[body_image width='1280' height='720' path='images/content-images/2015/02/09/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/09/' filename='an-idiot-made-a-game-called-muhammad-sex-simulator-body-image-1423464195.png' id='25506']

A screenshot from the game

Some guy somewhere made a video game depicting the prophet Muhammad and released it on the internet. It's called Muhammad Sex Simulator 2015 and screenshots posted online show a naked bearded man wearing a turban engaging in various sex acts with a range of partners, including other men and a veritable cornucopia of animals.

In the words of its creator, someone known as gizmo01942, " Muhammad Sex Simulator 2015 puts you in the shoes of one of history's most notable and controversial religious figures. Unleash your inner sex demon as you enjoy a wide variety of carnal acts with an assortment of creatures, from goats to pigs to gangs of men."

The game opens with a "Je Suis Charlie" graphic, a reference to the Charlie Hebdo attack that left a dozen people dead. In the aftermath of the shooting at the French satirical newspaper offices, there was much debate about the importance of free speech and whether it had limits. Some people decided that publishing images of Muhammad was a way of demonstrating a commitment to the principle of free speech—even if those depictions of the revered religious figure are boorish, unfunny, and sorta racist. This game could either be part of that, or an insanely labor-intensive attempt at being murdered in order to win a Darwin Award.

While Muhammad has appeared in a few cartoons over the years, he's been a rarer sight in video games. But there are some examples—2009's Faith Fighter allowed players to choose from a small pantheon of top-shelf deities, including Jesus, Buddha, and Ganesh. (Players using Muhammad were also given the option of blurring out his face.)

2008's Muslim Massacre: The Game of Modern Religious Genocide called on its players to kill Muslims in droves before facing off against Muhammad as a boss character in the final level. A crudely conceived and executed top-down shooter, it was defended by some as a work of satire.

Is Muhammad Sex Simulator 2015 the same sort of "satire"? In a statement on internet forum Encyclopedia Dramatica, gizmo01942 took responsibility for the game, if not for any of offense it may cause. "It should be obvious," the statement says, "but I want to make it clear this is not intended as a serious attack on anyone's faith nor is it meant as a serious critique of any real-life historical figures."

The post goes on to claim that the game is a statement of "free speech absolutism" and that the maker refuses to be part of the "cycle of hate." The circle of jerk, on the other hand, lives on.

Follow Royce on Twitter.

(We're putting the second season of our Emmy-winning HBO show online. Watch all the episodes that have gone up so far here.)

In the ninth episode of our second season of VICE on HBO, Shane Smith heads to Louisiana to report on the lasting effects of the BP oil spill. Then, VICE investigates why Yemen is at the top of the worry list for President Obama's national security team. The rise of Al Qaeda there is only half the reason—the real trouble is a little-known Houthi rebel movement in the north of the country.

[body_image width='1200' height='800' path='images/content-images/2015/02/09/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/09/' filename='bafta-awards-protests-cleaners-310-body-image-1423480066.jpg' id='25584']

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Photos by Oscar Webb.

Last night, a bunch of angry cleaners, armed with mouth klaxons, drums, and a loudspeaker, held a noise protest outside the Royal Opera House as the venue hosted the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs). As the cleaners' union, the Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB), put it, they were bringing red flags to the red carpet.

Metal fencing cordoned off the streets surrounding Covent Garden, as tourists craned their necks to get a glimpse of the celebrities arriving at the ceremony. But one corner was occupied by cleaning workers, who were banging drums and honking horns to try to create as much of a nuisance as possible.

This was not supposed to happen. About a year ago, following a long campaign by the workers, the Royal Opera House's cleaning contractor, Mitie, announced that they would pay employees the London Living Wage. It was reported that in making that announcement, they had probably staved off embarrassing protests such as the one that took place last night.

But as the IWGB President, Alberto Durango, explained to me, "We won the living wage last year and then the company started attacking the workers." The cleaners complain that they have had overtime pay withheld for a year and that their holiday pay has been reduced. They also get no sick pay and feel that they've been victimized for standing up for themselves.

I asked a cleaner named Acacio how it felt to see the people rolling up in dresses worth more than their pay checks.

"Bad," he said. "We get no respect."

Follow Simon and Oscar on Twitter.

[body_image width='1280' height='720' path='images/content-images/2015/02/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/08/' filename='da-sweet-blood-of-jesus-body-image-1423362072.jpg' id='25454']

Da Sweet Blood of Jesus finds legendary director Spike Lee at his most unhinged. The new film is based on Bill Gunn's classic 70s vampire flick Ganja and Hess, and like the original, it follows the story of two lovers whose thirst for blood serves as a broader metaphor for addiction.

The opening credits proudly announce the film as "An Official Spike Lee Joint." Followers of Lee know that he usually uses the credit, "A Spike Lee Joint." The first time he didn't was with 2013's critically-panned Oldboy, which Lee felt was butchered in the studio's theatrical cut. For that movie, he went with the sheepish "A Spike Lee Film." So, "An Official Spike Lee Joint" feels like a declaration of independence, especially considering this is the filmmaker's first crowdfunded venture. Free of studio meddling, Lee gets to wallow in the excessive violence and comedy typical of an old grindhouse film.

Despite Da Sweet Blood of Jesus feeling pretty loose, Lee follows the blueprint ofGanja and Hess, even recreating some scenes shot-for-shot. Once again, Hess (Stephen Tyrone Williams) and Ganja (Zaraah Abrahams) are the leads. Hess is a wealthy loner who resides in Martha's Vineyard. At the beginning of the film, he's studying the rituals and beliefs of the Ashanti people when he gets stabbed with a ceremonial dagger wielded by his crestfallen research assistant, who offs himself shortly thereafter. Hess wakes up from the attack as an immortal thirsty for blood. Ganja, the widow of Hess's dead assistant, shows up later looking for her man, though she's curiously indifferent to her husband's whereabouts. She only takes in the full gravity of the situation after she finds his severed head stuffed in a freezer.

Before setting the vampirism in motion, the dearly departed strikes up a debate with Hess. America is a "blood society," our man offers, ergo vampires are an inevitability. This line of thinking suggests that we not only tolerate, but reward all kinds of violence, and the grimmest acts in Da Sweet Blood of Jesus are presented in a matter-of-fact style in keeping with this jaded perspective. The vampirism-as-addiction bent—which Hess will later use to justify his lifestyle—isn't exactly unprecedented. But it does provide a suitable launching pad for the Lee to riff on genre conventions.

Lee cares little for traditional vampire tropes, using an intentionally loose mythos for his blood-sucking protagonists and their kin. Ganja and Hess don't explode when they're exposed to direct sunlight, and if their live-in cook ever puts garlic in their food, they don't seem to mind. But Hess does receive compliments for his carefully curated collection of African art by houseguests before excusing himself to the wine cellar where he keeps his blood supply. And Ganja takes every opportunity to give Hess's manservant a hard time.

[body_image width='1296' height='730' path='images/content-images/2015/02/08/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/08/' filename='da-sweet-blood-of-jesus-body-image-1423371973.jpg' id='25455']

As a couple, they deserve each other, united by a certain strand of selfishness and a number of carnal encounters. Da Sweet Blood of Jesus is fervently sexual, as vampire movies tend to be. Hess's victims are all women, and before drinking their blood he takes them to bed, one act flowing into the other.

Not to take anything away from Lee, but the most memorable moment in Da Sweet Blood of Jesus comes from the soundtrack. Buffalo Black's "Enter the Void (Black Hole)" is a singularly entrancing piece of ambient hip-hop that conveys the two leads' freewheeling headspace more effectively than anything else, so much so that it could have served as a recurring musical cue. The original, piano-heavy score by Bruce Hornsby, meanwhile, grows increasingly incongruous with what's happening onscreen—and not always in a way that feels like an intentional juxtaposition.

Lee's freedom here undoubtedly makes this a better movie. But a number of scenes (especially the most violent and sexual ones) might have benefited from a bit of restraint. Lee directs this movie like he's a kid in a candy store when he should be running the place. But Da Sweet Blood of Jesus does have an undeniable spark to it all the same, a sense of urgency that makes it feel more vital and alive than the undead lovers struggling with life after death.

Follow Michael on Twitter.

Summer is a good time to be corny and lame—you can frolic around, wear stupid shorts, and do things that require the sort of positive energy that winter later converts to frigid shittiness. Summer is a time for simple, goofy music, and sometimes winter gets so dreary and awful that you need some goofy tunes to remind you of warmer days.

That's where Sam Kogon's new single from Seagreen Records comes in. The song is equal parts "Mac Demarco Teen Coolness" and "Stuff Your Dad Would Probably Like," two genres that are rising steadily right now, for better or for worse. This song, "Plans," is a nice and honest pop song—it'll thaw your frigid winter bones a bit.

[body_image width='2000' height='1333' path='images/content-images/2015/02/09/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/09/' filename='having-drugs-doesnt-make-you-a-cop-killer-209-body-image-1423496333.jpg' id='25735']

Photo via Flickr user Ryan Lackey

Joel Robinson of Columbia, South Carolina, is due to be tried on Monday over the October shooting of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent during a raid on his house. During the "early morning raid" in October, Robinson, 32, shot Agent Barry Wilson in the elbow, breaking his arm.

Robinson was suspected of manufacturing and selling PCP. He fired at least five shots at the agents surrounding his house, but surrendered after injuring Wilson. No PCP was found in his home, just a small amount of marijuana and a bunch of guns. Robinson faces charges for drug manufacturing conspiracy, assaulting individuals executing a search warrant, and using a firearm during a drug crime.

He is expected to plead self defense, claiming he didn't know it was federal officers at the door. Recent precedents suggest Robinson has a decent chance of pulling off that argument: It worked for Texan Henry Magee, who killed a police sergeant in December 2013, and resulted in Virginian Ryan Frederick serving a decade in prison for killing a member of the SWAT team who came to his door—instead of life or worse.

This idea isn't pretty intuitive: It's only natural to freak out when gunmen appear at your door at odd hours, and even if they announce themselves as police you might still be concerned enough to reach for your guns. But given that so many targets of narcotics raids surrender after shooting a single officer and realizing their mistake, police departments should recognize that these are accidents, not malicious crimes. It's good that these defendants are being treated mercifully by the courts, but police policies surrounding these raids need to change to avoid further deaths.

Now for the rest of this week's bad cops:

-On Saturday, police in Gastonia, North Carolina fatally shot a 74-year-old man during a health welfare check. Police were sent to the home of James Howard Allen by a relative because the man had recently had heart surgery. Allen wasn't responsive to a knock around 10 PM, so at 11, police opened the door themselves. Allen had a pistol, and according to the Gastonia Police Chief Robert Helton, "He was challenged to lower the gun down. The gun was pointed in the direction of the officers, and a shot was fired that fatally wounded him." That passive voice means Officer Josh Lefevers fired. In this case, as opposed to a narcotics raid, police actually meant well in checking on Allen, which just makes the whole thing that much more depressing.

-A Fayetteville, Arkansas, man who was basically arrested for not wanting a cop to check his Arizona iced tea for booze had all charges against him dismissed on Thursday. Christopher Lamont Beatty was in a state liquor store parking lot in April 2013 when Rick Libero of the Cumberland County Alcoholic Beverage Control began pestering him about the drink, which Beatty had purchased from the store earlier. Beatty said the plainclothes law enforcement officer, who actually worked at the store, didn't identify himself all that clearly, and eventually cuffed him and shoved him on the ground. The judge tossed out the suit because the stop was baseless. This was justice, but slow in coming, and without the video footage of the incident it seems rather unlikely that Beatty would still have a clean record.

-Asheville, North Carolina, cop Jonathan Collins has been suspended without pay for eight weeks because he spit on a 17-year-old in April. Collins is appealing the sentence, which is unsurprising, but it's amazing that he got such a serious punishment. The officer says the teen got in his way, and he just happened to be spitting at the moment their paths crossed.

-Niles, Ohio, patrolman Todd Mobley is back on the job after being suspended for a month when an internal affairs investigation revealed he pulled over a couple he knew, accused them of stealing gasoline from his mother, and searched their car illegally. Mobley also messed with his dashcam, committed an unlawful use of force, and threatened to kill the man. Nothing about the case suggests that Mobley has any business being a police officer—or that he shouldn't be charged with a crime—but it's so hard to fire a cop that it's difficult to imagine him suffering serious consequences.

-Thanks to newly released surveillance video, Philadelphia police officers Sean McKnight and Kevin Robinson were charged with assault, conspiracy, and filing a false report over their May 2013 arrest of Najee Rivera. They have been suspended from the force, and are likely to be fired. Rivera was pulled off his scooter by the officers and beaten hard enough to fracture his orbital socket—but he was the one charged with assault. (Rivera said he was scared of McKnight and Robinson when they yelled at him and gestured with their batons so he drove his scooter away.) The officers claim Rivera fought them, but the video completely contradicts that story. Philly District Attorney Seth Williams had some seriously harsh words for the two officers, saying, "I will prosecute these two officers to the fullest extent of the law. Simply put, no one—not even police officers—is above the law." Right on.

-Richmond officers managed to set a man on fire on Saturday. The DUI suspect reportedly drove away from police when they attempted to pull him over, then crashed his car. After he was rescued from the vehicle, the man fought against police and firefighters. An officer Tasered the guy, which set him on fire, presumably because of gasoline on his clothes. The man was extinguished and taken to the hospital.

-A lawsuit filed in Austin, Texas, alleges that police put a hood over DUI suspect Caroline Callaway's head, choked her, strapped her down, and took blood after she refused a breathalyzer. DUIs are a serious problem, but there is unquestionably a less Guantanamo Bay-ish way of nailing someone on that charge.

-Bad cops shoot dogs. Good Cops of the Week like Fort Worth, Texas officers Allen Speed and Paul Garcia rescue dogs that don't have an owner to miss them. After briefly blocking traffic, Speed and Garcia coaxed a little dog named "Beach" into their cruiser. Far from being peeved, pedestrians demonstrated their approval with claps and honks. Everyone loves a good dog rescue tale.

Follow Lucy Steigerwald on Twitter.

[body_image width='1200' height='637' path='images/content-images/2015/02/09/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/09/' filename='toronto-police-officers-suspended-following-sexual-assault-complaint-by-parking-officer-829-body-image-1423502863.jpg' id='25780']

Toronto police cruiser. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Three Toronto police officers have been suspended following the alleged sexual assault of a female colleague during an "after-work party" last month, CityNews reported.

Their suspension came after the alleged victim, a parking enforcement officer, lodged a complaint that triggered an internal investigation into the matter.

VICE spoke with the Toronto Police Service's Director of Corporate Communications Mark Pugash, who said that because of a blanket provision in the Police Services Act, he is legally prohibited from talking about this case, or whether or not an internal investigation is underway.

He did, however, say that if police officers were "theoretically" suspended following a complaint, the outcome of an internal investigation can "go one of three ways."

"The first is the possibility of having criminal charges and if there are charges laid we will notify the public with a press release," said Pugash. So far, charges have not been laid in this case.

"There is also the possibility of disciplinary charges and public hearings by virtue of the Police Services Act. The third possibility is that there is insufficient evidence for either a criminal investigation or internal disciplinary measures. Any internal investigation falls within one of these three categories."

Pugash would not comment on which category the current case fell into.

He added that unless there is an extreme circumstance like incarceration, "officers are almost always suspended with pay."

According to the initial report, the three suspended officers are male and work at the 51 Division on Parliament and Front St. We contacted the 51 Division but they refused to comment citing that it was "an ongoing investigation."

VICE spoke with Toronto lawyer Barry Swadron, who began his career as a criminal defense attorney in 1963 and served as a government advisor helping provinces draft legislation on a wide range of policy issues. Swadron has appeared before a number of parliamentary committees as an expert witness on matters of policing and security. His legal practice currently revolves mostly around civil lawsuits against police forces.

"We have more civil actions against the police than any other firm that I know of in Canada," he said. "Many of our clients are actually police officers who are suing the police force or making human rights complaints against them."

Swadron says there is definitely an uncomfortable trend that emerges when police use internal investigations to police themselves.

"My experience is that if it's an internal investigation by the same force, you would almost have to climb to highest mountain to get justice," said Swadron. "It's the 'blue wall.' And in most cases they'll just say that the case and the charges are unsubstantiated. But I've never found that it's a fair process."

The Special Investigations Unit is an Ontario civilian oversight group that conducts criminal investigations into incidents involving civilians and on-duty police officers. If SIU is sufficiently convinced that a police officer has committed a sexual assault, or caused serious injury or death in the line of duty, they can press criminal charges which the Crown will have to prosecute.

The problem in this case is that the SIU's jurisdiction extends only to cases of police abuses committed while officers are on duty.

SIU spokesperson Monica Hudon says that the SIU does not conduct investigations into off-duty police officer conduct "unless police property or equipment is involved, or if the officer has used his police status during an incident, which is not the case here."

Hudon told VICE that the SIU is "monitoring what is happening and if it became appropriate we would step in. But at this point we're not investigating because the alleged incident happened while the officers were off-duty."

Barry Swadron told us that this isn't enough. He says that the SIU should look into any serious allegation—like sexual assault—because the very purpose of the SIU was to give the public the comfort that police officers would not be investigating themselves in cases involving serious police misconduct.

"There should be absolutely no difference in the integrity of a police officer whether he's on duty or not."

The 2016 presidential campaign has begun, and so far, the reaction among most of America's electorate can be summed up as "meh." It's easy to see why. As they do every four years, wealthy candidates backed by wealthier campaign donors have started bouncing around the heartland, acting like they sympathize with the Common People and promising that they have the answer to their troubles—the mountains of student loan debt, the limited job prospects, the stagnant wages. Mostly, though, their grand speeches and vague policy proposals promise to be more of the same.

In this environment, Elizabeth Warren, the sharp-tongued, quick-witted scourge of Wall Street, stands out to voters on the left as a ray of hope. Across the country, progressive activists have called on Warren to get into the 2016 presidential race, urging the Massachusetts Senator to mount a primary challenge against presumptive Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. A petition to draft Warren into the presidential race has gained more than 111,000 signatures. Even in New York, Clinton's home state, labor leaders and liberal activists with the Working Families Party voted Sunday to formally call on Warren to enter the race. The problem, of course, is that, for now at least, Warren insists she's not running for president.

Enter Run Warren Run. The group, backed by the progressive advocacy groups MoveOn and Democracy for America, has launched a nationwide effort toconvince Warren to throw her hat in the ring. With a $1.25 million budget, Run Warren Run has already launched a grassroots organizing effort, and is hiring staffers in key early voting states.

"Immediately after the 2014 election, we asked our members who they'd like to run for president. The winner by over 20 points was Elizabeth Warren," said Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America. "There's certainly sort of a DC class of people that say that we shouldn't even be trying this. The reality is that we have to try. This is Elizabeth Warren's moment, and so we are going to build the campaign it takes for her to make the decision to do this."

For progressives wary of Hillary Clinton's inevitability as the Democratic Party's 2016 nominee, Warren's appeal is obvious. The former Harvard law professor has been a liberal star since the dark days of the economic crisis in late 2008, when she chaired a congressional oversight panel on the government's bank bailout, tearing into finance execs for their misuse of taxpayer dollars. As a senator, she has become an unlikely YouTube star, famous for her folksy Senate floor tirades on economic injustice. Video of a speech she gave in December, blasting Citigroup for its role in watering down a key provision of the Dodd-Frank bill, has received more than 600,000 views. Her populist rants against Republicans over last year's government shutdown have been watched by more than 2 million.

[body_image width='800' height='548' path='images/content-images/2015/02/09/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/09/' filename='the-elizabeth-warren-insurgency-209-body-image-1423505334.jpg' id='25802']

Former labor activist Kurt Ehrenberg is laying the groundwork for Warren's imaginary campaign in New Hampshire. Photo by author

While Warren claims she's not interested in a White House bid, liberal activists aren't taking no for an answer. After opening its first office in Iowa in late January, Run Warren Run opened a New Hampshire office last week, hiring four staffers to campaign in the first-in-nation primary state. Kurt Ehrenberg, former political director for New Hampshire AFL-CIO, is heading up the team. "The momentum in New Hampshire to get Elizabeth Warren to enter the presidential primary is gaining every day, and it's really huge," Ehrenberg told VICE. "Being a senator from Massachusetts, people in New Hampshire know her well because the media markets overlap. So she's very well known, she's extremely popular with progressive Democrats in the state, and we are going to be successful in getting her in the race."

Within days of starting up operations, the office had held six house parties in the state, part of a national blitz of draft Warren events over Super Bowl weekend. Now, Ehrenberg said, his office is working to line up endorsements from New Hampshire politicians and organize events aimed at making the Senator more visible in the state. "When we had these house parties—I've been working in progressive politics in New Hampshire for over 30 years, and I met a dozen or more people at one event in Concord that I had never met before," Ehrenberg said. "I do think there's a lot of new enthusiasm in people who are charged up and very enthusiastic about trying to get Elizabeth Warren into the race and, if she does, [would work] very hard to see that she gets elected president."

[body_image width='800' height='493' path='images/content-images/2015/02/09/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/09/' filename='the-elizabeth-warren-insurgency-209-body-image-1423505042.jpg' id='25798']

Liberal activists spent Super Bowl Weekend begging Warren to run for president. Photo via Facebook

Run Warren Run firmly rejects the notion that Clinton's nomination is inevitable. And there are signs that they may be right. Although national polls show Clinton leading the field of potential Democratic presidential candidates, surveys in early voting states like New Hampshire and Iowa are less decisive. A recent poll of New Hampshire voters, for example, found that three-fourths of likely Democratic primary voters haven't yet made up their mind who to vote for in next year's primary. The poll suggests a certain lack of excitement about Clinton, with just under a third of respondents citing her as the "most likeable" or "most believable" candidate.

"There's a strong and long tradition in New Hampshire of sort of upsetting conventional wisdom, and this campaign, I think, is about that," Ehrenberg said. "The voters of New Hampshire have surprised the pundits with their choices for who should get in the race, getting people in the race reluctantly, and who ultimately will win the primary—and go on to get the nomination, usually."

There's also reason to believe that a sizable chunk of voters are looking for a candidate who isn't so deeply enmeshed in the Washington power structure. The Washington Post 's Dan Balz reports that in a recent Denver focus group, most voters, regardless of party affiliation, responded positively to Warren, while mentions of Clinton and Jeb Bush were met with hostility.

Activists leading the draft Warren efforts also reject the idea that a primary challenge would benefit Republicans by weakening Hillary Clinton and dividing Democrats before the general election in 2016. Regardless of the outcome, Chamberlain says that Run Warren Run will still have been successful in pulling in new progressive activists and volunteers to the movement, helping to build the infrastructure of the Warren wing of the Democratic Party. And he believes Run Warren Run will ultimately be successful in its effort to convince Warren to jump into the race.

"At the moment she's saying she won't do it, and I believe her," he said. "But that's why we're building a draft campaign to show that there is that momentum for her, that there are millions of people nationwide—that there is a grassroots, earnest drive to see a real champion on income inequality in this race."

Follow Livia on Twitter

[body_image width='1140' height='370' path='images/content-images/2015/02/09/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/09/' filename='sam-smith-ruled-madonna-returned-to-form-and-kanye-was-kanye-at-the-grammys-456-body-image-1423500405.jpg' id='25773']

An E for effort. You can't say the Grammy Awards aren't ambitious. It's no small feat serving multiple gods—bringing in the youth, honoring the past, creating buzzed-about fun moments, and exhibiting a social conscience. But last night's 57th edition of the awards was proof that when the Grammys try to be everything to everyone, it feels overstuffed yet unsatisfying. At least, unsatisfying to anyone not named Sam Smith. "Music's Biggest Night" felt bigger than ever, but not in a good way, just a bloated one, and it wasn't for lack of star power—just about every major name in pop had some time on the Staples Center stage. It was more a lack of fresh ideas. Here's a rundown of what happened.

Sam Smith Racked Up a Ton of Grammys

First and foremost, bottom line–wise, are those millennials. There is nothing worse in 2015 than being irrelevant to the kids. On the other hand, this being the Grammys, if you can get mom and dad to take notice, so much the better. No one served that dual purpose more than the man who ruled the night, Sam Smith. Not since George Michael has there been a more highly touted male voice in pop, and going into this year's Grammys, the sad-sack British balladeer with the golden pipes was considered a gimme for Best New Artist. But hardly anyone expected him to take not only that award, but three of the four top prizes, including Record and Song of the Year? Smith's total of four gramophones was a coronation on the order of his countrywoman Adele, who took home six in 2012—proof once again that there is nothing the Recording Academy likes more than a "new classic" (sorry, Iggy).

Madonna Showed She Can Still Do It

With each passing year, though, the Grammy telecast becomes less about the awards tally, and more about the performances, and no artist had more riding on Sunday night's show than Madonna. She long ago surpassed the need to prove anything to anyone, and yet the doyenne of pop lives forever in the here and now. And of late, thanks to a series of inexcusable leaks of her upcoming 13th album, Rebel Heart, a live performance of lead single "Live for Love" was considered in some quarters a make-or-break moment. Unsurprisingly, she delivered. Although the normally steely perfectionist showed unexpected signs of nerves, her recreation of the minotaur-filled music video, bathed in red and black, was spot on. Though some of her hardcore fans would have liked to have seen her dance more in those high heels and writhe less, M was once again on point.

Kanye Is Still Kanye

One of the more happy surprises of the night was a newly genial Kanye West. The famously prickly one has had every reason to have beef with the Grammys, after the academy denied him Album of the Year three times, and didn't even nominate him for the superb My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Yeezus. But this year Kanye decided, for whatever reason, to bury the hatchet. Not only was he uncharacteristically approachable on the red carpet, but he performed twice: a stark, moving rendition of "Only One," and an appearance alongside Paul McCartney and a sublime, stripped-down Rihanna for "FourFive Seconds," perhaps the live highlight of the night. Still, Kanye being Kanye, the man did momentarily bum-rush the stage to rep for Beyoncé when Beck took Album of the Year, recalling his 2009 interruption of Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards. On this night it played as parody, although in a post-show interview, Kanye said he thought Beck should give his Grammy to Beyoncé.

Beck Won Album of the Year

While on paper, Beck's win for Morning Phase­—a solid record, but hardly the jaw-dropper that was Beyoncé—might have been the biggest shocker of the night, serious Grammy watchers can't have been that surprised. As recent Album of the Year winners Arcade Fire (2011) and Mumford & Sons (2013) bear out, there is enough of a rock contingent within academy voters that—if there is enough competition in the pop/R&B arena—will win out. Beck was typically gracious in his acceptance, but truth be told, more telling was the placement of the award. Despite presenter Prince's declaration that "albums... still matter," the fact that what is traditionally considered the top Grammy Award was given out before Song and Record of the Year contradicted that idea. In 2015, it's apparently the single that counts.

The now tried-and-true Grammy tradition of pairing newcomers with vets played out again, in combinations that seemed both inspired and forced: Ed Sheeran and Jeff Lynne's ELO on the latter's "Mr. Blue Sky"; Hozier and Annie Lennox on a mash-up of "Take Me to the Church" and the blues chestnut "I Put a Spell on You"; and Jessie J and Tom Jones, on a truly head-scratching cover of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling." One cross-generational combo that seemed perfectly natural, though, was Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett, doing the title track from their jazz revival album Cheek to Cheek, which had already won a Grammy earlier in the night.

The Grammys Got Political

The toughest turn for the Grammy Awards on this night was when they got socio-political. It's nothing new—a highlight of last year's ceremony was a mass same-sex wedding celebration—but this time around, it was almost too much. The specter of Ferguson and the idea that black lives do indeed matter was evoked by Pharrell and Prince; a no-frills, all-white Katy Perry turned her Prism track "By the Grace of God" into a musical commentary about domestic abuse. That followed a taped statement on the topic from President Obama and a spoken-word piece from abuse survivor Brooke Axtell—a segment that, important as it was, threatened to grind the show to a halt.

But then, along came Beyoncé. She had stayed on the sidelines for most of the night, taking to the podium once to accept the Grammy for Best R&B Performance. But when the time came, she was there. A show that for three hours-plus had hoped to say something meaningful about the uncertain, often fucked up times we live in, finally succeeded when Bey took the stage. In stark contrast to her sexed-up opener of "Drunk in Love" with Jay Z at the 2014 Grammys, this time she closed the show on a spiritual note. Backed by an all-male choir raising their hands as if to say "Hand Up, Don't Shoot," she delivered a glorious take on "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," a gospel favorite she first learned from her mother. She may have been robbed of Album of the Year honors, but on this night, Beyoncé had the last, most important word.

Follow John on Twitter.

As incarceration numbers have topped out in recent years thanks to what looks like the beginning of the end of the war on drugs, women have gained a stronger foothold in the prison industry, getting jobs that—like so many others in America—have traditionally been dominated by men.

But along with that progressive change has come a steadydrip of lurid tales about sex between guards and inmates. Last week, Ciara Jones, a guard at the St. Louis City jail, was charged with three counts of sexual contact with an inmate, each punishable by up to four years in prison.

We probably shouldn't be too shocked, though. There is no rule, regulation, or state of affairs a savvy prisoner cannot subvert. This has been proven many times over, and is confirmed when you talk to long-time inmates.

"I love when I see a new, young, and naïve female working in prison," says a convict we'll call Mack.

Mack has spent the better part of the last 20 years in and out of state and federal prison. He's in his 40s, a born and bred criminal who is all about what others can do for him in the here and now. I met many people like Mack during my 21 years of incarceration—sharks who prey on the vulnerable, exploiting anyone who fits the bill to their own nefarious ends. Fans of HBO's Oz will recall that Ryan O'Reilly, the Machiavellian character played by Dean Winters—the guy in all those AllState insurance TV spots—had sex with at least one guard to secure advantages inside.

"It doesn't even matter if she is pretty. I mean that helps, but all that matters is if she is game," Mack says. And by "game," Mack means being down with whatever he wants the guard in question to do—bring in contraband items like tobacco, cellphones, and drugs, or even have sex with him.

It starts out with a little flirting at mail call, or asking a guard if their office needs cleaning. Then the prisoner can start asking for little favors like being allowed to eat early, or for the guard to look something up on the internet.

But how do guards let themselves get involved with their charges?

"I believe that a lot of times the females that engage in this type of ethical suicide have major issues going on with themselves before they are even hired," Tamara, a former corrections officer who has moved into prison administration at a Midwestern facility, tells VICE. "A lot of them are single mothers who are looking to fill a void in their lives, whether it be not having a spouse, or a father figure on the outside." And convicts like Mack know how to play right into that.

"Shit, I can be their daddy, I can be their man, their boyfriend, best friend or whoever they need me to be," he says. "As long as they get me what I want I can be whatever and whoever they need me to be. It's all a game really, a tradeoff. I know nobody does nothing for free, and if I got to sex one of these broads down to get her to bring stuff in to me, than you know what time it is." With minimal training, some of these women are being thrown into the lion's den without the tools to succeed. And the hiring practices of prisons don't help the situation.

"A lot of people that choose to work in corrections really shouldn't be working in corrections and probably wouldn't be if every employer did psychological evaluations in addition to background checks," Tamara says. "Nowadays, it's all about what I [the guard] can get out of it." That feeds right into the convict's mentality of, What can you do for me right now. It's all about instant gratification. And like Mack says, it's a tradeoff.

"If she wants sex and attention for drugs and phones, that is a fair trade in my world," Mack says. "I am just trying to make some money because money equals power and in here, power is respect. I am trying to do the time, not let the time do me. And female diversions are nice, especially when they help me keep my rackets going." The correctional officer might see herself as the one in control of the situation because she is the one with the keys, but sometimes, they're just getting played.

"I hate to say it, but a lot of correctional officers, male and female, have low self- esteem," Tamara says, which can lead to them befriending or starting relationships with inmates.

But female guards who get caught up in all this are paying a price. I saw numerous female guards lose their jobs and get walked out of the prison during my incarceration. A lot of this sort of thing is swept under the carpet by prison officials, leaving fellow guards to speculate about what exactly inspired the dalliance.

According to Tamara, the appeal is "a combination of getting away with something that is forbidden, the rush of being with someone as hardcore as an inmate, and the false sense of control that they think they have over the situation [but] not necessarily over the inmate. They may have lost all sense of control over every other aspect of their lives, and this form of relationship is something they think they have control over by not getting caught by their superiors or other inmates."

With better training, higher standards, and the proper psychological evaluations, these episodes might be prevented. And they should be stopped, because the only ones benefiting are the most manipulative portion of America's massive prison population.

Follow Seth Ferranti on Twitter.

[body_image width='795' height='497' path='images/content-images/2015/02/09/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/09/' filename='slacker-was-the-film-that-showed-me-how-to-get-lost-body-image-1423499488.png' id='25757']

Slacker didn't have a straightforward path to success. A screening at Seattle Film Festival showed some early promise, before it was rejected by Toronto and New York. A slot at Sundance saw the film overlooked for Todd Haynes's Poison and Paris Is Burning. Almost everybody was surprised when the $23,000 film went on to gross well over a million dollars at the box office, and more surprised yet when it became a cult classic for disillusioned kids everywhere—particularly those with an affinity to the Dr. Martens clad, plaid shirt wearing Gen Xers that the movie features.

Sure, tales of tribulation may not be unusual in filmmaking, but the non-linear path of Slacker's journey to screen fits so well here because it's the form taken by the film itself.

Slacker is unconventional all over, from beginning to end. That's if you can ascertain whether it really does have a beginning, a middle or an end. A series of episodic encounters present the residents of Austin, Texas, lounging about, not doing much. Most of the cast were amateur actors living locally, and director Richard Linklater gets things rolling by appearing as the first featured character. There isn't one leading protagonist, with a plucky buddy or a love interest simpering in the background. Those Austin residents, described as "a lot of people" on the cast description, are all the leads. Or, to put it another way, none of them are.

I discovered Slacker around the same time as reading Douglas Coupland's Generation X. The two should probably be sold as a package. Just as the dissatisfied characters that comprise Coupland's zeitgeisty manifesto turn their backs on the structured nine-to-fives set out for them, so Linklater's cast are met with the painful ennui of Austin. The shared interests of this book and film met with my own feeling of "is this it?" as I contended with the lackluster job market of the time.

[body_image width='716' height='455' path='images/content-images/2015/02/09/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/09/' filename='slacker-was-the-film-that-showed-me-how-to-get-lost-body-image-1423499673.png' id='25762']

In his opening monologue, Linklater tells the taxi driver, who picks him up at the station, that he could have walked or hitched a ride. He admits he probably should have, as he's kind of broke right now. Leaving the taxi, he happens upon a car accident, so he calls the police. A few moments earlier or later and he would have missed the incident entirely. The idea of there being a variety of paths to tread, and the consequences of each road (not) taken is raised from the beginning.

Once a character instigates or plays a role in a scene, they never reappear. Characters languidly wander off and you don't see them again. One guy leaves his flatmates a postcard detailing his absence, a bickering couple walk past an official "Missing" poster on their stroll—the theme of going missing returns more often than the characters do. It's a world of apparent lazy inertia, but not only are people actually moving, some are moving away altogether. It embodies that fear of slipping through the net—to have had promise that you haven't delivered on—while inviting you to do something altogether different.

Breaking with tradition, whether in life or film, is an ethos that finds expression in Slacker's recurring trope of destruction. When the gamut of gazing (navel/shoe, etc.) has been run, the film's introverted characters suddenly become wildly decisive, throwing a typewriter from a bridge and chucking a home movie camera off of a cliff.

I can't help but lament a broken video camera, but this isn't nihilistic destruction. The final footage in the film comes from the perspective of the discarded camera. There is doing in the undoing.

Likewise, the film's winding from one set of characters to another through chance encounters, with no overall goal and no single protagonist, deconstructs the traditional narrative of a film. Again, it's not destruction for destruction's sake. It creates something new, and that is liberating.

[body_image width='868' height='626' path='images/content-images/2015/02/09/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/09/' filename='slacker-was-the-film-that-showed-me-how-to-get-lost-body-image-1423500142.png' id='25768']

In an interview, Linklater discussed feeling an empathy for those 20-somethings who don't get a degree and then go straight into work—those who hanker after discovering a passion. His self-taught, DIY, "just-keep-filming-until-we-run-out-of-money-and-then-we'll-find-some-more" approach, as evident in Slacker, is comforting. Both Linklater and the film say that it's OK to not know where you're going—in spite of all fervent expectation to know right now, right this second: "What do you mean you don't know?"

You could say that Linklater threw the rulebook off the cliff with the camera, and in loosening the structural ties that bind, carved a different path to success. Twenty-four years later and one multi-award winning project, Boyhood, that took almost half that time in the making later, Slacker is still gaining acolytes.

Slacker is inspiration to keep on with those passion projects—to go your own way despite the pressure to conform. Above all, the film taught me this: Those who wander may not be lost.

[body_image width='1280' height='720' path='images/content-images/2015/02/07/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/07/' filename='the-ultra-violent-hotline-miami-2-is-a-red-rag-to-the-red-tops-024-body-image-1423305807.jpg' id='25450']

When Gothenburg-based developers Dennaton Games, a.k.a. Jonatan Söderström and Dennis Wedin, revealed their first title to the world in October 2012, they couldn't have imagined how it'd explode its way beyond cult status to become one of contemporary indie gaming's biggest hits.

Hotline Miami—a bloody top-down shooter with retro graphics and a pulsating soundtrack of atmospheric electronica—wore its Drive influences proudly enough, but still stands apart from all other games. Set in 1980s Miami, it took the player on a sordid journey of visceral violence. Awarding the game 10/10 on PC—the game is also available across Sony platforms and for OS X and Linux. Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell wrote: "It only works as a whole, and it doesn't hit you like a flavor; it builds in your system, like an intravenous solution." Quite possibly one brewed from brain matter scraped from hallway walls. Further acclaim rolled in, and awards followed.

"We didn't think the first game would sell well," says Dennis. "It was a really indie project. We didn't really think about what people wanted to play—we just made the game that we wanted to play."

Turned out that hundreds of thousands of gamers wanted to play it, too. Dennaton sold 130,000 copies of Hotline Miami in the game's first seven weeks of availability. By February 2013, that figure had more than doubled. A sequel was talked about, and confirmed when a teaser trailer went live in June 2013.

But Dennis and Jonatan haven't rush-released their second Hotline game. By the time it eventually comes out—which might be March based on a new, somewhat creepy answering machine message (although the pair would only confirm "soon" when I spoke to them)—almost two years will have passed between announcement and arrival. That's the kind of timeframe Grand Theft Auto V worked to.

It's got to be right, basically. Especially since the pair are on record as saying the Hotline Miami sequel, set in the 1990s and subtitled Wrong Number, will be the final game in this brief series. Just as they refused to compromise the first time around, they've done likewise for number two—even in the face of mounting controversy surrounding one particular scene, which depicts an act of rape, and an outright ban for the Australian market. Dennaton has made the (optional, and seemingly simulated, on a movie set) rape scene available on YouTube ahead of the game's release, so you can see for yourself whether or not it's worth the headlines.

Amongst those publications weighing in with particularly strong rhetoric was The Mirror, which ran an article on January 15 titled: "Hotline Miami 2 Rape Scene Prompts Ban as Critics Label it 'Most Violent' Video Game Ever." Which we'll get to in due course. Regarding that Australian ban, though, you have to wonder how Dennaton took the news that the spectacularly gory Mortal Kombat X, which uses life-like visuals, was cleared for release in the country, albeit with the top mature rating. That news only came through in the last few days, after I spoke with Dennis and Jonatan.

[youtube src='//www.youtube.com/embed/Kqr0yUuSiTs' width='560' height='315']

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number—dial tone trailer

VICE: You've said Wrong Number will be the final Hotline Miami game. Is that because you've done all you can with this breed of game, and its cast of characters?
Jonatan: We had a lot of ideas after we'd finished the first game, and now we've made a game based on all of those ideas. I don't think we can come up with anything new that would add to the game. We really want to do new games. We have no desire to make a Hotline Miami 3.

Did you feel any pressure to even make this sequel, as the first game was such a success? Did you feel you owed it to people, to the game's fans, to make another one?
Dennis: Not really, no. We're still making the game that we want to make. A lot of people tell us that it looks the same as the first one, and that it feels the same. But, yeah. We wanted to make more of this, so...

There are some substantial changes that have been previewed, though, like the game's level editor and playing as multiple characters, each with specific talents. What are you most excited about letting the public get its hands on, this time around?
Jonatan: I think the most fun thing this time is actually the storyline, and seeing how people interpret it, and if they like it or not.

Dennis: I want to see how people react to our new characters. I'm looking forward to seeing which ones they favor, and which they hate.

Is it a game you'll be able to finish without using every character, a bit like Maniac Mansion?
Dennis: No, you have to use every character. Each level is tailored to one character, connected to them. You will jump between different perspectives.

Jonatan: Aside from "The Fans," because you can choose which character to play as there. But that's not the case on most of the other levels.

And am I right in thinking that, plot-wise, it's not linear?
Dennis: That's right. The story is more important this time. On the first one, we didn't know if anyone would really pick up on the story, so we really focused on the gameplay. People really liked that, so for the sequel every environment has its own story. There's more of that in this game.

Wrong Number has already been banned in Australia. Did you see that coming? It's a country with a reputation for this sort of thing.
Jonatan: It wasn't a surprise. I think we were warned that they were pretty strict.

Dennis: We had a lot of problems with the first game out there, as well. It took a long time to get it certified in Australia.

People will ask why the scene that has come under the most scrutiny, the rape, hasn't been removed. I'm asking you now, in fact: why don't you remove it, if that's a sticking point in the game getting a release in Australia?
Dennis: It's a part of the story, of the idea we had. We don't really want to talk about it before people play it. Then we can talk about it in context.

So is it frustrating to see The Mirror run with a headline saying that Wrong Number is the most violent game ever?
Jonatan: It's not that frustrating. It's a bit too abstract that there are so many people having opinions about a game they haven't played yet. So we don't really think too much about it. It's kind of comical that they're actually talking about something that doesn't fully exist yet.

[body_image width='1600' height='900' path='images/content-images/2015/02/07/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/07/' filename='the-ultra-violent-hotline-miami-2-is-a-red-rag-to-the-red-tops-024-body-image-1423305845.jpg' id='25451']

A screenshot from Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number

And you're not going to produce a censored version of the game, at all?
Jonatan: There is actually an option to censor the game when you play it, so you don't have to see that rape scene. We think that's enough.

Dennis: Also, it's not just that scene that got the game banned. There are other things, too. So it'd be a major task to "fix" the game just for one market. We'd have to remove entire levels, so it's really not a possibility.

You've said that Australians should pirate the game if they want to play it. That's a pretty strong statement. But if people do, and the reaction is huge, does that represent a victory against censorship?
Jonatan: I don't think we'd see it as a victory. We just want people who want to play the game to be able to.

Dennis: We want people to think for themselves, to form their own opinions, and not have an opinion forced on them.

Violent video games have been around forever. Presumably you don't think that Wrong Number is the most violent of all?
Dennis: [Laughing] No! But it's interesting that it's seen to be the most violent video game ever, when it's in 2D. It's really lo-fi. I actually think it's pretty cool that people have said that.

Just to touch on something else real quick, the music of Wrong Number is coming out on vinyl, giving you a physical side to a very digital product. Do you think that's something that other developers working on download-only games should look at?
Dennis: It's awesome. It's like a trophy. It's nice for the musicians to have something that's their product—it's not the game, it's just the music. Well, when you buy the album you get the game digitally, too, but it's more like their thing. It's celebrating the music, and not just the game.

Jonatan: But not all games have the option to do something like this, because it's expensive. It has to be worth it, I guess—or the developers have to be really passionate about it.

Dennis: We both love limited-edition stuff, and we both love records.

Jonatan: We actually have an action figure coming, too. We started that with a guy in the USA. It's a DIY job but it's really awesome, and really big. It's, like, nine inches tall.

Dennis: It has removable clothes, and removable masks. It's awesome. I can't wait to have it on my shelf.

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number might be released in March. You can pre-order the triple-vinyl, limited-edition soundtrack—which gets you the game, too—here.

Follow Mike on Twitter.

I broke my good headphones, recently. So, for a while, I was using those shitty, $3 joints they sell at bodegas—the ones that make every song sound like it was recorded under water—because I was too lazy to get a new pair. But when the video for Johnny May Cash's song "My Last Days" hit my inbox, I knew I needed to step my audio game up. With production by Pro Tools prodigy Young Chop and a sing-song rap style that hits the sweet spot between Lil Durk and Chief Keef, there is no way I was going to the Chicago native's new video without the proper accoutrements. So, I desperately begged a co-worker to borrow his headphones. And the change up was well worth it. As soon as I pressed play, I started bouncing in my swivel chair like I was sitting in the front seat of a whip with subwoofers loud enough to be used for sonic torture.

The video for the song involves one of those "right place right time situations" where a kid wearing a red hoodie gets capped outside a cornerstore and is remorselessly robbed. The victim appears to be Cash, who's also wearing the same hoodie. But upon a flashback, we realize the shooters have targeted another guy, and the rapper walks away clean.

This makes me wonder, if Cash had known this was potentially his last snack run, would he have chosen the same munchies? Maybe he would have picked those limited edition Sriracha Lays and a tallboy instead? Or maybe some Hostess cakes because fuck it, right? One thing's for sure, though, if it's your last bodega trip, don't buy headphones, or the final song you'll hear before you die won't sound nearly as epic.

Johnny May Cash's My Last Days mixtape drops February 24th.

Follow Zach on Twitter.

[body_image width='800' height='605' path='images/content-images/2015/02/09/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/09/' filename='healing-soldiers-with-literature-body-image-1423510781.jpg' id='25817']

Photo of Fredrick Foote by Greg Dohler via Gazette.net

Gunners in Sevastopol, Ukraine, had unhinged the gates of hell on a battalion of British troops. On October 25, 1854, cannonballs flattened dozens of men a pop, and warhorses sank to their hocks in the splatter. When the smoke cleared 110 were dead, making the Battle of Balaclava one of the most notorious suicide missions of the Crimean War.

Six weeks after the massacre Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Britain's poet laureate, hailed the soldiers' valor in 55 lines of verse and enshrined them in legend. A tragic ballad with a biting sense of futility ("Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die"), "The Charge of the Light Brigade" became the ambivalent banner cry of this and so many subsequent wars of questionable cause. But Rudyard Kipling's postscript to the poem, "The Last of the Light Brigade," written years later, went nearly unnoticed. His largely forgotten effort considered the battle's forgotten survivors, who, "limping and lean and forlorn," had inherited from their country nothing but shell shock, pained deformity, and crippling unemployment. Though Kipling wrote the essential poem about Crimea, Tennyson wrote the crowd favorite, as the public wants the battle but not the aftermath, like a child loath to clean up its mess.

If the war poet Frederick Foote has a mission, it would be to unite Tennyson's gift for elegy with Kipling's sense of debt. His debut collection, Medic Against Bomb, has enjoyed considerable acclaim since its quiet release last fall, receiving the Grayson Books Poetry Prize, earning applause from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Library of Congress, and being named by the Progressive as a best book of the year. An account of Foote's time as a US Navy doctor in Iraq and Afghanistan, the book is a tonic for the genre. A relic of the sickbay rather than the battlefield, it prefers the guts of war to the glory, lamenting the wounded on both sides with Hippocratic impartiality.

Like Kipling, Foote knows he is here not to eulogize but to heal. And his interest in the intersection of art and war doesn't end with his poetry collection. After studying humanities at the University of Chicago, Foote trained in neurology at Georgetown and Yale. When he returned from Iraq and Afghanistan he dedicated himself to finding new ways of treating veterans beset with brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. His approach has been auspiciously atypical. With military funding, Foote founded the Epidaurus Project, which researches and advocates the use of holistic medicine throughout the armed forces, and his writing group, the Warrior Poets Project, puts verse at the center of this practice. In other words, his writerly endeavors are inseparable from his pastoral care, devoted as it is to the therapeutic power of art. If his work as a poet focuses on the literature of medicine, his work as a doctor focuses on the medicine of literature.

I recently spoke with Foote to learn more about his efforts. What follows is a conversation on the value of war poetry, the healing power of literature, and his scientific research into art's effects on the brain and its place in the hospitals of the future.

VICE: Have you always written poetry, or did you find your voice on the front lines?
Captain Frederick Foote: I always wrote it, but more urgently after treating the wounded—both American and Iraqi—on the hospital ship Comfort during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. That was the origin of many of the poems in the book, which focuses on the wounded of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a poem about the Comfort, you tell the detached, emotionally AWOL generals to "come live two weeks on our ward, with the harm we have here— / You'll be mutinous then—and as pacifist as we." Have you always been a pacifist? How has this complicated your identity as a member of the armed forces?
This is the place to note I'm retired Navy—after 29 years of service—and not a federal employee, so nothing I say represents the views of the US government.

In any case, my breed of pacifism is "Hate the war but love and honor the warrior." For now, unfortunately, we may need to accept the existence of conflict as necessary if we are to reach justice.

As Robert Gates has said, some of the biggest pacifists in Washington wear uniforms. I'm one of those odd, seldom-promoted intellectuals whom the military keeps on the shelf in case of need. When they needed new approaches for treating brain injury and PTSD—the main health problems afflicting veterans of the current wars—they dusted me off and put me to work at Walter Reed, our flagship military hospital near the capital.

The poems are consistently harrowing and pay particular attention to the anguish medics experience. Were these poems a way of coping with the trauma of war? As a doctor, did you intend them as a palliative for your brothers in arms?
Writing them was automatic after I got to back to the States. I needed to witness and interpret what I'd seen. I think it's really the truth that heals—for both reader and writer.

What's the role of the arts, and truth telling, in your clinical practice? How is your work as a poet related to your work as a neurologist?
I've been developing holistic, integrative medicine programs for the military since 2001. That year, I started the Epidaurus Project, which engages civilian experts to lend advanced health ideas to the military. It's paid off. My other big projects include the Walter Reed Arts Program, which we're now spreading into the veterans' community, and the $4 million Green Road Project, the nation's largest healing garden. Baltimore's Institute for Integrative Health, where I am a scholar, is involved in these efforts.

The Warrior Poetry Project is my small current piece of the Walter Reed Arts Program, which I co-founded in 2011. With the help of an extensive staff—including three paid coordinators, more than a dozen paid artists in residence, and many therapists and volunteers—nearly all our wounded warriors make art or music during their stay at Walter Reed. It has huge healing effects, especially in brain injury and PTSD.

So all inpatients at Walter Reed, which is the primary veterans' hospital in the United States, are expected to write poetry or produce other forms of art? And you see improvement in their conditions?
Absolutely. Making music seems to be especially powerful, but all the arts work. We are in the process of proving this by "hard-science" research. In brain injury and PTSD, patients routinely tell us that the arts program was the most helpful part of their entire therapy.

Why do you think the arts have been so effective in the veterans' hospitals? From Tolstoy to David Foster Wallace, countless writers have remarked on the therapeutic power of literature. Does having an audience—as veterans do in the journal you help edit, O-Dark Thirty—lessen their sense of isolation and make them feel that their suffering is shared? Does the focus of poetry, the act of distilling their anxieties into a concrete, innocuous form, offer a kind of exorcism?
We're doing research on that, but some clues emerge from what vets in writing workshops tell us. One said that writing about his experiences lets him control his memories, instead of their controlling him. Another told us that writing allowed her to put the painful experience away in a mental drawer, and only take it out when she wanted to.

You've written that Western medicine has been plagued by reductionism since the Enlightenment. At the same time that Descartes and Leibniz insisted on breaking the world into its constituent parts in philosophy, physicians began addressing the body in terms of its individual organs. Why is the opposite view, a whole-person approach, essential to treating conditions like brain injury and PTSD?
Conventional medicine treats a single-organ system with pills or surgery—the Cartesian approach. Holistic care refers to "whole-body" therapies, such as healing buildings, family engagement, integration of care, basic wellness (nutrition, exercise, and alternative medicine), and advanced wellness (use of nature, art, and spirituality in health care). I've done projects on all the above during my years at Walter Reed.

Brain injury and PTSD are whole-person disorders because they affect every aspect of a person's life and ability to function. In addition, medications and surgery—the main tools of conventional care—don't work well alone in brain injury and PTSD. The best care combines both approaches.

The arts have been especially useful—and will be pivotal in the hospital of the future.

You've done a great deal of evidence-based research into the neurological effects that literature and the arts have on suffering. What have you found?Holistic care has been neglected because it's hard to measure whole-body transitions from illness to wellness. In the Epidaurus 2 Project, conducted from 2009 to 2011, my colleagues and I identified several advanced metrics that seem to register those changes. These include studying patients through advanced genomics, integrated biomarkers of the stress response, language analysis, and several artificial intelligence paradigms.

Our scientists at the Uniformed Services University are applying these to assess the arts program, the Green Road healing garden, and other holistic projects on the Walter Reed campus. It's still early, but we expect to prove the healing effects of the arts and nature on the body—by direct measurement, not self-report—within five years. That will be a game changer—not just for medicine but for the environmental movement. Our culture's "war against nature," declared by Machiavelli 500 years ago, seems to be coming to an end in our time.

Is there any plan to implement this nationwide?
Many of these innovations—healing buildings and gardens, family-centered care, and arts and literature programs—are already spreading widely within the Military Health System and the VA. Many earlier advances in medicine—anesthesia, complex surgery, infectious-disease control—were pioneered in the military. I'm writing a book to explain what we've done at Walter Reed to a general audience. The next step is to go directly to towns and communities and show them how to heal their own veterans via locally managed arts and garden projects. I have funding to start this "Johnny Appleseed"–type work across Maryland in 2015–16. By doing a multimedia show of my poetry, I can educate and motivate audiences very quickly, bridging the military/civilian divide. Programs for healing are the result. Who can say where art stops and "real life" begins?

[body_image width='700' height='467' path='images/content-images/2015/02/09/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/09/' filename='an-uber-driver-left-a-woman-stranded-on-a-london-motorway-on-friday-night-189-body-image-1423494875.jpg' id='25703']

Image via Flickr user Arthur Caranta

This post first appeared on VICE UK.

I've never used Uber, but can count the friends who haven't on one hand. Being able to take your phone and, within minutes, summon a nice, clean car to take you home after a night out is more convenient than Londis is for cheap rosé. Perhaps it's because of its growth in popularity that there are more and more reports of people having bad experiences with Uber.

Too often now we're hearing of new drivers being investigated for alleged sexual assault. In December, an Uber driver in Boston was actually charged with kidnapping and sexually assaulting a young woman. And we all know about the Delhi rape trial.

Uber's driver-vetting process has been subject to extensive public scrutiny, and the company's vice president, Emli Mitchell, left a sour taste when he suggested that the company (labeled "transport's bad boy" by the Telegraph) hire a team of researchers to dig up dirt on critical journalists. Mitchell then decided to publicize the personal life of a female journalist who criticized Uber and said that she no longer "feels safe as a woman taking it, frequently late at night and alone."

That young women—certainly the young women I know, at least—see the service as a safe means of transportation bears repeating, though. Women are using Uber every night, everywhere. But despite it being a late-night lifeline for many—and the fact that most people are having a lovely time with the service—the quietly menacing accounts of drivers being either a bit shady or aggressive are numerous.

On Saturday morning, I received an email from a 20-year-old woman named Caitlin, who said that an Uber driver had left her on the side of the A12 at 3 AM after becoming aggressive following her request to change course mid-journey.

"I was taking the cab on my way out to a party to watch my brother DJing. Only he rang me and said not to bother coming as it was too late, so I asked the driver to take me home," wrote Caitlin. "Or even just to the next exit, which he'd be driving toward anyway, so I could find another cab office or get a bus. The driver then asked me to cancel the trip on the app and put in a new destination."

After asking how to input the new postcode, the driver became angry. "He raised his voice, turned back towards me, and waved his finger around, telling me that I'd 'closed his line' and he wasn't going to get paid for this." She had, it turned out, accidentally cancelled the trip. But by "this," in any case, he meant taking her to the next exit so she could safely look for another way to get home.

The driver then pulled over by an SOS phone under a bridge, on a busy section of the A12 near Stratford ("I had absolutely no idea where I was at this point"), and told her to call for help there, suggesting that maybe someone would pick her up to take her home. Just to be clear here: This is a young woman (who says she was "stone cold sober") being left on the side of a motorway, in the early hours of the morning, over a few bucks.

At this point, Caitlin thought she'd chance requesting another Uber—maybe there'd be a sympathetic driver close by. There was, and one arrived minutes later, at 3:16 AM. Only, when he did, questioning why the other Uber car was still hovering in the hard shoulder in front, he said very little before slowly rolling his window up and driving away. "I told him I'd been left by the other Uber, who was worried about losing money taking me any further, and he said nothing," says Caitlin. "He just drove off, looking apprehensive."

Then she decided to take the first driver's advice and use the SOS phone.

The "kind man" on the other end of the line sent two police cars out, presumably worried that something serious had happened. After what the woman says was a "45-minute wait" beside the busy motorway, the cars arrived. One of them took her toward Walthamstow—near where she lives—and dropped her at a local minicab office. She got a cab the rest of the way home.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police confirmed her story this morning, saying, "Police were called at 3:22 AM to assist on the side of the road. They located the subject and assisted in the journey home."

"It wasn't the policeman's job to take me home," says Caitlin. "But he took me from the A12, all the way through Leyton and close to where I live. I'm new to London and don't have anybody to call or any sense of direction yet, so being taken that far was incredibly kind." She says the policeman driving her remarked on how far she'd have had to walk along the motorway to the next exit, should no assistance have been available.

After several phone calls with a representative from Uber over the course of the morning, a spokesperson has issued the following statement:

The safety of our customers is Uber's top priority. Our partner drivers are aware that they should only drop off in areas in which it is safe to do so. Furthermore, drivers are expected to accept pick-ups unless there is a very good reason that they can't, for example because of car trouble. We are always sorry to hear of any customer's bad experience and we reached out promptly to deal with this complaint.

In this case, that "very good reason" for these men was, seemingly, a fear that they'd not make a fare. Or, in the case of the second driver, that Caitlin was unreliable-looking—that, if one man had left her, she must be dodgy. At 4 AM, standing on the side of a motorway, in just a few degrees above zero.

We're not talking about a drunk, volatile woman causing a kerfuffle and threatening to vomit all over the back seats before running off without paying (Uber takes the money straight from your bank account) here. No. This was a man—two men—thinking it fair game to leave a young woman on the hard shoulder of the A12. That's the bones of it. Everything else is incidental.

In my communications with Uber, the representative—who, to his credit, appeared to take the incident very seriously—said it took him a long time to get hold of the drivers in question, and that he could only surmise that there had been some serious miscommunication at the scene. There is, after all, no proof of verbal exchanges.

But again, at what point does "miscommunication" eclipse the safety of another human being? This is what "the scene" looks like in the daytime:

[body_image width='700' height='525' path='images/content-images/2015/02/09/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/09/' filename='an-uber-driver-left-a-woman-stranded-on-a-london-motorway-on-friday-night-189-body-image-1423491659.jpg' id='25680']

Image via Geograph

At night, it's loud, dark, and frightening. The exits aren't clear, there's no easy escape off the hard shoulder into residential or green areas, and you can't get onto the bridges from the road. Uber has not yet said it is going to suspend or investigate the drivers in question—presumably it's too much of a he-said, she-said situation. But why on earth a young woman would choose to remain on the hard shoulder of a motorway in the freezing cold and use an SOS phone to get home is anyone's guess. Something happened—whether it was "miscommunication" or not—because the police have confirmed they assisted her. That part, at least, is not subject to debate.

Of course, what we're really dealing with here is short-tempered men in a position of power—a meek power, but power nonetheless—with the ability to inflict aggression upon female passengers with little or no accountability. In this case, Caitlin spoke in detail of how the driver lurched around the side of his seat and shouted at her, before kicking her out and leaving her to fend for herself. But without any kind of surveillance system, who can prove that? Who will believe her?

That a taxi driver can kick a woman out of his car on the motorway in the early hours of the morning and have it labeled as "miscommunication" is something that needs urgent attention. Maybe in some warped way he thought, because the phone was there, that it was "a safe drop off" place. But that another allegedly came along and saw it fit to leave her there is, truly, a bleak and frightening new chapter in the Uber story.

Follow Eleanor Morgan on Twitter.