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The VICE Guide to Right Now: Kim Jong-un Says He Has Cured AIDS, Ebola, and Cancer

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The VICE Guide to North Korea. Thumbnail image by John Chapple.

Kim Jong-un, the notorious North Korean dictator whose father didn't take shits because he had magical powers, just found a cure for AIDS. And Ebola. And cancer!

The Korean Central News Agency dropped an announcement about the miracle drug Kumdang-2 Thursday that said a single injection, made up of a secret combination of ginseng and "rare earth elements," is going to prevent and cure some of the worst public health epidemics our society has ever seen. That's the same state news agency that told the world North Korea discovered a "unicorn lair" back in 2012, by the way.

The drug's website claims that a medical study in Africa, where Kumdang-2 was administered to HIV positive patients, improved the health of every single participant in the dry run. It even cured 56 percent of those who received treatment. Kim Jong-un's dad, Kim Jong-il, also said he invented the hamburger, so there's that.

If you're wondering where North Korea's supreme leader gets this shit, check out our documentary about the time we met him in person.

Want Some In-Depth Stories About North Korea?

1. Kim Jong-un's Weight Gain Sparks Health Fears
2. Seoul Asylum: The Brutal Existence of North Korean Defectors
3. The North Korean Haircut Mandate Is Totally on Brand
4. Where Was the North Korean Outrage Over 'Team America: World Police'?


What Racist Skinheads in Prison Think About Dylann Roof

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Photo via Flickr user Kate Ter Haar

The church massacre in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday serves as a chilling testament to the racism and hatred that still exists in America. Twenty-one-year-old Dylann Roof allegedly went into the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, attended a bible study for as long as an hour, and subsequently opened fire in a vicious shooting spree that left nine dead. It was widely reported that he said he was there "to shoot black people."

Roof never did time in prison despite having been previously arrested, and nothing so far has tied him to any white supremacist groups. But the quote being attributed to him in the final moments before the shooting—"You are raping our women and taking over the country"—is loud and clear. While it's appalling to think the type of hate it takes to murder nine people in cold blood exists today, it does. And that kind of resentment is probably strongest in America's prisons, where white supremacist inmates are celebrating the crime.

"Dylann will be my next tattoo," a skinhead doing time in the feds for a gun charge told VICE after watching the news of the church shootings.

In prison, a convict's skin color often defines him. It is his flag or calling card, and thanks to the disproportionate jailing of people of color, whites often find themselves as part of the minority inside, a position they are unaccustomed to. Thus the rise of white supremacists in prison, the people who deem racial integration and diversity a threat to their culture, just as Roof allegedly found black men a threat to his.

"Whites made America great," an Aryan Nations member we'll call "Big" said. A 36-year-old white male of Dutch, German, and French ancestry, Big hails from upstate New York. He's doing a 120-month sentence for conspiring to distribute cocaine.

"We are descendants of white Europeans. We stand out and shine as a race. The white race is genetically superior. We're smarter. We invented everything," Big added.

Unlike more traditional prison gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood, Mexican Mafia, or Black Guerrilla Family, gangs like the Aryan Nations allow members to come and go without retribution. There is no blood-in/blood-out credo, as the group was put together by men who were fed up with other organizations that claimed to be for the white race but were in reality just criminal cliques, based in prison, that preyed on whoever was vulnerable.

The Aryan Nations was inspired by the tenets of Nazi Germany. They have a violent streak aligned with Nazism's anti-Semitic and racist ideology; one of their followers, Buford Furrow, received two life sentences plus 110 years for an August 1999 shooting spree at a Jewish community center in LA. Other Aryan Nations members have been involved in bank robberies, shoot-outs with authorities, and the murders of blacks and others. To men like these, Dylann Roof could quickly become a sort of folk hero—even if there are a few white supremacists in prison determined to keep their distance.

"The guy was just some lame who wasn't affiliated with the movement in any way," one member of the Aryan Circle, another white supremacist prison gang, told VICE. "What he did was senseless and only gives the media more reason to portray blacks as victims. Before anyone even knew who the dude was, CNN had a response from the Southern Poverty Law Center saying that white hate groups are on the rise, and everyone assumed that the dude was tipped up. The kid was just some mentally ill drug addict who probably got sick and tired of the media always trashing whites, so it pushed him over the edge."

Public officials like South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley are already calling for Roof to be executed, so there's a good chance he'll never see the inside of a regular prison. If he does end up incarcerated and in the general population, he'd probably feel compelled to join a racist gang.

"That kid better clique up quick," the Aryan Circle member added. "He couldn't join us. We don't accept lames, but one of these gangs will accept it. They will treat him like a celebrity, but he will have problems with the blacks. He will probably have to do his first few years in PC [protective custody] before the media scrutiny wears down and they can release him to general population."


Watch our documentary about the KKK and racial tensions in Memphis sparked by a statue:


White supremacists generally want to isolate themselves from other races. They want their own schools. They want white women to marry white men and produce white babies.

When asked, Big tried to explain why he ended up like this.

"The way I grew up in a small town where the race was only white, I heard my grandparents talking about niggers and spics and wetbacks and how they were different from the white race," he said. "When I grew older, I saw opposite races with my own race, and it didn't look right to me."

By talking about ideals like loyalty, dedication, solidarity, and kinship, white supremacist gangs can easily sell themselves to prospective members, even if they also require a lot from them. "I can't associate with homos, chomps [child molesters], or snitches. You can only affiliate with opposite races if you're gaining something from them. You can't eat with the opposite race or fraternize with them or cell with them. You have to keep it right, so keep it white," Big said. "We are running the prison for whites. We are brothers, comrades-in-arms. We go to war together. We represent the white race. We are the soldiers at the front of the war."

Big's prison time is almost up, but he'll take his views into the outside with him.

"Hopefully with the information that I've learned, I can take it to my race and educate them," Big said. "The five Northwest states are where the Aryan Nations want to consolidate their power base: Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. We will have compounds with communal living for all the brothers and their families. We will live natural and grow all our own foods and have our own guns and protect our land and families."

Follow Seth Ferranti on Twitter.

Welcome to VICE Eats World: Food Porn from Around the Globe

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Welcome to VICE Eats World: Food Porn from Around the Globe

VICE Vs Video Games: The Best Games of E3 2015 That You Might Have Missed

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Yarny, the diminutive hero of 'Unravel'

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

E3 2015 has been one of the most memorable in recent years, with everyone—except, perhaps, Nintendo—showing up with their absolute best ready to show, in an attempt to "win" the media-briefing dick-waving competition. There is, of course, way more to E3 than just the biggest games you see on stage during the press conferences, and here's a rundown of what stood out from the best of the rest.

'Soccertron' announcement trailer

SOCCERTRON

About half an hour before Microsoft's media briefing took place, they dropped a load of indie game trailers onto their YouTube channel. A highlight was the fast-paced multiplayer game Soccertron. Visually somewhere between #IDARB, Geometry Wars, and the brilliant BaraBariBall from Sportsfriends, Soccertron has you flying around a neon arena, attempting to kick a floating ball into the opponent's goal while defending your own.

It has been available on Steam and, of all places, the Ouya, for a while now, but this Xbox One release should hopefully give owners of Microsoft's big black box a reason to invite around friends for some local multiplayer chaos. Seeing as it missed out on Nidhogg and the aforementioned Sportsfriends, before we even get into recent reports that Halo 5 has dropped its split-screen mode for the first time in the series' history, the Xbox One could use a game like Soccertron.

'Death's Gambit', reveal trailer

DEATH'S GAMBIT

"It's like Dark Souls!" is a term that is used to way too often to describe a game that simply has a whiff of exploration or difficulty about it, but for Death's Gambit there couldn't be a more accurate description. It has that dark fantasy aesthetic that is the trademark of the Souls series, big memorable bosses, a stamina system that dictates your attack and defense, and combat that relies on you to learn patterns, show patience, and pick your moment to strike. Even upon inevitable death, you're greeted with a message stating "Death Takes You" in almost exactly the same style as Dark Souls' now legendary "YOU DIED." It is undeniably a 2D Dark Souls—and that's totally OK.

Made by White Rabbit and published by Adult Swim, Death's Gambit has you playing as a warrior, chosen by Death itself, to kill a bunch of gigantic "Immortals". It is hinted that some of these are so huge that you'll have to scale them, like in Shadow of the Colossus, in order to take them out. It is going to be exciting to see how Death's Gambit takes the coolest ideas from two of the best games of the past decade and interprets them in a two-dimensional way.

'Mother Russia Bleeds', gameplay trailer

MOTHER RUSSIA BLEEDS

Winner of the unofficial VICE E3 award for "Best Named Game," Mother Russia Bleeds is a hyper-violent scrolling beat 'em up in the vein of Streets of Rage, which had the extremely unfortunate luck to be shown during Sony's media briefing after they'd announced a remake of Final Fantasy VII and right before they revealed Shenmue fucking 3. Wounder.

Mother Russia Bleeds has you and up to four other players cutting about an alternative 1980s USSR, injecting yourself with hallucinogenic drugs and dismembering enemies with whatever enemies you can get your hands on. Much like Devolver Digital stable-mate Hotline Miami—which it shares more than a little of its aesthetic with—expect this one to court a bit of controversy before it gets released.

'Unravel', official E3 2015 announcement gameplay trailer

UNRAVEL

Onstage during EA's media briefing isn't the place you'd expect to see a twee little indie game, but here we are. After we had heard developer Martin Sahlin tell the adorable story about how he had actually made the main character, Yarny, himself and taken him on holiday, taking photos that inspired him to make a game about his adventures, while the poor bastard was visibly shaking like a shitting dog, all we were thinking was: Please, for this dude's sake, don't be total shite.

And it wasn't! Unravel is a fantastic-looking puzzle platformer that hinges on the mechanic of Yarny unravelling as he travels, using his loose string to solve environmental puzzles. It is also representative of distance, love and loss, or something. There's always something like that though, isn't there? It wouldn't be a twee indie game without it.

'Eitr' gameplay trailer

EITR

"IT'S LIKE DARK SOULS." Alright, nowhere near as much as Death's Gambit, but Eitr is yet another game that owes a debt to FROM Software's ridiculously influential series. Sure, that familiar style of tactical combat, rewarding patience and ability, is key (there are also bonfires as rest points, which is pretty blatant!), but Eitr actually has more in common with Diablo and other loot 'em ups. Also: It is so, so pretty.

You play as the Shield Maiden, a warrior who is tasked with visiting the nine Norse worlds connected by the world tree Ygdrassil to rid them of a black ooze that corrupts all—the titular Eitr. On your travels you'll find new weapons, magical abilities, and a huge variety of monstrous enemies to unleash them upon. It seems fairly straightforward in terms of gameplay right now, appearing to lean heavily on the Diablo formula, but if it ain't broke...

Just look at it, though. It's some of the most beautifully animated pixel art ever seen.


Watch: The Yakuza's Ties to the Japanese Right Wing

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'Superhot', E3 2015 teaser trailer

SUPERHOT

There's been a prototype version of Superhot kicking about for a while now, but the fully finished version is still in development. It is a genius concept: a first-person shooter, only one where time only advances when you move. So you're lining up shots and planning evasive maneuvers while you're stationary, and then seeing everything take place as you begin to move. It'd be easier to understand if you just went and gave the prototype a quick go, honestly.

Anyway, the build being shown at E3 is looking really smart, with an extra bit of polish to the already really cool, clean graphical style. As much of a puzzle game as it is a shooter, Superhot is one of the indie exclusives Xbox One owners can really hold over PS4 fanboys. And unlike a lot of other games in this list, it's looking like it might even make a 2015 release.

'The Flame in the Flood', GDC 2015 trailer

THE FLAME IN THE FLOOD

Look, we know what you're thinking—yet another survival sim. But this one is really cool, so shut up. The Flame in the Flood has you struggling to get by in a post-societal American wilderness, trying to stay ahead of a massive rainstorm and reach the end of a procedurally generated river, where supposedly "salvation" lies. There's no sudden appearance of zombies or cannibals like so many of the games in the genre. You're just battling against the elements, starvation and occasionally wild animal. Kill or be killed, survival of the fittest.

And yet, despite the stressful premise, it is such an attractive game. Some of the footage, which has main character Scout and her dog hunting for food and supplies, looks strangely relaxing. Unlike a lot of these games, which go on indefinitely until you expire, there's a goal to The Flame in the Flood, a reason to survive and continue to persevere against the extreme conditions. With it development team comprised of people who worked on BioShock, Halo 2 and 3, and Rock Band, there's a lot of talent behind what could be one of the more interesting entries in an increasingly crowded genre.

'Ashen', E3 2015 announcement trailer

ASHEN

Another game shown during Microsoft's conference, Ashen casts you as an adventurer in a world without sun, blacked out by the ash from a huge volcano that also provides the only source of heat. It offers you multiple ways of tackling situations, with an emphasis on creating friendships and alliances over simply attacking things head on. An interesting feature is that all of the characters lack facial features, as per part of the games' low-polygon aesthetic, which means that you have to pay greater attention to what's said, as their expressions won't be there to give away the emotions behind their words.

They're stating that the combat is "high risk" and that when you leave the safe area – signified by a bonfire – you could be attacked by anything from skeletal warriors to cannibals. Although what's been shown so far looks primarily single player, developer Aurora44 is saying that the game is "passively multiplayer", hinting at some kind of connectivity between other players when they're playing through their game. Sounds like a certain influential FROM Software game, doesn't it?


A whole other breed of play: VICE Sports


'Abzû' live coverage from E3 2015

ABZÛ

After a debut reveal at E3 2014, the team behind Abzû released some proper gameplay footage just ahead of this year's conference, and invited journalists to get their hands on what might well be the spiritual successor to the wonderful Journey. Which makes sense—this underwater, stress-free, take-your-time experience comes from developers who worked on said understated classic of the PlayStation catalogue. Creative director Matt Nava played a key role, while at thatgamecompany, in crafting both Journey and the similarly sublime Flower, and now as the leading man at Giant Squid, he's delivering what seems to be a comparably beautiful blend of gameplay, meditation, and art.

With no air gauge to worry about, and no real threat to your progress – you'll spy a shark from time to time, but it's not looking to make you its lunch – Abzû is the antidote to all of the high-pressure gaming we've highlighted above. Pulse racing? Slip this on when it releases in the first half of 2016, and watch your tension slide away. –Mike Diver

'Transformers: Devastation', E3 2015 teaser trailer

TRANSFORMERS: DEVASTATION

I'm giving myself this one. No, Transformers isn't exactly an underground thing. And developers Platinum Games, not a studio you'd call "indie" (although perhaps in spirit), have a pretty awesome track record with the likes of Bayonetta and its sequel, Vanquish and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance beneath their (almost certainly studded) belts. But Devastation got more than a little lost amid the hype for so many other childhood memories becoming modern-day gaming realities, and if you ever loved the Transformers cartoon (or comics, or toys, or anything that Michael Bay never touched), you've got to concede: This looks incredible.

That's the world's leading action game studio, then, making a hyper-kinetic brawler using Bayonetta-like combat, based on the Generation One strand of an evergreen franchise that most guys aged between their middle 20s and late 30s will likely have a gigantic soft spot for. You'll get to play as five different Autobots: Optimus Prime, obviously, alongside Bumblebee, Sideswipe, Wheeljack and Grimlock, smashing through a series of drone-like Decepticon cars and jets before facing off against Megatron, Soundwave and the like. I've wanted a game like this to exist for so long, and now that it's going to, I don't know what to wish for anymore. I mean, I'd ask the gaming gods for The Last Guardian, but. Mike Diver

Follow Andi on Twitter. (Additional words by Mike Diver.)

We Talked to 'The Wolfpack' Brothers About Why 80s Music Rules

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We Talked to 'The Wolfpack' Brothers About Why 80s Music Rules

Does an Australian Judge's Decision to Stop a Tattooed Woman from Breastfeeding Set a Dangerous Precedent?

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A breastfeeding woman who is not the woman in this story. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Yesterday a judge from the Federal Circuit Court of Australia banned a mother from breastfeeding her 11-month-old baby because of tattoos that she had done four weeks earlier.

Even though the woman tested negative for hepatitis and HIV, Judge Matthew Myers cited an Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) report stating that "unacceptable risk" remained. But as VICE News noted, the same report added that the "risk of infection from getting a tattoo is low, especially if done at a reputable parlor."

However, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the mother did not inform the tattoo parlor that she was breastfeeding, with its owner telling the court that "as a rule" he didn't tattoo pregnant or breastfeeding women.

It is not yet known if the ban will go through, given that the mother made an urgent application to the Family Court of Australia to have the ruling overturned. But for observers of the case, the judge's decision has set alarm bells ringing, considering it could set new parameters for how much risk people take in future. That's why we asked Margaret Thornton, a professor in law at the Australian National University, if Judge Myers's ruling would have an impact for the risk-takers of Australia.

VICE: Has there ever been a precedent in Australian law where a judge has ruled on a mother's risk taking?
Margaret Thornton: Well I haven't heard of anything comparable to this before. It's just come from left field, and... it focuses on the intimate relationship between a mother and a baby. To actually intervene at that stage is I think particularly unusual.

So based off what you've read thus far is this ruling too interventionist?
It certainly looks to be paternalistic, and whether there's further information provided by the judge, it's very odd. Normally a judge would be assiduous in making sure there's appropriate evidence to show that a particular action was dangerous for the child. But based off of media reports the mother's blood tests were all negative, so a decision based off of evidence was highly questionable.

One would probably have needed to be in court to understand the reasoning behind this decision though, because on the face of it, the case seems to be very flimsy.


Watch our documentary on traditional Japanese ink:


So what's the general effect of having an interventionist ruling on the wider community?
Well it means that the freedom of choice that an adult can exercise it limited. We may not all agree on tattoos, but nevertheless subcultures in society find it is quite acceptable. We have to appreciate that as a liberal society—we think.

Is Australia generally interventionist when it comes to risk aversion?
Not particularly, which is why I think there's interest in this case. It's so bizarre that there's been an intervention of this kind. It could be argued that a mother has a right to breastfeeding, but on the other hand, people could say that the baby has a right to being risk-prepared. But all of us every single day take risks, which we take on board as the hazards of normal life.

When making decisions that obviously will affect a wider group of people, are judges fully aware of the impact they will have?
Oh of course. This could set up a precedent that could be relied upon by others and could be used again in custody and matrimonial disputes. There are always attempts by one partner to denigrate the other's ability to look after your child if the dispute is over custody.

So do you think we're more or less able to decide what risks we take?
Yes. We don't want the state or judges running our lives. We want to be treated as autonomous individuals who can make decisions on what seems to be best for our children and ourselves.

At the moment, the decision has been appealed to the Family Court of Australia, how do you rate the chances of this precedent actually being set?
Well from the evidence that we have publicly, that seems somewhat dubious. One would hope that common sense would prevail and hope that the full court would overrule the decision.

Follow Alan on Twitter


Street-Fighting Koalas: Nature's Lesser-Known Grappling Masters

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Street-Fighting Koalas: Nature's Lesser-Known Grappling Masters

Why Juneteenth Needs to be a National Holiday

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Print via Library of Congress

Looting and property damage have gotten a lot of bad press, but me, I refuse to talk trash about the Boston Tea Party. Taxation without representation may not be the worst injustice in world history, but it's a bad thing, and the American colonists who dressed up like natives and looted those merchant ships struck a blow, in their street-theater way, for progress.

But if you want a more potent image of American freedom, it's the time in 1862 that a black slave named Robert Smalls stole a Confederate steamship from Charleston, South Carolina, harbor and piloted it straight into Union territory. Or think about any and all of the 180,000 African American soldiers who fought on the Union side to crush the slave power. That is what real freedom and independence look like.

And that is why today, Juneteenth, needs to be a national holiday.

What is this Juneteenth, and when is it? June 19, 1865, marks the day when news of emancipation and the Civil War's end finally reached America's last group of slaves, in Galveston, Texas, more than two months after the Confederacy's unconditional surrender. In black America, it's been commemorated for years, and it's even a half-assed "staffing holiday" in some states. But it needs to be made a full-on national holiday.

There was an irreconcilable clash between the colonists' war of independence and the freedom of African Americans.

Juneteenth honors the 3,400 slaves who escaped slavery in Virginia and Maryland during the War of 1812 to join the British forces anchored in the Chesapeake.

Juneteenth is for the slave rebels aboard the San Juan Nepomuceno, who broke free of their bonds in the south Atlantic and successfully forced the ship to take them back to Africa—"perhaps the greatest escape in the history of New World slavery," according to historian Greg Grandin.

Juneteenth is for the slaves who answered colonial Governor Lord Dunmore's 1775 promise of emancipation by fleeing their masters and fighting on the side of the British crown against the colonists in the War of Independence—an exodus of between 5,000 and 100,000 African Americans, according to historian Alan Gilbert.

In fact—and not to be rude—but in the history of North American freedom, June 19 is a more significant date than the Fourth of July.

Why compare the two celebrations like that? In some ways, 6/19 and 7/4 are in sweet harmony. As Edward Countryman points out in his handy overview of the American Revolution, the War of Independence was, at least in some places, deeply intermingled with the dismantling of slavery, which was abolished in Vermont in 1777, in Pennsylvania in 1780, and in Massachusetts in 1783. There were black troops fighting for American independence—though not nearly as many as fought for their own freedom on the side of the crown.

There's just no way around it: There was an irreconcilable clash between the colonists' war of independence and the freedom of African Americans. Historian Gerald Horne even casts the colonists' secession as a counterrevolution against the erratic progress of the British Empire to limit slavery. In Brooklyn, New York's own piece of the Deep South that was roughly one-third slaves, the British army liberated slaves and stationed them in their former masters' houses. Which side was the revolutionary one?

The hypocritical contradiction of the pro-slavery colonists fighting for their own freedom was not lost on everyone in the late 18th century. "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" asked Samuel Johnson from London. This theme was reprised a few years ago by public intellectual Chris Rock on Twitter ("Happy white peoples independence day the slaves weren't free but I'm sure they enjoyed fireworks"). Rock caught a lot of screaming internet outrage, but he wasn't wrong. As Frederick Douglass asked in a speech that still moves, despite its purple, 19th-century rhetorical styling, "What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?" (Answer: "To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.")

Let's face it: The American War of Independence was not the universal fight for freedom our oompah-band pols and pundits like to say it is. Fifty years ago, when the colonial overlords of Rhodesia tried to secede from the British empire as a white-supremacist republic, their avowed (and to us, embarrassing) inspiration was Jefferson's Declaration of Independence.


Watch: "Meet the White Student Union"


We need to face our history, which is not all good nor all bad. The public commemoration of black history has made giant strides in the past 50 years. But the country still lags disastrously in the public commemoration of slavery and emancipation. That the Colfax Massacre—probably the largest act of white-supremacist terror during post–Civil War Reconstruction, slaughtering as many as 150 black Americans—is commemorated with this racist, piss-poor plaque is a national disgrace. That the nation's biggest slave port, Charleston, doesn't have a major monument is an anti-historical scandal—one made all the more glaring by this week's violent atrocity there at an historic black church.

That there is still no (completed) museum devoted to slavery on the Mall in Washington is an insult. All of this is black history, sure, but it's much more than a niche interest: You really can't understand the economic, social, and political history of the modern world without thorough knowledge of New World slavery. There isn't a mainstream economic historian to be found who would deny that profits from slave labor provided the capital to industrialize the young nation—economic benefits that accrued mostly in the North.

Nearly all Americans, in fact nearly all humans, are descendants of peons of some kind.

Mind you, I'm not gunning for Dolezal extensions with this little column, nor am I trying to be "a good white ally," a term that manages to be both cringing and grandiose.

Mainly I write this out of self-interest, as the national celebration of Juneteenth would be a great thing for non-black Americans too, even apart from the sad fact that we Americans don't get enough federal holidays compared with other Western nations. Every year around the Fourth of July, there is an outpouring of public adulation for the Northern merchant elite and Southern plantation owners who signed the Declaration of Independence and their timeless wisdom. As we are a nation of super-winners, we naturally identify with this colonial-era 1 percent. But it might behoove us to gush about the 13 colonies' super elite a little bit less and try to identify a bit more with all the rebellious slaves, whose moral and political example is, in my view, more worthy of emulation.

Despite growing economic insecurity, we remain a nation full of what one family in McKinney, Texas—the town with that racist, ridiculous swimming-pool cop incidentdescribed to BuzzFeed News as "30,000-a-year millionaires." "They act like they have this grand, luxurious life, and they're probably just moving from credit card to credit card.... It's almost as if they feel entitled."

But the fact is that nearly all Americans, in fact nearly all humans, are descendants of peons of some kind: Sicilian viddani, Polish chłopi, Korean nongbu, Scottish highlanders ethnically cleansed by the lairds to make room for lucrative sheep pastures, Mexican campesinos, the English vagrants and prisoners transported to the American colonies as punishment. There is no doubt that the harshness of New World slavery was extreme. But although American slavery is horrifically unique, it is not incomparable.

To observe Juneteenth—today marks its 150th anniversary—is to celebrate resilience. It is isn't just about what black Americans have resisted and rebelled against, even though the escaped slaves who enlisted with the British and helped burn down the White House in 1814 make one hell of a compelling story. It's about what the country is building together in the ongoing, oft-delayed Reconstruction that has always been an act of creation.

Chase Madar is the author of The Passion of [Chelsea] Manning: The Story behind the Wikileaks Whistleblower. Follow him on Twitter.


How Crowdfunding Websites Are Helping Brits Repatriate the Dead Bodies of Loved Ones

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Bangkok hospital. Photo by Mr Conan via

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Traveling, while beautiful and magical and life-changing, can also be dangerous. You could be accosted and robbed by a group of men dressed as policemen, or you could be bitten by something it's not good to be bitten by, or—in the worst-case scenario—you could end up dead. Tourists suffering fatal accidents or being killed abroad isn't as uncommon as you may think; between 2013 and 2014, for example, 362 Brits died in Thailand alone.

In this scenario, if you don't have insurance, your family will be the ones who have to pick up the pieces financially—and it doesn't come cheap. The families of dead or injured travelers are increasingly having to turn to creative money-raising methods to repatriate their ill or dead loved ones, with crowdfunding websites recently becoming one prominent choice.

In April, Welshman Samuel Corria's family had to crowdfund what they could of $118,000 for emergency surgery, as well as the extra $38,000-a-month rehabilitation bills. The 18-year-old was involved in a car accident in Australia without insurance (it had expired). Luckily, in this case, the accident wasn't fatal—but often, that's not the case.

Take the family of 26-year-old Bristol laborer, Sam Austin, who turned to crowdfunding when they had to raise the money to fly his dead body home after a fall from a sky train in Bangkok in November. Repatriation costs were placed between $12,700 and $19,000, but the campaign reached $24,000, meaning that the excess could be spent on Sam's funeral and donated to his family. His friends said they were "amazed with the response."

A company that conducts private research into tourism recently found that, on average, each year 24 percent of Brits travel abroad without any form of health or travel insurance, and that young people are even more prone to it, with 48 percent not always taking out travel insurance.

Some people want to save money, others just forget to sort it out. A general statement released by the UK's financial dispute resolution service, the Financial Ombudsman, said: "For many customers, travel insurance may be the most complex financial product they purchase during the year. But it is often seen as just an 'add-on' to a holiday."

The late Max Grainger's story provides another bleak example of the many complications that follow after something happens to you overseas when you have no insurance. Max went to Thailand to start a new life after his marriage broke down. In July of 2014 he was on his motorbike at night when he was hit by a drunk driver with no lights, leaving him in a coma. The 35-year-old didn't have insurance, meaning that his relatives had to raise $46,000 themselves to bring his comatose body home.

A huge portion of that figure—$40,763—came from gofundme.com, and $2,540 came from fundraising club nights organized by his siblings. Max's little brother, Ed Tolkien, an artist, said it was a race to get his brother home alive amid a confusing scramble of communication with the British embassy and the Thai government. The British embassy gave the family a list of lawyers and interpreters but said they couldn't help them any further, especially not financially.

The family came across Air Medical Group, a repatriation company that promised to organize the whole operation. In reality, they weren't especially efficient. Ed's eldest sister, Alice, had to be in touch with them regularly, telling them what to do and making sure that they firmed up arrangements. AMG should have been able to organize a flight and ambulances but there were complications. "They failed to contact the hospital in Nottingham to tell them Max was coming," says Ed.

There were also a lot of complications because of the dodgy practices in the Thai Hospital. "The doctor was refusing to sign the release forms for ages and had to be paid-off," explained Ed. "In the end, the paramedic from AMG had to just go in and take Max away. Apparently the nurses were trying to stop them while asking for more money." Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham assessed Max only to find he had been mistreated and neglected in Thailand; his feeding tube was way too big and deep, and he had some of the worst bed sores they had ever seen, even though the family had hired a private nurse to take care of him.

After spending six months in a coma in the Thai hospital, Max died within two weeks of returning to England.


WATCH: Our documentary about Brits abroad in Ibiza.


There is no system currently in place in the UK to help families with the costs of repatriation, or medical expenses for unfortunate loved ones. Max's story also goes to show that there's not much of a non-financial support system in place, either.

"The British embassy were, in fact, at times a hindrance to the situation," says Ed. "They sent us an inaccurate bill from the hospital, on which the total cost for all the items [operations, etc.] didn't add up correctly, showing that they obviously hadn't checked it. None of the advice they provided helped us in any way, and all of the groundwork was carried out by the family."

Without gofundme, Max's family wouldn't have seen Max before he died. After the experience, Ed's views on insurance have strengthened. "I think insurance is essential, whatever amount of time you spend in a foreign country, especially if you're in a country like Thailand where the roads are so dodgy."

Evidently, young Brits ought to be a little more prepared when it comes to booking travel insurance. However, the problem of not having financial backing in case of an emergency does not lie solely with those who have taken a chance to save a bit of cash; some travel insurers have get-out clauses that render your policy completely void. If you hire a quad bike on the day and have an accident, for instance, some will refuse to pay out. Others will relinquish responsibility if you're found to have trace amounts of alcohol in your system after an accident.

As the British Insurance Brokers' Association website reads: "We believe that travelers will be surprised that there is such a variety of exclusions within policies, and they need to understand what level of alcohol could invalidate a claim and if excessive, it almost certainly will." But if you're British, you've been to Britain, or you've seen a Brit on holiday, you'll know how absurd it is for anyone to assume that a Brit won't be consuming an alcoholic beverage abroad.

So the message here is clear: read the small print on your insurance, and if you don't like it, shop around. As Max's family unfortunately discovered, there is no system currently in the UK to help families with the costs of repatriation or medical expenses for unfortunate loved-ones, and that's not looking likely to change.

In the meantime, help doesn't always need to be financial. "It would have been nice to have more support and to be given more information about local protocol, etc," said Ed. "We weren't left with much confidence in the British Embassy; they seemed to be reluctant to get involved in any way."

Follow Shanna on Twitter.

Watch the Ten Best VICE Documentaries About Sex

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The Japanese Love Industry

Fuckin'. It's fun, it's good for you, it populates the planet. In the past half century, it has evolved from something whispered about behind bedroom doors to a pillar of popular culture, and our society has started to explore making whoopee in all kinds of weird ways. From the growing world of food porn to the possibility of sex in space , humans are letting loose and, for the most part, it's pretty awesome. Not all the time, though. Sex trafficking, sexual abuse, STDs... these are not good things.

We've covered everything there is to know about sex—good and bad—for years, sending correspondents across the globe to get a hands-on look at what turns people on (and off), how porn and prostitution vary across cultures, and how technology continues to change what it means to get off. Now, we've put together a handy list of our favorite sex-related videos for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy.


Orgasms: Where R They?

As we all know, sex is really fun. But sometimes it can be a frustrating nightmare. Did you know that only 30 percent of women achieve orgasm during sex? So how do we teach our partners what needs to be done without making them feel like sexual failures? And what can we do to make our vaginas more orgasm-friendly? Karley Sciortino answers all your questions.


The Enduring and Erotic Power of Quicksand on Screen

At the height of its popularity, quicksand was a sexually charged danger that appeared in dozens, if not hundreds, of Hollywood films. It has since disappeared from the mainstream consciousness, but there remains an aging community of quicksand enthusiasts who recreate versions of their favorite quicksand scenes with an erotic twist.


ResERECTION: The Penis Implant

Penile implants have become a popular treatment option for erectile dysfunction—a health complication that more than 30 million men suffer from in the United States alone. The surgery consists of placing an inflatable prosthesis within a man's member that is attached to a soft ball that sits in the scrotum. When the ball is pumped, the penis remains hard for as long as the man wants.

Most individuals that undergo the operation are satisfied with their implant, but the unlucky two to three percent experience infections that can lead to death, mangled parts, and more. VICE visited Miami, Florida, to speak to one of the leading penis doctors in the country and find out what it's worth to get your penis operated on.


Leathermen

Way back in the day, VICE's own Baby Balls headed out in New York City to befriend some local leathermen.


Book Bitch: Internet Slaves and Financial Domination

VICE sexpert Karley Sciortino traveled to London to meet her internet slave IRL and investigate the psychology behind financial domination.


The Digital Love Industry

Though dating and jerking it were commandeered by the web long ago, it's only served as a kind of middleman so far. Now we're nearing the possibility of falling in love with your computer, as meeting your dream partner could be as easy as slipping on Oculus Rift—the most advanced virtual reality headset in the world.


The Life and Times of Belladonna

Chris Nieratko's introspective look into the porn world follows Belladonna's trajectory from her humble Mormon upbringing to her first foray into smut, her initial breakdown on Diane Saywer, her rise to the most successful and recognizable adult star since Jenna Jameson, and, ultimately, her retirement from the adult industry.


Balloon Porn Superstars

Looner porn is a subset of pornography involving balloons and the people who love them. VICE caught up with Grim Looner, a masked, 25-year-old looner porn star from Melbourne, Australia, to help burst any misconceptions about one of the most innocuous online fetishes.


Prostitutes of God

VICE traveled deep into the remote villages and towns of Southern India to uncover an ancient system of religious sex slavery dating back to the 6th century. Although the practice was made illegal more than 20 years ago, we discover there are still more than 23,000 women in the state of Karnataka selling their bodies in the name of the mysterious Hindu Goddess Yellamma. They are known as Devadasis, or "servants of God." From city red light districts to rural mud huts, we meet proud brothel madams, HIV positive teenage prostitutes, and gay men in saris. Our intimate exploration into the life of the Devadasi reveals a pseudo-religious system that exploits poverty-stricken families to fuel modern India's booming sex trade.

Like drugs more than doin' it? Watch the ten best VICE documentaries about drugs here.

Comics: Suspect Device

A Checklist of Everything That Will Probably Happen at Tomorrow's Big Anti-Austerity Protest in London

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Photo by Adam Barnett

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Tomorrow, a big demo against the government called End Austerity Now is happening, and seems to be following a formula so familiar it could be scripted. Haven't we been here before? A new government composed of the same old monsters promising to extend the horrors introduced five years ago; tabloid hysteria about "anarchy and violence of the streets of Britain"; a pub squatted for use as some sort of lair for revolutionaries.

These are things that seem to have been there at every big, set piece left-wing march ever. The only change is that the Labour politician the left is investing their hopes in seems even less likely to succeed than Ed Miliband. What other familiar protest tropes are we going to see?

Here's a checklist:

A questionable claim that the march is representative of all public opinion:
The government's mandate for austerity may be thinner than the gruel the UK's children seem destined to subsist on once the food banks run out of tins. Nevertheless, look out for the moment when a left-wing celebrity tweets that, really, there are fewer shy Tories in Britain than there are closet Corbynites.

Someone who has lost all perspective:
Similarly, a Russia Today reporter will zero in on an overwrought socialist newspaper seller who believes that a tens-of-thousands-strong march signals a revolution that will bring about the end of Western hegemony.

Photo by Chris Bethell

People who are at the protest who think the protest is stupid
In this case, anarchist group Class War—among others—are planning to occupy the Bank of England, because marching to Whitehall is boring.

Wildly unhinged police brutality
The window of a bank will get smashed, or a dyed-in-the-cashmere, Guardian-reading mom coached in from Devon will tut too loudly. The cops who've had the words, Go on son, give me any fucking excuse, going round and round in their heads all day will take their chance to hospitalize someone with blunt trauma wounds, later giving the explanation that the protesters' aggressive thrusting was an imminent threat to the safety of their batons.

Photo by Oscar Webb

Pointless appeals to the police to show some humanity:
No matter how many times they see a police medic grinding the neck of a Woodcraft folk group leader into the tarmac with his knee, a certain type of optimistic protester still believes that the police should be working "for the people, not against them." In this case, of course, "the people" in question is a guy in an Anon mask who describes himself as a "Freeman of the land."

A reprehensible act:
At some point, someone—possibly a Spanish crusty with little knowledge of local cultural sensibilities—will get overexcited and do something ostensibly radical, but which is actually beyond the pale, even to many at the protest. Writing "End Austerity Now" on the windows of Hamleys in the blood of a decapitated swan—that sort of thing. The tabloids will have their punch-bag. The unfortunate's friends will point out that yes, decapitating swans isn't great, but aren't the real swan decapitators the bloody Tories with their bastard cuts?

A bizarre marriage of left-wingers and the reactionary press:
For the organizers, meanwhile, anyone who doesn't follow the route of the march before going home for tea will have ruined the credibility of the protest in the eyes of aging racist colonels in the shires whose support they covet. Activists who try to organize break-away protests, or who have edgy haircuts and an untrustworthy appearance, will be cast off as extremist hijackers who deserve to be horsewhipped by Paul Dacre.

Photo by Tom Johnson

Confused tourists:
"Oh hey, look Bobby—a procession with flares and Guy Fawkes masks; this must be one of those kooky British customs, like Morris dancing or entrenched xenophobia!"

People complaining about the lack of media coverage:
RT @oocupyanon: Fucking government stooge media—unbelievable that the BBC isn't picking up on that livestream I tweeted of a police officer arresting me after I spat on him #mediablackout

People complaining that there are too many fucking journalists:
RT @autonomops: Fucking government stooge media—too many journalists here, recording our every move.

WATCH: The Luxury Item – our film about the British government's tax on periods

Speeches:
The speeches at the end of demonstrations like this are a great opportunity to catch some right-on comedy from left-wing stand ups slightly past their best. I hear this great act called Jeremy Corbyn is worth checking out. Ayoooooo.

Journalists grinding out articles making light of thousands of people laudably giving up their Saturday to express their opinion about the important issues of the day
Hiya!

Follow Simon on Twitter.

We Went to An ‘Emergency’ Town Hall Meeting to See How Ezra Levant Intends to Help Albertans Reclaim the Province From the NDP

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Ezra Levant: oil advocate, shock journalist... provincial saviour? Screengrab via YouTube

Tornado warnings were issued and the skies opened up in Edmonton the day that Ezra Levant came back to town. Still, that didn't stop his congregation from packing the seats at the Chateau Louis Hotel & Conference Centre in central Edmonton for Levant's "emergency" Alberta town hall meeting to learn how to take the province back from the left.

Like many others, I first learned of the town hall when someone linked me to an incredibly kitschy video advertisement for the event. It's heavy-handed political fear-mongering of the best kind, featuring sepia-toned NDP members, foreboding music, and, at one point, a shattering TV.

It's not quite Gathering of the Juggalos-infomercial amazing, but it was still pretty good.

Levant is what could be best described as a right-leaning shock journalist who works out of Toronto but keeps a keen eye on Alberta. Think of the Canadian Rush Limbaugh with a hard-on for the tar sands. Levant is probably most famous for being the face of Sun Media and for, at times, showing "reckless disregard for the truth."

He currently calls himself the "Rebel Commander" and leads Rebel Media, an online news outlet. Rebel Media is a odd thing: In all honesty, sometimes Ezra does some quality digging, especially during election time, but it often gets lost in the torrent of propagandizing, libel suits, coffee boycotts, and forced apologies.

The one thing he has, though, is a small but die-hard base of extremely rabid and vocal fans. Ones that can sometimes be a little too vocal for their own good.
Walking into the Chateau Louis that evening was akin to what it must feel like when you go to a tent revival mass and the crazy evangelical from out of town was there to speak.

Unsurprisingly, the crowd was dominated by old white people. While there were a handful of visible minorities and young men, they were few and far between. I walked past two of the younger guys and heard them talking loudly about their blogs and that they could never be journalists because they won't tow the media party's line. They were rebels! A lot of people referred to themselves as rebels that night.

It wasn't just bloggers that Ezra draws: dotting the crowd were several right-wing politicians. Federal PC candidate Kerry Diotte was there along with Wildrose MLAs Drew Barnes and Rick Strankman.

My friend and I found two seats to the right side of the stage. Beside me sat a well-dressed older white guy, beside my friend an older white guy who drove all the way from Lethbridge for the event, and in front of us an older white dude who kept sucking his dentures. Behind us we finally had some diversity as there sat an older white lady, who as I would learn throughout the duration of the speech, had herself an affinity for what I can only put as mild racism and blue language.

An older couple behind us scanned the crowd.

"I don't see anyone here I know," one of them said. "I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing."

In short order, the room was full and the crowd was all fired up to hear Ezra preach from the book of Levant. When he strode on stage it was to thunderous applause. We were off! Well, we were off right after we all took off our hats and sang "O Canada" first (of course).

Levant started off by showing us a CBC article about a former Notley staffer who disrupted a PC dinner at the Shaw Conference Centre and telling the crowd that something similar happened at the recent town hall meeting in Calgary. He warned us that it might happen here.

"So I tell you this to let you know that we have received warnings that up to five NDP or Greenpeace activists—and there's really no difference between the two—are planning to interrupt this evening with sort of a disruption, panty-raid-stunt like they do."

Everyone looked around. Who among them was the communist? Who among them hated freedom?

But Ezra quelled their fears and told his crowd not to worry, the security handled it well last time. The woman in question was Alheli Picazo, who had her invitation rescinded by Levant after she RSVP'd. She wrote about her experience, saying she was whisked away before the event even started, but she didn't leave and waited for an explanation until cops were called to remove her. Apparently the cops found no reason to arrest Picazo. In a nice little bit of irony, Levant, later on in his speech, spoke of how he went into the headquarters of Tim Hortons (following the short-lived Enbridge drama) and bravely didn't leave until someone came and spoke to him.

"I took a stack of those petitions, I've printed out 8,500 names at a time and I went to Tim Hortons. I wouldn't leave till they met with me," Levant stated beaming with pride. "The CEO came down, he said, 'Turn off the camera.' Yeah, like I'm gonna do that. And we had a conversation."

After the story, Levant carried on his powerpoint presentation, which featured a recurring strategy: Show a video of an NDP MLA and then glean meaning from it. Sometimes the meaning made sense and sometimes it seemed like he made it up out of thin air.

For Premier Rachel Notley, and Government House Leader Brian Mason, Levant had pretty much nothing. All he showed were question period videos that were public record. Multiple times, he showed older videos of them talking about the deaths of 1,606 ducks in a tailings pond.

Early on in the evening Levant made a joke that went over really well about the ducks who died in the tailings ponds, and I guess he decided to keep hammering it home, adding in comments about wind turbines killing that many weekly and how many wings he can eat at a restaurant. It killed each time.

On a side note, the typical Canadian wind turbine kills an average of 8.2 birds a year, a far cry from the estimated 2,000 yearly deaths caused by tailings ponds, but this kind of fact-fudging was typical for the majority of the speech, as Ezra relied on YouTube clips and hyperbole to carry him. At one point he cited the tar sands as the biggest supplier of jobs for Aboriginal people, whereas the last time we had national numbers in from Statistics Canada (2009) the largest employer among aboriginal people was the health and social assistance industry, followed by trade, construction, and manufacturing. There were several other instances like this throughout the speech including repeatedly saying someone who was Albertan wasn't to discredit her.

Shortly after this, Ezra shocked the crowd when he pointed out that at one point Shannon Phillips, the new Minister of Environment and Parks and Minister Responsible for the Status of Women, had written for and worked with Al Jazeera. The name alone drew shudders and gasps from some audience members.

At this, the old lady behind me clicked her tongue in disapproval.

"Fucking Arabs," she muttered.

Levant drove Phillips' connection to Al Jazeera home

"Now, the work she did, I have not found it online. But she wrote a story about it several years ago, about how she worked on this film project for Al Jazeera," Levant said at the front of the stage. "How do you even make that connection? I wouldn't even know how to go about that. How do you let Al Jazeera know that you want to work for them? How does that even come to pass?"

I don't think it would be all that difficult. Al Jazeera is broadcast to 130 countries and 250 million households. It is easily one of the largest news organizations on the planet. Only the BBC has more foreign bureaus than what Levant described as "the state broadcaster of the OPEC dictatorship called Qatar."

At one point Levant actually moved away from baiting the crowd to share some valid points. Among them was a video of NDP MLA David Eggen chanting "no more pipelines," but by far his most damning piece of evidence was that Graham Mitchell, the newly appointed chief of staff for the Energy Minister, is an anti-pipeline activist. He had dug up that Mitchell was a registered lobbyist for LeadNow, an environmental lobby group that is decidedly anti-tar sands. Mitchell's appointment is a poor decision almost any way you look at it, and knowing the fact about LeadNow is important. No buts about it, Albertans have Levant to thank for that.

But by the end of the segment, he was showing tweets that Mitchell had favourited or retweeted and projecting meaning onto them. Levant took one, in which Mitchell spoke of the strong female leaders in Toronto, to mean that he doesn't want to come to Edmonton. It quickly devolved from well-informed and important to silly and irrelevant.

At the end of the speech, two hours in, Ezra took a serious note and returned to his thesis statement of who will be the crowds saviour now that the NDP are in power. The room grew quiet and he leaned forward on his podium, hanging on either side of Levant was an Albertan and Canadian Flag.

"Well, we can't rely on pieces of Wildrose. The media can possibly put a spin on it. The oil patch is terrified and hiding under the desk, so there's NGOs. Who? Who? Who? Who?"

The elderly lady behind me perked up without a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

"You, Ezra. You're our only hope."

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.

We Are 100%, For Sure, in the Middle of a Major Extinction Event

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We Are 100%, For Sure, in the Middle of a Major Extinction Event

The Jurassic Park Films Are As Much About Divorce as They Are About the Dangers of Playing God

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Screengrab via Jurassic World trailer

Jurassic World broke box office records last weekend, and part of that revenue is likely because kids got to see it twice: once with their dad, and once with their mom.

The $500-million-plus summer blockbuster sees two young brothers pawned off to the dino-themed park by strung-out parents on the brink of divorce. If this seems like a familiar setup, then you've probably seen all of the previous films in the series or you're a devotee of Steven Spielberg's canon.

A separation of the conventional family unit is a subject broached in Jurassic Parks one through four, and the various circumstances are deeply rooted in much of Spielberg's back catalogue and personal history.

In the Jurassic films, parents are almost entirely absent, and when they do show up, they're either suffocating their kin or neglecting them out of self-interest. It's the pseudo-guardians—Sam Neill's Alan Grant (twice, in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III), and Chris Pratt and Bryce Howard's Owen and Claire from Jurassic World—who begrudgingly take on the role and discover the thrilling highs and horrifying, screaming lows of child-rearing.

But is Spielberg simply offering up a series of allegorical apologies from divorced parents everywhere? Even the de facto guardians, though more receptive to the whims of the kids, are still far from ideal. Both the kids and the dinosaurs sense an agenda on the part of their creators, but they also recognize the failings of their supposed protectors, which is why the kids and dinos are always busting out of their cages, both literal and metaphorical.

Jurassic World's divorcees-in-waiting are Karen and Scott (Judy Greer and Andy Buckley), whose opening lines include, "How long does it take to get your little butt in the car?" as they rush to offload their kids Gray and Zach (Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson) with Karen's sister Claire at a perfectly safe petting zoo before the remains of their marriage are spilled over the breakfast table. Claire "handles 20,000 people a day," Scott says through clenched jaw. "She can handle two more." The boys are left to fend for themselves and prove resourceful without their clawing family.

Pre-teens Tim and Lex seem better off in the original Jurassic film for having learned how to survive a family schism—though both are desperate to make friends with Dr. Grant, whose first on-screen encounter with a child involves stabbing the air with a raptor claw. Later, the three of them sleep like babies on a tree-top before being sneezed on by a veggie-saur. As the philosopher Ace Ventura once said, "It is the mucus that binds us."

The beloved Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) of the first two films is a pretty bad dad in The Lost World, constantly chastising his stowaway daughter before storming off to play action hero. In the original, Dr. Malcolm is clearly ready for commitment, saying he's "always on the lookout for a future ex-Mrs. Malcolm." Meanwhile, William H. Macy and Tea Leoni, in their what-am-I-doing-here performances in the third film, best show their parenting abilities by repeatedly shouting "Eric!" while searching for their lost son on a dinosaur island that otherwise is fairly quiet and flat.

Even the dinosaurs display ham-fisted parental care, mostly in the second and third films where the plots are as thin as a triceratop's shit is piled high. The Lost World tackles a real-life theory from paleontologist Robert Bakker, who discovered evidence that Tyrannosaurs displayed child care at nesting sites. That's why we see mommy and daddy T. Rex chasing after baby, cradle and all. The third film sees some idiot steal raptor eggs before the whole group is chased by a raptor family à la Raising Arizona.

And though Spielberg directed only the first two Jurassics, his DNA is embedded throughout the series as an executive producer. The director of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, E.T., and Hook experienced his own family split as a high-schooler, and later a divorce from actress Amy Irving. The theme of divorce and familial schism runs throughout the aforementioned Spielberg projects, perhaps most strikingly in Hook, where Peter's son Jack is caught between two father figures in Pan and the infamous captain.

Many of the people involved in the Jurassic films have been touched by some kind of separation in their family lives—Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton was divorced four times, while Lost World star Julianne Moore took on the role in the wake of her divorce settlement. In Jurassic World, Zach passes off his parents' split as inevitable: "All my friends' parents are divorced."

All of this is not to say that divorce is wrong or that male-female partnerships are the required bedrock for healthy children. But the question is: Why do movie fans need Jurassic Park to tell them an allegory about broken families? Spielberg has shown again and again that kids act out when parents and guardians selfishly make shit about themselves.

In a film series about playing god and ignoring the mistakes of the past, it seems appropriate to show that any guardian figure who thinks only of themselves will ultimately have that bite them in the ass. Hammond—who is hilariously immortalized by a statue in 2015's instalment—shows more affection for that dead-eyed raptor baby, bursting forth from its egg, than for his talented grandchildren. They're only at the park because their parents are insane and so Hammond can sell the Wow Factor to the smirking lawyer.

Spielberg, whether as director or producer, attaches himself to scripts where the kids are pushed aside by family, but never in the story. Even the cameras follow the action from low angles, putting the audience in the size-six shoes of the young protagonists, like the raptors-in-the-kitchen scene in the original Jurassic Park.

Spielberg's heroes in these films are often the youth movement, and the parents and control freaks within the films work against them. Hammond's Park is not a nature preserve but an excuse to spare no expense and to stock as much ice cream as you could possibly want. His mistreatment of his dino-babies is mirrored in the conventional parents but shattered by the unwilling babysitters who eventually pick up the pieces. Spielberg isn't asking these new parents to simply save the children, only to acknowledge them.

Follow Joe Pack on Twitter.


Notes from Afghanistan’s Most Dangerous Province

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Counter Narcotics Policeman in a soon-to-be destroyed opium field, Trek Nawa. All photos by Jackson Fager unless otherwise noted.

I recently spent a month in Helmand, Afghanistan's most violent province. Although it has received more attention and resources from the West than any other part of the country, Afghan Security Forces have struggled to defend it from the Taliban during the 18 months since the withdrawal of American and British infantry troops.

This was my eleventh trip to the province, and the situation is deteriorating rapidly. During my month in Helmand I spent time with four different armed groups. Each of the groups lost members to shootings or IEDs within hours or days after I left them. In total, 24 of the people I spent time with are now dead and at least 12 severely injured. Our war may have come to end, for Afghans the war is entering its bloodiest phase.

Three Afghan Local Police fighters in Marjah, aged 10, 12, and 14. The oldest two were kidnapped just days after this picture was taken.

With the Afghan National Security Forces woefully undertrained and under-equipped to protect its citizens against the Taliban, local militias—adopted as a supposedly short-term solution five years ago—are still also heavily involved in the fighting. For instance, when two young fighters I met in Marjah—one just 12 years old and the other 14—were kidnapped by the Taliban, their 53-year-old commander, who also happened to be their grandmother, was forced to kidnap several Taliban family members and organize a prisoner exchange for their release. At no point was the authorities' help offered or sought.

Marjah is a small and scarcely populated farming district that served as the scene of the war's biggest operation, when, in February 2010, 30,000 US and UK forces invaded to oust the Taliban and introduce an Afghan "government in a box." The start of the operation, and the promises made, were covered by all the major networks and newspapers, but very few have been back since. The only evidence that the US was ever here are the few tarmacked roads that now connect Marjah to Lashkar Gar, the provincial capital. (At the time of writing, those roads are blocked by the Taliban.) They are some of the most expensive roads ever laid.


The author with three Afghan Local Police fighters in Marjah, aged 10, 12, and 14. The oldest two were kidnapped just days after this picture was taken.

Before I arrived in Helmand, I spent a few days in Kabul, which used to be known as "the Kabubble," for its reputation of security, pleasure and isolation from the realities the rest of the country was facing. But during my first night, I heard screams. The next day I learned that they had come from two possible sources: In one, two suicide bombers in vehicles were shot before they could detonate their explosives. In the other, Matiullah Khan, the Police chief of Uruzgan province, was killed by a suicide bomber wearing a burqa, outside of the Kabul hotel he was staying in.

The following day a 27-year-old woman named Farkhunda Malikzada was beaten to death outside the Shah-Do Shamshira Mosque. She had been arguing with a Mullah about his selling of charms, or folded pieces of paper with verses from the Quran on them, which some Afghans believe bring good luck. The Mullah accused Farkhunda of burning a Quran, and soon she found herself surrounded by a mob of angry men. They started beating her, those closest to her putting their arms around each other for support as they took turns stomping on her. Many onlookers, none of whom made any serious attempt to stop it, captured the attack on film. Witnesses said that between ten and 15 police officers were among the large crowd either standing by, or encouraging the beating. At one point Farkhunda, her face covered in blood, managed to climb onto a nearby roof, but she was thrown off and knocked unconscious with a thick wooden plank. Her body was then run over by a car, thrown over a wall onto the dry Helmand riverbed, and set on fire. (If the order of these events is incorrect it's because I couldn't bring myself to watch the video again.)

Several politicians were quick to come out in support of the murderers, saying the killing was justified. An investigation found no evidence that Malikzada had burned a Quran. I'd seen video of similar violence in the countryside, and had agreed with a theory that countries like Afghanistan can only reform slowly, with the liberal cities gradually, carefully dragging the conservative countryside into modernity. This attack made nonsense of that theory. The modernizing city of my imagination is more likely a small elite, and not a powerful and growing block that idealists like myself are often so keen to believe exists.

Violence is up almost everywhere in Afghanistan, amongst civilians, soldiers and policemen. Last year saw the highest casualties amongst civilians since the war began, with overall numbers topping 10,000 (3,188 deaths and 6,429 injuries, according to the UN). More than 4,600 security personnel were killed during the same year, almost 90 a week. This year will be far worse. Combine desertion and defection rates among the security forces and the numbers are simply not sustainable. They also remain entirely funded by foreign aid (most of it from the US) and there is no sign that the Afghan government will be able to foot the bill at any point in the foreseeable future.

Commander Abdali, former Counter Narcotics Police Chief of Helmand (in shades), Trek Nawa

My first trip in Helmand was with the Counter Narcotics Police, who were destroying a few poppy fields in Trek Nawa, an area not far from Marjah that was recently in the hands of the Taliban. The commander, an educated, honest, and dedicated man named Mohammad Abdali, was admirably upfront about his work, and wondered aloud what he was actually achieving. He said that in 2014, 100,007 hectares of poppy were cultivated in Helmand, but only 860 were destroyed. In 2015, between 115,000 and 120,000 were cultivated, but only 4500 were destroyed. The opium harvest in Afghanistan has gone up almost every year since the invasion, despite the US spending over eight billion dollars on eradication. If the aim had been to make the Afghan poppies bloom, this would be one of the few success stories of the entire war.

As local men employed by Abdali drove tractors back and forth, annihilating what is the only source of income for many, locals sat on the edge of their fields, looking at Abdali and his men with hatred.


Counter Narcotics Police destroying poppies in the same fields

Two days later, I was sitting with Abdali in his headquarters when he got a call saying his men had been struck by an IED in the same fields. We raced outside to his unarmored pickup truck and with his security detail of just two armed men, sped through the streets of Lashkar Gar, toward Trek Nawa. We arrived just in time to see two of his men being carried into the back of a truck, their faces ripped apart by shrapnel and covered in blood. The main victim, who had spotted the IED and bent down to inspect it, was killed instantly and had already been loaded onto the truck and covered with a blanket. Someone had been watching them, and detonated the IED with a mobile phone after he crouched down to look at it. "One person is dead," said Abdali as we raced back to Lashkar Gar, following the truck with the casualties on board, "he doesn't have a head."

The two survivors were taken to a hospital run by an international NGO called Emergency, illustrating that despite the billions spent, there are nowhere near enough facilities to treat wounded security force members or civilians. Nor does the government have the ability to transfer the wounded, especially from the areas that are being fought for.


Afghan Local Police fighter, Gereshk

A few days later, Abdali drove me to Gereshk, the second largest town in Helmand province where his friend, an Afghan National Police Commander named Hekmatullah Barakzai, had built up a reputation as a fearsome and brave Taliban killer. Hekmatullah had visited the counter narcotics police headquarters once while I was staying there. During a dinner on the roof, his right-hand man had shown me pictures of Taliban corpses they had tied to the hoods of their cars for display, smiling eagerly as he flicked through each one. One picture showed a man whose head was intact but sat on top of his skin, which was spread out beneath him like a bear rug. I asked if he had been skinned or if he was a suicide bomber, but I didn't get an answer, just a delighted laugh.

I first went to Gereshk in 2007, when British forces had been in Helmand for just over a year. They were declaring victory then, saying that the Taliban had been pushed out, that the local community was embracing them and the Afghan government, the latter of which was ready to move in and start providing services. I had even been taken to building sites, where courts, a prison, and a governor's compound were being built. Today, Gereshk appears ready to fall. White Taliban flags appear in almost every direction you look. We were driving a Humvee that had been adapted to work more like a cattle truck. The front two seats remained, but on the back was a large armored cube, which could carry roughly six men, one of whom held my knee as a gesture of affection or re-assurance. US and UK forces stopped using Humvees outside their forward operating bases in 2009, when the much better-armored and expensive MRAPs started arriving. Humvees didn't offer anywhere near enough protection from the Taliban's IEDs. The one we were traveling in was the only one the police had, and the cube we were sitting in was roofless, so if we'd hit an IED we would have been thrown into the air and almost certainly killed. The Humvee left as soon as we were dropped off, so that when we wanted to leave, we'd be traveling like the rest of the police, in a basic Toyota Corolla.


Afghan Local Police fighter, Gereshk

Commander Hekmatullah took us on a walking tour of three of his patrol bases, spread out just a hundred meters or so apart, on the edge of the green zone, the fertile strip of land that flanks the Helmand river. The bases are just abandoned homes, no more than two- or three-room mud huts, surrounded by head high mud walls, with small firing holes smashed into each side. Looking through those holes, I could see more white Taliban flags, often just 200 or 300 meters away. Every time I looked through a hole a policeman would grab me and pull me away, saying it was too dangerous.

One told me he had been shot three times already, and showed me the scar tissue on his chest and leg. He then pulled his fringe back. "One time, see, bullet here," he said, pointing to the right side of his forehead, where the bullet had entered, and then, "out here," pointing to the other. He was one of the few men to be wearing a uniform and said he had been injured six times. "Seventh time maybe finished," he said, laughing.

We walked quickly between each base because we were exposed to snipers whenever we weren't behind the high mud walls. At the last patrol base I finally managed to get Commander Hekmatullah to stop and answer a few questions. He shuffled from leg to leg, looking in every direction except mine, almost never making eye contact. He was unable to remain still, or relax, even for a second. "The Taliban have surrounded the area," he said. "This is the last police post." I asked how much support he was getting from the Americans. "There is none," he said, bluntly. "In the past year and a half, there has been no help." He said that the Taliban had much better weapons than he did. Sometimes he exhaled loudly and looked away, as if there were no point even discussing how bad things were. "The Taliban are much stronger. They shoot at us and we have nothing." As we spoke, a nearby patrol base came under heavy fire from a Taliban Dushka gun. Hekmatullah listened to the Taliban on his radio, communicated briefly with the men being attacked and then said that we had to go. When the Taliban attacked one base, they usually attacked them all. This happened two or three times every week.

Afghan Local Police Commander Baz Gul, with four of his sons, Marjah

We all walked quickly back to the main patrol base and sat down to eat some lunch. Hekmatullah was telling me how strategically important the area was for the Taliban when a sniper's bullet cracked through the building, probably just six or so feet behind our heads. He didn't even seem to notice, and kept talking like nothing had happened. When he paused, I asked, "That was a sniper shot to this building?"

"Yes, it was a sniper shot," he said, as if I had just pointed out that his hair is brown. "This is a very common thing, we are used to this."

After saying our goodbyes we walked outside and climbed into one of the Toyota Corollas. There was a fresh bullet hole just behind the rear passenger window.

A few days after our visit, another of the patrol bases came under attack. Hekmatullah rushed to help, but on his way there drove over a buried cache of explosives the Taliban had planted. He and 21 other men were killed in the blast. Commander Abdali attended his funeral, and is still posting pictures of the two of them working together on his Facebook page. Not long after that, Abdali was inexplicably fired from his job. He was very diplomatic, saying that after Hekmatullah's death, he had lost the ability to focus. But I also heard rumors he was fired because he had ignored politician's demands to free some convicted opium traffickers.


The quickest way out of Helmand is a hazardous drive to Kandahar, the neighboring province. Abdali arranged for us to be picked up at the border by a team of men belonging to the infamous police chief General Abdul Raziq. The list of accusations against him is long, and includes torture, murder and involvement in the opium trade, but that gave me the feeling that he'd at least be able to provide us with some serious security. Which was good, because we'd be traveling through a vast border area largely controlled by the Taliban.

When we pulled up at the meeting point I saw another of those roofless Humvees waiting for us. The front two seats were already taken, and as we loaded our bags into the back, three men appeared, wearing a few pieces of uniform, but with all kinds of additions that made them look more like circus performers than the fighters I had expected. One had a haircut exactly like the Monkees: a perfect, shiny bowl. He was wearing a brown leather flying jacket and a bright yellow scarf. Another had emptied several bags of Cheetohs into his pockets, which spilled out whenever he moved. He would scoop out handfuls at a time and offer them to me.

One of Raziq's policemen, with the Monkees haircut, who would be shot an hour after this photo was taken. Photo by Ben Anderson

It was 10 AM on a Sunday morning, and the men passed around several joints, and a bottle of the worst homemade liquor I have ever tasted. They smelt as if they hadn't washed in months, and their teeth were rotting. Everything was hilarious to them. They posed for pictures, pulled things out of my bag, urged me to sip from their bottle, and pretended to fire maniacally at the buildings we passed, most of which had white Taliban flags flapping above them. This went on for hours. If I ran out of things to do to amuse them, which I often did, they just went through everything we had already done again. They were clearly men who knew they could die at any moment, and had stopped worrying about it.

I was relieved when we finally made it to a police base on the outskirts of Kandahar City. I hugged the men goodbye, which also made them cackle loudly, and we loaded our bags into the cars that would take us to the airport. The men drove straight back to the border where we had met them. When they arrived, their colleagues were being ambushed, and when they jumped out of the cube on the back of the Humvee to try and help, two of them were shot in the chest. The last I heard, they were both in comas.

For more on the security situation in Afghanistan after American troop withdrawal, watch Ben's full report, "Afghanistan After Us," tonight on VICE on HBO at 11 PM. Watch the trailer below.



Handicapping the Insane Republican Presidential Race

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With Donald Trump's escalator ride into the presidential race this week, the Republican 2016 primary has now officially spun off its axis, hurtling out of orbit into some weird reality television show universe, where any truth is magnified to clownish absurdity. On some level, modern politics has always been a little like this—but if 2012 was Jersey Shore, innocuous in its meaningless, this year's race is more like peak Real World—a messy house filled with insane, hysterical people where the stakes are unclear, and also ominously high.

Trump, of course, is Trump: Ostensibly a real-estate magnate and television personality, he is, in 2015, more like a deranged rich uncle who keeps showing up at your house unannounced and taking about how much he hates it. With no tangible base of support or political career to speak of, the Donald hired actors to fill the crowd at his campaign launch Tuesday, and then proceeded to suggest that undocumented Mexican immigrants were largely rapists. None of that changes the fact that he is also, no joke, running for president of the United States.

It's tempting to dismiss this as a footnote—an easily brushed-aside piece of political trivia that you'll have a hard time explaining to your children. The Democratic National Committee basically did as much in a snarky statement welcoming the "much-needed seriousness that has previously been lacking from the GOP field." But Trump's campaign announcement comes at a weird time in the GOP's 2016 race, making him just a little bit more difficult to ignore.

Currently, Trump is polling at around 3.6 percent, accordingto the RealClearPolitics average, putting him at No. 9 among a possible 15 Republican candidates competing for the nomination. To be fair, 3.6 percent isn't very far from nothing—but it's also only seven points behind Jeb Bush, the party's presumptive frontrunner.

This doesn't mean that Trump has a chance. To be very clear, Donald Trump will not be president. But it does mean that the Republican field is so messy, so filled with loud and petty politicking and candidates who can't convince anyone of their value, that, as comical as it sounds, Trump has about the same amount of support as many of the candidates his party sees as legit. Which doesn't say so much about Trump as it does about the other candidates.

At the moment, Republicans essentially have seven guys polling at almost identical rates nationwide. Bush leads, with about 11 percent, and Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz trail close behind. Unbelievably, Carson, the retired pediatric neurosurgeon, led a national poll last week, despite having offered no compelling evidence to date that he even knows what the president does.

Because those seven dudes are running about even, what would normally appear to be the second tier—people like Trump, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Chris Christie, who will all decidedly not be president—are running only a few points behind. To give you a point of reference, at this time during the 2008 primary cycle, Barack Obama trailed Hillary by 12 points. Jeb Bush isn't even polling at 12 percent.

It's particularly interesting that Jeb! — who should've been the big man on campus, the alpha male, the thoroughbred of this maniac horse race —just can't get ahead of the game. That same Monmouth poll that put Carson at the top of the field found that voters are souring on Bush. The conservative fringe hates him, and even Republican moderates, his expected ace in the hole, are bored as hell by his campaign. The RINO Establishment, meanwhile, is openly skeptical of the youngest Bush scion. "When he said at the outset of his run that he'd be willing to lose the primary to win the general, it seemed a poetic (not to mention nonsensical) exaggeration," the National Review's Rich Lowry remarked, "but occasionally it's appeared to be his actual plan."

Bush's father and brother were presidents: that does not make Bush exciting, but rather a known quantity. No matter how many explanation points he puts at the end of his name, Jeb! will still be a drip in the public eye, and that's not the right look for this madhouse primary.

Consider the competition: Paul, for example, has spent the week writing screeds about blowing up the tax code; Cruz can't get through a speech without saying something completely insane—even Walker has the Koch brothers, the deep-pocketed kingmakers who make Mr. Burns look like Bill and Melinda Gates. Rubio, meanwhile, is a ball of fun: young, charismatic, and worthy of New York Times' hit pieces about his driving record. And Rush Limbaugh's frenzied defense of Carson guarantees that the good doctor will inspire some frothy-mouthed support for the foreseeable future.

The rest of the 2016 wannabes, like Trump, will continue to be mostly charming distractions, spare bodies packing the clown car—nobody remembers Morry Taylor, after all, and nobody's going to remember Trump after he bows out to host an Iowa special of The Apprentice. But in the absence of any serious contest, Trump and his sidekicks—the Carly Fiorinas and Rick Santorums and Rick Perrys—have become the main event, the blaring laugh track to the 2016 Republican race that will only make it harder for someone to actually win this thing.

Follow Kevin Lincoln on Twitter.

Did the Ancient Greeks Get Ebola?

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Etruscan relief via Wikimedia Commons

In 430 BC, an incredibly nasty plague hit Athens. Dubbed "the Plague of Athens" by relatively unimaginative historians, the epidemic gave citizens red skin, diarrhea, and high fever, among other symptoms. Modern-day academics have no idea what actually caused all this suffering, though they've guessed it could have been Typhus, measles, smallpox, or even toxic shock syndrome.

But Powel Kazanjian, a professor of medicine at the University of Michigan, has his own theory about the culprit: According to him, it's none other than our old friend Ebola.

"The clinical features of the plague resemble Ebola at least as well as the other conditions historians have considered," Kazanjian, whose paper "Ebola in Antiquity" was published in Clinical Infectious Diseases earlier this month, told VICE. According to him, this connection can be made thanks to fresh information about the epidemiology of Ebola gathered from the horrific outbreak in West Africa.

Like most scientists, he's quick to point out that his conclusions aren't the only possible answer, however. "At the end of the day, the answer is that Ebola is a possible cause, as are the other conditions that historians have speculated," Kazanjian said.


For more on plagues, check out "The Return of the Black Death"


We know about the Plague of Athens's symptoms mostly because the most famous historian of all time, Thucydides, reported live from the hot zone, providing firsthand coverage of the horror show. He said the disease originated in "Ethiopia," which is what the Ancient Greeks called Sub-Saharan Africa, and got to Greece through Egypt. Modern cases of Ebola originate in Sub-Sarahan Africa as well, with two simultaneous outbreaks in Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo appearing in 1976.

Thucydides himself survived a bout with the deadly disease, allowing him to describe it in gut-wrenching detail in The History of the Peloponnesian War (available in bookstores everywhere, or just download it for free because it's over 2,000 years old and therefore in the public domain).

Here are the Ebola-ish early stages of the disease as described by Thucydides:

People in good health were all of a sudden attacked by violent heats in the head, and redness and inflammation in the eyes, the inward parts, such as the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and fetid breath

[...]

Discharges of bile of every kind named by physicians ensued, accompanied by very great distress. In most cases also an ineffectual retching followed, producing violent spasms, which in some cases ceased soon after, in others much later.

This matches nicely with the symptoms laid out in the CDC's fact sheet on Ebola: "Fever, severe headache, muscle pain, weakness, fatigue, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain."

Kazanjian's paper points out that in cases of both Ebola and the Plague of Athens, those who survived the plague became indispensable as nurses. From Thucydides:

It was with those who had recovered from the disease that the sick and the dying found most compassion. These knew what it was from experience, and had now no fear for themselves; for the same man was never attacked twice—never at least fatally. And such persons not only received the congratulations of others, but themselves also, in the elation of the moment, half entertained the vain hope that they were for the future safe from any disease whatsoever.

Another similarity is the compounding effect of fear on both plagues. Fear not only "intensified the disruption of society and damage to the individual, " according to Kazanjian, but it also "amplified the spread of disease." During the plague of Athens, Thucydides wrote, "if they were afraid to visit each other, they perished from neglect; indeed many houses were emptied of their inmates for want of a nurse."

But there are also dissimilarities. For instance, victims of the Plague of Athens lost their fingers, toes, and genitals to what sounds like gangrene, an atypical symptom of Ebola. "The loss of digits that Thucydides mentions could be due to lack of blood flow or 'ischemia' from low blood pressure (hypotension) or bleeding/clotting complications from Ebola," Kazanjian said. He pointed out that the Plague of Athens also included "coughing and chest pain, which can occur about a third of the time with Ebola," but the sneezing that Thucydides describes, "would not be compatible with any of the possible causes of the Plague that historians have entertained, including Ebola."

But, Kazanjian added, one of the reasons to study diseases from the past is that viruses and bacteria don't stay the same. "Clinical and epidemiologic features of a particular disease can change over time, as they have for ebola outbreaks from 1976 to today," said Kazanjian, pointing out shifting percentages of Ebola patients who experience bleeding and changes in the mortality rate. Syphilis is another case, he said, since it no longer causes the kinds of blisters first described in the 1490s.

But more importantly, he said looking back shows us that "fear and panic do not help to control the spread of epidemic diseases." Studying earlier epidemics injects some valuable perspective into our contemporary views on Ebola—and "AIDS in the early phase of the epidemic," he was quick to point out. Fear and panic always just make things worse.

"In other words," he said, "there are worthwhile reasons to study prior epidemics, even if we never know the cause for sure."

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Watch Host Ben Anderson Debrief Our New HBO Episode About Afghanistan

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We're now almost done with the third season of our showVICE on HBO. Among other stories, we've taken a look at climate change in Antarctica, American militias taking the law into their own hands, and the cocaine highway that leads from the streets of Venezuela to the sinuses of European teenagers.

We just aired a new episode in which Ben Anderson went to Afghanistan to investigate the security situation in the country as American involvement wound down. We sat down with Anderson to debrief the trip—check it out above.

Watch VICE Fridays on HBO at 11 PM, 10 PM central or on HBO's new online streaming service, HBO Now.

We Interviewed Our Dads About 'Led Zeppelin IV'

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We Interviewed Our Dads About 'Led Zeppelin IV'
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