Lisa Doerr Talks CAFO's And Getting Scammed At The Holidays (Hour 2)

From the Civic Media Radio Network, moving Wisconsin forward, one joke at a time.

This is As Goes Wisconsin with Kristen Brott.

Now, filling in for the new mom, here's Jane Mattenair.

Good morning and welcome to As Goes Wisconsin.

Thank you so very much for joining us.

We got Calvin on the board.

Greg Bach is with me in studio and you can always chime in at text or call at 844-967-2789-844-96 party.

Our special guest this morning, and I'm so pleased that she's able to join us.

Lisa Dorr is our guest and I want to properly introduce you.

But Lisa, we were turned on to you by another listener who said heard a different interview we had done

about K-Fos and said we should talk to you.

Lisa Dorr is a proud part of Wisconsin's family farm tradition.

She and her husband produce Haye in Pope County.

Lisa cannot hear me.

Lisa cannot hear us.

All right, let's see if we can figure out what the problem is.

All right, hang on one second, Lisa Gregg is going to send you the telephone number.

Yes, Lisa and her husband produce Haye in Pope County for family-owned livestock producers.

Over the last five years, Lisa has organized and educated residents of Polk and Bernat counties

about the impacts of large-scale corporate agriculture facilities can have on the community.

Lisa has spearheaded numerous efforts to develop more protective regulations.

After local residents learned in 2019 about an Iowa-based company that planned to build a massive

facility that would house up to 26,000, 26,000 hogs.

It's a pretty remarkable thing that's going on and this is not happening just in Wisconsin.

This is happening in Iowa.

This is happening in many different agriculture communities around the country.

And it's a big, it's a big problem.

844-967-2789.

Lisa shared several articles with me about this.

This one is from an online source called The Grist.

The small community of Laketown, Wisconsin, has just over 1,000 people in 18 lakes.

And now it's at the center of a battle over these K-Fos.

Laketown is just a half an hour from the Minnesota border.

And it's the target of a lawsuit supported by the state's biggest business lobbying group,

which claims the town board overstepped its role to stop an ordinance to prevent pollution

from these K-Fos. Lisa, can you hear me now?

I sure can.

Thank you so much for joining us.

I'm really pleased to have you with us.

And what you're doing is.

Well, I'm honored to be here.

What you're doing is so important and some of these articles that you shared with me

are really kind of shocking.

There is one from the Storm Lake Times pilot, which is in Iowa.

And this is from November 8th of this year from Art Cullen.

The article is called Something Is A Miss in Iowa.

And it essentially talks about how big agriculture is able to force through these large-scale

feeding operations in these smaller communities.

And these smaller communities don't necessarily want them, right?

Well, I think Iowa is probably most of your listeners at some point have driven

through Iowa or Smell-Diowa.

And in fact, you may have even smelled Iowa a couple of weeks ago.

The South Wind was blowing so strong that everybody in the Minneapolis St. Paul area,

in my farm, which is like 70 miles north of Minneapolis, we could smell it too,

so that it's just massive, huge farms that have 30, 40,000 pigs in them,

huge numbers of cattle, obviously millions of chickens.

And they just destroy the local economy.

And that's what we've been working on here is in Northwestern Wisconsin.

We have like an intact food production system.

We actually have a lot of middle-class farmers producing really high-quality protein,

beef and lamb and chickens.

And we actually have six family-owned processors who take that meat and sell it for retail and wholesale.

So what you got in Iowa is these big, giant processors, like owned by Smithfield,

which is Chinese-owned, owned by JBS out of Brazil, and they are just a giant sucking sound.

They're just always looking for more animals.

And they want to basically colonize our farms, throw us off the land and take literally thousands

and thousands of acres and spread millions and millions of gallons of manure on it.

So it's a very vibrant discussion.

I guess we could say.

It's not as vibrant as talking about Christmas trees.

True, true.

Yes, but we're not going to have enough land to raise Christmas trees.

If everything is being covered, if everything is drowning in manure,

it's hard to sometimes lease it to wrap your head around the numbers.

When we talk about 26,000 pigs or 56,000 cattle and the amount of manure that they produce,

it's mind-boggling.

Yeah, they are real numbers.

I know in Doerr County and Kiwani County,

there's a dairy in Kiwani County that's spreading on 16,000 acres of land.

It's over half of a town.

They're spreading on.

What's interesting is they claim that it's efficient and makes cheap protein,

but this is all just market-driven.

I mean, you guys saw it during the pandemic, right?

The price of meat went up.

Why?

Because the market would pay it.

They're not more efficient.

They're just dumping their manure on the rest of us taking all of our land.

The numbers are very large.

I really am not making them up.

They really are that big.

And the fact that you could smell manure coming from Iowa, north of Minneapolis,

is astonishing.

It was actually on the Twin Cities TV station.

And they've actually had times when the north wind is blowing,

and it blows down that, you know, St. Louis or Kansas City, too.

But the other thing is that it leaks a large amount of pollution into people's wells.

And everybody in our town, all the animals and all the people get their water from wells.

So if you guys know Kiwani County and Doerr County,

you know, those places have, literally have manure coming out of their faucets.

And we don't really want to go there.

No, we would prefer not to go there.

So Lisa, what are, how do we, how do we fight back against this?

How do we fight back against these huge companies that want to force this agenda?

Yeah, I'm really proud of that.

And I think it's really a Wisconsin story about what we've been able to do here.

Basically, the big ag controls Congress at the national level, even under Biden.

You've got this Secretary of Agriculture who's pushing big ag, Mr. Vilsack,

who basically invented Iowa.

And then at the state level, there's only, you know, all they need is 67 people,

and they've got more than that at the state level.

So what we're doing is organizing at the town level.

You know, and the towns are six foot squares laid out by Jefferson.

You know, when, when he bought the Louisiana purchase,

so we have six foot square, six mile square towns, and we're organizing at the town level.

That's what we're doing.

One of these articles that you should, and if you're just joining us,

Lisa Dorr is our guest.

We're talking about CAFOs, these controlled animal feeding operations,

which are all over the country very much so in the Midwest.

And this push for farmers to get bigger and have more animals,

and produce more pigs and cows and everything.

One of the articles you shared with me, though,

said that a township got sued because they were trying to fight against these CAFOs.

CAFOs.

Oh, yes, oh, yes.

They love to sue towns.

They, that's one of their favorite things.

They do, they like to scare the towns that they're going to sue them,

so that, so that they can scare the guys off.

But what we have is, we are, we do have one of our towns in Uriqa

is being sued by the biggest companies.

And, you know, these aren't farms.

These are factories, okay?

So they're being sued by the Wisconsin manufacturers and commerce,

which is the Chamber of Commerce.

They're being sued by the guys who run factories.

But we have two of the biggest law firms in Minneapolis

who are defending the town pro bono.

And I hate to bring up Minneapolis because it's not Wisconsin.

But we are right on the board.

Sure, yeah, of course.

Between, we're only 50 miles, 60 miles, you know, from Minneapolis.

Yeah.

So we have two big law firms that actually have representation in Madison too.

But it's sending us, and we believe that we have local power

to protect our water and our people.

And that it's in the Wisconsin Constitution and it's actually in statute.

And so our, this lot legal team is ready to go.

We'll go to the Supreme Court if it has to.

Lisa, you and your husband are farmers.

You are hay farmers in Wisconsin.

I'm curious what you hear from, from other farmers.

Regarding this issue.

Yeah, it's a very, yeah, it's a very divisive issue.

And I think if you, if you read anything about Iowa, you'll see that too.

These big, giant factories try to come in and say they're farms.

But they're really not.

They're factories.

They're owned by people who don't live here.

The workers are almost all, you know, undocumented workers.

They won't let them have driver's license.

So they're basically like enslaved on these places.

They're not allowed to leave.

And so most of, you know, it's a very contentious debate.

It's basically, you know, the farm bureau telling everyone

that this will end farming as we know it.

But we have five towns that have passed this ordinance.

And we just keep plugging away.

If people are listening and they would like to get involved,

what could you recommend?

Where should they go?

Who should they talk to?

Well, the best place to go right now is protect your, protectyourtown.org.

So it's a great website that we have going with a lot of resources.

That's protectyourtown.org.

And, you know, take a look at that.

And we'd love to work with more people

if they're interested in protecting their town.

It's just such a, it's so critically important.

And it's not going away anytime soon.

And again, it's, this affects all of us, you guys.

We all need water.

Yep.

We all need clean water.

And thank you for what you're doing,

what you're doing, what you do.

Lisa Doerr, she and her husband,

a farm in Northwestern, Wisconsin,

and trying to bring education to people around the state,

regarding these CAFOs,

these controlled animal feeding operations.

Thank you so very much for joining us, Lisa.

If there's anything that you're working on

that you want to let us know about,

please just give us a shout out

and we will have you back on.

Stay with us.

When we come back, you'll be listening to Asgos, Wisconsin.

You're listening on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Emily Joseph.

Sixth party Lisa door was just here. She and her husband farm in Northwestern Wisconsin.

They're north of Minneapolis. And she's very involved in trying to educate people about

these KFOs, these controlled animal feeding operations. We have a text from Lynn in

a condom walk. Lynn says my granddaughter ran track and cross country for Campbell's porch in

your high school. So we would end up driving on weekends to rural areas when heading from

Mekwan to Fondaleck. I followed a semi that just reeked. I had no idea what it was hauling,

but then I assumed that the farms had just maneuvered their fields. So again, Lisa was talking about

how the fact that at the beginning of the month, again, keep in mind, she lives north of Minneapolis

about 60 miles. They could smell the manure coming from Iowa. That is crazy to me. It's the fact

that someone could pinpoint it too. And we like that. That's where it's coming from.

It's coming from a long distance away. Yeah. It's, uh, it's just not good. So if you ever

want to check in about anything, eight, four, four, nine, six, seven, two, seven, eight, nine,

eight, four, four, nine, six party, switching gears a little bits. You found a really interesting app.

Okay. So if you don't know me, folks, if you're not watching the live stream, I am what experts call

a dork. I am. I'm a dork. I found a website. And this is purely for fun. You can share it with

your kids. You can look at it by yourself. It's family friendly. It's full of great information.

If you go to a website called dinosaur pictures.org. Now if you have opinions on dinosaurs on

their validity, I don't care right now. We're having fun. Okay. Dinosaur pictures.org.

Dinosaur pictures.org. This is how I know they weren't expecting it to be like a,

a thing because it's actually dinosaur pictures.org.

forward slash ancient dash earth. Pound sign 240. What will happen when you go to the website?

And I'll put this on the show. Okay. Because no one is, no one's going to, I will,

I won't remember that. If you don't remember that, I'm just too late. So what is it? It takes you

to a website that looks like Google Earth. Okay. And you can enter. And so Jane, give me your zip code.

5 3 2 1 0. 5 3 2 1s. All right. So we're going to go.

Oh, no information on your city. Sorry. Your city wasn't important. It does not exist.

All right. Well, let's go to, I'll go to mine. 5 3 1 4. This is not working. This worked

last week. So essentially what you do is you put your zip code in. Yes. It takes you to that area

of earth. And then what you can do is you can choose anywhere from 20 million to 750 million years

ago. And it will tell you what's been going on at that time in that area that you live in.

So it'd be great if, if, if a, let's, let's just give it a, let's just try something similar,

a simple Milwaukee one. Okay. Apparently nothing, nothing is registering. Yeah. So, but, man,

I'm going to blame Calvin. Why not? I know. I would never do that. He didn't. He didn't know

what's going on. But it's a, I don't know. I know you were all, you were all excited about this

last week. It's a wonderful, wonderful website. And I feel like you can really learn a lot because

it's just, it's very simple. It's not, there's, there's nothing political about. There's nothing

religious about it. It's just like, Hey, 250 million years ago. This is what your hometown looked

like. This is what your hometown is. It was covered in ice. There were dinosaurs. No,

they're not dinosaurs anymore. And it's really fun. And that's like, am I a dork for loving

simple fun? Yes, I am. But I feel like it's the kind of fun I wanted to pass along to individuals.

I don't, I don't think that's dorky at all. I think that's really pretty cool. So I'd like to ask

a question of those listening, eight, four, four, nine, six, seven, two, seven, eight, nine, eight,

four, four, nine, six party. You, are there any cool websites like this? They're like,

information, but fun and cool. Like, did you like to share with people that you were, you know,

that was just entertain you. Get you off the TikTok and the Instagrams and the Fachi books and

you can sit down with your kids. Yeah. I mean, like, hey, let's look up, let's look up where grandma lives

and let's see what was happening when she was born 75 million years ago. You know what?

Sometimes I'm going for a joke and I'm going to say that joke and you just, you just steal every

word out of my mouth. I'm sorry. No, you're not. No, actually, I'm not. So let's look up when

Jane was born. That was 200 million years ago. I just want to find a city that actually works

so that's the problem. It worked great. Can you put in just the name of like New York?

Let's try it. Will it, will it, will it take that or Chicago?

Ancient. But again, it's got to be interesting because the, I mean, the tectonic plates were

different back then. It was an entirely, it was an entirely different glow. And that's the

thing is when you, and it shows you, that's the other thing too. It shows you what Earth looked

like at that point. So you go back 750 million years ago. It's pangea. It's one, it's all the

continents put together. Right. And you see this, this slow and subtle breakup of the continents.

And that's what's really cool. So let's try New York. New York. Oh, look at they, I don't know

what I'm talking like that. And I do know I 240 million years ago. That's the early tri tri

asick. Early triassic period. Oxygen levels are significantly lower due to the extinction of

many land plants, many corals went extinct, with reefs taking millions of years to reform,

small ancestors to birds, mammals and dinosaurs survive the pangea super continent. It's so cool.

If you have someone who would geek out about this, and I'm sure you know someone who will geek

out about this, make sure you check the show. Now it's after the show is over. We will include all

the links to everything that we've talked about today, including the link to this website that

has Greg. So very, very, very exciting. And we can be best friends.

Within whoever you think would like this, we'll be best friends in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Got it.

I typed in the name of the city. Very smart. Okay. As opposed to the, as opposed to the zip code.

Yes. Late Cambrian seven, 500 million years ago, almost half a billion years ago.

Wow. The ocean is teaming with life following a dramatic expansion of animal diversity in the

sea known as the Cambrian explosion. The forms of some animals show ancestry to modern animals,

jawless fish. The first vertebrates appear. Who's not excited about that? I am super excited.

Absolutely. Eight, four, four, nine, six, seven, two, seven, eight, nine, eight, four, four,

nine, six party. If you want to call in and or text. And again, we will get everything in the show

notes so you can geek out just like Greg. Did you take biology or anything when you were in college?

Here's the weird thing you think that I did take. Well, no, I did take biology. I wasn't very good

when I was in high school at it. I didn't have the inflamed need of knowledge that I do now.

Isn't that interesting? If I went back to high school, now I'd be a straightaway student.

I get a lot of looks, but I'd be a straightaway student. I feel you with that. I really do because I

had I took I took a geology and a couple other courses in college that I just dropped out of

because I was lazy. And now I wish now I wish I could go back and do it all over again.

Yeah. Exactly. And by the way, just as a really quick aside, don't say that you're not good at

math and science. People believe that stuff. I was like, oh, my brain is I'm just not good at.

Right. No, you can be good at you. Just didn't learn it the way you need to learn it.

Because everybody learns because you're smart. That's a that's a very that's a smart.

That's a very good point. Thank you very much, Greg. You're welcome. All right. When we come back,

it is Cyber Monday. Lots of people shopping for lots and lots of deals. Yep. You also need to

be aware of a couple of scams that are going around. We will share that with you coming up next.

Stay close. You're listening to Asgos Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Good morning. Welcome to Asgos, Wisconsin. Jane Metmare in for Kristen

Brie. Alvin's on the board. Greg Bach is with me in studio. And you can always chime in.

Either call or text today. 444-967-2789-844-96. Party. Shout out to people listening and lacrosse today.

On the Eagle WLCX and also in Wisconsin Rapids on WFHR. It is Cyber Monday. Of course,

we had Thanksgiving that we had Black Friday. Small business Saturday. Second hand Sunday. Wow.

Today's Cyber Monday when all kinds of good deals are available online. Here is our question

for you this morning. Are you shopping for yourself or are you shopping for Christmas presents?

Because I know the answer. Because you are the one who brought this up. It's pretty much people

are buying 70-inch televisions for their own basements. Yeah, exactly. You're not buying it for your

mama. Is anybody actually buying Christmas gifts today? Or are you just looking for deals for yourself?

There's no shame in that. I'm looking for a deal for myself on a snowblower because I need a

snowblower. It's not like I'm buying myself a car. But yeah, it's also due to the fact that nobody

in my family has given me a list. Oh, that's tough. You don't want to, yeah, and you don't want to,

no, I'm not, you don't want to get the wrong thing. I'm not taking a chance on those people.

I'll kind of receive some cash. If you want to check in 844-967-2789-844-9630, are you shopping for

yourself today on Cyber Monday or are you actually shopping for Christmas gifts? If you are shopping

online, as always, there are risks. Yes. You want to be careful where you're going. So according

to the better business bureau, here are some tips for you to follow on this Cyber Monday. Be

aware of false advertising and phony websites. If a company is selling the hottest item of the year

at a price that is too good to be true, it is probably too good to be true. I almost got taken on a

website selling Lego one year. Oh, no kidding. They were like, oh, these Legos are 82% off and my

friends that go ahead and buy one. I dare you to find all of the pieces. And so you didn't order.

I didn't order. Of course not. No, because as soon as he said that, I'm like, oh, this is a scam.

What is the hot item this year? I don't, because it used to be, you know, furbies and

cabbage patch kids. And is there, is there, it does that exist anymore? There's the one hot thing

that everybody wants. Do you have younger siblings? Younger than I am, but not that young.

Okay. So you don't know the hot toy for this year? No. Okay. Yeah. I don't, I don't, well,

I'm just looking here. I'm just going to, I'm going to go back to the labs here at Asco's

Wisconsin scientific laboratories and stuff. Yep. So you want to watch out for false advertising

closely monitor the web address in your browser. Scammers like to create look alike websites that when

you first look at it, it appears to be, you know, it looks like target or it looks like it burns

a novel. But you want to make sure double check that the website has the correct business name

spelling with legitimate contact information and customer service numbers.

Just imagine I got you the shamerican girl doll. Shamerican. Yes. You're in a love it. It's

off, it's slightly off brand. You want to shop with trustworthy sellers on secure sites. Only be

where businesses you are not familiar with. You can always go to bbb.org and plug in the name of

this business. You also want to make sure that any web page you're buying from is secure. So

that means it will, it will begin. The web address will begin with HTTPS. Yes. Not just HTTPS.

I have that asked to be secure. Maybe it has to be secure. So you never want to put personal or

credit card information on any form on a non secure web page. And I will repeat a story that

happened to me a couple of years ago. No, last year. I, you know, and that's your thing is not

just the websites of companies you're buying stuff from shipping sites, USPS, UPS, FedEx, Amazon.

I, I remember this. I got a text message from quote unquote the USPS United States Postal Service

that and I had ordered something that was being shipped. It said, we need your updated information.

There was a problem. And I just woken up. The text had woken me up, looked at rubbing my eyes.

Yep. I have. I'm expecting a package. I clicked right through. I put my credit card information.

Oh, dear. All my information in there in about 10 minutes. Just something popped in my brain.

Like, wait a minute. That doesn't seem right. And I looked and I saw the website. And it was just

gibberish. Really? So I got my car. I spent in my credit union. I told them,

cancel this card immediately. Can you please tell me if there's been any charges in the past hour.

There were none. Luckily, it was a big, big, you know, wipe the brow. Yeah.

situation. But you will not get text messages from any of those groups asking you for information.

If there is any sort of problem with shipping, they will reach out to directly through customer

service. Always check email addresses. Yep. But be mindful because they just, they'll get your

phone number from anywhere. And they will just be like, Hey, I mean, if you look at my junk text

message, I'd say half of them are from groups that are trying to get my information for quote-unquote

shipping. Yeah. According to today.com, this is the only one agreement definitive answer.

The Barbie 2023 Dreamhouse basically off the back of the popular film. It's huge.

Made with pet lovers in mind, the Dreamhouse includes a puppy slide and pool pet elevator and pet

palace complete with puppy. I mean, this is for dogs. There's a Barbie house just for dogs that

would not surprise me in the league. 75 accessories on the tallest slide in the Barbie Dreamhouse ever.

Wow. Yeah. So that's what that's the hot ticket, the big ticket item for this year.

You know what I want for Christmas, everybody. Just I'll take two. You want the Barbie Dreamhouse? Why not?

Okay. Cyber Monday, big shopping day. Be careful. Better business bureau out with a list

of ways you can protect yourself as you're spending some money today. I am terrible at this,

and I admit it to keep your antivirus software up to date. Yeah. I find that all very confusing.

How do you mean? Which is the best security server system for your laptop?

I mean, honestly, like you're generally going to get installed. It'll be on there for like 30 days

and you should be standing. You should be fine. They usually come with guarantees. McAfee is usually

the one that everyone. McAfee and Norton, I think are the only two. Are those the only two?

They're the two biggest in my opinion. And like the computer I run on has always got McAfee on it.

But yeah, it's McAfee's kind of crazy. That guy is crazy pants. That's what I. Yeah. But John McAfee. Yep.

But at the end of the day, you know, you I want to get with the best with the best service that does,

you know, the most protection. Exactly. So just I think you can download now. It's like

subscription based thing like everything is nowadays. But yeah, it's important to protect that

computer. This computer is not no longer protected, but it's a work computer. So not my problem.

Yeah. Well, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. Everybody. I was joking. Not necessarily the right

attitude to have a couple of other recommendations from the better business bureau. Take advantage of

rewards and loyalty programs. Use your credit card. Well, don't you have to use your credit card if

you're buying something online. I can't mail them cash. It's always best to make online purchases

with your credit card. If there are any shape charges later, you can contest them through your

credit card company debit card versus debit. Yeah. Yeah. Don't use a debit card. If you're buying

online today for Cyber Monday, you want to use your credit card. Because again, if there's

anything sneaky that shows up a little bit later on, at least you can call your credit card

company. But if it's a debit card, it's gone. Well, I mean, sometimes you know, it's not always,

you're not always up a creek. But yeah, it's going to be much easier. It does make more sense

to use a credit card. Yeah, it'll be much easier if you use your credit card as opposed to a debit

card. Better business bureau also says understand return policies. Online policies might change for

Cyber Monday offers. Yeah. So read the fine print. If you can actually find a magnifying glass

large enough to help you read the fine print. Understand the return or exchange policy. The

where stores may not allow returns for final sale or close out items and make sure you get a gift

receipt, which is always a good idea. Yeah, I get to see just smart. Just always ask for a gift

receipt. You can get that from Amazon. They'll send that to you in the box and whatnot.

Yeah. And it just makes it nice. Yeah. It's if people want to exchange it, you want to give them

something that they want to use, right? Yeah. I've never had a problem with people returning or

exchanging things that I've given them. No, unless it's like something specific,

they were like, like, this is the thing I want. You know, I don't care. It's, it's your life.

It's your gift. Yeah. Once you've given it, it is up to you to do with what you will.

Exactly. Yes. Exactly. Better business bureau. Also warning, watch out for fishing scams,

busy schedules and increasing purchases make it easier to miss a fishing scam.

So be aware of, as you had just mentioned, Greg, unsolicited emails, texts, calls, letters.

The messages might claim you have a gift waiting for you or there's a problem with delivery.

All you need to do is click on a link and give up your personal information, avoid fishing scams

by ignoring suspicious correspondence and calls from unfamiliar phone numbers. And I would just

really urge anyone who has an elderly relative. Yeah. Yeah. Please talk to them about not answering

numbers they don't recognize. I mean, I think so much could, so many problems could be avoided.

But my generation and older, you answered the phone. You always answered the phone when it rang.

There was never you the phone rang you picked it up. Yeah. That's just what you did.

Hello. And I think again, for, for people who are older, that is still ingrained.

This might be important. What if I miss, you know, what if I miss something? What if it's an

important call? They'll, they'll leave a message. Grab a Gertrude. It's never important. No one,

nothing that's important, never calls. They send you an email. Do you really think so?

I know. I think that, um, yeah, actually, because most times like you, you, you, you call a

thing for customer service, they want you to email them, especially in the, in the realm of

paper trails. Right. So they can go back and I mean, I think maybe hospitals, but you know if

a hospital is calling you. Most of the time. Yeah. Like, I just think it's best just to lay off

the phone. Get, get rid of the landline, give her, or him, whomever give them a cell phone,

pump it in with the numbers they need to know and anybody who's not in that list, don't answer.

Yeah. It's, it's just a real good thing to, again, impress upon your, your elderly relatives.

Yeah. And if it's that important, they'll leave a message. Exactly. They'll, they'll leave

the message. Exactly. And the other thing you can do to better business bureau, look for the BBB

seal, Greg Bach. I just call them. It's a sign of the better business bureau shop with confidence

today, choosing businesses that prioritize the better business bureau. And if you want to look

this over, go to BBB dot org. And it will be right there for you. We have a real quickly Fred

from Cottage Grove is on the line. Good morning, Fred. Thank you for joining us.

Good morning on those phone calls. I've been getting a lot of them too. And you pick it up,

you say hello. And then there's a pause. Well, I, I says hello. And then I say, who's calling?

And then they'll give a name or some place. Then you just hang up. But do not ever say yes. Yep.

Yep. We talked about that. Not too long ago, Fred, because if you, if they say,

hi, is this Fred? And you say yes, they can use that yes to approve purchases, right, Fred?

That's right. That's why normally I just, when, if there's a pause, when they say hello,

AI says hello, I just hang it up. Yep. Don't even bother.

And this is something that we're going to have to be even more careful of as AI continues to get

better. Yep. As far as scam phone calls. Thank you so much for calling, Fred. Really appreciate it.

I saw testimony from me. He is a lawyer who is testifying before a congressional committee

about a call that he got that sounded like exactly like his son, claiming he had been in an

accident. He had been arrested because he had crashed his car. It was a terrifying exchange

trying to send him this father to a place where he had to wire money to get his son out of jail.

So this is, this is going to be a longstanding thing that we're just going to have to be very

savvy of because it's only going to continue to get better and do the most basic protections,

which is don't answer your, like, like, don't answer calls. You don't recognize. If it's that

important, they will leave the message. Yep. The text messaging to check the phone number. Yep.

Like, yeah, it's, I've been attempted a couple of times. Now I'm, yeah, you got to be careful.

Yep. All right. Stay with us when we come back. Remembering Marty Croft and HR puffing stuff.

I can't be the only one who remembers that show. Maybe I am 844-967-2789-844-960 party. We'll

be right back. You're listening to Asgos Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Good morning. Welcome to Asgos Wisconsin.

Welcome to Asgos Wisconsin.

Hey, I'm just tuning in and I don't know if someone has said this yet or not, but you know,

they can make their phone look like it's someone that you know that's calling you as well.

For instance, I got a call that said MGE, MGE, and they said they were sitting in front of our

apartment building and they were going to turn off the electricity. They had an order to turn off

the electricity and I just needed to give them a debit card and that's here right here in Madison

and Pittsburgh. Jill, that's terrifying. And so, and also the bank, you know, we have several banks

in town and all the banks are sending us text messages and emails saying, you know, if you get

a text or an email, it might even say that it's your bank. You don't open it, don't answer it,

hang up if you do and call the number that you have stored in your phone or the number that you

know is the number to your bank or go to your bank and say, did you call me regarding this?

Because there's a lot of legitimate things that people are copying now. Like, you know,

text, yes, if you made this transaction, text, no. And this was just the story on one of the

TV stations a couple of weeks ago where the girl lost like $2,000 because she didn't recognize

the transaction, of course, because it was fraud, but it wasn't even her bank contacting her.

Wow. And they scammed her out of that was I think, I can't remember what channel it was on,

but you can check the, you know, the network channels within the last couple of weeks. So yeah,

don't even answer, don't respond, don't do anything unless you know that you are talking

to a legitimate person from a number that you either looked up online or had stored in your phone

because they can copy it. Yeah, you make a really, really good point, Jill, when, when they called

claiming that they were going to cut your power off, what did you do? Well, here's the thing,

we had a closing about a week before that to sell that property. And so when they called and said

we're shutting it off, I said to myself, oh, there's some mistake because they're trying to put it

in the other guy's name that just, that just bought the property. But no, it was, it was a scam.

I called it, I hung up. I said, I'll call MGN myself, called MGN and they were like, no, we're not

there to turn off your power. Nobody's sitting out there. It's a scam, but it said MGN on my phone

when they called me. But I think too, Jill, I think a real good indication that this was a scam

was them asking you for your debit card over the phone, right? Sure. Yeah. Oh, you didn't make

your payment. Well, you know what? We're on automatic payments. But I just thought it was weird

because we had just sold the building and then they called us to shut off the power. So I don't know

if they got, you know, word from the register of these or I don't know. I really don't know.

Well, I really appreciate your calling and sharing that. You make excellent, excellent points.

Thank you so very much. 844-967-2789-844-96 party. If you want to check in, and again,

we were talking about scams from the Better Business Bureau. I'm still really curious on whether or

not anyone is shopping for gifts today or if we're actually just all shopping for ourselves.

I also think that cyber Monday isn't that much of a thing anymore because we buy so much online.

So there was a time when you did go to target or coals on the weekend, if not Black Friday,

and then Monday, I'll stay in, I'll get cozy. Everyone works and everyone shops online,

anyways, it's not a big deal. Yeah, you're probably right. Not a big deal as it used to be.

A little housekeeping, you had asked for a cool apps that people like. Cool apps. Cool apps,

nerd apps. And I don't think this is nerdy at all. I'm here to recognize this. Patrick

from Watertown texted and listening in Madison. Merlin, the free birding app that our friend,

David Drake has shared with us. You mean your boyfriend? My bird boyfriend. You can just take

a picture or a sound recording of a bird and then use the app and it can identify the bird. It's

so cool. Any reason to have a bird. Cool. Cool. Cool. We're also going to talk about Marty Croft.

Oh, you know, you did that thing that people your age and older do. You're like,

you're not going to know who this is. I'm taking it back in my day. And we're not,

we had it your puff and stuff. They're not that far apart, Nate. That's true. And I grew up when

there were only about 20 channels. So there was a lot of reruns. Most of my childhood is

stocked with images in my head of TV shows that were canceled at least 15 years before I started

watching that. Interesting. So I never thought about you. Leave it to bevers. Your Donna reads HR

puff and stuff. Land of the law. All those shows were all canceled, but they needed content.

So they put reruns on. So I have a very good recollection of the nightmare that is HR puff and

stuff. It was such a weird show. Yeah. So Marty Croft passed away over the weekend. He was 86

years old. Marty instant croft TV producers who who liked to land of the lost was another one.

But HR puff and stuff. I remember distinctly. Yeah. Because that was right in my age group.

And was it it was Jack Wilde? Yes. Who was who was the boy? I had a huge crush on him. Of course,

he was he was the artful doctor in in Oliver. Mm hmm. But that was the weirdest show on television.

And I think it would still remain among one of the weirdest shows on television.

They were actually asked sit and Marty Croft were asked whether or not they were doing acid when

they did that TV show. Because it was so weird. And they believe they said no, they said no.

And I just love that there were two people or whomever. How many people who were so confident in

what they were doing saying, this is what we're imagining. This is what we're putting on television.

And we're pretty sure people are going to love it. And kids, it defined kids Saturday morning.

Saturday mornings. It led to people becoming animation artists of filmmakers because like

those wild images influenced them to make wilder images and so on and so forth. And I just

love the idea. And it's also based on this wholesome. It's like, I wish we wanted to do something fun.

It was kind of crazy. But it was fun. Me and my brother. Oh, how cute. And sit Croft is still alive.

Yeah, I was honest. That's what else I told you was. I thought they were both dead already. No,

no, I said Croft is still alive. I think he's in his 90s. But if you want to blow your mind,

just go to YouTube and put in HR puff and stuff. And I just have to say I didn't realize until I

was reading about about Marty Croft's passing that HR puff and stuff is supposed to be a dragon.

Yeah, because that's the worst looking dragon I've ever seen in my entire life.

You know, let's get out of here. I guess it was fantasy. Exactly. It doesn't matter.

Let me know I am not the only one who remembers that totally, totally weird television program.

All right. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for listening. Stay tuned for the news.

Coming up next, followed by the Todd Alba show right here on the Civic Media Radio Network.