Al Capone after an arrest in Chicago in the 1930s. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

The Italian-American Mafia is embedded in our popular culture. Hollywood movies, books, reality shows, video games—we just can't seem to get enough of the "mob." From Lucky Luciano to The Godfather, from John Gotti to The Sopranos, history has been juxtaposed with fiction to produce a rich national pastime.

Goodfellas, among the greatest American mob films, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this fall—and continues to pop up in real news headlines.

Of course, the Mafia isn't what it once was: a power structure capable of influencing national politicians and making historic heists at major transportation centers. But the FBI maintains that La Cosa Nostra—the sprawling group originally steered by Sicilian immigrants that we hear about most often—is the "foremost organized criminal threat to American society." The feds estimate that various Italian Mafia groups have more than 3,000 members scattered mostly throughout the country, with their largest presence in New York, southern New Jersey, and Philadelphia.

A recent New Jersey case demonstrated the mob's endurance, as Acting State Attorney General John J. Hoffman said his investigation into the Lucchese crime family "revealed that traditional organized crime remains a corrosive presence in the US and continues to reap huge profits through criminal enterprises..."

VICE reached out to some one-time mobsters like Gambino family soldiers John Alite and Louis Ferrante, along with La Cosa Nostra experts Christian Cipollini and Scott Burnstein, for their take on where the Mafia's at after all these years.

VICE: What's the present state of the Mafia in America?
John Alite: It's going back to the old ways of [stay] underground and stay quiet and build up. Make money and stay low key.

Scott Burnstein: The Mafia in America today is still surviving, however, [it's] not thriving like it once was. Serious mob activity still exists, although not as "greased in" to the high levels of political power and the country's infrastructure as in the Mafia's golden era of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Traditional mob hotbeds like New York, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Providence, Philadelphiaand, and New Jersey are still operational and functioning at a consistent level (some have been hampered by legal assaults in recent years), while other cities with a rich mob history like Cleveland, Milwaukee, Kansas City, St. Louis, LA,Pittsburgh, Buffalo, New Orleans, and Tampa Bay are either defunct altogether or heading quickly in that direction.

The Mafia lineage is not being passed on down to the younger generation as it had been in the past, and a lot of members of the Mafia—unlike in the mob's heyday—are refraining from bringing their sons into the "family business."

What caused the Mafia's decline?
Louis Ferrante: The world changed. At one time, Italian immigrants had few ways to earn a living and provide for their families. Today, Italians have the same opportunities to advance as anyone else.

Christian Cipollini: Times change, they ebb and flow. The Mafia in the United States was absolutely an amazingly long-standing organization that thrived, adapted, and survived for over a century. The downfall was going to happen no matter what, when considering history's epic tales of virtually every empire rising and inevitably declining. The American Mafia had based a lot of its progress on the assistance of politicians, the supply of contraband, and rackets across the board. As time went on, there were fewer people taking payoffs, younger and more savvy organizations excelled in the drug trade, and many of the rackets the Mafia dominated—well, they just don't exist anymore. Then, of course, the deadly blow of RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act] and the fact that a loyalty is merely a word now, not an oath.

A Mafioso faced with decades in prison or switching sides isn't even a dilemma anymore—they talk and walk.

Check out our wise guy-themed fashion shoot: "Crooked Conduct"

Is there any way for the Mafia to regain some of its old luster?
John Alite: The power is still there as far as the money-earning capacity in all the same industries, but the fear is being lost because of the reluctance of being as violent on mobsters' parts because of all the technology.

Scott Burnstein: No, they will never achieve the status it did in the mid-20th Century. Modern law enforcement and the American legal system has too many safeguards in place. The "talent pool" has been dwindling for decades at this point. They'll never cease to exist, but they'll never ascend to prior heights, either.

The feds might like to claim credit for dismantling the mob through RICO cases. What's your take on that?
Louis Ferrante: In part, yes. They've made a lot of people think, "Is this worth it?" No law enforcement has a clear understanding of how it works and therefore how to stop it. Moreover, gambling is legal. Alcohol is legal. And just about anyone can get a loan from a bank. Ordinary people no longer need the Mafia. And with no demand, the organization is unnecessary.

Christian Cipollini: I believe that RICO was indeed a massive blow to organized crime as a whole, once the statute had actually been wielded properly and with frequency. Some may not realize RICO had been instituted in 1970 when Congress passed the act, but frequent and effective use of the tool didn't really happen much until the 1980s. As for the government being the be-all, end-all—there were many other inevitable factors at play. Yes, the RICO application was devastating to the mob, but so was the lack of trust internally, disorganization in hierarchy, the dissolution of once-lucrative rackets, insiders turning state's witness, and the influx of other, more readily-adapted crime organizations.

Will there ever be any more Mafia Dons like John Gotti or Lucky Luciano?
John Alite: My honest opinion is John Gotti Sr. was the worst thing ever for the mob. The public doesn't understand how much damage he did to it by his arrogant ways. The mobsters do! Especially now, looking back. But guys like Lucky were great, they had earning capacity. He also understood politics back then. You have to adjust to the times, and Gotti never did that. His demise and the mob's was his ego over this thing. This thing was supposed to be way bigger then any man or ego.

Scott Burnstein: Yes, there is at least one in existence today. His name is "Skinny Joey" Merlino, he's the boss of the Philadelphia Mafia and is a gangland icon in my opinion, [one] you can put up there with the most dynamic, gutsy, and ambitious mob leaders of all time.

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

Why do you think popular culture is so rife with mobster tales?
Louis Ferrante: My lawless years were undoubtedly the most free I've ever felt. I think everyone has a part of them that wishes they could do whatever they want. Imagine someone aggravates you at work today, and you can just pistol-whip him. Lots of people like to fantasize about things like that.

Christian Cipollini: The romantic notion of gangsterism will always enthrall us as a culture. To live vicariously through the stories, fictional and true alike, of people who made their own rules, or held unfathomable power—it 's sort of mesmerizing and makes for irresistible pop culture candy. There just seems to be an endless craving or curiosity about what life would be like in the underworld. The flip side of every day life, the telling your boss to shove it, never having a bill collector bother you, just wine, dine, dress impeccably, count the money, and maybe kick some ass with no repercussions—it all seems so appealing when having a bad day or [you] just need a mental escape.

Stories about the mob, or kingpins, or just outlaws in general tap into that psychology, I think, but the romantic notion is just that—a notion. Those in the know are well aware very few happy endings occur in the underworld, and that 's not even scratching the surface of all the darker realities, [like] prison, death, paranoia, [and] addiction.

Follow Seth Ferranti on Twitter.

She's probably calling someone to talk about sex, am I right?! Photo courtesy Comedy Central

"Is 'titty fuck' spelled with an 'ie' or a 'y'?"

It is 2005, and I am an employee at a respected and credible national newswire in their Vancouver bureau. We publish an authoritative style guide that most newsrooms, PR companies, and journalism schools refer to when they need to figure out if "Church of Christ" is capitalized or "webmaster" is one word or two.

I'm editing interviews my colleague has filed from Penticton, BC, about a local nightclub that's hosting a spin-the-wheel contest for a pair of breast implants. Young ladies from across the province, as well as Alberta and Seattle have gathered in this tiny town for their shot at a pair of fake boobs. While most of the women my co-worker interviewed have heart-wrenching stories about low self-esteem and disgust for their bodies, one contestant is a little more frank: "I just wanna titty fuck!"

I know we can't use this quote, but I'm still curious about the spelling, as I also know for certain it wouldn't be in our style guide.

My editor, who resembles a sophisticated mid-30s Anne of Green Gables, looks at me with stunned eyes. This is clearly not the kind of question I should be asking aloud in this newsroom. And yet, I do.

It's this type of situation that demonstrates what makes me feel statically different from the general population. Inappropriate questions, comments, and remarks about sex are my special thing. I have no filter and I know few boundaries. It's my fuel. It's my voice. It's how I assert myself—brazenly. I am keen to provoke.

That's because I identify as a Sex Person. It's a noun I'd like to introduce to the English vocabulary, and I'm open to gifting it to other languages.

You're either a Sex Person, or you're not. What distinguishes the two types of people, generally, is how much they're willing to share or go there. People who have a hard time uttering the names of genitals or fluids that come from genitals, for example, are not Sex People. They will discuss matters of sex discreetly, with people they trust, and never in a public place. Even talking about sex-related matters with their doctor is a challenging notion.

Sex People will somehow make themselves known. They are generally obvious (Andy Dick, Amy Schumer) but are capable of being subtle (Oscar Wilde). Every family has one: They're generally the person to make an inappropriate joke at the family Christening or gift relatives with dildos and vibrators at Hanukkah. Even though Kim Kardashian has the sex tape, it's Khloe who's the Sex Person. Her lack of demureness—getting her sister to wax her on camera and regularly and vocally big-upping black balls—places her squarely in our camp.

I've been compelled by this term ever since I first heard it being used in the comedy scene in Vancouver, around five years ago. To be accurate, it was the masculine version of the term, Sex Guy. One incident in particular stands out: An improv group was performing a scene, as themselves, rather than characters. When one member brought up the other's recent compulsively slutty behaviour, he said, "We've got ourselves a real Sex Guy over here."

When I hear the term Sex Guy, it's always with a zippy tone, as if the person should punctuate the words with a wink and fingers pointed in the shape of a gun, while making a clicking sound.

In Judd Apatow's recent book, Sick in the Head: Conversations about Life and Comedy, he talks to Amy Schumer about her sexually charged material. Though she admits she's not a promiscuous person, her willingness to share her experience makes her a Sex Person (emphasis mine):

Amy Schumer: Well, it's a part of me, too. Because the stuff you're copping to and the saddest, worst moments of your life—that's the stuff people connect to and appreciate. In reality, I've almost always had a boyfriend. Every year, if I have like one or two sexual experiences, they might both be hilarious.

Judd Apatow: And then they add up, and people think, She must be doing this all the time. I have maybe six experiences from my whole life. But if I go onstage and tell three of them, it sounds like I have hundreds of them.

Amy Schumer: Right. But you can get up there and do that, and you're not the Sex Guy. But if I do it, I am. So I just embraced it.

And yet, this isn't officially considered a thing in our vernacular, like "humblebrag"or "letter carrier"... yet.

Precious little is on Google, and the only thing on Urban Dictionary is sex girl, which basically defines a lady who is open to casual sex, and doesn't exactly align with my theory:

1. A female with whom one is not in a relationship, but is currently or potentially having sexual relations.

2. A casual sex partner.
Where's the sex girls at!?

On YouTube, there's a terrible song called "Sex Person" by the Grammar Club, and a seven-second clip from 30 Rock of Kenneth saying to Tracy Jordan's wife: "I like your top. I'm a real good Sex Person. I do it in all the different ways."

Every single linguist I approached to examine this term, including Ben Zimmer at the Wall Street Journal, had never heard of it.

"If no one knows about it, maybe it's not really there, so to speak, and the few instances you've heard are idiosyncratic," said Dr. Charles Boberg, associate professor of Linguistics at McGill. "It's true that you might be onto the very first stirrings of a future trend, but it might just as easily fizzle out and go nowhere; it's hard to predict the future of these things."

I chatted with Kurt Metzger, a writer on Inside Amy Schumer, who isn't exactly one to hold back his disdain for things. He admits to hearing the term "Sex Comic" used a lot though never "Sex Guy" or "Sex Person." While he thinks such labels are "fucking dumb," he could see it being used in his industry a lot.

"It's all packaging," he said. "I can see an agent doing that. 'Yeah, he's a Sex Guy, he'd be perfect for that.' It's all marketing."

My intention to make Sex Person a thing isn't about marketing or selling a brand. It's about validating a way of being, a form of expression that is inherent in so many of us. That way, the next time someone close to you loudly asks if you've seen more clam- or oyster-shaped vaginas in your life, you'll know what kind of a person you're dealing with.

Follow Elianna Lev on Twitter.

Photo via Flickr.

Watch: VICE Meets 50 Cent

Rapper-turned-actor-turned-video game protagonist Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent, has just filed for bankruptcy, Noisey reports. The 40-year-old rapper, who's estimated net worth was $155 million in May, has now reported assets and debts between $10 million and $50 million.

The filing occurred three days after Jackson lost the lawsuit against Rick Ross's former partner, Lavonia Leviston. Jackson was sentenced to pay $5 million after intentionally leaking her private sex-tape—an amount that may still increase in value, since Fiddy never actually showed up for the trial or the verdict.

The bankruptcy is a bit of a shock, since 50 Cent is known to be one of hip-hop's most successful businessmen. The rapper's stake in Vitamin Water was reported to have earned him around $100 million and, just five days ago, the New York Times did a profile on his exceptional business instincts and thriving career.

Sorry, Fiddy. Time to get rich again or die trying.

Allie Eibeler. Photo by Alex Valderana

In our Hidden Language column, Nat Towsen interviews an insider of a particular subculture in order to examine the terms and phrases created by that subculture to serve its own needs. This is language innate to an insider and incomprehensible, if not invisible, to an outsider.

Allie Eibeler speaks with a well-practiced sweetness, even when describing hand-sewing as "death" and "hell," or when yelling at a particularly difficult piece of spandex. Eibeler began cosplaying in high school eight years ago as a casual hobbyist, but it became an obsession during college. Since then, she's found in cosplay both a profession and a group of her closest friends.

"They're passionate, they're helpful, they're kind, they're stubborn as hell," Eibeler says of her fellow cosplayers. "But they're definitely the most caring and nurturing group of people I've ever met. Everyone has a very heightened sense of empathy. I think that's what makes us want to make costumes for so many of these characters, because we feel for them so much."

The point of cosplay, she explains, is to have fun "and look great while doing it."

But it's also a space for experimentation and empowerment. "You don't have [to] conform to what society would have you wear. Cosplay lets you go outside your comfort zone."

In the increasingly mainstream world of "geek culture," cosplayers remain outliers, even to other geeks. "We get a bad rep," Eibeler elucidates, "but we're normal people. There's a lot of diversity in the community. There's straight people, gay people. There's male, female, transgender, genderqueer. There's accountants, lawyers, businessmen, and every kind of artist under the sun."

"That's what sets a lot of cosplayers apart: They're unapologetically who they are."

Allie Eibeler. Photo by Alex Valderana

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Brackets denote paraphrasing by the author. All other text is directly quoted from Ms. Eibeler.

Cosplay: n. A form of performance art where a person creates a costume to represent a specific character in media
v. Putting on a costume to represent a specific character in media
Etymology: A portmanteau of "costume play" or "costumed play"

Screen-accurate: adj. Same brand, same item that they wore on the show.
Alt: n. Not the exact piece, but a really great second choice.

Mod: v. To take whatever piece you have—a jacket or a dress or whatever—and rework it, making it more accurate to the costume you're trying to do.

Base: n. Something that you buy and heavily mod., e.g. a pre-made anime costume.

Screen-Worn: adj. Literally the exact article of clothing the actor wore on scene.

Civvies: n.
1. Civilian clothes (non-cosplay clothing)
2. When a character wears civilian clothes
e.g. Steve [Rogers] is wearing civvies. He's not in his Captain America costume.

Masquerade: n. [A competition wherein] you go up in costume and do a skit related to what you are wearing. You get judged on your costumes and skit. You don't have to go into craftsmanship judgment. They're just judging based on your performance and how you look.

Cosplay Contest: n. [A competition wherein] the idea is to get up there and show off what you're wearing. You enter as either novice, journeyman, master, or professional—there's a league. You get paid a lot of money if you win.

The Four Levels: n. [Divisions] in a cosplay contest: novice, journeyman, master, or professional.

Novice: [Entry level]

Journeyman: If you won in novice for a bigger con, you would compete in Journeyman.

Master: Once you win journeyman, you go to Master.

Professional: If you're a professional costume designer or makeup artist or FX person, you have to compete in Professional.

Cosplay Famous: adj. Famous in [the world of] cosplay.

Roleplay: v. To stay in character, e.g. If I'm in costume as Amy Pond [from Doctor Who], I'll run up to a Doctor and be like "Doctor, I found you!" And usually they'll play along. It's fun.

Gender-bend: v. Make a character that identifies as male or female the opposite gender, e.g. [A female] making Bucky Barnes, who identifies as a male in the comics, a female.

Crossplay: v. Make yourself look like a [the opposite gender], e.g. A lot of men will do male Elsas [from Frozen].

Gender-bend and Crossplay: v. When both your gender and the character's gender are swapped, e.g. A woman dressing as a male Elsa.

Allie Eibeler. Photo by Morgan Campbell

THE TAKEAWAY

A base could refer to a cheap or unremarkable piece of clothing that can nonetheless be a solid foundation for an outfit. Ever seen a coworker on the street and barely recognize them due to their attire? They're in civvies.

FURTHER READING

Eibeler recommends In the Name of the Moon, a documentary about the anime series Sailor Moon that heavily features cosplay. Readers might also be interested in the comic book Cosplayers by Dash Shaw.

See more of Allie Eibeler's cosplay on Facebook and Instagram.

Follow Nat Towsen on Twitter.

Joaquín Guzmán Loera in 1992. Photo by Fabrizio León Diez/via Wikimedia Commons

The tunnel would have been a tight squeeze for most men, but it was just the right size for the one known as "El Chapo."

Even though the feds have said he surpassed Pablo Escobar as the most successful drug kingpin of all time—and that was four years ago—precious little biographical detail is available on Joaquín Guzmán Loera, better known by his nickname, which means "shorty" in English. Even his date of birth is a mystery, although he's thought to be in his late 50s, a self-made man who transcended illiteracy and poverty to become one of the most successful businessmen of all time.

What Mexican officials do know for certain that Shorty stands five feet, five inches tall—just an inch shorter than the passageway he used to escape from the country's most secure prison on Saturday. The occasion marks the second time the head of the Sinaloa Cartel has burrowed his way out of prison, and is a legit disaster for the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto, which touted his re-capture last year as evidence that the country was finally cracking down on organized crime, as the New York Times reported.

Guzmán descended into a two-by-two-foot hole on Saturday night around 9 PM and remerged through a 20-inch wide rectangle inside a cinderblock building about a mile away from the Altiplano prison complex, VICE News reported. The tunnel, which sounds like something out of a superhero movie, is apparently an extraordinary engineering project complete with ventilation, lighting, and even a rail system connected to some kind of motorcycle for hauling out all the dirt.

The escape is just another mind-boggling chapter in the life of Guzmán, which has all the trappings of a Hollywood blockbuster. Born to a poor family in the village of El Tuna in Badiraguato, in northwest Mexico, El Chapo grew up selling oranges, dropped out of school in third grade, and started supporting his family with a marijuana operation when he was 15. When he left his hometown, he started his career in the Guadalajara Cartel, and emerged as a key player in the reconfigured drug trade after the DEA cracked down on traffickers in South America.

El Chapo made his name and a Forbes-worthy fortune thanks to more than 100 smuggling tunnels near the Mexican-American border. But after a long and violent run that climaxed in a bloody battle with the Tijuana Cartel, he was captured in Guatemala in 1993 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

His reputation entered the stratosphere when he became the Houdini of the Mexican Drug trade in 2001, reportedly bribing a prison guard to hide him in a laundry cart. From that point on, El Chapo was more myth than man—a goliath who apparently could vanish into thin air. He evaded recapture for more than a decade despite being among the most wanted men on the planet. (To that end, he owned several houses equipped with trap doors and escape hatches, like one hidden under a bathtub.)

While he was a fugitive, Guzmán was the subject of numerous narcocorridos—folk ballads that lionize drug traffickers—and there were rumors that he'd show up at restaurants, confiscate everyone's cell phone, and pay customers' bills for the evening.

Although he clearly had some admirers rooting for him, it was a huge deal when El Chapo was finally captured in February 2014. After all, former President Felipe Calderon had made cracking down on Mexican drug violence a major goal of his administration. But despite all the back-slapping, American officials were worried that the drug lord might escape again and argued for his extradition to the United States, where he might find less success with bribes.

If El Chapo ever does get indicted in the US, he'll be tried from coast to coast. According to federal court records, there are open cases against him in New Hampshire, New York, Texas, California, and Illinois. The latter attributes 1,985 kilograms of cocaine and heroin seized in the state between June 2005 and November 2008 to his operation. A 2009 Brooklyn indictment that was unsealed last year charges El Chapo and cohorts called El Mayo, El Nacho, and El Rey with deploying sicarios—or hit men—to carry out 12 murders.

"We share the government of Mexico's concern regarding the escape of Joaquin Guzmán Loera 'Chapo' from a Mexican prison," Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement yesterday. "In addition to his crimes in Mexico, he faces multiple drug trafficking and organized crime charges in the United States."

Mexican officials were adamant that El Chapo would never escape again. But an account associated with the drug lord's son seemed to suggest weeks ago that something was brewing.

"I haven't lied and I haven't cried, but it's fair for men and here is mine," Ivan Guzman apparently wrote on May 8. "I have armed people and I promise you soon the general will be back."

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

Photo courtesy of the Mütter Museum

A person's skeleton is the most durable part of their remains. After the papery skin and tissue of a corpse slowly decay, after the eyeballs flatten and liquefy, the bones stay intact. Because of their longevity, bones are useful in a number of academic disciplines—archaeology, anthropology, and medicine, to name a few—to learn more about human life and death. But they're also morbidly cool, and seem less disturbing than taxidermy or death masks.

In a way, skeletons are one of the least intimidating ways to engage with the dead. The lack of skin, hair, and eyeballs equates to fewer tangible reminders of the living human that once was, making skeletons far less creepy than human cadavers. Which is perhaps why some people start bone collections.

One of the most impressive private collections of human skeletal specimens belongs to Ryan Matthew Cohn, who can trace his interest in bone collecting back to his childhood in upstate New York, when he would "forage through the woods searching for artifacts to add to my already growing collection of natural ephemera and osteological remnants." Today, Cohn—who is the co-host of the Science Channel show Oddities—counts over 200 human skulls among his private collection of thousands of assorted items.

When we spoke, Cohn referred to his collection as a "human bone museum." His favorite specimens are the elongated skulls of Peru, which are 3,000 years old and look a bit like the skeletal version of Coneheads. He explained to me that "before the 20th Century, it was common for rich Europeans to travel everywhere and bring back mementos or souvenirs that created these 'cabinets of curiosities.'" Rather than collecting human remains during vacations, Cohn sources his items from de-acquisitioned museum collections, medical schools, or other private collectors.

Ryan Matthew Cohn in his apartment. Photo courtesy of Axel Dupeux

Of course, collecting human remains is not always so simple—some restrictions do apply. In the United States, the Native American Graves and Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990 criminalized the sale and transport for profit of human remains of Native Americans. Three states currently have their own restrictions in place. There are also laws in most states forbidding grave robbing, or digging up human remains from burial places.

Ascertaining whether a human bone specimen for sale in the United States has been legally sourced is fairly straightforward—or at least, the red flags are pretty obvious. Mike Zohn, co-owner of Obscura Antiques & Oddities in New York City, has been buying and selling human bones for 30 years and told me that people sometimes try to sell him skulls with obvious signs of having been buried. He immediately turns those down.

"We've been visited by Fish and Wildlife, by New York City Department of Conservation. We've had all sorts of people come through the shop and we have a clean bill of health," he said. "Everything is above board."

Ethical considerations around the sourcing can sometimes be tricky though, due to the lack of reliable record keeping. In a 2007 Wired magazine piece, Scott Carney wrote about a vast black market trade in human bones from India that continued despite the country's official ban. The 1986 ban itself was passed amid rumors that traders were murdering people for their bones.

Similarly, in 2006, the Chinese government banned the export of human remains, due to the growing trade in plastinated bodies for exhibition with very little oversight. One exhibitor of plastinated bodies alleged the source was "unclaimed Chinese bodies that the police have given to medical schools" and has a disclaimer about not being able to independently confirm this.

Watch: "Black diggers" are illegally digging up and selling the remains of WWII soldiers.

The 2006 China ban is one reason why the supply of human bones available on the open market has substantially decreased in the past decade. Zohn showed me a 1975 catalog from medical supply company Kilgore International, where an adult skull could be bought for as low as $27.50. Today, a skull will run anywhere from several hundred dollars to even $1,000, depending on "how complete they are, especially the teeth."

Much of Zohn's inventory are exports from either China or India, from before the countries' respective bans were in place. Zohn has also purchased bones from Masonic temples that re-purposed medical specimens, as well as estate sales by doctors.

There are online retailers, too: The Bone Room sells human bones online, as do some sellers on Ebay, which allows the sale of "clean, articulated (jointed), non-Native American skulls and skeletons used for medical research." Zohn also pointed me to Indian company bforbones.com where packets of 50 teeth are listed for sale for $200 plus $25 shipping (the legality is unclear).

Photo courtesy of Mike Zohn

Other bones are donated, and displayed, for medical research purposes. Many museum collections were obtained this way, rather than sourcing them from private sellers. Today, someone can even opt to donate their bones for scientific study at a body farm.

One of the largest collections of osteological specimens open to the public is at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, a medical history museum that "helps the public understand the mysteries and beauty of the human body and to appreciate the history of diagnosis and treatment of disease." The museum's media and marketing manager Gillian Ladley said "by far the most well known" skeleton in their collection is that of Harry Eastlack. Eastlack had Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (aka Stone Man Syndrome) and donated his skeleton to aide in research of the rare condition. Mütter is also home to the Hyrtl Skull Collection—comprised of 139 skulls from 19th Century Viennese anatomist Joseph Hyrtl. Hyrtl studied the differences in human skulls in order to discredit the claims of phrenologists that were popular at the time and are now considered pseudoscience.

A similar collection stands on display at the Museum of Osteology. The museum's marketing director Josh Villemarette told me they have four human specimens on display at their Oklahoma City location, and seven in Orlando, Florida. Their most popular attractions are skeletons from a dwarf and one with kyphosis. Villemarette estimates that between five and ten percent of their business is from recreational collectors.

Photo courtesy of Evan Michelson

That said, the most impressive collections and displays of human bones are to be found outside the United States. Amsterdam's Vrolik Museum and Paris's Museum of Natural History have large collections of human skeletons on display. Two museums in Turin, Italy—the Human Anatomy Museum and the Cesar Lombroso—house centuries-old human remains. The former, which dates back to 1739, offers a unique opportunity to view human specimens in its original 19th Century architectural setting.

The Lombroso Museum's history is much darker. Cesar Lombroso was a late 19th Century criminologist who collected human specimens in a futile and often racist effort to try and prove that there were hereditary physical characteristics tied to criminality. The museum—which was, at one time, not open to the public—contains hundreds of skulls acquired from the gallows of Turin, "natives from far off lands," dead soldiers, and public autopsies. Lombroso's preserved head is also on display there.

Related: Ancient Skeletons Chronicle the Spread of Leprosy

Whether the collections are private or housed in museums, and whether the bones come from private donors or dubious means, those who collect human bone specimens are serious about respect. Zohn told me it's not uncommon for people to express a certain visceral discomfort at the trading in human remains, but he has a different perspective: "We're respectful, we're not making fun of it. We love this stuff, we hold it up on a pedestal."

Another common question both he and Cohn get is if they've ever experienced "energy" or spirits in the presence of all the bones they work with. Cohn relayed the following anecdote: "If any place was going to be haunted or have spirits, it would be my apartment. I remember one time I actually thought that I saw a ghost, or some kind of vision of something. I was really excited to see what this was and why. It was actually my reflection in my vanity door."

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I don't really remember the first time I came across a Bloom County comic strip. The Pulitzer Prize–winning Berkeley Breathed creation only ran from 1980 until 1989, when I was all of two years old, so I couldn't have seen it in the newspaper. That means I found it initially in the shelves of comic collections scattered around my dad's house, among the Peanuts and Dilbert and Doonesbury and Sherman's Lagoon and Calvin and Hobbes books. I still have a memory of looking at the cover of Bloom County Babylon, a massive paperback adorned with a glossy image of Opus the Penguin gazing lidded-eyed out at the reader while an anonymous female hand strokes his (awfully phallic) nose. Oh, and he's holding a cane topped with a gold Bill the Cat head, complete with bugged-out eyes and extended tongue.

It was a weird image with which to sell a bunch of comic strips: surreal, impenetrable, almost sexy. To my ten-year-old brain, Bloom County stood out among all the strips I devoured for being alluringly adult. It was populated with the usual comics-page assortment of talking animals and precocious children, but these characters were more carefully drawn—in every sense—than most. They also drank, made risqué cracks about sex and drugs and guns, and tossed political references that were utterly, utterly incomprehensible to a pre-teen in the Clinton era. I mean, how was I supposed to decipher this "Louie Louie" parody?

These memories are bubbling up in the wake of today's news that Bloom County is back—an announcement Breathed made on Facebook that immediately made fans' hearts go "ACKKKK THMMPPP!" in anticipation. Some of those fans are probably like me in that they're too young to remember the strip's original run, and not many really liked Breathed's Sunday-only sequels Outland and Opus all that much. So what gives? Why are we still excited about new Bloom County strips?

It's still hard for me to put my finger on why the strip drew me in like few others. Maybe its oblique Caspar Weinberger references made it seem like it contained forbidden knowledge. Maybe I appreciated the way Breathed imbued all his characters—from soused politicians to naïve penguins, to pathetic, womanizing lawyers—with the charm of caricature; that is, his drawings are funny even if you can't parse the dialogue about "gams" and the Iran-Contra scandal and Jeane Kirkpatrick.

Watch: VICE Meets Jonny Ryan

Whatever the initial appeal, as I returned back to Bloom County over the years (in much the way you might return to a real place), I picked up more of the jokes—like this one about college campuses being "hotbeds of liberalism"—and came to appreciate what might be called its worldview. Broadly speaking, a lot of Bloom County is political satire: The strip ended when Bill the Cat got Donald Trump's brain and fired all the other characters; one of its most famous storylines involves Bill running for president despite being a constantly barfing, inarticulate, amoral drug addict. Then there's what's probably the most famous Bloom County weekday strip, where a salt-of-the-earth small-time farmer informs a smarmy politician that his crop "tain't corn. It's dope." By the standards of the comics page, it's a fairly cynical, edgy joke, but there's also something sweetly innocent about the farmer offering his wares with a smile.

That was the miracle of Bloom County: Like all good satires it peeled away a layer from public life to show how stupid and vicious people could be. But then, instead of leaving you with a sneer or a sermon (a la late-period Doonesbury), the strip somehow became a celebration of life's simpler, sillier joys, like diving into a bunch of dandelions. Politics is a business with nasty means and nastier ends, and Bloom County reacted to it not with outrage but with a kind of sleepy, absurdist grin. Who else but Breathed would come up with a penguin declaring his love for "long, warm sloppy kisses" to a Congressional committee, then getting slapped (literally) with a "liberal" label and tossed into the street?

Despite regularly targeting the Moral Majority and Reagan, Bloom County avoided curdling into clichéd left-wing outrage or lazy, editorial cartoon–style point-scoring. Breathed mocked hard rock just as he mocked the people like Tipper Gore who hated it, and he seemed to treat all religions with equal unseriousness—witness his strip about a money-demanding Hare Krishna, or the controversial Opus storyline where a ditzy character converts to "radical Islam." Just about the only demographic left unmocked are innocent flightless waterfowl.

On i-D: Checking in with Daniel Clowes

The Breathed characters who aren't comically inept shitheads have a always-look-on-the-bright-side sweetness to them that falls just sort of being corny. Bloom County is actually pretty sweet most of the time, a work aimed at cynics who secretly have gooey centers, for people who roll their eyes at most Americana but still hold visions of stereotypically bucolic meadows in their hearts.

That might be why fans are excited for a revival, whether it comes out in newspapers or as a webcomic: Outrage and cynicism are both cheap and monetizable these days, but whimsy of the sort Breathed produces is in short supply. There are plenty of places to go to find out about the outrageous atrocities being committed around the world, but a new Bloom County, even if it were a shadow of the old one, would be a place where you could take a deep breath and think about how silly everything is.

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Depending on your point of view, the Calgary Stampede is either an apocalyptic, cowboy-themed hellscape or the time of year that Calgarians leave town for a vacation elsewhere. Sure, there's plenty of fun to be had if you like country music, gambling, and deep-fried trash food (and let's be honest, everyone loves those things). But it's also a time when normies run free through downtown, losing their phones, losing their friend Britney, and losing their Stampede breakfast as they barf at bus stops, desperately praying for a cab to bring them back to their stucco paradise in McKenzie Towne.

This year's Calgary Stampede was all about threes. Three horses were murdered, two because they suffered broken legs during the chuckwagon race (thereby disappearing in a special magic trick where the horse's body is covered by a tent, a loud pop noise is heard, and the horse's body leaves with the tent). Security locked down the midway after a man decided to stab three different people (though paying $18 for a BBQ turkey leg had us feeling a little stabby, too). And, of course, there was a public threesome seen around the world (i.e. Reddit). How do we sign up for the horse death tent?

It's futile to expect any sort of non-­Stampede-themed entertainment during the ten long days that your mom wears her straw Corona cowboy hat to work. Truly, you can't beat 'em, so you must join 'em. That means most bars throw up some hay bales and let the profits roll in. This year, however, Calgary was treated to a true alt-Stampede event with the Western Realness Vogue Ball, an audacious, bodacious countrified voguing contest that brought some garish southern kitsch to Calgary's best new secret, Good Luck Bar.

#CUNTY Queen, indeed. Photos by Josiah Hughes

Good Luck Bar is already an anomaly in a city dominated by arrogant craft beer lists, fancy-schmancy dinner menus, rustically "authentic" decor, and one of those generic X-marks-the-spot logos with swaggy typography. Instead of all those things, Good Luck Bar is refreshingly mediocre. Hidden away up some stairs between regular chongo hangouts, it's almost impossible to spot. Once you're in there, you're greeted with nothing on tap, cheap beer cans, and a handful of shitty cocktails. The walls are painted black, the chairs are mismatched, and you never know if it'll be completely empty or packed with every one of your friends. Calgary has a serious deficit of dive bars, so some young entrepreneurs opted to make their own.

Of course, its nondescript design means Good Luck Bar can be anything, and it's already been everything. In its few months of existence, the hole-­in-­the-­wall has hosted regular karaoke nights, touring hardcore bands, and even a fancy photography opening. On July 11, the second last night of Stampede, it was also a hot voguing spot.

For the uneducated, voguing is an incredibly entertaining hybrid of dance and fashion runway popularized in the 1980s. Its fabulous, flamboyant demands a specific sort of sassiness including flamboyant hand gestures and intense, blue steel stares. The artform was popularized in African-American, Latino and gay communities, thus making it a shoo in for openness and inclusivity. In other words, it's the direct antithesis of Calgary, a machismo-drenched city where you'll have no trouble finding a bumper sticker that reads "Eat cow. Drill oil. Rope calves. Welcome to Alberta."

I may never forgive the missed opportunity to call this event the Calgary Glampede, but the Western Realness Vogue Ball certainly brought some much ­needed fabulousness to Calgary's incorrigibly basic nightlife on Saturday night. Sure, there were more spectators than participants, but the participants brought out a seriously impressive rodeo of voguing, complete with batshit takes on iconic western wear.

The Western Realness Vogue Ball was hosted by Tony Tran and his Bad Girls Club, and its tagline was "Putting the cunty back in country." (Still not as good as the Calgary Glampede, guys, but it'll do.)

Tran hyped the crowd up through three rounds of energetic voguing. The soundtrack included club-­ready edits of Shania Twain (who collected a hefty cheque by performing for a bunch of oil executives in a field somewhere one night prior) as a collection of impeccably dressed young men and women strutted their stuff. Tran proved an endearing and whip­-smart host, as apt to chastise rulebreakers as he was to chant "Pussy! Pussy! Pussy! Cunt! Cunt! Cunt!" on the mic.

Western Realness was divided into three categories: Hayseed Realness (which emphasized country bumpkins), Rhinestone Cowboy (all bedazzled everything) and Country Queen (the self-­explanatory western diva category). That resulted in an endlessly entertaining evening of high ­octane dance moves and a handful of seriously inspired outfits.

A collection of people looking to turn up and get loose, the Western Realness Vogue Ball was a microcosm of the Stampede at large. As such, it provided some much ­needed context. After all, it's hot as hell and everyone's just looking for a good time. Plus, we didn't even have to murder any horses. Hopefully I'll see everyone next year at the second Western Realness ball (rebranded as the Calgary Glampede).

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When Robert Geller woke up on the morning of September 11, 2001, in his apartment in Lower Manhattan—nothing seemed out of ordinary except that he was running really fucking late. At the time, the German-born fashion designer was fresh out of school and had only recently settled in the United States. He had just landed a gig at Marc Jacobs and was supposed to be in the office around 8 AM, but it was already around 10.

His lateness was pretty understandable. The then-25-year-old had kicked it hard on the night of September 10th, drinking and celebrating with his coworkers after Marc Jacobs's runway show at Pier 54 for New York Fashion Week. Although that show featured some luxurious fabrics with an exuberant palette of colors like lilac and dandelion, its jubilant after party went on to be remembered in the history books as fashion's last hurrah before New York City entered a new, darker era.

"I looked at my watch, and I was like, I really have to hurry. So I just brushed my teeth and I threw on a shirt," the designer told me recently in his studio on Walker Street in Lower Manhattan.

Things didn't start to click until he got into the elevator. The lift had a window, but when he looked out of it, he couldn't see anything because everything was covered in plumes of dust. And there was a loud, intense clamor in the air—like dozens of people banging all at once. At first he chalked up the peculiarity of it all to a movie shoot, or maybe it was just him being hungover. But when he stepped outside, the realization became painfully clear.

"I go around the corner, and I just see the second tower with a huge hole in it and flames coming out and smoke everywhere," Geller said. "This lady just comes out and she grabs me by the shoulder and says, 'Get the fuck out of here! Get the fuck out here!' I take my first step, and then it starts coming down."

It's impossible to predict epochal events like 9/11. They come out of nowhere, blindsiding us while we're focused on chasing our own small goals or desires. In their wake, they alter the way we see everything that came before and the way we respond to everything afterwards. Today, you can see the impact of 9/11, whether it is explicit or allusive on a generation of creative New Yorkers, from musicians like TV on the Radio to authors like Jonathan Safran Foer.

For the designer, who was raised more than 3,500 miles away from the Ground Zero, 9/11 bore itself not so much in the execution of his work, but in his self-acceptance as a true-blue citizen of the Big Apple. "It was my introduction to the 2000s and to New York," he said. "At first I was like, I'm not sure if this is the place for me, if things like that can happen here. But I stayed, and in a way it gave me a right to be here. I had gone through that and it didn't scare me off."

It's been nearly 15 years since 9/11, when Geller was at the very dawn of his career as a New York designer. Today, the former Marc Jacobs intern from Germany is representing New York City as one of the designers selected to show at the city's inaugural New York Fashion Week: Men's. It's a fitting honor considering Robert's been outfitting fly New York dudes since the early 2000s. His first label was the cult-favorite Cloak, which he started with Alexandre Plokhov. Back then, it was all about the slim silhouette, militaristic detailing, and a dark color palette that paired perfectly with the raging tunes being made by bands like Liars and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. After leaving Cloak in 2004, he launched his eponymous label. Today, the Robert Geller brand is known for culling inspiration from a wide array of cool shit and filtering it through Geller's keen eye and sensibilities, to come up with looks that are tough yet avant-garde, romantic yet streetwise.

The Robert Geller brand has also helped tear down the walls between streetwear and luxury fashion by employing immaculate tailoring and construction. This look has come to dominate the way guys dress around New York City, where drop-crotch sweatpants that were hand-sewn in Japan and fancy running shoes that aren't actually meant for running have taken over where raw denim and the Americana-craze left off. But in fashion (an industry where designers have to work at least six months to two years ahead), and in New York City (a place where buildings transmogrify from factories to DIY venues to Whole Foods in the blink of an eye), it's not about where you've been, but where you're going.

Right now, as Geller approaches his first-ever New York Fashion Week: Men's show, he's aching to take the city's signature styles that he helped shape into a new direction. But you can't know where you're going unless you know where you've come from. So, when I linked up with him in his studio a few weeks ago, we took a trip down memory lane and discussed some of his earliest experiences in the city that never sleeps. I also picked his brain on what's next for him and New York City fashion as a whole, and what will be the defining phenomenons that shape the next generation of creative New Yorkers the way events like 9/11 impacted him and his peers.

VICE: You're showing at the inaugural New York Fashion Week: Men's. Tell me about the first time you knew you wanted to be a part of the fashion scene in New York city?
Robert Geller: This was before 9/11, when I was just interning for Marc Jacobs while I while I was still in school. I got to go to his runway show. It was at the 69th Regent Armory, which feels like an airplane hanger. First, the lights came on and then they started to play the "Human Fly." Then this girl started strutting on this massive runway. It was so fucking cool, tears started streaming down my face. I had worked really hard up until that point, so I was exhausted, but I was like, This is fucking it. Electricity was running through me. I knew in that moment that I was going to do my own thing. I was working hard before, but that just gave me the inspiration to really do it.

Now that you have your own thing and you're killing it, do you pay attention to what your peers in New York are doing? What direction are NYC's menswear designers going?
If you had asked me two years ago, I would have said it's bringing streetwear into high fashion. But now it's at the point where it makes me want to vomit. It's just overdone. Everyone's on the bandwagon. I mean, it's something that we've been doing for a long time—introducing sweatpants and knits and sweatshirts into high fashion with super-high quality. And there are people who are doing a good job with it, but there are loads of people who are not. And once you start seeing everybody doing it the wrong way, the message gets lost. Now it has to move on from that.

Where's it going next?
I still want to keep that comfort, but take it to a higher level with more tailoring, more structure, and really play with shapes and layering in new ways that are going to feel fresh. It'll be harder for people to try to follow that path... There comes a time where you have to prove that you're a designer who can adapt. I feel like the message that I've been trying to send has been caught up with and I need to move on.

Is that the burden of being an artist, having to constantly think of ways to push ideas to new levels?
It's never been a burden to me before because I always felt like I was moving at my own pace and going wherever I felt comfortable. Now I feel like there are people behind me and I need to go faster or take a different lane, because I don't like racing. Racing is not my thing. It's not the way to design and to develop. It's about naturally seeing the next step.

Where do inspirations for that next step come from?
It comes naturally. I read a book or I read an article, see an exhibition or something that I've liked for a long time that I really want to incorporate. I saw a Sarah Moon exhibition with my dad when I was 16 when we went to Paris, and I was totally in love with the beautiful, soft, romantic colors. Then I did a collection about a set of photographs she did on the beach. It was very moody and dark, really pretty, and beautiful. Sometimes it's just like a time and place. For instance, for spring 2011, I was inspired by the student revolutions of the late 1960s in Berlin.

You've been in the menswear game since the early 2000s. What's different about today?
Technology. The internet's killed off some brick-and-mortar stores. They were replaced by online stores. Now everything is so readily available, and customers are checking the prices. It creates a whole different dynamic that is kind of stressful. Stores need to get the clothes earlier so they can do a shoot and get it online. It's a whole different animal.

Has anything good come from it?
What I love about it is the forums. I've met so many people who wear Robert Geller who are on StyleForum or StyleZeitgeist or SuperFuture. Some of these people live in a small town and have a huge collection. This guy Eric—he probably has close to 250 Robert Geller pieces, and he's living in Ohio. He's the man. People probably think he's totally crazy, but online everybody knows him because he's got this amazing collection. I've met many of these forum users when they come to New York, and it's so cool. I love that it's spreading fashion. It opens minds to think about clothing in ways that were never possible before when you had to go to New York or LA to find other guys who were into fashion. These forums have planted a seed for menswear's future.

What do you think the future for menswear is going to look like?
I think fashion will separate itself from streetwear again. The good streetwear will stay as streetwear, and it will be made at a higher level than it was before... But I kind of loved what was happening. Fashion was becoming more democratic. Designers were more reachable, getting away from the Karl Lagerfeld fashion-god thing. That's much more my personality. I'm not sure I'm going to be part of it, but fashion will go back to being kind of elite. There was something really nice about something that was once so unattainable becoming something that's more friendly. But the reality is the unattainability is what makes it so precious and desirable to people.

You don't think you'll go that way?
I don't want to change. My whole thing has been that I just like to make clothes. It's not that special. No different from a painter or a construction worker—everyone's doing their thing.

You worked with Kanye on his line. He kind of embodies that breakdown, as an outsider who pushed his way into the industry. Do you think that kind of thing will get any easier, and is it OK for celebrities to ascend in fashion the way he did?
You have to divide it into different categories. There's a broad range of actual involvement by celebrities. Kanye was super involved. At times, I think he's into fashion more than music. He lives it. He's really behind what's happening with his brand. Within that spectrum of people who are really into it, I hope they continue to enter fashion. You shouldn't shun them just because they're celebrities and automatically assume that other people are designing and they're just putting their names on it.

Watch Wilbert investigate the troubling and perplexing world of addiction rehab centers:

If anyone can walk in and claim to be a designer, does that diminish your work in some way?
Well, as a designer, you feel like it needs to be an exclusive club that you need to protect. You think that if celebrities design a collection and everybody loves it, then it kind of cheapens what you do. But having seen it from the inside with Kanye and having seen his dedication, time, and effort, I really respect it.

A fashion week dedicated to men's is just one of the many signs that the men's fashion industry is really maturing in the US. Do you think the recent growth is something that will continue?
It's going to keep growing. If you look at the States, actually the world, the percentage of men that are interested in fashion is still very small. In most places, the J. Crews and Banana Republics are considered to be really fashionable. Of course, J. Crew makes some cool stuff, but I feel like it's an introduction. But through the internet and the interest that gets sparked by the H&Ms, fashion becomes more accessible and will grow among men.

That's interesting to hear from you since a lot of designers want to murder places like H&M for biting.
I feel like men have to start with something. You start with stuff that's close and attainable. And then you start to geek out and go deeper. You eventually graduate from the J. Crews and start looking at other brands like Tim Coppens or Patrik Ervell or Robert Geller or Phillip Lim or Wang... If you're really into it, that's where you end up. A lot of these guys that started reading GQ like ten years ago were probably into their whole Americana thing, getting some cool jeans, and some nice sneakers. Now they're going to start finding the brands that are doing some things that are more forward. Eventually, there'll be a groundswell where a larger percentage of the population in the men's world will be interested in real designer clothing.

What do you think Robert Geller label will look like in 2020 or 2025?
Hopefully, it will still be around. We're looking pretty good right now. I want to open a store. Just find a space where I can show people what the brand is about and expand it bit by bit. 2020 is five years away. That's not that long. I'm happy every year that I'm still around able to do what I do and make enough money off of it to support my family. I'm lucky. There are days that are crappy, but there's no job that doesn't have that. I want to be smart about the decisions I make and take the steps to keep it going and be proud of the work that comes out. That's all you can hope for. I'm not planning on becoming Michael Kors.

Have you changed at all as you've gone through the business and gotten older?
I've become more patient. I've learned not to expect quick changes because when when I was interning, I imagined if one day I opened up my own business and a magazine interviewed me, everyone would know about Robert Geller. And then I moved to New York and we did Cloak and within the first month I was in the New Yorker with a two-page story. I was like, What the fuck is going on here? It's crazy. That happened really quickly. But then the story came out and nobody said anything. When we won the GQ/CFDA award, a couple people were like, "Oh, great job." And then it was gone. I had a big story in Vogue in November. I was like, This is huge. Everybody reads Vogue... And maybe ten people said something about it.

What does that say to you?
That it's the little things that stack on top of each other that create the brand or create the image over time. It's not one thing. It's not winning an award that's suddenly going to make you a superstar. It's doing the right things and always continuing to build on top of it. That's the life of a career and a brand. It's long term. So, you have to think long term to protect its purity as much as you can.

What do think is shaping the New York designers the generation behind you? What perspective will the new guard bring to the table?
You know, cultural influences itself. A lot of that is not done consciously. We live in a certain space, and all of our surroundings mold us. It can come in the music we're listening to in the cab or the headlines when we turn on the news. It's the things that we worry about and the things that we're happy about. All of those things create what's happening in our mind. And it's not cyclical—it evolves slowly. The thing is, it's always hard to see it coming.

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This interview was edited and shortened.

Woman burns Syriza flag

This article originally appeared on VICE Greece.

Greece's new bailout agreement is causing friction within Syriza, the country's leading political party. The issue isn't only expressed by its parliamentary members but also among its supporters, particularly the young. On Monday evening, Syriza's youth chapter called for people to meet in Athens's Syntagma Square and protest the new memorandum.

Around 1,500 people showed up—most were members of Syriza Youth, other left-wing parties, and trade unions. Protestors claimed to be frustrated by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's deal with the Eurozone. Syriza was initially voted in on the back of its promise to end austerity, but the latest deal will see even more cuts in pensions, as well as tax hikes and privatization of $55 billion worth of government assets. (Parliament still must approve the deal for it to go through.) At one point during the evening, a woman set fire to the Syriza flag outside the headquarters of the party's youth chapter. A few weeks ago, this would have caused a riot but yesterday, nothing happened.

Elias Panteleakos—the secretary of Syriza Youth—was also at the square protesting yesterday evening. "This deal is basically a coup by the leaders of the European Union and Eurozone. This government wasn't elected to introduce such horrific policies," he told me.

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Immediately after the agreement was signed on Monday morning, the Syriza Left Platform—a party sub-group that basically wants Greece out of the EU—issued a document that declared the agreement to be humiliating for Greeks. It called for party members to fight against the new recessionary measures outlined in the memorandum.

Mania Sotiropoulos was also at Syntagma Square last night. "I've been an active member of Syriza Youth since I was 16. I joined around December 2008. A lot of the 'No' voters were part of that generation. It makes sense; it's a generation of people that have had to struggle to survive since we were children," she said.

Mania believes that the young people who voted "No" at last week's referendum are opposing the kind of austerity policies that make young people leave the country and drive others to suicide. She feels that the movements of 2008 and 2011—when thousands took over Syntagma Square—will continue to grow this year.

Korina

Korina thinks that the only solution is for Greece to exit the eurozone. "I don't want to leave Greece. I'd like to stay here. It's barbaric to be forced to leave your country. This is why I believe that breaking away from Europe is necessary." She went on to mention that the way European leaders are trying to intervene in Greece's internal affairs is completely unacceptable.

Patroklos Psaltis, a member of the Communist youth branch of Syriza said: "The memorandum agreement includes aggressive austerity, heavy taxation, sweeping privatization and cuts to wages and pensions. It's a total submission to the demands of the Troika. It's also punishment for the proud 'No' stance that Greeks took in the referendum. Syriza were subjugated but the working class and the youth will not be. The aim right now is to forestall the enactment of the memorandum laws and stop this parliamentary junta. Members of Syriza that vote for these austerity measures and the government officials who accept implementing them automatically put themselves outside the party."

Dimitris

Another guy I met at that protest, Dimitris, told me that he didn't think Greek society could stand yet another series of strict austerity measures. "Me and my parents are in a very difficult psychological state. I'm afraid the quality of my life will only get worse. We've already had to change our way of life because of previous deals with international creditors. Things only seem to go downhill from here on. Not just for me but the Greek people in general."

Greek MPs are set to vote on the first set of the new austerity measures on Wednesday, July 15. Greek trade unions have declared a general strike on the same day.

In 1994, Bill Cosby delivered his magnum opus on respectability politics at an NAACP black-tie event to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. His now infamous "Pound Cake Speech" was a long and exhaustive rundown of every single "get off my lawn" cliché known to old-mankind. But the coup de grâce was the anecdote that gave the diatribe its nickname:

"People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! Then we all run out and are outraged, 'The cops shouldn't have shot him!' What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?"

As implausible as it sounds, Cosby's suggestion that a black boy who steals some cake from a store is asking to have his brains blown out was only the second worst thing he did that day. The worst thing he did was saying that when he, himself, had very possibly drugged and raped at least 41 women.

Long before the "Pound Cake Speech" and the myriad of rape allegations, Cosby was something of a saint in my family. I watched The Cosby Show religiously growing up and it had a profound impact on me. From the first episode in 1984, it presented an idea of black life that was so perfect, so alluring, it even made me, a black kid stranded in an overwhelmingly white Pennsylvania steel town, feel proud of who I was.

Rather than a show about race, The Cosby Show was about black excellence. It rarely if ever mentioned whiteness. It was about us, not them. And this is the way I remember it being in my house, too. Growing up, I only heard one message about white people: "You have to work twice as hard to be considered half as good." That was it. Succinct and ominous.

I carried that notion with me as I came of age and went out into the world. But it backfired. Instead of making me work twice as hard, it just made me twice as scared and half as confident.What if I could only manage to work 1.75 times as hard? Would that be enough to stop them from putting me behind bars or in a pine box for no good reason? In fact, the main thing I remember thinking about white people in my younger years, (which in retrospect was really a stand-in for the entire adult world) was: If they won't let me, I shouldn't even try.

This is the problem with respectability politics, the ideology that suggests people can overcome their systemic oppression by improving their personal behavior. It puts the pressure on individuals to single-handedly be so great that they defeat a system designed to subjugate millions. And if they fail at the impossible, then they just aren't good enough. It is, in essence, victim blaming.

The other problem with respectability politics is if you genuinely believe that each individual must single-handedly overcome their structural oppression, then you have zero incentive to stop the oppression in the first place. It's up to them to stop it. And if they can't, tough shit.

This actually works out pretty well for the oppressor. And if the oppressor happens to be a member of an oppressed group, it makes for a particularly sinister intersection. The sentiment is something like, "I over came this oppression by being awesome, so I'm not sure what your problem is." This is at the core of why, when Cosby gave his "Pound Cake Speech," the NAACP crowd of Great Black Men Who Did Great Things, just applauded, stamped, and laughed. They didn't tell him to sit his Uncle Tom ass down and shut up for spouting off the rhetoric of a racist troll because in many cases their livelihoods are just as beholden to extolling mythic individualism as Cosby's.

Watch: The KKK and American Veterans

The pernicious concept behind oppression being the oppressed's problem also aligns Cosby's politics of respectability with the "she was asking for it" element of rape culture. In thinking about this connection, I couldn't help but recall a bit I heard Cosby do in the 1986 standup recording "Those of You with or Without Children, You'll Understand." In explaining why he doesn't need to talk to his son the same way he does his daughters about birth control, he theorizes, "It's the female's job to protect herself. It's like a goalie... you have to keep people from scoring on you." The audience groans, Cosby's wife sets him straight, and eventually he talks to his boy. It's played for laughs. But in light of his rape allegations, it's chilling. He couldn't have made it any plainer. A woman must protect herself. A man has no obligation to control his behavior. As gross as the bit is, just like the NAACP speech, you can hear men and women in that audience cheering for him on the recording. They probably stood up and asked for an encore.

A career based on an idea of individual achievement should rightfully be destroyed by an individual failing.

Cosby has been preaching the gospel of the individual overcoming systemic oppression (and blaming people who fail to do it) for his entire career. So is it hard to believe he would blame a woman for being young and pretty and alone in a room with him? Is it hard to believe he could justify his alleged behavior by reasoning, very simply, that she failed to keep herself from "getting scored on?" Is it hard to believe he would do what he is accused of by 41 women, while simultaneously lecturing 40 million people on the improvement of their morals?

To call Bill Cosby a hypocrite is to miss the point entirely. For this to be hypocrisy, you would have to believe that he presented himself as one thing, while pretending to be another. You would have to believe that he knew and accepted that what he is accused of doing to those 41 women was wrong. But we have no evidence to support that.

Cosby's moralizing by day and alleged raping by night was not hypocrisy. It was something much worse. The only way he could have been so strident in his presentation of himself as a good person is if he believed he was one.

There's a 'Cosby Show' Episode Where He Makes Women Horny and Docile with Magical Barbecue Sauce

In his mind, drugging women so that they couldn't prevent him from having sex with him didn't make him bad. This is a sick belief, and one from which we recoil in horror. But it's not the belief of a sick man. Rather, it is the belief of a man very much in touch with reality. The uncomfortable truth is that there is no difference between being a loving, devoted, family man, a pillar of the community—and a rapist. Our culture will gladly allow you to be both. They will even invite you to speak and give you awards.

Whether or not he is ever convicted of rape, Bill Cosby will die a broken and deeply hated man. And this seems fitting. A career based on an idea of individual achievement should rightfully be destroyed by an individual failing. Unfortunately, the culture that cheered for him and paid for him to be our hero even when he behaved like monster is still very much alive. Who do we blame for that?

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On Monday morning, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker announced via Twitter that he is running for president, becoming the 15th Republican to pile into the clown car that's careening into 2016.

If you thought Walker was already running, that's understandable. Such is the derangement of our national electoral process that Walker, who has been in the news as an all-but-certain candidate for more than a year—and as a frontrunner in the Republican race since April—is only just now officially declaring his candidacy. Thankfully, he's also the last top-tier candidate we were waiting on to get in the race, so with the exception of a few stragglers like Ohio Governor John Kasich and some dude named Jim Gilmore, the field is now set, which means the race now moves into its knockout round.

With his formal campaign launch Monday, Walker cements his status as one of the GOP's leading options. Currently, national polls show Walker with about 9 percent support among Republican voters, trading off with Donald Trump for second place behind Jeb Bush. As far as Republicans go, Walker is sort of a compromise candidate—a Midwestern middle ground for conservative voters turned off by Bush's center-right blandness, but who haven't gone so far down the rabbit hole that they think Ben Carson is a reasonable option.

That's not to say Walker isn't an arch-conservative. A small-government, big-business governor, Walker has become a national political celebrity thanks to his union-busting, surviving a 2012 recall election after signing a budget bill that dramatically curbed collective bargaining for public-sector workers. Walker's relationship with organized labor is so nasty and antagonistic that AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka's entire statement reacting to his announcement was, "Scott Walker is a national disgrace."

Walker's other actions as governor — including cutting taxes for the wealthy, despite growing budget shortfalls; slashing spending on public universities; signing right-to-work legislation; relaxing gun control laws; and implementing Wisconsin's strict voter ID bill—have only solidified his reputation as a conservative hero, and as Public Enemy No. 1 for the political left.

Walker isn't necessarily a card-carrying Tea Party member, but he's trying real sweatily to court those voters. Since revealing his presidential ambitions, Walker has made a hard swing to the right on social issues. Last week, he announced he planned to sign a bill that would ban abortions in Wisconsin after 20 weeks—and according to state lawmakers, the governor specifically requested that the bill include no exceptions for cases of rape and incest, in case anyone was wondering just how seriously Scott Walker hates abortions. In the wake of last month's Supreme Court on gay marriage, Walker also said he would push Congress to pass a Constitutional amendment that would protect state bans on same-sex unions.

To many, these moves suggest that Walker picks his positions based on whatever is most likely to get him elected—a surprising accusation in politics, I know. The general Conventional Wisdom holds that if Walker can't win the Iowa Caucuses he's done. And Iowa Republicans, as you may have heard, are overwhelmingly conservative, dominated by a sizable chunk of evangelical voters who tend to decide presidential primary races. Given that the last two Republicans to win the Iowa—Rick Santorum in 2012, and Mike Huckabee in 2008—are both running again this year, it's not surprising that Walker is stepping up his pro-life, anti-gay game.

In fact, Santorum wasted no time firing a shot at Walker, capitalizing on comments the Wisconsin governor's wife made to the to the Washington Post last week that suggested the rest of the Walker clan may not have been totally on board with their patriarch's anti-gay marriage shift. "Spouses matter," Santorum said in an interview with the Daily Callerpublished Monday. "When your spouse is not in-sync with you—particularly on cultural issues, moral issues—[you] tend not be as active on those issues."

But Walker has something neither Santorum nor Huckabee have, namely the Koch brothers and their enormous fundraising apparatus. Although the free-market-loving brothers have been saying they won't officially endorse a candidate, they're ties to Walker go way back, and in April, they hinted that they would be very, very happy if he ran for president.

Support from the Kochs and their $900-million war chest could help Walker take on Jeb Bush, the presumptive Republican frontrunner whose enormous fundraising machine, which has already raised more than $100 million. Walker has started taking some early shots at Bush, calling him " a name from the past," casting himself as the candidate who represents the newer, more partisan direction of the Republican Party.

Of course, Walker still has to beat out Rubio and Cruz, not to mention the 12,000 other goofballs running for the GOP nomination, if he wants to have the honor of challenging Jeb post-Iowa. To do that, he'll need to strengthen some of his weak spots, including a so-far hilarious ineptitude on foreign policy. And while he might have the guy-you'd-want-to-get-a-beer-with vibe that somehow earned George W. Bush eight years in the Oval Office, lots of people don't think Walker is very smart, due in part to the fact that he never got around to graduating from college.

Walker's shot at the party's nomination is real, though—as Walker himself will be the first to tell you. "Americans want to vote for something and for someone," Walker said in a speech marking his official campaign launch Monday night. "So tonight, let me tell you what I'm for. I'm for reform, growth, safety. I'm for transferring power from Washington into the hands of hard working tax payers in all states across the country, that's real reform."

Follow Kevin Lincoln on Twitter.