2008-04-30

SCRAPs, AD.2008.04.30.ICT - Liberation Day, Saigon

While re-synthesizing the LSD, he accidentally ingested a small sample (through his fingertips) [3] and serendipitously discovered its powerful effects. Three days later, on April 19, Hofmann deliberately consumed 250 micrograms of LSD before his bicycle ride home. This was followed by a series of self-experiments conducted by Hofmann and his colleagues. He first wrote about these experiments on April 22 of that year.

...

In December 2007, Swiss medical authorities permitted a psychotherapist to perform psychotherapeutical experiments with patients who suffer from terminal stage cancer and other deadly diseases. Although not yet started, these experiments will represent the first study of the therapeutic effects of LSD on humans in 35 years, as other studies have focused on the drug's effects on consciousness and body. Hofmann supported the study, and continued to believe in the therapeutic benefits of LSD.

-- From Wikipedia page for Albert Hofmann, 2008.04.30


Never thought much about the old inventor of "acid" (LSD), but it seems most of the media i monitor is eulogizing Albert Hofmann's "final trip" today. The "real" acid i remember back in the '70s was pretty scary stuff. I can't say i regret having tried it -- just the social consequences of tripping out among folks who aren't, and who have no idea why you're acting so nuts. Inevitable conclusion: go directly to nut-house; do not pass "Go". Somewhat surprisingly, Hofmann lived to be an apparently happy 102, even after what must have been some of the best acid trips known to man.

But today is also the 33rd anniversary of Liberation Day for Saigon -- what folks outside Vietnam (US Vietnamese mostly, it seems) call the "Fall of Saigon" -- AD.1975.Apr.30.ICT, the day Vietnamese forces took back Saigon and the US choppered the last of its official forces and government staff out to ships offshore, tails twixt legs.

Before heading home, of course, the US dumped more bombs and chemicals on Vietnam than were dropped on all of Europe over all of World War II.

Interestingly, for this sot at least, the English online press coverage of the event, both inside Vietnam and abroad, is virtually nada so far. Most news about Vietnam today was still fixated on the happy ending for the Olympic torch relay here and Vietnam's ending its US adoption program over US reports of baby sales.

By 21:00 today, in Vietnam, only the "organ" of HCMC Communist Party, Saigon Liberation (Sài gòn Giải phóng), had even mentioned Liberation Day on its Web front page. Not a word was to be seen on the Web fronts of the Viet Nam News Agency, VietnamNet or Thanh Nien (Youth) Daily.

Google news had about 140 reports for "Saigon Fall" and 40 for "Saigon Liberation", most not relevant -- which doesn't seem to bode very well for Vietnam's English-language "propaganda" efforts, as the Vietnamese media still call those efforts themselves.

Still, it's Liberation Day for yours truly at least, liberation from this blog and this obsessive Web RAP SCRAPing. Today, some 22,538 unique Web SCRAPs have been saved to disk since March 2007. That's enough. It's time to get out a bit more.

Yet again, each SCRAP listed is linked to the location it was saved from by
this blog. See BeLow. For more on method/madness, see right.

The Pic

From one of the Web pages SCRAP'd, BeLow. The Taj Mahal, No. 7 in
concierge.com's Top 12 of TRAVEL'S MOST ENDANGERED PLACES

NotIons from the NotAblesSCRAPs

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