As most of us get older we lose touch with the holiday traditions of our childhoods. Our parents put our stockings into storage, we don't have the time or drive to decorate our apartments, family gatherings around the fire are replaced by drunken, sloppy parties with our ironically sweatered friends. This separation from Christmas is at least partially conscious, at least for me—thanks to the internet, I can shut myself off in a customized cultural bubble by way of a practice that a marketing company might call "curating your life." If I don't like pop music or sports or Christmas, I can strip these things from my various feeds. Even if the rest of the country is dressing exclusively in red and green and going caroling, I can keep living like it's October. Maybe Wham!'s "Last Christmas" is playing on the radio and commercials are trying to induce panicked shopping, but—at the risk of sounding like a particularly Brooklyn brand of asshole—I don't own a radio or a TV, and all that stuff is surprisingly easy to avoid.

Call it Seasonal Disaffected Disorder: It might be the most wonderful time of the year, but I don't feel any different.

This year, however, I wanted to reconnect with the Christmas spirit that hovers over America every December like a haze. I didn't want to deal with the music or the shopping or that stuff about the guys who traveled hundreds of miles to take a look at a stranger's baby. I was going to experience Christmas through my stomach: For a week, from Wednesday morning until Tuesday night, I'd eat nothing but Christmas food. I reasoned that if seven days of fruitcake, eggnog, and spiced ham couldn't restore my holiday cheer, nothing could.

(I realize "Christmas food" is a pretty vague genre—basically I decided that it encompassed everything that you don't eat except when in proximity to December 25. This included all sorts of snack foods sold in Christmas packaging, from seasonal beer to red and green tortilla chips. Corporate branding is a critical part of Christmas, behind Jesus but way ahead of myrrh.)

Related: You Know What Makes the Holidays Great? Babies

Day 1

The initial day was a struggle. After a night of drinking I didn't have time to stock up on appropriate food, and was craving something with more bacon, egg, and cheese on it than the standard gingerbread cookie. I went to Starbucks with the hope of finding a seasonal sandwich. No luck, but I did grab a venti eggnog latte. I also managed to find a pecan-pie flavored granola bar next door, which was actually pretty good.

As lunchtime came I panicked, realizing that I hadn't really thought beyond the "I'll only eat Christmas food" stage of the experiment. A quick google told me that there aren't any Christmas-themed restaurants near the office (if "Christmas-themed restaurant" is even a thing that exists), so I went to a grocery store. It still being early December, its halls were not decked but only lightly dusted with the spirit of the season. I bought a pumpkin pie and a quart of eggnog and picked up my first of many stomachaches shortly afterward.

After a Twitter poll conducted by my editor concluded that green beans are indeed Christmas food, I found a Paula Deen casserole recipe and got to cooking dinner. I paired it with a seasonal beer that tasted like a combination of caramel, Guinness, and malt liquor and went to bed with a brick in my stomach.

Day 2

For breakfast I had more of the pumpkin pie and an improvised Christmas coffee that included cinnamon, sugar, and nutmeg. This was as awful as it sounds, and I quickly switched to "share a Coke under the mistletoe" cans of Diet Coke. I went to the drug store at lunch and scored holiday-shaped pretzels and a bag of Utz cheese puffs labeled "snow balls." These white cheddar balls of snow were easily the best thing I ate all week, and possibly all month. It's really gross and corny to call food "addictive" but when you're licking the cheese dust off your fingers and drying them on your pants and swearing that you're done, only to find your other hand's already in the bag, there's not really a better word. I also ate a half-pound of spiced ham, and all the salt gave me a sore on my tongue.

For dinner I had another half-pound of ham.

Watch our documentary about the Andean Christmas tradition of beating up your neighbors:

Day 3

Have you ever spent a night out on the town and found that, come morning, no matter how much you brush your teeth, you can't get the taste of booze or cigarettes out of your mouth? Well that's how I felt on day three, but with cinnamon. In the afternoon I began periodically feeling drops of cold sweat drip down the sides of my chest, which I found disconcerting.

Day 4

Despite eating mostly ham and pie for half a week, I'd lost four pounds. I credit this to the fact that even though I was eating awfully, I wasn't really eating that much. It's actually kind of hard to eat a day's allotment of calories in candy without feeling completely sick.

I lucked into a cinnamon- and spiced pear–flavored Greek yogurt, which added some variety to my life. Most Christmas food is an overpowering mess of spice and sugar and salt, a comforting blanket that leaves you slow and sleepy, like a low-grade barbiturate. I'd never before realized how much I was taking the flavor of sour for granted. I ate a Cornish game hen for dinner, and later panicked when I realized that it might not quite count as Christmas food.

After dinner I went to the bar for a friend's birthday party and quickly realized I was in trouble. My stomach felt like I might end up on the bathroom floor, and, more pressingly, I wasn't sure I could find anything to drink. They didn't stock any seasonal beers, so I was left to choose between being the guy who orders a hot toddy at a crowded bar or improvising. I ended up going with a cranberry, orange, and rum punch atrocity that added a headache to my symptoms. After a few of those I went home, bloated and sweaty. I bet Santa Claus feels like that all the time.

Day 5

The next morning, to make up for my possible missteps, I went to a store in Manhattan that specializes in British food and came away with some mincemeat pies and mini pork pies. I wasn't sure what "mincemeat" was but at this point I craved any kind of variety. I also went to Trader Joe's and bought a six-pound quarter ham. Starving in line, I broke down and ate a pork pie, despite it being lukewarm and tasting disgusting. Later I found out that you're supposed to eat them cold, which is insane. No wonder the British drink so much.

For dinner I cooked the ham alongside some mashed potatoes and green beans and pre-made cranberry sauce. This was maybe the most elaborate meal I've ever made, and I realized that I could have eaten way better Christmas food this week if I wasn't so averse to cooking.

Day 6

I fell asleep feeling heavy and hot, but woke up excited to eat more ham. I even ate some cold, at eight in the morning, while packing lunch for work. I ate a lot more at lunch and wound up feeling a bit like a ham myself: pink and hot and soaked in saltwater.

Sick of ham and pie, I ate a bowl full of Christmas-themed trail mix (white chocolate, red and green faux M&Ms, cranberries, some nuts) for dinner and drank a few winter beers. At 11, I was hungry enough that I scarfed down another one of the pork pies. Big mistake. I woke up in the middle of the night certain that I was about to throw up, something I swear I never do. The Christmas spirit was desperate to escape my body, but I resolved to trap it in. After 15 tense minutes, I managed to fall back to sleep.

Day 7

The last day was, somehow, the easiest. By this point I'd basically forgotten that eating used to be a cool way to alleviate boredom. My palate had grown accustomed to the cinnamon barrage. I ate a cranberry "bliss bar" from Starbucks for breakfast and followed that with a venti caramel brûlée latte for lunch, plus a couple of festive cookies that were brought in by the good people at Munchies. Rather than try to improvise a final meal, I decided I'd just kind of starve until I got to break my diet dinner at the VICE holiday party. I ate one last candy cane, gave the rest of my food away, and went off to cut the buffet line at the party.

This is the part where I share what I learn, or describe how many sizes my heart has grown. I can't really do either. Christmas food, like Christmas music, Christmas movies, or Christmas itself, is meant to lull you into an endorphin coma that helps you ride out the worst of winter. It's supposed to be overpowering and kind of gross—the omnipresent spices, the richness of everything, the way you feel sticky on the inside when you've had too much of it.

Maybe what I learned is that overindulgence is bad, or that a balanced diet is really important (my first few bites of post-experiment salad were an immense relief). Or maybe I learned that packaged Christmas food is disgusting and that we only eat it to recapture memories of a childhood when we could put sugary garbage into our bodies without fear of nausea. Or maybe all I figured out is that eating a lot of ham does a lot of messed-up stuff to your body. In any case, my mouth still hurts. Merry Christmas.

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All photos by the author

On the third floor of a charmless, stucco-encrusted shopping plaza in California's San Gabriel Valley sits Private Party, a recently opened Chinese hot pot restaurant. Like most other eateries in the complex, it has a health code rating of B. Unlike the others, it has walls covered in faux-propaganda posters and a staff decked out in replica Red Army uniforms. Private Party, you see, is Communist themed.

Private Party specializes in traditional Northern Chinese hot pot, a method of cooking wherein you place meats like beef and pork belly and vegetables like bok choy and taro into boiling broths of your choosing. It's meant to be shared in large groups, presumably to foster conversation and camaraderie. A latchkey kid, there's nothing I want less in a meal than community—I just want to eat my GMO-laden foodstuffs as quickly as possible in complete, vacuous silence. Not only am I not a team player, I am not a team eater. I would, in short, make a terrible communist.

The San Gabriel Valley is no stranger to bizarrely themed restaurants, up to and including Uncle Yu's Indian Beer House, a Taiwanese joint that, strangely enough, pays culture-jacking homage to Native American culture. With waitresses walking around in headbands and dusty Native American tchotchkes dotting the decor, it's enough to make you wonder if cultural appropriation is still supposed to be offensive when white people aren't the offending party. Jurassic Restaurant, which, for whatever reason, has avoided litigation from Jurassic Park's copyright owners for nearly eight years, also calls the SGV home. Mercifully, Magic Restroom Café, wherein customers consumed flavorless meals of udon and spaghetti out of miniature toilet bowls, no longer does. Private Party, however, has emerged to pick up the absurdist slack left in its wake.

Now, some may find it gauche to base a restaurant's theme on a political regime that created a famine which contributed to the deaths of between 23 to 40 million people, but fret not — the owners of Private Party are actually from Northern China, so unlike Jurassic Restaurant—which, by the by, is not run by dinosaurs—they actually have tangible ties to the culture they're borrowing from.

Anyhow, Communist-themed restaurants are all the rage nowadays in China itself; numerous Mao-filled outlets in places like Chongqing and Gansu Province serve up dumplings and soups with a smile. (The existence of said smiles, not to mention the existence of food, are how you can tell modern China is has, at least somewhat, entered the 21st century.) And for what it's worth, Havana, Cuba also has its own Communism-themed restaurant, Nazdarovie, which, according to its website, "celebrates the social and cultural bond that was born between the Cuban people and the peoples of the former Soviet Union." One would assume all the restaurants in North Korea do the same, but for whatever reason I could find no reference to their existence online.

Shockingly, Private Party is not Southern California's only Communist-themed eatery. Two locations of Mao's Kitchen exist in Venice and Los Angeles proper, but cater to a different clientele. Trust and believe, dishes like "Peace Not War Wonton" and "Model Citizen Noodle" soups are meant for hipsters. Private Party, however, seems to exist for its target demographic; it's an attempt to instill a sense of nostalgia for the actual Mao Zedong in the SGV's Chinese population. If nothing else, I saw actual Chinese people in Private Party, which I can't say for the times I've been to Mao's Kitchen.

The other restaurants in the shopping plaza, including Honey Pig 2.0, an inexplicably monikered all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ joint, were bustling when my dining companion and I arrived at noon on a Sunday. Private Party, however, was nearly empty, its only customers being two middle-aged women doing the Chinese equivalent of kibitzing in Mandarin over a trough of hot broth. Nondescript and incredibly loud Chinese pop music played overhead, sounding all the more louder due to the restaurant's dearth of patrons.

Private Party's menu, I realized, is exhausting in its length—there is, to be sure, no famine within this restaurant's walls. A seemingly endless list of meat, seafood, tofu, mushroom and vegetable options, not to mention a large selection of soup bases, overwhelmed me, a hot pot novice; I ultimately decided to order a spicy soup base and something called "Lobster Balls," because I am nothing if not a moron. At a price of $5.95, the balls most certainly were not lobster, though whatever the hell they were constructed of was molded into ball form. Their taste reflected their shape; the heat of the spicy soup base, both in temperature and flavor, brought tears to my eyes. This fact could be construed as a testament to the food's authenticity. Panda Express it ain't.

Waiters, in army green outfits augmented by red arm bands and starred hats, when not being enlisted to refill sodas, stoically stood guard at different ends of the restaurant, folding their hands before them in a possibly intentional, most likely bored manner. Their costumes were cheap and flimsy; one could see the creases from folding in them. The fact that they're not required to press their uniforms was but one of many tip-offs that I was not actually eating in Communist China. My constantly refilled glass of Coca-Cola was another. As was the existence of what appeared to be a Mandarin cover of "Easy Like Sunday Morning," which blasted overhead while we waited for our hot pot to get, uh, hot.

Dozens of faux propaganda posters, replete with smiling Maos and happy workers and beautiful women, hang on the otherwise painfully average walls of Private Party. The only one I could competently translate, located behind the cash register, boasted that the restaurant serves the "best hot pot in Los Angeles." As I have not consumed any other hot pot in Los Angeles, I cannot confirm or deny this braggadocious claim. I can say, however, that when it comes to the People's Republic of China, braggadociousness is very on brand.

Many of the bright, engaging posters hung below surveillance cameras; the restaurant's presumably unintentional inclusion of said cameras served to push its "Big Brother is watching" vibe. Arguably, it is the only truly Big Brother-esque aspect of the entire, otherwise unexceptional, experience.

The wait staff paced, almost martially, up and down the aisles while we ate — I assumed they were judging us, as it was painfully evident we had no idea what the fuck we were doing. One waiter suggested we purchase $1 skewers, located in a refrigerator in the corner of the restaurant, and cook them over hot coals in the middle of our hot pots, as it was decidedly easier than muttering to ourselves while trying, in vain, to chopstick complimentary ramen into our mouths without looking like goddamned animals. We respectfully declined, choosing instead to continue wondering how long a lobster ball that isn't actually lobster has to cook in a vat of hot liquid in order to be confidently consumed.

I made a mess of my meal, slathering oily broth over the table and my hands, because I am a disgusting capitalist pig. The wait staff, however, still treated me like a human being, because I was paying them for the privilege.

A woman I could only assume was the manager of Private Party informed us, as we exited, that were we to post pictures of the restaurant on Instagram, we'd receive 20 percent off our next meal. The only non-uniformed worker in the restaurant, she spoke perfect English. With her send-off I was transported, instantly, back into our capitalist reality.

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Terrorism insurance, an industry that did not exist in America before September 11, 2001, is on the upswing these days, with companies offering coverage for property damage and loss of revenue when nightmares bleed into reality. Today, 62 percent of businesses in the US have some form of terrorism insurance, according to Bob Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute, a nonprofit consumer group intended to help people better understand the industry.

And experts expect that number will only increase in the wake of the recent mass shootings in San Bernardino and Colorado Springs.

"It's an axiom in the world of insurance that nothing sells insurance against tragedy like a tragedy," Hartwig says. "If instead of a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, we had a major earthquake, I can assure you there would have been a surge in purchases of earthquake coverage."

Fear translates into cash, and companies like Marsh, one of the largest insurance brokers in the world, usually see a spike in business immediately following news reports of a terrorist attack.

"The number of questions increases, the number of requests, adding terrorism coverage," explains Tarique Nageer, who heads Marsh's property terrorism division in New York City. "The what-if scenario: 'What if this happens to us?'"

With recent attacks on soft, non-military targets, like in Paris and San Bernardino, more businesses are feeling vulnerable. And while terrorism insurance is still a relatively young phenomenon in the United States, other countries like the United Kingdom—with its history of Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombings—and Israel have had it for some time.

After the September 11 attacks, though, America's terrorism insurance game quickly got traction.

"It was an exciting time because it was a very active marketplace," Nageer recalls. "Banks were requiring policies to have terrorism insurance... people didn't get loans to do construction projects ."

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon more than 14 years ago resulted in over $24 billion in insured property loss. In 2002, President George W. Bush signed the Terror Risk Insurance Act into law, creating a government safety net so payouts wouldn't put companies out of business in case of a similar catastrophe.

Under the law, however, the definition of a terrorist attack is rather precise, and contingent on damage of at least $5 million, as determined by the US Treasury Secretary.

The shooting in San Bernardino was quickly dubbed terrorism by the FBI. And on Thursday, Enrique Marquez, Jr., friend and former neighbor of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, was charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, along with two other counts. The criminal complaint alleges Farook introduced Marquez to "radical Islamic ideology" and that Marquez bought the AR-15 style rifles used in the shooting, as well as explosive materials that were used to make a pipe bomb which was found at the scene.

Nonetheless, the shooting might not qualify as terrorism from an insurance standpoint—"even if everyone in the universe agrees it's an act of terror," according to Hartwig.

"That's essentially what happened in Boston," with the bombing at the local Marathon in 2013, he says. "You had a couple of pressure cooker bombs that blew up in the street. They did some damage to businesses, but those losses did not total $5 million."

Nor does the law cover loss of life, unless a person is killed on the job, as in the case of rescue workers.

For companies that have terrorism insurance but don't meet the government's $5 million threshold after an attack, it's up to the insurance adjusters who assess damage on the ground to determine if any given incident qualifies as terrorism. Factors include whether the act causes fear, property damage, and whether it was motivated by politics, religion, or ideology.

"It doesn't have to be ISIL or al Qaeda," explains Nageer. "It could be someone going after Planned Parenthood, animal rights activists."

So far, the federal terrorism program has never been used. Even if damage were to exceed $5 million, federal money wouldn't kick in until a loss was valued at $100 million. Without having to pay out large claims, insurance companies have dropped rates over the past few years—and still raked in a steady profit.

Hartwig predicts a continued spike in sales for businesses in smaller cities throughout the country, especially after the attacks in San Bernardino and Colorado Springs—neither of which exactly qualifies as a global metropolis.

"We see that after a flooding," he says. "They have a heightened awareness of a threat because of their vulnerability and they go out an immediately purchase coverage."

Cole Kazdin is a writer in Los Angeles.

Cassie, 21, is one of a number of MH Warriors supporting each other on Instagram

"Imagine your body is a car. Everyone in the car can drive but only one person can be in control at a time. If you are in the passenger seat, you can easily communicate with the driver, but those in the back seat sound a little distant and it is harder to communicate with them. Everyone can move seats in this car at any point, suddenly without warning. This car is my body. This is what it feels like to live with DID."

Cassie is 21, and in many respects she is just like any other alternative Scottish girl. She likes dying her hair in colors like purple and blue. She describes herself as an "ethical vegan." She likes to sing, and play guitar, and is in a long-term relationship with her girlfriend, Fi. But Cassie isn't your average 21-year-old. She lives in an in-patient ward, and has spent more of her life in the hospital than out of it, battling anorexia, DID (dissociative identity disorder) symptoms, OCD, and self harm. Her life is documented through her Instagram account, on which she has over 10,000 followers, the majority of whom are also dealing with various mental health conditions. The girls in this community refer to themselves often as "MH (mental health) warriors," and the community allows them, for the most part, to help and support each other through whatever problems it is that they are dealing with.

"That common understanding and sympathy toward each other's situations was probably the best thing about recovery communities for me," explains Daisy, a recovered sufferer of anorexia who became a part of the "recovery community" in October 2013. Often, sufferers of eating disorders will search the internet (on sites like Twitter, Tumblr, and the Instagram app) for things related to the illness; it isn't uncommon for anorexia sufferers to spend hours obsessing about food, or poring over recipe books. This is the same for people who are sick, but also in recovery, who frequently cite feeling "alone" or "misunderstood" in their struggle to recover from the illness. "I think I was aware of what was happening to me and so I was looking on the various #anorexia and #anorexiarecovery hashtags to see if anybody else was going through the same thing," explained Daisy, describing how she first came to join the community. After following a few Instagram accounts ("mostly girls") devoted to eating disorder recovery, Daisy made her own account and began to post photos of her meals throughout her journey to health.

Mental illnesses can be self perpetuating, as sufferers often lack insight into their own condition. Outside perspectives can therefore be incredibly beneficial in order to help people begin recovery effectively. It is for this reason that it has been found to be beneficial for patients in recovery to spend time with other people dealing with similar issues. This is why treatment for people with mental health problems often involves group therapy—someone who sees other people succeeding in tackling their illnesses can feel encouraged and incentivized to do the same thing for themselves. Daisy describes seeing others recovering as being a "big motivation" for her to start her own recovery, and told me that being able to support others also reinforced her own recovery. "Being a good role model gave me comfort in the process," she explained. She still receives messages from other people in the community, telling her she has helped them in their recoveries. "You do become very emotionally invested in other people's lives and recoveries," she admits, "and that can be seen as a good thing, or a bad thing."

Cassie says the MH community helps her deal with her DID (dissociative identity disorder) symptoms

For Cassie, her Instagram account acts not only as an aid to recovery for herself and others, but as a record of her own state of mind. DID is a relatively unexplored condition previously known as multiple personality syndrome. Cassie's condition presents itself as eight different personalities (the official term for which is 'alters'), varying from age four to age 26, and depending on which is in control of her body at the time, the content of her Insta account will vary. "Imagine someone hacking into one of your social media accounts and you find a post you never wrote," she explains. "That is what it feels like, except I know who made the post." She sometimes worries that one of her alters might post something inappropriate to share on social media, but at the same time she describes her profile as a "good way of keeping track of what we've all been up to." DID is thought to be caused by repeated childhood trauma, with the dissociative aspect being a coping mechanism the individual uses to protect the conscious self. Psychologists believe that if an adult experiences a very traumatic experience, it can result in them showing symptoms of PTSD. When children experience extreme trauma they are more likely to show symptoms of DID, both in childhood, and later on into adulthood, perhaps because of their use of imagination as a coping strategy. "I had blank spells, and chunks of my life seemed to be missing," Cassie says. "I often felt like I was out of my body, watching myself."

Within the general population, the rate of dissociative identity disorder is between 0.1 percent to one percent, and can be incredibly isolating for sufferers, who fear being unbelieved and alone. Within the community of "MH warriors," the condition is still relatively rare, but there are some people with the condition who can provide each other with the sort of companionship and understanding they would be hard pressed to find elsewhere. "DID is a very misunderstood illness so being able to connect with people who are going through the same thing has helped so much" Cassie says, when I asked her about her followers who have the same condition. "The support has been a godsend, because people 'in real life' don't always know how to respond to my alters, especially the younger ones." She worries that people might think some of the posts are written by her as herself, as her disorder is very complex to express. "As much as my alters and I share the same body, we are all different people."

Although the Instagram recovery community is nothing but helpful for some, there are others whom it does not benefit, and for those people it can potentially be detrimental and harmful. Following controversy surrounding 'pro anorexia' and 'thinspiration' accounts, Instagram has had an official policy for a while now, banning accounts and hashtags that promote self harm, including eating disorders. For a community of mental health sufferers, many of whom must still be 'ill,' in order to be in the progress of 'recovery,' there is a fine line between the healthy side of eating disorder recovery and the dangerous side of eating disorder promotion. Eating disorders are inherently competitive by nature, and when the focus of the community sometimes falls on 'body checking' and posting pictures of food to other people suffering with eating problems it becomes easy to see how recovery communities can sometimes contribute to a decline in the mental health of someone who is already sick.

After following a few Instagram accounts devoted to eating disorder recovery, Daisy made her own account and began to post photos of her meals throughout her journey to health.

"I spent an unhealthy amount of time on Instagram," Daisy says. "Every single thing that went in my mouth had to be arranged, photographed, and posted...it became quite obsessive." She remembers first joining the recovery community and noticing everybody putting their "highest weight, lowest weight, goal weight, and current weight" in their Instagram bios. There was also a phase of calling yourself the "king or queen of a certain food." Cassie echoed the same point of view, saying that you have to be "selfish" when it comes to your own recovery. She doesn't follow accounts that she thinks will trigger her, and unfollows people who she feels aren't taking their recovery seriously. "I am here to support others as they support me, but I will choose my battles," she adds.

For everyone in recovery communities, there must come a point when they have to leave. A part of being "recovered" would mean that the individual no longer feels the need to use the support of other people online. Daisy still has her original Instagram account, but she uses it for personal purposes now, rather than recovery. "I'm glad I left, as leaving has enabled me to recover to a level I wouldn't have if I were still posting all my food online," she remarked. "I reached a point where I felt it was holding me back."

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It's December, which means it's time to look back at a year full of cry-babies, and decide which of those cry-babies was the cry-babiest cry-baby of all. Below are ten people, selected by me, from the list of people who have been named Cry-Baby of the Week over the last 12 months. At the bottom of the page, you can vote for your favorite.

This year's winner will join three previous Cry-Baby of the Year "champs": A TV reporter who got a man arrested because he grabbed her microphone, a family who threatened to sue their neighbors for installing a wheelchair ramp on their home, and a woman who tried to trick some men into raping a lady who had outbid her on a house. Here are the contenders.

Cry-Baby #1: Robyn Wilkins

Screencaps via WMC Action News 5 and Google Maps

The incident: A woman thought she saw a pentagram in a brake light.

The appropriate response: Nothing.

The actual response: She called her local news station because she thought it looked satanic.

In January, a woman named Robyn Wilkins was driving behind a school bus in Memphis, Tennessee, when she noticed that the brake lights resembled the shape of an upside-down star.

Wilkins snapped a photo, which you can see above, and sent it to her local news station, WMC Action News 5, complaining that the brake lights resembled a pentagram (which WMC Action News referred to as a "satanic symbol").

"Anyone who fears a god, if not God and Jesus Christ, should be outraged," Wilkins told the station. She then asked, "Would we allow a swastika, for instance, to be on the back of the bus?" That's a provocative question!

The news station approached the bus company and the school to get their sides of the "story," but both declined to comment.

Cry-Baby #2: The Texas Department of Public Safety and Transportation

Photo via Instagram

The incident: A state trooper posed for a photo with Snoop Dogg.

The appropriate response: Nothing.

The actual response: The trooper was ordered to undergo counseling.

In March, while at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas State Trooper Sergeant Billy L. Spears posed for a photo with Snoop Dogg.

Snoop posted the photo on his Instagram page with the caption "Me n my deputy dogg," followed by gun and star emojis.

Later than month, a supervisor from the Texas Department of Public Safety and Transportation drove 40 miles to hand-deliver a counseling order to Billy.

Billy's lawyer, Ty Clevenger, posted the order online. "While working a secondary employment job, Trooper Spears took a photo with a public figure who has a well-known criminal background including numerous drug charges," it read. "It reflects poorly on the agency."

Ty claimed that his client didn't know about Snoop's criminal background. "Believe it or not, some folks don't watch TMZ or read People Magazine," he wrote on his blog. He also claimed that the real reason for the citation was an "act of retaliation against Billy," because the trooper had "reported misconduct by an officer from another agency" the previous year.

Billy is reportedly not able to appeal the citation because it technically doesn't count as formal disciplinary action. However, according to Ty, the counseling will still go into Billy's personnel record, and could harm his eligibility for future promotions.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety and Transportation refused to comment on the case, saying that the agency does not comment on personnel issues unless they result in disciplinary action.

Cry-Baby #3: Luke Gatti

The incident: A drunk guy was denied jalapeño bacon mac-and-cheese.

The appropriate response: Getting food elsewhere. Probably at home.

The actual response: He threw a tantrum so severe that he ended up arrested.

Back in October, Luke Gatti, a 19-year-old student at the University of Connecticut, attempted to buy some bacon and jalapeño macaroni-and-cheese from his school's cafeteria. He was denied service, apparently because he'd been drinking alcohol on the premises.

In a video of the incident, Luke can be seen repeatedly requesting some "fucking bacon jalapeño mac-and-cheese." When his requests are ignored, Luke tries a few different tactics, ranging from calling the manager a "fucking fag" to shoving him in the chest.

At one point during the encounter, Luke realizes he's being filmed, turns to the manager, and says, "This is gonna be posted somewhere, and you're gonna look like a fucking tool."

After shoving the manager a second time, another member of the cafeteria staff tackles Luke to the ground while screaming "You don't touch my boss!"

The video ends with Luke calling the manager a bitch, and seemingly spitting in his face. This prompts the responding officer to rush Luke out of the building, using his face to open the door. At the moment of impact, Luke makes an incredibly satisfying sound, that I guess I would transcribe as gwelpth.

Luke was charged with breach of peace in the second degree and criminal trespassing. He is currently seeking accelerated rehabilitation in his case. (This was not Luke's first brush with the law. Last year, he was reportedly arrested for disorderly conduct, which included calling a cop a "fucking nigger.")

Luke was expelled from UConn as a result of the cafeteria video. After it went viral, he issued a video apology.

Later that week, The Hartford Courant went to the cafeteria and tried the bacon jalapeño mac-and-cheese to see if it was worth getting expelled for. They said it was pretty good.

Cry-Baby #4: Robert A. Bonzani

Screencap via Google Maps

The incident: A man went through a lengthy divorce.

The appropriate response: Doing everything you can to finalize it, then moving on.

The actual response: He allegedly desecrated the grave of his ex-wife's attorney's deceased daughter.

Robert Bonzani is a urologist living in Mokena, Illinois. In 2012, he and his wife divorced. Though this was several years ago, the divorce proceedings were, as of April, still ongoing. According to a report in the Chicago Tribune, the most recent filings at the time related to child support payments.

Throughout the divorce, Robert's wife was represented by an attorney named Edward Jaquays. Back in 2012, Edward's 17-year-old daughter Kiley died in a hiking accident in Utah, where she was attending a retreat for troubled teens.

According to charges brought against Robert, he has waged a campaign of harassment against Edward Jaquays to get revenge on the lawyer for representing his wife in their divorce.

Police say that Robert stole photos and an artificial tree from Kiley's grave site, and vandalized her headstone with spray paint. He also allegedly sent several letters to Edward and his wife that mentioned their daughter. The content of those letters has not been released, but CBS reports they were "designed to cause the divorce attorney and his wife emotional pain."

Robert turned himself into police in April and was charged with criminal damage to property, theft, and stalking.

Cry-Baby #5: Jay Foster

Lanarcia Walker with two relatives. Screencaps via Google Maps and WREG

The incident: Some people cheered at a graduation ceremony after being told they weren't allowed to cheer.

The appropriate response: Shushing them or throwing them out.

The actual response: Warrants were issued for their arrest.

In May, 18-year-old Lanarcia Walker graduated from Senatobia High School in Senatobia, Mississippi.

As she made her way across the stage to collect her diploma at the school's graduation ceremony, several of her relatives in the audience shouted things at the stage. Normal, graduation-shouting things: Lanarcia's father shouted, "You did it, baby!" Another relative shouted the graduate's name.

This created a problem, as Jay Foster, the superintendent of Lanarcia's school, had asked the crowd not to applaud or cheer until the end of the ceremony. The audience had been told, according to a report on WREG Memphis, that doing so would get them kicked out of the event.

Following their outburst, four members of Lanarcia's family were asked to leave the graduation ceremony.

A couple of weeks later, the ejected family members were served with papers informing them that they were being charged with "DISTUBE PEACE," which, presumably, is the same thing as disturbing the peace.

The papers described how the family had used "loud boisterous noise" to "disturb the public peace of Jay Foster." Their bonds were set at $500 each.

"It's crazy. The fact that I might have to bond out of jail, pay court costs, or a $500 fine for expressing my love, it's ridiculous man. It's ridiculous," Henry Walker, one of the relatives served with the papers, told the press.

WREG attempted to speak to Jay Foster, the superintendent who pressed the charges. He refused to appear on camera, but reportedly told the news station that he was determined to have order at his school's graduation ceremonies.

After the story made national news, Jay Foster withdrew the charges against the family.

Cry-Baby #6: Jodie Marie Burchard-Risch

Screencap via Google Maps

The incident: A woman heard someone speaking a foreign language in an Applebee's.

The appropriate response: Nothing.

The actual response: She allegedly threw a beer mug in the face of the non-English speaker.

In October, 43-year-old Jodie Marie Burchard-Risch (pictured above) was eating at an Applebee's in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, with her husband.

According to a report on Minneapolis news station KARE 11, Jodie "became upset" after noticing that a customer seated in the booth next to hers was speaking a language other than English. The customer, Asma Jama, was reportedly speaking Swahili. She was dining with her two cousins and four children, all of whom were under 11 years old.

Police say the restaurant's staff asked Jodie to leave, but she refused, instead yelling abuse at Asma. She then allegedly threw a large beer mug in Asma's face, cutting the woman's nose, eyebrow, and lips.

"Emotionally, that has destroyed me," Asma told Minnesota's Fox 9. "I've lived in Minnesota for 15 years—never has anyone even looked at me weird for not speaking English and wearing a hijab. I've seen hate crimes on TV, but for it to happen to me? I'm really a different person. I don't like it."

Jodie was arrested and charged with third degree assault.

Cry-Baby #7: Some students at Duke University

Screencaps via Google and Amazon

The incident: Some students at a university were asked to read the graphic novel Fun Home as part of a summer reading program.

The appropriate response: Reading it. Or looking it up on Wikipedia, and then pretending you read it.

The actual response: Several students refused to read the book, claiming the sex depicted in it violated their religious beliefs.

As part of its annual summer reading program, Duke University in Durham, North Carolina provided incoming freshmen in 2015 with a list of recommended books. One of the books on the list was Fun Home, an autobiographical graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, which centers on the author's experience coming to terms with her homosexuality, as well as her relationship with her father, who was a closeted gay man. The book features several illustrations of women having sex.

According to a report in the Duke Chronicle, an incoming freshman named Brian Grasso posted on the school's Class of 2019 Facebook page, explaining why he was not willing to read the book. "I feel as if I would have to compromise my personal Christian moral beliefs to read it," Brian wrote.

The Chronicle reports that another student said she "could not bring herself to view the images depicting nudity," and another told the school paper that he would not read the book due to its "pornographic nature."

Brian, the author of the Facebook post, also wrote an op-ed for theWashington Post, in which he goes into more detail about his decision not to read Fun Home.

"After researching the book's content and reading a portion of it, I chose to opt out of the assignment," Brian wrote. "My choice had nothing to do with the ideas presented. I'm not opposed to reading memoirs written by LGBTQ individuals or stories containing suicide. I'm not even opposed to reading Freud, Marx, or Darwin. I know that I'll have to grapple with ideas I don't agree with, even ideas that I find immoral."

He added that he would not be reading the book because the Bible forbids people from looking at pornographic images. "My beliefs extend to pop culture and even Renaissance art depicting sex," he wrote. Brian also believes that his professors have a duty to give him a heads-up when he might possibly be exposed to a boob: "And I believe professors should warn me about such material, not because I might consider them offensive or discomforting, but because I consider it immoral."

Cry-Baby #8: Bill Riley

Screencaps via Google Maps and Fox 6

The incident: A garbage man started his shift early.

The appropriate response: Asking him to start on time if this creates an issue. Possibly some kind of fine for repeat violations.

The actual response: He was sentenced to 30 days in jail.

In early March, Kevin McGill, a garbage man in Sandy Springs, Georgia, started his garbage pickup at 5 AM.

Because Sandy Springs has a city ordinance limiting garbage collection to between the hours of 7 AM and 7 PM, Kevin was cited for a violation. Then he was sentenced to 30 days in jail, to be served over a series of weekends.

"It was terrible—I didn't want to go in," Kevin told VICE at the time. "I didn't know what to expect, and when I got in it was worse than anything I could have imagined."

According to his lawyer, in addition to his weekend incarcerations, Kevin was also sentenced to six months probation, during which time he would be required to pay a monthly fees to the City of Sandy Springs.

Sharon Kraun, a spokesperson for the city, says that early-morning garbage truck noise is not something Sandy Springs residents will tolerate.

The harsh sentence was requested by prosecutor Bill Riley (pictured above). Riley, who deserves to be bundled up and thrown into the back of Kevin's truck because he is fucking garbage, defended the harsh sentence to Atlanta's WSB-TV, claiming that local residents have been calling 911 when the garbage collectors come early (Jesus Christ).

"Fines don't seem to work," Riley told the news station. "The only thing that seems to stop the activity is actually going to jail."

The good news is that after a media backlash over Kevin's sentencing, charges against Kevin were dropped.

"There are times when taking a step back provides the opportunity for better perspective," the Sandy Springs Solicitor's Office wrote in a statement. At the time the charges were dropped, Kevin had spent two days in jail.

Cry-Baby #9: Jerquan Dickson

Screencap via Google Maps

The incident: Some kids threw snowballs at a guy's car.

The appropriate response: Yelling something at them as you drive away.

The actual response: He shot one of them several times.

This past weekend, 22-year-old Jerquan Dickson (pictured above) was driving in York, Pennsylvania. As he passed a group of teenage boys, one of them allegedly threw a snowball at his car.

According to police, Jerquan got out of his car, chased the teens into an alleyway, and started shooting, firing six shots before fleeing. Several of these shots hit 15-year-old Johnel Barton in the arms and legs.

Jerquan was later found by police at his home. He admitted to shooting at the boy, but claims he had been trying to fire "warning shots" into the snow. He was charged with aggravated assault and recklessly endangering another person.

The kid who got shot was taken to hospital, where he was treated for non-life-threatening injuries, local news channel Fox 43 reported at the time. In August, Jerquan was sentenced to up to 23 months in prison.

Cry-Baby #10: Nicholas Allegretto

Screencap via Google Maps

The incident: A business posted a picture online of a man shoplifting from their store.

The appropriate response: Not shoplifting if you're not comfortable with that type of exposure.

The actual response: He complained to police that his human rights were being violated, which led to him being arrested.

In February, 23-year-old Nicholas Allegretto attempted to steal a magnet from Mackays, a hardware store in Cambridge, England. He was caught outside the store and made to give the magnet back. He then ran away.

After the incident, store owner Neil Mackay took a screencap of Nicholas from the security camera footage and sent it to the local newspaper. The image was also posted on social media.

" basically saying to him: 'We know who you are, our staff knows who you are, you're not very welcome, thank you very much indeed," Neil told the Daily Mail. "We'd rather you didn't come in the store."

According to Neil, the shoplifter then went to the local police station to complain that his "human rights were being abused."

The Cambridge News reports that Nicholas told police he had lost his job as a roofer, and that his sister had been bullied at school as a result of the image being made public.

According to Neil, "the police decided they had enough evidence once they looked at the CCTV images to prosecute, and that's what they've done."

Nicholas was charged with theft. He was supposed to appear in court in October, but didn't show up. He was found guilty in his absence.

"I suppose you could say he wasn't the sharpest tool in the box," said Neil. Which is a funny thing for him to say, because he owns a tool shop.

Who has been the biggest cry-baby of 2015? Let us know in this poll down here:

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Martin Shkreli getting arrested. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

On Thursday morning, America woke to the news that one of the most reviled men in the country, 32-year-old Martin Shkreli, had been arrested. The 32-year-old CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals stirred up outrage in September when he increased the price of a drug by 5,000 percent, and then again in December for buying the sole copy of a legendary Wu-Tang Clan album, and once more on December 16 for giving a bizarre interview with a hip-hop blog in which he claimed that his provocative antics and greed qualified as performance art.

But when the feds carted away the baby-faced businessman from his Midtown Manhattan apartment in handcuffs, it had nothing to do with any of the things he's made headlines for in the past few months. Although the public is apparently psyched at the prospect of justice for the people suffering from toxoplasmosis—the condition that Daraprim, the price of which he raised from $13.50 to $750, is used to treat—exploiting sick people for profit is perfectly legal in America.

So what exactly is Shkreli in trouble for? On Thursday at noon, brand-new US Attorney Robert Capers presided over a packed press conference in Brooklyn. There, he stood before a flow-chart describing the "Ponzi-like scheme" Shkreli allegedly perpetrated back when he was a hedge fund manager.

The seven-count indictment Capers issued over accused Shkreli of coming up with a three-part plot with the help of an attorney named Evan Greebel. Basically, the government alleges, he started a hedge fund called MSMB Capital Management LP in 2009 that lost a lot of money. Although he told investors he had $35 million in assets under his management, the fund had less than $700 in its bank and brokerage accounts at one point.

In 2011, prosecutors say, Shkreli started another hedge fund called MSMB Healthcare LP and used the $5 million in investments he got for it to pay back the investors he'd already screwed over.

"But because Shkreli had lied to investors about the exceptional performance of his investments, he found himself at a crossroads," Capers explained at the press conference. "Either come clean and have to admit that he lied and lost money and have all those lies discovered, or continue the lies and somehow pay the investors. And like did Shkreli did in the past, he made the wrong choice: He lied."

By then, Shkreli had co-founded yet another enterprise, the biopharmaceutical company Retrophin, which went public in 2012. So he allegedly took shares from Retrophin and used them to pay off his hedge fund investors, therefore providing them with the illusion that he hadn't lost all of their money, prosecutors say. He then cooked his books to make it look like he was charging the investors for consulting fees rather than using his company as a personal piggy bank.

In 2014, Retrophin pushed Shkreli out as CEO and later sued him, alleging that he had started the company just to pay off the people burned by MSMB's failure. (Shkreli called these allegations "preposterous.") The current indictment closely mirrors this civil suit.

Greeble, a 42-year-old attorney who served as Retrophin's outside council, has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for his participation in all this.

When Shkreli raised the price of Daraprim, he did it in his capacity as the CEO Turing Pharmaceuticals. Capers would not speculate during the press conference as to whether the price-gouging was connected to Shkreli's alleged criminal conduct, but in any case the 32-year-old has resigned from his post at Turing.

The would-be performance artist faces 20 years in prison for securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy, and wire fraud conspiracy—and there's a possibility for more arrests as the case unfolds, according to Capers.

Richard Brodsky, a lawyer, former member of the New York State Assembly, and one-time candidate for attorney general, said it's not not worth getting hung up on the word Ponzi, and that the case is "not complicated stuff." After all, he adds: "You do not have to be a financial wizard to understand that lying about an investment is crime.

"The interesting issue is why he would keeping poking his head above the radar knowing this was going on," Brodsky continued. "I mean at some point. if you know what's happening, you'd have to have an LSD-induced sense of immunity "

Shkreli was released Thursday afternoon on a $5 million bond, and released a defiant statement:

Probably what a Canadian doctor looks like. Photo via Flickr user anyjazz65

It's been a turbulent year for the Canadian medical system: debates over physician-assisted suicide, efforts to improve trans health care and abortion access, and the uncovering of bunk supplements and prescriptions are just a few of the highlights that made the last twelve months so notable. With so much news to clear through, we broke down some of the major issues for health care in Canada in 2015.

Physician-Assisted Suicide

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled that terminally ill patients have the right to ask a doctor to help them die. It's a decision that marked the end of a battle that started over two decades ago with the case of Sue Rodriguez, a woman suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—also known as Lou Gehrig's disease—who asked to have her life ended with the help of her doctor. At the time, she lost the case with a ruling of 5-4 and ultimately ended up defying the court by having a physician and friend—former NDP politician Svend Robinson—help her commit suicide in 1994.

In February of this year, 22 years after the original ruling, the Supreme Court came to a unanimous decision to allow physician-assisted suicide, and they have given the government until February 2016 to formulate a precise strategy as to how they'll legislate the matter. The court cited "sanctity of life" as guaranteed by the charter as what was being violated by forcing someone to live in pain.

"A person facing this prospect has two options: she can take her own life prematurely, often by violent or dangerous means, or she can suffer until she dies from natural causes. The choice is cruel," the opening statement on their decision reads.

Since the word came down, debate over how physician-assisted suicide should be handled has been fervent. For one, the Council of Canadians with Disabilities and the Canadian Association for Community Living, two organizations that have generally advocated for a ruling in favour of physician-assisted death, criticized the ruling for having language that allowed new law to be too broad.

"As we each near the end of our lives, at the time when we are likely to be most vulnerable to despair and fear, we have now lost the protection of the Criminal Code. Where shall we now find that protection? CCD and CACL caution that our collective response to this question must go far beyond the technical exercise of so-called "safeguards," a joint statement read.

While it's unclear exactly how the new Trudeau government will form legislation following the decision, the Liberals have asked for a six-month extension on the February 6, 2016 date ordered by the Supreme Court due to what the federal government says is a "very high level of legal uncertainty" created by the original ruling. Despite the wait on the federal level, Quebec has passed law that legalizes physician-assisted dying in the province, putting it at odds with the current Liberal government. The law, which went into action December 10, is unlikely to go unimpeded, considering it is already being challenged by the courts.

Trans Health Care

2015 was also a big year for trans health care, even if much of the time was spent on a battle for awareness surrounding the issues facing the trans community. One of the most pressing issues was access to sex reassignment surgery. In Ontario, this access has been notoriously bottlenecked. Currently, prospective patients looking to have OHIP-funded surgery done need to go through a mental and physical assessment, and the only mandated place that can do so is CAMH in Toronto.

Not only is this a problem geographically—as those in remote areas have to travel a very long distance just to get a check-up—but the wait list to get greenlit for the treatment is absurdly long, sometimes stretching up to three years. In many cases, this forces trans individuals to have to pay for the expensive surgery themselves through a private clinic. In other, more worrying cases, there is data to support that self-surgeries have been performed out of a desperate need for treatment.

In November, Ontario Health Minister Dr. Eric Hoskins pledged to expand the number of facilities that will be able to greenlight reassignment surgery, with the possibilities of hundreds of facilities getting referral capabilities by some point next year.

"One of the most vulnerable times for trans people is when they are ready for surgery, but face a prolonged wait," said Hoskins. "This change would reduce wait times by allowing many trans clients to get surgical approvals from their own local primary care teams."

VICE looked into the issue of access to surgery earlier this year in the documentary On Hold, which examines the state of trans health care in Canada. Outside of access to reassignment surgery, the doc explored issues such as trans individuals have poor access to transitional hormones and the lack of publicly-funded procedures in New Brunswick. The new Liberal government hasn't yet proposed anything solid when it comes to addressing trans health care at a federal level.

Abortion Access

In July, a VICE documentary highlighted the severe restrictions for women trying to access abortions in the Maritimes. The restrictions have lead many women to performing their own DIY abortions, or having under-the-table physicians perform makeshift abortions for them, and more recently, PEI women have been redirected to Moncton, NB,via a toll-free hotline in order to have abortions performed.

This situation unfortunately hasn't changed. To this date, PEI offers no route for women to get safe and legal abortions. But the new federal Minister of Health told CBC News in November that abortion access needs to be expanded, and the the Liberal government will look at ways of expanding access. The minister didn't go into detail as to how this would be achieved (not to mention the fact that health care is handled on a provincial level.)

Medical Record Snooping

After reports over the last year showed that Canadian hospitals were not only failing to protect the medical records of patients, but had employees who were actively digging into said records—the most notable of which being those of crack-smoking former Toronto mayor Rob Ford—red flags began to pop up all over the medical system. The Toronto Star found that records were not only being stolen en masse, but that certain employees were actually selling the personal information of patients for profit.

The case of Shaida Bandali, a 61-year-old clerk from Rogue Valley Hospital, ended with the hospital worker pleading guilty for forking over thousands of medical record to financial brokers over 12 years. Bandali was selling the records for $1 to $2.75 a piece and netted at least $12,000 in the 22 months she was investigated, although it's unclear how much she made over more than decade-long period she was running the scheme. Bandali plead guilty in August, was fined $36,000 and was placed on two-year probation.

More notably is legal battle started by a Peterborough resident who sued for an unauthorized access of their medical records. They won the case, and the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that future class action lawsuits against hospitals that fail to protect the information of their patients are fair game. This could spell trouble for hospitals in other provinces that have been caught of the same thing—see Alberta, which has hit a "record" number of breaches, according to a privacy watchdog.

Bunk Supplements and Dirty Prescriptions

There's also been the issue of scandals involving drugs and supplements. An investigation released by CBC News in November found that most health supplements on the market—including things like omega-3 fish oil, Vitamin C, and protein powdered—were oftentimes marketed with greatly exaggerated claims or contained amounts that didn't match their label. Health Canada later confirmed that the process for verifying new supplements entering the market is "weak" and that improvement is needed.

In another case of Health Canada fucking up hard, one of the country's largest suppliers of prescription medications was caught for not only packaging possibly-unsafe drugs, but also that the facilities used for producing the drugs—in particular, two that were located in India—were not properly inspected by Health Canada and often allowed for improper use of ingredients. Health Canada was tangled in a legal battle with the drug company until recently, when a judge said that former Minister of Health Rona Ambrose had acted too quickly when she decided to ban importation of any drugs from the company.

Shitty Law Coming to An End

Finally, the blood ban on gay men—which has prevented them from donating blood to the Canadian Blood Services (CBS) for a really long time—was promised to be lifted by the new Trudeau government as soon as possible, and thank fucking god for that. Maybe next will be banning nurses from questioning how old my tattoos are or if I have an infectious disease because of them.

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A protest in Delhi following the 2012 bus gang rape. Photo via Flickr user Ramesh Lalwani.

Since the horrific gang rape of a 23-year-old woman aboard a moving bus in Delhi in 2012, India has come under global scrutiny for what's been dubbed as a "rape epidemic."

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, 24,923 rape cases were registered in India in 2012. That may not seem much in a country with a population of over 1.2 billion, but as Human Rights Watch points out, the number of unreported cases are significantly higher. Delhi's topped the list, developing a reputation as the "rape capital" of India. Since the 2012 gang rape, rapes have increased three times in Delhi. The Telegraph reports that last year one in every 4,185 out of a population of over 7 million females were raped in Delhi. Just this year, an average of six rapes have been reported in Delhi every day.

The 2012 gang rape was in no way an isolated incident, but it triggered massive protests and brought the issues of sexual assault and women's rights to the forefront across the country. Indians demanded answers and better governance from the leadership.

2012 was in many ways a crucial year for civil society in India. Earlier that year, the government was plagued with inefficiency and endless corruption allegations leading to protests and the rise of a massive anti-corruption crusade.

"The Indian movement was so strong and so unprecedented in 2012. Men and women of different ages and backgrounds were coming together and saying 'Enough, this is not OK," says Karuna Nundy, a Supreme Court of India lawyer.

"There was a certain amount of impatience and idealism in the air. Delhi had gone through a churning where a lot of middle class people were coming out to protest against corruption," Nundy told VICE.

Jyoti Singh, the victim of the Delhi gang rape, was "built to be the every woman," Nundy says. Yesterday, on the third anniversary of the incident, Singh's mother publicly revealed her name for the first time. Indian law prohibits publicly naming rape victims, and the Indian media had previously given her the pseudonym Nirbhaya, or fearless.

"She had a heroic story. Her parents wanted to spend money on her education instead of dowry," Nundy said. "She seemed hardworking and ambitious in the face of difficult odds. A lot of people identified with her and there was a sense across the country that this has to end."

One of the rapists from the Delhi gang rape was a minor at the time of the rape and tried separately than the other five accused. He was sentenced to three years in a correctional facility—the maximum sentence for juvenile offenders. Since then, a revised bill has been proposed that will allow 16–18-year-olds to be treated as adults for crimes such as rape and murder.

The convicted minor is scheduled to be released this month and his release has divided opinions among Indians. But amidst the discussion of rape and sexual harassment in the country and the need for change, India's politicians seem tone deaf and aren't helping. Some have made it a habit of glorifying rape and blaming it on the victim, as well as on things like the rise of cellphones, Chinese food, and Bollywood movies.

Here is but a small collection of terrible things Indian politicians have said about rape over the last three years:

Only last month, after a woman was allegedly raped by two men at night near a tennis club in the southern state of Karnataka, the state's newly-appointed home minister responsible for law and order asked "Why should a woman go to play tennis at 9.30 in the night?"

In October, his predecessor infamously wondered after a 22-year-old woman was raped by two men "how is it a gang rape if two people rape? Shouldn't there be at least three or four people for it to be called gang rape?"

Atul Anjan of the Communist Party of India reacted to a condom ad starring Bollywood actress Sunny Leone: "This advertisement develops sexually infected mindset and finishes off your sensibility. If such advertisements will continue to be shown on television there will certainly be an increase in rape cases."

Ramsevak Paikra of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and a minister responsible for law and order in the Indian state of Chattisgarh: "Such incidents do not happen deliberately. These kind of incidents happen accidentally."

Veteran politician Mulayam Singh Yadav is notorious for his sexist and daft comments.

-Yadav on how gang rape is... impractical: "Four people are named for rape, can it be possible? It is not practical."

-Yadav on how boys will be boys: "Should rape cases be punished with hanging? They are boys, they make mistakes."

-Yadav, the misogynistic gift that keeps on giving: "First, girls and boys become friends. Then, when differences occur between them, the girls accuse boys of rape."

Yadav's son, Akhilesh, the chief minister of the state of Uttar Pradesh follows in his father's patriarchal footsteps. Last year, when journalists asked him about the rise of rape and violence against women under his leadership, he shot back with "it's not as if you faced any danger."

Commenting on the Delhi gang rape, Abu Azmi, senior leader of the Samajwadi Party (headed by the Yadav father-son duo) said: "Women should not venture out with men who are not relatives. What is the need for roaming at night with men who are not relatives? This should be stopped. Such incidents (like the Delhi gang rape) happen due to influence of western culture."

Babulal Gaur, the minister responsible for the security of the state of Madhya Pradesh, said "It is not possible for any government to ensure that rape is not committed. Action can be taken only after the act is done. It is a social crime which depends on the man and the woman. It is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. Unless a complaint is filed, nothing happens."

The Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee. Photo via Twitter.

Mamata Banerjee, a female and Chief Minister of West Bengal, on why rapes are on the rise:

"Earlier if men and women would hold hands, they would get caught by parents and reprimanded but now everything is so open. It's like an open market with open options."

Manohar Lal Khattar, a BJP politician and now chief minister of Haryana, blamed rape on who else, but women?

"If a girl is dressed decently, a boy will not look at her in the wrong way. If they want freedom, why don't they just roam around naked? Freedom has to be limited."

What these politicians should have said is: a woman does not dress to please a man, she does not invite rape, she can dress however she wants, go wherever the fuck she wants with whomever she wants. Acquaintance rape is a real issue and we should stop pretending like it isn't. We should collectively stop blaming the victim for a crime that was done to her and stop propagating slut-shaming rhetoric. We must acknowledge that women are not sexual objects and have rights. Finally, as politicians we should be held accountable for failing to do our job to protect the constitutional and fundamental rights of a woman.

The answer may seem very basic and obvious, but in a country with deep-rooted patriarchy, it's important to reiterate it.

BJP politician Manohar Lal Khattar. Photo via Twitter.

"Like patriarchy, victim blaming is in the air we breathe," Nundy told VICE. "If you look at our language, for instance, we say Mary was raped by John. We don't say John raped Mary. The reason we don't is because that would inevitably shine a light on the man and the problem would be with the man."

But what's with all the victim blaming by Indian politicians?

"In some instances, politicians do this to disclaim state responsibility, to shrug off their jobs to ensure that women's rights to freedom are protected by their government," Nundy said.

According to Nundy, some of the reasons politicians make misogynistic comments are because of internalized patriarchy and "also to put the responsibility and the onus for being raped... on the woman herself."

We asked Nundy how such misogynist, bigoted attitudes can be countered.

"Ideally by voting people out of power. It's about power and making sure that women have power."

Some of Nundy's other suggestions for smashing the patriarchy include: directed behavioural change programs and messaging for both children and adults; changing service rules for public officials to make sure that rise in a cadre or being fired from it depends in part on their gender performance; and apart from inspired leadership, making sure there's affirmative action to combat patriarchy.

During his first Independence Day speech after becoming Prime Minister last year, Narendra Modi acknowledged the concerns around women's rights and sexual assault in the country. He accepted the need for gender equality and urged parents to hold their sons accountable instead of putting the blame on daughters. Earlier this year, he also launched "Beti Bachao Beti Padhao" (save the girl child, educate the girl child), a national campaign to counter female foeticide and a declining sex ratio. While public speeches and public campaigns are a step in the right direction, Modi must hold his ministers who make bigoted remarks accountable. When he launched the campaign, he was sharing the stage with Manohar Lal Khattar, Chief Minister of Haryana, a state with the most dismal sex ratio in India. The same guy who said, "If a girl is dressed decently, a boy will not look at her in the wrong way. If they want freedom, why don't they just roam around naked? Freedom has to be limited."

VICE has reached out to Khattar for comment but hasn't heard back.

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That's a lot of damage even for a fully dressed person. Still via Castanet.

A 24-year-old man was arrested this weekend in West Kelowna, BC, after he was found naked and stuck in the air vent of a home he had broken into, rummaged through, and completely destroyed.

According to Castanet, Tara Stanley and her family were on their way to Vancouver (roughly a four-hour drive away from Kelowna) when she received word from their neighbours that the noise from their home was a little loud.

"I told her we weren't home, and that is when things got weird," she said.

The neighbours later found out that it wasn't Stanley's family making the racket, but an intruder who had somehow managed to break into the home via a vent on the roof of the house. He was found stuck in a vent and wrapped in insulation, somehow trying to warm himself with it.

"He took out the wires in the vent on the neighbour's side, and he totally took out the vent on my side, and came in through the roof. He started kicking in through the roof above every room in the house," said Stanley.

"He totalled my master bedroom, went into the closet and every room. He didn't steal anything, but my bedroom was rummaged through."

The man appears to have stripped down while in the house, as Stanley notes that his underwear were left on top of her toilet.

Police later arrived and arrested the man before bringing him to hospital to assess injuries he had caused to himself while wrecking the home. The man was later released on a promise that he'll appear in court at later date. Stanley is, obviously, pretty worried about the fact that he's back in the community.

"We got his name, and we searched him on Facebook. I recognize him from the neighbourhood," Stanley said. "We are so confused and lost with what to do."

VICE has reached out to the RCMP regarding the case but has yet to hear back.

Follow Jake Kivanc on Twitter.

It's OK, sad clown, 2015 is almost over. Photo via Flickr user Aaron Fulkerson.

Was 2015 a good year? Like the first flowers bursting through a permafrost (a metaphor that will need explaining in ten years) there was actual good news this year. For the first time since 2001, the NSA's powers were limited, world leaders all finally agreed that climate change was an urgent problem and, in Canada, voters chose someone who seems like a decent person over the living avatar of death and despair. These blips did not overcome the general mood of 2015, which was that of a globe hurtling toward chaos and disaster. War continued to war, terrorism continued to terrorize, and the rich got richer while we got poorer. From Europe to India, the forces of nationalism and racism continued to grow and thrive while rationalism seemed unable to provide an alternative. And, of course, Trump. Even a good Star Wars movie will have hard time wiping the taste of this year out of our collective mouth.

In honour of this shit year—and in hopes to wring some grim laughs out of it—we asked some stand-up comedians what was the worst thing that happened to them all year and they responded with some 2015 appropriate lowlights including pedophilia, anxiety, addiction, unemployment, and lots of death!

JACKIE PIRICO

I was out walking one morning. The morning is when no bad stuff is supposed to happen! Turns out I was being closely trailed by a man; a CRACK man! A true crack enthusiast. He caught up with me and was all bloodied, as though someone had done a real number on his face via punching it in. He stared at me and cramped me up against the storefronts as we walked. He asked me if he looked OK, to which I replied, "Yes! Very nice!" Then he called me a whore and asked how many black men's cocks I've sucked; not in those words! I said, "Oh my gosh; I dunno! Some?!" Then I quickly ducked into David's Tea where I was conned into buying SO much tea for tons of money! "Buy even MORE tea", they said!

KRIS SIDDIQI

I was really fuckin hard on myself this year—that was the worst. I worked rather diligently trying to get some new jobs and after some disappointments I dealt with it poorly and took it out on myself pretty hard. Got sad and depressed. It kinda ended when I decided to, hilariously, go easy on myself. But ya, that was worst!!

JESS BEAULIEU

I got laid off from my full-time job at the end of 2014 and, although at first I was a tad shocked and frightened and pissed, I quickly transitioned to celebrating and doing shots of whiskey and yelling "this is the best thing that's ever happened to me. I'M FREEEEE!" That lasted for about a week, and then the real depression hit. 2015 rolled into town and I realized that being unemployed isn't all sunshine and roses and being able to pay your bills via dreams. It's more "oh god" and "what's happening" and "rent is due AGAIN?" My artist friends kept telling me how "lucky" I was but I didn't see it that way. Sure. I was "free" from mundane work but I was also "free" from a steady income and a reason to exit my bed in the morning. I suffer from anxiety and for the first few months of this year my existence basically consisted of me curled up in the fetal position, weeping, glancing at job boards, weeping again, and posting statuses on Facebook (about weeping). If I had trusted future me to figure shit out with time (which I sort of have), I probably wouldn't have spent most of the new year indoors, staring at myself in the mirror and telling freedom to go fuck itself.

D.J. DEMERS

I was performing stand-up on the "family-friendly show" on a cruise ship, and a 12-year-old girl was on her phone in the front row. I asked her to give her phone to me. When I looked at it, she was having a romantic/erotic conversation with a man who, from his profile photo, appeared to be 35–40 years old. Before I could say anything, she jumped on the stage, snatched the phone from me, and ran out of the room. The audience laughed very hard. I didn't tell them I had just stumbled upon probable pedophilia, as it tends to kill the mood.

AMANDA BROOKE PERRIN

The worst day of 2015 for me was when Tom Cruise lip synced against Jimmy Fallon, eternally ruining "I Can't Feel My Face" for generations to come.

Terrifying. Still via 'The Tonight Show.'

MARITO LOPEZ

I relapsed, and lost my job, and my egotistical ass was sure I was getting into Just For Laughs, so I was justifying that as a bright spot in my life, and as a reason to keep "partying," and then when I didn't get it, I was just a drunk idiot.

Hahaha.

With no job. No JFL. And a song called Baby Dick.

STEVE PATRICK ADAMS

I call it...

That day I moved from the city and apartment I love to be with the person I love by virtue of cramming my life into a mid-size sedan and throwing out the rest. Also my lover was pregnant and I didn't have a job. (Oh, and I had to get rid of my cat.)

NICK FLANAGAN

The worst thing that happened to me this year was my father's death. Nothing comes close, although Donald Trump's campaign has come close. I have a depressing feeling I'm not the only comic—or even daresay, person—who has "deceased parent" as their worst point of the year. Imagine I wrote "not performing at Montreal Just For Laughs" as my low point in spite of my father dying this year? That would be not good. Yet possible in this selfish, selfish world of Trump.

DEANNE SMITH

The absolute worst thing to happen to me in 2015 was that my mom died. But around that same time, I met my girlfriend. I was the saddest I'd ever been, and also super horny. I was crying all the time, but really turned on. What I'm trying to say is that my body was in a constant state of wetness, for various reasons. Leaking. Swollen. An emotional rollercoaster. The second worst thing to happen to me in 2015 was that joke I just made. Jesus, DeAnne.

JORDAN FOISY

Aside from watching the world engage in behavior that can't help but make my fascism sense start tingling, the worst thing that happened to me was, while drinking with some friends (one from high school, one from university, and one from current comedian days), I over did it to the point where, from 8:30 PM onwards, I spent the evening wrapped around my toilet. While locked in that familiar, cold porcelain embrace, I listened as three generations of my friends reminisced about all the times they've seen me get sick from alcohol over the years. The combination of embarrassment, nausea, and that vomit-soaked trip down memory lane made this feel a lot like hitting some kind of bottom. And not the fun Drake kind, but the one that makes you realize that maybe it's more than just a small body or that bars never clean their draft lines, maybe just maybe I have a problem.

Results from a new poll by left-leaning firm Public Policy Polling show that—among things like Muslim databases and travel bans based on religion—30 percent of Republican voters support the bombing of Agrabah, the imaginary Middle Eastern country from Disney's Aladdin cartoon.

The people who support wiping Aladdin's home off the map (if it actually existed on maps) also tend to back the inexplicably successful Donald Trump, with 45 percent of Agrabah-bombers saying they would vote for the Donald, according to PPP.

Public Policy Polling has a history of being poll trolls, and they didn't just stick to Republican voters this time around. The firm took to Twitter to say that 19 percent of Democrats also supported an Agrabah offensive, with 36 percent opposed. Apparently voters on both sides of the fence are pretty shitty at geography, some of them are just more bomb-y than others.

Affluenza teen Ethan Couch looking affluent. Photo via ABC Chicago.

Move over, Pharma Bro, there's a new contender for America's least-favorite man of the month: Ethan Couch—the so-called "Affluenza Teen" who famously ducked jail time after killing four people in 2013 while drunk driving, partly because his shrink said he was a spoiled brat and didn't know any better—may, authorities believe, have fled the country.

His original crime occurred on June 15, 2013, when the then-16-year-old Couch got behind of the wheel of his pickup truck after a night of partying. He'd been drinking, had smoked some weed, and taken valium. Regardless, he crammed five friends into the cab of his truck, and let two sit in the back for a nighttime drive near Fort Worth. He couldn't stay on the road, and at 70 mph swerved and hit a broken-down car on the shoulder. The four people working on the stalled car were dead, and two of Couch's friends were critically injured.

The aftermath, described later by a Tarrant County Sheriff's deputy in a story for D Magazine, "looked more like a plane crash than a car wreck."

When Couch saw his day in court, psychologist G. Dick Miller famously said his actions could be blamed on a severe case of "affluenza," essentially arguing the teen—a product of extremely rich parents who taught him he could do no wrong—was so tainted by his millionaire parents that he was basically a rudderless ship left adrift in the world.

On the stand, Miller described the condition: "Instead of the golden rule, which was, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,' was taught, 'We have the gold, we make the rules at the Couch household," he said in testimony, according to ABC News.

News of the defense quickly pissed a lot of people off. That outrage was amplified when Couch, who'd pleaded guilty to manslaughter and assault while intoxicated, avoided prison and was sentenced to rehab and ten years of drug-and-alcohol-free probation. Prosecutors, according to the Washington Post, had pushed for a sentence as stiff as 20 years behind bars.

Two years later, after Couch missed a meeting with his probation officer on Tuesday, Tarrant County, Texas Sheriff Dee Anderson suggested Couch was likely spooked his liberty was in jeopardy after a video on him playing beer pong leaked on Twitter.

In the six-second video, someone with a striking resemblance to Couch is seen smiling, laughing, and looking on as one of his obnoxious friends swan-dives onto a table of half full cups of beer. The video likely represented a violation of the terms of Couch's parole, which outraged the families of his victims.

"They felt like if they stayed, he continued to cooperate that at some point the other shoe was going to drop and he was going to be arrested anyway," Sheriff Anderson told Fox News 4 in Dallas-Fort Worth. "So I think they took the opportunity to run before that happened."

Now the FBI and US Marshals are assisting the Tarrant County Sheriff's office in their search for the teen, which includes checking international flight manifests. The Sheriff's office has opened up a tip line for anyone with information concerning the teenager's whereabouts.

Anderson also believes the teen's mother, Tanya Couch—also missing—may be aiding her son in avoiding captivity, a crime she would be charged for should it turn out to be the case. Tanya and her son could have as much as a ten-day head-start on those looking for them.

"If he'd have been locked up and held accountable the first time, none of this would've happened," Tarrant County Sheriff Anderson told Fox News 4.

On Friday, Showtime released the first teaser for the Twin Peaks revival, slated for release in 2017. Production has already started on the limited series run, but thus far we don't know a whole lot about it.

What we do know is that Dale Cooper will be returning, either as his usual coffee-slurping self or as a Bob-possessed maniac from the end of season two, and that David Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost will be writing and executive producing the thing after some deliberation.

This new teaser doesn't really tell us anything new—the population hasn't even changed and you'd think at least someone would have moved to or from Twin Peaks in the intervening years since the series ended—other than the fact that Michael Horse, who played Deputy Hawk, is on set and will probably be reprising his role, as well.

Other than that, the teaser does a great job of bringing back the show's familiar, eerie dread without actually telling us anything at all about anything. We'll just have to wait until 2017 to find out how Annie's doing.

Photo by Matthew Leifheit

Read: Fixing the System: An Interview with President Obama on Prison Reform

Just before President Obama's year-end news conference, the White House announced that he commuted the sentences of 95 prisoners on Friday, including 40 serving life sentences. The president also granted pardons for two other prisoners doing time for counterfeiting and bank fraud, as USA TODAY reports.

The majority of the offenders commuted were convicted of nonviolent drug-related offenses. In July, the president shortened the sentences of 46 others who fell prey to the War on Drugs. At the time, he said in a speech that outdated drug policy—and mandatory minimum sentences—were a "primary driver of this mass incarceration" and suggested the country "reconsider whether 20-year, 30-year, life sentences for nonviolent crimes is the best way for us to solve these problems."

The commutations granted Friday bring Obama's tally up to 184, higher than the total number of commutations granted by the past five presidents combined, according to the White House.

Follow Leslie on Twitter, Tumblr, and buy her books from Fantagraphics.

When one walks down the street in New York City, there is a tendency to look up and admire the towering buildings that line the streets like metal and glass trees. Due partially to my short stature (5'0") and a remaining childhood fixation to avoid stepping on cracks, I walk the streets looking down. These photos are what I have found: things forgotten, things abandoned, things that occasionally felt like omens. Taken over the course of four years, these photos tell a different story, one not of the people, but what the people have left behind.

See more of Sandy's work on her website here.

This article originally appeared in The Trace.

One afternoon in mid-November, a young man named Charles came to Sandy Bonilla with a problem. Bonilla is the co-founder of the Urban Conservation Corps of the Inland Empire, or UCC, which provides jobs for the most at-risk youth of San Bernardino, California and surrounding cities, on the condition that they stay enrolled in the organization's affiliated charter school. Her office sits on Orange Show Road, across a vacant, commercial-size lot from the Inland Regional Center, where a few weeks later husband-and-wife assailants would kill 14 and wound 21 in a blizzard of assault rifle fire. Standing in the UCC's hallway that day, Charles, a recent graduate who'd been doing well, explained what had gone wrong. He told Bonilla that the night before, he'd been in the wrong place (the projects) at the wrong time (after dark) and wound up getting shot. As they chatted, the bullet was still lodged in his shoulder.

Southern Californians call it "San Berdoo." Locals find the nickname too sunny for the place they know. Photos by Lee Sternthal for The Trace

Bonilla asked that Charles' real name not be used when sharing his story. The afternoon he showed up, Bonilla recalled, he had tried to downplay his injury. It was "as if he had a cut with Band-Aid over it, like it was nothing." Charles told her the police hadn't called an ambulance or taken him to the ER, and he didn't feel safe seeking treatment himself. "He was worried about what would happen to him—a young African-American man with a bullet wound—if he went on his own," Bonilla said.

But Charles had also been preoccupied by another fear. One of the UCC's missions is to provide jobs to young people who, like him, have criminal records disqualifying them from state-run employment programs. For these kids, the odd jobs that the UCC offers—cleaning up parks, doing trail maintenance for the US Forest Service, and other civil service tasks—are essentially the only work they can get. Charles was worried that if he went to the hospital, he'd miss his shift and risk getting fired. His health, Bonilla told me, "was the least of his concerns."

As we talked, reporters and curious locals stopped in front of Bonilla's window, their backs toward us as they snapped photos of the IRC complex and the media congregating around it. Sitting behind her desk, Bonilla told Charles's story as someone for whom conversations about untreated gunshot injuries are just part of the ebb and flow of the workaday routine. "It didn't seem like that big of a deal to me or anyone else here," she said. "It wasn't the first time I've seen a bullet hole in one of our kids."

For decades, San Bernardino has been known to southern Californians as "San Berdoo." But these days the nickname seems to have faded from locals' lexicon, as if it's too evocative of orange groves and breezy muscle-car weekends to reflect the place they call home. Situated against the foothills of its namesake mountain range, the desert city has a population of 200,000, making it the 100th largest in the United States. According to FBI statistics, it has the 10th-highest violent crime rate of cities its size, which include Birmingham, Alabama (which tops the list), and New Haven, Connecticut (ninth). Its homicide rate is the sixth highest in its size category, just below Little Rock, Arkansas, and just above Richmond, Virginia.

The bare lawn behind Gabby Nuñez is where she stood as a five year girl, playing with a doll, when she witnessed a man get shot and killed one house away.

There were a total of 88 homicides in San Bernardino in 2013 and 2014, of which 60 were gun-related—a tally that looks minuscule next to that of cities like Chicago, Illinois, where annual murder tolls consistently hit triple digits. But midsize cities have to make do with midsize police forces and midsize budgets as they contend with big-city troubles. The "low-number problem" also falsely allays public concern. "We should care as much about rates as we do about the sheer numbers," said Andrew Papachristos, an associate professor of sociology at Yale University who studies urban violence and helps shape violence-reduction programs. "The rates are what tell us about people's lived experiences. In a city like San Bernardino, for example, you're more likely to know someone who's been shot," he said, than you would if you live in, say, Seattle. "But those small cities don't have the same presence in our consciousness unless a crisis happens, like Ferguson, Missouri. Then the crisis fades and we forget about them, and the big cities with big numbers make the headlines."

"Forgotten" is a word that applies well to San Bernardino, once a quaint and thriving outpost an hour east of Los Angeles along the original Route 66. During World War II, a new Air Force Base turned what had been a farming hamlet known mostly for hosting the National Orange Show into a working-class city with abundant housing and jobs. Further boosting the economy were the San Bernardino rail yards and Kaiser Steel, in nearby Fontana. On the city's west side, Mount Vernon Avenue hosted a lively stretch of mom-and-pop businesses catering to the tens of thousands of mostly Latino and African American arrivals who'd migrated from as close as LA and as far as the deep South. In 1977, the National Civic League gave San Bernardino the All-American City Award.

By that point, however, the Inland Center Mall, built in the mid-1960s, was luring businesses and shoppers away from downtown. Next came a freeway, now called Interstate 215, that sliced the city in two, discouraging travel between downtown and the bustling west side. Then employment started drying up: Kaiser closed its facility in 1983, eliminating some 10,000 jobs. The rail yards shut down nine years later. In 1994 the Air Force base closed its doors, leaving as many as 12,000 people without a paycheck.

Among the witnesses to the decline was Ray Culberson, director of youth services for San Bernardino city schools. Now 56, Culberson spent his life here as part of a steel mill family. "I had a summer job at Kaiser," he told me. "My father and at least five of my uncles worked there, too." Jobs had already started disappearing when Kaiser went under. When the mill closed, he said, the city was devastated. "No one could get jobs, and that's when the despair happens. Working for Kaiser or the rail yards used to be part of the road map for people growing up in this city. You knew you could go work there. But the road map disappeared and when that happens, people figure out new ways to survive."

A ribbon of remembrance on a tree outside the Inland Regional Center.

In 2012, San Bernardino became the third city in California to file for bankruptcy as a result of the Great Recession, securing its place behind Detroit as the second-poorest US city in its size range. Up to that point, 75 percent of the city's budget had been designated for public safety. After going belly-up, the city whacked its police force by nearly 25 percent. Homicides more than doubled, and emergency response times slowed to a crawl. Services, too, were scaled back. At the same time, the city was seeing a growing population of recently released—and frequently mentally ill—state prisoners, thanks to a new state law, AB109, that mandated they return to the counties that prosecuted them and report to local probation officers. Many of the ex-inmates joined the already spiking homeless population taking up residence in San Bernardino's parks, as well as in foreclosed houses abandoned during the crash. In addition to trail work and parks maintenance, kids at Bonilla's UCC found themselves earning paychecks by boarding up derelict structures, a task that couldn't have reflected well on their city or their prospects.

Today, with seemingly every high mark in the city's history undermined or undone, San Bernardino is often known by a newer nickname, coined by crime novelist Eric Jerome Dickey. They call it "San Berna-Zero."

A couple of hours after the San Bernardino attackers were killed by police, survivors and evacuees from the IRC complex were reunited with their families at the nearby Rudy C. Hernandez Community Center. It was dark out, and reporters were gathered by the entrance to the facility's gymnasium, where groups were dropped off by the busload and escorted inside by probation officers who'd been enlisted, alongside law enforcement from all of San Bernardino County, to help. Every few minutes, a family or couple would exit the building, arm-in-arm or holding hands. You could distinguish the shooting survivors from their loved ones by their solemn faces, vacant stares, and the occasional piece of blood-spattered clothing.

"This can happen to anybody. It can happen anywhere," said an IRC employee named Melinda Rivas, who was in another building when the bloodshed occurred. "This is becoming more and more prominent, all these shootings." It's also true that shootings happen in some places much more often than others, and that in those places gun violence is anything but new. Across the street from the community center I met David Johnson, a 40-year-old San Bernardino native who was eager to talk about the shootings that have plagued his city since he was a kid. Johnson is African-American, with long, well-tended dreadlocks and a practice of making deliberate, deep eye contact. "They call us a dying city," he said. "But we're not dead yet. I hope that this mass shooting can show the world who we are."

On December 2, he had been across the street from the Inland Regional Center, close enough to hear the shots being fired. "It's bit embarrassing," he said. "I'd made my friend pull the car over so I could find a place to pee. There's a ditch that's out of sight from the road. I have a very weak bladder—what people call a boxer's bladder—and I just couldn't wait any longer." At first, he said, "I thought it was regular gunfire, but it went on and on—and I was peeing for a while. I know that gang shootings don't last that long."

Johnson was a teenager in the '80s, when the crack-cocaine epidemic led to a drug war that targeted poor minorities and exacerbated the cycle of poverty and crime. The steel mill and the rail yards had shut down by then, but another industry was beginning to thrive. By the early 1990s, there were six low-cost gun manufacturers operating in Southern California. Dubbed the "Ring of Fire" for their proximity, these companies were within easy reach of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and cities in between. The Ring of Fire alone produced 34 percent of handguns made in the U.S. in 1992, according to federal statistics. While that business boomed, many members of LA street gangs had moved to San Bernardino to avoid law enforcement, hide from rivals, or sell crack in the region, complicating the longstanding turf battles of local Latino, African-American, and white biker gangs as they created new operations on the east side. Gangs from Las Vegas, Nevada, just three hours away, also moved in, making the mix more explosive still.

Johnson, who admits to being caught up in "the game" before reforming himself, likens the perpetrators of gang violence as terrorists in their own right. But the drugs and guns the gangs ran also made it into the hands of people who were not in a crew. "It's the crab-in-barrel effect," he told me. "You had beautiful people stuck in generational poverty, with so much self-hate, such a lack of value and a sense of suffering. There was a battle everywhere."

On the second morning after the shooting, I had breakfast with a San Bernardino native named Gaby Nuñez. We met at Mitla Café, a Mexican restaurant on Mount Vernon Avenue and one of the city's last remaining cultural landmarks. Disarmingly bright-eyed, with dark brown bangs and a pair of girly barrettes, Nuñez is a third-generation Mexican American who's spent her whole life in San Bernardino, though she's had reasons and opportunities to leave.

Memorials to the IRC victims, fourteen of the 91 people killed by gunfire in San Bernardino over the past three years.

For most of her childhood, she lived in the housing projects near Maple Street Park; at age five, while playing with a doll outside her apartment, she saw a man get shot and killed less than 30 feet away. "I saw a guy running and thought, Oh, he must be late for school," she said. "Then I heard a boom. I saw him fall to the ground. The shooter looked right at me." Uncertain about what had happened, she began walking toward the body. Her grandmother, who shared the one-bedroom unit with Gaby and her father, ran out and scooped her up before she could see the carnage.

And so it went. Killings. Retaliations. Friends—and friends of friends—dead. "It was almost like it got dark and you heard the gunshots and you knew it was time to go sleep," she said. "You knew it was too late to go out safely, and you might as well be horizontal anyway." One morning, just before her 15th birthday, Nuñez and her friends were standing at the bus stop on Ninth Street and Medical Center Drive, talking about some shots they'd heard the night before. Just as they began to wonder where their friend Teresa was, another friend arrived with some bad news. The shots in question had ended Teresa's life. "They were fired by two 14-year-old boys," said Nuñez. "They held her up for a car worth $500."

After breakfast, Nuñez took me for a drive. Steering her Mustang north on Medical Center Drive, she explained the street's role as a racial barrier: blacks to the west, Latinos to the east, although these days it's getting more integrated. Rounding the corner past Westside Food and Liquor, she said, "This store could tell you so much. A couple of owners have been shot." A few blocks away, on Union Street, she showed me the lawn where she had stood when she saw the man get killed. Moments later we drove by the site of her friend Teresa's murder.

Nuñez drove on, pointing out her more personal landmarks, almost all of which had associations with a life of poverty and violence. We passed the projects of Delman Heights and Waterman Gardens and whizzed by countless shuttered storefronts, down-and-outers, and littered dirt lots with decaying "For Sale" signs along Base Line Street and Highland Avenue. In downtown San Bernardino, things didn't look much better. The parking lot outside the Carousel Mall, built in the 1970s to keep people in the city center, was virtually empty despite the holidays. The early 20th-century building once occupied by the Harris department store was vacant and foreboding, as were others like it. Few people were on the sidewalks, in no small part because several county buildings have moved—along with their staffs—to the more pleasant city of Riverside.

David Johnson on San Bernardino's east side, one of many neighborhoods he lived in while growing up in the city. Moments after this photo was taken, he pointed out the spot where as a teen he watched a man get shot in the head.

Unlike most of the kids she grew up with, Nuñez earned a college degree. She lives on the north side now, where crime rates are relatively lower. "Living here lets me stay in my city and be safe," she said. (Although she added, "You hear shots two or three times a year.") A former intern for Sandy Bonilla at the UCC, Nuñez works part time conducting field research about childhood education for the Santa Monica–based RAND Corp., a job that requires her to spend time with kids in the projects—kids she used to be like. She'd love to work at RAND full time, but she's not willing to leave her hometown: "I understand why some people give up on it. But I'm not going anywhere." She told me about a meme she'd seen on Facebook that referred to San Bernardino as a "hellhole." "San Bernardino is not a hellhole," she said. "We are so much more than that."

Nuñez dropped me back at my car at approximately the same time that a crush of reporters was exiting the condo belonging to the IRC shooters. Closer to us, the press was still gathered by the IRC and at the site where the assailants had been killed by police. With official confirmation of words like "terrorism" and "radicalized," the international press corps continued pouring into town, scrambling to find hotel rooms and a place to do their stand-ups.

Four days later, on the relatively safe north side, a 28-year-old male was shot and killed. Two days after that, just a mile away from the IRC, an unidentified gunman shot two people, wounding one and killing the other.

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Van Brocklin and Olivia Li. All photos by Lee Sternthal for The Trace.

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All images courtesy of Maggie Lee and Beta Pictures

Like her film Mommy, Maggie Lee is funny, perceptive, and says things in the simplest, most effective way possible. Her new movie chronicles a return to her childhood home in New Jersey in the wake of her mother's unexpected death. It's a collage of home videos, photos, grief, cell phone videos, suburban memories, Kumon classes, stuffed animals, and GeoCities aesthetics. It's poignant but also lol. Pain and humor exist side-by-side in Maggie's post-internet universe.

Mommy is a seriously unique film. The closest analog is maybe Laurie Anderson's Heart of a Dog, which shares the subject of loved ones lost and also a multimedia approach to storytelling. But even Anderson's film follows more closely the rules of an essay film and language sometimes takes priority over images. In contrast, Maggie weaves the two together in these expressive diaristic montages cut to a frenetic pace. What's remarkable is the way she's constantly adapting and playing with form to find the absolute best way of expressing an idea at that moment in the story.

Her film begins with her mom Yei-Ping Mennor-Lee first coming to America 1971. She moved from Taiwan and worked hard to open her own Chinese-American restaurant in New Jersey. Maggie's father who was a magician abandoned the two of them early on, forcing her mom to have to work even harder. Maggie's mother Ping was of course concerned about her daughter's impractical aspirations to be an artist in New York. The way Maggie tells the story, every part unfolds with sweet details, from the miniskirt her mom arrived in America wearing to the little mints her dad always had with him that "looked like tiny ball bearings."

You can rent or buy Mommy on-demand now through Beta Pictures, a studio founded by the film's producer Asher Penn. But it's also already been shown in a few different contexts including a movie theater screening of the first part at Anthology Film Archives in 2014 and a sculptural installation at Greene Naftali gallery as part of a group show this past summer, where the film was looping on three TV sets that Maggie personalized. Stay tuned for another iteration of Mommy at the Whitney Museum this spring, too. VICE caught up with Maggie to talk about Mommy at her apartment in Brooklyn last week.

VICE: Was there a moment when you realized you needed to make this film?
Maggie Lee: After my mom died, I was in New Jersey and it was really depressing. I was always blogging. I was constantly documenting things because it was so lonely there. Asher saw my blog posts and he asked me if I wanted to make a movie. I had been working with him for so long before, too.

I wanted to recreate all these feelings I had while living in New Jersey. I wanted to film it so I could have it in some way before I had to leave my life and my childhood home. I would sleep in every room and recreate these feelings and put them in the movie. Also, my mom was always saying she was writing a book. I really wanted her story to be complete.

When you were back in your childhood home going through all these old videos and photos, were there surprises?
We never had cable or anything, but I loved TV. I would always watch these home videos over and over again. And I think my dad was filming a lot at the time because he knew he was leaving our family and he wanted me to have something for me to remember times together. I really only remember him through these little experiences. It was really surprising when I went through these tapes and there were some clips I'd never seen before. I felt really emotional watching these little home videos.

You have different chapters in the film about your mom, your dad, and your sister. Do you feel like you are mix of all these people in your family?
Going through this and making the film, I realized a lot of me comes from my dad, even though I barely even knew him. Everyone who raised me is a part of me.

How did you decide to structure the film with these chapters?
At first, the film was so abstract and unorganized. I was just making things. If I had an idea, I would just do it really fast. We were working with this start-up to.be and I was using their program to make mood boards and doodle on the interface program. It made sense to make chapter markers using to.be's program—that's when the film started coming together.

It has that balance between being abstract and structured. It feels really suitable to our attention spans as kids of this internet-generation, too. Do you feel like your diaristic impulses come from growing up online? What kind of kid were you when it came to the early web?
When I first got a computer, I was obsessed with it. I grew up with a Japanese neighbor and her parents owned a calculator company, so they had a Mac early on. We had an Apple computer too, but the screen was black and green and it barely worked, so that doesn't count. But yeah, I was always obsessed with computers and when I finally got one, I was always on it. Staying up in chatrooms until four in the morning and making a web site. I was just reading all the terms and conditions because I just thought you had to.

Sometimes I want to be diaristic, but I'm so self-conscious of the persona I'm putting out being terrible. From your movie, it seems like you aren't self-conscious about that, but I wonder still if you ever feel that conflict?
I was really careful to make everything perfect because if I'm embarrassed of something then there's no turning back. But I was also fearless in a way after all this happened. I felt this independence and that it was up to me to take charge of my future. I was so happy to see the end of being in New Jersey hell and I wanted to show everybody and tell my story. I just felt like this was something I had to do.

Part of your relationship with your mother has a conflict that's common to a certain first-generation experience. You want to be an artist, but your mother had made these sacrifices. Through the process of making the movie, did you come to understand your mom's point of view more?
I was always angry and angsty, and she was always lecturing me. It made our relationship really tough, but after going through this, I now understand my mom much more. She just wanted me to have a better future and to have a safe life so I wouldn't have any trouble.

When you read parts from the book she was writing, were there parts of her life she hadn't told you before? Did you see her from a different perspective?
It just made me remember how sweet she is. I had never really read writing by my mom to herself. But some of the text in the film is also from homework that I found when she was taking ESL classes. The intro and the story of how she came to the US is from that homework. I really liked having that moment shine.

Making the film, I just realized how strong of a woman she was, and how hard she worked. She was the first to bring her whole family from Taiwan so that everyone could have a better life. It was so sad because that's what she loved to do—to work hard. But when she finally began to relax and retire that's when she passed away. She only lived to have her first retirement check. But it was really sad because she had been talking about retirement her whole life and talking about being able have a job where you could have the safety of a retirement check. But we realized that her retirement checks weren't transferable to our family. What she was working for all these years just disappeared.

You've been working on this film for a while, but you haven't been totally a recluse about it. You've been sharing different versions in different contexts along the way. How has it been to watch people watch the film?
I really like to watch it with everyone. I love that feeling. It's always different in each setting. The most exciting thing is talking to people after the screening, people who I don't know, and they're so touched by it and have had similar experiences. There's a generational thing that people relate to. Everything is really fast-paced. I was just cutting everything really fast so it is visually stimulating every second so no one gets bored.

Today, I found a place in the back of a guitar store in Midtown to get DVDs duplicated. And the clerk said he usually just checks to see if the DVDs are burning correctly. And he said he didn't have to watch , but he did... and he also said, he didn't have to like it, but he loved it and thought it was really innovative. Then the other tech people turned around from their work stations and smiled at me.

It's really not like any film that exists. You really didn't seem to be bogged down with it needing to be a certain way.
There were no rules to anything. Asher and I are really amateur at this, but we wanted to make a high-production film as best we could. And no one was doing anything like this so I felt like I needed to.

I love that story in the film where the people who buy your childhood home are complaining about this Chinese lantern plant and it made me think about the different ways someone lives on: Your mom lives on through that plant and now also through this film. Are there other ways you know she's still with you?
There are a lot of things that happened while making this film, when I was feeling really down, there were times when I felt like my mom would reappear when I felt like I needed her. When I was sad, I would smell her perfume and I would feel safe and comforted. She just has these little cute things that she would do and sometimes I feel like she's playing a joke. Like one time, I was thinking of my mom and then I found $10 on the floor. Stuff like that happens. Another time, I was worried about having to pay for all these NJ bills with the little money I had and I went to light incense, and when I went back to cleaning, I found money to pay the bills.

When I was at my sister's house, not long after mom died, I was sleeping in the living room and I felt my mom's presence like as if she was sitting in the chair. But I just hid under the blanket. It was too scary because it was not something that I'd ever felt before.

Has making such a personal film changed how much you share online?
I blog less about , but I don't know. I feel like I go in waves. Like I've put all my energy into this and I want to do something completely different now, but I can only make things when I feel like there's a need.

I also do feel vulnerable that I'm giving all this information out into the world. I'm usually really protective and careful about what information I give out. This is something, though, that I have no choice but to do. It's scary letting everyone know but I want everyone to see it at the same time.

You say you only can make things when you feel there's a need. After this, do you want to make more films or is it more a matter of needing to feel compelled to make one?
I never felt like I could make something like this. This is the longest project that I ever made and the most serious. But I'm ready to take on a new project with something that I have no experience in. If I want to do something and don't know how to do it, I just try to do it in the simplest way. This film made me excited to experiment with new media, and I want to keep on challenging myself that way. I feel like it's been a coming of age thing. After working on the film, I feel more mature and more independent. I'm totally ready to do more things like this.

To rent or buy Mommy, visit Beta Picture's Vimeo page here and check out the production house's website.

Follow Whitney on Twitter.

Drama broke out in the Democratic Party Friday, when news broke that the national committee had blocked the Bernie Sanders campaign from accessing its invaluable voter database, claiming that Sanders' staff had taken advantage of a software glitch to improperly spy on information collected by Hillary Clinton's campaign. Campaigns rely on voter data for everything from fundraising to knowing which doors to knock on to get voters out on Election Day, so getting cut off from that data is a big deal.

In response, the Sanders campaign fired the national data director responsible the accessing the Clinton files. And then it sued the Democratic National Committee, and accused the party of trying to sabotage the Vermont Senator's insurgent campaign.

"By their action, the leadership of the Democratic National Committee is now actively attempting to undermine our campaign," Sanders' campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, said in a statement Friday. "This is unacceptable. Individual leaders of the DNC can support Hillary Clinton in any way they want, but they are not going to sabotage our campaign—one of the strongest grassroots campaigns in modern history."

There's no denying that Sanders' camp shouldn't have accessed the Clinton campaign's private files. In a strongly worded statement Friday afternoon, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz said that "the Sanders campaign had inappropriately and systematically accessed Clinton campaign data," and that access to the database would be suspended until the "the DNC is provided with a full accounting of whether or not this information was used and the way in which it was disposed."

But to legions of liberal Sanders' fans, it looked like the DNC had rushed to take sides, hand down punishments, and renounce one of the party's top two candidates, despite it's stated commitment to remain neutral in the 2016 primary race. And they saw it as confirmation of their long-held suspicions that the Party Establishment is in the tank for Hillary Clinton. By Friday evening, a MoveOn.org petition calling for Sanders' access to be reinstated had more than 250,000 signatures; another, circulated by the Sanders campaign, had gotten 214,800.

By late Friday night, the DNC caved, reaching a deal with the Sanders' campaign to restore its access to the voter files by Saturday morning. "The Sanders campaign has now complied with the DNC's request to provide the information that we have requested of them. Based on this information, we are restoring the Sanders campaign's access to the voter file, but will continue to investigate to ensure that the data that was inappropriately accessed has been deleted and is no longer in possession of the Sanders campaign.

While the data debacle seems to have been resolved, it's not the only instance where the Democratic Party seems to have quietly stacked the deck in favor of the Clinton campaign. The limited number of primary debates—and the fact that many of them (like the one tonight) are scheduled on Saturday nights—is the most obvious—and frequently cited—example. But the apparent bias can also be seen at the grassroots level, where state and local party leaders seem to have quietly gotten behind the frontrunner before voters have the opportunity to caucus or cast ballots.

Downtown Carson City. Photo by author

I noticed this recently, while on a photo assignment for VICE that took me to the four states that will hold the first primary contests in 2016. After spending time in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, I made my way to Nevada earlier this month, landing in Reno before blasting south across the Sierra Nevada mountains in my shiny black rental car, down to Carson City, the state capitol.

The plan, plotted out in a gas station parking lot, was to talk to local voters about the issues that that motivated them to get involved in the election, and snap their portraits. So I headed to the local party headquarters' to try to find some information about scheduled events. As a caucus state, both parties generally have an office in each county or voting precinct to facilitate caucusing and provide voters with information and answer questions. The GOP office was closed, so I headed across town, toward the Carson City Democratic Party headquarters.

Upon arriving, I met three smartly dressed men getting ready for an event they said was an opening party for the Clinton campaign's local field office. Registering my curiosity, one of them pointed to the back, and explained that the Clinton campaign was renting an office in the party headquarters.

With its walls papered with Hillary Clinton signs, and the seats carefully arranged for the Hillary for America ribbon-cutting, it was hard to tell where the Democratic Party's office ended and the Clinton office began. There were a few signs referencing Obama and the Affordable Care Act, but as far as I could tell, there weren't any that mentioned the two other Democrats running for president. And sure enough, both the Carson City Democratic Party and Hillary for America's Carson City field office list 502 E. John Street,

Before I could ask what time the event started, I was told I needed to talk to Tim Hogan, the Nevada communications director for Clinton's campaign. Back in my rental car, I emailed Hogan, explaining that I wanted to talk to registered voters and Nevada caucus goers. He replied with an invitation to the office opening, and included a clip about Clinton's recent endorsement from Carson City Democratic Party Chair Marty McGarry, whose office is also in the party headquarters at 502 E John Street. At the time, neither Sanders nor former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley had a field office in the city; the Sanders campaign opened one this week, a couple of blocks away from the space Clinton's team shares with McGarry and the Democratic Party.

At the time, it struck me as curious that the local Democratic Party—particularly one in a key early voting state—would allow a primary candidate to run a campaign from their office, sharing resources and space in a place where caucus voters might come with the expectation of balanced information on all of the party's candidates.

The front door to the Carson City Democratic Party headquarters, which is also the front door to Hillary for America's local field office. Photo by author

The following day, back in Reno, I met Joan Kato, Sanders' Nevada state director, who was in Reno for the opening of the campaign's field office there. When I asked if she had any thoughts about the Clinton campaign sharing office space with the Carson City Democratic Party in Carson City, she said that the Sanders campaign hadn't been offered any resources from the local party.

"This campaign is proud to be opening offices throughout the state," Kato told me in a follow-up email this week. "As of Thursday, we will have a total of 8 offices in Nevada—more than any other presidential candidate in the race."

"None of our offices are located within the Nevada State Democratic Party or any of their affiliate offices," she added.

The Clinton campaign doesn't seem to see an issue with the Carson City office arrangement. "This space is like any other office space," Hogan told me in an email. "There was space for rent and we pay for our portion of the office."

The Clinton campaign pumps up the audience at the opening of its Carson City field office, which it shares with the local Democratic Party. Image via Facebook

Because of the intimate nature of a caucus vote—which lets campaign volunteers basically try to convince their neighbors to vote for their candidate—field organization is critical for any presidential campaign in Nevada. Typically, campaigns carry out their own field organization, investing sizable resources to register new voters, recruit volunteers, and train people to advocate for their candidate at the caucus. Local party chapters have similar organizing targets, but in theory at least, their work is distinct from the campaigns until the votes are tallied. In Carson City, though, that doesn't seem to be the case. In fact, Hillary for Nevada is hosting a "caucus convention"—a sort of dress rehearsal for the February 20 vote—at the East John Street office this Sunday.

"Our organizing offices are hubs of on-the-ground activity in communities across the state. We host phone banks, launch canvasses, hold one-on-one meetings with supporters, and organize communities from these offices," Hogan said in his email. "The Hillary for Nevada team also hosts caucus trainings at our offices. In Nevada, in addition to identifying support, we have a caucus education program to ensure that everyone who wants to make their voice heard at the February 20 Nevada caucus is prepared to participate and knows what to do and where to be."

As far as I can tell, there aren't any rules against this type of arrangement, at least at the county level—although traditionally even local party chapters (though not individual party officials) have been expected to remain neutral in primary contests.

"The county parties control who can and cannot work out of their office space," Stewart Boss, a spokesperson for the Nevada State Democratic Party told me in an email. "No presidential campaigns work out of any state party offices."

While all of this may seem relatively innocuous—it is, after all, just one field office in one state, and Sanders' campaign appears to have a similar arrangement in at least one of its field office, renting the party headquarters in Anderson, South Carolina. (Unlike in Carson City, though, the chair of the local party has insisted that the lease does not amount to an endorsement of Sanders' campaign.)

In Carson City, it's easy to see how the shared space, and parallel organizing goals, could get messy, or at the very least, confuse voters. When someone comes into the office for information about the party's candidates, is she greeted by representatives of the local Democratic Party, or Hillary Clinton volunteers? Would a Sanders supporter, voting in a caucus for the first time, be taught how the process works by someone from the Clinton campaign? The latter scenario seems particularly troubling, given that there's a direct benefit to having a rival campaign not know how to caucus.

I've reached out several times to the Carson City Democratic Party with these questions, but so far, no one from the local office has responded to my requests for comment.

Paul Catha. Photo by author

At this point, Sanders' Carson City supporters aren't storming 502 E. John Street like the Bastille, although that could change after Friday's events. The people I spoke to a few weeks ago seemed a little troubled by the office setup. "I do think that it is incredibly important that the local party organizations stay neutral in the primary in order to maintain a fair political process," said Paul Catha, a 21-year-old Sanders supporter from northern Nevada, who serves as state treasurer for the Young Democrats of Nevada.

Even if we assume that everyone is acting in good faith, though—and at this point, there's no reason not to—the message, however subtle, is that Democrats are for Hillary Clinton, and members of the party are expected to fall in line.

"It certainly looks bad, but I'm sure the Sanders and O'Malley crews already are aware that the party leaders tacitly support Clinton," said Jon Ralston, a veteran Nevada political reporter who is the go-to expert on the state's presidential caucuses. "This is the story all across the country, that the Democrats just want Bernie to go away so Hillary can sweep the primaries/caucuses and worry about the Republicans."

Follow Pete Voelker on Twitter.