Sean Duffy’s New War: Rainbow Crosswalks (Hour 1)

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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by Upnorth News.

Now for my Lake WSOTA studio, here is the founding editor of Upnorth News, Pat Kratlow.

Hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 6.06 on this Tuesday morning, July 8th, 2025.

It's another beautiful morning to have you here up north live from Lake WSOTA from wherever you're spending your mornings listening across the Civic Media radio network.

And if you're catching us instead over the app or on social media or by podcast, we appreciate you being here to kick off your Tuesday as well.

I got a question for you.

Are those rainbow crosswalks dangerous to traffic or are they simply dangerous to the fragile sensibilities of the less tolerant among us?

That's one of the topics we will be covering on the program this morning because you see

America's air traffic control system is a mess.

It's fragmented, lots of old equipment.

It's going to take many years, many billions of dollars to upgrade, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy could spend his entire work day on that project alone, not to mention the nation's many other critical transportation needs, but if you'll excuse him, the Secretary is very busy right now declaring war on sidewalks.

that have LGBTQ supported rainbow colors in them.

We will talk about his letter to the nation's governors coming up on the program today.

We also cover the far northwest and southwest corners of the state.

In our seven o'clock hour, we will talk to State Representative Jenna Jacobson about her newly announced campaign for a state senate seat currently held by the Republican co-chair of the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee.

Then we'll go up north to visit with Superior Mayor Jim Payne about lead water pipe removal, the Blatnik Bridge project, and using goats to get rid of buckthorn.

I would have the Mayor of Superior on just talk about goats eating buckthorn, but we'll get to some of those other matters as well.

Dan Hagen from WJFWTV News Watch 12 in Rhinelander will tell us what's new in his neck of the woods.

Then in our eight o'clock hour, there are those who described the new Wisconsin state budget quickly adopted last week by the legislature as the least bad option given the split between Democratic Governor Tony Evers and majority Republicans.

But others believe Democrats didn't fight hard enough for more since GOP leaders needed Democratic votes to pass a budget due to some far-right holdouts.

So there are a lot of layers to peel back from this legislative onion, and we will do that with Dan Schaefer from the Reconpopulation Area.

And a reminder, Thursday morning at 7.30, we'll have our monthly visit with Congressman Mark Polkan.

I got feeling that there will be things to talk about from that Trump big bloated boondoggle that got passed last week.

Along the way, of course, you can send us a text message using the Civic Media app.

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From meteorologist Brittany Merlot, a low pressure system heads into Wisconsin today, but behind it another dry and comfortable few days.

All ahead of more heavy rain that'll threaten parts of the state right before the weekend.

So for today, showers and thunderstorms likely this morning, more are possible this afternoon, especially in the eastern half of the state.

Highs in the mid 70s up north to near 85 in the south.

and a south wind at five to 10 miles an hour for tonight partly cloudy patches of fog all throughout the state lows in the mid fifties up north to the low sixties south with calm winds and the radar right now shows a line of thunderstorms and rain has just started to develop in the past a half hour or so roughly stretching from the

Tomah area up into Wisconsin Rapids, Stevens Point, Wasaw, Merrill up to the Eagle River area.

It's a rather thin line just getting its start right now.

So I can't say if it will build or not.

And then there's another area of rain and thunderstorms that appears to be moving across the northern suburbs or just north of the Milwaukee area.

So

depending on where you're doing your driving today, you might have to be prepared for some wet road conditions.

Conditions are far from that.

They are dry in Madison Studio A2, where we find Parker Olson continuing to stand by and turn the dials and flip the switches that make the show go from here to over there.

Mr. Olson, how are

you?

Doing pretty good.

I'm having a good time throwing the signal out to the world.

It's a lot of hard work.

Yes, this button goes like this, and away we go.

So it's a little, it's not a little different.

It's a lot different than, you know, once upon a time when, you know, radio stations, I think it would blow some people away to tell them that radio and TV stations did not always broadcast 24 hours.

You know, there was a sign on and there was a sign off and sign on was a bit of a process.

You had to turn the transmitter on or whatever and, you know, you literally had to throw some switches and wait for things to warm up.

And then at the end of the day, you know, whether it was midnight or one AM or whatever, you know, stations would play the star spangled banner and then go quiet for the night.

And that hardly happens anywhere anymore.

I mean, because you can always just

We rolled some of today's shows in the overnight hours.

Yeah, it's funny

that

you say that, actually, because I don't remember what it was, but there was something that I saw, I think, on Twitter the other day of a channel, like, signs off, and it was in Canada, so they play O'Canola when they sign off.

And I didn't know that was a thing that you play the national anthem when you sign on or off.

Yes, yes.

That was news to me, and I was like, huh,

that's a little

weird, but I guess, sure.

Yeah.

I mean, once upon a time, you know, there were maybe three TV stations that you could get and a couple of radio stations and everybody went to bed at night.

And now we, we have an, I mean, we also have, we have a world now where you're doing things seven days a week.

Yeah.

Again, old man alert here, but on Sundays.

Almost everything used to be closed.

You couldn't do anything on Sundays, except, you know, go to church, spend time with your family, relax, things like that.

But now we want instant convenience all the time, so more people are working over nights than ever before and on the weekends.

And there are times I definitely think it would be great if we could all collectively just sign off and say, everybody get some rest.

We'll pick it up again in the morning.

That probably do some people some good.

Yeah, I would do people some good, but I fear that that stuff is not happening anytime soon.

You you have to get your relaxation where you can get it.

I got mine watching the Brewer's game last night and boy was that fun.

Just stomping on the Dodgers.

What?

That's not something you expected.

No.

Did you see Andrew Vaughn and his his home run?

I think I fell asleep.

during

the pretty early in the game.

Yeah, that made a

yeah.

All right.

I

was like the third inning.

Welcome to the Brewers.

Andrew Vaughn, the team's newest addition, hit a three run homer in his first plate appearance with the Brewers as they trounced the Los Angeles Dodgers Monday night nine to one.

The backstory goes like this.

Do you remember starting pitcher Aaron Savali?

Oh yeah.

Yeah, I kind of do.

We got him from Tampa Bay about a year ago.

And last month, he was pulled from the starting rotation to make room for Jacob Mizorowski.

And not wanting to be a relief pitcher, Sovali requested a trade to a team where he could be a starter.

And then in one of the greatest passive aggressive moves in baseball history, the brewer said, okay, you want to trade?

You can trade.

They sent them to the lowly Chicago White Sox.

And we got one of their few good players, Andrew Vaughn, and thus last night's home run.

So thanks, Aaron Savalli, and your ego.

I will say, I think that situation was really well handled.

It was extremely well handled.

I think that

he was totally within his rights to go, you know what?

I want to be a starting pitcher.

Please trade me.

I think that's totally fine.

I think

it's hilarious that the group

sent him to the White Sox.

Hope he's happy.

And he also has like a 4-2-90 array there.

Careful what you wish for.

Freddie Peralta, meanwhile, threw six shutout innings for the Brewers.

He struck out seven.

He allowed five hits and one walk.

Christian Yelich had a two-run homer from Milwaukee.

And for me, the big thing, the whoa moment, was the Dodger starting pitcher, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who lasted just two-thirds of an inning.

Yeah.

Pulled your starting pitcher in the first inning down five nothing already.

And again, the Brewers go on to win that one by a score of nine to one.

And that was all last night.

Tonight.

Who knows?

Tonight's this too should be fun for the Dodgers.

Clayton Kershaw, the newest member of the three thousand strikeout club faces Brewers Rookie.

The aforementioned

Jacob Mizorovsky, Clayton Kershaw, Jacob Mizorovsky.

If the game isn't sold out by now, Milwaukee, what's wrong with you?

I think it may be sold out by now.

It might be.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know how it couldn't be, which again, you would not expect.

Hey, a Tuesday night game, you know, an American family field, a Tuesday night game might get you, you know.

12,000 people sometimes if the team's not doing that great.

They're going to have, they're going to have many more than 12,000 people on a Tuesday night.

I think so.

Yeah.

I think it was like 35,000 last night

and that

was for, I

mean,

good pitching, but

not this.

Not this.

Yeah.

Have liners.

Now, again, I did, we built it up last week with Mizorowski and, you know, it wasn't a duly no hitters or anything like that, but I,

Anytime you get to watch this kid pitch and against a a now, you know easy Hall of Fame inductee and Clayton Kershaw you got to watch this or

in the case of Civic Media folks, you gotta listen to this.

And the game is on the radio.

Pre-game starting at 605 on Civic Media stations in Richland Center.

Oshkosh, Racine Kenosha, Park Falls and Hayward.

So get yourself over to the Civic Media website to learn much more about that.

So that's, that's how I have been planning to relax last night and again this evening.

Though I have to confess that over the weekend I

I have a new form of relaxation and my other forms of relaxation are getting jealous.

Oh, I've got the Jeep that I can drop the top on and that's always nice to go for a drive.

I've got the pontoon to go along the lake.

But I have I have noticed that this new hammock

that I got.

And I've had hammocks for the whole 30 years that we've been living here alongside the lake, but mostly they've been of that cargo net variety, you know, and strung between two trees.

And they're great.

Don't get me wrong.

Nothing, nothing wrong with that.

But this one is more, this is a fabric instead.

Yeah.

And it's a double instead of a single.

And so that when you sit in it, the two sides of the cloth hammock kind of come up and almost turn you into a cocoon.

while you're in the hammock.

Oh, I know you like that.

I grabbed one of those airline travel pillows that kind of wrap around your neck, you know, brought that into the hammock.

And I don't know how I get out of that.

You're getting too comfy, Pat.

You're going to get lost in there

one day.

Oh, a couple of neighbors came by on Sunday afternoon on a.

On a bicycle for two, I hasten to add.

You know, it just comes riding right around the house, right into the backyard yelling, get out of that hammock.

And then, of course, I had to try to gracefully exit the hammock.

Which you can't.

Which at my age is no longer a possible thing to do.

But fortunately, my friend did not mock me nearly to the degree that I might have mocked him in return.

And that's why he's a better friend than I am.

It's good that you

surround yourself with good people,

Pat.

Yes.

But I am absolutely pleading guilty.

to having a new love, a new, a new favorite form of relaxation.

Then you put the burger game on the radio on your phone and put that on your chest.

Oh, it's the best.

Life is good up here in America's Up North, live from Lake WSOTA.

Thank you for making this a place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Crightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

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 started.

So if you missed it off the top still ahead state representative Jenna Jacobson on running for state Senate Superior Mayor Jim Payne will have Dan Hagen from WJFWTV Dan Schaefer from the Recon Bobulation area meteorologist Brittany Merleau and much more coming up along the way Roger from Stevens Point puts on Facebook that we still have AM radio stations that would reduce power at sundown true not quite a sign off but definitely a lower range

Uh, let's see, Alicia puts up on YouTube.

Oh, Pat, you have to see this flock of geese looking like they're coming into work.

They're not, they're not actually following you.

I mean, they may follow you, but you're not going to like what they leave on your car after work.

And yes, Tony, writing on YouTube, this does in fact sound like an all star guest list.

Uh, John on faith or on YouTube saying, I wonder why Democrats didn't vote for the budget.

Let's see, and I don't know if he's specifically referencing state or federal.

Alicia responds, John, every Democrat who voted against the budget released a statement on why they voted the way that they did.

That's true.

And it reminds me of a story that I saw about things that we are still finding in the megabill, the big bloated boondoggle.

I mentioned one of them.

during this hour yesterday with Dr. Kristen Lierly, that again, it was never talked about, but that it removed some of the prescription drugs for which Medicare could negotiate better pricing, could do bulk pricing.

And Republicans just in a huge giveaway to Big Pharma exempted a whole bunch of drugs so that you

have to pay more.

And not just you, if you're on Medicare, all of us end up paying more as a result of Republicans saying, nope, no price negotiation for you guys.

But there's more in there.

From the American prospect, they looked at, what did they call it?

10 bizarre things hidden in Trump's bill.

There is, for example, incentivizing fraud in SNAP.

You see, one of the ways they write that Republicans cut the supplemental nutrition assistance program is by forcing states to shoulder more of the program's cost.

But in the Senate, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski got a two-year exemption for states with erroneous payment rates of 13% or more, which includes her home state of Alaska, which has the highest payment error rate in the nation.

Now, they didn't just carve it out for Alaska because to comply with budget reconciliation rules, they had to extend this exemption to the states with the 10 highest error rates.

This is literally incentivizing states to increase waste and fraud in the program.

And the magazine notes seriously, liberal states would be wise to make their SNAP program as sloppy as possible right now.

I mean, they're not going to do it, but that just tells you the ridiculousness that was in this bill.

One of the few gun regulations that still exists is a tax on silencers.

It has existed for almost 100 years and sits at $200, or it did until now.

Republicans repealed the extra tax on gun silencers.

There is a tax reduction on oil drillers.

There's a handout for Chinese steel companies.

At a time when Republicans are constantly telling us about debt and we can't afford things like basic healthcare, they do include a $40 million appropriation to the national endowment for the humanities to requisition statues for a garden of heroes in Washington DC.

I mean, that's just...

Kim Jong-un territory right there to have a garden of heroes.

And then there's this odd one, a tax on gambling winnings.

Republicans changed the tax rules around gambling.

to limit the amount of losses that could be deducted to just 90%.

So if you go to Vegas, you win $10,000 one day and you lose $10,000 the next, you're still on the hook for $1,000 in winnings.

You could end up owing tax even if you lost money while gambling.

Just strange and then there's there's an unlimited state and local tax deduction Which again is gonna cost us 35 to 40 billion dollars over the next decade.

There is a tax break in there for Puerto Rican rum You've got Donald Trump saying he wants to get rid of the chips act Which incentivizes domestic production of semiconductors?

But the bill actually increases

Chips subsidies because again, it's pretty clear that congressional Republicans knew that Donald Trump isn't really paying attention to any of this and There's a lot that they put in there Including of course these massive Medicaid cuts even though Trump said, you know, we don't want to see big Medicaid cuts But they're in there along with so much more and that's just one article that

Took a look at the crazy things in the bill the one from the party that said they hated big bills Sure passed a big giant one here.

I Would recommend highly to you an article in yesterday's New York Times about Farmers in Kansas because it would apply here to to a degree the headline is from food aid to dog chow

how Trump's cuts hurt Kansas farmers.

Talking about the Food for Peace program, a post-war program that enabled farmers in Kansas and of course all of the Midwest to feed the world as it recovered from war and continues to provide global markets for American agricultural products.

It was created by a Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower.

It has sent food to more than four billion people in 150 countries around the world and Trump just killed it.

It's gone and Kansas farmers are just starting to add up the cost of all the markets that have been lost and cannot believe that this measure was included in the bill.

They feel like they were lied to.

They feel like they were double crossed.

And it leads to a whole debate about how we should respond when people who supported Trump get burned, which we'll talk about a little later.

But first, the Midwest Farm Report, and then more conversation here live from Lake Rosota on the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm Pat Raitland.

Welcome back.

It is 635 on this Tuesday morning, July 8th.

Nice to have you here live from Lake Wissota across the Civic Media Radio Network.

Before the break, we were talking about a New York Times article called, well, it wasn't called What's the Matter with Kansas.

That was my shorthand for it was, you know, what's what's the matter with Kansas?

And of course, the easy punchline is that they voted for Donald Trump.

And now

reaping what they sell.

And in this particular instance, it was about the killing of a couple of popular programs.

One was Food for Peace.

The other was the McGovern Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program named for the former Kansas Senator, the late Bob Dole.

Food for Peace allowed countries to buy American farm products in their local currency.

And then the US would spend those proceeds inside those countries on development grants.

So our farmers get a market for their crops.

We get a good price for that.

And then instead of taxpayers paying to subsidize development projects around the world, we simply take their own money that they just used to purchase American farm products to assist.

It was as win-win as it gets.

And last year, for example, the article says,

Kansas sold half of its annual wheat crop to other countries, but those buyers have almost entirely dried up.

And at least one big grain broker is now trying to sell Kansas grain that once fed people overseas for use in dog food instead.

It's one of the few markets left for surplus crops.

One farmer of Vance Emkey said, for a small farm that's got a thousand acres of wheat with a modest yield of 45 bushels an acre, if you lose a dollar a bushel, that's $45,000 of income that has just vanished.

And he said, that's if wheat goes down a dollar a bushel.

Since February, wheat has gone down $1.50 a bushel.

We talk a lot about the tariffs and the consumer products that we'd find on shelves, but

we have to keep in mind as well that what Trump has done to agricultural products through his trade war has also done tremendous damage.

But I want to make this one note and I want to be clear about this.

Don't use a broad brush to disrespect the many farmers and rural residents who tried to sound the alarm to their neighbors.

Every time I hear someone say farmers quote unquote deserved to suffer,

or even fail for supporting Trump, it's a reminder that our modern day loss of empathy is not restricted to one end of the political spectrum.

It is not going to be easy to win back what used to be democratic strongholds in rural America, and it's going to take more than restoring U.S.

trade with our partners.

It's going to be

It's going to take being more involved in antitrust and breaking up corporate monopolies, which are punishing our farmers.

It's going to involve messaging that is firmer on the need for tolerance and communicating values of inclusion and brotherhood or sisterhood.

It's going to involve confronting racial and sexual bigotry in a way that is unwavering, but also informative.

And those are some hard conversations.

And it's one I've talked about a lot where people say, well, Democrats, you know, they're always talking about the trans community and that's losing them rural votes.

But it's not Democrats who are bringing it up.

It's Republicans who are doing the bullying and the Democrats are standing up to the bullies.

And what's the alternative?

Not stand up to the bullies?

So there needs to be these increasing messages about the importance of fairness and inclusion.

But also to show them who's really on their side who doesn't want their rural hospitals to close who does not want to take away their markets And so I hope more people would take and share that particular article from the New York Times yesterday about just one example of what's happening with Kansas and rural America writ large Let's talk about the nation's air traffic control system for a moment

and Sean Duffy and what he could be spending time on versus what he is spending time on.

You see the nation's air traffic control system is a mess and it's been a mess for a long time.

It's big, it's unwieldy, it's got many many moving parts and the fact that it still works as well as it does is frankly a modern miracle but there's no reason to be complacent about it.

Multiple presidential administrations have talked about the need to make upgrades or replacements in some situations.

Knowing full well that it's going to cost a lot of money.

Knowing full well that you're dealing with a Congress that was passing austerity budgets to put it mildly.

Congressman Sean Duffy among them.

when he represented northern wisconsin in the u.s.

house of representatives but now that he is transportation secretary and things are really starting to fall apart now he wants to be a champion and has been growing that the new bill passed last week includes 12 billion dollars for upgrades to our air traffic control system which is fine but estimates say it's going to take about 31 billion dollars to get all the work done

And frankly, it just reminds me of the case of maybe allowing a home to fall into disrepair.

And then finally, there's some kind of a big problem.

And now when you fix it, when you've addressed that problem, suddenly you're a hero, even though you're the one who helped things fall into disrepair in the first place.

The latest example is that the FAA last week transitioned at Newark to a new fiber optics communications network.

between New York and Philadelphia.

You might recall there was a series of technology disruptions at Newark earlier this year, and there could have been a catastrophe at some point.

Sean Duffy pounded his fist on his desk and said, we need to do something about it right now.

And he was right there at the ribbon cutting metaphorically for this new fiber optic system, taking credit for it, something that had been in the works for a while and that only got accelerated in light of

you know, recent problems.

But as usual, some of the folks that were resisting the solution are the ones who love to show up at the groundbreaking and the ribbon cuttings.

And that, again, is just one piece of the puzzle.

There is so much more that Sean Duffy could be doing.

Instead, Sean Duffy has sent a letter to the nation's governors about rainbow sidewalks.

and how it could lead to traffic dangers.

From the Advocate magazine as Americans crowd highways and airports for peak summer travel, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has announced a sweeping new national initiative that could put rainbow painted crosswalks and broader debates over how cities express their identity squarely in the federal spotlight.

In the letter on Tuesday, Duffy urged governors nationwide to comply with a new Trump program aimed at eliminating, quote unquote, distractions from non freeway arterial roads.

Duffy wrote, roads are for safety, not political messages or artwork.

Is this a problem?

Well, under the Biden administration, where we started to see these rainbow crossings, estimated traffic fatalities went down last year.

about 4% compared to the year before.

But Duffy said, well, that's still 39,000 traffic deaths and that remains unacceptable.

And he press states to identify their hazardous roads within 60 days.

And yet what defines a distraction is far from settled.

And the article then goes on to talk about not just the aesthetics of the colorful sidewalks,

but also the local control over having both safety and civic pride in some form or another.

The article says that at the heart of Duffy's push is a long running federal insistence on uniformity.

But I don't get it.

I heard that whenever we talked about uniformity, that was big government coming down on us.

Is Sean Duffy now on the side of big government?

I mean, there was a memo during the Obama administration from the Federal Highway Administration that warned that crosswalk art might degrade the contrast of the white markings and give pedestrians a false sense of security, but that there could also be added aesthetic treatments, things like reflective properties and other ways to increase safety.

But still, there is a lack of any direct research showing that rainbow crosswalks cause any crashes.

But it is the thing that Sean Duffy is spending some time on in the latest of the many instances of the Trump administration having a real problem leaving people alone.

We talked about this yesterday with the Monaco Brewing Company and Kirk Bankstead and how the local government up there and the courts and the local newspaper just can't help but turning him into a punching bag because he's not a wallflower about his politics and how everyone would be better off if you just let people have their disagreements rather than spoiling for fights and making stuff up.

Or maybe we should put it in transportation terms for Sean Duffy.

Stay in your lane.

It is a 645 right now.

If you missed it before the big sports event this week for Wisconsin would be the Milwaukee Brewers taking on the LA Dodgers coverage is going to start at 605 on stations across the Civic Media Radio Network.

Mr. Olson, I have a question for you.

Are you by chance a Jurassic Park

Fan you have you seen the movies fan of the movies.

I think I've only seen the original one Okay,

thank I do like the original one.

Yeah But I've never cared enough to watch any of the new ones.

Are you seeing the new ones?

I've seen none of them.

I'm not I'm just not

you know some people they love the dinosaur stuff love the dinosaur

stuff

I never you know as a kid I had friends who were all about dinosaurs and that I was just that was just never me so I've seen bits and pieces of movies here and there but that that's about it anyway I asked because I didn't know if you were racing to see the new one Jurassic World Rebirth with Scarlett Johansson the

box office figures from the first opening weekend are in and the movie made three hundred eighteen million dollars.

Not bad.

I was going to say I don't I don't have enough.

I don't pay enough attention to movies to know.

Have a frame of reference of how

good that is.

I imagine that's

OK.

It's a very good start.

Yes.

And no nobody else wanted to compete with it.

No other movies were released.

F one was already starting to fall down the movie charts.

And of course now people are getting set for the next big one.

which would be Superman, which I guess is opening up, yeah, this weekend.

So what about Superman?

Is that one that has interested you?

I don't think I've ever seen any

Superman.

You've never seen any of the Superman movies?

I don't think any.

I've never been

a superhero

in general guy.

Oh, so not the Marvel Cinematic Universe either?

Not real.

I had a girlfriend in high school that made me watch some, but that was about it.

Okay.

Made you watch some.

Tony writes, Chris Pratt was pretty good in the new ones.

I'd imagine Scarlett Johansson will be good and goes on to say, sounds like you need Pete Schwabba for this segment.

Hey Tony, couldn't agree more.

Pete's not an early riser, but if we could get Pete Schwabba in here to talk about these things, you betcha we would.

Anyway, the F1 was the number two at the box office this past weekend.

It's now raised

about $110 million.

Third place went to Universal's How to Train Your Dragon, which earned $11 million in its fourth weekend.

How to Train Your Dragon's already brought in $224 million.

Disney Pixar's Elio was in fourth place.

It has crossed $96 million.

And then there's that 41-year-old movie, the re-release of Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap, also made the top 10 for this past week.

which I think is hilarious.

Today's history lesson is coming up next.

You're

up north.

We are going back 53 years to the number one song this day in 1972.

This is Bill Withers.

Lean on Me was a number one hit this day in 1972.

Had a funky little remake by Club Nouveau in what the late 80s I think it was.

On this day in 1958, the recording industry gave out its first ever gold album.

The gold album standard now is sales of over 500,000 units.

That first gold album went to the soundtrack of Oklahoma.

Yeah.

There we go.

Like how you laugh about that.

Oklahoma was, that was a big popular show in a movie back in the late fifties.

What I think of when I hear Oklahoma is that my brother did Oklahoma in high school.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

So they're still doing it.

Yeah.

All right.

Good.

And?

That's just all.

Oh, I thought your brother did something with it, but okay, he was simply in Oklahoma.

He did have to learn how to use a lasso, which was a very fun, like, two months.

Oh, I'll bet it was.

Which, you know, again, we laugh at that, but, you know, one of my daughters moved to Idaho, and in Idaho, I mean, they have high school rodeo teams.

Yeah.

So that's cool.

That's so cool.

It is.

I love this country.

There's just so many different things everywhere.

On this day in 1954, disc jockey Dewey Phillips at WHBQ in Memphis became the first DJ ever to play an Elvis Presley song when he spun this bladder.

And then something happened at WHBQ in Memphis.

The phones lit up and said, play that song again.

And again, and it was some of the first ever publicity for the young singer.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Wow.

Now that was this day in 1954, three years later, on this day in 1957, Elvis Presley had the number one song in the country with, let me be your teddy bear.

For this next one, forgive me, I've got to look up where the Dow Industrial is closed yesterday.

I forgot to grab that ahead of time here.

Let's see.

There they are.

The Dow closed yesterday at 44,406.

Okay, keep that in mind.

44,406.

On this day in 1932, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached its lowest level of the Great Depression, closing at 41.

41.22.

41, not 44,406.

I was expecting 41,000 at least.

No, 41.

That's it.

On this day in 1981, the Go-Go has released their debut album.

That album was titled Beauty and the Beat.

It would reach number one in the album chart becoming the first by an all-female band to do so with

It's like this one.

Oh,

well, that's cool.

It was really novel, I got to tell you.

And this 44 years ago, it's not that long ago.

But it was kind of people were like, wait, they play all their own instruments and sing and they're really good too.

What is this

wizardry?

I know.

On this day in 1978, after a disco riff, six months.

On top of the album chart, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack was finally bumped off by Jerry Rafferty's new album City to City.

The number one song 30 years ago today in 1995 was by

TLC.

For TLC, it was their second ever number one song about six months earlier.

they had creep go to the top of the charts.

On this day in 1776, church bells were rung following the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence.

Something Kristen Lyrely just talked about yesterday was she was in Boston for a public reading of the Declaration of Independence and ringing the church bells.

I gotta get started on that podcast.

This one hits a little hard now, even a little more than a year later.

I would love to tell you that Toby Keith would be celebrating his 64th birthday today, but I can only tell you that the late Toby Keith was born this day in

1961.

Toby Keith Covel was born in Clinton, Oklahoma this day in 1961.

He worked in the oil fields and for a rodeo company before launching his music career in his 30s.

Singer Joan Osborne is 63 years old today.

She had the hit What If God Was One of Us.

Beck is 55 years old today.

He was born Beck David Campbell in Los Angeles this day in 1970.

And children's singer Rafi.

is 77 years old today, which is not gonna hit with everybody by no means, but it's one of those if you know, you know.

If you're in that group of parents for whom, you know, long before tablets and computers and smartphones, that raffy was practically a babysitter for your kids, we'd put those girls, you know, we'd put that VHS cassette in of one of the raffy shows.

Kids love that man the bearded minstrel.

We called him he just such a soothing voice Such nice songs just such a nice guy like a like a mr. Rogers type sure and is still active to this day But again raffi 77 years old today.

Happy birthday, and thank you for many calming hours of parenthood back in the day All right.

This is national ice cream sundae day

Do you have a favorite ice cream sundae?

Oh,

I don't know.

You know what?

The other day we wanted to get blizzards and we realized that there's not a PDQ anywhere near us.

Oh, you're right.

Yeah, you gotta upset it.

You got to fix that.

Let's see.

It's national blueberry day and it's July.

We we're going to run this baby into the ground.

Are you aware of your lasagnas?

You should because it's still lasagna awareness month.

Where is it?

It's everywhere!

Do you use a metal pan?

Do you use a glass pan?

Did you ever forget to spray the aluminum foil before you put it over the top with the cheese?

More in our next hour, live on the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm packed right up.

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