No one should be surprised if, after everything, Roy Moore still becomes the next US senator from Alabama.

In a Thursday Washington Post article, Moore, the Republican senatorial candidate in a December special election, was accused by a woman of initiating sexual contact with her when she was 14 and he was 32. This puts the Southern evangelical Christians who have supported Moore—who is so far to the right on social issues that he said in 2005 that “homosexual conduct” should be illegal—in a position to make a choice. This is a chance to draw the line and begin declaring, again, that their faith, their principles, matter more than blind partisanship.

I’m not so sure they will.

From what I’ve seen up close, these voters embarked on this path long before Donald Trump arrived on the scene. They have allowed politics to supersede what they’ve been telling themselves every Sunday. That’s why too many of them hated a Christian like Barack Obama, even though he had lived the kind of adult life evangelicals say all men should and whose policies helped push the abortion rate to its lowest level since Roe v. Wade. They then embraced Trump, who bragged about his adulterous ways, said he never asked God for forgiveness, then was caught on video bragging about casually sexually assaulting women.

I’ve lost friends for pointing this out—friends who are white evangelical Christians I spent nearly two decades praying with in the same church pews. They despise me for daring to bring up this inconsistency between how they talk about their faith and how they live it in the political sphere. That’s why I’m not convinced that even the accusation that Moore molested a 14-year-old is necessarily enough to turn them off of him. Opioids and heroin are killing the bodies of too many people in my region, but the drug of political partisanship has killed off the principles of many more.

Top national GOP figures, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, were swift to condemn Moore’s alleged actions and said the candidate should drop out of the race if the allegations are true. Arizona senator John McCain and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney went even further, leaving out the “if true” caveat and simply saying Moore should leave the race. But their words won’t hold water with Moore’s base, which overlaps mightily with Trump’s base.

You would think that those who repeatedly preach that no earthly wealth or power is more important than a relationship with God and truth would give one moral clarity about this situation. But in the hours after the Moore news broke, there was no groundswell of white evangelical Christians loudly declaring that they would be pulling their support from Moore, even if that meant Republicans would lose an invaluable Senate seat. That might seem a lot to ask of Alabama voters, but that’s what those who have strong principles do: willingly suffer short-term pain and setbacks for the greater good. That’s what evangelicals were taught in Sunday school and Bible study, as was I. And yet, there has been no crescendo of “principle over party” from white evangelicals after the Moore news broke.

Instead, you got responses like a tweet from high-profile Christian conservative Erick Erickson that said, “The rush of Senate Republicans coming out to quickly denounce Roy Moore is convincing Moore supporters that this is a coordinated hit job.”

Responses from Alabama itself were worse. “It was 40 years ago,” Marion County GOP chair David Hall told Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale. “I really don’t see the relevance of it. He was 32. She was supposedly 14. She’s not saying that anything happened other than they kissed.” (Actually, she claimed Moore essentially picked her up while she waited outside of a courthouse as her mother attended a custody hearing then later snuck her to a secluded house where he began kissing her and touching her and asking her to touch his penis.)

Bibb County Republican chair Jerry Pow said he will vote for Moore even if the allegations were true, because he can’t stand the thought of voting for his Democratic opponent. “I’m not saying I support what he did,” he told Dale.

It was much of the same when the Washington Examiner caught up with Alabama state auditor Jim Ziegler. Moore supporters might be angrier with the Post than Moore, Ziegler told the paper, before defending his fellow Republican. “Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth, and they became the parents of John the Baptist,” Ziegler said. “Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager, and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.”

“There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here,” Ziegler said. “Maybe just a little bit unusual.”

I've heard that sort of rationale before where I live in South Carolina. I have had passionate white evangelical Christians tell me years ago it wasn’t wrong to pray for Barack Obama’s death and pointed to a few passages in the Bible to back up that belief. When I asked how they could say their faith is more important than anything and eagerly support a man like Trump, they again went to the Bible, pointing to all the flawed, powerful men who ended up doing great things, claiming that God often uses uncouth men for higher purposes. They frequently use the Bible to justify any political decision, and most of those decisions happen to be about protecting or supporting the Republican Party. They didn’t leave Trump after the Access Hollywood tape came out. Why would they leave Moore?

Establishment Republicans such as McConnell and McCain condemning Moore may only increase the sense among that group that such things are happening only because God is “using” men like Trump and Moore. If things go well, it is because God has his hand in it. If things are going poorly, it is because God has his hand in it. If men like Moore and Trump—who won white evangelical voters in both the primary and general elections—make it to the top, that’s evidence that God wants them there.

I know that might not sound logical to many people who don’t understand how religion is lived in Trumpland. But for many white evangelical Christians, nothing Trump has said or done is a bigger threat than to our democracy and decency and faith than the presence of a Democrat with political power. I suspect Moore knows this. That’s why I doubt he’s going to drop out, and may very well be on his way to the Senate.

Follow Issac J. Bailey on Twitter.

Dr. Michael H. Stone first came to prominence in 2005, when the New York Times outlined the 22-level hierarchy he designed to classify what he called the "Gradations of Evil." In 2009, following a stint traveling the country interviewing mass murderers, serial killers, and husband/wife murderers as the host of the Discovery Channel series Most Evil, he debuted The Anatomy of Evil. The book promises to expose the true nature of wickedness by examining the traits shared by history’s most heinous.

A professor and specialist in the field of clinical psychiatry at Columbia, Dr. Stone had long diagnosed and treated patients with borderline personality disorder, a fairly serious condition that’s sometimes exacerbated by eating disorders, substance abuse, and depression. He was often asked by attorneys to serve as an expert witness at trial, which introduced him to the far ends of the personality disorder spectrum. From the antisocial to straight-out psychopaths, these were people who society at large—judges, prosecutors, and the average pedestrian—would deem to be evil. They showed little remorse for committing atrocious acts like torturing and dismembering their victims.

Drawn to the severe aberrations of personality that led to these unspeakable horrors, Dr. Stone identified narcissism and aggression as the two top personality traits that define evil. And he began to break down the overarching archetypes that would comprise his hierarchy. This week, The Anatomy of Evil sees its re-release accompanied by a fresh epilogue looking at what Stone calls the “New Evil.” VICE talked to the doctor by phone to find out if he thinks people are born evil, who the most evil people he’s studied have been, and how an improved understanding of the causes of evil might affect the criminal justice system.

VICE: Are some people just born evil?
Dr. Michael H. Stone: I think there are a few people who are born with a tendency to do evil things. I don’t think you can consider them “born evil,” as if they are destined absolutely to commit the kinds of acts that you and I would call evil. But there are people—men far more than women—who are born with such a deficit of empathy and compassion. They have an inability to really develop love and strong bonds with other people. [But] they are callous and do awful things and have no remorse. They have these psychopathic traits and are more at-risk for doing something to evoke this emotion of an evil action.

So what unites them?
The largest percentage of men and women who end up doing something we would call evil have often been brought up in very harsh and difficult and abusive circumstances. Even though they may not have been born with a tendency to be psychopathic and unable to feel for others, they’ve had their good feelings drowned in all of the misery they’ve had to endure through their early years. They end up doing things that have these evil qualities.

"Moors murders" suspects Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, from an undated handout. (Press Association via AP Images)

Can you talk a bit about your original conception of levels of evil?
I began developing the scales and working on it 30 years ago, in 1987. I was asked to be an expert witness in a case where a man murdered his wife and children. That was the case of Jeffrey MacDonald, the so called “Fatal Vision” case. I wanted to instruct the jury on where MacDonald’s crime fit, in the grand spectrum of crime. Obviously what he did was way worse than what Jean Harris, who shot the man who’d betrayed her, did. When she discovered that he was cheating on her, she became very depressed and very angry and she shot him in what we would call a “crime of passion.” That was like the least evil, evil.

On the other end of the spectrum were the crimes of Ian Brady in England. He was the one who teamed up with a woman he’d managed to befriend. They would lure children to very remote and distant places in England and drag them to this cottage. Brady would strangle the children and record the screams on a tape recorder to use later in the day as a sort of sexual turn on for him and his girlfriend. I thought, Well it doesn’t get any worse than that. But it does get a little worse than that. At the time, that was the baddest I knew. I put that at the other end of the scale. There are indeed gradations and that’s why I began to develop what I called the “Gradations of Evil” scale, which has almost two-dozens levels in it.

David Parker Ray with an attorney in 1999. (AP Photo/Adolphe Pierre-Louis, Pool)

You spent years studying over 600 violent criminals for your book. Who is the most evil person you have studied?
I think David Parker Ray. He built and converted one of these big trailers into a torture chamber in New Mexico. He’d hoist women up so they were immobilized and do unspeakable things to them after reading 17 pages, single-spaced, of all the terrible things he was going to do to them. And also a fellow in Wisconsin, John Ray Weber, who did terrible things like dismembering his victims' sexual parts.

They struck me as being very hard to outdo with respect to the evil and torturous and painful things you can do to another human being. In the new epilogue, I also made reference to crimes that have really never even happened before. There’ve been a number of women, about 21 since 1987, who have commandeered a pregnant woman who is about to give birth. They kill the woman, cut open her womb, and [steal] the fetus—a live baby. That’s a new kind of evil. I can’t find any record of any such thing occurring before 1987.

How do infamous killers like Charles Manson or John Wayne Gacy grade on your scale?
I put Manson as a somewhat lower number because he inspired others to kill. He did murder a person or two on the farm they used as a gathering place, but he [was more of] a kind of inspirational type to these runaways who murdered the actress Sharon Tate when she was nine months pregnant while saying, “Die bitch!” That is pretty evil and belongs at the far end of the scale. But things that Manson himself did do not show the kind of torture or heartlessness that some of his followers showed. He was a little hard to place in the scale.

Gacy would capture these boys at a Greyhound station and bring them back to his house and rape them, kill them, and dump their bodies under the porch. These iconic killers like Gacy were close to the top of the scale, but he did not personally indulge in torture the way David Parker Ray or some of the others did. They actually built torture chambers in their houses and subjected their victims to unendurable and unimaginable pain. That makes them even worse than some of these other people.

A diagram from 'The Anatomy of Evil,' courtesy of Prometheus Books

Why did you think it was important to update your book?
I began to think that there was a pretty distinct cultural change in our country over the last 50 years. Even though the murder rate went down, some of the murders were particularly gruesome. I found it unusual that some never happened before 1960. I was willing to dub that the “New Evil”: crimes that were spectacular and uncommon.

How would an improved understanding of the causes of evil affect the justice system, in your view?
You’ve got to be 100 percent certain that the perpetrator did the crime. If it’s of this extreme torturous nature, like David Parker Ray, then I think life in prison without any hope of parole or the death penalty would not be inappropriate—despite the fact that people in the last 30 to 40 years have begun to be less enthusiastic about ultimate punishment for crimes of that nature. The justice system has not paid much attention to diagnosis.

What about people who show propensities for evil at an early age?
The courts feel that if you are below 18 and an adolescent, then you should never be kept in prison for life or a great number of years because, after all, you were only a kid. There is some hope for redemption. But it isn’t always so, because there are some children who are callous and unemotional and capable of doing unspeakable things to other people. When they get to 17 or 18 and into their 20s, they become psychopaths. Untreatable and not redeemable. The judge should take that into consideration. Like, Hey, this is a person that is most likely not going to get better with treatment or age or anything else.

What does that mean practically in terms of how we sentence or handle young offenders?
We should be more strict in the sentencing of kids like this, even though the majority of kids have a chance at redemption. The rules for them could be more gentle, but if you do something heinous with a callous and pre-psychopath nature, the chances of ever recovering are not good, as compared to other kids who have redeeming qualities. They need to pay more attention to diagnosis, not just your birthday.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Click here to buy a copy of The Anatomy of Evil.

Jase noticed his penis was one of the smaller in the bunch as a kid, when he used the communal showers after football and basketball practices. Now, public washing is strictly off limits—he'd rather drive home from the gym in his sweaty clothes and shower in the privacy of his own home.

Jase's insecurities about his 3.5-inch erection affect more than just his hygiene habits. When he was younger, condoms didn't stay on well, and that made sex more of an anxiety trip than it already was. In a recent bout of obsession, he gathered a "database" of scientific papers on penises and measured himself multiple times a day for several weeks to see how he sized up. Growing up, it shaped him socially, even when his pants were on. "I've always been an introvert and I feel that my low self-esteem, due to my size, was a main driver for this," says Jase, now 40.


Lots of guys can relate. Almost one in five American men are unhappy with the length of their erection, according to a recent study of more than 4,000 men, and another 15 percent have a problem with their girth. You won't be surprised to learn that the guys who thought their penises fell short had less sex than the penis-proud group. "Being small can be the heaviest of burdens. I'm genuinely afraid of everything and everybody alike," says David, 30. "I feel I just can't be truly sexually desirable to women with my size."

There's a lot of dick-shaming that perpetuates this idea. When Marco Rubio exposed Donald Trump's small hands, Trump felt the need to tell the whole country that his penis was perfectly fine, thanks. (On national television. During a presidential debate.) In a Fat Shack ad, a seductive blonde—lips parted, a trail of mustard dripping out of her mouth á la cum—holds a sandwich. "Four inches has never been so satisfying," the caption reads.

It goes beyond mainstream news and marketing and weasels its way into casual conversation. "A lot of the jokes we make in everyday life are often sexually related in one way or another," says Abraham Morgentaler, a urologist and the director of Men's Health Boston, whose practice focuses on the health effects of testosterone deficiency. "It's sort of standard humour for guys to josh each other about masculinity type stuff, including penis size."

Morgentaler calls men with dick fixations "peno-centric." The idea that the size of your junk validates you as a man might start as early as boyhood. "When we're younger and coming of age sexually, when there's a lack of sophistication about what it means, number one, to be a man, and number two to be a good lover, the thing that men can see and point to and certainly think about is really the penis," he says.

Boyhood is synonymous with inexperience, and sadly, we don't magically figure everything out as adults. Some guys may think they're small even when they're not, but for the ones who do fall left of the bell curve, the best way to get over it is by being realistic about what your penis "should" look like and how important it really is in the long term, Morgentaler says.

Lots of people never have the chance to see other people having healthy, real-life sex, so they might base their expectations on the sex they do see, usually in porn. But—shocker—porn is not real life. Those macho men are more than well endowed and that can give off the wrong idea, that you need to sport an eight- or nine-inch shaft (also, ow—but we'll get to that later) to satisfy your sex partners.

"If a guy watches 50 or 100 of these video clips, he's going to feel inadequate because he may be smaller than every one of those," Morgentaler says. "But those men are extremely unusual." When researchers sifted through data on more than 15,000 men, they found that the average penis is 3.6 inches soft and 5.2 inches erect. Nothing like many of the massive dicks we see on our laptops.

On a purely biological level, it's also irrational to think size has anything to do with your baby-making skills. "If it matters from an evolutionary standpoint, the best question would be, does it increase fertility?" says Robert Martin, an evolutionary biologist and adjunct professor at the University of Chicago. "The testes size indicates the potential of producing sperm, but I don't see any connection between penis size and anything that would be important in evolutionary terms." There's no evidence that primates have ever used their penises as a power display, he adds, and it may even have little to no effect on how physically desirable you are as a man.

Australian researchers generated 343 life-size male figures that ranged in body shape, body height, and penis size. They projected these "men" on a screen and asked 105 heterosexual women to rate how sexually attractive they were. The women cared most about body shape, which was responsible for 79.6 percent of attractiveness. (They preferred a triangular torso with wide shoulders and narrow hips.) Height came next with 6.1 percent, and penis size fell by the wayside, accounting for only 5.1 percent of attractiveness. "It seems to be a male preoccupation," Martin says.

It's a preoccupation that can be debilitating. Andy, 24, has never heard complaints from sex partners about his 4.7-inch erection, but he still can't shake the feeling that he's coming up a half-inch short. "It lingers in my mind throughout the day on a regular basis," he says. "It causes great anxiety and depression most of the time." Andy started to notice he was smaller than average when he was 19. Like Jase, he also measures a lot. "There [have] been days when I find myself spending a huge amount of time with a ruler next to my penis."

When he's naked in front of sex partners, he often tries to cut through the awkwardness of the initial reveal by being self-deprecating—"It's small, huh?"—but nobody has ever complained or agreed.

It's not crazy that Andy's partners aren't throwing him shade. When it's part of the equation, the penis is an important part of sex—whether it's the real thing or the dildo equivalent. But it's not everything. "How we talk and behave in bed, how we touch, these are all important parts of what makes for good sex," Morgentaler says. "The hands and the mouth and the lips are all part of that. The penis is just one part of the repertoire."

Bigger is not always better, and that goes for anal, too. Research in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that 72 percent of women and 15 percent of men feel pain during anal sex. In another study, 76 percent of bottoms reported pain during anal, and for 23 percent of those guys, it was worse than mild.

Not to mention more than a third of women need clitoral stimulation, not penetration, to reach orgasm. For years, Jase used large strap-ons, penis extenders, and sex toys of all kinds before he figured out that his wife needed clitoral stimulation to reach her oh-my-god moments. Now he helps her plateau using the basics: his mouth and, sometimes, a vibrator.

Jase has four decades of life in the books, and for almost half of that he's been married—that's a lot of time to figure out what is and isn't important in your relationships and sex life. Younger guys might need to live a little more before they figure that out. "Every time I hear stories about guys my age hooking up and having one-night stands and even being in relationships, it gets to me because I know I can't ever do any of those [things] because of my size," Andy says.

The peno-centric approach can keep you from engaging with others in all sorts of ways, whether fully clothed or bare-ass naked. Morgentaler recently saw a patient who was worried that he wasn't "developed" down there—despite his junk being "completely normal," Morgentaler says—and because of that, he was still a virgin.

Jase doesn't get regular checkups anymore, because at his last visit the doctor sent in a young woman to check him for a hernia. "I really thought that I was going to die of embarrassment right in the doctor's office," he says. And David doesn't like swimming or going to the beach because he feels exposed. "I can say with all my heart, I'd be way more happy and have a better life if I had a normal penis," he says.

It might seem like a huge deal when it comes to first-time hookups or one-night stands, but in the longer term, your penis does not take top priority. Most aspects of a relationship have nothing to do with what's in your pants—compatibility, mutual respect, and sense of humour, to name a few. Good sex is also high up there in importance, but using your penis is just one way to satisfy your partner, and it's naive to prioritize size over everything else.

"I would emphasize that this problem often goes away when a guy ends up in a stable relationship, because the couple figures out what they do that works, and penis size is usually not an impediment," Morgentaler says. "The quality of the man is not dependent on the size of his penis."

For more from VICE:

In Defense of My Small Penis

This Guy Tried to Sneak Pills into a Festival by Slathering Them in Vegemite and Cling-Wrapping Them to His Penis

China’s Niche Market for Bull Penis Is Small But Powerful

Louis C.K.'s upcoming projects are crumbling in the wake of multiple sexual misconduct allegations against him, following a bombshell New York Times report.

Within hours of the revelations, HBO announced that it would be dropping C.K. from its November 18 autism benefit special, Night of Too Many Stars: America Unites for Autism Programs, according to the Times. HBO says it also plans to scrub C.K.'s "past projects from its On Demand services," including a string of stand-up specials and the short-lived sitcom Lucky Louie.

Netflix also announced on Friday that it would no longer be producing the second of two stand-up specials the comedian filmed for the streaming giant, condemning his alleged "unprofessional and inappropriate behavior."

FX, the network that made C.K.'s groundbreaking series Louie and gave him free rein to produce and develop the series in an overall deal, is reportedly "very troubled" by the news and investigating. There's no word yet on how the network will handle his existing series, or if it plans to cut ties with the comedian.

"[FX] has received no allegations of misconduct by Louis C.K. related to any of our five shows produced together over the past eight years," the network said in a statement. "That said, the matter is currently under review."

On top of his TV projects, the premiere of C.K.'s self-financed, controversial film I Love You, Daddy—starring Chloë Grace Moretz as C.K.'s 17-year-old daughter who starts dating a 68-year-old filmmaker—was abruptly cancelled before the Times article dropped. On Friday, the distribution company officially announced it would be shelving the project, according to BuzzFeed News.

The Times report alleges that C.K. pressured multiple women to watch him masturbate in front of them and, in one instance, to listen to him masturbate over the phone. C.K. has repeatedly shrugged off sexual misconduct rumors for years, though he reportedly apologized for the phone incident in a private Facebook message in 2009, according to the Times report.

C.K.'s publicist, Lewis Kay, told Vanity Fair that the comedian is currently preparing a statement in response to the report.

If you live in a city with a housing crisis, finding a new place to live can be a terrifying experience. It means basically taking on an unpaid part-time job for weeks to months sifting through rental websites, Facebook groups, making numerous posts pleading with friends for leads, and going to viewings for apartments you won’t even get.

To stand out amongst the crowd, there’s a move more people are opting to take: making posts on social media that read similarly to dating profiles, often accompanied by photos of themselves.

Madison Perry, a 28-year-old real estate agent who lives in Whistler, said she was “sourcing out all other options” when she made a post about herself in a local Facebook group. It included four photos: three of herself (one of her skiing, a headshot, and one of her on a paddle board), as well as a photo of her dog Danny, which she described in the post as “super clean and mellow.” The post also included descriptors about herself: “career driven,” “YSF” (young single female), “long time Whistler local.” (Perry has since found housing through a friend, a 300-some-square-foot studio for $1,100 a month, though she said she felt the post helped get the word out to her community that she was actively looking.)

"Sorry for the lack of cleavage shots, I did throw in this one of me in a bathing suit though!!," Perry wrote in her Facebook post about looking for a place to live in Whistler.

Posts like Perry’s have become increasingly common on social media in places that have housing crises, such as Toronto, Vancouver, and, of course, Whistler. (Many Whistler locals I’ve talked to, including Perry, point to Airbnb as affecting the amount of housing available in the BC ski town in recent years.)

“It’s like a treasure chase at this point,” Marco Mendiola, 29, told me over the phone when I asked him about why he made a similar post in a Toronto group. Mendiola used to live in Toronto, but moved to neighbouring Mississauga to save money last year. He is looking to move back to Toronto in February 2018.

“Small bio about me. I’m 29, work in the film and tv industry... likes going out to bars and clubs whenever I’m invited but always down for a quiet night in for movies or board games,” part of his post read. To accompany it, he posted a selfie of him with a Raptors player.

“I couldn’t imagine five years ago that I would be doing this,” he told me about the post he made. So far, Mendiola received a few messages from people who were looking for a prospective roommate to hunt for housing with, but no other leads from his post.

Another Torontonian I interviewed, Erin Holman, 28, messaged me minutes after we got off to the phone to tell me she’d secured a small bachelor for a steal—$850—in a west-end neighbourhood. She’d been looking for about two months when she put up a post similar to Perry’s and Mendiola’s in a local rental Facebook group.

Here's the photo Erin used to market herself in a Facebook group. Photo courtesy of Erin Holman

“I was like, maybe if I make this super funny... Maybe people will respond,” Holman told me. Her post, in part, read: “Me and my Betsy (my car) are looking for a forever home... I am a fashion designer for a well-known active brand, 28 years of age, clean, considerate of other people’s space, and get along well with others!”

The photo she chose to pair with it was a selfie of her wearing a Blue Jays hat next to her Honda. Holman said she was going for “nice,” “approachable,” and “wholesome” with her photo choice. “I don’t want too look too sexy or too bitchy... I want to look like a cute girl with a Honda,” she told me. Though Holman received some responses to her post, she ended up finding her new bachelor apartment on Kijiji.

Out of the numerous people I interviewed for this article, just like Holman, nearly all of them said that “approachable” was something they were going for with their photo choices.

Photo courtesy of Noel Goertz

“I just felt that if I was someone who had a house or room to rent, I’d want to see what the person looks like,” Noel Goertz, a 19-year-old fashion designer from outside Vancouver who just moved to Toronto told me. “I think it just makes me look approachable and friendly, and it wasn’t too intimidating,” he said. The photo he posted to market himself as a prospective renter was an outdoor selfie shot of him smiling and wearing a hoodie.

“Who doesn’t want to see a nice smiling, friendly face?” Esther Minywab, 23, who just moved to Toronto from Ottawa told me. “I felt that would raise my chances of people either going on a hunt with me, joining forces to find a place together, or people messaging me.” Minywab has now moved into a temporary sublet via responding to someone else’s post, though she is still looking for a permanent living situation. But, she said, even though her post specified she only was looking to live with women, she got several messages from men approaching her. Perry mentioned similar messages in response to her post: She received multiple requests for dates.

Some are taking it even further to market themselves as prospective renters. Patrick Wiltse, a 27-year-old content marketer, made a tongue-in-cheek video about himself and posted it in a local Facebook group after he’d become homeless his first week in Whistler.

“I’m comfortably self-employed with savings in the bank, so rent will always be on time,” Wiltse said in the video, while holding up a fan of Canadian $20s. “As a housemate, I’m clean and quiet, and if I’m home I’m probably reading, working, or sleeping,” he added. “I’m not opposed to a good time, but I’m not a party animal either.”

Wiltse told me he was overwhelmed with messages and viewings following the posting of his video, which only took him about 20 minutes to make. Within 48 hours, he found an ideal living situation and is still happily housed today.

“It’s the idea of pattern interrupt,” Wiltse told me. “You can always show people something good, but you’re never going to win over their attention unless you show them something that’s both good and different.”

Andrew Santos, a 23-year-old videographer and YouTuber who just moved to Whistler this month, also made a video to grab the attention of people with housing available in the town. “If you didn’t stand out, you had no chance,” he told me over the phone. “My video definitely helped.” Santos said he also put on his Tinder profile that he was looking for housing in Whistler.

Though Santos said he didn’t find a place directly from the video, he was contacted by numerous people when he posted it in the same local Facebook group Wiltse had posted in. He ended up scoring a room in the home of a mutual friend for over $1,000 per month. “Even though there is a housing crisis, it’s really cool to be in a place where people really want to be there,” Santos said.

Andrew's Tinder profile also expressed his need for housing in Whistler. Screenshot courtesy of Andrew Santos

Even though it appears to have become a trend recently, an earlier example of a young person marketing themselves similarly as a roommate appeared in 2013. It was via Hugh Podmore, a Canadian from British Columbia who was moving to Toronto. Podmore said his Imgur photo essay “I WANT TO LIVE IN YOUR HOUSE! (But not in a weird way)” went viral and helped him quickly find an ideal place for $600 per month on Ossington Avenue in Toronto, where he stayed for four years.

A photo from Hugh's photo essay that helped him find housing in Toronto. Photo courtesy of Hugh Podmore

Podmore said it’s cool to see that similar-style posts have caught on via Facebook groups.

“It continues to help me find housing,” Podmore told me. “I recently moved to Ottawa, and I used the old ad as a link in my emails when I was responding to ads on Kijiji in order to try and get a better response from people.”

On Friday, comedian Louis C.K. broke his silence about a bombshell New York Times report on four female comedians and one unnamed woman who said he masturbated in front of them or over the phone without their consent. In a statement, the comedian admitted "these stories are true."

"At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them," C.K. said. "The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly."

The comedian added that he's "remorseful" for his actions and "tried to learn from them," but never directly offered his accusers an apology. He did acknowledge the "hurt" he's brought to people involved in his TV projects and film I Love You, Daddy, which was shelved on Friday. He also defended his manager, Dave Becky, who represents Kevin Hart, Aziz Ansari, and Amy Poehler, and has been accused of trying to silence C.K.'s accusers.

"I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want," C.K. said. "I will now step back and take a long time to listen."

You can read the statement, via the New York Times, below in full:

I want to address the stories told to the 'New York Times' by five women named Abby, Rebecca, Dana, Julia who felt able to name themselves, and one who did not.

These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was OK because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly. I have been remorseful of my actions. And I’ve tried to learn from them. And run from them. Now I’m aware of the extent of the impact of my actions. I learned yesterday the extent to which I left these women who admired me feeling badly about themselves and cautious around other men who would never have put them in that position. I also took advantage of the fact that I was widely admired in my and their community, which disabled them from sharing their story and brought hardship to them when they tried because people who look up to me didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t think that I was doing any of that because my position allowed me not to think about it. There is nothing about this that I forgive myself for. And I have to reconcile it with who I am. Which is nothing compared to the task I left them with. I wish I had reacted to their admiration of me by being a good example to them as a man and given them some guidance as a comedian, including because I admired their work.

The hardest regret to live with is what you’ve done to hurt someone else. And I can hardly wrap my head around the scope of hurt I brought on them. I’d be remiss to exclude the hurt that I’ve brought on people who I work with and have worked with who’s professional and personal lives have been impacted by all of this, including projects currently in production: the cast and crew of 'Better Things,' 'Baskets,' 'The Cops,' 'One Mississippi,' and 'I Love You, Daddy.' I deeply regret that this has brought negative attention to my manager Dave Becky who only tried to mediate a situation that I caused. I’ve brought anguish and hardship to the people at FX who have given me so much The Orchard who took a chance on my movie. and every other entity that has bet on me through the years. I’ve brought pain to my family, my friends, my children and their mother.

I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want. I will now step back and take a long time to listen. Thank you for reading.

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall must pretty bored these days. He resigned in August, but he’s sticking around until the Saskatchewan Party picks a new leader in January. In the meantime, he currently seems to be just killing time at the office before he can start his new life in federal politics and/or consulting.

Presumably this is why he found himself at least as bored as this country’s many pundits, who were still mad about Governor General Julie Payette verbally rolling her eyes at creationists in a speech last week. Wall took it upon himself to write the Viceregent a polite but firmly passive-aggressive letter: we can’t wait for you to visit Saskatchewan, where you will respect how much we love the Lord.

Because this is Canada, Wall’s argument was framed as a universalist defence of “people of faith.” But it’s a pretty safe bet that Wall and his audience are more concerned here with the Book of Genesis than the Bhagavad Gita.

(For the record, Payette has yet to publicly address the fallout from her remarks last week, but she did give another speech earlier this week praising the country’s freedom of religion. This will not appease anyone who has been greatly offended by her breach of decorum, but it seems fine for the rest of us who aren’t losing much sleep over it.)

But nevermind any of that now: there is a kulturkampf afoot and that’s a great way to rack up partisan points. While Wall’s decision to wade into this ultimately minor issue a week after the fact in order to pry email addresses and donations out of people who literally believe the first woman on Earth was made out of some guy’s rib in Iraq 6,000 years ago by turning the Crown into a political prop could be read as a little bit cynical, it’s not really that different in substance from what the Liberals did by using the office of the Governor General as a political prop to rile up everyone who still follows I Fucking Love Science on Facebook.

They’re both instances of the creeping cultural shift in Canadian politics towards the more polarized, hyper-partisan American model. Constitutional monarchy is weird and baffling to everyone who grew up in Canada after 1965, but the new rules of partisan engagement are not. The Liberals have a habit of shooting institutions first and asking questions later if they think the novelty will score them political points—just ask your region’s Independent Senator. Conservatives, meanwhile, have probably noticed that playing the bull in a cultural china shop tends to get the right elected for some reason, so it was inevitable that they’d go all in too.

In Canada, so far, this seems to be translating into a partisan proxy war about evangelical Christianity, waged through office of the Governor General.

Payette’s comments on religion and astrology are not the breach of decorum actually worth getting upset about. What should be much more concerning is the way that the Governor General is being treated more like the partisan figurehead of a presidential republic than a tedious apolitical monarchical figure.

Which is fine, if a republic is what you want. But mixing and matching political systems for partisan ends like this is not going to end well. It’s bastard republicanism for civic illiterates. And this institutional corrosion will also almost definitely get worse before it gets better, because Canadian politicians will never take a serious look under the country’s constitutional hood to clear away the rust or check the brakes.

Anyway, in the meantime, if Brad Wall is looking for something to do while he runs down his clock as a lame duck premier, maybe he would consider helping his government avoid any number of hilarious scandals and gaffes. The Premier’s office using fake maps of a Chinese megamall to solicit foreign investors? Disintegrating government email records that make transparency impossible? I mean, there is definitely no shortage of things Brad Wall can do that are better than trying to start a debate about evolution vs. the Bible on Twitter.

Follow Drew Brown on Twitter.

Welcome to Angus Take House – a weekly column in which I will be pitting two of the wildest takes the world's great thinkers have rustled up against each other. This is your one-stop shop for the meatiest verdicts and saltiest angles on the world's happenings. Go and grab a napkin – these juicy hot takes are fresh from the griddle.

TAKE #1:

What’s the story? Louis CK, Bill Hicks for Bernie Bros, has been accused of sexual misconduct by five women.

Reasonable take: Even if I liked his TV shows, I'm sure I – a man – will manage without him. I'm sure the sun will continue to rise and bless my face with its rays. I'm sure the moon will dip and anoint my nights with untroubled sleep.

Take and Ale Pie: But… I like Louis CK.

We go live now to your boyfriend: brow furrowed, desperately scrolling through his timeline in search of a counter-argument, a tenuous shred of evidence, anything that might absolve his hero. He’s tried the “deeply troubled” line, he’s dabbled in calling it a “witch hunt” – hell, he’s even tried the genuinely outrageous suggestion that CK should have employed sex workers instead of doing what he did to… real people?

Look, I’m not claiming superiority here. I’m not going to try and hover above the Louis CK-likers of this world. I was a self-important student in 2013. We all thought Louie was some sort of neo-realist Curb Your Enthusiasm. However, there comes a time when you have to take stock. If your reflexive desire in this situation is to talk about your own sadness at the situation, or worse still to try to defend him, probably best to stay off Twitter for the moment.

I know you’re upset, but the "this one really hurts" line isn’t doing you any favours. This hasn’t happened to you; this hasn’t happened to Louis CK; it has happened to the women who spoke out. Your "surprise" and "hurt" is part of the web that enables this sort of shit to carry on – men like CK use their work, their influence and their success to cover for them. So sack off a couple of Netflix specials and show some solidarity. Without you stanning over him in YouTube comments, Louis CK is just a gross bloke wanking in a hotel room.

TAKE #2:

What’s the story? Potentially having an overweight son.

Reasonable take: The bigger the son, the bigger the legend!

Low Fat Take Alternative: Hey fatty boom boom, have another cream cake! I have no son.

Giles Coren here – pictured above cowering in fear as his 20-ton son hurtles towards him like a projectile walrus – steps up to crown a week of terrible news and horrid opinions with, and I don’t say this lightly, the wildest take of the year. That take being: I hope my son doesn't grow up to be a disgusting fat person. Which is: a bit much really, innit?

In his searing takedown of… his own children, Coren manages to insult no less than: overweight people, the mentally ill, Vanessa Feltz, James Corden, Diane Abbott, Christopher Biggins, Russell Grant, Paul Hollywood, Wagner, the middle-class, the working-class, the entire LGBTQI community, God, Americans, nuclear physicists and his son. His poor son.

Giles Coren is a sort of met-set Rod Liddle for rich people – the arse-end aristocratic spawn of generation shock-jock. You know when you read about Tories who have been caught setting fire to money in front of homeless people, or fox hunters who have told animal-rights activists they’d like to shag them? Coren is from that school of entitlement. People who play with dark thoughts about the disadvantaged like they're bored millionaires kicking leather footballs around empty mansions.

He basically gets paid to swill scotch around a glass and say the most fucked up thing he can think of, which is a pretty good job for a cunt I suppose.

Prime cut: Coren. See you in therapy, dad!

@a_n_g_u_s

Actress Ellen Page has accused director Brett Ratner of outing her when she was 18 years old.

In a lengthy Facebook post, Page, who is a VICELAND host, said Ratner told a woman 10 years older than her “you should fuck [Page] to make her realize she’s gay” during a cast and crew meet and greet for X-Men: The Last Stand, which Ratner was directing.

VICE reached out to Ratner’s lawyer, Martin Singer, for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Ratner was recently accused of sexual assault or harassment by at least six women. The director has denied the allegations through his lawyer and is suing one woman who accused him of rape.

Page, who portrayed Kitty Pryde in the 2006 X-Men movie, said she had not yet acknowledged to herself that she was gay when Ratner made the comment.

“I felt violated when this happened. I looked down at my feet, didn’t say a word, and watched as no one else did either,” she wrote. “He outed me with no regard for my well-being, an act we all recognize as homophobic.” She went on to say the comments caused her “long standing feelings of shame.”

Page also alleges Ratner remarked on another woman’s “flappy pussy” on set.

She went on to say that during filming, she and Ratner got into an “altercation” when she refused to wear a shirt that said “Team Ratner” despite his insistence. Page said she told him “I am not on your team.” Later, she continues, she was told by other crew members that she couldn’t speak to him that way.

“I was being reprimanded, yet he was not being punished nor fired for the blatantly homophobic and abusive behaviour we all witnessed.”

Page went on to detail other instances of sexual harassment and assault she faced in the film industry, including being propositioned by a director who fondled her leg under a table, being sexually assaulted by a grip, and being asked by a director to have sex with an older man; all of the incidents occurred when Page was 16, she wrote.

She took aim at Hollywood’s culture of complicity when it comes to alleged serial predators like Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein and said that working on a Woody Allen film was “the biggest regret” of her career.

In response to the LA Times investigation, Ratner’s attorney Singer said “I have represented Mr. Ratner for two decades, and no woman has ever made a claim against him for sexual misconduct or sexual harassment.”

Follow Manisha on Twitter.

Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman is now the second high-profile athlete to publicly accuse former Team USA doctor Larry Nassar of sexual abuse.

In an excerpt from an upcoming interview with CBS's 60 Minutes, Raisman said that Nassar began treating her when she was 15, but did not elaborate on the nature of the abuse. Instead, she slammed USA Gymnastics for creating a culture where young athletes are afraid to speak up.

"Why are we looking at why didn't the girls speak up? Why not look at what about the culture? What did USA Gymnastics do, and Larry Nassar do, to manipulate these girls so much that they are so afraid to speak up?" Raisman asked.

According to NBC News, Nassar worked as a doctor for USA Gymnastics for almost 20 years and has been accused by more than 130 women, many of them former athletes, of sexual abuse under his treatment. In December, Nassar was arrested on federal child pornography charges after the FBI found more than 37,000 files on his computer. He's now awaiting sentencing for those charges, but has pleaded not guilty to charges of sexual abuse. The scandal is just one of many to have come out of USA Gymnastics in recent years.

In October, Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney went public with allegations of abuse, saying that Nassar sexually assaulted her from the time she was 13 until she retired from the sport. Maroney said that Nassar repeatedly molested patients under the guise of "treatment." She even claimed she had been drugged on a flight to Tokyo and woke up alone with him in his hotel room.

USA Gymnastics released a statement saying it had adopted a new "safe sport policy" requiring "mandatory reporting" of suspicions of sexual misconduct and is setting standards to "prevent inappropriate interaction" between athletes and adults.

"We are appalled by the conduct of which Larry Nassar is accused," USA Gymnastics said, according to the New York Times. "And we are very sorry that any athlete has been harmed during his or her gymnastics career."

On Thursday, the New York Times filed a lawsuit against a woman who it says has been posing as a reporter for the paper for years, duping high-profile subjects into interviews and even making her own bogus business cards.

According to the New York Post, Contessa Bourbon first claimed she was a Times journalist in 2013 at a Brookings Institute event, despite the paper saying she had never been employed there. Throughout the years, she's allegedly identified herself as a Times journalist on her social media accounts, managed to ask Education Secretary Betsy DeVos a question at a recent speech, and used fake credentials to interview the US Turkish ambassador, the New York Daily News reports. In October, she allegedly contacted a member of Congress, looking to score an invite to a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony by posing as a Times journalist.

"Ms. Bourbon’s unprofessional conduct in dealing with congressional staff members was also inaccurately attributed to the New York Times, to its detriment," the claim states.

The suit alleges that Bourbon, who lives in Queens, even went so far as to print a set of fake business cards to keep up her ruse. She's even tweeted about assignments and editors, despite the Times saying she's "not, and never been, employed by the Times, as a reporter for the New York Times, or in any other position or capacity,” according to the lawsuit.

The suit alleges Bourbon has identified herself as a Times reporter in her Twitter bio at one point, but now she describes herself as a "Journalist for the Wall Street Journal, London Times, Guardian, Washington Post: Queen of BARCELONA."

"The Times has suffered damage to the reputation of its trademarks," the complaint states. "Her conduct also creates confusion as to which reporter is representing the New York Times at an event and as to whether an event or interview is actually being reported for the New York Times."

While Bourbon's scheme may have been able to dupe more than a couple high-ranking officials, she's got nothing on the Joel Osteen doppelgänger who convinced hundreds of people he was the celebrity televangelist at one of Osteen's own events.

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Three weeks ago, I published an article about my experience trying to report on the Louis C.K. allegations at the largest comedy festival in the world. In the piece, I explained how the COO of the Just for Laughs festival yelled at me for asking comedians whether they'd heard about the rumors of sexual misconduct that had been swirling around C.K.

In the weeks since that article ran I have been called many things. I have been called a "cunt," an epithet so hack it slides off my back. I have been called fucking awful, which is a relative value judgement. I have been called a "cuck snowflake," a phrase so idiotic I thought it couldn’t be lobbed against someone in earnest.

But there’s one thing that bothers me more than anything else, a question I’ve received from multiple men with zero to ten Twitter followers: Why, if I knew about the validity of the Louis C.K. story for years, didn’t I say something? Doesn’t that make me just as bad—nay, somehow even worse—as anyone else who knew?

Because that’s not how it works, Dave from Ohio. It’s not as if I, and I alone, held the keys to breaking the story yet chose not to do anything. I tried. I talked about it onstage, I talked about it online, I talked about it in conversation. I tried.

I knew about the Louis C.K. stories for years because everyone I know knew about the Louis C.K. stories for years. That’s just how these things are—or, I suppose, were. Before now, predators in the entertainment industry got away with decades of abhorrent behavior because no one was willing to publicly call them out on it for myriad reasons, most notably fear and self preservation. It’s easy to be the 2,000th person to retweet a headline after it’s been plastered all over the nightly news; it’s harder to be the only person yelling into the void.

The fact that I was so beaten down by this goddamned story and the permanent damage the pursuit of it did to my career means I take little pleasure in finally being vindicated. Getting booted from the red carpet at the the largest comedy festival in the world when you're a comedian yourself may garner you punk points with peers, but it doesn’t make you feel particularly good. Feeling as though you will never have a relationship with 3 Arts, the extremely fucking powerful management company that represents Louis C.K. and countless other A-list comedians, all because you asked Kevin Hart (a client of 3 Arts, natch) a fucking question, doesn’t either. Having your friends shy away from you so as to not be tainted by your toxicity can kind of wear on a broad. I mean, one left me in the rain to wait for Louis C.K., for Christ's sake.

C.K.’s manager, Dave Becky (who, let the record show, I have never spoken to), claims he didn’t threaten anyone into silence; he may very well be telling the truth. The fact is, however, he didn’t have to outwardly threaten anyone to achieve that effect. Anyone in a position of power telling someone who is comparatively powerless to not talk about their personal experience or their knowledge of someone else’s experience—as he is alleged to have done—comes off as a threat. The more a person thinks they’ll be punished for speaking, the less inclined they are to speak.

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And besides, Dave from Ohio, if you have no one willing to go on the record, you have no story, you only have rumor, and you find yourself and the media outlet you’re reporting for on the hook if the subject of the piece wants to get litigious. Media organizations are disinclined to report unsubstantiated rumors because, you know, they don’t want to be sued into oblivion. Knowing about Louis C.K., knowing about Harvey Weinstein, knowing about Kevin Spacey, knowing [insert name here] did [insert repugnant act here] but being powerless to broadcast these facts to the public doesn’t make me complicit in the actions of these men. That blame falls on the people who intimidate people into silence.

Unfortunately in cases like this, the onus is always on the victims to come forward—the more, the better. Only after it’s impossible to ignore, only after there is strength in numbers, is it possible for the tide to turn. And only after victims feel comfortable enough to speak and be heard do others become emboldened to speak for themselves. Because that’s how this works, Dave from Ohio.

Christ knows I've heard about other men more famous than Louis C.K. who have done even worse things than what he's admitted to doing. And Christ knows I know other people who have heard and said nothing for fear of jeopardizing their professional relationships.

I don’t know how it’s possible to be friends with a woman who has been assaulted by someone and do nothing to assist her because you don’t want to fuck up your development deal. Narcissistic people, which the entertainment industry has in spades, are only woke when it’s politically convenient. Related: The next time I see a pseudo ally who remained silent about C.K. make some sort of grand declaration of wokeness online, I will throw them into a volcano.

The New York Times has now reported on the story, and Louis C.K. has confirmed the story. I derive little pleasure from this vindication, which is odd as I am, generally speaking, nothing if not petty.

Now that it's out in the open, rather than vindication I feel disdain for the fact that people only started giving a shit about decades of allegations once women's victimhood started trending. While I appreciate the fact that things are changing, I fear for the longevity of it. What will happen when #MeToo falls into the digital chasm that absorbed #YesAllWomen? Why was I one of only a handful of people who cared before a hashtag made it OK?

To be clear, I do not consider myself some kind of folk hero, nor do I enjoy being inserted into the narrative. Because it’s not my story. No one ever jerked off in front of me. But that never stopped me from caring about the abuse of others, and from wanting justice for them regardless of the repercussions. I am tired of friends telling me I'm brave for having a functioning moral compass. I merely hope morality becomes the new normal.

Follow Megan Koester on Twitter.

Back in the end of October, the Navy pulled two American women and their dogs off a damaged sailboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean after a Taiwanese fishing boat discovered them floating aimlessly at sea. The women claimed they had been lost for five months, fending off storms and shark attacks, and surviving on a mostly pasta diet.

Now, two weeks after their rescue, Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava say that the Taiwanese fishing vessel that supposedly saved them didn't actually save them at all—it was trying to kill them.

"We were never 'lost at sea.' We knew where we were the entire time," Appel told NBC this week. "While the media portrayed a rescue with the Taiwanese fishing vessel, they were actually the reason why we called for help."

She added, "They tried to kill us during the night."

According to Appel's new story, the fishing boat intentionally rammed into their smaller sailboat and "tried to kill us during the night." Afraid that the boat captain would realize they were calling for help, the women decided not to turn on their emergency distress beacon, which was apparently onboard the whole time. Instead, she claims she climbed onto a surfboard, floated to the fishing boat, and snuck aboard, where she was able to call the Coast Guard from a satellite phone.

"I was able to get on a surfboard and get on their boat, make an actual phone call. Because no one spoke English, it was easier and safer for me to relay the information to the US Coast Guard-Guam sector that we were in danger without them realizing what we were saying."

The claim is just one of many strange twists the story has taken since the two were rescued last month. Aside from the presence of the distress beacon, the National Weather service said it had no record of a big storm at the time and place where the women claimed their boat was damaged. And scientists who study tiger shark behavior popped in to say that there's "not an iota of accuracy" in Appel and Fuiava's tale of sharks circling and ramming their boat.

Still, the duo seems to be sticking to their story. Appel told Matt Lauer on Today, "If you were there, you would say the same thing I did."

It's hard to know at this point whether the shark-and-storm-and-evil-fishermen story is true or a total fabrication, since weirder things have definitely happened out at sea.

Since the New York Times published a report on Louis C.K.'s pattern of sexual misconduct on Thursday, the comedy community has almost uniformly denounced him. On Twitter, Judd Apatow called C.K. a "dream killer," and Parks and Recreation creator Michael Schur condemned the comedian, before admitting that he'd heard about the rumors and still cast him on his show. On Thursday night, mainstream late-night talkshow hosts like Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, and Jordan Klepper made sure to address C.K.'s transgressions in some capacity. Colbert, who broke into the world of mainstream comedy working for C.K. on The Dana Carvey Show, mentioned why C.K., who had been scheduled to appear as a guest on the Late Show, would not be making an appearance.

“Louis canceled his appearance here tonight because the New York Times broke this story today: Five women are accusing Louis C.K. of sexual misconduct,” Colbert said in his opening monologue. “When reached for comment, Jesus said, ‘La la la la la. I don’t want to hear about it. I was a big fan.’" He then quickly pivoted to a joke about Keith Urban.

It's been great to see comedy's major players bemoan the fact that C.K. has a long history of masturbating in front of women without their consent and then using his position of power to silence their stories. But it also makes you wonder: What took them so long?

While C.K. finally confessed to the allegations on Friday afternoon, information about his transgressions have been publicly available for over two years. In 2015, Gawker's Jordan Sargent reported on these same allegations. And three years earlier Gawker published a blind item headlined, "Which Beloved Comedian Likes to Force Female Comics to Watch Him Jerk Off?"

With the exception of a few brave women like Roseanne Bar and Tig Notaro, most of comedy's elite have been mum on this until the past two days, which isn't surprising, but also pretty reprehensible considering these were open secrets known to everyone in the industry.

"You’d hear it mentioned under people’s breath when he did episodes about masturbation or released the trailer for his movie," Mike Drucker, a writer for The President Show on Comedy Central and formerly of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, explained to me in a text message. "There’s still a fear among comedians that—even now—speaking out about this or having a strong opinion will damage you or backfire."

John Levenstein, who's produced and written for Arrested Development, Silicon Valley, Kroll Show, and appeared on Portlandia, told me in a text message, "Anyone in comedy who says they weren't aware of the rumors is full of shit."

But looking back, what's even more disturbing is what famous male comedians had to say about Louis C.K. when they were confronted with these rumors following the 2015 Gawker report.

During an audience Q&A in May 2016, a young man asked Jon Stewart about interviewing C.K. on The Daily Show in light of his sexual misconduct allegations. "Woah, what?" Stewart said, apparently confused.

The man explained that comedian Jen Kirkman had suggested C.K. harassed her—she subsequently reneged her claims—also mentioning that Gawker had published a story, and people had been talking about it on the internet. He then asked if there was any discussion at The Daily Show about having C.K. on as a guest. Stewart burst out laughing. "Wait, I'm a little bit lost," he said. "So the internet said Louis harassed women?... You know who you're talking to, right?"

Stewart continued, smiling at the apparent ridiculousness of the question, "I'm honestly not that connected to that world, so I don't know what you're talking about... All I can tell you is I've worked with Louis for 30 years, and he's a wonderful man and person, and I've never heard anything about this. We've all known Bill Cosby was a prick for a long time, so I don't know what to tell you." The audience laughed.

If I'm being generous and taking Stewart's word that he wasn't aware of the C.K. allegations at the time, his response—laughing when asked about claims of sexual harassment—is still alarming.

Aziz Ansari, who was mentored by C.K. and shares a manager with him, also had a weird response to the allegations. In late 2015, the Daily Beast asked Ansari about the sexual misconduct reports following a discussion of a Master of None episode about a subway masturbator. Ansari shut them down, saying, "I’m not talking about that." (Neither Ansari's nor Stewart's managers immediately responded to requests for comment.)

Shortly before the publication of the New York Times story, Pamela Adlon, a frequent Louis C.K. collaborator, defended the comedian in an interview on KCRW. C.K. is also the executive producer of Adlon's new TV show, Better Things.

"He’s a person of integrity, and he takes care of people, and he’s an incredible collaborator, and everybody that I know, knows that about him," Adlon said. "He’s a good man. It’s just painful. It hurts right now, because people should be celebrating him, because he’s part of my show. We wrote the whole season together. It’s really hard and it’s confusing and I hate the whole thing."

While it might seem unfair to fault Stewart, Ansari, and Adlon for their responses to Louis C.K.'s sexual misconduct, they didn't need to be so glib, dismissive, and defensive.

On Wednesday, the day before the New York Times report was published, I interviewed Judah Friedlander, who starred on 30 Rock and is a regular at the Comedy Cellar, the Greenwich Village club where C.K. was also a regular. I didn't ask him about the C.K. allegations directly, but because his latest Netflix stand-up special, America Is the Greatest Country in the United States, is so political and he's been outspoken on social media about Weinstein, I wanted to know how he's responded to the sexual misconduct claims in the comedy community.

Here's what he said:

There’s a big rumor. I think I know who you’re talking about. I’ve only read things on Gawker. I got alerted to that about a year ago when it was online… I generally don’t deal with him. He’s usually been a dick to me. So I know nothing about it, but if anyone in the comedy community has been abused by anyone, I support them 100 percent. Whoever’s doing it, no matter how big or small they are, I hope they do the time for the crime.

Friedlander demonstrates that there's a way to offer support to victims of abuse even if the rumors aren't entirely substantiated. You don't laugh it off. You don't say you've known him for 30 years and "he's a wonderful man." You don't have to decline to comment, especially if you're someone who uses the alleged sexual misconduct as a plot device in your TV show.

You can just say you don't know if it's true or not, and offer your support to any victims. It's that easy.

Follow Eve Peyser on Twitter.

Looking for some stuff to catch up on this weekend? Whether it's TV, movies, books, or anything in between—VICE has you covered. Read on for our staff recommendations on what to take in during your downtime:

Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri

Martin McDonagh has been doing the good-writing thing for a minute now. He'd already established himself as a top-tier playwright before striking out into filmmaking with 2008's In Bruges, and his third film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, has garnered awards buzz and anticipatory chatter from strong festival showings and dynamite trailers. Plus, Frances McDormand apparently kicks ass in it. Why wouldn't she? —Larry Fitzmaurice, Senior Culture Editor, Digital

Thelma

If you liked Carrie for the coming-of-age quarrels but wish it cut back on the camp, consider checking out Thelma this weekend. The new film from Norwegians Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt is something of a queer horror revelation, featuring breakout performances from newcomers Eili Harboe and musician Kaya Wilkins, and the kind of horrific cinematography that'll haunt you long after its supremely satisfying finale. Read our interview with Trier and Vogt here. —Emerson Rosenthal

Kurdish Film and Cultural Festival

In September, Turkey-born British Kurdish filmmaker Mehmet Aksoy was killed while filming soldiers fighting ISIS in Syria. If you haven't heard of him until now, scratch your plans and head instead to the Kurdish Film and Cultural Festival, a collaborative effort between the North America Rojava Alliance (NARA) and New York DIY-er incubator, 8 Ball Community. Come for the films, including the "Kafka-esque" Come to My Voice, and stay for traditional music and dance performances, talks on the philosophy of Rojava, and a sampling of Kurdish "smuggler's tea." The festival kicks off on Friday with a celebration of Aksoy's life, including screenings of the films he was killed for creating. Festivities take place at Alwan for the Arts. Click here for more info. —Beckett Mufson

Dylan Kraus - Night Light

Via Entrance

Opening Saturday night at Entrance in the Lower East Side is Night Light, a show of paintings by the New York-based multi-hyphenate artist Dylan Kraus. New York by way of Ohio, Kraus is an outlier of the highest order: a psychedelic shaman with a stick 'n' poke flash sheet; a Rorschach inkblot that looks like Alfred E. Newman; Fragonard on extra-strength Blue Dream. Sure, it’s a downtown art opening on a weekend, so you can fully expect “emperor’s new clothiers” to be out in droves—but you’re not going an art show for the people... are you? Either way, you’re likely to meet a lot of characters in New York, but you're not gonna meet anyone who doesn't believe in Dylan. Click here to learn more. —ER

The Summoning

Fans of Adventure Time and Steven Universe should know Cartoon Hangover. The YouTube channel dedicates itself to cranking out imaginative, diverse, and emotionally-intelligent miniseries like Bravest Warriors and Bee and Puppycat. This week's offering is called The Summoning, and it follows the goofy antics of a feline witch on the hunt for potion ingredients. Created by Australian animator Elyse Castro and directed by Natasha Allegri, The Summoning marks the debut of a new anthology series called GO! Cartoons, produced by Sony Animation Studios and Frederator. Each week, a different creator and director will team up to tell a story in a unique universe on YouTube (did I mention it's free? It's free!). If you click with The Summoning, the next episode, Alison and David Cowles's Boots, airs November 21. —BM

Joey Frank & Daniel Kent - Peas and Carrots

Joey Frank and Daniel Kent, 'Rules Are Jail,' 2017. Inkjet print, 24" x 36". Courtesy of the artists.

Chances are you're not working from 9 to 5 this evening, so why not head to a Bushwick gallery called Orgy Park to shoot some pool and get your fill of late era high-conceptualism? Peas and Carrots is a show by Joey Frank and Daniel Kent that bills itself as a continuation of "the duo’s thematic exploration of man’s relationship with the terms of engagement, rules, and bureaucracy: being the good member of society," which is basically just a fancy way of saying "pushing the limits until you're not really sure they exist anymore." Anarchy? Better! It's (overnight) art. Click here for more info. —ER

No Vacancy III

Artwork by Zach Gage. Courtesy of ALT ESC

A building full of empty studio spaces will be transformed into a massive popup art show this weekend. No Vacancy III is the third (duh) in a series by curator duo Alison Sirico and Irina Makarov, a.k.a., ALT ESC. Their specialty is finding cool, affordable spaces to show off art, and throwing wicked parties to pay for it all. On Friday night, Bushwick's Studio 929 will be open until at least 3 AM, with DJs including Bearcat (Discwoman) and Basque industrial/melodic darkwave DJ Ne/Re/A. Come to check out work by luminaries like Rachel Rossin and Pussykrew, and stay to discover the artists who will be on everyone's lips in a year or two. There are also curatorial projects by MSHR and Stephanie Hier, which you won't want to miss. No Vacancy III runs November 10–12. Learn more here. —BM

Welcome back to Can't Handle the Truth, our Saturday column looking at the past seven days of fake news and hoaxes that have spread thanks to the internet.

For years, a "rumor" that comedian Louis C.K. forced women to watch him masturbate has circulated in media and comedy circles. Media outlets, notably Gawker and Jezebel, tried to report out those rumors, but no one had enough information to run a story detailing the allegations, mostly because the women in question feared that by speaking out against a powerful man they would ruin their careers.

Then, in a bombshell report published on Thursday, five women (four of whom allowed their names to be used) confirmed those rumors, telling the New York Times that they'd been used as involuntary props in C.K.'s hideous sex ritual, and detailing the emotional and professional damage his abuse had caused them. C.K. confirmed the stories on Friday, as the television networks and movie distributors he was in business with backed away from him.

This is a good opportunity to talk about the difference between a hoax and a rumor. Today, we have complete certainty about what Louis C.K. did. For a long time, however, all we had were unsubstantiated—but very consistent—stories passed around by word of mouth. That made it easy for C.K. and his many defenders in the comedy world to dismiss the accusations as fake or simply refuse to talk about them.

But unlike most of the hoaxes that permeate social media these days, false rumors of sexual assault are rare, and lies tend to fall apart scrutiny. Accusing a sex abuser is not a selfish act—the only thing to gain by stepping forward is the knowledge that it hopefully won't happen to others. In cases where a woman is accusing a powerful man of predatory behavior, she risks being smeared by his allies. That's happened in the case of Leigh Corfman, the Alabama woman who said that Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore made sexual advances on her when she was 14. Conservative pundits like Sean Hannity have defended Moore, while the despicable far-right website The Gateway Pundit has suggested that Corfman's divorces and bankruptcies make her not credible.

Often, it takes a long time for victims to work up the courage to go public with their allegations. As we've seen over and over again since the Harvey Weinstein news broke, that doesn't mean their allegations are false. Sexual assault and abuse rumors are worth taking seriously.

These rumors from the past week, on the other hand, aren't worth it. They're just fake:

The Sutherland Springs shooter wanted to start a war in the name of antifa

For the past two weeks, this column has checked in with the right-wing rumor mill's laughable fixation on the idea that anti-fascists are on the verge of a bloody uprising against white people. The antifa civil war was supposed to begin on November 4, but didn't (you would have heard about it if it did). Instead, the organizers of the nonviolent "Refuse Fascism" events that prompted all this scaremongering held small protests, with a couple more events planned for the coming weeks.

Dismayingly, in the hours that followed the nightmarish shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday, leaving 27 people dead, that rumor mill revived the fake uprising the right had been fantasizing about. Mike Cernovich, who seems to want to be considered a legitimate journalist, was among the first to speculate about it:

About four hours after Cernovich's tweet (according to a timeline about the rumor that ran on HuffPo), the antifa rumor was ostensibly "confirmed" by notorious the lie manufacturer Your News Wire. According to made-up witnesses shooter Devin Kelley "carried an Antifa flag and told the churchgoers 'this is a communist revolution' before unloading on the congregation,'" Your News Wire wrote. The Your News Wire story also included a fake image of Kelley's Facebook page, featuring an antifa flag. An astonishing 264,000 people shared the fake story on Facebook.

Kelley had a personal history saturated with violence and mental illness. But nothing in his past suggests any connection to antifa, or a desire to spark a communist uprising.

Snapchat is shutting down

A viral hoax exploded on Facebook on Monday that apparently convinced many that Snapchat was shutting down. The hoax was shabbily written, making use of Chanel45news.com, one of a large family of prank sites that allow you to create a hoax in about five minutes and have it look real when you share it on Facebook.

The rumor was so widespread, Snapchat was forced to respond.

A viral post about Snapchat shutting down is pretty inconsequential, but it shows just how gullible people can be.

A white supremacist scrawled racist slurs on a car at a military academy

Back in September at the prep school that feeds cadets to the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, someone scrawled racist graffiti on whiteboards near the dorms of five black student. The message was "go home," followed by the mother of all slurs. Lieutenant General Jay B. Silveria, the superintendent of the academy, gathered the academy together and responded to the graffiti with a stern condemnation of racism, followed by a speech about the strength that comes from diversity. "If you demean someone in any way, then you need to get out," Silveria said.

The speech went moderately viral, and Silveria performed a victory lap on TV news, where anchors framed his treatment of race as a refreshing alternative to President Trump's approach to the topic.

Ah, but it turns out there was no graffiti-scrawling white supremacist in their midst. The local CBS news affiliate reported on Tuesday that one of the cadets who reported the graffiti was actually responsible for creating the graffiti, and had subsequently left the academy.

Conservative news jumped on the story. A columnist for the Washington Examiner scolded the media for a lack of caution and said that liberal commenters should have been more skeptical of the story because "too many such incidents have turned out to be hoaxes." A Fox News contributor who is also an active-duty Army officer similarly decried the press, writing, "Each instance of racism is fresh fodder to fuel their narrative about how America is mired in white supremacy."

What's truly tragic here is that this fake hate crime allows people to dismiss the idea that the US is a racist country, or that white supremacy needs to be confronted. But whatever the facts of the case, the broader points of Silveria's speech remain very true and real.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

From a lack of racial diversity in the LGBTQ characters that do exist on TV, to the tropes and clichés their roles often embody, it sometimes feels like the best case scenario for queer TV representation is watching our favorite lesbian characters get killed off in dramatic plot lines.

The fight for equitable, proper media representation for queer people is an endless one; luckily, GLAAD is there to track our progress (or lack thereof, depending on where you stand). Yesterday, the LGBTQ media watchdog released their 21st annual “Where We Are on TV” report, which tracks the proliferation of queer characters across primetime television and streaming services. And while representation is getting better in some respects—6.4 percent of regular series characters expected to appear on primetime scripted TV in the coming year are queer, the highest number since the report began—the report also shed light on a more alarming finding: these characters are overwhelmingly white men.

Though GLAAD said racial diversity amongst primetime broadcast networks had improved 35 percent since last year, on cable and streaming services, 72 percent and 71 percent of LGBTQ characters counted, respectively, were white. In addition, the number of queer women on broadcast and cable programs actually dropped this year, due in part to “a very deadly year for queer female characters,” the report noted. And about half of all LGBTQ characters on TV are gay men—a preponderance that’s endured, generally speaking, since queer characters first broke into TV in the 1970s.

Those findings can make it hard to celebrate the wins, but there were definite wins. GLAAD noted it was able to count asexual and nonbinary characters for the first time in the report’s history. Shows like Transparent, which features seven recurring LGBTQ characters, and One Mississippi, a semi-autobiographical show from out lesbian comedian Tig Notaro, continue to push forward both the scope and prominence of queer roles on TV. There are actors like Tituss Burgess to applaud, who has been celebrated for, among other things, using his role on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt to undermine the “gay best friend” trope. Disney Channel just announced their first character to come out as gay, a huge step for children’s programming. Freeform (formerly ABC Family) continues to make huge strides for inclusion, with 27 recurring LGBTQ characters across the network’s lineup, the most on cable TV.

But those victories belie the truth of how much work is left to ensure queer people are represented in ways that reflect real world diversity without playing into damaging stereotypes.

Watch VICE profile people who have lived through gay conversion therapy:

Even with the rise in representation we’ve seen in the last decade, many queer characters on TV often fall victim to stereotypes and tropes; for instance, GLAAD’s report highlights that many storylines featuring transgender characters on TV center on coming out. Too many TV shows continue to bury their gays; GLAAD found that since the start of 2016, over 25 queer women have been killed off on scripted and streaming TV series.

Unfortunately, none of this is new. While sympathetic portrayals of gay men have been around since the early 70s, it wasn’t until the 90s that queer female characters were finally introduced to TV. And they were often used for shock value, like the kiss between Rachel and her college friend on Friends. Queer female storylines improved with shows like Roseanne, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Ellen Degeneres’ early sitcom Ellen, and LA Law. The 2000s brought us groundbreaking queer-centric shows like Queer as Folk and The L-Word. But through it all—and still today—racial diversity has been lacking and storylines have often fumbled.

Even more recent shows, like Modern Family and Transparent, feature primarily white characters; with the killing of Poussey in 2015, even Orange is the New Black—a show that has always been exemplary for queer POC female representation—chose to bury one if its gays. And while streaming services boast wins like having the most transgender characters on-screen, they, too, fall victim to pitiful levels of racial diversity.

All around, television must do better in representation—specifically in racial and gender diversity. We need more transgender characters, more queer characters on the LGBTQ spectrum (nonbinary, asexual, intersex, pansexual), and more queer disabled characters, portrayed fairly and free of stereotypes. After all, if some members of the LGBTQ community are seen and heard more than others, what progress has been made? If everyone isn’t included, no one is.

Follow Jill Gutowitz on Twitter.

Colombia is at a crossroads. In November 2016, the government signed a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), bringing an end to decades of conflict. What’s left in the deal's wake is a new era of uncertainty—a vacuum of power in the Colombian countryside where the rebels once patrolled, as the government works to prevent new factions of organized crime from usurping the position.

In Cacua—a verdant, mountainous region in southwest Colombia—Pharmacielo hopes to create positive change. The Canadian Colombian company has roots in the flower business, but for the past four years, its CEO, Federico Cock Correa, has worked closely with the government to develop laws that will pave the way for legal medicinal cannabis cultivation.

Correa speaks of Pharmacielo with a humanitarian bent, focusing on the company’s desire to aid Cauca’s farmers toward a more stable life. He talks benevolently about “the wellness of the people,” and while speaking with VICE, he was preparing to fly to the Cacua town of Corinto after a mudslide caused three fatalities. He prioritizes building up the impoverished province.

“We got the license [to cultivate] to show that we want to invest in the region and to build relations with Cacua,” Correa explains. “Pharmacielo is going to transfer technology and knowledge to produce better products. We want [the farmers] to produce better quality [cannabis] and a higher yield.”

With more than 60 farming families already partnered with Pharmacielo, the company’s goal of being a fully functional cultivation center by the end of 2018 seems to be on its way to fruition. However, its glittering message isn’t sitting right with everyone in Cauca; farmers worry that Pharmacielo could end up resembling a less-violent FARC, leaving them just as exploited as before. Others—like indigenous group the Nasa—consider the Cauca region their ancestral homeland and are on a path toward reclamation. Growers who don't band with Pharmacielo and other legitimate cultivation operations run the risk of having their crops—as well as their livelihood—eradicated by the army.

Despite the risk and ambiguity, Correa remains hopeful. “I hope it encourages others organize and create small farms all over [Colombia]. We are a pilot for the country.”

VICE: How does Pharmacielo plan to build trust with the farmers and indigenous people of the Cauca region?
Federico Cock Correa: We got together with farmers from the Cauca region a year ago and started to dream of a possibility to work together. They believe in us and we believe in them. We are going to support and supply all the financial needs at the beginning. We’re basically creating a new industry with a lot of options.

We’re all new in the legal industry. There are many people from the Cauca region who have been growing [cannabis] for many years, but with the ways they produce and they contaminations that occur, they don’t have a good manufacturing practice. You have analytics to assure that the product is free of pesticides and heavy metals and that the medicinal components are correct, and that’s what we’re going to bring to them.

How will Pharmacielo protect workers from further exploitation?
We're going to give stability to people who have been in the middle of a war, been abused, and had a low quality of life. That’s what they’ve been sharing with us. They're going to have all the social benefits and rights that are legally approved by the government. We’re working under the labor law and regulations. Working with us means working with legal benefits: insurance, security, health, everything. They are included like partners in the company. They’re open to working with us, and we’ve been honest and open with them. It’s been a process of building trust, and we want to take care of them in the best possible way.

How will Pharmacielo benefit the Cauca region outside of legal job creation?
Part of what we’re doing is an analysis of the region. How’s the employment, the health, the education? We care about the wellness of the people. We set up a foundation in the region. I learned that in one of the towns there used to be 2,000 acres of coffee, but it wasn’t being processed correctly. So we’re looking for people to buy the product so people can stay in the coffee business. Through the flower business, we’ve worked with supermarkets in 80 to 90 countries around the world, so we can create fair trade opportunities. We don’t want to create a lot of expectations, but if we are able to develop this business, many options are going to come.

How similar will cannabis production and distribution be to the way the flower market functions today?
It’s totally similar, with some adjustments. We can adapt our flower cultivation technique to get higher, more efficient yields. That’s what the don’t have today. The additional thing is that we have the possibility to market and to sell the product with the right certifications to many supermarkets and many companies around the world.

If the army continues to eradicate poor farmers’ crops, what stops another force like FARC from forming to protect them?
Before it was not possible to have a legal business in medicinal cannabis, but the government has been putting in a lot of effort for three years and they didn’t only hand over the possibilities to big companies. People are realizing there’s a possibility to be legal.

If FARC and the government had never come to an agreement, could Pharmacielo could still exist?
Of course. It’s a governmental thing. The agreement was about the drug business, this is medicinal cannabis. The second law they approved was to incorporate the small growers affected. At the beginning, it was only to export and only for big pharmaceutical companies. We are not a pharma company. We are really a startup that began with the knowledge of many people from Colombia, the United States, Canada. We were really the first ones who started this conversation with the government four years ago.

It’s the reputation of Colombia. We have 99 percent of Colombians who are good people and 1 percent who create suffering. These possibilities are going to create a big option for the country. It’s showing the world that Colombia is responsible, that we created a new law to develop this business. We’re going to produce a plant that heals.

Do you think there’s a possibility for companies like Pharmacielo to coexist with farmers who want to cultivate cannabis independently on their own land?
Many things are going to come. We have the license to explore, just like we did with the flower business 50 years ago. There were production in other places, and now Colombia is the second-largest producer of flowers in the world.

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

This article originally appeared on VICE Australia.

You may not care about space. You may not care about France. But something you can definitely get behind is French cats who went to space.

Someone else who feels that way is Matthew Serge Guy from London, who has a Kickstarter page for the construction of a statue in Paris for a cat named Félicette, who was the first cat in space. As Guy explains on his page: “Other animals in space, such as Laika the dog and Ham the chimpanzee, are well-known within popular culture and have lasting memorials, but very few people are aware that a cat went to space at all.

“Now it's time for Felicette to get the memorial she rightly deserves.”

His Kickstarter explains how the French space program—which doesn’t just exist, but is actually the world’s third largest after the US and Russia—used cats to examine how living creatures handled zero gravity conditions.

Félicette on a celebratory postcard released in France after her flight. Screenshot via YouTube

In 1963, a collection of 14 cats were put into space training. The training included spinning them in a giant centrifuge and implanting electrodes in their brain to monitor neurological activity. There was some debate over whether Félicette finally made the cut because of her docile nature and because the rest of the cats had put on weight, but she was ultimately chosen.

On October 18, 1963, Félicette was strapped into a Véronique AG1 rocket, a direct descendant of the Nazi’s V-2 rocket. She was then blown into space from Algeria, surviving a gravitational force of nine-and-a-half. She spent 15 minutes in orbit, before safely parachuting to Earth in a capsule. She was finally retrieved alive and well and became, for a brief moment, something of a national hero in France.

Three months later, in keeping with the long-standing tradition of any science that involves animals, Félicette was euthanized for the purpose of neurological study.

Today, few people know the story of Félicette and her contribution to international aeronautics. On several commemorative stamps, her achievements were incorrectly attributed to a non-existent cat named Félix. And all of this is a wrong that Matthew Serge Guy is trying to put right.

Guy's Kickstarter goal is $52,000, with a number of contribution incentives along the way. For example, if you contribute $15 you’ll get a paw-print signed replica of Félicette’s original postcard from 1963, with a thank you written on the back.

Guy also says that if he somehow raises more than the goal, the statue may end up larger and fancier than promised. “I’m not saying we should make this statue out of gold,” he writes, “but I’m certainly implying it.”

The statue will be ultimately designed by a UK animal sculptor named Gill Parker and is expected to be completed at an unknown date because as Matthew explains, “creating a statue is a long process. A really, really long process.”

Anyway, if this is your thing you’ll have until November 17 to contribute. He’s about halfway there, so go on, throw a cat a bone.

Follow Julian Morgans on Twitter.

I forgot that I was a refugee.

I have lived in the United States since I was three years old. This is where I grew up, went to school, and built a career and a life. I’m as American as I think the word American means.

But it was not until recently, as the political climate became heated and talk of limiting refugees and banning some altogether became a reality, that I was reminded I arrived in this country nearly 60 years ago as a refugee.

In 1961, my father, mother, and I fled Havana after the United States opened its doors to Cubans escaping Communism in the aftermath of the 1959 Cuban revolution. We left behind almost all of our possessions and boarded a plane for Miami with just one suitcase, all that was allowed for each family.

We were among the nearly 500,000 Cubans who entered the United States as refugees between 1959 and 1973 and benefited from humane policies like the Cuban Refugee Assistance Program (CRA), created by President John F. Kennedy through an executive order in 1961.

My memories of my first few years in the United States are spotty as I was so young at the time. We lived first with my mother’s sister in Bethesda, Maryland, and then moved through a series of homes in New York City—a basement apartment in Jamaica, Queens, and a tenement on 137th Street and Broadway, before eventually settling in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

Life for my parents in America was starkly different than in Cuba, where they had lived comfortably up until the revolution. My father ran a Chinese food market that his father had started and my mother was a homemaker. They often spoke of how they loved Cuba’s music, arts, food, and the warmth of its people. That all changed after Castro. In America they found themselves having to start their lives over with limited means and few friends and family.

My mother, who had come from a wealthy family in Hong Kong and had once planned to be a nurse, was only able to find work as a seamstress in a garment sweatshop. She worked 12-hour days five days a week. I remember going to the “factory” after school every day with other kids, playing underneath the machines and in the clothes carts as we waited for the end of our mothers’ long work days. The noise of the sewing machines was so loud that it was likely the cause of a hole in my mother’s eardrum discovered years later. At the end of each day, my mother would carry me up six flights of stairs to our apartment. Like the nearly 20,000 Chinese immigrants who worked in the Chinatown garment shops by 1980, she was in the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, which provided my family with crucial benefits.

While my mother toiled in the garment shops, my father worked long hours as a waiter in Chinese restaurants for our first nine years in New York City. I remember rarely seeing my father because he left before I got up and came home after I had gone to bed. With the help of a friend from Cuba, he eventually opened his own restaurant in Washington Heights in 1970. It was one of the first of the city’s Cuban-Chinese restaurants—think fried plantains with dumplings. This new cuisine was quite popular for some time in New York City thanks to the large Chinese community in Cuba that emigrated after Castro. Its success eventually led to my father opening a string of 11 restaurants around the country, including Washington DC, Boston, Miami, Raleigh, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Even then, I rarely saw him. Either he was working all day in New York or he was at one of his other restaurants for months at a time. My mother retired in 1983 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a radical mastectomy, and my father retired when he sold his business in 1997.

My parent’s endless hard work is what enabled me to go to college. Like most Asians, we were told that if we didn’t do well in school, we would never get ahead in America. I would be petrified if I got an A minus because it was an "Asian F." Neither of my parents went to college so that meant it was even more important for me to. I went to Parsons School of Design, which allowed me to embark on a long and successful career in the world of marketing and communications.

Ironically, for the past ten years I have worked at a museum that is dedicated to telling the story of American immigration through the personal accounts of immigrant families who lived in New York's Lower East Side. I reflect daily on the parallels the museum draws between immigrants who arrived here in the mid-19th century and my family’s personal experience of adjusting to a new culture and language and building a new life from virtually nothing. My parents often talked about what life would have been like if we never left Cuba. They never forgot the opportunity that America provided in a time of great need.

But what will happen to families like mine who face oppression today?

At a time when there are more displaced persons stranded in crisis zones around the world than ever before, the White House last month added additional barriers on refugees seeking to resettle in the United States. This comes on top of the Donald Trump's plan to reduce the number of refugees entering the country annually to 45,000, less than half of what had been proposed by the previous administration and the lowest level that any administration has proposed since 1980.

What will be the cost of this move? For one, stories like mine will become rarer and rarer. If the story of my family teaches us anything, it is that America is made stronger by welcoming refugees, not excluding them. By providing a safe haven and opportunity to people fleeing war, terrorism, oppression, and tyranny, America sends a powerful message to the world about the importance of human rights, a position that has made it a beacon of hope for people around the world for generations. A recent government study showed that refugees brought a $63 billion net benefit to the American economy between 2005 and 2014. They also add immeasurable diversity, innovation, and cultural richness to our country.

In some refugee camp somewhere in the world, there’s a family like mine dreaming of a better life in America. The United States can make it possible for another boy to forget the fear of fleeing his homeland and think of himself as only American. But America must open—not close—its doors if it is to do so.

David Eng is vice president of marketing and communications at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Founded in 1988, the Tenement Museum tells the story of American immigration through the personal accounts of immigrant families, allowing visitors to encounter immigration as a vital force in shaping the nation’s culture, economy, and society. In 2016, the Tenement Museum welcomed more than 238,000 visitors, including 55,000 students.