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Art Review Mount Horeb Mail Newsletter Tutorial (requires Adobe Reader) Brochure: (requires Adobe Reader) Brochure: Review: The Past. Now in His and Hers. As if diagramming differences between men and women, the work of two Wisconsin artists now showing at the Wisconsin Academy’s James Watrous Gallery at the Overture Center smartly contrast feminine and masculine views of the past. Director of the glass program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 1982, Steve Feren’s glasswork, or, as he calls them, “glass ‘paintings’ ” consist of layered, crisp images imbedded in glass. At once three dimensional and flat, their cool, slick surfaces sparkle, while holding the imagery back from us, distancing it, as if it were encased in shadowboxes. There is a reserve, a sly, cool quality inherent in the work, a characteristic not generally associated with the use of historic imagery. Devoid of sepia tone, the details of the images are alive in sharp, black clarity, matched with vivid transparent colors, which combine to re-vision history with modern eyes. We are brought, as we are today, into the past with these images, not gazing down a time tunnel into days of yore. There is a feeling of immortality to the work, a connectedness that transcends our every-day reality. Marna Goldstein Brauner, professor of visual art at UW Milwaukee, also incorporates historical imagery, primarily in the form of found objects. Her palette, mainly ivory and red, echoes the inner sanctum of femininity. Goldstein Brauner shows us a dream-like memory of domestic life, of womanly interiors. Collecting and re-purposing transparent organdie, a stiff fabric, and cast ivoroid, a faux ivory, along with other antique artifacts, Goldstein Brauner combines these, and in some works, adds screened photos of graveyard busts and Victorian silhouettes. The past remains in the past, just out of reach. Yet hers is not the fragile feminine past of the fainting couch. Goldstein Brauner’s dream hovers near the nightmare zone of teeth and crutches, restraint and death.
Notes on the Interior by Steve Feren
Photos by Michele Kraft Mount Horeb Mail June 19, 2008 As an infant with very poor hearing, Mount Horeb’s Carol Burns’ family first tried to ignore or explain away her hearing difficulties. What they didn’t know then was that critical auditory brain function develops when children are young, and without stimulation, the part of the brain that processes sound doesn’t grow. Burns’ parent’s insistence on providing her with a hearing aid, and encouraging her to be interested in sound and music proved to be invaluable later in her life. She’d laid the groundwork for successful cochlear implants. When Burns was ready to go into first grade, she was evaluated for enrolment in the Freeman School in Rockford, IL, where she was living at the time. Children who were different in any way were generally sent to special schools Like Freeman, where they would be taught among other children with special needs, whether the children were learning disabled or had physical disabilities. This separation would begin a life-long trend for these children, one that emphasized what made them different, setting up a feeling of social awkwardness that for many would become more of a problem than their disability. For Burns, this would have meant an entirely different life, and different expectations about her adult life and productivity. “You find out these feelings you have are normal,” Ms. Burns said, “and it was the first time I had gone to a large scale event where all of my listening needs were met.” She began to find out about adaptive aids and the new technology of cochlear implants. After evaluating the progress of friends who had had the procedure, Burns had her first cochlear implant in 1995. Cochlear implants directly stimulate any functioning auditory nerves inside the cochlea, a part of the inner ear, with electrical impulses, enabling the ear to function. The surgery radically changed her life, restoring her hearing to levels she had not had since she was a baby. After her brain adjusted and begin to process sound, the implant gave her hearing abilities she never had before in her life. Burns could have applied for disability benefits and quit working so Medicaid would pay for the implant. Driven to stay involved and active, she decided to pay for the device and procedure out of pocket and continue work for change. “Once I realized the incredible benefit of this technology, it became my mission in life to change the insurance situation at work,” Burns said. “At that time, I was serving several governors’ appointments, and through the contacts I would make, I could use my position to network with these individuals. I’d tell everyone I knew who might have influence with this particular injustice.” Doors opened for Ms. Burns beyond what she had been able to accomplish for herself as a woman with severe hearing loss. After her first implant, she quickly advanced three pay grades within the state and received the governor’s appointments, which gave her access to people in power. ”I was relentless, positive, educating them, always telling them what the benefits were and why this was so important, why it was so wrong that they were refusing to cover it. If I were a person who were diabetic and had to have a limb amputated because of my condition, there would be absolutely no question that I would receive a prosthetic leg. There would be no question if a baby was born with a cleft palette, we would fix it. It just seems to me so wrong, it’s a hearing prosthesis, replacing that organ that’s not functioning.” After years of advocating, in the spring of 2002 Ms. Burns got a call from her contact at the Employee Trust Fund. She’d been educating them particularly about the benefits for children; the earlier they have an implant, the better the result. He was beginning understand. He was ready to take it to the board. Mount Horeb Mail, June 19, 2008 School Board looking to sell two unneeded properties
Introducing new state regulations to program recipients Date Member Name Dear Member Name: The Bureau of Long Term Support and CLA are gradually improving the way services are provided. The new method is called Outcome Based Planning, or Outcomes for short. Outcome Based Planning only changes the way we talk about and identify your needs. Everyone is different. Outcomes looks closely at what you want for yourself and provides a process of discussion that supports your needs through paid services and support from your community. Outcomes is not designed to take services away from you. I’ll be meeting with you soon to talk about what is important to you in your life and what your goals are for the future. I’ve enclosed some questions that we’ll be going over together that will help us both understand what your Outcomes are. These questions are designed to help us talk together. Your answers will give me a good understanding of what you really want and need in your life so we can find ways to keep things going well for you now and in the future. It will really help us both if you will put some time into thinking about these questions before we meet. Your answers can be very long and detailed, and in fact, it’s better if they are! You don’t have to write them down. While Outcomes is a new way of looking at member centered planning, it’s still the same self-directed planning you’re accustomed to. That important part is not changing. I’ll be calling you soon to set up your Annual Review meeting, but please call me before then if you have any questions. Sincerely,
Service Coordinator Name Enclosure
Outcomes
Second Harvest Food Bank Gina Wilson, Director of Agency Relations at Second Harvest Food Bank says, "This piece is beautiful, but then your writing conveys not only the facts but the heart of what we do. Since you've been writing our newsletter, it's become much easier and more fun for our agencies to read." Distribution Center Dedicated October 18th. Pre-Order System Comes to SHARE YOUR HOLIDAYS We still need your help! NBC15’s Share Your Holidays to Eliminate Hunger is already off to a brisk start. The Take a Bite out of Hunger and Stuff a Semi events have already raised 52,000 meals, and we’re excited to see how the community turns out in support of this year’s remaining events. Nov. 2-10: Check Out Hunger by making a donation when you pay for groceries at Copps Food Centers, Pick ’n Save, and Metcalfe’s Sentry Foods
Brochure: Writing to the reader is the underlying thrust of my writing style. Rather than describing the people and the company the worker will be employed by, as had been the case in the past, I changed the emphasis to the potential worker, the person who is meant to read this brochure. As always, I started by asking what the reader wants to know, not what the company wants to say. That information gets in there too, but it comes from the perspective of the audience, the reader, not the company. This effectively engages the reader, and that's what needs to happen for the reader to internalize the message. Make money, make a difference! Are you a people-person? Do you want to make a difference in someone's life and get paid for it?When you work for Community Living Alliance’s Members as a Personal Living Assistant, you won’t need experience to start, just physical fitness and the will to learn. You’ll gain on-the-job training in a variety of areas while working with the disabled in a home environment. With a wide variety of shifts and employers, there’s always work available. Busy people with unusual schedules can find an employer through Community Living Alliance. Make a difference for yourself as you learn valuable skills; make a difference for other people as you care for them. Become a Personal Living Assistant. What does a Personal Living Assistant do? As a PLA, you’ll find variety in your day as you directly impact the well being of the person you work for. All of our Members are disabled, but each has different needs. Some want assistance with shopping, transportation and companionship, while others require every type of personal care. You decide who to work for, and how many people you wish to work for. A wide variety of shifts are available. Help Susan start her day early in the morning, or stay with Fred through the night, making sure someone’s there if he needs help. Assist Tony with range of motion exercises and help him get to bed. Housekeep for Frida twice a week and help her make meals. These are the kinds of things you’ll be doing as a Personal Living Assistant. You’ll feel good about the work you do: helping the disabled live independent lives in their own homes. It’s All About Independence Independence for you- you’ll never be told who you must work for. You choose which members to interview with. You’re an independent contractor, so you’re in control. Just like every job, you’ve got to commit to doing the work and adhering to a schedule, but in doing so, you’re giving the gift of independence to a disabled person and getting paid for it too. Rates of pay vary between employers and are specific to the type of work you’ll be doing. About Community Living Alliance
Introduction to Brackish Water Fishes (buy)
Introduction Like me, aquarists who find out The Brackish
Secret on their own have had difficult time getting reliable information
on the topic due to the short supply of reference materials and
knowledgeable brackish enthusiasts at the LFS. In this book, we
hope to dissolve the mystery surrounding this specialized but fun
and interesting area of the aquarium hobby. Brackish water. For some, the word brings images of sodden swamps, greasy black water, and a pungent smell of rotting vegetation. Those people unfamiliar with the word often ask, “Can fish actually live in brackish water?” believing it means polluted or stagnant. Brackish water is simply freshwater and seawater mixed together. Every place in the world where a river meets the sea the water is brackish. Brackish water teems with life, as it is home to many independently developed evolutionary niches, all filled with interesting species. Unfortunately, you will not find representatives from every brackish water body in the world at your local LFS, but there is quite a diverse selection available. It is a sad fact that many species commonly kept as fresh water fish are native to a brackish environment. If only people knew. Some brackish species, such as mollies, have developed a reputation for being prone to ich. Commonly kept in fresh water community tanks, it is not surprising they are prone to disease. Fresh water alone probably won’t kill mollies, but this is not the best environment for them. Mollies need a bit of the sea- a brackish fish in a freshwater aquarium is not having its needs met, and so it is susceptible to disease. So what are these crazy brackish fish
anyway? As we’ll divulge in this book, brackish water fish
are members of many families. The catfish, cichlids, eels, gobies,
guppies, mollies, mudskippers, rainbow fish families all have brackish
species. For those of you near the seacoast, the list includes
all of the fish native to your estuary. Be sure to check local
ordinances before collecting native species; you might be surprised
to find it’s illegal to keep indigenous fish as pets. Importantly,
not all members of the above-mentioned groups are from brackish
environments, for example, not all cichlids are brackish water
fish, but there are cichlids, such as the popular and beautiful
Kribensis (Pelviachromis spp.) that are brackish. This is the most difficult part of the
brackish hobby: determining what species you can have and which
you can’t. Even most experienced saltwater experts, respected
amongst aquarists as having a great depth of most skill and expertise,
know little or nothing about brackish water species. Many reference
books don’t mention brackish species at all, or if they do,
only note the usual ‘archers and puffers and scats’.
Oh my. We fish keepers take responsibility for educating ourselves;
in the brackish hobby, the additional appeal is in looking beyond
the scats and discovering the many appealing creatures that thrive
in brackish water. We will discuss the species commonly available;
describe where they are from and what is required to keep them.
Everything besides the salinity, including pH and temperature requirements,
is just like keeping a fresh water aquarium. If you’ve mastered
fresh water, brackish is a piece of cake. That is the Brackish
Secret. From the Arctic to the Antarctic, there are multitudes of coastal habitats where the ocean meets fresh water. As important to humans as to aquatic species, brackish water bodies are home to some of the most important cities in the world; in the USA alone some examples are New York City, San Francisco and Washington D.C. The growth and importance of these sites to humans developed out of their importance in trade, where they connected seafaring vessels to inland waterways within the shelter of calmer water. Though inland waterways are not the thriving highway they once were, the importance of these crossroad cities remains. As is true of most species in the aquarium trade, brackish fish are collected from tropic and sub tropic zones around the world. Growing up in Maryland, on the eastern seaboard of the USA, I was fortunate to have experienced the diversity of life found in the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake is the largest body of brackish water in the United States, and, like all estuaries, supports a wide variety of unique species, as well as serving as a nursery for many marine fishes. Unfortunately, we come in to contact with non-tropical brackish species more often as food than as pets. These cold-water species are as interesting as their warm water cousins are, and share many adaptations with them. Among these traits is the ability to tolerate frequent but gradual changes in salinity, as the very nature of their habitat causes slight changes in salinity hour by hour. The sea tends to push itself into the mouths of rivers, and erosion over time creates large, shallow, bodies of water where the two forces of fresh and marine water join. As the sea's tide goes in and out, so the salt content rises and falls. The outgoing sea tide relieves the pressure felt by the fresh water entering the bay, so more fresh water fills the basin. High tide pushes against the fresh water flow and forces its way inland. Large amounts of rain and the resulting high water in rivers and streams leading to the estuary causes salinity to drop throughout the system. Drought conditions cause the salinity to rise, as there is not as much fresh water to push against the seawater. Species will move to the salinity they prefer, especially when breeding. I saw this myself during occasional hot, dry, summers on the Chesapeake, when it would seem the bay emptied of fish entirely. Now I know they were all there, just further up river or deeper in the channels than under normal conditions. Natural fluctuations in salinity are important
in understanding the basics of your brackish water aquarium. The
first question asked by freshwater fish keepers usually regards
the regulation of salt. Most people assume, as with marine aquariums,
salinity will be under very rigid control. While it is true that
changes in your aquarium should always be gradual, it is actually
beneficial to vary the salinity. The fish you keep will have specific
needs that must be taken in to account, for example, some species
enjoy only mildly brackish water, while others can accept anything
from mild to full marine. Generally, there is flexibility in the
parameters, as long as the optimum conditions for your species
are the norm. As an added bonus, salinity changes help extinguish
parasites, as they are commonly adapted to either fresh or marine
conditions; a shift too far either way will kill them off. The first thing you’ll have to do is determine what kind of brackish fish you want to keep. This is one of the most difficult tests of the aquarium hobby: the skills of planning and waiting. As all aquarists know, you can’t buy the fish that are pretty and expect everything to go fine- of course, the same is true in brackish water. The habits of the fish you focus on will determine the filtration, lighting and substrate parameters for your tank. Though guppies will do well in a formerly freshwater tank with added sea salt, many popular brackish fish are hungry “sloppy” carnivores and thus require much better filtration than a typical community tank set up. Research the fish you plan to keep, know their eating habits and plan your filtration accordingly, just as you would for a fresh water aquarium. It is best to “plan for the worst” and provide more than adequate filtration. Understanding Salt Brackish water is seawater mixed with fresh
water. It is imperative that you use packaged marine aquarium salts
in your brackish aquarium. Any other kind of salt does not have
the complex variety of compounds found in the natural environment
of your fish. You will not be making a brackish aquarium if you
do not use marine salt, you will be creating a brine. This is fine
if you are planning to cook your fish, but not for a life sustaining
habitat. The SG number describes how heavy a liter
of water is. Freshwater with no salt in it weighs one kilogram
and has a density of 1.000; a liter of seawater weighs 1.025 kilograms
has a density of 1.025. Brackish water is everywhere in between. We
are describing the weight of the water, also known as the specific
gravity. You’ll want the SG specific to the species you’re
keeping. Now you can guess about how much that tank of yours weighs
when it’s full of water! 
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