A long way to go

The past week has not been a good one for China's reputation of having joined the modern world (or at least what I'd like to think is the modern world). There is extensive coverage on China Digital Times of child and slave labor issues focusing on the brick kiln story in Shanxi Province.

This comment by the manager of the factory sums up what appears to be not a rare attitude in parts of China, "I felt it was a fairly small thing, just hitting and swearing at the workers and not giving them wages. The dead man has nothing to do with me." Combine this with

• forcing children to work and the girls to become prostitutes
• local police preventing kids from leaving unless their parents appear
• the government issuing a policy to censor news about the issue
• the lead paint on Tommy the Train
• a work-study program where junior high students work 14 hours a day and can't call home
  

and you have a moral catastrophe on your hands.