>> Hello, and welcome to "In Wisconsin."
I'm Patty Loew.
This week find out how this Jewish rabbi found himself teaching
in a Catholic school.
Discover why a paperless 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.
>> This week the Jewish holiday passover falls three days
before Easter.
Though the two holidays will be celebrated in close proximity
this year, often the two religions are seen 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 Chute there is a school, a
very old school.
>> The 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 parrish of St. John Nepomuciene parrish.
It's the confessional.
A lot of people say that it's decided that their children will
attend here the moment they become pregnant.
So it's tradition, deep in tradition.
tradition -
-
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 substitutes, so I came back and said
to my administrative assistant Maryann Welch, find this man and
put him on our list.
>> Brook and Melissa are my opera stars.
>> The kids fell in love with him, the staff fell in love with
him, the parents.
We thought if there's an opening for this man we are going to
make hem a permanent member of our family.
>> In a school where it's definitely OK to hang the ten
commandments on the wall, they've got a guy who really knows
about the ten commandments, they hired the rab bye.
>> A. would be for algebra.
>> The rabbi 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.
>> OK?
>> Yeah.
>> 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, why are you going into teaching?
And 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 Sid taught courses in Biblical history for a number of
years at St. Norbert college in De Pere.
He is still part-time rabbi at a Manitowoc congregation.
>> Everybody who teaches in a Catholic school has to have
religion certification from the diocese.
OK.
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 certification.
So I'm probably the first rabbi who has a certificate saying
that I'm a catachist for the diocese of Green Bay, since Paul.
>> That would be the apostle Paul.
>> What do we know about Ruth?
>> She was a Moabite.
>> Very good.
Do you remember any of this, Kyle?
>> Yeah.
She was married to Boaz.
>> 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
come in and say, OK, I'm going to teach religion now.
Wait a minute, you know.
>> If there's 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, you
know, God speaks to us differently, but it's the same God.
And really that's the gift that the Jews gave to the world, was
the understanding of who the one God is.
You know, when I see the kids here recite the ten commandments
or when they study the Hebrew scriptures or when they look at
Psalms, you know, that resonates for me because that's what we
gave to them.
>> Rabbi Sid likes to focus on the connection between Judaism
and Christianity.
The wallpaper on his computer monitor is the meeting between
pone Benedict XVI and a rabbi in Germany.
>> And 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 trips 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 black
board.
Sister Mary returns to the room and is outraged.
Hilarity ensues.
>> Why is rabbi Sid so awesome?
>> Because he helps you with anything.
>> He's rabbi.
>> 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 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.
>> 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.
Andy Soth reports that it has the potential to make medical
treatment safer and easier for us as patients, as well as
cheaper for the health industry.
>> 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 petition on
electronic medical records.
>> I would be very proud to say I could stand up and say we now
have a fully integrated electronic patient records.
>> They are using electronic records more and more to save
money and help physicians with patient saste issues, like drug
interactions.
What Doyle would like to see are statewide standards so those
records could be secure but also accessible over a wide
network, like they've done at Marshfield and its many
affiliated clinics.
>> 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.
>> I have you checked in.
>> 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 Lange has a powerful new tool, a
tablet lab pop with a wi-fi connection.
>> When I'm sitting here looking at the patient 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 of that information is stored centrally in these secure
memory banks back in Marshfield which are protected by a backup
generator.
>> I feel more comfortable with my information being stored
electronicically than I do in a paper record.
In 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 costs Marshfield about $6.
But Marshfield doctors are more excited about saving time.
>> What really made the big difference was by using a portable
unit, using a wireless network I can now access a patient's
chart, medical record on their 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 C.M.R., which I can review the X-rays, C.T. scans,
M.R.I.'s 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 from monitoring 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 better care of the
patient, but the patient has got to be a part of that loop.
>> Marshfield also has an initiative where patients give a
D.N.A. sample.
With that included in a medical record, care could be highly
personalized.
>> If somebody's at an increased risk genetically for a
disease, we would recommend more frequent screening.
>> Maintaining this kind of sensitive information will require
tight security standards.
Combining 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.
>> If you go in into an emergency room in Green Bay, the
doctors there who are treating you will have access to the most
updated medical records from your home, clinic, which maybe is
Marshfield.
>> I often take care of patients in emergencies that I have not
seen before, probably in excess of 20 medical records in a wide
network system can be life saving.
>> Since Andy produced that report, the governor's commission
on electronic medical records has met several times.
A forum is scheduled on May 5 to kick off planning efforts with
health care 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 Laura Kalinowski explains.
>> Along the shoulder of highway 113 near Lodi you'll see a
garden filled with prairie flowers, the sort of flowers that
once enveloped the Lodi valley.
>> This is the yellow goldenrod.
>> Now this garden of indigenous prairie plants helps improve
the environment.
The D.N.A. passed a mandate in 2004 to cool off rain water.
The goal was to protect a cool 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 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 research geological survey are pleased how the garden
is managing stormwater runoff.
>> So far with the data 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 USGS is monitoring it so we can
actually evaluate how effective these things are, and if we
keep doing this we'll have better ideas on how to enhance it
and make it better for the next ones we do.
>> After the design of the garden was in place, members of the
friends of scenic Lodi valley researched plants that would make
the area beautiful and environmental 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 it 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 with water to channel down.
>> An expert from the U.S. geological survey said the plants
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 determine the rain
garden's effectiveness.
>> If we know how much water in coming in and how much is
exiting through the bottom tile drain, we can then also
calculate how much is leaving through normal evaporation
transportation.
As a result, we're trying to, you know, quantify how much the
plant life is taking up versus how much it's just draining
right through.
>> These flourishing results are generating sound feedback from
groups like the USGS and the Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources.
The agencies intend to build more such regional rain gardens
throughout the state.
>> Bringing 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.
>> The Lodi mayor said the preservation of the cold water
creek, the original reason for designing the garden, is just
one of the many benefits.
>> The project is an example of the old rule of thinking
globally and acting locally.
What it's done is it's brought different segments of the
community together and it's relieved the high temperature
pressure on this particular area of the creek.
>> Positive research results and strong community involvement
have the Lodi park commission hopeful that the rain garden's
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 USGS 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 Sauk 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 Lehman, videographer Mike Eicher, and a place called
Sprecher's tavern.
>> Wisconsin stories.
Well, I guess living in Wisconsin is a lot like the tavern that
sells rifles and beer.
It doesn't make much sense, but it feels right when you're
there.
Roger, Johnny, Gordon, Eldon, and the rest tell stories or
watch the packers on the TV.
>> You're probably safer here than anyplace in America.
>> 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 a
tree?
Junior, now 79, pulls two mugs out of the freezer, fills them
from the tap, gives me one and slowly takes a swig.
It was like this, he begins.
All heads turn toward him.
Outside the world is changing, but here, within stories, is
where we live.
>> She knows you were here.
You bring her along next time.
>> 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 a puff of smoke.
That's why you scout before the season, check creek banks and
around mud holes for tracks, listen at dusk for birds flying up
to roost.
Why you wear camouflage and a face mask and sit against the
tree wider than the outline of your back.
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.
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
ailing 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 croppings rise like old gravestones.
There's nothing and then there's something.
Wind across the hills at night.
A fragrance of leaves.
Or in the distance, the sound of returning geese.
>> John Lehman 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 Lehman's "poems about places" offering
and watch the poem again on our website.
The address is wpt.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 pub television videographers.
We have some updates on reports we've recently brought you.
Earlier this year we reported on the cleanup of P.C.B.
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
P.C.B. levels four to five times higher than previous
deposits.
It was found just below the De Pere dam.
This week Attorney General peg Lautenschlager announced an
agreement with N.C.R. corporation and snow cow 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 biofuel 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.
Protests continued this week with an estimated 10,000 people
joining a rally on the steps of the state capitol.
Government officials and religious leaders 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
wpt.org/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 Horicon
national wildlife refuge.
Enjoy, and for "In Wisconsin," I'm Patty Loew.
Have a great weekend.
CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY
RIVERSIDE CAPTIONING COMPANY
www.closed-captioning.com