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Male readers of the internet crossed their legs and let out a unified grimace of pain yesterday when a story made the rounds about a 70-year-old Australian man who got a fork lodged in his dong. While plenty of people who read the report (or even worse, saw the pictures) had no idea why a person would try to shove anything—especially a rouge piece of cutlery—up his pee slit, those of us who frequent the kinkier side of life know this is a fairly common practice known as "sounding."

If you really want an education, search for the term on XTube (NSFW, idiot), and revel in a variety of videos featuring guys putting all sorts of junk into their junk. Yeah, it's not really my bag, either. But not everyone is going around putting forks or pencils or other household items up there all willy nilly. You can get a surgical urethral sounding kit for about $60 delivered right to your front door for your own perverted enjoyment. These kits include the same smooth metal cylinders, sometimes curved, that are used in doctors’ offices. That seems a bit safer than a fork, but I wanted to find out if there was a surefire way to have fun with your personal geyser hole without ending up in the ER, so I called Dr. Frank Spinelli, a Manhattan internist and author, to talk about the practice of sounding and its dangers.


VICE: Hello, Doctor. I’d like to talk about the pros and cons of sticking stuff up your pee hole, otherwise known as “sounding.” What is the surgical purpose of sounds?
Spinelli: You have a urethra, which is what carries urine and semen out of your penis. For some people that might be small or narrow, just anatomically speaking. A urologist can dilate your urethra by using various sized sounds. They probe to increase the diameter, and they can locate an obstruction.

How far should you go down?
That depends on how big the sound is, but you don't want to go too far. It's used as an instrumentation. They use catheters in the same way, to get into the bladder so you can relive someone of their urine when they're in surgery. These are all done under heavy medical guidance by people who have been trained.

Why do you think people do this in a sexual way?
They use metal or glass and put it in the urethra, and then there is some sort of stimulation involved. I'm going to say that this is in the realm of why people like to get fisted. It's beyond the scope of natural sexual interactions. It's right up there with bondage. It's in the category of kinky. I've seen it in movies and in pictures. I don't get it, personally, and as a doctor it scares me.

What's so scary about it?
What scares me is that you're blindly instrumenting a part of your body and, as you would expect from any layperson, you don't know what you're doing. Just as a doctor might be unsure because he can't see what he's doing.

What do you mean?
Let's say I have a perfectly sterile sound and I'm met with some resistance and it goes in. My partner would be excited because it went in, and I would probably be excited because I'm giving him gratification. But what I might do is create a blind tract. Image the hole in a donut, and I put a sound in the hole. When you're putting the sound through the hole, image that it goes through the cakey part of the donut. That is a blind track. Now if you get older and you need a catheter for any reason, they'll be sticking it into that blind tract and they won't be able to get urine out of you.

OK. Give it to me straight, doctor: What’s the worst that can happen?
Well, the example I just gave you was with a sterile sound. What about when it's not sterile? You're sticking something that might be dirty into someone's urethra. You can get a urinary tract infection; you can get urethritis; you can get STDs… Do you know what Human Papillomavirus is? It's the virus that causes genital warts. I saw a patient who was sounded with a dirty sound and he developed warts in his urethra that went all along the shaft of the inside of his penis. All you saw was warts when you looked inside.

Dear Lord.
When you ask a doctor, they come up with all the things that could go wrong. I know that there are people who say it makes them feel great, but as far as I'm concerned I think of all the things that could go wrong.

When doctors do it, how do they even get it in there? Tons of lube?
Of course, but that's someone who has been trained. When you have some expertise with the human body, you know how to not push through. Remember, this isn't done routinely. Now there are scopes that allow you to look inside the urethra so it’s not done blindly.

What are the long-term effects for someone who does this all the time?
It's the trauma that comes with distorting the anatomy—you could be peeing out of a different hole, you could damage the inside of the urethra, and that can cause scarring, which can cause plaque to build up in the urethra, which can cause Peyronie's Disease, which can make your penis curve one way or another.

Thank you, Doctor. You’ve scared me straight (not literally). I will keep things out of my penis from here on out.

Previously - The Best Online Sex Ads Posted from Military Bases in Afghanistan

@BrianJMoylan

Don’t you hate it when you come home to find your house burgled and the first thing your husband does is blame you and punch you in the face? I mean, yes, we tend to blame the victim, who makes the dumb decision of shacking up with a man who treats her like a punching bag. However, that doesn’t excuse the bad behavior of the hitter. He’s probably got his own masculinity issues and other bullshit making him a terrible person. But some people get to a point where they’re just bad. If you’re going to live with a guy who comes home yelling and swinging at you, taking away the only things that ever mattered to you, you'd think there would come a point where you'd snap and fuck that motherfucker up.

As his thesis film, Gil Kenan tackled the emotional and psychological aspects of this kind of deteriorating relationship in The Lark. It’s a simple story: man meets woman, woman falls in love (?), they get married, man takes advantage, woman puts up with it, man goes too far, and woman finally snaps. Where The Lark really achieves its singularity is through camp acting and a wildly imaginative visual palette. Every frame of the film is hand-composited, blending stop-motion, live-action, and claymation into a surreal black and white tale of woe. 

Kenan constructs The Lark’s entire environment from scratch, building up the house wall-by-wall and window-by-window. Each piece moves with its own internal logic and emphasizes the uneasiness that is overtaking the house and its inhabitants. After the burglary and beating, the woman sits, as any tortured housewife might do, by the window of the crime. A a bird appears in the window and brings hope once more to the woman, which is captured in a spectacular stop-motion silhouette sequence. The husband immediately scolds his wife and kills the bird. Distraught, the woman weeps for the bird, wanting to transform this moment of grief and then, suddenly, the bird is alive again. It becomes her own private martyr and obsession—she tends to the bird, fending off her husband. The bird grows in her mind and soon grows in real life. The bird consumes her world. When the bird reaches a full, six-foot-tall maturity, she already knows who/what she picks. Her husband must pay for his sins. All of the little moments that follow between the bird, the husband, and her stand up as an extremely well told, rethought, and reformed fable of tragedy.

—Jeffrey Bowers

The past week in Egypt sounds like a scene from a horror movie: Muslim Brotherhood members burned Egypt's churches, the Egyptian military massacred pro-Morsi protesters, and so many people lost their lives that the mosques were turned into morgues.

On Sunday, after four days of facing off with the Egyptian army, bloody battles in Cairo, and a body count close to 1,000, the Muslim Brotherhood canceled all planned marches and protests, citing security reasons and fearing for people's safety. On Monday, when pro-Morsi marches were reinstated all around Cairo and in Giza, the number of protesters dropped down to dozens. Only after a couple of hours in Giza, verbal altercations took place between nearby civilians and the protesters. The pro-army Egyptian citizens started cursing at the pro-Morsi supporters, shouting at them to go home and chanting the name of the army's leader: General Abdel Fatah el-Sissi. Meanwhile, Mohamed Badie, the Muslim Brotherhood's "Supreme Guide," was arrested in Cairo for inciting violence on Tuesday. Many are wondering if the country's fate looks like Syria's, with civil war in the future.

VICE's Wail Gzoly has been on the ground, covering and sending us footage from the escalding crisis. 

More on the crisis in Egypt:

Is Egypt Doomed to a Civil War?

Video from the Muslim Brotherhood's "Day of Anger"

Muslim Brotherhood Supporters Are Burning Egypt's Churches

Image by Courtney Nicholas

E. M. Forster opens Aspects of the Novel—a collection of lectures on fiction he gave at Trinity College in 1927 that is now pretty much required reading at writing programs now—stating how difficult it is to classify novels because they are so different. They should be more than than 50,000 words, he says, but other than that, how do you put such diverse works under the same heading? He tells his listeners not to concern themselves with how a particular novel fits into history, because they have not read every written work. Instead, he focuses on a novel’s intrinsic worth—he asks his audience to imagine all the great writers throughout history, sitting in one room together, writing their best works simultaneously. He does this in order to take the emphasis off of time and place and influence so all that's left is the work itself. He shows how the separation of 150 years between Samuel Richardson and Henry James doesn’t prevent their styles from resembling each other; they both have a sensitivity to suffering and appreciation of self-sacrifice. The 80 years separating Charles Dickens and H. G. Wells matters little when you're considering their styles; both are visualists and humorists who are terrific at cataloguing details. Forster even compares Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy to Virginia Woolf. His point is that artists are not influenced by history as much as they are influenced by inspiration.  

A great novel could be written under the French or Russian Revolution, but the inevitable voice of the author—if she is good—will take precedence. “History develops, art stands still” is a vulgar, partial truth. Viewing novels as being written in one big room means we'll lose the chance to track the development of the human mind from generation to generation, but Forster doesn’t mind—the novel has only been around since the 18th century, which isn't enough time for humans to change in any essential way. It also means that Forster is uninterested in examining the tradition and history of the novel, which is probably why his book is taught in creative-writing courses but would be out of place in a lot of English classrooms.

In the Sacred Wood, T. S. Eliot's volume on poetry and criticism, he outlines the duties of the critic:

"It is part of his business to preserve tradition—when a good tradition exists. It is part of his business to see literature steadily and to see it whole; and this is eminently to see it not as consecrated by time, but to see it beyond time."

Forster clearly sees literature as beyond time, the way a carpenter might see making a table as an art beyond time, and treats it as a craft. There are rules to govern a novel, he says, but they are slippery. In the end, affection for a novel is what will decide its success, and Forster acknowledges the danger of sentimentality in this arrangement. To avoid too much of that, he outlines several aspects of the novel in order to give a framework of what ought to be appreciated: story, plot, fantasy, prophecy, pattern, and rhythm.

STORY

At its most basic, the novel tells a story. This is the backbone of the novel. It goes back to the beginning of story telling, where one thing happens after the other. There is a universal curiosity to know what happens next. Therefore, a successful story is one that keeps the audience guessing and engaged. Like in the Arabian Nights, Scheherazade saves her own life because she keeps the king wanting to know what happens next. Thus, a story is a narrative of events arranged in their time sequence. But in novels, as in life, there is something else that organizes our experiences other than time—Forster classifies this as value. When a person looks back on his or her life, they do not remember events in perfect chronological order. The most intense occurrences loom above the others. Forster argues that a novel should be the same way—precedence should be given to value, although the clock cannot be forgotten. Time, however, can be ignored or hidden, but it must always be a touchstone in the novel or it becomes an incoherent mess. A story is not plot. Plot is cause and effect. A story doesn’t need to worry about time—it can be more ragged. A story can bring in elements that won’t pay off and appeals to what is primitive in us. 

PEOPLE

A novel is based on evidence plus or minus the author’s temperament. This always qualifies the effect of the evidence. The novelist’s function is to reveal the hidden life of a character at its source. It is his responsibility to tell the reader more about the secret life of Queen Victoria than what is known to others or even to her. This is not the Queen Victoria of history. A novel explores the pride, secret desires, and shames that could never be known to the outside world or even to a person’s confidants, because the novel showcases a character’s interior life. The historian records, while the novelist must create.

Aristotle’s maxim for drama, that character is revealed by action, does not apply here. Yes, on stage where everything must be externalized, a character is defined by his actions. Even his inner thoughts must be conveyed through the action of an aside. In theater, the interior cannot be shown unless it is through a technique like the one used by Eugene O'Neill in Hughie, where the character’s inner thoughts were printed between the lines. (O'Neill never intended to use the character’s inner monologue for more than context. However,  Al Pacino’s production at the Taper in Los Angeles incorporated them into the performance to great success.) The fact that novels are often so interior is why some of them are so difficult to adapt to theater or film.

There are five basic elements to life on Earth—food, sleep, love, birth, and death—which are rarely depicted accurately. When I say sleep, I’m not talking about dreams. I mean the plain dark oblivion that rounds out a third of human life. We almost never read about literal sleep. Unlike sleep, food is used to bring characters together, but is rarely treated in detail unless it has something to do with a plot point. Digestion is also rarely gone into. Love is given prominence because union is a satisfying way to finish a novel. But a couple is expected to remain in happiness or unhappiness forever, there is almost never room for development beyond this in many novels and the reader accepts this because he lends the novel his dreams. But we know when we reflect on our own experiences that love does not play such a dominant role in life. Forster grants that two hours a day, at most, are spent on the actual physical application of love.

PEOPLE II

Some novels give the protagonist free reign, such as Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders. In Jane Austen's novels, on the other hand, all the characters are interdependent and strictly tied to the plot. There are flat characters and round characters. A flat character is one that never changes. They present a type and never vary from that type. If done well, flat characters can anchor the piece by being dependable. A round character is one that changes and hopefully can surprise the reader with their change, while still being believable.

There are different perspectives. First person, omniscient narrator, and partially omniscient narrator. Novelist can switch between all three. Switching can work as long as it reflects life. Often we are able to project ourselves into others and know their thoughts and feelings, and sometimes we are not. Critics often look for rules to govern the novel and get upset when a novel disregards these rules. Forster grants the novelist freedom to break their rules as long as it adds to the impact of the work and the technique doesn’t make itself apparent. 

PLOT

Forster’s famous equation: “’The King died, and then the Queen died' is a story; 'the King died and then the Queen died of grief’ is a plot,” is based in the idea that plot is controlled by causality. If it is a story we ask, “And then?” If it is a plot we ask “Why?” A story demands curiosity. A plot demands intelligence and memory. 

Memory is also required because a good plot builds on itself. A writer has information that he reveals throughout the novel to give it pace and texture. If done right, these reveals can make a novel beautiful. 

Plot can also be dangerous to a novelist, especially if he sets out to execute a prearranged plot. If he is too slavish to his preconception that is all that he will achieve in the finished product, and all the passion of the characters will be lost.

FANTASY

Forster distinguishes between fantasy and prophecy. Fantasy is a genre that makes an additional demand on the reader. The novelist asks his reader to first accept the world of his book and then accept the fantastic. Often fantasy is not represented in the book but hinted at. Its suggestion and absence are what classify the book as fantasy—like Tristram Shandy, where nothing fantastic happens, but the world represented would allow the furniture to begin talking without much surprise.  

PROPHECY

With prophecy, the subject is the universal. It demands humility and the absence of a sense of humor. Melville is able to represent evil in an indefinable way because he doesn’t have the conscience that gets in the way of other novelists. 

PATTERN

Pattern often arises from plot. A plot might be shaped like an hourglass or like a ring. Here the characters are made secondary to the design. Therefore that design is the only thing that will bring beauty to this type of piece.

RHYTHM

This is what can stitch together a novel when the plot is not the focus. Take Proust who has musical phrases that reoccur throughout the beginning of Remembrance of Things Past. There is not much plot to the book, but Proust’s rhythm, his attention to detail, and the reccurring motifs are what tie it together.

                                                                                ***

All considered, the development of the novel may become a true thing one day if the development of the human can be established—apart from the progression of history.

More from James Franco:

All Over the Place in New York

Keep Standing by Me

Psycho, Psycho, Psycho

A fearsome lion towers over its prey.

Okay sure, so somebody stuffed Napoleon's horse, but in general, no one pays too much attention to the animal victims of war. No one except Dr Sami Khader, that is.  

Dr Khader lives in the Palestinian city of Qalqilya. It's a place that's seen its fair share of hate. Since 2003, the 40,000 or so people who live there have been encircled by the walls of the infamous Israeli West Bank Barrier. It's also home to Palestine's only zoo, of which Dr Khader is the resident veterinarian and director. 

Scattered around his room are plastic soda bottles of various sizes that serve as mobile terrariums for the doctors’ creatures. On the table two snakes are curled up at the base of their bottles, on the floor a scorpion paces back and forth in its container and a fizzy drinks cap pokes out of the doctor’s leather bag, though I can't see what creature is living in that. Maybe it’s just a Coke. All the animals were either found by the doctor or dropped in by the Qalqilya townspeople, and scattered among the living are skeletons, pinned insects and a stuffed bobcat.

Dr Sami Khader, director, resident veterinarian and self-taught taxidermist at Qalqilya zoo.

“Do you want to hold it?” Dr Khader asks, gesturing to a snake on the desk. He casually describes being bitten by another snake recently, by a species that could, apparently, have killed him in an hour had it not been for a delayed shot of anti-venom.

“It was a very stupid day," recalls Dr Khader. "I was giving a lecture at a school and I brought some snakes to show the kids. It was dark and I reached into the wrong container. Usually I pick the snake up by its head, but this day I chose the wrong snake and I was bitten. I acted like nothing happened. I finished the presentation then went to the hospital.”

I’m not here to gawp at snakes in bottles, though, I’m here to see an exhibition of stuffed animals that Dr Khader has created from the beasts that were killed in the Second Intifada, the four-year period of fighting that claimed the lives of 4,000 Palestinians and more than 1,000 Israelis.

It is probably worth mentioning at this point that Dr Khader appears to be an entirely self-taught taxidermist.

During this period of warfare, Dr Khader had the impossible task of looking after the entire zoo alone. Hordes of animals perished during the Israeli siege of the city; mostly starving to death or dying from untreated diseases. However the zoo’s location also played its part in the death toll. The back of the complex is surrounded by three schools, which has caused problems, Dr Khader explains to me, when “tanks have come into the city, and the shabab [Palestinian youths] have started to throw stones. The response when it happened was tear gas, bombs and bullets, many of which came over the walls into the zoo. Most of the animals in that area died after suffocating on the gas.”

From Sami’s office we walk to the museum complex, through a narrow arch and into an oval-shaped room. Bottles containing foetuses, stillbirths and a growth marked “cancer” sit on the walls. It’s an extraordinarily creepy exhibition. 

Almost 100 exotic animals in various states of decay are crammed together in a dark and winding room. It’s stuffy and hot, but surprisingly doesn’t smell, and the heterogeneous mix of species shine in lurid yellow, orange and blue mood lighting.

On the ground pelicans, monkeys and a stuffed rabbit head mounted on a fake log commingle in suspended animation. Above, the heads of lions, gazelles and deer gaze down upon the other animals. Some pieces are complete while others have eyeballs missing, shoddy bone work and cavities with stuffing pouring from them.

The pinnacle of this disturbing display is a 15-foot stuffed Giraffe called Rudy, who stands at the entrance. “One night soldiers ran inside shooting," says the doctor. "It was dark and loud so the giraffe went crazy and started running around. He knocked his head against an iron bar and fell.” That blow wasn’t enough to kill the giraffe, at least not directly; Rudy ended up dying from a stroke as the powerful pressure required to move blood from the heart to the brain of a standing giraffe became too high. “When a giraffe lies down, it means it will die,” says Dr Khader.

Rudy and Brownie, the Romeo and Juliet of the taxidermy exhibition.

It gets worse. Rudy’s death sent his mate Brownie into a deep depression. “The female was 12 months pregnant at the time,” Dr Khader explains. “She saw the male after he had died, and she would cry all the time. She stopped eating and eventually the mother miscarried." One day, another tear gas canister was fired into the zoo. Brownie suffocated. She is now preserved alongside Rudy in the exhibition.

Today, as the fighting has retreated, the zoo is a refuge from the draconian security measures imposed on Qalqilya by the occupation. Outside the museum Palestinian families, summer camp groups and boisterous teenagers from all over the West Bank come to enjoy one of the few open spaces in urban Palestine, complete with a large playground, mini-amusement part, paddle boat pond and even some living zoo animals.

Children in the part of Qalqilya zoo where they keep living animals.

Dr Khader once described the zoo as “a small prison within a larger prison” and a drive through the Qalqilya district reflects this reality, the city and surrounding area have been subjected to some of the most severe aspects of the occupation. In 2003 the wall cut entire communities off from surrounding villages and land, decimating the local economy and clearly Qalqilya is unable to recover. The cumulative effect has been that in Qalqilya district unemployment is the highest in the West Bank and Israeli-imposed building restrictions have led to a population density greater than that of Gaza City.

Obviously, this means there isn't a crazy amount of money to throw at the zoo. This lack of funding and decreased attendance since the Second Intifada has forced the zoo to improvise. The ever-resourceful Dr Khader has been making his own syringes, and even constructed a DIY blowgun to administer tranquilisers. Clearly the doctor loves this place.  

“The zoo is important for Palestinians," he tells me before I leave. "It’s a place for people to come together. Politics have no place here. One day this will just be a zoo, and you can come and write about the lions, not the intifada.”

Find more of Daniel's work at his website.

More visits to public exhibits:

I'm Sick of Pretending: I Don't "Get" Art

An Open Letter to the Worst Waxwork Museum in America

Lebanon's Waxwork Museum

Four journalists have been shot dead in Egypt this week. Dozens of others have been arrested, and I myself—a relatively young reporter—have received death threats. I am now being followed.

Since last Wednesday, I have seen my closest friends and colleagues beaten and repeatedly arrested as they have struggled to cover a story that the Egyptian government would prefer the world ignored. More than 600 supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi were killed on August 14, when the security services moved in to forcibly disperse a protest camp inside Rabaa el Adaweya Square. They came with bulldozers and guns.

The standoff lasted for ten hours; by 3 PM, bodies lined the floors of makeshift field hospitals and even a mosque. Muslim Brotherhood supporters say this was a "massacre." According to Human Rights Watch, it was “the most serious incident of mass unlawful killings in modern Egyptian history.” But most journalists could only watch from afar: police and army troops blocked off the site, firing tear gas, birdshot pellets, and live ammunition at anyone who tried to enter.

I spent hours trying to find a safe route in, but every side street was blocked. Instead of doing my job, I could only run from gunfire or crouch behind cars. By the end of the day, three journalists, including veteran Sky News cameraman Mike Dean, had been killed. Another photographer remains in the hospital, suffering internal bleeding and serious kidney damage.

The situation can only get worse. Politically, the country is now so dangerously polarized that coverage on either side of the divide invites attacks. On Sunday, I received a warning that I would be “shot in the back” as a result of my articles examining pro-Islamist protests. Most worryingly, it name-checked people close to me. I am now living out of a rucksack in a different part of town, and have repeatedly been followed by a man who appears to be from state security.

The experience has been emotionally corrosive. It's hard to shake from the back of your mind, and breeds a sense of paranoia as you walk around the city. It also feels utterly ridiculous. Yesterday, my appointed stalker had to stand twiddling his thumbs outside the Cairene cosmetic stores. My mission? To find and buy a hairbrush.

Intimidation of those who challenge the state's narrative is nothing new. But in this case, the Egyptian authorities are under such pressure to establish an immediate stranglehold over the interpretation of divisive events, that the media becomes the most obvious of targets. The Egyptian fixers and translators who support our work are not immune, either. My translator is being attacked by his family, and has had phone calls from his father, telling him to stop his work: “He told me that he loved me,” my colleague said. “He said he didn’t want me to get hurt.”

However, the threat doesn’t just come from the Egyptian authorities. Since the military takeover, an aggressive resurgent nationalism has made the streets a more dangerous place for foreigners, particularly those who work for an international media that the government has branded liars. Military-supporting vigilante groups have sprung up across the capital. During pro-Brotherhood demonstrations, they have taken to policing the surrounding areas, checking the ID cards of passers-by and, in some cases, taking justice into their own hands.

On Friday, I watched on television as Al-Jazeera captured the moment the Independent’s correspondent was dragged unconscious along the floor by an angry crowd. Entirely at their mercy, he was lucky to escape. In many cases, the mob violence is tacitly sanctioned by Egypt’s security services. I have watched army troops survey the attacks from the comfort of their APCs, and when briefly detained on Wednesday, I even listened to the officer discuss my fate with members of the armed crowd. “Are you going to deal with them, or shall we?” asked one man, brandishing a baton towards me. “We’ll let them walk in that direction,” replied the officer, pointing toward a small mob.

Failure to intervene in civilian violence is not a new phenomenon, and the Egyptian police routinely fail to act during sectarian attacks. However, the dereliction of duty rarely occurs in such plain sight. Egypt’s State Information Service has complained that the foreign media are failing to do their jobs. In an email to foreign correspondents, they said that coverage of last month’s military takeover has “steered away from objectivity and neutrality.”

"Egypt is feeling severe bitterness toward some western media coverage that is biased to the Muslim Brotherhood and ignores shedding light on violent and terror acts that are perpetrated by this group," they wrote. As journalists face increasing attacks, from both the state and the streets, shedding light on the turmoil we see around us becomes increasingly difficult.

More on the crisis in Egypt:

Protests Continued in War-Torn Cairo

Is Egypt Doomed to a Civil War?

Video from the Muslim Brotherhood's "Day of Anger"

Muslims are under attack in Sri Lanka. Recent reports indicate that gangs of Buddhists have been roaming the streets, administering bloody mob beatings, and attacking places where Muslims work and worship. Raw pork has been thrown into mosques, the Halal logo has been banned, and the prominent Muslim government critic Azad Sally has been arrested. One dramatic incident ended with government commandos being deployed to maintain law and order after a gang of Buddhists injured four people at a mosque in Colombo, Sri Lanka's largest city, forcing it to close and a curfew to be put in place.

Moulavi Fazil Farooq, from the Islamic political group All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama, told me that Muslims’ “freedom of religion and freedom of speech” are under threat in Sri Lanka. He also sent me in the direction of one of the Buddhist groups that have been accused of carrying out the attacks: Bodu Bala Sena, which roughly translates as “Buddhist Power Force.” Their stated aim is to "protect" Buddhist culture in Sri Lanka, as it's apparently under threat from Muslim and Christian groups. (For context, 70 percent of Sri Lanka's population is Buddhist—less than 10 percent is Muslim, fewer still are Christian.)

Unsurprisingly, Dilanthe Withinage, the CEO of Bodu Bala Sena, denies that his organization had any involvement with the violence. But then he does seem to think the whole thing has been blown wildly out of proportion: “Last night I was at a place outside of Colombo and almost 80 percent of the people there were Muslims," he told me over the phone. "They were actually playing and eating—I don’t think there is a big issue.”

So there you go. As long as Muslims can relax and feed themselves in Sri Lanka without impunity, they shouldn't kick up a fuss about taking the occasional piece of pork or clenched fist to the face.

Dilanthe Withinage (left), one of the top dogs at Bodu Bala Sena.

As for the ban on the Halal logo, an obvious barrier to the religious freedom of Muslims in the country, Withinage considered Halal as something “that Muslims should enjoy,” but also kindly pointed out that, “Halal is used by Muslim organizations to promote Islam; to promote Muslim fundamentalism."

“The media can try to promote the violence, and there are some incidents, but I don’t think that there is a big conflict between Muslims and community Buddhists in Sri Lanka.”

I guess it’s easy enough to downplay religious persecution when you’re not on the receiving end of it. As part of my research for this article, I was forwarded a list of more than 130 recorded Islamophobic incidents. These range from the attempted kidnapping of Muslim businessmen, to the displaying of pigs' heads outside Muslim houses, to direct calls for violence from Bodu Bala Sena themselves.

The man that sent me the details is Jehan Perera, director of the National Council for Peace of Sri Lanka, an NGO that aims to stop division between Sri Lankan communities and ensure rights for all.

His views on tensions between Muslims and Buddhists in Sri Lanka were very different to those expressed by Withinage: “Muslims are scared because they think they might be the next target of the Buddhists. They are all worried. They all feel that this might suddenly get out of control, which it could.”

It is important to note that this isn't entirely a one-way street. Perera told me that when one particular mosque was attacked, “the Muslims fought back in that area... they were large in numbers."

So what is actually causing the violence? Bypassing the obvious point that these acts of aggression seem to go against Buddhist ideals, what is the real underlying reason for this new wave of unease in the country?

Some claim that it may be due to economic frustration, with prosperous Muslims providing a convenient “scapegoat for the frustrated aspirations” of those who feel they maybe aren't quite as wealthy as they deserve to be.

However, Perera cites the potent nationalism that has been instilled in the majority Sinhalese population since the Tamil Tigers were crushed in a bloody civil war that ended in 2003 and killed 100,000: “The latest attack on a Muslim mosque in Colombo is a further sign that the Buddhist nationalist upsurge is continuing to grow, and not diminish, with the passing of time." Perera then explained, “Sri Lanka, in the Buddhist mind, is a Buddhist country, and to win the war, the government mobilized this nationalism. The government has been exploiting that for its own purposes.”

Perhaps this is why the police seem to have done so little to stop the violence spreading. “In a way, having religious tension which pits Buddhists against Muslims serves the government," says Perera. "The government don't have to do much at all to keep the Buddhists united behind them.”

The real worry is that events in Sri Lanka may start to mirror those seen in Burma, where both Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists have been killed, violence has escalated to the use of explosives and entire Islamic communities are being forced to move on a mass scale, sometimes fleeing in boats and taking their chances out at sea. Justin Wintle, an author and historian, claims that “Islamic fundamentalists, friends of al Qaeda, are starting to get interested” in the area, something which, presumably, neither the government of Burma or Burmese Buddhists are too keen on.

“In Burma, the very citizenship of Rohingyas is being disputed,” Meenakshi Ganguly from Human Rights Watch told me. “They are regarded as outsiders.”

Anti-Muslim graffiti sprayed on a mosque earlier this year.

Given that Muslims in Sri Lanka have a much more secure presence than those in Burma, it seems unlikely that their citizenship will come into question. However, it is still an unsettling prospect as anti-Muslim propaganda in Sri Lanka gains more support. According to documents I received from Jehan Perera, some are calling for Muslims to leave certain areas of the country altogether.

“Sri Lanka,” Ganguly continued, “has suffered decades of violence, with enormous casualties.”

It would be a tragedy if the Muslims of Sri Lanka, already one of the most abused populations in one of the bloodiest countries of the late 20th century, were plunged back into the sort of violence that they’ve just emerged from. If the Sri Lankan government doesn’t start taking a harder line on these sectarian conflicts, we could see the country turning the clock back on the few years of peace and relative stability that it has achieved.

All photos courtesy of the Colombo Telegraph. 

Follow Joseph on Twitter: @josephfcox

More global Islamaphobia:

Why Is Anti-Muslim Violence Only Now Being Classed as Terrorism?

Moronic English Fascists Marched on Parliament in London

Is the Burmese Military Keeping Rohingya Women as Sex Slaves?

Wong Kar Wai’s new movie The Grandmaster is about the Chinese Kung Fu master Ip Man, who is played by Tony Leung. Ip Man, you may know, was Bruce Lee’s martial-arts instructor. You also may know, particularly if you have seen Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love, that Leung is a fox.

He is also a peculiar genius of expression. In In the Mood for Love, he expressed, just with his eyes, all of the rapture of unconsummated love. In Chungking Express, where his character is not bright, but still handsome and charming, he changed his eyes, and they appeared, somehow, slightly dim. In The Grandmaster he somehow has the eyes of a spiritual master. I don’t know how he does that. He is a genius, and—to reiterate—he is a fox. I am married, and I know it sounds improbable to the unmarried, but I don’t think about anyone romantically except for my husband. However, when I interviewed Leung, after it was over, for just a moment, I dropped my chin into my palm.

VICE: Gong Yutian, northern China’s grandmaster, has declined challenges from grandmasters from the south. He accepts the challenge from Ip Man, but when they meet, they do not fight at all. Instead, Gong Yutian asks Ip Man to break the cake in his hand. Why?
Tony Leung: At that time, China faced internal fighting as well as Japanese invasion. Gong Yutian was looking for a suitable ally, in order to unify China. The cake was a symbol, laden with meaning. Understanding its significance was part of the test. The challenge, then, was that the outcome of the match had heavy symbolic consequences. If Ip Man were to default, reject, fail, or even winning the challenge, each would be problematic. But none of those exactly happens: Ip Man takes a hold of the cake. The two masters each hold it for a moment. Ip Man lets go, and a few moments later, the cake crumbles by itself from built-up stress. Ip Man shows that he is more than an equal, while still being an ally.

At a tea shop in Hong Kong, a Thai Chi master Ding Lianshan lights Ip Man's cigarette, and from that, he knows that he would have liked, if he were younger, to spar with Ip Man. In his words, he says that Ip Man has "got the gift.” How does he know that?
He watches the way that Ip Man moves. While experts do not necessarily flaunt their expertise, they can read it in the fluent motions of another expert.

What was your training like in preparation for the movie?
It was like torture. Hours and hours under the sun, six days a week for months. And that didn't stop once we began principle photography. Of course, I knew Wong Kar Wai wouldn't settle for just memorizing a few fight moves, but I hadn't expected how difficult it would be to build up the fundamentals. In the end, I think it paid off.

How did your basic awareness change with training?
This is what I mean. It's possible to fool even a trained eye over a short period of time, but in Wing Chun, in order for it to look right, angles, positioning, and timing all have to work together just the right way. There really was no shortcut. I just had to train until it became second nature. Now, it would probably be hard to unlearn it.

You hold a gaze in a particular way in the movie. I noticed it immediately and later read in Vanity Fair that you felt you could not have looked that way without training. Where does that look come from?
I think it comes from having sense of self-confidence in a confrontational situation. Of course, this is the movies and not real life, and I am just a student. But you have to start somewhere, and I was fortunate enough to work beyond forms and techniques, and do a little light sparring, which literally opens your eyes to the vastness of kung fu. 

Check out this animated series inspired by Wong Kar-wai's The Grandmaster that takes you through the key martial arts styles that defined China and the world of kung fu.

Photos By: Janicza Bravo; Featuring Hannah Heller as Carmenita Rosenberg Miranda

Below are the lyrics to the long-lost classic “Motorola Queen” by the completely unknown white 80s hip-hop artist, Rat Tail, whose current whereabouts are unknown. It was transcribed from a cassette tape discovered last November, wrapped in a ball of human hair in a garbage dump in Guadalajara, Mexico.

I met her out in Venice she was wearing a bikini
Ass like Granny Smith and titties far from teeny
She smiled in the sand and gave my pretty self a wave
I knew right away that I’d always be her slave
I Kunta Kinte’d right over to her blanket
Her butt glowing in the sun, “Oooh ooh I want to spank it”
I screamed that shit at the top of my voice
Bitch was so fine she was the top of my choice
Baby girl, how ’bout a ride in my purple Rolls-Royce
I’ll take you for a little spin and make your little panties moist
She held her hands up and said, “Hey wait a minute,
This pussy needs commitment if you want to get up in it”
This made me love her more ’cause she had self-esteem
It was clear like Mr. Clean this was the girl of my dreams
Dick was so hard it was bustin’ out my jeans
Pretty girl, pretty please, be my Motorola queen

Ringa ding dinga ling ringa dinga ling ling
All hail all hail my new Motorola queen
She be lookin’ real fly and actin’ real mean
Ringa ding ding ding 
She’s my Motorola queen

Driving through Hollywood was when I realized
My eyes were so distracted by my girl’s lips and thighs
My brain couldn’t focus, and I felt so ashamed
Through all of my games I forgot to ask her name
“What’s your name, little miss?”
The question felt random
She said, “My name’s Carmenita Rosenberg Miranda”
Ala kazama wama lama ding-dong
Her name made my dick grow the size of King Kong
Leaned over to her ear, and I whispered in a hiss:
“Give my phone a hug, give my phone a kiss
Give my phone a lick, suck my phone’s dick”
You’re my queen Motorola, fuck my phone right quick
And when my phone come, you know it come real thick
You’re not my Motorola woman or my Motorola chick
Motorola princess or my Motorola trick
You’re my Motorola queen, now suck this dick

Carmenita Rosenberg Miranda
Carmenita Rosenberg Miranda
Carmenita Rosenberg Miranda
Carmenita Rosenberg Miranda

Ringa ding dinga ling ringa dinga ling ling
All hail all hail my new Motorola queen
She be lookin’ real fly and actin’ real mean
Ringa ding ding ding, she’s my Motorola queen

Previously - "Introducing Rat Tail"

Read all 13 installments of Combover, Brett Gelman’s novel about Hollywood, baldness, and the beauty of the Jewish tradition here.

The Cronut Burger: via EPIC Burgers and Waffles' Facebook Page.

Well, we've really done it this time, you guys! We put our guard down for one second and now the Canadian media would like you to believe that our population is about to be massacred by sugary, deep-fried carnival food. If you haven’t already heard, over a dozen people contracted food poisoning—some got it so bad they even wound up in the hospital—from Toronto’s sloppy ol’ CNE.

What was the culprit? Were people eating out of the garbage to protest the long line-ups at the Swing of the Century ride that nearly killed a whole bunch of people at the turn of the 21^st century? Was a vendor stirring toilet water into the chocolate covered bacon wrapped hotdog batter, then passing it off as a demented art installation? No. Not this time.

This year, the intestinal terrorist was none other than the notorious and main attraction of the CNE food court—the Cronut Burger. If you don't know what a Cronut burger is, you have every right to be proud of yourself, but your pride is about to get a scissor kick right in its stupid little dick. The Cronut Burger is the bastard child of a deep fried cheese croissant donut hybrid, sandwiched between an all beef patty. One food critic described his experience to the Toronto Star by explaining how, "the granulated sugar falls into your hands, mixing with the burger grease to form a kind of salty-sweet gravy that oozes down your chin." Now let that sink in. Welcome to 2013, where mainstream news is all about people shitting their pants after eating one of these unholy treats.

What else is in the news? Oh, you mean besides Bradley Manning getting 35 years in prison for leaking US Military secrets to WikiLeaks, possible usage of chemical weapons in Syria, and Mubarak being freed by the Egyptian courts? Nothing! Nothing at all! So clearly we should be focusing on the victims of a food poisoning epidemic at Toronto’s finest carnival, where carnies are allowed to be carnies, and Rob Ford has appeared, in a previous year, as a butter sculpture.

As for the victims themselves, I have to wonder at what point they realized the violent diarrhea and vomiting was going above and beyond the physical illness they expected to endure after eating such culinary atrocities. What's really concerning, besides the fact that people are actually confused as to why they got sick in the first place, is now this will most likely affect Toronto’s everlasting quest to get more diverse street food carts in the city. We can't even handle ourselves around a clusterfuck of donut burgers, so how are we ever going to get taco stands in our public parks? C'mon people. This is why we can't have nice things.

I feel for the victims, I really do. I suffered from food poisoning last winter (shout outs to A&W) and as I write this I currently have the flu. But when you play with fire, you're bound to shart. You can't expect to go to a carnival to eat novelty food, and expect to feel like you just dined at a five star restaurant.

Fill your stomach with all this crap, and then whine, as your butt unleashes its fury inside of your underpants.

The good news is, even though the Cronut stand has been shut down, you can still go and get items such as the Grand Slam—which for $35, is a buffet of chocolate covered bacon, deep fried butter, a deep fried Mars bars, a "Twinkie Log", one deep fried rice crispy square, a deep fried brownie, and your choice of 2 drinks (pop/water).

The question remains, however: Will the CNE begin to restrict certain food items after this incident? Or will the great unwashed continue to eat overblown snack food that was once considered a comedic fantasy seen on The Simpsons? You decide, Toronto. Just keep it to yourself the next time your butt explodes with rage, after you stuff your face with deep fried chocolate and sugary hamburgers, immediately before you board a bunch of rides that spin you around and drop you from midair like a sack of stale Cronuts.

Pat Maloney is a writer for the comedy web series Random at Best.
 

Previously:

Move Over Poutine: Pizzaghetti Owns Quebec

Photos by Brett Gundlock

The Mexican state of Michoacán is balls deep in violence and corruption, and nobody seems to care. Distorted news reports about the situation are making it difficult to understand what’s really happening, but just yesterday nine people were found executed on the side of the road, and even the region's avocado farmers are being extorted. Despite kidnappings, marines murdered by hitmen, federal raids, and Mexico’s third-largest drug cartel (Los Caballeros Templarios) controlling the area, the government seems content to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that all is well in Michoacán.

It's no secret that when governments fail to protect residents of unstable regions the people will often form their own defense groups. VICE Mexico has covered groups like this in Cheran and Guerrero, and as a native of Michoacán I can tell you that it is no stranger to similar heavily armed community-watch organizations. The people are disgruntled by the government’s impunity, inefficiency, and incompetence, and many have taken it upon themselves to enact justice.

Brett Gundlock is a photojournalist who has worked at the National Post in Canada and is now fending for himself in the cutthroat world of freelance photography. Since 2012, he has traveled back and forth between Toronto and Michoacán documenting the ongoing activities of the area’s DIY defense groups. This project has led to El Pueblo, an ongoing photo series published in part for the first time here at VICE.

VICE: How are people in Michoacán holding up in the midst of all this violence and corruption?
Brett Gundlock: It’s amazing how life goes on, despite the crazy situation they face. People still smile, and the world continues to spin, but the residents are obviously affected. Business is affected due to the extortion, as well as the lack of tourism. The cartels have worked themselves into everyday life in many areas. We’ve heard there is a tax on everything from the meat to the tortillas.

The people I am photographing do not support the Mafia, obviously. I think a pretty small percentage of the population actually supports the cartels, and those who do are directly involved with these criminal organizations. That said, they don't necessarily support the Federales or the Ejército. They have brought some security to the area but they aren't exactly making high-profile arrests on a regular bases, nor stopping the problem at its root.

People outside of Michoacán are hazily informed on the situation at best. Do you believe the media is distorting what’s going on?
I’m not sure that the media is intentionally manipulating information (although I am sure in some cases they are). The main problem is the current structure of the media—they don’t give proper context to most stories they report on. When a news story can be summed up in 140 characters, most people will read that and move on. This is a major problem in our society.

Local newspapers, such as El Cambio de Michoacán, are doing a very good job on covering the news in Michoacán. But internationally, these brief wire stories are not contributing much to the overall conversation, which is vital in solving these problems.

What challenges did you face while working in Cheran?
Not being fluent in Spanish is the hardest part, but I’m studying Spanish now so that will be less of an issue in the future. Security is another challenge; every decision you make is important. Knowing where you can and can't go, who you can and can’t photograph, who you can talk to and who you need to avoid, wondering what’s happening outside your door at night, having an escape route at all times… it's a bit more stressful than working in Toronto.

What was your first trip to Michoacán like?
It was very good. I connected with a photographer, Alan Ortega from Morelia, and he drove me around that time. He also introduced me to Juan Jose Estrada Serafin, a local photojournalist. Both of those guys were fundamental in my ability to produce this series.

The first time I came I arrived right in the middle of a party, so it was very easy to start working quickly. I actually got run over by a horse in the middle of the rodeo while I was running from a bull, so that was a good introduction to the community—the entire town saw and laughed about it for weeks after. I quickly learned how to say caballo, which means “horse” in Spanish.

As an outsider who has spent a good deal of time in Michoacán, what is your personal opinion on the situation?
The war has progressed. By organizing, these pueblos have created a new frontline directly between the people and the cartel. This war has evolved past the traditional cops-versus-bad-guys dynamic. In a way it can be conceptually viewed as a civil war, or the start of a widespread revolution.

I have my fingers crossed for the people of Michoacán and Mexico.

More from Mexico:

Z-40 Is a Product of the American Drug War

The Mexican Mormon War

Illegal Border Crossing Park

Follow Alejandro and Brett on Twitter @soyalemendoza, @BrettGundlock

Li Keqiang, China's current head of government. via Flickr.

In the excellent HBO documentary Hot Coffee, director Susan Saladoff explains what happens when individuals sign off on “mandatory arbitration” clauses, which are commonplace in everything from employment to credit card agreements to gym memberships (probably). Basically, by agreeing to one of these fine print clauses, one waives the right to go to trial for any legal complaint related to the contract. Instead, one is required to bring legal complaints before an arbitrator.

The defendant is often a corporation that just screwed over a consumer or employee and they use the mandatory arbitration clause to mitigate the legal costs of a civil court case. The arbitrator is hired by the defendant, so they're likely to rule in favour of the defendant, and the arbitration is held in secret, so nobody knows about it. In other words, it's a legal loophole that allows corporations to get away with, well, pretty much anything.

This is the kind of loophole that has a good chance of being used as a tool by Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to threaten and influence legislation by Canadian governments. It's not exactly the same as the mandatory arbitration clauses that are built into the contracts that bind us on a daily basis, but the principle is the same. In this iteration, the parties that stand to benefit are Chinese investors in Canada, including enterprises owned by the Chinese government, and the parties that stand to lose are the Canadians that have become a part of this agreement without being consulted.

The Canadian Government, you see, is working towards a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Act (FIPA, don't ask about the other 'P') treaty with China, which is ostensibly meant to protect Canadian investors of Chinese businesses from unfair treatment at the hands of the Chinese government, and vice versa. These measures include arbitration agreements that might force various levels of Canadian government to face arbitration in Chinese tribunals if they are sued by Chinese investors. That includes legislation from federal, provincial, or municipal governments, as well as First Nations communities.

The treaty, Canada's largest trade deal since NAFTA, was signed (but not ratified) in secret last September. It was done without being tabled in the House of Commons and without the consultation of the provinces. Treaty-making, apparently, is a “royal prerogative,” and as such, does not need to be debated in Parliament, giving Canadians just one more reason to oppose the monarchy.

In a radio interview with CBC's The Current last October, Gus Van Harten, an expert in international investment law, expressed that this deal was remarkably lopsided and possibly unconstitutional. Canada has already entered into 24 FIPA agreements, but the agreement with China is the only one in which the foreign country's investment in Canada greatly outweighs Canadian investment in said foreign country. Furthermore, it means disputes between Chinese investors and Canadian lawmakers can be handled by Chinese arbitrators, rather than by the relatively open legal systems of a legitimate democracy.

“The centrepiece of this treaty,” Van Harten said in October “is an arbitration mechanism that will allow Chinese investors to challenge any decision that is taken by any level of government anywhere in the country, take those disputes outside of the Canadian legal system and Canadian courts at their option, and subject them to these special arbitration tribunals. This is not a court. They're not fair, open, independent in the way Canadians are used to courts in Canada and other democratic countries.”

If we use the power of reason, we can see that if Canadian lawmakers are threatened by legal action from foreign investors, and they can't fight those legal claims except through secret arbitration by a foreign power, then they will probably avoid enacting any laws that might compromise the profits of those foreign investors. Given that some of these foreign investors are owned by the Chinese state, the alarming conclusion follows that, thanks to this FIPA, Canadian democracy will be influenced by the Chinese state. (You can find a good summary of this problem, and how it has affected various nations, at the Corporate Europe Observatory). Rabble has suggested that the environmental regulations in C-38 and C-45 were gutted for fear of lawsuits from Chinese investors, which isn't as crazy as it might seem when you consider some of Van Horton's examples of previous lawsuits brought about from agreements like this:

• About a year and a half ago, Phillip Morris sued Australia, under an investment treaty, for introducing anti-smoking legislation.
• In 2007, a group of Italian firms sued South Africa for black empowerment legislation enacted post-Apartheid.
• A Chinese investor sued Belgium for US$2.28 billion in losses incurred when the country nationalized Fortis, a Belgian Dutch bank, during the recession.

Perhaps the most frightening part of FIPA, however is the fact that we may never know how much the government's resources are being compromised by these Chinese tribunals. “We can't really know how often Chinese investors have sued under these treaties,” Van Harten said “because there's a high level of confidentiality associated with these treaties.”

The treaty, which (again) was negotiated and signed in secret without Parliamentary approval or any outside consultation, will handicap all levels of Canadian government for 31 years, meaning that future governments will avoid making laws that might result in a lawsuit that has to be handled in a foreign arbitration tribunal.

Thus far, the NDP have opposed the bill, but that opposition has proved ineffective against the Conservative majority government. In October, Van Hartan told The Vancouver Observer that the provinces could oppose FIPA on the grounds that it is unconstitutional, but the provinces have proved unwilling to do so. Unexpectedly, the only group currently standing in the way of the FIPA's ratification is the Hupacasath First Nation in British Columbia, a small community of only about 300 members that has filed a constitutional challenge to the treaty. The FIPA may affect treaty rights with First Nations, giving foreign investors rights that overlap with those of the Hupascath, which would be a breach of the constitution. The government, of course, claims the international treaty constitutes an exception to the case. This includes rights over coal that can be found on Hupascath land.

Given the grounds on which this bill can be opposed (the secrecy in which it was signed, the questionable constitutionality, the negative effects it will have on Canadians who deal with Chinese investors), and given the effects it may have on Canadian democracy for the next 31 years, it's a little surprising that this David and Goliath showdown between Hupascath and the Canadian government is our last hope to keep this FIPA from happening. The Hupascath probably won't be successful in their challenge to the federal government; the little guy usually isn't. It's too bad that when it comes to this treaty with China, it's Canada legislators that'll eventually be the little guys.

Follow Alan on Twitter: @alanjonesxxxv

More Canadian Politics:

The Government Is Wasting a Ton of Money on Crappy Advertising

The Federal Government is Surprisingly Blasé About Medical Experiments Conducted on First Nations

I Left My Lungs In Aamjiwnaang

Teenage gun dealers on Ar Rashid Street.

The gun sellers on Tripoli's Al Rashid Street are doing a brisk trade. They’re chatting and laughing and all look like they’re about 17 years old. Younger boys are playing near the stalls, some of them riding BMXs and weaving in and out of the tables that comprise the weapons section of the Libyan capital's central marketplace.

Most of the guns on sale here look badly made, but at least they’re dirt cheap. A trader wearing a baseball cap and gold chain introduces himself to me as Hamid and hands me a pistol. Hamid says the gun is from Turkey and he can do me a special deal, for the "business price" of 160 dinars (just over £80).

Six months ago the stalls here were laden with fireworks, as the city saw euphoric celebrations marking the two-year anniversary of the revolution. Libyans were overflowing with optimism and enthusiastically talking of the progress their country had made since Muammar Gaddafi was deposed, captured and killed. But since then progress has stalled and the euphoria has disappeared. Many of the locally organised militias that helped to oust Gaddafi refused to down tools, preferring to stay armed and cast themselves in the role of "guardians of the revolution". Broadly speaking, the country remains split in two. On one side are the relatively liberal federalists from the north-western city of Zintan and their pals from the oil-rich Eastern province of Cyrenaica. On the other are the strutting Spartans of the war-ravaged city of Misrata and their allies in the Muslim Brotherhood, who are currently trying and failing to lead a central Libyan government in Tripoli.

With depressing inevitability, clashes have broken out between these myriad militias as they clamour for power. A potent metaphor for the country's growing infatuation with violence can be found in the changing of the wares on offer from the stalls on Al Rashid Street.

No longer are the items for sale here as innocuous as fireworks. First came the tasers and the stun batons, then the handguns – now, one table even has pump-action shotguns on display. And no one seems too bothered when someone tests a weapon, shooting into the sky in the middle of a busy street just five minutes' walk from the luxurious Corinthia hotel, where Prime Minister Ali Zeidan lives in his penthouse suit.

Over the last couple of months Libya’s parliament has become gridlocked, still unable to agree on what the country's new constitution should mean. Electricity blackouts have become part of everyday life in the capital and there have been frequent attacks on Libyan security forces, including bombings and assassinations, but it's rare that any group comes forward to claim responsibility for them. The suspicion is that the Islamists who had a tough time in prisons and torture rooms during the Gaddafi era are behind the violence, but for now all we have are tales of blood feuds and rumours of militias with invisible agendas.

Footage from the ongoing bloodbath in Cairo is rolling non-stop on TV news, adding to a citywide sense of foreboding as September 11th rolls around again. (Last year on that date, American ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three more US embassy staff were killed by rocketfire from Islamist militants.) Hundreds of armed vehicles have been flooding into the capital as the government braces itself for a coup attempt from militias associated with Zintan. At the outskirts of the city, there have been skirmishes with machine guns and RPGs.

A rocket protrudes from a modified car in Tripoli.

I'm sat with a young Libyan named Moayad, drinking coffee in Tripoli's old town, the largest medina in the world. Until two years ago the city was the capital of Gaddafi's micro-managed state, but now Tripoli has been reduced to a plaything quarrelled over by two provincial powerhouses, each of whom see themselves as the deserved victors of the war and all its spoils. "The city’s filling up with armed groups – some affiliated with Zintan, some affiliated with Misrata," Moayad tells me. "They’re coming from all over the country. It’s a matter of time until there are clashes in the centre of the city."

Moayad says the militias believe that whoever controls Tripoli controls the government, and whoever controls the government gets to cream off oil money and put its allies in important and profitable positions. He looks tired, deflated and disillusioned. Gaddafi always claimed that without his iron fist, the country would sink into tribal infighting and anarchy. Depressingly, for many Libyans who supported the revolution, his predictions now seem to be becoming true.

Among the victims of the recent turmoil have been journalists, with three coming under attack in the space of less than a week. TV presenter Ezzedine Kossad was killed in a drive-by shooting after he left a mosque in Benghazi on the 9th of August (again, no one's quite sure who's responsible for the killing).

"After the latest attacks, a lot of friends and family told me to stop going to work," one Benghazi TV journalist told me on the condition of anonymity. "But I’m not ready to leave the city just yet. No one has stopped work but we are becoming more careful about what we say and how we say it. News organisations are vulnerable here. Some broadcasters and newspapers have security but it’s proved easy for people with guns to get in, and everyone’s got a gun. They can do whatever they want."

The pressure on traditional media to filter the information they're disseminating to the Libyan public has allowed social networks and hearsay to fill the news gap. It's seen as such a problem in the country that the Prime Minister’s office even launched a Twitter campaign to try to damp down speculation, built around the hashtag #Libyarumourcontrol.

But still, wild rumours persist, spreading rapidly. Every day there are new rumours about the US drones that are constantly buzzing over Benghazi, about rogue explosions in Tripoli and about the role of different celebrities and politicians in the death of the American ambassador. (One theory claimed that Mohammed Morsi was behind the embassy attack.)

Frustrated former oil minister Ali Tarhuni has launched a campaign to "Save Libya", calling for drastic structural reform to parliament and warning that the country is fast becoming a "failed state". But he says his campaign has been met with apathy by a congress that is confident it will see its life extended in February, the month it was supposed to be succeeded by a new parliament elected under a new constitution.

Even amid the worsening chaos, some here are still clinging on to hope – even foreign investors.

"Can you imagine England if there were this many guns, and there was this much poverty?" says one European businessman who has invested in the country. "It would be a bloodbath. You wouldn’t be able to walk the streets. Really, the restraint shown so far by the Libyan people and the goodwill is admirable."

The family fairground where the Eid shooting took place.

But gradually that restraint is starting to fray. In among the political attacks and assassinations are acts of mindless violence. During the Eid celebrations at the end of last week, a group of young men sprayed a family fairground with machine gun bullets after an argument with security guards. They killed one woman, seriously injured others and caused a stampede for the exits.

"After the revolution we thought we were going to become the next Dubai or Abu Dhabi," a neighbour grumbles, as we discuss the shooting. "We’ve got the largest oil reserves in Africa and just six million people. We should all be rich but this country is self-destructing."

Follow Wil on Twitter: @bilgribs

More from Libya:

Hanging Out in Benghazi's Car Boot Arms Market

Paddling in the Aftermath of Libya's French Embassy Bombing

Back Behind Bars with Gaddafi's Would-Be Assassin