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Welcome, welcome back to Civic Media, mid mornings here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
My name is Greg Bach.
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We have take it or leave it super bowl edition with senior producer Tucker.
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And then we wrap it all up with a handy tip from.
Greg, Dom is in Madison right now on the ones and twos.
Good morning, Dominic.
How are you today?
Can I call you Dominic or do you prefer Dom?
All right.
All right.
Thank you.
I was going to make a joke there, but I couldn't think of anything in the moment.
I'm
at improv.
I apologize.
All right.
But yeah, still great show.
Great programming still ahead today.
Always love having you around.
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We love hearing from you regardless because you are sharing your time.
And speaking of sharing their time, we're very excited to welcome our next guest to the show.
She is a science fiction writer from St.
Paul, Minnesota.
Her next book called Obstetrics is coming out in June.
Please welcome to the show Naomi Kritzer.
Good morning, Naomi.
How are you today?
Hi,
Vine.
How are you?
I'm doing well.
Thank you so much for being here.
I'm happy to be here.
Excellent, excellent.
Now, before we get into it, I was talking about it earlier, what you have been doing in the St.
Paul Twin Cities area to get folks informed and outside of the area as well with regard to the ICE occupation, as well as what I saw here too, your infamous election guide, which I truly, truly love.
Give me a little backstory on you.
As I mentioned, you are a science fiction writer.
You are not a political science writer.
You are not someone who, like this is, you start, your roots are in science fiction, correct?
Yes.
Yeah, I was raised by a political scientist.
My dad was a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin when I was growing up, actually.
Nice.
Okay, so it's in you.
It's in you.
That's excellent.
That's excellent.
Really quick, because I do enjoy science fiction.
What is your forte when you're writing science fiction?
What is your message in there?
What's your style, if you
will?
I read a lot of different stuff, but people will say that my central style is everything's going to hell, but the people are taking care of each other.
So
it's not science fiction, Naomi.
It's on the ground reporting is what you're doing.
I mean a couple years ago I won the Hugo and the Nebula for a short story called The Year Without Sunshine in which a disaster, an unspecified disaster strikes and a block of people in Minneapolis get together with their neighbors to take care of each other and in particular to protect one particularly vulnerable resident.
And like when I wrote this it was fiction but you know.
Well, I mean, honestly, I'm going to take a moment and pivot to something that I think is very important.
You can go to bookshop.org to find this.
Am I correct?
Can
you find it there?
I love that because I bookshop.org is a great place to find books.
You can support your local bookstores there.
I have an account there.
I have a gift card that I've been raring to use.
So I might be using it there, but you can also help your local bookstore.
So, I mean, that's, if you're looking to getting that short story in your life, do it.
I would say do it.
Oh, the short
story itself actually is posted online.
It was published in a web magazine.
So don't go to bookshop.org.
Go to uncanny magazine.
We'll put that all in the show notes so people can find that for you.
But okay, so you are a science fiction writer, raised by a political science professor, and it started off with what says here is an infamous guide to elections.
And now you are writing posts that are helping people in and outside of Minnesota to help with the ice occupation as it stands right now.
Give us the impetus of all this.
Was it something you were always interested with politics?
When it comes to writing an election guide that's not the norm, it seems like you may have said, I gotta do something about this and I'm doing it right now.
What led you to this part of the world?
The story of my election guide is this.
I think it was 2005 or so.
I discovered that if I went online, I could find my ballot before I went to vote.
And I could go see all the all the people running and all the races.
And that gave me time to look up the people that I hadn't heard of.
And you know, in any given year, there's races that you've heard about, like, you know, this year, there's going to be a
gubernatorial race in Minnesota and U.S.
Senate race in Minnesota.
And then there's like, then there's races that don't get as much news coverage.
So even if you know what the person does, you may not know anything about the candidates.
And at the time I was living in Minneapolis and Minneapolis still elects a park board.
but at the time they also elected a library board, they had an elected library board and they had an elected seat on the soil and water commission.
Yeah, and I knew nothing about, I knew like that the library board candidates sometimes got party endorsements, which could help, but like... Interesting.
...soil and water, I just, there was no coverage of that anywhere.
So...
So I discovered that I could look up my ballot.
And so I did that.
And I was like, OK, this year I will go through all of these sort of obscure and minor offices.
And I'm going to look up all the candidates and I can figure out who to vote for.
And I needed to take notes and I was doing this on my computer.
And so I opened at the time I was using live journal.
I opened a live journal
window.
Oh Naomi.
Okay.
All right.
Start talking about Friendster and we're best friends.
All right.
Cool.
Go
on.
I actually never used Friendster, but I
did
use my journal.
So I went up live journal and I, and I just took notes in my lab journal window and then I posted.
I organized the notes I took and then as I decided on each candidate I added who I was endorsing because you can endorse candidates, anyone can endorse candidates.
There's no rule that says what the important people can endorse candidates.
I, a complete rando, was going to endorse my favorite candidate and then I posted it because I did have a couple of friends who lived near me and I figured maybe they would find this useful.
And they did.
And then like, I believe already the next year people were like, so who are you endorsing this year?
At the time this was like two people maybe that were paying attention, but I was like, okay, clearly like this was useful.
So I did this again.
And this blog was mostly just like read by my friends and people who knew my friends.
And that was pretty much it.
until 2013, which was the year of the mayoral race where Archie Ryback had been the mayor of Minneapolis and he decided not to run again.
And you could file for the mayoral office.
They had just implemented instant runoff fairly recently.
And then you could file for the office by paying $100.
It was really cheap.
And 36, wait, no, it wasn't 100, it was 20.
It
was $20.
Oh my God.
You're asking for trouble when it's $20.
Yes, you are.
And so 36 people ran for mayor.
Oh my gosh.
I forgot about that.
And like a dozen of them probably were fairly, these were like 10, but there were actually a fair number of serious candidates.
And then there were like all these other just
completely random people, including a guy who legally changed his name to Captain Jack Sparrow, a guy who believes that Laura Ingalls Wilder is God.
There's just, I mean, they were just an amazing, an amazing array.
So I, that year I wrote about like a little bit, I looked up every single one of these people and then wrote about like who they were, what I could find out about them and their political experience, if they had any at all, what their beliefs were, what they wanted and like, and then each one I was like, is there any
reason to believe this person is qualified yes or no should you vote for them yes or no um anyway so that year my blog broke containment it was still on live journal at this point which at the time was like the people were passing it around like can you believe this is a live journal um but after that i i moved it to uh like a wordpress blog and uh and i have like a lot
I got a lot more readers.
And it's very widely read in Minneapolis and St.
Paul to a lesser extent statewide because they do statewide races.
I only do races that appear on the ballot in Minneapolis or in St.
Paul.
Oh, you just lost my camera.
But I can hear you.
That's fine.
You keep talking.
I can hear you.
All right.
Dom, can you put a banner up with her name please?
Absolutely.
Thank you.
We are talking to Naima Kritzer, who is a science fiction writer in St.
Paul, Minnesota, about all the work they've done regarding getting people educated on local elections.
And Naomi, I think this is fantastic because we speak on this all the time that, yes, we know who's running for president.
We know who's running for senator, for governor, maybe even a lesser extent who's running for Congress.
But when it comes to those races, those races of small judge races, those city council, county board races, we're sitting there going, I don't know,
any of these people and I can't figure, and then all of a sudden you're like, I can't look them up now.
So I think, one, I think this is.
very, very important for communities, but also too, when you can present it in a way that is fun to read, because that is also half the battle is getting people interested in those local races to say, well, I mean, who do I care who the dog catchers?
You should because for all I know, the big dog food company down the streets, given the money, like that's the thing.
So I think what you're doing for me personally, I think it's fantastic.
And I love the fact you started on live journal.
Yeah, I'll say I'm, I,
I try to be accurate about how I present myself.
I'm not an expert.
I'm not a real journalist.
I am a person with a blog and a lot of opinions and a facility with Google search.
And that is most of what I bring to the table.
And people, well, somebody's asking, why does anybody care with Naomi Kritzer things?
And I'm like, I don't know.
I don't know why people care what I think.
people, people find the information I present useful and they find it entertaining.
I think that's why they care about what you think.
I think that's why people, did you just ask me like a Midwestern not taking a compliment right there?
Did I hear that just now?
No.
Not intentionally.
It must have been pure instinct.
It's ingrained within us as Midwesterners.
We cannot accept praise in any way, shape or form.
But I think that's for the same reason they, they, they like and trust your word is the same reason why people like and trust shows like the daily show.
And last week tonight, it's people who care about what's going on, presenting information that connects with them, but doing it in a way that entertains them as well.
It's, it's about giving them that, that, that sour pill wrapped in a nice piece of sweet.
And that's why I think people.
connect because also, you know, they are you Naomi and they know people like you and that's more trustworthy than someone on 24 hour newsnet.
We're saying you should vote for this person.
Well, why do I care what you're a billionaire?
I don't care what you think.
You're fine.
No matter what happens, we're going to keep the conversation going though with Naomi Critzer, who is a science fiction writer and I would say political.
commentator pundit.
I don't know how as far as
commentator blogger,
there you go.
She lives in St.
Paul, Minnesota.
When we come back, we're going to talk more about the posts you've been setting up for people inside and outside the city on what they can do to help during the ice occupation in the streets of the twin cities, but don't go anywhere.
If you have any questions, comments, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five civic leave a comment on the live stream.
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Stay
tuned, stay informed, and stay close.
Welcome.
Welcome back to civic media.
Mid mornings here on the civic media radio network.
My name is Greg Bach.
I'm your host, your buddy, your pal, your things, your everything when it comes to technologies of the old Internet here on the show.
We are coming to you live.
I'm in Radio Park in Racine.
Dom is our producer in Madison right now.
If you want to be part of the conversation, 855
You can leave a comment on the live stream.
We are streaming on Facebook, YouTube and the platform.
We still call Twitter still ahead.
Another edition of take it or leave it with senior producer Tucker, all things Superbowl, maybe some Olympic talk.
I don't know.
It's all what Tucker's got planned for us.
It's, it's, it's a cornucopia of surprise.
If you will,
excited.
I'm a dom
excited.
We got a lot still coming ahead.
Don't go anywhere.
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If you miss an episode, go to civic media.us slash shows.
Look for civic media mid mornings.
You can download them right to your device, listen to them anytime you'd like, or listen to us live on the civic media app.
Take us anywhere in the world.
But we are back with our guest Naomi Kritzer, who is a science fiction writer from St.
Paul, Minnesota, but was also a.
political commentator has been writing election guides to help people understand who is running for the, for the seats in their community, as well as posts on social media and how people can help in and outside the community.
And Naomi, that was, you know, you, you, you came to us to talk about that, but we got started talking about like so many cool things, including live journal, live journal for gosh's
sake.
But you, you've been posting on social media now about what's been going on and how people can help out.
Talk more about that.
Would you?
So, you know, things in, things in Minnesota are pretty bad right now and pretty hard.
And people are very busy, overwhelmed.
And when, when this started happening, when the surge in particular started happening and suddenly there were
like everywhere you turned it seemed like there were like masked uh masked thugs uh kidnapping people out of their cars and that's the bus stops and things like that um minnesotans started organizing well had already started organizing um there were uh classes like starting last year there were you could take classes on becoming uh they call a legal observer or a constitutional observer to just uh
take video and find out people's names who are being taken so that lawyers can file habeas corpus petitions and all that.
So lots of people have taken these classes and started organizing so that people could show up very quickly if ICE started dragging somebody out of their car or out of a school or whatever.
And also people have organized to provide food and other necessities to the folks who can't safely leave their homes right now.
And that's a lot of people.
It's not just it's not just the people who are undocumented Because ice has been going after lots of people who are documented and in occasionally even picking up citizens There have been multiple indigenous people who've been
abducted and then later released and they'll let you go if you're a citizen but often they will they beat people up they steal their stuff routinely like keep their phones and sometimes their jewelry it's just it's it's absolute criminal criminal gang behavior like I don't know what else to call it
Well, it's honestly, it's the behavior that they said they wanted to get rid of in the first place.
These ICE agents are actually portraying up against these individuals, regardless of their status.
They are acting like, I'll say it, like, like criminal thugs, like gang members, like it's, it's, it's, it's ridiculous.
And, um, go on.
I think it's worth noting that they're like, there were three, um, homicides in the city of Minneapolis in January, and two of them were committed by ICE.
Yeah.
We had, we had Gail Cornelius on before you this morning from World Relief in Wisconsin.
And she's talked about the fact they are now directing their, their ire and their target at the refugee population.
Folks who go through a tremendous amount of hoops do it come, do it very legally through their organization, through the U S government and then through their organization.
Now they're saying, well, let's get rid of them too.
It's, it's, it's as ridiculous as, as, as trying to get rid of people.
Arresting folks who are citizens or indigenous people that you don't know what you're doing.
You don't know who you're going after.
You're just wholesale picking up people you don't like or don't look like you.
And then if they're not right, then final throw them on the streets and sorry about that.
I don't even say my bad.
It's just they're done.
Sorry.
Yeah.
No, they never say it.
They never.
Yeah.
So what is the support you're feeling from outside then?
I mean, it's very clear how Minneapolis, how Minnesota feels on the whole.
It feel like you're pretty united in these last few minutes.
Just tell me about what you're hearing from people outside of the state.
Outside the state, what's been what's been great is that people are paying attention.
People are paying attention.
People are sending resources.
There have been a whole there's so much financial need as people try to stay safely in their homes yesterday.
I was raised yesterday and last week I've been raising money for rent relief because a lot of people can't pay their rent if they haven't been able to go out to go to their jobs.
And there's been a lot of support that's come in from outside the state, which is incredibly helpful.
There are people outside the state who donated miles to bring people back from Texas because a lot of what happens with the legal immigrants, and sometimes they get flown to Texas, their lawyer gets them a lease from detention, but then ICE just dumps them in Texas.
and often without phone, without ID documents, without anything.
There are people who've been doing, there are, I believe there's, there may be lawyers from other states that are helping to file petitions and things like that.
So yeah, there's been a lot of people contributing from around the country.
Well, we're going to put your, we're going to put your website in the show notes as long as long as well as a link to standwithminnesota.com, which was another resource you can go to
help Naomi Kritzer, a science fiction author, but political commentator from St.
Paul, Minnesota.
Thank you so much for being here this morning.
Really great talking to you.
Thank you so much.
All right, I want to talk to you again sooner than later.
We'll have you back.
Talk about the new book in June, but you have yourself a great weekend and we'll, yeah, we'll talk to you soon.
Folks, don't go anywhere.
When we come back, it's going to be take it or leave it with Senior Producer Tucker.
Don't go anywhere.
It's mid mornings on Civic Media here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Stay tuned.
Stay informed and stay close.
I'm thinking about the fireworks.
Welcome, welcome back to...
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Do your thing.
Love to have you part of the talk, the fun, everything happening here.
Now it is Friday.
It is 10 36, which means one thing and one thing only.
It's our highly lauded, may have heard of award winning consideration, eventually segment called take it or leave it.
I thought we had music there.
Darn it.
All right.
There we are.
And it's
Take it or leave it with Senior Producer Tucker.
Good morning, Tucker.
How are you today?
Hey, I'm good, Greg.
Thanks for having me back on our award-winning segment here for the-
We did win an award.
We did win an award.
I found out that we're also being given someone else's Nobel Peace Prize, so I'll take it.
I won't be there.
Yeah.
The 10 year radio awards.
That's what this is.
Yes.
Exactly.
Exactly.
All right.
So this is the handy dandy game show where Tucker has a list of things he reads off to me.
I say take it or leave it.
And I tell you why.
And we have a good time.
So Tucker, what do you have for us this morning?
I mean, let's just this is going to be Super Bowl and Olympic theme.
So the Olympics Super theme.
Take it or leave it edition.
Super Olympics.
I mean, let's, let's get out of the easy question of the way.
I mean, Patriots, take your leave.
Do you have them winning?
Wait, the Patriots, uh, no, I say leave it.
I don't think they're going to win based on our conversation with Paul Noon and on yesterday's show.
I think it's the Seahawks year.
Uh, yeah.
Okay.
Seahawks you here to herb first.
Uh, I also have the Seahawks.
I think they're going to pull it off.
There you go.
But speaking of the Patriots, they sure had a big win on social media with having the best spouse of the year with Anne-Michael May.
I don't know if you're familiar with her.
She has a huge following on TikTok.
Does these bake-a-thons?
Does baked treats?
She made treats for people flying from Boston to...
to San Francisco on JetBlue.
She made specific cookies for the people who bought flights on there.
She's like showed off her whole prep for Super Bowl weekend.
I'm coming up on TikTok.
Take her leave and Michael May.
Can I ask a small mini question within your question?
Yeah,
sure.
Has she ever said anything about vaccinations?
of vaccinations.
I have no idea.
I haven't gotten that far
back.
I'll take it.
I'll take
it.
She's only 22.
So we should mind about it.
I don't know.
But I'll take it then.
You're making you're making muffins and bakery for people who have to fly jet blue.
You are a saint, my dear, and I adore your face.
Take it.
Okay.
Taking and Michael may fantastic.
Okay.
Is the Super Bowl party bigger than a holiday party at this point?
We all get my holiday parties.
But do you do you take that?
A Super Bowl party is a bigger deal and more fabulous for a party than the holiday party.
Take it, because I feel like the food's always better and especially if it's a Super Bowl party, it's generally not like, I think about holiday parties in context of work parties when there's always a layer of stress like, I can have one cocktail, that's it, or else I'm getting fired.
So I will take a Super Bowl party being bigger and better than a holiday party.
Okay, okay.
It's also you also also you don't have to do like Secret Santa junk.
I'm like I'm not buying Ted a present.
I don't like Ted I
Mean, do you do you know what you're gonna?
What are you looking forward to eating on your Super Bowl party or enjoying on your Super Bowl party if you're having
I'm if I'm having a Super Bowl party Well, if I'm if I'm having a Super Bowl party at my house Tucker, I'm enjoying the first thing is
No one being there because I will invite no one It's me and my wife and my dog Maybe my mother-in-law if she promises not to eat all the chili dip, but honestly That's one time of the year where I get a little crazy with food now I've been very good with what I eat, but I will if I eat during the middle of the day I will allow some saltier foods.
I will allow an extra helping of a thing, but I Look forward to a little decadence.
That's what I do and the commercials
Well, speaking of commercials, I feel like this has creeped on us the last couple of years.
You can pretty much watch many of the ads or some related ads to other ads coming.
Are you taking it or leaving it?
Being able to basically know what the Super Bowl advertisements are ahead of time, which you can watch many of them right now, or at least versions of them.
leave it now.
I there was something about I have never been the biggest football fan.
There was a time where I followed football.
There was a time where I was I would call myself a packer fan.
I love the Packers.
Don't get me wrong.
But I just don't follow football.
But I would always watch the Super Bowl for the ads specifically because you got to see it was all in the moment and we all shared that together now it's sort of it's I feel like it's it's not as special as it was anymore.
That's not cool.
So I I I leave it.
I want my ads in the moment.
That's what I demand.
I agree.
I feel like the anticipation is gone.
And it's just like, what is, what is average?
I mean, advertising is just, it's everywhere, but the game of it is kind of.
Exactly.
Not to mention they're spending like a lot of money on that one ad.
Why am I going to like make it worth it?
Come on now.
I know Dunkin Donuts is not renovating their actual cafes.
They're just buying Ben Affleck and Casey Affleck and Affleck's cousins and cousins.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Um, okay.
So moving on to, and by the way, yeah, you can see Uber Eats right
now.
Yeah.
Oh, Tucker.
We love, I think we'll know, but like, you can just, they're all over the place on YouTube.
Okay.
Well, I'll, I'll,
I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll,
I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll,
I'll,
I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll,
I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I
And I'll catch up cause I, cause as you mentioned, they'll make like precursors or like they'll, they'll be more, I'll watch that stuff, but the commercials themselves, what they paid the money for, I feel like should only be available the day of the moment of and then afterwards, not before like get me intrigued.
Yes.
Absolutely.
Uh, well speaking of treats, the, the, going to the other sport sporting event that's happening like all month is the Olympics, the winter Olympics.
Yes.
There is this Olympic Village is getting a lot of attention.
Only about 70 actual Olympic athletes will be there.
Maybe 1500 people will kind of rotate through it.
As you've maybe heard, it's all across Italy, all the kind of locations of where it's happening.
It's not happening in one city.
The Olympic Village itself is in Milan and it has lots of lovely features, a full cafeteria, this yoga hangout spot.
Um, the ice skater from the UK.
I have her name here.
Phoebe beaker becker or B E K K E R becker.
I don't know.
There's no cat there.
I don't know.
And so she, um, just posted about going into a sound bath.
So I wanted to ask for athletes like doing sound baths or massages yoga, maybe sound bath with her.
Do you take or leave having a sound bath?
Okay.
First of all, okay.
I need to look, I, okay.
All right.
All right.
Alright, I'm gonna say this really quick here.
I'm a very accepting individual.
I look like I own every gun that's ever been created, and I have hard opinions on the good old days.
But I'm a very accepting person, and I do not need things like soundbaths.
pushing me further towards the place of get off my lawn and your rock and roll is too loud.
A soundbath is a meditative experience where you relax often lying down and are immersed in resonance sounds and vibrations from instruments from singing.
No, leave it.
Get away from me.
That is an anxiety attack waiting to happen.
Oh,
I don't know.
I mean, I feel like they are made to help anxiety, but maybe you're maybe you're right.
I once was asked on a work call.
Like we had these like wellness moments, a zoom call to do a sound bath on a zoom call.
That is nauseating.
But like maybe I would maybe vote for the in person, but a zoom call sound bath.
I'm not so sure
I would do it.
I would do it on a couple conditions.
One fully paid for by somebody else to I get to do it alone and three
expect a full-throated honest answer on what the it may be amazing but to me singing bowls gongs chimes designed to calm the mind reduce stress lower heart rate and promote deep relaxation by shifting your brainwaves into more restorative I mean
Again, it's reminds me of the time I did a float.
I said to my friend, I'm like, I'll do it.
If you're paying for it.
She said, go ahead.
I'm like, I floated in saltwater for 30 minutes.
That was weird.
So yeah, I would say, I would say leave it unless the company's paying for it.
Okay.
Well, we'll look into that.
And maybe we can do like a live show or at least get your thoughts post sound back.
Okay.
All
right.
There we
go.
There
we go.
I'm drawing up the email right after this.
Okay, so now moving to like, so like with winter sports, right?
Take or leave, just winter sports, like, well, actually let's, I've got two within this.
Okay, all right, go ahead.
What's do with hockey?
It's the first time in like 12 years or 14 years or something, we've had pro players playing like NHL level players playing for USA, Team USA.
Take or leave having pro athletes that play in professional leagues.
to take a break to go play, to do the Olympics.
I say take it.
I say take it.
And you know, when I was younger, the whole thing, when, when I was, I was alive for the dream team and people lost their minds about pro US professional basketball players from the NBA playing, they're like, that's not fair.
It's like, and I thought that was the same until someone told me that in other countries, all of those folks are also professional athletes as well.
So like, really, we're just coming up to their level.
It's just our levels way better.
So I say, yes, go for it.
Team USA hockey.
Take it.
Do it.
I love, I love hockey.
We got two more snowboarding
ticket or leave it.
Are you
taking
snowboarding
events?
I will probably watch highlights, but I do like watching snowboarding.
I think it's a very graceful, beautiful sport.
And I always wanted to do it.
There was many years like, I'm going to do it like for like 10 years.
I said, I'm going to do this.
And then I never did.
Now I'm like,
If I look at a snow slope, I will break a hip.
So I'm excited for those who do snowboard.
And I say, take it.
OK, well, maybe an encouragement.
If you've been thinking about getting on the slopes this year, maybe go try it out.
We're running out of months.
You can do it.
So go try it, perhaps.
We're also running out of snow.
Yes, absolutely.
OK, so Snoop Dogg, of course, is everywhere.
Did I see maybe he's also going to perform?
Not like the halftime show.
He's going to have something to do with it or something.
I don't know.
I'm sure he'd probably just be there because they've said the check will clear.
At
the Olympics?
Well, he's, he's been doing, he's like the ambassador or whatever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it says, uh, he, yeah, he's, he'll be at the winter Olympics.
Yes.
It'll
be a
winter Olympics.
I don't know about the super wall this year, but
he'll
be.
at the Winter Olympics.
He's already there.
I think he's been there doing his ambassador work.
Do you take or leave Snoop Dogg as like the constant logo, it seems almost for NBC or for any media project, basically, especially associated with sports.
I'm going to put my personal, my personal opinions aside on this one.
I'll say take it because I think people love him.
They have a good time.
I have opinions on Snoop Dogg.
They're
Not very crazy, but fine.
I'll take it.
That's fine.
Go ahead.
Do your thing, Snoop Dogg.
Get your check.
Have your bag.
Enjoy your life.
Okay.
Well, with the minute we have left, are you going to be watching?
So are you watching the Super Bowl?
Are you watching Olympics actively, Greg?
That's just a general question.
I'm
going to check, I will check in with the Superbowl for commercials.
I will definitely, definitely watching bad bunny, but also I will be watching the opening ceremonies tonight as well as checking in with sports.
So I'll watch a little bit and we'll talk more about it.
So.
That was another edition of Take It or Leave It with Senior Producer Tucker.
Thank you so much, Tucker, for being here.
We'll talk to you very soon, my friend.
All right, sounds good to you all.
Thanks for having me.
See you, Greg.
All right, when we come back, it's time for a handy tip from Greg here on Civic Media, mid mornings.
Don't go anywhere.
Stay tuned, stay informed, and stay close.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Welcome, welcome back to Mid Morning's on Civic Media.
My name is Greg Bach.
I am your host, your buddy, your pal, your guy who's ready for you to have a great weekend.
It's Friday.
You're here with us.
I appreciate you sharing time.
If you ever want to be part of the conversation, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five civic leave a comment on the live stream.
We are currently streaming on Facebook, YouTube and the platform.
We still call Twitter on Monday show.
We are talking to, let's see here, Samuel Liebert from Wisconsin state.
He's the Wisconsin state director of all voting is local.
We're talking more about elections.
I ain't going to shut up about it.
It's 2026.
It's the midterms.
We got important elections on the ballot.
And here's always a clarion call for everyone out there.
I will, it's nothing new.
I've said it before.
I will say it again.
This is for our folks out there in Wisconsin at least.
And we'll talk more about this cause I know some
folks outside Wisconsin hear this as well.
But if you want to find out more about what's happening on your ballot, what's happening on your election day, go to my vote.wi.org, my vote.wi.
I'm sorry.gov.
I've said that website so many times.
My vote.wi.gov.
There you'll be able to put in your information, find out who represents you from the president down to the dog catcher.
You can also find out what's on your ballot.
You can if
You got a primary coming up.
I probably can't request a ballot.
Now it's a little too late, but you can request one for the general election and then one for the fall primary as well as the general fall election as well.
You can have those delivered to you as we can still do that in this moment.
But you can find out what's on your ballot too.
We got questions on this upcoming ballot.
And also, as we were talking about with Naomi, find out who's running for what positions in your government.
Find out about these individuals.
They are asking you for the job.
Some of them are asking it for it back.
Make sure they represent your values.
You can do that by going to myvote.wi.gov.
Also, you can register to vote there.
If you haven't voted in a few years, like four years, you gotta re-register.
You can also find out if your registration is good, if your polling place has changed.
Remember, we require ID in the state.
I can't tell you why and I do not agree with it, but you do need an ID.
So make sure you take that with you as well.
But myvote.wi.gov will have all the information you need and be part of the process.
It is your community.
They are going to make decisions that directly affect you.
So they should have to work to get the job, myvote.wi.gov.
Now it's time for a handy tip from Greg.
Here we go.
Oh, there he is.
Sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm talking.
Dom's in charge of the live stream.
If you ever want to send me a tip, give me a tip.
I'm fine with that advice.
If you have someone out there, you feel like deserves advice or a tip, something like that, or you have a show idea, a guest idea, something like that.
Send it to Greg.Bach at civicmedia.us, Greg.Bach at civicmedia.us.
And we'll find out and we'll work towards this together.
Love having you part of the show.
Oh, here he said, Tim on the live stream says, don't forget state law allows you to have three hours off of work unpaid to vote.
That is also true.
You can get time off of work unpaid to vote.
So you don't have to worry about that.
We're going to talk more about that too, because it's always very, you want to vote, you say you're going to vote, then something goes hiccup, something goes hinky, flat tire, job calls you in, gets sick.
We're going to talk about early voting as well and how important that is that trying to take that away from us as well.
We can't do that.
Don't disenfranchise, don't suppress, be part of the solution, not the problem.
But again, we'll be talking more about that.
A handy tip from Greg is simply this to everyone, including myself, take care of yourself, take deep breaths in.
I'm being deadly serious on this one.
It's a very stressful time.
We talked to Naomi Critzler today and we talked to Gail Cornelius, talked about ice in Wisconsin.
It can provide very stressful moments.
It's important to take a step back, take a breath, reach out to someone you care about and be like, Hey man, just can you give me a good word of advice, give me a good feeling, give me a good vibe, whatever that, and you know, Hey, in a matter of those who are, who are spiritual, send a prayer their way, whatever it takes to make someone feel better, we are very stressed out right now.
And it's important for us to take a moment to relax, give ourselves grace space.
as well as a moment to feel our feelings.
Don't stuff them down.
It doesn't help anyone in the long run.
Dom, what is your, like for you, when you need to take a moment, what do you do?
Is it go for a walk, just close the door, turn off the lights, take a breath?
What do you do for momentary self-care?
I have recently been into cooking.
So I like to cook myself a nice meal.
I've recently been going out way too much to eat McDonald's.
It's got the best of me.
So sometimes when I want to just relax,
take a deep breath, I make myself some good food, some good eats, and then I'll be back and re-energize.
Yeah.
That's fantastic.
And those are the things you need to do.
Those are the things you need to, in order to get yourself back on speed.
And the other thing too, I was talking to a friend of mine about this, and I think this is very important.
I think this is for a lot of Midwesterners too, is that, yes, there are things going on in this world, and they are scary and terrible, and they make you have moments of pause for other folks.
Never allow those moments to diminish what you're going through.
Never say to yourself, well, there are other people out there with bigger problems.
That may be true.
That is true.
There are folks out there going through major things right now, but that doesn't diminish or devalue what you're going through.
Because again, taking that feeling, taking that stress and stuffing it down doesn't help anyone in the long run.
Take that moment, take a breath, validate your feelings.
move on.
If you need to talk to somebody, please talk to someone.
I'm a big, big, big supporter of that as well.
But I just want people as we're moving into this weekend, we're moving out of winter.
We're seeing all the news.
It's important to take a moment of momentary self care.
I'm not saying go book a massage or go do that.
I'm saying just take a moment of self care.
And that's all you need to do through your day.
So you can be good to yourself.
And that's how we get along and we do that together.
But I want to thank, uh, that's been another handy tip from Greg.
You're welcome.
You're absolutely welcome.
I want to thank Dom.
I want to thank Tucker, traffic and engineering.
Without you, none of this happens.
I'm talking into a microphone that doesn't work.
I want to thank everyone who called, texted, live stream commented, everyone but who's part of this Naomi.
I want to thank Gail for being on the show today.
It really means the world without you.
There is no us.
Don't go anywhere after us is Tom Hartman from 11 to two.
And then great programming throughout the day.
We'll talk to you on Monday.
Have a great weekend.
Stay tuned,
stay informed, stay close.
Talk to you soon, friends.
you
