternity brothers were attentive and kind, but they were peers, not parents. It just so happened they were high-functioning peers. The insurance-claim debacle prompted me to come out to my pledge class, many of who did not know I was transgender. One of my pledge brothers, Dave, exhibited his characteristic gentility.

"I have no idea what that means," he told me earnestly. "Tell me about it."

I told them about it. The situation made its way to our pledgemaster (he who runs pledge) and then the active brotherhood.

I had no idea how far the information had carried. But by the meeting later that night, they had promised to help fundraise so I could afford top surgery.

I graciously thanked them. They're really nice, I thought, but who are they kidding?

They certainly weren't kidding me. A central core of brothers set up a page and worked tirelessly to fundraise toward the cost of my surgery. Within 24 hours they had almost $2,000.

Another of my brothers, Ben, a journalist worked for Out magazine at the time, conducted a short interview with me in response to the campaign. "Boston Fraternity Raises Money for Trans Brother" read the headline of the article.

Within another 24 hours, donations were pouring in from around the world.

I missed two days of work at my campus office job while I entertained media inquiries. Other RAs graciously covered my "on duty" nights at the dorm. I skipped some classes and fell asleep in others.

A national LGBTQ organization asked me to sign with them as a spokesperson. Inside Edition offered us $3,000 for our story if we would give them before-and-after pictures of me. Surgeons emailed me offering to do my surgery "free of cost." I said no to these, but agreed to other media inquiries. HuffPost Live had us on-air. We were on the front page of the Boston Herald and got a feature in the Boston Globe and a followup with Out.

Ours was the heartwarming story of the moment. We were rehabilitating the shattered respectability of fraternities, prompting an outpouring of love from "Greek" orgs and comments like "That's what a fraternity should be like." I was thrilled to bring such positive attention to my new brothers, and to the inconsistent state of trans health care. I was less clear about the attention directed toward my body and me.

On the first day of media, I called my mother to tell her firsthand what was happening. It was late. Next to me, my "big brother" Ryan mapped out a schedule to help me manage the next 24 hours. Homework, interview, food, interview, sleep, interview.

"You might see me on TV," I warned my mom.

Her voice was measured, brimming with concern for me, for herself. I can't remember our conversation, only a feeling. Be careful.

Like an outsize version of my coming-out at Loomis, this public stage represented a dramatic new step. I wasn't ready or willing to share everything. How could I talk about my family when things were still so muddy and difficult with them? How did I answer questions about my parent's reactions? How could I cast off my privacy but keep my mother's intact?

The answer was that I couldn't. But I didn't know it yet.

Within those first 24 hours, I wrote a thankful post about the fundraiser update on my Tumblr. I was stunned when other trans people reblogged it and a vocal minority disparaged me. Why was my surgery "free" while they were working overtime for theirs? Lucky bastard!

Others were mad I wouldn't share the wealth, and strangers emailed me asking for the money. Even those who passed along messages of support occasionally sent terse followups because I wasn't getting back to them fast enough. A student posted anonymously on a public Emerson "confessional" Facebook page, accusing me of using donations to buy coffee at Starbucks. Transphobic forums and articles surfaced in response to the expanding list of articles. I read comments from people who made light of killing and raping me and people like me. I occupied pages of Google web and image searches. There would be no going back. It was the fastest, most brutal education I have ever received.

On day two I answered a phone call from my mother, in distress. She was concerned about the questions I would receive going forward. "They'll want to know about me," she said. "They're going to ask about your family and where we are in all this."

She asked me to shut it down, and I readily agreed.

The boys were fully supportive of my decision. After nearly three days in the media spotlight, we had raised $23,308. My surgery was scheduled for the winter break, only weeks away.

"We accomplished what we set out to do," my brother Christian said.

He was right. They had helped me; I had helped myself. We pledged the excess funds to the Jim Collins Foundation (no relation), an organization that gives grants for gender-confirming surgeries to those in need. A storybook ending.

Within the next day or two, the insurance company "clarified" its position and agreed to cover my surgery.

My fraternity brothers and I all assumed this was a ploy to save face after the punishing media coverage, but we were discouraged by the college's PR department from publicly stating so. A few days later I was told that a lost memo had been found proving Emerson's insurance to be trans-inclusive. The policy had just never been updated correctly. My surgery would be covered, and future trans students would be saved the trouble of having to crowdsource their funds.

At first I was mortified. After all, we had just fundraised $23,000 that I didn't actually need anymore. But then I realized: this is way better. We donated more than expected to the Jim Collins Foundation, and my medical care was rightly in the hands of a medical-care provider. Perhaps most importantly, this wouldn't happen again at Emerson.

On the home front, Mom and I both breathed easier, knowing our problems were back safe with us.

Later still, I learned that, through all this, my stepfather Andrew (who I call my dad because he took on that role) had made a series of calls to the college asking them to investigate the issue. It was his calls that prompted the paperwork search.

By agreeing to come out, be visible, and share my story, I achieved so much. My surgery was financed in full, the college's insurance policy was clarified to benefit others, and all the money I didn't need was going to a worthy charity.

So why did I feel so much anger and shame?

I felt I had sold out myself by agreeing to be "trans" for the camera. As much as I long to be social and fun, I'm also incredibly private. I enjoy being alone for long periods of time. I've never had the compulsion to go to a club or even to Disneyland. But it wasn't the media overkill that upset me; it was the sneaking suspicion that I was more manipulative and desperate for help than I had realized. Once the fundraiser took off, I quickly understood that if I played "trans" in all the right ways, people would help me get what I needed. And they did.

I do feel like I didn't earn an all-expenses-paid surgery, even though I sweated so hard for my physical and mental health progress. I do feel guilty and embarrassed about all the attention. And I do feel shitty and ungrateful for not being solely positive about all the amazing help I received. I love my fraternity, and I love my brothers. I was so hurt when those few trans people termed me a lucky bastard, but that's exactly what I am.

Excerpted from At the Broken Places: A Mother and Trans Son Pick Up the Pieces, by Mary Collins and Donald Collins (Beacon Press, 2017). Arranged with permission from Beacon Press.

The key to unlocking Everybody Wants Some!!, Richard Linklater's criminally underappreciated "spiritual sequel" to his 1993 classic Dazed and Confused, lies within a character named Willoughby.

The movie follows a Texas college baseball team in 1980 on the last weekend before classes start. The team attends parties of various types, mocking one another with the relentlessness of brotherly hazing as they sweet-talk every woman they see, drink more beer than humanly possible, and just generally dick around. Nearly every scene dissects power dynamics and struggles within the American male sect, seen mostly through the eyes of incoming freshman pitcher Jake (played by Blake Jenner), a purposefully blank stand-in for the audience.

Within minutes of walking into the new house, Jake meets the two guides who'll lead his, and thusly our, way: Finnegan (Glen Powell) and Willoughby (Wyatt Russell). Finnegan's role is straightforward, and along with Jake, the pair become meta-commentators of what's really going on here. When they watch two guys play "bloody knuckles," they contemplate on why the dude-bros always need to compete; when Jake offers befuddlement on their third outfit change of the night, Finnegan compares it to breeding techniques in the animal kingdom.

Linklater's technique in the movie is almost Planet Earth–like, first showing the bros in their natural habitat and then offering commentary on its import. Willoughby, however, offers something else. As played by the Jesus-bearded Russell, he's the latest entry in the "philosophical stoner" trope, sauntering around in the background with enough drawn-out "maaaaaan's" to dream up Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski.

Willoughby's a senior transfer pitcher, new to the scene but with a world-wise confidence; he comes from California in his rusty van, bringing along VHS dubs of The Twilight Zone, Pink Floyd albums, the finest kush around, and a general aura of laid-back wisdom. Throughout his time on the screen, he has the mystique presence of a Zen master. When his teammates take girls to their rooms, he's miming pitches in a nude yoga pose while hypnotically chanting "Strike three." When Jake commiserates about the odd divide between pitchers and hitters, Willoughby advises him to embrace his inner weirdness. "When you do that, you bring who you are, never who they want," Willoughby says. "And that, my friend, is when it gets fun."

His biggest scene is likely getting his teammates bonked-out stoned in his room:

But everything changes—for Willoughby, and for the movie itself—at the team's players-only practice. Devo's "Whip It" soundtracks the joyous practice montage while Willoughby tosses batting practice. Then, out of nowhere, the team's coach shows up and tells Willoughby to get his stuff. The music cuts out to silence, and we only hear chirping birds and distant crack of batted balls. Willoughby takes one last slow look at his teammates, drops his mitt, and walks off the field. "Well, boys," he says doffing his hat, "here for a good time, not a long time, right?"

An inaudible chat with the coach ends with a handshake, and that's the last we'll see of Willoughby. A few scenes later, we get the story from Nesbit, the weirdo lefty pitcher: "He's 30 years old. And get this: Willoughby isn't his real name. The registrar's office discovered it. They were looking at some transfer hours that looked fishy, they'd been investigating it for a while and told coach this afternoon. Not only that, but they think he's been doing this at other colleges. Transferring, playing ball."

So, what are we to do with this character? Forrest Wickman at Slate takes a stab at the possibility that Willoughby, if not literally, is a "spiritual sequel" to D&C's Wooderson character (Matthew McConaughey). The ages line up—McConaughey was 24 during D&C and EWS!! takes place four years later, when Russell was 29 years old—and the ethos of the two sort of jive. Writes Wickman: "'Willoughby' is just an identity he made up so that could hang around with the kids who still admire him. In other words, just as Wooderson hangs around and smokes weed with kids who are several years younger because they worship him, 'Willoughby' does, too. That's the thing about college kids: He keeps getting older, but they stay the same age."

But he's not really Wooderson, so much as the equal and opposite reaction: Willoughby is watching everyone get older while trying to desperately cling the same age. In retrospect, it's telling that Willoughby tried to teach the guys about "the space between the notes" in the clip above using an album released in 1971 (Pink Floyd's Meddle) despite the film being set in 1980; it would've been a new discovery for him when he was actually in college. Any of us has stuff lingering on our playlist or DVD shelf that are there only because they happened to connect at the right time and place, for whatever reason; Willoughby brings those touchstones with him wherever he goes.

But in Willoughby, Linklater is offering something else: a warning about the false trappings of nostalgia. Dwelling on one's past—and, folks, smoking pot is very good (meaning: very bad) for doing this—is an activity fraught with land mines. There's that romantic partner you screwed things up with, that job you should've taken, that time you didn't say goodbye. But in addition to huge Sliding Doors–like timeline splinters, there are also those hazy auras of joy. The American college experience is a nostalgic siren song for many—certainly, anyone with a baseball scholarship—as it's a uniquely magical space of utter freedom without financial responsibility.

These perfect memories are, of course, bullshit. In an interview with Chuck Klosterman—quoted in an essay in D&C's Criterion release—Linklater talks about the falseness of nostalgia: "Everyone does this. It's like asking someone about Saturday morning cartoons: By some incredible coincidence, the only good cartoons anyone can ever remember are the ones that were on when they were six years old. It's a fucking cultural pathology. People always want to return to something they recall being pure. It's like when people say stuff like, 'Let's return to the 1950s. The moral were better. There was no teenage pregnancy.' People just make up shit that never existed."

We all have trappings of those times when things seemed right—or, at least, better—but almost without exception, they're typically false. That romance didn't work out for a number of reasons, that job you turned down would've sucked, and hanging out with that group was fun as hell, but you'd hate hanging out with them now. Even the autobiographical moments captured in EWS!! and D&C—the latter apparently so accurate that a trio of former classmates sued Linklater for defamation—are essentially fraudulent, real-life mixtapes with the boring parts stripped out.

But for the movie's baseball team, it's not tough to imagine a future where most fall for the same nostalgic trap as Willoughby. Besides Finnegan (a Kerouac reader who's constantly exploring), McReynolds (the mustachioed All-American who literally says "this is the greatest day of my life, until tomorrow") and potentially Jake (remains to be seen), nobody on the team has the self-awareness of, say, D&C's Randall "Pink" Floyd (Jason London) when he says, "If I ever start referring to these as the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself." The rest have a quickly closing four-, then three-, then two-, then one-year window of being on top of the social heap, and then, who the fuck knows?

Grown men hanging onto their sports-playing past is nothing new, whether it's Springsteen reminiscing about his hot-shot baseball playing friend on "Glory Days," Al Bundy's tale of scoring three touchdowns in one game at Polk High, or whatever your uncle was good at. It really doesn't have to be sports, or males, or even grown adults: Any one of us can become lodged in own memory for longer than we should. Willoughby is what happens when you can't get out.

Follow Rick Paulas on Twitter.

A long-term investigation conducted by York Regional Police has culminated in the arrest of over 104 men.

On Friday, York Police announced that their four-year project, dubbed Project Raphael, was completed. The project saw men contact advertisements for escorts online who were then told that the person they were negotiating with was a child. The officers would then pursue the men who continued to negotiate sex with the officer posing as a girl aged 13 to 16 years old.

The ages of the arrested men spans from 18 to 71 and the arrests took place from 2014 to 2017.

During a news conference, Det. Sgt. Thai Truong said that the men were offering to pay between $80 and $300 for sexual encounters with the fabricated minors.

"Unfortunately, there was a lot of married men. Occupations from all walks of life, ethnicities from all walks of life," Truong said.

Sixty-four of the 104 cases are still before the court—32 of the men arrested have put forward guilty pleas and are serving three- to seven-month sentences. Susan Orlando, with the Attorney General's human trafficking prosecution team, said in the news conference that these sentences were "significant."

"When you consider the fact that all of these men are first time offenders, they had stable jobs, and families and not the type of people who usually see in the criminal justice system," she said.

"So for a first offence, to get those sentences, it's a significant sentence."

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.

This show contains spoilers for the April 21 episode of RuPaul's Drag Race.

With a show like Survivor or Naked and Afraid, injuries—and the possibility that contestants might have to quit—are to be expected. But not on RuPaul's Drag Race, a show whose most dangerous challenge most seasons is when the library opens and queens read each other to filth. But leave it to Eureka O'Hara—season nine's tart-tongued, big hipped contestant—to be sent packing because of an injury.

When Eureka came into the workroom at the top of the episode on crutches, it was obvious she was hurt. She explained that back in episode two, she had injured her knee in the cheerleading challenge, but had been fighting through the pain since. Still, she was a trooper and managed to impress the judges with her role in the episode's challenge—a production of Kardashians: The Musical—and with her runway look. That's why she was just as shocked as the rest of us when RuPaul called her up to the front of the stage and told her to sashay (or hobble) away, instead of the bottom two queens—Cynthia Lee Fontaine and Farrah Moan.

Ru explained that the show's doctors thought it best she sit the rest of the season out, and Ru agreed. Don't worry, though—Eureka was promised that she'd be back next season. But in the meantime, she spoke with VICE to fill us in on her upcoming surgery, how Mama Ru is taking care of her medical bills, and her feud with fellow queen Trinity Taylor.

VICE: Hi Eureka! How are you doing?
Eureka: Girl, I'm feeling gypped. I didn't win the gig.

What happened to your leg?!
She got tired of carrying all this ass around.

You hurt yourself in the cheerleading challenge?
I landed wrong in a cartwheel, because the notion of physics is against me. I ended up with a torn ACL. I had ACL reconstruction [before the show], it was obviously hurting but I was trying to be cute and compete. The doctor and Mama Ru and the powers that be felt it was obviously more important to get it fixed.

So did you go right away to get the surgery?
Yeah. It was very difficult, I'll be honest. Mostly emotionally, just because this has been such a huge dream of mine for so long. I felt like I didn't get to win or lose—I just felt defeated, and like the world was against me, and that's maybe not where I belonged.

How did it go down on the show? Did you know that you were going to leave when everyone started lip syncing?
Oh no honey. When Mama Ru said "Come on up here," I had no idea what she was going to say. I thought maybe she and the producers were like, "Actually, Eureka is the worst, she should be lip syncing for her life."

Did Mama Ru take care of your medical bills? Was this, like, workqueen's comp?
World of Wonder [ Drag Race's production company] took amazing care of me. They covered all of my surgery. They knew how hard it was on me because I didn't want to leave. But medically, I had no choice.

How is your knee now?
It's pretty good. I'm coming to the end stages of physical therapy. Physically I'm doing really well, and I'm back to dancing. I couldn't perform for five months because of the injury.

Was it easier for you leaving knowing that you'll be coming back next season?
Honestly, no. I'm the type of person where I don't believe anything until I see it. To me, I felt like they were just saying that to make me feel better; in my mind, I don't think I was accepting of that at first. I got pretty low for a second.

Which of the two bottom queens owe you their first born? Who was going home if you weren't asked to step out?
Honestly, I was already so emotional about that lip sync anyway, because Farrah and Cynthia were both, at that moment, huge emotional support systems for me with my knee hurting. Farrah was one of my closest friends on the show from the beginning. We clicked very quickly. Then, when Cynthia came in, she was such a positive spirit, and she was automatically helpful when she knew I was disgruntled by the pain. They're very supportive people, and they're also very close. I don't know if either of them owe me their lives because I love them both so much it's hard to pick one. And the lip sync was amazing. We'll never know.

So, was this whole thing an elaborate ruse so that you wouldn't have to be on a season with Trinity Taylor anymore?
No girl! I was looking forward to lip syncing and sending that bitch home. I knew it was eventually going to happen. They would have pit us against each other.

Do you think your feud was portrayed honestly?
I'd say so. Me and her have history. We've competed together. I always thought that she was very uppity, I always felt like she thought she was above me. Also, I feel like I've had very shady moments in the past with her in pageants, and in the past I've been disrespected by her, and I think she's felt disrespected by me, so we already had that kind of tension. When tensions are even higher on the show, you're going to react to them. Your fuse is short with that person. I would definitely say it was portrayed accurately. I was an adult, she was a child.

Researchers at Columbia University wrapped up a two-year study of students' sex lives on Thursday, pouring $2.5 million into a project designed to help put an end to sexual harassment and violence on campus, the Columbia Spectator reports.

The school launched the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation (SHIFT) study in 2015, just after the Association of American Universities estimated that one in four women at universities across the country experience some kind of sexual assault while in college. That same year, Emma Sulkowicz, a Columbia student, carried a mattress everywhere she went to protest the university's refusal to kick her accused rapist off campus—even going so far as to lug it across the stage when she graduated.

In the SHIFT study, researchers tried to dissect what contributed to a culture of harassment on campus. They hosted focus groups and interviews with more than 1,600 undergrads at Columbia and Barnard and asked them about their sex lives and experiences with assault. The researchers' most impressive strategy—and also, perhaps, their strangest—took sociology professor Shamus Khan and his colleagues to parties and bars to get a firsthand look at how students interact romantically, according to Politico.

"My life over the past two years has been thinking about college students and sex, and it's both really boring and really disturbing in sort of twin ways," Khan said Wednesday.

The principal investigator, Jennifer Hirsch, told the Spectator that her team will publish 26 journal articles on the subject by December. Along with the findings, the studies are expected to offer some solutions on how the university could do a better job of preventing sexual assault, something Hirsch said won't come down to one single strategy.

"Effective prevention of unwanted sexual touching by strangers, for example, might differ from strategies to prevent rape in the context of an ongoing hookup," Hirsch told the Spectator. "To be effective with prevention, it's important to focus in a more targeted way on the specifics of what we are trying to prevent."

Columbia's not the only university working to put a stop to rape culture on campus. After conducting a similar intensive study, Indiana University Bloomington—a school with a top-notch sports program—announced Thursday that it's implementing a new policy that bans any current, incoming, or transfer student with a criminal history of sexual or domestic violence from joining any of its athletic programs.

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It's been a pretty terrible month for airline companies, and an even worse one for their passengers.

This time the controversy is centred on American Airlines, who have suspended an employee and are investigating after he allegedly snatched a stroller away from a mother and her children and then challenged another passenger to fight him.

The confrontation took place in San Francisco as American Airlines Flight 591, which was due to fly to Fort Worth, was boarding. Passenger Surain Adyanthaya was on the plane and started filming shortly after the alleged stroller incident happened, Adyanthaya then posted the video to Facebook.

"[An American Airline] flight attendant violently took a stroller from a lady with her baby on my flight, hitting her and just missing the baby," wrote Adyanthaya in the post accompanying the video. "Then he tried to fight a passenger who stood up for her."

In the video, you can see a blonde woman holding a child crying at the front of the plane. In response to the attendant's actions, a male passenger stood up, went to the front, and demanded the his name. Shortly after, the attendant in question re-enters the plane again where he was then challenged by the passenger.

"Hey bud, you do that to me and I'll knock you flat," you can hear the passenger say to the attendant in the video. This sets off the flight attendant who points at him and tells him to "stay out of this." In response the passenger stands up and confronts the much smaller man face to face while the attendant goads him.

"Why don't you try it? Hit me. Hit me," he says. "Come on, bring it on."

The flight attendant and passenger square off. Photo via Facebook screenshot.

Afterwards the attendant angrily tells the passenger that he doesn't "know the full story" to which the man responds with, "I don't care what the story is, you don't hurt a baby." The video ends shortly afterwards with the man back in his seat and the woman and attendant escorted off the plane—during the entire duration of the video you can hear the woman crying in the background.

The video comes out less than two weeks after the treatment of airline passengers was under the microscope when David Dao, a United passenger, was violently dragged off an overbooked flight for refusing to give up his seat.

According to a statement by American Airlines, the woman elected not to fly on that particular flight to Fort Worth. For their part, the company stated they have suspended the employee and have pledged to immediately investigate the incident. In a statement, American Airlines said this does not reflect the company's"values or how we care for our customers."

"We are deeply sorry for the pain we have caused this passenger and her family and to any other customers affected by the incident."

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In the nineties, before broadband modems became widely available—and before anime streaming services like Funimation and Crunchyroll—staying up-to-date on anime was an arduous process. North American fans who wanted more than televised runs of Sailor Moon had to buy expensive subtitled VHS tapes from fan groups, who translated anime tapes themselves and then redistributed them after importing them, untranslated, from contacts in Japan.

Buying anime this way meant sending money to people without distribution licenses, who were technically engaging in international copyright violation, and trusting them to send your tape in the mail. The Wild West mentality of the fansub industry led to members of the Ottawa-based Anime Appreciation Society (AAS) taking matters into their own hands after one of their favourite fansub groups, Tomodachi, refused to release its version of the final 20 episodes of the much-loved show Fushigi Y ûgi—all because of its war with another fansub.

This bizarre episode, which the tight-knit Ottawa community still remembers, led to the AAS hosting one of the city's first anime conventions, and created a very active community which is consistently represented today in the region's pop culture industry.

"The process of fansubbing was so difficult back then," said Mark Legault, a web developer for a Toronto cybersecurity company, and founding member of the AAS. Fansub groups would need a device called a genlock, he explained, which would synchronize two different video signals, allowing the user to add subtitles, before recording it and sending it off to the clubs—a huge time investment.

The Fushigi Yûgi opening. Video: Alyssa marie Ranoco/YouTube

Binge-watching a show was pretty much impossible.

"You were spending twenty bucks for an illegally copied tape with only four episodes," he continued. "A lot of the time, these subtitles were not great. People took a lot of liberties."

In 1996, the AAS—which would host 20-30 person meetups in a community centre in suburban Ottawa—began watching Fushigi Y û gi, which ran from 1995 to 1996 in Japan. (For those who aren't familiar, the plot centres around two middle school students who find themselves transported to another world by a magical book when one of them finds out she's destined to gather seven celestial warriors.)

Read the full story at Motherboard.

Thirty years ago, the smartest woman you know was born: Lisa Simpson. The eternal eight-year-old was quickly sketched by Simpsons creator and cartoonist Matt Groening while he sat in a lobby waiting to meet producer James L. Brooks. In those precious minutes, he laid the groundwork for the character who would become the conscience, sadness, and hope of America. Lisa is the child-Sibyl of our time and place. She is every ambitious, out-of-place, or caring girl in the world—and we are Lisa Simpson.

Lisa and her family made their debut in a short for The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987, and landed their own series on Fox two years later. Originally written generically and characterized as a "female Bart" who mirrored her older brother's troublemaking antics, Lisa was voiced and brought to life by Yeardley Smith, and eventually grew into a more complex character. Executive producer, showrunner, and writer Al Jean tells Broadly that once the Simpsons went to series, Brooks suggested Lisa be the "out of place intellectual in the family," who ultimately became the brilliant, passionate person known and beloved across the world today.

Jean, who has two daughters—and noted that most Simpsons staffers with children have daughters as well—says he's "had a little Lisa Simpson in [his] house for the last 25 years," and that they always remind him "an eight-year-old can be awfully sharp." As evidenced by women who have told me they named their pets "Lisa Simpson," who have written extensive blog posts about her, and had her tattooed on their bodies, we see ourselves in Lisa who, in turn, reflects us. Lisa Simpson and every woman like her hold a special relationship: We've molded, mirrored, and moved each other over three decades.

Lisa is always searching for something she doesn't see in the world.

In a town where "independent thought alarms" are sounded when a student doesn't want to dissect an animal, Lisa is a vegetarian, environmentalist, Buddhist, feminist, musician, supporter of LGBT rights and freedom for Tibet, and an opponent of apartheid. With a remarkable intellect, liberal political leaning, and hunger for knowledge, Lisa is set very far apart from the rest of the Simpsons, other children her age, and indeed, all of Springfield.

"Lisa is always searching for something she doesn't see in the world," Jean explains. While we watch her navigate displacement and longing in the Simpsons universe, Lisa embodies this quality, one that is intrinsically tied with the experience of girlhood.

Read the full story at Broadly.

If someone asked you to list behaviours that may help lead to a long life, you might say a diet plentiful in fresh fruit and veg, minimal booze, and regular exercise.

But when those who have actually reached the 100-year mark are asked to reveal their secrets, the answers are a little different. Take Emma Morano of North Italy, who died earlier this month aged 117 years and swore by raw eggs and staying single for increased longevity. Then there's 111-year-old Agnes from New Jersey, who says she keeps things ticking over with three beers and a shot of Scotch every day.

Now there's a new centenarian in town with another hot tip for extending the years. Ella Macleod from Glasgow, who celebrated her 100th birthday this week, says that reaching a ripe old age is all down to drinking rosé.

Read more on MUNCHIES.