Medical workers in Guinea moving a dead body. Photo via Flickr user European Commission DG ECHO

It's become a sort of annual ritual for Americans to go wild over the possibility that a new, lethal illness might spread from Africa or Southeast Asia to their own backyard. Ten years ago, SARS was coming for you, and more recently, the Avian (bird) flu had overzealous parents stocking up on post-apocalyptic goodies like powdered milk and canned foods.

The latest dire threat to humanity is actually an oldie: the Ebola Virus, which was first identified after a mysterious fever swept through Zaire (since rechristened the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1976. Richard Preston introduced the specter of Ebola to much of the western world with a 1992 New Yorker piece that he subsequently expanded into a best-selling non-fiction thriller, The Hot Zone. The book, in turn, inspired that goofy piece of 90s cinema, Outbreak—though I prefer Steven Soderbergh's 2011 film Contagion, which offers a somewhat less sensational take on the same theme.

Ebola sufferers will often bleed from their nose, eyes, and ears, in addition to a host of less bizarre symptoms like vomiting. The current outbreak is the largest in history, with about 700 people already dead in West African countries like Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Adding to the drama this week was the death of Sierra Leone's top Ebola doctor, along with news that an American traveling to Nigeria got sick and died there. The United Kingdom and Hong Kong are now quarantining passengers from the region, and with reports emerging of aid workers evacuating the West African coast, this is starting to look more and more like a global problem.

To find out just how likely Ebola is to reach our neck of the woods, I called up Dr. Diane Griffin, chair of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. She did her best to talk me down from the ledge.

VICE: What does the Ebola virus look like?
Dr. Diane Griffin: People get very rapidly ill with vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding—it's a hemorrhagic [bloody] fever. I'm not sure that if you lined up a whole bunch of people with different diseases that you could necessarily pick it out. Nobody has been able to figure out how the first person got infected.

What's the mortality rate?
The strain currently causing the outbreak in West Africa is Ebola Zaire, one of the original strains. They vary somewhat in how deadly they are, but this one has about a 70 percent mortality rate. 

Is number of deaths tied to the state of medicine and infrastructure in the country where the virus breaks out, or not really?
We don't know that because all these outbreaks are in Africa. One of the original outbreaks was in a missionary hospital that employed Belgian nuns, and the only way the whole Western world knew about it is that the nuns got evacuated to Belgium. But they still died at the same rate once they got there. It's a good example of the Western world not knowing or caring until their own get involved.

How does Ebola spread?
In contrast to a lot of other infections we worry about, it requires really close contact between the infected person and the uninfected person. The origin for the virus is in bats, and it gets into the human population kind of by accident. It spreads through hospitals—any place where patients are being taken care of. And more importantly, and more difficult to control, is in villages and families who are taking care of sick patients. It spreads within these families, and I gather—I'm not on the frontlines, though I have worked in Africa—I can envision a lot of the problems people encounter with suspicion. Medical workers and health care personnel [in West Africa] are scared and don't come to work. That makes it harder to keep up all these barrier precautions—it's inhibiting to have to be in a gown and mask and gloves and change them all the time.

What makes this outbreak different?
It's very widespread—usually they're quite localized—and they've had a hard time controlling it. The only way to contain the virus is through the isolation of patients and a barrier mechanism for preventing people who've had contact with infected individuals from being exposed to bodily fluids. It's not really unusual for American doctors working in these areas to get infected, though that tends to be what gets it into the press outside of Africa.

Which is sort of perverse.
Right. There's hundreds of cases and this has been going on for months, but all of a sudden in the last two days [people have noticed] because of two things: Americans have been infected, but also this person that flew to Nigeria, so all of a sudden everybody that has an airport is worried. It could move that way to any place just like any other infectious agent. I've heard rumors that they're starting to screen people leaving the area to make sure sick people don't get on airplanes. So that would be a reasonable precaution those countries can take to prevent it from spreading further. And then countries that have planes coming from that region can also screen passengers getting off to identify anybody with a fever or any other kind of illness and rapidly quarantine and then at least determine whether they're infected or not.

Do you think medical personnel would respond the same way to an Ebola outbreak here?
I think there would be much less of a problem in the United States or many other countries where medical personnel have a better understanding both of the precautions that need to be taken and how one gets infected. But the healthcare workers in many of these rural areas are not highly trained, and when they see co-workers and family members and neighbors dying, you can understand that would be a frightening situation.

What kind of precautions are reasonable for people outside of West Africa—and Americans in particular—to be taking? Should they modify their travel plans?
I don't think so, because the random tourist or businessperson or whoever is not going to come into contact with people who are sick—although there have been cases in the cities, which has been one of the problems. If you're going over there to help out in a hospital, then hopefully you know what you're getting into. 

It sounds like you're reluctant to press the panic button. Is that your professional ethics talking, or what?
If I were panicked I'd let you know. I just don't think there's any reason for that. There are reasons to pay attention. One of the problems is that West Africa has not really experienced Ebola before, whereas Uganda and a few other countriues have had multiple outbreaks and they're a little more schooled in these control measures.

Follow Matt Taylor on Twitter.

Image via Flickr user imagensevangelicas.
Last week, the government announced that the Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) had removed 20 members of a massive human trafficking gang from Canada and deported them back to their native Hungary. The Domotor-Kolompar crime ring—headed by kingpin Fernec Domotor—was busted up in 2010 when a victim escaped and told authorities about the atrocities he and 18 others were enduring. The case is the largest known human trafficking ring in Canadian history, exposing a problem in Canada that reaches far beyond this Hungarian crime family.

“The removal of these foreign criminals convicted of human trafficking demonstrates how our government is keeping Canadians safe,” Steve Blaney, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, said.

But does it really keep Canadians safe as Blaney suggests? Or does it merely demonstrate the fact that human trafficking is a problem that is happening right in front of our faces and we have no idea? In this case alone, there were 19 victims who had been recruited from Hungary and had their passports immediately taken from them. They were housed in the basements of homes located in busy suburban neighbourhoods in Hamilton. They were seen by neighbours every day leaving the house early and returning late. They went to work. After being threateneningly encouraged by the gang to do so, they convinced Canadian authorities to put them on social assistance. And no one had a clue anything what was going on until two years later when one of them managed to escapes.

According to Timea Nagy, a human trafficking survivor from Hungary who had been recruited by a similar gang in 1998: “This case was only the tip of the iceberg. Human trafficking is alive and well in Canada.” She went on to say that she gets calls “every single day from the police about human trafficking cases.”

Timea started the Walk With Me organization in 2009 to help other trafficked workers get stabilized and find safe houses after they are rescued.

“It’s unbelievable… The problem is so bad in Canada, most people have no idea. It’s like bed bugs, you don’t see them at first. But if you use the proper lighting you will see that it is everywhere. Every single hotel, highway, some farmlands, every city in the country is experiencing human trafficking right now,” she said, adding that many cases have not yet gone public.

Timea believes the Domotor organization was just one of many organizations that is operating in Canada without anyone knowing. Trafficked workers are coming from regions all over the world including the Philippines, China, Romania and Thailand. She believes the biggest problem right now facing trafficked workers is that there is no public awareness about what the problem looks like.

The neighbours of the Domotor-Kolompar families had seen these all of these victims coming and going from their houses and had thought nothing of it. Contractors had employed them. Banks had given them debit cards (which were immediately confiscated by their captors) and every month they received cheques from government social assistance.

“How is it even possible that no one had a clue?" Timea says. "The fact is that no one has any idea what is really going on here right now."

This almost willful ignorance is likely a reason why Canada is a good breeding ground for this type of crime.

Human trafficking is also a relatively new criminal offence in Canada and was only introduced into the criminal code in 2005 (not that it wasn’t happening, but it wasn’t recognized). According to the Department of Justice, trafficking can involve slavery or practices similar to slavery; forced labour or services, exploitation and the transportation or harbouring of persons. It is typically used in the sex industry or for forced labour. Some regions now have human trafficking units but there is still a considerable lack of support on the force that does not necessarily have the manpower to fight this growing battle. 

“Human trafficking is extremely lucrative and difficult to prove and the bad guys are starting to realize that. It’s much easier to catch people running drugs or guns than people,” said constable-detective Peter Brady, a member of the Toronto Police Human Trafficking Enforcement team. “In the past three years, I have definitely seen an increase of these types of crimes coming across my desk. That is not a question.”

Timea also said that from her daily experience she believes Canada is nowhere near halting this problem.

“There are hundreds of cases right now occurring and behind every case is an organization. We need to educate people on what this means. Some immigration laws have changed, but criminals always catch-up to that anyways.”

There is also a serious problem of domestic human trafficking, which involves Canadians trafficking other Canadians. Timea has seen cases of human traffickers who had gone into group homes and recruited vulnerable 15 year-olds. “This is not just a problem with people coming from other countries and who can’t speak English, it’s happening to Canadians, too,” she said.

A recent RCMP study found that as of December 2013, there were 50 cases of human trafficking or related convictions that were secured and 97 individuals who were convicted of human trafficking offences or related offences that include: forcible confinement, sexual assault, forced labour, procuring, conspiracy or sexual assault. 

Another serious problem for authorities is that victims are often shackled by fear and won’t come forward. Whether they have been recruited from other countries and can’t speak the language, or are from right here in Canada, they often become totally controlled by their captors, which makes it difficult for them to escape and find help.

“The mindset that the [captors] put you in the first two to three weeks will make it so you don’t want to leave. You are scared for your family because they will threaten to kill them. You are fed one meal a day, beaten, emotionally abused, and eventually you are like a zombie. You are enslaved in chains of fear and shame. They get you to a point where you no longer know who you are,” Timea said. 

The affects of this crime can be totally devastating on the lives of its victims. 

Last June 60-year-old Janos Acs, a victim of the Domotor crime family, took a walk to the central train tracks in Hamilton, Ontario and laid across them to die. Despite being set free for several years, Janos’s life had been so severely damaged by his slavery that he could not find a way to recover.

“The end of Janos’ life is really tragic. He was such a good man, so kind, genuine and naïve. He just trusted everyone and would never have hurt anyone,” Timea said. “But it does speak to how awful it can be for victims.”

Every day Timea shows up to help other victims of this horrifying crime. But for her part, she can only do so much. She wants to turn it over to the public and let everyone know that they need to continue to educate themselves and become more aware of the problem.

“It really is everywhere. We all need to just open our eyes and understand what we are looking at.”
 

@angelamaries

VICE News travels to the Dominican Republic, site of a looming environmental and economic crisis many experts believe is the result of climate change. Lake Enriquillo is the largest lake in the Caribbean—and for the past 10 years, it's been getting larger. Having already doubled in area, the lake is destroying everything in its path and displacing local residents who are being forced to take extreme measures to survive.

All photos by Nathalie Daoust

Nathalie Daoust is a Canadian photographer based in Berlin who has worked around the world, from Brazil to Switzerland to Japan, investigating female sexuality. She recently photographed nearly 40 female workers and the thematic rooms at the Alpha-In, a famous S&M parlor in Tokyo. She recently spoke with me about how she got permission to photograph despite the place's no-photo policy and getting used to men in underwear being walked on a leash, among other things.

VICE: How did you end up photographing at the Alpha-In?
Nathalie Daoust: I lived in an art hotel in New York City from 1997 to 1999—the Carlton Arms Hotel—where I completed my first photo project. Each room had a different theme and decoration done by a different artist. 

I met many Japanese tourists there who told me about love hotels. Like the Carlton Arms, love hotels have thematic rooms (teddy bear rooms, spaceship rooms, etc.). After my project in NYC was complete I moved to Tokyo to document these love hotels. When I arrived, people kept telling me that the biggest and most interesting one was the Alpha-In. So I had to go.

Alpha-In has a no-photo policy. How did you get access?
I had to go back multiple times to convince the owner. Luckily he finally said yes and took a few hours to show me the rooms and tell me stories about the place. At the end of the tour, he said that I could come back to do a whole project on the Alpha-In. I kept this in mind, and in 2008 I asked if I could photograph the hotel and the women that work there. He agreed, and was so kind as to give me access to each room. (You can see the rooms in 3-D on their website.) The owner was quite happy with the project, and has since changed the no-film and no-photo policy. If he finds the proposed idea interesting, he will grant permission.

What was daily life there like?
I was at the hotel almost every day for four months, from morning till evening, but I didn’t sleep there. We are now working on a documentary film about the hotel, and the owner has offered me a room so that I can have the full experience of staying there for several months.  

As far as daily life, let’s say I got used to the sound of whipping and people screaming quite quickly. Even seeing women walking men like dogs on leashes in their underwear became a normal part of my day.

All of the women working were willing to take part?
I think that the fact that the hotel had a no-photo policy but that the owner was giving me carte blanche permission to photograph helped them trust me quickly. I was lucky because the first women I asked said yes, and then referred me to other girls who referred me to others. In the end I had more women then time to shoot them. 

Why did you focus on photographing the women alone or with each other as opposed to with clients?
I began by photographing the girls with their customers, but quickly discovered that I wasn’t interested in the men and their stories. What fascinated me were the women, and why they would do this kind of work—especially in Japan where women are seen as such passive beauties. Also, each photo session lasted a few hours, and we spent half of this time talking and getting to know each other. When it was just the two of us, I learned much more about their private lives, why they did this and how they felt about it. 

Against this stereotype as passive beauties, in your photographs we see the women in the role of dominatrix. What do you make of this clash of expected roles in Japanese S&M?
It’s quite strange in many ways. The women that decide to do this sort of work are very different from the stereotype, but at the same time this passiveness has been deeply ingrained in them since childhood.

While they are all very strong women, many of them greet their customer by bowing lower then them, putting their hands over their mouth, and laughing like a shy little school girl, then walk a few steps behind their customer to the room. The second the door is closed, the roles flip.

You’ve also photographed at an inexpensive brothel in Rio de Janeiro. What kinds of comparisons and insights did this experience bring to your work with the women at the Alpha-In?  
The women in Japan come from very different economic conditions than those in Brazil. Most of the women I interviewed in Tokyo explained it was purely for either money or passion. I am certain many are forced into such work in Japan, but among the women I met, it always felt it was of their own free will.

An example would be one of the dominatrices that had a day job as a dentist, but had problems finding a Japanese partner that was into S&M, so she decided to be a paid dominatrix at night to gain access to these men. She said it was an easy way to get sexually fulfilled. 

Where do the lines fall between fantasy and reality in an S&M parlor? What about in your photographs? 
The hotel is a place where people go to escape reality and the women are paid to help them fully escape. There is even a form that the customers receive upon arrival that asks what they want: whipping (hard, medium, gentle), verbal abuse (intense, gentle, none). This way they can get exactly what they desire, and control the nuances of their escape.

I represent this mix of reality and fantasy by distorting the images in the darkroom. Bending the negative as I make prints until the image is warped represents this feeling between dreams (the out of focus element of the image) and reality (where the photo is sharp and clear).

How much is the camera a license to enter into this world to satisfy your own interest—beyond photographing—in what goes on behind the front door?
I am a very curious person, especially when it comes to things and places that I don’t really have access to. I am also a bit of a voyeur. So yes, the camera is a bit of an excuse to take part in a world that I would not otherwise have access to as a “vanilla,” the term the Japanese use for people that do not practice S&M.

How has photographing female sexuality extensively through different projects shaped your ideas about what it is and the forms it takes?
I think it helped me understand the larger picture. For example, from a young age I was told that women who prostitute themselves have no choice, or were abused as a child. But how many of the people making these comments actually know a prostitute? And who can say that one prostitute represents them all? I am not trying to say that it’s good or bad, but that like anything else it’s not so simple. I am glad that I can say this from knowing many of these women on an intimate level.

These photographs originally appeared in the 2014 VICE photo issue.

See Richard Kern's previous contributions to VICE here. 

Photos by Grey Hutton 

It's the middle of the night and I’m standing on the terrace of a newly renovated villa, a good half hour from Hamburg Central Station. I’ve been sipping my Ballantines Cola for a while now, talking to a guy in a white windbreaker. He's trying to make me understand what it feels like to discover a listening device placed in your car by "the narcs."

"I was in the car with my driver, looking for a place to hide my cell phone," he was saying. "The battery and sim card were out, but I wanted to make sure that thing wasn't recording any of my conversations. So I put my hand behind the panel at the foot space and end up with all these cables in my grasp. I panicked and cursed. My driver said, 'That's not a part of the car. Because this is Sony,' pointing to the recorder in my hand, 'and this is Volvo.' Normally he's not good with technology, but this time he was right."

In the end, the drug enforcement agency was able to link him to a 154-pound load of cocaine that had just been intercepted on the high seas, thanks to recordings made on that device. He’s now sitting on the four years he got for it, but today he's enjoying a furlough. Which makes me wonder how many years of jail time come together at this party as a whole.

You see, I'm at the birthday party of Germany's "Snow King” (also known as Ronald "Blacky" Miehling), who has already done a little less than 28 years—with short breaks, of course. Miehling is a legend of the Hamburg underworld, one of the few Germans to have worked directly with Colombian wholesale dealers. For years it went well, but eventually he was caught. Since then, he has written a book about his experiences and now awaits his impending release. As an appetizer, he was allowed to celebrate his last birthday in freedom.

I met Blacky and his boys last year by chance, and by sheer luck I was able to interview him. We kept in touch after that but I was still quite surprised when one of his middlemen called me a few weeks ago, to tell me that Blacky had been given permission to spend the night of his 64th birthday in freedom, and was planning a small party at the Villa Harburg. Would I like to come by with a photographer? Well, I thought, did Charlie want to go to the Chocolate Factory?

As our car rolled up to the large parking lot a few days later, the Villa Harburg stood in front of us illuminated by lights in the colors of the rainbow. It was a beautiful sight, and a nice gesture by his friends—an attempt to remind Blacky of the old times and help him briefly forget the years in jail.

At the entrance, which was on the side of the building, a cute Eastern European woman smiled at me and pushed a shot glass filled with something red in my hands.

We walked through a stuccoed room to the "main floor," in the middle of which stood a table draped with Blacky's gangster merch: mostly T-shirts with slogans like "Mama Coca" or "The Snow King." I looked around and noticed that most of those present were wearing the T-shirts already.

And then I saw Blacky. Or, rather, his back, which sported a golden crown with the "Snow King" lettering. He turned around. "I'm so glad you are here!" he shouted in his rough voice. His handshake was somehow even stronger than at our last meeting. “I’m very excited to be at your party," I retorted.

Blacky laughed: "Yes, it should be a good one but I have to be back at 5:00 PM. And I wouldn't be surprised if the narcs invited themselves tonight to keep an eye on me." I guessed that must be the reason I had yet to see any trays being passed around.

I tried to toast to his birthday and he politely declined, saying that one of the restrictions of his furlough was that he wasn't allowed to have any alcohol. He did give me a bracelet for the open bar his friends had been allowed to run, though.

At the bar there they were at last: a bunch of little baggies filled with white powder.

After uncertainly ogling it for a while, one of the other guests dared to go for it. He poured a bit into the hollow part between his thumb and forefinger, and snorted. "So?” I asked him. He shook his head in disappointment and threw the bag back on the counter. Blacky had allowed himself a small joke—it was caffeine powder.

I had spent a good amount of time wondering what kind of guys would show up to this birthday before getting here, so I had a look around. Each of the faces I saw seemed to have been marked by life. I chatted with a few of them to find out how they knew Blacky. As Blacky had basically spent his adult life in two environments—Germany's criminal underworld and jail—it was hardly surprising that his guests came from this same orbit: lawyers, former business partners, and jailbirds.

One of them was the guy I found myself chatting to on the terrace. "I read Blacky's book my first time in jail, but I didn’t meet him in person until much later in life. He’s a fine guy," he said with a slight Northern German accent.

Another relatively young man sitting in a silver leather chair told me that he had only just met Blacky. So far he had only heard stories, but wanted to hear everything from him—he wanted to know how he had made ​​it to the top, back in the day.

Blacky sat down on a chair in the middle of the main floor, in front of a huge portrait of himself. On closer inspection, you realized the picture was made of plastic prison cutlery glued together, as the artist Hajo Latzel informed me. Why is it painted in black, red, and gold? "Because Blacky is Germany's biggest cocaine dealer."

It was time for Blacky to give a speech. Still in the chair, he first thanked all those who had come to his birthday, and then read a couple of chapters from his unpublished book. The chapters were about his life after drugs. He spoke about life in jail, loneliness, oppression, as well as alcohol smuggling in German prisons. The guests laughed and clapped now and then, mostly when the situations reminded them of their own lives.

At some point Blacky read a passage in which he describes leaving Hamburg's Glasmoor prison for the first time:

"I stood with my first furlough papers in front of the building. It somehow didn’t seem real to me. After all those years in prison, I was "free" for ten hours. My buddies were waiting in a car outside the main gate. I must have looked excited while riding into "freedom." Nothing had changed, except time was gone. It had just passed. Was it lost? I could painfully see this in the car mirror. I could see the many years that had passed on my face, the traces of those years had been burned into my face. "

Everyone applauded. But before the party got too melancholy, a DJ put on a couple of instrumentals and the Hamburg rapper Bolzte got to spitting his rhymes into a microphone.

Smaller groups started forming, away from the dance floor. People weren't shy of the open bar, so slowly everyone became drunk and boisterous. I kept up and before long I realized that I was one of the few remaining guests. Blacky and his boys had been sitting in a private room behind the bar for a while, exchanging stories.

It was time to go. After a warm farewell, I stumbled into a taxi heading for the St. Pauli neighborhood, where my friend and I drifted into a dark corner bar.

Two days later, the snapshot below appeared on Blacky's Facebook page with the caption: “Post from Colombia?”

The JVA Glasmoor responded promptly with a urine test. Blacky's comment on the incident? “How stupid do you think I am, and when were any of the piss tests in my almost 28 years in jail positive?!”
 
Hold on to your sense of humor, Blacky. I hope you can celebrate your next birthday in "real freedom.”

Irish models Georgia Salpa and Nadia Forde promoting something or other in the cold

The Irish media has a misogyny problem, one that smiles out from the pages of newspapers and wears a bikini. Individually, the words "Irish" and "model" retain their meanings, but together the words become something different. I’m not talking about fashion models who happen to be Irish, I’m talking about Page 3 girls who have wandered onto page four, occupying an uneasy cultural space between nation's sweethearts and national joke.

Only the brave and Amazonian bodied sign up to be Irish models. Replace the standard model pout with a maniacal grin, replace the flashlights with broad daylight. As an Irish Model, you won't walk on catwalks, you'll pose on streets and in public parks (if you're really lucky, you might get to pose beside a tractor). You'll hold up newly launched products at photo calls—things like tiny hammers and KitKat bars—or else you’ll end up chasing a man dressed as a giant chilli pepper, and of course you'll do all of it without many clothes on. The Irish model lives in her bikini, and is impervious to the cold.

The difference between the Irish model and other sexualized women in media is that the Irish models pretend to have a purpose beyond looking sexy. Their role is conflicted; they embody a peculiarly Irish brand of misogyny tempered by remnant Catholic guilt. Brought in to promote new food products, clubs and public initiatives, the Irish model’s mission is to be family-friendly, even when she’s posing in lingerie. Which leads to strange spectacles like the chairman of Ford Motors Ireland getting photographed while being served by an Irish model dressed as a sexy waitress.

This summer marks the Irish model's transition from print media to nationwide advertising, with three of them appearing on posters in a new campaign for Starbars (they're an Irish, rather mediocre chocolate bar with nuts in). Running under the slogan: "No Nuts, No Glory", the campaign is essentially a photobombing contest pitched at Ireland's apparently heaving sex and chocolate-starved market. The campaign dangles both in front of its target audience, asking them if they're "hungry enough to spend three nights" with the Irish models. (Those nights aren't for sex, obviously; they're for racing cars, watching Formula 1, and going shopping in London.)

A video follows Bernard, presented as the archetypal awkward Irish male, in his attempts to photobomb Georgia Salpa. He happily creeps on her, looking over her shoulder as she takes selfies, but clams up and hides when faced with the chance of a conversation. The "Leaderboard" section of the site is a wasteland, but includes a few guys trying to catch women out on their glammed-up group shots (extra points go to Cian for flashing his ass in a forest). As campaign mechanics go it couldn't be better suited to the Irish model: as ever, the woman and her cleavage are center stage, but the end goal is to make her look stupid.

Photo of Georgia Salpa via Wiki Commons

Growing up in Ireland, Irish models have appeared in the Sunday papers for as long as I can remember. They’re quite hard to tell apart, with their hair extensions and uniformly self-tanned skin, but currently the most famous is Georgia Salpa. They date restauranteurs, or occasionally Brian O'Driscoll (though that's in the past: he's now settled down with Amy Huberman, Irish celebrity's first lady). The Irish models are the antithesis of the national stereotype of us all being freckly, spud-like people. They are rechristened upon launching their careers with exotic names invariably ending in "a": Glenda, Georgia, Rosanna, Teodora, Sara, Nadia, Thalia... They seem endless.

Perhaps most interestingly of all, they appear on the pages of magazines and female-orientated newspaper supplements. This is where things get conflicted: what's framed as a feature or fashion shoot will always result in lingerie pictures. Any excuse is enough: an up-close and (very) personal interview with the model, a look at the Autumn collections, which—inexplicably—are all swimwear. There's nothing immediately offensive about the Irish model. Their look is flirtatious but amiably goofy: why is this woman sitting on a deck chair wearing swimwear in the middle of a busy street? Why is this one cramming a plate of bread into her face? Why is this model, this one, and this one all posing with a cow? In Ireland, the line between sexy and silly is thin. 

Aside from Salpa, another Irish model attracting coverage beyond Ireland is Roz Lipsett, whose video "Model Bombing" was picked up by TMZ. It follows Lipsett, dressed in her bikini uniform, as she gatecrashes everyday situations populated with unsuspecting men. "Model Bombing" satirizes the role of the Irish model even as it celebrates it. Those old familiar motions—pose outdoors, wear little, ignore passers by—are made doubly weird by showing us the mechanical movements between poses. Lipsett's steely eyes and cyborg walk are downright sinister.

"Model Bombing" video via TMZ YouTube

The video wouldn't be out of place on vintage episodes of Eurotrash. Note how the men are mildly flustered, but it's the model who looks like an idiot. As the willfully oblivious sex object, Lipsett embodies every Irish model over the years, dressed up and fake tanned to perfection only to be thrown to the bystanders, the cameras, and the Irish media. The video also hints at Ireland's unique brand of kitsch misogyny, a Lovely Girls Competition with less clothing.

In Ireland we like our sex dumbed down and physically awkward, with the woman doing most of the work. And afterwards, we love to shame her. Witness the succession of scandals and “viral” videos we've produced about girls who have too much fun: Magaluf girl, Slane girl, even the less scandalous, more troubling KPMG girl. Along with Guinness and dairy products, we now breed slut-shaming for export. But in the lulls between sex tapes and blurred phone pictures, the Irish model steps in to publicly act the maggot. Irish Models offer a brand of safe, self-reflexive misogyny: a silly woman is a sexy woman, one who showed up to the photo call but forgot to put on her clothes.

One of the hallmarks of the Irish character is an intense aversion to hype. We love to watch someone get a bit self-important only to cut them down later (though to our credit, we've made self-deprecating humor an art form). Many of the same newspapers and magazines that routinely feature Georgia, Glenda and co will make fun of them on the next page. It's a clever measure on the journalist's part, to preempt criticism by ridiculing the same women they present as sexy. This was called out with the death of Katy French in 2007, from brain damage linked to cocaine use: within weeks of publishing bitchy accounts of her 24th birthday party, the same writers memorialized her as a casualty of the Celtic Tiger.

It's particularly ghoulish to consider how French's plot arc mirrors of Catholic hagiography: a woman rises to fame, is objectified and attracts ridicule, then is canonized through suffering and an untimely death. For all our modernity, we are conflicted and self-censoring: inside the LIFE supplement two weeks ago, the contents page features Rosanna Davison in bridal lingerie next to a story about the perils of online porn. It’s the printed equivalent to crying after ejaculation.

Catholic guilt lives on in Ireland in strange ways: we can't be seen to encourage pornography, so we give the bikini girl an excuse, putting a product in her hand to promote. We can't bring ourselves to legalize abortion, so we quietly ship 12 women to the UK every day for abortions instead, another hypocrisy that has led to tragic consequences. Irish life is full of petty, corrosive misogynies: why was Slane girl's name revealed, and not that of the man raising his hands in victory, or that of the photographer? Why was it acceptable for a male TD (our name for MPs) to pull a female one onto his knee in the middle of our abortion debates? Is it our discomfort with discussing sex at home that leads us to act it out so aggressively abroad?

And how does all this connect to Irish models? They're by no means the biggest problem that Irish women have to contend with, but they are another misogynistic habit we've failed to kick: casual girl-bashing presented as wholesome fun. They're a byproduct of Catholic self-loathing, our culture's inability to grow the fuck up. They embody a fear of the female, and on the women's part a tacit acceptance. We like to let our problems linger: some Irish women die and all are denied their human rights. The world looks on and laughs at our provincialism, and who can blame them—while the Irish media is relentlessly sexist in its treatment of women, the joke remains on us.

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Christopher Lutter is the founder of Puppet Farm Arts, a pacifist collective that makes humongous puppets out of reclaimed trash for various theater productions, parades, and school workshops. Over the phone, he told me he “specializes in critters”—and when I went to visit him at his studio in Minneapolis, it was clear I had not been mislead.

Hanging from the walls were deer, wolves, bears, an elephant, and a yeti, and he's currently working on a giant puffin costume. We talked about his work and its political edge.

VICE: How did you get started making puppets?
Christopher Lutter: I was doing a lot of human service work—I was a caregiver, and did some library programs with kids. With storytelling, I found I always liked to have something in my hands, either an instrument, or a prop, or a puppet. Eventually in the summer time our small town's Chamber of Commerce started hiring me to come make parade figures for their big blueberry festivals. Then I built a 16-foot tall Johnny Appleseed puppet for the apple festival in Bayfield, Wisconsin.

And you use mostly recycled materials?
Yeah, mostly warehouse distribution waste stuff. I do a lot with reclaimed fence material, plastic bags, and have gobs of window screen. Window and door manufacturers come along and give me whole rolls of screen sometimes. They’ll say it’s a defective roll. I’m like, "Jesus, this is thousands of feet of screen." They’re like, "Yeah but we can’t use it." And I'm like "Great, I'll use it."

Cool. Is that George Bush hanging from your ceiling?
Yeah. That’s George Bush Jr. right there. When 2001 came along there was, of course, all this political turmoil with the attacks and the warmongers that took over the administration. I was like, "OK we gotta do something." So I built characters of Bush, [Vice President Dick] Cheney, and [former Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld and started doing spontaneous performances at protests. We’d just show up with these characters and do masked clowning type stuff. Saying things like, "Please make way for the Bush administration. You gotta be tough if you’re gonna be stupid."

So you were about using puppetry to respond to the war in Iraq?
Yeah, a lot of the stuff I made when I first got into [puppetry] was really bent on opposition to American imperialism and intervention in the Middle East. Taking political stances—not for political candidates but for peace and justice—has been the underpinning of the whole organization from the very beginning. Confronting environmental, social, and political injustices. Confronting them. Not just saying like, "Oh that’s wrong." Rather, getting out in the streets point-blank and saying, "NO! You’re wrong! That’s not the way!" The pacifism is totally out in the open.

You're involved in many school workshops in the Midwest. How does this kind of attitude go over in the schools?
Sometimes I get in trouble with it when I do residencies in schools. I don’t lambast but I'll say things like, "I think war is wrong and I’m against it in any context. Period." I’m a pacifist and a Quaker. And I don't think it's right. You don’t solve problems through warfare—ever. I tell them that someday when they're my age they'll be sickened by the cycle they've watched their entire lives.

Violence will never, ever work. Take the situation in Israel for example: That’s not working!

You’re a Quaker?
I’m not official. There’s a whole process to become a member of the Quaker society—you have to go on this sort of vision quest kind of thing. But yeah, if I’m anything I’m a Quaker. I’m behind it all. It’s like the one Christian denomination that doesn’t treat the flesh and blood of Jesus with an inviolable bow down and worship him or you’ll burn in hell forever approach.

They don’t believe in hellfire, which I’ve never believed in. That type of thing is a fear-mongering, violent method of bringing people to your political/religious agenda and the Quakers totally get that. I sent my daughter to a Quaker Friends school because the moment you walk into the school, their wall doesn't say things like "success" but rather "peace, justice, community."

Do you think there’s a correlation between the decrease of arts education in schools and the kind of 'American imperialism' you were just talking about?
Absolutely. At the risk of waxing too Marxist or whatever, yeah—I do think things are controlled by kind of a corporate elitist economic tyranny that really trickles down into how we do education with kids. I even look at the math they’re teaching kids in school now and it’s really training them to be capitalists and consumers and to be able to calculate things like ledgers so they predict economic trends and stuff.

Where’s the geometry, you know? Can we teach the kids some geometry, so they can be architects and designers?

So what do you teach the kids?
Mostly materials education. Where materials come from. A lot of kids have no idea where plastic comes from. I mean, no idea. Like, honestly. I’m talking about fifth grade kids. "Where does plastic come from? Trees?" I’m drop-dead serious. I have to hold their hand, then finally hit upon the fact that it comes from oil. And that oil is the same stuff that goes into your car. And then I'll correlate that to something like the BP oil spill in the Gulf.

I try to get them to understand the idea that we’re trying to extend the use of materials and preserve… People are always like, "Oh I hate plastic." And it’s like, no you don’t. Your whole world—the edifice of your whole material culture—is built of plastic, including your cars, your clothes, your shoes—everything! You don’t hate plastic, you live by it. I love plastic bottles. I collect plastic bottles. I save things like that, rinse them out, and use them to create creatures and stuff.

Yeah, I see tons of creatures around your workshop here… Those eyes are fantastic on that deer.
Thanks, yeah, those are just giant Christmas ornaments. I made that deer along with a wolf and a bear for a Fourth of July parade here in the upper Midwest. I was like: How about instead of patriotism, let's celebrate the area and just make some country animals? There was a bit of a hang-up around like, what are the animals for? I don’t know.

People say, "What’s the bear for?" And I’m like: What are people for?!

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What do you think of when you think of Afghanistan? From the coverage in mainstream American media, one may be under the impression that it’s a lawless country breeding Taliban fundamentalists. Our media is understandably interested in the fact that nearly seven thousand US service members have been killed in Afghanistan and the war has left thousands more wounded, maimed, and traumatized—but while our media prioritizes these stories, the stories of the average Afghan get sidelined, perpetuating our xenophobic attitude towards the war-torn country.

In 2008, a young American filmmaker named Sam French disregarded all of the American media coverage of Afghanistan and followed a woman across the world to Kabul. Almost immediately, he discovered that the land was full of incredibly unique and diverse stories just waiting to be told. More than that, he realized that the Afghans have the same dreams as him—dreams of freedom, better lives, and an education.

Two years later, French and his friends formed the Afghan Film Project, a non-profit foundation formed to tell Afghan stories while simultaneously training Afghanis in the art of filmmaking. The project's first film, completed in late 2011, was titled Buzkashi Boys.

Now, as an American, I knew nothing about buzkashi, the celebrated sport from the Middle East. Now that I do, I wish there was less of an embargo on the everyday happenings in Afghanistan—this sport is the shit. It’s basically a violent, free-roaming game of horse polo played with a dead goat instead of a ball. The riders are all hailed as celebrity figures for dragging and tossing that huge, limp goat by its leg around a dirt arena. If you think football is brutal, you’ve got no fucking clue.

The story of Buzkashi Boys centers on two best friends—a street brat and a blacksmith’s son—who struggle to reconcile their dreams of playing buzkashi within their predefined societal roles. The film offers a unique glimpse into Afghanistan by way of their friendship, despite the pressures coming from both society and their own impending manhood.

The film is quite a feat, beyond the fact that it's one of the first international productions filmed entirely in Afghanistan, or that nearby rocket attacks almost claimed everyone's lives on set, or that the country is run by probably the most corrupt government in the world. What French and his team crafted is a beautiful, timeless, coming-of-age story that happens to revolve around a bloody and brutal goat-murdering sport.

Sam French graduated USC film school, where he directed the film Over the Line, which won multiple awards, including Best Director and Best Actor at the Beverly Hills Film Festival. He directed a bunch of commercials and music videos before he chased down a beautiful woman in Afghanistan and, shortly after, developed The Afghan Film Project. In 2011, he directed Buzkashi Boys, which went on to win multiple awards and finally get nominated for Best Live-Action Short Film at the 2013 Academy Awards. VICE is proud to present the online world premiere of Buzkashi Boys.

Jeffrey Bowers is a tall mustached guy from Ohio who's seen too many weird movies. He currently lives in Brooklyn, working as an art and film curator. He is a programmer at the Hamptons International Film Festival and screens for the Tribeca Film Festival. He also self-publishes a super fancy mixed-media art serial called PRISM index.

Photo of the Wabigoon River, via WikiMedia Commons.
Gloria Kejick often loses her balance and her walking is unstable. Since childhood, she has suffered from tongue tremors, which causes her mouth to move uncontrollably. Kejick is positive she has mercury poisoning, but despite her symptoms, officials in her community don’t believe her. Kejick, 53, is from the Grassy Narrows First Nation in northwestern Ontario. In the 1960s, a silent killer devastated the waters and forests where her community is located. Ten tonnes of highly toxic mercury was dumped into Wabigoon-English River by a paper mill. Grassy Narrows and another nearby community, Wabaseemoong Independent Nations, negotiated an out-of-court settlement to address the mercury contamination—but the damage is still felt in the community.

Fish are a staple of the local diet, and like her seven siblings, Kejick was raised on it. Both of her parents and one sibling have tested positive for mercury poisoning. It’s believed eating the fish and drinking the water, all contaminated by the mercury spill, poisoned them. As part of the settlement, a “Mercury Disability Board” was created in 1986. The board is tasked with determining who has been poisoned by mercury and who can get financial compensation. Gloria Kejick says she’s been turned down numerous times, even after appealing her applications.

“I’ve been denied right from the beginning when it first started,” says Kejick. Kejick is frustrated that her mother and sibling receive compensation yet she doesn’t, even though she shares the same symptoms. Kejick’s father also received compensation before his death in 1997.

Tremors, lack of coordination, slurred speech, and sensory abnormalities are just a few of the hallmarks of mercury poisoning. Kejick and others say they see these symptoms in themselves and in other community members. “I really don’t understand their way of approving and not approving people,” says Kejick. “We all lived with the same mercury contaminated water and mercury contaminated fish.”

Kejick isn’t alone. VICE has learned that in the last year, 72 First Nation adult members were assessed (36 Wabaseemoong, 36 Grassy Narrows), but only one person was approved for compensation. Kejick and others in her community wonder why so few are compensated when the contamination was so widespread. Since it was created in 1986, the Mercury Disability Board processed 1,008 applications for benefits, but only 193 people are receiving compensation.

Margaret Wanlin is chair of the board. She’s quick to note that over $17 million in benefits has been paid out since the board was formed. “There’s a number of proportion of people that did receive benefits and have since died,” Wanlin says. “Since this started, 108 people have died.” The board awards benefits based on neurological exams that run on a point system. The higher the degree of impairment, the more points tallied and the bigger the benefit. The minimum to receive compensation is six points, with a benefit of $250 per month. Even though the rates haven’t changed since 1986, Wanlin says there’s been no recent discussion to update them.

Stan Benson—not his real name—is from Wabaseemoong. He says community members are beginning to question the neurologists the board hires to do the exams. “They want the two chiefs to try to find somebody else,” Benson says. Kejick remembers during one exam the doctors asked to see her tongue twitch. “They wanted it to see it tremor before I could get the mercury compensation and I said, ‘it doesn’t tremor on demand,’” Kejick says.  Asked whether members could seek a different neurologist outside of the board, Wanlin said yes, as long as the board’s testing regime is used.

Both Benson and Kejick said members are often asked whether they use alcohol or drugs, or if they’re diabetic when going for testing. According to Benson, diabetes and mercury poisoning symptoms can overlap hence making it hard to prove the latter. “Three-quarters of my community are diabetic,” Benson says.

Most of the people receiving benefits today are older, Wanlin says, but Kejick says the younger generation is suffering too. “You can see a 40-year-old struggling to walk like an 80-year-old,” Kejick says. “You have to wonder why.” In his own community, Benson says he can even see birth defects in babies. “What we’re seeing now in newborns is their bodies are crippled,” Benson says. “And their eyes are not level with the other one.” Mercury poisoning is also known to cause eye impairments and tunnel vision. Benson says there is even one girl with webbed feet.

First Nations here fear the past could repeat itself. Just weeks ago, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the province has the right to issue licenses for logging on the Grassy Narrows traditional territory. Community members worry that more logging means more mercury making its way into the water system.  Even more recently, First Nation leaders in Ontario are furious after learning about a buried 2010 report that showed the effects of mercury poisoning on their people was worse than they were told. That prompted a Grassy Narrows First Nation elder, Steve Fobister Sr., to go on a two-day hunger strike. Even more infuriating for community members was news that the Mercury Disability Board commissioned the report.

Asked whether she would apply again for benefits, Kejick says no. “What’s the use? Mercury is always going to be there, it’s not going to get cleaned up,” Kejick says. “No amount of compensation or money is going to replace how long that mercury is going to stay here and how many generations it’s going to poison.”


@marthamaiingan

You probably watch a lot of TV, and say to yourself, "hey, there are way too many references to God, too many supernatural occurrences, and far too many people hunting ghosts in my entertainment!" You are perturbed that everywhere you turn, someone is telling you there are aliens at Area 51, that a lady in Long Island can speak to the dead, and a woman can have eight kids without her vagina ripping apart forever. You love bow ties and/or cell phone belt holsters as much as these guys.

The antidote for what ails you is here. Are you ready for a TV network where the programmers think you have so few critical thinking skills that you can't separate fact from fiction?

You're in luck, because Atheist TV launched this week, claiming to be the first ever channel by and for atheists. In a world where cable channels exists solely for people who love Oprah, or the Los Angeles Dodgers, why not a channel just for people who love hearing the sound of their own voice?

American Atheists, one of the more organized atheist groups in the country, is backing Atheist TV and threw a party in New York City to usher in their venture. I arrived at the event in the Manhattan Penthouse on 5th Avenue, and instead of the throng of eager God-haters I expected, I was greeted by a sleepy group of aging intellectuals casually sipping wine and staring intently at a TV showing the Roku home screen. Roku, the streaming device that's become so popular with cable TV cord-cutters, is touted as the best way to access their online streaming service on an actual television.

I'm sure there are a lot of viewers who love Workaholics that will be captivated by the archives of the Richard Dawkins Institute, which is essentially all there is to watch on Atheist TV.

Tricia Mifsud, a spokesperson for Roku clarified for me that American Atheists and Roku have no special business relationship, despite how prominent Roku's name was in all my conversations with the channel's top brass. "Anyone can have a channel," she told me via email. "We usually only partner on channels that are truly mainstream like a traditional TV network."

"We are an open platform for streaming  to the TV and have a wide appeal to content creators.  For some content creators Roku is the only way to reach audiences on TV. For this reason many churches and religions have channels on Roku." 

A countdown clock kept us abreast of how long it would be until the blessed event. For reasons I am still not quite clear on, their logo kept making me think of RedTube, an internet association that they may not want to make. From the smattering of crowd that had formed, I caught someone boldly declare that "having a theology degree is a disadvantage." One thing you can guarantee about atheists is that they are always on brand.

Liz Bronstein, who initially told me she was Atheist TV's President, was a producer on the Discovery Channel series, Whale Wars. I was excited to find out what cutting edge programming she had on the docket for this new channel. "You’re going to have to watch and find out," she sputtered out after a moment to ponder my hard-hitting question. 

"A third of millennials are non-religious. So I think people who are looking toward the future of entertainment and the future of television are seeing Atheist TV and seeing that it can really be a player, because we are filling a niche that no one else has." As some one who is pretty non-religious, I wasn't sure what niche isn't currently being filled. Everyone I spoke to parroted the same line, that mainstream entertainment is not catering to people who don't believe in God and think critically.

It made sense that Bronstein wasn't really sure what her programming plan was, as she came up to me after the event had ended to tell me that she had yet to actually sign her contract with Atheist TV. Maybe after the first broadcast was over, she started to have second thoughts about programming a 24-hour, non-ad supported internet livestream that functions solely on donations. Her dreams of a lavish expense account and a chance to meet celebrity atheists like Ricky Gervais were fading with every second.

As Bronstein pushed forward with her vague answers, a woman squeezed into our conversation, nodding at appropriate times and frowning on cue when Bronstein said something about god-fearing theists. "Most people don’t know that they want something until you give it to them. I don’t think that Americans are sitting at home going, ‘I wish there was Atheist TV on,'" Bronstein said. The woman blurted out, "They don't know what they need!" Thankfully, we have Atheist TV to tell us what we need. During that part of the evening, all I needed was a drink.

I was shuttled by Atheist TV's PR people to speak to the head of American Atheists, David Silverman—a man with the kind of unfettered confidence that only comes from true believers, used car salesmen, Pick-Up Artists, politicians, and reality TV stars.

In contrast to Liz Bronstein, his talking points spilled from his mouth like a beer that's been punctured with a knife by an overeager frat boy. His rhetoric was almost exclusively about what they were going to do, rather than what they'd done to make the service viable at launch, which no one in the room seemed to give a damn about. 

He was really taken with the idea of a "Veggie Tales for atheists, where you can learn life’s lessons and be a good person but without relying on an invisible man in the sky, or teaching your kids something that’s anti-skeptical?" He didn't seem to see the irony of teaching a child to be a skeptic, while leading a group that dedicates itself to telling the world what to think.

Sadly, I did not have time to pitch my idea for a Saturday morning cartoon where a graying man in a tweed jacket helps 9-year-olds unpack the meaning of Plato's Euthyphro, while periodically interrupting the lessons to thwart the evil schemes of Ken Ham. The show will be called "Professor Sparklepatch." I'm hoping to get a soft commitment from Ricky Gervais to do the voice. It's going to be great.

Once Silverman started hocking expensive destination conferences and soliciting donations to keep the channel afloat, I started to feel an odd kinship with him. It was like being back at my synagogue, listening to the president of my congregation histrionically begging for people to give them money every Jewish New Year. A particularly handsy attendee saw on my business card that my last name was "Schilling," and asked if I was Jewish. According to her, 90 percent of members in the New York City Atheists club are Jewish. I can neither confirm nor deny her assertion about the club, but the general tone of the event was very semitic.  

At the point where Silverman started displaying literature and flyers as though they were holy text, it took on a more clearly religious tone. Atheists always purport to not believe in doctrine, but adherence and loyalty to their cause is paramount. I was asked on more than one occasion if I was a "theist," which would be like saying you're Japanese at a convention of American World War II veterans. It might not cause them to hate crime you, but they'll definitely think twice about sharing a cab with you on the way home.

"The History Channel treats the Bible like history. How can we trust what the History Channel says if they tell us that Jesus walked on water? the Discovery Channel treats ghosts like they are real. How can we believe that Mythbusters is telling the truth, if we have alien abductions coming up next," he asked. OK, interesting point, but can we trust Atheist TV? Only one way to find out: consume their cutting edge content!

The visibly impatient, frothy throng commenced their audible countdown in the middle of Silverman's remarks. At last, the moment had arrived. Entertainment would never be the same after this moment. Befitting my skeptical, clear-minded surroundings, the heavens did not part and angels did not appear blaring their trumpets. Instead, we were once again blessed to see the beatific visage and slicked back hair of David Silverman. His message to the viewers—likely, most of them were in the room at the time—wasn't much different than his previous remarks. 

With the pride of a single man who just made a grilled cheese sandwich without setting off the fire alarm in his studio apartment, Silverman watched himself delivering these historic words: "If we want to talk about the fact that religion harms people, we can and we will. If we want to show Mohammed on the screen, we will."

The broadcast quickly flashed an image of a depiction of Mohammad, and the crowd roared its approval at the illicit drawing, comforted by the fact that no one would declare a fatwah against them, or try to behead their family in a public square as long as they were safely in the penthouse on 5th Avenue.

"This is a place where we can be as honest as we want, without worrying about offending religious sensibilities," he continued. "Soon, we will launch original programming geared toward entertaining the expanding and flourishing atheist audience." Truly, a comforting notion that I could get behind. This isn't just for the hardcores. This is for everyone!

And then, they showed video of a woman burning what appeared to be pages from the Bible or other religious text. The woman was American Atheists founder Madalyn Murray O'Hair, who was murdered by a convicted felon who was previously in her employ. I can't think of a more alienating, transgressive choice for an entertainment venture that vehemently declares mainstream aspirations. I suppose they could have had Ricky Gervais punch an altar boy repeatedly in the balls, but maybe they didn't have the budget for that.

After the book burning portion of the evening's festivities ended, the stream broke down, freezing on the above text card. At least it wasn't an embarrassing screenshot of David Silverman making a constipated face or something. At least nothing embarrassing happened. The crowd begged Silverman and his team of broadcasting experts to fix the stream, to continue the program, and to solidify their commitment to this bold venture.

What happened next was nothing short of a miracle. The stream kicked back in, and the montage of Madalyn Murray O'Hair continued, except, as is often the case with unexplained, spiritual events, there was a catch.

There was no sound.

The congregation parted, and one brave soul bellowed, "We wanna hear it! Put the mic up to the TV!" Yes, put the mic up to the TV, indeed. If there's one thing you can expect from a group of rational thinking problem solvers pushing 70, it's the kind of low-tech, illogical troubleshooting tips that only dads think of. This is the equivalent of telling someone to blow on a Nintendo cartridge.

The dream of the atheist community is, in many ways, a noble one. I also yearn for a world where the human race can band together to use their shared intellect to overcome the numerous obstacles we collectively face. Nothing would make me happier than for science and reason to guide our cultural and political development. Reason is a wonderful thing. For American Atheists, and Atheist TV though, their dream also includes just as much intolerance, unwanted "guidance," and cult of personality as any religion I've ever seen.  

That dream is being held together by a lonely laptop shoved into a corner behind a black sheet, and a broken internet connection. I'd tell them to pray, but what's the point?

Follow Dave Schilling on Twitter.

Don't you wish your toilet looked this nice? Photo courtesy of American Standard

Most Americans take the “if it ain’t broke, why fix it” approach to their toilets. That is to say, if it flushes, we’re happy. And why shouldn’t we be? The act of defecating is an intensely private thing and even the poshest sophisticates wouldn’t brag about buying the world’s most stylish toilet. But our ambivalence has a cost: the way we use toilets in America is inelegant, unhygienic, and unsustainable, and it’s time for us to get smarter about how we shit.

The deplorable state of our toilets dates back to 1775, when a Scottish guy named Alexander Cummings designed the modern flush toilet. Already, you’ll notice something suspicious: the same basic design that we use today was designed in 1775. At the time, it was fairly revolutionary, as much of the pre-Renaissance era was spent squatting over chamber pots and unloading them onto the streets.

While we were still slinging feces out our windows, the Japanese were presumably already plotting the invention of super toilets. Fast forward to 1980, and the Japanese company Toto introduced the Washlet toilet. The Washlet’s key feature was its built-in bidet, which made for super clean anal cleansing and soon became a staple in the modern Japanese home. But Washlets don’t just spray-clean your asshole. The Japanese toilet has evolved considerably over time, incorporating features like automatically opening and closing lids, built-in deodorizers, heated seats, automatic flushing, built-in massagers, and even music to muffle the incorrigible sounds of you taking a shit.

An automated toilet in a public washroom in Tokyo features a heated seat, wash and dry functions, and canned flushing sounds. Photo by Sian James / ©Toilets of the World Book

Washlet-style toilets aren’t just elegant, although they certainly are. They’re also incomparably hygienic and good for the environment. Let’s start with the toilet paper issue. It is completely ass-backwards to use toilet paper to clean what is, arguably, the dirtiest part of our bodies. I talked to Rose George, who wrote the ultimate book on toilet history, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters, and she explained that America (and much of the west) can be classified as “dry cultures,” while Japan (and much of the east) are “wet cultures.”

Wet cultures involve water in cleaning the rectum: whether it’s a spray bidet, like in Japan, or hose-like jet attachments in other parts of Asia, sometimes referred to as “bum guns.” This is why the Japanese probably never have hemorrhoids or skid marks on their underwear. Dry cultures, like us, eschew water for toilet paper.

The thing is, as George explained in her book, “using paper to cleanse the anus makes as much sense, hygienically, as rubbing your body with dry tissue and imagining it removes dirt.” Would you ever imagine washing, say, your car with a roll of Bounty? No. And yet we imagine that toilet paper is good enough for our anal cleansing.

Most washlet-style toilets are hands-free, with a heated drying feature to follow the bidet. But even washlet toilets without the drying feature don’t require you to come in contact with your actual poop, only to pat dry your freshly washed anus, which reduces the spread of disease as well as those signs that demand EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS BEFORE RETURNING TO WORK and make you question whether or not the employees actually do.

These adorable commercials are the reason why you're still using toilet paper.

Toilet paper also consumes shit tons of trees. Based on a conservative estimate, the TP industry eats up more than 27,000 trees daily, or about 10 million each year. To put that in perspective, that’s about as many trees as there are total in urban Los Angeles. And that doesn’t even take into consideration how much water is required to manufacture toilet paper—somewhere around 400 million gallons each year.

Contrary to what you might think, many washlet-style toilets actually use less water than traditional toilets. A standard toilet in America uses up to nine liters of water per flush; “low flush” options typically use six liters. Washlet “low flush” toilets, by comparison, use about three liters per flush, with an additional “reduced flush” option.

Even if you don’t care about the environment (which you should, you asshole) the very custom of ass wiping is itself primitive and inelegant. Surely, few people are vying for the world’s most stylish method of defecation, and that’s all right—but you would never think of picking up your dog’s poop with a mere wad of toilet paper, and yet it’s completely normal to wipe up your own that way. Toilets themselves are also filthy in America, unlike in countries like Switzerland, which has popularized the self-cleaning toilet. You didn’t actually believe covering the toilet seat with tissue paper was going to protect you from germs, did you?

The Swiss CWS Cleanseat has a self-cleaning toilet seat, whether you like it or not.

It’s possible that bidets haven’t caught on in the US because the toilet paper lobby is always one step ahead, with advertisements of babies and puppies rolling around in their cloudlike toilet paper. But it could also be that old habits die hard, pooping included. Ten years ago, VICE wrote about the invention of The Biffy, which is basically like a bidet that you install onto your toilet seat (nevermind the fact that washlet toilets had already been around for decades). Where have we come in those ten years? Nowhere closer to using them. I don’t know a single American person who owns a washlet-style toilet.

The toilets that we sit on today are nearly identical to the ones that our grandparents sat on. If we spent as much time on the crapper thinking about the pitiful state of our toilet technology instead of thumbing through the Victoria's Secret catalogue, we might be able to change our disgusting ways of going to the bathroom.

Some companies are trying to convert the American consumer. Almost exactly a year ago, the Tokyo-based toilet manufacturer Lixil bought out American Standard, presumably seeing America as an untapped market for their smart toilets. They’ve spent the past year designing new products like the AT200 SpaLet, which was released in March and intended to be a gateway smart toilet for Americans.

The AT200 SpaLet. Photo courtesy of American Standard

The toilet comes with nozzles for front and rear cleansing, a warm air drier, automatic seat opening and closing, heated seats, and automatic flushing. Jeannette Long, the Vice President of Brand Marketing at American Standard, told me that the SpaLet “changes the daily ritual of going to the bathroom” into an “opportunity for pampering and rejuvenation.” But I’d argue that even without the luxury appeal, the reduction of toilet paper, reduced spread of germs, and lower water consumption (the SpaLet uses less than five liters for a full flush, three and a half for a reduced flush) are all compelling enough reasons on their own invest in a smart toilet.

The company plans to spend upwards of $5 million this year to promote its bidet-equipped toilets and within three years, the company told me that they hope to be selling $50 million worth of bidet-equipped toilets annually. I hope they are, too because America is way overdue for a toilet intervention.

As of now, “smart toilets” account for about one percent of the market in America. George told me this is because “nobody is rushing to the manufacturers saying, ‘I want a cool toilet!’” But I’m going to go on the record right now saying that I do. I want a cool toilet that washes my butt and makes the world a better place every time I poop. Honestly, is that too much to ask for?

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