Wisconsin People & Ideas – Spring 2016

wisc

people & ideas

nsin the magazine of the wisconsin academy of sciences, arts and letters

Valerie Mangion: Night Vision A Driftless Region painter captures the nocturnal lives of animals

The Microbial Magic of CRISPR-Cas A powerful new gene editing technology emerges in Wisconsin

The View from the Apostle Islands $5.00 Vol. 62, No. 2

Spring 2016

Celebrating one hundred years of the National Park Service

Be informed.

Be inspired. wpr.org Wisconsin and the World.

CONTENTS

spring 2016 FEATURES 4 FROM THE DIRECTOR Why Science Matters

6 UPFRONT 6 ARTiculture supports home-grown art in the Fox Cities.

7 Peninsula Filmworks captures the heart and soul of Door County.

8 Milwaukee seniors make beautiful music with Grupo Renacer.

10 MEET THE FELLOWS Get to know the new Wisconsin Academy Fellows, eleven of our state’s best and brightest. administrative offices/steenbock gallery 1922 university ave. | madison, WI 53726 tel. 608-263-1692 www.wisconsinacademy.org

The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters produces programs and publications that explore, explain, and sustain Wisconsin thought and culture. Our signature publication is Wisconsin People & Ideas, the quarterly magazine of Wisconsin thought and culture; programs include the James Watrous Gallery in Overture Center for the Arts, which showcases contemporary art from Wisconsin; Academy Talks, a series of public lectures and discussion forums; Wisconsin Initiatives, exploring major sustainability issues and solutions; and a Fellows Program, which recognizes accomplished individuals with a lifelong commitment to intellectual discourse and public service. The Wisconsin Academy also supports the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission and many other endeavors that elevate Wisconsin thought and culture.

16 WISCONSIN TABLE Jim Lundstrom introduces us to Town of Brussels distiller who is making traditional Hmong rice liquor with a twist.

20 ESSAY Apostle Islands National Lakeshore superintendent Bob Krumenaker reflects on one hundred years of the National Park Service.

30 ESSAY Don Meyer uncovers a thriving scene in Wisconsin for the toe-tapping, old-timey music known as bluegrass.

Wisconsin People & Ideas (ISSN 1558-9633) is the quarterly magazine of the nonprofit Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters. Academy members receive this magazine free of charge.

Visit wisconsinacademy.org/join for information on how to become a member of the Wisconsin Academy.

Wisconsin People & Ideas Jason A. Smith, editor Jean Lang, copy editor Jody Clowes, arts editor Elliott Puckette, editorial assistant Designed by Huston Design, Madison Cover photo: Valerie Mangion, 2016.

Photograph by Dan Hardy

Photo credit: Jim Sorbie/Flickr.com by CC 2.0

Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Copyright Š 2016 by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters. All rights reserved. Postage is paid at Madison, Wisconsin. Postmaster: Send address changes to mailing address above.

The historic Devil's Island Light crowns the northernmost island of the Lake Superior archipelago known as the Apostle Islands. Learn more about the history of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore and the National Park Service on page 20.

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spring 2016 FEATURES 34 REPORT

Academy Initiatives program director Meredith Keller recounts the role

Wisconsin played in the historic Paris climate talks in December 2015.

38 EMERGING SCIENCE

Jacqueline Houtman explores CRISPR-Cas, a powerful new gene editing

technology and where (and how) is it being used in Wisconsin today.

42 @ THE JAMES WATROUS GALLERY

Driftless Region painter Valerie Mangion captures the nocturnal lives of animals in her new Night Vision series.

50 FICTION

“Oh, You Kids,” by Jon Hakes.

51 BOOK REVIEWS 51 Karla Huston reviews and no spiders were harmed, by Steve Tomasko 53 Shelby Anderson reviews One in a Billion: The Story of Nic Volker and

the Dawn of Genomic Medicine, by Mark Johnson and Kathleen Gallagher

Our gallery, the James Watrous Gallery in Overture Center for the Arts, Madison.

Wisconsin Academy Staff Jane Elder • Executive Director Rachel Bruya • Exhibitions Coordinator, James Watrous Gallery Zachary Carlson • Web Editor Jody Clowes • Director, James Watrous Gallery Aaron Fai • Project Coordinator Meredith Keller • Initiatives Director Don Meyer • Business Operations Manager Matt Rezin • Data & Office Systems Coordinator Amanda E. Shilling • Development Director Jason A. Smith • Communications Director and Editor, Wisconsin People & Ideas Officers of the Board Linda Ware • President Tim Size • President-elect Millard Susman • Immediate-past President Diane Nienow • Treasurer James W. Perry • Secretary Richard Burgess • Vice President of Sciences Marianne Lubar • Vice President of Arts Cathy Cofell-Mutschler • Vice President of Letters Statewide Board of Directors Leslie D. Alldritt, Washburn John Ashley, Sauk City Patricia Brady, Madison Malcolm Brett, Oregon Frank D. Byrne, Madison Roberta Filicky-Peneski, Sheboygan L. Jane Hamblen, Madison Joseph Heim, La Crosse Tom Luljak, Milwaukee Bernie L. Patterson, Stevens Point Kevin Reilly, Verona Bob Wagner, Mequon Marty Wood, Eau Claire Officers of the Academy Foundation Foundation Founder: Ira Baldwin (1895–1999) Andrew Richards • Foundation President Jack Kussmaul • Foundation Vice President Diane Nienow • Foundation Treasurer David J. Ward • Foundation Secretary

Inspired by photos from her infrared trail camera, Driftless Region artist Valerie Mangion created a series of subtly colored paintings entitled Night Vision. See more on page 42.

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Foundation Directors Jane Elder Terry Haller Millard Susman Linda Ware

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NEWS for

MEMBERS Fellows Nomination Window Opens We need your help to find the next class of Wisconsin Academy Fellows. Do you have a friend or colleague who is highly esteemed for his or her judgment and knowledge? Do they possess a keen understanding of how literature, art, or science contribute to the cultural life and welfare of our state? Is this person a Wisconsin treasure? If so, then please nominate them for Fellowship in the Academy by visiting our online form at wisconsinacademy.org/nominate. The open nomination period for our 2018 Fellows begins July 1, 2016.

Your Spring Support Is Needed In our rapidly changing world, we need champions for civil discussion, stewardship for our lands and waters, and knowledge as a means to improve lives.

Support the Wisconsin Academy with a tax-deductible gift this spring to champion these ideals and bring the best of Wisconsin to light. Send your donation to: Wisconsin Academy, 1922 University Ave, Madison, WI 53726 or online at wisconsinacademy.org/donate.

Discounts for Academy Members Wisconsin Academy members enjoy discounts on our receptions and registrations that require a fee. Make sure to register online as an Academy member to receive these discounts. If you have a question about your membership, please contact development director Amanda Shilling at 608-263-1692 x16 or ashilling@wisconsinacademy.org.

Academy Connections This April we delivered the third edition of Academy Connections, our quarterly e-update for members that provides a peek inside the workings of your Academy. If you did not receive your issue, please call 608-263-1692 or e-mail members@wisconsinacademy.org.

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Shelby Anderson lives in Madison with his wife, Laura. He edits a small magazine and has worked as a reporter in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Anderson enjoys running and cross country skiing, and he is a long-suffering Milwaukee Brewers fan.

Jon Hakes is a Northeast transplant and writer who produces a monthly, crowd-funded short fiction digest at patreon.com/jonhakes.

His writings have been published in Brain Harvest, Defenestration, and Analog Science Fiction & Fact, and can also be found at jonhakes.com.

Dan Hardy opened his photography studio in 1979 to concentrate on portraiture and wedding/event capture. Even though he officially retired this year, he's doing freelance photography work, restoring old photos, and diving into new challenges such as multimedia coverage.

Jacqueline Houtman is a Madison-based freelance biomedical science writer and editor. Her science writing for adults and children has appeared in numerous academic and educational publications. Houtman also writes books for young readers, including The Reinvention of Edison Thomas (Boyds Mills Press, 2012). Her website is jhoutman.com.

Karla Huston is the author of A Theory of Lipstick (Main Street Rag, 2013), as well as seven chapbooks of poetry. Huston’s writings have been published widely, including in The Pushcart Prize XXVI: Best of Small Presses (2012). She lives in Appleton.

Meredith Keller is the Initiatives director at the Wisconsin Academy, where she leads both the Waters of Wisconsin and Climate & Energy Initiatives. She joined the Academy in 2014 with an array of experience in nonprofits, environmental policy, and community organizing.

Bob Krumenaker began his National Park Service career in 1977 as a volunteer in Utah. He became superintendent of Apostle Islands National Lakeshore 25 years later. For his work with the NPS to address the scientific and policy implications of climate change, in 2008 he garnered the Midwest Region’s Superintendent of the Year Award for Natural Resources.

Jim Lundstrom toiled in the inky vineyards of daily newspapering in Hawaii and Wisconsin for several decades before moving to Door County in 2013. Today he serves as editor of the weekly Peninsula Pulse newspaper and quarterly Door County Living magazine.

Valerie Mangion regularly shows in group exhibitions regionally and nationally, and has had solo exhibitions in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Washington. She lives on a 58-acre farm in the Driftless Region with her two horses, two dogs, three cats, and one husband.

Don Meyer has served as business operations manager of the Academy since 2011. He's also one of the founders of the Gandy Dancer Festival, held every August in Mazomanie. Meyer's idea for the annual music festival came from his many years managing the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom, Wisconsin.

Beth A. Zinsli is director and curator of the Wriston Art Galleries and director of Museum Studies at Lawrence University in Appleton. A Wisconsin native, Zinsli earned her BA at Lawrence and her PhD at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

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FROM THE DIRECTOR

Why Science Matters JANE ELDER WISCONSIN ACADEMY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

When the Wisconsin Academy was founded in 1870, the American fascination with science was in full bloom. Science was opening new windows of discovery into the world around us, redefining what we knew to be true through evidence emerging from research, review, and scientific collaboration.

In this era, scientists were often isolated in remote locations, and they realized the value in learning from each other. In 1848, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) was founded “to promote intercourse between those who are cultivating science in different parts of the United States.” And in 1863 President Lincoln signed the enacting legislation for the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in order to “investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art” whenever called upon to do so by any department of the government.

Other societies and academies were forming in this era as well, including many in the young frontier states, and in growing urban areas, such as the Chicago Academy of Sciences. The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters—one of few that recognized the essential nature of the liberal arts—joined the wave in 1870.

As with the AAAS and NAS, geology and natural history dominated much of the Wisconsin Academy’s early investigations, as scientists sought to map and catalogue native flora, fauna, and landscape alike. Early editions of our Transactions journal brim with articles by scientists and Academy founders like Increase Lapham and P.R. Hoy describing geological formations likely to contain valuable lead deposits or “Some of the Peculiarities of the Fauna Near Racine.” These scientific findings were shared publicly in the pages of Transactions “for the betterment” of Wisconsin, and many helped inform decisions about economic development as well as the conservation of natural resources.

Lapham, Hoy, and other scientists worked in a time when science was believed to hold the key to unlocking discoveries that would make the future better. I wonder if they would be puzzled by the suspicious—even downright hostile—attitudes toward science in America today?

While every era has its skeptics (tensions between science and some religious beliefs seem to be perennial), in today’s political arena it is shockingly acceptable to proclaim that scientifically proven facts are simply irrelevant. Overwhelming evidence shown to be contrary to one’s position can be dismissed with a simple label of “bad science” or “just a theory.”

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Maybe this is just human nature when it comes to politically charged topics, but ignoring evidence when it contradicts what we want to hear is risky at best and disastrous at worst. It also sends a signal that established fact doesn’t matter in public policy process—a key indicator of an ailing democracy.

But it isn’t just our legislative leaders on the hook for sciencebashing. Anti-intellectualism is popular these days, and has its own corrosive effect. From labeling science an “elitist” endeavor to perpetuating arguments of false equivalence to supporting conspiracy theories, mass media—including the Internet—has actively contributed to the eclipsing of science from public policy and, well, the public sphere.

Perhaps more disconcerting than the organized deployment of these strategies in an effort to undermine the scientific establishment is the erosion of tenure in public universities and colleges.

Without the protection of tenure, a professor’s research—and position—can easily be terminated by someone in power who finds it objectionable for whatever reason. It’s obvious what kind of chilling influence this could have on the “sifting and winnowing” process that has made the University of Wisconsin a global leader in scientific research.

I’ve known scientists who have spoken out on issues or continued their research on sensitive topics only to pay the price through a flattened career trajectory or lost research dollars. But at least the tenured academic scientists still had their jobs. (Not generally the case for public agency employees.) Without tenure, risk aversion and job security become intermingled in the search for truth. In this we lose something as a society.

Science is a remarkable tool, and blunting a good tool is risky business. The ways we use the facts and findings of science bring us into the discourse of ethics, economics, social and cultural values, and how we choose to govern and support the democratic process. All of these play a role in how policy is developed and implemented. But without sound, rigorous science as a resource, we blind ourselves to the facts and evidence that could help us make better policy—and a better world.

Questions or comments? E-mail jelder@wisconsinacademy.org

WISCONSIN ACADEMY WINTER/SPRING 2016 EVENTS & EXHIBITIONS The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters produces programs and publications that explore, explain, and sustain Wisconsin thought and culture. Our public talks, discussion forums, and art exhibitions are fantastic resources for informed and engaged citizens of all ages who appreciate the value of discovery and learning. See our spring/summer schedule below or visit wisconsinacademy.org/events for a complete list of upcoming Wisconsin Academy events and exhibitions open to the public. Your participation helps create a brighter Wisconsin. Join us!

SUMMIT

ACADEMY TALK

Science, Water & Policy: A Waters of Wisconsin Summit

Inside the Creative Process: Forward Theater Company

Tuesday, May 10, from 9:00 am–4:30 pm UW–Madison Union South • Madison Organized by the Academy’s Waters of Wisconsin Initiative, this summit brings together scientists, policy-makers, students, citizens, and others to engage in civil dialogue on the changing role of science in policy-making today. Presentations and panels include: • Morning Keynote: “Science, Policy, and Uncertainty” with UW scientist Steve Ackerman • Panel: “Shifting Currents – the State of Our Waters” with leading experts on water quality in Wisconsin • Lunch Keynote: “Science, Policy & The Great Lakes” with IJC Commissioner Lana Pollack • Panel: “Science & Policymaking” with a panel of current and past Wisconsin State Legislators and tribal leaders • Closing: “Water, Science, Policy & Ethics” with Aldo Leopold Foundation Fellow Curt Meine ACADEMY TALK

Science & Policy Tuesday, May 10, from 7–8:30 pm Marquee Theater, UW–Madison Union South • Madison Join us for an evening with three Academy Fellows—Steve Ackerman, Stephen Carpenter, and Patty Loew—as they share reflections on the connections between science and policy in Wisconsin and beyond.

ACADEMY TALK

The Waters of Wisconsin: Sustaining Our Aquatic Ecosystems Tuesday, May 17, from 7–8:30 pm Mead Public Library • Sheboygan Curt Meine, Senior Fellow at the Aldo Leopold Foundation, leads a critical discussion of how we are to sustain the waters that sustain us.

Presented in partnership with Mead Public Library. Join us for a free reception prior to the talk, beginning at 6:00 pm.

Special thanks to our members, donors, and the following sponsors and partners for supporting our mission of connecting Wisconsin people and ideas for a better world:

Thursday, May 19, from 7–8:00 pm Gerold Opera House • Weyauwega Join us for an evening with Jennifer Uphoff Gray, Forward Theater Company artistic director and a founder, to explore the ways in which theater can engage—and energize—a community. Free to the public with advance registration, this event is co-hosted

by Wega Arts in partnership with the Boldt Company. Join us for a free reception prior to the talk, beginning at 6:00 pm.

EXHIBITION

Gwen Avant & Gregory Klassen Side-by-side solo exhibitions on view from May 20 to July 3 James Watrous Gallery, 3rd Floor, Overture Center for the Arts • Madison Gwen Avant describes her approach to painting as spiritual alchemy. She begins with a gut feeling, transferring her emotions and visceral reactions into color and marks. Formally trained as a painter, Gregory Klassen creates environments that reflect his fascination with natural processes.

Join us for a free opening reception with the artists on Friday, May 20, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.

EXHIBITION

John Craig & Valerie Mangion Side-by-side solo exhibitions on view from July 15 to August 28 James Watrous Gallery, 3rd Floor, Overture Center for the Arts • Madison John Craig shares work from two series of prints: Equivalences, a study in perception using pairs of found postcard images, and Lost Treasures from the Driftless, a group of images collaged from historic photos. Night Vision, a series of paintings by rural Boaz-based artist Valerie Mangion, are based on photos taken by an infrared trail camera placed on the land behind her farm in the Driftless Region. Join us for a free opening reception with the artists on Friday, July 15, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.

The Great Performance Fund at the Madison Community Foundation

Sally Mead Hands Foundation

UPFRONT

ARTiculture Grows Community Support for Fox Valley Artists When my friend Fanny Lau told me about it, I was intrigued by the simplicity of the concept. “It’s just like a vegetable CSA, but with art,” she said.

We were discussing the prospect of a new program in the Fox Cities based on the familiar CSA (community supported agriculture) template in which shareholders commit to a weekly purchase of seasonal, locally grown produce from area farms. The twist was that instead of delivering delicious veggies and supporting local farmers, our community supported art program would deliver fantastic artwork and support local artists.

Inspired by Minnesota’s Springboard for the Arts scalable CSA model, which has been replicated in more than thirty cities in North America over the past five years, we set to work building an arts-based CSA program for northeast Wisconsin. As our idea began to build momentum, Lau and I formed a team of excited volunteers to help us develop the program: Jamie Cartwright, Kate Mothes, Mariana Russell, and Cathy Stratton.

“Support Community Artists, Collect Local Art” became our mantra. We even created a great name that connected the veggie CSA concept to artworks: ARTiculture.

Of course, running an arts-based CSA ended up being a bit more complicated in practice. Our goal was to recruit fifty shareholders who would invest in eight artists. At the end of the “season,” the

a wolf and a fox, references to two regional rivers where sturgeon spawn and create the annual “thunder.” Oshkoshbased artist Melissa Siewert’s half share consisted of cast and glazed ceramic vases in the form a human head, each with just the right amount of individuality.

(When you sign up for a veggie CSA you’re never really sure what the growing season will bring, so a little bit of uncertainty is inherent in the process—why not with the art CSA, too?)

Because of ARTiculture’s similarity to a veggie CSA, we often found ourselves using tomatoes as a metaphor for artworks in conversations with prospective shareholders, jurors, and artists, as in “half the shares will get Romas and half will get Early Girls” or “every share will get at least one heirloom variety,” when we were really talking about paintings and prints and sculptures.

But even an appealing comparison like fresh summer produce only gets us so far in describing the concept behind our CSA program. A large part of the work of the ARTiculture team is to convince people that support for artists is a key part of a robust, productive community.

ARTiculture artists use income from the sales of shares in myriad ways. Former Fox Cities artist Cori Lin used her funds to purchase printmaking paper, rent time to use a printing press, and even learn a new printmaking technique at the Minnesota

Photo credit: Fanny Lau

shareholders would receive a wholesome “share” of six brand new pieces of art to hang in their homes, give as gifts, or trade with other shareholders. All membership proceeds go directly to the artists.

The Fox Cities has a wealth of artistic types, from professional painters whose work sells in galleries to talented amateurs who throw ceramic pieces for pleasure. We put out a call for art and assembled a jury of community leaders involved in the arts to evaluate the proposals and select the best—the most feasible projects, the highest quality pieces, the coolest stuff. Finalists had their art featured on our website where the community could vote for their favorites. From that online vote, ARTiculture selected the artists whose work would be included in the inaugural season.

We let the artists determine whether they would produce fifty works for a full share or twenty-five for a half share, depending on their medium. Of the eight artists selected by the community, four produced fifty works and the other four produced twenty-five, guaranteeing six pieces for each of the fifty shares and ensuring both variety and an element of surprise for shareholders.

For example, last season Appletonbased artist C. E. Brady created a full share of hand-pressed and numbered woodcut prints titled Sturgeon Thunder that feature a stylized fish framed by

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Center for Book Arts. With the financial support generated through the ARTiculture program, Cori produced fifty prints featuring local fauna like snapping turtles, one for each CSA share.

But the support ARTiculture provided to the artists was often more than just financial; Appleton-based artist Mariana Russell found that producing her abstract mixed media pieces for ARTiculture’s first season motivated her to commit more fully to her art practice. Russell says she also developed a stronger connection her to the growing arts community in the Fox Cities and Northeast Wisconsin.

ARTiculture’s first shareholder pick up event was held in December 2015 at The Draw, a new creative economy workspace on the Fox River in Appleton. The participating artists were there to meet shareholders and sell additional pieces.

With some shares from the 2015 season still unsold, ARTiculture continues to hold events in the Fox Cities to promote the artists and the art CSA concept—which grows every time someone explains, “it’s just like a vegetable CSA, but with art.”

Much like a traditional CSA encourages potential shareholders to cook with unfamiliar produce items (what can I do with these kohlrabi?), ARTiculture encourages people to engage with different types of art (how do I enjoy this abstract painting?) by helping them develop or expand their taste for it. Through ARTiculture, even folks who frequent museums and galleries discover new artists that challenge, surprise, and excite.

Find out more about the ARTiculture CSA, the artists who contributed to the 2015 season, and how to invest in a share at articulturecsa.org.

—Beth Zinsli Left (l to r): A sampling of artworks created by the CSA artists on display at the first shareholders event at the The Draw in Appleton. Packaged shares ready for pick up. Appleton-based CSA artist Ali Fuller chats with a shareholder near a display of her drawings.

Sense of Place Drives Peninsula Filmworks While Door County positively bustles with activity during the summer months, this tiny community of just 28,000 people scattered across 2,370 square miles reverts back to its rural roots during the winter. Many resorts, restaurants, and other businesses close their doors to the cold, leaving full-time residents and families to cope with the realities of a boom-or-bust economy.

David Eliot has been chipping away at the question how to create a more sustainable way of life in Door County since he founded Peninsula Pulse, a weekly arts and culture newspaper, in 1996. Friend and colleague Myles Dannhausen, who began working with Eliot at Peninsula Pulse at age seventeen as a reporter and later a features editor, says the two have always felt that many see Door County only through the lens of tourism.

“It’s such an amazingly beautiful place, and, for all the faults, there’s a kindness and a caring in the people scraping out a life there,” says Dannhausen. “I don’t want to see them squeezed out—they deserve this place. They give Door County its grit, its soul. It’s much more than fish boils, cherries, and goats.”

Hoping to change perceptions about the Door, in 2015 Dannhausen and Eliot teamed up with local filmmaker Brett Kosmider to create Peninsula Filmworks, a web video production company dedicated to discovering the stories that give Door County depth and purpose. As digital film technology became more affordable, and the media by which short films are shared has exploded, the three began to refine their craft.

For instance, one video shows how Brian Fitzgerald established a burgeoning hockey culture on the peninsula by building a rink in Sister Bay and bringing people together for the annual Door County Pond Hockey Tournament. Another video features interview with Jess Holland and Nick Hoover, better known as the local band Deathfolk, and captures their blissful harmonizing over twangy folk music sound.

Perhaps most emblematic of what Dannhausen, Eliot, and Kosmider are trying to do with Peninsula Filmworks is a video short featuring a seminal moment in regional craft beer culture (see above video still). The establishment of Door County Brewing Company by John and Angie McMahon County underscores the importance of both industry and family for Door County. The McMahons founded the brewery in early 2013 in part to bring their sons, Ben and Danny, back home to Door. Today, the McMahon family’s seven-barrel system is producing Belgian-style ales like Le Printemps and L’Automne out of their brewery/restaurant in Baileys Harbor.

Through Peninsula Filmworks, Dannhausen, Eliot, and Kosmider are trying not only to discover what makes Door County unique in an honest way, but also to celebrate that discovery with everyone: the people who left and the people who might come, drawn whatever intangible force it exerts on people. Dannhausen, for all his efforts, still can’t define that force. “I’ve interviewed hundreds of people through the years and I still don’t know,” he says. “But I hope that [by] creating these videos one story at a time, we might get closer to figuring it out.”

—Jason A. Smith & Elliott Puckette W I S C O N S I N

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Milwaukee Seniors Make Music with

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Photo credit: Alberto Cardenas

Margarita Sandoval Skare fondly remembers the mariachi music of her youth. Her father, who moved along with some of the first Mexican families to Milwaukee in 1924, became well known in the Mexican community as a musician who played guitar with the José Martinez Orquesta and Bill Carlson Big Band.

“Growing up in a Mexican family I listened to albums from various Mexican trios and to this day have the 33⅓ longplaying albums with the beautiful covers of the various trios and folkloric dancers in beautiful costumes,” says Skare, who often sang with her sisters as her father played guitar at parties and community events.

Skare, a recently retired Milwaukee Public School teacher and librarian, decided to reconnect with the mariachi tradition. But it wasn’t enough for her to just listen to the music; Skare wanted to learn how to play it herself. She hoped to make that connection through Alberto Cardenas, a professional mariachi musician she met during a performance at her daughter Stefanie’s wedding in 2004.

Born into a musical family, Cardenas began teaching himself mariachi music at age eleven when his uncle gave him a guitar. Today he is a master musician and founder of Trio Alma Latina and Voces y Cuerdas de Mexico, two of the most wellknown mariachi groups in Wisconsin.

“For me, mariachi music means joy and courage to face life, from birth through death,” says Cardenas.

Skare began one-on-one mariachi guitarron instruction with Cardenas in 2012. Her passion for mariachi and her eagerness to learn more about it, inspired Cardenas to begin a guitar and music program for seniors at the United Community Senior Center on Milwaukee’s south side the following year. Developed with the help of UCC Senior Center director Hector Hernandez, the program teaches seniors how to read sheet music and

Drawing on indigenous instrumentation as well as French and Spanish colonial influences, mariachi became a way of chronicling and sharing the joys, struggles, and triumphs of the people of Mexico. While the musical form and instrumentation of mariachi vary regionally, the ensemble that is familiar today began to take shape in the 19th century in the state of Jalisco: the cocula or the vihuela (plucked-string instruments), two violins, and the guitarron (guitar).

play scales and chords. And, as Cardenas points out, it also gives many a sense of community and a larger purpose. “[These seniors] all have knowledge, experiences, and emotions that they want to express through some artistic endeavor, be it music, singing, [or] poetry. They just need opportunities opened to them,” says Cardenas.

In the first year of the program, fifteen seniors on guitar and three singers from a variety of Spanish-speaking countries selected songs that Cardenas then arranged. The group rehearsed at least two hours a week at the UCC Senior Center.

By 2014, Skare had become so advanced in her one-on-one guitar work, that Cardenas made her an assistant program instructor. That same year, the two received a Folk Arts Apprenticeship grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board to more deeply explore different strumming patterns for such traditional mariachi styles as baladas (ballads), corridos (narrative songs), rancheras &

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(folk music reflecting upon the Mexican Revolution), and many other distinct mariachi genres. The two also worked to expand the musical repertoire of the senior group—now called Grupo Renacer (renacer means rebirth in Spanish)—to include other styles from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean.

Today Grupo Renacer can be found playing shows at the UCC and Los Mariachis Restaurant, as well as other venues around Milwaukee. Recently, a nonprofit dedicated to providing imaginative and provocative music experiences called Present Music commissioned Groupo Renacer to create a new piece for Compose­Milwaukee, a citywide initiative to cultivate musical composition. Grupo Renacer will perform this new piece, along with some of their traditional pieces, at the May 21, 2016, Wisconsin Folks: Masters of Tradition concert which the Arts Board is sponsoring at the Stoughton Opera House.

—Jason A. Smith

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M eet the F ellows

MEET THE

2016 Academy Fellows

Established in 1981, the Fellows program represents the highest level of recognition conferred by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters.

Drawn from a pool of statewide nominees, Fellows are elected for their extraordinary levels of accomplishment in their fields as well as lifelong commitments to intellectual discourse and public service.

“How can we find and honor the genuine treasures we have in this state—extraordinary people who show us the best of Wisconsin? The Academy does this with its Fellows program. Every two years, we scan the state to find its most outstanding and creative people. As part of our increasingly statewide reach for interdisciplinary excellence, we’re proud to recognize these brilliant and focused citizens who inspire people in Wisconsin and beyond,” says Linda Ware, President of the Wisconsin Academy Board of Directors.

Wisconsin Academy Fellows are distinguished individuals from a wide range of disciplines that help the Wisconsin Academy shape its programs and projects. To be considered, one must have made significant contributions to the well-being of the state of Wisconsin and be highly esteemed for qualities of judgment, perceptiveness, and breadth of knowledge. Those elected also have a career marked by an unusually high order of discovery; technological accomplishments; creative productivity in literature, poetry, or the fine or practical arts; historical analysis; legal or judicial interpretation; philosophical thinking; or public service.

For more information on the Wisconsin Academy Fellows program, or to see list of all our current Fellows, visit wisconsinacademy.org/fellows.

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Marcia Bjornerud Marcia Bjornerud is Professor of Geology and Environmental Studies at Lawrence University in Appleton, where she teaches courses ranging from hard rock and planetary geology to environmental modeling and history of science. She was the founding director of Lawrence’s degree-granting program in environmental studies and holds the Schober Endowed Chair in Environmental Science.

Bjornerud uses the landscapes and bedrock of Wisconsin as a classroom, and has carried out research projects in the Gogebic Range, Baraboo Hills, Marinette County, and the Flambeau Flowage, documenting chapters in Wisconsin’s complex tectonic history. In 2012, Bjornerud was lead author on a pro bono report for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission on the geology of the Gogebic Range to provide baseline information about the potential effects of an open pit mine on the waters of the Bad River and the wild rice stands in the Kakagon Sloughs.

Bjornerud’s research focuses on the physics of earthquakes and mountain-building, and she combines field-based studies of bedrock geology with quantitative models of rock mechanics.

She is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Norway (2000–2001) and New Zealand (2009). Bjornerud was named Outstanding Educator in 2011 by the Association of Women Geoscientists. She is the author of a well-received 2006 book, Reading the Rocks: The Autobiography of the Earth and a contributing writer to The New Yorker’s science and technology blog, “Elements.”

“Pragmatic, yet passionate, Marcia exemplifies Wisconsin’s great tradition of objective science in the service of the health, safety, and natural beauty of the state and its people. Like Aldo Leopold, she chooses to speak on behalf of the land itself.”

—Monica Rico, Associate Professor of History, Lawrence University

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Stephen R. Carpenter Stephen R. Carpenter is the S.A. Forbes Professor of Zoology and director of the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Wisconsin lakes have been his laboratory for more than forty years, starting with his PhD studies at UW– Madison. His research on lake ecology led to fundamental concepts of trophic cascades, ecological regime shifts, and resilience of ecosystems and the societies that depend on them.

Insights for managing water quality, food webs, and lake fisheries emerged from his work.

Carpenter was among the co-chairs of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the first global assessment of the benefits that nature provides to society. He is the 2011 Laureate of the Stockholm Water Prize, and has received research honors from the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography and the Ecological Society of America. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He also served as president of the Ecological Society of America. Carpenter was a co-founder of the Resilience Alliance and currently serves on the board of Stockholm Resilience Centre and as chair of the Program on Ecosystem Change and Society, a program of Future Earth.

Carpenter is author of five books and about four hundred scientific publications on ecology and environment.

“Amidst his professional success Steve remains a grounded person who is caring, respectful, supportive of others, and acts always with utmost integrity.”

—Monica G. Turner, Eugene P. Odum Professor of Ecology, UW–Madison Department of Zoology

Parry Karp Cellist Parry Karp is Artist-in Residence and Professor of Chamber Music and Cello at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he is director of the string chamber music program. Former students of Karp’s are members of professional string quartets, major orchestras, and teachers in North America. In 2012 he was a recipient of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award.

Karp is an active solo artist, performing numerous recitals annually in the United States, and has recorded six solo albums.

He is active as a performer of new music and has performed in the premieres of dozens of works, many of which were written for him, including concerti, sonatas, and chamber music.

Unearthing and performing unjustly neglected repertoire for cello is a passion of his, and in recent years Karp has transcribed for cello many masterpieces written for other instruments.

Karp has been cellist of the Pro Arte Quartet for the past 39 years, the longest tenure of any member in the quartet’s over one hundred-year history. Karp has performed over a thousand concerts around the world with the quartet. With over two dozen recordings, his discography with the Pro Arte Quartet is extensive and includes the complete string quartets of Ernest Bloch, Miklos Rosza, and Karol Szymanowski. Many of these recordings received awards from publications such as Fanfare and High Fidelity.

“As an inspired and diverse musician, Parry is a world-class artist. As a teacher, Parry brings his unsurpassed artistry and musical vision to every lesson and class. His integrity and devotion inspires his students to realize their full potential.”

—Martha Fischer, Professor of Piano, UW–Madison School of Music

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Jesse Lee Kercheval Born in France and raised in Florida, Jesse Lee Kercheval has taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison since 1987. She is the Zona Gale Professor of English and the Marjorie and Lorin Tiefenthaler Professor of English in the Department of English at the UW–Madison as well as the director of the Program in Creative Writing. Kercheval was director of the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing from 1994 to 2010 and the founding director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing.

Kercheval is the author of fourteen books of poetry, fiction and memoir including the bilingual Spanish/English poetry collection Extranjera/Stranger; the novel My Life as a Silent Movie; the poetry collection Cinema Muto, winner of a Crab Orchard Open Selection Award; The Alice Stories, winner of the Prairie Schooner Fiction Book Prize; the poetry collection Dog Angel; the memoir Space, winner of the Alex Award from the American Library Association; and the short story collection The Dogeater, winner of the Associated Writing Programs Award for Short Fiction.

Kercheval is also a translator, specializing in Uruguayan poetry, and editor of América invertida: An Anthology of Emerging Uruguayan Poets. She has received National Endowment Fellowships in both fiction and translation as well as a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. Her poems, stories, and translations appear regularly in magazines and anthologies in the U.S. and other countries.

“Jesse Lee stands among only a few select writers in her mastery of multiple genres. … Her books have been widely praised for their ... exploration of how history affects the individual, and how moral choice is complicated in the contemporary world.”

—Ronald Wallace, Wisconsin Academy Fellow and Halls-Bascom Professor of English/Felix Pollak Professor of Poetry, UW–Madison 12

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Ginny Moore Kruse Between 1976 and 2002 Ginny Moore Kruse was director of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC), a non-circulating children’s and young adult literature library of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Throughout her 26 years at the CCBC Kruse enlarged the information and outreach functions of the CCBC in multiple ways, causing the CCBC to become increasingly visible and progressively more useful to undergraduate and graduate students, campus faculty and staff, and librarians, teachers, writers and others beyond the campus.

With areas of specialization including book publishing trends, multicultural literature, books in translation, intellectual freedom, book evaluation, and Wisconsin authors and artists, Kruse is a sought-after speaker. She has served on (and often chaired) national book award juries: the John Newbery, Randolph Caldecott, Theodore Geisel, Mildred Batchelder, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Ezra Jack Keats, Coretta Scott King, Pura Belpé, NSK Neustadt, U.S. Hans Christian Andersen, and Jane Addams.

Kruse has garnered many state and national awards for her work, including the Christopher Latham Sholes Award for Outstanding Contributions to Children’s Books from the Council for Wisconsin Writers and the Distinguished Service Award from the Association for Library Services to Children–American Library Association.

Kruse was named a Distinguished Alumna of the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh in 2006 and in 2011 she was inducted into the Wisconsin Library Hall of Fame.

“Ginny’s creative and innovative leadership in promoting and preserving the best in children’s literature for the children of our state is of inestimable service. … Her dedication to multicultural literature and support of intellectual freedom have earned her wide acclaim.”

—Nancy Ekholm Burkert, Wisconsin Academy Fellow, artist and illustrator of children’s books

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Patty Loew Patty Loew is a professor in the University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Life Sciences Communication, documentary producer, and former broadcast journalist in public and commercial television. A member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, Loew has written extensively about Ojibwe treaty rights, sovereignty, and the role of Native media in communicating indigenous worldviews. She is the author of the award-winning Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal, as well as a children’s version of the book, Native People of Wisconsin.

Loew is perhaps best known for her work producing documentaries for public and commercial television, including the award-winning Way of the Warrior, which explored the complex historical relationship between Native Americans and the U.S. military. The film aired nationally on PBS in 2007 and 2011. Other documentaries of her’s explore cultural expression through sports like baseball (Tinkers to Evers to Chief) and lacrosse (Sacred Stick) as well as contemporary resistance to environmental threats (Protect Our Future).

Loew works extensively with Native youth, teaching digital storytelling skills as a way to grow the next generation of Native storytellers and land stewards. She is a former member of the national board of directors for both UNITY: Journalists of Color and the Native American Journalists Association.

“Patty’s experience as one of Wisconsin’s preeminent educators and storytellers, coupled with her dexterity in bridging science and the humanities, has dramatically helped shepherd and steer … our state’s identity.”

—Kenneth M. Cameron, Wisconsin State Herbarium Director, UW–Madison

Robert D. Mathieu Robert D. Mathieu is the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

His research involves the formation and evolution of stars and the dynamics of star clusters. Mathieu also leads the national Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning and is the director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, the nation’s preeminent university research center in education.

Mathieu grew up with a love of the night sky and a fascination for how the universe works. At Princeton University, the University of California–Berkeley, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and for nearly thirty years at UW–Madison, he and his students have discovered the youngest binary stars, explored the dynamical interactions between binary stars that power the evolution of star clusters, and, most recently, defined new evolutionary pathways of the stars as they exchange mass or collide.

Early in his career Mathieu was honored for his teaching at both UC–Berkeley and UW–Madison. Even so, he came to realize that his education had taught him little about teaching, especially research-based practices that increase the learning of all students. From this realization began the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL), a national initiative to prepare future STEM faculty—graduate students and post-doctoral fellows—to become both forefront researchers and superb teachers. Today the CIRTL Network includes 46 major research universities, representing a third of the PhD production of the United States, and CIRTL participants are becoming the faculty at colleges and universities across the world.

“I cannot think of another individual who more clearly epitomizes the confluence of domains embraced by the Academy. An astronomer who has become an internationally known expert in education is a rare soul indeed.”

—Sharon Dunwoody, Evjue-Bascom Professor Emerita, UW–Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication

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Stephen C. Nold Microbial ecologist and educator Stephen C. Nold is Chair of the Biology Department at the University of Wisconsin–Stout. He is recognized for blurring the lines between original research and undergraduate education. Using the tools of discipline-based education research, Nold studies how classroom students learn when they perform original scientific studies. His numerous scientific articles describing diversity and activity of bacteria in nature feature undergraduate student authors, many of whom participated in projects by signing up for a university course.

Nold is now working to bring the thrill of scientific investigation to non-science majors who enroll in courses for general education credit. His efforts in science education outreach helped bring the National Science Olympiad Tournament to Wisconsin. A STEM-based competition that regularly attracts over 7,000 students from across the U.S., the National Science Olympiad Tournament is dedicated to improving the quality of K–12 science education, increasing male, female, and minority interest in science, creating a technologically-literate workforce, and providing recognition for outstanding achievement by both students and teachers.

Named UW–Stout Outstanding Researcher of the Year in 2003, Nold has been awarded research and teaching accolades, two named professorships, and was recognized by Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle for his grant-writing activities.

“Steve has the motivation, skills, and intellectual capacity to make things happen. … Steve is a true visionary and a catalyst for change.”

—Charles R. Bomar, Dean, College of Science Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, UW–Stout

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Paula McCarthy Panczenko Paula McCarthy Panczenko joined Tandem Press at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1989 and became director in 1994.

Tandem Press is recognized as one of the leading fine art presses in the United States and annually exhibits prints in New York, Chicago, and Miami. Tandem Press prints are in the collections of major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, the Chicago Art Institute, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the British Museum. One of Tandem’s proudest achievements is that it employs graduate and undergraduate students in every aspect of its operation, making it a true art laboratory.

Panczenko was born in Ireland where she received a BA degree in Art History and Archaeology. After a year of study at the Universita degli Studi di Firenze, Italy, she was appointed visual arts officer at the Arts Council of Ireland where she spent five years before moving to the United States in 1980. In that year, she founded Ireland America Arts Exchange, which was designed to promote exchange between visual artists in the United States and Ireland.

From 1985 to 1989 Panczenko was the grants coordinator and deputy director at the Wisconsin Arts Board. Since 2006, Panczenko has served as the curator of exhibitions at the Dane County Regional Airport in association with the staff of Tandem Press, and she is also the current president of the International Fine Print Dealers Association, which is based in New York.

Panczenko has lectured and written frequently on contemporary art in the United States and abroad.

“As a result of Paula’s efforts to inspire, network, build collaborations, and promote the field, Wisconsin is a major epicenter of printmaking.”

—John Neis, Managing Director, Venture Investors

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Russell Panczenko Russell Panczenko has been director and chief curator of the Chazen Museum of Art since October, 1984. Since then, Panczenko has grown the collection from approximately 12,000 objects at his arrival to more than 21,000 today, making it the second largest collection of art in Wisconsin. Panczenko has established the Chazen as an institution well regarded for educational and artistic excellence, and his success at cultivating growth of the collection and establishing the museum’s reputation culminated in a $43-million expansion project. Opened in 2011, the 86,000-square-foot addition expands existing gallery space and storage and provides special art study rooms, an auditorium with film capabilities, and a vibrant new lobby.

Panczenko’s curatorial highlights at the Chazen include: exhibitions of notable contemporary artists including Richard Artschwager (1991), John Cage (1991), Judy Pfaff (2001), Gillian Jagger (2002), Peter Gourfain (2002), Xu Bing (1990 and 2004), and Nicola López (2009), and Frank Lloyd Wright; exhibitions of major Midwestern artists such as John Steuart Curry (1998–1999) and John Wilde (1999); and exhibitions of prominent collections of 20th-century works, including the Terese and Alvin S. Lane Collection (1995 and 2008), and the Simona and Jerome Chazen Collection (2005).

Gloria E. Sarto Gloria E. Sarto is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Wisconsin– Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. A native of Wisconsin, Dr. Sarto has championed the health of women in innumerable ways. As a physician, she has personally treated many women and delivered their babies; as a department chair, she has taught and mentored many students, residents, and young faculty; and as a national voice for women’s health, she continues to influence public policy, educational curricula, and national research initiatives.

Dr. Sarto emerged from UW–Madison in 1963 with an undergraduate degree, a medical degree and completed residency training in Obstetrics and Gynecology. A PhD in Medical Genetics followed suit in 1971. After holding various faculty positions at universities across the U.S., Dr. Sarto returned to UW–Madison in 1998, where she served as acting director of the Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine; co-director of the UW National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health; co-director of the UW Center for Women’s Health Research; associate director of the UW Center for the Study of Cultural Diversity in Healthcare; director of research of the UW EXPORT Center; and special assistant to the Dean for Gender Issues.

Panczenko received his Doctorate in Letters in art history, specializing in 15th-century Italian painting and its relation to humanism and the reemergence of Greco-Roman antiquity, from the University of Florence, Italy, in 1979. He served as assistant director at the Williams College Art Museum from 1980 to 1984, and on the Artists’ Legacy Foundation board from 2006 to 2009.

He currently serves on the Tandem Press advisory board (since 1987) and the Wisconsin Foundation for the Arts advisory board (since 1990).

Dr. Sarto served on the Institute of Medicine Board on Health Sciences Policy and the Committee on Understanding and Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. She also sat on the Committee on Lesbian Health Research Priorities and the Committee on Research Capabilities of Academic Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Additionally, Dr. Sarto has played a critical role in bringing awareness to women’s health issues on a national level, going so far as to help set up the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Research on Women’s Health.

“Museum directors last only three years on average before either moving up the ladder or being forced out by demanding boards. Russell has not only managed to survive but to thrive in Madison. …

He is a “quiet” leader in the midst of a lot of noise.”

“Dr. Sarto has been a trailblazer throughout her career. Her wisdom, expertise, and advocacy have had a profound effect on ... federal policies and organizational efforts that have contributed to the current recognition of women’s health research as a valued scientific endeavor.”

—Laurie Winters, Director and CEO, Museum of Wisconsin Art

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Photo credits: Po Lo/Lo Artisan Distillery

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TRADITION

THE ART AND SCIENCE

WITH A OF

TWIST

HMONG RICE LIQUOR

BY JIM LUNDSTROM

I

f you ever grow tired of the typical brandy old-fashioned sweet, you might want to try Po Lo’s exotic twist on Wisconsin’s state cocktail. His Yerlo Old Fashioned features a 90-proof whiskey called Yerlo X made from rice.

Lo, who is of Hmong descent, says that while the rice spirit is traditionally drunk straight at room temperature, “nowadays there are a lot of ways to drink it.”

“I like to keep it in the freezer. When you pour it out, it comes out nice and thick like maple syrup,” says Lo, noting how the cold enhances the flavor.

Using a recipe passed down from his mother Yer Lo, Lo makes three distinct varieties of rice-based spirits at his distillery on a quiet rural road in the Town of Brussels in Door County.

The 120-proof liquor called Yerlo, Lo’s flagship brand, is named in honor of the woman from whom he learned the art and science of making rice liquor. Then there is Yerlo Reserve,

Above (clockwise from left): Po Lo tastes a new batch of Yerlo direct from the still. Yeast cakes filled with sweet Thai rice provide the distinctive flavor for Lo’s twist on traditional Hmong spirits. Po Lo’s parents, Chong and Yer Lo, help with the work at Lo Artisan Distillery.

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a 130-proof rice spirit featuring a picture of Po Lo in traditional dress on the bottle. His newest product, with a picture of his mother in traditional dress on the label, is Yerlo X rice whiskey—the one that makes a mean Old Fashioned.

“The whiskey is my top of the line,” he says. “We create a 90-proof rice spirit and age it for five months in oak barrels to get the caramel color. It has oak, vanilla, butterscotch, and jasmine. We don’t [have] any additives. That’s the beauty of the oak barrels we use.”

Next up, Lo says, is the release of a 180-proof liquor that he promises will surprise with its smoothness and drinkability.

“You’ll never come across another product that is 180-proof that tastes like this,” says Lo. “When you hear 180-proof, people are thinking, Man, it’s like gasoline. But it’s not. It’s got so much flavor. There’s no tannin to it. It’s sweet and flavorful. But it is an acquired taste.”

There is not much to see inside the 5,500-square-foot building where Lo produces what he believes to be the only commercially available traditional Hmong liquor on the planet.

A small German-made copper still that looks like it might have come out of a Jules Verne novel catches the eye, but beyond this the only thing to see inside Lo Artisan Distillery are rows of plastic barrels where water, sweet Thai rice, and Yer Lo’s secret recipe rice-yeast cakes ferment for up to six months before the liquid is distilled and hand-bottled.

The response to Lo’s rice liquors has been phenomenal in Wisconsin and beyond. “I found it … a good niche because nobody else was doing it. So I took it and ran with it,” says Lo of his booming enterprise. Because of a growing following in states with a high concentration of Hmong people, Lo’s rice liquors are hard to find in Minnesota and California as well as in Wisconsin.

An estimated 180,000 Hmong refugees came to this country, mostly sponsored by American churches, during the 1970s and 1980s. California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin have the highest Hmong populations, and the Minneapolis-St. Paul area has come to be known as the Hmong capital of America. With their strong work ethic and tight-knit families, the Hmong fit right in with the traditional values of the Midwest.

Po Lo’s story is a fairly common one among HmongAmericans. His father, Chong Lo, worked with American forces during the Vietnam War. After the fall of Saigon, Hmong families fled their native lands in the hills of Laos for fear of retribution from Communists for supporting the Americans during the war.

Many Hmong died trying to cross the Mekong River, which separates Laos and Thailand. Those who made the crossing were sent to crude and crowded refugee camps.

Lo and his family spent a couple years in a Thai refugee camp before a church group sponsored their transition to a new life in the United States in December of 1979. The Lo family went to live in Massachusetts. In 1983, when Po Lo was nine years old, the family moved to Green Bay. “Coming here at a very young age, I didn’t really know anything,” Lo says. “But the English language was picked up easily. My family adapted well because we had some family here. My father had a job opportunity here … and [we] made it our home.”

featured recipe

Po Lo’s

Yerlo X Old Fashioned Instructions: 1. Add a few drops of bitters to a sugar cube. Add sugar cube to glass with 1 teaspoon of maraschino cherry juice and two cherries. Muddle the cube and cherries.

2. Add a slice of orange zest and muddle slightly to release the oils.

3. Add two ice cubes followed by 1 ounce of Yerlo X (rice whiskey). Stir.

4. Add two more ice cubes, followed by 1½ ounces Yerlo X. Stir.

5. Add two more ice cubes, a cherry, and a slice of orange for garnish.

See Yerlo maker Po Lo make this and several other cocktails at lo-artisandistillery.com

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Distilled from fermented Thai rice and named for his mother, Po Lo’s line of spirits includes (from left to right) the 120-proof Yerlo, 130-proof Yerlo Reserve, and 90-proof, barrel aged Yerlo X. All three are produced in his Town of Brussels distillery.

Gregarious and charismatic, Lo got along well with other children at school. Too, as Lo is fond of saying, “It helps that I talk a lot.”

Growing up in Green Bay, Lo says he wanted what other Wisconsin children wanted: “a good-paying job [and to] buy a little house and raise a family.”

According to Lo, Hmong can be very insular. But he wanted to share his culture with the rest of the world. After marrying and moving away to Louisiana, Lo struggled to reconcile this insularity and his entrepreneurial spirit. “You try to find your skills and what you want to do,” he says.

Tight-knit family ties brought Lo back regularly from Louisiana to Green Bay. “Every time I would come, I would come at the right time, when my mother would make her rice liquor,” he says, pointing out that homemade rice liquor is a fact of life for most Hmong. Yet little is known about the liquor—let alone the distilling process—outside the Hmong community.

“I would see her [making the liquor] and got interested.

[Then] I would ask her if she ever thought of doing it legally,” he says with a chuckle. “The older generation, they don’t know any rules, laws, or regulations, or any kind of ways to make it legal.

So they just don’t [make it for others]. … One day I told her, why don’t we just do it legally? I’ll find a way to do it. A year later we were formed.”

In 2011 Po Lo fired up the still at Lo Artisan Distillery and began to commercially produce rice liquor from his mother’s recipe. He had found the perfect location for his factory in a small farming community in Door County, just north of his Green Bay home. In addition to being the right space for his craft distillery, Lo says the Town of Brussels location offers the perfect summer breezes necessary for making his mother’s sweet rice-yeast cakes. These cakes help to ferment the fragrant Thai rice that he turns into alcohol.

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Lo compares what he is doing at Lo Artisan Distillery to what some southern moonshiners have done with their secret recipes. “I have some friends down south, and this is just like how they do their moonshine. It’s part of their history, part of their family,” he said. “Yerlo is the same way for me.

Lo sees his business as a cultural breakthrough for the Hmong. “[Rice liquor] is the traditional drink among Hmong and in other Asian countries. We celebrate with it, weddings and funerals,” he says.

Though there were many home distillers, Lo wanted to take production to the next level and offer it to the world. “Here,” Lo wanted to say, “this is something we have in our tradition and it’s fantastic.”

Success brings joy to Lo, and it also drives him to “work even harder to make the product and [even] come up with new products.”

In April 2015, Lo satisfied another passion by opening a restaurant in Green Bay called The Pho Lodge, featuring a deeply savory Vietnamese broth and rice noodle dish known as pho.

“This is just one of my other side hobbies,” says Lo. “I opened this up because there’s not a single good pho restaurant in town. I went and learned [how to cook pho] from an 85-yearold Vietnamese chef up in the northwest states,” he says.

Even though both businesses are thriving, Lo regards them as hobbies.

“It’s not for money or fame. It’s not getting me anywhere right now other than having the joy from people who love it and having something different and unique,” he said. “I love it. It’s like they say, If there’s one job that you would work for free, what would it be? This is mine.” Z

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The View from the

Apostle Islands Reflections on One Hundred Years of the National Park Service

BY BOB KRUMENAKER

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isconsin’s northernmost edge, consisting of the spectacular mainland sea caves at the tip of the Bayfield Peninsula and the matrix of beautiful and historic islands stretching

25 miles into Lake Superior, was forever protected when Congress established the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in 1970.

Located on the northern tip of Sand Island, the Gothic-style Sand Island Light was constructed in 1881 from sandstone quarried right at the building site.

Photo credit: Jim Sorbie/Flickr.com by CC 2.0

essay

The sandstone bedrock of the Apostle Islands is a billion years old, but the islands themselves have only existed since the retreat of the last glaciers. The renowned Apostle Islands sea caves formed in the striated Devils Island Formation from relentless wave action, freezing, and thawing over only the last 10,000 years.

Remembered today for his unyielding commitment to conservation, U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin championed these remote, forested islands becoming part of the National Park System. His hope was to protect their undeveloped shorelines, red sandstone cliffs, windswept beaches, and protected anchorages for public use and from overdevelopment.

The Apostle Islands joined an impressive list of unique and well-loved places set aside, beginning in 1872, for protection, public enjoyment, or scientific interest. However, a unified system to manage and protect these places did not actually come about until 1916. So today, in 2016, we celebrate one hundred years of the National Park Service and reflect on how it has evolved and adapted to new challenges and expectations— including those at the Apostle Islands—as our nation has grown and changed.

John Muir, Wisconsin, and the Birth of the National Park Service Wisconsin’s ties to the National Park System go back much further than the 1970 Apostle Islands designation as a National Lakeshore. John Muir, who migrated from Scotland to Wisconsin as a young man in 1849, is often called the “Father of the National Park System.” Wandering in the woods and streams near his family farm in Marquette County, this adopted son of Wisconsin developed a passion for nature. Muir records his zeal for the 22

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Wisconsin landscape in a 1913 memoir, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth: This sudden plash into pure wildness—baptism in Nature’s warm heart—how utterly happy it made us! Nature streaming into us, wooingly teaching her wonderful glowing lessons, so unlike the dismal grammar ashes and cinders so long thrashed into us. Here without knowing it we still were at school; every wild lesson a love lesson, not whipped but charmed into us. Oh, that glorious Wisconsin wilderness!

Moving west in his early 30s, Muir spent most of his adult life in California. He wrote frequently in the popular press about American wilderness and advocated for the federal protection of wild lands with special scenic and educational value. He was directly involved in promoting the establishment of Yosemite, Sequoia, Mt. Rainier, Petrified Forest, and the Grand Canyon as protected areas. Many suggest that in 1903 when Muir and President Theodore Roosevelt camped together briefly in Yosemite, Muir convinced the president the federal government (rather than individual states) could best protect the nation’s exceptional forests and sublime landscapes from those who would exploit and destroy them.

At the time Muir and Roosevelt met there were only eight national parks designated by Congress and protected through a variety of arrangements under the Department of Interior.

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Devils Island

Lake Superior

Rocky Island

Bear Island

Sand Island

York Island

Otter Island

South Twin Island Ironwood Island

Outer Island

Cat Island

Manitou Island

Raspberry Island

Eagle Island

North Twin Island

Stockton Island

Oak Island

Gull Island

Michigan Island

Hermit Island Basswood Island

Bayfield Peninsula

Madeline Island

Bayfield

Ashland Harbor Breakwater Light

Long Island

The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore consists of 21 islands, a twelve-mile long mainland strip, and adjacent Lake Superior waters stretching ¼ mile from the land. In 2014 Congress added the Ashland Harbor Breakwater Light to the park. Visitors can hike, paddle, sail, or cruise to experience these jewels of Lake Superior. The nine historic Light Towers, the most of any U.S. national park, shine over water and wilderness alike.

Yellowstone, the world’s first national park, was “set apart” by law in 1872 “as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” Congress gave the Secretary of the Interior responsibility for “the preservation, from injury or spoliation, of all timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders within [Yellowstone], and their retention in their natural condition.”

The authorities were similar for most of the other new national parks. In some cases, such as at Wind Cave National Park, the Secretary was directed to issue regulations necessary for the care and management of the park without further sideboards. But the Department of the Interior was provided little or no funding for field staff, and the new national parks were protected in name only during the early years.

U.S. Army troops, in fact, were assigned to protect Yellowstone in 1886 and provide some order, and soon the Cavalry were assigned to three of the other early parks as well. It’s been said that the Army “saved the national parks,” as they apprehended poachers and livestock grazers, fought forest fires, and even began the first naturalist programs.

In 1916, two years after Muir’s death, the Progressive-era Congress passed—and President Woodrow Wilson signed—the National Park Service Organic Act, which created a new federal bureau to manage the growing number of national parks. The law gave the agency a lyrical mission “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects [of the parks] and the wild

life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” Reading this even today evokes the majesty of Yosemite, the beauty of the Grand Canyon, and the mystery of Mesa Verde. And, for those who know, the tranquility of the Apostle Islands of northern Wisconsin.

Stephen Mather, the first director of the fledgling National Park Service, was an astute marketer who recognized that the parks needed public support to be successful. Mather aligned the National Park Service with the railroads and the nascent auto associations to promote the parks as travel destinations, and he personally bankrolled publicists to lobby Congress for support and to generate enthusiasm in the popular press. He and Horace Albright, Mather’s deputy and later his successor as Director, both saw the benefit of extending the National Park System to the East, closer to the majority of the population—and to the elected leaders who controlled their budget. They oversaw the establishment of Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina, and Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, just 90 miles west of the nation’s capital.

In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt invited Director Albright to accompany him on an excursion to inspect the new Skyline Drive at Shenandoah, then under construction. Just as Muir had made a compelling case for preservation of natural areas to the first Roosevelt, Albright suggested to the second Roosevelt that all of the nation’s protected historic sites and W I S C O N S I N

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Photo credit: Wisconsin Historical Society, Nelson Collection mss1020

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U.S. President John F. Kennedy (center) and Senator Gaylord Nelson (right) at the Ashland airport after touring the Apostle Islands in 1963.

Tour coordinator and master of “gentle pressure, relentlessly applied,” Martin Hanson is pictured behind and between Kennedy and Nelson.

battlefields should be managed by the National Park Service rather than the U.S. Forest Service and the War Department, which then controlled many. Roosevelt readily agreed and shortly thereafter issued an Executive Order—which Albright drafted—transferring responsibility. Overnight the National Park Service became the nation’s unquestioned historic preservation agency, doubling the number of sites under NPS management.

unwelcome news to the locals. The area did not meet the high standards of a national park, Kelsey concluded: What must have been once a far more striking and characteristic landscape of dark coniferous original forest growth has been obliterated by the axe followed by fire. The ecological conditions have been so violently disturbed that probably never could they be more than remotely reproduced. … The hand of man has mercilessly destroyed [the islands’] virgin beauty, and, therefore,

A National Park for Wisconsin

a largely controlling element as outstanding national park material even if other reasons made them eligible.

The first stirrings of a national park in Wisconsin began three years before the conversation between Albright and Roosevelt that doubled the size of the National Park System. The Apostle Islands area had seen the beginnings of a tourist industry in the 1890s, when well-to-do hay fever sufferers from Omaha began to build summer cottages on Madeline Island.

But the Depression saw the closing of the last of the local sawmills, mines, and luxury hotels in the area, and there was little economic activity. Responding to local boosters interested in re-invigorating the tourist economy, the NPS sent Bostonbased landscape architect Harlan Kelsey to visit the islands in 1930 to evaluate their suitability for a national park.

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Kelsey’s negative report is particularly ironic in three ways.

First, Virginia’s Shenandoah and Michigan’s Isle Royale National Parks, both established in the 1930s, were at least as cut-over as the Apostles were, and, due to their greater topography, more eroded. But Shenandoah was created with the explicit goal of restoring natural conditions and Harlan Kelsey was one of its greatest advocates.

Second, by that time, the National Park Service had developed criteria for new national parks that, like today, favored exceptional scenery and uniqueness and discouraged sites that replicated what could be found in existing national parks or might better be managed by state or local authorities. Yet Congress, then and now, is the arbiter of what enters

Photo credit: Fred Wessel

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Former Senator Gaylord Nelson (left) and Park Superintendent Bob Krumenaker (right) at Stockton Island in 2003. Nelson’s goal in establishing the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore was to preserve open space, scenic beauty, and undeveloped shorelines. In 2004, Congress designated 80% of the land area of the park as the Gaylord Nelson Wilderness, assuring his vision into perpetuity. Nelson died the following year.

the National Park System. Creating an economic boost for a distressed economy has always motivated Congress when it comes to national park establishment.

Last, Kelsey foresaw, and was discouraged by, the logistical challenges of managing a national park in the Apostles, noting that, due to the dangerous conditions often prevailing on Lake Superior, “reasonably large boats would be required for safe operation of traffic between the islands” and that the islands would be inaccessible for many months of the year. On that score he was prescient, and the logistics and high cost of operations at the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore certainly challenge the NPS today.

As time passed, the forests regrew and the beauty of the islands returned. The national park idea in the Apostles did not die, but it took until the 1960s to grow roots deep enough to bloom.

Gaylord Nelson, the former Wisconsin Governor who became a U.S. Senator, had been exposed to the islands as a boy. But many credit a gruff and unassuming northern Wisconsin conservationist named Martin Hanson with suggesting to Nelson that the islands should again be considered for national park status.

A master of “gentle pressure, relentlessly applied” (of which I was a regular recipient in his later years!), Hanson influenced the newly-elected Senator Nelson to propose to President John F. Kennedy a national conservation tour in 1963 to highlight environmental issues and recreational development.

Kennedy, with Hanson as his guide, flew over the Apostle Islands on September 24, 1963, and afterwards spoke to a crowd of 10,000 people at the tiny Ashland airport. Hanson loved to tell the story that Kennedy, apparently distracted by other pressing issues, was indifferent about the Apostles until Hanson pointed out through the windows of the Marine One helicopter the many sailboats plying the waters surrounding the undeveloped, green islands. Nelson biographer Bill Cristofferson, in The Man From Clear Lake, quotes Hanson as recalling that Kennedy’s “eyes lit up. Here was the Massachusetts sailor seeing some of the best sailing water around.”

Suddenly, Kennedy was interested; what he didn’t know was that Hanson had spread the word that as many sailboats as possible needed to be out that day so that the President, an ardent sailor in his native Cape Cod waters, would see them.

In prepared remarks delivered at the Ashland airport, the President spoke of economic and recreational development, and improving the Apostle Islands “for the benefit of sportsmen and tourists.”

It took seven more years before Senator Nelson’s bill to create the national park in the Apostle Islands would pass both houses of Congress and receive President Nixon’s signature. It was a bipartisan effort across three Congressional terms, championed in the House by Republican Congressmen Alvin O’Konski and Bob Kastenmeier, also from Wisconsin.

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The night sky blazes in The Lights of Michigan Island (2015), one of many photos taken by Friends of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore photography team of Mark Weller, Jon Okerstrom, and Jaime Lanxon. To see more (or purchase) incredible photos of this and other historic Apostle Island light houses visit friendsoftheapostleislands.org.

A Park Grows in Value I became Superintendent of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in 2002. The very next year, I had the opportunity to take a frail-looking Gaylord Nelson on an NPS boat to one of the islands with a Wisconsin Public Television crew that was making a documentary film about his life. Filmmaker Fred Wessel and I encouraged Nelson to wax eloquent about the conservation and ecosystem values of the park, hoping his words might mirror the language we often use to describe the value of the park.

Nelson wouldn’t do it, though. He spoke of open space protection, scenery, and the value of undeveloped shorelines. Nelson’s vision of the park, formulated in the legislative and political trenches of the 1960s, was, surprisingly, quite different from my view of what the park had become.

It was a realization for me that the Apostle Islands are like Shenandoah in that these parks, long after they’ve joined the National Park System, have become dear to generations of Americans who have come seeking both recreation and, in the words of FDR at the 1936 dedication of Shenandoah, “re-creation.”

The value we place on these parks today is perhaps greater— and deeper—than the hopes and dreams of those who fought to establish them.

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essential ecosystems, and wilderness. As we better understand the interdependence of people with these landscapes, we’ve also grown to appreciate the latter’s capacity for, in the words of University of Wisconsin–Madison environmental historian William Cronon, “rewilding.” The significance of each national park grows with time, the better it is known, the more it is studied, and the more it is loved.

Nelson, for example, was not especially interested in the human history of the islands. Yet today, in cooperation with the local Ojibwe tribes, the NPS works to interpret the centrality of the islands to American Indians past and present.

The legislative history of the park also shows scant mention of lighthouses, fisheries, 19th century quarries, or Native American cultural sites. This is despite the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966, four years prior to the park’s enabling legislation, which created a mandate for the NPS to inventory, assess impact on, and, where feasible, preserve nationally significant prehistoric and historic resources under our care.

The seven historic Light Stations in the park were actually not added to the preservation mandate until years after the original bill passed, and were not a factor in the creation of the park. Yet today, these iconic lights—along with the sea caves and beaches—are what visitors report they most like about the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.

Photo credit: Bryan Neuswanger

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The dazzling shoreline ice caves at Mawikwe Bay are a popular, but ephemeral, winter attraction. Near the western end of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore’s mainland unit, the cave formations change daily with the weather. With climate change, safe access across the Lake Superior to the caves will become, in the words of park Superintendent Bob Krumenaker, “an endangered national park experience.”

Professor Mark Sagoff, then at the University of Maryland, asked the question in a 1995 presentation to National Park Service resource managers: Is the NPS protecting resources or places? Places may have ecological, scientific, historic, or economic components (perhaps the objects mentioned in the 1916 NPS Organic Act) but their significance is in what they represent intellectually and emotionally. Therefore the value of wild, natural places is, curiously, largely cultural.

The primary reason the Apostle Islands were set aside was for the purpose of preserving scenery and open space for recreation, with high hopes of economically rejuvenating the area. The park is now recognized for its ecological integrity, significant maritime history, and spiritual and subsistence value to the Ojibwe people past, present, and future. Yet Nelson wasn’t wrong: the park’s greatest value to people is probably, still, its offerings of scenery and open space that the NPS strives to conserve unimpaired, as the one hundred-year-old law still directs.

Interestingly, early reports produced by state planners advocating for the park predicted upwards of 920,000 visitors, and an economic impact of over $7 million. It’s important to acknowledge that the boundaries of the proposed park morphed many times in the 1960s, and this study assumed thousands of acres on the mainland (and a scenic parkway) that were dropped from the final bill that passed. The actual national lakeshore that was ultimately established is smaller, and as Kelsey had noted, the

islands are difficult to access. Nonetheless, the most visits the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore has ever counted was just over 290,000, in 2014, the year the ice caves “went viral.”

That spectacular year, when almost as many people came to the park in the winter as in the summer, the park’s economic impact on the local economy was estimated at almost $54 million.

Planners may have overestimated the number of visitors, but little did they dream of the economic engine that the park has become or the strength of the tourism economy in the park’s gateway communities of Bayfield, Cornucopia, and Ashland. It’s what JFK promised, though, in 1963: a park “for the benefit of sportsmen and tourists.”

Enduring Values, Changing Approaches As Stephen Mather, the first Director of the NPS, foresaw a century ago, public support for the National Park System would assure that the agency and the system would survive, and hopefully thrive. It’s almost certain that Mather never envisioned 411 national park units and 300 million annual visitors. He would certainly have been pleased that the NPS is one of the most popular federal agencies in its centennial year, but distressed at how politicized the parks have become. Remember the last government shutdown and how much media (and political) attention was concentrated on the closure of the parks? In an odd W I S C O N S I N

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Kids love national parks and want to grow up to be park ranger—if they are exposed to the wonder and fun of wild places. The National Park Service has an active Junior Ranger program to engage young people to explore, learn, and protect their national parks.

way, this attention is a mark of how much these parks mean to the American people. Wallace Stegner (echoed more recently by award-winning documentarian Ken Burns) called the national parks “America’s best idea.”

The country has changed in countless ways in the last one hundred years. Are the national parks timeless, or should they adapt to changing times? Are the values of the national park system enduring, such that we should seek to pass them on unchanged to each generation, or should each generation be encouraged to find its own values in the system? The NPS wrestles with these questions; but we believe the answer to each is nonetheless yes—but with some obvious tension in balancing disparate philosophies.

Despite our best efforts, we probably can’t conserve the parks absolutely unimpaired. So there’s both the reality and risk of what we call shifting baselines. For example, do today’s visitors to Everglades National Park recognize that, despite the magnificent birdlife the park is renowned for, the park supports 90% fewer nesting birds today than it did in the 1930s? And that if it were not for the largest and most complex ecological restoration program in the National Park System, things would be worse?

We’ve actually turned the corner at Everglades. It’s frequently said in South Florida that the Everglades is a test. If we pass this test, we may get to keep the planet.

Back in Wisconsin, how many of today’s visitors to the Apostle Islands know that the NPS has intentionally culled almost all of the white-tailed deer on two islands in order to preserve the native Canada Yew understory that’s been eliminated by deer almost everywhere else in Wisconsin? As different as Everglades and Apostle Islands may be, both of these national parks—and all 28

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national parks—require that we apply the best possible science to understand, and, where appropriate, actively manage their ecosystems to protect and restore them.

To paraphrase ecologist Lisa Graumlich, Dean of the College of the Environment at the University of Washington, it’s no longer sufficient to simply put a fence around national parks and assume they’ll persist in good condition for those future generations. Parks need well-educated, informed, passionate advocates who believe they are important touchstones for what we value as Americans.

Public support—and ultimately political support and sustainable funding—for the National Park System requires that the Service remain relevant to Americans as the country changes.

That’s one reason for the growth of the System—national parks are now in all fifty states—and Mather’s concept of bringing parks to where the people are has blossomed with the huge expansion of the national park system into urban areas and the addition of parks that preserve and interpret a much wider array of American stories.

Relevance for the Next 100 Years In recognition of the need to remain—or perhaps, become—relevant to an America whose demographics are rapidly changing, the official NPS centennial goal is to connect with and create the next generation of park visitors, supporters, and advocates.

The national parks have inspired past generations of Americans who have loved and supported the parks and the National Park Service. For the System to thrive, both have to continue to inspire. A visit to a national park is memorable precisely because

Photo credit: Bob Krumenaker/National Park Service

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To make a clear distinction between areas that will be managed for their wild values and the more developed or historic areas of the park, the NPS places markers where trails intersect the boundary of the Gaylord Nelson Wilderness within the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.

these are special places. But a wise mentor of mine once said that we should do our best to help people understand that the national parks also need their support the 51 weeks of the year that they don’t visit.

This means supporting the park rangers, biologists, historians, and other staff in our stewardship and educational work who do the science, maintain the trails, and encourage the personal connections. Park rangers are the protectors and educators, but at the same time they really are the friendly people in the Smokey Bear hats that every kid wants to be when he or she grows up.

At the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore we are celebrating the National Park Service centennial by looking both backwards and forwards, honoring the past and trying to make new connections that will inspire long into the future. A recent internal review of the NPS’s management policies advised that we “steward NPS resources for continuous change” if we are to adapt to a rapidly changing world in which the extent of commercial and residential development outside park boundaries, shifts in technology and demographics, and global climate change would have been inconceivable a hundred years ago.

The good news is that the Apostle Islands and Lake Superior don’t need a lot of elaboration. However, climate-driven changes to water temperature and the extent and duration of ice cover are already dramatic, and we can expect these changes to ultimately (if slowly) cause range shifts in the plants and animals that define the park ecosystem. Unquestionably the Apostle Islands will look different a century from now as a result of climate change. Unlike in some other portions of the country, here in Wisconsin our park neighbors and visitors care deeply about the lake and this

place, supporting the park staff’s highly visible efforts to be out front on climate change and sustainability.

Other threats to the park’s future are less subtle. Though it consists primarily of islands many hours from the nearest population center, it is not as isolated from the larger world as first impressions suggest. Developmental pressures in the watershed such as the Penokee Range iron mine—currently on hold—and the largest confined animal feeding operation ever proposed in the state—under evaluation by the Wisconsin DNR for an operating permit—pose a real risk to water quality, and, by extension, the fishery and even the recreational experience of the area.

It’s critical as we enter the second century of the National Park Service that we be involved in the public discussion, encouraging thoughtful decision making by others that weighs risks and benefits—not just to the park, but also to those quality-of-life values, and possibly even to the economic engine that the park has become.

The world is more complicated now than it was when the NPS was born in 1916, or 1970, the year the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore was established. Our task today, with increasing urgency, is to keep (or make) the park relevant to both current and future generations, and to people of every demographic stripe, including some who don’t yet know the park is there for them and waiting for their engagement. For some, it’s beauty or recreation, or, as FDR said, “re-creation.” For others, it’s ecological integrity or historical authenticity, or wilderness. If they can find their park here, the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore will remain and thrive, despite the changes, to celebrate the NPS bicentennial a hundred years from now. Z

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BY DON MEYER

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t is happening in River Falls in April and East Troy in September. It’s taking place in Ladysmith in June, and then in Viroqua in July. Prime time is August, when communities as diverse as Mazomanie, Rosholt, and Madison make music of a kind most people would never associate with Wisconsin: Bluegrass.

These cities, towns, and villages annually play host to a phenomenon that country music historian and Madison radio personality Bill Malone compares to a religious revival meeting. “[Bluegrass] festivals bring true believers together in rustic outdoor settings and permit both amateurs and professionals to commune with and learn from each other,” says Malone.

Attend one of these spiritually syncopated gatherings and what you are likely to experience is an affirmation of wholesomeness. Bluegrass music is by nature an optimistic commentary on life best understood and appreciated by attending a live performance in the open-air tabernacle of the bluegrass faithful.

The origin of bluegrass music can be traced to William Smith Monroe, a Kentuckian who assembled a band of accomplished acoustic musicians to counter the rapid electrification

of country music following World War II. Named in honor of Monroe’s home state, the Bluegrass Boys achieved its greatest assemblage of talent with Monroe on mandolin, Earl Scruggs on banjo, Lester Flatt on guitar, and Chubby Wise on fiddle.

Drawing inspiration from the folk music of early Appalachian settlers from the British Isles, the Bluegrass Boys went on to both establish and define for future generations what is today known as traditional bluegrass music.

Traditional bluegrass music is rooted in the original Bluegrass Boys string band arrangement and generally limited to banjo, guitar, fiddle, and mandolin (eventually the upright bass was added to the lineup). In bluegrass, virtuosity on an instrument is more highly valued than one’s vocal talent. And, unlike a rock band, there are no lead vocalists in a bluegrass band. Everyone

Above (l to r): Ruthie Krause, Rick Krause, a festival volunteer, and Ben Doran lead a group bluegrass sing along at the 2013 Gandy Dance Festival in Mazomanie.

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picks, grins, harmonizes, and takes a turn at improvising an instrumental lead between the verses of a song, giving bluegrass music a personality more closely related to jazz than its country music cousin.

The themes expressed in bluegrass lyrics also have a distinct quality that many fans and festival-goers find uplifting: family, country, faith, and an unyielding spirit of hope reign supreme (but if the bankers foreclose on the old homestead or life proves to be a train wreck, Praise the Lord anyway). In Country Music, U.S.A., historian Bill Malone notes that “the festivals have tapped a strong urge among Americans to return to the basics, a simpler, more manageable, and allegedly more decent society.”

One of the earliest and most influential of Wisconsin’s bluegrass festivals took place annually at Mole Lake from 1976 through 1993. Performed in an environment where the alcohol consumption was as non-stop as the music, legendary artists such as Bill Monroe, Doc Watson, Ralph Stanley, and John Hartford brought their passion for the genre to the outdoor venue.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the festival’s courtship with an irreverent reputation, over the years these performers left behind an inspired group of young musicians anxious to spread the gospel about this invigorating art form.

Art Stevenson was one of those young Mole Lake audience members who went on to form his own bluegrass bands.

Stevenson has played guitar, harmonica, and sung regularly throughout Wisconsin since the early 1980s, but not always to the sound of bluegrass. Of his early days, Stevenson says that “several Wisconsin bluegrass bands toured the circuit of numerous nightclubs, ballrooms, and other venues around Wisconsin. There were a lot of places to play.”

But the interest of the general public was not enough to sustain all of these bands, so Stevenson would often perform with a country-western band in order to stay employed as a musician. His assessment of bluegrass in Wisconsin during the 1980s and early 1990s was that “there were plenty of jam sessions but few opportunities to play for money.”

Stevenson’s observation reflects the misfortunes of bluegrass as an economic venture at the national level as well. Much like rock radio stations, country stations adopted a “Top 40” mindset that focused on the commercial viability of marquee performers who could sell records and fill large auditoriums, which subsequently marginalized bluegrass.

Malone wrote about this dilemma in Country Music, U.S.A.:

Wisconsin Bluegrass Festivals There are plenty of opportunities to soak in the oldtimey music of Bill Monroe’s native Kentucky right here in Wisconsin. Here’s a list of festivals for 2016:

Blue Ox Music Festival June 9–11, Eau Claire www.blueoxmusicfestival.com

Northwoods Bluegrass Festival June 10–11, Ladysmith www.northwoodsbluegrassfestival.com

Little Creek Music Festival June 16–19, Manawa www.littlecreekmusicfest.com

Flatrock Bluegrass Jamboree June 23–25, Marion www.flatrock.tquick.com

Viroqua Bluegrass Festival July 8–10, Viroqua www.viroquabluegrass.org

Moon Dance Bluegrass Festival July 21–23, Fremont www.wijam.net/moon-dance

Midsummer Bluegrass Festival August 4–7, Manitowish Waters www.midsummerbluegrass.com

Sugar Maple Traditional Music Festival August 5–6, Madison www.sugarmaplefest.org

River Falls Bluegrass Festival August 8–10, River Falls www.riverfallsbluegrass.com

Gandy Dancer Festival August 20, Mazomanie www.gandydancerfestival.org

Bluegrass In The Pines August 25–27, Rosholt www.highwatermusic.com

East Troy Bluegrass Festival September 10–11, East Troy www.easttroy.org/events/bluegrass-festival-2016

Although such bluegrass musicians as Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, Jim and Jesse, and the Osborne Brothers did belong to the Grand Ole Opry, most other avenues of dissemination within country music were closed to bluegrass folk. The major record labels showed little interest in bluegrass, and the genre therefore found its way to a host of smaller companies, which often depended on mail-order or concert sales. Bluegrass musicians, thus, invariably hawk their records and tapes wherever a performance is given.

By the 1990s a growing number of rural community music festivals in Wisconsin, as in the rest of the country, became the primary outlet for bluegrass performances, thereby nurturing

a special relationship between the performers, audiences, and the land.

The size and general rowdiness of Mole Lake was an exception, however. Malone credits other festival organizers like Karl Brandenburg in Brodhead, Carl Solander at Red Cliff, and Melissa Sherman in East Troy with “consciously striving since the mid1980s to create wholesome, family-style affairs that celebrate old-time music and old-time values.”

Make the pilgrimage these days to places like Ladysmith for the Northwoods Bluegrass Festival, Eau Claire for the Blue Ox Music Festival, or Rosholt for Bluegrass in the Pines and you will see that various interactive music experiences, like jam sessions W I S C O N S I N

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Traditional bluegrass groups like Art Stevenson's High Water (left, with Stevenson on banjo) and new bluegrass-folk hybrids like Dead Horses (right) from Milwaukee are keeping the flame of bluegrass alive in Wisconsin.

and workshops, as well as family-based activities are integral.

And festivals that take place over a two- or three-day weekend provide camping facilities to accommodate the mammoth RVs carrying members of the Woodstock Generation and their grandchildren alike.

The larger festivals that boast overnight opportunities provide a popular dynamic to the bluegrass experience. According to Malone, “many people camp out for days in tents or recreational vehicles, listen to the professional bands on stage, and participate in jam sessions that might last all night long.”

These open jam sessions build a sense of community among festivalgoers according to Billy Kangaroo, the washboard player for the Piper Road Spring Band. “Bluegrass doesn’t just happen on the main stage,” says Kangaroo, noting that “impromptu jams occur at various spots around the festival grounds throughout the day and all night.” And it is not uncommon for members of the professional bands to join these amateur sessions simply for the love of the music and the camaraderie inherent in the group experience.

Beyond the festival circuit, jam sessions are an important part of the bluegrass subculture and often occur on a weekly basis, year round, and serve as the catalyst for keeping fans and professionals in touch through a real-time performance open to all comers. This kind of easy insertion into a group performance speaks of the genre’s affability, as everyone of any skill level is welcome to contribute to the joy of playing the music.

Even though he came to the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1958 to study music in preparation for a career as a orchestral bass player, Eric Weissberg was well versed in bluegrass.

Weissberg gained his appreciation of bluegrass music from performances that took place in Washington Square Park in New York’s Greenwich Village in the 1950s and was influenced at an early age by good friend and mentor, Pete Seeger. It was the banjo, not the bass, that proved to be the one on which 32

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Weissberg would later gain fame for playing the lead in the song “Dueling Banjos” for the 1972 movie Deliverance.

Weissberg’s UW–Madison roommate was Marshall Brickman, another banjo player and bluegrass enthusiast, who would go on to fame and fortune collaborating with Woody Allen on movie scripts for Sleeper (1973), Annie Hall (1977), and Manhattan (1979). Weissberg and Brickman shared their interest in bluegrass through jams with other students in the dorms or picking up pocket change playing at local bars near campus.

More than thirty years after Weissberg and Brickman were frequenting the Madison jam sessions and playing with the Goose Island Ramblers at places like Glenn-N-Ann’s Cozy Inn (now the Nitty Gritty) and the (now gone) Club de Wash, Art Stevenson found himself sitting in with the Cork ’n Bottle String Band at Ken’s Bar. That’s where he met John Fabke, a guitar/banjo/mandolin player who came of age listening to rock and roll but had a “lifechanging experience” when he attended a live performance by Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, whose diverse repertoire covered country, folk, blues, and bluegrass music.

Fabke says of his early initiation into the nuances of bluegrass that, “you can log a lot of time listening to records in order to learn the language of the music. But there is only so much you can learn from books or listening to records.” So when Fabke met Stevenson at Ken’s he was looking to both listen and learn.

After a few rehearsals, they found a pool hall on Madison’s west side called the Green Room where owner Jim Nikora allowed them take over Monday nights.

Stevenson says, “We played traditional bluegrass but had interests in other kinds of music and encouraged all acoustic musicians to join in for an open mic performance. … The sessions became so popular, in fact, that members of touring bluegrass bands would stop by and participate in the open jams.”

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Fabke says that “joining in a jam session is fun. It can be intimidating at first but it is a learning experience. You can see what others are doing and find out where you need to improve. It is a good way to meet people.”

This fluidity of participation is another major reason why the music appeals to musicians of various degrees of talent and range of interest. There are no loners in bluegrass, and the ensemble style means that the music must be played by a group (which also helps ensure that a band or a jam session can continue even when a key member leaves). When Stevenson’s wife Stephanie completed her degree and they moved back north, he was replaced by another young enthusiast by the name of Dan O’Brien.

But even locations must change. Eventually the Green Room sessions moved to the Copper Grid across from the UW–Madison Field House. And when ownership of that establishment passed to a younger couple who wanted to change it into a sports bar, the jam moved to Dudley’s on Park Street. There the hosting duties were taken over by Bob and Lisa Steeno of the SpareTime Bluegrass Band.

Fabke and O’Brien went on to form the Nob Hill Boys, which remained a popular Wisconsin bluegrass band until Fabke moved to Nashville to continue his own education. Still the beat goes on and whether we are talking of jam session participation or band membership, the composition of the group is just as fluid as the instrumental improvisations demonstrated at each bluegrass performance.

This is part of the appeal for long time performers like Billy Kangaroo. He speaks favorably of the diversity and the quality of the “picking” in bluegrass and describes fellow Wisconsin musicians as artists and innovators. But that artistry and innovative talent has taken the music to some places Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys would not recognize.

Today’s new groups like Horseshoes and Hand Grenades based in Stevens Point and Dead Horses from Milwaukee have achieved a national prominence that few Wisconsin bluegrass bands have attained or perhaps have even aspired to. But what separates them from their aging predecessors is that they are not traditional in the sense of maintaining the musical styling of the genre’s founder.

“I appreciate and enjoy the talent and energy of these bands and respect the recognition they are getting for their music,” says Art Stevenson. “But in my opinion the term bluegrass is used a bit too freely and inaccurately by some of these bands, festival promoters, and the media.”

Jerry Wicentowski describes this hybrid music as “rock on acoustic instruments.” Another one of those easterners who came to UW–Madison in the early 1960s, Wicentowski added

his love of the music to the existing bluegrass community in Madison. Hanging out at Glenn-N-Ann’s or picking up non-paying gigs just to have the opportunity to play the music, Wicentowski focused on the vocal presentation rather than the merits of being great on the banjo or the fiddle.

A modest rhythm guitar player, he acknowledges that bluegrass has a language of its own, “a dialect in which emotion is expressed.” And that language, of course, can be traced directly back to Monroe and the other pioneer bluegrass musicians Wicentowski emulates. (Coincidentally Wicentowski’s band, credited with being the longest continually performing bluegrass band in Wisconsin, is called the New Pioneers.)

Those who maintain a reverence for the more traditional performance standards have one thing in common that the younger enthusiasts do not: they saw Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys (or someone else of that era) perform live, and the experience was transformative. According to Billy Kangaroo, the members of the Piper Road Spring Band had initially come together to form a rock band. But after seeing a live performance by Monroe, they started making the transition to bluegrass, exchanging their electric guitars for acoustical instruments, their drums for a washboard. Jerry Wicentowski says of his encounter with Monroe that it was “the musical experience of my life.”

But you needn’t choose one form of bluegrass over the other. At the many festivals taking place in Wisconsin this year you will likely hear Art Stevenson and High Water sharing the main stage with Dead Horses or another of the younger generation bands. From late night into the early morning hours, they may all be found sitting together at a campfire jam session. In fact, bring your own stringed instrument to the Gandy Dancer Festival in Mazomanie this coming August and you can relive the Green Room sessions, when Art Stevenson and John Fabke lead the open jam.

The best resources for locating a bluegrass festival, or jam session for that matter, are the websites for the Southern Wisconsin Bluegrass Music Association, the Badgerland Bluegrass Music Association, or the Milwaukee Area Music Association, which feature listings for the many lesser-known bluegrass bands performing at various events often for little to no fee.

The bluegrass musician’s desire to perform in spite of the limited remuneration for their time and effort is nicely put into perspective by John Fabke, who says “It’s not about the money or the fame—there isn’t any. It’s about the music.” Z

Those who maintain a reverence for the more traditional performance standards have one thing in common that the younger enthusiasts do not: they saw Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys perform live, and the experience was transformative.

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The Promise of Paris WISCONSIN LEADERSHIP AT COP21

BY MEREDITH KELLER The e-mail arrived the afternoon before the event: “CISCO system is down at Hotel Le Méridien in Paris. We need to find another telepresence center.”

The high-tech video system that was supposed to connect a panel of Wisconsin climate change leaders in Paris for the United Nations climate talks with an expected audience of over a thousand people across the world—including two hundred at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery in Madison—was kaput.

Usually I tend to perceive the Academy’s mission of “connecting Wisconsin people and ideas for a better world” as fairly abstract. However, with less than 24 hours before the December 3rd live event, there was nothing abstract about the rising panic I felt. I scrambled to get in touch with co-organizer Kim Santiago from the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Global Health Institute to find another way to connect.

In Paris for the U.N.’s 21st Conference of the Parties meeting (or COP21, as this climate meeting is known), Santiago began the arduous task of finding a new telepresence venue in short order.

On the phone and darting from the Paris Metro to various locations, she eventually landed a new site. We spent the next few hours (an all-nighter for us both) testing the connection, altering the agenda, and ensuring that all of our panelists in Paris knew exactly where to go and when.

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The panel discussion, titled Live from Paris, exceeded our expectations. (Editor’s Note: A video of this discussion can be viewed at wisconsinacademy.org/livefromparis.) It was the first of a two-part series, “Connecting Wisconsin and the U.N. Climate Talks,” that featured Live from Paris and a follow up talk (The Promise of Paris) with the same panelists. With this series, we expanded the boundaries of the Academy’s mission and elevated awareness of the global responsibility Wisconsin leaders have in the face of climate change.

This kind of connection—an action that informs everything we do at the Academy, and, actually, represents the heart of the COP21 climate talks in Paris—was worth the effort. We at the Academy, like our partners at the Global Health Institute, believe it’s crucial that Wisconsin citizens understand the roles that our businesses, researchers, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are playing in this international effort to address climate change.

The goal of COP21 was a lofty one: negotiate and adopt an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change, and prevent average global temperatures from increasing beyond two degrees Celsius. If successful, this agreement would mark the first time in history that both established economies (like the United States and most

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members of the European Union) and emerging economies (like China and India) alike embraced responsibility for reducing the emissions that contribute to climate change.

By this measure, COP21 was successful. And Wisconsin was there for the signing of this historic agreement.

Representing interests in public health, human rights, business, and government, the Wisconsin-based leaders who took part in “Connecting Wisconsin and the U.N. Climate Talks” played an integral role at COP21. Each had a different perspective and role to play, but as a group they all strove to provide support for—and bear witness to—an international agreement that would hold all nations responsible for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating the damaging effects of climate change.

Climatologists are already declaring 2015 the warmest year on record (following the two warmest decades on record). The increase in temperatures and emergence of erratic climate patterns also have many climate experts, including Global Health Institute director Jonathan Patz, leaving behind the term climate change in favor of a more direct descriptor: global climate crisis.

“If we can’t cut our emissions by 50% to 70% quickly, within a few decades we are going to see warming that could get above this two degree Celsius mark that ecologists and climate scientists have said could be catastrophic,” emphasizes Patz.

While the scientific community is in agreement that something must be done, the challenges are myriad in finding consensus among multiple nations—all with varying interests and capabilities as to how to address the global climate crisis.

As such, it’s been a slow process.

In 1997, at the COP3 meeting in Kyoto, 144 nations adopted the Kyoto Protocol, the first international framework devised for curbing greenhouse gas emissions (in this case, by just 5%).

While the agreement required established economies to reduce their emissions, it provided no such requirements for emerging economies such as India, China, and Brazil. Furthermore, under the George W. Bush administration the U.S. government formally rejected the Kyoto Protocol in 2001.

The COP nations agreed to craft a post-Kyoto international agreement to reduce global emissions at COP15 in 2009. Unfortunately, negotiations broke down without any agreement. Five years later at COP20 in Lima, participating nations set a 2015 deadline for a post-Kyoto agreement.

After meeting every year for two decades, the major emitters “promised that they would revisit the post-Kyoto legal framework—binding or not—by 2015,” notes attorney Sumudu Atapattu, director of Research Centers and senior lecturer at the UW Law School. Atapattu attended COP21—her first COP meeting—in her capacity as lead counsel for the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law. In her view COP21 is the “last chance” major emitters have to “redeem themselves.”

Atapattu urges the international community to look at climate change as a human rights issue, and “recognize that there are actual victims.” According to NASA scientists, land ice is melting and spilling into the ocean at an unprecedented rate of 421 billion tons per year, leading to a dangerous rise in sea levels. With 44%

About the Conferences of the Parties In 1992, 195 nations—including the United States and all other members of the United Nations—joined a nonbinding international treaty called the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in order to cooperatively combat climate change by limiting average global temperature increases and coping with impacts from a changing climate.

The Conference of the Parties is the supreme decisionmaking body of the nations participating in UNFCCC discussions. A key task for this group, which gathers every other year at what are now known as COP meetings (or COPs), is to review the national communications and emission inventories submitted by member nations. Based on this information, the Conference of the Parties assesses the effects of the measures taken by participating nations and the progress made in achieving the ultimate objective of the UNFCCC. Officially adopted at the 1997 COP3 meeting in Kyoto, Japan, the Kyoto Protocol was the first binding international framework for curbing greenhouse gases. However, the Kyoto Protocol ultimately failed to gain traction.

The 2014 COP20 meeting in Lima set the stage for COP21 when all participating nations agreed to a promised emissions-reduction framework called Indicated Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). INDCs pair national policy setting—in which countries determine their contributions in the context of their national priorities, circumstances, and capabilities—with a global framework that drives collective action toward adaptation.

At COP21, participating nations were expected to—and ultimately did—collectively ratified a new climate change agreement based on the Kyoto Protocol that will lower carbon emissions. Further, both the U.S. and China came to the table with national carbon reduction plans of their own for the first time in COP history. However, it is important to note that the agreement is only legally binding for nations that ratify it through their own legal processes.

The Paris COP21 meeting produced an agreement hailed

by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as “ambitious, credible, flexible, and durable.” Developed and developing countries alike are required to limit their emissions with regular reviews to ensure commitments can be increased in line with scientific advice. Finance will be provided to poor nations to help them cut emissions and cope with the effects of extreme weather. Countries affected by climaterelated disasters will gain urgent aid.

While COP21 was an immensely important step in addressing global climate change, there is much more to do as climate change affects public health, human rights, and economics as well as our environment.

Source: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

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of the world’s population living in or near coastal areas, billions of people face displacement. Most significantly, perhaps, this rise in sea levels is forcing entire populations of island nations like the Maldives to move as their homeland becomes submerged.

At COP20 in Lima, Peru, participating countries—facing real and immediate threats from climate change—agreed to a new framework that fairly weights the emissions reduction commitment from each nation. This new Indicated Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) framework paved the way for success at COP21.

For Wisconsin participants at COP21, the mood felt electric, like something big was about to happen.

“I didn’t expect it to be that large,” says Atapattu, reflecting on the scale of COP21. “Everywhere you went in Paris, there was something about COP21 [taking place].”

Indeed, the Paris climate meeting was the best-attended COP in history, with more than 38,000 citizens and delegates from the 196 participating nations, and thousands of other attendees, including 147 heads of state. Never before have this many presidents, prime ministers, monarchs, and other national leaders gathered in a single place over a single issue.

The record attendance at COP21 and other recent COP meetings stems in part from a tiered registration structure: attendees with UNFCCC accreditation (typically member-nation delegates) are permitted into the restricted negotiation area while other participants take part in a much larger parallel conference, which includes hundreds of civic events over the two-week period.

This larger, more public gathering occurs as a backdrop to the international negotiations and provides scientists, governments, NGOs, citizens, and others an opportunity to share current research and experiences surrounding climate change mitigation.

Patz, a health scientist who served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, spent several months in the winter and spring of 2015 in Switzerland working with climate change experts from around the world to plan the COP21 meeting in Paris. While there, he participated in a conferencewithin-a-conference hosted by the World Health Organization in collaboration with the Global Health Alliance. Patz also lent his expertise to various meetings and presentations, including chairing a session on energy and health with high-level health officials from India, Turkey, Poland, and the Philippines.

Clay Nesler, an executive for the Building Efficiency division of Johnson Controls, says that prior COP meetings felt “very much top-down” when it came to “defining a common legally binding agreement, which ultimately failed.” Nesler, who has attended four meetings in his role as vice president of Global Energy and Sustainability for Johnson Controls, describes COP21 as applying a more inclusive “bottom-up” approach where each country is responsible for setting their own reduction targets and reporting on their progress.

COP21 is “basically morning to night meetings,” says Nesler.

Member-nation delegates rarely see a break in negotiations, especially towards the end of the two weeks. The larger public conference offers plenary sessions, poster displays, workshops, 36

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and other events from early in the morning into the evening. As part of the Johnson Controls delegation, Nesler spoke at eight events and moderated a number of panels for the U.N. He had access to the government negotiations, and also received daily briefings on the progress of negotiations along with other business and industry representatives.

Environmental advocate Tia Nelson, who has attended ten of these meetings (COP2 through COP11), says she saw an “increased sense of urgency, attendance, and cooperation between countries” leading up to the December negotiations.

According to Nelson, while 10,000 people attended COP3 in Kyoto, almost four times as many came to Paris for COP21.

Representing the Wisconsin-based Outrider Foundation, Nelson attended COP21 as part of a delegation of “over a hundred other funders and foundations who are working for climate solutions.” Her primary objective was to “identify the most impactful niche” the Outrider Foundation’s new climate change initiative can fill going forward, by networking with attendees and receiving regular briefings on the progress of negotiations.

On her first day of the meeting, Nelson went to an event at the Eiffel Tower for over four hundred mayors attending COP21.

These local government leaders are dedicated to “making their cities more livable, healthier, and more resilient,” she says.

Local-level greenhouse gas reduction through smart city planning accomplishes this, and mitigates the effect of climate change at the global level to boot. “This is where there’s a lot more momentum,” adds Patz.

Involvement for many local government representatives and businesses went beyond mere participation as some signed greenhouse gas reduction commitments themselves. Nearly five hundred cities from all over the world, including four from Wisconsin—Ashland, Milwaukee, Racine, and Wisconsin Rapids—signed the Compact of Mayors. Founded at the 2014 COP20 meeting, the Compact is the world’s largest coalition of city leaders addressing climate change by pledging to reduce their cities’ greenhouse gas emissions, track progress, and prepare for the impacts of climate change.

Recognizing the economic opportunities of climate change mitigation, the private sector has been playing an increasing role in these meetings. Throughout the last several years, business leaders have hosted and participated in presentations on their role in creating a low-carbon global economy. Many private sector entities have pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, increase energy efficiency, and educate national governments in the process.

At his first Conference of the Parties meeting in Copenhagen in 2009 (COP15), Nesler says he was “surprised to learn that neither buildings, vehicles, [n]or even energy efficiency were mentioned anywhere in the draft text.” As a result, Johnson Controls committed to help educate countries on integrating energy efficiency into their mitigation and adaptation plans and supporting energy innovation in their private sectors.

“This led to our working with other like-minded businesses, NGOs, and other institutions as a founding partner of the Global Energy Efficiency Accelerator Platform [a public-private partnership program that coordinates with the U.N.’s Sustainable Energy for All initiative to scale up energy efficiency],” adds Nesler. Since

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Sumudu Atapattu

Tia Nelson

then, Johnson Controls has participated in many of the annual COP conferences, including COP20 last year in Lima, Peru, and has officially declared their support for the COP21 agreement.

Lasting success from COP21 in Paris looks different depending on whom you ask. But Atapattu, Nelson, Nesler, and Patz all agree that it includes discrete reduction goals for all countries, ratifies allowable emissions models, and establishes a framework for updating reduction commitments every five years.

Patz sees climate change mitigation as a chance to improve human health across the planet. “If you look at the public health implications, combating climate change could be free, if not a net gain,” says Patz, noting how seven million people die prematurely every year because of air pollution.

“If you take CO2 out of the air,” he adds, “you take out all the nasty, dirty air pollutants, the particulate air pollution … you reduce all of the air pollutants that kill people today.” For Patz and other public health experts, these “co-benefits” that come from a clean energy economy “need far more attention in the climate change discussions.” This is the message Patz brought to Paris.

Atapattu thinks that success must include an acknowledgment of the human rights implications brought on by a global climate crisis. The international community must have a “date in mind to reach their target reductions, because then people can put in proposals and start working towards that. In the diplomatic world five years is a short period of time, so I think we need to start looking at that now before it’s too late,” she says.

Nesler is pleased the COP21 agreement establishes reduction goals and actions for all countries. He notes how it successfully “sets a framework for periodically updating commitments and ambitions, while supporting market-based mechanisms for leveraging innovation, finance, and clean energy solutions.”

“There is an opportunity here,” Nesler points out, for business to take the lead in investing in a low-carbon economy.

“The building, industry, and transportation sectors represent over half of the potential greenhouse gas emission reductions needed to minimize the impact of global climate change,” he says. “Improving energy efficiency is the most cost-effective way to achieve these reductions and are applicable to all countries, whether developed, rapidly developing, or emerging.” [Editor’s Note: For an overview of how Wisconsin-based efficiency initia-

Clay Nesler

Dr. Jonathan Patz

tives can help mitigate the impacts of global climate change, please read the Wisconsin Academy’s 2014 Climate Forward report.]

Patz agrees: “There was a clear signal to the private sector that a low-carbon economy is a priority, and that investors are heading this way."

The 2015 Paris conference brought a renewed sense of hope to those, like Patz, Nesler, and Nelson, who have been involved with these talks for years.

Of course, the COP21 agreement isn’t 100% comprehensive.

There is no reference to the millions of people who face displacement due to rising sea levels and increasing instances of severe weather. And, the agreement is only legally binding to those nations that ratify it through their own legal processes.

But for Atapattu, Nelson, Nesler, and Patz, the COP21 meeting itself was as significant as the resulting agreement in setting the world on a better path for a sustainable future. According to Nesler, this meeting was “a lot more optimistic” than previous COPs—and a great deal more rewarding.

At the end of the day, the COP21 agreement is one of the most significant international initiatives ever signed.

“Almost every country in the world—rich or poor—committed to action to address climate change, and protect public health and the environment,” says Nelson. “While the agreement [itself] is non-binding, each country submitted a plan to do their part” through adherence to the agreed-upon INDC framework—a new approach that is “a real breakthrough,” adds Nelson.

The 2016 COP22 meeting will take place in Marrakesh, Morocco, and will call on member nations to report on their emission reduction progress. It is not yet clear how Wisconsin leaders will be involved. But, if history is any indication, leaders from academe, business, local government, and the nonprofit sector in Wisconsin will be there to lead the way forward—just as the Academy will be there to make the connection and continue the conversation.

Amidst conflicting national, state, and local priorities, the question remains: Will our state choose to engage in this discussion, to connect its people and ideas for a better world? As Atapattu points out, “Climate change affects everybody at every level. Wisconsin, as well as other states, will have to take action.

We cannot be complacent; this is just the beginning.” Z W I S C O N S I N

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THE POTENTIAL OF CRISPR-CAS GENE EDITING TECHNOLOGY

BY JACQUELINE HOUTMAN

F

ive years ago, the term CRISPR-Cas was familiar to only a handful of microbiologists. Today, thousands of scientists around the world are using this novel gene editing technology to advance research in basic science, medicine, agriculture, and industry.

The CRISPR-Cas technology is simpler, quicker, more reliable and less expensive than other gene editing methods, and it has brought forth new prospects for curing genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, and sickle cell anemia.

The explosive growth of CRISPR-Cas technology has also spawned several new biotechnology companies—as well as a patent dispute with billions of dollars at stake. With two separate research teams claiming ownership of the gene editing technology, it will be up to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to decide who invented CRISPR-Cas first: a team at the University of California, Berkeley, led by Jennifer Doudna or scientists at the Broad Institute (associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University) led by Feng Zhang.

No matter who wins the patent—and probable Nobel Prize—it is clear that the CRISPR-Cas process did not simply appear out of thin air. In fact, it was adapted from existing functions many bacteria use to survive. While microbes have evolved these functions over millions of years, today we humans exploit them in laboratory and kitchen alike for our own purposes.

The story of CRISPR-Cas begins in the kitchen, where both chemists and cooks use microbes in starter cultures to produce wine, beer, bread, vinegar, sauerkraut, pickles, soy sauce, cheese, and 38

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yogurt. In cheesemaking, for example, as the microbial culture grows in milk it converts the sugar lactose into lactic acid, thereby ensuring the correct level of acidity, helping to curdle the milk, and suppressing the growth of harmful microbes that might spoil the cheese. As the cheese ripens, the microbial culture gives it a balanced aroma, taste, and texture (it is also responsible for the “holes” in Swiss cheese).

But a culture can be easily disrupted by viruses called bacteriophages (or phages) that infect bacteria. These viruses are, unfortunately, ubiquitous and can interfere with the production of foods that rely on a starter culture.

When a bacteriophage infects a bacterial cell, it injects its genetic material (usually DNA) into the cell and forces the cell to use viral genes instead of its own genes to produce more viruses, which go on to infect more bacterial cells. If bacteriophages get into a batch of yogurt in a dairy plant, they may kill bacteria in the starter culture, causing the resulting yogurt to be runny or grainy, or otherwise unacceptable.

To counter this problem, food ingredient companies like Danisco (now owned by DuPont) spend a lot of time and money on ways to make the bacteria in starter cultures resistant to phage infection. In the early 2000s, a group of Danisco scientists in Madison, Wisconsin, together with colleagues in Dangé-SaintRomain, France, were looking at an unusual genetic sequence called CRISPR in bacteria as a way to identify particular strains.

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Image credit: Innovative Genomics Initiative/innovativegenomics.org

First described by Spanish researcher Francisco Mojica in the early 1990s, CRISPR (short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) consists of a series of identical 29-base repeats interspersed with unique 32-base sequences called spacers along a strand of DNA. At the time of discovery, CRISPR was considered to be a genetic anomaly of no particular value.

Yet when the Danisco team infected Streptococcus thermophilus (an important bacterium for dairy cultures) with phages, they found that the surviving bacterial cells were identical to the parent cells with one difference: there was extra DNA in the CRISPR sequences that matched the viral DNA. The Dansico researchers had discovered a sort of bacterial immune system that could remember dangerous viruses.

Horvath and Barrangou’s team was the first to demonstrate a direct biological relationship between CRISPR and phage resistance. It works like this: When a virus infects a bacterial cell, the cell clips a bit of the viral DNA and stores it as a CRISPR spacer— a sort of viral mug shot. If the cell is ever infected by the same virus, the cell is able to recognize that virus by making an RNA copy of the mug shot and combining it with a Cas (CRISPR-associated) protein. The pair form a DNA-cutting enzyme called a nuclease that recognizes a virus that is returning to the scene of the crime and cuts the invader’s DNA using the Cas protein, thereby stopping the phage infection. It also turned out that subsequent generations of bacteria keep the mug shot in their CRISPR spacer and their resistant properties, which meant that the Dansico group had discovered a way to alter an entire bacterial germline.

Today commercial producers can take advantage of the natural CRISPR-Cas system to provide dairy cultures that are already “immunized” by exposure to common bacteriophages and contain the desired CRISPR sequences to make them resistant.

“It was so simple,” says Dennis Romero, who was part of that Danisco team and is now principal senior scientist in the Department of Culture Development at DuPont Nutrition & Health in Madison. “We had the bacteria, exposed them to phage, and looked at what survived.”

It was an elegant solution to a pervasive problem and all the genetic modification was done by the bacteria themselves, as they likely have been doing since before humans existed. As Romero put it, “Nature finds the simplest and most efficient system.”

In 2011, Jennifer Doudna (University of California, Berkeley) and Emmanuelle Charpentier (Umeå University, Sweden) began studying how the CRISPR sequences and the Cas protein worked together. What they discovered would change the biotechnology field forever.

Provided by the Innovative Genomics Initiative, this infographic (right) illustrates how CRISPR-Cas technology enables scientists to learn about the specific functions of chromosomes by activating or inhibiting genes as well as easily change the functions of living cells and organisms by reprograming genetic information.

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Photo credit: Thomas Tubon/Madison College

Photo credit: UW–Madison Biotechnology Center

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C. Dustin Rubenstein (left), director of the Translational Genomics Facility at UW–Madison, and Thomas Tubon (right), director of the Human Stem Cell Technologies Education Initiative at Madison College, are leaders in Wisconsin’s emerging CRISPR-Cas gene editing field. The two provide researchers and industry alike with the tools and training they need to take full advantage of this new technology.

The two researchers wondered if the method bacteria had evolved to cut phage DNA in specific spots could be adapted to other cells, even other species. Doudna and Charpentier tinkered with the system and, as they reported in 2012, it was indeed possible to cut DNA anywhere by changing the sequence of the guide RNA that associates with the DNA-cutting Cas protein.

It turned out that Cas was a programmable nuclease that could add, inactivate, or modify genes much more easily, cheaply, and quickly than anything being used in labs at the time. To use a computer analogy, the Cas protein is like the hardware. To edit a new gene with CRISPR, all that was required was new software, a short RNA sequence. Previous systems (using techniques called zinc fingers and TALENS) required an entirely new protein for each new genetic target, which would be analogous to building a different computer for each gene.

Within months, researchers at the Broad Institute had used CRISPR-Cas to edit genes in cultured cells from mice and humans. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison were quick to see the potential of the technique. A collaborative effort that included the laboratories of Melissa Harrison (assistant professor of Biomolecular Chemistry), Kate O’Connor-Giles (assistant professor of Genetics), and Jill Wildonger (assistant professor of Biochemistry) resulted in the first published account of CRISPR-modified fruit flies. Before long, genes were being edited in frogs, mice, fish, roundworms, pigs, corn, rice, and tobacco.

“It just became a flood,” says Romero. Work could now be done in weeks instead of years, with hundreds of dollars instead of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

CRISPR-edited cells and organisms can be used to answer fundamental questions about how genes and cells work,

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providing insight into the ways cells regulate their growth, interact with each other, or sense what’s going on around them.

At UW–Madison, modified fruit flies are being used to study the development of embryos and the nervous system.

The technique has the potential to make current animal models for human disease much more precise. For example, if epidemiological evidence links a particular genetic change with a disease, that genetic change can be introduced into an experimental animal in the same place as the normal gene. If the animal model mimics the human disease, it can be studied to see how the disease progresses and find potential targets for drugs.

Around the world, CRISPR is being used to study cardiovascular disease, diabetes, AIDS, cancer, and a host of other diseases, but its usefulness is not limited to the medical sciences.

Edited genes are producing virus-resistant pigs, non-allergenic peanuts, drought-tolerant crops, and malaria-resistant mosquitoes. Trees are being developed that would be easier to convert into biofuels. Using CRISPR-Cas technology, researchers can also tweak cells to produce more of a desired product, such as alcohol, insulin, or antibiotics.

Investigators continue to make technical advances in the CRISPR-Cas field. Huge computer databases allow them to design the most precise guide RNAs, while high throughput systems are able to test thousands of genes at a time. New Cas proteins are being discovered, and others are being engineered to improve their accuracy or efficiency.

“It certainly is an exciting time at UW–Madison to be the ‘CRISPR guy’,” says C. Dustin Rubinstein. After a postdoctoral stint in the

emerging science

O’Connor-Giles fruit fly lab, Rubinstein was hired as the director of the Translational Genomics Facility, which, along with the Transgenic Animal Facility, makes up the genome-editing core of the UW–Madison Biotechnology Center. The facility connects investigators with the tools and expertise they need to use CRISPR-Cas for their particular research efforts.

Researchers work with Rubinstein to design guide RNA that will produce the most accurate editing and to obtain and purify the materials they will need for their purposes. If the guide RNA is to be used to create an animal model, it is handed off to the staff of the Transgenic Animal Facility to be microinjected into animal embryos at the single-cell stage.

Animal models are crucial to biomedical research, but they are not perfect models for human disease (after all, they aren’t human). Human stem cell research can help bridge that gap.

Krishanu Saha, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at UW–Madison, works with human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Unlike embryonic stem cells, iPS cells are body cells—such as skin or blood cells— that are reprogrammed so that they can be coaxed into becoming almost any kind of cell. They can be grown in culture to become microtissues or organoids, which are collections of cultured human cells that emulate the structure and functions of specific tissues or organs.

Saha uses CRISPR-Cas to induce genetic defects, producing “diseases in a dish” on which he can test drugs and study disease processes in very controlled conditions. He and researchers at the Waisman Center use these methods to study neurological disorders, such as ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), fragile X syndrome, Rett syndrome, and Down syndrome, as well as stroke and diseases of the retina.

Saha, Rubinstein, Harrison, O’Connor-Giles, and Wildonger, along with faculty, staff, and students across campus participate in a collaborative effort called Genome Editing and Engineering at Wisconsin (geewisc.wisc.edu). GEEwisc allows them to compare notes, troubleshoot, and work together, bridging basic and applied genetic research.

The rapid rise of CRISPR in research labs has been “a big boon to the local [Madison] economy,” says Rubinstein. Biotechnology companies see that there is new revenue to be generated keeping laboratories supplied with the reagents they need.

As the use of CRISPR-Cas technology expands in academia and industry, there will be increased need for workers skilled in these new techniques. Madison College has this covered.

Madison College is the first and only two-year college in the nation to prepare students to be professionals in the area of human embryonic stem cell technology. Opened in 2013, their 2,700-square-foot Advanced Cell Culture Education Suite supports stem cell biotechnology education and hosts courses

and program offerings in cell culturing, protein purification and molecular biology.

Under the guidance of project director Thomas Tubon and with funding from the National Science Foundation, the Human Stem Cell Technologies Education Initiative at Madison College is developing curricula to give students hands-on experience with stem cells and CRISPR-Cas gene editing. These “cutting-edge curricula,” says Tubon, “will be more feasible and affordable to bring into the classroom” and will be integrated into biotechnology programs across the country. The initiative also cultivates interest in biotechnology in younger students by offering opportunities for grades K–12 to work with stem cells and CRISPR.

The simplicity, power, and low cost of CRISPR-Cas technology, while holding the potential for important discoveries and therapies, also raises some difficult questions. Could so called “biohackers” edit genes in their garages? What happens if CRISPR-ized organisms are released into the environment? And what about changes to the human germline—changes that can be inherited?

A report last year that a group of scientists in China had used CRISPR to make changes in human embryos created controversy and widespread discussion about the ethical repercussions of such a powerful tool, hinting at the possibility of eugenics or “designer babies.” There were also questions about its safety and potential ecological impact. Similar concerns were raised when genetic engineering first became possible and a meeting was held to address these issues at Asilomar Beach, California, in 1975.

With a nod to the Asilomar Beach meeting, the International Summit on Human Gene Editing brought experts from many disciplines to Washington DC in December 2015. Four UW–Madison faculty—Krishanu Saha, Pilar Ossorio (professor of Law and Bioethics), Alta Charo (professor of Law and Bioethics), and Dietram Scheufele (professor of Life Sciences Communication)— attended the summit. [Editor’s note: Both Charo and Scheufele are recognized as Wisconsin Academy Fellows for their public service and achievement in respective fields.] The summit’s organizing committee produced a set of professional guidelines, proposed a moratorium on inheritable changes in the human germline, and encouraged continued discussions as the technology evolves.

For a biotechnology tool that is less than five years old, CRISPR-Cas has made a huge impact in basic and applied research in medicine, agriculture, and industry. The journal Science named CRISPR-Cas its 2015 “Breakthrough of the Year.”

We will have to wait to see if, as some have predicted, it will become the Breakthrough of the Century. Z

The simplicity, power, and low cost of CRISPR-Cas technology, while holding the potential for important discoveries and therapies, also raises some difficult questions.

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Night Vision PHOTOS & PAINTINGS BY VALERIE MANGION

Night Vision evolved out of my strong desire to learn more about the wild creatures that share the 58-acre farm my husband and I own in the Driftless Region of southwest Wisconsin. I love all animals, and feel sad that we see relatively little of our “farm-mates” during the day. Even animals that aren’t nocturnal by nature are often forced by fear to lay low over the daylight hours.

Over the past five years, I’ve set up a motion-activated trail camera at various locations around our property. The camera uses infrared digital technology to take photos—day or night— without the intrusive presence of a human operator. Through this camera, I’ve gotten to better know the wild friends that live around the farm. I have also enjoyed spying on my horses with the trail camera during this time. Horses only sleep for a few minutes at a time, so I wanted to know what they do all night (and if the dominant pair was bullying my smaller, older rescue horse).

From the first time I uploaded trail camera photos to my computer, I knew that they would lead to paintings. I have always painted animals, and I have always been a narrative painter who tells visual stories.

My paintings usually feature bright, colorful images. But for the Night Vision series I thought I would really shake things up for myself by using color in a totally different way.

With the exception of the first few “learning curve” paintings, which employed various shade of black, all the works in Night Vision are composed of colors mixed so subtly that the images appear from a distance to be monochromatic value studies.

In general, it is my hope that the animals featured in Night Vision come across as the individuals they are, not as standins for, or as symbols of, an entire species or the attributes we humans assign to them. (If I paint a pig, I’m not painting “gluttony”; I’m doing a portrait of that pig.)

Conveying the individualism of these subjects was not easy or always possible, however, given that we make so many of our assumptions about others from studying their eyes.

Depicting “night eyes” as captured by the camera—white circles or oblongs—challenged me to convey my subjects’ essence mainly through gesture and expression. In spite of this challenge, I absolutely love the accidental reference to the visual language of comics found in these cartoonish blanks.

On a walk during a break from painting one day I startled a large doe who was standing in our creek, drinking. She had a distinctive face, and when she looked at me I realized that I recognized her from photos taken on my trail camera.

I’ve always thought that animals are unique individuals with quirky personalities, inherent rights, and self interests. But that moment with the doe crystallized this thought into an unshakable conviction that individual animal lives matter.

There is no end to the list of ways in which our entrenched, unexamined sense of “human privilege” and species-ism harms other beings, from deliberately killing for sport or convenience to gradually making our entire planet unlivable for all. It is my hope that Night Vision will not only briefly elevate viewers (as I feel elevated when I soak in other people’s art) but also encourage people to appreciate the animals surrounding us and perhaps treat them more kindly.

—Valerie Mangion

Left: Ghostly images from Mangion’s infrared trail camera inform her work

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Three, 2014. 23 x 33 inches. Oil on panel.

Giraffe Deer, 2015. 12 x 16 inches. Oil on panel.

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Stormy Night: Lean-To, 2015. 42 x 54 inches. Oil on panel.

Exhausted, Elderly Horse Trying to Lie Down, and Failing, 2015. 42 x 48 inches. Oil on panel.

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Fast Deer, 2014. 14 x 14 inches. Oil on panel.

Skedaddlin' Skunk, 2015. 6 x 6 inches. Oil on panel.

Buck, 2014. 6 x 6 inches. Oil on panel.

Squirrel, 2016. 6 x 6 inches. Oil on panel.

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Ghost Deer, 2013. 6 x 6 inches. Oil on panel.

Raccshmoon, 2015. 6 x 6 inches. Oil on panel.

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Twins, 2015. 42 x 48 inches. Oil on panel.

Secret Meeting of the Gingers, 2014. 42 x 54 inches. Oil on panel.

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Cartoon-y Deer, 2015. 6 x 6 inches. Oil on panel.

CONNECT: @ the Watrous Gallery

John Craig & Valerie Mangion

Side by side solo exhibitions • On view July 15 to August 28, 2016 Opening reception: Friday, July 15, 5:30 to 7:30 pm, with artist talks at 6:30 pm Illustrator and graphic designer John Craig shares two sets of prints: Equivalences, a study in perception using pairs of found postcard images, and Lost Treasures from Heart of the Driftless, images collaged from historic photos of southwestern Wisconsin. Valerie Mangion’s Night Vision paintings are based on photos taken by a trail camera placed on her farm in the Driftless Region. Translating the photographs to paintings, Mangion alters the accidental compositions, changes the format and size, and strives to work with colors so subtle that it appears the images are black, white, and gray.

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OH, YOU KIDS

BY JON HAKES

W

e went back home for another frustrating visit with our parents. Since, by then, travel was standardized, we all arrived at the same time, even though I was coming from Alaska, Jimbob from Zimbabwe, and Martie from Tibet.

We couldn’t help ourselves. As soon as we arrived, we tried to help out with the preparations for dinner.

Mom sliced vegetables.

I changed the tablecloth, put out clean dishes and silverware, poured waters for everybody, cleaned off the dining room chairs, brought one of the chairs into the kitchen to attack a stain on the upholstery, and brought another one down into the basement to sand one leg so the chair could balance properly again.

Pop picked out a bottle of wine.

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Martie ran out for last-minute groceries, replaced the muffler in Pop’s car, cleaned and organized the refrigerator, finished the centerpiece that Mom had abandoned in the frenzy of cooking, and chopped down a balsam fir tree in the woods behind the house and dragged it into the living room.

Mom put the roast in the oven.

Jimbob cleaned the first floor bathroom, switched out Mom and Pop’s laundry in the basement, did Mom and Pop’s state and federal income taxes, &

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re-caulked Mom and Pop’s shower tiles, decorated Martie’s fir tree, and cleaned the bathroom again.

Pop washed the small set of pots and pans Mom had used to cook the meal.

I brought out the food, lit the candles, put on some music, put Roscoe the family beagle behind the gate in the doorway to the family room, replaced all the batteries in Mom and Pop’s smoke alarms, mopped the kitchen floor, gave Roscoe food and water, emptied the last compost of the season into the big bin in the back yard,

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painted a new portrait of our family, and hung it above Mom and Pop’s fireplace.

We all sat down to eat.

The food was okay.

Any one of the three of us kids could have made something much better. Something astounding. But we just smiled and nodded and said thanks.

During the meal, we must have looked distracted.

Pop said, “Here and now, please,” the way he always used to when we were little.

That sent me on a whirlwind of elevated brain activity, racing through the archives of my own memory, which I had just recently reorganized and rebuilt. There we all were, sitting at family dinner table after family dinner table. Sometimes the three of us kids were all distracted, sometimes two of us, or one, or none.

Combing through these memories (which, as refined and burnished as they were, were diagnostically limited) and crossreferencing them with a river of research data I was filtering in from the outside, I tried to determine if there had been a genetic predisposition to the way I was now, or if everything was attributable to the tech.

Definitive conclusion not reachable.

As I had expected. After all, it was one of the nagging questions of our generation, and even with all of us millions and millions of high-functioning human machines, we had yet to crack the mystery.

This entire process was finished in under ten seconds, but that was enough for Pop to again say, “Here and now, please,” this time staring directly at me.

“The thing that really bothers me,” Pop said, after dinner, while we were all nursing additional wine in the living room, “is that even though the three of you still look like yourselves, I can barely tell any difference between you at all.”

Jimbob said, “Don’t be ridiculous.

Martie integrates better than me and Dix. Dix is faster at finding useful information.

I’m best at gaming out scenarios.”

Mom snorted. “But you all pretty much know the same stuff.”

Martie snorted right back. “No we don’t. We’re constantly updating, just like anyone else. Just like you and Pop.” “Not just like us,” Mom said.

{ Book Reviews } and no spiders were harmed

by Steve Tomasko Reviewed by Karla Huston 48 pages, $12.00, Red Bird Chapbooks “You said I should write more love poems / and I said, I’m sorry, but I’ve been thinking about/ sloths.” This is the opening gambit for and no spiders were harmed, Madison poet Steve Tomasko’s debut chapbook.

Some may think there are enough love poems; some may think there is need for more. Certainly, there is a need for more poems about sloths, ants, spiders, cicadas, “sparrows, crows, and moles.”

With the ears and heart of a poet, and the eyes and sensibilities of a scientist, Tomasko leads readers on a wonder-filled journey of what it’s like to be human, animal, and insect. Though filled with critters, these poems won’t give readers the heebie jeebies—unless you’re creeped out by spiders, which, the poet himself admits to be: Sister Therese writes in a letter that she has a spider on her pile of books, wants to know if I ever wrote about them.

How to confess that I, who people call bug man, get the willies around them.

There are a lot of spiders in this small book. Tomasko writes about spider silk collected to make wartime bomb-sight cross hairs and a golden, brocaded cape. In another poem, a bodhisattva spider shows up trying to teach the poet about being hooked in the lip like a caught fish.

Accessible without being predictable, these poems are more about love than insects. In one, the poet removes a toad, hibernating in a pot, which will surely die if left “well above the frost line.” In another, the poet kills and flushes a spider found in the corner of the bedroom ceiling; but the next night, he carries another in a Mason jar to the garden.

I did mention there are lots of spiders.

There is also dark humor—“Females who have mostly dispensed / with men,” or the female praying mantis who eats the head of the male while he’s mating with her. “And it’s not that he moves faster / without his head. / Well, actually, / that is the horrible thing.”

Tomasko uses the trope of non-human creatures to lead readers through the very human subject of grief, and how verb tenses can be tricky. Is one day, is was the next. He says, “The body hungers on despite the question of tense.”

Intimate without being sentimental—maybe that’s what love should be, not cloying expressions of sentiment—Tomasko’s world is a place where love can be found in the symbiotic relationship between two distinct species:

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“Same principle,” Jimbob said. “Just faster.”

Pop shook his head and smiled. “You big brains. ...”

That night, I found myself wondering, in the middle of all the other processes firing in my conscious (and sub- and un-) thought, what would happen if we took away the synthetic interfaces we used with them, talked with them the way we talked with each other.

Maybe five minutes after I knew Mom and Pop were asleep by the pace of their breathing (amplified hearing), Martie and Jimbob knocked on my door.

We spent most of the rest of the night sneaking around the house, sealing up leaks, replacing lights, improving the efficiency of the wiring, building a new version of Mom and Pop’s oven that worked slightly better. Whatever we could find.

In the morning, we looked for signs that they had noticed anything. Mom and Pop have always had great poker faces. It was a little unnerving that we still had trouble reading them. Maybe a lifetime of keeping their emotions hidden from their children had prepared my parents for contemporary life.

We knew our extra work around the house bothered them. They regarded it as excessive, and mostly unnecessary. They also were great believers in the ancient, well-trod, and anachronistic tradition of The Guest, a figure who should be coddled and pampered, and never asked to lift even a finger in anything that could, in any sense, be classified as Work.

That morning, on a family walk in the woods, Pop asked what we had all been up to recently.

“I’ve been trying to help the monks find a quicker path to enlightenment,” Martie said, “so they can move on and do some other stuff.”

For those of us possessed of the proper data receptors, this statement was accompanied by a flood of information, from breathing statistics to personal videos to heartrate averages to nutrition charts to brain activity read outs, and on and on and on. And on.

From the expression on Jimbob’s face, I could tell he was funneling all the supplementary information directly into his permanent-delete trash bin.

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I, on the other hand, kept it all, because I keep everything.

“Oh,” Pop said. “Anything to add to that?”

“I guess not,” Martie said, seeming a little put out.

“And what about you?” Pop said to Jimbob.

Jimbob gave a loud, irritated sigh, the way he does when he doesn’t really want

Maybe a lifetime of keeping their emotions hidden from their children had prepared my parents for contemporary life. to talk about something, which is most of the time. “Just been working with local compatriots to try to rebuild local microeconomies, in tandem with the larger Rebuild Africa movement. Should be caught up with the wealthiest countries in another year. Then we start exporting our systems to the rest of the world.”

“Wow,” Pop said. “Sounds really important.”

“I guess,” Jimbob said, kicking at a rock in the path.

He hadn’t bothered to turn on any supplemental information, which made his answers seem as thin and vacuous to me as they probably had to Mom and Pop. Maybe more so.

“And you?” Pop said, turning to me.

“Getting rid of oil,” I said. “Almost done.”

“Really?” Pop said. “What are you doing with it?”

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

“Oh come on. What am I going to do, drive up there and steal whatever’s left, so I can sell it to a culture that doesn’t use it anymore?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but the protocol is that I can’t tell anyone what we’re specifically doing.” &

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“You mean you can’t tell anyone from my generation what you’re doing …”

“Yes, that is, in fact, what I mean. I was just trying to be nice about it.”

“Look,” Pop said, “we were only doing what we had to do.”

“I know that, Pop,” I said, holding up my hands. “It’s all over with. There’s nothing to fight about now.”

He shook his finger at me. “But you were judging me, as soon as we started talking about it.”

“No I wasn’t,” I said, even though I had been.

“Well, whatever,” Pop said. “Maybe once you’re done, you can move on to fixing other things I messed up.”

This conversation went mostly the way I expected. Still aggravating, though.

“Now that you’re in a good mood,” Martie said to Pop, “there’s something else we have to tell you.”

Pop put his hands in his pockets and slowed his stride. “What is it?”

Martie took a deep breath. “We’ve decided not to have any children.”

Mom and Pop looked shocked. “What,” Mom said, “all three of you?”

“All-all of us,” Jimbob said.

“Our entire generation of human beings,” I said. “Plus the younger generation.”

“Did you all meet in a big room to decide this?” Pop said with a grumpy frown.

“Yes,” Jimbob said, “in a manner of speaking. It’s a virtual forum we can all access.”

“So what are people supposed to do without babies?” Mom said.

“Not decided yet,” I said. “There will be something, but it won’t be babies.”

“I would like to have something I can bounce on my knee,” Pop said.

“I’ll be sure to forward your suggestion on to the Group,” Jimbob said.

“You know your father and I have been looking forward to grandchildren for a long time,” Mom said. Her voice wasn’t cracking. Only by force of will, I hypothesized.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Martie said. “If it helps, Dix and I voted in favor of the old way of doing things.”

Mom and Pop turned two accusing glares on Jimbob.

“Hey,” he said, raising his hands. “The resolution passed with tens of millions of

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more votes for than against. And, besides, this is the best long-term strategy for the human race at this point.”

“Strategy,” Pop snorted.

We walked on in silence.

On a high point of the trail, overlooking the river, Mom said, “Well, now it’s our turn to upset you. Your father is very sick.”

Add the ability to completely blindside us to the list of unnerving talents still possessed by Mom and Pop. The three of us started to talk at once.

At the same time, our data ports were all flung wide open, our brains searching for physical clues we had overlooked previously. In came: slower, possibly impaired breathing, impaired liver function, damaged immune system, tumor-like objects in multiple systems, clotting issues. And so on.

“Will the three of you just shut up for a second?” Pop said.

“It’s a cancer,” Mom said.

“We can see that,” Martie snapped, before looking contrite and saying, “Sorry, Momma.”

Interesting reversion, thought a small scrap of my brain that wasn’t already engaged in diagnosing Pop and preparing for his treatment.

“Let’s get him back to the house,” Jimbob said.

We had Pop opened up for exploratory surgery on the dining room table before he could say, “This is why we didn’t tell you right away, damn it! We knew you’d overreact and do something stupid!”

He was able to speak because we had shut down his pain receptors manually and dampened his ability to be horrified at seeing his own innards. I tried to keep myself from exploring the issue of why we hadn’t bothered to dampen his anger.

Maybe we felt guilty.

“I can’t find anything,” Jimbob said.

“Me neither,” Martie said. “This is ridiculous.”

“Will you please stop that?!” Mom shrieked. She’d always had a strong stomach, so this jolted me into action.

“What are you doing?” Jimbob said.

“I’m closing him up,” I said. “We’d have seen it already if there was something we knew to see.”

“He’s perfectly fine this way,” Martie said. “We can keep him open almost indefinitely while we look.”

{ Book Reviews } The algae-covered sloth fur is the only home the sloth moths know. The only place they live.

I know it’s a Darwinian thing, but fidelity comes to mind. Commitment. Patience.

The world writes love poems all the time.

Still, Tomasko’s wife Jeanne wishes he’d write more love poems.

Editor's Note: A version of this review appeared in The Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene Blog (dougholder.blogspot.com).

One in a Billion: The Story of Nic Volker and the Dawn of Genomic Medicine

by Mark Johnson and Kathleen Gallagher Reviewed by Shelby Anderson 256 pages, $26.00, Simon & Schuster In 2009, a team of doctors and scientists at the Medical College of Wisconsin shook up the medical community by successfully sequencing a young Wisconsin boy’s DNA in order to identify and treat an unknown, life-threatening disease. That boy’s name is Nic Volker and his story is told by Mark Johnson and Kathleen Gallagher in their compelling new book One in a Billion: The Story of Nic Volker and the Dawn of Genomic Medicine.

Johnson and Gallagher, reporters at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, are part of the team that first broke Nic’s story in 2010 in a special three-part series in the newspaper. The articles helped the case gain worldwide attention and garnered the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting.

The story begins with the grisly details of Nic’s disease. The young boy’s immune system is attacking cells in the lining of his intestine causing fistulas or small openings to appear that leak waste into his body. Nic nearly dies from septic shock more than once and undergoes endless operations to repair his repeatedly damaged intestinal tract.

For two years, doctors are baffled by Nic’s condition. The disease leaves the boy severely underweight, and his chances of survival are slim.

As Nic struggles to survive, a technology that might save his life is beginning to emerge. In 2009, Howard Jacob, a professor in physiology and pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, is developing a team of scientists with skills aimed at one day sequencing the DNA of his young patients.

“At this point, in late June 2009, there are no published reports of patients having had all of their genes sequenced in order to reach a diagnosis. There is no estimate for what it might cost. There are no guidelines for how to

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“Still some minimal risk,” I said, “and any risk is unacceptable right now. I’m sure we have at least a little bit of time.”

They wanted to continue arguing with me, but I’d already finished.

Later, while Pop was recovering in his bed and we were all crowded in around him, Mom said, “If you’d given us a chance to talk first, we would have been able to tell you that we’ve already taken him to every specialist we can find in our generation, and even had a couple of doctors from your generation look at him.”

“That explains the relatively recent scarring,” I said.

“There are no doctors in our generation,” Jimbob said, “or we’re all doctors.”

“You know what I mean,” Mom said.

“It’s not actually cancer,” Martie said, “even if it acts like it. It’s clearly something new, or at least previously undocumented. We’d be justified in bringing his case before the Group as one where we can devote more resources.”

“Already done,” Jimbob said.

“You didn’t have the right!” Mom yelled.

“What are you talking about?” Jimbob said, his voice rising ever so slightly in annoyance and surprise. “I don’t have the right to care for my own father?”

“You don’t have the right to violate his privacy and share our problems with the whole world!” Mom said.

Jimbob had the good grace to at least look a little sheepish, but he still said, “I have a right to do everything in my power to save his life.”

“Look,” I said, “what’s done is done. The Group is already working on it. Let’s just relax and see what happens.”

Mom stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

We all ate dinner off of trays in the master bedroom that night. Mom put on some music in the living room and turned the volume up. I lit some candles. Martie picked out a bottle of wine. Jimbob just sat there in a chair with his arms folded, watching Pop. Roscoe whined and whined until Mom fed him.

The three of us all received the Group’s verdict at exactly the same time. Martie and Jimbob deferred to me, since I was the oldest.

“They’re going to keep working on it,” I said to Pop, “in order to help future cases.

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But there’s not enough time to solve it for you.”

I guess I was expecting Mom and Pop (or at least Mom) to lose it, so it came as something of a jolt to the nervous system (might have been literal; haven’t bothered to run a diagnostic) when they nodded and clasped each other’s hands.

“That means you’re going to die,” I said.

“Yes,” Pop said, “I understood you the first time.”

By the time Mom and Pop got back from their postlunch walk, the old house was completely gone, and the new, much larger house was already starting to take shape.

“We’ve known that was a strong possibility for some time,” Mom said.

“But you didn’t even give us a chance to help,” Jimbob said.

“And now that you’ve had a chance,” Mom said, “were you able to do anything?”

Jimbob blubbered out something that sounded like, “NobutweIgah! …”

“Exactly,” Mom said. “Listen, I know you three want to think of yourselves as our own personal superheroes, but you’re not all powerful. And I’m sorry you needed to learn that the hard way.”

After that, the three of us did what anyone in our generation did when they were feeling frustrated, angry, sad, etc.

We worked.

We prepped the house for demolition that night, building a shed, moving things out of the house into the shed, throwing other things out, shutting off water and electricity. In the morning, Martie ran into town to secure a building permit and buy materials. By the time Mom and Pop got back from their post-lunch walk, the old &

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house was completely gone, and the new, much larger house was already starting to take shape.

We kept it mostly to one floor so that Pop wouldn’t have to exhaust himself going up and down stairs, but we made that one floor quite expansive, figuring that he could always ride a cart around.

We finished in time for dinner, which we cooked ourselves, and served on the new dishes Jimbob had picked up only five minutes earlier.

“Thank you,” Pop said.

“I don’t know why you had to do that,” Mom said, smacking plates down on top of each other as she cleared the table.

“That house meant a lot to us. Your father spent most of his childhood summers there.”

“I’ve always hated that house,” Jimbob said. “Too small and funky for me.”

“Maybe you should have tried downloading some of my memories before acting on your own feelings,” Pop snapped.

“If you let me cut into your brain and do some scans,” Jimbob said, “I can retrieve those memories and paste them onto the interior of the new house.”

“No thanks,” Pop said.

He and Mom asked that we leave them alone for the rest of the evening, which was disconcerting on a whole new level.

“What do we do?” Jimbob said to me and Martie once we were on our own.

“Maybe we could start by apologizing,” Martie said.

“Uh-uh, no way,” Jimbob said. “I don’t apologize for improving people’s lives.”

“You don’t have to mean it,” I said.

“Not going to lie to them either,” Jimbob said.

“Maybe,” Martie said, “we can ask if there’s something they’d like us to do.”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

We went to bed in our respective rooms.

After the way things had gone, I didn’t dare get up and do any additional work, but lay on the bed and contented myself with researching on the network. Based on breathing patterns, and network usage, I knew the others were following my lead.

At breakfast, we asked them if they had any requests.

“I’ve always wanted to see the Earth from the Roosevelt Platform,” Pop said.

“They restrict access to the Platform pretty tightly for the older generation ...”

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Martie said, at roughly the same time as I said, “No problem.”

Martie and Jimbob looked at me. I shrugged and said, “That is something we can do for him.”

The Roosevelt Platform sat at the top of the Chicago Space Elevator. There were a lot of space elevators, but Chicago’s was the tallest. The view of the Earth was magnificent.

I’d been up there several times, and I knew my siblings had as well. As per Martie’s advisory, the older generation was not permitted to visit any of the space platforms until they had gone through months of training and evaluation, been fitted for the necessary spacesuit, etc.

They (the members of the older generation) also needed to be scheduled for time on the particular platform. The platforms existed because the younger generation was starting to flex its know how in the exploration of space. The members of the younger generation knew how (and were generally able) to take care of themselves on a platform, but there were any number of experiments conducted on platforms in a given day that could be instantaneously fatal to an older person.

It was my long-held opinion that this was as much about bigotry as about safety.

With Pop’s condition, both the beingsick and the not-very-much-time-left factors, we all knew that formal application for a trip to the Roosevelt Platform was a nonstarter, which meant an informal visit, and, therefore, some risk for Mom and Pop. I was not worried.

We left for Chicago the next day. On the way, Jimbob, Martie, and I took turns darting into stores and finding supplies.

Between the three of us, we were able to build them both suits that were well above the minimum required specs.

There was no security around the Space Elevator. Older folks had no way of accessing it, and younger folks were not restricted.

There was an information desk, occupied by a man even younger than Martie.

He rose, smiling, if mildly unsure of what we were doing there. A palette of questions erupted from his data projectors before we were within speaking distance.

I signaled the siblings and the three of us simultaneously cut off input from all

{ Book Reviews } sequence a live patient,” write Johnson and Gallagher, underscoring the odds against Nic’s survival.

Jacob is on track to reach his personal research goal by 2014 when he hears about Nic’s case and decides to accelerate the program. It’s a longshot, but Jacob is undeterred. Nic’s family and Jacob’s team together take the leap into the unknown realm of genomic medicine.

This relatively new field of medicine sequences and then analyzes a patient’s DNA in hopes of finding irregularities or genetic mutations in the DNA that are causing the body to function improperly. In Nic’s case, the doctors have tried every other possible treatment with no success. Genomic medicine is his last chance to beat the disease.

Johnson and Gallagher clearly explain the science behind Nic’s case without bogging down the story. They describe how two scientists at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Elizabeth Worthey and Michael Tschannen, ingeniously took a short-cut in analyzing Nic’s DNA: Instead of scanning all 3.2 billion base pairs, Worthey and Tschannen suggest they could zoom in on the exons, the portions of each gene involved in making proteins. Since protein problems are the cause of many genetic mutations, there is a good chance that the explanation for Nic’s disease lies somewhere in his exome.

The new tool Worthey and Tschannen gamble on to scan the exon portion of Nic’s genes, the Roche NimbleGen Exome Capture Array (which, incredibly, was developed a few miles from Nic’s home), is ultimately effective and costs twenty times less than traditional sequencing methods.

While the science is fascinating, the book is, ultimately, a thrilling and inspirational story about people having the courage to take risks and overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Johnson and Gallagher recount how doctors and scientists crossed new boundaries and worked against the clock to deliver a cure that ultimately saved Nic’s life.

When Nic’s story was first told in 2010, his case became a worldwide phenomenon in the medical community. Nic and his family were interviewed by Matt Lauer on The Today Show and the demand grew for genetic sequencing for sick children with unknown diseases.

The work that took place in Milwaukee inspired other medical organizations like the Duke University Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine to create their own genetic sequencing laboratories. In late 2015, David Adams, the deputy director of clinical genomics at the National Human Genome Research Institute, polled experts around the country and estimated that between 10,000 to 20,000 patients and their relatives had genomes sequenced in the past year in an effort to understand and cure unknown illnesses.

Today, Nic is a relatively healthy child, living in Monona, with hopes of learning how to breakdance and do karate. His story, as told by Johnson and Gallagher, is a reminder of the remarkable things we can accomplish when we have faith and work together. Z

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in the Group but ourselves. We could still hear the voices of our compatriots on the periphery of our awareness, but we were now a hardened and closed circle of three.

The information desk man got to his feet, frowning, projecting something more like concern. I flooded his receptors with a cocktail of signals that would incapacitate him long enough for us to begin our ascent. This is something that we youngsters can normally fend off with great ease. However, as we have a protocol of behavioral standards we all (usually) follow, not all of us have our defenses up at any given moment.

I took the point and started hauling myself up the exterior of the elevator, hand over hand. Martie scooped up Mom and started a sort of one-handedtwo-legged upwards gallop behind me.

Jimbob did the same with Pop, being careful to cradle him to minimize the jolt of movement.

Because we all usually follow the protocol, there was an immediate spike in the volume and tone of voices in the Group, questioning what we were doing. My siblings and I were attracting a huge amount of interest. The growing consensus-admonition was that we should break off our ascent and return to ground immediately. Whispered synonyms of investigation, arrest, and trial darted here and there along the exterior of our mental stronghold.

The first compatriot to confront us descended from the platform itself.

She rode gravity at terminal velocity, her arms stretched wide. She was not wearing a synthetic interface, which likely meant there were no older folks on the platform itself. Her unmasked face was brilliant with light and color, in the way that we all hoped to be, all of the time, one day. The light told us what she was made of, and what she was trying to do to us.

One alone was no match for the three of us. I didn’t even have to break stride with hands or feet as I analyzed the attack on the fly and threw countermeasure code up in short, calculated bursts. Occasionally, there was a burst of countermeasure from behind me, as Martie and Jimbob targeted bits of code that got by me.

We met the other head-on, using our superior combined kinetic energy to 56

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deflect the majority of her momentum back at her.

She fell then, off and away from the elevator shaft. She was paralyzed, but only temporarily. She’d have more than enough time to recover before impact, even if she didn’t have the strength to do much of anything else for a few days.

In her defense, we’d had a good two minutes more time to strategize.

I could hear Mom and Pop crying out behind me, which made sense since they wouldn’t have any idea of the fate of the falling woman.

I could hear Mom and Pop crying out behind me, which made sense since they wouldn’t have any idea of the fate of the falling woman.

Two more came down side by side at us, which seemed to indicate that there might not be that many young people on the platform. Otherwise, we would surely have been overwhelmed with superior numbers.

The two broke our stride, but after a struggle of less than a minute, with Jimbob holding onto both Mom and Pop, Martie and I were able to send the two earthward in the same paralyzed state as the first.

I threw myself up over the edge of the platform, prepared to take on whatever compatriots might remain. There was only one, and he was engaged in an experiment far at the other end, an analysis of radiation in the upper atmosphere below us.

A few seconds of observation, and I was satisfied he was not even aware of our presence.

We sat on the edge of the Roosevelt Platform then, knowing we had only minutes before more compatriots showed up to confront us. Martie held Mom, and Jimbob cradled Pop, shifting accordingly &

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to let him gaze upon the wide, bright Earth below.

I reached over and patted Pop on the shoulder. He shifted, and I heard him grunt. Then he said, quietly, “Now there’s something.”

Out of the corner of my awareness, I saw a focused gamma-ray burst shoot toward us from the compatriot’s experiment on the other end of the platform. I knew that Martie, Jimbob and I would be fine, but the burst was intense enough to burn right through the suits we had built for Mom and Pop. I scooped the two of them up in my arms and shielded them with my body, physically stretching out my own into an oval shape, in order to avoid exposing any part of them.

Pop, his eyes still fixed on the looming sphere of the Earth, leaned into me and said, “We love you too, Son.” It seemed like a good time to leave. We jumped off the edge of the platform. The Earth slowly broadened itself and rose to meet us, crossing that invisible line between gigantic, glowing spheroid and gigantic, glowing flatspace.

We hit the ground with enough force to send shockwaves out for miles around.

Martie, Jimbob, and I had calculated everything, of course, in order to keep ourselves—and especially Mom and Pop—safe.

Before the shockwaves had fully dissipated, the three of us had already combed the area for miles around, collected the unconscious bodies—old and young— within the blast radius, put out as many fires as we could find, repaired two bridges with varying degrees of structural damage, repaired and re-mounted various power lines, checked on Mom and Pop’s health and mental state, de-armored and deweaponized ourselves, re-built a couple of office buildings from the ground up, checked on Mom and Pop, zipped back to the house to walk Roscoe and make sure he had enough food and water.

We sat down and waited for the inevitable arrival of superior opposing numbers, and the moment of accountability that was to follow.

“Sometimes,” Mom said, staring at the rows of unconscious people laid out on the ground and shaking her head, “I wish you kids were as considerate as you are meticulous.” Z

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The Waters of Wisconsin: Sustaining our Aquatic Ecosystems

Inside the Creative Process: Forward Theater Company

Tuesday, May 17, 7–8:30 pm Mead Public Library, 710 North 8th Street, Sheboygan

Thursday, May 19, 7–8:00 pm The Gerold Opera House, 136 East Main Street, Weyauwega

Wisconsin has a long tradition of careful stewardship of our waters, but we find ourselves facing longstanding challenges and emerging threats to our water resources and aquatic ecosystems. In this Academy Talk, Curt Meine, Senior Fellow at the Aldo Leopold Foundation, leads a critical discussion of how we are to sustain the waters that sustain us. Free to the public with advance registration, this special talk is presented in partnership with Mead Public Library with support from Wisconsin Public Radio. Join us for a free reception beginning at 6:00 pm.

With a unique organizational structure and commitment to bold artistic choices, Forward Theater Company has grown in just seven seasons to become one of Wisconsin’s premiere theater companies. Join us for an evening with Jennifer Uphoff Gray, FTC artistic director and a founder, to explore the ways in which theater can engage—and energize—a community. Free to the public with advance registration, this event is co-hosted by Wega Arts in partnership with the Boldt Company and with support from Wisconsin Public Radio. Join us for a free reception beginning at 6:00 pm.

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Beading Culture: Raised Beadwork and the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin On view September 16–November 6, 2016

Beading Culture: Raised Beadwork and the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin features the work of Wisconsin Oneida artists dedicated to the survival of one of their most important artistic traditions: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) raised beadwork. Including examples of early raised beadwork, pieces by mentors and teachers, and video of beading circles, this exhibition tells a complex story of artistic excellence, cultural resilience, and the role of art in defining community. Developed in partnership with the Oneida Nation Arts Program and the Oneida Nation Museum, the Beading Culture exhibition and related events are free and open to the public.

Above (l to r) Sandra Gauthier, Judith Jourdan, and Betty Willems at an Oneida Nation Arts Program workshop, 2013. Photo by Anne Pryor.

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