Although these days there's no shortage of places for racists to congregate online, back in the 90s, the concept was pretty novel. That's when a former Klansman named Don Black launched a site called Stormfront, and for years the hate-filled forum served as the primary hub for white supremacists who wanted to meet one another. But now, the Southern Poverty Law Center reports that the once-influential site is now on the brink of collapse—and according to some members, it's because Black's wife is sick of footing the bill.
"I appreciate everybody’s support," Black wrote to his followers. "But it’s that time of month again, when the big, scary bills hit. Our contributions have once again totaled less than $2,000, which is not enough to cover our basic server and radio bills, and this month we no longer have enough personal money to make up the difference."
As a result of the crisis, access to the site has been restricted to paying members only, the entire server will be shut down and archived on April 6, and Black has canceled an upcoming appearance at a League of the South conference to honor David Duke, the SPLC reports.
Stormfront being on the brink of collapse is not exactly new. Although its the preferred online forum of older racists, the so-called alt-right now flocks to a slew of alternatives, such as social media site Gab, podcast network The Right Stuff, and Gawker-knockoff The Daily Stormer. But according to some users who commented on the recent announcement, the final death knell came when Black's wife was no longer willing to keep Stormfront afloat financially.
"Don Black’s wife, Chloe, had been working full time past retirement age to help support this site,” a user named Ruthless commented on April 4. "All of the years that Don posted how much was needed to run this site and all the months that SF didn’t receive enough donations. That difference was made up from Chloe Black’s income. She is now recently retired and deserves to spend her time with her grandbabies."
By the time 34-year-old Saheed Vassell was pronounced dead late Wednesday, the crowd of bystanders who’d seen him gunned down by police in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, had already swelled into a protest. What made his killing so appalling was not merely that Vassell was unarmed, protesters said, but that he was known to be dealing with mental illness—both by neighbors and cops.
"The police officers knew him well in this neighborhood," Doris Marrero, a former neighbor who gathered with demonstrators on Thursday to light a memorial candle at the spot of Vassell's shooting, told me. "Of course they knew he had mental illness. Everybody knew."
That's certainly the impression I got from an NYPD officer who used to patrol the 71st precinct where the shooting took place. When we met Thursday afternoon, his phone was blowing up: first a police administrative aide doing roll call and then his buddy, both checking to see if he would take overtime to work the protests in Crown Heights I attended later that day.
"We need to know why, when a 9-1-1 call is placed about an emotionally challenged person, it immediately goes to the NYPD," said Kirsten John Foy of the National Action Network at the protest, shouting to be heard by about 200 people. "Why is it not routed to emergency medical personnel who are familiar and trained in dealing with these persons? Why is it a singular response by the NYPD?"
I asked the Brooklyn cop for some perspective on how the NYPD—which just hours before Vassell's shooting had been trumpeting a stretch with relatively few shootings—trains cops to approach the most vulnerable. Three years after Black Lives Matter crested in the national consciousness, the picture he painted was not an encouraging one.
Jamaica's national flag is pinned at the site of a makeshift community memorial for Saheed Vassell, Thursday April 5, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
VICE: Three 9-1-1 callers reportedly told dispatch they thought they saw Saheed Vassell holding a gun, when in fact he was holding what's been described as a pipe or a shower head. How do you approach a call when someone says they’ve seen a gun but you don’t know for sure? Active-Duty NYPD Officer in Brooklyn: It’s rare that you get a call with a gun and it’s actually a gun. More often than not when someone thinks they saw a gun, they saw a bulge in someone’s pants and it’s not a gun. But I think it also goes according to the precinct. There are precincts that are known for having more guns and more crime. The 71 gets more guns off the street, there’s legit a lot of shootings. I read the crime sheets, and in the 71, there’s one or two a month. The 71 will be more leary of having it be a real. It’ll affect the way you respond. But false gun calls happen lot, because again, people know your response time is faster.
Is there any way to tell which calls are legit? You’ll have to check the callback. You want the guy that called 9-1-1 to speak with you, to ask, did you actually see a gun? But it’s hard, especially where I work now, I would say five out of 10 of these call come from 9-1-1 cell phones only. It’s basically a phone that has no service on it. It comes back as 911111111, it means the phone is only capable of calling out in an emergency.
Now that we all have job phones, we call back directly. But a lot of these people have a throwaway phone, or they have it just for wifi at home—they can’t afford the $20 or 30 a month, so they call but we can’t check the callback. Which is terrible, because if it’s a 9-1-1 phone only, you can’t check.
Witnesses and family said that Vassell struggled with mental illness and that police knew about his bipolar disorder, or at least had some idea about it. How often would you say that you’re called out to deal with an Emotionally Disturbed Person (EDP)? Every day is different. You get days where you get zero, you get days where you get five. Everybody gets checked out by EMS [Emergency Medical Services]. EMS comes and nine out of ten times, EMS says, "You’ve got to go to the hospital." We respond at the same time as EMS. Even if EMS gets there first, they’re not leaving the ambulance until we get there.
As EMS, you don’t have guns, you don’t have anything to defend yourself, so you have to wait until the police get there. The police have tasers, the police have guns, the police have pepper spray, and the police have handcuffs. You have none of those as EMTs [Emergency Medical Technicians]. If the scene is safe, then you go out. If it’s not a safe scene, then you don’t.
As an officer, how do you approach an EDP call? You tend to try to rationalize with them. That’s what they teach you in the EDP workshops. You don’t want to be like, "Bro, you’re fucking seeing shit, what’s wrong with you?" You tell him, "I understand, I know, they’re going to kill the president, so let’s go talk to someone so we can get help for the president." You’re not really lying to them but you are telling them what they want to hear. If you say "Dude, you’re out of your mind," that’s just going to agitate them. You can be a little more sympathetic, empathetic.
A majority of our calls for service are not dealing with EDPs—the majority are crimes. But we deal with this because EMS can’t deal with it by themselves. Sometimes it’ll be a little hostile, so they’ll say, "Just escort us to the hospital." But with this one guy we see a lot, they said, "You have to stay here until he’s admitted to the psych ER." That's 12 hours.
Do you see a lot of the same people? Two or three out of five will be people I’ve dealt with before. Sometimes all five are five reruns. On my last assignment, there was this one female who lived under the expressway, she was drug addict and she was a prostitute—she lived out of an abandoned car.
She’s not violent, she’s irrational. And then usually you’ll say to her, "Listen, we’ll just go to the hospital." She doesn’t mind the hospital because they’ll feed her, they’ll give her methadone, a warm place to sleep. Most of the time it’s just observation, so they’ll keep her for 12, 24 hours and she’s back again. I’ve had times where she was still wearing the wristband from the hospital, so it’s only been ten minutes or an hour. Usually when they bring her to the hospital, they’re like, "When was the last time she was here?" And it’s like, "She just left."
How much training did you get to work with EDPs? I got two weeks of training, five days a week, eight hours a day. It’s a very small percentage. The training was just: "Be understanding." They try to tell you listen, be empathetic, and get EMS there. The only time we get stuck there is if they’re violent and the hospital says we need a police officer there.
There were these actors that came in to do scenarios with us. The actors were great. They give you scenarios and they see how you handle it. Now when they do scenarios, every scenario they do now is recorded and they play it back for you. “You did this, that’s great, maybe you should have done this instead.”
Do you think that’s sufficient, given how much you deal with mental illness on the job? No. They have to give the NYPD more training—and not just once. The training I got on EDPs was a week in the academy and a week two years ago, and that was it. If you’re a doctor or a nurse, you have to go through CME [continuing medical education], let’s say ten a year. I think if they gave it to us once a year, that’d be great. Not just as a refresher, but with new info. They send us every two years for CPR training, and every year it’s changing. Why not send us once a year for EDPs?
Do you ever feel like you’re able to help? It’s rewarding when you can stop someone from jumping off [a bridge] because you feel like you really, really helped them, but it’s frustrating when it’s this guy again. We just dealt with this guy yesterday. You’re dealing with the same guy over and over again. At what point do we say enough is enough? They go to the hospital, they’re there for two, three, five, eight hours, 12 hours, and then they’re released. They’re not followed up. If anything, they say, "Listen, if you have anything, come back tomorrow or call us back if you need us." There should be some kind of structural help.
Like, right now if you arrest someone for controlled substance, they can get help. We ask them if they want help, and if they say yes—you don’t tell them you’re going to give a desk appearance ticket, but you give them a desk appearance ticket and clinical social workers come pick them up.
A lot of activists are saying if you see someone having a psychiatric emergency, don't call police. But it's not always safe to ignore a crisis, or to try to intervene. Is there a service like the one you described for substance users that bystanders could have called, or that 9-1-1 could have dispatched to respond in Crown Heights yesterday? No. At this time, no. But there should be.
Cam models bring pleasure to the internet every day, but one has decided to do something a bit more unconventional with her porn: make it political. o0Pepper0o, a camgirl who lives in northern Canada, created a show specifically to talk about politics last year and is now on her 40th episode.
“I have a lot of things to talk about with this FOSTA bill—it’s kind of terrifying to me,” she says. She pulls up an article about how a furry dating website was just shut down in response to FOSTA, which is meant to address sex trafficking but critics say will lead to censorship and a less safe working environment for consensual sex workers.
“They’re saying they’re doing this to help fix the problem of sex trafficking,” Pepper says, while hitting a cream soda-flavoured vape in between talking to cam. “But all it’s going to do is make those people pull back and do their business in even more shady environments and force people who are doing it consentingly to do it in even more shady environments. Again, stop making our lives unsafe!”
Pepper has been camming for nearly six years, but just started her show Political Porno a few months ago. She has addressed a number of issues on the show already, including net neutrality, trade deals, and gun control. She discusses Canadian politics on the show, too, such as pipelines, the First Nations water crisis, and Tim Hortons protests.
“It’s a fun way to bring a new audience into politics because they show up wanting to see my boobs and learn about a bunch of stuff,” Pepper told VICE.
VICE: Why did you decide to start your political porno show? Pepper: I felt like there was a need for a political show because of Jimmy Dore, who does a show on YouTube. He’s kind of super on the left, he’s American. I was watching one of his shows, and he was talking about how there need to be more people talking out there about different opinions. We’re all being censored very heavily online, and it’s just getting worse—so if anyone feels they have something they should be saying to the world, they should find a way to say it. That was the beginning. I was kinda like, you know what, you’re right. I should just get on and do it. I already do cam shows, so I should find out a way to make that something I can do that relates to camming. So, I just kind of merged it together: I’ll do a show that’s about politics, but also porn. I already talked about politics in my regular cam shows on Chaturbate, so it was kind of easy to make a transition to an episodic show on DLive, a Steemit platform. It just fit really well.
When did you start bringing politics into your camming? About three years ago—really significantly before the US [presidential] election… I made the election part of my show on Chaturbate that year, like I was running for president too [laughs]. It was hilarious. I didn’t start right away doing politics with porn, only because there’s this taboo in the cam world with talking about things like religion and politics, heavy topics, because it’s hard to be sexy and keep a crowd while talking politics. That’s part of why I moved a lot of my politics over to another site, because it was kind of hard to balance that.
I’ve always really liked talking about politics. It was hard for me to not talk about it on cam. So eventually, as I got more comfortable on cam, I just got more comfortable being able to be sexual and talking about my subjects of choice—which, just happened to be political.
Does anyone ever complain about being turned off by you discussing politics? Absolutely. That’s kind of the beauty of the cam world though, because everyone is out there for something different. The taboo comes from the fact that a lot of people don’t find talking about heavy subjects sexy. It’s hard to talk about heavy stuff while you’re fondling yourself; you forget to be sexy. So a lot of people find it a turn-off. They come to a site like Chaturbate to get off—not to think about that stuff. They don’t want to think about that stuff, so they’ll act crappy if you’re talking about it at times if they’re not wanting it. There’s lots of variety in the cam world though; you can do what you want within reason.
"It’s harder to sell sexuality that has intelligence behind it, I suppose, just because in our society we don’t sell that ordinarily."
The other way you can do camming is to have a persona. That’s popular in the stripper world as well, where you make a persona for yourself: like, “I’m this sexy, slutty this person; but in real life, I’m this person.” A lot of camgirls do that, so guys get used to you being a certain way. They think you’re a ditzy blonde, or whatever it is you’re portraying. Then, if all of the sudden you’re talking about FOSTA on Twitter, they’re like, “What the hell? You have an opinion? That’s not why I jerk [off] to you!” It’s like objectification; some people are into that sexually. They sexually want someone who doesn’t have an opinion. It’s harder to sell sexuality that has intelligence behind it, I suppose, just because in our society we don’t sell that ordinarily. I think that has something to do with it as well, as a matter of marketing.
We’re definitely living in a really tense political climate. Given that, has your politicism changed your fanbase or how you interact with your fans? Oh, absolutely. Most of my core fanbase is totally OK with it… I’ve definitely had haters and people who don’t like me anymore—old-school stans from the beginning who have told me they can’t watch me anymore because my opinions are so different from theirs and I make them so mad… It’s definitely been a change for me.
You talk about Canadian politics on your show sometimes. You even had an episode about the First Nations water crisis. Can you discuss what it’s like to have an international audience to talk about these issues to, especially since some outside of Canada view this country as a utopia? It’s awesome. It’s really nice to be able to open people’s eyes. I actually don’t like that people think Canada is a utopia, because it’s really not. People talk about running away to Canada. Like, no, we have problems too. There’s a lot of great things about Canada—great healthcare, the fact that we have healthcare at all is a big deal. But we still have so many internal problems, so it’s really nice to discuss that with a global community. I really like information-sharing and understanding of other cultures. People will come to me, ask me questions, then I get to learn about what their country thinks of us.
I lived in northern Saskatchewan for a couple of years, and when we were living there, we were living in a really small town. We had a boil water advisory, and it was the first time we had one. We looked into it to see what it was like everywhere else, and we were like, oh my god, we should count ourselves lucky we only had one for a month. There were people literally miles away on reserves who’d been on [boil water advisory] for years… It was horrible living under it for just a month. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live under it your whole life as some people have.
Your most recent show was about FOSTA. Even though you’re Canadian and this bill is American, it will affect your life and possibly already has. Can you talk about why it’s so important for us to listen to the concerns of sex workers right now? The problem with this bill is that it’s overreaching. It’s an umbrella bill. It doesn’t deal with it in a nuanced way… Because it’s so vague in its wording, it’s basically going to promote censorship because it will be much easier for sites to censor their users rather than picking through every single thing they post online every single day.
It’s going to affect our social media. It already is. A lot of sex workers are having issues… Some sites are prohibiting sex workers. It affects all of us. It doesn’t just affect escorts, but it makes it unsafe for escorts who were using online sites as a way to do their jobs more safely… They claim it’s going to help victims, but in reality it’s victimizing. People won’t have the same ways to vet clients online. It will translate into the rest of the sex world too, because all of these sites we rely on to talk to each other are going to start blocking us out.
My Twitter is a big hub for people finding me, and I could easily have it taken away from me—the same way Melody [Kush] had hers taken away. It’s hard. It’s hard out here, and it just makes it that much harder for people who are consensually doing sex work, and people who are doing it legally as well. Not good.
Sex workers, in part, helped build popularity around Twitter because they have historically been present on that platform. Yeah, that’s a common thing with a lot of social media. Snapchat is like that. I’m waiting for the day Snapchat is like, “Get lost, all you cam models!” We definitely popularized Snapchat, and now that’s becoming a big deal too. That’s usually how it works online. I’m pretty accustomed to that. If a site gets big enough, they’ll start pushing off sex workers as a standard… It’s disturbing to me because they’re not just being jerks and want to make it all kid-friendly so they can make more money, a la YouTube. It’s no longer a conscious choice… That sucks. It’s like forcing censorship.
DLive, which I use for Political Porno, is basically an off-shoot of Steemit—a blockchain platform, all open-source, decentralized. It’s a platform that is all about non-censorship. It’s basically run by a bunch of crypto-anarchists, as we like to joke about. It uses cryptocurrency.
Do you feel you’re helping to educate some people who may not be into on current events by doing your show? Yes, I get people telling me that all the time, people from other countries. That’s the thing with Steemit, it’s a super global community. I talk to people in Nigeria, in Australia, Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan. The stuff they know about Canadian and American news is filtered through their media, so it’s not the same perspective. I get to learn about stuff from them too… There’s all these differences in culture; when you’re in one, you may not think about how different others are. It’s really fun to experience that, talk about it, and educate people.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You can find Pepper's Political Porno show and more on her Steemit.
We generally think of doctors as being refined, professional, and maybe a tad stiff, but some of them got pretty heated at a conference about cannabis in Toronto this week.
The Canadian Consortium for the Investigation of Cannabinoids, a non-profit group, is currently hosting its annual conference to discuss medical weed. But Jeff Blackmer, vice-president of the Canadian Medical Association, tweeted Thursday afternoon that he left the event after being subject to “personal attacks,” including someone making a “rude face” at him while he spoke in favour moving the medical weed system into the new recreational regime.
“Once the name calling, personal attacks, jeering and booing started at #CCIC2018 I decided it was time to leave. And all this from fellow physicians and [health care practitioners] because they disagree with a policy position of @CMA_Docs. I’m embarrassed and ashamed for them. #professionalism,” he tweeted.
Blackmer, who declined an interview with VICE, had been speaking about how the Canadian Medical Association believes Canada's medical cannabis system won't be necessary once legalization takes place. The CMA, which represents Canadian physicians, believes “there is insufficient evidence on risks and benefits, the proper dosage and potential interactions with other medications,” according to its website.
It’s a position many in the medical cannabis community, including doctors who are also a part of the CMA, disagree with because using cannabis to treat illness is not the same as using it just to get high (obviously). There are very different issues surrounding cost, access, necessary medical advice, forms of cannabis, and rules around consumption and growing when it comes to the medical community; the government’s plan to tax medical cannabis, for example, has sparked outrage amongst patient advocates.
“A single stream is likely to 1) further promote stigmatization 2) reduce funding 4 medical research 3) limit knowledge transformation of harms/benefits of cannabis & 4) keep cannabis users away from doctors. Respectfully, as highly educated practitioners doctors should lead!” Michael Verbora, a doctor with Aleafia Total Health Network, a medical cannabis-related business, tweeted in response to Blackmer. Blackmer, who, again, is vice president of the Canadian Medical Association, later blocked Verbora, even though Verbora thanked him for his presentation and said he was in favour respectful dialogue on the topic.
“In spite of the invective and jeering, I still have not heard a single coherent argument as to why we need two systems. Even all the examples given today would be served by one system. I suspect the undeclared financial conflicts play a big role,” Blackmer tweeted. He didn't elaborate on what “financial conflicts” he’s referring to, but licensed producers will supply both recreational and medical systems anyway—so it's not clear why he's implying LPs benefit more financially from two systems.
Blackmer was also upset because someone made a “rude face” at him while he was speaking and reportedly responded by telling the face-maker, “I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that.”
“I have to say, I’ve answered thousands of questions on hundreds of topics at meetings and I’ve never had anyone make rude faces at me while I was trying in good faith to answer. It was very unprofessional and I called him out,” he tweeted.
Mark Ware, executive director of the Canadian Consortium for the Investigation of Cannabinoids apologized to Blackmer via Twitter. When asked for comment, Ware told VICE, “media were not permitted in the CCIC event.” (It was tweeted and recorded but not live streamed.)
The Canadian Medical Association itself also appeared to jump into the fray with this subtweet seemingly directed at the doctors who booed Blackmer.
“Respect. Integrity. Reciprocity. Civility. These are the commitments that we as physicians should make to one another and to the profession,” reads part of the tweet, followed by a link to a “charter of shared values.”
Blackmer retweeted the statement, adding, “Perhaps my colleagues at #CCIC2018 can have a look. It seems especially relevant after what I experienced first hand earlier today.”
A full 90 days before I got to eat at Alo, it was already one of the most expensive meals I’d ever paid for. I had to book a table three months in advance and even with that lead time the best spot I could snag was for 9 PM on a Tuesday night. Securing the reservation required a (non- refundable) deposit of $50 per person, with the restaurant's website explaining that the deposit would help ensure an “all-encompassing experience” and be used towards a portion of my total bill.
Alo, in downtown Toronto, is considered one of the best restaurants in Canada. Their seasonal, French-inspired, tasting menu has landed numerous accolades and awards. Reviewers have championed the establishment as a bastion of traditional fine dining, touting its food and ambiance as a second-to-none culinary extravaganza.
The reason I was booking a reservation at Alo was to impress my girlfriend. During one of our first dates I had asked Sarah some dumb get-to-know-you question—what is something you’ve always wanted to try, maybe?—and she offhandedly mentioned the restaurant. A friend of hers, a producer I think, had recently visited Alo and had shared a carefully curated series of photographs on Instagram. Sarah said the restaurant looked like a dream. She made a joke about amuse-bouche I pretended to understand. When Sarah went to the washroom I wrote a note in my phone: if this works out take her to Alo.
By the time I booked the reservation the two of us had been together for six months. If I'm being honest I’ve never really felt comfortable in our relationship. Sarah is a couple years older than me and a lot further along in her career. She’s got published work and writing credits on IMDB. When she has creative appointments they’re over cocktails or power lunches. Comparatively my last creative appointment was at a 24 hour Taco Bell.
I’ve always admired Sarah’s success, it’s one of the reasons I was attracted to her in the first place, but the achievements put her in company with a whole different class of people. People who have opinions about wine pairings. People who have guest spots on sitcoms. People who brunch. Her friends and colleagues have always been kind to me, but sometimes hanging around them makes me feel like three kids in a trench coat. Like I've landed a spot at the adult table but can only stick around as long as no one looks too closely.
I compensate for that feeling in a lot of different ways. Sometimes it’s positive. I’ve tried to keep up with her by looking for better freelance work, cooking better meals, and actually washing my bedsheets. But other times it manifests in an overwhelming compulsion to prove I can fit in. I convince myself that if things are going to work out I need to. This time fitting in meant getting a reservation at a restaurant where a single meal is more expensive than rent at my first apartment.
My initial plan was to surprise Sarah with the reservation. It was a gift for her birthday and I liked the idea of casually dropping into the country’s top dining room like it wasn’t a big thing. But because I am absolutely useless with delaying gratification I forwarded my girlfriend the confirmation email almost immediately after receiving it. Sarah was ecstatic. For the rest of the day my phone came alive with questions about how I got a table and anecdotes about the multi-course menu. I knew I had done good.
Things went on like that for months. Sarah built up her anticipation by looking up reviews for Alo. She read articles about the chefs and browsed through photos online. During outings with friends she’d mention the upcoming meal. People would react to the news like it was some sort of accomplishment, nodding along, and congratulating us on the future experience.
Despite the fact that I spent years working in restaurants, I’ve never really understood the appeal of fine dining. It seemed foreign, like something for other people. Still, Sarah’s enthusiasm was infectious. One afternoon while procrastinating at work I started reading through the restaurant's Yelp page. People used words like divine, exciting, and innovative. They promised it would be the best meal of my life. I bought in.
Every few days Sarah and I would feed each other a new Alo tidbit. I heard they let you pick the colour of your napkin! I heard the beef is aged for 60 days! I heard there are three different rounds of desserts! By the time our reservation rolled around I felt like we had done everything there was to do at Alo except, you know, eat there.
Alo is located on the third floor of a Victorian style building at the southern edge of downtown Toronto’s Chinatown. If you didn’t know it was there you’d never find it. The only indication of the establishment is a discrete metal sign beside the innocuous ground level entrance. As Sarah and I walked into the lobby a pristinely dressed hostess stood guarding a matte blue elevator. We told the hostess we had a reservation. She smiled a perfectly white smile, then greeted us both by name. “Graham, Sarah, welcome! We’re so glad you could join us.” I nudged Sarah with my elbow. The two of us took the elevator up and entered the restaurant. The decor at Alo was minimalist and modern, like a Crate & Barrel (the thinking man’s IKEA) catalogue come to life. After spending so much time reading about the establishment being inside felt like being on a movie set.
Someone walked us to our table. We sat and I was legitimately giddy when presented with a selection of multi coloured napkins to choose from. I took blue, Sarah took purple, and we ordered our drinks. I looked across the table and smiled, feeling grateful that I was on this date with this person. Then Sarah’s phone buzzed. It was a work thing, some urgent decision that couldn’t wait. She apologized profusely and stepped outside for a quick call. Rather than looking at my phone I decided to people watch. I wanted to take in the room.
The couple to my right were wearing freshly pressed dress shirts, patterned and folded at the elbow. They had expensive-looking chinos and shiny shoes. They chatted as a waiter brought them their next course: the bread. Every review I had read highlighted the bread as one of the absolute best parts of the meal. It was made in-house and followed up with a locally-sourced honey. The waiter started into an in-depth description of the food, hitting all the beats in a sing-song voice. It was charming. The performance made me hungrier for the bread.
As this happened the couple barely paid attention. The explanation was treated as an inconvenience and they shot daggers at the server until he left. After the couple paused, pawed at their rolls, then started a conversation on jet lag. I hated their casual attitude. Didn’t they know where they were? This was Alo!
I continued to look around the room and caught eyes with a waifish lady in a high fashion ensemble. A black dress. A tiny hat. I smiled at her, trying to express something with my face. We’re at Alo! Look at the plate you’re about to eat! It’s the aged beef! Aren’t you stoked to eat the aged beef? In return I got…not nothing. Not exactly. It was subtle. She gave me the up and the down, just with her eyes, then quickly turned away. Thinking back I’m not even sure she was looking at me. But it didn’t matter. I was exposed.
I realized that the black of my jeans didn’t match the black of my blazer. My fast fashion jacket was a couple years old, slightly faded, and a size too big. I realized that my shoes—dress boots I wore to punk shows in another life—were permanently scuffed on the right side. I was hyper aware that I didn’t have an opinion on jet lag. I couldn’t imagine a world where it would be that big of an inconvenience. My palms started to sweat. My throat dried up. Everyone else was so put together. Nobody else was treating this like it was a big deal, and for them maybe it wasn’t. Just like that I was three kids and the trench coat. I didn’t belong there.
When I was a kid my Dad hit a nasty bout of depression and was bedridden for about a year. He was too overwhelmed to get up. He lost his job, which further exasperated the sickness, and put a lot of strain on the family. Mom started taking night classes, trying to bump up her skills while providing for the four of us on a teacher salary. Family vacations stopped for a couple of years. The house got remortgaged. We were never poorly off, not really, but there were also a lot of nights eating cheap pasta. While dad got better, I never forgot how quickly everything could just kind of go away. Economic insecurity, any kind, feels like a stamp. It makes you question what you can and can’t have in life. I grew up decidedly middle class, but I still worry about money. I’m afraid my own depressive tendencies might end up putting me out of work. I worry that something bad might happen and I won’t be able to support the people I care about. If I think about retirement too much I get hives. Tonight I could pay for the dinner, it would be the entirety of a paycheck, but I could pay for it. Still, looking around the restaurant I realized I wasn’t a person who could afford this. Not really. It didn’t matter if I had the money or not.
I didn't get this. Photo by author.
Sarah returned to the table, apologized again, and took my hand. A waiter arrived with our drinks and the first course. I took a large gulp at my cocktail and tried to calm down. Even if the room was full of assholes, even if I felt about as welcome as an ingrown hair, I was still on a date with my girlfriend. There was still the food. Wasn’t that the point?
The waiter motioned to the small cubes on our tiny plates. It was foie gras, goose liver, prepared four different ways and presented with an artisan touch. The foie gras looked incredible. I picked up a cube—the size of dice and dusted with tiny white spheres—then took a bite, letting it sit in my mouth to really savour the taste.
The flavour was...new? I had never really tasted anything like that before. The closest thing I could compare it to was butter and rice krispies. I didn’t like it. I picked up the next cube and popped it in my mouth, hoping for something tastier. No good. The cube coated my tongue like a marshmallow made of soy sauce. I swallowed hard and looked across the table. Sarah looked blissful. She asked what I thought. “It’s great,” I told her then did the mental math in my head. If the entire tasting menu is $125 each (plus tax and tip), the those two cubes cost me at least five bucks.
As the night went on I kept wanting to have my mind blown. The waiters would arrive with some new morsel. They’d talk about the food in a professional and entertaining way. Sarah would eat the dish, basking in the complexity, and generally enjoying herself. I’d play along but the food was so outside of my palate that I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe why I didn’t enjoy it. Even to myself. It was the culinary equivalent of a Jackson Pollock. I knew this was supposed to be great, but I wasn’t sophisticated enough to get why. The Lameque Oyster with Pomme Puree tasted of...brine? The St Canut Pork Belly was fatty? The accompanying wine pairs were too acidic or too...grape-like? They definitely had notes of grape. Halfway through the meal I was half in the bag. I felt dumb and poor and excused myself to the washroom.
Getting up from my chair I realized Alo had started to empty out, jet lagged and tiny hat had gone home, but even if it had just been me and Sarah I still don’t think I would have felt comfortable. It was too nice. Too rich. Too much. But I wanted to feel comfortable. I wanted to be a person who understood booze notes and enjoyed foie gras. I wanted to prove I could fit in with the fashionistas and the foodies. I wanted to enjoy the meal, even if I didn’t like the taste. But I couldn’t do it, the best I could manage was to pretend.
Most of our insecurities are self imposed. Mine are at least. With my background it’s a falsehood to martyr myself as a class warrior. I don’t have any debt and any outsider status I feel is probably just a trickle down of old teenage insecurities. While I know this, it still doesn’t mean that they’re not there. If I told people I belonged at Alo they might believe me. But I wouldn’t believe myself. If you make a face in the wind sometimes it sticks that way.
Photo courtesy of Alo
I walked back to our table jus as two rounds of desserts arrived, the final courses in the tasting menu. Apple Yeast and Caramelized Whey, then Coconut White Chocolate and Yogurt. I ate both in two bites, swallowing them down before I have too much time to think about anything. It tasted fine. The bill arrived and I looked at the damage. With tip it was well over $400. I threw down a credit card and Sarah looked me in the eye. “That was a really incredible night,” she said. “Thank you so much.”
Canadians have long accepted that our national identity was intrinsically tied to a mid-tier coffee company’s brand but a new poll suggest our easily-duped nation is finally turning on Tim Hortons.
In their annual survey of corporate reputations, Leger and National Public Relations found that the brand’s opinion with Canadians is tanking. Timmies dropped 44 places to go from 4th place to 50th. In the past decade (other than in 2013) Tim Hortons always sat within the top 10 rankings.
The top spot was claimed by Google (OK, Canadians are very trusting with their data) and the top five was rounded out by Shoppers Drug Mart, Canadian Tire, Sony, and Samsung in that order.
A likely factor in Tim Hortons sudden drop in popularity was when numerous franchise owners decided to start publically fucking over their employees. The most egregious one that caught headlines across the country came from the (rich-as-fuck) heirs to the company who, in their franchise location, cut their employees hours and benefits because of a minimum wage hike. This resulted in people and politicians roasting the company and numerous protests being held across Ontario.
Rick Murray, National Public Relations managing partner, laid the brand’s slip in popularity directly at the foot of Tim Hortons (the company, not the deceased hockey player.)
“First and foremost, Tim Hortons, a perennial top five brand that we’ve previously believed impervious to issue, has fallen mightily in the court of public opinion,” wrote Murray in the study. “The Company dropped 25 points from last year, and fell from #4 to #50 in the rankings—largely through issues of the company’s own making.”
Whether Tim Hortons can make a comeback remains to be seen, but a humble suggestion, maybe focus on the coffee and the food, rather than inspirational ads with mountains and tiny little hockey players.
Ever since alleged cult leader Keith Raniere was arrested in Mexico last week, speculation has circulated about if or when Smallville actress Allison Mack will also be arrested for her role in allegedly recruiting women who were branded, blackmailed, near-starved, and treated as personal slaves.
Raniere is the founder of Nxivm, a many-limbed organization that once claimed to be a “philosophical movement,” but which primarily sold expensive five-day self-help courses to aspiring millionaires. A 2016 offshoot pitched as a “badass bitch bootcamp” is now being called an “organized criminal group” by the FBI after former members went public about abuse.
Court documents filed last week allege the formation of a women-only secret society of “masters” and “slaves,” some of whom were ordered under threat to have sex with Raniere. Women recruited into the group were allegedly coerced into giving “collateral” in the form of nude photos and damaging information, which they believed would be released if they told anyone about it.
Despite her wholesome TV image, Allison Mack is believed to have helped establish the so-called criminal organization, which branded dozens of members’ skin with a cryptic-looking symbol that appears to be a combination of Mack and Raniere’s initials. So far, much of the media spotlight has focused on this surprising “Hollywood connection” to Raniere, but few have considered many associated actresses’ deep Vancouver roots.
Long before an FBI investigation found any evidence of sexual abuse, Vancouver was home to an active self-help centre that offered Nxivm trainings. Actress Sarah Edmondson helped establish the school nearly a decade ago in 2009, after taking her first course in 2005. “I was very gung ho about bringing this to Canada, especially to all my actor friends who needed personal development more than anyone, I thought,” Edmondson told VICE last year.
The content of those courses had nothing to do with sex or slavery—most people who took them reported feeling good and discovering new things about themselves. “I went in trying to improve as a business owner, but what happened was I actually resolved my relationship with my mom,” Sandra Nomoto, a Vancouver publicist who began Nxivm courses in 2013, told VICE. Over long days students would identify negative patterns, look inward for purpose, and set out to pursue their own self-interest above everything else.
Former Nxivm publicist Frank Parlato was first to expose the alleged “sex cult” on his website before the New York Timespicked up on the story last year. He told VICE Vancouver was one of the most active Nxivm communities outside of Albany, New York.
“Vancouver was at one point the heart of Nxivm in many ways,” Parlato told VICE. “They had a capable leader in Sarah Edmondson, who was an honest, sincere person, who honestly believed in the value of the Nxivm teachings.”
Parlato says high-profile actresses and heiresses were prime targets for Nxivm recruitment, because they added glamour and success to an organization that was constantly fighting off bad press. More than a decade before the alleged “sex cult” was formed, reporting by Forbes and other outlets exposed the organization’s manipulation tactics and pyramid-like sales structure. (Members who sold courses could make commission on new recruits.)
Since 2006 the organization would bring on several Vancouver-born actresses including Hawaii Five-O’s Grace Park, Smallville’s Kristin Kreuk and Battlestar Galactica’s Nicki Clyne. Edmondson personally recruited Clyne, who reportedly remains faithful to Raniere even after his arrest. Though Park and Kreuk have cut ties with the organization, former members say their past roles within Nxivm were undeniably significant.
Parlato says that cult allegations first surfaced around 2003 and slowed recruitment for the self-help course Executive Success Programs. He says that’s why Kristin Kreuk joining in 2006 was a “major breakthrough” for the organization. While busy working on the set of Smallville in Vancouver, fellow Vancouverite and actor Mark Hildreth convinced her to attend her first session, says Parlato.
“When that lucky, or unlucky day happened, Nxivm turned a corner in their marketing,” he said. “They now had a famous actress.”
Though she wasn’t often involved in recruiting directly, Kreuk’s membership helped salespeople pushing $5,000+ courses counter negative press, according to Parlato. “Nobody who sold the Nxivm courses failed to mention Kristin Kreuk and Allison Mack are members—not only members but coaches,” Parlato told VICE. “Every spiel included their participation as proof of not being a cult.”
Since Raniere’s arrest, Kreuk has addressed her links to Nxivm on Twitter. “When I was about 23, I took an Executive Success Programs/Nxivm ‘intensive,’ what I understood to be a self-help/personal growth course that helped me handle my previous shyness, which is why I continued with the program,” reads part of the statement.
Kreuk said she left five years ago and has maintained minimal contact with those involved. She expressed horror and disgust at the allegations against Raniere and thanked women who came forward about abuses. “The accusations that I was in the ‘inner circle’ or recruited women as ‘sex slaves’ are blatantly false,” she wrote. “During my time, I never experienced any illegal or nefarious activity.”
According to Parlato and a leaked 2011 coach list, Kreuk did more than take a few courses. “She was not just a mere fringe player, she was a major integrated person into Nxivm—and was a coach, not just a student,” he said. VICE reached out to Kreuk’s management for comment, but did not hear back by press time.
Kreuk has been widely credited with recruiting Allison Mack into Nxivm during their time on Smallville, but it’s worth repeating that this was before any sexual allegations came to light. Around the same time, Kreuk founded an organization called Girls by Design in partnership with fellow Nxivm coach Kendra Voth—a project aimed at fostering self-esteem among teen girls.
According to Parlato and an interview Mack did with Fine magazine, Raniere advised Mack to leave television and try stage acting soon after. She and Raniere went on to develop a $10,000 Nxivm course on acting called The Source. Though unpopular and prohibitively expensive for most struggling actors, Parlato says young women who tended to fit Raniere’s ideal body type would sometimes get a free pass.
Kreuk finally left Nxivm in 2012, around the time a bombshell Albany Times Union story interviewed two women who say Raniere had sex with them when they were underage, one of them as young as 12. Even with these allegations out in the open, much of Nxivm’s star power reportedly remained faithful. It wasn’t until a 2017 New York Times story recounted the way secret society members were blindfolded, stripped naked and branded that Grace Park reportedly left quietly.
Though her acting career has since fizzled, Mack has remained loyal to Raniere and was with him in Mexico when he was arrested last Monday on sex trafficking charges, according to a short video taken by Nicki Clyne. Voicemail messages left with Mack and Clyne were not returned by press time.
A statement available on the Nxivm website states Raniere supporters are committed to clearing his name. “We are currently working with the authorities to demonstrate his innocence and true character,” it reads. “We strongly believe the justice system will prevail in bringing the truth to light.”
Earlier this week, actor-slash-musician-slash-really annoying costar Jared Leto left New York City on a quest to, as he put it, "hitchhike across the country, among other things," in support of his upcoming 30 Seconds to Mars album, America. "What better way to celebrate America than to travel around and ask people about their lives?" Leto told Ryan Seacrest before setting off on his journey.
Well, it turns out that Leto's great American adventure was light on the hitchhiking and heavy on the "other things." His voyage ended in LA on Friday, Washington Postreports, taking only five days to cross the country—a near impossible hitchhiking feat unless you stumble across a car driving your whole way non-stop or get abducted by aliens.
Instead of actually thumbing his way along the interstate highway system, Leto mostly just fake hitchhiked with Good Morning America, tooled around the Texas Motor Speedway—not the smartest move to hitchhike on a NASCAR track, but whatever—and rode a Greyhound, where he reportedly led the bus in a 30 Seconds to Mars singalong, as if a cross-country Greyhound trip isn't rough enough on its own.
As the Post points out, it seems like Leto only really hitchhiked one time during the journey was when he caught a ride with a trucker along the Ohio Turnpike. "He took me on a ride in the 18-wheeler," Leto explained later to the Chicago Tribune. "He was great. He shared his thoughts about America and the current climate, and his hopes and dreams."
And sure, that sounds like the kind of heartwarming, empathetic experience that Leto was after by hitchhiking, but the ride was so well-captured in a string of social media posts that it feels less like a spontaneous journey and more like a meticulously planned PR stunt, which it obviously was.
The first thing you see when you walk into Dr. Mark Wolter's cosmetic surgery office is Anthony Hopkins' face. A close-up photo of the actor—wrinkles and all—hangs above the entrance.
There are expensive chairs in the waiting room, underneath a large poster of the Louis Vuitton logo —but the strong stench of disinfectant is the same as in any clinic. Martina—a woman in her 40s, wearing a faux fur coat—is waiting in reception. She's a friend of Dr. Wolter and was the first person to try the "G-Shot" shortly after he introduced it in his practice in 2013. Since then, he's carried out the procedure on about 50 women.
The G-Shot is an injection of hyaluronic acid directly underneath the G-spot—the fabled region on the vaginal wall that is said to be a woman's orgasmic sweet spot. The injection is supposed to enlarge the area and increase the chances of achieving an orgasm. The procedure costs £1,050 [$1,477] and follows the same basic principles as a lip filler. Dr. Wolter recommends patients to repeat the procedure every two years, as the body naturally breaks down the acid.
Martina tells me that her decision to get the G-Shot was "spontaneous." She did it because it was free for her, and she "thought it would be a good laugh." But she also wanted to know what it was like before recommending her friend's procedure to others.
The shot is carried out using a local anesthetic. When I ask Martina if it was at all painful, she laughs. "Obviously it wasn't a very pleasant experience having a friend poking around down there, but I felt it was similar to any visit to the gynecologist, so I don't think there's any need to be afraid." On the upside, Martina claims her orgasms have became a lot more frequent and more intense since she got the shot.
A man wearing leather shoes and a knitted sweater walks into the practice and disappears into a treatment room with Dr. Wolter. A few minutes later, the patient emerges holding a cotton ball between his eyebrows, clearing up the residue of a Botox injection.
Dr. Wolter now has some free time, which we use to take his picture. He doesn't miss a beat to strike a pose, explaining how liposuction works, before breaking down his other specialities—breast enlargements and labia reductions. The surgeon certainly practices what he preaches—he's had his eyebrows lifted, the bags under his eyes removed, and a male breast reduction.
WATCH:
The main issue critics have with the G-Shot is that it's an invasive procedure to enlarge a thing that's not proven to exist. Plenty of scientific research has questioned the G-Spot, and many of Dr. Wolter's colleagues—including Dr. Matthias David, a gynecologist at Charité, Europe's largest university hospital—have accused him of running a moneymaking scheme. But the surgeon doesn't care about that—nor about the lack of studies into the G-Shot's efficacy.
"Almost all of my patients tell me that their sex lives got better after the shot, so the question of whether or not the G-spot exists is irrelevant to me," Dr. Wolter argues.
Ada Borkenhagen, a psychotherapist based in Berlin, is currently researching why women choose to go through invasive measures like the G-Shot. Borkenhagen doubts that the injection actually works in medical terms, but instead produces more of a psychological placebo effect. "I can see how, for some women, the shot almost gives them permission from a qualified medical authority to feel pleasure," she says.
But the only guaranteed way to have more orgasms, Borkenhagen suggests, is to simply have better sex. "Often, people have sex like they are rabbits—in, out, finished in a few minutes. That just isn't enough for lots of women."
A selection of breast implants for patients to test out (left). A liposuction machine (right).
"People measure their self-worth by this false idea of what a perfect body is—whether their labia are small enough, if their G-spot is big enough, if they reach the optimum level of orgasms," sex therapist Bettina Uzler tells me. "And they're willing to shell out enormous amounts of money to model themselves according to that distorted ideal."
Uzler points to how common it is for procedures that promise to improve your sex life to be backed by very little concrete scientific evidence and compares the G-Shot to treatments for erectile dysfunction. "A man takes Viagra just so he can have sex, but he won't bother to try and understand what's actually causing his problems."
I relay all of this to Martina, but she's resolute in her convictions—she thinks the G-Shot works and she would happily recommend it to anyone. But it means more than just a simple procedure to her —it's a matter of principle. "I think it's a shame to see so many women getting fake breasts just to please their partners," she tells me. "First and foremost, you should look after yourself—that's the only way you can enjoy life."
Before Michael K. Williams was celebrated for his gritty acting roles on shows like The Wire and The Night Of, he was a kid growing up in Brooklyn's Vanderveer projects. It was a community, like so many others across America, that routinely saw young people—and especially those of color—get swept up into the dark recesses of the juvenile justice system.
Now, with the US arresting an estimated 850,000 juveniles a year—and holding some 48,000 kids in confinement at any given time—and a president embracing "law and order," Williams decided to take a personal look at the mass incarceration epidemic. On the sixth season premiere of VICE on HBO, Williams talks to young people—including friends and family members—from Baltimore, Richmond, Toledo, and Brooklyn to understand why it seems like an entire generation of young Americans is growing up behind bars.
About two months ago, a train rolled into Parrish, Alabama. Only this train wasn't carrying passengers, or bank notes, or stolen Nazi gold. This train barreled in from New York City carrying roughly 10 million pounds of human shit—and it's been rotting in the Alabama sun ever since.
According to CNN, this poop train is just one of many sent from New York and New Jersey to dump its load of biowaste at a private landfill in Adamsville, Alabama, called Big Sky Environmental. But thanks to some state-level bureaucracy, the turd train's passage has been clogged. Apparently a neighboring town filed an injunction with the landfill to keep the sewage out of its city limits. Now, the train has been left to stink up the two-square mile town of Parrish.
"It greatly reduces the quality of life," Parrish mayor Heather Hall told CNN. "You can't sit out on your porch. Kids can't go outside and play, and God help us if it gets hot and this material is still out here."
Hall told CNN that she's been desperately trying to work with Alabama governor Kay Ivey to get the putrid smelling shit train out of her backyard, but the process has taken a lot longer than she expected. Hall spoke with Big Sky back in February and says she was told that the cars would be removed in seven to ten days. But now it's April and train cars jam-packed with poop sludge have just continued to sit on the tracks, wafting their distinct scent to the town's 982 residents.
"It smells like dead bodies," one Parrish local told NBC affiliate WVTM 13. "You can't open your door because that stuff gets in your house. It's really rough," another said.
The one upside to Parrish's poop predicament is that the Environmental Protection Agency and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management have both stressed that the train's smelly load isn't a biohazard for the town's residents. The downside, of course, is that an entire town of people is "safely" inhaling rancid fumes from other people's poop until the local government can figure its shit out.
Everyone who watches knows this is not RuPaul’s Best Friend Race (thanks Lashauwn Beyond) but this season The Vixen is taking it to a whole new level. When she entered the workroom, her tagline was, “I’m here to fight.” She later clarified that she meant that she was here to fight for the crown. However she’s proven herself to be more willing to tussle than your drunk uncle after someone insulted the Packers offensive line.
In the first episode of Untucked The Vixen said that if she wasn’t going to be in a fight she was going to start a fight and she’s provoked and prodded all around her since. The fight with Aquaria actually started in that first episode, when Aquaria was trash talking her long-time rival Miz Cracker backstage and saying that she not only stole her makeup, but that she’d copied her drag looks on multiple occasions.
After everyone adjourned back to the workroom, The Vixen brought it up and forced Aquaria to explain her stance, and, when she was unsatisfied with Aquaria’s diplomatic answer, she hollered, “Too vague!” at her and forced her to really cop to how much she’d been complaining about Miz Cracker.
Things boiled over again this week when Aquaria threw a jab at The Vixen, saying that her “best drag” look included a borrowed wig. The Vixen clapped right back at Aquaria saying, “You wanted to be shady, and then you were.” Right as things were getting heated, someone discovered a spider in the workroom and all the queens jumped on the table like they were in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.
Later, when painting their makeup, the girls discussed religion, and Dusty Ray Bottoms talked about her experience being sent to gay conversion therapy by her Bible-thumping parents. Things turned on a dime when Aquaria made a joke and The Vixen said it was not funny. Aquaria called The Vixen out for being negative, and that awakened the whole fight again. It was impossible to make our their views because they were just shouting over one another. It was like when Bill O’Reilly was on The View. It ended with Aquaria leaving the room and Monique Heart asking The Vixen why she couldn’t be the bigger person.
The Vixen doesn’t seem like a villain in the classic Phi Phi O’Hara mold, where her maliciousness is only outmoded by her lack of self-awareness. She is more like an Omarosa, who is not here to make friends and justifies calling everyone out as “being real” and “telling the truth.”
She said that, “Aquaria likes to poke the bear and run away, but I will chase her.” It’s one thing to defend yourself, it’s another thing to eviscerate someone in the process. That’s what The Vixen keeps doing and it is not a cute look. Also, The Vixen created the bear by coming for Aquaria first. Is Aquaria just supposed to take it but The Vixen isn’t?
Aquaria, however, is a Phi Phi O’Hara. She thinks that she is fabulous and funny, but she really comes off as entitled, immature, and too big for both her britches and her hip pads (if she ever bothered to wear any). It doesn’t help that Aquaria’s main point seems to be that the judges aren’t judging the wins based on the runway looks or else The Vixen wouldn’t have won in her borrowed wig. She obviously thinks she’s all that , even though she has yet to really stand out in any of the challenges or be singled out on the runway.
The point is that they’re both villains and this fight is helping no one. It doesn’t behoove Aquaria to come for everyone and it doesn’t behoove The Vixen to go in for the kill every time. As Kennedy Davenport taught us, this is really about who can get the longest lines at the meet and greet after the show. That’s more easily accomplished by being memorable for one’s talent and charm than for cussing out everyone and being insufferable. Just ask the unbookable Phi Phi O’Hara.
On Untucked things got crazy again when Monique tried to get the two to reconcile and they both got some harsh criticism from the other girls. Everyone thought that Aquaria can come off as snide and that The Vixen is too defensive. The Vixen addressed the racial element of the dispute, saying, “You say something, I say something, you start crying, you have created a narrative of ‘I am an angry black woman who is scaring off the little white girl.’” Which is true. Everything that happens to a black man in America (especially one that dresses as a woman for a living) is about race.
However, the whole thing was dropped and The Vixen started it up again by telling Aquaria her joke wasn’t funny. She kept saying that Aquaria started it, which she did initially, but The Vixen was the one who wouldn’t let it go. Also, The Vixen was the one who started it in the first place by calling out Aquaria to Miz Cracker. It was a feud of her own making. When Aquaria was crying she said, “These tears are so gross [...] Here I am sitting staunch in my truth and, her crying next to me now, I look like a bitch.” She’s right, she did. Because she was acting like a bitch.
Anyway. Back to the challenge. This week the queens split up into three groups lead by Blair, Monét X Change, and control freak Monique, the winners of a mini-challenge where they had to do their best screen tests in a wood-paneled 90s Calvin Klein commercial room. Each team had to come up with a commercial for a fake dating app. Eureka, Blair, and Asia were the tops and Asia justifiably took the crown in her Jeremy Scott inspired giant Tweety Bird dress and black feather duster hat.
The bottoms were Mayhem Miller, Kameron Michaels, and Yuhua Hamisake, all of whose jokes made absolutely no sense in their respective commercials. Kameron saved herself with a gorgeous Maleficent by way of Legend feather number on the runway, which was the best thing we’ve seen out of her yet. Yuhua’s inabilities to take criticism—either from her teammates or the judges—and her lackluster lip sync to Hole’s “Celebrity Skin” were what eventually sent her home. I can’t say I’ll miss her, but I’m sure she’d have some sort of response to that comment.
Escalating his fervent crusade to seal off the US-Mexico border, on Tuesday President Donald Trump proclaimed the military would be deployed to the region—a plan that Trump claimed was unprecedented. “Until we can have a wall and proper security, we’re going to be guarding our border with the military,” he said at a luncheon with leaders of Baltic nations. “That's a big step, we really haven’t done that before, or certainly not very much before.”
But as extreme as his announcement appeared, his staff soon clarified that he actually would just be sending down members of the National Guard, an army reserve force already deployed on the border in Texas and Arizona, and who were deployed in border security operations under the Obama and Bush administrations as well.
Moreover, sending down more National Guard troops—who are extremely restricted in what they can legally do with regard to enforcement—will likely have a marginal, if any, actual impact on border crossings, which are already at a record low, experts I spoke to said.
“This movement of the Guard there is purely symbolism,” John Sandweg, a former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under the Obama administration, told me.
The National Guard troops cannot apprehend immigrants or drugs and cannot use their weapons (except in self-defense), noted Sandweg. They can only serve as extra eyes on the border—and those human eyes are less useful than the cameras and radars already in place, Sandweg said.
“One flare camera with radar can detect people and zoom in on them way more effectively than somebody sitting with binoculars on a hilltop,” said Sandweg. He did add that the National Guard can survey the landscape from helicopters, which is a slightly more effective way to spot border crossers.
Sandweg speaks from experience—he oversaw the deployment of National Guard troops to the border in 2010 and 2011, but admitted to me that the move had little impact even then. “Politics probably played a role when we did it too,” he said, but added that when the National Guard began aerial support they were able to increase apprehensions.
Today, with improved technology and different migration patterns, Sandweg the National Guard would be of even less use. Since the 2011 deployment, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has added updated flare cameras, radar-based fixed towers, and mobile towers that all enhance detection of border crossers. Additionally, many migrants now turn themselves into immigration agents to request asylum, since most are fleeing violence and persecution in Central America.
“When I worked on this issue the overwhelming majority of people were coming from Mexico and trying to evade capture,” recalled Sandweg. “What’s wildly different now is that people are not trying to evade capture but they’re surrendering.”
The real money and resources need to be spent not on more border security, but on more asylum officers and judges to process these asylum requests, Sandweg said. With a current backlog of roughly 680,000 cases, according to TRAC immigration data, it can take years for asylum seekers to have their cases heard and decided. (The Trump administration recently moved to put a quota on the number of cases immigration judges hear per year, an effort to speed up the process.)
“The only way this would be effective would be if they took these guards and sent them to be immigration judges,” Sandweg said. “Just double the number of immigration judges and the problem is solved.”
The deployment also stands to take resources from other military operations, said Todd Weiler, a former assistant secretary of Defense who served under Barack Obama.
“You’re going to see a hefty price tag—we’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars here,” Weiler told me, noting that the money could “come out of training money, deployments to support our allies in Europe, and rotations to train with Latvians and Estonians on the Russian border.”
Already Texas and Arizona use state taxpayer funds to deploy National Guard troops to the border—now federal taxpayer funds will also be used, explained Weiler. Still, he noted that the move “is no different than what President Bush, Obama, and Clinton have done.”
Former Border Patrol Chief Victor Manjarrez, who served in the agency for 20 years, agreed that the deployment was “nothing new” but predicted that the high-profile operation would indeed have a deterrent effect, at least in the short term.
“Expect illegal activity levels to significantly drop in the next few weeks due to the vast media coverage in the US and more importantly in Mexico and Central America,” he told me in an email. “Just tune in to Telemundo or other similar channel and it is the top story. This has acted as a deterrence in the past, and I expect it will do the same thing now.”
But whatever Central Americans hear, it won’t likely dissuade them from seeking safety in the US, cautioned Maureen Meyer, director of the Washington Office on Latin America’s Mexico and migrant rights program. That’s because violence, corruption, and instability continue to plague the Northern Triangle nations of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
“Overall what we’ve seen is the different harsh measures taken by the Trump administration to separate families at the border and to lock up more asylum seekers—but even with this we’re still seeing a high number of families coming to seek protection,” Meyer told me. “Having a National Guard or more Border Patrol Agents is not going to impact this flow.”
A Department of Homeland Security spokesman referred all my questions to a press conference conducted by DHS Secretary Kirsten Nielsen, during which she said the deployment was integral to protecting the US as a “sovereign nation.”
“We continue to see unacceptable levels of illegal drugs, transnational organizations, and illegal immigration across our border,” she told reporters Wednesday. “This threatens not only the safety and communities of our children but the very law on which our country was founded. It's time to act.”
She explained that the federal government was partnering with each of the four border states—Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California—to expedite National Guard troops to the region as quickly as possible, though she was not able to provide a deployment date or number of troops activated.
The deployment, she said, was necessary since Congress had failed to pass legislation to build the border wall and crack down further on illegal immigration.
“Why not attempt the journey if you have no belief you'll ever be caught?” she continued. “We must change the environment and reduce those pull factors… We will not allow illegal immigration levels to become the normal.”
Spoilers from the latest episode of Atlanta , obviously.
By the end of the aptly named “Teddy Perkins” episode of Atlanta, I had to wonder when the whole thing flipped the switch on me; it went from a laugh-very-uncomfortably sort of episode to a full-blown horror.
Going in, the standard Atlanta-ish vibes felt the same: same mundane opening with ghetto-scholar-in-training Darius (Lakeith Stanfield) U-Hauling it towards a gated mansion in search of a piano. Same guest star intro through former famed musician Teddy Perkins (Donald Glover); the owner of said piano. But Teddy himself is odd. His voice is hushed. His mannerisms are mechanical. His dress style is weird. Michael Jackson-like, with post-bleached Jackson skin. And ten minutes in, nothing about Teddy feels normal...kinda like a 2005, King of Pop dancing on a damn car before a trial not normal.
By the 22-minute mark—yes, this half hour comedy turned into a 34-minute episode without commercial breaks— really bad things occur, and the unflappable Darius is appropriately flapped. There's something clearly disturbing and familiar about Teddy— Get Out 2 allusions aside, there’s a more personal story here, and it’s about mental illness.
Teddy was an abused child who grew up within a culture of fame. His issues have been internalized, to a point where music is the only lens to which he views the world. We’ve seen this story many times before; Elvis, Britney Spears, Richard Pryor, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson and many more.
Fame can be isolating in many ways that punish a character like Teddy and bystanders are slow to identify that a famous artist could be in trouble and not just be “weird and tortured.” And it’s really hard not to watch “crazy” Teddy and speculate the character is an extension of Donald Glover himself.
Isolation of fame can be punishing in ways that create many Teddy’s, and the slowness to which bystanders such as us identify those issues are woven through our labels.
Much like “crazy” Teddy, who in many ways, could be an extension of Donald Glover himself.
Just back in 2013, just after leaving the beloved sitcom Community, Glover posted a series of troubling Instagram notes.
“I feel like I’m letting everyone down. I’m afraid people hate who I really am. I’m afraid I hate who I really am,” he wrote. “I’ve been sick this year. This is the first time I’ve felt helpless.”
He later went on to state, “If I’m depressed, everybody’s depressed. I don’t think those feelings are that different from what everybody’s feeling. Most people just don’t tell everybody.”
I often have to remind myself that Glover’s world is a place of analogies and symbols that don’t directly point to their problems. His subtle commentaries are no accidents. It’s no coincidence when The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison—a story about a black man who feels invisible in the world—gets referenced in the episode. We see our example of that invisibility through “Teddy Perkins,” played by Glover himself, whose black, famous and carrying issues that are equally hidden from view.
Glover is forever a ruse maker in that way. There’s even an in-and-out moment of humour, with the not-quite famous Alfred “Paper Boi” Miles, Earn and Tracy, reminding Darius about how “crazy” the Teddy Perkins situation is over phone calls—a throwback to Lil Rey Howery’s character in Get Out. None of it was needed though, Teddy was weird enough to send the point home. But having outsiders comment on the “craziness” of yet another celeb was a brilliant way to highlight our lack of sympathy for real celebs with real problems.
It’s what makes “Teddy Perkins” such an amazing effort. The ease in which it slips back and forth from an uncertain creepiness to the heady topic of the cost of fame. This genre-bending Glover concoction is a damn amazing episode, not because it dances with a real horror, but because it reflects our reaction to it.
In 2012, New South Wales police uncovered 38 people living in a filthy bush camp outside the tiny town of Boorowa. DNA tests would reveal the group, known as "the Colts" to protect the identities of the children involved, were deeply inbred. According to News Corp reports, "11 of the children in the camp were the product of a sexual relationship by their mothers with either a brother, father or other close male relative."
This week, almost six years later, eight adult members of the Colts were arrested, facing charges over allegations of incest and sexual abuse of children.
Two were picked up in Griffith, NSW, including a 45-year-old man who was charged with six counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 10, four counts of indecent assault, sexual intercourse with a child aged between 10-14, aggravated act of indecency, and common assault. A woman, 38, was charged with perjury.
In Adelaide, two women, aged 50 and 34, faced perjury charges. A 29-year-old man is charged with two counts of incest with a minor. Four others faced court in Western Australia, after being picked up by police in Northam, about an hour-and-a-half north east of Perth. They included a 36-year-old man, who was charged with four counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 10, two counts of indecent assault, and having sexual intercourse with a child aged between 10-14.
The discovery of the Colt family shocked the world in 2012. As the Sydney Morning Herald reported, "The children were malnourished, filthy, could barely talk, had appalling hygiene and had been living without electricity and running water."
The appearance of the children, and their rare appearances in school, brought the family to the attention of authorities. About a year after the family moved into Boorowa, teachers and the local bus driver started raising red flags. But, as reporter Anne Davies noted, "it took two years before the department acted. Finally, in June 2012, the authorities visited and were met with scenes of harrowing deprivation. One police officer told colleagues she would never get over what she saw that day."
Many of the children were mentally and physically impaired. Some didn't even know how to use a tooth brush. The court removed them from the family immediately, which set a new precedent for Australian case law.
Prosecutors will apply to have all of the accused extradited to NSW to face court.
Anthony Scaramucci—a.k.a. the Mooch—gave a talk to a bunch of college Republicans Thursday night in New York. The former White House communications director was supposed to speak on "forgiveness and common mistakes in business and politics," which could be a reference to the time he told a reporter at the New Yorker, "I'm not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock," and got fired only ten days into his job.
But relaying that anecdote and reflecting on it could not possibly take up an hour-long speaking slot, and it's unclear what insight into the Trump administration someone with so short a tenure there could realistically provide. So the former Goldman Sachs investment banker was forced to improvise. Scaramucci could have offered some business tips, or talked about the Al Pacino movie he's producing. Instead, he riffed on Jersey Shore stereotypes, and told the students that they probably ate "garbage" and that life was "unfair."
According to the NYU Local, the event "went about how you would expect." Except for the fact that no one could have anticipated this gem:
Asked about his favorite White House story during the Q&A portion of the evening, Scaramucci recalled an anecdote of a time while aboard Air Force One. Trump, a notorious germophobe, noticed Scaramucci had a hoarse voice and was under the weather. Trump, Scaramucci said, subsequently sent him to his doctor, Ronny Jackson (now Trump’s nominee to be the new VA Secretary), who proceeded to inject him in the butt with penicillin and cortisone before he could return to sit alongside Trump during the flight.
That's right. It wasn't that first press conference where he blew a kiss to the press, or the time Trump told him that he would "pray for" his baby. It had nothing to do with that infamous Ryan Lizza call. Scaramucci's fondest memory from his short White House tenure was the time he was forced to get an ass injection on an airplane by his boss's doctor, "Ronny."
This is even better than the time Trump forced Chris Christie to eat meatloaf. Thank you NYU College Republicans for this gift.
The "internet of things" took a huge leap forward today, when hackers gained access to a public screen in Perth, Australia and displayed the homepage of PornHub—the internet's biggest porn site. The incident happened in Yagan Square, a newly-opened space that has been referred to as "the heart of the city" by state politicians.
"Unfortunately, it appears that these screens were compromised this evening and, for a brief period of time, some inappropriate content was displayed on one of the screens," a spokesperson from the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority (MRA) told the ABC. "Both screens were immediately turned off and power has also been switched off to the units to eliminate all possibilities of a recurrence."
It's not yet known how the hackers gained access to the display, which has a central position in the square. "The MRA takes this matter very seriously and will undertake a full investigation to understand how this event has happened and identify those responsible," the spokesperson said.
Yagan Square just opened last month, at a cost of $73.5 million [$56.5 million USD]. Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan said it would be a space for families and commuters to enjoy. Officials haven't commented on how much was spent on digital security.
This actually isn't the first time PornHub has popped up in an unexpected place in Perth. The porn juggernaut sponsors a local roller hockey team called Two Girls, One Puck. The team got money from the multi-million dollar site to cover uniform and equipment costs.
"All they wanted from us was a team photo in our jerseys," team member, Maddy, told VICE. "So basically, we convinced PornHub to pay women to put on clothes."
The last movie in the Purge franchise, The Purge: Election Year, ended with a newly-elected president swooping in to un-legalize crime, once and for all. But while the purge itself may be over, the Purge movies are thankfully still going strong.
This Independence Day, the upcoming Purge prequel, The First Purge, will hit theaters. And according to the new trailer that dropped Friday, the thing is going to be a gloriously bloody and over-the-top look at how the whole purging business came to be—starting with the first prototype Purge on Staten Island. There are riots! Freaky Purge night parties! And a lot of people in goofy costumes killing one another, since what else have we come to expect from a Purge movie?
"Citizens, this will be a tradition we celebrate every year," the president says in an announcement from the Oval Office, "Join the first Purge!"
According to the trailer, the whole idea for an annual night of legalized mayhem was dreamt up by a doctor named May Updale, played by Marisa Tomei, who figured the whole thing would be a nice catharsis for a troubled America. "If we want to save our country," Updale says, "we must release all our anger in one night."
That doesn't sound like entirely sound logic, obviously, and it seems like Updale starts to question it herself, once the Purge starts to spiral out of control. "What have I done?" she asks in the trailer. Well, she's kicked off a great franchise full of blood, horror, and heavy-handed political commentary about patriotism in America, so that's something.
Last week, Natalie Belsito, a freshman at Central Michigan University, spotted a tiny squirrel drowning in a campus pond. "I just couldn’t leave it,” Belsito explained to the CMU newspaper. "It definitely was drowning because it was really slow when we saw it and it started to dip its head under the water."
With the help of a long-armed guy who happened to be walking by, she was able to fish the animal out of the water, but once she did, she found that the squirrel wasn't breathing. Thinking fast, she dug deep into the recesses of her brain and pulled out some CPR skills—skills she learned from a certain beloved NBC comedy.
Those skills mostly involved chest compressions to the tempo of the Bee Gees' song, "Stayin' Alive." But instead of getting sidetracked singing, like Michael Scott does in the episode, Belsito heroically managed to stay focused and got the critter's heart beating again.
"It was a super cool feeling to know that I saved an innocent life," Belsito went on. "I watched a lot of Animal Planet as a kid, but the CPR part was literally all from that episode in The Office."
After the CPR, Belsito warmed the squirrel with a hairdryer as it regained its strength, and then released it a few hours later, happy and healthy, back into the wild, where it quickly scurried up a tree. "After he ran up the tree, we all were screaming and our minds were blown honestly, the whole night we couldn’t stop talking about what happened," Belsito said.
A few years ago, I was out with three friends at a club in Athens and started chatting with a couple of girls who were sitting next to us. Out of nowhere, a guy came up and got aggressive—one of my friends had been talking to his ex-girlfriend, and he wasn't pleased about it. Things escalated quickly, and soon my friend had pushed this guy through a table full of glass bottles. In a split second, the guy was up again, slashing my friend across the face with the base of a broken bottle he had in his hand. In the end, the result of the night out was my friend needing plastic surgery to repair the damage to his face, and the other guy being charged with attempted murder and GBH [grievous bodily harm].
When I recounted this story in the days after the fight, I realized just how many of my friends had been through something similar on a night out—albeit with less dramatic consequences. It seems that a measure of alcohol mixed with a crowded bar and topped with some Greek temperament is the perfect recipe for an all-out brawl.
This is what I was thinking about when I walked into the Boiler Room nightclub in Athens on a recent Sunday afternoon, to join 40 others in a so-called bar fight seminar. We weren't training to actively start trouble—the focus of the workshop was on basic self-defense.
Our instructor was Panos Zacharias, an 11-year martial arts veteran who has worked as a bouncer at several clubs and bars in Athens and is the founder of the Guerrilla Tactical Strength company, which hosts a range of physical training programs.
In his introduction, Panos explained that the seminar would teach us the basic principles of Krav Maga. "You will learn techniques to protect yourself that involve as little physical violence as possible," he said, adding, "In a bar, you can use these both on ordinary drunks and on professional fighters."
Panos Zacharias explaining a move.
In the five years that he's worked security in bars and clubs, Panos said he has seen around 20 fights in which someone used a weapon. And he's been threatened himself—he's had a drunk girl smash a bottle over his head after he asked her to stop spilling water on people, and an equally drunk guy dig a smashed bottle into his ribs.
But he explained that if you find yourself under attack in a bar, you shouldn't count on security to take your side. "All any bouncer will care about is throwing the both of you out, which means the fight could carry on in the street," he told us. "So it's important you know how to protect yourself."
Watch: Feminist Fight Club
After we were done practicing our moves and using anything and everything you might find in a club to fight off the enemy—from our bare hands to bottles and cups—we were given the chance to show off our new skills under proper clubbing conditions. The disco lights went on, loud music began to blare, and we were made to change into the sort of clothes you'd wear on a night out. "When you're out, you won't be wearing shorts that allow you to move easily, so it's important we recreate the right environment," Panos reminded us.
Photographer Panos Kefalos came to the seminar with me and didn't learn to fight, but did document the afternoon.
Scroll down to see more photos of the bar fight seminar.
