Thursday, August 31, 2017
GOP Lawmaker Said Confederate Statue Vandal Should Be 'Hung from a Tall Tree'
After someone splattered red paint all over a Confederate monument this week in Springfield, Missouri, state representative Warren Love hopped on Facebook to offer his thoughts on how the situation should be handled.
"This is totally against the law," Love wrote on Thursday, according to the Associated Press. "I hope they are found & hung from a tall tree with a long rope."
Missouri senator Claire McCaskill, several members of the state House of Representatives, and other political leaders have since called for Love's resignation, which he's expressed no intention of handing in.
"This is a call for lynching by a sitting State Representative," Missouri Democratic Party chairman Stephen Webber wrote on Twitter. "Calls for poltical (sic) violence are unacceptable. He needs to resign."
Unlike Karl Oliver, a Republican lawmaker from Mississippi, Love told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he wasn't calling for a lynching, and that he would wouldn't remove the post.
"That was an exaggerated statement that, you know, a lot of times is used in the western world when somebody does a crime or commits theft," he told the Post-Dispatch. "That's just a western term and I'm very much a western man... You know, I dress western. And, you know, I'm the cowboy of the Capitol."
Love adamantly insisted he wasn't a racist, telling the paper he has "a better relationship with the minorities than anybody up there at the Legislature." But he's been criticized for his controversial actions in the past, like when he shared a blog post calling Abe Lincoln the "greatest tyrant and despot in American history," or used the phrase "the black Negro" at a House meeting in January, according to the Post-Dispatch.
"In calling for the lynching of those who vandalized a Confederate statute in Springfield, state Rep. Warren Love invoked a form of political violence used throughout the South to keep African Americans subjugated for generations following the fall of the Confederacy," House minority leader Gail McCann Beatty told the Post-Dispatch. "For that he must resign."
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Jay Baruchel Was an Even Bigger Nerd Than You Thought
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 screenwriter Jay Baruchel, whose Goon: Last of the Enforcers is out in theaters and VOD tomorrow.
I was born in Ottawa, but when I was six months old, we moved to Montreal, where we lived for most of my childhood. There was a five-year era where we lived in a Toronto suburb called Oshawa—a blue-collar type place. Growing up in that house was the best. I was very lucky to have two parents who wanted me to find something I loved, and afforded me the opportunity to love it as much as I could.
There were some lean times. We were full-on bankrupt at one point. We didn't always have a ton of money. My mom always said, "There's always money for books." So I could read at a pretty early age—three or four years old. My dad was a fairly prototypical carousing sports male and really wanted me to play hockey and softball. He got two seasons of softball out of me, but every time he played pitch and catch with me in the backyard, I'd make my whole body go limp and collapse to the ground until he went back inside. He and I both knew what I was doing—he was like, "OK, go back and read your comics."
But he saw that I love movies, too. Every Friday and Saturday night, he'd rent at least one—if not two—movies. I'd wake up early the next day, and if the tapes were still in the VCR, it meant that I was allowed to watch it. If they were back in the box, it meant it was too racy for me. But what my parents thought was "too racy" was very lenient. They didn't have a very strict censorship code.
At nine years old, I said I wanted to be a director, and that's all because of them. Watching movies with my parents was like taking a class. I have a very vivid memory of watching The Road Warrior with them, and they prefaced it with a preamble about how this was my first experience seeing it, and why they loved it. If it was something like Monty Python, they'd pause it after every joke to explain what the joke was. These are habits I've inherited—I can't show my friends a movie without giving them a ten-minute spiel before.
Elementary school was great because there wasn't a huge differentiation in my height from everyone else. I was just tall enough that I didn't get jumped too much. Plus, I had an old-school house where my dad took me in the backyard and taught me how to throw a punch.
Also, this sounds like a dick thing to say, but there are some kids that are slightly brighter in the class, and I was usually one of those kids. I was always writing short stories and stuff. At recess, if we weren't playing softball or—in the States you call it kickball, we call it soccer baseball—I was always the kid who came up with the conceit for Cops and Robbers. Four or five kids would queue up in front of me, and I'd be like, "OK, here's the deal: We're all fighter pilots, and we're being chased by Soviets."
Acting was never my great ambition. I never had a ton to prove. I've been very lucky and grateful to have had the career I've had—there's no two ways about it. The quality of life of my family and I have skyrocketed, and as a movie fan, I got to be a part of some awesome movies. Any time that it looked like acting was on its way out for me, I would be like, "OK, well it was always going to end at some point." But there were times it felt closer to ending than others. From ages 16 to 19—when I was no longer a cute kid, and certainly not a man—I was godawful, and my voice was in puberty purgatory. I was gangly and awkward, and when that happened, I was like, "Well, I had a good run. I guess I'll go work at a video store and write scripts when I can."
Then I got Undeclared, which brought me to the States and started a part of my career that everyone in the States knows began. But the year before that, I thought my acting career was done. And I'd planned it that way! There have been times where I've been like, "Well, the house always wins. The bottom was going to drop at some point."
I hate to sound like an old fart at 35, but there's something my generation had that the kids don't—a certain anonymity. When me and my friends in high school made movies—and this was every fucking weekend—we'd grab a camcorder, come up with an idea, shoot the bloody thing, and show it to our friends and our friends' parents, and the teachers we thought were cool. That was that. We did it for ourselves. There was no YouTube. We were afforded years of making movies for movies' sake, and had there been a YouTube, we'd been mindful of an audience, and I think it might have fucked with the process. I think you should always be creating, but allow yourself a period of time where you're creating something just for you.
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Diplo Watches His Life Play Out on Screen in the 'WWDD?' Finale
On the season finale of VICELAND's scripted TV series WHAT WOULD DIPLO DO?, our globetrotting DJ finds himself weighing the possibility of watching his life play out on screen in a major motion picture. But will the film become a cultural milestone, or just another shitty movie?
Catch the season finale of WHAT WOULD DIPLO DO? Thursdays at 10 PM on VICELAND.
Then, on an all-new episode of VICELAND's NUTS + BOLTS, Tyler, the Creator continues his quest to learn how the things he loves get made and tries to feed his need for speed. Taking inspiration from some of his favorite cars and Mad Max, Tyler attempts to assemble his ultimate, one-of-a-kind go-kart. Now he just needs to find someone brave enough to ride in it with him.
NUTS + BOLTS airs Thursdays at 10:30 PM on VICELAND.
Want to know if you get VICELAND? Find out how to tune in here.
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Trump's 'Tax Reform' Is Just Another Bailout for the Rich
On Wednesday, Donald Trump gave a speech on "tax reform," which is something he wants. He did not say exactly what tax reform would actually look like, other than a policy that is "pro-growth, pro-jobs, pro-worker, and pro-American" and helps the middle class. Which is to say he offered a melange of the vaguest, fluffiest sentiments any politician can offer. This vagueness might be the result of this being a "vision" speech, as White House officials told NBC News. Or it could be because there are no specifics to offer—because there's no real plan. Or it could be because Trump knows that to delve into specifics would be to highlight that the tax reform he's seeking is, like Republican tax plans for decades now, a massive giveaway to the richest people in America.
In his speech, Trump bemoaned the complexity of the tax code, high tax rates, and too many loopholes—common complaints among Republicans, though the loophole stuff is of course rich given the president's well-known use of loopholes in his business career. In particular, he focused his ire on America's relatively high corporate tax rate, which the president said he wants to bring down from 35 percent to 15 percent. That's part of Trump's "American model," a plan to encourage companies to stay in the US and grow, providing everyone with jobs and rising wages—which will, according to him, give people a sense of patriotism and pride, and improve race relations too. Everyone wins! (Well, everyone but the bottom line—reducing the rate to 15 percent could add more than $2 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years.)
Some proponents of reducing the corporate tax rate see it as a sort of stimulus—let companies keep more of their money, and they'll invest it in the country. But there's reason—a bunch of reasons, actually—to be skeptical. This month, the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies released an analysis of corporations that turned a profit while paying less than 20 percent in taxes (thanks to various loopholes and tricks). It found that many of them actually cut jobs while boosting executive pay. Other economists believe that a lower corporate tax would just be a windfall to stockholders—primarily a boon for the wealthy, in other words.
Another policy Trump is apparently interested in is called "repatriation," an ostensible solution to the problem of companies keeping profits overseas, where they can't be taxed. Republicans want to encourage companies to bring that money back to the US by giving them a one-time tax break if they do. This was tried in 2004—and as Vox reported, it didn't encourage investment in American as much as proponents hoped, instead mainly serving to line the pockets of investors.
"Tax reform" isn't just about enriching companies and their shareholders; Trump also wants to cut income taxes for the rich, straight-up. In April, the White House released a rough sketch that remains the most detailed tax plan it has released to date. That plan would overwhelmingly benefit people who make more than $599,300 a year, the literal 1 percent.
Given the enmity between Trump and Congress, the president's lack of legislative success thus far, and the complexity of tax policy a real reform is unlikely. But what's on the table shows where the GOP's head—and heart—is.
Some Republican proposals are so regressive they're almost comical, like the plan to repeal the estate tax, which only affects fortunes of more than $5 million and which White House adviser Gary Cohn reportedly said only "morons" pay. Or the tweak that would bar single parents from getting "head of household" status.
If you try, you can find some potential elements of Trump's proposed "reforms" that aren't tilted toward the superrich. There's talk of eliminating or reducing the mortgage interest deduction, which basically only helps people with expensive homes. It's one of several loopholes regarded as a bad idea by many economists, but the real estate lobby will cry bloody murder if it's wiped out. Issues like that—relatively small, yet hugely contentious—are why specifics on tax reform are so hard.
But in broad strokes—which is all we have, still—the Republican tax reform plan is about making sure wealthy people can keep more of their own money. A right-wing party headed by an alleged billionaire who surrounds himself with Wall Street-bred advisers is naturally going to favor the rich—that's no surprise. But given the populist rhetoric Trump spouted on the campaign trail and still invokes when it's convenient, it's a ongoing outrage.
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The Compassion I Feel for My Drugged-Out Gay Bar Patrons
I am a drug addict. Today I'm a sober drug addict, but still a drug addict. My drug of choice was heroin, but that didn't mean I didn't love whiskey and MDMA and coke, speed and pills, all the various ways I could quiet the endless voices in my head.
Even without the drugs, my mind still behaves in erratic and self-destructive ways. I have spent years learning how to deal with my brand of insanity. I go to AA meetings, I meditate, I pray to gods I'm not sure I believe in, and I practice a great deal of patience, both with myself and others.
And I try to remember that life is full of suffering and joy, it is full of loss and love, and the only way to survive it with any dignity is with the help of others, together.
A few years before I got sober, I was at a rooftop party in downtown LA, high out of my mind. We danced as the sun rose. Toward the end of the night, I stood at the edge of the roof, the Hollywood sign in the distance, as I got my dick sucked. I felt like we were all flying and free—I felt the music and the rising sun, I felt like the guy sucking my dick and I were connected. Like everything was intimately one.
When I finally got sober, I worried nights like that were lost to me forever.
But nights like that are at the core of who I am. Nights of intimate connection and dancing, music and city lights.
When I got sober I got a job working the door at one of LA's more prominent gay bars.
That career might seem like a contradiction, but it isn't. This job has reminded me of the importance of tolerance and acceptance and compassion. It has reminded me that while for most of the world drugs and alcohol are enhancements to one's experiences, a way to celebrate the night and the music, for a few of us, they can become tools we use to destroy our lives.
There is a man who comes to the bar where I work; he's stunningly handsome, and always smiles and says hi; lately, he's started giving me hugs when he sees me. Toward the end of the night he's been ending up alone, so high that many times I've had to sit with him, give him water and make sure he's okay before finally calling him an Uber. On those nights, we talk.
"No one ever connects to me," he once told me. "I feel like I can go days and never really connect to anyone. I go to work and to the gym, I meet guys on the apps and we fuck but no one ever stays the night, everyone always goes home." He was twitching, his jaw grinding, his eyes haunted. "I'd like to find someone who wants to cuddle."
Watch: An Ohio family rebuilds after opioid addiction
One night I found him on the street drinking GHB-infused water.
"Angels," he said to me, laughing. "There are angels in the water. I just have to get to them."
Another night, after work, walking back to my car, I found him screaming, howling at the sky. He had tears running down his face. His hands kept reaching out in front of him, fingers grabbing at things only he could see, trying to pull them toward him.
"It hurts," he said.
"What hurts?"
"Everything hurts."
It would have been easy to just walk away, to leave him there.
I asked if he wanted to walk around the block. He hugged me, his shirt wet with sweat.
We walked around that block for over an hour. He kept stopping and howling, reaching for the sky or turning and wrapping me in his arms.
I didn't see him again for a few weeks. He told me how embarrassed he was for getting so fucked up.
"You have nothing to be embarrassed of," I said. I thought about telling him I was sober, but decided not to. Sometimes all it takes is being kind, and allowing people to be who they are. "I've been where you were plenty of times. I'm just glad you're okay."
Later that night I found him passed out on the sidewalk, his head hanging into the gutter. I pulled him back and propped him up against a building. He woke up briefly and told me he was just tired. He needed to sleep. I offered to call him a taxi but he refused, standing up and stumbling away from me.
I haven't seen him since.
There's another guy I've seen for years at the various bars and parties I've worked at; I'll call him Jack. He's in his mid-20s. Super sweet, intelligent. He was trying to be an artist. When we first met he referred to himself as a "casual meth user."
"I only get high on the weekends," he told me.
One night, while talking with me at the door, he took out his phone, showing me pictures of his artwork. His lips were cracked, his eyes large, scanning the faces around us, constantly getting distracted by movement.
The drawings were of shadow men and women, all strangely haunted, all sad.
"All these shadows are me," he said, his body vibrating, his words fast, stumbling over each other.
Another night he stood with me at the door, eyes scanning the crowd.
"This is the worst part," he said.
"What is?" I asked.
"Right before the high kicks in," he said. "Looking at everyone having fun, laughing and talking with their friends. I know this sounds self-deprecating, but I just think, who's gonna want to go home with me if I don't offer to get them high? And in those super lonely moments, you know, when people are on their way to work but you're still up, it's so easy. Find a guy on one of the apps and you two just get high and fuck and it almost feels like maybe you might go on a date." He laughed. "It's total bullshit, right? Do people even date anymore?"
Years later I would see him again. By that time, his skin had taken on a grey-yellow hue, and his eyes looked abandoned. He told me that he was just "giving into the night" for a while, but he'd get sober soon.
One night I found him parked near the bar after work. When he saw me he jumped out of the car, too skinny, too animated.
"It's better than paying all that money for rent," he said, gesturing toward his car. "I just figured I could save some cash and have a free place to sleep." He laughed and sounded completely devoid of happiness.
A few weeks ago, outside a coffee shop, I saw Jack again—dirty, clothes tattered, cruising the streets. When he saw me he started laughing hysterically, pointing at me, and then he took off, running down the street. Sometimes I still see him out there, wandering alone, talking to people only he can see.
I might be sober, but I still love to go out, sometimes after work, meeting friends at one of LA's after hours bars or private parties. I love to get lost in the music. Often I'm the only sober one. My friends will party and dance, we'll stand on rooftops or in the middle of dance floors, them riding the high, all of us riding the night and the music, and then we'll go out for burritos or Korean BBQ.
There are nights like the time my buddy Anthony, tripping on shrooms, told me about how the night was alive and the air was breathing—with "all of us breathing as one," as he put it—as we walked around Thai Town until the sun came up. Or when Mike and Peter, rolling on MDMA, asked me to drive them to the beach, and the three of us proceeded to lay on towels on the sand, the waves pounding, making out endlessly. Happy. Nights I wouldn't trade for anything.
Some nights I feel the whole world is collapsing under the weight of the sorrow, of the loneliness, and other nights I can feel the night breath, just like Anthony said, the world connected, all of us one.
Back when I was still getting high I thought that getting sober would mean giving up my life—giving up partying and dancing and friends, going out. I thought it would be a sacrifice. I hadn't imagined the kinds of doors it would open inside of me, and the freedom I would find to just be who I am. Sometimes lonely, sometimes happy, sometimes scared, sometimes wrapped in beauty.
I know I can't save men like Jack, or that gorgeous howling man. But what I can do is show up and treat everyone—whether sober or high, messy or together—with compassion and love.
I am grateful for the life I have and the people in it. This life would not be mine if I was still shooting heroin into my veins.
And I am grateful that I still get to dance, to ride the night, to stand in dark bars with men, sharing our lives with each other: all the sorrow, all the joy, all the pain and loss and love, all the beauty of it.
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Police Are Worried 'IT' Is Going to Trigger Another Creepy Clown Scare
We've got about a week to go until the premiere of IT, the latest adaptation of Stephen King's 1984 horror novel chronicling the evildoings of Pennywise the clown, who hides out in sewers, murders little kids, and generally scares the shit out of a bunch of tweens in small-town Maine. As moviegoers and a horde of ostensibly well-meaning clowns gear up to see the movie en masse, police in Pennsylvania are worried we're destined for a repeat of the Creepy Clown Summer of 2016.
Pennsylvania State Police issued a PSA Wednesday warning residents—and folks "throughout the world"—that terrifying clowns might start cropping up again ahead of IT's release, the Philly Voice reports. Pointing to the dozens of sightings reported in 16 states last year, police urged residents to be on the lookout for round two.
"Remember the fall of 2016 when 'creepy clown' sightings were reported throughout the United States and the world fueling a clown panic throughout the country?" the police bulletin states. "With the fall of 2017 upon us, it is anticipated that similar 'creepy clown' sightings could be reported starting as soon as September, in part due to the fact that the movie IT will be released."
Though IT doesn't drop until September 8, who's to say when the next red-nosed, face-painted, big-footed author of your nightmares might surface? Clowns are known to get into some weird, evil shit even when there's no occasion to: Back in July, police arrested one traipsing around the woods with a machete strapped to his arm, just two months after a particularly terrifying clown hacked a man to death with a set of bladed gloves. And we hadn't even seen IT's first trailer yet.
The Pennsylvania police advised anyone who happens to spot a Pennywise wannabe lurking in the woods or hovering under a streetlight or whatever to call the state's terrorism tip line, which is great for Pennsylvanians. For the rest of us, there's really only one option: panic. Run as fast as you possibly can, and—if the opportunity presents itself—try spraying that clown with battery acid or pelting it in the head with a slingshot. It could be your only hope.
Follow VICE's resident clown correspondent Drew Schwartz on Twitter.
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How $60,000 of Student Loans Almost Kept Britney Young Out of Acting
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 Britney Young, who had a breakout role earlier this year in Netflix's sensational show GLOW.
I was born in Tokyo, and we moved to Alaska when I was nine. I loved Tokyo. For a big city, there's a lot of space and freedom there. My sister and I would catch the train and go to another part of the city to go bowling. We'd ride our bikes everywhere. We'd be like, "Hey mom, I wanna buy some ice cream—can I have some money?" And she'd say, "Go ride your bikes to the store." It helped a lot to make me into this very independent person now, because when my mom would say that, I would say, "Hmm, now I gotta figure out how to get to this place. I'm awesome at directions now!" It's a fantastic place to grow up. Unfortunately I haven't been back since—but it's been on my bucket list.
My mom is the regional director for Alaska's Headstart program, and my dad is a security guard at a high school, and he's also a football and basketball coach. They went over to Japan because my mom was getting her masters and went over for a fellowship program. She worked at one of the universities there, and my dad followed her over there. While they were there, my dad worked at the American School of Japan—the school we attended—as the athletic coordinator, and my mom worked at West Toyko Preschool.
We came back because a lot of kids who went to school with us were going to college in America but moving back to Tokyo afterwards because of culture shock—they just couldn't deal with living in the States. Our parents wanted us to have that experience of living in the United States, since we're American and that's where our family was. So while my sister was in middle school, they moved us back so we could have the choice to move back to Tokyo because we wanted to—not because we had to.
I went to USC School of Cinematic Arts for the last two years of my education, and it was fantastic. It was my dream school—I wish I could've gotten in straight out of high school, but I still had so much fun as a transfer. I was like, "I can't believe I get to watch movies and TV every day for my education. Who knew? I've been practicing this whole time!" USC is such a fantastic school. One thing I really love about that program is that they really prepare you for going into the field of film and television. I learned so many things that when I got into production, I was like, "Oh! I know how to do this. I did this in school." It was a huge confidence booster to know that they really do prepare you for having a job after college.
I came out of college with $60,000 in student loans and I panicked. I always dreamed of being an actor, but I was like, "I need to get this debt down!" I needed a more stable job. I would love to be a producer one day—my dream is to have a production company where I can make my own film and television—so I thought, Let me go into production and learn more. For seven years, I bounced around as a production secretary, a post-PA, an accounting clerk.
I worked on movies and TV, and I got to a point where I was the showrunner's assistant on The Mentalist. I was seeing all these casting tapes, and I'd have to email casting and say, "This is who the producers want." Every tape I watched, I sat there and said, "That's what I want to do. What can I do to start that transition?" Bless her, one of my friends called me and was like, "I heard you want to get into acting—I have a part for you in a webseries that's yours if you want it." I went on her webseries, and it lit a fire under my butt. From there, I found my manager and my agent, I started auditioning—and I started actually booking things! That was a great feeling. When GLOW came up, it was that "Aha!" moment where I was like, "Okay, I need to fully dedicate myself to acting." I'm very grateful that the show came along to give me a violent push out the door."
One thing I learned was that even though you're not following the clichéd path, that doesn't mean you're not on the right path. I see all these people who are like, "I moved out to LA from Iowa, waited tables, worked nightclubs, and auditioned during the day." I thought that was what you had to do, but I realized that wasn't the right path for me. I really appreciate my time in production—learning how TV shows and movies are made, how sets are run, and how everything works. That was the correct path for me. It might not be the correct path for other people, but just because you're not doing what Hollywood movies tell you to do doesn't mean you're not gonna break in.
You always have to be working on your craft. Go out and shoot a little movie with your iPhone! We have so much technology at our fingertips that we can make things on our own and have people see them. That builds your resume and skill set for when you really do break into this business.
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Sounds Like Trump's Treasury Secretary Won't Put Harriet Tubman on the $20
Back in 2015, a grassroots organization called Women on 20s petitioned the government to kick Andrew Jackson off the $20 bill—given the fact that he owned slaves, orchestrated the Trail of Tears, hated paper money, etc.—and swap out his mug with someone else. They floated a few female nominees to replace him, and after mulling the issue over, the Obama administration announced it had come to a compromise: Move Jackson to the back of the bill, and place Harriet Tubman on the front.
But now it looks as if those plans may get derailed along with all the other Obama-era policies Trump seems to be scrapping. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin threw the long-awaited revamp into question on Thursday, telling CNBC he really only wants to change the design of the bill to do "what we need to do for security purposes."
"Ultimately we will be looking at this issue. It's not something I'm focused on at the moment," he said of putting Tubman on the bill. "People have been on the bills for a long period of time. And this is something we will consider. Right now, we've got a lot more important issues to focus on."
President Trump is an outspoken fan of old Andrew "Indian-Killer" Jackson, going so far as to hang a portrait of him in the Oval Office, blast out a tweet promising to "build on [his] legacy," and claim the former president probably could've single-handedly prevented the Civil War. When news broke in 2016 that Tubman might be booting him off the $20, Trump—then still a candidate—called the move "pure political correctness."
"Well, Andrew Jackson had a great history, and I think it's very rough when you take somebody off the bill," Trump said on the Today Show last year. "I think Harriet Tubman is fantastic, but I would love to leave Andrew Jackson or see if we can maybe come up with another denomination."
The Obama administration had also planned to feature a host of other women on the $5 and $10 bills, including Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Marian Anderson, and Eleanor Roosevelt, the New York Times reports. But unless someone manages to print out a ton of hyper-realistic Abes and Hamiltons, it doesn't look like we can expect to see any new faces on our currency anytime soon.
"The number one issue why we change the currency is to stop counterfeiting," Mnuchin told CNBC. "I've received classified briefings on that. And that's what I'm focused on for the most part."
Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.
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This Fentanyl Test Could Save Lives if America Would Just Embrace It
Fentanyl, a drug at least 50 times more powerful than morphine with derivatives that are tens of thousands of times stronger, keeps killing Americans. But few government efforts have helped stem the tide. In fact, some strategies for targeting the broader opioid epidemic—such as the introduction of "abuse resistant" Oxycontin pills and the shutdown of pill mills without providing treatment—have shown the potential to make things even worse.
Thursday is International Overdose Awareness Day, and as good a time as any to take stock of the country's opioid problems, along with our failure to manage them effectively. Despite plenty of press coverage and a president who has at least said (if not acted like) the opioid crisis is a national emergency, the death toll won't stop climbing.
But there is a drug policy that has been shown to help whenever it's practiced appropriately. Known as harm reduction, its key tenet is to view people who take drugs as human beings and focus on saving their lives rather than preventing their sins. Among its most recent innovations is the introduction of test strips that can detect the presence of fentanyl in drugs—the kind of common-sense policy that America needs to embrace, fast.
A pilot study presented at this spring's Harm Reduction Conference in Montreal found that people who found out their drugs tested positive for fentanyl were ten times more likely to reduce their dose and 25 percent less likely to overdose. The research was led by Dr. Mark Lysyshn, medical health officer at Vancouver Mental Health in that city's supervised injection facility (SIF), called Insite, and included around 1,000 tested drug samples.
Originally designed for urine testing, the fentanyl strips seem to work just as well when water is added to a few specks of drug (about the size of a grain of salt). And the tests appear to register fentanyl analogues like carfentanil (10,000 times stronger than morphine) and furanyl fentanyl (20 times stronger), according to Lysyshyn. DanceSafe—the organization that pioneered drug checking at music festivals—recently tested the strips on ten different analogues, all of which produced positive results, Lysyshyn told me.
The fact that the strips pick up various fentanyls reduces concern that they might offer a false sense of security when the dangerous opioid is actually present. Nonetheless, Lysyshyn cautioned, test users are told explicitly that false negatives can occur, either due to error, the presence of previously unknown analogues, or because fentanyl might not be evenly distributed in a packet of drugs. He uses the analogy of testing a chocolate-chip cookie for chocolate: If you test a piece that is only dough, it might be negative for chocolate.
Dr. Kirk Maxey, president and CEO of Cayman Chemical, which provides pure samples of drugs like fentanyl to law-enforcement agencies and others who need it to calibrate equipment, told me testing with this type of bias can be useful even if it isn't exact. "A crude test with a lot of false fentanyl positives is likely to have a strong positive public health benefit," he said.
At Insite, around 83 percent of drugs sold as heroin tested positive for some fentanyl—so did 82 percent of samples from drugs sold as crystal meth and 40 percent of drugs sold as cocaine. It might seem to make little business sense to sell stimulant customers a drug that has the opposite effect and is especially likely to kill people who don't already use opioids. But reports of fentanyl contamination of cocaine have also come from New York and other cities, where more precise lab tests were used. "We have no idea why they're doing that," said Lysyshyn, who speculated that it might occur by accident if several drugs are processed in the same lab.
Although only a small proportion of visitors to Insite chose to test their drugs, Lysyshyn suspects this is likely due to the fact that no fatal overdoses have ever occurred at a safe-injection facility, which now exist in at least 66 cities in ten countries. "Insite is proven to save lives and prevent people from dying of overdose," he told me. "We think that the setting influences whether people think that it's important to check drugs. In an SIF, they know they're not going to die."
Daniel Raymond, deputy director of policy at the Harm Reduction Coalition, has been offering fentanyl test strips to programs for people who use opioids, such as St. Ann's Corner of Harm Reduction in the Bronx. "Some respond [to positive tests] by reducing their dosage," he said. "But some respond by trying to avoid using alone or getting extra supplies of naloxone." All of these measures can reduce harm.
Unfortunately, policy innovations like drug checking tend to face strong resistance—despite the fact that the arguments against are repeatedly refuted by actual data. The same basic claims recur: Opponents contend that people with addiction are so irrational or out of control that they won't bother to do anything to protect their health. They worryp that "enabling" or reducing negative consequences associated with addiction could prolong it. And they profess that anything making addiction more survivable or less awful will encourage kids to take drugs.
These arguments have been made about syringe exchange to prevent the spread of HIV. They've been made about distribution of the overdose antidote, naloxone. They've been made about heroin prescribing—and are currently being made about supervised injection facilities (SIFs) and drug checking.
Not once have they ever been shown to be accurate.
Needle exchange is the canonical example. When it was first introduced in the US, there was widespread opposition—in New York, this included the Catholic Church under the leadership of Cardinal O'Connor, the treatment center Phoenix House, the Black Leadership Commission on AIDS and even the Guardian Angels, a group focused on subway crime.
These disparate groups were united in the belief that it was immoral to provide the means by which to inject drugs rather than addiction treatment—even though real treatment was not going to be available to enough people, and relapse is the most common initial response. New York's health commissioner, Woodrow Myers, actually argued that eliminating IV drug USE was a "higher goal" than preventing the spread of AIDS.
Activists led by Jon Parker—who had himself injected drugs—and members of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, persisted. By 1990, it was already clear that places allowing over-the-counter sales of syringes without a prescription had far lower HIV rates—and that cities cracking down on needle access had deadlier epidemics.
Today, there is no doubt about the effectiveness of needle exchange. In New York—the state with the biggest epidemic of HIV linked to intravenous drug use—the rate of infection among injectors had climbed to 54 percent by 1990. By 2012, after expansion of needle exchange and over the counter sales, that rate was down to 3 percent, prompting the state health department to label syringe exchange the "gold standard" for HIV prevention. Needle exchange participants were found to be more likely to seek treatment—not less so. Oh, and the programs are not associated with increases in drug use.
The same pattern holds for expanding access to naloxone, the overdose antidote. One study found that counties with greater public access to and use of the drug cut their overdose death rates by more than 50 percent compared to those with less access. Naloxone's proliferation has allowed more people to survive long enough to enter treatment, and likewise is not associated with increased drug use. And supervised injection facilities are similarly linked to improved health.
The good news is that Lysyshyn seems to be encountering a bit less resistance to drug checking than was common with earlier harm reduction efforts, like needle exchange. "There's a lot less pushback on this," he told me. "People are quite interested, and could see how this would help. As much as people don't want people taking drugs, they don't want them taking contaminated drugs, so they are a bit more supportive."
If America really wants to reduce the death toll from overdose, the only way to do so is by fully embracing harm reduction. That means allowing SIFs, expanding naloxone access, reducing barriers to maintenance treatment with drugs like methadone and buprenorphine (and, ideally, heroin) and, from here on, distributing test strips for drug checking. If we start now, by this time next year, there might be real progress to celebrate.
Follow Maia Szalavitz on Twitter.
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Inside a Houston Neighborhood Where the Water Is Still Rising
Even as the flooding from Hurricane Harvey recedes around most of Houston, some neighborhoods are still taking on water, including the Westchester neighborhood situated along the Buffalo Bayou.
As officials unleash water from the decades-old Barker and Addicks reservoirs in a controlled release to keep them from overflowing—and to ensure that they don't break—people living in West Houston neighborhoods like Westchester can only watch and wait, hoping that the water doesn't engulf their cars or their houses.
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DEA Nabs $1 Million-Worth of Meth Disguised as Dick Candles
A DEA sting operation nabbed five people who were allegedly trying to sneak meth into New York and New Jersey hidden inside penis-shaped novelty candles, the New York Post reports.
Police pounced on the drug smugglers—who NBC News reports are allegedly part of a Mexican cartel—after they dropped off over 1,300 pounds of meth-laced candles at a Paterson, New Jersey, warehouse Tuesday night. A source told the New York Post that the candles would have yielded an estimated 60 kilos of crystal meth once they were melted down or whatever.
An undercover DEA agent initially arranged the delivery after meeting with one of the attempted smugglers, Agustin Zamora-Vega, at a hotel, posing as a potential buyer and promising to find a safe spot to store the goods.
The men first looked at a place in Yonkers, New York, to use to melt the dicks down, but Zamora-Vega apparently thought the spot was a little too stuffy and that proper meth-schlong melting required more reasonable ventilation. They finally settled on the New Jersey warehouse and put the plan in motion.
"DEA has seen drugs smuggled in numerous ways: concealed in puppies, lollipops, furniture, and produce," James J. Hunt, DEA Special Agent-in-Charge said of the arrest. "But secreting a million dollars' worth of methamphetamine in wax candles of various shapes is shocking."
By "various shapes," Special Agent Hunt likely meant the numerous waxen cocks and balls the DEA uncovered in the smugglers' 27-box haul. But there were also some religious crank candles in the batch, and at least one shaped like the Sphinx, for good measure.
Agustin Zamora-Vega and his four creative candle smuggling pals—Orlando Alcantara, Cindy Carrillo, Santos Minjarez, and Jose Luis Gonzalez-Solis—are now facing charges of ten years to life in prison. Maybe they should just build a giant catapult to get drugs into the country next time.
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Energy Healers and Chanting Won't Cure My Disability Anxiety
When I first decided to keep a daily diary for VICE of all the micro trolls I experience as a disabled person, I felt empowered.
I'M GOING TO BLOW THE LID OFF MY OWN DISABILITY AND DO SOME DEEP SOUL-SEARCHING! NO MORE REPRESSING THINGS. LET'S OPEN THIS CAN OF WORMS, BABY! I thought.
Be careful what you blog for, because two columns later, that can burst WIDE open.
On July 4, I had a panic attack (my brain's version of fireworks?) and felt crazy for weeks. It was like a switch had gone off in my brain. My anxiety went from low grade to a ten in a split second.
This wasn't some White Girl "Mercury is in FUCKING Retrograde OMG" anxiety—it was waking up every day and immediately feeling paranoid that I was never going to feel the same, that I was going nuts, that I would lose my job, my friends, my boyfriend, everything. It was a state of total, panic-y, catastrophic thinking that plagued me every second of every day, despite not being rooted in reality.
I lost ten pounds in two weeks (chic), had zero sex drive (not chic), and couldn't sleep. All the markers of being a functional person were deleted from my life in an instant.
Panic attacks can be random and triggered by nothing, but I don't think that was the case with mine. I mean, I'm no Nancy Drew, but I think digging up all these disability demons sparked some serious pain.
But instead of actually sitting in that pain and getting to know it over drinks, I immediately went into Virgo "fix it" mode by trying a myriad of New Age-y self-help techniques.
I call this period of my diary "Self-Helpless."
7-9-17
Pitched a loosely autobiographical show to a few networks today, even though my face was numb from anxiety and I was feeling like a total Gay, Interrupted.
At one point in the pitch, I said, "And, you know, this is the first time you'll see a gay disabled character on TV, so…"
The exec stopped me. "Um, I don't think so," he said. "Haven't you seen The Ringer?"
My back immediately tensed up. I exchanged a look with Lara, my writing partner and best friend, that said, "OH MY GOD. Is there a gay disabled show in development we didn't know about? We've been scooped!"
"What's The Ringer again?" I asked.
"It was a movie starring Johnny Knoxville…"
OK. Stop right there, hon. According to IMDB, The Ringer is a "comedy is about two guys who decide to rig the Special Olympics to pay off a debt by having one of them, Steve (Knoxville), pose as a contestant in the games. Mentally-challenged hijinks and hilarity surely follow."
So. To reiterate: Johnny Knoxville imitates a mentally challenged person, mentally challenged hijinks ensue, and this was the exec's example of disability representation in Hollywood.
Holy Gimp, you can't script this shit! (But you can write about it in your VICE column.)
I left the pitch feeling demoralized and depressed. Lara suggested I chant with her to feel better.
So I do. I start chanting in her car on Olympic fucking Boulevard next to Penguin's Frozen Yogurt, and I immediately start crying while we do "Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo." First time in four years! It felt amazing.
I've been chanting every morning since. I love it. I feel like I've found the cure.
Watch: Inside the world of medically assisted sex
7-12-17
JK. No cure.
I went to my first Buddhist meeting (basically a bunch of Buddhists in the same district/neighborhood who gather to sit in someone's apartment and chant) and had an anxiety attack. I'm probably the first person to ever have an anxiety attack at a Buddhist meeting.
Here's the thing: LA tends to breed a certain genre of delusion-oid, aspiring wacktresses and wacktors who are desperate for success. The meeting had a lot of those. Everyone there seemed to be chanting for a featured extra role on Smallville, even though Smallville was canceled seven years ago. Sitting next to them, reaching for shreds of inner peace, made me feel even more insane and alone. Hence, anxiety attack.
I'm not chanting for my career, babe. I'm chanting for my life!
7-25-17
Went to see an energy healer yesterday in Palms, a neighborhood that borders on No and Fuck No. Her apartment was wall-to-wall stained carpet, and she had cats running around. One of them even laid on me! I was deeply unsoothed but managed to pull myself together.
One exercise she told me about: if you start to feel a wave of anxiety, focus on something you like around you. It can be as simple as a nice color.
"Here," she said. "Try it with this room. What do you see that you like?"
This room was what would happen if Silence of the Lambs had sex with a litter of feral kittens. It bordered on nightmarish. There was nothing appealing. I told her that I liked her lampshade, and she smiled.
"Good!"
Then I got on her table, and she started working on me. It basically involved her just poking at me, but it felt nice? Maybe?
She also kept calling me Ron. I didn't bother to correct her.
It's been a month and a half since the panic attack, and I'm feeling a lot better. I don't think it has much to do with the chanting or energy healing or acupuncture or Reiki I've been doing. I think it has to do with the fact that my hiatus ended, and I went back to work writing for a TV show. As it turns out, spending the day in bed googling shamans does NOT help one's anxiety. For me, the best salve has just been moving forward, going about my life and routine, and realizing that everything is going to be OK.
Still, what keeping this diary has taught me is that there's a whole buffet of pain living inside me that I haven't even sampled. It's shocking. How could I be suffering this much without knowing it?
In a way, it does make sense. My whole life I've been going, going, going. My response to having cerebral palsy and getting hit by a car at the age of 20 has always been to power through. Don't sit in the pain. Move forward. What trauma?! As a result, I stuffed it all down.
But it's confusing because going, going, going has actually helped me achieve a lot of incredible things. And what exactly does it mean to sift through one's pain? Do I just lay in my bedroom and put on a Feist song and think about what a bummer CP is?
What's the "right way" to get better? How do I learn to really love and embrace my disability (and, by extension, myself?)
I don't have the answers yet. But I do have this column. And I'm determined to find out.
Follow Ryan O'Connell on Twitter and Tumblr.
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Video Shows Cop Telling DUI Suspect 'We Only Kill Black People'
On a Sunday night in the summer of 2016, a Georgia police officer pulled over a white woman he suspected was under the influence. Lieutenant Greg Abbott walked up to her car on the shoulder of an Atlanta highway and stopped at the passenger side window. Asked to take her hands off the steering wheel and pick up her cell phone, the woman refused, telling the officer she'd "seen way too many videos of cops—." He cut her off.
"But you're not black," he told her. "Remember, we only shoot black people. Yeah, we only kill black people, right? All of the videos you've seen, have you seen the black people get killed? You have."
Local ABC affiliate WSB-TV uncovered the exchange after obtaining dash cam footage of the stop through an open records request. Now—more than a year after the incident—the Cobb County Police Department has opened an internal investigation into what happened, assigning Abbott to administrative duties. He hasn't been suspended from the force.
Abbott's lawyer told WSB-TV the officer's comments "must be observed in their totality to understand their context," suggesting he was rehashing what the suspect had said earlier to reason with her. Though at no point during the three minutes of raw footage WSB-TV obtained does the woman utter the words "black people."
"He was attempting to de-escalate a situation involving an uncooperative passenger," attorney Lance LoRusso told the station. "In context, his comments were clearly aimed at attempting to gain compliance by using the passenger's own statements and reasoning to avoid making an arrest."
Cobb County police chief Mike Register told WSB-TV that, to his knowledge, Abbott has never faced a racially-based complaint during the 28 years he's served as an officer in the county. Still, he said, the statement was inexcusable.
"No matter what context it was said, it shouldn't have been said," Register told WSB-TV. "We're not making excuses. We're meeting this head-on and we're going to deal with it."
Attorney Suri Chadha Jimenez, who represented the driver in her DUI case, told the Washington Post he was "shocked" when he saw the footage last summer while prepping for his case.
"I heard that, and I cringed," he told the Post. "I had to replay it. I thought, There's no way."
Jimenez added he suspected Abbott thought what he said to the driver "was a joke," intended to be taken as sarcasm. Abbott hasn't commented on the incident.
The Cobb County Police Department completed a review in May that addressed "public perceptions of racism" in the force, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported. Though the review didn't churn up any evidence of discriminatory policing, the county has been plagued by accusations before. In January of 2016, a Cobb police officer resigned after being caught on video telling a black driver "I don't care about your people," along with being accused of racial profiling for following the county's only black commissioner in an undercover car, the AJC reports.
"The reality is," Jimenez told the Post, "to us minorities, there is a real fear when you're pulled over."
Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.
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US News
Harvey Sparks Fire at Chemical Plant Outside Houston
A fire broke out early Thursday at a chemical plant in Crosby, northeast of Houston, after two separate explosions. The Arkema company had warned its plant would explode due to a power loss in the floods brought on by Hurricane Harvey, but at least ten police officers inhaled (apparently non-toxic) fumes in the aftermath. —VICE News
Judge Puts Texas 'Sanctuary Cities' Ban on Hold
A federal judge in Texas has blocked a new state law giving police permission to ask about immigration status during traffic stops and other points of contact. The Senate Bill 4 law, described as a "sanctuary cities" ban by its critics, was set to come into force Friday, but US District Judge Orlando Garcia ordered an indefinite suspension.—VICE News
Russian Lobbyist Testifies for Special Counsel
Rinat Akhmetshin, the Russian-born lobbyist who sat in on a meeting with Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner during the campaign, has reportedly provided testimony for special counsel Robert Mueller. Akhmetshin apparently spoke at a grand jury hearing convened earlier this month.—AP
Trump Outlines Plan for Tax Cuts
President Trump offered a rough outline of plans to change the tax code Wednesday during a speech in Springfield, Missouri. Trump said the business tax rate should be lowered to 15 percent, but provided few other details. He said he wanted to "bring back Main Street by reducing the crumbling burden on our companies and on our workers."—CNN
International News
At Least 21 People Dead After Building Collapses in Mumbai
At least 21 people were killed after a building crumbled in the Indian city of Mumbai Thursday morning. Rescue teams pulled another 21 people alive from the ruins of a six-story building in the Bhendi Bazaar district, and continued to search for others believed to be under the rubble.—BBC News
Japan May Ramp Up Missile Program
The Japanese defense ministry has asked lawmakers to approve an extra $160 million for its annual budget to advance the country's missile program. Members of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are apparently keen on Japan being more capable of striking North Korea's missile own capacity directly.—Reuters
Brazilian Judge Halts Government Plan to Mine Nature Reserve
A federal court in Brazil has at least temporarily halted the government's plan to scrap allow an area of preserved forest in the Amazon to be mined. Judge Rolando Valcir Spanholo ruled President Michel Temer did not have the power to eliminate protections on Renca, an area of almost 18,000 square miles, and said Congress would have to approve the move, though the administration can appeal.—The Guardian
Two Killed in Car Bomb Attack in Benghazi
At least two soldiers were killed in a car bomb attack on a security checkpoint Thursday in the Libyan city of Benghazi. The soldiers were part of the Libyan National Army, which controls much of the country's east.—Reuters
Everything Else
Solange to Play Benefit Show for Flood Victims
Solange Knowles will play a special benefit concert in Boston next month, with all proceeds going to Houston residents hit by Hurricane Harvey. Solange said the money would go to organizations helping "the city that raised me with so much love."—Rolling Stone
Flavor Flav Sues Public Enemy
Flavor Flav has filed a lawsuit against Chuck D and others involved in Public Enemy's business affairs. The rapper claims he has been denied royalties and did not agree to a recent album release.—Billboard
Chris Cantwell Wants to be Treated as 'Goddamn Human Being'
Christopher Cantwell, the white supremacist featured in VICE News' Charlottesville coverage and dubbed the "crying Nazi" for weeping in a self-made YouTube video, has asked for compassion. Facingh various felony charges and possible prison time, Cantwell said: "One minute I'm a fucking white supremacist terrorist and the next minute I'm a fucking crybaby? I'm a goddamn human being."—The Daily Beast
Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile Drop New Track
Singer-songwriters Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile have dropped the first track from their forthcoming album Lotta Sea Lice. The duo premiered "Over Everything" on Beats 1 before releasing a black-and-white video for the song.—Noisey
Thieves Use Parisian Catacombs to Steal $300,000 Worth of Wine
Thieves in Paris reportedly crept through the catacombs under the city to steal vintage wines worth $300,000. Police said the crooks dug through an ancient wall next to a private wine cellar and made off with 300 rare bottles.—VICE
Composer Alf Clausen Dismissed from 'The Simpsons'
Alf Clausen, the composer who has provided The Simpsons with original music for the past 27 years, has been sacked by the show's executives. Producer Richard Sakei reportedly told Clausen the series needed "a different kind of music."—Noisey
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The US Has Thousands More Troops in Afghanistan Than the Public Knew
The United States has thousands more troops in Afghanistan than previously disclosed, the Department of Defense admitted Wednesday, saying there were roughly 11,000 troops on the ground instead of about 8,400—the number it had previously reported.
The change in estimate is an attempt to be more transparent in the US' war effort and to account for a complex set of military accounting procedures that frustrate commanders in Afghanistan, Pentagon officials said. But it also comes a few weeks after the Trump administration announced a plan to send 4,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, which Secretary of Defense James Mattis addressed last week saying he wanted to be sure how many were actually on the ground before making that commitment.
"This is not an attempt to bring more forces in," Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, director of the staff of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told reporters at the briefing. "But it is an attempt to actually clarify a very confusing set of reporting rules that has the unintended consequence of forcing commanders to make readiness trade-offs."
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Flooded Texas Chemical Plant Explodes
Volatile chemicals stored in a factory outside Houston exploded Thursday morning with black plumes of smoke seen coming from the Arkema peroxide plant as ten police officers were hospitalized after inhaling toxic fumes. The facility had been flooded under five feet of water from Hurricane Harvey, which knocked out backup power sources that were keeping the volatile chemicals cool.
The company reported that two explosions were heard at the facility in Crosby at 2 AM local time, just hours after the CEO of Arkema's North America unit, Richard Rowe, told reporters that the company was powerless to stop the explosions. Arkema added that because the chemicals were stored at multiple locations at the facility there was the chance of further explosions.
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Aminé Remembers the Time Mero Made Fun of Him at Complex
A wide array of actors, comedians, artists, and other "illustrious guests" have sat down with the hosts (and Juicebox the Bear) to shoot the shit on Desus & Mero. But one guest in particular, rapper Aminé, has a very specific connection with the show's stars that separates him from the pack.
On Wednesday, the artist stopped by to recall the time Mero flamed him while interning at the Complex office. Being an intern in New York City can be extremely grueling—especially when you're a struggling musician living off of dreams and leftover rice—so having some comedian make fun of you is, in a way, adding insult to injury. No hard feelings though.
During the interview, the trio also discussed anime, hanging with Malia Obama, and the difference between Portland, Oregon, and Portland, Maine.
You can watch Wednesday night's Desus & Mero for free online now, and be sure to catch new episodes weeknights at 11 PM on VICELAND.
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Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Watch Eddie Huang Ride a Camel into the Desert
On an all-new episode of HUANG'S WORLD, Eddie treks to Dubai for a look at how the city is balancing cultures old and new—with 1,000-year-old cooking methods on one hand and gleaming skyscrapers on the other. His travels take him from the Persian Gulf to the heart of the desert, where he rides a camel out to a campsite that's still operating the same way it was a century ago.
HUANG'S WORLD airs Wednesdays at 10 PM. Find out how to tune in here.
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Thieves Snuck into the Paris Catacombs and Stole $300K Worth of Fine Wine
The catacombs beneath Paris are a twisting maze of dark, claustrophobic passageways lined with ancient skulls and bones, but apparently they're not terrifying enough to ward off a band of French crooks hellbent on committing a lucrative wine heist.
According to the Guardian, some thieves reportedly snuck down into the catacombs—which stretch 170 miles beneath streets, homes, and apartments in the French capital—on Monday night. Apparently, the crooks had located an area of the ancient tomb that shared a wall with the inside of an apartment's private cellar. They then allegedly burrowed through the centuries-old, limestone wall and made off with around 300 bottles of rare wine. Police say the haul is likely worth upwards of $300,000.
Authorities believe the thieves probably scoped out the fancy wine stash in the basement of the home before hatching their complicated Ocean's Eleven-style heist to steal it.
"We believe they must have made visits [to the cellar] before," a police spokesman said, according to the Guardian. "The suspects didn't drill that particular wall by accident."
The scheme must have been pretty well-organized, since it's easy to get lost inside the underground catacombs, especially with hundreds of bottles—around 60 gallons—of booze in tow. Earlier this summer, two teenagers got lost in the tunnels for days and almost died of hypothermia before they were rescued.
Between the frigid temperatures and the fact that roughly 6 million remains are housed in the catacombs, only a small stretch is open to tourists. The forbidden areas likely served as a perfect getaway route for the thieves, unafraid they would run into anyone in the dark, empty tunnels.
The wine crooks are currently still at large, probably sniffing the corks on a few bottles and spitballing ways to fence them without getting caught.
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The New 'Mr. Robot' Trailer Answers a Lot of Old Questions
USA dropped a trailer for the new season of Mr. Robot on Wednesday, revealing that the world—and Elliot's mind—are teetering closer to the edge of collapse than ever before.
For those who haven't seen the show (or didn't keep up with its extremely long second season), Sam Esmail's Mr. Robot follows a socially challenged, clinically depressed, technologically genius hacker named Elliot (Rami Malek) who finds himself at the center of a plot to take down the world's largest corporation, the all-powerful E-Corp. He teams up with a crew of hackers led by Mr. Robot (Christian Slater), who's willing to lay down his life for the cause. Not too far into the series—but still, spoiler alert, sort of—we learn Elliot has a split personality, and that Mr. Robot is actually his second self.
The new trailer answers a whole host of questions left hanging at the end of season two: first and foremost, that Elliot survived a potentially fatal encounter during last season's finale. Things have spiraled out of control since the Mr. Robot gang first got up and running, and now their onetime partner in revolution—the Dark Army—has turned on them.
As Elliot struggles to keep his head straight and prevent Mr. Robot from completely taking over his psyche, his crew—including his sister (Carly Chaikin) and longtime best friend (Portia Doubleday)—work with him to continue the fight against E-Corp. But as the new trailer reveals, the world economy is collapsing, protesters are swarming the streets, and people's lives are in jeopardy—leaving Elliot worried he might need to pump the brakes on his wild crusade.
The third season of Mr. Robot premieres on USA October 11.
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This Speedo-Wearing Dude Wants His Bong and Weed Back
Sporting a skimpy pair of bright green underwear, thick red-rimmed sunglasses, and armed with nothing but a bong, a 31-year-old man named Jeffrey Shaver stood tall in front of the Kitchener, Ontario courthouse Tuesday morning, with two signs that read "RETURN MY MARIJUANA," and "RETURN MY BONG."
Shaver was protesting his arrest by Waterloo Regional Police last October for possession of marijuana, according to The Record. In two run-ins with the police, two bongs were taken away, and only one was returned. Now he's demanding they return his shit.
The arrest went down at a hospital in Cambridge. "I was having a panic attack," he told The Record. "I was brought there and because I had an issue with the vending machine, I was charged with trespassing and causing a disturbance by yelling. They asked me to leave. Police arrested me and searched me."
In a fit of vengeance, Shaver made his statement. Two days later, he returned to the police station, with his trusty bong in hand, and smoked on the front lawn of the station for all the police to witness. Of course, he was arrested again and held in jail for 16 hours.
Shaver claims that he has a legal medical marijuana card and that he smokes pot to treat anxiety, depression, and back pain.
He's been protesting off and on since the spring.
Despite the coverage of his actions, there is still no explanation for the green underwear (dude, I've messaged you, get back to me!) But perhaps some mysteries are better left unsolved.
Follow Moses Monterroza on Twitter.
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Nevada Is About to Execute a Guy with Fentanyl
While Attorney Jeff Sessions is waging war on opioids, the Nevada Department of Corrections has secured fentanyl—a powerful opioid at the center of the crisis—to use in an upcoming execution.
Fentanyl will be used as part of a three-drug cocktail in addition to diazepam, which causes unconsciousness, and cisatracurium, which causes paralysis. This three-drug cocktail has never been used in an execution, and experts are concerned about its effectiveness.
"Use of these drugs could result in a botched execution, leading to torture or a lingering death in violation of the protections of the United States Constitution," ACLU of Nevada Executive Director Tod Story said in a statement.
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The Night King Is the Most Boring Villain in 'Game of Thrones'
It you're not caught up with Game of Thrones, read at your own risk.
The Night King is the unambiguous, all powerful, night supremacist we've seen so many times before, and I get it already: the menacing look, super persistent "keeping it moving" strut, and talent for drafting the undead. He's the Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings, minus the whole stuck-in-a-mountain thing.
And Lord of the Rings was trash for that very reason; one of my many petty, minor controversial opinions. It was a tired fantasy with a tired story structure: All powerful enemy killing clans and making plans while other human(ish) heroes meanwhile squabble about the insignificant. They discover the threat before it's too late. Then opposing sides come together in kumbaya-fist-bump-moment and beat said enemy. Some people die and shit along the way too.
In recent seasons of Game of Thrones, the more complex bad guy and good guy chess pieces are being removed from the board, pushing the Night King to the forefront. He's always been symbolic of that same, tired LOTR formula. Everyone (OK, really just Jon Snow) talks about how powerful he is, but all we've seen him do is ride a horse, watch his undead army trudge along, be scared of water, expose his Javelin skills, and get a zombie dragon to rip through a wall (which, if we're being real, credit goes to Jon Snow for making that happen). With his additional screen time, things are looking familiar and predictable in this space of all-to-familiar, and all-to-predictable fantasy sloths.
Firstly, we should already know why Game of Thrones was great; it challenged expectations and overturned fantasy conventions. According to the rules of basic story structure as mentioned above, every narrative runs in three acts. The first introduces the characters and crew, ex. the Starks, Arryns, Freys, Greyjoys, Lannisters, Targaryens, and the outside threat, the White Walkers. Along with that comes their motivations and positions on the board; some want to survive, others want power, but it all comes down to the Iron Throne. Act Two delves into conflict territory—shitty people being shitty people—rape, sacrifice, betrayal, really good guys getting killed, castration, and really bad guys getting killed. Meanwhile, in the background, the largely ignored threat gets closer and closer. While I'll get to Act Three later, it's those moments in between Acts One and Two that gave GoT its premium status in television.
The narrative didn't care about who you loved as a fan; it didn't care for your comfort or satisfaction as a viewer. Nothing would be attractive as it is in a standard fantasy. Good people would die in horrible, ugly ways. Many were punished for their naivety—much like the expectations of a viewer whose own naivety was bred from classic narratives like the LOTR or Harry Potter. And the bad people, they would last and grow in power because fuck you and your satisfaction. This was the consequence of living in the world of Westeros, where much like our real world, where power trumps decency (RIP Ned).
Enter the growing era of the Night King—where season seven brings us Act Three. The stone-faced, ancient force who has the very boring goal of destroying the main players on the board. It's one dimensional and basic on a level that makes it hard to even call the Night King a villain. He's more like a force of nature. We still don't know if he hurts, feels, or can partake in the concept of betrayal. The White Walkers are simply a movable danger like a tornado that can wipe out all in its path. Which is trash in comparison to the evils of Acts One and Two, where we see the likes of Ramsay Bolton, Petyr Baelish, and Joffrey Baratheon.
Ramsay was a bastard whose insecurities became wrapped up in his own fucked up sadism. The need to torture/rape victims like Sansa Stark and Theon Greyjoy afforded him a feeling of power and status. Every rejection was a brand new excuse to shit on someone weaker. You understood it, but you hated him for the same reasons.
Joffrey was just a sociopath, the product of the entire Lannister house (and to a lesser extent, his drunk, bullying "father," the late King Robert Baratheon). He just benefitted from the gene pool of an inherently evil family.
But once again, like a Donald Trump, you understood it but still hated him.
Then there was Lord Petyr Baelish, the shadiest dude in the whole damn realm. He wanted power without the attention that power brought. He's that guy moving the pieces on both sides of a chess board when heads are turned; but at the same time, he feared death, which explained why he'd opted to pull the strings rather than get his hands dirty. You hated these characters, but you also felt helpless as viewers when they found the successes that the writers afforded them.
So, as we move into act three in the final season, most of these nuanced characters are killed off. Everyone is suddenly coming together, moving to their sides on the chess board. Forget about ethical ambiguity: you're now either on the good half or the bad. We've got people who should damn well die suddenly experiencing stupidly near-death escapes like in the case of Jaime Lannister and the magnificent seven. Or Jon and his chosen ass with his nine lives crawling out of sub zero waters. All that satisfying shit the show refused to give viewers is now coming in droves as this very boring, very tired force of nature called the Night King approaches.
Every cliché you could think of happened in Season seven, and the ever growing rise of the eye of Sauron—slightly improved edition—is a reminder that Game of Thrones is fighting against its original mandate. I don't mind the occasional bit of narrative satisfaction, but I also want to feel uncomfortable again. And I want to see the Night King talk some smack for a change, have some interesting motivation, and wipe out the masses—I mean, throw in a zombified Little Finger to stir up some shit among the Night King's commanders or something. It's the only way I can feel justified in my view that the Lord of the Rings and everything in its wake was trash and that the Game of Thrones will be so much better.
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Google Pushes Out Critics at Google-Funded Think Tank
The influential and left-leaning New America Foundation set the sleepy world of Washington think tanks ablaze on Wednesday morning with the news that it is parting ways with one of its advocacy programs—under pressure from a major sponsor, Google.
The Open Markets program at New America and its executive director, Barry Lynn, are well-known and tireless critics of Big Tech and corporate monopolies. But after issuing a statement praising EU regulators' June decision to fine Google $2.7 billion for antitrust violations, the New York Times reports that Google was displeased enough to push back.
"The time has come for Open Markets and New America to part ways," New America president Anne-Marie Slaughter told Lynn in an email obtained by the Times, in which she went on to both accuse Lynn of "imperiling" the whole foundation and acknowledge that cutting ties with Open Markets and its 10-person staff was "in no way based on the content of your work."
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This Mattress Store Owner Has Taken in Hundreds of Harvey Victims
Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale is a local celebrity in Houston, where he's owned and operated his chain of Gallery Furnitures since the 80s. He's notorious for airing wild commercials—strapping mattresses to the tops of sports cars, making fun of his own acting chops, and donning a makeshift mattress costume before delivering his tagline: "Gallery Furniture saves you money!"
But Mattress Mack is just as well known for his generosity: He reportedly fed 20,000 Houstonians on Thanksgiving in the 90s, and when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, he welcomed 200 people displaced by the storm into his store. Now that Hurricane Harvey has left his hometown in crisis, he's at it again—opening up more than 150,000 square feet of gallery space to folks in need of a place to stay.
According to NPR, at least 400 people have taken refuge in two of Gallery Furniture's Houston locations, where McIngvale has offered up all the couches, futons, love seats, and beds he has in stock, free of charge. Aside from a warm, dry place to stay, he's outfitting everyone who comes by with clean clothes, food, and water.
"We will come out of this stronger and better than ever before," McIngvale said in a Facebook video. "Yes, it's very trying right now. Yes, there's a lot of heartbreak right now. But we are Texans. We will help each other, as we've done for 200 years."
On Sunday, McIngvale put out a blast on social media letting residents know two of his largest showrooms were open to folks in need of a place to stay. As flood victims poured in, McIngvale sent out a team with delivery trucks to pick up those who still hadn't made it out of danger, broadcasting his personal cell phone number on Facebook and asking anyone in trouble to give him a call.
"All day on Sunday we went around rescuing people out of high water stranded on overpasses," he told CNN. "We brought about 200 people into the store that way."
Since then, the place has turned into a "a slumber party on steroids," McIngvale told NPR.
"We never stepped foot in [one of his stores] and now I'm just like, wow, I mean, they opened up the doors," Magdalena Marez, who's camping out in Gallery Furniture, told CNN. "He didn't even second guess it. He was just like, 'Let me help you.'"
Unlike a certain celebrity pastor who took a hot minute to open up his 606,000-square foot Houston megachurch to hurricane victims, Mattress Mack didn't hesitate to welcome people in—despite the fact that it's costing him upwards of $30,000 to do it.
"We can afford that," he told CBS News. "What we can't afford is to cause these people to lose hope. We gotta give 'em hope."
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The Democratic Socialists Are Here to Fix Your Brake Lights
In the past year, the Democratic Socialists of America has gone from being an obscure leftist organization to the hot new millennial trend. Since Donald Trump's election, the DSA has capitalized on the leftward tilt of the youth, and it's member has surged from 8,000 to over 25,000 (one of those new members is, full disclosure, me). As new chapters begin popping up all over the country—and roses, the group's symbol proliferate all over Twitter—the question remains: How will these recently organized socialists put their ideology into practice?
Kaitlin Marone, a comedian who is also a councilmember-at-large for the New Orleans DSA, had one answer to that question: last weekend's free brake light repair clinic, which was widely praised by her comrades across the country as "good as hell praxis," "extra spicy praxis," and "dank as hell praxis." These are, in the Marxist and meme-drenched slang of the extremely online movement, high compliments. It's one of the most novel events put on by a DSA chapter to date, and also a way to help people in a real way.
Promoting the event on DSA's national Facebook page, the organization wrote, "Out taillights are a main reason for traffic stops. Traffic stops are especially perilous and life disrupting to undocumented immigrants and PoC."
The New Orleans chapter of DSA is still in its infancy—it was only formed in April—so I caught up with Marone to talk about what brake light repairs have to do with socialism, and what's next for the chapter.
VICE: Why did you decide to organize the repair clinic?
Kaitlin Marone: There are a lot of reasons, but the main one is a few years ago, I got pulled over for having a brake light out, and I had a really traumatic experience with some cops in Florida. It was horrific. Recently, it happened to me again but it wasn't nearly as bad. As I was changing my brake light, I realized it was extremely easy to do, and also really cheap. I thought, We should just do this for everybody.
It was right around the time the cop who shot Philando Castile was on trial, and he had been pulled over. It was just in the air.
How does repairing brake lights aide DSA's mission?
In a few ways: There's the aspect of helping people avoid any kind of interaction with the justice system, so keeping people from getting tickets and everything serves the mission of prison abolition and all that, which we've gotten started with.
Also, there's also an aspect of building power outside of the electoral politics system. In New Orleans, it's really hard to create change through regular electoral politics because it's so closed and it's hard to break into it. Doing service like this is a way of making that change on the outside, and helping people meet their basic needs in a way the government will not.
Helping people meet basic needs like that helps us build a stronger working-class base. To get a ticket for a brake light can ruin your whole month, it can ruin a few months, it can ruin your life for a longer than that. It's such a small thing we can do to change that for people.
I know DSA has the reputation of being a largely white organization. Traffic stops disproportionately affect people of color, so was this a way to get more people of color involved in New Orleans DSA?
We were not actively recruiting anybody through this process. We were just doing this as a show of solidarity and support for the community. I would imagine that there's some part of what we're doing that could make DSA more appealing to people of color, and more appealing to people who are disproportionately subject to state violence. As an event, we weren't out there trying to bring people in.
Our local DSA chapter has the same demographic representations as most of them. The only way we can change that if we're sincere about wanting to represent all the people in the working class is by making a sincere effort to center issues that affect people of color, and [the brake light repair event] seems like a good way of showing that in good faith.
How did the event on Saturday go?
We had about 15-20 volunteers through the day. We ended up changing brake lights on 50 cars. We had more people come but we couldn't help because they wanted something else done. Overall, our response was entirely positive. Everybody who came was really excited that we were doing it, and grateful for the service we were providing. People wanted to talk to us about their interactions with police, and their experiences before with having brake lights out which was a really interesting thing, because it also wasn't something we were spending a lot of time pushing on people. People who came knew what we were doing. There was a sign that said, "If your brake light is out, we're going to change it for free." You know what that means if you're a person who that's going to affect.
"People were mad because they thought we were trying to spread the disease of communism through the trick of free brake lights."
Someone wrote on Twitter that the event enraged neo-Nazis online? Were you aware of that? What were they enraged about?
It was funny because people were really trying to find ways to criticize it. I didn't see a lot of enraged neo-Nazis, but we were looking around [for criticism] because we wanted to make sure people didn't give us any shit on the day of. We were looking at some pretty conservative local sites, and people were making stuff up—like, "I can't believe this is federally funded." Which, like, alright, tell me why Donald Trump is sending money to the Democratic Socialists of America.
People were mad because they thought we were trying to spread the disease of communism through the trick of free brake lights. It just really upset people socialists were doing it. It was fascinating to watch people make shit up so they could get more angry and justify why they were angry. Because it's such an indisputably good thing to do for people. Although there were people in these groups who were like, "What's the problem with this? They're just giving away brake lights. My church does this." Which was cool because these are people who would normally hate what we're doing.
I know that New Orleans DSA's tweets about the event went somewhat viral, and in general, the DSA is great at using social media to get their message out. Do you think your event translated that online enthusiasm into real life results?
It's complicated. If we're talking about social media directly affecting the number of people that came into get brake lights changed, I would say social media via the DSA channels didn't do much. Social media [posts] on Facebook got spread around and did help people get in touch with us, and came because of that.
But it blowing up on Twitter was good for a few reasons: One was that it helped spread the word here among leftists who were maybe on the fence about joining DSA or staying with us, who saw what we were doing and saw it was a genuine effort at making a difference. People told me that was part of the reason they decided to actually pay dues. Also, we raised a ton of money from that, which ended up being a real godsend because we were able to experiment much more with what we're doing.
The biggest thing that came from it blowing up online was last night we did a conference call with 80 people from other chapters who want to get started on their own brake light clinics. People all over the country could be starting this now, which means that the impact is going to be so much bigger.
What's next for New Orleans DSA?
We're still a pretty new chapter. We just formed in April. We're going to keep work on [brake light repairs]. We're [also] starting to get a plan together for the hurricane. We're pretty close to Houston and it's affecting a lot of parts of Louisiana as well. We want to take the work we've been doing in direct service and channel that energy into hurricane aid. Right now, we don't know what that looks like because the hurricane is still going on and we're still waiting to find out what's happened in Houston and Louisiana.
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