How the World Works

China's tofu construction

A rescue worker digging through the rubble of a school that collapse in the Sichuan earthquake, killing 278 students exclaims:

"It's this tofu dregs construction! Inside the concrete, there's only wire, not a single bit reinforcing bar."

The school was built in 1994. (From Southern Weekend, translated by China Digital Times.)

And in other earthquake-related news, China Vortex features a striking, and humbling, chart showing Google China's search logs for the afternoon of May 19th, when China observed three minutes of silence in memory of the dead.

As China Vortex observes, "The graph says it all."

Posted in: China

Google vs. Microsoft: Haven't we seen this movie?
Shades of 1995: A Web-based upstart threatens to topple Windows from its throne
Is the Obama economic rescue plan a failure?
Swayed by GOP attacks, independent voters are abandoning ship. But the summer of stimulus love has hardly started
Are automaker woes skewing unemployment figures?
In the summer, the Big 3 usually idle factories and lay off workers. But this year, they're ahead of schedule
The Pope's liberal Christian values
Social justice, wealth redistribution, a new morality for Wall Street -- the pontiff throws down on capitalism

About How the World Works

A conversation about globalization.

Recent Posts

Is the Obama economic rescue plan a failure?
Swayed by GOP attacks, independent voters are abandoning ship. But the summer of stimulus love has hardly started
Are automaker woes skewing unemployment figures?
In the summer, the Big 3 usually idle factories and lay off workers. But this year, they're ahead of schedule
The Pope's liberal Christian values
Social justice, wealth redistribution, a new morality for Wall Street -- the pontiff throws down on capitalism

Full Archive

RSS Feed

Posts by date

July 2009
SuMoTuWeThFrSa
1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031

Comments?

You can e-mail me directly at aleonard@salon.com. But to join the conversation with your comments, please use our letters to the editor feature at the bottom of each article.