Allison Mack was arrested in Brooklyn by the FBI on Friday for allegedly recruiting slaves into an alleged sex cult within the self-help group NXIVM. The 35-year-old, who is best known for playing Clark Kent's best friend on the TV show Smallville, also blackmailed women into having sex with the group's founder, Keith Raniere, according to a federal indictment.
NXIVM—pronounced "nexium"—is ostensibly a multi-level marketing organization in which people take self-improvement seminars and recruit others to do the same. It's been around since 1998, and New York Magazinereferred to it as "cult-like" all the way back in 2007. But it wasn't until 2017 when a New York Timesexposé revealed that recruits into a secret society within NXIVM, known as DOS, would have to turn over naked photographs of themselves and get branded as part of the organization's initiation process.
Raniere claimed to have the highest IQ ever recorded and required his followers to call him "Vanguard." He was apprehended in early April on sex trafficking charges in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and video shows that Mack was present at the scene of the arrest. He's currently being held in Texas without bail, and both he an Mack could face between 15 years to life in prison if convicted, NBC New York reports.
Meanwhile, Mack is far from the only actress tied to the group—she's been accused of starting a subgroup within NXVIM that was specifically targeted toward celebrities. In fact, she's not even the only participant to have appeared on Smallville. Kristin Kreuk, who played Superman's love interest on the show, was accused by NXIVM's former publicist of also recruiting women into the group. She's publicly denied being part of the organization's "inner circle," which is backed up by a third actress named Sarah Edmondson, who showed the Times where she was burned with a cauterized pen as part of her initiation.
"I wept the whole time," she told the paper about being branded. "I disassociated out of my body."
As long as she's healthy enough to drive around rural Mississippi, nothing can stop 72-year-old photographer Jane Rule Burdine from trekking through the countryside and shooting soulful portraits of communities in the Deep South. In an area often forgotten by politicians and philanthropists, her photos are a record of lives lived and the slow march of change.
Growing up in the Mississippi Delta, she knew she was different. Most people wanted to settle down, get married, and have some kids, but Burdine wanted to forge her own path. "So I struck out on my own," she says in a new short documentary about her life, Under Her Skin, directed by Kelsey & Rémy Bennett and produced by The Front.
Burdine documents the beauty and quirks of Mississippi's farming communities, studying how the people impact the land and vice versa. In the 80s, she spent time photographing an area known as Sugar Ditch, then the poorest county in the nation. Even though they're photos of poverty, Burdine's portraits brim with happiness and humanity. "My work is an affirmation of life, in the face of imperfections," she says in the film.
There is a screening of Under Her Skin at the Tribeca Film Festival on Saturday, April 21 at 2:30 PM. The film will also be available to stream online here on Monday, April 23.
The Bennett Sisters sat down with Burdine for VICE to talk about what it was like working together and why she credits her sense of adventure for her prolific career.
Jane Rule Burdine, photographed by The Bennett Sisters
VICE: When did you start working as a photographer? Do you have any memories that come to mind from being on assignment? Burdine: Well, I got my masters degree in sociology and then immediately got hired as a photojournalist for the Louisiana State Tourism Bureau in 1976. I stayed there a couple of years just traveling and shooting.
The image of the man in the wig shop, I shot for Guideposts, a religion magazine. A man had come in to rob the wig shop and the salesman thwarted the robbery by talking to the thief about Jesus. I also had taken a portrait for that magazine of a female ventriloquist and her dummy who loved the Lord.
I got to travel to Africa and Tanzania to shoot for British Airways. I traveled with friends across Canada by train, and I went to Mexico. I was a photographer out on the road, and oh, it was fun, but it was hard work.
Aside from the premiere of Under Her Skin you have some other exciting events coming up this year. Yes, at the end of April my work will be showcased in the new museum, the Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Experience, alongside Maude Schuyler Clay and other Mississippi artists. I’m working on my second book which will be photographs that I’ve taken up in the hills around Oxford and Lafayette County. In the future, I would love to put a book together of my "wacko" stuff.
What’s your "wacko" stuff? This phrase came to me in the middle of the night— The it-ness of a weird thing seen—it describes the absurd. I just love coming up on these surprising things. A lot of times, I see the “it-ness” and maybe no one else does.
Can you elaborate on what you thrive on when you wander the backroads with your camera? It’s mainly my sense of adventure, going out and being a visual explorer. You can have wonderful experiences without even getting out of a car. I never have a particular agenda, I just chase the light and the image and take in whatever happens along the way.
Jane Rule Burdine, photographed by The Bennett Sisters
What others artists, writers, and photographers did you admire when you were growing up? When I was in high school I came across a Margaret Bourke-White photography book. I was so taken by her courage doing these industrial photographs—and then her images during the war. And of course, Miss Eudora Welty, who as well as being a great writer was also a photographer during that time. Then Dorothea Lange, whose work just stabbed me in the heart.
What is the importance, in your eyes, of photographing buildings and places in relation to the changing landscape? After studying those photographers of the 1930s, I went out into the countryside and was seeing similar things that I saw in those photographs. I just felt like there needed to be a record of this architecture. I’m not doing "dead barn art." These are historical buildings.
One of my favorite images by you is the woman barefoot on her horse riding into a building. What’s going on there? That was at a museum on campus [at the University of Mississippi]. Shannon rode her horse down to the college to ask her momma something, and her momma wasn’t coming out of the air conditioning, and the ground was too hot to stand barefoot, so she stayed on her horse.
Oh, so she’s actually speaking to her mom, who is standing at a doorway off frame? Yes. And I was there because my work was in an exhibit on campus—you can see the sign on the wall outside, Images of the Southern Woman.
You live right outside of Oxford. Could you talk about why you live in Mississippi? I could have lived anywhere. I’ve traveled a great bit for work, but I came back to Mississippi because it’s what I know. When I go out hunting for these photographs, it’s not like a stranger coming to town. I can move fluidly. I know what I’m seeing. There’s so much here that I know and can discover within my knowledge. How could I ever exhaust it?
How did it feel being on the other side of the camera during the filming of Under Her Skin? The crew we brought down with us has known you and each other for years. How do you feel the intimacy and familiarity influenced the filming process? There’s no way that I could have let my hair down with strangers! And I was so comfortable with y’all around, cause it was like, Hell, we were all having a party, and Alex [Warren] was filming it. I never felt uncomfortable. It was such a delight. It was just all wonderful.
Jane Rule Burdine, photographed by The Bennett Sisters
Something you said in the documentary, which seems to resonate with a lot of people, is that you "struck out on your own." Can you elaborate on what that means to your life? I haven’t lived a normal life, like the girls I grew up around. I was born the middle child between two older brothers and two younger. I’ve always had a sense of adventure and independence. If I had wanted to settle down, I would have done it. I wanted to travel, and I did. I was fortunate to have my own way.
At 72 years old, this is a very exciting time for you in your career. How do you feel? I’ve been taking photographs for almost 50 years. I’ve got a lot of work that’s never been seen, and I’m looking forward to getting it out there. If I can keep my health, then nothing can stop me.
Wubalubbadublunt! It's 4/20 my glip glops, and that means its time to travel to a dimension where everyone is lit as fuck. Cannabis artist Tony Greenhand, who at one point held the world record for largest joint rolled, celebrated the holiday with a fitting tribute to the stoneriest scientist on TV: Rick Sanchez from Rick and Morty.
Greenhand is known for making smokeable sculptures of pop culture icons like Tommy Chong and Spider-Man for illustrious clients like Snoop Dogg. In honor of this special day, he rolled joint effigies of Rick and Morty, plus fan-favorites Mr. Meeseeks, and Mr. Poopybutthole. Combined, these four pieces of high art took the Weedstagram celeb around 20 hours of painstaking paper sculpting. A fan of the show himself, Greenhand's favorite episodes take place in the Citadel of Ricks, where versions of Rick and Morty from infinite dimensions meet up and hang out. However, his favorite character is the normie dad, Jerry, who fails at nearly everything he tries, but does it with heart. "He's the lovable idiot," Greenhand told VICE in a text message.
Courtesy Tony Greenhand
Like most animated Adult Swim shows, Rick and Morty goes out of its way to provide woah dude visuals on the regular. Rick from Dimension C-137 can invent anything and actually acts on even the wildest highdeas. In one episode he solves the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by smoking perspective-enhancing space drugs with the two group leaders. By extension, Greenhand reasons Rick "wouldn't be opposed to some dank." Bootleg joints of Rick and Morty characters are the biggest no brainers in the history of brains.
Check out the Rick and Morty joints below, and see more on Instagram.
When Arsene Wenger joined Arsenal as manager in 1996, Tony Blair was the leader of a Labour Party in opposition and was living in a terraced house on Richmond Crescent, a ten-minute walk from Highbury in the north London borough of Islington.
Two years earlier, Blair and his chancellor-in-waiting Gordon Brown had met at another landmark of 90s Islington, the Italian restaurant Granita. There, over chilled glasses of vin santo and plates of olives, they formalised their plan to take control of Labour’s future.
Once a thoroughly working class neighbourhood, Islington was in the midst of gentrification. Wine bars and modern restaurants were springing up as parts of the old community were being moved out. At the beginning of the 20th Century, Lenin, Trotsky and their comrades had debated the future for communism in Islington’s pubs. At its end, Blair and Brown were consigning the left to history in its restaurants.
At Arsenal, George Graham and then Bruce Rioch practiced a decidedly old-school brand of direct football. Now here came Wenger, with his ideas about passing the ball and eating vegetables. Like Blair, he had come to change the organisation he had been put in charge of.
While those on the left of the Labour party dubbed Blair and his associates the “Savile Row tendency”, a riff on the Militant tendency that cast them as well-heeled, right-wing insurgents in expensive suits, the new leader was presenting himself as a moderniser, a man to drive his party forward into a slicker, brighter future.
From now on, it was going to be TV-ready sound bites over socialist rhetoric, private-public partnerships over nationalised industries. From now on, like Bill Clinton’s Democrats, Labour was going to embrace the Third Way, that synthesis of centre-left and centre-right politics that, as a BBC collage from the time helpfully illustrated, put Tony Blair somewhere in between Karl Marx and Margaret Thatcher.
The arrival of Arsene Wenger at Arsenal promised similar change. Presented to the media on the pitch at Highbury, Wenger, in his double-breasted suit and crisp white shirt, even looked like he could be one of the more professorial members of Blair’s entourage. “He wears glasses and looks more like a schoolteacher”, Arsenal captain Tony Adams observed. “Does he even speak English properly?”
The shock of the new was as hard to take. “We want our Mars bars”, the Arsenal players chanted on the back of their bus after Wenger had banned them from eating chocolate. Wenger had won titles in France and Japan but what did that mean to players like Tony Adams?
Today, after Arsene Wenger has announced that he will leave Arsenal in the summer, there will be no such complaints. Wenger revolutionised Arsenal and he changed British football. His nutritional, tactical and cultural demands were embraced by his team and following Wenger’s announcement, Adams hailed him as “the greatest Arsenal manager”.
Like Blair, Wenger turned his team into serial winners. Like Blair, he was the future once. Like Blair, he outlived his welcome. Unlike Blair, he leaves now with the love and appreciation of those he led. Watch this space to find out if he goes on to enjoy great success as an after-dinner corporate speaker and freelance consultant to the world’s great kleptocracies.
Le Prof’s departure seems, also, to signify another nail in the coffin of a time and a place, the Islington of Tony Blair and the culture that came with it: Clive Anderson on panel shows, David Baddiel and Frank Skinner, Cool Britannia, the books of Nick Hornby, a newfound comfort with and attraction to money, the prizing of the individual over the collective, the slick duplicity of spin and PR, the deadly synergy of public and private, a fascination with olive oil. Leading Blairites like David Miliband and James Purnell even had Arsenal season tickets in the glory days.
Blair’s Third Way and Wenger’s vitamin-infused tiki taka were dominant for a time, re-worked by others and then ceased to work.
Working under circumstances that were often relatively constrained for a big club, Wenger managed to achieve some success in the afterglow of his team’s greatest period, between his arrival in 1996 and the middle of this century’s first decade. He remained a great manager, but one caught in the grip of a dream of long ago, still staring at a vision of beauty that faded and fell further into disuse as each year passed.
In announcing his departure Wenger has, perhaps, accepted that the world has moved on and that he must too. No such acceptance has come for Tony Blair. The politics he championed are unfit for our world but he remains forever in 1998, dreaming of a modern future in which technocratic neo-liberalism with a friendly face, a dash of social democracy and a side-order of perpetual military engagement abroad delivers prosperity.
Labour is led now by Arsenal fan Jeremy Corbyn. The intellectual energy in the party is on the left. If Arsenal’s directors can see this moment clearly, they will bring in a man who marks a departure from Wenger, a Diego Simeone or a Thomas Tuchel, someone who can see that what this time needs is a football of high intensity, with a strong commitment to the collective. In that way, they will move on from Wenger, while still honouring him.
This article originally appeared on VICE Indonesia
The forest in Alas Purwo was so dense that the high mid-day sun couldn't reach the ground. I was in Banyuwangi, East Java, trekking into what has been described as Indonesia's most-haunted forest—a place locals believe is full of spirits, demons, and ghosts—to meet the lelono, or hermits, who use the forest to meditate and communicate with the spirits of the presidents and sultans who have already passed on to the other side.
The sounds of the modern world vanish when you walk this deep into a protected forest. I was only two kilometers off the trailhead, but the sounds of nature were everywhere. I was heading to the Gua Istana, or Royal Cave, a location where the lelono go to meditate. It took me about 30 minutes to find the cave and there, siting cross-legged right at the mouth of the cave, was Hardi, a lelono who told me he has been meditating out here for the past three months.
The cave has been used by spiritualists like Hardi since the pre-colonial Majapahit era, but it's a more-recent rumor—that Indonesia's founding father Sukarno used to meditate in the cave—that is driving its popularity today.
There's no real evidence that Sukarno ever visited the cave—let alone meditated in it—but the story has circulated amongst local communities in East Java for so long that, today, it's taken as fact. When you walk into the cave, a photograph of Sukarno dressed in his white uniform greets you from one of the walls.
There's also a belief that Alas Purwo, the forest, is a "layover," spot for the souls of old Javanese kings. I knew this before I trekked out to the cave, which is why I wasn't totally shocked when Hardi told me that he was just hanging out with Sukarno, a man who died 48 years ago, and his vice president Mohammad Hatta, who is also dead .
"I saw the spirit of Sukarno and Hatta in white uniforms when meditating inside the cave," Hardi told me.
Hardi, a hermit from Tulungagung. Photo by author
Hardi, 56, was dressed like a mystic, wearing the telltale string of large wooden beads around his neck. He told me that he was pulled to the forest after hearing a "mysterious call," something he believes was a spirit or his inner voice, in his head. He left his home in Tulungagung, a district some 350 kilometers inland, with empty pockets and nothing back the clothes on his back.
"I hitchhiked here," Hardi told me. "I was lucky someone was kind enough to give me a ride."
He offered to show me around the cave where he was meditating. I turned the flashlight on my phone and walked into the dark opening.
"I wanted to achieve a sense of inner peace here," he told me.
He asked me if I wanted to try to meditate with him. I asked him if it only worked for followers of kejawen, a mystical strain of Islam indigenous to Jawa.
"Any religion is fine, as long as your intentions are good," Hardi replied.
I'll be honest here. I tried. But meditation isn't for me. I lasted 15 minutes before the smell of bat shit started to make me feel like I was going to puke, and then I broke through the silence and asked Hardi if I could keep interviewing him outside the cave.
This is the spot where Hardi meditates. Photo by author
It was fine, Hardi said. After all, it wasn't like he meditated all day, every day. Lelono like Hardi tae breaks to interact with visitors and go about their daily chores like washing clothes or searching for food. Hardi told me that he usually eats the fruits that fall from the trees, but sometimes his diet is supplemented with some water and food donated by tourists he shows around the cave.
"People gave me bread, water, and snacks,” Hardi said.
But there's more to Alas Purwo than spirits and meditation. It's also a massive wildlife sanctuary. It covers a wide swath of East Java, 43,420 hectares of forest that some believe could be hiding species of animals long thought extinct—like the Javan Tiger.
Spend enough time in Alas Purwo and you're bound to come across all kinds of wildlife. Jafar, another lelono, told me that he's seen wild boars, monkeys, and monitor lizards on a near daily basis since entering the forest. But, so far, he's had no issues with his feral neighbors.
"The animals never bothered me," Jafar told me. "Snakes and tigers, as far as I know, never comes in to the cave. It's probably because pilgrims are often there, so the snakes and tigers are too afraid."
The lelono also take special care to abide by the unwritten rules of the forest. They believe that no one is allowed to hunt the animals or plant anything inside Alas Purwo. They also have to control their behavior. Negative thoughts, swearing, and theft are all forbidden, according to the legend of the forest.
Those who fail to follow the rules will suffer some kind of terrible disaster. I heard about a legend where one man was sucked deep in to a dark part of the forest for breaking the rules. Another man went crazy for three days after leaving the forest. And these aren't ghost stories told to children either. The belief that something older and more powerful than man lives in the forest is so strong that even park rangers warned me to take special care when I was in the forest.
"Do do anything stupid in Alas Purwo," warned Suwandi, one of the park rangers. "You won't get away with it."
These kinds of beliefs do more than keep local residents up at night. They also protect the forest from encroachment by illegal loggers or agri-business companies, explained Sri Margana, a historian at Gadjah Mada University.
"These local beliefs are a more effective way to conserve the forest, than just posting warning signs," she told me. "This is mitigates negative impacts on the environmental."
The forest holds such a power over people that it's been able to remain relatively untouched, despite the fact that it's on the densely populated island of Java. Sri Margana believes that there may be ancient relics buried beneath the forest floor, as well as the remains of recent tragedies like the anti-communist purges or the witch hunts that gripped East Java in the late `90s.
As Hardi and I stood outside the cave, a new man, one I hadn't seen before, approached us. He said his name was Din and that he had been out here meditating in the heart of the forest for the last 71 days. He came here to find some peace after his life took a dark turn, he said.
“I was burned out," Din told me. "My marriage was a disaster. I wanted to get some peace here."
He prefers to meditate at the Padepokan Cave, which is another 10-15 minute walk from the cave we were standing at. Din told me that he is a Muslim, and he still prays five times a day. But, aside from that, the rest of his day is devoted to eking out a living in the remote forest and meditating. He bathes in a nearby river and washes his clothes in it. When he's bored, he busies himself with sweeping the dead leaves away from the mouth of his cave.
Din. Photo by author
Din told me that he's still unsure when he will finally leave the forest. He was holding out hope for a better life outside of the cave, but he doesn't know when, and if, that time will come. I asked him what he was going to do until then.
"I'll just follow my heart," he said. "I surrendered myself to it."
He is one of hacking history's most notorious cybercriminals. Behind the anonymity of his pseudonym, GOllumfun, Brett Johnson created an online network called Shadow Crew, a central hub for high-level hackers to network and the precursor to today’s dark web. Operating between 2002-2004, at its peak the forum had 4,000 members.
Toward the end of his hacking days Johnson was making more than USD$500,000 per month, and at one point sat on America’s most wanted list. Even after his arrest, when he agreed to work as a Secret Service informant, his cybercrime continued.
Finally, after being captured again—and sentenced in 2007 to seven years, six months in federal prison—Johnson chose to dedicate his life to protecting companies against the crimes he once lived for. VICE spoke to the reformed hacker about his past, his present, and how cybercrime has changed since his exit.
First of all, why and how did you go down this road? Cybercrime was a natural progression for me because my mother, and almost everyone on her side of the family, was involved in crime. I committed my first offence at 10 years old: my mum was a very negligent and abusive parent—she used to leave me and my sister alone for days at a time—so my sister and I started shoplifting food so we could eat. That grew into stealing clothes, and more. When my mum found out, she joined us. Then she got her mother, my grandmother, to join us.
As I got older I became more involved in the types of crime my family committed: insurance fraud, burning homes and cars, faking accidents, stealing, document forgery... cybercrime became a natural extension of all that.
But moreover, cybercrime was like a puzzle for me. It felt almost like David and Goliath—I was the lone person defeating million-dollar organisations. Then there was the massive amounts of money I was able to steal, and, finally, status: being the head of all those people [at Shadow Crew] was a big ego-boost.
What was the weirdest or most ethically dubious thing you did as a hacker, or that you witnessed? There are so many. I once stole several thousand dollars’ worth of coins from a family trying to sell them to put a new roof on their home. Another time, I sent a counterfeit cashier’s check to a victim and he ended up being arrested for it. I lied to family, friends, everyone I knew. I was a truly despicable person.
One of my Ukrainian associates, Script, had someone who owed him money kidnapped and tortured. He posted pictures of it online. Another member, Iceman, used to flood his enemies’ email addresses with child pornography then call the police on them.
Did you earn a lot from cyber crime? How do today's hackers make their money, generally? I didn’t “earn” anything. I stole money. Starting out, there was almost no money coming in, and I constantly hustled to pay the bills.
But once I became adept, I stole money through eBay fraud: USD$20,000 monthly. Also, Card not Present, a transaction where the card is not present at the time of purchase, and ATO, American Tax Office, [which brought in] USD$40,000 per month. Tax Return Identity Theft brought in ASD$500,000 a month.
Most hackers and cyber crooks don’t make a lot. They’re often running around trying to learn, and never become an expert criminal.
Did you ever feel guilty about what you were doing? Generally, no. Although once I got to the point where I was stealing massive amounts of money, I would sometimes send some victims their money back if I believed their story was sad enough. That wasn’t me feeling guilty [though], it was me justifying my crimes. I could tell myself I was a good person. It took me going to prison to realise what I’d done and to turn my life around.
You helped create Shadow Crew, an online forum that facilitated the communication of cybercriminals. What was your goal with this online hacking movement? Shadow Crew was really the first organised cybercrime network. It was a precursor to today’s darknet markets—along with Carder Planet, which was run by an associate of mine.
When I co-created Shadow Crew, we didn’t think of it as pioneering anything. We were simply building a place where we could conduct business and make money. We needed some way to network with other criminals and to make sure that none of our members were ripped off by scammers. I mean, after all, we were crooks. We had to build a system to make sure that there was honour among crooks.
You were convicted by the US government, and was once on the US most wanted list. Yet, you continued to engage in hacking. What drove you to continue, and did you ever worry about being caught? The reason I continued to engage in hacking and breaking the law is complicated. First, I was desperate. I’d been arrested and lost everything I’d stolen. The only thing I had left was my stripper girlfriend. I was so screwed up in the head, I would have done anything to keep her. For me, that meant stealing more money.
Then there was the fact that the Secret Service had hired me—that gave quite the ego boost. Then, breaking the law from within the Secret Service offices, not many people able to do that. Another ego boost. I knew I was going to be caught: before my initial arrest, we had intercepted Secret Service text messages about them investigating us. But we kept on.
After my arrest and while I was working for them, I knew they would find out. I was just so depressed, so desperate, I kept going. I adopted a philosophy of fatalism.
What finally turned you into an informant? Being arrested. I was arrested three weeks before I was set to marry my fiancé—the stripper. I was so desperate to try to save the relationship that I immediately agreed to be an informant. Elizabeth, my fiancé, didn’t know anything [about what] I was doing until my arrest. I thought I could salvage the relationship, so I became an informant.
Of course, as soon as the Secret Service released me from jail, I began breaking the law again. That very day. I thought I needed to buy Elizabeth’s love. I guess a part of me thought I could work with the Secret Service and break the law at the same time. I was pretty screwed up at the time.
How do you compare the calibre of cybercriminals out there today with your peers? Criminals back then were much more adept. Because we were figuring out many of these crimes as we went, we understood the dynamics of those crimes, inside and out. We knew every nuance.
Most of today’s cybercriminals have no understanding of the dynamics of the crimes they commit. They read an article about how much money a hacker has stolen and think they can do they same. They go on a crime forum, buy a tutorial, or take a class and start breaking the law. Today’s cyber criminals don’t need to know anything, they are basically a form of script kiddies [a term used to discredit someone who claims to be a skilled hacker].
That doesn’t mean cybercrime is any less successful. The sheer number of people trying to steal money means more successful crimes occur. Today’s businesses are much more likely to be victims of this new generation of criminals than an expert.
How easy is it for cybercriminals to perform their work? What are the biggest challenges they face? These days it’s pretty easy. A new person entering cybercrime can engage in something like Amazon refunding and make a profit of $10,000 per month. This allows the aspiring crook to make money while learning other types of crime. That didn’t used to be possible with cybercrime. It used to be that crooks would basically starve until they learned how to really commit a crime.
Cybercrime has gotten so sophisticated now that a crook can enter in and buy a tutorial for a few dollars, which gives step-by-step instructions on how to commit a crime. Or they can take online classes taught by master criminals who teach them how to steal money. These classes typically cost $600 and last for about six weeks. Many come with a guarantee that if the student doesn’t make money their money will be refunded.
The biggest challenge crooks face is finding a unique technique that will last, because websites adapt. Law enforcement has also recently got very good at sowing the seeds of distrust among cybercriminals. There isn’t really any central forum for people to network and right now, cybercriminals are very paranoid—they have no idea who to trust or where to go to network and conduct business.
Do you think the government, or ethical hackers, effectively help protect citizens against cybercriminals? I think government can be effective. The problem is that government is often swayed by businesses who don’t have citizens’ best interests at heart. They’re more concerned with money.
What's more, a white hat [ethical computer hackers, or a computer security experts] works his job for eight hours then goes home and forgets about it. A criminal hacker works until he succeeds; it’s almost like a degree of Asperger’s, that level of concentration.
I’m not saying white hats aren’t skilled; they are. They just lack the criminal mindset. That’s one of the things that makes a reformed cybercriminal so important—people like me who can bridge that disconnect.
If you hadn't been convicted, would you have carried on? It took being arrested and sent to prison for me to change. Prison was necessary for me to reform. But more important was my wife, Michele, and my sister, Denise. I credit them for saving me.
I also credit the assistance of the FBI, the Identity Theft Council, The Card Not Present Group, and countless other companies and individuals who took me under their wing and gave me a chance. Without them, I don’t know how things would have turned out for me.
Not believing in God has always seemed perfectly sensible to me, but also a bit of a tedious thing to discuss. Of course, that hasn't stopped the so-called "new atheists" like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris – and their annoyingly fanatical online acolytes – banging on about exactly what they don't believe in all the time.
John Gray, the renowned English philosopher, is tired of the new atheists and considers their thinking "shallow". The author is not a religious believer, but he insists that non-belief is a far more strange and subtle business than Dawkins and his chums have ever realised.
Gray has written a new book called Seven Types of Atheism, revealing the surprising variety of perspectives among irreligionists. It also explores some of the odd assumptions we make about ourselves and the world once we’ve decided to bin the idea God. I spoke to Gray about the wide range of ways in which to ponder your place in a cold and unfathomable universe.
VICE: You’re quite hard on the new atheism of Richard Dawkins and others. What frustrates you about their way of thinking? John Gray: It's their idea of religion as a failed scientific theory of everything, a primitive science. When it comes to the Genesis myth, even the early Christian scholars said, "You mustn't read this as a literal rendition of fact." It’s a mistake to confuse religious fundamentalists with the vast, rich tradition of religion life. Religion is not an explanatory theory of the world; it's a way of making sense of living in the world.
The other really widespread way of doing atheism these days is secular humanism. Why is it you think the humanists are misguided and are actually just repeating religious ideas? The whole idea of progress comes from monotheistic religion, from Christianity in particular, and from the post-millennialism that says Christ will return one day, but only after we improve the world. The secular humanists have replaced the idea of God with the idea of humanity – an agent with a common set of goals that are gradually realised over time. Humanity is part of a story with redemptive meaning. So the secular humanists haven’t shed a way of thinking that comes from monotheism. In the pre-Christian world, they never assumed progress would occur. History has no redemptive significance.
John Gray. Photo: Justine Stoddart
There's a third kind of atheism you identify – faith in science. Isn’t science something noble to believe in? Science has always been – and always will be – used by all sorts of people with different values. Many people have used scientism – the attempt to turn a bundle of scientific methods into a kind of gospel – to justify racism, imperialism or even genocide. It tends to embrace the dominant values of the time. People can’t explain why science should embrace liberal values, though the assumption is often there nowadays. There’s nothing in science that tells you to be kind, or help the poor. Science is a set of methods – it tries to explain practical things. But it can’t dictate values.
The fourth kind of atheist is the kind who turn politics into a kind of religion. Does this kind of zealotry help explain things like the French revolution, the rise of Bolshevism and Nazism? The millenarian religious movements of the late Middle Ages expected a new world to emerge after a period of catastrophic conflict. For modern revolutionaries, it’s humanity that brings in a society different from any in history. But both share the myth that history ends with a far better world. Curiously, a version of this belief gripped liberals after the fall of communism; they failed to recognise that what has been gained can always be lost because of the flawed nature of the human animal. The thinkers of the ancient world understood you always have these cycles of improvement and barbarism.
Let’s move on to the "god-haters". These atheists seem to be so obsessed with evil that they actually still have some sort of belief in God. The existence of evil in the world is mystery. Christians have come up with fancy arguments for evil, about free will for humankind and so on, while others just accept the mystery. If you’re an atheist and you’re interested in evil, it’s a short step then to say there must be some element of evil in God, or the very idea of God is evil. The god hater is one who can’t accept God because of all the evil in the world, and then comes to hate that God. But it’s actually another iteration of monotheistic thought.
Let’s talk about the sixth strain of atheism you look at – atheism without any faith in progress. Is it fair to say this is the most vigorous kind of atheism? Yes, I would say so. I use the example of the novelist Joseph Conrad – his atheism completely rejects the idea of progress, and yet he still admires human self-assertion in the face of a kind of bleak situation that cannot be overcome. The thinker George Santayana is someone who was impressed by the beauty of religion, but didn’t want it or need it for himself. They rejected the idea of the cosmos being rational.
You finish with the mystical kind of atheism. It sounds almost like people who have a big drug experience and talk about the one-ness of everything. Well, it's a radical kind of atheism that asserts that the nature of reality is ineffable – it can’t be embodied in words. Schopenhauer thought the ultimate reality of things was spiritual, but we couldn’t really grasp it with our reasoning. He didn’t have any need for a creator god, but actually, he isn’t so far from certain traditions in mysticism and different religions. Some types of mystical religion come close to atheism in their understanding of God as unimaginable.
So these last two are the kinds of atheism you most admire? Yes, they’re the ones I like the best in that they’re the most rigorous in stepping outside of a monotheistic way of thinking. There are many kind of atheism. I think you're an atheist if you don’t need the idea of a creator God. But if you really want to step outside of monotheism, I think these sorts of ideas are where you’ll get to.
Thanks, John.
You can learn more about John's book, out this week, here.
In case you were way too young to have even been born around 1965 (pretty much all of us), the original Lost in Space centered around a the happy-go-lucky Robinson family, who were tasked with heading out into the unknown on a colonizing mission. Of course, in regular TV fashion, things go pretty wrong.
With this new edgy 2018 remake that's been airing on Netflix since last week, Will Robinson and crew are in the process of forming bond that'll spell the difference between life and death for the millennialized family. In this new featurette, we're getting a look inside their touching but still complicated relationship.
Lost in Space Season 1 is currently streaming on Netflix if you need that low key Brady Bunch in space fix.
Something is happening in the postindustrial pocket of Hamilton, Ontario, a 45-minute drive from Toronto’s gleaming skyscrapers. In its squat downtown, where payday loan services with names like Money Mart and Cash 4 U compete across the street from each other and a beware of dog sign hangs from a church gate, a potentially transformational future is on trial.
Hamilton (population: roughly 500,000 people) was built with steel and smoke, and recent downturns in manufacturing have hit the once-booming steel town hard. A study by the city’s social planning office last year found that in 2014 one in five children there were living in poverty. What’s more, dropping housing prices have made Hamilton something of a destination for would-be Toronto property owners looking for a deal, arguably driving up rental prices in the city even as vacancies increase.
So there was a sense of relief—excitement, even—when the Ontario government announced in mid-2017 that Hamilton had been chosen as one of three cities in the province for a pilot study on the effects of a basic income. A basic income is essentially social support in the form of lump-sum payments with no strings attached, just like income from waged labour minus the work.
Just days after an engineering frat at New York's Syracuse University, Theta Tau, apologized for an "extremely racist" video showing members swearing to hate "n*ggers, sp*cs, and most importantly the fuckin' k*kes," a second video emerged apparently showing brothers dramatizing the sexual assault of a disabled person.
According to the Daily Orange, the student newspaper that obtained it, the second video appears to be set, like the first one released last week, at the Theta Tau house. This clip, roughly two minutes long and reportedly posted on a "secret" frat Facebook page, depicts members crowding around a man sitting in a rolling office chair as someone in the video explains that he's "brain-dead from being chronically whipped." Two members then approach him and pretend to force him into oral sex.
"He's drooling out of his mouth, because he’s retarded in a wheelchair. So the hole is already very lubricated," someone is heard saying. "Yankee is totally unaware of this light rape that’s occurring."
The first video showed members vowing to hate black, Hispanic, and Jewish people in a "sacred" oath, and was deemed "extremely racist, anti-semitic, homophobic, sexist, and hostile to people with disabilities" by Syracuse's chancellor. In the fraternity's initial apology, the group said the footage was "a satirical sketch" meant to roast one of its members who is a "conservative Republican." It's not clear if the second video was also part of the frat's apparent theatrical performance, but either way the mock sexual assault of a disabled person elicited howls of laughter from the audience.
The school's chancellor, Kent Syverud, addressed the second video after it was published by the Daily Orange on Sunday, calling it "unacceptable and deeply harmful." The frat was permanently expelled on Saturday, and 18 students who were "present at the sponsored event" have been removed from classes, campus police chief, Bobby Maldonado, said in a statement. As the investigation continues, individual students involved could face expulsion or suspension from the school, according to the student paper.
"There is absolutely no place at Syracuse University for tolerance of this behavior," Syverud said.
Verne Troyer, the 2'8" actor best known for playing Dr. Evil's clone, Mini-Me, in the Austin Powers franchise, passed away at the age of 49 over the weekend.
"It is with great sadness and incredibly heavy hearts to write that Verne passed away today," Troyer's family wrote in a statement announcing his death on Sunday. "Verne was an extremely caring individual. He wanted to make everyone smile, be happy, and laugh. Anybody in need, he would help to any extent possible. Verne hoped he made a positive change with the platform he had and worked towards spreading that message every day."
Troyer's cause of death is not yet known, but the actor has wrestled with alcoholism in the past and was reportedly hospitalized earlier this month for alcohol abuse. "Over the years he’s struggled and won, struggled and won, struggled and fought some more, but unfortunately this time was too much," Troyer's family said. "Depression and suicide are very serious issues," it adds.
His role as Dr. Evil's silent sidekick in the Austin Powers sequel, The Spy Who Shagged Me, and later in the third film, Goldmember, made him a star, but his career as a character actor and comedian was more than just backing up a rappingMike Myers. Troyer first came into prominence in the mid 1990s with small roles in Men in Black and Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas adaptation. Following the success of his Austin Powers role, he went on to act in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor. Parnassus, and Myers's 2008 comedy The Love Guru, as well as appear as himself on reality TV shows like The Surreal Life.
In honor of Troyer's decades-long career, we've collected some of our favourite performances below.
Our society is failing transgender people. According to Stonewall, one in ten trans pupils in the UK have received death threats at school, 84 percent have self-harmed and a staggering 45 percent have attempted suicide. Of those who do make it to adulthood, physical and mental abuse often awaits.
The same organisation found that two in five trans people (41 percent) have experienced a hate crime because of their gender identity over the last 12 months, and that this has affected them in most facets of their daily adult lives: one in eight trans people have been physically attacked by a colleague or customer, for example, while a third of trans people have been discriminated against in cafés or restaurants.
"Fundamentally, we are looking at a crisis in trans people's mental health," Jamie Pallas, communications and project coordinator at Gendered Intelligence, tells me. "Most of the young trans people [we deal with] are afraid to leave their homes."
Transphobia has destroyed so many lives already. For the situation to improve, we need better education and understanding of the issues at hand – which you can't properly comprehend without speaking to those directly involved. Through the stories of those we have already lost, we can see the reflection of a culture that fails to empathise with trans people at a basic human level.
These are four of those stories.
Jay Griffin, 13
Jay with his mum, Erin.
When Jay came out as bisexual at the age of 11, he was accepted fully by his mother, Erin Georgia. A talented clarinet player, Jay was "wise beyond his years" and the family joked that he was an adult trapped in a child's body.
"One day we went clothes shopping and I noticed Jay was a lot more comfortable when we went to the boys' section," Erin, who has two small children, recalls. "When we were driving back in the car, he told me he wanted to be called Jay and only referred to in male pronouns. From that day onwards, we all referred to him as a 'he' and it felt so uplifting."
While Jay received this support at home, it was more difficult elsewhere. The family is based in Alabama – a right wing, bible-belt state that voted overwhelmingly in favour of Donald Trump. "Trump's win was incredibly traumatic for Jay, as he feared it gave people strength in numbers to hate him," says Erin.
At school, kids would whisper "trans" in a passive-aggressive tone as they passed Jay in the hallway, which would create paranoia. "The school offered to let him use the adult restroom, which was a nice gesture, but it was a five minute walk and made him feel like an alien," says Erin. "He didn’t feel like he had a safe space, and I don’t think he ever used that bathroom."
In seventh grade, the school’s teachers agreed they wouldn’t refer to Jay as a she anymore, and would let him do PE with the boys. Erin would also drive the long distance to the Magic City Acceptance Centre, the only organisation in the state set up to help depressed LGBTQ youth, and switched the family to a more inclusive church. But this didn't stop Jay's anxiety or depression, and he started to self-harm.
One of Jay’s paintings
"I remember he had a week left of seventh grade and was really anxious about his grades [the night before]," Erin tells me, her beginning to crack. "My husband got up early in the morning [of the 25th of May, 2017] and noticed Jay's light was on. He was hanging in his closet, and because there was dried blood on his chest we knew it was too late and there was nothing we could do."
Erin met her husband while serving in the Marines, and her grief has been compounded by Trump banning transgender people from serving in the US military. However, she still maintains a message of hope: "I'm sure there are people in our community who didn’t accept Jay, but you can’t just attack the other side," she says, "you need to start a dialogue if there’s any hope for change."
Vikki Thompson, 21
Abuse from strangers was something Vikki Thompson had to deal with from a young age. Her mother, Lisa Harrison, now 43, has noticeable facial burns from being caught in a house fire. "I got abuse from strangers," says Harrison, "but Vikki stuck up for me and shouted stuff back at them."
Harrison still carries guilt for the way she treated her daughter when she first came out as trans at the age of 11. "Vikki was born Reece, and from a young age would wear high heels and nighties. I thought it was just a phase and I was horrible at first, I have to admit that. We’re from a working class community and I had nowhere to learn," she says. But "later on, it became obvious to me she was a woman, and I supported her 100 percent – she was my baby. We became best friends. The tables turned, and when people would shout abuse at her I would shout something back."
Through social services, Vikki won a referral to a hospital in London, but they were unable to treat her while she was still taking drugs – a coping mechanism for her manic depression. On disability benefits and unemployed, Vikki would occasionally steal from shops to support herself. A family acquaintance accused her of stealing a mobile phone – something Vikki always denied – and she was subsequently arrested. When she violated the terms of her bail, she ended up in prison – a men's prison.
"They wouldn’t let her go to a women’s prison as she didn’t have the right papers [a gender recognition certificate]," says Harrison, still baffled by the decision. "She was depressed, coming off drugs and in a really vulnerable state. She told me: 'Mum, if I go there, they will bring me out in a box.'"
Vikki hung herself in her cell on the evening of Friday the 13th of November, 2015. At the inquest into her death, HMP Leeds prison was described as understaffed, chaotic and in a poor state of repair. In fact, it took guards longer to spot Vikki’s body as the light in her cell had stopped working. The inquest ruled Vikki had been neglected by the NHS and an "unprofessional" prison service. "Our prison system is broken for trans people," adds Harrison. "Vikki would give you her heart. I miss talking to her."
Synestra De Courcy, 23
Synestra de Courcy and her mother, Amanda
At 12, Synestra De Courcy came out as gay. By the time she was 18, she had realised she wanted to undergo gender affirming surgery. Almost instantly, Synestra encountered hostility from her local GP, according to her mother, 50-year-old Amanda de Courcy.
"They kept turning her down for referrals and she became very despondent,” Amanda says. "They put every single obstacle they could in our way; the idea of Syn simply wasn’t palatable for most GPs." While studying cosmetic science at London's University of the Arts, Syenstra, a straight-A student, turned to sex work as a way to fund her transition privately.
As a high-class escort, indulging in drugs with clients came with the territory. And, much like Vikki, Synestra used recreational drugs as a way to cope with her increasing depression. With the money she earned through sex work, Synestra spent £25,000 on her transition over a four-year-period. This included a boob job, a lip lift and paying £500 a month for hormones imported from India. "It wasn’t a safe way of getting them," adds Amanda, "but, as I later learned, she had completely lost faith in the NHS."
Over this period, the abuse from strangers got more and more serious. "She got beaten up, attacked, raped for the first time at the age of 20," says Amanda. "People just assumed she was promiscuous, and we were more or less told by the court, 'She's a trans girl, what do you expect?'" But this didn't dent Synestra's confidence, or her dream of launching a range of cosmetic products.
On the night of the 25th of July, 2015, Synestra went to London’s drag club WayOut with her partner before moving to a house party. During the course of the night, Synestra took cocaine and mephedrone, as well as drinking neat vodka. The next day she was found unconscious with no pulse. She was dead by the following evening.
Although this might not sound like suicide, her mother considers it one. "It was like a slow suicide, as she no longer cared about the consequences of taking drugs," explains Amanda. "She was fed up of waiting for the surgery and not being who she wanted to be, so she took drugs to numb her pain – for her, it was worth the risk."
Ellen, 29
Having been subjected to "sensationalist" reporting by journalists in the past, *Ellen's family have asked for her identity to be protected due to fears of intrusion. Therefore, names and details have been changed.
Ellen didn't come out as trans until the age of 25, but her work made it clear she could use the female toilets and her family provided her with the "strongest support network possible".
It took Ellen two years to get a referral to see a surgeon, and she began taking hormonal drugs ahead of gender reassignment surgery. However, her sister, Susan, believes Ellen still didn’t have enough access to counselling outside the family "in order to come to terms with the difficulties of experiencing a second puberty". Ellen also lived alone, naturally bottling up a lot of her emotions.
"She started wearing headphones in public, as people would shout abuse out of cars," Susan tells me. "I remember the time that really hurt her wasn't an intentional one. In a shop, she was paying for something and the shop assistant said, 'Thank you, sir.' This was a real setback."
One day, Susan received a worrying text message from Ellen, which came "completely out of the blue", and when police went round to her flat they found her dead. Susan adds: "I just wish people could see beyond what people look like and remember there’s a person inside who feels pain just like the rest of us. If people were nicer to one another, well, maybe she would still be alive."
§
So what's being done to help young people like Jay, Vikki, Synestra and Ellen? In the UK, not nearly enough, according to Susie Green, CEO of trans charity Mermaids.
"Cuts to adolescent mental health services, coupled with the NHS being ill-equipped to deal with transgender young people, means that local services are difficult to access and often require a young person to be actively suicidal before they will be seen," she explains. "Things are going backwards, and we're 30 years behind the gay rights movement."
Green claims that even trans people referred to a surgeon still face years until they are finally seen – a period in which they receive no counselling: "Frankly, the Tavistock Gender Identity Service [the largest and oldest gender clinic in the UK] is struggling to cope with demand," she says – something Amanda de Courcy agrees with. Had Synestra lived (she would now be 25), Amanda speculates she would have ended up spending a total of £50,000 on private gender reassignment surgery.
"Synestra died on the 26th of July and we her got referral through our letterbox on the 4th of August," says Amanda. "But I was told from surgeons [after her death] that she would have waited at least another year. She simply couldn't wait that long."
With trans activist and VICE regular Paris Lees appearing in Vogue, the women’s select committee debating trans equality and TV shows such as ITV's Transformation Street giving the trans community mainstream exposure, there are small signs that the UK is becoming more inclusive. However, for things to truly change, Vikki Thompson's mother Lisa Harrison offers the following solution: "They need to be teaching kids at schools that you don’t wake up and decide to be trans. You are born this way, it isn’t done on purpose, and these people need our support."
The interviewees in this piece asked that we spread awareness for the following charities and organisations:
- Tranzwiki, a website set up by trans and gender non-conforming charity GIRES which lists all of the local organisations in the UK currently fighting for trans rights. - Gendered Intelligence, a non-profit organisation that specialises in helping trans youth and setting up creative workshops. - Mermaids UK, a charity set up to provide support for the trans community. - Magic City Acceptance Center, a safe space for LGBT youth between 13-24 based in Birmingham, Alabama.
A Canadian man who went to the Amazon rainforest to study plant medicine has been killed after being attacked by a lynch mob in Peru. Sebastian Woodroffe, 41, was accused of killing a respected healer from an Indigenous group in the country—his name and face were printed on a wanted poster offering a reward, sparking the attack.
A blurry cell phone video used by local media shows a disturbing image: a man being dragged through a puddle of mud with a rope around his neck as a crowd watches and people shout. The man, according to Peruvian officials, was Woodroffe.
The ombudsman office of Peru has publicly referred to the killing, which took place in the Ucayali region, as a “lynching.” Woodroffe’s body was found in a makeshift grave and identified by officials.
Arévalo was reportedly shot multiple times after singing a curing song on Thursday. Locals named Woodroffe as her murderer. He was killed on Friday.
Woodroffe, who reportedly grew up in the Comox Valley of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, originally travelled to Peru in 2013 on quest to learn about plant medicine, particularly the hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca. He’d come back to Canada and returned to Peru several times since his initial trip. He wished to become an addictions counsellor—a decision, he said in a YouTube video, brought on by participating in an intervention for a family member who had been struggling with alcohol.
On his YouTube channel “Sacred Circle,” Woodroffe talks about how he had pursued “guy jobs” up until that point in his life: fishing, diving, tree-planting, building houses. His Instagram account shows photos of a boat he said he worked on in 2016.
“In retrospect, everything I’ve ever done has been trying to achieve this normalcy that doesn’t exist,” Woodroffe says in a 2013 YouTube video titled “Addiction Help.” His YouTube channel also includes videos about picking wild chanterelle mushrooms, including one with his young child.
“I’m just totally dedicated to this,” Woodroffe says in the “Addiction Help” video, which accompanied an Indiegogo campaign to fund his travels to Peru. He raised over $2,000 with the campaign. “This is what I want to make my life’s work,” he said.
But, an old friend of Woodroffe’s, Yarrow Willard, told CBC that he had returned from Peru “troubled” after taking ayahuasca. Willard called Woodroffe a person “who likes to poke, and likes to test the boundaries of people’s beliefs, but is very much a gentle person underneath all that.” Willard described disbelief that Woodroffe could have been involved in the Amazonian shaman’s death. He said Woodroffe had never had a gun.
“We’ve just been in shock,” he said. “It just felt like a scam because there is no way this person is capable of that.”
Woodroffe was back in Canada in 2017. He posted on his personal Facebook page in July “reaching out” and asking if any friends wanted to see him. His Facebook page is populated by spiritual and nature-themed posts and images.
The head of a prosecutor group in the region Woodroffe was killed in, Ricardo Palma Jimenez, told Reuters that he died by strangulation, was beaten, and his body was found a kilometre from Arévalo’s home.
“We want the people of the Amazon to know that there is justice,” Jimenez told a TV news station in Peru, “but not justice by their own hands.”
“We will not rest until both murders, of the Indigenous woman as well as the Canadian man, are solved,” Jimenez told Reuters.
Every year on April 20 at 4:20 PM, people across the world proceed in (now) slight rebellion with the simple act of lighting up. Since our government says that legalization is around the corner, we might have experienced the last true 4/20 in Canada. Given we are living in a wild and changing time for cannabis consumption, we went to a 4/20 event in Toronto to ask people where they got their weed and how legalization will change the way they get their fix.
Sarah
VICE: Where did you get your weed today? Sarah: I got it from my buddy who was walking around, he gets it from a dispensary.
How much did you pay? Gram for gram, so like, 10 bucks a gram.
What do you plan to do once weed is legalized? Probably just smoke on my front lawn and not give a shit who looks at me.
Wa Hashmi
VICE: Where did you get your weed today? Wa Hashmi: We’re really just here for the vibes.
How much would you pay if you did? Usually, we don’t really pay for weed and stuff. If it’s around it’s around. I may consider paying for weed if it becomes legal, of course.
What do you plan to do once weed is legalized? I think what I want to do is like, there’s going to be a limit to grow 4 plants, so I think I’d like to grow it and get back into gardening, I’m at the gardening committee in my condo. So just grow like, more tomatoes and vegetables and throw in a bit of that. If it’s going to be legal I can do that, throw a little herb in my garden. It’s just going to open up lots of avenues. If I were to smoke weed let’s say, I would just limit the intake of smoke and go the vapourizing route or the edibles route.
Jake
VICE: Where did you get your weed today? Jake: A dispensary.
How much did you pay? 10 bucks a gram, 12 bucks a gram.
What do you plan to do once weed is legalized? Uh, keep smoking, live happy. Maybe get into the industry, that’s about it. Work for a pot shop or work on my own, something along those lines, you know?
Carter Lepage
VICE: Where did you get your weed today? Carter: I actually get it from my brother, he lives in BC. He grows legally. Yeah, me and him are actually going to start a business after it gets legalized.
How much did you pay, if your brother made you? I don’t pay for it, my brother, he spots it to me offhand. But yeah he doesn’t really pay gram for gram because he gets it in bulk. So I don’t know the exact number but it’s pretty cheap because he lives out in BC as well.
What do you plan to do once weed is legalized? Hopefully to get this business up and running. We’re trying to be licensed producers and get weed out to people that need it.
Channel
VICE: Where did you get your weed today? Channel: I got it at a dispensary in Whitby.
How much did you pay? Total, maybe just for today it was 95 bucks, for a quarter.
What do you plan to do once weed is legalized? I’m probably still going to try to take from dispensaries. Just cause like, it seems like it’s just going to be too fucking complicated to get it from the government. And it’s probably going to be more highly taxed, I think. So, yeah.
Petee and Marty
VICE: Where did you get your weed today? These guys were just handing some out business cards with weed on the back. It works I’ll tell you that. I’m not trying to say we’re not weed smokers, but we came here today to just enjoy the spectacle.
So how much did you get for free? It’s not quite a gram, it’s a little less than that. A five tip for sure.
What do you plan to do once weed is legalized? Smoke it more recreationally I suppose. It’ll be a lot easier. I’ll smoke it in the park while I’m hanging out for sure.
Brianna Lavers and Adrian Craig
VICE: Where did you get your weed today? We got our weed from a delivery dispensary in Brampton.
How much did you pay? We got 180 dollars for an ounce and it’s 10 dollars for delivery. And they deliver it right to your house, it’s pretty sick.
What do you plan to do once weed is legalized? Well, it’s just going to be the same for me. It’s going to be a lot easier to buy it for sure, but it’s still pretty easy now.
Cameron
VICE: Where did you get your weed today? I just get it from a guy in Oshawa.
How much did you pay? Gram for gram. ($10)
What do you plan to do once weed is legalized? Hopefully, for older people it’s better for them. And can bring them up higher. Make it easier for people to get it. Hopefully it’ll be easier in general for people to go to the store and get it.
George Warner
VICE: Where did you get your weed today? George: Friends.
How much did you pay? I didn’t buy any weed, don’t need to, I’ve got lots of friends here.
What do you plan to do once weed is legalized? I think my outlook or maybe my social interaction will be more enhanced because today’s generation, with being on the computer and stuff, they’ve isolated themselves. And there was a recent Harvard study done that showed that if you are on the computer for a long time, more than eight hours, which a lot of people do—social media—there’s more stress and because you don’t interact with people you don't’ get the physical attributes of fitness. (Editor’s note: I wish you were more specific George, did you mean this study?). Because I don’t smoke cigarettes, one or two drags that’s all I need in my system.
Mikayla
VICE: Where did you get your weed today? Mikayla: What I’m smoking right now, a guy just gave me from (a Toronto dispensary). Normally, just from my friend.
How much did you pay? Usually I pick up about a Q at a time and I pay 45. Today, have paid maybe 20 dollars and I’ve gotten a joint, a bunch of edibles, a bunch of gummies, it’s been a very productive day money-wise.
What do you plan to do once weed is legalized? Honestly, just be more open about smoking and try to introduce more people to it because right now it’s still, even though it is almost legalized, it’s still taboo of a subject. So like, just making it a comfortable thing for everyone to talk about and openly share.
Bianca
VICE: Where did you get your weed today? Bianca: People were just handing stuff out so I got some free stuff from there.
How much did you pay? I get my weed online actually. I get it from my friends, they get it online and I get it from them.
What do you plan to do once weed is legalized? Just smoke!
Franco
VICE: Where did you get your weed today? Franco: Multiple sources. Where did I get my weed today? Sadly a licensed producer, my standard is not from there. [Usually] I go to Thompson Caribou, I often to that because it’s cheap. Or some local people I know.
How much did you pay? Licensed producer is five bucks a gram, I don’t do a lot of flower. I buy oils that licensed producers don’t sell. It’s 60 bucks for five grams of oil.
What do you plan to do once weed is legalized? I don’t know, it’s not going to really change much for me. I’ve been progressing to smoke less, to eat more oils. Mainly because of my son I guess, I just told him recently about my medical use. So I’m going to switch over to not smoking anymore so he’s not gonna like, look for it. Like, what are you doing in the bathroom dad?
Jarrel Young
VICE: Where did you get your weed today? Jarrel: I actually don’t smoke weed, I don’t do anything, I’m just here supporting.
What do you plan to do once weed is legalized? Maybe looking into weed stocks, the business of it. If it’s now just another business that exists then there might be different ways to make money or expand networks and all that kind of stuff with it.
Ire Alderete
VICE: Where did you get your weed today? Ire: I got it from a friend of mine.
How much did you pay? $20, for two grams.
What do you plan to do once weed is legalized? I’m going to smoke 10 times more. I don’t know, that’s it. Like, why not?
Oscar-winning actor and cat-lover Anthony Hopkins may have been absent from the season two premiere of Westworld, but he still managed to freak everyone out on Sunday with a bizarre video he posted to Twitter. And, well, just check it out for yourself:
Dancing to a breakneck, Latin-inspired track that he apparently composed himself, the Silence of the Lambs actor seems to be trying to blow off some steam, tweeting "This is what happens when you’re all work and no play." Maybe the guy was just trying to relax after wrapping Amazon's production of King Lear, or maybe this was just his own way of promoting Westworld, inspired by that real-life malfunctioning host.
In any case, his creepy-ass dance moves prove that Hopkins is just as delightful to watch on-screen as he is online. At 80 years old, the man has a pretty fire social media presence:
It's unclear what anti-feminist speaker and former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos has been up to since he made comments about pedophilia, lost his job, and watched his book deal implode. But just because his star has faded doesn't mean that he can walk into a Manhattan bar full of socialists without incident.
Clipsposted on Twitter over the weekend show members of the Democratic Socialists of America politely chanting "Nazi scum get out" at Yiannopoulos until he ultimately grabbed his coat and left a bar in New York City on Sunday. However, despite calmly walking out, the failed author later characterized the confrontation on Instagram as one in which he was afraid of being "hurt or killed."
"I was just shoved and screamed at by a big group in a pub in Manhattan and forced out of the place," Yiannopoulos wrote about the non-event. "Initially I was going to stay put obviously but they blocked me from my table and my bag and yelled at me to leave and it was about to escalate into something ugly. It rattled me a little bit (just slightly!), perhaps because I have something to lose in life now. My first thought was [his husband] John and not getting myself hurt or killed."
Meanwhile it's not clear what, if anything, Yiannopoulos has to lose professionally speaking. He allegedly received $12 million to start a Miami-based touring company for trolls, though nothing seems to have come of it. His charity aimed at helping white men "pursue their post-secondary education" recently shuttered its operations. And his headlining gig at Berkeley's Free Speech week, like most of his projects since the 2016 election, seems to have completely crumbled.
Now it seems Yiannopoulos is lamenting the fact that he can't go peacefully out to lunch in major cities without causing a scene, but it still didn't stop him from taking the opportunity to post a selfie of himself smiling in sunglasses. As the reporter for conservative magazine American Spectator put it in a recent profile about his attempt at a comeback, "[Yiannopoulos] doesn’t mind anything, if it is about him."
Now that Smallville actress Allison Mack has been arrested on sex trafficking and forced labour charges, the so-called sex cult she allegedly helped create has a new leader, former insiders say.
Heiress to Canadian liquor fortune Clare Bronfman is now in charge of an estimated dozen or more “slaves” spread between New York and Toronto, according to former Nxivm publicist Frank Parlato—though that could potentially change if Mack is granted bail this week.
The alleged sex cult is an offshoot of Nxivm, a pyramid-like self-help organization founded by Keith Raniere. Women recruited into the secret group were branded with Mack and Raniere’s initials and allegedly blackmailed into unwanted sex. Women were then required to recruit more “slaves” into the group, which at one point boasted more than 50 members.
Clare Bronfman has previously denied being part of the secret “sorority” also known as DOS, but has been a longtime follower of Raniere. Last week VICE reported on more than a dozen lawsuits Clare and her sister Sara Bronfman have spearheaded against Nxivm adversaries, which former insiders say intimidated and silenced critics.
Parlato says Clare is among the most “ruthless” and “fanatical” Raniere devotees, who along with her sister has sunk more than $100 million into Nxivm ventures. Parlato told VICE she may now be plotting to discredit Nxivm critics, based on a number of domain names recently purchased by the organization.
“They bought up a number of domain names to attack some of the witnesses,” he said. “If Jane Doe 1 or 2 decided not to testify, that would certainly hurt the case against Raniere… I think she would do whatever it takes to see that those witnesses don’t testify.”
Raniere claims to have one of the highest IQ scores on Earth and requires students to call him “Vanguard” and bow to him. He was arrested in late March on sex trafficking and forced labour charges and was not granted bail.
According to a criminal complaint and US prosecutor statements this week, Mack helped “groom” women for sex with Raniere. Her “slaves” are required to hand over naked photos as “collateral” which they believed would be released if they spoke out about the group. The women are also kept on near-starvation diets and coerced into free labour at all hours of the night and day—a practice Parlato says has eased slightly in Raniere’s absence.
“What I hear from inside sources is some are sleeping like they’ve never slept before, some are cheating on their diets, while others are more fanatical than ever—just weeping and gnashing teeth because they’re worried about Raniere.”
On her personal website, Clare Bronfman defended the secret group as a consensual expression of friendship. “I find no fault in a group of women (or men for that matter) freely taking a vow of loyalty and friendship with one another to feel safe while pushing back against the fears that have stifled their personal and professional growth,” she wrote in December. “It’s not for any of us to judge how they, or anyone else, choose to advance their lives and values.”
Mack will find out early this week whether or not she will be released on bail. US prosecutors have asked for “substantial secured bond” as well as house arrest and electronic monitoring “given the serious risk of flight and danger to the community that the defendant poses.”
Look, it's a fact of life—kids fight with their parents sometimes and then threaten to run away forever. But while most of those threats don't go much further than some kid holing up in a treehouse for an afternoon, one genius 12-year-old in Australia took the concept of running away to a whole different level—stealing his parents' credit card, hopping on his Razor scooter, and running away to Bali for a solo tropical vacation.
According to the Australian TV news show A Current Affair, the Sydney-based kid who the show refers to as "Drew" got pissed at his parents, presumably over a game of Fortnite or something, and hatched a plan to escape. After researching rules about minors flying without adults online, he stole his family's credit card and scootered off to the airport—where he hopped on an international flight to Bali.
By the time his parents realized he was gone, the kid had already checked into an Indonesian hotel and settled into his vacation.
Drew—who can also shred a quarter-pipe on his scooter, according to some A Current Affair footage—says he avoided suspicion at the airport by using the self-check-in machine and then later convincing the hotel staff in Bali to let him into a room, claiming he was traveling with his sister. He was stopped once at the airport, but the airline let him go after checking his passport, according to the Guardian.
"Shocked, disgusted... There's no emotion to feel what we felt when we found that he left overseas," Drew's mom explained to A Current Affair. Furious, Drew's mom quickly got on her own flight to Bali to retrieve her kid. It's unclear exactly how much money Drew racked up on his parents' credit card, but he'll likely have to do chores for the next couple decades to work off the debt.
All in all, Drew seems to feel pretty good about the adventure, regardless of whatever hell he had to pay once his parents finally caught up with him. "That was a week you won't forget," A Current Affair told Drew in an interview. "Hopefully not," the kid replied. Spoken like a true legend.
If those middle-aged dudes playing Tag got their story turned into a movie, it's only a matter of time until Drew's glorious escape to Bali becomes a major motion picture like some bizarro Home Alone, along with that other Australian kid who stole a car and drove 800 miles across the country.
Punk rock might not exist if it hadn’t been for Danny Fields. Born in Queens, the legendary music magnate spent the 60s in the East Village, hanging with the likes of Andy Warhol and his superstars. He championed bands like the Velvet Underground while working as a radio host for WFMU, did publicity for the Doors and the Stooges, and by the 70s, was writing a hugely influential column for the Soho Weekly News. Fields is also the guy who discovered the Ramones.
In 1975, the band begged Fields to hear them play at CBGB, and he was instantly enamored. The Ramones wanted Fields to write about them—but he did them one better and became their manager. He spent the next five years brokering record deals, arranging the band’s first video shoot, and booking their first tours, including a trip to England to play alongside the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Damned.
But five years in, craving superstardom, the Ramones fired Fields and hired Phil Spector, the manager who notoriously pointed a gun at Johnny Ramone and demanded he play a riff repeatedly. But during his brief tenure, Fields meticulously documented the band’s rise, amassing an incredible archive of photos from the band’s early days. In 2016, Fields released a collection of them as a rare limited edition photo book. But now, My Ramones (Reel Art Press) is being republished and getting a wide release.
VICE tracked Fields down recently to chat about what it was like managing the Ramones in their wildest years.
VICE: Could you describe the scene at CBGB back in 1975? Fields: There was a confluence of melodic and lyrical talent and a wanting to be different. You were inspired to take it further and New York was a good place to do it. CBGB was on the ground floor underneath a flophouse on the Bowery. It was a long, dark, narrow bar that had recently become available to people in our crowd [who used to hang out] in the back room of Max’s Kansas City.
The great heroes of New York are the people who invented a place where people went. Hilly Kramer, the owner of CBGB, had been a songwriter and country singer who made records. He had an ear and eye for music. CBGB had incredible acoustics. You felt like you were sitting inside of a guitar.
Johnny Ramone was not let into Max’s once and he never forgave them. That was the beginning of the class warfare, and you see the rise of a ferocious working class product that’s insane and brilliant. Would I say that about them then? No. If you asked me then to describe it, I would have said it was rock n’ roll. The Ramones were making mischief by laying an attitude that was excellent.
How did you first connect with the Ramones? I went to see them at CBGB because Tommy Ramone begged me; they wanted me to mention them in my weekly column in the Soho Weekly News. They were insistent and I didn’t mind because I respected people who didn’t back down and kept at it.
I told Tommy I was coming. I said hello to them before the show and told them I would meet them afterwards in front. They played and I was like, “Wow, this band is perfect. This is great. I love it. Louder! Louder! Faster! Faster!”
When you listen to the first album now it sounds quaint especially compared to their last live albums. They were a fluke quartet—but they were beginning with an awareness of presentation. They worked it all out. They all took the same last name. The two people with guitars had the same haircuts. They were impeccably dressed in the same outfit that was to become their uniform. They were individuals but there was a groupness to them that was perfect.
So back to the narrative: 12 minutes later, after they had done 17 songs, we met as planned on the sidewalk in front of the club. They asked, “So, did you like us?” They were very forward. I said that I liked them very much. They asked me if I would write about them and I said, ”Yes, I’ll write about you, and what’s more, I want to manage you.”
Johnny said, “We need three thousand dollars for drums.” (Laughs). The assumption was I was advancing them the money, and it wasn’t that big a deal. So I went to Florida and asked my mother for the money. She wrote a check and said, “I hope you know what you are doing.”
Could you give us insight into the individual personalities of each of the original members? Johnny wanted to break out of being a bricklayer, married young, and—as he says in his autobiography—being the kind of person who would throw a brick through a window while walking down the street. And then one day he stopped and decided to make a life, be good, be famous, and not hurt strangers anymore.
Joey was the quiet one who never talked. He didn’t want to sing back then. He was the geek of the universe he was in. For him to stand up in front of people and do what he did was incredibly brave. I was in awe of his sense of humor and his ability to mock, to deride, and to dismiss. With a chortle, he would send people to the guillotine. He made me nervous.
Dee Dee was the most social. He lived with me and wanted to meet other musicians in other bands—and none of the others cared about that. They just wanted to meet girls, but Dee Dee wanted to be out there and be a rockstar.
Tommy was the shyest, most literate, and most aware of what was happening in art, movies, and the avant-garde. It was Tommy’s band in the beginning—he and Johnny took care of the music, and he and Arturo Vega did the visuals. Tommy didn’t like having to perform in front of an audience and preferred a quieter life that was created in a different way. He left in ‘78.
Can you talk about some of the tensions in the group? They were never on really good terms—they all hated each other. They were different and they fought. They did it pretty openly, except not in front of strangers. After the show, they would lock themselves in their dressing room. I would have to stand at the door because the VIPs were coming and say, “They’re just drying off.”
They would be inside and you could hear Johnny punching Dee Dee and slamming him across the room because he missed the opening by a 64th of a second or something. He would be yelling. Then they’d have a beer, and someone would open the door to tell me, “OK, they can come in now.” They’d be sitting there just perfect. The blood had dried [Laughs] and they were ready to meet people.
More important than that were the fans who would wait at the stage door—Johnny knew those were the most important fans who were going to bring other kids along with them. He would give strict orders not to start the engine until we had spoken to every person who was trying to get an autograph.
Why did you leave? They fired me. They hadn’t sold any records. They all believed that their songs were so good that they would sell millions of records in the first six months and then by the end of three years, they would be so rich that they could retire for life, which started to look very impractical early on. But I was only there for the first five years.
I am sorry I missed commissioning when they were selling out stadiums of 80,000 people as well, come to think of it. In Argentina, police would cordon off the neighborhood where they were staying because they were so big. I never got to see that. I only reconnected with them when Joey died.
How would you describe their legacy? They had stopped playing, but they were Ramones until they died. They were inspirational to other bands just as the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, and the New York Dolls were to them. The Dolls couldn’t play and that was inspiring to know—you didn’t have to be Eric Clapton or Eddie Van Halen. You could bang it, down stroke it, and make a new noise that you wanted to hear.
They never had a hit. Their first album took 38 years to go gold. If you compare their dreams of retiring in three years, it was so different from that. But I have got to hand it to them. Years later, they got extremely rich from their TV commercials: “Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!” It’s melodic, and driven, and fast. It’s an anthem and people don’t even know who it’s from.
Last week, we asked our readers to vote on the best way to get high. We created a March Madness-style bracket with 32 ways to ingest weed—everything from suppositories to bongs—and we have a winner.
Bongs are fun, dabbing is a wild ride, vaping is classy and scentless, and weed capsules are the future. But nothing could beat the iconic joint.
Image by Lia Kantrowitz
As somebody who enjoys weed on occasion, I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome. This is further evidence for my theory that VICE has the smartest readers of all the websites.
There's something comforting about the warm feeling in your lungs right after you hit a J. Unlike spliffs, which people who don't smoke cigarettes tend to detest, you can share a joint with whomstever. Unlike blunts, there is no thick taste of flavored cigar papers. (Something I kinda enjoy, but I know isn't everyone's cup of tea.) A bowl has to be constantly repacked. Bongs are big and imposing and intimidating to non-stoners. Also, there's no graceful way to take a bong hit. You can look sexy while hitting a J, or you can have a disaster of a coughing fit. The joint is beautiful in its versatility.
The joint, unlike the edible, does not give you an anxiety-filled couple hours of wondering if you took too much or not enough. Take a hit and the high hits you immediately—you know what you're getting as soon as you smoke it—and maybe it's my millennial attention span, but the instant results are a key reason the joint reigns supreme over edibles.
Unlike dabbing, which also involves an incredible amount of work and expensive materials, joints can get you high without getting you too high. But then again, everyone has a different experience. A friend of mine recently told me, "A joint is like getting hit in the head with a baseball bat and that's what I like about it."
You can roll a small joint for the Stoner's Nightcap™ (trademarked by me, right now), or a big, fat J for a group hang. If you're one of those extremely fancy rolling experts you can turn joints into flowers or crosses or airplanes or Starbucks cups or a fish or a giraffe or a shark. If you are 17 and looking to impress, you can roll a joint out of a Bible page because you think it's edgy.
But most of us are happy to roll simple joints that require no introduction, even to the absolute weed newbie. A teenager can smoke a joint; so can a grandmother. You can smoke one walking down the street and toss it on the ground and leave no trace beyond a smell.
"You can smoke a whole joint and still have a hit or two for later," VICE staff writer Emerson Rosenthal said when I asked people to talk about joints to me. "Also, it's a great way for regularly useless people to suddenly become invaluable. If you can roll a really great joint, you're in the crew. I know friendless people who have made friends through their ability to roll a joint."
Vapes and increasingly outlandish types of edibles are growing in popularity, and by the time you finish reading this there will likely be a new way to get high, some new crystalline compound with a slightly purer percentage of THC, but the joint, an undeniably analogue method, is still number one. The joint is beautiful in its unpretentiousness—all you need to make one is some paper and some bud.
According to one of VICE's resident weed experts (and Noisey social media editor), Trey Smith, a joint is "one of the most convenient and easy-to-share methods of consuming weed. You learn more about the weed you smoke through a joint than probably any other smoking medium. It's got everything, folks. Congrats to weed in general for all it's accomplished over the years."
"Spliff should've won, but joint is the next worthiest winner so congrats to joint," Smith added. Even weed experts can be wrong.
