Headline in English language newspaper states: "Lawyers back AO victims."  The column reports about a 20th session of the UN Human Rights Council at which an International Association of Lawyers called for the protection of AO victims.  It continued that the US has compensated US veterans with agent orange disease but have ignored the plight of Vietnamese victims.  The session asked that the US admit its responsibility because many victims are nearing end of life and urged the Human Rights Council to act immediately.

Mrs. Tran lives alone after raising four children in this rustic house with no screens or windows (see Mrs. Tran by her house on the  "Life in Vietnam" page).  Her fisherman husband perished at sea 25 years ago.  This writer will be returning to Vietnam after being in contact with her family about a way to help.  They said their mother could really use a facility to go to the bathroom.  She has had to go outside  without benefit of even an outhouse for this function. This writer would like to help this family that befriended him in the 2010 trip to see My Lai.  Also, the author would like to help the general populace of Viet Nam in any, albeit small, way after the US's misguided intervention in Viet Nam's internal affairs that supported a corrupt regime.

In Hanover, New Hampshire lies Dartmouth College, a reputable institution of higher learning, that among other sterling academic initiatives, houses the famous Orozco mural in the Dartmouth College Library.  Jose Orozco, from Mexico, roamed  the US during the Depression seeking mural commissions and surprised many by achieving success at Dartmouth.  He  called this work "The Epic of American Civilization," which he painted on the walls of two large reading rooms in the library's lower level.  It was, and still is, considered a radical indictment of North American culture, including its religion and academe.  It was especially controversial at the time of its inception in 1932, at a, shall we say, conservative college steeped in tradition.  Completed in 1934, Orozco was unapologetic for his message of hypocrisy in the institutions forced on the western hemisphere by the exploitive European colonists, and the firestorm of criticism that it engendered.  It is worth making a trip to study this prodigious work of art.

Studying the Orozco Mural in the library's lower-level reading rooms. 

The Dartmouth College Library  is pictured below.

Have not read the book, but watched the two authors answer questions about it on C-Span on 8/7/11.  Their premise: all foreign policy and attitudes are influenced by the quagmire the US found itself in in the Vietnam conflict.  Marvin Kalb made a very heartfelt comment that the soldiers, airmen, and sailors did not lose the war - the United States lost the war.  In other words, the troops fought bravely, but the decision was made politically that it was not worth losing more Americans to  continue.