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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Kratlow.
Well, hey there, Wisconsin.
Good morning.
It is 6.06 on a Monday morning, October 20th, 2025.
10, 20, 25.
10, 20, 20, 25.
Wow, it is Monday morning here.
It's a beautiful morning to have you here up north live from Lake soda from wherever you're spending your mornings, listening across the civic media radio network or watching us on YouTube, Facebook, podcast and more.
We appreciate you being here.
I got a question for you.
What would I do without Parker Olson producing this thing?
Because like 30 seconds ago, he just like disappeared out of the frame.
And I thought for sure, something had gone terribly wrong.
And I thought, well, if if he's not there, it's like if the pilot is incapacitated.
Can I, can I bring this thing down on wheels?
You know, I'm like, if you can't go to commercial or something, if you just leave, do I just talk for three hours straight, like through the breaks, how would, how would that work?
Three hours straight, cold opens, cold closes.
Yeah.
It would be absolutely awful.
But you know what, Pat, you could do
it because I believe in you.
If anybody could yap for three straight hours.
Yeah, I suppose it could be me.
It reminds me of an old episode of MASH where Hawkeye is in like a Jeep accident out in the middle of nowhere and this Korean family takes him in.
He realizes he's risking a concussion and he doesn't dare lose consciousness so he has to keep talking the whole time.
So he talks through the entire episode and the family looks at him like it's crazy, but he knows he just has to keep talking.
I feel like that show made an impression on me in some way, shape or form.
Just keep talking.
And that's, that's how I ended up with this job on the radio at 6 0 8 on a Monday morning.
How was, how was your, your quintessentially cliche, cliche fall weekend?
It was so beautifully auto meal out here.
It was, it was like perfectly
fall.
It was great.
Um, pretty good weekend.
Had a good night on Friday over in whitewater.
Had a good football game there.
Um,
That on Saturday did a little coverage here with civic media doing some no Kings coverage.
That was always
what do you think like like what maybe a couple hundred paid agitators?
Was that pretty much it there?
I mean, I mean I got from listening to some people was just a handful of Vagabonds or was the crowd a little bit bigger?
It might have been a little bigger.
It might have been
I would say at least 10,000.
I have seen as high as 15,000, I think, in Madison.
That's a lot of money.
That's a lot of money, Pat, to
pay all those people.
I know.
I'm surprised George Soros is able to afford breakfast this morning with all that.
I wish I would have done a better job of collecting some of the best signs that people were carrying.
Because again, occasions like this remind us that for all that is serious and troubling about life in America these days, we're also surrounded by really funny people.
And sometimes, sometimes adversity brings out the humor in some way shape or form.
So I'm gonna call those up at some point, we'll rattle through some of those together.
But obviously it was a
a good time was had by all.
For the people that you said, oh, this is going to be a bunch of violent Antifa types.
I'm not pretty sure people in dinosaur costumes and things like that.
They're not too violent.
They're actually quite fun.
There was an excellent tweet from the media political editor, Dan Schaefer, who was at one of the one in Milwaukee, I believe he was at that No Kings protest.
And he said that he asked a man in a frog suit next to him.
if he knew where the route was leading them.
And the guy turns around and goes, are you Dan?
Things you don't expect to hear from a man in a chicken suit.
I know I edited Selena Heller's report and Selena will be with us shortly here to talk about who she all covered in Eau Claire.
And the way that I edited it, you've got this one woman, you know, talking and then another woman's answering a question.
And then you hear a guy's voice, but it's he's in a chicken suit.
And then you see, you hear a woman's voice, but she's in a cow costume, an inflatable cow costume.
And again, just did not look like a violent antifa bunch to me.
No, I saw many of them and go.
They wanted to express themselves, and they did.
And people go, well, would that change?
Donald Trump is still president.
No, sometimes you just need to express yourself.
I've seen the Washington Post editorial that compares it to the Tea Party rallies of 2009, which, you know, I did not agree with the people at those rallies, but you had some of that same energy of
people who wanted to gather and send a message and the incumbents in office might be wise to listen to that and see if there's maybe something they could do differently.
I don't know like reopen the government.
Just a just a thought.
Yeah.
Yet, you know, part of a big reason for that government shutdown is around the issue of health care and affordable health care.
And that is something that a group in Western Wisconsin works on their name is grow, G R O W W for grassroots organizing Western Wisconsin and Bill Hoggs death is going to join us this morning in our seven o'clock hour to talk about health care.
and the canvassing that they do all around Western Wisconsin to try to keep politicians' attention focused on healthcare.
We'll have Dr. Kristen Lierly, I believe.
The aforementioned Celine Heller will be here.
And then in our third hour, Laura Ann Byrd, our favorite author, is going to tell us about book festivals.
I don't think I've ever been to a book festival.
Have you been to a book festival?
I've been to book fairs.
Yeah, maybe like a kid.
fairs and see, yeah, like scholastic books or something where you get to get the little pizza hut coupons and things like that.
Yeah.
I remember box tops.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I look like in the box tops and getting things like that.
You bet.
You can call and text the show 85575 Civic 8557524842.
You can call us or text us or leave us a voice note using the Civic Media app.
You of course can put something in the comment sections on the Up North News Facebook or YouTube pages or the Civic Media Facebook or YouTube pages like Alicia saying good morning, Pat over on YouTube.
We appreciate that very much.
I loved hearing, um, you could just hear this, this drone, um, this hum all over Wisconsin this weekend.
And it was the, uh, it was the combines.
There were, there's not, there's any combine that can operate, that can work at all was out in the fields this weekend.
Yes.
Because the weather was just right.
And.
They get, you know, you got to get that stuff off while you can, especially while there's still a market for corn or soybeans or storage spaces, the case may be.
So you had the fall colors that are starting to pop at the right time.
Y'all see what I'm doing yet here?
I'm trying to avoid talking about the brewers and the Dutch.
You know,
I was wondering about it.
When you said there was a drone over Wisconsin, I thought that was going to be the transition into
it.
No, it's it's let's get into it for this reason.
Can we not?
We have to.
Look, there's people already know that there's a bit of there's a bit of feng shui to season in that it both started and finished with four games from hell.
That's just no other way around it.
Those first four, you know, the first three, I think we're against the Yankees or we're all four against the Yankees.
I forget.
And then what what happened with the Dodgers and yet I I really thought I might be angry at the end of this all But you know because again, you know brewers can't make it, you know to the you know to the World Series I'm not angry especially after that last game.
I mean Shohei Otani
10 strikeouts as a starting pitcher and oh as a starting pitcher three homeruns including one that left Dodger Stadium it left Dodger Stadium He I am a lifelong baseball fan.
All right, I know my baseball so for me to
not even grudgingly accept, but to willingly accept the notion that we're seeing somebody who is far better than Babe Ruth ever was, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle.
This guy is so amazingly special.
And when he has a game like that, you're like, what, what can you possibly do?
And you're going up against a half a billion dollar payroll that unlike in July, when we beat them, they were, they were healthy.
They were firing on all cylinders and I, you know,
You just got to tip your cap.
Yeah.
You know, the Dodgers did what I wish the Brewers did and that is peak at the right time.
Yes.
Yeah.
That really sucks because that is something, especially in college, I've noticed if you talk to college coaches, they say a lot about peaking at the right time.
Yeah.
And Shohei is just generational.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think I mentioned at one point.
that one of my goals this season was I know so many people at Brewers games all the time because you know people put it on Facebook, you know, hey, American Family Field, whatever.
And I would always be looking at the crowds and really wanting to see somebody I know in the crowd.
And I have to admit, I came up short on that one.
But the next day, when the Mariners played the Blue Jays in Seattle, and that series is tied up 3-3 now, right?
Yeah, game seven
tonight, I believe.
Yeah.
Um, anyway, some from college friends of ours, a husband and wife out in Seattle put up on their Facebook.
They were caught on the Jumbotron.
During, there was a big home run.
I've lost track of who hit it now, but an eighth inning home run that helped put Seattle up and they went on to win the game.
And there's just this look of joy.
They're looking at each other as the rest of the crowd is going crazy after this home run.
And they were up on the jumbotron.
They were able to get a photo of it.
I was so happy for them, but I'm like, but I wanted that to be us.
I wanted to see, I wanted to see.
You know, Joseph Peckie and Melissa Bald off there in the crowd, you know, after, after we eliminate the Dodgers.
It's supposed to be me.
It's supposed to be us.
However, because I'm, you know, this is the kind of bitter passive aggressive person that I am sometimes.
We eliminated the Cubs.
We eliminated Craig Council and the Cubs.
So you know what?
It's the season's not all lost.
The
Cubs are still coping so hard.
I know.
It's so
weird.
Like it's beyond even like what I can comprehend is normal at this point.
Now it's just like weird.
It's worse
than
bear fans are during
the off season.
I was going to say they're trying to take their minds off of, you know, the bear stuff as best they can.
Alicia puts on YouTube, I was able to provide some emotional support to a couple of people over the bearers game.
Sometimes you need to be the emotional support animal for your friend, the baseball fan or the football fan, whatever the case may be.
And Tony's up early in Ashland, puts up on YouTube.
I'm pretty sure a book festival is like Woodstock, but they play audiobooks over the speakers instead of music.
Can you imagine listening to the Lord of the Rings over loud speakers in a field?
Could happen.
Could happen.
I love this idea.
Let's see.
We've got also the daily newsletter that Ellie puts out for Up North News that is out and about.
You can sign up for that at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Sports wise, she notes that the the Bucks now have three Antutacupo brothers on there.
There's Giannis, of course, and Thanasis, if I'm saying that right.
And now Alex, who's 24, was signed to a contract earlier this month.
And also this one is also not maybe in my wheelhouse that probably Parkers.
I'm sure you were a big fan of the Gilmore girls.
And the, no, okay.
Okay, the the show is famously set in the fictional New England town of stars hollow, which is everything an ideal small town should be a lively walkable downtown complete with bookshops antique stores, bakeries and diners.
And in the newsletter today are five Wisconsin places worthy of stars hollow.
So if you're channeling your inner Gilmore girl, these are the places where you could go and feel like you're you're on a TV set.
And that
That and much more is in our newsletter sign up for it over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
All right, we'll talk about more about what's in the news today than Dr. Kristen Lierly coming up following that with today's history lesson.
Selena Heller with more about the No Kings rallies and much more live from the heart of Lake Wissoda.
No, live from the heart of America's Up North here on Lake Wissoda.
See, it's Monday.
I'll get some coffee and be back after this here.
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All right, well, we want to get the
Brewers and Dodgers out of the way because that way we could get to some of the, you know, the more upbeat things.
The good, uh, like badger foot.
No, not that.
Um,
okay.
Can I tell you something, Pat?
Sure.
I was driving home from covering the No Kings protest in Madison and I had a notification on my phone from channel 3000 about the badger game, which
is a weird
thing to get notifications
about the
badger game.
And it said that the Badgers hold Ohio State scoreless.
And it meant during the second quarter, but I was driving.
So I just like quickly glanced at it.
I
was at a red
light.
Don't worry.
Yeah.
And I thought I saw hold Ohio State scoreless and I saw 17 nothing.
And I thought there is no way that the bachelors have scored not only 17 points, but are winning against Ohio State.
And sure enough, they weren't.
They weren't.
No, they were not.
Uh, I mentioned, you know, that you might get a chance to listen to history if the burrs were to or the Badgers would knock off number one Ohio State.
That didn't happen.
But I could understand that in that same, the same spirit of that text message, the Badgers claiming victory in that the week before they lost to Iowa 37 to nothing.
And this time around, they only lost 34 to nothing.
To
the number
one team in the country.
They actually lost to left.
That's that's a moral victory in Nobody's book whatsoever, but you know to be outscored 71 nothing in the past two games
Yeah, can I read you the results of the last 27 Wisconsin drives?
The last 27 Wisconsin drives.
Yes.
Sure.
Okay.
I'll bite
punt interception punt punt punt punt punt end of game punt punt
and turn over on downs, punt, punt, turn over on downs, fumble, punt, interception, interception, punt, field goal, hey, hey, punt, interception, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt,
punt.
That's amazing.
Wait, where was the field goal?
Was that back in the Michigan game?
I
have zero recollection.
Oh, man.
That is, that is just brutal.
It's not going to get much better this coming Saturday when they're in Eugene, Oregon to take on the sixth ranked team in the country.
But you'll be able to hear the game on some civic media stations.
And let's see, it'll be on FS one this weekend as well.
And it says here in Eugene, Oregon, the now everything's got like little either sports gambling or ticket things.
And I don't know which ticket site this is, but the pump says and tickets available from $216.
So
That is not to see the Badgers.
That's to see Oregon.
Yeah.
Shall we say take on the Badgers?
That's what that's what that take out the Badgers take out the Badgers as the case may be.
The volleyball team, the women's volleyball team, they played at the field house both Friday and Saturday on Friday.
They swept 23rd ranked UCLA three sets to none.
But then yesterday, they lost to 25th ranked USC, three sets to one.
So on the season now, they are 13 and three overall.
Yeah.
Buddy, mine was texting.
This was back when the Packers weren't looking so great yet in the game against Arizona, which did they
ever?
Have they ever looked
great?
I wouldn't say great.
No.
He says, well, all I have left is badger women's hockey.
Yeah.
Yeah, could could not disagree with him on that one.
Both badger hockey teams have scored more than the football team.
That's true.
That's true.
They have for weeks scored.
Yes.
Let's see the the women's hockey team.
They are upside here.
There we go.
They were taking on Vermont and Union College eight to one and four to nothing.
So they they did all right.
They will next play Saturday afternoon.
uh, at home against Minnesota state, the, uh, men's hockey team, meanwhile is, uh, two wins, no losses, two ties.
So, you know, they, they're, they're not, they were rather disappointing last season.
Let's just put it that way.
So
Badger men's hockey is kind of a nut that I can't crack.
Yeah.
Every year there seems to be a bit of hype and then little to no delivery.
Which is why my friend said, yeah, at least I got to a patch of women's hockey team to look forward to.
But hey, getting back to the Packer game, it did finally go well in the end, but it should not have been that dramatic.
It should not have been that close.
They were in a 10 point hole for a chunk of the game before going on to beat the Arizona Cardinals 27 to 23.
But it was like the last game.
Not are we this spoiled now that we're we won and yet it doesn't it doesn't feel satisfying
I mean to be fair.
I don't remember feeling very good about a lot of packer wins in my life It's it never feels exactly like we really got them in that one.
It's kind of
like
I think it is a bit of we were spoiled because, you know, Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers were both generational talents.
They're very exciting.
Jordan Love is a is a very good football quarterback.
Yeah, he's not he's not a great quarterback.
No, I don't
think
he's a Hall of Famer.
No, we had we had two back to back great quarterbacks.
And that was wonderful.
Those were good times.
And now we're I think we just need to be happy that you're you have to grind out these wins now.
Yeah.
And I think everybody wants to see, you know, a pass to Golden or Tucker Kraft, and it's, you know, 62 yards every time.
And it's just not going to work that way.
No, I will hang my hat on Micah Parsons, who, by the way, Cardinals.
Cardinals,
what are you doing?
What are you
doing,
Jones?
I
know.
How poor is your game plan if you're going one-on-one against the best D-10 in the league?
Very bad.
But again, thank you, Jerry Jones.
Speaking of Aaron Rodgers, we are at Pittsburgh next Sunday.
It's a Sunday night game.
Oh, baby.
So if you think we sound a little rough this morning, it's just you wait seven days.
Today's history lesson is next.
We'll be joined by Dr. Kristen Lierly.
I'm Pat Cratlow.
You're up north.
Today's history lesson begins with a melancholy note, but starts off with Leonard Skinnerd.
It was on this day in 1977 that Leonard Skinnerd members Ronnie Van Zandt and Steve Gaines died in a plane crash in Mississippi.
Gaines' sister Cassie, a backup singer with the group, was also killed along with two pilots and the band's manager.
Other members of the group were badly injured on this day in 1977.
The group was never quite the same after that.
On this day in 1973 in the Watergate scandal, the Saturday Night Massacre happened when President Richard Nixon fired his Attorney General and his Deputy Attorney General after they refused to fire the Watergate Special Prosecutor.
So who did Richard Nixon find to turn into Attorney General on the spot on a Saturday night?
Robert Bork, the guy who Ronald Reagan later tried to or George H.W.
Bush should have appointed on the U.S.
Supreme Court and that didn't work out so well.
So we're underway with today's history lesson for a Monday morning, October 20th and joined now by Dr. Kristen Lierly who promised us last week
that she would not be here last Friday that she was going to take actual time off.
Not the time off and then we see her at some conference with some VIP or she's on some global network or something.
She was actually just going to take some time off.
Did you do it?
I did it and it was a blast.
It was a what?
Blast.
It was so
much fun.
Yeah.
We're in
Mexico City.
We were doing yoga.
We did a cacao ceremony.
We ate the greatest food.
We did the dancing and the people.
It was amazing.
I'm exhausted.
That's great.
But you still managed to put on a show on Saturday through the magic of pre-recording.
Yeah.
Isn't that cool how that works?
Yeah.
It's such a good show too.
You know, we all, I don't know about you.
I thought the brewers would win.
At least a few games.
I'm
sad.
I'm really sad.
I'm disappointed.
I get it, but
I'm still feeling nostalgic.
So that was our Saturday show.
Dr. Pat McBride, he was the first bat boy for the Brewers when they came to Milwaukee in 1969.
And he has story after story of Bob Uker and Hank Aaron.
And you name it, and he's got a story not just about the Brewers, but also about the Bucks because he was their equipment manager and the Packers.
I mean, it just flows out of the sky.
I know just great stories.
Love the book.
Was it the luckiest boy in the world?
He
thinks he
is, and I
agree.
Absolutely.
So you can listen to the show by wherever you get your podcast, Spotify, Apple, wherever.
Look for the Dr. Kristen Lyrely show.
Catch it across the network Saturdays at noon.
Getting back to the history lesson, the Sydney Opera House was officially opened on this day in 1973 by Queen Elizabeth.
This is the anniversary of the birth of the late great Tom Petty.
This song is taken on such
significance in this
day and age,
hasn't it?
Hasn't it?
Tom Petty passed away in 2017 at the age of 66.
Happy birthday to former Vice President Kamala Harris, the person that if more of you had voted for her, you could have spent yesterday at brunch instead of, you know, marching over the weekend.
That's what one of the signs said.
I'd rather compete at brunch if Kamala were president.
Yeah, well happy birthday madam vice president and actor John Krasinski is 46 years old today It was an instrumental song that was number one this day in 1979 and it was by trumpet player Herb Alpert
That's a
great question.
Oh wow
Hmm.
I can't think of one.
Enjoy listening to mental music while Pat looks it up.
I was going to take a look at his face.
It's like, aha.
Let's see if we get the Beethoven was on there.
Let's see.
Oh.
Oh, this is going in order, starting from backwards.
There's the theme from a summer place by Percy Faith in his orchestra in 1960.
There was Calcutta by Lawrence Welk in 1961, The Stripper by David Rose in 1962.
You probably want me to get more to
the point.
Yeah.
Chariots of Fire, the Miami Vice theme in 1985.
We had the Star Wars Cantina Band, you know, a few days back.
Well,
that wasn't the actual that was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, yeah, nothing, nothing reason that I'm seeing here, but somebody will probably correct us by going into the comments sections of Facebook or YouTube, which is just just just where you should do that kind of thing.
Let's see on this day in 1803, the US Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase on this day in 1818, the US and the United Kingdom settled the Canada US border.
at the 49th parallel for most of its length.
Happy birthday to Mark King of Level 42.
He is 67 years old today.
That makes me feel very 80s.
It's very 80s.
It's a very 80s tune.
Yep, I like it.
On this day, three years ago, Liz Truss.
Remember the name Liz Truss?
She stepped down as British Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party amid a political crisis serving only 45 days before resigning.
The least time of any British Prime Minister and leading Americans everywhere to ask, how do we get that kind of a deal over here?
Do
you remember when some news site or something actually did a webcam with a head of lettuce to see if Liz Truss's premiership would last?
before the head of lettuce spoiled.
No.
The lettuce won.
That was amazing.
Happy birthday to Snoop Dogg.
He's 54 years old today.
He's
only 54.
Yup.
He
was born for Dozer Brotus Jr.
in Long Beach, California.
And he and Martha
Stewart make a delightful couple.
They are a lovely couple.
It's a little extra work to be a snitch dog fan.
If you're on the radio, do you know how much digging I had to go to find the clean version of this song?
Do you know how
hard I had to listen back to this song to make sure that you were right?
And I picked the
clean version?
Yes.
Yes, I do know.
I have a rough idea.
On this day in 1998, Richard Pryor received the first ever Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American humor.
The list of recipients is a who's who of comedy legends Conan O'Brien was giving the award earlier this year.
On this day in 1979, Bob Dylan made his only appearance on Saturday Night Live performing three songs from his album, Slow Train Coming.
When are you gonna wake up?
I believe in you and this.
This is you gotta serve
somebody.
On this day in 1955, oh, you were mentioning this before, Lord of the Rings, Parker.
The third and final volume of the trilogy by J.R.R.
Tolkien was published this day in 1955.
Peter, Paul and Mary, their self-titled debut folk album, was the top of the album charts with singles like this one.
This
is what I love most about this segment The songs that get popular in this country and how they range from Peter Paul and Mary to Snoop Dog With a little Bob Dylan thrown in there someplace and a little trumpet playing as well
If you're working
there for everybody.
Yeah,
that's right.
If that doesn't tell you America's a melting pot, I don't know what does.
Exactly.
And finally, Calypso singer Harry Belafonte stepped into a recording studio in New York City this day in 1955 and uttered that immortal
word.
There
are Brewer's fans right now going, wait, that was part of a song?
Because they play that all the time.
That's this Brewer fan.
You are pointing to yourself.
I had no idea.
This is actually a thing.
Also, Freddie Mercury.
Remember when you did that at Live Aid?
Yes, I do.
OK, now bring this up a bit.
Parker's got to understand there was actually a song
involved here.
Yeah, I only knew the Freddie Mercury thing, actually.
Come to think of
it.
You have to learn a little bit about this guy and the work that he did in the civil rights movement.
He was brilliant.
Harry Belafonte recording the day of the banana boat song this day in 1955.
What do we have on the National Day calendar for today, Mr. Olson?
National Day calendar.
Well, Dr. Lally, you're all appreciate this.
It's health education week.
Yay, let's do
that.
And again, I know we've talked about this before, a real health education, not the make-believe version that people have been foisting on our children and not giving them proper information and having them properly equipped.
And then they come to doctors like Dr. Lierley and go, I did not know this.
Or
I
thought it was that.
Yes.
But if
you don't have real good information, you can't make real good decisions for yourself, especially when it comes to sensitive topics.
Yes.
So in your school district, insist on an actual health curriculum.
Please.
Not a fantasy one.
What else you got for today?
It is also a
write a review week, which I think means it's a great time to write a review about maybe how you think the.
health services people are doing.
Oh, that's an idea.
Or just
go on Yelp
and complain about your local restaurant because they
didn't do enough fries.
You could go to Apple and where you're following this show as a podcast and the Dr. Kirsten Lierley show, you could leave a review there.
That's smarter.
That's
fantastic.
Yes.
And because we're asking you for reviews on both shows, you can go in widely different directions.
Well, first there's the delightful Dr. Lirely, and then there's this crusty guy that's on in the morning.
What else we got here for the calendar today, Mr. Olson?
It is
Brandied Fruit Day, which I didn't know was something that people did.
Oh, yes, because you have to get prepared for the holidays.
It's time.
I have to admit, I've never made branded fruit.
Oh.
You do?
Well, it's my understanding and I could be wrong here and a listener will correct me, but I do believe you just put the brandy and the fruit in a jar and then you let it sit.
Yes, I say that not because of brandy, but I do know the best old fashions that I ever had.
were in Madison at Johnny Del Monaco's, where they were served with cherries that had been in a big old jar of Knob Creek bourbon for a very long time.
The cherry infused Knob Creek bourbon old fashioned is a joy to behold.
And it is a necessity because in the olden days before refrigeration, when you harvested your fruit, you needed to preserve it.
So brandy.
She's not just a fine girl.
She's a way to preserve your fruit.
Yes, exactly.
All right.
So there you go.
Brandied fruit day is today.
And what else do we got in little entertainment clips?
Parker, you want to emphasize any little
entertainment stuff?
If you've watched the show, Special Forces, it's like celebrities go through military training, basically, and has contestants to see how long they can last, essentially.
Johnny Manziel was in it.
But hey, our man, Randall Cobb.
He's still there.
Get out.
Yeah.
He's still doing it.
He's doing the thing.
I'm not surprised.
I
love that, dude.
Me too.
See, yeah, special forces.
I mean, that is practically, well, probably is a bit life endangering if you screw up, you know, some of the things that they do there, whereas I'm more of the wipeout.
kind of guy.
That's my idea of training where you're running along
the course and he's like,
I'm just going to
jump in the
pool.
I'm just going to jump in the pool before I get a pie in the face and the big old punching bag or jump on the big ball.
And the way those people fall on wipeout has me genuinely concerned for their safety.
Like, I don't want to watch somebody die and wipe out.
I want to laugh at their false and foibles.
So fall correctly kids.
We'll be joined by up north news reporter Selena Heller coming up.
I'm packed right low.
This is the
You're
listening to Civic Media.
Upup news reporter Selena Heller joins us along with Dr. Kristen Lylee, Parker Olson, Pat Critello here in Chippewa Falls on beautiful Lake Wissota, where the photo that I showed there on social media during the commercial break, the trees don't look like that anymore.
This was a weekend where the leaves were just falling like rain and you
could just
hear them coming down.
It was gorgeous.
It was just a perfect fall weekend, especially for getting stuff done around the house.
Meaning outside the house, especially with my old nemesis buckthorn.
It's
back.
Ask more buckthorn stories.
This time around, we've got shrubs in front of the house by the road.
They're called bridal wreaths.
And they're all individual bushes.
And when they blossom in June, they look like bridal wreaths.
They're nice little white flowers.
And it's gorgeous.
And we were noticing like, boy, they still look really green right now.
And upon closer inspection, we realized that it's just been overrun with buckthorn.
So.
That
was my job this weekend was trying to cut and pull all that stuff out of there and it looks a lot less like a haunted house now.
It looks more like we actually lived there, which is nice.
Let's see, Kristen, you don't have any mulch stories for us this weekend because you were out and about.
Yes, but
I do love the yard work and I did task my kids with yard work
when I
was on vacation and that is the payoff right there.
There you go.
And Selena was covering the no
King's rally in Eau Claire, and we'll tell us more about that after the seven o'clock news.
But you were you were doing the also important seasonal work of flipping that wardrobe.
Yep, put the summer clothes away, got out the winter.
That was a project.
I know from our three years of living in the Caribbean, you know, we thought, Oh, no more winter, all that.
And you realize you actually
you do miss seasons and you miss kind of the seasonal change because you're wearing summer clothes year-round and there is something nice about, oh, I haven't worn this sweater in a while or, you know, or this final shirt.
Believe it or not, there's final shirts I don't wear until it's wintertime.
It sounds crazy, but it actually happens, yes.
Let's see, we were talking earlier about book festivals and book fairs and author Laura Ann Bird is going to join us in our eight o'clock hour to talk about it, but
Tony and Ashlyn was was making, you know, a joke about how it's kind of like, you know, like Woodstock, these book festivals are like rock festivals.
And he he submitted on the chat line.
It looks like somebody is dabbling in AI artwork now, because it's an AI image of what looks to be a book festival with a rock star crowd all around it.
And it's kind of scary to think that we're letting Tony loose with AI.
You know, which I
think it's brilliant.
Tony's so smart and creative.
You go, Tony.
You see what she did right there.
She just assured that Tony's going to make her look good in these AI things and me not so much, which is why she's a doctor.
She's the smart one.
But I bring all this up to lead into one of one of the other stories Parker was looking at for us.
And that is using celebrities in your AI and open AI has figured out maybe maybe you shouldn't cheese off certain celebrities and VIP families and things like that.
Yeah, open AI is ending the ability of users to generate AI videos of MLK specifically.
And I think there are other ones as well.
Company said that like, they know it's a free speech thing to be able to do that kind of stuff.
But also the family should have control over the likeness of those folks.
So
yeah, having having Martin Luther King do some of the things that people were having him do an AI, which I know they thought that it was funny.
It's not really, you know, and
This
just has Robin Williams.
Yes, Robin Williams
is the
other
one whose family was
like... Mr. Rogers.
Yep.
Oh, I'm sure.
I haven't seen any
of
those, but yeah.
Yep.
And this is something that, again, here's the thing.
We hear all about these data centers.
We need these data centers because they're going to be for AI.
And AI is going to do all these amazing things.
And so we need the data centers.
And then I see videos like these, and I'm like, hey, are we going to get around to curing cancer anytime soon?
Because...
I was led to believe AI was going to like change the world and cure cancer and all these other great things.
And y'all are using it to make, you know, Mr. Rogers get into a wrestling ring and body slam somebody.
And it's just not, is that what our data centers are supposed to be doing?
So I don't know.
It's a, it's a brave new world that's out there.
And we also have a, let's go, let's go old school.
instead of AI artwork, there's there's, you know, the oil paintings and the watercolors and everything that you can find in museums.
And there are now Swifties going to museums because of Tay Tay, right?
Yeah, there's a museum in Germany that is getting a really weird amount of Taylor Swift fans because of her song, The Fate of Ophelia.
And there is a painting in one of these German museums that has a portrait of the Shakespeare character.
And there are like
hundreds of Swifties going every day.
And the
museum says they're happy about it.
They're getting more people in.
It's
great.
I guess whatever brings it in.
So yes, Ophelia, the character from Hamlet, singing before she drowns in a river.
And there is, I mean, the new life of a showgirl album has Taylor in a bathtub, in a swimsuit, in a bathtub.
Not looking too terribly far off of this photo.
or this painting rather.
And so again, it gets that whole thing into art imitating life or life imitating art, or I guess in this case, art imitating art, since it's one artist or the other.
But again, not a bad thing, right?
If you're getting people into the museum, they're gonna go look at other things, right?
Oh, she talks about in the movie how much she likes Shakespeare and stuff.
So she really promotes Kind of that route.
I forgot that you yes, you'd seen the movie What am I talking for you should be going off on an extended riff about Taylor
Swift?
I'm not a Taylor Swift expert.
Just dabble have to have to dabble in
it.
I get that.
Does that work with your boys at all, Kristen?
Did you end up having to go
get interested in things or do or see things because of their interests.
Yeah, one of my boys actually became like kind of a Shakespeare nut, interestingly.
Oh, but yeah, I mean, you follow what your kids do, I think you want to share those interests and then you find new things about yourself.
Yes, you do.
Yes, I know.
All right.
Well, coming up after the seven o'clock news, Selena is going to tell us more about the No Kings rallies, you know, and across the country, how things were not nearly the violent and Tifa, you know, riots that certain people were talking about.
We'll have that.
And then, like we mentioned, we'll be talking about healthcare and grassroots organizing across Western Wisconsin in our next hour as well.
I'm Pat Breitlo.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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