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What It’s Like Trying to Live on Minimum Wage in Vancouver

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Beautiful, expensive Vancouver. Photo via Flickr user Brian Fagan

I'm 26 years old and I work at a bookstore in Vancouver making $11.00 an hour. That's 55 cents above minimum wage, which increased across BC on September 15 from $10.25 to $10.45 an hour. While it would be trying to live on these wages anywhere, Vancouver is notoriously costly, and has rightfully earned the moniker of "Canada's Most Expensive City," which it seems strangely satisfied to bear.

Minimum wage was great in high school for lunch money, when I still lived with my parents. Of course, that's the stereotype of a minimum-wage earner: a pimply teen flipping burgers so he can buy video games, see a fill-in-the-blank-blockbuster for the third time, and persuade someone with an ID to get cheap beer for him on weekends.

This is no longer the reality.

Many minimum wage workers are over 25, educated, and supporting themselves, if not families. And like myself, they aren't even afforded the opportunity to work full-time. I get anywhere between 20 and 40 hours a week, so it's unstable to say the least. Yet when an employee asked management at my company about low wages, they said, "It's a job for students and housewives."

According to a 2011 Statistics Canada report, achieving a basic standard of living, the "Market Basket Measure" as they call it, costs $20,290 per year for a single person in Vancouver (accounting for inflation). This measure includes things like shelter, food, transportation, and basic goods. The average cost to rent a bachelor apartment in Vancouver was $930 per month, according to a July report from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. There's no sign of this changing anytime soon. My income last year was $16,000. Even if I worked full time, my total pre-tax income would be $21,120, and that's assuming I never took a day off.

I have lived on these wages for two years. I am self-sufficient for the most part, and it's not easy. I often feel like a bum, especially considering both of my siblings are doctors. It's embarrassing, even though it shouldn't be. I have a BA and two creative writing diplomas, which also came with a tipping tower of student loans. However, this is a choice I made. I am stubborn and steadfast in my belief that money, while it may make life easier, doesn't buy happiness.

Video courtesy DAILY VICE.

After graduating from university I worked several unpaid internships at various film production companies. Eventually I was offered a position, but serving coffee, filing papers, and reading shitty scripts was not worth the money, the long hours, or seeing my name in the credits of a Lifetime made for TV movie. It was exhausting, allowing no time to explore my own artistic endeavours. Instead, I chose to heed the advice of Werner Herzog: "Beware of useless, bottom-rung secretarial jobs in film-production companies. Instead, head out to where the real world is."

In order to live as any sort of artist in contemporary culture, you have to have some other source of income. This is why I work a mindless minimum wage job.

Let's break it down. Below you can see my income and expenses from the past 6 months.

I quote $450 as my total freelance income because that was the case for the past couple months. However in June my only writing skrilla was $10, and the $300 I made from film editing last month went directly toward paying a sound designer for another project.

So we're back to minimum wage.

What does life in Vancity look like living paycheck to paycheck? My last apartment was down the street from a methadone clinic. Now I live near a crack park, but everyone does in Vancouver so it doesn't mean much. I don't buy new clothes. I don't own a TV. I read a lot of books and watch a lot of moviesthe library is a kind lover.

I live for sales, whether it's Cineplex Tuesdays, or the occasional Whopper Wednesdays if I'm feeling particularly greasy. I eat plenty of ramen noodles, and buy a lot of my groceries from the dollar store. There's a stigma about dollar store food, as if it were tainted just because it's cheap. Even if I had all the money in the world I would still buy snacks there. Their sour cream and onion Ring Puffs are godlike. But I would not advise eating mostly boxed and canned foods. The lack of nutrients has made me fully aware of the "balanced diet" TV ads told me about as a kid. Some weeks, this carb-only diet takes its toll on my body, leaving me exhausted even after a proper night's sleep. It's a common thing for my friends to say, "Dude, you look tired." I've been actively trying to rectify this recently, taking any chance I get to cook real food. I make a lot of vegetable stews and saucesstuff I know will last a few meals. I waste nothing. I save the vegetable cores and leftovers, and freeze them so I can make soup at a later date.

Whatever "savings" I do have, I use for dates with my girlfriend and going out with friends. Thankfully my girlfriend understands my situation so we usually split date bills. Not being able to treat her to a steak dinner once in awhile makes me feel like a dud boyfriend. It's a tawdry social construct, this idea of buying pretty things for your significant other, but it still gets to me sometimes. Especially so when special occasions like birthdays or anniversaries are approaching because it's what most people do in relationships. There are so many people in my demographic able to go out for a night on the town with their partners, and knowing we have friends like this makes me feel inadequate. It's an easy way to show you care. That said, we are often forced to get creative, which means photographing the city, or spending an afternoon playing in Toys "R" Us, and this creative dating has been far more rewarding.

As for partying, I've learned to be a cheap drunk... FUBAR taught me years ago that a cheap six pack will get you right ripped if you shotgun a few. When I used to drink more oftenabout two years ago I was drinking three nights a weekI would often find myself choosing beers based on their alcohol percentage rather than taste. Drunk food was not an option, no matter how badly I wanted that slice of pizza during my stumble home.

Some months I go over budget. To make extra cash I'll sell some beloved books to a used bookstore, or snag a quick gig as an editor on a short film. Otherwise, I'm forced to swallow my pride, call my dad, and ask for cash. At 26, I don't believe anybody should depend on their parents financially. It's expected that after you finish university you start fending for yourself. This should not be seen as some external, societal pressure, or one brought on by my family. It stems from my own desire to be independent. I will not feel like an adult until my father no longer pays my bills. It kills me to ask him for money, but he never grumbles and I am grateful for that every day.

Even these boats probably cost more to live in than you make in a year. Photo via Flickr user Dripps

Vancouver is expensive for many reasons. Most often discussed is the housing issue, on which I am not an expert. Foreign investors are often blamed for driving up apartment costs, but there's also the lack of land, and the low interest rates. The real problem comes from the fact that locals keep buying homes, regardless of the insane costs. Baby boomers can afford the costs in upper-class areas because they are "downsizing," while the affluent, often dual-income, members of Generation X and Y are willing to pay more for housing within the city limits in order to live in "hipper" communities. This is why, in an area like Mount Pleasant, you'll see a homeless man smoking crack in a laneway that leads right into the backyard of a yuppie family-of-four.

There are other factors that contribute to the Vancouver being so costly: The gas prices, transit costs, groceries, internet providers, and the list goes on. It's a thriving, beautiful city with a lot to offer, and so people continue to buy homes and pay more for goods and services. Obviously, I am part of the problem.

I could move to a less expensive city, but being a creative in the independent film world severely limits my options. Toronto is too big and bustling for me, and not all that much cheaper, and I don't speak French well enough to work as a filmmaker in Montreal (that's why I moved in the first place). Other major Canadian cities simply don't have the resources or community I need to grow as an artist in my chosen medium. I have built relationships in Vancouver that don't allow me to pack up and go. I have made connections with producers, publishers, and artists over the past two years, and I'm not willing to burn those bridges just because I struggle to pay rent. Those are invaluable connections at this point in my career. More importantly, I have creative partners here, and we are working on projects that I could not continue to work on if I relocated. These projects are my life, and so my life remains here with them, no matter how much or how little money I have.

I believe the way I live is humanizing. It's difficult in Vancouver, but it brings me closer to understanding the squalor I see every day in this metropolis. There's also something oddly romantic, albeit pretentious, about the archetype of the Starving Artist. There's a hope that I will escape this and someday reflect on these years as some of my most formative. It pushes me to work harder on at my art, what I love, because I can't live like this forever.

Follow Lonnie Nadler on Twitter.


Disruptors: Beer Pong with Edmonton's Lone Rhinoceros Candidate

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This Canadian election is a dogfight between three political parties and their highly controlled, tightly- messaged, and carefully planned campaigns. Not everybody is happy about it. A handful of independents, weirdos, and activists are trying to screw with Canada's most predictable election campaign in clever ways. This is the first episode of our new series "Disrupters."

Led by an actual rhinoceros, Canada's Rhino Party began contesting federal elections in 1965. In 1984, the political satirists actually became Canada's fourth-most popular political party, campaigning on a promise to nationalize Tim Hortons, repealing the laws of gravity, and abolishing the environment (because it's too hard to keep clean). After laying dormant for years, possibly due to real political parties making satire too easy, the Rhino Party is back with a new generation of disillusioned clowns. Among them is Donovan Eckstrom, a university graduate living in a frat house in Edmonton's student ghetto. We sent Justin Ling, VICE's parliamentary correspondent, to investigate Eckstrom's bold electoral plan, which they discussed over beer pong.

Habits: The Punk Animals Are Stuck in the Clown Car to Hell in This Week's 'Habits' Comic

The YMCA Is Trying to Solve Britain’s Housing Problem with Prefab Apartments

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London's bloated housing market might be making life difficult for some of its young, but it's undoubtedlyand shamefullyfailing its young poor. For the destitute and vulnerable, scraping together a mammoth deposit and graduating from, say, homeless hostel to the private rented sector is a cruel, near impossible slog in a capital where the average monthly rent costs 1,500 ," Wendy said. "I've always said, unless you have a contract or a lease with your name and signature on it, you're homeless. In the YMCA we were back on our feet; we weren't homeless. But here and now, away from that building and other people, we're back in the real world."

It'll take a few weeks for all the tenants to be placed in this development, which lies on a brownfield site once disregarded and littered with burnt mattresses. The land, on the corner of two roads, was so forgotten not even the council knew it owned it.

Could this type of accommodation be copied and extensively rolled out to the rest of the population by other private developers? Is that a worry? Could it replace traditional bricks and mortar as the go-to accommodation for Britain's disenfranchised? Nobody seems concerned with those questions yet, but the whole thing is still so new and currently fairly specialized.

"We've got to find ways to house young people more cheaply and build differentlythere just simply aren't enough trained bricklayers or electricians to build all the homes we need, nor the bricks or other materials to build 'conventional' homes," housing consultant and former housing regulator, Phil Morgan, said. "In London in particular, rents are far too high for young peoplethis offers a solution that is affordable and avoids Rachmanesque slums."


'Born Among the Dead': The Children of Mexico City's Tragic 1985 Earthquake

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Uriel del Angel's hospital bracelet.

This article originally appeared on VICE Mexico.

Every year on September 19, the people of Mexico remember the same things: the smell of death, the damage, and the chaos that followed the earthquake that devastated the country on that day in 1985.

It was 7:17 AM when a tremor with a moment magnitude of 8.0 shook the foundations of Mexico City which, at the time, housed 10 million people. Many were still in bed, others were commuting, and children were getting ready for school. The city was only waking up when the earthquake took it by surprise.

By presidential order, Mexico was off limits a few days. It's said that the government initially wanted to block any international aid convoys in order to prevent the world from knowing the full scale of the disaster. The government's biggest concern at the time seemed to be that FIFA would want to cancel the World Cup, which the country was supposed to host the following year.

The number of trained rescue staff on site was not enough to handle the tragedy, and that drove locals to organize their own rescue teams who did their best to save those trapped under the rubble. Still, by the time foreign rescue teams arrived, thousands of people were already dead.

But what about those who were being born at the same time? As the city was being plunged into chaos and misinformation, some families were welcoming newborn children into the world.

This past weekend, the people who were born on the day of the Mexico City earthquake celebrated their 30th birthday. We talked to some of them and their parents about being born among the dead.

Photographed at the corner of Yucatan and Insurgentes, where a building destroyed by the earthquake used to stand.

Daniela and Jimena Garfias

"Our mom was set to give birth a few weeks later but we came early," said the twins Jimena and Daniela Garfias. Only one minute separated their birth: Daniela was born at 6:28 PM and Jimena at 6:29 PM.

Their mother, Alicia, recalled: "They weren't supposed to be born until the first week of October but the earthquake changed everything. That morning, I was alone in our apartment on the seventh floor of a building in the Azcapotzalco area. The earthquake didn't feel as strong up there as it did in other areas. I was unable to contact my husband, who had taken our other son to school though. A few hours later, the anxiety induced contractions and my water broke.

"Alone, I made it down the stairs to look for someone who could take me to Santa Monica Hospital, near my home," she continued. "My husband showed up at that very moment and we got someone to drive us. It took us two hours to get to the hospital even though it was just around the corner. On the way, I realized the city was a mess. People were just running around screaming. When we got to there, the hospital was running out of available staffsome of them had been unable to make it to work or were busy looking for their relatives. The nurse that took care of me was crying because she didn't know if her parentswho lived downtownwere alive. To this day, I don't know whether her parents survived or not.

"At one point, the hospital had a power failure. Hours later, my doctor arrived and I was taken into the surgery room. The power came and went. It seemed like an uninvited dream. Daniela was born healthy but Jimena was frail. That night she was very delicate but later she recovered. The whole situation was very sad. It took me five years to get over it and to finally start celebrating their birthdays. I feel blessed because a lot of mothers lost their children on the same day I got mine. I always tell the girls they have to do their best in life because they are alive for a reason."

Jesus's portrait was taken outside Mexico City's General Hospital where he was rescued after three days in the rubble with 52 other babies. Ninety-eight children were found dead on the same site.

Jesus Chucho Garcia Lopez

Jesus was born at 6:25 AM. His mother, Manuela, recalls that the nurses took her baby to clean him. Then the earthquake happened. "The building collapsed and everybody started running for their lives. A piece of ceiling fell on my left hand and leg and made me lose a thumb. I was rescued at 3 PM and taken to another hospital. "I had no idea what had happened to my baby. I thought he was dead," she said.

Three days later, Jesus was rescued but he was badly wounded. A stream of acid, which probably came from a pipe, burned his left ear and arm and a piece of concrete hit his head, leaving it almost flat. During the following months, he had to undergo two dangerous surgeries. He stayed alive but the trauma left him with epileptic seizures for life.

Related: Watch our documentary, 'Cartel Land: Coming Full Circle'

It wasn't until December that Manuela found out Jesus was alive. "The one thing that saved my life was that I never lost the bracelet with my mother's name. They never removed it from my wrist," he said. Manuela was still recovering and let some friends take care of the baby. In February 1986, Manuela was finally able to be with her child.

I asked her about Jesus's father. "We never heard anything from him after that day. We don't know whether he lived or died. He just disappeared."

Rosa's portrait was taken where the famous Hotel Regis stood before the earthquake.

Rosa Garcia

Rosa was born at 12:30 PM at the Spanish Hospital. Her mother, Mara de Lourdes, remembers that the emergency rooms were full and she couldn't get the attention she needed. She had to share the surgery room with dozens of wounded people. When Rosa was born, the doctors took her to another room where she stayed for several hours while her mother was alone. Mara de Lourdes saw people running desperately from one place to another but her daughter was nowhere to be found. Eventually, she and her husband found their daughter.

Rosa said: "It makes me sad that such a tragedy took place on same day I was born. It might sound selfish but every time the earth shakes, I feel a rush of adrenaline, I'm not afraid however. I've always felt different. People call me 'Earthquake Girl' because I'm very moody and sullen, and maybe it's because I was isolated for a long time after I was born. I'm also very strict, difficult, chaotic, and a perfectionist. My birthday is always marked by earthquake drills. It's unpleasant but I'm OK with it. I tell myself the earthquake happened because I was born. I know it sounds weird but that's the way it is. Lots of people were mourning their loved ones but my parents, despite the fear, were celebrating.

"I was once told that the Earth was so angry I was born, that it chose to kill people. Others have called me a murderer and said that other people's blood runs through my veins. The truth is that one of the things I'm good at is advising people who have suffered emotional damagelike abortions or physical abuse. I have this ability to help others and give them peace. I have a premise: If you are not going to do something well, don't even try."

Jesus's picture was taken in Garibaldi Square, where the San Camilito building used to stand. It was here that he was found, inside his dead mother. Twenty-four of his relatives died during the earthquake.

Jesus Francisco Flores Medina (The Earthquake Boy)

Jesus has one of the most dramatic stories of the earthquake. "I was born among the dead," is how Jesus always begins his tale. The building where his entire family used to live collapsed and is now the famous Plaza Garibaldi.

Twenty-four of his family members were trapped inside the building and they all died, including his mother, Martha Cruz Medina, who was seven and a half months pregnant. Jesus's grandmother, Brenda, had gone out a few minutes before 7 AM to buy food for breakfast when the quake began. She ran home to her building but it had already collapsed. Over the next few days, she would come back hoping that the rescue squad had found any of her sons, daughters, nephews, or brothers who had been buried under the squalor.

On the fourth day, Brenda found the body of her daughter Martha in the rubble. The rescue team was already gone, so Brenda approached her and felt something moving in her daughter's belly. Without thinking twice, and confident that what she was doing was for the best, she took a razor, and cut the belly of her daughter, took out the babybarely aliveand put him in a shoebox. She delivered the child to the nearest Red Cross station and they transferred him to a nearby hospital where he was put in an incubator until he recovered.

Jesus's life hasn't gotten any easier since that day. Brenda, overwhelmed by the death of her family and the difficult economic situation she was facing, tried to commit suicide several timesmostly by slitting her wrists but without success. She even tried to throw herself onto the subway tracks while holding Jesus. Even the newspapers published a picture of her and the child. People began calling him "The Earthquake Boy."

His life took a 180-degree turn when Presidential candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari found out about him and offered his help. Jesus's loyalty to the political party of Gortari turned into devotion and he now works for them. "Many doors were closed for me but others were opened. Sure, my childhood was rather deprived but now I can say that it was worth surviving, thanks to my mother who kept me alive in her dead body and my grandmother who generously helped me come into this world. God is great," he says.

Paulina's picture was taken where 600,000 seamstresses, working in terrible sweatshop conditions died, when a building collapsed.

Paulina Guzman

Paulina was born at 8 AM in Mxico Hospital.

"My mom started having contractions early in the morning and was told to go to the hospital immediately. That's where she felt the earthquake. The radio was blasting news about the damage. They said the Chihuahua building in Tlatelolcowhere her parents livedhad collapsed, but actually it was the Nuevo Leon building. She was so upset that her water broke. She finally calmed down after finding out that it wasn't her parent's building that fell apart. My brother didn't go to daycare that day, which is good because it collapsed and killed almost everyone inside. A friend of my mom was found holding her two sons in the rubble."

Saul (left) and Uriel (right) didn't know each other prior to this shoot. They got on like best friends after a few minutes of being introduced to each other.

SAUL GONZALEZ QUIONES AND URIEL DEL ANGEL

Uriel's parents lived downtown. That morning, his father took his mother to the hospital after she felt the first signs of labor. He left her in the bedroom, came back home to take a shower, and that was when he felt the earthquake. He dressed as fast as he could and went straight to the hospital. It took him four hours to walk there.

"I was supposed to be born in the morning but because of the earthquake, I had to wait until the afternoon. My father was happy because I was about to come to this world but when he saw all the dead and wounded people, he didn't know how to react. It was shocking. The following days, my parents attended several funerals holding me in their arms. People congratulated them while mourning the loss of their own loved ones. For me, the nineteenth of September is a day of joy. My friends always remember my birthday and call me. I don't like the fact that many people remember that date for the tragedy, but what can I do? It's my birthday and it makes me happy," said Uriel.

Saul was born at 10 AM in Montes de Oca Sanatorium. He was supposed to be delivered at 7 PM but the doctors couldn't come on time to help his mother, Rosaura. "The nurses ended up helping my mother give birth," he recalled.

For Saul, being born on that particular day "is special because that way everybody remembers my birthday. My life has been different. Everybody calls me 'Earthquake Boy' and when the earth shakes, people say it's because I'm mad as fuck. It's nice that people remember my birthday despite it being such a tragic date and it's something that's going to stick with me until the day I die."

Cesar's picture was taken at the exact spot where the building block, Nuevo Leon, in Tlatelolco, collapsed. More than 300 people died in there.

Cesar Lopez Fuentes

Cesar was born at 8:13 AM. For him, there's nothing strange about being born on that day. "I commemorate the day with respect for the ones that fellit's a day that marks the conscience of the city before and afterbut it's also my birthday and that's a reason to celebrate."

I asked Diego, Cesar's 8-year-old son, if he knows that there was a terrible earthquake in the city on the day his father was born. His face lit up with pride. I told him he would not be here if it wasn't for his father. Cesar says many people died on that date and although it is a happy day for them, for others it's sad, concluding: "It's part of life, son."

The Controversy Over Obtaining Medicinal Testosterone in Canada

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Photo via Flickr user Tomasz Pietek

You wake up groggy-eyed and tired, with a back full of tight muscles and a shiver down your spine. You've been feeling depressed for as long as you can remember and you haven't had sex in months. In fact, it seems like you haven't had a proper erection in months either. But you are only in your twenties. You know something is wrong with you.

This is the sentiment I've heard from over a half-dozen young men suffering from a condition called hypogonadism, otherwise known as low testosterone or low T.

Sharing symptoms that are very similar to depression, hypogonadism often goes untreated for a long time due to misdiagnosis or an unwillingness on the part of the patient to seek treatment. This is especially a problem among young men, who are generally expected to have testosterone levels that are through the roof.

In America, the use of testosterone as a medicine has increased significantly over the past few years, with drugs like AndroGel (a topical cream containing the hormone) and testosterone injections becoming commonplace among men in their 30s or older who are experiencing issues with libido, strength and energy.

Toronto Life reported last year that IMS Health found the testosterone industry to be worth over $2 billion globally, with an estimated 47 percent increase in Canadian sales of the drug over the previous five years. However, even with those projections, there hasn't been a normalization of the drug in Canada quite yet like there has been in the US.

According to doctors and patients that I spoke to, this has been less of an issue for older men trying to obtain treatment (as they're generally seen as the target audience for the variety of male performance enhancers out there) than it has for younger sufferers of hypogonadism.

You start to doubt yourself a lot. It can be very discouraging to be told time and time again that you're simply depressed and that they aren't willing to take a second look.

The actual treatment method, dubbed TRT (testosterone replacement therapy), involves the controlled administration of the hormone in an effort to replace one's natural production of testosterone which may be out of whack can be for a variety of reasons.

Genetic defects, such as a dysfunctional pituitary gland (responsible for the production of luteinizing hormonethe signal that tells your testicles to get to work), to incidents involving an adverse reaction to medicine or drugs, are just some of the ways in which a male can become hypogonadal.

The upsides of getting treated are numerous: increased sex drive, virility, muscle mass, confidence, happiness, etc. The downside? Once you start administering synthetic testosterone, the person's natural production shuts off, their testicles shrink, and they become fundamentally dependant on the drug to stay functioning.

According to Dr. Larry Komer, a Canadian gynecologist and obstetrician turned hormone doc, those under 30 who come into clinics with testosterone on the mind are often viewed skeptically as either misinformed kids that are unwilling to admit they're depressed, or malicious adults trying to get their hands on steroids for athletic performance. Komer says that this oftentimes is far from the reality.

"If you believe the ranges of testosterone most doctors will give to patients, you will get absolutely nowhere with your health," he said, referring to the standardized ranges that most blood clinics have listed as "healthy" levels of testosterone. Komer notes these ranges are not controlled and include the entire clinic's populace (including everyone from teenagers to seniors).

Photo via Flickr user anokarina

For example, a man who gets his blood tested might register with a total testosterone level of 310 ng/dL on a scale of 300-1200 ng/dL and still be considered within normal ranges. The issue here, in Komer's words, is "the assumption is that men should be functioning rather than thriving."

"These ranges are so wide that it's ridiculous. No one should have to be 'OK' or 'average.' You don't go to a mechanic with two cylinders firing and ask him to bump you up to four. You want all eight cylinders firing, and there is a complacency in this sense when it comes to men and testosterone."

Undoubtedly an advocate of the hormone's use as a medicine for a wide variety of symptoms he attributes to testosterone deficiency, Komer describes testosterone as a highly-underrated drug when compared to alternative treatments such as long-term antidepressants.

"Doctors are constantly pushing antidepressants onto these guys when the real problem, most of the time, lies in low testosterone. Depression is just a symptom . Now, they give the same drug to combat fatal diseases such as heart disease, cancer, fertility issues. Teenage girls use it when taking birth control. It is completely common now." Komer says.

In Komer's opinion, testosterone could one day be considered as valuable as female hormones of the same class.

"It's the same thing playing out with testosterone, but because there's this negative connotation that goes along with it, we're moving very slowly toward progress. If this was a non-hormonal drug, you would have a blockbuster."

Follow Jake Kivanc on Twitter.

VICE Talks Film: Talking to the Directors of the Austrian Horror Film 'Goodnight Mommy'

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When a single mother returns home with her face bandaged from reconstructive surgery, her twin sons begin to suspect that more than her face has changedor perhaps the bandaged woman is not their mother, at all. This is the story of Goodnight Mommy, the artful, claustrophobic Austrian horror film that was recently chosen to be the country's 2015 foreign-language Oscar nomination. VICE recently sat down with Goodnight Mommy's two directorsSeverin Fiala and Veronika Franzto talk cockroaches and working with young actors following the film's stateside release.

What I Learned From Token Black Characters in Teen Movies

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Still from 'Clueless,' via IMDB

Growing up, I was surrounded by whiteness. I was born and raised in the suburbs of Connecticut, where we were the only non-white family on the block and where I was one of the few black students in my school district. My inner circle of girlfriends was all white, and even though none of them knew it at the time, they couldn't understand the great chasm that separated my teenage experience from theirs.

In middle school, we used to flip through the yearbook and decide which boys would make good boyfriends. While my friends had free reign of the pickings, I was always paired up with the one of the few black boys in our grade. It wasn't because of our shared race, my friends would say, it was just theoretical matchmaking. The truth was that the white boys in my town did not think I was attractive or interesting or hip. I had big lips before big lips were "in," frizzy hair that people liked to pull, and my dad was always pushing books about black history on me. I was the "other."

This became obvious watching the films I grew up with. The teen movie of the week at sleepovers typically followed the trope of a girl from the "wrong side of the tracks" falling head over heels in stupid love with some unexpected boy from a different social strata. I consumed these movies with equal parts greedy delight and hope, pushing down the unsettling feeling that these films were made not for me, but for my white friends. Like my white friends, I learned how to be a proper teenager through these moviesexcept most of the films I watched didn't have many black characters. When they did, it was most often the "token black friend," a girl who existed to support the white characters and to act as representative of an entire race.

Scene from 'She's All That,' via YouTube

Take She's All That (1999), one of the first teen movies I watched in a theater. In it, Gabrielle Union and Lil' Kim play members of the popular girl's court. Lil' Kim barely has any lines and Union is more mammy than heroine. Their role in the narrative is to support the storyline of the main character, Laney Boggs, a white, conventionally attractive, if endearingly eccentric, art student played by Rachael Leigh Cook.

Laney, the heroine, was meant to be a symbol for being "different" and misunderstood; in actuality her differences amounted to paint-splattered overalls and hipster glasses. The black characters had no unique lives or motivations, but instead served as set pieces to break up the monotony of whiteness.

Chastity's character never evolvesshe's just a mean girl, a foil to the white protagonist, a conduit for Bianca to learn how to be a better person.

Angelica Bastin, a culture writer who identifies as a black Latina, told me she was "always attracted to the teen movies I felt reflected the grotesque, contradictory, and exhilarating reality of being a teen girl." But her favorite films growing upThe Craft, Jawbreaker, Clueless, and Bring It Onpresented a world "radically different" from her experience.

"Watching teen movies, I often felt invisible," she reflected. "Most of the black characterswhen there were any, and had their own storylinesdidn't have my diverse background. They didn't struggle with poverty or mental illness or messy family dynamics."

In 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), Union plays Chastity, the opportunistic, lady-in-waiting to Bianca Stratford, a spoiled sophomore who debates the merits of a Prada backpack in relation to Skechers. Chastity is beautiful and cunning, but also shallow. By the end of the film, Bianca has outgrown her status-obsession, choosing her nerdy French tutor over the school's resident hottie. But Chastity's character never evolvesshe's just a mean girl, a foil to the white protagonist, a conduit for Bianca to learn how to be a better person.

Watch White Student Union, our documentary about race, class, and self-righteous college students.

There were a few exceptions. Like every other girl my age, I was obsessed with Clueless (1995). My parents bought me the soundtrack, the VHS, and the Dionne Barbie doll. Dionne became my idol. I thought her nose ring was so edgy and cool and I admired the fact that although she was relegated to the role of Cher's best friend, she was confident and didn't let her boyfriend push her around. She was Cher's right-hand-woman, but she called her out when necessary.

For me, Dionne was a new kind of black girl on film: one who refused to sacrifice her blackness to fit in. Bastin expanded on this, telling me the Dionne character " the boundaries around black women in pop culture quite a bit showing how wildly different the black teen experience can be."

Still from 'Bring It On,' via IMDB

The cheerleading movie Bring It On (2000), released a couple of years after Clueless, actually dealt with issues of race and class head-on. The all-black East Compton Clovers could have been written as caricatures, but were instead portrayed as smart, talented, and hardworking athletes, whose blackness isn't hyper-exaggerated with excessive slang or overt racist stereotypes.

The head cheerleader of the Clovers, Isis, was played by Gabrielle Union (the fact that Union was cast over and over again in roles that provided on-screen diversity is itself a sign of this tokenism). She was a take-no-bullshit leader who didn't accept the racist bureaucracies of competitive cheerleading. In a defining character scene, the film's protagonist, played by the lily-white Kirsten Dunst, approaches Isis with a huge check to help pay for the Clovers' entry-fee to Nationals. Isis tears up the check and asks, "What is this? Hush money?" It's one of the few scenes in the teen movies I grew up where a black girl does something so strong and independent, without settling into the flattened trop of the "strong black woman."

Unfortunately, Bring It On didn't usher in a new era of film with strong, dynamic black characters. Today's teen movies are just as whitewashed as the ones released two decades ago, perhaps even more so. The Fault in Our Stars (2014) and Paper Towns (2015), both originally novels written by reigning young adult author John Green, feature white leading males who discover the meaning of life via their quirky, but beautiful, white dreamgirls. This can also be said of The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), which features characters of color only in throwaway roles like "school teacher" or "Shakespeare girl." Dystopian YA epics like the The Hunger Games (2012) and Divergent (2014) also predominantly cast white actors, despite taking place in the near future, when white people are expected to be a demographic minority (at least in the US). In these movies, there often isn't even a token black friendinstead, everyone is white.

As a teen, watching whitewashed movies was like peering into an alternate reality, a world that I could inhabit if I only tried hard enough. Maybe that's why I kept watching themfor the off-chance that once, just once, the black characters could also live in the full spectrum of human vulnerability and messiness and first love, instead of being subjected to the role of background player, a role I knew too well from the everyday truths of my own life.

Follow Vanessa Willoughby on Twitter.


This Is South London Through Photographs

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Photo by Luke Overin

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

Sometimes, when you take the Tube in London, the street you find yourself on when get off can look exactly the same as wherever you got on. It has to be said, though, that there is something distinct about London south of the riverperhaps it's the brand of fried chicken boxes in the gutter, the brickwork of the buildings, or the fact that the sky is far away enough from central London to seem just that bit bluer.

Whatever it is about south London, a new exhibition, entitled 'Twenty Twenty Vision,' captures it perfectly. Showing 400 images shot everywhere from Brixton to Borough and Plumstead to Peckhamthrough the eyes of 20 inhabitantsit's the most comprehensive survey you're going to get of the area without riding around on buses for a week.

To celebrate the show's opening this Friday at the Amersham Arms pub in New Cross, here's a gallery of images shot by the South London locals who feature. For more information about Twenty Twenty, check out their Facebook event page here.

Ink Spots: 'Foundations' Magazine Spotlights On-Point Artists Before They Blow Up

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If you really sat down and tried, you could turn a lot of pages in the space of 30 days. While we've spent over a decade providing you with about 120 of those pages every month, it turns VICE isn't the only magazine in the world. This series, Ink Spots, is a helpful guide on which of those zines, pamphlets, and publications you should be reading when you're not reading ours.

All images courtesy of Foundations Magazine.

I first flipped through the crisp, minimal pages of Foundations when I saw it sitting on my kitchen table. My then-roommate, curator, consultant, arts publicist, and former VICE employee, Marcella Zimmerman, had left out a copy of the first issue, which was published in late fall, 2014. I immediately liked that it featured a swath of downtown cool-people artists like the guy who runs Hamburger Eyes and Lizzie Wright of Essex Flowers, as well as niche creatives I'd never heard of (but whose names I've been noticing more and more in the months since I initially peeked at the biannual publication).

When I told Marcella I appreciated the mag's mix of on-the-pulse art world cred and idiosyncratic curation, she replied, "Thanks, cutie," with a giggle. It took me a minute to realize it was her magazine, and she had been working on it with editor-in-chief (and her high-school bud) Sebastian Gladstone on the low in between her countless other responsibilities, such as cleaning up our cat's goddamn litter box.

One year and two issues later, Foundations' issue three is my personal favorite. As always, it features interviews with artists who will likely experience a spike in Instagram followers (and maybe blue-chip sale prices) in about six months from now, such as the painter Jamian Juliano-Villani. The most recent cover story, in particular, is a nuanced take on the tired trope of artists documenting members of their family: Artist Carly Mark writes about how her grandmother Florine became president of Weight Watchers, enabling her family to live a blessed life and, subsequently, allowing Mark to become the artist she is today.

The whole magazine is on point, and it gives me arts-related conversations to talk about at parties where I have to pretend I'm smarter than I am. Gladstone and Zimmerman chatted with me about what sets Foundations apart from every other biannual arts publication you might have seen at the New York Art Book Fair this past weekend.

VICE: What was your goal with this publication?
Sebastian Gladstone: Even if you have immense talent and drive, breaking into the institutionalized art world is challenging, especially if you don't know the right people. With FOUNDATIONS, we want to offer exposure to people regardless of who they know.

What sets your print publication from the crop of other downtown arts and culture publications that seem to appear out of the abyss each year?
One of the biggest differences is our design. It's hopefully minimal to the point where all you notice is the art, similar to the design of a good gallery. We have a mission and very focused idea of what we are trying to say. We cover a very specific part of the art world, and don't delve into fashion, music, or culture. Also, we aren't a news organization, and we stay out of the "art-market" side of things, so we are able to run on our own pace.

Marcella Zimmerman: That said, we are excited by the resurgence of niche publishing. I want there to be as many magazines about young artists as there are about vintage cars.

Can you tell me about the name Foundations?
Gladstone: The foundation is the first thing that is built, but also the strongest part of a structure. That's what we want to be for artists, writers, and curatorswe showcase the beginnings of careers and projects, essentially the foundation they will build on.

Zimmerman: Those ideas can come in the form of a performance at our magazine release like we did during the New York Art Book Fair over the weekend, or a special edition we release under our imprint like we did for MOCA earlier this year, or special event. For our Los Angeles release next month, we're doing a party with #LivingRoomToday, a collective of DJs, artists, and performers on the internet who gather IRL to produce monthly events.



Images from issue three of FOUNDATIONS. Photos by Katie McCurdy

Can you tell me about the cover story?
Gladstone: Foundations utilizes the print medium to present projects that have to be realized IRL. In our latest issue, there are conceptual ads that very well could be real products, but aren't, and you don't exactly know what is real and what isn't when you flip through the magazine.

For the new issue we really wanted to push the potential of the printed medium, and artist Carly Mark wanted to do this piece on her grandmother Florine, who was very influential in her upbringing. Another big theme was examining the way fashion editorials are presented, and how they shape the people we look up to.

We sent photographer Katie McCurdy with Carly to shoot an editorial of Florine, and turned her into the cover star of the magazine. Florine's story is interesting in itself. the American dream of working hard and succeeding is a reality. Carly wanted to tell that story in a way that young people could relate to, and so turned her grandmother into a star.


You write in the editor's note that this issue is about "removing genres."
We filter through tons of artists, galleries, etc., and eventually a list is created that we all agree fits with what the issue is talking about. With this issue, we were looking for art that cannot be categorized so simply as "abstract art" or "post-internet." For example, Jessi Reaves makes art that looks like furniture or is furniture. It's really impossible to categorize it as one thing, which I think is great, and takes a lot of courage to create.

Who would be your ideal feature or subject? And on the contrary, who's someone we'd never see in this mag?
Idon't know if we have an ideal subject in the literal sense, but essentiallywith our subject matter we are looking to expose ideas and movements that havenot hit the mainstream yet. I really like the idea of young people finding newways to talk about old subjects, such as in our new issue Alexander Schulantalks about Sturtevant's retrospective.

How has the mag evolved since issue one? What are you doingbetter now?
Thebiggest thing was learning how to make amagazinenone of us had ever done anything like this before. I did thefirst issue completely on my own and learned everything from basic layout tohow to build a website. But now thanks to the Foundations team, we have a good system for copy-editing, organizingcontent, design, etc. When I started the mag, I was really just wingingeverything. But now I feel like we really know who we are speaking to, what weare speaking about, and where we are trying to go.

Zimmerman: The voice ofFOUNDATIONS is more of a choir made up of all the artists and contributors. In our new issue we have an interview by Keith J. Varadiwith visual artist Jamian Juliano-Villani. We gave them a six-page spread to talk aboutwhatever they wanted to talk about with no intervention or direction from theeditorswhich was great because Keith and Jamian have known each other for years. We're artists, not media mavens, so we don't care if what weput out sells out or gets a million views. Everytime we put out an issue, our community of artists expands, our voice islouder, and we make more of an impact. Someday we hope to open the Foundations Foundation.

You once told me you're aiming to document up-and-comingartists, but not necessarily people who are already super hyped. Canyou elaborate?
Gladstone: Goingon what you said about all the other magazines out there; how many sources doyou need covering the same shows in Chelsea? We don't have theviewership to compete with magazines that cover those events, but also don'twant to. We want to show what everyone else isn't showing, but also what theydon't even know exists.

Follow Zach on Twitter.

You can buy copies of Foundations issue three and read some articles from past issues here.

Why Is The Premier of BC Slut-Shaming Miley Cyrus and Pamela Anderson?

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Miley Cyrus on her Bangerz tour. Photo via Flickr user karina3094

Back in Oct. 2011, BC Premier Christy Clark found herself at the centre of a media controversy following one particular question period. It wasn't because of anything she said though, just what she was wearing.

Clark sported a black V-neck top underneath a beige blazerit was about as exciting as it soundsthat revealed about three inches of cleavage. It was enough to prompt this tweet from political blogger/former NDP MLA David Schreck: "Is Premier Clark's cleavage revealing attire appropriate for the legislature?"

Schreck was rightly criticized for his sexist remarks, remarks that Clark characterized as "stupid."

"I don't think we can groom a lot of young female leaders if this is the level of comment we have," she said.

Funny then, that Clark now appears to be slut shaming two women, Miley Cyrus and Pamela Anderson, in an effort to dismiss their concerns about the province's wolf cull.

The wolf cull is a controversial five-year plan to save endangered caribou populations by shooting hundreds of wolves. Cyrus recently implored her millions of Instagram followers to sign a petition to have the cull stopped, while Anderson penned an open letter asking Clark to consider other methods of protecting caribou and offering to discuss the matter further in a face-to-face meeting.

At a press conference Friday, the premier responded.

"If we ever need help with our twerking policy, we'll go to ," she quipped, adding (because it's so relevant), "both Pamela Anderson and Miley Cyrus, when they open up their closets, they probably don't find a lot of clothes."

The takeaway appears to be: women who dance for a living and wear revealing clothing shouldn't have opinions on serious issues.

Regardless of what side of the wolf cull debate you stand on, it's patronizing and arrogant to brush off the concerns of Cyrus and Anderson just because they're celebrities. Anderson, a longtime animal rights advocate and award-winning member of PETA, she also launched her own foundation last year. And Cyrus spent the last weekend with a conservation group in BC's Great Bear Rainforest in order to draw more attention to the cause. It's also worth noting that their views about the wolf cull are shared by experts.

Clark was recently criticized for another tone-deaf remark, when, during a weekend soccer game between the Seattle Sounders and the Vancouver Whitecaps, she tweeted the following:

"The Seattle Princesses are putting on quite a performance tonight. So many miraculous recoveries."

"Sexist much?" replied a follower in one of many angry responses. "Calling someone girls should never be used as an insult. Someone in your position should know better."

In a year-end interview with the Vancouver Sun, Clark spoke about the sexism she encountered as a female in a male-dominated arena.

"I think that the NDP, some of the members of the NDP, do have a tendency to see women differently from men," she said. "It's something women experience all over the place. Any woman watching this will be going, 'Uh huh, I've felt that.'"

She's right. While Canada's three female provincial premiers govern a large proportion of the population, regularly dealing with sexism is still a part of their job descriptions. Their time would be better served fighting negative stereotypes rather than pandering to them.

Clark did not respond to request for comment on this story.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

What 'Cancer! The Musical' Doesn't Tell You About Having Cancer

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Photo via Cancer! The Musical/Facebook

Nine times out of ten, when I tell someone I've had cancer, they tell me about a person they knew who had cancer... and died. It's a nearly constant reminder of my own mortality, an ominous nod to the fact that I could have died.

The thing is, no one ever actually tells you, "You have cancer." That's not the word they use. Instead, doctors say they've "found a mass," or an area they're "concerned about." On the day I was told about the "mass" growing in my testicle, I asked the doctor, "So, cancer?" He was quick to say that he wasn't sure and that everything would be fine. But in my head I pictured myself becoming bald, pale, and skinny. I thought about dying. I thought about erasing my browser history.

The surgery to remove the "mass" was followed by a short period of recovery and then a much longer period of chemotherapy. Three different drugs were pumped into my body six hours a day, five days a week, in various cycles over the course of several months. I lost my hair. I lost sensation in my fingers. I couldn't sleep. And contrary to a universally considered perk of chemo, I gained weight instead of losing it. But those were just the physical side effects, which is just one part of what makes cancer so miserable, and which Cancer! The Musical, glosses over with humor.

Cancer! The Musical, which opened last week at the Second City Theater in Los Angeles, tells the story of a researcher who believes he has the cure for cancer, a rival pharmaceutical exec who wants to steal it, and a surgeon who needs it to save the woman he loves. Written by Tom Donnellon, a cancer survivor and surgeon with HOPE Surgical, and his brother, Shawn Handlon, with musical direction by John Edwartowski,Cancer! is clever andagainst all oddsgenuinely funny.

The musical was created under the premise that "laughter is the best medicine," that in in the face of grave illness, sometimes you just have to laugh. But if I had to sum up my own experience with cancer, the word I'd use is "anger." I was angry at the doctors, the nurses, my body. I don't remember a moment when I wasn't angryeven months after chemo had finished and I attempted to return to my "normal" life. It wasn't a literal screamfest type of anger, but rather the kind that lives deep down inside, the type that lingers for a hot minute until it consumes you.

I looked for traces of that anger in Cancer!, but I never found it. I'm willing to concede that my desire for anger in a musical theater rendition of cancer could be a manifestation of my own PTSDbut it also seemed to be a missed opportunity to connect with cancer survivors in a deeper, more visceral way.

Watch our documentary on the for-profit addiction treatment industry, which leaves addicts literally dying for treatment.

It's possible that the anger is missing because the story of Cancer!is told from the medical perspective, rather than that of the patienta choice that makes the narrative both compelling and troubling. Pharmaceutical companies are a presence in the lives of all cancer patients, who are acutely aware that money is what moves medicine, not health.

In Cancer! the evil pharmaceutical executive tries to kill a rival who finds the cure for cancer, but has a change of heart when he, like every one in two Americans, finds out he actually has cancer. Instead of finding a way to make a profit off this new miracle, he just gets shot (long story, you'll have to see it). What could've been an opportunity to explore how patients get screwed overand literally killedby corporate greed becomes part of the hokey musical theater plot, never actually addressing the issue.

Read: Why a $54,000 Cancer Treatment in 1995 Now Goes for $200,000

I experienced this greed firsthand midway through my chemo treatment. "We want you to be aware that it's likely your health insurance won't cover the cost of this shot," a nurse told me, after much deliberation between her and my oncologist. They were determining whether my white blood cells were low enough to warrant the dose of Neulasta, a drug used to boost chemo patients' white blood cell count so they can be strong enough to continue the chemo regimens.

"How much is it?" I asked.

"Between $6,000 and $9,000," the nurse responded.

I weighed my options. Take the shot, take on more debt, but feel immensely betteror suffer through the rest of chemo and hope I didn't get sicker, which would force me to stop treatment until my white blood cells were back to healthy levels.

I told them to do it, watching imaginary money signs float behind the nurse as she twirled away, closing the curtain that offered me "privacy."

More than the misery of chemotherapy or the will it takes to survive treatment, the most commonly shared experience among cancer patients is the financial impact of dealing with the disease.

The shot cost me $8,767. And here's what's really troubling: Neulasta is made by Amgen, a pharmaceutical company that posted revenue of $20 billion in 2014. This January, the company reported a quarterly profit of $1.29 billion, up 27 percent thanks to sales growth of "key drugs."Meanwhile, someone is sitting in a chemo center right now being told that their Neulasta shot now costs $10,000.

Dancing lab rats. Photo via Cancer! The Musical on Facebook

Cancer! does not address situations like these, which affect millions of people suffering through cancer treatment each year. More than the misery of chemotherapy or the will it takes to survive treatment, the most commonly shared experience among cancer patients is the financial impact of dealing with the disease. For a large number of people diagnosed with cancer, the only thing they're thinking about is how they're going to pay for it. Which makes sense, when you consider that medical bills are the single biggest cause of bankruptcy in the United States.

Watch our HBO special report on "Killing Cancer."

Two years after finishing my chemo treatment, I'm still paying for it. And judging by the state of my career, I'll be paying for it for a very long time. If my cancer comes back, or a new form of cancer emerges in my bodythe possibility of this is higher for me because the chemo drugs I received have a high rate of causing another form of cancerI don't know what I'll do.

This reality doesn't scare meit just makes me angry. I'm 33, I've worked hard to build a decently successful life, I feel I have a lot going for me. Why should I have to worry about going under financiallyjust because my body is working against me? Where is that politician who will stand up to these huge pharmaceutical companies, which see each person diagnosed with cancer every 30 seconds as just another higher profit?

Cancer! could have explored these questions, but it didn't. There are a lot of things the musical gets right: The warped relationship between pharmaceutical companies and doctors, and the sometimes blatant lack of emotion doctors express towards patients. On a purely artistic level, the music is catchy, the jokes are solid, and the performances are great. But in finding a creative way to address an extremely difficult issue, the show misses the raw emotional response to having cancer, and the financial desperation that comes afterward. Because let's be real, you can only tell so many Mr. Clean jokes before people start to get uncomfortable.

Cancer! The Musical runs until December 17 at the Second City Theater in Hollywood.

Follow H. Alan Scott on Twitter.

We Asked the European VICE Offices What They Think About #Piggate

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Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Late last night the Daily Mail published allegations that David Cameron put his dick in the mouth of a dead pig as part of some kind of initiation ceremony back in his university days.

The story has taken the UK by stormbut how do Europe's more open-minded countries feel about #piggate? We got in touch with our European offices to find out.

ITALY

A few years ago, I took a trip to Amsterdam 'to see the Van Gogh Museum.' I remember feeling deeply embarrassed as I stared at all the T-shirts celebrating Berlusconi's sex scandals in the local gift shops. For years, whenever someone mentioned Italy, the only thing people would talk about was what our prime minister did with his junkso we know how this feels, guys. You're not alone.

That said, it feels good to be able to laugh at another PM. And it's an even sweeter feeling this time, because the United Kingdom has always been perceived as some sort of moral role model. Top lad, David.

Mattia Salvia, staff writer

GREECE

Truth be told, the #piggate affair didn't really surprise many people here in Greece. We've known for ages that the conservative leaders of Europe are quite partial to inserting their privates into P.I.G.S. (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain).

We don't really believe that this story is anything but a surrealistic yarn. It can't be true. It just can't. Because if it is, if an individual who enjoys sticking his cock into a dead pig's mouth can become the helmsman of one of the most powerful nations in the world, then you lot over there should probably take that suitcase labeled 'here be nuclear weapon codes' from his sweaty, pig-abusing hands.

Frixos Fintanidis, online editor

GERMANY

A couple of years ago, a guy's story went viral after he called into Germany's most beloved talk radio show. The man explained that he had this ritual where he'd buy 100 pounds of minced meat, form a woman out of it, and then proceed to have sex with it. So compared to that, putting your penis inside a dead animal's mouth without any actual thrusting sounds kind of lame. Even if it's allegedly been done by a drugged-up prime minister-to-be. Sorry, dear British friends. When it comes to creepy genital-related stuff, Germany still wins.

Lisa Ludwig, staff writer

DENMARK

Life's weird, huh? One day you're just having a laugh, allegedly stuffing your bits in a pig with your mates at Oxford, next you're the leader of Britain.

Of course, this revelation could be some sort of Tory tactic to ensnare Britain's bestiality vote. Maybe, from now on, whenever someone googles 'horse dong for rent,' David will be there in their defense. Maybe whenever PETA cries out against using frogs as nature's own Fleshlight, Cameron will take up the fightwhatever it takes to win over those last pesky voters. And to be honest, is that not the kind of man you'd want at the helm, Britain? A hero, who will stop at nothingnot even animal necrophiliato secure Britain's future?

Alfred Maddox, staff writer


Photo via Wikimedia Commons

SPAIN

Personally I'd be insulted if politicians didn't do weird shit in the "glory days" of their youth. We all love those stories about private societies where people succumb to peer pressure and do crazy things. I wouldn't hesitate for a second to swap my job and arms to spend just a couple of minutes at one of those parties.

But our university days were all about Pot Noodles and makeshift beer bongs. Man, those politicians party on another fucking level.

Alejandra Nuez, online editor

SERBIA

Needless to say, the first thing that came to mind was that episode of Black Mirror. Given that I work in media and am bombarded with weird shit like this every day, it's hard to be too surprised.

Anyway, so what? Did he kill anyone? No. Did he beat up a homeless person? No. That said, nobody wants to have that image of Cameron and a dead pig jammed in their head. No picture? It didn't happen.

Magda Janjic, online editor

Related: Watch our documentary, 'Searching for Spitman'

SWEDEN

"During my first year at a British university in the East Midlands, I heard some truly fucked up things. One of them was about the guy who accidentally ate a genital wart while going down on a girl. Another was about this girl who gave the elderly man who sold kebabs outside the union a blowjob for some chips. I also remember hearing about the hazing rituals over at a student hall where basically everyone played rugby: The one where everyone had to down a drink consisting of old dairy products, blood, cum, and vomit.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, because I'm not really that surprised by Mr. Cameron allegedly putting his dick into a pig's mouth at uni. Some truly fucked up shit goes on at British universities and if this is the worst thing David has done then we can all agree that the guy is pretty normal.

Camila Catalina, online editor


Is Britain Ruled by a Secret Pig-Fucking Cabal?

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A pig's head. Photo via Flickr user Edsel Little

Something very weird happened as soon as the allegationsemerged in the Daily Mail that PrimeMinister David Cameron had, during his student days at Oxford, stuck "a privatepart of his anatomy" in a dead pig's moutha story upon which Downing Street declined to comment today. While most of us were laughing uncontrollably all evening,political and media figures across the UK Right, from Louise Mensch to JamesDelingpole, suddenly started insisting that it was no big deal, that he wasjust a student, that we've all done something embarrassing back in the day, sowho cares?

This is true. There are certainly long and stupid years ofmy life that, whenever I'm reminded of them, make me want to slam my head into the nearest wall. But even so, I never fucked a dead pig. So the question hangs in the air. Could itbe that the entire United Kingdom is ruled by a secret pig fucking cabal? Some ancientsociety, devoted to the enjoyment of forbidden porcine pleasures, driven wildby its transgressions, with ambitions to take over the world?

This kind of idea is difficult to prove. But I want tosuggest that, at the very least, we should take the proposition seriously.

It's no secret that young men, from the age of about 12until their final slump into total impotence, will try to put their dicks injust about anything. I have vivid memories of a year 7 school friend trying,with all seriousness, to fuck an injection-moulded plastic chair. Over thecenturies, it's almost a certainty that more than a few dead pig's heads havebeen subjected to this kind of erotic attention.

Witless peasants, lonely in their fields since the inventionof agriculture, must have occasionally looked at the damply snuffling snouts oftheir herds, and wondered. Butcher's boys across the world and throughout thecenturies have probably independently invented an exciting new pork garnish.Wherever there's been horny idiocy, there will have been pig's heads to provide a small comfort. But Britain is different: only in this country do we thendecide that our alleged pig fuckers should get to have nuclear weapons.

Related: Watch VICE's bizarre documentary, 'Searching for Spitman'

David Cameron is certainly weird enough and fleshy-facedenough for the story to be believable. But if the story is true, the realquestion isn't why he fucked a dead pig, but how anyone else managed to findout about it. According to the Mail'ssource, an anonymous MP, the act of forbidden love was part of his initiationinto Oxford's Piers Gaveston society; it's also alleged that Count Gottfriedvon Bismarck, his contemporary at the university, threw dinner partiesprominently featuring pig's heads. This was pig fucking raised to the level ofhigh ritual. It fits in to accounts of similar Oxford behavior: we have heard, for instance, the claim that one of the initiations into the Bullingdon Club, of which David Cameron and Boris Johnson were members, is to burn a fifty-pound note in front of ahomeless person.

But in fact, the anthropological archive is full of thisstuff. Among the Tiv people of West Africa, for instance, it's a fairly commonbelief that the most powerful members of society are part of a secretorganization called the mbatsav, whomeet at night to dig up bodies from graves and eat them. The Poro secretsociety of Liberia, which occasionally functions as a parallel government, isruled by the commandment ifa modonot speak of it. Some kind of initiation rite exists in every culture: I had aBar Mitzvah, you might have had Confirmation, or you might have chugged a pintof piss during freshman year, and David Cameron is alleged to have fucked a deadpig.

Read on Munchies: A Severed Pig's Head Showed Me the Importance of Ethical Farming

It seems that the higher up you go in society, the morecruel and grotesque the ritual becomes. There's an obvious reason for all this:for the upper classes, good connections really matter. If you're going to have a secret society, first you need tohave a secret. Whether it's singing in screechy adolescent Hebrew orcorpse-eating and pig fucking, these initiations help bind people together, anda student society in which everyone knows that everyone else has done somethingunspeakable to a piece of ham is bound to stay close afterward. If anyonebreaks ranks, or acts against the interests of the collective, they can beinstantly exposed. Groups like the Bullingdon and the Piers Gaveston societiesare not just rugby clubs for the ultra-rich, a vehicle for youthful excess;they're a way of fostering ruling class solidarity.

In a highly stratified society like the UK, where we'restill ruled by those chinlessly perverse dweebs who can trace their ancestry tothe Norman conquest, necro-bestiality isn't a weird affectation of thearistocratic classes but something intrinsic to the way our country isorganized. In places with a greater degree of social mobility, like much ofcontinental Europe, there's less of a scope for this kind of institutionalossification of perversion. But Britain is a profoundly sick society, and whereyou were born still determines how the rest of your life will pan out. Theruling classes will go to any lengths to keep it that way. These kids know thatthey might one day end up leading the country, which is why it's essential thatthey cum in a pig's mouth. It's not just enjoyment, it's class warfare.

There's no way of saying for sure, but it's certainly notbeyond the bounds of credibility that they're all doing it. Politicians, bankers,businessmen, journalists, civil servants, everyone: the whole scummy top layerof the UK. It might not have been planned that way, but the constitutionalevolution of British politics, the way that it incorporated feudal relics intoits democracy right up until the present, made mass aristocratic pig fuckingbasically inevitable.

The Daily Mailmanaged to get the pig story because it's serializing a new biography ofCameron, Call Me Dave, by LordAshcroft. The front page of today's paper read, in huge letters, REVENGE. The story goes that Ashcroft, amajor Tory donor, expected his generosity to be repaid with a position in the2010 coalition government. He didn't get it, and so the ancient system ofinitiation-bonding revealed its true purpose. But Ashcroft is also abillionaire, the 37th richest person in the country. He might not have gone toOxford, but he spends a lot of time with people who did. Ashcroft might havehad his revenge, but could the story come back to bite him where it hurts? After all, what strange adventures might he have gotten into?

Follow Sam Kriss on Twitter.

VICE Vs Video Games: ‘Rinse and Repeat’ Is the Sexiest Shower Scrubbing Sim on the Market

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It's easy to think that video games all sort of look the same. To someone who doesn't really play them, or take a great deal of interest in them, it's easy to view Call of Duty, Halo, and Battlefield as exactly the same experience: and, to a great extent, they are. But while the natural homogenizing of the mainstream, where risk-averse publishers prefer to put out what's proven to work rather than what might push the medium forward, has led to all open-world games playing the same way, and bigger-budget racers typically offering comparably "authentic" sterility, in the indie sector, creativity consistently abounds.

There truly is a game for everyone in 2015all you need to do is look. And for those who've always wanted to scrub down a hot dude in shades while he showers at a gym, Rinse and Repeat is now available to download for whatever you want to pay. It's the latest product of the singular mind of games maker Robert Yang, whose previous titles Hurt Me Plenty and Stick Shift have presented players with the opportunity to spank virtual partners and fuck their car, respectively.

Is this an appropriate point to confirm that Rinse and Repeat is very much not safe for work? Probably best to be on the safe side.

The first two minutes of 'Rinse and Repeat' (NSFW)

Rinse and Repeat, available for PC, Mac, and Linux, has been getting a fair few corners of the gaming press frothy since its launch on September 20. On Offworld, sometime VICE Gaming contributor Leigh Alexander writes that there's more to the game than meets the eyewhich in this case is a hairy chest, toned contours, and a slowly swinging cock. She highlights how the game makes you wait, in real time, to encounter your shower palyou need to check the randomly generated gym schedule and plan appropriately. It might be that he's not free until after "murder cardio," or "doom yoga." I mean, who'd not want to be in those classes?

On Kotaku, writer Mark Serrels calls Rinse and Repeat "amazing and hilarious." He goes on to explain how being a dude, showering with other dudes, was often incredibly awkward, something I know I can relate to. I'm sure I speak for most male readers when I say there was nothing fun about hosing yourself down after secondary school PE class was done, shifting yourself around so as to not directly stare at anyone's knob, and keep yours as well covered as you could while also dealing with post-hockey ballsack sweat. As you get older it doesn't matter so much. Dicks are just funnier once you're past 30.

"This game. Man, this game," Serrels writes. "It just completely skewers that feeling." Sure does. And it will make you laugh, whether you're in possession of a generous schlong or some other sexy parts entirely.

Related: Watch VICE's film on Mr. Cherry, Japan's leading world record holder

Yang has posted a blog that details his process and intent in making Rinse and Repeatbut it's advisable to play the game (which, again, you can do for free) first, as it contains spoilers. One key influence on the game's presentation is New York rapper Le1f's music video for 'Soda,' which shows guys getting their faces splashed with fizzy pop. What that visual metaphor is about, I have no idea. The music in Rinse and Repeat is just so fine, tooyou won't be able to resist putting a little love on your buddy's back with this smoothness in your ears.

"Some no doubt bristle at the triumph of waiting mechanics in games, and would refuse to classify it as a mechanic since it is essentially non-interactivity that exists as interactivity," Yang writes. "But I'd argue that waiting is the quintessential easy-to-pick-up hard-to-master kind of skill that is massively accessible to most of society. It's brilliant and it happened underneath everyone's noses, probably because we were turning our noses up and sneering.

"Waiting is an act of submission, but that's not really a bad thing." And I'll leave it there because, like I already said, spoilers.

Weirdlyor, not so weirdly, given I wrote just up there that there really is a game out there for everyoneRinse and Repeat isn't the first interactive shower simulator on the market. Earlier this year, Shower With Your Dad Simulator 2015 was green-lit on Steam. Check out its trailer here. Slightly different vibe, but it's got a nice feel to it.

Video games, people. Video games.

Follow Mike Diver on Twitter.


The VICE Guide to Right Now: A Peanut Executive Is Going to Prison for Knowingly Exposing Customers to Salmonella

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Image via Wikimedia Commons

On Monday, a Georgia judge sentenced former Stewart Parnell, the former owner of the Peanut Corporation of America, to 28 years in prison for his role in willfully exposing consumers to peanut butter tainted with salmonella back in 2008 and 2009, the Associated Press reports. The ensuing outbreak was blamed for nine deaths and hundreds of illnesses, and led to the biggest food recall in US history.

According to the AP, a federal jury found Parnell guilting of "knowingly shipping contaminated peanut butter and of faking results of lab tests intended to screen for salmonella."

The evidence against Parnell was damning. The AP reports:

Emails prosecutors presented at trial showed that Parnell once directed employees to "turn them loose" after samples of peanuts tested positive for salmonella and then were cleared in another test. Several months before the outbreak, when a final lab test found salmonella, Parnell expressed concern to a Georgia plant manager, writing in an Oct. 6, 2008, email that the delay "is costing us huge $$$$$."

Peanut Corporation's quality control manager, Mary Wilkerson, was also convicted in relation to the outbreak, as was Parnell's brother Michael, a former broker, who was sentenced to 20 years for selling contaminated peanut paste to the food giant Kellogg's.

Michael Parnell's attorney argued that his client was actually a victim in the case, claiming that Kellogg's intense production schedule and his brother's tainted factories meant he was "dependent and beholden to his older brother and Kellogg's for his livelihood. However, Michael Parnell was also reported to have told an associate, "We've been shipping to (Kellogg's) with false COAs (false certificates of analysis) since before you got here. I'll handle Kellogg's. Don't worry about it."

The sentence handed down to Stewart Parnell Monday is the harshest punishment ever given to an executive in a food-borne illness case.

Five In-Depth Stories About Food Safety

1. Raw Chicken Isn't the Only Thing Making You Sick
2. China Has Some Really, Really Old Smuggled Frozen Meat
3. The US Is Allegedly Withholding Information About GMO's
4. Safety Experts Say Think Twice Before Donating to Food Kickstarters
5. Being a Food Safety Inspector Means Never Forgetting the Smell of Cockroaches

Follow Drew on Twitter.


The VICE Guide to Right Now: Pizza Rat Is the Only Real New Yorker

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The video that set the internet on fire

New York is the city of dreamsor rather, the city of dreamers, the place where you go when you secretly think you can be famous, or rich, or original, or at the very least sleep with the famous and rich and original. It's got the reputation of being a hard place that makes people hard as well, but really New Yorkers are just a better-dressed version of the people they were back in Akron, Ohiothey want to be loved, they want to be fed, they want a big feather bed to fall into at night.

Most people, in New York or anywhere, don't get what they want. Or maybe they don't know what they want, so getting it is like some algebra problem where you don't have enough information and can never solve for x. So when you see someone who knows what he wants and gets iteven if that something is as banal as a fancy watch, a $10,000 suit, and a corner office at Goldmanit seems intoxicating. Could I be like that? you think, watching those confident people move around the cocktail bar, teeth flashing. Is that what you have to be to survive in New York?

That was how I felt when I saw the YouTube video of the rat struggling its little way down the subway steps with a slice of pizza clenched between her teeth. Live in New York long enough and you'll know a New Yorker on sightrich or poor, black or white, young or old, Prada or Gucci, all true New Yorkers have hustle, and Pizza Rat has got it. How did she get an entire slice? Where does she think she's taking it? What's her endgame here? Doesn't matter. New Yorkers know you only get so many opportunities in these madcap lives of ours, and when you see Mr. Rightor a plain slice just sitting on the groundyou have to grab it and never let go.

Watching that little lady struggle to get her prize down the steps, I couldn't help but wonder, am I more like the rat or more like the pizza? Am I the brave little vermin who is willing to struggle with all her might to get what she wants? Or am I just a passive pile of cheese and sauce sitting around waiting for some furry rodent to manhandle me down the stairs, even if that's not really where I want to go?

In the end, of course, the rat abandons the slice and scurries down the steps, alone, pizzaless, just another four-legged striver whose dreams didn't pan out. Her eyes were bigger than her stomach, or maybe her ambition was bigger than her abilities. In the end, the thing she loved so much was just a burden she was better off without.

Still, for those few seconds her entire life made sense. She had the slice, she was going home with it, her dreams had come true in a way that only happens for the select few. And then, just as quickly, her dreams went back to being dreams. But the slice was hers for a moment, however fleeting that moment was. How many of us can say the same?

Post Mortem: The Strange Case of the Oklahoma Woman Who Dismembered a Corpse at a Funeral

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Shaynna Sims's mug shot via Associated Press

Two weeks ago, witnesses took the stand in Tulsa County District Court to testify about the bizarre events that occurred in the Moore Funeral Home in Oklahoma a few months earlier. It was there, on April 30, that the funeral director called the police to report that someone had "pulled a glob of hair" from the body of 38-year-old Tabatha Lynch during her casket viewing (Lynch had died of an illness). Upon arrival, officers found Lynch's hair littering the floor near her casket, and also saw a "large vertical cut" on the face of the deceased, stretching from the hairline to the tip of the nose. Lynch's mother testified in court that her daughter's body "had makeup and lipstick smeared all over her face; her hair was just all over the place."

But perhaps the most gruesome finding of all was only discovered when funeral staff prepared Lynch's body for cremation. According to police, both of Lynch's breasts and one of her toes had been "crudely cut and removed." To date, these body parts have not been recovered.

Shaynna Sims, a 26-year-old woman who had been seen earlier with her hands inside the casket, was found and arrested at Lynch's apartment on the day of the funeral. Her arrest report states that Sims was found with "a folding knife with hair attached to it consistent with the deceased's hair, type, and color. had a a scissor and additional box cutter knife as well as various pieces of makeup on her person."

Sims was initially arrested for "unauthorized dissection," a misdemeanor on Oklahoma. But in the days that followed, she was charged with several additional counts: She'd allegedly stolen Lynch's shoes (larceny and knowingly concealing stolen property, both felonies) and reportedly deceived Lynch's son in order to enter their apartment (first-degree burglary, also a felony). She was also charged with disturbing or interrupting a funeral (a misdemeanor) and the unlawful removal of body parts from a corpse (a felony). Sims has pled not guilty on all counts.

We expected to hear from Sims and her defense team this week, but her District Court Arraignment was pushed back until Februaryso for now, only the prosecution has had an opportunity to present their case. And we're left with a lot of very troubling questions.

Because as grisly as the case is, it's also puzzling: How would it have been possible for someone to do all this damage to a body during a funeral, in front of numerous people, without getting caught sooner? Witnesses said they saw Sims reach into the casket, but nobody has figured out how she was able to mutilate the corpse without anyone noticing. "We're unfortunately at square one," Tulsa Police Sgt. Shane Tuell told CBS News when Sims was originally arrested.

According to the Associated Press, at the hearing earlier this month, prosecutors called 12 witnesses "who slowly pieced together how Sims allegedly earned the trust of those closest to the deceased woman by assuring family and friends that she was a skilled makeup artist who wanted to help prepare the victim's body for a funeral viewing." Even still, the funeral director didn't discover what had happened to Lynch's body until after the viewing had already begun.

Watch: The Forensic Dentist Who's Reviving Mexico's Unidentified Corpses

In early June, Sims was released on bond on the condition that she not enter Tulsa County except for medical appointments and emergencies. Sims violated this agreement four days after her release when she returned to the apartment where Lynch's children live. The Tulsa Worldreported that Sims had been "trying to obtain a cell phone from a pop-up phone stand in the apartment complex when the complex manager and two other women recognized her and noticed her GPS ankle monitor." A motion to revoke her bond also alleges that Sims was wearing a wig in an effort to disguise herself. Unsurprisingly, the motion was granted and Sims has been in custody ever since. (This may not be the first time Sims sought to disguise herself in this waywhen she appeared in court on May 18, she was also wearing a brown curly-haired wig and large white sunglasses.)

"You didn't hurt her. She went out of this world as pretty as she came into it." JuliAnn Lynch

But why would someone go to such lengths to harm a corpse and then continue visiting the apartment occupied by their kidsespecially in defiance of a court order? At this point, we don't know. Initial reports suggested Lynch may have been an ex-girlfriend of Sims's boyfriend, but that theory has since been debunked. Lynch's sister-in-lawidentified as JuliAnntold a local news station that Sims's husband (not boyfriend) had known Lynch since high school and that they had kept in touch, but that there was never any romantic involvement between them. JuliAnn added that she was just as puzzled about why Sims did what she did.

In a comment addressed to Sims, JuliAnn added: "You didn't hurt her. She went out of this world as pretty as she came into it. Who you hurt was her mother, her brother, her kids who have been through so much, her nieces, her nephews, so many people that loved herbut you didn't hurt her."

Read: This Mortician Wants You to Take a Hands-On Approach with Corpses

Sims's original attorney, Stephen Money (who has since been replaced), appeared just as stumped about his client's motivations. In his May motion challenging her ability to stand trial, he wrote: "Counsel has visited with this Defendant on several occasions and has had difficulty developing a cogent, rational defense to these charges. Based upon what counsel perceives to be irrational delusions with respect to Defendant's status related to the current charges and revocation of the deferred sentence, she has been unable to rationally assist counsel in her defense of this case."

The same document also states that Sims's family told Money that she has a history of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. The judge, however, was not convinced. After being examined by a forensic psychologist, Sims was found competent to proceed.

Further complicating the case is the fact that two weeks before Lynch's funeral, Sims pled guilty to an assault and battery charge from a February incident where she was caught on aggressively bumping into Christina Perez, a woman who Sims had allegedly been stalking and harassing for several months. Perez says she dated Sims's husband, Montie Smith, five years ago, before marrying her current husband and claims Sims' harassment had become so intense that she had filed a petition for a protective order against her. Strangely, Sims had also filed several protective orders against Perez, none of which were granted. Sims received a suspended 18-month sentence as a part of her plea deal, but that is now being re-evaluated in light of the latest charges.

It will likely be a while before we get a glimpse of Sims's defense. As of right now, her arraignment is set for February 26, 2016. At this point, we don't know whether Sims herself will take the stand; so far, her new attorney, Chad Greer, has been fairly tight-lipped. For now, he said, "she is still cloaked with the presumption of innocence, just like we all would be."

Follow Simon Davis on Twitter.

A Handy Travel Guide for the Pope on His First Visit to the US

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Ever since Pope Paul VI dropped by New York in 1965 to address the United Nations, most pontiffs have eventually gotten bored of the cloistered halls of Vatican City and make their way to what Catholics like to call "The Greatest, Best Country God Has Ever Given Man on the Face of the Earth." This week, Pope Francis will get his turn, with a five-day tour of the United States.

Interestingly, Pope Francis has never visited the US in his entire lifenot as Pope, and not even when he was a girlfriend-having bar bouncer named Jorge Mario Bergoglio. And since popes have a tendency to attract lunatics and assassins, his first trip will have the most intense security detail in the history of security details. But that doesn't mean his tour has to stay on the rails the entire time.

For one thing, Francis's US security operation is being headed by Joseph Clancy, director of the US Secret Serviceand we all know how much those guys like a good party. What's more, this Pope has been known to make unplanned incursions into crowds, or hop into a car and drive around a little. Since the Pope himself has already announced that he's going to watch standup comedian Jim Gaffigan do jokes about Hot Pockets, it looks like he might be looking for other fun things to do while he's here. We're happy to offer a few suggestions:



A map of the cities Pope Francis will visit while on his US trip.

How to get by in America when you're the Pope

Chances are, the Pope will encounter some Americans in their natural habitat, but he likely won't have a problem getting along with them. His preferred diet of skinless chicken breast and salad is available at any Chili's or Applebee's, but the meal will be a lot better thanks to a little American invention known as "dipping sauce." People in the US also have a tendency to run up and go "What are those?" if your shoes are weird. Fortunately Francis quit wearing his Vatican-standard blood-red slip-on oxfords, so it's doubtful he'll have any problems in that area either.

One obstacle: We're hoping he's worked on his English since 2013. Even when he's reading, Francis can't quite nail the English pronunciation of the word "Christ," and he tends to say that a lot because he's pretty religious.

If all else fails, though, he can fall back on his perfect Spanish, since every fourth person he runs across in the US can understand it.

Basically, he'll be fine.

Washington, DC

The first leg of the trip is Washington DC, which is a little like going to Disneyland and spending the first few hours in the guest relations line at City Hall. The first thing most people need to learn about the nation's capital is that streets with state names run diagonally, in defiance of any grid pattern, and Connecticut tends to be the one with the worst traffic. But when you're the Pope, you're the source of all that traffic, so fuck it; just relax and enjoy the classical architecture. Bet they don't have columns and domed roofs this nice back in Rome.

While in DC, Pope Francis will meet with President Obama at the White House, address a joint session of Congress about climate change, and then visit with local Catholic leaders and conduct a mass for their congregants. His procession will also make a few public appearances between stops.

But between his arrival in DC at 4PM on Tuesday, and his meeting with Obama the next morning, Francis's official itinerary doesn't specify what the pontiff's plans are. Having just come from Cuba, he won't have much of a flight to recover from, so presumably, he'll have some time to spare.

That's good news, because his itinerary says nothing about visiting one of DC's major Catholic landmarks: the Franciscan Monastery. As a Franciscan himself, Francis might want to swing by and say hello to the monks, who will be celebrating his arrival in the US with a life-sized Francis cutout that attendees can pose with for photos. And how hilarious would it be if he snuck up on a monk in the middle of the shot, and kissed him right on the cheek?

While he's at the monastery, he can also check out the statue of St. Bernadette, which, according to Curbed, is one of only eleven statues of women on public display in all of Washington DCa town with no shortage of marble dudes. The garden where Bernadette sits would be a lovely spot for the Papa to explain why women should play a "greater role" in church matters, but apparently never be ordained as clergy.

New York City

After two days in DC, Francis will fly to New York, where he'll keep talking about climate change, with an address to the United Nations General Assembly, before heading down to the 9/11 Memorial. Francis has turned Pope selfies into kind of a thing, but he'll probably want to keep the papal iPhone tucked away in his vestments while at the memorial, or risk looking like kind of a jerk.

From there, he's going back uptown to pay a visit to a Catholic school called Our Lady Queen of Angels in East Harlem. According to CBS New York, most of the students there are disadvantaged Latino kids from Harlem and the South Bronx, and they'll probably be pretty jazzed to get a visit from one of the most powerful human beings in the world, who also happens to be Latino.

But Harlem is more closely associated with the culture and experience of black Americans, and although blacks no longer make up a majority of the neighborhood's population, it remains the capital of Black America. We bring this up because the history of Harlem is closely tied to the practice of slavery, something the Pope swore last year that he would help eradicate worldwide by 2020, which by my count means he's only got five years left to make it happen.

If Francis wanted to make a stop that tied into his abolition plans, he could stop by Gramercy Park, one of the spots where the New York Draft Riots were at their worst. While he's there, he could talk about how New York City freaked out and started killing black people right after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, a piece of history Americans tend not to remember.

On a lighter note, the Pope should really check out Fun Home on Broadway while he's in town. The musical, which won a bunch of Tony awards this year, is about a lesbian growing up, and this Pope loves lesbians. It's been pretty hard to get tickets, but if anyone can swing it, it's probably the Pope.

Philadelphia

On Saturday, Pope Francis will head south to Philadelphia, where he will presumably spark a riot of his own by getting a cheesesteak from Pat's or Geno's instead of Jim's, or vice versa. After his cheesesteak lunch (which isn't on his itinerary, but we're assuming he'll work it in), Francis has a full schedule of meetings and public appearances with people like Mark Wahlberg, Aretha Franklin, and the Fray.

We're not sure if the Pope's heard of it, but there's a pretty famous American film called Philadelphia, about a guy in that city who has AIDS. Some exteriors of the movie were actually shot right at Philadelphia City Hall, a few blocks from where the Pope will attend an outdoor festival on Benjamin Franklin Parkway Saturday afternoon. Some people in Philadelphia still have AIDS, and if the pope has time, he might want to pop around the corner to the headquarters of FIGHT, a community health center for people with HIV.

That might be a good spot for Francis to clarify his position on the use of condoms as a method of preventing HIV. His predecessor said some weird shit about condoms making the AIDS crisis worse (although he made an exception for gay male prostitutes). So far the Cool Pope has been a little bit quiet on this. Basically his position has been "Hey, you won't get AIDS if you don't have sex!" which most people who like having sex consider a nonstarter.

The next day, the pope is going to spend a couple hours at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility. That's really cool. We think drawing attention to mass incarceration in the US is important too. That's how he'll be spending his last day in America, though, which is a little bit of a downer.

He should wrap up the trip with something really fun, and really American, like, say, a visit to the Philadelphia Airport Chick Fil-A. But it'll be Sunday when he's there. That shit will be closed.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

National Survey Finds More Than One in Five College Women Have Been Sexually Assaulted

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"Mattress Girl" Emma Sulkowicz at her graduation from Columbia University. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

The Department of Justice's 2007 estimation that one in five college women will experience sexual assault during her time on campus has been controversialone of the authors of the DoJ's report has even said that the researchers "don't think one in five is a nationally representative statistic." Statistics based on crime reports of sexual assault have placed the figure much, much lower, and some critics have gone so far as to argue that campuses are "overreporting" their rates of sexual assault.

But a sweeping new study released Monday by the Association of American Universities (AAU) found that the one in five estimate may not be high enough. According to their survey, the number might actually be closer to one in four, which would mean it's more likely that a woman will be sexually assaulted during college than it is that she will get the flu.

The AAU survey is the biggest of its kind, covering 150,000 students at 27 schools. Of the college women surveyed, 23 percent reported that they had experienced some kind of sexual assault or misconduct carried out by physical force or incapacitation. The rates were even higher among students who identified as transgender, gender queer, or non-binary.

Another 11.4 percent of women, as well as 14.8 of trans or non-binary students and 2.4 percent of men, reported experiencing sexual assault because a partner failed to obtain consentin other words, that they had never actively said "yes" to the sexual encounter.

Read: How Campus Rape Became a National Scandal

The survey also found that most students did not report their experiences to local police, campus police, or other university agencies responsible for handling sexual assault cases. The numbers varied depending on the type of sexual assault; while 28 percent of students who experienced stalking reported it, just 5 percent of students who said they'd experienced unwanted sexual contact by incapacitation told police or university agencies about the assault. The majority of students said they did not report what happened to them because they didn't think it was "serious enough."

The survey comes just over one year after a White House task force on campus sexual assault released its initial report with recommendations on how to combat the epidemic. The authors wrote that "the first step in solving a problem is to name it and know the extent of it," and suggested that this could be accomplished by a campus climate survey, much like the one conducted by the AAU.

Since the survey's release on Monday, many university presidents have issued statements on its findings. Harvard University President Drew Faust called the results "deeply disturbing," and called on the community to do more to combat the problem. Lee Bollinger, the president of Columbia Universitywhich has been in the national spotlight for campus rapecalled the rate of sexual assault "unacceptable" in an email to the campus.

The University of Virginia, which is still recovering from false allegations of sexual assault detailed in Rolling Stone, also released a statement from its president, declaring that the results provided a "baseline of information that will enable us to measure and track our efforts as we continue to enhance the safety of our community."

More than half of AAU's 60 member universities declined to participate in the study. The 27 schools that did participate ranged from elite private institutions like Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, to giant public schools like the University of Wisconsin. The rate of sexual assault on individual campuses ranged from 30 percent at the University of Southern California and the University of Michigan to 13 percent at Caltechwhich, while significantly lower than the average, is still too high.

You can download the full American Association of Universities report here.

Follow Arielle Pardes on Twitter.

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