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John Beverley: Critical Legacy of "Theory" in the Larger Context of Politics since the 1960s. By Fernando Gómez Herrero, who attended the Arts Week 2017 (fernandogomezherrero.com).
"Theory" in the U.S. and beyond.
John Beverley delivered a 3-set masterclass titled "The Politics of Theory," plus one extra lecture, "A New Orientalism: The Question of Literature as Such and Islamic Fundamentalism," hosted by the Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies, in the context of Arts Week 2017 at Birkbeck College, University of London. It is a sign of what "the arts" can do. It was very good to meet John Beverley since the last time we met at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the U.S., about 13 years ago, where he has developed his professional career in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures, where I taught briefly. He is foundational figure of Hispanic and Latin American studies at the University of Pittsburgh with all the accolades and songs of glory. His career begins in the California setting in the 1960s, studying with a figure such as Herbert Marcuse, a second-generation member of the German Frankfurt School, one valid preamble of the U.S.-based cultural studies modality of "theory." His early work is on Góngora, the most elaborate Baroque poet in the Spanish language in the Seventeeth century. We are perhaps most importantly also dealing with the "New Left" emerging in the vicinity of the Vietnam War. How is that for an interesting juxtaposition?
No more no less than 50 years later, we find him taking stock of these legacies in the context of Brexit-Britain London a couple of weeks away from the general elections between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn. It is also the moment of a certain revival of the perennial Churchillian theme of the "special relationship" between the U.S. and the U.K. on the part of May. Where will this go? Hailing from the heart of the big imperial country, Beverley (1943-) is foundational figure in the establishment of cultural studies and subaltern studies, having had significant incursions into postcolonial studies in the important point of reference of Duke University, North Carolina, US in the 1990s, perhaps one of the most innovative and creative environments in the immediate past, from where I obtained my Ph.D. at the turn of the century. "Hispanic" is no easy or automatic label for the English-speaking world on either side of the Atlantic, neither is "Latin:" both tend to refer to the area studies of the Spanish-speaking side of the Iberian peninsula and / or its larger Latin American dimension, also inside the U.S., subaltern part of the West, European and American at the same time, domain of high culture and most typically of popular culture, historically imperial and currently mostly postcolonial in equal measure. Trained as a Hispanist, i.e. scholar in Iberian studies, his main vehicle is the field of Latin American Studies, without ever letting go of this European side of things, particularly in relation to the (neo-)Baroque, uneasy label in the domains of "letters" in the English-speaking context, it is fair to say.
But "letters" are very much summoned to the interrogation chamber of these lectures, or rather "literature." There is less of a curiosity in "literacy." And, what is this funny word, "theory"? It is code for critical intellectual tendencies emanating from (post-)structuralism, displacing historicist, philologist schools of thought. We are dealing with a specific set of academic cultures of scholarship and also of interdisciplinary university practice, particularly in the North Atlantic, U.S. & France & U.K., but not exclusively, and its radiation elsewhere, with its inevitable "blowback" effect reaching us today with a vengeance. Beverley's "politics of theory" lectures, about 10 hours total, addressed a vast panorama inside which these multiple connections between academia and the world were made explicit, i.e. "studies" and larger political events in the world, particularly the inspiration of Third World and Latin America (or the South), starting from the anti-Vietnam-War opposition, independence movements in the Third World, Cuban Revolution, Sandinismo in Nicaragua, and most recently the Marea Rosada (Pink Tide) with a persistent Bolivian focus. This account was a rich, vivid, vast panorama of an intellectual life trajectory keeping track of political events happening in different parts of the world, and how could it be otherwise in our global interconnectedness?: rest assured that Empire will find its "Empire strikes back" response. It is less certain if there will be a narrative for either or both dimensions (counter-Empire) that will allow us to make sense of things. "Literature" becomes a contested signifier that is not your conventional sign in the bookshops for fiction. In this vicinity, it is the same as the interrogation of structures of power and privilege, inside and outside the institution of the university. The disciplines will dance to high culture (Theodor Adorno's Schoenberg or Stravinsky dilemma), or to rock' n 'roll or pop or punk and less so to funk or hip hop or rap in the case of Beverley's generation, admittedly a fan of television watching it for hours. Perhaps millenials and native digital creatures will raise eyebrows. The disparity between Frankfurt school theories of culture and consumerist American popular culture was detonator of things to come, at least in the case of Beverley, sitting unevenly high in the "Cathedral of Learning" (the name of the main building at the University of Pittsburgh) in the "home of the brave and the land of the free," as the American anthem still has it. What about the transformative connection between the "disciplines" or the "studies" as one gets to find them in the libraries, classrooms and lecture halls, and political life expansively understood? This is one of the fundamental preoccupations of John Beverley displayed during these lectures.
The Desirable "Negation" or "Interruption" of Theory.
'Theory" is short name for these "cultural" preoccupations in the vicinity of the vast institution that will not go away, the state. Politics, much more than electoral politics, extends from Vietnam to Iraq and Syria, from Johnson to Bush, Obama and Trump. The reader of other parts will add his/her favourite names and meaningful geographies. We live in tremendous moments of uncertainty, with looming Brexit for Britain, neo-conservative upsurge inside and outside the isles, and correspondingly there is a certain retreat and debilitation of "theory." The focus was placed during these lectures on what may constitute the collective subject of politics, with or without its displays of impatience, even anger. We are looking for this subject beyond the Althusserian conception. The lectures conjured names galore of living figures (García Linera, Spivak, Butler, Wendy Brown, Kraniauskas, Mignolo), following the traces of already established canonical names (Saussure, Levi-Strauss, Lacan, Otto Bauer, Fanon, Stuart Hall, E. P. Thompson, Gramsci, Deleuze, Hardt, Negri, etc.). It was therefore a crowded imaginary house in the Gordon Square Birkbeck Cinema room. We can "nativize" this type of thought process and bring the affinity to the British school of Stuart Hall in the context of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies founded at the University of Birmingham in 1964 (Hoggart's Uses of Literacy (1957) must also be included). In Latin America, Néstor García Canclini's urban anthropology and consumerism is one recognizable name. There will be others. Beverley emerges from this 1960s radicalism on the West Coast of the U.S. His analogy is that of Bob Dylan going electric "transculturizing" the folk tradition resisted also by many, including the cultural theoreticians of the Communist party. Such "contamination freaked out a lot of people." Some of that is what is wanted for cultural / subaltern studies in the realm of area studies of the foreign dimension, call it Latin American Studies among other names. Where to go but to the popular, i.e. the category of the people?: the Gramscian formula of the national-popular identity and the "failure" of the Italian case. This is the "failure" that reaches our contemporaneity with the neo-conservative focus on the working classes and the "national identity" issue which does not go away, even in our globalized times.
Latin America emerges to global consciousness in the 1960s with theories of uneven modernity, the Cuban revolution, a new kind of postcolonial sensibility, the peculiarity of the hybridity of its cultural forms (Fernando Ortiz's transculturation, the example of the soup called "ajiaco") responding to Fascist acculturation, and most famously with literary "magical realism" (García Márquez, Vargas Llosa, etc.) among those who still hold a predilection for the book format and the form of the novel. The history of jazz (Stan Getz is mentioned) is a kind of successful transculturation, mostly for elitist groups, perhaps. There as no reference to other artistic forms. "Literature" however remains, for the most part, at least in Beverley's vision, complicit sign of high culture, the superstructure concomitant with what can be abbreviated as the "institution (literature, university, and perhaps most damaging, the state). If this is the "hell" to avoid at all costs, at least for the sensibility of a certain generation, a certain cultural / subaltern studies will have to go to (the theory of) popular culture wanting the (theoretical) interruption or "negation." The suggestion is to push the closed metaphorical quality of the critical language as it marches through or perhaps falls, within institutions. The idea is to give force to the subordinate, the dominated, humiliated dimension, the unequal, the space called the "South," the Fanonian formula of the "wretched of the earth." The notion of (in-)equality is highlighted between those of freedom and fraternity.
We live, alas, in an impasse of "theory." Beverley is explicit about his feelings (or "affect") of resentment in our apparent times of conservative restoration. Perhaps "theory" is compensatory radical function for the debilitations of leftist politics kicking off at least since the Thatcher / Reagan moment. Is our moment any better? Where are we looking for global inspiration? Literature? Culture? The Momentum side of Jeremy Corby? The Andean high planes? Syriza? Podemos? Para-institutional spaces? Privatized environments? Digital domains? Where is the power of the imagination to create new worlds of alternative possibility? "Literature" finds itself in "free fall" inside the neoliberal ideology that places the principle of authority in the free market with no particular value or permanent attachment to the "humanities," hence undergoing a corrosive effect, even liquidation within the cultural industry of the global corporate university and virtualized society at large. The suspicion is that cultural and subaltern studies may indeed have been unwitting collaborators with the system, at least on the American side of global things, since the late 1990s. The self-styled "rebels" may have woken up one tangled-up one bad morning like the characters in the film The Matrix. The Duke moment has now gone. In other words, if Spivak answered her own famous question in the negative, "Can the Subaltern Speak?," Beverley alarm bells toll for the American-style marketing of the University: the Duke Dean who famously proclaimed that Subaltern Studies will be the success model for the global university. The whole point was never to want to find the DNA of global success in the first place. How radically different is the British system by the time this account is made public?
Have Cultural / Subaltern Studies Been Complicit with the Logic of the Reproduction of Capital?
Beverley's critical hindsight is explicit that these early moments of cultural studies and subaltern studies may have indeed been part and parcel of the postmodernist logic of the global university in late-capitalist formulations. Pause for a minute and take a good look at the culture industry of the university system in the present moment. We may know where we have been, but do we really know where we are (not) going? Pause, rewind and fast-forward taking into account practices and discourses (not) taking place. Subaltern studies is –or at least was– a new way of thinking beyond that by emphasizing what was of inferior status, the lesser value, the foreshortened perspective of the shoe shiner level if you wish. The subaltern has hit a wall since Guha's masterpiece, Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency, with or without the refusal by a certain Latinamericanism to accept the "Indian" influence, but also the American and British influences. Beverley still defends the affinity felt among a few Latin Americanists with Asian Subalterns, at least since the Spivak moment at the University of Pittsburgh. Contaminations go in many directions in the present global present and identity politics will get tangled up and often reinforced in any binary (native and foreign for Area Studies modalities, for example). How could they not? The key thing is still to highlight the dimension of insubordination, and see how far "we" can go. But "we:" who are "we"? Tensions informing Area Studies models of global studies, or the rendering of the "foreign" political dimensions of "who we are," are perceptible, particularly when "identities" of all sorts come round the corner to live with "us." Cultural / subaltern studies bring into question this subject position (the "us") and what would make it desirable against others (the "them").
"We are all post-Marxists now, we are all post-colonialists now…"
Why have "theory" people for the most part stopped short of the state? What have they stopped short, period? How to rethink political subjectivity in the conjuncture? Where is now the point of Archimedes that will move the entire world? Is this too grandiose a statement? Beverley's brand of cultural studies will still defend "to want to change the world," around the notion of the totality. One needs a different kind of history that is not the typical biography of the nation state. So, in essence, Beverley's proposition is for a kind of anti-history stance, at least against a certain conventionality of the discipline of "history." But there is no retreat from these nouns (nation and state, not even "history" with/out the crisis of all the narratives), not even since the retreat of the Zapatistas (a certain arsenal for Subaltern studies according to Beverley). "Studies" wanted, perhaps still want, to intervene in the structural matrix of the university system in the manner of a desirable interruption, hence the emphasis on the synchronic and also on the sphere of the civil society, or the category of the "people." The downturn of the Pink Tide governments (Centre-Left, not Red, a kind of social democracy, not in the conventional European sense) puts Beverley in a bind ("I invested his (cultural) capital in the Pink Tide, if I can mix the metaphors. I am bankrupt"). Way out? Perhaps the "politics of dehistoricized affect." And the issue of representation of "the people" comes to the fore. Beverley is open about the points of contact with the religious domain, from an atheist perspective, and Liberation Theology's "preferential option for the poor" (Gustavo Gutierrez). Parallels with Enrique Dussel, for example, were not explored.
Beverley's claim is that "we are all post-Marxists, we are all post-colonialists now," which is a provocation of sorts. This ecumenic call will find sympathy in specialized types of academic discourse and perhaps even affinity in the streets. The desire remains in the meantime one of counter-cultural heterodoxy finding no easy outlet and certainly no automatic release in Britain and elsewhere in the second decade in the new century. A certain Deleuzean tendency seems to be gone in the direction of Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri's progeny of the best-seller Empire. Beverley holds his breath here, strikes a neo-Leninist pose accusing their followers of "infantile disorder," whilst conceding that it perhaps shows the limitations of his own generation. We live in terse, tense conjunctures scratching our skulls as to what sort of apparition, catastrophe, epiphany or horror or none of the above, will come next, perhaps the figures of the migrant and the foreign, perhaps convincingly captured by the "modern languages," "literature" and the "visual culture."
"Postcolonial Criticism of the Inscription of Literature as such."
Beverley's open lecture, "A New Orientalism? The Question of Literature as Such and Islamic Fundamentalism" follows one of the fundamental propositions of postcolonial criticism, that modern literature itself, from the Renaissance onwards, is complicit with processes of European colonization of the world. I do not see Beverley calling himself postcolonialist, but he is, no doubt, touched by this set of issues. Stepping outside his "home" in Latin American cultural products, Beverley approaches European cultural products, specifically Michel Houellebecq's novel Soumission (Submission), Orhan Pamuk's novel Snow, and Michael Haneke's film Caché (Hidden), recreating collective guilt in relation to the 1961 Seine Massacre. The answer to the question in the title of the lecture is yes: a spectre is haunting Western secular and consumer liberal democratic consciousness and it is that of the Islamic / Muslim Otherness reproduced by high forms of literature and film. Are "we" all (un-)wittingly recycling Orientalism failing to assimilate the lessons of Edward Said and others as though there was no way out but for whom? The convergence of these three European works is around the challenge to secular modernity / modernization posed by Islamic fundamentalism. Beverley synthesized the narrative of each of these cultural products caught up in what we can call the dilemma of the "Literature in the Third World" (to use the old, perhaps still valid nomenclature of the social sciences in the Cold War moment; the name of Aleksandr Dugin was conjured about worse things to come in geopolitics). Islamic fundamentalism is the conundrum that brings Rushdi and Said, Charlie Hebdo and Fanon's words on violence together. Roberto Bolaño's work is introduced as perfect example of Left melancholia in Latin America.
But "literature" is always already the sign of high culture in Beverley's account and its globalization is no transcendence of colonialism but universalization of new neo-colonial forms, images or letters. Here, the French setting adds a fair amount of fear and (self-)loathing, despite Macron's recent victory over Le Pen, with worrying signs in many settings (the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary, Germany, also Britain, and what about Russia?). Yet again, "literature" is, at least in Beverley's axiomatic account, the opposite of emancipation: complicit (high-culture) dimension of this New Orientalism with or without declining number of readers and interpreters. If there is a different kind of literature, it was not made explicit. Is there no alternative nesting in mid- or popular culture then? No kitsch either? No schlock? Are there no sustainable examples of a different type of literature in the English and Spanish speaking parts of the world? Is such condemnation made in relation to the author's fantasy, the rigidly expected reader response, the predictions of the market, the minority effect of consumers of literature and cinema in the "fake-news" mass media? It is not clear. Yet, the main argument in the lecture is that this form of globalism or universalism is easier to denounce than forcefully dislodge. The role of the novel cannot be disentangled from this modernity, including its peripheral variations (Turkey, multicultural Muslim France, the aftermath of the Algeria War of Independence in France). The film Caché reinforces the depressing argument stemming from the famous film Battle of Algiers (1966), allegedly used by Americans during interrogation techniques in war situations mainstreamed by films such as Boal and Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty (http://www.fernandogomezherrero.com/blog/?p=1841). My mind inevitably went to the famous article by Fredric Jameson about national allegory and the Third World and the critique by Aljad Ahmad along the lines of "othering" in the 1980s. Was Beverley updating this tension for us thirty-plus years later siding with one or the other? Was he more Jamesonian than Ahmadian or neither?
But we are all here, inevitably?, in the evanescence of the object of study called "literature," caught up in the certain impasse of the "studies" privileged by Beverley (cultural, subaltern, gender / queer, etc.), inside perceptible mutations of the institution of the university. Would the (foreign) visual culture provide better alternatives in the strictures of Brexit and the Age of Trump? In these panoramic lectures, we saw the unequal visibility of the Americas, disturbing glimpses of the "Other" vis-a-vis Britain's increasingly negative exchange with its own continent, at least in relation to its European Union formulations. But there is more: the Muslim / Islamic "otherness" looks at the distorting mirror image of the secular values and global modernity and the violences occurring in the Middle East and the West most visibly since 9/11 (I am finishing this piece one day after the suicide bombing in the concert of the American pop singer Ariana Grande in the city of Manchester). Final Hispanist surprise: Cervantes's Quijote is hailed as the founding text of literary modernity making this Western interruption of the Islamic Other. There was no mention of the once celebrated coexistence of the three religions in historic Spain. Perhaps this is a receding horizon beyond our reach in our accelerated and violent timespaces of genuine global disorientation. Will our studies play catch-up?
Find out more
- Gómez Herrero, Fernando. "About the Subaltern and Other Things: A Conversation with John Beverley," Disposition: American Journal of Cultural Histories and Theories 52 (vol. XXV, 2005): pp. 343-372.
- "Are Golden Age Studies Obsolete? A Conversation with Fernando Gomez Herrero," in John Beverley, Essays on the Literary Baroque in Spain and Spanish America (Woodbridge UK: Tamesis, 2008) pp. 149-185.
- Wikipedia Entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Beverley_(Latin_Americanist)
- University of Pittsburgh, Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures: http://www.hispanic.pitt.edu/person/john-beverley
What do We Really Talk about When We talk about Spanish in the US. Of A?
By Fernando Gómez Herrero (email@example.com).
It takes courage to look into an abyss of institutional logic inside capitalist crisis in the immediacy of academic environments side by side the "Spanish" sign and one must always already bear in mind collective dimensions. I wanted to gather some thoughts after the presentation with the title "What do We Really Talk about When We Talk about Spanish in the US of A?" that took place at Harvard some time ago. This reflection would like to be something like a survivalist ethos in these trying times and humor is very much needed, a gallows type surely. Lucidity must be invoked, particularly in relation to the journalistic pieces that will immediately follow always already within the hegemonic modus operandi of cynical market ideology. It is here where the stoking of the ashes of the critical intelligence must take place, particularly since we inhabit structures of lack of care. Let us begin with three jokes.
The first joke has to do with the most common type of relationship with institutionality. Say, you want to date someone, and you go and say, hey, babe, what about you and me? I like you, I see you need someone to teach some classes, I am willing to put down my time, effort, knowledge and my five dollars' worth acquired in the last twenty years. Let us make it work. And she says, great, thanks for the interest, but I do not really need that much, I want some of your time, not your full time, and some of your worth, three dollars out five, and I will pay you accordingly, no need for elaborate ceremonies, let us make it casual and occasional, a part-time arrangement, strictly short-term, and we take it from there, and let us call it the new normal. And while this is happening, you ascertain that the institution in question (the allegorical girl) is also seeing other suitors, taking advantage of their relative inexperience, foreign status, or more modest academic achievement, while being paid as much as you, as though twenty years' experience inside the American education system meant little to nothing. Hence, the institutional girl is a bad one, a market-cynical one, and she is dating down so to speak, and that she is giving them a little bit of love and a little bit of money. Institutionality does not really care about longevity, training, experience, proper bilingual beauties, publications and the money you are making is no living wage. This garbage contract, even unemployment, is the "new normal" –and since when?– for the immense majority of foreign-humanities practitioners. Institutions are thus acting like pimps taking advantage of increasingly global traffic sourcing labor, "deskilling" it from within, with precious few regulations or collective bargaining. The capitalist institution is deliberate about the establishment of discontinuities in the labor force, making these working units cheaper, interchangeable, expendable, creating revolving doors, evacuating intellectual richness and social experience structurally from within. Zizek speaks of the sadistic logic of the institution claiming otherwise. This is the predicament, the greasy pole so to speak, bringing your life down to the ever so precarious institutionalization of such lightness of being intellectual and academic thinning out inside higher-education structures embedded within capitalist exchanges, labeled not for profit, inside official moments of financial crisis. The current moment exposes the stark, naked, plain, ugly core. Bureaucratization of "education" makes it increasingly thinned out and lighter, content-immaterial, virulently short-term and anti-historical, banalized or infantilized, the socialization we must imagine is the one within the horizon of customers and consumers and of increasing poverty of rhetorical diction.
The second joke has to do with "racial profiling," or an increased awareness to social typology in your immediate professional environment, within a perception of an inherited standard sensibility in the early 1970s, call it Michael-Novakian if you wish, of assimilation model in American society that is hardly over. I am exaggerating to prove the point, and one good liberal parallel of intersecting lines would be the urban sociology of the former Senator for New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Here "Hispanic" barely registers. In relation to both authors not of my liking necessarily,I have picked an accessible, journalistic, type of approach that refuses to euphemize traumatic Americanization. I find such approach ideologically undesirable, and yet potentially more valuable and productive than the standard, bland affirmation of cultural-difference, typically leaving the largest template untouched or the official frames intact.
Put these two examples of popular culture in your back pocket in the immediate historical circumstance of the U.S. which defines who you are, whether you like it or not: The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics: Politics and Culture in the Seventies (1971) by Novak side by side visualization of social groups in police films such as French Connection and Serpico. The argument is that the social terminology of majority-minority, "white" and something else, not yet "Hispanic," or incipiently "Hispanic," must begin about forty years ago, in the Nixonian moment, of relatively open social self-questioning. So, this second joke would have a Colombian, a Mexican and a Spaniard finding themselves teaching intermediate Spanish-class courses in the undergraduate college in the New England setting inside the Novakian-inherited assimilation models admitting to the violence of the process with no edulcoration or euphemisms. The anecdote could be anything. It does not matter. The running joke could have the standard joke format of competing ethnic affiliations poking fun at stereotypes against the American normalization typically absent from the immediate interaction and oftentimes in the Spanish-language only dutifulness and you must pay increasing attention to who is around, and who is not, inside those low institutional floors, and the tremendous precariousness of the "cultural diversity" of such institutionalized association will not be missed, something of the grittiness of the Novakian ethnic whiteness alluded to in those films has surely something to do with "Hispanic." These cop dramas are law-and-order fantasies of social repression. And yet there is the most interesting dimension of the circulation and recreation of the visual tension of social relations inside a system that is irresolutely broken, impossibly corrupt beyond any dream-like redemption. I repeat that my feeling is that some historical "conservative" assimilation-model addressing inequalities and violences with no easy resolution, and the tense play of those "differences," is ethnographically more detailed and nuanced, richer and more politically productive, than the conventional and banal, "more liberal" theoretical defense, general affirmation and universal toleration of "cultural difference" of already existing categories, since the 1970s, typically without mounting a challenge to historical frames of social intelligibility.
You may add your favorite nationalities (Catalan, Castillian, Basque… Czech, Slovak and Slovenian, Irish and Italian in a Serpico type of setting, etc.) and you will still get something meaningful in relation to the most predictable social typologies doing what kind of object of knowledge production framed inside what conventional geography, or "area studies," which populate the Spanish-language foreign-humanities business. I bet a dollar most subjects of knowledge production will be doing representational roles of their foreign nationalities with precious little variation games and instead predictable rigidity tied up to typification, or tokenization, of "minority" candidates firmly within allocations of subject and objects of knowledge production. There is an embellishment not to be missed: the accumulation of markers of cultural difference added on the same bodies occupying receding spaces within deskilling and cheapening working conditions and how such bodies are preferably coming from modest middle-classes, provincial locations, domestically or overseas, ideally with little, or even better, no knowledge of the imperial language. The "minority" candidates now typically accumulate two or three markers of "cultural difference," since allocated spaces are receding. The ironic beauty is thus enhanced when you get to see how the institution simultaneously, deliberately empties out the social pool of historical, social, intellectual experience inside the dominant liberal ideology of interchangeable subjects of relative detachment from determinations of time and place, what I call the construction of the nomadic monad or the monadic nomad. Isn't this one quintessential phantasmagoria of a certain ideology of Americanism that puts itself thus as model number-one against the cumbersome, thick, historical texture of the rest of the world becoming thinner and lighter, and thus "American"? Structurally, decades of experience and training, Ph.D. achievement, publication record, are put together in the same pay-scale-per-course part-time short-term employability with those newly arrived from overseas desperate for work of any kind. Education institutions deal with education professionals seasonally in the same manner agriculture deals with strawberry pickers or "landscape management" deals with its manual labor, and I am building the "Spanish" analogy deliberately, highlighting inherited social division of academic and intellectual labor. Who is protesting in the open?
The third joke, which I would like to call "tonto con hache," has to do with a certain bombast of self-advertisement that I tend to find in the Spanish press, perhaps as some form of over-compensation for genuinely demoralizing situations of contemporaneity.Check this out: "El idioma español, en la cima del universo" by Antonio Astorga (www.abc.es/20121011/cultura/abci-idioma-espanol-cima-universo-201210091600.html). This is preposterous and dangerous idiocy that should be challenged by courageous Spanish professionals in the U.S. and elsewhere. Where are they? The eloquent subtitle: "La lengua de Cervantes, detrás del mandarín, y por primera vez delante del inglés, entre las 7000 que existen." The awkwardness, informality, agrammaticality of the first sentence says it all: "El español como huso (sic) idiomático ha alcanzado ya el rango de segunda lengua franca en este siglo. Sin pinganillos, el español es una fiesta." The Spanish party? It reads like a grotesque joke. The joke is on us? The approach is crude, raw and quantitative (400 million, native speakers, 439 learners ), obtuse in the surreal celebration of the growth of Spanish irrespective of specific national environments, placing precisely the US as one locomotive of such monumental growth, which is far from true, certainly not institutionally so. This is solipsism and provincialism claiming otherwise and the U.S. situation is not understood at all. The Atlantic is wider than one would think.Strength in strong numbers necessarily? Also in relation to percentages of professionals? Well, it is here barely surviving institutionally and its majority of professionals are barely making a living inside decimated humanities spaces. The projection: "Para el 2050, se calcula que el censo de hablantes del español en los EEUU será de 132.800.000 millones." I wish. What about the institutional numbers in relation to students, completion of degrees, professionals making a decent living in universities and libraries, mass media, professional business settings, etc.? A second example, "España descubre el petróleo de la lengua," by José Luis Barbería (elpais.com/diario/2007/03/24/babelia/1174696762_850215.html).
I am not faking the funk. There is no way around lucidity and intellectual honesty in the rendition of such lucidity, particularly so in the self-styled, number-one country of the world, typically undeterred by fact-checking, with or without the experience of the recent elections ("The Opiate of Exceptionalism," by Scott Shane, www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/sunday-review/candidates-and-the-truth-about-america.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0). So, if "they" claim to be on top of the linguistic universe –the Spanish marker, a marker of social prestige and high-culture recognition in the U.S.?- "we" are on top of the universe in relation to everything else, provided we do not double-check information sources. The previous article includes the reference to Mark Rice's Blog "Ranking America" (rankingamerica.wordpress.com/), who built it precisely to challenge such number-one obsessions ever so prevalent in the American psyche. Isn't this number-one disposition sign of the closing of the American mind?, using Bloomian language, not necessarily endorsing its ethos. Humanists do not typically do numbers often, but they come handy sometimes. And it is the case, that numbers are invoked typically the vicinity of "Spanish:" demographics. Certainly.Yet what type of numbers and where?
I do not know about you but I want to stay truthful publicly to the intellectual crisis that is inside the capitalist crisis. There are three sections in what follows: 1/ the situation; 2/ larger contexts and interests; 3/ projections.
1/ The situation with which this presentation began: The visit. The excuse & the pretext if you wish, the Spanish-language promotion of the Spanish Prince Felipe de Borbón y Grecia at Harvard University last summer. There is a culture bite written about it, "Spain is an American Nation" (www.fernandogomezherrero.com/blog/?p=1331). So we have the "soft-power" intervention inside the global-brand of prestigious university education environments by the foreign-national representative of the Constitutional Monarchy of the medium-size nation.
A few items: the interest of the history lesson against the conventional American grain –particularly here in the immediate context of New England and the dual city context of Boston and the "red republic" of Cambridge. Yes, there was a predictable universalism without the self-recognition language of imperialism, international law without colonialism, free trade without inequalities, renaissance of human creativity without darker sides, ever so amiable bi-national collaboration and Spanish/English kissy-kissy relations, but wait Anglos do not typically kiss in polite introductions… In fact, such (air) kissing is an elite-institution affectation that is not common practice in the American streets. And yet there was the good attempt to bring about some temporalities and chronologies, Spanish-language toponyms, pre-Mayflower, pre-Bostonia foundation possibilities, good.
There was thus the justified defense of a larger scope of vision apropos Spanish and Iberian imperialism and colonization of the Americas and the tinkering with the very nomenclature of "America," one or two continents, or twenty-two? (I repeat, of course the words imperialism and colonization were missing in action, and you may pause to think how many national representatives do you get to see out there waxing eloquently about these nouns in relation to their own nations?). The continental numbering is always a good pedagogic trick to get your students and your carefree colleagues tangled up in the historical blues. Prince Felipe's march of history, call it discreet, polite, smooth Hegelianism of the triumphant West is atypical for most Americans in the sense that it must incorporate "Spain" in a tighter manner to the U.S. The title plays with the bilingual "confusions" of hemispheric, from Alaska-to-Patagonia America and typically U.S.-only English-idiomatic America cut off from the rest of the larger dimension that breaks down into "two" continents, North and South (Spanish language still remains mono-continental in relation to the land erroneously attributed to Americo Vespucci). Spain, is one of my darling nations, one. It is clearly not the center of interest, not even in relation to Spanish. And this was the core of interest in Prince Felipe's speech dealt with with some care in the aforementioned culture bite. It was overall a good performance. Good English, which is more than I can say about the immense majority of the representatives of such nation currently under some turmoil. How many of these representatives could say gracefully Gene "Popeye" Hackman line "ever picked your feet at Poughkeepsie and mount a comparable 1970s attitude? Prince Felipe did it diplomatically. So, yes, there was a bit of a quaint, unusual Europe, from a US perspective. A quaint institution (Monarchy, Prince and Princess with some name recognition, not much). No mention of popular Americana, no French connection, Fernando Rey, who plays the "bad" French guy antagonizing Hackman. The Monarchy is no big point of reference for Spaniards themselves, it however plays a state-national, representational role. So in that discourse delivered, we are not really supposed to seek genuine enlightenment and yet we are dealing with power interpellation… There is discourse. There is a desire of discourse, of language, with Spanish being at its core, as well as hunger of memory in relation to a famished "America." The event was a genuine exercise in (cultural or soft-power) diplomacy and also business localization and advertising and promotion of specific interests, call them business interests in the vicinity of the Chamber of Commerce. The performance was not bad at all. Proper. Nice. Polite. Discreet. Short. Sweet. Do not push too much. Keep it there. All right.
But, not quite. Provocatively, I throw a bit of a tantrum, a bit of Zizek at the event: the Monarch-to-be is an "idiot." And maybe we are all "idiots" with him. There is an excess of discourse, something that eludes knowledge, and runs parallel to the immediate situation… There are external, larger forces around us mocking our intelligibility efforts inside specific localities. How important is the geography of New England vis-à-vis "Spanish," for instance? And that is the point: always to try to see bigger landscapes of interconnected vision so that at least we become more awareness of our moments of insight and blindness. A demographic-increase celebration of Spanish-language demographics appears dangerous, idiotic blindness, particularly in relation to the U.S.
The concrete event was a good example of what I would like to call mirrors of misrecognition. The foreign prince interpellates the corporation as representative of the big nation inside the bigger history lesson of the West that incorporates Spain, and the corporation does not officially feel the need to respond in kind to the speech, yet opens the door to the distinguished guest, makes it revolving door, and waits for the goodness of the business transaction. Perhaps there will be some goodness. And what does Cambridge have to do with the geography in Florida, New Mexico, Colorado explicitly mentioned in the speech in relation to precedents and preambles? Prince Felipe was using the corporate space as global platform to speak to his own citizens and expatriates –careful here with the American football language of the "Patriots"—to promote Spanish language as good for history and good for business, while the corporation was only too happy not to make a big deal of the event in the first place. It was not a big deal. It is not a big deal. Imagine the reverse, a U.S. state official going to a big foreign nation to promote the historical density of the English language as good for business. What about the President of the Corporation? I thus want to highlight the structural inequality of English/Spanish, and around it, many other things as well. Fragility therefore embedded in the official defense of Spanish inside the global Anglophone Atlantic (Europe-US) "Area Studies" undergoing a genuine debilitation as we speak. There are obviously many interests embedded in the label of "Spanish" and the Prince line of argumentation will have its fans, but I must say that these will not be the many in the U.S., perhaps I am wrong. And I am using descriptive language. The self-assumed representational role: Prince represents a foreign nation and also seeks to represent a (foreign) language and tells us how beautiful it is, and how meaningful, which is true, certainly. And yet…
With or without the humanistic ornamentation of civilizational impetus and theoretically peaceful association, the core of the speech was, and is, business: the event had to do –certainly, mostly—with branding "Spain" and also "Spanish," but it is done in such a way that it does not push it too much, and the U.S. market is –doubts any one?– a tough one. The identity of Spain/Spanish has to be underlined in the manner of the Chamber of commerce. Think the "market:" euphemism for capitalism, and a variety of national labels inside international platforms such as corporations but also metropolis, not Boston certainly, but New York for example. Go ahead and attract your customers and consumers with your best advertising strategies. And this is, I would put to you, the political unconscious of what mostly happens around here, also inside university settings: to want to be operational, functional, meaningful in relation to the marketing of cultural products which may or may not welcome the label "Spanish."
Which has, from the U.S. perspective, certainly, a genuine European legacy, the historical references mentioned in the speech are true, but such legacy has to reframed, "Americanized" if you wish, inside the minority portion of the officially majority minority category of "Hispanic," and the apparent tongue-twisting in the language I am using has to do with the tense history of group relations in the U.S. Here, Spain is predominantly discreet legacy, not among the dominant nations that migrated to the US. "Spanish" is largely a (Latin) American imaginary, a "Latino" and the French-origin expression has to retain something of a healthy, historical strangeness (while I am writing this, the Boston Public Library is celebrating the figure of Rafael Gustavino and American public spaces, association between the Spanish immigrant, who contributed with the structural tile vaulting to more than 1,000 buildings in the US, some of them as emblematic as the Boston Public Library, Ellis Island Museum, Grand Central Station in New York, etc.: architecture.mit.edu/class/guastavino/about.html).
The corporation welcomes such dignified guest. And yet there is something missing, in that here was no official response to the speech. How would one love to hear what the institution have to say about the main thesis of the Prince's discourse! There is precious little penetration of such endeavors, as far as I can see. The might of Spanish-speaking sectors inside the U.S. knocking on the institutional doors, where?, in the deliberative tables of professionals and managers, around the discussion tables of boards of trustees? The percentages of customers craving such cultural products? Healthy numbers of those students taking one or two courses, what about getting some kind of certificate in the language? Total numbers of consumers demanding a certain profile? Who was and is by the time I write this feeling cheerful about the conventional university institutionality of Spanish in the home of the brave? The speech did not touch such dimension, advisedly. Imagine a dignified guest criticizing harshly the choice of china for the tea ritual!
2/ Larger Contexts and Interests. A bit of a cognitive mapping. So, where, when, how? Higher-education institutionality of Spanish in the U.S. within the foreign-language units. Predicaments. Dilemmas. Whither are we bound? "We" who? Any appeal to any collectivity appears ever so problematic. Increasing privatizations and corporatization of education sectors, playing some kind of role inside society at large. Officially, these are not-for-profit sectors and we are currently enduring disinvestment and "de-intermediation," two really cumbersome and euphemistic polysyllables. I have alluded to recent sociological work that speaks of university education as mostly "socialization" for the vast majority of U.S. students and who is seriously complaining? (that was also how Richard Rorty characterized university life for the vast majority of students, ever so distant from the examined life).
I am speaking perhaps lightly about serious matters and I mean seriousness when I say that the humanities occupy a funny place in the contemporary moment in the U.S., let us continue focusing on the "freest and most proud nation on earth" as some rhetoric still has it. The knowledge-production that still merits the label of the "humanities" ("liberal arts" really) must come to terms at least in the case of "Spanish" –I am keeping it thus short and sweet—with a brutal diglossia, an unambiguously fierce monolingualism that puts together a un- if not anti- historical, rough knowledge of "English," in detriment of, or more precisely against all the other languages, and the structural subordination of the second American language, "Spanish," here glows historically, against its own recent history of brutal assimilation, alluded to earlier by the one personal name of the conservative commentator of Slovak origin, Michael Novak, out of the riches of multiculturalism and multilingualism, again, two other cumbersome and euphemistic poly-syllables connoting "bad press," conventionally. It always makes me pause to remember the self-description of Americanization among conservative commentators, such as Novak and Huntington, as a process of "psychic violence," and even lobotomy, in the deliberate loss of other languages, and how do you like such a thing?, and how on earth would you go for such a thing if you had a ghost of a historical option? But that is when the non-euphemized experience of immigration into the U.S. acquires some of its historical flavor and tension (I have alluded to the inspiration of 1970s films which do not wish to make such tensions euphemistic and more palatable but instead look at that difficulty in the face with no easy resolutions). This is significant, I would defend, because Spanish professionalization may be moving towards such tense integration. And then people invoke big numbers of speakers, sure, but you will never know by taking a peek at the institutionality in relation to education professionals making a decent living and the strong pronouncements they consistently fail to make about the dire straits of the institutional situations in which we all live. What are the visible or audible research agendas saying exactly?
Now, this is not the place to address the pathologies of American culture, but I could mention some (generations cut off from timespaces not their immediate own, ghettoized from each other, traumatized into American assimilation, at least according to our aforementioned conservative commentators historically endorsing such traumatic process, precious little sense of diachronic development and multi-perspectivism of worldviews, fragile and thin social fabric caught up or shot through by short-term "garbage-contract" institutionality, the other side of organic life of a certain continuity, business culture breaking through all apparent social things, think of Moses' highways through historic Penn Station, the decay of urban centers, for example Boston theater district, public institutions such as the Boston Public Library, the deterioration of subway transportation, etc.). Very little holds, stays, apparently: there is no center (Daniel Bell dixit, decades ago), and most natives you will talk to do not appear to have precious awareness or care about what was happening in their midst two or three decades ago, much less centuries ago. What is there in American society that reminds you of other, foreign temporalities? What is there that holds continuity, that makes claims to a legacy or tradition? Academic life mimics the growing discontinuities of American society at large. No outrageous claim when I say that there is very little self-awareness and recognition inside the U.S. about its vigorous, interrelational, diachronic web of being inside larger world avatars, which is what Prince Felipe was trying to convey ever so diplomatically in old-fashioned, humanistic fashion, but the core of his speech –the depleted wallet in the pocket hiding in the jacket– was business-like and business, do you ever doubt it?, does not venerate historicity here or there.
"Spanish" in the U.S. classrooms is ever so discreet "second-language" pedagogy of middling-ground grammaticality and literacy in one or two courses taken inside a deteriorating requirement –bye, bye fictional worlds , or literature, and increasing indeterminacy or "culture," which is something like sociology of mass modes, mass media or entertainment or urban consumerism, or civil society by famished institutionality, also by a genuine anti-establishment impulse that typically gets called "libertarian," inside a society of indeterminated boundaries that is increasingly averse to textuality, ignorant of diachronicity, impatient and restive, profoundly disoriented about the utopia of meaningful arrangement of timespaces, the desirability and awareness of the intersections of geography and temporality in the binding of the doings and thinking processes, also imaginings, of social groups. One could say that we live in a genuinely non-book domain, para- but also anti-humanities inside university precincts, indifferent from capitalist structures seeking short-term profit. The political unconscious is market-cynical and rhetorically American-liberal of respect for individual choices and preferences, assuming theoretical menu of options according to the horizon of increasing individual detachments from collective units. Such modus operandi easily turns restive and repressive, anti-historical, anti-philosophical, and certainly anti-intellectual, the moment it is pressed to give reasons larger than subjectivist preferences or ad hoc institutional rules and regulations.
And here you are trying to make a living with your knowledge production. Employment conditions of Spanish-language professionals (typically covering area studies of Iberian peninsula and Latin America, within a slow recognition of the Latino dimension): horrid. The euphemism of the "market" (i.e. capitalism) cannot hide the structural degradation and systemic downgrading made evident in the "deskilling" of jobs advertised, retained and rewarded with continuity. The cat's cradle of bureaucratization inside not-for-profit units effectively means the skullduggery of devalued language skills, thinning out of longevity, amputation of intellectual production and projection and the mockery of the rewards that should come after years of study. Should?
The language is in some quarters one of "casualization," another cumbersome euphemism. And this is another one: "variety of income streams." And all this has to be thought out as systemic and structural, quite far away from individual vicissitudes of good or bad fortune. In short: immensely precarious working conditions, more the unacknowledged negative than the positive, unemployment than employment, more short-term and casual than anything else, a job with continuity, "tenure-track" and pay that is barely above the poverty line. The course offerings, more lower levels of instruction than anything higher, which has never been very high, comparatively in the U.S. Where are the comparative studies of accomplishments of different university systems? I have put my own biographical experience ("On Greenblatt's historicism: Double-take," www.fernandogomezherrero.com/blog/?p=801). We are witnessing if not the end of the academic profession certainly something close to it, and the modifier adverbial probably has to do with the general attitude of strategic silence in moments of genuine crisis. But the survivalist ethos will never say never. So, say instead that one must learn to make do with the structural mutation of what university education amounts to (I am fond of the Puerto-Rican Spanish anglicismo of "colegios" catching up fittingly the gravitational, downward-pull of U.S. higher education, following capitalistic fundamentals of short-term profit differentials, cheapening working conditions here, deskilling criteria, making it more prohibitive and more expensive there for customers and consumers seeking socialization, etc.). After two decades in the US, I am yet to find professionals who are convincingly defending the current bureaucratization of academic environments, of private corporatization of such bureaucracies of social relations generating systemic precariousness and strategic unpredictability. I feel the humanities do not have a rhetoric to put them out of the burning fire. I feel the same is true for "Spanish," paradoxically informed by such spectacular demographics. What comes to me is the debilitation of the education profession inside the current global capitalist mass-market society, but wrapped up around it the impoverishment of symbolic production about the mechanisms implemented for the social control inside those interconnected webs and institutions of comparative, relative privilege. Somebody will be benefitting from such degradation.
Tell me the research agendas you get to see out there in the vicinity of "Spanish" other than some differentialism receiving the adjective cultural. One repetition: the clear attenuation of textualities in the vicinity of a certain normality of culturalism –now that "cultural studies" is the apparently only, typically diluted, label there is, particularly within the foreign humanities. Skepticism about a certain normality is appropriate: trust your circumstantial evidence in moments of thin discourse and thick silence. There is a certain orthodoxy of cultural difference, or the said differntialism, always already in relation to some type of symbolic or epistemic "core" taken for granted, typically assumed as the normal, good or real thing, or what is, most often left alone side by side gradualism of greater participation of under-privileged social groups (I share Slavoj Zizek's criticisms however about a "radical apathy at the heart of today's cultural studies, playing up right into the market ideology," included for example in The Fright of Real Tears: Krzysztof Kieślowski Between Theory and Post-Theory (2001), pp. 6ff). You may imagine in the meantime a typical situation in which a weatherwoman is telling us about the generally bad weather "out there," while leaving the "in here" under-verbalized. Deep down, who cares, if we cling to the adverbial clause, the "out there." What matters mostly, it seems to me, is instead the relationship between such (im-)possible knowledge renditions combining different timespaces (localities and chronologies), particularly when the immediate circumstance is proven to be faulty, paltry, incomplete, radically unsatisfactory. One of the denunciations has to do accordingly with the perception of an unmistakable flattening that naturalizes the status quo. It must be added that Spanish is still in the process of normalization into the de facto second-language status in the U.S. And that it is still in a relative institutional foreignness in the fragile humanities, or cultural studies, where the few professionals still have to play the representational role of a certain predictable kind of identifiable of a recognizable marker within few exchange options against the conventional race-and-ethnic profile that is typical of the U.S. (cultural-diversity offices, US Census, political consultations do wake up periodically the ghost of the impending transformations in the vicinity of the "Hispanic" category). Roberto Mangabeira Unger has spoken critically about a certain adventurism and subjectivism characteristic of the humanities assuming a certain triviality or ornamentalism that will be taken down in contemporary moments of dire straits. I must say it is difficult to shake this one off. What to invoke and what to appeal to, within the prevailing climate of short-term skirmishes within the perception of debilitation of educational-bureaucratic circles, that is a tough one.
In the meantime, here you are doing "Spanish" barely making a living, over-educated in a society that thinks little of the juxtaposition between the sign in quotation marks and prestige markers or achievement. Feel free to put the category you deem prestigious inside the dominant spectrum that still affirms "Spanish" becoming "American" from a position of structural subordination and integration into functional diglossia if not monolingualism, and the examples are easy to find (Sonia Sotomayor, the brothers Julian and Joaquin Castro, the journalists Richard Rodriguez and Juan González). Not entirely facetiously: imagine a coca-cola palate tasting samples of aged wine taste, imagine mole sauce in the land of ketchup, think labels such as "junk gourmet food" for example in this deliberate marketing of de/structuring sensibilities, languages, experiences, thoughts, etc. cut unevenly across the typical university visibility of subject and object of knowledge, under-represented, and out of synch against the largest social spectrum of the big nation. These are, no doubt, tensions, informing the "Spanish" category in the home of the brave in the Age of Obama, inevitably meaningful as one gets to engage with literacy and historical dimensions, and philosophical pretensions. The criticism has to emphasize the normality of anti-historical, anti-philosophical, thinning out of textual engagements, streamlined to pedagogic "facilitations" of increasingly bureaucratized and institutionalized sociabilities passing through, in ever so fast exchanges, ephemeral places (Mar Augé has written about "non-places," and John Kasarda and Greg Lindsay speak of "aerotropolis," and who doubts the university "campus" is becoming some of that, and how we are almost forced to become something of an unbearable lightness of circumstantial being (recreating Kundera's famous novel title), whatever was solid melting into the air, and now going one step further into digital virtuality, and the realm of the accelerated unhinged image, and one may wish to remember at this juncture the memorable line of Henry James of the U.S. being a "hotel civilization," which he left behind somehow as a cultural expatriate).
I am thus willing to put it to you thus publicly that we are witnessing non-obvious processes of de/institutionalizations of social relations also in the vicinity of "Spanish," now with an intellectual crisis underneath every institutional stone you are willing to kick around –over there in the foreign country of the foreign prince that some of you left behind, and good riddance—but also undoubtedly over here, who doubts it?, in the land of the sole-standing superpower with little feeling for sustained, comparative historicism among societal models. People over there I still happen to think are more vocal than people over here, who have typically less of a historical language, perhaps less of physical strength in the brain in a harsh society of immigrants –ask the Czech experience of Novak, the Irish experience of Moynihan and come up with alternatives for the impending feeling that almost any notion of tradition may ever so quickly become an impossible burden, and where to find the strength in the limbs and the inspiration in the brain to go at such sustainable development? I would defend the inverse proportionality: a more stable or established or formal-traditional society may afford the theoretical position of producing more daring fictions and sophisticated intellectual alternatives, whereas a more precarious and unstable society of faster exchanges and enforced integration – say, conventional Americanization– goes ever more naturally to more superficial and simpler formulations, ever more rigid and operational solutions for the mounting pressures always in the perennial short-term.
And the third and final section has to do with projections. Whither are we bound, professionally and existentially, because it is your life going through the motions? And I do not know about you but I am not willing to go down the trivialization path I am just sketched out for the perceived generality ever so hastily. Academic professional life of/for Spanish is going to change ever so slightly and slowly from this situation of chronic unemployment and job precariousness for the immense majority of professionals. PhD program debilitations and thinning out of academic units –also worringly in relation to customers and consumers unless departmental units pay close attention and react better quickly than slowly.
Division of labor is going to continue. In the American imagination, "knowledge" is in English –the vehicle, the medium—and the foreign languages –what nice thing to say about this template?—provide some type of ornamentation, what I would call "boutique Europe" perhaps the best case scenario. But I would suggest that it is mostly thin culturalism –think food and United-Nations-type celebrations or student-organizations in the private campuses, some images, some film, sports, "soccer." Sure. I like that too. Anything else? What I mostly hear is an awful lot of silence around the importance of the "foreign languages."
The silence means there is a profound, deep crisis of legitimacy of the humanities and of Spanish in them trying to play catch up with the positivity of demographics. What is it that such sign does, really? And I confess to you that ""Spanish" is one of my concerns, certainly: one. So, this culturalism is perhaps a fight that has always already been lost. The good fight of lost causes? The silly piece in the Spanish newspaper ABC aforementioned includes a reference to the "last of the Philippines," which is a colonialist film vision of Spain's travails in the crucible of the 1898. You can ethnicize the expression if you wish ("the last of the Mohicans"). The point being, the defense of the foreign humanities in partibus infidelium, the Latin plays up the peculiarity of the "Latin" focus in the U.S., is always already a "minority affair," suddenly turning official prediction into the following decades. Saying it less playfully, one will have to speak of turbulence in knowledge-production units inside the current capitalist crisis.
I happen to think that a more connected, more confrontational and muscular language is wanted, if what one wants is to try to get a keener sense of our historicity. Against the abyss of market-cynical ideology, I am resisting the debilitation of language in the vicinity of the institutional fragility of "Spanish" inside American universities in the midst of momentous transformations. I am willing to take risks and pursue the opposite of the debilitation of symbolic production, while being aware of Lacanianisms standing for the ontological void of it all. Zizek takes us there. Yet, one must handle these seductions sensibly.
I will finally put it thus: I see some people selling some kind of watered-down lemonade to other people who drink a bit of it but who are not really thirsty and after one or two tries, say one or two courses, drop it (Spanish) and move on to other better things of the kind that could be called functional or marketable knowledge. Spanish, I must say, it is not convincingly here. It has not been here and probably it will not be here any time soon, historically, socially, epistemologically, politically, philosophically, certainly not within the current university structures undergoing mutation not spoken of eloquently. Americans of the conventional kind do not know what these previous adverbial dimensions mean in juxtaposition to "Spanish," or Hispanic or Latino, for that matter, and it is also not unlikely that they will know what such juxtaposition means in relation to (the discipline of) "English" either. Tangled up in both, we are all good guys and nobody's perfect.
The skin is in the game, mine at least, and here I am doing what I think I should do, and doing so by the skin of the teeth, negatively speaking, and the utopia or positivity has not yet arrived two decades after the arrival in the home of the brave. In the meantime, I will not yield to the collapse of the structure of meaning and care apropos the hard sell of "Spanish" in the U.S., and many other things with it, and I must think less than nothing of the structural ingratitude –so far—that is not only anti-intellectual, but many other awful things as well. Thanks for your attention. Open for comments, questions, anything.


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Sony Ericcson Reveals "The Live With Walkman"
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:57:22
Sony Ericsson just announced The Live with Walkman™ - a fully integrated social media savvy Smartphone with the sound quality of a Walkman™. Walkman? Wow, that's so '80s. Oh wait, not really.
This Live With Walkman allows users unique access and the ability to tap into millions of songs from Sony Entertainment Network.
Here's the key features of the phone:
• Deep Facebook™ integration: Allows users to instantly access Facebook through the most used areas of the phone such as the picture gallery, music player, phonebook and calendar.
• Media Discovery Application: A dynamic application placing the world of music and videos at your fingertips including Facebook™ recommendations from friends.
• Sony xLOUD™ technology: Enhances audio output of the inbuilt speakers at high levels.
• Music and video content through the Sony Entertainment Network: Users have access to millions of songs from all major labels and can watch thousands of movies from all major studios. Only Sony Ericsson Android™ smartphones provide owners with unique access to the entertainment services from Sony.
It'll set you back around $300.
Does this gadget arouse your interest?
—Carly Costello

subset: commoncrawl


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Everyone gets to the point where we just need a break. No matter how much someone likes their job or other busy things in your lives, we need a vacation. For those who have kids and have the duties taking care of other tasks, you might be motivated to wonder where are the best possible locations I should try?
First, ask yourself, what are your favorite hobbies? What do you enjoy if you can get away for a few days from your weekly routine? But most importantly, is it good for my health?
Vacations are not a luxury; they are a necessity for a healthy lifestyle while eating well, getting fun exercise, and most importantly it gives us a break we need and deserve to keep our health uplifted.
1.Vacations Help Keeps Your Stress Level Down
Nobody likes to stress every day in our lives. In today's world, we are always surrounded by it in so many ways. The truth is that getting away for a certain amount of time gives us a break from the everyday routine and we have some fun time for ourselves.
2. Vacations Help You Regain Your Focus
When we work constantly with no breaks, a vacation is what we need to help make people feel refreshed and ready to go back to the work grind when they get back. Our focus when we are away remains at the back of our minds.
3.Vacations Make You Happier
When we are depressed and have anxiety, taking a vacation is more likely to make you feel happy with an overall feeling of being grateful you had time away compared to those who did not have one.
4. Vacations Strengthen Relationships
Just by being able to spend a vacation with your family or loved ones can help keep you closer. They have a feeling of being more satisfied with their relationships. These shared experiences encourage bonding time with family, which is so important. Family vacations create more memories than any other activity.
5. Vacations Improve Your Sleep Quality
People who take vacations can improve their sleep by 20%v or more. While on vacation, they averaged an hour more of quality sleep, which even carried over to when they returned home.


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Ticket Office
Our Ticket Office is located on 31 Warren Rd, next to the Town Hall. You can't miss it! Buy your tickets, exchange your e-tickets for wristbands, get your printed Festival Program, enter a raffle.
Opening hours:
Friday 9am – 11pm
Saturday & Sunday 8am – 11pm
Festival Info Tent
The Festival Info Tent is located at the top of Brockman Street. It is open over the festival for up-to-date info on what's happening, where to go, program changes, lost property and children.
Volunteer HQ
Located on Grange Rd (across the street from the Ticket Office). If you are one of our dedicated Volunteers, head to the Volunteer HQ to register and confirm your shifts. We truly love you.
First Aid
A First Aid post for minor aliments is located on the corner of Brockman Street near the entrance of the Nannup Caravan Park. It is staffed by Senior First Aid Volunteers from 9 am to 6pm. No medication available.
A second First Aid post is located inside the Amphitheatre.
For all major emergencies dial 000 or go directly to Nannup Hospital (corner of Carey and Kearney Streets).
Emergency Evacuation
In the event of an emergency, please proceed to the Village Green, the grassed area behind the Festival Office (see map) and await further instructions. There is a second evacuation point at the Festival Campground (Nannup Recreation Centre).
Rehydration Stations
Feel free to head to one of our rehydration stations and fill up your own water bottle with fresh, potable water. For locations, look out for the water drop icons on the Festival map. Help us keep in line with the Festival's philosophy of reduce, reuse, recycle and avoid evil plastic as much as possible! Nannup Music Festival stainless steel water bottles are also available for sale at the Merch Tent.
Friday Night at the Amphitheatre
You can purchase a Friday only ticket at the Merchandise Tent (outside the Amphitheatre, end of Brockman St) on Friday night at the price of $40 per person. Youth and children get free access to the Amphitheatre on Friday night and need to be supervised by an adult as this is a licensed venue.
To purchase a Full Weekend Ticket on Friday night (which also gives you access to the Friday night program), please head to the Ticket Office (top of Brockman St) which will be open until 11pm.
Festival Markets
Our Festival Markets kick-off on Friday at 5pm on Brockman Street and they run from early in the morning till late at night on Saturday and Sunday. Monday morning is general bump out but you might find some last minute bargains by the few stalls that choose to trade till 11am.
We love to support local artists and makers, original designs and unique, handmade, one-of-a-kind products. As you wander from venue to venue, check out the eclectic mix of characters selling their wares, the community groups and not-for-profit organisations sharing their knowledge, the kids busking or street performers gathering a crowd; and then delve into the yummy selection of healthy, delicious and multicultural street food and drinks available. It's a hive of fun in the festival lane…
Festival Merchandise Tent
Our Merch Tent can be found at the end of Brockman St next to the Amphitheatre entrance. CDs, T-shirts, hoodies, tea towels, notebooks, water bottles and much more. EFTPOS available.
Bush Breakfast
Come down to our plastic free (yay!), fundraising Bush Breakfast (top of Brockman St) on Saturday, Sunday and Monday mornings from 7:30am to 10:00am to enjoy a hearty cooked breakfast or a yummy bowl of muesli. Fruit, tea and coffee included. All proceeds go towards next year's Festival.
Cruisy Bus
Say hello to our Cruisy Bus, a shuttle service between the Festival Campground and the Festival Ticket Office by gold coin donation.
Festival Campground departures on Saturday and Sunday: 8:30, 9:30, 10:30, 15:30, 16:30, 17:30, 19:30, 20:30, 21:30
(bus stop at the Marinko Tomas statue near the Recreation Centre)
Festival Ticket Office departures on Saturday and Sunday: 9:00, 10:00, 11:00, 16:00, 17:00, 18:00, 20:00, 21:00, 22:00
(bus stop outside Historical Society on Warren Rd, across from Ticket Office)
Device Recharge Station
Available at the Volunteer HQ by gold coin donation. BYO charger.
Camera Policy
No professional cameras, video cameras or tape recorders allowed in the Festival Ticketed Venues. Unauthorised drones are not allowed anywhere in the Festival Site.
Cash Out & ATMs
Ticket Office (Cash Out)
Nannup Newsagency & Post Office (Cash Out/ Banking Services)
A Taste of Nannup (ATM)
Nannup Hotel (ATM)
Nannup Deli/Caltex (ATM)


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Discounted Guided Adventures to Lodging Guests
- Redeemable: Wednesday, Jul 19, 2017 - Tuesday, Oct 31, 2017
- Wilson's on Moosehead Lake
Guests staying with us in our lakefront cabins receive a $50 discount on guided fishing trips. Our experienced Maine Fishing Guides offer fly fishing lessons, and all equipment and transportation is provided. Fly fish from a drift boat for landlocked salmon and brook trout on the East Outlet of the Kennebec River for a full or half day (May through October or until it's freezing), or go on a full day small mouth bass fishing adventure in our row frame rafts (June through the end of September). As you can see, we are located on Moosehead Lake and the headwaters of the Kennebec River. We have the perfect location for all of your vacation needs.


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text: Featuring a garden, Domitys La Cité Des Princes offers pet-friendly accommodations in Orange. Theatre Antique d'Orange is 1,311 feet away. Free private parking is available on site. Domitys La Cité Des Princes also includes a fitness center. Guests can enjoy a meal at the on-site restaurant, followed by a drink at the bar. The property also has packed lunches. Caumont Airport is 17 miles from the property.


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This interactive seminar is a unique opportunity for all professionals involved in child safeguarding to hear from UK's leading experts about the latest developments in child sexual exploitation. By the end of the session, delegates will have gained an improved understanding that will equip them with the necessary skills and tools to protect children from CSE.
Never before has children's health been deemed a 'national emergency', with increasing concern that unhealthy lifestyles will lead to lower life expectancy for this generation of young people compared to previous ones. The health of young children must now be of top importance to every early years practitioner.
This timely symposium offers an invaluable opportunity for local councils, healthcare practitioners and other key stakeholders to address key challenges emerging from the new commissioning landscape, as well as to explore what more needs to be done to achieve an integrated public health approach to the early years stage of a child's development.
This conference will cast a spotlight on our understanding of children's rights and participation, what it means to children, young people, professionals and academics in Wales in 2016. We will look at the challenges facing those who are developing participative practice, and showcase examples of innovative practice.
This conference looks at the research and policy arena that underpins the Life Chances Strategy, announced by the Prime Minister. We will also focus on what practice changes can be made to help us all respond effectively when parental couple relationships are vulnerable or broken.
PIP UK's Inaugural National Conference 2016, sponsored by the 1001 Critical Days will be an exciting opportunity to be with other changemakers developing upstream solutions for health, education and social care from across the globe.
This free event presents a piece of work, funded by the Robertson Trust and conducted by the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy (SCPHRP), to develop an intervention for carers/parents with teenage children.
The latest government figures show that there was a 24% reduction in the number of children being put forward for adoption in the year leading up to March 2015. The Prime Minister stated in November 2015 that: 'It is a tragedy that there are still too many children waiting to be placed with a loving family.'


text:
Ask Mac Questions and Get Answers from Experts ASAP
What is MobileMe? MobileMe is Apple's new Internet service for Mac, iPhone, iPod touch, and PC that takes the best of .Mac and adds many new features. With MobileMe you will continue to get services that take advantage of Mac integration such as iDisk, and photo sharing from iPhoto '08 or later. You also get a suite of new web applications at me.com; email, contacts, and calendar; and 20 GB of online storage.


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About Us
We are specialized in Commercial, Industrial and Residential Cleaning Services for all of Harrisburg PA., Philadelphia Pa., Southern NJ and Northern Delaware, and surrounding areas.
B & E Service Inc. provides Exceptional Cleaning Services using Industry Experienced Management Staff and highly trained Employee's.
This is accomplished through the use of acceptable, industry cleaning standard's, the use of modern, efficient equipment, green cleaning products, materials and supplies and by performing vital, quality insurance inspections. We also perform quarterly, customer / client survey's. More information can be found about us on our who we service page. We're certified as a WBE in the State of New Jersey and members of the BBB.
We have Offices located in Harrisburg PA., Philadelphia Pa., Southern NJ and Northern Delaware.
Harrisburg PA
425 7th. Street, 1st. Floor, new Cumberland, PA 17070
Southern NJ and Northern Delaware
Sicklerville New Jersey
Mystic Eagle Web Design | Hosted by Mystic Technologies, LLC


text:
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[name] => cut_url
[var] => content
[type] => preview
Kiran N
Content Editor
Operating System:
Hardware & Network Knowledge:
Software Knowledge:
Employment History:
Employer : M/S Akuate Internet Services
Pvt. Ltd. , Bangalore
Designation: Part time content editor
Duration: September '
–Till Date
Description: Currently involved in doing ballbyball text commentary
for all international matches and managing news and other stuffs for
the website , a leading website for blazingfast, live
cricket scores and commentary.
Employer: M/S Hawk Eye innovations
Pvt Ltd.
Designation: Cricket Analyst, Tracker
Duration: One Month.
Description: Worked
as Cricket Analyst, Tracker during the Indian Premier League
in May . The job involved tracking each ball during the IPL tournament
in India for LBW decisions and further statistical analysis. I also
have handson experience in rigging and derigging the complete setup
before and after the match.
Employer: M/S ESPN Cricinfo
India Pvt Ltd.
Designation: Senior Cricket Data
Duration: September '
–April '
is regarded as the world's premier cricket
Description: Was involved
in scoring and analysis of each ball during the match.
I have used two software's
namely Feed Back and Dougie to capture each ball of a cricket match,
which included firstclass matches as well. I have also done live ballbyball
text commentary.
Employer: M/S Stump Vision Pvt Ltd.
Duration: August '
–September '
Roles & Responsibilities:
Events Managed:
I have successfully managed
installations of giant screens in India, Pakistan, UAE, Sri Lanka and
Malaysia and provided software support for the same for all the premier
cricket tournaments including the ICC Champions Trophy in
in India.
Cricket Scoring and Data Analysis
The Live Data Capture Software
I have scored more than
ODIs and Test matches and numerous firstclass matches using this
comprehensive scoring package.
Stump Vision developed this
visionary scoring software for scorers, associations and clubs. Its
versatility has been proved by its utility for our various different
projects that run under varied conditions. I have been part of the initial
conceptualizing and testing of Scorite. I have scored over a matches
including the three international forms of cricket in a realtime, match
scenario. Scorite was constantly going through a process of enhancement
and I have been lucky to be part of the consultation team.
The WD was designed to be
used by Wisden for which I was involved in enhancing the initial design
and compatibility of its features.
Omega TVG:
This is a cricket scoring software
used to interface for television graphics.
Development Support
The design, contentmanagement, and
creation of , , with the team of members.
Graphical Analysis
Involved in Operations of updating
live Graphical Analysis provided to and .
Giantscreen display
A Chennaibased giantscreen operator
installed instadia displays in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Abu Dhabi
and Malaysia for which Stump Vision provided "cricketing" support
for this with a scoring team of its.
I was also in charge of giant
screen contents and animations we provided for tournaments such as the
Sri Lankan tour of India in late , South Africa's tour of India
in the November of , India's tour of Pakistan in and England's
tour of India in , India vs. Pakistan in Abu Dhabi, South Africa's
tour of Sri Lanka, DLF Cup in Malaysia, ICC Champions Trophy in
and the Sri Lankan and West Indies tour of India in .
Educational Qualification
Currently Pursuing B.Sc IT from Kuvempu
Personal details:
Date of Birth : th April
: C/O A.G Raghunandan, Shiv sai residency, flat no S, ,
nd floor, st cross, Kamakya layout, Banashankari
rd stage,
Bangalore , Karnataka, India.
: +
: .
Passport no : B Valid Up to
ExtraCurricular Activities
Represented Jyothy Kendriya
Vidyalaya in District Level Volley Ball Tournament.
Represented N.S.V.K College
in Inter Collegiate Cricket Tournament.


text:
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text: Great opportunity in Hilltown Township. This beautiful 10 acre lot that has a prelim approval for a subdivision of 4 custom homes. Public water/public sewer. Nearby homes are $700K. This is perfect for a builder looking for a great project. Call for your personal visit. See conceptual plans in documents. Pictures to follow


text:
Click here to print the obituary below
Lee Edwards Jones
Lee Edward Jones
Lee Edward Jones, age 75, passed away peacefully on Saturday, February 8, 2014 at Centennial Hospital after a brave battle with leukemia, with his wife and son, Hugh, by his side.
Lee was born on February 23, 1938 at home during one of Oklahoma's worst blizzards. He grew up on the family farm in Vici, Oklahoma, on which his great-grandfather homesteaded.
Lee is survived by his wife of 50 years, Sue Steagall Jones; two sons, Hugh E. Jones (Gina) of Murfreesboro and Jason Lee Jones (Tracy), Mildenhall Air Base, England; three grandchildren, Anna, Andrew and Matthew Jones; a brother, Rhea Jones of Guthrie, Oklahoma.
Lee was preceded in death by his parents, Russell L. Jones and Vaniza Jones, and a brother, Russell Leroy Jones.
Visitation with the family will be held at Woodfin Memorial Chapel on Tuesday, February 11, 2014 from 4 to 8 p.m. A Celebration of Life will be 10 a.m. Wednesday, February 12th at Woodfin Memorial Chapel, with Reverend Garie Taylor and Dr. Jim Clardy officiating. Burial will follow in Roselawn Memorial Gardens, with military flag presentation. Pallbearers will be Billy Burgess, Ed Haney, Harry Holland, Jeff Haynes, Clay Taylor and Charlie Thomas.
Lee attended Southwestern College in Weatherford, Oklahoma, and graduated from Middle Tennessee State University in 1970, and received his Master's Degree in Aerospace Education in 1972. Lee was a member of St. Mark's United Methodist Church since 1967 and was a charter member of EAA Chapter 419.
Lee was most proud of drawing plans for and building their dream house, and also his workshop. He treasured time spent with his grandchildren, traveling, and time spent in his workshop and visiting with friends. He always enjoyed helping others. Lee worked at Serv-Air in Enid, Oklahoma, Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tullahoma, Tennessee and taught at McGavock High School where he started the Vocational Aerospace Program in 1971. Lee retired from MTSU after 23 years of service. He served in the USAF from 1957 to 1961 with an honorable discharge.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to St. Mark's United Methodist Church Building Fund or to The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Tennessee, 404 BNA Drive, Suite 102, Nashville, TN 37217-2571 in memory of Lee.
The family would like to express gratitude to the doctors and nurses at The Sarah Cannon Center, as well as Dr. John Zubkus and staff for the care, kindness and concern for Lee during the recent months of his illness.
Online condolences may be made to
. Woodfin Memorial Chapel, (615) 893-5151.
Funeral Home
Woodfin Funeral Chapel
Murfreesboro, TN 37130
(615) 893-5151
Published in The Daily News Journal from Feb. 11 to Feb. 12, 2014


text:
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text:
Stopped in Hood River for the night on our way to the coast. The hotel where we stayed served 10 speed coffee at breakfast. That was all it took! We are hooked now. On our way back from the coast, we stopped in the store...More
11 - 20 of 26 reviews
Stopped in Hood River for the night on our way to the coast. The hotel where we stayed served 10 speed coffee at breakfast. That was all it took! We are hooked now. On our way back from the coast, we stopped in the store...More
Really great service. They roast here and super good value breakfast burrito (6.50 with bacon, avocado, egg and salsa). Funky bikeshop next door wasnt open when we visited. One of a few great coffee spots at Hood River...
My wife is a coffee snob and likes it really strong. This place was some of the best she's ever had. The Guatemalan roast does the trick. I really liked their spicy chai. Very friendly staff to boot.
We stopped here and had a cup of Kickstand which we thought was so good that we bought a pound to bring back home. I guess it's all in personal preference of roast. Staff was very friendly even though it was almost closing time. I...More
Tried this the first time and would go back but nothing special. Good parking and very good blueberry muffin.
This location sells pastries and light wraps. The one at 1235 State St offers two breakfast burritos, a fritata, and a bagel with as well. Same great coffee, but the State location lets you enjoy the aroma as they roast the coffee.
I was in Hood River, Oregon for a soccer game. I went on a coffee run with 2 Dads from the team. I don't drink coffee but was game for the outing since sitting at a cold wet soccer field for an extra 45 minutes...More
Pros: Excellent pour-over coffee. Super nice, friendly staff. Comfy interior. As a person just passing through town, it felt like quite a discovery on a Sunday morning to find such a charming place with such great coffee!
was introduced to the PNW coffee scene in 1991...you know the introduction to Starbucks. 20 plus years later... I have the most amazing latte ever. How can it be so? Don't know. Just go for the best cup of Joe. 10 Speed..sending everyone a bag...More
They roast their own coffee so you know its fresh. If you want a perfect cappuccino this is the place. Its the best.


text: 000 FXUS65 KSLC 180245 AFDSLC Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Salt Lake City UT 845 PM MDT Tue Oct 17 2017 .SYNOPSIS...A warming trend will continue through the middle portion of the week. A weak storm system is forecast to cross the area Friday, bringing cooler temperatures and mountain showers. && .DISCUSSION... Water Vapor Satellite shows a trough crossing the Northern Rockies, transitioning to a shear axis from central California into a closed low over the southern Pacific. 400-200mb MDCARS wind observations place a 120-135kt cyclonic jet over the Pacific Northwest which becomes anticyclonic over central Canada. GOES/SLC 00Z RAOB/HRRR indicate that precipitable water values vary from 0.10"-0.20" most locations, up to 0.25" over northwest Utah. With the ridge flattening out, cirrus associated from the central California shortwave and subtropical jet over the southern Pacific continues to increase. Did bump up sky cover to partly cloudy for many areas for at least part of the night per webcams and latest satellite imagery. It will be a warmer night due to increasing 850-700mb thickness, cirrus and southwesterly flow. Still due to the dry airmass in place outlying areas may dip a few extra degrees. Going forecast in great shape. Updated diurnal T/RH curve based on latest observations and guidance. && .PREVIOUS DISCUSSION... Mostly benign westerly flow aloft will continue through early Friday, bringing generally quiet weather conditions to Utah and southwest Wyoming. A ridge axis currently overhead per latest water vapor imagery will slide east of the area tonight, while a very weak shortwave currently in western Nevada will push through central Utah. The only effect of this wave will be a few mid level clouds in central/southern Utah tonight. A stronger shortwave trough is forecasted to lift northeastward from Las Vegas area across central and eastern Utah late tomorrow into Thursday. A few models are wringing out light precip over the central Utah mountains from this disturbance. Given the very dry low-level profiles, it will be tough to get anything other than sprinkles outside of the high terrain. Otherwise, Wednesday will be another pleasant day for most areas with temperatures 5-10 degrees above normal. Southwest flow aloft increases over the Great Basin Thursday in advance of a developing longwave trough stretching from NorCal to the Pacific NW. Stronger mixing should allow for the warmest temperatures of the week, with most Utah valleys reaching the 70s or around 10 degrees above normal. The trough pushes inland Thursday, reaching Utah by mid-day Friday and pushing a cold front through northern Utah and southwest Wyoming during the day. Breezy conditions can be expected by Friday afternoon, especially over the western deserts. Models are in general agreement with keeping the core of cold air at 500MB to our north, with a shallower front from the surface to around 700MB that pushes through all of our area except far southern Utah by Friday night. As has been the trend with recent troughs, this system will be lacking moisture, and thus the best chance of light precip will be over the higher terrain from around Utah County northward, particularly over the Uintas. Snow levels will approach valley floors, but not expecting to see anything in the Wasatch Front given the mostly dry nature of the system. The most noticeable aspect will be a ~20 degree drop in temperatures from Thursday`s highs to Saturday`s highs. Temperatures quickly rebound across the area Sunday as a dry northwest flow aloft sets in and heights build in the wake of Saturday`s trough passage. Looking ahead to next week, global models are in agreement in building a strong ridge over the Western US. This ridge is quite persistent and actually strengthens further into the week. This will likely bring an extended period of warmer-than-normal temperatures and dry conditions for our area. && .AVIATION...The dry/stable westerly flow aloft across northern Utah will maintain VFR conditions under mostly clear skies through the TAF period. Calm winds will become light out of the southeast around 04z this evening. && .SLC WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... UT...None. WY...None. && $$ PUBLIC...Rogowski/Van Cleave AVIATION...Rogowski For more information from NOAA`s National Weather Service visit... http://weather.gov/saltlakecity For frequently asked questions about the Area Forecast Discussion visit... http://weather.gov/saltlakecity/general/afd_faqs.php


text:
What's on my iPod:
Metallica, TOOL, Korn, devilskin, Marilyn Manson, Deftones, Disturbed
Why I'm a LOM:
I wanted to join LOM to be a part of a badass team of alternative babes who share the same interest in music etc, Im super happy and can't wait help out and call myself a LOM!
Queen on the damned, JAWS, 10 ways to die in the west, law abiding citizen
don't watch TV
Food & Drink:
Food - Bacon, eggs, thai food, Veges and lots of meat! (sucker for potato chips) Drinks - Juice, iced chocolates and cider (too much cider)
Obsessions & Addictions:
Tattoos, being with my partner/friends and my little Pugwawa who looks like a tea cup rotti. Addictions would also be the same + watching movies.