Tootfinder

Russia, Vietnam concealing arms deals via joint energy profits to evade US sanctions, AP reports: https://benborges.xyz/2025/09/20/russia-vietnam-concealing-arms-deals.html

“During the Vietnam War... every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

Historically, it makes sense that absurdism is the logical reaction to a climate of oppression and hostility. Dada and Bauhaus for WW I, the "theatre of the absurd" (Esslin) for WW II, or anti-Vietnam war happenings in the 60s.
Somewhat surprisingly, it seems that this role of absurdist relief has today fallen to Tim Robinson and his sketch comedy show "I think you should leave", and the online community around it.
The protagonists change from sketch to sketch…

The US-China trade war has spurred demand for Vietnamese companies that produce chip components like wafers, as Vietnam scales up its semiconductor ambitions (Lam Le/Rest of World)
https://restofworld.org/2025/vietnam-chip-industry-us-china-trade-war/

The surprise winner in the U.S.-China tech war? Vietnam’s chip industry
Vietnamese chip component suppliers are responding to growing market demands for products with no Chinese link. 

Tom Homan, the US border czar, has said
he does not know what happened to the eight men deported to South Sudan
after the Trump administration resumed sending migrants to countries that are not their place of origin, known as third countries.
Men from Mexico, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar were removed from the US and flown to the war-torn country

‘Push back – or they’ll eat you alive’: James Cromwell on life as Hollywood’s biggest troublemaker https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/sep/17/push-back-or-they-will-eat-yo…

Sandy Gall, an ITN presenter for 20 years and war correspondent who covered Vietnam, Uganda, Kenya, Afghanistan, and more, has died at age 97 (Adam Nossiter/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/03/business/media/sandy-gall-dead.html

Sandy Gall, War Correspondent Without Swagger, Dies at 97
For nearly 50 years, he was ubiquitous on British television — first as a reporter and then as an imperturbable presenter on Independent Television’s “News at Ten.”

This year, there appear to be even more fireworks on my street. Which seems weird given both the tariffs and the fact these are a Chinese invention which are made in China, and the folks setting them off around here are very much ‘America first’.
Because the folks setting them off don’t seem to care about their neighbors nor neighbors’ dogs.

"Trump & Vance can destroy what others have built. They can push…United States past…breaking point. But they lack…alternative…They want fascism, &…don’t mind death of others…To get what they want, on…fascist model, they will have to…fight a major foreign war in which they manage to send off young people who oppose them to die, or…have to use government forces to kill Americans. I don’t think…these will…work; Vietnam &…Kent State shootings had…opposite effect."

Look on my works, ye Mighty
Labors of Destruction and Creation

My dad served in the Vietnam war and when he passed away we received this flag which put out every 4th of July
#photo #photography #usa

Refugees, intergenerational trauma, child death, abusive family
Also just finished "The Best We Could Do" by Thi Bui, which is the second memoir I've stumbled upon recently that deals with the Vietnamese exodus after the end of the war (House Without Walls by Ching Yeung Russel is the other one, which is written in verse, not illustrated). Bui traces more of the political landscape and history of Vietnam through the stories of both of her parents, and also unpacks a lot of intergenerational trauma, but has less focus on the boat trip out and refugee camp experience, presumably because hers were easier than Russel's.
My thoughts after reading this return repeatedly to all of the impacts that patriarchy and toxic masculinity had on her father, from setting up his father and grandfather to be abusive towards him and the women in their lives, to pushing him deep into depression when he feels unable to fulfill the role of a protective husband, ironically leaving his wife to pick up the slack and ultimately ruining their relationship, to how it teaches him to despise and shirk the caregiver role he's left with, ultimately passing on some measure of trauma to his children. For sure war, abusive family, and child death can happen in the absence of patriarchy and those are in some ways perhaps bigger factors here, but at the same time, Bui's mom copes with most of the same factors in healthier ways.
#AmReading

Hmong are victims of discrimination in Laos to the point that they have to hide their ethnic identity. Hmong people are in Minnesota because they helped the USA in the Vietnam War. They are valuable and contributing members of the community.
https://www.startribune.com/…

" 'I love the smell of deportations in the morning...' "
Trump wrote on the conservative social media platform Truth Social,
alongside a doctored photo of himself depicted as
Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore from the Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now.
"Chicago [is] about to find out why it's called the Department of WAR," the post continued.
Trump threatened the city of Chicago on Saturday with the deportation of suspected undocumented immigr…

It’s been 55 years since the Ohio National Guard opened fire on students at Kent State University
who were protesting the US war in Vietnam.
Four students were murdered at the Kent State Massacre:
Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Schroeder.
In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Mike Alewitz,
who was a student at Kent State in 1970,
about what it was like to witness the massacre firsthand,
and abou…

‘There were massive revolts’: The history of the 1970 Kent State massacre you haven’t heard
“The whole history of the massacre was suppressed… And then they suppressed the whole history of the anti-war movement at Kent. They've tried to erase the history.”