Nasty. Nasty. Nasty. If we didn't have to walk the dogs, we'd just stay inside our (semi) warm living room all day. We know the miserable sleet (or is it freezing rain?) and slippery conditions are forcing some offices to send workers home early today. But winter's icy grip on China is far more serious than some missed work or a slip on the sidewalk. Here's a rundown (and, please, feel free to add to this list in a comment): more ›

But Chairman Mao on the other hand ... more ›

Go here to read a gruesome, gut-wrenching, heart-breaking first-hand account of Shanghai-based Guardian reporter Benjamin Joffe-Walt's attempt to report from Taishi, a village in Guangdong, site of what Joffe-Walt calls "perhaps the most significant grassroots social movement China has seen since the Cultural Revolution, a rural revolt against corruption, against deterioration of healthcare, against the illegal sale of farmland, and broadly against urban capitalism that has reaped no benefits for these farmers." (For more on Taishi, visit ESWN.) Joffe-Walt never actually got to Taishi. He was on his way there with democracy activist Lu Banglie, when their car was stopped and Lu was brutally beaten, perhaps to death: more ›