In Wisconsin #909

Wisconsin Public Television

Transcript: In Wisconsin #909

Air Date: January 6, 2011

Patty Loew:

Welcome to In Wisconsin in a brand new year. I’m Patty Loew. This week, what’s old is new again in Manitowoc, where vintage picture postcards make a comeback.

Woman:

This kind of cultural, this camera behavior, this kind of posing, is in us.

Patty Loew:

It’s a new year, and time for a make-over, an educational make-over.

Woman:

Go back to school and get going on this dream. It’s a good dream.

Patty Loew:

The recession is hard on industry, but it can be good for education. Plus, east meets west in an etiquette lesson for Wisconsin corporations doing business in China.

Woman:

I tried to use chopsticks and I just can’t use them.

Patty Loew:

Those reports next on In Wisconsin.

Announcer:

Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided by the people of Alliant Energy, who bring safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly. Alliant Energy. We’re on for you. And Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists of Milwaukee, Oshkosh, and Minneapolis, a veterinary team working with pet owners and family veterinarians, providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small companion animals.

Patty Loew:

Six days into the new year, and chances are you’ve had your picture taken. In an age where digital cameras and cell phones are everywhere, we take for granted that we’ll have our picture taken lots of times. But 100 years ago, when you paid for a studio portrait, it was a special event. Those portraits were sometimes turned into penny postcards. And as In Wisconsin reporter Liz Koerner discovers, that prospect intrigued two artists in Manitowoc.

Liz Koerner:

Some were young. Some were old. Some held their purse. Some held their pets. One even held a prosthetic arm. They all had their photograph taken for an art project by Julie Lindemann and John Shimon.

Julie Lindemann:

The project involves photographing people as they want to present themselves to our camera.

Liz Koerner:

The photographs are used to create real photo postcards that look a lot like the ones that were popular a century ago.

John Shimon:

We identified that this genre of some postcard portrait that depicted a single person head to toe was a fairly common Midwestern phenomena.

Liz Koerner:

Before cameras became user-friendly, the photo postcard served a special purpose.

Julie Lindemann:

It was a way to document one’s self and to show one’s self to family far away. Maybe this is the only photograph the receiver was going to see of you.

Liz Koerner:

Since the studio portrait was such a special event in the past, people usually dressed in their best for the occasion.

Julie Lindemann:

So we see a lot of people in the old photo postcards wearing their coat. So we’ve had a lot of questions about that. Are they thinking this is the most beautiful, most elaborate piece of clothing they own?

Liz Koerner:

For the contemporary photograph, some people just happen to be visiting the artist. Some came specifically to be a part of their art project. The result is a range of outfits and objects, from flip-flops to funky, to formal attire.

Man:

I tried to be me today. This is who I am. I really went with me. So, I skated for ten minutes and showed up how I looked.

Liz Koerner:

Since the subjects themselves chose what to wear, it’s somewhat surprising that their outfits occasionally echo the past.

Julie Lindemann:

This woman came with her husband and she had this outfit all planned out. And then we said, oh, that really reminds us of this old postcard we have.

Liz Koerner:

The artists also noticed that their subjects sometimes chose the same pose as people in the old photo postcards.

Julie Lindemann:

This is sort of a thing we’re interested in, this kind of cultural, this camera behavior, this kind of posing is in us.

Liz Koerner:

Lindemann and Shimon re-create the look of the old postcards with lighting that simulates daylight, and by using orthochromatic film.

John Shimon:

It kind of exaggerates people’s facial characteristics, because not being sensitive to red, anything that’s red on somebody’s skin is rendered as black.

Liz Koerner:

They also used a very old camera.

John Shimon:

The camera that we’re using is basically just, you know, a box with a lens on the front, and a place to insert film in the back. We’re not necessarily using a camera that’s 100 years old. We’re using parts of cameras that are 100 years old and parts of whatever we can piece together.

So what we’re doing here is we open up the shutter and the aperture and actually view the image projected on a piece of glass. And then after everything is set up, insert the film in the camera, close the aperture and the shutter, pull out the dark slide and make the exposure.

Liz Koerner:

They added another dimension to their project by taking advantage of new technology too. They exhibit the images online and invite written comments from the general public and from people featured in the photographs.

Julie Lindemann:

This person actually wrote, I have a dual background in western classical music and ethnomusicology. I thought that combining the uniform of western classical music, the tux, with my termite-hollowed didgeridoo and ironwood clapsticks would be the perfect way to honor both of my interests, while also recognizing the formality of early portraiture.

Liz Koerner:

And even though internet delivery is instant, Lindemann says they don’t consider the process complete until they get one of their photo postcards hand-delivered in the mail.

Julie Lindemann:

So it comes through our mail slot with their handwriting and all the scars and marks of the U. S. Postal Service handling it as this tactile object.

Patty Loew:

If you’re interested in seeing more photo postcards, just log onto our website at: wpt.org and then click on In Wisconsin for a link showing dozens of these vintage style pictures.

A picture for a new student ID could be in the works for those unemployed in Wisconsin. A downturn in the economy has resulted in an up-tick in enrollment at colleges and universities. Newly-elected governor Scott Walker is also pushing the jobs agenda. This week Andy Soth shows you how an educational make-over could improve your future job prospects in Wisconsin.

Woman:

What are you doing tonight?

Andy Soth:

Linda O’Malley is a busy woman.

Linda O’Malley:

I’m working three jobs. I feed three really hungry teenagers. That’s where the majority of my money goes, to the grocery store. I’m only staying afloat.

Andy Soth:

One of the three jobs keeping OMalley afloat is styling hair at a nursing home. After years of making over clients, she is looking for a make-over of her own. O’Malley wants to go back to school for a nursing degree.

Linda O’Malley:

I really feel it’s my calling.

Andy Soth:

Just when she was contemplating going back to school…

Television Commercial:

Do you need some direction in your life?

Andy Soth:

O’Malley learned about a scholarship contest at a local college.

Television Commercial:

You can enter our extreme educational make-over contest at the University of Wisconsin Washington County.

Andy Soth:

The promotion has been done at a number of UW colleges, which are the two-year campuses of the UW system.

Television Commercial:

A total value of over $2,600, just submit a brief essay of how your life will be improved.

Linda O’Malley:

The only thing holding me back now is my financial limitations. Please help me with an education make-over. We are ready and the patients are waiting.

Andy Soth:

The judges liked O’Malley’s letter.

Linda O’Malley:

Remember that contest?

Woman:

I remember.

Linda O’Malley:

I won!

Andy Soth:

That made it possible for her to start her nursing education with a semester of free tuition at UW-Washington County.

Linda O’Malley:

It’s a little start, but it’s the start that I need.

Andy Soth:

While the UW colleges can’t make it free-for-all, they have resisted raising tuition for the last three years.

David Nixon:

Because our particular mission in this state, to make higher education available to people whom otherwise might struggle.

Andy Soth:

And in this down economy, the UW colleges have set enrollment records. In fact, enrollment is up across the UW system, including four-year campuses, like UW-Platteville.

UW-Platteville, with its emphasis on engineering and other professional tracks, is virtually bursting at the seams. With a 50% enrollment increase over the last ten years.

Carol Sue Butts:

We happen to have those critical majors for the future, in technology, in forensic investigations, in engineering, in industrial technology.

Andy Soth:

Platteville has a long engineering tradition, but its recent growth comes from better marketing of the program in the tri-state area it serves. And from letting those students from Iowa and northern Illinois pay in-state tuition.

David Markee:

It’s been a win for the students that are attending. It’s also been a win for the state of Wisconsin. Because we’re producing engineers.

Andy Soth:

While emphasizing career outcomes has been successful for Platteville, being too focused on training for a particular type of career comes with risks.

Rolf Wegenke:

The worst thing you can do is go with the fad. A few years ago in the dot.com bubble, it was computer science, everyone should go into computer science. Well, the dot.com bubble burst. Now it’s biotechnology. Everyone goes into biotechnology. And that’s a great field. It’s a growing field. But things change. And if you have learned how to learn, and have those communication skills, you have those critical thinking skills, you’re going to be a success.

Andy Soth:

It’s private college week and Rolf Wegenke is taking his message to the air.

Mitch Henck:

We’ve been hearing all day on the news tuition going up at the University of Wisconsin. People talk about going to private college, and well, private college is more expensive. Not always, because there are a lot of grants out there.

Andy Soth:

A big part of the job is convincing people it’s affordable.

Rolf Wegenke:

That is why we’re having private college week.

Andy Soth:

Wegenke says the state’s private school average annual tuition looks high at $22,000, but the average aid received totals $17,000, for a net cost of $5,000, comparable to UW System campuses.

Rolf Wegenke:

And we’re committed to finding the aid, finding the resources so you can pursue that dream at the college of your choice.

Andy Soth:

That dream seemed under threat for some at Beloit College in the fall of 2008. In nearby Janesville, the GM plant closing sent enrollment soaring at Blackhawk Tech and at UW-Rock County. At Beloit, the down economy contributed to an unexpected enrollment drop. The college made a number of layoffs.

John Nicholas:

We, of course, got press in Time magazine and others, and put it out there, not so much that the college was going under, but the college was responding quickly.

Andy Soth:

Today Beloit’s enrollment is back up to a healthy level, and the total enrollment for all of Wisconsin’s private colleges has never been higher.

John Nicholas:

Our piece of the pie attracts a specific type of individual, a specific type of student, a specific type of parent, and the demand and supply is almost inelastic. In other words, they’ll do almost anything to get here.

Andy Soth:

Like any vibrant marketplace, there’s something for everyone in the college market. The challenge in tough economic times is making the sale. At least for now, Linda O’Malley is a satisfied customer.

Linda O’Malley:

I’m happy. I’m happy to learn and finally go back to school and get going on this dream. It’s a good dream. This is what I want to do with my life, is to help people and help them to feel better. I’ve been doing that. I feel a stronger desire to do something a little bit more. This is a good thing.

Patty Loew:

Linda O’Malley is still going strong in her goal of becoming a nurse, continuing to take classes while working as a nurse’s aide and hairdresser. UW-Fox Valley is the most recent college to offer an educational make-over to a deserving student. Enrollment continues to set records across all UW college campuses.

Training in Chinese etiquette now plays a critical role in business. For example, giving a Green Bay Packers hat would actually be considered extremely rude. We’ll explain why in just a few minutes. But first In Wisconsin reporter Frederica Freyberg takes you to a dinner where they’re serving up Chinese etiquette in Middleton.

Woman:

Asian people are tiny, especially women are tiny. So do not be too strong to squeeze me. Please let me go!

Frederica Freyberg:

The big beefy handshake doesn’t cut it in China.

Woman:

First the three, you should go back and forth, for the toast.

Frederica Freyberg:

It’s highly insulting if visitors stay sober. Heavy drinking is apparently a must at dinner.

Woman:

Are you comfortable with the chopsticks, with this one? If you put it too close, it’s very difficult to open it.

Frederica Freyberg:

There’s so much for Americans to learn.

Woman:

I tried to do chopsticks and I just can’t use them.

Frederica Freyberg:

About doing business in China, especially at the all-important business banquette.

Paula Romeo:

There are a lot of differences, so there’s a lot for me to learn. And for many westerners to learn.

Xiaojun Wang:

It is a little bit complicated. Also, sometimes its a little bit frustrating for foreigners. Sometimes its Oh, I want to eat for five minutes and then I want to go back to work. In China, you eat two or three hours.

Frederica Freyberg:

Xiaojun Wang is a professor at a large university in China, and came to UW-Platteville for a year as part of its Confucius Institute. She staged a training session at a Madison area Asian restaurant on navigating the Chinese business banquette.

Xiaojun Wang:

We eat dinner together. We have fun together. We eat food together. We share everything together. It’s much more important than just a conference meeting room.

Frederica Freyberg:

So the diners learn that this type of business meeting in China could last all day or all night.

Xiaojun Wang:

You say, Thank you for coming, and drink.

Frederica Freyberg:

There are seemingly endless rounds of toasts and endless platters of food.

Xiaojun Wang:

From the dinner table, you will never think China is a developing country. That is our hospitality.

Frederica Freyberg:

Because building personal relationships comes before any business relationships can be forged.

Xiaojun Wang:

We need to get to know each other. We need to have a relationship with each other. We need to be closer and know each other, and I trust you, so we can think about the business. I’m the host here. My honored guest will sit here.

Frederica Freyberg:

The seating arrangement is very precise and preordained. The American way of just grabbing a chair would be taboo.

Lance Ehrke:

Essentially watching the countries change, I think it’s very important to understand the different cultures.

Frederica Freyberg:

At this program, dinner guests soak up the cultural training, while also trying to get a bite in. Chinese dinner tables do include spoons.

Lance Ehrke:

I’m still wiping off the hot peppers from the hot sour soup.

Xiaojun Wang:

If you only just say hello in Chinese, use a little bit chopsticks, enjoy the food, drink with them, they will treat you as their honorable and closest friend.

Frederica Freyberg:

And this relationship is key for Wisconsin according to trade experts in attendance at the training.

Ken Wasylik:

China for Wisconsin is extremely important. Our third largest market is China.

Frederica Freyberg:

Third only to Canada and Mexico for Wisconsin exports, and accounts for a billion dollars in sales for the state.

Beng Yeap:

We are very strong in industrial machinery and also medical imaging equipment.

Frederica Freyberg:

So when Wisconsin people travel to China to broker a deal, it’s best to be equipped to navigate the business banquette, the precursor to any deal.

Xiaojun Wang:

We want people to know us, accept us, become friends with us.

Frederica Freyberg:

Just be sure to master the use of chopsticks before the Chinese business dinner is served.

Patty Loew:

As for the gift of a Packers hat being an insult, here’s why. In China, a green hat marks a man who’s cheated on his wife. Even mentioning a green hat, much less giving one as a gift, is cause for great humiliation and almost certainly the end of any business deal. Who knew?

Continuing coverage now on two water quality issues. First, the Asian carp invasion that’s threatening the region’s multi-billion dollar fishing industry. Take a look and you can see why they’re called flying fish. The new federal plan of attack will spend $47 million to prevent the Asian carp from spreading to the Great Lakes. Eight Wisconsin locations will be monitored and a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lab will be added in la crosse for testing. But a study on how to keep them out won’t be completed now until 2015, three years later than expected.

Last year, In Wisconsin also reported on the ongoing efforts to remove cancer-causing PCBs from the Fox River. The city of Green Bay and Brown County have now tentatively agreed to pay $350,000 each toward PCB removal. According to the DNR, the Fox River clean-up is the largest PCB removal project in the world. The environmental clean-up costs could hit $1 billion.

An eco-friendly approach to agriculture is helping one Wisconsin farm buck the trend in hard economic times. The Crave Brothers Dairy is pioneering a new way of farming, as In Wisconsin reporter Art Hackett discovered on their family farm near Waterloo.

Art Hackett:

When the four Crave brothers began a major expansion, their goal was building a better dairy farm.

Charles Crave:

We thought this is an opportune time in our career to take the equity we’ve had and capitalize on that equity to develop a farmstead that is better than anything we’ve had in the past.

Art Hackett:

In doing so, the Crave brothers also embraced a concept known as value-added agriculture. The Crave brothers make money by milk cows, just like any other dairy farm. What’s different is they try and make money off of virtually everything else that comes out of the cow. Most dairy farms ship raw milk to a processor. Not so here.

Charles Crave:

We can take our milk stored in this milk silo out of this spigot and directly hook it to a pump, which pumps that milk directly underground to our cheese factory 100 yards away.

Art Hackett:

The Crave brothers produce specialty European-style cheese such as Le Frere and soft Mozzarella.

Charles Crave:

Half or more of our milk is used in cheese production. Being seasonal cheese, during fresh mozzarella season, more of our milk is used.

Art Hackett:

That’s Charles brother George scooping curds out of a vat. The farm gains the added value of a finished product, rather than selling milk as a bulk commodity.

Bob Cropp:

We’re seeing some increased interest on farm process, even some small farmers, but that is the largest. They got a pretty good size cheese operation there.

Art Hackett:

UW-Extension Ag economist Bob Cropp says the cheese plant appears to be doing quite well. The varieties the Craves produce compete with imports, which are at a disadvantage because of the weak dollar. But the cheese plant isn’t the final stop for some of the milk. Another wipe line returns whey from the cheese plant to the farm that’s mixed into the feed for the cows. The nutritional value and profits stay on the farm and in the family.

Charles Crave:

If you make an investment eight, nine, ten years ago, you’d like to start seeing it pay off after that length of time. And fortunately for us, the cheese factory has helped us through this last year.

Art Hackett:

Crave says another investment is paying off, but in an indirect way. Each of the 1,000 cows produces about 115 pounds of manure a day. The farm partnered with an independent electricity producer to build a digester to generate power from the methane bubbling from the composting manure.

Bob Cropp:

They try to generate enough electricity for the farm and cheese plant plus sell some.

Art Hackett:

Crave doesn’t see himself being in the electric business, since he still has to pay a utility bill. The value to the farm comes from the by-product left over after the methane has been drawn off. The dried compost is used for bedding for the cows.

Charles Crave:

We’re trying to keep down the amount of bedding we need to bring onto the farmstead. Just a good, holistic, natural approach, and its very warm in the winter. Today, if you were laying on sand for bedding, that wouldn’t be so cozy. The cows that are laying in here are nice and comfy.

Art Hackett:

And theres more. The liquid waste is digester is a uniform nitrogen-rich fertilizer for the crops grown for cattle feed. Crave admits that all of this infrastructure was expensive.

Charles Crave:

That was at a time when milk prices were pretty darn good. Yep, that’s right, We knew they wouldn’t be good forever. Nobody anticipated they’d fall right off the table like they did the last year, though. We bled for a while. Not as bad as some folks.

Art Hackett:

Economist Bob Cropp says investments can pay off even when milk prices are low.

Bob Cropp:

You got to know what you’re doing. Youve got to be good at the production size, well-managed dairy herd. It’s another management tool you have to do. Youve got to manage some people. You got to know how to market.

Charles Crave:

There’s probably been as many of these ventures which have failed as which have succeeded in the last decade. So before folks get too– buy-in totally to the value-added on farm, they have to realize if they have the physical and mental attributes that can complement this type of business. Are they willing to spend the rest of their lives at it?

Art Hackett:

For the craves, the improvements are paying off during the dairy downturn.

Patty Loew:

The Crave brothers practice their conservation and sustainable practices on their 1700-acre farm in south central Wisconsin. Our environmental reporting continues next week. Here’s a preview of what you’ll see on In Wisconsin.

Art Hackett:

I’m Art Hackett near Arlington, where researchers are looking for the right combination of crops if Wisconsin’s future climate is different than the one today.

Man:

I always joke that Wisconsin hasn’t necessarily been getting hotter. We’ve been getting less cold.

Frederica Freyberg:

This is In Wisconsin reporter Frederica Freyberg. The DNR is launching a study on whitetail deer.

Man:

This is a way to involve hunters directly in the field research alongside of us and that’s exactly what we want to do.

Frederica Freyberg:

Find out what’s needed and how you can help.

Jo Garrett:

I’m Jo Garrett, and this is a pine marten.

Man:

It’s warm in there, huh? Its a great opportunity to work with such, you know, such a cool species.

Jo Garrett:

These researchers are investigating why pine martens remain endangered in Wisconsin, while they’re thriving in nearby states.

Patty Loew:

Those reports next Thursday at our new time, 7:30pm, right here on Wisconsin Public Television.

Finally this week, we salute a Wisconsin band that traveled halfway around the world to welcome in the new year. 112 members of the Middleton High School Marching Band and their supporters worked for more than a year to appear in the 25th anniversary of London’s New Year’s Day Parade. They performed before a half-million spectators and a worldwide audience. We leave you this week with their arrangement of Lady Gaga’s Poker Face.

Announcer:

The Middleton High School Cardinal Marching Band.

[band plays]

[cheers and applause]

Announcer:

Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided by the people of Alliant Energy, who bring safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly. Alliant Energy. We’re on for you. And Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists of Milwaukee, Oshkosh, and Minneapolis, a veterinary team working with pet owners and family veterinarians, providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small companion animals.