Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Why a Community of Punks Chose to Infect Themselves with HIV in Castro's Cuba

Generally speaking, punk rock is a tool wielded by those on the lowest rungs of society to express dissent—and nowhere was dissent more reactionary than in Fidel Castro's Cuba.

Socialism breeds homogeneity, and in a socialist nation, punks can't help but become unmistakably conspicuous. But more than conspicuous, Los Frikis—a community of Cuban punks who came together throughout the late 1980s and 90s, resembling punks of freer nations in style and taste—came to be viewed as pariahs by everyone but their own.

Meet the Cuban Punks Who Infected Themselves with HIV in Protest in this VICE documentary about Los Frikis:

At the time, Castro's government attempted to maintain order by force, and police cracked down on vagrants and social outliers. The Frikis were one such target, because they looked different, shirked the norms of life under Castro socialism, and spent much of their time on the streets in run-down areas. They were often harassed, arrested, imprisoned, or forced to do manual labor. And as a result, some Frikis took up a form of protest that still manages to shock: they infected themselves with HIV, by injecting blood from their HIV-positive Friki friends into their own veins.

It's a mind-boggling act to consider today, but a number of factors aligned to create the social conditions that drove those Frikis to self-infect. Cuba's economy was long supported by the Soviet Union, but as the world power spun towards dissolution at the end of the 1980s, that support dried up, and Cuba was left to fend for itself. Castro called what followed "The Special Period," an ironic euphemism for massive food and fuel shortages and a rationing so drastic that it physically altered the Cuban people forever. 

Around the same time, the AIDS crisis began to worsen, and nations around the world scrambled to control the virus' spread. Cuba's controversial approach involved aggressively testing its sexually active adult population and sending HIV-infected people to live in quarantined sanitariums. In that policy, some Frikis saw an escape from a society trying to squeeze out dissidents like them.

"He knew that by infecting himself he would be sent to the sanitarium," Niurka Fuentes told me about her late husband, a Friki named Papo La Bala (or Papo The Bullet). "He knew that he would meet other people like him in there, the police would leave him alone, and he would be able to live his life in peace." 

Rather than continue living on the streets and in areas where they would be harassed and persecuted, these self-infected Frikis found a place where they would be provided with food, shelter, and medicine. And once enough of them were sent to the sanitariums, they knew the sanitariums, in turn, would become a punk haven. 

"You could hear rock 'n roll and heavy metal coming from every house," said Yoandra Cardoso, a long-time Friki who continues to live on the grounds of a former sanitarium. "When the sanatorium first opened it was one hundred percent Frikis... we were all here together."

In 1989, the military handed over control of the sanitariums to the Ministry of Public Health, and under their progressive methodology, patients were allowed to listen to and play music, dress how they choose, and socialize with others both in and out of the sanitarium. They were far better accommodations than an average Cuban could afford at the time, let alone a Friki. "We created our own world in there," Fuentes told me. 

A sanitarium in Pinar del Rio, where both Fuentes and Cardoso were housed as patients since the early 90s, closed in 2006. Today, all but one of Cuba's sanitariums are closed, with the last, in Santiago de Las Vegas, now operating as an outpatient facility. Though many of its original patients have been lost to the virus—Cardoso told me only three from her sanitarium are still alive—survivors are kept alive by domestically-produced antiretroviral drugs that are distributed through its socialized health care program. Cuba still boasts one of the lowest HIV prevalence rates in the world, and was even celebrated for eliminating mother-to-child transmission last year (though HIV infection rates in the country have also been rising over the past decade).

The Frikis, suffice it to say, found themselves in a compromising position for a punk community. Though even grave hardship wouldn't seem to justify their acts of self-infection, at that particular moment in history, in a place where punk ideology was grounds for persecution, the Frikis still found themselves choosing to commit an otherwise unspeakable act.

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Immigrant Fashion Designers Respond to Trump's Travel Ban

February's Best Books, Gadgets, and VR Systems

The International Students Who Feel Trapped by Trump's Travel Ban

Navid Yousefian was almost 8,000 miles away from the University of California, Santa Barbara campus when he heard the news. The PhD student had returned to his hometown of Tehran on a leave of absence from his research in the UCSB political sciences department. But on Friday, when Yousefian saw that Donald Trump had signed an executive order banning citizens of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the United States, he realized he might not make it back this year, or maybe at all.

"I think I lost a PhD degree today," he wrote on Facebook, posting a screenshot of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's advisory for affected students to not leave the US, as they likely wouldn't be let back in. 

Though Yousefian's situation may be more dire than most, the executive order is a major disruption in the lives of the 17,000 international students in the United States who come from the seven countries listed in the ban.

After Trump signed the executive order, dozens of people were detained at airports across the country, including Narges Bayani, an Iranian PhD student at New York University, and Vahideh Rasekhi, an Iranian PhD student at Stony Brook University. Even as the initial detainees have been released after a weekend of protest and legal challenges, Yousefian isn't sure if he'll be able to return to UCSB. He'd interpreted the executive order to mean that his student visa will be void at least for the next 90 days, but possibly longer, which could mean scrapping years of research and the chance to complete his doctorate.

Those fears aren't unfounded. Niki Mossafer Rahmati, an engineering undergrad at MIT, was stopped from boarding a US-bound flight on Saturday. She'd been back in Tehran for winter break and changed her flight in the hopes that she'd make it back on US soil before the executive order went into effect, and in time to start the new semester. Instead, when she reached her layover in Qatar, gate agents told her she wouldn't be able to board the flight to Boston due to her nationality. She was sent on the next flight back to Iran.

"Overnight, because of my ethnic origin, I found out that I might not be able to exit the country. It's a horrifying experience."

For students who are already on campus, the question is more complex. Are their student visas still valid? Are they safe as long as they don't leave the country and try to reenter? What about students with green cards? 

Many universities have issued statements expressing solidarity with their international students and offering legal resources to those who need them. Campus officials have also advised students who are affected by the ban to stay put, avoiding travel outside the country in order to avoid being turned away upon return.

Saphe Shamoun, a Syrian student in his senior year at Columbia University, told me he wouldn't risk leaving the country at this point. Getting to an American university was hard enough: He was denied a student visa three times—in 2004, 2005, and 2009—and it took nine years before family members in the United States managed to secure a green card, which allowed him to finally enroll at Columbia. He still has family in Aleppo, and the thought of having to choose between seeing them again and finishing his degree makes him choke up.

"Even if he takes the [executive order] back, I can't leave the country with this anxiety," Shamoun told me. "What if something happens when I'm away? Passing borders for me will always be a nightmare."

Shamoun's green card means he's a legal permanent resident, but he says the events of the past few days have thrown into question the meaning of that status. Last weekend Nisrin Elamin, a PhD student at Stanford who is originally from Sudan, was handcuffed detained for several hours at New York's JFK Airport. Elamin has lived in the United States for years and, like Shamoun, has a green card, which under normal circumstances generally allows non-citizens to travel to and from the US freely as long as they maintain their status as residents. But after the ban, Shamoun feels he's been reduced to being a "second-class citizen." (After some confusion, government officials said on Sunday that green card holders would be allowed back into the US, though they would be subject to additional screening.)

Universities have also struggled to provide answers to dual citizens like "Samira Abbasi," who holds both a British passport and Iranian citizenship due to her parentage. (She asked that I use a pseudonym, so as not to jeopardize her ability to travel using her British passport.) Abbasi, a PhD student at Columbia, has never even lived in Iran and says her Iranian passport is expired, but was advised by university officials not to leave the country, especially since State Department officials announced on Saturday that dual citizens would not be exempt from the travel restrictions. As of Monday, that statement appears to have been reversed—but Abbasi still isn't sure where she stands.

"Overnight, because of my ethnic origin, I found out that I might not be able to exit the country," she told me. "It's a horrifying experience.

Abbasi has struggled especially hard with the question of whether or not she can leave and safely return to campus because her PhD research requires her to complete field work this year in Sudan—another one of the countries listed on the executive order.

"I have a flight booked for the 20th of February. It's a big relief that I hadn't already left the country, [because I would have] been stuck outside the US," she said. "But what does that mean for my research? Can I go to Sudan at this point and expect to come back? I've had to put my entire PhD on hold because of this travel ban."

Another fourth-year PhD student from Iran (who asked that I not publish his real name) told me the travel ban would similarly jeopardize his research, which involves studying manuscripts located in archives outside the United States. If he leaves the country, he forfeits his ability to return to campus; if he stays in the United States, he can't properly conduct his research. "In a way," he told me, "it disables me to finish my degree."

But for him, concerns about finishing his academic research are dwarfed by the concerns about what else may happen to immigrants under a Trump administration.

"To be honest, I'm less scared that I won't be able to finish my degree because I don't have access to my research material. I'm more scared that I won't be able to finish my degree because they're going to round us up and put us all in camps," he told me. "At this point, I'm just wondering: What more could he do?"

Follow Arielle Pardes on Twitter.



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Neil Gorsuch Is Donald's Pick for the Supreme Court

On Tuesday night, President Donald Trump made one of the most anticipated and important decisions of his administration so far, announcing that he was nominating Neil Gorsuch to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant for nearly a year after the death of conservative legal hero Antonin Scalia. 

Gorsuch, a graduate of Harvard and Oxford who rose to become a judge at the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, comes from a conservative political family and has made rulings that side with the religious right. Most notably, in Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby, the Coloradan sided with private companies to not provide contraception to their employees if they have religious objections. Gorsuch is also only 49, meaning he could serve on the court for as long as the next four decades. 

Trump called his deliberations "the most transparent selection process in history," pointing to his widely circulated list of potential nominees that was vetted by conservative groups. "Millions of voters said this was the single most important issue to them when they voted for me for president," Trump added.  

In his brief remarks after Trump's announcement, Gorsuch called Scalia "a lion of the law" and emphasized that it was the duty of the Supreme Court to interpret laws passed by Congress rather than make policy itself.

Some Democrats in the Senate have signaled that they're preparing to filibuster Trump's selection in retaliation for Republicans' blocking Barack Obama's nominee to replace Scalia, Merrick Garland. It's highly unlikely that that effort will succeed in doing anything more than briefly delaying his confirmation. 



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Keeping Doctors Trapped in the US Is Bad for Everyone

Heval Mohamed Kelli came to the United States two weeks after 9/11. He, along with his parents and brother, had been living in Germany for six years after fleeing Syria in 1996, where his father had been jailed for months on end. The family settled in the suburbs of Atlanta; Kelli, who was 17 at the time, supported his family by washing dishes. He dreamed of going to college but knew that his options were limited.

Then he got a scholarship to a prestigious private high school, and a mentor to motivate him. Today, Kelli is a cardiologist at Emory University. He spends his free time volunteering in Atlanta—he works at a free clinic; he runs after-school programs for high school students, many of them refugees. He works just a block away from the restaurant where he used to wash dishes.

Kelli would like to devote some of his volunteer efforts abroad. But due to President Trump's "Muslim ban," the recent executive order that prohibits entry to the US from seven majority-Muslim nations, leaving the country now feels too risky, even though he became an American citizen in 2006.

Read more on Tonic



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There's So Much Legal Weed That It Might Now Be Too Cheap

If there's one thing to take away from Economics 101, it's the fundamental rules of supply and demand. When the supply exceeds the demand, prices tumble, which is exactly what's happening right now in the legal weed market. 

According to Forbes, the prices for marijuana in the states where it's legal have fallen precipitously. In 2015, wholesale pot plummeted from $2,500 a pound to only $1,000 in 2016. In Colorado, prices went from $8 a gram for marijuana flower (what the rest of us call "bud") in mid 2016 to a current price of $6. The drop was more dramatic in Washington, where prices decreased from $25 a gram to just $6.

Experts believe this is a result of heavy investment in the marijuana business, which is causing pot production to exceed demand as big-money speculators try to cash in on the emerging market. In the short-term, this market saturation means that prices at the dispensary will be down. But as it becomes more difficult for small growers to turn a profit, they may go out of business, possibly leaving kush fiends with fewer options.

A crowded market might not be the worst thing for consumers, though. When there is a lot of product vying for tokers' attentions, brands are forced to differentiate and go beyond coming up with cute strain names like "Steve McGarrett's Hair" or "God's Vagina 2.0." Some strains will likely rely on celebrity endorsements, like Willie Nelson's Willie's Reserve or Snoop Dogg's Leafs by Snoop. Others will go the Whole Foods route, making organic and pesticide-free bud available at a premium. Some may just try to make their pot stronger.

Still, there are parts of the marijuana market that are holding steady, particularly edibles, concentrated oils, and concentrates made for vapes. There's also the high-end weed market with its $200 blunts that shows no sign of slowing down.

Of course, this is only a concern to those in the eight states where recreational marijuana is currently legal. While the legal weed market is worth about $6.9 billion a year, 87 percent of all marijuana purchases are still made on the black market, which is estimated to be worth, annually, about $46 billion. Some might argue that we're currently living in the Golden Age of Illegal Weed, where dealers are still seeing large profit margins.



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Meet the Justin Bieber of K-Pop

On an all new episode of NOISEYwe go inside the K-Pop training academies where teenagers give their all to be the next big thing and meet the Justin Bieber of K-Pop, Taeyang from BIGBANG.

NOISEY airs Tuesdays at 10 PM on VICELAND.

Want to know if you get VICELAND? Head  here  to find out how to tune in.



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Meet the Cuban Punks Who Infected Themselves with HIV in Protest

VICE meets a few surviving members of Los Frikis, a Cuban punk movement, who purposely infected themselves with HIV in the early 90s. The punks used this method as a way to get sent to government-sanctioned sanatoriums where they were given better resources than they had on the streets.

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Psychologists Explain Why People Keep Having Trump Nightmares

Whether you worship him as your God-Emperor or hate his guts, it should come as no surprise that a lot of Americans and large swaths of the world are freaking out about America's new president. After the flurry of controversial decisions crammed into his first week in office, exacerbated by a diminishing relationship with the free press, there's growing concern that Trump can and will do irreparable damage to the planet, international relationships, and individual humans' lives.

Anxiety brought about by the Trump presidency has been a frequent topic of conversation in therapist offices around the country since November 9th. But what does one do when their waking fears follow them into hours of rest?

From even the early days of his candidacy, people have been reporting a variety of nightmares featuring Donald Trump, with the reality star politician doing everything from attempting to assault them in the manner he described to Billy Bush to simply filling in as their Uber Driver.

Simone Turkington, a woman in Los Angeles who recently dreamt of Trump stalking her around The Magic Castle (a private magician's club of which she is a member) before sexually assaulting her, feels that this sort of dream is a manifestation of her concern over the new president's corruptive power. "If I were to assign meaning to it," she told me, "I would say I would fear he's infiltrating the things I hold dear."  

It's not just Americans who are seeing Trump in their sleep. Andrew Lea, who lives in Leeds, UK, reported a scary Trump dream of his own because, as he put it, "the guy is a nightmare worldwide."

I spoke with some medical professionals to try and discern if we're all just being melodramatic babies and crying dumb, liberal tears in our sleep or if something more psychologically concrete is at play here.

Dr. Sue Kolod, a psychologist and psychoanalyst in New York City told me that Trump dreams are "multi-determined," or coming from a multitude or sources. In particular, these Trump dreams are a mixture of the external factors surrounding the dreamers all day, often called the "day residue," and the dreamer's internal factors like wishes, fears, and conflicts.

"I think we have an unusual and possibly unprecedented situation right now," says Kolod, "where the boundary between what's going on outside and inside the dreamer is getting blurred. One of the things I've heard more recently than I can ever remember is a patient saying 'I feel like I'm in a nightmare and I can't wake up.'"

According to Kolod, the majority of her patients complaining of Trump dreams self-identify as belonging to groups unlikely to be directly impacted by worrisome policies enacted by the Trump administration. Though they are less vulnerable, Kolod says these patients may be grappling with moral dilemmas about how far they may be willing or forced to go to stand up for those they consider oppressed at the expense of their own time, money, and comfort. 

Conversely, Kolod indicates that these dreams could indicate feelings of guilt over the dreamers' safe status and potential unwillingness to make sacrifices for causes they know to be important.

"They're experiencing a moral dilemma," says Kolod. "Like how far would I be willing to compromise myself to stay out of anything that I find scary that's happening to other people? How much would I be willing to do something I find morally abhorrent or disgusting in order to protect myself?"

On the other side of the country, in Oakland, California, Dr. Michael B. Donner, a psychoanalyst and clinical and forensic psychologist thinks many of these Trump dreams have a practical therapeutic purpose for the dreamers.
 
"Freud said that 'dreams protect the sleep' and what he means by that," continues Donner, "is if you can dream about something you don't have to be awake."

Freudian psychology regards dreams as a sort of coping mechanism for the conscious mind. The school of thought posits that, when we spend our waking hours bottling up anxiety over certain issues, our dreams act as a release valve for those worries while we're subconscious so that the anxiety doesn't compound over time.

Donner makes it clear that these dreams are not necessarily overblown hysteria, especially in the case of 1st or 2nd generation Americans who have grown up hearing stories of tyrannical homeland regimes from family members who escaped for America. For them, fears of what's to come from a Trump administration may be founded upon second or first-hand experiences with comparable regimes abroad.

"Trump may represent the general scary frightening figure, like the monster under the bed." He explained. "Trump is coming to symbolize all their fears. One could imagine people from families of immigrants who have come from countries where there's been a genocide, whether it be the Jewish Holocaust or any number of traumatic experiences, are carrying the stories of the previous generations. Something like a Trump presidency is bound to stir up echoes of the past."

Donner points out that this type of fear can be just as "real" on the other side of the political spectrum, offering empathy to those on the right who earnestly believed that Obama was "coming for their guns."

"If you're exposed to those things over and over, it stirs you up and makes you afraid. So, if you have anxiety in your background that something like this could happen – the federal government is coming for you, the northerners are going to attack the south – those intergenerational fears do stick."

It stands to reason that the Trump team will inspire a few more nightmares in the remaining years of the presidency. Hopefully none will visit you but, if you do happen find yourself waking up in a cold sweat screaming "MAGA," maybe you'll take some comfort in the professionals here telling you that Trump nightmares are not an irrational reaction to what is happening to your life and the world.



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In Photos: Protestors Rally in Bitter Cold to Reject Trump’s Immigration Ban

New Yorkers flooded Manhattan's Tompkins Square Park on Monday night to protest Trump's recent executive orders restricting immigration for people from seven Muslim countries. A large group of community members, led by local Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, spoke at the event, including imams, rabbis, members of the LGBTQ community, high school students, and leaders of minority groups who feel directly targeted by the Trump administration.

During the majority of the the Lower East Side Rally Against Hate, shivering protestors listened quietly as each leader took the mic to describe the simultaneous feelings of fear and solidarity experienced by their respective communities. Imam Abu Sufian of a local East Village mosque, who is also an immigrant, recalled taking his oath of allegiance when he became a United States citizen and pledging to uphold the Constitution in a way that he feels Trump has thus far failed to do. Melissa Aase, Executive Director of University Settlement, described her fears around Betsy DeVos, Trump's pick for secretary of education, and the future of education in America.

Sixteen other community members shared anecdotes, each reiterating the need to continue this level of resistance in order to hold the government accountable for future actions and executive orders to come. Between speakers, protestors shouted what are quickly becoming familiar chants for many: "No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here," and "Love, not hate, makes America great."

Read more on Broadly



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Three States Are Suing Trump Over His Immigration Ban

The attorneys general from Massachusetts, New York, and Washington are suing the Trump administration for the president's controversial executive order banning refugees and travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US, the Associated Press reports.

"This is a president who does not have respect for the rule of the law," New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, told the AP Tuesday. "That's something that bothers a lot of people."

Schneiderman and Massachusetts AG Maura Healey announced on Tuesday they would be working together with groups in their states, including the ACLU, that have already filed lawsuits against the president for this action. Their statements follow Washington's attorney general, Bob Ferguson, who announced his own lawsuit on Monday, which asks a judge to throw out certain parts of Trump's executive order that bars people from entering the country from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

"It's my responsibility as attorney general to defend the rule of law, to uphold the Constitution on behalf of the people of this state," Ferguson said Monday. "And that's what we're doing."

The lawsuits follow a letter signed by 16 Democratic state attorneys general on Sunday condemning the immigration ban. That letter includes signatures from Schneiderman, Healey, and Ferguson, as well as the attorneys general who represent California, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Virginia, Vermont, Oregon, Connecticut, New Mexico, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Illinois, and the District of Columbia.

The letter reads, "Religious liberty has been, and always will be, a bedrock principle of our country and no president can change that truth."



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Meet the Former NYPD Chief Who Made a Career Out of Putting Dirty Cops Behind Bars

'Gino Papa,' Today's Comic by Ryan Cook

Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee Probably Won’t Decide Cases This Term

President Trump is expected to announce his Supreme Court nominee Tuesday night, filing a spot on the bench left vacant after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia nearly a year ago. But it remains to be seen when the nominee, who stands to be a crucial tie-breaker in cases that would otherwise result in 4-4 splits, will actually be able to decide cases.

The last Supreme Court justice to be confirmed was Elena Kagan, an Obama nominee in 2010; it took the Democratic-majority Senate 87 days to decide on her. If today's Republican-majority Senate were to take that long, Trump's pick, who will almost certainly join the court's conservative bloc, would miss the traditional window for hearing oral arguments, which ends on April 26.

While there is no law barring a justice from deciding cases in which he or she was not present for oral arguments, tradition dictates that justices don't decide those cases.

Since Scalia's death left a vacant spot on the bench, the eight remaining justices have delayed scheduling oral arguments in three cases: Murr v. Wisconsin, Microsoft Corp. v. Baker, and Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Pauley. The Court agreed to take on the cases in January 2016, when it still had nine justices.

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Stunning Photos of Miami as It Used to Be

Depression Steals Your Soul and Then It Takes Your Friends

The Fight for eSports Recognition, Respect, and Money at the University of Washington

Aaron, a University of Washington student, was recently confronted with an ultimatum by his boyfriend: Stop spending up to eight hours a day playing  League of Legends, stop going to tournaments, and focus more on their relationship.

"We'll see," Aaron told him, but later confessed, "in my mind it was a 'no.'"

Dropping practice and play just wasn't an option. Aaron had planned his entire academic career around professional gaming, he explained after ending the relationship. "This is what I'm going to be doing my entire life... this is what I want to do, this is what consumes all my free time." He frowned. "It can be frustrating when your greatest passion, your career path ... is not accepted by the person you really care about."

It wasn't the first time someone had tried to derail Aaron's career plans. Organized competitive gaming, also known as eSports, continues to attract skepticism from family, friends, colleagues, and officials at his university. But Aaron and his teammates are on a mission to change all that.

Starting with  Spacewar tournaments at Stanford in the early 1970s, competitive video game tournaments have existed for longer than many of today's players have been alive; but it's only in the last decade or so that local matches have turned into an industry that stands to rival physical sports.

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Is America Prepared for Meme Warfare?

Memes, as any alt-right Pepe sorcerer will tell you, are not just frivolous entertainment. They are magic, the stuff by which reality is made and manipulated. What's perhaps surprising is that this view is not so far off from one within the US defense establishment, where a growing body of research explores how memes can be used to win wars.

This recent election proved that memes, some of which have been funded by politically motivated millionaires and foreign governments, can be potent weapons, but they pose a particular challenge to a superpower like the United States.

Memes appear to function like the IEDs of information warfare. They are natural tools of an insurgency; great for blowing things up, but likely to sabotage the desired effects when handled by the larger actor in an asymmetric conflict. Just think back to the NYPD's hashtag boondoggle for an example of how quickly things can go wrong when big institutions try to control messaging on the internet. That doesn't mean research should be abandoned or memes disposed of altogether, but as the NYPD case and other examples show, the establishment isn't really built for meme warfare.

Read more on Motherboard



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Flint Residents Filed a Lawsuit Against the EPA for More Than $700 Million

Residents from Flint, Michigan, have filed another lawsuit against the government over the city's water crisis—this time against the Environmental Protection Agency, MLive reports.

The class-action lawsuit was filed in US District Court on Monday on behalf of 1,700 residents who are seeking $722 million from the federal government agency. It claims that the EPA knew about the issues with Flint's water back in 2014 and failed to make sure city and state officials weren't violating the Safe Water Drinking Act.

"Despite notice of the danger as early as October 2014," the suit reads, "the EPA failed to take the mandatory steps to determine that Michigan and Flint authorities were not taking appropriate action to protect the public from toxic water."

The lawsuit specifically asks for the EPA cover damages to physical injury, illness, lead poisoning, and property, among other physical ailments. Last March, another lawsuit was filed against governor Rick Snyder and other city officials for failing to take action upon learning that the city's water was contaminated and ultimately causing irreversible health defects to families in the area.

The EPA, which is currently under a grant freeze and press gag order under Trump's new administration, has yet to comment. 



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American Muslims Worry the Worst Is Yet to Come

The only memories Alaa Amora has of his childhood in southern Iraq are of roaring airplanes and deafening bombs. He came to the United States in 1995 as a refugee along with his family, but says he always felt welcome—until Donald Trump came on the political scene.

"I love this country. I wouldn't want to go to any other country besides this, but it's starting to get scary," Amora, now 32, told me before pausing to help a customer pick out new cell phone in his Dearborn, Michigan, electronics store.

"This is my business," he said, gesturing towards displays of jeweled phone cases and shelves of flatscreen TVs. "Without coming here, without America welcoming me to this beautiful place, where would I be right now? I would probably either be dead, locked up somewhere for no reason, or just worrying about when the next bomb is going to fall on my head."

It was Trump's campaign trail call to ban Muslims from entering the country made him begin to feel that he didn't belong.

For years, Amora told me, he and his extended family have taken a summer trip to upper Michigan. Although that part of the state is far less diverse than his hometown of Dearborn (which has a large Muslim population and is sometimes the subject of right-wing conspiracy theories), they were always treated with the warmth typical of the American Midwest.

When Amoraand his relatives boarded a ferry to take them to the old-timey resort town of Mackinac Island last summer, however, he said, "Everyone on that boat stared us down as if we were about to sink the ship on them."

Amora blames what he sees as rising anti-Muslim sentiment on how Trump's executive order singled out people from Muslim-majority countries "to protect the American people from terrorist attacks," to quote the order.

"When you have the president of the greatest country in the world saying that Muslims are terrorists, a lot of people are going to believe him," Amora said.

Jeanon Jawech has the same fears. "This is just going to fuse more [bias]," the 19-year-old college student said of Trump's executive order after a demonstration against it at the Detroit Metro Airport.

Her mother Nala Jawech, an immigrant from Syria, agreed. "To target Muslims directly, it's something dangerous. They judge all the majority for a small number and that's what's scary," she told me.  Both women wear hijab and are worried about becoming the targets of Islamophobic attacks.

In the aftermath of Trump's election, Muslims across the country have come under attack. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) compiled a list of 867 hate incidents in the ten days after Trump's victory. There was a 67 percent year-over-year increase in hate crimes against Muslims reported to the FBI in 2015, the year when Trump—then just a Republican presidential candidate—first called for "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."  

Many experts have attributed a rise in hate crimes against Muslims to Trump's vitriolic comments, among other examples of Islamophobic rhetoric. "We're seeing these stereotypes and derogative statements become part of the political discourse," Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism told the New York Times in September. "The bottom line is we're talking about a significant increase in these types of hate crimes."

Trump has never explicitly endorsed anti-Muslim violence, and when asked about the harassment immediately after his victory, he said he wanted the perpetrators to "stop it."

But during the campaign he supported a variety of extreme, seemingly Constitution-defying policies, including the surveillance of mosques and the creation of a database of Muslims. Friday's order, while maybe not as outlandish as those ideas, was certainly of a piece with them.

According to Kevin R. Johnson, author of The Huddled Masses Myth, exclusionary policies barring certain groups of would-be immigrants have led to further discriminatory policies and actions against members of those groups within the US.  

"When the government is saying we gotta get rid of these—whatever group you want to say—it is an important signal to people in those groups [in the US] what their worth is and how much they're desired," Johnson told me. When certain types of people are singled out by immigration policy, members of that group who are in the US often suffer as well. Johnson said the phenomenon is "one of the ripple effects that isn't often paid attention to" but a consequence has been borne out by history.

Passed in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was the first significant immigration policy to ban a specific group of people. Its ban on Chinese workers led to a series of laws barring people of Chinese origin in the US from working in certain industries or owning land.

"There was rampant discrimination in employment and discrimination against Chinese businesses and none of it went checked by government," Johnson said. Similarly, he added, policies singling out Muslim immigrants could lead to discrimination against Muslims in America. "Minority groups… understand that the immigration debate, even if they're citizens, even if they're born and raised here, at some level it's about them and people like them," he said.

Alaa Amora now fears discrimination and violence in his adopted country so acutely that he's considering buying guns for his wife and sisters so that they can defend themselves if they're attacked because their headscarves mark them as Muslims.

"I'm really starting to think about it because they go out shopping by themselves," he told me. "I'm really scared for them now."

Beenish Ahmed is a reporter, writer, and the founder of THE ALIGNIST. Follow her on Twitter.



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What to Do if You're Pulled Over with Weed

A legal expert breaks down some helpful advice to keep in mind if a cop pulls you over and you have weed in the car.

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Can Pot Farms Save Former Oil Towns?

The Strange Story Behind Canada's Controversial 'Eco-Capitalist' Organization

A Fleet of Tanks Drove Around Kentucky This Weekend Flying a Trump Flag

On Sunday, two people in Kentucky managed to capture videos of the unnerving sight of eight to ten Humvees parading down the highway, flying a giant Trump flag from the lead, the Lexington Herald-Ledger reports.

Steve Thompson of Shepherdsville, Kentucky, and another amateur videographer spotted the fleet over the weekend and shared the sight online. But even after the videos made the rounds on Facebook and Reddit, no one seems to know who these people are or why they're driving around like a makeshift Trump militia. 

"These are not US military vehicles," Major Jamie Davis, a spokesman from the Department of Defense, told the Herald-Ledger. "They are Humvees, but there's no unit designator on there. In the Army, if we go out we have our vehicles identified."

Davis said the tanks are most likely decommissioned military Humvees that were sold off to civilians. In addition to lacking a special unit designator, military Humvees also would not be allowed to fly a flag other than the United States flag or a unit insignia. A rep from the Kentucky National Guard told the paper Monday that the tanks weren't theirs either. 

Is this the start of Trump's personal army? Maybe it's just some ardent supporters looking to intimidate people with a show of force. Or maybe they're just trying to Make America Great Again by polluting its air with the exhaust fumes from a bunch of giant trunks that surely get an awful mile-per-gallon ratio. 

The world needs answers. Until we get them, stay safe, Kentucky.



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Trumpwave and Fashwave Are Just the Latest Disturbing Examples of the Far-Right Appropriating Electronic Music

Last February, a website called Rave News  reported that leading vaporwave producers were gathering in Montreal for an emergency summit to discuss "creeping fascism" in the scene. Vaporwave, an electronic subgenre conceived on the web in the early 2010s, is perhaps best described as post-apocalyptic mall music, with producers like Macintosh Plus and Saint Pepsi (now Skylar Spence) warping muzak, smooth jazz, and dated adult contemporary into airless, warbling soundscapes. It was a progressive-leaning genre that seemed to satirize consumer culture. "I always assumed it was transparent through my work that I leaned left," vaporwave pioneer Ramona Xavier, the woman behind Macintosh Plus, told THUMP.

But now, according to Rave News, vaporwave was mysteriously attracting fascists.

The article's comments section was quickly swarmed by neo-Nazis eager to defend their interest in vaporwave. "The National Socialists who lived in the time of Hitler were big fans of Richard Wagner," one wrote. "But in modern times, it is appropriate for us to turn to modern music." There was just one problem: the report, like everything else on Rave News, was fake news. No anti-fascist meeting of vaporwave artists had actually taken place.

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Where Will Refugees Suddenly Rejected by the US Go Now?

Chris Kelley and his colleagues had already rented apartments and collected furniture for their next batch of arrivals to Texas. These were refugee families who'd languished in camps for years while being screened by the US State Department, but had finally been approved to come to America.

Then, on Friday, President Donald Trump issued his executive order halting refugee resettlement for 120 days, and indefinitely when it came to refugees from Syria. All at once, everything changed.

"We were just notified this morning that these trips were canceled, and we have received no instructions or guidance as to what happens after the 120-day ban," Kelley, the Communications Director for Refugee Services Texas resettlement agency, told me Monday. He wasn't sure if those families would ever be allowed in the country, and noted that almost all of the refugees were women and kids and were joining relatives already in Texas. "There are many long faces and lots of tears," he said.

Trump's four-month moratorium dashed the hopes of about 20,000 refugees—mainly women and children—slated to enter the US, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has estimated, and his indefinite ban on Syrians denies countless other desperate individuals protection. The sweeping order prioritizes refugees who are religious minorities (which has been taken to mean Christians), reduces the overall number of refugees the US will accept in 2017, and blocks visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries. The Trump administration claims these measures are necessary to protect the nation from terrorism,

But what critics have derided as a "Muslim ban" has been met with global protests, lawsuits, and dissent from State Department employees. Meanwhile, the rejected refugees are stuck in limbo—uncertain whether they'll end up in Canada, Europe, the US, or just remain in the camps for the rest of their lives.

Historically, the US has resettled more refugees than any other nation. But the president has the power to dictate numbers and even put a halt on the program, Chris Boian, senior communications officer for the UNHCR, told me. He said his organization was "deeply concerned about the uncertainty" of those assigned to resettle in the US and willing to negotiate with the Trump administration, but had not been approached.

"People are overwhelmed—their question is now, what are we living for?" a humanitarian aid worker in southeast Turkey's refugee camps, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told me of refugees' response to the ban.

Increasingly, refugees feel they have no options to relocate, the worker told me, since the US has followed other countries in limiting its aid. Many refugees now have "zero hope" to enter Europe since Macedonia closed its borders and Turkey stopped allowing refugees to travel west. Even Canada decreased its quota for 2017, the aid worker noted.

"The accumulative effect of all these laws against refugees is taking a toll on their mental health," the worker said. "There's a lot of sadness, isolation, and feeling lost." She said some refugees whose resettlement was halted may attempt to travel by boat to Italy, but she doubted many would make the perilous journey if they believed they still had a chance to enter the US. More than 5,000 refugees died on boats headed to Italy last year alone.

Noor (who asked I not use his last name), a Syrian refugee living in the Turkish city of Gaziantep who has always wanted to live in the US, told me he would not consider the boat ride because of its risk, even though he felt "trapped."

"Living in the US is the dream of the dream but to me it was impossible even before Trump's ban," said Noor, 28, an Aleppo native with a degree in English literature, said, explaining that he understood the US only accepted families and very vulnerable individuals. Noor said he had instead tried to gain entrance into Canada—to no avail. "I'm in constant uncertainty, fear of the future," he said. 

VICE News Tonight goes inside a refugee camp:

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has implied he wants to step up the country's efforts, tweeting in response to Trump's ban that "to those fleeing war, persecution and terror, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith." (Trudeau is reportedly planning a visit to the White House soon, where he will discuss Canada's policy with Trump.)

Canadian immigration expert Sharryn Aiken, an associate law professor at Queen's University in Ontario, told me it was clear Trudeau "is behind the scenes crafting a policy response" to Trump's order, and said she was "cautiously optimistic that Canada will step up."

Boian would not say whether Canada had presented a concrete resettlement proposal, but he told me UNHCR was searching for solutions for those refugees denied resettlement by the US. Still, finding an alternative home is a challenge, since he said it was "unclear which countries have a capacity for more" refugees.

As international partners scramble to support shocked families, US immigration experts remain convinced that at least part of Trump's order can indeed be dismantled in court. Trump has legal authority to halt overall resettlement, but his apparent intention to favor Christian refugees violates the First Amendment, immigration attorney Ally Bolour told me.

"If you talk to any attorney really the text of the executive order is unconstitutional," Bolour, who represents asylum seekers in Los Angeles, told me. "The First Amendment, separation of church and state, applies to everyone and every activity the US government does, so you can't have a religious test."

The "Muslim ban" also violates international law, said Jim Hathaway, the director of refugee and asylum law at the University of Michigan's law school. He told me that the UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the US has signed, prohibits discrimination of any kind.

No lawsuit has yet been filed on the grounds of religious discrimination, those the order has been challenged by five different suits so far. The first four only applied to refugees who had already arrived in US airports, not to those awaiting resettlement. The fifth lawsuit, filed by Washington State's attorney general and joined by several large tech companies, argues that the president's actions are harming the state's families, residents, and economy.

Establishing discrimination would be the most promising legal challenge to the order, said Andrew Schoenholtz, deputy director for Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of Migration. But he said proving discrimination would be much more difficult than it seems.

"There's evidence from when the president was a candidate [that the order was intended to ban Muslims]… but the order itself doesn't read that way—it uses national security [as its justification]," Schoenholz said. He claimed Congress would be more successful at drawing up an eventual political solution, particularly if Trump continued to suspend the refugee program. "If the president said he's totally ending the refugee program Congress could push back—they created the program. But would there be enough pushback from both the House and the Senate? We'll see."

Follow Meredith Hoffman on Twitter.



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'The Good Place' Helps Normalize Interracial Relationships

In Michael Schur's sitcom The Good Place, much attention has been given to two of the leads:  Kristen Bell as Eleanor, a bad person who somehow ends up in what she thinks is Heaven, and Ted Danson as Michael, the "architect" of her afterlife neighborhood. Danson's performance deserves the hype, but I don't tune in for him. 

The reason I watch is because the show revolves around people of color and their romantic entanglements. These complex depictions are very important in a world where interracial relationships are still taboo. Although I benefit from passing privilege, that has not shielded me from dealing with people commenting and critiquing my own interracial relationship. I appreciate  The Good Place, because by putting real interracial relationships on screen, it's helping normalize them in real life.

Everyone in the titular Good Place has a soulmate. Eleanor quickly learns that hers is Chidi Anagonye (William Jackson Harper), a Nigerian ethics professor. When he learns that Eleanor spent her life on Earth as a depraved and narcissistic sociopath, Chidi decides to teach her how to be a good person, which results in their relationship slowly blossoming. Next door lives Tahani (Jameela Jamil), a Pakistani-born, London-raised daughter of aristocrats who dedicated her life to raising money for charity. Her soulmate is supposed to be a Taiwanese monk who took a vow of silence named Jianyu (Manny Jacinto)—but it turns out he's a fake. In reality, he's Jason Mendoza, a Florida-based amateur DJ.

Early on, there's a joke about how a drunk Eleanor can't say Chidi's name correctly—the look on his face says that it's a tiresome and irritating routine. The joke is rooted in how inconsiderate Eleanor is, not that Chidi's African name is "strange." And that's just about as in-depth as the show goes into addressing the character's racial backgrounds.

The Good Place, which was renewed for a second season just yesterday, doesn't praise itself for being brave enough to have a white woman fall in love with an African man, or for depicting a British-Pakistani woman try desperately to get her believed soulmate to talk to her. Their relationships aren't presented as out of the ordinary. The Good Place doesn't self-righteously pretend it's the first television show in history to explore interracial romance. The characters don't bring up each other's racial backgrounds (except when Eleanor is trying to remember what country Chidi was born in), which allows the characters to develop naturally, without being pigeonholed by racial cliches.

By almost never addressing race, the show normalizes the fact that diversity is a part of life. In the afterlife—just as on Earth—there will be people of color. They exist, and they are just as capable of falling in love as white people. And by presenting these relationships so simply, so matter-of-factly, The Good Place reinforces how commonplace interracial relationships are.

Of course, the interracial relationships that The Good Place rely on are the natural result of casting a diverse group of actors. Scrolling through Manny Jacinto's Twitter account, you'll see fans praise the fact that a show featuring a Filipino actor who doesn't indulge in any of the stereotypes about Asian men that are so common to Western media. With diverse casting, The Good Place hammers home the point that representation matters. Until very recently, I thought the only South Asian celebrities working in America were Michelle Branch (she's a quarter-Indonesian) and Mindy Kaling. Now I see two of them—in prominent romantic roles, no less!—in the same show; Indian actress Tiya Sircar eventually joins the cast as a second Eleanor, complicating original Eleanor's relationship with Chidi.

It is admittedly sad to still get so excited about this small step up in diversity on television, but this excitement is the result of years of frustration—of always being forced to relate my struggles back to white women who look nothing like me. There is no denying that it feels good, even in small doses, to see myself and other women of color reflected in the media—to see that our presence in the world is normal, that we are not outliers in our own culture.

The Good Place doesn't necessarily deserve a pat on the back for doing the bare minimum. Diversity should be a no-brainer. And yet, here we are, expressing disbelief that in 2017, it's a show about dead people that can seamlessly pull off racial diversity without white people—either the characters or the creators—taking all the credit for being so open-minded. As happy as I am that a show like The Good Place is on the air, it's very existence tells me how easy it would be for so many other shows to air the same content, but out of laziness or fear of low ratings, they choose not to.

All you have to do is allow people of color on the screen. Give them space to be selfish, confused, indecisive, in love—just regular human occurrences. What makes The Good Place work is that it doesn't get trapped by its politics. There are no sanctimonious plot lines about how accepting Michael is, or how progressive Eleanor must be. In the reality of The Good Place, diversity and acceptance are already the norm. There's no need to explain it.

Follow Elisabeth Sherman on Twitter .



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Why Aren't There More Fat Baseball Players?

You have almost assuredly heard the phrase "never judge a book by its cover." You have also almost assuredly ignored that phrase at some point in your life. We all make assumptions based on appearances. The same goes in sports, where people are often evaluated based specifically on how they look—for better or worse.

Baseball is often thought of as the most forgiving sport in terms of a player's physical gifts (or lack thereof). The other major American sports have more common expectations as far as a player's build. In basketball, you have to be tall and fast. In football, you have to strong and fast. In hockey, you have to be some combination of all three. There are always exceptions to these rules, but there's a reason why you don't see five Isaiah Thomases running up and down the court for the Celtics.

Baseball is different. Baseball players come in all shapes and sizes. John Kruk, who had his own unique shape and size, was famous for saying, "I'm not a professional athlete, I'm a baseball player." For every 6-foot-10 Randy Johnson, there's a 5-foot-8 Billy Wagner. For every mountain-like Richie Sexson, there's a diminutive Jose Altuve. Players of all shapes and sizes—from David Eckstein to Bartolo Colon—can carve out long, successful careers.

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I Played Illegal Pool with Mobsters in Communist Romania

This Is What Happened When the Doughnut Shop from ‘Wayne’s World’ Came to Life

This weekend, something extraordinary happened. In the words of Wayne Campbell of  Wayne's World, it was "something big, something mega, something copious, something capacious, something cajunga."

Stan Mikita's All-Star Cafe became a reality.

For 18 glorious hours, fans of hockey and  Wayne's World were able to gorge on complimentary doughnuts and coffee while overlooking downtown LA's skyline, all while meeting some of their favorite hockey players and celebrities in the process. The pop-up doughnut shop was complete with air hockey tables, an autograph booth, and even a "Wayne Gretsky 3-D Hockey" arcade.

The free event was held in front of the Los Angeles convention center in celebration of the 2017 NHL All-Star game. It was presented by Honda, in collaboration with  Sports Illustrated and  Entertainment Weekly to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the beloved film and 100th anniversary of the NHL. On opening night, thousands drove in from all around Southern California to relive their favorite scenes in the movie, including many parents who were passing on their love of  Wayne's World and doughnuts to their children.

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How to Handle Your First Week at a New Job

LIVE: Watch the Senate Vote on Betsy Devos's Education Secretary Nomination

On Tuesday, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions convened to vote on whether or not Betsy Devos will become the next education secretary. 

Devos, a billionaire conservative donor and advocate for charter schools, faced scrutiny from the committee during her confirmation hearing about her lack of experience in higher and K–12 public education. According to the Washington Post, Democrats have also voiced concern about her failure to disclose information about certain investments that could be potential conflicts of interest. 

During her confirmation hearing, Devos also said that she rejects a ban on firearms in schools, because some might need guns to protect themselves against "potential gizzlies."

On Tuesday, the Washington Post and Huffington Post also reported that Devos had apparently taken several direct sentences from various sources without attribution in her written responses to senators' questions. Devos appears to have used phrases from Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department's civil rights division under Obama, and an education magazine, specifically when answering questions about students' LGBTQ rights.

Should the committee confirm Devos's nomination, she will still need a vote from the full Senate, where Republicans hold the majority.

You can watch the hearing live below via livestream. 



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How 2007 Became a Meme

When 25-year-old social media editor Liza Sokol quit her job last year, she was thinking about Britney Spears, and particularly Britney in 2007. In that torrid year, Britney went to rehab, left rehab, shaved her head, went after an X17 photographer with an umbrella, returned to rehab, exited rehab a second time, bombed a comeback attempt at the MTV Video Music Awards, lost custody of her sons, wore a pink wig, dated a paparazzo, and told a reporter to "eat it, lick it, snort it, fuck it!" News services prepared her obituary.

But instead of dying, Britney spent two stints in a mental hospital. A California judge sentenced her to a conservatorship, which designates that her lawyer and father control her personal and business affairs, and then Britney embarked on one of the most successful comebacks of all time, recording more number one singles than she did during her Disney Channel/ Tiger Beat heyday. "She's proof positive that you can get better and overcome," Sokol says. Before she departed her office for the last time, Sokol printed out a meme that said, "If Britney Spears can make it through 2007, we can make it through this day" and left it on her boss's desk as a "departing gift."

"My boss was a woman surrounded by stuffy white men," Sokol says. "She needed [2007] more than me."

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Ten Questions You Always Wanted to Ask an Albino

This article originally appeared on VICE Netherlands

Albinism is a pretty well-known condition. What's not such common knowledge that it can involve much more than just pale skin and whitish hair. There are two main forms of albinism—one that affects just someone's eyes, and another that affects the skin, hair, and eyes. There are four common types of that last form, Oculocutaneous Albinism or OCA. Someone with one type can have very white hair, pale skin, and light-colored irises, where another type is less severe and might not affect the hair. Albinism also often goes with nystagmus—involuntary eye movements. Approximately 1 in 1,000 people have the genetic condition.

Rosa de Groot, a 23-year-old from The Netherlands, has OCA 2, which means her hair is light and she has nystagmus. I spoke to her about what life is like if you're albino.

VICE: What was the moment you realized you looked different to other people?
Rosa de Groot: I've always known that I'm different. My sister has albinism too and my parents were always open about it to us. In elementary school I had a table at a special angle so I could read without having to bend over my desk all the time. But I specifically remember one moment talking to my mom one time when I was about nine, and saying something to her about having a car when I was grown-up. "Rosa," she said, "you'll never be allowed to drive a car."

What bothers you most about having albinism?
The most annoying thing is that I can't make out things at a distance. Once something is more than 20 inches away, it's blurry. It's just very frustrating, for example, when I'm taking a train and I have to stand extremely close to an information board to see where a train is going. I've often missed trains because I want to make sure I'm getting on the right one and have to walk all the way back to the information board. And friends or acquaintances tend to get insulted when they say hi to me from a distance but I don't say it back because I don't see or recognize them.

Have people ever been afraid of you because of the way you look?
Not afraid, but some people do get uncomfortable when they don't know how to look me in the eye. My eyes tend to go in every direction at once, and that's always the first impression people have of me. Some people gather from that that I have albinism; others just assume that I'm not right in the head.

What are the dumbest questions you get?
I find it particularly stupid when people ask me if glasses wouldn't help me see better. If they did, don't you think I would be wearing them? Another annoying one is: "Aren't your eyes red?" You can see clearly that they aren't, so why ask, moron? I usually try to politely laugh it off, though.

Does your condition stop you from doing things other people can do?
It has been very hard to find a job. During my gap year I applied for so many but was rejected everywhere because of my poor sight. I can't work in a restaurant, for example, because I can't see depth. I can't tell if people have finished their meal, while walking around with a tray filled with breakable stuff isn't a great idea either. I hate it that the moment people find out I'm albino they don't want me any more. One time, when I applied for a job as a cashier in a supermarket, they were so nice and positive over the phone and that changed completely the moment I walked in for the interview. The guy asked about my eyes immediately, and when I told him I have albinism, he said: "Okay, never mind then."

Do you ever try to hide it?
I never wore any mascara until I was about 20. When I don't wear it my eyelashes are white and there's not much expression in my face. I've considered dying my hair, too—not to mask anything, but because I'm curious what my hair would look like, because it's colorless. If I dye it red, would it be this extremely red color?

Would you ever be attracted to an albino yourself?
Other than my sister, I've never met anyone else with albinism. The idea of two of those white heads walking down the street together just seems weird to me, but it would totally depend on the person. I don't pay that much attention to people's looks because I know from experience that it's more important to see someone's personality.

Do you ever go on vacation to sunny places?
Sure, I love going to Spain. I don't melt away completely when I'm in the sun for more than two minutes, and I don't burn to a crisp. I just use a lot of sunscreen—SPF 30, all day long.

What are the pros and cons of having albinism?
I'm not happy about my eyesight, because of what people say and just the fact that I can't see as well as other people. But I'm really happy with my hair color—it's pretty and unique. When I go on vacation I get comments about my hair color all the time. People call me Lady Gaga and want to take pictures with me.

Albinism is a genetic condition; how would you feel if your children inherited it from you?
There's about a 30 percent chance that I pass it on to my children. It's a difficult decision, because I know how hard life can be when you have bad eyesight. Having albinism does give you a different perspective on the world and I definitely think it's a beautiful thing. But I might find it troubling for my child to see so little, be bullied, and not able to find a job—like me. I studied journalism for two years, and I spent those years bending over my laptop too deeply, which led to chronic pain in my back and neck. I worked so hard to pass my classes that I might have fucked up those muscles forever. I wouldn't want my child to have to go through that, too.



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Peter Dinklage Made Me Less Depressed About Everything

"Can't we resist a demagogue by trying to make beautiful things?" Rememory writer-director Mark Palansky recently asked me. He posed the question as a gentle challenge, intimating that he wanted the answer to be yes. But, as I sat next to Palansky and star of the film, Peter Dinklage, in Park City last week, I realized that, for the first time in my life, I wasn't so sure I agreed. Sundance exists, ostensibly, because artists and audiences alike believe that art matters, both personally and politically. But Palansky's question articulated what many of us who attended Sundance had been asking ourselves throughout the festival, which was, in the face of a week that confirmed the worst fears of those who stand in opposition to Trump, does art matter enough? Rememory provides a theory on why, even in the darkest days, art still matters by forcing viewers to meditate on the value of self-reflection in the face of grief and anger. 

Alongside Dinklage, Rememory stars Julia Ormond, Martin Donovan, and the late Anton Yelchin. The plot is set into motion when Gordon Dunn (Donovan), the inventor of a machine that can record memories, is found dead. Dinklage, as Sam Bloom, investigates Dunn's death after initially seeking him out in an attempt to remember more clearly the details of his own trauma. Dinklage befriends Dunn's widow (Ormond), whose new grief is layered by a past loss, and interrogates members of the machine's trial group, two of whom (Yelchin and Orphan Black's Evelyne Brochu) have motive to murder Dunn. The memory machine's primary value comes from its ability to play back one's memories in perfect detail, allowing the user to cathartically heal from traumatic events by becoming, as Dunn explains, "audience to the theater of the mind." The film productively complicates this hopeful premise and, to my surprise, Palansky and Dinklage, who've been close friends ever since working together on the former's first film Penelope, also slightly differ on the value of reliving one's past. 

"The saddest, most narcissistic people deal in the past," argued Dinklage. "They deal with what's been said about them. We all come from pain and it's what we do with that pain moving forward that matters. I really do feel like I have to immediately get beyond something difficult, otherwise it clouds the present and future. We all have to grow constantly."

"But there's a difference between getting stuck in the past and reflecting," Palansky added, turning to his friend. "Oftentimes, we're not self-aware until we see something reflecting back at us that we recognize. When I was a kid, there was a man who worked for my parents and he always took care of me and was really cool and gave me skateboards and he died of AIDS. Years later, I saw a film that dealt with AIDS and I'm watching that film and I was a mess. I'm not dealing with that pain every day, but when I saw it on the screen, I was bawling my eyes out. I think good art shows you who you are if you can't find it yourself. I hope."

 "We're alone and we don't want to be alone. But art doesn't want us to feel that way. Art does the opposite. It allows us look and say, 'Wow, I share that. Great, I'm not alone.'" —Peter Dinklage

The film achieves Palansky's definition of good art most convincingly in scenes between Ormond and Dinklage, where deception, guilt, and grief run around the current of every line of dialogue. Palansky puts a tremendous amount of trust in Dinklage's ability to drawn in the viewer, even as we're unsure of his character's intentions. This trust is fully justified as Rememory further confirms what we already knew: Peter Dinklage is simply one the best actors alive. "I wrote this role for Peter," Palansky said. "There's a gentle openness to Peter that allows you to come close to him even though he's lying to everyone in the film and I don't think another actor could do that. We withhold so much information for so long, you'd lose patience with another actor." 

For better or worse, the primary effect of Rememory will likely be a reflection into the interior of your own mind, as it is hard not to sift through your own formative memories as the characters are sifting through theirs. The visual representation of memory constitutes film's biggest risk and greatest artistic success. Palansky leans on his fine arts background to create stunning tableaus that tell the stories through meticulous sensory details like the sound of skateboard wheels echoing through a tunnel, the roughness of sand between one's fingers, the close-up claustrophobia of being lost among tall hedges, the small light given off by candles on a cake. These images reveal not just the characters, but also the director himself, showing who he is an artist, and what he's capable of giving to an audience. Lost in these scenes, I tunneled within myself, locating the details of what mental images I've clung to most and what that might say about who I am now. "That's the best response I could ask for, just that you'll walk out the theater thinking instead of just wanting Chinese food," joked Palansky when I recounted my experience to him, then continued, saying, "The movies we remember the most are the ones where you are sort of just slammed into self-reflection. What's it all for if you can't start to think about your own existence and how you deal with things?" 

In another time, the fact that Rememory allowed me to rethink parts of myself, to dredge up and re-feel with startling clarity sensations of my life, would have been reason enough to be grateful for this film. But in this uncertain political moment, I needed more. Unfairly, I looked to Dinklage to defend art and its current value and he didn't disappoint. "We're alone and we don't want to be alone," he said, smiling at me. "But art doesn't want us to feel that way. Art does the opposite. It allows us look and say, Wow, I share that. Great, I'm not alone."

Follow Chloé Cooper Jones on Twitter.



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Transgender Boys Will Finally Be Allowed to Become Boy Scouts

The Boy Scouts of America announced Monday that the organization will change a 100-year-old rule and finally allow boys to join the group based on the gender listed on their applications, not birth certificates, the Associated Press reports.

The decision follows an incident last fall where an eight-year-old New Jersey boy was ejected from the Scouts when the group discovered that he was born female. A statement from Boy Scouts chief exec Michael Surbaugh didn't directly address that recent controversy, instead saying that the policy has been updated to reflect a broader change in society's gender definitions.

"Communities and state laws are now interpreting gender identity differently than society did in the past and these new laws vary widely from state to state," Surbaugh wrote. "Starting [Monday] we will accept registration in our Scouting programs based on the gender identity provided on an individual's application."

The Boy Scouts of America has been easing itself away from the group's homophobic past in recent years. The org finally began allowing openly gay children to join its ranks in 2013, and lifted its ban on openly gay scout leaders in 2015.



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Does Trump Actually Care About Protests

After an astonishing weekend in which Donald Trump banned people from seven Muslim-majority countries entering the United States, and British prime minister Theresa May refused to condemn him or rescind an invitation for a state visit, thousands of protestors gathered outside Downing Street. VICE joined them to ask whether they thought Donald Trump actually cared they were there, and why Brits should be protesting the actions of an American leader.

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We Asked Tourists at Ellis Island What They Think About Trump's Immigration Crackdown

Here Are All the Researchers and Doctors Barred from Entering the US

On Friday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that bars citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) with US visas from entering the United States for 90 days. It also blocks refugees from these countries for four months and, in the case of people fleeing Syria, indefinitely. (The Department of Homeland Security clarified on Sunday that green-card holders from these countries would be permitted to enter the country following additional screening.) It's a humanitarian crisis and despite a federal judge ruling that some of the people who'd already arrived in the US can't be deported, there are still many being detained and others who've been barred from even getting on a flight here.

Immigrants contribute great things to the US, and there are more than 25,000 students and workers from these seven countries living here on temporary visas, including in the fields of medicine and science. More than 7,000 academics (including 40 Nobel Laureates) have signed a petition denouncing the immigration ban as discriminatory and detrimental to both national security and higher education and research. ProPublica reports that citizens of Iran and Iraq have more visas than people from the other five countries on the list and are disproportionately affected. The petitioners themselves note that, "From Iran alone, more than 3,000 students have received PhDs from American universities in the past 3 years."

Read more on Tonic



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LIVE: Watch the Senate Vote on Jeff Sessions's Attorney General Nomination

On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will meet to vote on whether or not Alabama senator Jeff Sessions will become the next attorney general.

Tuesday's vote follows Trump's firing of acting attorney general Sally Yates Monday after she refused to defend the president's immigration ban on refugees and people from seven countries with large Muslim populations. She's been replaced by another Obama appointee, US Attorney Dana Boente.

If the committee approves Sessions, he will still need a vote from the full Senate by the end of the week, where Republicans hold the majority.

You can watch the hearing live below via livestream. 



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The VICE Morning Bulletin

Everything you need to know about the world this morning, curated by VICE.

US News

Trump Voter Fraud Source Registered in Three Different States
The man President Trump has cited as a credible source on voter fraud was apparently registered in three different states last year. Gregg Phillips, a board member of conservative group True the Vote who claimed at least three million people cast illegal votes in the 2016 elections, a claim repeated by Trump on Twitter, was apparently registered in Alabama, Texas, and Mississippi. He voted only in Alabama.—AP

Trump Fires Acting AG for Defying Immigration Order
President Trump has fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates after she told Justice Department lawyers not to attempt to defend his executive order on immigration and refugees. The White House said Yates had "betrayed" the department by refusing to enforce his order. Dana Boente, a US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, has been installed as the new acting attorney general.—VICE News

State Department Dissidents Prepare to Protest
Hundreds of foreign service officers in the State Department are said to be preparing a public demonstration opposing President Trump's executive order on immigration. The officers will condemn the order for standing "in opposition to the core American and constitutional values," according to a draft of a memo obtained by LawFare.—VICE News

Boy Scouts to Allow Transgender Recruits
The Boy Scouts of America will allow transgender boys to join by registering with their gender identity, marking a reversal of the previous policy accepting only those listed as boys on their birth certificate. In a statement, the organization explained the old approach was "no longer sufficient as communities and state laws are interpreting gender identity differently."—Chicago Tribune

International News

French-Canadian Student Charged for Quebec Mosque Shootings
27-year-old Alexandre Bissonnette has been charged with the deaths of six Muslims at a Quebec mosque. The student, arrested on Monday after calling police to say he wanted to cooperate, faces six counts of first-degree murder and five of attempted murder for the Sunday attack. A second man was also arrested, but is no longer a suspect and is instead now considered a possible witness.—BBC News

Alleged Mastermind of Mumbai Attack Under House Arrest
Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the man accused of orchestrating the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, has been placed under house arrest by Pakistani police. Saeed, founder of the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) militant group, was held at his charity's headquarters before being taken to his home in Lahore. He maintains he had no role planning the attacks that saw 166 people killed by gunmen.—Reuters 

Austria Moves to Ban Full-Face Veils in Public
The Austrian government wants to ban most face veils in public places, apparently determined to head off a right-wing political insurgency. The country's coalition is set to impose the ban on both the niqab and burqa, and may impose it on public employees, as well.—The Independent

Everything Else

Samantha Bee to Host Alternative Correspondents' Dinner
Samantha Bee has announced she will host an evening called the "Not White House Correspondents' Dinner" on April 29 as an alternative to the official press gala on the same night. Proceeds will go to the Committee to Protect Journalists. "Obviously, the press is under attack," the comedian explained.—VICE

Ben Affleck No Longer Director of Next Batman Movie
Hollywood mainstay Ben Affleck has announced he is stepping aside as director of the Warner Bros. project The Batman. Affleck will still star as the caped crusader in the movie, but said he "cannot do both jobs to the level they require."—Variety

Memo to EPA Staff Tells Them Not to Believe Media Reports
A leaked internal memo sent by a senior White House advisor to EPA staff tells them "much of what we see (in the news) is just not accurate." It follows a claims by the former EPA transition team leader Myron Ebell that the Trump administration would likely make major staff cuts.—Motherboard

Drake Puts Yolo Estate on the Market
Drake has reportedly placed his home in the Hidden Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles on the market for around $20 million. Dubbed the Yolo Estate, the house has appeared in several music videos.—Noisey

Prince Music Reportedly Coming to Spotify and Apple Music
Prince's back catalogue, famously absent from most mainstream streaming services bar TIDAL, is reportedly being made available to Spotify and Apple Music on February 12. Purple Spotify banners have popped up in London and New York.—Noisey



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Last Night's London Protest Shows How to Fight Trump

How Turkish Label Drug Boulevard Is Using Dream Pop to Resist Oppression

It's not easy to start a record label anywhere, and doubly so when you live in a country shaken by political repression and terrorist violence. That's the struggle of Kubilay Yigit, the 25-year-old founder of the new Turkey-based dream-pop label Drug Boulevard.

Yigit shares the dreams and aspirations of many creatives his age—frustrated by what he felt were formulaic trends in a monopolized electronic pop scene, he recently launched the project as a way to discover new avenues of creation and establish connections with like-minded artists over the internet. Standing in his way, however, is the chaos engulfing his home country of Turkey, where in recent months the neighboring conflict in Syria has spilled over with an increasing number of terrorist bombings and shootings while the government of Turkish president Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan has cracked down heavily on political opponents, journalists, and social media amid public protests and a coup attempt last year.

Yigit, who lives in Istanbul and previously founded the trance/progressive dance music label Blue Soho, says he's endured internet slowdowns, electricity cuts, self-censorship and a growing sense of insecurity while trying to get Drug Boulevard off the ground. On New Year's Eve, at least 39 people were killed in a terrorist shooting at Istanbul's Reina nightclub, filling people with dread and dashing his hopes of staging a local show to celebrate the label's launch. "Just because of the geography you're living in, you have to push aside lots of ideas that would be easily done in an ideal world," he says. "You feel an invisible hand pulling you back from progress."

Read more on Noisey



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The People, Signs, and Dogs Protesting Trump in London Last Night

Trump Fires Acting Attorney General Sally Q. Yates for Refusing to Defend Immigration Order

President Donald Trump fired the acting attorney general late Monday night following her public declaration that the department would not legally defend the president's controversial immigration executive order.

"Ms. Yates is an Obama Administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration," the White House said in a statement late Monday that said Yates had "betrayed" the Justice Department. "It is time to get serious about protecting our country."

Trump's dismissal of the Sally Q. Yates, a career prosecutor and an Obama administration holdover while Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions awaits Senate confirmation, has created a leadership vacuum at the top of the federal government's chief law body.

The lack of an attorney general and the firing of the acting one further raises the ante on the Senate's vote on Sessions. The Judiciary Committee was expected to vote on the nomination Tuesday morning but several Republican Senators on the committee criticized Trump's executive order the last several days including Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska.

Continue reading on VICE News



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The Only Way to Prevent Another Nuclear Strike Is to Get Rid of All the Nukes

The cosmologist Stephen Hawking recently suggested that civilization is at a critical juncture in its short—on geological timescales—career. We live in the "most dangerous time for our planet" due to climate change, the sixth mass extinction, and emerging technologies—and if we fail to proceed with great caution and wisdom, our species could follow the dodo into an existential oblivion.

To alert the public of the greatest dangers facing humanity, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock in 1947. Its time represents our collective proximity to a global catastrophe. The closest the clock has ever been to midnight—or doom—was in 1953, after the US and Soviet Union detonated thermonuclear weapons. The furthest away it's been happened in 1991, when the clock stood at a somewhat reassuring 17 minutes before midnight, following the official end of the Cold War.

Unfortunately, the minute hand has been ominously ticking forward in recent years, and on January 26 the Bulletin announced that it would move the clock forward even more to a mere  two and a half minutes before doom. The only time the clock has indicated a higher threat level was in 1953—a fact that should make one uneasy, at the very least, about our collective future on spaceship Earth. While the Bulletin originally considered only the threat of nuclear weapons, it recently added climate change to the list of global, transgenerational risks. Given President Donald Trump's reckless statements about nuclear proliferation and the Republican's rampant climate denialism, it should not come as a surprise that "doom-soon" is now more probable than it was a year ago.

Read more on Motherboard



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Desus and Mero Want Us All to #DeleteUber

Last weekend, Uber ignited a firestorm when the company appeared to go against the New York City taxi driver strike at JFK by dropping surge pricing and essentially capitalized off the protest which was created to show solidarity for the refugees and travelers affected by Trump's immigration ban. Users started deleting their Uber accounts in droves and the hashtag #DeleteUber started trending pretty much everywhere.

During Monday night's episode of Desus & Mero, the two hosts talked about the repercussions of Uber's actions, CEO Travis Kalanick's snitch-filled response, and how Lyft found the controversy to be the perfect opportunity to swoop in and prove it is wokest ride share company of them all. 

You can watch last night's Desus & Mero for free online now, and be sure to catch new episodes weeknights at 11 PM on VICELAND.



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