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Photo via Flickr user Johan Larsson

In the course of writing this article I have made five false starts, checked Twitter eight times, refreshed my email four times, texted plans with two friends and IMmed a third, four times run out for coffee, and masturbated—twice. All of these things are forms of procrastination, but only one is a form of procrasturbation.

Procrasturbation, the top Urban Dictionary entry says, is "procrastination by masturbating!" Somewhat more abstruse is an article in Psychology Today that says it's "delaying the performance of a task feels so good, it results in... euphoria," a definition that leads me to wonder if its writer has ever properly jerked off. In April of 2013, Jon Stewart suggested that it's "Using masturbation to otherwise occupy yourself while pressing matters await."

It may seem like simply putting off until later when you can pet the kitty right now, but procrasturbation is so much more than that. It's replacing torment—or at least tedium—with pleasure, and as its name suggests, it's slightly obnoxious. Procrasturbation is a juvenile act in an adult world. It's scrawling physical graffiti on the walls of corporate America, written in ink that can only be read with Luminol. Most germane, procrasturbation is something you and I and everyone we know learned when we were adolescents.

Like you, I was once a tween with all the time in the world. My adolescence was fairly awful; some of it was particular to me, but much was not. Being an adolescent is uncanny and difficult—it's traversing a new landscape in an ever-changing body that's shooting out hairs and hormones, and it's trying to establish your maturity as you tussle with the lingering grasp of childhood. It's acne, and it's anger. It's menstruation, and it's confusion. It's unexpected boners, and it's alienation. Adolescence is pretty horrible, all things being equal—and, really, when are they?

The one great saving grace of that age is masturbation. Orgasms cure a lot of ills, 11-year-old me learned as I read my parents' copies of Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden and The Hite Report; these two seminal 70s books taught me how to touch myself. Busy as I am now, squeezing out harried orgasms at the end of long day of writing and binge-watching Arrow on Netflix, I think of those halcyon times when I was a tween and had fat swathes masturbatory of time.

Learning to masturbate turns your teen body from a torture device into a playland, but it also demarcates your body as your own. Masturbation is fun because you do it in secret, like sneaking cigarettes or cutting classes, and you do it because it's the best way to show you're your own person. It's the first way humans make pleasure into a political act—but it's not the last.

Watch our documentary on the digital love industry:

At 12, I thought adult life would be the end of boredom, of tedium, and of supervision. I could not imagine cubicles, deadlines, micromanaging mid-level corporate executives, and listicles. As an adult, however, I now have reconciled myself to the fact that in some ways I will never leave adolescence behind, and one of those ways is masturbation. Specifically, it's procrasturbation, an act only made feasible by today's technology.

More from Chelsea G. Summers.

I work from home, as does a sizable chunk of the populace—somewhere between 2.5 and 30 percent of workers do business from home at least one day a week, depending on which stats you look at. Add students to that group and the number of potential procrasturbators rises higher. High-speed internet allows for telecommuting, but it also allows you to read this piece, and this piece has made you consider touching yourself. Don't lie.

Although it allows us to work stronger, faster, and better than before, the internet was also made for porn, and porn was made for masturbation. Humans are wily, pleasure-seeking animals. Some of us will delay gratification to get two marshmallows later, but most of us will pounce on that one marshmallow now. It's a short step from working to wanking when your browser autocompletes "Y" to "YouPorn."

Smartphones shorten this distance. Let us, for a moment, remove the physical act of stroking, rubbing, or caressing from the masturbatory equation. Let us consider just erotic musings as an act of procrasturbation. How many of us have not paused in the midst of a task to Tindr, Grindr, or 3rdnr? How many have us have not perused the Instagram stream of our current thirst trap like the hard-up thirst-raptors we are? All I'm saying is let she who has not sexted on company time cast the first stone.

The possibility of procrasturbation shows how blurred our divisions between work and leisure have become. If your company email is loaded on your smartphone, you never really leave work. Technology has corroded the barrier between work and private life and erased the 8-8-8 split of work, leisure, and sleep time. While we may live in a land where Big Brother is watching, we also live in a world where our bosses have replaced our parents. In that context I'd argue that procrasturbation is more than just a time waster. It's both a site of pleasure and a site of resistance. In Marxist terms, when we're alienated from our own labor—and who isn't?—masturbation on the clock is a political act. It is taking back our sold time and making it our own; it is reclaiming that elision between worker and individual in the most primal, most pleasurable way possible.

Like geological layers studded with fossils and wrecks of past civilizations, adults carry within them the vestiges of their former selves. We don't always know it; we can't always see it, but our history is there. That 11- or 12-year-old who slinks off to his or her bedroom with a pump container of lotion and a copy of Penthouse may be hidden but he or she is not gone. Just as self-pleasure defined your tween identity as your own, separate from your parents or your family or your faith or your school, so too does procrasturbation stake out territory as your own. For those sweet minutes of flights of fancy and fapping, you are not your job. You are not your obligations. You are not your resentment, your listicle, your dirty laundry, or your tedium. You are 12 and you are free.

Do it now as you did it then. But now—as then—try not to get caught.

Chelsea G. Summers writes for Adult Magazine and many other publications. Follow her on Twitter.

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Photo via Flickr user Craig Hatfield

Early Tuesday afternoon, the feds announced a massive overhaul of the Cleveland Police Department. The Department of Justice released a report back in December finding that police misconduct and civil rights violations were widespread in the city, so then–Attorney General Eric Holder announced an independent monitor would oversee reforms as part of a settlement with the city.

Now we know exactly what that settlement looks like, with Cleveland's new use-of-force rules poised to set the bar for how to deter police brutality in American cities where cops and citizens can't seem to coexist without tragedy.

First, the settlement requires that every instance of police force in Cleveland be documented and investigated. Cops will undergo training on how to deal with the mentally ill, as well as racial sensitivity classes. And the new rules will forbid local police from using violence against people who are running or driving away, or "talking back," the New York Times reported. Officers won't be allowed to hit people on the head with guns, either. US Assistant Attorney Steven Dettlebach said in a statement that the new rules will serve as "a national model for any police department ready to escort a great city to the forefront of the 21st century."

The deal comes just three days after an Ohio judge acquitted officer Michael Brelo on manslaughter charges. Brelo was one of 13 Cleveland PD officers involved in the 2012 shooting death of two mentally ill black people who led cops on a high-speed chase. The decision to acquit the officer who seemed to be most directly involved in their deaths—Brelo jumped up on their stopped car and fired 15 shots through the windshield—led to protests Saturday in which 71 people were arrested.

On VICE News: How Detroit Has Managed to Keep the Peace During Protests Over Police Brutality

The August shooting death of Michael Brown by Ferguson cop Darren Wilson set off a national conversation about police brutality, and subsequent incidents in South Carolina and Baltimore have kept the dialogue about race relations between cops and communities in the headlines ever since.

But policing had yet to seize the national spotlight when, on November 19, 2012, Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams entered a Chevy Malibu that would soon become a coffin.

Just outside of a well-known drug spot, an officer tried to over Russell for a turn signal violation. He took off. After cops mistook the sound of the car backfiring for a gunshot, more than 60 cars and some 100 officers took chase. Eventually, the Malibu was littered with 137 bullets, 49 of which came from Brelo's Glock. A fellow cop later testified that, at one point, Brelo was standing on top of the car and firing straight down at the couple.

Cleveland police made headlines again last November when 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot and killed in a playground after brandishing a toy gun. Later, it came out that the officer who did the shooting, Timothy Loehmann, is a terrible shot with a history of emotional problems. There also appeared to be some issues with the department's technology; although the person who called 911 on Rice told a dispatcher the kid's gun was "probably fake," that message didn't make its way over to Loehmann due at least in part to dated technology.

In December, the DOJ report said CDP officers were using guns in a "careless and dangerous manner" and "too often use dangerous and poor tactics to try and gain control of suspects." The federal investigation also found the Cleveland cops used excessive force against people who were mentally ill.

So it only makes sense that locals were shocked and upset when Officer Brelo was let off the hook this weekend. Given the judge's rationale—essentially that there were too many cops involved to discern who fired the fatal shots—it doesn't seem likely that any of the five police supervisors still awaiting trial for dereliction of duty will be found guilty. It's also unclear what will happen to Loehmann, the officer who killed 12-year-old Rice.

But Vanita Gupta, the top civil rights prosecutor for the DOJ, offered a hopeful message Tuesday. Although she she said Cleveland's plan wasn't "cookie-cutter" and was designed specifically for that city, she made it clear that this is a roadmap for other departments.

"There is much work to be done, across the nation and in Cleveland, to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve where it has eroded, but it can be done," Gupta said. "Today's agreement may serve as a model for those seeking to address similar issues in their communities.

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

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This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

And the Devil did push his head up through the ages of rock and bring down upon the earth a rain of lava and hellfire, and we did ask him, we did turn to him and say: Yo, the Devil, what the fuck are you doing here? We weren't expecting you here. Thought we had a thousand more years. And the Devil did crush the mountains down to dust and turn the seas to stone and the earth was rendered instantly fallow and we were like: Dude, why did you do that? Du–ude! You just killed all of the corn, man! We were going to eat that shit! What the fuck, the Devil? And the Devil did turn to us and with a voice as deep as a thousand trucks revving in an old cave, with a voice impure and dirty, and did scream into the mayhem-filled sky just a single word.

"TEENS," the Devil said. "TEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENS!" And the night was long and black and infinite, and the earth lay dead and still, and all of us were made skeletons in an instant before the eyes of God.

What I am saying here is that teenagers are using social media to summon up a Mexican demon called "Charlie" and this seems like both the natural conclusion to things here in the corporeal realm ("How did the world end?" "Teens summoned a demon for Vine likes and then fire embraced the world." "Yeah, that... that seems about right") and also the most #teen thing to ever be done by #teens.

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Here's how it works, in case you want to summon a Mexican demon with an extremely un-Mexican name: You balance two pencils very carefully on each other in a cross-like arrangement, then write "YES / NO / YES / NO" in the gaps, then you chant, "Charlie, Charlie, are you there?" If you want anything to happen, then at this point you gently blow on the top pencil to spin it towards one of the answers of your choice. If you are accompanied by a #teen they will absolutely freak their shit at this and start screaming and running through the house and having those vibrant, high-octane emotions that teenagers have, and then they will make a video of this and put it on Instagram for anywhere between 40 and 55 likes. And lo, a short-lived meme is born.

Related: Boy racers are one of the UK's most enduring teen tribes.

I think it's safe to say here that #teens are not truly summoning the spirit of some Mexican devil-lite, but are in fact summoning the whole internet to an obscure hashtag to look at some pens and pencils arranged in a cross, slowly revolving while someone screams. Because that's it, isn't it? Teenagers have finally become self-aware, and are trolling the entire world with some hokey Ouija board-esque shit.

Quiz: How Satan Are You?

If you are a teenager, please don't read the following paragraphs, and just skip straight ahead to the conclusion. If you are a real person: Have you ever felt at once closer to death and further from your youth than seeing this #charliecharliechallenge shit? This is what teenagers do now. They scream at pencils. They suck their lips into a shot glass and then have to go to hospital. Because this is what #teens are: creatures without responsibility but locked into strict curfews; humans with a wriggling sense of urgent energy about them, keen to get out and crush the world and forge it anew in their own image, but still having to do exams about algebra and shit. They are colts revving in the stables of life, and they all have a really good 4G connection.

This is the thing. When I was a #teen the greatest thrill I could hope to experience was finding some glossy-print pornography under a bush or getting drunk on clear and cold and illicitly-got cider before doing a basic sex act on a park bench. When I was a #teen, going to France and buying a penknife automatically made you the coolest boy at school. Now #teens have had smartphones basically as long as they have been alive. Now #teens are all Vine celebrities or YouTube vloggers. Imagine how insane you would have gone if you had this kind of untapped internet access when you were 15. Imagine if every stupid tweet you did was dissected and presented as the end of days by tabloid papers across the world. What I am saying is this: of course #teens are summoning The Devil up from the very bowels of hell, to scorch our earth of both #teens and the adults who make it their business to ruin the lives of #teens. It's the natural conclusion to a world obsessed with instant access to taste-making semi-adults, bored and drunk on their own small power, Snapchatting one final picture of their junk to one another as the molten asteroids pelt us down to nothing.

Anyway, TL;DR: end of days is coming, teens mostly responsible.

Follow Joel Golby on Twitter.

This story was co-published with The Marshall Project.

In this prison, the yard is only an acre and a half. But we pack into it hundreds at a time. Like every other place in here, it smells and sounds like people.

Outside prison, mass incarceration is measured in numbers, which is understandable, because the numbers are staggering. But after more than 30 years in prison—my entire adult life—I have mass incarceration sewn into my flesh and bones. I can't turn away from it or choose not to know it, and it leaves me with little or no capacity for hope. It buries me. It keeps me from breathing.

When I close my eyes, certain faces of mass incarceration appear, unbidden, in my consciousness:

Boo's is wide and moon-shaped. He is the little Native American kid who wouldn't let go of my leg at my sister's foster home. He's called me uncle ever since. If I open my eyes, I'll see him as clearly as I did when we were boys, because he's on this yard with me. At least a lifetime ago, he shot someone during a drug deal. He has life without the possibility of parole.

Dean's face is brighter and buoys me. He is the boy I met in a receiving home in Tacoma, Washington when he was nine and I was 12. Both of us, at that point, were already veterans of an interminable number of state placements. Dean was in the control unit in Walla Walla with me when guards firehosed me every week and kept me naked and in leg shackles for months. He lifted my spirit by giving me a thumbs-up through the narrow window slat of his cell door whenever the guards dragged me by. Dean is on the yard of a prison 60 miles south of here. Two decades ago, he struck out under this state's three-strikes law—for burglary. He has life without the possibility of parole.

I shared a room with Robert at the boys' home in Silverdale, Washington, the night he snuck out the window. He said he'd be back by morning, but he wasn't. He was in an article in the next day's newspaper because he beat up and robbed a man outside a tavern. I wasn't surprised to learn that the man died a week later: Robert was bigger than all of us and always unaware of his strength. He is at a place 400 miles east. He has life in prison.

Dan's face is haggard; he looks old, though he's only a few years older than me. I first saw him when I was at a boys' home outside Centralia in Washington. I never expected that he'd come to prison because he was the son of a staff member. Prison, I believed, was for those who were raised by the state. Maybe whatever was wrong inside of us rubbed off onto him. Dan hasn't been to the yard since his friend, Dennis, died in the cell next to him. Maybe he's given up. He has life without the possibility of parole.

On Noisey, read about the lawsuit Universal filed to keep unauthorized mixtapes out of prison inmates' hands.

I haven't known James's face long, but I know where he came from, and it troubles me deeply. Like me, he was at O.K. Boys Ranch, and he committed almost the same crime I did. But he's 20 years younger, and has more of this ahead of him. He too has life without the possibility of parole.

And then there's Tony, whose face, I hope, no longer shows the strain of his unending incarceration. He got let go from his job at the license plate factory after he lost part of his hand in the metal-cutting machine. He often talked to us about the state boys' ranch in Eastern Washington, where he grew up. He ran laps in the yard, taught us math, did the best he could. For 25 years. And I swear I still hear his voice in the corridor when it's crowded, even though I know it can't be him because he hung himself in his cell.

He had life without the possibility of parole.

They, we, are mass incarceration. We grew up inside of it, never outside of it. Our lives as boys—free of education, free of a home, free of hope—pulled us into becoming the numbers. And now we are in here forever, without the chance of parole.

But those aren't the only faces I see. There's one more that I think of every day, the face of a person I keep close in order to never forget why I wasn't delivered into this innocent or blameless. As a boy, I stabbed and killed a person. I'm bound irrevocably to that terrible act, and obligated to the human being I committed it against, in a way that feels separate from my punishment. No matter how bad it gets in here, prison doesn't feel like it makes up for anything.

But prison, even in the form it has devolved into, has still taught me something: No amount of pain or misery the system assigns can undo the crime I committed or make me any sorrier than I was the moment I committed it.

Arthur Longworth is a 50-year-old inmate at Monroe Correctional Complex in Monroe, Washington. He is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for an aggravated murder he committed when he was 21.

This story was co-published with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization focused on the US criminal justice system. You can sign up for their newsletter, or follow The Marshall Project on Facebook or Twitter.

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Still from 'Much Loved' (2015), by Nabil Ayouch. Photo by Virginie Surdej

Premiering in the Directors' Fortnight section at this year's Cannes Film Festival, Much Loved (Zine Li Fik) exposes the lives of working girls in Marrakech, the former imperial city of Morocco and popular tourist destination. This tough yet surprisingly tender tale follows four high-class ladies of the night, who are played largely by local non-professionals and led by den mother Loubna Abidar. In the film, they share a flat and talk frankly about hoping to hook up with rich Saudis with small penises—their idea of a successful evening at a nightclub or private party.

Much Loved was written and directed by renowned French-Moroccan filmmaker Nabil Ayouch, whose 2012 feature, Horses of God (presented in the US by Jonathan Demme), tackled the insanity of fundamentalist behavior. Ayouch's latest offering focuses on both the economic and emotional stakes in the life of a prostitute. With a female-centric crew—including cinematographer Virginie Surdej, first AD Camilla Montasier, and special advisor Maryam Touzani—the film showcases a deep empathy, not anthropological detachment, for a women's story that deserves to be told, regardless of how controversially it has already been received in its home region.

During Cannes, I sat down with Ayouch and Abidar (aided by a translator) at the JW Marriott hotel's rooftop to discuss the film, as well as the sociopolitical implications of its controversial subject matter.

Trailer to 'Much Loved' (2015), by Nabil Ayouch

VICE: You spent a year and a half interviewing more than a hundred sex workers in Moroccan cities to learn about their experiences. What first opened your eyes to the cultural issues and gender politics involved with prostitution in Morrocco?
Nabil Ayouch: The sentence that shocked me the most was when one of them told me, talking about her family, "I'm not a daughter anymore. I became a credit card." The fact that so many men want them, makes them very sensitive to this notion of love and affection, and they're very willing to receive that. When she told me that, I literally cried. It's something so hard to hear, to understand, that she's giving everything up—her body, her soul, her dignity—and [the men] don't even give them love in return for that.

Loubna, what did you bring to your character from your own experiences?
Loubna Abidar: I can speak for myself and all the other girls, none of us [are prostitutes]. But it's not something that is far from our lives or imaginations. We all live in poor neighborhoods, in which many girls are—it's not me, but it may as well have been my sister, my neighbor, my cousin, or the girl that I know and live with because this is something that just comes, a bit naturally, in the way of life. Girls start doing it at the very early age of 13 or 14. They don't call it "prostitution" because they're not seen as prostitutes. They just feel that they're having fun, and making some pocket money to buy clothes or things that they cannot afford. It's only once they realize the gaze of others, of society, at the age of 19 or 20, that they call themselves—and realize that they're seen as—prostitutes.

There's no slavery like with the Eastern European girls, or in the US. Here, it's more that the society is judging. –Abidar

One of the things that surprised me about the film was the unity between these women. Even though they're trying to make a quick buck, survive, and feed themselves and their families, they're a group unit.
Nabil: I think that life is really hard for them, because of all the reasons I mentioned. As long as you don't have a real family that can take care of you, you have to build another family of adoption. That's what they do, actually. These girls share everything, as you can see in the film. Angriness, shouts, friendships, love—they give themselves lots of love. It's like a life preserver for them. One woman today who is doing this job in Morocco—if you can call it a job—could not survive without this friendship. There is no pimp, le maquereau. That's a curiosity. The women are booking agendas, there is no guy to protect them. That's very important.

Why do you think that is, considering pimps play such a prominent role in prostitution in other parts of the world?
Because the violence is not physical. It's verbal, it's moral, but there's no slavery like with the Eastern European girls, or in the US. Here, it's more that the society is judging, you know? There's nobody who wants to kill them, so it's more a matter of women.

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Loubna Abidar as Noha in 'Much Loved' (2015), by Nabil Ayouch. Photo by Virginie Surdej

How do the bookings work there? In the film, we mostly see the nightclubs that the girls sometimes go to and work in as a group.
It doesn't work really differently from other cultures. The places are the same—the cabaret, the disco, the bars. The only thing that is maybe different is that it happens much more shyly, in houses, than you realize.

But, for instance, there aren't streetwalkers.
No, no. Very few. Everything is hidden. Those guys who come from the Gulf countries, as we see in the film, they're happy to come and rent a big villa, and bring many girls. But you would not see them in public places, kissing them, or stuff like that, that you could see in Europe or the US.

At the beginning of the 70s, only rich people from foreign countries could afford prostitution in Morocco. Now everybody comes, even middle class, and you can bargain for one night, one hour, two hours. –Ayouch

I've visited Marrakech three times now, where haggling is an incessant sport. You head to Jemaa el-Fnaa and it's necessary to walk away from market vendors to get the best price: "No, I'm not paying that..." Does that exist within prostitution, or is it mainly pre-negotiated?
Oh, there is, there is. Everything is discussable. I mean, the girls can ask for a price, and the guy will say, "No." You can see it in the film, when the truck driver is saying, "That's all I have, I'm going to give you vegetables." They do that.

At the beginning of the 70s, only rich people from foreign countries could afford prostitution in Morocco. Now everybody comes, even middle class, and you can bargain for one night, one hour, two hours. It became an industry.

Talking about the Arab Spring with the Director of 'We Are the Giant'

There are so many strange, colorful details in the film, such as the bit about douching with Coke during menstruation as a form of birth control. Where did that come from?
Loubna: It's a true story—it really happened. I talked to the girls. They told me that they did this. I couldn't believe it, so I tested myself and I can testify it works.

Nabil: A new market for Coca-Cola.

Loubna: These girls really do quite well. Because they never see a doctor, they never see a gynecologist, and still they care for their bodies. They know how to have an abortion, if necessary.

[Editor's Note: Coke is a soft drink, not a contraceptive. Studies show it is ineffective at killing sperm. Please don't try douching with Coke at home. For information on proper forms of contraceptives, visit Planned Parenthood.]

[body_image width='1998' height='1080' path='images/content-images/2015/05/26/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/05/26/' filename='new-film-much-loved-shows-the-secret-life-of-prostitutes-in-marrakech-848-body-image-1432649572.jpg' id='59975']Still from 'Much Loved' (2015), by Nabil Ayouch. Photo by Virginie Surdej

One of the greatest compliments I can give the film is that it feels like it's told from the empowered perspective of women, and yet it's directed by a man. I'd like to hear from both of you about Nabil being tapped into his feminist side.
Loubna: He was very bold and brave to write such a script to start with. The fact that he spent hours and hours listening to these girls, crying for them, spending sleepless nights for them, that really gave him the power to write this. No matter if it was a man or a woman, it was the empathy that he had for us that made it possible. He had no means, no great budget for it. Just through his love, he made it possible for us. We feel proud and grateful to him.

Nabil: It's been a long time that I observed this reality, and I've been waiting for a woman to do a film like this, and it didn't happen. So I decided to do it. For me, it was important that women were at the center of the film, whether in the acting or the crew. There were many women in the crew. As a man with a strong [sense] of femininity, I decided to champion for it.

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Nibal Ayouch on set for 'Much Loved' (2015)

Even as liberal as Morocco is, it's still a Muslim country. I can't imagine it was easy to get funding or local support for the film.
Nibal: We didn't get support from Morocco, financially, for the film. We asked for it, but didn't get it. But to be honest, we didn't have any difficulty showing it. As you said, Morocco is more and more liberal, because there is a new freedom of expression since the new king, Mohammed VI, arrived. There are more spaces for the artist to say their truth, the way they want to. We were absolutely not bothered at all. Now we're waiting to get permission to screen the film [locally]. I would be really sad if the Moroccan audience couldn't see the film. But I'm positive. I'm hopeful.

Follow Aaron on Twitter.

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Alberta Premier Rachel Notley at her swearing-in ceremony. Photo via Flickr user Premier of Alberta

The orange-tinged dust is finally settling from the NDP's big win in Alberta, and dazed voters are beginning to wonder what the hell's next. It's a fair question considering the province is facing a bewildering $7-billion shortfall (ten times Diddy's net worth) and the NDP are committed to increasing spending on semi-important things like education, healthcare, and childcare, all while balancing the books by 2018.

Clambering out of this financial crater will be really, really complicated.

"There are traps everywhere," says David Taras, communication studies professor and political analyst at Calgary's Mount Royal University. "As soon as there appears to be warfare against corporations—even a hint of that—then it could turn ugly really fast. Alberta's teetering on a recession. [Premier Rachel Notley] could be blamed for the recession."

While the revised 2015-16 budget hasn't dropped yet—in fact, a full version won't be released until the fall—there's a fair bit of evidence suggesting how the NDP expect to conjure up oodles of dollars while paying for niceties like free school lunches and loans to install solar panels on your roof.

Unfortunately, taxing rich people—the core of the NDP's fiscal plan—won't help until next fiscal year due to a technical kerfuffle (in short, they missed the deadline to switch things up). Bummer, hey? That leaves increasing corporate tax rates and upping resource royalties as the two most lucrative alternatives. Neither of those options are all that popular with all the Rich Uncle Pennybagses of Alberta. And while different mechanisms, both options can both have similar capital-sucking pitfalls if miscalculated.

Kevin Milligan, economics professor at the University of British Columbia, notes that while a corporate tax increase from 10 percent to 12 percent isn't the end of the world, it's certainly not a step in the right direction: "The basic reason for that is that you're harming the productive capacity of the economy quite a bit in that firms are going to make a choice in where they're going to invest and how much they invest," says Milligan.

The frequent argument against dinging companies is that taxes are only calculated after all expenses have been paid, meaning that any additional tax burden will be passed on to consumers and workers in higher prices in suppressed wages, respectively. Gotta keep those stock prices elevated.

But there are a few dissenters kicking around who contend companies can pay more than they currently are without jumping ship like cowards. Ian Urquhart, political science professor at the University of Alberta points to a 2014 KPMG report which showed Edmonton as having the lowest total tax rate among 107 major international cities for businesses. As a result, Urquhart suggests an increase in corporate tax wouldn't come close to nullifying competitiveness in Canada or anywhere else.

"The idea that a two percent increase in corporate income taxes is going to cripple business in Alberta seems to me to be just ludicrous," he says. "Any business that is going to be crippled by a two percent corporate income tax in Alberta is, in my view, a very marginal business to begin with."

Some also argue that corporate tax cuts—or the maintenance of low rates—doesn't have the intended effect of creating jobs or encouraging investment. Jim Stanford, economist for the massive labour union Unifor, notes that Canadian non-financial corporations (in other words, not banks) are Snorlax-ing on top of close to $700-billion in cash reserves, a number which has been growing over the past few decades. Stanford suggests such dough should instead be put to work or whisked away to invest in public infrastructure and other goodies that would jumpstart the struggling economy.

"Sure, companies are nervous," he acknowledges. "But here's the funny thing: when companies are nervous and don't invest, they themselves can cause the sluggish economic conditions that they worry about. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Same story goes for oil and gas royalties. Although distinct in goal—it's a rent paid to dig up gooey oil, not a tax—the view by many is that a review of the royalties is grossly overdue: the last one was in 2007, but the plan got scrapped. Jim Roy, a royalties expert who served as chief architect of the 1992 review panel, suggests that complaints from industry about the review is crude lobbying, and the companies will stick around so long oil's in the ground: "They're not going to go to Tuktoyaktuk or wherever looking for oil," he quips.

Unfortunately, taxing the corporations more and upping royalties won't raise nearly enough to fill in the still-growing $7-billion hole, especially given that solid returns from both of those only come in good economic times. Notley's already summoned the federal NDP legend Brian Topp as her chief-of-staff, so he'll give guidance. But for now, it looks like the full-blown socialist paradise might have to be put on hold for a few years. Unless, that is, they haven't exhausted all their favours from the gods yet.

Follow James Wilt on Twitter.

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Go look at Steve Weissman's Instagram, tumblr, and online store.

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From left: Danielle Natoni, Shaun T, and Darren Natoni in "ShaunTervention Canada" shirts. The man in the blue was doing the "modified" workout. Peasant. Photo via shauntfitness.com

Physical fitness is a strange game, but it's one that—we're told—is vitally important to being alive and healthy. For mid-20-somethings aware that they need to start making an effort to be healthy rather than coasting on genes and teenage metabolism, fitness is a daunting world to begin navigating. There are home workout tapes, gym memberships, group classes, one-on-one trainers, and more, and the only thing that's always true is that no one thing is true for everyone. Where to begin?!

Enter Shaun T, a fitness god who's invented several renowned workout routines: from Hip Hop Abs to INSANITY and its follow-up INSANITYMAX:30, Shaun T is a workout powerhouse. He brought his unique blend of MotivaShaun and fitness PerfecShaun to Toronto last weekend, via ShaunTervention™. And while skeptical of the entire enterprise, I had to see for myself what it's like to work out in a convention centre at 9 AM with a few hundred fitness devotees.

I managed to drag myself to the Toronto Metro Convention Centre by 8:30 AM to register, not quite hungover but definitely tired from drinking too much the night before, and starving. I'd already broken two cardinal fitness rules, by not getting enough sleep and not eating properly. I had a lot to learn from Shaun T.

[vimeo src='//player.vimeo.com/video/103254679' width='500' height='281']

I was on the lookout for signs that this whole thing was a hoax or a scam in some way. I had no real reason to be suspicious, but Shaun T seems to mix his fitness with life advice that approaches motivational speaking, and I firmly believe that motivational speaking is almost entirely a crock of shit. ShaunTervention™ passed the first test, which was that the couple hundred people who showed up didn't waste their money on nothing. Some sort of event was clearly about to take place. However, I didn't like what I saw on the schedule: the first segment of the event would be "NutriShaun with Darren Natoni," not "NutriShaun with Shaun T," as one might expect.

Who the hell is Darren Natoni, and why do I care what he has to say about NutriShaun?

Turns out Darren Natoni is a fitness android created in a lab to look like the scariest iteration of the Fit White Dude. If we hadn't been separated by dozens of feet and a few hundred people, I would have been terrified for my safety. He told us to do an elimination diet in order to figure out what kinds of foods fuck up our bodies. (He did not mention that you should probably not do an elimination diet—which involves cutting out several food groups for an entire month—without consulting a physician or nutritionist personally.) And he said things like "you can still treat yourself" before claiming that one way he "treats himself" is by eating raw grass-fed cheddar (presumably the cow is grass-fed, not the cheddar). A "treat" to me would be a large pile of nachos, not a tiny amount of the healthiest, least-cheese form of real cheese, but I guess that's why I was in the audience and Darren Natoni was wearing a Shaun T-branded muscle shirt and very energetically giving us all NutriShaun tips.

Another hot NutriShaun tip for all you would-be fitness freaks: eat NO CARBS until dinner. Your breakfast and lunch should only be protein and a bit of fat. If you eat a banana for breakfast you're going to give your body a glycemic index spike that will shock your system, so never, ever do it. And don't eat fruit before you work out! These NutriShaun tips paint a bleak picture of Darren Natoni's day-to-day life, don't they? Even fruit is for special occasions? Live a little, buddy.

Darren Natoni also claimed that NutriShaun is all about eating what you like but finding healthy foods that fit that description, saying, "If you don't like kale, don't eat kale!" But within moments he was explaining that kale has an Aggregate Nutrient Density Index of 1,000, so you should definitely always be eating kale if you want to appease NutriShaun expert and demigod Darren Natoni. I guess if you really cared about your body, you'd love kale already, wouldn't you?

After all that NutriShaun talk, I was hungry, and not for kale. I needed to eat if I was going to make it through the Live Workout with Shaun T, which I was starting to realize would probably be very involved. I crept up one floor and found an unguarded vending machine (the registration tables had been placed directly in front of the ones on our floor, which in my hunger-fever state I was certain had been deliberate). While I ate my tiny bag of ketchup chips, I could hear the pulsating music start up again. I was missing the beginning of my Live Workout with Shaun T, and worse, I was filling my body with horrible, fried carbs.

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The trap horn was almost too much to handle. Screenshot via Google Hangout

The music, which Shaun T reminded us several times was curated by none other than Darren Natoni, was a terrifying blend of dance pop hits, jock jams, and so much trap horn there might not be any left in the world. Shaun T's workout is constant movement, and an hour is a long time to spend moving at all, let alone trying to keep up with Darren and Danielle Natoni and Shaun T. This is where the motivaShaun comes in: Shaun T constantly assured us there was "just one more move," and I'm pretty sure he said "this is the last song" about five times. Other people might enjoy that kind of optimistic encouragement, but I have another word for it, and that's lying. Stop the lies, Shaun T.

After about 40 minutes the workout was—mercifully—over, and Shaun T called us all toward the stage so he could deliver a sermon. Shaun T spoke over a quieter playlist about being the best we can be, pushing ourselves, and not being afraid (he was also wearing knee socks with "FEARLESS" knit into them). When Sia's "Chandelier" came on, Shaun T embarked on a confusing, overwrought metaphor tied to the song. When you're down, sometimes you just want to drink, like in the song, Shaun T told us. He knows what it's like to struggle. And sometimes you just want to swing from the chandelier! But you need to believe in yourself, and not... swing from the chandelier. The metaphor was very confusing, and it really fell apart toward the end. The basic thrust of it, though, was that you should never be afraid of who you are, and you should know you're strong enough to face your challenges. All in all, pretty milquetoast stuff. I certainly wasn't feeling any more Shaunfident after that.

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It was a tough morning. Screenshot via Google Hangout

You'd think a discussion about NutriShaun and a Live Workout with Shaun T (followed by some very important motivaShaun) would be enough for the roughly $100-$200 we each spent to be here, but there was more! Following our emoShaunal catharsis, Darren's wife Danielle Natoni took the stage to give us a workshop on Form PerfecShaun, or, perfecting the form of our workouts.

Form is very important!!!!! as Danielle Natoni will be the first to tell you. She didn't sculpt her body into an awe-inspiring and terrifying work of art by being all loosey-goosey with her push-ups, and neither did her husband Darren. (Side note: Darren and Danielle Natoni, a husband-and-wife team who also work together and kind of look like identical lab experiments? This seems a little too convenient.) So Danielle Natoni had us all practice our push-ups and squats, and then had Darren Natoni show us the proper way to do each. Seems like that might have been more useful before we spent an hour working out, but then, I'm no Form PerfecShaun expert.

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"I love telling my HUMAN HUSBAND what to do, because I am a HUMAN WOMAN and not a fitness robot sent to destroy humanity! Lol!" Photo via shauntfitness.com

I didn't really get much out of Danielle Natoni's Form PerfecShaun talk, because I'm not a Shaun T workout acolyte (yet) and I also had acceptable form to begin with. Most of what I took from her talk was that Danielle Natoni used to be a fifth-grade teacher, which came through when she repeatedly asked things like, "Did we do a push-up today? Now, which moves have push-ups in them?" and waited expectantly for us all to answer. She also loves to razz her husband Darren Natoni in a very "girl power" way. She peppered her talk with throw-away comments like, "I get to boss my husband around all day! Isn't that great, laaaaaaadies?" after telling Darren Natoni to demonstrate an incorrect push-up.

I slunk out during the Live Taping of Shaun T's podcast "Define Your Life," having concluded that I'd absorbed everything I could out of the day. It was only 1 PM on a Saturday and I'd already exercised, learned, and furrowed my brows at a public speaker; all in all, I felt pretty accomplished. Rather than reflecting on my new NutriShaunal knowledge or the workout moves I'd acquired, I immediately fell asleep watching a mid-2000s rerun of The Simpsons.

After getting some rest and having a few days to think about it, my concluShaun is that no one should ever pay hundreds of dollars to work out in a convention centre. You can buy Shaun T's tapes and do them at home if you want to, and the NutriShaun talk was just an amalgamation of every semi-correct fitness nutrition blog on the internet. If you really like being told what to do by a couple who must spend 18 hours working out and drinking cold-pressed kale juice each day, just watch some YouTube videos about fitness and diet! Maybe it's just because my ShaunTervention didn't take, and I need to go to rehabilitaShaun to get the full experience, but this seems like a wholly unnecessary way to get fit and fabulous.

Follow Tannara Yelland on Twitter.

A huge and menacing kangaroo is sauntering around Brisbane right now, terrifying residents and flexing his freaky kangaroo muscles. The 6'6" 'roo, inexplicably nicknamed "Dave," has spent the past week glowering at families in Brisbane's quiet North Lakes neighborhood and eyeing dogs like he's sizing them up for a tasty meal. Like all great villains, Dave has a distinguishing facial deformity—a split left ear—to showcase the fact that he's been through some serious scrapes in the past and lived to tell the tale. Wild kangaroos are nothing new in Brisbane, but the size and "come at me bro" attitude of Dave is keeping North Lakes residents on their toes.

"He's got massive, massive muscles, big pecs, and everything," one woman told CNN. "I don't really want to take him on."

"It's a big one," another resident agreed.

Want Some In-Depth Stories About Animals?

1. Watch Our Documentary About the Exotic Animal Trade
2. The Mexican Town That Bashes Piñatas Full of Live Animals
3. The Guy Trolling Instagram with Hundreds of Photos of Animal Corpses
4. The Complex, Tragic Psychology Behind Animal Hoarding

Follow River on Twitter.

Hanna-Barbera's 1960s Jonny Quest cartoon was (and still is) one of the best animated series ever made. It was more violent than the Hardy Boys and the plots never got formulaic—one of the best episodes involved an old WWI flying ace who wants to die while reliving his heyday in a dogfight with Jonny's bodyguard, Race Bannon. There was also a strange paternal relationship in the show between Jonny and Race made even stranger by the fact that Jonny looks almost identical to Race but looks nothing like his alleged father, Dr. Benton Quest.

The last few decades have been pretty hard on the Jonny Quest legacy, with a really heinous Cartoon Network reboot and rumors of a live-action film starring The Rock as Race and Zach Efron as the titular boy wonder. Thankfully, things are looking up—the Hollywood Reporter announced today that Robert Rodriguez has signed on to direct the upcoming film and rewrite the script. Rodriguez is best known for bloody, R-rated movies like Sin City and his El Mariachi trilogy, but he was also the driving force behind Spy Kids, so he could be the perfect guy to make a family-friendly Jonny Quest adaptation that still maintains some of the grit of the original series.

Want Some In-Depth Stories About Film?

1. Sitting Down with the Director of 'Mad Max: Fury Road'
2. I Spent 29 Hours Watching Marvel Movies in a Pennsylvania Megaplex
3. Tom Six, the 'Human Centipede' Director, Is 'Very Proud' of His Work
4. Apocalypse Never: The Utopian Frustrations of 'Tomorrowland'

Follow River on Twitter.

A few months ago, on a blistering day in Melbourne, Australia, I found myself standing outside an open rental inspection. Having cycled 40 minutes from Carlton North to Kensington to see the place, I was a sweaty sight. I'd made an effort to dress for the occasion because, at a previous viewing, a friend overheard the agent say he wouldn't give a house to anyone who looked like me—someone with gender dysphoria.

With this in mind, I'd worn a hat under my

helmet to hide my shaved head and left my nose ring at home. I'd briefly

considered wearing a dress, but remembered I had thrown my last one out months ago—dresses make me feel like I'm wearing a weird Halloween

costume.

These are some of the more straightforward ways that applying for houses as a trans person can be a psychological mindfuck. But if you're also unemployed, don't have a considerable sum in your bank account, and can't easily pass as someone cis-gendered, you're at the end of an even more depressing set of statistics.

A recent analysis of housing in Australia reported: "Singles on welfare are among the most disadvantaged looking for housing, with less than one percent of properties affordable." Sally Goldner from Trans Victoria believes those numbers are compounded if you're transgendered. "There's a vicious cycle going on," she said. "There's a greater risk of trans people being homeless. There's a greater risk of police harassment. Once you start having these multiple disadvantages, it can be harder to pull out of the cycle."

Standing at the rental I knew I wouldn't get, homelessness felt very close at hand. In Australia, the bulk of organizations working with the homeless are religious. It may sound pessimistic, but for any trans person who has sought help from the usual agencies, discrimination is a familiar outcome.

In Australia, if an organization is registered as a religious charity, it's exempt from the Equal Opportunity Act of 2010. According to Sally, the problem is deep-rooted. "Even if the people at the roots of an organization disagree with those running it, the attitudes of those at the top mean trans people are less likely to access assistance," she said. While there is a move to be increasingly inclusive of LGBTI individuals, there's currently no legislative drive to ensure it.

A transgender friend of mine, Robin, describes the experience of homelessness as being "like quicksand." Once you're homeless, it's brutally difficult to get out of it. "Because I didn't have a home, I wasn't eligible for rent assistance. Without a fixed address, it's difficult to apply for any form of financial assistance. Without assistance, it's almost impossible to get enough money together to start a new lease."

These are all practical, frustrating, bureaucratic issues. But they're aggravated by conscious or unconscious stigmas. During one session with a Centrelink Job Provider, Robin says she was advised to "stop wearing women's clothing" if she wanted to be more employable.

Despite that ignorant suggestion, Robin did claim to have a positive experience with Centrelink, but felt the social workers wanting to help were trapped in a framework that rendered homeless trans people invisible. "It's easier to pretend we don't exist because if it's acknowledged, then they would have to do something about the problems." Robin said.

At a crisis center in Melbourne, Merinda regularly works with people who are, or have been, homeless. A large part of her job is finding them accommodation. She told me most of the time the most realistic housing options are private rooming houses. However, there are issues with the lack of regulations around them and they can be unsafe, unsanitary, and disproportionately expensive.

Merinda acts as a go-between and is sometimes asked by her clients to enquire if the rooms available are safe for trans people. Often the responses are disturbing.

"I had one guy saying, 'Is it a he or a she?' And asking personal questions about anatomy. I said it wasn't really relevant. I was met with, 'I'm not letting that freak live here,'" Merinda said.

Related: Interested in LGBTI issues? Watch Gay Conversion Therapy below.

For me, I considered the likelihood of ending up in one of these rooms and it felt unlikely. Then again, it can happen to anyone, like it did for my friend Jessie. It was only ever meant to be temporary. Jessie went from having a permanent base to staying with friends. Gradually everything she owned was spread out across Melbourne as she bounced from house to house. Things like making sure there were clean clothes got harder, as did organizing which friends had space for furniture and personal belongings.

It got to a point where she would post on Facebook every day asking for a couch to sleep on. Each post getting slightly more embarrassed and gently desperate as the support and assistance dwindled over time. Eventually a private rooming house was her only option.

The difficulty with talking about homelessness in the transgender community is that the bigotry and lack of understanding that make it difficult to get a job (or hold it) is the same bigotry that puts you last when applying for housing. Standing in that Kensington house, without even filling in an application form, I could already feel the knock-on effects of what it would mean to not get this house, or the next one, or the next.

Giving my details to the agent, I smiled and shook his hand. I got on my bike and cycled home under the still-hot sun. I lay down on my bed and drank as much water as I could. I knew my house would come eventually. But I knew it wouldn't be that one.

*Names have been changed

Follow Fury on Twitter.

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Image via Flickr user Wikileaks Mobile Information Collection Unit

In March, VICE wrote about how Canada's access to information regime was broken, but how it could be fixed.

Now is a good time to give up hope and give in to despair.

Once the envy of the world, our Access to Information (ATI) system has fallen into utter disrepair as requests under the system have gone up, while staff and resources to answer them have gone down.

Under the system, Canadians—individuals, journalists, lawyers, corporations—can request just about any government document, subject to a raft of exemptions.

But thanks to that lack of resources, coupled with a culture of secrecy and distrust for political journalists that has permeated the government, the system has turned into a bit of a joke.

Last month, the RCMP released documents under the system to VICE where they redacted part of their own logo.

Meanwhile, the watchdog that's supposed to be overseeing this system has no money.

Suzanne Legault, the Information Commissioner of Canada, can receive complaints about uses of the ATI system and investigate departments that are suspected of playing fast and loose with the big black marker. If they don't comply, she can launch lawsuits against them.

But as VICE reported in March, the office's $11 million budget is so tight, her programming is severely hobbled.

By way of comparison, Legault's budget is $3 million smaller than the National Battlefield Commission, which runs two parks in Quebec.

So VICE cornered Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board and minister technically responsible for assessing Legault's funding requests, to ask why the office was so cash-starved, and why he was so optimistic about a system that everyone says is broken. What ensued was a testy seven-minute back-and-forth.

"Well, she's entitled to her opinions of course. I think the numbers speak for themselves—over 59,000 Access to Information requests processed last year, a nine percent increase, a 36 percent increase of processing over the last two years, six million pages processed. So I think those numbers are quite astoundingly good," Clement said in the foyer of the House of Commons.

The minister's memorized statistics are, indeed, correct. But complaints and redactions are also on the rise.

I asked just whether the government planned on increasing the office's budget.

"Well, this is very frustrating because she knows what the process is. She needs to go to the Parliament of Canada and make a request," Clement said.

"She has," I said, pointing out that she actually filed a report that specifically details how she's lacking money. Clement said she should be using her budget more wisely.

"I'm not in charge of her request for more money," he added. He's sort-of right, in that the Minister of Finance releases the budget. His office, however, receives the commissioner's reports and requests for funding. "She knows the process. I encourage her to go through the process rather than complaining to the media,"

Fellow Hill journalist Alex Boutilier pointed out that she actually made the request in a public report, as well as before a Parliamentary committee, where she was specifically asked about it.

"Good for her," the minister responded.

From there, a bit more squabbling with the minister continued. But his message was clear: There is no problem, and Legault has all the money she needs.

Legault testified before a committee on Monday, where she appeared to be genuinely flabbergasted by Clement's logic.

"The truth is we have followed all the appropriate lines in order to seek and obtain this funding. Whether that's disingenuous of the President of the Treasury Board, I think you would have to ask that question of Minister Clement," she said.

NDP Member of Parliament Pat Martin asked: "Does your office have adequate funding to meet its responsibilities?"

"No," Legault said.

Neither do the departments—the ones who control the black marker—it seems. The Toronto Star reported Tuesday that interns are the ones handling ATI requests in some departments.

VICE again tried to ask Clement why Legault wasn't getting any money. He repeated that she wasn't going through the proper channels.

"Other officers of Parliament have had the ability to do better with less. Why she is in some way thinking that she's special?" he added.

Clement says he's still reviewing Legault's recommendations, of which she has many, and that he doesn't know when the decisions will be made.

Okay, so why should you care?

An ungodly amount of Canada's investigative journalism comes about thanks to the ATI system.

VICE has broken stories about government surveillance, drone regulation, and prison cellphone jamming, thanks to records obtained through the system. I've written things about Canada lobbying against Palestine at the UN and surveilling First Nations activists. The Canadian Press used the system to reveal the huge scheme to market Canadian oil. The National Post got documents revealing that Canadians may be part of an elite al Qaeda offshoot. CBC filed request to prove that temporary foreign workers have been caught in limbo, waiting for their permanent residency.

On top of that, immigration and refugee lawyers use the system to obtain information about their clients' efforts to stay within the country. Corporations use the system to get statistics that the government is refusing to put out. Individuals can use the system to obtain personal information about themselves that has been collected by the government.

It's no big surprise that the government is no big fan of a program that exposes the government's secrets.

The opposition NDP and Liberals have both committed to fixing the ATI system if they win power.

So maybe we can all look forward to watching a different prime minister try to shut down Canada's transparency system.

Follow Justin Ling on Twitter.

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Vancouver the Chill. Photo via Flickr user Brian Fagan

Have you heard the saying that only boring people get bored?

Well, what about people who get mind-numbingly bored, especially when travelling abroad, like the unnamed columnist who writes for Gulliver, a travel blog for the Economist. He (let's assume it's a he) found Vancouver too scenic and livable to be considered exhilarating in any way. For someone who's mind-bogglingly close-minded, I bet he makes for a fun travel buddy. Because if you're going to be interpreting the livelihood of a city based on how gritty or potentially dangerous it is (or once was, in the case he makes against New York and London) you've got to be a good time.

But Vancouver doesn't take it personally. We know it's truly a matter of perspective. And anyone who's spent time there can tell you, the only time your mind will go numb is if you're sampling some of our Snoop-approved BC bud.

Mind-blowing, certainly. Mind-expanding, almost always. But definitely not mind-numbingly boring.

Vancouver doesn't aspire to be one of those places where a good time constitutes hanging your head out of the top of a limo at a bachelorette party, and yelling "Whoohoooo!!!!" at whatever tail walks by. Our priority is quality of life, before anything else—money, work, hustle. It's hard not to be this way when you live in an extraordinarily scenic city encased with life-affirming mountains and the Pacific ocean that's begging to be jogged around. Instead of striving to be, we just be. It's not our fault that we keep topping lists for livability.

But it's easy to see how we can be misinterpreted as being mind-numbingly boring—especially if you're a stuffy Brit who yearns for danger around every corner.

It's true that our patios close at 11 PM and our liquor licenses are baffling. But all that balances out with the dozens of microbreweries that have popped up in the past few years, along with countless marijuana dispensaries. We've got our own brand of fun.

You see, we're chill. We're so chill. How can you be otherwise when mystical outdoor paradises can be found 20 minutes outside the city in any direction. Or if you want to stick closer to town, try hitting any number of our beaches. Depending on what you're after, we've got you covered—or uncovered. Care to tan nude, take mushrooms, and drink margaritas out of a Ziploc bag sold by a guy only wearing a fanny pack? There's a place that will accommodate all those things. Or perhaps you want to surround yourself with tattooed beauties who have their titties out while watching tankers float by? We've got that too.

Or if chilling under a tree in a park is more your thing, have we got a place for you! That shit is city council-approved proof of how chill we are.

But if it was grit and desolation Gulliver was truly after, did he know that Vancouver is home to the Downtown Eastside, Canada's poorest neighbourhood? It's a part of the city that, according to the Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, is known for having the lowest national life expectancy and the highest HIV prevalence in the Western world. If Gulliver didn't know that, then it's probably for the best. We're not particularly fond of poverty tourism. And besides, if you actually spend time there, you'll discover a loving, tight-knit community hell bent on protecting its more vulnerable residents.

And if you really want danger, just visit the next time the Canucks make the Stanley Cup Finals.

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Being accused of being mind-numbingly boring isn't going to harsh Vancouver's vibe too much. We're too chill for that. If anything, we hope it'll keep those prone to boredom away, or at least teach them a thing or two about being. Being chill.

Follow Elianna Lev on Twitter.

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Gus, a wrestling king with two mothers. Images via 'The Gayby Project'

In the discussion over same-sex families, the voices of kids are often lacking. It's an issue Australian filmmaker Maya Newell is familiar with. Maya has two moms and was raised in a family by loving same-sex parents.

Because of this, she's more exposed than most people to the debate surrounding kids growing up in non-heteronormative environments. For her new documentary The Gayby Project she spent four years documenting the lives of children with same-sex parents. VICE spoke to her about the film and how we tend to underestimate what kids can bring to the conversation.

VICE: Why did you set out to document same-sex families?
Maya Newell: Well four years ago I saw this film called The Kids Are Alright, which depicted a lesbian family in America. I left the cinema feeling really on edge and uncomfortable. I was halfway up the street when I realized I'd never seen my kind of family on a big screen before. Growing up with gay parents myself, I guess I wanted to make a documentary I would've loved seeing as a kid.

Also during the last decade, we've had some really ugly debates around marriage equality. But while gays can't marry, they've been having kids for a long time already. So I felt that voice was missing in the discussion.

From VICE News, read about China's changing attitudes toward homosexuality.

In your experience, what are the most common misconceptions about same-sex parents?
When I meet someone coming to terms with me having two mothers, I can guess what they are going to ask. First it's, Do you feel like you missed out on having a father? The next is, Are you gay too?

They're all about whether you have some skewed sense of gender, and whether you think having same-sex parents damages you.

Gus is one of the kids in the documentary: He has two moms and loves wrestling. Some may interpret that as him seeking out a masculinity that his family may seemingly not have. Were you concerned about that perception?
Definitely. But when you come out of the film, you have an understanding that he's just exploring gender and identity like any other child.

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12-year-old Ebony, attending the Sydney Mardi Gras with her two mothers.

A lot of the film simply follows the normalcy of each family. Was this what you set out to do?
I think that for same-sex families, we need stories that aren't just [about] fighting for our rights, and pointing out what's different between us. We need stories that are about going out on family holidays, conversations around the dinner table, having fights—all those things that make a family imperfect and perfect, and essentially the same.

That was a key thing for the film, to not make it entirely about politics. It was that in-between space: representing these kids as they are, dealing with issues that we all face growing up, and the challenges of parenting.

Do we underestimate kids by not including them in these conversations?
Definitely. I love the opening scene of the film: Gus looks straight at the camera and explains his entire IVF process. He knows how his parents did it, they went to the hospital, chucked some sperm in a cup, and then they did this and that, and he was born.

I also think generally, children in gay families have a really unique way that they've come into the world. I think because of this, families have to be very transparent with their kids. So many kids are fluent in the language of IVF, or surrogacy, or various types of parenting networks from a young age. It really was lovely to do these interviews, because all this transparency means these children are often wiser than their years.

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Eleven-year-old Matt with his two mothers

From what you saw, do these kids struggle with societal resistance to their parents' relationships as much as growing up in a nontraditional family?
Oh completely. Growing up with gay parents myself, I couldn't count the times my family has been called disgusting, or told I'm gay because my parents are. But sometimes it's not as overt. The kids in the film haven't been punched at school, or verbally abused. But if they read the newspaper, or flick on the TV, they see people debate whether their parents should be married. These kids can join the dots.

But you end up wearing it like a shield. I had amazing parents, and they were very loving. So I used to brag about having gay parents. I used to tell all the others kids that I would get to ride in the Mardi Gras float when they couldn't.

'The Gayby Project' will be screening at the Documentary Edge Film Festival at Auckland's Q Theatre on 28 and 30 May, and 1 June. And at Wellington's The Roxy Cinema on June 5, 9, and 13.

It's due for theatrical release in Australia this September.

Follow Jack on Twitter.

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The author's mother as a child (left) and grandmother.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Josephine, my mother, is not a sociopath. She just has tendencies. At 69, her capacity for violence has diminished, but I think if she had to tackle a burglar, he would probably end up with a kitchen knife deep in his chest. My mom has gone through life with the kind of ruthless energy usually encountered in gangsters and soldiers of fortune.

I didn't think about any of this as a child, except knowing that it was a good idea to keep a safe distance if I'd pissed her off. My school friends called her "Don Jo." The pertinence of the moniker only occurred to me years later, after uncovering a buried family history that spans three continents and includes a once famous criminal, an upcoming murder trial, and a part in one of the 20th Century's most important and disturbing novels. It is a history that taught me that nurture only goes so far in explaining who a person is. Sometimes, your blood does your thinking for you.

As I got to know my mom as an adult I realized she was capable of calmly making decisions that would cause others to shudder. In 2006, when I was 23 and she was 62, we spent two months backpacking around India. It was something my parents had planned to do when they retired. Tragically, my father took permanent retirement much earlier than we had expected, so I took his place. We had a great time driving up the Himalayas and trekking for elephants in the jungles of Kerala. However, one incident in particular convinced me that she could survive pretty much anything that life could throw at her.

We were walking along a beach in north Goa during monsoon season. It was overcast and windswept. There was a rusted cargo ship wrecked on the shoreline and large waves curled vindictively in on themselves before smashing into surf.

I jumped in.

It was an act of immense stupidity. I swam among the waves for a few minutes and then decided to exit. When I got to the shore and tried to stand, my feet didn't touch the bottom. I went under and a wave pounded me and pulled me out. I swam hard to get back in.

I got to the shallows again. Except, I hadn't. One foot down and it was like missing a step; a step into an empty elevator shaft. The current dragged me struggling from the land. As I swam back I could see my mom stood watching. Then she turned her back on me and walked up the beach. Two things ran through my mind: It can't be that bad because she's causal, she's not in a hurry; she knows I'll be fine. And, Maybe she's going to find some help, since the village wasn't that far away.

I tried to stand again. Back under. I was exhausted. I laid on my back and let the waves carry me on theirs. Up and down and back and forth. They wanted to rock me to sleep.

I had a word with myself: "You either do this. Or you die. Sort your life out."

I swam hard. Then I swam harder. Then when I thought I'd made it, I swam harder still.

Foot down. Sand. Stagger. Collapse. The relief bordered on muted ecstasy. I heaved breaths. My hands gripped wet sand.

Related: Watch our film about growing up in London's moped gang culture, 'London BikeLife'

Mom walked back and stood over me.

"Are you OK?"

"I am now."

"You look relieved."

"I am."

I caught my breath. My eyes squeezed shut while my fingers compacted the sand in my palms.

I looked up at my mom.

"Why did you walk away? Were you going to find help?"

"No. Where was I going to get help from?"

My mom looked at me like I was the contemptible idiot I'd just demonstrated myself to be.

"I wasn't going to watch you die."

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The author's grandfather, Paul Lund.

There's one aspect of my mom's background that we didn't speak about until recently, because she didn't know of it, which lays in the mystery of "Don Josephine." She never knew her father. He abandoned her mother in 1945 when he found out she was pregnant. My grandmother, Eileen, who died in 1959 of pneumonia when my mom was 13, dealt with the repercussions of refusing to abandon her daughter for the rest of her short life.

Orphaned into the care of a resentful stepfather, my mom buried all thoughts of her real dad, a habit that lasted for near on 60 years. I never heard her speak his name, and he was so removed from my consciousness that it never occurred to me to ask.

However, a year ago she called me in an agitated state.

"I found him. I found him," she said.

"Found who?"

"Paul Axel Lund. My father."

A recent interest in using the internet had led her, after giving no clue of thinking of him for years and years, to google his name.

Related: The story of William S. Burroughs's Cat

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Peter Orlovsky, William Burroughs, and Paul Lund eating at Dutch Tony's Restaurant, Tangier. Photo by Allen Ginsberg via Flickr.

This is what infamous beat author William Burroughs had to say about my grandfather: "I am attenuating my relations with Lund and company. Too much of a bad thing."

Quite a statement when you consider the man who made it shot his wife in the head during a "William Tell" party trick, afterwards saying he killed her while under the control of a "completely malevolent force."

Burroughs and Lund met in Tangier in 1955. The city was an international free zone known for its liberal climate, skullduggerous inhabitants, and lack of extradition treaties. Lund had arrived the year before while on the run from the English police, and soon became established as a well known smuggler happy to regale his swashbuckling adventures to journalists. The city remained his home until he died of TB in 1966. The headline for his obituary in the News of World read: "The Buccaneer: He Played with Fire and His Women Loved It."

Burroughs wrote that he "saw quite a lot of Lund and used some of his stories in Naked Lunch," a novel that gave Jack Kerouac, who also knew my grandfather and wrote about him in "Desolate Angels," nightmares while he was editing it. The friendship disintegrated when Lund was charged with opium smuggling in 1959. He dodged it by framing Burroughs.

Six months prior, and in unrelated circumstances, Burroughs had written to him from France with a whimsical plot that involved "pushing a little Moroccan tea in Paris." My grandfather gave the letter to the cops and the Moroccans passed it on to the French authorities. He was free and Burroughs was arrested in Paris.

Paul Lund was a villain. So much so that author Rupert Croft-Cooke entitled his biography of him Smiling Damned Villain: The True Story of Paul Lund. His career choices included gun running for Haile Selassie, safe breaking, burglary, robbery, forgery, fraud, and smuggling. "Asked, as he entered prison for one of his sentences, what his occupation was, he said: 'thief' and refused to modify it," writes Croft-Cooke. He spent time in jail in India, Egypt, Spain, Italy, and Britain.

Read: Quirky deadheads ruin William S. Burroughs's 100th birthday party

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A drawing of Paul Lund.

One of my favorite passages from Smiling Damned Villain is an account of Lund's desertion in Egypt during World War Two. After twice being mentioned in dispatches for bravery there was a lull in the fighting and he got restless. To counter the boredom he went AWOL in Cairo and settled in a warren-like slum officially off limits to Europeans.

Lund described it to Croft-Cooke: "It was full of gambling and opium dens, brothels of every kind, deserters, black marketeers, thieves, escaped POWs—every kind of villain you can imagine. Just the place to lie up quietly."

He joined forces with three other deserters, and together they robbed a watch shop "with a very fine stock of expensive watches" while disguised as mechanics. After going on a crime spree across Cairo and Alexandria he realized that "we were too easily recognizable," so he returned to his army unit. He avoided punishment because he was sent to fight at the battle of el Alamein.

Lund possessed qualities that made him a predator to society. Croft-Cooke highlights the ultimate manifestation of those qualities.

He writes: "Paul's a killer, a fellow criminal of his once told me, not because he has ever committed a murder but because he obviously would do so if it seemed necessary to him."

The point of Smiling Damned Villain, Croft-Cooke explains, is to present a "portrait" of Lund. He avoids attributing underlying psychological motivations to his subject.

"A criminologist will know that, perhaps, better than I," he states.

I'm not a criminologist, but I was convinced after becoming acquainted with it that my grandfather's portrait depicts a sociopath. I decided to consult criminal psychologist Robert Hare's Psychopathy Checklist Revised—the 20-point gold standard for diagnosing psychopaths.

Lund gets full marks for most of them, including a lack of remorse, criminal versatility, recidivism, impulsivity, and being manipulative.

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Paul Lund being interviewed about smuggling outside his bar in Tangier.

As for promiscuity and having many short-term marital relationships—both things cited in Hare's list—the book is littered with examples (my grandmother being one of them), making superficial charm—another checkbox—almost obligatory. Inevitably, his charm resulted in a scattering of babies, and after some research I managed to find one of my mother's half-sisters living in a trailer park in the Deep South. She had a shocking revelation: her son, who has a string of criminal convictions, is facing a murder trial. She believes he inherited his grandfather's sociopathic genes.

My cousin is awaiting judgment in a state penitentiary. But where does that leave the rest of the family? Are we simply a line of evolutionary throwbacks? A lizard-brained collective only in existence because of the marauding lifestyle of a free-loving psychopath? I can't speak for the wiring in my cousin's head, nor I can I speak to growing up poor in the United States—a place that makes a walk in England's mean streets seem like a country stroll.

In 2005, scientist James Fallon PET scanned his brain for a study on Alzheimer's. At the time he was working on another project scanning the brains of psychopaths. To his surprise, it turned out his brain matched the pathological connections found in his psychopathic subjects. After delving into his family history, Fallon discovered he came from a long line of killers.

On Motherboard: How to Spot a Psychopath on Twitter

If he had the brain of a psychopath, why was he a law-abiding family man? Fallon concluded that his parents' unconditional love had kept him from turning into a monster. Paul Lund also had a relatively decent upbringing; his mother was a dour and distant woman who left most of the child rearing to nannies, but his family was large, affluent, and well respected. I think this is perhaps why he didn't do anything which could be typified as criminally insane or sadistic, despite being a proper bastard.

Writer and curator Ian Francis, who gives talks on Lund, agrees he lacked morality rather than being interested in the opposite of it. I called Francis before I investigated Lund's past to enquire if my mother should be prepared to confront a hideous truth.

"He was amoral, not evil," he told me.

Croft-Cooke said Lund was a man "who unblinkingly and intelligently faced the abomination of reality." I recognize that ability in my mother. She accepted that I was going to drown in India, so she made a decision that would spare her any subsidiary pain. She wasn't going to watch me die. Savage realism can be a useful tool to possess. It's a hostile world out there, and making choices that break social convention is often an instrument of survival.

While Paul Lund used this ambiguous quality to help himself, his daughter has used it to help the people around her, despite having a much harder upbringing than her father. For example, at age ten I was unruly in class and falling behind. I had already been asked to leave one primary school. After being called into the head's office over yet another issue, she found a way to inspire me. She handed me The Hobbit, told me to sit in the kitchen chair, and said if I moved or made any noise she would beat me to death. I had enough sense to do as I was told. Then I began to read.

Follow Ryan on Twitter.

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Photo by Jake Lewis.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

For college students across the UK, it is the beginning of a long, frustrating month: Exam season is here, and this can mean the difference between adding a graduate job to your LinkedIn page or finding yourself slumped on the arrivals couch at the job center. Long library hours spent covertly looking at Facebook and pretending to revise are ripe for procrastination, and the slow realization is dawning that a comfortable uni life spent getting up at 2 PM and having burgers for breakfast is soon coming to an end. The solution to this combination of breathless, real world panic and the final stress-then-decompress cycle of exams?

The solution is to get your fuck on.

Welcome to the Gold Rush, a new excuse that final-year students have come up with to fuck one another. Because, initially, students don't especially need an excuse to fuck—they have their Freshers' Weeks and their traffic light parties and their cheap, union-subsidized alcohol. At the start, sex comes easily to students. But then come Year 2 you find yourself bogged down in a relationship, and you spend the entire home straight of Year 3 pretending to study, and then you realize, looming down the barrel of the gun marked "real life," that those last gasps of hedonistic youth are coming to an end.

Read: A Guide to Spice – the Drug That's Putting British Students in Hospital

To deal with this, students are setting up university-specific Gold Rush Facebook groups, in which people can anonymously post teasing little messages and limericks about other final-year students that they wanna bang. The aim is to give away your identity just enough that the object of your affections recognizes who you are and decides to ride the tandem with you all the way to Fucktown. Here are the Gold Rush pages for Swansea University, Falmouth, York, and Brighton and Sussex. If you don't want to click on them, the messages are largely variations on: "To the red head in Sociology: I would bang u" and "to that boy doing curls in the squat rack of the uni gym: I would bang u."

If you're currently waking up screaming in the night because of impending History exams, the origins of the term "Gold Rush" should be crystal clear. In 1848, 300,000 wannabe millionaires descended on California over the course of seven hysterical years in the single-minded pursuit of gold. In 2015, a load of third years have just dumped their uni partners to go to the last of six remaining 2-for-1 Tuesdays at the Union bar in the single-minded pursuit of throwaway sex.

Related: Watch drunk people talking politics at a house party in our VICE short, 'House Party Politics'

Not all students feel comfortable with the Gold Rush, though. I spoke to one student from Bristol, Kate,* who felt that the whole concept was "creepy" and "just another chance for the rugby boys to pull then brag about getting laid."

"You spend the whole four years of your course getting groped in clubs," she continued, "only to have it increase tenfold in the final month by boys who think they have been given a mandate to do it."

Another Bristol student Bristol student, Chloe, opposes the Gold Rush for a fundamentally more YOLO reason. "What's the point in waiting? Just do it earlier in the year. Then there's time for repeats." Though she did add: "If you're the kind of person who will let casual sex ruin a friendship or make it super awkward then it can be good. Especially if it's rubbish and you don't want to face them in class.

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The front cover of a pamphlet that saw the LSE rugby team accused of misogyny last year.

The pull of the Gold Rush is the idea that the shackles, so to speak, are off. There's none of the awkward see-each-other-in-a-seminar shit, there's none of the gossip-y fallout from hooking up in a notoriously clique-y community, and there's none of the slow-song-and-dance, will-they-won't-they bollocks that comes when two friends who clearly want to bang take ages before they bang. It's just direct: everyone knows what's up, everyone is gripped with the same human panic, everyone finds solace in the same junk-on-junk manner. Plus, there are Last Days of Rome–style events where the poster tagline might as well be "WELL WHEN ELSE ARE YOU GOING TO HAVE SEX WITH A STUDENT?"

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For those in relationships, the end of university is also a challenging time—with the end in sight, with the threat of new jobs and new beginnings and new cities to explore, a lot (read: pretty much all) relationships buckle and fold. "Around this time of year it can also be crunch time for relationships," Durham student Rajesh says. "If one person is getting a job or leaving uni or whatever, you suddenly find a lot of people don't want to 'do' long distance. Plus, being tempted by all the girls they are going to be 'missing out on' soon can be a factor. So there's a wave of newly single people about as well." It doesn't help faltering student relationships when campuses descend into mass, orgiastic parties, either.

This is a UK-wide thing. Over at Bristol University, third-year student Simon says that Gold Rush is "whipped up into a frenzy by the fact everyone talks about it. It's even more potent for people who are graduating and may never see some people again, it makes it almost no-strings attached." And much like any social media trend, the more people see it and engage with it, the wider it spreads—so Facebook events, with thousands of attendees, are normalizing the idea of the Gold Rush. It's now as much part of the university experience as Freshers' Week and graduation.

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Photo by Jake Lewis.

It helps, of course, that students are so savvy with their hook-up apps these days. The late-night library sessions combined with the something-in-the-air sexual feverishness creates essentially a perfect storm for Tinder, Grindr, Happn, and Yik Yak networks to go into overdrive, and—with the boredom and the pressure of exam period being thrown in—it's forcing more and more people together.

For those finishing university, Gold Rush is a road marker that signifies the end of education, a goodbye to a system they've lived within most of their lives; to everyone else, it's the carefree start of summer. That weird double-edged nature adds a certain frisson to those preparing to ride out into the real world. Among the high-stakes of exam season, Gold Rush reminds students of the fun they'll be leaving behind when they graduate, offering them that one final chance to do something stupid before they join the real world, a place where rolling in at 11 AM stinking of WKD knockoffs and wearing last night's clothes is suddenly frowned upon. University life is a bubble, and Gold Rush is one final air punch out of it, an inverted Freshers' Week, a final farewell to education and a wave hello to adult life.

And—also, mainly—just a massive, semi-organized excuse to go out on the shag.

*Names changed, obviously. These people are trying to find graduate jobs, after all.

Follow Sam Farley on Twitter.