After months of relatively peaceful demonstrations and a week of massive anti-government rallies, protests in Bangkok have turned violent. Though nobody in Thailand seems particularly surprised, it’s not clear yet just how explosive things will get. The atmosphere in the city and the fact there were similar scenes just five years ago doesn't bode well for a country in which power is concentrated in the hands of a few but desired by many. Many middle-class Thais are desperate to sever ties with exiled former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, who retains support among the country's poorer rural population and—his opponents would argue—still exerts influence over the current government, ostensibly led by his sister, Yingluck.

The clashes began yesterday outside Ramkhamhaeng University, where anti-government students were holding a protest a stone's throw away from a huge rally of pro-government "red shirts." Strangely, considering the obvious potential for confrontations, there were only a handful of police positioned along the road between the two groups. When the fighting started, the police did very little to stop it. The students first attacked an individual red shirt who was walking past, then later a city bus full of passengers—smashing the windows and terrifying the people inside, who could be seen pleading to their attackers to stop.

But they didn’t. The students threw heavy stones at the bus, hit it (and the passengers inside) with sticks and tossed a number of loud flash-bang type things beneath the wheels. The students' ferocious attack continued for around five minutes until the bus could switch to the other side of the road and speed away. Later that night, gunfire broke out and reports today said that four or five people were killed and scores injured during clashes that ran well into the early hours of the morning. 

Yesterday's events were something a little different and, in most regards, far less vicious, though they involved many more people. From late morning onwards, tens of thousands of protesters descended on police lines around Government House in Bangkok’s historic quarter; their stated objective to force their way into the building. As the crowds got closer they started to dismantle the fortifications that the police had set up to keep them at bay. Tear gas canisters were tossed over the walls to push them back.

Most of the protesters dispersed, but a hardcore continued to fight for much of the day, a smaller number all the way into the night. Throughout the clashes, police used water cannons, large amounts of tear gas, and possibly rubber bullets (it was hard to tell in all the chaos). For their part, the protesters chucked stones, bottles, and the tear gas canisters that had been fired at them back at the police.

Today, it could all happen again. Or it could fizzle out. Or it could escalate. Nobody knows. But there doesn't appear to be any signs from the leaders of either side of backing down. As one protester told me, "We've come too far now; we can't go back." Although, considering Thailand's penchant for hyperbole, it's hard to take anything particularly seriously.

Thailand is one of the friendliest places on the planet to visit, and Bangkok an amazing city. But it has a shameful history, revisited once again over the past few days and possibly in the days to follow. Hateful, vicious violence fuelled by cynical, power hungry "elites" on all sides who couldn’t care less that their goals are being achieved by the spilling of more Thai blood.

Yesterday was meant to be "victory" day for the protesters, but despite some success in pushing back police, they are nowhere near their goal of displacing the government. While shaken—Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra cancelled a state trip to South Africa in response to the violence at home—they still appear strong, and Thailand’s violent political reality will continue as long as that lasts.

@georgehenton

All photos by Danny Manhattan.

It’s late August, at some ungodly early-morning hour. We’re at Studio 11 in downtown Chicago, talking to a Def Jam A&R guy named Sickamore. He is calmly overseeing the tumultuous career of Lil Durk, a 20-year-old rapper who’s currently encased in one of the studio’s glass vocal booths, a Gucci scarf draped over his shoulders. If you look closely at the tattoo above his right eye, you’ll see it reads angelo, the name of his son. The engineer cranks the vocals up over dark drill beats crafted by producer Paris Bueller. Sickamore turns to us and says “We wanna frame him as 50 Cent meets Justin Bieber!”

Those who have yet to have their heads trepanned by South Side Chicago’s drill-music scene—made famous by Chief Keef, sponsored by Kanye West, with a sound streamlined and perfected by a barely 20-year-old producer named Young Chop—may not have heard Lil Durk or his music.

Though unapologetically violent and quite possibly gang-affiliated, Lil Durk is probably the poppiest of the serious-as-cancer drill rappers. The genre, which was once called “death music,” is the brutal soundtrack to Chicago’s catastrophic gang violence and astronomical murder rate. The city is home to more than 100,000 gang members belonging to 59 gangs, and in 2011 alone 319 of its school-age children were reported shot, purposefully or otherwise. It was apparent that things had completely spiraled out of control when some Chicagoans began referring to their hometown as “Chiraq.”

This is the environment where Lil Durk thrives, along with a cadre of loosely associated artists. Tonight the studio is crawling with rappers, producers, and crews affiliated with Lil Durk’s Only the Family (OTF) clique, along with miscellaneous members of the 300, a faction of the nationwide street gang Black Disciples, with which Durk and Keef reportedly affiliate. The most high-profile members of these crews are Lil Reese, Fredo Santana, and, of course, Chief Keef.

Chief Keef has made a career shouting threats over rolling, mechanistic, post-ATL trap beats which somehow became party anthems that rich white girls dance to in their dorm rooms every night. Lil Durk, on the other hand, painstakingly explains his sublegal lifestyle and the more disappointing aspects of life in one of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods in the US, and how he’s not exactly happy with some of the ways his life has shaped up. While these crews make innovative and brutally truthful music that has far transcended the streets where it’s recorded, the Chicago cops are also following these rappers very closely and—unfairly or not—using them as a means of keeping tabs on street factions. Rap crews are a fast and loose way for Chicago cops to track the city’s complex, fragmented, and incomprehensible landscape of gangs.

This past June, Lil Durk beat a gun charge after the Chicago Police Department charged him with the unlawful use of a .40-caliber weapon by a felon after officers on the scene allegedly saw the rapper throwing a handgun into his car. Nine witnesses testified in support of Lil Durk, and the indictment was dropped just in time for him to record Signed to the Streets, which was released in early October.

A man who has had a tumultuous six months, Lil Durk doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon—barring the invasion of Chiraq by US Armed Forces.

Fredo Santana, a.k.a. Big Boss Fredo, another upcoming artist from Chiraq.

VICE: Your A&R guy just referred to you as “50 Cent meets Justin Bieber.”
Lil Durk: Word.

Are you OK with that?
Shit, man, all compliments is good compliments. You gotta believe in yourself. You put a motherfucker to the test and see how he feel, like, “Yo, black man, you think you better than an award-winning rapper?” If they be like, “I dunno,” that mean they don’t believe in themself. That mean it ain’t for you.

Are you a Belieber?
Yeah.

So, how was jail?
It’s a fifty-fifty thing. Because half of going to jail is being inside, thinking you aren’t relevant, missing out on your family, and everything else going on. Thinking you’ve been forgot. At the same time, you’re sitting there thinking, When I get out of jail, I know I’ve got a better way of spending my money, getting another deal, and changing shit around.

We were walking around 63rd Street the other night, filming some stuff to wrap up our documentary about Chiraq and wondering if you were gonna stick around. It’s crazy out there.
They killing kids. And this whole rap shit might be over in two more years, know what I’m saying? Plus there’s, like, hip-hop cops. We got our own personal police.

Who are they?
Chicago Police Department. It’s like CPD be there directly for us. If they catch me and Reese stunting on the block there, they charge us with trespassing. Just little dumb shit. They’ll blow it out of proportion, make up some shit with it.

So you’re saying your crew gets profiled no matter what?
Yeah. I don’t want it to be like OTF is only on the news for a gun case. I want to hear the newscaster say, “OTF just bought a building, for the kids. They bought the jail and they’re turning it into a gym.” Shit like that. Short term, when I hear somebody say “OTF” on the street, I wanna hear somebody say, “Yeah, OTF! Woo-woo!”

You’re all in it together.
Yeah, but I’m trying to branch off. Chicago crazy, but at the same time, I’m trying to get some money. Some of that Flo Rida overseas millions.

Outsourcing.
That $10 million. Six months later, come back with a new Bugatti.

Have you ever thought about moving if things get too crazy?
Nah. If I’m from there, I ain’t gonna wanna move. I’m still gonna excel. I ain’t got no big problems. You gotta get smarter. But I might want to move to LA, get my kids out this shit.

Do you think Chicago is getting better or worse?
For rap or for the violence?

The violence.
Fifty-fifty. Sometimes it go smooth—sometimes the killing gets light. Then something real stupid happen, like someone’s baby get killed. That happened a couple months ago, a little girl got killed in the park. So I don’t know. They do some of the dumbest shit in Chicago, man.

See more of Lil Durk, Young Chop, Chief Keef, and friends on the new series Noisey Chiraq, coming soon to Noisey.

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Photos by Konstantin Chernichkin

This weekend, the street protests that have been taking place in Kiev for weeks arrived at a dramatic crux, as peaceful public dissent escalated into full-on violence. The Ukrainian capital has played host to an increasingly spectacular turn out of demonstrators since Friday, when president Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign a deal that would have brought the country closer to full EU membership. Unfortunately, those demonstrators—unhappy at Yanukovych's implicit decision to pursue closer relations with Putin's Russia—have been met with a stern crackdown from riot police.

As EU leaders gathered in Vilnius, Lithuania on November 28, many Ukrainians and politicians alike still hoped that Yanukovych would sign the integration pact with the EU. But he left the summit empty-handed.

“We expected more,” said the German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday night in Vilnius, as she rebuked Yanukovych over a glass of champagne. In response, the Ukrainian premier muttered something about how the country was mired in a tough economic situation and had been left alone with Putin for three and a half years. The original clip, which is no longer available for copyright reasons, received over 90,000 views on YouTube.

As soon as it became clear that Yanukovych wasn't keen on strengthening the country's bond with Europe, it seemed inevitable that things would get nasty in Kiev. And sure enough, they did. As the Economist put it: “Thugs and thieves always prefer to act in the early hours of the morning. So did Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s president.” At 4 AM on Saturday, baton wielding riot police piled into the ranks of protesters that had been accumulating in the capital's Independence Square, leaving many people injured. As the area was cleared by force, some sought refuge in the yard of Kiev's blue St. Michael's Cathedral.

Undeterred, the Ukrainian public were back on the streets on Sunday for what amounted to the biggest demonstration yet. The turnout is difficult to estimate; some Western news outlets have put it at about 350,000, while certain domestic media cite figures several times higher. Things turned violent in the afternoon, as radical demonstrators armed with clubs and gas canisters arrived on Bankova Street to do battle with riot police, themselves tooled up with tear gas and flash grenades. In the clashes—which, at one point, saw protesters driving a hijacked bulldozer into lines of riot police—over 100 people were hospitalized, including several journalists who were attacked and wounded by cops. One young reporter from Poland, Paweł Pieniążek, described how he was beaten over the head several times by police, his press card apparently not carrying much weight in this instance.

Who is starting this violence? Ukraine's pro-European demonstrations were peaceful at their inception, and—until this weekend—had largely remained so. There are rumors that the clashes have been caused by provocateurs known as titushki, who arrive with the intention of stirring up anger and fighting cops. It is unclear where they come from or what their motivations are. Many of the peaceful protesters who've been caught up in the violence have openly questioned whether the titushki are, in fact, being guided by pro-government forces.

Though paranoia spreads quickly in situations such as these, there seems to be a belief among those gathered in Kiev that violence on the streets is in the authorities' interest. It could, they argue, give Yanukovych all the pretext he needs to initiate a further crackdown. As such, well-known activists and musicians are pleading with the crowds to remain non-violent. These sentiments have been echoed by the foreign ministers of Poland and Sweden, who initiated the EU's Eastern Partnership policy in 2009: “We urge all to keep protests in Kiev peaceful,” they wrote in a statement on Sunday. “All” perhaps meaning not just the protesters, but also doubling as a subtle nod to the Ukrainian authorities. Too subtle, some would say, amid calls for the EU to impose sanctions.

In another twist of irony—remember how he applauded the demonstrators last week?—Yanukovych expressed concern at the crackdown in the early hours of Saturday. “I condemn the actions that led to forceful confrontation and suffering of people,” he wrote in a statement on his official website, adding that he and the protesters are “united in the choice of our common European future.” The question remains an obvious one: If this is the case, then why didn't Yanukovych sign the deal the previous day in Vilnius?

On Monday morning parts of central Kiev were under the control of the protesters, who have adopted the main City Hall building as their base; smashing the windows and painting it with the slogan "Revolution HQ." Many have chosen to block the entrances to government buildings to stop officials from getting to work. Others claim they will not leave the buildings that they've occupied until the government is removed from power.

For now, small bands of riot police remain in central Kiev, clustered around the presidential administration, where on Sunday more than 100 police were injured. Ukraine's interior ministry has said that a total of 150 riot police and other officials have been injured in the clashes, as have 165 protesters.

Social media continues to play a major role, with Ukraine's biggest internet provider, Viola, setting up Wi-Fi points across the city and urging users to remove their personal network passwords to open up coverage for civil access. On Sunday, there were rumors that a state of emergency would be introduced—though a government spokesman said this morning that this option hasn't been discussed by the authorities.

Cracks are appearing in Yanukovych's camp. A few MPs from his party reportedly resigned over the weekend. Arseniy Yatseniuk, one of the leaders of the opposition, is calling on the prime minister and his government to resign by December 3. This is unlikely to happen, but anti-government Ukrainians, desperate for the modernizing effects they believe EU membership will bring, hope that Yanukovych's allies in the ruling Party of Regions will continue defecting to the pro-European side, eventually forming a majority.

After yesterday's record turnout, the protests are set to continue into this week. Today is the 12th day of what has been dubbed the "Euromaidan" campaign; a portmanteau combining the protesters' continental ambitions with Maidan, the Ukrainian name for Kiev's Independence Square. However, the online news site Ukrainska Pravda is running with a more dramatic headline: “Eurorevolution – Day Two.”

Follow Annabelle on Twitter: (@AB_Chapman)

Previously – Ukrainians Are Protesting in the Street for a European Future

Detroit, along with the country's prison system, is one of the places where America puts everything it wants to hide—poverty, racism, violence. The city is one of the most racially segregated in the US, with 8 Mile Road quite literally cutting a line between black and white neighborhoods.

Being white and unemployed in Detroit is often an euphemism for being a drug dealer or having a modest trust fund. I am neither, but my rent is only $200, so I don't have to scrape together too much each month. That gives me plenty of time to indulge in fantasies while walking around and photographing the city.

For more of Iain's work check out his website.

Does your town or city qualify for paradise status? Feel free to send your pitches to ukphotoblog@vice.com. Don't be shy.

Previous Paradises:

Lahti / Budapest / Leeds / Dublin / Birmingham / Miami / Phoenix / Tbilisi / Los Angeles / Berlin / Rotterdam / Bristol

Port of Izmir, Turkey, photo via Flickr

“I’m not a smuggler,” a man who called himself Abu Khaled said through a crackly speakerphone, “but I can take you to Europe, for a price.”

I sat silently next to Abdul, a 19-year-old Syrian refugee. We were in my home in Istanbul, and I listened as Abdul talked to a recruiter for a human smuggling network that operates in Izmir, a city on Turkey’s Aegean coast.

 “We go by sea,” said Abu Khaled. “We load cargo trucks on ships heading to Italy each week, and before they board, we hide two people in a shipping container.”

According to an estimate by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 7,000 people flee Syria each day. While the humanitarian toll of the conflict is most acute in deaths—about 5,000 people die each month—the refugee crisis is becoming a more pressing international concern.  

For the most part Syrians have fled to neighboring countries such as Lebanon (1,000,000 refugees), Turkey (700,000), and Jordan, (560,000) but with a refusal to offer permanent settlement to refugees, Syrians are barred from legally beginning a new life in their host communities and often languish for years in refugee camps.  

As Syria’s neighbors have become increasingly unable to cope with declining humanitarian and political conditions in refugee camps, many Syrians have urgently visited European consulates to request protection.

But European countries have been slow to implement a resettlement strategy, which has awarded smugglers mightily, says activists and NGOs.

Dr. George Joseph, the representative for Caritas Sweden, an international non-government organization (NGO) campaigning for migrant rights, says there has to be a legal way permitting civilians to escape persecution. And though there has been discussion to provide humanitarian visas or remove visa restrictions for victims of war, the agenda to police European borders has stifled any political desire to endorse either proposal.

“If the EU doesn’t want to award international smuggling, and have people losing their lives in the process, then there has to be legal ways not to criminalize those fleeing to Europe,” said Dr. Joseph.  

Sweden has been the only country to authorize permanent residence to Syrians. Attaining permanent residence is substantial because it permits family reunification, a policy allowing refugees to bring their families over from Syria and neighbouring countries. However, reaching Sweden remains a precarious obstacle.

Meanwhile, Germany has provided the second-largest humanitarian response by offering two years residence to 5,000 Syrians.  

“This is a drop in the ocean,” said Dr. Joseph. “And though one life saved is one life saved, civil society needs a better understanding of the crisis to campaign for a substantial solution.”

Furthermore, temporary residence prohibits any legal channel for family reunification. Stefan Kessler, the policy and advocacy officer for the Europa Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), an international Catholic NGO supporting refugee’s worldwide, describes the obstacles facing Syrians in Germany.

“Imagine you are a Syrian man who is already in Germany,” said Mr. Kessler. “Imagine you want to bring all of your family out of Syria. You want to unite with them. But at the moment, it’s nearly impossible. So what can you do besides rely on smugglers?”

Relying on smugglers is precisely what Ali, a Syrian Palestinian, was forced to do. Ali was told he would be placed on a cargo ship heading to Greece. But after giving up his money, he was placed on an inflated raft with 25 others.

“He took $2,500 from me and left us to die,” said Ali. “But we didn’t. I don’t know how we made it but we made it.”

From Greece, Ali paid another smuggler $5,500 for both a flight ticket and a passport, and from there, he eventually made it to Sweden. 

According to the Dublin II Regulation, an EU law enacted in 2003, asylum seekers must apply for refuge in the first country they enter and that country is responsible for making an asylum decision even if the asylum seeker ends up in another EU country. With Italy, Greece, and Spain located on the EU’s southern exterior, those nations have long been reluctant to absorb high numbers of asylum seekers.

In Italy and Greece, there are no coherent strategies designed on a national level to assist refugees. This leaves many to precariously locate irregular housing and work on their own. It’s also common for unaccompanied minors and irregular migrants to suffer from excessive police force before being detained in unhygienic centers for months at a time, according to Kessler.

Moreover, not only do these countries have the lowest capacity to accommodate refugees, but they also have some of the lowest approval rates for granting asylum. Consequently, national border guards have evaded registering Syrians and encouraged thousands to proceed to other countries. And for people fleeing war, the unintended consequences of xenophobia has helped many avoid the grim asylum procedures of the Mediterranean. But as Syrians chase a new beginning, smugglers readily take advantage.

“Believe me, I’m not a smuggler,” Abu Khaled reiterated over the phone as I listened on. “It’s my nephews business, not mine. But for 6,500 euros, I can take you to Europe. And believe me, that’s a small price for a new beginning.”

However, this is a price many are unable to afford.

Omar, a 26-year-old old Syrian living in the Turkish province of Antackya, wishes he could afford the risk. “I would go tomorrow if I could,” Omar told me by phone. “But I can’t. I’ll never be able to collect that much money.”

With Syrians fleeing the crisis in Egypt, Lebanon on the verge of conflict, Jordan ill-equipped to assist any longer, and Turkey stretching its capacity to unprecedented limits, a larger scale resettlement strategy would seem imperative. However, this response is highly unlikely.

“Can you imagine if 27 or 28 States took 3,000 or 4,000 people,” said Dr. Joseph. “This isn’t some fancy dream, it can be a reality if there is a political will, but we can’t wait any longer. We have to do it now.”

 “The hope isn’t great,” said Mr. Kessler. “And to make matters worse, many member states have already complained about having too many refugees on their territory.”

According to UNHCR, only 12 members of the EU offer resettlement today, yet their efforts comprise less than 8 percent of the yearly resettlement spaces offered worldwide.

During this century’s Iraq war resettlement strategies weren’t much better. According to a report done by the International Catholic Migration Committee in 2010, 12 countries resettled 100 refugees each in 2007.

“After my house in Yarmouk was bombed, I had no choice but to flee,” said Ali. “I sold my car, all of my belongings, and spent our family’s savings.”

And though Ali made it, many others have died trying. On October 11th a boat carrying a group of Syrians sank off the coast of Alexandria leading to death of 12 people. Yet though Ali’s destiny was different, he wonders about the fate of his family if he had died.

Today, Ali longs for his family who are due to resettle in less than two months. And though he waits, he realizes hope for tomorrow.

“I’m so grateful,” he says. “I’m so grateful my children will have a new beginning.”  

Some tasty lemon kush. via Flickr.

At the moment, 40,000 Canadians are currently authorized to possess medical marijuana. Until April 2014, these patients can purchase their supply from a licensed personal producer, or they can get permission to grow it themselves, but soon every Canadian medical marijuana user will be forced to comply with a new medical program that will push them to buy legal, medical weed from commercial government-regulated facilities.

Canada’s new “Marihuana for Medical Purposes” (yes, they spell it with an ‘H’ for some reason) program is creating an emerging for-profit market that will regulate crop control, dump money into the economy, and attempt to position Canada as one of the world’s top exporters of medical marijuana. But it's the patients who are caught in the middle of an evolving system that threatens to make medical weed so expensive many will no longer be able to afford it, forcing them to continue growing their own personal stashes—which will be illegal as of April 2014—or buying it from regular ol’ weed dealers.

According to Health Canada, no one’s trying to turn sick Canadians into criminals with these new laws. It was more in response to problems with the current Marihuana Medical Access Program (MMAP), which a Health Canada spokesperson says is "open to abuse." 

It also seems to be about the money. Canada’s new commercial industry is poised to be worth more than a billion dollars, and could put our country at the top of the globe’s emerging medical weed export market. While the use of medical marijuana is legal in other ostensibly cannabis friendly countries as well as several American states, the idea of importing and exporting medical kush belongs to a new school of thought.

"Cost is well documented as a drawback," says Chuck Rifici, the CEO of Tweed, one of the proposed commercial grow-ops. Tweed has already begun renovations on the old Hershey manufacturing plant in Smiths Falls, about an hour outside of Ottawa, to turn what used to be a chocolate factory into something even more incredible: a weed factory. Smiths Falls, a town of 9,000 people, was hit hard when the Hershey plant closed in 2007—subsequently putting 1,700 people out of jobs. At 180,000 square feet, the facility plans to be one of the largest producers of medical marijuana in Canada. At full production, they expect to employ at least 100 people and hope to bring a thriving industry back to Smiths Falls.  

The construction zone at Tweed. Photo by Allan Ziolkowski.

"I think the companies that become large growers of marijuana in Canada will really have a chance to be a leading manufacturer in the world," says Rifici. "Canada might lead the way worldwide as we see other countries take similar regulatory moves as Canada has. The regulations also allow for export once other countries will allow for import."

Medical marijuana may prove to be a solid source of revenue for the country, but at what expense? For low-income patients who will have trouble affording this new commercialized weed, it may be their health. Though studies on the benefits of medicinal marijuana are inconsistent, people in the program insist that smoking medical marijuana is crucial to minimizing their pain. These patients are typically prescribed medical marijuana to help manage chronic pain and to alleviate nausea, loss of appetite, and other unpleasant symptoms from diseases like cancer and AIDS.

Further, it appears that access to information is a problem for the country’s 40,000 medical weed patients: “They haven’t done much to inform doctors or the public about how to access their new medical marijuana program,” says Matt Mernagh, a crusader for the legalization of marijuana who personally uses marijuana to treat his seizures, scoliosis and fibromyalgia.“This is strange given that the feds have high projections for the numbers of Canadians who will be purchasing from licensed producers.”

"If I understand correctly, the average licensed size is about nine grams per day," says Neev, the owner of the Toronto-based compassion centre C.A.L.M who only goes by one name. He is doubtful the availability of government-regulated marijuana will be up to snuff by the time the programs transition over—and by using some simple arithmetic, it’s not hard to see why. If you multiply nine grams by the 40,000 medical marijuana users in Canada, then multiply that number again by 365, you get a yearly demand of 131,400,000 grams (or nearly 300,000 pounds) of marijuana necessary to provide the current number of existing patients with enough product to get them through one year. That’s a whole lot of weed.

When you combine this with the added cost of shipping and packaging that will soon be necessary, Reev says the new policy is not realistic. It is estimated, according to an article that ran in the Vancouver Sun, that each gram under the new system will cost between $8 and $10. In response, lawyers in British Columbia are finalizing a lawsuit against the government accusing Ottawa of "infringing on the rights of medical pot users and growers."

"Thousands and thousands of patients are approved to use more than 10 grams a day — that’s $100 a day at the new rates. No one can afford that," lawyer John Conroy told the Vancouver Sun. He noted that 60 to 70 per cent of approved patients who are on fixed disability programs will suffer under the new system.

Reev echoes that sentiment: "The new program is not catered to poor people.”

Matt Mernagh with a giant nug.

Mernagh is convinced that cost will be a major challenge. “The price tag is a huge problem,” he says.  “Obviously you have a majority of patients who are living in poverty because of their disability. It's fascinating that businesses are interested in growing cannabis for the poor. There's little to no money there. The customer base is so slim and won't grow quickly. It's going to take some time for these businesses to become profitable—a slow burn.”

One positive of this new program is that it’s pressuring some insurance companies to look at medical marijuana as an "alternative medicine," says Sean Graham, an insurance broker at KTX insurance. Insurance is currently limited to property and liability coverage and typically offered through alternative providers such as Burns & Wilcox and CFC. Rifici says he has heard of a few patients who were able to secure insurance coverage for the cost of medical marijuana, but the process was difficult and uncommon. If insurance companies began offering insurance to cover the costs of medical marijuana it would be a different story.

"The term marijuana brings a lot of stigma," Graham says. "I don't think you're going to see an offering from regular insurance companies for this type of coverage anytime soon. You're only going to be able to find it in a niche market like a Burns & Wilcox."

Under the new regulations, patients will receive what's called a "medical document" from their physician—this is their golden ticket for medical marijuana. That patient then chooses a producer to get their weed from. The patient can switch producers once their prescription is up for renewal—or if they go back to their doctor to get a new document if they wish to switch suppliers. The semantics involved in these prescriptions being called "medical documents" should also be encouraging to insurance providers.

More than 200 applications to become licensed producers have been submitted. Health Canada said it will not place a limit on the number of licensed commercial producers in the country, making it impossible to predict just how many options patients will have. Patients concerned about a lack of strain availability need not worry. Tweed, for example, plans to launch with at least 30 different flavours of chronic.

"As the market grows, I think we'll see more patients who are happier to buy directly versus growing themselves. I totally get that it's a shock and at the same time a lot of existing patients aren't aware of the changes," Rifici says. Currently, 4,254 individuals hold a Designated Person Production Licence, which will be eliminated and illegal as of the end of March.

"Like any industry, I think we'll see a handful of dominant competitors emerge and have a large section of market control, and a lot of smaller boutique firms that will also supply," Rifici says. "I see a lot of similarities between [commercial marijuana production] and internet service providers. It's recurring revenue, and customers tend to stick with people they're happy with, so you have people coming back and purchasing the product over time. We'll see a lot of consolidation in this space as well."

Commercial producers will have to meet strict criteria. Health Canada reports that "licensed producers have to demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements such as quality control standards, record-keeping of all activities as well as inventories of marihuana, and physical security measures to protect against potential diversion." Anyone who works in or around the crops must hold a valid security clearance issued by the Minister of Health. In addition, all shipments must be tracked and monitored, and all of the weed must be tested regularly to monitor THC levels and prevent safety breaches, like mold growing on the nugs.

Ultimately, these new regulations are positioning marijuana as an acceptable form of medication—and it's possible that this all may lead to the decriminalization of non-medical cannabis use in Canada as it has in Colorado. But for now Health Canada needs to consider some sort of action plan so that existing patients aren’t lost in the shuffle, and can continue to have access to the medical marijuana they need. Hopefully this massive new program has a smooth launch and can improve medical marijuana access to all of its patients, rich or poor.

It’s 1982 and I’ve got a gig on a Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Ranger. I climb aboard at Coronado Island across the San Diego Bay and get off seven days later in Honolulu, Hawaii. Three or four layers below deck I set up a portable portrait studio: three strobes on stands with a battery pack—two with umbrellas and one to spot the painted backdrop. I have an adjustable posing stool and a Beattie Coleman Portronic camera with a 100-foot roll of 70-millimeter color negative film. The Portronic sits on a roller tripod and has a slot for cards to ID the negatives. Approximately 3,000 men, who for the most part are still just boys, are slated for their yearbook portraits. These lucky sailors will hopefully purchase prints for the proud parents and girls in waiting back home in Dudvillie. I’ve borrowed the equipment from the storeroom of a portrait studio where I worked for a while and somehow ended up with my own key. I’m hoping to make a bundle.

The USS Ranger is a bustling city of men, many of whom live like cave dwellers and go for weeks at a time without seeing natural light. I think they’re all a bunch of idiots, but I can be quick to judge and tend to bristle around people in uniform. Enclosed in gloppy gray gloom, everything is narrow and riveted together. Heavy metal clanks echo from the walls but voices remain stationary. I eat with the officers in the mess hall and I’ve gone exploring and been lost three times by the second day.

While working, telling the guys turn your head this way and tilt that way and smile as though you made all the right choices, every so often I ask them to twirl around and face the background. I unplug the sync cord from the Portronic and plug it into my Nikon loaded with Tri-X. I focus on their crowns and tell them to smile again. And they do smile; I can see it from the movement below their ears.

There’s also a platoon or squad or gaggle of marines on board. They call me sir and refuse to smile and don’t contribute to casual conversation. The navy guys tell me the marines are all assholes who police the swabbies and look for any excuse to fuck them up. They say if an officer tells a marine to jump off the back of the boat the marine will jump off the back of the boat. If a marine is ordered to shoot the photographer the marine will shoot the photographer. They tell me if a marine yells, “hit the deck” I should hit the deck posthaste, without question. Some of the navy guys turn out to be pretty cool and I amend earlier judgments when I photograph a guy who trades me some hash for a portrait package: two five-by-sevens and a sheet of wallet-size.

On night about 15 of us are watching a moviein the officer’s lounge—The Rose, with Bette Midler and Frederic Forrest. I’m out of cigarettes so when it’s time to change the reels on the reel-to-reel projector, I take a walk back to my room where I have a carton of Kools. I share quarters with another civilian—the yearbook salesman who set up this gig and chews tobacco. He’s not there. I grab a pack of smokes. I put a hit of hash between two match heads, set it aflame for a five count, then blow it out and snort the thick smoke until it ignites the back wall of my skull and creases my face with mirth.

Walking through the long hallways back to the lounge I feel like I’m looking through the wrong end of a telescope. Crossways, colorless claustrophobic tunnels go right and left. I’m whistling “Mack the Knife” when I hear in the distance, “Hit the deck.” When I get to the next corner I see, about half a block away, a couple of marines with rifles maneuvering toward me, yelling, “Hit the deck!” I step backwards out of the intersection and put my back to the wall to wait for these brave young men to pass by and one does but the other one jumps around the corner landing directly in front of me, holding his rifle like he might use the butt to brain me. He’s about my size so we’re face to face and he tells me to hit the deck.

“What, you mean like on the floor?”

“HIT THE DECK! NOW!”

I get to the floor faster than I’ve ever gotten to the floor before and the jarhead points his rifle at me and says “bang bang bang bang.”

I curl and grab my imaginary gunshot wounds, saying “Ouch, uhh, you got me.” He growls down at me and I think maybe he’s going to stomp on my face so I close my eyes and play dead until he goes away. Back in the makeshift theater I’ve missed about five minutes of The Rose. After the movie I tell one of the senior sailors what happened and he cracks up and tells me I’m lucky I still have my teeth. I agree I’m a lucky guy and when he offers me a snort of whisky in a Styrofoam cup I tell him yes, thank you.

Walking around in the middle of the night I find myself alone in a massive room of jet airplanes; sleek as 1950s jazz and evil as the history of war. The lights are set low, shallow yellow pools on the hard grey floor. I’ve got my camera around my neck and I know I should be making exposures for posterity but I just don’t care. Across the room, a football field away, the ship’s door is open and it’s wider than a B-52 wingspan and taller than a two-story barn.  I can’t see anything beyond the rim so I take a walk to get a closer look. I stand with my toes on the edge. In front me, above and below me a black nothing, not even a discernible sound. I’m a single step from the end of the world. I smoke a cigarette and when I’m done I flip it into the void.

Scot's first book, Lowlife, was released last year and his memoir, Curb Service, is out now. You can find more information on his website.

In Fresh Off the Boat - Moscow part two, Eddie further immerses himself in Russian culture. He learns what it was like to live under Soviet rule, shares tea with Kyrgyz immigrants, and begins to understand the issues that connect people, regardless of the invisible lines which separate them.

More Fresh Off the Boat:

Miami

Taiwan

Los Angeles

The Corsican coastline

If you've never been to Corsica, you really should. The island, which lies just off the Italian coast, is one of the most beautiful places in the world; it's covered in snowy mountains, picturesque little towns, and luxurious golden beaches. In certain months, you can ski in the morning and sunbathe in the afternoon; it really is paradise (if combining sunburn and heavy nylon jackets is your idea of paradise). However, perhaps its strongest sell is that it is, officially, the murder capital of Europe.

Last year, I went to Corsica to explore the island's historical predilection for violence. A week before I touched down in Napoleon Bonaparte airport, two prominent Corsicans—a lawyer named Antoine Sollacaro and Jacques Nasser, head of the chamber of commerce—had been shot dead. I was there to try to figure out who did it (and to make a film about trying to figure out who did it). Murder isn’t shocking in Corsica; there have been more than 110 murders since 2008, the majority of them Mafia-style hits. "At the beginning of the week, we think, It's strange; we haven’t had a killing yet," Gilles Millet, a local journalist, told me. "This society is soaked in death. You call someone to do something and they say, 'I can’t. I have a funeral to go to.' Death is part of [daily] life here."

I asked Gilles who he thought was responsible for the deaths of Sollacaro and Nasser. "Normally everyone knows who’s done the killings, but with Sollacaro and Nasser, we don’t know," he answered. "Despite everybody usually knowing who did it, there have only been four prosecutions since 2008—out of more than 110 murders. There’s a culture of silence here. Nobody talks, partly out of fear, partly because it’s just not the done thing."

The Corsican Mafia are a powerful force on the island, and vendettas between clans or families are common. Some families have been feuding for decades in tit-for-tat killings, and there's no ruling out the possibility that either Sollacaro or Nasser somehow got caught up in that. However, there's also another suspect in their deaths: the nationalists.

The FLNC

The island has changed hands a number of times over the centuries, being ruled by the Genoese, the French, the British, and by the Corsicans themselves. Now, the French are in charge, and there aren't many people who are particularly happy about that. In the 1970s, the Fronte di Liberazione Naziunale Corsu (FLNC) was formed, and eagerly set about demonstrating their discontent by launching a bombing campaign on mainland France.

In 1998, the group killed the highest ranking French government official on the island, Claude Erignac. Since then, due to infighting and successful operations by French security forces, the FLNC have scaled back their operations. Now, they restrict themselves to occasionally blowing up vacation homes owned by wealthy foreigners. They say their sporadic explosive campaign is to protect the environment and to stop their island from becoming nothing more than a tourist destination.

Paul François Scarbonchi, former mayor of Cuttoli, Corsica

"Whenever there are problems that can’t be solved by existing means, like democracy, people, like people everywhere, have the right to become violent," explained Paul François Scarbonchi, then-mayor of the beautiful mountain village of Cuttoli.

"So you don’t condemn the violence?" I asked.

"No." He shook his head. "When people are trapped, they have no other way to be heard."

I struggled to think of another place in the world where the elected mayor of a town wouldn't at least try to condemn domestic bombing campaigns, but I came up empty.

It was dark when we left the mayor’s office, which looked more like a hunting lodge than an administrative center. Out in the street, an old man was hanging out of his window having a smoke. He invited us in, where he rattled some glasses and a bottle of whiskey onto an old wooden kitchen table. A rack of hunting rifles had been tastefully placed as décor on the walls. I asked him what he thought of all the vacation homes being blown up.

"Ah, we’re doing a good job there," he answered.

"What? You’re blowing them up?"

"No, not me," he said. "I mean we, Corsicans." In all my time on the island I didn’t find anyone who opposed the bombings.

Vincente Cucchi

The next day, we drove south, through winding mountain roads and untouched forests and along stunning coast lines. We had a meeting with Vincente Cucchi, one of Corsica’s most prominent environmentalists, next to a secluded church on the southern tip of the island. Surely, surrounded by such a serene landscape, she, an environmentalist, would offer an alternative to violence.

"You have to admit that the nationalist movement have played their role in protecting the seaside and the coast," she said. "Developers were scared to build because they were scared their buildings would be blown up."

"So you don’t condemn the violence?" I ventured.

"No, we don’t have to condemn it. Violence is part of life. It’s part of Corsican life. It’s part of us. We have to recognize that violence has had a positive effect on the environment."

The vast majority of Corsicans agree with Vincente. They don’t want their rugged island to be damaged by super hotels or vacation homes that only affluent foreigners can afford. They don’t want developers to buy up land and knock down trees. They want their island to stay as it is, as they’ve always known it.

"You can wander around without bumping into anyone," Vincente explained. "You can climb the mountains, you can have a swim. It’s real freedom here. We want it to stay as natural as possible, and we want to access the nature without paying for it."

I suppose it's easier to understand the bombing of empty properties than it is the assassinations of public figures. I found myself wondering, If it weren't for the violence, would this place have already turned into the next Ibiza or Zante, a picturesque island destroyed by marauding Brits abroad?

A bombed vacation home

But there is a darker side. I was told a story about a Corsican-Algerian rapper who posted a video of one of his songs on YouTube. He included an Algerian flag in the video. The next week, his car was blown up. Muslim prayer rooms have also been firebombed, simply for being Muslim prayer rooms. Though, once again, it's hard finding anyone who will condemn such acts.

In a café in the main town of Ajaccio, we had arranged to meet a Corsican police officer. He was dressed in jeans and a sleek black leather jacket. "An Arab bar is blown up. I’m not justifying it, but these bars can be very noisy, and ‘special’ things can happen there," he said, keeping coy about his definition of "special." He continued: "When the state doesn’t give us enough resources, Corsican people tend to take things into their own hands."

To be honest, despite his little caveat, it sounded exactly like he was justifying the attack. He certainly didn't condemn it. This cop was obviously a Corsican first and a police officer second. The whole island was increasingly beginning to resemble the pagan Scottish isle where The Wicker Man was filmed, or the kind of secretive elite community that JG Ballard wrote about in Super-Cannes and Cocaine Nights. Virtually everyone, including the authorities, seemed to be in on it. Hardly anyone would condemn the killings or the bombings, and some openly supported the violence.

I never found out who killed Sollacaro and Nasser. In truth, it's highly likely that their killers will never be found. But I did fall in love with Corsica—apart from the racism, of course. There’s a special kind of pride here. Despite their reluctance to become overrun by tourists, they're welcoming to outsiders. It’s a place where old men will welcome you into their homes and drink with you and ask you about where you’re from and what your home is like. Just don’t disrespect them or their culture, or you could walk back to your car to find it up in flames.

This week on the VICE Podcast, Wilbert L. Cooper sits down with Adam Minter, an expert in the global economy of scrap and author of Junkyard Planet. Adam's unique perspective as an American who was raised on a family scrap yard offers uncanny insight into the world of scrap metal and how it impacts our lives from the devices we use to the air we breathe. Today he chats with us about the environmental, economic, and ethical issues surrounding the $500 billion international scrap industry.

Previously on the podcast - Nancy Lublin and Her Unconventional Nonprofits

Photo via Flickr user arvind grover

On Thursday, the Toronto Star reported that a 50-year-old paraplegic woman may have been barred from visiting the United States due to her history of mental health issues. Apparently, last week Ellen Richardson attempted to fly from Toronto to New York City en route to a Caribbean cruise. But before she could get on the plane, a Department of Homeland Security agent said she couldn’t enter the country because she was hospitalized in 2012 for clinical depression and attempted to commit suicide in 2001. Richardson was understandably baffled that her private medical history could be used against her like that, particularly since she says she has been stable thanks to medication. Calling her psychiatrist to confirm her mental health wouldn’t be enough for DHS either, so she missed her vacation, even though she says she has taken several trips to and through the US since 2001 with no problem.

According to Richardson, the agent cited section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which details who may be barred from entering the US. These include aliens who have a “mental disorder and behavior associated with the disorder that may pose, or has posed, a threat to the property, safety, or welfare of the alien or others.”

The law seems clear, though a writer for NetworkWorld.com noted that suicide attempts are arguably not supposed to be held against would-be travelers. Apparently, mental illness itself is reason enough to stop someone at the border, which, given the number of people who have suffered from some kind of diagnosed condition in the past, is extremely troubling.

Richardson’s case isn’t unique. In 2011, an arthritic 64-year-old Toronto woman named Lois Kamenitz was barred from the US because of a past suicide attempt. Kamenitz was permitted to fly four days later after paying $375 for new tickets and $235 to get cleared by a State Department–endorsed doctor. At least a dozen other Canadians have had similar problems in the past. For most cases, the reason this private information was shared with Homeland Security was a police response to a suicide attempt. None of these individuals attempted to harm anyone but themselves, but police often respond to such calls along with paramedics, and if they do, they make some kind of report. And, thanks to Wikileaks, we know that US officials have access to any information in the national Canadian Police Information Centre.

Richardson’s case is a little different in that she says the police were not called during her suicide attempt. She has, however, written about dealing with depression and her status as a paraplegic. But does that mean DHS was googling her? Or do they have access to medical records that the public doesn’t (yet) know about? Regardless, the heavy-handed heartlessness of denying someone a vacation because they suffer from depression is shocking. Why does the US government have a policy that would lead to this outcome in place?

Legally, the US can bar anyone with the faintest hint of a skeleton in his or her closet from entry. But the morality of such rules is another story—who is the DHS to declare someone healthy or unhealthy and deny them the ability to cross borders based on that determination? Richardson wasn’t the first to get squeezed between the sides of bureaucratized medical care and border security hysteria, and unless the DHS makes some changes to its policies, she’s not going to be the last.

Now on the rest of this week’s bad cops:

- On Wednesday,three black teenagers were arrested in Rochester, New York, for disorderly conduct and blocking a public sidewalk, but they say they were simply waiting to be picked up by a school bus. Raliek Redd, Deaquon Carelock, and Wan'Tauhjs Weathers were part of a group of a dozen Edison High School students, all basketball players, who were going to a scrimmage set up by their coach. Nearby business owners had complained of loitering teens in the past, but these kids—and their coach, who appeared in time to see his players cuffed and taken away—say they tried to tell officers they were waiting for the bus to pick them up. The couch also alleges that the cop told them he’d arrest them all if he had room in his car. Police say they repeatedly told the kids to “disperse” and stop blocking the sidewalk, but their orders were ignored. The families paid a $200 bail to get their kids out in time for Thanksgiving, and a trial date has been set for December 11. Hopefully, by then charges will have been dropped due to the DA seeing how ridiculous (and potentially racist) this situation is.

- There’s an important legal line between what cops ask you to do and what they force you to do, and it’s not always clear in the moment what is voluntary and what isn’t. On November 19, drivers in Fort Worth, Texas, were pulled over at a roadblock, then asked to consent to a cheek swab, a blood sample, or a breathalyzer test—they were even offered money for doing so. As reported by NBC, drivers were pretty confused by this. Did they have to comply or not? There were apparently signs that said participation was voluntary, and drivers were told that when they were pulled over, but at least one woman quoted in the story felt pressured, and it’s easy to see why. This was all part of a $3.9 million, three-year study funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and farmed out to government contractors from a group called the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. The idea is to gather research on impaired driving from 30 different cities. But in Forth Worth at least, off-duty police were involved, and drivers were supposedly “forced” to pull over—that indicates that maybe the data collection practices for this study are a little more aggressive than they need to be. What would have happened if a driver refused to pull over?

- On November 20, a school resource officer in Cedar Creek, Texas, Tasered a 17-year-old boy with a stun gun, who then fell into a coma after falling on his face. The family of Noe Nino Rivera says he had surgery to relieve the bleeding in his brain and got placed in a medically-induced coma, and Rivera’s mother Maria Acosta has filed a federal lawsuit on his behalf. Police claim that Rivera was acting aggressive toward Bastrop County Deputy Randy McMillan, who was breaking up a fight between two students—but bystanders say the boy was simply trying to get the officer’s attention, and Acosta says her son actually defused the fight before the cop even showed up. She also claims school officials were slow in requesting for medical aid for her son. It’s not just the boy’s family who is horrified by the incident. Last week, more than 100 students protested against the less-than-lethal weapons’ presence in their school by walking out of class. McMillan, a six-year veteran of the force, has been reassigned to patrol work until an internal investigation wraps up.

- What’s with Florida’s aversion to feeding the homeless? Two summers ago, members of the Orlando chapter of Food Not Bombs was kicked out of a park—and three of them were actually arrested—for trying to give the homeless food in defiance of city law. Now, according to CBS affiliate WPEC-TV, members of Acts 2 Worship Center, a Christian aid group, were told by a Palm Beach County park ranger that they could be fined for trying to provide a Thanksgiving meal to the homeless in Fort Lake. The ranger, identified only as “Mark,” told the group their actions violated an unspecified county ordinance against larger groups dispensing food in the park. Ignoring threats that they would be ticketed, the dozen members of Act 2 Worship passed out meals. Ranger Mark refused to speak to WPEC, saying his higher-ups wouldn’t permit him to do so, and his bosses never showed up clarify the law. WPEC says they couldn’t find the specific ordinance referred to by Ranger Mark, but whatever it is, it should be changed.

- Our Good Cop of the Week is Scott Krissinger, who pulled a man from a burning car, a heroic act that was captured on his cruiser’s dashboard camera. On November 25, the Cape May, New Jersey, cop stopped behind a pickup that was in flames and with commendable speed, Krissinger retrieved 61-year-old Gerald Ferrill from the cab, placed him on the sidewalk, then ran back to make sure nobody else was in the vehicle. Krissinger humbly brushed off declarations of heroism, saying his quick actions just happened to be captured on camera. Regardless, it’s impressive. Good work, officer.

Lucy Steigerwald is a freelance writer and photographer. Read her blog here and follow her on Twitter: @lucystag

Previously: Can Cameras Prevent the Police from Harassing Poor People?

The virtual mug of Esteban Winsmore: Second Life's most entertaining menace.

A decade after its launch, the online virtual world of Second Life (SL) has devolved into a realm where digital avatars engage in furry orgies, fraternize in cities where rape is allowed, and dodge flying penises.

For the most part, the world has forgotten about Second Life. While it’s unlikely that SL avatars will once again grace the cover of business magazines, the eccentric community is experiencing a renewed interest thanks to all-around genius trolls such as YouTube user Charlie Winsmore.

A friend of mine introduced me to Charlie’s videos a few weeks ago. As soon as I laid my eyes on his most popular character, Esteban Winsmore, I fell in love. I don’t remember if I was initially attracted to his freakish ears, his blank stare or the perfect comical pacing of his speech, but I knew he was the troll for me. What makes Esteban so special (aside from his dashing appearance) is the seemingly naive way he interacts with other users. Players tend to react poorly to Esteban’s social clumsiness and lack of seriousness with reactions so strong you could almost forget that SL is a simple game. Charlie’s videos depicting the adventures of Esteban have now garnered hundreds of thousands of views, landed him on Reddit’s highly coveted front page, and generated tons of fan art, including a fan song.

I recently called up Charlie and giggled my way through our conversation about what makes Esteban so hilarious, his newfound virtual fame, and the ethics of trolling people who decide to live their life online dressed up as ponies.

VICE: First off, I’m a big fan of the way Esteban looks. He’s so different from all the other super buff, hypersexualized male avatars in SL. How did you come up with that avatar?
Charlie: I just played with the shapes a lot because SL allows you to look extremely macho and masculine. I think it’s funny to have a character who’s very tiny and very innocent. I play him like a very naive guy, friendly yet strangely aggressive if you step to him the wrong way. He compliments the oversexualized world of SL very well in the way that he stands against it all.

Talking to you now, I realize that Esteban’s voice isn’t your real voice. How did you come up with it?
I think it’s a combination of people I grew up around. It’s so racially ambiguous too. People can never pinpoint where it’s from. They say it’s French, Indian... I think that’s one of the fun things about him. He’s very ambiguous in the way he looks and the way he sounds.

Out of all the bizarre worlds in SL, what’s your favorite place to visit?
I can’t go back to most of the places I used to love visiting. After I got popular, people started figuring out who I was and they started kicking me out of all the places I loved. There used to be this dance club called Bootylicious, where it was the more urban crowd of SL. But it was really just southern white males dressed up as African characters trying to speak in an urban vernacular but failing miserably. That place used to be my favourite but it died out. Of course there’s the place from Esteban episode one and two with the older dance club folks. I loved that place so much and I’m so hurt that I can never go back there.

You’ve been banned?
Yeah, most of the places in my videos I’ve been banned from. The place with the bronies for example. It kinda sucks that my “fame” has stopped me from revisiting my favourite places in Second Life.

Why do you think you’re so good at trolling?
I think it’s because I’m not aggressive. I’m not insulting. I try my best to adhere to the rules of their virtual world. But I have one foot in and one foot out. I will entertain their fantasy. I think people don’t feel guilty watching my videos because I’m not putting people down. I’m playing along and I’m having a good time.

Is there a group of people on SL that you find easier to troll?
I’d say old people and people from southern areas. Oftentimes they can be polite, but they can also be on the other side of the spectrum. There can be vile people who are clearly carrying a lot of hate and baggage into this virtual world and almost blow up at the sight of somebody who threatens the seriousness of the fantasy.
 

The Home Invasions of Esteban Winsmore (Episode Three)

It’s funny you say that. In "The Home Invasions of Esteban Winsmore (Episode Three)", there’s a guy who completely flips out at you. Do you find it insane that people are so entrenched in their virtual world that they’ll scream at you?
In some ways yes and in some ways no, because I know that the world sometimes isn’t a fair place. I know that Second Life holds some people who at their core are hurt, but in that particular case, I think that guy had some real issues. I never quite made someone that angry at me in a video game or in real life. I think SL has a lot of people like that who might be a little kooky.

Do you feel bad sometimes for people when they get really upset?
Absolutely. I’ve kinda battled with the ethics behind the videos. I started censoring names and whatnot. Even though it might seem like a stupid thing to a lot of people, this whole idea of digital escapism, I do understand and empathize with people. I mean, ultimately my videos are gonna cause a little bit of damage, but I’m doing my best to hide the people even though their voices and their in-game characters are there. Because at the heart of it, it’s still real. I do kinda put people in danger for the sake of humour. It’s a double-edged sword.

I assume your videos are only highlights of Esteban’s adventures, does your trolling ever fail?
Yes, a lot. It’s harder these days because people recognize me a lot in the game. People are very aware, they’re on guard about people like me because it’s so common, especially since videos like mine started coming out. It’s difficult. My videos make it seem as though I’m infallible as a troll but it’s really not that way.

Do people get excited or pissed off when they recognize you?
A lot of them get really excited. I think people like me a lot in SL, but if they don’t know who I am, occasionally they’ll get mad just because I represent a player based in a community that is very hated. But if they recognize me for who I am, a lot of the times they’ll get very excited. They’ll want to take screenshots with me.
 

Esteban Winsmore's Big Brony Adventure (Second Life Trolling).

Do you have other accounts where you play the game normally?
(Laughs) No. I don’t open the game unless it’s for my videos. I don’t think I will ever enjoy the game in that way.

Fair enough. After all this time, do you still get shocked by the stuff you come across on SL?
Yeah, it’s always the weird sexual stuff. There’s a subset of the player base that’s bringing in all their insecurities and bizarre fetishes. I go into houses all the time that have walls just plastered with gaping buttholes and weird images. It does kinda catch me off guard. But for the most part, I’m pretty much jaded to everything that’s going on because I’ve been doing it for so long. Sometimes I’ll record something that is completely bizarre but it will just seem completely normal to me, and I won’t think about using it in a video until I show it to somebody and they’ll be like: “That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. How are you not weirded out by that?” It’s just normal to me at this point.

Wow! Would you say that SL is fucking with your brain?
It’s probably changed my psyche. I’ll probably never be the same even when I’m done with this. It’s ok. It’s for the best.

Do you think your videos have helped bring back some interest in Second Life?
I think I’m by far the biggest thing going on in SL right now. I think I’ve reinvigorated the fan base, maybe in a negative way, because I’m bringing all these people who don’t intend on playing the game seriously. But I’ve had people message me and tell me that they’re addicted to SL because of my videos. I guess I’m a good and a bad thing for SL. But I think ultimately any publicity is better than no publicity.

Have you been surprised by some of the people that have reached out to you?
Yeah! People in the furry orgies in my videos will leave comments and claim that it’s them in the furry orgies, which really confuses me. I think if I were in their position, I would hate me... But people seem to really like that they’re seen no matter in what manner they’re portrayed.

Are you going to do more videos with Esteban or is he too well known at this point?
I think there’s always gonna be a core of SL players that are completely detached from the rest of the internet. They stick to their islands and pretend to be vampires. Those are the people I’m aching to find. I don’t think I’ll ever retire Esteban just because he’s kind of a part of me now and I can act as him so naturally. When I play other characters I wish I was playing Esteban, because he’s so much fun for me to play as. He’s near and dear to my heart.

I’m glad I’ll get to see more of his small, freakish face. Thanks.


@smvoyer

Welcome to your weekly roundup of the worst in advertising, marketing, and social media “engagement.” This week’s indefensible local ad comes via the Alabama law firm McCutcheon & Hamner, brought to my attention by the Angry Asian Man. The character’s name is “Mr. Wong Fong Shu,” and was created and played by good ol’ boy Jim DeBerry of Definitive Television, a local production company. The copy, however, is via the lawyers, says DeBerry.

Below is DeBerry’s defense against possibly being a racist moron. No word on if McCutcheon and/or Hamner counseled him on the wording of his tweet.

(Image via Find Law)

There is a time and place for brutally honest, crushingly depressing advertising, and that time is never and that place is nowhere. Fuck you, Timberland. (Image via copyranter tips).

McDonald’s has taken a lot of heat for their Happy Meal toys in the past, prompting the fast feeder to start using prizes with a more educational slant. But with all the stories of deep-fried insects, reptiles, and other critters people have found in their bags of food lately, two of the last words I want to see on a Happy Meal box are “FINDING SPIDERS.” Via the UK. Ad agency: Leo Burnett, London. (Image via: Ads of the World)

This week’s ad that will now spread like jihad through Tea Party email groups comes via Nigeria, for Hypo brand bleach. There are two more equally nuanced executions featuring Desmond Tutu in a Klansmen outfit and Ellen DeGeneres in a wedding gown. See all three on Ads of the World. (Creative note: Hypo’s tagline, “Damn Good Whites,” would also make a splendid Tea Party slogan.)

@copyranter

Illustrations by Cei Willis

The Daily Mail has been trailing a new book this week by "leading science writer" Tony Edwards. Titled The Good News About Booze, which sounds like an off-license run by a Jehovah’s Witness, it tackles three of the middle class’s greatest obsessions: dying of cancer, mediocre sex, and drinks that middle-class people like. The first extract from the book, published last week, gave the paper a valuable opportunity to address the important question of whether red wine causes or cures cancer.

The book (or at least the extracts—the email I sent requesting a review copy remains unanswered) is exactly what you’d expect. Edwards claims to have conducted an “in-depth study of around half-a-million scientific papers about alcohol”, which is basically impossible unless he has an army of minions in his basement. In the best traditions of Malcolm Gladwell, he takes a banal and well-known truth—that drinking a moderate amount of red wine is healthy—and pretends it’s some kind of shocking revelation that some indefinable cabal of wine-hoarding misers don’t want you to know about. Throw in a few silly exaggerations for added measure, like “red wine may well be one of the most effective ‘medications’ in history” or “I’m just an averagely intelligent science journalist,” and you have a perfect piece of click-bait for the lazy editor to shove in the paper.

I’ll be honest, I hadn’t heard of this "leading science writer" before, so I looked him up. There’s a Twitter account, which follows the classic template of author-told-they-need-to-be-on-Twitter-by-their-agent, and a website hastily assembled to support the book, but not a lot else. As far as the internet is concerned, Tony Edwards is a landing page wrapped in a 404, covered in a thick layer of “I don’t care.”

In fact, back in the 80s and early 90s, Edwards used to work for the BBC as a producer and director. Specializing in science documentaries, he worked on programs like QED, Horizon, and Tomorrow’s World. According to his biography, “his 80 (approx) television programs include: exposés of factory farming, the USA’s military spy satellite systems, the processed food industry, and how science treats non-conformists within its ranks.”

Those "non-conformists" turn out to include homeopaths—a cult industry which courageously refuses to conform to science, or indeed reality or logic generally. In the early 90s, Edwards was responsible for two of the direst documentaries to dribble out of a BBC transmitter. Homeopathy: Medicine or Magic was practically a promotional video for quacks selling sugar pills. “Is homeopathy magic or medicine? For a small but growing number of doctors it seems to be a bit of both,” concluded the narrator.

Jacques Benveniste, Heretic on the other hand, covered the story of the eponymous, infamous scientist who claimed to have found a mechanism by which water could retain a "memory" of things it had previously touched. The idea that water can store memories of past experiences is a key tenet of homeopathy, and Benveniste swiftly became a cult figure among true believers, a status not diminished when it turned out that his results were incorrect and couldn’t be replicated by other scientists. Rather than, say, investigating whether the scientist’s results were accurate, Edwards chose to portray him as the subject of a mean witch-hunt by a frenzied scientific establishment closing ranks. Interestingly, both of these journalistic failures were uploaded to DailyMotion by a certain "TonyE1000."

Given his history, it’s no surprise that Edwards turned to Dr Karol Sikora to endorse his new book. Sikora, another supporter of quack medicine, is a one-man PR catastrophe. He was publicly humiliated by Imperial College over his repeated false claim that he was an honorary professor there. He "accidentally" appeared in a Republican Party ad attacking the NHS. Just to top all that off, he was one of the doctors involved in the notorious case of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber who was released on compassionate grounds after being given three months to live, but lasted considerably longer.

You may think Edwards and Sikora seem like odd choices of expert to promote, but they’re nothing against the legend that is David Jeffries, the Charles Atlas of his generation in many ways. As the Mail on Sunday put it, “No fruit for ten years, a junk food diet and a 50-a-day cigarette habit... but David, 66, still insists he's as 'fit as a fiddle,'”

Jeffries is basically what happens when student lifestyle becomes terminal. "Blasting health experts' advice 'garbage'”, we are told he lives on “takeaways, chocolate and cigarettes” and keeps fit by dancing: “I sit in my armchair, put on some loud obnoxious music and I just punch and kick the air for around 20 minutes... It works all my joints and muscles and I think it's the secret to my great physical form.”

"I never listen to experts," Jeffries continues, and why should he? After all: "The world is full of them, and that’s why we’re in such a mess.” The MoS chose to wait until paragraph 16 to mention that this health messiah has had not one, but two heart attacks in his life thus far. “I actually died for a few seconds in the back of the ambulance and had to be resuscitated," he said. "I had a blockage in my artery that was hereditary. It was nothing to do with my diet or the cigarettes. Since the heart attacks I feel younger than ever. I feel like I have been reborn.”

David Jeffries is easy to dismiss as a bit of a joke because, well, he is, but there’s really very little difference between Britain’s unhealthiest healthiest pensioner and his peers; Edwards, Sikora, and the hundreds of other dubious "experts" who appear in the pages of the Mail every week, accompanied by the usual knowing comments from readers about how, "Expert advice changes all the time and you shouldn’t trust it, because Auntie Margaret drank three bottles of vodka a day and she was fit as a fiddle until that massive car accident she had."

The reality is, advice on good health and nutrition has been basically the same for decades now: eat a variety of good food in moderation and get regular exercise. It’s really not rocket science. Unfortunately, that kind of sensible and banal advice doesn’t sell books or diet plans or newspapers, and so an entire industry has grown up with the aim of telling us that being healthy is far more complicated than it really is, and only they can help us through the minefield.

These cranks and salespeople are able to get away with creating this confusion because the media insist on presenting them as if they were real experts, too. Partly that’s because it sells more copy, but I can’t help wonder if there isn’t a deeper, more ideological force at work—that the Mail and its readership despise the very notion of an expert in the first place.

Nothing raises their hackles more than an intellectual "elite" giving them advice that conflicts with their precious "common sense" that dictates their middle-class lifestyle. Sure, poor people’s alcohol is bad for you, but Cabernet Sauvignon at a dinner party? Of course it’s fine. Climate change? They’ll be talking about an ice age next, and anyway, wouldn't we all quite like it if this country was a few degrees warmer as it went to the dogs? This sustained assault on the credibility of science by Dacre and his peers has achieved what armies of well-funded lobbyists have been trying to do for decades: to create so much confusion and misinformation that people no longer pay attention to the stuff that actually matters.

@mjrobbins

We Should Probably Stop Leaving Our Rubbish All Over Space

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Finding something crazy to do on a Friday night in San Francisco isn’t that hard. There are weird bars, year-round “Burner parties” for people still coming down from the Burning Man high, Fernet-Branca everywhere, and an old man named Stan Shaff who performs a mind trip of electro-acoustic sounds for stoners.

Stan, a professory-looking older man, has been operating the weekly electro-acoustic soundscape show at his Bush Street theater in Lower Pacific Heights since the mid-70s. The operation is lean , with just Stan and  his wife, who sits in a glass booth handing out tickets in a makeshift lobby that smells like burnt coffee, running things.

With your $20 ticket, you walk into a cement floored art space filled with futuristic sculptures, projectors, tourists, and people wondering what they got themselves into.

Outside, I saw a small group of dudes standing in a half-circle passing around a joint. I, too, lit up, asking if they knew anything about what was about to occur.

“I don’t know, man. I heard it’s like Fantasia for your ears,” said the dude next to me between tokes.

No one inside seemed to have any of the pre-show details I desired. It’s hard to explain an electro-acoustic show to someone other than saying, “You sit down and hear weird sounds." 

Minutes before the show, Stan appeared from behind a curtain to make announcements. He asked everyone to turn off their phones, refrain from taking pictures, and to stay quiet. He then got everyone to follow him through a disorientingly-angled hallway that reminded me of the kind of walk cows take before slaughter.

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We entered a room that felt like a sound stage from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Stan had assembled the space with 35 chairs in a half-circle (resembling an audio-based House of Parliament) surrounded by 174 speakers—arranged perfectly, all in proto-White Stripes red, white, and black. The room was perfectly soundproofed. It was almost like being in outer space: if you screamed, no one would hear you.

As I sat in a folding chair, the lights got lower and lower until it was completely black, and I lost sense of where I was. The sounds were from Stan's studio, intended, as he said, to evoke feelings of childhood. Splashing water, rustling leaves, drums playing frantic beats, bleeps and bloops — this all lasted for a half hour. During that half hour, you’re sitting completely still, almost afraid to move, so as to not offend the person listening in next to you.

During the first half of the show, I had two or three epiphanies. It felt like the first pure moment of introspection I had had in a long time. It was like meditating, but through sensory deprivation mixed with sensory overload. On one hand you can’t see a thing; on the other, you’re overwhelmed with sounds coming from the walls, the ground, and from above. You can hear clicks coming from the command module where Stan planted himself. What is he doing over there? “Nevermind,” my brain told me, “focus on the now." Whatever that means.

I was actually clueing in to whatever the "now" was, perhaps for the first time in my adult life. I felt really good. I was cleaning out my own brain like it was a dirty refrigerator, getting rid of anxieties like old fruit. After a half hour, the lights came up and no one spoke. Everyone was in a trance, and no one realized that they could go out and get coffee for the the intermission. I looked over at the guy who told me it was like Fantasia for the ears, and he looked like he’d gone to Mars and back.

The friend I went with sat in a trance as well. During the five minute intermission neither one of us spoke, and not just because we were stoned. There was giggling from those clearly uncomfortable, awe from others, and a few people just got up and left. I was fully prepared for, if not eagerly awaiting, the next half hour of Audium.

After the second half was said and done, we returned to the lobby, the walls covered in projections of waterfalls, which made me have to pee immediately. Stan guarded the coffee maker, answering questions from his entranced audience. I asked him about the amplifying and subtracting of the senses, trying to to show that I knew what was going on (an attempt to get into his inner circle), but he went on to talk at length about how excited he is that young people are into this kind of thing. Perhaps it’s the pervasiveness of electronic music, or the fact that people like Karlheinz Stockhausen have gone from obscurity to the outer edges of the mainstream thanks to any Music 101 course. Or perhaps people just want a cheap auditory high. 

Stan’s soundscapes only work when you find yourself tuning in to your own senses. You’re blind in his space, which amplifies your auditory awareness — everything is louder, clearer, and sometimes downright frightening. You’re mentally forced to deal with yourself and his sounds. To put it simply, the way he manipulates his sounds makes you feel all weird inside, which confuses your brain and forces you to find some sort of mental solace. On that journey, you find a bunch of weird stuff that you either confront or accept. If you reach that zen point, it can be rewarding. If not, it’s probably a totally bizarre experience.

@mark_sandford