Francisco Goya'sCasa de Locos. Image via Wikimedia

When most people finish university, they either get a job or go traveling. Unfortunately, I'm not most people. Since the age of 18, I've suffered from social anxiety disorder, a mental illness characterized by severe shyness and a fear of social situations. I could have gone traveling, but sitting in the corner not saying anything in a far-off land would have been very similar to doing the same thing in the UK. As for entering the world of work, that was never going to happenI felt as if I was physically unable to speak whenever I had to talk to anyone I didn't know, and not many employers will give a position to a candidate who doesn't answer any of the interview questions. Instead, I started taking drugs to give me the confidence to socialize, and then became involved in petty crime to get the money to buy them.

It's easy to fall into the trap of believing that the socially anxious are too timid and hermit-like to become heavily involved in crime, but according to psychotherapist Jacob Barr, who frequently treats patients with this condition, the socially anxious sometimes feel as if there's no other option than to quell their fears and insecurities with drugs.

"Too often sufferers of social anxiety disorder will feel that they have a simple choice either to live each day with low self-esteem and anxiety, or to escape into the world of addiction," he says. "Sadly, many choose the latter. A cycle of self-destruction is then set in motion, and it's not surprising when a life of crime quickly follows suit."

Although anxiety typically causes people to avoid risky behavior, Dr Monique Ernst, who has co-authored a paper on the link between risk-taking and social anxiety, believes that the opposite can be true when they're placed under stress. "Neuroscience brings support for a neural substrate of risk-taking in social anxiety," she says. "The neural circuit implicated in reward-and-risk-related processes has been found to be hyper-responsive in socially anxious adolescents." In layman's terms, there are potential neurological motivations for the socially anxious to become involved in criminal activity when placed under what they perceive to be extreme pressure.

In my case, my brain interpreted any and every social interaction as "extreme pressure." Things had gradually got worse since I left home for uni, to the point where I felt terrified speaking to friends I'd known since childhood. My mind was constantly abuzz with negative emotions, and I acted a way that I never would have done in a million years if I had been thinking clearly.

Watch 'Being Ida,' a VICE documentary about a woman with borderline personality disorder who has kept a video diary to help structure her thoughts:

The end to my short-lived life of crime came at six o'clock on a Monday morning, when my door went flying off the hinges and six burly drug squad officers stormed into the hallway.

"Where are the drugs?" an overzealous drill-sergeant type copper bellowed inches from my face. "We know they're in here! Tell us where they are, or we'll rip the place apart!"

The drugs weren't even hidden; they were in a big bag in the middle of the floor that might as well have been labelled "drugs."

"They're in that bag over there," I told them, figuring I'd only delay the inevitable by lying.

"We've caught you bang to rights," the drill sergeant shouted.

Erm, yeah, I thought to myself. I think I gathered that.

The guy seemed to scream fucking everything he said, even though I was fully cooperating, which I thought was a bit uncalled for. But then again, the police had been gathering intelligence on me for months, so I guess it was the culmination of a lengthy operation and he was pretty excited. From his point of view, I was another dangerous drug dealer who had been heroically removed from the streets.

READ: The VICE Guide to Mental Health

Going to jail is frightening for all first-time offenders, but even more so for somebody who can hardly say a word and has the social skills of a ham sandwich. In the run up to my sentencing date, I felt as if my heart was going to beat out of my chest. I was as scared of standing up in front of a room full of people as I was of getting locked up. Fortunately, the judge didn't criticize me too heavily or spend a long time reprimanding me, which would have left me a gibbering wreck. He did, however, sentence me to two years in prison, which I thought was a bit excessive for a first-time offender who had been caught selling ecstasy, not crack or heroin.

After being sentenced, I was placed in a sweatbox and taken to a remand prison, where I was to be held until they decided what jail I would be held in for the majority of my sentence. Upon arrival, I was ordered over to a table with a member of staff sat at it and asked a series of questions to determine my risk of self-harming and to see whether or not I had any mental health issues. It wasn't a great system for determining if inmates needed treatment; there was no privacy, and other prisoners were milling about in earshot. Mentally ill inmates are often derogatorily referred to as "fraggles" by the cons and treated quite badly, so the prison authorities could have been a bit more discrete.

On the next table along from me, another con was kicking off at the fact that somebody had had the audacity to ask him about his mental health. "I'm not a fucking mental case!" he shouted. "Why the fuck are you asking me that?" That pretty much summed up the other prisoners' attitude towards the issue of mental health.

I told the woman doing the interview that I had social anxiety disorder, and she put me down for a course designed to help at-risk inmates cope with prison life. The course consisted of sitting and drinking cups of tea for ten minutes, then using some gym equipment while a guard took the piss out of how unfit we all were. It was useless in terms of helping inmates with mental health issues, but got me out of my cell for an hour, so I wasn't complaining. Unfortunately, it was hit-or-miss whether or not the guards would unlock my door and take me out for it each morning, so I only actually got to attend around one in three sessions.

READ: I Was Relentlessly Harassed By the Media After Cutting My Own Penis Off

I put in for counseling almost as soon as I entered the prison, but didn't see a counsellor until at least six months through my sentence. I only ended up seeing him twice and, to be honest, he didn't seem to know a whole lot about mental health. He seemed like a random screw who'd been assigned the role of counsellor, not a trained professional.

I was promised help with my anxiety when I got out of prison, but that didn't materialize at all. Despite having to attend weekly probation sessions and repeatedly asking about the treatment I'd been told I would receive, I was still never referred to the local mental health service. I could have done with some counseling, because it's hard adjusting to normal life again after spending years behind bars. I was used to being around people who talked about crime constantly, and struggled to revert to my former self. The few friends I had left soon drifted away as I bored them with stories about the well-known criminal faces I'd met and violent incidents I'd seen in prison. The other cons had talked almost exclusively about that kind of thing, but my mates were all university-educated and couldn't have cared less that I had worked on the servery with a local Mr. Big or seen somebody get beaten half to death with a can of tuna in a sock. It was weird and morbid to them, and not stuff they could relate to.

For a while, I found myself hanging around with criminals and no one else. It was weird, because I'd cut off all contact with the people I met in prison for fear of getting caught up in their lifestyle, but gravitated towards other ex-cons a short time after being released. I went through a period of being completely cut off from mainstream society and only interacting with people who existed on the margins. Fortunately, after accidentally taking an overdose while on a night out with some crims, I decided that I was going to end up fucking my life up even more if I carried on being around people like that, and chose instead to plunge myself into a state of really intense isolation, where I had no contact with anyone at all other than people from online social anxiety forums. This was a really lonely, soul-destroying period, but culminated in me making a concerted effort to drag myself out of solitude and connect with some of my old law-abiding friends again.

I've still got social anxiety today and have received very little help, which isn't great, considering the fact that I explained to the probation services that it was the root cause of my offending. I was only in two jails and can't generalize to the whole of the British penal system. All I can say is that if my experiences are reflective of the overall state of mental health services for offenders, then there's little wonder the recidivism rate among mentally ill inmates is so high. While I'd be lying if I said I didn't witness some good work being done to rehabilitate inmatesfor example, the excellent vocational courses offered by the jails I was init's clear that when it comes to mentally ill prisoners, some are being released without the problems that led to their crimes being addressed. And surely, this can only lead to future offenses being committed.

Gianfranco Franciosi. Photo courtesy of Rizzoli

This article originally appeared on VICE Italy

Ten years ago, Gianfranco Franciosi was just a talented mechanic working in his small town's shipyard in northern Italy. All that changed one morning in 2005, when Spanish kingpin Elas Pieiro Fernandez made his way through the shipyard. Pieiro Fernandez at the time was a mobster working closely with the Di Lauro clan (one of the most powerful Camorra clans in Italy) and largely operating as the intermediary between Colombian narcos and the European market.

It turned out that Pieiro Fernandez needed Franciosi to build boats that would move Colombian cocaine around Europe. Instead of taking the money and starting a career within the drug cartel, Franciosi decided to report the whole thing to the Italian police, becoming in this way the first ever civilian to work undercover for the Italian anti-narcotics forces. He spent the next six years infiltrating the drug cartels, traveling through South America, getting arrested in France, and taking part in risky operations on the high seas.

In 2011, Pieiro Fernandez got arrested and Franciosi, along with his family, were granted a witness protection scheme. But the program was so badly operated that Franciosi ended up pressing charges against the Italian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The very real David Bateson

Voice actors have a tough time of it, don't they? Seldom afforded the same of level of attention as their onscreen peers, it's not as though they're exactly invisible. Hell, Nolan North has become so prolific for his work in recent years that his name was one of the listed voice options in Saints Row IV. Nevertheless, somewhat unfairly, it tends to be the case that unless an A-lister provides their talents, regardless of quality, a game's voice cast passes most players by.

Still, it's no small feat for any actor to remain associated with a franchise for 15 years. And while the follicly challenged Agent 47 may be a man of few words, his intimidating presence owes much to the talents of South African voice actor David Bateson, who has worked with Danish studio IO Interactive since the release of Hitman: Codename 47 in 2000.

Since then, Bateson has seen the Hitman franchise evolve both from a technical perspective and as a global brand, with two critically maligned but financially successful Hollywood adaptations to its name.

Now published by Square Enix, the game series continues to go from strength to strength, with Bateson's talents remaining a consistent creative aspect throughout. With production underway on the series' sixth outing, released in March 2016, I caught up with the actor to discuss his work.

'Hitman' (2016), E3 2015 trailer

VICE: Hi David. You've been involved with the Hitman franchise since the beginning. How did you come to work with IO Interactive?
David Bateson: While doing a voiceover at a studio in Copenhagen, I was asked if I'd be interested to record the voice of a little game project that some colleagues of theirs were working on, on the side. They were five guys, some or all employed by Nordisk Film and this was their project, which they hoped might make some cash that they could then use to develop other projects.

I remember looking at the one of the sequences and said yes straight away. It looked so cooldark and moody, and it had that film noir feel to it. I gave it a shot and did a Philip Marlowe film noir voice. That's evolved since.

So your background was in voice acting long before taking on the role?
Oh yeah. I was pretty much living off doing voiceovers by then. I started in radio plays back in South Africa where TV only first came to the country in 1976 and was totally lame. Everyone listened to the radio. I just walked in to the recording studios one day and asked if they needed young voices. This led to a test, which led to juvenile roles in these radio dramas.

I was 19 when I started and when I moved to Denmark in 1992 I was introduced into the industry by my theatre boss in Copenhagen, Vivienne McKee, who played Diana, Agent 47's handler, for many years. I owe her big time.

Were IO looking for an actor to model Agent 47 on, or was it coincidental that you came to influence the way he looks?
You know, it's one of those urban myths and I quite like it that way. Agent 47 and I obviously go back to the beginning together. I believe at some stage he began to look more like me. I even played a hitman in a film back in 1993 and, generally speaking, if I end up in a film or TV series, I'm quite often asked to play the type of role who either does or threatens to do bad things to people. It's quite weirdI am so not that person. In the theater I play all types of roles from Shakespeare plays to Mamet or Pinter.

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How would you say the character and, by association, your performance has evolved over the course of the past 15 years?
You know, whatever people may think or say about this franchise, Agent 47 and I have grown and evolved together. It's rarely heard ofan actor having the chance to play the same character for over 15 years and counting. From that initial Philip Marlowe private detective voice to now has been one hell of a journey.

I remember recording a whole game in an afternoon. Absolution, however, took four to five sittings of four hours each, with another three or four people in the room, all directing me and discussing how dialogue should be approached. The atmosphere of the gaming experience has intensified incredibly over the years. I remember being able to introduce breathing sounds to gameplay, which added a texture and a tension to the hits. It helped make him more realand scary.

Agent 47 as he appears in 2012's 'Hitman: Absolution'

Do you find it easy to return to the role every couple of years?
I will say that playing Agent 47 has become much more instinctive over the years, but the guys at IO Interactive have also been with him for many years. It must be interesting for them, to hear their dialogue and their months, if not years, of work come to life from storyboard to final gameplay. I feel an incredible responsibility toward IO Interactive and the fans, of course, to live up to their expectations.

On that note, for a time you weren't initially scheduled to return for Absolution. A lot of fans weren't happy about this, so it was great that you came back. Can you shed some light on what actually happened?
I think they were entertaining other creative directions like all companies do. They often reevaluate, but then they invited me back which I was grateful for. I was personally blown away by the sincerity of the fans' sentiments in wanting me; of what they thought I had brought to the character. Deeply touched and very humbled.

Changing tack slightly, how has the use of motion performance capture affected your relationship with the character? I understand William Mapother was hired to perform mo-cap for Agent 47 in Absolution.
I must admit, I was envious of William Mapother getting to mo-cap Agent 47. I have always wanted to do it. There was a chance earlier this year. I was at a voice-over conference in Atlanta, Georgia and IO rang to say they might have a few days of mo-cap work for me in London... But it didn't happen, I'm afraid.

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Finally, I've got to ask about watching the character you helped create being reinterpreted by Hollywood. 20th Century Fox have made two films based on the franchise. I recall a lot of fans were quite eager for you to play the role yourself when the first film was announced.
Yeah, I remember that. That one petition got 20th Century Fox rattled or at least annoyed enough to get it pulled off the internet. They had signed up Timothy Olyphant, one of the actors from Deadwooda fine actor, by the way. However, he's too good-looking and somehow too young-looking without hair to play Agent 47.

I was pleased they got Luc Besson to produce it and keep it a European film along the lines of Leon. Unfortunately, the movie crossed back over the Atlantic and became an orgy of slow-motion violence with a gorgeous love interest. Which game did that come from?

Portraying a coldblooded manufactured super assassin isn't an easy task, by any means. The actor has limited means to express himself emotionally or in any way reveal his humanity. This could limit the audience's interest or empathy for the character of Agent 47, but I know how I would do it.

Hitman is released in March 2016.

Follow Paul Weedon on Twitter.

Neil El-Kadomi is exhausted. The chairman of ParramattaMosque in New South Wales, Australia, slumps into his office chair behind a desk littered with half-drunkcoffees and the remnants of takeout food. "It's been hectic," he says,breathing deeply.

Neil El-Kadomi. Photos by Grady Meadows

A little over a week ago, 15-year-old Muslim schoolboy FarhadJabar walked out of the mosque following a lunchtime prayermeeting and down to the NSW Police Headquarters. There he shotdead unarmed 58-year-old Chinese-born police accountant Curtis Cheng, only to be gunned down moments later by police. In his wake he has left a tangled webof hate and confusion for El-Kadomi and authorities to sort through."Either he was harassed at school, or his parents didn't listen to him, orhe had psychological problems. He goes out and someone says, 'You want to be ahero? Do this.' So to be known, he does this. It's not politics,"he says.

The shooting of Cheng has been labeled a lone-wolf terrorattack with likely links to the Islamic State. In the days after the shooting, El-Kadomi'sMosque came under fire for having allegedly been the place where Jabar was given the gunsomething he disputes. In any case the damage was done, and an anti-Islamist protests was held outside the Mosque on Friday.

Meanwhile, anti-Islam protesters and anti-racism protesters faced off outside

It's hard to imagine a moresecular, multicultural vision than that the one you get stepping off the trainin Parramatta. Indians, Sri Lankans, Afghans, Lebanese, Thais, Vietnamese,Chinese, Anglos, Italians, and Greeks wine and dine the Friday evening away.The only disturbance is the loud chop-chop-chop of the policehelicopter monitoring the protest and counter-protest at either end of Marsden Street.

The police had come out in force

One of these anti-Islam protestors is Keith Piper, a pastorfrom the nearby Liberty Baptist Church in Carlingford. He walks around theperimeter distributing leaflets with highlighted passages from the Quran thatinstruct violence against non-Muslims.

"I'm against the Quran, which poisons normal peoples'brains and turns them into terrorists," he tells me. "(Jabar)attended the mosque and the mosque has told him he has to kill infidels inorder to get into paradise."

A protestor defending the Islamic community

While we talk the protest reaches a flashpoint when a groupof Middle Eastern teenagers, roughly the age of the shooter, approach policewith their phones out, taking photos of the officers and laughing. Police surroundthe youths and demand they desist, to which the youths respond, "Why? Youdo this to us!" and continue laughing and taking photos. More policeconfront the youths. One officer has a large tattoo of Jesus on his forearm.Rahim, a 27-year-old Kurdish demolitionist from Auburn, steps into mediate. He asks the teens to please go away, suggesting the police are inflaming thesituation by taking the bait. For his troubles he ends up with three cops a fewof inches from his face.

"Mate, it's some stupid little 15-year-old who went andgot a gun and got excited and killed someone," says Rahim of the shooter.Rahim and Jabar share an ethnicity as Kurds, a group that also happens to be atwar with the Islamic State. Why Jabar would carry out an attack in the nameof a terrorist group slaughtering his own people is one of the most perplexingquestions in this case. "I don't know if someone gave him the gun or what,but he did something stupid and shot a poor old Chinese man who'd done nothingwrong. I'm sure his family is against it, everyone in the Muslim community isagainst it," says Rahim.

"I can't hear you." An anti-racism protester feigns incomprehension.

The shooting of Cheng came almost a year to the day sinceAustralia's last teen terror incident. The circumstances are eerily similar; bothteens, both acting alone, both hailing from innocuous slices of Australiansuburbia, and both striking out at police on their turf. Meanwhile, abroad, ofthe three Australian suicide bombers who have killed themselves overseas (allsince 2013), two were teenagers from suburban Melbourneone a Muslim, and one awhite atheist.

When mosque chairman El-Kadomi told hisfollowers after the shooting that if they can't respect Australian values"they should leave" his sentiments were quickly echoed by PrimeMinister Malcolm Turnbull, who told reporters: "Those who seek to gnaw away atthat social fabric are not part of the Australian dream, they are not advancingthe interests of our great country."

The problem gnawing at Australia's social fabric wouldappear to be disaffected youth, generally. This is something I found out firsthandwhile investigating a bizarre flourish in teenage youth gangs in tropical Tweed Shire back in 2011. "If you come to areas like Bankstown,Lakemba, Parramatta, you get Muslims killing Muslims but it's never calledterrorism. It's just stupid," says Rahim, the Kurdish demolitionist.

Inside the comparatively peaceful mosque

As the fallout continues over the weekend, withanti-Islamist marches in Bendigo, Hobart, and Sydney, Turnbullhas warned against the proliferation of hate toward Muslims while also pledginghis support to stamp out terrorism through education.

"We must not vilifyor blame the entire Muslim community with the actions of what is, in truth, avery small percentage of violent extremist individuals," he said."Preventing someone from becoming radicalized in the first place isthe most effective defense against terrorism."

"Our goal of our religion isn't to kill non-Muslims, which most people think unfortunately."

The synchronicity of this approach with that ofthe Islamic community is heartening. "There's hate everywhere in theworld, man. You can't get rid of it," says an Australian-born Afghan whodidn't want to be named, "but the way to minimize it is to bring out thepeace part of Islam. If people take the time to learn it, to understand what itreally isour goal of our religion isn't to kill non-Muslims, which most peoplethink unfortunately. Education solves everything," he says.

Follow Jed Smith on Twitter.

Footage from the Fuck Parade

It's just over two weeks since a rampaging pack of anarchists and crusties held an anti-gentrification "Fuck Parade" through East London's Brick Lane, throwing paint bombs at the Cereal Killer Caf and giving the internet something to talk about.

The attack was always going to go viral. The rowdy, agitprop-loving anarchist group Class War were heavily involved in the Fuck Parade, and the victims were themselves the pantomime villainsCereal Killer twins Alan and Gary Keery. What with all the flaming torches and an estate agent's window getting smashed before the cereal cafe attack, it was such an eye-catching realization of the battle to live in London that it could have been a piece of street theatre put on for visiting tourists, as if the London Dungeon was opening up a Brick Lane branch.

The thinkpieces have swirled their inevitable swirl, and the paint has been cleaned. So last week I caught up with two members of Class War"Artur" (not his real name) and Martinwho are involved in the Fuck Parade, to ask why they did it, what they made of the reaction and what they're up to now. They told me that we haven't seen the last of the Fuck Parade.

What follows is a transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

VICE: Hi guys. So a couple of weeks ago you held a Fuck Parade that resulted in the Cereal Killer Caf getting attacked with paint. Why did that place get targeted?
Artur: You've got to understand, we didn't organize the Fuck Parade with the sole intention of fucking things up taking a brick to the head from the EDL. I'm not exactly on their Christmas card list. This is about how London doesn't belong to the people of London any more.

Follow Simon Childs on Twitter.

VICE staffer Drew Millard. Photo by Mike Pearl

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Oh, it turns out hoverboardsand don't start, before you start, the great dull linguistic debate of 2015: the "how can they be hoverboards if they have wheels" chatit turns out hoverboards are illegal, technically, to ride on roads and pavement in the UK. So don't. Just don't.

That's what the police say, anyway, because the police are a load of fucking killjoys. Here's the tweet from NPS Specials that all of these "hoverboards are illegal" news stories are hooked on, and I mean just look at it: Someone had to go through the 180-year-old road offenses act to see if they could rework the Segway legislation to piss on swegways, the police so diametrically opposed to the concept of fun that they drafted up a quick FAQ on swegway pavement riding just so they could say it was illegal, swegways now undulating in some gray zone where they are too unsafe to ride on the road and too dangerous for the pavement, so they just have to be used on private land, as if anyone who has a swegway owns or has access to private land:

So basically, long and shortly: You cannot, technically, legally ride a hoverboard on public pavements or roads. If you've been practicing your balancing quietly and politely on the pavement outside your house, then that is technically an offense and you should be in jail, mate. If you've taken it to Westfield to chat up girls while doing donuts, then I hope you know to make prison hooch, because you are a criminal. If you and your mates have face-planted off one in a McDonald's car park, enjoy being shanked in the kidneys with a sharpened toothbrush, because that's what those big actual hard criminals are going to do to you inside.

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Overall, this feels very "excuse to cuff and roughhouse young black males in a desperate bid by the police to make their weekly quota" to mebut then, I am famously a cynic!because riding a swegway on a busy street is no more disruptive than jogging in place at some traffic lights, or carrying eight shopping bags while being a slow doddering nan, or having a larger than usual dog. People ride bicycles on the pavement all the time and nobody really does anything about it, and the same goes for skateboards. People do completely insane shit on pavements and the police do nothing. But then somehow you feel this swegway act might be more tightly enforced than most.

The London police have tried to be cool, lately, and I'm not having it. They had that hipster policeman with his moustache and his beard, and we all fell for it. We all looked at him and thought, "No he'd... he'd never kettle me, would he? He'd never fire a water cannon into my eyes. He probably likes Modest Mouse." They do fun tweets like, "Has anyone lost a big bag of heroin? Come to the police station to collect it"that sort of thing. Slowly, quietly, the police are trying to make us forget they are neon-jacketed bad bastards who hate everything good and like wearing the uniform because it makes them feel significant. ACAB forevernever forget that.

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Anyway, let's be real; let'sno, come on, sit down and let's be real nownobody is ever really going to be in any way arrested or particularly stopped for riding a swegway on the pavement. At worst, the police might do that thing where they loop their thumbs through their protective vest and do a patronizing "you know that's technically a crime" chat before making you sheepishly dismount and walk around the corner before you ride it again. But it's still nice they dug out a law that predates the invention of the car to make sure nobody rides a swegway on the pavement around them, isn't it? Good work, police. Glad to have you around.

Follow Joel on Twitter.

Photo via WikiCommons

Read our profile of Joshua Cohen from the 2015 Fiction Issue of VICE here.

Novelist Joshua Cohen has already amassed a herculean body of work, and the guy is only 35. His novels and short stories are dense and meticulous, yet he's somehow able to blast them out one after another while still finding time to review books for Harper's on the side.

Now, just to drive home the point that he can dash out brilliance in the time it takes for the rest of us to slog through a single season of Treme, Cohen has decided to pen a serialized novel called Pckwck online, in real time, over the course of five days.

Cohen started the novel on Monday at 1 PM EST, and he's already a few thousand words deep in the first chapter. The whole thing is a "reinterpretation of Charles Dickens' first serialized novel, The Pickwick Papers," according to the Pckwck site, and watching Cohen's curser spit out sentences feels like editing a Google Doc at the same time as someone endlessly smarter than you.

The site also includes a chat room, where you can shoot the shit with the other readers (who mainly seem to be making extremely internet jokes) and heckle Cohen as he fiddles around with word choices. The whole thing was put together by Useless Press, who you may remember from the bizarro Facebook parody the Data Drive.

Start reading Pckwck here.

In the spring of 2007, Lovely Osaro (not her real name) left Sokoto, Nigeria with a group of other migrants to make the dangerous overland journey through the Sahara Desert into Libya, where they would cross the Mediterranean toward Italy. Lovely, who came from a poor farming family, was 22 years old at the time and was supposed to be married to a much older man. It's customary in the region she comes from for women to be circumcised before marriage, which she did not want. So when a woman approached her in the local market and offered to "sponsor" her passage to Europe in order to escape this fate, Lovely agreed, and was smuggled, with 24 others, in a truck transporting goats and cattle to Niger.

"I didn't really have a plan," Lovely told me in a crowded caf in Paris' 20th District. "I just figured that if I got to any place in Europe, I would be fine. It didn't matter which country."

Shortly before the Nigeria-Niger border, the truck broke down, and they had to walk the rest of the way into Niger. There wasn't nearly enough food and water for everyone, and Lovely recalls passing the bodies of others who had attempted the same journey, lying dead on the side of the road. The ground was so hot, that it burned their feet through the soles of their shoes.

By the time they got to Libya, there were 20 of them left. They eventually reached the coastal town of Zuwara, where Lovely boarded an inflatable Zodiac with a small outboard motor. The seas were so rough that two people fell overboard (they were saved by those who could swim) and the Zodiac began to deflate. It was three days before they drifted into Italian sea territory and were rescued by the Red Cross off of Lampedusa Island. None of the migrants had any papers whatsoever. Within a year, Lovely would eventually make it Paris where she would become a prostitute in order to pay off the massive debt that she owed her sponsor.

Lovely's story is not an uncommon one and Penelope Giacardy, who works for the Paris non-profit organization L'Association Les Amis du Bus des Femmes, has heard it many times, from many different women.

Penelope Giacardy. All photos by Beau Flemister

Everything inside the office of L'Association Les Amis du Bus des Femmes (ABDF) is a shade of pink. The tabletops, the wallpaper, the waiting room sofas and seat cushions, the wastebasket, even the foam ceiling tilesall pink. The dcor looks like the inside of a kitschy love motel, minus the king-size Magic Fingers bed.

ABDF was established in 1990 to fight for the rights of sex workers around Paris and, primarily, to get them medical attention during the AIDS epidemic. With the help of the World Health Organization, they became an NGO in 1994. They now follow and support over 1,500 women every year in Paris, while also fighting against human trafficking and sexual exploitation. The organization was started by prostitutes, for prostitutes; half the staff are still active sex workers.

Watch a video about sex workers in Bogot on VICE News.

Today, ABDF provides sex workers with a range of services, including medical support, legal representation, social workers, French language classes, HIV/STD screening, housing, and most famously, a bus that meets sex workers in the trenches.

The bus, or ABDF's refurbished mobile-unit that roams the streets of Paris and its outskirts, is both where Giacardy got her start in the organization and where Lovely first made contact with ABDF.

"We found Lovely when she was working in the 18th district of Paris, an area where there are a lot of foreign-workers," Giacardy told me. "Lovely had a big medical problem: She had badly broken her arm in a car accident about a year and a half before she left Nigeria. She had no money, so she didn't even see a doctor there. She actually suffered a compound fracture and her arm was basically broken in three places. It was so painful that she couldn't use it and the muscles were beginning to shrink."

Giacardy invited Lovely to come into the office, then escorted her to a hospital in Paris where they managed to perform a series of operations on her arm, which ultimately required bone reconstruction. For the three months while Lovely was healing from the operation, ABDF paid her bills and fed her. Giacardy also wrote her asylum letter, which details her escape from female-circumcision, and is currently being processed by the French government.

"This is a perfect example of how our organization helps women," Giacardy said. "Lovely thought that because she didn't have documentation, she couldn't go to a doctor to receive medical care. This, however, is a right for anyone in France and that is what we try to teach these womento know their rights."

Unlike most of the staff members at ABDF, Giacardy was never a sex worker. Instead, eight years ago, Giacardy was writing her Masters thesis on the "Consequences of Repression on Foreign Sex Workers" and was permitted to ride along on the bus for six months to observe and help. (While ABDF sometimes allows researchers on the bus, the organization doesn't allow journalists, photographers, film crews, or media of any kind, for the safety of the women they serve.)

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Though she spends more time in the office now, Giacardy still works on the bus four times a week, which hits the streets eight times each week, day and night, for five hours at a time. Half of the staff on board are active, working prostitutes with specialized medical training. They make the same rounds each time so women working the streets know where and when to find themand they always go out to the woods.

The woods, or Bois de Vincennes and Bois de Boulogne, are two large public parks on the edge of Paris where most of the prostitution takes place since the 2003 Law for Internal Security passed, effectively criminalizing sex workers. (While prostitution is technically not illegal in France, it's punishable a crime to solicit sex for money, either actively and passively.) Recently, the bus also started looping through the Foret de Fontainebleau and Foret de St. Germain en Laye forests, about 50 kilometers outside of Paris, which are more remote and dangerous.

It is in these large parksmore or less forestswhere women meet clients and perform their business, literally behind trees or in vehicles parked beside the parks.

"Most nights we see anywhere from 50 to 120 people," Giacardy said. They're usually womensome of whom want to talk, some of whom don't. "They might take some condoms and lubricant and leave. But some come and want to talk for a half an hour. It's also like a break from their work. After talking, we always ask them if they want to come to our office for more help since we have social workers, lawyers, a French school, medical helpanything they need, we have it."

Illustration from "Hustlers: Health and Freedom" handbook, courtesy of Penelope Giacardy

The bus also gives out a free handbook that Giacardy and a co-worker created, in collaboration with prostitutes and members of ABDF, called Hustlers: Health and Freedom. Focusing mainly on Nigerian prostitutes (but written for any woman), the book answers all the common FAQs that a street worker new to Paris might have, detailing basic health issues and legal protections in laymen's terms.

Giacardy explained that many times, the ABDF members on the bus are the only people that these women can talk to about their jobs.

"It's a really interesting job because I feel like I'm deep in something very secret. And it's also very difficult to gain these people's trust because normally they don't talk to people that aren't prostitutes like them because they are afraid of the judgment and stigma," said Giacardy. "But after eight years, I know them well and they know me."

The shift to the woods has made the situation complicated. Because most sex workers are there to stay hidden from police (to evade arrest for solicitation), everything has become much more clandestine than it was before the 2003 legislation. This can lead to more violent clients and gives human traffickers more power than they used to have previously, when sex workers could work freely in the city.

Watch: How Germany's "liberal" prostitution laws have actually worked against the women it aimed to uplift.

In the office, Giacardy introduced me to Gloria (not her real name), a young Nigerian woman who came to Paris believing she would be working for a wealthy family as a nanny. When she arrived, she was met by a madam who informed her that she would be working a different kind of job.

Gloria, just like Lovely and many other women, had her passage to Europe arranged by a "sponsor," a price that's grown upwards of 50,000 Euros and is, usually, impossible to pay off. (Many of the girls agree to the price partly because they have no concept of the exchange rate and don't know how much 50,000 Euros actually is.) Trapped in a system of debt bondage, the women give all of their earnings to a madam, as Gloria once did before she went to the police and consequently hid from her abusive madam.

"A lot of women are scared and don't want to come to ABDF," said Gloria. "They're scared of the madams who warn them not to learn French or speak to anyone. The madams know that if we go to school we'll discover that other opportunities exist and they don't want that. They've sent men to find and hurt me for going to French school and they've even threatened my family in Nigeria. But mostly, they're scared of the Juju."

The Juju is the ritual ceremony that most Nigerian women make with the madam to keep the promise of paying back the "journey fee." In this Juju ritual, nail clippings, hair (head and pubic), and sometimes menstrual blood are taken from the girls and kept by the madam. If the girls fail to hold up their end of the bargain, these effects are used in a ceremony to cast a bad spell on them. (Gloria, who believes in the Juju, never made a promise with her former madam, and so she felt safe to speak freely about her experiences.)

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"Many of these women are victims of human trafficking and don't even know it," said Giacardy. "They don't see the problem, but eventually they have a breaking point where they realize they can't pay the money they owe and that's when they realize they're part of an unfair system. Until then, they believe that they owed their madam that huge amount of money when it really only costs the sponsor around 3,000 Euros, if that, to coordinate it all. This is something I have to explain to them because usually the girls think that their sponsorwho a lot of times works in a team with the madamis actually helping them. They don't see the connection, and how it's a big business."

Not all the prostitutes that Giacardy encounters, on the bus or in the office, are victims of human trafficking and debt bondage. Many of the organization's founding and present members fight for the right to choose sex-work.

"There are a lot of older women who are members in the organization that really like their job," said Giacardy. "I know a woman that's still active at 82. They believe in the choice that they have to do this work and believe that it's a useful service. Some of their clients could only have sex by paying and people like that need to have some kind of contact with humansif they have to pay, then so be it."

These women are doubly important to the work of ABDF: They help teach young women that being a sex worker doesn't equate to violence or degradation. "These sex workers teach them that you can't treat women that way," said Giacardy. "They call the shots, not the men. So I really actually think that many of them are feminists in a way. They are strong women that face men and are not afraid."

Sketch from "Hustlers: Health and Freedom" handbook

While Lovely waits for her asylum decision from the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless, she continues to work in the street. Now, she keeps her money instead of paying off an impossible debta huge change for her.

It's a similar story for Gloria, who feels freed by ABDF. "I'm so happy now," she told me from the ABDF office. "I don't have to work on the streets as much. Sometimes on the weekends I still do to pay my rent, but now I have options. What makes me happy, though, is that I have hope now. I'm finally confident that very soon I'm leaving the streets. But now, even if the police approaches me, I don't have to run because I have documents. This is the biggest change."

The bus finds new women in Paris who have traveled lengths as far as Lovely and Gloria every week. Some of the women are now bringing over younger girls to pay for their own debts when they arrive.

But thankfully, there's a route where those journeys can hopefully collide. A place where newcomers and old can hop on and rest their feet, get some protection, learn about their rights, or even discover a way out.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Glasgow is a city trapped in a never-ending cycle of demolition and reconstruction, so it's fitting that watching buildings getting blown up has become its new favorite form of mass public entertainment. Yesterday, thousands gathered to watch the city's iconic Red Road tower blocks reach their demise in one of Europe's largest-ever controlled explosions.

It was a strange spectacle akin to an apocalyptic Christmas lights switch-on or fireworks display, but there were no rubbish local celebrities overseeing proceedings, no countdown, and no tacky merchandise in sight. In fact, there was no warning at all when the demolition finally arrived in the mid-afternoon. Instead, a loud bang echoed out across the north of Glasgow and seconds later, the six buildings collapsed amid clouds of smoke. Surprised spectators rushed back to their intricate camera setups in a bid to catch proceedings, but having been distracted during the five-hour wait, many weren't quite quick enough. "That was total shite," remarked one unfortunate video recorder, who mistimed it by seconds and whose commentary has now gone viral.

While Glasgow's fascination with demolishing its built heritage goes back much further, it was in the years following the Second World War that audacious plans were hatched to flatten most of the cityincluding its ornate Victorian architectureand rebuild it as a modernist utopia of grey concrete and functional tower blocks. The more far-flung elements of this plan were never adopted, but the decades that followed did see the city's slums flattened, motorways plowed through it, and vast high-rises come to dominate its skyline.

Among the highest buildings in Scotland, the Red Road flats were visible for miles around and became an emblem of both the successes and failures of Glasgow's postwar housing schemes. Once idealized as the future of urban living, they latterly became synonymous with social problems and neglect as the city struggled to cope with the effects of deindustrialization. More recently, the dilapidated flats were used to house asylum seekers, with one block remaining in use until earlier this year.

All photos Andrew Perry

There was shock and anger last year when it was announced that five of the blocks would be brought down as a live-action spectacular during the opening ceremony of Glasgow's Commonwealth Games. One block would remain, with its asylum seeker occupants temporarily evacuated for the evening. Safety reasons were cited when the plans were ditched by organizers a few days later, although negative headlines and a mounting social media campaign were more likely the cause. Bringing down blocks of council housing as an entertaining spectacle for an opening ceremony where tickets began at 40 did, unsurprisingly, come in for heavy criticism.

Some of these concerns have remained, with housing academics arguing that celebrating the flats' destruction reflects a wider "antipathy to social housing." However, there was little sign of these qualms being on show near Red Road yesterday, where large crowds gathered at impromptu viewing points for the mooted blowdown time of 11 AM. Few thought they would be there all day, but it soon became clear that things wouldn't be quite so straightforward. One family, backed by housing campaigner and local publicity-magnet Sean Clerkin, was refusing to leave a house near the foot of the flats, well within the area that was to be evacuated. Although out of sight, the whole drama was being streamed online, and by around noon sheriff officers had evicted them. It didn't take long for Clerkin to show up in the crowd outside the perimeter, where he explained to me why he had tried to get the whole thing called off.

"There's asbestos particles lying all over the site which will be blown up into the air when the flats come down later, and people's health will suffer," he claimed. "The debris will be flying around over one side, which will damage homes, and the local nursery is over one side and that will be destroyed. The bottom line is this will cause massive damage. People that are here to see the glory of the demolition need to think about the long term ramifications for the area."

Sean Clerkin

Most onlookers, however, appeared more concerned about what time the contractors would be getting started with the demolition than anything else. The Barmulloch housing scheme provided one of the best vantage points in the city, with just a railway line and some wasteland separating it from the flats. There, the demolition waiting game was in full flow. Children spent the afternoon clambering onto a JCB forklift (weirdly evoking this famous image of Red Road in the 1960s), the only shop in the area was having the busiest day in its history, and families were opening up their gardens to allow people a better viewpoint. At times it felt like being at a music festival waiting for the headliner to come outthe smell of churned up grass, the bored looking security workers, the sense of anticipation, and the endless guesswork and Twitter rumors about what was actually happening. Except it was all for a headline act that would last about 30 seconds when it finally came.

It was in Barmulloch that I met Jim, Raymond, Bob, Kenny, and Finlay. Their parents had all been among the first generation to move into the Red Road flats when they were built in the 1960s, and for the most part stayed in them until around the late 1980s or early 1990s. "It was a great place to grow up. You used to be able to name everybody from the first floor up to 27," Jim said, although there was little sadness about them now coming down, saying that they've "served their purpose."

For Bob Niven, his family history is intertwined with the Red Road flats. "I was the first person born in the actual flats up there," he told me. "My mum and dad loved it, they were among the last of the original residents to leave."

When the flats eventually came down after 3PM, there was no warning, leaving many onlookers feeling aggrieved, which was understandable after a five hour wait. It felt like the organizers were deliberately trying to avoid any excitement building up among the crowd, particularly as they had been urging people to stay away from the demolition in the days prior to it. This seemed ironic given that last year the same blowdown was being touted as a showpiece spectacular, to be beamed live around the world.

As the clouds of dust cleared following the explosion, it became obvious that something had gone wrong. Two of the blocks were still upright, their bottom halves wiped out but the top 13 floors precariously jutting out of the ground. Earlier, the organizers had said that "the bottom ten floors" would remain intact, to be later removed by machinery. This wasn't the bottom ten floors thoughit was the top 13, perilously balanced on top of the rubble of their lower half. It remains to be seen how they'll bring down the defiant leaning towers of Red Road, although earlier fears that they would prevent a return home for hundreds of nearby residents appear to have unfounded, with the exclusion zone lifted by early evening.

"Me and my mate have been trying to decide for 40 years which of our blocks is best, cause we grew up in different ones," joked former resident Finlay McKay, as we stood in the back garden of a house overlooking the site. "I think this has settled it, as mine came down in ten seconds flat and his one is still standing."

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I'm standing outside of the local market in Kavala, a large Grecian town recreated by Bohemia Interactive for Arma 3. I just grabbed enough supplies to last me for the next few days, if I survive that long. Some water, a couple peaches to snack on and a can of tactical bacon are stuffed into my brand new backpack.

Fuck. Gunshots. They were close, too.

This is the world you're thrust into in the Arma 3 mod, Altis Life. It's the game that Grand Theft Auto Online always should've been, an open world of absolute freedom, and a mod that will transform the PC version of GTA V in due time, with the modding community hard at work. There are a few different versions of Altis Life available, originally spawning from Takistan Life, a mod for Arma 2.

I walk out of the heart of downtown slowly, to not draw attention, but then my walk turns into a jog, like I'm Keyser Sze at the end of The Usual Suspects, when I notice two men walking behind me. In a second, I'm quickening my step into a sprint. They keep up.

"Hey buddy, slow down. We just want to talk with you."

I move into the nearest backyard and attempt to open the door of the house it belongs to. Locked. My pursuers step into the yard, blocking its only exit. I jiggle the handle a few more times for no good reason. My two stalkers look like they're dressed ironically, beach-goers with a lack of style, but I know that this is just the mod's default clothing loadout. This is how both criminals and newbs alike tend to dress in Altis Life. And I don't think these guys are playing for the first time.

"Why did you run?" asks one of them. "It makes you look like you're hiding something." I'm digging through my backpack for my goods. I take a bite out of a peach and down a bottle of water. They aren't getting my shit.

"Put your fucking hands up," the pastel-shirted one instructs, pulling out a .45 and pointing it at my face. His buddy cracks up.

That's what I'd been waiting for. It was only a matter of time. I press the Tab key and reluctantly put my hands behind my head.

"C'mon, guys. I'm just a fisherman. I don't have anything." It's true, too. I've got maybe $50 in my pockets, and my aforementioned supplies. My captors bind my hands. I'm at their mercy. Disappointed, they take everything I've got anyway, laughing, and then step back into the street.

"Can you at least untie me?"

"We would, if it was worth our time," one of them cackles back, like a hyena in flip-flops. With that, they turn, confer for a moment and then do me the "favor" of shooting me in the kneecap. I fall to the ground, writhing in pain. At least my hands are free nowalbeit as a result of the Altis Life mod's screwy but acceptable gameplay rather than any kindness on the part of these bastards. They laugh again and wish me luck, immediately before a speeding pickup truck crashes into them, killing one and severely injuring the other.

The driver of the truck stops and surveys the damage, repeating, "Oh my god, oh my god," over and over again. I slowly crawl across to the gruesome scene and tell him to call the cops while I summon a paramedic on my cell phone. Within seconds, sirens are wailing and an EMT unit, as well as a patrol car, are on the scene.

In Altis Life, the citizens, criminals, drug dealers, cops, and bounty hunters are all real people. My accidental hero saved my life. I explain this to the cop, who also happens to be running for Governor of Altis on the legal marijuana platform. He understands, but has a job to do. I tell him that the driver of the pickup saved me, but he gets a ticket for speeding through town regardless, although manslaughter charges are swiftly dropped. Had the Altis authorities taken him to court, I'd have gladly appeared as a witness in his defense. To be honest, I'd have lied my ass off to the jury, to get him off the hook.

All of these things are possible in Altis Life. And the best part is that the mod downloads automatically when you join any number of servers in Arma 3. For Asylum-Gaming's mod (the best version of Altis Life, in my opinion), you'll download the mission file in a few short seconds and then you're good to go, wandering a town full of ridiculous and dangerous inhabitants.

The cop walks calmly over to the surviving hooligan, desperately crawling from the scene, legs broken. He cuffs him and takes him to the courthouse. He'll go to jail for a few minutes as a punishment for robbing me. By the time the EMT is done with me, the scene is clearing. A few rubberneckers had stopped to scope out the incident, but were told to move along.

Nothing to see here.

Article continues after the video below

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Altis Life is the best game hardly anyone is playing. At any given time, Asylum-Gaming's four servers are nearly full, with maybe a total of four hundred or so players logged on simultaneously. These servers are home to the criminal underworld and citizenry alike. Personally, initially, I do my best to not break the law. I'm just here to live my life.

A week after my mugging, I've recruited four of my friends to Altis Life. We're a crew of fisherman, staying out of trouble if we can; but we quickly realize that bandits prey on our kind when we're unloading our day's take in the bay. So we take precautions. We scrape together enough cash to buy everyone a weapon license, and are soon enough engaging in intense stare-downs with strangers who fancy a free swipe of our haul.

"You try to rob us, and at least one or two of you are going down."

We usually fire off a shot at one of the bandits' feet. They usually let us go. We invest what we take into our growing business. Eventually a single, modest fishing vessel has become a powerful fleet of four speedboats.

As with every business venture, profit margins are carefully analyzed. We need to up the ante. There are dozens of shipwrecks in the ocean surrounding the 490 square miles of Altis, so after picking up wreck excavators and a few mini-submarines, we begin a profitable excavation business. It's much safer to work underwater, and far more profitable. We gather oil, gems, and even some cocaine (which is as illegal in the game as it is in real life). Some of us are playing as straight-edge characters, and not one of us wants to sell the coke to the drug dealer on the edge of town. Instead, we either throw away the blow or snort it once we're back to the surface. I start to develop a drug habit, and even OD a few times. In the game.

The money is flowing. We buy a mansion with an attached garage where we can store our clothes, weapons, extra items, and drugs. Cars, ATVs, and trucks to move large quantities of materials are purchased. Another week passes and we bring in more employees to our now extremely profitable "company."

But word travels fast. Moving almost $100K of legal materials per run means that pirates become an issue. A particularly fruitful excavation is hijacked. Fighting breaks out between friends, and moral stances are taken. I buy an illegal rifle that can fire underwaterI do so for protection, yet it creates a divide within our ranks. I'm doing more and more cocaine, which has become a debilitating (yet fun) habit. Some of the more upstanding members of our crew go back to fishing. They move to a town 30 miles away from our home base. The last time I speak to a trio of former compatriots, they tell me they're going to be investing their money into the heroin business, which is currently under control by a vicious gang that gets a cut from every harvest. It's dangerous work, but the turnaround is fast and profitable. If they're smart, they can be millionaires in a relatively short amount of time. But there aren't many unique endings for heroin pushers in Altis: they can be killed, robbed, or put in jail. Maybe they'll get away with it for a while, and I wish them luck. But I've got wrecks to excavate.

The remainder of my cocaine-fueled business partners agree with me that we need weapons to protect ourselves, and night-vision goggles for working in the dark depths of the sea. Our gear is now several times more expensive than what I was robbed for by those two goons when I first started playing, and while I can pay for a new wetsuit and rebreather if necessary, it's not something I really want to do. I'd rather put a few bullets in a motherfucker's chest than have them take my shit. I'll cross that bridge and deal with the cops when it comes.

I'm not exactly sure when the change in my philosophy came, but it might have been when I was sitting in my personal submarine, doing lines of coke off my diving mask. I saw a couple of divers make their way to a sunken ship about 40 yards ahead of me, looked over at my partner, and a decision was made disturbingly quickly: Why go through the trouble of excavating when we can let these jokers do the work for us, and then rob them blind?

We silently exited the sub, and clicked on our goggles.

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"Look at these suckers, they have no idea we're here," I whisper while drifting closer to our oblivious targets. I stifle a laugh, somewhat unsuccessfully. We're about to double our profits. I take out my gun in the dark, cold water and sidle up to the divers.

"Hey, guys. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, and I'd much rather do this the easy way." They're compliant, raising their hands in surrender. We gather their materials and get lucky: one of them has almost $40,000 in cash on him.

Adrenaline surges as we swim back to our submarine, loaded with diamonds, pearls, and oil. And all that cash on top, too. God damn this was a score. We pull away, albeit making sure to remain hundreds of meters deep in the waters.

It's daybreak by the time we're ashore, unloading our booty. Agreeing to meet back at the safehouse, my partner takes the oil and disappears into the blood-orange horizon. I head to the jewels dealer on my own.

Waiting for me, as I turn the corner, is a squad car.

I'm arrested for robbing the divers, and given the option of paying a substantial fine or going to jail. To make matters worse, I've a pinch of cocaine and my illegal firearm on me, which compounds my sentence. I chose to do the time. My assets are confiscated, and the next thing I know I'm being hustled to the courthouse. Once booked, I teleport to the prison and respawn in an orange jumpsuit. A few of my fellow inmates are talking in hushed tones near the free weights.

"Whatcha in for?" I explain that I was a model citizen until I tried to cut a few corners. They laugh, knowingly. One of them has been playing Altis Life for the last year, and he asks me to walk with him through the yard.

"So, you want to know how to make money fast?" he asks. Obviously, yes. "Let me tell you about the meth trade..."

My journey from being a lowly fisherman to becoming the next Walter White was underway. It was time to get my hands dirty.

Follow Jason on Twitter.

Photo via Flickr user Chris Lexow

Earlier this month, a26-year-old student at an Oregon community college fatally shot nine people andinjured nine others on campus. Soon after, the shooter killed himself. What camenext was a sadly familiar story: The president delivered a national speech, liberal politicians vowed to pass comprehensive gun control, conservative leaderswho are still generally opposed to Medicaidexpansioninsisted that mental health care would have prevented the shooting. And of course some Serious Public Figures found ways to shift theconversation away from popular reforms like universal background checks to oddities like arming teachers or how the Holocaust wouldn't have happened if only Jews had more guns.

On Friday, the national newsmedia reported on two more campus shootings, one in Arizona and the other in Texas. But these same outlets paid little or no attention to the two mass shootings that happened in Baltimore this month: On October 2, five people were shot near a strip mall,and several days later, another five people were shot near an elementary school.

This disparity in coverage showcases how a few high-profile shootings can dominate the discourse around gun deaths in harmful ways, as the public focuses on extreme events rather than the everyday tragedy of firearm-related suicides, homicides, and accidents.

"The Oregon shootings fit a pattern of gun violence that still shocksus... mainstream, middle class America can picture itself in a community collegeclassroom in Oregon or in a movie theater in Colorado or an elementary schoolin Connecticut," wrote the BaltimoreSun editorial board. "But whenit happens on a street corner in Baltimore, weeven many of us who livehereare conditioned to gloss over it. The idea that these are things thathappened to someone else, maybe even to someone who had it coming, has by nowbecome so deeply ingrained in us."

Mass Shooting Tracker, a crowd-sourced database project started in 2013, reports that therehave been nine mass shootings in Baltimore in 2015, 13 in Chicago, six inDetroit, five in St. Louis, three in Los Angeles, and four in Philadelphia. Thedatabase defines "mass shooting" as any instance where four or more people areshot in one event. (Other organizations define mass shootings as instanceswhere there have been at least four fatalities, building off the FBI'sdefinition of "mass murder.")

Shira Goodman, executive director of the gun control advocacy group CeasefirePA, says it can be especially difficult for families living in crime-ridden urbancommunities to have their experiences go overlooked or underreported. "The gunviolence they experience gets written about on the back pages of the paper, orSection B, and it's just a couple of lines, but for those families, their liveshave been irrevocably changed and devastated," she tells VICE.

Goodman adds that she believes the mass shootingswhich draw national attention serve as important "teaching moments" and havehelped to engage those who aren't living directly in impacted communities. "Ithink people do get drawn in for different reasons, which is good, but we haveto be very mindful that we are working in all parts of the country, be itcities, suburbs, rural areasgun violence really is an American problem."

For public policy experts, though, the fact that national discussions around gunviolence seem to reawaken only after mass shootingsnot counting those in urban citieslike Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Chicago, of courseis incrediblyfrustrating. Tens of thousands of people die in America every year from gunfire, homicide,and suicide, and mass shootings are responsible for just a fraction ofthose deaths.

In fact, a growing body of research suggests that the sort of mass shootings that make headlines are statistical aberrations. Many of these cases seem to involved young, mentally ill, isolated white men who unleash their rage on random civilians. But a study published this year in the American Journal of Public Health foundthat "surprisingly little population-level evidence supports the notion thatindividuals diagnosed with mental illness are more likely than anyone else tocommit gun crimes." The study cites past research showing about 85 percent of shootings occur within socialnetworks, and that just 3 to 5 percent involve mentally ill shooters. As co-authors Jonathan M. Metzl and Kenneth T. MacLeish put it, "People are far more likely to be shot by relatives, friends, enemies, oracquaintances than they are by lone violent psychopaths."

Which begs the question: If mentally-ill loners aren't the only problem, and mass shootings aren't the cause of most gun deaths, how can this plague of violence be addressed?

"Can gun laws address massshootings? Honestly, we don't have the best data to answer that in a definitive,scientific way," says Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center forGun Policy and Research. Such shootings occur too infrequently to allow for soundstatistical modeling. "But the only time we talk about gun policy is with massshootings. We ask, 'Could this have prevented the Oregon shooter?' That'sperhaps an interesting question we could ponder, but how relevant is that tothe 33,000 killed and another 75,000 treated with gunfire every year?"

While Webster and other experts tend to agree that expanding accessto mental health care is an important public health imperative, to say thatdoing so would dramatically reduce gun violence is not consistent with the evidence.

For Webster, a more relevant question ishow could we move to pass expanded background checks on gun salesa policy that85 percent of Americans support, including 88 percent of Democrats and 79 percent of Republicans. "BenCarson and all the Republican candidates are talking about this issue in a waythat's totally disconnected to the much, much larger problem of gun violence," Webster adds, referring to Carson's claim that Nazi gun control laws paved the way for the genocide of Europe's Jews. "For those who don't want to anger the gun lobby, they changethe subject."

In other words, every time Americans talk about taking away guns from the public, or loopy proposals like arming ordinary people toprevent mass tragedies, they lose focus on legit proposals that might enjoy bipartisan support.

Mark Kleiman, a public policy professor at the University of California in Los Angeles who focuses on drug abuse andcrime control policy, says he, too, has grown impatient with the gun controldebate, "because it ignores all the ways not related to guns specifically thatwe can reduce gun violence." What nearly halfof all homicides do share, Kleiman argues, is that those who are under the influence ofalcohol commit them. And research finds that the risk of homicide, suicide, andviolent death significantly increases with chronic heavy drinking.

To reduce annual homicides, Kleiman supports increasing the tax on alcohol, as intoxicationhas proven to be a much greater risk factor for gun violence than mentalillness. Heavy drinkers, who are particularly prone to violence, consumemore than four out of five alcoholic drinks. Doubling the alcohol tax, Kleimansays, could reduce annual murders by 3 percent. Tripling it, which would cost the mediandrinker less than 20 cents a day, could reduce it by 6 percent. "That's 800 annual homicideswe just wouldn't have," Kleiman says.

While Obama pushed for increased funding for gun research after the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012, there arestill huge gaps in data about guns deaths. A ban on federally fundedresearch into firearms, pushed by the NRA in 1996, has greatly limited the amount of studies conducted aroundguns over the past two decades. The ban had a chilling effect on not only stateand federal agencies, but also academic researchers. The Washington Post reported in January that many private nonprofits have alsoavoided funding gun-related research proposals.

I asked Kleiman if hethought we've made any progress in the national debate since Sandy Hook in December 2012. "No, Idon't think anything has changed," he said. "This is not an issue that willbreak through the polarization. Being in favor of gun control is a blue issue,and being against it is red."

Kleiman says Democrats should focus all theirpolitical energy on passing universal background checks, and quit focusing onpolicies that "fetishize" guns like assault weapon bans. The president is reportedly exploring how he could pass more gun control reforms throughexecutive action, but his options seem limited.

"An outright ban on guns is not politically possible and it's notconstitutionally possible," says Webster. "Talking about disarming an entirepopulation is nonsense. Let's talk about the actual issue."

Follow Rachel M. Cohen on Twitter.

Photo via Flickr user Blind Nomad

As the 2016 election approaches,marijuana legalization is in the air once again, with ballot initiatives likely tosucceed in at least five states,including California. As usual, politiciansincluding some presidential candidates, notably Carly Fiorinaare trying to turn back the tide by spreading fear that weed is agateway to more dangerous drugs. But research increasingly shows not only that the "gateway" theory isincorrect, but that weed may actually help people with addictions stoptaking other drugs, rather than start.

On the surface, the gateway idea seemsreasonable enough. After all, there are almost no heroin users who didn't starttheir illegal drug use with marijuana, and marijuana smokers are 104 times more likely to usecocaine than those haven't tried weed.

Yet as scientists constantly remind us,correlation isn't the same thing as causation. For example, the number ofpeople killed annually by dogs correlates almost perfectly with the growth in online revenue onBlack Friday. And the rise in autism diagnoses is strongly correlated with thegrowth in sales of organic food. It's technically possible that some thirdfactor causes both of these apparently haphazard connections. However, it'scompletely implausible that these connections are causal, and odds are that thelinks are due to random chance.

In termsof marijuana's specific correlation with other drug use, slightly less than halfof Americans over 12 have tried marijuana, while less than 15 percent havetaken cocaine and less than 2 percent used heroin, according to thelatest National Household Survey on Drug Use and Health. Evensmaller portions go on to become addicted to those drugs: Typically, only 10 to 20percent of those who try alcohol and other drugs get hooked.

If marijuana were causingother drug use, most users should progress to moredangerous substances. But they don't. By the numbers, marijuana use seemsmore like a filter that keeps most people out than a gateway that lets themajority pass through.

While there are a few rat studies that suggest marijuana use "primes" exposed rodentsto take more heroin or cocaine when it is offered, they are marred by afundamental problem. Most rats do not like THC, themain active ingredient in marijuana. So they have to be forcibly injected withit, unlike coke or opioids, which they will happily press levers to receive.

However, stress itselflike, say,being shot up with a drug that makes you anxious and paranoid repeatedlyis awell-known risk factor for addiction. And of course, no one actually shootsmarijuana. What these studies mainly suggest, then, is that stressed rats areat greater risk of addiction, rather than stoner rats. In fact, a recentstudy on rhesus monkeys suggests that beingforced to take marijuana may actually make taking heroin less attractive and rewardingand monkeys are a far closer modelto humans than rats are.

Given these realities, regardingmarijuana as a special pharmacological "gateway" to other drugs is about as sensibleas seeing lullabies as a "gateway" to Insane Clown Posse. Yes, all types of musiclovers tend to start with kids' tunes during childhood, but what makes someoneinto a passionate fan with unusual taste isn't merely raw musicalexposure.

The most intense enthusiasts of anytype of activity tend to try a variety of similar experiences. Wine lovers don't stick only to pinot noirs,and art aficionados check out more than just Picassos. The same is true of drugusers: The first experience doesn't make the fan. Instead, taste develops in asocial, psychological and biological context where people choose whether or notto repeat it.

Further, as with other forms ofcompulsive behavior, the reason an activity can go from being a source of joyor calm to a desperate need isn't necessarily inherent in the experience itself.No one would suggest that we try to treat obsessive hand-washing by banningfirst soap and then hand sanitizer, or stop cat collectors by making kittensillegal. But we do the equivalent in the war on drugs.

The gateway idea prevents us frommaking sense of addiction. Instead, we need to look at what makes the minoritywho do become addicted different from all those experimenters who don't. For one, a large proportion of people withaddictionsat least halfare addicted to more than one substance.

This suggests a propensity to seekescape in general: if you have alreadydiscovered that your use of a substance is causing problems, why try anotherone that might make things even worse? Frequently, people with addictions trymany different classes of drugsstimulants, psychedelics, depressantsavariety that makes no sense if it is being driven by a particular drug changingthe brain rather than by a person looking for the best way to manage herconsciousness.

And in fact, one common reason thatpeople seek numbness or oblivion is that they have a mental illness, whichmakes them feel apprehensive, disconnected or unhappy. More than half of all peoplewith addictions have an additional psychiatric disorder.

Nearly all mental illnesses are linkedwith higher risk for addiction, from attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder(ADHD) to mood disorders, anxiety disorders and schizophrenia. In the vastmajority of these cases, the psychiatric problem is not caused by thedrug use, and studies that follow children into adulthood repeatedly show thatthose who wind up with addictions tend to have emotional and behavior issuesthat were often visible as early as preschool. This suggests genetic or perhapsearly environmental risk.

Crucially, the nature of the problems thatpredispose people to addiction varies widelythere is no single "addictivepersonality" that creates vulnerability. Instead, those who are addiction-pronetend to be outliers on different, sometimes opposing dimensions. For example,shy, anxious and withdrawn kids are at riskbut so are those who are wild andimpulsive.

Another critical factor is childhoodtrauma. Each exposure to extreme stress raises risk: from sexual, physical andemotional abuse to neglect, witnessing violence and death, losing one or both parentsor facing severe illness or disaster, the more trauma a child experiences, thegreater the odds of addiction. One study, for instance, found that children whohad been exposed to four or more different types of what are known as "adversechildhood experiences" had a 700 percent increased risk of alcoholism, compared to those with no adverse experience. In terms ofsmoking, those with four or more trauma exposures had a risk that was doubledto quadrupled, compared to those with none.

Socioeconomic status can also affect addictionliability. While the American press mostly seems to focus much on addictionwhen it's framed as middle class problemlike the ongoing heroin scarethe factis that those at the highest risk are the poor. If you make less than $20,000 ayear, your risk of heroin addiction is roughly threetimes greater than if you make $50,000 or moreand similarfigures are seen with other substance use disorders.

Marijuana isn't the gateway toaddiction: that's far more likely to betrauma, mental illness, or socioeconomic distress. Most people who smoke potneither become addicted to it, nor to any other drug. Addiction is arelationship between a person, their genetics, their childhood experiences,their social and economic world, and a substance or activity. Not all addictedpeople will have all risk factors, and not all of those who are vulnerable willget hooked.

And because marijuana use (and even addiction) isassociated with far fewer negative consequences than other drugs,researchers have suspected for years that many heroin and cocaine addictsactually use cannabis to help them reduceaddiction-related harm.

I reported on research in thisarea related to crack for Alternet back in 2001. Ethnographic data suggestedthat older crack smokers gradually replaced their cocaine smoking withcannabis, while young users smoked weed instead of the crack that they'd seenharm their older siblings or parents.

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

Two newer studies further suggestpossible uses for marijuana in treating opioid addiction and alcoholism. The first was a controlled trial looking at whether adding syntheticTHC to an anti-opioid medication could help people seeking abstinence fromheroin or prescription medications. Itshowed that while the synthetic THC didn't improve treatment retention, it didreduce withdrawal symptoms. Moreintriguingly, however, the study also found that participants who chose tosmoke pot on their ownregardless of whether they got the synthetic THC orplacebohad much less anxiety and insomnia and were less likely to drop out oftreatment.

The second study surveyed medical marijuana usersin Canada, finding that 87 percent used it to replace alcohol, prescription opioids orother illegal recreational drugs. 52 percent said that it helped them reduce alcohol use, while 80 percent reported using fewerprescription pain medications. Whilemost of the people in this study were not using the drug to treat addiction perse, those who had past addiction treatment reported were twice as likely toreport replacing other illegal drugs with medical marijuana and equally likelyto use it instead of alcohol or prescription medications.

The idea that marijuana is a gateway toaddiction has blinded us both to its medical usefulness and to the real causesof addiction. Unless we start looking atwhat really puts people at risk, America will continue to promote solutionslike wars on drugs that cannot prevent or treat addiction. As long as there arepeople who are without comfort and purpose in life, there will be otherswilling to sell them productslegal or otherwise that promise escape.

Put another way, if you aren't looking for a way out, youwon't find it.

Follow Maia Szalavitz on Twitter.

The dire need for black activism was made clear on Sunday when we learned that two investigations found the police justified in their killing of unarmed 12-year-old Tamir Rice. Rice was shot in November of last year by a Cleveland police officer when the boy was alone in a park, playing with a toy that resembled a gun. Instead of a living boy, Rice has become another powerful symbol in the fight against police brutality.

The recent findings in the two reports on his shooting are an attack on our common sense. The fact that the officers believed Rice was 18 and dangerous when they arrived at the scene reminds us of the perception that black boys are scary men who must be handled with force. The speed with which he was shot, just two seconds after the officers pulled up, barely enough time to fully open the car door, underlines how police are often not protecting or serving the black community. Too often, police occupy black neighborhoods as though black citizens should be treated as enemies of the state. And the way the state has publicly judged all of this as justified shows how little black lives matter.

The Department of Justice has already placed the Cleveland Police Department under a consent decree, which means the department had been found to be deeply troubled and in need of reform at every level. They will spend the next several years being federally monitored as these reforms take place. But still, despite that response from the federal government, it's clear that that government is not always able to help protect black and brown people from the state.

We need organizations and leaders who will help speak up for a community that feels voiceless. By we, I mean America, not just people of color. All of America needs organizations agitating for the rights and dignity of black people. Black activism, from Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth to Malcolm and Martin, has historically demanded this country live up to its ideals. In doing so, it has made this country better. Who among us would argue that emancipation and desegregation and the advancements of the 60s have not made this country greater? It's clear that we need yet another demand for progress in order to make this country better for all of us. Saturday's Justice Or Else rally, a commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March, was one attempt, albeit one mired in some of the problems that old school organizations have had.

The rally was called and led by the controversial Minister Louis Farrakhan, who functions like a human Rorschach. Some find him inspirational, some find him problematic though charismatic, and some find him to be anti-Semitic, sexist, and homophobic. Despite being a household name, it's impossible for Farrakhan to move in polite media circles and it's obvious why. He disqualifies himself. Few black Americans could have sparked the massive and historic rallies that Farrakhan has, but he is also his own worst enemy.

Much of the commentary about Saturday's rally has focused on Farrakhan's misogynist and homophobic statements. He lays bare the challenges of a movement led by an individual. If that individual says or does something deplorable, is the entire movement discredited? And it's dangerous to have a single prophetic leader, even if that leader lives a life beyond reproach. Dr. King and Malcolm X were beyond reproachthe FBI and the CIA followed them, working hard to try to unearth embarrassing or disqualifying statement or actions. They failed. But still their movements were so deeply tied to them and their charisma that their assassinations crippled the future of those movements. Though powerful leadership is critical in building a movement, it's dangerous to have a single person at the helm. Black Lives Matter knows this.

Julian Assange with Ecuadorian politician Ricardo Patio in London's Ecuadorian embassy (Photo courtesy of Cancillera del Ecuador via)

Here is everything you need to know about the world this morning, curated by VICE.

US News

• Biden: Decision Time
  Vice President Joe Biden has been pressed by impatient supporters to announce his decision on running for the White House. As the Democratic candidates prepare for tonight's big debate in Las Vegas, experts say mid-October would be the latest Biden could jump in. CNN
• Air Force Drops Arms
  US forces have airdropped small arms ammunition and other supplies to Syrian rebels, the military has confirmed. It comes as Amnesty International accuses one anti-Assad rebel groupthe YPGof war crimes. Reuters
• Rebel Flag Group Faces Terror Charges
  Members of the "Respect the Flag" group have been charged with terror threats and gang activity after disrupting a black child's birthday party in Georgia. The 15 people indicted waved the confederate flag and allegedly threatened party-goers with violence. NBC News
• Playboy Stops with the Nude Photos
  Playboy magazine will stop publishing images of naked women as part of a 2016 relaunch. The company's chief executive said the vast deluge of online pornography had made magazine nudity "passe". The New York Times

International News

• Iran Backs Nuclear Deal
  Iran's parliament has approved the deal on its nuclear program agreed with six world powers, Iranian state media reports. It follows a test of a new ballistic missile at the weekend which "likely" violated a U.N. resolution, but not the nuclear deal. BBC
• Assange's Police Watch Dropped
  London's Metropolitan police force has called off its 24-hour surveillance of the Ecuadorian embassy where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been living for 40 months. Scotland Yard said the cost was "no longer proportionate", but will still arrest Assange if he leaves. The Guardian
• Dutch to Report on MH17
  The Dutch Safety Board will today publish its investigation on why Malaysian passenger plane MH17 broke up in Ukraine in 2014. Preliminary findings suggest it was hit by a Russian surface-to-air missile, but do not indicate who was responsible for firing it. TIME
• Merkel in Mock Gallows
  Anti-immigration protestors set up a symbolic hangman's noose for Chancellor Angela Merkel at a rally in Dresden condemning her support for refugees. German police are investigating after the photos spread on social media. The Washington Post

George R.R. Martin (Photo by Gage Skidmore via)

Everything Else

• VW Scandal: The Movie
  Movie people don't mess around. Paramount Pictures and Leonardo DiCaprio's company have already acquired rights to make a film about Volkswagen's rigging of emission tests. Newsweek
• New George R.R. Martin Show?
  Cinemax is developing an adaptation of another work by the Game of Thrones writer. The station has ordered a pilot script of his 1988 werewolf novella Skin Trade. Deadline
• Facebook's Tinder Match Problem
  Have you noticed Facebook keeps suggesting you friend recent Tinder and OKCupid matches? An investigation into the murky overlaps between social apps. Motherboard
• Music from the Operating Room
  Ever wondered what music is playing while you're under the knife? The East Coast's top orthopedic surgeons reveal why their workday favorites include Avicii and Pearl Jam. Noisey

Done with reading for this morning? Watch our new film, Being Ida, about Ida Storm, a young Norwegian woman struggling with borderline personality disorder who has kept a video diary for the past eight years in order to help structure her thoughts.

I pity the players whose formative gaming experiences coincided with SEGA's Sonic series taking a speedy turn for the abhorrent. That'll be the mid 2000s, when colorful 2D platformers finally went full 3D on home consoles. The bullets of Shadow the Hedgehog. The disastrously broken 2006 Sonic on 360 and PS3. Sonic Unleashed and that whole werehog nonsense. They were such dark, depressing days.

This isn't nostalgia talking. The first wave of 16bit Sonic games for the Mega Drive/Genesis and Mega-CD were genuine game-changers, whereas the series' transition into 3D positioned it as a peloton proposition rather than a breakaway leader in the race for platforming supremacy. And the very best of the Mega Drive's Sonic titles was 1992's Sonic the Hedgehog 2. It was, and remains, a perfect sequel, retaining the colorful charm and speed of its predecessor but expanding the experience through the introduction of sprawling zones inviting greater exploration, the now-standard Spin Dash move, awesomely tubular faux-3D special stages that looked better than what the Super Nintendo's Mode 7 graphical tech (as seen in F-Zero and Pilotwings) was pulling off, and increased difficulty that represented a serious challenge for thumbs not yet fully grown. To be honest, the game's still tough now that these digits of mine are as big as they'll ever be.

Because once you're through the tutorial-like greenery of Emerald Hill Zone, with a Dr. Robotnik boss fight so easy you can sleepwalk it, it's onto Chemical Plant and its multitude of death traps. The second one of these levels is flooded, the water a constant drowning hazard whenever your leaps aren't perfect and with platforms not only moving but also disappearing completely in some places, plunging you into the drink, you really have to be precise. There are blocks that can crush you, leading to instant death however many protective rings you've collected (get hit once in the old Sonic games and you'll lose these rings; get hit with zero in hand and it's a life lost, so always having at least one is pretty essential). Chemical Zone features some of the fastest play in Sonic 2, but it also requires careful positioning and what feels like backtracking (you're actually zigzagging around the stage), and blindly rushing left to right as you did before will always get you killed.

And the Chemical Plant boss? Fuck that guy. It's Robotnik again, obviously, but you face him on a platform with disappearing floorboards either side of a thin central base that, mercifully, remains solid. Get hit by his bombs and the impact can (and frequently does) knock you sideways, into the water below: another instant kill. I don't remember ever tossing my Mega Drive pad away in frustration at failing to beat this battle back in the day, but I could feel my blood of today boiling the third time I was exterminated by a fat man splashing some slippery H2O around. I've even failed to get past him on a couple of occasions, losing as many as eight lives on the bounce. Fuck that guy.

But you should definitely meet him at least once in your gaming life, as what comes afterwards is sublime: dazzling in color and creativity, keeping Sonic as much on a cautious back foot as encouraging him (and you) to breathlessly fly forwards. And now gamers of today who never owned a 16bit machine can do just that, with what is the best version of Sonic 2 yet seen: Tokyo studio M2's lovingly crafted 3D conversion for Nintendo's 3DS handheld.

Article continues after the video below

If you loved 'Spinball', you'll certainly like VICE's film on the history of pinball

Just recently released through the Nintendo eShop, this is just the most beautiful time machine, beaming me into my memories but sharpening every imageand presenting them in hugely effective, eyes-sympathetic 3D. The "SEGA" announcement at the beginning still sounds like it was recorded by a drunken wasp spinning deliriously inside a vacuum cleaner, but from then onwards every aspect of this new addition to the developer's 3D Classics rangesee also: Streets of Rage II, Outrun, and many moreis soaked in respect for the original game, the overall product elevated to an unprecedented level of excellence by the introduction of new features.

Ring Keeper Mode means that a single hit won't spill all of Sonic's ringsnot quite invincibility given the many ways SEGA's mascot can expire even when loaded with gold, but certainly a great help towards accumulating extra lives, earned by collecting 100 rings per level. A similar mechanic was introduced in the Game Gear's Sonic: Triple Trouble, but here the mode locks off the special stages, so if it's the series staple of the Chaos Emeralds you're after, you need to play without this assistance. (And now that the special stages really are 3D, you'll want to see them.) You can also select a stage to play whenever you want to from the start menu, without the need to get through everything that comes before itso the pinball-style Casino Night Zone can be bounced around before you've almost drowned a dozen times getting through the watery Hidden Palace Zone.

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The special stage, albeit in a screen not from the 3DS 'Sonic 2'

M2's work on this 3D Sonic 2 is award worthy. (Are there awards for such things? Let's introduce one.) There's a long interview with SEGA producer Yosuke Okunari and M2 president Naoki Horii (who previously spoke to VICE Gaming around the release of the 3D SoR II) on the SEGA Blog right now, which makes it clear that this conversion was a far from simple process. The size of the game was just one of several challenges M2 faced. "The maps are huge," says Okunari. "The development scale for Sonic 2 was by far the largest in the (3D Classics) series." The special stage had to be entirely rebuilt for the 3DS, by, in Horii's words, "sort of eyeing the original images and creating polygon equivalents." Sincerely, this Sonic 2 is so much more than your average portit feels like an entirely new game.

Which it's not, quite, obviouslybut if you've never played Sonic 2 before, on account of it looking primitive and flat beside flashier yet shallower successors, now is absolutely the time. Its quality, even before M2's additions, is palpable. The game's music by multimillion-selling Japanese producer Masato Nakamura, a member of J-Pop veterans Dreams Come True, is rampant with earworm melodies; the pointlessness of the newly introduced Tails is gloriously baffling (okay, so he came in useful if you had a friend over); and Sonic's fantastic animations, be he stood idle, scowling out of the screen, or wobbling on the edge of a precipice, bring uncommon personality to what is just a bundle of blue and red pixels.

M2's Sonic 2 is faster than the game's ever been, its visuals so crisp now that you can slice a coconut on them. Basically, this is the definitive version of what is widely regarded as the best Sonic game ever madeand I say that despite my own deep-rooted love of Sonic CD. If you own a 3DS, snap to it, like, right now. It's not like all Sonic games that came after the Dreamcast era and its Adventure brace were terrible, but plenty of them were; this 3D Sonic 2 is the perfect reminder than the character became famous not due to repeated disappointments, but because for just a few years in the 1990s, SEGA legitimately had a potential Mario beater on its hands.

Follow Mike on Twitter.

More retro stuff on VICE Gaming:

I'll Never Love a Console Like I Loved the SEGA Game Gear

Discovering Nintendo's Other Forgotten Console, the Pokmon Mini

How the Games of 'Rare Replay' Laid the Groundwork For Some of Today's Biggest Titles

Kaufman arriving to host Fridays in 1981. Photo by Joan Adlen via Getty Images

"Andy never bombedthere was no such thing as bombing. He wasn't on that plane."

The above quote was delivered on Sunday night by Andy Kaufman's former partner, Elayne Boosler, at the 2015 Andy Kaufman Award show in Manhattan. It does a nice job of summing up Kaufman's genius and the way his actwhich wasn't designed to accommodate bombingfunctioned. If a bit seemed to fall flat, piss the audience off, or simply go over their heads, it's safe to assume that that's exactly what Kaufman intended. To him, comedy was less a vocation and more a vehicle through which he could highlight the absurdity of the human condition.

For the past 11 years, the Andy Kaufman Awards have been trying to boost the profile of comedians who aim to do just thatprevious recipients include Kristen Schaal and Reggie Watts, two people who know a thing or two about shredding convention. Sunday's event featured performances from eight comics from around the country whose efforts ranged from the vaguely conventional (Ben Kronberg argued with his cell phone, while Alison Rich did impressions of a girl "who gets really reasonable when she's drunk" and "the inventor of Tetris hearing the Tetris theme song for the first time") to the totally and completely out there.

"We've been creating a safe haven for performers who don't quite fit in the round hole," Andy's younger brother, Michael, told the sold-out crowd at Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre East, which was so packed that some audience members were forced to stand for two-and-a-half hours. In addition to his brother and former partner, Andy's sister Carol Kaufman Kerman and his daughter Maria Bellu-Colonna were also in attendance.

The event followed on the heels of the premiere of Saturday Night Live's 41st season. Kaufman famously appeared on the comedy institution's first episode, lip-syncing the chorus of the Mighty Mouse theme song while taking unnecessary water breaks with the ostensible intent of soothing his vocal cords. (Attendees at the Andy Kaufman Award were offered the opportunity to purchase Mighty Mouse shirts featuring Kaufman's head on the character's body.)

Denver's Jim Hickox performed a set that seemed to interpret Kaufman's comedic impulses through the lens of modern technologyafter reciting President Whitmore's monologue from Independence Day, he took a seat perpendicular to spectators and delivered the rest of his offering to a laptop camera on stage left. Hickox's face was projected on a screen behind him alongside his typed setlist, where he graded his jokes in real-time. He seemed to get the most laughs of the night, especially with his closer, where he pointed out the unfortunate acronym for "The War Against Terror."

Halfway through the show, Boosler led Carol Kaufman Kerman and Maria Bellu-Colonna in a Mighty Mouse theme song sing-along. Bellu-Colonna was born in 1969 to Kaufman's former girlfriend, and placed up for adoption. She did not learn who her father was until eight years after his death.

"It warms my heart, and it's very touching to me because I didn't know him," Bellu-Colonna told VICE about seeing this collection of performers carrying on her father's legacy. "I know him through his family. I know him through people who met him and told me about him. And that's about it. So to see all this love for him makes me very proud."

New York's own Brett Davis took the stage as a nightmarish 600-year-old sex god named the Grand Inquisitor, dressed in a black cloak, white puffy shirt, head coverings, and a mask that resembled a bird's beak. Wielding laser pointers, the Grand Inquisitor's Dementor-esque henchman sought "the one that is pure of body and of soul" to kickstart an onstage orgy. A heavy-set man planted in the audience was brought up alongside a Kaufman cousin and another guest. The man was stripped to his underwear and force-fed Perrier, grapes, and a Whole Foods rotisserie chicken. But the Grand InquisitorA.K.A. "Allen"was distracted from the proceedings by the appearance of his ex, Amy, of whom we learned little except that she adores the band the Fray.

After the ceremony, judge Dan Pasternack, head of Big Beach TV, praised Davis's performance. "I think what Brett did felt so in the moment, like he created something specifically for the evening, and the way he kept building it and ratcheting it up felt very much like what Andy would do. As soon as you thought, OK, so this is the piece, it got weirder and darker and took more turns. I thought what he did was incredibly inventive, incredibly ambitious, really surprising, and really funny even though maybe it didn't necessarily elicit the most laughter. When was Andy about getting the most laughs?"

Davis, who hosts the MNN cable-access show called The Special Without Brett Davis, later told VICE that his character came together by "watching Eyes Wide Shut and seeing the guy that runs their weird tribunal" and spending "lots of time at Halloween Adventure."

Playing a peg-legged though extremely agile self-defense instructor, Boston comic Nathan Barnatt proved to be the most athletic competitor. With a wooden appendage duct-taped to his knee and his foot tucked into the seat of his camouflaged fatigues, Barnatt somehow managed to maintain his balance while climbing ladders, jumping out and scaring people, and twirling the peg like a pistol.

Recommended: Stand-Up Comedy... On Acid!

Ultimately, the three judgesPasternack, Comedy Central director of original programming and development Ari Pearce, and Splitsider deputy editor Megh Wrightawarded the prize to Davis.

As time goes on, there's a danger that people might only remember Kaufman's specific bitswrestling women, giving out food to the audience, Tony Cliftonrather than the greater ideas behind them. But Kaufman's legacy is much greater than the sum of its parts. It's much more than simply being funny.

"There was tremendous diversity in their voices and what they did, but it's all about people who are expanding what the definition of comedy is," Pasternack told VICE. "And subverting the audience's expectations to me is the spirit of Andy."

Follow Jenna on Twitter.

More from this series:
Election Class of 2016: Why America Is Waiting for Joe Biden
Election Class of 2016: Ted Cruz Is Crazy Like a Fox
Election Class of 2016: The New Civil Rights Activists Shaping the Democratic Race
Election Class of 2016: David Daleiden Is Revolutionizing Anti-Abortion Activism

Who is he? Bernie Sanders, 74, juniorUS senator from Vermont

Do you know him? If you pay any attention to thebleeding left edge of US politics, or just have a soft spot for grumpy old men,then yes, you probably do know Sanders. Almost immediately after joiningCongress in 1990, after running as a self-described Democratic socialist, Sandersstarted the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and he's been the rumpled, Brooklyn-accented embodiment of anti-corporate populism ever since. Sanderslikes to talk about raising the minimum wage, taxing the rich, and generallymaking the United States of America look more like Sweden. He doesn't like being asked about hishair, or how he takes his coffee.

Is he running? Oh, yes. Despite spending most ofhis political life as an Independent, Sanders is running in the Democraticpresidential race, challenging the party's heir apparent, Hillary Clinton, inthe race for the 2016 nomination. And he's doing surprisingly well. Over thepast five months, Sanders has gone from single-digit numbers in the polls to about 25 percent. In NewHampshire, the first primary state, he's actually been polling well above Hillary Clinton amongDemocratic voters. The difference between the state and national numbers ispartly because New Hampshire neighbors Sanders' home state, and is similarlychock-full of the white, progressive Democrats who make up his base. But italso has to do with name recognition. While Sanders has been campaigning hardin early voting states, a lot of voters elsewhere in the country still have no idea who he is.

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Why does he matter? Once die-hard liberals finally admitted that Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren wasnever, ever going to jump into the race, Sanders became the standard-bearer forthe economic populist wing of the Democratic Partya group that has become a lot bigger and morevisible since the Great Recession and Occupy Wall Street.

Of course, a scenario in which Sanders becomes president isapproximately as easy to imagine as one where Carly Fiorina climbs onto adragon to wreak vengeance on Donald Trump. Still, the fact that a grumpyVermont socialist is doing as well as he is in the 2016 race says somethingabout the current political moment, and voters' deep dissatisfaction with theWashington status quo.

Who wants him? Sanders' best-known endorsersinclude: Cornel West; the founders of Ben & Jerry'sIce Cream; Will Ferrell;rapper Lil B; and teenage presidential candidate Deez Nuts. Inother words, the guy is not making big inroads in the political establishment.He's received exactly zero endorsements fromfellow senators and just two from members of Congress. Even labor unions,which Sanders has unfailingly supported, have for the most part declined to support him over Clinton, optinginstead to get behind the likely Democratic nominee. And unless Sanders cansomehow convince party leaders that he has a chance in hell of winning, hissupport among the Establishment will likely remain limited.

Still, Sanders is racking up impressivesupport among rank-and-file voters, and particularly the small donors who makeup the Democratic Party's activist base. Between July and September, Sanders received $26 million insmall-dollar donations, giving Clinton an unexpected bit of fundraisingcompetition. One of his major talking points is about the evil influence of corporations and billionaires onthe democratic process, so it's perhaps not surprising that he isn't rakingin money from those sources. But when he claims to be running a grassrootscampaign, the man is not lying.

Who opposes him? So far, the Democratic race hashad the feel of a genteel dinner party, particularly in contrast to theprofessional wrestling match happening on the Republican side. Clinton hasinsisted she has "no interest" in attackingSanders, although a Super PAC that backs her did circulate a negative email trying totie the Vermont Senator in with the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Thetruth is, as long as they're not really afraid he could win, Clinton and hersupporters have little reason to go after Sanders. In fact, his presence in therace could make her eventual nomination feel less like a coronation withoutreally threatening her.

One source of real tension for Sandershas been his interactions with Black Lives Matter protestors, who disrupted a couple of his events over thesummer. By Sanders' own account, he didn'thandle the situation particularly well, and it didn't help that some of hissupporters responded to the incidents by behaving like real jackasses on Twitter. Sandersdoesn't get a lot of support from black Democrats in general, although that mayhave something to do with the fact that lots of voters outside of lily-whiteNew England still don't know who he is. Morerecently, Sanders has met with Black Lives Matter activists and begunspeaking more about racial justice, which could help him mend some fences withthe movement.

When is his moment? February 9. That's date of theprimary election in New Hampshire, where Sanders is polling much better thanelsewhere in the country. The Clinton campaign has spent millions of dollarsand hired 50 people to work for her campaign there, but her numbers are now sobad that some of her supporters are now urging her to give the state up for lost andconcentrate her efforts elsewhere. Of course, even if Sanders won New Hampshire,he could easily go on to tank in the following primaries. But a great showingin the state would boost his name recognition and maybe pull some skeptical mainstreamDemocrats toward him.

Of course, it's a long time untilFebruary, and a lot could change by then. Most obviously, if Vice President Joe Biden jumps into the race, it will complicate decisions forDemocrats in 2016. It's also always hard to tell whether a grassroots campaignlike Sanders' will heat up or cool down as time goes on.

In some ways, though, the mostinteresting thing about Sanders isn't the tiny chance that he could winthe nomination. He often gets compared with this year's other surging outsider,Donald Trump, but a more apt comparison might be libertarian superstar RonPaul. Like Paul, Sanders is building a movement of young people around a distinct politicalphilosophy well outside the Washington mainstream. His campaign could be both apath into political work for thousands of young activists and a proving groundfor the appeal of progressive populism in America.

In any case, the good news is that we'llprobably get at least a few months of watching Sanders snipe at reporters forasking stupid questions and get visibly annoyed at the campaign rituals ofparades and baby-kissing.

Follow Livia Gershon on Twitter. Illustrator Drew Lerman is also on Twitter, so follow him too.

The Goonies, written by Chris Columbus. Via Warner Bros.

Christopher Columbus seems to be regarded as an American institution, but maybe today is a good time to ask ourselves some tough questions about whether this guy deserves that place of honor.

I know what you're thinking: Columbus? The guy who directed the Christmas classic Home Alone, one of the highest-grossing films of all time? A guy who was in his early 20s when he wrote the screenplays for The Goonies and Gremlins, two movies from my childhood that I have tremendous affection for? I love Columbus!

Well, not to tell you how to live your life, but Christopher Columbus, usually credited in his movies as "Chris," is really not all he's cracked up to be. And I can prove it with a brief look at some of his many misses, and few hitssome of which aren't actually as good as you remember. Here are some movies that should probably make you reconsider your adoration for this highly-paid, arguably competent but basically undeserving icon.

Pixels via Columbia Pictures

Pixels:

Columbus's most recent film was so bad it's already become a codeword for "shitty movie." At some point in the process of making what could have been a passable fart joke-laden movie for people who love retro video games, Columbus got sidetracked and instead made a boring movie for people who love Adam Sandler hanging out with Michelle Monaghan. The story of gamers saving the world from video games brought to life (which is borderline ripped off from the book Ready Player One, which itself wasn't very good) didn't have to be very good to be worth $12, but somehow Pixels manages to be boring anyway.

Christmas with the Kranks via Columbia Pictures

Christmas with the Kranks:

A Christmas movie with Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis should have been a slam dunk, but Christmas with the Kranks turned out to be one of the most unwatchable movies of all time. One problem is that the premise is a nonstarter for a Christmas movie: a middle-aged couple wants a year off from their usual tradition of making a big deal out of Christmas, and they plan to take a cruise instead. It gets worse from there as everyone in their community who loves Christmas ostracizes them in ways that aren't fun to watch. In the end (spoiler), Tim Allen finds out that his neighbor is dying of cancer, gives her his cruise tickets, and makes a big deal out of Christmas after all. That's because in the weird moral universe of this movie, making a big deal of Christmas is essential, every year, without exception, even if you want a break.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone via Warner Bros.

The Two Worst Harry Potter Movies:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone skates by on young Daniel Radcliffe being a surrogate for the audience, gazing in wide-eyed wonder at the Wizarding Universe as he encounters it for the first time. It's enough to distract the viewer from the fact that the movie is a bloated, three-hour slog with no story momentum. The second film, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has the worst reviews of any film in the series. It's slow, the Quiddich scenes look surprisingly implausible for such an expensive series, and in the end, even if you love Harry Potter, this is the filler movie that you never go back and watch. After Chamber of Secrets, Columbus's role was shifted to producer, and they hired actually-good filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron to inject some creativity and life into the series with his amazing third movie, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Rent via Columbia Pictures

Rent:

They should have adapted the Broadway sensation Rent when the topics were fresh and urgent. By 2005, Rent had been skewered by Team America: World Police. Nine years after its initial release, Columbus changed essentially nothing in the adaptation, which was the wrong move. Watch Rent and what you'll see is a super earnest musical about the importance of art, without a shred of Birdman-style irony. Following the lessons preached in Rent turns you into exactly the kind of self-important, underemployed loser the LA Times uses to slander millennials.

Gremlins, via Warner Bros.

Gremlins:

That's right, Gremlins is terrible. Along with The Gooniesa decent movie that will hold a child's attention because the child actors are good enoughGremlins was part of the early writing work that brought young Columbus to the attention of reigning president of movie town Steven Spielberg. Too bad the whole movie is a delivery system for racist paranoia. See, the term "gremlins" in the movie comes from the main character's racist neighbor, who claims that the Japanese have been planting little creatures in all of our machines since World War II. It looks for a while like this might not be what the movie expects you to believe, but then a voiceover at the very end tells you it actually is true: your electronics fail because of creatures put there by evil Japanese people. You'll think I'm wrong unless you go back and watch it yourself.

All that says nothing about Mrs. Doubtfire and Bicentennial Man, which are hard to criticize when Robin Williams's untimely death was so recent, but those have problems too. Then there's Columbus's failed attempt at Oscar bait, Stepmom, which is really only good because it slipped medical marijuana advocacy into a mainstream film. And if all that wasn't enough, he named his production company 1492 Pictures, which commemorates the year some guy showed up in the New World and started killing Native Americans.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Photo via Flickr user Maureen

Read on VICE News: Calls to Remove Confederate Flag Follow South Carolina Murders

A lot has been said about Confederate flags in the months since noted Confederate-flag-enthusiast Dylann Roof killed nine African-Americans in a shooting at Charleston, South Carolina's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

The debate largely centers around two primary arguments: One side maintains that the Confederate flag is inherently racist (since it was originally employed by slave-holding Southerners during the Civil war), while the other side insists that the flag is merely a symbol of states' individual rights (which is believed to be a fundamentally American ideal). In short, many Confederate flag supporters view their support as a representation of and a testament to their pride in their country.

This may not be the case anymore with the recent decision by a Georgia jury, which indicted 15 members of a pro-Confederate flag group on the grounds of "terrorism."

The indictment is in response to an investigation into an incident that occurred on July 25, when members of a group called "Respect the Flag" drove a convoy of vehicles displaying Confederate flags through a neighborhood in Douglasville, Georgia. When the group stopped in front of a house on Campbellton Street, which was hosting a child's birthday party (with a group of African American partygoers), the scene quickly devolved into violence: Threats were made, guns were drawn, and the police were called. Both parties insisted that the other side instigated the altercation.

On Friday, a Douglas County jury found 15 members of "Respect the Flag" in violation of Georgia's Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act. Each of the 15 members was indicted with making terrorist threats and participating in criminal gang activity. According to FOX 5 Atlanta, two members of the group were also charged with battery for another incident that occurred that same day at a gas station.

Follow Michael Cuby on Twitter.

Ida Storm

Great highs and deep lows are often difficult to communicate with the outside world. The life of Ida Storm, a 28-year-old woman from Norway, has been shaped by the struggle to adjust to borderline personality disorder (BPD), and a powerful new video-diary documentary reveals the inner turmoilthe mood changes, impulsive behavior, suicidal thoughts, and self-harmIda has endured since she was a teenager.

The Norwegian started to record her own life using a small HD camera at the age of 18, and it's these clips that have been crafted into the documentary Ida's Diary. The film follows the next eight years of adult life: snorting speed at parties to self-medicate, trips in and out of psychiatric care, and the big emotional breakthroughs as she gradually comes to terms with the condition. We have an exclusive shorter cut of the film on VICE, Being Ida, which you can watch here.

Ida's Diary is often a tough watch, but it's also utterly compelling, full of tender moments of philosophical reflection. Few films have ever captured the internal whirlwind of a serious mental health condition so well.

Read on Broadly: Filmmaker Ida Storm Wants to Change the Face of Borderline Personality Disorder

I caught up with Ida over email recently to discuss the recording of her formative years. (Some of the topics we spoke about aren't included in Being Ida; to see the full-length version of the film, Ida's Diary, on Vimeo on Demand, click here.)

VICE: Hi Ida. How have you been since finishing the film?
Ida Storm: I've been up and down, but things are moving forward. There are still some battles every now and again, but I handle it a lot better than before. I've learned a lot of good ways to deal with my illness.

Why did you start recording a video diary?
I bought a standard digital camera to take pictures. I happened to find a video function and started filming and talking to myself. After a while it became a friend I could always talk to when I had something to say.

How have family and friends reacted to the film? I imagine it's been difficult for them to watch you at such low moments.
Some were pleasantly surprised because it was milder than they had expected. Others were surprised how much I struggle, even though I don't self-harm any more to cope with the painful thoughts and feelings.

What about people who have been through similar struggles?
I've got feedback from families who say they understand their loved ones better, and health professionals who say they learned something from watching the film. And it means so much to me to get feedback from young people who are struggling and say they greatly appreciate the movie and my openness.

The trailer for the VICE cut of 'Ida's Diary,' "Being Ida"

You say in the film, "You never hear people tell a cancer patient 'Get a gripcan't you see you're hurting us?'" Are mental health problems more difficult for people to understand?
Most people understand that cancer patients can't get healthy just by pulling themselves together. But I've had many experiences when people both in and outside of psychiatry have asked me to pull myself together. If healthy people without illnesses don't have information or experience, it's harder to understand.

Did being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder help you understand what was going on in your brain?
Yes, it did help me to gain more insight into the illness. It helped me get some tools to cope with the illness and taught me thinking techniques and other alternatives to self-harm.

How do you feel about the way in which we categorize mental health problems and personality disorders?
I feel that a psychiatric diagnosis can be like a stamp. That diagnosis is perceived as if the diagnosis is more important that the person is. But a diagnosis is not an identitya person is not pneumonia even if they have pneumonia, just like a person is not borderline even if they have borderline. But getting a correct diagnosis did help me. There is help and hope. And there are tools. There are many different ways to live with the disease. You can feel less guilt and shame. It is possible to get much better.

Self-harm is still difficult for a lot of people to understand. How would you explain to people what the self-destructive impulse feels like?
I would describe it as a coping mechanism to deal with painful thoughts and feelings. You can't just stop self-harming. To replace this destructive way of dealing with things, you have to learn healthy alternatives. When I have moments when I get the urge, I try to feel a sense of empowerment. I switch focus. I tell myself that I've been good. I think it's very important to feel a sense of achievement. Even if people outside don't recognize it, you can try to feel it yourself.

READ: The VICE Guide to Mental Health

The film shows you had a "special place" by the sea. How did it feel being there in the woods, in the dark?
When I go there, to Spornes, in the dark, it provides an outlet. Especially during a storm when the waves come towards me. It gets my attention off of my need to self-harm. But I do it mostly because I love the ocean, especially during a storm.

You've enjoyed moments of great, joy too. Does that make the lows more painful, knowing what happiness feels like?
The tough times are hard no matter what, but I've experienced several times that it will pass. When everything is at its worst I think it will never be over, but deep inside I know it will be better if I continue to fight. The moments I feel good, I try to enjoy as much as possible. I find a lot of pleasure in things that others might easily overlook. Like picking flowers for others, spreading joy to random people.

How do you look back at your drug usesmoking weed, taking speed? Was it unhelpful when you were first dealing with BPD?
Yes, it was a form of self-harm also. Self-harm is not only scratch and cuts. Self-injury may also be substance abuse, for example, or through eating disorders.

You mentioned "living in the moment" in the film. Has it helped not to think too much about the future?
When I think of the future as something positive, it helps to think ahead. If I think that the future will be hell, it doesn't help. But, as I say in the film, it's important to have dreams.

What do you hope people take from the film?
I think people need to recognize themselves in someone else. Someone who understands. I wish I had someone who understood and had someone to recognize myself in many years ago, but I knew nothing. What I hope people get out of the movie is that it's OK to say that you're suffering from mental illness. It should be OK to tell it like it is.

Thanks, Ida.

WATCH: Being Ida

If you are concerned about your mental health or that of someone you know, visit the Mental Health America website.

Follow Adam Forrest on Twitter.