Left: Bess jacket, Vintage t-shirt, Morris Janks pants; Obesity & Speed denim vest, Clu top, Vintage Levis, T.U.K. creepers, L. Jardim body harness; D-ID Jacket, American Apparel top, Gypsy Warrior skirt, American Apparel tights, Underground boots; Obesity & Speed leather vest, Unif flannel, Morris Janks dress, Sock Man tights; Right: Cheap Monday top, Diesel Skirt, L. Jardim body harness 

PHOTOS BY ALAN YUCH
STYLIST: MIYAKO BELLIZZI

Stylist’s Assistant: Siena Scarritt
Makeup: Taylor Treadwell
Hair: Sara Jane Booth at Takamichi Hair
Nails: Holly Lynn-Falcone
Shoot Assistant: Bobby Viteri
Models: Petra Collins, Alice Lancaster, Jude Liana, Sara Grace Powell, Ondine Viñao

Obesity & Speed denim vest, Clu top, vintage Levis, T.U.K. creepers, L. Jardim body harness; Bess jacket, vintage t-shirt, Morris Janks pants; BLK DNM coat, Tess Giberson sweater, L. Jardim necklace

Left: Obesity & Speed leather vest, Unif flannel, Morris Janks dress, Sock Man tights, Gypsy Warrior earrings, L. Jardim hand chain; Right: D-ID Jacket, American Apparel top, Gypsy Warrior skirt, Topshop earrings, vintage belt

Left: Schott jacket, Bess sweater, BLK DNM pants, Unif boots; Tripp jacket, Nastygal top, Tripp pants, Sock Man socks, T.U.K. creepers; Right: Tripp jacket, Diesel skirt; 6397 jumpsuit, Fuct hat, L. Jardim necklace; Morris Janks top, L. Jardim body harness

Left: Morris Janks top, BLK DNM pants, L. Jardim body harness; 6397 jumpsuit, Doc Martens, Fuct hat, vintage chain; Schott jacket, Bess sweater, BLK DNM pants, Unif boots; Right: Cheap Monday top, Diesel Skirt, Hue socks. Doc Martens, L. Jardim body harness; Tripp jacket, Nastygal top, Tripp pants, Sock Man socks, T.U.K. creepers; Morris Janks top, BLK DNM pants, T.U.K. creepers, L. Jardim body harness; Schott jacket, Bess sweater, BLK DNM pants, Unif boots

Bess leather bra, Cheap Monday top, L. Jardim body harness; Schott jacket, Trash & Vaudeville top, vintage earrings, L. Jardim necklace; Unif top, L. Jardim body harness

Freedom fries are cheaper than French fries. Photo via.

Do you dream of eating in a restaurant that gives you flashbacks of how divided our country was in 2003? That unwanted situation recently came true for me in a restaurant in rural New Jersey, near the New York state border, called Elias Cole. The exterior of the building made it look like a German restaurant, but the menu listed off American comfort food.  Shortly before I opted to order the meatloaf, I was surprised to see “freedom fries” listed on the establishment’s menu.

Those same fries were a side for the hamburger deluxe, which, the menu indicated, was a hamburger on a French roll. I was perplexed by the chef’s choice to plate “freedom fries” and a “French roll” on the same plate. It was like he was the new UN ambassador.

Surely, if you were on the earth in 2003, you may recall the patriotic and conservative trend of certain restaurant establishments changing the “French” in “French fry” to “Freedom.” Wikipedia says that this can be attributed to Bob Ney, the Chairman of the House Administration Committee, who renamed fries in three Congressional cafeterias as a reaction to France’s opposition to the invasion of Iraq. At the time, it was being proposed by the US.

But Walter Jones, a US Congressman from North Carolina, has also been given credit for this term. Jones sponsored a bill in 2003 that would have required French fries to be changed to “freedom fries” in capitol cafeterias. Ironically though, he changed his mind about the whole thing two years later because he changed his perspective about the war itself. He even told a North Carolina newspaper that he regretted the whole French fry fiasco. 

The taste of freedom. Photo via

Freedom fries are nothing more than deep fried potato strips. In North America, it refers to any long piece of fried potato. Some restaurants adopted the “freedom fry” term to show their solidarity and support for the Iraq war, but most of those same establishments changed back from “freedom” to “French” fry within a few years. But like Elias Cole, some across the nation have stuck with the freedom fries flag-waving name. Is it a lingering pro-war statement, a general presentation of patriotism, or just a disinterest in reprinting restaurant menus?

While I was sitting in the booth at Elias Cole, I figured that most of the waitresses were probably toddlers in 2003; they looked too young to fully grasp the meaning behind the freedom fry term to me, so I set out on a quest to contact restaurant establishments that continue to serve freedom fries with staffers who look old enough to recall those awful events that took place around September 11th, 2001.

My Friends Place Grill, a grill in Little Rock Arkansas, doesn’t serve fries because of the way that the French “downplay” the United States. Galla’s Pizza in Atlanta Georgia changed the menu to “freedom fries” because of a friendly dispute between family. Bob Galla, the owner, told me his father was very pro-American, and his sister was living in France at the time of the Iraq war. The father changed it, and then he passed away in 2004. The restaurant kept it to remember him.

Brownies Hamburgers in Tulsa, Oklahoma, serves freedom fries because of France’s refusal to help support the United States during in the Iraq war. Cliff, a cook there, told me, “If you go to McDonald’s, they just call them ‘fries.’ On the board it just says ‘fries.’”

He then passed the phone to Tracy, a waitress who had been working there for a “long time,” who told me, “When the French wouldn’t help us in Desert Storm, there was a gentleman who worked here. He was a former Marine so there was some patriotism. So they changed it during that time.”

Cliff was very right about McDonald’s. The fast food chain used to serve French fries, but now they’ve altered the menu to simply call them “fries.” “While our menu board simply says ‘fries,’ the side was called ‘French fries’ on the 1955 original McDonald’s menu,” said Paul Reyes, Director of Marketing at McDonald’s USA. “We continue to call the menu item ‘French fries’ in training manuals and other materials, but have shortened our menu board to just ‘fries.’” There was no insight given as to why or when “French” was knocked off the starchy item.  

Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill, a chain restaurant that that the country singer opened in 2005, also sells freedom fries. When I contacted their corporate offices, nobody got back to me as to why freedom fries are sold, and none of the managers in individual chains could tell me why. 

Photo via

After a blogger had mentioned freedom fries alongside French toast in a restaurant called Bagel Me! in Villa Park, California, I called it up and spoke to a waitress on the other line who had a very thick accent. I told her that I was writing about freedom fries and was looking for a quote about why they continue to sell them on their menu. She repeatedly informed me that they were “just regular fries.” She seemed frustrated and confused, so she put another woman on the phone.

“The fries that we have,” the other woman told me, “the name is ‘freedom fries,’ but it’s just regular fries. It is the same, so I don’t know why you are asking about that. She is explaining to you that it is a regular fry.”

“Yeah. I get that,” I told her.

“Do you want it?”

“No,” I said. “I’m not ordering food. I was telling your co-worker that I’m writing an article about places that call fries ‘freedom fries.’”

“Ohhhhhhh!,” she said. “We don’t know nothing about it.”

Follow Gina on Twitter: @_GinaTron

Photo courtesy of Wiki Commons. This story is from VICE News, our new news website. See more and sign up now at vicenews.com.

What started as a protest early this month following a sexual assault at the University of the Andes in San Cristóbal has blown up into a massive political crisis in Venezuela, with no clear end in sight.

The assault set off the frustration of students with the country’s endemic crime problem. Local police responded aggressively, and their arrests and blithe mistreatment of protesters catalyzed demonstrations that have swept the country.

At least 14 people have been killed in clashes so far. Still recovering from a bitter, narrow loss to Maduro in the presidential election that followed Hugo Chávez’s death a year ago, opposition members have seized on the public’s disgruntlement—with the country’s security forces, its crippled economy, and the state’s abuse of power—as an opportunity to push much-needed reforms.

Now, weeks into this nascent resistance movement, the participants have determined that it’s time to state what it is they actually want.

Lists of demands have circulated online detailing measures “to get out of the crisis,” which range from the release of all detained protesters—of which there are at least 48, according to President Nicolas Maduro—to the disarmament and disbanding of paramilitary groups.

A six-point list drawn up by representatives of the student movement was picked up within days by political opposition leaders. They expanded the list to a 10-point platform that calls for reforms that include opening access the national media, ending the country's generous oil disbursements abroad until the economic outlook improves, and selecting a nonpartisan mediator (possibly the Catholic Church) to convene a “truth commission” that would examine the course of recent events.

10 puntos para salir de la crisis pic.twitter.com/XjT6HOmKlt

— Julioborges (@JulioBorges) February 25, 2014

The Venezuelan Embassy referred VICE News to the government’s press officers in Caracas for comment, but officials there did not respond to questions about the demonstrations and the demands of the opposition.

Meanwhile, Maduro has been promoting the upcoming Carnival, even adding another two days to the national holiday, hoping that this will entice people to leave the streets. A state television advertisement invites Venezuelans to party it up, telling them Carnival is “cool.”

Amid ongoing protests, Venezuelans are encouraged to enjoy Carnival.

Many are of course calling for the ousting of Maduro and his administration—they have demanded Maduro’s resignation on Twitter with the hashtag #LaSalida, “the Exit.” But generally, protesters appear to be less intent on promoting another coup than in advocating an end to rampant crime, shortages of goods and supplies, and government repression.

Protesters are calling for a boycott of the holiday — a spontaneous initiative that was loosely organized via social media and phone apps, despite the government’s attempts to slow down the Internet and block services.

While representatives of the student movement and opposition parties are increasingly coordinating protests and inviting the public to join, most initiatives — like a recent call for Venezuelans across the country to set up barricades and block traffic — have simply been improvised.

“When someone has a catchy idea, people just get on it and start supporting it,” Carlos Romero, an outreach coordinator for the opposition, told VICE News. “It’s not one person in particular. People just really need to express their frustration and indignation at all the repression and all the violence.”

But while political opposition parties haven't really co-opted the protests, they have definitely embedded themselves within the movement.

These politicians are not particularly keen on some of the protesters’ more radical tactics, like the use of barricades, but overall they are trying to build consensus and maintain a united front.

“People are fed up — they don’t know what to do, so they go to the streets and set up barricades,” Bernardo Pulido, a member of the Voluntad Popular movement and lawyer for jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, told VICE News. He said that student organizers and political leaders wield little influence on the movement.

“Some people think we have to be more active in the streets,” Pulido noted, adding that others, like the opposition’s defeated candidate for president, Henrique Capriles, “think the protests must be highly organized and thought out. But it’s a difference of opinion, not a conflict.”

Maduro has condemned the protesters as “fascists” and the demonstrations as a US-inspired attempt to justify foreign intervention. He expelled three US diplomats from Caracas, to which the US reacted by expelling three Venezuelan diplomats.

Maduro has also referred to the masses gathering in the streets as “a violent minority.” Protesters maintain that they have conducted themselves peacefully.

“The government has tried repeatedly to say that the opposition is getting involved in violent activities,” Pulido explained. “But all the violence has come either from the government, like the national guard, or by these pro-government paramilitary groups, the colectivos. The amazing thing is that after seeing the terrible things that are happening, people are still not getting scared.”

Protesters and opposition leaders hope that stating their demands might lend the movement direction and set the stage for a productive dialogue — though they have so far shunned Maduro’s calls for a national “peace” conference.

With the protests in full swing, when and how things will end in Venezuela is anyone’s guess.

“It’s a visceral crisis,” a local journalist who asked not to be named told VICE News, before noting that the movement remains well short of a coup attempt. “There’s no Kiev-like momentum here. We’re not at the brink of a change of power.”

While these recent developments can give the appearance that Chavismo is on the wane in Venezeula — after all, much has been made of the fact that Maduro commands none of Chávez’s charisma — the government’s critics generally accept the reality that Maduro is backed by the army and remains solidly in power.

"If there's one thing these violent protests have done, it's unite Chavismo,” Maduro said last weekend.

But the government has also suffered blows, as some within its ranks have criticized the president’s escalation of the crisis.

On Monday, Jose Vielma Mora, a respected member of Maduro’s party and the governor of the state of Tachira, where the original student protest in San Cristóbal took place, publicly criticized the president’s deployment of troops and called for a release of detained protesters.

However, Pulido pointed out that Vielma Mora later appeared on television to proclaim his support for Maduro.

“There are disagreements,” Pulido said of divisions inside the ruling party, “but they are trying to silence them. There’s a lot of uncertainty.”

At the moment, that uncertainty is keeping people in the streets — even with the likelihood that things will likely get worse before they change.

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via Flickr user epSos .de

Last week, the USDA put out a Class I recall notice on 8.7 million pounds of beef from the Rancho Feeding Corp., one of Hot Pocket’s primary meat suppliers, citing that the company had “processed diseased and unsound animals and carried out these activities without the benefit or full benefit of federal inspection.” While Hot Pocket is busy recalling their Philly Steak & Cheese products, let's take a look at the grossest, most devastating food recalls ever, ranked from 1 (Relatively Inconvenient) to 10 (Nightmarish Catastrophe).

-A public school lunch is an early exercise in suffering, as anybody who’s choked down one of those dry, stick-in-your-throat burgers will attest to. So it should come as no surprise that in 2008 the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., primary supplier of ground beef to public schools and Indian reservations, initiated the largest meat recall in US history after being caught on film abusing their “downer” cows. “Downer” is a friendly word for animals that are too sick or disabled to move on their own, and the incriminating video shows two employees, who would later be charged with felony animal cruelty; dragging these cows with chains, ramming them with forklifts, and using a high powered water hose to force them into their kill pens. Despite an attempted 143.3 million pound recall, costing taxpayers over $150 million, much of the beef had already been consumed in school lunches. Four years later, the now-bankrupt company settled for a symbolic $500 million dollar fine (later reduced to $155 million), of which only $3 million is expected to be paid out. But don’t worry, that same year, another California school lunch meat supplier was caught on camera killing their livestock inhumanely, and as a bonus, bits of plastic were found in their beef. 8/10

via Flickr user Mark Rain

-Since 2007 the People’s Republic of China has been shit-listed by the US, Canada, the EU, Australia, and New Zealand for their unsanitary, unsafe, and deliberately deceptive manufacturing practices, with bans on things like toys, toothpaste, and pet foods. Following an investigation on substandard safety regulations stretching back to 2003, China executed the head of their food and drug administration for taking $850,000 in bribes from substandard medicine manufacturers, and the owner of Mattel’s biggest supplier hanged himself in his toy factory.

The worst practice, by far, was adding a nitrogen-boosting chemical, melamine, to foods in order to make them appear to have a higher protein content. Although melamine is not harmful in small doses, when combined with a common adulterant, cyanuric acid, it can cause renal failure, and this combination was the basis of a Chinese “wheat gluten” manufactured by at least 12 companies. Pet foods found to contain the chemical may have killed as many as 8,000 pets by the time of the 2007 recall, and four years later, some 20,000 affected pet owners have yet to receive little more than half of the agreed upon $24 million settlement. 9/10

via Flickr user biru31450

-In 2008, China faced the worst food poisoning case ever: More than 300,000 infants fell ill with kidney failure due to milk mixed with melamine, resulting in the deaths of six and the hospitalization of more than 54,000. The melamine came from 22 Chinese dairy companies intentionally watering down protein content and replacing it with the harmful chemical, and was potentially related to 13 earlier deaths from malnutrition after drinking watered-down milk. Despite multiple warnings to police and video evidence as early as 2006, the story was kept quiet by the greatest offender, Sanlu, a dairy distributor who offered the search engine Baidu half a million dollars to censor negative search results.

The aftermath saw nearly 30 countries impose a blanket ban on Chinese dairy, and eight members of the Communist Party were forced to resign. Thirty-six dairy suppliers were arrested, among them the general manager of Sunlu, Tian Wenhua, who received life in prison. Two men, Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping, were executed for their role in the deception; Zhang supplied 800 tons of melamine-contaminated powder, and Geng sold the tainted milk to Sanlu and other milk distributors. During the trial Geng dropped to his knees on the courtroom floor and begged the victims' families for forgiveness. Despite the massive drop in consumer confidence, and a supposed rise in manufacturing standards, unsafe practices in the industry continue to be weighed against razor-thin margins and potential profits. Oh, and the whistleblower who originally warned police of the contamination back in 2006 was murdered by paid hitmen in 2012 for a rumored $80,000. 10/10

via Flickr user adrigu

-Britain’s biggest food recall came in 2005 as a result of a carcinogenic food dye, Sudan 1, being found in over 400 products, including pizzas and microwave meals from companies like Pot Noodle, Heinz, and McDonalds. The dye, which is usually found in gasoline and floor polish, was added to a widely used chili powder made in India. Interestingly, the government of Sudan requested that the chemical’s name be changed so as to avoid a negative connotation with the country of Sudan, where last week a pregnant woman was put on trial for being gang-raped. 6/10

via

-In 1985, Austria’s wineries ran into a bittersweet dilemma; their low-cost “dessert quality” wines were a huge hit for their ultra-sweet and full-bodied taste, quickly outselling similar German wines and depleting the stock of acceptable vintages. Austrian vintners were stuck with an overabundance of weak, acidic, bitter wine from some particularly unproductive years, and needed to find a way to cheaply increase sweetness. As it turned out, sugar and other sweeteners weren’t enough to convincingly improve a wine’s taste profile, but antifreeze, or at least its primary ingredient, diethylene glycol, could both increase sweetness and maintain body. It also happens to cause metabolic acidosis, kidney failure, neurological damage, coma, and sometimes death. Over 350 brands were spiked with the illegal additive, sold mostly in West Germany, but found all over the world. 

The scheme was discovered in June of 1985 and involved dozens of reputable winemakers, collapsing the Austrian wine market overnight. Austria went from exporting 45 million liters in 1985 to a mere 4.4 million liters in 1986. Some of the major players ended up serving relatively minor jail terms, and others were fined upwards of a million deutsche marks for their role in the deception. One winery owner committed suicide. The mayor of Rust, a small wine town in Lower Austria which produced the first detected bottle, referred to the scandal as ''the worst disaster to hit this region since World War II," and despite a leading economist predicting the financial effects would only last about a year, it took until 2001 for the Austrian wine economy to bounce back to its pre-1985 volume. 7/10

-In 2009, the FDA shut down the Peanut Corporation of America's peanut butter plant in Blakely, Georgia, after revelations that the company had found salmonella in their products and ignored the findings at least 12 times since 2004. The owner, aware of the contamination, sent multiple internal memos telling workers to ignore the problem, saying “shit, just ship it. I cannot afford to lose another customer.” During the FDA's inspection of the plant, inspectors also found mold, holes in the roof, dead insects, and rodent droppings. Despite the clusterfuck of unsanitary conditions, the company refused to hand over their internal records until subpoenaed through the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness Response Act, an anti-terrorism law. The case changed food safety law, making it illegal to not report contamination of food products within 24 hours. 6/10

BONUS: Knock-off South Korean chocolates made in China circa 2007 were found to be riddled with tiny white moth larvae introduced during the manufacturing process. One out-of-country customer was told to return to China with the chocolates if he wanted a refund on his worm-candy. I can see why they’re executing people over there for this. GROSS

@jules_su

Jan Brewer just made businesses and gay people very happy. Photo via Flickr user Gage Skidmore

Yesterday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed SB 1062, the terrible, no good, very bad bill that would have essentially provided some legal protection to religious people who wanted to use their faith as an excuse to deny goods or services to gay people. There were a lot of issues with SB 1062—it was really broadly worded, for one thing, to the point where one writer at the American Conservative thought it might “legalize polygamy and marriage with underage girls”—but its actual content was less important than what it signaled to the world at large. Had it gone into law, it would have amounted to a giant sign that said, “Hey, everyone! We’re the great state of Arizona, and we’re incredibly intolerant of gay people!”

The sheer moral ugliness of the bill, which was pretty clearly crafted by homophobic bigots, wasn’t enough to stop it from passing narrowly in both houses of Arizona’s legislature. After all, this is a state where Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a racist fearmonger who sucks at his job, keeps getting reelected—Arizona has no shortage of what for a lack of a better term I’ll call “shitty, ignorant bigots” or lawmakers eager to appease that section of the electorate. But what happened after the bill passed the legislature but before Brewer’s veto is pretty interesting: Basically, America’s corporations overruled Arizona’s lawmakers.

Small businesses in Arizona spoke out against the bill, noting that it would allow individual employees to refuse service to paying customers and claim that their religion commanded them to. The tourism industry panicked at the prospect of the state's being known for homophobia—especially since it’s already passed a strict immigration law that resulted in a bunch of boycotts—and 80 businesses and groups signed a letter that said, “When the Legislature passes bills like this, it creates a reputation that Arizona is judgmental and unwelcoming.” Big companies, including Apple and American Airlines, said that if the bill weren’t vetoed it could scare business away. Major sports leagues spoke out as well—the National Football League even hinted it might take away the 2015 Super Bowl from Arizona if SB 1062 went on the books. The pressure got so strong that earlier this week, three Republican state senators who voted for the bill came out against it, saying that they “strongly condemn discrimination in any form.” (If those three guys had voted against the bill in the first place, it never would have made it to Brewer's desk.)

Those three flip-flopping lawmakers were so caught up in scoring political points with the conservative evangelical crowd by supporting SB 1062, they didn’t realize that they were pissing off the GOP’s other major constituency: big business. That corporate America would come into conflict with the vicious anti-gay lobby is no surprise, however. The free market that conservatives are always bloviating about is actually pretty good at squashing bigotry—or it would be if people let it.

People don't like visiting places where there’s a lot of horrifically intolerant stuff going on, which is one reason Iran’s tourism industry has suffered for the past few decades. Businesses, even the ones that don’t think much about ethics or morality, don’t want to deal with a bunch of complicated, discriminatory laws that might result in customers or employees filing lawsuits, or activists organizing boycotts. Then there’s the cost of prejudice on a broader economic scale—capitalism is supposed to force people to get along for the sake of making money, and when individuals and businesses let skin color or gender or religion get in the way, they lose. As an article in Time magazine last year said,

Economists see discrimination as a form of economic inefficiency—a massive, systematic misallocation of human resources. Those in the discriminated-against groups can’t bring their full talents to the table, languishing in jobs that are in many ways "beneath them," while less-talented members of more privileged groups take high-powered, high-paying jobs that are beyond their abilities, dragging down everyone with their relative incompetence.

History abounds with examples of how bigotry isn’t just evil but economically disadvantageous. Jewish scientists fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and their research benefited their adopted countries. South Africa spent an enormous amount of money maintaining the Apartheid system. In America, Jim Crow set back the economic progress of the Southern states. All of that was awful for the bottom line. Many companies actually opposed Jim Crow laws in the early 20th century on the grounds that they were bad for business—railway operators even refused to comply with segregationist laws that would force black passengers to ride in different train cars from whites. Similarly, in South Africa during that same era, some mine owners laid off whites to hire cheaper black workers; writes economist Linda Gorman: “Higher-paying jobs were reserved for whites only after white workers successfully persuaded the government to place extreme restrictions on blacks’ ability to work.”

Most businesses don’t want to discriminate against gays or anyone else, even if they were given the opportunity to by hateful laws like SB 1062. How many wedding-cake makers can turn down commissions just because the couple in their store has two penises between them? Bigotry is both pathetic and foolish and bigots generally fail in the marketplace—extensive systems of discrimination like Jim Crow and Apartheid have to be imposed by a racist government in order to stay in place.

That’s not to say that SB 1062 is on par with Nazism or Jim Crow. But it was undoubtedly a law that would have been forced on businesses without their consent by lawmakers overly concerned with pandering to a prejudiced minority. Thankfully, Brewer decided that pandering to powerful business interests was more important than appeasing homophobes. The system works! Arizona escaped its self-created crisis and avoided embarrassing itself even more than it already had!

Meanwhile, other states are considering bills that resemble SB 1062, even after seeing the backlash that hit Arizona. Bigots are stupid.

Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.

Did you know we've been releasing a free iPad edition of every VICE issue since 2012, packed full of special features, extras, and exclusives? If not, you need to crawl out from beneath that big ball sack you've been hiding under and immediately download all of the great content we've cooked up.

Earlier this month, we released our annual Fashion Issue, which was sex themed. The concept lead to us explore everything from the hairy butts of women to the nuns in latex. As per usual, the iPad edition of the issue is bursting with dope, new shit. Here is a rundown of all the goodies:

— VICE's Creative Director Annette Lamothe-Ramos introduces the issue with a video, detailing how we acquired the incredible Robert Mapplethorpe portfolio and cover photo.

— Artist Ole Tillmann's Wooly Wendy illustration for "In Defense of Hairy Women" gets an interactive update, allowing users to actually add hair to Wooly Wendy's face.

— In our Duran Duran-themed fashion shoot, "The Chauffeur," Annette serves up some behind-the-scenes audio commentary.

— Our "Gender Benders" fashion shoot features behind-the-scenes footage our model boys transitioning into sexy-ass bitches.

— Our "Sisters" photo shoot, which has a nunsploitation-theme, features more audio commentary from Annette.

— "Power," our fashion shoot and feature on the evolution of black masculinity through fashion, boasts beautiful bonus images taken by Awol Erizku.

— "Some Cat from Japan," our Q&A with famed designer Kansai Yamamoto, features audio commentary from Annette.

— Jocelyn Spaar's lovely illustrations of panties for Sadie Stein's essay, "Ass Menagerie," features interactive lingerie animation. 

— We added the audio version of Rat Tail's "2 Butts 4 the Price of 1" to the mysterious artist's long lost lyrics. 

— Milt Abdjourian, the publisher of an imaginary porn and fashion-focused, adds satirical audio commentary to a selection of his vintage cover images. 

Download the latest issue right now via the Apple Newstand.

It's time, once again, to marvel at some idiots who don't know how to handle the world:

Cry-Baby #1: Livingston High School 

h/t @niallkenny

The incident: A kid informed his teacher after realizing he'd accidentally brought a can of beer to school.

The appropriate response: Thanking him for his honesty. 

The actual response: He was suspended.

Last week, 17-year-old Chaz Seale was hurriedly packing his school lunch at home in Livingston, Texas. When trying to grab a soda, he accidentally took a can of Coors Light instead.  "He was in a hurry, running late. We were talking about school and he put it all together and took off," his mother Christi told ABC Eyewitness News. 

During his third period, Chaz discovered the beer while looking for something in his bag. 

He took the unopened can to his teacher, and explained what had happened. 

The teacher reported Chaz to the school's principal, who responded by suspending him for three days. He was then told he would be sent to an alternative school for an additional two months. 

"I gave it to the teacher thinking I wouldn't get in trouble, and I got in trouble," Chaz said.

In a statement, Livingston Independent School DIstrict said, "The principal of Livingston High School folowed approriate LISD administrative procedures and protocol."

Chaz's mom is currently appealing the punishment. 

Cry-Baby #2: Hilton Hotel Basingstoke

image via @xtreemx Twitter

The incident: A man made a terrible joke while checking into a hotel.

The appropriate response: Groaning.

The actual response: The hotel banned him for life. 

Earlier this month, 35-year-old Jason Payne (pictured above with an ecstatic Liam Gallagher) booked a room at the Hilton in Basingstoke, UK.

While making the booking, he wrote a joke in the online booking form's "additional comments" section. It read, "There's a large snake in my trousers. Hope that's OK."

When he was checking in to the hotel a few days later, the receptionist saw the joke and laughed. "It was a joke and I had no idea that staff would read it," Jason said. "The woman at the reception just suddenly burst out laughing hysterically and appeared very amused. I had no idea why and then she read the comments to me... Her colleague then also laughed."

According to Jason, neither staff member seemed offended by the joke. 

Jason stayed at the hotel for one night before checking out. When he got home, he received an email from one of the managers of the hotel, informing him that he was banned from the premises. "We are not willing to accept that our team members are ever put into an uncomfortable situation, due to the abusive language a guest uses talking to them, writing them or even on the booking form they fill in online," the email read. 

In a statement, a representative for Hilton confirmed that the incident had taken place, and said the decision to ban Jason was made "at the discretion of the hotel team." 

Jason, however, says that the banning will not make him stop joking around, "I find there's a universal sense of humour when the context is just a bit of a laugh," he said. "The comment was a bit of Austin Powers-style sophomoric banter which regularly draws laughs."

*SHUDDER*

Which of these organizations is the bigger cry-baby? Let us know in this poll down here:

Previoulsy: A guy who murdered two people over dog poop Vs. A woman who bought out a store's entire stock of shirts because she was offended by them

Winner: The murderer!!!

@JLCT

Welcome to another edition of This Week in Racism. I’ll be ranking news stories on a scale of one to RACIST, with “one” being the least racist and “RACIST” being the most racist.

-A hunger strike in Phoenix, Arizona, turned delicious last Tuesday when the protesters got a burrito covered in racial slurs hurled at them. The protesters have been camped outside their local Immigration and Customs Office and haven't eaten since February 17. Under normal circumstances, having a stranger pull up in a car and throw food at you would be an unparalleled stroke of luck. "Oh, you look hungry. When was the last time you ate? Presidents' Day? Wow, here's a burrito." Not this time. This burrito came with a side order of hate.

One of the protesters, an undocumented immigrant named Jose Patino posted this on his Twitter:

Outside of ICE In Phoenix. I received this present from the anti-immigrants. #not1more #ARIZONA pic.twitter.com/79ku53R4jj

— jose patino (@jrpatino12) February 18, 2014

This is offensive on a variety of levels. First, the word "wetback" is highly derrogatory toward Hispanics and immigrants of all ethnic groups. Second, throwing food at someone on a hunger strike is an egregious form of taunting. Finally, microwavable grocery store burritos taste like shit and are an affront to Mexican culture. It's akin to showing up at an Italian wedding with some pizza-flavored Hot Pockets. This is some kind of dickhead triple threat and is officially RACIST.

-Chris Mapp—a businessman, maker of hideous campaign websites, and professional dipshit—is running for US Senate in a primary against incumbant John Cornyn. His views on immigration are, shall we say, unique. The Dallas Morning News said in their endorsement of Cornyn that Mapp told their editorial board that "ranchers should be allowed to shoot on sight anyone illegally crossing the border on to their land, referred to such people as 'wetbacks,' and called the president a 'socialist son of a bitch.'"

Mapp defended his statements by claiming that using the word "wetback" is "[as] normal as breathing air in South Texas." Sounds like a great vacation spot for the discerning bigot. I look forward to the commercials touting South Texas as a "wonderful, welcoming place to visit... for some."

After Senator Cornyn stopped reciting his acceptance speech by memory and intermittently laughing, he condemed Mapp's blatant show of racism, an act that merits praise. Sure, he's basically running up the score on a barely competent opponent, but it's appreciated when any politician condemns such stupidity.

As for the other candidates in this hotly contested race, the Morning News says:

"Ken Cope, 60, a retired aerospace executive, wants to build a fence along the entire border and deport anyone who fails to learn English. US Rep. Steve Stockman has run a clownish campaign with the baseless claim that Cornyn supports the Affordable Care Act. Attorney Linda Vega, 47, and small-business owners Dwayne Stovall, 48, Curt Cleaver, 47, also are on the ballot. They didn’t respond to interview requests, and their questionnaire answers give us pause about their ability to lead. Reid Reasor neither attended the interview nor filled out the questionnaire."

Sounds like a solid crop of future world leaders. Props to my boy, Reid Reasor, whose DGAF attitude about public service and belief that all of the recent American mass shooting suspects have been "left-wing activists bent on punishing people for socially normal US Constitutional freedoms," make him an excellent candidate for a variety of positions in the burgeoning AM radio and "village idiot" industries. RACIST

Photo via Flickr User Fort Meade

-The last Super Bowl might have been one of the most lucrative sporting events in the history of the world (at least until we finally get the DMX/George Zimmerman fight we've all been demanding), but the subsequent offseason hasn't been so great for the NFL. The saga of Richie Incognito continues to embarrass league officials on a semi-daily basis. The possibility that a gay man could be drafted and play professional football has caused the sport to go into a collective anaphylactic shock. "Good lord, did you see he got a boner at the Combine?! Stop the presses!" A Washington lobbyist has even suggested that a bill be passed banning gay people from playing pro football. Alec Baldwin is currently looking at the NFL and saying, "damn, you need a better publicist, for real." That's how bad it is.

In order to turn around this avalanche of PR disasters (and make lip-reading a more enjoyable pastime during Monday Night Football), there's a chance that the NFL Rules Committee will vote to assign a 15-yard penalty for the use of racial slurs during a game. 

NFL.com list the following infractions as 15-yard penalties:

• Chop block.
• Clipping below the waist.
• Fair catch interference.
• Illegal crackback block by offense.
• Piling on.
• Roughing the kicker.
• Roughing the passer.
• Twisting, turning, or pulling an opponent by the facemask.
• Unnecessary roughness.
• Unsportsmanlike conduct.
• Delay of game at start of either half.
• Illegal low block.
• A tackler using his helmet to butt, spear, or ram an opponent.
• Any player who uses the top of his helmet unnecessarily.
• A punter, placekicker, or holder who simulates being roughed by a defensive player.
• Leaping.
• Leverage.
• Any player who removes his helmet after a play while on the field.
• Taunting.

If you've ever felt bored/stoned/masochistic enough to read the NFL rulebook, you'll know how obnoxiously detailed their descriptions are, such as this bowl of word soup for the "Reverse Chop Block on Pass" infraction:

"On a forward pass play, A1 blocks a defensive player in the area of the thigh or lower, and A2, simultaneously or immediately after the block by A1, engages the defensive player high. Note: Each of the above circumstances in subsections (1) through (4), which describes a chop-block foul on a forward-pass play, also applies on a play in which an offensive player indicates an apparent attempt to pass block but the play ultimately becomes a run."

I'd have to assume that the same level of detail will be used for this new penalty:

"In a circumstance in which A1 refers to A2 as a nigg... wait, do we actually have to write all those words down in this book? I mean, really. You have to be fucking joking. Like, no way am I saying that shit. The media will crucify us, plus I have black friends. They would not be cool with that at all. Alright, there's got to be a better way to do this, right?

OK, here's an idea... so these are some things you can't say in a game: the N-Word, the F-Word, the C-Word, the B-Word, the K-Word, the OTHER C-Word, the D-Word, the L-Word—great show, by the way—the OTHER OTHER C-Word, and the Z-Word. You know which ones I mean."

The international soccer community has tried in vain to get a handle on racism by players and fans for years now, and it doesn't seem to be getting any better. No rule or penalty is going to stop someone from saying or doing things that are offensive. Rules and laws unfortunately don't work that way. Plus, I am not eager to see the inevitable arguments on and off the field about what constitutes racism. Is "honkey" considered racist? Is "cunt" offensive because it's sexist? If someone tells an opposing player that their jersey clashes with their eye color, does that offend their sense of fashion? What if a referee thinks they hear something, but the player claims he said something totally different? Are we going to put microphones on every football player, and then do an instant replay to make sure that "Payton Manning did in fact call Richard Sherman a coon." Plus, this is a massive instance of hypocrisy by a sports league with a team called the "Redskins." NOT RACIST, JUST REALLY DUMB

The Most Racist Tweets of the Week:

So down in Alabama I went to Walmart and asked for Grizz wintergreen. That nigger lady have me Cope wintergreen pouches. YOU HAD ONE JOB

— Brobeans (@NorthBallPlayer) February 27, 2014

Every time i call @sprint customer service they send it to some chink or sandnigger that dont know shit!!!

— Brady Frakes (@BradyFrakes) February 27, 2014

Why do you make me pay for channels that broadcast in that wetback language? @dish

— D (@fromSoDak) February 21, 2014

The thought of mixing White genes with nigger genes makes me want to puke.

— Kriegsson (@Kriegsson) February 24, 2014

A black guy started working at my office job this morning... It's about time - he's been here 2 fucking years!

— The Funny Racist™ (@TheFunnyRacist) February 27, 2014

@dave_schilling

The desert may be one of the last places on earth you'd expect to find a beauty pageant, but on Christmas Day—while most of us were busy testing the limits of our digestive systems—VICE's Charlet Duboc was negotiating sand dunes in Abu Dhabi's remote Western Region, all in the name of beauty.

In the West we think nothing of beauty contests for dogs, horses, flowers, even women. But the leggy, doe-eyed lovelies on parade here are of the four-legged variety, and are judged on such criteria as having a nice firm pair of ears and floppy lips. Just like supermodels, at the height of their careers camels can command millions of dollars. Who knew?

While the supercar or SUV has replaced the camel as the most popular means of transportation in the modern Emirates, the animal retains an important place in the nation's heart. "Beautiful camel" may strike you as somewhat of an oxymoron. But many a bedouin or sheikh will think nothing of dropping up to $3 million dollars on a so-called prized beauty, in the hope that she'll bring home the coveted 'Bayraq', aka the accolade of being the fairest camel in the land. For this episode of The VICE Guide to Travel, Charlet finds herself the only woman in the desert, looking for the elusive beauty in the beast.

As protesters in central Kiev took over the parliament building on Saturday, others headed to President Yanukovych's highly controversial private estate of Mezyhrhrya, just outside the city. 

Rob Ford, on the precipice of his turn up. Screencap via.

At this point, it takes a lot for Rob Ford to surprise me. We’ve seen him swear in a fake patois accent, alongside an alleged extortionist, in a restaurant called Steak Queen—which, of course, followed a wildly tumultuous year of crack-related craziness. That said, the golden rule of Rob Ford coverage is that he will always, always, manage to out-do himself—even in the most unbelievable circumstances.

That’s why I can’t say I was shocked that yesterday’s press conference—which was originally set-up to announce the extended hours of ice rinks in the City of Toronto, along with the opening of several new (privately funded) ice rinks—turned into a full blown freak-out that touched on the appropriateness of speaking in patois, Ford’s disdain for Toronto’s Chief of Police, whether or not it’s appropriate for a mayor to be urinating in public, and other highly mayoral topics.

Robbie’s nine-minute unraveling is online for you to enjoy right over here (CP24, why can’t I embed your videos?), and it’s really worth watching in its entirety. Rob spends a full three minutes discussing Toronto’s skating rinks in a subdued tone, reading entirely off a sheet of printer paper, and giving a meandering explanation of how “unexpectedly the weather has been extremely cold.” He even gets some friendly laughs when a nearby reporter receives a transmission through his walkie-talkie from a clearly uninformed editor, who asks audibly, “Is the Rob Ford press conference going on right now?” to which Rob replies: “Yes, it is.”

It’s important to watch this monotone skating rink blather, because it sets up a frenetic juxtaposition when you get to the final six minutes of an unhinged Rob wildin’ out. Rob gets set off by a reporter who asks, “Do you have anything to say to Chief Blair?” in response to the Chief’s comments that he was “deeply offended” by Rob’s swaggerific patois accent. Blair also told the Toronto Star that Sandro Lisi, Rob Ford’s buddy who drives him around and leaves mysterious envelopes in his car, told Toronto Police officers that Bill Blair “was going to get his this weekend,” in reference to the complaint Doug Ford subsequently filed against him.

Let’s pause on that detail, before we get back to the press conference, shall we? Rob Ford, the mayor of Toronto, is hanging out with a man who allegedly extorted alleged drug dealers (Sandro Lisi is also an alleged drug dealer) to retrieve the video of Rob Ford smoking crack. When Sandro Lisi was arrested, he threatened the Chief of Police with the power of the mayor’s office, and of the Fords in general. This is the kind of mafiaesque behaviour connected to the mayor of Canada’s largest city.

So now let’s get back to the press conference, which originally started as a discussion about skating rinks. Once Rob Ford began talking about Bill Blair, right around the three-minute mark, he emphatically declares: “If you want to get into it, I have no problem.” And from there it was a free-for-all for City Hall reporters looking to get in on this Rob Ford AMA. 

Rob Ford says Bill Blair shouldn’t be embarrassed, because the Fords are embarrassed that Toronto Police wasted “millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money following me around.” He then dared the Bill Blair to arrest him. When asked about his comments at Steak Queen, he snapped back that there was “nothing illegal” about his drunken accent, adding: “I can go out, and if I chose to do that with my friends… I did nothing illegal at Steak Queen. OK? I’m sure you all have your friends, how I speak to my friends… as you know… and I’m going to repeat what I’ve said before: I have a lot of Jamaican friends, if I speak that way in a private setting… which Steak Queen is, it’s a private setting… And someone tapes me… I can’t help if someone tapes me. I have nothing to apologize [sic] and he owes the taxpayers of the city an apology.”

It’s worth noting the excessive ellipses in the above quote aren’t from me redacting information, it’s just how Rob Ford speaks these days. But anyway, after his Steak Queen rant, Rob switched back to discussing the Toronto Police’s surveillance operation which he has declared to be a complete failure: “Why won’t he come clean and tell the taxpayers how much money he’s spent surveilling me, and obviously coming up with nothing? Coming up with me urinating in a parking lot? Coming up with an empty vodka bottle?”

At that point, City Hall reporters reminded Rob Ford that this supposed waste of taxpayers’ money came up with A) a video of him smoking crack and B) charges against his driver for extortion. This is when Rob really starts to lose it, beginning with an outright lie: “I think you’ve seen a physical change in me.”

Rob Ford claimed last November that he had a “come-to-Jesus moment” which he claimed would mean he’d be losing weight and staying off the happy sauce; but we know that he’s actually been partying in Vancouver clubs, daring women to take three ounce shots, and yelling in patois on camera; so it’s pretty clear that there has literally been zero change in Rob Ford since the crack scandal began to unfold.

Despite the fact that there has clearly been no significant change in Toronto’s mayor, the press conference then devolved into a conversation about Sandro Lisi to which Rob repeatedly yelled that the matter is “before the courts” and he would be unable to comment on his alleged drug dealer/extortionist pal who he likes to enjoy a fine meal at Steak Queen with here and there.

All of this comes back to the reality that Rob Ford is going to be running for mayor this year. The upcoming mayoral debates are sure to be fueled by classic Rob Ford rants—and although the state of his office has turned into an unbelievably embarrassing (or entertaining, depending on how you look at it) circus, this is the show that Torontonians are in for. While Sandro Lisi awaits a verdict and Rob Ford awaits an election, only Rob can say what surprises we’re in for next.

@patrickmcguire

Javi and Madars in Gran Canaria, Canary Islands. Photo by Thomas Campbell

It is a wonderful time to be a pubescent skateboarder. Dozens of clips of skate footage are uploaded onto the internet each and every day, for immediate consumption. You could spend your entire life watching and never get through it all. This is a stark contrast to the late 80s, when there were only three monthly magazines and one or two annual videos to keep you abreast of happenings in the skate world.

That said, 2014 is an awful time to be an older, more discerning lover of skating as a visual medium. The downside to the abundance of footage is that 90 percent of it looks like shit. Discovering an aesthetically pleasing skateboarding video these days feels like finding a missing button to your cardigan at the Arthur Kill landfill.

But O, the joy of coming across something unlike any of the other gonzo skate porn clips clogging up the internet. It makes you take a minute to remind yourself that skateboarders are some of the most talented, creative, and artistic members of any subculture.

Thomas Campbell’s Cuatro Sueños Pequeños—Four Small Dreams—is the most magnificent piece of skate cinematography I’ve seen in ages. Shot completely on grainy 16mm film in Spain, Majorca, and the Cannery Islands, Thomas’s 22-minute fantasy follows skateboarders Javier Mendizabal and Madars Apse in and out of Javier’s dream. It is a visual triumph.

If you want big, fancy maneuvers, CSP has them. Madars’s switch ollie down the double set is one of the biggest I can recall. But it also manages to present skateboarding at its most beautiful and captivating.

The film is available on iTunes, but I advise you to order the book and DVD package. Thomas’s watercolor paintings and the accompanying photographs are as wonderful and elegant as the film itself.

Thomas is currently in Morocco on a photo shoot, but he was kind enough to answer some of my questions about the current state of skateboarding, pissing on photo prints, and Dave Carnie hitting him in the face with a can of beer.

VICE: You’ve been doing a lot of work with surfing lately. What made you want to make a skate film?
Thomas Campbell: I've been skating for 39 years, and it's never been more interesting and awesome than it is now. When I was shooting a lot of skateboarding in the 90s, I was always really psyched on people who could skate anything.

Now, the amount of parks around the world has created a rad movement of kids who are open to all kinds of skating. Not like the lame cliquey bullshit that was going on in the 90s—shit was so divided then. I love where skating is today. That’s what inspired me to document it.

Javier Mendizabal is a globally respected and extremely smooth skater, but why did you decide to make him the focus of a film? And why shoot in Spain?
Javi and I met when he was 16. I think I shot the first photos he had in a skate magazine. I followed his career from afar, and we reconnected after many years. He is a really cool person.

When he was in California on skate tours, he would stay with me and my wife. One thing led to another, and we hatched the idea to do the film. Javi helped get sponsorship to make it. We ended up shooting most of the film in Spain, Majorca, and the Cannery Islands. Javier had a lot of input on spots and guided us to the kind of graphic places we were looking for.

We wanted the video to have a really heavy European vibe, influenced by Bertilucci, Goddard, and Fellini. I have also really loved where European skateboard photography has gone over the years—there's so much more focus on the skaters' environment. The three photographers who come to mind from that school are Benjamin Deberdt, Eric Antoine, and Fred Mortagne.

I was lucky to have Fred help me film the movie. His graphic style worked well with mine.

F. Mortagne in Tenerife, Canary Islands. Photo by T. Campbell

How much of what others are doing in skate cinematography factored into your thinking for this film?
We shot CSP on 16mm to capture the visceral depth of the experience. I really wanted to experiment with the format and see if we could create a dreamlike scenario. I didn't really think of other things in the world of skating while making CSP. In some ways, it's along the lines of what I've been doing for a long time.

Javi and Madars are used to a more modern type of filming, with camera-mounted screens and the instant reward of playback. How was their reaction to working blindly with your 16mm cameras?
I don’t think they liked it. Filming that way leaves you in a space of hoping, instead of knowing it worked out. And it's so expensive to shoot that you don't have tons of time to get tricks.

Tell me about the good old days of printing photos with Dave Carnie.
When I met Dave he was a college student in San Luis Obispo—maybe around 1990. He was a serious Renaissance man and he was into literature, big time. We used to play music together and he introduced me to rad photographers like Joel Peter Witkin and the Starn Twins.

He taught me some fucked up toning techniques—I found a treasure trove of single-weight, fiber-based paper in Fresno when I was there with Miki Vukovich working on an Alan Peterson spotlight for Transworld. We printed the shit out of that stuff.

What effect did urine have on photo paper?
Urine on photos—that could have happened. I think using urine for mixing paint or peeing on prints came from working in ghetto spaces without water or urinals. Or just being lazy and peeing on shit. I don't think actually it did anything great to the prints.

Javi and T. Campbell in Santa Cruz, CA. Photo by R. Zinger

You were on the early Big Brother road trips. What were those like for you? I heard you got your face busted open with a full can of beer.
I can’t remember who was on the trip now, but I think Pontus Alv was there. And Carnie. Dave at the time could be a shitty drunk. He threw a full can of beer at my face from a few feet away.

Fuck you, Dave. You're a dick. But that was almost 20 years ago. I hope you’re not a dick and OK now.

What else do you have coming up?
I'm in Morocco now, shooting some surfing photos for an upcoming book project. Also I have another skate film that I’ve been working on. It will probably be out in 2015. I did a trip for it already with a bunch of dudes: Nick Garcia, Colin Provost, Evan Smith, Ray Barbee, Keegan Sauder, Taylor Bingaman, Aaron Suski. Jon Miner helped film that trip.

All 16mm. Another art fag skate film.

Follow Thomas @Umyeaharts, or go to Umyeaharts.com to buy a copy of the book and DVD.

The movie and soundtrack are both available on iTunes.

More stupid can be found at Chrisnieratko.com or @Nieratko

Protesters march against the government in Caracas, Venezuela, on February 15. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

In the summer of 2007, the vehemently pro–Hugo Chávez journalist and lawyer Eva Golinger got on Venezuelan state TV and, with the help of a flow chart hand-drawn on flimsy poster board, called out several fellow journalists who had allegedly accepted US funding to help bring down the country's famously left-wing, anti-American president.

“These journalists are destabalizing agents,” Golinger said, and explained that that they had participated in programs paid for by the US that were designed to promote a pro-American agenda, the goal of which was to create anti-socialist sentiment in Venezuela.

The accusation didn't cause the kind of uproar Golinger was hoping for. The journalists were briefly investigated by a government committee, but that prompted an immediate public outcry—in fact, many Chavistas rejected such McCarthy-like tactics, claiming they made them look bad.

The incident did cause the US Embassy in Caracas some concern, however. In a cable released by Wikileaks titled “IV Participants and USAID Partners Outed, Again” that describes Golinger's TV appearance and the aftermath, an embassy official wrote that people were becoming wary of getting involved with any enterprise funded by the US. “It is particularly hard to persuade Chávez supporters to participate in a program they perceived as potentially career-ending,” the official wrote. In other words, though Golinger embarrassed herself with her shit-stirring, the US was really trying to bring down Chávez by funneling money to his opponents.

Since then, the US has continued its longstanding practice of funding programs that it often claims are aimed at promoting fair elections and human rights, but also strengthen Venezuelan opposition groups—and this money may be influencing the ongoing protests that have helped put the country in a political crisis.

These programs have several names and objectives. Some have clearly benevolent goals; one is targeted at discouraging violence against women, for instance. But other US efforts in Venezuela are unabashedly political, such as a 2004 USAID program that, according to a Wikileaks cable, would spend $450,000 to “provide training to political parties on the design, planning, and execution of electoral campaigns.” The program would also create “campaign training schools” that would recruit campaign managers and emphasize “the development of viable campaign strategies and effectively communicating party platforms to voters.”

Interestingly, it's illegal for a US political party or candidate to accept funding from any “foreign national,” which includes individuals, corporations, and governments. Venezuela passed a similar law in 2010, but this is easily circumvented by channeling the money through NGOs.

It's difficult to determine exactly how much money the US has spent on these political programs in Venezuela since Chávez was first elected in 1998, but some estimates put the figure around $50 to $60 million. This year alone, President Obama earmarked $5 million to “support political competition-building efforts” in Venezuela.

It's understandable, then, that some critics of Venezuela's opposition have argued that the protests are in part due to US meddling.

“There's absolutely some organic movement against the government. There are concerns about crime and other things,” said Roberto Lovato, a journalist who has covered the drug war and social movements in Latin America. “But if you don't factor in the millions of dollars that's been spent on destabilizing the government and prop up opposition leaders, it's not the whole story.”

Lovato added that this top-down funding of a protest movement is similar to how the American Tea Party claims to be a grassroots mobilization of everyday people but is largely bankrolled by a few wealthy individuals, such as the billionaire Koch brothers.

Although there are disagreements about the root causes for the high crime, goods shortages, and political repression that's fueling the demonstrations against President Nicolas Maduro, nobody is denying the pain Venezuelans are suffering as a result. But there are undoubtedly a lot of international interests at stake here, and both wealthy people in Venezuela and multinational corporations would be happy to see, for instance, the privatization of the country’s oil industry.

“This is not necessarily a case of the US being a puppet-master and telling the opposition what to do, but the US government does want to remove the Maduro government from power just like they wanted to do with Chávez,” said George Ciccariello-Maher, a professor at Drexel University and author of a book about Chávez. “You also have a lot of rich businessmen in Venezuela who have put money behind the opposition. But their interest is not only political—they want to get their hands on that oil money.”

There's no question that many of Maduro’s opponents are wealthy and come from elite families that have significant ties to corporate interests and have long opposed the Chavista government. One example is jailed opposition leader Leopoldo López, who comes from a wealthy Venezuelan family, was educated at Harvard, is cousins with the owner of the largest food company in Venezuela, and whose mother is the vice president of corporate affairs at the Cisneros Group, the largest media conglomerate in Latin America. (Billionaire Gustavo Cisneros, the company’s founder, is a fierce critic of Chavismo who is also close to the US government; a Wikileaks cable from 2004 describes a meeting he had with the US ambassador to discuss ways to eventually remove Chávez from power.)

So yes, the opposition is made up of political parties that have received extensive US funding and is led by the well-connected López. Does that mean the protests aren’t about helping the poor and instead only serve the interests of the US and wealthy Venezuelans?

One of the directors of Lopez's political party, Voluntad Popular (“Popular Will”), is Juan Andrés Mejía, a 27-year-old activist who has been working with Lopez since 2009 and is now pursuing a master's at Harvard. He admits that the bulk of the opposition protesters are from the middle and upper classes and are led by Venezuela's elite, but he claims that support among the poor is growing.

“What Chávez did right was give the poor a voice. Before 1999, they didn't have that,” Mejía said, referring to the year Chávez came to power. “But the opposition leaders today don't agree with the [pre-Chávez government], so that won't change. And it's true that a lot of the poor still support the government, but that is changing because the current government's policies are causing problems for everyone.”

As for the US funding, Mejía thinks it shouldn't matter.

“As long as it's not illegal, if another country wants to help us make elections more transparent and help strengthen a political party, I don't see what's wrong with that,” he said. “Besides, the Chavistas have Cubans and Russians on their side.”

And although Voluntad Popular is often said to be the most right-wing and capitalistic of Venezuela's opposition parties, Mejia balks at the description. All they want to do is open up the markets in Venezuela, which will help the poor, he says.

“Private investment is essential to foster the Venezuelan economy,” he said, “but we do not think that private investment will, on its own, be sufficient to make people progress.”

Opposition parties like Voluntad Popular want a drastically different economic model than what Venezuela currently has. But Mejía told me that they don't want to completely eradicate the socialist element from Venezuelan government. Mejía says they'd still use oil money to provide social programs for the poor as the current government does, but they'd also look at doing something similar to what Norway has done with its oil profits and invest in stocks to create a government-run pension fund for the people.

But however things turn out in Venezuela, there's no question that the socialist government has been weakened and corporate have interests received a boost—which, fairly clearly, has been the point of the US’s funding programs all along.

Follow Ray on Twitter: @RayDowns

All photos by Janicza Bravo featuring Janicza Bravo as Blackie O and Hannah Hellar as Carmenita Rosenberg Miranda. Wardrobe provided by Arron Mendoza and Ben Phen at L.A.G. Vintage, 4557 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, California 90029

Below are the lyrics to the long-lost classic “2 Butts 4 the Price of 1,” by the completely unknown white 80s hip-hop artist, Rat Tail, whose current whereabouts are unknown. It was transcribed from a cassette tape discovered a year ago, wrapped in a ball of human hair in a garbage dump in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Rat Tail can’t tell a lie, I’m addicted to butt.
And by “butt” you know I mean the big butt of a slut.
But what’s better than 1 butt? How aButt 2?
One butt for each of my nuts making ’em blueberry blue.
That’s 4 fly buns, 2 cracks down the back.
2 perfect buttholes make me nut in my slacks.
I’m going nuts for these butts on the rear of these freaks.
I’ll pay millions of bucks for just a peek of their cheeks.
My girls Blackie O and Carmenita got that tush.
2 booties in my face I’m yellin’ fuck that bush.
I don’t mean fuck that bush. I mean fuck that bush.
’Cause who the fuck needs bush when you got that tush?
Watch my dick go push. Make that tush go smush.
That’s the sound of a tush when my dick gives it a push.
And you know that Rat Tail is having twice the fun.
’Cause I’m fucking 2 butts 4 the price of 1.

2 butts 4 the price of 1.
Me and my jammy havin’ so much fun.
2 butts 4 the price of 1.
Worship the butts like I worship the sun.
2 butts make me just want to cum.
2 butts 4 the price of 1.

Put those butts in my face. On either side of my head.
Bounce those butts up and down on my dick till I’m dead.
Switch those butts back and forth. Every butt take a turn.
Twist around on my jammy and make that butt butter churn.
I guess my dick is the pipe and your butts are the crack.
I’d smoke those butts day and night till they turned my lungs black.
I’m seeing double, double bubble, and I’m praisin’ the Lord.
I’m a beast at this feast. It’s a smorgas-butt-bord.
1 tastes like salt. The other like sugarcane.
2 fat beautiful butts fucking melting my brain.
I can’t believe that the butt is where the shit comes from.
’Cause when I look at a butt it makes me just want to cum.
1 butt plus 1 more equals 2 as the sum.
1 butt for each of my hands, and I play ’em like drums.

I’m runnin’ to buns till the day that I’m done.
Hey yo, I’m fucking 2 butts 4 the price of just 1.

2 butts 4 the price of 1.
Me and my jammy havin’ so much fun.
2 butts 4 the price of 1.
Worship the butts like I worship the sun.
2 butts make me just want to cum.
2 butts 4 the price of 1.

Up and down!
All around!
Up and down!
All around!
Up and down!
All around!

Jammy jam slammy slam
Slammy slam with my jam
Jammin’ all in these ma’ams
With my fat jammy jam
My jammy’s countin’ the butts
Then my jammy just slam
Yes, I’m slammin’ these ma’ams
With my fat jammy jam
I’m spreadin’ jam on these butts
With my jammy in hand
Take it out of my pants
And give it all to these ma’ams
Yeah, that’s me, Aaron Sam
With the fat jammy jam
2 butts 1 price
That’s how I’m fuckin’ these ma’ams

2 butts 4 the price of 1.
Me and my jammy havin’ so much fun.
2 butts 4 the price of 1.
Worship the butts like I worship the sun.
2 butts make me just want to cum.
2 butts 4 the price of 1.

VICE will be publishing the lyrics to one of Rat Tail’s masterpieces each issue for at least the next five months. Read them all and listen to Rat Tail’s sixth long-lost track, “We Shootin’ Hoops,” at VICE.com/rat-tail.

For Part 1 of Band for Life, click here.

Check back next Friday for part 3.

This week on the VICE podcast, Reihan Salam sits down with filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer to discuss his Academy Award–nominated documentary, The Act of Killing.

Joep van Lieshout's CasAnus, a hotel shaped like a bunghole in the middle of a field in Belgium

Everyone loves hotels. There’s more to it than fresh towels, complimentary mints, and that preview screen for the porn channel. When we enter a hotel room and close the door, there’s a sense of calm that can’t be recreated anywhere else, the understanding that we’re finally out of the filth of our everyday existence. We are living, at least for the night, in a clean, well-lighted place.

This brings us to the anus hotel. More specifically, the Atelier Van Lieshout, CasAnus, 2007, a conceptual one-room hotel made by Dutch artist Joep van Lieshout. The hotel lets its visitors fulfill their lifelong dreams of curling up to sleep in a giant butthole.

Located on a small Belgian island halfway between Antwerp and Ghent, the anus hotel sits alone in the middle of a field, originally commissioned as part of the 30-acre Verbeke Foundation Sculpture Park, the private collection of Geert and Carla Verbeke-Lens. While visiting the park, guests often shack up in the anus, which only sets you back a paltry $165 a night, a small price to pay to hit the hay in a huge ham flower.

Anus Hotel guests will enjoy a double bed, shower, and central heating. The CasAnus series also includes a bar called the BarRectum, which is shaped like a giant intestine. I wanted to know what the hell was going on with this guy, so I recently spoke to Joep to hear more about why he decided to make a giant anus hotel in the middle of a field.

BarRectum

Is the anus anatomically accurate?
While CasAnus is anatomically correct, the last part of the large intestine has been inflated to a humongous size to hold a hotel room.

Wow. How did you build it? What materials is it made out of?
We built it in our workshop, Atelier Van Lieshout, and then had it installed on site. It’s made of wood, PU foam, and covered with a naturalistic colored layer of fiberglass-reinforced polyester. This material is our studio’s trademark.

How long did it take to build the anus?
Only a few months. The studio is quite used to working on large-scale projects and commissions. This summer, we built a 40-foot-high steel structure that combined an artwork, a blast furnace, and a dwelling. We’ve also made a human-powered sawmill/milking machine and cheese factory, and many other artworks.

How has the critical and public reaction to the CasAnus been?
The response has been overwhelmingly positive. Guests love to stay inside a piece of art, especially one in such an isolated, quiet location. It’s still a darling of the press even eight years after the project was completed.

How many people stay inside the hotel every year?
Anywhere between 200 and 250 people.

And what about the BarRectum, which is part of the same series?
The BarRectum is quite similar in idea to the CasAnus, except that it contains a bar instead of a hotel room and has a number of hatches which can be opened to serve drinks. It still belongs to Atelier Van Lieshout and has been exhibited worldwide, always serving as a bar at the same time.

Do you have any regrets about building a giant anus in the middle of a field?
Yes—not keeping it for ourselves!

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Illustration by James Harvey

Facebook’s recent assimilation of WhatsApp—a company I’m too old and too uncool to have heard of—for more money than the contents of Scrooge McDuck’s swimming pool has raised a lot of eyebrows. How can WhatsApp possibly be worth $19 billion when it brings a relatively paltry $1 per user per year? Why has Facebook CEO and tech boy-king Mark Zuckerberg gone around town telling everyone he got a deal? Well, what a lot of intelligent people don't seem to understand is that it's not about the revenue. The warbling of the punditocracy in recent days has been ridiculous. Their complaints are a bit like a committee of audience members explaining to Kasparov that he should be playing his knight on the double-letter score.

Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t care about WhatsApp’s revenue, because the revenue isn’t important. What is important are the half billion users whom Facebook can now link together and make money from. As Zuckerberg and others have pointed out since, there’s basically no service that’s ever grown that large and not been valuable.

As with the personal genomics firm 23AndMe, which I wrote about a few months ago, the game here is data. It’s tedious and banal to point out—again—that we live in an information economy, but it’s very much true. The tech companies with the biggest databases are king, whether it’s Google’s copies of the internet, Facebook’s billion users, or 23andMe’s unparalleled collection of gene sequences.

But it’s not just data that these companies are hoarding—increasingly, the means of analyzing and understanding that data are being taken over too. The field of "deep learning" (a hot topic in artificial-intelligence circles) is one of the most striking examples.

What is deep learning? Well, let’s say you have 10,000 photos. Of those, 5,000 are of cats and 5,000 are of lizards, and you're trying to train a computer to look at some pictures of cats and lizards that it hasn't seen before and tell the difference between them. A machine set up for the "shallow learning" approach might convert all those images into rows of numerical data, label each row cat or lizard, and feed the whole lot into a classifier that tries to figure out a way to split the cats from the lizards.

It works, and sometimes it works pretty well, but it’s not really how a human brain works. We don’t have a bit of our brain that detects cats or lizards. Instead, we break the problem down and learn individual parts of it. We see four legs, swiveling eyes, scales, the color green, whatever, and we understand a lizard as being made up of those features. Because we understand the assemblage of qualities that make up a creature, we’re better at identifying them in an image that we’ve never seen before. With shallow learning, often a machine is trying to distinguish between cats and lizards when it doesn’t even know the difference between scales and fur.

The idea behind deep learning is that instead of explicitly teaching the algorithm "cats vs. lizards," you allow computers to learn those simpler components and then build on them, the way a child would learn first sounds, then words, then complete sentences. It’s an approach that’s proven remarkably effective, and it has the potential to transform many of the algorithms that power our day-to-day experiences on the net, from a search engine that can understand the web pages it crawls to a photo-sharing site that can recognize the faces of your friends in the photos you upload, to a street-view service that can read the numbers on people’s front doors.

Deep-learning techniques have been around for 20 or 30 years, but they’re computationally expensive and require large amounts of data, and so it’s only in the last few years that their potential has begun to be realized. Suddenly, deep-learning experts are in huge demand. That much was made clear by another crazy-looking acquisition in recent weeks: Google’s purchase of the London-based startup DeepMind Technologies for $400 million—a bauble the search engine giant had to beat out Facebook to acquire. Only two years old, with a few dozen employees, DeepMind seems to have functioned almost like a radical recruitment agency, drawing some of the world’s leading AI talent onto one team, and then selling the group to Google as a ready-made center of excellence.

The price was so high because world-class experts in the field are scarce, and Google is hoarding a scarily large percentage of them. Peter Norvig, an AI legend and director of research at Google whose genius is only matched by the shittiness of his personal website, was quoted as saying recently that Google employs “less than 50 percent but certainly more than 5 percent” of the world’s supply of machine-learning experts. Factor Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, and other big tech companies into the equation, and what we’re seeing is a cutthroat, expensive race for a shrinking number of experts who could hold in their hands not just the future of the internet but our ability to analyze massive data sets in science.

But is this monopoly of data and expertise healthy? What would it mean for the future of AI research if half of the world’s experts were cooped up in the same Silicon Valley pen, assimilated en masse by a company seeking to protect and preserve its position as the King of the Internet? One corporation could have the ability to dictate the course of an important area of science for decades to come, with results that could be either miraculous or catastrophic.

The most remarkable thing about the response to Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp is that pundits seemed more worried about Mark Zuckerberg’s bank balance than the potential implications for the public of one company controlling such a vast amount of user data. It’s as if people are so convinced that it’s an outlandish bit of excess between two faddish companies that they’ve ignored the bigger picture—that a company with a billion users is merging its data with a company with half a billion users.

In the world of conventional business, a single entity that captured 25 percent of market revenue would be considered a monopoly. Facebook had 1.19 billion users even before this acquisition, accounting for more than a third of all people on the internet. Its power is so profound that a minor tweak to the news feed algorithm shrank the traffic of aggregation master Upworthy by 46 percent nearly overnight. People's incomes and careers can be affected by something as simple as that, yet nobody seems to be asking whether this is a safe idea.

In centuries past, economists and governments came to understand the need to control economic monopolies for the greater good, to prevent stagnation and avoid unhealthy concentrations of power. In the 21st century, will we come to a similar realization about information monopolies?

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