Wednesday, May 31, 2017
'BONG APPÉTIT' Throws a Cannabis-Infused Cuban Dinner Party
On a new episode of VICELAND's BONG APPÉTIT, Abdullah Saeed learns how to roll a blunt with a Cuban cigar before sampling the country's finest cuisine—which, of course, he infuses with a little THC. Chef Melissa Fernandez handles the recipes, and Abdullah and Ry focus on getting everyone at the party blazed.
BONG APPÉTIT airs Wednesdays at 10:30 PM on VICELAND.
Want to know if you get VICELAND? Head here to find out how to tune in.
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Minorities Are Still More Likely to Be Stopped by the NYPD
Ever since the New York Police Department's controversial stop-and-frisk policy was ruled unconstitutional back in 2013, the city's been trying to shrink the number of stops officers make and avoid disproportionately targeting people of color. Now a new report suggests the department's made some significant progress over the last couple years by cutting down on reported street stops, but it's still stopping racial minorities more than whites.
The report, released Tuesday by a court-appointed monitor, looked at the number of reported stops from 2013 to 2015, the New York Times reports. It found that the number of total stops citywide had dropped by more than 95 percent—from roughly 191,000 in 2013 to about 22,000 in 2015. Plus, the department became more efficient by stopping fewer innocent people and only more people only suspected of committing serious crimes.
But the NYPD is still disproportionately targeting racial minorities. Although the report found the racial disparity in stops was "trending in the right direction," cops still stopped to search blacks and Hispanics more than any other racial group.
Over that three year period, the proportion of blacks stopped by NYPD officers remained relatively steady at about 53 percent, while Hispanics accounted for roughly 29 percent of stops. Whites accounted for just 11 percent. Additionally, the report found blacks and Hispanics were more likely to be subjected to force than their white and non-Hispanic counterparts.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)—a plaintiff in the case that wound up deeming stop-and-frisk unconstitutional—issued a press release stating that though "some progress has been made," the results of the report aren't great.
"The severe racial disparities in who gets stopped persist," the CRR wrote. "The NYPD still has much work to do to end racial bias in its stop-and-frisk practices.
For advocates like the Communities United for Police Reform (CUPR), however, the results of the report don't represent meaningful change.
"[They] only serve to uphold what is far more than a tale, but a reality of two cities," CUPR told the New York Daily News. "New Yorkers have vastly different experiences with policing determined by their race."
Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.
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Demetri Martin Hated High School as Much as You Did
In Early Works, we talk to artists young and old about the jobs and life experiences that led them to their current moment. Today, it's actor and stand-up comedian Demetri Martin, whose directorial debut Dean is out this Friday in theaters.
When I was 11 years old, my first job was skewering shish kebab at my family's Greek food stand at the Jersey Shore boardwalk. It was a summer job held against my will, and I had to work in the basement of our little food stand with my grandfather. My next job was working at my family's diner throughout high school. I hated every minute of those jobs, but it certainly instilled in me that the customer's always right. I often have to eat out, so I'm a pretty good tipper because I know how hard food service jobs are. It's real work, and it gave me empathy and compassion for people who are doing that.
If there's anything that I resent when I look back, it's that I wasn't given a choice. I wanted to work at the Gap at the mall—I had some friends who worked at the mall—but my family was like, "You're going to make more money at the diner. You get tips and you can eat whatever you want." But they didn't understand how important it is to feel like you have some control over your life and ownership of what you're doing. There's not much about my family I can complain about—I had a pretty good childhood, my parents had a great relationship, they loved me—but if I'm going to nitpick, stuff like that pissed me off.
I was also told that I wasn't a good worker and that I was slow, and I still resent that. I do think I'm a hard worker, but within my immigrant clan, I wasn't considered fast—and you had to be fast. "C'mon, we've got to turnover here, you know breakfast is busy on Sunday morning. You've got to bus the tables faster!" Uncle Johnny would always give me shit about it. I'm old enough now to know that that's bullshit, but it's not like I can go back and tell them that. People have passed away. It's over. I missed my chance to prove it to them.
My first passion as a kid was breakdancing, but I loved skateboarding, too. Over the years, I had three halfpipes in my backyard—I'd build one and skate it for a while with my friends, we'd take it down, and we'd build a different one. I dreamt about skateboarding, and I wasn't a great skater, but it gave me something to be a part of where I wasn't a complete nerd. I was on the math and physics teams, but I'm not a very coordinated person—I'm not muscular, I've got a skinny neck and a big nose, so high school wasn't a great time for me.
At the Jersey Shore, if you're not good at team sports, you're just a useless piece of shit. I was pretty happy to leave. I haven't been back in a while, and I'm sure it's changed more than I even know, but something that's interesting to me about New Jersey is that New York and Philly are two big cultural magnets on either side of the state. The folks who live in a certain radius from New York still get access to the culture in New York, and for people in Camden, Philly is a good barometer for sports. The Jersey Shore's equidistant to both places, so it's got its own weird culture.
One of the bad things about where I'm from is that there are some people who aren't just ignorant—they're stubbornly proud of it. It's a badge for them. If you get out and do something else, that's a problem for those folks. I always envied North Jersey, because they had access to the city and it seemed like there was plenty of people who had more ambition.
I don't want to shit on the Jersey Shore, because there's so many great people down there, and I didn't have a bad childhood. But it did piss me off when I got older and met people from other cities who were like, "You could be in the school play and on a sports team." My high school was still stuck in 1955. It was very oppressive. But the nice thing about Jersey is that it's no bullshit. I never felt like I didn't know where I stood with someone. People said what they meant.
When I visited Yale with my family, I was like, "I'd love to go here." I was even fantasizing about the Yale sweatshirts. I applied early and I got in. I was genuinely surprised, and I had a really good time there. But even though those gothic buildings looked so beautiful in pictures, they were cold. We had space heaters because there was no insulation, and we had mice all over. Having traveled and performed at a lot of colleges, I would've loved to go to Berkeley. But I have no regrets, except for that I just know too much now.
I wanted to go to law school since I was in seventh grade. I was getting good grades, but I knew I couldn't be a doctor. People know pretty early that they can do that kind of work, and I was like, "I can't do it." All the way through college, I was like, "Law, law, law." Then, two months into law school, I felt, "This isn't for me. This sucks." I didn't know what to do because I really hadn't thought of any other plan. I applied for a White House internship and I got it, so I was an intern in the Clinton White House in the summer of 1996. But then I realized it wasn't for me.
I went back to law school for the second year, which was a real crisis. I remember asking myself, "If I didn't have to worry about money, what would I do, and how would I get money for doing it?" I liked comedy, but there was no improv and no internet. It was a different culture for comedy. Now, I'm amazed—I go to colleges and there's standup clubs, everybody's doing improv, there's different chapters of UCB. I don't know if that's better or worse. Because I'm grateful that comedy was such uncharted territory for me. It was hard, but I said, "Alright. I want to do standup, and I'm going to do it now or I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life." So I left law school, got temp jobs during the day, and did standup during the night. I bombed regularly and made no money for years. Eventually, I found my way in, and now I look back and I'm like, "Oh, I'm so glad I did that."
What's cool about comedy is that there are a lot of different ways you can have a job. A simple piece of advice that has been useful to me is that whatever job you want, you have to make it work on your own. When I had a TV series and I was hiring writers, I realized how important it is to have samples of your writing and write stuff on spec. When I was coming up, I didn't think about that—I just thought, "I'm a funny person. I'll meet with them, tell them what I want to do, and maybe they can watch a clip of my stand-up." The other thing I'd say is that I find I make good stuff if I make a lot of stuff. If I'm too precious, it doesn't work. I've got to write five shitty jokes to get to the good one. Then, another good one will appear and I'm like, "OK, cool." I try not to worry too much about it.
Follow Larry Fitzmaurice on Twitter.
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A Cop Just Got Charged with Murder for Killing a Mentally-Ill Woman
Sergeant Hugh Barry, the NYPD supervisor who fatally shot a mentally ill woman in her Bronx apartment last October, was arrested on Wednesday, the New York Times reports.
Barry's arrest follows a months-long investigation into the death of 66-year-old Deborah Danner, who was shot by police after they received calls from a neighbor complaining about disturbing behavior. Barry said he acted in self defense—that Danner had swung a baseball bat at the him after previously brandishing scissors, an account the NYPD initially seemed to buy. But both the mayor and the police commissioner have since said the cop did not follow proper protocol, and should have used his Taser or waited for a specialized unit to help.
"It should never have happened," Mayor Bill de Blasio said after the shooting. "The NYPD's job is to protect life."
The eight-year police veteran was quickly stripped of his badge and placed on reduced duty after the incident, and Darcel Clark, the Bronx district attorney, began an investigation into the case. On Wednesday, Clark's spokeswoman said Barry was being indicted. He's since been suspended from the force, and charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter, and criminally negligent homicide, according to one police official.
"It is important to determine exactly what happened in this tragic incident," Clark said back in December. "There is no timetable for the grand jury to be impaneled or for it to reach a determination."
Predictably, the president of the Sergeant's Benevolent Association (SBA)—the union representing Barry—lammed the decision.
"The fact is that Sgt. Barry did everything right," SBA President Ed Mullins said. "He was well within his rights to take the action that he did, even though it was the last thing he—or any police officer—would ever want to do."
Barry was scheduled to appear in court at 3 PM on Wednesday. Regardless of how his case plays out, he is already one of the very few cops to be charged with murder in connection with the killing of a civilian in American history.
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The Latest Korean Missile Frenzy Is Another Step Toward Actual War
It's been a busy week for missile activity in and around North Korea. On Monday local time, the Hermit Kingdom test-launched a scud missile that crash-landed in Japanese water, leading that country's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to promise "concrete action with the United States" in response. A little over a day later, the Pentagon announced the US had intercepted a fake intercontinental ballistic missile with a defensive projectile launched from California—a step toward a system that theoretically could help avert catastrophe in the future. Also on Tuesday, South Korean President Moon Jae-In announced that the US brought four more Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile launchers into his country than he expected—and that he was launching an investigation into why he and his own military (not to mention his most crucial ally) weren't on the same page.
It's easy to look at all these headlines and just conclude: "Korea+Missiles=Impending WWIII." Ever since President Trump promised in April that the North Korea problem "will be taken care of," it has seemed increasingly plausible that something terrible might happen in one of the world's more volatile regions. But these were really three developments in three distinct trends: North Korea's 2017 missile test bonanza, the lack of a reliable American defensive shield against ICBMs targeting the United States, and South Korea's apprehension about hosting the THAAD system—something that turns local towns into potential North Korean targets, but may have no tangible benefit for the South Korean people.
To help parse these developments, I got in touch with Rodger Baker, who leads Asia Pacific research at the military think tank Stratfor. He put all this news in perspective, beginning with the fact that—taken in a vacuum—nothing that has happened so far this week is necessarily a big deal. Then again, taken as a whole, the implications could be pretty scary.
VICE: OK, broad strokes, what was North Korea up to with this latest missile test?
Rodger Baker: The North Korean test appears to have been aimed at improving their MaRV [Maneuverable Reentry Vehicle—basically a guided warhead] capability, something they have been working on all year. It is one of several important technological hurdles they still need to overcome to demonstrate their long-range ballistic missile capability, but each small step is a step in that direction.
And the US interception of a fake ICBM—what happened there?
The US hit was another example of incremental improvements in a system that has yet to be tested in earnest. So far the track record is not all that stellar, but each move toward increased effectiveness, coupled with layered missile defense, does give the United States slightly more confidence in being able to counter a stray imperfect North Korean missile. Still a lot of testing to go, though.
And what's with South Korea's President being so mad about the extra THAAD missile launchers in his country all of a sudden? Shouldn't he be into that?
In Seoul, Moon's professed anger at not being briefed on the total number of launchers in each THAAD battery may be a way for him to demonstrate to his constituents that he is still paying attention to the issue, while also finding some way to perhaps move to restrict or reduce the THAAD without directly confronting the United States. It is a piece of the very difficult balance he must walk between the United States, China, his own constituents and the very real security of South Korea.
Sounds like you're saying it's a political maneuver. How do the Korean people read this as political news?
THAAD is being characterized as a manipulation by the USA and the previous South Korean government—that they snuck in THAAD without proper discussions in Parliament, without proper environmental tests, basically snuck it in quickly to leave it as a fait accompli for the new [more liberal] government. That plays into the sense in South Korea that the conservative factions don't listen to the people, are too tied to what the US wants, and are bent on driving Korea toward conflict. Politically, this characterization by Moon may play well.
VICE News Tonight was in North Korea during a recent missile test:
Are South Korea's critics of US policy right ? Does any of this mean conflict is imminent?
It is, perhaps, the way in which the number of incidents are beginning to converge, to increase in frequency, that may be drawing us nearer to a conflict in Korea.
So what's next for the US as far as missile defense?
Missile Defense must be 100 percent perfect to be a true deterrent, or give complete confidence to take action while fearing little response. The US is far from that moment.
What challenges are still ahead for North Korea if the US is closing in on a missile defense system?
It does emphasize the need to do more than show they can launch a missile. They must show guidance, perhaps play around with multiple warheads, or simply build a large number of missiles to overwhelm the defense system—think of the test earlier this year of several simultaneous missile launches. From Pyongyang's perspective, this is a race for regime survival. If the North Koreans believe the plot to assassinate Kim that they have discussed all month, then there is even more pressure to accelerate the program.
And in your opinion, is the US really considering war?
The United States is not backing down on the military threat, and is even deploying another aircraft carrier to the region. There is still a lot to overcome from Japan and South Korea, not to mention China, before the US decides to act militarily. But if Washington believes that the North regime is weak, that there is rising opposition to Kim Jong-Un—based on recent defections—then perhaps they may shift their calculation of the cost of military intervention.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
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The Immigrant Crackdown Is a Cash Cow for Private Prisons
Earlier this month Daniel Ragsdale, the second-in-command at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), confirmed he will be leaving his position to work at GEO Group, the nation's second-largest private prison company.
"While you may be losing me as a colleague, please know that I will continue to be a strong advocate for you and your mission," said Ragsdale in a farewell email to his ICE colleagues.
He's certainly not going far—GEO operates immigrant detention centers and will likely compete for a contract to run a new facility that will house up to 9,500 undocumented immigrants. (It was just given renewals on two existing contracts, to the tune of $664 million.) Ragsdale isn't the first to go from ICE to GEO, but his move underscored the close relationship between the federal agency tasked with detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants and the private prison industry that helps house those detained immigrants. As of last year, more than two-thirds of immigrant detainees were housed in private facilities.
"Daniel Ragsdale's move to GEO is another shameful example of the revolving door that exists between the federal agencies issuing lucrative immigration detention and prison contracts and the private prison companies receiving them," said a statement from Mary Small, policy director of Detention Watch Network, a national coalition of organizations fighting for immigration detention reform.
"This is a standard tactic for both CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America) and GEO," said Carl Takei, a lawyer working for the ACLU's Prison Project, referring to two largest private prisons companies in the US. "They both hire from federal and state agencies that they are also seeking contacts with."
Watch the Broadly documentary on a prison beauty pageant in Brazil:
Contracts from ICE could be especially important because the US prison population has declined recently as harsh sentences, especially for nonviolent drug offenders, have become unfashionable.
"GEO group and other major companies have understood that criminal justice is not a growth area," said Nazgol Ghandnoosh, a research analyst at the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice reform nonprofit. "Immigration detention is something these companies are focusing on."
GEO began contracting with ICE in the mid 80s, when the immigration detention system was a fraction of the size it is today. Then came the toughening of immigration laws in the mid 1990s, which greatly expanded mandatory detention of noncitizens pending their immigration proceedings. After 9//11, border security and visa screening became a priority for the federal government, resulting in the creation of ICE in 2003. Today the US immigrant detention system holds more than 400,000 people every year, with ICE overseeing an expansive network of more than 250 facilities, according to a reportby the Center for American Progress. For the 2017 budget, ICE requested $2.2 billion to maintain these facilities; the number of people taken into custody by the agency has risen to over 40,000 people per day.
ICE has also increasingly outsourced detention to private companies. In 2005, 25 percent of immigrants in ICE custody were in facilities operated by private prison companies. By 2009, that number was 49 percent and today it is 73 percent, according to a report by the Detention Watch Network. And GEO Group holds more immigrant detainees than any other private prison company.
Related: The Nervous Immigrant's Guide to Getting Through Customs
A 2016 Justice Department report found that private prisons were more likely to have rule violations than government-run facilities, confirming what advocates have long said about private prisons being cruel and inhumane.
"Private prisons are a recipe for abuse and neglect," said Carl Takei. "We have seen over and over again in terms of incidences of violence, understaffing, and medical neglect."
Adrian Hernandez Garay, who spent 35 months at the Big Spring Correctional Institution, a GEO facility in Texas, told me that he was fed beans and rice seven days a week, a symptom of routine mistreatment.
"The conditions inside were very bad. The facilities were old. The guards were poorly trained. If you got sick all they would just give you Tylenol and tell you to get back to your cell," said Garay, who spoke with me through a translator from his home in Juarez, Mexico.
Garay previously served time at multiple detention centers for illegal re-entry into the US and described the conditions at the GEO facility as "far worse" than the other detentions centers he had been inside. (I reached out to Big Spring for comment and was referred to the GEO press office, who did not respond to my questions about the facility.)
The kinds of abuses described by Garay are not isolated. A recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center foundwidespread abuse and neglect in immigrant detention centers in six southern states.
But the Trump administration so far has shown no desire to reform this system, and instead will likely expand it.
GEO's hiring of Daniel Ragsdale is, according to Takei, a simple attempt to attain more lucrative contracts. "ICE is a cash cow for these businesses," said Takei.
"They take the expertise they have working for the ICE and use that to lobby for even greater increases in their share of this system of mass detention," said Bethany Carson, an immigration policy researcher at Grassroots Leadership, an organization working to abolish for-profit private prisons, jails, and detention centers.
GEO routinely seeks to influence the federal government via lobbyists like Brian Ballard, who fundraised for Trump, and a pair of former aides to Jeff Sessions, now the attorney general. (Sessions recently rescinded the Obama administration directive to phase out private contacts in the federal prisons system.) GEO also allegedly gave $225,000 to a pro-Trump group, which would have been illegal since federal contractors aren't permitted to make political contributions.
GEO maintains that it does not lobby directly to effect policy. "As a matter of longstanding policy our company does not advocate for or against specific criminal justice, sentencing or immigration policies" said Pablo Paez, a company spokesperson, in an emailed statement. However the company has clearly allied itself with Trump, whose draconian policies on crime and illegal immigration seem designed to increase the prison population. (Private prison company stocks skyrocketed after the election.) GEO and CoreCivic also support individual policies that would keep more bodies behind bars; a GEO lobbyist recently wrote a bill in Texas that would make it easier to keep detained immigrant children in the same facilities as their parents.
Crucially, these lobbying efforts help keep in place the the controversial immigrant detention bed quota, which requires ICE to maintain and pay for at least 31,000 beds at all times The arbitrary quota has been described by the the Center for Constitutional Rights as a primary driver of an immigrant detention—it also improves assures private prison companies that there will always be a need for their facilities.
This is the result of such a close relationship between private prison companies and the government that hires them—are policies like the bed quota just cynically designed to make these businesses money?
"When you have a situation where there is a mandate whose only benefit is the bottom line of specific companies you have to ask the question," said Florida Democratic Congressman Ted Deutch, who has fought to end the detention bed mandate.
"We have a policy that requires that tens of thousand of people being rounded up every day," he added. "It does not make the country any safer. It does exactly the opposite, in the most inhumane way, and it only benefits one group."
Follow Samuel Gilbert on Twitter.
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Using a Blowtorch to Rob an ATM Apparently Doesn't Work
Stealing from ATMs is not exactly easy money. Plenty of people have unsuccessfully tried to crack open that hard metal exterior and get the delicious nugget of cash inside, but few succeed.
Dragging the machine behind a pickup doesn't work, drilling up through the bottom doesn't either, and now we can add one more failed strategy to the list: attempting to bore into an ATM using a blowtorch.
According to Q13 Fox, some would-be crooks in Washington State tried that on Tuesday and wound up turning the whole cache of cash into ash.
Everett, Washington, police officer Aaron Snell told Q13 that cops and firefighters showed up at Coastal Community Bank to find its outdoor ATM sporting a pretty bad burn. The thieves had apparently pulled a Qui-Gon with a blowtorch to get at the machine's cash box, but lit all the bills on fire instead, fleeing without any money.
Coastal Community's COO, John Dickson, told Q13 that some masked thieves had just recently tried unsuccessfully to rob the bank's cash deposit box, suggesting that maybe the same cooks came back to give it another go. Police are planning to review the bank's security cameras to hopefully identify the suspects.
In the meantime, the failed thieves should read up on some tricks of the trade from more successful ATM crooks.
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Queer Indonesians Are Being Arrested Under a Vague Anti-Porn Law
This article originally appeared on VICE Indonesia.
When United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart tried to rein in the courts' inconsistent definitions of obscenity and pornography, he famously skirted an attempt to provide a concrete definition of what's obscene and instead declared "I know it when I see it."
Today, 53 years later and some 16,000 kilometers away, the same battle is playing out in Indonesia in a very different way. The country decided to implement laws banning the possession, distribution, and production of pornography in 2008 after much heated debate. But Indonesian lawmakers also included provisions outlawing pornoaksi ("porn action," in English) in the bill, deciding to clamp down any "actions deemed indecent."
But how, critics asked, do you define indecency? The bill's pornoaksi clause opened the door to the prosecution of anything deemed indecent by officials, including, but not limited to, strip clubs, miniskirts, and traditional dances. Indonesian authorities seem to "know it when they see it," and "see it everywhere" too.
Especially when it comes to the country's increasingly persecuted LGBTQ community. In late May, Jakarta Police raided a gay sauna in the neighborhood of Kelapa Gading, arresting 141 men and charging at least ten under the anti-pornography law. The reason? "There were gay people who were caught strip-teasing and masturbating on the scene," Jakarta police spokesman Raden Argo Yuwono told BBC Indonesia.
It was a similar story earlier in the month when police in Surabaya raided a so-called "gay party" being held in two hotel rooms. They arrested 14 men, charging eight with violation of the pornography law after officers caught the men engaging in "deviant sexual acts" and watching gay porn.
Local police told reporters that the raids were the first of their kind in the city, whose population is 6.4 million people.
"This is the first time we've enforced the law and arrested gay people in the city," Shinto Silitonga, Surabaya police's head of detectives, told Agence France-Presse.
The increasingly wide reach of the pornography law—especially in raids targeting the LGBTQ community—is raising concerns among legal experts and human rights groups about the state's creeping reach into private matters and closed-door activities between consenting adults.
"Indonesian police are again violating the basic rights of LGBT people by invading their privacy," Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said after one raid. "The Surabaya raid subjected these gay men to traumatic humiliation, puts two at risk of long prison terms, and threatens the privacy rights of all Indonesians."
Homosexuality is only illegal in Indonesia's conservative Aceh province, where authorities are allowed to enforce their own version of Sharia law. Nationally, there are no laws criminalizing homosexuality, sodomy, or lesbian sex. Instead, authorities are using the pornography law to prosecute those detained in these raids—charging gay men with a penalty that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
"There's an effort to marginalize people, those with certain sexual orientations seen as deviant," Muhammad Isnur, the chairman of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute Foundation (YLBHI), told VICE. "That's exactly what we're criticizing. Regarding the arrest of the homosexuals in Kelapa Gading, there's something odd about the arrest and the laws being used."
Amnesty International has urged the central government to re-address the long-standing concerns with the pornography law and put a stop to the raids of hotels, underground gay clubs, saunas, and private residences.
"The Indonesian government must revise its pornography laws so that they cannot be misused in this way," said Josef Benedict, Amnesty International's deputy director of campaigns. "Rather than peddling blatantly homophobic rhetoric, the authorities should focus [their] efforts on creating a safer, inclusive environment for the LGBT community in the long term."
The Constitutional Court ruled against efforts to overturn the bill in 2010, deciding that the definition of pornography as basically anything that was disseminated "through various mass media or public displays that can arouse sexual desires and/or violate public moral values," was clear enough.
The court's lone female judge, Maria Farida Indrati, offered the dissenting opinion, stating that "the law could lead to public judgments among the people because of different definitions of the term 'pornography.'"
A legal expert likened the pornography bill's unparalleled reach to that of a totalitarian state at the time of the Constitutional Court challenge. Airlangga University lecturer Jeoni Arianto argued that the law was "a clear attempt to standardize the moral values of our society. But one's morality depends on their values and culture and therefore it's impossible to set a sweeping generalization when it comes to it."
It's a debate that continues today. The pornography bill is still vaguely worded and open to interpretation, making it ripe for misuse or overreach by authorities reacting to a rise in public pressure to crack down on certain individuals deemed a threat to the nation's morality.
Without a redrafting of the law or its outright repeal, these questions about the role of the state in private lives will, in all likelihood, continue to haunt the country, explained Asep Komarudin, head of the research division at the Jakarta Legal Aid Network (LBH).
"The pornography law still doesn't have a strict definition," Komarudin told VICE. "Its implementation is also very subjective and susceptible of being misused. It's still up for debate today whether private lives should be subject to criminalization."
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DC Police Arrested a Trump Hotel Guest Who Had an Assault Rifle in His Car
On Wednesday, police in DC arrested a man in his room at the Trump International Hotel after they allegedly spotted an unlicensed AR-15 assault rifle lying in plain view inside his car, the Washington Post reports.
The 43-year-old Pennsylvanian man, Bryan Moles, was staying at the Trump hotel, just down the street from both the White House and Capitol building. DC police had been tipped off that Moles was packing the weapons in his car, and after he valeted it at the hotel, officers spotted the AR-15 through the car's windows.
When they searched the rest of the vehicle, they discovered a Glock handgun in the glove compartment and a cache of assorted ammunition. Authorities then arrested Moles at his hotel room and later charged him with carrying firearms and ammo without a license.
According to ABC 7, Moles told police that he is a US veteran and Trump supporter. But a statement from the Trump Hotel alleges that Moles was "behaving suspiciously," and a DC police spokesman said they had received information from another law enforcement agency that Moles had "made threatening remarks." There are no specifics yet about what the remarks or suspicious behavior entailed.
After the incident, the Secret Service released a statement saying that at no time were any protectees "at risk."
"This investigation is still new and ongoing," Special Agent Brian Ebert said in the statement.
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Someone Blew Up a 7-Eleven Microwave Trying to Warm Urine
Weed may be legal in Oregon, but that doesn't mean every employer in the state is down with their staff getting ripped on the job like they're Joe Rogan. Drug tests are still a thing, which means that the need for clean urine to pass a drug test is still a thing, too.
According to police in Beaverton, Oregon, that classic quest for drug-free pee led to an explosion and subsequent evacuation of a 7-Eleven convenience store, KATU reports.
On Tuesday, authorities were called to the store because the staff had noticed that something strange exploded in the microwave people usually use for their taquitos or whatever. Worried it could be some kind of bomb, the police department sent out its explosives unit to investigate.
But when the team opened up the microwave, they found a urine sample inside wrapped in a hand warmer. Apparently the pee cup's owner wasn't satisfied with it's temperature, and decided to zap whole thing in the store's microwave.
"It appears that whoever was on his/her way to do a drug test did not feel that it was warm enough," police spokesman Mike Rowe said in a press release. "The chemical makeup of the hand warmer did not agree with the microwave and exploded."
Whoever caused the explosion is still at large, and probably anxiously searching for another sample of clean pee. Maybe next time they'll just tape a condom full of urine to the inside of their leg, like normal people do.
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US Intercepts Test Missile Over Pacific Ocean
The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency has successfully tested a long-range missile interceptor for the first time. An interceptor was fired from a site in California, destroying a dummy intercontinental ballistic missile fired from the Marshall Islands over the Pacific. Without naming North Korea or any other potential aggressor, Vice Admiral Jim Syring said it "demonstrates that we have a capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat."—The Washington Post
Flynn Will Reportedly Hand Over (Some) Subpoenaed Documents
Michael Flynn, President Trump's former national security adviser, has agreed to give the Senate intelligence committee at least some documents related to its Russia investigation, according to a source close to the retired general. He had appealed to the Fifth Amendment when documents were subpoenaed earlier this month, but is apparently now ready to hand over business and personal info, with the first set of docs expected by June 6.—CNN
Kathy Griffin Begs Forgiveness for Trump Beheading Pic
Comedian Kathy Griffin has apologized for a photo in which she posed with a mocked-up severed head of President Trump, admitting she went "way too far." Following a barrage of criticism from figures on the left and right, Griffin posted a video apology: "The image is too disturbing, I understand how it offends people. It wasn't funny, I get it… I beg for your forgiveness."—USA Today
Ivanka Trump Shoe Factory Investigators Arrested, Missing
A man investigating labor conditions at a Chinese factory producing Ivanka Trump-branded shoes has been arrested, according to his wife. Two other investigators working with Hua Haifeng have also gone missing, according to the New York-based nonprofit China Labor Watch. "They must be held either by the factory or the police to be unreachable," said executive director Li Qiang.—AP
International News
At Least 80 Dead, Hundreds Injured in Kabul Bomb Attack
At least 80 people have been killed and hundreds more injured in a tanker truck bomb attack near Zanbaq Square in the Afghan capital of Kabul. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes during the holy month of Ramadan.—VICE News
UN Warns Yemen Faces 'Total' Collapse
The head of the United Nation's humanitarian agency has warned that war-torn Yemen faces a state of "total social, economic, and institutional collapse." Stephen O'Brien said the people of Yemen "are being subjected to deprivation, disease and death as the world watches." According to the UN, roughly 18.8 million people in the country need humanitarian aid.—BBC News
South Korea to Investigate New THAAD Launchers
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has ordered an investigation at the country's defense ministry after it was revealed four new rocket launchers were deployed at the US military's THAAD anti-missile system site without his office's knowledge. His spokesperson said the ministry had "intentionally dropped" any mention of the four launchers, an omission Moon apparently described as "very shocking."—Reuters
Russia Fires Cruise Missiles on ISIS from the Mediterranean
Russia fired a series of cruise missiles at ISIS targets in Syria on Wednesday from warships positioned in the Mediterranean Sea, according to the country's defense ministry. The strikes are said to have successfully hit ISIS fighters and equipment in or near the city of Palmyra.—CNN
Everything Else
Ariana Grande to Return to Manchester for Benefit Show
Ariana Grande has announced she will return to Manchester this weekend to play a benefit show for the city alongside Coldplay, Katy Perry, Usher, and Miley Cyrus. All proceeds from Sunday's "One Love Manchester" concert will go to the victims and families affected by the May 22 attack.—Noisey
#Covfefe Trending on Twitter
The apparent typo "covfefe" was trending early Wednesday morning after President Trump tweeted it around midnight. "Despite the constant negative press covfefe," he wrote, to much mirth and confusion.—VICE News
LCD Soundsystem Finish New Album
James Murphy has revealed LCD Soundsystem is finished its new album, promising to get it released as soon as possible. "Six weeks is the very fastest, I think, but it will likely be longer than that," Murphy wrote in a Facebook post.—Rolling Stone
Nas Brands Trump a Racist
Rap legend Nas has dismissed President Trump as a "racist" in an open letter addressing politics. "We all know a racist is in office," he wrote, accusing Trump of sending "a strong message to people outside of your group that they ain't worth shit."—Mass Appeal
Old Video Shows Trump Aide Joking About Torture
A video of presidential aide Stephen Miller filmed around 2003 shows him calling torture "a celebration of life and human dignity." It was apparently filmed when Miller was high-school age. A White House spokesperson said it was a "sketch comedy routine."—VICE News
Uber Fires Engineer at Center of Google Lawsuit
Uber has fired Anthony Levandowski, head of the company's automated driving project. The engineer is at the center of a lawsuit Google filed alleging Levandowski stole confidential documents when he left the company.—VICE News
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Trump Is Reportedly Pulling Out of the Paris Climate Change Pact
Despite receiving the pope's entire encyclical on climate change last week, President Donald Trump is planning to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Change agreement, Axios reports.
Under the agreement, which was reached in 2015 with President Obama, 200 countries pledged to reduce their fossil fuel emissions to combat global warming. According to Reuters, the US was aiming to reduce its emissions by 26 to 28 percent by 2025. If the country turns its back on the pact, it could prompt other major carbon-emitting nations to pull out as well, which could potentially unravel the entire deal.
It's not clear how Trump plans to pull the country out of the agreement, but he said Wednesday that he'd be announcing his decision "over the next few days." Two sources with knowledge of the decision told Axios that a small White House team is currently weighing whether or not to make a clean break from the accord, which could take three years, or just exit the UN climate change treaty it's built on. EPA head Scott Pruitt, who has a history of climate change skepticism and working for the interests of fossil fuel companies, is reportedly working with that team.
However, the move isn't all that surprising coming from a president who has likened climate change to a Chinese "hoax" and promised to "cancel" the comprehensive agreement during the campaign. As president he's already decided to roll back some of Obama's environmental achievements—like the Clean Power Plan. This move would send a clear signal to the rest of the world about where America's domestic interests lie and how the administration views the potential global threat associated with climate change.
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Trump Confuses the Internet with Angry Tweet About 'Covfefe'
Shortly after midnight Wednesday, Donald Trump took to Twitter to address his 31 million followers. His message? "Despite the constant negative press covfefe." The mysterious message was given no explanation or correction in the six hours it remained up on the president's account. Before being deleted, it had been retweeted 126,000 times and liked over 160,000 times.
No one really knows what Trump was trying to say. Did he fall asleep mid-tweet? Did he quickly hide the phone under a cushion when he was caught tweeting by an aide? Or did the message have some deeper meaning we all missed? Whatever the truth, the internet reacted just as you would expect. The tweet became a meme in record time, and the jokes kept going long after Trump deleted the message.
Continue reading on VICE News.
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Liberals Need to Get Ready for a World Without Trump
Just a few months into his presidency, Donald Trump has done wonders for the progressive movement. Anti-Trumpism has generated an unprecedented nationwide outpouring of anger, resistance, and mobilization. Protests and marches have attracted crowds in the hundreds of thousands. Calls have flooded congressional offices. Grassroots organizations are multiplying, and more Democratic women are running for office than ever before. Most of these actions are responses to specific issues—the Women's March and the March for Science come to mind—but it's not hard to view fear and contempt of Trump as the motivating factor underlying everything.
And that could be a problem for Democrats.
Even as the party's base and legislators begins to unify around the idea that this erratic president should be impeached and removed as soon as possible, progressives ought to start thinking about what a post-Trump landscape might look like—and what principals unite them beyond the urge to drive their foe out of the White House.
Any Republican president would encounter resistance, but Trump offends progressives' sensibilities in a way other Republicans don't. Many consider him vulgar, narcissistic, and self-serving, a pathological liar who seems unprepared for, even incurious about, the office he's holding. He brazenly flouts ethics laws. The rationale to see him ousted is understandable on some level: Everyone, from Bernie Sanders supporters to more moderate Democrats to a faction of breakaway conservatives to a good chunk of the media, would love to see Trump fail.
The good news for them Trump is notoriously erratic, and his administration's lack of discipline and experience is both stalling its agenda and making Trump's removal more likely.
But if progressives get their wish and Vice President Mike Pence takes over, those distractions aren't likely to endure. Policy differences between moderate and conservative Republicans might persist under a Pence presidency, but without the daily breaking news of scandal to distract them, the right would have more space to iron out their differences with a president who understands how Congress works.
Watch: British people are betting on impeachment
I reached out to three large progressive organizations in the country to get their read on whether their leaders thought progressive activism has become too closely aligned with anti-Trumpism, and whether they are thinking about a world after Trump.
Charles Chamberlain is the executive director of Democracy for America, a group that has called for impeachment. "Calling on the House to start impeachment hearings and remove Trump from office isn't a partisan political strategy, it's a moral imperative to protect the foundations of democracy and prove that even the president isn't above the law," he told me.
He added that removal, when it comes, would be an unambiguous defeat not just for Trump but the whole GOP: "When Trump resigns or is impeached, whatever Republican administration replaces him will be a badly wounded lame duck president unable to accomplish anything against a relentless resistance that won't give up until the Republicans who supported his extreme policies are swept out of office."
Ben Wikler, the Washington director of MoveOn.org—another pro-impeachment liberal group—echoed Chamberlain's optimism: "If you look at polling, the number of Republicans who strongly support Trump is small and shrinking, and so right now, I don't anticipate that Trump will engender greater enthusiasm on the Republican side, so you wind up with a progressive movement that continues to surge with fighting spirit and a deflated conservative movement, which is a recipe for a landslide on our side."
"We need to have an alternative aside from 'we don't like trump' or 'vote for us, we're not in league with Russia.'"
Both Wikler and Chamberlain also pointed out that the battle over the Republicans' American Health Care Act was about policy, not just Trump. That view was echoed by Ezra Levin, co-executive Director of Indivisible. "The reaction to Trumpcare was a reaction to the House bill," he said. "In the event that we would have some other president who was pushing these policies, I think we would see similar pushback."
Still, Levin conceded that progressives did need to come up with a game plan. "I do think there is a need for a bold progressive vision for the future. We need to have an alternative aside from 'we don't like trump' or 'vote for us, we're not in league with Russia.' You know, that's not enough… I think it's going to be pretty clear when folks are running this year in the special elections and next year in the midterms."
Complicating any efforts to assemble a vision is the multifaceted scandal over Russia's efforts to influence the 2016 election, Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, and any wrongdoing by current or former White House officials. Seemingly every day brings fresh news about these issues, and they rightly alarm many progressives.
But alarming headlines in the Washington Post and the New York Times haven't done anything to change the minds of Trump's voters. His approval rating remains stubbornly high among Republicans, a fact that likely confounds liberals far more than conservatives. And by 46-38 percent, more voters in a recent Politico poll are against starting impeachment hearings than for them.
Related: This Short, Terrifying Book Explains How the West Could Collapse
The Russia affair also means the media is spending little time focusing on other issues which may be of great concern to progressives. Case in point: just this past week, Trump essentially killed Dodd-Frank, effectively gutting Barack Obama's signature attempt at Wall Street reform. In another week, under a different president, this would have been much bigger news.
One danger of focusing so much ire on a single personality—even one as deserving of contempt as Trump—is that once that person is defeated, or even neutered, the anger may dissipate, or become much harder to harness. Progressive organizations might find that without Trump to kick around, some of their less committed members might think the battle has been won, when in fact it may just be beginning.
Another problem of anti-Trumpism is that there's no proof it wins election. Just ask Hillary Clinton, whose campaign is remembered far more for its unrelenting anti-Trump message than it is for a governing vision based on policy. A surprising statistic about Trump's election is that voters may have been less duped by his cult of personality than many liberals would like to think. A great deal of Trump supporters were turned off by him personally and voted for him anyway. Even if Trump's actions eventually sink his presidency, that won't necessarily bring progressives back to power.
The question for progressives isn't whether to push for impeachment—it's about what happens after that.
Will Democrats be ready to lead the country with a clear vision for the future, or will we again see the kind of intraparty squabbling between the Bernie Sanders and Clinton wings that so dominated the primaries, the same kind of divide between centrists and hard-liners that is currently plaguing the Republicans?
For now, however, Democrats are stuck in reactive mode, with little option but to push back. Until the midterms—18 months away, which might as well be an eternity—the party isn't going to be able to do much of anything beyond protest, fundraise, and dream.
"The hard truth is that right now, at the federal level, progressives don't have the House, Senate or presidency," Levin told me. "What we have is the power to respond, and quite frankly, what we're responding to is an awful, regressive, often racist or misogynistic agenda that this administration and Congress is pushing. We hope that in the not too distant future we'll be able to set the agenda again, but that's not where advocates on the ground are right now. It's just not where our power lies."
Eric Sasson is the author of Margins of Tolerance and the forthcoming novel Admissions . He is a regular contributor to The New Republic and GOOD magazine. Follow him on Twitter and visit his website.
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Tuesday, May 30, 2017
What It's Like to Come Home from the Jungle
On the season finale of JUNGLETOWN, a number of interns prepare to leave Kalu Yala as their semester of work has come to a close. Many leaving the Panamanian jungle have resolved to bring what they've learned abroad back with them to the States, and after tearful goodbyes, we find out how they're readjusting to life away from paradise.
JUNGLETOWN airs Tuesdays at 10 PM on VICELAND.
Want to know if you get VICELAND? Head here to find out how to tune in.
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Hollywood Still Has No Idea How to Resist Trump
A good rule of thumb in these dire political times, or actually, in any sorts of times: Don't take a picture of you grasping onto a replica of the president's head, covered in fake blood, a maneuver soon to be known as a "Kathy Griffin." Get a load of this:
On Tuesday, TMZ published pictures from the comedian's latest publicity stunt, immediately triggering a wave of outrage from conservative media outlets. Newsbusters wrote that the comedian is "channeling ISIS"; the Daily Caller reminded us of her ties to CNN, which I imagine will soon resemble the head she's holding: severed.
Even if you hate Trump, this is bad—I obviously don't need to explain why. Can you imagine what would've happened if a conservative celebrity would've done a similar photoshoot with Barack Obama's head? (Donald Trump Jr. was one of many right wingers making this point on Twitter.) Trump might be the worst president ever, but joking about murdering him doesn't do the resistance, or anyone at all, any favors. Instead, it gives the right more ammunition for their fantasies about a leftist movement that's equally as violent as the alt-right.
This is unfortunately typical of Hollywood "activism"—ignorant, misguided political statements that generate more publicity for the celebrities speaking out than whatever noble cause they're supposedly fighting for. Whether it's Chelsea Handler opining on the virtues of a Mike Pence presidency or Lena Dunham's painfully bad resistance poem, anti-Trump celebrities have a bad habit of reminding us that conservatives aren't wrong about Hollywood elites being out of touch with the American people.
Even Meryl Streep's Golden Globes speech, where she spoke out against Trump mocking a disabled reporter and bullying in general, missed the mark. Nothing Streep said was wrong, but we're beyond the point where milquetoast celebrity slacktivism will come off as profound or even interesting. In our nightmare world of social media, it's not hard or particularly remarkable to say the president is bad. Celebrities speaking out about politics doesn't hold the currency it once did—maybe that's why Griffin felt pressured to up the ante. But in a country beset by income inequality, it's understandably hard to be moved to action by a rich famous person saying "Trump bad." Especially when they tend to do it in the most obnoxious way possible.
There are of course, exceptions. Jimmy Kimmel recently made a poignant and important argument about the effects of the Republican healthcare bill on his show by discussing his newborn son's heart condition, and the human cost of allowing health insurance companies to charge more to those with preexisting conditions. The reason Kimmel's argument was so effective is because he wasn't dunking on Trump's complexion or implicitly endorsing a bloody assassination. Kimmel was talking about things that affect Americans who had less money—and therefore less access to medical care—than people like him.
Holding up a facsimile of the president's severed head is gross and shocking, but it's also an empty gesture, a trite undergrad art project. All it does is let conservatives paint anyone who doesn't like Trump as violent and deranged as Griffin.
Follow Eve Peyser on Twitter.
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'Behemoth' Shines a Light on the Horrific Lives of Mongolian Coal Miners
Over the last 24 years, Zhao Liang's cemented himself as one of the foremost artistic activists of the modern era. His work puts him in conversation with contemporary figures like Ai Weiwei, who similarly hails from China and creates work that pushes against the country's tightening restrictions. Born in 1971, Liang's films manage to capture the full breadth of a rapidly changing world, often reaching across the border that divides centuries—his film Farewell To Yuanmingyuan was filmed in 1995, only to be completed over a decade later in 2006.
As a filmmaker working in a country with challenging censorship policy—he's worked in Beijing since graduating Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in 1992—his films have come under fire for their attempt to confront the country's national schizophrenia: an industrial revolution marred by continuing limits on its social revolution. His 2009 documentary Petition tackles China's legal system and was banned after premiering at Cannes.
His newest film, Behemoth, which screened in competition at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival, is both his most confrontational and abstract work yet, taking on the structure of documentary and tone poem. Inspired loosely by Dante's Divine Comedy, Behemoth chronicles the horrific working conditions of the modern Mongolian coal miner, juxtaposing the micro suffering of the people at the helm against the macro effect on the country's natural landscape. It's a powerful declaration of China's corrupt practices, and it's also Liang's masterpiece.
We spoke to him about his process, China's notorious ghost towns, and his doubts about whether artists can actually change the world.
VICE: What attracted you to Inner Mongolia?
Zhao Liang: When I was doing research to prepare this film, I traveled through Inner Mongolia and was astounded by the colossal scale of open-pit mining. The beautiful Inner Mongolian grassland is often described as "heaven" in our folk songs, while in my impression, many places have turned into a living hell due to the mineral mining and oil explorations. I was shocked by those mines.
Can you talk about the production process?
It took me roughly one year to do the research on the environment and Chinese real estate, and the filming itself took a year and a half. I went through most parts of China to investigate local environmental conditions: Xinjiang, Tibet, Yunnan, as well as along the Yangtze River and Yellow River.
One of the most fascinating portions of the film is the third act, which takes place in the "ghost city" of Erdos. Did you know this city before the production?
Due to interest in rich minerals and the rapid economic development of this area, private miners amassed great wealth in a short time. So Erdos has been a well-known "ghost city" for many years. During the real estate boom, everyone here wanted to develop new buildings with artificially inflated prices in order to attract property investments, but Erdos, located in a desert area, is sparsely populated with an already saturated housing market, so few outsiders purchased houses here for investment.
How many cities like Erdos exist in China?
A conservative estimate would be no fewer than a hundred. Basically, every single second- or third-tier city has its own "ghost town." My hometown, with a population fewer than one million, also has a huge-scale "ghost town"—it just built a new residential area that could accommodate 400,000 people, while the occupancy rate now is less than one percent. Under the government's aegis, these urban development projects were funded by public financing and bank loans.
The shots of these high rises are some of the film's most bizarre and dreamlike. What purpose do they serve for the Chinese government?
This phenomenon stems from the bureaucracy. In order to reach higher office, every official needs astonishing achievements in their tenure. This includes building new infrastructure that looks glorious but are constructed blindly without considering the actual market demand. When construction is complete and the leadership have their own "beautiful" achievements, they get promotions and leave without having to deal with those unsold houses. At the same time, bad bank debts have brought about enormous potential risks.
You are very close to the group of people you shot in the film. How did you maintain emotional intimacy with them?
The filming subjects I chose are people I like. I told them about my purpose for the film. A director should always treat their subjects with honesty and sincerity. There is an old Chinese saying: "Friendships between men of virtue should be as light as water." I think it is necessary to establish a healthy relationship between the subject and the cinematographer in filming. I didn't intend to keep a distance from protagonists. I've made friends with them in daily life.
Behemoth is almost a work of photography. Did you intend to blur the lines between photography and cinema?
From the perspective of aesthetics, I prefer the sense of time slowly flowing in stasis. I don't like the tension rendered by montage. The naturally flowing changes within the image are more powerful to me. You use your own vision and hearing to feel poetic meaning. I tried to present things that merely "look very beautiful" in a minimalistic way so the viewer can discover the ugly truth for themselves.
Has your relationship with the Chinese government changed? How was the film released in China?
The concept of "government" is incredibly abstract. I have never thought about having any relationship to such a hollow word. "Government" is really a pile of buildings where some people work inside. Their jobs include banning my film, yet we even don't know each other. Because of fear, they prevented the film from meeting an audience. I think if I privately communicated with every person in these buildings through my film, I'm afraid they all would agree with my viewpoint. What divides us is not different values, but that our eyes have been shielded. Despite some small-scale private screenings like in bars or bookstores owned by cinephiles, the film has been prohibited in mainland China.
As a film director who attempts to discover the truth and record the country, how do you see the future trajectory of China?
The future of China is not isolated from the rest of the world. Economic globalization ties all countries together. The only truly meaningful progress is whether China can do a better job in civil rights and education, although the flaws of the current administrative system must be solved first. Otherwise, reform measures are only palliatives, which cannot change the passive situation radically.
In a previous interview, you said that you don't believe that art can make a difference to society. Why do you think so? What kind of role artists play today?
Artists always expect their works to have certain social values or meanings. I would not deny the existence of this, but I'm disappointed that my works have had little value or function in society. It might be a personal feeling of loss, since they can't be viewed by my people. An artwork that no one has seen is equal to being nonexistent. It may also be my sort of protest. We could barely see any hope in our current world, and it will probably become worse in the future. Our art mostly plays the role of a voucher. Our artists are creating capital or playing the clowns in capital chains. It is a spiritless age.
Behemoth is now available to rent and watch on VOD.
Follow Rod Bastanmehr on Twitter.
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This Robo Pastor Wants to Save Your Soul
Someone might have already translated the entire Bible in emoji, but now some Protestants in Wittenberg, Germany, have made it easier than ever to receive the digital word of God by creating their very own robo pastor, the Guardian reports.
To celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, a local church unveiled the BlessU-2, a cyborg pastor that can deliver a blessing in five different languages. It's important to note BlessU-2 isn't equipped with AI technology, so it interacts with people through its touchscreen torso. Once the user selects the language and gender of the bot's voice, its eyes start wobbling and its hands rise to the heavens as it bestows the word of God. It can even print out a copy of the blessing, too.
Stephan Krebs, a member of the church who helped make the robot, said the idea behind the BlessU-2 was to "bring a theological perspective to a machine" and spark a conversation about technology's role within Christianity.
"The idea is to provoke debate," Krebs told the Guardian. "People from the street are curious, amused, and interested. They are really taken with it, and are very positive. But inside the church some people think we want to replace human pastors with machines. Those that are church-oriented are more critical."
Krebs assured the Guardian pastors won't be another casualty of the robot revolution, and he wasn't interested in automating church work. Instead, he and his colleagues are gathering info on how people interact with the bot to further analyze it. But who knows—maybe robot church leaders are our future, or maybe HBO will just cast one as Jude Law's replacement in the Cyborg Pope.
Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.
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All Victims Should Be ‘Ideal Victims’
Whenever young black men are killed by the state, their lives get put on trial. The lens through which America views these men often harkens back to the same nasty stereotypes of inherent criminality that have been around since the days of slavery. This perspective helps justify the grossly unequal way in which police violence is meted out to blacks across the country. Grieving relatives not only have to face the Kafkaesque nightmare of getting justice from the same system that struck their kin down, they also have to argue in the public sphere for their slain 's very humanity.
We saw this in the death of 15-year-old Jordan Edwards, who was shot in the head by white police officer Roy Oliver as he sat in the passenger seat of a car last month. Police initially alleged that the vehicle was backing up toward "officers in an aggressive manner," a story proven wrong when body cam footage showed the car was actually moving away from them. Even with strong evidence that Edwards's rights were fatally violated (Oliver has since been fired and charged with murder), a family friend was left to argue that he's worthy of justice: "He was not a thug. This shouldn't happen to him," Chris Cano said. So in defending a dead black child in America, it's still necessary to refute their assumed criminality while vouching for their right to be alive.
But not everyone faces the same challenge when they become the target of a crime. In 1986, criminologist Nils Christie published a piece examining what he called the "ideal victim." In short, his theory tries to tease out the types of victims most likely to draw sympathy from the broader public. By Christie's logic, an old lady who is attacked by a drug user while on her way home from caring for her sister will get more sympathy than a young man who gets into a bar brawl with a friend. "Society's responses to different types of victims," Christie writes, "also show that victims must have power and visibility if they are to gain legitimacy as victims."
The very concept of an "ideal victim" is a serious paradox in a country that at least claims to be all about equal protection under the law. Because of entrenched racism, I recently found myself wondering if this rarefied status is ever attainable for black men who endure police brutality. For some perspective, I called up Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, an associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Here's what we talked about.
VICE: What do you make of the idea that there is such a thing as an "ideal victim" in America?
Gloria J. Browne-Marshall: It seems like the ideal victim theory has a certain kind of bias that anybody could be ideal. Ideal based on what? What would be the criteria? Too often that fits into socio-economic, demographic, regional [characteristics]—all those things fall into what's "ideal."
Then when we get to the next word, "victim," you talk about who is the victim and to what degree have they been victimized. We've been wrestling with this issue in college rape [cases]: "What was she wearing? Why was she at the party? How much did she have to drink?" When you start thinking about this ideal victim, too often you have a gender bias, you have a culture bias, and you have all these other biases.
So this concept is dependent on who's applying it?
Definitely. Usually, it's going to be a construct that has a bias toward a group in power, because that group is going to create the definition. When you look at the burden of proof, somebody is coming into this from the majority, stating that they have fewer sins than somebody else. And nobody is as big and as bad and as important as the majority, so no one can force them to look at their sins. The ideal victim is going to be somebody who the majority chooses—before we have a crime, they're already seen as innocent and other people are already seen as guilty.
What purpose or whose interest does the concept of the "ideal victim" serve?
This [phenomenon] takes the weight off of who is presumably the person who's done bad and who is more innocent among the two. Here's one of the ideas that comes to me: You have police officers shooting unarmed black men, but a black man is someone who's seen as [criminal]. So they could be shot in the back while running away and still not be seen as the "ideal victim." In many people's mind, "They must've done something," because they are black and male.
WATCH: The Struggle Between Police and Protesters in Ferguson, MO
If an African-American male is shot, regardless of circumstance, is he excluded from being the "ideal victim"?
Not excluded, but it's the degree of inclusion. Some people, based on the majority viewpoint, are always ideal victims until they're proven otherwise. I'll give you a great example: When you have something like a school shooting in Connecticut and people would say, "How could this happen here?" You get this question all of the time when it comes to this middle-class neighborhood. The idea here is bad things are supposed to happen to certain people. When you have the "ideal victim" on one hand, you have this assumption that bad things are supposed to happen to certain people on the other hand.
How do you think more recent cases like Jordan Edwards fit into the theory?
There's this idea of respectability—you have the assumption that some people are already respectable, and then you have to create respectability for people of color, the poor, and immigrants. One way to create that respectability has been to say they're in school, they're getting good grades, and—just like with Michael Brown—they're going to college. So life by itself has no value and has no respectability, and you have to figure out what will bring respectability to it. That's the assumed burden that's connected to the poor, connected to people of color, and connected to people who're outliers in our community.
Who or what are some other examples of this?
Alberta Spruill. She was in her apartment when police knocked down her door at 6 AM in the morning. She's a government employee working for the city. They say there's a drug deal going on there, and she has a heart attack and dies. Many people still don't see her as an ideal victim. She's minding her own business, police open up the wrong door, and she's not seen as an ideal victim? She was in her 50s just getting ready to go to work.
Yeah. People don't look at her the same way they look at other older women.
Right. And when you go to Jordan Edwards, you see something similar. Once again, people go, "OK, but what was he really doing?" There are too many instances where the facts are gruesome and horrendous, [but they don't matter]. Obviously, it's all part of an oppressive government that cares very little about people of color. In situations where if you just change the person—make it a white 12-year-old boy—your mind can't even wrap your mind around it, because that white boy would be the ideal victim.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Follow Brian Josephs on Twitter .
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The Officer Who Shot Tamir Rice Just Got Fired for Lying
The Cleveland police officer who killed Tamir Rice was fired, but not for killing Tamir Rice.
Timothy Loehmann, the officer who fatally shot the 12-year-old boy in 2014 will be terminated for providing false information on his job application and omitting information about an "emotional breakdown" during a state qualification course, the Cleveland Police Department announced Tuesday.
The killing of Rice, who was playing with a toy pellet gun in a Cleveland park helped ignite the Black Lives Matter movement and fueled protests across the country.
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Why Your Brain Craves Cigarettes When You Drink
You know the feeling. You're two, maybe three drinks in, and you suddenly get a special hunger. It's like a void that you hadn't noticed, and now you want to fill it with something hot. Something so hot and filthy that you'll regret it when it's over, but oh god I spend my whole life not doing things I'll regret, just give me this one goddam thing. Please.
And the strangest part of all this is that you don't smoke. Or rarely. In fact, you can go weeks without smoking. But then you mix in some alcohol and all your nicotine circuits come online.
So what's going on? Why is your brain doing this?
According to Dr. John Dani, a neuroscientist, and expert on the mechanisms of addiction from the University of Pennsylvania, the urge to smoke is two-pronged. The first part results from the way nicotine affects memory, but the other is in how nicotine combines with alcohol to reduce dopamine levels. Together the two mechanisms make cigarettes seem delicious.
Let's break that down a little more. Firstly, with the effects on memory.
In 2009, Dr. Dani's team published a study examining how nicotine supercharges the formation of memory pathways. What they did was run laboratory mice through two compartments in a pen. In one compartment the mice received a dose of harmless saline, while in the other they received a dose of nicotine. Unsurprisingly the mice quickly learned to spend more time in the nicotine compartment. But what's really interesting is the affect the nicotine had on their brains.
"Compared to injections of saline, nicotine strengthened neuronal connections, sometimes up to 200 percent," explained Dr. Dani. "And this strengthening of connections underlies new memory formation. We found that nicotine could strengthen neuronal synaptic connections only when the so-called reward centers sent a dopamine signal. And that was the critical process in creating the memory associations."
So on the one hand, the study just underlined something we already knew: Feel-good activities make us want to do them again. But on the other, it showed on a neurological level how our memories of smoking cigarettes get hardwired into the brain. And more importantly, how all these associated memories—such as drinking and hanging with friends—all get bundled into these same, nicotine-reinforced memory pathways.
"I remember recently finishing an experiment with a colleague and we went to a bar," explained Dr. Dani. "I had known him for many years and never knew he smoked, but then he admitted he could really go for a cigarette. He said he hadn't smoked in 20 years, not since high school. But now he has a few drinks and feels the urge to smoke."
So that's one reason you want a cigarette with your beer, but there's another. And again it involves Dr. Dani's rodent experiments.
It's been known for a long time that, taken separately, alcohol and nicotine bolster dopamine in the brain. Because of this, Dr. Dani and his team theorized that if nicotine and alcohol were consumed together levels of dopamine would rise even higher. But it turned out the opposite was true. While rats that had been dosed with nicotine were shown to consume more alcohol, their dopamine levels actually flatlined.
Surprised, Dr. Dani and his team repeated the entire experiment. But they got the same results. After a lot of head-scratching, they realized the combination of nicotine and alcohol was actually initiating a release of stress hormones that stopped the release of dopamine. Or in more simple terms: Drinks and cigarettes will make you happy if consumed separately. But together, they'll make you less happy.
So the reason people keep smoking and drinking is to regain that happiness. Theoretically, it's a cycle that starts when alcohol dredges up those positive memories of smoking. But then smoking a cigarette, after drinking, drops your levels of dopamine. So there's again an urge to drink more to recuperate levels of happiness-inducing dopamine, and the cycle starts over.
According to Dr. Dani, this hypothesis is consistent with other observations around smoking and drinking. As he says, "I was inspired by some work from Norway that showed one of the biggest predictors if someone is going to be picked up drink-driving is whether or not they smoked when they were young."
But none of this answers the biggest question of all—will having a cigarette with your beer kill you? As always the answer comes in some pretty uncertain probability stats. So instead Dr. Dani gave us some more facts about social smokers.
"What you're describing is called a 'chipper'—somebody who doesn't smoke very often but will under certain circumstances," he says. "And what I'd recommend is that you just don't. Because it's really, really common for that habit to slide into regular use. And then it'll be really hard to give up."
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We Got Eight Experts to Guess How Long Trump Has Left
Seemingly every day, some all-caps "BREAKING NEWS" materializes about the Trump team's supposed connections to Russia and the widening investigations it has spawned. Last week for instance, the public learned that Donald Trump's senior adviser/son-in-law Jared Kushner is one focus of the FBI investigation; Kushner also reportedly made attempts with disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn to communicate with the Kremlin late last year. More than a dozen Democratic legislators have publicly entertained the idea of impeaching Trump over something connected to the Russia-Flynn affair, and some Republicans have criticized Trump over Kushner-gate as well as Trump's weirdly timed firing of FBI Director James Comey.
Polls have found that between 38 percent and 48 percent of Americans want Trump impeached. Whatever the public's will, that process would have to be initiated by a Republican-controlled Congress, which is obviously unlikely, and no president has ever been removed from office through impeachment—but you kind of have to wonder if Trump will be the first. It's impossible to watch the constant parade of lies, leaks, gaffes, and strategic blunders without being skeptical about Trump's odds of staying in the White House for the full term.
I have no idea how or when or if this will all come tumbling down. So I asked eight people who might have a better idea—all have knowledge of the US political process, elections, and constitutional law.
Here's what they told me:
Mary Dudziak
Emory University Professor of Law and president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations
When will Trump leave? As early as the end of 2017, and most likely before the end of his term.
"I would not be surprised if he resigned before 2017 was over—but he might also limp along past the midterm elections. It's hard to know whether he would listen to leaders of his party if he'd lost the ability to be effective, in the way Nixon did. Trump's political effectiveness is declining at a more rapid pace than Nixon's did."
Richard E. Berg-Andersson
Researcher, The Green Papers, a site that monitors and tracks primary elections
When will Trump leave? Ten to 14 months after an inciting incident (but nothing has happened yet that fits the bill).
"[The cases of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton] suggest a 'lead time' of about a year (give or take) between [an] impeachable offense first being taken seriously and actual formal impeachment proceedings. I will not here suggest a specific date for an early end to the Trump presidency, should Impeachment become a viable option; instead, I will merely suggest that one is looking at, say, some ten to 14 months after Impeachment becomes politically serious before just such an ending."
Mickey Edwards
Former Republican Congressman from Oklahoma
When will Trump leave? The end of his term
"The best way to get an accurate count of the number of chickens one has is if one waits until they've completed the hatching process. It's obvious that the president has done things that are, to use his terminology, big league bad. Dumb. Harmful. But premium-grade stupidity, on which Donald Trump has pretty well cornered the market, is not always illegal. Undoing the results of a national election is a pretty big step, and unless the various ongoing investigations manage to prove actual criminality, there's a better than even chance that we won't be able to get rid of this painful cyst on our system until this entire four-year term has played out."
Josh Putnam
Lecturer at University of Georgia's department of political science, creator of Frontloading HQ
When will Trump leave? The end of his term, barring a political shift.
"At this point, I'm still of the opinion that it is going to take electoral pressure—and Republicans losing control of one or both houses of Congress—to shorten Trump's time in the White House. However, that assessment could quickly change based on new information. But so far, it has been a lot of noise that doesn't seem to be moving Republicans in Congress (or their constituents, in most cases)."
John LeBoutillier
Former Republican Congressman from New York
When will Trump leave? "I think it's 50-50 that he makes it through this four-year term."
Sarah Rosier
Federal editor for Ballotpedia
When will Trump leave? It depends on the midterms
"With Republicans controlling the White House and Congress, President Trump, barring any subsequent investigations or unforeseen events, would likely only leave the White House if it were his decision. This is one reason why Democrats and Republicans have been pouring money into this year's special elections and already looking ahead to November 2018. If impeachment is officially explored, the current congressional reactions do not seem favorable to removal. If there would be a 2018 Democratic wave in Congress, those odds could change."
Geoffrey Skelley
Associate editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball at University of Virginia's Center for Politics
When will Trump leave? The end of his term
"Even if things go swimmingly for Democrats in November 2018, it will be extremely difficult for them to win a majority in the US Senate. Just preserving the current partisan makeup of the Senate would be a triumph for them. Of course, the 25th Amendment is hanging out there as another possible means to remove Trump from power. However, if Trump were to contest the claim that he was incapable of discharging his duties as president, two-thirds of both houses of Congress would have to vote to affirm that Trump is incapacitated, which would keep Vice President Mike Pence in the position of 'acting president.' This actually would not technically remove Trump from the office of the presidency. But getting two-thirds to agree to such a vote might not be easy, even if Trump has really backed himself into a corner."
Daniel Drezner
Tufts University professor of international politics and author of the Washington Post's Spoiler Alerts blog
When will Trump leave? The end of his term
"My answer is that Trump is more likely to exit office early due to, well, death or medical incapacity than due to his scandals. I don't mean to trivialize the scandals that are facing them, it's just that these investigations can take years. Too many commentators doubted Trump's stamina during the primary and general election phases of the campaign; I can see him hunkering down for quite some time even if the scandals mount. Unless and until the GOP turns on him—which likely won't happen until they experience a negative wave election—he'll stick around. Unless his eating and lack of exercise kills him."
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