Quantcast
Channel: VICE CA
Viewing all 38002 articles
Browse latest View live

Comics: Fashion Cat in 'FML'

0
0

[body_image width='1000' height='516' path='images/content-images/2015/01/07/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/07/' filename='fashion-cat-in-fml-000-body-image-1420665809.jpg' id='16266']

Look at Alex Schubert's blog and buy his books from Koyama Press.


Islamic State and al Qaeda Supporters Cheer 'Charlie Hebdo' Attackers on Social Media

0
0
Islamic State and al Qaeda Supporters Cheer 'Charlie Hebdo' Attackers on Social Media

Stephen Harper 'Angered' by Paris Attack, Compares It to Ottawa Shooting

0
0

[body_image width='990' height='492' path='images/content-images/2015/01/07/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/07/' filename='stephen-harper-angered-by-paris-attacks-compares-it-to-ottawa-shooting-273-body-image-1420669473.png' id='16286']

The attackers getting into their escape car. Photo via VICE News video screengrab

Mere months after suspected ISIS sympathizers launched attacks on Canadian targets, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued his own statement denouncing attacks in Paris against satire magazine Charlie Hebdo that killed 12.

"I am angered and saddened to hear of the terrorist attack today in the offices of the Parisian news magazine 'Charlie Hebdo,'" said Harper in his official statement. "The perpetrators of this attack must be apprehended and brought to justice."

Several media outlets are now identifying the three attackers as brothers Said Kouachi, 34, and Cherif Kouachi, 32, along with 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad. Cherif was convicted of terrorism charges in 2008 after funnelling militants to Iraq. It is not yet clear if the group acted on behalf of any entities at waging war in Syria and Iraq.

The three perpetrators, possibly still at large, reportedly yelled "Allahu Akhbar!" ("God is great!") as they opened fire with kalashnikovs in the streets of Paris, and that they allegedly claimed membership with al Qaeda in Yemen. The daylight attack is the fourth such terrorist operation in France in three weeks.

Although no group has formally taken responsibility, Harper was quick to link the shootings to the plague of international terrorism facing Canada and several of its allies. An international brigade of nations is dropping bombs on Islamic State and militant targets in Iraq and Syria, crippling the burgeoning militant state known for mass beheadings and promoting global jihad.

"This barbaric act, along with recent attacks in Sydney, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, and Ottawa, is a grim reminder that no country is immune to the types of terrorist attacks we have seen elsewhere around the world," said Harper, mentioning the locations of the two Canadian attacks in October.

"Canada and its allies will not be intimidated and will continue to stand firmly together against terrorists who would threaten the peace, freedom, and democracy our countries so dearly value. Canadians stand with France on this dark day," he said.

In a video posted earlier this morning from the attack, the masked gunmen clad in black are seen moving in tactical formations wearing bulletproof vests. As one shooter secures the area before returning to a hijacked Citroen escape car, he shoots a single round without breaking a step into the head of an injured police officer who was pleading for mercy.

WARNING: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES

[youtube src='//www.youtube.com/embed/voMnYeyOzwM' width='560' height='315']

That kind of tactical ability and callousness denotes a tested operator who may have either received training or saw some level of battlefield activity. It's worth noting that there is a precedent of former western combatants with militant groups in Syria returning to Europe battle-hardened. So far, an al Qaeda-linked Twitter account told AP it was not taking responsibility for the attacks as of yet, but found them "inspiring."

One known ISIS fighter with a strong Twitter presence disputed that Jahbat al-Nusra, the al Qaeda-linked militant group operating in Syria and Iraq, were responsible for the attack. Instead, his now-suspended account @AbuHeadshot made threats against westerners and praised the attackers.

Since western airstrikes began in the summer, senior members of ISIS urged foreign sympathizers to carry out attacks on westerners. In August, one senior spokesman with the group, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, urged sympathizers abroad to "kill a disbelieving American or European—especially the spiteful and filthy French—or an Australian, or a Canadian."

Screen Shot 2015-01-07 at 11.46.22 AM.pngA screenshot of Inspire magazine's hit list.

Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine known to militants that despised the published pictures of the Prophet Muhammad, was in fact a known target. In a 2013 issue of Inspire magazine, an al Qaeda-linked publication, publisher Stéphane Charbonnier was featured on a hit list of desired kills. Hours before gunmen stormed its office, Charlie Hebdo tweeted a caricature of ISIS spiritual leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The collective memory of public attacks against western citizens may strengthen the alliance currently carrying out military operations on ISIS in Iraq and Syria. France and Canada are both known participants in the air campaigns that destroy ISIS positions weekly.

And if Harper's harsh words for the scourge of international terrorism are anything to go by—the fight against jihadist militants around the world might just escalate after today's tragic events.

Follow Ben on Twitter.

Bill Gates Wants You to Drink Turd Water

0
0

[body_image width='1920' height='1080' path='images/content-images/2015/01/07/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/07/' filename='bill-gates-wants-you-to-drink-poop-water-776-body-image-1420636465.jpg' id='16061']Chug! Chug! Chug! Still via YouTube

This post first appeared on VICE UK

Billion-dollar-man-with-a-six-dollar-haircut Bill Gates is funding a machine that will take your raw and uncut turds and, through the process of what is essentially alchemy, turn human crap into not just clean drinking water but also electricity. It's hard to tell if Gates has just gone full-on "evil billionaire" and is using his vast fortune to make us all drink turd water, but until he starts saying stuff like, "I'll pay you $150,000 to let me kill your dog," let's assume his heart is in the right place.

The business magnate and Microsoft founder took to his blog yesterday to report the news that he was funding Washington-based firm Janicki Industries as they try to bring the magical turd-converter, dubbed "the Omniprocessor," to some of the poorest parts of the world. So far, so not-an-evil-billionaire. Here he is drinking some turd water to prove how OK it is:

[youtube src='//www.youtube.com/embed/bVzppWSIFU0' width='640' height='360']

The Omniprocessor takes assorted waste slurry and runs it through a heated pipe that boils those shits right up, extracting the water as a vapor and sending the leftover turds into an incinerator bit to be turned into ash. The hot steam runs through a steam engine, creating clean electricity to power the Omniprocessor as well as an excess for, like, a MacBook or whatever. Then the water is cleaned and cooled and poured into a glass for Bill Gates to drink.

As well as creating three sellable products for whoever owns and operates the machine (excess electricity can be sold back to the grid, while the ash can be packaged as fertilizer), the Omniprocessor solves one of the biggest problems in the developing world: access to sanitation.

The UN estimates that 2.5 billion people still have no access to improved sanitation, with over 1 billion still defecating in the open air. That can lead to major health issues—from diarrhea to polio, cholera, and typhoid—when human waste gets into the water supply. It's estimated that 700,000 children die each year from illnesses related to poor sanitation. The Omniprocessor can take a huge step towards tackling the problem when the first machine is set up in Dakar, Senegal later this year.

People are doing some pretty creative things with turds at the moment. In November, the Bath Bus Company announced a new Bristol–Bath shuttle bus that would be exclusively powered by a biomethane gas distilled from human waste, which as a result emits 80 percent of the CO2 of a diesel-powered equivalent. With reliance on fossil fuels generally seen as "the inevitable cause of our downfall," it seems the West can benefit from boiling poop into a horribly useful gas, too.

Yeah, turds are more powerful than you think. Turds can save lives and save the environment, too. Think about that next time you work out six pints of Guinness and a vindaloo: You are shitting hope.

Follow Joel Golby on Twitter.

A Few of the Voices from LA's 'Charlie Hebdo' Vigil

0
0

On Wednesday night there were vigils all over the world in response to the massacre at the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo during which 12 people were killed. Huge crowds gathered in Paris, London, Montreal, and New York. But there were also, by my count, over a hundred people also gathered in Los Angeles.

[body_image width='2000' height='944' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='a-few-of-the-voices-from-las-iamcharlie-vigil-981-body-image-1420692251.jpg' id='16340']

The impromptu event was organized via hashtag, and was held in and around the Figaro Bistrot, a Parisian-style cafe and bar in the Los Feliz neighborhood, just east of Hollywood. As more and more demonstrators showed up, the crowd outgrew the sidewalk and poured onto Vermont Avenue

Just as I arrived, some guy with a gruff voice yelled down from an upstairs apartment, "Hey, you guys gonna at least tell me what you're waiting for?" A friendly woman's voice with a French accent yelled up at the guy, "We're having a vigil for the shooting in Paris. Is that OK?" In response, the gruff guy just kind of sputtered and went back inside.

That little tableau should give you a pretty good sense of why the event needed to exist, but I asked some of the demonstrators what the tragedy meant to LA's French community.

[body_image width='2000' height='1333' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='a-few-of-the-voices-from-las-iamcharlie-vigil-981-body-image-1420693823.jpg' id='16342']

Gaston, 22, student

VICE: What brought you here?
Gaston: I heard that a lot of French people were gonna be here, so I just came to support the families over in France. I want to see my country come together, and I don't want them to mistake Muslim people for terrorist people. Muslim people make their own stuff, and it's really good. I don't want French people to think the shooters are just Muslim.

What do you think will happen next?
At this moment, in France, we have the extreme right really growing up, and it's a thing. I don't want them to use this to become stronger.

[body_image width='2000' height='1333' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='a-few-of-the-voices-from-las-iamcharlie-vigil-981-body-image-1420693894.jpg' id='16343']

Fabienne, actress and Reiki practitioner

VICE: Are you a Charlie Hebdo fan?
Fabienne: I've known Cabu and [Georges] Wolinski, two of the caricaturists, since I was a little girl, and I really liked their view of the human race and their analysis of the situation. One drawing that comes to mind right now is the big hand of Allah pointing down at a jihadist and saying "Allah is great, and he's very capable of defending the prophet on his own."

Is that why you're here?
[Tonight is about] being together, and showing that Charlie Hebdo is not dead. Their voices have not died. Free speech is still alive, wherever we are in the world.

What's going to happen next?
Some people are gonna mix up everything, and say that all Muslims are bad, then be afraid and closed off to difference and then unknown. The hope I have is that people unite peacefully. But I really doubt it's gonna happen.

[body_image width='2000' height='1333' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='a-few-of-the-voices-from-las-iamcharlie-vigil-981-body-image-1420694011.jpg' id='16344']

Felix, 66, principal of a French school

VICE: What effect has Charlie Hebdo had on you?
Felix: I used to read Charlie Hebdo and I kept the drawings. I draw myself, so I admired those people so much.

So what's next for France?
This is a threat for the future of France because it can push the extremists on the other side. The nationalists can be violent. So it's important to be here, and not to yield to the threat. But there was a good reaction in France. The different religions came together and said "No way. We don't accept that." Even the Muslims. I was afraid, of course, that this could be the start of a very severe atmosphere in France. But from what I saw and heard today from different political parties was that they're trying to be united.

You sound almost optimistic.
I hope so. I can only hope.

[body_image width='2000' height='1333' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='a-few-of-the-voices-from-las-iamcharlie-vigil-981-body-image-1420694043.jpg' id='16345']

Hugo, 21, student

VICE: What do you want to see next for France?
Hugo: Fighting all types of extremism, but trying to be clear about what's an extremist and what's not.

What are some differences you want to point out?
Extremism to me is when you don't respect the people around you. Thinking that what you think is better than what others think. And acting to change the manner of other people... In a bad way.

[body_image width='2000' height='1333' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='a-few-of-the-voices-from-las-iamcharlie-vigil-981-body-image-1420698357.jpg' id='16346']

I talked to some more people last night, wondering if anyone in the crowd was welling up with rage or xenophobia. But the others I spoke to struck more or less the same notes as these four: lots of melancholy, obviously, segueing into fear that anti-Muslim sentiment in France might grow.

I couldn't find a drop of anger. Maybe it's our weather, or maybe the grief was just too fresh. Either way, it was a pleasant surprise on a very unpleasant day.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Do Public Figures Accused of Rape Deserve Anonymity?

0
0

[body_image width='700' height='392' path='images/content-images/2015/01/07/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/07/' filename='do-mps-accused-of-rape-deserve-body-image-1420627752.png' id='15989']Mark Pritchard. Screenshot via

This post first appeared on VICE UK

Life was pretty good for Mark Pritchard at the start of December. In his second term as the Tory MP for the Wrekin, with a 10,000 majority since the last election, the only thing most people knew him for was a famous incident in a corridor at the House of Commons where he told Speaker of the House John Bercow, "You are not fucking royalty, Mr. Speaker!"

On December 2 he was arrested for an alleged rape, but that still wasn't a big problem. Not until the Metropolitan Police sent a letter to John Bercow about the arrest (as Speaker of the House he's responsible for such things), reference to which ended up in a publicly available document. Then the press got ahold of it and, shortly after, Pritchard was arrested.

A month later, the police have dropped the investigation. Whatever happened or didn't happen, there was insufficient evidence to build any case. Pritchard is in the clear. But 2015 is an election year. Four short months from now, the MP will face the people of The Wrekin and face their own judgment on his guilt or innocence. Will it cost him votes? Will he lose his seat? Who knows.

Either way, Pritchard wants a review of the law. He believes it's unfair that his accuser has the right to remain anonymous, while defendants in these cases don't. "Of course she remains anonymous," he complained. "The law on anonymity does need to be reviewed and fairness does need to play a greater part in these cases."

It's all too easy to bash politicians these days, but is he right? Is Pritchard's situation unfair? Should people arrested for rape be given anonymity?

Weirdly, Pritchard almost got his wish in 2010. The freshly-baked coalition said in their agreement, "We will extend anonymity in rape cases to defendants." I say weirdly because the policy wasn't in either the Tory or Lib Dem manifestos. It sort of appeared out of nowhere, fully formed. It was dropped within a few months, which isn't surprising since it was the Tories who ended anonymity for defendants in the first place, under Thatcher back in 1988. The policy had only been in place for 12 years by then, and it was seen as a failure.

The idea sounds fair, but, ironically, could actually be bad for defendants. That sounds backward until you realize that our whole justice system is built on being open. We're suspicious of secret courts or secret police forces because, when you can't shine a light on what officials are doing, all kinds of abuse can happen. Being named may not be great for your reputation if you're famous, but in high-profile cases it actually gives you a lot of protection that you might not have if the people aren't even allowed to say that you've been arrested.

The public interest argument bears repeating, too. Imagine you live in Pritchard's constituency. Would you prefer to know that he was arrested on suspicion of rape? Do you believe that you're intelligent enough to deal with that information fairly? Well then. But where Pritchard and others might have a point is on whether the media report these cases fairly. Was it really necessary for the BBC to put a helicopter over Cliff Richard's house? Probably not. In fact, a court may be ruling on that question in the near future.

The third problem is power. In the kinds of cases with enough publicity to make anonymity an issue, the defendant is usually powerful and the accuser usually isn't. Often, powerful people are protected by walls of secrecy that are hard to break down—no one wants to be the first to speak out against them. In the words of the prosecutor in Rolf Harris's case, he was "too famous, too powerful, and his reputation made him untouchable." We saw the same with Jimmy Savile, Max Clifford, and other recent cases, where many victims only came forward once the name was in the public domain.

The truth is, false allegations are rare, and the damage isn't always that great. Michael Le Vell was found innocent, and returned to his job on Coronation Street shortly after. Craig Charles was cleared, and was back back making Red Dwarf a couple of years later. Even actual convictions don't seem to put the breaks on some celebrities' careers. Roman Polanski won an Oscar while a fugitive. Celebrities from Chris Brown to Charlie Sheen keep their place in the establishment in spite of domestic violence charges.

And then there's Ched Evans. The man was convicted of rape—found guilty by a unanimous jury—and yet, despite vehement petitioning from the general public, still appears to be in negotiations with clubs that will allow his return to a high-profile, highly-paid profession.

Naming public figures who have been arrested on rape allegations may inconvenience them, but history has shown that, with exposure, several others are brought to justice for very serious crimes.

Follow Martin Robbins on Twitter.

More like this from VICE:

Is the Media Stopping Rape Victims Coming Forwards?

Ched Evans Has Apologised to Everyone But the Girl He Raped

We Can No Longer Ignore the 15 Women Bill Cosby Allegedly Raped



Meeting the Londoners at Last Night's 'Charlie Hebdo' Solidarity Vigil

0
0

[body_image width='1200' height='800' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='photos-from-last-nights-charlie-hebdo-vigil-in-trafalgar-square-327-body-image-1420710560.jpg' id='16372']

Silence fell upon Trafalgar Square yesterday as hundreds of Londoners spontaneously gathered in reaction to the barbaric killing of 12 people at the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

The worst attack on French soil in over 40 years particularly hit home with the capital's sizable French community. "It feels like 9/11, it's the same shock," says Jérémy, a young Frenchman who recently moved to London. Among the first to arrive on the square last night, he shows me his pen and notebook: "I brought my own weapons."

[body_image width='1200' height='800' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='photos-from-last-nights-charlie-hebdo-vigil-in-trafalgar-square-327-body-image-1420710529.jpg' id='16370']

As a French person living in London, I couldn't see myself being anywhere else last night. It was difficult to process what had happened on the streets of Paris that I know so well. It didn't make sense, and it won't for a while.

I thought about the satirists whose drawings I've grown up with. Sometimes they made me laugh to tears. Other times they made me uneasy—I thought they were adding fuel to the fire in France's tense religious and political climate. But I'll always respect Charlie Hebdo for standing up proudly to defend its anti-establishment spirit and freedom of speech.

[body_image width='1200' height='800' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='photos-from-last-nights-charlie-hebdo-vigil-in-trafalgar-square-327-body-image-1420710544.jpg' id='16371']Anaïs Cornivault

"I'm worried racism is going to explode, that's exactly what makes the scores of the [mainstream far-right French party] Front National go up. It's scary," says Anaïs Cornivault, a French student based in London.

"What the attackers want is to install a climate of terror; this is why we came here, to show them that we're not scared," her friend Laura Daviller, adds.

"It's insane that words or drawings can get people killed," says Alice Caubrière, a politics student, "I'm going to buy a subscription; we can't be defeated."

Like the gatherings happening simultaneously across France, where over 100,000 people paid tribute to the deceased, those assembled defiantly hold hundreds of pens in the air. Then a faint and solemn "Marseillaise" fills the square: the only time all evening the heavy silence is broken. It's like a funeral for France's favourite clowns: Cabu, Charb, Tignous, Wolinski, the country's top satirists.

[body_image width='1200' height='800' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='photos-from-last-nights-charlie-hebdo-vigil-in-trafalgar-square-327-body-image-1420710610.jpg' id='16375']

And it wasn't only French expats in attendance. "I've never read Charlie Hebdo," explains Geoff Moore, a retired lecturer who used to work at the London College of Printing, "but I'm a lifelong reader of Private Eye. I feel very moved." Geoff had printed out a sign that read "Je suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie"), a phrase of solidarity that has been adopted worldwide. "The UK and France are so close, both are free countries. It's our common values that have come under attack," he says.

Charlie Hebdo was created in 1970. Cabu, who was born Jean Cabut and murdered yesterday, had been there from the start. The publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in 2006 made the weekly a target for attacks. The magazine's office was destroyed by a firebomb in 2011 and the newspaper's new premises were placed under police guard. Until his death yesterday the satirist Charb, born Stephane Charbonnier, had also been living under police protection after receiving death threats. At the time, he said, "It probably sounds a bit pompous, but I'd rather die standing than on my knees."

[body_image width='1200' height='800' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='photos-from-last-nights-charlie-hebdo-vigil-in-trafalgar-square-327-body-image-1420710600.jpg' id='16374']Josette Gerlier

"We're shocked, moved, and angry," says Josette Gerlier, who moved to the UK in 1968. She holds one of the paper's most famous covers: the one in which Charb and the Prophet Muhammad are passionately kissing. The caption reads "Love is stronger than hate".

"I used to work at the French Institute. We used to receive Charlie Hebdo every week. Now what?" A tear rolls down Josette's cheek as she spoke.

An hour passes and still not a sound. People line up to drop their pens on the ground among the "I am Charlie" signs, flowers and pictures of some of the deceased. Candles are lit. If it wasn't the blasphemous Charlie Hebdo we were gathered for, I'd say it almost felt like a church procession.

[body_image width='1200' height='800' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='photos-from-last-nights-charlie-hebdo-vigil-in-trafalgar-square-327-body-image-1420710622.jpg' id='16376']Joel Midgley

At the time of the vigil, the attackers are still on the loose, and even in London, people are worried. "You can't feel scared, you can't let it affect you, but it does really bring home that a terrorist attack like this could happen again here," says Joel Midgley, a 22-year-old who tells me that his dream is to become a journalist. I ask if it had deterred him. "Not in the slightest. I am more determined than ever."

Follow Rebbeca Suner and Christoper Bethell on Twitter.

Here's Action Bronson's New Single, 'Actin Crazy'

0
0
Here's Action Bronson's New Single, 'Actin Crazy'

Conservatives Have a New Plan for Busting America's Unions

0
0

After years of fighting organized labor in state houses and on Capitol Hill, conservatives opened up a fresh battleground in Kentucky last month, pushing a brand new crop of anti-union laws in counties across the state. Propped up by major conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the "right-to-work"ordinances—which weaken unions by allowing employees to opt out of paying dues—test the boundaries of US labor laws, putting the fate of union workers squarely in the hands of local, rather than state, governments.

To the alarm of labor groups, the coordinated effort by conservatives now threatens to push anti-union measures deep into places that have not passed statewide right-to-work laws. For years, national labor organizations like the AFL-CIO have successfully lobbied to keep the Kentucky legislature from passing right-to-work legislation. So workers in Warren County, home to a unionized Corvette plant, were stunned last month when the county court passed America's first local right-to-work law. Since then, at least two other Kentucky counties have passed their own right-to-work ordinances. And documents obtained by VICE show that many more may follow.

In an email sent to county executives across Kentucky, Warren County Judge-Executive Mike Buchanon responded to what he called an "unexpectedly overwhelming" number of requests for copies of the ordinance from other Kentucky counties apparently interested in implementing their own right-to-work laws. In all, more than 20 Kentucky counties are listed in Buchanon's email, one of which has already made headlines by moving ahead publicly with its own right-to-work law. Although most of the counties listed have so far been relatively quiet about whether they plan to go ahead with their own legislation, the Lexington Herald-Ledger reported Monday that three additional counties not named in the email are also pushing for their own right-to-work laws.

In the email, Buchanan said that he could not keep track of requests due to the inundation of inquiries about the law, and instructed anyone who mistakenly appeared on the list to "feel free to delete." The email, which appears to have been sent from a non-official email account, was obtained through a records request to Kentucky's Simpson County.

At the state level, right-to-work laws have come to epitomize bitter partisan division in American politics. Republicans argue that such laws keep employees from being forced to grudgingly pay union dues, while liberals see right-to-work as another assault on organized labor and the middle class. Attempts to curb union power at the state level has sparked furious protests in recent years, including massive demonstrations against Indiana's Republican-sponsored right-to-work bill, which passed in 2012, and in Wisconsin, where labor activists stormed the state capitol in to a state law that limited collective bargaining rights for public-sector unions. Twenty-four states have passed right-to-work laws, and several others are considering legislation this year. In other states, like Kentucky, conservatives are sneaking up on unions with a county-by-county approach.

But labor law experts VICE spoke to last year expressed doubt that local right-to-work laws would survive the inevitable legal challenges against them. "In the private sector this would be clearly pre-empted under the National Labor Relations Act,"Lance Compa, a lecturer at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said. "States can enact these laws, but only states, and cities and counties cannot. I mean, they could do it, but it would only be symbolic, and it would be stopped in the court."

The new laws in Kentucky could very well be the beginning of a battle that ultimately finds itself at the Supreme Court. And at this point, proponents of the laws seem optimistic that their efforts will ultimately succeed.

"[T]here is no reason to continue to wait forever for the legislature, or continue to complain to our state representatives, who may never take up the issue at all,"Buchanon wrote in his email. "I am tired of losing economic development opportunities to Indiana, Tennessee, and ALL of the other southern states....It's our choice!"

Read the email below.

Simpson County Records

Follow Spencer on Twitter.

Justin Bieber's Calvin Klein Ad Will Make You Belieb He's a Sex God

0
0

[body_image width='1532' height='2145' path='images/content-images/2015/01/07/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/07/' filename='justin-biebers-calvin-klein-ad-will-make-you-belieb-hes-a-sex-god-456-body-image-1420666248.jpg' id='16269']

When Calvin Klein unveiled their new publicity campaign featuring a half-naked Justin Bieber, I thought, Calvins have never looked better. As someone who had a window at 1515 Broadway looking down on a billboard featuring Marky Mark clutching his funky bunch and can vividly remember a teenage Brooke Shields's Calvin Klein Jeans campaign, I can say CK aced it this time. "Do you want to know what comes between me and my Calvins?" Shields asked in 1980. The answer, according to masses of Beliebers: "Me, please."

Anyone who pays attention to important cultural events has known for months that Bieber would appear in a CK underwear campaign. As far back as last April, fans were gossiping online about Bieber flying to New York City for a Calvin Klein shoot. Bieber teased us with shirtless underwear photos, and it girl Kendall Jenner was reportedly involved. Any lingering doubts about the campaign's existence disappeared yesterday when @CalvinKlein tweeted, "Drum Roll... #mycalvins," followed by shots of a ridiculously ripped Bieber, both solo and with Dutch model Lara Stone. Welcome back, Calvin Klein. And welcome back, JB.

The past few years have been rough for Bieber. Germany forced him to leave his pet monkey in quarantine, Miami police arrested him on suspicion of drunk driving after they caught him allegedly drag racing, a video leaked of him using the N-word, and TMZ obtained footage of Bieber peeing in a bucket at a restaurant as he yelled, "Fuck Bill Clinton!" On top of all this, his most recent album, the critically acclaimed Journals, had subpar sales. It only produced one top 20 single and debuted at 46 on the UK album charts.

Bieber's punchline status sounds similar to issues Mark Wahlberg faced in 1992 when he modeled Calvins. Although today most people know Wahlberg for his Academy Award-nominated work as an actor, he was flirting with one-hit wonder status in 1992 when he donned tighty whities for a photoshoot. Nobody imagined a slab of beefcake would go on to be one of the more lauded actors of his generation, but then again, beefcake was really the point, wasn't it? Bieber's the perfect heir to Wahlberg's sleazy, high-fashion throne because he's hot.

[body_image width='944' height='1263' path='images/content-images/2015/01/07/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/07/' filename='justin-biebers-calvin-klein-ad-will-make-you-belieb-hes-a-sex-god-456-body-image-1420666344.jpg' id='16270']

There's a difference between the two performers' Calvin Klein campaigns, of course. Wahlberg looks 30 percent bulkier than the lean Bieber appears in the new pictures. And even in smiling shots, Wahlberg looks slightly scary, reminding people of his past in Dorchester, Massachusetts. No matter how hard he tries, the kid from Ontario will never look tough like Marky Mark. And then there's the differences between the co-stars. Wahlberg poses with Kate Moss, arguably the biggest model of the 1990s. When she draped herself on Mark, it was two stars aligned. This time? No disrespect to the gorgeous Lara Stone, but she's just an accessory.

The ads confirm Bieber's sex appeal, but fails to fix all his public relations problems, some of which also afflicted Wahlberg 20 years ago. Both Wahlberg and Bieber's sexed-up images appeal to gay men, and both performers have had complicated relationships with this segment of their audiences. During the Marky Mark years, Wahlberg pandered to gays while also being accused of gay bashing. Unlike both his male and female peers, Bieber has barely embraced his large gay audience. In fact he's mostly ignored them. Maybe it comes from his church background—he reportedly has reconnected with his pastor and faith—or maybe it's somehow related to a nagging wish to be "hard" like his hip-hop pals. Either way, it's not the 90s anymore, and he needs to get over it. Few male pop stars exist during this moment, period. And those who succeed either accept their gay fanbase, tacitly acknowledge them, or keep their shirts on. I'm not saying Bieber needs to play up to the gay audience the way Nick Jonas did, stripping in gay bars. But Bieber does need to indicate he's actually part of the 21st Century.

Unlike Jonas, Bieber hasn't tied his sexed-up image to music. And most importantly, at the end of the day, what's he got to offer musically? It's been too long since we had new music from Justin, and all signs point to him having a new record out in the first part of 2015. I'm optimistic. The R&B-leaning late-2013 singles collection Journals featured some of his best work to date with tracks like "Heartbreaker" and "Roller Coaster." But either because he released the album as singles throughout that fall—not exactly an "event" strategy—or because Bieber's off-the-field antics overshadowed the music, people didn't seem to notice.

Bieber resembles a man now. He looks good. Really good. The Calvin Klein campaign confirms that, but Justin Bieber is also a legitimately talented performer. It's high time he got back to reminding people what made him a celebrity in the first place, hopefully with a record that makes him sound like a grown up. Imagine that.

Follow John Norris on Twitter.

The Republic of Saugeais Isn't Recognized by Anyone, but It's OK with That

0
0

[body_image width='2215' height='1467' path='images/content-images/2014/11/13/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2014/11/13/' filename='republique-du-saugeais-interview-louis-perrey-938-body-image-1415877746.jpg' id='3580']

The President of the Republic of Saugeais, Georgette Bertin-Pourchet, with two customs officials. Photo courtesy of Louis Perrey

This post originally appeared on VICE France

The Republic of Saugeais is a micronation of 1378 square feet located in the department of Haut-Doubs in eastern France. Even though it's been a self-proclaimed independent country since 1947, it has yet to be internationally recognized. Unlike other breakaway nations, this is not because its citizens are causing trouble for world at large—the Saugets aren't anarchists, libertarians, or people wearing ecclesiastical costumes.

The republic was founded as a joke between the prefect of Doubs and a restaurant owner who was to become Saugeais's first president in 1947. The place is a bit more easygoing than your traditional country —the tourist office praises the Saugeais national anthem for its sense of "humor and irony," and one president was been elected by an applause meter—and the Saugets are basically a group of elderly people who took advantage of a joke to institutionalize a community and attract a few tourists.

I called the country's secretary-general, Louis Perrey, to learn a little more about the republic and see how seriously the Saugets really take themselves.

[body_image width='563' height='638' path='images/content-images/2014/11/13/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2014/11/13/' filename='republique-du-saugeais-interview-louis-perrey-938-body-image-1415878609.png' id='3590']

Louis Perrey (second from the left), the President and her two customs officials. Photo via

VICE: What does your role as a secretary-general entail?
Louis Perrey: I'm Madame President's right-hand man. I take care of emails, take care of her schedule, deal with customs, and explain the history of Saugeais to tourists.

I also organize our yearly events. We have one big national holiday—a day dedicated to the honorary citizens of Saugeais. We receive about 500 guests and have a big meal during which the President presents the honorary citizens with medals and diplomas, and then she gives a speech.

The army also comes over to parade sometimes, so we've got to receive them just like every other visitor.

How old is Saugeais?
The Saugeais in itself has existed since the Middle Ages—that's an undeniable fact historically and geographically. The Republic has existed since 1947.

By the way, it all began with a joke, so please play along. Our first president was Mr. Georges Pourchet, then his wife Madam Gabrielle Pourchet took over, and now it's his daughter, Georgette. They are elected for life and we try to keep that tradition. The whole thing helps with tourism: There are some local specialities that we try to promote as much as possible—smoked meats, salted meats, dairy.

[body_image width='520' height='580' path='images/content-images/2014/11/13/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2014/11/13/' filename='republique-du-saugeais-interview-louis-perrey-938-body-image-1415879083.png' id='3593']

A banknote created in 1997 in honor of Gabrielle Pourchet's 25th year in power

Right. Would you like to acquire real independence?
Oh no, I don't think so, that would be hard. We are in contact with all these free communities or republics or micronations, but it's not for us. If it was easily done, we would do it, but we have to live. We pay our taxes in France, of course.

Is there a "Saugète" identity?
Ah yes, yes, yes! First of all, we've got our national anthem which dates back to 1910, and the lyrics are in "Sauget." Saugeais was recognized by a papal bull in 1199. Pope Innocent III recognized the independence of the monks living in the region, after colonists arrived. These guys came mostly from Savoie, so a dialect was created that is still spoken by some old people.

[body_image width='640' height='880' path='images/content-images/2014/11/13/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2014/11/13/' filename='republique-du-saugeais-interview-louis-perrey-938-body-image-1415879591.jpg' id='3596']

There are a few legends concerning Saugeais too. Is your founding story true?
Yes. In April 1947, the region prefect visited a restaurant owned by monsieur and madame Georges Pourchet. The owner of the restaurant enjoyed teasing people, so he asked the prefect, "Do you have a pass to enter Saugeais?" So the prefect asked him to explain what Saugeais was and then said, "It looks like a republic, but a republic needs a president, so I declare you the president of the Republic of Saugeais."

Then Monsieur Pourchet died in 1968. His widow was elected by an applause meter at a party with all her citizens. That was in 1972—she remained president until 2005, at the age of 99.

After that we drafted a constitution because we decided we don't always want to elect someone on a joke or by the applause meter. So there were 30 presidential electors who were co-opted in proportion of the number of inhabitants of the 11 communities in Saugeais, and in January 2006 they elected the new president, Georgette Bertin-Pourchet. She's got a sash with the flag of Saugeais that she has to wear at functions. It's all about inaugurations, receptions, and invitations.

[body_image width='1159' height='765' path='images/content-images/2014/11/13/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2014/11/13/' filename='republique-du-saugeais-interview-louis-perrey-938-body-image-1415879723.jpg' id='3597']

The stamp of Montbenoît and the Saugeais created by the artist Jean Delpech

So, officially Saugeais is a democratic republic, but in reality it's more like a kingdom.
Yes, there are a lot of people telling us so [laughs]. But now the President is 80 and she doesn't have any children, so we will see.

I also read that you have 12 ambassadors.
These are elected during the day of the honorary citizens of Saugeais. There are some in Switzerland, in Belgium, and in the adjacent regions. The ambassadors and the honorary citizens are people who help us make Saugeais known outside its borders. That brings us tourism.

[body_image width='547' height='600' path='images/content-images/2014/11/13/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2014/11/13/' filename='republique-du-saugeais-interview-louis-perrey-938-body-image-1415880060.png' id='3599']

The coat of arms of Saugeais. Photo via WikiCommons

Cool. How do you become an honorary citizen?
There are a lot of demands and only ten or 12 titles are delivered every year. The president has to choose them.

Finally, how serious is all this?
It is undeniable that Saugeais exists. We've got our own dialect and our own national anthem. But, well, our main aim is to promote the country.

Would you like to add anything?
Vive la république du Saugeais and vive la France!

Two Suspects in 'Charlie Hebdo' Massacre 'Rob Gas Station' in Northern France

0
0
Two Suspects in 'Charlie Hebdo' Massacre 'Rob Gas Station' in Northern France

Technology Is Making Us Stupid

0
0

Face it, you're an addict.

You can't go a minute without checking your iMessages, stalking that friend-of-a-friend you like on Facebook, or checking to see who's favorited that Tweet about the hilarious and highly-embellished scenario involving an old lady and a dog you saw on your way to work this morning. What's weirder is that you can't remember how you got to this point. One day you're slotting the Jurassic Park VHS into your Panasonic NV-HV60 in the solitude of your living room, the next you're live-streaming your sordid little sex parties to the entire planet via the wonders of Google Glass.

We live in a world where you simply don't need to think to do anything. Opinions, facts, and locations are just an internet search away. It's a real-life dystopia where stumbling across absolute mindless shit like this is more likely than actually speaking to a real-life person on the telephone. Everything we do, online and off, is recorded, broadcast, and tracked, for the gain of world-devouring corporations who want to turn you into a battery for their gargantuan vibrator.

The Glass Cage, written by Nicholas Carr ("one of the most lucid, thoughtful and necessary thinkers alive," according to Jonathan Safran Foer) is all about this. Exploring our increasingly needy relationship with automation technology (think: Google for every question, GPS to find your own flat, taxis that drive themselves) the book presents some ultimately worrying repercussions—like losing the skills to fly a plane, for example. Or a future where everyone owns a machine that makes the perfect spaghetti bolognese but nobody knows how to cook it themselves (I may have made that one up).

I tracked Carr down for a conversation about how we got so damn dependent and what on earth we can do to stop it.

VICE: Isn't the internet just so naughty?
Nicholas Carr: It puts convenience and expedience above everything else, but it's not naughty.

What's the effect of that?
I think it's manipulating us to become more impatient. We've become less capable to screen out distraction, despite becoming better at gathering information.

Is the way we interact with computers affecting the way we think?
If you're interacting with them all the time, then your brain will optimize itself for gathering and following information and stimuli through computers. It'll also begin to lose some of the subtle functions we have to interact with the actual world.

What's technology ever done to you?
What inspired the book is the recognition that in very short order we've come to rely on computers to do, well, most of the things we actually do. Human history is about striking a balance between what we look to our tools to do and what we do ourselves. Computers are involved in our lives at a level beyond any other technology that has come before.

Do you draw a line between the physical and virtual worlds?
There's an interesting experiment done on mice, actually.

[body_image width='500' height='1011' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='machines-are-making-us-all-stupid-body-image-1420722792.jpg' id='16479']

God damn mice, always on their smartphones.
The scientists monitored the brains of mice as they navigated a real maze and then when they navigated a computer simulation. What they found is much less of the mouse's brain was active when they went through the simulation.

Where do you stand on apps like Freedom or Moment that are on your computer and your phone but are designed primarily to prevent you from using your computer or your phone?
It's looking to software to solve a problem that software has created. Our own willpower is somehow insufficient to deal with this.

We're all idiots, basically.
But on the other hand, I find it encouraging, because it reveals that there are people out there shaking their heads at their monitors, thinking, jeez, this is going too far...

Isn't it human nature for us to invent tools to make our lives easier? Aren't we all, deep inside, a big fat guy on the great, flea-infested sofa of life?
There's an interesting theory on this called the paradox of work.

What is that?
Deep in our psyche there's the conflict of thinking we'll be happier if we have nothing to do, and an impulse to do less. But in reality that makes us miserable. We think we'll be happier and more fulfilled if we don't have anything to do, but it turns out that we're most satisfied when we actually work.

Oh.
That means, on a personal level, why we're so quick to kick back and rely on technology. Airplanes are a good example of why this is bad. There's the potential for an erosion of skill. When flight disasters occur we blame it on human error, but really it's human error provoked by an over-dependence on technology.

Right. But isn't being able to compress information and fire it out the social media cannon to like-minded people, all over the world, pretty amazing?
My problem isn't with social media at all—it's with how the more we become dependent on the internet to collect information the more we train ourselves to only take information in this manner. Ultimately, the computer reflects a perspective on human thought that actually resembles the way computers work, which is all about a utilitarian processing of information.

So we're all becoming computers. This is upsetting me, Nick.
No, I think that most people on this planet would make pretty rubbish computers, thank goodness. What I fear is that, instead of keeping a nice balance, we're simply saying, "Lets just let the computer do it."

We now run the gamut of being able to design our own Domino's pizza on an app to Google declaring they want to make an all-knowing AI. Should we be worried?
There remains a problem that the algorithms that we depend on are invisible to us. Just because Google is quick, we think that's sufficient. We take for granted how it manipulates our information feed.

There's this assumption that we use the technologies we use because they're the best available. But this isn't true. There are all sorts of interests—economic, social, and even military—that dictate what we end up getting.

At the beginning of automation, there were these two alternatives: one, where you create software from on high and push it down on the worker, two, is you recognize that the worker has rich skills and intuition so you let them do the programming. Guess which we chose.

Are we all a bit naïve toward a company like Google's intent, do you think?
To a very large extent, the motivations of these companies are economic, and it's in their economic interest to keep us distracted, scrolling, showing you ads. The faster they can get you to move from page to page, the more optimal their economic system because they're gathering information on you and showing you more ads.

But if their ultimate aim is to create an AI, and they're funding this by creating a system that drives us to distraction and instant gratification and then records it, what it's actually done is create an idea of man that is at least half wrong, right?
Well, now you're onto something that seems absolutely right but goes beyond what I was thinking about. The AI's understanding will be a very narrow portrait that reflects the economic interest of the creator's company and also the way we behave when we're online.

So what we're actually going to create is a system that provides us constantly with our lowest desires—porn, pizza, pop culture. What is the likelihood a computer in Google knows my porn preference?
Excruciatingly high.

[body_image width='500' height='718' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='machines-are-making-us-all-stupid-body-image-1420722825.jpg' id='16481']

Should we be scared of the future?
I think we should be worried of the future. We are putting ourselves passively into the hands of those who design the systems. We need to think critically about that, even as we maintain our enthusiasm of the great inventions that are happening. I'm not a luddite. I'm not saying we should trash our laptops and run off to the woods.

We're basically living out Freud's death drive, trying our best to turn ourselves into inorganic lumps.
Even before Freud, Marx made the point that the underlying desire of technology seemed to be to create animate technology and inanimate humans. If you look at the original radios, they were transmission as well as reception devices, but before long most people just stopped transmitting and started listening.

Are we destined to invent technology that will ultimately kill us?
I'd resist that idea. The way I end the Glass Cage, I look at technology that deepens our relationship with the world. Like the telescope, or a scythe. We're horrible grass cutters without a scythe. It's a hell of a tool. But then there's the clock...

Please don't say the clock is evil.
It's a double-edged sword. I'm always wary pointing out the negatives of this because I worry I'll become categorized as this person who is against clocks.

I promise that won't happen.
OK. Right. Clocks transformed time from a flow into precisely measurable units, which was absolutely essential for industrialization. But it does mean that, when you become completely acclimated to the clock, you lose that sense of being yourself in part of the natural flow of time. We became a little more routinized, we get up at X o'clock, we go to work at Y o'clock, we go to bed at Z o'clock.

OK. Are there any good modern inventions?
Er.

None at all?
A ladder? They're good.

I'm not going to be the guy who says ladders are bullshit. But I wouldn't say they're modern. What about a pogo stick?
I'd consider that alongside the telescope, sure. But if someone spent all day pogoing, then it'll also have negative consequences. Something like a DJ mixset, a tool to create art. Digital recording technology, too.

Is quiet contemplation due for a comeback?
I hope so.

Follow David on Twitter.

Internet Commenters: This Is Why Other Muslims and I Won't Apologize for the 'Charlie Hebdo' Attacks

0
0

[body_image width='1200' height='800' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='this-is-why-normal-muslims-shouldnt-have-to-apologise-for-extremists-890-body-image-1420724907.jpg' id='16490'] A small selection of online comments arguing that moderate Muslims should apologize for the actions of extremists (Background photo by Chris Bethell)

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

If a stranger demanded that you apologize for something you hadn't done, what would you tell them? Most of us would probably tell them to stop being so aggressive, leave us alone, find the right person to blame, because that's the most sensible approach to dealing with somebody who is completely missing the point.

So I find it odd that many keyboard crusaders seem to be demanding that moderate Muslims around the world stand up and apologize for yesterday's senseless attack on the Charlie Hebdo office by Islamic extremists.

Eclipsing the shortsighted and ignorant reactions to the shooting—Britain First using the attack to flog their bulldog lapel badges, for example, or Farage harnessing the atrocity to prove his point that all multiculturalism is bad—were plenty of columnists and op-ed writers offering measured, insightful responses. Down at the bottom of a good deal of these articles, however, a glut of non-Muslim commenters argued that Muslims should be taking to the streets to denounce the attacks, to accept the blame on behalf of Islam.

"Why aren't all the so-called 'moderate Muslims' making their voices heard?" they asked. "When can we expect to see a response from the 'religion of peace'"?

Apologies if I'm missing something, but I really don't get the reasoning.

It goes without saying that I feel immeasurable sympathy and compassion for the victims and their families. But asking me to say sorry for the actions of extremists because I happen to be a Muslim is like demanding I apologize for another writer's spelling errors.

Barbaric terrorists who describe themselves as Muslims have nothing to do with me, my beliefs, my soul, or my person. Apologizing for their heinous crimes makes little sense to me when I have absolutely nothing in common with them, and zero understanding of their grotesque interpretation of Islam. Why should I take responsibility for someone else's sins? Sins that I can neither fathom nor comprehend?

I'll go on a solidarity march not because it's my duty to show the world that Muslims don't abet murderers and terrorists, but because I'm a human being and I feel empathy for those who have been hurt. I will talk about my faith and try to dispel misgivings, but apart from that I'm as unrelated to these extremists as the "patriot" having trouble differentiating Islam from violent Islamism in his UKIP-town bungalow.

When the EDL held demonstrations in my city, I never saw it as the duty of non-racist white British people to stage an apologetic march. They didn't need to say sorry for the actions of bigots because they themselves are not bigots. Do I appreciate it if activists voice their opposition to racism? Of course I do—I appreciate all forms of humanitarian endeavor. But I also recognize that this can be achieved without apologies that serve no purpose except to placate those who are missing the point.

Moreover, I don't want anyone to connect my understanding of a peaceful Islam with the ridiculous actions of extremists, and apologizing for them will only work to create a link—tenuous though it may be—between me and them. I don't want to have any form of affiliation with a group of inhumane monsters, just like I don't want to eat my lunch sitting next to a piece of graying dog shit. I have the right and the ability to distance myself, so that's exactly what I'll do. To apologize would be to accept responsibility, to accept that Islam as the vast majority of Muslims understand it had some bearing on the murder of those innocent journalists. I don't believe it did, and neither does any other sane-minded Muslim who treasures the value of human life and has imbibed the peaceful teachings of the Prophet Muhammad.

Plenty of Muslims and Islamic groups are condemning the attack. I condemn it, too, not just as a Muslim, but as a sister to anyone who believes in the sanctity of human life. And if we're going on that premise, then the entire population of Earth should be apologizing for the events at the Charlie Hebdo office.

Many Muslims have become jaded by the cycle of newsreels that equate every act of terrorism with Islam. A psychopathic few have maligned the majority, and none of us want anything to do with the poisonous minority for fear of contamination by proxy. It sickens me that regular old Muslims who live their lives exactly like you do (but probably with a bit more praying and, if Ben Affleck's to be believed, lots more sandwiches) have to keep reaffirming to others that they are good people.

An open dialogue is of course a good thing, and I would always champion the power of discussion. But the preposterous notion that all Muslims should apologize for a group of strangers' horrific actions perplexes me. I'd rather spend my time loving the people around me, showing kindnesses to my neighbors, and putting my faith in the power of paying it forward.

The innocent Muslims who do not apologize for the crimes of deranged Islamists are not indifferent to the atrocities. They are still making a stand within their own homes and communities by manifesting the beauty of Islam within their actions and words. Muslims are taught to be beacons of light that attract others to the warmth and radiance of the Quranic teachings. We are taught to be kind, forgiving, welcoming, and honest. We are also taught to believe in the power of peaceful prayer. Perhaps that is why so many of us might appear silent.

But still waters run deep, and the vast majority of the world's Muslims—people like my quiet pensioner parents and God-fearing grandmother—are praying for all the victims, their families, and the future.

Follow Javaria on Twitter.

How to Appear in Public without Getting Tit-Shamed Like Rita Ora

0
0

re

[body_image width='700' height='430' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='rita-oras-cleavage-got-her-into-trouble-body-image-1420712984.png' id='16408']

Still via the BBC

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

Rita Ora is in hot water this week for wearing a blazer without a Modesty Dickie to keep her (it must be said) truly banging chest away from the delicate eyes of BBC viewers.

Over 400 people have complained to the broadcaster since her appearance on The One Show, with 28 more going as far as complaining to Ofcom, the UK regulatory agency. Many of the comments on BBC message boards take a "won't somebody think of the children?!?" stance, as though a bit of (lovely) cleavage at 7 PM on a Monday evening is going to blind their sensitive offspring who are just trying to pray their god damn way through dinner in peace.

While the BBC initially issued a statement saying that The One Show allows guests to select their own attire, politely suggesting that it's fairly normal for a young pop star to dress in something more "glamorous or striking" than the average show guest, they have since apologized, saying, "We're sorry to those of you who were offended by Rita Ora's choice of outfit on yesterday's show. If we had been consulted on it we would have requested she wore something more suitable for 7 PM."

I realize 424 complaints is not, in the grand scheme of things, that many complaints. But do we reallyneed Ofcom looking into a singular instance of "perhaps more breasts than some think necessary"?

It feels impossible to know what amount of breast exposure might be considered television appropriate and at what hour. What's a female potential television guest to do? Should you be displaying no cleavage ( The One Show), moderate cleavage (Take Me Out), or going fully topless, asking someone to lance an angry cyst on the underside of your left breast (Embarrassing Bodies)?

Here are some helpful tips if you find yourself in a situation—televised or otherwise—where you think you might wind up on the receiving end of a cleavage complaint.

TURN YOUR OUTFIT AROUND—LITERALLY
The only way to combat backwards attitudes is with a backwards suit. Rita Ora could have saved herself a lot of trouble if she'd simply turned her entire jacket around, a la Celine Dion's 1999 Academy Awards reverse-business look. (Jaunty hat optional, but recommended.)

[body_image width='700' height='1017' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='rita-oras-cleavage-got-her-into-trouble-body-image-1420711987.jpg' id='16401']

Image via

BE SIMON COWELL
"Do you think today we might try a slightly less tight—no, you're absolutely right. This one fits fine. It's great. Really, you're going to leave all those buttons? You don't even want to do up one or two? Fair enough. Of course. Yes, you absolutely could pass for 40, the other wardrobe assistants and I were just saying so. Great to work with you Mr. Cowell, as always."

[body_image width='700' height='528' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='rita-oras-cleavage-got-her-into-trouble-body-image-1420712129.png' id='16403']

CARRY A FAKE BABY EVERYWHERE AND PRETEND TO BREASTFEED IT WHEN CONFRONTED
NB: This does not work particularly well at clubs or bars—the spiritual home of cleavage—but should get you a few minutes of me-time in those mom-friendly cafes around Stoke Newington.

[body_image width='700' height='933' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='rita-oras-cleavage-got-her-into-trouble-body-image-1420713812.jpg' id='16412']Image via

BE RUSSELL BRAND
Second in line to the confusingly deep V-neck throne after Cowell, Brand's been freely airing his creamy, fuzzy chest reservoir for years without complaint.

DO SOMETHING REALLY, REALLY WEIRD WITH YOUR FACE
No one's going to be writing to the BBC about your tits when you've got a partial Drake lyric tattooed on your forehead, or, you know, teardrops hammered into your face with printer ink. "I got the font too big for all of it, so it just says YOL, but I think it's actually a lot deeper that way," you can tell Matt Baker. He'll get ya.

[body_image width='700' height='613' path='images/content-images/2015/01/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/08/' filename='rita-oras-cleavage-got-her-into-trouble-body-image-1420714266.jpg' id='16415']

Image via

REBRAND YOUR BREASTS
Take a big ol' PR swing at misogyny by flip-reversing the script on getting your norks out. I feel like someone already got the ball rolling for us with "sweater puppies," but if that's not working consider "modesty spheres," "health orbs," or "a part of my body like any other part of my body, Jesus fucking Christ calm down."

BE JUDE LAW
Honestly, what is that guy's deal? Why didn't anyone call the police?

Follow Monica on Twitter


VICE Vs Video Games: We're in the New Golden Age of Video Games

0
0

[body_image width='1200' height='675' path='images/content-images/2015/01/07/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/07/' filename='2015-could-be-a-golden-year-for-video-games-if-we-let-it-735-body-image-1420656816.jpg' id='16233']

No Man's Sky : just about the most hyped indie game of 2015

This post originally appeared on VICE UK

Much like many a man of my (rapidly nearing middle) age, I'm partial to nostalgia. And as someone whose childhood was colored by video games, I'm rarely so content as when leafing through the pages of retrospective-focused publications, poring over pixels and remembering the tinny music as it fizzed from my bedroom's shitty 14-inch TV.

But something troubles me as I revel in my memories—the suggestion that anything that has been in gaming culture, which is no more, represents a distinct, established "golden age." It's there on the back of the most recent Retro Gamer annual: "Discover the golden age of gaming."

This packaging of a particular period as representing something never to be bettered can make a sort of sense in other disciplines—for example, as Nas's Illmatic album marked its 20th anniversary in 2014, pages online and off bulged with praise for hip-hop's golden age of the mid 90s. I spoke to rap duo Shabazz Palaces about it, whose Tendai Maraire spoke of the same time being "the blackest era of drugs and death and murder," while also adding:

Someone from New York was never going to sound like someone from Florida, or Atlanta. That distinctiveness is kinda gone now. Today, there is more uniformity, and a more pronounced homogenization. So it was a "golden era"—but there was a lot of bad shit going on that nobody would want to happen again.

Of course, there was great creativity at play among those programming for systems like the Spectrum, the Commodore 64, the NES, and more—otherwise we'd never have had Elite, Back to Skool, or Football Manager (which began in 1982). But from what I recall, many a hit followed in familiar footsteps, echoing archetypes already established as commercially successful.

So: Wolfenstein 3D begat Doom before the first-person shooter genre exploded into a cacophony of clones; an abundance of side-scrolling platformers followed the format laid down by the mascot-level likes of Mario, Dizzy, and Alex Kidd (alas, poor Zool, nobody knew you well), and several role-play adventures stuck close to the fantasy of the Zelda series. Columns might not have been Tetris, quite, but the influence of Alexey Pajitnov's Soviet puzzler is undeniable.

[body_image width='1200' height='892' path='images/content-images/2015/01/07/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/07/' filename='2015-could-be-a-golden-year-for-video-games-if-we-let-it-735-body-image-1420657401.jpg' id='16236']

GoldenEye 007 might have been the shit in 1997, but play it today and it's really not as great as you enthused that last time you got all drunk and nostalgic.

Homogenization was rife in the 1980s and 1990s, outside of the arcades—and to think of this period as a golden age is to be blinkered to the absolute dross that filled shelves beside the fraction of bona fide originals that have carried through as "classics" to this day. And with games development tied so tightly to technological progress—from the increased processing power of the home platforms to the controllers employed to best experience these digital distractions—it's a practice aside from music, from film and theater, novel writing, and oil painting. Which is why those same "classics" just don't cut it in the 21st century—the technical limitations of the period tear a game like the N64's GoldenEye 007 apart, its seams split wide, its appeal compromised compared to today's biggest shooters: Destiny, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Far Cry 4, and so on.

I'd argue that, right now, video games are at the cusp of a new transition, another positive shift in public perception. And that's entirely down to the wonderful variety that the industry can offer to its audience—through myriad devices both games-exclusive and multipurpose, a fantastic array of game types and challenge levels to suit all. Gaming today is the healthiest it's ever been, and if we're going to assign the banner of "golden age" to any era in gaming history, now might be a good time to pin up the bunting and get a cake baked: 2015 could be amazing.

We're past, for the most part, any idea that video games can be damaging—studies have time and again concluded that violent on-screen action is not responsible for children going postal. If you spend eight hours a day in front of your favorite MMO, chances are that it will affect your health—but the same could be said of anyone binging on HBO box sets or locking themselves away from the rest of the world to read Cyrus the Great in its original 17th century French.

[body_image width='1200' height='750' path='images/content-images/2015/01/07/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/07/' filename='2015-could-be-a-golden-year-for-video-games-if-we-let-it-735-body-image-1420657671.jpg' id='16241']

Edge of Tomorrow used the "live, die, repeat" mantra synonymous with gaming as the core of its plot

Games are becoming a prominent part of contemporary culture—if they're not already an important influence on other parts of the media, and how we all live our lives. (Which they are.) Celebrated TV shows like Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror are drawing on gaming for inspiration, likewise the Tom Cruise movie of 2014, Edge of Tomorrow. Gamification infects the everyday on a global scale, a phenomenon alluded to by Pennsylvania punks Pissed Jeans in the 2009 song "Pleasure Race," with frontman Matt Korvette shrieking:

"Doesn't matter what my age / I've always run a pleasure race / Walking, riding, driving home / it's all the same, my thoughts don't change / Make my plans around the race / priorities have to be made / Got no time for other things / so leave a message, I'm afraid / And I won't let anything in my way."

I may have got a word or two wrong there, but the point is that here's a man whose daily existence is broken into challenges—or, rather, defined by a single one that takes precedent over all other responsibilities. The lines might be more metaphorical than not, but they nevertheless illustrate how we all race ourselves through life: by cutting time from a journey, making incremental improvements to dinner, finding a better lover, counting calories after a Christmas full of chocolate slobbery.

All of these little tests feature in the innumerable free-to-play mobile games choking the App Store—the kind where you can pay your way through, or wait for new options to unlock over time, or simply grind on through as best you can without submitting to any sneaky microtransactions. The daily challenge: today, I will take that tower, I will storm that beach, I will beat that score; I will make it to work in time for coffee and five minutes of Facebooking before the boss comes in from the gym. Gaming culture has become commonplace, mainstream—"in the White House," as Volume and Thomas Was Alone developer Mike Bithell remarked to me recently—and now the games makers are perfectly positioned to respond to that with titles that defy conventions and exceed expectations.

[body_image width='1200' height='620' path='images/content-images/2015/01/07/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/07/' filename='2015-could-be-a-golden-year-for-video-games-if-we-let-it-735-body-image-1420657841.jpg' id='16242']

Mike Bithell's Volume is a Metal Gear Solid–recalling stealth game due out in "quarter two" of 2015, according to its maker

Music and movies have evolved beside technology, sure enough, but not in the same way that games have—and you might even say that, as time's passed, so restrictions have actually been imposed on the making of albums, as CD capacity and, after that, compressed digital qualities compromised the ultimate vision of the artists behind the audio. Not so games, which have grown in scale as the raw muscle of the machines they run on has increased.

The sheer, unprecedented power of today's home consoles (by which I mean the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One—sorry, Wii U fans, but Nintendo's wonderful little box isn't quite the same beast) is allowing developers to create virtual worlds like they've never done before—whole universes, in some cases—and 2015 will see the release or more games in the vein of 2014's highly rated Dragon Age: Inquisition: deeply detailed adventures where any and all distant horizons can be reached, one way or another.

One only has to look at CD Projekt RED's forthcoming third entry in its Witcher series, Wild Hunt, and to the procedurally generated exploration of Hello Games' No Man's Sky to see how the open worlds/galaxies of 2015 are going to be the greatest ever realized. Even titles presenting a more linear passage from beginning to end are going to occupy spaces that previous generation hardware couldn't come close to building: Rocksteady's concluding chapter of its Batman trilogy, Arkham Knight, will be set in a Gotham of a scale unlike any previously seen in a video game, five times the size of 2011's Arkham City; while the Victoriana grime of From Software's Dark Souls follow-up Bloodborne looks good enough to stick to the underside of your boot.

Nintendo seems set for a great 2015, with new Zelda and Star Fox titles due alongside interesting twists on the familiar Yoshi and Kirby franchises, and a diminutive winner already out in the wild in the form of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, a gentle but addictive puzzler which slipped out just before Christmas.

[body_image width='1200' height='675' path='images/content-images/2015/01/07/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/07/' filename='2015-could-be-a-golden-year-for-video-games-if-we-let-it-735-body-image-1420658115.jpg' id='16243']

Devil's Third might not be the most eagerly anticipated game of 2015 for the Wii U, but its mature themes represent a shift in tone for the system

Nintendo is guilty of leaning on nostalgia—on this industry idea of a "golden age"—to populate several of its new titles with characters we recognize from our childhoods. But the company's also got a few fresh creations up its sleeve for 2015: Splatoon is a family-friendly multiplayer shooter that I fell for in a big way at 2014's EGX in London, while rare third-party exclusive Devil's Third, designed by Dead or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagki, moves the system away from all-ages appeal, following Platinum Games' sensational Bayonetta 2 as a strictly adults-only experience.

There are too many potentially incredible games scheduled for 2015 to highlight in detail, but for the sake of simply throwing a few titles out there, I can't wait to wrap these thumbs and fingers around: Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain; Square Enix's new-gen-only Final Fantasy XV; the pixel-art beauty of Hyper Light Drifter; the Xbox One-exclusive 1930s cartoon throwback Cuphead; the bucolic apocalypse of Everybody's Gone to the Rapture; and French studio Dontnod's new multi-part time-travel mystery Life Is Strange.

Emotions will be piqued in 2015, with Life Is Strange and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture likely to be among the releases most successfully tugging on the heartstrings. Gaming has come far enough from simple score chases and princess rescuing to comprise a necessary catharsis for makers, evidenced by the narratives of the OCD-addressing Neverending Nightmares and 2012's Papo & Yo, which articulated through interactivity the suffering experienced by designer Vander Caballero at the hands of his alcoholic father.

This year, That Dragon, Cancer will allow strangers into the life of developers Ryan and Amy Green, who lost their son Joel in March of 2014 to cancer. The player will have to care for the fading child at the center of the game. I don't know exactly how it'll be received; I half expect to read a spread of "it's not really a game" comments from those idiotic enough to perceive video games as mere toys rather than potential vessels for something substantially more (they can be toys, too, but let's no longer kid ourselves that they're just playthings). I do know that I want to play it—but perhaps "play" is the wrong term. I want to travel through it, to see its sights and hear its sounds and reflect on all that I'm lucky to have, and what my family means to me.

[body_image width='1200' height='600' path='images/content-images/2015/01/07/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/07/' filename='2015-could-be-a-golden-year-for-video-games-if-we-let-it-735-body-image-1420658434.jpg' id='16244']

That Dragon, Cancer : a successful Kickstarter in December of 2014 will see the game appear on both Ouya and Steam in 2015

I feel that 2015 is the year that games can ascend to the next level of recognition among those who don't persistently play them—and if that was to happen, then we can move away from the idea that gamers are consumers (so there goes your "movement," GamerGate), and that we're all part of an audience, albeit of a decidedly more interactive form of entertainment than anything else.

I think of consumers as people buying white goods, or domain names, or a bag of spuds. I don't think of cinemagoers as consumers—I address them as audience members. And that's the way gaming now needs to go in order to find itself beside these other escapes: into film, fiction, fantastical canvases, and tantalizing stage productions. We are watching, and more, making our own stories within provided parameters and often reshaping them. Whether something is a "real game" or not shouldn't be a factor, or even a debate: if I can use my hands, mouth, feet, eyes, and/or ears to become a part of this experience before me, I am playing a video game.

This is something I've been thinking about since reading Cara Ellison's recent column for Eurogamer, " The Poetics of Space." In it, she refers to her mother commenting on designer Ed Key's colorful walkabout of 2013, Proteus: "It's not a game."

Ellison was dismayed: " Proteus was different to her. It meant something else other than a game to her. She loved it so it was not a game." Which, actually, is cause for celebration—here we are, edging towards a state where the games of today are wholly alien to people who last picked up a pad years ago, maybe during this supposed "golden age" of gaming. Games can be whatever we want them to be. Games is not Mario or Sonic or a half-tuck or a raided tomb. Games is not the BFG in the face of a Baron of Hell, or the fastest lap around Daytona International Speedway. OK, it is those things—but so much more, too.

Games, in 2015, can and will mean many different things. Perhaps by the end of the year we'll all be playing in blissful isolation, virtual reality headsets supplying all our sensory needs. Or we'll be down the bar, playing Mario Kart between beers, a big screen showing competitive gaming after the soccer matches. But however we play this year, we should do so with eyes on the future. Mindless celebrations of dead technology will always hamstring the pursuit of new heights of artistry in an industry that, with the huge possibilities afforded by current hardware, is only limited by a lack of imagination. Dream golden dreams, and let's leave the yellowing systems of our past where they belong: in the loft, beneath the guest bedding.

Follow Mike Diver on Twitter.

How Close Are We to Engineering the Climate?

0
0
How Close Are We to Engineering the Climate?

VICE Premiere: Duppy Gun's 'Flip Top Riddim' Will Send You to Dub Paradise

0
0

I don't smoke enough weed to be a dancehall enthusiast, but even as a novice puffer I can appreciate the sentiment of kicking back on a futon that has half slid down its frame and bumping Sister Nancy while my girlfriend crafts us a masterful spliff. I get a lot of emails with song premiere options, but not many of them are roots reggae. And of the few reggae songs I do get, most of them are supremely awful. This one from Duppy Gun was a nice surprise.

"Flip Top Riddim" is a dub daydream. The sparse production is punctuated by funky electronics, Sun Ra–grade synths, and enough chill goodness to make the hairs on your nugs stand on end. It's a great track regardless of your level of sobriety—take it from the weed plebe.

[youtube src='//www.youtube.com/embed/bvhaZEbYoho' width='560' height='315']

Order the record here.

controller.controller Have Reunited and It Feels So Good

0
0
controller.controller Have Reunited and It Feels So Good

Addict, Priest, Luchador: The Unbelievable Life of Fray Tormenta

0
0
Addict, Priest, Luchador: The Unbelievable Life of Fray Tormenta
Viewing all 38002 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images