(upbeat music)
- Hello and welcome to In Wisconsin.
I'm Patty Lo.
Each week we bring you stories about the people
and issues in our state.
This week, find out why the governor says W-2 mom
should spend more time at home with their babies
rather than rushing back to work.
Discover the faces behind the labels.
This artist brings your garment labels to life.
And the drama on ice continues to heat up.
Meet a curling team trying not to melt
under the pressure of the Olympic trials.
We'll have all that plus find out who is on the hunt
in Wisconsin.
- Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided
by the people of Alliance Energy,
who bring safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy
to keep homes, neighborhoods, and life in Wisconsin
running smoothly.
Alliance Energy, offering energy saving ideas on the web.
The governor Jim Doyle's proposed two-year state budget
covers a lot of ground.
Doyle has big plans like a property tax freeze
and smaller plans like beefing up school breakfast programs.
We're looking at some of the budget plans
that don't necessarily make the headlines,
but matter in people's lives.
So this week, a look at one prong
of the governor's kids first initiative,
Frederica Freiberg reports.
(laughing)
These are the faces of babies in daycare,
whose moms are off at work.
Nearly half a million mothers in Wisconsin
work outside the home.
For most any new mom sending your infant
often just weeks old, off to daycare
is a really difficult separation.
But if governor Doyle has his way in his new budget,
some new moms will get to stay home longer with their new born.
- Any parent can tell you that there is no more life
altering experience than looking into your child's eyes
for the first time and understanding
the awesome responsibility you have for their future.
- I'm by myself.
I have to pay my own rent, my own electricity,
my own bills, I have to put gas in my car.
If I don't go to work or whatever,
if I don't get any help, then how am I gonna
provide for this child that I have and for myself?
- The governor is thinking of women
like 22-year-old Jennifer Rodney.
When her baby arrives in early summer,
she expects to apply for the Wisconsin Works Program
to help her along.
Under W2, new mothers receive a monthly cash benefit
but are required to return to work after 12 weeks.
The state then picks up the daycare tab
and infant care is the most expensive kind.
And so as part of his budget, the governor wants to extend
the monthly cash benefit and allow new W2 moms to
stay home for 26 weeks or six months.
- The extra three months of W2 benefit dollars,
which is about $673 a month to that new mom.
The cost of adding that to the state budget
is still less than what the cost of paying for childcare
for newborn would be.
- The Department of Workforce Development
projects some 1800 W2 mothers would qualify
for the maternity leave extension to six months
and because state paid infant care is so pricey,
paying the mothers to stay home would actually save the state
$2.3 million over the two-year budget cycle.
Child experts say research shows bonding
between mothers and babies is critical to healthy development.
They believe 12 weeks is too early for W2 moms
to send their babies to daycare.
- There's a lot of sicknesses that they pick up
from other children in a childcare situation,
even the best of childcare situations.
Then that sets up that whole cycle of poverty again
with being sick, the mom coming home from work,
she losing her job, not being able to pay the rent,
being homeless.
But the legislature's budget writing committee
voted against the same extension in the last state budget.
Republican co-chair Dean Crawford says such a move
would foster dependence on cash benefits
and he says it's not fair.
- We're gonna save money theoretically
because of the childcare issue and that.
But in the end, I think it just sends a bad message
to the taxpayers that we're willing to give you
a benefit that a lot of moms out there
would like to have themselves.
- DWD Secretary Roberta Gassman says 23 states
allow for 12 months of maternity cash benefits.
Another five states allow even longer.
Looking back, this former W2 mom remembers sending her
son off to daycare.
- Your mind is constantly on your baby
while you're at work and you're constantly
sneaking the call on the phone and getting caught
on your cell phone, calling checking them on the baby.
And it would be better than I have to go through that.
- Some Republican budget writers, though,
say they do not want to return to the old welfare days.
They do not want W2 moms believing
they're better off at home than at work.
- Governor Jim Doyle is also proposing an initiative
to set up a tiered scale of daycare ratings.
Incentives would be given to the best
and the ratings would be made available to the public.
You can tune in to the Wisconsin Public Television Program
here and now, Friday at seven, to hear more about items in
the governor's budget proposal.
This week, here and now, looks into the proposal
for more money for the Drug and Alcohol Recovery programs
in our state prisons.
You can watch that report at seven, Friday, on here and now.
We'd like to hear your ideas about other budget issues
you'd like us to look into.
You can contact us by email at inwisconsin@wpt.org.
Or you can call us at 1-800-253-1158.
We'll show you this info again later in the program.
There are certainly a lot of challenges and struggles
for low-income women in our country,
but there are many women working in even tougher
circumstances around the world.
Sweat shop labor is something that fuels our clothing industry
and it's usually women and children
who make up that work for us.
Milwaukee artists, Teresa Agnew, decided to put a face
on the anonymous issue of Sweat shop labor.
And her finished piece is a mosaic of the human cost
behind some designer labels.
Producer Lori Gorman reports.
Milwaukee artists, Teresa Agnew, is on her way to get the mail.
She gets a lot of mail.
All right.
I got one of these, the articles too large for your box.
I love those.
This is so fun.
Hey, Australia, Nova Scotia, cool.
How did they find out?
That was a good day.
And once in all of these letters and packages
from Nova Scotia, Australia, and other locations
across the globe, labels, clothing labels to be exact.
For customs, contims, little fabric labels, no value.
For US customs, these labels may have no value,
but for Teresa Agnew, they are the precious raw materials
for her latest work of art.
Wow. Very organized.
Great. Black, excellent.
This is a little more involved than just like going to the...
You trap art supply store.
It's a lot more fun.
This is just what I need today.
This is like what I need today.
Although she works alone, this piece is an
international collaboration.
Portrait of a textile worker, a quilt made entirely
of garment labels, has been two years in the making
and would not have been possible if not for the hundreds of
these letters and packages filled with labels.
All right.
Little contrast black.
I'm just kind of floored that people are this generous.
They're time and energy.
And it, but it's so cool.
It's like I want to meet, I feel like I know them, you know?
The last of the labels I have to send you,
thanks for honoring labor.
Cool. Teresa Agnew is no stranger
to what could be called art with a message.
Previous works include the DOT straightens things out.
The Wisconsin Workers Memorial at Zyder Union Square
in downtown Milwaukee.
We rebuilt a new gazebo out of salvaged tools and gears
and things that you would associate with the workplace
and practice bomber range in the Mississippi flyway.
Her work can be found in the collections
of the Smithsonian American Art Museum,
Renwick Gallery, and the Milwaukee Art Museum.
This latest work, based on a photo by Charles Kernahan,
executive director of the National Labor Committee,
is a black and white portrait of a textile worker
in Bangladesh.
Inspiration began with an invitation.
How would you like to come to this talk at UWM?
Two women are coming from the Chentex plant
in Nicaragua to talk about working conditions there.
No, it's just one thing to hear all about
how bad sweat chasar, but it's a completely different thing
to meet the people that we're talking about here.
And I was so impressed.
I thought they were brave and smart.
And I just thought, these are the hardest working people
on the planet.
They deserve to be treated a lot better
than they're being treated right now.
About six months later, I was walking through
a department store and I was seeing the names
of all these designers, Calvin Klein, Liz
Claiborne, Cathy Lee, Tommy Hilfinger signs.
And I just stopped and I was like, okay,
but what are the names of the workers that made these things?
And it was just like one of those things
where it popped into my head, hey, I should make a portrait
of a textile worker out of clothing labels.
One of the things about meeting the two women
was that it wasn't a sob story.
I mean, these were like brave smart women
that were working 12 to 17 hours a day and they were hopeful.
So anyway, I thought this absolutely
cannot be a sob story.
I want an image of a worker that commands respect.
A piece about work.
A piece about the hidden cost behind the label.
Portrait of a textile worker was unveiled in late January,
the Sharon Lynn Wilson Center for the Arts in Brookfield.
How many of these are you going to sign?
You're going to have a real vision to put that all together.
She's put voice to all those women's whispers of the work
that they do and intertwine the mentor to one voice.
I just can't believe it.
To see pictures of it is one thing to bet,
to see it up close, the details, the fingernails, everything.
It's just unbelievable.
Working on this piece has given Tari Sagnew a new way of seeing.
Great. Oh, I love these.
These are so great.
What do you see when you-- A great Asian, a
ready-made great Asian.
So if I was doing a drawing, this would all be
like black crosshatching and it moves over
to this light white.
So these are really great for transitions
from light to medium.
This medium has a lot of possibilities.
I mean, one thing that I really like about it
is that it's all about taking pieces and
putting them together.
Like, ironies in the world that we see all the time.
Because I think that's what we do in our minds
is we separate them.
And we put things in categories and we don't connect them.
And I think that's the most exciting thing
about quilting, really.
It's actually a very intimate portrait
because it's like she's in her own little space
there concentrating.
And I always wonder what she's thinking.
I mean, what I want people to do is just
remember her face and work for making sure
that people that make the things that we use every single day
are treated well with appreciation.
And you know, from small bits of cloth gathered
from around the globe, Teresa Agnew has pieced
together an image she hopes will connect with the
viewer, an image of the face behind the labor,
a portrait of a textile worker.
If you're going to be in the Madison area,
you can see Teresa Agnew's portrait of a textile
worker quilt for yourself.
It'll be on display through March 13th at the
James Watcher's Gallery of the Wisconsin Academy.
That's in Madison's Overture Center for the Arts.
Teresa Agnew will also give a free talk to the
public in the gallery at 2 p.m.
Sunday March 13th.
You can find more information on our website
at wpt.org/in Wisconsin.
Our next story deals with a visitor to the North Woods.
We don't usually think of winter as a time of migration.
But when animals experience tough times in their
wintering grounds, they may head to other
parts, such as the case with a migrant from Canada
that's some call the Great Grey Ghost, the Phantom of the North.
This year, Great Grey Owls from Canada have
descended upon Wisconsin in record numbers.
And producer Joanne Garrett found that it
is a remarkable event.
For us to have this many in Wisconsin is just jaw dropping.
It's beyond what anybody's ever seen.
Mind-boggling jaw dropping once in a lifetime experience.
It's a huge owl from the North.
Evidently, the small-rown population in Canada
is so small that these owls got really hungry up
there and they moved south.
And if they hadn't moved, they would be starving
to death by the hundreds.
I would guess there's at least 100 birds in Douglas County.
And in a normal year, how many Great Grey Owls
are being Douglas County?
If you're lucky, one.
It's a cycle similar to, say, Grouse and Gossock
on every 10 years or so.
The Grouse are real high in numbers and they plummet
in the Gossock follows.
Rabbits and foxes is another cycle, well, it's the same
with the mice and the owls.
Very docile animal, eats mice, diurnal, which means
it hunts daytime rather than in the middle of the night.
They like to hunt at least a corridor of open country.
That's why they're found along roads so much.
They hunt with their ears.
You can see them watching the snow, cluing in on where the
mouse is and they'll actually plunge through the snow
without ever seeing the rodent.
So they hunt by sound, even though they're hunting in the
daytime and can see really well.
They do it by hearing.
You can pull up right across from an owl, but keep in
mind that if he's hungry, just the vibration
from your car could be messing up him hearing.
The bird is counting on being able to hear a mouse walking
under the snow in order to eat.
So a lot of traffic or cars sitting in an idling definitely
interfere with that bird eating.
I've heard there are people here from New York and California
and everything in between.
I took a woman out from North Carolina a couple of weeks ago.
She saw 14 owls that day.
I've seen great gray owls before, but there's so many.
There's something special about driving around
and seeing 20 in a day.
You end up giggling.
There's another one.
It's just never heard of something like this before.
[Music]
The 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy are
exactly one year away.
But America's men's and women's teams in one sport
are being chosen this week here in Wisconsin.
The sport is curling, a sport which has more participants from
Wisconsin than any other state.
Producer Art Hackett reports on a team with Badger State
Connections seeking to represent America at the Olympics.
[Music]
Curling and golf share a Scottish heritage.
They also share reputations for decorum and tradition.
Teams generally refer to themselves only by the last
name of the lead player or skip.
Team right, Team Johnson, Team Schmidt.
Except for the team led by Debbie McCormick
of Rio, Wisconsin.
Typically curling teams are named after the team skip.
Even though skip, we don't feel that that's fair because
it really is a team effort.
Kind of like the Packers aren't called Team Farve.
They're the Packers.
[Music]
In Smith's home silver, who's from Chicago is responsible
for the team's apparently unique tradition of having
its own unofficial name.
It was a stop gap measure until we came up
with something better.
And we never did.
And then we came up with a
logo and we like the logo.
We love the logo.
So it's very nice.
We're Team Lucky Monkey.
They're curlers with attitudes.
Swiss home, silver, McCormick and the coach, Joni Cotton, all
former Olympians were involved in a dust stop a few years back
with NBA star Charles Barkley, who was a commentator for
Turner Sports Olympic coverage.
At some point he was making fun of curling
during the 2002 Winter Olympics out in Salt Lake.
Let me tell you babe, that is dusting curling.
Every woman in the world could do this for.
It's called dusting.
And so I said, you know, I'd be happy to do a contest.
I and Swiss home Charles will make more free throws than
you will put stones in the center of the rings any day.
I think he chickened out.
A rare instance of trash talk in a sport where
civility is prized.
So highly a losing team is expected to shake hands
and concede if the score becomes too lopsided.
Lucky Monkey came into being not long after the 2002 Olympics.
Tracy Sachin of Lodi and Allison Pottenger of
Eden, Prairie, Minnesota came in as new players.
Because the Olympics happen every four years, teams
trying to hang together for a four year cycle.
Each year used to be an individual type set up
your training schedule.
Win nationals go to world type thing.
Now there's much more of a long term view of it when
you're performing your teams.
There's more thought put into like a three
year plan for training.
Are you a preference on color?
They had an early success.
A red banner hanging above their home rank in McFarland
proclaims them gold medal winners at the 2003 curling
world championship in Winnipeg.
Yeah, that was our first season.
Yep. First US women to ever win
the world championship.
Pretty fun.
But that's ancient history for the past five months team
Lucky Monkey is spent nearly every other weekend in Canada.
The team's coach calls Canada the training ground.
We've been in a lot of very tough competition,
which is the whole goal for playing up in Canada.
And we've had our share of last rock losses this year, which
certainly toughens your spirit.
By January of this year, the team was in Medford.
Medford along with Vice Lay hosted qualifying meets to
determine which teams would face off at this week's
Olympic trials in McFarland.
The Medford Club is small, only four sheets wide, half
the crowd watches from metal bleachers next to a fireplace.
The rest watches through a window in the bar room.
Team Lucky Monkey breathes through four
matches in two days.
Only one could be called close.
The one against the team led by Katie Schmidt of Madison.
The rest of Schmidt's team is from the midgie Minnesota.
They went up two leaving in four or five in it.
After seven ends, an end is like an inning in baseball.
Team Schmidt was about to come within a point,
but no such luck.
Schmidt's throw stopped short.
That means Lucky Monkey's lead increases by four.
Surely thereafter, Schmidt's team concedes.
It's now late February, the day before the Olympic trial start.
You seem like you're a little bit more hiked up than you were.
The first time we met.
I don't know why.
Team Lucky Monkey is running knockout drills at a two
sheet club in Point Out.
And scrimmaging with a men's team, also
seeking an Olympic berth.
[INAUDIBLE]
We're going to throw a drill and then we'll kick your butt.
Good luck.
All of the team members and their coach have been
to Olympic trials before.
Four years ago, McCormick's team was the Olympic team.
The team that won had won loss and the second
place team had two losses.
So it was very close.
That's what separated was one game.
The trials are an endurance match.
The winning team could wind up playing a dozen draws
in the space of eight days.
The top four teams after the first nine matches
wind up in the finals.
By Monday night, three out of 10 teams are undefeated.
Team Lucky Monkey is one of them.
So is their opponent, Cassie Johnson's team, mostly from
Minnesota with one member, Maureen Brunt, from Portage.
The score stays close, but in the eighth end, Johnson's
team pulls ahead by two.
Debbie McCormick throws the last stone of the 10th end.
Us elements, such an improbably, we've had
passed several blockers and it winds up near the
center of the house scoring two.
The score is tied at five and the match
goes into an extra end.
And team Lucky Monkey loses.
We know that Cassie Johnson's going to be one of the top four.
So it's not like we're heartbroken to lose this one.
Team Lucky Monkey went into this morning's final
round robin game with a seven and one record.
They were playing the Trials top-seated team, skipped
by Paddy Lank of New York.
Team Lank includes Madison Native, Erica Brown, who first
went to the Olympics as the Curler when she was
only 14 years old.
Team Lank took a three-point lead, but Lucky Monkey battled
back, tying the game in the 10th end, forcing an extra end.
Team Lank's final shot in that extra end fell short.
Lucky Monkey wins, giving them a birth in the top
bracket of the semi-finals.
Art will have an update on Team Lucky Monkey's mid for the
Olympics on next week's program.
And that's our show for this week.
Remember, if you'd like to contact us with budget story
ideas, you can email us at in Wisconsin at wpt.org or you
can call us at 1-800-253-1158.
We leave you now with another look at those
magnificent, great, great owls that are temporarily
visiting our state's northern counties.
For in Wisconsin, I'm Paddy Lowe.
See you next week.
[Music]