On an all new episode of Hamilton's Pharmacopeia, Hamilton heads to Reunion Island and Madagascar to investigate icthyoallyeinotoxism and a twisted history of hallucinogenic fish.
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Jill Freedman, the 74-year-old street photographer famous for her work documenting cops, firemen, and circus people in New York, will be showing and participating in Art Basel Miami this weekend. Below are some of the photos and memories from the years she spent in Miami, as well as some videos with her we did for the VICE 2016 Photo Issue. At the very bottom, there's a list of the Basel events where you can find her.
"I lived down there for ten years. I would go the beach and read. I kinda dropped out of the planet. I spent most of it lying supine. Under an umbrella, reading. It was great. I mean, some of it was depressing. I went there to get away—to turn on, tune in, and drop out. And the guy who rented chairs was my grass dealer and my cat-sitter. Perfect! It was perfect. I took a sabbatical from life. I had been fighting to be able to read since I was ten years old, when the only place you could be left alone was the bathroom. There was a library that got me any book I wanted two blocks away, swimming pools, balmy breezes. No one was there telling me to turn the light out at night. I could read until whenever I wanted."
Here are two videos we did with Freedman for our photo issue:
Below is where she'll be at Art Basel. Many of these events are part of the Miami Street Photography Festival, hosted by the HistoryMiami Museum, which includes street photography greats like Richard Kalvar, Alex Webb, Rebecca Norris-Webb, and Martin Parr. It culminates Sunday in a screening of "Don't Blink - Robert Frank," a portrait of the artist directed by Laura Israel.
Wednesday, November 30
7:30 PM: Opening and release party for Long Stories Short,a retrospective of Freedman's work. The Leica Store Miami, 372 Miracle Mile Coral Gables
Thursday, December 1
3:00 PM: Book signing for Only Human, a collaboration between Freedman, 8-Ball Zines, and Printed Matter that collects 40 years of the photographer's best images. Art Basel Fair, Magazines Exhibitors at Miami Beach Convention Center
7:00 PM: Jill Freedman Artist Talk and AV presentation—"Madhattan." HistoryMiami Museum Auditorium at 101 West Flagler Street
Saturday, December 3
3:30 PM: "A Conversation with an American Original: Jill Freedman" with Maggie Steber. HistoryMiami Museum Auditorium
7–10 PM: Miami Street Photography Festival Awards Ceremony and Closing Party. HistoryMiami Museum Courtyard
Words by Cameron Cuchulainn
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American family courts—a series of state courts that specifically deal in family law, from child custody cases to divorce proceedings—are a distinctly unsung part of our judicial system. They are rarely discussed in the media and largely absent from the Hollywood spotlight; as a result, few people understand how they work.
But if you are a parent involved in a case subject to their rule, you could easily find yourself at the mercy of a judge with broad power to decide how much, if at all, you get to see your children. Family courts lack juries, so such decisions are delivered from the pen of a sole person. And the system does not treat everyone equally. According to numerous legal practitioners and scholars I spoke to, a widespread bias exists within the system against parents whose views or lifestyles fall outside the American norm, especially sexually.
Family court judges rule most often on two types of cases—arbitration after children have been removed from the care of unfit parents, and custody disputes following divorce or separation—and decide both based on the best interests of children involved. But legal experts who spoke with VICE testified to the near limitless discretion judges have to impose their own moral views.
"I can predict the likelihood of my success by zip code," said Diana Adams, a family lawyer from New York who has spent the last decade working with clients who are LGBTQ, polyamorous, kinky, or otherwise outside the mainstream. Because family court judges are elected by direct vote in many states, their tolerance of alternative lifestyles tends to correlate with that of the surrounding area. She represents clients in both New York City and more conservative areas of upstate New York, and says that the weight of a parent's sex life upon a judge's decision varies wildly from judge to judge, depending on their political views. She also provides advice to clients out of state, and has noticed a pattern: for clients like hers, Southern and rural areas are unforgiving places for cases to come before family court judges.
When the Supreme Court declared in Lawrence v. Texas that state laws against homosexuality were unconstitutional, it also ruled that states cannot establish laws based purely on the moral disapproval of lawmakers. But as legal scholars have noted, those who come before family courts lack the constitutional protections that apply to criminal cases, in which the discretion of an individual judge is limited and juries are involved. And because family court cases rarely go to appeal, very few rulings from higher courts exist to establish precedent on the boundaries of a family court's power. Those appellate rulings we do have generally confirm, rather than restrict, that power.
Though most states now prohibit judges from using sexual orientation as a factor in family court rulings, judges are still free to cite a parent's polyamorous or kinky proclivities—or even a willingness to have non-marital sex—as an explicit reason for handing down rulings. In any case, family court judges are often not explicit about the exact factors that lead to their rulings. Adams recounted one case in which a family court removed a child from the custody of a transgender client, ostensibly because her client's cat was sick the day a child services worker visited and vomit was seen on the floor. But Adams said that "a white cisgender professional mother like me would never lose custody of her child because a sick cat made a mess."
Even premarital sex can be enough to sway the opinion of a family court judge. For instance, in one 2012 case, an Alabama Court of Civil Appeals awarded a father custody of his five-year-old child. Despite the boy having lived with his mother for three and a half years, having by all accounts been happy and well cared for, the mother lived with her fiancé before they were actually married. During the trial, the mother was accused by the opposing counsel of "sending the wrong signal to your children with your fiancé living in your household and being in the bed with you at night." When she appealed the case, the appeals court confirmed that family courts are free to "consider a parent's sexual conduct as it relates to that parent's character, without a showing that the conduct has been detrimental to the child."
As several legal scholars related in frustration, no organizing body tracks or maintains statistics on what happens in family courts or to whom. Eugene Volokh, a UCLA School of Law professor, published an article in 2006 that tried to document cases where parents have been penalized in family court proceedings for holding non-normative views on sex, religion and politics. It clocked in at over a hundred densely-footnoted pages, and he says he was only able to capture a fraction of the cases he could find. And Susan Wright, the founder of the National Coalition on Sexual Freedom, which provides support to people with non-traditional sexual lifestyles embroiled in family court proceedings, suspects that the hundreds of cases brought to her organization's attention over the past decade only represent a small percentage of the total nationwide.
Though experts said the attitudes of family court judges are slowly improving from decades past, non-traditional parents increasingly face other types of challenges; Andrew Gilden, a professor at the Willamette University College of Law, worries that people are creating detailed trails of evidence to be used against them in family courts on their phones and personal computers. Adams' experience confirms that fear: she said she's seen many internet dating and Fetlife (a kink-focused social network) profiles introduced in court.
In many states, family court judges are elected by direct vote; that means people can ensure those on the bench are tolerant of alternative lifestyles when they go to the polls. (Though doing judicial research before local elections is admittedly time-consuming.) But for the increasing number of loving, capable parents who happen to practice non-normative sex, one should hope recent voting trends reverse in time.
Neil McArthur is the director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at University of Manitoba, where his work focuses on sexual ethics and the philosophy of sexuality. Follow him on Twitter.
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Baltimore City police officers at the scene where an 11-month-old baby and his car seat were found in Baltimore on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2016, following a carjacking several hours earlier. (Kenneth K. Lam/Baltimore Sun/TNS via Getty Images)
In addition to frightening Muslims, immigrants, African-Americans and women across America, Donald Trump's election as president of the United States has put a scare into the people trying to reform the country's troubled police departments. And Baltimore may be the first city where those fears are realized.
This past summer, the Department of Justice issued a damning report that documented a wide range of police abuses in Charm City. They included making arrests without probable cause, blatantly discriminating against people of color, and cruelty towards victims of sexual assault. The 164-page report marked the first step towards a so-called consent decree between Baltimore and the federal government, a process used since the 1990s to address issues raised by national probes of local cops. While consent decrees are no panacea, civil rights advocates and experts generally agree they represent an important tool for reform and accountability by providing formal oversight over police departments that have proven resistant to change.
But a consent decree is only as good as its enforcement, and an executive branch led by Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed "law and order" candidate who campaigned on stop-and-frisk policing, complicates things, to say the least. That's especially true if the Senate confirms Alabama US Senator Jeff Sessions—a politician whose career has been largely defined by accusations of racism and who has spoken out against federal intervention into policing—as attorney general. The two men have basically everyone working on police reform in the city deeply worried that the feds will not use the courts to hold Baltimore accountable come 2017.
The deadline to finalize Baltimore's consent decree was set for November 1, in part because Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, a key player in the negotiations, is leaving office in early December. But at the end of last month, Rawlings-Blake said the deadline was more "aspirational in nature," leaving open the question of when, exactly, a deal will get done.
"When the mayor came out and said it wasn't going to be done by the start of November, the community collectively gasped," says Tara Huffman, director of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Programs at Baltimore's Open Society Institute, a progressive think tank and advocacy group.
On November 21, six Democrats in Maryland's Congressional delegation sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Mayor Rawlings-Blake, and Mayor-elect Catherine Pugh, urging all parties to work as fast as possible to finalize the agreement. Rawlings-Blake responded that they are "working diligently," but it seems unlikely to be finalized under her watch. Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis also noted that other cities have had much longer timetables to negotiate their consent decrees, and suggested Baltimore's agreement is shaping up to be among the most ambitious.
Meanwhile, Mayor-elect Pugh has suggested she's worried about Baltimore shouldering the costs of paying for these reforms, and teased plans to ask the state and federal government for help. On the campaign trail, the then-candidate released an online ad featuring a white surrogate saying "there's too much talk of racism going on now" and that "the word 'racism' has got to be erased from our vocabulary." (A spokesperson for Pugh's transition team declined a request for an interview.)
"We have no reason to think she is opposed to the consent decree, but folks have not heard any really definitive declaration from Pugh that it is important to her, and something that she sees as important for Baltimore," says Huffman.
The main reason reformers are so stressed about wrapping up the deal as soon as possible is that once the consent decree is finalized, a federal judge will be empowered to enforce it, no matter who is leading the Department of Justice—or, for that matter, the country. In other words, getting it done before Trump and his team take power has taken on new urgency, especially given that Sessions once wrote court-ordered consent decrees are "undemocratic" and "dangerous."
Adding to reformers' anxiety is that even if Baltimore does manage to get the decree in place before Inauguration Day, the police department and city political leadership may not follow through completely on the agreed-upon reforms. That's when Trump's team could wield tremendous influence.
"There will likely be an independent monitor, selected by the parties and the court, who will issue periodic reports of the city's compliance," explains Sam Bagenstos, a University of Michigan law professor who has worked in the Justice Department. "The reports will provide some public shaming, but even if the monitor says the city is out of compliance, the DOJ will have to be willing to go to court and seek further relief to enforce the consent decree. If a Trump/Sessions DOJ wants to shut the case down, all it has to do is let the decree sit."
The Department of Justice declined to comment, and the Trump transition team did not return request for comment prior to publication.
Huffman says Baltimore's negotiations with the DOJ have included generous solicitation of public input. For example, local groups have requested additional resources so community organizations can provide on-the-ground feedback about policing, in addition to whatever attracts the attention of the independent monitor.
The first DOJ consent decree with city cops was imposed in 1997 with the Pittsburgh Police Department. Witold Walczak, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, helped bring the lawsuit that attracted federal attention in that case. He says that after four years, the city was in compliance with about half of the decree's provisions, but those mainly consisted of operational changes like establishing a computerized early-warning system for troublesome officers.
After George W. Bush took office, Walczak says, the decree was eventually dropped at the instigation of his Justice Department—before many of the most serious issues had been addressed. There has since been major backsliding when it comes to local policing.
By the Marshall Project's count, the federal government launched 20 police department investigations under George W. Bush's administration, but entered only into three consent decrees. In contrast, the Obama Justice Department has led 23 investigations, and imposed 11 consent decrees.
"It wasn't perfect under Clinton, and we've had an uneven relationship with the DOJ even under Obama—it's not like they're an extension of the ACLU," Walczak says. "But under the Bush administration, and what we expect will happen under Trump, is this is simply not an issue they care to deal with."
"Police abuse is a major problem that is crying out for federal intervention," he adds. "And reforms are not going to happen without some kind of legal muscle."
Follow Rachel Cohen on Twitter.
A pack of modafinil. Photo by Hannah Ewens
Chances are you've heard of the drug modafinil. You know the one: the "smart drug," sometimes called the Limitless pill, that turns sleep-deprived college students and young professionals into energetic work horses.
It turns out modafinil can do even more: It's a promising treatment for stimulant drug abuse, as well as neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. It's also been shown to normalize cognitive function in sleep-deprived populations (which is basically everyone these days) and is the drug of choice for astronauts on the International Space Station and members of the armed forces on long duration missions. And since modafinil is non-addictive, it's only about as risky as drinking a few cups of coffee.
But unlike the UK, Australia, India, Germany, Canada, Mexico, and other countries that have approved modafinil as a non-controlled prescription drug, the United States still classifies modafinil as a Schedule IV controlled substance, putting it alongside drugs like Xanax and Valium. Given America's ongoing amphetamine crisis and generalized sleep deprivation, legalizing a safer alternative like modafinil makes a lot of sense. So why don't we?
Modafinil was developed in the 1970s by a French professor of experimental medicine to treat narcolepsy and other sleep disorders. After decades of clinical trials in France, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) okayed modafinil as a treatment for narcolepsy in 1998. In 1999, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) classified modafinil as a Schedule IV substance.
At the time, there wasn't enough research to clearly show modafinil's mechanism of action. Modafinil didn't appear to directly affect specific neurotransmitters, the chemicals released by nerve cells to communicate with other nerve cells. Instead, it seemed to act indirectly on several different neurotransmitters (namely serotonin, dopamine, and GABA) unlike other stimulants such as Adderall, which work more directly on the dopamine system.
The DEA noted in its ruling that the behavioral effects brought on by modafinil were similar to other stimulants, like cocaine, which do directly affect the dopamine system. Dopamine acts as a sort of natural reward system in the brain and is largely associated with addictive drugs, which gave the DEA reasonable concern.
Yet not all dopaminergic drugs are made equal. Some drugs, like MDMA, work by increasing the release of dopamine in the brain. Others, like cocaine, function as dopamine reuptake inhibitors. That means when the dopamine released by one nerve cell is not entirely absorbed by the receiving nerve cell, the leftover dopamine is blocked from re-entering the original nerve cell and stays in the gap between the two nerve cells. It's this extracellular dopamine that gets you feeling the way you do when you do a line. Modafinil is also a dopamine reuptake inhibitor, but it's not nearly as effective as taking something like cocaine.
"It doesn't matter how much modafinil you take—you can never shut off the dopamine transporter as well as a little bit of cocaine or amphetamine would," Peter Morgan, an associate professor of psychiatry at Yale University, told me. "That's part of the reason why people don't really feel high when taking modafinil."
For that reason, research has shown that modafinil is actually an effective way of treating cocaine and amphetamine addiction. If you're chronically using strong dopamine blockers like cocaine, your brain essentially adjusts to the presence of this extracellular dopamine as the new normal. If you then suddenly take the cocaine out of the equation, the brain has a much harder time functioning. Modafinil can function as a safe alternative to coke—it's still a dopamine reuptake inhibitor, but its effects are way milder and there's virtually no addictive potential.
Although modafinil has been successfully used to treat cocaine addiction in certain populations, this isn't one of its FDA-approved uses—so insurance companies won't pay for it as a treatment. This means that those who need it most are forced to pay out of pocket for access, which generally isn't an option for someone recovering from a serious coke habit. When I called a pharmacy to inquire about pricing, I was told 30 100mg pills would cost $870.
Some who use modafinil off-label order it illegally from producers in countries like India for far cheaper (about $2 per 200mg pill), but also risk getting a diluted product. Others turn to "approved" prescriptions for drugs like Adderall, which may accomplish the same results but come with far more risk (namely, that Adderall itself can be addictive).
"There is no question in my mind that modafinil is much, much safer to use than any of the amphetamines or amphetamine-like drugs, like Adderall or Methylphenidate ," said Morgan. "It's not clear to me that it's substantially worse than caffeine, but it's definitely much better than the amphetamines."
Part of the issue is that pharmaceutical companies aren't too keen on re-introducing modafinil as an addiction treatment. "There isn't a lot of support for pushing modafinil as a treatment for cocaine dependence," Morgan added. "It's hard to get any drug company interested in a treatment for cocaine dependence because no brand wants their brand associated with cocaine dependence."
But plenty of people are using modafinil for other things as well—most popularly, as a cognitive enhancer.
Barbara Sahakian, a neuroscientist at Cambridge, conducted a survey on off-label modafinil use after she realized a number of her perfectly healthy colleagues were using it at work. Her 2007 report in Nature surveyed 1,400 people from 60 countries who had used drugs like modafinil or Ritalin. The majority of them used them to increase concentration rather than for medical reasons, and a full one third of the respondents acquired their drugs over the internet, rather than with a prescription.
"The big issue is that there are no long-term safety studies in healthy people with drugs such as modafinil," Sahakian told me. Even though the drug seems to be wholly beneficial, there just aren't enough people researching it to change the FDA classification.
Like any drug, modafinil is not for everyone. Some people experience stomach pains or headaches and, ultimately, there is no substitute for natural cognitive enhancers like getting more sleep or exercise.
But for those who need it for addiction treatment, to make up for cognitive deficits induced by overwork, or are unable to adjust their lifestyles to accommodate more sleep and exercise, making modafinil accessible could be a godsend. And as of now, the United States is one of the only countries to regulate modafinil as a controlled substance, approving its use only for a handful of sleeping disorders.
The first step toward legalizing modafinil is promoting it as a safe alternative to the widely available stimulants used today and encouraging more research to be done on long-term use. De-scheduling a drug in the United States is a long and arduous process, but given the benefits of legalizing modafinil, the struggle could be worth it.
Follow Daniel Oberhaus on Twitter.
Illustration by Tallulah Fontaine.
Earlier this year, I was contacted by a youth organization in Wisconsin called One Step. The group operates a summer camp for young people with cancer, where campers can spend time with other patients their age, as well as survivors of the disease, and experience beautiful Lake Michigan.
I said yes instantly, but I was nervous. How would I be able to face these young people dealing with challenges that I'd never faced? I assumed I was being brought in as an entertainer to help cheer up these young patients—some as young as 5 years old—and offer them some sort of boost. Little did I know, these brave young people were going to teach me more than I ever dreamed.
I had gotten it all backwards. The gentleman who invited me to the camp eventually explained that every summer he invites someone to the camp to be a student, not to be a teacher or to offer their presence to the young people there. Instead, I'd learn about strength and resilience through these courageous cancer patients, experience their power and incredible energy.
I was absolutely overwhelmed, devastated and uplifted by the camp experience. It's difficult for me to even write about it now, the feelings come in such waves of intensity. These young children taught me many lessons, the most important of which I try to keep in sharp focus daily.
Here's that...
One young woman I met especially struck me. She was in her early twenties and had beaten cancer after a long battle. She still went back to the camp every year to reconnect with the friends she had grown close to, and to support new incoming campers still grappling with the most challenging aspects of their illness.
Almost losing her life gave her clarity. It also gave her purpose.
This young woman's eyes radiated a sparkling kindness, like two universes gazing out from some impossibly vast and infinite space hidden behind her face. She seemed to look through your weakness and recognize all the best things inside you, compassionately overlooking or accepting your fear, your shallowness, your failings.
She was never not smiling. It was a sincere and natural smile that transcended happiness, and in her presence I felt some sort of essential value of goodness and rightness and kindness that I couldn't quite explain, but felt deeply.
I asked this young woman to please tell me her secret. What did she know that made her able to be this way? What did she see through those super-nova eyes? What was she feeling inside that made her able to smile so purely and genuinely even in the face of such suffering and having been through such trying circumstances herself?
Her answer surprised me.
Cancer had given her a clarity she had not known before. She said that ever since her diagnosis, she saw life as an incredible gift. Her experience with almost dying actually introduced her to her own life. And that even the challenges and difficulties in life felt like opportunities to grow and appreciate the magnificence of every shred of it even more deeply. She calmly and gently explained that there was no secret to her other than an unflinching and unshakable positivity. Simply being alive was her source of constant joy.
Almost losing her life gave her clarity. It also gave her purpose—an active devotion to a deep and crucial hope. Now, she had a mission to help others like her, to share her power and joy. Every day for her was a beautiful new chance to make her life count.
Every young person I spent time with at One Step shared this similar quality, this clarity, this purpose. Each one went out of their way to show me incredible kindness and extraordinary warmth. They could tell I was overwhelmed and scared. As the sun set and the camp day was winding down, I was in an emotional state of dazed humility. I felt so silly that I had come into this experience as I had, thinking I could somehow help them. Instead, they imbued me with the clarity to realize more profoundly that life is a precious gift. They did it simply by being themselves, completely and fully human examples of a triumphant joy.
I'm still processing what I experienced there, and I imagine I will be for a long time. But one thing was immediately clear: it is this spirit of joy for life that I want to serve and promote and protect and amplify and worship and conjure up and share. It reaffirmed that it is the one true calling we can all respond to and devote ourselves to. Living fully is the answer. Not allowing ourselves to float aimlessly throughout life in a cloudy daze is an unquestionably hard challenge, but one we owe ourselves to face head on, with clarity and purpose.
We can do so by attempting everyday to be our best selves, tirelessly believing in the beauty and splendor of every second of this chance we have to be alive.
Follow Andrew W.K. on Twitter.
A badass secret agent rooster. A collector of superpowers who goes by "The Vampire." A terrifying paramilitary group known as the Jellassassins, whose powers all involve Jell-O. A sullen Chinese-American teenaged girl who might just be the most powerful person in the world... but has as many daddy issues as anyone else.
These are just some of the characters populating the Chew comic series, written by John Layman and drawn by Rob Guillory. Chew came to an end on November 23, after 60 issues and seven years. The series centers on a government agent named Tony Chu, who is blessed/afflicted with cibopathy, or the ability to taste something and learn about everything and everyone connected to it. His powers make it hard for Tony to stomach meat, but also make him a useful FDA special agent.
The series is set in an unspecified time period following the deaths of 116 million people worldwide from bird flu, making the US Food and Drug Administration the single most important law enforcement agency. It's like the Department of Homeland Security post-9/11, but even more powerful. There's an FDA supermax food prison, for instance, and one character refers to the "FDA new world order."
Chew by John Layman. Art by Rob Guillory. Courtesy of Image Comics
Chew is many things: an entertaining take on foodie culture gone riot; the best comic series ever to revolve around poultry; and a showcase for Asian American superheroes.
Those are a rare breed. In 2009, the same year that Chew issue #1 was released, we saw the publication of Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology. Like Chew, there hadn't been anything quite like Secret Identities before. It and its sequel, Shattered, brought together Asian American writers and artists to imagine comic worlds where they actually saw themselves reflected on the page.
Why did this matter? Jeff Yang, who co-edited the anthologies and has written widely on Asian culture, made this clear right from the start. In the preface to Secret Identities, he writes, "Go to a comic book convention, a quarter of the kids are Asian. A lot of the top artists are Asian American, too." Drawing on a strong legacy of comics in Asia, the US comic book industry is stuffed with Asian American creators and consumers. Yet the message being sent is that no one could buy them as the protagonists of these stories.
But superhero myths are ones that many Asian Americans can get behind. For one thing, Yang told me, Asian Americans have a (diverse but shared) origin story of immigration, however many generations ago. And "that notion of distance and difference is so much a part of the troping of what it means to be a costumed character. Those two things are the jumping-off point for any superhero."
Yang's co-editor on Secret Identities and Shattered, Keith Chow, sees this sense of difference as being key to why Asian American superheroes, and not simply Asian superheroes, matter. "Perception and misperception have driven a lot of the conversation about what it means to be Asian American," Chow explained to me, over the phone. But the "unique shared zone of conversation," involving "the experience of being from somewhere else," brings extra weight to the classic superhero feelings of being an outsider and having a slippery, multi-faceted identity.
Sarah Kuhn, who's written several comics series, articulates this well. Her novel Heroine Complex, the first in a series, features not one but two Asian American superheroines—and very different ones. Kuhn broke down in tears when she saw that both Aveda (a Chinese American diva superhero covering up massive insecurities) and Evie (a half Japanese American assistant turned hero) were depicted on the book's cover: "I think every author of color knows that this is not a small thing."
Kuhn says superhero stories are powerful vehicles for representation because of how iconic those characters are. It's also reassuring that in superhero stories, "good triumphs in the end, which is frankly a message that a lot of us in the US could use right now." She wonders, "If you're a person of color only watching white people save the day, what kind of message does that send to you?"
In her case, receiving that message as a kid led her to sideline herself. She gravitated toward the sidekick role in life partly because geek culture, from Star Trek's Demora Sulu to X-Men's Jubilee, was telling a generation of Asian American girls that they could be in one scene as a supporting character, and then they had to go away.
In the anthologies Secret Identities and Shattered, the characters are definitely not just sidekicks. They both reflect and build on common traits of (the white default) superheroes. Family duty, for instance, is refracted through generations of difficult history and complicated identity: Stories about Japanese Americans tackle Pearl Harbor, the atomic legacy of World War II, and the internment of Americans of Japanese descent (which is, sigh, of continuing relevance).
Chew is less weighty. It's an awesomely silly showcase for food-related jokes. The food powers get increasingly absurd and niche as the series goes on; eventually it includes villains who use peppermint candy to hypnotize people, or who gain enormous strength from wearing spaghetti.
A character in Secret Identities says, "Today's audience is very savvy. They can smell forced diversity a mile away." This is a trap Chew avoids. The effortlessness of its diverse cast reflects not just the kind of world we want to see, but the world as it is. Sure, the NASA chief in Chew is Sikh; unlike what every other spaceship-set movie would have us believe, rocket science is chock full of Asians.
That doesn't mean that Asian American superheroes are interchangeable with white ones. Tony is noticeably smaller than just about every non-Asian character in Chew, and a common visual motif is of other people looming over him. Physical size is a red herring, though. We've see this in Bruce Lee movies and in shows like The Walking Dead (whose Steven Yuen will be voicing Tony in the Chew animated series). And we see it in Chew, over and over.
Chew's diversity is diversity by stealth. Tony's Asianness is largely unremarked upon, although there are hints of the way Asian men have typically been emasculated by superhero culture. Tony's girlfriend Amelia, for instance, is a familiar kind of superhero's girlfriend: white, blond, and a journalist (albeit one with, inevitably, food-related powers). And Amelia's ex-boyfriend, a thick-headed sports writer obsessed with the sex lives of baseball players, is almost a caricature of macho white masculinity. He calls Tony at various points "little Asian twerp" and "runty little half-man," as if standing in for any readers who might be weirded out by seeing a super skinny Asian dude in the role of hero.
Kuhn sees this diversity by stealth as part of Chew's appeal. "It's an Asian protagonist, but the story is not all about him being Asian. He gets to do other cool stuff, drive a lot of the action, and be the hero."
Layman, who wrote the series, doesn't want to influence how people view its treatment of diversity, or its ending. He told me, "It's my intention to go radio silent for... well, for a while, at least until the book has been ended for a while, been digested (no pun intended), and people have come to their own conclusions."
When it comes to the diversification of comics, he wants the series to stand on its own. "I don't think I could bring anything new or vital to the conversation, and I'd just be seen as another old, fat, white, blustery loudmouth—which of course I am, but I'd like to avoid being seen as that, if possible."
Chew by John Layman. Art by Rob Guillory. Courtesy of Image Comics
Post-Chew, Kuhn, Chow, and Yang have varying degrees of cautious optimism about the future of representation. Kuhn points to the massive visibility of Disney's Moana as a sign that Asian American heroines can be both culturally specific and hugely accessible.
Chow, who founded Nerds of Color and has a background in comics for education, holds up the example of Kamala Khan. The popularity of Kamala, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, punctures the myth that audiences aren't interested in more diverse superheroes. When it comes to Hollywood, "It's a misconception in the industry that certain people don't sell tickets." After all, "you could literally cast anybody as a Marvel superhero"—even a tree or a raccoon.
And Yang mentions an example closer to home: his son, Hudson, one of the stars of Fresh Off the Boat. He explains with a bit of awe, "Hudson is a 13-year-old Asian American boy who did not think it was impossible to one day say, 'I want to be on TV,'" which would have been unthinkable a generation ago.
This changed climate has driven Yang and Chow to consider a follow-up to Secret Identities and Shattered. Volume three would involve their kids and lots of emerging comics creators. And it would look to the future, following the series's focus first on Asian Americans' place in superhero lineage (Secret Identities) and ways to challenge stereotyping narratives (Shattered).
At a time when supervillains are winning at the voting booth, diverse superheroes are sorely needed.
Jill Stein speaking in Boston in October. Photo by Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Jill Stein thinks the Democratic Party as we know it is dead. "Historically, this is kind of what happens—there's a life, and there's a death of political parties," she told me. "And I think their time is over."
It's a pretty bold proclamation for a Green Party presidential candidate who won just over 1.2 million votes, far more than she earned in the 2012 presidential election but well behind Libertarian Gary Johnson. But Stein has remained, stubbornly, in the news more than most third-party (or fourth-party) candidates—two days after I spoke to her, Stein's campaign announced that it'd be raising funds for a recount in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, the three Rust Belt states that doomed Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, on the advice of security experts who were worried of hacking or manipulation. Soon enough, millions of dollars came pouring in, and since then, Stein has filed for recounts in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania (she's expected to file in Michigan as well).
Stein's recount efforts—which is opposed by many Greens, including her running mate, Ajamu Baraka—have energized those on the left desperate for any loophole that could potentially lead to Donald Trump being denied the presidency. The president-elect, for his part, has ranted on Twitter about the recount and said, against all evidence, that he actually won the popular vote. And though Clinton reportedly doesn't support the recount, her lawyers are on hand in Wisconsin to monitor the effort.
The recount, which few people expect to actually overturn any results, shows where Stein and her party are situated at a unique moment in history—the Democrats have less power at the federal, state, local levels than they have had since 1928, the far-right flank of the Republican Party is triumphant, and there are countless debates among Democrats about how best to reinvigorate their party.
One could argue that there's never been a better time for the Greens to grow, with the Democrats weak and disorganized, with no clear future ahead of them. But interviews with both Stein voters and campaign officials alike show that the question of whether to help the downed Democrats in the days ahead is up for debate.
David Cobb, the 2004 Green Party presidential nominee and Stein campaign head, sounded open to cooperation, in light of the coming Trump administration. "Absolutely, 100-percent yes, we are committed to working with progressives," he told me. "It doesn't matter who they are.... If someone wants to work on sanctuary cities, if they're progressive Democrats, or Libertarians, or principled Republicans, I want to work with them. If there are people who want to work on abolishing the racist criminal justice system we have, I want to work with them."
Cobb, who coordinates with Green state parties across the country, then outlined several initiatives that his party had planned: The Green News Network, a daily program on Facebook Live; planning for Occupy Inauguration, a huge rally set for January 20 on Washington DC's National Mall, with "teach-ins" the following day; conferences, talks, and possible "movement/campaign schools"; and a mobilization of Green candidates at the municipal level, where policy change in the Trump era seems most likely to succeed.
"The Green Party is a movement party," Cobb told me. "Not a protest party."
This approach reflects what Greens have long been about: a lot of talking at the grassroots among like-minded people, but not much of a path to elected office. To put it in nakedly Trump-ian terms, how can the Green Party start winning? Or is it time to pull a Bernie Sanders -jump into the Democratic Party, and push it leftward? At least some voters are thinking about that latter approach.
"I think remaking the Democratic Party into a home for humane populism, as opposed to the barbaric populism of the GOP, is the only way out of our electoral nightmare," said Michael Youhana, who wrote in "Just Jill Stein" on Election Day, out of distaste for her running mate.
Youhana thinks Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren—who was recently elevated to a leadership position among Senate Democrats—was "probably" best-suited to unite the party under progressive rule, but right now, "there's clear leader that unites the wings." But, he added, "I also think it will be a long shot to reform the Democrats. Maybe less of a long shot than creating a viable third party, but still difficult."
Another Stein voter, Joey (who wouldn't give his last name), laid out two futures: either the Greens moderate their position, moving away from their more controversial factions—some are pro-Russia, others oppose vaccines, both positions Stein has flirted with—to attract leftover Sanders supporters, or Democrats shift left to take back any votes they might've lost to Stein this election. "If they just went progressive, and pushed for Bernie, a lot of Stein voters would've went for him," he said.
Joey admitted that he didn't see any "real growth" with the Green Party on the national level in the immediate future, and argued that they should, instead, concentrate on local races to build a formidable base worth fighting for. "Greens can't come around every four years and say, 'There's another party here,'" he said. "It'll be hard for them to win on a national level without winning smaller battles."
When we spoke, Stein noted the opportunity the Greens had down-ballot. Most American cities are run by Democrats, and officials in those cities wield enormous influence over social and economic policies that affect the millions of Americans who live there. "The most powerful place to fight those battles is at the local level, and the example of that is Eugene V. Debs and the socialist movement," she said. "He didn't get many votes at the national level, but he was part of a transformation of social policy that pressured the Democratic Party to adopt his party, from the New Deal down to public health, workers' rights, child labor."
She added, "They came through at the local level. And their national campaign was a piece of that. We definitely see that as a whole."
But Stein was hesitant to praise the recent shifts or reports of self-reflection in the Democratic Party as signs of change. "Those who are calling the shots aren't changing. The faces may be changing, but just look—what kind of discussion is actually going on?" she asked. "Literally nothing. It's mostly how terrible Donald Trump is."
Stein thinks that Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who resigned as the head of the Democratic National Committee after DNC emails critical of Sanders leaked, should be "blacklisted by the party." The failure of party officials to do so, Stein told me, is a sign they aren't serious about changing course.
"And again, Bernie's touted as the guy who's going to save us, but what position was he assigned to, exactly?" Stein added. "Outreach director?" (Sanders is chair of outreach, and, also, the top-ranking Democrat on the powerful Senate Budget Committee.)
Perhaps what the Greens should be banking on, Stein continued, is this idea that 2016 was the start of something totally new in American politics—a sort of anti-politics that began with the ascension of an unchained reality TV billionaire to the White House. Democrats are naturally worried, but for an outsider candidates looking to find their way into the two-party system—or to simply burn it all down—maybe that's reason to be hopeful.
"Our lives are literally on the line now," Stein said. "And it creates a whole new set of possibilities with a very different mindset, in which we're getting out, we're ready to take some risks, and we're ready to mobilize."
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This is one of the funniest comments I've heard during these strange days supposedly filled with mourning and sorrow for the long-awaited death of Fidel Castro: What a paradox: You spend your life fighting capitalism only to die on Black Friday, with all those bargains.
On November 26, 1956, Fidel Castro set sail from Tuxpan, Mexico, to Cuba in a small yacht named Granma with 81 other dreamers keen to change the country's destiny. The conspiracy theory has more than enough supporters: Is it a coincidence or a shrewd historical calculation that el Comandante made his exit exactly 60 years later? Hard to know. Maybe saying his final goodbye on July 26, anniversary of the day in 1953 that they stormed the Moncada barracks would have been too obvious...
Some numerical appreciation is inevitable: From 1959 until 2006, Castro ruled Cuba with his tireless, inspired, almost hypnotic language, from the platform of the Plaza of the Revolution or before the cameras: a period of time that few kings and no dictator have equaled.
Another comic comment going around: It's sad, he resisted 11 North American leaders... and can't handle even 15 days of Donald Trump as president-elect.
What will remain after 47 years of Fidel's almost messianic leadership and absurd economic management? Of his anti-imperialist, Pan-American dream, apparently condemned to shipwreck as the remaining power of the Latin American left staggers toward its next debacle? His brother, Raúl, helmsman of the erratic Cuban ship since August 2006, when the Sierra Maestra hero renounced total control over the Caribbean island, has proved to be a lamentable orator. But at the same time, to much surprise, despite his tough military reputation and readiness to bear arms, he is also an excellent administrator of what the most strident Miami right-wingers call "the Castro family ranch." Although the struggles of Nicolás Maduro's Venezuelan government makes many suspicious that, with the end of cheap oil from Caracas, a new era of material shortages will be inevitable in Cuba, other optimists trust that, like his older brother, the president general will manage to scheme with the shiny new president Trump to attract the investments the economy of the Greater Antilles so desperately needs.
If literary transcendence awaits the deceased elder brother of Raúl, it will be, above all, for his role as primary hero of ingenious Cuban humor.
But these are just speculations, and what will happen remains to be seen. The obvious, the undeniable, during these nine days of national mourning without music and alcohol (in which the tourists who've had the good or bad fortune to witness his historic disappearance complain that Cuba doesn't seem like Cuba) is the tremendous importance that Castro's life and body of work has had.
And since I'm a writer and not a political or economic analyst, I'm not going to say anything more about the seminal role el Comandante played as inspirer of revolutions or leader of Non-Aligned countries and other Third World communities. Nor will I say anything about his erratic economic management, always trusting that a new rubric would lift the island once and for all up from underdevelopment while, at the same time, always paranoiacally cutting short any emergence of a prospering middle class if it wasn't linked to his political-ideological-familial faction.
This way, I'm sparing myself having to sing the inevitable little ditties of praise and criticism. Because if Fidel accomplished anything in his life, it was not leaving anyone indifferent. They loved and hated him, always intensely... and sometimes, like many Cubans, both feelings coexisted in an almost surrealistic way.
But I won't fall into senseless psychoanalysis and start to theorize about the father figure, respected and feared, who must be killed for us to become adults. No way. Too much of that has already occurred and is yet to come. My purpose in writing these lines is to speak, at least briefly, of the newly vanished personality's literary transcendence.
PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat shares a joke with Cuban president Fidel Castro. Undated photo by PPO/Getty Images
To many, it will seem an absurd effort. Some may remember the old rumor that it was Fidel who inspired The Autumn of the Patriarch, the novel with which Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez joined the select club of those who have covered the fascinating subject of the Latin American dictator, including Miguel Angel Asturias, who wrote Mister President; Augusto Roa Bastos, who wrote I, The Supreme; and even the super-baroque Swiss Cuban Alejo Carpentier, who wrote Reasons of State. Memories will return to others of all the books on the titanic figure of the Commandante, from interview compilations like Fidel and Religion by liberation theologian Frei Betto or One Hundred Hours with Fidel (translated into English as Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography) by the Galician Ignacio Ramonet, to confessions in the worst sentimental style, such as those in Alina: Memoirs of the Rebel Daughter of Fidel Castro, or brainy and equivocal analysis, such as Castro's Final Hour by the once very famous and now almost forgotten Argentine American journalist Andrés Oppenheimer. All of these books more or less surreptitiously circulated during his life among Cuba's most avid readers, of course, as precious gems of purported objective analysis.
There will even be those who lament, in these post-Bob Dylan Nobel Prize for Literature days, that Fidel died before even being chosen for the highest literary distinction for his tirade, History Will Absolve Me, composed of inspired rubbish no worse than that of Hitler and Mussolini—or the rest of his extensive oratory that will surely fill dozens of volumes once collected, if anyone ever decides to take on such an enormous task. Does it really sound all that wild? Did Winston Churchill himself not win in 1953, for speeches collected in books?
Nor should we miss those who expect an avalanche of confessional books by cronies who had an intimate relationship with the great man: I Was Castro's Proctologist; My Life as Head of Fidel's Kennels; Memories of the Nightclub Dancer Who Got with el Comandante Once, and so on, ad infinitum or ad nauseam, whichever comes first.
But, in my humble opinion, if literary transcendence, in addition to political immortality that not even his worst detractors would deny him, awaits the deceased elder brother of Raúl, it will be, above all, for his role as primary hero of ingenious Cuban humor.
On VICE: Carmelo Anthony in Cuba
For centuries, power has been defenseless before the jokes and ridicule that strip from rulers their dignified gowns and appearance of being their homeland's saviors. Shouting "the king is naked!" can always be the beginning of a rebellion. Not in vain did they pursue the paranoid aide-de-camp of el Líder Máximo whenever a Cuban author dared portray him disrespectfully, like the irreverent Reinaldo Arenas or the witty yet ingenious Zoe Valdes, both forced into exile. In fact, so excessive was the zeal of the cultural police without uniform, that even the most fervent supporters of el Comandante ended up almost always refraining, just in case, from including any reference that was not very distant or indirect to the colossal figure in their pages. You couldn't take the chance that someone might misinterpret.
Sometimes, it's not even necessary to mention the name—its power makes one laugh:
A drunkard mutters at voices in his head: I know who's to blame for why everything's so bad... why there's no food, no clothes, why we can't travel. After a while, the inevitable happens: Someone reports him and G2 agents arrive and detain him. But when they interrogate him, severely—"Who're you talking about?"—the alcoholic says, very candidly: "About Bush, of course, who else if not him?" So they have no choice but to release him. Except, already at the door, the drinker turns around and says: "But I know who you had in mind..."
It took some work even for Hercules to cut off all the hydra heads, and similarly, not even the legendary efficiency of the Cuban G2 intelligence agency has managed to completely censor that splendid escape valve for popular discontent that are these jokes. The writer Jorge Mañach has already lamented, decades ago, that Cuban fondness for joking, for making fun of everything... that, nevertheless, resulted in the darkest hours of despair before the paternal totalitarianism of the revolution calcified into static dogma.
All his most envied and celebrated qualities have been simultaneously ridiculed by the relentless popular laughter.
They say that Fidel himself laughed a lot at the jokes that the common wit dedicated to him. I wish it were true, because there were many. All his most envied and celebrated qualities have been simultaneously ridiculed by the relentless popular laughter: his speech capable of convincing anyone, his ability to say one thing and do another, and of course always blaming Yankee imperialism for all his setbacks; his intransigence—until the opportunity to say and do exactly the opposite arrived.
Fidel dies and, nobody knows how, he goes to heaven, but San Pedro doesn't want to let him enter. El Comandante insists on an audience with God, and after much pleading, the doorman of paradise permits him to go talk to the Supreme Being... but only for five minutes.
All the same, he prolongs the dialogue behind closed doors for half an hour, two hours, three hours... and after the fourth hour, the Eternal Father and Fidel exit arm in arm, conversing and smiling. The Creator goes on to say, "Yes, well, that idea of socialism up here... what I don't understand is why I have to be only the second secretary of the party."
There are a thousand more like that, which I hope will soon be collected in a book. And if no one wants to take on the task, I unselfishly volunteer my services. I remember more than a hundred right now, and many are excellent. It'd be a book that, by the way, wouldn't be censored but sold on the island. Perhaps it would be the first authentic sign that things are really beginning to change, that the conceited trajectory of the static Revolution has once again been set in motion.
Although, of course, I fear that the next book, the one with jokes about the brother, still in power, will have to wait a while...
Born José Miguel Sánchez Gómez in Havana, Cuba, in 1969, Yoss assumed his pen name in 1988, when he won the Premio David in the science-fiction category for Timshel. Since then, he has gone on to become one of Cuba's most iconic literary figures—as the author of more than 20 acclaimed books and as the lead singer of the heavy metal band Tenaz. His two novels translated into English are A Planet for Rent and Super Extra Grande.
Translated from the Spanish by Lee Klein.
As a woman walking around the city alone at night, it often feels like there's not much you can do if some creep decides to follow you around and harass you. But many women try to find a way to deal with feeling unsafe—to project an aura that will stop the harassment from happening. A brisk and confident step, eyes on the pavement, and a hand in the pocket of your coat, clutching your phone.
To see how women from different countries in Europe deal with street harassment, VICE offices across the continent asked women from 13 cities if and where they feel unsafe alone at night, and how they deal with that feeling.
VICE: Are there places in Paris where you don't feel safe alone at night?
Marie: Mostly in the wealthier Parisian neighborhoods, actually, because the streets are mostly empty at that time and no one will notice if you're attacked. But I have to say taking the tube at night is probably the worst.
Why is that?
Aside from all the general discomfort of being in a closed carriage underground with loads of other people, I've also had some particularly nasty experiences there. One time, while I was waiting on the platform, some guy tried to push me on the tracks. I've had a few pervs on the subway masturbating in front of me and another time this maniac with a razor blade in his bloody hands followed me around.
So how do you deal with that?
I just leave the station when I don't feel safe. It's an ordeal to walk alone at night as a girl. There's always some asshole who makes a comment. Especially if you're wearing heels—the noise they make when you walk attracts creeps.
VICE: Are there any streets or areas in Milan you're afraid to go by yourself at night?
Lidia: I generally don't feel unsafe, but I'm more cautious when I'm in a rougher neighborhood or an isolated suburb where there aren't many people around. Ironically, I've experienced the most harassment in more central and busier areas of the city.
What kind of things happened?
Just a couple of months ago on the train home, a man sitting across from me unzipped his trousers and popped his dick out. That wasn't the first time that happened to me—it was the fourth time, actually. So it didn't exactly shock me, but I did change seats.
Do you think you've become a bit desensitized?
I don't think the fear of something bad happening will ever stop me from walking around at night. But it's very unsettling that so many women go through this on a daily basis—that getting harassed is basically the norm.
VICE: Do you feel safe walking around London on your own at night?
Pria: Usually I do, yeah. I live in East Ham, where it can be a little bit dodgy. So it's sometimes a bit scary—especially at night.
Is there anything you do to make yourself feel safer?
I purposely don't have my headphones on and don't make eye contact. If I'm alone and I see someone coming who makes me uncomfortable I put my phone away and cross the road.
Has anything in particular ever happened to you that put you off walking around alone at night?
I've never had something really bad happen to me in that sense, which is why I'm kind of OK walking around alone. I'm from Derbyshire and I generally feel safer in the little town I'm from, but there's still dodgy people. I sometimes feel safer in London because the streets are busier—if anything does happen, there are more people around.
VICE: Do you feel unsafe in Berlin?
Gisa: I've never seriously feared for my safety. But Berlin does have plenty of areas where I can feel a bit unsafe. I'm often out at strange hours, which means I cross paths with strange people.
Where does that happen?
At Hermannplatz in Neukölln, for example. Some guy followed me around in broad daylight there, spewing sexist shit at me. I think he wasn't quite right in the head.
But that doesn't affect your general feeling of safety?
No, I generally feel safe, especially when I'm riding my bike. I think people should stop being so scared—Berlin isn't as bad as everyone thinks.
VICE: Is there any particular area in Bucharest where you feel unsafe at night?
Elena: I feel unsafe at Saint George's Square at night, which is in the heart of Bucharest. It's weird there, with a lot of abandoned houses and squatters. And something happened there last summer.
What happened?
I was walking to my car there at around 5 PM when some guy jumped me from behind. He grabbed my breasts and my mouth and he violently pulled me back. A guy who was supervising the parking lot came to help me and scared my assailant off. He didn't seem homeless or confused, and if he had just wanted to rob me he would have grabbed my purse instead of my body.
Do you think Bucharest is particularly unsafe for women alone at night?
Well, you frequently have to deal with verbal harassment, but there's also the cultural notion that's like, "What was she doing alone outside at that hour and why was she wearing a skirt?" And next to that, there's this Romanian idea of, "I just slapped her, it's not like I killed her." So street harassment isn't a big thing for people who think like that.
VICE: Do you sometimes feel unsafe while walking home alone at night?
Uda: A lots of the time, not just at night. Men have catcalled me, asked for my number, harassed me.
Is there a particular place in Barcelona where you'd rather not go by yourself?
It's actually worse in places a bit outside of the city of Barcelona—in Badalona or Mataró , for example. There are so many guys living there who have no jobs, nothing to do all day, and just hang around pestering girls who happen to pass by.
Why do you think Spain can be an unsafe place for women alone at night?
It's probably related to machismo culture, which is still very present in Spain. But it depends on the guy, of course. I'm Muslim and I find that there is still a lot of gender inequality among my community. I don't think that has anything to do with religion—it's a cultural issue, a question of upbringing. My father doesn't have a macho mindset at all, but my boyfriend does. He doesn't like seeing me go out on my own or with friends.
VICE: Do you avoid walking around alone at night in certain areas in the city?
Sofija: Yes, I avoid any street that isn't in the center, ones that have no street lights or people in them. Basically any streets that aren't main roads. I suppose we all try to prevent anything bad happening to us.
So how do you get home at night?
I never walk home alone. Either I take a taxi or I sleep over at a friend's or my sister's.
Why?
It can be scary alone if it's dark, and I don't want anything to happen to me. I've heard a lot of stories. I live in the suburbs but I study in Belgrade, and I heard that this girl who always took the same way home as me was raped.
VICE: Is there a particular street in Stockholm you won't go by yourself at night?
Ida: Not really. I don't feel very safe near the Central Station. There's more police there now, but generally a lot of stuff happens there.
Have you experienced anything particularly threatening when you've been out alone at night?
Not really. I've felt pretty vulnerable when I'm on the tube and there aren't many people there. But I usually wear a hoodie and my style is pretty gender neutral, so I'm sometimes mistaken for a dude. I've experienced a lot of aggression by men who assume I'm a guy and want to pick a fight with me.
How do you think you could feel safer?
Being a man would help. Anybody can get jumped or robbed, but there is another dimension of fear that I don't think cis men can ever understand or experience in the same way. And more education on the subject would be a good start, too.
VICE: Is there an area in Vienna you're uncomfortable being by yourself at night?
Anna*: I live in the suburbs, and on Mondays I'm never home before 9 PM. My stop on the railway is usually quite deserted at that time of day—aside from older men, who have been total creeps to me there in the past.
What did they do?
They asked me what I was doing there all by myself, made some crude and inappropriate comments, or sometimes just asked me to come home with them.
What do you do when that happens?
I try to shake them off by walking fast and confidently. If that doesn't work I tell them I don't have time for a chat and am going home alone. Luckily that has always done the trick so far.
VICE: Is there an area in Zurich you try to avoid when you're by yourself at night?
Carmela: I don't like walking down Langstrasse in Zurich's party and red light district at night. I even feel unsafe there during the day. If anything would happen to you in Zurich, it would be there. And I've heard about a lot of things happening in suburbs like Schwamendingen. That just makes me instinctively avoid the area.
Have you experienced anything particularly bad that makes you feel unsafe now?
I've never been involved in a particular incident, no. I've lived in Zurich for 16 years and luckily nothing traumatic ever happened. I guess that's also because I've always lived in areas that are generally pretty safe.
VICE: Are there places or neighborhoods you tend to avoid when you're alone at night?
No, I developed thick skin growing up in Amsterdam. Once, on the train at night, a man sat next to me and started touching me where his hands didn't belong. I yelled at him and he ran to the next carriage. For a little while I sat next to women on the train if I had the choice, but I don't carry the experience around with me any more.
What do you do to avoid being harassed?
Well, one very superficial thing is consider the way you dress. Today I'm dressed pretty boyish and not much happens on the street. That changes when I'm wearing something more feminine.
VICE: Is there a place or a street in Warsaw you're not comfortable walking around alone at night?
When I first arrived in Poland I lived in Żoliborz, in the newer part of . I had to pass a lot of unlit construction sites there, and I often felt like someone was watching or following me.
Why do you think women feel unsafe walking alone?
Women are perceived as being weaker than men. It might be easier to rob or harass a woman because you think she won't fight back. There's a greater chance a man will. After I played a concert in a club with my band once, I was packing up the instruments and, as I lifted one of the cases, the club owner asked me: "Isn't that too heavy for a woman?"
VICE: Is there any street in Athens you're afraid to walk down alone at night?Sofia: Nothing ever happened to me, but I'm afraid to walk by myself. Even when I'm at a friend's I call my brother and ask him to pick me up. It's not a particular street I'm afraid of—just dark, narrow alleys. I never used to go out alone. If I needed to go, let's say, from Ilion to Peristeri, I had to be with someone. It's gotten better now, though.
Where does that come from?
I don't know. You hear things on TV, your parents warn you. My father always tells me not to walk home by myself but call my brother or him. It's how I was raised.
This post originally appeared on VICE UK
Theresa May, Donald Trump, Brexit, an uptick of racism and hate crimes, rising inflation, and increasing property prices. A lot has happened this year that you probably want to forget about, and the traditional way to forget—of course—is to drown your memory in booze, and stifle any remaining thoughts with one or more of your favorite drugs.
But as you might have already surmised, that's not always the best course of action. Dr. Sheri Jacobson, clinical director of Harley Therapy, points out that both drugs and alcohol actually provide a temporary high that, over a long-term basis, keeps the user in a cycle of low moods.
"Alcohol, for example, is a depressant, and it actually messes with the neurotransmitters in your brain, including the one needed to help you keep anxiety at bay," she says. So while drinking is often thought of as a way to "wind down" after a demanding day, in fact it can have quite the opposite effect.
"If you already had any kind of mental health issue, like anxiety or bipolar disorder, substances are likely to make your condition worse, not better," says Dr. Jacobson. "And if you have a genetic risk for a mental disorder, drug or alcohol use gives you a higher chance of developing it."
Drug and alcohol misuse is particularly prevalent in men. In 2014, men accounted for approximately 65 percent of all alcohol-related deaths in the UK, and in 2014-2015, 74 percent of hospital admissions with a primary diagnosis of drug-related mental and behavioral disorders were men. Depression and anxiety are common in individuals with a history of substance abuse, and the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry suggests that one in three adults who abuses drugs or alcohol is also affected by depression.
Male mental health might be more talked about than ever in the media, but last month the charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness released a study from their campaign Time to Change showing that 54 percent of male teenagers suffering from mental health issues chose to keep their problems to themselves. Despite more and more celebrities outing themselves as sufferers of depression and anxiety, and media-run campaigns encouraging men to talk about what's troubling them, many are still keeping things to themselves.
There are, of course, many reasons why that might be. But I'm personally aware of a number of men whose mental health problems have been clouded by pints, drugs, hangovers, and comedowns. Men who haven't been able to address their issues until a period of sobriety-enforced mental clarity. And—anecdotally, at least—I'm aware of this problem stretching beyond my own personal social circle.
Bob Foster, 33, has now been sober for 17 months. Until he took the plunge his typical week "would start off with me feeling very depressed and scared to get out of bed on Monday. I'd have a terrible day dodging emails and being monosyllabic in meetings, then I'd go to the gym in the evening and start feeling just about alright thanks to all those lovely endorphins going to the gym gives you. I'd feel marginally better on Tuesday, hit the gym again, feel almost OK on Wednesday, hit the gym again that evening and then spend all of Thursday waiting until the end of the day to get to the pub. Then I'd stay out until maybe 1 AM or 2 AM, drink and do a load of coke, feel like death at work on Friday and then start drinking immediately after work to stave off the misery, do more coke, stay out 'til 7 AM, sleep all day, then possibly do it again Saturday, but if not just shut myself in my room all of Saturday night and Sunday."
In a routine where drinking and taking drugs marked the separation between the mundane week and the release of the weekend, Bob's mental health began to suffer. "I spent my twenties upping the doses of various antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication, wondering why they never worked," he says. "It never occurred to me that drinking a depressant and snorting stuff that made you paranoid might make me depressed and paranoid."
So how and why did he stop? "It wasn't a single eureka moment; it was cumulative," Bob tells me. "I'd given up for months at a time a few times in my twenties, and I knew that it would make me feel better. I could see a lot of people in my life progressing—getting married and having kids—and I felt like I was still on the bottom rung of life. I actually planned a 'last hurrah': a metal festival in the Midlands that I went to write about for work. I took six grams of cocaine with me and got a load of MDMA there—really went for it. My plan was to create a comedown so bad that I'd never want to take drugs again. I succeeded!"
That crashing comedown was the shove he needed, and after that "it was a total and absolute turnaround in a matter of months."
For London-based yoga teacher and former DJ Marcus Veda, the shift from going to bed at dawn to eventually getting up at the same time was less abrupt. "For ten years I was getting smashed—doing everything and drinking everything, taking everything. It was pure hedonism," he explains.
Like Bob's, Marcus's party lifestyle worked in cycles, muted by the awareness that being healthy was important, too. "When we went on tour, it would be big weekends and then I was always doing the healthy, good stuff in between. I loved sports, gym, and martial arts, so I could always see the good; I just thought that they could co-exist. Which they could, for a while, until I realized I could just get my highs from yoga and from martial arts."
After practicing martial arts for five or so years and slowly becoming more interested in yoga, Marcus began to re-evaluate his lifestyle. "I was questioning towards the end of the drinking, 'Is this really worth it? Is this even fun?' The next day, the hangover would ruin the day and there was never enough time to do anything I wanted to do, and taking off a day every time that happened meant that I was only living half the week. I ended up thinking it wasn't worth it."
During his decade DJing and performing in clubs around the world, Marcus did not experience the kind of depression and anxiety that Bob suffered. Still, he tells me that now his everyday perception of life is very different: "I became much more even. Living for the weekend, like so many people are doing, you're almost on autopilot robot through the week. Now, every day is just the same. I never get down, I don't dread Mondays any more, I don't dread coming down—not necessarily drugs wise, just coming back to the mundane."
For Bob, the change he has seen in his quality of life since going sober is huge.
"For a start I look five years younger than I did, and I lost two stone in the first three months," he says. "The other thing that was almost immediate was my brain function: I swear I'm 50 percent mentally quicker and smarter than I was. I grew up a lot really quickly, too: I wasn't just following my friends to the pub to the detriment of all else; I got more organized, I stopped living essentially like a teenager—no more messy room, no more late for everything. I built a better relationship with my family, I started making progress at work, all those sorts of things. I felt more energetic, I had more money, I got fit, I got happier, I felt at peace for the first time in my adult life."
Of course, giving up drinking or drugs in a culture that revolves around both isn't simple, and there's no guarantee it will have the same kind of benefit to your mental health as it did for Bob.
Addiction, or habits, can be hard to break, as anyone who has ever attempted Dry January will tell you. Luckily, most addictive behaviors come with their own support group, from AA to NA. But as Dr. Sherri advises, "If you find groups intimidating, don't overlook professional one-on-one support. An addictions counselor can offer you unbiased support in an environment you can truly be uncensored in— not always what we get from friends and family, no matter how well-meaning they may be."
"Stop for three months and see how you feel," says Bob when I ask him what advice he would give to men living out their twenties the way he had. "Three months is the point where you can really see how different stuff has become. It's also the hardest point to get to, because you're still super fresh, but I absolutely swear when you get to three months you'll see what all the fuss is about."
If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health, visit the National Alliance on Mental Illness for help.
Follow Bryony Stone on Twitter.
Everything you need to know about the world this morning, curated by VICE.
Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images
CIA Chief Urges Trump to Keep Iran Nuclear Deal
CIA Director John Brennan is warning President-elect Donald Trump not to cancel the US nuclear deal with Iran, as he suggested he would during his campaign. "I think it would be the height of folly if the next administration were to tear up that agreement," said Brennan, who also urged Trump to be "wary of Russian promises."—BBC News
Dozens Arrested During Minimum Wage Day of Action
Thousands of people in cities across the US took part in protests calling for a $15 per hour minimum wage Tuesdday. In Detroit, police arrested dozens for blocking traffic, while in Oakland campaigners shut down an intersection. —AP
Trump Chooses Goldman Sachs Veteran as Treasury Secretary
President-elect Donald Trump has named Steven Mnuchin, his former campaign finance chairman and a Wall Street veteran, as Treasury Secretary. Investor Wilbur Ross, a critic of international free trade pacts, is to become Commerce Secretary. Both appointments require Senate confirmation.—NBC News
Three People Killed in Tennessee Wildfires
At least three people have been killed in the wildfires spreading across parts of eastern Tennessee. Gatlinburg Fire Chief Greg Miller said the death toll may be higher, with emergency workers unable to access all areas affected by the blaze. About 15,000 acres of land have now been ravaged by the flames.—CNN
Thousands of Syrians Flee Eastern Aleppo
As many as 20,000 people have fled eastern Aleppo in the past three days, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Syrian government forces continue to press their attack, sending some inhabitants into districts still held by rebels, and others to west Aleppo, controlled by the government.—Al Jazeera
Plane Crash Probe Begins in Colombia
An investigation into the cause of the plane crash that killed 71 people is underway as Brazilian investigators and Colombian authorities check two black boxes from the crash site. All six of the survivors, including three players from Brazil's Chapecoense soccer team, are being treated in the hospital.—Reuters
German Intelligence Employee Arrested
A German intelligence officer has been arrested for allegedly making Islamist statements and sharing "internal" material online. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfD) said it had uncovered "a suspected Islamist," but said there was no evidence of safety risk to the agency or other employees.—CNN
Colombian Senate Approves Peace Deal with FARC
Colombia's Senate has approved a revised peace deal between the government and the FARC rebel group. The peace accord now moves to the lower house of Congress for endorsement. An initial deal was rejected by voters in a referendum last month, but president Juan Manuel Santos says the new deal is stronger.—BBC News
Al Gore Wants to Scrap the Electoral College
Former VP Al Gore wants the popular vote to decide general elections, saying the Electoral College system "should be eliminated." Gore won the popular vote in the disputed 2000 election.—NBC News
'Hamilton' Takes Broadway Sales Record
Despite calls for a boycott from Donald Trump supporters, Hamilton has broken Broadway's weekly sales record, taking $3.3 million over seven days. The production surpassed Wicked, which earned $3.2 million in a single week.—USA Today
Canadian Cops to Punish Drunk Drivers with Nickelback
Police in Kensington, Canada, have announced that drunk driving offenses will be punishable by forced exposure to Nickelback. On top of fines and criminal charges, the police service promised to play Nickelback "in the cruiser on the way to jail." – Noisey
Activists Want Internet Archive Protected from Trump
The Internet Archive, a US-based nonprofit that stores web content, is planning to open an "Internet Archive of Canada" in case a Donald Trump presidency ushers in new restrictions. The group is seeking "millions" to pay for staff and server space.—Motherboard
Lawyers Sue Police on Behalf of Standing Rock Protestors
A lawsuit has been filed against law enforcement agencies on behalf of the North Dakota Pipeline protesters injured in clashes with police. The Water Protector Legal Collective said they suffered "head wounds, eye trauma, and internal bleeding."—Broadly
Our culture values hard work above all else. We're told over and over again that if we just grind away, get shit done and don't waste time that eventually we'll experience the joys of wealth and success.
But as we all know, that is bullshit. Basically everyone I know works until their fingers are raw, yet still don't have enough to scrape together to get a bag of chips at the bar on Friday afternoon—whereas there are loads of people who get thousands and thousands of dollars for doing fuck all.
I tracked down some people who have received a shit ton of money without doing any actual work, to find out how you can get rich without having a job.
VICE: What's your story, Dan?
Dan: Basically, I started saving money when I was a little kid. I was non-consumerist, growing up with grunge—like, why would I buy anything? I was thinking about that when I was six years old, so it's always been a part of me. I would go to school and my mom would give me six dollars for lunch, and I would have a small lunch and save one dollar or something. Or birthday gifts: I would save away these pennies, quarters, dollars, and never really spent much money. So by the time I got to be like 22 or so I had about $2,000—15 years of having no job doesn't get you much, but enough. I'm not interested in money or interest, which is fortunate for me. I'd tried to understand the stock market—look at it, hear about it, even tried to make a fake portfolio—but I never gave a shit. Then I thought, The only way I'm gonna figure this out is if I put some skin in the game. I like to do things that are morally justifiable—I wasn't gonna be investing in Exxon or anything like that.
Sure. Fuck those guys.
At that time I was living in Japan. We got all these subscriptions to English-speaking magazines like The Economist, Time, and things like that. And on the cover of this one Time was the first iPhone. It was before it had come out. It's probably the first product Apple have announced before they were going to sell it. It was six months or ten months before it came out, and I was reading it thinking, This is great. I'd always used Apple products because my dad is in the art and advertising industry, and I spoke to my friend Amir and he said, "This is going to redefine what a phone is." So all these things culminated and I called up my dad—who is great with this sort of stuff—and had him set up a brokerage account. Then thought, I'm gonna put two-thirds of the $2,000 into Google and one-third into Apple. My dad said, "I like your ideas, I like what you're thinking, you've done good analysis into them—but Apple produces stuff other than intellectual property. So why don't you flip that?"
Already I am seeing how I would not be able to do this. But your dad sounds smart.
Yeah, and this was 2006 or 2007, something like that. So I ended up doing that. So I got into stocks, started following them. A good rule of thumb for investing is 10 percent return per year is a really good, solid investment. My Apple investment, including dividends, has gone up over 1,000 percent. So it's averaged over 100 percent a year. So that $2,000 has turned into $30,000 or more, or something like that. That's astronomically more than anybody could expect.
What has it enabled you to do?
Travel. I don't want to have no money. If I didn't have the investment I'd be working more. I've invested more in Apple, too. Also, as a doctor, it has enabled me to work my hours and jobs that I want to work.
Who is your next scoop, then, for people wanting to make big money? Who gives you that Apple feeling?
That's tricky, because right now it's a world of start-ups. So these companies are massively over-valued. The best thing is personal experience. If you see something amazing that you really like, that your friends really like, which isn't everywhere yet, invest in that. Those are the advantages that you as an individual have. You need to try and see what other people don't see. Saying that, I still say Apple is a solid investment: it's under-valued for what it is, makes loads of money, pays a good dividends rate... but it's not going to have that exponential growth ever again.
VICE: Can you describe what happened to you, your initial reactions, and how you felt about the whole thing.
Mary: It was November, 1994, and the second ever National Lottery draw, so everyone was buying tickets but no one really knew how it worked. My husband bought a ticket with a line for each member of the family and he made up the numbers in a random way. We thought it was just a good way to contribute to the good causes and never thought for a second we would win much over a tenner.
For this reason, we never watched the big Saturday night show, but our kids were full of enthusiasm, and we were at a friend's home having dinner when they asked if they could check the numbers. After a while they burst in saying, "We've won some money!" But we were pretty much dampening their expectations. Then when we checked, we discovered that we had five numbers and the bonus ball. Still having no real idea of the value of the win, we phoned the lottery hotline and were staggered to discover that it was a considerable sum.
We called all our friends, told them to come over and bought every bottle of fizzy wine in the liquor store and partied for a long while. Then followed a tense Sunday where we were terrified that we would mislay the ticket before Monday, when we went to the Camelot local office where they gave us a check. They offered financial advice and counseling, but we elected to be anonymous so no begging letters came.
In what ways has the sum impacted on your life?
It was enough money to be life-changing, without being enough to give up work and travel the world or buy fancy cars. We bought our house with the largest amount, paid off our credit cards and overdraft, bought a modest car for me, went on vacation to Africa and New Zealand and gave a bit away here and there.
So how much did you win?
Over £200,000
And how long did it last?
We made all the major purchases within a couple of years, but some of them were investments.
What was the biggest difference between your life before and after the win?
We were like most other people who have families, in that we were always close to overdraft at the end of every month. That changed. Moving house was a big change, but we always tried to keep our home life and the way we lived much as it had been. We were not really any cash richer after we won, so we still had to save to go on vacation, buy the kids cars, and so on.
Finally, Mary, do you still play the lottery?
My husband Paul still plays as part of a syndicate of guys, and they win enough to be able to go out for a drink now and again.
VICE: What happened to you, Jonathan?
Jonathan: I was 15 years old and a few weeks away from getting my braces off after two years of that shit. I was walking my girlfriend home and there was a large group of about 15 lads down the road, roughly the same age. As we got nearer they crossed the road and approached us, basically encircling us and accusing me of "chatting shit about them." I knew a few of them from school and they thought I was cool, so I managed to calm it down. But then we got about a minute further up the road when three of them came jogging up and start getting loud again. One of them was right up in my face and his friend sucker punched me out of nowhere, straight in the teeth. Pretty much as soon as he hit me they all just turned and ran away.
Next thing I know I'm in an ambulance, and I really clearly remember trying to answer the paramedics' questions, but not being able to because my teeth were all fucked up. They took a look in my mouth and I'll never forget the woman's reaction, just sheer, "oh holy fuck" horror. Then she said: "If you hadn't had braces when he hit you, your teeth would have been on the floor." Not so great an evening.
That sounds nasty.
It was all pretty horrible for a while and really fucked me up, but luckily they saved my teeth and the police arrived on the scene and quickly apprehended the dude who punched me. Because he was convicted of GBH I found out I was entitled to Criminal Injuries Compensation, which I didn't even know existed.
That's so horrible to hear. What did you get awarded?
I think I was awarded about £3,800 in the end.
What did that money enable you to do?
I was actually really bloody sensible with it. I took about £200 on buying and insuring my first car. Looking back, I spent pretty much all of it on furthering a career I love, which is nice.
How do you look back on what happened now?
Honestly, I was pretty damaged for a long time after. About five months into college I saw my attacker on the campus and found out he was studying there, too. I was really quite depressed and suffered social anxiety, which I must admit wasn't great.
This may sound bad, but was it worth it?
Asking me ten years after it happened, I'm like: yes. That money has helped in a lot of ways. But if you'd asked me a few years after it happened, I would have probably have told you to fuck off and die. I was a pretty angsty teen.
VICE: So Olly, you were born into wealth, as it were. What is your family's story?
Olly: My dad has always been into business—some of my earliest memories include those of him going away to Hong Kong for weeks at a time. He began trading on his dad's market stall at age 16, owned his first house by 18, has since had the role of commercial director for multiple large-scale companies before landing where he is currently, running his own businesses.
How has this had an impact on you?
It wasn't until now, by reflecting on my past, that I truly realize what had been at my disposal. We lived in a five-bedroom house with a swimming pool, an actual full-on home cinema, I had my own soundproof recording studio and rehearsal room, and we had too many cars for the four garages we owned. It felt like I was always witnessing unconscious spending of money left, right, and center on things that I always considered to be completely pointless—disgustingly expensive watches, designer clothes, the latest gadgets and technology. Since living away from my parents, it has become very clear to me that I have not missed one aspect of what some people might call "living the dream." While having access to these pleasures might seem like the perfect life, it was in fact far from it.
Did you feel a pressure to be successful?
I always put pressure on myself to be successful, not because I wanted to re-live my childhood as an adult or wipe my ass with 24-carat toilet paper, but because I wanted to fulfill my dream of being a professional musician. My dad would always encourage me to do whichever option resulted in the most potential financial gain, but I'd always convince myself there were better ways of doing things. I finally had the guts to move out two years ago, and have not had a relationship with my dad in this time. Since moving out and now living in a quaint little cottage in a village with my girlfriend and kitty cat, I have learned not to measure success by how much money you earn, but by how happy you are with your life. Money won't buy you a smile, but a smile sure can make you feel like a million bucks.
Yeah, but, you know, it did provide you with a massive safety blanket and presumably made you feel freer in your ambitions?
While the main point I'm trying to make here is that you don't need money to be able to do what you love and be successful at it, it is of course undeniable that money is still extremely important. Yes, I could still play guitar and be with my girlfriend if I lived in a cardboard box at the side of the road, but where am I going to boil the water for the coffee I can't even afford? I've been working full-time for about 80 percent of this year, and even though I've been paid fairly for it I can't deny that I have needed to borrow money. The amount required simply to administer the application process to rent our cottage was well over what I could afford at the time, and so at moments like those where time was not of the virtue, I was extremely grateful to my mom for helping make it possible.
How would you be a different person if you weren't born into the situation you were?
It's incredibly difficult to know. So much of what makes someone them is to do with the people they meet at school and their interests. Would I still be passionate about music if it hadn't been played to me on a stupidly expensive hi-fi from a young age? Almost definitely. Would I be more driven to be financially successful if I'd not been exposed to money from a young age? Almost definitely not.
My life so far has been all about discovery, and while there are still things to be discovered, I feel pretty lucky to have experienced success in happiness at such a young age, and I may not have noticed how happy I could be if I'd not experienced the aggravation money can bring to your family.
I feel like I'm already living the life of someone who wasn't born into the same situation as me. I've put my old life of swimming in the yard and eating out at pricey restaurants four nights a week behind me, and now make music in my rented cottage, in my little home studio—which is really a spare bedroom—with my cat, and I could not be happier.
*Some names have been changed.
Follow Oobah Butler on Twitter.
