The stock market might be up, but could big banks' clout in our culture be fading? Photo via Flickr user otto-yamamoto

It's tempting to say Wall Street calls all the shots in America. After all, Goldman Sachs employees were Barack Obama’s single greatest source of campaign contributions from the business world back in 2008, and he hasn’t exactly made his pals pay for causing the epic financial crisis. Stadiums and concert venues across the country are named after big banks. And Hillary Clinton, who by most accounts is a shoe-in to be our next president, is super tight with this crowd, thanks in part to her husband (and former president) Bill's axiom that the Democratic Party should make nice with financiers or else risk incurring their wrath. 

But this week has offered a precious dose of optimism for those disenchanted with our modern Gilded Age. On Tuesday, a federal judge tossed out a challenge from banking industry trade groups trying to gut the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law’s new rules for overseas derivatives trading. These nebulous financial instruments helped sink AIG, the firm that eventually received billions in US taxpayer money—which it famously doled out in the form of massive bonuses in 2009. The new law empowered the Commodities Future Trading Commission (CFTC) to set guidelines for swaps—contracts that make it easier for derivatives traders to rack up risk—carried out in other countries by American banks. CFTC guidelines now require these swaps to be reported and transparent, which is essential given that derivatives helped tank the global economy. So that court decision was pretty important: For the first time in recent memory, the legal system actually sided against the banks and the scions of high finance.

"The majority of the plaintiffs' claims fail because Congress has clearly indicated that the swaps provisions" called for by the new law "including any rules or regulations prescribed by the CFTC—apply extraterritorially," Judge Paul Friedman wrote in a 92-page ruling. 

Whoa. Given the widespread corruption in the American legal system, which often treats white-collar crime like littering, I didn't see that one coming. I asked Brad Miller, a former Congressman from North Carolina who worked extensively on financial regulation and issued an amicus brief in the case, why this ruling matters.

“If they had gone the other way, it would've been a very big deal,” he told me. “It would have essentially have invalidated all swaps regulation. These transactions exist largely in the ether—it's not like they're closely tied to the planet earth at any given point.”

So score one for those of us who don't like invisible financial products that threaten civilization's essential fabric. What's more, the ruling was actually the second blow in as many days to America's financial class. On Monday, California's pension system—CALPERS, the largest in the country—announced it would no longer make investments in hedge funds. The reason? The fees are too expensive and the hedge funds often underperform against the market. Now hedge fund managers are sweating ever so slightly that the jig is up and the uselessness of the services they provide has been laid bare for all to see.

"CALPERS is the 800-pound gorilla. When they do something, plus or minus, everybody pays attention," says Dennis Kelleher, the CEO of Better Markets, a financial regulation advocacy group.

So not only are Wall Street guys actually experiencing a whiff of regulation, but the legitimacy of one of their most celebrated products is in doubt. It's almost as if bankers' grip on American institutions is fading. Now if only we could start renaming some of the football fields, baseball parks, and music venues, I'd be convinced things were really beginning to change. Until then, I'll settle for a couple of seemingly obscure stories in the financial press suggesting Wall Street bankers' days at the top of our national (and global) power structure might, eventually, come to an end. 

Follow Matt Taylor on Twitter.

All illustrations by Elizabeth Vasquez

Armpit fetishism: It’s real, yet not really talked about. We live in an age where tossing salad is all over mainstream porn, but there aren't many people who are gonna cop to licking someone's pit to get off. Is an armpit fetish really so different from all the other freaky stuff out there?

First, I’ll clarify that there is a difference between having a fetish, and just being turned on by something. A fetish in the true sense of the word implies an obsession. As the Kinsey Institute defines it, "fetish specifically refers to a strong sexual preoccupation with an object, material, or body part." Basically, if you prefer armpit sex to regular sex, that’s a fetish. If you have traditional sex, but like to lick and smell armpits while it’s happening, that’s less a fetish and more just a thing that turns you on. Fetishes (or "paraphilias," as they're sometimes called) aren't considered a problem unless they cause distress to the individual or others, though sometimes people just have a hard time understanding how someone could be turned on by something so "weird."

I remember jokingly putting on my OkCupid profile that I had hairy armpits, thinking that would deter a lot of men from messaging me. I never took the site all too seriously, and at the time indeed had hairy pits. So I thought, why not? I figured I’d add this detail about myself so the men posing shirtless in their default pictures would deem me gross, or even worse—some kind of feminist (a.k.a. unfuckable). To my surprise, I had a slew of messages from men who were either “curious” about my armpits, asked me to send pictures, or flat-out stated they loved hairy pits. I found myself in a predicament: If I shaved my armpits, I’d be pleasing men. If I didn't shave my armpits, I’d still be pleasing men. A real damned if I do, damned if I don’t sort of scenario. Couldn't I go just one day without being so goddamn desirable?

A few weeks later, I started seeing someone I met through the site. He lived in San Francisco while I was still living in my college town of Davis. The first time I took a train to meet him, we ended up spending the whole weekend together. The night before I had to leave, we were drunk and got to groping. Eventually, we were both naked. He stopped kissing my lips, and moved down towards my neck and breasts. At this point I was expecting some standard nipple sucking, but instead he lifted my right arm and began licking my armpit up and down. He paused and asked me if this was OK. I let him keep going, and he enthusiastically got to licking the other one. Licking, and kissing it. After a few seconds, he asked if he could “stick his dick there." I panicked at first, thinking he wanted to stick it in my butt. When he clarified that he was talking about my armpits, I was relieved. Hell yeah you can stick it there, just not the butt. Anything but the butt.

Fast forward approximately one minute, and my armpit is getting fucked. It felt strange at first, like a really fat finger trying to tickle me. My arm was squeezing his dick, sort of like a chokehold. I must have looked like the world’s most pathetic wrestler. Actually, thanks to Urban Dictionary (the source for all true knowledge) I learned that the colloquial term for armpit sex is “bagpiping." So that’s what I was-—the bagpiper—playing a silent song at the funeral of my innocence. He, on the other hand, was elated. His eyes lit up when I agreed to let him fuck my armpit. This could very well have been the first time a girl actually let him do it. He was getting his Christmas miracle.

He ended up coming all over the bed. After a brief clean up, he lay down next to me and I asked him how it was. He responded that he loved it. My hair was soft and didn’t irritate him. He then asked me how it was for me. I jokingly responded that it was the pits, which he did not find funny. I then sincerely responded that it was strange, but at the same time, not so bad. It made me feel... sexy? God, as much as I hate that word and could barely find the strength to type it, I really can’t come up with a more appropriate way to describe it. Not to say that I don’t normally feel that way. I do. It was just nice—refreshing even—to see a body part being adored on a woman that’s not her breasts, ass, or vagina. Doesn’t that stuff get boring anyway?

Now, let’s cut to a few years later. This year, to be exact. I was having sex with a sort-of friend of mine. Someone I know from mutual friends, and a good rebound from the relationship I had just got out of. While we were doing it, he asked if he could sniff my armpits. He took a huge whiff, and when he was about to come he dug his face deep into my armpit to get more of the smell. He told me that body odor really turned him on, specifically from armpits. I asked him how it started, or if he even knew. He didn’t know. I wanted him to explain to me this fascination with armpits, with body odor. He couldn’t do it. He just knew that he loved the aroma of sweat. The way an armpit smells is incredibly distinct. He said it engages a sensation inside him, he can’t help being extremely aroused. He also told me that he begged his girlfriends in the past to never wear deodorant.

Looking back, I regret asking him “why?” Why do you find this hot? Of course he didn’t know. I would never expect a partner to tell me why he finds my breasts attractive. He just does. Most people don’t take the time to sit and think, “I love mammaries because___." Also, most people don’t refer to breasts as mammaries, which needs to be changed in my opinion. Another reason I shouldn’t have asked? Because it seems so obvious. They’re right there, when all the stuff is happening—so close to the other body parts that are licked and sucked, and yet they rarely get attention. As weird as it may feel, seem, or sound, armpit fetishists might be onto something.

Follow Alison Stevenson on Twitter.

April Fool's Day raid, 2008. Photo via Nimbin Hemp Embassy

At a moment in history when the Uruguayan government and several US states are legalizing marijuana, the authorities in the Australian township of Nimbin, in northern New South Wales, are cracking down on marijuana possession. 

Nimbin has been renowned as a hub alternative lifestyles and recreational marijuana use for more than three decades (VICE filmed a documentary there a few years back). Last Thursday, September 11, 70 police officers descended upon it with drug-sniffing dogs to carry out raids on the well-known Oasis Café and Perceptio Bookshop, as well as random street searches, resulting in the arrest of eight people and the seizure of two kilos of cannabis.  

The raids were part of Operation Oleary, which was established in March 2014 to target cannabis supply in the local area. Along with the raids in town, a separate one was carried out upon a residential property in nearby Jiggi, resulting in the seizure of “a large amount of mature cannabis plants,” according to the police. Further seizures and arrests are expected. 

Richmond Local Area Commander Superintendent Greg Martin told the press that community discontent over the local drug situation led to the operation being carried out.

“As a result of this operation, we have dismantled a criminal group we allege was responsible for supplying significant amounts of drugs throughout the Nimbin area,” he said in a statement. “Those charged with ongoing drug supply face up to 25 years jail. We will continue to target drug offenders and treat them with the seriousness they deserve.”

Jim Moylan, a lawyer and national campaign director of the HEMP party, said last week’s raids were not the first such events; in 2010, there was an increase in police searches and raids. Moylan also thinks that the date, September 11, “is not an accidental date. After the last round of the police… almost every three weeks driving in with four vehicles and holding the whole town under siege, marching along and strip searching anyone they wanted, four years ago on 9/11 the population of Nimbin marched on the police station and stood out the front for four hours to make the point that they're the occupiers here, we're the residents.”

(The police actions can be traced back further to 2008 and the notorious April Fool’s Day raid, when several dozen local police and Sydney riot squad arrived on the Nimbin streets, raiding the Hemp Embassy and Museum.) 

According to Moylan, Cullen Street., the main road of Nimbin, is under constant observation. “There are ten or 11 surveillance cameras for that streetscape, which places it under more scrutiny from law enforcement than any other part of Australia,” he said.

Moylan, who has been providing free legal advice to those arrested during last Thursday’s raids, explained that as soon as street dealers are taken away, others come along to replace them. The cannabis trade in Nimbin is bustling, thanks to the busloads of tourists that arrive in the town every day. “It's no surprise that the local council did up the road into Nimbin but not to the other towns around there,” he said. “On the one hand we have this sort of backhand nod to the incredible commercial activity generated by the illegal marketplace at Nimbin and then on the other hand, we've got this arbitrary pounding on the people who are servicing that marketplace.”

Nimbin Hemp Embassy president Michael Balderstone said that at most, only about 5 percent of the Nimbin population has a problem with the local drug trade. According to him, before the raids undercover cops were buying drugs off local dealers. “They’ve been buying weed off people here for six months, so they can get people for supplying three times, I suspect, which will get them locked up. It’s a much more serious charge—you’ll be lucky not to go to jail, if you’ve sold three times.”

Balderstone believes police only arrested half the people they were after and denies that they dismantled a major operation, but rather targeted low-end street dealers. “They'll put a dozen young boys in jail. What's that going to do?” he asked. “And I think they'll be hunting to pick up the extra dozen people they didn't find on that day.

“The town, you know, we've been raided so many times and we've been picked on so many times and we're still resilient; people just keep on,” Balderstone added.

The police in Nimbin are simply enforcing the law, argues Alex Wodak, president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, although he'd like those laws to change. Wodak was recreation cannibis to be sold legally, like alcohol and tobacco are. That would include “warning labels on the packets, health-seeking information, consumer information, and... a system of hard-to-get but easy-to-lose licenses for production, wholesale, and retail.” He believes that the majority of people interested in buying recreational cannabis would prefer to do so legally, so restrictions on its lawful purchase should not be too confining or the black market would continue to prosper. 

Wodak pointed out some reasons to hope things are getting better: The penalties for cannabis possession in Australia have been decreasing for some time and in some parts of the country small-scale possession has been made legal. 

“The logic of it is that we'll end up with a regulated market, and so we should, in my view, to everybody’s benefit,” Wodak said. “One of the benefits to that would be reducing corruption among police and public officials.”

Follow Paul on Twitter.

Illustrations by Matt Panuska

I spent Saturday night rolling on the floor of a loft apartment in the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood of Berlin. When I wasn't rolling, I was in the bathroom shoving my fingers down my throat, or sitting on the john trying to take a dump. I cried like a mother at a wedding. I kicked my feet in the air like dogs do when they're sleeping, and on one occasion—in tandem with the feet—I let my hands dance in front of my face like the last raver in the field on the last night of summer.

For what felt like three days, I went from bathroom to floor and back again. When I finally got it together enough to wobble onto the balcony and smoke a cigarette, I realized I'd only been under for four hours. Ayahuasca, yagé, the truth vine, the madre, or whatever you call it was not only the strongest drug I've ever tried but easily the most powerful experience I've ever had.

It's also illegal in Germany, so in order to do it, you have to know someone who knows someone who knows whichever shaman is in town giving out the goofy juice that week. And it's not cheap—it costs upwards of $230 per session. Once you're on the shaman's list, you receive an email explaining how you should prepare for the ceremony. No sex, no meat, no dairy, no salt, and no other drugs for a week beforehand. The address is kept secret until the final day.

You're told to pack a mat, a blanket, a bottle of water, some fruit, and a bucket with a lid so you can puke into it and then throw it away. I didn't have a bucket, so I brought a beaker with a seal and then spent the whole way there, and much of the ceremony, worrying that it wouldn't be big enough to hold all my chunks when I eventually blew them.

Ayahuasca has become quite popular in yoga circles and, even though it embarrasses me a little to put these three words together, the "Berlin meditation scene." For late thirtysomething affluent vegans who don't go to clubs anymore and who spend Christmas in India so they don't have to visit their parents, it's about as hip as partner swapping.

There were about 25 people in the apartment when I arrived, and my friends weren't even there yet, so I mingled with a bunch of people stretching in Thai pants or lying on the floor petting one another. The room was hot with bodies. I sat in a corner. Beside me was an American kid whose psychiatrist had actually prescribed the ceremony.

"I was pretty heavily addicted to pot," he said.

"What kind of psychiatrist prescribes this?" I asked.

"An expensive one," he said.

'It works?"

"Yes," he said.

There was a German guy at my feet tucked under a duvet on a blow-up bed.

"It's your first time," he said knowingly.

"Yes. What should I expect?"

"The universe," he said. "I hope you get to see the universe."

And then everyone lay down while the shaman, a guy with a beard and a ponytail and skin the color of stained mahogany, began to explain what was about to happen to us. I can't recall much of what he said, because what happened next was insane. Ayahuasca is comparable to other drugs but only in a way that walking briskly with your arms outstretched is comparable to flying.

It's very hard to put the experience into words, but here goes:

The beginning—let's call this the good part—started off with the shadows on the walls losing shape and tiny golden trails zipping in front of my eyes. So far, pretty normal for anyone who's taken acid, mushrooms, or trippy pills. On either side of me, people were dry-heaving into their buckets. They made a noise like cows being impaled on traffic signs. But I wasn't nauseous. Fuck no! At that time, I was dropping into a panoramic collage of fractals and bright colors and jungle foliage and extreme well-being. With no exaggeration, I can say that moment was probably the most blissed-out of my whole life. And I don't give that away lightly. I was a child of rave, and I spent a good chunk of the last decade hugging strangers and licking my eyebrows and worrying about how much water I had or hadn't drunk.

It was like the universe was wrapping me in giant mutating arms and filling me full of love. I saw God, and I was God, and everything was God.

For most of this part, the good part, I just lay on my back with my eyes closed in a little euphoric bubble. And if only that could have lasted—because, pretty soon, the bad part kicked in. In one incident after the next, I revisited traumatic chapters of my childhood. It played out like some celebrity retrospective—only instead of showing the best clips from my long career, I was forced to witness the moments that had bruised me most. I was in the womb feeling my family's stress, in school running from bullies, and in my teenage bedroom listening to Smashing Pumpkins while writing poetry with rhymes like "blunt knives" and "short lives."

In the middle of this trip down misery lane, I broke out in feverish sweat and felt the need to puke. But like I said, I was worried my container wouldn't handle my load, so I got up and wobbled to the bathroom. My stomach was a mess, but I couldn't puke, so I tried to shit. Somehow I'd got it into my head that the only way to end this hell-ride was to push the ayahuasca out of my body through whichever hole was most compliant. Some drugs allow you to look at yourself from a distance. If that had been the case, I imagine I'd be looking at myself doing some kind of twerk-cum-lapdance for the toilet bowl's pleasure, with my track pants around my ankles.

Defeated, I went back out to the room, lay down on my mat, and suffered. Really suffered. When I wasn't terrified, I was crying big tears of sadness. The golden trails would come and go, and I do remember seeing my penis presented in front of me as a giant tower reaching into the clouds—which was kind of cool—but for the most part, I was in seven circles of plant-based hell.

Some time later, I saw my friends creeping out of the room onto the balcony, and I worked up the courage to follow them. Imagine a plane crash, where the front of the plane explodes in two and the rear somehow lands on flat ground and everyone from Row F backwards survives. Picture the survivor's faces. That's how we looked.

We hung out on the balcony for a while smoking, occasionally puking into buckets, and trying to make sense of things until someone offered to drive us all home, which was a great and horrible idea because I never would have gotten home on my own, but the driver couldn't distinguish between red and green yet.

They say that one night of ayahuasca is like ten years seeing a psychiatrist. It is not a recreational drug. Afterwards, on the way home, we talked about going to a club, but in the end, all we really wanted was to be wrapped up in cotton wool and left in a corner with fresh water.

I fell asleep and the next day woke up early, feeling amazing. And for now, that's how things have stayed. Ordinarily I'm pretty anxious. I'm not a good sleeper, I'm shy, and I'm pretty horrible at making decisions. But so far, all that's disappeared. Whatever happened that night shook my little blockages free—or, as a psychiatrist would put it, broke my coping habits.

In the Amazon, if you go on an ayahuasca retreat, you normally spend three long nights in a row sifting through all your shit. In the first few hours after coming down, I thought I'd never smoke a joint again—let alone consider ayahuasca again. However, now I'm pretty sure I would. Watching all the traumatic experiences that have touched your life sweep past like a dream helps to place them in perspective: They're over. In a way, it takes you back to your original essence in nature, and that's no bad thing if, like me, your regular connection with nature is watching your tomato plants slowly die on the windowsill each summer.

Oh, and seeing your dick as tall as a building, rendered from solid, impenetrable stone is something all insecure young boys, who grow into secretly insecure men, need to see at least twice.

Follow Conor Creighton on Twitter.

Cambodian surf rock artist Ros Sereysothea

When a friend invited me to a “Cambodian surf party” in his run-down Sheffield apartment, I figured he was just being a pretentious idiot. It’s a retro novelty, I thought. The kind of thing people who collect surrealist-noise vinyl lose their minds over because it’s kitsch and obscure.

Upon arrival in Sheffield—where there was a distinct lack of anything Cambodian—my drunk friend rushed straight over to his laptop and loaded a song up on YouTube. “Listen to this,” he said. “It’ll blow your mind.” The song was "Jam 10 Kai Theit" by Ros Sereysothea and it sounded like all the best bits of Jefferson Airplane, a barbershop quartet and the soundtrack to a Tarantino film squeezed into three minutes of distorted wonder.

I was compelled to find the story behind the genre, so I downloaded a compilation album—The Rough Guide to Psychedelic Cambodia—and was captivated by the erratic rhythm and chants of Yol Aularong and the Sinatra-like presence of Sin Sisamuth. But while discovering their music was a joy, researching the lives of these artists led to a horrific discovery: most of them were brutally killed by the Khmer Rouge, or disappeared during the genocide that decimated Cambodia during the 1970s.

As Vietnam faced the onslaught of American invasion in the 1960s, neighboring Cambodia was exposed to an unintended cultural bombardment. From Phnom Penh to Pailin, young Cambodians were able to tune into American Forces Radio and hear unadulterated rock music for the first time. Gradually, the psychedelic aesthetic began to seep into the country’s consciousness, with many Cambodian musicians inspired to recreate what they had heard.

But the scene didn’t last long. In 1970, a brutal civil war broke out between Cambodia’s government forces and the Khmer Rouge, the militarized communist party of Cambodia. The Americans supported the Cambodian government, which outraged much of the country’s agricultural population, and unintentionally raised support for the militants.

“[The Khmer Rouge] was born at a time when covert American bombing of Cambodia and overt American aid to the Cambodian government brought devastation to the countryside,” said Professor Ashley Thompson, Chair in Southeast Asian Art at SOAS. “With pre-drone-style random massacres in the countryside, refugees from the bombings filling the capital and a freewheeling, highly corrupt militarized government contributing further to societal breakdown, there was a lot to be angry about.”

The skulls of Khmer Rouge victims. Photo via Wikimedia commons

In 1975, the Khmer Rouge took control of Phnom Penh and exiled the city’s residents and renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea. In reality, of course, the Khmer’s regime was anything but democratic, with Pol Pot—general secretary of the Cambodian Communist Party—assuming totalitarian control of the nation.

The Khmer Rouge wanted to rid Cambodia of what they saw as decadent Western culture, calling the agricultural utopia they had envisioned “Year Zero." The social engineering of this Year Zero resulted in the consignment of huge swathes of the population to work camps, where they were effectively treated as slaves. Unimaginable numbers of people were worked to death and routinely executed, with current estimates placing the death toll at around 2 million.

The Khmer Rouge was particularly mistrustful of artists and intellectuals, viewing them as part of an educated elite that had sided with the Cambodian government. "Once the Khmer Rouge were in power, the elision of artists and intellectuals was taken to a hyperbolic extreme,” said Professor Thompson.

One of Ros Sereysothea's LP covers (Scan via)

Ros Sereysothea—undoubtedly the queen of her genre—became made her name singing traditional Cambodian ballads in the late 1960s. However, in the early 1970s she began adopting Western styles and instruments into her music.

Despite having a relatively short career, she was a prolific songwriter and is credited with penning and appearing on over 100 songs. And it’s easy to understand why she achieved the fame she did; after all, it was one of her songs that drew me to Cambodian rock in the first place. Sadly, though, it’s thought that many of her recordings—along with countless other “decadent” artworks—were destroyed by the Khmer Rouge.

"Penh Jet Thai Bong Mouy (Ago Go)" by Ros Sereysothea

Sereysothea herself was last seen in Phnom Penh before it fell to the encircling Khmer Rouge forces. One account has her leaving the city under the protection of a small band of remaining government forces. Another has her put in charge of feeding pigs in a Khmer work camp. It’s also rumored she was executed for unknown reasons in 1977.

However, none of these accounts have been confirmed. All that’s certain is that, after the genocide, she was never heard from again.

Sin Sisamuth on the front cover of a Cambodian compilation CD (Scan via) 

If Ros Sereysothea was the Cambodian Janis Joplin, then Sin Sisamuth was the country's Frank Sinatra and John Lennon packed into one.

Like Sereysothea, he became famous singing traditional Cambodian pop songs and ballads, but it was the introduction of a rock ’n’ roll backing band—and Sisamuth’s playful meddling with Western melodies and musical tropes—that led to the creation of his most memorable work.

You only have to scroll through YouTube comments on uploads of his songs to see the kind of adoration he garnered as a musician; many young Cambodians refer to him as “grand master Sisamuth” to this day.

“Sin Sisamuth in particular has, as far as I can tell, never lost his place as an idol, an incarnation of a specifically Khmer modernity by which artistic perfection took innovative yet recognizably culturally specific turns,” said Professor Thompson.

Although it will never be possible to absolutely confirm the exact circumstances surrounding Sisamuth’s death, it’s widely accepted in Cambodia that he was brought before an execution squad.

As well as being an artist and an intellect, Sisamuth was a friend of the recently deposed royal family, making him a prime target for eradication by the Khmer Rouge. The story goes that when Sisamuth was presented to his executioners he accepted his fate, asking only that he be allowed to sing one song for the gunmen before his death.

He was granted his wish, but when he’d finished his song he found the soldiers unmoved and bored. They killed him there and then, without remorse.

Two hours of Sin Sisamuth songs

Part of what makes some music timeless is the story behind it. Just as listening to Daniel Johnston’s erratic outsider folk becomes a wholly different experience upon learning of his schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, knowing the grim fate of the Cambodian rockers is sure to influence the way their music sounds.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If the stories of Sin Sisamuth, Ros Sereysothea and the countless other musicians who perished on the Khmer Rouge’s killing fields can help bring their music to a wider audience, then they need to keep being told.

Follow Daniel Woolfson on Twitter.

Image via Flickr user AdamL212

It looks like Hollywood is almost done gorging itself on time travel movies. Despite the success of this year's X-Men: Days of Future Past, the failure of Edge of Tomorrow and Mr. Peabody & Sherman might indicate an American cinemagoing public that's just about had its fill of this glut.

It began in the mid 2000s, and peaked in 2009, when there were seven time travel movies, including Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel, a loving parody of sorts that was exactly the kind of plot hole-filled mess it was making fun of.

Movie time travel should have been a simple, useful storytelling construct, and it was for a while. In the 19th century, a whole bunch of time travel fables showed up all at once, usually to teach the reader a valuable lesson about something or other. Mostly there were about being bonked on the head or something, and then waking up in another time, like Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and its precursor Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy. Or you might be taken on a journey through time with a ghost, like in A Christmas Carol. This was a nice time for time travel stories because they were at least simple enough to make sense. 

But since H.G. Wells' The Time Machine was about a machine, it ruined everything.

If you're going to see a machine operating, you're going to think about how it works, and that's not good for movies. This means the writer, director, and production designer all start making a lot of guesses about science, depending on what cool shit they want to show you. This leads to questions you have to answer:

Is your protagonist transported to the same fixed point in the universe at a different time, which would mean after the time jump you would probably be somewhere in empty space, or is that problem just tossed out the window? Is your time machine a piloted contraption, or does it create a portal, or can it perhaps be worn on the body? Does the machine accelerate time around you, or beam you through a portal? If it accelerates time around you, do bystanders see it just sitting there for perhaps hundreds of years? 

The scientific answer to all these questions is "Shut the fuck up. There's never going to actually be time travel."

The Science (There Isn't Any).

Diagram of a movie I loved in film school. Image via Wikimedia commons

Rather than a silly-but-coherent piece of magic we at least understand, such as a dragon, or a believable piece of futuristic science, such as a death ray, time travel is a muddy gray area in the middle. Yet whenever there's a high profile time travel movie coming out, you see a lot of tedious articles online about the science of time travel. Usually they place actual science from serious physicists in contrast with the work of screenwriters. Such articles are dumb, and people need to stop writing them.

Two months ago, The World Science Festival released an infographic detailing the chronology of the nine main movie franchises that involve time travel, along with a blog entry called "Time Travel Made Easy." The blog summed up the basics of what we can safely guess would make time travel work:

Going forward in time by traveling at the speed of light, like in The Planet of the Apes, is science fact, assuming you could get going that fast, which you can't. To go backward in time, you would probably need something called an "Einstein-Rosen bridge" caused by a collapsing star, and a lot of good luck. Alternatively you might just need some implausible amount of energy—like infinity joules, I guess—to move the fabric of the universe.

All of this is to say that unlike most of what we categorize as science fiction, the actual means to time travel, and the scientific consequences, are still almost as beyond the grasp of humanity as they were in the time of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne.

If you put yourself in the headspace of a reader in most of the 20th century, you would think H.G. Wells was a prophet. The machine age was this seemingly magical period where writers of fiction came up with things, and then they happened. Jules Verne invented space travel by writing From the Earth to the Moon, and it came to pass. The 1920 Czech play "Rossum's Universal Robots," predicted robots. Isaac Asimov predicted satellite communication. Even invisibility is starting to seem plausible within our lifetimes. 

But it looks pretty certain that the concept of a "time machine" is a quaint Victorian idea that will never be realized before the heat death of the universe, something science can't save us from. You know what can rescue us, at least in our minds? Fantasy.

Time Travel Is Fantasy, Not Science.

Screencap via Movieclips on Youtube

What's giving every time travel movie cancer is that we're placing them all under the mantle of science fiction rather than fantasy. Imagine burdening every vampire movie with the science mumbo jumbo we weigh all of our time travel movies down with:

Vampire: You're now a vampire!

Protagonist: Oh no! What's a vampire?

Vampire: Well you see, by biting you, I've injected you with a DNA altering serum, which has changed your circulatory system, causing you to require human hemoglobin molecules for nutrition.

Protagonist: Hemo...?

Vampire: It's in blood, but fortunately my serum halts your organismal senescence, meaning the breakdown of your cells will be blocked altogether, as long as you receive a steady supply of hemoglobin. However, your photosensitivity is drastically increased.

Protagonist: Zzzzzzzzzzzz...

A recent Stephen King novel about time travel called 11/22/63 sidestepped all of this, and received a lot of much-deserved praise for having a simple, non-annoying premise: There's a portal to 1958. There just is. No mad scientist made it. It's just there. I enjoyed the book, about a guy from 2011 living out his life in the surprisingly alien recent past, but it was bound up in a plot to change the course of history, and, as such, the ending (mild and very general spoiler) got very science fiction-y, and concerned with upsetting a vague sort of balance in the universe. I was mildly irritated.

But there is one perfect time travel movie: Groundhog Day. Why is the universe conspiring to lock Bill Murray in the same day for centuries? It doesn't matter. Is there any escape? Who knows. Is it believable? That's beside the point. He time traveled, and the audience didn't ever have to endure an expository speech from a scientist about a time paradox.

Only Geeks Care About Time Paradoxes.

Image via YouTube user HardLuckWomaan

Movies are written by movie geeks, but they can usually hold off on giving you all the details about some bullshit science fiction premise when it doesn't matter. But for some reason time travel makes every screenwriter crossreference their time machine mechanic with all sorts of science questions about the nature of the universe: Are there multiple "timelines," or just one? To what degree are characters subject to the bootstrap paradox, which causes time to loop inescapably, meaning nothing can actually ever change? How, and to what degree can you change the past, and most importantly of all, does causing a time paradox "destroy the universe" for some reason?

A time paradox sounds scientific, and Einstein even used the word to describe one of the more puzzling aspects of relativity. However, the old "What if I kill my grandpa?" paradox is not based in science any more than a movie time machine is based in science. Like the theoretical "Precog Echo" in Minority Report (another stupidly overcomplicated science fiction movie when you get right down to it) it’s just an idea that drives the story forward, not the necessary interference of a real scientific principle. 

The idea that Marty has to make sure his parents get together, or the paradox could destroy the universe is just us being self-centered. And that's fine. Stories are like that. We prioritize people’s personal problems over everything else, because we’re apes that like staring at other apes.

But Back to the Future has a bigger problem.

There's nowhere near enough Hitler-killing.

If I must swallow the headache-enducing idea that time travel must always be a race to correct the past without causing a paradox, then only the rarest of protagonists have priorities that make sense. After all, there's only one thing worth doing with a time machine: killing Hitler.

So at the end of Back to the Future, Marty has to go back to the fucking future, because the title says so, right? But why? Why set the Delorean clock for 1985, when he can set it to 1916 and kill Hitler? 

Also these:

• X-Men: Days of Future Past is about Wolverine’s consciousness being transported into his younger self in 1972, in order to stop some guy from launching the Sentinel Program. No. Fuck you. Wolverine was born in 1888. What he really needs to do is kill Hitler. It stops way more deaths, and, bonus: it will stop Magneto, a holocaust survivor, from using his past trauma to justify a lifetime of evil. And somehow (the butterfly effect?), it will probably fix the Sentinel thing.
• Sure, Bill and Ted are funny and everything in their Excellent Adventure, but just one lousy stop off to kill Hitler while they’re finishing their history assignment, and they wouldn’t be, through their own inaction, the greatest monsters in human history. It’s bad enough that they let Napoleon live.
• Star Trek characters can time travel more or less all they want but they are governed by both the Prime Directive and the Temporal Prime Directive, which are about never, ever, ever interfering with the past, except when the script calls for it. Every time they do cross that rubicon, they could just pop by and kill Hitler. All you would have to do is go to the German trench at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and kick the shell that wounded him a few yards closer, thus killing him instead of wounding him. 

And OK, maybe I just want more Hitler-killing movies. Either add more Hitler-killing, or do everything I said above, and time travel movies will stop being so terrible.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter

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All photos by Jenny Marc

High atop a mountain in the very center of Bulgaria sits what was supposed to be the nation’s pride and glory: the House of the Bulgarian Communist Party. Bigger in size than the Pantheon in Rome, the Buzludzha monument—a futuristic oval structure with a tower, 230 feet tall, overlooking the stunning mountain landscape—was meant to be a communist mecca. Adorning the top of the tower was a huge red star made of ruby glass that, when lit up, was seen all the way from neighboring Greece and Romania.

Built in 1981, this was peak communism.

But it all went downhill from there. As Bulgaria embarked on its difficult path towards democracy in 1989, Buzludzha was left to decay—and to polarize the post-communist society, dividing it along a love-it-or-hate-it line. Its crumbling skeleton now perches like a deserted flying saucer on top of the hill. Its red star—pillaged through the years by naïve looters who fell for the communist propaganda that it was made of ruby (it was actually plain crimson glass)—has been dark for a quarter of a century.

To fully make sense of the decay, you need to look no further than inside the monument. Though its main entrance has been sealed, there is a way in—through a small hole on the right side. To enter, you need to climb through that hole and over a 32 foot drop. As one Italian visitor told us while crawling out of it, “Just don’t look down and you’ll be fine.” Following his advice—and after a healthy dose of hesitation—we braved the pit.

What welcomed us inside could well be the setting for a post-apocalyptic film. Except for most of the marble and parts of the mosaic, there are few signs of the building's former grandeur. Built over a span of five years, Buzludzha was constructed by some 6,000 workers, most of them soldiers. It cost nearly $20 million, and was supposed to be the crown jewel of communism, a manifest to its power. Today, though, the leaky roof, the gutted hallways and the crumbling mosaic are the only remnants of the building’s glory.

When Buzludzha was inaugurated in 1981, the party’s dominance was at its zenith. Few would have predicted at the time that, less than a decade later, the communist regimes in Eastern Europe would start to fall like dominos. But years of mismanagement, planned economy and a brewing dissatisfaction with state repression started to weigh on the totalitarian states. In Bulgaria, democracy was ushered in with a bloodless revolution in 1989. With the end of communism, the House of the Bulgarian Communist Party became a house of ghosts.

Buzludzha’s fate has remained in limbo ever since. In 2011, the then center-right government offered to transfer the monument’s ownership back to the Bulgarian Socialist Party, the ex-communists, who are still holding their annual convention just under the peak. The cash-strapped socialists, however, refused the gift and Buzludzha—once a symbol of the communists’ firm grip of power—remained in the firm grip of nature.

Buzludzha’s main function since the end of the regime it used to glorify—besides a venue for graffiti artists and a sight for hikers—is to split public opinion. For locals, it quickly became a subject of fascination as much as aversion, symbolizing the difficult relationship post-communist societies have with their past. Those nostalgic of the old days—mainly seniors and the occasional leftists—want it restored to its former greatness; those fed up with communism—mainly the middle aged who spent their youth in a society where freedom of speech was an oxymoron—want it demolished. 

Today’s young Bulgarians actually seem to care, too. More and more people, including foreign tourists, are flocking to the monument. There were at least two dozen while we were visiting and some have even stayed overnight in tents and camper vans. Young people are also finding creative ways to appreciate the monument. The site has recently served as a venue for events, from fashion shows and art exhibitions to a setting for music videos and even a model for paper toys.

To meet this new generation, we drove through the treacherous mountain pass (a road sign simply read “Danger zone: 15 kilometres”) to Gabrovo, a sleepy town at the foot of the mountain some 18 miles away from the monument. There we met Radoslav Parvanov, a Buzludzha aficionado, a photographer and a student. His fascination with Buzludzha was palpable even on the phone. “I can see the monument from my window as we speak… but you’ll probably arrive too late and it won’t be visible… but don’t worry, I have hundreds of photographs and brochures.”

For Radoslav, who has collected dozens of folders of Buzludzha memorabilia from antique shops, libraries and museums, “This is a very strange, unique and even impossible place.” And for that reason, he says, “it must be restored and should be used as a museum perhaps, a gallery or a concert hall—a museum of socialism even.” One idea a couple of years back was for Buzludzha to be turned into a casino and a hotel complex. While he doesn’t necessarily approve of that particular concept, one thing is certain for Radoslav: “This place has a lot of history—a history that we can’t just throw away so lightly.”

While Radoslav’s opinion is shared by more than a few of his generation, maintaining (let alone restoring) Buzludzha is a question of money. A restoration of the monument would cost an estimated $20 million—a hefty price tag for Bulgaria, the poorest European Union member. As it stands, the authorities can neither afford to maintain nor even dismantle it.

And so, while generations of Bulgarians continue to debate the future of Buzludzha, the building itself remains at the mercy of the elements. This certainly wasn’t the intention of its creators, who proudly displayed on both sides of the main gate parts of the left-wing anthem, “The Internationale.” Many of the letters have fallen off by now but the verses are still legible: “Workers, men and women/from all sides, unite!/Forward, brave comrades/let’s build our great work!”

They thought they were building the future—but it just ended up in the past.

@georgikantchev

Screenshot of the Aurora shooter at a hearing via YouTube

On July 20, 2012, a man stood up from his seat in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, that was showing a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises and opened fire on the audience. In the ensuing violence, 12 people were killed and 70 were injured. The shooter’s motive has never been clear—the suspect told police he was the Joker after they took him into custody—but as is usually the case with the perpetrators of mass killings, he’s since been the subject of a lot of media attention and speculation in the 26 months since the incident.

So it’s not surprising that cable channel TruTV (formally Court TV), six local television channels, and a Denver radio station have petitioned Arapahoe County District Court Chief Carlos Samour to allow cameras in his courtroom when the trial starts in December. But Lonnie and Sandy Phillips, the parents of 24-year-old shooting victim Jessica Ghawi, say that putting the proceedings on TV will give the killer too much attention. 

“It doesn’t do the families, who should be the focus, any good at all. It just brings up constant, constant, pain,” Sandy told me. “It’s going to be bad enough sitting in the courtroom hearing the things we need to hear and seeing the things we need to see but for everybody in America to be seeing it too, it’s just too much.”

The defense attorney and prosecutors have also asked for cameras to be banned in the courtroom, as have some other family members of victims, including Caren and Tom Teves (parents of Alex Teves) and Anita Busch (a cousin of Micayla Medek). Last week, Busch published an op-ed in the Denver Post asking that cameras be kept away from the trial.

“Behind the scenes, the families of the deceased and injured in Aurora have already had to deal with additional trauma from harassment related to the case,” she wrote. “Having cameras in the courtroom to broadcast these images across the globe and give notoriety to the monster accused of this crime will give rise to emotionally overwhelming incidents and on a much greater scale.”

While talking with the Phillips family, I noticed that Lonnie and Sandy weren’t using the name of the Aurora shooter (which I have decided not to include in this article). “I never use his name,” said Sandy. “When media does use his name, when they do use his picture, they’re giving him the very thing that he sought out.”

Criminals have always been a source of fascination for the public. In the pre-television era, killers like Billy the Kid and thieves like Bonnie and Cylde were turned into the stuff of legend through newspaper accounts and songs. Naturally, it didn’t take long after the widespread adoption of television for the new medium to work its way into courtrooms.

The first murder trial to allow cameras was that of Jack Gilbert Graham, who in 1955 blew up a plane flying from Denver to Portland, Oregon, by hiding a bomb in his mother’s suitcase, killing all 44 people on board. The media scrum around him was such that before the trial, local radio station Gene Amole and a Rocky Mountain News photographer snuck a camera into Denver County Jail to interview Graham (though no Denver TV station would air the footage). 

Serial killer Ted Bundy’s 1979 trial was the first to be nationally televised, and in 1981 the Supreme Court ruled that states could allow criminal proceedings to be photographed and filmed. The 90s were a sort of golden age for televised trials: Dozens of news organizations from all over the world were there to show viewers Jeffrey Dahmer being found guilty of murder in 1992, and millions tuned into Court TV the next year to watch the trial of the Menendez brothers, who killed their wealthy parents with a shotgun.

Then there was the OJ Simpson trial. Judge Lance Ito allowed cameras into his courtroom and reportedly became so taken with the publicity that he’d watch himself on TV at home. By then, it was clear that people loved watching murder trials.

In 2011, a million people tuned into a CNN livestream to watch a judge pronounce Casey Anthony not guilty of murdering her daughter. A couple years later, in 2013, Ohio school shooter TJ Lane wore a shirt that said “KILLER” to his televised sentencing hearing and told the victims’ families, “The hand that pulls the trigger that killed your sons now masturbates to the memory. Fuck all of you.” That moment resulted in predictable shock and outrage, but also got turned into a GIF. You can’t help but wonder if a reaction like that—and attention like that—is exactly what Lane wanted.

That’s not to say that all murder trials, even all murder trials with a media-friendly hook, get covered like Anthony’s or Lane’s.

“As far as what cases get picked up by the media, it’s always been a difficult thing for me to even predict,” said Douglas Richards, a Denver criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor. “I remember as a prosecutor years ago I would handle all these murder cases and the cases just seemed so heart-wrenching to me and I couldn’t figure out why Tom Brokaw or Brian Williams wasn’t right there covering the case.”

It’s easy, in the case of the Aurora shooting trial, to see why people are interested—a tragic and bizarre crime, a defendant who seems insane and hasn’t shown any remorse, even a link to a Hollywood film. Ultimately, however, the level of access the press has will be determined by Judge Samour, who Lonnie Phillips says will make his decision in the next few days.

“You have to get permission from the court and it’s up to the individual judge to decide whether or not to have that in the courtroom,” said Richards. “The judge will decide where the cameras will be put, what proceedings will be broadcast.”

In 2012, the Denver Post defended allowing cameras in courtrooms in high-profile trials like that of the Aurora shooter, arguing that the public has a right to know what’s going on when a case has become a major news story.

But while Sandy Phillips doesn’t hate the media, she’s wary of so much interest in the trial of the man charged with killing her daughter.

“I don’t think anybody does anything to intentionally hurt us. They are doing their job. They are covering the story,” she said. “But when they get away the human side of the story, and it becomes sensationalism, that’s when it’s dangerous.”

She worries about the message it sends to the mass murderer who took her daughter’s life, and also the message it sends to future perpetrators of such crimes.

“We all know that on some level that this is part of the plan of the killer—to have that fame and glory, and that’s what is scary.”

Gina Tron is a freelance writer and author of memoir, You’re Fine. Follow her on Twitter.

All images and analysis via AssMatrix.
Way before Vogue proclaimed their arrogant love for ass in an article entitled, ‘We’re Officially in the Era of the Big Booty,’ a niche site named AssMatrix.com was in a corner of the internet quietly worshiping the derrière. While the fashion bible would have you believe it, white people did not discover ass. Many cultures have long been butt-obsessed, and the crew over at AssMatrix.com is part of that—they’re a collective of people from all over the world held together by their love for the posterior, and going to insanely nerdy lengths to analyze it, and to further educate the masses on asses.

The website was founded at the dawn of the 2000s, and it doesn’t appear that the format’s been updated since. It’s stacked with content (pages upon pages of blog posts ranging from titles like “Do you like Ghetto Booties or Lard Asses!” to “Poon Blockage”—honestly, I can’t make this shit up) set to the tune of an autoplaying song that sounds like it should be heard in a boxing ring. They even throw some history with posts that cite the roots of booty from Venus Hottentot to Victorian buttresses. Some pages are long form rants on serious ass-related topics with names like “THE SINGULARITY: Booties becoming “1,” while others use elaborate diagrams and analysis to deconstruct videos featuring butts with the sort of obsessive attention to detail as if they were examining the Zapruder footage. The result is an awkward cross between MTO and some dude’s 911 conspiracy site, that’s firmly rooted in everyone’s love for ass.

Over the years, they’ve had thousands of submissions to their “Send Ur Pics” section where people can submit photos of their own butts to be analyzed by the AssMatrix.com team. You really don’t understand how oddly knowledgeable they are about this shit until you see these chicks’ photos with their butts sectioned off with dotted lines and circles to point out the “booty meat.” The whole thing is so full of dedicated, worshipful nerdery you’d almost forget that the site is just a wee bit reductive and objectifying. Almost. I had the chance to chat with one of the ass analysts to clear the air about booty appreciation. To protect the integrity of their analysis and anonymity, they asked that we refer to them as a collective. It turned into the most lengthy, intellectual conversation about ass that I’ve ever experienced.

VICE: Can you tell me a bit about each of the classifications of ass that your site uses?
AssMatrix.com: So we start off with what, in my opinion, is the best. But I’m coming from the more athletic field and we tend to like more like roundish, ball-looking-type things. So that would be the "AppleBottom." But obviously it’s not for everybody—they don’t like the perkiness of it, they don’t like the top of it, it’s so round on the bottom. It might be too much of a woman for some guys. It’s just too much for them to deal with right now.

The overwhelming majority love the "Teardrop." And that’s characterized by the slope to the top with a nice, round bottom. So where you might have a hard curvature coming right off the back or just be shelf-like like the AppleBottom, you have a slope going on when you’re talking about the Teardrop. People like that, it looks like aerodynamic, it looks great in dresses. But you’re putting on dresses that jack it up and make it look like "AppleBottom."

So then we move on to the "Pigtail". This is more or less like it’s a development under the body. Everyone thinks they have "AppleBottom" or "Teardrop," but then when they find out they don’t, they get very pissed off. So it doesn’t have too much crack to it, it doesn’t have much curve. It’s pretty much just a little bit of fat dropping under the body. But it does tend to have a bit of a feature to it like an "Ass Smile."

Now, the "Ass Smile" you can get on any booty. It basically looks very bulbous, very curved, and then it extends up the middle and there’s the definition at the very bottom of the butt. Even if you’re like a tiny thing, you still like an ass with an "Ass Smile." It’s not really a class as much as a feature, but some people don’t have anything but that.

Then you have the last category, which is the "GhettoBooty." So everybody in the hood and people in Africa and people who just like a lot of size, they love that. People think big means better and that’s not true. It’s that big, round thing, it looks like a huge extension to the "AppleBottom." So it’s really a huge "AppleBottom" or a "Teardrop." Now, everyone’s paying to get injections, transplants of fat. So that used to be very prize back in the day, but now it’s all falsified.

Then there’s flat, in which there’s just nothing there. But if you’re flat and you have the "Ass Smile," a lot of guys like that.

The opposite of the "Ass Smile" is the "Grimace"—that’s the one that’s a sharper, almost like sunken version of the "Ass Smile." So when you have the curvature at the bottom for the "Ass Smile," you have this sharp peak. And a lot of ladies tend to have wide hips, but never really developed the butt and never really did anything, it never grew to scale, they have that.

And then of course there are hybrids. It’s definitely going to be at least one of those and we haven’t found one yet that didn’t have some take on one.

I feel like there’s been a trend in the Western world in general lately of people preferring butts over boobs. How do you feel about booty appreciation going mainstream?
Like anything in the mainstream media, once it makes it there, it becomes completely falsified. They started talking about tits, then they started putting the fake stuff in there, and then they want to put them in the ass. So what ends up happening is an appreciation for ladies that are a little more heftier, just have a little bit of booty in there and before they were called slobs, but you might have an "AppleBottom."

One of the negative parts about that is that if you say, “Get jiggy with it,” in the hood, you’re probably going to get stabbed. When you say something and you take it and you make it too mainstream, it just becomes dead.

The majority of the hate we get is because mainstream media is kind of forcing everyone out of the woodworks to say, Hey, look at my ass! And that created the national tension for non-black ladies with booty. Now, you can’t even find these black chicks, especially on TV or modeling, without fake augmentation. They’re all trying to go bigger because they’re trying to outdo the white chicks—the Ass Arms Race if you will. That’s the negative side of popularizing it. It’s still causing more non-ethnic people to want to celebrate the booty and that’s all we care about.

That’s the other thing we don’t like about booty becoming popularized though—the race thing, the we’re-better-than-you thing. That’s not what we’re about. You also get a lot of people with fetishes that come out and try to get in on it like this guy who put a banana in this girl’s ass and sent us a picture of it.

People must send you all kinds of weird stuff.
This guy from Ukraine, he kept sending us pictures of him fisting or him putting something in there. He just kept sending them every day. We had to have someone send him back something to tell him to stop doing it. We’re appreciating ladies.

There was this one girl and the first thing she was doing was coming with butt plugs and hooks in her ass. We get some weirdo shit about putting something in the butt. Like, can you not do that? Nobody’s talking about that, no one’s talking about anal sex. It’s always about look what I put in this lady’s butt! One guy he sent us a photo of his wife, he had her spread out on the bed and had a horsetail thing in her.

It’s like the bible—there’s misinterpretation. That’s what ends up happening to ass appreciation. We’re not talking about anal sex. Not that we don’t like it, it’s just not what this site is for. Don’t come to this site if you’re thinking about penetrating someone’s ass, because that’s not what we’re about.

For the most part though, the popularization of it is a beautiful thing. But it does have its negative aspects. Like Nicki Minaj—you saw her original pictures, she’s skinny as a toothpick and now she’s got this huge ass. It’s manufactured.

What’s AssMatrix’s stance on plastic surgery?
We absolutely do not promote that; we say openly that we hate that. We hate talking about the celebrities in the booty field because most of them are fake today. The Kardashian shit—fake. What happens is we’re sitting here looking at the celebrities endorse this stuff, next thing you know all the people in the streets want to do that.

Everybody wants a cartoon ass and that’s the problem. Every time we put something out there, we want to talk about real ladies in real situations. We tell you naturally what you need to do. We put some exercise sections in there and we have people talking all day—that was Jenni’s idea. She came in and was like, “Guys, some of these people are being serious with you and they actually do want advice.” And she helped turn it around.

Is there anything else you want to say to clear the air about booty appreciation?
We don’t like stereotypes. Stereotypes don’t always work, we already put a few pieces up that were trying to smash that because we want more people to look at their bodies—if it’s not so good, maybe you can improve it. Don’t go the surgery route. That’s the same thing as doing facial reconstruction. You’re ultimately not happy with yourself and you go and pay somebody to try to make you look like something else.

If you want to do the booty appreciation, make it natural—work out, buy a DVD, check the stuff that we put on the site, and have at it. And not just anybody can have a nice ass, but you can try. It’s not one size/one look fits all. There’s different ladies, different sizes, different types. Booty appreciation has to have almost no boundaries.


@allison_elkin

The author getting some free food at London Fashion Week. All photos by Carl Wilson.

London Fashion Week comes with its own specific set of certainties. You’ll bump into an overworked intern on a soy latte dash, you’ll spot a member of the Guinness dynasty, and you’ll realize that the front row goodie bags—full of wet-look hair gel and branded memory sticks—aren’t  that great.

However, if you’re a regular (meaning a blogger, a stylist, or anyone whose wardrobe is 70 percent gold mesh), there’s one more given: LFW means a solid run of free rooftop parties and trips to ME Hotel media bar.

This particular certainty became a very important part of my life. Last week, VICE asked me to survive fashion week “without spending any money.” And they weren’t fucking around. Everything I was to eat, drink, wear, and watch would be either hustled or gifted from the LFW circus. The clothes I turned up in on day one would be the Negroni-splattered remains you’d see on Tuesday, unless I was lucky enough to find a Snog x British Fashion Council T-shirt in a tote bag giveaway.

Literally nothing was allowed to go in or on my body if I didn't find it at London Fashion Week. For five days.

I liked the idea of temporarily morphing into a weird, malnourished survivalist popping up in the background of Mail Online photos with the glamorous tag of “bystander at the official Marchesa after party.” So I accepted the challenge.

DAY ONE

"Jack Wills" is definitely not my name

Arriving on the Friday morning, my first—and most important—task was snagging a press pass. Luckily, this was a lot easier than I’d expected. All I had to do was make life a nightmare for Somerset House’s media staff for about half an hour, whining that I’d forgotten “to ask for a commissioning letter” until I could see the blood vessels in one of the PR’s eyes about to burst. 

Understandably, they hated me by the time I'd managed to force their hand. Presumably as some form of punishment, I now had to spend the next five days sharing a name with a brand worn by school bullies and yachting professionals.

My first free lunch consisted of a packet of “Propercorn” and a newcomer called “Beauty Drink,” because after a rigorous two or three weeks on the collagen-infused frogspawn your skin will supposedly end up as smooth as a dolphin's. 

“It’s been tested and everything!” said the lady handing out drinks. Which was reassuring, I guess, if not a little worrying for the brand’s longevity that their sales pitch involves convincing people it isn't going to give you a tropical disease.

I thought it would be sensible to sign up to a few PR mail-outs at the beginning of the week—something I’d usually only do under duress. That said, while PR emails normally revolve around the new Gentleman’s Dub Club album or incredibly premature Christmas gift guides, my first of LFW got me entry to a showcase from Portuguese designers Daniela Barros and Joao Melo Costa.

Following the show, my photographer Carl and I got a mid-afternoon frozen yogurt from a free-for-all Snog stand and I picked up a sheet of fluorescent orange wristbands from a box I found. I'm not sure why—there wasn’t anything written on them. But I figured, worst-case scenario, that I might be able to somehow barter them for sustenance if I couldn't get my hands on anything other than popcorn and high-concept water.

At the ME Hotel’s bar—the cooling off spot for the week, filled with drained daily columnists and flustered shopping editors—we were told to rally outside for a fashion performance from the brand Phannatiq that promised to be both “edgy” and “Hackney-inspired.”

I’m not sure how playing industrial-sized glow sticks like guitars is either of those things. What I witnessed looked more like how I’d envisage an Andrew Lloyd Webber production of Battlestar Galactica. I needed a (free) drink.

Catching wind of a party, we headed towards Hyde Park. Stopping off at a bar in Soho on the way (we sat sipping tap water, hoping someone would leave half a bottle of Cava for us to take), I spotted Alan Yentob, who was being followed around town by a camera crew.

“Alan, we’re on the way to a party,” I said. “Fancy coming to Mayfair?”

He came through with a solid excuse—something about having to visit Mike Leigh’s flat.

My press pass got us straight into the party, slightly validating how much of a dick I’d been that morning. Then we got our good free-drinks-flow going: two limoncellos and two beers each with every bar trip.

A few of those alcoholic assembly lines in, I spotted a table of pastries. Dinner. The above picture is of me sawing a stale pie in half with two forks :(

DAY TWO

Day two wasn’t a good one for food. In our trusted press area we hustled up some of the gelatin-free gummy bears that were being handed around and drank out of the vat of terrible free coffee.

I assumed that would be the worst breakfast I’d ever have, but on the way to the Freemason’s Hall—where a number of the shows are held—it got worse: I was gifted a bag of nail polish and a packet of “Smashing Strawberry” Urban Fruit. If you’ve tried these slow-baked snacks you’ll know how oppressively dry they are. Seriously, I’d rather down the polish than gnaw my way through another one of those tangy skin flakes.

We didn’t last long at the venue. For Little Shilpa’s showcase, women with headpieces made of 70s wrapping paper skulked around a cavernous mess hall. I’m sure it was great if you’re into that kind of thing, but I didn't really get it. They just looked like a fire hazard. 

To get ready for a Rick Owens party later that night, we headed back to the Strand for a complimentary manicure. Prepping a strong black polish, the nice lady began filing, scraping, and coating my nails, taking time to clip away at chewed cuticles and lather on what I assumed to be not very expensive moisturizer. 

To be honest, I wasn't sure four black nails and one pink one were really going to help me fit in with all the health goths who populate Rick Owens parties, but it was the best I could do.

After walking to Granary Square for four free gin and tonics at Shao Yen’s showcase, we headed to a car park behind Selfridges for the main event. Well, I say main, but I mean only: after scouring emails, Facebook events, and phone notes, it seemed that Rick Owens’ mist-drenched dystopia was the night’s best option.

“How can a fucking car park be at capacity?” screamed someone in the line.

Then, in a flash, someone whose optimism I admired immediately jumped the barrier and made a dash down a smoky tunnel towards the party. As expected, his sprint was cut short by a bouncer’s clothes-line, but he carried on fighting anyway.

“I will fuck your mother’s cunt!” he shouted.

It was a decent effort, though not a particularly effective. Bouncers tend to treat you better when you're not threatening to have sex with their mom. 

Inside, industrial techno blasted from a set of amp-stacks and strobes occasionally revealed the exact kind of crowd I’d anticipated. One guy was covered in blood, another had a metal clasp around his skull and there was a gang of 12th century French counts with painted-white faces who skateboarded between dancers.

At the bar, topless, emaciated skinheads served cocktails that tasted like de-icer.

A dancer pissed all over the bar and got thrown out by his own security team.

Basically, it was too much for a man fuelled purely by free candy floss to handle.

DAY THREE

Sunday’s breakfast was much like Saturday’s: absolutely rubbish. Downing a hot chocolate sample we were handed in the street and dabbing the crumbs of Turkish delight a friend had pity-gifted me, our first destination was Hanover Square. With Vogue House looming overhead, we headed to the basement of Café Kaizen for the launch of a new fashion magazine. 

Turns out Kaizen is home to the worst cocktail in existence—a bile-inducing mix of Koko Kanu, freshly pressed lime juice, and Gomme. Still, they were free, so we hammered around five of them each and attempted to take advantage of a confusing offer from the cab app Hailo.

“3 x 10 rides during London Fashion Week,” went the subject header. Hailing this free taxi was easy—it’s just that nobody seemed to have informed our driver he'd be transporting us for nothing. Tired of us screaming the redundant codes we’d been mailed, the guy kicked us out in the middle of Shaftesbury Avenue.

Next stop was a party at Shopcade’s new pop-up store. This is what happened there:

As soon as we walked in, someone shoved a novelty Carnival weave on my head and handed me a blow-up phone. We split up immediately: I waited for a hive of cotton candy to be spun, while Carl rounded up several flutes of Lambrini.

Just as the fizz had reached our brains, Shopcade’s LFW extravaganza imploded in on itself: “Can everyone take a few steps to your right?” hollered a girl as three session musicians walked to the stage.

'Who are these strange figures attempting to ruin everyone’s night?' I thought. My question was answered almost immediately. "Put your hands up for Rough Copy!" shouted the girl.

With that, out came X Factor's emotionless covers band for one last, exhausted rendition of “Don’t Let Go”.

Leaving instantly, we walked to Mahiki, where the luxury brand Sorapol was having its SS15 piss-up. On unusually generous form, the venue offered an always four-deep crowd a free supply of whisky and chasers. And just as we were planning a quick trip to the nearest Pret food bin, a horde of guys brought out platters of fried beige.

“Is it a free-for-all?” I asked Gail Porter, who looked as confused as I was.

That photo above tells me I then washed down my fried whatever with a sip of someone’s daquiri-filled treasure chest. Which, in retrospect, is pretty shameful.

Drunk, boiling, and with handfuls of BBQ ribs to wade through, we danced to Whitney Houston tunes until a guy lit an oversized sparkler in his mouth and stole our thunder.

DAY FOUR

Monday started off civilized and ended with me eating someone’s packed lunch.

In the early afternoon we hit arts venue 180 The Strand—an old office block that’s apparently now used for much more exciting stuff—to watch Thomas Tait’s retro-futuristic spring line. As models walked under exposed wires and PRs huddled next to piles of broken plasterboard, the sound of the KLF’s “What Time Is Love” blasted from a rigged pillar. I felt like I was stood right in the middle of every 90s fashion movie ever made.

Next up, the Photographer’s Gallery brought the free Red Bull, beer, and the Designer’s Showrooms.

At that second venue we met Daisy Knights, who makes mini plastic badges you can latch to your shoes. I was starving by this point and started explaining what I was doing out of pure hangry frustration.

“Have my breakfast,” she offered, kindly handing me a sweaty banana bread bar. “I haven’t eaten it yet and it’s past six.” 

At the Sanderson Hotel we managed to get our hands on some lychee-flavored vodka in the press area, so we hung around there eyeing up the nearby gift bags, which we hoped might be full of gin and hotdogs.

Sadly, they were not. Dejected, we headed to the toilets to angrily slap on the actual contents: face putty and perfume.

After a long walk to Hoxton Square’s Lyst Studios, we were greeted by models locked in a multicolored cage. Which is probably one of the more unsettling welcomes I’ve had.

In one corner, an “anti-selfie” app called Glitché filmed passers-by and projected them, pixellated, onto a wall. As I stared forlornly at the image of my drowsy, defeated, Glitché-d up face, gallery owner Katie Rose came over and, after a quick briefing about my involuntary hunger strike, offered to find me some food. 

'I could get used to this,' I thought, before realizing there is absolutely no reason why I'd ever want to.

DAY FIVE

Tuesday’s lesson was this: as easily as it can sustain life, London Fashion Week can (nearly) take it away. That morning at the Topshop Show Space, a builder fell through the moss-coated corrugated roof, smashing into a girder on the way down.

I’d been there for the Marques Almeida show an hour or so beforehand, where I grabbed a complimentary wild boar slider for breakfast (I know) and headed to a Somerset House sofa for a lie down, trying desperately to ignore the stench of my rapidly molding clothes. 

Failing to find anyone who’d give me their lunch, we jumped in a Gordon’s gin rickshaw that was there to take guests to one of the brand’s events. When we found out said event wasn’t free, we asked the driver to drop us off at Lincoln’s Inn Fields so we could admit defeat in the comfort of worms and greenery.

Though we'd been beaten, I didn't think I'd done too badly. I had a feeling, going in, that surviving fashion week without my wallet was a pretty achievable dare. And I was right. It is relatively easy, as long as you don't mind surviving solely on stolen pies, alcohol, and pity. Copping a press pass is vital, and the rest is just a mixture of perseverance, chance, and the philanthropy of strangers. Plus, I work at a magazine, where deadline weeks usually involve wearing the same clothes for five days straight and dropping a few pounds, so that whole side of things didn't come quite as hard as it might have otherwise. 

It's an interesting spectacle, LFW. Fashion is an industry linked inextricably to consumerism, so it comes as no surprise that brand ambassadors from all over descend on the event, giving away everything from organic gummy sweets to the latest in liquid carcinogens. And it's that aspect that actually makes it the perfect place to survive off hustling and giveaways. It's a bi-annual event where people are falling over themselves to give you stuff for free, helping you to save five days' funds to go towards bills or a holiday or a full-sized wild boar bun.

My only advice: change your clothes a couple of times. I have a feeling my all-week outfit might have given me rubella.

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A Yes Campaign car in Easterhouse, Glasgow. Photo by Richard Gaston

“Britain is for the rich, Scotland can be ours,” was one of the slogans of the independence campaign, especially in some of Scotland’s poorest areas. The refrain, the brainchild of the left-wing Commonweal group, was a common sight on T-shirts and badges ahead of Scotland’s historic vote.

The Yes campaign had hoped that an appeal to social justice would swing Thursday’s election for the nationalists. Britain is often seen as being plagued by unfairness, inequality, poverty, and privilege—problems that many blame on Tory governments that Scots never vote for anyway—so it was almost taken for granted that the urban poor would vote to get out of the UK forever. Why would they want to stay joined to a country that is frequently ruled by braying Etonians? Ahead of the referendum, polls suggested that a majority of those in working class communities were in favor of leaving the 307-year-old union with England.

When I went to Easterhouse, in Glasgow’s deprived East End, on polling day, it became clear that things were not going to pan out that way.

Easterhouse was the kind of place where independence supporters had to win, and win big. Unemployment is high; jobs are scarce. Easterhouse has also become the political apathy capital of Scotland. In 2011, just 34.5 percent of those registered to vote bothered to fill out a ballot in the Holyrood elections.

That indifference seemed to evaporate on polling day. Although turnout in Glasgow—which was around 75 percent—was lower than elsewhere in Scotland, it was still far higher than for any normal election. By midday, the polling station in the St. Rose of Lima primary school on the edge of Easterhouse was already on pace for record numbers. Outside the doors, rival campaigners tried to appeal to the few remaining undecideds to lend them their ballots.

“I’m feeling confident. I think we can do this,” said Tony Kenny, an activist with the local branch of the Radical Independence Campaign (RIC). Kenny, who had spent three years campaigning for independence, wore a “Bordeaux Antifa” T-shirt. With him were an activist from Dublin and a Frenchman who came to the cause via a website called Celts for Independence.

In recent months RIC has organized huge voter registration drives, even enlisting new voters outside job centers, and spent countless hours canvassing the kind of homes and neighborhoods often neglected by politicians. But even in Easterhouse the Yes campaign, always behind in the polls nationally, seemed to struggle. While some voters sported bright blue “Yes” badges, many of those that I spoke to were “quiet Nos.” They did not put posters in their windows or placards on the lampposts outside their houses, but were nonetheless rejecting the nationalist vision for independence. 

“I think we’re better together,” said Marie Doherty, an Easterhouse mother, after she voted yesterday. She was, she said, worried about the prospects for North Sea oil and the economic stability of an independent Scotland. “My husband has voted No, too,” she added.

Yes campaigners had hoped—many had even assumed—that the serial election avoiders who did come out to vote in places like as Easterhouse would overwhelmingly back leaving the UK, but that was not always the case. Rather than having “nothing to lose.” some were frightened of losing what little they had.

“I don’t normally vote at all but I was worried about this so I came out to vote no,” said one woman, citing concerns about her self-employed husband’s job as the main motivation for coming out to vote “for the first time since I can remember.”

Outside the polling station in Easterhouse, Yes campaigners were, as they had been throughout the campaign, the more visible of the two sides, handing out stickers and balloons. Nevertheless, the solitary No campaigner, Jamie, a Scottish Labour member, was still confident.

“Obviously there should be change and I want more change, but I also think that the prospectus put forward by the Yes campaign doesn’t add up,” he said. “I think we would be better off remaining as we are with more devolution.”

“If ain’t broke don’t fix it,” said one man. “This is the best country in the world.”

Photo by the author

Not everyone agreed that the UK isn't broke and in need of fixing. Just after lunch, a steadily growing chorus came from behind the metal fence that surrounded the school perimeter. Seconds later a cavalcade of mothers pushing strollers turned up the path to the school and the polling station. In unison they sang “Flower of Scotland” while wearing “Yes” T-shirts and badges and waving flags.

“These past few weeks I think Scotland’s found a voice. We know now that we don’t have to settle for what the government give us,” said Tracy, who had organized the group to come en masse to vote. “I want to have a better future for my kids, for my grandkids,” she added. “Scotland is going to be very different tomorrow either way. If it’s a vote it gives these kids the chance to say, ‘We can do it.’ If we don’t do it they will.”

It had been said ahead of the vote that if the Yes campaign won Glasgow, long a stronghold of the anti-independence Labour, they would win Scotland. In the end that wasn’t the case. The nationalists managed to convince a majority in Scotland’s largest city but failed to attract enough votes in parts of Scotland such as Aberdeen and Edinburgh that have been friendly territory for the Scottish National Party in recent years.

Across Glasgow turnout was not high enough—and the margin of victory not large enough—to reverse the nationwide vote for the union. In Easterhouse, Tony Kenny was deeply pessimistic about what life would be like after a No vote.

“It’s not just me who's going to be disappointed," he said. "There’s going to be hundreds of thousands of people who will be devastated because they know this was our chance to change things.”

But some independence supporters were more sanguine at the end of a campaign that mobilized and engaged tens of thousands across Scotland.

“Even if it is a No I think the political landscape has changed,” said one Yes voter on her way to the polling station in Easterhouse. “People are getting involved and want to participate in things that will affect their future. I think things will change regardless."

Glasgow’s poorest people didn’t vote as people expected—to create an independent Scotland that works better for them. But with people in one of the country’s most apathetic areas now turned on to politics, maybe they’ll play a larger role in shaping the UK from now on.

Follow Peter Geoghegan on Twitter.

Thumbnail photo via Wikipedia Creative Commons

In the second installment of the What Happens When You Die podcast, our resident death expert Megan Rosenbloom (whose next edition of the Death Salon lecture series is in San Francisco on October 11th) teaches us about Tibetan sky burials, which includes birds eating your decaying, lifeless corpse.

Our special guests for this episode are comedians Guy Branum (Head Writer of X-Play on G4, Chelsea Lately) and Billy Wayne Davis (Last Comic Standing, WTF with Marc Maron). Joining them are VICE contributors Josh Androsky and Grant Pardee.

PRODUCER: BRETT RADER

ENGINEER: CHRIS SOUSA

MUSIC: LA FONT

Recorded at EMP Studios

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Be careful, teens. Photo via Flickr user imcomkorea

Do you feel that brisk air? As I gaze out my window, there's an indoor palm tree and a box of promotional sex toys blocking my view. If I stand up, though, I can see it: The first leaves are turning color. People are testing out new jackets, perhaps prematurely. Like a teen's body, the weather is going through changes. But even as time passes, some things never change. As it was in the beginning of summer, so it is today: Teenagers are (still) lighting themselves on fire.

This week, an 18-year-old in Boise, Idaho, flipped his SUV after his 16-year-old passenger lit his armpit hair on fire. While it's unclear where the teens were going, it seems likely that the fact that the accident occurred at 5:30 AM might have played a role. Neither the driver nor any of his four passengers were wearing seatbelts, and three of the teens were sent to the hospital with serious injuries. While cars can be a great source of freedom for young people, they're also 3,000-pound shrapnel delivery devices. According to the CDC, "Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for US teens." It goes without saying, then, that in addition to things like texting or playing with the radio, drivers should avoid having themselves lit on fire. Otherwise that trip home from a bonfire in the clearing can quickly turn into a visit to the ER—or worse.

Here’s the rest of this week in Teens:

Do you really trust that sauce on your burger? Teens are messing with your food. Photo via Flickr user Doran

–The idea that disgruntled employees do gross things to your fast food has long been a trope of bad movies, but does that actually happen in real life? Of course it does! Teens have a natural inclination to rub their genitals on anything. Combine that with a salary of $6/hour and some guy who wants his burger faster and you've got yourself a recipe for some extra-secret sauce. At a Texas outpost of Papa Murphy's, an 18-year-old employee who was upset that a customer ordered a pizza around closing time was caught rubbing his scrotum on said pizza by said customer. The customer then asked the employee's age. "You are old enough to know better than to put your balls on someone's pizza," he said, which seems like a bit of a fallacy. Probably you're either always the type of person who might rub your balls on someone's pizza, or you never were.

Juggalos in happier times. Photo by Peter Larson

–Every story about the Insane Clown Posse is funny, so here's the exception that proves the rule. At 4 AM on Sunday in Ohio, a boy wearing an ICP mask broke into the home of his former friend. His friend's mom, failing to recognize him (because of the clown mask), saw him standing over her son's bed and shot at him with her boyfriend's gun. She says she didn't realize she'd actually hit him, so she didn't call 911. It's a little weird that she found the situation serious enough to warrant a gunshot but not serious enough to warrant letting calling the police, but maybe she just had drugs or something she didn't want the police to see? What matters is that the intruder's friends didn't call the police either, initially. Presumably because they didn't want to get in trouble, they waited over an hour to dial 911. By the time the boy finally made it to the hospital, it was too late, and he died around 6 AM. Because the friends waited to call for help, they're now being charged with murder. Yes, the Facebook photo of the deceased—stunned look, backwards hat, light chin hair, gold chain, lanyard, "Westside" hand sign—make him look exactly like someone who would get shot breaking and entering in an Insane Clowne Posse mask, but that still doesn't make this funny. As the presiding sheriff of the situation said, "It was a bad decision on top of a bad decision."

Jack Kerouac, perfect teen. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

-In historical teen news, new evidence suggests that perennial yearbook quote source Jack Kerouac truly was the ultimate teen. Sure, we've long been aware that, in addition to writing a novel that young people love to pretend to have read, he was also a huge football jock. But did you know that he also wrote love letters as a teenager? Well, he did, and they're super embarrassing. In one of the newly up-for-auction letters, he describes his dream date to a friend and promises to "worship her with quiet dignity," before admitting that, "I am afraid that God-damned Jew Sokolow has already asked her.” In another letter, he implores his pen pal to have sex with a girl, writing, "Lay her you babe, and we’ll have a twice weekly fuck for the rest of our lives, which is really LIVING." Nothing screams "adolescent" quite like romantic whimsy, casual racism, and an intransigent focus on getting laid.

–­The fundamental oppositional forces in the life of a teen should be parents and teachers; as such, the true cutoff for teendom is 18. After that you've got adult problems, with parents and teachers being replaced by capitalism and the void. Sensing adulthood approaching, a teen in Milwaukee spent his last days as a 17-year-old engaged in an extended crime spree. Together with some friends, he's been charged with a week’s worth of car jackings and robberies at gunpoint. The cops finally caught up with him after a high-speed chase, at which point he told police that his birthday was the next day, and that he was trying to "do as many robberies as he could" before turning 18. Unfortunately for this guy, there's a pretty good chance that a 17-year-old who commits a violent crime in Wisconsin will be sentenced as an adult.

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Vicki Shelton and her son, Nathan, in front of their West Virginia home. Both suffered chronic health issues from heating their home with coal.

Vicki Shelton, 57, lives in a house in the woods in Clay County, West Virginia. The county is exceedingly rural and poor—26 percent of its 9,000 residents live in poverty. The average income hovers around $16,000.

Shelton still uses wood heating to weather the cold West Virginia winters, where temperatures often drop to 20 degrees Farenheit. For her and her son Nathan, wood and coal are the only affordable approaches to heating their home, a small cordwood house they built themselves with the help of a few friends. So every so often, Nathan goes out into the surrounding woods and chops up lumber. “We were just talking about how we need to start splitting the logs now before winter comes,” she said. “Hopefully the pile lasts through the season.”

Shelton used to use coal to heat her home, but for years she suffered from debilitating headaches. She finally decided coal might be the reason. After switching to wood, her headaches went away. She says she knows there might be longer-term health effects from using wood, but as of now it’s her best option. “We have no utilities, so right now that’s pretty much the only way to heat the house,” she said. “Even if we had other options, that’s probably what we’d do because we’re limited in the budget area.”

People like Vicki and Nathan, who use wood, coal, and other solid fuels to heat their homes, are a dying breed. But a new study found that 6.5 million Americans are still doing it. And the findings suggest that this use can often lead to serious health consequences.

The study, published in last month’s Environmental Health Perspectives, shows for the first time that using solid fuels to heat your home is tightly linked with rural poverty. And its authors are the first to crunch the data and estimate how many Americans in rural and poor areas could be exposed to elevated levels of Household Air Pollutants (HAPs) because of what they use to heat their homes. Up to 600,000 people could be experiencing health problems associated with HAPs, problems like asthma, respiratory issues, and cancers.

For years, the effects of indoor use of coal and wood have been associated with poor and developing countries. But this study suggests that in many parts of the United States, the rural poor are experiencing many of the same issues as the rural poor of China and India.

Map courtesy of Environmental Health Perspectives

“There’s a lot of interest in indoor air pollution, but this issue mostly gets attention in the developing world,”  Pauline Mendola, one of the study’s authors, told me over the phone. She's also an epidemiological investigator at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, so her opinion on home heating bears a bit of weight. “There are pockets here and in other developed countries that haven’t been studied as much.”

By overlaying federal poverty data with census data about home heating, Mendola and her fellow researchers found 117 counties across the US that had high incidents of poverty, and high incidents of solid fuel use—counties that were therefore more likely to experience the health effects of HAPs.

The researchers then extrapolated the data from studies on the health effects of solid fuels to fit their national dataset, and found that a whopping 600,000 people could be at risk because of their heating choices.

Those people live where you might expect: rural places that get cold during the winter (Alaska, and the more rural parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado), and throughout the Appalachian region (mainly West Virginia and Kentucky).

Burning solid fuels indoors is particularly dangerous because it creates particulate matter small enough to get way down deep into people’s lungs and even into their bloodstream without being rejected by the body. A buildup of that kind of particulate matter can cause inflammation, asthma, low birth weight, childhood pneumonia, cataracts, heart disease and lung cancer.

The largest coal breaker constructed in North America, the Huber Breaker dominates the landscape of the little town of Ashley, PA. The breaker was used to break large chunks of anthracite coal into smaller chunks for use as home heating fuel. Photo by Flickr user John Morgan

The health effects of using coal and wood are less extreme in the U.S. than elsewhere because the vast majority of people who use solid fuels here have stoves like Shelton. Those stoves are designed to funnel most of smoke outside. But researchers say fugitive emissions are still a major concern.

Still, for some people, the risks are worth it.

“I would take the health effects before I would take the dependence on big evil energy corporations,” said Katherine Grossman, who lives in rural Western Pennsylvania and blogs about self-reliance. “I can heat my home just from the sticks in my front yard. Why pay somebody else to do what I can do myself?”

Plus, Grossman said, the health benefits from doing everything herself probably outweigh the risks of indoor air pollution. “I never have to see the doctor,” she said. “Maybe it’s because I have to gather wood and don’t sit on my ass all day.”

There’s not enough research to know exactly what role household particulate matter is playing in areas where lots of people use solid fuels in their houses. Other confounding factors that are associated with the rural poor, like higher smoking rates and poor nutrition, make figuring it out nearly impossible. But it’s worth noting that the average death rate from lower respiratory diseases in the at-risk counties identified by Mendola’s study was twice the national average.

“The stoves minimize the pollution in the house, but you’re always going to generate particulate matter,” said Robert Finkelman, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas who has studied coal-based heating and cooking extensively in China as well as in the United States.

Finkelman’s work in China has focused on areas with some of the highest rates of lung cancer in the world, thanks in large part to the coal locals use to heat and cook in their homes.

What’s most concerning to Finkelman and others is that there’s rarely another option for those who use solid fuels to heat their homes.  From coal country in West Virginia to villages in the most remote sections of China, there’s one commonality for people who use solid fuels: poverty.

“Whether it’s Navajos in Arizona, or people in Appalachia, or people in China, their choices are limited,” Finkelman said. “They’re the poorest of the poor, so they use the cheapest option.”

Follow Peter Moskowitz on Twitter.

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

Cry-Baby #1: David William Latham

Screencaps via KIROTV

The incident: A dog was barking.

The appropriate response: Speaking to the owner, then speaking to the police if they don't do anything about it.

The actual response: A man allegedly shot and killed a dog (which turned out to be the wrong dog.)

Late last week, there was a dog barking on a suburban street in Bellingham, Washington. This allegedly did not sit well with 55-year-old banker David William Latham.

According to a report on Seattle's KIROTV, David walked over to the house of his neighbor, Loyce Andrews, took out a rifle, and shot her 13-month-old corgi Molly.

"He just came up to the fence and shot her in the chest," Loyce told the station.

"I held her the whole time she was dying," she said. "She was screaming and panting."

As David walked back to his house, he reportedly stopped to point his rifle at Loyce's husband, Cary Chunyk.

David was arrested at his home later that evening. He was charged with a variety of things, including felony animal cruelty and a misdemeanor charge of illegal carrying, drawing, or exhibiting of a weapon.

According to police, David admitted to shooting the dog, saying that he did it because he was upset that dogs in the neighborhood wouldn't stop barking. 

He was released on a $20,000 bond, and is due to appear back in court in October.

According to a report in the Bellingham Herald, the barking continued after the corgi had been shot. "He said to the cops, 'Oh my god, I shot the wrong dog.' As if there's a right dog," Loyce told the paper.

Cry-Baby #2: Kathy Rowe

The incident: A woman lost out on her dream home.

The appropriate response: Finding another home.

The actual response: She tried to trick people into raping the people who outbid her.

Back in 2011, 52-year-old Kathy Rowe was hoping to buy a home in San Diego, California, but lost out to an unnamed couple.

As Kathy has a disabled daughter and this is one of the few single-storey houses in the area, she was not too happy about losing out on the home. So she allegedly decided to launch a campaign of harassment against the new owners. 

Kathy's campaign of terror started small, doing things like signing the couple up for junk mail, sending religious groups to their home, and listing their house as being for sale. 

She then started to get creative, posting online announcements for a New Year's Eve party and a free Mexican fireworks giveaway. She also sent Valentine's Day cards from the husband to local married women.

But, several months ago, Kathy escalated her efforts even further. According to a report on NBC San Diego, Kathy posted an ad on Craigslist posing as the new homeowners. The ad was titled "Carmel Valley Freak Show" which sought men to come to the house for sex during the day while the husband was at work.

One man responded to the ad via email, and Kathy, posing as the female homeowner, told him to "just show up at the door and force [your] way in the door and on me, totally taking me while I say no." She also told the man that she loved anal sex and threesomes. 

Another man who responded to the listing actually turned up at the home. Luckily, the husband answered the door when he did. 

After this incident, Kathy was arrested and charged with soliciting forcible rape and forcible sodomy, as well as several lesser crimes.

Speaking to ABC10 News, Brendan McHugh, the prosecutor in Kathy's case, said, "Her intention was that this victim be raped."

In court documents, Kathy claimed that she didn't want anyone to be raped, but was actually just playing "childish pranks." That suggests she doesn't know what the words "childish" or "pranks" means.

"It clearly was not intended to be a situation of harm," said Brad Patton, her attorney. That suggests he doesn't know what the word "clearly" means.

Kathy is currently free on $50,000 bail. She will appear in court again in October. If convicted, she faces nine years in jail.

She had previously been named a Mother of the Year in 2007 for taking care of her disabled daughter. No word yet on if she's nominated for 2014.

Which of these two is the bigger cry-baby? Let us know in this poll down here, if you could:

Previously: Some people who arrested a kid for pretending to have sex with a statue of Jesus vs. a guy who egged his neighbors' cars because they were parking on the street

Winner: The Jesus statue guys!!!

Follow Jamie Lee Curtis Taete on Twitter