Shepherd Express July 2022

JULY 2022

SUMMER DRINK

PUBLISHER'S LETTER

ast Month in my Publisher’s Letter, I asked the question: “Are We Becoming an Angry People?” I got a number of responses from readers who agreed that we are becoming more angry and that anger appears to span the political spectrum. It also appears to be a more serious issue than I realized, and the readers expressed a variety of concerns.

As I mentioned last month, there are good reasons why large segments of our population are angry. We are human, we have emotions, and we react. People get angry when they see injustices and when they see people in power afraid to stand up for what is right especially when they know better. But there is a point where you can’t let the anger take over your life. A little anger can spur you to act and hopefully channel that anger into positive actions. Sitting back and letting that anger grow is not productive. As we know, too much anger can lead to depression and other issues. It can end up destroying important personal relationships including marriages or cause some serious health issues including a stroke or a heart attack, to name just a few of the maladies.

THE CARTOONS MAY HAVE HAD IT RIGHT

As a kid, the cartoons often showed a person facing a critical decision with their good angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. The angel would say, “Yes, yes do the right thing” and the devil would retort “Don’t be a sucker, just look out for yourself.” I would not have said this a few decades ago, but now I think those cartoons had it right. We all know some people in our world, perhaps a hospice worker, who we view as almost saints, but they still have those two sides. They and fortunately most people have a much stronger angel that usually prevails over the dark side.

But there are those on the other end of the spectrum who are evil such as Putin, who thinks he is Peter the Great and invades an innocent country, causing thousands of people to die. There are others, for example, who for whatever reasons knowingly promote COVID vaccine misinformation which has caused millions of Americans to refuse the vaccines and in some cases end up unnecessarily

dying. Fortunately, the evil ones are outnumbered by the decent humans.

However, everyone, including those who try to live highly ethical moral lives, still make some decisions (albeit fewer) that are less than honorable. People may make some compromises to keep their job to continue to feed their families rather than find other work. Less honorable people make compromises to gain or retain power, to curry favor, to gain acceptance from a group or community, or to impress someone for any variety of reasons.

WHAT CAN YOU DO IF YOU ARE TIRED OF BEING ANGRY?

If you are tired of being almost constantly angry, you might want to start by appreciating that there are real reasons why you are angry, essentially validate your anger.

Then start by talking yourself up, constructive self-talk and being more tolerant and forgiving of some of your fellow imperfect, but basically decent, human beings.

Since humans are not perfect, perhaps you might want to lower your expectations and become a little more tolerant. Focus on some good in your world and what you personally can be grateful for. Then look beyond yourself. Look at the world with a longer historical horizon. If things feel particularly bleak now, look back to America of the 1950s and where women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ members were then and where they are today. Yes, there is much more to do, but we made great strides in many areas.

Not being naïve, you can also point out the deteriorating condition of the Earth with respect to climate change or the insanity of people freely purchasing military assault style weapons and you would be right. Things can change for the better, albeit much slower than many would like, and sometimes we do move backward, but in the long term, positive change prevails. Like it or not, we all in this for the long term.

anger into action, you will feel better both mentally and physically because you are acting and taking some control over your life. Try it. And if your action is addressing an issue that is important to you and is a meaningful action, not a symbolic gesture, you might actually make your little slice of the world a healthier and more just place.

If you take the larger view and want to address a worldwide issue like climate change, figure out what can be done at the local level that would contribute to lessening the problem. There are over seven billion other people in the world, so you don’t have to feel that it is up to you to single-handedly solve the problem.

Understand what you can control and what you can’t. The world changes when large numbers of people make incremental changes or work together to elect people who will represent their values and will fight for change.

Specifically, you may want to consider volunteering with an effective nonprofit organization, helping to organize your community around an important issue where you can see some results, or perhaps addressing the power structure by working on a political campaign or even running for office yourself. If you act, I believe you will be healthier, happier and may actually make your world incrementally more just.

Louis Fortis Louis Fortis is Editor/Publisher of the Shepherd Express, and formerly taught Economics/Political Economy at Smith College and served three terms in the Wisconsin State Assembly.

SO, YOU HAVE TWO BASIC CHOICES

You have two basic choices to deal with your justifiable anger: channel it into something positive that addresses some injustice or do nothing and let the anger eat away at you, causing health problems or transforming you into a cynical, negative person. If you channel your

Photo by Tyler Nelson

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Responding to Your Emails about Our Becoming an Angry People

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JULY 2022 | 5

NEWS 08 Driving The Wrong Way 09 This Modern World

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12 Republicans Are a Minority Party That Doesn’t Reflect America’s Values Anymore — Taking Liberties

PUBLISHER & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Louis Fortis (ext. 3802)

14 Is Roe v. Wade Just the Beginning?

— Issue of the Month

GENERAL MANAGER: Kevin Gardner (ext. 3825)

16 Sheila Badwan Helps Refugees Seeking Freedom — Hero of the Month

MANAGING EDITOR: David Luhrssen (ext. 3804)

18 Safe & Sound Executive Director Bridget Whitaker — MKE SPEAKS: Conversations with Milwaukeeans

BUSINESS MANAGER: Peggy Debnam (ext. 3832)

FOOD & DRINK 22 Rustic Farm Fresh Meets Cosmopolitan Dining at Birch Milwaukee 24 Olive Oil Ology — Flash in the Pan

SPECIAL SECTION 26 Personal Finance

Budgeting Means Planning Not to Fail 28 Health & Wellness SPONSORED BY 28 Is Happiness Really a Choice?

— Out of My Mind 30 What is Your Gut Telling You? — True Health 32 Dr. Aruna Tummala on How Integrative Psychiatry Looks Beyond the Brain — Integrative Psychiatry

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EVENT COORDINATORS: Casey Trotter (ext. 3816) Jan Bruder (ext. 3810) ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES: Bridgette Ard (ext. 3811) Petra Seymore (ext. 3828) Tyler R. Klein (ext. 3815) SALES MANAGER: Jackie Butzler (ext. 3814) BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER: Chuck Hill (ext. 3822) IN MEMORY OF DUSTI FERGUSON (OCTOBER 18, 1971 – NOVEMBER 20, 2007) WEBMASTER: Barry Houlehen (ext. 3807) DIGTAL STRATEGIST: Allen Halas (ext. 3803) STAFF WRITER & CIRCULATION COORDINATOR: Blaine Schultz (ext. 3813) EDITORIAL INTERN: Elizabeth Lintonen

34 Day Trips Seeing Racine in the Summertime 40 Summer Drink 40 A Story as Much as a Style: Bière de Saison 42 Milwaukee Beer Garden Guide 2022 50 Great Places to Work Does Your Job Make You Happy?

CULTUE 54 Milwaukee Panthers Help to Grow Cricket Locally

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56 This Month in Milwaukee

LIFESTYLE 62 A Backyard Made in the Shade — Open House 66 Marijuana Banking in the Balance: Should Reform Be Incremental or SPONSORED BY Radical? — Cannabis

HEAR ME OUT

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68 Think Outside the Shot Glass — Dear Ruthie 70 Outwords Books Celebrates ‘Christmas in July’ and a Summer Reading List — My LGBTQ POV

ART FOR ART'S SAKE 74 From the City that Always Sweeps 6 | SHEPHERD EXPRESS

SCAN ME

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Cover: Illustration by Ali Bachmann.

JULY 2022 | 7

NEWS

DRIVING THE WRONG WAY ROAD FATALITIES AND CRASHES CONTINUE TO RISE IN WISCONSIN

BY DAN SHAW

Photo by rednsky/Getty Images.

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ne of the perhaps more predictable side-effects of the pandemic was that the country’s newly emptied streets and roads would tempt drivers to speed and take other risks behind the wheel.

But with traffic volumes now returning to what they were before COVID-19, things are moving in a more unexpected and unfortunate direction. Rather than taper off, traffic crashes and fatalities have become only more common in Wisconsin.

By April 20 this year, 138 people had died in crashes on public roadways in Wisconsin, according to figures from the University of Wisconsin’s Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory. That was up from 113 by the same date in 2021. Milwaukee itself had recorded 14 fatal crashes by May 5.

“It turns out congestion actually had a role in traffic safety, because when there is congestion, you can’t go as fast,” said Mike Schwendau, program and policy chief at the Wisconsin state patrol’s bureau of transportation. “So with less traffic on the roads, we’d thought traffic fatalities would have gone down. And the opposite has happened.”

Andrea Bill, associate director of the Wisconsin Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory, based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said any attempt to understand these trends inevitably involves speculation into human psychology. Many observers blame a combination of the opportunities presented by lightly trafficked streets and the frustration that many people still feel over the pandemic and its resulting economic disruptions.

Whatever the ultimate reasons, drivers clearly have not returned to doing whatever they had been doing to make roads safer before the pandemic. Much of it probably comes down to habit.

“One hypothesis is: Did people get used to driving so fast that it’s now the new normal?” Bill said.

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REVERSING THE TREND Before COVID-19’s arrival in March 2020, transportation officials had been able to point to a long string of years in which traffic crashes and deaths were generally becoming less frequent.

Between 2010 and 2019, the average number of traffic deaths was down to 537 a year. That was well below the recent peak for a single year—the 737 deaths recorded in 2007 in Wisconsin. By 2021, the first full year of the pandemic, the number was back up to 601.

Rather than spend lots of time trying to understand what’s motivating the risky behavior, transportation and safety officials are seeking to mitigate it. Before the pandemic, the decrease in traffic crashes and deaths had been accomplished not only through safe driving habits but also improved vehicle-safety features and road designs and stricter enforcement of speed limits and other laws.

The pandemic did little to slow down changes in safety technology and road construction. The police, however, often found themselves on the defense amid the backlash that followed the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis officer.

“That hurt enforcement,” Schwendau said. “And then some people saw what the situation was and took advantage of it.”

Even with all that, the police still managed to write more tickets.

In 2020, the Wisconsin State Patrol issued 1,403 citations, up from 583 in 2019. Rather than being unique to Wisconsin, these trends have developed throughout the U.S. New York City recently embarked on a new billboard campaign to remind drivers of the dangers of speeding and, in effect, scare them into slowing down.

And U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg announced plans to send $5 billion to cities and other local governments to pay for safety improvements.

Third Sector Creative, Inc. 2.562 x 10

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NEWS

Photo by conejota/Getty Images.

SAFETY THROUGH EDUCATION Schwendau, Bill and others said the police most certainly will have a part to play in getting the fatality and crash numbers back under control. Their preference, though, is to see safe habits promoted through less heavy-handed means.

Schwendau said of the four “Es” of transportation safety—enforcement, emergency management, education and engineering—the greatest stress is now being placed on the last two.

WisDOT’s education efforts in large part consist of a series of public-service campaigns like its “Click It or Ticket” initiative reminding people to buckle up.

More notable is the work being done to redesign streets and roads to make them less conducive to speeding and other risky behaviors. Schwendau said the federal transportation bill passed

by Congress last year demands the “safe systems approach” to road construction. This generally calls for the installation of traffic-calming measures like speed humps, rumble strips and narrower lanes. Intersections are often redesigned as roundabouts or in so-called double-diamond configurations – which prevent vehicles from crossing traffic when turning left. And to protect other users of the road, bike lanes and pedestrian crossings can be installed and clearly marked.

“WisDOT wants to make our roadways a more forgiving system, so that when something does happen, you are more likely to survive, because people do make mistakes,” Schwendau said.

“But when a crash does occur, we’re hoping these things will help prevent people from suffering serious injury.”

HUMPS, BUMPS AND CURBS Milwaukee officials have been moving in this direction for years with the installation of separate bike lanes, speed humps, barri-

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ers and extended curbs used to narrow driving surfaces. In April, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson called for using $8.5 million collected in four city tax-increment finance districts to pay for improvements to North Van Buren, East Kilbourn, West Fond du Lac Avenue, West Congress Street, West Capitol Drive and other city streets. Brian DeNeve, spokesman for the Milwaukee Department of Public Works, said traffic-calming measures are separately planned for 16 other sites throughout the city. They include Oklahoma Avenue between Howell and Clement avenues, Locust Avenue between Sherman Avenue and 40th street and Appleton Avenue between 60th street and Burleigh Street.

Schwendau said he’s confident this work will bear fruit.

“But it’s not going to happen overnight,” he said. “The good news is that this is the first time in a couple of generations when there has been so much money put toward making infrastructure better and safer.”

Until more streets can be rebuilt with safety in mind, transportation officials will largely have to rely on the cooperation of the public, Bill said. History has shown that the right mixture of policies and enforcement can produce the desired results.

“We know that we can change that culture of speeding,” Bill said.

“We have to remember it’s our family and our neighbors we’re talking about here. And we need to reverse this trend that’ going into its third year here.”

Dan Shaw is an editor and writer with 20 years in the industry.

His experience includes jobs at daily newspapers in the U.S. and overseas. Besides his freelance writing, he now edits both a daily construction newspaper and the Wisconsin Law Journal.

JULY 2022 | 11

NEWS TAKING LIBERTIES

Republicans Are a Minority Party That Doesn’t Reflect America’s Values Anymore

BY JOEL MCNALLY Photo by Sckrepka/Getty Images.

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emocrats have been hearing for months the midterms are already over and they’re going to lose. The media claim there’s little Democrats can do about it. Midterm election history and rising prices on gas and groceries almost guarantee Americans will return government control to the Republicans they threw out a year and a half ago with the largest presidential vote in history.

That sounds unbelievable. If true, American democracy is in big trouble. But it’s also a gross distortion of both political history and the popularity of the extreme Republicans who continue to support their soundly defeated president.

Let’s take history first. The last time a Republican president was driven out of office for criminal behavior—Richard Nixon in 1974—it took seven years for the party to repair the damage from Nixon running a burglary ring out of the Oval Office before Republicans regained the presidency under Ronald Reagan in 1981. In the 1974 midterms after both parties demanded Nixon’s resignation, Republicans lost 49 House seats, four Senate seats and four governorships.

WRONG SIDE OF VOTERS

It easily could. Trying to please Trump voters puts Republicans on the wrong side of every national issue Americans care most about right now: Preventing the open sale of military asREPUBLICANS ARE sault weapons to any mass murderer who wants one. The sudden abolition of the OBSCENELY OUT OF constitutional right for women to make STEP WITH AMERICA’S their own decisions about their bodies, DEMOCRATIC VALUES health care, personal lives and whether to … BUT THE MEDIA NOW give birth every time they become pregSAYS THE ONLY ISSUE nant. Guaranteeing the right to vote for THAT WILL MATTER every qualified American and having those votes fairly counted in every state.

IN THE MIDTERMS IS

WHETHER BIDEN AND DEMOCRATS CAN BRING DOWN RISING PRICES.

ATTACK ON DEMOCRACY The difference this time is Donald Trump’s crimes were far worse and Republicans have done nothing to distance their party from him. The twice-impeached Trump violently attacked democracy itself. He sent a murderous mob to threaten the lives of his own vice president and members of Congress to try to stop them from certifying President Biden’s election so Trump could remain as president after losing the job.

Despite running from the howling mob just like Democrats, most Republican House members voted against impeaching Trump and most Republican senators voted to acquit him. That would only make twisted political sense if Trump and his divisive policies were popular with any Americans other than the hateful white supremacists and armed militias he attracted to the party. They’re not.

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All but the dumbest Republicans realize how dangerous Trump is, but they’re desperate to hold onto Trump’s loyal voters—including the lunatic fringe—to win the midterms. Democrats are hoping it blows up in their faces.

It's less surprising than you might think that Republicans are in the minority on so many important issues. Republicans have been a minority party in the U.S. for far longer than many realize.

We get a distorted view of the partisan breakdown of our own country because it’s not reflected currently in either the House or Senate. Even after Biden won more than seven million more votes than Trump, the Senate is divided 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans. So, we’re an evenly divided country, right? Wrong.

The 50 Democratic senators won the votes of 87 million Americans. The 50 Republican senators won the votes of only 63 million.

UNFAIR ADVANTAGE That unfair advantage for small Republican states over large Democratic states is built directly into the Senate’s structure.

Only two senators are elected from each state giving Wyoming’s 500,000 people equal representation with California’s 40 million.

Republicans take this as a license to repeatedly block legislation favored by an overwhelming majority of Americans.

The unfair Republican advantage in the House is the result of pure political corruption. After the racist Tea Party backlash against President Obama’s 2008 election gave Republicans unchecked control of Wisconsin and other states in the 2010 midterms, the party used the new census to corruptly gerrymander

legislative and congressional voting districts assuring permanent Republican majorities for the next decade. After the 2020 census, Wisconsin Republicans extended that corruption for l0 more years with assistance from Trump’s radical new Supreme Court.

Republicans are obscenely out of step with America’s democratic values and certainly don’t deserve to be back in power after November. But the media now says the only issue that will matter in the midterms is whether Biden and Democrats can bring down rising prices.

Biden continues adding hundreds of thousands of higher paying jobs every month creating the fastest economic recovery in U.S. history. That certainly helps working class families deal with those rising prices.

The least helpful political response has been Republicans babbling nonsense about reopening pipelines and meaningless clichés like “Drill, baby, drill.” Pipelines carry oil, they don’t produce it. Oil companies have thousands of drilling permits they aren’t using because they can make more money gouging customers with high gasoline prices.

It's just another reason never to give Republicans another chance to destroy democracy.

Joel McNally was a critic and columnist for the Milwaukee Journal for 27 years. He has written the weekly Taking Liberties column for the Shepherd Express since 1996.

JULY 2022 | 13

NEWS ISSUE OF THE MONTH

Is Roe v. Wade Just the Beginning

BY ANDREW HYSELL

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conservative Supreme Court is on the verge of rolling back the right for a woman to choose an abortion. This radical decision breaks from 50 years of well-established precedent and will put women’s rights and health at risk. While women will be the ones harmed directly, every American stands to ultimately lose. This decision is the proverbial canary in the coal mine for a court moving aggressively to restructure our society and way of life.

The idiom of the canary in the coal mine is well known. In early days, coal miners relied upon canaries as a warning system while they worked deep underground. If dangerous levels of carbon monoxide began to build, the canary would die quickly, alerting miners so they could get to safety. Regarding the constitutional status of our liberties, the canary is very much dead and we need to act accordingly.

Any day now, a decision is expected in the Mississippi abortion law case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. A draft opinion was leaked to the public in an unprecedented move.

Written by Justice Samuel Alito, the draft stated that a repeal of the right to an abortion first articulated in Roe v. Wade (1973) is forthcoming. Specifically, the Justice writes, “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision ... including the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.”

SO WHAT IS THIS DUE PROCESS CLAUSE? If the court formally adopts Alito’s draft, the decision will undermine established constitutional guarantees of individual freedom.

Not only does it spell trouble for women’s rights and autonomy, but it portends problems for a host of other rights many of us take for granted.

This is incredibly alarming. How could the right to choose which is so fundamental to a person’s autonomy be rescinded after nearly half of a century? The scary answer is that many of the rights that we hold dear today once securely grounded in settled case law are now imperiled. Political conservatives control the Supreme Court, and they have made it clear they plan to roll back many of our constitutional rights.

In the mid-20th century, the Supreme Court recognized important substantive due process rights that were not explicitly detailed but flowed directly from the 14th Amendment. The Due Process 14 | SHEPHERD EXPRESS

Claus of the 14th Amendment states that “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”

Through substantive due process, the court recognized constitutionally protected liberties including the right of interracial and same-sex couples to marry, the right to use contraception, and the right to an abortion. These are rights that most Americans view as sacred and immutable.

However, the Alito draft opinion reverses established law and says that the 14th Amendment does not extend to abortion because abortion is not “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” The Alito draft reasons that the liberties intended to be included in the scope of the 14th Amendment should be determined, in part, based on what was legal at the time of the Amendment’s creation. Most states prohibited abortion at the time of the passage of the 14th Amendment. Hence, the draft concludes that the 14th Amendment cannot be read to include a right to an abortion.

For 50 years, our courts have held exactly the opposite. The 14th Amendment was created in response to slavery and its injustice, including the restraints placed on personal autonomy.

There was a recognition following the Civil War that state action needed to be constitutionally restrained to protect a range of individual freedoms.

The 14th Amendment therefore broadly defined the principles of personal freedom without specifically listing them. Why? Because these principles were meant to be applied to many more situations and contexts than the drafters could possibly anticipate.

In fact, Members of Congress who introduced the Amendment made clear in floor statements that it was meant to provide broad protections from governmental intrusion.

MOST AMERICANS DON’T AGREE WITH ALITO’S INTERPRETATION In contrast, Alito believes that because states restricted abortion in 1868, it was not the intention of the drafters to include the right within the protections of the 14th Amendment. Alito’s strange view would hold state bans of interracial marriage constitutionally permissible because many states prohibited interracial marriage at the time of the Amendment’s adoption.

That’s backwards. The purpose of the 14th Amendment is to strike down state laws to protect fundamental individual rights not to limit its reach based upon unconstitutional state action.

The aggressive posture of this decision suggests that the court is on the verge of a significant retrenchment of our individual freedoms. There is no reason to believe that the logic of the Alito opinion will be constrained by the subject matter of this case.

The court’s willingness to deprive women of basic rights despite fifty years of precedent is a disturbing indication of things yet to come. More constitutional protections will fall, freeing states to do what they wish without any fear of a federal court standing in their way.

Without federal protection, we must fight harder than ever at the state and local level to elect leaders who believe in protecting civil liberties and individual rights. Wisconsin has a more than 170-year-old statute banning abortion and making it a criminal offense. Wisconsin Legislative Republicans plan to enforce and even expand the ban if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

Remember this during the fall elections and, importantly, in the spring. An April 2023 Wisconsin state supreme court race will play an outsized role in whether abortion is legal in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin must now lead where the U.S. Supreme Court is retreating.

A Georgetown Law School graduate, Andrew Hysell worked for Democrats in Congress, where he focused on constitutional issues and administrative law, and also worked in the Wisconsin state legislature. He was born and raised in Wisconsin and currently lives near Madison.

JULY 2022 | 15

NEWS HERO OF THE MONTH

Sheila Badwan Helps Refugees Seeking Freedom

BY ERIN BLOODGOOD

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n July 4, America celebrates its independence—our day of freedom. But many of us may never truly appreciate the freedom we have because we’ve always had it. For centuries, America has offered the promise of safety and a better life for those fleeing war, religious persecution, or other hardships. Unless we are Indigenous, our ancestors came to this country seeking that freedom we celebrate today.

“As an immigrant and refugee, (the promise America offers is) being able to practice any religion you want, being able to work and have that American dream,” says Sheila Badwan, the Executive Director of the Hanan Refugee Group in Milwaukee and Vice President of the Board of the national organization.

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The Hanan Refugee Group in Milwaukee is a chapter of the larger national nonprofit organization which offers services for refugees including language courses, therapy sessions, daycare, assistance with paying bills, and many more. On a daily basis, Badwan and her team in Milwaukee welcome struggling families seeking shelter and a safe haven.

The Milwaukee chapter of Hanan—and Badwan’s involvement with this work—began six years ago during the Syrian refugee crisis when millions of Syrians fled from the country’s civil war. “It was heart wrenching to see families in the conditions they were in and really needed the support of the community,” says Badwan.

The influx of refugees in Milwaukee showed the need for services that would help these families adjust to the new life they would have to build.

Photo by Erin Bloodgood.

FLEEING VIOLENCE, OPPRESSION Badwan explains that no refugee wants to leave their home and stable job. In the case of the Syrian, Afghan, and soon to be Ukrainian refugees Hanan Refugee Group works with, they are running from violence and oppression. “They go through a lot of stress – a lot of the unknown,” states Badwan with tear-filled eyes.

Refugees are connected to the center through Hanan’s networks of partner organizations, religious groups, or community connections. Their Facebook Group, Milwaukee Refugee Supporters, is also a powerful tool for connecting supporters to those in need.

By the time families make it to Hanan’s center on South Howell Street, they may be dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder and grappling with survivor’s guilt for being the ones who made it out. Then there are the day-to-day challenges like not speaking the language or having to work in a minimum wage job after having a more prestigious career.

Badwan emphasizes the resilience and will of the refugees she works with. Their strong work ethic and dedication to supporting their communities are prominent themes when she speaks about the people that come to the center. “Refugees really contribute heavily to the economy,” she says. “They are not just on government benefits. Every Afghan family I’ve worked with that has come since this Afghan crisis, all they want to do is work (to provide for their families.)

The Hanan Refugee Group has grown tremendously in the last six years, building programs to meet the needs of the immigrant community, including expanded women’s services and driving assistance. Hanan’s work has been an integral part of building a thriving Afghan community in Milwaukee.

Immigrants and refugees come to this country because it offers possibility and a place to thrive. Badwan’s story is proof of that.

When her parents were young, they immigrated from Palestine to build a life for her—a story familiar to many of our own families and ancestors. “To be able to have that freedom and have an opportunity—that’s big,” she says. So, as we celebrate our freedom this July 4, think about the many people who have given up everything for a chance to take part.

Learn more about the Hanan Refugee Group at www.hananrrg.org.

Erin Bloodgood is a Milwaukee photographer and storyteller. See more of her work on her website at www.bloodgoodfoto.com.

JULY 2022 | 17

NEWS MKE SPEAKS: CONVERSATIONS WITH MILWAUKEEANS

Safe & Sound Executive Director Bridget Whitaker WORKING TO KEEP NEIGHBORHOODS SAFE

BY TOM JENZ

A

ccording to police crime statistics, Milwaukee experienced historically violent years from 2020 through the first third of 2022. The increase in Milwaukee’s homicide rate was one of the top five highest in the nation. Shootings increased by 25%.

Reckless driving is such a hazard that police are stretched thin to control it. According to Shepherd Express interviews with Mayor Johnson, Police Chief Norman, District Attorney John Chisholm and the Public Defender's Office, violence prevention in Milwaukee looms as the most important challenge for 2022.

Enter Safe & Sound, the Milwaukee nonprofit that unites residents, youth, law enforcement and community resources to build safe neighborhoods by fostering partnerships between community and police. For nearly 25 years, Safe & Sound has been a nationally recognized model that strives to improve safety in Milwaukee neighborhoods.

As the newly appointed executive director of Safe & Sound, Bridget Whitaker is positioned to help bring about change.

Let’s start out with your life story, where you grew up, your parents, the neighborhoods you lived in, schools you attended, and how you established your professional career.

I was born and raised in the central city, lived on 12th and Locust for my early years, but we moved around. Ours was a single mom family. My mom sometimes worked two or three jobs to care for my sister and me. I attended Engleburg Elementary School and Webster Middle School. I was also a teen mom, got pregnant at age 14 and had my baby in the eighth grade. My mom helped out with raising my son so I could continue with school. I went to Hamilton High School—an hour commute on the bus. I focused on Hamilton’s business program, data entry. I also worked half days as an intern at Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance. You might say I grew up fast.

Did you attend college right away after high school?

Yes. I received the Educational Opportunity Program Grant for Marquette University. I had a double major, sociology and human resources management. I liked studying human behavior, why people do what they do. While in college, I met my then-husband and had two more children. By the time I was 21, I had three children. I graduated from college in 2001.

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Photo by Kalda Williams Photography.

JULY 2022 | 19

NEWS MKE SPEAKS: CONVERSATIONS WITH MILWAUKEEANS

You were handling huge responsibilities at such a young age. What was your work after you got out of college?

My first job was with Target Stores as an HR professional. Worked there for several years and loved my job, but retail is not conducive to raising young children. I started working in human resources for manufacturing companies, first, Synergy, and later as an HR manager for Capital Returns Genco.

Eventually, you moved out of the corporate world into the nonprofit arena.

I became the HR Director for St Charles Youth & Family Services and had that job for 10 years. I enjoyed the work, but I wanted to make a bigger impact in community issues. In 2019, I joined Safe & Sound as the program director and was able to get involved in youth empowerment and give young people a voice. I also wanted to make neighborhoods safer. I love Milwaukee, and I want the residents to live, work, play here and be safe. During all these working years, I also got my master’s degree in management, and then earned a law degree, and then later a nonprofit management certificate from Alverno College. I’ve only been the Safe & Sound Executive Director for a short time.

As I understand, the Safe & Sound mission is to unite residents, youth, law enforcement and community resources to build safe neighborhoods. How do you go about that?

We use a three-pronged approach to achieve our theory of change. First, we engage our community organizers to hear about what residents need to feel safe in their neighborhoods.

In some cases, that might be a call to action to address reckless driving, or to create places in the neighborhood for children to play, or even to highlight concerns about nuisance properties on the block. The second prong involves amplifying the voice of young people. Our youth organizers work to make sure that we connect young people to organizations that serve them so they feel welcomed at those youth centers. Our youth organizers also partner with the centers to offer positive programming.

The third prong involves the engagement with law enforcement and community resources. We know we can’t do this work alone, and so we leverage those relationships to further achieve safe neighborhoods.

Our mission has purpose because Milwaukee is not safe. We currently work in 10 neighborhoods across the city, five out of the seven police districts. I can tell you that every neighborhood has the same sentiment, which is “We have to do something about safety.” That task involves repairing harm and building relationships. Sometimes, when folks do not have an outlet to deal with trauma or mental health, they might resort to drug use or criminal activity. Or they don’t know how to handle conflict and resort to violence. We try to help with these issues. This lack of safety problem has to do with harmony and community, people not talking with their neighbors. How do we get people out of their houses to meet each other or resolve conflict and trauma issues?

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The Safe & Sound website calls on residents to “connect with your neighbors by getting in touch with your Safe & Sound neighborhood team.” What exactly is the Safe & Sound neighborhood team?

Each of our 10 neighborhoods has a team: a Youth Organizer, a Community Organizer, and a Safety Coordinator. Our neighborhood Safety Coordinator has a seat at the local police district.

Residents sometimes would rather talk to the Safety Coordinator if they don’t feel comfortable talking with police. The Safety Coordinator will address nuisances, abandoned housing issues and mobile drug dealing. Our Community Organizers get involved in group activities like block parties or neighborhood cleanups. Our Youth Organizers help young people, giving them something to do after school, group activities. That is our team, three full time, salaried workers per neighborhood

How does Safe & Sound get their information about ongoing stressful situations or violent behavior? Seems like these situations might need immediate responses.

Several ways. Our neighborhood Safety Coordinators all work with a police district, and they can find out right away when there are conflicts or law breaking. We also promote attendance at crime and safety meetings where residents learn about what crimes are trending in their neighborhoods. For instance, are carjackings or home burglaries or reckless driving on the rise?

Each police district has a monthly crime and safety meeting, and we like to see residents in attendance. We interact with the youth about their safety concerns including lack of driver education. We also partner with other organizations like the Office of Violence Prevention.

Street leaders like Tory Lowe and Elizabeth Brown try to individually help victims of family and domestic violence.

Does Safe & Sound get involved with domestic violence victims?

In domestic violence situations, we don’t get involved directly, but we do try to identify residents involved in domestic disputes and offer the access to resources. We are not direct service providers like therapists. We try to tell victims where to go for help if they don’t feel safe at home, how to talk with the police, or to connect with people like Tory Lowe or Ms. Brown who are doing excellent work.

Influencers on all levels tell me that many silo organizations often work separately. Do you have any thoughts on how silos might interact or come together?

Lots of these organizations are doing great work. Each of them has a mission it’s trying to achieve. I believe in the power of collective impact. Meaning there has to be a space where partners can get together and find a common mission that aligns with what residents need. Safe & Sound has been surveying residents across our neighborhoods to find out what these silos should be focusing on. After we find out their priorities, we’d like to meet with the other nonprofit organizations to explore strategic alignment so that we are not working in silos. At Safe & Sound, we’re looking for natural collaboration. Reckless driving may be an issue in one neighborhood, while drug dealing is more prevalent in another neighborhood. We look for nonprofit partners we can connect with. We are the hooker-uppers—how can we hook up our residents with the experts.

Let’s talk about guns and what can be done to reduce gun violence. You work with the police department, right?

Yes, we do. We try to educate residents on gun safety. Since licensed guns are legal, we talk to gun owners about the proper way to store their guns, or how they can obtain gun locks.

It’s too bad, but sometimes we are preaching to the choir, those who are using guns safely. But the folks who really need to hear are not listening.

You are moving to a new headquarters in Sherman Park in the heart of the central city. Tell me about your plans for that facility.

We will be taking over the old Mormon church a few blocks from Sherman Park, an area that is conducive to the process of community building. We will hold crime and safety meetings at that facility. There should also be a space where young people feel welcome, feel safe, and join in and make it their own. I hope our new building can provide that. But our main mission will always be listening to what the residents want and acting on their needs.

Tom Jenz writes Central City Stories for shepherdexpress.com.

JULY 2022 | 21

FOOD & DRINK

BEET YOGURT

AVOCADO

Photo courtesy of Birch on Pleasant.

STEELHEAD TROUT CRUDO

Photo courtesy of Birch on Pleasant.

Photo courtesy of Birch on Pleasant.

Rustic Farm Fresh Meets Cosmopolitan Dining at Birch Milwaukee

BY SUSAN HARPT GRIMES

M

ilwaukee has been blessed several times over with outstanding restaurants, many of which have received accolades from national, and international, groups who recognize excellence in the culinary industry. One of the more recent additions to that lauded list is Birch. While Birch is located in the same venue as a previous restaurant iteration with a similar name, it is a completely new place, with new leadership and re-opened in spring of 2021. One of those at the helm is chef owner, Kyle Knall, who within a single year at Birch has been nominated for an Outstanding Chef award by the James Beard Foundation.

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Birch has a very modern, chic sophisticated aesthetic. Large windows complement an airy, crisp white dining room, accented with warm wood and textured concrete, which all work together to create a comfortable space that also feels elegantly metropolitan. Options for seating include a chef’s counter where diners can really appreciate the open kitchen and observe a master at work. A large open flame hearth plays a big role in the cooking.

Happily, many of the farm to table dishes served at Birch possess a delightful bit of char from that open flame grilling. On a recent visit, service was quick, attentive, and everyone was very friendly.

The menu at Birch is seasonal, so the menu does vary depending on what is fresh and available. If you are up for a truly memorable dining experience, there is a Tasting Menu ($81) option where the chef will treat you to a series of delicious dishes of his choice.

EVERY BITE’S A CELEBRATION For those looking to order from the menu, consider beginning with a small plate of Thinly-Shaved Cucumbers ($15), paired with equally as thinly shaved asparagus and fresh parmesan, all seasoned with lemon, basil, and pepper. This will likely change the way you think of “dinner salad”

forever. Or try the Ember Roasted Asparagus ($19), a beautiful plate of lightly grilled asparagus topped with delicate slices of cured pork and a wonderful pickled ramp dressing where every bite tastes like a little celebration.

Folks who always order a steak when dining out will not be disappointed with Birch’s tender Grass Fed New York Strip steak ($42), served with fresh spinach and charred leeks topped with artisanal Alpinage Raclette cheese. If you’re not a fan of beef, you may prefer the Grilled Walleye ($31) or the Chicken Under a Brick ($28), neither were tried, but both looked amazing. Be sure to check for the wine pairing suggestions included on the menu which were clearly carefully chosen as they truly do enhance the meal.

Birch is primarily a dinner destination, but they also offer some fantastic options for weekend brunch on Saturday and Sunday.

Just like their dinners, everything is fresh, bright, and expertly prepared. One outstanding dish was made with two grilled avocado halves stuffed with a creamy smoked walleye mixture served with crunchy grilled bread ($17), think elevated deconstructed tuna sandwich. If you’re someone who likes to try something “different” take a chance on the Beet Yogurt ($9), topped with cashews and bee pollen.

NEW YORK STRIP STEAK Photo courtesy of Birch on Pleasant.

BIRCH 459 E. Pleasant Street (414) 323-7372 birchonpleasant.com Handicapped Accessible? Yes $$$-$$$$

Susan Harpt Grimes is a longtime restaurant and features writer for the Shepherd Express.

CHEF KYLE KNALL

Photo by Siege Photo.

As of this writing, the James Beard award winners for 2022 haven’t been announced.

Whether or not Chef Knall wins this year, anyone who dines at Birch will surely leave knowing that they have eaten a meal prepared by an outstanding chef.

JULY 2022 | 23

FOOD & DRINK FLASH IN THE PAN

Olive Oil Ology

BY ARI LEVAUX

Photo by luigi giordano/Getty Images.

A

few years ago in Rome, I found myself in a cramped room drinking olive oil from a cup. I was with a group of food writers, learning how to properly taste olive oil before traveling to the hilltop city of Perugia, where we would put our new tasting skills to work at an annual event celebrating Italy’s best artisan extra-virgin olive oils. But first we needed a better understanding of the magical culinary ointment that we’d be sampling.

We weren’t walking around dipping bread in bowls of oil like you do in tasting events that steer you toward a purchase. This was a serious effort to understand the complex properties of a fine, extra-virgin olive oil, aka EVOO. To this end, we finished each sip with a loud, drawn-out slurp called a stripaggio.

First, we covered each sample cup with a hand to let the vapors build. We then would rotate the cup circularly to coax more vapors into the trapped air above the oil, and take a whiff, and stare thoughtfully toward the horizon. The smell of a good olive oil can be fruity or dominated by the famous “fresh cut grass” smell of chlorophyll, or more elusive odors like rosemary, artichoke, green tomato or “tropical fruits.”

At the time, Italy was reeling from some oil-based scandals, after it was discovered that olive oil labeled extra virgin oil from Italy was sometimes neither Italian, extra-virgin or even pure olive oil.

The investigation involved trained tasters doing what we were doing, in order to discern the true elixir from the frauds.

After these deep nasal inhales, I learned to sip the oil and work it around my mouth, feeling the viscosity and tasting the progression of piquancy and bitterness that gives quality extra virgin olive oil its personality.

Finally, we slurped. The stripaggio is not delicate. Most people would be embarrassed to make sounds like that while eating, but not a roomful of gung-ho food nerds.

Photo by Ari LeVaux.

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Sucking air through the olive oil in your mouth disperses oil droplets to hard-to-reach taste receptors of the tongue and throat, helping to paint a fuller picture of the oil’s flavor. Meanwhile, as the air stretches the oil you can feel its viscosity, and how it holds together in the turbulence of your stripaggio.

Some oil starts with a fruity whiff and a buttery kiss and stays smooth all the way through, making it good for baking, or for dressing a lettuce-based salad. Some oil starts with a kiss and ends with a slap, or at least a raspy cat lick to the throat, making it more suitable for pairing with stronger flavors like chicory salads, or drizzled on pasta or other savory dishes.

Since my olive oil education, EVOO began filling the niche that I previously filled with mayonnaise, as my “energy dense” condiment of choice. Mayo, like olive oil, has properties of texture as well as flavor. And they both improve food with fat.

Back home, I regarded California olive oil with newfound interest. As with wine, you can find some amazing olive oil coming out of the Golden State if you know where to look.

They include large-scale, high-density operations with mechanical harvesters, as well as small artisanal producers much like the ones I visited with my group in Italy. There are Italian fingerprints all over California’s wine and olive oil industries, thanks to waves of immigrants who felt at home in that Mediterranean climate of the American West and planted many of the state’s original vineyards.

A high-end olive oil doesn’t come cheap, and should be appreciated to the max. You should consider it more of a main event, and less as a supporting sauce for the main event. The thing that the oil goes onto is a substrate, a stage upon which to display the star in all of its glory.

My favorite substrate is bread. I know, I just said that bread isn’t for real olive oil tasting. It gets in the way, because it tastes so good it’s hard to stay focused, and next thing you know you’re in a food coma. And if you try to slurp the oily bread you might inhale breadcrumbs and choke. The bread is for proper enjoyment of the EVOO, rather than evaluation.

So get yourself a good, crusty loaf, and some tasty olive oil, and some salt. You don’t need pepper, because a good EVOO has those peppery notes. But some minced garlic will all but guarantee the addictive nature of the meal.

Mix up the oil, salt and garlic, and start dipping. Let the seasoned oil impregnate the spongy bread and enjoy the greasy green grassy goodness.

Ari LeVaux has written about food for The Atlantic Online, Outside Online and Alternet.

JULY 2022 | 25

SPECIAL PERSONAL FINANCE

Budgeting Means Planning Not to Fail

BY MICHAEL MUCKIAN

Illustration by Michael Burmesch.

E

arly in my career I worked for a small nonprofit membership organization whose well-meaning CEO followed a simple budget plan for his organization. If you ended the fiscal year with money left over after expenses were met, he reasoned, then you’ve had a successful year.

That might work for lemonade stands, but less so for professional organizations, or so reasoned his board of directors made up largely of financial people. He was replaced and a more stringent regimen put into place. Now, decades later, the organization hasn’t really grown all that much in the number of members it serves, but it now serves them from the first floor of a three-story office building it financed and owns.

The same issues affect many of us as individuals. Too many families hold their collective breaths throughout entire months, only to exhale gratefully when they turn the calendar page and realize their money has outlasted the month’s expenses. As satisfied as you may feel when that happens, it’s no way to live unless you don’t plan to live past lemonade season.

That’s where personal budgeting comes in. Even if you don’t want to own a three-story office building, you can maximize your resources, no matter how limited, by creating a budget that helps you meet your needs within your means. As Money Guru Dave Ramsey says, “A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went.”

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A budget is a plan, a financial roadmap that hopefully will help you reach your personal and economic goals with minimal interruptions. Like any map, a budget is not about perfection, but about education. You implement guidelines and then learn from both your success and failures. Budget standards should be firm, but with enough flexibility to address unexpected financial needs.

A sudden medical emergency is something worth bending your budget for; a shiny new Apple watch is not. Preparing for the former expense may give you the skills to budget for the later.

BUDGET TYPES Budget structures are as variable as the individuals or families who create them as long as it meets their economic needs on the way toward future prosperity. One of the simplest budgets is the 50/30/20 percentage breakdown, and really forms a basis for other types as well.

In this model, 50 percent of your income goes to foundation expenses, or “needs,” such as housing, transportation, food, energy costs, childcare costs, and other must-haves that will keep your family housed, fed and safe. The second 30 percent covers “wants,” including entertainment, dining out, vacations, leisure activities, and maybe even the aforementioned Apple watch.

The final 20 percent goes to savings, investments and satisfying existing debt. Granted, many people and young families struggle with so simplistic a breakdown but keeping the structure and percentage allocations in mind helps you create a functional system that will help put you into a better financial space, which is the goal for any budget.

Even more basic is the zero-based budget. The equation is simple: Income minus expenses equal zero dollars left. This works well for people that have a clear idea what their income and their expenses are each month. Clarity and regularity are key and adding a category such as “Unexpected Expenses” or “Miscellaneous” can leave room to maneuver when the inevitable unexpected surprises show up in your mailbox, electronic or otherwise.

Similar in approach, the envelope budget system operates much the same way, except it’s all done on a cash basis. You identify key expenditures using old-fashioned paper envelopes filled with old-fashioned cash in the amounts you need for each expense.

When it’s time to grocery shop, take the cash out of your grocery envelop and head to the supermarket. You can buy only as much stuff as you have the cash for in hand. If you don’t have the cash, the item goes back on the shelf. People who rely on debit cards will find this inconvenient, but it does clearly identify what you can afford.

One method favored by my accountant father was the pay yourself first budget system. Assuming you have a clear idea of income and expenses each month, you first set aside what you want to direct to savings and debt service, then spend the rest however you need to. Either overtly or subliminally, it will help a lot if you have a 50/30/20 mindset, with the 20 percent given over to what you pay yourself. But the very idea of paying yourself before the money all flies away provides psychological solace to many families.

Finally, there is the no budget system, which really breaks down to not spending more than you have. Period. Keep an eye on your bank checking account to monitor outflow; know when recurring bills hit your debit account; “pay yourself” with cash set aside for savings and debt payment; and don’t spend more than what’s in your account. Period.

Whichever budgeting methodology you choose, all are predicated by understanding when to say “NO” and when to say “YES” to an expenditure. And all budgets are designed to provide structures through which to make the right decision at the right times.

Dave Ramsey, once again, says it best: “A budget isn’t about restricting what you can spend. It gives you permission to spend without guilt or regret.”

Pick the one you like and get underway.

Michael Muckian was the banking and finance writer for the Milwaukee Business Journal and is the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Financing and Accounting and The One-Day MBA in Finance and Accounting.

JULY 2022 | 27

SPECIAL HEALTH & WELLNESS OUT OF MY MIND | SPONSORED BY TRINERGY HEALTH

Is Happiness Really a Choice?

BY PHILIP CHARD

H

appiness—what it is and how to achieve it—has been a hot topic in the mental health field for some time now. That’s good. When so-called positive psychology emerged a few decades ago, for every study focused on happiness, there were over a hundred examining psychopathology. My profession did a far better job of describing what makes us distressed and out of whack than how we can increase life satisfaction. What followed was a self-help industry bringing in $13 billion a year that pushes a plethora of methods for growing happiness. However, overall well-being in our population has declined precipitously rather than increased. What gives? Are we just too distracted or lazy to apply these methods, or do they simply not work?

Well, as usual, it’s complicated. Evidence from sociological studies suggests there is an unrecognized flaw in positive psychology’s recommended approach, one that leans too heavily on individual effort. The underlying premise is that happiness is a choice. If we embrace life in particular ways, practice good self-care and manage our attitude, then we can intentionally enhance our well-being and sense of personal fulfilment. To be sure, there is an element of truth here. There is research showing these kinds of efforts have the potential to move the happiness needle in the right direction, but not nearly as far as some positivity gurus claim.

What’s more, the data shows most of are heading in the wrong direction in this regard. Since 2004 and as measured pre-pandemic, the number of Americans who identify as optimistic (an attitude correlated with happiness) is down from 79% to under 50%.

Meanwhile, the incidence of mental maladies has increased, with depression, anxiety and addictions topping the list. The pandemic has been no friend in this regard, as rates of these disorders across the population have soared by over a third.

NATURE, NURTURE, BOTH? So, what determines how happy one is? Well, positive psychology often claims it’s about 50% genetics, 40% life choices (individual control) and only 10% circumstances. However, social psychologists assert otherwise, maintaining that cultural, economic, political and institutional trends exert significant influences on our happiness. These societal factors drive power disparities between different socio-economic groups, and these are largely outside individual control. As one colleague put it, “If you’re stuck in a mud puddle, meditation, gratitude journaling and self-affirmations don’t make you any less wet, cold or dirty.”

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Granted, I’m a pot calling the kettle black on this one. I’ve recommended many of these approaches to clients as well as in this column, and for good reason. They do help. But there is danger in over-emphasizing how much they help and, simultaneously, placing most or all of the responsibility for happiness on the individual. It's a convenient way to let society off the hook.

Cultural influences such as institutional racism, income inequality, sexism, gun violence, ageism, political warfare, child poverty and the climate crisis, among others, wreak their havoc broadly, regardless of how well any one person manages their approach to life satisfaction. Despite America’s fixation with self-reliance and individualism, we are all connected to and affected by the collective social environment we inhabit. The World Happiness Report clearly demonstrates that “we” cultures are far better at promoting individual happiness than “me” cultures, like our own. In the pursuit of happiness, nations like Finland, Denmark, New Zealand and Switzerland reject America’s solitary approach in favor of a more collective strategy, and it works. What’s more, they measure their social success not just on Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but also life satisfaction.

Happiness gurus recommend the usual suspects—healthy habits, mindfulness, gratitude, strong social ties, purposeful living, nature immersion and forgiveness, among others. All good stuff, but these approaches fall into the category of “necessary but not sufficient.” Our cultural context and mindset matter a lot, which may explain why those who invest in the happiness of others, not just their own, report greater fulfillment in their lives. To paraphrase, no person is an island unto themselves. Living in a chaotic, divisive, rancorous, greedy society inhibits any one person’s pursuit of happiness.

When it comes to optimizing life satisfaction, we can’t go it alone.

We must go it together.

Philip Chard is a psychotherapist and author with a focus on lasting behavior change, emotional healing and adaptation to health challenges. For more, visit philipchard.com.

Illustrations by Michael Burmesch.

JULY 2022 | 29

SPECIAL HEALTH & WELLNESS TRUE HEALTH | SPONSORED BY TRINERGY HEALTH

lining is critical for providing a protective barrier while allowing nourishment—keeping the “bad” out and allowing the “good” in.

This is astounding “intelligence” at work.

What is Your Gut Telling You? GUT HEALTH PART 1

BY KATHERINE BAYLISS, MD

Illustration by Michael Burmesch.

I

n Functional Medicine, the gut, or gastrointestinal (GI) tract, is often considered the gateway to health. Most of us limit considerations of gut function to eating and nutrition, but as we explore connections with the rest of our body, there is so much more. Important aspects of gut health include barrier function, nutrition, immune balance, the microbiome, and even mental status.

Consider this. The GI tract is like a hollow tube going through our body with an opening on either end. As such, this hollow space (gut lumen) is actually “outside” our body making it the largest interface with the external environment. Flattening the numerous folds of the gut results in a surface area equal to the size of half a badminton court—-about 20x20 feet! The integrity of the gut

The immune system is an integral collaborator with our GI tract.

Incredibly, it is estimated that the gut-associated immune system accounts for 70-75% of our entire immune system. It provides an additional vital layer of protection from external environmental threats. At the same time, the interplay between the gut and the immune system influences immune function. Exposures in the gut teach the immune system to tolerate things that are not threatening and to react to things that are potentially harmful.

When a healthy gut is working well, the immune system “learns” for example, that a peanut should be safe and an infectious organism is not.

CARING FOR OUR PERSONAL ECOSYSTEM We can’t talk about gut health without talking about the gut microbiome, the micro-organisms in our GI tract also known as our gut flora. Consisting primarily of bacteria (but also fungi and viruses) our gut microbiome is comprised of approximately a trillion cells (similar to the number of cells making up our body) and contains 100 times more genes than the human genome.

The composition of our microbiome (favorable vs. unfavorable organisms) greatly influences the health of our gut and in turn our overall health and vitality. This ecosystem is easily thrown off by such things as dietary choices, toxin exposures and medications we may need to take (think antibiotics).

One of the most fascinating connections to health and well-being is the so called “gut-brain axis.” This is a bidirectional path of communication between the gut and the brain and is very much influenced by our gut microbiome. Information between brain and gut occurs through nerves (especially the vagus nerve), hormones, metabolic channels and the immune system. These modes of communication allow the brain to influence intestinal activities and the gut to influence mood, cognition, and mental health.

Ever experience nausea or sudden diarrhea when stressed? How about making a decision from your gut? This is the gut-brain axis in action.

Gut health can be compromised for many reasons and we don’t necessarily experience this as GI symptoms; problems can manifest in skin, brain, joints and more. Thus, when working with my patients, we usually start by assessing gut health often with the aid of specialized testing looking at the microbiome, digestive function, inflammatory markers and more. Many tools are available for healing and optimizing gut health. This effort alone can have a profound impact on one’s quality of life.

In upcoming articles, we will take a deeper dive into GI health and associated maladies. In the meantime, consider these first steps with diet—go plant centered with more fiber rich veggies while minimizing processed foods and refined sugars.

Katherine Bayliss, MD, a Milwaukee native, practiced in conventional medicine as a pathologist for 25 years. She now lives her passion, helping others through the more holistic Functional Medicine model.

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JULY 2022 | 31

SPECIAL HEALTH & WELLNESS INTEGRATIVE PSYCHIATRY | SPONSORED BY TRINERGY HEALTH

Dr. Aruna Tummala on How Integrative Psychiatry Looks Beyond the Brain

BY SHEILA JULSON

I

ntegrative psychiatrist Dr. Aruna Tummala, medical director of Trinergy Center for Integrative Psychiatry (12800 W. National Ave., New Berlin), takes a holistic approach to emotional-physical health, blending Western medicine with Ayurveda, India’s 5000-year-old medical system that focuses on mind-body balance through diet, lifestyle medicine, natural herbs and detoxification protocols to achieve health and traditions.

Specialized medicine focuses on one organ or one tissue, but the body doesn’t work that way, Tummala explains. “We see this problem amplified in the field of psychiatry, where the prevailing belief is that there is a chemical imbalance in the brain. That has never been proven during 75 years of research, and much of the medication used to treat based on this faulty premise has not worked, either.”

The holistic mental health premise is that mental illnesses can have an origin anywhere in the body—including the

brain—and even in organs removed from the brain. There is no compartmentalization within our system, rather our organ systems interact with each other to keep us healthy.

“When this fine communication system goes awry for whatever reason, you see problems manifesting in any system of the body.

When I do evaluations, whether one is depressed or anxious, disease was manifesting in the gut or other places that we typically don’t associate with mental illness,” she says.

Tummala’s protocols come from her training in integrative medicine, Ayurveda and natural and functional medicine. “The tools of functional medicine and Ayurveda has given me the framework to be able to come up with specific evaluation techniques and protocols to address the root causes.”

BALANCING THE GUT-BRAIN CONNECTION Tummala says integrative psychiatry starts with an in-depth consultation, including considering what might be happening in a person’s life that’s contributing to the patient’s difficulties and symptoms.

Once those questions are answered, a treatment plan can be implemented. “In our clinic, that always includes diet and lifestyle changes. Our focus is always on healing the gut. I do a preliminary bloodwork, which includes looking at markers of inflammation, nutritional deficiencies and thyroid disease, especially in women.”

She notes that mainstream medicine focuses only on thyroid stimulating hormone levels, but the presence of antibodies indicates an imbalance of the immune system, thus driving the symptoms of fatigue, depression and anxiety.

Tummala points out that flu symptoms such as fatigue and lack of energy parallel symptoms of depression and anxiety. “The inflammation hypothesis is gaining a lot of traction in the field of mental health. With depression and anxiety, the root cause is an exaggerated, inflamed immune system that causes many of these symptoms that lead to psychiatric diseases.”

Ayurvedic principles makes no distinction between physical and mental diseases, Tummala says. Basic concepts in Ayurvedic medicine are that disease begins in the gut, so all healing also begins in the gut—the same philosophy that is being repeated in functional and integrative medicine.

Using a “food as medicine” approach, Tummala looks at each person’s unique physiology and psychology. In addition to food,

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Background by Egor Suvorov/Getty Images.

she uses herbal and nutritional supplements, body therapies such as Ayurvedic massage, and detoxification protocols to cleanse the body and the mind and help bring body systems back into balance.

AYURVEDIC SPA SERVICES FOR CLEANSING AND BALANCE Trinergy has an ayurvedic spa, led by Vaidya Pandey, who practiced Ayurvedic medicine in India for 13 years before emigrating to the United States. She’s developed spa services that support emotional wellbeing.

Their signature ayurvedic massage uses specific herbal oils that are organic and non-toxic. The massage involves a special technique that massages the energy points in the body, similar to acupressure, to open energy channels.

Oher services offered are Udwarthanam, a dry powdered rub massage that uses traditional herbal formulations to exfoliate the skin, enhance lymphatic circulation and break down cellulite. Ayurvedic facials, henna hair treatments and shirodhara, a technique for relaxation and treatment of anxiety and insomnia, round out the spa services.

USING HYPERBARIC OXYGEN THERAPY TO HELP MENTAL HEALTH CONDITIONS Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is a pressurized chamber in which the patient steps into and breathes in purified air or 100% pure oxygen. That pressure helps deliver more oxygen to plasma and tissues. The increase of oxygen concentration can help reduce inflammation and stimulate stem cell growth.

Tummala is certified in HBOT. “Hyperbaric medicine was started to treat decompression sickness and wound care,” she says.

Practitioners then explored how HBOT could treat traumatic brain injury, stroke or autism. They found that wherever there is inflammation, whether outside or inside the body, oxygen helps decrease it.

Tummala uses HBOT to treat many conditions, including autism.

She has seen significant improvements in children, particularly with a seven year-old child whose motor skills improved after less than 20 HBOT sessions.

“I think HBOT is going to be a game-changer, especially for families with autism,” she enthuses. “My job satisfaction has skyrocketed since I went to an integrative model of psychiatry because there is so much more I can do. It’s not a miracle treatment, but if patients invest in their own health with consistency and commitment, results will follow.”

For more information, visit trinergyhealth.com.

Sheila Julson writes the Eat/Drink column for shepherdexpress.com.

JULY 2022 | 33

SPECIAL DAY TRIPS

REEFPOINT MARINA Photo courtesy of Reefpoint Marina.

Seeing Racine in the Summertime

BY JENNY MAURER

T

he Midwest is widely known for its crisp autumns and long winters. The region likes to celebrate these seasons in their own unique ways as well. Downtown Chicago proudly displays Christmas decorations on every corner while Green Bay celebrates the Packers in every way you can imagine. The City of Racine has their own traditions for the seasons. The annual holiday parade in November and “Party on the Pavement” in September mark the transition into autumn.

RACINE ZOO

The most celebrated season in Racine is Summer. The city offers a slew of events with everything from taco trucks to salmon fishing. The Fourth of July parade draws tens of thousands as do the fireworks on North Beach. In addition, there are a variety of activities for families and visitors that are suitable for every type of summer weather.

To start with, there’s the Racine Zoo open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The zoo has a variety of animals from all over the world such as the endearing fennec foxes from the deserts of North Africa and the acrobatic South American spider monkeys. A particular highlight is watching the two giraffes roaming for leaves against a suburban backdrop. There’s also a petting zoo where children can pet llamas, visit goats, and encounter parakeets.

The zoo also holds events for adults and families including the “Animal Crackers” jazz showcase during the months of July and August. Children under two and younger can gain admittance for free, while tickets for adults are $11 and tickets for children under 15 are $9.

Photo courtesy of Racine Zoo.

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ON THE WATERFRONT For those who want physical activity or to lounge in the sun, the North Beach is your destination. Regarded as the top family beach in Wisconsin, North Beach is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and features volleyball nets, lounge chairs, and the “Kid’s Cove” children’s playground. A taco stand decorated with a mosaic art mural offers tacos along with candy, soft drinks, water and “walking tacos” (with Fritos, cheese, and taco meat inside a Fritos bag).

Come early to beat the crowds.

SC JOHNSON AQUATIC CENTER

Boaters will find marinas in the beautiful downtown lakefront. The Reefpoint Marina has accommodations for boats and Anchors Away sells essential sailing supplies. Two public hot tubs and a heated outdoor pool have a lovely view of Lake Michigan. For barbecue fans, the nearby Reefpoint Brewhouse has a wide selection of steaks, ribs and fish along with live music Friday and Saturday nights from 7:30 to 11:30 p.m. The lunch and brunch crowd are also treated to concerts on Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.

It’s also place to take a break for commercial fishermen as well.

If the beach is too crowded or children want more water activity, Racine also has its own impressive water park. The SC Johnson Aquatic Center, located in Pritchard Park and operated by the YMCA, is a colorful adventure park with slides, pools and a small playground. During the summer the park is open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday with a late opening at 10 a.m. on Sunday. Daily admittance for families is $20 for non-Racine residents while a season pass is $99.

Photo courtesy of Racine Family YMCA (Facebook).

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SPECIAL DAY TRIPS

RACINE ART MUSEUM

Emily Brock. The Café on 66, 1993. Glass. Racine Art Museum, Gift of Benson and Francine Piloff.

Photo by Jon Bolton. Courtesy of Racine Art Museum.

ARTS AND CULTURE Outdoor attractions for patrons of the arts include the Racine Art Guild’s annual Starving Artist Fair, Sunday, August 7, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the historic grounds of the Dekoven Center. Surrounded by beautiful Victorian architecture, the fair has a variety of crafts and paintings for sale along with treats such as kettle corn, various flavors of nuts and shrimp tacos. Visitors can also enjoy live music and participate in auctions. Proceeds from sales go to the Racine Art Guild’s local student scholarship fund, a great cause!

Photo by Jon Bolton, Racine. Courtesy of the Racine Art Museum.

A great way to spend a summer evening is attending Racine’s most popular theater, The Racine Theatre Guild. This summer, the theater will host the Stephen Sondheim fantasy Into the Woods from July 15 to July 31. A staple of the musical canon since 1986, Into the Woods is a harrowing tale of family dynamics, folklore and curses. The eerie atmosphere and strong sense of drama should bring an autumnal breeze to midsummer. Tickets are $20 for adults, $18 for seniors and $15 for students. There will also be value nights with tickets at $3 off from regular prices.

Racine also has plenty of indoor activities for rainy or sunny summer days. There’s a wide assortment of museums and theaters for visitors to spend an afternoon. The Racine Heritage Museum is an excellent place to explore the city’s stories of immigrant communities, sports stars and even marching bands.

The most poignant exhibit tells the harrowing story of Joshua Glover, a slave who escaped to Canada with the help of Racine abolitionists. Another popular attraction is the museum’s mummy, “Malty,” purchased by William Horlick Jr, the inventor of malted milk, in 1902. The museum is open on weekdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and noon to 3 PM on Sunday.

Also worth visiting is the Racine Art Museum. Built in 2001, RAM holds the largest contemporary crafts collection in the United States with 9500 pieces. Current exhibitions include “In the Round,” a vast collection of unique pottery and sculptures from around the world, and “Playful/Pensive,” a tribute to thought provoking art presented through a playful lens. The museum is open Wednesday through Saturday noon to 4 p.m. Admission of $7 for adults and $5 for seniors and students.

The newest gallery in town is the Mahogany Gallery in uptown Racine. Established by artist and activist Scott Terry, this gallery promotes activism along with showcasing groundbreaking African American Art. The gallery is open Thursday through Saturday noon to 6 p.m. and exhibits art that is stunning and carries messages important to us all.

MAHOGANY GALLERY Photo courtesy of Mahogany Gallery.

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RACINE THEATRE GUILD Photo courtesy of Racine Theatre Guild.

Racine is a diverse city with something for everyone. The people here are proud to display the town’s working-class history alongside spaces of cultural expression. The places written about here exemplify the town’s attributes of generosity, culture and diversity. With its balance of tradition and taste, Racine is a Southeastern Wisconsin gem of summertime pleasure.

RACINE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Jenny Maurer is a Racine writer who profiles her city’s people for shepherdexpress.com.

RPL Opens 991897 on the Secor block of 3rd and main.

Photo courtesy of Racine Public Library.

SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE Racine will be an especially exciting destination this summer with the arrival of two new events The first is the Racine Harbor Market in Monument Square 4:30-7:30 p.m. on the last Thursday of each summer month. Inspired by the neighboring Kenosha Harbor Market, this event will introduce people to the variety of cuisines and businesses within the community. It is an excellent opportunity for visitors to meet new people and experience diverse cultures.

There is also the Racine Public Library’s 125th anniversary block party on July 16 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. The library provides multiple services to the community, including tax assistance, youth clubs, and many other programs. This event will celebrate and introduce many to a beloved and vibrant community institution.

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SPECIAL SUMMER DRINK

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SPECIAL SUMMER DRINK

A Story as Much as a Style: Bière de Saison

BY GAETANO MARANGELLI

It’s a July afternoon. You’re in the middle of wheat fields. You’re in the thick of summer harvest.

The sun arcs over you. The ochre wheat stalks sway in its light. The brim of your straw hat shades you from its rays. But you’re hot. And you’re thirsty.

You were up in these fields with first light.

You’ll be out in them until the sun sets. You scythe the wheat stalks. You thresh their heads for berries. You winnow the berries to separate out the chaff. And then, after you harvest the wheat, you harvest the barley. And you’re very hot. You’re very thirsty.

You’re a saisonnier in the north of Europe in the 18th century. You’ve got a job for the spring and summer months at a farm in the south of Belgium, in the fertile plateau of the Hainaut Province in the region of Wallonia. There are jobs like yours west across the border, at farms in the Nord-Pas-deCalais region of the north of France. Your farm asks you to plant and harvest its wheat and barley fields. Which isn’t easy.

Especially in the summer. Did I say how hot and thirsty you are? You crave an elixir to sustain you. You want it to be refreshing.

You want it to be fortifying. You want its alcohol to be low. You have to harvest more wheat and barley fields before the end of the day.

SLAKE YOUR SUMMER THIRST The Belgian farm where you have your job 40 | SHEPHERD EXPRESS

makes beer exactly like that. We call the style Bière de Saison (seasonal beer). Or simply, Saison. But a Saison is less of a style and more of a story. Its story is made for you to slake your summer thirst.

Many farms in the south of Belgium in the 18th and 19th centuries made beer for themselves and their Saisonniers. These farms made their Saisons by the cycles of their two, yearly harvests. They made them with the grains they had a surplus of or those they could easily trade for.

Barley, yes, but also wheat, oat, buckwheat, and spelt.

A brewer making beer for the demands of a market would carefully germinate, kiln, and mash their grains. A farmer making beer as a useful provision for themselves and their Saisonniers may do so less carefully. Or maybe not at all. They would ferment their ale spontaneously—with the yeast and bacteria in the air—or with yeast they cultivated season after season.

They would add hops to bitter their ale, as well as regulate it against harmful bacteria. They would ferment, re-ferment, and age their ale in wood casks, which would promote the tart, complex, and vinous qualities of their elixir.

Saisons are part of a category called Farmhouse ales, which includes Bière de Garde from the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France, Gueuze from the Senne Valley of Belgium, and Sahti from the Häme region of Finland. Each of these Farmhouse ale styles tells its own story.

Field/beer photo by Alter_photo/Getty Images. Woodgrain photo by nevodka/Getty Images.

The story of Saison is of a rustic style of ale made by home brewers on farms in Wallonia. The story has evolved to the Saison style of ale made by commercial brewers today. A style of ale still made for you to slake your thirst in the heat of the summer.

Whether you’ve been out in a field, a garden, or a garage, or up in an office, a kitchen, or a shop, Saisons are as refreshing and complex as they were 400 years ago.

There are many Saison style ales, and many of them are made in the United States. But the best way to explore a beer which is a story as much as a style is to depart from where the story began.

With Saisons from Belgium. These three Saisons are classics of the style.

Brasserie Dupont, Saison Dupont Brasserie St. Feuillien, St Feuillien Saison Brasserie Blaugies, Saison D’Epeautre

Gaetano Marangelli is a sommelier and playwright. He was the managing director of a wine import and distribution company in New York and beverage director for restaurants and retailers in New York and Chicago before moving to Wauwatosa.

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MILWAUKEE BEER GARDEN GUIDE 2022

BY BARRY HOULEHEN WITH BLAINE SCHULTZ

N

Photo courtesy of VISIT Milwaukee.

othing says Milwaukee in the summer like a nice relaxing beer garden. Well maybe some other things do, but let's face it, our love of festivals and summer celebrations has also cultivated the art of beer gardening: enjoying a glass of beer or wine in one of our many parks, with the sounds of live music and the scent of brats, pretzels and fish fries gently drifting on the breeze. Chances are there’s a beer garden in your neighborhood or community, so here is our list of this season’s public beer gardens throughout the greater Milwaukee area. Visit our online guide at shepherdexpress.com.

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Illustrations by Michael Burmesch. Background photo by nevodka/Getty Images.

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Milwaukee County Parks Beer Gardens

county.milwaukee.gov/EN/Parks/Explore/ Beer-Gardens

ESTABROOK BEER GARDEN Estabrook Park 4600 Estabrook Drive estabrookbeergarden.com

SOUTH SHORE TERRACE 2900 S. Shore Drive southshoreterrace.com Wednesday-Friday 4-9 p.m.

Saturday-Sunday 11 a.m. -9 p.m.

WHITNALL BEER GARDEN Whitnall Park

ESTABROOK BEER GARDEN Photo courtesy of VISIT Milwaukee.

8831 N. Root River Parkway, Greendale whitnallbeergarden.com Monday-Friday 4-9 p.m.

Saturday-Sunday 11 a.m.-9 pm

THE VINE HUMBOLDT WINE & BEER GARDEN Humboldt Park 3000 S. Howell Ave. thevinehumboldt.com Tuesday- Friday 4-9 p.m.

Saturday, Sunday and Holidays 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

THE LANDING AT HOYT PARK 1800 N. Swan Blvd., Wauwatosa friendsofhoytpark.org/the-landing Wednesday-Friday 3-9 p.m.

Saturday - Sunday noon-9 p.m.

Holidays noon-6 p.m.

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SOUTH SHORE TERRACE Photo by Michael Burmesch.

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The Traveling Beer Gardens

COMPANY BREWING 735 E. Center St. companybrewing.com/welcome Monday-Thursday noon-10 p.m.

(2 a.m. on show nights)

Two different traveling beer garden tours make the rounds of area parks throughout the summer. The two restored fire trucks, converted into a mobile beer trucks, serve up craft beers and more.

Friday noon-midnight (2 a.m. on show nights) Saturday 11 a.m.-midnight Sunday 11 a.m.-10 p.m.

travelingbeergardens.com

ELM GROVE BEER GARDEN

Monday-Friday 5-9 p.m.

Saturday, Sunday and Holidays 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

ROLL OUT THE BARREL TOUR

Elm Grove Village Park

HUBBARD PARK BEER GARDEN Photo courtesy of VISIT Milwaukee.

Juneau Park: May 11-May 30 900 N. Prospect Ave. Cooper Park: June 1–June 19 8701 Chambers St. Grant Park: June 22–July 10 100 E. Hawthorne Ave., South Milwaukee Shelter #5 Lake Park: July 13–July 31 3233 E. Kenwood Blvd.

Greenfield Park: Aug. 3–Aug. 21 2028 S. 124th St., West Allis Picnic Area 3A

PASS ME A PINT TOUR Froemming Park: May 25-June 12 8801 S. 51st St., Franklin Juneau Park: June 15–July 4 900 N. Prospect Ave.

BROOKFIELD BEER GARDEN

9100 S. 76th St., Franklin croationparkbeergarden.com

The Village

Thursday 5-10 p.m. through September

18725 W. Hoffman Ave., Brookfield villageofbrookfieldwi.com/ events/beer-garden July 28, Aug. 27, Sept. 22 and Oct. 13, 5-9 p.m.

CITY OF WAUKESHA NEIGHBORHOOD BEER GARDEN July 4, 2022, Lowell Park Aug. 25-27, Rivers Crossing Park Sept. 8-10, Merrill Crest Thursday-Friday 5-9 p.m.

Saturday 3-9 p.m. waukesha-wi.gov/residents/ neighborhood-beer-gardens.php

Juneau Park: Aug. 1 –Sept. 5 900 N. Prospect Ave.

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Saturday noon-9 p.m.

Community Beer Gardens

8214 W. Cleveland Ave., West Allis 1870 E. Fox Lane, Fox Point

Friday 4-9 p.m.

Sunday noon-6 p.m.

McCarty Park: July 6–July 24 Doctors Park: July 27–Aug. 14

13600 Juneau Blvd., Elm Grove thirdspacebrewing.com/ elmgrovebeergarden

Waukesha also has pop-up beer gardens; visit waukesha-wi.gov/residents/ neighborhood-beer-gardens.php.

FRANKLIN BEER GARDEN Croatian Park

HUBBARD PARK BEER GARDEN Hubbard Park 3565 N. Morris Blvd., Shorewood hubbardparkbeergarden.com Monday-Thursday 3-10 p.m.

Friday - Saturday noon-10 p.m.

Sunday noon-9 p.m.

KEGEL'S INN BEER GARDEN Kegel’s Inn 5901 W. National Ave., West Allis kegelsinn.com/beer-garden Tuesday-Thursday 4-8 p.m.

Friday 11 a.m.-8 p.m.

Saturday 4-8 p.m.

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SPECIAL SUMMER DRINK

SUGAR MAPLE

Photo taken by Michael Burmesch.

SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS

KEGEL'S INN WAR MEMORIAL BEER GARDEN

SISTERS OF ST. FRANCIS

War Memorial Center

1501 S. Layton Blvd.

750 N. Lincoln Memorial Drive kegelsinn.com/war-memorial

Sept. 11, Oktoberfest

Tuesday-Sunday 11 a.m. -8 p.m.

SPRECHER BREWING OUTDOOR OASIS

NOMAD WORLD PUB 1401 E. Brady St. nomadworldpub.com Monday-Sunday 3-11 p.m.

Open times change regularly depending on weather.

St. Joseph Center

Richard E. Maslowski Community Park 2200 W. Bender Road, Glendale glendale-wi.org/614/Sprecher-BrewingOutdoor-Oasis Wednesday-Friday 4-9 p.m.

Saturday 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

Sunday 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

PABST MANSION BEER GARDEN MUSIC SERIES

SUGAR MAPLE

2000 W. Wisconsin Ave.

441 E. Lincoln Ave. mysugarmaple.com

Saturdays 3:30-5:30 p.m. through Aug. 27

Monday-Thursday 4-11 p.m.

The Pabst Mansion

Friday 4 p.m.-2 a.m.

Saturday noon- 2 a.m.

Sunday noon-1 p.m.

Photo courtesy of School Sisters of St. Francis

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JULY 2022 | 49

SPECIAL GREAT PLACES TO WORK SPONSORED BY SHEPHERD EXPRESS

Does Your Job Make You Happy?

A CAREER WITH BLACK SHOE HOSPITALITY WILL.

Story Hill BKC, in Milwaukee (storyhillbkc.com), is a neighborhood wine shop that serves Upper Midwest style cuisine for weekday lunch, weekend brunch and a sharing-style dinner.

Buttermint, in Shorewood (buttermintrestaurant.com), presents “finer dining and cocktails.” Its swanky décor and modern Continental cuisine take their inspiration from the early 1960s.

"EVERYONE THAT I WORK WITH IS REALLY FUN TO BE AROUND AND WE'RE REALLY GOOD AT HELPING EACH OTHER. MY TEAMMATES ARE GOOD PEOPLE. THEY'LL ALWAYS TRY TO HELP YOU GET BETTER AT YOUR JOB AND HAVE FUN WHILE YOU'RE DOING IT." - Trent Knutson, Lead Line Cook at Buttermint Currently, full-time positions in both the front and back of house are available at all four restaurants. Full-time employees work 30 hours per week minimum, and are eligible for a variety of benefits: TRENT KNUTSON

• Weekly paychecks, with higher wage considerations for fulltime employment

T

• Health, dental and vision insurance after 60 days

A James Beard Award nominated organization, Black Shoe Hospitality is comprised of four exceptional restaurants that are known and loved throughout Southeastern Wisconsin.

"I STARTED WITH BLACK SHOE HOSPITALITY IN 2014 AS A BUSSER AT BLUE'S EGG AND WORKED MYSELF UP TO A FULL-TIME CAREER ON THE MANAGEMENT TEAM."

he motto of the Black Shoe Hospitality group is “Happy People Making People Happy.” And for good reason.

The company is a collection of dedicated professionals who truly enjoy serving outstanding food and beverage to their customers. What’s more, it’s been named one of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Top Workplaces every year since 2015.

Maxies, in Milwaukee (maxiesmke.com), specializes in inspired southern food. That includes "Low Country" cooking, Creole and Cajun cuisine, and traditional slow-smoked southern BBQ. Blue’s Egg, in Milwaukee (bluesegg.com), brings a fresh take on breakfast and brunch to the community, and does so with the care and attention you'd expect from a fine dining restaurant.

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• Paid vacation time • 401K matching after one year • Dining privileges at all four Black Shoe restaurants immediately upon hiring

- Stephen Fisher, Digital Marketing Manager

No wonder Black Shoe employees are happy! Visit blackshoehospitality.com today to apply, and get ready to get happy.

Photos by Nolan Ekstrom, Mortske Media. Photos and logos courtesy of Black Shoe Hospitality.

BAY VIEW To advertise on this page, contact BRIDGETTE at 414.292.3811 or bridgette@shepex.com

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Milwaukee Panthers Help to Grow Cricket Locally

BY ALLEN HALAS

T

here’s a distinct crack of the bat and plenty of cheering on Saturday and Sunday afternoons in Tippecanoe Park. However, the roar isn’t coming from the softball diamond, but rather the strip of artificial turf in the middle of the grass field. The Milwaukee Panthers Cricket Club are hosting a cricket match, and they’re growing the game in Southeastern Wisconsin as well.

Founded in 2009, the club was one of just a handful of teams that made up the Milwaukee Regal T20 Cricket League, which operates out of Lindsay Park on the city’s North Side, as well as Lincoln Park on west Villard Ave. The Panthers, who are the defending champions of the Regal League, are also members of the Midwest Cricket Conference, and play their home matches at Tippecanoe Park. They are the only Wisconsin team in the league, which plays largely in the Chicagoland area. Captain Rizwan Arshad remembers the humble Milwaukee beginnings of the game, which has a major international following but has yet to truly catch on in the United States.

“When I first started playing in the mid ‘90s, there was one team in Milwaukee” recalls Arshad. “It was started with guys from the West Indies, Jamaica and Guyana, who formed it as far back as the ‘70s. We used to have to play in Chicago, because there were no other teams here.”

A GROWING SPORT Locally, the growth of cricket can be seen in the number of pitches and clubs popping up in Milwaukee County. The

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Regal League began their 2022 season in April, with 11 participating teams.

The league will have multiple matches every weekend at both of their home grounds through July, before the playoffs begin in August. For the Midwest Cricket Conference circuit, the Milwaukee Panthers have two home matches remaining, on July 24 and August 21 at 10 a.m., but the team will travel to play matches against the league’s 15 other members until the end of August, with that postseason beginning in September.

If you’ve never watched, the rules of cricket are not terribly complex compared to traditional baseball. The objective for the batter is to score runs by hitting the ball over the boundary, with four runs for the going over on the ground or six (called a maximum) if it goes over in the air. Batters also score runs by running back and forth between wooden stakes (called wickets) before the ball is returned by the fielders.

Rather than three outs in baseball, an innings ends when all 10 batters are out, either by a caught ball or when a fielder breaks the wicket before a batter has reached the batting area safely.

For those interested in learning to play the game, Arshad and the Panthers are very welcoming to new players. He hosts coaching sessions for beginners and lists his contact information on the club’s Facebook page. “We always welcome the neighborhood and people who are interested in cricket” said Arshad.

“Everybody is welcome to watch the match and have lunch with us.”

For more information about the Milwaukee Panthers Cricket Club, be sure to visit their Facebook page, or the Regal T20 League page on CricClubs.com.

Allen Halas is Digital Strategist for shepherdexpress.com.

Each bowler (similar to a pitcher) only delivers six balls consecutively, which is called an over. The Panthers play T20 cricket in the Regal League, and T30 in the Midwest Cricket Conference, meaning the game is limited 20 and 30 overs per side.

Unlike some forms of the game, a typical T20 or T30 match can be completed in a few hours. It also makes for a more manageable watch for those who are curious about taking in a match.

Cricket illustration by RNko/Getty Images.

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CULTURE

This Month in Milwaukee

13 THINGS TO DO IN JULY

BY STEVE COHEN, ALLEN HALAS, ELIZABETH LINTONN, DAVID LUHRSSEN, MICHAEL MUCKIAN, AND BLAINE SCHULTZ JULY 1

JULY 6 & 7

Blue Öyster Cult Summerfest Uline Warehouse Stage

Misery Signals, Comeback Kid, End X-Ray Arcade

In 1976, Blue Öyster Cult reached the mainstream with their spine-tingling hit, “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” The band had been active since the ‘70s began, emerging out of biker bars with a post-psychedelic, post-Quicksilver, post-Steppenwolf sound. They collaborated with interesting lyricists, including their mythopoetic manager-producer Sandy Pearlman, literate rock critic Richard Meltzer, British fantasy author Michael Moorcock and poet-rock star Patti Smith. BOC spent the late ‘80s/early ‘90s on tour without releasing an album of new material. In 2020 they issued their fifteenth studio album, the critically acclaimed The Symbol Remains.

Metalcore band Misery Signals formed in the Milwaukee area nearly two decades ago, before breaking out to the national hardcore scene in the early years of the millennium.

While the lineup had shifted in the years that followed, the original members reunited in 2014, and have been active ever since. The band haven’t played Milwaukee, however, since their first reunion run. That changes on July 6 and 7, when they’ll play a pair of dates at X-Ray Arcade. It isn’t the first time playing that venue, though. Misery Signals played the former Vnuk’s Lounge last in 2004.

JULY 6-24 Write Me a Murder Peninsula Players, Fish Creek In this Edgar Allan Poe award winner by British playwright Frederick Knott, a perfect crime is devised on a stately English estate.

The author is a mystery writer who may not realize where the plot is headed. According to the New York Times, Write Me a Murder builds steadily, amusingly and suspensefully and reaches a swift and convincing climax.”

Knott’s work was adapted for several classic films, including Dial M for Murder and Wait Until Dark. (David Luhrssen)

JULY 7 Ali J, Mas Verde, Jacob Slade, Ben Mulwana q Cactus Club Hosted by the Mr. Nice Guy podcast, four up and coming artists will play a showcase at Bay View’s Cactus Club. The night is headlined by singer/songwriter Ben Mulwana, the Ugandan-born artist who now resides in Milwaukee and delivers a top-notch combination of soul, blues and rock. The diverse lineup is part of a monthly event series that raises funds for a different local non-profit organization in addition to delivering great music.

BEN MULWANA

Photo by CJ Foeckler.

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Sand texture background by Anastasiia_Guseva/Getty Images. Beach illustration by Sophie Yufa.

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CULTURE

RACINE ZOO Photo courtesy of Racine Zoo.

SONIA DOWNS BAND GRANVILLE BLUES FEST Photo courtesy of the Granville Business Improvement District.

JULY 13

JULY 23-24, JULY 30-31

Roman Street p Animal Crackers Concert Series, Racine Zoo Roman Street blends an improvisational fusion of classical, gypsy and contemporary jazz, Latin, and nuevo flamenco. The Wednesday concert series continues though August 24 with Marion Meadows, Steely Dane and Down to the Bone. With approximately 75 different species and over 300 individual animals from Wisconsin and around the world, the Racine Zoo’s lakeside setting is home to some of the world's most remarkable and endangered wildlife. The walk is easy for kids and seniors, making the Racine Zoo a great way to enjoy the outdoors with the family.

Granville Blues Fest p With two CDs out on the well-known Delmark label, and a band that has been together since 2014, Mike Wheeler has taken his place in an ever-expanding performance circuit that includes much steady work in Chicago.

He comes to Milwaukee with his band to play his brand of Chicago blues at the Granville Blues Festival. Likewise, Granville headliner Calvin Vino Louden is an excellent example of a Chicago based singer and guitarist who’s made his living and his name playing a distinctive brand of blues music. Many other blues and old-school R&B acts fill the roster of this four-day outdoor event on the city’s far North Side.

JULY 17 Marnie's Favorite, 2009. Acrylic on paper, 40 x 40 in.Lent by the family of Marion Coffey. Image courtesy of Museum of Wisconsin Art and the family of Marion Coffey.

THROUGH JULY 10 “Marion Coffey: The Art of Color” p Museum of Wisconsin Art, West Bend Milwaukee native Marion Coffey always planned to be an illustrator, artist and printmaker, and her sea of accomplishments is testament to her extensive talent, intellectual curiosity, and expressive nature. The one thing Coffey never accomplished during her lifetime was being honored with her own dedicated exhibition. The Museum of Wisconsin Art has rectified that shortfall. “The Art of Color” is a showcase of vibrant colors, natural scenery and visual chronicles of her travels to Europe and Africa. Coffey, who passed away in 2011 at age 87, once said, that she painted images “not exactly how they may look, but how I see them.”

Armenian Fest u 7825 W. Layton Ave. Armenia is among the world’s longest surviving civilizations and Armenians have a long history in the Milwaukee area. Since the 1930s, the local community gathered every summer for a picnic featuring traditional Mediterranean dishes made from old family recipes. That informal picnic has grown into Armenian Fest, a popular attraction for Milwaukee festivalgoers seeking good food at reasonable prices in a warm, welcoming setting. This year’s event features live music

by Racine’s Mid-East Beat, an Armenian Bazaar, church tours and performances by Chicago’s Sardarabad Dancers.

ARMENIAN FEST Photo by Don Rask.

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Sand texture background by Anastasiia_Guseva/Getty Images

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JULY 23

JULY 26

Ayre in the Square Catalano Square The third installment of the 2022 Ayre in the Square concert series takes place on July 23 in the Historic Third Ward at Catalano Square, providing a free community show for music lovers of all ages. Headlining the night is Cullah, a multi-genre sonic explorer that has released an album every year on his birthday for over half of his life. The night will also feature a new project from singer/songwriter Eoin McCarthy and Camden drummer Biju Zimmerman, as well as music from Madison’s Silk Stranger.

Patricia Skalka Boswell Books In the height of the summer season, nothing compliments leisure time quite like a good book. At Boswell Book Company, Wisconsin author Patricia Skalka will host a book talk about her new Door County based murder mystery, Death Casts a Shadow. A mystery is the perfect complement to the muggy moments of July, and Skalka’s skillful writing coupled with the beautiful scenery of Milwaukee’s East Side leads to a perfect evening of literary fun.

THROUGH SEPT. 25

JULY 24 Bikini Kill The Riverside Theater Originally scheduled for 2020, riot grrrl pioneers Bikini Kill will finally come to the Riverside Theater. The band reunited in 2019 after largely being inactive for the better part of 22 years. With the original lineup together once again, this will be one of the band’s first shows in the Midwest since headlining the closing night of Riot Fest 2019 in Chicago.

Don’t miss your chance to see the band that influenced an entire generation of alternative rock when they get to town.

t “Beyond Borders: The Art of Eddna Samuel (Akshikar), Fulbright Series #5, 2012 -13 © Siona Benjamin, courtesy of Jewish Museum Milwaukee.

Siona Benjamin” Jewish Museum Milwaukee Colorful and drawing from pop art as well as East Indian traditions, the art of Siona Benjamin is as multifaceted as her life. The Indian-American-Jewish artist was raised in largely Hindu and Muslim Mumbai, where she attended Roman Catholic and Parsi schools before coming to the U.S. Through transcultural images she seeks to navigate “feelings of inclusion and exclusion and the notion of ‘home’” as well as fostering “dialogue about cultural and racial differences between religions and within Judaism.”

THROUGH OCT. 26 “Always New: The Posters of Jules Chéret" Milwaukee Art Museum As one of the pioneering poster artists of the late 19th century, Jules Chéret was quick to realize not only the aesthetic but the also the commercial potential of his medium caused by changes in technology and society. In 2020 James and Susee Wiechmann donated some 600 Chéret posters to the Milwaukee Art Museum, the largest collection of the artist’s work outside France. More than 100 are on display in the Art Museum’s new exhibit.

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Sand texture background by Anastasiia_Guseva/Getty Images

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LIFESTYLE OPEN HOUSE

A Backyard Made in the Shade

FOR ONE TOSA HOMEOWNER, A SMALL SHADY SPOT IS A LUSH RETREAT.

BY MARK HAGEN Photos by Michael Burmesch.

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estled in the East Towne Neighborhood of Wauwatosa sits a hideaway tucked behind Jackie Menzl’s cozy home. When Menzl bought her house 30 years ago, the backyard was nothing more than a standard Milwaukee lot … a rectangle of grass and clover, dappled in sunlight.

Menzl realized she had a blank slate on her hands and quickly got to work.

“Initially, I installed a 14-foot brick patio,” she explains. “It features seating for five around a fire pit, a grill and a little bistro set.” While the patio was definitely a quaint spot, Menzl knew it was only the beginning. “At the end of that summer, I created a scale drawing of the yard so I could come up with a landscaping design over winter.

“I looked at the entire backyard space as an outdoor room; an extension of the house,” she explains. “Every year trees were added and that reduced sunlight further. Grass did not grow well for me,

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so I eliminated it, laying crushed-granite pathways instead.” Menzl filled most other areas with shade plants such as hostas, ferns and miscellaneous ground covers.

“Ninety percent of the plants are perennials,” she adds.

POPS OF COLOR Menzl adjusted her landscape design as trees grew and sunlight became even less of a commodity. “The flowers I originally planted had to change spots with the increasing shade,” she says. Shade-loving impatiens and begonias are now the most popular floral in the yard, offering a bit

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LIFESTYLE OPEN HOUSE

of texture and color. “Most of them are in pots I place in the few spots that get occasional sun,” says Menzl.

While the flowering annuals complement the yard’s greenery, Menzl realized her shade garden needed colorful accents.

“Adding some color breaks things up,’’ she explains. “If not, (the yard) would be nothing but green. I try to incorporate purple as well as bright yellow, blue and orange in various pieces throughout the yard.”

Visitors can’t help but notice a vibrant-yellow art fixture, tiffany-blue pillows and a hanging-plant stand painted in lively colors. “The purple bench in the back corner is perfect for seeing the yard from a different perspective,” Menzl says.

THE SECRET TO SHADE GARDENS JACKIE MENZL Photos by Michael Burmesch.

April and May are busy months in the garden. “Once spring cleanup is done, I spread mulch so the plants grow up through it,” Menzl offers. “This is easier than spreading mulch around everything.

“From there it’s a matter of potting annuals, watering and weeding. I only get few weeds, and the ones I do get grow in the mulch and are easily removed,” she adds.

When asked how someone could cultivate their own shade garden, Menzl suggests starting with a design or plan like she did. “Just resist creating something that you don’t have the time, money or energy to maintain, she notes. “Keep it small, fun and sustainable.”

She also recommends familiarizing yourself with the varieties of shade plants. In addition to ferns and hostas, consider coral bells, astilbe, fox glove, primrose and dead nettle. “Make note of the areas where sun does penetrate and place your part-sun annuals in these spots,” she says, “but be prepared to change their locations as your trees grow.”

Lastly, Menzl touts the benefits of a tiny yard. “Having a small Tosa lot helps me with maintenance. Anything bigger than this would turn joyful work into, well…work,” she laughs. “A small yard allows you the affordability to make it your own without breaking your body in the process.”

After three decades, Menzl says the plants and trees in her backyard are fully grown and the garden is complete. “I have always been intrigued by forest floors, and that is what my yard reminds me of,” she says. “It’s green and lush, and it’s all protected by the beautiful canopy above.”

Mark Hagen is a décor enthusiast whose house has been featured in numerous publications. His work has appeared in Birds & Blooms, Fresh Home and Your Family magazines.

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LIFESTYLE CANNABIS

| SPONSORED BY RA!

Marijuana Banking in the Balance: Should Reform Be Incremental or Radical?

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BY JEAN-GABRIEL FERNANDEZ

ebate is raging as lawmakers are preparing to resolve their differences regarding the America COMPETES Act (HR 4521). This manufacturing bill includes the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Act, which has been a hot-button topic for years, and which would grant equal protections to state-legal marijuana businesses and the financial institutions that are currently unwilling to work with marijuana.

As the House passed the SAFE Act language but the Senate rejected it, despite approving the rest of the COMPETES Act, this difference must be resolved in a conference committee. Ahead of this, the American Bankers Association, representing banks and credit unions in every state, urged congressmen—in particular Republican senators, who are the major roadblock to the bill’s success—to pass the provisions of the SAFE Act. As they point out, the status quo of marijuana banking is not a sustainable solution.

“The inability of the state-licensed cannabis industry to access safe and regulated financial services is a pressing concern for so many of our nation’s communities and the banks that serve them. With state-licensed cannabis businesses currently operating in 37 states and more states weighing legalization, we urge you to include the SAFE Banking Act in the compromise version of the COMPETES Act to address these critical issues as quickly as possible,” the American Bankers Association wrote in defense of reform.

THE PROBLEM WITH MARIJUANA BANKING Currently, lawful cannabis businesses, which exist in states that legalized marijuana, are facing an enormous burden because of their products’ illegal status in the eyes of the federal government. Banks do not do business with entities that partake in illegal activities. If they accept to work with federally banned marijuana businesses—and some banks do, albeit very few—they

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are opening themselves up to liability and potentially extreme consequences as facilitators of drug trafficking. As such, tens of billions of dollars in regulated and taxed marijuana sales cannot be processed by banking institutions. It is not just banks, but also insurance companies, retirement funds and all financial institutions that refuse to touch cannabis money, no matter how licit.

Among other consequences, state-legal cannabis businesses often cannot accept anything other than cash payments. This can be seen even in marijuana-adjacent stores, such as ones selling delta-8 THC, a derivative product from the cannabis plant that can make you high but that is legal at both the state and federal levels; they are lumped in with businesses that deal in federally illegal but state-legal products.

As a result of this artificial chokepoint of cash, cannabis businesses are priority targets for robberies, especially armed robberies. It reduces safety in neighborhoods with cannabis stores. It makes it difficult to keep books, it makes it difficult to pay employees and contractors, it makes it difficult to pay rent, and it even makes it difficult to pay taxes. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) even publicly took the side of marijuana reform by launching a largescale effort to integrate marijuana businesses and by requesting swift action from Congress. Congress, naturally, failed to act.

In 2019, then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin explained that the IRS had to build “cash rooms” in IRS locations to contain the literal heaps of cash paid in taxes by cannabis businesses. This is an inconvenience as well as a significant security risk for IRS offices and workers, Mnuchin explained to Congress in another call to change. “I hope this is something that [lawmakers] can work with on a bipartisan basis, there are people on both sides of the aisle that share these concerns,” he said.

“The SAFE Banking Act is an urgently needed, and widely supported, bipartisan legislative solution to allow banks to handle the proceeds from state-licensed cannabis businesses and the accountants, skilled trades, landlords, law firms, and other service providers they rely upon for legal operations,” the American Bankers Association added to their statement. “Federal law prevents banks from banking cannabis businesses, as well as these ancillary businesses, without fear of federal sanctions. As a result, this industry is operating primarily in cash, which causes significant public safety concerns and undermines the ability of cannabis regulators, tax collectors, law enforcement and national security organizations to monitor the industry effectively.”

INCREMENTAL OR RADICAL SOLUTION? Superficially, given that some Republicans support it, one could assume that passing banking reform would be a mere formality.

Yet, the SAFE Act was passed by the House of Representatives repeatedly and always died without a decisive vote in the Senate.

The SAFE Act was passed in its current form by the House in 2019, then in 2020, then again in 2021, then again in 2022, but similar legislation was introduced by Rep. Ed Perlmutter every year since 2013.

While Perlmutter’s dedication to passing marijuana reform is admirable, it is not unanimous even among congressional Democrats who fight alongside him for drug reform. Among his opponents, you can count marijuana champion Cory Booker, who promised to block any narrow marijuana banking bill, and even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. While most of Schumer’s Democratic appointees who will serve as conferees for the COMPETES Act have vowed to defend SAFE banking legislation, Schumer himself has gone on record speaking against it.

Why oppose what appears to be a common-sense bill with no drawbacks? Specifically because it is one of very few aspects of marijuana reform that appeals to Republicans. The topic was broached during a recent meeting by the Council for Federal Cannabis Regulation. Reginald Babin, Chief Counsel to Chuck Schumer, defended the lack of enthusiastic support for banking reform by pointing out that reform can be radical, not just incremental, and that incremental reform “makes sense when it makes sense,” which is not always.

“The elephant in the room is that SAFE Banking has broad bipartisan support. I think that there is a real interest in both chambers to get it done,” said Amanda Kain, Chief of Staff of the Cannabis Caucus. In the same meeting, she pointed out that “there are different calculuses in both chambers, there are different considerations… At the end of the day, what we are all trying to do here is to get as much done as possible.”

That is the key: For Schumer, Booker and more lawmakers, opposing the SAFE Act is a strategic move with the same end goal as all other Democrats, which is cleaning off the stain that marijuana prohibition left on America itself.

Sen. Schumer himself is working on his own federal marijuana legalization plan, and he wants cannabis reform to be a priority of his Senate. But, by passing banking reform, which is largely bipartisan, a portion of cannabis reform enthusiasts fear that it would take the wind out of the sails of the larger legalization movement.

The current state of banking for state-legal marijuana is a catastrophe causing an ever-increasing amount of damage to people and businesses across the nation. Maintaining the status quo on banking will also put an ever-increasing pressure on Republicans to accept more concessions in order to finally pass banking reform. There is also fear that federal banking reform without federal legalization would open the doors to corporations who could use the SAFE Act to seize the legal weed market and leave Americans with less resources in the dust.

“To just do [banking reform] so some people can get rich and not do something about the people who are languishing with criminal convictions—to not do something on restorative justice, not to

make sure that the business opportunities that are created are given a fair playing field, where right now in many states, someone who has a criminal conviction for selling marijuana can’t get a license now, is unacceptable,” Cory Booker denounced.

“I don’t know about other members of the Senate, but I will lay myself down to do everything I can to stop an easy banking bill that’s going to allow all these corporations to make a lot more money off of this, as opposed to focusing on the restorative justice aspect.”

“I agree we need to get that banking bill done,” Booker clarified later, after receiving backlash for his first statement; but it must be done right, as a hook within a bill with a grander scope. “A good bipartisan bill like the banking bill is a necessary sweetener to get people to move along on the equitable justice elements that are really critical.”

If banking reform is passed alone and first, it would immediately lead to relief for many within the legal marijuana industry, but it could mean the difference between the passage or failure of legalization itself. To this end, Schumer and his camp are gambling on the success of the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity (CAOA) Act, which should be introduced before the end of the current session and include not just banking reform, but also common-sense reform of our drug laws and wide-reaching social justice provisions. Whether a piecemeal or a comprehensive approach works best, only the future can tell.

Jean-Gabriel Fernandez is a Milwaukee journalist with a Ph.D from the Sorbonne, France’s top university.

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HEAR ME OUT DEAR RUTHIE | SPONSORED BY UW CREDIT UNION

THINK OUTSIDE THE SHOT GLASS DEAR RUTHIE, I’m 23 and I’m already tired of the bar scene. My boyfriend is too. Any ideas on how a couple can find some fun in this town that doesn’t involve bars? For what it’s worth we’ve only been dating a few months, so we need some romantic time that doesn’t include a bartender!

THANKS,

Bored Benjamin

DEAR BENJI, You’re screwed. This is Milwaukee, and there’s a bar on every corner for a reason. (And that reason is that bars are friggin’ awesome!) But truly, honey, if bars aren’t your thing, there is plenty for a young couple to do in Cream City.

It’s not that hard, sweetie. Take a spin class or have a spa day. Set out to create the world’s best lasagna recipe together. Volunteer as a couple. Create your own tour of local galleries. Take up gardening together…or learn karate or line dancing. Try laser tag. escape rooms, hiking or biking.

You just need to think outside the shot glass. See my social calendar for even more ways have a good time in Milwaukee.

Then get out there and enjoy summer!

XXOO

Ruthie

Have a question for Ruthie? Want to share an event with her? Contact Ruthie at dearruthie@shepex.com.

Follow her on social media, too!

Facebook: Dear Ruthie | Instagram: RuthieKeester | Twitter: @DearRuthie

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DEAR RUTHIE BROUGHT TO YOU BY

Ruthie's Social Calendar JULY 8 CHARLI XCX AT BMO HARRIS PAVILION/SUMMERFEST (100 N. HARBOR DR.): The LGBTQ+ favorite brings her “Crash: The Live Tour” to Summerfest. Catch the popular British singer during her 7:30 p.m. concert but nab your ticket first at www.ticketmaster.com.

JULY 10 KENOSHA PRIDE MARCH AT LIBRARY PARK (711 59TH PLACE, KENOSHA): Keep the pride love flowing in July. Usher in the 10th anniversary of Kenosha’s pride celebration with a noon march. Arrive a half-hour early to make a sign or two to carry on the route (from Library Park to Veterans Memorial Park).

JULY 14 BASTILLE DAY WEST (5811 W, VLIET ST.): Immerse yourself in French culture with this street fair featuring food, beverages, fashions, a bike beret ride and French films. The 4-10 p.m. bash is a one-day-only event, so don’t miss it..

JULY 17 AUTHOR TALK: THE HISTORY OF MILWAUKEE DRAG AT SAINT KATE ARTS HOTEL (139 E. KILBOURN AVE.): Enjoy a lively 3 p.m. discussion when authors Michail Takach and B.J. Daniels talk about their new book. Learn about seven generations of glamor in our city during the one-hour talk. Tickets are free but be sure to register via www.saintkatearts.com.

JOAN JETT AND BLACKHEARTS AT AMERICAN FAMILY FIELD (1 BREWERS WAY): Celebrate one of the biggest names in rock as Joan Jett rides into Cream City for The Stadium Tour. The 4:30 p.m. concert also features Mötley Crew, Def Leppard and Poison. Get your tickets (starting at $84.50) at www.mlb/brewers.

JULY 19 OUT IN THE KITCHEN AT DISCOVERY WORLD (500 N. HARBOR DR.): The Wisconsin LGBT Chamber of Commerce hosts this 6-8 p.m. nosh-fest. Tickets start at $35 and can be purchased via the events area of www.wislgbtchamber.com. I’ll be there as a judge, so be sure to stop and say hello.

JULY 22 BARK AFTER DARK AT KONKEL PARK (5151 W. LAYTON AVE.): Grab your fur baby and make it a night to remember. Food, beverages, pet-related vendors, live music and more take the dog park to new heights. Join the 5-10 p.m. fun for free with your four-legged friends.

JULY 23 SUMMER MARKET AT STORY HILL FIREHOUSE (407 N. HAWLEY RD.): Shop, sip and snack your way through this 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. makers mart. Featuring local artists, crafters and others, the marketplace includes food for purchase as well as an area for leashed dogs.

JULY 26 RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE “WERQ THE WORLD TOUR” AT RIVERSIDE THEATER (116 W. WISCONSIN AVE.): Eight of RuPaul’s favorite entertainers are taking this city by storm. Get tickets to the 8 p.m. show at www.pabsttheatergroup.com. Seats start at $39.50.

JULY 30 BRADY STREET FESTIVAL AT BRADY STREET: One of Milwaukee’s favorite fests returns with this 11 a.m. to midnight bash. Three stages, dozens of entertainers, shopping, food, beer and more make it a highlight of summer. Catch me at the Brady Street Babes Drag Show at 10 p.m.

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OUTWORDS BOOKS, GIFTS AND COFFEE

Outwords Books Celebrates ‘Christmas in July’ and a Summer Reading List

BY PAUL MASTERSON

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ilwaukee’s Outwords Books, Gifts and Coffee (2710 N. Murray St.) is one of a scant dozen surviving LGBTQ-dedicated bookstores in the entire country and it’s about to celebrate its 29th anniversary. Proprietor Carl Szatmary, Cream City’s purveyor of fine LGBTQ literature, queer gifts and rainbow accessoires, recently announced the shop’s “Christmas in July” sale that takes place this month beginning on Thursday, June 8 and continuing to June 10.

On Saturday, June 9, Outwords offers holiday-themed refreshments and entertainment. The event comes as a result of a health crisis Szatmary experienced last December. Homebound due to health issues over the holidays, he relied on volunteers to keep the store running but they were only able to open a few days a week. “We have a lot of product left so we decided to do a fun, Christmas-themed event for our anniversary. It’s a long time to be open and we’ve been through it with a fire, a flood and other issues. People made the effort to keep us open and were really terrific,” Szatmary said.

SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE The occasion offers not only an opportunity to celebrate one of Milwaukee’s longest existing LGBTQ businesses but also to

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Photo by Michael Burmesch.

stock up on books for your summer reading pleasure. To that end Szatmary gave me a list of current LGBTQ titles covering a something-for-everyone spectrum of genres and subjects to choose from.

Starting with the perfect escape, Timothy Janovsky’s lighthearted rom-com Never Been Kissed finds protagonist Wren set on experiencing his first kiss before his 21st birthday and determined to make that a reality from his pool of crushes. It’s a perfect read for fans of Casey McQuiston’s Red, White and Royal Blue.

Speaking of whom, Szatmary recommends that author’s latest, I Kissed Sarah Wheeler, a lesbian coming of age novel set in a small Alabama town. In another romance, Brian O’Connell’s Just

by Looking at Him, protagonist Eliot, who endures cerebral palsy, searches for “the one,” and seemingly finds him in Gus, his indulgent boyfriend. Yet, Eliot can’t stop cheating.

Nghi Vo’s lesbian historical fiction novel Siren Queen tells the story of young aspiring actress Luli Wei, an industry outsider determined to be on the big screen no matter the cost. Andrew Holleran’s Kingdom of Sand (his first novel in 16 years) is an elegy to sex and a candid exploration of loneliness and the insatiable need for human connection.

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Liarmouth is the first novel by John Waters (yes, the John Waters).

As Szartmary enticingly describes it: “Marsha Sprinkle: Suitcase thief. Scammer. Master of disguise. Dogs and children hate her. Her own family wants her dead. She’s smart, she’s desperate, she’s disturbed, and she’s on the run with a big chip on her shoulder. They call her Liarmouth—until one insane man makes her tell the truth. … a perfectly perverted ‘feel-bad romance,’ and the reader will thrill to hop aboard this delirious road trip of riotous revenge.”

In the realm of introspection, picks include activist, producer, actor, model Nyle DiMarco’s Deaf Utopia, A Memoir—and a Love Letter to a Way of Life, a collection of stories, both heartbreaking and humorous, that reveal the author’s experience as a deaf gay man negotiating a world of the hearing; and Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality by pop-psychologist Julia Shaw, an exploration of the science of sexuality beyond gender and the binary.

Of course, histories are always compelling food for thought and insight into how we got here. Two are on Szatmary’s list. Jack Parlett’s Fire Island: A Century in the Life of an American Paradise, describes a utopian and exclusionary queer space on the Long Island coast, investigating its cultural significance over generations with a cast of characters that includes Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin and Patricia Highsmith. Bad Gays:

A Homosexual History, by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller, presents LGBTQ history through its villains, failures and baddies from Emperor Hadrian and Lawrence of Arabia to Irish rebel Sir Roger Casement, J. Edgar Hoover and lawyer Roy Cohn.

To those, I’ll add Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison by historian, activist and prison abolitionist Hugh Ryan. It presents the remarkable story of gender-queers, lesbians and transgender men incarcerated in a New York City jail. Then there’s a recent Outwords Men’s Book Club selection, Eric Cervini’s The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual vs. the United States. It traces U.S. government repression of gays and lesbians and the connection of gay rights activism to the Black Freedom Movement, the New Left, lesbian activism, and trans resistance.

(And, by the way, the Men’s Book Club is still going strong.)

For local lore, the just released History of Milwaukee Drag: Seven Generations of Glamor by drag icon BJ Daniels and Michail Takach chronicles Cream City drag from 1884 to the present.

No reading list would be complete without selections from the dusty bookshelf of the gay classics. My own first literary exploration of gayness, decades ago as a high school student, was inspired by Japanese author Yukio Mishima’s novels Temple of the Golden Pavilion and Confessions of a Mask. They should be on any bookworm’s must-reads.

Paul Masterson is an LGBTQ activist and writer and has served on the boards of the Milwaukee Gay Arts Center, Milwaukee Pride, GAMMA and other organizations.

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ART FOR ART'S SAKE

From The City That Always Sweeps

BY ART KUMBALEK

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’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? And cripes, can’t hardly believe it’s now the month of July 2022 already. Yeah, July, named after the Roman emperor guy Julius Caesar, to be placed as the seventh month on such-a-thing as the Julian and Gregorian calendars (don’t know if “July” made it to the ancient Roman hot-girl swimsuit calendar, I’ll check on that ’cause that’s what journalists these days do—check on stuff, what the fock).

So, yeah, big-shot Caesar got a whole month on our year-after-year calendar named after him in the 44 BCE, and in a brief time afterwards in that same year, got shivved and carved by blade to death by governmental representative-hot shots upon the Roman Senate floor. That had to hurt, I don’t care who you were.

Anyways, because it is that time of year, seems to me that the only thing people read are the directions on a can of bug spray. So what the fock, I’m declaring my independence from delivering a regular essay this month so as to dip into Artie’s Joke Satchel ’cause in the course of the oppressive and depressing human events these days, we could all use a smile, chuckle or laugh, ain’a? Let’s get to dipping, shall we?

death, so the family sent for his pastor. As the pastor stood beside the bed, Jerry’s frail condition grew worse, and he motioned desperately for something to write on. The pastor lovingly handed him a pen and piece of paper, and Jerry used his last ounce of strength to quickly scribble a note and then died.

The pastor thought it best not to look at the note just then, so he slipped it into his jacket pocket. Several days later, at the funeral, the pastor delivered the eulogy and realized he was wearing the same jacket he’d worn the day Jerry died.

“You know, Jerry handed me a note just before he passed,” the pastor said to the assembled. “I haven’t read it, but knowing Jerry, I would believe surely that it would contain a word of inspiration—a word of inspiration for us all.”

The pastor reached into his pocket, unfolded Jerry’s note and read aloud, “Help me! You’re standing on my oxygen tube, jackass!” Ba-ding!

How ’bout this one? A chicken and an egg are lying in bed. The chicken is smoking a cigarette with a satisfied smile on its face while the egg is frowning and seemingly very frustrated. The egg says icily, “Well! I guess that settles THAT question, ain’a?” Ba-ding!

How ’bout a family outing? So this guy takes his young son to see the dinosaurs at the museum. They were looking at some old bones and the boy asked a passing security guard if he had any idea how old the bones were. The guard said, “Those bones are 70 million, four years, and six months old.” The boy was impressed. He said, “How the heck do you know their age so exactly?” And the guard says, “You see, the dinosaur bones were 70 million years old when I started working here, and that was four and a half years ago.” Ba-ding!

How’s your health care situation? This guy named Jerry was in the hospital, near

And speaking of young sons: So there’s this gal who enjoys a gentleman’s compa-

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ny while her husband’s away at work. One day the husband comes home unexpectedly, wouldn’t you know, so she quickly hides her gentleman caller in the bedroom closet, not realizing that her 9-year-old son had already been camped out in the closet during the boudoir proceedings.

The boy says, “Dark in here.” The man says, “Yes, it is.” Boy says: “I have a baseball.”

Man says: “That’s nice.” Boy: “Want to buy it?” Man: “No thanks.” Boy: “My dad’s outside.” Man: “OK, how much?” Boy: “$250.”

A few weeks later, it so happens that the boy and his mom’s gentleman again find themselves together in the closet.

The boy says, “Dark in here.” The man says, “Yes, it is.” Boy says: “I have a baseball glove.” Man says: “Let’s cut to the chase.

How much?” Boy: “$750.” Man: “Fine.”

Now it came to pass that a few days later the father asks his young son if he’d like to grab his ball and glove, go outside and play catch. The boy, of course, says he can’t because he’s sold them. The father asks for how much and the boy replies, “$1,000.” The father admonishes the lad that it’s sinful to overcharge his friends in the way that he did and that, as a consequence, he would take the boy to church to confess his transgression.

And so they go to St. Stanislaus and the boy enters the confessional. Boy says, “Dark in here.” Priest says, “Listen, don’t start up with that shit again.” Baring-a-ding-ding!

Okey-doke, hope you had/have a frothful Fourth ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.

Photo by Perseomed/Getty Images.