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Mexican Nazis, or just PAN at prayer?

19 June 2007

I have always been bothered by the misconception that PAN was a pro-democracy party, and that their victory in the 2000 Presidential election represented a forward movement for Mexico. First of all, it was the PRD that forced the country to open itself up politically, basically by trading off their “loss” in 1988 for political reforms.

PAN had been around since the 1930s, basically allowed to function to keep the reactionaries within the Mexican political system, and out of the guerrilla movements of the 1920s and early 30s. Being pro-heirachy and control-freaks (and anti-unionists to boot), naturally they appealed to the industrialists in the North, and when the democratic opening came in the 90s, were in a position to take advantage of it. With a healthy assist from the right-wing of the U.S. Republican Party (it was Jesse Helms of North Carolina who claimed Vicente Fox “ended 71 years of one-party rule” and Republican Party operatives who developed his U.S. style campaign) and Helms’ continual harping on every PAN loss as “proof” of PRI corruption (while ignoring things like the assassination of PRD organizers, or their election losses), PAN nearly became the main party in Mexico.

Like the far-right U.S. Republicans, they tended to overstep their mandate, and have been losing power, though they still control the administration (whether by honest close election or otherwise). Their fascist roots are no secret, though WE tend to ignore them. When Marta Sahagun de Fox was seriously mentioned as a Presidential candidate, U.S. reporters could only think of Hillary Clinton (a spouse with political ambitions), though Señora Fox — and everyone in Latin America — had another famous First Lady in mind… Eva Peron.

Marta’s so-called charity, “Vamos Mexico,” was openly modelled on Peron’s “Fundacion Eva Peron” — right down to the shakedowns, incessant propaganda and rampant corruption. As far as I can recall, the only charitable action (reported day after day after day… followed by commercials for Vamos Mexico) was to give bicycles to students in isolated rural areas. Mostly, it gave expensive gifts to its own leaders, spending more on administrative fees than it took in as reported donations.

If you look through the biographies of the Fox and Calderón cabinet secretaries, it’s surprising how many are either descendants of Porfirio Diaz-era landowners (Santiago Creel was a two-fer: a Creel, and a descendant of U.S. Grant) or from Synarchist families. I felt a little better about Felipe Calderón when I learned his own dad had quit PAN because of its Fascist tendencies, but the party still has more than its share of Synarchists, Francoists, ultra-montane Catholics and other odd rightists.

In a way, this article was no surprise. It’s long, and I didn’t so much translate it, as boil it down a little. It first appeared in the May 2007 Milenio Revista, and was reprinted by FLASCO Mexico

Supported by the Catholic ultra-right, Nazi and Fascist groups are growing in Mexico. Forced underground during the PRI era, they openly identify with the Felipe Calderón government and have taken to the streets to push their ideology…

In Mexico, Nazi and Fasicst moverments were in the hands of the Catholic ultra right – the old Cristero and Sinarquist movements, as well as Francoists. … According to reseacher Edgar González Ruiz, these groups make common cause with the Catholic hierachy, adding gay marriage and abortion legalization to what they claim is a “Jewish-Masonic plot”

Since the 1930s there have been extremist Catholics who found the totalitarian systems of Hitler, Benito Mussolini and especially Francisco Franco congenial to their own world-view. Adopting Hilter’s ideas to Latin America is not a new concept, González says, though joining in anti-gay and “right to life” demonstrations in support of the Church is a new role for the Nazis.

The Nazis themselves seem largely limited to the Internet. Mexican researchers have very information on neo-nazis within the country, and most organizations are unknown. The few known nazi sympathizers are mostly limited to web sites, featuring the expected attacks on abortion, lesbians, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the United States and Zionism.

Militants from the Partido Nacional Socialista (PNS) appeared on the streets of the Federal District during the recent debate over legalizing abortion. Overtly violent, they made common cause with the anti-abortion groups. UR, a non-catholic Fascist group going back to 1930s Italy, has joined pilgramages to the Basilica of Guadalupe, and has appeared at the Metropolitan Cathedral, as well as in the Federal District’s Legislative Assembly. UR members dress in white shirts and black pants, carrying what they way is a “celtic” cross, normally identified with the Ku-Klux-Klan.

Although claiming to be a non-Catholic group, its first appearance was at a recitation of the Rosary at a public “right to life” rally. The group attended a mass said by Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, during which they promenently flew their flag in the Basilica sanctuary.

The same flag was unfurled this past April 12, outside the Federal District Legislative Assembly. A right-wing activist and member of the Guardia Nacional Mexicana, was with the group, making death threats to Legislators if they voted to legalize abortion. De la Peña was denounced for these theats to the Federal Prosecutor, and PRD Deputy, Víctor Hugo Círigo, swore that the protestors were claiming the legislative vote was part of a “Jewish conspiracy.”

De la Peña may have been the total membership in the Guardia Nacional Mexicana, which hasn’t been heard of since he went underground. However, the UR has appeared at subsequent anti-abortion rallys in the Capital, and harassing Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social strikers (objecting to a new contract). They also have been shouting anti-semetic comments about IMSS director, Santiago Levy.

Much more wide-spread than Nazis or Fascists are Falagists, who take their cues from the Francisco Franco, and are associated with the most conservative forces in the Catholic Church.

Spanish Falangists in Mexico, together with the Sinarquists and members of various conservative Catholic movements were active members of PAN. PAN Secretary Carlos Abascal Carranza, and several business leaders active in the Party came out of these movements.There are a few other far-right groups, claiming ties to the Templars, the Knights of Malta and the Knights of Columbus, but the largest right-wing Catholic movement is the Francoist “ Movimiento de Cristo Rey” The group has four synarchist schools in Puebla, where they have held public receptions for José Luis Corral, the head of the Movimiento Católico Español and Acción Juvenil Español. Corral insisted to his audience on the need to political organize, gain power and write “Christian laws.”

Several participants at the event were wearing tee-shirts bearing Franciso Franco’s image, and photos of the Spanish dictator were promently displayed at the event.

Speaking in Cuernavaca, José Luis Corral told his audience that the Social Kingdom of Jesus Christ has a political dimension, and it is His will that countries with a Catholic majority (since as Spain and Mexico) are governed accordingly. He then called on the audience to organize and fight the state’s “unnatural” laws. A similar speech was later given in Toluca. In his Mexico City address, Corral assured his listeners that “Spain has destroyed the family, though divorce, free love, the gay agenda, pornography and immorality.”

For good measure, he added that “insecurity, terrorism, deliquency, domestic violence, abortion, drugs, euthanasia and the flag of the culture of death is worse than the Aztec Empire.”

Jorge Serrano Limón, Presidente of the ultra-right Provida, which has engaged in violent actions, claims he only knows about the Guardia Nacional Mexicana and similar groups from seeing them on television.

Serrano Limón speculates that these groups were set up by the PRD to discredit Catholics [Of course, Serrano Limón was also the guy who spent a government grant to promote birth-control on, tangas for himself and his male staff, that the “exposure” was a plot to discredit the Catholic Church, too — something the Milenio article didn’t bother to add, but I will.]

12 Comments leave one →
  1. 3 September 2007 1:06 pm

    This is a very interesting post, so many people have forgotten where the PAN emrged from and when you have pople like Abascal proclaiming birth-control methods weapons of mass destruction, it does get very scary…yet I did find many errors in the translation…it should be cleaned up.

  2. Sergio permalink
    24 November 2007 6:45 am

    I was rather dissapointed by this commentary since it wasn’t well researched. To begin with, the PAN has been credited by many historians, especially Enrique Krauze, for being the political party that actually has championed the democratic cause throughout the PRI’s reign. The author of this article is wrong when he claims that the PRD started the movement in 1988, only because the PRD did not come into existance until 1989 and that their most important founders, Cuauhtémoc Cardenas and Munoz Ledo, were still members of the PRI up until 1987. The PAN actually started the movement towards democracy as early as 1983 when they started to win elections in the northern states of Chihuahua and Sinaloa.
    You should research the elections of Francisco Barrio and Luis Alvarez. Here, you see both the PAN and the Catholic Church set the stage for citizen participation, hunger strikes, and protests as a means of defending their democratic victory, years before the PRD.
    As so far as the PAN being a neo-Nazi party, that is wrong too. The UNS (Union Nacional Sinarquista) and the Partido Democrata Mexicano (PDM) were long associated with the neo-nazi movments of the 1930s and 1940s. This political party tended to attract people that were farther “right” than the PAN. Why you did not mention either of these two groups is what really undermines the credibility of your article. In fact, what is most interesting, is that when the PDM and UNS party lost its registration in 1997, most of its members actually joined the PRD and supported Cardenas’ campaign in 2000 since they did not agree with Vicente Fox’s campaign! (Maybe you should research their Partido Alianza Social).

    Sergio Robles

  3. 2 January 2008 9:39 pm

    My husband and I have been down in Oaxaca since September and we’ve been shocked to see images of neo-Nazism in some of the Zapotec villages around the city. We’ve seen a pick-up truck adorned with massive images of Hitler addressing crowds and we’ve seen young men with swastika tattoos. One of the Zapotec men working with my husband showed up to work with a swastika drawn on his hand. When my husband asked him about it, he told him it was a ‘symbol’ and that he was a Nazi. A Zapotec Nazi! It sounds insane, but it’s actually happening here.

    I don’t know if this is a result of the growing evangelist movement here, or if it is an import from the US, or if it is homegrown, but clearly it is a little shocking, and completely counter-intuitive, to see Nazi indígenas. Have you heard any other reports about this? Just curious!

    • Pablo permalink
      24 May 2015 11:33 am

      Please watch the movie “the greatest story never told” and for the first time in your life get a second opinion on history instead of being spoon fed govt issued history

  4. tagle permalink
    21 April 2010 1:22 pm

    Ha sido una desgracia la entrada del PAN al poder y continuidad del salinismo, a traves de sus mas profundos manipuladores, vease quien los puso a quien obedecen y quienes les obedecen, en suma Mexcio en desgracia, hasta que no se quite la plutocracia, por enriquecimiento ilicito y se les declare extinsion de dominio, habra quien lo haga?Consulta y observa padrejose_com_mx, zeitgeistmovie, chris hedges, Investiga y lee a bill maher, rachel maddow, abre los ojos

  5. forreal story permalink
    27 April 2010 12:50 pm

    This is a for real story search on the web for Chris Hedges, bill maher, padrejose, adn pay attention to whom they are realated with specially the last one,
    is mexico under fascism comming from spain or likewise, we do not know, but pay attetion to every expresident from spain and use and their business in mexico; you’ll be sorprissed

  6. pacisops permalink
    6 May 2010 1:21 pm

    You DO believe we americans are ingenuous?
    UN ‘Blue Heart’ Human Trafficking Campaign????
    google:: The Demons of Eden the Power That Protects Child Pornography
    Who are behind all of them?, Since when?, Is there any relation with catholic church? with government?
    read Conspiracy by Dan Brown
    google:: zeitgeistmovie
    google:: Chris Hedges

  7. Rickardo permalink
    27 July 2011 2:49 pm

    Hey are you gonna right about the evil socialists roots of the PRD And PRI, and how the communists killed 100 million people? How the leftists PRI tried to forcefully homogenize Mexico, established a one party dictatorship, oppressed freedom of religion, and stole people’s land.

  1. Tribal warfare… or just Nazi bullshit? « The Mex Files
  2. He’s dead « The Mex Files
  3. PAN-dering to bigotry and racism « The Mex Files
  4. Today we have to correct those things that don’t work in the country « The Mex Files

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Cotton Production in the Borderlands
Ruifeng Zhou
La Valle Bajo Rio Bravo

The success of the cotton zones in Laguna and Mexicali inspired the Mexican government to search for more prosperous agricultural lands. By 1920, the Colorado River and the upper Rio Bravo were under the control of the U.S. Reclamation Service, while Mexican government could only claim the water which was drained into Rio Bravo from tributaries located in its own territory and the lower Rio Bravo itself. By planning dams on the tributaries, the Mexican government threatened to dry up the agricultural zones in Texas in order to get a stable amount of water for the use of irrigated zones on its own land. Starting in 1935, the Mexican government started the Valle Bajo Rio Bravo project to call back Mexican workers from the US and industrialize the vast areas around Matamoros with cotton agriculture. By 1939, the flood control works were almost finished by the Secretary of Communications and Public Works and the focusing point wold be shifted to irrigation systems. During this period, several colonia sites were built to repatriate large amounts of Mexican workers and farmers, such as Colonia Anahuac and Colonia 18 de Marzo.

Other places in the series

Magic Valley

La Laguna

La Valle Bajo Rio Bravo

Cotton production in the borderlands

In late 19th and 20th century, commercial cotton production dominated the society and economy of the border region. Together with the growth of railroads and mining, commercial agricultural enterprises defined the character of borderlands in a regional sense.

Cotton is an indigenous agricultural product in the borderlands of United States and Mexico, but the situations of cotton production on each side underwent significant change after the 19th century. Before the Civil War in the United States (1861-1865), most of the world’s cotton was grown in New Orleans and East Texas in the United States. In contrast, cotton production in Mexico was of relatively small scale. By 1843, 80 percent of domestic cotton fiber came from Veracruz which only occupied 20 percent of cotton need for Mexico's textile industry. During the American Civil War, the northern US states imposed a naval blockade to prevent southern cotton from reach market, resulting in a global impact on textile industries. Cotton cultivated in southern states during this time was often smuggled through Texas into Mexico to be shipped to Europe. As the textile center of northern Mexico, Monterrey saw a large amount of capital and labor force concentrated within the textile industry in a very short time. The accumulation of capital resulted in the development of the cotton zones in the border region.

Walsh, C. (2008). Building the borderlands a transnational history of irrigated cotton along the Mexico-Texas border. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.

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Hytera logistics and distribution two way radio communication product solutions

Weighing technology from Avery Weigh Tronix improved yield for Schlötter Ireland

Weighing technology and software from Avery Weigh-Tronix has reduced product giveaway and improved the yield from a batch of chemicals for Schlötter Ireland by five percent.

Schlotter blends chemicals for a wide variety of industries including automative, microelectronics, metal finishing and medical devices.

The cost of blended chemicals varies but can be up to 50 euros per kilogram, so process efficiency was a key driver in the company’s lean manufacturing programme.

Schlötter would normally fill 25kg to 1,000kg containers but also offer product in 1kg to 10kg bottles of the blended chemical, depending upon customer requirements.

Previously the operator would place the drum or other container on to a floor scale and then fill it manually to the required level. In order never to short ship, the operator would overfill these containers so, for example, a 25kg drum could receive 1 kg extra and sometimes as much as 2 kg.

Giveaway was even more extreme on the smaller 4 litre bottles – often up to 10 percent extra. Typically these chemicals are higher value products.

Another problem was that if there was any spillage or product left in the filling tank, then the company has to pay for its proper disposal as a hazardous waste, in line with its IPC licence.

Avery Weigh-Tronix installed and programmed its Evolution E1110 indicator to control the pump and filling head from the filling tanks in response to the weight readings from the existing floor scales.

This new semi automated system has reduced product giveaway and improved the company’s margins. It has also freed up operator time to concentrate on more value added activities.

Says Don Chaplin, engineering manager for Schlötter Ireland: "Moving from a manual to a semi-automated system has seen a huge improvement in our packaging performance. It has improved our yield and enables us to use our workforce more constructively. All the operator has to do is press a button, there is no need to monitor the filling process of large containers anymore."

"Avery Weigh-Tronix installed and commissioned the system in conjunction with our engineers. In time we may upgrade the system even further and incorporate data loggers so that the system also records the filling operation and feeds back the data. This will help us further improve our processes. We now have 7 such systems operational at our facility in Newbridge, County Kildare. The capability of Avery Weigh-Tronix equipment and their engineers helped these projects come in on budget and on time in each instance"

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No Game No Life: Zero (Cert 15)

1 Disc DVD/Blu-ray (Distributor: MVM) Running time: 108 minutes approx.

You might recall the TV series No Game No Life which appeared on UK shores back in early 2016, about two siblings dragged into a virtual reality world where disputes and settled via games and not violence. Based on a series of light novels, a second series has yet to arrive so instead we go back in time for this movie prequel.

It begins with Tet, the God of Games playing chess with fox girl Izuna, both recognisable from the TV series. Tet decides to tell Izuna about the origin of Disboard, the world they inhabit, a story set 6000 years in the past when life was torn asunder by a brutal war which saw humanity under threat by the Old Deus, as they battle to become the One True God.

Leading the few human survivors is Riku Dola, a young man who refuses to believe the gods are the future and wants to create a brighter, conflict free utopia for mankind. As the destruction worsens the refugees are constantly on the move, and it is during a recce to the remains of an Elvish city that Riku finds an Ex Machina who has been exiled by her Cluster for wanting to explore human emotions.

Naming her Schwi, Rika lets the Ex Machina join him although she is a burden at first, but her android skills and his quick wit prove a successful combination in keeping one step ahead of any trouble. Growing closer they begin to understand each other, leading them to formulate an audacious plan they hope will end the Great War and create a new, peaceful society for humankind.

Every story has an origin which will feature some notable differences to the later version we are more familiar with, yet they usually contain something to connect both of them, be it a visual motif, a callow version of a prominent character or a shared concept. No Game, No Life: Zero bucks this trend by going in the opposite direction by presenting us with a world and characters that is as alien to fans just as Disboard was upon seeing it first time in the TV series.

By the time the story concludes this is all made clear (well, clearish – this is a fantasy anime after all) but it is a brave gamble by creator Yuu Kamiya to essentially wipe the slate completely clean in going back to the beginning. Except the way the story is told, there is a prequel required to this prequel to explain in considerably more detail who the Old Deus are and why being the One True God is so important.

Similarly, the history of the Ex Machina is something lacking in this narrative, as is how Riku, a mere 18 year-old lad, is the leader of the remaining humans and not someone older and more experienced. And where did they come from? And why is the Great War affecting them when it isn’t their fight? Why can’t the all powerful Old Deus fight in space or somewhere else?

Perhaps it’s just me but it seems this prequel tends to leave us with more questions than it does answers, not that there seemed a pressing need to learn more about Disboard in the first place. Kamiya obviously felt the need to tell this tale though, as it makes up the sixth novel in his series, but the anime adaptation hasn’t reached that far so there is something quite presumptuous about this film’s existence at the moment.

Aside from a fresh cast, new concepts, and an unrecognisable world, this film also boasts a much darker tone than the TV series, while thankfully eliminating the intrusive fan service and gauche harem set up. A little bawdiness is sadly present in Schwi’s first meeting with Riku, where she asks if she can procreate with him to understand love, but he shuts that quickly enough in explaining that it is not how it works.

Being an cyborg, Schwi works on a computerised logic, making her cold and categorical at first but in many ways she acts as a cipher for the audience allowing Riku to impart his philosophy on life and humanity, which he is fighting to maintain during this time of war. That the cyborg Schwi should fall in love with Riku is a stretch but this is a result of her being “programmed” by Riku’s humanity, whilst in turn he falls for Schwi presumably because she is a loli.

The central game conceit of Disboard only appears here via the rounds of chess Riku and Scwhi play, mostly to pass the time or to settle a dispute, usually with Schwi winning but granting Riku his wish anyway. With this being mostly absent, with the focus on dialogue and only one battle scene for the climax, the title of No Game No Life feels bitterly ironic in this instance.

Madhouse once again handles the production, replacing the gaudy colours from the TV series with a dark, brooding palette of blood red skies, post-apocalyptic greys and sullen blues. That Riku and Schwi bear a distant resemblance to the TV protagonists Shiro and Sora is deliberate yet character designs are still largely generic. The animation astounds during the battle finale, but given the sluggish pace and heavy chat this might be too late for some.

If anything stands out about the story it is that it didn’t need to be attached to this particular franchise per se, the intrinsic philosophy of finding an alternative way to settle disputes other than war having great merit and could easily work under completely separate circumstances, and at a brisker pace.

As a standalone entry in this series the interest and appeal of No Game, No Life: Zero is likely to be limited to existing fans only, provided they can accept the totally different and paucity of elements they enjoy about the series. Better than the series for this writer but only just.

English Language 2.0

Spanish Language 2.0

Japanese Language 2.0 w/ English Subtitles

Japanese Language 2.0 w/ Spanish Subtitles

Japanese Promos

Behind The Scenes with Sentai Filmworks Staff and Cast

Limited Edition Only:

80 Page booklet

Rating – ***

Man In Black

2 thoughts on “No Game No Life: Zero

  1. I would prefer a new series that continues the story rather than a prequel movie. Darker tone and new characters means that many of the things I liked about the show are missing from this film.

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Together In One Place

I’ve heard of church and community leaders coming together in the wake of a crisis (weather, violent crime) to serve and to pray. And I’ve heard of pastors coming together in small groups to encourage one another. Crisis or ministry affinity often brings together believers from different backgrounds and church traditions.

But yesterday’s Catalyst Forum brought over 350 church and community leaders from Lake County, IL (and beyond) together for a time of spiritual refreshment and relationship-building. No crisis necessary; no other affinity point beyond the beautiful name of Jesus Christ. It was remarkable to see people from their 20’s through their 70’s, men and women, many ethnic groups, all together under one roof praying, laughing, worshipping, learning, eating and talking. A good number of the churches represented have come together in recent years to do all sorts of service projects in the county; others gather for prayer. But the Catalyst Forum is a unique opportunity for all sorts of Christ-following people to simply gather.

I had a wonderful “ah ha!” moment as I stood near the gym doors yesterday watching the people stream in to grab a slice of Lou Malnati’s and some salad. The Lord brought a simple phrase to mind:

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” – Acts: 2:1-4

They were all together in one place.

Christ’s followers had been gathering to wait for the promise of the Father, as Jesus had instructed them to do. If you continue reading Acts 2, you’ll see the immediate, supernatural, multi-national, multi-ethnic, explosive effect of this baptism. The church grew from 120 to 3000 in a single day.

Their obedience and their longing for Him brought them together in one place, positioning them to receive. They had no context to imagine what this promised baptism might look like, when it would come, or what would happen as a result. But they all kept showing up, these 120 people, waiting and wondering together, until Pentecost (Shavuot), the Jewish celebration of firstfruits, became a whole new event.

They were all together in one place.

This little phrase will change the way I pray for revival in Lake County. This “together in one place” thing is the first step that positions us to receive what only God can give. “Together in one place” is can be a physical act that demonstrates our individual humility and hunger for Him.

May this deeper reality saturate these “together in one place” gatherings in this county.

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Curtis Blaydes Says It Will ‘Take A Lot Of Money’ For Him To Fight Jon Jones

Ahead of his bout with Derrick Lewis this weekend, Curtis Blaydes reveals if he is interested in fighting Jon Jones

Curtis Blaydes Says It Will ‘Take A Lot Of Money’ For Him To Fight Jon Jones

With the news of Jon Jones moving to heavyweight, there have been discussions of who his first opponent would be. If the UFC wants it to be Curtis Blaydes, he says they will have to shell out the big bucks.

Blaydes is certainly in an interesting spot in the UFC’s heavyweight division. He has only ever lost to one man in his 17 professional fights, but the problem is that man is the number one contender in the division, Francis Ngannou. So while Francis prepares to fight Stipe Miocic, Curtis is looking to further establish himself as the next man up after that, when he takes on Derrick Lewis at this weekend’s UFC Vegas 15 event.

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Curtis Blaydes Is Not Interested In Jon Jones

One other person who has the potential to interfere with the title aspirations of Curtis Blaydes is former light heavyweight champ Jon Jones, who is making the move to heavyweight after vacating his title. Some have floated around the idea of Jon facing someone like Curtis in his debut, while the division’s next title fight takes place. However Curtis said in a recent interview that the only way he would be interested in risking his place in the contendership queue by facing Jon, is the UFC paid him a pretty penny.

“(It would take) a lot of money,” Blaydes said. “If I beat Derrick Lewis, I’ve already proven I’m next in line. So it’ll take a lot of money for me to jeopardize, because that’s what it would be. Me fighting Jon Jones when I don’t have to, that would be jeopardizing all the work I’ve done to put myself in a position to be the next title challenger. Yeah, there’s a way but only if the UFC comes at me with that kind of money.”

This does not exactly seem like the direction the UFC is interested in going with Jon Jones’s heavyweight debut, and Curtis Blaydes even admittedly said that the UFC has not approached him about it. However disappointing it may be though, Curtis may want to prepare himself for the possibility that he will not be getting the next shot at heavyweight gold.

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Git Commits -> Revision 3a4344a

October 3, 2014, 09:55 (GMT)
attempts to fix one small memleak in read_struct, but fail.... grrr where on earth this is supposed to be freed again ?

Commit Details:

Full Hash: 3a4344a9fa37f299a9efb6554a8c90c987d902f7
Parent Commit: 07a4b5c
Lines Changed: +43, -31

By: Miika HämäläinenLast update: Nov-07-2014 14:18 MiikaHweb | 2003-2021


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Daily Archives: April 18, 2015

Samsung’s New Tablets Get Closer

Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 (SM-T715 and SM-T815) Now Certified by Bluetooth SIG

And from Tablety.pl:

On the Galaxy Tabs S2 but we know much more. SM-T715 is an 8-inch model with a screen resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels (ie, has a screen aspect ratio of 4: 3), and its bigger brother – SM-T815 has a 9.7-inch AMOLED display with the same resolution. Both tablets feature a 8-core processor Exynos 5344 clocked at 1.9 GHz, 3 GB of RAM. The devices operate based on Android 5.0.2 Lollipop with a new cap TouchWiz . If you believe the rumors, the new Galaxy Tabs S will be closed in an aluminum housing with a thickness of only 5.4 mm! Tablets also get Wi-Fi 802.11ac standard, 2.1 megapixels webcam for video chat, camera 8 megapixels, memory card reader microSD card with support for up to 128 GB and a battery with a capacity of 3580 mAh (8 “model) or 5870 mAh (a 9.7” tablet).

It’s going to be interesting to see these compared to the Nexus 9 and Xiaomi MiPad.

I am really, really looking forward to these and hope Samsung doesn’t manage to screw them up.

Previously here:

Samsung Galaxy iPad Mini Tab S2 8.0
Leaks: Samsung’s New Tablets
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Tag Archives: collecting royalties

Why Every Writer Should Join ALCS by David Gullen

ALCS, the UK Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society, collects secondary royalties on behalf of writers for work published in the UK, and campaigns and lobbies on writers’ rights at national and international levels. The society is now in its 40th … Continue reading

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Customize Your Maska Fox

By Thomas Macaulay

Published on February 1, 2015

Screen printing dates back a thousand years to China. The technique involves the application of ink through a stencil on a mesh screen to print an image onto the surface below, and gained prominence thanks to Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe portraits.

In recent years it has enjoyed a renaissance, and Print Workers is at the vanguard. The space combine a coworking area, printing workshop, art gallery and shop under one roof. The founders call it the country’s first print club, a hub for creatives infusing coworking with a DIY spirit. Their most recent event is an exhibition and competition Customize Your Maska Fox that opened on February 13th.

Last December, they hosted Barcelona’s first screen printing market; an exhibition on the thriving Dutch scene and a DIY Christmas card workshop ran alongside it. The market’s title is the club’s rallying cry: “Give print a chance!”

February 13, 2015 – March 26, 2015
Opening hours
16:00 – 20:30
16:00 – 20:30
16:00 – 20:30
16:00 – 20:30
16:00 – 20:30
16:00 – 20:30


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Tag Archives: multicore

Minimal Metrics has teamed up with the authors of ATLAS to bring their ultra high performance implementation of the BLAS or Basic Linear Algebra Subroutines to Texas Instruments‘ next-generation, multi-core, digital signal processing (DSP) platform. BLAS is used throughout the industry to achieve performance on a number of low-level matrix and vector operations. It is best known as the building block of LAPACK; a programming library invented by Dr. Jack Dongarra in the 70’s to solve problems consisting of simultaneous systems of linear equations. Solving such systems are at the core of many uses of high performance computers today, whether it be in the simulation sciences like weather forecasting, aircraft design or car crash simulation or web technologies such as data mining, web analytics and natural language processing. Ti’s new generation of processors, beginning with the 8-core C6678, a.k.a “Shannon” raise the bar on the performance per-watt for both integer…

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The Reorder of ThingsThe University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference$
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Roderick A. Ferguson

Print publication date: 2012

Print ISBN-13: 9780816672783

Published to Minnesota Scholarship Online: August 2015

DOI: 10.5749/minnesota/9780816672783.001.0001

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A Fan of Private Life: On Social Media, Novels, & Tuning out

I am a fan of private life.  Lolling in a hammock…making gazpacho…reading the latest book by Richard Russo.   None of that is especially personal, but I can’t help notice that private life is increasingly driven and threatened by electronic devices.  All that meaningless data at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is eaten up by bots, advertisers, and given to the Russians.  “She reads Dostoevsky’s Demons. She’s a Democrat.”

Knock yourself out.

If only we could turn back the clock. How far we’ve come from those days when every liberal group, from unions to anti-war protesters to environmental activists, worried about a hostile co-worker’s eavesdropping or FBI infiltration.  Now we are trusting and post everything online.  Timothy Leary’s hipster philosophy in the ’60s was:  “Turn on, tune in, drop out.”  I would revise that to “Turn off (your phones), tune in (to reality), drop out (from the electronic-fantasy community at least a few hours a day).

If I were an advice columnist,  I’d emphasize the following private-life-enhancing “Do’s and “Don’t’s”

  • Do read many, many novels (a study at Emory University found that reading fiction improved brain function and empathy)
  • Don’t read only on tablets or computers (devices with access to the internet and email are distracting)
  • Do take social media breaks (a study shows that comparing yourself to  Facebook friends causes depression).
  • Don’t delude yourself that your “followers” are your best friends, because only those annoying people in real life will be there in an emergency)

Every age has its bête noire: in the mid-20th century, it was TV, not the internet.  I grew up in a TV-centric household:  we watched soap operas, football games on Thanksgiving,  and I can still sing the Patty Duke Show theme song.  My husband and I watched Seinfeld  so many times we know the dialogue.  He was allowed to watch very little TV when he was growing up, but bizarrely he knows more TV trivia than I do.

Most of what I know is gleaned from novels.  I am a great fan of novels.  I don’t care much for following the news; I want to know how people think and feel, and fiction writers capture that much more veraciously than  journalists.  And novelists know the issues.  I was fascinated by Doris Lessing’s The Four-Gated City, the last novel in her Children of Violence series, when the heroine Martha Quest muses on how TV has changed the oral narratives of working-class Londoners, who used to tell stories instead of sitting passively in front of TV.   Now I can’t say TV stopped any of the women in my family from chatting, in person, on the phone, in letters, or on Christmas cards.  It was chat, chat, chat, chat.  But I am sure TV did something to our brains.

This isn’t to say I wasn’t influenced by silly trends in non-electronic culture.  I briefly adored chanting “Power to the people” at protests–and then I learned that People, once they got Power, were no better than Politicians.  I once bought a pair of ostrich cowgirl boots at Banana Republic, which were useless in the snow, and didn’t go very well with my office dresses either.  And I tried to memorize The Mikado before a headmaster’s party where the posh teachers sat around the piano singing Gilbert and Sullivan.  Resentfully, I did Gilbert and Sullivan homework for these excruciating parties.  May I  say that nothing in my reading life or TV-watching life prepared me for it?

All in all, I agree with Linda Radlett in Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love.  She  left her bourgeois banker husband for Christian, a rebellious aristocrat and communist, and though she loves him dearly, she finds the communists very tiring and serious.

You know, being a Conservative is much more restful,” Linda said to me  once in a moment  of confidence, when she was being unusually frank about her life, “though one must remember that it is bad, not good.  But it does take place within certain hours, and then finish, whereas Communism seems to take up all one’s life.”

I am happy to say that being a Democrat is restful, too.  I take it up at certain hours, right before I go voting, and then forget about it.  I would be much more anxious if I voted for the Green Party, because I’d agonize about wasting my vote.

Well, we must blend our electronic life (and not spend too much time on it) with our private life (to which we must devote more time).

What are your pet peeves about our electronic age?

Are You a Ray Bradbury Fan? The Martian Chronicles and a Music Video

An illustration from the Folio Society edition

Are you a Ray Bradbury fan?

Rereading his SF classic, The Martian Chronicles, is like time-travel to the future of space travel as imagined in the 1940s. The atmosphere is strictly pulp-fiction, but the politics and psychology are historically-based and perspicacious.  In this brilliant collection of linked short stories, published in 1950, Bradbury imagines the consequences of American colonization of Mars.

Bradbury poses the questions, What is real and what is unreal? as he depicts the illusions and disillusions of the colonists. The first crew of Americans on Mars are dismissed by Martians as psychotics, because the mentally ill on Mars can project visual and sensory hallucinations.   A later group of Americans has the illusion of walking through Midwestern towns, joyously but with dire consequences.  And the Martians gradually disappear and are forgotten.

A friend recently sent me the link to Rachel Bloom’s 2010 video, “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury,” which was a finalist for the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.  Bloom, a comedian, singer, writer, and the ultimate Bradbury groupie, is co-creator and star of the TV show, Crazy Ex Girlfriend.  This video is hysterically funny!

In Which “War and Peace” Tips Over the Bike

“War and Peace” in my bicycle helmet one summer!

Odd though this may sound, War and Peace is a comfort read.  I reread it every year.  There is nothing intellectual about this classic, despite Tolstoy’s occasional philosophising.   I adore the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys (especially Masha/Mary/Marie),  whether they are gossiping in the drawing room or riding horses in the confusion of battle.  And what about the  flight of the residents from Moscow when Napoleon and the French are at the gates?  Very suspenseful!

In my family it is a joke the number of times I’ve read W&P. “Please read something else.”  A few years ago, when my husband saw me loading the Vintage Classics edition into the bike pannier before a 30-mile ride, he said,”That’s why you have back problems.”

I was blithe.  “It’ll be fine!”

But he was right. I hate to admit it, though.  At four pounds and 1,273 pages, W&P tipped over the bike every time we stopped for a break. The trick was to lean it against a tree and then lean against it bodily before it toppled.

“I told you so.”

And so, quite sensibly, on the next ride I switched to the Oxford paperback, which only weighs 2.1 pounds.

Recently I decided to reread War and Peace.  I took it with me on a bike ride again:  the Oxford.

But am I losing my strength?

I planned to bike to a park, choose a nice bench in the shade, and read for an hour.  The problem?  THE WEST WIND WAS GUSTING AT 23 MPH!  I was out in the open and it was a struggle.  Finally I reached the woods.

I sat on a bench and the wind blew the hair across my face.  I had one barrette, and though I pinned my hair back as far as possible, it kept escaping and whipping into my eye.

And when I stopped for a restroom break at a convenience store, the bike tipped over.  Crash! The wind, the big purse, a water bottle, a thermos of tea, and W&P.  It capsized!

So I sat down on the sidewalk and drank a Diet Coke.

Really, I do think I’m losing my strength.  Or is it just the wind?

I’ll have to take my tablet next time and read the e-book. I wanted to get back to the book, but…

Jane Austen and Juvenal: It Is Difficult Not to Write Satire

Either the sparkling Jane Austen or the cynical Juvenal could have said the following:  “It is difficult not to write satire.”  The  Roman satirist Juvenal wrote it ( Satire I):   difficile est saturam non scribere. And yet the 19th-century English novelist and second-century Roman satirist have something in common–the wickedest tongues in their respective languages.

Their spheres of expertise are very different: Austen writes novels about women’s lives, satirizing the tedium of domesticity and the trials of marrying off women in restricted class-appropriate circles; while Juvenal, having survived Domitian’s reign of terror, lampoons the decline of morals and Roman decadence, daring to name  only dead men as examples.  Austen delves subtly beneath the surface, so that sometimes it takes a second or third reading to catch the subversiveness.

Whom do I prefer?  Sometimes one, sometimes the other.  As on a small sketchpad, Austen delineates women’s social lives, their walks and conversations; as in a painting by Bosch, Juvenal derides a colorful cast of Romans, among them women who poison husbands, gamblers who leave their purses but drag a safe instead to the gaming table, and gluttons who eat a whole boar and then die in the bath with an undigested peacock in their stomach.

The form of the satire in dactylic hexameter allows Juvenal occasionally to generalize at the end of a long catalogue of vices. Here is such a generalization in my rough translation: “There will be nothing worse that Posterity can add to our corruption; our descendants will do the same and crave the same depravity; and every vice has stood on the precipice.” (N.B. “… vice can go no further.)

Do you think of Austen as a satirist balanced on a precipice, shifting between a pretense of ladylike reserve and a pointed calculation of “outrageous fortune”(s)?  When I read Emma for the first time, I deemed it a  satire of love and finance. But Austen is more subtle than that: she has a satiric side, and a moral side, and no one better understands than she the serpentine relationship between love and money, and the cryptic  conventions that form the bond between men and women.  Her heroines want to marry, and,  yes, they get their men, but what men!  Handsome, clever, and rich Emma must eat humble pie before her snobbish, hypercritical, much older neighbor, Mr. Knightley, proposes. In Helena Kelly’s Jane Austen, The Radical, she does not dismiss the possibility that Mr. Knightley, who has a passion for “enclosure” of land, wants to marry Emma partly “for all those extra acres, fenced and ditched for free, and the £30,000 besides.”  And certainly I have always thought that their marriage would be made in hell.

Money matters in Austen’s world.   In her first novel, Sense and Sensibility,  Austen begins by describing the financial difficulties of the Dashwoods.  The Dashwood sisters and their mother must leave their comfortable home, because their father managed his finances badly and their half-brother inherited the estate. Now they depend on the kindness of a distant relative, who allows them to live in a cottage on his estate.

Whom will the girls marry?  It is more urgent than ever, now that they are poor.  Elinor assumes her boyfriend Edward Ferrars will propose, but when he does not even visit, she is unable to parse the world of men.  Ferrars has lied to her, a very important lie, we learn.  And how sensible is Elinor, even though she is more sensible than most? Like other girls, she has not been educated in finance, nor does she have any control over money, and could not have suspected any deception because of it.

Like Elinor, Marianne is unable to parse the thinking of men.  When she twists her ankle while running blithely down a hill, a typical Marianne-ish entertainment, a handsome stranger named Willoughby carries her home.  They fall in love:  they love art, novels, poetry..  They have many common tastes.  Unfortunately Willoughby drops her after paying her very marked attentions.

Marianne is a strong character, but she makes herself sick with sensibility and languishes with a real illness after she takes a walk in the rain, mourning Willoughby.   In Lucy Worsley’s witty biography, Jane Austen at Home, she explains the disease of “sensibility”  that afflicts Marianne.  Worsley writes,

Known as The English Malady, ‘sensibility’ had by the middle of the eighteenth century become a fashionable affliction for the well off. It was a classy kind of problem from which to suffer, for your nerves only became dangerously ‘sensitive’ if you had plenty of leisure time, and therefore lots of money, to indulge them.  But if you did want to appear delicate, full of sensibility, refined, it was a good idea to start by reading novels. And as people started to read more novels, with their high-blown, elevated notions about love and romance, they actually began to write to their  own real-life lovers in the same sensitive, romantic terms.

But Helena Kelly, author of Jane Austen, The Secret Radical, interprets sensibility differently.  Depending on whether Austen wrote Sense and Sensibility in the late 18th century or early 19th centurey,  Austen may have been alluding to Wollstonecraft’s The Vindication of the Rights of Women. Wollstonecraft writes that men’s  power is “reason,” while women’s only power is “sensiblity,”  i.e., having the accomplishments that help her attract men and marry.

Mary Wollstonecraft writes,

 I lament that women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions, which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, they are insultingly supporting their own superiority. It is not condescension to bow to an interior. So ludicrous, in fact, do these ceremonies appear to me, that I scarcely am able to govern my muscles, when I see a man start with eager, and serious solicitude to lift a handkerchief, or shut a door, when the ladycould have done it herself, had she only moved a pace or two.

Reading Wollstonecraft, I am surprised to recognize that her words still apply. Think of the difference between professional training (business, law) and the liberal arts (languages, literature, the arts). I so value the  liberal arts that I will make a case for sensibility over sense, but I admit our sensibility  prepared us mostly for (women’s?) lower-tier income jobs, teaching, paralegal work, PR,  or freelance writing. I omitted my master’s degree from a few job applications, after learning that  men with bachelor’s degrees weren’t at all interested in hiring women with more education.   I wonder where women are today on the “sensibility” question?  Surely more are in the professions.  I prefer sensibility, but sense–and cents–also matter.

And yet without sensibility are we human? One wonders when one sees people walking up and down the street looking at their phones, doubtless asking Alexa/Siri for directions.

As Juvenal says, difficile est saturam non scribere.

What I Just Read, What I’m Reading, & What I Want to Read

WHAT I JUST READ: Nancy Mitford’s Love in a Cold Climate.  This witty novel made me laugh so hard I didn’t scrawl any notes, so here is a random quote from a savvy, sympathetic, witty gay character, Cedric Hampton. When he shows up at the narrator Fanny’s house with a “thin and ancient horse,” her horsey friend Norma Cozens  indignantly says it must be put down immediately or she will call the RSPCA. And didn’t he know he could have bought a hunter with that forty pounds?

“But, my dearest Mrs. Cozens, I don’t want a hunter.  It’s the last thing.  I’d be far too frightened.  Besides, look at the time you have to get up–I heard them the other night in the woods, half-past six.  Well, you know, I’m afraid it’s ‘up before seven dead before eleven’ with one.  No, I just wanted this special old clipper-clopper.  She’s not the horse to make claims on a chap.  She won’t want to be ridden all the time, as a younger horse might, and there she’ll be, if feel like having a few words with her occasionally.  But the great question now, which I came to tease practical Fanny with, is how to get her home?”

I prefer Mitford’s books to almost anything.  Why don’t her books have the same status as Middlemarch?

SPEAKING OF WHICH… The blogger Dolce Bellezza reports that she is co-sponsoring a Middlemarch readalong in May. Sounds like fun.  A couple of years ago I channeled my inner Dorothea Brooke and reread this classic, not my favorite Eliot, but it is her best book. Have you noticed how favorites (mine is Daniel Deronda) and bests don’t always coincide? I blogged about Middlemarch here.

WHAT I’M READING:  Mary Renault’s The Persian Boy.  Although I loved the first book in the Alexander trilogy, I’m finding this one a slog.  Will I finish it?

WHAT I WANT TO READ:  Lionel Shriver’s new collection of short stories and novellas, Property (here is an interview with her in The Guardian), and Rebecca Goldstein’s Plato at the Googleplex:  Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away.

Love in the Cotton Mills: Elizabeth Gaskell’s “North and South”

After you’ve read Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, whom do you read?   Well, the obvious answer is Anne Brontë, and there has been an Anne boom in recent years.  May I admit I’ve never admired Anne?

I prefer Elizabeth Gaskell, who is as earnest and intelligent as Charlotte if not as exotic as Emily. I recently reread her North and South, one of the great industrial novels of the 19th century; it is clearly influenced by Charlotte’s industrial novel, Shirley (which I posted about here).  Both novels are page-turners, written by women of conscience.  Earnest industrial politics, plus everybody falls in love with a mill owner!

Before I make a few comments about the romantic relationship in North and South, here’s the plot summary  via the book description:

North and South tells the story of Margaret Hale, a southerner newly settled in the northern industrial town of Milton, whose ready sympathy with the discontented millworkers sits uneasily with her growing attraction to the charismatic mill owner, John Thornton. The novel poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience, ranging from religious crises of conscience to the ethics of naval mutiny and industrial action. Margaret’s internal conflicts mirror the turbulence that she sees all around her. This revised and expanded edition sets the novel in the context of Victorian social and medical debate and explores Gaskell’s subtle representations of sexual passion and communal strife.

Here’s why fans of Charlotte Bronte should read North and South.   It’s not just the industrial politics: it’s the relationship between beautiful, earnest Margaret Hale, the daughter of a minister who has lost his faith, resigned from the church, and moved his family to the industrial town of Milton, and earnest, sexy Mr. Thornton, the owner of a cotton mill. The tension between reluctant Margaret and wary Mr. Thornton recalls the sparring between Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester, with a dash of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.  And the name Mr. Thornton alone evokes Mr. Rochester, who lived at Thornfield Hall.

Adjustment to life in smoky Milton is arduous for the Hales. But Margaret befriends and is charitable to some of the workers, as a basket-bearing former minister’s daughter should.  She is, however, contemptuous of “men in trade,” as she characterizes Mr. Thornton, a mill owner who is a classics student of her father’s.  Neither she nor Mr. Thornton sees the other’s point of view: she insists (rightly) on the workers’ need for higher wages, but he explains (also rightly) that new economic demands make it impossible to raise wages now.  Then during a strike, when Margaret throws herself in front of him to prevent his being hit by a rock and is hit instead,  Mr. Thornton falls in love with her.  When he proposes the next day, she is furious and says his way of speaking shocks her, and “is blasphemous.”  Granted, she has already turned down one unwelcome marriage proposal, but her treatment of Mr. Thornton is outrageous.

“And the gentleman thus rescued is forbidden the relief of thanks!” he broke in contemptuously. “I am a man. I claim the right of expressing my feelings.”

“And I yielded to the right; simply saying that you gave me pain by insisting upon it,” she replied, proudly. “But you seem to have imagined, that I was not merely guided by womanly instinct, but”—and here the passionate tears (kept down for long—struggled with vehemently) came up into her eyes, and choked her voice—“ but that I was prompted by some particular feeling for you—you! Why, there was not a man—not a poor desperate man in all that crowd—for whom I had not more sympathy—for whom I should not have done what little I could more heartily.”

What a couple!  But North meets South, and eventually each educates and alters the thinking of the other.  And Gaskell also provides a fascinating look at Victorian factories and of communication between workers and owners.

A great book!

Does Reading Shape Moral Vision? Little Women and Don Quixote

My generation of women was raised on rock music and Louisa May Alcott. And the two are not as different as you think: they turned us into resistors of the status quo.  Alcott’s writing is more polished and pointed than rock lyrics, though:  Little Women is a transcendentalist classic, the first book I read that articulated issues of moral philosophy.  I loved it when I was seven, and I love it equally now.

Alcott’s best-selling 19th-century children’s classic is a brilliant, lively, and often riotously funny autobiographical novel about the coming-of-age of four sisters in the Civil War era.  She traces their history from girlhood through marriage, careers, and motherhood, and delineates the development of their ethics as well as character.  She lightly comments on moral philosophy, materialism, the role of women, education, etc., usually in a few lines of breezy dialogue.

Louisa, the daughter of the philosopher Bronson Alcott, came of age in Concord, Mass., where her neighbors were  Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, on whom she had a crush, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Margaret Fuller. As Susan Cheever points out in her book American Bloomsbury, “the Transcendentalists…were the original hippies.”  She adds, “The Concord group of Transcendentalists was part of a wave of liberalism and a passion for freedom that seemed to be sweeping through the new United States.”

And that liberalism and passion for freedom are reflected in Little Women.  Like the Alcotts, the four March sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, grow up in an impoverished household, where, encouraged by Marmee, they learn to value  social justice and charity.  In the second chapter, they reluctantly agree to give away their Christmas breakfast to Mrs. Hummel, a poor woman with a newborn baby and six children in a house with no fire or food.  And  the appalling poverty makes them glad they have done it.  That night, they merrily put on a play Jo has written, which is both entertaining and characteristic of their self-expression, complete with sword fights, forgotten lines, and,  at one point, the collapse of a makeshift tower.  Their friends shriek with laughter, and afterwards they eat ice cream, sent to the Marches by the wealthy man next door, who had heard about their charity to the Hummels.

But the four sisters struggle with poverty.  Charming Meg hates her job as a governess for a wealthy family, because it makes her envious of their leisure and beautiful clothes. Jo, an aspiring writer, wishes she were a boy, whistles, and says she hates “affected, niminy-piminy chits!”  She is equally dissatisfied with her day job as a companion for Aunt March.   Beth is sweet and agoraphobic, good at housework and the piano, too shy to go to school.  And Amy, who is as strong-willed as Jo, has a talent for art and is popular at school…until the pickled limes incident.  (You must read the book.)

Some bloggers (many seem to be British; maybe because our cultures are so different?) complain about Alcott’s “morals” and “preachiness.” This startles me, since I can’t think of any children’s classics that don’t explore moral issues: Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess, E. Nesbit’s The Wouldbegoods, E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, Elizabeth George Speare’s The Witch of Blackbird Pond, John Verney’s Friday’s Tunnel,  and the list goes on.  For me, who read Alcott’s books as a child, these were as stimulating as I would later find Plato’s dialogues.

Years ago, a teacher friend and I agreed we were “raised on Louisa May Alcott.”  We thought it had made us see the world differently.  But did our students read her?  One day we did an informal poll in our classes:  who had read Little Women?  In my five classes of approximately 125 students, only three had read it.  In my friend’s four classes of approximately 100 students, two had read it.  That’s 2.2222222222222223 percent.  Isn’t that sad?  And I can only imagine it would be less today, in the day of Y.A. literature.

Does the reading of Little Women change you if you read it as a girl?  Well, perhaps.  My friend and I were both creative types who resisted the social trends and pressures.  Perhaps different generations of readers take different things from the classics?

God only knows.  But it is always good to read the classics!

WHO READS DON QUIXOTE?   A friend who teaches a non-credit grammar course at a community college recently tried to give away a copy of her favorite book, Don Quixote.  There were no takers.

Well, that’s teaching.

Then she asked if anyone would give a brief talk on a favorite book, and the answer was No.   Did anyone read books?  No.  Did anyone have books at home?  No.  Were they sure they didn’t want her extra copy of Don Quixote?  Yes.

Teaching remedial classes for students with deficiencies can be discouraging.  But, as I told her, you might as well keep your standards high, because this class is the only place they’ll ever hear of the Don.

The Planned Parenthood Book Sale, Spring 2018

The cat and my husband have a bookish moment.

Tonight we went to the Planned Parenthood Book Sale, which takes place twice a year in Des Moines at the 4-H Building on the Iowa State Fairgrounds. (This one runs from April 19-23).

We are efficient sale-goers:  we no longer need a map of the building (45,000 sq. ft of space!).

I quickly ascertained that they had no new Cathy Guisewite cartoons. Do I have the complete set of Cathy comics? Why doesn’t Guisewite write a new comic strip?

We browsed in the classics and fiction sections.

“Look for A Gentleman in Moscow,” I said.  (This is highly recommended by Karen and Cynthia.)

“Look for German books,” he said.

Astonishingly, I did find a copy of A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles ($9, the most expensive book I’ve bought at the sale, but it is still cheaper than a new paperback).  My husband found a Heinrich Boll and some other German novels.

We found a copy of News of a Kidnapping, by Garcia Marquez.

The cats go mad.

The two elder-cats love the unpacking of the books.  The tortoiseshell expresses interest in the Oxford paperback of The Female Quixote, while the white cat checks out Joyce Carol Oates.

I found two by Joyce Carol Oates, The Gravedigger’s Daughter and Blonde.

I am happy to have a hardcover edition of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate.

Arrayed here are:  David Lodge’s The British Museum is Falling Down, Jane Gardam’s A Long Way from Verona, Kawabata’s The Master of Go, Mama Day by Gloria Naylor (who died in 2016), Mary Renault’s The Mask of Apollo, and Betty MacDonald’s The Onions in the Stew.

I also found:

Mary Cholmondeley’s Red Pottage (Virago)

The Whisper in the Gloom by Nicholas Blake (C. Day-Lewis’s pen name for the Nigel Strangeways mystery series)

Anatole France’s Thais & Sylvestre Bonnard

The cheapest books were Onions in the Stew and The Mask of Apollo–each 80 cents.

A very good sale!

How to Find a Good Read: Janet Fitch’s “The Revolution of Marina M.”

Is the American novel in a slump? Are the British novelists losing their drive?  Contemporary fiction seems ultra-light and slight after reading Dostoevsky’s The Demons and Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s What Is to Be Done?  Yes, you may laugh:  what doesn’t seem slight after Dostoevsky?  But after returning to the classics for a decade, it is tough to find a worthwhile new novel.

I have a new strategy, and so far it works. Avoid the books that are touted in every review publication simultaneously, because promotional frenzy has clouded critical judgment.  Instead, go directly for the odd, interesting novels that exasperate cranky reviewers.  They might not be great books, but they might be more compelling than the latest tidy  little “literary” novel.

Janet Fitch’s The Revolution of Marina M. is such an underrated book. Mainstream reviewers were curmudgeonly, complaining that at 816 pages the book was as long as War and Peace or Infinite Jest (actually, it is not!).  Hm, I thought.  Would it be long enough for me?

I  am so glad I picked it up. This beautifully-written, well-researched historical novel, set during World War I and the Russian Revolution, is one of the smartest books I’ve read this year.  It is the story of Marina, an intense young poet who hopes to escape the constraints of her aristocratic family life and mingle in the society of  her favorite poets,  Blok, Anna Akhmatova, and Marina Tsvetaeva.

The worker’s rallies, political riots, and the starvation wrought by war postpone Marina’s dreams. She is caught up in the revolution, encouraged by her Bolshevik friend, Varvara, who actually incites a riot in a bread line.  After Marina is expelled from her family, she lives in squalor with her lover, a poet, and several of his friends in one room. She works in a knitting factory and learns to clean and delouse beds.   But soon she also becomes savvy about the corruption of the various revolutionary parties, and  when she tries to support her starving mother and old nurse in one room of their formerly luxurious apartment, she descends into hell as neighbors turn on neighbors to find food and fuel.

I have read 65% of the book, and it is a very good read.  Are there some Perils of Pauline moments?  Yes, and so what?  It’s a wonderful read.

And the writing is often gorgeous. When Marina briefly finds refuge with a former lover who is  involved with the black market, she relaxes..

I hadn’t realized how tired I was. Tired of queues and district soviets and frozen potatoes, tired of the communal squalor of the Poverty Artel, tired of the daily terrors and having to be a grown-up every day, tired of thinking and fighting and waiting my turn, while the real me was left unknown. I sat on the fragrant bed and watched the snow fall outside the windows. I should go and tell Genya what had happened. The knowledge tugged at me, but it seemed too far away. As any child can tell you, you must not leave an enchanted place or it will be lost to you forever. All that will remain will be a ribbon or a slipper, an enameled bracelet on your arm, the smell of honey and Floris Limes in your hair.

Am really loving this, and apparently a second volume is to be published.  I can’t wait!

And here is a link to a rave review in The Los Angeles Review of Books.

The 1977 Club: Marilyn French’s “The Women’s Room”

In 1977, Marilyn French’s novel The Women’s Room was a huge hit.  And the award-winning novelist Anne Tyler helped put it on the charts with a rave review in The New York Times.

She wrote,

In order to appreciate the fine writing in The Women’s Room, you should do your best to forget any recent books you may have read about women’s liberation. It’s not, after all, Marilyn French’s fault that others before her have gone on and on about the same subject. Pretend you’re from Mars, you haven’t heard a word, and you want to know something about the lives of certain women in midcentury America.

I remember picking up the paperback at Howard’s Books (I lived above the store) and devouring the book in a few evenings.  The vulgar cover appealed to me:  I had written political graffiti on restroom walls in my teens. And so I have decided to reread The Women’s Room for The 1977 Club, a week-long event devoted to reading books published in 1977.  (You can learn more about the event from Karen at  Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings.)

Several novels in the 1960s and 1970s were (at least partly) inspired by Second Wave feminism, among them Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle, and Alix Kates Shulman’s Burning Questions (which I wrote about here). But The Women’s Room was different, a compelling mix of narrative, sociology, history, and even literary history.  Marilyn French, a housewife-turned-Harvard Ph.D., wrote not only novels but scholarly books, including the four-volume From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women.

In The Women’s Room, French chronicles four decades in the life of a heroine who eventually escapes from a bad marriage, though she does not ascend to a much happier state.  We first meet Mira hiding in the ladies’ room in the basement of Sever Hall at Harvard.  Mira is in her thirties, a housewife who has gone back to school in the 1960s.  Everything is alien to her, including the political graffiti on the restroom walls.

There is also a first-person narrator, who we learn later is Mira in the 1970s.  The narrator lives alone in Maine, where she unhappily teaches the dull classes so often assigned to women at community colleges, grammar and elementary composition.  And so she often interrupts the traditional narrative to analyze the historical, sociological, and political events of the twentieth century that shape the lives of Mira, and of men and women of the post-war society.

Early on, the narrator compares Virginia Woolf’s “a room of one’s own” to the women’s room in the basement at Harvard.  Is the women’s restroom as close as Mira will ever get to a room of her own?  The narrator loves Woolf, but she wonders if Woolf’s method of narration could really describe the menstrual blood, pregnancies, dirty diapers, male disapproval and lack of privacy that define Mira’s life?

The narrator reflects,

Virginia Woolf, whom I revere, complained about Arnold Bennett.  In a literary manifesto, she attacked his way of writing novels.  She thought he placed too much emphasis on facts and figures, grimy dollars–or pounds–or exterior elements that were irrelevant to the dancing moments that were a person.  That essence shone, she felt, through my accent, through ten-year-old winter coats and string bags laden with vegetables and spaghetti, shone in the glance of an eye, in a sigh, a heavy if enduring trudge down the steps of a train and off into the murky light of Liverpool. One doesn’t need a bank statement to see their character.  I don’t care much for Bennett, and I love Woolf, but I think his pounds and pence had more to do with her Rhoda and Bernard than she would admit.   Oh, she did know.  She understood the need for five hundred pounds a year; and a room of one’s own.  She could envision Shakespeare’s sister.  But she imagined a violent, an apocalyptic end for Shakespeare’s sister, whereas I know that isn’t what happened….  I’m not saying it doesn’t happen.  I’m only saying it isn’t what usually happens….  And there are much easier ways to destroy a woman.  You don’t have to rape or kill her; you don’t even have to beat her.  You can just marry her.  You don’t even have to do that.  You can just let her work in your office for thirty-five dollars a week.

French rants on about this for a page.  It’s fascinating, whether you agree with it or not.  And, as the book goes on, she also dissects class in post-war America.  Sometimes the lectures fit, sometimes they are too much.

There is lots of gritty, naturalistic detail–more Bennett and Dreiser than Woolf.  Mira, one of the smartest girls in school, is promoted up so many grades and so much younger than her peers that she is friendless. She reads constantly but loses her confidence in college, when a boyfriend pressures her to have sex and then drops her; and she later narrowly escapes being gang-raped by him and his friends, but one of them tips her off and locks her in a room to protect her. The room again:  this time locked.

Traumatized, she needs male protection. She drops out of school and gets married.  The marriage isn’t happy, but for years she is absorbed in her children, and has friends among the women in her neighborhood.

It is a long book, and I’m not even into her life at Harvard yet.  There’s a lot of housewifery so far, a phase I didn’t go through  myself, though certainly my mother did.

It’s a naturalistic novel, with commentary. Is it great? No. But it is historically important, and details the influence of Second Wave feminism on mid-century America.


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Teaching others to teach others in Guatemala
Teaching others to teach others.
April 10, 2017
Empowering women through woodworking in Guatemala
Empowering women thorough woodworking
May 23, 2017
Show all

Adoption and the Cross

adoption and the cross

Adoption and the Cross. Lessons learned as a missionary in Guatemala.

That is the whole story of redemption. Starting in the beginning, in the garden. The universe was meant to be our home, it was created as the place where the image bearers of God would rule and serve under their Father. It was all to be ours. Yet, through primeval insurrection in the garden, our inheritance was lost, turning the universe into an orphanage. Heirs we were no more, sin had taken root, turned away from home and into the captivity of a serpent who held the cosmos in thrall.

The whole universe had become an orphanage.

There we were, orphaned. Orphaned, until Christ came to redeem us. Redeem us, yes, but what does that mean? And how does it apply to adoption and the cross?

As used by the Apostle Paul, to redeem means “to buy out”. Specifically in relation to the purchasing of a slaves freedom. That in scripture, we find it applied to Christ’s death on the cross, is significant. Romans 3:24 speaks of the redemption that is found through Christ Jesus. Christ bought us, restored us, redeemed us and gave us a path away from the life of an orphan, forever changed into one of an adopted son.

Just as a child cannot, of his own free will, be set free from the orphanage that holds him, neither can we, of our own free will, be set free of the sins which do so easily beset us. Something must happen, someone, some greater power must act, to liberate us from our current state of orphanhood and grant us permission to become a member of a family.

That brings us to the cross. We simply cannot consider the adoption scripture speaks of, as children of God, without turning to the cross. When Jesus is nailed to this Roman torture device, he bears the full weight of the curse of an orphaned creation. The apostle Paul is able to speak of us receiving adoption as sons only because Jesus took upon himself that curse, which was our separation from God. In removing it we can now find redemption, the door is opened for us to be adopted as sons of God and our inheritance is sealed by the Holy Spirit.  (Ephesians 1)

"Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree" (Galatians 3:13).

Adoption and the Cross

When you truly understand adoption, you truly understand the cross, and when you truly understand the cross you truly understand adoption. Understanding of the one leads to better understanding of the other.

As we celebrate our Christs resurrection on this glorious day and our adoption into Gods family, let us also remember those here on this earth, so in need of both a

spiritual and physical family and ask ourselves if we are not called to meet it in some way?

As our father has loved us, so let us love others.

Happy Easter from Tim, Sharie, Julia, Audrey, Vanessa, Jessica, Alex and Alison Martiny.

Timothy Martiny
Timothy Martiny
Missionary in Guatemala serving the orphaned, vulnerable and disabled.


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Tagged: big game situations

Missing the Boat

The way the playoffs
unfolded this season, a bundle of teams may have felt that they
really ‘missed the boat‘ on trading for Halladay. The Dodgers, Rockies,
Red Sox and most certainly the Phillies
could have obviously used his services. Today, a handful of those clubs front offices must be wondering
what if?’  In my honest opinion, not trading/throwing the farm for Roy Halladay drastically hindered the Dodgers chance of making it to the World Series, and the Phillies chance of winning the World Series.

J.P. said himself that he wasn’t getting the offers, to pull a deal for Halladay!  If that is true, and it is hard to know with Ricciardi, I’m honestly baffled.  Why were teams not throwing the

Boat copy.jpg

farm to get Halladay? For the
Phillies, no doubt Halladay would have been more 10 times more of a force than
Pedro Martinez and his 85 MPH craftiness in Games 2 and 6 of the World Series. If I were them, I would have
given the Jays Dominic Brown, Kyle Drabek and J.A. Happ for Roy
Halladay in a second. Apparently, the Jays were only offered any ONE of those
guys, along with some mid-level prosects.  When I heard that I thought, “Really?  Who are they?  It is Roy Halladay!!!”  Those three players might have fine careers, but probably nowhere will they have the value of the Doc.  Halladay is a man that dominate big game situations.  Two Halladay complete games
in the World Series, no doubt wins it for the Phils. We all know he is capable
of it. As a Jays fan, I see the guy do it time and again. Lee + Halladay, anchoring that rotation would have been deadly!

That said, I definately agree that this offseason teams may/SHOULD
be rethinking what they would do to get Halladay
. He should have
‘plenty of suitors,’ quoting Major League Bastian

The way teams ‘missed the boat’ on Halladay at
the deadline in ’09.  Arrrrghhhh!  Just silly, in my opinion.  Don’t get me wrong, I would hate to see Halladay leave Toronto, but I also really hated seeing the Yankees win their 27th World Series and knowing that ‘by far’ they were the best team on the field.


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May 25, 2014

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MLP Week Thoughts: All-Time High-Lights

For the 4th straight week, the Alerian MLP Total Return Index was positive, but broke the streak of 3 straight weeks of outperforming the S&P 500, which was up 1.2%.  Interest rates and natural gas prices were basically flat, while oil and NGLs (particularly propane) were up sharply week over week.  The S&P 500 closed at a record high Friday, while the Alerian MLP Total Return Index hit a new all-time high on Thursday.
Weekly MLP Review_5-23-14
All-time highs can be scary, particularly if you have new money to put to work.  No one wants to be the last one in, and it can be hard to overcome the sense that you’ve missed the boat.  That’s why you hear the “what inning are we in?” question so frequently in this sector.  I’ve posted the following table a few times before to show that all-time highs by themselves haven’t signaled a top for the MLP Index, although when a year sees more than 50 new highs, typically the index struggles next year.  We didn’t reach 50+ last year, but we are on pace for 50+ this year.
All-time Highs
Since the beginning of 2009, the MLP Total Return Index has closed at all-time highs on 183 separate days, including 59 in 2010 alone.  During all of that time, however, the all-time low yield for the Index has not gone lower than its 2007 low of 5.4%.  MLP distribution growth is driving the index higher, not valuation alone, at least when looking at the sector as a whole.
NAPTP Conference
The annual NAPTP MLP conference was held this week in Jacksonville, FL.  The conference offer the most MLP management teams at a single conference of any other conference, and it’s not restricted to clients of any single Wall Street firm.  There is typically not much in the way of new news, and institutional investors like me have already met with or seen most of the management teams in the space within the last 6 months.  But, it’s the best conference in terms of hallway conversation and assessing institutional investor sentiment, given the amount of bankers and large investors that show up.
Attendance: According to some, the MLP conference saw record attendance again this year at more than 1,000 registered participants.  See below for one firm’s reported annual attendance figures, with an estimate for this year.  The numbers below may be actual attendance, as opposed to registered participants, because I remember 2013 media reports (like this one) that reported 1,100 registered participants last year.
My own sense from looking around was that the conference seemed light on participants other than buy-side investment teams, sell-side analyst teams, bankers, accountants, institutional salesmen, attorneys, and the occasional serious private MLP investor.  There weren’t as many retail brokers, small RIAs or individuals.  Further evidence of the institutionalization of the sector.
Also, the conference wasn’t the spectacle for financial media it was last year, when I met writers from Barron’s and Forbes (there to report on the conference).  Also, Hedgeye didn’t even show up.  Moving the conference away from the greater New York area to Jacksonville, FL makes it cost prohibitive for journalists from major finance publications to attend.  Less financial media exposure is probably a good thing on balance.  Media exposure can shed light on an undervalued sector, but increased attention can lead to unnaturally high valuations.
Venue: As far as the venue, I thought it was pretty great.  Presentation tracks were right next to each other, there was a Starbucks in the hotel, weather was great, ample onsite bar space for networking, dinners were either at golf courses or at the beach, and 1×1 meetings were mostly located in the same general area.  Small issues with the venue include lack of any tables to go with all the chairs in the presentation rooms, and the few 1×1 rooms that were not in the conference area at all.  Overall, the venue was better than any we have seen before.
Buzz: We came away from the conference with a positive sense of the growth opportunities available to certain MLPs, and a positive sense of the continued growth of institutional ownership of the MLP sector.  Other topics I heard discussed around the conference:

  • Departure of yet another prominent equity research analyst to the buy-side (I believe I had that trend)
  • Surprise over strength of demand for some recent MLP IPOs, given growth prospects and relative asset quality
  • Elevated M&A competitiveness, questions over multiples paid
  • Management bashing by other MLP management teams
    • Will become increasingly prevalent as MLPs compete more directly for capital
  • Up-C structure as it relates to ETE
    • What ETE might do with that new “currency”
  • Strength of BWP trading, speculation over potential acquirers
  • Basin of choice if you have a choice: Permian
  • LINE / XOM asset swap
  • Capital flows into the sector continue, including from Asia (Japan mostly)
  • Exports needed to balance condensate market
  • Rail’s role in moving Canadian oil south
  • Linn Energy asset swap with Exxon

Update of PWC’s MLP Ownership Numbers:  PWC processes the vast majority of K-1s for MLPs, and each year they present their breakdown of MLP unit ownership by entity structure.  Individual ownership of MLPs was down to 34% of total units on the market in 2013, down from 47% in 2005.  Foreign citizens, partnerships and corporations have picked up the slack, accounting for a combined 38%, up from around 15% in 2005.
MLP Ownership
Suggestion for Presenters: It would be helpful for MLPs to include a slide at the end of their NAPTP presentation with the following information, which tends to come up in Q&A:

  • Percentage of distribution tax deferred
  • Unit price
  • Yield
  • ATM status (if you have one or not and the size)
  • IDR status
  • Subordinated unit status
  • Debt status (do you have any and if so, how much)
  • How many units your MLP has

Winners & Losers
BWP’s stock prices continues to march higher, closing week up 12.8% on no news to lead the MLP sector, but the market clearly liked BWP’s NAPTP presentation, which provided a bit more detail and disclosure than usual. Large cap MLP ACMP made the top 5 this week, up 5.1%.  Rounding out the top five were 3 MLPs with non-traditional assets (HCLP, SUSP and OCIR).  WPT (closed at $19.24/unit this week) continued its downward slide, down 15.8% (including its distribution) since reaching its all-time high of $23.20/unit on April 23rd.  WNRL, a consistent feature on the top 5 year to date performers this year, dropped 3.9% this week and is down 4.9% since peaking May 15th.  MLPs with non-traditional assets (KNOP, EXLP, SGU) round out the bottom 5 for the week.
There were no repeats in the top or bottom five this week.
The bottom 4 names for the year didn’t change this week, but if BWP (-29.9%) continues trading up, it may displace EROC (-29.1%) and climb out of the MLP cellar.  The fifth worst performing MLP continues to vary week to week, with LGP taking the spot this week.  WNRL’s recent weakness allowed EQM to bounce back into the top 5 this week.  The top maintained their order, but continued higher for the most part this week, with TEP showing particular strength Friday when it was up 4.9%.
News of the (MLP) World

  • Regency Energy (RGP) files equity distribution agreement to sell up to $400mm worth of common units at-the-market (filing)

  • Energy Transfer Equity (ETE) prices $700mm add-on offering of 5.875% senior notes due 2024 at 102% of par (press release)

M&A / Growth Projects

  • Linn Energy (LINE) announces agreement to trade a portion of its Permian acreage with Exxon Mobil for operating interests in the Hugoton Basin (press release)
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Professional Development, UKSTL

A summer of #UKSTL

This summer was the first time in a long time that I had classes during the summer. It was tough! But I found a way to stay motivated (even while relaxing on a lake in Northern Michigan with family and enjoying local brews).

ELS 620: Leading Action Research

This was my second class with Jayson Richardson. I’ve found him to be the most challenging professor I’ve had in the UKSTL program so far. And I started this class a month late. Luckily Jayson is also the most responsive and open-minded prof I’ve had. He pushes me to my limit but I always seem to learn the most. Funny how that works.

This class was my introduction to action research. Once I understood that action research is all about coming up with what you can affect, it went pretty smoothly. I had the pleasure of writing my first annotated bibliography, my second lit review, a scholar-practitioner platform and my culminating action research proposal. I also engaged in great discussions with the other members of my class. I really enjoy learning and growing with the people in my program.

Once again the lit review was demanding but completely worth it. I kinda maybe actually sorta like to write lit reviews…I end up learning a ton and being able to process all the research in a way that I applicable to me.

Probably the most difficult piece of the course for me was the scholar-practitioner platform. I lost count of how many times I had to rework and tweek this document.

One of the most difficult aspects of the course for me was deciding on which aspect I could actually change in my position. I don’t have consistent and direct contact with students so I couldn’t focus on anything with student learning. The one thing I do have a relative amount of control over is the technology PD at my school. After participating in a Critical Friends Group last year I thought it would be interesting to facilitate a CFG with a focus on tech integration. My lit review proved helpful in refining my ideas for my proposal. I was quite adamant about having a small group of willing & eager teachers to work with, not just anyone or everyone. Below are my elevator speech and my entire proposal. My research officially starts this week so I’m eager to see how it goes.

EDL 663: Leadership for School Program Improvement

In 663 we focused on ISTE Admin Standard 3 and professional development with Justin Bathon. Justin is extremely passionate about quality professional development so this was the perfect course for him to teach. I really enjoy discussing PD with him. Our two big projects for the semester were a Personal Professional Development Plan and a Staff Professional Development Plan. These forced me to take the time to intentionally plan out how I would develop myself and staff this year.

1 thought on “A summer of #UKSTL”

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PC sales booming as total shipments reach highest level since 2015

Lenovo led the way, followed by HP, Dell and Apple

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme

PC sales are still booming as more people purchase laptops and other computing devices for remote work or school amid the pandemic.

According to research firm Gartner (via CNBC), PC shipments to retailers and other vendors are up 32 percent in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the same quarter in 2020. Further, Gartner said that this was the highest growth rate it has tracked since 2000. Gartner estimated that 69.9 million laptops and desktops were shipped in the quarter.

It’s worth noting that Gartner’s stats don’t include Chromebooks, a type of often low-cost laptop powered by Google’s Chrome OS. Chromebooks are particularly popular with schools, since they can be cost-effective and easy to deploy on large scales and are designed around the cloud. Gartner estimates that, with Chromebooks included, PC shipments grew by 47 percent in Q1.

CNBC points out that part of the growth can be attributed to the sharp drop in PC sales recorded at the beginning of the pandemic. However, when you zoom out, there’s still overall growth — total shipments were the highest they’ve been since 2015, when the sector saw 71.7 million units shipped.

Even more impressive is that Q1 typically sees slower PC sales, especially compared with the holiday quarter. CNBC also notes that the shipments may have been higher if it weren’t for a global chip shortage impacting supply.

In Q1, Lenovo led sales with 25.1 percent market share. HP followed with 21.4 percent, while Dell took third with 16.5 percent. Apple was fourth with 8 percent, followed by Acer, Asus and others.

Source: Gartner Via: CNBC