today

Today was my last day taking BART, I think.

Today BART smelled like pee. As I got off the train, I noticed a sticker that said, "This train has been renovated - " I didn't bother reading the rest of the sign; it depressed me so much.

interesting

Let's see how this plays out: More than 1,000 villagers in inner Mongolia took the local communist party chief hostage yesterday in the latest land dispute to rock the Chinese countryside.

The protest in Qianjin is at least the third since April in which locals have fought, and - at least temporarily - beaten public security forces.

In June six peasants were killed in Shengyou, Hebei province, during a battle with thugs employed by a power company to force them off their land. The government recognised the validity of their dispute, sacked the mayor and promised the villagers that they could keep their property.

Two months earlier the residents of Huankantou, in Zhejiang province, fought off more than 1,000 riot police during a protest about a chemical plant.

Countless other demonstrations go unreported. According to the Ta King-Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper funded by the government, 3.76 million people took part in 74,000 protests last year. They are a symptom of China's growing pains as the one-party political system struggles to keep pace with a supercharged economy.

I hope the villagers win.