[Music]
Hello and welcome to InWisconsin.
I'm Patty Low.
This week find out how this Jewish rabbi found himself
teaching in a Catholic school.
Discover why a paparly future may be just
what the doctor ordered and take a walk through a
garden that is not only beautiful but keeps this
trout stream clean.
All that plus we search for poetry
in a tavern where you can buy beer or hunting
equipment. It's found only in Wisconsin.
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This week the Jewish holiday
Passover falls on the calendar just three days before
the Christian holiday of Easter.
Though the two holidays will be celebrated
in close proximity this year often the two
religions can seem worlds apart.
Reporter Art Hackett came across a story that
offers an intersection of these two major faiths.
He found it in what would seem to be an unlikely place.
In the little village of Little Shoot there is a
school, a very old school.
St. John's School was established in 1836 so it has
a very long and rich history.
It is a Catholic school.
The village was founded by Catholics.
Dutch Catholics.
The parish of St.
John Napoleon, St.
John Napoleon, is the patron saint of the
Confessionals. A lot of people say that it's decided
that their children will attend here the moment they
become pregnant.
So it's tradition steeped in tradition.
So if this is about a village of Dutch Catholics why
am I playing this music?
A rabbi walks into a Catholic school.
That's not a joke that's what this story is
actually about.
I had attended the gathering of
the Church of Green Bay which is like a teacher's
convention only it's for anyone in the Church of Green Bay and
that was back two years ago.
And I had seen him speak on the Psalms actually.
After I retired from the full-time pulpit
I started substitute teaching.
Well since I was substitute teaching and I was talking
to Catholic educators I did a little commercial at the end
of my presentation and said if you're interested in
a substitute teacher that's what I'm doing now.
At the time we needed substitute so I came back and said to
my administrative assistant Marianne Welch, find this
man and put him on our list.
I sing opera too.
We want to talk about that.
Yes, broken, broken, and Melissa are my opera stars.
The kids fell in love with him, the staff fell in love with him,
parents fell in love with him when we thought if there's an
opening for this man we are going to make him a permanent
member of our St.
John family here.
In a school where it is definitely okay to hang the ten
commandments on the wall they've got a guy who really knows
about the ten commandments.
They hired the rabbi.
"A.A. would be for Algebra."
rabbi said Vine Bird teaches a math class in the afternoons
but most of the time he's in charge of the resource room.
This is the point in the story where we have to tell you
that this happens to be country and western day.
It's cowboy optional for students who have
behaved themselves.
"62% of 25 is a number."
"Gotcha." "Okay?"
"Yes." The resource room is a
place where students can go to get one-on-one
attention if they need it or study in groups.
"You know a lot of people asked me when I left the full-time
pulpit, well, why are you going into teaching?"
Really what I say to them is it's not that
far off from what I'm supposed to be as a rabbi.
A rabbi is a teacher.
And so I don't really see it as different.
It's simply a different way of
expressing that commitment to God that you make as a rabbi.
rabbi said taught courses in biblical history for a number
of years at St.
Norbert College in Depeer.
He is still part-time rabbi at a
Manitouac congregation.
Everybody who teaches in a Catholic school has to
have religion certification from the diocese.
So with all of my experience and I actually wrote part of a
book that's yet to be published on explaining Catholicism to
Jews, they gave me advanced certifications.
So I'm probably the first rabbi who has
a certificate saying that I'm a catacast for
the diocese of green base.
It's Paul.
That would be the Apostle Paul.
What do we know about Ruth?
Was she?
She was a Moabite.
Very good.
Do you remember any of this now Kyle?
She was married to Boaz.
I don't actually teach a lot of religion.
I did do a course for the
teachers in Scripture so that they could get some Scripture
credits the last time we had a half day.
But I don't actually teach a
lot of religion because that would sort of cross
the boundary a little bit in where people's comfort level
might be.
And I can understand that.
This is a Catholic school.
It is a Catholic school.
And I would feel the same way if my children were going
to a Jewish school and you had a priest who
came in and said, "Okay, I'm going to teach religion
now. We'll wait a minute."
Who is one part of your faith that you would want the students
here to understand?
What is it?
I would think that we all worship the same
God. That God speaks to us differently but it's
the same God.
Really, that's the gift that the Jews gave to
the world.
Was the understanding of who the one God is.
When I see the kids here recite the
Ten Commandments or when they study the Hebrew Scriptures
and when they look at Psalms, that resonates for me because
that's what we gave to them.
Rabbi said likes to focus on the connection between Judaism
and Christianity.
The wallpaper on his computer monitor
is of the meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and
a Rabbi in Germany.
So I think that Pope Benedict sent a tremendous
message by making this his first trip.
And even though he had a lot of other
things he was doing by making this visit a priority, to me,
it really symbolizes the new commitment that we have between
Judaism and Catholicism to find common ground.
One of the classic elements of Catholic school humor is
students writing a snide remark about Sister Mary on the
Blackboard. Sister Mary returns to the room and
is outraged, hilarity ensues.
Why is Rabbi said so awesome?
Because he helps you with anything he's rapping.
And like, he's rapping.
What I really hope that this brings out is
that there are a lot of things that we need to, that religious
people can accomplish in the world and I think the best
way that we can do that is by educating our children
to see us as all as people and by remembering
that we're all trying to do the same thing.
We're all trying to be God's partners in making
the world a better place.
And so I hope people think about that
over Passover and over Easter.
[Music]
We travel across the state to the village of Weston for our
next report.
The small central Wisconsin community
is home to a business that's using an emerging
technology. And he soeth reports that it has the
potential to make medical treatment safer and
easier for us as patients, as well as cheaper for
the health and history.
From the outside, it's the Marshfield clinic.
But inside, it's become the state capital for
a day.
This is truly a win-win situation for Wisconsin
physicians and residents alike.
Governor Jim Doyle is announcing a new commission
on electronic medical records.
I would be very proud to be the first governor to be able to
stand up and say we now have a fully integrated electronic
patient medical record.
Healthcare providers are using electronic records
more and more to save money and help physicians
with patient safety issues like drug interactions.
What Doyle would like to see are statewide
standards so those records can be secure but also accessible
over a wide network, like they've done at Marshfield and
it's many affiliate clinics.
How do you spell that doctor's lesson, do you know?
This is Marshfield's new clinic in Weston and it may very
well be the first of its type to be built from the ground
up to be totally chartless.
That means at Weston Clinic, there are no more of these.
Paper charts are a thing of the past.
When a patient checks in, her chart is made available to
clinic staff electronically over a wireless network.
Any specific concerns that you have?
Family practitioner David Lang has a powerful new
tool, a tablet laptop with a Wi-Fi connection.
When I'm sitting here looking at the patient and talking to
them, I am able to look at all of their labs so
that information is immediately available.
I'm able to do their prescriptions, update
all of that information.
All that information is stored centrally in these secure
memory bags back in Marshfield which are protected
by a backup generator.
I feel more comfortable with my information being stored
electronically and in electronic medical record than I
do in a paper record.
Electronic systems, we know who has looked at the information
and when and why in the paper world we do not know who has
looked at that information.
While all these servers and wireless tablets
represent a major investment, in the long run
they will help reduce costs.
According to clinic estimates, each time a paper chart is
pulled, the labor and time involved cost
Marshfield about $6.
But Marshfield doctors are more excited about saving time.
What really made the big difference was by using portable
units which are using wireless network, I can now access
a patient's chart medical records at the bedside.
I no longer have to go out to the desk or bring a paper chart.
What this really allows us to do is almost everything at
the point of care from the CMR which I can review the X-rays,
CT scans, MRI scans with the patient as they're sitting
here. Marshfield patients can log in
securely over the internet and see their own medical records.
In the future they may even be able to add to them.
We have some initiatives now where people are
actually collecting information at home for
monitoring of certain chronic diseases, critical information
such as the patient's weight and blood pressure and blood
glucose levels and so forth.
Many people make the distinction between information that's
available only to help the providers take a better care
of the patient but the patient has got to be part of that loop.
Marshfield also has an initiative where patients
give a DNA sample.
With that included in a medical record, care can
be highly personalized.
If somebody's that increased risk genetically for a disease,
we would recommend more frequent screening.
Maintaining this kind of sensitive information
will require tight security standards.
And those with the need to have the records readily accessible
in an emergency gives the governor's new commission
on electronic medical records a real challenge.
But if you go into an emergency room in Green Bay, the
doctors there that are treating you will have access to the
most updated medical records from your home clinic which may
be Marshfield.
I often take care of patients in emergencies
that I have not seen before.
Having access to the electronic medical record in a wide network
system can be life savings.
Since Andy produced that report, the governor's commission
on electronic medical records has met several times.
A forum is scheduled on May 5th to kick off planning efforts
with healthcare professionals.
Governor Doyle has asked the commission to have
the infrastructure for a statewide e-health
information system in place by 2010.
We move now to another innovative idea, this one
of an environmental nature.
City officials in Lodi were concerned about the health of
a neighboring trout stream.
Their solution?
It involved planting flowers.
In Wisconsin producer Inter and Laura Kalanowski explains.
Along the shoulder of Highway 113 near Lodi,
you'll see a garden filled with prairie flowers.
They're the sort of flowers that once envelop the Lodi Valley.
This is yellow golden rod.
Now this garden of indigenous prairie plants helps
improve the environment.
The DNR passed a mandate in 2004 to cool down rainwater
that runs off Highway 113.
The goal was to protect a cold water trout stream that
runs through the town of Lodi.
The town's park commission looked into the idea of
creating a rain garden.
We on the Friends of Scenic Lodi Valley thought that possibly
we could expand this open trench concept and convert
that into a rain garden.
Something that was a little bit more innovative and
something more appealing.
The park commission began working with experts
from the U.S.
Geological Survey and the State
Department of Transportation to develop a rain garden that
would be a good fit for the given area.
Since the final design was completed last year, researchers
from the U.S.
Geological Survey are pleased with
the way the garden is managing stormwater runoff.
So far in terms of the data that we've collected,
the temperatures have been reduced significantly
from what the runoff is coming right off the street.
So I would say that this has worked out really well.
Another nice thing is that the U.S.
Ge has is monitoring it so that we can actually evaluate
how effective these things are and we'll have, if we keep
doing this, we'll have better ideas on how to enhance
it and make it work better for the next ones we do.
This is a liatris.
After the design of the garden was in place, members of the
Friends of Scenic Lodi Valley researched plants that would
make the rain garden both beautiful and environmentally
beneficial. We worked out what plants we
would put in, what ones we thought would work and then we
looked at a variety of plants that would give us flowering
from the earliest which would be in May all the way through
the frost and looked at various heights, a good diversity
of color and plant shapes.
And so that's what we based on but they also
needed to be prairie plants because their root
system goes down underground as far as they are tall.
So that makes good channels per water to channel down.
An expert from the U.S.
Geological Survey says the plant selected for
the garden more than get the job done.
In fact, the whole garden is full of insects.
These colorful prairie plants will help the U.S.
Geost determine the rain gardens effectiveness.
If we know how much water is coming in and we know how much
is exiting through the bottom tile drain, we can then
also calculate how much is leaving through normal
evapotranspiration. As a result, we're trying to
quantify how much the plant life is taking up versus how
much is just draining right through.
These flourishing results are generating sound feedback from
groups like the U.S.
Geost and the Wisconsin Department
of Natural Resources.
The agencies intend to build more such regional rain
gardens throughout the state.
I'll just bring all these groups together to collect data so
that other communities within the country when they embark
on a project like this have some hard data to work with.
Lodi Mayer Paul Fisk says the preservation of the cold water
creek, the original reason for designing the garden is
just one of many benefits.
The project is an example of the old roll of thinking
globally and acting locally.
What it's done is it's brought different segments of the
community together and it's relieved high temperature
pressure on this particular area of the creek.
Positive research results and strong community involvement
have the Lodi Park Commission and hopeful that the rain garden
success will continue to grow.
The way the rain garden is functioning is exceptional
and the way the community and interested people are getting
involved with it is incredible.
The biggest concern that I have is promoting it, finding
ways that people can learn from the data that the U.S.GS is
investigating, finding ways of building better rain gardens.
This is only the beginning.
How does the old saying go April showers bring May flowers?
Well April is also National Poetry Month and we challenged
a Wisconsin poet to work with one of our videographers to
craft a visual poem, not about the weather, but about a unique
business in Sock County.
It's a tavern where you can buy beverages, sure, but you
can also buy hunting equipment.
The latest chapter in our poems about places series features
poet John Layman, videographer Mike Eiker, and a place
called Brecker's Tavern.
[MUSIC]
Wisconsin's stories.
Well, I guess living in Wisconsin is a lot
like the tavern that sells rifles and beer.
Mike, I see goat.
Hmm, it doesn't make much sense, but it feels
right when you're there.
Roger, Johnny, Gordy, Eldon, and the rest tell stories
or watch the Packers on TV.
You're probably safer here in any place in America.
Hey Junior, why don't you tell this guy about the time you
fell from the deer stand and hung upside down for
an hour from the tree.
Junior, now 79, pulls two mugs out of the freezer,
fills them from the tap.
[MUSIC]
Gives me one and slowly takes a swing.
It was like this, he begins, all heads turned toward him.
Outside, the world is changing, but here, within
stories, is where we live.
>>
[INAUDIBLE]
[LAUGH]
>>
[INAUDIBLE]
>>
[INAUDIBLE]
>> You bring along next thing.
[MUSIC]
[SOUND]
Listen, if a turkey could smell, you'd never kill one
because its eyesight and hearing are the best there is.
One hint of motion and a gobbler vanishes like puff of smoke.
That's why you scout before the season, check creek banks
and around mud holes for tracks.
Listen at dusk reverbs flying up to roost.
Why you wear camouflage and a face mask and sit
against the tree wider than the outline of your back.
[MUSIC]
When you see a long beard, call to get him working toward you.
If he struts, wait till he extends his neck.
A clear one shot kill is what you want, but note,
hunts you recall the most are those in which the gobbler wins.
[MUSIC]
If you do something one day and the next and
it becomes your life, she thinks looking out from the kitchen.
It's two years since she left Atlanta, quit her job
to help her alien mother.
105 since Edwin, her grandfather bought this
grocery, now a bar, and the wordless dialogue
of work began.
But she knows we're worth most to ourselves and
to others, where we're most ourselves contented
and at home.
Out the window rock crappings rise like old gravestones.
There's nothing and then there's something.
Then across the hills at night, a fragrance of
leaves, or in the distance, the sound of returning
a case.
[MUSIC]
John Layman is the founder and original publisher of Rosebud,
a national magazine of short stories, poetry and art.
He's also the poetry editor of the Wisconsin Academy Review.
You can read the text of Layman's poems about
places offering and watch the poem again on
our website.
The address is www.org/inwisconsin.
And once there, you can also watch a selection
of our other poems about places, featuring the
work of other Wisconsin poets and Wisconsin Public
Television videographers.
We have some update on reports we've recently brought you.
Earlier this year, we reported on the cleanup of PCB
contamination of the Fox River.
We told you about a surprise discovery of what is thought to
be the most highly contaminated section of the Fox River.
With PCB levels 4 to 5 times higher than previous deposits,
it was found just below the Dupier Dam.
This week, Attorney General Peg Lawton Schlager announced an
agreement with NCR Corporation and Sonoco U.S.
Mills to pay $30 million to expedite the
cleanup of that section of the Fox.
The work is expected to be done over the next two years.
You may remember our story about the Madison man who outfitted
his car to run on used fish fry oil.
Now, a bio-fuel co-op has opened near downtown Madison,
making the city the first state capital in the country to have
a veggie oil service station.
And finally, Art Hackett reported last week
on the reaction from some Waukesha residents
to the immigration bills in Congress.
Well protests continued this week with an estimated 10,000
people joining a rally on the steps of the state capital.
Government officials and the legislators spoke in support
of providing a path for illegal immigrants to become
U.S. citizens.
The U.S.
Senate, which was debating a compromise
measure, adjourned for the Easter recess without
taking any action.
More on these updates can be found on our website
at www.wrg/inwisconsin.
And that's our program for this week.
Join us next time when we'll introduce you to a Racine
grandfather who was slapped with a lawsuit for hundreds
of thousands of dollars by the Hollywood movie industry.
After his 12-year-old grandson copied some popular films
onto the home computer.
That's next week.
For now, we leave you with a spring walk through the Horacan
National Wildlife Refuge.
Enjoy. And for In Wisconsin,
I'm Patty Low.
Have a great weekend.
[Music]
(upbeat music)