From: John Brodey

Subject: Re: Re-The Frank Zappa Movie

I can’t wait to see it.  He was the only artist I ever interviewed who truly intimated me and I was very anxious about it.  He was going to come to the station on my show (6-10 pm) and I had no idea what would happen.  He was obviously was a deep thinker and didn’t suffer fools period.  He might stay or five minutes or not at all.  How not to screw it up?.

He got there about 8 and all I could think of was to try something different.  He said he might stay for a few minutes and I just wondered how I could change his mind, so I said; How about if you do my job.  You be the DJ.  You can play any of the 10,000 records in our library and we’ll just talk.  He went to look at the records and seeing the array of genres including classical, he then asked me if he could play anything and I said, of course (He couldn’t believe we had a Moon Dog album).  The he asked if I liked real wine, I said; I’ve never tried it.  He gave his tour manager $300 (more than my weekly salary) to go out and locate three very specific classic Bordeaux’s.

And we got cracking, drinking, talking and playing music for 3 hours.  I didn’t worry about the time because it was Frank Fucking Zappa and I wasn’t about to say that we were out of time.  We went over into the next guy’s show for an hour.

He softened up a bit and it just clicked.  Then he was done.  But I got to see exactly how Frank Zappa would have done radio and it wasn’t like anything else.

__________________________________________

Subject: Re: More TikTok

A great listen and lesson.  I saw the power of these TikTok stars first hand at the 2020 Grammys.  I brought my son (12 at the time) and niece (13) thinking they’d have a blast and it was my last year as a Trustee, so a nice way to go out.  They had fun and got to meet a number of artists, but what blew their minds had nothing to do with the Grammys.  In our hotel, they ran into Charlie D’ Amelio and both just freaked out.  All the music artists I’d introduced them to and they didn’t ask for one pic.  With Charli, it was all about getting pics with her and posting away.  Mind you, at this point I had no idea who she was.  I chatted it up with her dad for a bit and got the scoop.  She couldn’t have been nicer.  The only “rule” was that the kids couldn’t post where they were, because it would create a frenzy and the hotel would turn into a sea of screaming fans.

Richard Stumpf

CEO

Hawkeye Music Group

__________________________________________

From: Wade Mosher

Subject: Re: Brad Stone’s New Amazon Book

The billionaire class, especially the likes of Bezos, need to be stopped. It’s incomprehensible that this not only has been allowed to happen globally, but that it continues to happen and grow. People would rather follow the Divide and Conquer doctrine, Left vs. Right. Bezos and his kind are almost always absent from those online conversations.

I haven’t ordered a single thing from Amazon in years; I’m not wealthy by any stretch, but I’ll pay a little more and wait a little longer just to avoid using Amazon. Of course, I realize I’m still lining the pockets of other billionaires by doing that. 

Here’s a story about the last thing I did order from Amazon…

I was looking for a niche ‘part’, found it on Amazon and I accidentally ordered the wrong size. So, when it arrived, I realized that and sent a quick email to the 3rd party seller asking if there was a way to retro fit what I stupidly bought or if I could do a swap of some kind, admitting fully my dumb mistake. I’m in Canada, and the owner of the company called me within FIVE minutes in a panic. I explained again that it was my dumb mistake, no worries if he couldn’t do anything about it. 

He was in a panic. Once he realized I was the one apologizing, he went on to tell me the fear he goes through as a 3rd party seller on Amazon. That one tiny slipup or bad review could get him booted and that’s where all of his money comes from. (It’s a very small company that only makes these ‘parts’.) We had a lengthy chat, and I really felt worse of an A-Hole by the end of it and told him that I’d just eat the cost. Instead, he insisted that he could send a replacement part that would work for me, free of charge. And he did just that, and I’m still using that product. Needless to say, I gave him a glowing 5 star review. He did ask me not to mention the favor he’d done in the review, which I complied with. 

Big Brother is here. Let’s stop pretending it’s the government. Big Corp IS the government.

__________________________________________

Subject: RE: Gone Away

Hey Bob,

I feel similar to you about The Offspring, I respect what they do and am a casual fan at best.  However, having grown up in Huntington Beach and have lived in Cypress for the past 20 years where most of the local taco and breakfast joints in town serve Dexter’s Gringo Bandito hot sauce, it’s hard not to feel The Offspring’s influence and legacy in the community.  West Garden Grove and Cypress are ground zero for the band and it’s common to see stickers on cars, bus benches, gas stations, random walls and lots of people rocking the bands black t-shirts.    I was still surprised to see you write about “Gone Away” and ironically I have been playing it non-stop for the past few weeks and really can’t explain why.   Maybe it’s the strings? Who knows? I just know the song is resonating with me.  I have taken it one step further.   I announce the basketball games and play in-game music at Oxford Academy in Cypress, which means I play pop songs from MGK, Glass Animals, Polo G, Post Malone, Dua Lipa, The Kid Laroi, and 24kGolden.  But I have been motivated to add “Gone Away” into the mix by starting off halftime with it,  I guess I just want to share good music with people.  In hindsight, I think it must be the strings.

Bill Gagnon

__________________________________________

From: Alan Johnson

Subject: Re: Extreme

I was mixing the live broadcast the day Extreme , along with Hootie and the Blowfish, Blues Traveler, Great White and a few other acts were a guests on the nationally syndicated Bob and Tom radio show.

Extreme’s song “More Than Words” was climbing the charts and they refused to play it. Everyone in the room was stunned.

It’s something I’ve given a lot of thought to over the years … good decision, bad decision, why even put it on the record if you’re going to refuse to perform it?

__________________________________________

From: Phil Brown

Subject: Re: Vaccinations

My sister and I were talking about polio today. I’m 74 and she’s 72 and people born after the late 40s have no idea about polio. Think you’re afraid of COVID? Multiply that by one hundred and you’ve got polio. And multiply again by X because pretty much every school class had a kid in braces who’d sort of recovered from polio so you had a daily reminder of the horror. Every summer the disease returned in force. People born after the vaccine have no idea of the fear. Swimming pools seemed to spread it so no swimming. Anything could spread it. COVID may put you in the hospital for a while but polio put you in the hospital FOREVER. COVID long haulers? I have a friend my age who recovered from it in childhood and then in her 50s the symptoms returned.

I will never understand the anti vaxers at all. If they had lived through the polio epidemics  they would get down on their knees and thank God for the vaccines. I do.

Phil Brown

__________________________________________

From: Shari Ulrich

Subject: Re: Vaccine Passports

Travellers to certain countries have been required for eons to be vaccinated for certain diseases, and if the traveller elects not to, they don’t get to travel there. Pretty simple. People are being asked to get vaccinated against Covid for their own protection, their friends, their families, and strangers they may come in contact with.The exponential economic impact alone on the medical system should they become ill thanks to their determination that it’s “they body” and “the man” can’t tell them what to do, is staggering. Business owners, venue owners – they all have the right to create a safe space for their clients, and those clients or audience members have a right to feel safe entering. Period. As a society we have allowed personal “rights” to override any consideration for our fellow man or even our very survival. You don’t get to hold this up as a “Human Rights” issue. Your right to refuse to give a crap about anyone but yourself does not get to prevail and put countless other people at risk.

__________________________________________

From: Toby Mamis

Subject: Re: Vaccine Passports

Good piece.  I think even “Vaccine Verifications” is too strong.  I’d go with “Vaccine ID.”  Like a driver’s license.  You are not required to have a driver’s license, it’s strictly voluntary. But if you want to drive, you have to have one.

It’s not just Rapino and/or AEG (which reminds me, when LN launched Crew Nation providing millions of $ for out-of-work tour personnel, and the Grammy gang offered millions more $ from MusiCares to crew and musicians, what did AEG do?).  It’s SPORTS.  The Buffalo Bills have already announced that all fans during the upcoming 2021 season will be required to show proof of vaccination to attend their games.  Other teams are likely to follow suit, though teams in Florida and Texas (and possibly elsewhere) may have problems due to their state governments.  And the NFL is requiring higher level employees, who interact with the teams, to be vaccinated.   And the NFL is big business, with a lot of fans who may be in the non-vax camp.  I think we need to watch, and maybe pressure, NASCAR, to do the same.  Basketball and hockey are nearly in their playoffs, but they play indoors and might follow suit in the fall.  Major League Baseball, outside of Texas, are still not at full capacity, but they all want to be.  So they’ve got incentive as well.  And thanks to the Buffalo Bills, nobody else has to be first.

__________________________________________

From: Corey Bearak

Subject: Re: Vaccine Passports

Interesting.

If you follow what’s going on in NYS, Yankee Stadium and Citfield have Vaccine sections and non Vax sections.  So as of May 19, 75% capacity but if no vax very limited seating options.

__________________________________________

From: Dave Conklin

Subject: Re: Vaccine Passports

Yep. Fuck ’em. Bring on the MAGA-free shows. Can’t wait to hear how ticketed events have anything to do with their constitutional rights.

Because of the seasonal timing, we’re going to see events open up in the outdoor venues first, where the atmosphere is inherently safer.  Later this month, the two NY baseball stadiums are opening 100% capacity in designated “vaccinated” sections.  If you’re unvaccinated, you’re in pod seating, 33% capacity.  You think these teams want to sell 33% capacity sections instead of 100%?  Prices have been low thus far because all the seating was pod style.  Moving forward, I expect the unvaxxed seats to cost more.  At Citi Field, they’re offering on-site single shot J&J on the way into the games!  Ok, fine, push push push.  But at a certain point, soon, we’re going to max out on converting hearts and minds.  All we’ll have left is making it inconvenient.  Live events, cruise lines and air travel.  I’m already over the bribes, the freebies and the bonuses.  If you don’t want the shot, we get it – we heard your solopsistic decree of indepedence, now fuck off.  The rest of us have some living to do.

__________________________________________

Subject: Re: Vaccine Passports

Venues should install glass walls and have that 25% portion of the venue be available for ‘socially distanced unvaccinated tickets’

The genera population vaccinated pays $50 and the behind the glass wall ‘tradesman entrance’ ticket costs $250. I would bet my bottom dollar that the ‘not me’ contingent would all rush out and get the ‘free shot’ all of a sudden.

If it’s financial and not political, we would be at herd in two seconds haha!

Loved this letter – best yet.

Paul Clegg

__________________________________________

From: lizzz kritzer

Subject: Re: Vaccine Passports

Bob, I live in the Hamptons and my friends sister died today from Covid, she lived up island, around Hampton Bays, still Suffolk county.  Anti Vaxer/Trumpsters.   This isn’t over.  She was in her 50’s.

__________________________________________

Subject: Re: Vaccine Passports

I got my first shot today.

Thank you for helping me make my decision and my heart goes out to you this day

Your first one without your Mom . . .

My prayers are with you towards your continued good health.

Mark Flores

Guitar

Tune in tomorrow, May 11th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive

This is where business and law intersect, and not peacefully.

If you’re following the news, and most people are not, at best they’re hung up on opinions, which are a dime a dozen and often removed from the facts, you know that Norwegian Cruise Line is in a kerfuffle with the state of Florida. Ron DeSantis, the governor of the Sunshine State, who recently signed a “voting rights” law that he only allowed Fox News to cover, has also banned vaccine passports. But Norwegian wants them, because of the liability, because it doesn’t want to sacrifice its business. Norwegian is threatening to pull all its ships from Florida, which 60% of all U.S. cruises embark from, and the resulting economic devastation and blowback from hoteliers and restaurants…will be loud and proud, just like it was from these same outlets, especially restaurants, when governors insisted they close.

Now if you want to be really depressed, you should listen to Friday’s “The Daily” podcast:

“Why Herd Immunity Is Slipping Away”: https://bit.ly/33snFjE

As a result of covid variants, we now need 90% of the population inoculated to achieve herd immunity. The variants are more aggressive, spreading faster and further, and therefore the old figure of a year ago, of 50-60%, no longer applies. But a huge swath of the American population refuses to get the shot, most basing their decision on inaccurate fears, but there will be consequences. Not only in the lack of herd immunity, but the inability of these same people to live their lives as they want to.

If you listen to Frank Luntz on Kara Swisher’s “Sway” podcast, you’ll learn that he believes it’s just a matter of terminology. And one must listen to the pollster who changed estate taxes to “death taxes” and so much more. Luntz says we must stop calling them vaccine PASSPORTS, because the word “passport” has such a negative connotation, most people don’t have passports and don’t go anywhere, and call them vaccine VERIFICATIONS!

Hmm… On the surface it sounds good. But in truth would this really change the thoughts of the reluctant?

I don’t think so. But it would be worth trying.

Now the last time I checked, they called it the music BUSINESS. And even nonprofits have cash running through them. And Live Nation is a public company, and just like Norwegian Cruise Line, Live Nation cannot put its entire business in jeopardy. Bottom line, if you want to go to the show, you’re gonna have to show proof of vaccination. Definitely.

You’ve probably noticed that concert companies have yet to address this issue, because they’re fearful of pissing off potential customers, becoming the “enemy.” But the day is going to soon arrive, where these promoters are going to want to shove anywhere from 75 to 60,000 people in a venue, and if even one person attending is infected with covid, even if they are showing no symptoms, what you’ve got on your hands is a superspreader event. You can’t social distance at a show. At least not profitably. In order for the concert business to work everybody needs to be up close and personal. SO THEN WHAT HAPPENS WITH THE 30+ PERCENT WHO REFUSE TO BE VACCINATED!

We’re about to experience a two-tiered society. And it won’t be driven by woke liberals, but businesses, who refuse to put their enterprise on the line. Also, if a business is not woke to a degree, it’s castigated and a large segment of the population protests against it, sometimes just with their voices, but sometimes with their feet too. This is why corporations are standing up against restrictive voting laws in Georgia and Texas, they’re fearful of pissing off the majority of the population, the same majority which voted Biden into office, despite the delusional beliefs otherwise.

So now you’ve got the corporations on the side of the woke and vaccinated. Let me see…who is on the other side? In the past it was said corporations, afraid to take a side on anything, wary of even one phone call or e-mail from an outraged parent, but now it’s just Rupert Murdoch and his apparatchiks, most vocally Tucker Carlson, who is driving his minions into the river under the banner of “freedom.”

So what we’re heading towards is another January 6th upheaval/uprising/protest/conflagration, when the “free” people find out that their viewpoint has closed doors to them. Yes, this is going to happen. Arguments about masks at retail establishments? That’ll be nothing compared to concerts and cruises and other mass events, a battle is brewing. Only in this case, the battle is not with the government, not even the “libtards,” just corporations.

Have you ever worked for the corporation? They’ve got legal staff, either in-house or outside counsel, always on call, ready to deal with lawsuits. Operate a business, and you’re gonna get sued. Many are nuisance suits, insane trolls looking for money, and unfortunately sometimes it’s cheaper to settle than to fight, but a good number of these lawsuits are genuine. This is the tort world that the right keeps denigrating. But these lawsuits are what keep the rest of us safe. In cars…all over our country. I was in Colombia and I tripped on a jagged upraised curb. The truth is unsafe curbs are in the minority in America, because the city or building owner is wary of getting sued.

But you have insurance!

No carrier is going to write insurance against lawsuits from concertgoers saying they got covid. How do you even calculate the risk?

So this is what is going to happen… More people are going to get vaccinated. Because your principles are secondary to your desires. I’ll take it to the zenith, I’ve got more than one Catholic friend who was anti-abortion until their sister got pregnant. So, you can rail against vaccine passports/verifications all you want, but when you want to go on the cruise, when you want to go to the concert, you’re gonna get one.

This is going to come into focus when the country truly reopens. Right now with so many places still shut down, with people afraid to go to even open places, the issue has not come clear, but it soon will. And then? 

We’ve heard from the outraged public, not wanting their bodies “violated,” but we have not heard yet from most businesses where people are packed tight. Concerts were amongst the first businesses to shut down, and will be amongst the last to open back up. Because of the RISK!

We live in a society where everybody believes in strict liability. If I lose, it must be someone’s fault, and they must pay, this is the mind-set, not only of the liberals but the conservatives. You sue your neighbor when you slip in their house, you assume they have insurance for this sort of thing. And many people do, but not all. And the truth is the system is not one of strict liability, you don’t always recover, so you have personal responsibility, however…

You can be drunk and drive your car off a cliff, but GM can’t make an unsafe car that inherently puts you at risk.

Live Nation can have security at the show but it can’t ensure that you don’t take a drug at home and O.D. at the concert.

In other words, at some point it truly does become an issue of personal responsibility. You want to do what makes you safest. And the enterprise wants to do that which absolves it of liability, because it doesn’t want to take the financial hit, never mind the bad publicity.

And the government has a responsibility to keep its citizens safe too. Look at that Chainsmokers show last year on Long Island, the organizers were fined! Don’t enforce strict covid rules and the government is gonna keep you in line. Even Florida. Never underestimate the duplicity of governments, they’re just run by people. Sure, Florida can say no vaccine passports are required, but as soon as people get infected at a show…they’re not going to say it’s their own damn fault, politicians are afraid to say this.

So, ultimately the decision whether to get vaccinated is a personal one. And what I mean by that is the tribe won’t save you if you get infected and die.

As for death… Even the experts said deaths would hover in the neighborhood of 1%. So sure, you got covid and didn’t die. But half a million people did. As for the long term consequences of infection…every day there are articles talking about the hidden effects, now it’s diabetes.

It could be the most powerful person in the battle for covid vaccinations is Michael Rapino. And Rapino has historically been willing to hang it out there alone, to say and do the right thing. Will all the smaller promoters let him take the risk? Unfortunately, probably. But if the concert business were smart, it would form a coalition today, insisting that all concertgoers be vaccinated. In this way they would be spreading the risk/attention of said declaration. You might hate Live Nation or AEG or whomever, but can you hate ALL CONCERT COMPANIES??

Just like you can hate all cruise companies?

Bookings are way up for 2022, people are “dying” to go on a cruise. And cruises can be very cheap vacations. Which is one of the reasons why they’ve boomed in the past two decades, they’re not only for the rich, as a matter of fact their inclusive nature at rock bottom prices appeals to…many of those who refuse to be vaccinated.

Let the games begin.

“Cruise Line Threatens to Skip Florida Ports Over Proof-of-Vaccination Ban – Norwegian Cruise Line plans to require Covid-19 vaccine documentation from its crew members and customers, but Florida recently enacted a law that bars businesses from doing so.”: https://nyti.ms/3hdFXNZ

“The Premonition: A Pandemic Story”: https://amzn.to/3o7cdUf

1

Michael Lewis makes ordinary people stars. Like Billy Beane. And Michael Burry. And now Charity Dean.

The “New York Times” gave this book a positive review, the “Wall Street Journal” a negative one. The WSJ said been there, done that, it’s in the past, so why bother sifting through the ashes? Well, when you read “The Premonition” you can see why. America is broken. As Lewis says, Trump exacerbated the poor coronavirus response, but he shared responsibility with our institutions, like the CDC.

I always respected the CDC. I lost some admiration during the covid crisis, but after this book I’ve lost almost all of my faith. You see the CDC does not lead. Because if you do, and you make a mistake, your head gets chopped off. Actually, this is what happened, and as a result the head of the organization is now appointed by the president, so the titular head changes regularly, the CDC has become politicized, but it’s much worse than that.

What we’ve learned this century is we need government, not only for pandemics, but natural disasters and so much more. Something bad happens, and the same people who say we must lower taxes and shrink the government expect to be rescued and made whole by it. But so many holes have been punched in the government since Reagan that you must rescue yourself, if you can do so. As for Americans’ expectation to be made whole after every bad event…this is fallacious, not only in fact but spirit. No one can lose their job, no one can lose anything in today’s country, so very few sacrifice, they hold on to what they’ve got.

So Charity Dean decided to go into public service. After her medical residency she decided to become the chief health officer of Santa Barbara County as opposed to working in the private sector. Pay was lousy, but she could make a difference. She grew up in a sheltered religious environment in the Pacific Northwest and had been shaking off its restrictions ever since she went to college. You see they don’t want you to be educated, for fear you’ll learn and change your perspective. Hell, I thought my mother knew everything before I went to college, I soon learned that she did not, and she did not like this, and I come from a liberal, questioning background!

So Charity Dean throws over the arranged husband, proceeds in medicine, and then confronts a complacent medical landscape north of Los Angeles. And the truth is no one wants change, no one wants people to stand up to power, people want to be left alone to break the rules and injure others. Like the doctor who was not observing cleanliness procedures, turns out he was spreading hepatitis C, Dean shut him down. And after mudslides wiped out a ton of expensive homes in Montecito, she insisted on evacuating an old age home in a slide path. They’d survived the first round, but this time? If they evacuated the residents some people would die, if they didn’t they all might die. Turns out Dean insisted they evacuate and some people did die and the mudslides never hit. Whew, imagine the blowback! But the truth is to survive we need big thinkers willing to go against conventional wisdom.

Like Richard Hatchett and Carter Mecher who come up with the pandemic plan. They came up with the idea of closing schools, of social distancing. And the truth is it works, assuming you do it early enough. But when it came time to make that call, nobody in government wanted to do it. Actually, they reached down to Charity Dean, the state’s deputy public-health officer, to impose on the administration…that’s one of the reasons California shut down early, to send the message to other states that they should do so too. But, this was a secret organization, people were going behind the president’s back.

2

So what you learn is Charity Dean is an old school American, not one of the faux freedom ignoramuses, but one who is willing to stand up for truth, justice and the American Way. You remember that, don’t you? It’s mostly gone today, everybody is fearful of being kicked out of the tribe.

But the real lesson is how inefficient and unprepared government institutions are to deal with normal, expected experiences. And since our health care is private, hospitals are locked into lab contracts, so even if you want to provide testing for free, you can’t, despite the labs delivering results so long after the fact that they’re useless.

Meanwhile, science is key, not religion. It’s the genome that allowed the virus to be tracked. Then the government wouldn’t cough up enough money to run the test on all people, allowing the virus to spread willy-nilly, with no one really knowing where it was going.

It’s scary.

But there are these unknown geniuses who make all the difference, who have been unsung before Michael Lewis writes about them in this book. Like the aforementioned Carter Mecher. His specialty is pulling the lens so far back that he can see the entire picture and draw conclusions. Sure, he’s an MD, but it’s his intellect that makes all the difference. You can’t study to be this in a rigorous business school education, you must be a freethinker, willing to tinker with accepted facts that turn out not to be. And it also turns out that when you deliver, people start looking for you and ultimately depending upon you. And Carter wants no attention, no fame, he’s the opposite of today’s influencer culture, he just wants the job done.

Then there’s the scientist who comes up with a way to model the spread of viruses who no one will listen to. You see if you’re an outsider, you’re literally shut out. He ultimately cracks the code via a personal relationship, knowing someone who knows someone…but most people would not have persisted this long. Furthermore, when the right people ultimately see his work they think it’s genius and immediately track him down. Yes, those in charge can recognize genius, assuming you can reach them, and oftentimes these people are inundated with input and you can’t, or systems have to be followed. You see the government systems here, the chain of command and…

Charity Dean gets passed over to be the chief health officer in California, instead they put in a…minority person. Who’s got no clue re the pandemic and is most interested in making no waves and keeping her job, she thwarts Dean at every turn, until she is ultimately exposed and resigns. This is a very thorny issue. Yes, we want to expand opportunity for minorities, but at what cost? Do we install the best people or do we do the math and pick from column A or B because…

And so many people in this book work for free. In a world where almost no one will work for free. Where everybody’s complaining they’re not getting paid enough to begin with, that they’re being screwed by the system. But doctors will put themselves at covid risk to try and bridge the gap of testing, working nearly around the clock as volunteers. Never mind research delivering all this expertise so the wheels of progress can turn. You denigrate the elites at your peril.

3

So Michael Lewis has a writing style. Most people do not. It’s just the facts ma’am, and the result is boring and unreadable. Lewis tries to personalize the story, go so deep that you can relate. However, just like with “Flash Boys,” ultimately you have to go into detail about the science, and many people will be lost. In truth they can skip over these sections and get the gist, but the information is still there for those who want to take the time to comprehend it. In truth, nearly everything worth your time is difficult. But they keep telling us to make it bite-sized, dumb it down so everyone can understand it.

So should you read “The Premonition”?

Well, if you’re a Michael Lewis fan, definitely.

If you’re not?

Well, if you want to know what really happened over the last year and a half, how we got to here, this is the best book I’ve read about the coronavirus experience. But be forewarned, you’ll also find some stuff that will make your hair stand on end. Like the federal government surreptitiously flying illegal immigrants from Texas to Southern California and dumping them on the streets, because California had enough infrastructure to take care of them. It’s kind of like the recent report about the bugging of “Washington Post” reporters’ phones…this is much worse than Watergate, our democracy hung in the balance and it still does.

But “The Premonition” is not a political book. It’s really about a bunch of people not hobbled by political affiliation who are alert and trying to solve problems, in a world where most don’t want to know, refuse to accept responsibility but are quick to blame.

“The Premonition” is not long, but it’s not always easy, but you’ll feel smart after you read it, and you’ll also be inspired… The truth is oftentimes the crowd is wrong, generally accepted wisdom is not, and it’s those who refuse to cower, who are willing to go against the grain, who ultimately blow the whistle on falsehood, who get things done. And if Michael Lewis doesn’t write about them, chances are you’ll never hear of them, but thank god there are still those out there who insist on doing the right thing.

4

There are some lines in the book that impacted me so much that I highlighted them on my Kindle, I want to include some of them below.

“‘You can’t write a strategy by committee.'”

This was Apple’s superpower under Steve Jobs, they didn’t just throw more engineers after the problem, they just threw the right ones. This is another reason popular music is in the doldrums, it’s an assembly line churning out replicas of what came before when the truth is change comes from a limited number of individuals, maybe even one, who are willing to go against the grain.

“‘Experience is making the same mistake over and over again, only with greater confidence.”

Just because someone has been there and done that that does not mean they’re not wrong. This is the essence of disruption. Why wouldn’t people want to buy a fifteen dollar CD with just one good song on it? You have to keep your outlook open, you must change or be left behind.

“Because what do you do when you run out of options? You panic. Having something in front of you, a map, a plan, a list of treatments, even if it isn’t completely right, is better than nothing.'”

“‘We are reactive and tend to only intervene when things are getting bad,’ wrote Carter. ‘And what we underestimate is the speed that what’s bad moves.'”

When you can see it, it’s already too late.

“Why doesn’t the United States have the institutions it needs to save itself?”

“Instead of changing her mind about her ambition, she guarded it. ‘I learned to hold that card close, because no one believed it,’ she said.”

And Bob Dylan said this too. Oftentimes it’s the introverts, those outside the mainstream, who are castigated when they get attention, who change the world. If they told everybody their dreams they would be laughed out of the room and never taken seriously again. You’ve got to believe. Then again, too many believe they’re the savior when they’re not.

“‘There will be no standing ovation when you are proven right.”

And no one likes an “I told you so.” But the truth is society corrects itself and moves on, the past is in the rearview mirror and even if you blew the whistle, even changed the course of history, you probably won’t be remembered, never mind get accolades. So, you’ve got to do what you do because it’s RIGHT! Wow, what a concept.

“Even before she’d quit her job she’d had that odd thought, that the country didn’t have the institutions that it needed to survive.”

This is the essence of the book. Our belief in our nation, its government…you’ll question them when you finish “The Premonition.” But people just want things to roll on like they have been, without intervention, without any fixes, without any money. Turns out bureaucracy saves America. Sure, it lumbers, but it is necessary. But too many think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. The truth is we need investment in procedures and enforcement of the rules and never have those been wavering more than today.