Lawyers kill things. It's what they do. They kill humans, justice, investigations, freedom, legitimate elections, fetuses, souls, and breakthrough ideas. Unfortunately, because of their elevated levels of education and John Grisham, most lawyers think they are fantastic writers, when in reality they wouldn’t know a creative idea if it took a dump in their mouths.

Last month, I speculated what would have happened if legal eagles had flown unimpeded through the creative halls of the great 1960s ad agencies, and presented ten of the greatest ad campaigns in history as they would have looked gutted by lawyer rewrites. That little exercise pissed off a staggering number of attorneys, so I decided to create another collection of classic ads, theoretically rewritten by lawyers.

[Lawyer-approved ads are on the right.]

Western Union

New York ad agency Benton & Bowles (which was swallowed into nonexistence by Publicis) brilliantly used the printed page as a product demonstration for their client, Western Union. The negative psychology challenged—nay, dared—the reader not to read the copy. Today it remains one of the most powerful print ads ever created.

Here’s the imagined conversation between an in-house crow and the ad’s copywriter, garnered from years of experience in these idiotic conversations myself:

Lawyer: “You’re telling people to not read the ad. So they won’t. It will fail, epically.

CW: “Did you read the copy?”

Lawyer: [hesitantly] “Yeah… But if the headline said “Read It” I would have read it… in a more positive light.”

CW: “Positive how?”

Lawyer: “Just change the fucking headline, Kerouac.”

Avis

In 1962, Avis was in fact not actually number two in the car rental industry. They were number four or five, depending on the source. They were failing, terribly. Enter Doyle Dane & Bernbach and their legendary “We Try Harder” ads. This was the original great “challenger” brand campaign.

The ugly, type-heavy layouts that delivered uncomfortable truths tested miserably. Research overwhelming indicated the campaign would fail. Once the ads started running, the actual number two and three car rental companies threatened lawsuits. If lawyers had wielded power at DDB, the ads never would have even been presented to the client. But they were, and they were bought, and they launched a company.

Anyway, this would have been the legal rewrite, which lists Avis’s real market position at the time and eliminates the impossible-to-prove “try harder” claim.

Volvo

Another in-your-face, negative tone ad from a great barebones campaign via New York agency Ally & Gargano that launched the Swedish car in America. This ad was probably written by Advertising Hall of Fame copywriter Ed McCabe, who never graduated high school.

Here’s part of the (probable) agency lawyer’s conference room soapbox speech, killing the ad:

“You’re fucking kidding, Ed, right? Forgetting for a second that you put “hate it” and our client’s product in the same ad, let’s talk about the legal implications. If people were to actually “drive it like they hate it” [uses air quotes], they would at best not perform basic maintenance on the car, rendering it less long-lasting, and at worst, drive it off a cliff or something and maybe hurt themselves or others. So let’s go with my tweak on the headline.”

Coty

George Lois created this 1966 lipstick ad while he was a partner at Manhattan agency Papert Koenig Lois. Lois is correctly considered the original Mad Man, but he doesn’t like the show, or Don Draper:

All that’s on the minds of the characters on the show is getting laid, screwing their secretaries, and drinking all day. They don’t talk about anyone having any type of talent. I told somebody that maybe I criticize it in a way that Mafia guys probably criticize The Sopranos.

In this ad Lois spoofed the instant glamor approach that was (and still is) popular in beauty product advertising using comedian Alice Pearce and sultry model Joey Heatherton, probably best known for her Serta commercials.

In-house counsel would have just ripped the indefensible (legally speaking) ad in half, and told Lois to rewrite the copy.

@copyranter

Photos courtesy of David Roth

Back in 2010, FIFA in all its international sportocrat wisdom decided that the host of the 2022 World Cup would be Qatar, the tiny but insanely wealthy Middle Eastern monarchy. There are some problems with this. The country doesn’t have the stadiums it needs to hold the international sporting event, it’s much too hot there in the summer to play soccer, and the technology to air condition the stadiums doesn’t exist yet. Oh, and the people building the soccer infrastructure—along with the rest of the country’s gleaming construction projects—are pretty much slaves. Everyone who’s been paying attention assumes two things: the Qataris bribed the shit out of FIFA officials to win the bid, and the 2022 World Cup will be a disaster.

Most people assuming those things have never been to Qatar, however, and the perception of the country is largely based on a stereotype of a petroleum-funded metropolis ruled by cartoonishly corrupt emirs who work South Asian migrant workers to death so they can build gilded skyscrapers. To get beyond that stereotype, SB Nation sent staff writer David Roth (who used to be VICE’s sports columnist) to the capital city of Doha to look around and see what he could see.

The result was a terrific five-part series that compared the country to an airport, visited the art museums and immigrant neighborhoods, explored the pedestrian-unfriendly streets, delved into the country’s successful campaign to get the World Cup, and at times seemed to grudgingly admire the Qatari spirit. It’s a terrific series that you should read in full, and I recently emailed David to learn more about his trip.

VICE: It sounds like Doha is the least walkable city in the world, which would make it pretty dang unfriendly to Europeans and urban Americans who are used to functioning public transportation. How important does stuff like that seem to the ruling class that's responsible for building the city?
David Roth: Man, trying to figure out what is important to the people in charge is maybe the biggest challenge in Qatar. That or trying to cross some of the bigger avenues without being evaporated by a Range Rover going 75 miles an hour. The thing with a country that basically has no political process—there's a ton of politics and layers of bureaucracy, but nothing like participatory democracy—is that this sort of guesswork basically stands in for any conversation about policy. The sense I got is that things happen, and only happen because the Emir wants them to happen, and then you sort of guess at why. But also I was lost a lot over there, and that sense of randomness and vague causality comes with being and feeling lost.

It's clear that the [ruling] Al-Thani family is aiming to make Doha a “world city”—which mostly means expensive condos and amenities, but also some other civic things—and so they're spending a bunch of money on building a metro system. (Also improving the roads, but they are banking on the metro alleviating the traffic issues) I bet it'll work, because they seem to want it to work and because mass transit is one of those things that can actually be bought, especially in a city that's as far from finished as Doha.

Even the impossibility of walking there owes mostly to the fact that they are like 40 percent done building sidewalks, so it'll be fine for a while and then there's just this pile of pavers or some gully with gravel in it that will clearly be a sidewalk sometime next week. The whole city is in flux like that, and walking there is this jarringly on-the-nose experience of that—it basically exists or doesn't block-by-block, and there are these huge swathes of it that they Haven't Gotten To Yet that are still unmistakably desert. Part of the traffic issue is that they're still ripping out all the old roundabouts that used to exist on a lot of the big streets. I think it'll look and feel and be very different by 2022. Also, like, four months from now.

Is it possible for a non-millionaire to have anything approaching a decent time in Qatar? From your description the city sounds totally focused on creating something that can only be enjoyed by the global 1 percent.
I didn't buy much, and I did OK—I ate in the souk instead of in the fancy hotel restaurants, and snuck in some whiskey from the duty-free in Frankfurt instead of paying $20 for Dewar's at some hotel bar full of petroleum industry dudes. I had the same experience of Doha's malls that I had growing up in New Jersey—I ate some fried stuff and mostly wondered what the hell anyone was doing there, or what they would even buy; Cinnabon's existence is mysterious in every culture.

But in terms of living there, it's hard to say—the social life for expats seems to center around hotel bars, which are the only kind of bars that exist there and which seem maybe not surprisingly a lot like hotel bars. Which is to say sort of an expensive, sad/horny male-heavy bummer, with TVs tuned to English Premier League soccer. Overall, I found myself really struggling to imagine what it's like to live there; the foreigners seem mostly to work a lot, and the Qatari are... sparse relative to everyone else (there are only 250,000 Qatari and 1.8 million foreigners in the country), and family-oriented, and almost certainly doing stuff I didn't know about. I have never felt more like a tourist than I did in Doha, never felt further from or less aware of what the authentic lived experience of the city might have been. The experience of walking towards the big buildings and finding that they were closed and surrounded by this sprawling, bustling/desolate construction site was almost too on the nose as a metaphor. But also that happened.

I don't know how much more fun it'd be to be rich in Doha, honestly. You're still eating at the sushi place in the Four Seasons and then presumably driving or being driven home to watch satellite television. This is an oversimplification, of course: Everyone that's there, down to the most wildly exploited foreign laborers, is there because to varying degrees they believe they can have a better life in Qatar than someplace else. And it's a place with people in it, so I guess all sorts of things are possible in terms of fun. But also I'm getting pretty sad typing this.

Your series was probably the highest-profile example of a sportswriter going to Qatar to write about the World Cup since ESPN sent Phil Ball there on an all-expenses paid trip that got a lot of bad publicity because it basically sucked up to the guys in charge. Your trip seemed different, both in the sense that you weren't getting your expenses paid by the country's rulers, and also in the sense that you didn't seem to have any access to any high muckety-mucks. Was that part of the plan? Was the idea for this, like, “Hey Roth, we're going to send you to Qatar for some days and see what you come up with after you wander around the streets?”
It's weird, right up until I left I wasn't sure what I was going to write. I wrote a column for SB about Qatar and the World Cup after the Guardian story about how terribly the foreign laborers were being treated, and it was all righteous and just literally written from a couch in New York City. When my editor asked a few weeks later if I'd be willing to actually go to Qatar, I didn't really know if he was asking in an abstract sense or not, but the answer was yes both ways, so I told him as much. Then I got really nervous about it, because this is a lot different than making a bunch of doofy jokes about how Ben Roethlisberger looks like a boiled ham that's been injected with Cialis or whatever it is I usually do. I didn't know if I was supposed to write about the World Cup in particular or Qatar or whatever else. I think [editor] Spencer Hall's idea all along was to send me there, let me wander around, and see what happened. I think that was probably best.

But I would absolutely have talked to more muckety-mucks if I could've. I had a lot of smaller conversations with people down the food chain and took a lot of notes, but while I dealt some with people [involved in] the 2022 bid—they were really helpful and nice, unsurprisingly—I didn't really push to speak with Sheikh Mohammed bin-Hamad Al Thani, who's running the bid and is by all accounts a really smart and impressive guy who wants to do the right things. For the story I wound up writing, talking to random people on the street and a few experts with experience in the region wound up being more helpful.

What you've done for most of your career is columns that didn't seem to involve a lot of legwork. What was it like getting sent all the way around the world to poke around?
Fucking awesome, and also kind of hard. I've done reported things and on-site things before, but never anything that involved going someplace really far away, by myself, with an open mandate to write whatever seemed best to write. I liked the challenge of it, but didn't like the constant sense of not being in control—which is part of traveling, but also a result of the fact that I went over there not knowing terribly much, and so was constantly having to update and revise and recalibrate. So much of writing columns, about sports or anything else, is grounded in this fragile and mostly fake sense of expertise—presenting your opinion as if it's something more than that, or sort of frantically pretending that some given thing is more significant than it is. I'm pretty much incapable, just in terms of my personality, of serving up Piping Hot Takes on sports stories of the moment—there has to be something sort of wrong with you to either be or effectively pretend to feel really intense things about sports for eight hours a day, which is why watching ESPN's daytime programming makes me want to gobble Xanax like they're Mike and Ike's. But responding to stories in a columnist-y way is still really reactive. It's really bracing to be able to admit that you don't know something, and then write your way into some understanding of that experience.

Do you think the 2022 World Cup will actually manage not to be a disaster for everyone who comes to watch the games?
I kind of do, if only because of how difficult it is for me to imagine Qatar—or anything—nine years into the future. They already have figured out how to air-condition one of the stadiums they'll be upgrading for the World Cup, although they do not use the Amazing World-Changing Solar-Powered A/C System they talk about in their FIFA pitch, because it doesn't exist yet. It's basically like running the A/C really high in a motorcycle, but if that's as good as it gets, it'd still be something. I also think they're going to make some strides on their many labor issues, if only because I think they understand they have to—they've been way more receptive to Amnesty and Human Rights Watch than I could imagine Russia, for instance, ever being.

I don't know that there's any real way to undo the essential ridiculousness of holding a World Cup in 115-degree weather, but I have an oddly easy time imagining Qatar mitigating it pretty effectively through the sheer force of massive expenditure on massive expenditure. Ditto the alcohol restrictions and the rest; they will not make it easy, and they will do it their way and their way only, but all of that can be made to work if they want it to. And not all of the things they pitch are totally bullshit: It really would be cool to have all those games so close together, and if the infrastructure is up to the task people really could go to two World Cup games in a day. It doesn't mean the World Cup should be in Qatar, and lord knows it doesn't mean it got there the right way—I don't think much of anything having to do with FIFA or the Olympics or anything else run by the globo-sports elite ever gets done for anything but totally shameful or craven reasons. But I can't help but think they might be able to pull it off. I look forward greatly to seeing how weird it will actually be.

Read David Roth on Qatar here, and follow him on Twitter: @david_j_roth

Photos by Phil Caller

The day had begun well for the forces of the South Sudanese government. Two battalions of fresh infantry had been sent up the Nile by barge to the forward base, some 12 miles south of the heavily contested town of Bor. They'd jogged there in formation, singing war chants, before eventually gathering in the center of the camp to listen to a rousing speech from the general in command.

When he'd finished speaking, they waved their Kalashnikovs in the air and made battle cries before jogging back to the barges waiting to send them upstream to war. "We'll have dinner in Bor," the general assured me and my photographer. "You will see, then we will send you back to Juba by helicopter to show the world what we have done." Mark, our driver, was less keen for the onslaught to begin. He'd spent the morning swigging from a liter bottle of gin, and when the signal came to move forward, it was with reluctance that he turned the key in the ignition. "I've only been a soldier two weeks, you know," he said as we trundled off to join the convoy. "In my real life, I'm a journalist. But when the war started they gave me a uniform and made me join the army. These rebels are killing all my people, we have to fight them. But it's not so bad. My uncle, there, two cars ahead of us, he is a general, the most popular general in the whole army. He is the only general who leads from the front." His uncle wasn't the general in command. Between us, a Land Cruiser packed with the general's retinue jostled its away along the pitted road, his personal plastic garden chair and washing tub clattering against its bumper.

You could smell the frontline before you saw it. The closer we drove to Bor, the more bodies lay along the sides of the road, bloated and stinking in the fierce sun. "These are the rebels we killed two days ago, when they attacked us at the base. But we beat them," Mark said with pride. "And there, look—a woman." Her legs lay splayed wide beneath the remnants of her brightly colored dress, her head and torso charred beyond recognition. The soldiers grimaced as they held their breath against the stench. "It is terrible, these things the rebels are doing," Mark murmured.

We were driving in the HQ convoy, a long line of air-conditioned SUVs for the generals interspersed with a motley assortment of Land Cruisers for their bodyguards, infantry, artillery, and supply troops, as well as a ramshackle militia force of Dinka tribesmen given uniforms and rifles and packed off to war. Ahead of us, the Commando Division had taken up positions surrounding the city, and the first wave of infantry had swept through the dense bush, clearing the way for the slow, vulnerable convoy behind. At least, that was the plan.

The first ambush was just a pinprick, a short burst of rifle fire cracking over our heads from the lush undergrowth to our right. Soldiers leapt from the beds of their pickup trucks, aiming their weapons into the dense treeline in a vain effort to find a target. After a few minutes of confusion, a colonel ordered them all back into the vehicles and on we went, passing burned-out tanks that had been abandoned by the government forces fleeing Bor a few days ago. "They are not even real soldiers," shouted Mark across the roar of engines, "just Nuer youths with guns and uniforms they looted from us. I tell you man, it makes me so angry to think what they did to my town. They looted all of Bor and set all the shops and houses on fire. I tell you, they won't even fight us now, they just took everything they could carry from Bor and went back to the bush."

Bor has already changed hands three times since the war began just over two weeks ago. The capital of restive Jonglei state, the city lies between the Nile and the long unpaved road that goes 125 south to the capital Juba, making it a strategic prize for both the rebels and the government. The theory is that whoever possesses Bor when the elusive ceasefire is finally called will hold the upper hand in the peace negotiations to follow, and both sides are ready to fight for it. But while the government had the strategic advantage of air support and superior logistics, the predominantly Nuer rebels still controlled the bush.

More than 30,000 Dinka refugees had fled their villages to the relative safety of a Médecins Sans Frontières clinic just across the Nile, and the convoy slowly weaved its way through abandoned mud hut villages while flocks of scavenging birds and contented looking dogs watched. One village lay in flames, half an hour's drive south of the river village of Pariak, the last major settlement before Bor. A burning church emitted a thick plume of white smoke. Abandoned tatters of uniforms, shoes, and cooking pots filled with freshly cooked rice lay scattered all around the place. The eerie silence prompted a lull in our small talk, until the machine guns opened up.

Again, the rebels hit us from the bush on the right side of the road, but this time in greater strength. Long bursts of automatic fire punctuated by rifle shots stopped the convoy in its tracks. Mark froze, and we pushed him through the door into the ditch beside us, the only cover. The soldiers and policemen we were travelling with squeezed off long burts from their rifles, and the trucks carrying the support weapons careered up and down the track, firing point-blank into the bush with anti-aircraft guns and salvos of rockets, which resulted in dull thuds and jarring booms.

After a few minutes of confusion amid the roar, the bush fell silent. We joined the soldiers walking in the ditch to Pariak, our rest stop, trudging along with vehicles between us and the hostile forest. It was hot now, and the smell of sweat hung heavy in the air as the soldiers filed along with loose-limbed strides, ammunition belts draped around their necks, swinging their rifles jauntily by their sides. We lit cigarettes from each other, returning the thumbs-up signal to soldiers driving past us, shouted back to soldiers' cries of "Quays? Tamam?" that all was fine, everything was good, alhamdulillah. We could see Pariak a short walk ahead of us now and we quickened our strides to reach the shade of mango trees. The general's car revved up and overtook the slow-moving truck ahead of him, making for the village in a plume of dust. He'd nearly reached Pariak when the first burst of heavy machine gun fire hit him.

This time, the rebels attacked us from the front as well as the right flank. Machine gun teams and marksmen strafed the convoy, scything through the soft-skinned vehicles from positions in the bush and from behind the thin wall of rushes surrounding Pariak. The general was wounded in his hand, his car immobilized, his driver killed. When his men dragged him into another vehicle, that too was hit, and the general was killed along with two more men. Soldiers ran around a dusty, wide-spaced hamlet of huts in fear and confusion, trying to find a target, the untrained recruits firing wild bursts of automatic fire straight into the air, or into the backs of the soldiers ahead of us. One soldier sustained a neck wound when a bullet passed through his back and glanced upward off his shoulder blade. It was hard to tell if the bullets whistling overhead were from the enemy positions or from the green troops behind us.

An armored police vehicle roared toward Pariak and returned a few minutes later, three of its tires shot to pieces and its thick windscreen cracked by rifle fire. Its driver asked us, ludicrously, if we had any spare tyres for its gigantic wheels. We shrugged him away helplessly and crouched with the soldiers hiding behind mud huts for meager cover. A thick plume of black smoke rose from Pariak as rocket launchers pounded the enemy positions and AA guns shredded the treeline ahead. To the right flank, the thick crackle of rifle and machine gun fire reached a crescendo before dying away to the shrill whistle of an officer regrouping his men. The young platoon commander who cleared the rebel positions on the flank later told me six of the enemy had been killed, two by his own hand. "I got the guy who killed the general, and the guy beside him," he said. "I even took his machine gun. It's brand new. Motherfucker."

When Pariak was clear, we trudged forward into the village, past the smoking ruins of tin shacks into the shade of the mango trees beside the river. The soldiers loaded their dead and dying comrades onto the flatbed of our truck, their sticky blood coating our equipment. Wounded men lying in the shade gasped for water, while others roamed about cadging cigarettes, some dazed, others laughing in exhilaration. "Will we reach Bor tonight?" we asked the general in command.

"Tonight? I don't think so," he replied. "Maybe tomorrow afternoon now, it is already late. But our forces are ahead, and tomorrow we will hear the good news from Bor."

The barges had reached Pariak now, and the infantry jumped off, splashing onto the riverbank to clear the bush while the dead and wounded were loaded onto speedboats heading down the Nile to Juba. The generals conferred on plastic garden chairs beneath a tree while men milled around the empty village, catching and killing chickens for lunch or fishing in the river. A sort of order asserted itself as ammunition trucks drove up to Pariak, escorted by a tank clanking along the road. As the soldiers reloaded their magazines and chatted in the shade, or dozed, or argued, or gutted fish, we wandered to the riverbank where a dead rebel lay with his feet dangling in the still blue river. He was about 16 or so, in camouflage SPLA uniform, a single bullet hole drilled neatly though the tribal scarification on his temple, wet blood pooling under his head. "You see," said a junior officer, "they wear the same uniforms as us, how can we tell who is a rebel and who is one of us?" Beside us, naked soldiers washed themselves, splashing each other and whooping with glee in the Nile.

Pariak is divided by the road to Bor, and while the soldiers made themselves at home in the side of the village lining the river, the other half of the village lay undisturbed. "Shouldn't you be clearing the village over there?" we asked a soldier, who'd just returned home to fight after 13 years spent living in Iowa. "I gotta tell you man, that's a great idea. That's exactly what we gotta do, man, exactly that. Secure this whole place, just like that." He flopped back into his plastic chair to enjoy the shade. "That's exactly what we gotta do." But no one did, busy as they were with their domestic tasks: cooking, boiling tea, and loafing idly in the shade. And when the sun began to set, the rebels hit us from the uncleared half of the village.

Pariak was now the headquarters for the entire front, the brain of the assault on Bor. The rebels must have known all the generals were concentrated here, and all the ammunition trucks for the infantry slogging through the bush ahead. It was the division's weakest point, and its most important.

When the attack came, a roar of rifle and machine gun fire thicker and closer than any ambush yet, from only a hundred or so yards away, the entire gaggle of troops froze for a moment in utter dread that was swiftly overtaken by panic. The officers fled first, their SUVs roaring away down the road back to Juba, leaving their men directionless and terrified. This time, hardly anyone fired back. The whole force disintegrated as soldiers flung their rifles into the dust and ran away or chased after speeding vehicles to hurl themselves aboard, away from the fighting. With the crackle of gunfire all around us, we hurtled away in our Land Cruiser until a soldier stopped our driver by thrusting his rifle barrel into his throat, demanding a lift in a manner that was difficult to argue with. Other soldiers wrenched open our back door and shoved a soldier in, bleeding from his chest, his eyes wide with shock, then clambered in over him while begging us to save them. The rocket launchers fired thunderous salvos into the huts across the road behind us as we drove off, our new passengers shaking with fear, one vomiting out of the window.

The attack was beaten off after a while, but it was too late to salvage the convoy as a coherent unit. Trucks drove slowly up the road, asking the knots of stragglers on foot whether it was safer to head down the Juba road or go back to the village. Swarms of terrified soldiers surrounded every vehicle, begging for escape, Bor visible in the gloom as a dense wall of orange smoke—the city was succumbing to flame. We picked up a brigadier and two of his men, as well as the young platoon commander, whose men had all driven away from the battle in his vehicle. He shook his head at the uselessness of his troops, repeating, "This is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous," in plummy tones picked up at the Sandhurst military academy. A few hours later, we found the convoy at the rear base we'd left that morning, their vehicles parked in a circular formation in a dusty clearing. They all seemed calm when we arrived, asking us for cigarettes and water with beaming smiles, until something—nothing—spooked them and they all revved their engines and drove off, racing each other back to Juba in the darkness.

We drove most of the night, the convoy snaking for miles along the lonely bush road home, blinding headlights shining through the sea of dust as each vehicle tried to overtake the one ahead, an army crawling home bumper-to-bumper in defeat. We parked, eventually, in Mangalla, a garrison town barely 50 miles from Juba. Checkpoints were set up along the road to prevent deserters escaping even further back. At dawn, shamefaced, the convoy moved back along the long road to Bor. According to the army, the government's infantry have now reached the city center. We didn't join them this time around.

@arisroussinos and @Phil_Caller

Some drinks on a train. Image via. Thumbnail image via

A selection of legal highs. Image via

Movie rental kiosk service Redbox—with a major assist from Netflix—pretty much murdered the traditional video store experience. Why waste a bunch of time browsing through a brightly lit, clean retail outlet when you can step over bum piss and cigarette butts in a dank liquor store parking lot to rent one of the hot new release motion pictures on DVD? The Box Brands, the company behind Burrito Box, aims to bring this experience to the time-honored right of passage called "eating shitty food at a gas station."  

Two Burrito Box locations exist in America at the moment, both in Los Angeles. While other bloggers waste their time covering the new TVs at the CES convention in Las Vegas, I went to check out the next step in burrito delivery technology.

Telemundo, a Spanish language TV station, was already on the scene when I arrived. Obviously, their staff was as concerned as I was at this blatant molestation of their culture... or they were just hungry as fuck too.

A cameraman and reporter lit up at the sight of me, the lone customer with the guts/stupidity to try a burrito that comes in a giant plastic tomb. They tried their damnedest to get me to talk on camera while I quietly muttered to myself, at last, my shot at fame has arrived! 

Oddly enough, the burrito machine is not the first thing you see walking in. It's positioned beside the front door, so you have to turn to look at it. However, as I entered the store I could feel its presence. It spoke to me, like a long-lost cousin. I'm home, I thought. 

Also like a long-lost cousin, it was not as exciting as I thought it would be. It looks just like a Redbox, but orange, with a video screen flashing enticing photos of burritos. There are five options you can choose from: Roasted Potato, Egg & Cheese, Chorizo Sausage Egg & Cheese, Free Range (LOL!) Chicken, Bean & Rice, and Shredded Beef & Cheese. Each one was a reasonable $3 a pop. Convenience and affordability. Points to you, Burrito Box.

Of the five, only two were not breakfast options. I went with the potato one, so as to avoid a possible meat-related food poisoning situation. I was eager to chow down, but the cameraman for Telemundo was on my dick the whole time, recording everything I was doing, like "Big Hermano" from Jorge Orwell's classic dystopian novel, Los 1984.

I clicked the button for my burrito, and the next screen showed me the nutrition facts of the burrito, as if I really wanted to know how many dumb carbs I was stuffing in my dumb face.

Another screen asked me if I wanted guacamole, sour cream, and/or hot sauce on the side. Each side costs extra. So much for a $3 burrito. Not a good sign when you have to pay extra to make your meal not taste like total shit.

I got guacamole, and yet another fucking screen told me to pay up. I slid my debit card, and as soon as it processed, the kiosk started playing me a music video featuring an unnamed pop star. The music was obnoxiously loud, and I'm betting that the employees of this gas station store are days away from setting the Burrito Box on fire out of sheer annoyance.

I was a bit impatient waiting for my meal to heat up, but in that idle time, I had a flash of brilliance. It occurred to me that if a burrito-making device can have a TV screen on it, very soon our home TVs will be able to make burritos. That's chill.

The burrito plopped down to the bottom of the machine along with the two sides. I just prayed there was actually a burrito inside of the extraneous orange wrapper.

The Telemundo camera guy wanted to get a shot of me unwrapping the thing, which was damn near impossible. Not only was the burrito incredibly hot, but the thing was wrapped in plastic tighter than Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks. If you are making bad food for drunks, don't make them struggle. Someone is bound to get hurt.

I did a quick interview where I asked the reporter how to say "fucking awful" in Spanish, then walked out for some respite from the bright lights of fame. I begrudgingly finished my burrito, which was not even Taco Bell quality. I briefly considered drowning myself in the above fountain, but resisted the temptation.

I cracked open my guacamole, which looked like it was recovered from Fukushima. 

And the inside of my burrito looked like the remains of a hamster that got run over by a taxicab. Honestly, this thing was no different than getting a frozen burrito at the gas station and microwaving it, like in the old days. The only new feature is a loud music video to drown out the voice in your head telling you to change your life before it's too late.

I'd tell you to avoid Burrito Box, but chances are these monstrosities won't make it out of Los Angeles. Taco Bell, Chipotle, Del Taco and the others need not worry. Their place in our culture is safe, as is your colon if you don't eat from Burrito Box. Oh, and be sure to catch me on Telemundo tonight during the evening news! Ole!

@JustAboutGlad

This week on the VICE Podcast, Reihan Salam sits down with Jerry Brito, one of the leading experts on Bitcoin. Jerry is a senior research fellow at George Mason University's Mercatus Center and director of its Technology Policy Program. His research focuses on internet policy, copyright, and the regulatory process. Jerry was kind enough to walk us through the world of Bitcoin, the first decentralized digital currency that now has a few imitators.

If you're not sleeping with the person attached to these legs, their crotch is not your business. Photo via.

One shouldn't have to have seen the Laverne Cox-Katie Couric kerfuffle from earlier this week to know that the last thing you want to do when talking to a trans person is ask them about their genitalia.

Unless you’re in a sexual relationship with said individual, or maybe their doctor, the state of that person’s privates is really none of your business, a point my colleague Sarah Ratchford made in an interview with trans supermodel Carmen Carrera a few weeks back. So imagine talking about your privates in a very public sphere so that your privates can look the way you want them.

For some trans people, sexual reassignment surgeries (or gender reassignment surgeries, depending on who you ask) are a way to modify one’s body to align with their gender identity. Not all trans people feel the need for surgical intervention(s), or specifically, surgeries which affect one’s genitalita. But for those who do, gathering the funds to make such surgeries possible isn’t easy.

The variables of costs for people seeking out SRS are as differing as the surgeries themselves. For example, a vaginoplasty can run between $17,000 and $18,000. The cost of facial feminization surgery will vary depending on how much or what you have done. A brow lift? A jaw or Adam’s apple shave? As well as the actual surgeries, there are also the costs of post-operative care such as medications, hospital rooms, or hospice care. In Canada, most provinces will cover the payment of the actual surgery, but those other costs may have to be undertaken by the patient.

There is, however, a recent wave of trans people gaining access to money the same way that everyone from artists to start-up businesses have been doing: crowdsourced funding for their SRS. There have been a few major stories circulating about this in the news in the past few months. There is the student whose frat brothers help pay for his SRS; there was the former Mormon and current fellow from the Kinsey Institute, Samantha Allen, who wrote about crowdsourcing her SRS. And there are many more stories, some garnering media attention, and some not.

In the interest of full disclosure, I think it’s important to point out that I am not transgendered. I’ve also always been a big follower of the cardinal rule stated at the top of this article: not your junk, not your business. But in the case of this story, I had to talk to people about their genitals, insofar as their own needs and desires towards SRS. In the case of those who seek out crowdsourced funds, they often find themselves having to talk about their genitals, either directly or indirectly, to the world.

Shakina Nayfack is a theatre director, producer, and performer based in New York City.  She’s currently in the middle of her own campaign to raise $52,500 for her SRS. The money would cover the travel costs to see a doctor in Thailand who specializes in vagnioplasties and facial feminization surgeries. It would also include the cost of said surgeries, as well as post-operative care. Nayfack has already spent thousands of dollars for electrolysis and hormone replacement therapy. ”When I started on my medical transition I was so overwhelmed by the cost,”she told me. “My campaign started as a joke, like the only way I would be able to complete the transition would be if I Kickstarted my vagina. I think I tweeted something about it really sarcastically, but then more and more of my friends encouraged me to try it.”  Nayfack has been interviewed by multiple news sources about her “KickStartHer” endeavour, including the Huffington Post and the Daily Mail. But interest in her story hasn’t always meant dollars towards her campaign. “I’m trying to stay optimistic, but so far it's been hard to encourage folks beyond my own circle of friends to contribute, even if my ‘KickStartHer' campaign has gotten some media attention.”

For Nayfack, crowdsourcing is also about putting trans people­—and the issues they face in terms of accessing health care—on people’s radar. “I think my campaign and others like it serve a much larger function than just raising money for surgery,” she pointed out. “They increase transgender visibility, demystify the medical nature of the transition process, and help create necessary conversation around transgender health care and access to health care in general.”

But putting yourself in the public eye isn’t easy. That’s what Audrey discovered the hard way after starting her own campaign. Audrey—who asked that her name not be used for reasons I will soon disclose—is based in Vancouver, but grew up in a small town on the east coast of Canada. “Growing up I was constantly forgetting the fact that I was male,” she said. “I'd always been sort of feminine. All my friends had always been girls. When I was 12 I started growing out my hair. At 13 I bought big platform boots. At 14 I came out as liking men. At 15, I started wearing women's jeans and tight T-shirts.”

Audrey recognizes that being gender atypical during her time in high school didn’t make things easy. “I knew that I was a target, so I put a lot of pressure on myself to be one step ahead,” she said. “I always had to have a better joke to use as a comeback, make them laugh so I wasn't a threat, and I never let them see me weak. But I always had to know which hallway was safe to walk down at what time.” Audrey graduated high school a semester early, exhausted and depressed from the stress.

But even when it was bad, Audrey knew she had to be true to herself. She remembers how her mother bought her heels for her 16th birthday. Excited, Audrey wore them to school. “I guess the best way to describe how people reacted was that it was a bit of a spectacle,” she recalled. “Some people snickered, stared, made comments, but for the most part it was sort of business as usual.”

A few years later, Audrey eventually came to identify as transgender. She left the East Coast, and has been living in Vancouver ever since.  She had entertained the idea of SRS before, but was worried about the financial and medical risks involved. “I held off on surgery because I was terrified something would go wrong, and have to live with the regret all because I was chasing ‘better’,” she says. By the time she’d hit her mid twenties, she came to the realization that, “No one ever gets to live their authentic, ideal life without risk. I think the best activism comes through living and sharing your truth.”

Unfortunately not long after Audrey decided to go through with SRS, she lost her job, and was unable to cover some of the costs associated with it. Although the province of British Columbia would help with some of it, she would have to travel to a private clinic in Montreal. The real problem was paying for her post-patient care, something she described in her campaign as “absolutely necessary for a successful recovery. This facility has 24/7 nursing care who not only monitor your healing, but also provide guidance on how to ensure successful healing at home.” So she started a crowdsourcing campaign to help raise $2,500. She ended up raising a little over $2,600, for which she is incredibly grateful. 


Photo via.

But the experience of putting her life and her gender identity out there for the masses was not easy. “I realized, since the campaign began, that I've opened a bit of a Pandora’s box,” she said. “Lots of people on my friends list knew but I'd never talked to them about it, and a few had no idea. Now suddenly I'm being messaged by old coworkers to let me know they had no idea when we worked together. It’s all positive, but it unexpectedly feels very intrusive.” It’s for these reasons that Audrey ask that her real name not be used for the purposes of this story. She finds being reduced to what she describes as a “topic of conversation” difficult, but acknowledges she opened that door. Still, she explained, “I’ve felt as if this deeply personal and private aspect of my life is open for conversation, and I haven't liked it.”

Caleb Arring wants to make that space between the personal and the public a little easier for trans people. The Bay Area lawyer is getting ready to launch Trans Body Fund, a website where trans people can create profiles and access crowdsourced funds. “It is a very sensitive thing to put yourself on display in such a way,”he said.  “We want to create a place where people know they are in the hands of people who care about them and their issues.”Unlike sites such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter, Arring is opting to create a site where donors can make tax deductible donations, as well as for “people who want to donate to transitions, but not to a particular person’s fund, can make donations.”For Arrings, it’s also about listening to, and helping out a community. “The whole project will be open to changes as it develops, based on feedback from the community, he says.

Arrings came up with the idea when a friend of his posted about their own search for funds on social media. “I saw a need in the moment,” he says. “Trans people need a place where their campaigns can be visible. I believe there are many people who would want to donate to transitions, this site will make the people who need donations visible.”

For Arring, it’s about giving trans people access to health care they might not be able to access otherwise. “Some people see transitioning as the only way they can live. I am starting this site to help trans people become who they really are.”  

Back in New York, Shakina Nayfack has until June of 2014 before she finds out if she will have raised enough money. “If I don't get enough funds I will just have to keep going,”she said. “I'm committed to getting the surgeries, and I'm trying all sorts of ways to raise the money.” Nayfack has created an autobiographical show entitled  “ONE WOMAN SHOW: A Work In Progress,” and may end up taking it on the road. But nothing will stop her in becoming who she is.

@simonathibault

The 2009 aid convoy to Palestine that got the IFCO in trouble. Photo via Flickr user gloucester2gaza

On Tuesday, the New York-based Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) put out a press release announcing the charity was “under attack” from the IRS, which is on the verge of revoking its tax-exempt status in part over aid it sent to Palestine.

Founded in 1967 by progressive Christians—its website quotes both Jesus Christ and Che Guevara—IFCO’s mission is to “advance the struggles of oppressed people for justice and self-determination” and fight against “human and civil rights injustices” on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised. For the past two decades, that mission has included “US-Cuba Friendshipments” carrying humanitarian aid to the island nation. Though in defiance of 50 years of US sanctions, the group was never reprimanded.

In 2009 IFCO raised more than $1.2 million to provide aid through the group Viva Palestina to the people of Gaza, the Palestinian territory that is under Israeli embargo and home to thousands of “acutely malnourished children,” according to UNICEF. That was where the trouble began. That December, representatives Brad Sherman (a Democrat from California) and Sue Myrick (a Republican from North Carolina) wrote to the IRS and requested auditors take a look at IFCO’s ties to terror, suggesting the group “may be raising funds for Hamas.”

Though Hamas won the last round of Palestinian elections in 2006—an election the Bush administration encouraged—it is listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department and the US government considers any aid to the group to be “material support” for terrorism.

IFCO denies that any of its aid went to Hamas. “In fact, the project was not designed to nor did it in fact support any terrorist group but was designed to provide ambulances and medical supplies to the people living in Gaza,” the group wrote in an appeal to the IRS.

In a report dated October 22, 2013, IRS auditors do not claim to know for sure whether any of the aid IFCO sent to Gaza was intended for Hamas, but they do cite that as one of the reasons to revoke the group’s tax-exempt status. The report states that “there were several articles and at least one comprehensive report (the Investigative Project on Terrorism—‘IPT’) posted on the internet. These postings appear to support the alleged connection between Viva Palestina and Hamas.”

While a “comprehensive report” produced by something called the “Investigative Project on Terrorism” might sound impressive in an eighth grade book report, the official-sounding group’s founder, Steve Emerson, has a reputation for making claims that would have earned him an F from any decent eighth grade teacher. Emerson is a “terrorism expert” whose lack of Arabic language skills and real expertise is made up for by unjustified self-confidence and appearances on Fox News; he’s probably most famous for claiming that the Oklahoma City Bombing was carried out by jihadists and that a Saudi terrorist was responsible for the Boston Marathon Bombings. The citing of his work—which the Zionist Organization of America takes credit for providing to the US lawmakers who drew the IRS’s attention to IFCO—does not provoke confidence in the auditors’ conclusions.

Some aid included in the Viva Palestina caravan to Gaza did end up in the hands of Hamas. George Galloway, the British politician who founded Viva Palestina and who is a walking, talking caricature of a leftist, didn’t help matters when he made a spectacle of explicitly dedicating some of the caravan’s aid to Hamas itself.

IFCO did not immediately respond to my request for comment. However, in its letter to the IRS the group maintained that none of its funds “were supplied to Hamas or to any entity controlled or operated by Hamas.” Also, medical supplies aren’t exactly WMDs. Many activists, including former president Jimmy Carter, think that the US government’s definition of “material support” for terrorism is so broad it risks criminalizing legitimate work to address poverty and promote peace.

For its part, IFCO is pledging to keep on doing what it’s been doing, telling the IRS it “believes that there is a sound theological basis for the [aid] caravans,” no matter what any government says. “This scripture-based analysis treats… people as deserving of love, respect and aid in spite of purported secular limitations.”

Charles Davis is a writer and producer in Los Angeles. His work has been published by outlets including Al Jazeera, the New Inquiry, and Salon.

Taco Bell is more like drugs than food. It beats you open from the inside with beef and cheese and bread, and in so doing makes things seem great for a while, until your body realizes what you've done to it. No matter how many times I’ve eaten at Taco Bell and then immediately regretted it—sometimes with the food still in my mouth—it always seems like a great idea when I’m caught up in the moment. It’s like it’s going to save my life, and then it’s like my life isn’t worth saving.

As a man who considers himself something of a novelty food sommelier, as soon as I heard about the new Grilled Stuft Nacho I knew I would be filling myself with lard again. I’ve always thought nachos are the perfect food—they taste fucking amazing, each bite contains new and unexpected flavors, and they are nearly impossible to screw up. Nachos can be anything you want; they are your dreams.

----

It feels weird pulling up to the Bell at 11 AM, like a walk of shame in reverse. Even the building seems pornographic, maybe because the last time I came to this particular location I was served by the cousin of a kid I knew in second grade, a kid who was rumored to have had sex with a dog. That guy wasn’t there today, but the feeling still lingers, and probably always will. The gentleman who took my order this morning seemed surprised at my only asking for one item, repeating “Is that it?” two different times. To be fair, I don’t think I’ve ever left this place without a sack heavy as the head of an American toddler. I paid for my nacho with six quarters and drove away ready to feast, already kind of sweating. 

Spoiler: The Grilled Stuft Nacho is not as big as it looks in the commercial, nor is it overfilled with little insectoid-shaped squiggles of neon tortilla shit. It looks pretty much exactly like any other Bell item—tan like the building and full of chunks, yet here reshaped into the form of a mini slice of pizza. The aroma fills my car; it shares the same smell of body odor and waxed paper. I can already feel it seeping through my bloodstream, coating my clothing. The face of the nacho itself is about ten inches along each side, like a triangle measured out in average porn star dicks. I like the way they put the dark spots on the center of the flour face to make it look like it’s actually been pressed down on a grill.

My bite into the first corner is pretty much all sauce. It squirts out of the cruddy tortilla into my mouth all lukewarm and globular. I don’t know how Taco Bell is able to create such a plasticky tone to their sauces, but sometimes I get the sense that their flavor designer also works for NASA. I can’t help but think of all the chemicals that have come together to provide me with this experience, unattainable anywhere but from the Bell itself. It’s supposed to be spicy, but it’s not really spicy. It reeks of toys.

While letting the ooze seep into my taste buds I realize I’ve made a huge mistake in allowing the nacho to cool a little between buying and eating, a no-no of gargantuan implications in the realm of 99-cent (or $1.29, as the case may be) food. For every degree of heat you lose off of something whose proper name is intentionally misspelled, its possible reception as the fantastically nasty monolith your brain had led you to believe it could be falls a mile closer to the stinking, rotting face of reality. 

For the second bite, I peer down into the crevice I’ve created and find mostly more sauce there lurking at the edges. By squeezing the triangle at the center I’m able to force more of the granular gray beef out of the darkness, along with a bit of reddish gunk that I imagine is supposed to be peppers or something. I make sure to get a bunch of these elements into my mouth along with the sauce, and am immediately overcome with regret. A full bite of the nacho doesn’t resemble anything close to an actual nacho, or even a burrito, it is really just a jackhammer-like barrage of highs and lows: the sharp chemical tang of what is supposed to be considered festive gives way to the more prevalent, flat pull of the mass of softness that has no particular definition in my mind beyond a thing inside my mouth.

My stomach has already begun the process of rejecting the Nacho, rumbling in not-so-peaceful protest at the horrible things I have done to it in the past, am doing to it now, and am sure to do again in the future.

I get a sniff of the third bite before I take it. The scent of B.O. is so strong now it somehow makes me want to take an even bigger bite—almost like the adrenalin rush that kicks in when a wounded animal is cornered by its attacker, allowing it to lash out with a strength and fury it has never known before. The full mouthful brings a bunch of sauce again, this time cooled down enough that I am able to really taste its nuances, leading me to believe it is mostly mayonnaise dyed nacho orange. It’s really creamy, not in a good way, and the beef that floats around in the sauce makes me think of actually biting into a cartoon cow filled with milk—puffy and loose with the liquid and the beef all massed together in dark silence, no more wanting to be eaten than to have to exist outside the idea of itself. The edges of the “nacho” are almost cold now too, faster than I’d expect food to cool, as if even the heat doesn’t want to hang out here longer than it has to.

The fourth bite is where the real damage happens. I go in deeper, wanting to take down as much of the item as I can in one move, getting it inside me without prolonging the torture by taking my time. Here, I find a mass of the little red sticks that were so prevalent in the commercial, buried deep down like an infestation waiting to spread into my face. The sticks actually make a crunching sound, which coming this late in the process, and at the center of so much softness, is more terrifying than anything else. It feels like kicking a corpse you thought had completely putrefied and then discovering its brittle bones will still crumple into dust. There is nothing left about the flavor now that can be compared to anything anyone has eaten before.

While staring at the center of the red chunks I spot a dark black hair floating there, which is even more disconcerting than it would usually be because I don’t know how a hair could have wormed its way into the center of this thing. It’s almost like the hair has grown out from the nacho itself. Part of eating at places like Taco Bell is that if you think too long about the future, you remember that a lot of the things you’re putting in your body have possible connotations and complications that won’t be discovered until decades down the line, a whole series of mutations and deformities and general chemical effects waiting to take deeper hold in the continuum of humans. If this thing isn’t growing its own hair, it’s at the very least not promising anything about mutation, retching, chaos.

With the nacho now splayed open wholly on my desk, I realize it looks more like a McDonald’s Omelet Wrap or a Wendy’s Fiesta Tarp than fake Mexican food. At some point, at a certain level of lukewarm remove, even the staples of the different fast food chains start to bleed together. I could be eating anything from any drive-thru window and still have the same resultant feeling of: I wish I’d been drunk when I ate that, and now I wish I were asleep. But for the sake of science I bend my face down near the nacho and take one more bite. This time I come up with a warmer chunk that actually tastes like what I’d expected this whole time¾one big nasty nacho. The smell fills my nostrils and seems to somehow have wrapped itself around my entire face. It compliments the shitty-techno pulse of my stomach, which is doing everything it can to process what it’s been given as this day’s breakfast. The memory of the first taste is already pukey but my body knows it must go on, because it has no other choice. It also knows that in a month, maybe two, we’ll be doing this whole thing all over again.

@blakebutler

Would you like to put this inside your vagina? You might, if you're Jennifer McCarthy

Hey, did you hear the one about Jennifer McCarthy, the ex-wife of famous author Cormac McCarthy, who pulled a gun out of her vagina during an argument she was having with her boyfriend about aliens? Via the Wire:

“According to the Albuquerque Journal, McCarthy reportedly stormed out during a fight over extraterrestrial life with her unnamed boyfriend and then returned with a plan for vengeance. The police report describes how she went to her bedroom, dressed up in lingerie, put the gun in a place no guns should go, then somehow performed an unspecified sex act with the gun insider her. Naturally, that was just a prelude to pulling the gun out, pointing it at her boyfriend, and asking the presumably rhetorical question "Who is crazy, you or me?"

Anonymous boyfriend took the gun away and dropped it in the toilet. McCarthy then took it back, so he just threw it in the trash.”

There are a lot of questions left unanswered by this story, which is a real thing that happened in New Mexico and has been picked up by many well-respected media outlets. Question 1: What kind of argument about aliens was it? Were they debating whether aliens exist, whether they had visited Earth, or was it a more abstract discussion about the Drake Equation? Question 2: The sex act has got to be a blowjob, right? Or was she, like, using the gun on herself? Question 3: Are the two of them still a coupe? Question 4: Was it all the way up in there, or did she just sort of rest the barrel inside herself?

Most importantly, what the heck kind of gun did she have that she could fit into her womanhood? Putting aside juvenile jokes about Ms. McCarthy’s unmentionables being especially loose or wide or whatever, vaginas just aren’t very big. What sort of firearm could she have been packing, and if you’re a lady who has decided that vaginal conceal-carry is right for you, what’s the best gun to purchase? Here are a few options:

North American Arms Mini Revolver 22 LR 1 1/8"

Say hello to my little friend! Ha ha, that was just some “pulling a gun out of my vagina” humor there, sorry. Seriously, this weapon is marketed as “the most famous tiny pistol in the world,” and with that laminated rosewood finish on the grip, it’s easy to see why. More importantly, it’s just under two and a half inches high and four inches long, meaning that you don’t have to be Galactus, Devourer of Worlds down there to fit it in.

Sig P238 380 ACP, Pearl Grips, Black Multi-Tone Finish

We found this beauty of a gem online for $729.99, so it’s no bargain, but for a respectable woman of means, there’s no reason the gun that she pulls out of her vagina to settle an argument about aliens or end a tedious dinner party conversations shouldn’t be every bit as classy as the rest of her outfit. The polished, engraved slide and the pearl white grips will be appreciated by whoever is unlucky enough to get a look at this piece, and though it might be a bit tricky to get the 3.9-inch height in, every good woman knows that some things are worth the effort.

Walther PPK

This is an ideal option to place inside a woman’s private parts because it’s the preferred firearm for English superspy James Bond, who could certainly be considered an expert in the female anatomy. It was also the gun Adolf Hitler used to shoot himself, so it could be a great conversation starter, though taking a gun out of your vagina is already a pretty good way to get people talking. The PPK is popular because of its relatively small size, which allows it to be concealed easily by undercover law enforcement agents. Just because you're not officially a cop or a spy, however, doesn't mean you can't pretend to be one while jamming this guy inside you.

The Ruger LCP Pistol

Besthandgunsforwomen.com, which is a real site, says that this baby is “perfect for very tight situations,” and they’re not wrong, if the tight situation they’re referring to is your nether regions. It’s lightweight and has a “Dovetailed, high-visibility three-dot sight system with windage-adjustable rear sight and fixed front sight,” which sounds good, doesn’t it? It’s slightly larger than some of the other guns on this list at six inches long and 4.5 inches high, so it’s definitely for the “advanced” gun-vagina stuffers out there.

FN Baby Browning

What could be a more appropriate device to conceal in your babymaker than the Baby Browning? This famous, revolutionary tiny pistol hasn’t been produced in decades, but if you’re a lover of antique weapons, the classic 1927 design is easy on the eyes—and the four-inch barrel is easy on the you-know-what (the vagina).

It was a bit of a rough end to 2013 for New Zealand’s Prime Minister and perennial limelight lover, John Key. After an unfortunate case of “forgetting” which side of the apartheid debate he was on, to be fair it probably doesn’t matter considering most of the international media have forgotten who he is anyway.

In December the PM travelled with a New Zealand delegate to South Africa to pay their respects to Nelson Mandela. After having a grand old time hob-nobbing with all the big-wigs at Mandela’s funeral, the New York Post quickly turned his smarmy smile upside-down, publishing the New Zealand leaders photo with the caption “British Prime minister David Cameron laughs with an unidentified guest.” Ouch.  At least the world will never forget his proudest moment on the international stage—the time he got to read out the Top Ten on Letterman.

At least 2014 is off to a better start with Mr Key swiftly making good on his New Year’s resolution to get his name back in the spotlight by successfully persuading President Obama to play a round of golf with him in Hawaii.

One name political pundits might do well to remember is that of former international heavyweight boxer David Tua, who immediately after hanging up his gloves following his last fight in Hamilton, threw his hat into the political ring and announced his intentions to run for parliament in 2014. The only question remaining now is exactly which party he intends to stand for.  So far the Samoan-born, South-Auckland raised “Tuaman” has been courted by suitors across the political spectrum, including the Maori Party and the Conservative Party, along with suggestions he might just start his own.  Both parties cited the influence of having a heavyweight boxer fronting their door-knocking campaign as a key motivating factor.

A South Island baker fed up with a shitty client was unrepentant after surprising an engagement party with a poo-shaped cake along with a note that read “EAT SHIT!“. Cake artist Emma McDonald sent the turd gateau after she claimed the client became annoyed at her for rescheduling a meeting and generally milking a fifty dollar voucher.  Hilarity ensued as the savvy business owner took to Facebook to unveil her work with the comment, “You left with a $30 voucher and you want a cake still?? ok cool - give me some ideas?? oh wait you have none apart from wanting chocolate. I have a brilliant idea for your cake!!! - so here it is, your turd cake! Hope you learn your lesson.”

The embarrassed client left with poo-cake on their face responded, "We r just at my sister's engagement and got your cake, we and every1 else is absolutely disgusted."

The stunt may prove to be an unexpected boon for Oh Cakes, with international demand expressed for custom-made revenge delicacies. McDonald doesn’t seem too worried about the stunt effecting business, commenting on Facebook that the cake, "seems to be popping up everywhere . . . business opportunities have been thrown my way as well . . . viral much?"

No pictures were available of our man, so here’s another naked dude on a scooter. 

A Canterbury scooter driver was lucky to get away with a warning when he was pulled over with his gruts around his ankles in an attempt to cool off his overheating goolies. Officer Craig Newman pulled over the half-naked driver after being temporarily blinded by the sight of his bare white bum on State Highway 1. When questioned over his lack of pants while operating a vehicle the man explained he was, “just cooling them [his nuts] down” after they became overheated". Which I’m sure we can all relate to.

Having not received any complaints about the incident, the officer let him go whilst warning him about the importance of, "wearing all safety equipment in the appropriate places".  The driver, having just avoided a possible charge of indecent exposure, proceeded to cruise off into the sunset, whilst belting out at the top of his lungs, “YEAH I’M FREEEE…. I’M FREEEEE-BALLIN’”

And finally, 2014 has started out surprisingly well for New Zealand’s very own George Costanza, having won his case for unjustifiable dismissal after being fired for avoiding work duties by carving out a sleeping space in an office ceiling. Francis Hudson was sacked from Japanese Spares Limited after his manager had caught him sleeping during working hours in the ceiling on numerous occasions, in addition to sleeping in car parks when he was supposed to be delivering parts. The construction of his ceiling sleeping quarters had also caused structural damage requiring more than $37,000 in repairs. Despite this, JSL was ordered to pay Mr Hudson $1795.34 in lost wages and compensation after it was ruled that Mr Hudson's dismissal had been, "procedurally and possibly substantively unjustified."  Mr Hudson presumable reacted to the decision with a triumphant fist-pump, exclaiming “I’m back in business, baby!”

Follow Shane on Twitter: @doteyes

Previously:

News Of Zealand: Cardboard Sexual Assault, Bogan Shopping, The Fake Moon Landing

News Of Zealand

Angel Perez. Photo courtesy of subject.

Angel Perez’s story about how he was treated at the hands of Chicago police officers sounds like a horror story from the days when crooked cop Jon Burge tortured the city’s citizens with impunity. But the incidents in question happened just 15 months ago—and, Angel claims, the officers who abused him are still out there.

In October 2012, the 32-year-old aspiring documentary film producer says, he was beaten and sodomized with a gun by Chicago police officers until he agreed to be a drug informant. His story received some media attention when a Courthouse News write-up appeared last year after Angel filed a federal lawsuit against his abusers, but VICE is the first outlet he’s spoken to publicly about the incident.

“I can’t have this happen to someone else if I can stop it,” Angel told me, opening up about his experience against the advice of his lawyers, who’d prefer him to only do his talking in court. He has a decent chance of procuring a settlement, but told me, “Money is not justice… I want these guys to be off the job, charged for what they did, and given jail time.”

Angel has grown frustrated with the lengthy and agonizing legal process and has little faith that the justice system will hold his abusers accountable. If the past is any indication, it’s unlikely they’ll face any repercussions.

He does have an unusual ally in his corner, a retired 35-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department who asked to go by “Tony” instead of his real name for fear of harassment from the cops who tortured Angel. The two became friends when Angel was putting together a book and documentary about the Jon Burge torture scandal, which he suspects is the reason officers targeted him so aggressively.

“I believe I am the first person in Chicago history to have an officer on his side for any brutality issue,” said Angel.

Tony told me that based on his experience on the force he wasn’t surprised by the behavior of the officers Angel describes. “There’s a lot of good policemen. Some of my best friends are policemen,” he said. But he estimates that around “20 percent are like these guys that destroyed Angel.” (Calls to the Chicago Police Department requesting comment were not returned.)

Angel’s nightmare began on October 20, 2012, when, he alleges, he was pulled over by two plainclothes officers while working as a driver for Castillo Delivery Service. The officers handcuffed Angel and drove to the police station, where they interrogated him for two hours about drug dealings and robberies he insisted he knew nothing about. The cops specifically wanted information about a contact in Angel’s phone named “Dwayne,” but he refused to tell them anything. Eventually they let him go but not before threatening to harass him every day until he told them what they wanted to hear.

Angel told me Dwayne was his pot hookup. “As a writer, I occasionally smoke pot,” he admitted. “But who doesn’t?” He recalled that one of the officers asked him for writing advice, which led him to believe that they knew about his documentary work involving the department. “I don’t remember ever telling him I was a writer,” Angel said.

The next day, Angel told me, he was at Tony’s house when he got a call from officer Jorge Lopez, one his of interrogators. He instinctively put Lopez on speakerphone. To his surprise, the cop apologized for the way Angel was treated, calling it “a mistake” and asking Angel to meet him nearby to fill out paperwork to prevent his car from being towed.

When Angel arrived, he was again detained, this time by Lopez and a second officer who at the time went only by “Sergeant.”

Angel would later learn from court papers and photographs that this was Sergeant Matt Cline, the son of former Chicago Police Department Superintendent Philip Cline, who resigned in shame in 2007 over several high profile allegations of police brutality.

The two cops drove Angel to the police station, where, he alleges, he was handcuffed to a wall and shackled by the ankles. They demanded Angel participate in a drug sting against Dwayne. When he refused they contorted his shackled body, causing excruciating pain. This went on for several hours.

“At one point, the Sergeant sat on the plaintiff’s chest and placed his palms on the plaintiff’s eye sockets and pushed hard against them,” according to the complaint Angel filed in court. “The Sergeant also drove his elbows into plaintiff’s back and head causing severe pain. Defendant Lopez was in the room at the time and did not intervene.”

According to Angel, once the cops realized that he wasn’t going to cooperate, they cranked up the torture. They said they were going to give him a “little taste” of jail life, then they bent him over a chair and pulled down his pants as Lopez taunted, “I hear that a big black nigger dick feels like a gun up your ass.”

Next, one of the officers (Angel suspects it was Cline) “inserted a cold metal object, believed to be one of officer’s service revolvers, into the plaintiff’s rectum.” The complaint continued: “The two officers laughed hysterically while inserting the object” and Sergeant Cline joked, “I almost blew your brains out.”

The officers threatened to sodomize Angel again if he didn’t comply. Crying and terrified, the prisoner obliged. He contacted Dwayne and purchased heroin. The police demanded he offer to sell Dwayne drugs as well but Angel refused and was finally let go.

“For six months I didn’t go anywhere,” said Angel, who told me he’s struggled with PTSD since being tortured.

Lopez continued to call Angel’s cell phone, threatening to torture him further, until he learned Angel had gone to the Independent Police Review Authority. But that hasn’t stopped officers from harassing Angel—he told me he’s been routinely followed and stalked by police and once had rocks thrown at his window by a cop.

“I’m afraid for Angel,” said Tony, who also worries for his own safety given his involvement in the case. But Angel is determined to push for justice in spite of the intimidation because, he explained, “I cannot live in a society where these guys are still on the streets.”

Rania Khalek is an independent journalist reporting on the underclass and marginalized. For more of her work check out her blog Dispatches from the Underclass and follow on Twitter: @RaniaKhalek