Good
morning and welcome back to Civic Media Mornings.
I'm Luke Mathers, filling in for Mr. Pat Critello on this Monday morning, February 24th.
Thrilled to be with you here across the Civic Media radio network.
Got Greg on the board and you can join us as well.
855-752-4842.
Looking forward to the conversation we are going to have with Green Hendrickson and Sean Fetaplace of Main Street Alliance coming up shortly, but between now and then we've got Civic Media's own Brittany Merlot.
Brittany, how are we doing on this Monday morning?
Pretty good.
Pretty good.
How are you?
I am doing well.
I drew the short straw and I got the Monday morning shift filling in for Pat so that all the options were already filled he had Not This is not a problem working with you Greg.
I'm saying everybody else got all their choosing of which day they wanted to fill in for Pat and I was told hey
We got Monday left.
You want to do Monday?
And I was like, sure.
I love Too Bad.
Working with Greg early in the morning, favorite thing to do is exact response.
Don't look at the emails or texts.
It's exactly how I told them, Greg.
OK, thanks, Luke.
But Brittany, how was your weekend?
Oh, it was fantastic.
You know, I took advantage of the snow while we still have it before, you know, the major melt ongoing right now.
And so I got out there and I went snowmobiling.
But let me tell you.
Those trails beat me up.
I'm sore.
I can barely walk today, to be honest.
There you go.
Well, hopefully you got some good use out of them then because, yeah, it is some warmer temperatures that are coming our way after the cooler past couple of weeks.
I kind of dubbed it to Greg this morning.
It's muddy paw season.
We both have the
four-legged friends.
We're keeping an eye on how much mud is getting tracked in and out of the house with all the melt that's going on.
What can what can Wisconsinites look forward to for their forecast both today and to kick off their week?
Well, very spring like season shifting kind of vibe as we go through this entire week.
So right now temperatures across the state this morning already.
We're sitting at 37 degrees to 45 degrees.
So this is.
Huge.
I mean, our average highs for this time of year are usually in the low 30s.
So to start the morning off, this mild, this comfortable, if you're not outside enjoying it today, we're fighting.
All right.
You're not allowed to complain about the cold.
Folks, do not
pick a fight with Brittany.
Just get outside.
Enjoy the nicer weather that we are having across the state of Wisconsin.
We
don't want
any fights breaking out here,
Brittany.
No, no, we definitely don't.
But it's going to be.
gorgeous today.
A ton of sunshine.
Eyes crazy warm into the upper forties to potentially some mid fifties.
Those mid fifties could be southwest in the state.
Greg's dancing.
I know a lot of people are probably.
Greg's enjoying it.
I know that the pups are going to enjoy it.
It seems like the Groundhog may have been right earlier this month, Brittany.
Jimmy
here in Sun Prairie predicting that earlier spring.
It seems like it's here.
Any chance, though, that we're going to have a little whiplash?
And after all of these warmer temperatures this week, we've got a brace for cooler?
Or is it too hard to tell right now?
You know, there's always the whip lash, but it's not going to be a severe.
We're not going to go into some crazy cold snap that we just came out of.
So that's good news.
But by next weekend, we are looking at our temperatures, our highs getting back to the low 30s.
So a very warm week all week into the 40s.
And then we cool down to the low 30s by next weekend.
But we do have a few shots of some systems.
Wednesday, we're looking at a wintry mix where it moves in as rain.
I'm sorry, moves in as like a snow flips over to rain.
then some freezing rain and then to some more snow as it departs.
So a messy midweek and then another system does want to slide through on Friday, putting a little bit of snow accumulation through central parts of the state, but we'll keep tracking that one for you.
That one's going to be moving around a bunch, but overall Wednesday is the day.
It's going to be a little messy muddy as well.
Yep, you're going to have to keep an eye out for those muddy paws.
But Brittany Merlot, thank you so much.
Folks, you're going to have to stay tuned for those meteorology forecasts every single morning.
Brittany, thank you for joining us as Pat is out filling in for him.
Dan Schaefer will be tomorrow an excellent civic media host throughout the weeks.
Thank you so much, Brittany.
Thank you.
Have a great day, guys.
Enjoy it.
Absolutely.
Get out there because we do not want any fights breaking out
with
Brittany.
Folks, you are listening to Civic Media Mornings.
My name is Luke Mathers, fillin' in for Pat Critello on this Monday morning.
We are now joined by Karine Hendrickson, and hopefully joined soon by Sean Fetaplace as well.
From Main Street Alliance, Karine, you are out in Washington, D.C., doing some advocacy for small businesses, a part of Main Street Alliance.
What can you tell us about the lobbying that Main Street Alliance is doing out in Washington DC this week with the tax fight that we're hearing get underway?
Beginning even as early as last week with the US Senate and the House later this week.
Yeah, so we are here with Main Street Alliance and the small business majority to do some advocacy on behalf of small businesses.
I'm actually doing double duty.
I'm here with childcare providers as well with NACI.
So with Main Street Alliance, I will be doing a lot of talking about the tax code and how it can be more fair so that small businesses like mine are able to do what we need to do and charge a reasonable rate so that the people who rely on our goods and services are able to afford those goods and services.
looking at the tax cut and jobs act and the small business pass through.
So there was a 20% small business pass through that Senator Ron Johnson actually fought really hard for.
However, we're finding that almost all of that goes to the bigger business, like small businesses are up to 500 employees.
Those aren't real small businesses.
And so looking at it as a way to say, okay, this is what happened.
90% went to these, this small group of people, 10% went to the rest of us.
And so I actually looked at my last year's taxes as a childcare professional.
that say 20% pass through save me $600 in taxes.
And my husband who is a musician, it saved him less than $100.
But then our state does not actually accept that.
So I have to then go back and redo our state taxes.
And so you're actually doing double duty and the amount that it saves me really is negated by that extra time and effort that I have to put in.
And so we're looking at asking for like maybe we just do us a set dollar amount that, you know, we just automatically are able to reduce our taxes by because that would be easier.
It would be fair, and it would be a way to make sure that it is a progressive, not a regressive tax.
And Shawn is here.
And yeah, and Shawn's here as well, folks.
We're joined by Shawn Fetaplace of Main Street Alliance, as well as Kreen Tendrickson, doing double duty there for early childhood care providers and educators, as well as a member of Main Street Alliance.
Shawn, what can you tell us about the Small Business Tax Fairness Coalition and the work that you are all doing in Washington this week?
Yeah, so the small business tax fairings coalition was co-founded between us mainstream alliance and small business majority We have a lot in common and common values and so we came together To make sure that we could counterbalance the effects of the Chamber of Commerce and a lot of groups that are very much a zero-sum game type thinkers You know, we really believe as Karine said that you need to invest from the bottom up and
Frankly, there's 20 million new small businesses that have been formed in the last four years, but failure rates among small businesses are very high.
It's 20% in the first two years and 50% in the first five years.
So if you can concentrate the tax relief to folks who are of that bracket, and you're more likely to see those businesses survive that.
on a macro level is much better for the economy.
So we're gonna make our case up on the hill where we have over 60 meetings scheduled with folks, including both the Wisconsin delegation, but also all across the country.
And that's why we're here today.
And we saw just as this tax process is getting underway, there's a number of other headlines that are going on around the nation and around the state of Wisconsin.
But we had two members of Congress here in Wisconsin.
host town halls last week and seeing some overwhelming involvement, I think would be the best, engagement would be the best way to phrase those town halls, one held by Congressman Glenn Grossman.
Excuse me.
Hosted a room about 100 people and had an additional 50 or so according to the journal Sentinel Overflow.
So overwhelming engagement with with our members of Congress.
Are you seeing aspects of that in Washington DC?
Are you hoping to be able to take some of that momentum for where Wisconsinites are feeling about this process into these offices as you lobby this week?
Yeah, people are fired up and I would say
Kudos to both Representative Fitzgerald and Glenn Grossman for actually holding town halls.
I hope more members of Congress all across the country do that.
It's actually a lot more rare than it should be because ultimately these folks work for us, not the other way around.
And they need to show up and actually talk about what they're doing and not just sit in their bubbles.
And so I do, you know, you've seen those reactions though, not just in their districts, but also districts.
It's all across the country.
There is a very important recess coming up in mid-March.
There's also a two-week recess in April.
So folks are going to be back home quite a bit.
Definitely keep an eye out for town halls.
I would encourage folks to go to your representative and senators' websites, sign up for their newsletter, set up Google Alerts.
If you need to know how to do that, you can...
email me on matriolines.org.
But oftentimes, it can be hard to find out when these things are happening until the very last minute.
But I would definitely encourage people to go use your voice.
And frankly, we need these folks to be more afraid of their constituents on these issues than they are afraid of Mike Johnson, Speaker Mike Johnson, Senator John Thune, and President Trump.
And if they're hearing from folks down home, they're going to hopefully have to listen.
Folks, you are
listening to Simi Keeney.
I was just going to say, then for us, when we come here and we talk to our reps here, they can't say, well, I'm not hearing it at home.
Yes, you are.
And so I wanted to know how important it is for people at home to stay engaged.
The engagement is absolutely very important at this point.
We know that this tax bill is going to have ramifications for years to come.
As Sean, you pointed out, we have small businesses.
that are already facing uphill hurdles when it comes to the ability for them to have success.
And we really want to be able to see those small businesses that make our communities, our communities, be able to thrive and not just be trying to skate by or eek by.
Folks, you're listening to Civic Media Mornings.
My name is Luke Mathers.
I am filling in for Pat Critlow on this Monday morning.
We are joined, excuse me, by Sean Fetaplace and Karine Hendrickson, working on some small business advocacy and tax fairness in Washington DC this week.
We're going to keep the conversation rolling with them.
You're going to want to stay tuned to Civic Media all day long.
Coming up after our show here this morning, the Earl Ingram show, hosting Reggie Jackson, doing a dive into the accomplishments that Black History has had and Black members of both Wisconsin and around the country have.
accomplishments for the entire nation as well as Maggie Dawn hosting a conversation with the Center for American Progress coming up on the impacts of what the National Institute of Health are going to have on our state here in Wisconsin.
Folks, you're listening to Civic Media Mornings.
I'm Luke Mathers.
Stay tuned all day long.
We're going to continue the conversation with Sean and Karine coming up when we
return.
She knows she's looking fine.
Welcome
back to Civic Media Mornings.
That is the tax man because we are talking about some small business tax fairness with the tax fight that is going on.
As we speak in Washington, DC, it got underway last week.
We're joined here on Civic Media Mornings by Sean Fetaplace and Karine Hendrickson of the Main Street Alliance working on this advocacy.
Karine, as an early childhood educator...
Heading to Washington DC and advocating for tax fairness not necessarily I think one of the things you originally thought you'd be doing when getting into caring the the the care economy and the care system but What is it for you that motivates you to go put everything else on pause and head to Washington DC for for advocacy like you're doing this week
Well, yeah, as a family child care provider, I'm also a small business owner.
And that gets lost a lot of times, even by those of us who are doing the work.
Because first and foremost, we do care and educate.
for the children and their parents and all that.
But part of that being a business owner is also understanding how all of these things kind of go together and how the funding works and your revenue and meetings be good at math, which again, most of us, we work with kids, not numbers, but also just being able to tell our story and thinking about how important we are.
And because we are so underpaid and so undervalued and so under invested in, it makes it that much harder for us to do it.
We're mostly minorities, we're mostly women.
And so that again,
extra layers of that.
And so for me, being part of Main Street Alliance has helped me find that voice as a business owner to really like
I am a business owner and I need to act like one and I need to be in these spaces.
And I'm also then caring for and educating our employees, which are elected officials and letting them know what it is that I do and why it's so important to the entire foundation of our economy and why we need to be invested it.
Like when they, the childcare development block grant is the only thing that Wisconsin relies on for our entire childcare system, all of it.
We have zero state dollars invested in our state budget.
If that goes away.
what is going to happen to our state's child care system?
Like it's terrifying.
And I don't think people understand that connection.
And that's part of what I do with Main Street Alliance is get other child care professionals and owners involved in the business end of it so that we can go to DC and take these opportunities to advocate, which again, it's been an amazing experience.
And I highly recommend.
We wish you the best of luck with how all of those conversations go this week.
when it comes to advocating for the things that not only your small business, but the small business community here in Wisconsin needs to see out of this tax bill to be able to have the ability to continue and hopefully thrive when it comes to the small businesses that make up our communities, our communities.
The advocacy, Sean, is not the only thing that Main Street Alliance is working on, though.
There is also other avenues and levers your organization is utilizing to try to
make sure that you're standing up for small businesses and be able to fight on other battles outside of just what's going on in those congressional offices.
Can you tell us a little bit about that, Sean?
Yeah.
The federal phrase is what kicked us all off.
Obviously, Donald Trump took office on January 20th, and him and Elon Musk got to work pretty fast, much faster than the last.
administration and they froze federal grants and loans.
There are folks, for example, in Dane County where Head Start wasn't able to access their funds and that was hundreds of kids, sorry, hundreds of staff and over a thousand kids that would have been impacted by that.
So they're looking at somewhere between 750 and probably a thousand families just in Dane County and we sued and we won so far.
It's going to take some time for the whole process to play out.
I've learned a lot about the law in the last several weeks.
But, you know, we felt like we needed to have the backs and we had members that were directly impacted.
I know with child care development block grants that impacts Korean.
and businesses like hers.
We had members who directly were cut off from federal funds from grants that they had received and they couldn't make payroll.
And so that was one action we took.
We also took action on the snooping by Elon Musk into the IRS.
That is a huge breach of privacy.
And there's a reason why that data so guarded is because it's very sensitive.
data.
And so we suit on that.
And I would say we're also going to be taking action on the federal layoffs, mostly because of how they're being done.
You know, you have folks from the SBA, as many as 1000 people were laid off from the SBA.
SBA is the Small Business Association.
Yeah, and they're the ones that do a lot of loans and grants for small businesses.
They do technical assistance.
They do disaster relief in places like California with the wildfires in North Carolina with the recent hurricane.
And it's going to dramatically impact services.
And so we're taking legal action on that because frankly, the way they're doing this, instead of
moving around the furniture in the house, once they took ownership, so to speak, of control of government, they burn it down and are working to collect the insurance money.
And it's just not a good way to really run government, and it's going to directly impact our
membership.
Already we're seeing the effects of what's going on with this.
We're seeing the outcries, the aspect of the congressional town halls that we're seeing the outrage in, the advocacy work, the legal work.
A lot of different aspects are going to be needed to make sure that we can stand up for our communities across Wisconsin.
We really appreciate what Main Street Alliance and both of your work is doing to be able to advocate for that.
Is there any final things you'd like
to share with the audience about the work that you're doing out in Washington DC or anything coming up for Main Street Alliance soon.
Karine, do you want to go first?
Yeah, I was just going to say get involved, join Main Street Alliance, join other local community events and get just start.
Just put your foot in it and just kind of start.
And then Sean, were you going to talk about March 18th at the Capitol?
Yeah, if you're a small business owner, regardless, go to MainStreetAlliance.org.
Click on events.
We have online calls that we do, but we also this upcoming Monday, we're meeting with the Joint Finance Committee Democrats in Appleton.
They're hosting a roundtable.
We're going to talk to them about our priorities.
The governor is actually holding roundtables across the state this week where our members will be intense to talk to them about what our priorities are.
And we're going to be assembling March 18th.
Arbor Feed Mill.
Enjoy some Ian's Pizza and then go up and give members of the state legislature an earful about what it is that we need.
So if you want to join that, even if you aren't a small business owner, happy to have you, go to MainStreetAlliance.org.
Fantastic.
Well, the work continues.
We really, really appreciate both of you taking some time out of the advocacy you are doing for small businesses across Wisconsin to join us here on the airwaves this Monday morning.
Again, that is Sean Fetaplace and Karine Hendrickson working with Main Street Alliance doing some advocacy around the tax fight that is coming to Washington DC.
Sean, Karine, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Really appreciate it folks.
We're gonna continue the conversation with what is going on with headlines as well as a couple of other fun aspects with Bragg and I on the sports world here in Wisconsin.
Gonna talk sports movies when we return.
Welcome back to Civic Media Mornings.
I'm Luke Mathers, filling in for Mr. Pat Critello on this Monday morning, February 24th.
Thrilled to have you with us here.
Got Greg keeping me company on the board, taking your phone calls and text messages.
5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
You can also leave a comment on the live stream like our friend Rob up in Tigerton.
Rob, apologies, dove right into that conversation with Karine and Sean before we could get to your comments.
With the top of the hour forecast with Brittany Merleau.
Rob, you do the honors, Greg, right?
I don't want to mess up
the flow.
No, no, I'm fine to do it.
Good morning from Targetton.
It's clear skies before sunrise It is a 42 balmy degrees winds from the southwest at 15 miles per hour When I went to bed, it was 28 degrees And now it's much much warmer.
It's
well much
much warmer.
Yeah, let's see.
He's warmer.
He says The snowball meal trails in Shawnaw County is closed as of 6 a.m.
This morning.
Oh man, that sucks
And if you find
Brittany, Brittany got good use out of them before over the weekend, then civic media's meteorologist, Brittany Merleau.
And he says he's, he's on blue sky.
R O B J R 29 with a picture of Kristen, Brittany and, and Rob.
Uh, and, and he thanks them, of course, helping them set up a social media and whatnot.
There
you
go.
So thank you very much, Rob from Tiger 10 for the weather update and just for the update on life.
Cause we love, love, love.
hearing from you.
Also, Roger says, uh, if Van Orton shows up for anything, he needs to be completely sober to be taken seriously.
Oh, hey, Roger.
Well, that was, that was from our conversation, uh, last hour, Dr. Kristen Lyrely discussing the town halls held by Congressman growth men and Congressman Fitzgerald, uh, this past week, uh, and whether or not we're going to see any more of those town halls, uh, from.
other members of the Wisconsin Congressional Delegation, it will be interesting to see how those go, if any of them are scheduled in on the books, or if they are scheduled, if they're going to get removed from the schedule, it will be interesting.
But I really want to thank Sean Fetaplace and Karine Hendrickson, working with Main Street Alliance on the Small Business Advocacy they are doing in Washington DC this week and coming up next month, as they said.
here at our state capitol in Madison.
So really would thank them, thank Dr. Lyrely as well.
One of the things that we had the opportunity to discuss on today's history lesson, that moment, 45 years ago this past Saturday, the miracle on ice got me thinking, favorite sports movie of all time.
And Greg, I feel like it's almost hard to choose because there are so many of them, but like,
Like, there are some excellent, excellent sports movies out there.
And folks, if you've got one, we want to hear them.
You can text it in.
You can drop it in the live stream.
You can give us a call and share your thoughts on your favorite sports movie of all time.
But mine, I think has to be Miracle.
from the Disney recreation of that 1980 team, where Team USA beat the Soviet Union in that ultimately went on and won gold by defeating, I believe, Sweden in that final gold medal match, but the miracle on ice, the upset that took place when the combination of collegiate
Amateur athletes from around the United States came together outconditioned themselves like they were outconditioned compared to Overcondition compared to the Soviets and were able to skate with them Which was something no other hockey team had been able to do in about a 20-year span And so that miracle on ice taking place 45 years ago this past Saturday Greg am I wrong is miracle not a great movie?
You're not wrong, Miracle's a great guy.
I have a soft spot in my heart and a soft space on the top of my head.
You've
got a different sport.
But I have a soft spot in my heart for Disney sports movies.
Disney sports movies, they just hit differently.
My
runner up is also a Disney sports movie.
Remember the Titans?
Remember the Titans.
My friend.
My friend.
Rich Timor, he's a great comedian out of Milwaukee.
He has a great joke.
He goes, I just want to write sequels to movies.
My first one's going to be called, Oh yeah, the Titans.
So I see, I see, to me, Disney sports movies are almost their own genre apart from other sports movies, if you will, because they always come with real lessons and light and they're not always factually accurate.
Check, remember the Titans Wikipedia page.
Yeah.
But if I'm going to, if I'm going to pick a Disney sports movie, it's almost always going to be remembered the Titans.
Cause I just
love that's fair.
If we're going to go a regular, just a regular sports movie.
Uh, my number one is money ball.
And I know that makes me sound like a really big robot.
Um, robot.
No,
it's, it, I don't, I don't think that's a bad choice at all.
That's got to be up there as, as one of the better ones.
I think that.
The same concern though with this the inaccuracies that kind of played it up a little bit But that's how a lot of those Hollywood yeah scripts become like you can't take every like Nothing is a Hollywood picture from beginning to end no story
is
always some kind of
Traumatization of what went on or fudging it.
Yeah, you have to you have to interest the people I mean, that's just all there is to it and
and and and more than just Brad Pitt being cast as the you know, Billy Bean
Billy beans a good-looking fellow.
He was I mean, I don't know what it looks like now, but but yeah, when you get Brad
Pitt that
turns
heads like Brad Pitt is Brad Pitt like
yeah, I mean, I just love the movie because just it you know it
Everything about is great.
And I read the book, by the way, the book is difficult because it's a lot.
It's a lot of formulas.
I'm not kidding.
It's more
analytic, right?
Yeah, it
is.
It's all the equations and all of that stuff that went into
the
money
ball.
I love Major League because, you know, I might my grandma worked at my grandma worked at County Stadium for
from its opening until like the early 90s.
So she got to see all those players through the years and she was there for the taping of the movie.
And it was like, it's Major League.
What else is there to say about a movie like Major League?
Major League's got to be up there too.
That's, we're almost creating kind of, maybe the Mount Rushmore of sports movies.
That's
what we could do.
We could have four selections then, but that's a good one.
We've got Ardith.
writing in on the live stream on YouTube you can watch the show as well you get the secret show in between the commercial breaks as well if you follow us on YouTube or X you can head over the civic media accounts there you can follow and and like and subscribe do all of those things that the social media accounts ask you to do but art is saying their favorite sports movie chariots of fire and major leagues they're
with you on that one those are major league in the shout out
Chariots of fire and major league.
That is those two polar opposite films.
Let me tell you.
It's like, you know, two movie, two sports movies.
I love, I love the replacements and Brian's song.
You know, two sides of the same coin, right?
Exactly.
You got opposite sides of the same coin.
Favorite sports movie, you can chime in, send us a text, give us a phone call, drop it on the live stream.
We got KTEL RJ as well, chiming in saying their favorite sports movie is Hoosiers.
Most of the drills in the movie were the same, their team practiced in high school.
So that's where the coach for their high school team, getting creative, just pulling it right out of the movie.
That's right.
KTEL RJ.
is Roger from Stevens Point.
Roger
from Stevens Point.
And then Steve from Milwaukee says, Rudy, John Favreau was really funny in there.
Yeah.
I will say, that's another movie where you really want to look up how different that movie is from the real life thing.
So it's, sorry, I'm going to break your bubbles there.
A movie
that I
feel like, Luke, that we don't talk about enough.
And I think
you said
you hadn't watched all the way through Draft Day.
Kevin Costner, Dennis Leary, Terry Cruz is in it.
Chadwick Boseman is in that film.
I
would say they have a lot of folks.
Yeah.
And it's just like the day in the life.
It's a day.
It's one day in the life of a general manager or is that football called general managers?
GM, GM, on Draft A and it's kind of weird.
It's like there's one story about the draft and there's one story about like, you know, relationships and family and it's just, I love it.
I just think it's fantastic.
Yeah, I there's
excellent sports movies like that though where there are so many like coach Carter
Yeah,
another one of my my favorite like you got an excellent basketball story told through Samuel L Jackson as the coach like an excellent excellent movie There's a there's a lot of choices out there.
So folks you're listening to civic media mornings.
I'm Luke Mathers filling in for mr. Pack right low He is out on a retreat this week.
He's not enjoying well
We heard it was a treat.
Maybe he just was he was getting a little homesick from those Caribbean sands and and he had to go back for a couple more days, Greg I don't know what we're gonna have to investigate that we're gonna have to make sure
that I think you gotta go to the Caribbean and look for look there we go
we Yes, that's that's what we're gonna do.
Okay, so Dan's gonna fill in tomorrow Dan Schaffer filling in tomorrow
Greg and I are going to catch the next flight out to the Caribbean and make sure that Crite Law's not there.
But he will be back Friday, regardless of where he is.
We've got an excellent slate of guests lined up.
to host the program in Pat's absence.
Dan Schaefer of the Reconpopulation Area and Civic Media's political editor coming up tomorrow morning from six to eight a.m.
and we got Chad Holmes helping out from WXCO.
Chad's gonna be joining and hosting on Wednesday morning and Mr. Todd Alba of The Todd Alba Show gonna be filling in on Thursday morning ahead of Pat's return on Friday.
So a little variety for you here on Civic Media mornings this week.
Not relying as heavy.
Bach and the Docs for your sake, Greg.
So you don't have to do it all while Pat's gone this time.
I don't mind doing it.
I love Dr. Lyle.
Before we move on to anything else, I wanted to address a
question on the live stream that was came in earlier in the show when we were talking about spring training in Arizona, speaking of sports right now.
Tony on the live stream says, are you going to talk about baseball trying out the automated strike system?
How do you feel about that?
I know we only have a couple of minutes left, but compact your feelings in a couple of seconds here.
I think it drastically changes from Jules chiming in, listening on WXCO saying Field of Dreams is their favorite sports movie.
I think we're seeing a lot of these automated things.
I haven't got a chance to watch a whole lot of the games yet, so
I
haven't been able to see it in practice.
But we see with the offsides and soccer and a number of other sports.
I think that there should be some more of this anyways like that fourth down conversion where the bills versus the chiefs in the AFC championship game like I think football could have benefited from having a review being like hey let's let's take a closer look at whether or not that fourth down was converted or not and I think that there are some umpires um that um you know could use a little assistance but then it also as
Greg, I don't know if you know this or not, but my first job growing up was umpire.
You
brave
man, Hugh.
I know.
Well, I forget which one I started getting paid for first, if it was mowing lawns or umpiring Little League games, but that was how I made money throughout the spring and the summer, and there is a romantic aspect still of the way that baseball plays, and you do have humans behind the call.
And I think removing that does remove an aspect of the game.
I'm not necessarily opposed to it right off the bat.
I was skeptical of the pitch clock, but it didn't really...
Change like I don't think it changed the game for the worse as the pitch clock got implemented.
Yeah, but what are your thoughts, you know, you're happy about it You're looking forward to it or you think it's a bismol and atrocity against the game of baseball
I have trepidations, but I will say this when the pitch clock came out at first I was all like grumpy old man like nah, we can't be doing this and then I went to a baseball game There was two hours and 30 minutes.
I was like that's ain't bad Right.
Well, and I just your friend of mine Brian Kelly who loves baseball.
Yes
favorite thing his whole
And he's still the same way for the pitch clock is how can you love baseball if you want less baseball and and I do also understand that because the the speed of the game the But
is it baseball what I'm just waiting?
Is it baseball if I'm just standing there waiting sitting there waiting for them to decide what pitch I mean, that's not
you
you get another hot dog
and you enjoy a nice cold one and you're taking the game with your friend
I don't know 20 bucks right there Luke my made of money
That's fair.
That's right.
You got to go
on family day dollar dogs or or five dollar dogs, whatever
I just don't want to see the jettison of umpires completely I think if that would if they can add something great, but I do not want to see like well This is the first season without any umpires.
That's like, okay There has to be some human error in a game like
baseball robots now.
Yeah, that would be that would be unfortunate I'm hoping that they're not going in that direction, but it is interesting to see how how it will how it will look
and whether or not it's going to make a change.
Because if it makes for better calls and better games with still a human element behind the plate, I think it could be good.
Yeah, agree.
Folks, you're listening to Civic Media Mornings.
He's Greg Bach.
I am Luke Mathers, filling in for Mr. Pack.
Right, Lowe, we're going to be joined by a host of Matinair on air coming up.
We got Jane Matinair and Greg Bach.
We got one more segment left in this morning.
Stay with us.
You're listening to the Civic Media Radio Network.
Welcome
back to Civic Media Mornings!
I'm Luke Mathers, filling in for Mr. Pat Krightlow, and that song can mean one thing and one thing, only being comparable.
Jane Mattenair!
Joining us here on civic media mornings Jane.
How are you doing?
I am great Luke stir.
It's Monday.
It's gonna be a really really nice day.
I am super psyched about that
Yeah, we've got we've got some interesting weather here, you know coming.
It's I think Jimmy the ground Yeah, I was gonna I was I don't know what
you
say Jimmy the Greek I Don't know okay, I guess Jimmy Jimmy the groundhog here in Sun Prairie must have had a right though because we've got some
some early spring coming our
way.
Even a blind groundhog will get it right every what seven years or so.
Well that was not to throw shade at Jimmy but I feel like they might have been patting his numbers like they said that he hadn't been wrong in like so long and I was like that almost seems like a suspiciously long streak.
I think you're yes I think you're on to something I think we should go back and double check those records.
Well, I think it's just one of those things where it's kind of like, you know, yeah, the groundhog was right.
Again, yay!
Are you saying there was shenanigans?
Sorry, I just wanted to use some sound effects.
Yeah, Greg was getting a little antsy at the board there.
He
wanted
to get a couple more of those in.
Whatever gets you through the day.
Yeah, exactly.
You can always use a couple more stings.
They always, they always work.
Exactly.
And I
know...
He's he's he's suffering this morning as well having to deal with me for the last two hours,
so I I was listening on the way in you guys sounded just fine You know it was a
big stock and not the dock maybe renewed for another season Well, okay, okay, we'll go that far
That's fair.
That's fair.
Jane, how's your weekend?
What do you got coming up on today's big show?
Weekend was uneventful.
Today we have Emily Zeppos is going to join us.
Emily, of course, has run.
She is in out of Gamy County, very active Democrat.
And one of our elected officials decided to show up in her personal mentions on her personal socials.
So we're gonna kick that around a little bit.
Also today, I was just reading in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, there seems to be some in fighting in the Wisconsin Republican Party, all thanks to Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA.
So I think we may spend a little time this morning talking about, it looks like they're coming for the old guard in the Wisconsin Republican Party and those guys don't like it.
And I have not seen that yet.
So I'm going to have to tune in for Mattenair on Air.
Yeah,
you do.
It's
morning to see what's going on with
that.
Speaking of tuning in on Wednesday, Luke, I'm really looking forward to this.
Will Westmoreland has a TikTok that I stumbled over a couple of weeks ago.
He is a farmer in southwestern Missouri.
He's been doing, he's been farming for decades.
And there was a TikTok that was going around about this young farmer who said, I'm going to lose my farm because of some of the things that Donald Trump is doing.
And especially with freezing, freezing some things that they had, you know, he had already spent money on for improvements to his farm.
And Will Westmoreland has a really interesting explanation for his fellow farmers on
What has happened, especially within the misinformation ecosystem, shall we say, for the last 40 years?
It should be a really, really interesting discussion.
And that conversation coming up on Wednesday.
That will be Wednesday at 10.30, yep.
Fantastic.
And I don't know if you guys heard, but I think Todd Alba traded in his truck for a pair of cross-country skis,
and
he's supposed to be cross-country skiing all the way back to Madison.
That's quite a
hike.
We'll see if he was able to get very far or not, but Mr. Alba, returning from the Berkebeiner, following your terrific show this morning, Todd getting started at noon until two.
But that sounds like a fantastic week, Shane.
We are really looking forward to continuing to cover, I know...
A lot of these aspects right now with the town halls last week, with the what's going on in Washington, what's going on across the state of Wisconsin.
the interviews, the information, the conversations that you bring on matinee on air are tremendously important.
So really appreciate you joining me here on a little bit of the civic media mornings was we fill in for Mr. Crite low, but really, really appreciate everything that you do every Monday through Friday, tend to noon as well.
Oh, thank you so much, Luke.
I just think it's important that we all have an opportunity to hear what's going on.
Maybe we don't want to hear it.
But unfortunately, I think some of these things are things that we need to hear.
And we certainly need to be aware that they're going on.
And those town halls last week, I was not having the greatest emotional weekend weekend this weekend.
So when I was feeling really bad, I would just go back and watch Glenn growthman and and and Scott Fitzgerald.
And it just kind of buoyed my spirits.
It was it was an interesting it was interesting.
You got buoyed by
the
blues.
one way to watch the news yeah yeah it just I don't know I just get warm and fuzzy all over I think the Germans call it shot for I would call it something else but we're FCC compliance
yes we are yes we are and not to put you on the spot but do you do you have a favorite sports movie Greg Greg was going with money ball I'm going with Miracle 45 years this past weekend 45th anniversary of the Miracle on ice any any sports movie for you or I know you're not the
I do have one
sports fan
yeah but Boulderm
Oh, that's a good one.
There are so many quotable lines from that movie, especially I think it's really appropriate now.
Most people are not cursed with a gift of self-awareness.
I think that's a pretty important line in today's day and age, so we should say.
Yeah, that is an excellent addition to today's conversation of best sports movies.
Thank you very much, Jane.
Hope you have a tremendous show
this
morning.
Thanks, Luke.
I really appreciate you joining us here on this Monday edition of Civic Media Mornings.
Again, I'm Luke Mathers, filling in for Pat Critello.
Tomorrow, from 6 to 8 a.m., you can tune in for Dan Schaefer, gonna be filling in the political editor of Civic Media as well as the founder of the Reconpopulation Area.
Chad Holmes holding down the fort on Wednesday, and Mr. Todd Alba on Thursday.
Thursday, Pat will return on Friday.
Folks, stay tuned.
We've got an excellent conversation with Earl Ingram and Reggie Jackson coming up next on The Earl Ingram Show.
I'm Luke Mathers.
You've been listening to Civic Media Mornings across the Civic Media Radio Network.
