A protester at an anti-Tory protest shortly after the election Photo by Oscar Webb

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This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Last week's budget may come to be known as the moment when the Conservative party intensified its war on the young. Even the traditionally tepid or government-friendly parts of the media have acknowledged that this cocktail of policies concocted by Gideon ("destroyer" in Hebrew) and his band of mad political scientists are fucking the next generation.

The latest round of the Conservative assault on the young looks like this: tax credits for children beyond the first two are being removed, extending the war on the young to babies. Housing benefits are gone for those under 21, so good luck if you're desperate to flee your parents. Grants for poor university students will be turned into loans, while tuition fees can rise with inflation, taking them over £9,000 [$14,000]—student debt is going to climb even higher. And the shiny new "national living wage" of £7.20 [$11.25] (which isn't actually enough to live on) doesn't apply to under 25s, meaning George Osborne is fine with young people living in poverty for some reason.

Of course, these reforms will disproportionately affect those from low-income backgrounds who are unable to rely on cash from mommy and daddy. The class dynamic of current government policies is undeniable—but the impact of these policies will also be felt by the middle-classes. The Conservatives are diversifying from their traditional poor-bashing in order to shit on a broad spectrum of the young.

In either case, judging by the budget you would think the young had it too easy. The opposite is true. Youth unemployment is at its highest for 20 years, with young people (18 to 24) three times less likely to have a job than the rest of the population. The number of 18- to 24-year-olds out of work is now almost half a million and if you're "lucky" enough to be in work, there's a fair chance you're on a zero-hours contract and earning the minimum wage—or less in some cases.

George Osborne. Photo via Flickr

There are those who say that this is only a temporary purgatory on the journey the heaven that we are all implicitly promised: a stable, well-paid, and challenging job and a spacious house for the family. For some, this may be true, but for the majority—nope, sorry.

According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, only one in five low-paid workers fully escape low pay after ten years and, although the average age of first time property buyers has dropped in the last 12 months, the vast majority of houses for sale are unaffordable even to those earning the UK average income of £26,000 [$40,500] per year. In short, you may be able to scrape together a deposit and take out a mortgage, but the chances are you won't be living anywhere nice—even less so if you want to be in London.

With average earnings still below their pre-crash peak and graduate debt ballooning since the introduction of £9,000 [$14,000] university fees, the prospect of leading a comfortable life is a hope, not an expectation—even for those who can afford a house.

All of this begs the question of why any political party that wasn't bent on Lib Dem style political harakiri would be making things worse. Are they trying to piss people off?

A protest outside Downing Street shortly after the election. Photo by Chris Bethell

The answer has nothing to do with sensibility but everything to do with strategy. It's about who they're trying to not piss off. With an average member age somewhere in the 60s and with the majority of its support concentrated among over 40s, especially among the over 55s, the Conservatives are simply ensuring that they distribute economic advantage—or increasingly under austerity, disadvantage—in such a way that does not put off any blue-rinsed tory grannies.

Of course, being old is no strict guarantee you will be far from where the axe falls. Pensioners are still dying for lack of heat and the poor are still poor, no matter their age. But as the budget illustrates, the young are increasingly forced to carry the biggest burden. Whilst this may make sense for the next election, it could be the Conservative's undoing later down the line.

Across Europe, in Greece and Spain in particular, social movements and political parties are challenging the political status quo. At their heart are young people. The supporters of Syriza and Podemos are aged between 16 and 34, they have no job stability or are simply unemployed. They are often well-educated but have no prospect for employment or property ownership. In short, they have almost no stake in society and, crucially, they have nothing to lose. In the UK we are seeing more and more people who fit that mould.

Historically, the presence of an extensive young, economically, socially, and politically frustrated class, has been a recipe for social fireworks. Admittedly, the economic situation is much worse in countries such as Spain and Greece—where youth unemployment is far higher—and there is no guarantee that exclusion and discontent in the UK will translate into political action.

A guy slam-dunks a brick into a police car. Could Britain see riots break out again? Photo by Henry Langston

To paraphrase academic Guy Standing, rather than radical change we may in fact end up with a "politics of inferno." This is where the state increasingly marginalizes and brutalizes this growing underclass comprised of the young, the poor, migrants, and pensioners whose entitlements are being withdraw. It does so with the tacit support of what remains of the middle-class, whose living standards it seeks to maintain.

We may already be on that road to hell. What we do know for sure is that there are millions of young people facing a bleak future who do not see the UK political system and its parties as an effective means of redressing their grievances. Over half 18- to 24-year-olds did not vote at the last election.

According to the Office for National Statistics' Measuring National Wellbeing Programme (2014), around 42 percent of adults aged 16 to 24 expressed no interest in politics compared to 21 percent of those aged 65 and over. But we can leave the idea that this means young people don't care or don't know about politics to someone else.

Disinterest is not strictly apathy. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that even those young people who expressed no interest in politics had "political" concerns and had even participated in activities that we understand to be political—attending a protest, signing a petition. The fact is, people don't want to engage in a political system that seems to give you a choice of how much worse you want your life to get: Bad or really fucking bad?

Related: VICE Meets Kim Hye-sook

As the Scottish independence referendum illustrated, where genuine political opportunities present themselves and when there is a perceived anti-establishment party with a significant media and organizational presence (the SNP), the participation of young people increases. According to research by the Electoral Commission, 69 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds voted in the referendum and this figure is higher still among 16- to 17-year-olds, 77 percent of whom voted. Revealingly, those that voted for independence tended to be younger and poorer than those that voted against it.

Beyond Scotland, it is not clear how exactly the disenfranchised young will express their grievances over the coming years. It could be in the form of a new party, much like Syriza in Greece or Podemos in Spain. Perhaps the "Green Surge" will continue until Natalie Bennett's gang are a force to be reckoned with. Maybe there'll be a series of social movements or we could see our cities erupt into flames in endless riots. It might be all of these.

Whatever form it takes and however it happens—and we can say with near certainty that if things continue as they are, something will happen—the signs suggest it will be directed against the Conservative Party and likely Labour, too. It may well be carrying with it the seeds of both their destructions.

Syriza may be on the rocks and the European elite will sleep more comfortably for that, but the energy that got them in government is still reverberating around the continent and it won't dissipate quickly. The Conservative war on the young is more than playing with fire, it is prodding a stack of dynamite with a blazing torch. Expect an explosion soon.

Follow Andrew Dolan on Twitter.

All clips and stills courtesy of Drafthouse Films

Joshua Oppenheimer's filmmaking career took off when he created The Act of Killing, one of the most conceptually baffling movies of all time; in it, former heads of Indonesian death squads cheerfully filmed reenactments of the mass murders they themselves committed in the 1960s, with the videos stylized in the manner of their choosing. The harrowing, brilliant, sometimes hallucinatory results plunge the viewer into the headspace of people who have done unforgivable things and gone unpunished for them.

Indonesia's relationship to its past genocides is somewhat unique. The imprisonment and mass murder of suspected communists during the rise of Indonesia's US-backed military dictatorship led by General Suharto was carried out more or less openly. The perpetrators of the killings, a ragtag group of civilians who were hailed as heroes at the time, became local celebrities; the public, including family members of victims, have spent decades terrified that if they challenged the prevailing heroic narrative they too could be machete-ed and tossed into the Snake River.

The film's protagonist, Adi, confronts a killer

Oppenheimer has created a follow-up to The Act of Killing focusing on the family of a victim, rather than a perpetrator. In the more conventional, but no less powerful, The Look of Silence, we're given a more likable protagonist named Adi, the brother of one of the 1 to 3 million victims of the purge. Adi, an eye doctor in his mid 40s, is transfixed by Oppenheimer's footage of the death squads confessing. After watching a reenactment of his brother's death by his killers, he demanded—Oppenheimer insists it was his idea—to be allowed to confront these men. These confrontations become the central thrust of the film. Under the pretense of examining the killers' eyes, he asks them simple questions: "How did it feel?" "Did you cut your victims more than once?" "Why did you cut off the woman's breast?" "How do you do politics surrounded by the families of people you've killed?" "Is that better?" As he literally clarifies their vision by adjusting the lenses in his toolset, they find themselves seeing the past more clearly as well.

They usually react badly to the sudden clarity.

VICE recently sat down with Josh Oppenheimer to talk about these moments of truth, and whether it's his mission to find the world's monsters wherever they are, and in his uniquely empathetic way, find a way to slip his magic mirror in front of their faces and reveal their pasts to themselves for the first time.

Oppenheimer prefers to sit close to whoever he's talking to, and he listens intently, responding not just to the words his interlocutor says, but the emotion they didn't know they were conveying. That ability to connect makes him an incredibly intimate, persuasive conversationalist, and is undoubtedly his secret weapon.

Watch an exclusive clip from the 'The Look of Silence':

VICE: Even though The Look of Silence is a documentary about a genocide, I feel like you wouldn't mind me saying it's not educational. What were you trying to accomplish?
Joshua Oppenheimer: I go very small. I focus on one family and I don't tell you their experience, I immerse you in it. I make Adi you or your brother. I make his parents your parents or your grandparents. His children are your children, and if you don't have children, your nieces and nephews. I make you feel the texture of their bodies, the sounds of the spaces where they are, and the ghosts that are everywhere and looking at everybody all the time.

This film, and to an even greater degree The Act of Killing tend not to give the audience much exposition. Is that part of your filmmaking ethos?
Well, it's not an ethos. It's that I don't see myself as a journalist.

What's do you feel is the difference between art and journalism in the context of your films?
If journalism is about providing information, new information, putting it into a context so that people are able to, hopefully, deploy it in a public good, art is not about providing that window onto some new phenomenon that people knew little about. This is actually provoking a confrontation with the self. It's about forcing people—seducing people—to look in the mirror. And the shock is not the shock of the new; it's the shock of the familiar. It's the sense of: Oh, this is me. This is us. This is humanity. This is my country, too. This is the world. And is that really me? Is that really us? And what do we do about that?

But doesn't that exposure do some of the work of aggressive journalism? Like that old George Orwell quote: "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations"?
I'm not saying that there aren't gray areas, and there aren't works that are both somehow. But I am saying that I think there's a cost to exposition, and the cost is that it is distancing. The cost is that there is a voice behind the camera or the point of view—the imaginary person who's putting the text into titles behind those inter-titles, who's addressing the audience, who's explaining and interpreting the visuals, the images and sounds that ought to be and otherwise would be immersive and very, very close. Exposition makes it very hard to have anything other than a window onto a far-off phenomenon that's being somehow interpreted.

Schoolchildren being taught the official story of the purge

When I was watching one of the parts about the death squads telling ridiculous lies to townspeople, I remembered the feeling of being a child, and believing ridiculous lies. Is that what you set out to accomplish?
Oh, that's wonderful. I'm so happy you saw that. That was your moment, in a way. The tile of the film, The Look of Silence, is all about making something invisible—normally invisible like silence—visible. It's a silence born of fear. It's a tense silence of nitroglycerin; it's potentially explosive. But it's also, despite that tension and the restrictions that places on everybody's freedom of action and thought and expression, it's nevertheless a space where Adi's family has found some love and some grace and built a life—albeit lives that had been broken by the silence and fear in which they lived.

Right! It felt like when I was a kid, and someone told me a dead baby deer was just waiting for its mother. Believing it was easier, but eventually, I had to deal with that deer being dead.
The Look of Silence implies this effort to make this invisible thing visible, and, for Indonesians, to make it impossible to ignore the prison of fear that comes with that silence—that that silence characterizes. In that sense, the film, for Indonesians, is like the child in "The Emperor's New Clothes"—The Act of Killing too, in a different sense. There, it was possible for people not to talk about the founding crimes of this regime and the impunity, fear, corruption, and thuggery that's been in play and has defined the regime ever since. Now this film makes it impossible for people not to talk about this other thing that was easier to ignore.

Adi, transfixed by footage of killers confessing

How did you make me identify so closely with Adi?
Every viewer makes her own Adi in her own head because Adi is silent. Adi is a canvas which we can inhabit and call our own.

But that doesn't mean he was generic. I felt particularly close to him when he was watching your footage of the killers confessing. I went through a phase where I watched nothing but Holocaust movies, I think for a similar reason. I had family members who went through it, and some who died.
Yeah, I did too. My father's family narrowly escaped the Holocaust. A lot of the family wasn't so lucky. My stepmother's family, almost all of the family, was wiped out. Her parents escaped. I went through that stage before Schindler's List, but yeah.

Is Adi really an optician?
An optometrist, yes.

I ask because the metaphorical significance is so obvious—about helping people see clearly...
...who are willfully blind. You know, a metaphor in cinema is something you can call out to a viewer with exposition—I think actually Werner [Herzog] does that sometimes very beautifully. It's not crude; it's a difficult thing to do when he does it, and he does it beautifully. I kind of grow metaphors organically, whether it's the fish in The Act of Killing, or Adi's career. I understood midway through shooting The Act of Killing that Adi was now seeking out patients over the age of 60 just so he could ask them their memories of the killings. And I started to see that he must be getting amazing responses, and decided if Adi becomes the main character in the next film, I should film him doing that.

How did Adi become such a good interviewer?
When Adi convinced me—and he really had to convince me to film the perpetrators—to confront the perpetrators with him, I realized that we would have to find a way of getting their guard down. The eye tests were perfect for that because you're disarmed when you're chatting with a doctor or a dentist or a barber, your guard is down. And Adi could prolong the test for as long as necessary until all of the important details that he'd studied in my old footage had come out.

How'd you convince people to talk to the brother of a guy they murdered?
I would bring Adi, and I would say, "Here I am. I'm back after all of these years. I went on to shoot a film with..." and I would drop the names of some of the most powerful names in The Act of Killing so they would realize that they ought not physically attack us or detain us because they might offend their superiors.

For more on Indonesia, check out 'Tobaccoland':

I hope they didn't know what was in The Act of Killing when you said that...
The Act of Killing hadn't screened yet, so they didn't know what kind of film it was, and therefore I was still believed to be close to some of the most powerful men in Indonesia. I would say, "This time I'm not here to ask you to dramatize what you've done. I'm here with a friend who has his own perspective and personal relationship to these events. You may agree. You may disagree. I hope you'll listen to each other, and I want to just film your conversation. Thank you for your time. Adi's an optometrist, he'll test your eyes and if you need glasses, we'll make as many pairs as you should require."

What did Adi want out of these conversations? And did he get it?
I knew we wouldn't get the apology that Adi was hoping for. But I thought if I could do my job well, and film the inevitably recognizably human reactions that anyone could empathize with—not necessarily sympathize with but empathize with—that are inevitable when someone comes in your house and says, "You've killed my brother. Can you take responsibility for this?"

And they wouldn't. But you just wanted to literally see the looks on their faces, right?
Right at the beginning, [one man] says that everybody in the village is afraid of him, and then he starts telling these horrific stories with these terrible details while Adi is very calmly testing his eyes. He would say one awful thing after another that would challenge both of our composures, frankly, and Adi would just slip in another lens and say, "Do you see more clearly or less clearly?" And then he would say "more clearly" and then continue or "less clearly" and then continue on with another awful story. And he would tell the stories in such a way to kind of let the horror of it linger in the air.

That scene definitely stands out. Is that how you got the image for the poster?
I told my cinematographer, "Let's move this camera, which is getting the complementary angle, and make it completely frontal so it's up on his face for this first part of the scene where he's telling his stories, because this is a metaphor for blindness."

These killings were partly the result of US's anticommunist influence. Aren't there CIA guys out there who deserve to have "the look" captured on film? And are you going to track them down?
[With] most of the historical records about what happened in 1965, the US involvement remains classified. All of the CIA documents pertaining to Indonesia from 1964 to 1966 are classified. All of the defense documents are classified. And we're working with senators to hopefully pass a sense of a senate resolution demanding that the US declassify those documents—well, recommending, because that's all they can do in those resolutions is recommend that the US take responsibility.

But there must have been some guys who we know were around back then.
I interviewed this man who worked in the US embassy in Jakarta whose job was to compile lists of thousands of names of public figures—writers, artists, intellectuals, journalists, unionists—and hand them over to the army to kill these people. Tick off their names when you kill them, a death list of thousands of names. And he talked about it as though this was real intelligence work he was doing. And I came to realize that these were public figures, and the army was deployed in every hamlet. They would know who their opponents were. What this really was was incitement. It was an unmistakable signal from one of the world's superpowers: Kill everybody. We want you to go after everybody who might be opposed to this new regime. [This was] reported in The New York Times.

You talked to him too? What'd he say?
I said, "How do you feel about all of this?" Robert—he was in Bethesda, Maryland, a couple of miles from where I grew up—he said, "Oh, I'm really glad this didn't happen in Bethesda."

Wow.
I'm so glad you reacted that way. Not everyone knows why that's so shocking, but I just sat there thinking that's really what this is all about. But the problem is—unlike thugs, who could be killing in their early 20s—these men were in their 30s, even 40s, 50s. They will be in their 90s, late 80s. At the youngest anyone in influence or power—which is what matters when you're talking about national policy—would be in their early 90s, or deceased.

So that's not going to be your next film?
My work on this particular genocide is over. There's plenty of other things to make films about. It's like Werner Herzog said when I first started working with him, "Joshua, your next film should be an Eddie Murphy comedy."

Joshua Oppenheimer's The Look of Silence is in theaters nationwide tomorrow.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Mugshot via Arapahoe County Sheriff's Department

Read: Forensic Psychiatrists Weigh in on What the Ramblings in the Colorado Theater Shooter's Journal Mean

James Eagan Holmes was just found guilty of 24 counts of first-degree murder, along with other charges stemming from the notorious mass shooting at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado on July 20, 2012.

Holmes looked tidy in a blue dress shirt and slicked-back hair as Judge Carlos Samour read verdicts for each individual count to the Arapahoe County District Court. Because there were 12 victims, and two counts per victim, it took several minutes to read each guilty verdict. Holmes did not visibly react.

Whether or not Holmes was the shooter has never been a question. The jury began deliberations on Wednesday strictly over the questions of whether Holmes was guilty or not guilty by reason of insanity. According to a somewhat unusual Colorado law, when a "not guilty by reason of insanity," plea is entered, the prosecution is required to prove a suspect is sane, rather than the defense being obligated to prove them insane.

Four hundred people were in the movie theater that July day when the 24-year-old entered the auditorium with an AR-15 assault rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun, and two 40-caliber Glocks three years ago. All of his guns and his more than 6,000 rounds of ammo were obtained legally.

He was dressed head-to-toe in tactical equipment, including body armor and clip holders for easy access to additional ammunition. He had also dyed his hair red. When the police apprehended him, he identified himself as "the Joker."

In late May of this year, Holmes's bizarre personal journal was submitted into evidence. The book contained long, rambling passages, such as a whole page covered with repetitions of the word "why." But it also detailed his elaborate planning process for the day of the murder. The document was mined by both the prosecution and defense for insight into his mental fitness. (Multiple expert witnesses, including the shrink who spoke to Holmes shortly after his arrest, gave their own opinions.)

Attorneys for the prosecution and defense attempted to answer written questions from the jury as they deliberated. The jury apparently asked for a user-friendly list of every item presented throughout the trial, but since there were thousands of pieces of evidence—and indexing the material would require labeling it in a potentially judgmental fashion—no such list could be arranged.

Next the jury will decide whether to put Holmes to death, a penalty that the district attorney is reportedly pushing for.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

There's a sketch in Limmy's Show where our intrepid narrator tells a friend about the unfortunate circumstances in which his dad has passed on. Not only does his father have a surprise AIDS diagnosis to contend with, but they've had to amputate his arms and legs, so that his family couldn't even hold his hand before he met his demise. All the while, his mate's ringtone keeps playing, and so this horrifying account of loss is sound-tracked by intermittent blasts of "The Holiday Rap." It's a trope that, during my time with Brian "Limmy" Limond—father, cycling enthusiast, techno fan, comedian—is a constant: He can talk about genuinely horrifying stuff, fictional or otherwise, yet it'll be consistently hilarious. In normal circumstances, a man shouldn't be able to tell you about a dream of stuffing an old man into a tree and setting him ablaze through stifled laughter. Certainly not in a pub in Glasgow. But that's Brian, or maybe Limmy—it's hard to tell the difference.

Whether it's from the TV— Limmy's Show ran for three series and a Christmas special, while more recently he's had much-lauded guest spots on Charlie Brooker's Newswipe—or from his active, often controversial Twitter use, you'll have heard of Limmy by now. The former web developer has reached beyond his initial success in Scotland, where he's sold out stand-up shows and won our version of the BAFTAs.

He's also inarguably the best person from the UK on Vine, where some strange characters come to life through him, whether through DIY or finding discarded bottles of Frosty Jack's by a dual carriageway.

Now he's got a book out. Daft Wee Stories is a project borne from the bizarre thoughts that have filled blog posts, started surreal arguments on the internet and fueled plenty of his sketch show. This seemed like a reasonable enough excuse to spend two and a half hours in Limmy's company, during which time he waxed lyrical about music, drugs, Scottish independence, depression, comedy and, well, anything that came to his mind.

VICE: Hi Limmy. Tell me about your new book.
Limmy: Well, I was writing daft wee stories on my site, Limmy.com, my blog and that... I did it on Facebook, to begin with, and on Twitter, these daft wee bedtime stories. A publisher saw it and got in touch with my agent, and that was it. It's just full of daft wee stories, about 70 wee stories; 70,000 words at about 1,000 per story, so it only takes about five to ten minutes to read each. They're wee horror stories, generally funny, it's nothing like, deep and meaningful. Some of them are just about fucking seven words long.

You mean like "My mate Rennie shags his granda"?
Aye, that's the wee-est one.

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Well, they seemed to get more graphic as time went on, the Rennie ones.
Aye, I like that, and I mean it's horrible and everything. I think there was the odd person who'd say, "Now, hang on a minute, I don't see what's so funny about this incestuous and, I take it, non-consensual relationship between this guy Rennie, this nutter, and his granda." And there's torture involved, like, "My mate Rennie poured boiling water all over his Granda's face," and that.

Now, why are you laughing, and why am I laughing about that, when if you read it in the paper you'd be like "fucking hell"? I mean, if that happened right in front of you, you'd be fucking horrified, but there's something about horror stories, where it's funny to hear these terrible, terrible, for me anyway... horrific fucking things happening. It's good, it's... got this cracking feeling to it, where it's safe, it's fiction.

Looking back on the sketch show—you appeared and wrote in every sketch, did the music, directed, edited, all this stuff—was that exhausting or did it make all worthwhile, knowing it was fully your project?
Aye, it makes all worthwhile, for me... my type of personality doesn't really like working that much with other people, unless I'm told "just do this, and fuck off," that's alright, but actually working with somebody, when you've got ideas and they've got ideas and you're trying to bring them all together, I think that's dead fucking hard for me. I have to do the music and direct it and write it, I couldn't let anyone else write it, I couldn't have a fourth series and say, "Well, I'll let other people write some of it, come up with ideas for what Dee Dee might do, even if it's shite." People say Limmy's Show is kind of hit or miss, but I'd rather that than having something generally likable. I'd rather say like, "Well, I do all of it" and they say "That's fucking shite," as long as I think it's alright to begin with.

It's unusual, I'd assume, for comedy shows to be commissioned on the basis of one person doing everything.
When you've got an idea in your head of how something will look when you write it, you tell everyone what to do and it's really stimulating, it's fucking exciting. When I used to work on websites and a client would come in and ask for changes, I'd just tune out, like, "I don't fucking care any more, I want it to be exactly that way I want to do it," which is childish... but it's all worked out alright.

You could describe what you do as "alternative comedy," if that's even a term any more.
I thought alternative meant "it's no for the people who like that stuff" or "we're going to slag that stuff off" or... I mean, maybe I'm alternative in that my stuff's not mainstream, doesn't want to be mainstream, could never be mainstream. It isn't just for any cunt. That's why it's a surprise if there's some old woman, about 70 maybe, like last week, who was all, "I love that one, the 'Margaret, put it in yer mouth' sketch, the fucking stripper one!" I was going back over that sketch, and I thought,[older Limmy fans] weren't always this age, they weren't always old women not really up to stuff.

I suppose [Limmy's work] isn't for every cunt, it's no mainstream. I don't know what "alternative" really means, though.

You've generally shied away from mainstream channels of promotion for your comedy. Would you ever do the panel show circuit? I get the feeling you wouldn't be into it at all.
I was asked before to go out on 8 out of 10 Cats, and I've been asked to go on Question Time, I said to no to that. I don't see myself coming across well on that sort of thing. Even Have I Got News For You, which I used to watch all the time, I'd be like that: "Fuck man, I can't fucking pretend to be interested in all this." I'm not slagging off Paul Merton or anything, I like him, but just some things your head isn't fucking right for, sitting there laughing, no matter what is getting said, you have to go like that [disingenuous laugh]. You have to laugh and smile along in case the camera's on you and your face is tripping you up. People at home will be like, "Why's he not laughing at anyone's jokes, like his are so fucking good?"

You campaigned strongly for independence. Was it hard to be enthused about comedy after we bottled it?
I don't know, maybe it's a Scottish thing, but after [the result], I just went "ah well." It's just like the World Cup or something, you think, "Maybe Scotland can go quite far here," and then boom! We're knocked out, like, "Well, what did we fucking expect?"

I don't know if it's working with computers or something but you just get used to things failing. You get used to working really hard on something and then losing it. Or maybe it's just being Scottish, thinking maybe something'll go well, and then it doesn't. Like, when you start planning on going out somewhere, and it starts pissing with rain. I just thought, Oh, you stupid fucking cunts, and I don't mean all No voters, because some have got their emotional reasons, where they feel Scottish as part of being British. Imagine if there was a referendum to split North Scotland and South Scotland, if people didn't feel represented by the Central Belt, I'd vote No, to see if we could stick together and make it work better—that's no different to how some people feel about the UK.

I wondered what you made of Mhairi Black, the fact that she's been elected at 20 years old and the tweets the press have dug up from when she was 15.
It's so good to see a normal person in there. I was tweeting about this, the right-wing papers saying, "Look at this, look at the language she was using," and you think, what were these elected Tories up to when they were 15? Nothing Mhairi Black said or did was bad anyway, she said that maths is shite, and ones about her waking up to pizza and cans. It only shows you that—and I'm not saying that all the people of Paisley are like that—but I'd rather be represented by someone who's had a similar childhood to me, with the same sort of attitudes, and now wants to help folk, than some Tory, or some career politician, who're just in it for the money, the power, or whatever. I thought it was cracking, I always thought hearing her speak that she was like me, just a normal upbringing and seeing those tweets, it was funny to see that that's what it's like now. She was young, on Twitter.

Compare Mhairi Black to George Osborne, who changed his name from Gideon when was about 12, to sound more Prime Ministerial.
Oh, for fuck's sake.

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So yeah, it is much better to be represented by normal people.
See when I was growing up, it was Thatcher, and Michael Hesseltine, and all them. And the way they all spoke, and acted—arrogant, never explained, never apologized, just this attitude of, "We're your rulers, this is how it's going to be. It's going to be tough but we know what we're fucking doing." And you just get in your head, like brainwashing, that the people who speak like that, and look like that, they're the people in charge. But when you see people with a similar sort of background to you, the Scottish Government especially, you think that we can be in charge of things, run things, ban things, change things for the better. And we've always had our own NHS, our own education, yet you get it into your head that we're shite, we can't run a fucking thing, because of these plummy-voiced posh cunts who'll run it for you, because that's what they do. They were born to do that for you; they went to the right schools, colleges, universities, you're just a fucking nae-cunt.

So it's good to see people that had similar upbringings to yourself coming up, and doing it, because it inspires other people to do that. The referendum was brilliant for all that.

So aye, talking about Twitter, you've got trolling down to an art form. What have your favorite moments been?
I quite liked the Louise Mensch thing, that was quite good. That, and me saying I'd like to stick a samurai sword up Prince William's arse and yank it towards me like a door that won't fucking open... I mean, I like that, I like the picture of that, and not to get all wanky about it, but that's like... writing, in a way, that's just like horror writing.

See the fact [Mensch] wrote that big blog on it, and made a big deal about it, saying the BBC should sack [me], all that... not long after that, Jeremy Clarkson says that people who go on strike should be taken out and shot in front of their families. She didn't say one thing about that. Even though that happens, that happens in real fucking life, people get shot and all sorts of things for acting against governments, but I'm not going to act all high and mighty about that. Jeremy Clarkson meant it as a joke. I defend that sort of thing. But the fact she didn't say anything about that because he's a fucking Tory. And then later on, whether or not he called that producer he hit Irish, as in, "You fucking Irish..." whatever, he assaulted him, and she was pure defending him.

So it's alright for a BBC guy, and remember she wanted me booted out of the BBC for writing some tweets—when I didn't even work for the BBC—he assaults this person, and the guy's meant to just take it? She's saying, "He can defend himself," is that what it comes down to? He could have fucking hit him, but he'd be losing his job, because he's not Jeremy Clarkson, but Louise Mensch is defending Clarkson because he's right wing. Here's her wanting me to get sacked because I said something about her precious fucking Thatcher, her precious fucking Royal Family, but [Clarkson] hooks a normal fucking cunt doing his fucking job and she wants him back... it's hypocritical. So that was a good drama, that, especially seeing how she contradicts herself later.

Related: If you like Scotland so much, why don't you marry it? Or better yet, watch this documentary about Scottish wrestler Grado

Do you feel like trolling's changed? It seems to be a buzzword that's become an umbrella term for abuse.
Trolling used to be fun. Now it seems to be if you call somebody a name, like a "prick," that's trolling! No, that's just calling somebody a prick! Doesn't make it good, doesn't make it nice, but I like words to actually mean something. Imagine we were out there [Limmy points to a fairly unassuming man across the street]. If someone calls us a wank, or a prick, you wouldn't come home and say, "Aw, I got trolled today."

I think trolling is a sort of art form, a bit of a craft [laughs]. It's not about saying "oh, I hope they fucking die," or say something racist, something terrible like that, I mean something subtle. It's almost like arson; from one match, you can set a whole school on fire. Not that I'd set a school on fire, but OK: You could get a whole field, of just dried grass—one match and the whole thing would go up. What thing can you say, putting a wee bit of effort in, to get all that stuff up? That's what trolling is to me, it's not just calling Alan Sugar a prick.

You've been pretty open about taking anti-depressants. I wanted to ask about Citalropram and anti-depressants in general; from my own experience, on Fluoxetine and others, I find it harder to write, to be inspired generally. Did taking anti-depressants change you day-to-day, or how you went about your work?
I wrote my Christmas special on Citalropram, and the only difference was that I kept falling asleep at my laptop. It can make you sleepy, if you're sitting at home, or lying down, you just want to sleep. If I wanted to write something angry, Citalropram would take some of that anger away, but it wouldn't flat-line me. Most of the Vines—not "the Plasterer," but the Frosty Jack's ones, all the ones round then—they were while I was on Citalropram. For people who don't know about that stuff, it might sound like I was "on" something, like I was eccied. I just felt the same, but in a good mood. It never affected my creativity in any way. I was told it would, but I think that's more Fluoxetine and Prozac and that, that has a sort of flat-lining effect, but on Citalropram I was happy.

Sometimes I'd not want to make something, be creative in some way, because I'd be scared or worried about people thinking it was shite. You'd be frozen, thinking "I don't know if that's good enough," and just not do anything. But with Citalropram I wasn't bothered about negative things, before if I wanted to get in touch with someone, maybe to go for a drink, maybe someone you've not seen in a while, you'll think they're going to say no, and that'd hurt. But Citalropram would prevent me from having these negative thoughts, feeling that way.

I don't know if it's a coincidence, whether Vine felt great and new, and I enjoyed it, or it was the Citalropram that made me feel that way, but it never affected me negatively, other than making me fall asleep.

It's kind of unusual for someone to deal with depression so publicly. Was being open and relaying your experiences for people cathartic in a way? Did it help relieve internal pressures, saying to people "well if you feel this way too, you should go see the doctor about it"?
I've always been the kind of person that's honest, and talks about their feelings. I've nothing to fucking lose—I'm not the kind of person that's got a lot of pride in that sort of way, in the way I project myself. I mean, I have some pride, I'm not going to walk about in clothes that smell of shite—I care. But I've never had an image to maintain of someone who's in control; I like to talk about my feelings.

It's kind of like The Smiths, in a way, like Morrissey. It helps to hear someone talk about how they feel, when it isn't all positive. I like to ask, "How do you feel about this? Do you feel the same way?" I know it helps folk; it helps me and all, just to rabbit on.

When I first started taking the pills, I was a wee bit shy about it, because I thought, I don't want cunts to think my personality's changed. I didn't want any weird treatment. Saying you're cracking up, you're thinking of topping yourself, apparently that's alright, but see when you're talking about doing something about it, and you're taking these pills that affect your mood... when you're without them, and your mood's shite, and you're getting pissed off, people are alright with that, seemingly. I had this feeling of "I'm doing better now, I'm taking these pills," it's almost sad, like you've gave in, had a fucking lobotomy or something. I didn't want people to think I was different, like if I go on my webcam and I'm a wee bit happier, I didn't want people to think, "Well it's not him we're getting, it's those pills."

I thought, I need to say it. It's that wee feeling of I'm not sure if I should tell folk, and being afraid, that's what made me do it, because fear, being scared of something, feels like weakness in a way. If you're scared of telling people something, it's almost like you're being blackmailed by yourself, you're hiding something.

Watch: The MUNCHIES Guide to Scotland

Quick one, now: Thump said it's possible that you're the best bedroom producer in the UK.
[Laughs] I thought they were taking the piss, and then it sort of looked like they weren't.

No, no, totally serious.
The music that I make—I've got myself a wee keyboard, with the buttons and all that—see when I actually make stuff that sounds good, to me anyway, I get a bit pissed off, because it just sounds like any old fucking crap. When I was young, I wanted to get into that. Me and my mates bought a tone module and this wee sequencer, an Atari ST, Cubase, and all that. It just sounded fucking crap. Now I've just got this one keyboard and I can do it all on the computer, and that's a wee dream come true, in a way, but initially when I was doing it, I just wanted to put a twist on it, put Rocky III over the top of it or some shite like that.

I like having a laugh, writing versions of the Smiths. That and "In the End," it went down really fucking well. I looked it up, and I know it, so I worked away and did that wee funny voice, even though it's a fucking emo sort of thing, "Oh, it doesn't matter, I had a cry." I put it over the music and I liked how it sounded. I showed it to my girlfriend and she said "that could be good if you didn't ruin it with that fucking singing," but it's a laugh! And that's what I do it for! Seemingly, some folk genuinely like it, although there'll be people asking, "what the fuck is this?" but aye. It's fun.

Check out Limmy's music by clicking here

Final question, and I sort of dread asking this: What's your sound of the summer, Limmy?
Sound of the summer? Well... what day is it? Is it quarter to one yet? [It was ten to one]That'll be it tweeted then. I have it set automatically so it'll send at quarter to one on a Friday. I don't sit there, tweeting it myself. I used to, but I set it up so it's tweeted every week, just so if I go out and I get hit by a bus, I'll still be tweeting it.

But aye, there's a new one by Daft Punk, called "Get Lucky." Give it a listen if you get the chance. Sound of the summer.

Cheers, Limmy.

Follow Euan L Davidoson on Twitter.

Daft Wee Stories is out on July 30. You can buy it here. Follow Limmy on Twitter, too, in case you somehow don't already.

Sandra Bland. Photo via Facebook

Sandra Bland had no patience for apathy. In January, the suburban Chicago native started recording videos about police brutality in a series she called Sandy Speaks. The idea was to start a dialogue about current events with her young nephews, but a few months later, she could no longer stand sifting through the usual social media fodder.

"If you're black and not posting about black unification, get the fuck off social media," read a meme-like image Bland posted on April 11. "Right now we don't care about your birthday, your club pics, your dinner plates, your ass shots, twerk videos, model shots, or any other irrelevant ass shit not mentioned."

Now that Bland has been found dead in a Texas jail cell, that urgency seems more than a little eerie.

The tragedy began to unfold on Friday afternoon, when the 28-year-old was pulled over for allegedly not using a turning signal just north of Houston. What should have been a routine encounter with a member of the Texas Department of Public Safety quickly turned violent, and a man recorded the encounter, despite an officer telling him repeatedly to leave. "Thank for recording," Bland yelled as she was led, handcuffed, to a police car. "Thank you. He slammed my head into the ground for a traffic signal."

On VICE News: Unarmed Black Man Was 'Strangled to Death' by Mississippi Cop

Although the video only shows Bland outside of her car, on the ground, and in cuffs, Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith told the Chicago Tribune that the woman was charged with assault on a public servant. The paper also reports she was put into a "tank" for women by herself.

After reportedly eating breakfast and making a phone call Monday morning, Bland was found dead around 9 AM.

So far, local law enforcement is saying her death was a suicide by hanging. The idea that she would take her own life strikes many as strange: Bland was reportedly in town to interview for a new job at Prairie View A&M University, and was set to start on August 3. Her friends are now publicly challenging the official police narrative and saying that a woman planning for the future doesn't just spontaneously decide to end her life. On Thursday, #WhatHappenedToSandyBland was trending on Twitter, with many people on the social media sites the deceased once championed now coming to her defense.

Texas Rangers are investigating the death, according to a press release from the Waller County Sheriff's Office, which notes that the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, Texas Attorney General, and Waller County District Attorney's Offices have also been notified.

In 2007, Sheriff Smith was suspended from his previous job in Hempstead, Texas, for alleged racism. "He got off way too lightly considering his humiliation and mistreatment of young African-American males," the president of the Waller County Leadership Council said at the time.

After completing an anger management class, things apparently did not improve at the department, as Smith was fired in 2008, but won election as Waller County Sheriff later that year.

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

Mugda Stadium, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2010. Lili Begum wakes up at dawn ready for a day's work collecting waste. She lives underneath Mugda Stadium with her family. About 500 people take shelter beneath the stadium. Most of them come from Gaibandha, one of Bangladesh's poorest areas.

This article appears in the Photo Issue 2015

Photos by Shehab Uddin / Magnum Photos

SHEHAB UDDIN

The 15,000 to 20,000 pavement dwellers of Dhaka are among the most vulnerable and neglected people in Bangladesh. They have few means to survive in a political, social, and economic environment that virtually ignores them. Their main concerns are food, clothing, and a place to sleep. They live for the present—no past, no future. They engage in numerous activities to earn a living (working as porters, rickshaw pullers, maids, sex traders, and solid-waste recyclers), with their own particular struggles and joys. They are conscious of their identities as human beings.

Their population over the last decade has increased at the same rate as that of Dhaka in general. Many newcomers arrive after escaping floods that ruin livelihoods in rural areas and that are becoming more frequent with climate change. Others are crippled with debt and are reeled in by the promise of better opportunities. But for the future influx of pavement dwellers, the move will not bring the better life they hope for.

Kawran Bazaar, Dhaka, 2010. Two young boys, Arshadul and Shumon, playing together one evening in Kawran Bazar. Arshadul collects wastepaper from the garbage before selling it. Shumon steals for a living. They are good friends.

Mugda Stadium, 2010. Rezina and her family as they return to Dhaka after a visit to their relatives in Gaibandha. Families often feel they are thrown in the deep end when they first migrate to the city from a rural area. But they have faith that they will be able to stay afloat. The family migrated to the capital in search of work several years ago. Now Khabir pulls goods on a rickshaw van, and Rezina collects garbage to sell to recycling vendors. Their daughter studies at the Amrao Manush daycare center for pavement dwellers, but their son spends his time doing nothing.

Rina getting ready to make her bed for her and her family on a footpath on the main street of Karwan Bazaar. She sells waste vegetables collected from the bazaar, which she sells during the day. 2010, Kawran Bazaar, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

A disabled pavement dweller begging on Mughdha Street, Dhaka. Begging is the main source of income for pavement dwellers who are disabled, very young, or elderly. 2010, Mugda Para, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

A child plays in an underpass in the early morning while it rains outside. He spend the last night in the underpass with his parents, who are still sleeping alongside their neighbors. 2010, Kawran Bazaar, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

A sex worker searches for a place to sleep for the night on the rooftop of Kamalapur Railway Station. Previously, they would sleep on train platforms and waiting rooms. But the authorities no longer allow them to sleep there, with police detaining those who try. The rooftop may also be used as a 'room' for sex workers during business hours. 2010, Kamalapur Railway Station, Dhaka, Bagladesh.

Rijia, an elderly street dweller prepares her dinner for the evening. She cooks only a little amount of rice that she got by begging in the street. She uses scrap material as fuel. The street in which she cooks is littered with garbage, mud, and human waste. 2010, Mugda Stadium, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

A rickshaw driver sleeping in his rickshaw at Kamalapur Railway Station. He uses it as his bed as it is safer for both him and the rickshaw. A lot of male pavement dwellers pull rickshaws for a living. 2010, Kamalapur Railway Station, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Akhbar (right) and Nurbanu. Akhbar has been suffering fever for the past two days. Nurbanu pours cool water on his head to lower his temperature. 2010, Mugda Stadium, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The author

I'm not shy about my big body. The way I see it, if you can't handle my stretch marks, then you don't deserve my cellulite. I wasn't always like this. I used to be the girl who insisted on sex with the lights off. I covered myself every time I got out of bed. I never wanted to be on top during sex, fearing how my stomach might look from that angle. God, I feel so sad for that version of me.

My confidence boosted the day I came to the simple realization that my fatness is not something I can hide, so why try? I never went into sex under the impression that my partners knew what they were in for, as if our entire time together before getting undressed was spent solely looking at each other's faces. Plus, most of the men I sleep with tell me they like my body. They'll say something like "I love curvy women," or "I like thicker girls." I always took these comments as them trying to do me a favor—like, I'll call her curvy, not fat. But I don't see fat as a bad word, and I don't see the point in avoiding it.

I mentioned this to a guy recently, after he called me "curvy" in bed. "Just call me fat," I said to him. "I don't mind—it's what I am."

His response to this took me surprise. "Trust me, you're not fat. I'm not attracted to fat girls."

That's when it all hit me: Oh, you're not doing this for my sake. You're doing it for yours. This guy, and probably a lot of the others, didn't want to come to terms with his attraction to a fat woman.

I get it. It's not just women who are raised to believe that there is only one type of body considered "hot." Openly liking a body-type that strays from the socially-constructed norm brings about shame. Even those who are not ashamed of their desires sometimes feel the need to be secretive about it. In the heterosexual landscape, gender studies lecturer Hugo Schwyzer says men are "taught to find 'hot' what other men find 'hot.'" Basically, heterosexual attraction works on a societal level, and women are the building blocks for their male partner's self-esteem. Fat women are seen as a "downgrade," which forces many heterosexual men to deny that they're attracted to fat women at all.

This, of course, does not apply to all heterosexual men. There are communities of men known as "fat admirers." In 2011, the Village Voice profiled Dan Weiss, an outspoken fat admirer and creator of "Ask A Guy Who Likes Fat Chicks." In that profile, Weiss debunks the myths about why a man might prefer fat women: It's not because fat women are easier to get into bed, and it's not true that men who date fat women must have low self-confidence. The fact that these are common beliefs in the first place says something about how fat women are viewed in a sexual context.

A Fernando Botero painting in the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City. Photo via Flickr user Enrique Vázquez

Author and fat activist Virgie Tovar brings up another misconception: "Men who desire fat women are considered sexual deviants or perverts because fat women do not conform to mainstream Western ideals of beauty," she told me. "The truth is that human desire—and yes, male desire—varies widely, and if we lived in a less proscriptive world we would all see how diverse our appetites are. Unfortunately, we don't live in that kind of world. In the West, it is thinness."

Perhaps this would be different if fat women were represented differently in mainstream media. Hollywood really could do better than casting Melissa McCarthy in a few funny, but completely de-sexualized roles. In the music industry, we rarely hear about big women, other than in songs like Drake's verse in Nicki Minaj's "Only," where Drake says he likes BBW (big, beautiful women) because they're the type "to wanna suck you dry and then eat some lunch with you." The best thing we have to being seen in a positive light by a popular artist still found a way to make fun of us. Thanks, Drake.

I guess we'll have to take it considering people rarely even close to saying something like this. It's odd how taboo this all is, considering the fact that at one point in the Western World's cultural history, fat women were not in the slightest bit branded as repulsive.

On Munchies: Eating meals with your fat friends will make you fat, too.

Sociology researchers Samantha Kwan and Jennifer Fackler at the University of Houston created a brief history of how body ideals have changed over the centuries in a fact sheet titled, " Women and Size." According to them, up until around the 19th Century, women were depicted in paintings by artists such as Ruben and Renoir as "fleshy" and "voluptuous" (their words, not mine). Personally, both those descriptors make me want to hurl because they sound like something out of a horrific erotic romance novel (same reason I can't stand to hear the words "panties" and "throbbing"). Regardless, slim bodies only became desirable once mass-marketing in fashion began taking place as well as the marketing of diets.

It was around this time that dress sizes became standardized and the discovery of the calorie suddenly forced weight monitoring to enter public consciousness, according to gastronomist Sarah Lohman. In other words, diets turned into marketable, sellable products. By the 1920s, "most American women were either on a diet or feeling guilty about not dieting. And the rest is history." Our whole perception of beauty in relation to thinness is essentially manifested by people throughout history looking to profit off of our self-esteem, and we fell for their gimmicks. We fell for them hard.

In Mauritania, obesity is viewed as a sign of wealth and prestige in a woman. To attain these standards of beauty, many Mauritanian women undergo the practice of gavage, or "fattening up."

"We are victims of horrible information," said Ken Page, psychotherapist and the author of the book Deeper Dating: How to Drop the Games of Seduction and Discover the Power of Intimacy. "The learning we get around how attraction works, the way we're supposed to look and act, it's as if it was written by a group of anxious teenagers. It's dangerous, misguided, and mostly non-science based."

As it turns out, attraction has a lot less to do with looks than we think. According to science, a big part of sexual attraction boils down to how fertile we smell, personality traits like kindness and intelligence, and something Page calls "emotional attraction," which is basically how well you "click" with someone. "To think that because you're of a certain shape, or weight, that people are not going to be attracted to you is just not true."

If this is how attraction works, on a scientific level, then why don't I see this happening in my life? Why does my overbearing Jewish mother constantly pressure me to lose weight, so that she can marry me off to some Jewish dentist? Why do strangers on the internet repeatedly keep telling me that losing weight will finally help me find love?

I know this isn't true. I have plenty of friends who fit the "hot chick" stereotype (I live in Los Angeles, after all—there's practically a goddamn infestation of "hot chicks"). I've learned from my friendships with tall, thin, beauty-obsessed women that their romantic lives are just as shitty as mine. Fat or thin, we're in the same boat when it comes to getting cheated on, getting that awful text that says, "You're really cool, but the thing is..." The difference is, when that happens, my thin friends don't automatically blame it on their weight. So why am I constantly made to feel like my weight is the problem in my love life?

While we're at it, everything you thought you knew about fat is wrong. Read more on Munchies.

Feeling shame about fatness is something I know all about—but as Tovar explained, the way I processed my shame is different from how the men I slept with processed their shame. "When women feel shame we are taught to turn that shame inwards, toward ourselves," said Tovar. "Men are often able to maneuver some of the shame away from themselves. Whereas women are likelier to just absorb all of it—not just the shame they are likely already feeling for being fat, but also shame because they are causing discomfort to their partner."

This is best exemplified by women feeling uncomfortable in fully exposing their bodies during sex, even when our romantic partners have already expressed attraction to us by their eagerness to rip our clothes off. Sort of like saying, " I'm ashamed that you might be ashamed of my body."

In order to end the shame that occurs on this level, women—and not just fat women—need to accept our bodies as they are. Not just for our own sake, but for the sake of making our partners feel less shame, too. As Page explained, the parts of us we feel the most shameful towards just might be the very parts our partner is turned on by.

Of course, this is easier said than done. It's extremely difficult to not feel embarrassed by what we're consistently told are imperfections. To help end our easiness, men could be better at expressing their desire for us—not just privately, but outwardly as well. Try writing a rap lyric about us that doesn't bring up food. That would be nice.

To you heterosexual men out there who can't yet find it in you to outwardly admit that us fatties are capable of being just as attractive as thin women, ask yourself: Why exactly that is? What is it you really fear? The reaction of your friends? What kind of friends are those, if they so strongly want to stop you from being happy?

The bottom line is, fat women are sick of being treated like freaks, and those men who are attracted to us are sick of being treated like deviants. Attractiveness exists on a spectrum, and it's time that spectrum show all of itself—rolls and all.

Follow Alison Stevenson on Twitter.

This person does not have a wife. Nobody who draws graffiti in dirt with their fingers has someone who loves them. Photo via Annie Mole

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

These are mixed times for the Tube. You're thinking: Oh, he means because of the strikes. No, I mean because people keep masturbating on it, and groping women on it, and taking class-A drugs on it, and yet the person who seems to have come off worse thus far this summer is an artist who used one of the free plug sockets to charge his phone.

It feels like it might be time for a Tube etiquette refresher. For example, Rule #1: no wanking. Not even a little bit. I know: Your boss has really been riding you hard, hasn't he? He really wants that spreadsheet, or whatever it is you do. (I assume any job that isn't my own is just the colossal and infinite construction of spreadsheets.) So you have really nailed a tricky VLOOKUP, and you're on the Tube home, and you have forgotten your book, and... would it be so bad to slide one single hand down your trousers and manipulate your genitals in the direction of a lonely orgasm? A stress reliever. A little jolt of ecstasy. Would it be that bad, if you hide behind a Metro? I am here to tell you yes; yes, it definitely would.

See, a lot of people don't know about the non-wanking on the Tube rule. It's one of those unwritten ones, and TfL do not issue pamphlets warning us all not to do it. What else are we doing wrong? How else are we abusing one of the greatest, dirtiest, worst public transport networks on Earth? Let's find out.

Photo via llee_wu

LEARN TO WALK THROUGH A TUBE STATION WITHOUT STOPPING ABRUPTLY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING CONCOURSE, YOU FUCKING PRICK IDIOT

I always wonder, as I clatter into them terrifically from behind, about the psychological profile of these people. These are the slow walkers and the idiots. The people who loiter in shop doorways, not sure whether they want to go in or not. The people who hold doors open for you when you're not close enough to the door and you have to do a little half-run. Where did these people come from? Their spatial awareness is fucked.

The central truth of using the Tube is: You, like the trains, need to move quickly and precisely. Anyone who cannot grasp that fact needs to have their Oyster card violently snapped in front of them and their Tube rights revoked. I'm talking to you, Out-of-Town Theater Nan, loudly and pridefully tutting as you wander blindly into the throng, as if it is somehow the city's fault, a metropolis that must descend humbly to one knee to apologize for being busy. You, Theatre Nan, and those dreadlocked Spanish tourists who saw Stomp and mistook it for a life-choice.

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EMBRACE FREE NEWSPAPERS; SUCCUMB TO FREE NEWSPAPERS

The Tube lines are London condensed into a hall of mirrors, the city's diet reflected in scream balloons of vomit and McDonald's debris, its chaos reflected in violently patterned seats and a vista of free newspapers as far as the eye can see, free newspapers contorted into such shapes you've never seen, free newspapers rolled into batons, free newspapers flayed on the floor, free newspapers pulled from the staples outwards and crucified upon dusty seats like inky Jesuses, free newspapers kicked around so much they are now just a single shrill headline about the possibility of Robbie Keane joining Fulham. Free newspapers are the prison currency of the Tube. You will fight over free newspapers. You will read the free newspaper's digest of the news you already read on every news app you have on your phone. You will wonder what the point of the free newspaper is. You will flick to the back, where brand new properties near Leyton are advertised at a starting price of $900,000, and you will know with no hope in your heart that you will never be a Leytonite. Welcome to London, where even the litter reminds you you're poor.

Photo via Annie Mole

GIVING YOUR SEAT UP

Listen up pregnant ladies: I got mad respect for you. Your bodies are doing something insane right now. You are literally cooking a baby in your stomach like a pie. You took some jizz and made it human. It is a wild and crazy and beautiful time for you. But I am hungover and I really need to sit here. I need to wear my sunglasses and not move even one atom and yet somehow ingest this Lucozade, or I am going to die.

Because in the seat-giving-up hierarchy, pregnant women win. They always win. And that's fine. But people who are still processing a dangerous amount of alcohol or drugs from the night before need special treatment, too.

Currently, the sitting down hierarchy goes like this: pregnant women > old people who look especially likely to die soon > other old people > people with lots of bags. This is fucked up. What about the hungover, the lazy? What about the people who played football three days ago and their legs still don't feel right? TfL, a petition: Give us a hangover carriage that plays rain noise and "Xtal" and Deacon Blue. Till then: I am not giving up my seat unless you are visibly giving birth.

JOLLY PLATFORM ANNOUNCERS

You know the ones: They say things like, "I hope you all had a lovely day at work." And you are like—some of you, the less cynical, the ones who have lived lives less miserable—you are like, "Oh no, don't be mean about the Jolly Platform Announcers: They brighten my day." No.

Think about it like this: These people are locked underground for eight hours a day. The air they breathe is dusty and hot. Their job is, primarily, to stop you trapping your arms in a robotic door. Their only friends are the dirty blind mice that somehow exist on the Tube line. And these people are happy, on top of that? Think again about those four base facts. Now throw happiness on top of it. The evidence is clear: anyone who can be happy, anyone who can be jolly under those stressful circumstances, is a fucking nailed-on, definite serial killer. Ban Jolly Platform Announcers, before they murder us all.

FALLING ASLEEP

If you're deliberately falling asleep anywhere in public, you're a wanker. If you're falling asleep by accident on the Tube, you will probably get robbed.

Watch VICE's documentary on the London housing shitshow, 'Regeneration Game':

VIRAL VIDEOS

With all of London being a fucking viral video set now, there is a constant buzz in the background, an audible 70 percent chance that everything happening around you is a tightly choreographed routine conceived by medium-profile vloggers or EE. That every old woman you help up some stairs is going to turn around and start singing gospel songs at you as a sign of gratitude, teens in beanie hats rushing in with GoPros, your heartwarming moment of basic human decency a simple ploy engineered by hands unseen for obscure corners of Mom Facebook to click "Like" on.

What do you do when you are caught in a viral video prison on the Tube? Very simple Do and Don't:

DO: Start swinging, with wild abandon, your fists and your legs, until at least one vlogger is mortally wounded
DON'T: Rant about immigration in a way that goes viral and makes you lose your job

You shouldn't need telling the Don't, but if more of us do the Do then maybe we can all get back to real life and out of this Grand Guignol Beadle's About facsimile of it.

DOORS

Have you ever been trapped in a Tube door? You have to think about your life and where it's going, if you have. Doors are up there with utensils and toilets as some of the most basic tools you will ever interact with and you just got your coat trapped in one because a beeping robot shut it on you. Thousands of people with Kindles are mad because your inability to walk through a door like a human has ground a vital part of one of the biggest cities on Earth to a halt. Think about your life and where you're going. You are so bad at doors it is close to being a crime.

EYE CONTACT

The only people who make eye contact on the tube are fugitive war criminals and Australians.

I bet you ca$h money this fucker is jolly. Photo via Annie Mole

FLIRTING

Flirting on the Tube is like flirting with someone while they're on the toilet, or having a knee glued back together by a perfunctory nurse: possible, yes, but essentially you are just bothering someone with your floppy-haired goofiness and Hugh Grant-esque "I–I–actually" shit while they are doing something necessary but also kind of awful. If you're about to flirt with someone on the Tube, just run this quick quiz by yourself: Would I say this to them if they were currently shitting? Just ask, internally, inside-voice: What about if they were having their shoulder popped back into its joint? If the answer is no, probably best to leave it. If you fancy them that much, just submit yourself to the public police database that is the "Rush Hour Crush" section of the Metro.

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AVOID THOSE BLOKES WHO KNOW EXACTLY WHERE TO STAND WHEN THE TRAIN COMES SO THEY CAN STEP IMMEDIATELY ONTO THE TRAIN AND ONTO A WAITING EMPTY SEAT

Sand colored overcoat, pen in the pocket, react-a-lite lenses, a haircut, a pink capillary blush around the nose that suggests a lack of dietary roughage, and standing there, in his piss-stained desert boots, in the exact same spot he always does, and the doors unfold open with a kssh, and he thinks: Is it really worth it? Take a look at that dusty man. He is Future You. Do not get too near to him, lest you become him.

Photo via Annie Mole

LEARN THE FINE ART OF TUBE DRINKING

Oh, you're thinking, but drinking is outlawed on the Tube. Drinking is outlawed on the Tube for the weak and the cowardly. For anyone willing to hold a little tinny in a black plastic bag or drink wine straight from a bottle disguised in a backpack, it's still Party Central, particularly the overground lines. I'm not saying Tube carriages should descend into actual, organized event drinking—I've seen footage from the Circle Line Party in 2008, and it basically looks like every twat you've ever met happening at once, like a massive twat firework display—but if we cannot enjoy the hot thrill of pre-drinking some vodka in an Evian bottle when traveling from Morden to Camden, then what, truly, do we have? Drinking in public is the only thing keeping London from being as shitty as New York.

And that's saying nothing for ye.

VOMITING

It's not that bad, vomiting on the Tube. We've all gone a bit too hard on a school night. And then we find ourselves, clammy in the hot, thick air of the Tube line, gently rolling and lilting in time with the motions of the train carriage, last night's lahmacun getting all mixed up in our guts, the urge to expel overwhelming. So just vomit. Vomit in your bag or your hands, and then slowly look up, palms still outstretched, at the person opposite you, and sweetly smile because: Are we not all humans toiling wearily beneath the yellow sun? Are we not all, at one time or another, vomiting lavishly on the Tube?

All tuckered out. Photo via Annie Mole

JUMPING

There is that curious wording to describe a death on the line that holds a train up, a curious wording telegraphed over the announcements as you idle in a grim dark tunnel: We've got a person on the tracks. That strange, bloodless description, as though someone might just be standing there, on the tracks—alive, vital, just furiously staring down an immovable train—and not immolated and in need of scraping up. Thing is, someone just died. Thing is, nothing you're really rushing to is that important any more. So just sit in your tunnel of purgatory and try not to roll your eyes and say "there's always one." Just sit and read your free paper and try not to be the enraged prick in a suit I once shared a carriage with who kept loudly repeating the word: "Selfish. Selfish, selfish, selfish, selfish."

TRYING TO HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH YOUR MATE, YOUR MATE SWINGING ON THE RAILINGS, YOUR MATE LOUDLY TRYING TO ASK YOU YOUR WEEKEND PLANS OVER THE ROAR OF THE ENGINE AND THE RATTLE OF THE CARRIAGE THROUGH THE TUNNELS—OR, WORSE, WORSE THAN HELL ITSELF, NOT A MATE AT ALL, BUT ONE OF THOSE COLLEAGUES YOU HALF-KNOW, ONE OF THOSE COLLEAGUES YOU—AT BEST—NOD AT IN THE KITCHEN, AND TURNS OUT THEY LIVE IN ACTON TOO, AND SO UH, SO WHAT... WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING ON LATELY? WHERE IN... WHERE IN ACTON ARE YOU? OH, RIGHT BY THE... YEAH, I KNOW THAT ROAD

No. Do not do this. This is not the place for this. Silence on the Tube, nothing but silence.

Photo via Duncan

BALANCING

Ohhhh, so you think you're hot shit, don't you? You think you're the King of Standing Up: try it on the Tube. Or just watch others fail: you see them, knees trembling outwards, holding a leather bag between their thighs as they jab their arms desperately towards one or more handrail, and they miss, and the train jolts forward, and they tip headfirst into the crotch of the nearest terrified night cleaner.

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REALIZE THAT THE SHAPE OF THE TUBE IN NO WAY CORRELATES TO THE SHAPE OF LONDON

The Tube map is an Impressionist vision of London. The Tube map is Picasso drawing women made of triangles. The Tube map is an aesthetically elegant lie, all of the 20th century's most significant art movements leading you astray at once. Learn its mischievous crevices. Walk from Leicester Square to Covent Garden.

NAILING IT

Finally though, one day, you will figure out the Tube—you will shoot through shortcuts inherent in the labyrinth beneath Kings Cross station, you will scoop onto the Central line and then off again because you know it travels faster, you will stride heroically up the fourth-longest escalator in western Europe—your body at one now, with the Tube, its connections are your connections, its announcements proclamations on your soul—and you will emerge, blinking into the light, magnificent, huge, powerful, and a man in a cap and a tabard will offer you a copy of a magazine that's just called Sport, and you will lean close to him and whisper: no. Take a swig from your discreet train beer and lavishly vomit it on some static tourists, buddy. You just won the fucking Tube.

Follow Joel on Twitter.

Some hanging phallic objects, though not the ones in Portland, Oregon. Photo by Flickr user D. C. Atty

Earlier this week, we learned that someone in Portland, Oregon, has been hanging hundreds of dildos from the city's power lines. On Thursday, VICE heard from the person responsible for the phallic prank, who says it's part of a much larger sex-toy offensive and that she plans to continue tying together the rubber penises and tossing them around town.

"We're nowhere near done," said the 20-something dildo distribution artist, a recent college graduate and retail worker who asked not to be named in part out of concern that police might not appreciate the prank—and in part because she doesn't want her name to be forever linked to sex toys on the internet.

Two leading online rumors—that a sex toy store was responsible for tossing their discarded dildos around town, and that a documentary filmmaker did it as part of a publicity stunt—are both false, according to the dildo mischief maker.

"It had to be done. I have no idea why, but it had to," she told VICE. "Dick-tossing is an exercise in happiness. It was just a fun, hilarious thing to do."

She claims she and a group of friends came into possession of more than 10,000 rejected dildos and other sex toys from a commercial manufacturer that was unable to sell them thanks to a design flaw.

If you have a bunch of sex toys lying around, what better use could they serve than decorating the city? "I'm still laughing about this," she said.

More people doin' stuff in Oregon: How Portland's Thai food queen turned a cart from Craigslist into an empire.

The dildo campaign apparently started with white and orange toys because they were the easiest to toss. The alleged prankster also showed us a photo of bright purple toys, which have not yet appeared on the Portland power lines. Butt plugs may also appear at some point—once her group figures out a few logistical snags.

"The dicks are easy: Grab the heads and throw the center of the string at the light. The plugs don't weigh enough for accuracy and it has to be quick. I'm not sure what'll be done with the all the butt plugs," she said.

City officials in Portland are still grappling with how to handle the situation. Asked if law enforcement had opened up an investigation into the dildo plague—perhaps as littering or a type of high-flying graffiti—Portland Police Spokesman Pete Simpson said he didn't know how cops would even begin to investigate, and referred us to the city's Office of Neighborhood Involvement.

"Certainly, people with young kids and others may feel like, 'I don't want to look up and see this hanging over our house,' but this is not our jurisdiction," said Amalia Alarcon de Morris, bureau director of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement. That agency is also passing the buck—to the local power company.

The future of sex toys involves 3D-printed dildos. Read more on Motherboard.

At Portland General Electric, spokesman Steve Corson told us rubber dongs don't pose much of a threat on their own, as they can't conduct electricity. Mylar balloons, which can carry power between two lines, are apparently more dangerous—though he added that too much weight on a power line, including the burden from hanging sex toys, could theoretically cause problems. Corson warned locals not to try to remove the dildos themselves, and noted that many of the phallic objects spotted around town are on non-electricity-carrying lines that share the utility's power poles.

Meanwhile, Sid Need, sales associate at the lady-targeted sex toy boutique SheBop, is warning patrons not to make use of the dildos, even if they fall to earth.

"These particular toys contain phthalates, which is not something we would sell in our store," Need, who could see at least three dangling dongs from the front door of his workplace, told VICE.

All joking aside, the woman who claims to be behind the prank said her motives weren't entirely juvenile. "I think people should be more comfortable talking about sex and sex organs," she said. "A lot of people own sex toys. This shouldn't be an embarrassing thing to see in public."

Follow Courtney Sherwood on Twitter.

Seriously, you guys! Come on! Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Back in April, I wrote about the problematic similarities between the shape, tone, and language of opposition to Kanye West's Ottawa Bluesfest gig and previous Ban Kanye surges in London and elsewhere.

This article is about the problematic similarities between the shape, tone, and language of opposition to Kanye West's Pan Am Closing Ceremonies gig and previous Ban Kanye surges in Ottawa, London and elsewhere.

It wasn't long after it was learned the rapper would close the Pan Am games, that yet another inevitable "No Kanye" petition was unleashed on the world. As of this writing, it has 22,000 signatures. Yeezus.

Politicians, and particularly goobery ones flocked to liven the mood. Toronto Mayor John Tory released a perplexing video of him dressing up as a walking stereotype to listen to Kanye in the subway (as one does), while city Councillor Norm Kelly got into the mix with an equally cringe-inducing series of Twitter puns.

But beneath the light-hearted surface, things were bubbling away.

There are unique but overlapping subsets of criticisms of Kanye West.

In the case of this Pan Am surge, the most measured petitioners profess concerns over his nationality ("Shouldn't everyone performing be Canadian?"), tax dollars ("Why are we paying to bring him here?"), and scale ("Shouldn't we be promoting lesser-known talent?"). Concerns like these were quickly and capably unpacked across the web.

Less innocuous are resistance to impressions of West's personal character, including things like self-confidence ("Will his ego even fit into Air Canada Centre?"), temperament ("Will he just keep interrupting the other performers?"), and, particularly, his wife Kim Kardashian, who herself represents a familiar surface for the projection of cultural discomforts that aren't really about her (in her case related to norms of acceptable womanhood, sexuality, and self-awareness).

Like clockwork, Professional Out-of-Touch Music Critic Alan Cross immediately wrote in a since-edited post that "I don't want my tax dollars going to this asshole who's married to a Kardashian--especially THAT one. The thought of one cent of my tax dollars going to his skank support."

Yeah.

The even less subtle pools of dissent are gross—really gross—but often reside unchallenged next to the more coded criticisms deemed worthy of amplification.

The rules of debates like these are actually rather simple:

Are you racist if you don't like Kanye West, or his music, or simply the decision to book him for the Pan Am Closing Ceremonies?

No.

Do you lose all credibility on these issues if you can't acknowledge that a central component of the movement to drop West as the Closing Ceremonies headliner, like each of those formed elsewhere previously, is cultural projection and racial discomfort?

Fuck yes, absolutely.

When critics say that their opposition to booking Kanye isn't really about Kanye (in Ottawa, it was really about having a rock or blues act not a hip-hop act; in Toronto it is really about having a Canadian act not an American one), they're right. It's mostly not about Kanye.

Black public figures of all personas, across all genres and industries face constant resistance big and small, institutional and irksome.

The persistent, boisterous, very particular type of resistance Kanye West receives is not simply a reaction to him as popular black performer, but rather as a shining embodiment of specific archetypes of blackness that challenge the norms of an enduring cultural status quo: confidence, self-knowledge, assertiveness, defiance, impenitence.

In North America, this cultural status quo privileges archetypes of white emotion, white angst, and white showmanship.

Picture, for instance, if U2—a non-Canadian rock band fronted by literal ego-zombie Bono and a pretty easy target for criticism—had been announced as the Closing Ceremonies headliner. Does anyone seriously believe they would have elicited the same type of visceral reaction as we saw for Kanye?

What about another black musician with a different type of artistry and public persona (an imperfect example might be Snoop Dogg or Rihanna), would they have been petitioned this way?

Cultural panic, whether about witches, or selfies, or Kanye West, tends to be less about the target itself than what it represents.

In the case of Kanye, his effortless and unapologetic embodiment of so many of the cultural features that fuel anti-black racism and white supremacy make him an ideal target for the type of coded language and identity politics that we've seen this week, and will undoubtedly see again.

It's okay if you don't like Kanye, or his music, or that he's American. We even don't mind if you embarrass yourself trying to pretend you know who he is. Seriously, we're cool.

Just don't try to feel better by pretending that's what these petitions are actually about.

Follow Seb FoxAllen on Twitter.

Andre tells comedian Arthur Simeon about the time he got high at a party for the first time and magically transformed into The Chip Fairy. He also talks about how his condition—he has Morquio Syndrome—and being in a motorized scooter affect his social life.

A woman wears an ankle monitor at the beach. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

This story was originally published by the Marshall Project.

I cannot sleep. There is a device on my leg.

It requires that I wake up an hour early so I can plug it into a charger and stand next to the outlet, like a cell phone charging up for the day. Not the day, actually, but 12 hours. After that, the device runs out of juice. Wherever I am, I have to find an outlet to plug myself into. If I don't, I'm likely to be thrown back onto Rikers Island.

The device is my ankle bracelet, which I've now been wearing for 63 days. I wear it afraid that someone at work will notice the bulge. When I go to school, I worry my friends will spot it and leave me. I push it up into my jeans, hoping they won't see. But the higher up I push it, the more it starts to hurt; most days, my feet go numb. I try wearing bell-bottoms.

At the age of 22, I landed in prison. Though I had grown up around violence, it was my first time in trouble. I'd taken the law into my own hands during an altercation, because where I come from, we don't dial 911 for help—we see how badly police officers treat people like us.

When I came home, I wasn't the same "I," and "home" wasn't home anymore. For the rest of my life, I would have to live with a mistake I made at 22. I would never belong to myself again; parole dictates everything that I do.

I'd been on parole for three years. I work full time at a law firm, attend college, and I am close to attaining my bachelor's degree. For three years, I never violated any rules, which included not leaving the five boroughs and returning home before 9 PM every night.

I don't have the luxury of the "college experience," of going to concerts or hanging out with friends after class. And I learned from experience not to discuss my past with my classmates, at least not until they get to know me. People become fearful when they hear I was in jail.

Then I had a run-in with the police again and was charged with a DWI. I spent 30 days in Rikers and came frightfully close to losing everything I'd spent three years working for: my college semester and GPA, my job, my post-prison healing. I woke up in cold sweats at night, traumatized by the experience of being caged again. And even though I am pleading not guilty and my case is still pending, my parole officer called me up after I left Rikers and asked me to come in to speak with his supervisor.

Details weren't discussed. They never are; a call is made, a PO appointment is scheduled.

The day of the meeting, I was in a panic. Entering that building—the office of parole—is guaranteed. Leaving it is not.

I was greeted by metal detectors and a throng of fellow parolees, mostly black and Hispanic, many in work uniforms, all waiting up to six hours to be seen. When my PO finally saw me, he explained right off that an electronic-monitoring device would be placed on my leg for a year to enforce my curfew, though it would come off sooner if I was "compliant."

"But I have already been compliant, for years," I said. As I had many times, I explained to my PO that I was in school, have a full-time job, and maintain good behavior. "Am I a flight risk? Or a frequent violator?"

The more I spoke, the more hostile he became.

Later on the bus, looking down and seeing the bulge on my leg, I cried.

This is what summer under surveillance looks like: I can no longer wear shorts. I cannot visit a beach without enduring public humiliation. I asked my parole officer whether I could attend a Yankee game for my birthday, but he turned me down, because it may have lasted past curfew. I usually spend Independence Day with my family in Long Island, but this year, I couldn't dare ask my PO for permission to leave the borough.

I have been alternating three pairs of pants for almost three months now—the only pants that can accommodate the device. When I'm with my coworkers, I stand out as the only person wearing jeans; dress slacks are too much of a risk, because when I sit down, pants like those hike up. At home, unexpected visitors have me scrambling to put on pants.

Throughout the day, the device becomes heavier and more painful, causing me to bleed. I push it down on my ankle to let my blood circulate—but then the pain becomes unbearable, and I can't plant my feet without crying out.

The device has me strapped, too, to a mistake I made at the age of 22. The device is, both literally and metaphorically, my greatest source of pain.

But every day I rise, stand by the socket, and charge my ankle to go to work.

So as not to violate the terms of his parole, the author asked that he be identified by his initials. M. M. is a full-time student and employee at a law firm in New York City. He has been on parole for more than three years on multiple charges stemming from an altercation when he was 22 and his subsequent re-arrest for driving while intoxicated.

This story was originally published by the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that covers the US criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletter, or follow the Marshall Project on Facebook or Twitter.

Congressional photo via Wikimedia Commons

Read: The latest from VICE News's Jason Leopold about Hillary Clinton's strange secrecy.

Michael Grimm, a former Republican congressman from Staten Island, was sentenced to eight months in prison for tax evasion Friday. Though he was initially arrested for fraud and perjury after a probe into his campaign finances in April 2014, Grimm's actual conviction was for under-reporting receipts at a restaurant he owned to the tune of about $900,000.

Grimm pleaded guilty in December of last year, and at the time, prosecutors were hoping for a sentence of up to 30 months.

Grimm is probably best known for the above video, in which a reporter for NYC cable outlet NY1 questioned him in the Capitol Rotunda in January, 2014. When the line of questioning turned to allegations of campaign finance against the congressman, he stormed off, then came back, and—apparently not realizing the audio and video feeds were still on—gave the reporter some really solid advice:

Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again, I'll throw you off this fucking balcony. If you ever do that to me again... No, no, you're not man enough. You are not man enough. I'll break you in half. Like a boy.

The remark in turn led to numerous unanswered questions about just how many boys Grimm had, in fact, broken in half. (At the time of publication, the former congressman has not been charged with any crimes related to boy-breaking or assault.)

The case is also notable because Grimm, a former Marine, was also once an FBI agent... who went after fraud. During his time in the bureau, he posed as a corrupt Wall Street trader for an operation called "Wooden Nickel," in which he busted white collar criminals. It was actually his former colleagues at the FBI who arrested him. George Venizelos, the FBI's assistant director, had choice words for Grimm at the time, saying "As a former FBI agent, Representative Grimm should understand the motto: fidelity, bravery, and integrity. Yet he broke our credo at nearly every turn."

Healthalicious in 2013 (center left), via Google Street View

This investigation primarily concerned the way funds were moved through a Brooklyn restaurant Grimm owned from 2007 until 2010 called Healthalicious. It was a lunch joint with an extensive selection of vegetarian options. (Yelp says Healthalicious is now closed.)

But don't worry too much: Healthalicious only had three Yelp stars, and according to MSNBC, it had a problem with "mice and flying insects."

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Photo via Hamilton County Sheriff's Office

Around 10:45 AM Thursday, a man opened fire at an Army recruitment center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and then moved on to a nearby Navy Reserve operations support center, where he killed four Marines. By 1:15 PM, Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, a 24-year-old Jordanian born in Kuwait, was dead. He's been named the chief suspect in what US Attorney Bill Killian says is being investigated as a act of domestic terrorism.

As Fox News reports, Sergeant Thomas Sullivan, 40—a veteran of the Battle of Abu Ghraib in Iraq—was one of the marines killed. The other three were Lance Corporal Skip "Squire" Wells, of Marietta, Georgia; Sergeant Carson Holmquist of Grantsburg, Wisconsin; and Staff Sergeant David Wyatt of Chattanooga. The Tennesseanreports that a Navy sailor, a police officer, and a fifth Marine were also injured in the attack.

According to a local NBC affiliate, Abdulazeez was naturalized citizen and grew up in the Chattanooga suburb of Hixson. Federal court records show that his father, Youssuf S. Abdulazeez, filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2002.

As the Chattanooga Free Press reports, Abdulazeez graduated from Red Hook High School, where he was a wrestler whose senior yearbook quote read, "My name causes national security alerts. What does yours do?"

By most accounts, Abdulazeez was a polite guy, if a tough one. He graduated from wrestling to mixed martial arts, with a gym owner telling the New York Times, "He wouldn't tap out; he elected to pass out." A cage fight from 2009 in which Abdulazeez defeats another Tennessean named Timmy Hall has been posted on several forums and websites dedicated to the sport.

The shooter was also serious about school. A resume posted online shows that he graduated from the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga in 2012 with a degree in electrical engineering—the university confirmed his attendance to the Chattanooga Free Press—and took on a variety of internships.

Last year, Abdulazeez took a seven-month trip to Jordan, and according to the Wall Street Journal, authorities are investigating whether he contacted extremists in the region during that time. The Times talked with a local leader of a mosque and cultural center who said that Abdulazeez had been attending Friday prayers more frequently in the past two or three months.

A Knoxville NBC affiliate reports that Abdulazeez was arrested on DUI charges on April 20. Officers allegedly smelled marijuana when they pulled him over and he admitted to crushing and snorting caffeine pills. No alcohol was found in Abdulazeez's system, and it's unclear if he was ever convicted.

Little is known about Abdulazeez's personal views at this time, though a blog he apparently wrote does contain lines about how "this life is short and bitter" and that Muslims shouldn't let "the opportunity to submit to allah... pass you by."

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

Check out Esther Pearl Watson's website, Instagram, and get her books from Fantagraphics.

Probably going to die

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Do you like scary movies? Personally, not really—and I'm not too moved by horror games, either. When I'm at play, the last thing I want is to be creeped out by some combination of savage pixels and sinister AI. I can't play through all of P.T., I just can't. Shreds my insides. And Capcom's new Kitchen demo? Don't even. More action-orientated fare, like the Resident Evil series, sure, no problem. But as soon as video games ratchet up the suspense in a way that can't be remedied by munitions, I generally check out.

But I want to play more of Until Dawn, Supermassive Games' forthcoming PS4 exclusive that puts the player in command of a host of (not-quite-teenagers-anymore) characters who attend a get-together at a remote mountain cabin on the anniversary of a very unfortunate event. The memory their gathering marks makes up the game's prologue, a short sequence where twin sisters Hannah and Beth go missing in a blizzard after a prank goes badly, never to be found. It's their brother Josh, played by Rami Malek (Need for Speed, Short Term 12), who insists that the same gang reconvenes a year later. Also amongst the cast for this photo-real-enough game are Hayden Panettiere (Nashville, Heroes) as Sam, Brett Dalton (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) as Mike, and a delightfully hamming-it-up Peter Stormare (Fargo, Dancer in the Dark) in a role that I won't reveal here because spoilers.

Probably going to die

Anyone who's ever watched a slasher flick where twentysomethings playing teenagers are picked off one by one in some faraway location where there's no mobile signal and the electricity is shot can work out what happens next. It's soon enough evident that the group has been joined by at least one more person, who might just have a thing for hanging lippy kids from meat hooks. But if it sounds like a cavalcade of clichés about to come crashing down a peak of seen-it-before expectations like an avalanche of I-don't-need-to-play-this shit, wrong.

I thought that way, too, until I played a substantial preview of the game, adding up to about a quarter of the total experience. Until Dawn delivers on preconceptions while simultaneously subverting them with mirthful relish, knowing fully well how fear and fun are most powerfully felt when alternated, scattering surprisingly effective jump scares across its opening couple of hours as it gently nudges up the tension without the player realizing how invested they've become. And how it achieves this still feels like a mystery, as it's not like Supermassive makes it clear which of these might-be victims you're supposed to be rooting for. Given she's the starriest name, it may be Panettiere's Sam who ultimately emerges as the designated hero figure of the fiction (pun intended), the one who's going to make it out against all the odds. But any number of these kids, all of whom are player-controlled at various points, can die, and several will. I'm fairly certain that it'll be impossible to go the whole game with your entire complement alive.

Probably going to die

Until Dawn plays much like a Telltale game: It's heavy on adaptable dialogue, with response options directing conversation according to whether or not you want to be understanding or an outright dick (most of the time), and the gameplay is broken down into limited sections of free-roaming exploration (premonition-spilling collectibles!) and QTE sequences where one mistake can have significant consequences. Miss a prompt when scaling a busted-up lift shaft—the hillside setting hides a network of dilapidated mine tunnels—and you might not make it to the surface in time to prevent another character's grisly demise. And just like Telltale's best, sometimes doing nothing is the right option.

The generally attractive Umbra 3 visuals (there is some lip-sync stutter, a few frame rate dips, and the preview build's atmosphere is just occasionally broken by a graphical glitch, like a rifle disappearing from a character's still-gripping-something hand—but nothing major given I'm not playing final retail code) position the game closer to a Quantic Dream production, and much like that studio's Heavy Rain, once a character is dead, that's it, they're out of the story, which adapts to incorporate their fate. Unlike Heavy Rain and its follow-up, Beyond: Two Souls, Until Dawn doesn't feel like it's on rails, like it'll just keep on going whatever your decisions. From the very beginning it stresses the relevance of the butterfly effect in chaos theory when making your decisions: the "right" move at one stage can easily lead to a fail state moments later.

Related: Watch VICE's new film about the science-defying Wim Hof, 'ICEMAN'

The game is structured episodically, each chapter lasting around 30 minutes, give or take, which makes it feel like a TV production in a fashion that 2010's not-aesthetically-miles-away Alan Wake failed to translate on account of its less-frequent breaks. Stormare's time to shine comes between these episodes, each introduced with a "previously on Until Dawn" montage reminding you of the choices you made. All I'll reveal about his role in proceedings is that it's tied into (what I felt was) a clever way of tracking how you're playing the game. It's testing you in more ways than the very obvious challenge of keeping these kids from harm. Say no more.

Even if you choose not to use Until Dawn's motion control option—it was originally being developed for the PS3's Move peripheral—there are times in the game where movements beyond your thumbs have a direct effect on the action. The slightest twitch of the pad when the screen demands that you keep it still can have you fail a particular section. Later, this mechanic will undoubtedly play a part in a life or death situation, but in the game's early scenes this means feeding a squirrel or scaring it away, and either keeping a torch steady or winding Josh up by flicking away to see what that noise was, coming from elsewhere in the basement. What was that noise, anyway? You'd better go and investigate.

On Motherboard: It's Time to Bring Back Sci-Fi Horror

'Until Dawn,' launch date trailer—so many of these people are probably going to die

As my main, played-from-the-start preview is wrapping up I see my first significant death. It wasn't unavoidable—I'd messed up, and fixed that other character's fate in the process. (Replaying it, and nailing my QTEs, it's possible to produce a very different outcome.) In a shorter section from later on in proceedings, I'm again faced with my hesitance directly influencing the (surely deadly, although it's not made explicit) squishing of a colleague. And that's how Until Dawn works: you've flexibility to shape the narrative to come up to a point, but a flurry of butterflies in the top left of the screen indicate that these choices have now set the future a certain way, and there's no going back from it. The game (so far) isn't any gorier than your average ...Last Summer or Scream series movie, and while there are suggestions of torture porn titillation slinking into the plot around the preview's end, with Saw-like "games" on the horizon, I don't get the impression that it's about to descend into meaningless volume and viscera for the sake of cheap thrills.

I hope it doesn't, anyway. Until Dawn feels smarter than that, with a definite The Cabin in the Woods–like undercurrent to its surface-level presentation of pretty young things threatened with a lethal skewering. And just like director Drew Goddard's darkly humorous but cerebrally satisfying horror debut, this game isn't afraid to poke fun at itself and its genre. "Ooof, fuck nuggets!" exclaims Mike at one point, when shit's going rapidly south for him and his girlfriend, Jessica, played by Kingdom Hearts regular Meaghan Martin. Well, I laughed. If you've a PlayStation Camera, the game can also record your reactions to its most effective jumps. It calls these socials-sharable clips "Cheap Shots," another sign that the makers know well enough what genre tropes to exploit, and how to best send them up with a nudge, a wink, and a rusty saw blade to the guts.

Probably both going to die

It might not be one of the most talked-up PS4 exclusives of 2015, but Until Dawn could prove to be amongst the most welcomed. It will appeal to a casual audience as well as regular gamers, something to be shared between friends and loved ones reclining on the same sofa, the pad swapped between sweaty palms. It's easy to pick up and, wholly unexpectedly, hard to put down, as the player edges onward, eager to either keep their favorite characters in the game or try to have their least-liked ones killed off. It's comfortable in its skin, even when half of it's hanging up on the other side of the room. And it might just be a bit special, a summertime snowstorm of didn't-see-it-coming addictiveness.

Until Dawn is released for PlayStation 4 on August 25 in the US.

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A teacher and pupil from Limpsfield Grange (ITV)

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

"Girls with autism want to have friends, but friendships, like all things, are not straightforward" says one of the teachers at Limpsfield Grange in Oxted—the only state-run school in Britain for girls with autism—in last night's ITV documentary, Girls with Autism.

There's still a misconception that autism doesn't affect girls, and, understandably, that can be damaging and dangerous, forcing young women into denial about their condition. As a woman with autism, who wasn't diagnosed until into my teens, I was intrigued by the documentary, and (despite it's late-night slot) pleased to see that those like myself were being acknowledged.

Watching the girls on screen, I recognized a lot of myself at that age. I knew all too well the craving for friendship—the implicit approval it offers, the company of another person, and its sudden power to make you feel less weird.

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At ten years old, my weirdness became apparent, setting itself apart from the cute oddities displayed by all children. Suddenly, the way I was treated by others changed; people started giving me strange sideways looks which I could not read. My inappropriate behavior (once taking my knickers off because I was too hot) was no longer that of a child, and I was told I should have "known better."

I went to a sleepover at the house of my best friend, Sally, and cried to go home because I was scared "something bad would happen" if I didn't.

Soon after this incident, I was jilted; left heartbroken in the dinner line when Sally went and stood with someone else. "It's nothing," said a teacher—but Sally and I knew otherwise. We had been inseparable since six, and her rejection was deliberate, symbolic, the end. It cut me to the quick.

I remembered this when Katie, the charismatic 15-year-old "star" of GWA was pictured devastated, watching her ex-boyfriend with another girl at the same school. "It's just one of those things," said a teacher—but for a child with autism it's never "just one of those things."

It must be difficult for a teacher to identify those formative moments in a child's life which will remain with them all their lives—there are so many playground squabbles, so many tears, that they must feel weary, as though they have seen it all before. For any child a rejection can be loaded with significance, but for an autistic child it can be devastating, shattering their fragile sense of self (based as it is on a desperate need for approval).

Like Katie I was intense, planning a lifelong friendship from the moment I met someone, and not hesitating to tell them so. I demanded equal enthusiasm and felt hurt and perplexed when they did not feel the same.

Unlike Katie I didn't have Facebook as a child—a site which enabled her to save over 1,100 images of the same boy and form an unreciprocated attachment to the head teacher's son who came in to help with lessons, before she was "blocked, by the Facebook police." Probably for the best.

"We can't let her out of our sight," says her mother.

Katie is portrayed as boy-crazy, because "boys are cute and have deep voices." At the school disco, where the girls from Limpsfield Grange meet the boys from a neighboring school, Katie grabs one, exclaiming "He's my boyfriend," despite the fact they've only just met.

However, it is never mooted in the program that her desire for a boyfriend is not simply "boy craziness," but rather a deep seated yearning for approval and companionship. For me at least, a boyfriend was a social symbol—having one said, "You fit in, you have worth and a place in the world."

Throwing yourself at boys at a school disco is one thing, but in adult life that kind of forthright neediness can make a woman with autism an easy target for those who want easy sex.

I went through a promiscuous phase around the age of 20 after the breakdown of my first relationship, mistaking sex for acceptance, a seal to say I was worth something, though ultimately it made me feel like shit. The men I went to bed with were not bad people, they simply didn't understand, and, at the time, neither did I. I wanted people to like me, and sex seemed a good way to get that.

I would incessantly ask friends, boyfriends, anyone who would tolerate it: "Am I pretty. Am I really? Really?" As though being good looking would somehow compensate for my lack of social skills.

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Beth, another student at Limpsfield Grange, has been diagnosed with Pathological Demand Avoidance, a sub-set of autism, whereby she deals with her fears and creates a false sense of control through attempting to spurn authority. One of the ways this manifested itself was in self harm.

The "tough love" approach the school takes to Beth seems cruel, with one teacher describing it as "like reining a horse in and training a horse." However, after watching the documentary, and seeing how Beth went on to thrive—moving from the brink of suicidal thoughts to relative stability—the approach appears to have worked.

However, I object to the criticism, leveled at Beth by a teacher, that she attempted to "manipulate" her teachers. "Manipulative" is a word too readily bandied about when it comes to autistic children, and is often untrue.

"She's not scared of going in, she's just manipulative" someone said on a school trip, as I wept at the mouth of a cave, terrified to go into the close dark space. We had learned about earthquakes the week before the visit and I was convinced that if we entered the cave, one would occur causing a boulder to block our way back to the earth above, and daylight—yet I was unable to express this.

I wondered if Beth's refusal to do PE came from a similar fear, incomprehensible to others. I cannot understand why a child would be afraid to do PE, but I can understand that you can be afraid of anything however irrational or inexpressible that fear is.

There was warmth, love, and humor in the documentary, and also many truths about what it is like to be a girl with autism—the loneliness, the fear, the overwhelming desire to win love and approval, in spite of the condition which often makes you feel like a social cripple.

But one documentary isn't enough. I want to see more about girls with autism—how these girls cope as they grow up and face the struggles that come with being young adults. Growing up is always tough, and everyone feels like they don't fit in—but those with autism need to work even harder to appear normal. If we knew more about them and their behaviors, maybe they wouldn't have to.