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Look at Steven Weissman's blog and buy his books from Fantagraphics.

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'Tropico' box art (2001)

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

These days, I'm quite the politico. Before voting, I spend hours trawling party manifestos and cross-referencing them with independent reports. I spend further hours still examining the Commons voting history of each cabinet, or prospective cabinet minister, trying to drill down not just into what I'm voting for, but who. I read political books, I watch political television, and I listen to political radio. Politics today is a large part of my life.

But it didn't used to be. During school and university, when my peers wore "Anarchy!" badges and read the books of Karl Marx, I lived inside a vacuum, willingly separating myself from all of politics. I was a cynic—I didn't think voting, the government or any of it mattered, because real change could never happen, and I was bored. I found politics uninspiring and was content to do anything but watch the news. Then I played Tropico.

Tropico is, quite simply, one of the best games ever made. Like the original Medal of Honor, it illustrates one of the things that video games, when made well, are uniquely equipped to do: smuggle through the customs of a bored young man's mind substantive debate on real world issues. Superficially akin to Theme Hospital, Command and Conquer, and even The Sims, when I first started Tropico it felt like business as usual, and I engaged with it merely as a strategy game. But playthrough after playthrough, the 2001 game slowly turned me on to politics. To become better at it, I had to grapple with and learn about various political concepts.

To begin with, these were basic. The in-game almanac provides an overview of your citizenry and their political leanings, and I could see that the majority of my people were communists. And so, my education on communism became kind of threefold. Tropico would challenge me to beat it, as a video game. I'd go away and—as if I was playing Grand Theft Auto or Metal Gear Solid—I'd look up strategies and tips, like introducing low wage disparity, or equal opportunities for schooling, housing, and food. Equipped with that knowledge, I could then go back into Tropico and observe the effect these new policies had on my approval rating. I was doing it in the name of beating a video game, but I was nevertheless seeing, in a contained and simulative way, politics in action. The pill was sugared, but it was a pill nonetheless. I quickly became addicted.

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A screen shot from 'Tropico'

Broad politics, like the differences between communism and capitalism, the art of electioneering and the practicalities—or rather, impracticalities—of policy-making, came to me quickly. And if it educated just about those things, deftly or otherwise, I don't think Tropico could be considered great. Plenty of games (Civilization, SimCity) can teach you about not just political theories but also real-world machinations—how ideas, economics, and reform are rolled out at the bureaucratic level. You can learn the formulas of politics from plenty of video games. But Tropico is unique in that no matter what you do, no matter how rigidly or loosely you adapt textbook political ideas, you will always lose. What that game taps into—what it zapped me with when I was first playing—are the incalculable, amorphous influences that corrode any system of government. Essentially, it boils down to either the apathy or capriciousness of your voters.

In Tropico, you might get a memo on your desk saying that the people are wanting for lack of decent health care. So, you take your economic surplus and invest it into new hospitals, all fully staffed and equipped to serve perfectly the needs of your population. A year later, a memo arrives saying that you're hemorrhaging support because—lo and behold—people have noticed that your government's spending budget has shrunk in the past 12 months. You have a people in Tropico that will complain about lack of healthcare, but then also complain when you're spending money to provide better healthcare. You face an electorate that subconsciously and by default considers you guilty, and would prefer to see you replaced.

This is a world where the fundamental of politics—give the people what they need and what they want, and you will stay in power—is consistently challenged. Your policies are not punch cards, fed into the counting machine of an electorate, to be processed as either support or dismissal. The process of government is organic. It's moving. It's politics, but it's alive. And it's such an invigorating vision.

Related: Why Is the British Government Taxing Periods?

Often, politicians and governments seem to presume the public's behavior, and endeavor to compartmentalize and classify their electorate. We hear terms like "C1 voters" or "middle-England," as if people from certain places and backgrounds can be trusted to always behave the same way. Tropico challenges that lazy and pessimistic form of politics. Even though this is a video game, where systems and algorithms control everything, your people are not predictable. They are not sheep. And to govern them well, you cannot be cynical.

And after playing Tropico, neither could I. It introduced entry-level political concepts, but also the idea that politics was less about top-down government and cold economics, and more about interaction, feedback, and concomitant trust between politicians and voters. Tropico does not come down hard on either side. It says that the government must be allowed to push legislation, to argue its case and to not kowtow entirely to the whims of the people. But it insists also the importance of a public voice. It's a game where selectively deaf, hard-line government is just as likely to destroy progress as a labile, unsympathetic electorate. It's politics as is—here are no clean hands, and it's only working together which catalyses change.

Read and watch VICE's coverage of the UK's 2015 election here.

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Though the details of Freddie Gray's death while in police custody are still unclear, it's obvious that the protests that turned into riots early last week were a disaster for the city. In what seemed to be an echo of Ferguson, dissatisfied citizens expressed their rage at civic institutions through violence, and the police had difficulty regaining control of the streets as people set fires and looted stores.

In the aftermath, Baltimore's court system is having difficulty handling all the arrested protesters, and though the city has returned to relative calm since charges were brought against six cops for Gray's demise, a question remains: How are police supposed to prevent large protests like that from turning into battlegrounds?

I put that question to two law enforcement experts. First up is Charles J. Key, a retired Baltimore Police Department lieutenant (he helped form the city's SWAT team in 1976) who now works as an expert witness and police consultant. He thinks that a more assertive (but not aggressive)—and larger—police presence might have stopped the Freddie Gray protests from escalating.

On how the police department could have handled it better:
Charles J. Key: Every study of every civil unrest situation going back to the 60s has essentially come up with the same conclusion, including the Warren Christopher Commission after the Rodney King riots, that a police department cannot wait to respond assertively (and I'm saying "assertively" rather than "aggressively") because if you wait and see if the situation's gonna die down on its own, it will not.

It really didn't spiral out of control. They burned some trash in the middle of the street and some thief drove a stolen car around and parked it where it would burn up.

That doesn't insure that you're not going to have damage, because sometimes it just gets out of hand. The point here is that it did not get out of hand like that in Baltimore until they just let it keep going.

The first incidents that occurred [on Monday] were at three o'clock and it looked like you had approximately about 100 police officers and maybe about the same number of individuals who were actively targeting the police and throwing bricks and rocks. In watching it, it looked like they'd been given an order to stand down and retreat behind [their] shields. The shields are meant to protect them from rocks, but you're not going to keep from getting hit by rocks simply by having shields up there—there are too many places on the body left to hit that the shield can't cover.

The way to handle it, instead of retreating, was to form the troops up, use their bearcat (an armored vehicle that's used to recover wounded people), and equip less-than-lethal munitions (and I saw them deployed out there) fired from a 37-mm gas gun or fired from shotguns. These are the little projectiles that when they hit don't penetrate but instead are spread over such a large area of the body that they create a stunning and painful blow. So you target the rock-throwers with those and you follow that up with the officers with shields and go in quickly and aggressively and you would have dispersed that crowd.

Had that been done and then more troops brought immediately to the area, then they could have controlled that situation. The more police officers you have, and the National Guard, it reduces the likelihood that you're going to have people who join in in the fun of looting and stealing and throwing rocks or whatever.

On what the media got wrong:
It really didn't spiral out of control. They burned some trash in the middle of the street and some thief drove a stolen car around and parked it where it would burn up.

The point is, the situation was exaggerated from the beginning. I'm not saying it wasn't serious—anytime you get any injuries it's serious, and anytime you get a destruction of property, it's serious. But it was nothing like Ferguson.

The mayor was actually right in not calling for the National Guard until six o'clock. They had several days of peaceful protest. And [at three o'clock] you're dealing with essentially at first high school students.

The long and the short [of it] is, from a tactical standpoint it was not that difficult. Even though the Governor said they were overwhelmed, I disagree. What was overwhelming was their failure to respond assertively in the early part of it.

But other experts believe that what happened in Baltimore points towards the need for a more general, nationwide rethinking of the methods the authorities use to handle crowd control. Among them is Michael Levine, a former DEA agent and police trainer who's also a prolific writer on law enforcement matters.

On the issue of a protestor versus a rioter:
Michael Levine: You have to take President Obama for his word when he says that there's a difference between a rioter and a demonstrator.

I used to be an undercover agent and I got involved in an undercover case where I wound up being shot at by New York City police and it was a complete screw-up, so I was furious at the end of it. So what I did was I punched my hand into the side of a building and I ended up both furious and with a broken hand.

What they did in Baltimore was basically the same thing they did in LA and Chicago and Detroit and New York back in the 60s—and that is nothing.

That's basically what happened in Baltimore—you got people who were furious and they just decided to lose themselves thousands of jobs by destroying businesses. So how do you stop that?

On what went wrong in Baltimore:
What they did in Baltimore was basically the same thing they did in LA and Chicago and Detroit and New York back in the 60s—and that is nothing. They waited for the rioters to take the lead.

You can't just sit back and wait for it to happen. You knew long beforehand that this was going to turn into a riot and everybody basically sat around and talked.

[Sending in] politicians and preachers to calm them down—that has never worked. The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. And that's what they did.

On what should have been done:
I go back to my military training in the military police, where I first began being trained in riot control.

You've got to look for the moment when you have a reasonable suspicion that you're gonna have a riot. You've got to set up a situation where you can differentiate between the rioters and the protestors.

The only way that you can (and it's not perfect, but it will certainly [prevent] a hell of a lot of what happened) is that you immediately set up a designated area for peaceful protestors. You focus a hundred cameras on that area to identify people who try to turn that into a riot. You employ devices such as paintballs or paint spray where you can identify individual people to be arrested later with substances that would light up under a black light over the next 48 or 72 hours, so that [felons] captured on camera or identified by police can later be arrested.

The publicity of doing that, on its own, will act in a very strong way to subdue possible rioting.

Follow Mark Hay on Twitter.

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The man responsible for watching over Canada's prison system—one he says is rife with race and violence problems—is quietly being fired by the federal government.

At some point over the next few months, Howard Sapers will vacate his post as Canada's Correctional Investigator. The government is keeping him on the job just until they can find a replacement.

"It's a pretty clear message that the government would like to see me replaced," Sapers told VICE.

Sapers leaves a long legacy. He and his office documented systemic racism against black inmates, panned the correctional system's handling of inmate deaths, slammed management's treatment of suicides that occur inside Canadian prisons, and found use of excessive force by prison tactical teams.

Sapers has been on the job for over 11 years, spanning three prime ministers. His criticisms of each government, both the current Harper Conservatives and the Liberals under Paul Martin and Jean Chretien, earned him the reputation of being a thorn in the side of any political party in power.

But Prime Minister Stephen Harper, responsible for Canada's aggressive tough-on-crime agenda, is taking a harsher stance against Sapers. He decided last month that this year would be Sapers' last as the watchdog for Canada's federal penitentiaries, which houses over 15,000 people.

Despite openly lobbying to be renewed, Sapers will only be sticking around long enough for the government to find a more preferable replacement.

Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney's office rejects the idea that they're out in search of a "more suitable" candidate, only saying that they're hoping to find a "suitable replacement." His office wouldn't, when asked, comment on exactly why Sapers was being replaced. Talking points provided by the minister's office simply repeat that they thank him for his service, and note that he is being replaced.

In a sit-down interview with VICE, Sapers says he's not happy about his imminent dismissal.

"There's lots of work to do. And I certainly don't feel finished," said Sapers, rattling off the problems facing Canadian prisons.

"We're seeing growth in the inmate population. We're seeing people stay longer before their first release. We're seeing more people being held in higher security levels, being placed in segregation. We're seeing more people coming into prisons with pre-existing health issues, particularly mental health issues," he told VICE in his soon-to-be vacated downtown Ottawa office.

One of his main files is investigating the over-representation and treatment of racial minorities in prisons.

Some 40 percent of Canada's prison population is non-white. That trend has seen an explosion in the number of black, aboriginal and Asian prisoners.

And while Canada's prison system is supposed to maintain a policy of racial integration, Sapers found that prison policies "disproportionately incarcerates black inmates in specific institutions in the Ontario and Quebec regions."

On top of that, Sapers' investigations show that guards often stereotype black inmates as gang members. "Behaviours, actions or spoken communication of all black inmates appear to be assessed through a 'gang lens,'" Sapers wrote in a special report on the treatment of black prisoners.

The use of force by prison guards is disproportionately applied to black and aboriginal inmates, he found, while non-white prisoners are more likely to be put in solitary confinement.

Add in the fact that the prison population is at an all-time high, and that prisons aren't equipped to handle it—"some of these cells are as small as a bathroom in a typical condominium, about 5 meters square," Sapers says—and friction between the inmates is bound to occur.

That's one thing he's investigated thoroughly. Inmate self-harm and guard brutality have been the focus of several of his reports.

One motivating factor in inmate suicides has been solitary confinement—or, as the government calls it, "segregation." The suicide rate in federal prisons is roughly ten inmates a year, which is seven times higher than the general population. Of those, more than one-fifth of the inmates take their own lives while in "segregation."

There is a review process for inmates kept in solitary confinement but, as Sapers points out, it's not terribly effective.

"What we're seeing is that, because it's often the same people who made the original decision to place someone in segregation are the same people who are doing the review, that the review doesn't result in a removal from segregation. So people spend a long time in segregation," he says.

That system has led to the case of one unnamed inmate being held in solitary confinement for 17 years. That prisoner is being held in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day. They get one hour of exercise.

"Being kept in a cage for 23 hours does nothing for your mental well-being," Sapers says.

While some trends are improving—Sapers says those who run Canada's prisons are beginning to respond to some of the criticism about the treatment of inmates—things might soon get much worse.

Harper's tenure as prime minister has seen a serious re-focusing towards law and order issues. A slew of new laws have ramped up prison time for drug possession, gun crimes, and other serious offences.

At the same time, Harper has tightened up rules that released prisoners early.

One, the " faint hope clause," allowed murderers a chance for release after 15 years. That's been axed. Another made it harder for prisoners with mental health issues to get parole or release. More recently, Harper introduced changes that would, as he phrased it, make sure that "life means life." The changes will remove the possibility of parole for some of Canada's worst murderers.

Harper is also cutting a rule whereby offenders who did not qualify for parole were released early.

The result of all of this is a much larger, and much older prison population. Sapers says, as the prison population gets older and their chances of release dwindle, Canada needs to start contemplating the idea of "geriatric prisons." The costs and logistics of dealing with elderly inmates promises to be a serious headache.

Currently, Canada's incarceration rate is lower than it was in the mid-1990s—when the crime rate began to plummet—but it has been on the upswing since Harper's election in 2006.

The rate of Canadians in federal prison has jumped eight percent in the last five years.

Follow Justin Ling on Twitter.

*An earlier version of this story quoted Blaney's spokesperson as saying that the government was looking for a "more suitable" replacement for Sapers. In fact, the government is yet undecided as to whether they want a more or less suitable replacement.

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This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

On Friday, the proletarians of London celebrated International Workers' Day—or May Day—by running around with flares listening to gabber as the police chased them.

Before the riot-partying, the day started in a more traditional fashion, with trade unionists, socialists, Castro-lovers, Hugo-Chavistas, and various Turkish communists in quasi-paramilitary garb holding a May Day march from Clerkenwell Green to Trafalgar Square. Banners about the housing crisis and education vied for attention with those bearing the heroic visage of Joseph Stalin.

Later on, a bunch of anarchists descended on Tower Bridge and held their own march, stopping in the middle of the bridge to let off flares, chant anti-capitalist slogans, and block traffic for a little while, to the chagrin of at least one white van man.

The anarchists regrouped later on outside One Commercial Street—the scene of many "poor door" protests—where crusties gathered with sound systems to take part in Class War's "fuck parade," which involved people drinking, setting off more flares, and skanking to gabber. It was, essentially, dancing around the maypole for people who live in squats.

One of the sound systems was housed in a wheelie bin that was painted to look like a house, with the words "affordable housing" written on it. That wheelie bin became an acid techno Pied Piper, leading the crowd on a tour—although nobody could really decide where to go at first. They ended up playing cat-and-mouse with police through the streets, heading back towards Tower Bridge to block traffic for a second time, before continuing on the mystery tour until the police got heavy-handed.

Scroll down for more photos.

Follow Simon and Chris on Twitter.

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Image via David Boyle

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

"I want to spit on your cunt," he bellowed at me, his face contorted into a Punch and Judy grin. He pumped his fist like a frat boy at a spring break beach party, only we were on a dimly-lit street in a part of east London where pigeons pick at discarded cartons of fried chicken and cab drivers pull up to piss in front yards.

He then sped off from the traffic lights in his big van.

I knew the insult was coming. He'd previously been barking at a crusty about his cargo shorts. But the insult lobbed at me was personalized to fit, well, my cunt. He'd reduced me to just one thing, the thing that marks me out as different to him. And by narrating his way into my panties, he'd taken both our minds to the same place—a place I, frankly, wasn't intending on thinking about at a stranger's request.

Sexual harassment happens to countless women every year on streets all over the world. The harassment can be anything from a man with a watch blocking the sidewalk to ask for the time, to groping—or worse—while walking home from work, a night out with friends, or during the middle of the day. Campaigns like Hollaback and Everyday Sexism continue to give women the language to know what harassment actually is—you're not being stupid, a stranger coming up to you in the street and demanding a hug, then calling you a slut if you don't comply is a harasser—but what can we do in real time to address the problem? What can we do there on the street to help ourselves?

I wanted to make sure that this van driver wouldn't shout at anyone else, that no one else would feel like their cunt was his joke. For reasons I'll later explain, I didn't call the police. But the van bore the name, number, and website for an asbestos removal company. So I called their office. Later, a manager called me back. "I've got no reason to think you would make that up," he said, solemnly. "So that driver will be put on his final warning ahead of the next shift." I thanked him, and he replied: "I wouldn't want that on my wife or daughter and I've got to think about the reputation of this company. So, one strike and he's out."



I assured him that I'd get in touch if I ever had an asbestos problem. Some friends said the van driver should've been sacked on the spot. But why should a man lose his job and the income that could be benefitting other, kinder people, like his family and his own community, for something he clearly doesn't understand is wrong? How would that make him change for the better? If he truly knew how upset his comments made me then I'd hope he'd know not to make them in the future.

Feminists may fight about the itty-bitty terminology of oppressions, but this driver happily exists outside of the progressing bubble, and would feel the goalposts have suddenly been moved if he now has to pay for things other men have been saying, unchecked, for years.
 And besides, this way, doesn't he have a very tangible incentive to be better? Even if I were lying about the violence of what he said, and had exaggerated to his manager to make myself feel better, well, then he's an upstanding guy and that final warning will never be breached.



Where does the incentive lie for harassers to simply stop harassing, though? Underage drinking is a crime, which is why selling it to under-18s (here in the UK the drinking age is 18) comes with a £5,000 [$7,000] fine. A repeat offender could be charged £20,000 [$30,000]. To be extra safe, vendors ID anyone who looks under 21 when they're trying to buy booze. Similarly, sexual harassment is a crime, but the safeguarding remains with the potential victim, not the potential exploiter. This is because crimes involving the sexual desires of the attacker routinely see victims made to feel like they were somehow complicit. I regrettably found myself—for a split second—wondering why the van driver even screamed at me, because, well, I'm not pretty enough for him to fancy me? Maybe if I'd been more feminine I'd have deserved it?


This pervasive attitude—from judges blaming a woman's booze intake for her subsequent rape and murder, to corner-cutting that has seen far fewer prosecutions reaching court, despite rape reports increasing, to the fact the last UK government scrapped Equality Impact Assessments, which analyze how laws will affect minorities—doesn't incentivize people to stop harassing others. There's no threat of a loss of business, no loss of certification, no fining. There is no concrete, preventative measure in place for something which is so workaday that women have to go out of their ways to not feel terrified at worst, uncomfortable at best.

The very same day as the cunt-spitting offer, I'd met with Seema Malhotra, the Shadow Minister for the Prevention of Violence against Women and Girls. I'd asked her about sexual harassment. "What has been really important about Everyday Sexism is that it started to shift a sense of what has almost been acceptable into something that is unacceptable," she told me. 

In terms of a plan of action against street harassment, though, she thinks we've got "some way to go," and that we "need to be looking at how you work with police and local authorities" in order to create a culture where young women are valued enough for everyone to believe what they say happens to them.

There is no concrete, preventative measure in place for something which is so workaday that women have to go out of their ways to not feel terrified at worst, uncomfortable at best.

Could companies potentially be fined, at some point, for allowing (or not stopping) their employees from making the areas they're working no-go zones for women?

"That's all got to be part of how you're building a network and infrastructure of support that has to be cross-government and not just one department," said Malhotra. But good ideas in this area are desperately needed. One technique I've seen employed by the Metropolitan Police relies on the supposed renewable energy of a hen-pecking wife. In 2012, the night of the Olympic Closing Ceremony, I was curb-crawled outside my flat as I waddled home from Tesco with a shopping bag of milk. The guy slowed to a stop and asked me into his car. I took a photo of his number plate as his tires screeched and then informed the police. I had more faith in them back then.

Within a few days, they sent an officer to talk to me. He'd checked the CCTV and they had footage of the incident. "I went over to his house and told his wife," the officer said to me. "I'm sure she'll give him an earful."

I was stunned. Was that it? Relying on the man's wife to give him a good talking to? I asked the Met's PR department about what their standard response was to this. They responded: "The Metropolitan Police takes all forms of harassment seriously and encourages all victims to come forward and report to the police as soon as possible. Crime prevention and personal safety advice is available from the Metropolitan Police website."

Sarah Green, of End Violence Against Women and Girls, wasn't impressed with this scripted response when I spoke to her. "While most incidents of street harassment go unreported, it is vital that police deliver the best possible response to all reports to deter perpetrators and ensure women's safety," she says. "We need long-term measures to prevent and stop abusive behavior, including compulsory SRE in all schools to teach equality and respect. We also need community bystander interventions that empower people in the non-abusive but perhaps silent majority to step in and challenge abusive behavior when safe to do so."

I get this. But most of the catcalls I've had have been where opportunists have taken advantage of the quiet street we were sharing, or that they can speed off in their car at any point. Or, because there were loads of them and just one of me.

When news broke that Poppy Smart, a 23-year-old who'd endured a month's worth of whistling and unwanted advances had complained to police, my only surprise was that she was, apparently, the first to do so.
 "I eventually contacted the building company and the police on the same day when it got so bad," she said. "I even considered changing my route to work but thought, 'Why should I do that?'"

The wolf-whistling debate is ongoing. Many men—and women—just don't see a wolf-whistle or a catcall as something threatening. But some do. Many do.



I agree. Why should she change her behavior to accommodate the misbehavior of others? One of the whistlers, 28-year-old Ian Merrett, told the Mirror that "it's part and parcel of working on a site." He said that wolf-whistling is "complimenting a girl." That's funny, because there are plenty of builders who manage to go about their days without making women feel uncomfortable. There's no "How to Intimidate Women" manual that comes with the papers for a cement-mixing course. Telling a girl she's fit doesn't lay bricks quicker.

The wolf-whistling debate is ongoing. Many men—and women—just don't see a wolf-whistle or a catcall as something threatening. But some do. Many do. And while it doesn't happen all the time, the fear that it could happen, for some women, persists. And that fear is harmful, even if not every woman is afraid.

Merrett also insisted that it's not worth getting into trouble over some "silly little girl." But if it's such a tiny, throwaway gesture to whistle loudly at a girl on her way to work, then surely it shouldn't be hard to just not do it?

Daytime wolf-whistling might be a different thing to nocturnal catcalling, but both can leave people—women, and especially minority women, who bear a double brunt—wondering what could happen next. That is the root of all this. It means we walk around—sometimes the long way around—having to forfeit other, more interesting thoughts because our minds are occupied with mapping out escape routes just in case the man two paces behind us doesn't back off.

"I don't know why she complained, she must be thinking things above her station," Merrett continued. But what is her "station"? What is mine, when someone tells me they want to spit on my cunt?

As far as I can see, it all seems pretty simple: women deserve to get to where they're going without having our time wasted, without someone declaring—through a whistle, a goad, a hug, or a grope—that we're there for someone's entertainment. On our tiny island, we bump and collide into each other all the time. But it shouldn't be so hard to get the message out that women deserve space, and deserve contented use of that space.

Follow Sophie on Twitter.

In this new series we travel around the country, from Durham to Glasgow to Peckham, to meet the new wave of young politicians and activists looking to make an impact upon the general election. With intense canvasing campaigns, some managed by the candidates' mothers, the fresh faces of British politics have swapped all the things that young people normally spend their time doing for a shot at shaking up Westminster.

In this episode, we meet 23-year-old Sam Gould, a young Labour candidate running in Romford. He argues that politics is a small elite group of white men living in a bubble and desperately wants to change the concept of his Essex town as a place only home to the dog track and clubs that serve WKD. The only problem is that many local residents have never heard of him.

Sam tells us that Ed Miliband was his main reason for joining the party. Dismissing Tony Blair's reign, he aims to return Labour to its socialist foundations—he says he wants to make a positive world for everyone, "not just the privileged few at the top." Eloquent and passionate, his mission is to keep Romford out of the clutches of the area's growing UKIP support.

Follow Daisy and Rhys on Twitter.

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All images by Laura Rodriguez Castro

This weekend a bunch of stoners gathered at the MardiGrass Festival in Australia's cannabis capital of Nimbin. The festivities included the usual bong-throwing competition and Kombi van parade, as well as the traditional big meet up at 4/20. But I went along to explore another part of the festival's culture, the Polite Force.

The Polite Force is a self-appointed local weed police organization that works to build a better relationship between smokers and the authorities so everyone can spark up in peace. And they appear to be succeeding. This year the official police presence was more relaxed than I'd personally ever seen. There were fewer sniffer dogs and they even allowed festival participants to openly light up in public.

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The Hemp Bar and Polite Force headquarters.

I caught up with Max Stone, a.k.a. Big Bong, a member of the Polite Force, in the Hemp Bar to chat about their efforts. There, surrounded by aging hippies, he said the Polite Force was formed as a response to the cops hanging around the festival in previous years. "We needed a way to juxtapose this police presence, to chill the MardiGrass out," he said.

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Max Stone on crowd control

As I sat with him, the force seemed to be doing little more than preparing a giant joint for the 4/20 gathering. When I asked about their practical efforts he admitted, "We are more like an avant-garde performance troupe, rather than an organizing body or in effect anything."

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The police at MardiGrass.

The relationship between the police and Nimbin residents is hardly warm, especially after last year's raids. But today, between their usual rounds, the regular police chatted happily with the locals. A few even dropped into the Hemp Bar to say hi while the locals politely hid their joints. Stone was adamant that there were no bad feelings between the police and the Polite Force.

"This is not the big final between the pot smokers and the police, they are here to make sure it's safe."

It was a sentiment shared by Senior Constable Helen Crawford, who told me, "From the police perspective it all seemed to go quite well."

Considering the improved relationship with police, I tried to get a larger sense of what they offered the regular cops didn't. I asked another patrol guy Gerhard, he admitted he wasn't sure what their actual role was. But it involved helping people too stoned to function, controlling traffic, and blocking the roads for the parades. All of which sounded pretty vital to me.

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Polite Force members hanging at the Hemp Bar

I don't know if you could give all the credit to the Polite Force, but I'd never seen so many stoners so chill around cops before. Even when we were saliva tested on our way home, we were let go with no problem. But as Stone said, "Our problem is not with the police. Our problem is with the politicians and the laws that the police enforce."

Follow Laura on Twitter.

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The flag of Liberland. Image via the official Liberland Facebook page.

This article originally appeared on VICE Serbia

The idea behind the Free Republic of Liberland—the world's newest self-proclaimed "country"—is pretty simple: Find an unclaimed piece of land, claim it, and then tell the world you started your own country.

It's a fantasy many have had but few have acted on. The latest person to enter that brief list of micronation founders is Czech politician Vit Jedlička, who recently tried to start his own little libertarian paradise somewhere between Serbia and Croatia.

Jedlicka proclaimed his new state last month, on April 13. Within a week, Liberland received 220,000 registrations, 1,200,000 website visits, and 100,000 Facebook followers from around the world. The unexpectedly impressive numbers naturally called for a celebration, which is exactly what was supposed to take place in Liberland last Friday, May 1.

VICE being a stalwart supporter of fledging micronations, we decided to make the journey to Liberland for the party. The only way to reach the country by land is through Zmajevac, a Croatian town about two miles from the Croatian-Serbian border. When we arrived around noon, the Croatian border authorities told us that they needed to "warn" us that Liberland "is a country that doesn't exist," and that "it's basically a forest." Not a problem. We had been wise enough to equip ourselves with hiking boots, so we parked our car, asked some locals for directions, and began the long walk.

The road to Liberland.

Not far into our trek we ran into a second group of Croatian policemen who had set up a barricade. Apparently, because of the announced celebration, special border units had been sent to the national reserve surrounding Liberland to intercept the partygoers. They were a little less accommodating than the first lot we'd met.

"By entering this area, you are illegally trespassing and we can arrest you. We don't want that and you don't either, because you're risking a sentence of up to three years or a fine of €1500 [$1700]," said one of them.

They were polite, but they were clearly baffled as to why anyone would want to enter Liberland. They told us about a group of Czech people who had been trying desperately to get into the "country."

"It's ridiculous, there's nothing but insects and forest in there," they said.

We decided to head back to the Serbian village of Bački Monoštor, where we'd heard Liberland supporters would be waiting for a boat that would sail them to the Free Republic. Confused and a bit lost, we sent President Jedlička a text message asking where we were going. He was actually really accommodating and sent us a Google Map of how to get there.

The directions that Vit Jedlička sent us.

When we arrived in Bački Monoštor, there were no boats to be seen. We did, however, find Jedlička and about 30 other people sitting at a restaurant, finishing their lunch and wondering where their boat was.

"The boat was stopped at the border. We'll wait another hour or so and see what happens," Jedlička told us.

Hopeful citizens of Liberland waiting for the boat to their new land.

After an hour had passed, Jedlička said the boat had finally been released but the Croatian police were doing everything in their power to prevent it from reaching us.

"If they stop it again, we will just buy a new boat," he said.

A boat in Bački Monoštor but unfortunately not the boat we were waiting for

To pass the time, we mingled with some future Liberland citizens. We met a bunch of hopefuls from as far away as Iraq, Lebanon, and even Syria. All of them were currently living in Belgrade.

Fahad Kubba—half Iraqi, half Serbian—had started his day off particularly chuffed about the idea of making it to Liberland. Unfortunately, after spending hours waiting around for the boat, his initial excitement had died down quite a bit.

"I don't know what's happening," he said.

Current and future citizens of Liberland signing the pledge.

One of Fahad's friends named Bilal told us he didn't believe this whole Liberland thing was actually real.

"I thought it was a joke, but then Fahad called me and asked if I wanted to go check it out. Why not?" he explained.

When we told them that Croatian police had stopped us from walking to Liberland, Bilal said:"Let's get arrested together. I put that on my to-do list when I woke up this morning."

The author holding the flag of Liberland.

Time ticked on and there was still no boat to be seen, so in an attempt to lighten the mood, Jedlička began doling out the first Liberland citizenships.

"Do you agree with the Constitution of Liberland and promise to obey the laws?" Jedlička asked a man as he presented him with some papers. The man agreed over loud applause and cheering.

And just like that, it finally happened: Siniša Matić became the first person to be granted citizenship of Liberland.

The very first citizen of Liberland holds his citizenship papers.

"I am very excited that this has happened. We have received around 300,000 applications and it's great to be able to say that we now have more than ten official citizens," Jedlička told us.

While signing the citizenship papers, the president explained that Liberland would not be stealing its citizens' money through taxes. Tax is optional in the micronation.

As more and more people were naturalized into the world's newest country, the enthusiasm we had seen earlier began to return. The overall mood was back on top, but a big part of that probably had something to do with the fact that everyone was pretty drunk.

At least the Serbian sunset served as a beautiful backdrop for the bad news the president had to deliver—the boat was definitely not coming today. There'd be two tomorrow, instead.

Some guy arriving with a rubber boat.

But then some guy showed up with a small rubber boat and the plan was changed yet again. Everyone packed into about a dozen cars and headed to the Serbian side of the Danube River.

For some reason the president himself jumped into our car. Obviously a busy man, he did not put his phone down throughout the entire journey.

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Jedlička in our car.

Once we reached the bank of the Danube we found a group of Serbian border police waiting for us. After half an hour of confusing multilingual back-and-forth between Jedlička, a translator, and the police, the authorities suggested that the "president" come with them for a chat at the police station. He politely declined and instead insisted that the cops explain to him exactly which law was stopping the party from setting sail in the rubber boat.

Negotiations with the police.

We decided we'd had enough of Liberland for one day and that it was time to say goodbye to its president, its fans, and its citizens. On our way out, we overheard Jedlička inviting the police back to the restaurant for that talk they'd been so keen on. They agreed, but only if the crowd dispersed.

Nobody got to spend their Labour Day in Liberland this time around. Maybe next year.

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US soldiers during an exercise in Texas in 2008. Photo via the US Army's Flickr account

The official story is that Jade Helm 15 is a US military exercise that will take place in Texas, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah starting in July. There's no evidence that it's anything more than that, but for people who don't believe in official stories, Jade Helm 15 has become the center of paranoid fantasies involving martial law and secret tunnels under Walmart—and some politicians aren't dismissing those concerns out of hand.

The operation has been controversial ever since it was announced in late March, with one website denouncing it as "undoubtedly the most frightening thing to occur on American soil since the Civil War." When an Army officer fielded questions about Jade Helm 15 at an April meeting in Bastrop County attended by a concerned crowd of 150, he was asked if it was all a ploy to take away guns and impose martial law throughout much of the Southwest.

"It's the same thing that happened in Nazi Germany. You get the people used to the troops on the street, the appearance of uniformed troops and the militarization of the police," Bob Wells, a Bastrop resident who was at the meeting, told the Austin American-Statesman. "They're gathering intelligence. That's what they're doing. And they're moving logistics in place for martial law. That's my feeling. Now I could be wrong. I hope I am wrong. I hope I'm a 'conspiracy theorist.'"

Conservatives and Texans are generally disinclined to trust the federal government, and some clearly see something ominous in such a massive, somewhat secretive series of drills. A few of them folded a separate conspiracy theory involving the sudden closing of several Walmarts into the narrative, the idea being that the big box stores would serve as bases of operations.

It might sound silly, but enough people bought into the theory that the Pentagon has had to publicly announce that it wasn't going to be infringing anyone's rights—a spokesman even said, "We are not taking over anything"—and Walmart took time to dismiss the rumors when reached by Talking Points Memo.

Surprisingly, some politicians haven't simply laughed off these Infowars-level speculations and reassured people that there's nothing to see here. Most notably, on April 28, Texas Governor Greg Abbott began talking about deploying the Texas State Guard to monitor the exercises, and White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest had to address the controversy.

Then, on Saturday, Texas Senator, 2016 presidential hopeful, and outrage machine Ted Cruz indicated that he had some sympathy for the people who believe the training program is actually a ruse to take over the Republic.

"You know, I understand the concern that's been raised by a lot of citizens about Jade Helm," Cruz told a reporter in South Carolina. "My office—we've reached out to the Pentagon to inquire about this exercise."

Studies have found that people on the extreme ends of the political spectrum are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories, and some research claims that Republicans are more susceptible than Democrats to these paranoid narratives. Since many of Cruz's fans are far-right Republicans, it only makes sense that he would be sympathetic to what blue staters might regard as tinfoil-hat-esque fears.

"He doesn't want to say, 'These people are nuts,'" says Miami University professor and conspiracy theory expert Timothy Melley. "He's in a primary relying on voters who feel this way. And their antigovernment suspicions align with his politics."

Cruz isn't the only Republican who hasn't dismissed the Jade Helm 15 theories. Rand Paul, the other prominent Republican looking to run an insurgent 2016 campaign, told a radio host his staff would "look at" the operation, while the other Texas Senator, John Cornyn, released a statement that read, "I'm closely following how the military training exercise Jade Helm 15 will affect both Texas communities and our military preparedness, and I look forward to getting answers from US Special Operations Command."

(VICE reached out to all the other Republican senators in the states where Jade Helm 15 will take place, but didn't receive a response about their positions. We'll update the post if we do.)

From the start, the military has assured people that "the most noticeable effect the exercise may have on the local communities is an increase in vehicle and military air traffic and its associated noise." But such statements don't normally do much to reassure people who assume the government lies all the time.

Melley, the academic, points out that sometimes crazy-sounding conspiracy theories are true. African-Americans talked about the Tuskagee Experiments for long time before they were validated. The revelations from the Snowden leak sound more unbelievable than science fiction. And just because someone believes in a wild-sounding theory doesn't make them crazy, he adds.

"There are plenty of people who are highly functional who believe in some of these theories," Melley says. "Look at McCarthy—he was fucking nuts and he changed the world."

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

Related: The New Wave: Labour

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

My American friend John and I like nothing more than to teach each other about our respective countries' ways. I've explained British TV and real football to him, he's explained US politics, fake football, and guns to me. What's normal to him seems amazing to me and vice versa. We're basically those really funny, profound people you hear in pubs loudly bonding over different meanings of the word "pants."

With the UK election campaign swinging into its last week, John got in touch to say that even though America was basically not paying attention to it, he wouldn't mind finding out a bit more about British politics in order to impress the Joes down at the local Sports Bar with his effortless command of words like "parliament."

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An Anonymous protester outside Parliament. Photo by Jake Lewis.

THE REQUEST

Dear Oscar,

Can you help me make sense of that election over there? I feel like a meeting of minds between the Mother of All Parliaments and the World's Greatest Democracy could be mutually beneficial.

1. The Zeitgeist

Yankee John says: Here's what I know about England lately. In 2011, riots around London, flames, and overturned double decker buses, voices crying out in the night but not being very specific. Then like a year later, the Olympics happen and everyone is happy and Spice Girls are in cars singing "Our House in the Middle of the Street." Then Scotland tries to break up, but you win her back. So, my question: What's the mood there now? What's been happening, old friend? We've fallen a bit out of touch. Fill me in.

Limey Oscar Replies: All the things you've mentioned are relevant, except perhaps for the Olympic unity, which now seems like an odd moment of mass hysteria akin to the weeks after Princess Diana's death, except with cheering, Mo Farah, and flag waving instead of crying, Elton John, and flag waving.

In some ways, everyone seems to be completely bored with and disaffected by politics. Those voices that were crying out during the riots are still crying out and their lack of specificity is sort of the point—there's a rage at the financial and political establishment that most parties are trying to tap into but none fully can. Russell Brand gained a huge following of angry young people by making vlogs saying that politicians are crap-weasels who don't listen, before slightly weirdly saying that you should vote Labour because their leader will listen.

Westminster, previously simply the location of the Houses of Parliament (where our politicians work / bellow at each other in a gothic chamber), has become a swear word. This has fueled the rise of UKIP (the United Kingdom Independence Party) who hate the European Union and immigrants, and have gained popularity by not sounding like British politicians. This disgust also has fueled hopes for positive change in Scotland. The Scottish National Party (SNP) may have lost the independence vote but they are on course to win basically every seat in their nation because they've captured the hearts and minds of disillusioned voters.

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David Cameron. Photo via Wikicommons.

2. The System

Yankee John says: A US Presidential Election is an 18-month process in which billions of dollars are spent to inevitably elect Hillary Clinton. There are a thousand debates wherein nothing is discussed and endless, hyperbolic obsession over trivial details meant to distinguish similar people. At one point, everyone pretends Iowa is important. It is a tiresome reality TV show comprising a gaggle of histrionic braggarts who are weekly whittled to a final pair, from which we select the millionaire that best represents our worldview. It's a drag. What's your system? It's better, right? More British, more sensibly discussing issues in even tones whilst drinking tea, I presume?

Limey Oscar replies: Replace "sensibly discussing issues" with "saying buzzwords" and "drinking tea" with "drinking pints" and you've got it. Our system is basically a downtrodden version of yours with more political parties, less time, and less money. Politicians traverse the country for about a month, speaking to audiences made up of heavily vetted party supporters who will make them look normal while they stand on an upturned box in a desolate factory talking about jobs.

Our First Past the Post electoral system divides the country into 650 constituencies, which can sometimes be won campaigning on local issues like the state of the nearby hospital, the out-of-control grey squirrel population, or that weird smell coming from the canal. Most are already sewn up before a baby has been kissed in anger because of tribal loyalties to either of the two main parties—Labour and Conservative, one of which has formed every government since the war. Just a few marginal seats (like a swing state, but smaller) decide the election, meaning our politicians spend a large amount of time trying not to enrage a small number of voters. But the fact that this two party system is crumbling—with smaller parties gaining popularity—is what makes this election arguably more interesting than normal.

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The leaders of seven British political parties have a televised debate.

3. The Candidates

Yankee John says: I see you got three white gentlemen on the ballot. Are you satisfied with the quality of these candidates? I must admit I had to Wikipedia it to see who was running. I haven't been following things much, but that's most Americans. We have a lot of good TV shows to watch and things get busy. So, who are these guys? Compare each one to a fictional character I would know. Do politicians in the UK bend over backwards to appear "relatable" like in the US—firing guns and bowling and eating apple pie? If so, what are the common Englishman things they have to do?

Limey Oscar replies: Some of our smaller parties are being headed up by women, but save for the SNP, they won't win. Generally, British democracy is dominated by white gentlemen, just as American democracy is.

The two main rutting stags of the contest are Cameron of the Conservatives and Ed Miliband of Labour. Cameron is a sort of cypher, a Bret Easton Ellis character with a posh, English accent. He's famously "chilled" and has spent most of the campaign trying to appear statesmanlike. In the last few days, he's decided that wasn't working and that it is "time to throw caution to the winds, let it rip, and tell people what you really think." This means he now makes speeches in which he shouts, "that pumps me up," which, as an American, I'm sure you can relate to.

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Ed Miliband. Photo via Flickr user RiotsPanel.

Labour's Miliband is the frog his supporters were hoping would turn into a prince. He's a backroom policy guy thrust into the limelight. Think Albert Brooks's character in Broadcast News or anyone except Martin Sheen in the West Wing. The public thought he was "weird" for a long time but that perception has shifted a bit during a strong campaign for Miliband—he's still weird, but in a kind of likable way. The frog hasn't become a prince but he's at least a better-looking, intelligent frog with some decent thoughts on how to make the country less terrible. His personal approval ratings are still lower than Cameron's, though. He's started saying "ain't" a lot to appear to have a common touch, which hasn't really worked.

On the other hand, Nigel Farage, leader of the right wing UKIP, is the king of doing "relatable" things. Over here, that means drinking pints and smoking cigarettes.

Scotland is in love with the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon, who is the kind of smart woman a middle-aged American would fall in love with in a Hollywood film about a man who's mid-life crisis leads him to go in search of the Loch Ness monster (But what he found was love).

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader and current Deputy Prime Minister, lied about making students pay for university and is thus viewed as being Grima Wormtongue in a suit.

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Protesters who want to save the NHS. Photo by Chris Bethell.

4. The Issues

Yankee John says: To an outsider, it seems like England has figured out many of the tricky bits of governance already, what with your quality healthcare, low prison population, and policemen that only occasionally murder innocent people. What is there to discuss? I hope you realize how lucky you are with the NHS; the US will be arguing about its terrible health system for the next half century. How about gay marriage? Weed? We're now pro both, hooray. We're still pretty anti-immigrant though.

Limey Oscar replies: Have you heard of the deficit, John? It is the gap between what the government spends and what it gets in income. Even if nobody is quite sure what it is, politicians continue to shout at each other about it. The Conservatives blame Labour for spending too much on welfare and other state services when they were in government. Everyone else says the Conservatives have been cutting this stuff so hard and fast that it's been a disaster. For instance, there are horrifying examples of very ill people who have dropped down dead, shortly after being declared fit for work, and therefore ineligible for out-of-work benefits.

More or less every political party is very clear about the NHS being the greatest thing humanity has ever accomplished while also being very clear that it is about to be destroyed forever by their opponents. Politicians tell misty-eyed stories about being born in the NHS. About dying in the NHS. About taking an hour every day to hug the NHS and tell it that they will never leave it.

Brother, we've already got gay marriage. Possessing weed is still illegal and Labour and the Conservatives are happy to keep it that way.

Parties are also promising less immigration, more housing that poor people can afford to live in, and are saying various things about tax—generally making the poor pay less and stopping big corporations from avoiding to pay it altogether. And politicians south of the border are freaking out that Scotland might try and leave again.

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Labour Party activists. Photo by Adam Barnett.

5. The Parties

Yankee John says: Do people vote for the leader they like regardless of the party, or do people vote for their party regardless of its leader? I find it handy that the group that represents the working man is called Labour. If the Tories represent the interests of Capital, then what in the hell is a Liberal Democrat? Coming from a country where every election is a dichotomy, it's nice to consider there's a system where minority voices can have a say in government. If I am a socially liberal but economically conservative, is there a party for me? In the US that would make me a Libertarian, but those people tend to be a little nuts.

Limey Oscar replies: Traditionally, Labour's core support came from the working classes and the Conservatives' core support came from the middle and upper classes. A Liberal Democrat was someone between the two. You basically supported your party's leader, whoever he was.

Political support is now more atomized. Even though the Prime Minister will either be David Cameron or Ed Miliband, the smaller parties will pick up plenty of votes. Some left-wing voters are now more enamored with the Green Party, while UKIP has picked up support from disaffected working class voters who feel Labour has betrayed them by becoming a bunch of metropolitan elitists.

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A hotel decked out in UKIP banners. Photo by Oscar Webb.

In a way, both Labour and the Tories could be described as socially liberal and economically conservative. A Tory-led government has made gay marriage legal, while Labour's abandonment of traditional socialism means that, even though Miliband talks about taxing bankers and injecting greater responsibility into the financial services industry, the party is economically conservative in the sense that it at least buys into capitalism.

The website Political Compass has plotted where the parties sit on the left / right, authoritarian / libertarian scale.

Related: Coalition: When Alan Met Joe

6. The Stakes

Yankee John says: In the end, what difference will this election make, really? Will the result change your life in any tangible way? When Obama was elected, we felt part of something meaningful and ecstatic, as though something really important was happening and everything fated to change. We were wrong, but it was fun at the time. Does this election feel like a moment of any consequence to you or just some typical, superfluous bullshit?

Limey Oscar replies: While it may end up being judged as superfluous bullshit, it really doesn't feel like that. Even if the grand ideological battles of yesteryear are no longer being fought, there are clear points of difference between the parties and a clear sense that they have different conceptions of what our society should be. As Britain moves from an era of two-party dominance to multi-party squabbling, there will be no "Yes we can" moment. Instead, it will be messy and it will be angry in a politely British way. In spite of the apathy, we are in a battle for the soul of the country.

Follow Oscar on Twitter.

Follow John on Twitter.

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Adam Sandler in 1995's Billy Madison. It was a more innocent time.

Adam Sandler's Hollywood endurance is a puzzling quirk of the universe I've never understood. It's one of those phenomena that seemingly evade all logic—like how Brits magically sound American when they sing or why Macklemore thought he was gay in the third grade because he liked to draw.

Last month, video evidence surfaced of six Native American actors walking off of the set of Sandler's latest film The Ridiculous Six. In the leaked footage, we can hear a dispute between the several actors and one of Sandler's producers over the use offensive Native American stereotypes. "If you don't like the script, then leave," the actors are told.

Understandably, the disagreement produced an onslaught of criticism from the public, with Native American actors and media critics weighing in to what seemed like Sandler's long-awaited and much needed comedic tribunal.

Most of us growing up in the 1980s or '90s are familiar with his films and brand of comedy. When I think of Adam Sandler, I mostly think of teenage boys and fart jokes. Occasionally, though, he did produce some beloved movies like Happy Gilmore and Punch Drunk Love. But for the most part, Adam Sandler's name is never one you hear uttered amongst trendy millennial types whose comedic palettes prefer the likes of Amy Schumer and Aziz Ansari.

Collective disdain for Sandler has made him the subject of numerous think pieces, social analyses, and Razzie award nominations (10 to be exact). If you Google "Adam Sandler bad actor" it becomes clear that he tops most of the "worst actor of all time" lists. And yet, despite our proclivity to hate him, it seems we quietly still continue to consume him.

Sandler's net worth is rumoured to be valued at over $300 million, and other than a few flops, many of his films still fare well at the box office. In late 2014, Netflix even signed an agreement with him to produce four films directly onto the online streaming service. Not bad for an actor whose comedy has a history of racial epithets and penis jokes.

Maybe there was something I was missing. Perhaps Sandler wasn't being secretly funded by a well-oiled cult full of Midwestern dads and teenage boys. Was it possible that beneath his seemingly transgressive brand of comedy lay a certain magic—one that has quietly stolen the hearts of North Americans? Could there be something redeeming in Adam Sandler? I had to know.

And so began my sharp decline into the most sadistic task ever known to any writer: 19 hours of Adam Sandler movies.

I chose six of his films I'd never seen in order to keep any biases to a minimum. Like most other North American kids, I was already familiar with a few of his classic works, often syndicated on TV, so I settled on a playlist which spanned time periods and supposedly even comedic genres. (Sandler purists will note that this only adds up to 12 hours and 15 minutes. I took notes, watched some of his stand up on YouTube and had food and bathroom breaks to round out the 19 hours. I'm not a masochist.)

Grown Ups 2 (2013)

I decided to begin with Grown Ups 2, a film I'd heard was trying and would require the eagerness and naiveté of a person who doesn't quite understand the dark journey they'd voluntarily just embarked on. The film featured a solid ensemble cast of Chris Rock, Selma Hayak, Kevin James, and David Space and—just like every publication said—was an utter disaster. The plotline was so fractured that I began to wonder if I was watching the wrong movie or some sort of extended spoof. I emerged from the film 90 minutes later disoriented and confused, my notes jumbled and full of mostly unanswered questions.

Favourite moments:
-A yoga class where women are instructed to slap their asses as a part of their technique, +10 points for feminism.

-Taylor Lautner's crotch being bitten by a deer, the only self-aware part of the entire film.

Rating
1/10

Little Nicky (2000)

My second Sandler journey took transported me back to the year 2000. In this film, he plays the spawn of Satan (literally) who decides to take up residence in New York City after his father (the devil) falls prey to the evil doings of his two older brothers. The movie is actually not half-bad and I paid attention throughout the entire thing—likely because it was packed with pop culture references and New York backdrops in a pre-9/11 world.

Favourite moments:
-Seeing Adam Sandler's emo haircut exist in a pre-MySpace era. Was this a subtle hint at what was to arrive in 2004? Is Sandler a master trend-forecaster? We'll never know.

Rating
5/10

50 First Dates (2004)

I took a break to respond to texts and fix a snack before diving into movie number three. The premise of 50 First Dates is simple: Sandler, a marine biologist and serial commitment-phobe, falls for Drew Barrymore in a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy. Only there's one catch: Barrymore suffered a head trauma in an accident and, each day, her character awakes with no memory of the day before. The movie is cute but predictable and about halfway through, I started trying to uncover whether Adam Sandler's shell necklaces (ever-present and inspiring) matched with the mood of the scene.

Favourite moments:
-None

Rating
4/10

Jack and Jill (2011)

Before heading into movie four and hour eight, I noticed my butt was getting a little tingly so I did some yoga while watching some of Sandler's old stand-up on YouTube. I should have listened to the numbing sensation creeping up my legs, warning me of the numbing feeling that would soon be creeping into my brain after 15 minutes of Jack and Jill.

In the film, Sandler plays a set of twins (Jack and Jill) who are forced to spend time together after Jill ventures to visit her more successful twin brother, Jack. The film plays upon all sorts of class stereotypes and bills Jill as the working class, bumbling idiot, while her refined brother watches in dismay as she ruins Thanksgiving dinner and generally make a fool out of herself, only to semi-save the day and enlighten them both.

The entire premise of the movie is offensive (A man dressing up as a woman—what a joke! Poor people—they're basic! But wise!) that the details are almost irrelevant. I should note that about halfway through, I went around the corner and bought a six-pack before reluctantly finishing the film.

Favourite moments:
-Drinking my six-pack

Rating:
0/10

You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008)

I kicked off my second day of Adam Sandler with a movie that can truly only be described as a less funny version of Borat. I cued up You Don't Mess with the Zohan as I cleaned my apartment and only semi-understood what was happening. Sandler played (I think) a former Israeli army commander who moves to New York to pursue his dream of being a barber. I did catch the end, though, where he reunites with his dad and gives him a haircut. Perhaps this serves as a greater allegory for accepting children of all stripes. But probably not.

Favourite Moments:
-Finding out Judd Apatow directed this film.

Rating:
3/10

The Waterboy (1998)

I thought The Waterboy was the heart-wrenching story of a kid with a speech impairment triumphing against all odds to win the hearts and minds of his NCAA team. Expecting something similarly cheesy to The Blind Side, I was disappointed and stopped paying attention 20 minutes in when it became obvious that the film was another Sandler special. I could not tell you what happens in The Waterboy other than that it's heavily implied he gets laid in the end.

Favourite Moments:
Realizing I was only One Adam Sandler film away from the end.

Rating:
2/10

Funny People (2009)

I decided to end on a high note and settled into Funny People with a renewed sense of determination. It was written, produced, and directed by Judd Apatow and co-starred Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill when they more closely resembled one another. Sandler plays a famous comedian who is diagnosed with a terminal form of leukemia. In a strange act of valour, he takes Rogan, an amateur comedian, under his wing and learns the importance of his priorities when a plot twist sends his cancer unexpectedly into remission.

I actually enjoyed Funny People but there was admittedly one uncomfortable part. During a stand-up show, Sandler's character makes a joke about comedians committing suicide and specifically delivers a line where he claims, "Robin Williams will be up here next slitting his wrists."

Favourite Moments:
-Seth Rogan because he's so damn likeable

Rating:
7.5/10

Overall Film Wrap

Average Rating:
3.75

Overall thoughts: With the exception of one film, they were truly all awful.

Immediately following the end of Funny People, I banished Adam Sandler's face from my mind and promptly took a four-hour nap. Despite many obstacles (my waning attention span, the urge to cheat), I felt a weird sense of pride and accomplishment for having stuck with such an absurd goal and wondered if this makes me some sort of Guinness World Record Holder.

Conclusion

It's an interesting thing to explore Sandler's career. While some comedians get better with time, finessing their humour and ridding themselves of offensive jabs, Sandler's humour seems to have done the impossible and somehow regressed. Almost all of the films I watched repeatedly featured stabs at people with intellectual disabilities and of course, his infamous and trademarked Baby Voice.

In an era where people are arguably demanding smarter and more socially-aware comedy, Sandler's refusal to evolve with the times highlights the tragic nature of our own culture and the kind of content many of us are still willing to accept and proliferate.

As much as he might be despised as a comedian by many people who grew up in the '80s and '90s, he is also strangely something of an American staple. In times of great social and political unrest, Adam Sandler will be there for you. Even if you can't trust the government or the police or your tap water, you can trust that every summer, Adam Sandler will dutifully release another horrible, Adam Sandler-y film.

So what exactly did I learn in my 19 intimate hours studying Mr. Sandler? That he's the human example of the selfie stick: trite, awful, and, frankly, our own damn fault.

Follow Neha Chandrachud on Twitter

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Photo via Flickr user Dhinal Chheda

Throughout time, there have always been Bye Felipes: There were cave dudes who, once they were kindly rejected by a girl, fell back on, "Yeah well, fuck you bitch."

For that one gentlemen left on Earth who might not get it, Bye Felipe is the meme of capturing text convos where the dude loses his mind/dignity and the fair lady blows him off with a non-shit giving "Bye Felipe."

These "men" are like toddlers who've just been told they can't play with their toys anymore.

"I think you're beautiful!"
"Not interested, thanks."
"Fuck you, you ugly fat ho."

Or:

"Wanna suck my dick?"
"No."
"You slut."

The logic is flawless.

Before humans learned how to screencap things, women would share these oral tales round a sewing circle, but now we can all laugh collectively at these douchecanoes. And my most recent Bye Felipe encounter is, if I have to say so myself, one for the ages.

A dozen years ago, in 2003, I spent two hours in the company of one such Felipe, and I have always wanted those two hours back. He was a suit-and-condo clone and a self-described Brad Pitt lookalike.

We met at a bar in Toronto called Hemingway's, which is one of those bars frequented by guys who think they look like all-together Don Draper but really look like hungover Don Draper. If I'm being honest, I don't remember much of what we talked about or really anything about him. He didn't make much of an impression, but I do remember going back to his place and sitting on his face just to shut him up. I was bored, he was boring. Some 45 minutes later, I was home. And I never saw him again.

He asked to see me again, of course. Back then, I was in my early 20s and less adept and telling guys to take a hike, so instead of telling him I wasn't interested, I told him I was menstruating. (Side note: ladies, that line is the easiest way to separate the boys from the men.)

Over the past 12 years, he has messaged me sporadically. At first I thought he was just saying hello, but each conversation quickly revealed itself as an opportunity for him to insert some dirty smut into an otherwise innocuous conversation.

It's important to note: I don't have anything against dirty smut talk. If two people agree that this is how they like to speak to each other, then more power to them. I have enjoyed that on many an occasion, as any other red-blooded woman has. But I never once gave this dude any indication that that kind of talk with me was okay. His assumption that just because we had slept together automatically gave him some kind of tacit authority or social licence to speak to me like a web-cam girl is pure, unadulterated fuckery. After years of politely enduring his "hey gurl BEWBS" talk, my patience wore thin and my respect for him plummeted from near-zero to zero.

So, last month, when I received a message from him on my birthday, I was automatically suspicious of his well-wishes. I knew right off the bat that he wasn't just saying hello, and what follows is our complete and unedited Facebook chat. I have redacted his picture and name to protect his privacy, natch. Because that's what adults do.

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This was precisely the moment, two minutes into our conversation, where my Spidey-sense started tickling. Am I all "growns" (sic) up now? I think that was his attempt at flirting. If so, COOL STORY BRAH. But that is not a question you ask a woman turning 34. That's a question you ask a child turning 10. So, at best, his flirting game is weak, and at worst, he thinks that infantilizing adult women is fun.

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You hear that ladies? He rejects societal norms! Don't you all want to trust-fall into his arms now?

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As always, he says. I'm dripping in seething sarcasm and he is patting himself on the back. And now this brings us to his attempt to steer this conversation toward an indiscretion. Aka I WANT TO MAKE DIS GURL TALK BOUT DEM BEWBS. He asks an inane question referencing some "research project" which he knows will garner a "buh?" from me, in order to keep the chat going.

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Hey gurrrrl, remember that time that we boned? Remember that time I inserted my genitals into your genitals? Let's grab a cup of Folgers Crystals and sit by the fire and let me coerce you into this convo without asking for your consent. COOL? PS, don't forget I'm a nice guy! He is nice-guying me all up in hurrrr.

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This was where I'd had enough. After 12 years, I was done holding my tongue. It was my birthday and I was planning on celebrating with my friends and family, and The Ghost of 12 Years Past was shitting all over it.

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WHY DO YOU THINK I NEVER SAW YOU AGAIN? I haven't been non-stop menstruating for 12 years.

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Ugh, I mis-spelled "horney" as "hornet." This is massively embarrassing for a writer. Apologies for that one. But he more than tops it with his next reply, which quickly devolves from a sort-of-apology to him ejaculating his neuroses all over me. I mean, how many times can you use an ellipsis in one paragraph? And use it incorrectly. Such a lady-boner-killer.

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"I can get jerked off by a number of willing participants."

BUT DON'T FORGET I'M A NICE GUY.

At this point, there wasn't anything else for me to say except the truth.

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Hi internet!

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Does it make you feel awesome that even women who are fucking sad won't sleep with you?

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OK, you might need a little backstory here. The groceries thing he is referring to is a recent spoken word piece that I performed at The Moth in New York City where I talked about the past two years of my life. I had to deal with an unexpected turn of events that, admittedly, wasn't in my favour, and I became a waif just to survive. I muddled my way through it and eventually everything righted itself, but it was a period in my life where I was battling depression and a depleted sense of self. I had kept my dire situation to myself (not even my family knew) and never spoke about it until I returned to Canada, and even then I only spoke about it in summary.

And he's like I like to laugh at your misfortune because of my tax-bracket! PS: NICE GUY.

And then he goes on about his penis, like it deserves a knighthood:

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SLAMMIN' HONIES SINCE FOREVER: THE E! TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY.

After this the chat gets a little foggy because I'm a faster typer and as such, his replies don't really make much sense in sequence. You can see the full chat below, if you can figure out what he means when he says "5 22" and "Ummm, OM," you let me know. I'm assuming the OM is him trying to do a Sun Salutation whilst we're sparring.

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Can't win an argument with a woman? Call her fat. BITCHES HATE FAT.

Also 150lbs is not an insult. 250lbs is not an insult. I don't exist on this planet for his consumption. My worth is not defined by the way others look at me. I have no idea what his body looks like (did I mention the 12 years thing?), but it sounds to me like his "perfect body" merely covers up the fact that he's wildly boring and also in love with a lie.

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And blocked.

You can read the full exchange below.

So, lesson learned.I will never let anyone speak to me in a manner that dehumanizes me at every turn, for the sake of maintaining a friendly demeanour. This is the great thing about being an adult: you get to decide who is and isn't allowed in your life. Don't make excuses, just cut out those defective circuits. Much more happiness will come to you that way. #ByeFelipe

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Follow Christine Estima on Twitter.

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Philippine national Mary Jane Veloso on trial in Indonesia. Image via Yahoo News.

Mary Jane Veloso departed from the Philippines five years ago, excited at the opportunity to earn a little more income as a domestic worker and provide better for her two children.

What she didn't expect is that upon landing in Indonesia, airport officials would slash open her bag and find a five-pound stash of heroin.

Mary Jane was among nine people slated to be executed in Indonesia by firing squad on the night of April 28 over drug-related charges. Eight of them were killed, but Mary Jane's execution was stayed after intensive lobbying by the Philippine government and human rights groups so she could serve as a witness in the trial against her alleged recruiter Maria Christina Sergio in the Philippines.

The death row affair has sparked a global condemnation of Indonesia's harsh war on drugs; Australia, who had two citizens among the executed, withdrew its ambassador just hours after the execution.

But amidst the grief and outrage, Mary Jane's case may well beckon a vital shift in how Indonesia investigates, prosecutes, and punishes drug-related offenses—moving from executing low-level offenders to using them as informants.

That concept, of course, isn't exactly new. A common way prosecutors get testimony in drug cases is to offer leniency if a defendant testifies against another alleged offender. But this is not a strategy used widely in Indonesia. Singapore—another country that applies capital punishment to convicted drug traffickers in some cases—only recently added the substantial assistance clause as grounds for exemption to the death penalty in 2012.

Indonesia, meanwhile, has opted to apply the harshest punishment to drug offenders. The country resumed executions in 2013 after a five-year gap, the majority since then under President Joko Widodo, who ironically was elected last year for his defense of human rights. (His campaign often derided his opponent Prabowo Subianto's murky human rights record). In Indonesia, the death penalty for drug offenses has popular support. And while it offers no real long-term solution for the nation's drug problem, it's scoring political points for the new president eager to appear tough on drugs.

But Mary Jane's case was different.

Unlike the other eight individuals who were scheduled to die alongside her, her plight drew support from within Indonesia. This was in large part because Indonesia also sends many migrant workers abroad—over 400,000 in 2014 alone—some also facing death row in countries like Saudi Arabia.

Mary Jane's sympathizers took to the streets of Jakarta and Cilacap, the port city near the prison at Nusa Kambangan Island. Demonstrators also mobilized to Indonesian embassies and consulates around the world, from Manila and Hong Kong to Washington D.C. The Internet has been abuzz with #SaveMaryJaneVeloso, a top Twitter trending topic on the night of the execution and a petition garnering more than 240,000 signatures.

But Mary Jane hasn't been saved yet: Officials stress her execution is only delayed.

The Philippines, along with human rights groups, argue she was a victim—not a criminal—exploited by those arranging her employment.

In a personal narrative published on Rappler.com, Mary Jane recounts being duped by "Christine," the woman who promised her a job. In Malaysia, where Mary Jane was initially told she would be working, she said Christine gave her a bag to use for a trip to Indonesia.

"When we are inside the room I hold the bag but I ask Christine why the bag little heavy [sic] but she said because it's new," Mary Jane said. "I check all zipper and pocket of the bag... all empty so I don't have thinking negative."

The Philippine National Bureau of Investigation claims this makes her a "victim of human trafficking." (Under Philippine laws, human trafficking includes recruitment through deception for the purpose of exploitation).

Her case highlights the gravest gap in Indonesia's drug policy: its failure to take into account the trafficking and exploitation of vulnerable people in the drug trade.

The UN Office of Drugs and Crimes reports cases where victims of human trafficking are used to transport drugs across international borders.

Socioeconomic difficulties borne out of poverty, as well as the use of threat and coercion, make certain populations vulnerable to exploitation by drug syndicates.

Research has found an increase in the recruitment of specifically female drug mules by transnational criminal organizations, primarily in the Philippines but extending to the Southeast Asian region and as far as West Africa.

Mary Jane's supporters argue the Indonesian government needs to stop punishing couriers and instead use them as witnesses to pursue the larger network of traffickers.

Related: Interested in Indonesia? Watch our documentary about Warias:

Indonesia has somewhat acknowledged the idea, using the term "justice collaborator," which has been applied in select corruption cases. The term was first mentioned in article 10 of the 2006 law on witness and victim protection. For a suspect who is also a witness in the same case, "their testimony can be an object of deliberation by the judge in reducing punishment," the law states.

However, the Indonesia Judicial Monitoring Society of the University of Indonesia stated in their study that law remains vague, making it difficult to enforce. "In its application, that clause remains problematic because article 10 line 2 has many weaknesses and is understood differently by both the society and law enforcement officials," the study concludes.

"Indonesia hasn't regulated this in their law. The witness and victim protection law has very limited regulations," said Anugerah Rizki Akbari, who co-authored the study.

And members of the human rights community remain skeptical that Mary Jane's case could effect real reform.

"The law enforced in Indonesia still tends to punish the poor, but very rarely punishes the upper and middle class like corrupt officials," said Sringatin of the Indonesian Migrant Workers' Network. "The way the government enforces the law is very discriminative especially toward poor women migrant workers like Mary Jane."

Philippine President Benigno Aquino last Tuesday implored Indonesia so that Mary Jane can be handed over as a state witness against her recruiters.

"We might be able to also uncover this drug syndicate that was behind her predicament," he told the Philippine Star. "She does present an opportunity right now to be able to uncover all the participants and start the process of bringing them to the bars of justice."

As the toll of Indonesia's war on drugs rises, an outraged international community watches how Widodo will take heed.

Follow Aria on Twitter.