These photos kill me.





They're from Edward Burtynsky's manufacturing section in his photo series on China, of which he writes: "It is here that 90 per cent of your Christmas decorations are made, 29 per cent of color television sets, 75 per cent of the world’s toys, 70 per cent of all cigarette lighters and probably every T-shirt in your closet."

This morning, the woman who lives downstairs with my landlord came knocking on my door to inquire about a strange noise she'd heard coming from my apartment. After explaining that the landlord is out of town traveling in China, she figured she should check on us and make sure everything was okay. I wasn't quite sure what she was getting at, so I asked her what the noise sounded like. She thought about it for a moment and then to her best ability, recreated the dizzy roar of the vacuum cleaner, which my roomate had been using. Now, there's just something about seeing a middle-aged woman impersonate a Hoover at 10 a.m. that makes you not want to get into it when the next thing that comes out of her mouth is, "I don't understand why anyone would want to go to China where they put poison in their pet food."

Not to excuse the poor monitoring in Chinese factories and the reckless endangerment of human and pet life as of late, but I do worry that it's not just bat-shit crazy people who think this way.