Smuggling Cattle?! (Hour 1)

Across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Gritlow, powered by Up North News.

Now, from our Lake Wissota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Gritlow.

Well, hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 6.06 on this Monday morning, November 17th.

Another beautiful morning to have you here up north, live from Lake Wissota.

From wherever you're spending your mornings listening across the Civic Media Radio Network.

or listening as a podcast or online or through the app, watching us on social media.

It's great to have you here to get the day started.

I got a question for you.

Can we talk about your friends?

Because we have a Sunday morning newsletter with a question of the week.

And the question that I asked was just based on a national survey.

I think we might have even talked about it on the program here Friday.

And I ran it yesterday and I mean the responses just came flooding in.

The story that we talked about was a national survey on how many Republicans have a close friend who's a Democrat.

How many Democrats have a close friend who's a Republican?

Close friend.

Now we all have casual acquaintances of all stripes.

A good good friend, but you are political opposites.

And that's how I asked it in the newsletter, not Democrat or Republican.

I just said, do you have a friend who is politically the opposite of you, a close friend?

And if not, why not?

Is that by choice, by circumstance?

If so, how do you make it work?

And I was really surprised at how many responses came in so quickly and so many, not just yes or no, but I mean really wanting to explain their situation that they

just cannot make room in their lives for somebody that they have to fight with all the time or I really love this person.

And so we try not to talk about things.

And by the way, it wasn't just close friends.

It was, you know, it was kids like adult kids or parents, co workers, things like that.

So what we're going to do is at 735, we're going to open up the phone lines and we're just going to ask people to come, you know, share their, their stories that, you know, without giving away too much, we don't need names or anything, but just talk about

How they make a friendship work or maybe how they lost a friendship and You know what we do about that in these divisive times There are people that say well there there's no more important time than ever To have close close friends even if you or politically opposed other people would say this is no time to turn a blind eye and You have to confront somebody

if they're embracing an extreme view.

So we're going to get into that in in the 735 half hour.

So I want you to stick around for that.

And if you can't, I want your comments, put them in the comment section, and I'll get over to Facebook or YouTube and put them in there.

Or if you're listening on the radio, get that civic media app on your phone, go to the text message or the the voice note.

We'd love to get a few voice notes from people saying, yep, I got a friend this or I got a friend that.

And we'd like to find out.

Let's see.

Tony up in Ashland jumping in right away in the comments section on YouTube.

Not really I would, but I moved from Ohio, so we aren't near each other.

My dad is pro-Trump, so we don't talk much about it.

We are both non-confrontational people.

See, and that's the thing.

We're Midwesterners.

We try not to be too confrontational about these things.

Again in the times we're in I don't know that this isn't like disagreeing on health insurance premiums.

Okay, this is like disagreeing on Secret police kidnapping people off the streets and leaving two-year-olds alone or things like that.

I mean Somebody's gonna tell you somebody you really trust and love is gonna say to you.

Well, you know, that's just the way it's got to be And you know you you have to somehow agree to disagree on that

So we'll get into that, but again, you can use the voice note feature to tell us your point of view on that.

You can text us.

You can get in the comment sections.

Let's talk about your friends and politics.

855-75 Civic is how you reach us by phone anytime throughout the show.

855-75 Civic, or you can text us at that number.

And of course go to the comment sections and we do we do we don't talk about it very much but we do have an email address because we don't want to get spammed or anything but you can email us your thoughts radio at upnorthnewswi.com don't forget the wi radio at upnorthnewswi.com

So that's part of what lies ahead here.

Coming up in our newsletter, I see it just went out from Up North News.

You can sign up over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.

Click subscribe up in the top banner.

And there's the story that we talked about last week about Washington County Executive Josh Schoeman, a candidate for Wisconsin governor.

Republican and his new election quote-unquote reform ideas which involve things like removing absentee ballot drop boxes.

But also in the newsletter we'll tell you about a Wisconsin city where an annual book drive has a goal of acquiring 2,000 books for distribution to children and raising funds to buy many more.

So find that in our newsletter up North News WI.

dot com uh let's see right now it is six eleven it is time to head down to madison studio a two where parker olson is standing by i thought maybe he'd be in his green and gold so happy yet a a long overdue packer victory but i'm actually glad he's he's not because it just means a packers one life returns to normal we we can we don't have to live and die by the by the team although there were times in the first half i wanted to die yeah olson good morning

Good morning, Pat.

There were times during that first half that I wanted to die.

I will also be honest with you, I'm not wearing green and gold today because frankly, laundry.

There

you have it,

folks.

Does at your age, and where you are in life, is your laundry dictated by like it's an every Wednesday kind of thing?

Or is it done by the size of the pile?

of dirty clothes.

And when it, when it reaches a certain height, you go, all right, I guess it's time.

Might be the size of the pile.

Okay.

All right.

Because I'm a home too

now.

So I have more clothes than when I was in Whitewater.

I only had like some of my stuff.

Sure.

So, you know, I

was in the pile.

Great.

Well,

yeah.

So the, the game, Jordan Love went out with an injury at one point and I thought, well, that's it.

There we go.

You know.

Okay, especially when I thought it was a concussion that was gonna take him out then turned out it was the shoulder But Parker has thoughts on this.

I do have thoughts on this.

I actually this is not a great thing to say, but I'm gonna say it Malik Willis, I'm fine with him.

I think he's great I would have been perfectly okay with having to play Malik Willis for the rest of that game to be honest with you Okay, that

doesn't sound too controversial.

Yeah,

you

know

Jordan love

people

Well, it's not like the kicker thing where we've been saying for a couple of weeks now bring the substitute kicker back And then he misses an extra point then he makes an extra point that he misses another extra point I'm like we're gonna lose this game on extra points with the substitute kicker that we thought should be the permanent kicker That one why can't we

catch a break that one as someone who was in the Camp that he should have been kicking the entire time

Mm-hmm.

That

one really hurt me a little.

I'll

bet it did.

I'm looking at it going a break cannot be caught.

No, no, not for the not for the way

But thankfully the giants, they also missed one of their extra points.

The Packers got a two-point conversion.

So if all the extra points had been made, we'd be talking about just a regular final score of 28-21, the Packers winning by a touchdown.

But because of all the other things, the final score was 27-20 as the Packers end their losing skid.

There were some Jordan Love heroics on the go ahead drive in the fourth quarter He connected with rookie Savion Williams on a 32 yard gain under pressure on third and 10 and he found Christian Watson in the end zone with 402 left to take the lead and I got to say again I think the first maybe it wasn't the first two times that he threw the Christian Watson, but you know close enough that You know Watson didn't make the catch or it was overthrown or whatever and I was really starting to think

This is the beginning of the end for our hopes that Jordan loved a Christian Watson was gonna be a worthy combo, but I was wrong.

You know, okay, those those connections did come later on.

Yeah,

so

Watson was awesome.

You had a yeah, like I said after the first couple he had some really some really good catches and I was was happy by and large with what I saw though.

I have to admit I didn't see

much of the game.

I heard a lot of it from Wayne and Larry on the radio because yesterday the sun was out.

It was 50 when we first woke up.

And we're like, OK, we've been putting this off long enough.

So put the game on the radio, washing the windows before

winter.

What

a fun task.

Up on the ladder, yep, going all around the house, getting all the windows.

We don't have a second floor, so you can do everything with a reasonable ladder.

And it's all fine, except when you get to the side of the house where now the wind is blowing.

And there's a little bit of a wind chill on there, but we got it done, which is great.

Back to the game.

Tony says if they didn't drop four potential interceptions, it would have been a blowout.

Yeah, that one was really frustrating.

That sucked.

Yeah.

Not not going to lie.

I was having a hard time.

Tony also says Malik Willis is a good regular season QB in the playoffs.

When you need some big passing plays, you need love.

Yeah.

I think that's true.

Yeah.

Okay.

And let's see, Tony says, I miss laundry when I was single with a wife and three kids.

It's a daily requirement.

Oh, yeah.

I it was pretty much daily for us when our daughters were in their teen years.

And by that, I mean, they all did it.

I had a job that I had a job that kept me away.

Oh, yeah, I'm now doing more of that than doing more laundry and things than ever before.

But thank

Thank goodness the rest of the family was able to pitch in here.

Back to our question of the day, Alicia writes in, I went no contact with my mom because she is so mega and ma-ha.

It wasn't healthy for me or my kids.

She is okay with everything this administration is doing.

So we've got that input from Alicia.

And let's see, it looks like we also have a voice note from somebody who is listening to our station up in the Wausau area.

So we'll

play a little bit of that in the next break.

And like I said, at 735, uh, welcome your phone calls as well.

Uh, so anyway, the Vikings, uh, come to town next, they come to Lambeau field, uh, on Sunday at noon.

And then there's going to be a quick turnaround.

The Packers have the Thanksgiving day game in Detroit.

Thanksgiving at noon.

So we all got to plan our meals accordingly, I guess.

That's tough for the Olson family.

I'm going to be honest with you.

Oh, are they like very much like.

130, everything's giving no matter what.

We're about noon.

We do a we do a big lunch.

So yeah, that's that's prime football time, which

is it is

quite convenient.

However,

there's always a way.

Wheel a few TVs in which now that's a generational phrase.

I can say you just wheel the TV and nobody can wheel a TV and anymore with a 72 inch screen But we used to have everything was on a TV cart and you could wheel the TV from one room or the other Was that something you did it leave

me wait?

No, I believe that because I did it in school Was that something that you did in home?

Of course.

Oh, I have been out in my shed.

I saw it because I was cleaning out the shed getting that all

fixed up and putting you putting the bicycles up on racks and things like that.

Sure.

And our old TV cart is still there.

You know, it looks like fake, you know, the fake wood thing and your TV you go on there and then down below you could put your VCR or you know, yeah, whatever.

Yeah.

And yeah, you could wheel it around the corner if you needed to put it in the dining room to watch the the Packers or whatever it was going on.

Oh yeah.

Lots of places still have you know, the old TV sets on a TV cart.

Well, I don't know if they have that.

They might still have the cart, maybe not the TV

so much,

but yeah, you really, you really can't do that.

But you can bring the TV with you, you know, on your screen.

That's the thing.

You've got either the 72 inch screen that you can't wheel that puppy, but you can also just people sitting all around the Thanksgiving table, you know, watching their screens and mom going, put your phones down, put your phones down.

On Saturday, we were in a bar in Oshkosh and they didn't have.

one of the games on the TV in front of us.

Instead,

it had

Die Hard, the movie, which was interesting.

So we pulled up the game on our phone and put it on a beer glass and called it good.

All right.

Wow.

All right.

Hey, coming up after the break, you're never going to believe why beef prices are so crazy these days.

According to Trump's Treasury Secretary, we are facing an invasion on the southern border, an invasion of cattle.

Live from the heart of America's Up North on Lake Wissota, I'm Pat Crightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

you

It's a Monday morning.

It is just about 6.23.

I'm Pat Krightlow up here in Chippewa Falls.

Parker Olsen down in Madison.

Nice to have you here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

You can follow me throughout the course of the day with my team at UpNorthNews at UpNorthNewsWI.com.

And of course, we also have on the website, you can look right at the front page there and see where we're up to.

But if you want just to focus on...

The morning show here, go to upnorthnewswi.com slash mornings, upnorthnewswi.com slash mornings.

You can sign up for our Sunday morning newsletter.

You can see the website articles that I'm working on.

You can get links to follow the show as a podcast on Spotify or watch us on YouTube, all at upnorthnewswi.com slash mornings.

Tomorrow on the program, we will have Hans Brighton Moser.

He's a dairy farmer from up near Merrill.

We'll have Camp Stevenson from Courier Newsroom reporting live from the nation's capital and Dan Schaefer from the Recombobulation Area.

We'll join us to talk a little Wisconsin politics as well.

As I mentioned in our Sunday newsletter, our question of the day is do you have a close friend who is your political opposite?

We're going to take a bunch of phone calls on that, I hope, around 7.35.

So I want to give you ample room right now.

And in fact, I think some folks are already leaving voice notes on this.

So let's give a listen to one that was that has already come in off the Civic Media app.

After the disastrous Zalonski meeting this spring, I confronted my mom and I confronted my uncle, who are both big Trumpers.

My mom was more willing to have a conversation.

my uncle, who's basically like an app.

By the end of the conversation, so I can tell this is really upsetting for you.

But at the end of the day, most of the things that happen at the federal level, they're not going to affect you that much.

So I wouldn't stress about it too much.

That raises a very interesting point.

And thank you.

I appreciate that you called in and left a voice note.

And I encourage everybody else to use that civic media app to do so.

And it, it's a tough thing because on the one hand, yes, so much of what happens at the federal level does not impact us right away.

But it can, but it also sets the tone for our values.

Blowing up boats in the Caribbean isn't going to change anything that happens in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin today.

But is that really what we want?

from a president and from a military that can do things like, again, have masked secret police on the streets, can cut off benefits to struggling families, and yet import beef from Argentina and give Argentina $40 billion.

All these things happen on the federal level.

They don't affect us right away, but they're still important enough.

the question becomes, what does that do to your discussions with your friends?

And that's part of our question of the day here today that we're talking about.

Speaking of beef from Argentina.

You know, when we talk about caravans, when we hear Trump and others talk about caravans coming from Mexico, the caravans are coming from Central America, the caravans are coming to the border.

Did you know that in those caravans are

cows?

Because that's what Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Besen said in an interview over the weekend.

Let's

give a listen.

The beef market is a very specialized market.

It goes in long cycles and that this is the perfect storm.

Again, something we inherited.

And there's also because of the mass immigration, a disease that had been

We've been rid of in North America, made its way up through South America as these migrants, they have brought some of their cattle with them.

Parker, did you know that along as they're scaling the wall that the cows are able to jump over the wall?

Or they're going through the tunnel?

I mean, sometimes you might think, am I hearing something and you're hearing your.

Never occurred to you that it might be coming from underground.

I'm envisioning the mighty Python in the Holy Grail when they're charging the castle and throwing cows and chickens and geese south over the wall.

Oh, a mighty Python reference out of you.

That's fabulous.

Cassandra OMG Besson's face palm.

Yeah, I don't know what else to tell you on that, except that it just sometimes it feels like

the folks in the in in manga world are playing a game with us I feel like we're being punked that they sit around and they try to see how far they can go To make some Americans believe their wild excuses and their accusations to justify all the things they do and the latest one has got to be As as he put it, you know the cow jumped over the moon.

She puts that on Facebook Hey, if we can jump over the moon, they can jump over a border fence

It's a southern invasion of cattle, you know?

Yeah, I know, Tony.

I was just a surprise to see Money Python reference from Parker.

But yeah, there it is, believe it or not.

All right, well, now that we've got you up to speed on what is happening with the American beef market in the here and now, and then we'll hear more in the Midwest Farm Report coming up less than two minutes away.

But we already told you about the Packers beating the Giants 27 to 20.

They'll host the Vikings next Sunday at noon.

The Badgers football team.

Did not look terrible at first.

Parker thinks I might have couched that a little bit too much.

I

mean, the first quarter.

You

know, was

respectable.

And then Indiana was like, oh wait, we should get started, shouldn't we?

And they ended up just spanking Wisconsin 31 to 7.

The Badgers are now 3 and 7 overall, 1 and 6 in the Big 10.

They lost to a ranked team for the fifth time this season.

They have still not beaten a top 10 team on the road since 2019.

They will next be in action at Camp Randall hosting Illinois.

That's a Saturday night game coming up, last I saw.

Badger Man's basketball.

They're hosting Southern Illinois University Edwardsville tonight in the final.

matchup of a four-game homestand to start the 2025-2026 season.

The Badger Women's basketball team defeated UW-Green Bay on Sunday afternoon.

Men's hockey split with Ohio State.

Badger Women's hockey swept St.

Cloud State.

And the Bucks, they lost Friday and Saturday.

Today's history lesson and Dr. Kristen Lahrle, all on the way.

I'm Pat Krightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

It's time once again for today's history lesson on mornings with Pat Cranklow.

To all who come to this happy place, welcome.

Ladies and gentlemen,

the Beatles.

That's one small step for man.

Well, I'm not a crook.

You believe in miracles yet?

You know, this depression is going to be so great.

We'll be the ones eating the cats and the dogs.

That's going to be fun.

Once again, it is time to take another revealing peek back into history.

We're going to start today's history lesson with some John Lennon and Elton John.

So Elton John was, he wasn't an unknown, but he was still like an up and comer.

way back then, 51 years ago.

Elton John played piano on the track and he made a bet with John Lennon.

Elton John was sure the song was going to hit number one.

John Lennon said no.

John Lennon lost the bet and as the bet's loser, Lennon had to join Elton on stage at one of his concerts.

He picked Madison Square Garden and got a manic ovation.

All from a song that hit number one this day in 1974.

Welcome to today's history lesson where we are joined by Dr. Kristen Lierly, who had, did not go to New York to watch the game, like the Pittsburgh thing.

I know,

she just stayed on her couch.

It

does happen and enjoyed it.

How are you?

I'm good, John Lennon, my favorite beetle.

I love all the collabs.

Rightly so, yep.

Let's see, on this day, one year earlier, in 1973, in Orlando, you heard the reference in there, President Nixon telling reporters, I am not a crook.

I am not a crook.

Yeah,

he

was though.

That was a pretty good

accent.

Yeah, that's a thing, yeah.

On this day in 1996, the Spice Girls hit number one on the album chart with their self-titled debut album.

This is the Spice Girls song you picked.

This is my favorite Spice Girls song.

Oh my gosh.

I'll tell you what I want, Pat.

What I really, really want is a different Spice Girls song.

Actually, the other one and other one I like is also on this album, To Become One.

Both were

part of that debut self-titled album.

They hit number one this day in 1996.

Wouldn't that be a fun Civic Media Halloween costume for us and Mike Clemens?

And who else?

Who else?

Joseph Peckie?

The Spice

Girls.

The Spice Girls!

Okay.

I

think that's Ice Spice.

Ice Spice is not a Spice Girl, but could be.

We could do whatever we want with it.

It's our costume.

We

have enough

people.

We

definitely have plenty of time to plan.

Put a reminder in your calendar, I will.

Or to

forget that we ever talked about this.

On this day in 1993, the all-new Mickey Mouse Club made its debut.

Among the Mouse Keteers on this day in 1993, Brittany Spears, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, and Ryan Gosling, and Kerry Russell.

They were all Mouse Keteers this day in 1993, and they all did pretty well after that.

Who

knew being a

musketeer was a stepping stone?

Well, it's like a cohort of people who are vetted.

Mm-hmm.

It makes perfect sense when you really think about it.

Yeah.

I mean, think about Annette Funicello and that cohort.

Let's go way back.

It worked for Annette,

to

which, again, you know, two thirds of the audience was like, ooh.

Look it up.

The Four Seasons had the number one hit on this day in 1962.

Alright, let's see.

We've got the birthdays today.

Hey, Danny DeVito is 81 years old today.

RuPaul is a senior citizen now, 65 years old today.

Rachel McAdams is 47.

And Milwaukee Brewer, Ryan Braun, 42 years old today.

How do

you feel about Ryan Braun?

Because

of the scandal?

Yeah.

No, but you either won.

This is a question for the

group.

Oh, OK.

He's a human.

Yeah.

He was a great brewer.

Yeah.

OK.

We'll just leave her at that.

All right.

Did you hear us on Friday mocking Gordon Lightfoot?

Because today is the anniversary of his birth.

He was born this day in 1938, passed away a couple of years ago.

But that prior to the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, he'd written a different song about his shipwreck?

No.

Oh.

Well, then, Kristen, you, like so many other people, can head over and subscribe to the show as a podcast.

Listen to Friday's first hour, where we talk about a shipwreck, play a song that was made about the shipwreck, and tell you that that's Gordon Lightfoot.

Apparently, he has a type.

He likes the shipwreck songs.

Well, I mean, people like shipwrecks.

Yeah.

Anyway, he had other songs, like Carefree.

Carefree Highway, which I meant to queue up today, but he was born this day in 1938.

On this day in 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger became Governor of California, which sounds, you know, like second nature now.

But again, I want to take you back to Election Night 2003.

Arnold, oh, there's Gordon Lightfoot now.

Arnold Schwarzenegger elected Governor of California in 2003.

It was kind of like when Jesse Ventura got elected Governor of Minnesota.

It was just like.

What what is happening here?

What?

Oh, I remember that though.

I remember being in college when they were pushing for that

1998 Yeah, anything

can happen

there.

There were only there only a couple of times where I was truly speechless on air delivering That was one of them

The other was one of our reporters picking up a downed pyroline, but I'll save that story for another time.

Pick up

pyrolines.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Comes back to me on camera and I'm like, Oh, you would never want to do that, folks.

Uh, anyway, the other one was trying to

explain to people that Jesse Ventura had just been elected Minnesota governor.

So there you go.

All right.

On this day in 2007 was the first episode of live from Daryl's house, Daryl Hall of Holland Oates, uh, performing from his home in Milton, New York.

I really liked that show.

You

did.

I haven't seen a ton of episodes, but I mean, what a nice premise for a show.

You

know, get some

of

your music friends or make new music friends and jam together

and

do some recipes and tell some stories.

I really like that.

For Daryl Hall Superfans.

I

know, exactly.

Do you know any?

Daryl Hall Superfans?

I don't know any.

No, none.

There's no mirrors in this house.

On this day in 2007, the Eagles were at number one on the album chart with Long Road out of E.

Long road out of Eden.

I almost said Egan.

People are fleeing

the

suburbs.

Singles like this one.

Oh

boy.

When the Vikings moved there, everything went to hell.

That was it, see?

It was

shortly after we left Egan for Chippewa Falls.

That must

have been it.

We just knew the neighborhood was going to hell.

Going to

hell.

Just so the long road out of Eden was the number one album this day in 2007.

Let's see, on this day in 2019, the first COVID-19 case was traced to a 55-year-old man who'd visited a market in Wuhan, China.

And then finally, because I wanted to end on a more upbeat note than that, the number one hit this day in 1984 was by Wham.

This song was life-changing for me.

Life-changing?

Mm-hmm.

Really?

Tell me more.

Oh, we all bought fingerless gloves.

There were new t-shirts, dancing, glowy things.

Yeah.

It did change.

Yeah.

It changed the look for a lot of folks.

Yes.

So

there you go.

And spirit.

And it made us cheerful.

It

was the 80s.

We needed to share.

Well, see, that's just it.

It was all about going out dancing in 1984.

I mean, that's all Sherry and I were doing.

We were going out dancing every Friday of Saturday night, sometimes Thursday nights, sometimes Sunday.

I mean, we just, there was a lot of dancing going

on in college.

You can still dance.

You can still, like, you know, you can bring that back.

It's polka-ing now, but it's still dancing.

More of a sway.

More of a waltz.

Yeah, at this point.

Yeah.

But no, dancing is still allowed.

Absolutely.

What's on the national day calendar for today?

This week is a hunger and a homeless awareness

week.

We have got International Students Day.

International

Students Day.

Have you had international

students hosted any, Kristen?

We have not.

I have my house is too full of national students.

To have any international students.

We hosted, you know, our third daughter from Russia back in 2004.

And you know, there's always been a part of the family ever since then.

We went to Russia for her wedding back in 2011, I believe it was, yeah.

And yeah, I would encourage anybody to host international students.

We also hosted an international student for like a weekend.

Do you remember the old Up with People?

Oh my gosh, yes, I know it well.

Yeah, we hosted an up-with-people person back in the day, but I guess that's gone now.

It's gone now.

They are very full of joy and cheer and music.

They really are.

And entertainment.

Yes.

And jazz hands.

Yeah, when they left, they were like, what just happened?

Woo, they did an app.

White tornado cheerfulness just went through.

Wow.

All right, what else we got on the calendar today?

We've got national hiking day, which seems oddly late in the year for that

Well,

you know the Ice Age trail is still there

still beckons Yeah,

it's a long time famously.

Yeah.

Yep.

What else?

It is also national homemade bread day.

I'm a big bread guy.

I was very excited about I love fresh

I haven't made

homemade bread in forever.

Remember the bread machine craze?

Oh, I made homemade bread in my bread machine yesterday.

You still have

your bread machine.

Wow.

Family favorite.

I made baguettes for Julian's birthday.

I

think ours is still down in the basement someplace buried, but like we had a couple of times when it didn't quite work and we thought, well, maybe there's something off with the heating element or whatever.

And we just never brought it back upstairs, but it's somewhere we should make homemade bread again.

Mm-hmm.

I just make the dough and then I do the rest of it by hand.

Yeah So there you go homemade bread and then one more in the calendar for today

Parker.

It is national unfriend day like on social media if you got that somebody I don't know maybe a congressman you can unfriend them

You hear that you hear that George you're on notice I've got a special friend on Facebook

Maybe today's the day we unfriend.

And yet that gets us back into our question of the day, Kristen.

And that is, do you have a close friend who is your political opposite?

And again, at 735, we'll open up the phone lines and we'll get people to tell their stories.

I've collected so many stories already from people.

This really struck, I want to say it struck a nerve isn't right, but struck a chord with people.

So many emails have come in explaining why they do or don't have a close friend who's their political opposite.

So Kristen.

I'll throw that right at you out of the get-go.

Because you get along with everybody.

But when it comes to close friends, not acquaintances, but a close friend, do you have one who's like politically opposite?

If so, how do you make it work?

If not, why?

Opposite to me means that it's like a dyad, like you are here and they are there.

And that's not how I see the world.

I see the world as like a continuum.

So I would say that I have friends who have very different.

a very different perspective, but we find common ground and the thing is respect.

We respect each other even if we don't agree.

So yeah, I do.

And it evolves and we learn from each

other.

I think respect, when you talk about that, I think that word is getting a tougher workout than

ever these days.

Because of some of the things you're being asked to respect in terms of a difference of opinion.

And you're going to hear that in some of the responses that we're going to be reading a little bit later on.

But I mean, we've already seen in some of the comments today, I mean, you know, Alicia mentioned earlier, no contact with her mom.

because of Megan, never mind friends.

We're talking parents and adult children and things like that.

It's not like there haven't been other trying times in American history, but this is one of them right now, isn't it?

And sometimes the best thing you can do is what Alicia did.

Sometimes you just have to say no.

Yeah, so you got to know, is this a time for just setting things aside or is it time for letting go?

So we'll be talking about that more in our seven o'clock hour and State Senator Jody Habers-Sinneken at 830 talking about saving the Wisconsin stewardship program.

I'm Pat Rightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

We are back at 652 on a Monday morning, November 17th at Crightlow Parker Wilson, Dr. Kristen Lyrely and Up North News reporter Selena Heller joining us from Eau Claire as well.

Selena, good morning.

How was your weekend?

Good morning, good.

Good, good.

Lots of outside stuff done, you know?

Yeah.

Kristen, you were the same way?

Outdoor stuff?

I can't not in these nice days when the sun is out and it just feels good and that like 15 minutes when we have sun this time of year, you just got to get out there and embrace it.

Yeah.

Well, that's what we thought too.

Oh, yep.

Some people doing Christmas lights.

Some people still moving leaves.

We were washing windows yesterday.

Parker, you were going to go to Oshkosh to watch the whitewater football

game.

Yeah, we did.

It was really nice.

It was a really good day.

Mini tailgate kind of weren't there long, but, you know, it was

good.

Still, you can squeeze in another tailgate, you know.

You do it.

Well, we're in the playoffs, Pat.

We've got more to help.

Oh, well, we are.

OK, we are.

Yes, we have a bye and then we're in.

Go whitewater, water drops or whatever.

Selena is going to be telling us later about, well, let's just talk about it briefly, Selena, because you've got a report that's running on Up North News and we're going to play some snippets after the seven o'clock news where, you know, a farmer was nice enough to say, well, I'll talk to you about stuff, but you're going to have to sit in the combine because I got to harvest these soybeans.

So how was that?

Yeah, it was great.

He was nice as Phil.

like we hung out a good part of the day and he just he was so lovely we just I climbed up into the combine with him and we went combining and I was telling him so before this I was like well you know we had Oliver's and we were just chatting on the phone beforehand so we're just you know kind of reminiscing and everything and he's been farming for 45 years in Pierce County so we talked a lot about that and then we just

I mean, we talked about so many things while we were combining soybeans, but I had never been in the combine combining soybeans before only corn, but we grew soybeans, hay, and corn on when I grew up.

So that was really fun for me.

Now people might go, wait a minute, didn't Selena cover the combine demolition derbies?

Were you ever in one of those combines?

No, but all my friends are like, you have to do it.

You have to do it.

Like, oh gosh, that's no, I have not.

And especially Cognite Snow.

I

should have brought that up to Phil.

Oh yeah, you should have.

Phil needs

his combine for the crops.

Yes, yeah.

These aren't the brand sparkly new ones that they're using for the demolition derby.

No, but I'll never forget the first time Selena told me she wanted to do a story about the...

combine demolition derbies that happened in her hometown.

Okay, this should be fun.

And it was.

So all right, so more about Selena's story coming up after the news.

Dr. Lierly had the Dr. Kristen Lierly show on this past weekend, as always.

And I can say this without any hesitation, that I was one of the first members of the Kristen Brie fan club, because I got to know her shortly after she moved back to Wisconsin from many years in California.

And you know, just she was doing a little

bit of work for Up North News and a little bit of work for Civic Media.

And you just knew, you just knew like she's going places.

And now she's got a great show on a big time radio station, but hasn't forgotten the little people like Kristen Lyrely who wanted to have her on as a guest.

I tempted her with the thought of a glass of wine and a fire and a longer conversation later

on.

So yeah, she shares her whole story.

I mean, she's had a really fascinating journey.

And now the work that she's doing in Milwaukee with a competing radio station is really visionary for a woman of her age in this political environment.

So we talk about everything, including the latest New York Times op-ed about whether women ruined the workplace.

That got a little...

So great conversation, so much fun, so grateful to her.

Okay, I don't want you to give the show away, of course, but I feel like I've got to hear a little bit more, but what was the setup to this?

Oh, so the New York Times published an opinion piece called, Did Women Ruin the Workplace?

And it got so much blowback that they actually ended up changing the title to say, Did Liberal Feminism Ruin

the

Workplace?

And can conservative feminism save it?

And it needless to say, we don't think so.

And we had some thoughts.

I have thoughts on the phrase conservative

feminism.

That

is

also discussed.

feel like this is kind of some click baity stuff that the New

York

Times is doing recently.

And it's it's destructive and it's sad.

But that's where we're at with media.

Everybody's just trying to get a little piece of your attention.

Yeah, they are.

But you know, the thing about Kristen Brie and Kristen Lyrely, neither was trained in journalism or media.

And but yet I could tell

right away that Kristen Brie like she paid enough attention to the news and had a sense of curiosity.

She's a first class networker getting to meet people.

And it was clear she was without the journalism training, she was still going to excel at it.

Then there's people like Selena and me who

took all these journalism courses to get to where we are.

And you want to be jealous, but you can't be because you have to admire folks like that.

But I mean, I wouldn't take anything away, Selena, from the training that we had.

It's a couple of different things covering your city council versus talking about the big issues of the day.

Oh, gosh.

Well, and we were taught by the Henry Lepold.

The Henry Lepold.

The Henry Lepold.

He's pretty well known in the journalism world here in Wisconsin.

And like, you go to the city council, you have to have a curious mind because you have to tell everybody, you know, what's going on, what affects them, every city council.

I have been to so many

meetings.

So many county board meetings and and town boards and my very first beat that he gave me.

I still wanted one of the coveted ones like Eau Claire city council Eau Claire school board.

And it was the Eau Claire county board.

on solid waste.

And I was, I was crest falling.

He's like, Oh, no, no, Mr. Crite Law.

That is where the money is.

The money is in

trash.

And I learned that he was absolutely right.

That was, that was like the big debate at the time was what to do with the County landfill.

And you learned all about how it leaches out.

You learned, oh, you learned so much.

But

that's journalism versus opinion.

You are recording news

and

facts.

We are talking about things and sharing our ideas.

Right.

But in both cases,

the folks who are pretty good at it kind of make it look easier than it really is.

The things that you do and that Kristen Bride do, you know, yeah, anybody can have an opinion, but to do it in a way that connects with people and can be funny at the same time.

I mean, that's, that's something we really admire to both of you.

Oh,

thanks.

Well, maybe when we come back from the break, I can tell you who my guest is going to be next week.

Well, if you want to hang around, yeah.

How about that for a tease?

That'd be pretty cool.

So much teasing.

So much teasing.

She knows how to tease.

It's like job one in broadcasting.

All right, that ends so much more.

After the news, I'm Pat Crichtlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Cross Wisconsin on Civic Media.

You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglo powered by UpMorth News.

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

Well, hey, good morning.

It's 7 0 6.

Welcome back.

It's Monday morning, November 17th, and it's not just me, Don.

I appreciate the intro, but I've got Parker Olsen down here in Madison Studio A2, and then I've got the cure for the common Mondays.

That would be Dr. Kristen Lierly and Open North News reporter Selena Heller.

Good morning to all of you.

Whiskers is floating around there someplace as

well.

Never,

never far away.

Yep.

Now, coming up at 735, we're going to open up the phone lines and have you address our question of the day, which is also the question of the week from our Sunday morning newsletter.

And it just got such tremendous response right out of the gate.

I would normally wait a couple of days and let that percolate, but there was such response.

I wanted to find out what y'all are thinking right now and you're already sending in some great answers.

Do you have a close friend, a close friend who is politically opposite of you?

If no, why not?

Is that by choice or by circumstance?

If yes, how do you make it work that you stay close?

believe me there are people that are all about making it work and there are people all about you know

cutting people out of their lives when, you know, the disagreements get to be a little bit too much.

So we're going to talk about that in depth at 735, again, at 855-756-855-752-4842.

You can also put comments in the Up North News or Civic Media, Facebook or YouTube pages where we stream things live.

So that will be coming up in just a bit.

We were talking before with Dr. Larry about

the Dr. Kristen Lierly Show, which you can hear on Saturdays at noon and then Sundays as well across the Civic Media Radio Network.

Kristen Brie was your guest this past weekend.

What's coming up next?

Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez.

I'm so

excited.

We're going to talk about all the cool stuff she's been doing.

And of course we're going to talk about her campaign for Wisconsin governor.

Sarah and I have known each other since we handed in our nomination papers together in 2020 to run for assembly.

So it feels like an eternity.

But we go way back.

It's going to be a great conversation.

So you've also had state representative Francesca Hong on.

Senator Kelda Reyes has been on the show.

Yeah, Kelda's

going to be

in Green Bay tonight.

So there will be some more social media coverage with Kelda as well.

Really, like the array of people we have running on the Democratic side for governor is so diverse and unique and interesting.

It's really an exciting time to be in Wisconsin politics.

And they are all going to Kristen Lyrely.

to be on her program.

So tune into that on the weekends across the civic media radio network.

And we're going to hear more from Selena in just a bit here about a story she's working on about the way farmers have been hit with a double whammy, not just the trade war that's affecting soybeans and other potential exports, but also now the health insurance costs that are about to go way, way up and

This is not an easy thing for Wisconsin farmers to have to deal with First a reminder that you can get stories that Selena's working on I'm working on everybody else through our newsletter at up north news wi.com Click subscribe up in the top banner.

You can get signed up that way Another way is to go to our new mornings web page head to up north news wi.com slash mornings and Then you can again sign up for a newsletter or you can find the links to subscribe to this show

as a podcast.

And of course, Civic Media has a new daily newsletter filled with links to show highlights and more.

Head to civicmediatoday.substack.com.

Packers were winners yesterday over the New York Giants 27 to 20.

Not the easiest game in the world to watch, Kristen, after the second time that we missed an extra point in the

game.

I looked at the record.

Well, first of all, it was impossible to kick anything yesterday on the East Coast because the winds were ridiculous.

But

I looked at the record and the fact that they just fired their coach, I thought we were going to crush them.

Yeah, we were supposed to crush them.

But as I was reminded by little Pat Crite low, my 17 year old, who is your image, they are actually not that bad of a team.

They've got some real talent.

So he wasn't at all surprised at how close the game was.

And also when you have a coach that just got fired, it kind of gives a T momentum weirdly

enough.

Also, we were our own worst enemy because somebody put Vaseline on all the receiver's gloves in the first quarter.

Well, again, wait a minute.

If you're going to excuse the wind for the kickers, I mean, it was windy throwing the ball as well.

But they had it in their

hands.

Might explain why it was off target or something.

No, it wasn't.

I mean, defense guys had it in their

head.

Yes.

No, it's over like seven drops.

It was bad.

It was bad.

It was not good.

It was

not good.

So Selina, you watch the game at home or.

You're still doing your outside work.

Well, OK, so this is funny because, Emery, I said, today we're going to work in the garage.

So that was our plan.

Saturday was outside, all the stuff outside, cutting stuff down.

And I said, in Sunday, the garage.

And so when it got to be yesterday, and I was like, OK, the Packer game is on, whatever.

She's like, can we bring the TV in the garage?

There we go.

Did you?

Unplugged a TV and brought it in the garage.

See,

Parker, we were talking about this an hour ago.

Parker's never seen a TV on a cart, you know, because so many

TVs

are wall mounted

now.

So

when I said wheel the TV into Thanksgiving dinner to watch the Packers Lions game, I kind of got a look from him like, wheel the TV in.

I took it off the wall.

You took it off the wall.

I did.

That

is something there.

That's

right popcorn and she sat out on the floor in the garage with a space heater

while

I was doing stuff.

You were the most Wisconsin mom ever.

Some people use a radio.

It's a

little thing.

I know.

See, that's what I had washing the windows.

I just brought the radio along, but not Selena.

She's going to make sure Emery has that TV there.

Yeah.

Good morning, Rob says from Tigerton.

It is sunny and 21 degrees.

It was a great weekend with the Packers winning.

Many thoughts and prayers to my cousin Bert, who is having open heart surgery today.

Yes, very much from us as well there, Rob.

He says, I have friends who are different political views than me.

I try to stay away from talking politics unless you can have an honest discussion about the views.

And he said, I watched the Packer game on my phone on my walk yesterday.

So yeah, you can

have to take it

along with the radio.

And Selena, what happened after the Packers missed that extra point?

So we couldn't tie it up at seven.

So

what happened?

Well, we were anticipating, you know, Emory caught the score at first.

We hadn't gone into the garage at this point.

So this was still in the house and she's like, it's seven.

Just there's a seven on the screen.

So I mean, that alerted her.

And I said, well, it could get to six, seven.

I mean, that's a possibility.

She's like, what?

And so when it did, I said, look, she's like.

So all across Wisconsin kids lost their minds at the moment the score turned six seven.

Six

seven.

That

was her just yelling six seven.

Yeah, she went to the TV and did the whole

emphatically doing this.

Moving the hands up and down, which Parker, by the way, you learned is, you know, somebody did that.

as a football move.

Yes.

That's how they show an incomplete pass.

Yeah, there was a bobble and a ref had to do that and the score happened to be.

While

the game

was

6-7.

Okay.

And nobody still knows what it means, but.

Selena, let's get to the story that you were working on here.

Tell us about the farmer that she interviewed and got up in the combine while he was harvesting soybeans.

Yeah, it was a fun day.

It was a nice day.

It was sunny and we just hung out outside.

We chatted for a while and just about his farm and, you know, kind of life up until that point before that.

So this is Phil Verges and I drove.

Gosh, he's out.

He's out there.

Pierce County in Spring Valley.

I was driving, driving, wondering where I was going, but met him up at his farm.

And he was just such a lovely time.

And he was so wonderful just to kind of have me and chat for a good portion of the day.

And he's been farming for 45 years.

He grew up since 10.

He moved to the farm, his family.

And then he's farming on the farm in Spring Valley, soybeans and corn.

And so Phil talked about this was kind of a tough year with everything going on from healthcare and tariffs and just prices of inputs and so many different things.

So this is him talking kind of about the season.

Perhaps I could be perhaps having the best crop of my lifetime yield wise at the same time I could be losing the most money I've ever done in my lifetime on the farm.

Yeah, it's very challenging there.

You know negative margins are negative margins It's kind of like working all year for your employer without a paycheck and then at the end of the year having to write your employer a check That's kind of what it's feeling like right now

And then Selena you had that double whammy.

It's not just the trade.

It's it's healthcare

Yep.

So he talks about, I love this phrase.

So we talked beforehand and he talked about these, what he liked to call the modern day robber barons.

And this is him talking about, you know, because Phil, so Phil is his wife worked.

So he was first on her health insurance and now she just retired.

And so he will have to pick up insurance for another year yet before he can qualify for Medicare.

So this is him talking about the modern

day robber barons.

Wealth inequality in this country is at all time levels.

The tax cuts that are being given to the wealthiest, I like to call them modern day robber barons, are on the backs of those of us hardworking people here in America that are trying to make ends meet.