What’s a Measly $1.3 Billion? (Hour 1)

Live, across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by Up North News.

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

Hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 606 on this Wednesday morning, September 3rd, 2025.

It's another beautiful morning to have you here up north.

A little damp, but still beautiful.

Live from Lake Wissota, from wherever you're spending your mornings, listening across the Civic Media Radio Network, catching us on all the different platforms that are out there.

Thanks for being along.

Here we are, the middle of the work week already.

And I got a question for you.

What would you do with 1.3 billion dollars?

Yeah, if you could get it and you wouldn't get it all at once you'd get it over a period of years if you won tonight's Powerball jackpot, but still 1.3 billion.

What would you do with that kind of money?

It reminds me that there are so many people more people than ever for whom 1.3 billion dollars would be chump change

In fact, in today's history lesson, we're going to be talking about the world's richest woman.

She became the world's richest woman on this day in history, and we'll tell you what she's done with the money since Jeff Bezos and she divorced.

So we'll talk about that in the history lesson and about the billions and billions and billions of dollars that some people have.

So for you, what would you do with your measly $1.3 billion?

Coming up on the program today, Vice President JD Vance is going to Minneapolis today, the scene of the recent church school shooting.

There was not a similar big visit to Milwaukee after the tragedy of the flash floods there.

Meanwhile, the president is talking about sending troops to Chicago.

These three things are connected, and I will explain coming up in just about 15 minutes or so.

Also coming up on the program today, along with talking about, you know, what you do with a spare billion dollars, if you could find it here.

We'll talk about going back to school, not just in the classrooms, but in Madison and Washington, the legislature and members of Congress, they're all back in class as it were.

We're going to talk to Peggy Words Olson of WEAC about the bills that they're following in the legislature.

They range from big picture revenue bills for the entire state to micromanaging things like cursive handwriting and what kinds of flags can and can't be displayed at school.

You know, the stuff that really makes those legislators earn that taxpayer driven salary.

In our climate check, we will talk about the trick to writing good fiction.

Well, if you work in the Trump White House anyway, the ability to pick and choose which scientific facts match up with your politics.

And that can help you create a very interesting work of fiction making the rounds in Washington DC these days.

A Trump administration report that calls the threat of climate change overblown.

Then, of course, the scientists weighed in and dozens of them pointed out the many errors, the cherry pick data, the blatant misinformation that's in there.

And we'll have Melissa Baldoff telling us more about that coming up.

And we'll visit with Earl Ingram and so much more still ahead.

Jimmy Koska, Brittany Merleau, even that Parker Olson.

Yeah, he's here there.

He's right there.

There

he

is.

Madison Studio A2.

How are you?

I'm

good.

I'm here.

I wasn't sure I was until he told me I was here.

So that's good.

I know.

Well, see, that's why I feel the need to occasionally reset and get us oriented the person, place and time.

We are just where we need to be.

So that's all that's coming up on the show today.

And as usual, if you can't stick around for another two hours and 49 minutes and 45 seconds, well, hey, I got a solution for you.

You can subscribe to this show as a podcast as well.

Catch the parts that you're able to live and then

Listen back later on as you're doing some chores, folding some laundry, whatever the case may be.

And here's some of these wonderful conversations that we have with guests and more.

Head over to Spotify or Apple and follow our program that way as a subscriber.

And gosh, that's that's one way to go to keep in touch with everything we do.

Like talking about what you do with a spare billion dollars.

Tony up in Ashland puts on YouTube, I'd buy a pontoon boat so I can be like Captain Pat.

Well, trust me, it's not a billion dollar pontoon, but it's a nice start.

You know, if you don't, if you don't have a pontoon, yeah, start with that or, you know, speedboat, a deckboat, a dinghy, whatever floats your boat, as it were.

Let's

see, Alicia says, Oh, gosh, I would pay off my house, fix it up, pay off my kids college.

And I think pay for all of the Kimberly class of 2026 college as well.

Well, Alicia, there you go.

We're hoping your ticket wins now.

I wanted

my ticket to win.

But I mean, you've put it in writing.

So, well, hold you do this.

Yeah, you know what, I think she'd still have a little leftover after paying for the Kimberly class of 2026.

But that is that is a very cool thing.

So thank you for those ideas as well.

By the way, tomorrow on the program, Congressman Mark Pokan will be here.

As I mentioned,

Congress is back in session now, and Congressman Polkhan has had an interesting August, doing a lot of work in his district, a lot of work in Derek Van Orden's district, since somebody there's got to be doing the work over there.

And so we'll talk to Congressman Polkhan about that.

That's tomorrow morning here on the program.

Brittany Merleau, State Forecast.

Well, first we're looking at an area of rain and some embedded thundershowers, stretching from Iron Mountain, Michigan through Shawno, all the way down to Richland Center.

Then cold air is surging in behind that front and temperatures, as she says, are going to feel more like October, well below normal temps on the way, wind chills even.

We've already had our highs for today at midnight and now that front is coming through and bringing the colder air behind it, temperature is going to be dropping by and large for a big chunk of the day.

Her forecast for the first part of the day, steady rain and thunder through midday in the southeastern half of Wisconsin as that line moves on.

Spotty showers are still possible everywhere else, breezy and much cooler.

Highs today only in the mid fifties in the northwestern part of the state, mid sixties southeast, a northwest wind at 15 to 25 miles an hour.

Clearing skies tonight and noticeably crisp, she says.

Brittany says lows tonight up north will be in the mid thirties.

to the low 40s south with a northwest wind at 10 to 15 miles an hour.

And again, Brittany Merleau will have more details coming up.

Tony adds on YouTube now about Alicia's promise to pay for college tuition.

Tony says YouTube comments are legally binding, by the way.

So, Alicia responds, well, then I got to move on to Kokona.

Look at see now that's

You got to appreciate that if you're willing to pay for the college tuition for the kids and Kimberly and Kakana.

Well, that just says you have enough money to do that.

That's really all that that really says.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was a little late getting into into gear today getting the headset on.

Parker was only getting moderately nervous.

But remember how I said yesterday that September is build a better breakfast month?

Oh, yes, I

did.

I

I built a better breakfast today.

There you go.

Imagine breakfast wraps with some some ham and some cheese and some pre made scrambled eggs and you're you know, a little bit of hot sauce and you roll that up on a flour tortilla.

And oh, it's so delicious.

But please notice that I said pre made scrambled eggs.

And that is the key to this particular build a better breakfast because I went and picked up some groceries yesterday.

And I haven't done this for a long time.

But

just completely lost track of what bags I was carrying.

And as I put the bags down on the counter, I realized I put that one bag down a little harder than I probably should have.

And open it up and sure enough for the eggs had cracked.

Yeah.

Well, okay, there goes those.

Well, wait a minute, don't throw them away.

You can still do something with them.

So I quickly

You know, after putting the rest of the groceries away, scrambled up some eggs and had them waiting for me this morning to make those breakfast wraps.

So I built a better breakfast completely, completely by accident.

Kind of forced yourself into that one, huh?

Forced myself into that and delayed pretty much everything else that was going on this morning, but somehow managed to get here.

You said you almost got a full eight hours of sleep though.

That's pretty impressive.

Uh, that's how tired I was yesterday from, you know, it was, it was our first, uh, full day and full night after the kids and the grandkids had left.

Oh, sure.

And, you know, those, those had been some late nights and some early mornings when the three year old gets up with the six year old and you got to make sure that, you know, pajamas aren't wet and maybe they are and you got to get a change of clothes and all that fun stuff.

Find out which channel is bluey on, you know, and yeah.

get get the kids entertained.

So yeah, last night was, I mean, I, I, when you wake up after eight hours, and you're still tired, you're like, how much longer would I have slept without an alarm?

Yeah,

that is that is saying something.

So I'm glad I got the sleep.

I could use a little bit more.

You can sign up for our newsletters at Up North News by heading to UpNorthNewsWI.com, click subscribe in the banner at the top of the homepage.

And

In the newsletter today includes a link to an article entitled nine Wisconsin stereotypes that are actually pretty accurate, which, you know, makes sense.

Stereotypes are there for a reason.

And we'll grab a couple of them here.

Goodbyes are extra long.

You're familiar with the Midwest.

I am very guilty of the Midwest.

Oh, you're guilty of it?

Oh,

yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Sherry is a master of it.

And I've just

tried to learn to patient because me when it's like you know if it's time to go you you slap your your hands on your lap and you go well oh yeah time it's time to go well time to go uh Friday nights are for fish fry and supper clubs uh yes again guilty uh deer hunting is uh a season it's essentially it's its own holiday in some school district yes very much so

brought fries are a way of life.

Yes.

And yeah, we really do love cheese that much.

Yeah.

So there are several others in there as well.

So through our newsletter, you can get to the website article and learn about those Wisconsin stereotypes.

Although, when I say, oh, yeah, I did not know this has been a thing for a while.

Okay, I'm a little late on this particular meme train.

But the phrase, the phrase, oh, yeah.

One of my daughters was showing me some either tiktoks or reels.

Yeah.

of the the Hoya challenge.

Now, there are many different ways to say that and many different ways to spell it.

I forgot.

I have I have after I think you you folks have heard me for years saying we got to get coffee cups back.

We got to get t-shirts back.

We got to find just the right thing.

It's going to be Hoya.

We're going to put Hoya.

because I realized as first she showed me that, and then for the rest of their visit, as something would happen, you think you're just saying, yeah, but you're saying, oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And

then, and then they'd go, oh, yeah.

You realize you start hearing it from other people as well, or it's, oh, yeah.

And now it's gonna bug the rest of you for the rest of the day.

I defy you to go through the entire day and not hear at least one other person.

When they think they're just saying okay or yeah, and they're going, oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

It's not, oh yeah.

It comes on like, oh yeah.

Oh yeah, there's an H on there.

There's definitely an H, you know, and he got it again.

Spelling and pronunciation matters.

It's not, it's not Hoya.

It's not Hoya.

You

know, it's none of that.

it is it's just it's a it's an oh yeah it's an oh yes but it comes out oh yeah

i will start a counter and let you know at the end of the show how many hoyas we got oh

and just go through the day you know just that's something we everybody does

yeah

it just is uh here in the midwest so that's that's what we've got that's that's one of our that's not a stereotype that's just part of the vernacular it's part of the experience

Yeah, to answer a little bit of trivia from the top of the program here, Mackenzie Scott became the world's richest woman on this day in 2020.

After her divorce from Jeff Bezos, he's still the world's richest man, but in the divorce, she became the world's richest newly single woman.

You have to stick around a little longer to find out just how much she started with after the divorce and how much she still got

even after giving away literally billions of dollars.

And also what J.D.

Vance's visit today to a Minneapolis church has in common with Donald Trump's desire to send military troops onto the streets of another American city.

From the heart of America's Up North Live from Lake Wissota, thanks for making this the place to spend a part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Critello.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Welcome back at 622 on the text line here from Jim and Brookfield.

Good morning, Pat.

You look and sound well.

So the CPAP must be working.

Are you going through a lot of distilled water?

Thank you, Jim, for the note.

I that that's very kind of you.

I think the eight hours of sleep probably help more than anything.

Typically, it's good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But again, more sleep would be helpful.

But the the CPAP, yes, it is working out great.

Thank you very much.

It is just, again, this thing I thought would be claustrophobic and it has actually turned out to be just something almost comforting.

It's like, okay, you know, focus on your breathing and just fall asleep.

And what do you know?

I focus on my breathing and I just fall asleep.

that thing I've been telling myself to do for 30 years, I just needed something on my face, just go, stay here, stay on the pillow and think about your brain.

And sure enough, it works.

As far as the distilled water for folks that don't know, and I certainly didn't know.

But yeah, there's a little water tank, you put a little distilled water in it every evening.

And that way it provides like a little bit of, you know, humidity in it, it regulates the humidity so you're not just

sucking in dry air.

And you have to remember to do that because once or twice now, I've woken up in the middle of the night and was like, something doesn't feel right.

And you realize that the water tank has gone dry.

But again,

And I say all this why are you talking about CPAP so much because I talked so much beforehand about I don't want to do this I'm in denial etc So if if you suspect sleep apnea is a thing then have somebody check in on it And yeah, I'll go through a you know a gallon of distilled water every couple of weeks Small price to pay for getting a little bit more sleep.

So thank you again, Jim for the note.

I appreciate it very much again tomorrow congressman and mark poke hand will be joining us as will Sean oh

Allie talking about your money and the markets.

We'll talk to Joseph Heckey tomorrow.

Todd Alba, Chad Holmes, all going to be stopping by.

But of course we have plenty to get to today.

including word that the vice president of the United States, J.D.

Vance, is planning a visit to Minneapolis, specifically, of course, to deal with and show some respect for the victims of the recent school church, church school shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church.

the vice president's office talks about, you know, meeting with some of the families, etc.

And of course, the vice president has also offered up thoughts and prayers.

Well, again, that's a choice that you make is to offer up thoughts and prayers rather than any concrete action that could make our kids safer.

There is of all the news coverage around it this this line I want to pick on because it's rather emblematic of my Hangups with the media today.

Okay The paragraph reads like this and it's from the website.

Bring me the news

The shocking incident has sparked an outpouring of grief and demands for action, with Democratic leaders in Minnesota calling for gun control measures, including a ban on assault weapons, while Republicans have criticized Democrats for politicizing the mass killing.

Now again, that's a choice to use that language Republicans have criticized Democrats for politicizing the mass killing rather than feeding into the Republican talking point That line could have just as easily said Democratic leaders calling for gun safety measures including a ban on assault weapons while Republicans have continued to oppose gun safety measures for about 25 years That's what that line could have said to in fact be more factual

It's not fact-based to say Democrats are politicizing the mass killing.

It is fact-based to say that Republicans have been blocking gun safety measures since they got rid of the assault weapons ban back in around 2004.

And again, that's a choice that they make.

I took note, of course, that the vice president is coming to this church school in Minneapolis.

We did not see a similar high-profile visit to Milwaukee after flash flooding went through the city of Milwaukee.

What we're getting instead is all this tough talk from Trump in advance about, you know, not just thoughts and prayers, but let's get tough on shooters by putting troops in the streets.

And the troops in the streets have not made a damn bit of difference in Los Angeles or Washington, DC.

And they can say it all day long that they've suddenly made the streets safer.

They've been picking up garbage.

They've been wasting our tax dollars instead of putting resources into crime prevention and law enforcement.

Their idea of action is to put more guns on the street, to put more soldiers on the street.

And although Trump talked the other day about

putting troops on the streets of Chicago.

He's also talked about the same thing in Minneapolis.

So there'll be this very emotional visit by the vice president today.

But it will be followed up by the usual tough talk about, well, we got to put troops on the streets.

But more guns and more thoughts and prayers are not going to solve this problem.

And Democrats need to stop playing nice about this and need to call out Republicans for their perverted definition of the Second Amendment.

The meaning of the Second Amendment has been completely lost over the past 50 years or so.

You know, the well-regulated militia.

And instead, folks are afraid to do anything, even though when we actually did things like the assault weapons ban for 10 years, it worked.

Democrats, the people are on your side.

Talk tougher, promise strong action about getting weapons of war off our streets and keeping our children safe and calling out Republicans who only want to put more guns on the streets and more troops on the streets for offering up nothing real that will keep our kids safe.

Nothing real permanent troops on our streets.

Well, that's just a police state.

And I know the Milwaukee police union chief basically said I welcome the troops troops can come to Milwaukee That's because that's the tough talk thing you can say what he can't say is I'm sick and tired of Republicans in the legislature and in Congress Underfunding our needs in Milwaukee and America's other cities for partisan and racial reasons If you want to be more honest say that

because that's what actually exists in our country right now and it's not going to be fixed until we start giving the voters what they really want, which is not thoughts and prayers, not more guns.

They want action.

Today's history lesson is coming up next.

You're up north.

Sometimes history lesson can tell you what day it is today.

That would be the temptations.

Starting off with the 3rd of September, the day I'll always remember in the song Papa was a Rolling Stone, released this date in 1972.

Well, not released this day, but they sang about this date in 1972.

when the song came out.

Welcome to today's history lesson.

I hate when a song references a date and it doesn't come out on that date.

Yeah,

missed opportunity

work out that way.

Yeah.

They you know what?

It's every year after that, you know, true.

And we should we we could collect we've done this a few times with what was it?

The Oda Billy Joel we got convoy.

We're gonna get all the songs that reference.

Oh, we've got Earth, Wind and Fire coming up the 23rd night of September.

That's coming up, you know.

Let's work on that.

Let's put that on our to-do list.

Do you remember?

Do you

remember?

Was it 21st?

21st night.

Yeah.

It's early.

What am I going to tell you?

Let's be the Treaty of Paris was signed in Paris on this day.

How convenient in 1783, ending the Revolutionary War between the US and Great Britain.

On this day in 1929, consider this the final day of the roaring twenties.

Because on this day in 1929, the Dow Jones industrial average reached an all time high.

But then in the next month would come the crash of 1929 ushering in the Great Depression.

There are people that really wanted this to be the roaring 20s as well.

You know, we're

Everybody was just carefree and life went well.

COVID kind of took care of that on the front half and other current events, shall we say, took care of it in the middle.

If we're going to have a roaring 20s, it's going to have to happen in the second half of the decade.

I'll tell you, it's going to be a different kind of roaring.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nobody's going to accuse this decade of be roaring.

That's for sure.

The number one song this week in 1966 was by

Donovan.

Donovan's

Sunshine Superman was the number one song for one week in 1966.

A lot of good songs as I was looking on either side of that that I'm sure will be hitting in the weeks to come.

Let's see, on this day in 1928, Hall of Fame slugger Ty Cobb recorded his 4,189th and final career hit.

The all-time hit record of 4,189 would stand until Pete Rose broke it in 1978.

Both Pete Rose and Ty Cobb, not real nice people, but they could see ball hit ball in the baseball vernacular.

That's true.

That is very true.

One of those people is a little more highly regarded than the other.

I don't even know which one you're

talking about.

No, I think maybe it's recency bias.

But to me, it would appear that Ty Cobb is more highly thought of than Pete Rose.

That is probably recency bias though.

That that is because the at the time again, like like a lot of athletes, you know, they people admired his abilities, but you know,

being a being a drunken brawler and being, you know, a racist and everything else would kind of get in the way

of some other

folks admiring them.

So again, see ball hit ball, not necessarily be a nice person.

On this day in 1957, Milwaukee Braves pitcher Warren Spahn set a record for a left hander with the most shutouts his 41st career shutout in a win over appropriately, the Chicago Cubs.

Warren Spahn still holds the record for the most career wins by a left-handed pitcher.

Wow.

That's amazing.

He was just, he was so good.

What was the old saying?

Spahn insane and pray for rain.

Milwaukee had, I mean, man, did they have a pitching rotation once upon a time.

Happy birthday to Al Jardine of the Beach Boys, one of the co-founders.

He's 83 years old

today.

You're going to wait.

I thought the Beach Boys were a bunch of cousins or siblings or something.

Yes, but Al Jardine was also a high school friend and football teammate of Brian Wilson, who recently passed away.

The late Glenn Bell was born this day in 1923.

I can't quiz Parker on this because he sees the notes ahead of time.

But I think I got Greg on this last year when I said, what was Glenn Bell known for?

And

especially

if you consider the name Bell.

His last name is Greg Bell.

Or Glenn Bell, I'm sorry, Glenn Bell, who was born this day in 1923.

He founded Taco

Bell.

I didn't know that there was someone actually behind that, I figured.

Yes, it was Glenn Bell, who passed away in 2010.

Happy 30th birthday to eBay.

eBay, which stood for Electronic Bay, I guess, okay, was founded by Pierre Omidyar on this day in 1995.

eBay was such a thing in the early days of the dot-com bubble and everything.

And it's still around, but I mean, it was everything, once upon a time.

And so with Parker coming along after eBay had already been on the scene, I think it's a fair question to say, have you ever used eBay?

I have not.

No, eBay, Craigslist, what's her name?

Tell you a blue book.

All that Angie's list.

That's it.

Yes.

Yeah.

All that stuff is kind of a mythical realm of the yes or year internet for me,

which at again at the time was, you know, life changing.

Like,

wait a minute.

I can

I can go to this site and I can, you know, bid a lower price.

And if nobody beats me, I get the stuff.

I mean, I have a I have a set of golf clubs in the shed when I thought I was going to take up golf.

I went on eBay.

I found some golf clubs.

It turns out the golf clubs are defective.

They're, they're just not very good.

Certainly

the clubs.

Yeah.

It's, it's the clubs.

It's

got to be eBay's fault.

That's why it's

on myself all the time.

Yeah.

I picked up some other things on there.

I picked up, uh, let's see.

I want to say it was an Eau Claire Braves scorecard that Joe Tory had autographed.

Oh, cool.

And Tory was a manager of the Yankees at the time that I thought, Oh, this will be a nice thing.

It's still in the basement somewhere.

But I mean, other people made a living out of eBay.

I mean, they would, you know, collect various things, you know, they get people's antiques or rummage or other little knickknacks, put it up on eBay.

And I'm sure people still do it today, just not, not used, not to nearly the degree.

Like Tony says on YouTube, I used eBay a lot, but then Amazon replaced it.

Yeah.

And

probably

a Facebook marketplace

too.

Facebook marketplace probably played a role and and eBay got to like a lot of things that kind of lost its innocence.

There'd be either some scammers on there or just got, you know, kind of corporatized, I guess you could say.

But let's see.

What does Adam say here?

eBay is still a great place to buy items you might have missed out on like the Bob Euker commemorative pin from the celebration of life game.

Thank you, Adam.

Yes, see, eBay still has a role to be played today.

So I'm not saying it's it's not being used.

It is.

I'm just saying it was it was everywhere once upon a time.

And again, that was founded 30 years ago today.

Happy birthday to Don Brewer.

He's the drummer and founder of Grand Funk Railroad, talking about the Hodel Detective being out of sight.

Grand Funk Railroad still on my top 20 list of favorite groups.

If you were to get me, if I were to have to just listen to the same 20 CDs, well.

vinyl albums, whatever you kids call it today.

Grand Funk Railroad's greatest hits might be one of those.

I am shocked to inform everybody here on the birthday list.

Charlie Sheen has made it to 60 years old.

I did not have that on my bingo card of Charlie Sheen making 60.

That's

bad.

That many years ago when he

I mean, he didn't just wash out of two and a half men.

I mean, he imploded.

He didn't burn bridges.

He napalmed those bridges.

And he is somehow still with us after all these years.

And he's younger than me.

But I'm like, happy birthday, Charlie Sheen.

You made it to 60.

Welcome to the

club.

Welcome to the club.

Happy birthday to Jennifer Page, who had a hit half her life ago with Crush, but she's 52 years old today.

On this day in 1935, Sir Malcolm Campbell reached a speed of 304 miles an hour on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, becoming the first person to drive an automobile more than 300 miles an hour this day in 1935.

Which is pretty impressive.

You think 1935, you're still thinking like Fred Flintstone.

You know, it's all foot-powered cars and maybe a horse was pulling it, but no.

No, you could do 300 miles an hour.

That is a very good point.

I don't know how applicable that is.

I don't know how often I see cars going 300 miles an hour, but I'm glad that we did it.

Again, technology.

The technology was there.

From Tony on YouTube back to Charlie Sheen.

Could Dr. Lyrely please explain how he's alive?

We'll put that on the list for her Friday visit.

The physiological explanation about.

Charlie Sheen still being with us.

Let's see, Culture Club had a record release this day in 1982.

And let's see, let's go up to 1990, where George Michael released his second solo album, Listen Without Prejudice.

And let's see, I believe Praying for Time, is that what we have queued up on this one?

I do have it, I have both of these queued up if you like

both.

Oh yeah, okay, well let's do a little bit of Praying for Time.

Okay, let's do that.

really good album from George Michael and then he had you know much more of a pop hit with Freedom 90.

I want to caution you this is a clip off the George Michael album release to stay in 1990.

Todd Alba is not about to show up here in the studio.

I sometimes wonder how many people listening to the Todd Alba show when he starts off with this and just like just play the song play the full song because I know people thought that when I used to play Stevie Ray Vaughan at the top of the hour.

It was like, right?

Look, could you not?

Yeah, just just let the song play out.

Please.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Todd, Todd Alba's not coming to the studio.

Melissa Kay is.

However, the WF8 jar in Wisconsin Rapids.

Good morning.

Good morning.

How are you?

I am okay.

How are you?

Very good.

So nice to see you.

How's Lelu?

You know what?

They asked to come out of their cage yesterday.

Like

asked, like passed you a little note or

no, stood in front of the door because I had to leave in the middle of the day.

And when I came back, they came out of their little cave and stood in front of the door and just like looked around.

Oh,

just stood there.

And when I came close, they moved away and went and hid and I opened the door and then they came out like right away.

So I think we've making progress.

You are making progress.

Look at the bonding that's going on here.

This is awesome.

Hey, on this day in 2020, we talked earlier about Mackenzie Scott, philanthropist ex-wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Because of the divorce, she at that moment became the world's richest woman worth $68 billion.

And to date, she's given away at least

$20 billion of debt.

Imagine having the power to give away $20 billion with much more still to come.

It just leads into our question here, Melissa, with the Powerball jackpot tonight being $1.3 billion, what would you do?

What would be some of the first things you'd do if you wanted $1 billion?

Well,

I'd pay up all my debt, probably all my family's debt.

And yeah, I travel the world.

And then I'd sit down and start doing good things with it.

Yeah, I mean, wouldn't that be fun?

Yeah, the whole notion of being able to do good things with a big old pile of money and

scholarships for kids to go to school and put music back in schools.

And there's just so much you could do.

Oh, and Mackenzie Scott's done a lot of that and has gotten a lot of credit, by the way, as well, for the way in which she's done it, with a lot fewer strings attached to those billions that she's giving out.

We're talking to Melissa K from WFHR in Wisconsin Rapids.

I'm Pat Crightlow from Lake Wasota.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

We are well into sports season now here for fall sports.

Baseball, of course, continues and the Brewers will be taking on the Phillies.

Coverage begins tonight at 6.05 on several civic media stations, but we're moving into football season as well.

The Wisconsin Badgers football season is underway and their second game of the season is coming up this Saturday afternoon against Middle Tennessee.

coverage begins at one o'clock.

on stations in Richland Center, Amory, Wisconsin Rapids and Rippin.

Head over to the Civic Media website to learn more about that.

By the way, on the topic of sports, Don corrected me out of Waukesha.

Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb's hit record in 1985.

He broke the consecutive hits record back in 1978.

And I remember 1978 sounded weird with me at the time, but I forgot to double check my work.

And thank you, Don, for doing that.

Melissa

K is back with us from 1055 WIRI in 97.5 WFHR in Wisconsin Rapids, where has the hangover finally settled down from the 85th birthday parking lot party or do you still have other festivities going on?

Well, we do have the downtown grand affair coming up.

We're going to be out of live remote on Sunday.

in downtown Wisconsin Rapids where a lot of you know like businesses will have booths will have stuff for sale will have you know just like fun and entertainment and music and color guards gonna be there so it's gonna be a good time

nice uh as i was filling up the coffee cup something caught my eye in the kitchen i've got a visual for you that's maybe not so much use for parkering i know that's a great radio but i'm gonna describe what this is it's it's a

It looks like a metal mixing bowl with a long handle on it.

Yeah.

And kind of a strainer at the bottom of it.

So it's not really a mixing bowl.

It's more like a strainer.

And then a crank, a crank at the top.

And then you you turn this crank over and over again as these blades were at the bottom.

Can you guess what was made in the Crite low kitchen last night using this contraption scrambled eggs.

No, this was not the scrambled eggs.

Rice potatoes?

Rice potatoes is a good guess, but no, this is an applesauce maker.

And our and our neighbor gave us a bag of apples, which and Sherry made the most amazing apple crisp.

But then she also boiled a bunch of the apples and then you put the boiled apple mixture in here, you crank this thing.

And it strains out just the applesauce and leaves all the peelings and things like that behind.

And yeah, so we had we had

We had some delicious... Who

made applesauce?

My mom had one that attached to the side of the table with a clamp.

Oh, yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

My grandma had almost like

a meat grinder.

But

yes.

Oh, my goodness.

Meat grinders.

Did you my grandma?

Yes, I remember that.

Oh, boy, the stuff your own

hamburgers.

Yep.

Best.

Yep.

I haven't seen a good pasta maker in a while, though.

Some people have those big stand mixers.

And you can put a pasta maker

attachment on there.

An attachment.

That's what I do with my billion dollars.

I

would.

There you go.

You would buy them.

You wouldn't make a company that makes them so you could sell them and make no more billions.

Yeah,

we

already sell it.

Not not very well.

Right.

Good point.

Oh, Adam notes the the applesauce maker.

He says great for tomato sauce to

Pat.

Oh

yeah.

Ever even thought of that

point

making your own.

Oh, you know where that gets me?

Oh boy.

You know, you know, I'm making my own salsa.

I want to I want to make my own salsa.

You Yeah, but you don't really need I mean, I guess you you do need tomato paste for that.

But I don't know my mom did my mom used to make her own salsa.

Be careful with the cilantro.

Oh, see, that's the point.

Sherry does not like cilantro at all.

And I don't, and I don't like my my salsa, you're like super chunky.

I want I want flavor, but I don't necessarily want the chunks.

I mean, if I

almost want to paste, then yeah.

Yeah,

because I mean, if I want to, I'll order, I'll get a side order.

If I want something chunky, I want salsa, which is more like a condiment, you know, essentially.

Yeah, exactly.

Boy, look what we're doing with our billion dollars.

Have a better breakfast month, guys.

Way, way to think big.

Alright, let's let's think bigger for the billion dollars.

I mean, for me, the big one, once you set up the foundation, you know, to help other people, let's be self indulgent for a moment here.

First and foremost, for me, it's travel.

I mean, I, I'll keep the house as a home base, but I'm not going to see it very much.

Put it that way.

Right.

What about you?

Would you travel?

Oh, absolutely.

I would want to travel as much as possible.

See as much of this beautiful planet that we have.

Mm

hmm.

Yep.

Yep.

And then try to do things to help save it.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Enjoy a little bit and then save a little bit.

Parker, what about you?

Billion dollars?

Think big.

Oh, man.

Think big.

I don't know.

Buy the brewers off of Marcan and Osio.

I was going to be sports related.

That's a good one.

That's great.

No, I love that.

Now look, some people don't need a billion dollars and some people don't even need eBay.

And of course, I'm talking about Luke Mathers, who's on here talking about eBay because we had one person talk about getting those Euker commemorative pins from the celebration of life a couple of weeks back and he got that on eBay.

Mathers puts up here, who needs eBay?

My mom brought me one from

the game.

And then later, Parker, you want to you want that sausage racing Krippage board?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And of course, Luke pops back up on the text line.

I have one of those two.

Of course he does.

Of course he

does.

Apparently, Luke is the guy to know.

Yeah.

Or his mom.

Yeah.

He's handsome.

He's capable.

And he has the cool stuff.

I want to go to Luke's house.

A cool and generous mom.

That's the way it works.

What else am I missing from the Wisconsin Repertory that you guys are up to?

You know, it's just a lot of live radio and we've got more events coming up.

I don't have my list in front of me, but we have a

parade.

But there's always something.

There's always

something.

Oh yeah.

Leto's out and flapping.

Oh, see, again, we're taking credit for this.

This is, I mean, you got earphones in.

So I'm, I know Lelu's not hearing any of this, right?

Is hearing me is hearing you and how animated you are talking to us.

And so once again, we are going to, we're going to take the credit for giving Lelu, you know, some, some reason to be out there flapping away wanting to take part

out of the cage.

Yes.

Yes.

Make it a very interactive radio show here.

Melissa Kay, you can catch her on

WFHR and WIRA, WIRI out of Wisconsin Rapids.

And Melissa, thanks for visiting with us today.

Hope you have a great day.

Always good to see

you.

Oh, always good to have you around as well.

Take care.

In our next hour, we will of course continue talking about some of the headlines that have been in the news today.

And we will also have our homeroom segment with Peggy Ward-Solson from WEAC.

And then in our eight o'clock hour, we'll be talking to Melissa Baldoff with our climate check report.

From Lake Wissota, I'm Pat Crichtlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Live, across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglo powered by Up North News.

Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglo.

Good morning.

It is 706.

Nice to have you back here up north on this Wednesday morning, September 3rd.

Parker Olson producing this shindig down in Madison Studio A2 and coming up a little later this hour, we'll talk to Peggy Words Olson from WEAC.

It's back to school time.

And along with tracking, you know, new lessons and homework assignments comes tracking legislation out of Madison and Washington DC.

And we'll find out from the Educators Association what it is that they're following.

some things that are very big picture bills and some that are rather a ticky tack, you know, micromanaging what teachers do for a living.

So we'll get into that a little bit later on this hour.

Again, on this Wednesday morning, it's the 3rd of September, and I wanted to point out a couple of comments that were in the mail bag here as we get set to bring Brittany on board here.

Let's see Alicia notes on YouTube.

Oh boy.

It just started raining kind of hard here in Green Bay I'm looking at the radar right now, and I'm seeing exactly what you mean here and let's see there was also one about The weather here it was from Roger on Facebook who says good morning my Facebook memories show that two years ago today the high and Stevens point was 101

and that it got to 100 in Wapaka and Wisconsin Rapids.

Brittany Merleau is here to tell us that ain't happening today.

No way.

I don't know.

Now I'm like, would you rather have 100 degrees or 50 degrees?

Oh, we're doing would you rather on 50 or 50 or 100?

50.

If

it's on 50 or

100?

Well, again, it depends on the calendar.

If it's August, yes,

I'm

going to insist on 100.

It's September.

I could accept the 50.

Ooh, I like it, Pat.

I like it.

I know.

I know.

See, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not that much of a summer devotee.

I just don't want it to be 50 in August.

50 in September is what we're going to get though.

That's,

that's

just what's out there because I mean, that is a well-defined front that is moving through Green Bay and getting close to the Madison area and down to Prairie Duchine.

And there's, there's some noticeable changes behind it, aren't there?

Oh yes, those winds are whipping out of the Northwest across Lake Superior.

Right now it's picking up into the North.

You can definitely feel the difference.

In fact, Northeast Wisconsin today, your high temperatures.

You're only going to make it to the mid 40s.

You're actually going to be dropping a lot of the northern part of the state throughout the afternoon.

Highs will be hit early this morning.

50s to 60s for most of the state today.

maybe we'll squeak out a 70 degree by Milwaukee.

I highly doubt it, but it is possible that front is of course moving its way towards Madison right now into the Fox Valley and headed towards Milwaukee afterwards.

A lot of the Northwest part of the state staying dry this morning, but a few wrap around spotty showers and storms do still look like they had towards us again this afternoon.

So chances for rain still continuing.

It's going to be a dark and damp day today, mostly cloudy winds starting to whip.

Like I said, much, much cooler than where we should be.

And then the clouds start to clear late tonight.

This is not a good thing because this is going to allow the temperatures to crash pretty chilly.

I'm talking mid thirties throughout north central parts of the state.

We could see a frost advisory going out, maybe dropping to 32 degrees in some places like Hayward or maybe up towards Vilas County.

Those areas tonight, if you have sensitive plants outside or gardens still going.

Take care of that before it gets too cold by the morning.

Tomorrow we're not looking at much warmth either low fifties to low sixties across the state.

We'll start off with some sunshine but then we've got more rain rolling through tomorrow afternoon and into the evening winding down by Friday and we actually have a dry weekend ahead and it slowly starts to warm up but we stay breezy through at least Friday and well below average.

Let's see, we've got from Robin Tigerton.

Good morning.

It's cloudy 60 degrees.

Tigerton picked up three tenths of an inch of rain from a thunderstorm that went through around 5am yesterday.

I mowed six yards in Tigerton.

The fall grass is coming through.

There's a little brownish top to the grass now.

Uh, not here yet, but I've been watching for it.

Yep.

Uh, today I have a doctor's appointment in Shawno.

I have to find an alternate route to Theta care because the highway 29, 22 interchange is closed.

That's the main route from 29 to downtown Shawno.

So Labor Day may be passed, but construction season, it's not over yet.

And

Rob also handy on the weather almanac.

He says that two years ago on the state, it was 101 degrees in Tigerton, but to get to Brittany's.

Yeah, well, and that's and that's where Tony wraps it up by saying 50 all day every day.

Yes, same here.

Same here.

It's that's comfortable, right?

You

can

put on more clothes.

And

you get used to 50 to you don't get used to 100.

That's true good point Parker

Rob says just think we had this pattern in January temperatures would not get above zero and That's where I draw the line.

You can talk about 50 and you talk about a hundred but zero is like No, I never accept that.

Can you just very briefly talk about the concept of wrap around showers because it's

it's got to be a little it's got to be tricky, because it's one thing to see a system coming in and the system is swirling counterclockwise as they do.

And so you see the front end, and then that wrapping around it counterclockwise, sometimes you get showers on the on the backside as it comes through.

And sometimes you don't.

And am I right?

Is that a much trickier thing to predict?

it really is because you're getting this cold dry air that's moving in behind it.

Well, that kind of kills showers and storms.

So when you also get the cold dry air over the lake, that creates them.

So it's hard to determine just the right standards.

Will it actually happen?

Will it fall?

Will it be a light rain or will it be a heavy rain too?

So there's a lot of things with those wraparound showers, but with the strong winds and a big system disturbing it, more than likely we go with it's going to happen.

Yeah, I mean, I'm looking you know, the system is such that you know, I'm guessing the center is right there on the border between Michigan and the UP because there's a mess of showers, you know that wrap around up into Lake Superior.

But then you're kind of looking going well, does it does it wrap around the backside and spank you again?

It's like, well, we don't know.

You never know what these systems are going to do.

So keep an eye out for it.

All right, Brittany, thank you so much.

Have a great day.

You too.

All right, reminder, you can sign up for the Up North News Daily newsletter.

Head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com and get signed up there.

We have a question of the week as well.

And our question this week is about dreamers.

Those would be the children of undocumented immigrants and the United States is the only country they've ever known.

Their parents have been here working hard paying taxes into the system, even though they're never going to get the benefits from it, despite what some politicians want to tell you.

These kids have been going to school.

They've been graduating.

They've been moving on.

They've become adults.

Are they now fair game for you to just pluck off the streets and deport to a country they've ever never known?

Or would the better way to go be providing a path towards citizenship?

I mean, the answer seems to be self-evident, but I definitely want to hear from people who

are so quote unquote law and order that they believe that people like this are, you know, deserve to be stateless, that if Donald Trump wants to round them up, yeah, he can round them up because their parents came here and did not go through a system that has not been reformed.

That is so ridiculously convoluted.

But we'd love to have your thoughts and you get our Sunday morning question of the week first, if you sign up for a Sunday morning newsletter, sign up for it at UpGorantNewsWI.com.

A little later, I'm going to get into three different topics where we can make the point that not every issue is decided on a partisan or even an ideological basis right away on a knee jerk reaction.

There's not one, not two, but three different stories where I can honestly look at them and go, I'm not sure how I feel about this.

I need to learn more.

It's the kind of thing I wish more people would say is just to say, you know, I don't know, let me look into it and I'll give you my thoughts later.

And don't just shoot from the lip.

You know, the way Donald Trump did about, he was asked about an object being thrown from the White House window over the weekend.

And he was like, oh, that's AI.

And maybe it was AI.

Maybe I should just blame everything on AI.

Well, we learned later that some maintenance work was being done and some items were being, you know, thrown through the window down to a dumpster or whatever.

So it was real.

Why wouldn't the President just say, I don't know.

First, I've heard of it.

Let me get back to you instead of just making up stuff.

So we'll get into some of these issues a little bit later on.

But first with Parker Olson here, I want to explore a topic you might have heard from Mike Clemens doing sports at the top here.

And he's got some from Brewer's manager, Pat Murphy, saying, well, we haven't had that talk yet.

Well, actually we have.

We're starting this talk right now.

The talk being Jacob Mizorowski.

Great electric start in the beginning, first game or two.

And then what we're seeing from him is saying to me and a whole lot of other people, this guy's not a starter.

This guy belongs in the bullpen.

He's throwing 102 miles an hour consistently.

How is this guy not your closer or at least your guy in the seventh and eighth endings to shut things down?

I mean, Pat Murphy saying, well, we don't really need that right now.

I don't know why you wouldn't.

I mean, I get it.

You need starting pitching.

You need good starting pitching.

But is Jacob Mizorowski the best starting pitcher if you're only going to get three plus innings?

No, he's not.

I think that you're at a point with Mizorowski that you definitely would be better off and like.

I think a long really, I don't think he might be best with an opener.

If you have an opener for one to one, if Aaron Ashby opens for like two winnings and Mizrowski comes in, he gives you another three, maybe four.

That could put you in a really good spot.

I don't know necessarily that the Brewers need any more setup man or closer type things, but maybe with Trevor McGill suffering that I can't remember what it is, something on his elbow.

Uh, Trevor McGill to, or was it just a Shelby Miller

from another

day?

I'm going to, I'm going to fact check myself.

I thought that we had somebody that was messed up here.

Yeah.

No, Shelby Miller felt something in his elbow pop when he was pitching the, uh, the other day.

So, uh, and again, much like the three items I'm talking about in the news, this item too, it's like, there is no instant answer.

I actually, you know, you can hear it in our voices.

We actually want to know a little bit more.

We want to talk this out a bit that.

Because Mizorovsky had like a perfect six innings in his debut,

you know,

and then he was a no hitter for like, what five innings for five innings in his second game.

Yeah,

we're thinking, Oh, this is the starter of the future.

We're going to get no hitters out of this guy.

We're going to get perfect games out of this guy.

And it turns out, no, we're not.

We you're going to get a couple of really good innings.

So

where do you where do you use them best?

And because we're not a sports talk station.

We're just going to leave it at that.

We just set the table.

We just set the table and then you all discuss later on.

I did fact check myself though.

I am correct.

Trevor

McGill has a

thing too.

Trevor McGill has a right flexor strain.

He's on the 15 day I.L.

right now.

Gotcha.

So maybe you put McGill back there.

So maybe, maybe we just stop trying the second guess, Pat Murphy.

Yeah, he knows what he's doing.

Leave him in his pocket pancakes alone.

He's doing fine.

Brurs were off yesterday, finally.

And now they get back in action this evening against the Phillies coverage begins at 605 on stations in Richland Center.

Oshkosh we're seeing Kenosha.

Park Falls and Hayward.

And while we're talking sports, of course, there's high school football all over the place across the civic media radio network head over to the website civicmedia.us to learn more.

And of course, on Saturday, you've got Badger football, the Badgers taking on Middle Tennessee coverage begins at one o'clock on Saturday on stations in Richland Center, Amory, Wisconsin Rapids and Ripon and

And there's more.

The Packers are playing on some civic media stations as well.

Playing the Detroit Lions in the season opener this Sunday.

Kickoff is at 325.

But you can catch the pregame for the Packers starting Sunday at 1pm on WRCO in Richland Center, WCQM in Park Falls, WRJN in Racine, and then Civic Media's newest Green Bay Packers affiliate, WAUH in Wattoma.

All of those places where you can catch the Packers.

We'll be talking to Peggy Woods-Holson from WEAC coming up in about 15 minutes.

But first, from the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wissota, thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Crightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Welcome back.

It's just about 723 on this Wednesday morning.

It's 57 degrees in the Chippewa Valley, 64 in La Crosse right now.

Amory, you're at 54, Oshkosh, 63 degrees.

And in Watoma at Cristiano's Coffee Bar, it is 62 degrees right now.

We occasionally get people who ask us about the the way the morning show is structured because throughout the course of the morning there are folks at some of our local affiliates who get local news updates a couple of times an hour and They they ask well, what if you know, you're continuing to ramble on right?

I'm like, yeah, that's what that's what we do We just kind of keep yapping here and like well, what if we wanted to listen to what you're doing?

Well, Facebook and YouTube or you could

or subscribe to us as a podcast.

Now, if by chance, let's go the other way.

Let's say you're watching us on Facebook or YouTube or you're catching us by podcast, but you actually want to know what your local civic media station is covering.

Well, our friends at Civic Media have local news updates that you can get

on their individual websites.

So you start by going to civicmedia.us and then go to your local civic media station and up near the top of each station's homepage you'll find a daily news roundup that you can listen to right there.

You can sign up for email versions of their daily updates as well all right there and so there's many ways to listen to us and listen to all that we do.

whether it's over social media, over terrestrial radio, by podcast, or by listening at the website or getting the newsletter, all of these different ways to follow what we're doing at Up North News and across the civic media radio network.

All right, I promised you, I'd mentioned a few things where it's not really easy to say from the top, I like this idea, I don't like this idea.

One of them deals with

Epic, the big medical records company based out of Madison.

The headline in the CapTimes is Epic Partners with the Trump administration on a new health tech initiative.

Okay, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says the goal is building, quote, smarter, more secure and more personalized health care experiences.

The project is focusing on two areas according to the CapTimes, more access to personalized tools for patients to better understand their medical information, and promotion of a federal network that would allow health systems to exchange and use information in a coordinated and secure way.

Okay, now if Donald Trump weren't president, and I told you all of those things, you might be inclined to say,

Yeah, that's that makes sense.

One problem we have in this country is that health systems databases and records can't talk to each other.

And I know from having a wife who's a physician, the frustration of a new patient coming to you, but they don't have all the stuff in their medical history, and it's not easy to access it from someplace else.

So on the surface, there's definitely something positive about this.

But now you add what Elon Musk and Doge did.

with sensitive personal information across all government databases.

And now you're wondering, well, what are they going to do when they can have access to our medical records and medical history?

So I'm not ready to say that what Epic is doing shouldn't be done in partnership with the Trump administration.

But I am saying that there is reason to want to know more and to know more about the safeguards that would be in place to protect our privacy.

Here's the next issue.

It deals with President Trump meeting with the president of South Korea last week and an announcement being made that South Korea is going to help rebuild the US shipbuilding industry.

Now recall we had Tom Nelson on a couple of weeks back about his book about the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

and how the Edmund Fitzgerald was actually in really poor shape, very poor maintenance.

A lot of shortcuts have been taken in part because America had taken its shipbuilding industry for granted and then let it wither and practically die.

I think we built something like 1% of the world's ships right now.

It used to be a much, much bigger number.

South Korea is one of those big players.

And so Trump and South Korea announcing a partnership that South Korea would help the US build up its shipbuilding.

Again, on its surface sounds like it has potential.

But again, what are the safeguards that protect American jobs?

Senator Tammy Baldwin put out a statement about this the other day, saying, Okay, let's make sure that this is actually good for American workers, that this isn't say another Foxconn, where an overseas company comes in, makes all these big promises, and then doesn't fulfill them.

Or is this just all

on the surface and it's actually South Korea that's going to be building more of our ships.

Are we just outsourcing more of our shipbuilding?

So again, in this story, a couple of different ways to look at it, we got to learn more before we pass judgment and we've got to look for the safeguards.

And then finally, I noticed what was at first a rather interesting but somewhat generic announcement about a new advocacy organization called the Northwoods Policy Network.

And full of, you know, the kind of language you'd want to hear, the organization aims to be the Northwoods voice across the state, advocating for greater policy considerations and economic opportunity.

The group will educate others on the unique challenges our communities have faced in recent decades, as well as offering research and solutions that make our region not just a destination, but a home.

OK, that's all fine.

But then when you look at, say, some of the tweets that they put out, it's pretty clear that they talk about, for example, one of the co founders is a big supporter of, you know, small modular nuclear reactors is opposed to solar energy wants to talk about growing the lumber industry and

also talks about other energy investments, and I don't mean new energy or green energy.

I'm talking about, again, going with things that are not necessarily in line with what you might find in the Inflation Reduction Act.

In other words, what I'm saying is for all the cliches about representing the Northwoods, it better not be just another

as if Wisconsin manufacturers and commerce had a branch office up north.

And the answer is to just clear cut forests and to build more strip mines.

If that's what the Northwoods Policy Network is about, we want no part of it.

But again, we don't know that.

There's definitely room to learn more.

And so we're going to keep an open mind.

But I wanted to tell you about it to make sure that you follow it.

More after this, you're up north.

Up North News is a separate entity from civic media.

Up North News is part of Courier Newsroom, a pro-democracy news.

network and you can head over to couriernewsroom.com to read more newsletters, all of the state based news coverage from around the country.

Of course, Cam Stevenson as is new below the Beltway newsletter on the nation's capital.

There's podcasts, there's merchandise and more.

Again, head to couriernewsroom.com to learn more.

Welcome to our homeroom segment where we speak every week at this time about public education in Wisconsin, opportunities, threats and so forth.

And it's the start of a new school year.

It's not just the kids that are back in class.

It's not just the teachers that are getting back to work.

But things are getting back into gear in Madison and in Washington DC.

A lot is happening there for our educators to keep an eye on.

And so to help the educators keep an eye on things is the Wisconsin Education Association Council.

And Peggy Words Olson joins us from there now.

Peggy, good morning.

And I can't help but notice.

Let's see, you spell your name, O-L-S-E-N as well.

Same as that Parker Olsen guy.

Parker, who's, is there a connection here we need to know?

There's a slight connection.

This is my Aunt Peg.

Welcome

to the show.

Peggy,

where's Olsen?

Is your Aunt Peg?

Yeah.

This, this is wonderful.

I love the small world thing.

This, this makes me happy.

Peggy, but, I mean, let's forget the school stuff.

Let's get into Parker here for a second.

Oh, let's not,

no.

Are you proud of this young man that he has not taken very good choices in life and he's ended up on a ridiculous morning radio show?

Do you want to give him any career advice right now at this point?