00:00:06
Speaker 1: Good evening. I'm Bob Lonsbury. And from the banks of the mighty Genesee in Rochester, New York, this is Downtown Section 3rd Platoon. Did you miss me last night? You didn't even notice I was gone, did you? Of course not. You know why you didn't notice? Because you're not a frigging loser. You were watching Monday Night Football as you should have been. Holy cats, what a game. Now, here's the deal. I won't pretend. I go to bed early. That's what we old people do now. Sure, yeah. We go to bed early because we got to get up and piddle five, six, seven, eight, nine times a night. And if you're sleeping short hours, it's tough to cram all that piddling in. Okay? I got to get my solid eight.
00:00:47
Speaker 2: All right?
00:00:48
Speaker 1: Those were the days. But anyway, so I was asleep. But this morning early, all the evening newscasts DVR'd. I pulled up Channel 13 and I pushed play. And whoa!
00:01:01
Speaker 2: Um it's it's a bills game we're tied and oh the bill scored yes oh my gosh look at this it's a win with what a minute and 34 seconds left this is the best so i'm sitting there instead of writing down little notes to entertain the people with subsequently i was watching the rest of the game these ram people uh they in a minute and 34 seconds what can you do in a minute and 34 seconds Well, apparently, score a touchdown and kick a point after.
00:01:32
Speaker 1: So it's tied up again. As you know, ultimately, the Bills won and all is well in Buffalo. It wasn't a pretty win, but it was fun. And we'll leave that alone. But at any rate, I was off yesterday. I went deer hunting with my 15-year-old son, Scott. Now, we were in the woods. And he had a gun. It's the DEC's youth hunt. If you're 12, 13, 14, or 15, you may go hunt over the Columbus Day weekend for deer or bear. And we went out. Now, we'd had quite a Sunday beforehand. He and I and my son Lee and my daughter Sophie, we all ran the Army 10-miler down in Washington, D.C., and then rode, you know, six, seven hours in the car back home, which was, we got out mighty stiff. And he said, do you mind if we don't get up early tomorrow? And I, here's the thing, I would have said, son, you know, our commitment to go hunting will require us to get up early. You know, if you're going to a party, you've got to get up early. But I was hoping all the way home he'd say, why don't we sleep?
00:02:55
Speaker 2: Anyway, the point being, so we got out to the woods.
00:02:58
Speaker 1: About 10 o'clock in the morning, all right? The deer were settled down for their midday siestas. And we sat out there a few hours and watched the birds. There's an app on your phone, Merlin.com. It's for free, but it's out of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell. Yeah, that Cornell, sadly. But they got a birdwatching app. And so you can hold up your phone, push a button, and it will listen to the birds singing around you. And it will tell you what they are. And it can be kind of cool. So he's got to be his eye peeled for deer. Me, I'm just kind of looking around a little bit. So I was playing with the app. Anyway, I'll shut my mouth. The best part of the whole day, well, we saw no deer. The best part of the day in the woods was a flock of red-winged blackbirds came through in a behavior I had not seen before. You ever see sometimes this time of year, there's a word for it. I don't know what it is, but blackbirds. Not necessarily that species, but birds that are black will gather, and there are a few different species, will gather together in these large flocks. And you'll see them flying around in the air, and it'll look like a lava lamp up there, some cloud of birds changing shapes and going this way and that way. That's fascinating stuff. At any rate, one of those came in where we were. and they like landed, and they were red-winged blackbirds. And the mating call of the red-winged blackbird in the spring is my favorite bird call. There's a trill to it, a little, that I heard since I was a boy. My grandmother's house, where I lived for a time when I was a little boy, the one that got washed out in the 72 flood, it was right next to what had ended up being, uh, I don't know if a swamp is the right way to say it, but well, standing water is a swamp. Um, and, uh, the red wing blackbirds came in there when the cattails came up and they would in the spring do that little mating call. And I, as a little boy, I loved it. I remember I wake up to it in the morning, hearing it through the window. And, uh, I love it still. Anyway, a whole bunch came in and it wasn't exactly the mating call, but it was that same trill to their voice. And so, yeah, after a while, he got bored. We got out of the woods. We had a great conversation on the way in, on the way out. It's a thrill to see him grown up to at 15 years of age, pretty much man size and out there in the woods with a gun and a knife. Had a little bit of camo. It was a great day. But at any rate, not sure why I tell you that. Oh, I guess just out of gratitude for the bosses letting me off. Tonight, if you saw earlier, there was a debate on spectrum between Kathy Hochul and Bruce Blakeman. I decided that I saw it through my Blakeman eyes. Everything I expected she would do that was annoying, she did. everything that I expected he would do that would be encouraging, he did. Either I'm really good at predicting the future, or I've just decided that she is a shrill, no-good bat, and that he is a calm, rational, competent leader. Because that's how I read them both. If you didn't see it, if you want to, Spectrum has a YouTube channel, and you can replay it from there. This is downtown section, 3rd Platoon. on NewsRadio WHAM 1180. Welcome back. This is downtown section of Third Platoon. It kind of bounced around the news today a little bit. Some numbers from something called the Children's Agenda. It's a nonprofit activist group in the city. And what they did is they looked at absenteeism rates and they broke them down demographically for the suburban school districts and for the Rochester City School District. And they basically said that Latino students miss a lot of school. Black students miss a lot of school, but a little bit less. For example, in the city of Rochester, the average Latino student will miss 38.2 days of school each year. There are 180 days of school in New York State, and 38.2 is a lot of them. Funny thing is, when you cross into the suburbs of the amount of absenteeism drops dramatically, right? Just a whole different world. Latino students in the suburban districts of Monroe County miss about 10 days of school a year. Black students miss about nine, and white students miss about seven. Interestingly, the groups demographically with the lowest rates of absenteeism are Asian students, Asian by heritage. You know, mom and dad or their grandparents or somebody like that is from, you know, Asia. And then white students. And then also a category of students called formerly English language learners. It's an interesting deal. Youngsters born in the United States who don't speak English tend not to learn English. Youngsters born outside the United States who may come to school not speaking a word of English, they tend to learn English. So English language learner is often people, youngsters born in the United States and some newly arrived people from foreign countries, refugees, such like that. And the deal is that the refugees, the immigrants, will... rather quickly learn enough English to transition into a new category called formerly English language learners, meaning you're not learning English exclusively priority right now. You're kind of working extra hard trying to catch up to your age level in terms of English language proficiency, right? But those three categories, Asian students, white students, this is across the county, Asian students, white students, and also in the city, but the phenomenon is the same. White students, Asian students, and formerly English language learners. That almost always is going to be, you know, like people from foreign countries who came here, right? Maybe, you know, mom and dad, or rather dad was an interpreter in Afghanistan. Maybe, you know, you're over here from Bhutan or something like that. Their kids come to school. And here's the interesting thing. In terms of educational outcome, white, Asian, and formerly English language learners are all the highest achievers in our schools across the county. There is a direct correlation between absence and achievement, which of course just frigging makes sense, right? Those groups with the highest levels of absenteeism have the lowest level of educational attainment. And those groups with the highest level of educational attainment have the lowest level of absenteeism. Asian students do, on average, very well educationally. White students... on average, do okay. Formerly English language learners, the new refugee kids, they often do pretty well, right? And, you know, those groups, black and Latino, with high absenteeism rates have low educational success rates. Well, you know, you look at that and you say, yeah, Bob, that's cause and effect, right? those who care enough to go to school, learn something. Those who don't care enough to go to school, don't learn something. I think very simply stated, there's truth to that. I also think that the traits and characteristics, which are demonstrated by going to school, i.e. commitment, uh, your mom and dad having a family culture that says we value education. We want you to go learn all you can. Um, And the level of personal and family responsibility to get you up and get you dressed and get you fed and get you to school on time. Those traits passed on by example to the children make those children more likely to succeed, not just in academics, but in life. And so we've got a tendency in this society, when we see a group that has a bad outcome, we presume... that the cause of that bad outcome is exterior to that group, meaning structural racism or economic oppression, or they got screwed over on opportunities or whatever else like that. I don't believe that that is the case. I believe that our consequences are the results of our choices. And our choices are sometimes made for us by our cultures or by our parents. But when you make good choices... you get good outcomes. And when cultures and communities tend to make good choices, they tend to have good outcomes, right? Asian people in America, people of Asian heritage, dramatically outperform about anybody else academically. Is it because they're genetically superior? Is it a better breed of human? The likelihood of that is not great. However, many people of Asian heritage have in their families a culture and commitment to hard work and education and responsibility. And lo and behold, make good choices, get good outcomes, which is not condemning of anybody. I believe it's empowering of everybody. If you want a better outcome, make a better choice. If you want your child to do better in school, make your kid go to school. If you want to have a life that's a success, then learn how to get out of bed and get to school. And mom and dad or grandma or guardian, whoever it is, needs to help that lesson be learned. Because if you lack the responsibility to get to school, you're not going to have the responsibility to succeed in life. Just being honest with you. This is Downtown Section 3rd Platoon on NewsRadio WHAM 1180. Welcome back. This is Downtown Section 3rd Platoon. I've mentioned before, there is an inscription in stone over in a little village in Scotland. It has a saying on it, which is, Whatever you do, do it well. Be the best you. Whatever your niche is, you fill that niche. You go after it. There's wisdom in that. It's the bloom where you're planted attitude. This is my space. I'm going to be good at it. Also, it implies... Know who you are and be that. I thought about that earlier today when I see a word that Wegmans is going to close its Amore restaurant at the East Avenue Wegmans. Amore is like an Italian restaurant they have over there. And I think they maybe have a wine bar or something. I don't know. I say I don't know because I've never been in there. though it's been open for some several years, as something I think of a test or pilot project, I've never gone. And apparently not enough people, other people did either, to keep it in business. Word is that this Amore, the only one in the Wegmans chain, will close on October 31st. And, well, here's the deal. what e'er thou art, act well thy part, I think Wegmans is pretty good at that. Wegmans is a pretty gosh darn good grocery store, no doubt about it. But that doesn't mean that it's any good at running a restaurant. And it doesn't mean that the world needs it to get into the restaurant business. Now, it was prudent and reasonable for Wegmans to experiment, right? somebody somewhere in some meeting came up with a, what the hell, let's try it. And so, what the hell, they tried it. And we got to be the, I don't know if they called it a pilot project, but that's functionally what it ended up being. And unfortunately, I guess, or fortunately, the concept flunked the tryout because this one's going to go away and no new ones are going to come about. So, anyway... I just wanted to point that out, report that as news, if you will, and also say that the closing of Amore is probably disappointing to some, probably for the people who work there or whoever it was in whatever meeting who said, what the hell, let's try it out. But failure is part of innovation and should not be seen as a loss. Wegmans is a very large privately held company, which is expanding, I think, dramatically its geographic footprint, taking its brand, its culture to, you know, increasingly most of the eastern seaboard. I rejoice in the success of that family in that. And in as much as I am a happy Wegmans customer myself, I'm grateful that other people will increasingly have the opportunity to shop at Wegmans. I know that as my children have sort of moved and as Wegmans has gotten closer to them over the years in the military down in North Carolina or working in the capital in D.C., it's not just my kids who go, but Wegmans becomes the talk of the town. I Sunday ran the Army 10 miler down in Washington, D.C. One of the sponsors of that was Wegman's. In another week, I'm going to go run the Marine Corps Marathon, also in Washington, D.C. Again, one of the sponsors of that will be Wegman's. And that same phenomenon is community after community after community. Anyway, my point is that, of course, Wegman's should try additional things. And when you try additional things, not everything is going to take off. Not everything is going to be truly Wegmans. And so after trying it, you get the results, you make your decision, you cut your losses, you move on. In other businesses, see, I hope that whoever came up with Amore doesn't get in trouble. They tried something. And if it had worked... Boy, whoever came up with the moray would be like the king of the company. But it didn't work, so now they know. Innovation, like I said, requires us to be able to accept failure. The only way you can innovate or come up with something new is to try something different, right? Whether it's an experiment and you're Thomas Edison trying to make a light bulb or something like that, or whether you're a business trying to find a way forward or a government official trying to find the right policy to meet the needs of your people, there's nothing wrong. I mean, innovation is how humankind finds solutions it does not yet have to problems it faces, right? We're going to have to try something different. And you're not going to get it right the first time, odds are. you're probably going to get it wrong. Should you let that discourage you from the process of experimentation? Absolutely not. If you do, you're an idiot, okay? You keep trying until you find what does work or until you find a way to change the nature of your problem and make it go away. Anyway, forgive me for rambling on here. But just thinking about Amore going away. Wegmans, a good company. Took a shot, put their heart into it. It didn't work. I say no harm, no foul. The spirit of innovation and looking for better ways to serve us and to make more money for themselves is what a smart company would do. And Wegmans, not to sound like a homer, but Wegmans is a very smart company. And it serves us. Anyway, I'll shut my mouth. Though here's the thing. As soon as I saw that Amore was closing, I said, man, I got to get out there and eat. Check them out. Even though for the last four, five, six years, however long it's been there, I've never thought to stop in once. Good chances, neither of you. This is downtown section, 3rd Platoon, on News Radio Wham 1180. 3rd Platoon, I want to say something, and it's just the way I think. And I don't want you to be hurt feelings or anything else over it. It's just the way I think. And I freely recognize that the way I think isn't always right. The way I look at things isn't always the best way to look at things. But I almost cringe when I see on the news or in somebody's social media about how they're ringing the bell after their cancer treatment. If I ever get cancer and I come through the treatment, I'm not ringing that damn bell. That's not to put down anybody's experience or to criticize the bell or anything else. It's just that I think you and I both know, if we're honest about it, we've seen friends and loved ones post their video ringing that bell. And a year, two or three later, well, the cancer's back. You know, I've known a lot of people who my therapy, my therapy, Chemo is done. My radiation is done. My surgery is done. I'm cancer free. And I recoil from that phrase, cancer free, because I've gone to too many funerals. And at any rate, I hope that if you've rung the bell, that it is cancer free and that that bell stays rung. And I pray for you and I hope for you and I wish for you. But yeah, anytime I see a video on that bell, it scares me. Because, yeah, anyway, if you or a loved one does have cancer or has had cancer, and, you know, the rate of cancer in humans has jumped dramatically, largely because we live long enough now to get cancer, right? And also, perchance, we live in an environment with more, I don't know, contaminants or things that might cause cancer. I'm not exactly sure. But, yeah, we live in a world where a lot more people dear to you, dear to me, have had cancer. So I want to bring up something that helps reduce the risk of cancer remission, according to studies. This is not medical advice. Never take medical advice off anybody on the radio, especially me, right? But there are significant, seemingly very trustworthy studies that show that moderate exercise reduces, maybe significantly, the prospect of cancer recurring. And do a Google search if you want. Don't buy anything. Don't answer any ads. You don't pay any money for any of this. But there are, I think, Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic, which are two reputable places, have information on it, I think I saw, The National Institutes of Health has at least one very significant study in this regard. This is not about buying something. This isn't, you know, go to Mexico and get avocado juice or, you know, apricot pits. This is not a scam, okay? If anybody wants your money, run away from them. But here are just some statistics. Prostate cancer. The rate of recurrence falls 30%. among people who engage in moderate exercise program after their treatment. The rate of death for prostate cancer people falls 40%. That's people with stage three, falls 40% after treatment if they engage in moderate physical exercise. Colon cancer, stage three, the recurrence rate falls 40%. among people who take up a regimen of moderate physical exercise. What is moderate physical exercise? 150 minutes a week of exercise. So is that two and a half hours? Okay. Spread that over five days. It's a half an hour of exercise a day. And you get the weekends off or two days off if you wish. But if you can get 150 minutes of exercise a day, vigorous to moderate, I'm sorry, 150 minutes a week of moderate to vigorous exercise. And also if you get two days of strength training, and that can be at the gym, it can be with your little weights at the house, it can be with exercise bands. That is the exercise we're talking about. Breast cancer, the recurrence and mortality rates drop between 35 and 50% with moderate exercise. And so, again, talk to your doctor. But if you ever ring that bell, you are a loved one. You get your gym shorts on. You go exercise. I mean, you had surgery. I'm not saying that day or whatever. But if they don't give you an exercise program, you ask them to give you one. Ask your doctor to have somebody design for you an exercise program. Use up a little bit of this AI they got in there. Don't pay anybody any money, but just ask AI, hey, I'm this many years old. I'm a man. I weigh this much. I'm a woman. I weigh that much. I had this kind of cancer. Make me a moderate exercise program for a week. And then do that week after week. But exercise is part, apparently... of nature's way of, we're meant to be in motion. We're meant to be doing things. We're meant to be using our bodies. And there apparently is some mechanism of healing that somehow arises out of physical activity and exercise. And at any rate, the surgery, if I had something come up, I'd I'd get the surgery, I'd get the chemo, I'd get the radiation, I'd do everything to live I could. But there's one thing that often doesn't get mentioned, but statistically, among credible tests, shows that it is beneficial, and that's moderate to vigorous exercise. It's good for your body, in all likelihood, and further, it's undeniably good for your head. It'll help keep your emotions in balance, keep your head on straight. From the banks of the mighty Genesee in Rochester, New York, this is Downtown Section 3rd Platoon, and we are 10-7 on the night.
Speaker 1: Good evening. I'm Bob Lonsbury. And from the banks of the mighty Genesee in Rochester, New York, this is Downtown Section 3rd Platoon. Did you miss me last night? You didn't even notice I was gone, did you? Of course not. You know why you didn't notice? Because you're not a frigging loser. You were watching Monday Night Football as you should have been. Holy cats, what a game. Now, here's the deal. I won't pretend. I go to bed early. That's what we old people do now. Sure, yeah. We go to bed early because we got to get up and piddle five, six, seven, eight, nine times a night. And if you're sleeping short hours, it's tough to cram all that piddling in. Okay? I got to get my solid eight.
00:00:47
Speaker 2: All right?
00:00:48
Speaker 1: Those were the days. But anyway, so I was asleep. But this morning early, all the evening newscasts DVR'd. I pulled up Channel 13 and I pushed play. And whoa!
00:01:01
Speaker 2: Um it's it's a bills game we're tied and oh the bill scored yes oh my gosh look at this it's a win with what a minute and 34 seconds left this is the best so i'm sitting there instead of writing down little notes to entertain the people with subsequently i was watching the rest of the game these ram people uh they in a minute and 34 seconds what can you do in a minute and 34 seconds Well, apparently, score a touchdown and kick a point after.
00:01:32
Speaker 1: So it's tied up again. As you know, ultimately, the Bills won and all is well in Buffalo. It wasn't a pretty win, but it was fun. And we'll leave that alone. But at any rate, I was off yesterday. I went deer hunting with my 15-year-old son, Scott. Now, we were in the woods. And he had a gun. It's the DEC's youth hunt. If you're 12, 13, 14, or 15, you may go hunt over the Columbus Day weekend for deer or bear. And we went out. Now, we'd had quite a Sunday beforehand. He and I and my son Lee and my daughter Sophie, we all ran the Army 10-miler down in Washington, D.C., and then rode, you know, six, seven hours in the car back home, which was, we got out mighty stiff. And he said, do you mind if we don't get up early tomorrow? And I, here's the thing, I would have said, son, you know, our commitment to go hunting will require us to get up early. You know, if you're going to a party, you've got to get up early. But I was hoping all the way home he'd say, why don't we sleep?
00:02:55
Speaker 2: Anyway, the point being, so we got out to the woods.
00:02:58
Speaker 1: About 10 o'clock in the morning, all right? The deer were settled down for their midday siestas. And we sat out there a few hours and watched the birds. There's an app on your phone, Merlin.com. It's for free, but it's out of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell. Yeah, that Cornell, sadly. But they got a birdwatching app. And so you can hold up your phone, push a button, and it will listen to the birds singing around you. And it will tell you what they are. And it can be kind of cool. So he's got to be his eye peeled for deer. Me, I'm just kind of looking around a little bit. So I was playing with the app. Anyway, I'll shut my mouth. The best part of the whole day, well, we saw no deer. The best part of the day in the woods was a flock of red-winged blackbirds came through in a behavior I had not seen before. You ever see sometimes this time of year, there's a word for it. I don't know what it is, but blackbirds. Not necessarily that species, but birds that are black will gather, and there are a few different species, will gather together in these large flocks. And you'll see them flying around in the air, and it'll look like a lava lamp up there, some cloud of birds changing shapes and going this way and that way. That's fascinating stuff. At any rate, one of those came in where we were. and they like landed, and they were red-winged blackbirds. And the mating call of the red-winged blackbird in the spring is my favorite bird call. There's a trill to it, a little, that I heard since I was a boy. My grandmother's house, where I lived for a time when I was a little boy, the one that got washed out in the 72 flood, it was right next to what had ended up being, uh, I don't know if a swamp is the right way to say it, but well, standing water is a swamp. Um, and, uh, the red wing blackbirds came in there when the cattails came up and they would in the spring do that little mating call. And I, as a little boy, I loved it. I remember I wake up to it in the morning, hearing it through the window. And, uh, I love it still. Anyway, a whole bunch came in and it wasn't exactly the mating call, but it was that same trill to their voice. And so, yeah, after a while, he got bored. We got out of the woods. We had a great conversation on the way in, on the way out. It's a thrill to see him grown up to at 15 years of age, pretty much man size and out there in the woods with a gun and a knife. Had a little bit of camo. It was a great day. But at any rate, not sure why I tell you that. Oh, I guess just out of gratitude for the bosses letting me off. Tonight, if you saw earlier, there was a debate on spectrum between Kathy Hochul and Bruce Blakeman. I decided that I saw it through my Blakeman eyes. Everything I expected she would do that was annoying, she did. everything that I expected he would do that would be encouraging, he did. Either I'm really good at predicting the future, or I've just decided that she is a shrill, no-good bat, and that he is a calm, rational, competent leader. Because that's how I read them both. If you didn't see it, if you want to, Spectrum has a YouTube channel, and you can replay it from there. This is downtown section, 3rd Platoon. on NewsRadio WHAM 1180. Welcome back. This is downtown section of Third Platoon. It kind of bounced around the news today a little bit. Some numbers from something called the Children's Agenda. It's a nonprofit activist group in the city. And what they did is they looked at absenteeism rates and they broke them down demographically for the suburban school districts and for the Rochester City School District. And they basically said that Latino students miss a lot of school. Black students miss a lot of school, but a little bit less. For example, in the city of Rochester, the average Latino student will miss 38.2 days of school each year. There are 180 days of school in New York State, and 38.2 is a lot of them. Funny thing is, when you cross into the suburbs of the amount of absenteeism drops dramatically, right? Just a whole different world. Latino students in the suburban districts of Monroe County miss about 10 days of school a year. Black students miss about nine, and white students miss about seven. Interestingly, the groups demographically with the lowest rates of absenteeism are Asian students, Asian by heritage. You know, mom and dad or their grandparents or somebody like that is from, you know, Asia. And then white students. And then also a category of students called formerly English language learners. It's an interesting deal. Youngsters born in the United States who don't speak English tend not to learn English. Youngsters born outside the United States who may come to school not speaking a word of English, they tend to learn English. So English language learner is often people, youngsters born in the United States and some newly arrived people from foreign countries, refugees, such like that. And the deal is that the refugees, the immigrants, will... rather quickly learn enough English to transition into a new category called formerly English language learners, meaning you're not learning English exclusively priority right now. You're kind of working extra hard trying to catch up to your age level in terms of English language proficiency, right? But those three categories, Asian students, white students, this is across the county, Asian students, white students, and also in the city, but the phenomenon is the same. White students, Asian students, and formerly English language learners. That almost always is going to be, you know, like people from foreign countries who came here, right? Maybe, you know, mom and dad, or rather dad was an interpreter in Afghanistan. Maybe, you know, you're over here from Bhutan or something like that. Their kids come to school. And here's the interesting thing. In terms of educational outcome, white, Asian, and formerly English language learners are all the highest achievers in our schools across the county. There is a direct correlation between absence and achievement, which of course just frigging makes sense, right? Those groups with the highest levels of absenteeism have the lowest level of educational attainment. And those groups with the highest level of educational attainment have the lowest level of absenteeism. Asian students do, on average, very well educationally. White students... on average, do okay. Formerly English language learners, the new refugee kids, they often do pretty well, right? And, you know, those groups, black and Latino, with high absenteeism rates have low educational success rates. Well, you know, you look at that and you say, yeah, Bob, that's cause and effect, right? those who care enough to go to school, learn something. Those who don't care enough to go to school, don't learn something. I think very simply stated, there's truth to that. I also think that the traits and characteristics, which are demonstrated by going to school, i.e. commitment, uh, your mom and dad having a family culture that says we value education. We want you to go learn all you can. Um, And the level of personal and family responsibility to get you up and get you dressed and get you fed and get you to school on time. Those traits passed on by example to the children make those children more likely to succeed, not just in academics, but in life. And so we've got a tendency in this society, when we see a group that has a bad outcome, we presume... that the cause of that bad outcome is exterior to that group, meaning structural racism or economic oppression, or they got screwed over on opportunities or whatever else like that. I don't believe that that is the case. I believe that our consequences are the results of our choices. And our choices are sometimes made for us by our cultures or by our parents. But when you make good choices... you get good outcomes. And when cultures and communities tend to make good choices, they tend to have good outcomes, right? Asian people in America, people of Asian heritage, dramatically outperform about anybody else academically. Is it because they're genetically superior? Is it a better breed of human? The likelihood of that is not great. However, many people of Asian heritage have in their families a culture and commitment to hard work and education and responsibility. And lo and behold, make good choices, get good outcomes, which is not condemning of anybody. I believe it's empowering of everybody. If you want a better outcome, make a better choice. If you want your child to do better in school, make your kid go to school. If you want to have a life that's a success, then learn how to get out of bed and get to school. And mom and dad or grandma or guardian, whoever it is, needs to help that lesson be learned. Because if you lack the responsibility to get to school, you're not going to have the responsibility to succeed in life. Just being honest with you. This is Downtown Section 3rd Platoon on NewsRadio WHAM 1180. Welcome back. This is Downtown Section 3rd Platoon. I've mentioned before, there is an inscription in stone over in a little village in Scotland. It has a saying on it, which is, Whatever you do, do it well. Be the best you. Whatever your niche is, you fill that niche. You go after it. There's wisdom in that. It's the bloom where you're planted attitude. This is my space. I'm going to be good at it. Also, it implies... Know who you are and be that. I thought about that earlier today when I see a word that Wegmans is going to close its Amore restaurant at the East Avenue Wegmans. Amore is like an Italian restaurant they have over there. And I think they maybe have a wine bar or something. I don't know. I say I don't know because I've never been in there. though it's been open for some several years, as something I think of a test or pilot project, I've never gone. And apparently not enough people, other people did either, to keep it in business. Word is that this Amore, the only one in the Wegmans chain, will close on October 31st. And, well, here's the deal. what e'er thou art, act well thy part, I think Wegmans is pretty good at that. Wegmans is a pretty gosh darn good grocery store, no doubt about it. But that doesn't mean that it's any good at running a restaurant. And it doesn't mean that the world needs it to get into the restaurant business. Now, it was prudent and reasonable for Wegmans to experiment, right? somebody somewhere in some meeting came up with a, what the hell, let's try it. And so, what the hell, they tried it. And we got to be the, I don't know if they called it a pilot project, but that's functionally what it ended up being. And unfortunately, I guess, or fortunately, the concept flunked the tryout because this one's going to go away and no new ones are going to come about. So, anyway... I just wanted to point that out, report that as news, if you will, and also say that the closing of Amore is probably disappointing to some, probably for the people who work there or whoever it was in whatever meeting who said, what the hell, let's try it out. But failure is part of innovation and should not be seen as a loss. Wegmans is a very large privately held company, which is expanding, I think, dramatically its geographic footprint, taking its brand, its culture to, you know, increasingly most of the eastern seaboard. I rejoice in the success of that family in that. And in as much as I am a happy Wegmans customer myself, I'm grateful that other people will increasingly have the opportunity to shop at Wegmans. I know that as my children have sort of moved and as Wegmans has gotten closer to them over the years in the military down in North Carolina or working in the capital in D.C., it's not just my kids who go, but Wegmans becomes the talk of the town. I Sunday ran the Army 10 miler down in Washington, D.C. One of the sponsors of that was Wegman's. In another week, I'm going to go run the Marine Corps Marathon, also in Washington, D.C. Again, one of the sponsors of that will be Wegman's. And that same phenomenon is community after community after community. Anyway, my point is that, of course, Wegman's should try additional things. And when you try additional things, not everything is going to take off. Not everything is going to be truly Wegmans. And so after trying it, you get the results, you make your decision, you cut your losses, you move on. In other businesses, see, I hope that whoever came up with Amore doesn't get in trouble. They tried something. And if it had worked... Boy, whoever came up with the moray would be like the king of the company. But it didn't work, so now they know. Innovation, like I said, requires us to be able to accept failure. The only way you can innovate or come up with something new is to try something different, right? Whether it's an experiment and you're Thomas Edison trying to make a light bulb or something like that, or whether you're a business trying to find a way forward or a government official trying to find the right policy to meet the needs of your people, there's nothing wrong. I mean, innovation is how humankind finds solutions it does not yet have to problems it faces, right? We're going to have to try something different. And you're not going to get it right the first time, odds are. you're probably going to get it wrong. Should you let that discourage you from the process of experimentation? Absolutely not. If you do, you're an idiot, okay? You keep trying until you find what does work or until you find a way to change the nature of your problem and make it go away. Anyway, forgive me for rambling on here. But just thinking about Amore going away. Wegmans, a good company. Took a shot, put their heart into it. It didn't work. I say no harm, no foul. The spirit of innovation and looking for better ways to serve us and to make more money for themselves is what a smart company would do. And Wegmans, not to sound like a homer, but Wegmans is a very smart company. And it serves us. Anyway, I'll shut my mouth. Though here's the thing. As soon as I saw that Amore was closing, I said, man, I got to get out there and eat. Check them out. Even though for the last four, five, six years, however long it's been there, I've never thought to stop in once. Good chances, neither of you. This is downtown section, 3rd Platoon, on News Radio Wham 1180. 3rd Platoon, I want to say something, and it's just the way I think. And I don't want you to be hurt feelings or anything else over it. It's just the way I think. And I freely recognize that the way I think isn't always right. The way I look at things isn't always the best way to look at things. But I almost cringe when I see on the news or in somebody's social media about how they're ringing the bell after their cancer treatment. If I ever get cancer and I come through the treatment, I'm not ringing that damn bell. That's not to put down anybody's experience or to criticize the bell or anything else. It's just that I think you and I both know, if we're honest about it, we've seen friends and loved ones post their video ringing that bell. And a year, two or three later, well, the cancer's back. You know, I've known a lot of people who my therapy, my therapy, Chemo is done. My radiation is done. My surgery is done. I'm cancer free. And I recoil from that phrase, cancer free, because I've gone to too many funerals. And at any rate, I hope that if you've rung the bell, that it is cancer free and that that bell stays rung. And I pray for you and I hope for you and I wish for you. But yeah, anytime I see a video on that bell, it scares me. Because, yeah, anyway, if you or a loved one does have cancer or has had cancer, and, you know, the rate of cancer in humans has jumped dramatically, largely because we live long enough now to get cancer, right? And also, perchance, we live in an environment with more, I don't know, contaminants or things that might cause cancer. I'm not exactly sure. But, yeah, we live in a world where a lot more people dear to you, dear to me, have had cancer. So I want to bring up something that helps reduce the risk of cancer remission, according to studies. This is not medical advice. Never take medical advice off anybody on the radio, especially me, right? But there are significant, seemingly very trustworthy studies that show that moderate exercise reduces, maybe significantly, the prospect of cancer recurring. And do a Google search if you want. Don't buy anything. Don't answer any ads. You don't pay any money for any of this. But there are, I think, Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic, which are two reputable places, have information on it, I think I saw, The National Institutes of Health has at least one very significant study in this regard. This is not about buying something. This isn't, you know, go to Mexico and get avocado juice or, you know, apricot pits. This is not a scam, okay? If anybody wants your money, run away from them. But here are just some statistics. Prostate cancer. The rate of recurrence falls 30%. among people who engage in moderate exercise program after their treatment. The rate of death for prostate cancer people falls 40%. That's people with stage three, falls 40% after treatment if they engage in moderate physical exercise. Colon cancer, stage three, the recurrence rate falls 40%. among people who take up a regimen of moderate physical exercise. What is moderate physical exercise? 150 minutes a week of exercise. So is that two and a half hours? Okay. Spread that over five days. It's a half an hour of exercise a day. And you get the weekends off or two days off if you wish. But if you can get 150 minutes of exercise a day, vigorous to moderate, I'm sorry, 150 minutes a week of moderate to vigorous exercise. And also if you get two days of strength training, and that can be at the gym, it can be with your little weights at the house, it can be with exercise bands. That is the exercise we're talking about. Breast cancer, the recurrence and mortality rates drop between 35 and 50% with moderate exercise. And so, again, talk to your doctor. But if you ever ring that bell, you are a loved one. You get your gym shorts on. You go exercise. I mean, you had surgery. I'm not saying that day or whatever. But if they don't give you an exercise program, you ask them to give you one. Ask your doctor to have somebody design for you an exercise program. Use up a little bit of this AI they got in there. Don't pay anybody any money, but just ask AI, hey, I'm this many years old. I'm a man. I weigh this much. I'm a woman. I weigh that much. I had this kind of cancer. Make me a moderate exercise program for a week. And then do that week after week. But exercise is part, apparently... of nature's way of, we're meant to be in motion. We're meant to be doing things. We're meant to be using our bodies. And there apparently is some mechanism of healing that somehow arises out of physical activity and exercise. And at any rate, the surgery, if I had something come up, I'd I'd get the surgery, I'd get the chemo, I'd get the radiation, I'd do everything to live I could. But there's one thing that often doesn't get mentioned, but statistically, among credible tests, shows that it is beneficial, and that's moderate to vigorous exercise. It's good for your body, in all likelihood, and further, it's undeniably good for your head. It'll help keep your emotions in balance, keep your head on straight. From the banks of the mighty Genesee in Rochester, New York, this is Downtown Section 3rd Platoon, and we are 10-7 on the night.
