Mar. 10, 2016 - Wisconsin Gazette

Transcription

The world of
Mary Nohl
Sheboygan’s John
Michael Kohler Arts
Center recreates the
folk artist’s working
environment. page 27
March 10, 2016 | Vol. 7 No.8
Saving
Wisconsin’s
vanishing prairie
page 12
4 Vote Kloppenburg
JoAnne Kloppenburg’s
experience, intellect and
independence make her our
choice for Supreme Court.
5 Bay View’s
future
Bay View is
planning a
future that
balances
development
with
preservation.
30 ‘Little’ museums, big ideas
Looking for some of the most interesting
and unique museums in Wisconsin? Try
these five mini-museums in Madison.
36 Lena Dunham’s
‘Girls’ goodbye
As the second-tolast season begins,
its creator and
star reflects on its
impact on her life,
and what’s next as
she enters her 30s.
2
WISCONSINGAZETTE.COM | March 10, 2016
News with a twist
SMART AS A DODO
New research from the American Museum of Natural History
suggests the dodo — an extinct
bird whose name became synonymous with stupidity — was fairly
smart. The science suggests the
overall size of the dodo’s brain
in relation to its body size is on
par with its closest living relative,
the moderately intelligent pigeon.
The researchers said the dodo
came to be considered dumb
because it was driven to extinction
by humans. Now, of course, the
record shows humans to be the
dummies.
WALKER’S HANDJOB
Give Gov. Scott Walker a hand.
He still knows how to get people
fired up. Walker posted a picture
on Twitter of his right hand along
with a message that said, “Photo
of my hand before signing 58
bills into law today.” Instead of
applause, the tweet drew photo
responses showing a variety of
other hand gestures, some of them
predictably profane. It only took
minutes for a Hands of Walker
parody account to pop up. Its
description? “I sign bills.”
NO HANKY PANKY
Despite social mediafueled rumors to the
contrary, the Brewers’ furry,
four-legged mascot, officially
known as Hank the Ballpark Pup,
has not been replaced by a prettier impostor. Dramatic changes in
the pup’s appearance got cynical
people talking, but the Brewers
confirmed that the naysayers were
barking up the wrong pooch. “This
is definitely the original Hank, and
this a notarized document from
Hank’s veterinarian,” chief operating officer Rick Schlesinger said
at a news conference, holding the
document up in his hand as if
making a closing argument. The
document confirmed the healthier,
well-groomed Hank is the same
matted bichon frise mix that
walked on to the team’s spring
training complex in Phoenix two
years ago.
HOMELESS GNOMES
Management of the Little Buffalo State Park in Pennsylvania
recently ordered the removal of
about 40 gnome homes made
in tree roots, hollow logs and on
stumps. Crafter Steve Hoke created the humble abodes to attract
WiGWAG
By Lisa Neff and Louis Weisberg
visitors but park officials were on top of my head, and I took on
concerned about an impact on her spirit,” one woman said on
wildlife habitat.
YouTube. Another woman warned,
“Do you know the history of the
ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU
hair’s original owner? What type
PUKE
of spirit did that person have? You
To compensate for their shame- may be buying a person’s hair and
lessly low wages, some Uber driv- their demonic spirit.”
ers have begun fining riders up
to $200 for allegedly vomiting DOCTOR FEELGOOD
in their cars. In Tampa, Florida,
George C. Nichopoulos died in
Uber fired a driver after multiple late February at the age of 88.
passengers complained about “Dr. Nick” was Elvis Presley’s docbeing charged for puke that was tor for 11 years before The King
documented with faked photos. died of heart disease on Aug.
In West Hollywood, California, a 16, 1977. Years later, the Tenneswoman was charged $100 for a see Board of Medical Examiners
bodily fluid cleanup after getting revoked Nichopoulos’ medical
into an Uber car while wet from a license, finding he had over-prerainstorm, CBS reported.
scribed addictive drugs to at least
13 patients, including Presley and
BAD HAIR DAYS
Jerry Lee Lewis.
Four people in the Memphis,
Tennessee, area have been killed WORKING THE MUNCHIES
in the pursuit of luxurious hair
Two Albuquerque Girls Scouts
extensions. Bundles of high-quali- picked a cleverly strategic place to
ty hair are worth hundreds of dol- sell Girl Scout cookies — outside
lars, making hair theft a lucrative a marijuana dispensary. KRQE-TV
crime. According to a popular the- in Albuquerque reported that a
ory, demonic spirits are behind it Junior Girl Scout and a Brownie
all. “Whose-ever hair I was wear- set up shop outside Ultra Health
ing on my head, that heifer had and sold more than 60 boxes.
a bad omen and that bad omen Acknowledging pots’ association
followed her from India and came with the munchies, Ultra Health
Think
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manager James Gambling said he
invited the scouts and offered to
donate $1 for every box the girls
sold. But a Girl Scouts of New
Mexico Trails spokeswoman said
selling cookies outside medical
marijuana dispensaries is against
scout rules.
BOLO FOR BALD GUY
Law enforcement in Mount
Healthy, Ohio, issued an alert for
a “serial thief” who stole $847
worth of Rogaine and Prevagen
from a Walgreens store. The suspect was believed to be bald and
driving a white Jeep. Police are
“scratching our heads at this, no
pun intended,” detective Chris
Jones told WCPO-TV. But WiGWag thinks the pun was intended.
EXCUSE US
A bartender in Vienna, Austria,
was hit with a fine — about $77 —
for a loud burp. The man’s ticket,
which he displayed on Facebook,
said he violated “public decency
with a loud belch next to a police
officer.” The citation prompted
hundreds of people to commit to
joining a “Loud Belch flash mob” at
the scene of the crime.
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Lawmakers’ end run around science boosts wolf hunt
By Lisa Neff
Staff writer
The U.S. House of Representatives
recently voted to strip wolves of federal
protections in Wyoming, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The 242–161 vote was on amending a
hunting bill, the Sportsmen’s Heritage and
Recreational Enhancement Act.
“This vote by the U.S. House of Representatives is a crack at the very foundation of
the Endangered Species Act, a law that has
a 99 percent success rate at pulling species back from the brink of extinction,” said
Drew Caputo of the environmental group
Earthjustice. “Ninety percent of Americans
from across the political spectrum support
the act. If we continue down this slippery
slope, we could end up in a world where our
children or grandchildren might never again
see a bald eagle, or a breaching whale, or
hear the cry of a wolf in the wild.”
Amendment sponsors include U.S. Reps.
Reid Ribble of Wisconsin, Cynthia Lummis
of Wyoming, Dan Benishek of Michigan and
Collin Peterson of Minnesota.
Their measure, which the House voted
for in late February, would override the federal court rulings that state management
plans do not sufficiently protect wolves
and return species management to states,
which again would allow the trophy hunting
of wolves.
The amendment also contains a clause
precluding further judicial review of the
removal of federal protections in Wyoming,
Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
“If enacted, this legislation could prove
devastating for the recovery of wolves in
the continental United States,” said Caputo.
“What’s at stake here is whether wolves in
Wyoming and the Great Lakes will again
face the same unregulated killing that nearly wiped them out in the first place.”
The House vote came less than two
months after Congress rejected a rider to
an omnibus spending bill that would have
removed Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the Great Lakes and
Wyoming.
A similar push is on in the U.S. Senate. In
January, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works added a provision to
the Sportsmen’s Act to subvert the judicial
process and delist wolves. Currently, gray
wolves in Minnesota are listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act
and as “endangered” in Wyoming, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Both the House and Senate measures
would order the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reissue a rule to delist the gray
wolf. The rule was first issued in late 2011
and cleared the way for states to manage
wolf populations, which quickly led to the
slaughter.
SLAUGHTER
Wisconsin legislators legalized the use of
firearms and crossbows to kill wolves. The
state also legalized the baiting, trapping
and hounding of wolves.
“In Wisconsin, wolves are killed in some
of the most brutal ways,” said Wendy
Keefover, manager of The Humane Society of the United State’s native carnivore
protection program. “Wisconsin is the only
state where you can hound wolves. You can
bait wolves. You can use neck snares to trap
a wolf. … Wisconsin has some of the most
egregious ways to kill.”
Different numbers can be found for the
wolf hunts held in 2012–13, 2013–14 and
2014–15 in Wisconsin.
Data from HSUS shows:
• 2012–13: The 2012 winter wolf count was
779–804 in 205 packs. The proposed
hunting quota was 201 wolves. The DNR
reported the killing of 117 wolves: 56
hunted and 61 trapped.
• 2013–14: The wolf population was 660–
689 in 197 packs. During that “season,”
17 wolf packs disappeared and the population declined by 19 percent. The HSUS
said 65 wolves were killed for livestock
depredation, 21 died in vehicle collisions,
59 were killed illegally, and hunters and
trappers killed 257 wolves. Some 16,672
applications were filed and 1,879 permits
were sold for the trophy hunt.
• 2014–15: The state issued 1,500 permits
to hunters and trappers and set a hunt
quota of 156 wolves, prompting an appeal
from The HSUS, which said the pace of
trophy hunting, along with poaching,
would cause a population crash. The
HSUS estimated the total number of
wolves killed was 301. Less than a week
into the hunt, the DNR closed four of the
six zones, with half the zones exceeding
quotas.
“There was such a rush to hunt,” said
Melissa Tedrowe, Wisconsin state director
for The HSUS.
“After delisting, the only management
tool offered by our state or the other states
was to kill wolves,” said environmental
activist Kelly Powell of Madison. “That isn’t
a management plan. That’s slaughter. That
isn’t the way to deal with a recovering species.”
The official wolf hunting season in Wisconsin ended in early December 2014.
That month, a federal judge overturned
the delisting of the Great Lakes wolves, putting permitted hunts on hold.
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Benishek, in a statement, said the delisting amendment “was based on valuable input from both Michigan and federal
officials in order to use sound science to
responsibly manage the wolf population
while also meeting the needs of local communities. As the number of wolves has
increased well beyond the recommended
number for recovery, there has been a negative impact on other species and a constant
threat to livestock and pets.”
The delisting measure has the support of
Safari Club International, a hunting group,
and the National Rifle Association, the largest gun ownership group in the United
States.
On the opposing side, Earthjustice, the
Center for Biological Diversity and The
Humane Society of the United States, along
with many state and local organizations,
maintain the congressional push to delist
wolves does not involve sound science or
responsible management, nor does it have
widespread public support.
“I just really want to emphasize that the
American public and the majority of Wisconsinites value and appreciate wolves as
they icon that they are,” said Keefover.
She and Tedrowe said the drive to delist
is based on myths about wolves as predators and ignores the role of large carnivores
in the ecosystem.
A year ago, a coalition of animal protection and conservation organizations suggested reclassifying the gray wolf under the
Endangered Species Act as “threatened”
throughout the contiguous United States.
That move would continue federal oversight
and funding for species recovery efforts
but provide some regulatory flexibility to
address wolf conflicts.
“A congressional end run around science
and the Endangered Species Act will create more controversy and put wolves and
the law itself in jeopardy,” Kieran Suckling,
executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said at the time. “The better
path is to downlist wolves to threatened,
replace the failed piecemeal efforts of the
past with a new science-based recovery
strategy and bring communities together
to determine how wolves will be returned
to and managed in places where they once
lived.”
The proposal pending in the Senate and
the measure that passed the House do
not take that approach. Another version of
the Senate bill lacks the delisting amendment and others opposed by animal welfare
advocates and environmentalists.
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Kloppenburg is the clear Supreme Court choice
Endorsement
The April 5 election to fill a Wisconsin
Supreme Court vacancy is no competition
at all when it comes to experience, knowledge and integrity. Challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg towers in all three respects above
opponent Rebecca Bradley, an interim
incumbent.
Only the most hardened partisan would
choose an undistinguished, political tool
like Bradley over someone with the impressive credentials and bipartisan background
of Kloppenburg.
Kloppenburg’s personal and professional
history show her to be a person of strong
values, with a commitment to justice rather
than politics. During her 23 years as an
assistant attorney general, Kloppenburg
was praised by attorneys general from both
parties. She litigated cases in many different areas of law and in circuit courts
throughout the state. Through her work,
she acquired a deep knowledge of the Wisconsin Constitution, the state’s legal precedents, and the cultures of various regions.
A lifelong advocate for justice, Kloppenburg joined the Peace Corps after completing a bachelor’s degree at Yale University
and earning a graduate degree from Princeton in public and international affairs. After
four years of volunteer work in Botswana
and southern Africa, Kloppenburg attended
the University of Wisconsin Law School,
where she was awarded a law degree with
honors. She says that she picked law as a
career because of the impact it has on real
people’s lives.
After law school, Kloppenburg worked as
a law clerk for Chief Judge Barbara Crabb
in federal district court in Madison and
interned at the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
In 2012, Kloppenburg was elected to the
Court of Appeals, where she now serves as
presiding judge.
Throughout her career, Kloppenburg has
remained an energetic volunteer for the
state’s legal community. Among her many
roles, she’s served as a mentor for the
Dane County Bar Association and UW Law
School, as well as a volunteer mediator for
the Dane County Bar Association.
In 2011, Kloppenburg came so close to
defeating Justice David Prosser in his bid
for retention on the Supreme Court that
a recount was ordered. She initially was
declared victor in the race before some
“missing” ballots surprisingly turned up in
none other than Waukesha County.
Prosser ran on the promise to further
Gov. Scott Walker’s agenda from the bench,
a vow he’s certainly kept. At least he was
honest enough to say it out loud. Bradley
has done everything possible to suggest
her goal is the same, while at the same time
refusing to confirm or deny that.
National groups spent heavily on the 2011
Supreme Court race, but the $2.1 million
Prosser took in from right-wing groups far
outpaced the $1.4 million from the union
and Democratic-affiliated groups that
backed Kloppenburg. That election, like the
current one, was seen as a referendum on
P H O T O : U . S . D E P ’ T. O F J U S T I C E
Candidate Joanne Kloppenburg.
Walker, and the big money interests that
depend on him were not about to see the
legal branch of his administration go down
in defeat. They’re sure to do the same in
this race.
Kloppenburg has put the ideal of judicial
impartiality at the forefront of her campaign. Liberal groups, the Wisconsin State
AFL-CIO, and the Wisconsin Professional
Police Association have endorsed her, but
she’s steered clear of connections with the
Democratic Party and any other relationships that would compromise her rulings.
In fact, she told WiG that an overarching reason she decided to run is her concern over the court’s politicization in recent
years. The law is in her blood, and she’s
disturbed at how the state’s highest court
has eroded people’s confidence in it.
There are many differences between
Kloppenburg and Bradley, but the most
distinguishing one can be seen in the way
each campaigns. While Bradley has campaigned by begging for bucks from the
same corporate interests that control the
state’s Republican Party, Kloppenburg has
been on the road, introducing herself to voters face to face. Within the first 99 days of
her campaign, she visited all of the state’s
72 counties.
Bradley’s dossier is paper thin next to
Kloppenburg’s. She graduated from Divine
Savior Holy Angels High School before
earning a BS in Business Administration
and Business Economics in 1993. In 1996,
she earned a law degree from the University
of Wisconsin.
Her experience as an attorney consists
largely of defending doctors from malpractice suits and businesses from product
liability suits. She also has a background
in legal matters related to information technology and intellectual property litigation.
Bradley was president of the Milwaukee
Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society,
an extremist right-wing legal think tank
heavily supported by the Kochs brothers.
METEORIC CAREER
We feel obliged to go a step further
here than endorsing Kloppenburg: We condemn the Republican Party of Wisconsin
for its shady promotion of Bradley’s judicial
career, which has put her under unequivocal obligation to Walker and his affiliated
corporate interests. The story of Bradley’s
career makes the strongest argument possible for the state to end its policy of electing judges instead of having them selected
by qualified, politically independent legal
groups.
Bradley would not be on anyone’s short
list for a Supreme Court position. She’s
enjoyed perhaps the most meteoric rise
in the state’s judicial history — but not
because of her brilliance. She owes her
position to the patronage of Walker, the
Wisconsin Republican Party, and right-wing
business PACs.
Before 2012, Bradley had never even
served on the bench. That’s the year Walker
appointed her to a position on the Milwaukee County Circuit Court.
Armed with the advantage of incumbency and right-wing money, including
$167,000 for a television blitz from the
Koch-brothers-backed group Wisconsin
Club for Growth, Bradley managed to hold
on to that position when it came time for
election. That was the first and last judicial
election she’s ever won.
Last May, Walker appointed Bradley to
her second position, the District 1 Court of
Appeals. She served there for less than five
months before he tapped her to fill the seat
left vacant by the sudden death of Supreme
Court Justice Patrick Crooks.
If anyone doubted that Bradley’s rapid
ascent was an open-and-shut case of GOP
cronyism, the facts surrounding her career
should allay skepticism. The list of her
donors is a who’s-who of right-wing activists and corporate special interests.
Bradley purchased the domain name justicerebeccabradley.com before even filing
for the court’s interim position, a move
that strongly suggests she had an inside
track on the job. The same outside business
groups that support Walker and the state’s
Republican leaders spent over $1 million
on her February primary race and are now
running shamelessly false TV commercials
on her behalf.
Bradley welcomed the Republican Party
of Wisconsin’s help in circulating her nominating papers and making get-out-the-vote
calls on her behalf. Her first act after winning the primary was to attend a big-ticket
Republican Party fundraiser in Milwaukee.
Recently, Bradley ducked out of the court
during oral arguments so she could give a
speech to Wisconsin Manufacturers and
Commerce, which is effectively the state’s
most influential Republican PAC.
Bradley scheduled a March 14 fundraiser
in Madison that features the Republican
co-chairs of the Legislature’s Joint Finance
Committee as “special guests.”
Bradley has vowed to put her “partisan
inclinations” behind her if she’s elected.
More recently, she vowed to put behind
her the insultingly homophobic newspaper
columns she penned as an undergrad. But
who in their right mind could believe she’s
capable of such feats, even if she had the
will to achieve them. Bradley is a Pinocchio;
her strings are short and her master’s tug
is powerful.
We urge voters to back Kloppenburg not
only because she’s the far superior candidate in the race, but also to send partisan
interests the message that justice is not
for sale.
7
Rebecca Bradley: ‘Queers’ deserve to die of AIDS
By Lisa Neff
Staff writer
Wisconsin Justice Rebecca Bradley, writing in her college newspaper 24 years ago,
called gay people “queers” and said “homosexual sex … kills.”
“But the homosexuals and drug addicts
who do essentially kill themselves and others through their own behavior deservedly
receive none of my sympathy” wrote Bradley, who was appointed to the state’s highest court last October by Gov. Scott Walker.
Walker’s appointment to fill a vacancy on
the court put Bradley in the position of running this year as an incumbent.
On March 7, Bradley issued a statement
that said, “Recently an article I wrote while
a college student at Marquette 24 years
ago has surfaced on left leaning blogs and
now the mainstream press. I was writing
as a very young student, upset about the
outcome of that presidential election and I
am frankly embarrassed at the content and
tone of what I wrote those many years ago.
“To those offended by comments I made
as a young college student, I apologize, and
assure you that those comments are not
reflective of my worldview. These comments have nothing to do with who I am as
a person or a jurist, and they have nothing
to do with the issues facing the voters of
this state.”
On April 5, voters in Wisconsin will
decide whether to elect Appeals Judge
JoAnne Kloppenburg or Bradley to a full
10-year term on the court.
Bradley’s 1992 writings, which appeared
in the Marquette Tribune, were circulated
on March 7 by One Wisconsin Now, which
held a news conference at the Capitol.
“Rebecca Bradley has revealed such a
depth of hatred and contempt for people
that she cannot be trusted to uphold the
most basic tenet of our judicial system, that
all are equal before the law,” said One Wisconsin Now executive director Scot Ross.
“She denies people their dignity because
they are different than her and condemns
people that hold political beliefs other than
hers.”
One Wisconsin Now provided these
excerpts from Bradley’s writings at Marquette:
• “This brings me to my next point —
why is a student government on a Catholic
campus attempting to bring legitimacy to
an abnormal sexual preference?” Rebecca
Bradley, Feb. 11, 1992.
• “Either you condone drug use, homosexuality, AIDS-producing sex, adultery
and murder and are therefore a bad person or you didn’t know that he supports
abortion on demand and socialism, which
means you are dumb.” Rebecca Bradley,
Nov. 11, 1992.
• “Perhaps AIDS Awareness should seek
to educate us with their misdirected compassion for the degenerates who basically
commit suicide through their behavior.”
Rebecca Bradley, Feb. 11, 1992.
• “Heterosexual
sex is very healthy
in a loving marital
relationship. Homosexual sex, however,
kills.” Rebecca Bradley, Feb. 28, 1992.
• “One will be better off contracting
AIDS than developing cancer, because those afflicted with the
politically-correct disease will be getting
all of the funding. How sad that the lives
of degenerate drug addicts and queers are
valued more than the innocent victims of
prevalent diseases.” Rebecca Bradley, Nov.
11, 1992.
• “But the homosexuals and drug addicts
who do essentially kill themselves and others through their own behavior deservedly
receive none of my sympathy.” Rebecca
Bradley, Feb. 28, 1992.
Scott Foval, the regional political coordinator for People for the American Way,
called Bradley’s statements “demeaning.”
“(I’m) a gay man and long-term survivor
living with HIV, (and) Rebecca Bradley’s
hateful diatribes against people like me
while at Marquette are shocking and deeply
disturbing,” Foval said in a statement. “I
question how anyone in the LGBTQ community or anyone living with HIV/AIDS feels
they could get a fair decision from her.
The demeaning statements she authored
gravely undermine her ability to continue to
serve on the state Supreme Court.”
At the Human Rights Campaign, legal
director Sarah Warbelow said, “The writings that have surfaced today would be
deeply troubling from anyone, much less
a sitting Supreme Court justice. Everyone,
regardless of their sexual orientation or
gender identity, should be able to expect
a fair and impartial decision from the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Unfortunately, this
disturbing and hateful language raises serious questions about Justice Bradley’s commitment to full equality under the law for
LGBT residents and people living with HIV/
AIDS.”
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin also issued a
statement: “It is extremely troubling that
Gov. Walker would ignore this low-road
record of hate speech and appoint Rebecca
Bradley to Wisconsin’s highest court.”
Baldwin, who is gay, continued, “These
hateful and divisive writings raise serious
questions about Rebecca Bradley’s fitness
to serve on the Wisconsin Supreme Court
as a fair, impartial and independent justice.”
Bradley, 44, has never married. Walker
has appointed her to every judicial position
she’s held.
In her Supreme Court bid, Bradley is
heavily backed by the big right-wing, darkmoney groups that also support Walker
and the state’s Republican leadership (see
story, page 6).
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8
Grant program to preserve State St.’s unique retailers
By Jay Rath
Contributing writer
To prevent small, independent retailers in
the State Street area from being squeezed
out of existence by proliferating bars and
restaurants, Madison is acting to preserve
the quirky nature of its best-known retail
district.
The Retail Improvement Grant Program,
announced in early February, will offer
retailers matching grants of up to $50,000
to assist with the costs of interior and exterior renovations. The program’s goal is to
encourage property owners and independent retailers to reinvest in downtown.
“The strength of the downtown has
always been in our mix of locally owned
businesses,” says Susan Schmitz, president
of Downtown Madison Inc., which works
closely with the central Business Improvement District.
The face of downtown Madison has
changed in recent years, as millennials have
flocked to new condo and apartment towers
near cultural centers. As a result, the funky
flavor of the city’s most densely populated
area is changing, too.
Downtown Madison Inc. regularly surveys its market. In 1998, there were 47 restaurants and specialty foods/drink establishments. Today, there are 99.
In 1989, food and drink establishments
accounted for 21 percent of all State Street’s
business space. That doubled to 42 percent
by 2014. During the same period, food and
drink businesses skyrocketed from 8 per-
cent to 24 percent of ground floor space in
the Capitol Square area.
Ruth Rohlich, the city’s business development specialist, witnesses the same trend
in Austin, where her family lives. “(Austin’s)
Sixth Street experienced a kind of turn like
this,” she says. Shops gave way to restaurants and bars. There was a move there
to revive retail, but “the difficult thing is
that once that expense has occurred — in
turning a retail space into space with restaurant/bar capability — it’s just so hard to
turn those back.”
The grant program is designed to prevent such conversions from happening.
Restaurants and bars are not eligible for
the grants. Franchises are accepted if they
can demonstrate local control. Funding will
come from the downtown TIF district.
Madison is not alone in advancing such
assistance. Rohlich said, “The city of Milwaukee has a program like this. There are
a number of cities where they call them
‘white box projects,’ where they’re more
designed for business districts that maybe
have some blight, and so it’s to help encourage retail to move in by helping to pay for
some of the costs of initial improvement.
“Ours is a little bit different in that we do
have a really successful, very hot market
area, so ours is more geared toward preserving some of that independent retail flavor as more and more restaurants and bars
begin to take up some of those spaces.”
The retail program uses the city’s Façade
Grant Program as a model. That program
was launched in 2001 and deals only with
exterior improvements in selected areas.
“Since then we have done 84 grants totaling $1.1 million,” says Craig Wilson, housing
rehabilitation specialist with the city’s community development division. “That investment has leveraged over $3.2 million in
improvements to business façades in many
of Madison’s oldest and most visible business districts.”
Another benefit, which is more difficult
to measure, “is how the (façade) grants
have facilitated businesses to make use of
vacant, sometimes neglected buildings,” he
says. “Transforming an eyesore into an integral part of the neighborhood adds not only
to the tax base, but enhances overall health
and desirability of those neighborhoods.”
Facade grant recipients include the
Madison Children’s Museum and the oldest Alcoholics Anonymous clubhouse in
the state. Another is State Street’s iconic
Orpheum Theater, owned by the Paras family. The 1927 vaudeville and movie palace
today is a venue for live concerts.
“The Façade Improvement Grant Program has been great,” says Mary Paras.
The Orpheum received matching funds up
$10,000 for each of its two entrances.
“On State Street we used the matching funds for installing a granite front,
which more closely represents the original
design,” she says. “On Johnson Street we
used the matching funds to replace a large
set of five doors. You could see the cars
pass on Johnson Street through the cracks
P H OTOS : C I T Y O F M A D I SO N
Façade improvement at 1602 Gilson St.
in Madison is made possible by a city
program that’s now expanding to include
interior improvements.
of the old doors, so the new doors are beautiful and help with energy costs.”
Rohlick is already helping several existing businesses with the new grant process.
“We’re hoping as we market the program
and work with the commercial brokers, we
might get some new businesses as well,”
she says.
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9
ADL offers tutorial on
influential extremists
By Lisa Neff
Staff writer
Donald Trump often boasts about his
certainties, but he couldn’t say what he
thought about an endorsement from white
supremacist David Duke or how he felt
about the KKK.
Trump first told reporters he didn’t
know anything about Duke’s support and
then curtly said: “All right, I disavow, OK?”
Asked three days later about Duke, Trump
said, “Well, just so you understand, I don’t
know anything about David Duke. ... I don’t
know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white
supremacists.”
So, the Anti-Defamation League decided
to help, providing Trump and other presidential candidates with a “list of racist
individuals and extremist groups who have
inserted themselves in the presidential
campaign.”
“We are providing information to all of
the campaigns to ensure that they steer
clear of these extremists and others who
promote anti-Semitism, racism and white
supremacy,” said ADL CEO Jonathan A.
Greenblatt. “It is incumbent upon all candidates for office to reject and disavow any
of these groups should they endorse or
express support for their campaigns.”
ADL said each individual on its list voiced
support for a presidential candidate seeking higher office. The list includes:
• David Duke. The former KKK leader and
a virulent anti-Semite has asked supporters to back Trump. Duke has been active
in the white supremacist movement for
more than 40 years.
• Kevin MacDonald. The retired professor, notorious for anti-Semitism, has said
electing Trump “may be the last chance
for whites to elect a president who represents their interests.” MacDonald is a
leader in the American Freedom Party.
• William Johnson. The head of the white
supremacist American Freedom Party
created the American National Super
PAC, which funded robocalls supporting
Trump, disparaging minorities and promoting white nationalism.
• Rachel Pendergraft. She is a spokeswom-
HATE CRIMES RISING
The Southern Poverty Law Center
reports the number of hate groups operating in the United States increased 14
percent from 2014 to 2015. Hate groups
increased from 784 groups in 2014 to
892 last year.
The number of anti-government
“patriot” groups also grew by 14 percent,
from 874 in 2014 to 998.
“While the number of extremist
groups grew in 2015 after several years
of declines, the real story was the deadly
violence committed by extremists in city
P H O T O S : S O U T H E R N P O V E R T Y L AW C E N T E R
Extremist David Duke, a vocal supporter of
Donald Trump.
an for the Knights Party, a Klan group
based in Arkansas, and says her groups
use Trump’s candidacy as a “talking
point” in feeling out potential recruits.
• Louis Farrakhan. He is the racist and
anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam.
In early March, he praised Trump as “the
only member who has stood in front of
(the) Jewish community and said, ‘I don’t
want your money.’” He added, “Not that
I’m for Mr. Trump, but I like what I’m
looking at.”
• Andrew Anglin. He runs a neo-Nazi
website, the Daily Stormer, which is filled
with racist and anti-Semitic articles.
• Lee Rogers. He runs a neo-Nazi website,
Infostormer, which contains racist and
anti-Semitic articles.
• Jared Taylor. He runs the white supremacist site American Renaissance, which
features articles that purport to demonstrate the intellectual and cultural superiority of whites.
WHERE LUCK MEETS LUXURY.
• Richard Spencer. He is the head of
National Policy Institute, a small white
supremacist think tank.
• Matthew Heimbach. He is a racist and
anti-Semite who founded the white
supremacist Traditionalist Youth Network. • Don Black. He runs Stormfront, the largest white supremacist Internet forum.
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after city,” stated Mark Potok, senior
fellow at the national SPLC. “Whether it
was Charleston, San Bernardino or Colorado Springs, 2015 was clearly a year of
deadly action for extremists.”
Potok, in a news release, also said the
bloodshed in 2015 “did little to dissuade
some political figures from spouting
incendiary rhetoric about minorities. In
fact, they frequently exploited the anger
and polarization across the country for
political gain.”
— Lisa Neff
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10
Contemplating its future, Bay View tries to
balance development and preservation
By Virginia Small
Contributing writer
Bay View, the neighborhood southeast
of Milwaukee’s downtown that was once
in decline, is booming. In the past two
decades, it’s emerged as one of the hottest
areas in which to live, work and play.
But an onslaught of development seems
to be taking the neighborhood in a new
direction, and so residents and local leaders
are trying to determine a way forward that
will preserve Bay View’s distinctive character as it continues to grow.
Founded in 1834, the area was originally
a company town, and throughout most of
its history, it remained primarily a workingclass enclave. A gradual demographic shift
began during the 1970s and switched into
high gear around the turn of this century.
Today Bay View is one of the city’s most
diverse areas. Though nicknamed by some
as “Gay View” for its large LGBT population, Bay View also is home to a rainbow of
other residents: old timers, young families,
long-bearded hipsters, women with hair
like cockatoos, artists, craftspeople, leather
bears, bikers — you name it.
Bay View’s main street is Kinnickinnic
Avenue (or KK), which lives up to its Algonquian meaning: “what is mixed.” The area’s
primary business artery, KK meanders for
2.5 miles, south from Becher Street to Morgan Avenue. Along the way, two stretches
of dense commercial activity are gradually
enlarging.
The quirky corridor has become a foodie
haven, with almost 40 eateries and sweets
shops, as well as 18 pubs and lounges.
There are also barbershops, salons, fitness
studios, tattoo parlors, bookstores, galleries, car-repair shops, offices and clothing
boutiques.
You’ll find a classic bowling alley, beautifully restored movie theater (the Avalon),
and live theater (Alchemist). Businesses
intermingle with single-family homes and
duplexes, as well as churches and other
institutions. The district’s commercial
properties have a combined assessed value
that’s reportedly worth about $56 million.
Bay View is described by many as an
“urban small town.” The WalkScore index
ranks it as “very walkable.” Pedestrians can
visit, on average, three restaurants, bars
and coffee shops in five minutes.
MANAGING FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
Not all of the recent development in
Bay View is being welcomed, however. For
instance, there has been concern about
three recent five-story projects, which
some people complain clash with the area’s
mostly one- and two-story buildings. Critics also say they disrupt the rhythm, mood
and balance of the existing urban fabric and
dilute its sense of place.
Joan Sliker, a Realtor and 33-year Bay
View resident, said, “With too much new
development, often you don’t know where
P H O T O S : B AY V I E W B I D
Top, from left: Dwell, a newer and larger building that includes apartments and retail businesses; people turn out en masse for the
popular annual Bay View Bash; Bottom: The streetscape along a portion of Kinnickinnic.
you are anymore.”
She spent years restoring a long-vacant,
small brick building on KK and Morgan that
was originally the St. Francis State Bank.
She believed reviving it would create an
anchor property that would help enhance
the sense of place. After its meticulous restoration, it became home to The Cream City
Real Estate Co., which she founded.
A common tension in burgeoning neighborhoods is that developers and businesses
favor new, bigger, and sometimes generic
development, while residents typically want
to preserve traits such as intimate scale,
charm, authenticity and cultural heritage.
As an example of that clash, residents
voiced alarm at a community meeting last
May about whispered plans for a large
multifamily development on six lots within
the Bay View historic district, including the
site of the At Random cocktail lounge. (That
icon has since quietly closed and no development has yet been proposed.)
Community-wide visioning could identify
qualities of Bay View that people value and
elements that could be added or improved
to maintain livability and vitality. Residents
could prioritize types of desired new com-
merce and housing, adaptive reuses of
buildings, and beneficial community amenities. For example, Sliker said some senior
residents reluctantly leave Bay View when
they cannot find housing that suits their
changing needs.
“I want people to be able to live here for a
lifetime if they choose,” she said.
Mike Bersch, who was an officer in a
former Bay View business association,
thinks there’s overemphasis on “achieving
greater density” with new taller buildings.
He oversaw the original development of
artist studios and residences in the renovated J. Greenebaum Tannery, now called
Hide House. Bersch would like more density
encouraged through repurposing existing
buildings, including retaining façades with
new development behind them. He was
troubled by how the landmark Faust Music
building on KK was approved for demolition to make way for a five-story housing
complex.
Numerous residents told WiG they would
like to slow down the pace of development
until the community can catch its breath.
Says resident Angie Tornes: “Let’s just step
back, take stock and come to some consen-
sus.” She believes many Bay View residents
are well-informed and forward-thinking
about urban planning.
Stephanie Harling, a lifelong resident
who serves on the KK BID’s Streetscaping Committee, believes consensus building will create a foundation to collectively
assess options for protecting the neighborhood’s character and cohesion. She warned
that moving too quickly down a specific
path would “put the cart before the horse.”
DIALOGUE, PLANNING,
PRESERVATION
To promote dialogue about the neighborhood’s future, three groups — the Kinnickinnic Business Improvement District,
the Bay View Neighborhood Association
and the Bay View Historical Society — cohosted a forum.
Three panels discussed development
issues, the city’s South East Side Plan and
Bay View’s history. After panelists spoke
briefly, Lee Barczak, president of the KK
Business Improvement District and owner
of the Avalon Theater, fielded written questions.
RETAIL next page
11
RETAIL from prior page
Panelists discussed in detail a possible
Bay View architectural review board. Milwaukee already has two ARBs — the East
North Avenue business district and the Historic Third Ward. Pursuing an ARB requires
aldermanic sponsorship, followed by drafting specific guidelines that, once approved,
inform future development. Then an
appointed board reviews proposals before
they move through other channels.
Panelist Michael Horne, an Urban Milwaukee columnist, said crafting relevant
guidelines for a district with highly varied
architecture could prove challenging. ARBs
generally address scale, building details,
signage, streetscapes, sense of place and
compatibility with nearby buildings.
Tornes thought the forum was “a good
first step” in information sharing. She views
the next step as “engaging the whole community to define a vision for Kinnickinnic
Avenue.” A refrain at the forum was “Keep
Bay View eclectic.” Defining and promoting
that quality will be the rub.
As Bay View Historical Society president
Ron Winkler says, “It’s a balancing act.”
Beyond an ARB, another preservation
tool is historic designation — local, state
or national. Milwaukee’s preservation ordinance provides some legal protections for
designated buildings and sites.
The Historic Preservation Commission
reviews applications for designation before
they’re presented to the Milwaukee Common Council. After a property is designated
historic, an owner must obtain a Certificate
of Appropriateness from the commission
prior to making any exterior changes.
The city has designated 24 historic districts and many individual buildings. About
47 districts in Milwaukee and many buildings are listed on the National Register
of Historic Places. Buildings on national
and state registers may be eligible for tax
credits.
Three Bay View buildings currently have
city historic designation: the Avalon Theater, Bethel Evangelical Church and Trowbridge School. So does the Pryor Avenue
Iron Well. Two buildings boast national
designation: the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co.
Saloon (home of Three Brothers Serbian
restaurant) and the Milwaukee Fire Department Pumping Station.
The original Village of Bay View, which
was a separate municipality from 1879 to
1887, also is listed on the National Register
of Historic Places, although it’s not on the
city’s registry. The national listing places no
obligations on private property owners, nor
does it restrict the “use, treatment, transfer,
or disposition of private property.”
Among other landmarks in the district
that could seek historic designation are
Groppi’s Grocery, Puddlers’ Hall and the
home of community leader Beulah Brinton.
An application for the city’s historic designation of that house was submitted in
2005, but later withdrawn.
According to Carlen Hatala, the city’s
senior preservation planner, the Bay View
Historical Society withdrew the application to facilitate purchase of the Brinton
house. She wrote in an email, “The intent
was to resubmit the nomination after the
purchase, but that did not happen.” Society
members told WiG they might soon resume
the nomination process.
Besides the prestige of attaining historic
designation by the city, Hatala notes other
advantages: “Especially in a district, all
owners are held to a common standard
regarding exterior alterations. Someone
investing in an appropriate renovation will
not have his efforts devalued by an adjacent owner who takes shortcuts. It creates
a positive environment for investing in the
property.”
The city’s preservation department
assists owners with guidance about proposed renovation and also offers grants
for storefront façade and signage improvements, regardless of designation.
Hatala cited national studies showing
that historic properties with local designation fare better in terms of value and desirability.
An “overlay district,” another city planning tool, adds specific zoning parameters
within a defined area. Bay View’s national
historic district is a “neighborhood conservation overlay zone,” providing certain
protections.
In addition, citizens also could work with
city officials to update the South East Side
Plan, adopted in 2008 after a two-year
process. Bay View has evolved considerably since then, including in unanticipated
ways. Comprehensive plans are generally
reviewed within a decade.
PEOPLE WHO CARE
Admittedly, sorting through the pros and
cons of policy options is challenging. The
Milwaukee Preservation Alliance, Inc., an
all-volunteer nonprofit, assists individuals, neighborhoods and developers interested in preservation. MPA president Dawn
McCarthy told WiG that numerous Bay
View residents have requested input.
“We can provide information about using
historic tax credits, zoning, pursuing different designations and analyzing options that
might serve specific goals,” she said.
State and federal credits can make historic restoration more feasible. MPA successfully advocated against drastic cuts
to state funding for preservation in 2015.
MPA’s position was that there are “important economic factors to historic rehabilitation … like new development, a broader tax
base, increased property values, revitalized
neighborhoods and preservation of Wisconsin’s heritage.” Using the various planning and preservation tools to value and effectively steward
a community’s built heritage often yields
major economic returns. Broad-based community engagement can help preserve
neighborhoods and assist developers in
proposing projects that are welcomed by
residents, thus promoting a smoother process and successful outcomes.
Chris Rute, the city’s development center
manager, said the way development takes
shape often depends on “who cares.” In
Bay View, it appears some people care a
great deal.
12
UW researchers keep tabs on Wisconsin prairies
By Lisa Neff
Staff writer
Grad student Amy O. Alstad’s research
into southern Wisconsin’s prairies led her
not only to glorious patches of wildflowers but also to troubling findings about
the rate of change for an iconic American
landscape.
The new research from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison shows human influence has accelerated the rate of species
change in prairies.
Yet, Alstad emphasized, the research
also offers clues about protecting prairies
and the plant diversity within them.
Alstad, a UW zoology graduate student
in her fifth year of research at Madison, is
the lead author of “The pace of plant community change is accelerating in remnant
prairies,” recently published in the journal Science Advances.
Alstad and her co-researchers’ work
builds upon research that began just after
World War II and is part of a legacy study in
which historical data sets providing baseline records are revisited to document any
changes. Between 1946 and 1956, renowned
botany professor John Curtis and a team of
colleagues and students surveyed 200 prairie remnants in southern Wisconsin.
In the United States, “prairie remnants”
— virgin prairies rather than restored or
constructed prairies — are largely areas
not suitable for agriculture, which helps
to explain why they haven’t been plowed
over. The prairie remnants are found at old
cemeteries, on hilly slopes and also along
railroad right of ways.
For his “prairie relic study,” Curtis and
his team walked each prairie remnant in
its entirety and listed every plant species
they found.
Thirty years later, UW researcher Mark
Leach returned to the field with Curtis’s
notes and maps to resurvey about 50 of the
prairie remnants.
Invasive species crowd
out native plants and
dramatically alter
habitats.
In 2012, Alstad and her team again
returned to the field, in May, July and
August. “What the original researchers did
was walk back and forth,” she said. “They
kept a list of every single plant species they
found. … I replicated the original methods.”
THE FINDINGS
On these walks, Alstad said she observed
a lot of change. “Things in 2012 are very
different than they were in 1950,” she said.
The researchers documented the
encroachment of invasive and non-native
plants on prairie remnants — such species
can crowd out native plants and dramatically alter a habitat. At some sites, nonnative species accounted for 60 percent of
the plants.
Additionally, the researchers documented the loss of prairie remnants. Three of the
50 sites surveyed in 1987 were not surveyed
in 2012 because they could not be located
or the prairie had been lost.
“Trying to find these sites, it was a little
bit like a scavenger hunt,” said Alstad, who
would arrive with a map and occasionally
have to double-check her location. Where
there once was prairie, the researcher found
a mowed lawn. Where there once was
another prairie, she found pavement.
“In some cases, I would roll up to a site
and it would be seven hectares — huge and
very diverse,” Alstad said. “In other cases, I
would arrive at a site and think, ‘Am I in the
right spot?’ I’d be looking at this piece of
land that didn’t look anything like prairie.”
A crane enjoying the afternoon on a Wisconsin prairie.
“It makes me really sad to be losing these
habitat types that used to be so common,”
Alstad said. “Less than 1 percent of the prairie that historically covered North America
is left today. … And I’m finding that 1 percent that remains is changing — very fast.”
Perhaps the most important finding in
the research is the rate of plant species loss
had tripled since the 1950s to more than
one species per year. And that rate of loss
has accelerated.
“Annual rates of extinction increased by
214 percent between 1987 and 2012 relative
to 1950–1987,” the researchers wrote in the
journal paper.
While noting that total species richness
at each site remained similar, the researchers said high rates of local extinction left
some sites with fewer than 18 percent of the
species detected in the 1950 survey.
“The species that are contributing to the
fast extinction rate are really a lot of the
P H O T O : A M Y A L S TA D/ U W M
species you think of as classic members of
prairie species,” Alstad towld WiG.
One such species is the big bluestem, a
classic prairie grass found at about every
site surveyed 60 years ago. “It’s gone
through more than a 50 percent reduction,”
Alstad said. “Fewer than half of the sites in
1950 have it today.”
There were other losses documented.
Early surveyors found dozens of types of
milkweed on the prairie remnants. “Almost
all of those species have become much,
much less common,” with the exception of
common milkweed, according to Alstad.
CALL TO ACTION
When they examined the plant diversity
from property to property, the researchers
observed that acreage and fire were factors
in the vitality of the prairies.
The largest sites experienced the fewest
PRAIRIE next page
13
PRAIRIE from prior page
extinctions.
Also, the researchers noted, “Sites with
frequent fires experienced conspicuously
fewer extinctions.”
Disturbance by fire is an important driver
of prairie ecosystems, which historically
burned every one to three years, according
to the researchers. Fire on prairies maintains structure and plant diversity and also
prevents the expansion of woody species
— invasives in particular.
A reduction in the frequency of fires on
prairies began in the 1830s, with European
settlement, and fires continued a dramatic decline over the years. But the latest
research showed fire more common across
all sites and especially frequent in some
sites actively managed.
“I hope these results could be a call to
action,” Alstad suggested.
Because the legacy study revealed the
most successful prairie remnants today are
larger sites that are actively managed with
regularly scheduled fires, it points to a
prescription for land managers and prairie
advocates.
“We’re seeing this increased rate of
change but it’s not too late,” she said.
As she emphasized the importance of
protecting existing prairie remnants, Alstad
also praised the practice of prairie restoration by private property owners and
also The Nature Conservancy, Prairie Enthusiasts, Audubon Society chapters and the
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
There’s an active and vibrant prairie restoration movement in the state, bringing
people to conferences and workshops on
insects, controlled burns and sowing seeds,
spurring lobbying at the Capitol and leading
people outdoors to pull invasives and plant
native species.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Alstad naturally progressed to participation in the legacy study. Her parents
are scientists and, she noted, her mother’s
research has focused on the plight of the
REBOUND FOR BUTTERFLIES
Monarch butterflies have made
a big comeback in their wintering
grounds in Mexico, after suffering
serious declines, investigators said
earlier in March.
The Monarch is dependent on milkweed, a common prairie plant, for its
survival.
The area covered by the orangeand-black insects in the mountains
west of Mexico City this season was
more than three and a half times
greater than last winter. The butterflies clump so densely in the pine and
fir forests they are counted by the area
they cover rather than by individuals.
The number of monarchs making
the 3,400-mile migration from the
United States and Canada declined
steadily in recent years before recovering in 2014. This winter was even
better.
— AP
monarch butterfly. Alstad’s grandfather,
meanwhile, was involved in prairie restoration.
“I grew up with this appreciation of prairies,” the ecologist said. “I knew and loved
them. And I knew I wanted to work on a
project that was important. It really is a
childhood passion.”
For her role, the grad student next plans
to delve deeper into what’s happening with
certain prairie species, including the big
bluestem.
“Why are some species going extinct
somewhat faster? Why are some species
more resistant? That’s the next mystery,”
she said.
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ON THE READING LIST
“During every week from April to
September there are, on the average,
10 wild plants coming into first bloom,”
conservationist Aldo Leopold writes at
the beginning of “Prairie Birthday” in
A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches
Here and There. “In June as many as a
dozen species may burst their buds on
a single day,” he continues.
This book, one of the seminal works
of the environmental movement, is on
WiG’s bookshelf beside the writings of
Henry David Thoreau and John Muir.
We took the book down after working on this story and re-read “Prairie Birthday,” as well as the foreward
penned by Leopold in Madison in 1948.
He wrote, “There are some who can
live without wild things and some who
cannot. These essays are the delights
and dilemmas of one who cannot.”
— Lisa Neff
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quinine (in the picture’s lower left corner),
identifiable by the white blooms; blackeyed
Susan, which looks like small sunflowers;
burdock, which has large, leathery, darkgreen leaves; liatrus (in the upper center of
the picture), which has a fuzzy, spear-like
purple bloom; and echinacea, the purple
flower that is visible between the “v” and
“i” in “saving.”
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14
U.S. hunters annually import 126,000 ‘trophies’
By Lisa Neff
Staff writer
U.S. hunters import about 126,000 “wildlife trophies” annually, killing about 1.26
million animals between 2005 and 2014,
according to the Humane Society International and The Humane Society of the
United States.
Trophy hunting is the killing of animals
for body parts, such as the head and hide,
for display or decor rather than for food
and sustenance. A recent study examining
the motivation for such hunts found that
U.S. hunters glamorize the killing of an
animal to demonstrate virility, prowess and
dominance.
A report from Humane Society International/Humane Society of the United States
titled Trophy Hunting by the Numbers: The
United States’ Role in Global Trophy Hunting,
uses an analysis of hunting trophy import
data obtained from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Some findings:
• Trophies are primarily imported from
Canada and South Africa, followed by
Namibia, Mexico, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Tanzania, Argentina, Zambia and
Botswana.
• Trophy hunters most want to kill
American black bears, impalas, common
wildebeests, greater kudus, gemsboks,
springboks and bonteboks.
• Trophy hunters highly covet the so-
called “African big five” — lions, elephants,
leopards, white rhinos and buffalo. All of
these species, except the African buffalo,
are classified as near threatened or vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened
Species.
• The U.S. ports of entry that received
the most wildlife trophies in the past
decade were New York City; Pembina,
North Dakota; Chicago; Dallas/Fort Worth,
Texas; and Portal, North Dakota.
“This report clearly shows the dire
impact American trophy hunters are having
on wildlife in other countries,” said Teresa
M. Telecky, director of the wildlife department at HSI.
She continued, “It’s outrageous that
every year hunters take the lives of thousands of animals, many threatened with
extinction, just to win a prize and show
off. These animals need protection, not to
be mounted on a wall. The fact that rare,
majestic species are entering the U.S. in
large and small ports of entry should alarm
lawmakers and the public concerned about
trophy hunting.”
Hunting groups promote the hunts, offering accolades and awards to club members.
The largest of these groups, Safari Club
International, recently concluded its convention in Las Vegas, where more than 300
mammal hunts for more than 600 animals
were auctioned off, and other hunts were
arranged privately on the exhibit floor. An
DID YOU KNOW?
Between 2005 and 2014, more than
1.26 million “wildlife trophies” were
imported into the United States, most
of them from Canada and South Africa.
African lion trophy hunt can cost $13,500–
$49,000. An African elephant hunt can
cost $11,000–$70,000.
SCI often uses the revenue from hunt
sales to lobby against wildlife protection
measures.
For certain species, including lions, elephants, leopards and rhinos, the U.S. is the
largest trophy-importing country.
HSI and The HSUS, in a statement on the
report, pledged to continue to seek new
protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act for species that meet the criteria
for listing.
The African lion is the latest species to
receive ESA protection, after a multi-year
effort by animal protection organizations,
including HSI and The HSUS.
The groups are seeking increased ESA
protections for species currently listed in
a lower category of protection, as was
recently done for the African elephant. HSI
and The HSUS are also urging corporations — such as Swarovski Optik — to end
sponsorship of trophy-hunting advocacy
organizations.
15
Feds deliver huge blow to Grand Canyon development proposal
From The AP
The U.S. Forest Service dealt a huge blow to a company
that wants to build hundreds of homes, high-end boutiques
and five-star hotels just outside Grand Canyon National
Park.
The Kaibab National Forest has rejected an application
for a road easement that developers needed to move forward with the project in Tusayan, a small town a couple of
miles from the park’s South Rim entrance.
Forest Supervisor Heather Provencio said the project is
deeply controversial and opposed by most of the tens of
thousands of people who commented on it. She said the
envisioned development would “substantially and adversely” affect the Grand Canyon and nearby tribal lands.
ENVIRONMENTALISTS APPLAUD DECISION
Environmentalists applauded the decision and said
they’re hopeful it will put a permanent stop to plans by
Stilo Development Group USA. They’ve said the growth
would mar the beauty of the region and stress resources.
“This is just not the right place for it,” said Ted Zukoski,
an attorney for Earthjustice.
Reform at women’s prison
Wisconsin has satisfied the terms of a settlement
requiring reforms in medical and mental health care at
the state’s largest women’s prison, clearing the way to
ending a longstanding class-action lawsuit.
Flynn v. Walker was filed on behalf of women prisoners
at Taycheedah Correctional Institution, according to the
ACLU of Wisconsin.
The lawsuit alleged the prison system put the lives of
women prisoners at risk by providing them with grossly
deficient mental health treatment — far inferior to that
provided to men in Wisconsin prisons. Also alleged
was that the prison system failed to provide reasonable
accommodations for prisoners with disabilities to
access basic prison services.
“After years of needless suffering due to inadequate
health care, Taycheedah has the staff, services and
facilities necessary to address prisoners’ medical
and mental health needs, fulfilling its constitutional
obligation to the women incarcerated there,” said
Gabriel B. Eber, senior staff counsel for ACLU’s National
Prison Project.
Eber said the state has come into compliance and the
ACLU hopes “the reforms won under the settlement
agreement will continue once the litigation is dismissed.”
Larry Dupuis, legal director for the ACLU of Wisconsin,
said, “It was a long and sometimes contentious process,
but Taycheedah has made good on its promises to deliver
decent care to the women living at the institution.”
Wisconsin had sought to have the federal case
dismissed, a motion denied by U.S. District Judge
Rudolph T. Randa in 2009. Randa entered a preliminary
injunction, ordering changes to how the prison
administered medications to prisoners.
In 2010, a settlement required Wisconsin officials to
implement significant structural improvements aimed
at providing constitutionally adequate levels of care for
all Taycheedah prisoners and providing female prisoners
with the same level of mental health care as male
prisoners. The settlement also required equal access
to programs and services for prisoners with disabilities.
The agreement required the prison’s medical program
to meet “performance standards,” which would be
verified by an independent expert.
The ACLU said an expert, after 11 visits to the prison
over five years, certified that Taycheedah had met the
targets.
— Lisa Neff
Developers have sought for decades to seize on the
heavy traffic in Tusayan, bringing forth proposals that
would boost the population of about 600 in Tusayan and
attempt to lure even more tourists.
Stilo spokesman Andy Jacobs said the company is disappointed but willing to address concerns over water sources,
the scope of the project, and the impacts on infrastructure
and visitation at Grand Canyon National Park. He and the
town said they weren’t given that opportunity.
Provencio said the town’s application didn’t meet screening criteria but even if it did, she likely would have rejected
it because “there is significant evidence the proposal is not
in the public interest.” She said the town could reapply once
numerous concerns are addressed.
U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said the Forest Service
should have given the application fair consideration.
The forest’s decision also means that Tusayan cannot move forward with plans for affordable housing on
land once owned by Stilo and surrounded by the Kaibab
National Forest. The town council approved the creation of
a housing authority and bylaws in early March, said Mayor
Craig Sanderson.
P H O T O : W. T Y S O N J OY E / N AT I O N A L PA R K S E R V I C E
“We’re in the middle of pushing forward in anticipation
of being able to utilize the land that we own and with this
decision, it puts that on its heels,” he said. “Where do we
go now?”
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16
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Keep government operating in the sunshine
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Journalists come to their profession motivated to serve
the public good, protect the public welfare and strengthen
the Fourth Estate.
Chief among our concerns as reporters, editors and
publishers is safeguarding open records and open government. We cannot have good government without an open
government, without government that operates visibly, in
the sunlight.
James Madison, the father of the U.S. Constitution, wrote
“consent of the governed” requires that the people be able
to “arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
Each March, for Madison’s birthday, we celebrate Sunshine Week. Journalists and others who work in media,
along with our press associations, watchdog organizations
and civil liberties groups, trumpet the value of transparency
and warn against the damage that society suffers without it,
such as during the dark days of the notorious Nixon years.
Sunshine Week dates to Sunshine Sunday in 2002, which
came in response to efforts to carve up one of the strongest
public records laws in the country and create new records
exemptions in Florida.
By 2005, the sunshine movement had gone national.
Keeping government in the sunshine is not a left or right
issue or a partisan matter. For proof, look to the Open Government Traveling Show making its way around Wisconsin.
To present 90-minute programs on the open records law,
the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and the
Madison chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists
are joining with the liberal Wisconsin Democracy Campaign
and the Center for Media and Democracy and the conservative MacIver Institute for Public Policy and the Wisconsin
Institute for Law and Liberty.
Representatives of those groups, as well as Madison
attorney April Barker, are traveling March 15–17 to La
Crosse, Eau Claire, Wausau, Green Bay, Appleton, Sheboygan, Waukesha and Janesville to talk about the freedom of
information and protecting public access to government
records. The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
also is involved.
In Wisconsin, we’re fighting to protect our laws from an
administration that’s shown a blatant disregard for the public’s right to know.
We united last summer to defeat an overhaul of the state
public records law, dodging a sneak attack on open government that Republicans launched as we celebrated the country’s independence.
Yet, we must remain vigilant because attacks on open
government continue in Wisconsin.
Remember, every citizen in our participatory democracy
has an inherent right to access government meetings and
public records. Open and accessible government is vital to
establishing and maintaining the people’s trust and confidence in lawmakers and other elected officials. Without
such knowledge, the people are powerless.
For Sunshine Week, we encourage you to share a pledge
with your elected officials and appointed clerks who keep
government records:
• Government meetings must be properly promoted and
open to the public.
• Government agencies or departments must accept, as a
minimum, information requests by phone, mail, over the
counter or online.
• Information requests must be responded to promptly.
• Government departments and agencies must keep a log
of information requests.
• Governments must post on-site and online records that
are likely to be the subject of repeated requests, including
contracts that exceed $5,000.
Sunshine Week is for all of us to celebrate. Catch some
rays.
Announcing the brand-new WisconsinGazette.com!
If you haven’t yet, visit WisconsinGazette.com. We’ve just
finished the biggest redesign of our online publication since
the Gazette launched in 2009, with a new home page that
makes searching easier and a new, easy-to-read layout.
Because so many of our readers use phones and tablets,
we’ve provided them with the same Gazette experience enjoyed
by desktop users. The responsive website design works equally
well on any screen.
We’ve also improved many of our existing online services.
Readers who enjoy reading our print issues via the Web now
WiG’s
WEB
PICKS
Some of our
favorite recent
pictorials from
cyberspace
have a more visually appealing PDF archive to peruse. Our
updated calendar makes it easier to find events, from our
curated “Out on the Town” previews as well as the site’s other
listings. And our WiGShop is highlighted on the bar at the top
of the page, so you can easily find the best deals offered by
friends of the Gazette.
The redesign is just a first stepw. In the weeks and months
to come, we’ll roll out more features and continue streamlining the site. If there’s something you want more of (or less of),
don’t hesitate to let us know. We’ll see you on the site!
17
ON THE RECORD
“For the good of the state, it’s time for
Christie to do his long-neglected constituents a favor and resign as governor.
If he refuses, citizens should initiate a
recall effort.”
— From an editorial that appeared in six New
Jersey newspapers belonging to GANNETT’S USA
TODAY NETWORK. The editorial followed Christie’s
endorsement of Donald Trump for president.
“(That) part I don’t understand. I said to (Caitlyn
Jenner) when this first happened, ‘You are so excited,
you have to wait for the rest of us to catch up, like we
haven’t had as many drinks as you, like when you are
at a party and every else is smashed and you are like
just getting started.’”
— KRIS JENNER telling Ellen DeGeneres about her
personal struggle accepting Caitlyn Jenner’s decision
to date men.
“I’m so glad I live here (in New York City), because
halfway through (the Oscars), I was like, ‘This is
some real Hollywood bullshit.’ Everyone’s telling me
what to do. People are yelling at me about rape and
corporate greed, but really, it’s climate change. I was
like, ‘Guys, pick a lane. Like we’re going to fix everything tonight.’ And also, like, ‘You’re all rich. Why are
you yelling at me about corporate greed?’”
— TINA FEY speaking with Howard Stern the
day after attending this year’s Academy Awards
ceremony.
“Mexico will under no circumstance pay for the
wall that Mr. Trump is proposing.”
— Mexican Treasury Secretary LUIS VIDEGARAY
delivering the final word on Donald Trump’s proposed wall between the United States and Mexico.
“This has been an incredible city and countywide
effort. You made Milwaukee a model for the nation. …
What’s remarkable is you did it by working together.”
— PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA congratulating
the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County for
being among the 20 winners of his administration’s
Healthy Communities Challenge. The winners are
recognized for their number of new enrollees in the
Affordable Care Act insurance exchange.
“I feel like I’m a time traveler to the Salem Witch
Trials. Unfortunately, this time, those being burned
at the stake are our scientists, who hold future medical breakthroughs in their hands. They are joined by
brave women’s health care workers who are simply
trying to care for their patients.”
— U.S. REP. JACKIE SPEIER, D-Calif., decrying the
remarks of evangelical Republican legislators during
the first hearing on Planned Parenthood’s alleged
involvement in the “sale” of fetal tissue. The hearing
was dubbed the “Select Investigative Panel on Infant
Lives.”
“The Falcons coach, one of the coaches, was like,
‘So do you like men?’ It was like the first thing he
asked me. It was weird.”
— Ohio State cornerback ELI APPLE expressing
his amazement at being asked by a coach about
his sexuality at last month’s NFL Scouting Combine
in Indianapolis. Apple recounted the encounter in
an interview with Comcast SportsNet’s
Breakfast on Broad.
Opinion Some post-award season awards
JAMAKAYA
This year’s Oscar Award
hubbub is over but it’s never
too late to bestow honors on the deserving and
undeserving in all facets of
American life.
Leonardo DeCaprio was
touted for the bold environmental statement he delivered during his Oscar acceptance speech. The respected
actor deserves the “Clueless
He-Man” Award for gushing repeatedly about his film
The Revenant that “This is
the kind of movie we should
be making!” Sure Leo, Hollywood does not make nearly
enough male revenge epics.
For its decision to pursue
a $150 million tax-avoiding
corporate inversion with
Tyco International, Johnson
Controls wins this year’s
“Corporate Parasite” Award.
Among the “talking
points” issued to defend the
merger, Johnson Controls
said that it and Tyco have
“successful and robust”
contracts with the U.S. government. In other words,
they’re bullish about reeling
in the government largesse
as long as they don’t have to
pay their share. That’s supposed to make it OK?
The “Take That, Scott
Walker” Award goes to
the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for being
elevated to the status of a
research university by the
Carnegie Classification of
Institutions of Higher Education. UW-Milwaukee now
joins the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the ranks
of the 115 best research
institutions in the country.
Congratulations to the
researchers and professors
at UWM whose dedicated
work in the arts and sciences advances our civilization.
And let’s give a big raspberry to Walker and other
Republican dullards for
attacking tenure and cutting
UW System budgets.
Milwaukee County Sheriff
David A. Clarke Jr. gets the
“Raging Impotency” Award
for the hateful comments
he spews, usually while pandering to right-wing audiences on Fox News. Among
the contributions of this
“peace” officer: calling Black
Lives Matter activists “subhuman creeps” and denying
police brutality exists.
Clarke reminds me of
self-hating homosexuals
who preach hell fire and
damnation for gay people.
His towering ego is in conflict with his inadequacy. In
the scheme of things, Milwaukee County sheriff is not
a very powerful position.
The big cowboy hats don’t
fool anyone.
A special Merit Badge
goes to Chris Rock, host of
the Oscar telecast, for promoting the Girl Scouts and
their cookies. A companion “Shut the Front Door”
Award goes to the archbishop of St. Louis who, days
before the Oscars, declared
that the Girl Scouts were
exhibiting “troubling behavior … incompatible with our
Catholic values.”
The “troubling behavior”
apparently includes: having fun, empowering girls,
and being open-minded and
inclusive of different people. Support the Girl Scouts:
Make the patriarchy quake.
The “Goodbye, Already”
Award goes to late Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia
who left a legacy of division
through his mean-spirited
decisions and dissents.
Scalia openly demeaned
African Americans, gay
people and immigrants and
frequently denigrated the
thinking of his fellow justices. He refused to compromise or reach consensus
with them. He is not someone to emulate or admire
and he hardly ranks with the
giants of American jurisprudence. Goodbye, already.
The “Soldiering On”
Award goes to the staff and
volunteers of Planned Parenthood in Wisconsin and
nationwide. GOP funding
cuts, smear tactics and daily
threats of violence do not
keep these brave women
and men from providing the
professional, non-judgmental reproductive health care
that millions of Americans
need. Thank them by making a tax-deductible contribution to Planned Parenthood today.
Opinion Walker helped to create Trump
REP. MELISSA SARGENT
Donald Trump’s rise to
the front of the GOP field
may seem like an overnight
phenomenon, but you can
directly trace his appeal
back to events in Wisconsin in 2011.
Shortly after taking
office, Scott Walker caused
a political earthquake in
Wisconsin. Using unionbusting legislation as his
vehicle to national GOP
prominence, he introduced
something new into Wisconsin’s culture: fear.
People became fearful of
their friends and neighbors
who happened to be public
servants. They feared others were getting things they
weren’t. Phrases like “haves
and have-nots” and “divide
and conquer” defined his
governing style.
The protests in Wisconsin caused a spark around
the world. Not long after
that historic winter and
spring in Madison, the
Occupy movement began
in New York and spread
around the country. Divisions were drawn and
economic injustices were
brought into the light of
day. Social media was able
to highlight just how much
of our economy was dominated by the 1 percent. Fast
forward a few years and the
Black Lives Matter movement had a similar rise
after pointing out the racial
disparities in our society.
The Republicans used all
of this to bring fear and
paranoia to a fever pitch.
Views that didn’t fall in line
with theirs were portrayed
as un-American. The federal government was shut
down in one of the most
obstructionist
political
maneuvers of our time.
Walker wouldn’t say if he
believed President Barack
Obama was a Christian.
Cue 2016. The Republican primary field was bigger than ever before. The
rhetoric was ratcheted up
so candidates could stand
out. In his short, 71-day run
for the presidency, Walker
compared public employees in Wisconsin to ISIS
terrorists. Ted Cruz and
Marco Rubio have sparred
over who is more strongly
against immigration.
Towering above them
all with his inflammatory
language and dangerous
policies, Donald Trump is
now poised to take the GOP
nomination.
Walker and other candidates who were publicly opposed to Trump
are now singing a different tune. Walker recently
called Trump’s candidacy
“remarkable” and said he’d
support him if he were to
become the nominee. To
the Republican establishment, I can only say that
this is the bed you made —
it’s time to lie in it.
The divisions that were
set into motion years ago
are now coming to fruition.
The dog-whistle signals
that used to guide the far
right are now manifesting
themselves as policies to
build a wall spanning our
southern border or a vow to
stop Muslims from entering
our country. If a political
party’s leaders teach this,
their supporters will hold
these same views.
I am proud to be part
of the Democratic Party.
Our leaders seek policies
that support our communities, celebrate diversity,
and invest in our state and
nation. We want to unite
people. Democrats know
that our country cannot
reach its potential unless
we all do.
I believe that Walker’s
approval rating today, hovering around 38 percent,
foreshadows Trump’s eventual downfall. Hatred has a
shelf life. It becomes stale
and unappealing. If you
divide too much, you end
up with nothing.
State Rep. Melissa Sargent, D-Madison, represents
Assembly District 48.
18
HUD seeks to snuff out smoking in housing
By Lisa Neff
Staff writer
Public housing across the United States
may go smoke-free in two years if a rule
proposed by U.S. Housing and Urban Development takes effect.
The rule would require more than 3,100
public housing agencies to implement policies prohibiting lighted tobacco products
— including pipes, cigars and cigarettes
— in living units, common areas, offices
and outdoor areas within 25 feet of office
buildings or housing.
HUD Secretary Julian Castro and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy announced
the proposal earlier this year, opening a
60-day public comment period that ends
this spring. “We have a responsibility to
protect public housing residents from the
harmful effects of secondhand smoke,”
Castro stated. “This proposed rule will help
improve the health of more than 760,000
children and help public housing agencies
save $153 million every year in health care,
repairs and preventable fires.”
Cigarette smoking kills 480,000 people
each year and is the leading preventable
cause of death in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Surgeon General
has concluded there is no risk-free level of
exposure to secondhand smoke and cleaning the air, ventilating buildings and separating smokers from non-smokers cannot
eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke.
The only way to protect nonsmokers
is to stop indoor smoking. A web of federal, state and local laws has extinguished
indoor smoking in many places. Yet, 58 million Americans — including an estimated
15 million children — remain exposed to
secondhand smoke, mostly at home.
HUD’s rule would impact more than
940,000 housing units, expanding on a voluntary campaign initiated by HUD in 2009.
Over seven years, more than 600 public
housing agencies — including at least 51 of
the 123 housing authorities in Wisconsin
— have adopted smoke-free policies for
buildings and common areas. HUD estimates that more than 228,000 housing
units already are smoke-free.
With a caution, the National Association of Community Health Centers supports the goals of the proposed rule. The
association’s chief concern, said Colleen P.
Meiman, director of regulatory affairs, is
whether the rule would lead to increased
homelessness.
“Smoking is an addiction,” Meiman said
in her public comment to HUD. If the ban
is implemented, she said any violations
“should result in progressive action, starting with referrals to smoking cessation service” and “violations should never result in
fines or eviction.”
In Wisconsin, advocates for the rule
include fire chiefs, the Wisconsin Asthma
Coalition in West Allis, American Lung
Association in Brookfield, Westlawn Partnership for a Healthier Environment in
northwest Milwaukee and the University
of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research
and Intervention.
The UW center cited a CDC study estimating that banning smoking in public and
subsidized housing would save $310.48 million annually in health care costs associated
with secondhand smoke, $133.77 million in
costs for renovating and maintaining smoky
apartments and buildings and $52.57 million in avoided fire damages.
The center encouraged HUD to expand
the proposed rule to include e-cigarettes
and other “electronic nicotine delivery systems,” with a reference to “growing evidence of carcinogenic and other harmful
chemicals in e-cigarette liquid and vapor.
Many advocating a ban observed that
secondhand smoke cannot be contained —
that it travels through air leaks in ceilings,
floors and walls.
The rule “has the potential to reduce
health care costs, save lives and improve
the quality of life for so many Americans,”
according to Anne Dressel, project director
for Westlawn Partnership for a Healthier
Environment.
The partnership is a group of community
stakeholders that has met regularly since
2008 to address health and environmental
concerns at Westlawn, Wisconsin’s largest
publicly subsidized housing development.
Dressel, in her comment on the proposed
rule, said Milwaukee County ranks as the
worst county in the state for asthma-related hospitalizations and emergency room
visits. And the rate of asthma-related hospitalizations for children residing in the
Westlawn community is
about twice the county
rate. The rate of emergency room visits for
Westlawn is 1.5 times
higher than the county
rate.
tion.
“Despite the clever name, this anti-menu
labeling bill is neither common sense nor
would it disclose additional information,”
said Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition
policy at the Center for Science in the Public
Interest. “It would result in consumer confusion and prevent disclosure of straightforward, consistent calorie information at
many food service establishments.”
A recent study released by Harvard
showed that menu labeling could prevent
up to 41,000 cases of child obesity and save
more than $4.6 billion in health care costs
over 10 years.
Also, a national poll found about 80 percent of Americans support menu labeling.
The federal requirement for menu labeling at restaurants with more than 20 sites
passed six years ago, as part of the Affordable Care Act, but lobbying by the food
industry delayed implementation. The chief
opponents of labeling are the Food Marketing Institute, a supermarket trade group,
and the American Pizza Community, led by
Domino’s Pizza.
A coalition of more than 100 health and
nutrition groups, including the American
Cancer Society, American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association
opposes the congressional attempt to
weaken the rule.
“We do not think that it is common sense
to weaken a policy that would allow people
to make their own, informed choices about
how many calories to eat at a time when
obesity rates are at a record high,” the
groups said in a joint statement.
The health and nutrition advocates now
are focused on the Senate, where Republican Roy Blunt of Missouri has introduced a
companion bill.
House Republicans vote to gut FDA menu rules
By Lisa Neff
Staff writer
The U.S. House recently voted to gut the
Food and Drug Administration’s proposed
rule for calorie counts on menus at restaurant chains.
The legislation, the Common Sense
Nutrition Disclosure Act — with bipartisan
sponsorship and strong support from the
restaurant industry — is now before the
Senate.
The measure would diminish the impact
of the FDA’s effort at requiring restaurants
to inform diners about calories and nutri-
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Americans eat and drink about onethird of their calories away from home,
according to the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, which has proposed
a rule requiring the posting of calorie information on chain restaurant
menus.
19
Hazards behind 1996 Weyauwega train disaster still exist
By Eric Hansen
Special to WiG
A ferocious explosion and fireball followed a Wisconsin Central train wreck in
the frigid predawn hours of March 4, 1996,
in Weyauwega. Two thousand citizens,
many fleeing without their pets or medications, evacuated for 18 days as the fires
burned.
Authorities feared additional explosions
that would catapult shrapnel a mile or
more from the derailed propane tank cars.
Gas lines were shut off; water pipes froze
in unheated houses.
Four days after the initial explosion, Wisconsin National Guard armored personnel
carriers transported residents into the danger zone to rescue their pets. Wearing helmets and flak jackets, the evacuees dashed
into their abandoned homes to retrieve
hungry dogs, cats and parakeets.
Ever so slowly, specialists drained the
railroad tank cars of their volatile cargo
and Weyauwega pulled back from the brink.
Federal investigators blamed a cracked rail
and deficient track maintenance for the
derailment.
March 4 was the 20th anniversary of the
Weyauwega catastrophe. Unfortunately,
railroad track failures remain a concern
today — a concern greatly magnified by
massive increases in explosive crude oil
train traffic in recent years.
Wisconsin, now one of the busiest routes
in the nation for this cargo, is part of a
nationwide surge. In 2008, railroads carried 9,500 tank carloads of crude oil in the
United States. By 2013, that number had
risen to 407,761.
Connect the dots on the systemic danger
the oil trains bring — and the details of the
Weyauwega incident — and a reasonable
citizen would question whether a Weyauwega scale disaster, or worse, is looming.
Key points: highly explosive crude oil
from North Dakota is traveling in cars that
are aging and were never designed with
this kind of volatile cargo in mind. In addition, the sheer weight of mile-long oil trains
stresses railroad tracks and aging bridges.
Those concerns grew when a Canadian
government investigation traced the path
of an oil train that exploded in Lac Megantic, Quebec, July 6, 2013, killing 47 people.
The train had traveled through Wisconsin
and Milwaukee on Canadian Pacific tracks
before exploding in Quebec.
As knowledge of the dangers of oil train
traffic spread, something else became
clear: a lack of transparency on the part of
the railroads.
Milwaukee citizens, local elected officials and journalists sought to obtain safety
inspection reports for the corroded, century-old, First Street railroad bridge.
Canadian Pacific railroad officials refused
to share the inspection reports for half a
year. Federal Railroad Administration direc-
P H O T O : S T E V E A P P S /A P/ T H E C R E S C E N T
Fire and rescue vehicles line northbound State 11O in Weyauwega, near the site of the
1996 train derailment and explosion.
tor Sarah Feinberg announced a new program to obtain bridge safety reports Feb. 19,
indicating some progress.
But bridge inspection reports are only the
tip of the iceberg. Railroads are not sharing
information on what levels of insurance
they carry, their worst-case accident scenario plans or how they make critical routing decisions that bring oil trains through
densely populated areas.
Any illusion that federal regulators are
exercising effective due diligence on oil
train traffic faded when the Department
of Transportation released an audit of the
FRA on Feb. 26.
That report’s opening words cite the Lac
Megantic disaster and the vast increase in
crude oil train traffic. However, the audit
summarizes FRA’s overview of oil train traffic as dysfunctional and lacking analysis on
the impact to towns, cities and major population areas. It also notes a lack of criminal
penalties for violations.
When citizens push, governments move
into action. Insist that elected representatives take action to protect communities
from crude oil train traffic.
Outdoor writer Eric Hansen is a member of
Citizens Acting for Rail Safety — Milwaukee
Area.
Obama considers first Indian American for Supreme Court
By Maria Sudekum
AP writer
Sri Srinivasan, a federal appeals judge
who was born in India and grew up in Kansas, would be the first foreign-born justice
to serve on the Supreme Court in more than
50 years.
The 49-year-old Srinivasan is one of several people being mentioned prominently
as a potential successor to the late Justice
Antonin Scalia. A judge on the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit,
Srinivasan would bring to the high court
previous experience as an attorney in private practice, a law clerk to two Republicanappointed judges and a high-ranking official
in the Justice Department.
FIRST-RATE INTELLECT
He has a “first-rate intellect, an openminded approach to the law, a strong work
ethic and an unimpeachable character,”
high-ranking Justice Department veterans
of Democratic and Republican administrations said in a letter endorsing him for
the appeals court. The bipartisan warmth
extended to his 97-0 confirmation vote by
the Senate in 2013.
Srinivasan told the Senate Judiciary Committee then that he has “a deep
respect for the need for strict objectivity
and impartiality in the task of judging,” citing both his work for Vice President Al Gore
after the 2000 presidential election and his
later work in the Justice Department under
Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who was
the lead lawyer for George W. Bush in the
Supreme Court case that decided the 2000
race.
“I think any objection to Sri would have
to be based on notions that he’s either not
conservative enough or not liberal enough,”
said Stephen McAllister, a law professor
at the University of Kansas. “It could not
be intellectual ability, could not be writing
ability, it could not be his general competence in the law,” McAllister said. “He’s just
extremely talented in all respects.”
His nomination to the appeals court did
provoke some criticism from liberal interest
groups who objected to his work in private
practice representing former Enron Corp
CEO Jeff Skilling in his successful Supreme
Court appeal, and represented ExxonMobil
and mining company Rio Tinto in lawsuits
alleging their connection to human rights
abuses abroad.
Srinivasan would be the court’s first
Indian-American and its first Hindu, on a
bench with five Catholics and three Jews.
The last justice who was born overseas was
Austrian-born Felix Frankfurter, who retired
from the court in 1962.
Srinivasan grew up in Lawrence, Kansas,
where his parents taught at the University
of Kansas and he played high-school basketball. He remains an avid Kansas basketball fan and tries to return for a game once
a year, said McAllister.
He received his bachelor’s degree, law
degree and MBA from Stanford University. He clerked for U.S. Circuit Judge J.
Harvie Wilkinson in Richmond, Virginia,
and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra
Day O’Connor, both appointed by President
Ronald Reagan. He also worked in a junior
Justice Department position during the
Bush administration and as the top political
deputy in the Solicitor General’s office in
the Obama administration.
‘GENEROUS OF SPIRIT’
If nominated and confirmed, Srinivasan
would have to step aside from high court
consideration of two cases he has been
involved with on the federal appeals court.
He has been considering challenges to the
Obama administration’s plan to address
climate change and “net neutrality” rules
that regulate how the Internet is delivered
to consumers.
Deanell Tacha, a native Kansan who is
now dean of the Pepperdine Law School,
calls Srinivasan a “man of great integrity,
high intellect and extraordinary qualifications.”
“He cares about other people,” she said.
“He’s generous of spirit, and he’s amazingly
humble.”
And perhaps a tad superstitious. He regularly carried his twin children’s baby socks
to Supreme Court arguments and pulled
P H O T O : U . S . D E PA R T M E N T O F J U S T I C E
U.S. Appeals Judge Sri Srinivasan.
them from his pocket at his investiture on
the appeals court, longtime legal affairs
writer Tony Mauro reported in 2013.
20
COMMUNITY BRIEFS
FRIENDLY FARMERS
The 14th annual Local Farmer
Open House takes place 11 a.m.-3
p.m. March 12 at the Urban Ecology
Center in Riverside Park. Organizers
say the forum provides an opportunity to talk with local farmers,
hear about growing practices and
learn about community-supported
agriculture subscriptions. Attendees can sign up for deliveries of
farm-fresh foods. For more, go to
urbanecologycenter.org.
The 14th annual Local Farmer Open House
takes place 11 a.m.-3 p.m. March 12 at the
Urban Ecology Center in Riverside Park.
STRONG PERFORMANCE
The United Performing Arts Fund
announced a record 2016 campaign goal
of $12,260,000 at a celebration at the
Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee. The goal was
announced at the conclusion of a program
featuring a tribute to Yip Harburg with an
appearance by Aaron Harburg, the lyricist’s great-grandson, and performances
by Present Music, Skylight Music Theatre,
Danceworks, the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Chamber
Theatre and First Stage. For more, go to
www.upaf.org.
PARTY FAVORITE
The Democratic Party of Milwaukee
County is honoring the Wisconsin chapter
of the LGBT Chamber of Commerce with
its “Organization of the Year” award. The
celebration, with other awards presentations, is set for 5:30 p.m. March 13 at the
Italian Community Center, 631 E. Chicago
St., Milwaukee. Special guests include U.S.
Senate candidate Russ Feingold and U.S.
Rep. Gwen Moore. For more, email awards_
dinner@milwaukeedems.org.
LEFT ON THE DIAL
The Citizen Action Organizing Cooperative recently launched a campaign called
Radio-Active to “break the right-wing
media monopoly in Milwaukee.” Organizers
plan house parties and other events to build
support and raise money to monitor rightwing radio programs and explore the goal
of operating a progressive talk radio station.
For more, go to Radio-Active on Facebook.
DRIVING TO THE DMV
Madison Mayor Paul Soglin and community leaders in Dane County announced a
new vehicle to help people obtain the photo
ID cards needed to vote in Wisconsin elections. The vehicle is a ride service bringing
people to the Department of Motor Vehicles throughout March. Volunteers also will
be connecting with people at various venues to offer information about ID requirements and voter registration. For more, go
to voteridwisconsin.org.
150 FILMS, 8 DAYS, 30,000 PEOPLE
The Wisconsin Film Festival — presented by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arts Institute in association with the
school’s Department of Communication
Arts — takes place April 14-21. The largest
university-managed film fest in the nation
is known for its diverse offerings, including independent, international, documentary, experimental, avant-garde, classic and
children’s film, as well as the Wisconsin’s
Own Competition. For more, go to 2016.
wifilmfest.org.
A section of the 1.25-mile-long rainbow
Pride flag unfurled on Key West’s Duval
Street in 2003 was featured March 5 in
Australia’s Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi
Gras Parade.
SEA TO SEA
A section of the 1.25-mile-long rainbow
Pride flag unfurled on Key West’s Duval
Street in 2003 was featured March 5 in
Australia’s Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi
Gras Parade. Sydney held one of the earlier
LGBT Pride events on the 2016 calendar.
Wisconsin’s Pride celebrations take place
in the summer, beginning with Milwaukee
PrideFest June 10-12.
Send community announcements
lmneff@wisconsingazette.com.
to
21
Pet
Paws, pets and politics
Where the candidates stand on animal welfare issues
By Michael Markarian
Special to WiG
Want to know where the presidential
candidates stand on humane issues? A
look at the top contenders in both political
parties:
DEMOCRATS
HILLARY CLINTON
In the U.S. Senate, she earned a 100
percent score on the Humane Scorecard in
the 108th and 109th Congresses and an 83
in the 110th. She co-sponsored legislation
dealing with horse slaughter and animal
fighting, as well as bills to stop the processing of “downer” livestock and to crack
down on abusive puppy mills. She also led
efforts to stop the overuse of antibiotics in
farm animals. Additionally, Clinton signed
letters requesting more funds for the U.S.
Department of Agriculture to enforce the
Animal Welfare Act, the Humane Methods
of Slaughter Act and the federal animal
fighting law.
During the 2008 campaign, she voiced
concern over the slaughter of sick and
injured cows whose meat was channeled
into the national school lunch program.
As secretary of state, she led international efforts to crack down on wildlife
trafficking and, through the Clinton Foundation, she helped to launch a major cam-
paign to fight the illegal ivory trade and
poaching of elephants.
BERNIE SANDERS
Sanders has been a steady and consistent supporter of animal protection in
Congress. As a House member, he earned
a 58 percent on the Humane Scorecard
for the 103rd Congress, 75 percent in the
104th, 60 percent in the 108th and a 100
percent score in the 106th and 109th. As a
senator, he scored 100 percent in the 110th,
112th, and 113th Congresses, an 89 in the
111th and an 86 percent in the most recent
session.
In the current session, Sanders is cosponsoring legislation to protect pets in
domestic violence, ban horse slaughter
for human consumption, create a felony
penalty for malicious animal cruelty and
a crack down on horse soring abuses. He
opposed the weakening of the Endangered
Species Act.
In previous sessions, he co-sponsored
bills to crack down on puppy mills and
animal fighting, to restrict the private trade
in big cats and primates as exotic pets and
to ban barren battery cages for egg-laying
hens. He also helped to lead an effort to
end the use of chimpanzees in invasive
research.
Sanders was the first presidential candidate to publish an animal welfare state-
ment and it’s a strong and compelling
one that demonstrates his concern for the
issues, as well as his leadership.
IN THE GOP
DONALD TRUMP
When Donald Trump owned the Steel
Pier in Atlantic City, he reportedly was
involved in canceling an inhumane horsediving act. On the downside, he has
defended his sons’ trophy hunting of African wildlife, including giraffes, buffaloes
and lions. Trump also lamented Ringling
Bros.’ decision to phase out its performing
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Rubio was among a
handful of senators who
opposed a ban on taking
children to animal fights.
He scored 28 percent on
the Human Scorecard for
the 112th Congress.
ANIMALS from prior page
elephants.
TED CRUZ
Cruz received a score of 12 percent in
the 113th Congress and received a zero for
the first session of the 114th Congress. He
is not cosponsoring any current animal
protection legislation.
MARCO RUBIO
Rubio was among a handful of
senators who opposed a floor
amendment to ban taking children to animal fights. He scored
28 percent on the Humane
Scorecard for the 112th Congress. He received a score of
12 percent for the 113th and
he scored a zero in the first
session of the 114th. On the
positive side, Rubio cosponsored legislation to strengthen enforcement against horse
soring in the previous Congress
and, in the Florida Legislature, he
sponsored a bill to strengthen an
animal fighting statute.
mals. He has signed bills upgrading
laws on animal cruelty and puppy
mills and allowing pets to be included in domestic violence protective
orders. He entered the governor’s
office following an agreement between
The HSUS and the state, and he’s done
a creditable job of handling the provisions — including the phase-out of veal
crates for calves, gestation crates for
breeding pigs, tail-docking of dairy cattle
and protections for “downer” cows.
JOHN KASICH
As governor of Ohio, Kasich
acted swiftly in response to the
release of dozens of bears, lions,
tigers, wolves and other exotic animals in Zanesville, setting a moratorium on the sale of exotic ani-
Michael Markarian’s blog can be found at
hslf.org. He is the president of the Humane
Society Legislative Fund, chief program and
policy officer of The HSUS and president of
The Fund for Animals.
Wisconsin cat treks to
Florida for the winter
Apparently, it’s not just people who want
to get away to Florida in the winter. Nadia,
a Russian blue cat, decided she’d become
a snow bird this winter, too. Or maybe she
was just following the snow birds.
It takes about 22 hours to reach Florida
by car for a person traveling from Wisconsin. But for Nadia, it took about two months
to trek the 1,484-mile journey from her
Wisconsin home on a snowy December day
to sunny Naples.
That’s where animal officials found her
recently. They helped her find her owners.
The Naples Daily News reports Cheri
Stocker adopted the cat nine months ago
in Wisconsin. On Christmas Eve, the cat
escaped.
A Naples woman found the kitty in North
Naples.
Workers at an animal shelter found the
cat’s microchip and, through a pet relocation service, got hold of an emergency
contact.
— AP
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ut on the town March 10 – 24
23
A curated calendar of upcoming events
ART IN THE BURG
‘THE WIZARD OF OZ’
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 12 at Cedarburg High
School, Cedarburg. $3. artintheburg.tumblr.com.
Come to Cedarburg High School’s fourth
annual Art in the Burg sale to purchase unique
paintings, pottery, jewelry, woodworking,
photography, and other crafts by over 75
Midwestern artists. The proceeds from
this event will support the art department
at Cedarburg High School. Attendees will
also have the opportunity to take part in an
auction by bidding on donated art works.
(Rachele Krivichi)
March 11 to 16 at Overture Center, Madison.
$23 to $35. ctmtheater.org.
Children’s Theater of Madison brings the
classic tale of The Wizard of Oz to life onstage
at the Overture Center. CTM strives to create
high quality theater productions that are
suitable for all ages, so bring the whole family
on this journey to find the necessities of life
in the mysterious land of Oz with Dorothy
and her three traveling companions. (Rachele
Krivichi)
LOCAL FARMER OPEN HOUSE
11 a.m. to 3 p.m. March 12 at the Riverside
Park Urban Ecology Center, Milwaukee. Free.
urbanecologycenter.org.
For the conscious consumer, choosing
where to buy vegetables throughout the year
can be tricky. At the 14th installment of the
Urban Ecology Center’s Local Farmer Open
House, more than 20 local farmers will be
present to answer any questions you may
have about their products and connect with
the community. Participating farmers will
discuss their farm’s locations, what they grow,
and where to pick up food if they are part of a
Community Supported Agriculture Program.
(Rachele Krivichi)
‘THREE DECEMBERS’
March 11 to 20 at the Marcus Center, Milwaukee. $30 to $70. florentineopera.org.
The operatic canon is full of powerful leading women reflecting on the tragedies of their
lives. In its next show, the Florentine Opera takes a look at one of the most recent additions:
Madeline Mitchell, a widowed, aging Broadway diva whose story is told by acclaimed American
composer Jake Heggie. Adapted from a story by playwright Terrence McNally, Three Decembers
follows Madeline’s pursuit of her own career over three decades, even as her daughter Beatrice
struggles with alcoholism and a failed marriage and her son Charlie slowly loses his partner to
AIDS. (Matthew Reddin)
DAVID CROSS
‘AMERICAN SONG’
March 15 to April 10 at the Milwaukee Rep. $20 and up. milwaukeerep.com.
In American Song, every parent’s worst nightmare is realized. Classical stage actor James
DeVita portrays Andy, a husband and father who heads to work to give a presentation. Eight
hours later, his entire life changes when he learns his teenage son is responsible for an act
of violence that makes him and his family infamous. The one-man show, a world premiere
commissioned by the Rep from Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith, promises to be a
moving, provocative and haunting evening of theater. (Colton Dunham)
AMBER TAMBLYN
7 p.m. March 15 at Boswell Book Company,
Milwaukee. Free. boswellbooks.com.
Actor Amber Tamblyn’s career has led
her to countless parts on film and TV, from
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Two and
a Half Men to the Oscar-nominated Django
Unchained and 127 Hours. But she isn’t just an
actress — she’s an author, too. At Boswell,
she’ll be reading from her new collection
of poems, Dark Sparkler. Inspired by an
obscure interest in the tragic and peculiar
lives of deceased actresses, the collection is
described as an exploration of life, death and
celebrity. (Colton Dunham)
DARREN CARTER
7:30 p.m. March 17 at the Comedy Cafe,
Milwaukee. $5 with two drink minimum.
milwaukeescomedycafe.com.
You can’t really know what to expect
from comedian Darren Carter. The man
who once said he resembles Snoop Dogg’s
X-ray will keep the crowd engaged with
his comedic observations and impressions,
many featured on The Tonight Show with
Jay Leno, Comedy Central and Showtime.
At the Comedy Cafe, he’ll be joined by
fellow funnymen Phil Davidson and Patrick
Tomlinson. (Colton Dunham)
8 p.m. March 15 at the Pabst Theater,
Milwaukee. $33. pabsttheater.org.
Looking for a night of inappropriate and
twisted humor? David Cross, best known
as the clueless dad Tobias Fünke on the
TV comedy Arrested Development, will be
performing stand-up for the first time in over
seven years as part of his two-month Making
America Great Again! tour. (Rachele Krivichi)
24
ut on the town
‘A CONVERSATION ON
“MAKING A MURDERER”’
8 p.m. March 18 at the Pabst Theater,
Milwaukee. $36. pabsttheater.org.
For those who binge-watched Netflix’s
documentary series Making a Murderer
and have unanswered questions, this is the
event for you. Hosted by WUWM’s Mitch
Teich, Avery’s attorneys Dean Strang and
Jerry Buting will participate in a moderated
discussion of the Avery case and the larger
questions it raises about the justice system
in America. A portion of the proceeds from
this event will be donated to equal justice
charities in Wisconsin. (Rachele Krivichi)
‘MASTERWORKS IV’
‘ART IN BLOOM’
March 17 to 20 at the Milwaukee Art Museum. $17, $15 seniors/students, $5 members. mam.org.
Get your head out of the snow and open your eyes to the beauty of flowers. The
Milwaukee Art Museum’s Art In Bloom returns for four days of art-inspired floral
arrangements, a fun floral fashion show ($75 for VIP seating, $40 standing room),
gardening seminars, and family-friendly art-making activities. If that’s not enough, there
will also be lectures on gardening, pollination, and other green topics such as storm water
management. Most importantly, don’t forget your wallets! A variety of local artisans and
craftspeople will be selling floral-inspired work. (Rachele Krivichi)
8 p.m. March 18 at Overture Center,
Madison. $15 to $80. wcoconcerts.org.
Hot off receiving an Emerging
Artist Award at Lincoln Center,
Moscow-born violinist Alexander
Sitkovetsky will return to Madison to
perform with the Wisconsin Chamber
Orchestra this March. He’ll present
Samuel Barber’s effervescent Violin
Concerto, in a program that opens
with Joan Trimble’s Suite for Strings
and Lars Erik Larsson’s Pastorale
and concludes with Beethoven’s
joyful Fourth Symphony. (Matthew
Reddin)
JOHN KOETHE
7 p.m. March 18 at Boswell Book Company,
Milwaukee. Free. boswellbooks.com.
Award-winning local poet John Koethe,
also a distinguished professor of philosophy
emeritus at UW-Milwaukee, is returning
to Boswell Book Company to present his
new work, The Swimmer. His 10th poetry
collection explores the nature of everyday
life, creating a robust portrait of the individual
that is complicated and truthful — one
that “energizes” life’s trivialities, surprises,
disappointments and “the terrible feeling of
being just about to fall.” (Colton Dunham)
JACKIE KASHIAN AND
THE GREAT LAKES
COMEDY AVENGERS
7:30 p.m. March 19 at the South Milwaukee
Performing Arts Center. $10 to $40.
southmilwaukeepac.org.
South Milwaukee-born comedian Jackie
Kashian returns home for this evening of
comedy. The host of weekly podcast The Dork
Forest and stand-up special This Will Make an
Excellent Horcrux, Kashian’s comedy has been
described as “like listening to a really racy
episode of NPR’s All Things Considered.” She’ll
appear with three other Midwestern comics:
Milwaukee’s Tom Clark, mandolin-wielding
Minnesotan Mary Mack and Madison juggler/
comedian Josh Casey. (Matthew Reddin)
25
A curated calendar of upcoming events
March 10- 24
‘HENRY V’
March 19 and 20 at the Marcus Center,
Milwaukee. $17 to $107. mso.org.
For Laurence Olivier’s film production of
Shakespeare’s Henry V, British composer
William Walton was commissioned to
construct an expansive score. The Milwaukee
Symphony Orchestra will recreate it as a work
for speaker, chorus and orchestra, with actor
Marcus Truschinski delivering lines from
the play alongside the MSO and Milwaukee
Symphony Chorus, directed by Edo de Waart.
Also on the program: Haydn’s “Drumroll”
Symphony, a fitting, bombastic prelude to the
Shakespearian score. (Matthew Reddin)
‘EQUINOX: LIGHT AND DARK’
‘GLOBALFEST: CREOLE CARNIVAL’
8 p.m. March 19 at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center, Brookfield. $42 to $73. wilson-center.com.
Music is a global and diverse experience. This especially rings true for those involved
with globalFEST. Founded in 2003, globalFEST started in New York as a small, curated
event for global music lovers and has since transformed into a year-round service
organization striving to increase the popularity of global music in the United States. When
it stops at the Wilson Center, globalFEST 2016 will feature Haiti’s Emeline Michel, Brazil’s
samba master Casuarina, and Jamaica’s one-stringed guitarist Brushy One String. (Colton
Dunham)
‘PATHS TO THE SUMMIT’
5 p.m. March 19 at the Helene Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts, Milwaukee.
$29 or $46; $10 or $15 students. earlymusicnow.org.
Mini history lesson: In the 16th and 17th centuries, many Persian musicians migrated to the
cultural centers of Turkey and Greece, sharing their experience and art with residents of the
Ottoman Empire. Hundreds of years later, Early Music Now hosts Constantinople, a Montrealbased ensemble that will dust off rare examples of those works, evidence of the Iranian artists’
influence on their neighboring countries. The event will be preceded by EMN’s annual silent
auction and chocolate reception, beginning at 3 p.m. (Matthew Reddin)
7 p.m. March 20 at Turner Hall Ballroom,
Milwaukee. $15, $25, $35. presentmusic.org.
Another year has passed and Present
Music is once again contemplating the
balance of light and dark on the occasion
of the spring equinox. This time, the new
music company will present a contrasting
program of works including Vivaldi’s sunny
L’Estro Armonico, Robert Honstein’s brooding
Night Scenes from the Ospedale (deliberately
written to be performed in counterpoint
with Vivaldi works) and works by Kamran
Ince, Judd Greenstein and Andrew Norman.
(Matthew Reddin)
‘CENSORED VOICES’
8 p.m. March 23 at UW-Milwaukee’s Union
Cinema. Free. uwm.edu.
In 1967, Israel launched a preemptive strike
on the mobilizing nations of Egypt, Syria
and Jordan. Over six days, Israel claimed
the West Bank from Jordan, the Gaza Strip
and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the
Golan Heights from Syria, and established
itself as the dominant military power in the
region. In the documentary Censored Voices,
filmmaker Mor Loushy assembles uncensored
audio interviews from survivors of the war,
giving a voice to the soldiers who fought and
risked their lives. UWM’s screening marks a
Milwaukee premiere. (Colton Dunham)
26
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27
Sheboygan’s JMKAC
peers into the world
of artist Mary Nohl
By Michael Muckian
Contributing writer
Milwaukee residents of a certain age
remember it as a right of passage — and
for many it may have been the most
significant artistic display they would
ever see.
The pattern was a familiar one. A
knowledgeable friend, driving through
Fox Point’s darkened residential streets
late at night, would make a hard right
on Beach Drive along the Lake Michigan
shoreline and suddenly stop the car.
Looming in the high-beams were
bizarre figures and otherworldly sculptures that defied definition populating
the yard of what the driver described
as the Witch’s House. Those who didn’t
know any better had no reason to doubt
P H OTO : J M K AC
Many of Nohl’s work takes the form of
statues made of reclaimed materials.
“Diver” is made of wood as well as bits
of polished glass.
the moniker.
The site was, of course, the Mary Nohl
House, the residence, studio and original
gallery of one of Wisconsin’s most prolific and significant artists. Nohl was born
in 1914, and, unlike many of her folk art
contemporaries, was formally trained at
the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. When her parents died in the 1960s,
Nohl inherited a sizable estate, including
the lakefront cottage. She spent the next
four decades transforming the former
family home into what’s now described
as an “art environment,” with more than
7,000 catalogued works inside and outside the house.
When Nohl died at age 87 in 2001, all
of her art, as well as the home and environment she created, was bequeathed to
the Kohler Foundation, based in Sheboygan, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving art environments. The foundation
eventually passed the art and estate
along to the (unaffiliated) John Michael
Kohler Arts Center, where it is now one
of two Wisconsin art environments they
oversee.
JMKAC recently opened Of Heart and
Home: Mary Nohl’s Art Environment, an
exhibition that allows visitors a look
inside the famous lakeside home, which
remains closed to the public.
The exhibition, which closes Aug. 21,
showcases 20 different works of art,
along with a “workshop wall” featuring
more than 100 tools Nohl used to create her art. According to exhibit curator Karen Patterson, Of Heart and Home
is the first of several upcoming exhibits dedicated to the late artist. Patterson recently shared with the Wisconsin
Gazette her thoughts behind the exhibit.
How would you characterize Mary
Nohl’s art?
Mary Nohl was always in conversation
with Lake Michigan. There are maritime
motifs running through most of her work
and she often used organic materials
such as driftwood, pebbles and sand in
her sculptures. I would say, however,
that Mary Nohl refused to be confined
by artistic characterization. She was a
woodcarver, painter, sculptor, cerami-
P H OTO : J M K AC A RC H I V E S
Artist Mary Nohl’s home in Fox Point became her canvas, filled inside and out with
sculptures, carvings, paintings and prints, all reflecting her unique vision.
cist, printmaker, potter, writer, illustrator
and jeweler. Nohl was also an environment builder, altering her home and yard
such that her creations permeated every
room and between every tree.
How would you define an art environment?
This unique field of art making involves
an individual significantly transforming
their personal surroundings, such as
their home or yard, into an exceptional,
multifaceted work of art. The result of
that creative impulse is known as an art
environment. It embodies the maker’s
life experience and expresses the locale
in which they lived and worked.
Often these environments are created without formal plans and are made
of readily available local supplies, such
as concrete, wood, or found items. As
such, every art environment is different
in intent, meaning, scale, or material.
Ultimately, preservation is about keeping the (artist’s) story alive.
How does the JMKAC exhibit enable
visitors to experience the Mary Nohl
house art environment?
In the case of this exhibition, I empathized with the viewer, who can’t get
into the home. I thought it would be very
important for people to see something of
the home itself. Since we had to rebuild
her workshop, I felt that including the
south-facing wall of her workshop in
the gallery would reinforce her interdisciplinary work. By the sheer number
of tools that were on that wall, you can
see that Mary Nohl worked feverishly
in a variety of different media. So that
became the focus of the exhibition.
The exhibition also begins a conversation about what it takes for an institution
to preserve and present an art environment. It also shows some of the preservation decisions that need to be made
and shows works in various states of
restoration. Lastly, it demonstrates Mary
Nohl as a multidisciplinary artist, and I
used the workshop wall as inspiration in
selecting works that respond to the tools
on the wall.
NOHL next page
28
NOHL from prior page
How did you choose the artwork you put on display?
Does it adequately reflect the overall art environment?
There are many ways to talk about Mary Nohl and the
environment. I know that one thing people may be disappointed to know is that the Danny Diver graphic novel is not
on display. I was thinking about more of a workshop setting
and I didn’t think Danny Diver was fitting in a workshop
scene, not that I presume to know where Mary did all of
her work.
For Danny Diver fans, JMKAC will present more of the
Mary Nohl environment during its 50th anniversary (in
2017), and I simply had to hold some things back for that
exhibition.
At one point there was talk of dismantling the cottage
and moving the whole environment to JMKAC. What
changed those plans?
It is always best to keep an art environment where it was
built. Keeping it in situ is pivotal to its reception. We do have
relocated art environments in our collection and we also
have select components of existing art environments in our
collection — whatever we can do to keep the story alive is
what we want to do. Ultimately, after many discussions and
research, the decision for the Mary Nohl art environment
was to keep it where it is.
Is it difficult to curate an environment outside of the
gallery proper?
The vast majority of my job is to curate environments
that I do not have access to, and I find that inspiring. It
requires me to balance a variety of research methods with
creative problem-solving. I do not want to create a Disney
World experience. I want the public to understand that this
is an art environment and it is a unique style of art making
worthy of examination.
P H OTOS : J M K AC
Above: The JMKAC exhibit features a recreation
of one of Mary Nohl’s workshop walls, packed with
tools, as a way to demonstrate the many mediums
she worked in. Right: In addition to her statues,
Nohl’s work includes small figures built of sticks,
used as ornamentation inside and outside her home,
and mesmerizing paintings depicting similar figures.
ON DISPLAY
Of Heart and Home: Mary Nohl’s Art Environment will be on display through Aug. 21 at the
John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 608 New York
Ave., Sheboygan. For more information, call 920458-6144 or visit jmkac.org.
29
Touring the past at the Chudnow Museum of Yesteryear
By Kat Minerath
Contributing writer
What is a man with 1,000 bars of vintage antique soap to do with it all?
For Avrum “Abe” Chudnow (1913–
2005), 1,000 bars of soap was just the
tip of the iceberg. The voracious collector had thousands of everyday items
from the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s — enough
to fill a museum 20 times over. Today,
that’s exactly where many of them are displayed: Milwaukee’s Chudnow Museum of
Yesteryear.
The museum is located on 11th Street,
just south of Kilbourn Avenue — due west
from the courthouse but across the freeway. There, says executive director Steve
Daily, the Chudnow Museum becomes a
vast representation of “American material
culture.”
Even more than that, it is a walk-through
record of Milwaukee in the early 20th
century, with rooms designed to evoke
experiences like visiting a soda shop,
hardware store and even a speakeasy.
Fourteen rooms in this expansive house,
built in 1869, are designed as settings that
revive the past.
Chudnow never lived here, but purchased the property in 1966 for his law
practice, real estate business and as a
home for his ever-expanding collection.
Daily recounts that Chudnow’s wife was
delighted because his treasures had been
taking over their own domicile.
As the son of a peddler, Chudnow was
fascinated from an early age in the stuff
of everyday life, from machines and toys
to packaging and signs. Each room is
densely outfitted with pieces that tell the
story of life in these decades.
The recreation of a hardware store features gas stoves and innovative electric
appliances. During the nascent years of
the 20th century, such stores offered
an array of items that testified to the
changes brought on by electricity in private residences. By the 1920s, 60 percent
of households enjoyed this new convenience and it spurred desire for gadgets
that made domestic chores a bit easier.
After all, just working in the kitchen was
the equivalent of a full-time job for many
a housewife.
The former dining room on the first
UPCOMING EVENTS
floor has been transformed into the H.
Grafman Grocery Store, originally located
at 603 W. Vliet St. Chudnow had a close
connection to the Grafmans, his wife’s
family.
Packages of coffee, flour, cereal, spices
and other dry goods are on display, many
of which still contain their original product. An old-fashioned ice box with wood
facing shows how food was kept chilled
and its furniture-like appearance calls to
mind trends in current kitchen design.
An ornately decorated scale and cash
register, like others seen throughout the
museum, are reminders of the elegant
design and craft lavished on utilitarian
devices.
For a real eye-opener, visit the Bay View
Drug Store display. A variety of bottles
and jars with labels advertising all manner
of potions line the walls, as do advertisements touting various curative benefits.
Many of these treatments were aided
by the addition of now-eyebrow-raising
substances like alcohol, cocaine and heroin. Daily notes that in those days, “medicine was a wide-open field — that’s why
the FDA was created.”
A less narcotic example of an oldfashioned remedy was directed toward
women in the form of skunk oil. It was
an oily, greasy lotion used to prevent
wrinkles and, though it came from the
aromatic animal, it fortunately did not use
the scent of the skunk in its recipe.
Upstairs, the office of one of the home’s
former occupants is recreated. Dr. Joseph
J. Eisenberg had his medical practice here,
receiving patients in a room that brings
together many of the doctor’s professional belongings. In the 1920s and ‘30s, he
not only saw patients, but also performed
operations and X-rays in a room that is
now outfitted as a small movie theatre.
The doctor’s old recovery room is now
home to a display of toys, a source of
fascination for the young and old. Lincoln
Logs and the lesser-known Lincoln Bricks
were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright’s
son, John. It could be said that he followed
his architect father in a DIY fashion.
An Easy Money game by Milton Bradley was a competitor with Parker Brothers’ iconic Monopoly, shown in a 1940s
version that used wooden game piec-
Typewriter Poets
Walker’s Point Center for the Arts
839 S. Fifth St.
6 to 9 p.m. March 12. Free admission.
Anja Notanja Sieger and Undrea Becker are both poets
gifted with distinctive talents for description and evocation. They will write on-the-spot interpretations for interested attendees and this one-night event brings them
together for the first time. The evening also features live
music by Spectron and his Nebulous Band, a seven-piece
combo including gong and pippi, plus a large-scale, comedic literary installation and the chance to create your own
poem collage.
P H O T O : K AT M I N E R AT H
The H. Grafman Grocery Store is recreated in the Chudnow Museum of Yesteryear.
es because of metal shortages during
World War II. Gambling acumen was to be
gained through a horse racing game that
offered instruction on proper techniques
for being a bookie, as well as placing bets.
Other exhibits feature matters of interest to men and women of the time, such
as displays of women’s changing hairstyles and fashions, offering context for
the rebellious appearance of the flapper.
A barbershop with a red velvet chair was a
male retreat and, in this installation, has a
secret door that opens to a speakeasy for
a cocktail after a shave and haircut.
Daily estimates that only about 5 percent of Chudnow’s total collection is on
view, but the museum changes exhibitions
periodically to explore different themes.
Politics is one topic currently at the
forefront. Displays include one on Wisconsin’s “Fighting Bob” La Follette, a formidable Progressive candidate for presi-
Farewell Reception: Todd Mrozinski’s
‘Light from the Pfister’ Series
Pfister Hotel
424 E. Wisconsin Ave.
5 to 10 p.m. March 18. Free admission.
Pfister artist-in-residence Todd Mrozinski wraps up his
12-month tenure with an exhibition showing the complete
works from his evocative series exploring illumination,
shadow and portraiture. The evening will include a video
recap and artist discussion at 8 p.m., plus the “passing
of the brush” to the next artist-in-residence, Pamela M.
Anderson. Also on view are photographs by Annushaka
Peck that capture the interplay of dawn light through
frosted windows.
dent, and a gallery of political memorabilia highlighting the career of Milwaukee’s
longest serving Socialist mayor, Daniel
Hoan.
Strolling through these rooms, with
their extraordinarily presented pieces,
is a rare glimpse back through time. It
reflects how much can be learned through
even the most ordinary items, and instills
admiration for the devotion of Chudnow,
whose ceaseless collecting of the past
became a gift for the future.
The Chudnow Museum of Yesteryear is at
839 N. 11th St. The museum will celebrate St.
Patrick’s Day on March 12 and March 13 by
offering Green River Floats, made with Green
River Soda, free with admission. Admission is
$5, $4 for seniors and students; the museum
is open Wednesday-Sunday. Visit chudnowmuseum.org for more details.
SWAN Day Milwaukee Celebration
RedLine Milwaukee
1422 N. Fourth St.
10 a.m. to 12 p.m. March 19. Free admission.
This exhibition is in honor of Women’s History Month
and is held in conjunction with SWAN/Support Women
Artists Now events happening internationally. Artists
exhibiting will explore the visual theme of the swan as a
potent symbol referencing history, travel, transformation
and more.
— Kat Minerath
30
Madison’s ‘little’ museums offer big ideas
By Michael Muckian
Contributing writer
Gone are the days when museums were
dusty archives of half-forgotten lore. Wisconsin is full of bright, interactive learning
environments that stress teaching important lessons over merely archiving historical minutiae and some of the most interesting and unique examples are tightly
condensed into downtown Madison.
Spring is coming, but there are still
stormy days that beg for indoor activity.
Five of Madison’s “little” museums — three
on the Capitol Square and two on the University of Wisconsin campus — offer some
big ideas for visitors to consider.
UW-Madison Geology Museum
UW-Madison is a world-renowned
research university with countless
resources at its disposal. Two different
schools within the university share their
wealth with the general public via two
innovative museums.
Those who think geology is merely
the study of rocks will have their eyes
opened by a visit to the UW-Madison
Geology Museum, housed in Weeks Hall
on the south edge of campus. Founded in
1848, the same year Wisconsin became a
state, the Geology Museum is a perennial
favorite among visitors thanks to its large
collection of rocks, minerals and fossils.
Home to 120,000 geological and
paleontological specimens, UWMGM is
best known for its fossilized dinosaur
and early mammal skeletons. The collection also includes reptiles, fish, birds and
paleogene mammals from the Jurassic,
Cretaceous, Paleozoic and Early Silurian
periods. The museum also is a repository
for vertebrate fossils from federal lands
and National Park specimens.
Clearly, UWMGM really rocks and in
more ways than one.
The UW-Madison Geology Museum,
located in Weeks Hall at 1215 W. Dayton
St., is free and open to the public from 8:30
to 4:40 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9
a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. Guided tours are
available at a nominal cost of $2 per visitor.
For more information, visit geoscience.wisc.
edu/museum_wp.
L.R. Ingersoll Physics Museum
Those who want to get their physics on — and who among us doesn’t?
— will want to visit the L.R. Ingersoll
Physics Museum, located in Chamberlin Hall in the heart of the UW campus.
Established in 1918 and celebrating its
centennial in 2018, the museum was
one of the first in the nation devoted to
the study of physics.
It’s also an incredibly interactive
museum, asking patrons to dive into
physics hand-first. The museum’s six
subject areas are mechanics, computerbased physics, electricity and magnetism, light and optics, wave and sound,
and modern physics, and each features
multiple experiments to explore. “Light
and Optics” alone offers 14 different
interactive activities, giving visitors to
the smallest of these five options some
of the most vibrant experiences.
The L.R. Ingersoll Physics Museum,
located in Chamberlin Hall at 1150 University Ave., is free and open to the public
Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. until
4 p.m. The experience is self-guided, but
guided group tours can be arranged. For
tour and other information, contact Program and Museum Manager Steve Narf at
608-262-3898 or snarf@wisc.edu.
Wisconsin Veterans Museum
The Wisconsin Veterans Museum would
boast a bigger collection were it not for
tragedy: a 1904 fire that gutted the city’s
Capitol building and destroyed many of the
Civil War relics stored there. The remaining collection was itinerant for many years
afterward, moving around the Capitol and
growing with each armed national conflict.
In 1993, it finally found a home right across
the street.
The Veterans Museum, a Smithsonian
Affiliate institution, boasts 20,000 square
feet of exhibit space. Its displays chronicle
American wars from the Civil War to modern-day Middle East conflicts. The museum
has more than 3,000 artifacts, and an estimated 90,000 visitors pass through its
doors each year.
Its first-class permanent exhibitions
bring visitors into dioramas with the men
and women who have served. The museum also offers online exhibits, to explore
subjects in greater depth, and a traveling
exhibit program that brings the museum’s
collection to different locations around the
state.
And it hosts temporary exhibitions, many
featuring works from outside the museum’s
collection. Its current exhibit even dabbles
in the realm of visual art. War: Raw features 59 dramatic pieces of art created by
Wisconsin veterans as a way of recovering
from post-traumatic stress disorder and
traumatic brain injury. The art therapy program is sponsored by the nonprofit Artists
for the Humanities, and helps veterans confront unresolved trauma, embrace personal
growth and successfully reintegrate into
civilian life.
War: Raw is on display through May 8. The
Wisconsin Veterans Museum at 30 W. Mifflin St. is free and open to the public Tuesday
through Saturday from 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.,
Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. Call 608-2671799 or visit wisvetsmuseum.com for more
details.
31
Wisconsin Historical Museum
Across the street from the Veterans
Museum you can learn even more about our
state’s past by visiting the Wisconsin Historical Museum. As the public face of the
Wisconsin Historical Society, the museum
has extensive archives, and displays them
through exhibits, programs and lectures
about the growth and development of the
Badger State.
Three floors of exhibition space chart
Wisconsin’s history, from the first Native
American residents through its frontier
period to the establishment of cities and
towns. Historical artifacts are joined by
photos, maps, paintings and other objects
to tell Wisconsin’s story.
The museum may be best known for its
“History Sandwiched In” noon lunch lecture
series. Upcoming installments include discussions of Ole Evinrude, the Wisconsinite
who invented the first outboard motor for
boats (March 15), the lavish Lake Geneva
mansion Black Point Estate (April 5), Wisconsin families during World War II (April
19), and Native American effigy mounds
(May 3). Bring a bag lunch, sit back and
experience history.
The Wisconsin Historical Museum at 30
N. Carroll St. is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
and closed on major holidays. Admission
is free to Historical Society members; nonmembers are asked for an admission donation of $5 for adults and $3 for children. For
more information, call 608-264-6555 or visit
historicalmusuem.wisconsinhistory.org.
Wisconsin State Capitol
The final option is by far the largest
and best known — and technically isn’t
a “museum,” per se. But the Wisconsin
State Capitol, in the center of Madison’s
isthmus, offers plenty of history as well
as an occasional chance to see history in
the making.
The current Capitol building is the
state’s third structure in that spot. The
first Capitol, built in 1838, was replaced
by a larger structure in 1863. When the
1904 fire destroyed that building, a third,
even grander Capitol was built between
1906 and 1917 at a cost of $7.25 million.
Legend has that the current Capitol
building was originally five inches taller
than the national Capitol in Washington
D.C., due to a statue of an eagle that
graced the top of the dome. The eagle
was subsequently replaced by Daniel
Chester French’s shorter (but no less
elegant) statue “Wisconsin” — not, as it’s
often mistakenly called, “Miss Forward,”
the name of a smaller statue on the
Capitol grounds. The Athena-like bronze
statue of a woman with a badger on her
head reduces the building’s height to a
nationally acceptable level below that of
the national Capitol.
The State Capitol’s biggest draw is its
monumental architecture, produced from
43 varieties of stone, and the series of
murals located throughout the building.
The Capitol dome, which peaks at 200
feet above the ground, is the country’s
only granite dome. Artist Edwin Blash-
field’s mural “Resources of Wisconsin”
lavishly decorates the ceiling of the
rotunda.
The murals continue through the state
Supreme Court, Senate and Assembly
chambers. The Governor’s Conference
Room also boasts a decorated ceiling and
historic portraiture.
History buffs may want to look for the
small statute of Old Abe, the American
bald eagle that accompanied the Eighth
Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment
and served as mascot during more than
30 bloody Civil War battles. His likeness presides over the state Assembly
Chamber.
Free tours of the State Capitol are offered
on the hour 358 days per year. Report to
the tour desk in the lobby of the Capitol a 2
E. Main St. or call 608-266-0382 for large
group reservations. Self-guided tours also
are allowed.
STILL ROCKIN’ AT 35
JOIN US FOR THE NON-STOP PARTY
THROUGHOUT MARCH.
SEE OUR FULL LISTING OF FUN AT WMSE.ORG
32
Wisconsin’s poet laureate taps Native American roots
By Michael Muckian
Contributing writer
Kimberly Blaeser wasn’t born a poet, but it
didn’t take long for her Native American heritage and its storytelling culture to influence
how she experienced the world. Those oral
traditions now inform her poetry, allowing
her to take her writing in creative directions.
Blaeser now serves as an English professor at UW-Milwaukee, where she teaches creative and critical writing and Native
American literature. She also is Anishinaabe,
an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, and grew up on the White Earth
reservation in northwestern Minnesota.
Taken together, her heritage and job significantly influence her current position as
Wisconsin’s official poet laureate, appointed
by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts
& Letters. Now in her second year of the
two-year appointment, she hopes the position gives her a platform to promote poetry’s
importance in the state.
Blaeser also wants to revive the practice
of poetry recitation to increase the literary
form’s popularity and return poetry to one
of its fundamental roots. “I had the gift of
growing up among some amazing storytellers gifted in oral performance,” Blaeser says.
“I guess that got inside me and seemed like
a way to have that power of words and language be a part of who I am.”
Oral performance is a critical part of
Native American culture, Blaeser says. Reci-
tation was a way to pass traditions and
lore from one generation to the next and
played an important role in ceremonial rituals, something to which the poet laureate
had extensive exposure while growing up.
“Oratory is very important to the transmission of Native American culture,” she
explains. “Also, in northwestern Minnesota
we didn’t have any TV growing up, so it also
was part of our entertainment.”
Blaeser will be explaining this and other
facets of the art form at the 2016 Poetry &
Pi(e), a poetry reading sponsored by the
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters and held on the UW-Madison campus.
The March 14 event, in celebration of "Pi
Day," will feature coffee and homemade pies
in addition to a reading by Blaeser.
Many of Blaeser’s poems tap into her
Native American heritage. Others discuss
nature themes and other, more personal
thoughts and feelings. However, poetry is
not her only medium.
“In addition to poetry, I write and publish
in many genres, including fiction, nonfiction, plays and biography,” says Blaeser, who
worked as a photojournalist before receiving
her master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame.
Her published poetry works include
Apprenticed to Justice (Salt Press, 2007),
Absentee Indians and Other Poems (Michigan
State University Press, 2002) and other volumes. She will tap these and other sources
for the March 14 reading.
“I try to write poetry that’s speakable
and I always talk to myself and read things
out loud when I am writing,” she explains.
“Poetry is ‘sonic’ and you have to hear it. It’s
part of the creation process and the way I
understand poetry.”
But there is a little more to poetry than
just its delivery, at least from Blaeser’s perspective. The audience, whether readers or
listeners, also has a role to play.
“Any type of writing informs through a
sense of reciprocity, and that’s how the oral
traditions work,” Blaeser explains. “My work
allows that reciprocity. It’s an invitation as
well as an exploration of ideas that leaves
room for reader or listener response.”
Blaeser hopes to attract more interest
and response from budding state poets and
poetry fans under a new initiative that will
help Wisconsin poets gain greater exposure
to new and untried audiences.
The Wisconsin Poetry Recitation Challenge, which Blaeser plans to launch in April,
invites poets and poetry fans to submit a
video of themselves reciting their favorite
poems from memory.
Blaeser oversaw a soft launch of the program on Jan. 30 at Milwaukee’s Woodland
Pattern Book Center, 720 E. Locust St. The
event started at 10 a.m. and didn’t finish until
1 a.m. the following morning, with 143 poets
reciting favorite poems and original works.
“Poetry has more than one life and one of
Sean@SAldrich.net
those lives is its performance,” she says.
Entries can be submitted via email to
wipoetlaureate@gmail.com. Each entry
should include some brief background as to
the choice of the poem, as well as the name
of the reciter, title and author of the poem
performed, and the location and date of the
recitation.
An editorial committee will review all
video submissions, and acceptable submissions will be posted on an interactive Wisconsin map available on the Wisconsin Poet
Laureate at wisconsinpoetlaureate.org. The
deadline for submissions is March 31 at 5
p.m.
“I want to make Wisconsin the poetry
recitation capital of the United States,” Blaeser says. “We have a different relationship
with poetry when we memorize a poem. It
changes the way we understand the poem
and it stays with us for life.”
IF YOU GO
“Poetry & Pi(e),” featuring Wisconsin
Poet Laureate Kimberly Blaeser, will be
held March 14 at the Steenbock Center,
1922 University Ave., on the UW-Madison campus. Tickets are $25 for academy members, $35 for nonmembers.
For reservations call 608-263-1692, ext.
11, or email afai@wisconsinacademy.org.
33
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34
Milwaukee Rep’s ‘Invisible
Hand’ questions the
morality of capitalism
By Matthew Reddin
Staff writer
Last year, the Milwaukee Rep announced
a partnership with playwright Ayad Akhtar,
a Milwaukee native who’d since made it big
both onstage and in other written media.
The four-year collaboration will see the Rep
producing three of Akhtar’s plays, including
his Pulitzer Prize-winner Disgraced, followed
by a world premiere commission.
If the first play, The Invisible Hand, is any
indication, it’s going to be a great four years.
Akhtar’s thriller about an American banker
kidnapped by militants in Pakistan is a gripping work in and of itself, but its true success comes from the way it challenges the
assumed benevolence of capitalism using
the language of the marketplace itself.
Technically, no economics primer is necessary before walking into this production
— Akhtar places just the right amount of
exposition in the mouth of captured American Nick Bright (Tom Coiner) to get even the
most financially illiterate viewer through.
But it certainly can’t hurt to know in
advance that the play’s title references the
core belief that guides Nick and every mainstream Western economist and financier.
The “invisible hand,” a term coined by 18th-
century Scottish philosopher Adam Smith,
is the moral justification for having a free
market, capitalist system, like that of the
United States and other Western nations.
It argues that a free market tends toward
benevolence because individuals will act in
their own self-interest and counter others’
attempts to unfairly profit.
The problem, as the play quickly makes
clear, is that those who know how to play
the game have an advantage over those who
don’t. The militants who have captured Nick
— Imam Saleem (Tony Mirrcandani), his
lieutenant Bashir (Shalin Agarwai) and grunt
Dar (Owais Ahmed) — are all dedicated to
fighting the corrupt West, but they’re outgunned on both military and financial levels.
Nick changes that. When the U.S. government formally declares Imam Saleem a
terrorist — making it impossible for them
or Nick’s family to negotiate a ransom for
his release — Saleem decides to trade Nick
to the fundamentalist group responsible for
the death of Americans including Daniel
Pearl, who will kill him as propaganda. Nick
offers an alternative: With his knowledge of
the global and local markets, Nick will teach
Bashir how to make millions buying and selling financial securities.
P H O T O : M I C H A E L B R O S I LO W
Nick (Tom Coiner, left) and Bashir (Shalin Agarwal) share a complicated prisoner-captor/teacher-student relationship in The Invisible Hand.
This might sound dry, but it never
becomes so onstage — largely due to the
high-speed, high-stakes nature of the game
Nick and Bashir are playing. At one point, the
teacher describes the method to his trainee
as gambling on the marketplace, betting that
a company’s fortunes will rise, or fall, and
buying and selling accordingly. As we watch
the two place their bets, the tension begins
to resemble a Vegas casino as much as a
claustrophobic Pakistani prison cell — albeit
one where failure will result in the loss of millions of dollars and Nick’s life.
Coiner and Agarwai carry the bulk of the
production, their characters a curious and
volatile mix of friends, rivals and mortal
enemies. At first, this is a sustainable equilibrium — Nick has all the knowledge and
Bashir all the power. But the more Bashir
learns, the more dangerous and unstable
he becomes, with his religious beliefs warring with his new capitalist understandings.
It’s a dissonance Agarwai wears well. Every
moment he’s onstage, he commands attention, and it’s never clear what he’ll do next.
Interestingly, The Invisible Hand doesn’t
show Nick adopting a similar uncertainty.
True to form, every action he takes is in
his own self-interest: He agrees to play the
markets to save his life, chips away at the
bricks and mortar of his cell to try and make
his own escape, remains silent and focused
on self-preservation when his captors begin
to grow suspicious of each other. But this
time, Nick doesn’t have the luxury of being
removed by class and distance from the consequences of those actions — ones that will
eventually be countered, as his theory of the
invisible hand promises, but lead to violent
instability in the interim.
The Invisible Hand is almost a parable in
this way, explaining the moral ambiguity of
capitalism and the free market through a
vivid, captivating narrative. But it’s a parable
that haunts long after you leave the theater
— because if the only way to defeat a morally bankrupt society is to use its own weapons against it, that may not be a victory at all.
ON STAGE
The Milwaukee Rep’s production of
The Invisible Hand runs through April 3
in the Stiemke Studio, 108 E. Wells St.
Tickets start at $20 and can be ordered
at 414-224-9490 or milwaukeerep.com.
Download our
FREE Whitening Guide:
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35
Splinter Group finds safe harbor with ‘Shipwrecked!’
By Anne Siegel
Contributing writer
There’s far more than meets the eye at
work when the four-person cast of Shipwrecked! An Entertainment sets sail. The play,
written by Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies and produced by Milwaukee theater
Splinter Group, is a riotous romp in the vein
of classic high-seas adventures, albeit one
that plays fast and loose with the truth for
comedic and poignant effect.
The play’s subtitle, The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (As Told by Himself), is a literal explanation of the play’s
events, but the more significant part of the
long title comes earlier. “An Entertainment”
is the real giveaway for what is going on here.
For the rest of the evening, Louis (portrayed
by T. Stacy Hicks) will narrate his supposed
survival of disaster after disaster, all with a
broad, inviting smile and the larger-than-life
showmanship of a circus ringleader.
The play’s adventures most resemble novels such as Robinson Caruso and The Arabian
Nights. These specific books — among many
others — are also among those Louis tells
us his mother read to him when he was a
sickly child, growing up in London. Unable to
play outdoors with other children, Louis was
entertained by his protective mother.
So it is no surprise that much healthier
Louis leaves home at 16 to pursue his own
faraway adventures. As luck has it (one of
many humorous coincidences in this show),
he encounters a grouchy sea captain (played
by a deep-voiced Kathiamarice Lopez) who
is about to set sail on a pearl-hunting expedi-
ON STAGE
Splinter Group’s production of Shipwrecked! An Entertainment runs through
March 13 at the Marian Center for Nonprofits, 3211 S. Lake Drive, Milwaukee.
Tickets are $15 ($20 at the door) and
can be ordered at splinter-group.org or
414-935-2207.
tion to the Coral Sea, off the coast of Australia. Of course he invites Louis to become part
of the crew. Oh, the amazing things that can
happen in 19th-century London!
As the boat sets sail, Louis’ adventures
are about to begin. He survives an attack by
a sea monster during a storm; washes up on
a beach along with the faithful ship’s dog,
Bruno; learns to ride sea turtles for amusement; falls in love with one of the native girls
who also wash ashore on the island many
years later; has two daughters; and then
makes a tearful farewell as he sails to Australia and, eventually, back to England.
Over the course of this 90-minute show,
Splinter Group easily demonstrates both the
power of storytelling — timeless as cavemen
sitting around a campfire — and the power
of theater — able to delight audiences even
with a minimum amount of props, costume
changes or actors.
The story, under the co-direction of company founders Niffer Clarke and Jim Farrell,
manages to stay afloat for the entire 90
minutes, thanks in large part to T. Stacy
Hicks. Hicks is onstage the entire time, either
acting out scenes or addressing the audience
directly as the play’s narrator. His energy
and zest for the story is infectious. With the
glee of a pied piper, he confidently brings the
audience along on his amazing journeys. He
even gets a chance to demonstrate some of
his acrobatic skills.
He often invites audience members to
consider their own emotions under various
circumstances. “How would you feel,” he
says after surviving a stormy night at sea,
“if you wake up (the next morning) at sea,
clinging to a bit of ship debris, and can’t see
anything but water?”
The rest of the cast plays dozens of roles.
David Rothrock is funny and realistic as the
ship’s dog, which makes it all the better
when he later portrays Queen Victoria, slipping a medal of honor over Louis’ head upon
his return to London.
The female cast members, Lopez and Kris-
P H OTO : S P L I N T E R G RO U P
T. Stacy Hicks narrates Shipwrecked! as the adventurer Louis de Rougemont.
tin Johnson, are also up to the task. Lopez
gives a touching performance as Louis’
mother and, later, as his jungle-raised wife.
The women also portray Victorian ladies
sipping tea (Rothrock is one of these, too),
London-based scientists, the ship’s crew, a
magazine editor, and more.
The cast also gets extra credit for periodically breaking out hand-held sound effects
equipment (no synthesized noises allowed).
The sounds of crashing thunder, didgeridoo
playing and — most enjoyably — typing on
a manual typewriter enrich the production.
The single set, created by Jim Farrell, sug-
gests a nautical theme. Walls are draped
with fish decorations, ship rigging, wood
buoys and so forth. Sturdy storage crates
are moved around the stage for individual
scenes.
Although Shipwrecked! sometimes veers
toward melodrama, it is very funny and —
as the title implies — entertaining. Here’s
the “more than it seems” part. One must
confront the extent of one’s own sense of
disbelief to determine whether the events
recounted are real or not. In other words,
how much truth is in the tale?
36
Lena Dunham begins to say goodbye to HBO’s ‘Girls’
The Interview Hub
Lena Dunham is a feminist force of nature. The wunderkind actress/director/writer/producer best known for her
ground-breaking TV series Girls has helped young women
(and men) come to terms with the agonies and ecstasies of
sex, relationships, work and personal identity.
As the eternally conflicted and self-questioning Hannah
Horvath, Dunham has served as a lightning rod for female
angst alongside her Girls castmates — Allison Williams
(Marnie Michaels), Jemima Kirke (Jessa Johansson) and
Zosia Mamet (Shoshanna Shapiro). Over the years we’ve
watched Hannah try to make sense of her dysfunctional
relationship with Adam (Adam Driver) while her friends deal
with their own challenges of love, lust, and longing.
Soon audiences will get a chance to revel in more adventures in Hannah and her sisters-in-arms’ world as the fifth
season of the cult HBO series unfolds. Recently, Dunham
confirmed that Girls will come to an end after Season 6
(set for release in 2017) in order to avoid “overstaying our
welcome” and not “soften” as many series do over extended
runs.
“It’s been very rewarding to have seen this show address
issues that are important to me and which are important to
women in general,” Dunham says. “I’m also proud that we
have such a great and amazing team of women who are part
of Girls and have contributed so much while being supportive of each other in an industry that needs to be give more
opportunities to women.”
Season 5 of Girls picks up on the more hopeful ending
note of Season 4, in which Hannah enters a serious, more
adult relationship with her teaching colleague, Fran (Jake
Lacey). Over the course of the new season, their romance
evolves into a safe haven for Hannah, but it may not be
what she wants after so many years of dysfunction with
Adam. Meanwhile, Marnie’s marriage may be hitting the
skids while Shoshanna deals with the aftermath of her decision to leave her adoring boyfriend Scott (Jason Ritter) and
Jessa’s new occupation as a therapist causes her to do some
soul-searching while questioning the way she looks at her
relationship with the other girls.
The 29-year-old Dunham grew up the daughter of wellknown members of the New York arts scene — her mother
is famed photographer Laurie Simmons and her father is the
artist Carroll Dunham.
Lena Dunham lives in New York City with her longtime
boyfriend, musician Jack Antonoff. Said Dunham about her
strong female following: “We’ve been very blessed to have
the experience of people continuing to engage in the show in
a really kind of rabid way.”
Dunham made an appearance at the recent Sundance Film
Festival to present her new documentary film, Suited, which
she produced. She also made headlines last year when she
interviewed Hillary Clinton for her email newsletter.
We sat down with Dunham to talk about the final seasons
of Girls, as well as what’s next for her and how she’s adapting
to being in the media spotlight.
How do you feel about bringing Girls to an end?
When I started working on Girls I was 23 and I conceived
it as something that would cover a very specific period in
the lives of the characters. It was about figuring things out
in your 20s as you become adults and now that I’m about to
turn 30 I feel that it’s time the women you see in the series
move on just as we need to move on to other projects. …
These birds have to fly!
You’ve spoken about wanting to keep the momentum up
and not wanting to go past a sixth season.
GIRLS next page Girls’ fifth season is currently airing on HBO.
P H OTO : H B O
37
GIRLS from prior page
It’s important to wrap up the storylines
in a way that preserves the original idea
and integrity of what I wanted to say about
these young women and their experience of
getting a job, becoming an adult and dealing
with everything that comes with that time in
their lives.
Now that I’m turning 30, it makes sense to
bring my 20s to a close and be able to move
on to start thinking about and pursuing other
projects. I want to do films and write other
kinds of stories and as much as I’ve loved
Girls it’s the right time to wrap things up.
What are your feelings about your generation when it comes to sex and relationships?
Women are as confused by sex and the
emotions that come with it as ever. Our
instincts aren’t helping us when it comes
to dealing with men in their twenties who
don’t have a deep need or understanding
of romantic relationships. I doubt that most
men in their 20s are emotionally equipped
to handle a serious relationship.
Most films and TV are utterly irrelevant
to younger women because they never get
at serious issues of self-worth and communication and being able to really talk to
guys. We’ve grown up with the distancing
effect of Facebook and texting and that often
provides a false sense of comfort.
I also wanted to present sexual situations
in a realistic way and not portray sex as
this classically profound or deeply romantic
experience. Women can watch this series
and think and talk about their own experiences without feeling so awkward about
it. That’s why it’s important to break down
these taboos and television is the most
effective medium to do that.
What do you see for yourself now that
you’re about to enter your 30s?
I would like to stay in New York and continue writing and directing. I love the city. It
is my home and here is my family. I hope I
have children. And I hope over the next 10
years I’m going to make a few more movies
and write some more books that I will be
proud of.
I also hope that there are going to be a
lot of interesting surprises. If you had told
me at the beginning of my 20s that I would
be where I am today, I would never have
believed it!
Was fame something that attracted you?
Fame is a byproduct. My goal was always
to be creative and write stories that are
enlightening and compelling in some way. I
wanted to talk about women’s lives and the
way we engage the world and all the issues
and problems young women face. I felt that
there hadn’t really been a lot that I’d seen in
film and especially on TV that I could relate
to and that really spoke to my experience
and many young women like me.
You’ve been very critical of the way society judges women’s bodies.
We live in a time in which we are confronted with unrealistic body images that the
media is promoting and defining women in
terms of those very idealized images.
Women are constantly staring at body
images that do not like ours. This creates a
lot of problems with regard to how to see
ourselves and the guilt and resentment and
shame we feel toward our bodies. That’s not
only true for women but for men as well. The
difference is that men are not judged on their
appearances and whether they conform to
an ideal the way women are judged.
You’ve been on a running and fitness kick
of late, haven’t you?
I decided that it was time to change my
habits. I’m the kind of person who would
stay in bed and write all day if I could. Running and becoming more active physically
is not something I was really anxious to do
but once I started running I actually experienced that rush of endorphins that runners
talk about. I feel really good after I’ve been
running.
I’m naturally very lazy physically so this
has been a revelation for me and I have
changed my attitude about exercise. I’ve
realized that just like you need to use your
brain so it doesn’t atrophy so you need to
move your body to keep it healthy.
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The Broadway Musical
You’ve spoken many times about the
kinds of nasty and even vicious comments
people have made about your body?
It’s very hurtful. Anyone who goes through
high school and has to deal with taunting and insults will understand that. Now
most of the abuse that comes my way is
on the Internet and it’s easier to handle
that although it’s never pleasant. But insults
about your appearance are always the last
resort of someone who can’t find a more
intelligent or civilized way to disagree with
you. I can’t take it seriously.
What advice would you give young
women or teenagers who are subject to
body shaming and being called fat or ugly?
When I was a teenager, I was so confused
about how my body was changing and so
full of fear that I would say: “You know
what? Everything will be fine.” The best thing
you can do is to be interested in becoming
more aware of who you are and the world
around you. You should accept that some
days you’re going to like yourself and feel
super about who you are and your appearance and on other days you’re going to hate
yourself and the way you look.
But don’t get caught up in that and just
stay true to who you are and explore life with
a lot of hope and passion. The most important thing is to find a way to keep the mind
and body in harmony and to find a healthy
way to deal with both.
You’ve produced a documentary, Suited,
which you brought to Sundance. What can
you say about that?
My sister is the subject of the documentary and she is someone who has always had
a complex relationship with gender. She’s
a gender-non-conforming person born in a
woman’s body. … She’s the coolest person
I know.
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38
Cameron Esposito: ‘Marriage Material’ Girl
By Gregg Shapiro
Contributing writer
In the world of lesbian comedy — or comedy in general — Cameron Esposito is the
new reigning queen. Esposito, best recognized by her trademark asymmetrical haircut
or her comedic delivery (a cross between Tig
Notaro and Paula Poundstone), has her audience rolling in the aisles on her new stand-up
comedy special Marriage Material, debuting
March 24 on the new comedy streaming
service Seeso, operated by NBC.
Filmed in front of a live and enthusiastic hometown audience at Chicago’s Thalia
Hall mere days before her wedding to fellow comic Rhea Butcher, Esposito skillfully
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demonstrated why she’s an in-demand performer. WiG spoke with Esposito about the
special and her career in February.
In the realm of comedy, Chicago is known
first as the home of improv and then as a
place for stand-up. Did you put in your time
in the improv scene or did you go directly
into stand-up?
I got my start doing improv in Boston during and after college, then moved back to
my hometown Chicago, an improv Mecca
and never did improv again. I’m 10 years
into stand-up and have definitely found my
home.
It’s interesting that you did improv in
Boston, a city that is well-known for its
stand-up comedy scene. Did you partake in
the stand-up scene when you lived there?
I did the opposite. Only improv in Boston.
Only stand-up in Chicago. Well, stand-up
and whiskey and thin crust pizza. That’s
right, thin crust in Chicago.
You talk about going to Catholic school in
Marriage Material. Were you a class clown?
Nope. Total jock. Three-sport athlete, captain of the swim team, into reading and
committed to student government. But I was
a big wacky. Like very friendly and wore lots
of weird belts.
You include social commentary in Marriage Material on subjects such as guns,
marriage and body shaming. What is comedy’s role when it comes to social issues?
I believe comedy is one of the best ways
to process pain and inequality. It puts folks
at ease in a way that creates real dialogue
and movement on issues that, if approached
directly, would trigger knee-jerk emotional
responses. But, also, comics really just talk
about what they’re interested in and I’m
most preoccupied with working for social
change.
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You make references to your haircut in
the special. I wanted to ask you to say a
few words about the connection between
Chicago comedians, such as you and Emo
Phillips, and their iconic hairstyles.
Emo still sports his classic cut, which is
beautiful to behold in person. My wife and
fellow comic, Rhea Butcher, is known for her
David Lynch-esque (hair) as well. But other
than us, Chicago stand-up is kind of a sea of
beards and glasses. Well, a lake, I guess. A
lake of beards.
Your show was taped for Seeso in Chicago a couple of days before your wedding
to Rhea. What’s it like living in a two-comedian household?
Serious.
You work in a very Chicago-specific bit
about the homophobic Old Navy preacher.
How important is it for you to include, as
you call it, “local stuff” into your show?
It’s always fun to connect with the audi-
P H OTO : M A N D E E J O H N SO N
Cameron Esposito recorded her new special Marriage Material days before marrying wife Rhea Butcher in Chicago.
ence in a specific city and give them some
points for being unique and having a culture
all their own. On my side of things, though,
the motivation is even stronger. Connecting to each city I’m in keeps stand-up fresh
and keeps the challenge alive. And I love a
challenge.
Menstruation humor is a big part of your
show and you talk about how no one ever
makes jokes about it. Are there any subjects that you consider to be off-limits?
(Laughs) “Menstruation humor” is an
amazing statement. No, no topics are off limits. However, heavy or taboo topics require
special care, attention and clarity. That’s
when things go south: when a comic takes
on a huge topic without realizing it’s huge.
You and You’re the Worst creator Stephen
Falk will be collaborating on a series exploring gender and sexuality for FX. What can
you tell me about it?
It’s set in Chicago!
That’s it, huh? OK, Cameron. Finally, if
Thalia Hall was a drag queen, what would
she look like?
Divine in a Bears jersey.
39
Disney’s ‘Zootopia’ a wildly entertaining CG adventure
By Michael Rechtshaffen
The Hollywood Reporter
Just when it was looking like animated animal movies had run out of anything original to say, along comes
Disney’s smartly amusing, crisply relevant Zootopia to
handily demonstrate there’s still plenty of bite left in the
anthropomorphic CG menagerie.
Boasting a pitch-perfect voice cast led by a terrific Ginnifer Goodwin as a righteous rural rabbit who becomes
the first cotton-tailed police recruit in the mammal-centric city of Zootopia, the 3-D caper expertly combines keen
wit with a gentle, and very timely, message of inclusivity
and empowerment.
The engaging result should easily appeal to all creatures great and small, giving this premium Walt Disney
Animation Studios effort a paw up on spring break entertainment, not to mention the summer arrival of Universal’s animated The Secret Life of Pets.
As the Zootopia Police Department’s sole bunny officer,
idealistic Judy Hopps (Goodwin) discovers that breaking barriers can be an uphill climb, especially when the
other cops in the force are mainly of the more imposing
elephant/rhino/hippo ilk.
Although intrepid Judy can’t wait to collar her first perp,
Bogo (Idris Elba), Precinct 1’s gruff cape buffalo police
chief, has other plans, assigning her to parking duty,
where she proves her worth by writing 200 tickets before
noon on her first day.
But when a number of Zootopia’s residents abruptly go
missing, Bogo gives Judy the green light to do some big
time police work and she finds herself partnering up with
Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), a sly, world-weary scam artist of a fox, in a 48-hour bid to crack the case.
Nimbly directed by Byron Howard (Tangled, Bolt) and
Rich Moore (Wreck-It Ralph), along with co-director Jared
Bush, who shares screenplay credit with Phil Johnston,
the romp serves up plenty of sharply observed satire (a
DMV manned entirely by sloths is played to hilariously
protracted effect) wrapped up in judicious life lessons
that never feel preachy or shoehorned-in.
While Goodwin and Bateman are a voice-casting dream
team come true as a dysfunctional duo who learn to follow their instincts over preconceived notions, they’re
joined by a nicely diverse supporting ensemble that also
includes J.K. Simmons, Tommy Chong, Octavia Spencer
and Shakira as a gazelle pop star who performs the film’s
original song, “Try Everything,” co-written by hit-makers
Sia and Stargate.
Also making their lines count are Jenny Slate as a notso-sheepish sheep who serves as Zootopia’s predatoraverse assistant mayor and Maurice LaMarsh as an arctic
shrew version of Don Corleone named Mr. Big.
Visually, the Zootopia canvas pops — with or without
the 3-D glasses — thanks to a gorgeously vibrant color
palette and whimsical architectural scales orchestrated
by production designer David Goetz. His work is in keeping with an all-mammal parallel universe composed of
distinct microclimates like sunny Bunnyburrow, icy Tundratown and self-explanatory Little Rodentia.
Composer Michael Giacchino, meanwhile, in his first
non-Pixar animated feature assignment, delivers a typically buoyant score, playfully tossing in music cues that
pay affectionate homage to Bernard Herrmann and Nino
Rota.
Zootopia, a Disney release, is rated PG by the Motion
Picture Association of America for “some thematic elements,
P H OTO : D I S N E Y
rude humor and action.” Running time: 95 minutes.
Zootopia imagines a world of anthropomorphic animals,
From AP’s member exchange.
tackling a very human tale of investigative adventure.
R e sourc ef ul . De t erm in ed . R e sp ect ed .
music theatre
At Gimbel, Reilly, Guerin & Brown LLP, we have provided comprehensive
solutions for individuals, businesses and other legal colleagues since 1968.
We take our position as problem solvers very seriously, and work hard to
help our clients realize the best possible outcome for their unique situations.
Emily I. Lonergan, Attorney
Gimbel, Reilly, Guerin & Brown LLP
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414.291.7800 | skylightmusictheatre.org
Don’t forget about
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PH: (414) 271-1440
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MARCH
a pre-show gathering for the LGBT
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use code BEOUT40 at checkout
10
40
Special backpacks help deaf students experience music
By Jarad Jarmon
Mattoon Journal-Gazette
A tool used normally by DJs to feel
intense bass without doing long-term
hearing damage will now be used by deaf
and hard-of-hearing students at Williams
Elementary School in Mattoon, Illinois, to
experience music tactilely.
With a grant from Illinois Alliance of
Administrators of Special Education, these
Eastern Illinois Area of Special Education deaf and hard-of hearing-students will
now have a way to experience and follow
along with music in class.
In their music classes, they will now be
strapping on a backpack, SubPac, that produces heavy, deep vibrations that correlate
with the music that is being played.
“We were having some problems with
students in the music class not feeling
connected,” said Debbie Rotramel, EIASE
associate director. “They weren’t able to
hear the music that the teacher played.”
While other students would be able to
interact and respond, the students with
hearing issues were unable to join in,
Rotramel said.
Alex Murrill, EIASE teacher, said they
would sometimes have the student put
their hand against the speaker as it played
music, but it was not a really fluid way
of giving the students the experience of
music.
“The teachers talked to me about that
and wondered if I could come up with any
ideas so I started doing some research and
I found what is called SubPac,” Rotramel
said.
Students will be using these packs to
feel the music, instead of hearing it, to
follow along and stay caught up with the
class. Emitting frequencies between 5 and
130 hertz, the backpack produces a similar
experience to that of a speaker shaking
when music is loud.
Vivian Richey signed that it was similar
to when a car starts and the music is loud,
causing the car to vibrate.
“This gives them that experience so
that they can make that connection (to
music),” Rotramel said.
When putting on the backpack, many of
the students’ faces lit up at having a tangible way of experiencing music. In some
of the first tests of the equipment, many of
the students would even dance with songs
like “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae).”
“It’s awesome,” Jadyn Adams of
Shelbyville said.
Jadyn said it was difficult to concentrate
on what the instructor would say as well as
listen to the music being played.
Currently, only two packs were purchased for the students, but Rotramel said
she would like to get more in order for
everyone in the class to experience it at
one time.
“It just provides them another outlet
P H O T O : S U B PA C
Originally designed for DJs, the SubPac backpack is being used by Williams Elementary
School in eastern Illinois to help deaf and hard of hearing students experience music.
The backpacks create deep vibrations in sync with the music being played, like speakers.
to expand their knowledge and expand
what they are learning,” she said “We talk
about music. We refer to music. It is a big
part of our lives and it is something that
they don’t understand because they don’t
experience it.”
From AP’s member exchange.
“Climate change is real. It is happening right now.
It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species.”
- Leonardo DiCaprio February 28th, 2016
Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters presents
The Nelson Awards
in honor of the Anniversary of Gaylord Nelson’s 100th birthday
It’s the Oscars…but for conservation!
SAVE THE DATE!
Thursday, June 2, 2016 • 5:30pm to 8:00pm
Boardman and Clark Law Firm Atrium
4th Floor of U.S. Bank Building • 1 South Pinckney St., Madison
www.conservationvoters.org
Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters
133 S Butler St., Suite 320 • Madison, WI 53703
For more information:
Contact angela@conservationvoters.org
or call 608.208.1131
The Sets List
FRESH GRAVEL ROAD SHOW
8 p.m. March 16 at High Noon Saloon, Madison. $7.
high-noon.com.
All roads lead to High Noon Saloon this month, for
this year’s Fresh Gravel Road Show, a celebration of
local Americana, alt-country and good ol’ rock ’n’ roll
bands. Headlining this year is Thirsty Jones, a quartet
of experienced musicians who’ve joined forces to create a variety band that performs a mix of originals and
covers, all influenced by country, bluegrass and funk
sounds. They’ll be joined by The Mascot Theory — a
“full-fat, high-energy dose of Americana-tinged folk
country rock” that just released EP Esperanto to hold
off fans waiting for studio album No. 3 — and the
three-piece Adam Bartels Band. (Matthew Reddin)
MELANIE MARTINEZ
8 p.m. March 19 at the Riverside Theater,
Milwaukee. $28, $75 for VIP. pabsttheater.org.
In a span of just two years, singer Melanie Martinez’s star has grown brighter and brighter. In 2014,
she was on Team Adam on NBC’s The Voice after
winning over judges with her rendition of Britney
Spears’ “Toxic.” A year later, her debut album Cry
Baby led her on a national tour in which she sold
out Turner Hall Ballroom in Milwaukee. This visit,
they’re giving her an even bigger venue to prove
herself in. Alvarez Kings open. (Colton Dunham)
ADAM LAMBERT
8 p.m. March 22 at the Riverside
Theater, Milwaukee. $50. pabsttheater.org.
American Idol runner-up Adam
Lambert isn’t just high on his success — he’s on The Original High,
his third release since leaving
the reality TV program. The LP
comes after earlier chart-topping
releases For Your Entertainment in
2009 and Trespassing in 2012, as
well as a stint as the new lead
vocalist for Queen. Now, Lambert
is back on the road supporting his
own music, arriving in Milwaukee
for a night that may very well be
just as soaring as his voice. Alex
Newell — a veteran of a different
Fox program, Glee — will open.
(Colton Dunham)
JOSE GONZALEZ
WITH yMUSIC
8 p.m. March 19 at the Pabst
Theater, Milwaukee. $33.
pabsttheater.org.
The elegant and emotional guitar
sounds of Jose Gonzalez will be
joined with the innovative music
of yMusic in an awe-inspiring performance in the halls of the Pabst.
yMusic, a group of six instrumentalists from New York, has attracted the attention of prominent collaborators because of their unique
approach to classical music. Pop,
classical, and folk will merge to
create a genre that is outside the
realm of description — you’ll have
to hear it to believe it. Gonzalez’ art
rock leanings make him a perfect
complement. (Rachele Krivichi)
VINCENT VAN GREAT
9 p.m. March 19 at Riverwest Public
House, Milwaukee. $5.
riverwestpublichouse.org.
Milwaukee-based hip-hop artist Vincent Van Great has already
proved why he’s claiming a name
for himself in the city’s music scene
with the release of his track “Killer
Steez.” In the music video for the
track, he even dares to ride around
Chicago on his bike while wearing
a Milwaukee Bucks jersey. At the
Public House, he’ll surely perform
the track along with others from his
upcoming self-produced LP debut
UnGREATful. (Colton Dunham)
Music reviews
41
MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS :: ‘THIS UNRULY MESS
I’VE MADE’
There are plenty of reasons — fair or not — to dislike Macklemore. His latest album with Ryan Lewis, This Unruly Mess I’ve
Made, makes one painfully clear:
Macklemore is a well-intentioned but
insufferable goody-two-shoes.
On their previous album The Heist,
this “make the world a better place”
instinct could be seen on gay rights
anthem “Same Love” and maybe even
save-money tune “Thrift Shop.” This
time, the duo pushes back against
police brutality on “White Privilege II,”
a nearly nine-minute work that mixes
Black Lives Matter commentary with Macklemore’s uncertainties
about his place as a white man. The song should be applauded for
its audacity — but listen to all of This Unruly Mess I’ve Made, and
“White Privilege II” loses its potency. Macklemore comes off like
a robot with two settings: politically correct and self-deprecating.
There’s Macklemore delivering carefully enunciated bars on
an unfair music industry (“Light Tunnels”); Macklemore on his
naughty snacking (“Let’s Eat”); and Macklemore ‘fessing up to
materialism (“Need to Know,” featuring Chance the Rapper). The
whole thing feels like an after-school special.
There are exceptions — including the soulful and stirring
“Kevin,” in which Macklemore opens up about the overdose of
someone close to him. It’s a message with gravity that needs to
be heard. But on this album, the vibrations are drowned out by one
good message too many. (Melanie J. Sims)
THE 1975 :: ‘I LIKE IT WHEN YOU SLEEP, FOR YOU ARE
SO BEAUTIFUL YET SO UNAWARE OF IT’
British pop-rockers The 1975 get downright funky on their
sophomore album, with a title so long it will barely fit anywhere.
“I Like It…” sparkles with an experimental punch, and is held together by
frontman Matthew Healy’s vocals and
a refined mixing that nicely blends
traditional and modern sounds.
In lesser hands, The 1975’s work
might sound too referential to a late
‘80s/early ‘90s vibe. But the band
avoids any traps. Highlights include
“She’s American,” which offers up
rhythmic guitar work that gives way
to some nicely delivered futuristic synths. And Healy carries the
day on soulful slow jam “If I Believe You,” serious turn-down-thelights-and-stoke-the-fire music. The 1975 certainly know their
way around a sexy love song. (Ron Harris)
JUICEBOXXX
8 p.m. March 22 at the Riverwest
Public House, Milwaukee. $7.
riverwestpublichouse.org.
Hot off a set at Austin’s legendary music festival South by
Southwest, Milwaukee native
Juiceboxxx will return home.
Juiceboxxx has sculpted his
career in the alternative “raprock” genre, but has often
received mixed reviews from critics who don’t quite know what
to do with his offbeat sound. His
performance, along with supporting performances by three Milwaukee bands (Midnight Reruns,
Zed Kenzo and Athletic Supply),
will be loud and energetic as he
caps off his whirlwind March tour.
(Rachele Krivichi)
LORETTA LYNN :: ‘FULL CIRCLE’
Loretta Lynn has titled her first album in 12 years Full Circle
partly because she opens the collection with “Whispering Sea,”
the first song she ever wrote. But Full
Circle is also the continuation of a long
line of vibrant Loretta Lynn albums.
Produced by daughter Patsy Lynn
Russell and John Carter Cash (son
of Johnny and June Carter Cash),
the album relies on a melodic bed
of acoustic instruments with gentle
touches of steel guitar, drums and
piano. At 83, Lynn sounds amazingly
good. Not only does she retain nearly
all of her range and strength, but her ability to breathe feeling into
her words remains one of her greatest gifts.
She offers a few originals, including “Everything It Takes,” cowritten with Todd Snider with harmonies by Elvis Costello. There’s
also a gospel duet with Willie Nelson on “Lay Me Down.” But the
best songs are the most unexpected: her poignant take on T. Graham Brown’s prayerful “Wine Into Water” and a rousing version
of folk classic “Black Jack David.” (Michael McCall)
42
43
Chardonnays, pinot noirs reflect Patz & Hall’s vintage year
By Michael Muckian
Contributing writer
Even the most liberal wine drinkers, when
pressed, will admit to having their favorite
varietals.
Many white wines fans still lean heavily
toward chardonnay, with its bright flavors
and vanilla notes from its full, oaky backbone. Red drinkers split evenly among several varietals, but more of them seem to be
turning to pinot noir, which manages to be
both subtle and delicate while retaining a
robust palate of dark fruit and full mouthfeel.
Some of the best of both come from
Patz & Hall. The Sonoma winery produces
nothing but chards and pinots, which founders Donald Patz and James Hall admit are
their personal favorites. Their affinity for the
two varietals has served the winery and its
customers well since 1988, when the two
combined forces to produce their own wines.
As in all good partnerships, each winemaker has his own duties: Patz is the businessman, Hall is the winemaker. Together,
they produce some exceptional vintages that
have attracted a large crowd of loyal followers. They recently shared their thoughts with
the Wisconsin Gazette, as well as giving some
insights on their most recent wines and personal favorites.
Patz & Hall only produces chardonnays
and pinot noirs. Why?
Donald Patz: It’s important, I think, not
trying to be all things to all people. There’s
a discipline to focusing on just one white
and one red wine variety. We love drinking
California chardonnay and pinot noir and,
by focusing on just these two varietals, we
better understand the needs in both the
vineyard and in the winery for each. It makes
our wines better.
I know that the two-varietal concentration has changed the nature of the winery
itself. How does your winery differ from
others?
James Hall: It was only logical to focus
our design around optimizing the facility to
produce these two varieties at the highest
quality level possible. That meant installing small open-top pinot noir fermenters,
large cooled barrel rooms for chardonnay
fermentation, blending and racking tanks
sized to hold our single-vineyard wines and
all of the appropriate winemaking equipment scaled and geared toward pinot and
chardonnay, including a large sorting table,
large chardonnay presses for whole cluster
pressing and small-scale de-stemmers for
careful de-stemming.
By not having to accommodate other
grape varieties, we didn’t have to compro-
mise any tank configurations or equipment
styles. This specialization has led to higher
wine quality by having just the right equipment to meet our stringent standards of
excellence.
Can you compare several of your chardonnays, specifically the 2013 Hyde Vineyard Carneros ($60) and the 2014 Sonoma
Coast ($40)?
DP: It’s an interesting contrast. Hyde
Vineyard wine always has great acidity and
a purity tension on the palate. It has great
concentration but also a delicacy. It would
certainly be a “grand cru” if we had them in
California. The aromas swing more toward
exotic citrus fruits and minerality. It’s a very
serious chardonnay that benefits from additional aging to show the complete set of
flavors buried within.
The Sonoma Coast Chardonnay, on the
other hand, is focused on floral and pretty
perfume aromas. Whereas the Hyde is serious, the Sonoma Coast is playful and delicious. It is the most “California” of the chardonnays we make.
Can you do the same comparison for
the pinot noirs, specifically the 2013 Chenoweth Ranch ($60), the 2013 Hyde Vineyard Carneros ($70), and the 2013 Sonoma
Coast ($46)?
JH: 2013 was an excellent vintage year.
The long, moderately warm growing season
produced profound wines of great depth,
intensity and character. The wines tend to
show excellent balance and structure, with
juicy ripe flavors moderated with smooth
tannins and higher-than-typical acidity.
Our Chenoweth Ranch Russian River
Valley Pinot Noir shows wonderful cherry,
boysenberry, clove spice and dark chocolate aromas coupled with an exceptionally
smooth, rich and flavorful mouthfeel. The
Chenoweth Ranch consistently produces
one of our finest single-vineyard wines and
2013 is proving to be one of the best years
ever.
The 2013 Hyde Vineyard Carneros Pinot
Noir had an equally fine year. The wine
shows wonderful aromas of dried roses, cinnamon spice, dried cherry and delicate layers of moist fresh soil and black tea. This was
a great year for Hyde Vineyard, which tends
to produce wines that are lighter and more
elegant, with higher acidity and leaner, more
focused textures than Chenoweth Ranch’s
broad more powerful structure.
Overall, the success of the 2013 vintage
shows most clearly in the 2013 Sonoma
Coast Pinot Noir. The wine is a blend of 18
vineyard sites stretching from Sonoma Valley through Russian River Valley to the far
P H O T O : PAT Z & H A L L
Patz & Hall exclusively produces chardonnays and pinot noirs at its California vineyard.
Sonoma Coast. Having such a broad collection of vineyards, and having them all succeed at startling levels of quality, is proof of
how special the 2013 vintage is.
Of all your wines, which is your personal
favorite?
DP: I don’t really have a favorite among
any of the wines we make. I do drink a lot of
the Dutton Ranch Russian River Valley Chardonnay ($44). It seems to marry well with
everything I eat at home.
JH: I like all of our wines and believe they
each have a distinct reason to be bottled.
Just like music, there are many different
styles and modes, with no single type being
the best for every mood or situation.
That said, if I were forced to choose one
wine and drink that alone for the rest of my
life, it would have to be our Hyde Vineyard
Carneros Pinot Noir. To me, the complexity,
subtlety and flexibility match with many different foods, and the overall grace and style
of the Hyde Vineyard, makes it my favorite …
at least until I’m in the mood for something
different.
44
The secret to a vibrant green
herb sauce? A dash of cream
By Sara Moulton
Associated Press
With St. Patrick’s Day looming, my first
thought was that nothing would be more
fitting than to salute the patron saint of the
Emerald Isle with a fish dish dressed in a
very green sauce, one that came by its color
honestly, with no artificial food coloring
allowed. A second later, it occurred to me
that actually making such a dish might be
easier said than done.
The problem is that bright green vegetables and herbs can quickly turn gray when
cooked. They don’t like to be heated for
very long and they hate acid. Meanwhile,
fish — that most subtly flavored of proteins
— cries out for acid.
It took bumping into several walls, but I
eventually arrived at a sauce that filled the
bill. This gem is packed with fresh green
herbs — 4 cups (about two bunches) of
parsley complemented by a quarter cup of
fresh tarragon. For my first trial run, I finely
chopped the herbs with a knife. The resulting sauce was mostly white with flecks of
green. In pursuit of greater greenery, I confidently reached for a blender.
I threw in the whole herbs, unchopped,
and pressed start. Nada. The herbs just sat
on top of the blade. The third time around,
I coarsely chopped the herbs before add-
ing them to the blender. This brought them
closer to the blade, but they still didn’t turn
into the puree I wanted.
I’d been planning right along to add cream
to the sauce at the end of the process. Now,
as I climbed into the ring for the fourth
round, I tried adding the cream (along with
a little water) to the herbs in the blender at
the beginning. Bingo! There it was, finally —
a puree green as an Irish hillside.
Still, I had to be careful not to overcook it.
The key is to cook the puree in a skillet with
a wide bottom, which allows it to heat up
in a matter of minutes. And as long as you
wait until the last moment to add the fresh
lemon juice, then serve the dish right away,
the sauce will stay green, green, green
rather than turning gray.
If you’d prefer to keep this recipe meatfree, omit the prosciutto. If you’re not a fan
of tarragon, swap in basil or dill. However
you customize it, this salmon will put one
and all in a holiday mood.
Sara Moulton is the host of public television’s Sara’s Weeknight Meals. She was
executive chef at Gourmet magazine for nearly 25 years and spent a decade hosting several
Food Network shows, including Cooking Live.
Her latest cookbook is Home Cooking 101.
PROSCIUTTO-WRAPPED SALMON WITH FRESH HERB SAUCE
Start to finish: 55 minutes (40 minutes active) Servings: 4
Ingredients:
Four 6-ounce skinless salmon fillets
2 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto
Kosher salt and ground black pepper
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 cups packed fresh parsley leaves and
thin stems, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup packed fresh tarragon leaves,
coarsely chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tsp cornstarch
1/4 cup minced shallots
1 tsp lemon juice
Directions:
Heat the oven to 350 F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with kitchen parchment.
Wrap the middle section of each of the salmon fillets with a quarter of the prosciutto slices. Season the exposed part of each fillet with salt and pepper.
In a large nonstick skillet over medium-high, heat the oil. Add the salmon,
reduce the heat to medium, and brown the salmon on all 4 sides, about 3 minutes total. Transfer the salmon to the prepared baking sheet, retaining the skillet.
Bake on the oven’s middle shelf until slightly undercooked at the center, about 10
minutes.
Meanwhile, in a blender combine the parsley, tarragon, 1/2 teaspoon salt,
cream, cornstarch and 1/4 cup water. Blend until the mixture forms a smooth
puree. Set aside.
Discard all but 1 tablespoon of the oil remaining in the skillet, then heat over
medium. Add the shallots and cook, stirring, until softened, about 3 minutes. Add
the puree and bring to a boil, stirring. Add the lemon juice, then season with salt
and pepper. Simmer for 1 minute. If the sauce becomes too thick, add a little water.
Spoon some of the sauce into the center of four serving plates. Set one salmon
fillet onto each. Serve immediately.
Let us cater your next party!
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45
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REAL ESTATE
& RENTALS
APARTMENTS FOR RENT
with Dr. Sterling Asterix
The equinox is coming, the equinox is coming!
READER ADVISORY: The
National Trade Association
we belong to has purchased
some of the above classifieds.
Determining the value of their
service or product is advised
by this publication. In order
to avoid misunderstandings,
some advertisers do not offer
employment but rather supply the readers with manuals,
directories and other materials
designed to help their clients
establish mail order selling
and other businesses at home.
Under NO circumstance
should you send any money
in advance or give the client
your checking, license ID, or
credit card numbers. Also
beware of ads that claim to
guarantee loans regardless of
credit and note that if a credit
repair company does business
only over the phone it is illegal
to request any money before
delivering its service. All funds
are based in US dollars. Toll
free numbers may or may not
reach Canada.
Betcha didn’t know this, but the spring equinox
marks the start of the astrological year, because
it’s when the Sun gets sick of Pisces’ bossiness and
decides to go live with Aries for a stretch. So treat
ALL SIGNS:
this fortnight like the holiday season! Demand presJAN. 1 – DEC. 31
ents from your loved ones, time off work next week
and bottomless champagne at your favorite bar on March 19: New
New Year’s Eve. All the crazy looks are totally worth it.
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residences include: Heat, water,
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Financial Aid for qualifying students. Military friendly.
Call Aviation Institute of Maintenance
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46
MARCH MADNESS
ACROSS
1. Kindergarten disrupters
6. Lending letters
9. Secondary school
13. Balance in the sky
14. Sheepish sound
15. Darlings
16. Continental divide
17. Caustic soda
18. Binary digits code
19. *Requirement to play in
March Madness
21. Unhitch
23. Baseball bat wood
24. Fail to mention
25. Bad-mouth
28. “____ and turn”
30. Colonnade
35. “Oh, my!”
37. “____ ____ good
example”
39. Socially acceptable
behaviors
40. *Major bball outfitter
41. Sea swallows
43. Constricting snakes
44. *____ and shoot, without
dribbling
46. Exertion
47. Wise one
48. Newspaper VIP
50. Florida Keys and such
52. *March Madness
winner’s reward
53. TV’s ____. O
55. Male child
57. *Winningest coach
60. *One region
64. BBQ spot
65. Be in debt
67. Famous ballerina painter
68. Winery process
69. Did a marathon
70. Pack animal
71. Secretary station
72. Armageddon
73. *Senior to freshman
DOWN
1. Coalition of countries
2. Puerto ____
3. Cain’s victim
4. ____-____-la refrain
5. Least crazy
6. Up to the task
7. Foot the bill
8. Sleep in one’s eye
9. Acapulco money
10. “____’em” in pool
11. Huron’s neighbor
12. Tire measurement
15. *Occasional Cinderella
team from OH
20. Uncredited author?
22. Not a thing
24. Emu relative
25. *March Madness, aka
“The Big ____”
26. Homer’s famous poem
27. Female principle,
Hinduism
29. *1 or 16, e.g.
31. Lots
32. Response to pain
33. Candidate’s concern
34. A useful part
36. Religious offshoot
38. Tolstoy’s Karenina
42. Styluses
45. *Show off
49. Beluga yield
51. Equestrian gear
54. Annoy a bedfellow
56. Inhabit
57. *College athletes don’t
earn one
58. Singer “on the dock of
the bay”
59. Sound on a farm
60. Fix
61. Archaic exclamation of
surprise
62. Ditto
63. Ivan the Terrible, e.g.
64. Bachelor’s dwelling
66. Like a dim star
Answers on page 40.
We posted... you commented...
Feedback from our
digital platforms.
facebook.com/
wigazette
@wigazette
Mazo Beach close effective immediately State cites sex and drugs
much worse soon after they pass laws etc. Just
watch!
DENNIS BURKWALD: If they close anything
it should be the State Capital in Madison for
« illegal behavior.” The DNR›s new web site is
called « Go Wild « ( But not in Wisconsin ).
JIM JENSEN: Was there a GOP convention
there?
BRUCE FOSTER: I don’t know about Mazo
beach, but what typically happens when
authorities close a nude beach is it falls into
disrepair.
MARIE ROBBINS: This was the excuse that
was given. That piece of property will go to the
highest bidder to make condos or some sort of
resort!
JOHN GREENE: Of course the religious
extreme right Walkerism has to close the
beach. The people can›t be having fun. But
watch for it, those who protest something
the loudest seem to get caught in something
Wisconsin utilities seek to cut the
state›s energy-efficiency program
GINO ANTHONY HOFFMANN: Then there’s
the unnecessary $$$ spent for drug testing the
poor that passed...Republicans are for big government when it can stick it to the poor and the
taxpayers at the same time.
BARRY URBAS: It’s already decided, utilities
win.
ROBERT WILLIAMS: The Republicans screwing Wisconsin on bill at a time. Time to vote out
ALL the republicans from the State Assembly.
SUZANNE BROWN MORE: depressing news.
Rebecca Bradley ducked out of Supreme Court arguments to address
a group that’s given millions to rightwing judicial candidates
PETER KRONZER : Why is any one surprised
at this. This Justice is only a Justice because of
her appointment by the States divisive Governor. The people of Wisconsin should limit this
term right now. Our Supreme Court should be
non partisan, not a mirror image of the administration it is beholden to.
MICHAEL CLAY: The idea is that the State
Supreme Court should be independent, not an
arm of the governor’s office. Therefore I’m voting for Kloppenberg.
ANNE BUELL BREMER: Scooter told her she
can do anything she wants. So THERE! If it
doesn›t work out, he can get her another (her
4th) grown up job!!
Celebrating 20 Years!
Perfecting the places we live
Protecting the places we love
Members are the key to our success - Join today!
608.259.1000 www.1kfriends.org
47
48

Mar. 10, 2016 - Wisconsin Gazette

Transcription

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