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Hello and welcome to In Wisconsin.
I'm Patty Low.
Each week we bring you stories about the people,
places, and issues that make up life in our state.
Tonight we'll find out how a little wool cap is
heating up the job market in the north woods.
We'll also visit a controversial exhibit that blurs the line
between art and science.
But first we begin with health care.
Attiquate access to medical coverage is becoming
more and more difficult to afford.
Recent state and federal legislation provide some
support for the elderly, but there are many
others who lack decent health care due to financial
or even cultural reasons.
For example, Native Americans traditionally have had an uneasy
relationship with the federal government and
the Indian Health Service.
Andy Soth reports that in an attempt to supplement
IHS, many tribes in Wisconsin have developed their
own health care networks.
If you want to learn about health care and the
monomony nation, start with health director Jerry Waka.
I would want this to be one of the better operated
facilities in Indian country.
And I have that commitment.
I have those expectations.
But soon he'll have you talk to the
tribal vice chair and a cultural expert.
It's one of the best facilities and the wellness director.
The BD's educator, because Waka has made sure monomony
health care is a shared responsibility.
I could have all the aspirations in the world, but if I didn't
have a good board to work, if I didn't have leadership
that had this vision that would make my job
difficult. That vision is in the form of a community health plan
that addresses the pressing health problems
faced by the monomony.
Each of Wisconsin's tribal communities manages
health care in its own way, but they all face the
same health challenges.
American Indians in Wisconsin have a mortality
rate for diabetes four times greater than
the general population.
And the most death from unintentional injury,
things like car crashes, as well as the highest rate
of death from heart disease.
Through heart disease and diabetes, elders are paying
the price for having grown up in widespread poverty,
with substandard medical care and poor health education.
However, no other Wisconsin minority group has had
such a significant reduction in its infant mortality
rate over the last 20 years.
The hope is that future generations will
be better cared for and care better for themselves.
That means bringing the message to the tribal
school in the opent.
You kind of wonder why do we have so much stress today?
You make more decisions in one day than your
ancestors made in a year.
Yeah, yeah.
We realize we need to start at an early age.
We got to get to the kids while they were young.
Not that we can't forget about the older people, but their
behaviors are kind of set.
What the overall picture needs to be is developing
more healthy people, looking at nutrition,
getting them to walk.
A lot of things aren't going to pay off right away,
but over the long haul, we think that's going
to be a good investment.
Adults are also encouraged to be healthy and end
their own risky behavior.
The tribal legislature has banned smoking
in public buildings and enforces a seatbelt law.
We are looking at it from a cultural perspective.
And when we look at this, it's translated as buckle up.
But we're looking at trying to use and include ourselves
in a lot of our life decisions.
Making those decisions for themselves is a cherished right
of Wisconsin's native peoples.
Tribal self-determination.
With self-determination, to have our own clinic and
to determine our own needs and our own approaches
towards prevention, because basically we are
a different breed of cat.
But that doesn't mean the federal government
doesn't have a role.
And get another look into your eye with another
light look right over here.
In numerous treaties, the United States promised to provide for
the well-being of Indian people.
It was part of the bargain to get the land
that became Wisconsin.
Even though treaties are old, it doesn't diminish the effect
of what the treaties represent in terms of health care.
Robin Careful is the Lacta Flambo Ojibwe Health Director.
He remembers growing up on the Lacta Flambo Reservation,
when health care meant a once a week visit
from a doctor and nurse.
And there was a multitude of patients that waited for
the physician and his nurse.
For example, there might be some people with a communicative
disease like tuberculosis, sitting next to a person that
might be having a chest pain.
In the 1950s, the U.S.
created the Indian Health Service as a
direct provider of health care.
In the 1970s, as Wisconsin tribes fought
for greater autonomy, IHS became a funding source for
Indian administered health care.
An arrangement, careful calls, the original HMO.
We like to refer to Indian Health Services,
the world's largest HMO, or the original HMO.
The blood pressure was 122 over.
Because in the HMO, you've given again a finite set
of resources to take care of X number of people.
Often that finite amount of money was not enough.
Now with a lot of economic gains from avenues such as gaming
or other economic ventures, tribal communities like
Lacta Flambo do supplement or make up to shortfall.
Gaming Revenue does help, and industry allows the tribe to
make health care available to native and non-native employees,
which in turn increases the clinic client base.
But the Lacta Flambo and Menominee casinos don't
make the profits casinos near urban centers do.
So creativity is sometimes required to
provide clinic resources.
Tribes have been even more ingenious as their
way of finding resources.
Careful ended up hiring a new radiologist after a
new neighbor hired him to shovel snow off a roof.
So I was able to shovel this guy's roof off and
he asked me what I did, and I told him I managed
to health care facility of the tribe, and I
asked him what he did, and he said he was a retired
radiologist. Immediately the light bulb went off my head.
So, would you like to come and, are you totally
retired, or would you like to come and help us out?
Now patients get expert X-ray analysis, and careful
his turn to institutional neighbors as well.
Social networking with staff at nearby Howard Young
Memorial Hospital has led to computer networking.
The two facilities share medical records, and tribal
clinic patients referred to Howard Young have
their information updated instantly, improving service.
We began by just asking for a grocery list,
what can we do to help?
The one that ended up being the most important, and I'm perhaps
not sensitive enough to know that, is cultural sensitivity.
There are people who do not seek care, and have
not sought care, because they have not been treated
in an appropriate manner.
Not mainly, but in a way that wasn't culturally sensitive.
That cultural sensitivity is more than
appreciating differences.
For staff at the Lactuflamboklinic, it means
respect for the quality of care they provide their community.
So, by us having a strong primary care program here
in Lactuflambok, we're able to compete, or we're
able to ensure that our patients are treated well.
We can hold our own with those other medical communities.
And that's what American Indian self-determination
and healthcare is all about.
Maybe people's first responses, you know, can Native
Americans run good programs?
And I guess, you know, there's always that question.
And I think what we're able to do is to take this
self-determination concept and say, well, who knows
better than the Indian people?
Reporter Andy Sof touched on some of the health
problems Native Americans have faced over the years.
Our related report from the Wisconsin Department of Health
and Family Services is expected to be released in March.
The report examines the health of the minority
populations in our state.
One of the things we do on in Wisconsin is revisit
interesting people we've met in the past to find
out what they're up to now.
Tonight, we'll reintroduce you to Hunter O'Reilly.
O'Reilly is an artist with a day job in the world of science.
Art Hackett visited a recent exhibit by O'Reilly.
An art show with a title as the saying goes,
ripped from the headlines.
Six years ago, Hunter O'Reilly was working on
her doctorate in genetics.
But her artwork was appearing on the covers
of scientific journals.
And a modest exhibit of O'Reilly's paintings had
recently gone on display at a cafe gallery on
Madison's State Street.
I do a lot of tissue culture work where cells are growing
in a model layer on a dish.
Her art mirrored the forms she saw under the microscope.
And there's a lot of patterns of cells connecting in
different random ways.
Now this right here in the P20 says 1-0-0 is
taking up 10 microleaders.
Six years later, Hunter O'Reilly has her doctorate.
O'Reilly is doing what she said she wanted to
do teaching genetics.
At UW-Mawaki and UW-Parkside, she's also teaching
others to find artistic inspiration in science.
You will actually be using pipetters to take up
small volumes of liquid.
Which brings us to O'Reilly's most recent touring
exhibit, which is appeared in Milwaukee, Ann Arbor,
Michigan, and Madison.
An exhibit with what some might consider a pretty creepy name.
Radioactive biohazard.
It's funny, the people who know me take that title very
differently than other people.
The people who know me know that I mean it somewhat in a
fun way, in a humorous way.
But my intention was to be more whimsical with that title
even though I realize not everyone saw it in that manner.
Explain the whimsy and radioactive biohazard.
If you work in a molecular biology lab, you'll see
like the, you know, use biohazard bags all the time.
You see radioactive symbols everywhere for where you do
experiments where you label DNA and things of that nature.
And I associate it more with discovery and
the fun of discovery.
The exhibit features an installation of a laboratory
workbench with the Gene Splizer's tools of the
trade, and posted note describing the frustrations
of getting a PhD in genetics.
But is this art?
Well, it actually says it's art.
Even if that's the acronym for a tool O'Reilly uses in the lab.
There are also larger oil paintings featuring the
sweeping feminine shapes that O'Reilly favors.
This painting deals with cloning.
As does this digital collage of CC, the first cloned cat.
Their fur patterns are actually different.
So if there's differences in even how they look,
then it seems not such a big leap to say, yes,
they can have different personality differences.
They'll be born at like a human being would be born at
different time in history.
People think of a clone as this soulless automaton, you
know, just some duplicate off of a Xerox machine.
But in reality, actually, there are clones in nature.
Identical twins are nature's clones.
Although you probably never call them that because it'll
must be installed, considering how the word is in our culture.
But if rehabilitating a clone's image is tough, how about the
Ebola virus?
O'Reilly colorized an electron micro photograph
of it and backlit it with neon.
The virus is pictured there are influenza, Ebola,
curpies, HIV, and rabies.
Most people have never seen a picture of a virus.
They just associate the devastating effects they
might have on human being, and so they probably, if they
ever thought of a virus, would think of ugly things.
So this kind of shows them the beauty of it.
At the same time, there's a paradox, something can
be visually beautiful, yet intellectually frightening.
After the anthrax attacks of fall 2001, O'Reilly added a
related work to the exhibit.
That piece right here, that digital artwork has actual
images of anthrax scores and anthrax cells in there,
which is made into a clock.
It actually has the face of the clock, has images of
myself going from rather happy to rather comatose as
you go along the face of the clock and anthrax cells are
multiplying beneath my face.
And part of the reason I made an actual work in clock
was because bioterrorism could happen any time.
And then the other time factor is that if someone is infected
with anthrax, there's a very limited time window to treat
them to prevent fatality.
This exhibit, despite the provocative radioactive
biohazard name, is ultimately conventional.
It's made up of paintings and other graphic works.
The workbench is in the end an assembled sculpture.
What O'Reilly and her students are doing in the
lab may be another matter.
The poster promoting the course promises a chance to
create artworks by modifying DNA, the code of life itself.
The students are splicing a gene into E.
coli bacteria, which will make the
bacteria glow fluorescent green under black light.
We've taken the DNA from the jellyfish and
now put it in bacteria.
This is a common science experiment used to teach
principles of genetic engineering.
But that's not why O'Reilly students are doing it.
The point of that experiment was to create genetic art,
so to actually have genetic engineering for the purposes
of art and creating artwork.
So to genetically engineering bacteria to express it, to make
bacteria green, and then you can make artwork out of it.
You could draw with the bacteria
and do various things with it.
There is, of course, an ethical question whether it's right
to manipulate life to make a pretty picture.
O'Reilly acknowledges that there is.
The normal type of experiment people do with bacteria,
transferring bacteria, would be actually putting the human
gene for insulin in there.
So they can make the bacteria express the insulin gene,
make the insulin protein, and then extract that to
use to treat diabetics.
And probably no one would have a problem with that.
I think a lot of it is kind of how people view science
and how people view art.
I think traditionally in our culture, people see science
as inherently more important.
But I think art has a more important place than a lot
of times people give it.
And she says it's not inconceivable that a science
experiment that begins as an effort in artistic expression
could yield a scientific result.
For me, that would be the ultimate art biology
experiment artwork.
The not only would you be creating something just for a
visual effect, but you'd also be finding out information
about the biology and development at the same time.
For now, genetic art is largely done for aesthetic
effect or to make a statement.
For example, this rabbet wound up with fluorescent jellyfish
genes because French artist Eduardo Cac specifically
wanted to raise ethical issues.
There's definitely a growing movement of artists who are
using biological concepts in their work and talking about
ethics and biotechnology.
I think part of that is because biotechnology is so
influential in our culture right now that artists are
naturally drawn to interpret it.
Hunter O'Reilly is likely to be one of those artists.
She says her future artistic endeavors are more
likely to be done with a pipetteer than a paintbrush.
Hunter O'Reilly's artwork from the Radioactive
Biohazard exhibit is being displayed nationally
and her living artwork painted with luminescence
bacteria will soon grace the cover of the scientific
journal Nature Genetics.
[Music]
It's part of life and has been for generations.
You see them everywhere, especially in
cold rural areas of Wisconsin.
It's the stormy chromercat, you know, the ones with
the flaps that can be pulled down over the ears.
The hat was originally created by a Wisconsinite and decades
later is as popular as ever.
And now the chromer is doing more than keeping heads
warm. It's also bringing jobs to the North Woods.
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Yeah, it's cold.
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It must be right around zero with a windshield
of about 20 below.
The North Woods hub of Hurley, Wisconsin and its sister
city of Ironwood, Michigan.
It's a tiny place where snowmobiles gas
up on the in-stream.
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And I can feel the wind huffling up in my ear flaps here.
The kind of place that knows for cold.
How's the chromer doing?
Just fine.
The chromer, the bow work against the blizzards of winter.
It is the hat of the North, known by many names.
It used to call it the upper cap, it was a railroad yet.
It is also known in certain parts as the chromer-domer.
The official name is the Stormy Chroma Blizzard
cap, seen in stores and on heads across the North.
Where are red ones?
You want a red one?
Maybe somebody will get you one, huh?
Okay. The self-described biggest
fan of the chromer is this man, Bob Jacker of Ironwood.
I absolutely love this hat.
I love the hat I wore on all my life.
This is the chromer, of course you want to buy it.
I mean, you want to buy it because it's a great hat.
And of course you've worn it for 20 years, just like
I've had mine for 20 years.
People hang on to their chromers.
This is the original chromer.
The bottom of a millberg, the John Millberg story in Ironwood.
Probably 15, 20 years I've had them.
Chromers are part of the family.
This is my Gramps that I never knew.
Well, this is Uncle King.
The fun part is they went in rubber hunting with
white shirts and ties on.
And chromers, the dress of choice.
Chromers are part of their history.
This is the erst Palmer family.
This is Teddy who's now, I believe 72, they're
all wearing chromers.
Ted erst Palmer, 62 years later.
Still stuck on chromers.
I grew up with them.
I had them from a young kid.
When hunting, I had my chromer.
So it was something that my dad gave me.
So you stayed with it for years and years.
He'll tell you that this is his family who...
The Chromer is an old hat.
A 100 year old hat.
Invented 1903 by Caconna native Stormy Chromer.
His story was celebrated in a children's golden book.
And as this Mr.
Puffer Bill is really George Stormy,
Chromer who worked for the Chicago Northwestern
Railroad in Wisconsin.
Stormy was a railroad man who loved baseball.
Add the bitter winds of a Wisconsin winter.
And the combination led to this classic creation.
So he had an idea to put some ear flaps on his
baseball hat basically.
And that's really the hat we have today is it as a
baseball hat with ear flaps.
And that elegant design has lasted for over 100 years.
Clearly, the Chromer has stained power.
Grandpa put it on in early fall and took it off in late spring.
And it was, you know, it's a...
Up here it said nine months hat.
It's the patented pull-down ear band system.
That's the secret to the supreme comfort of this warm companion.
For 100 years, sales were steady.
A company in Milwaukee churned out Chromers and all was well.
Till year 2002.
Jack Wurt recalls the fateful day.
I was sitting in a coffee shop and the local dealer Mark from
the Hobby Wheel in Ironwood said to me, "Can you believe
they quit making Chromers?"
No more Chromers?
I don't know why.
My immediate reaction was, "Can you get me the phone number?"
Now this wasn't just any old phone call.
Because Bob Jackwurt isn't just your average Chromer fan.
He's also the owner of Jackwurt Fabrics, a business in Ironwood
that employs over 170 people and has a 30-year history
of making all kinds of objects from warnings to
dogbends out of Fabrics.
These people know their way around a sewing machine.
Who better to create Chromers?
Just that belongs here.
It's like it almost like it came home.
Jackwurt bought the rights to make the Stormy
Chromer blizzard cap.
The UPR hat is now manufactured in the U.P.
but marketed nationwide with great results.
Orders are pouring in.
The Chromer has been picked up by countless catalogs.
I'd like to see one out of 10 people in the United
States know what a Chromer is.
I would love that.
And in one year, sales have tripled.
They plan a few changes, new colors for example.
But they feel it's essential to keep the original
Chromer owner in mind.
They call him "toibal."
We call this person the old hat wearer, "toibal."
What's, it's what we've always said.
What's "toibal" than "think"?
What, what, what, what, what table thinking?
We will read on our table.
This one is my birthday present.
Well, I got this one, maybe 10 years ago.
And this one, I got last summer.
It's a good enough for a lot of daily life.
Some objects are tied to memories.
To places.
To people.
To share times.
Jackwood shares a story.
She said when my husband Dave died in 1983,
his fishing buddies came by her house three
days after the funeral and asked for his red Chromer
and took it out on Isle Royal and buried it in his memory.
And because that was his favorite place to fish.
And I've got a dear memories of Uncle King.
And I can remember the hat hanging on the pig.
You know, I can remember it being there.
And I can remember the old black ones in the
warehouses and, you know, hanging with the sadastonum.
And I see this another hundred years.
And I somehow modern medicine changes the
shape of a person's head.
I can't imagine that this had ever go out of style.
The Chromer is still in fashion.
Well, that's our show for tonight.
Tune in next week for a report on the immense
challenges people encounter when caring for dependent
loved ones in their home.
There's the UW Extension class that partners with
33 counties to offer caregivers powerful tools.
We'll have the story of how one family is using those
tools to help cope with the effects of Alzheimer's disease.
That's next week on In Wisconsin.
Thanks for joining us.
I'm Patty Lo.
Good night.
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