(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to another edition of 10 thirty six.

I'm Portia Young.

We all know Milwaukee is home to a countless number of talented individuals.

You'll meet one of them in tonight's show, she recently took home a Grammy for her work that deals with a very popular PBS television icon.

And we have the story of a Wisconsin dairy farm family who faced disaster but pulled together to keep on going.

But first I had the chance to talk with a familiar face here on PBS, Margaret Hoover, conservative host of Firing Line.

Hoover, the great granddaughter of former president Herbert Hoover told us that she did vote for President Joe Biden.

So I started our conversation by having her assess the president's first 100 days.

- Look, the first hundred days are measured in some ways by how much we can all just take a deep breath and recognize that on Sunday mornings we don't wake up and look at our Twitter feed to see what outrageous thing the president of the United States has said.

And I notice myself, just in terms of the quality of life Being able to just psychologically breathe.

And I'm so relaxed in a way that and grateful that we have presidential leadership that understands how powerful the office of the presidency is how seriously it needs to be taken and respects the people of the United States enough not to send them into hysterical news cycles about inanities that have everything to do with his own ego and not his service to the American people.

So that in and of itself, Portia, is a great first step and kind of, you know sets the foundation for the entire first hundred days.

I mean, I think Joe Biden has plenty to point to that demonstrate that he knows how to run a government.

He's, you know, one of the adults in the room, the adults are back.

He's passed a major piece of legislation.

COVID relief, you know, you can quibble and some Republicans have quibbled with the end of the number that it ended up being or the fact that it didn't end up being bi-partisan at all.

You know, some people would blame Republicans for the fact it wasn't bi-partisan.

But you know, I personally think that if they really wanted to make it bipartisan I think there was a sincere effort to reach out to Republicans.

But I think frankly, Democrats just decided they didn't need them and it's true.

They didn't need Republicans.

So they have a COVID relief package.

It's an economic stimulus that they can point to that they should feel good about in terms of their political inertia and momentum.

And now they're moving on, they're moving on to infrastructure, essentially with a little bit of tax increases.

And the most important thing is that the promise Joe Biden made, which was that a hundred million people would be vaccinated a day.

He's doubled on track to triple, 200 million a day easily, maybe 300 million a day.

The notion that all Americans will be opened up to having their vaccines in May is a remarkable step forward in the dissemination and the distribution of the vaccine.

And I think honestly, the best thing we can do right now Portia, in a divided country is not focused on the other guy or focused on Donald Trump.

It's just make new history.

You know, it's just get shots in people's arms get the economy back, going again, get the kids back to school and start living our lives again.

And that in some ways is going to bring our politics, our local communities, our local political communities our state political communities and our federal community the federal government, our politics back together again in some ways.

- What are your thoughts on Georgia and the voting laws that were then just signed into law after they had a record-breaking election in November and then again, in January, right before the insurrection at the Capitol, and then now this backlash where against you know, Major League Baseball and other corporations how is that all playing out?

- Yeah.

Well, it's a multi-layered question.

I'm so glad we have a little bit of time to unpack it.

I mean, what the number of people who voted in Georgia in 2020 in not one but those both elections, a special election and the general election was just extraordinary.

It was extraordinary.

I give a lot of credit to Stacey Abrams but I also give a lot of credit to the fact this was just an enormously high turnout election and people from all corners of Georgia turned out.

And I think the elections were held openly, transparently, in a way that made it easy for people to vote.

And I think that's a good thing.

And I think Georgia should do more of that.

And I think all States should do more of that.

And so I have a problem with the way the Georgia law came about because it came about from driven by a Republican legislature and a Republican party in Georgia that was driven by the lie that the reason they needed to pass voting laws is because president Trump actually won in Georgia and there was voter fraud.

I mean, the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger of Georgia was very clear.

This was a very safe, fair, open election.

There was no fraud, Joe Biden won it fair and square.

Raphael Warnock won it fair and square.

Joe also won it fair and square and the Republicans lost, the Republicans lost largely behind closed doors.

They'll tell you on the record, off the record, depends who it is.

They lost because of Donald Trump, he was a bad candidate.

And the Republican base, and many, many millions of Republicans across the country still in large part, believe Donald Trump that he lost because of voter fraud.

So I think the Republican party in Georgia the GOP Republicans in the state legislature felt compelled to pass a voter law to answer the outrage of their base and the big lie.

The vase continues to propagate along with Donald Trump in order to prevent quote unquote voter fraud in the future.

Now, the law itself, it's sort of interesting.

And some of the details of the law have gotten lost in all of hysteria in the followup from the law.

Some of the details of the law, frankly, the law overall, in many ways is a much more liberal voter law than existed in 2019 before the pandemic.

Certainly it doesn't extend all of the freedoms and facility of voting that were extended during the pandemic.

There aren't as nearly as many dropboxes that will be allowed, now in the new law, as there were in 2020 but dropboxes were never legal in Georgia before 2020.

And so they've written them into the law for the first time.

Souls to the polls, the Sunday voting is allowed, voting is allowed 17 days early before the election, which is more than some blue States like New York, where it's only allowed 9 days before the election.

So there, they got rid of the signature match which was that horrible voter suppression plank of the law that required signatures to match.

And it was a great way of getting people who, you know you didn't want on the rolls, off the rolls.

So there are some elements of it that actually on their face are probably okay.

And probably, you know, a large part of us could agree we'd be comfortable with but I think it was the spirit of the law, the spirit and it at the fact that the Republicans didn't come at this from a good faith position.

In fact, that Republicans, even at one point wanted to remove souls from the polls the effort to allow Sunday voting.

The only reason Republicans wanted to disallow Sunday voting is to diminish black turnout because they don't believe black Georgians are going to vote for them.

And so that's just, you know sort of a corrupt bargain from the beginning.

And I think once, you know, you have all this sort of bad will and bad faith spun up in a bill.

If you even get a bill that ends up being, having elements of it that are improvements on the prior law, the whole bill itself, I think loses.

And the state of Georgia is losing now in the fallout from it.

So that's, I think that's what you're seeing, you know and I think the details of the bill are getting lost in, you know, the cauldron of hyper partisanship and polarization, and frankly, the the lie and the big lie the bit Donald Trump propagated that caused a lot to be pushed forward and rushed ahead in the first place.

- And then the backlash for private corporations who are speaking out, I mean it's their right to do that.

They're a private company.

- Yeah.

- And then also getting penalized by some of the Georgia Republicans saying, well we're going to take your tax breaks away.

Is that a Republican idea?

- That's, it's so, I mean, not, not traditionally, right but the Republican party became the party of Trump, which became a party all about one person and then a party that was punitive and vindictive about that one person.

That's not a bad idea as anymore.

It's not about, you know job creation, economic growth, look people have a right to have a position.

You can vote with your feet.

You can support Coke or Delta or not support Coke or Delta.

But this notion that the government would then penalize corporations because they've decided to take a stand let the consumers penalize or reward them.

But, no answer to answer your question, Portia, this is not a small C conservative or big C conservative at least what was tripped.

Typically been connected to the modern American conservative movement this plank of economic freedom, economic libertarianism it's completely divorced from that.

- How did the American people start to believe in each other again?

- I don't know what the answer is but I know there are some things that are tearing us apart that we should definitely tackle.

One of them is the way we use social media, the way we use the internet.

I mean, the internet, there's a series of incentives around the internet that where Facebook has incentivized for you to click and stay on and buy things.

And if we were to reorganize how we interface with the internet in a way that, and this is by the way, I'm borrowing this idea, from an Apple bot who was recently on my program she was a wonderful piece, which I refer everybody to in the Atlantic last month called how to put out democracies, dumpster fire.

And it points to how the internet, I mean we all know this intrinsically in our own lives, but you know she catalogs how the internet has really torn us apart and torn our social fabric apart in so many ways.

it has helped silo us, It has self radicalized, many people in their politics.

And if we were to design an internet that stopped doing that somehow, and frankly, maybe did the inverse encouraged us to cultivate our connections with other people, positively, even people we disagree with.

And somehow, you know, put a premium on the values that we cherish in democracy like human rights and free speech and respecting your neighbors.

Alexis de Tocqueville, she writes in the piece of course was the famous French observer of American early American democracy in the 1830s.

And he observed that Americans had these massive of local associations and community organizations that helped weave the fabric of America together.

But, you know, we lament that in recent years our society has gotten more fragmented as Robert Putnam documented in bowling alone.

You know, people have become more isolated and more detached from one another and less connected to those kinds of associations and community organizations, and faith-based organizations that pull people together.

The work of democracy so that you know who your neighbor is and your local mayor or your local city representative is.

And what if we had an internet that fostered and cultivated those kinds of mediating institutions and interactions with our communities and our, not just our friends and families and quote unquote friends but the people in our communities.

so that the work of democracy was happening while we were online as well, so that being online in our experience online wasn't self isolating and self radicalizing but the reverse.

And so I think we got to really look at, how we're engaging in an online space because I think that's one of the real drivers to our distrust in information, our distrust in our politics and our distrust in so many of our institutions - Margaret Hoover, thank you for being with us really appreciate the time - Portia, It's so great to see you and thank you very much for having me back to Milwaukee PBS.

- [Portia] You can watch Firing Line with Margaret Hoover on Fridays at 7:30, right here on Milwaukee PBS.

Wisconsin has lost more than a thousand dairy farms in the last couple of years, for many reasons including low milk prices, trade wars and changing consumer tastes members of one family farm in Clark County, Wisconsin have experienced these challenges along with having to pick up the pieces following destruction on their farm.

(sad music) - [Marty] That was a real hot and muggy day.

And it was my wife's 55th birthday.

So we decided to leave the farm and go visiting friends down at Sparta.

My son, Luke had called, "Dad I heard there was a bad storm at your farm.

I'll go out and look at it."

10 minutes later, my son called says, "Dad, it's really bad.

The tops are off the silos, the arch over our driveway with our sign on is down it's a real mess."

- Family farm like this.

You know, you spend your whole life and you invest everything in what we have here.

- My parents, this is their whole life.

And yeah, it was really emotional.

- [Portia] It has been an emotional couple of years for the Nigon family.

First, a massive cleanup with the help of neighbors and strangers, then rebuilding hoping for a brighter future.

(sad music) - [Kristyn] There are a lot of emotions.

So after the tornado went through, we had a family meeting in the kitchen and everybody was sitting around the table all my siblings and parents and sister-in-law just to decide where we wanted to go from there.

Everybody agreed that we were going to clean everything up and rebuild to some extent.

In the end we decided to rebuild this the way it was.

And everybody still agrees that that was a good decision.

- [Portia] The Nigon Farm is in Clark County, where there are more cows than people.

In the last couple of years, Wisconsin dairy farms have shut down in record numbers due to the up and down milk pricing, trade wars, labor issues changing consumer tastes and farmers getting older with no one to take over the farm.

The Nigon's have had similar challenges and concerns.

Daughter, Kristyn Nigon, made a big decision herself recently, to leave her dairy related desk job and return to her family's farm.

- [Kristyn] I grew up helping on the farm, being outside all the time.

And the office was more just people working with people which was no problem, but a lot of paperwork too.

Whereas I'd rather be out working with cattle and everything along with it.

- [Portia] And when the time came to tell her dad about her decision, she got some help from another special man in her life.

- [Marty] Her boyfriend's name is Justin.

Justin said, "Kristyn should we help your dad milk cows tonight?"

She says, yeah.

So they came to the barn.

We started milking.

The three of us were milking.

Justin says, Kristyn, do you have something to ask your dad?

Then he said, I'm going to go help your mother feed calves.

And he left.

And then Kristyn, kind of with tears in her eyes, dad can I come back to the farm farm with you?

He says, yeah, I'd love you to, Kristyn.

It was wonderful.

I was very, very happy to hear that.

I know Kristen is a farmer at heart out of all of her six children.

She's the most likely to, because she likes animals.

She likes the diversity of what we do outside.

She's not a desk person as I am not but we wanted her to go to college experience that.

So she'll know, she'll know for sure what she wants to do.

And I think she experienced that.

- [Portia] Kristyn says she's watched her dad remain optimistic even after the destructive tornado.

And though she's not quite sure about taking over the farm one day.

She's grateful for everything she learns from her dad.

- He's willing to change with the times.

He wants to try new things and is smart about it too.

And he does listen to his kids.

So that helps.

He has a very open mind, which is not easy for a lot of farmers, especially older farmers to open up and let their kids come back and teach them something different.

But my dad's taught me a lot and I can't even say how much he's taught me, honestly.

- Well, I'm most proud of Kristyn, my daughter, for her passion for animals.

Cause I have that same passion.

I love animals and the farm and the diversity of it.

I just feel that she has the same feeling about farming as I do.

I think it's in her blood and that's what she likes to do.

- The Nigon family is one of the many dairy families.

Our producers have met as they work on a documentary with our partners at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about Wisconsin's struggling dairy industry.

Look for that documentary in the near future here on 10 36.

As I said at the beginning of the program Milwaukee has produced many talented people.

The woman you're about to meet is one of them.

She has won two Grammy awards.

The most recent one just announced last month.

So she's waiting for it to be delivered.

Sandy Maxx caught up with the record producer, Cheryl Pavelski - I've only seen them from afar like this.

- They're heavy.

There you go.

That's number one.

And it's looking for a friend.

- [Narrator] Pavelsky grew up in Milwaukee, attended Pius High School and was a member of several Milwaukee bands.

She graduated from Marquette University and moved to Los Angeles after working for a number of record companies over two decades.

She co-founded Omnivore Recordings.

Her music label focuses on creating enduring legacies of music for her artists and their families.

- Well, music is in Milwaukee's blood, right?

I mean, there, there, there is music coming out of every place in that city And you know, I mean every excuse to have a festival in a party, everything from their polka bands to their cool rock bands that I used to follow around.

And you know, the, the ethnic diversity of the city certainly lent itself to exposing me to different kinds of music.

And yeah, I was hardwired from an early age.

How does Mr. Rogers come to you?

Congratulations on your 2021 Grammy, Best Historical Album.

- Thank you.

When I was very hungry and running around Hollywood, somehow I met a guy named Morgan Neville and Morgan is a filmmaker.

He actually won an Oscar for 20 Feet From stardom and he was the director for Won't You Be My Neighbor, the Mr. Rogers documentary.

So I went to see his documentary, I was blown away.

I thought it was just beautiful.

And he's become such a wonderful filmmaker and storyteller that I just walked out saying, Morgan where's the soundtrack?

And he said, but I would love to see some of that music get out there again call the Fred Rogers company.

So I called them up and I said, you know, I'd really like to get some of this stuff back in print because I looked around and there really wasn't, you know, people you could go find old vinyl, but there really wasn't anything like even a proper best of.

So I called them up and I said, I'd really like to do a new best of, and the guy on the other end of the phone, he was very sweet, but he was like, really?

(laughs) I said, yes.

And could you also please see if there's any previously unissued tracks by Mr. Rogers?

So there were, and we came to find out that the song tomorrow that he would end the show with had never been on a record, but there was a recording.

So now it ends the new best of them (Tomorrow by Fred Rogers) - [Narrator] All of the music from Mr. Rogers neighborhood was played live on the TV set complete with jazz improvisations to fit the scene and mood.

During the pandemic year, Pavelski hopes Mr. Rogers music brought some peace to children and their families.

- [Pavelsky] I hope that a lot of kids especially during this last really difficult year got to spend some time with it.

And I hope it, I hope it brought them some comfort because it was such a horrible terrifying year and it must've been really, really alienating for kids.

And we sold a lot of Mr. Rogers last year.

And you know, you have to imagine that that's part of the reason, right?

- What's one of the most magical moments you had in putting together the Mr. Rogers best of, - Oh, finding Tomorrow was fun, but you know, getting a Grammy nomination was just so out of left field that, that had to be sort of the crystallizing thing, but you know, really walking out of that theater and just saying to Morgan, like where's the soundtrack, you know, cause you know every now and then your little spidey senses go, right?

So that, that was definitely one of those times.

This is the first Grammy that I, and we at Omnivore Recordings, won it's a the best historical album, 2014 for a Hank William's released called the gardens bought programs 1950.

Those were recordings from 1950 that even at the time the estate didn't know existed and they weren't done with the drifting Cowboys.

They were done with musicians in Nashville that we haven't been able to identify them all.

But you know, at this point in history, you would think that everything on Hank would pretty much have been found but here these things were these beautiful radio transcription discs.

And I happen to work with one of the greatest restoration, mastering guys on the planet and he cleaned them up so great.

And it's you know, those kinds of projects I get really excited about - [Narrator] Pavelsky's strong work ethic and passion to support her artists' legacies keeps her motivated.

- You know, another reason why I wanted to start my own company was I was giving I was giving that kind of energy to these other companies.

Right?

And so I thought, you know if I'm going to work harder than everybody I've ever met before in my life, you know it better be because it's something that that benefits me and the artists and my friends and and the stuff that I believe in.

Why would I give that to somebody else?

Why would I give that to a company that doesn't care?

You know, so it's grizzly.

So you got to love it.

And we do, you know, we do.

- That'll do it for this edition of 10 36.

Be sure to check us out on Facebook and at Milwaukee pbs.org, see you next time, stay well.

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