It's an old joke referencing some TV show or movie, I forget. A Reefer Madness sort of vibe but for MDMA and the whole scene. "Kids smearing Vicks on each other, eating drugs that take ice cream scoops out of their brains," or something along those lines, real pearl-clutchy. My friends and I thought it was hilarious and started leaning into it. "Oh yeah, huge scoops, and we slather the Vicks on with trowels."
Takes me back. Spin some glow sticks for me the next time you go. And stay hydrated!
Pétanque, a game similar to boules, has been popular here since the French introduced it in the former colony. But children often see the round, metal cluster munitions and mistake them for lost pétanque balls.
“Many children pick up bombies thinking they’re toys, we hear this a lot,” says Ket. It’s why awareness and education programmes are as important as the land clearance operations, she adds.
Fucking hell.
Still, aid to clean up the UXOs pales in comparison to the cost of the bombardment – in 2023 dollars, the US spent $16 million every day bombing Laos for nine years. According to Legacies of War, funding to decontaminate now stands at just $45 million per year.
(16)(365)(9) = 52,560 million or 52.56 billion.
0.045/52.56 = 0.086%
Oooh, I like this one. Like Smashing Pumpkins - 1979. The equivalent song today would be about 2007, I think.