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Zachary Werth (left) and Dustin Hiersekorn (right).

Vincent Cianni's 2014 book Gays in the Military is a photographic and personal account of what life was like for people under the US military's ban on gay people, which started in 1949 and was followed by Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT), which began in 1993. DADT was a compromise that said you could be gay in the military as long as you kept it a secret. If you had a same-sex partner, you weren't even allowed tell your fellow soldiers if they became ill or died.

It's no secret, then, that for gay people serving in the military, the road up until 2011—when the policy was scrapped—was rife with silent suffering, PTSD, and in some cases, even suicide. Today, serving in the military can still be an experience rife with prejudice. Cianni's book features photographs and interviews gathered on road trips across America over the course of three years, asking what made LGBT people want to serve an institution that neglected to accept them, and what long-term effects this had on them.

The subjects range from a 92-year-old WW2 veteran to those who recently served in Afghanistan. We called up Cianni to talk about about the book and his experience of meeting the people who were part of such an oppressive system.

VICE: Why do you have such an interest in this subject?
Vincent Cianni: I grew up during the cultural and political upheaval of the 1960s, during the height of the Cold War. I was a somewhat clueless but politically aware high school kid and hippie college student when the Vietnam conflict became the Vietnam War. My convictions were so strong that I was ready to flee to Canada if my number came up in the draft. It seems I spent most of my life uninterested in knowing about the military because I supported peace, the fight to end violence and injustice, and the sanctity of life. I couldn't understand why anyone would join the military, much less why gay people would join the military, an organization that shunned them.

In November 2009, I was listening to the local public radio station. The mother of a recently discharged gay 19-year-old private stationed in Iraq was being interviewed. When I heard Nathanael Bodon's mother speak about him with love, pride, and confidence, I thought of my own experiences having to hide my identity to family, friends, and colleagues and being the target of bigotry and hate crimes.

As a documentary photographer and storyteller I realized that no matter what my personal convictions and history were, the stories of LGBT servicemembers and veterans were the experiences and history of people who were denied their civil rights and, in many cases, were subjected to unjust treatment and human rights abuses. As part of this community that continued to struggle for equality, I could not turn my back on their humanity.

How psychologically damaging was the policy?
By its very nature, DADT was ambiguous and its enforcement was dependent on the attitudes and perceptions of the individual commandos, as well as the attitudes and perceptions of enlisted service members. Even tough DADT was intended to protect LGBT service members by prohibiting efforts to ask about their sexual identity.

Witch hunts were common in the 1980s because the military was downsizing and many LGBT people were hunted, followed, investigated, interrogated, and discharged along with drug addicts, criminals, and domestic violence perpetrators. The effects of the physical and sexual abuse and witch hunts were psychologically damaging.

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Do these people feel a release now, after being able to tell their stories?
In many cases, the people I interviewed and photographed had no recourse to their discharge. At times, their entire record of serving in the military was expunged as if it never happened. Participating in the project served to regain their dignity and their history of serving. During the interviews they revisited difficult experiences, sometime experiences they had forgotten about. It was an emotional catharsis for many of them. The photographs evoke their humanity, their strengths, and weaknesses.

How did they feel about serving an institution that denied them acceptance?
Their reasons for joining the military spanned many reasons, just as with their heterosexual counterparts. It was an honor to serve their country. In the words of Joseph Rocha [a US Navy officer Cianni interviewed], "It never tarnished my love for the military, for the armed forces, for the service, for the service members. I just was in the wrong place at the wrong time. People think, 'Just don't be gay, just don't let me know that [you're] gay,' but that removes a possibility of me having that photo of my loved one on my desk or talking about my anniversary, or having a human aspect to my life. That kind of self-denial and duality is terrible."

Which stories particularly stood out to you?
There were people like Kevin Brannaman—who was raped by his drill sergeant—and Travis Dobbs—also raped by his drill sergeant and then interrogated over a period of three days—who suffered horrible, degrading acts of sexual violence with the former and extreme interrogation measures resulting in psychological and emotional breakdowns.

Also, again, Joseph Rocha—he suffered continual harassment and human rights abuses while serving, including "being forced to simulate gay sex on camera multiple times with military working dogs in the room, being hosed down, being tied to a chair, left in a dog kennel with feces, and being forced to eat dog food."

Do you know what the situation is currently for transgender people wanting to serve in the military in America?
Interestingly enough, any information I have been given about the new military policy is worded "LGB." Transgender people still don't have recognition as being able to serve openly. If someone comes out today as transgender or is suspected to be transgender, they will be discharged.

Can you recall any stories you were told by gay people in the military about how they stayed mentally positive while serving?
Many of the service members and veterans simply focused on their job and the mission as a unit. They also turned to their friends, family, and, at times, their faith for strength since they were not able to confide in their mates or commanders, nor were they able to access counseling services or spiritual guidance.

Katie Miller [a former cadet] states it beautifully: "Seeing my former comrades react so strong to me that way is devastating, but leaving the people that I actually cared about and were supportive of me was more devastating."

Follow Shanna on Twitter. See more of Vincent's work and buy his photo book on his website.

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Photos by Panagiotis Maidis

This article originally appeared on VICE Greece.

Athens's Apollo Street is considered to be the mecca of ecclesiastical items. It is where Byzantine and Russian art meet Orthodox Christian "fashion" to create the most impressive liturgical garments imaginable. It's where one can find the Versaces and Armanis of priest robes and vestments.

For some Orthodox priests, Easter Week (which for Orthodox Christians is happening right now)is a fashion event. It's a week of "performances"—a literal devout festival—with daily highlights including the Procession of the Epitaph, Holy Saturday, as well as the readings of the Twelve Gospels. All of these are compelling reasons for Greek clergymen to look their best and fanciest.

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Considering there is no mention of the use of special vestments in the New Testament, it is almost certain that Jesus gave the Sacrament of the Eucharist in casual attire. The establishment of functional vestments started in the Middle East, a little earlier than the fourth century, without ever being fully deployed.

"There isn't a specific number of robes that every clergyman should own. It's like asking how many shirts can someone have in their closet. Priest robes are the equivalent of civilian garments. These garments depict the clergyman's personality and church," says Mr. Braouzis, the owner of Patrikon, one of Athens's oldest priest boutiques. "Everyone buys vestments based on their taste and pocket—the Church doesn't cover any of these expenses. These are all personal orders. There are some private donors that might order these as a gift though," he adds.

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As there are no seasonal robes for winter and summer, robe designers play with different colors. "During Christmas clergymen wear white, for Easter Week purple and black, Resurrection means burgundy, Epiphany [means] blue, and it's blue or green for Crucifixion," says Mrs. Aleka, who works at nearby nearby boutique Chiton. She also notes that "One could own just one vestment and to use it for every celebration. However, those who have been working as priests for a few years can usually afford to change outfits between festivities."

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Design as well as price rules are way stricter when it comes to the ranks of the clergy, which are three: deacon, priest and bishop. For example, a deacon should be content with simple vestments, that cost about 400 euro [$423]. These would be a versicle or an "orarion."

A priest, on the other hand, can up his game though that depends on the severity of his rank. If you are a dean for example, the cost of your robes starts at 800 euro [$850]. That is mostly due to the fact that a complete archbishop ensemble consists of multiple items like the chasuble (the fancy robe), the stole (the bit of colored cloth parishioners bow beneath and confess to), a belt (which stabilizes the stole for bigger dudes), and cuffs. Priests with an "oficio" (that means a title) also get a knee-length rhomboid towel called "the knee."

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However, the true joy for priest boutique owners is when bishops show up. Just the vestment and all the different items can amount to tens of thousands of euro. Now add to this the stuff bishops need like the scapular (a thick scarf symbolizing the lamb) and the matrix (in layman's terms, the crown, which can be made of gold, platinum, or silver, and is always covered in rubies and other precious gems) and costs are taken to a different level. Still, being a bishop requires patience as a full outfit can take months to be sewn.

When it comes to design there are only two elements designers need to take care of. Firstly, the stole has to have three crosses—that is called "Russian style"—or six crosses (three and three) if a priest has ordered a double stole—that is called "Byzantine style."

Secondly, on the back of the vestments there must be a cross or a portrait of Jesus Christ, which obviously costs more. Beyond that, the options are limitless. Some clerics bring their own fabrics from China and India, while others bring photographs they've found on the internet and ask for something similar.
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"Clerics are way more obsessed with their clothes and appearance than us normal people," says Ms. Aleka, who has sewn for international clergymen. Holy men from Canada, Australia, USA, Poland, Russia, and the Balkans constitute 80 percent of her clientele.

Many of her visitors are on their way to Mount Athos—an autonomous polity in the north of Greece that is home to 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries and attracts thousands of religious male visitors every year. On their way to Mount Athos, most clerics will pass by Apollo street to renew their wardrobe. "The best customers are Russian, but the most faithful we have is one Australian priest, who comes in every couple of months," says Ms. Aleka.

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An albino tailor in Malawi. Photo via Amos Gumulira/AFP/Getty

Earlier this week, Malawi's inspector general of police ordered his officers to shoot on sight anyone found attacking local albinos, a group increasingly targeted by people who believe their limbs make potent ingredients in good luck charms produced by local traditional healers .

"Shoot every criminal who is violent when caught red-handed abducting people with albinism," Reuters quoted the inspector as saying. "We cannot just watch while our friends with albinism are being killed like animals every day. We do not realize that these people are ruthless, have no mercy and therefore they need to be treated just like that."

Malawi's 10,000 albinos have never had it easy, but they have faced more violence than usual over the past few months. The UN recorded six reported attacks in the first three months of 2015 in Malawi alone, versus two in all of 2014 and one in all of 2013. Some of these attacks have been especially brutal: Recently, a man was sentenced to two years in jail (a rare, if light, conviction for a type of crime often practiced with impunity) for kidnapping his own 11-year-old niece with the intent of selling her body for $6,500. Another man was recently arrested for trying to strangle a 16-year-old albino in the boy's home in February 2015.

"We are hunted like animals," Boniface Massah, the president of the Association of Persons with Albinism in Malawi, told News24 while talking about the forces driving his people into hiding. "You are no longer sure you can trust even friends or relatives."

The shoot-on-sight order is just the latest in a string of recent attempts to counteract the anti-albino spree in the nation. In early March , the Federation of Disability Association called for stronger legislation to protect the nation's albinos. By mid-March police in Machinga claimed they'd started to clamp down, arresting 14 attack suspects. And toward the end of the month , President Peter Mutharika openly condemned such attacks, calling on security forces to go on high alert, while Minister of Gender, Children, Disability, and Social Work Patricia Kaliati developed a five-point plan for greater education on albinism, community policing, and research into the root causes of the troubling medicinal trade in albino body parts.

Albinism, a congenital disorder caused by a lack of melanin, which gives our eyes, hair, and skin pigmentation, is extremely rare in most of the world, occurring in just 1 in 20,000 people. Yet it is (comparatively) incredibly common in eastern Africa, with numbers reaching 1 in 1,400 in Tanzania . Some African cultures, like the Yoruba in Nigeria and Benin , believe the condition to be a revered blessing. Some, like the Maasai in east Africa , believe it is a curse and have been known to kill albino babies on sight. But many others in eastern Africa , while not going so far as to kill babies, still hold a series of damning beliefs about albinos, connecting them to ghosts and evil spirits . Some suspect that this exclusion, and their inability to participate in traditional farming , can lead to increased rates of albinos wedding other albinos, perhaps explaining the frequency of the disorder in the region.

The belief in the medicinal-spiritual power of albinos is strongest in Tanzania , where advocacy groups have recorded dozens of killings and dozens more mutilations and attempted attacks over the last 15 years. Tanzania's anti-albino killings were brought into the media spotlight most recently after the February slaying of a one-year-old albino by an assailant who struck the child's mother with a machete before dismembering the infant. Because these potions remain costly, and Tanzania remains overwhelmingly poor, many tie this increasing demand to local businessmen and politicians . That may help to explain why, for so long, these attacks were under-prosecuted (like in Malawi).

Tanzania finally started taking great strides to curb the albino trade this year . (In 2009 , the then-Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda did call on civilians and police to kill those attacking albinos, but this vitriol seemingly never translated into appreciable action.) At the start of 2015 , the government banned unregulated traditional healers, cracking down on those implicated in anti-albino attacks. About 225 healers were arrested across the nation, with plans to spread the dragnet further in the future (although most of those arrested have now been released ), and several were sentenced to death in rare, harsh sentences for albino killings. Then last month , Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete promised publicly to crackdown harder in the future.

Some believe that this Tanzanian reaction is responsible for the early 2015 spike in attacks in neighboring Malawi , claiming that since demand remains the same now gangs are just snatching albinos from neighboring countries—a theory as of yet unconfirmed by the nation's police.

"Those who are in the business of selling body parts of albinos," News24 quoted Massah as saying, "have established a market in Malawi, because it has become tougher to do business in Tanzania."

A similar spillover trend was observable in Burundi during the global response to the first proliferation of albino killings in Tanzania seven-to-eight years ago. Locals claim that, until then, Burundi's 600-odd albinos lived largely in peace, until demand in Tanzania created a profitable market for murderous Burundians.

The failure of earlier crackdowns has led albino rights activists to say that Malawi's shoot-on-sight policy will not be enough to curb the killings themselves . They believe that the money is good enough (a full albino body retails for $75,000 in Dar es Salaam according to the Red Cross , while a single body part goes for about $600 ) that the threat of a bullet won't be enough to deter poor populations.

"Killing them on the spot is not going to help us catch the inducers," Reuters quoted Vicky Ntetema of the albino rights group Under the Same Sun as saying recently.

Under the Same Sun believes police should interrogate traditional healers and attackers harder to find the names and backgrounds of those demanding albino-based potions in the first place.

On a similar note, Harold Sunguisa of Dar es Salaam's Legal and Human Rights Center told Afriem last month that "Traditional healers are a catalyst, but the reality is society itself in terms of mindset and beliefs. That should be the authorities' main target."

Brooklyn-based Brian Bonz has toured around with Brand New and even one of the dudes from Taking Back Sunday, but his music is way more nuanced and interesting than you'd expect from tour support for mid-00s mainstream emo bands. Bonz writes sharp, concise songs with hints of folk, doo-wop, and ambient. His new album, Misophonia, comes out May 19th via New England's ever-impressive label Seagreen Records, and a vinyl release will come later in the summer from Six 3 Collective. We're sharing his single today. Give it a listen.

Check Brian Bonz out on Facebook.

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How I feel. Photo via Flickr user Rachel Baranow

For the past six years or so, I've started my day with the same mantra. I peel my eyes open after an extended battle with the snooze button and pledge, "I'm not going to smoke weed this morning." The mantra is usually followed by a heartfelt promise to myself that I will spend my day writing, as opposed to floating through the world in a weed haze.

I repeat the mantra steadily as I drag my ass out of bed and over to the staple white Ikea shelf that houses my dearest treasures. A black and gold witch medallion that belonged to my grandmother hangs there. A small bejeweled elephant perches on top of the shelf—my best friend acquired him for me during her travels. He has a secret compartment, and housed within is a piece of red jade. Red jade, Ashley says, has the power to help combat hesitation and fear.

Alongside the medallion, the elephant, and the jade is my deep blue glass pipe. As the final words of my mantra wisp out of me, I pick it up and stuff it full of weed. I perch on the edge of my bed and smoke "just one bowl."

As I said, I've been a proponent of the wake 'n' bake for about six years. But I've been smoking just about daily for over a decade now. It started when I was 16, and I'll be 27 in a couple of weeks.

Given the opportunity, I smoke about three times per day: once in the morning, then in the afternoon, and between one and infinity joints at night, depending on how much weed I have. I smoke just to get through the boring parts of my day: grunt tasks like making breakfast, showering, running errands, and walking to work.

Some days, I feel like I don't get high anymore—just transcend to another mood. While I'm not as productive as I could be, I am what they call a functioning stoner: I can usually read, write, drive, do chores, and carry on conversations while high. The only problem is that I usually just decide not to bother with said activities.

Despite my mantras, I've found myself pissing away endless afternoons getting stoned. My work has undeniably suffered. Could the myth that chronic use adversely affects motivation be true? A productive day, for me, usually maxes out at sending a couple of emails, working a few hours at my insanely chill part-time job, and two or three hours of writing. Case in point: the pitch for this very article was approved over a year ago. Instead of writing, I often wind up getting stoned during the work day, watching a lot of dirty AF group sex on Pornhub, and eating cheese and crackers. Before I know it, it's FRIDAY, and I obviously deserve a break from this hectic-ass work week.

I tell myself it's fine: My life is not traditionally depressing. I have a masters degree, some regular writing work, a job, a partner, friends, and a beautiful apartment on the subway line. I wash (sometimes). I can't be a total failure, then, right? Obviously, I'm not addicted.

In high school, I took an AP psych course. I wrote my final paper on whether or not weed was addictive. My goal was to dig up some hardline science with which to refute the buzzkills who waxed superior about weed being bound to dull my intelligence. I found what I set out to find: weed is not physically addictive. It's just psychologically addictive. Which means you can convince yourself that you need it. But it also means that there are physical changes in the brain. Healthcare centres like Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health say that weed can cause problems with motivation, and that those who stop using can experience loss of appetite, anxiety, and other side effects. They say it's addictive, point-blank.

But I've always strenuously refuted these claims. It's just a plant. It's harmless. It's a medicine, I say to myself. I can't be addicted.

Then why is this harmless little plant that humans have smoked for thousands of years controlling my actions?

I can now admit that I've been psychologically addicted to weed for the past decade, plus. If I need to eat, sleep, relax, be amused, calm down, forget a horrible experience, practice self love, run errands of any kind, watch TV, or create something: I smoke.

Smoking numbs any pain I might have, helps me forget my troubles, makes the band Sublime sound sonically plausible, and is the ultimate hangover cure.

In recent years, the negative effects of smoking, for me, have begun to outweigh the positive. You may have heard the claim that weed makes you a wee bit stupider? Well, my memory has started to fail me. I have endless amazing story ideas when I'm high (I know, I know, every stoner makes this claim, BUT IT'S TRUE). The ideas, of course, evaporate as quickly as they materialize. My once-robust vocabulary has dwindled, and with it, my self-confidence. I can't fucking spell anymore. I'm not as quick-witted as I seem to remember having been, once upon a time. I'm paranoid, and nervous as fuck. My attention span is non-existent. My coordination is shit. It terrifies me to speak to shopkeepers (What if they know I'm high?).

My weed-related anxiety has started running my life. When and where will I re-up? Will I have time? Do I smell like weed? I must smell like weed. Shit, I'm going out of town to visit family—how will I get weed? Do I bring it with me? What if they have dogs at the airport? Better text my brother to make sure I can get some.

I've started smoking even when I don't want to. It's become a mindless habit, like brushing my teeth. I smoke, my heart rate spikes, and I immediately start stressing about everything I should be doing instead. Just as I promised myself I wouldn't smoke each morning, I've begun to make a similar promise just before I re-up. One last joint, I'll say, and I'm done. That's it. Not calling my guy for more. Cold turkey it is! I start smoking smaller and smaller bits at a time, hoarding the crumbs so I don't run out. Then, on the day I've hit bottom, I'll invariably scrape some resin out of the blue pipe, mix it with the final crumbs, and smoke it while texting my dealer. Later that day, I'll go and re-up. I have spent my last $20 on weed more than once in the past year. Instead of buying groceries. I have sold clothes to consignment stores, turned around, and spent the money on weed.

My friendships have started to suffer, a surefire hallmark of addiction. I've routinely cancelled plans because I was too high to leave the house. People I used to see a couple of times per week stopped texting because, presumably, they got tired of my serial lateness (and the fact that I could never remember the stories they told me the last time we hung out). I've always cared about fitness and healthy eating, but I've started getting fat because I'll spend as much of my free time as possible watching Netflix and eating chips with Philadelphia dip. Oh, and the takeout.

Ugh, I've secretly thought, I'm a walking cliche. Also, how old am I? Twenty-seven seems like as good an age as any to get one's shit together.

Over the course of the last three years or so, I've started to hear the lies so narrowly masked by my excuses. I've been blazing in spite of myself. All day. If the amount I smoke is OK with me, why am I always rattling off my accomplishments to myself on loop? Why am I excusing myself for not writing? That would be the sound of a desperate bid to my inner being to forgive my outer being's sins.

The beginning of the end of my willful addiction came six months ago, when I was visiting my grandmother. I smoked in her house while she was sleeping.

"I know what weed smells like," she said in the morning, her gray eyes hooded and sad. "Look at you. You can't even keep a normal schedule. It's time to get your life in order." Naturally, at first I thought she was a bitch and shouldn't be trying to fuck with my medicine. It's the same way I've always reacted when someone suggests I quit, or that people in general might be healthier in virtually any way for quitting. Childlike vitriol. Rage. In short: denial.

But three weeks ago, a day before the spring equinox, I decided I was finally ready to know what would happen if I quit. My last quarter ran out, and I didn't text anyone to fix it. There are so many reasons people quit. I was sick of the paranoia and anxiety, the lack of productivity. The laziness. I was afraid to quit for so long because I worried I wouldn't know what to do with myself when I did, but the time had come.

How do I feel thus far? Surprisingly good, in contrast to how I thought I'd be feeling. I expected to be even more anxious, and to feel irritable and nauseous for a few weeks. Happily, I'm no bitchier than usual, and my nerves are actually in a better state than they were when I was baked all the time. My appetite has decreased substantially, but I'm regarding that as a positive since I want to lose the stoner weight.

I'm not trying to too-loudly trumpet my newfound squeaky-clean ways, lest I come off as a hypocritical and self-righteous arsehole. But I'm surprised at how many of my problems have been solved by quitting. I've made a point of seeing my old friends more often. I've made new friends in the past couple of weeks because I'm not utterly petrified to talk to people anymore. I've sent pitches to new publications. I've always been the sort to overextend myself and beg the universe for more hours in a day. Now, I feel like I have more time to write, cook actual meals, and read actual books.

Don't get me wrong. A weedless way is not the only way. I'm not preaching a sober life for everyone, by any stretch. I still love weed. And I miss it. I will do nothing but smoke the fattest of spliffs on 4/20, which is still my favourite holiday. The only difference is that I will now be the one in control. I'll be able to enjoy the feeling of being truly high again, and that is a thing I am looking forward to with glee.

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This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

You don't have to like someone to follow them on Twitter. Quite the opposite, actually; the phenomenon of the hate-follow is well-established. Seeing a stream of thoughts that you are diametrically opposed to in every facet can give you a malicious thrill. You don't need to reply to the tweet, you don't need to acknowledge it with a favorite, you just need to see it and think, Man, this guy's a real cunt.

This is especially prevalent in the world of following celebrities. As the ego grows it reveals more of itself to be maligned. You don't just have to watch famous people on TV to get pissed off by them, you can watch their every move, furiously suckle at their every word online, like an angered wolf pup gnawing at its mother's teat. Someone I imagine to be hate-followed by a whole town's worth of frothing Twitter users is former BNP leader and professional turd Nick Griffin. The monster's social media game ranges from out-and-out bigotry to photos of silly dogs outside pubs in the middle of nowhere. I'm not sure why, but as one of Britain's foremost fascists, I always previously imagined that Griffin's life would have a semblance of glamor to it. But his Twitter puts that theory to rest immediately, his home life looking less Muammar Gaddafi and the golden gun, more your nan and the rusty biscuit tin. Dark, dank carpets, scraps of mess, dogs, swollen old people, strewn newspapers—it's exactly the kind of pathetic grot in which you can imagine our Nicholas slaving away at his whirring Dell PC, opening up an image editor and plastering insanities onto photographs of soldiers.

The image macro has a long and colorful history. It is the cornerstone of internet meme culture, a stone slab of a commandment, but instead of "Thou Shall Not Steal" it reads "Mitchell Henderson Is A Hero." Its trademark thick white Impact font has brought forth the "lulz" on messageboards, forums, and social media channels alike over the years, but in an age where even the most technophobic luddite can Shazam an Adam Levine song, the oldies are catching on and using it to their own ends.

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Griffin is a recent adopter. When he's not saying things like the Radio 1 playlist is "hideously black," he's posting photos of rebel fighters in Syria, or limbless squaddies, or Eastern European gypsies cleaning windscreens with scrunched up pages of The Sun. On these photos are messages of typical political enlightenment, such as: "ANJEM CHOUDARY... gets his NHS glasses FREE with all his other BENEFITS." At the bottom of these micro tirades is a message imploring you to "SHARE." "SHARE" if you agree, "SHARE" if you're sick of it, "SHARE" if Johnny Foreigner has stepped on your toes on the bus for the last time. It's taking the spirit of the image macro and turning it sour, a jolly meme format becoming a billboard of racial insensitivity.

But while Griffin's bile is old news, it's bizarre that, instead of penning an article on his website or even uploading a creepy video to YouTube, Nick has opted for this very simple and frankly lax method of distributing information. It's simply not an effective way of transmitting a complicated message. You can only fit so many words into that little colored box, and even then you still want people to see the #hard #hitting #photo underneath, and you want them to know they should SHARE it. The point of your funny image macro is that it's a visual gag punctuated by a quip. It's not meant to have immigration stats in different font sizes plastered over a cartoon of a Romanian in a tracksuit. Perhaps it's to stir emotions, but that can be done more efficiently with something longer than an inflammatory sentence, and you can still get your dodgy pictures in there to boot. He also goes frighteningly off-brand at times, swapping out his usual fare of scary Muslims for cutesy pictures of animals (with deranged anti-capitalist sentiments).

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Complicated ideas being expressed in infantile ways has also become a favored pursuit of conspiracy theorist and space lizard truther, David Icke. When not discussing the finer details of the melting temperature of steel beams, Icke is farting an avalanche of photos with words on his Twitter page to 134,000 tin-foil-hat-wearing scoundrels, including, coincidentally, our boy Nicky G. But Icke's ideas about politics, the New World Order, global currency, lizard monarchs, inside jobs, pedo rings, and torture are convoluted and strange. They're just not the sort of things you can express in a single sentence over a grainy shot of Benjamin Netanyahu standing in front of some missiles.

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To Icke's small credit, clicking the links that follow the images takes you to his website, where he explains his ideas in a bit more depth. But most people will not click through, because that is not the point of image macros: they are there to transmit a simple and direct message. Most people will just see the condensed version of these complex crackpotteries, and all of David's hard thinking will have been for nought.

It feels as if these two men, once vehement and verbose in their lunacy, have opted to laze in the hot bath of the internet, where everything is done by halves and numbers rule all. Perhaps Nick and David are no longer interested in bringing people around to their respective worldviews. Perhaps now they only care about retweets, manically checking their Favstar pages, like a Weird Twitter user called something like ButtHitler.

Perhaps memery is the only form of communication we'll require in the future. Whole Apple keynote speeches with just an image of the product and "You should buy it lots of RAM" plastered over it. Mothers sending their kids photos of dinner, the words "It's ready eat now" sadly covering a plate of meat and gravy. What a horrible future we've built for ourselves.

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Khamis Gewargis Khamis moved from his native Iraq to Australia in 1993 after being persecuted as an Assyrian Christian. He carved out a life for himself in his adopted country, raising two children and working at a call center. Then the Islamic State came to power and Khamis knew he had to return.

In early February, Khamis traveled to Iraq to join an outpost of the Assyrian militia called Dwekh Nawsha, and to fight IS with his countrymen. Despite Australia's travel restrictions on northern Iraq, Khamis somehow got back into his adopted country last month. We were curious about his experience, so we tracked him down to talk about fighting IS at the frontline, and how he felt leaving his comfortable family life to do so.

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All images courtesy of Khamis Gewargis Khamis

VICE: Let's start with how you got this idea. How did you hear about Dwekh Nawsha?
I first heard about Dwekh Nawsha through Facebook in mid August. From that day, as soon as I saw them move in, I knew that I wanted to support them. I thought, This is the moment we have to act. I contacted their commander, Albert Keeso, and told him I'm coming to help you, I'm coming to support you.

How did your family react to this?
I didn't tell them exactly. I told them I wanted to go there, but I didn't tell them I was actually going.

You didn't tell your family you were going?
No. Not until the last few hours. I told my kids just a couple of hours before I was going to the airport, and my wife the night before.

What did they say to that?
Well, they didn't think I was going to the front line. Even on the second day, when I was there in a shop buying a military uniform, I couldn't tell them that.

Did you wonder if you were making the right decision?
No, except for the fact that I was putting pressure on my family—and I know it would have been very difficult for them—but I always believed, and I still believe, that it was the right thing to do.

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Khamis and the leader of Dwekh Nawsha, Albert Keeso

What was it like when you first arrived?
I landed in Erbil, Iraq. Albert Keeso himself came to the airport. On the first night I stayed at his house because, apart from being activists and friends, we're from the same tribe. The town we were in, Baqofa, used to be a farming village of about 100 houses but now it's like a ghost town. Apart from us there are only creatures there like dogs, cats, and birds. It's empty. Sometimes after disasters, towns and villages might be empty for a couple of hours, days or weeks but there is nothing like this. For ten months now entire towns in northern Iraq have been empty, even the ones that have been liberated.

What was your accommodation like?
I was sharing a room with six other fighters. Some of them were sleeping on the floor. I was lucky I was given a bed. It was very crowded, basic accommodation and the food was simple. It was mostly rice and beans, with lentil soup for breakfast. We were well fed but with only carbohydrates. Proteins, like eggs and cheese, are very expensive.

What did you spend your days doing?
Training. I had no military background so I had to be trained on how to use a Kalashnikov and how to be a guard.

What does guarding involve?
During the day all the cars need to be stopped unless they are military. IS fighters can sneak through so your finger is always on the trigger and your gun is always loaded. It's the front line and there's no communication, there's no way to talk to them before they get to the checkpoint. You just have to wait to see if it's a friendly car or an enemy car.

Were you involved in fighting?
Dwekh Nawsha is a defensive force. Even though we're very close to the enemy we don't attack, we just defend. IS occupied territory was under two miles away. Through our telescope we could see their flag flying over the water tank in Batnaya.

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Khamis with his comrades

Did they attack you?
Yes, pretty much every day and every night with mortars. And we could hear them on the walkie-talkies discussing our village. Sometimes we would know they were going to bomb us. They would shout, "Allahu akbar is coming!" and you would know they were hitting us.

What most surprised you about the situation there?
That Dwekh Nawsha is only using very old, light weapons like Kalashnikovs. I was expecting them to have at least mortars, RPGs, snipers, or grenades. In training, my own Kalashnikov failed two times. This was a surprise to me as we were so close to the enemy.

By joining this militia you risked violating Australia's foreign fighters law. Did the authorities give you any trouble on your return?
I was questioned when I arrived but there was no trouble. They asked questions for a couple of hours at the airport but they let me go and so far it's been OK.

Would you consider going back again?
I want to be there, supporting them but as you know I have a family here. It wasn't easy to leave my family, my kids. And for them to be without a father and husband was very difficult. None of us knew whether I would be returning safe. They were worried all the time. Even now, it's very difficult.

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A workshop for troubled youth held at CYOC. Photo via Flickr user Alberta Justice and Solicitor General

"You might want to wash your hands," the teen says apologetically after introducing himself with a handshake. "I was just cutting hot peppers."

The brown-eyed, black-haired boy has come straight from a cooking class. He speaks fervently yet eloquently, at one point pausing to emphasize that he means affective with an "a," not effective with an "e." If it wasn't for his all-blue uniform of sweatpants and t-shirt, he could very well be sitting across a table in a high school lunch room.

Instead, he's seated in a trapped-in-the-'90s meeting room at the Calgary Young Offender Centre (CYOC), a facility that houses about 75 inmates located just a few minutes drive from the city's northwest suburban strip malls. It's also a facility that will be shut down by mid-summer. All inmates will be transferred to an Edmonton facility. This recently learned fact is one that the teen and other inmates are "very, very scared about."

"No one has any solid information," he says. "It's the scariest thing."

The youth's been in and out of the CYOC since he was 13. He came in with a cocky attitude, convinced that he was going to grow up to be "a gangster and a killer." But he adjusted. Over time, he participated in programs, seeking inspiration from counsellors, support workers, and probation officers. ("I look to her as a mother," he says about his most recent PO, also dubbing his counsellor "Mr. Superman.") As a result, he thinks the decision to close the facility in late July makes very little sense—that it has undergone far less consideration than what it would take, for instance, to build a new playground in a suburban neighbourhood.

"It's not logical," he says. "I'm really frustrated about this. I want to see the government at least pause, to consult, to talk to staff, to assess all the risk factors. That's what they should have done in the first place."

He's not the only one who thinks that. Harpreet Aulakh, justice studies professor at Mount Royal University, calls the decision "a big setback to our youth justice system." The executive director of the Calgary John Howard Society, Gordon Sands, suggests that "the ramifications for Calgary youth are tremendous." John Reilly—former provincial judge and author of Bad Medicine: A Judge's Struggle for Justice in a First Nations Community—predicts that "a lot of young people who need help are going to get a lot less because of the change."

But a massive deficit caused by the collapse in oil prices needs to be plugged. So rather than increasing corporate taxes, or tweaking non-renewable resource royalties, or instituting a meaningful progressive income tax, the reigning Progressive Conservative party (which just called a $28-million election a full year before it was required) decided to call it quits on of housing Calgary's young offenders in their own community. While, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice couldn't say how much the province would save, the ministry's budget suggests that the total costs for all the young offenders centres in the province come to just over $22 million to run per year.

"The PCs say they're going to look out for vulnerable people," says Greg Clark, leader of the Alberta Party and candidate for Calgary-Elbow. "You get less crime by preventing young people from becoming career criminals. And you do that by having appropriate rehabilitation programs close to home so they can stay connected with families and communities. The evidence on that is absolutely clear."

Clark's right: the evidence is certainly in. Crime rates courtesy of young offenders have been on the decline for a decade and a half. Only a small majority—namely the serious and chronic offenders—got jail time. Such youth tend to be from vulnerable backgrounds—often varying combinations of mental illness, addictions, poverty, and aboriginal heritage. Now, a decision made blisteringly fast (according to the young offender I spoke with, staff found out the news on the same day as him) will potentially result in overcrowding, added violence, and less family visitation.

"All the progress that's been made isn't worth anything now," the inmate says. "There'll be a lot of fights and gang mentality: it doesn't promote positivity or change. Kids are just going to fight to stay alive. They'll be hustling each other for meal trays."

Currently, 18 boys occupy 16 rooms in the unit where he resides. The four inmates who share cells were screened for compatibility, he explains, so there wouldn't be any issues. That'll all be thrown out the barred window when the 70-or-so youth are transferred to the Edmonton facility. According to him, the possibility of riots, fights, and the formation of gangs will only increase. There's the concern of less access to programming, such as the cooking class, due to increased demand and budget constraints.

"It definitely impedes young people's opportunities to participate in any type of academic or vocational training," says Aulakh of Mount Royal University. "There's also no opportunity for self-reflection because you're always in constant interactions with someone else."

Volunteer organizations have been working in the CYOC for decades. Take the Girl Guides program: established in 1999, the mandatory weekly event teaches the dozen-and-a-half female inmates everything from cooking, to gardening, to first aid. It's an initiative fully funded by the Calgary chapter of Soroptimist International, costing the government nothing. That initiative, as well as a plethora of other volunteer-led programs, will no longer be possible with the move to Edmonton.

A spokesperson for the CYOC Girl Guides program forwarded on comments written by the female inmates about the loss of the program. "It has helped me to get close to others," one wrote. Another suggested that the facilitators "show the true meaning of love." Yet another wrote that the end of the program "would make it harder for us to connect and make new friends as well as learn new skills necessary of outside living."

Transitioning back into "outside living" will be made even more difficult due to the inevitable decline in family visitations, an interaction proven to reduce recidivism rates. It's approximately a 600-km round trip from Calgary to Edmonton, a journey that for many will require additional gas money, babysitting, and maybe even hotel costs. The young offender at CYOC I spoke with explains that family counselling is a big factor for rehabilitation among fellow inmates (something confirmed in a 2002 study), and that driving six hours for a two-hour visit may not be worth it for families with other pressures on their mind.

Reilly, the former judge, agrees: "The poor people always get the worst of it. When I was sitting in Cochrane, one of the biggest reasons for non-attendance by Aboriginal people was because they couldn't get transportation from their hometown on the reserve to Cochrane for court. Now we're talking about people who are going to have to travel another three hours than what it took them to get to the CYOC to visit their family."

The move potentially serves as contravention of a number of pieces of legislation, including the UN's "Beijing Rules" (1985) and Convention on the Rights of a Child (1990), in addition to the Canadian Youth Criminal Justice Act (2002), which all require the direct involvement of the family and community for the purposes of rehabilitation. But a government that is "balancing the budget on the backs of vulnerable kids," as Aulakh puts it, might not take the time to review such commitments.

Sands of the John Howard Society says that he understands the need for cost-cutting, but doesn't think that the closure of the CYOC is the correct way to go about that given the potential "downstream effects"—increased gang activity, less access to programs, fewer visits from family. All reducing the immediate fiscal responsibilities, sure, but by no means dealing with the underlying problems that could cost enormously ("what happens when four guys stomp another kid and he's breathing through tubes?," the teen at the CYOC asks). The youth fears especially for the younger kids, those who are still dealing with addictions and family issues, and aren't prepared for the sudden shift.

"We're destroying their lives," he says. "They don't need this on top of everything, to be cut off from their families.The government's reversing the progress they've made. They need to look at the potential impacts on communities. When kids get released, they're not going to have any money, will end up homeless and steal a car. I've been there."

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What Cheer, Iowa. Population 646. All photos by Coby Weber

It's an Iowan pastime, Cody Weber tells me, to take long drives down dirt-and-gravel roads just to see where you'll end up. Often, these road will go on for miles, jilting your car with every bump on the rough terrain, before dropping you off in a little town with fewer than a thousand people. Sometimes, there's a gas station, but more often you find a patchwork of abandoned schoolhouses, corner stores with caved-in roofs, rolling fields, and houses where the same families of Iowans have lived for generations. If you blink, you'll miss these places entirely—but if you look at these towns very closely, with the right perspective, you just might find something magical there.

That's what Weber says, at least, and he would know. The native Iowan set off last month to photograph all 947 towns in the state for a project he calls Forgotten Iowa. The purpose, he says, is to capture these places as they really are, and restore a sense of pride in being an Iowan.

When I spoke to him about the project, he was unwaveringly polite, confirming the stereotype that Midwesterners really are the nicest people in the country. He seemed acutely aware that most people have never seen—or care to see—the towns that he's photographing, but in a way, that's exactly the point. Iowa is more than just barnyards and cornfields, he tells me, "The communities are the important part." And so as he visits each town, he makes an effort to talk to the people, to hear their stories, and photograph the places that are important to them—to reclaim "forgotten" Iowa.

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Packwood, Iowa. Population 204

VICE: Where in Iowa did you grow up?
Cody Weber: I'm from Keokuk, Iowa. It's a small town of about 10,000 people. It used to be about 20,000, but people just keep leaving.

Have you always lived there?
I've been everywhere. I think most people of my generation that grow up in Iowa, their big dream is to get the hell out of Iowa. [laughs] I think it's because when you're young, you have a harder time of appreciating the subtleties that make Iowa a cool place to be. But that's always the dream of kids, and it was certainly mine. When I turned 18, I moved out of my parents' house. I lived in New Orleans for a while. I met my girlfriend in Detroit and I've spent the last ten, 11 years traveling as much as I possibly can.

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Keokuk, Iowa. Population 10,780

So, what brought you back?
I traced my lineage and discovered that my family has stayed in the same geographical area for over 150 years. They've been there forever. One of my ancestors was a famous musician named Carl Maria von Weber and it was really easy for me to track my lineage specifically because his has been so mapped out extensively. All I had to do was find my great-great-grandpa and someone else did all the legwork for me. I discovered that the reason my family came to America—we were German immigrants—was because one of my grandfathers could foresee the oncoming rise of Naziism and his wife was a Jewish woman. So they illegally boarded a fishing vessel and ended up in Virginia, and then their son came to Missouri in the early 1800s. Where I'm from is a tri-state area—you can get to Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois in five minutes—and in that little pocket, that's where they've remained ever since.

When I was young, I hated that. I didn't know how extensive it was—like, how long my family had stayed in that location—but I didn't like the idea that I had this destiny to live in a small, nothing town forever. So, for me, it was a big deal to not be that. I wanted to break the cycle. I think the reason why populations are starting to dwindle in Iowa is because millennials specifically are really attracted to cities because of the opportunity that just isn't there in small-town America.

It's not exactly the millennial dream to live in Iowa.
It for sure is not. But you know, I have a lot of friends who have spent their entire lives in big cities and they find it hard to even acknowledge that places like these towns can even exist. Because they're so used to towering skyscrapers and people everywhere, and these are these quiet little towns with buildings that haven't been touched in 200 years. It seems almost like a different world.

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Wapello, Iowa. Population 2,067

You're trying to visit all of the towns in Iowa. How many is that?
There are 947 incorporated towns, but I'm trying to be ambitious and get the unincorporated towns too. Those ones are a lot harder because some of them are down miles and miles of gravel road.

How many have you done so far?
I'm in the 60s now.

What have you learned about Iowa, or about Iowans?
The stereotype about Iowans is incredibly true: We're friendly. Like, Iowans are the most friendly people I have ever met. So much so that when I lived in places like Detroit or Louisiana, it shocked me that common manners weren't utilized, like holding a door open for someone. You have to do that in Iowa, and when you do, you're pretty much inviting yourself for a ten-minute conversation; definitely a "thank you" at the very least. But when I was in Michigan, because of the Iowan in me, I'd hold doors open for people and they downright thought that was weird. Where I come from, it's something you do. If you're the first one to the door, you hold it open for the next person. And there it's just like, I'll get my own damn door.

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Cantril, Iowa. Population 222. A sign in the corner reads. "Do not steal; God will see you and the Dutchman might!"

Are there any other stereotypes about Iowa you'd like to confirm or deny?
I've met a lot of people who confuse Iowa and Idaho—which is strange to me, because they couldn't be more different. You know, corn and potatoes are not the same thing. Another stereotype about Iowans is that while they're friendly, they're also on the lower side of intellect. That just is not true.

I can't speak for past generations, but in my generation, some of the most inspiring people come from these small towns. They're brilliant and intelligent; and because they're not so saturated with billboards and media all the time, they have soul; they have their own identity. When I've been involved in art scenes and music scenes in cities, things start to blend together. Bands want to sound like other bands and artists want to paint like other painters. There's not so much of that desire to do that here. People genuinely appreciate ingenuity in Iowa. Also, a lot of people assume that Iowa is a red state and that everybody is super conservative, when Iowa has kind of led the way in civil rights—women's right to vote, gay rights, and things of that nature. Generally, people here live by "I'm not gonna judge you as long as you're not affecting me," and I think that is a philosophy that the rest of the country could maybe take some lessons on.

"When I was a kid, everyone had this bumper sticker on their car and it said 'Keokuk Pride'—like, you're proud to be from this little town."

Is that part of what you're trying to accomplish with the photo series—to show Iowa and Iowans for what they really are?
I suppose, in a way. One criticism I've gotten is that I tend to focus my efforts on dilapidation and worn-down architecture and things of that nature because that, to me, is what these towns are. Those are the images that get stuck in your head. If you go to any site, you're not likely to see that stuff, if there's pictures at all. You're just not likely to see what it really is. I don't want to make Iowa seem better than it actually is, but I also don't want to make it seem like it's worse. I just want to give my perspective. And to me, it's not necessarily a negative thing if a town is run-down, or a town isn't getting the funds that they need, or tearing down buildings that might need to be torn down. In my opinion, that's what gives those towns personality.

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Winfield, Iowa. Population 1,134

When you visit a new town, are there particular things that you seek out to photograph?
If I ever come across an old school building, that is really interesting to me. Not because of the architecture, honestly, because most of the architecture of schools in this state are very similar. For me, the schools are a really interesting contrast between what we have now and what we had in the past. Sixty years ago, and even further back, Iowa had a lot more residents. There were a lot more people here, and a lot more going on. Now most of the schools are consolidated and for every town in the county, the kids in those counties have to go to the same school. But there are still remnants of a time when each town had their own school, and their own identity.

I saw a school the other day in Oakville, Iowa, where the roof had completely collapsed and the foundation was rotting. And it didn't look like anyone had any plans to touch it. I think the reason people don't want to tear these schools down is because they themselves have memories of it. A lot of the residents in these towns are older people and they went to these schools. A few years ago, there was a convenience store in my town that literally just collapsed, literally just fell down. It was pretty intense. Even with that—luckily no one got hurt, no one was there at the time—the older people in the town were like, "We can't tear these buildings down because they have historical significance." And really what they're saying when they say that is I have a personal attachment to these buildings and I don't want to see this town change.

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Milton, Iowa. Population 443

The buildings aren't just structures; they're part of the town's collective memory.
They certainly are, especially in a small town. If you're in a city, there's development all the time, so you don't really have as much sentimental value for these buildings because there's things coming and going all the time. But there are restaurants in these small towns that have existed since my great-grandparents were children. It's just a staple of the communities, and you don't want to let these things go. You want your grandkids to experience them.

I really don't think that people in these communities see these buildings as they are. They see them as they were. So, I want to take photos of the worn-down elements because I think that that is a big part of Iowa's identity. You're not going to remember a shopping mall that looks the same as every single shopping mall in America; you're going to remember these individual structures that each have their own personality. If they stick in your head at all, I think, those are the things that are going to stick.

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Croton, Iowa

What kind of response have you gotten to the project so far?
Most of the emails I get are from people who have experiences in Iowa, like, "My grandparents live in this town and a lot of my fond memories are at their house." That's a common one that I get. Another email I get a lot is people who really want me to come to their town, because I think they have an understanding of what I'm trying to do and they have their own ideas, where they're like, "I know this building that he would never be able to find on his own." Which is great, because once I get out of southeast Iowa, it's gonna be a new adventure. There were towns that were literally 15 minutes away from where I grew up that I'd never even heard of or went to, ever. So it's great when there's a community outreach, when there's people that will show me things that I wouldn't be able to find on my own.

About 90 percent of the emails I get are positive. The 10 percent that are negative are generally people who honestly seem a little embarrassed of what I decided to take photos of [in their town]. On some fundamental level, that does bother me. That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm not trying to make citizens of this town feel like they're nobodies. I think the country already kind of does that on its own. That's why I called the project "Forgotten Iowa"—because Iowa is an incredibly important state, and yet it seems to not get any recognition. So I don't want to make those people embarrassed, but I kind of have to ignore it because if I try to cater to anything then I'm not being true to myself and my own perspective, and that will show in the work.

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Keokuk, Iowa

Wait, there are towns 15 minutes away from you that you've never heard of? How is that possible?
I think if you want to have a connection to one of these towns you have to know someone who lives there or family that lives there, because there's no business. There's a café or something, sometimes there's a gas station, but most of these towns don't even have that. They have ten or 11 families in them that have probably lived there as long as my family has lived in the town that I'm from. I never had a reason to go to these towns, which was a big motivating factor for me deciding to do this project. I consider myself an Iowan and I do have some sort of pride about that—I like being from Iowa—so I want to understand it on a broad scale.

I want people to have physical proof that these things existed, because they're not just buildings. They're memories.

As an Iowan, do you feel any sort of kinship with the people who live in these towns?
When I meet up with someone and they talk about their town, they describe their town the same way that I would describe mine. It's this combination of pride and also sadness. Because, even me—I'm only 26 years old—I remember being a child and the town being a lot better. There was a lot less drug usage, a lot more industry. When I was a kid, everyone had this bumper sticker on their car and it said "Keokuk Pride"—like, you're proud to be from this little town. And as I've gotten older, it's become Keokuk shame. Sometimes I go to towns and they say, "Where are you from?" and I say, "I'm from Keokuk," and they say, "Oh, I'm sorry."

I don't see Keokuk that way because, to me, Keokuk is a place that has really good-hearted people, really genuine people, who would give you the clothes off your back if you needed it. If you just drive through the town, it does look like someone dropped a bomb on it and people just decided to stay. So I can understand the perception. And that's why it's so confusing to me when I get an email and someone's like, "You're capturing the bad parts of this town," because to me, that's not what I'm doing. Those are the things that I like. Those are the good things about this town.

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Rome, Iowa. Population 117

Do you think you'll live in Iowa forever?
I don't want my legacy to be Iowa. Honestly, once my girlfriend graduates [from Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa] we're planning on moving out West. I don't want to be 35 years old and still in Iowa doing family portraits. Also, winters here are brutal. They're so cold. I want to go somewhere where there's no snow. [laughs]

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Lockridge, Iowa. Population 268

Is there a town that you've visited so far that sticks out in your mind? One that was unforgettable?
What Cheer, Iowa. It's an old coal mining town, and was once a very prosperous community. They had an opera house, and you can tell that there was a lot of culture there. If you go there now, the coal mines are obviously gone but the remnants are there, and you can see how great this town once was and how beautiful it once was. When we were there, this elderly lady saw me taking photos and she waved me down. She was probably close to 90 years old, and she began to tell me her entire life story—how she spent the duration of her entire existence, all 80-plus years of her life, in that town. She remembers it when it was this prosperous place and she was really happy to see me documenting it, because she said people don't really drive through there anymore. After they built the interstate, it's a real hassle to get to What Cheer, and it's not somewhere you go unless you live there. She remembered being a little girl and her dad coming home covered in black dust and going to the opera house on Friday nights. She said she was hoping in her lifetime she would see some sort of resurgence of the town, because she remembered it as such a beautiful place, but then she said "I'll never live to see this place get better."

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Keokuk, Iowa

Was that a watershed moment for you?
Yeah, that was kind of like a lightbulb in my head went off, because I realized that she was talking about What Cheer the same way I was talking about Keokuk. When I have someone come to Kekuk for the first time—like, when I took my girlfriend there—I point out every single thing that I remember from my youth, when the town was a better place. I show off all the cool things, and that's exactly what this woman was doing with me. But I'm not pushing 90 years old; I'm 26. Surely, by the time I'm her age, there are going to be significant changes and it's a big deal to me because of that to document these things that aren't going to last another 60 or 70 years. A lot of things that I photograph aren't going to last another five years. It's of the upmost importance to me to capture these things before they're gone because I do want people to have physical proof that these things existed, because they're not just buildings. They're memories. And I see how important that is to people.

At the same time, I'd like to see growth. You're not going to attract business owners when your roads are awful and your buildings are all run-down. You're just not gonna do it. It's this double-edged sword, because at some point, they're going to have to make the decision to do something about that. And I want the people to remember the town as it is or as it was; I want them to have that in some capacity.

Follow the Forgotten Iowa project here and on Tumblr, and see more of Cody's photography on his website.

Follow Arielle Pardes on Twitter.

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Liana Barrientos, via her Facebook profile

A serial seductress has been indicted on felony charges after allegedly marrying ten different men over the course of 11 years—without divorcing all of them.

Achieving a feat that might have required another woman to make 300 sandwiches ten times, Liana Barrientos put a ring on it all across the greater New York area, acquiring husbands and marriage licenses in Rye, Yonkers, Hempstead, Ramapo, Huntington, Greenburgh, Mamaroneck, White Plains, and the Bronx.

Prosecutors allege that each subsequent marriage took place "without benefit of divorce," the New York Times reports.

But the sound of Barrientos's perpetual wedding bells has been silenced by the charges against her in Bronx State Supreme Court. While bigamy is, technically, illegal in all 50 states (and usually punishable with about five years in prison), people are "rarely if ever charged" with it, according to a spokesperson for the Bronx District Attorney.

Rather, Barrientos is being charged with two counts of "offering a false instrument for filing"—basically, falsifying public records.

Incredibly, early reports suggest that the Pink Panther of engagement rings was never actually found out by her harem of hubbies. In a city where single women outnumber single men, Barrientos has managed to do ten times what many struggle to do once: find a man in New York who's ready to pack it in.

In 2002, a particularly busy year, Barrientos married six different men in six months, including one on Valentine's Day—and another about two weeks later. One wonders if she posted a Life Event on Facebook for each ceremony.

A motive—as if there needs to be one—has not been alleged, although theTimes reports that the Department Homeland Security is "involved," raising the question of whether this had something to do with immigration. The paper also lists each of Barrientos's hubbies' names—Gerbril, Allam, Rahman, Koridze, Goktepe, Paharelau, Dzneladze, Rajput, Khorbaladze, and Keita. Barrientos's rap sheet includes previous convictions for drug possession and theft of services.

Technically, Barrientos is only being charged for her most recent attempt to hoodwink the laws of love (and the federal government)—namely, listing herself as "unmarried" on her marriage license in 2010, the last stop a wedding spree that began more than a decade earlier. She now faces two charges that each carry a maximum sentence of four years in prison.

Follow Jennifer Schaffer on Twitter.

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

Cry-Baby #1: Robert Bonzani

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Screencap via Google Maps.

The incident: A man went through a lengthy divorce.

The appropriate response: Doing everything you can to finalize it, then moving on.

The actual response: He allegedly desecrated the grave of his ex-wife's attorney's deceased daughter.

Robert Bonzani is a 49-year-old urologist in Mokena, Illinois.

In 2012, he and his wife divorced. Though this was several years ago, the divorce proceedings are still going on. According to a report in the Chicago Tribune, the most recent filings relate to child support payments.

Throughout the divorce, Robert's wife has been represented by an attorney named Edward Jaquays. Back in 2012, Edward's 17-year-old daughter Kiley died after a hiking accident while attending a retreat for troubled teens in Utah.

According to charges being brought against Robert, he has waged a campaign of harassment against the attorney in order to get revenge on him for representing his former wife during their divorce.

Police say that Robert stole photos and an artificial tree from the attorney's daughter's grave site, and vandalized her headstone with spray paint. He also allegedly sent several letters to Edward and his wife that mentioned their daughter. The content of those letters has not been released, but CBS reports they were "designed to cause the divorce attorney and his wife emotional pain."

Robert turned himself into police last week. He is currently free on a $10,000 bond. He faces misdemeanor charges of criminal damage to property and theft, as well as a felony charge of stalking.

Cry-Baby #2: The City of Ogden, Utah

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Screencap via Fox 13.

The incident: A couple built a box fort outside their house for their kid.

The appropriate response: Nothing.

The actual response: They were threatened with a fine by city officials.

Last weekend, Jeremy Trentelman built a fort for his three-year-old daughter from several cardboard boxes and a slide in the front yard of his home in Ogden, Utah.

On April 1, Jeremy returned home to find a city code enforcement officer had stuck a note to the door of his home. The note was to inform Jeremy that he was in violation of a city ordinance that prohibits storing junk outside your house. The note warned that if the fort is not removed within 15 days, he would face a fine of $125.

The note was reportedly the result of an anonymous complaint made to the city by a passerby.

"I just thought it was an awesome way to use boxes and my kids' imagination," Jeremy told his local paper, the Standard Examiner.

"It's obvious it's not junk," he added. "There is a slide over the side and child graffiti all over the boxes. It looks like a fort."

According to the Standard Examiner, this is just the latest in a string of irrational tickets issued by tyrannical code enforcement officers. The paper reports that another person in the neighborhood was issued a citation on the same day for temporarily parking their car on their own lawn in order to load it up with yard clippings.

Jeremy's wife, Jan, intends to keep the fort up for as long as possible as a fuck you to the haters. "There was never any plan to keep it up for an extended period of time," she told the local Fox affiliate. "It's a box fort, it's supposed to be temporary. We're leaving it up till day 14, and doing repairs if necessary."

Who here is the bigger cry-baby? Let us know in this poll down here:

Previously: A cop was disciplined for posing for a photo with Snoop Dogg and a gas station attendant was accused of sexual harassment for cleaning a windshield with a plastic "pee pee toy".

Winner: The people who hate Snoop Dogg!!!

Follow Jamie Lee Curtis Taete on Twitter.

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Photo of the Montreal Gazette

I blame Who Do You Think You Are? Before that show existed, I was perfectly content not knowing a damn thing about my family history. But then Jim Parsons found out he was related to a famous French architect who served Louis XIV and Sarah Jessica Parker found out one of her ancestors was tried as a witch in Salem, and then suddenly I was like "OMIGOD I BETCHA I'M RELATED TO CLEOPATRA OR SOMETHING."

I thought the most logical place to start was with my great-grandfather, a man who had died 20 years before I was born. His name was Michael Zarbatany and he emigrated to Montreal from Damascus in 1906. In Syria he had sold shirts on the market, but in Montreal, he was a different man altogether. He started the first Arabic newspaper in Canada, called Ash-Shehab (The Brilliant Star), and also founded St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church, which still exists to this day on Rue de Castelnau in Montreal. So last month, I visited the church, which I hadn't seen since I was baptized. I spoke to the current Father, and also to members of the congregation, but no one could tell me anything I didn't already know. Yes, he was a good man, and a kind man, and an honest man, and blah blah fucking blah. What a horribly pedantic episode of Who Do You Think You Are? this would be.

I went online and Googled him at length, and of course, because I didn't pay a hefty price of admission into Ancestry.ca, I couldn't find anything of relevance.

My mother had once told me that the family name "Zarbatany" actually derived from a type of gun called the Zarbatan, which my ancestors smuggled for the Ottoman Empire. They eventually changed their name from Zeine to Zarbatany to identify themselves. That's pretty fucking punk rock, I thought, so instead of Googling his full name, why not just Google "Zarbatany?"

And that's when the penny dropped.

The Montreal Gazette has an online archive that dominated my search results. It revealed the name of a man I had never heard of before, a man named Emile Zarbatany. The Gazette published a series of reports on him in 1941, when he was charged with attempted murder.

The March 6, 1941 issue reports that on February 22 of that year, Emile Zarbatany shot Norbert Valcourt, the janitor of his apartment building, three times. One bullet passed through part of Valcourt's head. Valcourt had been collecting rent money when the incident happened.

The June 7 issue from that year also reports that Emile Zarbatany, who was addicted to morphine and heroin, had previously been convicted of burglary, armed robbery, illegal possession of a firearm, and that he claimed he had once been shot in the head while working as an informer for the New York police.

What the actual fuck.

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I was expecting to find my family was made of writers, philosophers, mathematicians, maybe a torrid love affair or two, I wasn't expecting the plot of a James Cagney film starring an Arabic Scarface.

"We're not a family, we're a tribe," my mother had once said. There were so many derelict cousins, estranged brothers, secret adoptions, and unknown family relations. So it was entirely possible, I thought, that this Emile Zarbatany was some distant cousin twice removed who wasn't related to me in any meaningful way.

Ah, but Google loves her little tortures.

That's when I found the February 27, 1941 issue of the Montreal Gazette:

"Accompanied by his father, Very Rev. Michael Zarbatany, vicar general of the Syrian Orthodox Cathedral, Emile Zarbatany, 30-year-old suspect in the shooting of Norbert Valcourt [...] surrendered early last night to Deputy Police Director Armand Brodeur, head of the Montreal Detective bureau..."

There he was in black and white. Michael Zarbatany. My great-grandfather.

I went to my mother's house with a fire lit under my ass, and before the door had even closed behind me, I blurted out, "Who is Emile Zarbatany?"

My mother, who was sat at the kitchen table, looked up at me, paused for the length of a Bible, and then replied, "Why?"

Right then and there, I knew there were family secrets not meant for my ears. Stories and lies, foibles and follies, murder and trials had all been kept from me. I was completely in the dark about where I came from, who my ancestors were, and exactly what kind of blood was running through my veins.

Finally my mother admitted, "All right. He was your great-uncle, and we don't speak of him."

Is this why I sometimes have a violent streak? I thought. Why I used to steal candy from the dépanneurs as a child? Why I can fly into a rage at the drop of a hat? Why my temper scares even me? Is it all in my blood?

The last article on Emile Zarbatany that I found was stuck behind a paywall, but the Google preview of the Ottawa Citizen indicated that he was subsequently sentenced to 20 years in jail. In 1941, Canada still had the death penalty. He could have swung for that.

My Sitto (that's colloquial Arabic for "Granny"), who is 92 and still kicking, has told me Emile didn't serve the full 20-year sentence. He was out on parole when he re-offended on a drug-related charge. According to her, he was in the hospital receiving treatment for a heart aneurysm when my Jiddo ("Gramps") learned the RCMP were looking for him. Jiddo was Emile's brother and, like their father Michael, turned him in. It's crazy to think of the drama and inner turmoil and conflict required to rat out your own son, your own brother. I guess by this point, they were all just sick of his shit.

The last anyone heard of him, he was transferred to a prison in Agassiz, BC to put some distance between him and the Montreal criminal network he was involved with. No one knows when he died.

Since this dark chapter in my family history has come to light, I have been obsessed with the quest to find out more about my family. Hoping it can tell me more about my life, my tendencies, my proclivities, it has instead revealed even more scandal and misery. There was the trial of Jean-Paul Zarbatany, as reported by the Montreal Gazette on February 26, 1976 who was convicted of conspiracy to commit armed robbery. Zarbatany is not a very popular last name in Montreal, let alone in Canada, so this Jean-Paul is related to me somehow, but no one in my family knows the exact connection.

I sit here, armed with this knowledge, and I think to myself quite shamefully, You can take the man out of Syria but you can't take Syria out of the man.

I suppose, when you come from a family that is named after a gun, you will, in all likelihood, die by that gun.

Follow Christine Estima on Twitter.

Today's video - Raucous student protests in Montreal, China's new cyber weapon, a regional report from Dublin, and a Ghostface Killah collabo in Canada.

Exclusive: "Montreal Protests: Students vs. Police"

Browse the video archive

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Photo via NBC Los Angeles

On Thursday, in San Bernardino County, California, an act of apparent police brutality was captured not by a cameraphone, but by a news chopper recording for the local NBC affiliate. The footage shows what appears to be a passive and compliant man lying next to his getaway horse—more on that in a second—getting Tasered and subsequently beaten by 11 cops for about two minutes.

NBC has put the unedited, graphic video online.

The man in question, 30-year-old Francis Jared Pusok of Apple Valley, was being served a warrant in an identity theft investigation when the chase began. He initially left in a car, then abandoned it and continued into the desert on foot before allegedly stealing the horse. Eventually, his injured mount threw him off, effectively ending the saga.

John McMahon, Sheriff of San Bernardino County, has announced that he would investigate the use of force by his deputies. "I'm not sure if there was a struggle with the suspect," he told NBC. "It appears there was in the early parts of the video. What happens afterwards, I'm not sure of."

With only about 2,000 deputies covering the largest county in the contiguous United States, San Bernardino Sheriff's deputies have a lot of ground to cover. They've become well-known for questionable law enforcement tactics, having come under scrutiny after a 2013 standoff with renegade LAPD officer Christopher Dorner, when the tear gas they used may have caused the fire that brought the incident to a close. There's also pending litigation right now involving accusations that they tortured inmates in county lockup.

But the unusually violent response to Pusok's evasion might have had less to do with the particular law enforcement agency he was attempting to thwart and more with the prolonged nature of the chase. The deputies were probably exhausted by the end of the pursuit. Certainly, as the LA Times reports, drawn-out chases often end in tragic fashion.

"Your adrenaline gets going, you get real pumped up. And you're still pumped up when you finally pull the guy over and get out of your car," one cop told the paper after the Rodney King beating in 1991. "You have to make a conscious effort to downshift, so to speak, and to maintain control."

And remember, this wasn't just your garden-variety car chase, but a legit, multi-vehicle odyssey that took three hours and included steep, rocky terrain. Police became seriously dehydrated, and one was kicked by the horse. Three cops apparently merited medical attention.

Once they got their hands on Pusok, San Bernardino sheriffs engaged in what appears to be pretty brutal behavior. By NBC News' count, they dished out 58 blows, 13 of which were directed at the man's head. After the beating, Pusok was left lying on his face for 45 minutes while police milled around, apparently not administering first aid of any kind. He was later hospitalized.

NBC asked Pusok's girlfriend where he had been taken for treatment, and about the extent of his injuries, but she didn't know. "They have not told me a thing," she said, referring to Sheriff's deputies.

According to CBS's Los Angeles affiliate, Pusok's family has lawyered up, and is considering a lawsuit. His attorney Jim Terrell has already involved Rodney King in his statements to the media.

"What I saw on the television was thugs beating up my client," he said. "That's what I saw. And these questions about what was he doing? What did they do? This is far worse than Rodney King."

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

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Follow Gilbert Hernandez on Twitter and buy his books from Fantagraphics and Drawn and Quarterly.