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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, from our Lake Basota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Good morning, it is 8.06.
Nice to have you back here Up North on this Monday, September 8th, 2025.
State Senator Jeff Smith will be joining me later this hour to talk a bit more about his efforts to
a re Institute funding for programs that help homeless veterans.
Otherwise, a couple of sites in Wisconsin, including one here in Chippewa Falls will be closing their doors.
So that's coming up in just a bit.
Brittany Merleau is off today.
Parker Olson is producing this shindig down in Madison Studio A2.
And just a stone's throw away.
Literally, I've seen him throw rocks at these people down in Studio A1 with John Goldie from WMDX.
There guys, how are you?
deal.
The thing is, he's got a clear line of sight to Luke Matt is his office.
So that's that's where the real yeah, that's where the bricks, that's where the bricks get thrown here.
So I mean, just what a gorgeous weekend, gorgeous morning.
Did you guys get out and do much?
Did you do stuff around the house?
and
name listener appreciation.
Parker, we got to get one of those.
We they're going to get listeners or we got to start to appreciate.
I don't know.
Maybe maybe we need one and then the other.
We'll work on that.
no, no.
That's that's more that's more in the category of babysitter.
Ah, I think so.
And it
fun.
Okay.
And then, of course, we had a lot of sports that we got to watch this weekend with the Badgers, the Packers, the Brewers.
Something good for everybody.
Well,
I don't know.
yeah, I missed it all because I allowed a Sunday function to be organized by non Wisconsin friends.
Oh, Minnesota and
DC, they're all getting together.
They had all worked in Wisconsin at some point, but they set this up.
And by the time I put two and two together and realized it was the Packers opener was too late.
So I just kept looking at my watch going, Oh, we're doing really good.
This would be a fun game.
This
would be a fun game to watch.
Not
on
my, not on my watch, like the score is being telegraphed in.
Right.
So I'm sure it was fun.
was,
No, it's not the frozen tundra.
remember what it was.
He does that for every game, not just the cold weather games.
I
and then
How many years do you think he's taken off his plate?
Commit to a bit.
I mean, he's got it.
That's right.
In for a dime, in for a dollar on that.
You'd think he'd wait until it was cold to make it look like something that made sense.
Yeah, but hey, it gets attention.
And yeah, it's a look.
That's just fine.
You know, some things the branding just sticks.
Here's here's some more branding that just sticks.
I feel bad for anybody who is either named or might think of someday naming their daughter Karen.
Because when you guys mentioned that you were talking about the woman who like took the baseball away from a kid at a Phillies game,
I
just put in into the search.
Philly's baseball, and the very next word that comes up is Karen.
And sure enough, in some of the headlines, you know, it's all about this, this woman who they refer to now as a Karen.
And we'll tell the folks what you were what you were talking about, what
woman
We were talking about, you know, how it all unwound and how it just kept getting more interesting as the day, you know, came out ahead.
It was just like the model.
This is a
Here's the summation of it.
A Philadelphia Phillies game against the Miami Marlins, a woman aggressively seized a home ball, a home run ball from a father and his young son who was celebrating his birthday, sparking widespread outrage online.
The father reluctantly handed over the ball to de-escalate the confrontation.
The teams responded positively later on.
The Marlins gave the kid a package of stuff out in the stands.
during and all of this, of course, unfolded on fan cam in the stadium.
So everybody knew what was going on.
And then later on, the boy was taken down into the Marlins dressing room.
And the guy who hit the home run ball, and that is Harrison Bader, he came up with a bat and signed a bat for this kid.
All right.
And then it and then it even progressed further from there.
Marquette grad Marcus.
Lamanis chairman and CEO of camping world and also bed, bath and beyond online said this he posted this on X he said I'll send this young man and his family to the major league baseball world series on me.
And then he followed that up with saying oh and you just won an RV as well.
RV.
Yeah.
And this
Yeah.
Now, in true social media fashion, there is an extra wrinkle here.
There was, of course, you know, the internet was filled with posts that said, you know, they showed a picture of the woman and said, do your thing, internet.
In other words, you know, identify name and shame, maybe get
this
woman fired.
And because she's got a somewhat of a common name or common enough name.
a different woman with the same name was identified and the the ire of the internet rained down upon her.
She had to put out a statement going I am not Philly's Karen because yes, that's her nickname now Philly's Karen.
But yeah, there was there was you know, she she she was nearly I won't say she was nearly fired from her job but her employer had to say that's not her and we're not firing her different person.
This is we're looking for instant gratification to the point where
other people become collateral damage along the way.
Well, you know when Harrison Bader signed that bat, there was a photo of it.
And so somebody used AI to insert Karen into the signing of that bat.
And she was saying, that's my bat too.
I mean, it's just good.
And then they came out with Halloween costumes.
They call her Ball Snatcher Karen, included in the costume is a Karen Wig, Philly's Jersey Oversized Glasses, and Blank Complaint Form.
And it's adult size.
And of course, her line is that's that bad is mine.
So and then there is the action figure
there you go.
And we were and we were just talking last week about the guy that snatched the hat away from.
Yeah.
Yes.
So at the heart of all this, I know.
And we say this with youth sports all the time as well.
Hey, adults, act like adults already, okay?
Boy, there were some bad words I was about to say there.
Just act like the grownups.
You're supposed to be stop being a jerk, especially around kids.
This
be
about
We
I had a beer in my hand and, uh, and just one free hand and I could not catch the ball with one free hand.
It rolled down my arm onto the seat.
The guy behind me grabbed the ball.
Now had I known that something like this could happen, a meme like this, I would have at least confronted the guy for a while.
play up the victim hood because then the team will reward me with all of this.
Yeah.
Right.
Because we're we're all victims now in this day and age.
We're talking to John and Gordy from WMDX down in Madison about sports and the whole basics of having to simply behave yourself and act like a grown up in public.
You know, it's your old Bud Grant line about touchdown celebrations act like you've been in the end zone before.
You know, everybody's got to be dramatic about everything here.
Oh, but that's not taunting.
That's not taunting or anything.
That's a celebration.
That's good.
I'm okay.
it fine with that?
with that.
Oh yeah.
I mean, imagine the
the blowback if they had to try to actually ban the
would.
It was one of the
one of the night, I don't want to say nice talking about the COVID pandemic, but one things that came out of it was when stadiums were empty for a while, they had the thing where there'd be a camera in the corner of the end zone.
And anytime the defense did something big, the whole team would rush to that camera in the corner of the end zone.
And I noticed that's that still is like a holdover from the pandemic is now the defense feels like when they make a big play, they can, you know, celebrate and kind of mug it up for the camera, things like that.
And again, if
It's a nice happy celebration.
That's fine.
It's the, the, the taunting stuff and the, the rude behavior is like, we don't,
Uh, that's taunting and that you, you deserve the beer that gets spilled.
Sorry.
I know I just got done telling adults to behave, but if you're an opposing player doing a Lambeau leap, you're going to get beer spilled on you.
out of my stands.
Dang
it.
Exactly.
So I
One of the commercials that you guys do makes the rounds quite a bit for hearing aids.
Yeah.
And I was, I was telling, I was telling Parker last week about getting these, these, uh, second generation air pod, whatever they have such names, just name it something like the Mustang or whatever.
I'll say the air pod to second generation pro whatever the heck it is, but it can perform as like a hearing aid as well.
And as somewhere in the commercial, one of you, I think Gordy talking about your, your grandkids hearing your grandkids better now.
rest of our audience, we don't get to know about the, you know, the grandkids, how many you got and why are they talking to you if you can't hear them?
There's a couple of different things going on here.
So yeah, the hearing aids, I find helpful in certain situations.
And now I do have two grandkids.
One is 14.
The other one is just about to turn nine.
Interestingly enough, the older one is deaf and has been deaf since he was two years old.
He had bacterial meningitis and wiped out his hearing.
He survived the meningitis, but it did take away his hearing.
He had cochlear implants put in about a year later.
Those did not.
work.
I mean, he's rejected those and we feel that's because he's on the spectrum of autism and too much sensory information wasn't used to what sound is or and try as we might over the last 10 or 12 years, he still rejects the cochlear implants.
So, so he's learning a little bit of signing, but
that's a
them.
But look again, anything that helps with the communication end, whether
hearing aids, implants, all of those things are, you know, better than what previous generations had.
And so we're thankful for that.
So I'd appreciate
Absolutely.
sharing that story with us.
We're talking to John and Gordy from WMDX down in Madison.
And at 835, we're going to talk to State Senator Jeff Smith about helping out homeless veterans in Wisconsin.
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.
The Milwaukee Borough swept the Pittsburgh Pirates over the weekend, and now they're in Arlington, Texas, taking on the Rangers.
Pre-game of tonight's game, first of three, will begin at 630 on stations in Richland Center, Oshkosh, Racine Park Falls, and Hayward.
The Badgers were winners against Middle Tennessee.
Now they head to Atlanta, Alabama to take on the Crimson Tide.
Saturday's game, pre-game begins at 9 a.m.
on several Civic Media stations.
And in the Packers, you don't have to wait till next Sunday.
because they're playing this Thursday on Amazon Prime to kick off week two.
They will be hosting the Washington Commanders.
Again, head over to civicmedia.us to learn more about that.
John and Gordy are with us from our Civic Media Station down in Madison.
When the Packers have those Thursday night games, which I mean, again, we're
We're very early risers.
So it's not like we're sticking around to the end of it anyway.
But is that something where we will you go look it up special on Amazon Prime or it's it's something you don't have.
And it's just as far as you're concerned, it's a bye week for the Packers.
If it's on, you know, Amazon or the brewers are on Apple TV or anything like that.
If you happen to see it, you do.
If you don't, you don't.
Down in Madison this week is something called idea fest, which sounds rather antithetical to what we do over here.
But apparently other people do have good ideas and talk about them.
And this has been
going on for a while here, guys.
And so what kinds of guests are they expecting to come into town this week for this?
right?
So salt
think.
I
it used
will
And there's a lot more.
You can go to CapTimesIDFS.com.
We were talking with the publisher, Paul Fanlin, last week about this lineup.
I think they've been doing this, you know, it'll quote me, but I think eight or nine years at least, somewhere in there.
And every year it's grown bigger and bigger and they get some pretty big names.
Uh, yes.
I mean, and I didn't give proper credit to the cap times when this got started.
But, uh, yeah, it's, it's there.
I mean, of all the things that we, we try to come up with for various events, um, you know, it's like, Oh, let's, let's do a spelling bee.
Let's do a bike ride.
No, they actually bring in a whole lot of people with good ideas and talk about them.
There's a radical notion.
We are, as Civic Media is a participating sponsor for those events on Wednesday and Friday evening.
So we will be having that on the Civic Media radio network.
Oh, those evenings.
We will have some, some of those discussions.
Right.
No, it doesn't work that way.
Still freeze the local.
Absolutely.
And nobody asked me to be a speaker.
So that tells you about my deep well of good ideas.
Well, we felt the same way.
No, we do but I think it's good to underscore this whole notion that there's there can and should still be a thing called Policy where we we kick around ideas and then we maybe put those ideas into action as opposed to you know the whims of one guy and this is how we're gonna do everything now is How does the president feel today about this?
Doing such a
or
Just
Oh, I mean, and it's not like nobody's going to point that out.
I mean, I
I think it's going to have, basically, what do they call the Barbra Streisand effect?
I mean, it's just going to completely backfire.
Now, they would not have pointed out that these are Joe Biden projects, but if Trump starts trying to take credit for them, I mean, it's a slam dunk in terms of either a news story or a talk show topic about that.
So hey, go go for it.
Go ahead and switch the sign.
Give us something else to talk about, you know, so Well, it's
Unbelievable.
Stacey Abrams will be appearing on Maggie Dawn's show tomorrow at 5.35, ahead of IDFS.
She's also going to have Joe Costa's Amaripa coming up today at 4.35, a Secretary of State candidate as we continue the longest, slowest parade of candidate announcements that we could
ever
have in Wisconsin.
It's like each week we might eventually get one more candidate here, one more candidate there.
But it's good, you know, it beats 10 candidates announcing it once.
So I
No, no.
And again, plays great with your base, but boy, when it comes time for that general election and you got to defend that, uh, that strikes me as not a very good idea.
John and Gordy can catch a morning, six to eight from our station down in Madison through the civic media app.
If you're not in the Madison area, guys, thanks so much.
Have a great start to the week.
State Senator Jeff Smith is going to join us as well.
Just a bit to talk about helping homeless veterans.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
You're up north.
A little breaking entertainment news here just across the wires.
Rick Davies, the founder and lead singer of Super Tramp, who co-wrote some of their biggest hits and
It says here, Lente biting world weary tone to its music died on Saturday at the age of 81.
Rick Davies from Supertramp passing away.
State Senator Jeff Smith looking to connect with us and hopefully we'll be talking to him very shortly.
First, let me tell you about our weekend newsletter Sunday mornings with Pat Crite Low.
You can sign up for it at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
In the latest edition, we kick off with some of my thoughts on Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley.
And her being a, what I would call a master practitioner of pot calling the kettle black politics, talking about, you know, leaving the Supreme Court because of the bitter partisanship, personal attacks and political gamesmanship that go on in the court.
She's worried about that.
Now,
we
also had the results of our question of the week last week, which was about dreamers, including some of the reader reaction to that question.
And then there's this week's question, which goes like this.
We still don't know the full extent of the harm and terror brought about by the late sexual predator, Jeffrey Epstein, but we do know a couple of things.
One, justice is way overdue for his victims.
And two, this never should have become a political football.
which is what makes it so odd that a president who promised as a candidate to release all the relevant files has done a complete 180 and now says it's all a hoax.
Now there are many ways to look at this but I laid out four of them and asked which is closest to what you think.
And if you want to weigh in on this, well, first off, you should subscribe to our newsletter.
You'll get it first.
All kinds of responses have come in, but you can also get into the comment sections of Facebook and YouTube, either for up North news or for civic media and share your thoughts that way or go to the civic media app and use the text feature or the voice note feature.
And let us know if one of these four options is closest to what you think a.
Donald Trump did some bad things and is trying to keep them quiet.
B, Trump is not named as an offender in the files, but he's trying to protect one or more people who are.
C, Trump is not named as an offender in the files, but he's using the information to pressure or blackmail others who are listed.
And then D, Trump is right.
It's all a hoax conjured up by Democrats and all of these women are in on the conspiracy.
I can say confidently that I have received none of those responses yet for option D, but it's out there as well.
And so again, if you want to be one of the first to respond to our questions of the week, head over to our newsletter and sign up for it over and up north news w i.com to learn more.
Folks who have been listening to our newscast throughout the day know that there is a problem with homeless veterans that should be addressed through various state programs, but it's not getting done.
And it's, shall we say, it's been interesting that in the rush to get a state budget passed,
Funding for these homeless veteran programs was not put back in place.
And now the clock is ticking toward the closing of a couple of these centers that help out our homeless vets.
And Republicans somehow are trying to blame the governor who's in the budget request.
And they zeroed it out.
Senator Jeff Smith is joining us now from the Eau Claire County town of Brunswick to pick up the story from there.
Jeff, good morning.
How are you?
That's okay.
Technical difficulties are, you know, part of our part and parcel of what we do over here.
So just glad to have you in here.
And so I'd set up the notion that, you know, this debate, I can't believe it's a debate, this debate is going on over something that was being funded.
Let's start at the very beginning, then we'll get to the funding here.
We're talking about something called veterans housing and recovery programs.
veterans, housing and recovery programs, VHRP.
I know it's one of those bureaucratic acronym things, but these VHRPs are administered by the State Department of Veterans Affairs Office.
And the governor put in a budget request for additional funding, and the Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee zeroed out that request for additional funding.
And let's just...
Let's go back a step, Jeff, because one of these programs is here in the Chippewa Falls area, not far from you at all.
And with it facing closure, what is it that this one and another program do that are at the center of this entire issue?
And actually the one Kline Hall, which is even closer to you than it is to me, but it's in my district.
It's the largest one in the state or was until they've done this terrible slashing of the funding.
But you're right, it was funded in the budget.
Additional funding was needed because there's a lot of upgrades that needed to be done on this building and some other sorts of things.
The Republicans made all sorts of excuses since then.
including I think heard you say that they like to blame the governor, but somehow they blame the governor who put the funding in his budget and they cut it.
This is typical of the way this majority party has been acting and behaving for 15 years that they don't know how to govern.
All they do is point fingers and do everything they can to make things fail and then blame others for it.
Well, they do that in this way.
They said, well,
In the rush to pass the state budget that flurry of activity during that last week of June basically That there were a lot of things being negotiated back and forth and that the governor Never mentioned that one as if he is supposed to babysit all of the things that Republicans zeroed out and say put the money back in for those things when the root cause of all of this
is Republicans zeroing out things and then just casually forgetting about it, just casually treating these homeless veteran programs like some kind of a political football, and you and State Senator Jamie Wall and Green Bay are not letting them get away with this.
You know, Pat, they are in the majority.
They're in the majority they can fix things.
They don't need the governor as they keep pointing out They don't need Democrats as they keep pointing out.
I heard the most ludicrous thing by the way the other day from Representative Summerfield that we negotiated in good faith, but we don't need Democrats said that in the same breath Yeah, I don't think that was negotiating good faith good faith was the fact that okay, we accept the fact that you cut it
And we're going to give you another chance.
We tried to put all those funding, not just that one, all the funding that they took out on Veterans Affairs.
We tried to put that in an amendment on the floor.
They voted that down.
So then, OK, you don't want that.
So now we introduce the.
standalone bill just focus simply on this program and Klein Hall and the building in Green Bay as well those two buildings you know narrowed it down kept narrowing it down and narrowing it down and they still they won't have a hearing they won't they won't bring it to the floor they've even canceled to tell you the truth Pat and if you haven't heard in this in the state senate they've chosen not to have a senate
or a session day at all in September of this month.
And of course, that's the deadline for getting this done.
A session that's supposed to happen post state budget to start taking on all the other non budget matters that come up.
And so again, Republicans leading the state Senate have decided to keep collecting a paycheck for the month of September, but without holding a session that would enable bills like this to be able to pass.
Now you mentioned that there is a Republican bill
to also restore the funding.
It's sponsored by Republican Senator Andre Jacques.
And if memory serves, when you tried on the floor of the Senate during the budget bill debate to put this money back in, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe every Republican voted against it, except for Senator Andre Jacques, who's now got this bill to reinstate the funding.
I suppose some credit is due to Senator Jacques that way.
Again, it really shouldn't have gotten to this point where only one Republican is speaking up for homeless veterans.
It's a real commentary on the state of the Senate Republican caucus right now.
And again, that's the reason they can't even hold a session because they are so
Discombobulated right now in that in their in their caucus at Senate caucus that they can't come together and agree on doing anything But but yet they would they will be I'm sure all the rest of these Campaign year in the next during the next year talk about how they love veterans and they support veterans, but I'm gonna tell you if you were to ever tour that program and and sit down with with the People who run that program like I have
it would break your heart the fact that they are kicking people out and ignoring the needs that they have.
Yeah.
And assembly speaker Robin Vossa said, well, we gave the entire Department of Veteran Affairs an increase.
And so they should just use some of that money.
Again, it's such a cavalier notion of well, if we just throw a few coins at the Veterans Affairs Office, overall, they'll figure out what to do with it.
I mean, it just strikes me as a real abdication of their job duties.
They're happy to micromanage a lot of places in the state budget, unless it's not convenient for
Well,
Again, it's the fact that you didn't even sit down and talk to people about this who are in charge of this program.
I tell you the truth, it's too late.
You know, they couldn't just wait until the day that it closes and say, oh, we're closing the doors and now all these clients that we have, you just can't come in anymore.
They had to give them fair warning.
They had to find places for them to go and they've been doing that ever since the budget was passed.
So there is no one there now.
And it's sad.
It's a really sad state of affairs.
And you know the grounds where they are, Pat.
It's a beautiful grounds that the state owns.
And the building is an interesting building that could have been saved.
But here we are trying to find a way to restore this program from the ground up.
We're gonna have to start from scratch next year.
which I know Alicia writes on YouTube.
I get angrier by the day on this VHRP issue.
And she says, what's even worse is the legislators who are loudest against these bills are often veterans themselves.
I've left very little time for the other matter I wanted to get to.
So just give me the brief overview of the package of bills that legislative Democrats unveiled last week.
basically a pro-worker, pro-economic development agenda.
What's it do?
It gets rid of some of like the union busting and puts back prevailing wage, things like that?
Yeah, and you know how that works, Pat, but we are, again, trying to restore some of the egregious things that happened in the Walker era, which again, prevailing wage is a really good example to preserve the fact that our workers get the work here in the state of Wisconsin at
Wages that are family oriented and supporting and and not let some fly-by-night Outfit come in and steal those jobs on at low wages Send them out of send that money out of state as well.
And we just can't let that happen, but we also the oh shoot.
I don't I'm sorry the the
the contracts that are signed by you between labor and the state, that should be also restored so that those contracts guarantee good wages, fair working conditions, but on top of it, it works both ways because it also guarantees a timely fashion in which the job gets done.
Exactly.
State Senator Jeff Smith from Eau Claire County.
Jeff, thank you so much.
Good to talk to you.
thanks, Pat.
Have a great
day.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Here we go.
The Brewers swept the series in Pittsburgh, and now they are in Texas to take on the Rangers.
Game 1 coverage begins at 6.30 this evening on stations in Richland Center, Oshkosh Park Falls, Hayward, and W.R.
Jan and Racine, and it is to Radio Park and Racine.
where we had right now to talk to one Greg Bach about Matt and Aaron air coming up next across the civic media radio network.
Mr. Bach.
Good morning.
How are you?
Okay.
So when the Brewers play Pennsylvania, the entire state, I'm like, watch it.
And when you said swept, I'm like, they didn't sweep.
In fact, they lost the switch.
And then I realized, Oh, yeah, they played three other games and they won all.
Okay.
Yeah, there's
the Phillies and then there was the Pirates and the Pirates are they're not having their best year.
Yeah, I guess it's back to still being the best team in baseball.
Yeah, I guess that's it.
You know, just give us that ring now folks.
Sorry.
I'm just kidding.
I'm not jinxing anybody.
My word means nothing.
All right.
Good morning, everybody.
How you doing?
We're real good.
Thanks.
Did you relax during the weekend?
Watch the
game?
Nothing.
Nothing.
Okay.
It was a very busy weekend.
My mother-in-law turned 80 yesterday.
So we did a lot of stuff this weekend.
It was actually a two weekend celebration.
So we were closing it out yesterday.
We went to go see a play in Illinois.
Went to go to Drury Lane, where I was, was the muffin man there.
Happily one of the youngest people in the room.
Like I looked around and I'm like, whoa.
You know, there, there, there could be a cottage industry now on 80th birthdays because those are all the baby boomers start turning 80 this year.
And so for the next, however many years, there's going to be a whole lot of 80th birthday parties.
And, um, you know, you could do worse than to find a way to cater to all those parties that are going to be going on
through
the, through the big eight.
Oh,
I walk up to be like, hello ladies.
Does anyone need some malto meal?
Anybody need, uh,
No, these are cod liver oil.
These are baby boomers.
You got to you got to like play Woodstock music for a man and, you know, make him feel like hippies again.
Remember when you wanted peace and love and now you just want young people to shut up.
Oh boomers, we kid because we're not happy with the world you left.
No, exactly.
So Jane continues with a little bit of time off and Mr. Bach
is
holding down the fort admirably,
I
might add, including a discussion that is coming up today with the big media news director, Shaly Pittman.
No, actually that is that there, there's been a change in plan, change in plan folks.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Sorry.
Shaly will not be joining us this morning.
Instead, we will be having a gentleman you just had on Mr. Jimmy Cusco on to talk about the Packers win, talk about Badgers to talk about all things sports, including, and I love hearing him as well as chat homes, talk about this, but local sports, the high school stuff to be on the lookout for as well.
He'll be on at 9 35 this morning and then
Thomas Gulke and some other individuals from their group Groundswell Collective will be here to talk about a whole host of issues they are working on right now, including one where through the power of people and organizing, they got themselves more Sunday bus service in Walworth County, which is
blown through the roof in popularity, like ridership is up through the roof, really excited about that stuff.
And they're going to be here to talk about all the things they're working on, including that aspect as well.
So they'll be on a 1006.
And we're going to be having Thomas and his friends on for three segments, because there's a lot to talk about.
There is actually, and it's when you talk about, look, public transportation and bus ridership and all that, it is
It's not sexy.
And yeah, if you were to give an award for the least sexy topic that is most important to the most number of people, rural transit would be way up there on that list.
If you were if you were covering news just in rural communities in Wisconsin, rural counties, this is a big deal for them.
You know, honestly, Pat, I couldn't agree with you more and I'll even take that topic and expand upon it because we've been talking about it a lot on our show.
I know you it's something we're focusing a lot.
I think on civic media is just the importance of protecting our rural communities.
The fact that we have so many, you know, the big bill for billionaires is going to decimate hospitals in the rural area.
We've got we've got the closure of the
the, the, the corporation for public broadcasting that, you know, that services so many networks, TV and radio in those rural areas to get them the news, emergency broadcast systems.
So I think it's important to keep that conversation going on how these things, these aspects, as you mentioned it, like they're not sexy issues, but they're important ones.
And they're important for those people out there who have to travel further than you or I do, because we live in cities and they do not.
Right.
I mean, there's all the talk about jobs.
We need jobs, jobs everywhere.
in a lot of these communities, part of the reason you don't see, you know, a company come to town is we're either talking about rural transit or affordable housing.
And there are people here, there, there are communities that could host, you know, these, these new jobs in some way, shape or form.
But until you deal with housing and transit, your community is really just you're running in place.
And you're not going to grow without that.
So I know I think it's a great topic to bring up.
that.
Yeah.
And I just to cap off on that, you know, we went, we went to the Northwoods this summer taught all about Jane out there and I did for a week of shows.
And it's really fun to fall in love with those areas, those beautiful wooded areas with great people, small communities, just very, very.
a Midwestern feel to it.
But then you talk about the fact that some of these communities are dying because industry left and they can't get people, they can't get a business to move in to help reenergize it.
They have to travel two hours to a hospital because the one they went to was closing.
So
it really opens your eyes to those struggles into the end to really make you feel like, all right, we need to speak on behalf of and with these people, these individuals, because they are as important as the folks who live in the cities as well.
It's really that, that, you know, big old word, uh, infrastructure, your housing, your transportation, and also, by the way, your internet access.
Well, some of these communities have learned that they can attract people if they can, if they are commuter workers and instead of being in an office in Chicago or New York or they can do their work up north if they've got a good connection, but you got to get the good connection first.
So you need all of these things to have, uh, our world communities grow.
Greg's going to be talking about that and more part of Matt Naranair coming up next.
Thank you, Craig.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Have a wonderful morning.
Yes, you as well.
And thanks to all of you, Parker, you as well for being part of our day here today on these mornings with pack right low.
That's me powered by up north news here on the civic media radio network.
Enjoy the rest of your Monday.
We'll see you bright and early up here up north 6am tomorrow.
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