Hanoi pol seeks to silence noisy wartime relic

[Coventina]

Source: Associated Press

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Each day at around 4 p.m., Hoang Thi Gai tries to lull her five-month-old grandson to sleep so that she can prepare supper. About 15 minutes later, a loudspeaker starts blaring just outside her Hanoi home.

"He starts screaming and crying and his face turns purple," said Gai, 61. "My dear boy hasn't been able to adapt."

As signs of the Vietnam War fade away in this rapidly modernizing country, one relic is hard to miss: a nationwide network of loudspeakers from which the communist government blasts propaganda at dawn and dusk, 30 minutes at a stretch, whether the public likes it or not.

Now a Web-savvy Hanoi politician wants to silence the head-rattling messages and put them on the Internet, where people can read them at their leisure.



Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i71eeH4cTpXeLeOcAVs2wDdUAy4wD9881ORG0

[donco6]

1. Now that's the best argument I've heard for gun ownership.

And for me, that's saying a lot.

[tj2001]

2. Unbelievable

on the other hand, Vietnam is unique.

[Downwinder]

3. What's the matter, they don't have FOX there? n/t

[rpannier]

4. Been there

That's all they have...

Fox -- Viet Nam style.

One thing I learned while I was there, I think when the US left we left millions of buckets of yellow paint behind.

Every office building is painted in yellow.

[The Wizard]

5. Must be the same yellow paint

that was holding up our WW I era barracks in Fort Sill back in 66.

[rpannier]

6. Probably

Lots of 'lead based' yellow paint

[jberryhill]

7. Didn't McCain Leave Already? /nt