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All right, so I'm going to
switch to Yellow Rain here.

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And I think Susan provided a
very excellent introduction

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and contextual background on a
little bit about Yellow Rain.

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And so Yellow Rain
for me is a book

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that's been nearly a
decade in the making.

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And it's a book that
focuses on a reinvestigation

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into the topic of
yellow rain, which

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was a chemical
biological weapon that

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was used against Hmong refugees
when they were escaping

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from the jungles of Laos just
following the end to the US

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war in Vietnam and to the end
to the US proxy war in Laos.

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And so what happened
was that when

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they began to arrive into
the camps in Thailand,

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a lot of the Hmong
refugees would

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say that there was this
mysterious substance that

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would fall from the airplanes.

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And it would land on
their skin, and it

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would land on their clothing and
on the vegetation around them.

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And nobody knew what it was,
but it was making people sick.

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And there were also instances
of fatalities as well.

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And so as a result,
the government

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was really keen to get to
the bottom of it, the US

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government.

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And they began what became a
very confusing investigation

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that took eight years
into this yellow rain

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to find out what it was.

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But meanwhile, they were
also blaming the Soviets

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because this was all
happening during the Cold War.

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And then there were
other countries

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around the world that
were also conducting

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their own investigations
into whatever this thing was,

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whatever yellow rain was.

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And so as this
investigation was happening,

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there were so many
people involved in it

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from multiple
government agencies,

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from the Department of
Defense to the State

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Department, the CIA, imagine.

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And then there was
academic scientists too

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who were testing these samples.

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And then the media also got
really tied into this topic

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as well.

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So with so many people
involved, what ended up

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happening was that people
had political interests.

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And everyone who
got involved had

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something they wanted to get
out of the yellow rain story.

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They wanted to see their
political interest fulfilled

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as a result of yellow rain.

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People who said
it happened wanted

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to have their interest
fulfilled, and people who said,

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oh, it's not actually
a chemical weapon,

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it's just something
else, they had interests

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that they wanted
to see fulfilled.

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And so over time, the
Hmong stories and the Hmong

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testimonies of yellow
rain were just discarded,

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and they were invalidated.

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And so my book
tries to challenge

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the dismissing of
these allegations

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and tries to push against
the erasure of this history.

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So that's a very long
summary, but that's

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everything in a quick nutshell.

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And I do want to start
by reading a poem that's

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in the beginning of
the collection tying

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some of these ideas together.

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All right, here we go.

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Guide for the Channeling.

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"Toward a worn legacy of
rain, I have been lost down

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every jungle path, adrift
and senseless to split open

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a cascade of knowing.

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I have tried with
all my limber to kiln

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a credo of justice, shelter
those who solace inside graves.

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I have been boiled in my bladed
search, opening with questions

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of a deserted pain to end with
the cemented breath shattered

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into silk.

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This is where I am taking you,
into a discarded vista blowing

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forth a silent blaze,
here in sunk villages

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of the disregarded, here where
even the dirt of the land

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cannot muster against
the threat of air.

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Biomedical, vegetation,
munitions unfound,

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every footprint incarnate, where
highlands tangle their echoes

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to the land, a place,
no matter how remote,

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will always be too
near and too much

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a reminder of an expired war.

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Refugees not called
as people only

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to be called the
outcome of an event.

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We are venturing into
swell beyond swelling

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of paperwork and protocol,
slips of memo and routing cable,

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and classified meeting.

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Here is the talk, biological
weapon, yellow spots,

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apiary blame for decades
to wane and cold filed.

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Believe me as a torch
of this wandering

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that I have been digging within
the origins of redaction.

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Believe where I am sending you.

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I have been shoveling upside
down, and now my eyes stagger.

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My hands ache.

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My legs becoming hunter,
my back a raging shadow.

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I have been gardening myself
into this remembrance."

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