Poems for April 14: Gwendolyn Brooks and Jack Hirschman remember Paul Robeson

April 14, 2010 — Lew Rosenbaum

Paul Robeson by Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks

That time

we all heard it,

cool and clear,

cutting across the hot grit of the day.

The major Voice.

The adult Voice

forgoing Rolling River,

forgoing tearful tale of bale and barge

and other symptoms of an old despond.

Warning, in music-words

devout and large,

that we are each other’s

harvest:

we are each other’s

business:

we are each other’s

magnitude and bond.

[Originally published in Family Pictures (1971), collected in the Freedomways anthology,  Paul Robeson, The Great Forerunner (International Publishers) and in Blacks, the collected poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks (The David Company).  Gwendolyn Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1917 and raised in Chicago. She is the author of more than twenty books of poetry, including Children Coming Home (The David Co., 1991); Blacks (1987); To Disembark (1981); The Near-Johannesburg Boy and Other Poems (1986); Riot (1969); In the Mecca (1968); The Bean Eaters (1960); Annie Allen (1949), for which she

Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson

received the Pulitzer Prize; and A Street in Bronzeville (1945).

She also wrote numerous other books including a novel, Maud Martha (1953), and Report from Part One: An Autobiography (1972), and edited Jump Bad: A New Chicago Anthology (1971).

In 1968 she was named Poet Laureate for the state of Illinois,  . . . read and hear more here .  The Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing (GBC) was founded in 1990 on the historic campus of Chicago State University (CSU). Click here to get to the face book page.

_________________________________________________________________________

Paul Robeson by Jack Hirschman
He who was stoned. Not drugged. Stoned

Image

All That’s Left: Jack Hirschman

by fascist-thug rocks as he sang
for the People in Peekskill

in a vicious attack that 58 years later
remains the unforgettable
shame of shames of American culture;

whose voice was the ground where
all colors of the rainbow warmed themselves
on the black fire of his affirmations;

who entered our pores, who never separated
a forward pass, a Shakespearean soliloquy
or a workers’ song from the revolutionary

transformation of all the world’s peoples;
who IS the Old Man River flowing
into countless other voices

singing, when I open my mouth, singing
when you open yours, singing the dream
he rendered palpable, and vast, and deep.

from All That’s Left: San Francisco Poet Laureate Series 4 (City Lights).  This volume includes Hirschman’s speech at his inauguration as San Francisco poet laureate as well as poems written during his term as laureate.

Asked why he hasn’t published with larger houses, Hirschman said he has chosen to work with those with whom he is most at home.  “It is possible to live as a poet, and as a painter, and to live totally, creatively. It takes a little courage, maybe a little cruelty in relation to time with others. But it’s worth it. It’s not a question of money at all. The money is shit; it really is. The value is in doing away with a system dominated by money. Your works, writing, your painting, are messages in that direction.”  Read more of the interview on InstantCity here. Jack Hirschman will open the Chicago Labor & Arts Festival May 3 and 4, 2010.

Posted in Poetry, Politics. 1 Comment »

Poems for April 13: Wanda Coleman and Jack Hirschman

April 14, 2010 — Lew Rosenbaum

[Poet Wanda Coleman read for Chicago’s Guild Complex,and “Twentieth Century Nod-Out” was published in the anthology of work read at the Guild. But her roots are in  Los Angeles. She grew up in the Watts area, and she still lives in the Los Angeles basin. “December 22, 1997″echoes those experiences and the more general experience of the parent, alluded to in her dedication.  We chose this poem particularly because it was written “after jack Hirschman,” who will be opening the Chicago Labor & Arts Festival in May, and whose poem from Left Curve ends this trio for April 13. — Lew Rosenbaum]

Twentieth Century Nod-Out (2) by Wanda Coleman

Image

Wanda Coleman

gargantuan effort bags hurt-stained eye,
heat-cracked teeth and back spasms at the overstress

of a vowel. chaos

has settled in and made itself to home
a concerto of coughs & moans fortissimo — rood music

for the cash bereft

as titans clash in the space of a Hollywood toilet,
whamming psyches into last week.

it’s another day of dancing at the holocaust
the same ol’ cold blooded bloodlessness
enervating the unlucky the weak the poor — jes
another mundane bash to inspire upper-class yawns

the four horsemen have capped the fortune five-hundred
and the apocalypse is in the mail

from Powerlines: A Decade of Poetry from Chicago’s Guild Complex,

edited by Julie Parson-Nesbitt, Luis J. Rodriguez and Michael Warr

____________________________________________________

December 22, 1997 (after Jack Hirschman) by Wanda Coleman

it was an unusual morning
his birth into blackness
thirty-two years ago, my
blond-skinned freckled son

how thinly bronze his hair
when i clipped it
for saving. how cold
his whitened cheek to my lips

Image

Wanda Coleman's Mercurochrome

i sit in the bleeding light
shredded by memories
he’s nearly one year gone
a shrieking blink

yet every day i hear
his reedy voice on ether & wind
the gilded laughter
of his pleading love.

five years old. proud
man of the house. the key
around his neck. left to
protect his sister in
an unforgiven past

from Mercurochrome (Black Sparrow Press)

[Wanda Coleman was born in 1946 and is the author of Bathwater Wine (Black Sparrow Press, 1998), winner of the 1999 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. A former medical secretary, magazine editor, journalist and scriptwriter, Coleman has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the. . . read more and  find more links to Wanda Colman’s poetry]

_______________________________________________________

WHO CARES by Jack Hirschman

But the Nothingness he meant,
which now is planetary, isn’t negative,
rather an aperture, an opening
to the other side of actual self,
to the process of hearing light,
not unlike yourself when you bring
all that in your everyday seems drifting,

Image

Left Curve #34, the current issue of the journal

evermore ungraspable and transcient,
where all values beyond money
seem rootless and on the wane,
bring them along with your crumpled body
in the darkness, and afterward,
because sex is of the animals
and the stars, is in fact happily
the animals and the stars,
find that point outside the window
(ancient grit of wall, or tree or lichen)
and gaze at it, enthralled, fixed,
as if nothing were ever so radiant,
meditative, informative, attuned,
like a computer window in a world
of “cybernetics,” he said, speaking of
the future some thirty odd
years ago, of this visual
listening to light
just below the surface of things,
this planetary All in you, constructed
of holocausts and ecstasies, the snail’s inch
and the worker’s steel, demonstrations and
monotonies, golem and robot, opens to receive
most stumblingly, hungrily, desolately, authentically
sounds from deep within the wilding stillness
and there, when five small human bones tug
at your sleeve of skin, the question-mark
falls away and you know who cares.

From the journal Left Curve, no. 21 (1997)

[Note:  City Lights Bookstore is presenting a release party for Left Curve #34 April 29, 2010 7 PM  at the bookstore, 261 Columbus Ave, San Francisco]

Posted in Poetry. Leave a Comment »

Automation and Robotics News for April 11 — from Tony Zaragoza

April 14, 2010 — Lew Rosenbaum

Automation and Robotics News–April 11, 2010

Highlights: First-ever National Robotics Week takes place April 10-18, Forbes recognizes that automation means job elimination, while automation industry says automation can help keep jobs, mind reading software, automation sales recovering.

Archives: http://academic.evergreen.edu/z/zaragozt/arnews.htm

CNET
# NEC’s robot cashier not much help with bagging
Tim Hornyak, Sun Apr 4 2010
NEC’s partner robot PaPeRo has been put to work as a cashier. Combined with NEC’s Twinpos self-checkout system, the robot can look cute while taking your cash.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10472125-1.html?tag=mncol

# Robotic undersea vehicle draws power from ocean
Jennifer Guevin, Mon Apr 5 2010
Autonomous vehicle built by NASA, U.S. Navy, and academic researchers cruises through a three-month demo, drawing power only from variations in sea temperatures.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-20001797-76.html

# Air Force prepping robot spacecraft for launch
Tim Hornyak, Mon Apr 5 2010
On April 19, the Air Force is to launch a new robotic spacecraft called the X-37B that’s designed to carry out military missions and land autonomously. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10472639-1.html?tag=mncol

# Intel demos software that reads your mind
Lance Whitney, Fri Apr 9 2010
The software uses MRI brain scans to decipher which words you’re mostly likely thinking about. In highly controlled situations, it achieves perfect scores. http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-20002107-76.html?tag=mncol

# Androids to bring ‘Surrogates’ closer to reality?
Tim Hornyak, Mon Apr 5 2010
Osaka University’s Hiroshi Ishiguro has created a female android that’s more lifelike and low-cost than earlier models. Geminoid F may find work as a receptionist. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10472696-1.html?tag=mncol

# Towel-folding robot won’t do the dishes
Tim Hornyak, Wed Mar 31 2010
Researchers at UC Berkeley teach Willow Garage’s PR2 humanoid robot how to fold a pile of towels. It’s one step toward making robots better at housework.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10471898-1.html?tag=mncol

GOOGLE
# New China automation fair attracts record numbers
31 March 2010 | by Reed Business Information
Over 16,000 trade visitors flocked to the inaugural edition of the SPS – Industrial Automation Fair Guangzhou, China in March. The new show held at the China Import and Export Fair Pazhou Complex from 8 – 11 March 2010 attracted 16,715 trade visitors from 40 countries and regions. According to the organisers, the fair is considered an ideal platform to launch products and gain entry to the southern China market by key players.
http://www.pacetoday.com.au/Article/New-China-automation-fair-attracts-record-numbers/514728.aspx

# Automation’s Impact on Storage Administration Jobs
Posted by Ann All Apr 1, 2010 1:45:23 PM
As IT infrastructure continues to undergo major shifts, so too will the jobs of those who attempt to tame infrastructure for their employers. I’ve written about this topic a couple of times, mostly in respect to the increasing demand for more “white collar” skills in the data center. Server administrators, database administrators and infrastructure and network specialists are among the IT jobs most likely to change and/or shrink in numbers, say experts like Forrester Research analyst Ted Schadler. Jobs related to data storage will be affected, thanks to the growth of shared Ethernet and automated storage technologies, according to a recent InfoWorld article.
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/all/automations-impact-on-storage-administration-jobs/?cs=40451

# ABB Wins $50 Million Mining Order in Peru
ThomasNet Industrial News Room (press release) – Mar 31, 2010
Zurich, Switzerland, – ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, has won a $50 million order from Minera Chinalco Peru SA to supply electrification and automation systems for a new copper mine and concentrator plant. The delivery includes Extended Automation System 800xA for plant wide automation. The processing plant at Toromocho will be located at an altitude of 4,500 meters in central Peru, in the Morococha mining district 140 kilometers east of Lima, the country’s capital. The concentrator will produce approximately 1 million tons of copper concentrate annually, as well as some silver and molybdenum trioxide.
http://news.thomasnet.com/companystory/832398

# Further automation for Yilport
Port Strategy – Mar 31, 2010
Yilport Container Terminal and Port Operators Inc is implementing APS’ container automation solutions at its facility in Gebze (near Istanbul) in Turkey. Following an increase in productivity and turnaround times resulting from the APS Automated Gate System (inaugurated in 2009), Yilport has chosen to extend its automation with additional crane and yard solutions.
http://www.portstrategy.com/news101/products-and-services/further-automation-for-yilport

# Will Chattanooga-bound VW’s aggressive sales push damage profits?
The Detroit News – Apr 2, 2010
Schmidt concedes that costs in German are very high, but says they are more than offset by VW’s relentless program of automation. “Certainly VW’s labor costs and social costs are the highest in the industry, but this bears little relation to cost in Germany. With VW’s high rate of automation, plant efficiency is among the most productive in Europe,” Schmidt said. “It looks like an unfavorable location in financial terms, but if you analyze in detail, it looks totally different. There is a very high rate of automation, and it’s actually cheaper than like for like VW products made in China,” Schmidt said.
http://detnews.com/article/20100403/OPINION03/4030301/Will-Chattanooga-bound-VW-s-aggressive-sales-push-damage-profits#ixzz0k9ePFP9L

# Automation to Improve Post-9/11 GI Bill Processing
Department of Defense – Donna Miles – Apr 9, 2010
With 153000 veterans enrolled in the Post-9/11 GI Bill this semester, and new automation tools to arrive this month to improve processing …  more

# Automation sales recovering after 40% slump
The Engineer – Apr 7, 2010
London – The global automation market is starting to pull out of a slump which saw revenues fall almost 40% in 2009, compared to the previous year, … read more

# Your Job In 2020
Forbes – Martin Ford – Apr 8, 2010
Already job automation technology has had a dramatic impact on employment over the past decade. In the manufacturing sector factories that continue to … read more

# Funding for Wind Hub Machining Cell
OptoIQ: Lasers for Manufacturing – Apr 8, 2010
The new Rapid Material Placement System (RMPS) brings integrated manufacturing, with automation and repeatable process control, to wind blade fabrication. Astraeus Wind Energy Inc. (Eaton Rapids, MI), a new venture of MAG Industrial Automation Systems (Erlanger, KY) and Dowding Machining LLC, a precision machine solutions provider for large components that is an affiliate of Dowding Industries Inc. (Eaton Rapids, MI), a manufacturer of progressive die stampings, metal fabrications, and welded assemblies, has received a $7 million grant to develop a revolutionary wind hub machining cell for high-volume manufacturing, as well as pursue development of carbonfiber turbine blades. Astraeus was one of only five winners chosen from 80 applicants to receive the clean energy grants from the State of Michigan, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The proprietary machining system will be developed by MAG and installed at the Astraeus facility in Eaton Rapids. Plans call for the system to be in production late 2010. The hub machining cell reportedly will increase production rates from the current standard of one per day to as many as five per day, cutting machining times from 20 to 24-hr per part to just over 4 hr.  read more here

# Sheet-folding robot puts wrinkle in labor force
Tom Abate, Sunday, April 11, 2010
Last week UC Berkeley touted a programming breakthrough that enabled a robot to fold towels of different sizes, a seemingly simple task that challenges computer scientists. But a recent visit to an industrial laundry at the Hilton Hotel in San Francisco makes me ask who is helped and who is hurt by innovations of this sort. The mammoth hotel cleans and presses 7 million pounds of sheets, towels and pillowcases per year, as I wrote in a recent article that focused on a labor-management dispute (sfgate.com/ZJMB). The Hilton laundry is already automated. I saw sheets – of a uniform size – being fed into a pressing and folding machine. But as I thought about the ingenuity and resources being poured into robotics, I wondered what’s in it for human laborers.The answer back when harvesting machines replaced farmworkers with scythes was that mechanization freed people to do new and less backbreaking tasks. Is that a never-ending process? Does the towel folder displaced by robotics go on to become an office worker? Or is a masseuse more likely the transferable skill and, if so, just how many back rubbers can the Bay Area support, and at what pay scale?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/10/BUEL1CR9OO.DTL#ixzz0kqofoH2X

# On the Frontlines — From 8000 Miles Away
FOXNews – Kelly Guernica – Apr 8, 2010
Machines are changing the face of battle: Robots and unmanned aircraft have made engaging a target much safer and far more efficient. … more here

# Robots Can Help Keep Manufacturing in Michigan, Says Trade Group
Sunday, 11 April 2010 4:15PM
Manufacturing companies who want to remain globally competitive can use robotics to keep jobs in Michigan, according to the Ann Arbor-based Robotic Industries Association. “Manufacturing companies in Michigan, as well as throughout North America, are at a crossroads in determining how to remain globally competitive,” said Jeff Burnstein, RIA president. “They can send jobs overseas or take advantage of robotics and other automated technologies to keep jobs here. Increasingly, we hope to see companies choose the latter option.” Burnstein said the robots are sometimes viewed as a threat to jobs, but in reality, the true threat is the loss of global competitiveness. “If you work for a manufacturing company that can’t compete anymore with companies in China, India, Mexico or somewhere else in the world, your job is definitely in danger,” Burnstein said. “But, if your company is using robotics to improve product quality, increase productivity, speed time to market, and reduce manufacturing costs, you know there’s a chance to remain competitive, keep jobs here, and grow in the future.” Every robot on the plant floor requires people to build it, program it, maintain it, and apply it, which is why robots typically do not lead to an overall reduction in jobs. Plus, robots remove people from dangerous and repetitive jobs, freeing them up for higher skilled, higher paying jobs, Burnstein asserted.
http://www.wwj.com/Robots-Can-Help-Keep-Manufacturing-in-Michigan–Sa/6777684

RIA
# If We Can Mine Mars Robotically Can’t We Send Robots Down Coal Mines?
Posted: 04/08/2010 Mont Coal, West Virginia is in the news after the specter of a coalmining tragedy that took dozens of lives…. read more

# What’s Cooking with Food Robotics?
by Bennett Brumson, Contributing Editor
Posted: 04/05/2010 Robotics have an increasingly important role in maintaining a food supply that is safe, efficient and cost-effective. read more

ROBOTWORX – INDUSTRIAL ROBOT NEWS
# Celebrate! First National Robotics Week
Posted: April 08, 2010
Mark your calendars! The first-ever National Robotics Week takes place April 10-18 and it’s not something you want to miss! The goal of National Robotics Week is to educate and excite the general public about the current and future impact of robotics. A host of museums, organizations, and businesses are celebrating with robot-related events, open houses, and competitions. Visit www.nationalroboticsweek.org to find out what is happening in your area. read more

WIRED
# Drone Wars: The Legal Debate Continues
Nathan Hodge, March 31, 2010
Last week, the State Department’s top legal adviser laid out the administration’s case for using drones to fight al Qaeda and its allies. Now the drone war is starting to generate some real legal debate. In the new issue of Joint Force Quarterly, Amitai Etzioni, professor of international relations at The George Washington University, has a piece that outlines a moral and legal case for using drones to attack what he terms “abusive civilians” (his term for unlawful combatants). “To negate the tactical advantages abusive civilians have and to minimize our casualties, we must attack them whenever we can find them, before they attack us,” he writes. Drone strikes, he adds, “are a particularly well-suited means to serve this goal.”
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/03/the-drone-war-legal-smackdown/#ixzz0kqwRIip4

# Pentagon: Replace Human Intel With High-Tech ‘Guard Dog’
Katie Drummond, March 29, 2010
U.S troops operating overseas face insurgent threats and affiliations that are constantly changing. Not to mention the language barriers and cultural differences that can make even minor interactions — let alone intelligence and interrogation — more difficult. Now Darpa, the Pentagon’s blue-sky research arm, wants to develop a foolproof system that analyzes social networks and cultural tendencies using graphs, complex algorithms and new advances in computing, to interpret and predict human actions. The agency is hosting a proposal workshop for Graph Understanding and Analysis for Rapid Detection – Deployed on the Ground (priceless acronym: GUARD-DOG). Ideally, Darpa wants a replacement for current war-zone human intelligence, called HUMINT, which involves putting trained interrogators on the ground, identifying and tracking sources, and compiling data on relevant social networks. HUMINT is effective, but it can be dogged by slow turnaround: As Darpa notes, the lag between data collection and analysis can be 48 hours. And that means more than 80 percent of information may be irrelevant by the time troops take action.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/page/3/#ixzz0kqxPrWsI

ROBOTICS TRENDS
# Adept Technology Ships First USDA Accepted Parallel Robot
Milestone reached with first USDA accepted parallel robot.
By Robotics Trends Staff, 03.30.2010 — Provider of intelligent vision-guided robotics has shipped the first units of the high speed Adept Quattro s650HS. The Quattro systems, specifically designed for high-speed manufacturing, packaging, material handling, and assembly applications, are to be used primarily for food handling. Adept Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADEP), a leading provider of intelligent vision-guided robotics and global robotics services, announced it has shipped the first of its USDA-accepted robots. The Adept Quattro s650HS is the industry’s only USDA-accepted parallel robot available for meat and poultry processing. The robot systems are currently bound for multiple primary food handling applications requiring high speed hygienic handling. “This shipment is significant because the world’s fastest robot now meets the strictest cleanliness and hygienic standards, which gives food processors and packagers a powerful competitive advantage,” said Rush LaSelle, director of global sales and marketing for Adept Technology, Inc. “The robot’s speed, precision and USDA acceptance make it the perfect choice for food handling applications.”
http://www.roboticstrends.com/industrial_automation/article/adept_technology_ships_first_usda_accepted_parallel_robot

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