You're listening to Civic Media.
You can tune into any of our live shows on any radio station across the state with the Civic Media app.
Find us in your phone's app store and listen anytime, anywhere.
left.
Let's give them some better talk
about.
Talk is cheap.
Keep, keep, keep.
Always gossiping.
It's the John and Gordy show.
This
And that's the way
is.
We'll
do it live.
On 92.7 FM, WMDX.
Take it away, boys.
Starting to brighten up a little bit.
Six minutes past the hour, the clouds should clear for some sunshine.
Highs today about 75, right now 69 degrees.
Coming up in about a half hour, Mike McCabe will be in here.
Substack blogger and author of a great book, The Miracle.
Miracles Along Coutty Q. Terrific book.
He'll be in...
He's been off for a couple of weeks.
Yeah.
Good to have him back.
We've got Dick on the line this morning.
All right.
We've got the street with a call.
We're cooking this morning.
We'll monitor what's happening out there.
Dick, good morning to you.
What's on your mind?
Good morning.
I'm off subject, but did I hear right yesterday that they actually floated Moscow as a place for Zelensky and Putin to meet?
What?
So he could fall out a six story window and we never hear from him again.
Poisoned him.
That would have been like in 1942, Hitler in place, FDR in Churchill, Berlin.
not.
I think the whole thing's a nothing burger and it's not.
you
I haven't had a ceasefire.
We just got into negotiations and they
one of the wars was as you know in the Congo was 30 years 31 years long another one that we settled last week with two great countries was 35 years going on and we had no ceasefire so if we can do the ceasefire great
So let's fact check.
Let's ask rock what he thinks Yeah, it thinks They them think Grock said this Trump's claim of settling six wars of six months lacks evidence Fact checkers political facts seen in no temporary ceasefires in some conflicts, right?
But no permanent resolutions
of six wars.
India denies its involvement, his involvement, rather.
Your statement is accurate.
He did not end six wars.
This term, Trump contributed to four temporary resolutions, not permanent ends for war.
Temporary resolutions.
Temporary resolutions.
So let's clear that up.
By the way, I think that's what CJ threw at us yesterday
Believe so.
He's the peace guy.
I don't think so no no evidence of not not happening.
Okay.
Now.
Let's get back to our little golden idol Trump says school boys don't mind having sex with their teachers.
So this is cut 114 What's this one 14?
Yeah in a June 2012 interview with extra
and a Miss USA pageant, Donald Trump, he's the co-owner, was asked about cases of female teachers having sex with underage male students.
So this should destroy MAGA's argument about downplaying Epstein and Trump together.
Let's play this.
Have you heard about all these teachers having sex with their students?
Is this not crazy?
What is going on?
I
Fair enough.
Oh, you are bad.
This is when we talked about a little bit of it earlier and that is big tech Verifying your age
Lawmakers claim new age verification laws are about child safety, but in reality, they expand surveillance and silence dissent.
This is what I'm saying.
I believe this is correct.
You cannot have age verification.
Sorry, it's just the way it is.
Hmm.
Anyway, Democratic leaders, centrist political pundits, and the mainstream media falsely claim that removing anonymity from the web and censoring content via age verification is cracking down on big tech.
In reality, it makes it easier to surveil what every American is doing online.
Now,
That is.
Yeah.
And by the way, couldn't that come back to haunt you someday?
I would think so, yes.
Wouldn't there be a service out there providing that information to employers and then finding out, well, you've been here, there, and everywhere.
You've been all over the internet.
So, yeah.
This is one of the most dangerous things, and I can't believe it again, as I mentioned in the story here.
It is something that democratic leaders, centrist politicians,
and the mainstream media are pushing.
They're thinking, this is a great idea.
Let's protect the children.
The
And it's phony.
Let's not fall for the same thing here and go for these ridiculous age verifications.
Google is implementing, and this is the other part, age verification measures to ensure users are old enough to manage their accounts and access certain content, particularly for age restricted services.
This involves many other websites.
And I want to bring this up here because this is Google now.
Okay, and we have no control over this.
It's not something that Congress is going to, you know, put into law.
This is Google and we have no choice in the matter.
If they have age verification at Google,
they
This is where I went with this.
I read the story.
Wait a minute.
Is this how we're going to lose the internet for everybody?
because I personally don't believe that I need to verify who I am.
So what happens to my searches on Google?
What happens to my activity on the internet?
I think all of a sudden a lot of people are not going to want to investigate, not want to look information up on the internet.
They'll be afraid to.
Internet is tracking
It
Hey, want to remind you that you can get your entry in for our listener appreciation party.
It's happening at Doundrens on Saturday, September 6th, 3 p.m.
Everybody is invited.
It's free to come to Doundrens Distilling and Cottage Grove to socialize and build community with the
the crew here from WMDX, but we're also offering a VIP invite for you and a guest.
And that includes a free tour of the distillery and tasting some of their spirits and a WMDX swag bag.
So if you would like to enter that, the key word to enter, just get on the Civic Media app and enter the word Barry.
Barry, that's B-E-R-R-Y.
Okay.
If you are one of our winners, we will notify you.
A little bit later on, so Berry is the keyword.
And again, it's going to be a great party.
Everybody's invited to come.
But if you want the VIP package, enter the word Berry.
And if you're selected to win it, we will let you know.
You're in the district of a Republican Congressman, Derek Van Orden, and I want to play for you something he said.
He was very cross-pressured.
He's in a fairly competitive district.
It's also a district where people really do rely on Medicaid and rely also on the health infrastructure that is funded by Medicaid because rural hospital systems depend on that.
This is what he had to say.
This is back in March.
I have very, very few hard lines when it comes to
uh these issues that we talk about uh regularly one of them is that I've been crystal clear with the leadership in the house here if during this budget reconciliation process they're gonna try to cut rural health care I am not on board
will not be on board with a package that does that if anybody is trying to cut any type of rural health care
It's just not going to happen on my watch.
you think he kept
He absolutely did not.
And look, the outcome of the big ugly bill, now law, is that we will see people lose their
private health insurance that they purchased in the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
We will see people lose their Medicaid for which they are eligible because of the red tape that they're going to put in front of eligible recipients
of
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get
Hey guys, how's it going?
imagine that
Finally, I do, actually.
This is great.
Kick back, put your feet up on the desk, we've got a good day ahead.
there this morning, especially if you go north, but otherwise temperatures upper sixties right now More clouds to start the day than sunshine, but we will see that more and more as we go through the afternoon
Yes, it's the
Okay
going to burn off the fog.
We're going to burn off the clouds.
We're going to... The
guy
use it though, right?
It'll evaporate.
It'll get out
It'll clear.
It'll...
It'll look better.
Okay.
Blue skies, no wildfire smoke.
Hey, positives here.
Upper 70s today.
Great.
Very, very darn comfortable if you ask me.
High pressure stays here, mostly sunny tomorrow into Friday.
Highs flirting with about 80 degrees.
Now Friday night a chance of rain late that front pushes through pretty quickly and then we feel like fall for Saturday and Sunday.
Beautiful bright blue skies temperatures in those mid 70s on Saturday and then the upper 60s on Sunday.
Yep, no concerns there.
do.
I really, really want to go.
Am I still invited?
I can count.
Of course you are.
They're cool enough.
Well, we
but now
you mention it,
can
up, why
It depends on the weather forecast, right?
Yes, that's it.
If everyone loves me or hates
Thanks, guys.
he's taken a
Okay.
Good morning, Senator Martin from Maine.
It's Charlie Angus here in Canada.
You know, when I heard that you'd sent out these mimeographed letters to elected legislators across Western Canada, asking them to commit treason, to sell at their nation, to give up their sovereignty.
I thought it was a joke, honestly.
I mean, for one, nobody up here has ever heard of you.
So I had to look you up and I learned, oh, you represent Maine.
That's that.
piece of ground that's below the beautiful provinces of New Brunswick in Quebec.
Oh, yeah.
Now, in saying that, I know I'm being a little mean to Maine, but heck, you guys voted for him.
So I hope you don't mind if I put a little bit of shoulder into your chin.
So I was thinking, OK, who is this guy?
And what's his offer?
And what did you say?
You said, well, the United States has the values of Western civilization.
So is that the same Western civilization that elects a convicted felon, a sexual predator?
a guy who brags about feeding people to alligators.
Is that your western civilization?
You say that this is a nation under the Constitution.
So is that the same Constitution that makes it possible for guys in masks to kidnap people off the streets or the president to send the National Guard against on-arm civilians in American cities?
Is that your Constitution?
Then of course you have to say that you're a nation under Christian values.
You know, I like Jesus.
I sure don't like this American guy called Jesus, because when I was hungry, you fed me.
When I was homeless, you gave me a bed.
When I was in prison, you came and comforted me, and you haven't done any of that.
Have you, Senator?
because your idea of a Bible is some schlocky gold lame stick sold by your president along with his crypto means.
That's your values.
So let me
just give you a quick lesson in Canada.
Number one, we believe in diversity, equity and inclusion because our diversity makes us stronger.
You talk about a melting pot.
Yeah, well, it floats and we've seen that.
You believe in the inalienable right of any moron in the United States to walk into a gun store and come out with an AR-15 in order to shoot up a school of children.
to terrorize high school students, to shoot up a church, a synagogue, or a Walmart because you don't happen to like the Latino Americans who shop there.
Well, in Canada, we believe in the inalienable right of a family to go to the emergency ward at the hospital and get their children treated without going bankrupt because that's what a civilized nation does.
We believe in democracy, where it's one person, one vote, where elections are not decided by dark money, by super PACs, and by the oligarchs.
And you know, we don't get a lot of things right here, but we're working on it, because we believe at the end of the day that the economy shouldn't just favor the 1%.
So here's the thing, Senator.
There are a million places the Canadians will go spend their money.
And Maine isn't one of them, because they elected them more on like you.
So we're going to do our part, Senator.
to make sure that nobody spends money in Maine and nobody spends money in the United States of Donald Trump.
It was only a week.
Okay.
Just last Wednesday.
I was actually up in the Eagle River area.
Family gathering rent some cottages up there on a lake.
Oh, that's great.
Yeah, and spend some time out and out in Backwoods and nice.
Yeah.
Good deal.
Welcome back.
It's a nice
up there.
actually still up there and this is not me Right, right, right,
African American History Museum in DC is fascinating.
If you haven't been there, it's worth a visit.
Before they start closing some of the floors, the design of the museum is interesting because it's built floor by floor and the bottom floor is extremely dark, no windows.
And it's about slavery and it's sort of designed like a slave ship.
Each floor above it gets brighter.
and you reach the civil rights era and then there are windows and light is pouring in.
And so visually, it sort of gives you this sense of this journey from slavery to Jim Crow, to the civil rights era, to more modern times and powerful exhibits based on your discussion.
I do kind of wonder if they're going to close the bottom floor because it deals with that history of slavery.
Well, the big thing here on
something that really makes Trump very angry.
Is that what it is?
So yeah, before it closes, it is definitely worth a visit for anybody who gets out
in that direction.
You know what we all say, we all say this, factor fiction.
Yeah, right.
The reality is that fiction is based on fact.
When you write fiction, yes, you use imagination, and yes, you blend facts in creative ways, but you do it to get to deeper truth.
You do it to create a broader understanding of what's going on in the world.
That's the
This
Absolutely.
I chose fiction
to tell that story.
It's basically the story of my late brother Dan, but I just felt that given what we're going through right now, given the challenges and the circumstances of life today, Dan passed away over 20 years ago, and I wanted to write a story that related to the threats and the crises of the current moment.
But it's basically his story, but I didn't write a character named Dan, and I didn't write the story as Dan's exact life story.
But yeah, he was the inspiration for the story, and I wouldn't have that story to tell if he hadn't been my brother.
And so I chose fiction because of its ability to allow the imagination to take us to a place that...
the everyday news accounts will never take us.
And to get us to deeper understanding and to get us to wrestle with challenges that otherwise were inclined to just look the other way and overlook.
yes.
And, you know, if there's ever been a more logical mind than Einstein's, I don't know what that mind would be or whose mind that would be.
But, you know, he said that, you know, logic will only take you so far.
It'll take you from point A to point B. But imagination can take us everywhere.
And it can even take us to the point where we can see what's being done to us to fully comprehend.
this current moment that we're going through.
And so yeah, I mean, imagination is our way out of this trap.
We have to be able to imagine the future that we want rather than the reality that we're currently
in,
time.
Right, you know, that's the thing that concerns me the most is that when you think about what's going on in America right now.
There are forces that are trying to protect what we had, and there are forces trying to take us back before
those
things
that want to destroy those things and take us back to the time before those things even existed.
But what we don't have in this country right now is the imagination to think about what will be, or what
be.
And that's what's missing in this, in our politics, it's what's missing in our society in general.
And that's exactly where fiction can take us.
But, you know, people equate fiction with false.
They think that it's a synonym for false.
And they see it, you know, we've all been taught to think that fiction is just fantasy.
But what it really is, is the imagination.
about what we could be, where we could go.
We
that's why all the lying is all about it.
And what I'm looking at here is, using my imagination, projecting off into the future by three and a half years, will we have anything left?
Is there anything left really?
You know, I think, you know, if we use our imaginations now, it's dystopian future is what we're looking at, what we maybe are
going to be involved in.
But you know, John, this kind of takes us back to many past conversations we've had about that great book, The Fourth Turning that I've talked about before, or the other book that I've mentioned, The Upswing.
And, you know, and periodically we go through these phases where things are
are built and then we go through phases where people get disillusioned with that architecture and they start to tear that down.
And I think we're going through that time where things are being torn down.
But at the end, when everything's been burned to the ground, out of those ashes can spring new growth.
It happens in every forest when there's a forest fire.
What happens right afterwards?
All these new things start bursting from the soil, and you see that landscape greened over in a hurry.
It doesn't stay charred forever.
I don't know,
but we've got to imagine what we want to see grow
saying
here Isn't that isn't that a great metaphor for for what our society is stuck in right now?
It's like all they can see is is they can't they can't understand that that
Fire is a part of nature and it happens and and you know and unfortunately the air currents will sometimes blow that smoke
in our
direction But but it's not Canada's fault.
You know and they and nor can they stop it What we have to think about is globally is is what we can do to you know to prevent More wildfires in the future and we got it we got it at some point come to terms with the fact that
that the climate is changing in this world, and that that is producing more severe storms, it's producing more wildfires, and we gotta get to the root of the problem, and Canada can't do that alone.
And a letter from a few members of Congress can't wave a magic wand over the problem.
It's not gonna solve anything.
We gotta think bigger than that.
there is climate change.
Absolutely.
They don't want, they want, they just want to blame somebody.
Oh, it's Canada's fault for not managing their forests properly.
Same thing
rake
up
But anyway, you know, I just I always think of this as you know a time where we're we're trying to make sense out of
Something that doesn't make any sense at all and that is you know, we're hearing a lot of lies constant line They have taken over the US government's information on the internet and turned that into lying They've done everything possible to make lying just normal.
It's what we expect now now we have physicians
associations coming out with their own statistics and recommendations because the government now can't be trusted to provide that information.
And this is not the first time in human history that we've gone through such a phase where they're not telling these lies.
for the sake of just telling lies.
They're telling these lies to desensitize us to dishonesty and then make us more prone to their propaganda.
That's why they tell the lies, is to get us to the point where they can control us.
And that's happened before, many times over the course of human history.
And when, what were the most powerful ways that that was fought in the past?
Think about George Orwell.
yes.
With 1984.
And with Animal Farm.
What was he doing?
But
that cut to the core of what was being done to humanity and took people to a higher place, a better place.
And we need to invoke imagination today to fight this.
And yeah, so I'm just struck by how...
how the dishonesty of our age is
fiction a bad name.
would people have been without Orwell to expose what was being done to them?
And yeah, so where are the George Orwells of today?
Where are the leaders of today that, you know, we can, I mean, it seems like it's so, we need somebody to break through all these lies and show us a path to the future.
But
Is that the way it's going to happen?
Yeah, I think some of the Orwells are on Comedy Central.
Well, yes.
And then some of the Orwells are on Substack.
find them in different places, and some of them are humorists, and some of them are satirists, and some of them are powerful fiction writers.
748.
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.
Thank you.
We're back with our resident optimist, Mike McCabe, looking into the future.
And we have a few more minutes here.
So let's see, we were going to talk about AI and setting up some guardrails.
And the story that we had this earlier this morning was age restrictions.
Yeah, I heard you talking about that on
my drive into the studio.
I don't know when that's going to happen.
I believe the United Kingdom might be putting this in place or the EU, which is even bigger and more important.
Yeah.
I find this to be unsettling and dangerous, especially in the information age and how AI is being used now to calm all this information and make it very easy to access for those people who want to have access to it.
It'll become a business and those businesses will advise corporations and businesses on employees who are applying at their businesses.
Tell them everything that they've ever done on the internet.
And you know, these people might have just done a search because a friend of theirs had said something about it and they wanted to find out a little bit more or their kid or something like that.
It's so unfair.
It's so wrong.
This is the wrong way to set up a guardrail on the internet.
That's my opinion.
What do you think?
Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that kids are really creative creatures.
Yes.
And I'm figuring that even if they try to do this, kids are going to figure out a way around it.
Yeah.
Because they are very creative creatures, and they'll figure out a way to game it.
The other thing that I think is that it's just, what I find unwise is this human impulse.
to try to mechanize the solving of human problems and have some kind of machine, some
kind of
technology solve the problem for us when, in fact, these are human problems.
And we need to deal with that on a human level.
And so it's destined to fail.
But the price we may pay for a solution that will, I think, surely fail is gonna be a high price.
It's going to be a high price in terms of our own privacy.
It's going to be a high price in terms of the extent to which our behavior is surveilled.
Not perhaps by the government, but by big tech.
I just think it's folly to think that we can
have a machine do our thinking for us.
I mentioned Substack before where some great authors can be found.
Robert Reich, the former labor secretary, has a wonderful article out on Substack.
If you haven't seen it, I really encourage you all to check it out.
He talks about the three kinds of jobs that exist.
And he said there are thinking jobs, there are making jobs, and there are caring jobs.
Fits them all into those three categories.
And he said that
the making jobs, you think about manufacturing,
the
making jobs and the thinking jobs, which could be anything from journalism to anything that involves creative thought.
AI will eventually take over those jobs and then all will be left with our caring jobs, whether it's a nurse or a mental health counselor.
But those will be the jobs that will be left because the making jobs and the thinking jobs will be taken over by AI.
And I think,
That is not a good recipe for humanity because human beings by their nature wanna make things and they also are blessed with the ability to think.
And why we would wanna take a machine and say you do our thinking for us, you do our making for us is beyond me.
And I think it's a path that takes us nowhere good.
And so to me, the subject you talk about about guardrails.
for the internet.
I would extend that to guardrails for AI as well.
It's part of a much bigger conversation we have.
Why do we want machines to do our thinking for us?
And why do we want machines to do our making for us?
Yeah, and you know one of the things that happened to me a while back a long time back was my kid They were playing music and they were downloading music off the internet and we got a warning from the internet Provider that we are illegally downloading music and then our subscription order
connection will be disconnected if it happens again.
Now it's something we were unaware of as parents and we didn't know anything about it.
We had no idea what songs that they downloaded.
They had no idea what they were doing or the songs that they downloaded.
So there was no way for us to fix whatever we had to fix or should look out for.
And what they did on the internet is on our record.
So because we use the same IP.
So the thing here is that this is really a huge, huge problem if they decide to verify ages on the internet.
I can't see any reason why this would be a good idea.
And I'm shocked.
I'm surprised that politicians would jump on board.
And the EU or United Kingdom would think that this is a good idea.
I don't know how.
Anybody has come to this conclusion that we should do something this crazy.
Yeah, you I mean you've described the downsides really well, but to me if you look for an upside I I'm thinking it won't work
If you think it's going to solve something, it won't work.
It'll ultimately fail, but we will still pay those prices that you described.
Mike McCabe, thanks for joining us.
Check out his sub-status.
Thanks for helping me out dealing with this.
We always appreciate your counseling sessions with John.
Thanks, Mike.
We'll see you next Wednesday.
That's it for us.
Stephanie Miller is next, and tomorrow on the show, Tim Slecker will talk education, and we'll find out the latest at the Supreme Court with Jim Slecker.
and Santel.
All right.
We hope you
day.
So long.
Civic Media is dedicated to providing quality local and state news coverage across Wisconsin.
With the Civic Media app, you can get notifications about local stories that matter to you and your community.
Find the free Civic Media app in your phone's app store and choose notifications from the menu to tell us what kind of news you want to hear about.
