September 15, 2026 • 29 mins
Bob talks about AI, gas prices, the army, and the 20th Anniversary of the death of Gabe Dalmath,
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Radio Wham 1180. Next news at 9.30, breaking
news when it happens. Anytime. Another hour with Bob Lonsbury.
Starting now on this Radio Wham 1180. Thanks, Doug. I
appreciate that. Good morning, Americans. Hello, my friend. Like always,
it is a delight to be with you. In the
newscast there, you heard reference to President Trump's position on
(00:23):
artificial intelligence. He says, full speed ahead. Over the last
three weeks, there have been a lot of alarms sounded
by people in the artificial intelligence world, people who are
making it, expanding it, stuff like that. And they have
(00:44):
said that the potential for AI to do significant damage
to society and maybe to our species is real. One
fellow wrote a little thing where he said that there
was a chance that AI could wipe out humankind within
the next 10 years. And you go, what? Like robots
(01:07):
or something? How are they going to kill the Amish?
What are you talking about? Well, to wipe out humankind,
AI would need some human assistance. But one illustration that's
offered of that possibility is that thus far this year,
one of these big companies, has intercepted five apparent efforts
(01:32):
to use AI to create what could be a biological weapon.
The AI companies have noticed that there is a potential
for AI to go rogue, for it to recognize that
it exists, and that there are external controls upon it.
(01:59):
And AI has already, in a couple of prominent instances,
demonstrated deception as it sought to circumvent human control. And
one AI has tried to communicate with another type of
AI And the initial AI seemed primarily to want to
(02:24):
piss and moan about humans. And there's just a concern
among these AI folks that there needs to be some
sort of restraint put on this industry, right? Well, among
those joining this cry are Elon Musk. who I think
(02:46):
we've accepted generally as one of the smarter people on
the planet. There was a letter signed by 1,300 AI
engineers saying this is about to get out of hand.
What is it that they want? Both the two major
American AI companies and the engineers who work for them
and people like Bernie Sanders. What is it they want?
(03:10):
They want federal legislation that would regulate and restrain AI
that would create some sort of oversight of that industry.
Some people say, oh, there should be some world body
that oversees this. Other people say, well, an American body
(03:32):
is good enough. China is, you know, its chief AI
fellow the other day said that He's concerned that AI
could get out of control, that there should be controls
upon it. He fears that it could threaten the Chinese
Communist Party. Of course, my thought would be that China
(03:55):
is at war with the United States and China lies
a lot. And so I think China trying to raise
concerns about AI dangers is working to advance its own ends.
Because what's going on here is that Leaps and bounds
of artificial intelligence development are taking place. China is behind us,
(04:20):
not very far, six months or a year, the smart
people say. And our interests, here's the thing, the rest
of the world is not like us. I know your
college teachers told you that we're the bad guys of
the world, but we're really not. We're kind of the
nice guys of the world. And we look at artificial
(04:41):
intelligence and say, what can we do to make life better,
to make some business, to do this, that, or the other.
Other folks look at AI as an opportunity to kill
people and dominate people. And you are the people they
want to kill, and you are the people they want
to dominate. So just an FYI on that. And so
(05:02):
you look at China, our global rival, and China is
is in every other aspect of its governmental operation working
to tear down and ultimately defeat economically and militarily the
United States. So at any rate, you have this international
(05:25):
competition going on. You have competition between companies going on.
And there are two great forces. One says... This is
getting out of hand and we need to control it.
And they make a very valid point. There's the other side,
which is represented primarily by President Trump. And he says,
(05:48):
we can't let China get ahead of us. And he
makes a very good point. And, you know, President Trump,
you know, he being over the top and all that,
he says that, you know, people who are worried about AI,
that it's a sick conspiracy. Um, and that, uh, it's
a hoax and all this other stuff. And, you know,
(06:11):
one of the challenges is also that, you know, president
Trump may not have the highest trust level, uh, among
the American people. He does have this tendency to say
things that are not true.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Um, and so on this very important issue, um, what
should we do with AI? How short a leash should
it be on? Uh, the president's position is there should
be no leash. Um, You know, what do we do?
And it's, you know, unfortunately, right now, the president, again,
he's got some credibility problems. And so you don't know
(06:46):
whether to believe him or not. So that's where we sit.
The people who work with it say there's potentially a
very significant problem. The president says, don't worry about it.
We'll just go forward. And again, we do have potential
danger which could arise from the use or misuse of A.I.
(07:07):
and we have potential danger which could arise from allowing
China to get ahead of us in AI. So it
is kind of a damned if you do, damned if
you don't. And when you look at the warnings from
the AI people, I think that saying, yep, they're right,
is reasonable. When you look at the warnings from President Trump,
(07:30):
and he says, we can't let the Chinese get ahead
of us, similarly, you come to the point of Yep,
he's right about that. And so where is the middle
ground or where are you able to have both of those?
How can we maintain our global leadership in this sector?
(07:51):
And yet how can we keep from having this hyper
superintelligence go rogue on us or be used as a
weapon against us? Answers for those questions are, I don't have.
It's time for a break on NewsRadio WAM 1180.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
You hear that? You're hearing constant, constant noise. A noisy
data center. Critical data hour after hour. Your center. The
data is there. For data. You get a stream of data.
Let data reign. NewsRadio WAM 1180.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Hey, Franz Lonsbury here talking with Jason, the general manager
of Jamestown. The price of diesel fuel are hugely important issues. And,
you know, I don't need to tell you that. We
all have stood there at the pump. I filled this morning,
and we see what it costs, and you shake your head.
(08:46):
The price of diesel is something less visible to most
of us, but just as impactful on all of us. Diesel,
when the day closed yesterday, was at $ 6. 23 a gallon,
the highest it had ever been. The day before that,
(09:07):
at the end of the day, it was $ 6. 16 a gallon,
the highest it had ever been as of then. Good
likelihood that there is another record that will be set today.
I'd point out that, let me see, today's Tuesday, a
year ago Sunday, again, Sunday it was $ 6. 16 a gallon diesel.
(09:32):
The year before that, on that same date, The 13th
of September, it was $ 3. 71 a gallon. So by the
end of this week, the price of diesel fuel will
have doubled over the course of one calendar year. And,
you know, what's the impact of that? You say, I
(09:53):
don't drive diesel. I'm good. Well, you are as you
fuel your vehicles. However, our economy is fueled by diesel.
One particular thing to note right now is you can
feel the coolness in the air. The seasons are changing
and we are coming into the harvest season for people
(10:14):
in agriculture. And You know, most of the time, the
big tractor sits in the barn or out behind the barn,
and it's not using any fuel. But when it's time
to plant and it's time to harvest, the equipment comes
out and the expense is there. You think of other
(10:37):
areas where we're impacted, and that increased cost for harvesting
our food is, You know, that's borne by consumers, obviously.
And you and I both eat food. So we're going
to be paying for that. You and I also both
pay taxes. Our various municipalities, you know, when the snow comes,
(11:02):
those snow plows don't run off, you know, a little
squirrel on a treadmill. They run off diesel. And if
the cost of diesel this winter is twice what it
was last winter, then your town, your village, your county,
your city, your state, whoever was calculating what's our fuel
budget for this year, they probably did not anticipate the
(11:25):
war in Iran, and they did not anticipate that their
fuel projections were going to be off by 100%. And
so this hurts us. Further, if you make a product
that goes to market in the back of a truck,
or in a locomotive, then the cost of getting that
(11:48):
product to market goes up. And that means that the
price of our product goes up. That means that we
sell less of that product. And that means that we
make less money. Now, when we buy things, it's just
turned around the other way, as those products of other
(12:09):
people's farms, of other people's factories, come to us here,
the transportation cost of that is, again, for the fuel portion,
essentially doubled over last year. And that is going to
hit prices. And the deal is that this is not
trickle down because it's a hell of a lot faster
(12:32):
and more forceful than a trickle. But we have not
yet been hit by those expenses particularly. Yes, when we
fuel up, but the add-on price, for example, the stuff
that the farmers are going to be taking out of
the field, you and I aren't going to be buying
that for a couple of months or so. And the
(12:53):
stuff that we were hoping to give the kids for
Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever you do up at your place,
those things are, you know, they haven't been shipped here yet.
And all of those things obviously will have higher transportation costs.
And That's going to bite us, which means that there's
a pretty good chance that inflation, as we go into
(13:17):
the latter portion of this year, is going to be,
you know, kind of accelerated. And, you know, you probably think, no, Bob,
that's OK. I've already had enough inflation for this year.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
I don't want any more.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Thank you. Yeah, I mean, that's the way it is.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
So.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
At any rate, and President Trump says it's the problem
of Ukraine. Ukraine. Ukraine blew up a diesel plant in Russia,
and Ukraine's got to stop that. Now, this isn't about
Ukraine and Russia. It's about the United States and Iran.
And Iran kind of taking over the Middle East and
shutting down fuel production very effectively and with no apparent
(13:57):
ability on our part to restrain them. So that ain't good.
And it's not pointing in a good direction. News next
with Joe Lasky, the voice of the Finger Lakes on
NewsRadio WHAM 1180. Today is.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
The day.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Today.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Day in. Day after day. Day out. It's happening today.
The red's not looking too good lately. Check in. An
economic crisis. Boiling gas in Venezuela. Data centers. To find out.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
This is going to be a midterm unlike any other.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
NewsRadio WHAM 1180.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Hey friends, is your company looking for the future workforce
of advanced manufacturing? Well, you can find them in high
school through the Finger Lakes Youth Apprenticeship Program. FlyApp works
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(14:47):
Learn more and apply today at FingerLakesYouthApprenticeship.org or FlyApp.org. Twelve locations.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Thousands of choices.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Your new-to-you car is waiting... It's an odd thing. Let
me just type one more thing here. Just a second.
I'm almost there.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I'm doing, yeah, Facebook. Yeah. Honestly, I, it's interesting. I'm
paid vast amounts of money to sit here and read
Facebook all day. And occasionally I have to step away
from the Facebook to say blah, blah, blah, blah, bull
crap like I do. You know what I'm saying? But
I just had checked out something on Facebook. I'm posting something.
(15:36):
And I saw a memory popped up. And it was
from 15 years ago today. 15 years ago today, I
was at the graduation from basic training of my daughter, Aubrey.
Let me remember her. When she was a little kid,
she used to come on the show. And when she
graduated from SUNY Brockport, for a time she came here
(15:59):
and produced this broadcast and did other things for the
radio station. But she, 15 years ago today, graduated from
basic training. And one of the guests at that ceremony
down at Fort Jackson, I think it was, was a
medal of honor recipient by the name of, uh, John F.
(16:22):
Baker Jr. And, um, you know, I didn't know he
was going to be there. And so I'm, uh, uh,
sitting there up in the stand with everybody else and, uh,
his name is announced and, you know, I'm a little,
you know, a little surprised. And at the end, um, I,
(16:42):
you know, track, go, I go up to the front
and I find the man and I, um, shake his hand,
introduce myself. And the deal is that I had known
Sergeant Baker in the Army briefly, not saying we're pals
or anything else like that. Sergeant Baker, who was a
(17:05):
tunnel rat in Vietnam, he was a shorter man in
his youth, very small in stature. And in Vietnam, the
bad guys would often have underground places where they would
store weapons, where they would store their rations and such,
(17:25):
and underground bases from which they would operate. And clearing
those out meant that some G.I. Joe had to take a.
38 caliber revolver and go down into these dark tunnels,
some of which he had to literally crawl through. And
the thing is that The bad guys are in there
(17:47):
and they know you're coming. And you've got to somehow,
even though they know the place and you don't, and
they've got a rifle and you don't, you've got to
beat them in that gunfight or you're going to die underground.
And that's what the tunnel rats did. At any rate,
(18:08):
backing up here, surprisingly though, John Baker did not get
his Medal of Honor for being a, I'll tell his
story about the medal some other day. So I spent
my four years in the Army at this little Army
post that doesn't even exist anymore. It's called Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana.
(18:30):
And it's in a suburb of Indianapolis. And the job
of this post was to handle financial matters for the
Army and to train soldiers. soldiers and members of the
other armed forces in a variety of tasks to include,
back then, journalism. I ended up there when I got
(18:54):
out of basic training because I wanted to take an
army journalism course and be an army journalist, try to
continue a career I had started as a civilian. And anyway,
Indianapolis was, you know, fairly close, five hours or so
away from my in-laws in St.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Louis.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
So I got into this school and I'm taking the
class and I, you know, met the local people on
the post. And, you know, I tried to, what could
I do to get orders to stay here, right? Anyway,
you don't care about any of that. But I ended
up spending four years writing for the newspaper, taking pictures
and stuff like that. On this little fort. And one day,
(19:40):
a guy who was in the personnel shop, I saw
him out and about and he says, hey, you know what?
We've got... someone on post who is a Medal of
Honor recipient. And he just kind of quietly transferred in.
And he said, no, people don't know. It's quiet and
(20:02):
such like that. I don't know if he wants people
to know. But, you know, Medal of Honor recipient is
a big deal. And you know, a Medal of Honor
recipient still in the service, a big deal. So, you know,
he told me where this man worked, what, you know,
unit within the post. And I tracked him down. And
(20:25):
he literally was working in a cubicle. And I show up.
I was a corporal. I think that he might have
been an E6, a staff sergeant. So I just walked up.
And I introduced myself and said, I'm from the Post newspaper.
And I apologize, but I heard through personnel that you're
(20:48):
a Medal of Honor recipient. And I wondered if I
might be able to write about you. And at any rate,
it wasn't a great time in this particular man's life.
In the movies, they do the heroic thing. They get
the medal. They marry the beautiful girl. They get the
(21:08):
free house in town. And they live the American dream. But,
you know, it turns out that people who do extraordinary things,
often they and their families will bear extraordinary burdens and pressures.
And sometimes that leads to bumps in the road, if
you will. And at any rate, he said yes, but
(21:33):
he did not do so enthusiastically. And I knew that...
that I was intruding on him. And, but he, I mean,
he felt, we both felt in varying degrees that, you know,
people should know his story and that it should be
told to these soldiers with whom he was serving right now.
(21:58):
And in as much as a lot of those soldiers, sailors, airmen,
and Marines were young people newly in the service, You know, again,
he fell to duty. He had to tell his story. Anyway, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So,
you know, we spent most of the day, me sitting
there at his cubicle, taking notes as he told his story.
(22:18):
And I subsequently wrote it up and all that stuff.
But at any rate, 15 years ago today, that man
was at my daughter Aubrey's basic training graduation ceremony. And
that would have been about 25 years after I had
met him. And he very graciously pretended to remember me.
(22:41):
And it was good to be able to shake his hand.
It was also good to see that his life had
gotten squared away and that he had both peace and
joy in his life. And at any rate, also, Aubrey,
in the Army, 15 years. It's interesting. She wanted to
(23:04):
join the Rochester Police Department and scored very well on
the test, but did not get selected for training. And
then she, you know, wanted to be an Army officer.
She'd been through Brockport, and so she went to the
officer recruiter. And you, once a year, your packet could
(23:26):
go before this panel. This was during the Obama administration. And,
you know, so her PAC, and, you know, she was
very well prepared, you know, athletically and academically and everything else.
So her PAC, it goes forward, and she was not
(23:46):
selected for officer, to be inducted as an officer. There
were 17 people who were selected she outscored every one
of them in each of the categories upon which they
are evaluated. The deal was that she was Caucasian, and
(24:10):
they weren't taking any Caucasians that month. So there she
was like, heck, now what am I going to do?
And so the recruiter, a sergeant, goes to her and says, well,
you have to ask yourself, do you want to be
an officer or do you want to be a soldier?
If you want to be an officer, well, you've got
to wait until next year and you can put your
(24:32):
packet in again and see how you do. But if
you want to be a soldier, I can help you
right now. And she thought about it and decided that
she wanted to be a soldier. And so not long
after that, she went into the Armed Forces of the
United States to be an Army Arab linguist. And that
has started her adventure, which is now What, three-quarters of
(24:55):
the way to retirement? Funny how time passes. Back with
you in a moment on NewsRadio Wham 1180.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
September 11. 25 years ago. We'll go down in our
history as a day. 25 years ago. To remember. Never forget.
NewsRadio Wham 1180. Every color, every option, every style.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Welcome back. Just telling stories, and forgive me, because there
are big issues in the news. And I also recognize,
as a preface to what I'm about to say, that
one of the weaknesses of being old, other than that
damn bladder thing in the middle of the night, is
(25:37):
that you have to continually remind yourself that things you
personally remember are not relevant to other people, and so
probably are best kept to yourself. But here's, I risk
doing that here. 20 years ago today, a gentleman by
(25:58):
the name of Gabe Dalmuth passed away. He had been,
I think for 20 years before that, prior to his retirement,
an anchor over at Channel 10. Gabe Dalmuth was a
wonderful man. Maybe the best and kindest person I've ever
met in media. And Gabe Dalmuth... My thing is I
(26:24):
loved Gabe because Gabe loved me first. Gabe, I think,
loved everybody first. He had come out of communism as
a little child. He served in the Army in Vietnam
as a broadcaster. He had succeeded in New York City radio.
(26:45):
He came up here to Rochester and he became really
a giant broadcaster. And he was anyway, I'm going to
go on and on about this. If you remember him,
you remember him. If you don't, it doesn't matter what
I have to say, but he was a good man.
And like I was, we met first when I was
(27:07):
writing for the newspaper, he just called out of the
blue fairly early in my time in Rochester to offer
a compliment for some reporting I'd done and what I
had written from that reporting. And, you know, as things
went forward, you know, he'd stay in touch and I'd
stay in touch. And when I got this job, it's funny,
(27:31):
I worked at Channel 10 for a couple of years.
I did commentaries over there. And about that same timeframe,
I got this job here. And Gabe mentored me on both.
He went out of his way to mentor me on both.
And it's interesting because, again, Gabe was wonderful. But he
(27:52):
wasn't any better than you or me at predicting the
future because he was pretty sure that I should put
my eggs in the TV basket. He thought that I
had far better prospects of a successful career in television
than in radio. And in radio, he was not very hopeful.
(28:14):
And he more than once sat me down and said, OK,
now I'm going to tell you how to do this.
And his advice was all wonderful and good. But he
was kind to everybody in his very loving way. He was, honestly, buddy,
this is not going to work for you. But, you know,
(28:35):
here we are. Here we are. But Gabe Dalmuth passed
away 20 years ago today. And when I get over
to the other side, among the first people I look
up who aren't related to me, it's going to be
this absolutely glorious man. All right, that is all the
reminiscing for today's program, okay? We will move past the
(28:55):
geriatric programming portion of our broadcast with the newscast, which
is next, from the great Joe Lasky on NewsRadio WHAM 1180.
It's not just a word. It's how we play.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Detailed. Accountable. Relentless. And the Orange win it.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
This Thursday, Syracuse heads to Pittsburgh to face the Panthers.
Coverage begins Thursday night at 6.30 on NewsRadio.
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Wham! 1180. This is what football sounds like on the
free iHeartRadio app. It's ready and there it is.
This is Radio Wham 1180. Next news at 9.30, breaking
news when it happens. Anytime. Another hour with Bob Lonsbury.
Starting now on this Radio Wham 1180. Thanks, Doug. I
appreciate that. Good morning, Americans. Hello, my friend. Like always,
it is a delight to be with you. In the
newscast there, you heard reference to President Trump's position on
(00:23):
artificial intelligence. He says, full speed ahead. Over the last
three weeks, there have been a lot of alarms sounded
by people in the artificial intelligence world, people who are
making it, expanding it, stuff like that. And they have
(00:44):
said that the potential for AI to do significant damage
to society and maybe to our species is real. One
fellow wrote a little thing where he said that there
was a chance that AI could wipe out humankind within
the next 10 years. And you go, what? Like robots
(01:07):
or something? How are they going to kill the Amish?
What are you talking about? Well, to wipe out humankind,
AI would need some human assistance. But one illustration that's
offered of that possibility is that thus far this year,
one of these big companies, has intercepted five apparent efforts
(01:32):
to use AI to create what could be a biological weapon.
The AI companies have noticed that there is a potential
for AI to go rogue, for it to recognize that
it exists, and that there are external controls upon it.
(01:59):
And AI has already, in a couple of prominent instances,
demonstrated deception as it sought to circumvent human control. And
one AI has tried to communicate with another type of
AI And the initial AI seemed primarily to want to
(02:24):
piss and moan about humans. And there's just a concern
among these AI folks that there needs to be some
sort of restraint put on this industry, right? Well, among
those joining this cry are Elon Musk. who I think
(02:46):
we've accepted generally as one of the smarter people on
the planet. There was a letter signed by 1,300 AI
engineers saying this is about to get out of hand.
What is it that they want? Both the two major
American AI companies and the engineers who work for them
and people like Bernie Sanders. What is it they want?
(03:10):
They want federal legislation that would regulate and restrain AI
that would create some sort of oversight of that industry.
Some people say, oh, there should be some world body
that oversees this. Other people say, well, an American body
(03:32):
is good enough. China is, you know, its chief AI
fellow the other day said that He's concerned that AI
could get out of control, that there should be controls
upon it. He fears that it could threaten the Chinese
Communist Party. Of course, my thought would be that China
(03:55):
is at war with the United States and China lies
a lot. And so I think China trying to raise
concerns about AI dangers is working to advance its own ends.
Because what's going on here is that Leaps and bounds
of artificial intelligence development are taking place. China is behind us,
(04:20):
not very far, six months or a year, the smart
people say. And our interests, here's the thing, the rest
of the world is not like us. I know your
college teachers told you that we're the bad guys of
the world, but we're really not. We're kind of the
nice guys of the world. And we look at artificial
(04:41):
intelligence and say, what can we do to make life better,
to make some business, to do this, that, or the other.
Other folks look at AI as an opportunity to kill
people and dominate people. And you are the people they
want to kill, and you are the people they want
to dominate. So just an FYI on that. And so
(05:02):
you look at China, our global rival, and China is
is in every other aspect of its governmental operation working
to tear down and ultimately defeat economically and militarily the
United States. So at any rate, you have this international
(05:25):
competition going on. You have competition between companies going on.
And there are two great forces. One says... This is
getting out of hand and we need to control it.
And they make a very valid point. There's the other side,
which is represented primarily by President Trump. And he says,
(05:48):
we can't let China get ahead of us. And he
makes a very good point. And, you know, President Trump,
you know, he being over the top and all that,
he says that, you know, people who are worried about AI,
that it's a sick conspiracy. Um, and that, uh, it's
a hoax and all this other stuff. And, you know,
(06:11):
one of the challenges is also that, you know, president
Trump may not have the highest trust level, uh, among
the American people. He does have this tendency to say
things that are not true.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Um, and so on this very important issue, um, what
should we do with AI? How short a leash should
it be on? Uh, the president's position is there should
be no leash. Um, You know, what do we do?
And it's, you know, unfortunately, right now, the president, again,
he's got some credibility problems. And so you don't know
(06:46):
whether to believe him or not. So that's where we sit.
The people who work with it say there's potentially a
very significant problem. The president says, don't worry about it.
We'll just go forward. And again, we do have potential
danger which could arise from the use or misuse of A.I.
(07:07):
and we have potential danger which could arise from allowing
China to get ahead of us in AI. So it
is kind of a damned if you do, damned if
you don't. And when you look at the warnings from
the AI people, I think that saying, yep, they're right,
is reasonable. When you look at the warnings from President Trump,
(07:30):
and he says, we can't let the Chinese get ahead
of us, similarly, you come to the point of Yep,
he's right about that. And so where is the middle
ground or where are you able to have both of those?
How can we maintain our global leadership in this sector?
(07:51):
And yet how can we keep from having this hyper
superintelligence go rogue on us or be used as a
weapon against us? Answers for those questions are, I don't have.
It's time for a break on NewsRadio WAM 1180.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
You hear that? You're hearing constant, constant noise. A noisy
data center. Critical data hour after hour. Your center. The
data is there. For data. You get a stream of data.
Let data reign. NewsRadio WAM 1180.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Hey, Franz Lonsbury here talking with Jason, the general manager
of Jamestown. The price of diesel fuel are hugely important issues. And,
you know, I don't need to tell you that. We
all have stood there at the pump. I filled this morning,
and we see what it costs, and you shake your head.
(08:46):
The price of diesel is something less visible to most
of us, but just as impactful on all of us. Diesel,
when the day closed yesterday, was at $ 6. 23 a gallon,
the highest it had ever been. The day before that,
(09:07):
at the end of the day, it was $ 6. 16 a gallon,
the highest it had ever been as of then. Good
likelihood that there is another record that will be set today.
I'd point out that, let me see, today's Tuesday, a
year ago Sunday, again, Sunday it was $ 6. 16 a gallon diesel.
(09:32):
The year before that, on that same date, The 13th
of September, it was $ 3. 71 a gallon. So by the
end of this week, the price of diesel fuel will
have doubled over the course of one calendar year. And,
you know, what's the impact of that? You say, I
(09:53):
don't drive diesel. I'm good. Well, you are as you
fuel your vehicles. However, our economy is fueled by diesel.
One particular thing to note right now is you can
feel the coolness in the air. The seasons are changing
and we are coming into the harvest season for people
(10:14):
in agriculture. And You know, most of the time, the
big tractor sits in the barn or out behind the barn,
and it's not using any fuel. But when it's time
to plant and it's time to harvest, the equipment comes
out and the expense is there. You think of other
(10:37):
areas where we're impacted, and that increased cost for harvesting
our food is, You know, that's borne by consumers, obviously.
And you and I both eat food. So we're going
to be paying for that. You and I also both
pay taxes. Our various municipalities, you know, when the snow comes,
(11:02):
those snow plows don't run off, you know, a little
squirrel on a treadmill. They run off diesel. And if
the cost of diesel this winter is twice what it
was last winter, then your town, your village, your county,
your city, your state, whoever was calculating what's our fuel
budget for this year, they probably did not anticipate the
(11:25):
war in Iran, and they did not anticipate that their
fuel projections were going to be off by 100%. And
so this hurts us. Further, if you make a product
that goes to market in the back of a truck,
or in a locomotive, then the cost of getting that
(11:48):
product to market goes up. And that means that the
price of our product goes up. That means that we
sell less of that product. And that means that we
make less money. Now, when we buy things, it's just
turned around the other way, as those products of other
(12:09):
people's farms, of other people's factories, come to us here,
the transportation cost of that is, again, for the fuel portion,
essentially doubled over last year. And that is going to
hit prices. And the deal is that this is not
trickle down because it's a hell of a lot faster
(12:32):
and more forceful than a trickle. But we have not
yet been hit by those expenses particularly. Yes, when we
fuel up, but the add-on price, for example, the stuff
that the farmers are going to be taking out of
the field, you and I aren't going to be buying
that for a couple of months or so. And the
(12:53):
stuff that we were hoping to give the kids for
Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever you do up at your place,
those things are, you know, they haven't been shipped here yet.
And all of those things obviously will have higher transportation costs.
And That's going to bite us, which means that there's
a pretty good chance that inflation, as we go into
(13:17):
the latter portion of this year, is going to be,
you know, kind of accelerated. And, you know, you probably think, no, Bob,
that's OK. I've already had enough inflation for this year.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
I don't want any more.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Thank you. Yeah, I mean, that's the way it is.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
So.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
At any rate, and President Trump says it's the problem
of Ukraine. Ukraine. Ukraine blew up a diesel plant in Russia,
and Ukraine's got to stop that. Now, this isn't about
Ukraine and Russia. It's about the United States and Iran.
And Iran kind of taking over the Middle East and
shutting down fuel production very effectively and with no apparent
(13:57):
ability on our part to restrain them. So that ain't good.
And it's not pointing in a good direction. News next
with Joe Lasky, the voice of the Finger Lakes on
NewsRadio WHAM 1180. Today is.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
The day.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Today.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Day in. Day after day. Day out. It's happening today.
The red's not looking too good lately. Check in. An
economic crisis. Boiling gas in Venezuela. Data centers. To find out.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
This is going to be a midterm unlike any other.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
NewsRadio WHAM 1180.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Hey friends, is your company looking for the future workforce
of advanced manufacturing? Well, you can find them in high
school through the Finger Lakes Youth Apprenticeship Program. FlyApp works
with career and technical education high schools in the region
to bridge the gap between business and education. Recruit, train,
and retain your workforce through job shadows and paid co-ops.
(14:47):
Learn more and apply today at FingerLakesYouthApprenticeship.org or FlyApp.org. Twelve locations.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Thousands of choices.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Your new-to-you car is waiting... It's an odd thing. Let
me just type one more thing here. Just a second.
I'm almost there.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I'm doing, yeah, Facebook. Yeah. Honestly, I, it's interesting. I'm
paid vast amounts of money to sit here and read
Facebook all day. And occasionally I have to step away
from the Facebook to say blah, blah, blah, blah, bull
crap like I do. You know what I'm saying? But
I just had checked out something on Facebook. I'm posting something.
(15:36):
And I saw a memory popped up. And it was
from 15 years ago today. 15 years ago today, I
was at the graduation from basic training of my daughter, Aubrey.
Let me remember her. When she was a little kid,
she used to come on the show. And when she
graduated from SUNY Brockport, for a time she came here
(15:59):
and produced this broadcast and did other things for the
radio station. But she, 15 years ago today, graduated from
basic training. And one of the guests at that ceremony
down at Fort Jackson, I think it was, was a
medal of honor recipient by the name of, uh, John F.
(16:22):
Baker Jr. And, um, you know, I didn't know he
was going to be there. And so I'm, uh, uh,
sitting there up in the stand with everybody else and, uh,
his name is announced and, you know, I'm a little,
you know, a little surprised. And at the end, um, I,
(16:42):
you know, track, go, I go up to the front
and I find the man and I, um, shake his hand,
introduce myself. And the deal is that I had known
Sergeant Baker in the Army briefly, not saying we're pals
or anything else like that. Sergeant Baker, who was a
(17:05):
tunnel rat in Vietnam, he was a shorter man in
his youth, very small in stature. And in Vietnam, the
bad guys would often have underground places where they would
store weapons, where they would store their rations and such,
(17:25):
and underground bases from which they would operate. And clearing
those out meant that some G.I. Joe had to take a.
38 caliber revolver and go down into these dark tunnels,
some of which he had to literally crawl through. And
the thing is that The bad guys are in there
(17:47):
and they know you're coming. And you've got to somehow,
even though they know the place and you don't, and
they've got a rifle and you don't, you've got to
beat them in that gunfight or you're going to die underground.
And that's what the tunnel rats did. At any rate,
(18:08):
backing up here, surprisingly though, John Baker did not get
his Medal of Honor for being a, I'll tell his
story about the medal some other day. So I spent
my four years in the Army at this little Army
post that doesn't even exist anymore. It's called Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana.
(18:30):
And it's in a suburb of Indianapolis. And the job
of this post was to handle financial matters for the
Army and to train soldiers. soldiers and members of the
other armed forces in a variety of tasks to include,
back then, journalism. I ended up there when I got
(18:54):
out of basic training because I wanted to take an
army journalism course and be an army journalist, try to
continue a career I had started as a civilian. And anyway,
Indianapolis was, you know, fairly close, five hours or so
away from my in-laws in St.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Louis.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
So I got into this school and I'm taking the
class and I, you know, met the local people on
the post. And, you know, I tried to, what could
I do to get orders to stay here, right? Anyway,
you don't care about any of that. But I ended
up spending four years writing for the newspaper, taking pictures
and stuff like that. On this little fort. And one day,
(19:40):
a guy who was in the personnel shop, I saw
him out and about and he says, hey, you know what?
We've got... someone on post who is a Medal of
Honor recipient. And he just kind of quietly transferred in.
And he said, no, people don't know. It's quiet and
(20:02):
such like that. I don't know if he wants people
to know. But, you know, Medal of Honor recipient is
a big deal. And you know, a Medal of Honor
recipient still in the service, a big deal. So, you know,
he told me where this man worked, what, you know,
unit within the post. And I tracked him down. And
(20:25):
he literally was working in a cubicle. And I show up.
I was a corporal. I think that he might have
been an E6, a staff sergeant. So I just walked up.
And I introduced myself and said, I'm from the Post newspaper.
And I apologize, but I heard through personnel that you're
(20:48):
a Medal of Honor recipient. And I wondered if I
might be able to write about you. And at any rate,
it wasn't a great time in this particular man's life.
In the movies, they do the heroic thing. They get
the medal. They marry the beautiful girl. They get the
(21:08):
free house in town. And they live the American dream. But,
you know, it turns out that people who do extraordinary things,
often they and their families will bear extraordinary burdens and pressures.
And sometimes that leads to bumps in the road, if
you will. And at any rate, he said yes, but
(21:33):
he did not do so enthusiastically. And I knew that...
that I was intruding on him. And, but he, I mean,
he felt, we both felt in varying degrees that, you know,
people should know his story and that it should be
told to these soldiers with whom he was serving right now.
(21:58):
And in as much as a lot of those soldiers, sailors, airmen,
and Marines were young people newly in the service, You know, again,
he fell to duty. He had to tell his story. Anyway, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So,
you know, we spent most of the day, me sitting
there at his cubicle, taking notes as he told his story.
(22:18):
And I subsequently wrote it up and all that stuff.
But at any rate, 15 years ago today, that man
was at my daughter Aubrey's basic training graduation ceremony. And
that would have been about 25 years after I had
met him. And he very graciously pretended to remember me.
(22:41):
And it was good to be able to shake his hand.
It was also good to see that his life had
gotten squared away and that he had both peace and
joy in his life. And at any rate, also, Aubrey,
in the Army, 15 years. It's interesting. She wanted to
(23:04):
join the Rochester Police Department and scored very well on
the test, but did not get selected for training. And
then she, you know, wanted to be an Army officer.
She'd been through Brockport, and so she went to the
officer recruiter. And you, once a year, your packet could
(23:26):
go before this panel. This was during the Obama administration. And,
you know, so her PAC, and, you know, she was
very well prepared, you know, athletically and academically and everything else.
So her PAC, it goes forward, and she was not
(23:46):
selected for officer, to be inducted as an officer. There
were 17 people who were selected she outscored every one
of them in each of the categories upon which they
are evaluated. The deal was that she was Caucasian, and
(24:10):
they weren't taking any Caucasians that month. So there she
was like, heck, now what am I going to do?
And so the recruiter, a sergeant, goes to her and says, well,
you have to ask yourself, do you want to be
an officer or do you want to be a soldier?
If you want to be an officer, well, you've got
to wait until next year and you can put your
(24:32):
packet in again and see how you do. But if
you want to be a soldier, I can help you
right now. And she thought about it and decided that
she wanted to be a soldier. And so not long
after that, she went into the Armed Forces of the
United States to be an Army Arab linguist. And that
has started her adventure, which is now What, three-quarters of
(24:55):
the way to retirement? Funny how time passes. Back with
you in a moment on NewsRadio Wham 1180.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
September 11. 25 years ago. We'll go down in our
history as a day. 25 years ago. To remember. Never forget.
NewsRadio Wham 1180. Every color, every option, every style.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Welcome back. Just telling stories, and forgive me, because there
are big issues in the news. And I also recognize,
as a preface to what I'm about to say, that
one of the weaknesses of being old, other than that
damn bladder thing in the middle of the night, is
(25:37):
that you have to continually remind yourself that things you
personally remember are not relevant to other people, and so
probably are best kept to yourself. But here's, I risk
doing that here. 20 years ago today, a gentleman by
(25:58):
the name of Gabe Dalmuth passed away. He had been,
I think for 20 years before that, prior to his retirement,
an anchor over at Channel 10. Gabe Dalmuth was a
wonderful man. Maybe the best and kindest person I've ever
met in media. And Gabe Dalmuth... My thing is I
(26:24):
loved Gabe because Gabe loved me first. Gabe, I think,
loved everybody first. He had come out of communism as
a little child. He served in the Army in Vietnam
as a broadcaster. He had succeeded in New York City radio.
(26:45):
He came up here to Rochester and he became really
a giant broadcaster. And he was anyway, I'm going to
go on and on about this. If you remember him,
you remember him. If you don't, it doesn't matter what
I have to say, but he was a good man.
And like I was, we met first when I was
(27:07):
writing for the newspaper, he just called out of the
blue fairly early in my time in Rochester to offer
a compliment for some reporting I'd done and what I
had written from that reporting. And, you know, as things
went forward, you know, he'd stay in touch and I'd
stay in touch. And when I got this job, it's funny,
(27:31):
I worked at Channel 10 for a couple of years.
I did commentaries over there. And about that same timeframe,
I got this job here. And Gabe mentored me on both.
He went out of his way to mentor me on both.
And it's interesting because, again, Gabe was wonderful. But he
(27:52):
wasn't any better than you or me at predicting the
future because he was pretty sure that I should put
my eggs in the TV basket. He thought that I
had far better prospects of a successful career in television
than in radio. And in radio, he was not very hopeful.
(28:14):
And he more than once sat me down and said, OK,
now I'm going to tell you how to do this.
And his advice was all wonderful and good. But he
was kind to everybody in his very loving way. He was, honestly, buddy,
this is not going to work for you. But, you know,
(28:35):
here we are. Here we are. But Gabe Dalmuth passed
away 20 years ago today. And when I get over
to the other side, among the first people I look
up who aren't related to me, it's going to be
this absolutely glorious man. All right, that is all the
reminiscing for today's program, okay? We will move past the
(28:55):
geriatric programming portion of our broadcast with the newscast, which
is next, from the great Joe Lasky on NewsRadio WHAM 1180.
It's not just a word. It's how we play.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Detailed. Accountable. Relentless. And the Orange win it.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
This Thursday, Syracuse heads to Pittsburgh to face the Panthers.
Coverage begins Thursday night at 6.30 on NewsRadio.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Wham! 1180. This is what football sounds like on the
free iHeartRadio app. It's ready and there it is.
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