On May 4, 2007, Jeffrey Weidenhamer and Michael L. Clement of Ashland University in Ohio published “Leaded electronic waste is a possible source material for lead-contaminated jewelry” in Chemosphere, a scientific journal “related to the environment and human health.” The paper is technical, but the hypothesis it attempts to prove is straightforward. According to the…
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China National Petroleum to Dead Workers: Blame Yourselves.
As noted by Shanghaiist, a recent fatal explosion at a gas station in Pudong is garnering international attention. No surprise, the international coverage doesn’t mention a cause because – let’s face it – no Shanghai bureaucrat wants to be the one pinning responsibility on China National Petroleum Corporation, the state-owned oil monopoly that happens to…
Satire/Self-immolation at China Daily?
I’ve begun to think that someone at China Daily has a rather wry sense of humor. Case in point: a very brief photo essay that ran in Friday’s online edition. Located at the top of the China section (still on the home page) was a link that connected to this headline, photo, and caption: I…
Why is Binzhou Weiqiao Suddenly So Interesting?
Back on August 22, I wrote a lengthy post on the August 19 explosion at the Binzhou Weiqiao Aluminum Company plant in Shandong Province, which was eventually responsible for 14 deaths. At the time, I tried to call attention to three points: 1. The far worse Xintai mine disaster – which had occurred a few…
Beijing’s Bishop – Final Thoughts (for now)
As of Monday morning, a google search for articles on the ordination of Li Shan brings up more than 200 entries. Not bad for a religion story – in China or elsewhere. In general, I found the coverage to be a vast improvement on past coverage of Chinese Catholic events which – incorrectly – framed…
New Beijing Bishop to be Ordained Friday – Confirmed
Additional details and links available via a September 15 post to Shanghai Scrap. [Update 9/19: It does, indeed, appear that the Vatican is going to take the pragmatic approach in regard to Beijing’s new bishop. That is, make positive noises, but neither confirm nor deny the Pope’s mandate. In that way, nobody is offended, and…
Missing History: A Bishop for Guiyang
In May 2006, after several years of warming relations between the Vatican and Beijing, two Catholic bishops were illicitly ordained in Wuhu and Kunming. That is to say, they were ordained without the approval of the Pope, but with the approval of certain instruments of the Chinese government, including the Chinese Catholic Bishops Conference. Five…
Danwei’s Model Workers
Earlier this year I established this blog with ideas for three – maybe, four – posts and a list of roughly six blogs that I hoped to recommend to others. Of those, the superb Danwei blog was at the top. Readers may have noticed danwei on my rather short blogroll; regular readers will almost certainly…
Shandong to Dead Workers: Blame Yourselves.
It seems like we’re going through another round of Chinese industrial accidents, each worse than the last. In fact, they are becoming so common that an accident which might be judged major under normal circumstances, now receives almost no coverage due to the much larger accidents. Case in point: on Sunday, an aluminum plant exploded…
How to Write an Olympics Story
A few months ago I recommended a hysterical post entitled “How to write a China Article” over at Sinocidal. It’s a great piece, and the underlying point is still relevant: namely, there’s a whole lot of bad, hackneyed journalism about China being produced by first-time visitors with large expense accounts. Now, this sort of comment…