Joyce Mitchell's mugshot via New York State Police

Read: Joyce Mitchell Has Pleaded Guilty to Helping the Two Murderers Escape From New York Prison

Joyce Mitchell, the former prison worker who helped convicted murderers Richard Matt and David Sweat escape from the Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York back in June, was sentenced to up to seven years behind bars Monday, as NBC News reports.

The 51-year-old signed a deal in July and agreed to plead guilty for her part in the manhunt that lasted 23 days, cost the state almost $23 million, ended with Matt's death and Sweat's recapture, and alternately terrorized and intrigued denizens of the Empire State. Mitchell was charged with promoting prison contraband and criminal facilitation after she admitted smuggling tools to Matt and Sweat in frozen meat.

In her signed confession, the former prison tailor-shop supervisor confessed to using her access to sneak the prisoners hacksaw blades, chisels, and a screwdriver.

Mitchell told the court that she helped them escape after Matt threatened to kill her husband, but her confession unearthed a strange tale of secrets and seduction in which she got close to both prisoners and even engaged in a physical relationship with Matt.

Mitchell had even had agreed to be the getaway driver, but she apparently backed out at the last minute, forcing the murderers to make their break on foot.

Mitchell will also face a hearing in November on the prosecutors' request that she pay more than $120,000 in restitution to the state.

As he handed down the sentence Monday, Judge Mark Rogers rebuked the idea that Mitchell was acting to protect her husband. "Ms. Mitchell, I just don't find that explanation credible," he said.

Mitchell can take solace in the fact that her husband, Lyle, is standing by her. But doing time after being in a position of authority in the state prison system probably won't be easy.

"If I could take it all back I would," Mitchell told the court Monday. "I live with regret every day and will for the rest of my life."

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly for the first time in more than a decade, Russian President Vladamir Putin called Monday for a broad anti-terror coalition aimed at stopping the Islamic Stateand in a pointed challenge to President Barack Obama, hinted that this coalition should back the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The team, Putin explained, would be "similar to the anti-Hitler coalition." Speaking about the Islamic State in lurid terms, he added, "We cannot allow these criminals who have already tasted blood to return back home and continue their evil."

"Russia stands ready to work with its partners on the basis of consensus," Putin said. It's not clear, though, whether he expects the US to be one of these "partners." According to the Washington Post, Putin has historically used the word "partners" to refer to countries with whom relations are tense.

Putin also spoke gravely about the lack of political stability in the Middle East and North Africa after the Arab Spring, saying, "Nobody cares a bit about human rights, including the right to life. I cannot help asking those who have caused the situation, 'Do you realize now what you have done?'"

During his more defensive remarks about Russia's role in the conflict in the Ukraine, Putin avoided blaming the US by name, but decried a "single center of domination," and blamed NATO for helping foment a civil war.

Read more comics by Lauren Monger at her Tumblr and Twitter.

A British Soldier. Image via US Army Europe Images

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

The world is a scary place. Anarchists are attacking cereal cafs, cafs want to force you to eat cereal like a child, and Katie Hopkins has recently joined the Mail Online. What I've never feared, however, is the prospect of a military coup. That was until just over a week ago when the Sunday Times reported that an unnamed current British army general had suggested a coup might be likely should Jeremy Corbyn be elected Prime Minister. According to the general, a Labour government led by Corbyn could face an army "mutiny" should Corbyna veteran peace campaignerattempt to downgrade the armed forces by pulling out of NATO or scrapping Trident.

The general was quoted saying "the Army just wouldn't stand for it. The general staff would not allow a prime minister to jeopardize the security of this country and I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul to prevent that."

Although the general did clarify that he was referring to "mass resignations at all levels," rather than literally dragging Corbyn and his Mao bike out of Number 10, his threat of "an event which would effectively be a mutiny" is still pretty full on, and sounds like something more suited to Chile in the 1970s than the UK today.

To find out whether I was being complacent, I interviewed Nick Watts, a defense expert and Deputy Director General of the UK Defence Forum, to find how likely a British military coup really is.

VICE: So, what issues could lead to a British coup?
Nick Watts: I think the military would be concerned about a danger to British national security. They would have to think, "We, the military, really know what the security concerns of the UK are. And you here today, gone tomorrow politicians don't understand these national security concerns. You politicians are either cravenly running after public opinion, or you're beholden to your real paymasters, the trade unions. And wethe militarywon't stand for any of that nonsense, because it will make us weaker as a nation. So we're going to take matters into our own hands."

What would a military coup look like in practice?
The civil service would be the first port of call; you'd probably take over the Cabinet Office, which is the central nervous system of Whitehall. That would be job number one. It wouldn't be that difficult actually, it's just over the road from the Ministry of Defence, and the security isn't that great anyway.

Then you'd have to encourage the PM to leave 10 Downing Street. That would be physically easy. Although I suppose after that you'd have to deal with a potential rising against the coup, in the shires, which could mean having to put the army out on the streets.

So who would be leading the resistance?
I think a rising in the shires, in the countryside, would be against the coup. It would be like in Moscow in 1991, when certain factions of the Communist Party rebelled against Gorbachev at the time, and the people stood around the parliament building and physically stopped the army from getting inside it.

What about within the army?
You need to remember that army personnel swear allegiance to the Queen, and that's understood to mean the Queen and her government. So I think a military general would be met by considerable resistance from within the army rank and file if he tried to lead a coup against Her Majesty's Government.

What would the Queen do?
Well the Queen's the head of the armed forces. So I think there would be a mighty edict from Buckingham Palace against this. She'd have to go on TV and say, "I am the Sovereign and the armed forces must be loyal to me and my ministers, so don't do anything silly chaps, you're not helping the situation." So, ironically, really, the Queen would have to come to the aid of Jeremy Corbyn as a democratically elected Parliamentarian.

So the leaders of the coup would need to get to the Queen also?
Well, they could try and take over the BBC to prevent her doing a broadcast, but other broadcasters are available, like Sky and ITN. But it wouldn't matter. With social media now, the civilian militia would be on their phones, saying, "Get down to Leeds Town Hall, get down to Derby Market Place." So I think the shires could rise against the army.

How would the civilian militia fight the army?
It would have to be passive resistance, in line with Cold War politics. But remember that the British army is very small. The whole army's only 80,000 people, including all the noncombatants like medics and cooks. You could fit the whole army in Wembley stadium. But you could still have a nasty situation like the Tiananmen Square massacre, with civilians being gunned down by the military. It wouldn't be pretty.

Related: Watch VICE Meets Harry Leslie Smith, a 92-year-old Canadian voting and anti-austerity activist

Would we have to worry about bread queues on the streets of the UK?
I think we'd be OK, unless ferry ports and roads were blockaded by protestors, in which case there could be issues.

Would Britain be vulnerable to external aggressors?
I don't think anyone would invade us, but we would be vulnerable in areas that we are already at risk. For example, the Argentinians could nip over and grab the Falkland Islands. And the Spanish could grab Gibraltar back. We'd be an absolute laughing stock internationally. All of the influence we've built up through soft power tools like the British Council and the BBC would be gone. We'd be a joke; we'd be a Gilbert and Sullivan country.

OK, finally, how do you actually remove a sitting Prime Minister?
You need to do what the Soviets did with Gorbachev. So, you wait until Corbyn's on holiday. British Prime Ministers always go to Chequers, which is of course run by the state anyway. So when he goes there, you take his phone away and put him under house arrest.

And then you just tell everyone, "The PM is indisposed." You "invite" Corbyn to step into a Puma helicopter, and you spirit him away. By this point, you're running the country now. And once you've taken Jeremy Corbyn to a secret destination, you get him to issue a statement officially handing power over to you, General Sneaky, as Lord Protector. Don't forget, we did this before, with Oliver Cromwell, so it's not entirely unknown.

Wow, that sounds really disturbingly easy. Could this ever happen?
I think it really is an amusing speculation, but please do reassure your readers that the likelihood of this is very remote. They shouldn't worry.

Follow Sirin Kale on Twitter.

The wettest place in North America is on fireVICE investigates the causes and effects of the 2015 wildfire season in B.C.

Photo via Flickr user Joi Ito

In New York City, stop and friskthe controversial policing practice that's resulted in countless protests and a major lawsuitwill now come complete with a receipt for your trouble.

Officers with the NYPD are now required to give each citizen they stop and frisk (but don't arrest) a nifty form, according to a report from the Daily News. The "What Is a Stop?" slip was apparently introduced sometime this month, and cops have to indicate why a person was detained; among the handful of choices are suspicion of carrying a weapon, suspicion of engaging in a drug deal, and "other," which sounds like it leaves plenty of room open for interpretation.

The controversial stop and frisk policy is based on the "broken windows" theory of policing that calls for taking proactive steps to prevent serious crimes. Stop and frisk reached its peak in 2011 with 685,724 stops, but it's been in steep decline since 2013, when a district court judge ruled the practice unconstitutional. A spokesperson for the NYPD confirmed to VICE that the receipts were a result of that decision, but former cops and experts we spoke to are in disagreement about whether they will make much of a difference.

"It will be very easy to track the use of stop, questions, and frisks in the futurezero," Joseph Giacalone, a former NYPD detective sergeant and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told VICE. "The cops have taken it upon themselves to abandon the practice."

But while Giacalone seems to think officers will halt stop and frisk rather than file the annoying paperwork, some evidence suggests that they will just carry on as before. A court-appointed NYPD monitor released a report in July saying that some officers have solved the problem of increased oversight by simply declining to record their stops.

Jeffrey Fagan, an expert on policing at Columbia University Law School who was cited more than any other person in the 2013 court ruling, says the receipt rule mightperverselyencourage deception by beat cops. "The requirement may lead some officers to conduct stops that they don't regard as actual stops, thereby evading the receipt requirement," he told VICE.

So it remains far from clear whether the receiptsas convenient as they soundwill be some kind of panacea for the (many) problems with America's largest police force.

"Most cops I have spoken to chuckle when asked if they are ever going to stop someone and hand this receipt," Giacalone told VICE. "The mayor could never tell the department to stop using so this was the next best way to do it."

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

For over a century, activism in the drug addiction sphere has been dominated by calls to expand the war on drugs. Lobbying from self-interested politicians, the rehab industry, and law enforcement has resulted in draconianpolicies that are far better at sending racist messages andincreasing incarceration than saving lives. People who use or have used drugsrarely have a seat at the table when policy is setand are heard from mainlyin the form of stories of sin and repentance.

But now a group called Unite to Face Addiction isplanning a massive rally in Washington, DC, to attack stigma and call forchange. On Sunday, October 4, big names like Steven Tyler, Joe Walsh,Jason Isbell of the Drive-By Truckers, and Sheryl Crow will perform. Speakers will include former Congressman Patrick Kennedy, former baseball player Darryl Strawberry, author William Cope Moyers and current "drug czar" Michael Botticelli, who is in recovery himself.

After decades of false starts, a legitpolitical movement aimed at addressing addiction as a public health problem andled by those who are most affected by it may finally be taking shape. Buoyed by a growing push to end mass incarceration and the emerging consensus that the drug war has failed, people in recovery are starting to speak out against policies that have hurt them. But while there's general agreement about what not to do, the movement will ultimately face a difficult battle over its agenda and how, exactly, to address drug addiction without waging "war."

Spearheaded by Greg Williams, a 32-year-old filmmaker who kickedOxyContin and other drug addictions 14 years ago, the organization has what hesays is a "multimillion-dollar" budget. Over 650 different addiction-related groups are sending members. Amongthe biggest donors are the Conrad Hilton Foundation and Marriott. "We have people get well."

Themarch comes at an especially significant moment for drug policy reform. For thefirst time in decades, both the left and the right agree that far too manypeople are being incarcerated in the United States and for far too long,particularly for drug crimes. Only ancient hardliners like former drug czarWilliam Bennett continue to make the case forintense criminalization; virtually no one can muster a good argument for whylocking people up for simple possession of drugs is a useful policy. (If it doesn't even work for marijuana, why should it work for heroin or cocaine?) And stateslike Colorado and Washington are showing that full commercial legalization ofweed doesn't produce disaster.

Waltonagrees that the landscape is shifting. "I think that this rally and the energy behind it and the momentumsweeping the country that makes it possible is based on recognizingwhether itwas intended or notthat the war on drugs, by and large, has had a disparateand negative impact on people of color and poor people," he says.

Williamspoints out that when both Republican Senator Rand Paul and Democratic SenatorCory Booker agree that mass incarceration has gone too far and introduce legislation to roll it back, thereis real room for change.

ButHoward Josepher, president of Exponents / ARRIVE, is more skeptical. Anex-addict and activist for more than four decades, he founded the organizationto fight both addiction and AIDS, and he's seen many previous addictionactivist groups shipwrecked by failure to agree on specific goals.

"Idon't really get it," he says of the march. "What are we doing? Are we drawing attention to the fact thatpeople recover? OK, but is there any real agenda? It seems to me that what theyare saying in bringing people to Washington is, 'We are a political force.' Butwhat do we stand for? I don't seeanything that defines what are we going to do with this."

Check out our documentary on the perils of the for-profit rehab industry.

Williams sees the question of specifics as a distraction, wanting first todraw eyeballs to recovery and the problems of addiction, particularly toopioids. He wants to get people in the various factions talking to each other,starting from a place of common ground. After that, they'll work to create consensus on the easiest issuesfor example, promoting the use of more respectful language like "person with addiction" rather than "addictbefore tackling the thornier ones.

WilliamWhite, a historian of drugs and addictionand longtime supporter of recovery activism, suspects the moment may be aspecial one. "I think the timing of the Unite to Face Addiction reflects aprocess of maturation of the recovery advocacy movement," he says, notingspecifically its support for respecting multiple paths to recovery. Of course,he cautions that only "time will tell."

Andat some point, Unite to Face Addiction is going to have to deal with tough questions.For example, do they support continued criminalization of drug possessionandif so, how do they hope to de-stigmatize addiction when the whole point ofcriminalization is to create moral stigma? And when funds are limited, whattypes of treatment should get priority? How much emphasis should be placed onfighting for more treatment fundingand how much on improving outcomes beforepouring more money into a system that most agree is far from meeting standardsof care for quality, compassion and evidence?

Wayback in 1993, I wrote an op-ed for the WashingtonPost calling for people with addictions to come out of the closet andfight for more humane treatment and policies. My model was ACT UP: the AIDS organization that changed clinical trialsand the FDA approval process to make them faster and better, which forced the legalization ofneedle exchange programs in New York and elsewhere and helped turn HIV into achronic condition rather than a rapid death sentence, all the while makingactivism cool, even sexy.

Attimes, ACT UP was at least as divided as addiction advocacy: I spent countlesshours covering apparently endless debates at its Monday night meetings in lowerManhattan, many of which were painful and contentious. But ultimately, thegroup became one of the most effective advocacy organizations in Americanhistory, changing policies not only for AIDS patients but for people with all typesof diseases and inspiring other patients to take similar action. It didn't pullits punches, and it created small "working groups" to tackle highly specificissues, which would research them and provide guidance for the whole.

Ihope Unite to Face Addictionor at least some organizationcan create a call toaction and then drill down to details that will lead to better care foraddiction. Gay people were criminalized and marginalized before they came out; peoplewith addictions are now in a similar spot.

Wecan start by showing our strength and our humanity and our energy,but we can't stop there.

Follow Maia Szalavitz on Twitter.

Black Lives Matter Toronto's Take Back the Night protest. Photos by Sierra Bein

The first time Yusra Khogali was carded by a cop in Toronto, the situation quickly turned violent.

"It reached the point where the police officer literally threw me in the front of his van and was threatening to arrest me because I didn't want to give him ID," the Sudanese-born spoken word artist told VICE.

Khogali knew she didn't have to show her identification. But like many others involved in a random police stop, she was not certain of what else she was allowed to do or say. Although the Toronto Police Service website claims that, in theory, you can walk away at any time, this isn't always how it works out.

"I can even speak from my own personal stories about carding: People think that it's something that only happens to black men, but it happens to black women, black queer women, black trans womenit happens to all of us. Like, for me, I've been carded a bunch of times," Khogali said.

"I think that's something that I want to put out. That it's something that happens to pretty much everyone. But it's not framed that way."

Khogali is a part of the Toronto chapter of Black Lives Matter, a movement that has gained momentum worldwide, bringing to light issues surrounding black lives. Three queer women in the US started the movement, and while they make their voices heard through rallies and protests, they also work to rebuild black communities around the world.

The unique thing about BLM is that the focus is primarily on the most marginalized voices, giving them a space to be heard.

"In the way that the media portrays it, there's no sense of urgency for black women. For queer folks, for trans folks, for black people with disabilities, black people with mental illnesses, there's no sense of urgency in rushing, in organizing for our lives. And It's often we have to remind people that our lives matter too," said Pascale Diverlus, an original member for BLMTO.

This was addressed in the city's 35th Take Back the Night march this past Saturday, where hundreds of people marched to protest violence against women. It was the first year that the event's focus was on Black lives.

"I know that the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre approached Black Lives Matter Toronto because of the momentum that we're gaining as a movement," said LeRoi Newbold, a member of BLMTO who is involved with the organization of the event. "This level of police brutality toward trans Black women for example has always existed it's just that now it's being brought very forcefully by Black communities and Black activists to the forefront."

The event spoke to the marginalized voices that BLMTO stands for, but mainly the "experiences of Black women (in particular Black trans women and sex workers) experiencing sexual violence as a tool of police brutality and genocide," said the event's page on Facebook.

Take Back the Night also included children's activities, a "healing rage space," a community fair and performances to teach about how to deal with difficult situations without relying on authorities. All these components are part of what the group aims to do: heal and restore, to create the type of world they wish to see.

"The transformative justice stage , for example, the ways Black trans women or Black sex workers protect themselves without police, the different ways that they have always done that," said Newbold. "Ways that for example we as communities can intervene when we see an intimate partner violence situation and we don't have to depend on police."

BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors

One of the speakers at the rally was Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of the BLM movement from the States. Cullors has been a strong force in calling on police accountability and a big personality in Black equality movements.

"We survived, ya'll," Cullors said at the start of her speech. "Do you understand that? We survived, we're here right now."

Cullors took the stage after prayers took place, calling on the spirits of murdered women and ancestors to be with them.

"For all the little Black girls out there who are not allowed to just be little Black girls, this night is for you. For the trans woman who is not allowed to walk home, this night is for you. For the Indigenous women whose name we struggle to remember and the over 500 names of missing and murdered Indigenous women, this night is for you. For all of us who have ever said 'this happened to me,' and were not believed, I believe you," said Cullors.

Only recently has attention been placed on what has been called an epidemic of murdered trans women of colour.

Toronto specifically is still left with unanswered questions from the deaths of young lives like Sumaya Dalmar, the Somali trans woman who was killed earlier this year.

Though we more often hear about the injustices experienced by Black men, there are other voices who have traumatic experiences, but gain less visibility.

There is no doubt that Canada still has a long way to go to protect and support its women and create a world where BLM doesn't need to exist. Although they have hope, some of the BLMTO members aren't convinced that the movement will be any less necessary anytime soon.

These issues have been faced for generations of Black communities, and each generation has hope that the next generation will be able to come closer to rebuilding the systems we live in. The systems can't be fixed, because they are not broken. They were built this way. The BMLTO group knows that they might not be the solution, but that they are part of the long-term path to better quality of life for all Black lives.

"No matter what has been done to us over centuries and over time, like we've always managed to persevere and rebuild and come back stronger," Khogali said. "So that kind of gives me hope that if not in this lifetime then in the next lifetime we're gonna be alright. Like Kendrick said, 'We're going to be alright.'"

Follow Sierra Bein on Twitter.

Mike Felber with his loot. All photos by the author

There were bags of trash in front of me, and I was digging through them. My hands were sticky and covered in garbage juice. A dog walked over and peed on a bag I was about to look through. Nicely dressed people walked by and gave me various degrees of looks; a couple quickly diverted their eyes; a man offered an expression of pity.

"I'm going to feel around and see if there's any meat that I want," said Mike Felber, dipping his arm up to his elbow into a garbage bag. He pulled out a handful of what looked like gooey muck from the bottom.

"This is lasagna," he offered, holding it in the palm of his hand. It had been tossed out from the store's salad bar. "I have no shame. I will take that if I want and put it in a bag," Felber said. He proceeded to do just that.

Felber and I were spread out on the sidewalk in front of Morton Williams specialty grocery on the Upper Westside of New York City, looking through their garbage bags. The buried food was abundant: Creamed spinach. Stuffed cabbage. Bruschetta ham.

"There's a stigma attached this," said Felber, as he ripped open another garbage bag filled to the brim with bagels. "If a ton of people did this, there wouldn't be that much food at all. But the vast majority of people wouldn't even consider it or haven't thought of it."

A block away, homeless people were sleeping rough on the steps of Church of St. Paul of the Apostles, presumably unaware that they could feast for days on what is being thrown out nightly onto the curbside: not only perfectly good foodbut gourmet food.

Felber spotted a man he knew walking into the Morton Williams. "Going shopping?" he asked his friend. "We're freeganing. Are you jealous?"

Mike Felber calls himself a freegan: part of an anti-consumerism movement that reclaims food that has been needlessly thrown out. The movement itself is nothing new; freegans have been dumpster diving since the 90s.

"Fifty percent of all food is wasted," he explained. "Some of its consumer wasted. Most of it's thrown out to make room for the next shipment. So you get tons of packaged foods."

To emphasize his point, Felber holds up a sealed pack of pricey ham covered in fruit rinds. "Ninety percent fat free," he read from under the pulp, and then the price: $7 per pound.

On MUNCHIES: These Cafs Serve Delicious Casseroles Straight from the Garbage

Felber first realized he could do this in 1994, when he was walking home from work and discovered a caf that threw out perfectly good sandwiches. He took them and gave them out to the homelessbut saved a few for himself. Now, he estimates that he gets 80 percent of his food from freeganing.

The thing is, Felber isn't doing this to protest capitalism; he's not poor, or living an alternative lifestyle. He's not a gutter punk or someone who'd frequent Burning Man. He makes good money, lives in a nice part of Manhattan, and he won't just eat anything out of a trash can. He only wants the gourmet stuff.

"Between the fancy sandwich emporium and the supermarkets, you can find everything from high to low-end stuff being thrown out," he told me. "You can get dairy. You can get meat. You can get gourmet food. This one place across from my gym sometimes has sushi." I cringed at the thought of "dumpster sushi."

This type of gourmet dumpster divingcall it "yuppie freeganism" if you willis becoming more popular. The movement has become unhinged from the political, environmental, social reasons, and is more about middle-class Americans saving money. People do it as a form of extreme personal finance, to save a little money in the expensive city of New York so that they can splurge on other things. There are even people who make money off of the things they find in dumpsters. Felber isn't like that. He's the kind of guy who tries to only eat organic, high-end food. If he can get the same things out of high-end grocery stores' trash cans, so what?

Stores throw away food when it's expired, when it's bruised, or when they need to make room for a new shipment of food. Some of the food in the dumpsters is still cold, so you can even get high-quality meats and cheeses and perishable items. Twenty minutes earlier, a shopper would've paid $8.35 for the ham Felber found in the trashnow its free, right in front of the goddamn store.

Some people will eat anything. YouTube sensation Shoenice22 ate everything from tampons to deodorant, all for the attention.

A basic freegan ethic is to open up the garbage where it ties and seal it back up when you're done. "You don't want to slit it like it were the belly of an animal," Felber explained.

Most stores toss the trash around 9 PM, but it helps to know the type of food each place throws out. Morton Williams, for example, is the best store to score fruits, dairy, and food items dumped out from the salad bar (which means it's going to be messy, so bring something to clean your hands.)

"You got a narrow window. If it's out too long, the garbage men will take it," Felber said. "Sunday nights are good because supermarkets usually don't throw out goods over the weekends."

The proper freeganing essentials are plastic bags for the food, water to wash your hands and dirtied food, and paper towels. Clothes should be something you don't mind getting caked in garbage. Then you just go through the bags. Feeling the outside will give you an idea of what's inside.

"Even though there're rats out, they'll scurry if you're near by," Felber said.

On Motherboard: A New App Wants You to Eat Your Neighbor's Leftover Food

Felberwho is health-conscious weightlifter and tries to mostly eat the whole-grain, high-protein foods he findshas earned some strange glances when he picks through the trash.

"People see a middle-aged white guy doing thisyou can see shock, you can see fear and loathing and disgust."

Sometimes they mistake him as homeless, and offer him money or some of their own food. He looks hungry, rifling through the trash like that, in the middle of the sidewalk on the Upper West Side, not far from Lincoln Center.

Felber disarms them with a big friendly "hello" and tells them that even though he's not homeless, they should extend their kindness to someone else. "Unlike people who have to go through garbage to survive, have this option."

Towards the end of the night, I realize that I smell like a salad bar. My hands are orange and sticky. Our last stop is Gristedes, arguably the most expensive grocery store in New York. The garbage looks like someone's gourmet shopping bag.

"Sometimes, if I'm hungry, I'll eat a little here and there and then put it in the bag," Felber said with melon in hand; scooping out the fruit with his cupped fingers. We dug through the Gristedes garbage and pulled out unspoiled treasure after treasure: Cold sesame noodles. Eight cartons of cheddar jalapeo spread. Linguini. Eggplant tortellini. Mangos.

Felber found a party veggie tray and holds it up. "I don't want this, but it's nice." He decides he'll take it and give it to his neighbors. He also takes a fancy cake to give to his super.

In the end, Felber had tens bags full. Our plundering is spread out on the sidewalk; several hundreds of dollars worth of food that's still good; all sealed in packages, and under their expiration dates. "Sometimes I hate to get anything else because it's too much to carry," he says as he lugs his food sacks down 9th Avenue to the roar of cabs. "But, if I don't eat it, it will just go in the garbage."

Even if the food is gourmet, people still get squeamish when Felber tells them where it comes from. "The vast amount of people won't do it because they have conditioned disgust about it," he said. And yet, Felber's building manager won't mind when he delivers him fancy cakes. His friends don't complain about eating the bruschetta ham, creamed spinach, and beef stir-fry.

"Even though this is more for my personal benefit, it's still something that is good for the environment," he said. And screw what those other people thinkit's perfectly good food, after all.

Follow Harmon Leon on Twitter.

Dear Comic Lovers,

My name is Nick Gazin, and I am VICE's art editor. Every week I review and write about comics, books, zines, and anything nerdy or arty that I think is worth discussing.

Taylor McKimens has a show that's up at the Hole at 315 Bowery in Manhattan. It's up until October 11 and you should go.

Here are this week's reviews. The main meat of this column is an interview with Tom Scharpling. I also chatted with Benjamin Marra.

Scharpling and Wurster: The Best of the Best Show
By Tom Scharpling and Jon Wurster (Numero Group)

We live in an age where everyone can be cool by gleaning the secret knowledge of coolness from Tumblr. But when everyone's cool then nobody's cool. How do you tell who's actually an informed enthusiast of culture? The only realm working test of whether or not a person is cool anymore is if they listen to the Best Show or not.

The Best Show began life as The Best Show on WFMU and is now a live podcast that people call in to. It's like a G-rated Howard Stern Show based out of New Jersey that discusses obscure rock and culture references like they're commonplace knowledge. The show doesn't wait for you to catch up to it. The show is hosted by Tom Scharpling, a quick-witted and impatient comedic genius who regularly hangs up on bad callers while saying "Get off my phone!" or "Heave ho!" or playing Bad Company's song "Bad Company" over callers who drone on.

Trying to explain something this sublimely good is impossible. You could fill a book trying to describe why The Best Show is the best thing ever and still fail to accurately describe it. Or maybe it's just my limitations as a writer that make it hard to describe. Either way, it's the best. It's like The Simpsons, Monty Python, Achewood, or Mr. Show. It's endlessly quotable, and when you find someone else who likes it, you know you've found a kindred spirit. Smart, interesting, curious people like this show. Dumb bores don't even know this thing exists.

Although almost every episode of The Best Show is funny from beginning to end, the core of what makes the show so popular is the phone calls from Superchunk's Jon Wurster. Each week Wurster calls in as new and familiar characters, some based on real people and some totally invented. His most popular is a goofy Philadelphian dirtbag named Philly Boy Roy, but he's also called in as Marky Ramone and Todd Palin. Jon and Tom will perform these loosely scripted comedy bits in the middle of the show each week, which are naturally woven into the show and dealt with as if they're just regular calls.

The Best of the Best Show is a giant boxed set that includes 16 CDs of the best material from The Best Show on WMFU, the same material plus a little more on a flash drive disguised to look like a Radio Hut cassette tape, a big hardcover coffee-table book, and a little envelope of postcards and stickers and a fold-out map of New Bridge. It's $100 and it's great. It's insane that you get this much beauty for this price. This box set over-delivers so hard that my reaction is equal parts joy and confusion. How did they make this?! If you like The Best Show and have been listening for free for years, this is a good time to give Tom your money and also give yourself the greatest gift of all, this box set.

Damian Abraham interviewed Tom Scharpling for Noisey recently, but here's an interview I did with Tom too. If you can't tell, I was terrified during the course of the entire conversation of being a jackass and then I came off like one anyway.

VICE: At what point did you decide to revive the Best Show after ending its run on WFMU?
Tom Scharpling: When we were wrapping up The Best Show on WFMU, I always felt like we weren't done yet. The show was still a lot of fun to do, and I felt like there were still places we could go with it. If we were running on fumes in the last year of the show it would've maybe been a good time to pull the plug, because I couldn't swing the time and energy commitment to the show anymore without it having some chance to bring in some money at some point. But I was still into it. And the S and W calls had reached a place that we hadn't been yetthe rhythm that Jon and I had going on the calls was ridiculous; there's a Philly Boy Roy call that went 150 miles an hour.

So there was stuff to explore with what we were building as well. So it was always in the larger plans that we weren't finished with the show when it ended on WFMU. But where the show would end up and what it would look like was a mystery.

You bring up Philly Boy Roy, who is probably the most popular character who calls into the show as performed by Jon Wurster. Do you imagine all of Jon Wurster's characters looking like him in different costumes?
It varies. Sometimes I do see the characters are literally being Jon, and Roy is one of those characters. But it's a strange thing when we're doing a call. I am completely inside the call from a performance angle, reading along with the script or the notes and knowing what I have to do to keep things on target. But, in another way, I'm picturing everything happening as it's happening on the call. I can suspend my belief while being caught up in the whole thing. It's pretty strange when I think about it.

I missed the show very much during its absence. What did you do in the time in between the WFMU show ending and the new one beginning?
A lot of the year was spent working on stuff associated with the show; Jon and I put together the big boxed set that Numero Group is putting out. We never really had a chance to go through the stuff we did and reflect on the past because there was always another call to write for next week. But with no more shows, we were able to reflect a little bit and listen to what we did, which was nice. Then we worked on the Adult Swim infomercial based on our characters from the show, which took up a lot of the year. And then there was working on actually bringing the show back and figuring out where it would be and what it would be and all that. There were a couple rough patches along the way. I got robbed at one point and all the equipment that I had for the new studio was stolen. But what can you do? It's not like the jerk-off who stole the stuff had a vendetta against The Best Show. He was just a jerk-off.

I'm sorry to hear about your getting robbed. That really sucks.
Thanks. It really did suck. All the equipment that I had been accumulating to build the new Best Show studio got stolen. It really set me back at a point when I was looking to gain some momentum on getting the studio rolling. I was kind of leveled for a couple days, but then I just decided that the person who stole the stuff was just a garden-variety scumbag and not someone making a statement about the show coming back. They had no idea what the equipment was for. So to let this incident count against getting The Best Show back on track wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. It's been a crazy run the last year or so.

I find myself wanting to ask you questions, but I am also scared of piercing the veil and ruining the magic of the reality of the show. Are many of your fans terrified to meet you?
It's funny that people think I'm gonna yell at them if they run into me and they say something nice. I really beat everybody down over the years, I guess. I mean, who would be mad at someone saying that they like the thing you make? It's funny to me because I think I'm an all right sort. I like meeting people and talking to people! You met me when we were both out and about and it was perfectly fine, right?

And the veil of the show will go back up once things get consistent and we're back for the long haul. Doing interviews is fun, but I'd rather do all the talking through the show.

Meeting you in real life has involved a lot less getting yelled at than I might have expected. I know it's a little late now, but have you ever considered keeping up the pretense of the show and its characters in interviews?
No, that would be exhausting. And as I get older I'm more interested in real stuff, or at least striking a balance between real life and fiction. And the biggest part of that is that Jon has worked so hard for so many years on the calls, and there's a strange unfairness to never saying his name. He deserves to be recognized for his greatness.

I preordered the CD box set of The Best of the Best Show. It seems like you're selling it for pretty cheap. Sixteen CDs and a book seems like a lot for a $100. Are you seeing a return on this? What's the packaging like?
The packaging is insane. It comes with a 100-page hardcover book and a poster and other stuff. It's amazing. A big part of why we are able to keep costs down is because we are the owners of the content and there wasn't all the licensing that goes into putting together big box sets. We will see "a return" on it. What are you, my accountant?

I apologize for turning this interview into an audit. I'm not your accountant, but I am a super consumer and appreciator of cool objects. $100 just seems low to me for what you're delivering.
I think 100 bucks is perfect for the box set. It's enough of a commitment that you know you're getting something really substantial, but it's not so prohibitive that it excludes people from being able to swing it at some point in their lives. There will be plenty of chances for people to buy things as the show keeps growing. So don't worry, I will be asking for your money very soon.

Assuming that you're doing the new show out of your house, is it weird to have Mike Lisk in your home on a weekly basis now?
I'm not doing the show out of my house. That was an early decision that I don't regret for a second. For me at least, it's important to go to a place to do a thing. That's why I hardly ever write at homeI need to sit at a Starbucks or somewhere other than my house. I end up watching all the horrible panel shows on ESPN2 for hours and nothing gets done. And for your information, A. P. Mike is as normal as can be. If the show was happening in my house, I would have no problem having him there every week. Mike is a good dude.

I apologize for maligning A. P. Mike. It's hard to know where the show ends and reality begins. What is Mike like off the air?
It's all right. I'm the primary offender with creating this alternate version of what Mike is like. Mike is a completely normal and thoughtful guy off the air. He has great taste in books and movies.

And that's the interview. Buy the box set from Numero Group. Go check out the Best Show. Follow Tom Scharpling, Jon Wurster, and A. P. Mike Lisk on Twitter.

Terror Assaulter: O.M.W.O.T. (One Man War On Terror)
By Benjamin Marra (Fantagraphics)

Benjamin Marra makes comics that are about comics more than about story or characters. His beautifully stiff and crude drawing style never allows you to forget that you're looking at a drawing. His bizarre writing never feels like natural dialogue. His work is like a self-taught high-school kid who learned anatomy from looking at action figures and pornography. The focus is on making things look shiny and ignoring proper anatomy.

Previous comics of his include Gangsta Rap Posse, which is about an N.W.A.type rap group if N.W.A. were as nuts as they claim to be in their songs. He has another called Night Business, about strippers. There are some other good ones. A couple years back he made a cool giant poster zine of drawings based on American Psycho, which was very different than his previous work. You may know his work from his covers for Lil B or Madlib.

This is the weirdest and longest comic that Ben Marra's made yet. The concept is that after 9/11, George Bush assembled an anti-terror squad called the Terror Assaulters. This book focuses on the current activities of one of the members of this team named One Man War On Terror.

The book keeps you at a distance at all times. The colors in the book are just the primary colors and black and white used aggressively. The cars are all drawn super angular and boxy with a ruler, like a child drew them as best he could.

The dialogue in the comic is primarily the characters describing what they are doing or what is happening to them. The main character, O.M.W.O.T., consistently uses sentences that begin with the words "Let's just say..." When asked what his name is he answers, "Let's just say... I kill the bad guys."

In a lot of ways the comic feels like a child's understanding of violence and sex based on watching the hyper-violent action films of the 80s, where dozens or hundreds of characters are killed by the hero without any thought as to why. The good guy just has to kill the bad guys and always win, and both men and women find him intensely attractive. It seems to be a statement about America's shittiness.

The comic looks great and it's funny, but it's sort of an assault on the senses and it seems to deliver the same basic thing over and over for the length of the book. It's hard to really have much of a reaction to it after a point. It's a fast read and I'm glad it exists, but the whole story sort of blends together.

Because I wasn't really ever fully invested in the world of the comic, I find myself thinking more about Marra's inner world than the inner world of the characters. So I decided to ask him about this book.

VICE: Why does O.M.W.O.T. see King Arthur in the sky at the end of the book?
Benjamin Marra: O.M.W.O.T. sees King Arthur in the sky because he's having a vision of his ancestry, and link to the Merovingian bloodline, which is, as legend has it, a continuation of Jesus Christ's bloodline, shared through European royalty. It's intended, yet willfully opaque, meaning is for O.M.W.O.T. to realize even though his life has changed, there is some things that will always be permanent: who he is, his true nature, where he comes from.

Are we going to see other former Terror Assaulters? Are there going to be sequels?
I have an idea for the continuation of O.M.W.O.T.'s adventures. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get to writing and drawing them in the future. I hope so. There will definitely be other Terror Assaulters in those adventures.

What is this comic about? Why did you make this?
This comic is about the American attitude toward the war on terror, and the world in general. O.M.W.O.T. is intended to represent America, mostly during the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld era and the application of neocon philosophy on the world. It's also about the action-movie genre. I wanted to make an action comic. I wanted to depict sex as graphic as the violence. It's a bit clichd to think about how violence and sex are treated in the media, where one is more acceptable than the other. One, which is about destruction and the emotion of hate, is perfectly tolerable, and the other, creation and love, is suppressed. It's also about the form of comics themselves. It's a formal experiment in breaking the rules of comics creation. The words and the pictures often overlap in the information they convey. This is something of a sin in creating comics.

Are you bisexual? What made you want to show O.M.W.O.T. doing it with so many dudes and ladies?
No, I'm heterosexual. I wanted to show O.M.W.O.T. having sex with both men and women because it made sense for the character. He kills and fucks without discrimination. He's a walking shooting gun, a walking punching fist, a walking fucking cock. It felt inconsistent with his character if he didn't have sex with both men and women. He's hyper masculine, and he doesn't really have any thoughts about his sexuality, he's the ultimate lover. But it's also an illustration of America and the perception of America in the world: America fucks anyone and anything.

Thank you for talking to me. Buy the book from Fantagraphics.

Over the Garden Wall #1 of 4
By Pat McHale and Jim Cambell (Kaboom!)

Over the Garden Wall is a ten-episode animated cartoon show that aired on Cartoon Network. It's primary creator is Pat McHale from Adventure Time. Nick Cross and Tom Herpich also were key people. Jim Campbell who drew this comic did some character design for the show. Pat McHale who created the show wrote this comic.

The show's a really dark but fun and fantastic story about two half brothers lost in a magical forest. It feels a little like the Narnia books and a little like a Ghibli movie. It's beautiful, funny, scary, and one of the best animated works I've ever seen. It manages to be a lot of things at once and succeeds at all of them. I watched the entire series one evening, and then the next night I watched the whole thing again. The desire to live in the world of the show was very strong for me, and so I was grateful to see that a comic series was released.

Unlike a lot of the comics based on Cartoon Network's shows, this comic actually feels like the show. I don't know why it's so hard to make a comic match the tone of an animated show, but The Simpsons comics never really felt like the show, and the Adventure Time comics feel off as well. But this really feels like an extension of the show. A large part of the reason for that is that it's made by people who made the show, but it's also just made well.

This comic tells a story of Greg, Wirt, and their talking bluebird friend, who come across two bonneted sisters who ask our heroes to do their chores for them. The sisters' directions are vague and misleading, and when Wirt follows their directions the girls just get madder and madder. Haven't we all been in working or romantic relationships with people who seemed to give us intentionally vague directions only so they could get mad at us later?

Jim Campbell has been one of the greatly unappreciated super talents of comics for the last decade. Everyone else got their due. When does Jim Campbell get his?

Jaco the Galactic Patrolman
By Akira Toriyama (Jump Comics)

This untranslated Japanese comic is about an Ultraman-type character whose ship crashes to Earth. With the help of an old inventor and a pop star, he attempts to repair his ship while also helping to save people on Earth and avoid government agents curious about his existence.

Although the comic is in Japanese, the story is completely followable and you can typically understand the subject of discussion. That's the mark of great comic-book storytelling. The great Japanese and European comics seem to get it more than a lot of the popular American comics that just overload the panels with too much dialogue and fail to embrace the filmic qualities of the medium.

Akira Toriyama is best known as the creator of Dragonball, and this comic even ends with a connection to Dragonball. We see a very young Bulma and we see scenes of Goku as a child, when he was still evil in his Saiyan garb, as well as scenes of Goku's mother and father sending Goku to Earth.

The drawing style is less angular than some of Toriyama's stuff in the 90s and has a nice, smooth, rounded quality, although things haven't reverted to the squishy-gag manga style of his Dr. Slump work. It's highly enjoyable, and the version I picked up comes with a keychain and pin.

Luncheonette
By Chris Cilla (Revival House Press)

This is a real zany comic that tries some new formal stuff. Instead of the comic starting on the inside pages, it starts on the front cover. We see a character on the cover discussing his own slow destruction while sitting in a diner. Once we go inside the book, the focus shifts to the people sitting in the booth next to them, insulting the guy from the cover. The comic's wandering eye jumps around to the different denizens of the luncheonette with little organization or clear purpose. It's just teeming with activity, and we are trying to take it all in.

Halfway through, some of the characters wander over to a giant, indoor miniature-golf course and arcade, and there's a spread where half the panels are right-side up and upside down. At this point you can turn the comic upside down and read the other story that starts at the back of the book. Both stories sort of end in the middle of the book. Flipping the book over and starting from the back, the story is titled "Grape Seeds," but that disappears and there's a new title page called Chamber of Cilla, which begins with the cartoonist admonishing his own laziness. He hangs out with his roommate, who is a bug guy, and the bug guy is eventually drawn into the mini-golf maze.

Does this sound appealing to you? It's hard to describe these things accurately sometimes. It's not really made to be summarized.

Terror House No. 2

I think Sammy Harkham made this. It's a risograph zine of blue and white images that mostly are production stills from horror movies. The inside covers are taken from other magazines. It's sort of like if a really great Tumblr became a really great object.

Lydian
By Sam Alden (Space Face Books)

Lydian is a perfect-bound, square-shaped comic with one panel on each page. The art is all done in an 8-bit videogame style. The text is all first-person stuff said to us by the faceless pink guy on the cover. There's a mixture of video game fantasy and real-life mundanity and fear, and nothing is explained or clear. It's a pleasant read. I don't think it's a game-changer, but it's pretty and enjoyable.

Blubber #1
By Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics)

It's a horrible world of brutality, rape, and shit in Gilbert Hernandez's comic. We just see invented beasts doing seemingly natural things that are the most horrible shit you ever saw. It's a horrible affirmation of your worst fears by one of the consistently best guys in comics for the last 35 years.

First Year Healthy
By Michael Deforge (Drawn and Quarterly)

This is a little pink hardcover book told in a style like children's books. Michael Deforge does his Deforge-y thing with meta-style storytelling and weird monsters. It's pretty and it's good, but it's not his best work, which is still his comic series, Lose.

Me Nut Nut Nut #3
By Jason Murphy (Space Face Books)

Jason Murphy should try harder. He's got some really nice lines, but he's trying to get by on attitude instead of heart or quality ideas.

A man, a lady, and a spider converge in space and their body parts fly apart. Some other hard to understand or describe things happen that look heavily Guston influenced, and then there's some typed text. It's kinda pretty, but there's not much to say about it, and there's not much need to own it. Just read it in the store.

Star Trek: Harlan Ellison's The City on the Edge of Forever: The Original Teleplay
By Harlon Ellison, Juan Ortiz, Scott Tipton, David Tipton, and J. K. Woodward (IDW Publishing)

Most Star Trek fans agree that the best episode of the series was the Harlan Ellison-penned "The City on the Edge of Forever." Ellison has publicly hated the edits that were made to his script for decades, and copies of the original script were subsequently published. Now it's also this shitty book.

After reading this comic, I have decided that the version that was made into a TV episode was stronger and that the edits that were made strengthened the story. The art in this book captures the likenesses of the actors, but the painting technique is muddy and ugly and everyone looks waxy.

Don't buy this book, just go watch the "The City on the Edge of Forever."

That's it for this week. See you next week. Follow me on Instagram.

Federal Correctional Institute (FCI) Lompoc in California. Photo via Bureau of Prisons official website

During the 26 years that I served in federal lockups, I kept myself productive by writing about the prison experience.Besides tallying my own experiences, I interviewed people from every background. While in high-security penitentiaries, I rubbed elbows gang leaders; when I transitioned to minimum-security camps, Ibefriended men were convicted of white-collar crimes.

There are many different paths through incarceration and beyond, but without exception, people face challenges when they return to society, regardless of background. Gary, a former inmate who had a law degree and an MBA and was a certified public accountant (CPA), made thatclear.

I met Gary the first day that i walked onto theyard of a minimum-security California camp after my transfer from a prison in Colorado. He was raking leaves and stopped when he saw me approach. "Welcome toLompoc," he said. He wore freshlypressed green khakis and he had a purpose about his step.

I guessed that Gary was in his early 60s. Hewore stylish glasses and clearly devoted a lot of time to fitness."Where'd you roll in from?" he asked.

"I was in Florence."

"Why'd they transfer you here?"

Gary'squestioning and demeanor told me a lot. If he changed from prison khakis tosuit and tie, he could have been a CEO. In higher-security prisons, like the oneswhere I began serving my sentence, the men projected fiercer images; instead of making nice, they kept to themselves and were standoffish tonewcomers. In an instant, I reasoned that Gary had served all of his time inminimum-security settings.

On VICE News: These People Are Covering the Alps With Blankets

"I'm a writer. Staff don't like inmates whowrite," I explained. "This is the sixth time I've been transferred and it probably won't bethe last."

Gary told me that he was 69 years old; he had a lawdegree from Berkeley and an MBA from Stanford. He'd built a career managingresources for celebrities in Hollywood. When an investment deal went bad, heaccepted a plea agreement of five years for wire fraud. Although I sensed that smiles and an easy disposition always characterized his life, Gary wasespecially jubilant when I met him. He'd come to the end of his term, and was just days awayfrom his transfer to a halfway house. He told me that he had secured a job inan accounting firm.

Three years later, authorities locked me insolitary and charged me with a disciplinary infraction for "running abusiness." They didn't like that I wrote books from prison. After being held insolitary for two months, I succeeded in reversing the disciplinary infraction,but administrators transferred me to a different camp. After locking me inchains, they drove me to the federal prison in the city of Taft.

I wasn't there forlong when I saw Gary walking the track. I recognized him right away.

"Gary? What's up dude? What are you doinghere?"

I frequently encountered people who served time with me previously,but I never expected to see Gary again after his release from prison. His shoulders sagged and he shook his head."You're never going to believe what happened."

We walked side by side as Gary told me hisstory. From the day he went to the halfway house, he had problems.Rules prohibited him from accepting the job he had arranged. The case manageroverseeing his case didn't approve of the "professional" job in the accountingfirmshe told him that he had too much liberty in that position. He said thatshe preferred for him to work in a job with more structure and without so muchdiscretion. Gary explained that he was only working as a clerk, but the casemanager wasn't having it. Since he wasn't ableto find a job that satisfied her, he had to spend all of his timein the halfway house. While there, he worked as a janitor.

When Gary finished his obligation to the Bureauof Prisons (BOP) and the halfway house, he transitioned to federal probation. Aprobation officer would oversee him for a three-year term of "supervised release."

"I told her that I didn't need to work, that I could live off retirement savings and my wife's income," Gary told me. "The probation officer said that if I didn't find work, she'd consider me noncompliant."

Gary said the probation officer made life hard on him tooit was almost worse than being in prison. Since he had a prior relationship with the owner of the firm that wasgoing to hire him, he was never going to be allowed to work there. And despite being nearly 70 years old, Gary was subjected to all kinds of weird hassles. For example, he had to participate in anger-management and drug classesand had to pay for them. His probation officer kept onhim about finding a job, but only the type of job that fit her description ofwhat was suitable. Like his case manager, she didn't want him working anywhere that resembled"management" and insisted that he find something more "appropriate."

Gary was released during the Great Recession,and jobs weren't exactly plentifulespecially for felons. "I told her thatI didn't need to work, that I could live off retirement savings and my wife'sincome," Gary told me. "The probation officer said that if I didn'tfind work, she'd consider me noncompliant. From the start, I knew there weregoing to be challenges. It was as if she envied or resented the success of myprevious career."

I told Gary that I heard a lot of stories aboutpeople facing employment challenges while on supervised release. "But whydid she violate you, why did she send you back here?" I asked.

Gary explained that while on supervised release,his probation officer required that he request permission for travel. He wasreleased to the Central District of California, a judicial district thatincluded the greater Los Angeles area. If he wanted to travel anywhere outsideof that general area, he'd need to submit a request to his PO and wait forapproval.

"A close friend passed away while I wasserving my sentence," Gary explained. "His daughter was gettingmarried in San Diego and she asked that I attend the wedding to give her awayat the altar. I'd known her all her life. I submitted a request to attend thewedding more than two months in advance. My probation officer never respondedand I missed the wedding. After that, I decided that I'd never ask again."

About two monthsbefore his three years of supervised release came to an end, Gary's probation officer called him in and she asked that he bring all credit cardreceipts for the past year. When she saw that receipts for gasoline and hotelsin districts that were outside of the Central District, she asked for an explanation, reminding him that she hadn't authorized his travel. As a consequence of those travels, she"violated" Gary, charging that he did not comply with the conditionsof his release. A federal judge sentenced Gary to serve another year in prison.

When he concluded the year, Gary said, hewould have to begin his term of supervised release all over again. Worse, hiswife of more than 40 years came to visit him; she told him that she had gonethrough the prison system once with him, but couldn't do it again. She had filed for divorce.

Check out our HBO documentary on fixing the American criminal justice system, featuring an exclusive interview with Barack Obama, who became the first sitting US president to visit a federal prison.

Gary's story captures how broken the system is.It is designed to receive and not to release. Even people who do not needsupervision are made to endure challenges out of sync with their danger tosociety.

I face the same challenge. Despite my stability in society, I'mscheduled to remain on "supervised" status until 2035. The more timeprobation officers waste supervising me, the less time they have to focus onpeople who truly need to be watched.

These days, judges and prosecutors seem to go pretty easy onelite criminals; convictions for white-collarcrime are at a 20-year low. But when I saw menlike Gary returning to prisonnot for breaking the law, but for ridiculoustechnical violations like not asking for permission to travelI became moreconvinced than ever that we needed both sentencing and prison reform inAmerica.

Follow Michael Santos on Twitter and check out his website here.

Photo by Brad Barket/Getty Images for Comedy Central

Five minutes into his time as host of The Daily Show, Trevor Noah dropped jokes about papal dick size, Whitney Houston, and AIDS. In other words, he was plenty at ease occupying Jon Stewart's former stead. "I can only assume this is as strange for you as for me," said the comedian. "Jon Stewart was more than just a late-night hosthe was often our voice, our refuge, and in many ways our political dad. And it's weird because Dad's left," he said, to massive applause. "And there's a new stepdad. And he's black. Which is not ideal."

The universe actually set Noah up with the perfect segue with the theme of outgoing of Jon's and John's: This was the first episode since John Boehner announced his resignation. During a report from senior correspondent Jordan Klepper, when Noah expressed trepidation about who will succeed the speak of the house, Klepper joked, "I get how you feel. Taking over for JohnBoehneris hard." Noah replied, "Pretty soon everyone will be saying, John,"or was it Jon?"please come back."

In his initial outing, Noah stuck to three very popular stories, Pope Francis's visit, John Boehner's resignation, and the discovery of water on Mars. None required too much intellectual heavy-lifting, though you sense Noah could have delivered. Since the episode was broadcast across Viacom-owned networks, there were news items the audience didn't have to be political junkies to appreciate, perhaps a strategy to attract new viewers.

Also making his comedy-news debut was correspondent Roy Wood, Jr., in a well-played piece that combined space travel and racial discrimination. When asked what he could tell the audience about the water breakthrough on Mars, Wood, Jr., replied, "I can tell you I don't give a shit," kicking off a bit about how black people would be just as persecuted on a new planet (if they could even get there). "You think 'cause you're on TV, they're gonna take you to Mars?" Wood asked, incredulously. "You've only had The Daily Show for one commercial breakwhite folks ain't decided if they like you yet!"

Comedian Kevin Hart, who brought Noah a box of ties, participated in a low-key conversation that wasn't quite an interview. Noah addressed a couple topics, including Hart's height and his ability to sell out stadiums. But it's not as if Hart is running for presidentthat's New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who will be a guest on Tuesday.

Fans were relieved for the Moment of Zen, the closer that became a Stewart signature. This time it was a tongue-tied Nancy Pelosi trying to contain her glee as she discussed John Boehner's department. All in all, Noah seemed to confident, told a few racy jokes, and mostly kept to tried-and-true Daily Show format. In his monologue for The Nightly Show, the program immediately following The Daily Show, host Larry Wilmore joked that this was the "first time late-night's gone black-to-black." What other firsts remain to be seen, but it's likely a lot of curious people will be watching.

Follow Jenna on Twitter.

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah airs weeknights at 11 PM on Comedy Central.

The dark streaks on this mountain are RSL, which NASA has concluded is concrete evidence of water on Mars. Image via NASA

The discovery of real, liquid water on Mars opens up a host of possibilities about the existence of life on the Red Planetincluding an increased likelihood that we humans might actually be from Mars.

"The water is really crucial," NASA administrator John Grunsfeld said Monday. Combined with the presence of nitrogen and carbon dioxideboth necessities for human lifeon the planet, it means that, "Mars is looking more and more like a potential habitat for extant life that could be transferred from Earthone way or another. Some people say we're Martians. It could go either way."

Even if human life did originate on Mars, there's still much to be discovered before we head (back?) there. "NASA is not Star Trek," joked Jim Green, director of the agency's Planetary Science Division. "We have to find out everything we possibly can."

That little nugget of interplanetary wisdom was tucked into the tail end of a press conference NASA held Monday morning, announcing that researchers had discovered more evidence that there was water on Mars. Specifically, the space agency has found that recurring slope lineae (RSL for short) on the planet contain hydrated perchlorate salts. A few yards wide and the length of several football fields, RSL are analogous to the dark marks left on concrete after it rains. So in other words, NASA has been looking at some streaks on the surface of Mars, and they've determined that those streaks are evidence of extremely salty water.

"When most people talk about water on Mars, they're usually talking about ancient water or frozen water," Lujendra Ojha, one of the experts leading the press event, said in a statement. "Now we know there's more to the story."

A self-portrait by the Curiosity Mars Rover. Image via NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center on Flickr

The presence of wateralbeit extremely briny, undrinkable wateron Mars is a really big deal, and not just for the reasons you might think. NASA researchers have known for more than a decade that Mars contains both ice and water vapor. But the discovery that there is liquid water on Marsand that the liquid contains perchloratesmeans that, as Grunsfeld put it, "Mars has resources that are useful to future travellers."

According to Grunsfeld, a former astronaut who is now the associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, the discovery raises the question of whether life did once exist on Marsand whether we might find any life on Mars today. "The existence of water, even if it's super-salty, briny water, gives the possibility that if there's life on Mars, that we have a way to describe how it might survive," he said.

Beyond the obvious extraterrestrial life questions, the discovery of liquid water on Mars raises the possibility that that water could be purified to create rocket fuel, which is often made out of liquid hydrogen or liquid oxygen. Additionally, certain perchlorates themselves can be used as rocket boosters. Practically speaking, that means it might be possible for future Mars explorers to refuel their journey back to Earth by processing what is already on the planet, significantly cutting the amount of fuel astronauts would need to bring on a Mars mission.

The next step, researchers explained, is for NASA to begin looking fora network of underground aquifers on the planet that might be able to provide a water supply for future travelers to the planet. "Now that we know what we're looking for, we can begin a better search," said Green.

"Mars is looking more and more like a potential habitat for extant life that could be transferred from Earth" said NASA's John Grunsfeld. "Some people say we're Martians. It could go either way."

The fact that liquid water is present inside of the perchlorates doesn't necessarily indicate that Mars currently has a water cycle similar to that of Earth. As NASA researchers pointed out, perchlorates are powerful salts that can literally draw water out of the atmosphere, and can therefore help liquid water survive in harsh environment on Mars, raising water's boiling point on the planet from ten degrees Celsius to 24 degrees Celsius.

But previous discoveries from the Mars Curiosity Rover suggest that Mars did once enjoy some kind of robust water systemthere is evidence that the planet's northern half was once largely covered by a massive ocean, and that lakes and streams were also present on the planet's surface.

"Mars once was a planet very much like Earth," Grunsfeld said, "with warm, salty seas, freshwater lakes, probably snow-capped peaks, and clouds and a water cycle." These bodies of water may have covered as much as two-thirds of the planet's surface, he added, "but something happened to Mars and it lost its water."

More than anything, the discovery of liquid water provides an incentive for the space agencies of Earth to keep exploring Marsthe phrase "follow the water" was uttered more than once during the press conference. By 2020, NASA plans to make three unmanned trips to Mars, to explore below the planet's surface, as well as to collect samples that can be brought back to Earth and examined for evidence of life.

And Grunsfeld is optimistic that the NASA will eventually send human missionshomecomings, perhapsto the planet. "The exciting thing is that we will send humans to Marsthey'll be scientists looking for signs of life, and they'll be able to live on the surface," he said. "The resources are there."

Additional reporting by Devon Maloney.

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"All Is Full of Love" robots at the Museum of Modern Art's Bjork retrospective.

Welcome to Netiquette 101, in which we'll be using cyber-case studies to teach you basic but valuable cyber-lessons in how to be a better cyber-citizen. Last week, we discussed how to find out if your online friends want to bang. This week, we'll be talking about how to bang your friends, online.

Case Study: Ah, the timeless art of cybersex. What began as two people instant messaging about banging has turned into a hairy-palmed cornucopia of sexting, nude-swapping, video-chatting, and mixed-media sexytime. Much like a Fleshlight full of flesh-eating bacteria, or listening to the Van Halen discography on shuffle, if you're not careful, cybersex can bring you great pleasure and then great pain.

Last December, the Saudi Gazette reported on the systematic cyber-seduction and subsequent blackmail of Saudi men by con artists in Morocco and Algeria. Posing as buxom young women, scammers would contact young Saudis on Facebook, eventually developing online relationships with them and then convincing them to have cybersex (and masturbate for them over Skype). The scammers would then threaten to post the cybersex logs, as well as the videos of them masturbating if they weren't paid off. Around that same time, a member of the Moroccan parliament, Adil Tchikitou, claimed that a cyber-gang led by a 17-year-old boy had tried to blackmail him, claiming that they had footage of the lawmaker masturbating during a cybersex session.

What We Can Learn: Before you fully commit to cybersexual activity with someone you've never met, you should probably confirm that the person is actually who they claim to be. Otherwise, you could be in for a terrible, no-good surprise, like blackmail, or more likely, the uncomfortable realization that you've been duped by someone you're not actually attracted to.

Assuming your cybersex partner is who they say they are, it's important to not jump into anything too quickly, or else you're going to look like a weirdo. Pick up the cues your internet friend (with internet benefits) is laying down. If they chat, "I've been thinking about you a lot lately," maybe respond with, ";)". If they're all, "Ew, not like that!" then let it die. But if they're like, "Yeah, I'm definitely attracted to you," then maybe it's time to ask if they want to take it to video.

Case Study: In 2010, the world was shocked when Deadspin published photos of a semi-flaccid penis that was allegedly attached to the legendary quarterback Brett Favre. According to Deadspin, Favre, who was playing for the New York Jets at the time the photos were allegedly taken, had sent the cock shots to Jets sideline reporter Jenn Sterger as part of an extendedand repeatedly rebuffedattempt to seduce her. The most embarrassing part of the story? One of the pictures showed Favre wearing what appeared to be Crocs. Ultimately, the NFL's "forensic analysis" (whatever that means) failed to establish a connection between Favre and the photos (or presumably, the Crocs).

What We Can Learn: Sending someone a picture of your bare flesh is a risky proposition. Even if you're sending it to someone you trust who genuinely loves you, that love can turn cold, and that someone can take the nudes you once sent out of love and show them to the world out of hate. Now, I'm an advice columnist and not your mom, so I would never tell you not to send someone a (consensual) nude. Sexting, exchanging nudes, and the like are intimate acts that can strengthen a relationship between two people, and make it an even closer relationship. But just as an insurance policy, you should make identifying your nudes as hard as successfully filing a FOIA request. That means not letting your nudes contain any identifying scars, birth marks, or tattoos. Take the photo against a generic, nondescript background, and if your Crocs somehow make it into the picture, throw them out. And no matter what, don't take a nude featuring your face.

Case Study: The following story comes from a Netiquette 101 reader who wishes to remain anonymous. He met a woman in his area on OKCupid and struck up a correspondence with her. Eventually, our anonymous friend came home drunk one night and hopped on OKCupid, only to find that his new internet penpal was also online. As for what happened after that... I'll let him take it from here:

She messaged me something about how she was horny and wanted to have sex. I assumed she meant she wanted me to come over, so I typed something about calling a cab. But she said she wanted to have sex over the chat on OKCupid. I went with it.

She suggested I send her a pic, but I explained that I had a Razr at the time with a broken camera, so that was out of the question. She said she didn't have a cameraphone either, so she started sending basically everything else sexual you could possibly write and get semi-aroused at via words. I tried to do the same, but it felt overly clinical; how many different ways can you write that you'd like to put your penis into someone?

This went on for like 15 minutes, and then she said she came. I lied and said I did, too.

The next night, I looked for her profile, and found out she completely deactivated it.

What We Can Learn: Having legit, typing-to-another-person-about-fucking-them cybersex is hard, in part because to have cybersex is to more or less extemporaneously collaborate on writing a sex scene with another person. It is exceedingly difficult to pull off without feeling self-conscious, or like a fool. Even great literature contains some absolutely shit-poor sex scenes.

Instead of being all "durr, let's fuck, but online" to your partner, it's way easier to tell them exactly what you want to do to them and have done to you the next time the two of you see each other, in the most specific way possible. This allows you to think about an imagined future in which you'll actually have sex, rather than a real present in which you are simply typing about having sex. And you get bonus points if you actually do the stuff you tell each other about later. Talking to your partner about how the two of you are going to fuck each other and then actually fucking each other like that is a time-honored way to keep your relationship hot and heavy in cyberspace so fractured that neither hotness nor heaviness is often achieved.

If you have any burning netiquette questions you'd like answered, send them to Drew via email (drew.millard@vice.com) or on Twitter.

Katsushika Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa, of the 1830s, is a globally recognizable piece of art from Japan's Edo period, and an aesthetic influence on the 2006 video game 'kami.' Image via Wikipedia

Ever since the dawn of gaming, there has been a huge debate about whether video games can be considered art. This has been inflamed time and time again by the latest releases, which constantly push the boundaries of what can be achieved within the medium. Naively, those arguing against always seem to deny the creators and artists the proper credit for their work, labeling their output as nothing more than a toy. This is disingenuous and under-appreciates the amount of effort and painstaking research that goes into the development of many modern games.

But while certain areas of the art world seek to distance themselves through a combination of criticism and snobbery, video games are drawing ever closer pulling in more and more influences from filmmaking, architecture, and other mediums naturally regarded as "artistic." This exchange has produced some of the most vibrant and visually compelling gaming titles. It's also nothing new. With that being said, here are eight beautiful games inspired by real-life artists.

A screenshot from 'Transistor'

'Transistor,' inspired by Gustav Klimt

Supergiant's science-fiction role-playing game of 2014, Transistor, is a great place to start when talking about how art and particularly artists have influenced gaming. Simply by looking at some of its environment assets, you can begin to assess the impact of Austrian painter Gustav Klimt on the game's aesthetic. Specifically, the game appears to borrow from Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I and his popular painting The Kiss, with its use of art nouveau patterning and reliance on opulent colors.

'kami' screen via the game's official website

'kami,' inspired by Katsushika Hokusai

When kami was released back in 2006, critics rightly praised it for its striking visual style that lent heavily from the Japanese Ukiyo-e genre. This style of woodblock printing was prominent during the Edo period of Japanese printing and boasted such celebrated artists as Hiroshige and Masanobu. A popular theme depicted within the genre included the representations of folk tales. This made it a perfect fit for a game focusing on folklore and celestial beings. The artist that is most commonly associated with kami is Hokusai, whose influence can be gleaned from early concept art as well as some of the in-game backgrounds.

Box art from the European release of 'Ico'

'Ico,' inspired by Giorgio de Chirico

Fumito Ueda's 2001 puzzle-platformer Ico is considered by many to be one of the greatest games of all time. Amongst its most attractive aspects was its gorgeous art style, which has gone on to influence The Legend of Zelda series director Eiji Aonuma as well as Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima. The Italian metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico was an inspiration for Ueda while making Ico. His work also had an impact upon the creation of Ico's Japanese and European box art, which was a deliberate homage to Chirico's The Nostalgia of the Infinite. Ueda believed the allegorical world of Ico had much in common with the surrealistic domain that had been shaped by de Chirico.

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Related: Watch VICE's new film, 'The Sacred Art of the Japanese Tattoo'

A screenshot from 'Dishonored'

'Dishonored,' inspired by Giovanni Antonio Canaletto

While making Dishonored, developers Bethesda were very open about their aesthetic influences. One of the artists frequently cited was the Italian landscape painter Canaletto, whose work depicted 18th-century Venice and London. Canaletto was responsible for shaping some of the architecture that would appear in the game's fictional city of Dunwall. This resulted in the title having an air of authenticity while players partook in its intelligent stealth-action gameplay.

A screenshot from 'Cuphead'

'Cuphead,' inspired by Walt Disney Productions and Fleischer Studios

The forthcoming Cuphead is a game that drew headlines from the press as soon as it was announced, almost primarily because of its excellent art style: a glorious throwback to the early days of animation. The run-and-gun shooter, out on Xbox One and PC in 2016, is a marvel to look at, taking cues from both Walt Disney and his fierce competitor Max Fleischer for its characters and environments. One of the hallmarks of this particular era of animation that made its way into Cuphead is the character design, which revolves around exaggerated features and huge, expressive eyes.

Artwork from 'Ori and the Blind Forest'

'Ori and the Blind Forest,' inspired by Hayao Miyazaki

You don't have to look far to see the influence of acclaimed Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki on the video game industry. Without him many of our favorite video games would look different, including the likes of the Final Fantasy series, Ni No Kuni and Beyond Good & Evil. And he continues to inspire video game developers to this day, the most recent example of this being Ori and the Blind Forest, from earlier in 2015. The game takes notes from Miyazaki's 1984 feature Nausica of the Valley of the Wind. The game deliberately gives off the appearance of being hand-drawn and uses light in much the same way as Miyazaki in Nausicaa, and his 1997 film Princess Mononoke. It even contains a level that is named after the pre-Studio Ghibli film as a subtle hat tip, named "Valley of the Wind."

On VICE Sports: Should Diving Be Considered an Art Form?

A screenshot from 'The Bridge'

'The Bridge,' inspired by M.C. Escher

There's no ignoring M.C. Escher's importance in the creation of Ty Taylor's 2013 puzzler The Bridge. Immediately, you can see aspects of Escher's work being drawn upon to inform level design, with impossible constructions occurring throughout the many stages. The central character is even modeled after the graphic artist himself. Some of the pieces that have their fingerprints on the game include his famous lithograph The Bridge, and his most popular work Relativity.

A screenshot from 'Thomas Was Alone'

'Thomas Was Alone,' inspired by Piet Mondrian

Who said rectangular shapes couldn't be interesting? After Mike Bithell's fantastic debut Thomas Was Alone, pretty much nobody. Though the story and puzzles elevated the title to the status of indie classic, the simple design was an endearing trait that sold it for many gamers. Edge reported that the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian was an influence on Bithell while he was in the process of implementing this distinctive art direction. Mondrian's minimalistic works, such as Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Gray, and Blue from 1921, offer some important clues to back this up.

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A former solar panel engineer named Dane Wigington has a theory about California's apocalyptic drought: It's a secret weather-control operation orchestrated by the Powers That Be, part of a doomed attempt by government geoengineers to stop global warming. But while that might sound like one guy's harebrained ideaand it isWigington's harebrained idea has caught on, sparking a small but burgeoning movement of drought truthers who see a dark conspiracy in the dry weather.

On Motherboard: Could Known Lifeforms Survive in Mars's Newly Discovered Flowing Water?

Over the past four years, California has experienced so little rain that the state has been plunged into the worst water shortage in its 500-year recorded history. The causes of the drought aren't precisely knownlike a freak snowstorm or an off-season hurricane, there is no specific villain to blame for California's dry spell, human or otherwise. Extreme weather events are mostly dice-rolls of nature, pushed along perhaps by climate change. Local experts also blame a high pressure system unofficially called "The Ridiculously Resilient Ridge," but that goofy name is probably the most entertaining thing about California climate science.

Wigington, who was interviewed by Sacramento's CBS News affiliate last week, has much more amusing ideas about what's causing the drought: the governmentand specifically, the government's chemtrails. According to the news channel, more than 1,000 people packed into an auditorium in Redding, California last week to hear Wigington talk about this theory.

He explained to CBS reporter Nick Janes, in somewhat general terms, how it works: "You can't interfere with a climate system, putting aerosolsfine particlesinto the atmosphere without affecting the rain. You can't do it," Wigington said. The aerosols, he added, supposedly contain metals like aluminum and barium, and are apparently meant to block radiation from the sun. But he claims that they're also blocking the moisture that would allow rain.

If you're not familiar, chemtrails are how conspiracy theorists explain the cloud-like streaks that some planes leave behind in the sky. According to these theories, the planes are not merely letting out exhaust, but spraying chemicals into the atmosphere. The reasons vary widely, although it usually has something to do with controlling the weather, or alternatively, controlling our minds.

The "official story," on chemtrails"official" here meaning what scientists sayis that those innocuous wisps are actually condensation trails"contrails," not chemtrails. Basically it's just something that jet exhaust does when the weather is right. Of course, that's according to NASA.

On the other hand, the homepage of Wigington's website GeoengineeringWatch.com warns visitors in no uncertain terms of the dangers they face from chemtrails. He argues that these are being used to carry out such terrifying schemes as solar radiation management (SRM) and stratospheric sulphate aerosols geoengineering (SAG-SRM). "Climate engineers control who gets rain and who does not," he wrote in a post last year, adding that there is no longer any natural weather at all.

Watch: How Pablo Escobar's Legacy of Violence Drives Today's Cartel Wars

All of which makes it seem like the drought fits into some vast and sinister plan. But the lingering question then is, um, why?

On this point, Wigington is less clear. But he does offer two possible reasons: "First, California is possibly a climate 'sacrifice zone'," he writes, going on to theorize that without a drought in the West, climate engineers couldn't have achieved record snowstorms in the eastern US, although he doesn't explain why they wanted those snowstorms.

Second, he argues that "a population that has no water and can not grow any food does not tend to be in a position to effectively protest the crimes of it's government." He doesn't go into detail what those crimes will be, beyond controlling the weather obviously.

Part of what makes the theory so compelling, though, is that Wigington's ideas aren't pure fantasy. Geoengineering experiments are real. A paper published in the year 2000 by atmospheric scientists Ken Caldeira and Bala Govindsamy specifically focused on the use of aerosols as a potential tool to address climate change. The paper, which was published by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, was titled "Geoengineering Earth's radiation balance to mitigate CO2-induced climate change."

The paper found that experiments on atmospheric models showed promise; but the authors also detailed a vast array of caveats and unknowns, and finally concluded that, "given these difficulties, the most prudent and least risky option to mitigate global warming may well be to curtail emissions of greenhouse gases."

Now, rather than speak out about the benefits of weather control, which would make him the perfect villain for Wigington's narrative, Caldeira has actually become a pundit of sorts, cautioning against geoengineering in interviews.

This hasn't escaped the attention of Dane Wigington, who keeps a careful eye on Caldeira, and refers to him as a "paid liar," and "the most despicable form of human. " He seems to view the scientist as a duplicitous puppet master, dismissing his professed caution about geoengineering as nothing but a ruse.

And Wigington has harsh words for anyone who questions him: "Those who doubt this is going on, those who deny it, those who are in fact protecting their paychecks and pensions by denying it, will not be able to much longer."

"I am not sure I want to deal with this much more," Caldeira told me.

In a blog post back in February, Caldeira described being badgered by obsessives who believe he's part of a secret government conspiracy to change the weather, control people's minds, or both. In a response, Caldeira wrote that he pitied them, because while they trust people who are wrong, they're not wrong to doubt official narratives. After all, Caldeira concluded, " cannot rely on our government to tell us the truth."

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Twin Peaks screencap via Propaganda Films / Spelling Television

Catherine E. Coulson, the actress who played Margaret Lanterman, more commonly referred to as "The Log Lady," on David Lynch's TV masterpiece Twin Peaks, has passed away, Coulson's agent confirmed to VICE on Monday evening. Coulson was 71 years old.

The agent did not provide a cause of death.

The Log Lady, whose log famously "saw something" the night Laura Palmer died, was far and away Coulson's most beloved character. One of the many eccentrics from the eponymous town in Lynch's 1990 series and subsequent films, the character initially appeared to be a weirdo clutching a log like a baby, but she turned out to be a figure of immense power and significance in the plot, and a definite fan favorite.

Coulson was reportedly set to reprise her role in the new iteration of the TV series, having been cast in over half of the episodes for the show's belated third season, set to air in 2017. According to The Wall Street Journal, Coulson had kept her original log, and was planning to bring it back to the set.

Having only filmed a few small parts in B-movies prior to 1990, The Log Lady was Coulson's breakthrough performance. Between that role, and the new Twin Peaks series, she had made a few notable TV appearances, often with some kind of plant in her character's name. She appeared in an episode of Psych as someone called "Wood Woman," and as "Marionberry Farmer" in an episode of Portlandia.

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Photos by Adam Kovac

The back room of the Caravane Cafe in Montreal's Plateau neighbourhood was half-heartedly decorated with grey, white, and black balloons alongside arts-and-crafts creations that resembled Asian lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Lights slowly faded from blue to red to green and back, illuminating a small stage on which a thin man stood nearby a psychedelic drawing of a mushroom.

It was the Montreal edition of 9/20, aka the first ever Psilocybin Mushroom Day, so some concessions to a trippy atmosphere were to be expected. Onstage, the thin manwhose name is Gonzo Nietowas talking about using fungus to keep prisoners from reoffending.

Studies old and new have shown that psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, the active component in shrooms, when used in conjunction with therapy, can keep convicts from reoffending claimed Nieto, who is the co-chair of Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy.

But that's not all. According to various speakers throughout the day, psychedelic drugs can also help with PTSD, addiction, and spiritual crises large and small.

Given the setting, wild praise for shrooms isn't surprising. But while there was plenty of talk about how "psychedelics make the universe feel connected"which is familiar to anyone who ever met a white guy with dreadsthe kinda scary thing is that everyone presenting backed up their points with data. A lot of data.

The date itself has no special connection to psychedelics as far as I can tell. (In a conversation with Nieto months before 9/20, he guessed that the date was picked because it was far enough away from 4/20 that people wouldn't get confused, but also had a 20 tying them together.)

"I think the idea was that of all the drugs that might be poised to follow in the pathway of medical marijuana, mushrooms were the ones that were most likely because they're non-toxic and they do so much healing," said 9/20 Day host and co-organizer Lex Pelger. "One thing they lack is a cohesive thing to bring them together like 4/20 for weed or Bicycle Day for acid. This is a good way to bring out the advocates for magic mushrooms."

The big difference between 4/20 and its September counterpart is that "you can smoke weed every day but you don't do shrooms every day," according to Pelger, showing he is unfamiliar with human art project Ozzy Osbourne, who once took acid every day for an entire year just to see what would happenat least according to legend.

But that's the Prince of Fucking Darkness and we are not him.

The crowd at 9/20 Day was young enough that no one was pining for Phil Lesh to play the old shit (though Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies founder Rick Doblin later reminisced via Skype about the fun he had at the recent Grateful Dead farewell shows). Few haircuts could be described as "intentionally unconventional" and I spied a mere two tie-dyed garments. It looked more like a crowd of college kids who enjoyed getting fucked up than a gathering of .moe aficionados.

At 30, there's a good chance I was the old geezer of the room.

So what brings a bunch of 20-somethings to a drug-related event where spreadsheets and margins of error are as likely to be discussed as earthshattering realizations about the comfiness of the chairs?

Aside from some free food and a demonstration of a surreal-looking Oculus Rift game, there was the obvious: sure enough, a serving of very special chocolates was made available.

Given that if these chocolates contained psilocybin, which would be illegal as shit, you can't blame organizers for being coy.

"There was some really high quality chocolate there," Pelger confirmed. "You're allowed to eat chocolate in this city."

Chocolate and getting messed aside, the massive increase in tourism revolving around the ritual of ayahuasca in South America over the last few years has shown there is a hunger to see what psychedelics can do for spiritual growth. But are the people who are drawn to an event like 9/20 there because they're fascinated by the growing amounts of research showing LSD, MDMA, and their ilk can be beneficial for mental health? Or because they feel they're a salve for a spiritually starved culture? Or maybe simply because tripping balls is awesome?

"Psychedelics are important to our society," said one woman, who asked to be identified as Vanessa K. "I've been using them and encouraging others to use them for healing purposes for a long time."

"I think a lot of people are already interested in this, they've had their own experiences and they're interested in the ongoing research," said attendee Samuel Stathakos, a soft-spoken 22-year-old with a truly mighty beard.

In other words, psychedelic drugs are clearly really useful for some people. The trouble is that the kind of people who show up to hear about how useful they are usually happen to be the ones who already really like psychedelic drugs for different reasons.

Not that there's anything wrong with using these drugs just to have a good time.

"Let's not get down on pleasure," said Pelger. "Nothing wrong with a good orgy every once in awhile."

Doblin was taking his last question from a youngster from the crowd, asking him how to approach his parents about the benefits of psychedelics.

"Show them how they've contributed to your growth and the lessons you've learned from them," Doblin advised. He described a Students for Sensible Drug Policy T-shirt that had a picture of a nuclear family with the slogan: "Kids, have you spoken to your parents about drugs?"

Thinking of my own parents, who actually lived through the 1960s, I can't help but think, If I told my folks I learned lessons from shrooms, they'd find entire new ways to describe how full of shit they think I am.

But for now, the crowd giggled appreciatively. The shroom revolution is not here yet, but with the first 9/20 on the books, perhaps the spores are in the air.

Follow Adam Kovac on Twitter.

President Barack Obama, VP Joe Biden and former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev (Photo: The Official White House Photostream via)

Welcome to the VICE Morning Bulletin. Here you'll find a roundup of the day's most important stories from around the world, all in one handy blog post, like a multivitamin of interesting stuff to start your day. With contributions from our global offices, the VICE Morning Bulletin will feature the biggest headlines in the US as well as internationally, and offer a handpicked crop of culture stories, long reads, weird news, and a VICE documentary each morning.

US News

• Obama to Meet Castro
  President Obama will hold talks with Cuban President Raul Castro later today, only their second face-to-face meeting. It follows Castro's appeal to the US to end its trade embargo, and Obama's call for Congress to lift economic sanctions on Cuba. Miami Herald
• Free STD Tests
  Planned Parenthood, locked in a battle with Republicans over federal funding, are offering free testing for sexually transmitted diseases today. The tests come as a new poll finds 55 percent of Americans support Planned Parenthood (and as Congress moves to avoid a government shutdown over the spending feud). The New York Times
• Biden: Most Wanted
  A new poll shows Americans have a more positive impression of Joe Biden than Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and the entire Republican field. If a hypothetical election were held today, voters would go for Biden over Donald Trump by 19 points. NBC News
• America Has 24 New Geniuses
  Writer and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of 24 people awarded MacArthur Foundation "genius" grants today. Lin-Manuel Miranda, writer and star of the Broadway musical Hamilton, is among the others given the $625,000 award. The Washington Post

International News

• Afghan Counterattack Begins
  Afghan security forces have begun retaking areas of Kunduz from the Taliban, government sources claim. The city was seized yesterday by a resurgent Talibanthe first major urban area they have held since the US-led invasion in 2001. CNN
• New Zealand Loves Mother Nature
  New Zealand's government wants to turn an area of the South Pacific the size of France into a marine reserve. Fishing and mining will be banned in the vast ocean sanctuary, home to whales, dolphins, endangered turtles and sea birds, as well as underwater volcanoes. The Guardian
• Canadian Leaders Face Names of the Dead
  Party leaders clashed over immigration and refugee numbers at the Canadian election TV debate last night. Arriving at the studios, politicians were confronted with a banner listing the names of 20,000 migrants who have died crossing the Mediterranean Sea and US-Mexico border. VICE News
• British Jihadis Sanctioned
  UN sanctionsa travel ban and asset freezehave been imposed on British jihadists fighting or recruiting for the Islamic State. The British government hopes the move will deter other UK citizens from traveling to fight in Iraq or Syria, hoping to join at least 700 Brits who have already made the journey to join the Islamic State. BBC

Catherine E. Coulson as "The Log Lady" in 'Twin Peaks' ('Twin Peaks' screencap via Propaganda Films / Spelling Television)

Everything Else

• Noah's First Daily Show
  Political satire has a new "stepdad". Jokes about papal dick size, Whitney Houston and AIDS got Jon Stewart's replacement off to a good start last night. VICE
• Paul Walker's Daughter Sues Porsche
  The daughter of The Fast and Furious star Paul Walker is to sue carmaker Porsche. The wrongful death suit alleges safety defects in the Porsche Carrera GT the actor was driving when he was killed two years ago. Los Angeles Times
• The Log Lady Has Died
  Catherine E. Coulson, the actress who played the Log Lady on Twin Peaks, has passed away at the age of 71. Director David Lynch paid tribute to his "solid gold" friend. VICE
• Anonymous Hacking Trial Begins
  The criminal trial of journalist Matthew Keys, a former Fox affiliate producer, has begun. Keys faces computer hacking charges and is alleged to have urged others in an Anonymous group to "go fuck some shit up". Motherboard

If that's all the reading you can handle today, you should watch part one of our three part documentary about how Pablo Escobar's legacy of violence drives today's drug wars.

All photography by Stuart Murray

This year's EGX was about a lot more than hands on pads. The Birmingham-held video game trade fair hosted the country's largest cosplay championship, funnily enough called the EGX Cosplay Championship, part of the European Cosplay Gathering. And trust us, there was a whole lot of people playing dress-up.

VICE sent photographer Stuart Murray along to capture the contestants with the best costumes as they competed to be crowned, essentially, the national champion of wearing cool video game gear of their own making. The winner received a pass to next year's PAX East in Boston, with flights and a place to stay thrown in. Not too shabby.

The winner, since you asked, was the entrant dressed up as a Jolteon Pokmon. You can probably tell which one that is, on account of it being the costume that looks like a Pokmon. (It's yellow, if that helps.) Personally, I think I like the one from Journey the best, and I would totally wear that cloak and scarf combo when popping down Tesco for my teacakes.

Related: Watch VICE's video on the competitive gaming scene and its cosplay support, eSports

Read on Thump: I Went to a Nu-Kawaii Cosplay Rave in Brooklyn

Follow Stuart Murray on Twitter.