Paper Backtime: Gladwell's Greatest Hits

In the early part of the 21st century, Malcom Gladwell has been a pioneer in teaching us how to get beneath the surface and re-examine what we think about a lot of things, but mostly about expertise and what makes someone or something great.

The Tipping Point examined the exhaustive connectivity and machinations that goes into explosive change. Blink showed how we all rely on our instincts, that have been built on a foundation of life experience. And Outliers deconstructs individual achievement and brilliance, and breaks it all down to the root cause: extremely hard work amid favorable circumstances.

I refer to Gladwell's Outliers and "10,000 hours" rule often. I can claim it as a TV producer and a parent, though situations continue to come up in both areas that I'm completely unprepared for. And despite certain levels of achievement in martial arts and Mario Kart, I am still in a Gladwellian sense, a novice.

What The Dog Saw is a compilation of Gladwell's essays over the years for The New Yorker, a follow up to his three other books, and no doubt re-released in book form to capitalize upon his previous literary successes.

Inside are a number of extrapolated deep thoughts. Here are some of the chapter titles:

The Ketchup Conundrum: Mustard Now Comes in Dozens of Varieties. Why has Ketchup Stayed the Same?

John Rock's Error: What the Inventor of the Birth Control Pill Didn't Know About Women's Health.

Blowup: Who Can Be Blamed for a Disaster like The Challenger Explosion? No One, and We'd Better Get Used to It.

Late Bloomers: Why Do We Equate Genius with Precocity?

The Talent Myth: Are Smart People Overrated?

The last two are the best examples of Gladwell's premise as a whole. Being smart or being precocious are not necessarily indicators of anything. It is the hard work, perseverance, and most importantly the ability to tinker with your approach that makes all the difference.

I don't know too much about Gladwell's resume, but I do know he became a staff writer for The New Yorker at 32 years old and published his first book, The Tipping Point, at 36. So he wasn't exactly an overnight sensation. He had to work on and fine-tune his craft for years, and then he needed the vehicle for the audience to receive his message.

He was able to look at things a different way and pull in his audience, often drawing parallels between two completely different subjects and find a common link. Like mammography and military infrared weapon location. Or plagiarism and music sampling. Or spotting terrorists and faking mental illness. Or pit bulls and the New York City crime rate. He's got a million of them.

My favorite chapter is The Art Of Failure: Why Some People Choke and Others Panic. This essay (no chapter is more than 29 pages) breaks down the difference between Jana Novotna's infamous Wimbledon meltdown to JFK Jr's piloting crash in the Atlantic.

"Choking" is the pressure of the moment causing you to seize up and forget your years of learned experience, while "panicking" is a result of poor judgment based on inexperience. Jana Novotna knew how to serve, yet double-faulted three times when the Wimbledon title was on her racket. Conversely, JFK Jr had no idea what to do on a foggy night when he lost his horizon in his small plane.

It's a perfect example of why we can't paint everything, even failure, with such a broad brush. All you have to do is dig a little deeper.

Attempted Murder of Satire: David Brooks

What I saw today streaming virally was the equivalent of seeing this.

We bicker about 30-second negative adds which are misleading at best, whether it be a SuperPac slamming Bain Capital or Romney torching Obama on welfare. But all the "experts" seem to agree that the spots work - they appeal to the visceral biases of the American voter - the lowest common denominator. Joe Sixpack doesn't get sarcasm.

Which is why today's David Brooks opinion column The Real Romney makes no sense. Not that it wasn't somewhat clever, but what was the point and who is it reaching? New York Times Republicans?

Here are some snippets:

Mitt Romney was born on March 12, 1947, in Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Virginia and several other swing states.

He was given the name Mitt, after the Roman god of mutual funds, and launched into the world with the lofty expectation that he would someday become the Arrow shirt man.

The Romneys had a special family tradition. The most cherished member got to spend road trips on the roof of the car. 

Romney also went on a mission to France. He spent two years knocking on doors, failing to win a single convert. This was a feat he would replicate during his 2008 presidential bid.

After Harvard, he took his jawline to Bain Consulting, a firm with very smart people with excessive personal hygiene. While at Bain, he helped rescue many outstanding companies, like Pan Am, Eastern Airlines, Atari and DeLorean.

After a successful stint at Bain, Romney was lured away to run the Winter Olympics, the second most Caucasian institution on earth, after the G.O.P.

OK David Brooks. You aren't as pragmatic as your righty colleague Ross Douthat or as incendiary as your lefty counterpart Maureen Dowd. So I see your point in writing this...to establish some internet street cred.

But I'm not sure what to call it. If Bill Maher spoke or Matt Taibbi wrote those words, nobody would bat an eyelash. But since you're who you are, a conservative columnist at The New York Times, it's so rogue.

There are other places to take that kind of...work. There's the blogosphere, which you are eminently qualified for (this site for example). Or there's another publication where the editor could teach you about satire.

Or maybe the part you really wanted us to read was in your final paragraph:

At the convention, where his Secret Service nickname is Mannequin, Romney will talk about his real-life record: successful business leader, superb family man, effective governor, devoted community leader and prudent decision-maker.

But we've got a weeklong pageant from the national media for that. Which will be all but forgotten  by the end of next week.

Game Of Thrones: A Kingdom Rises in the West?

SEC Media Days are over, the surreal reality show that it was, with everyone from ESPN to The New Yorker broadcasting and eavesdropping on the minutiae of conference that's produced the last 6 national champions.

But as dominant and dynastic as the SEC has been, there's no room for complacency. Not only are there perennial powers in the Pac-12 (USC, Oregon), but the league is growing and innovating.

The conference that already had offense chess-masters Chip Kelly, Lane Kiffin, and Steve Sarkisian just added three more icons of spread and tempo. Granted, all three have some baggage.

Starting at Arizona, where Rich Rodriguez will hit the reset button on his career and bring the spread to Tuscon. Rodriguez was a West Virginia guy who found himself in no-man's land. This is all detailed in the book Three And Out by John U. Bacon.

The book's subtitle says it all: "Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football." The book is an eye-opener about the machine of the big university program. Basically it chronicles how Rich Rod became too big for West Virginia, but never fit the mold of a "Michigan Man," and was never really allowed to grow into one.

The book details how events (and people) in Ann Arbor conspired against Rodriguez, and he didn't get the chance to see through what he started there. His success at every level of college football is undeniable, and the footprint of what he started at Michigan is still seen every time Denard Robinson tucks the ball and has the run or pass option.

Arizona did well, and Arizona State was not to be outdone. Enter Todd Graham, the coach whose no-huddle offense set records at Rice and Tulsa, and looked like the guy to turn around Pitt - until he bolted after just one year.

Graham, a father of 6, now has to shake the reputation of a gold-digging opportunist. Not that he seems to care much what others think. He will have his Sun Devils conditioned for all conditions, and they became a better team when he set foot in Tempe.

And then there's Wazoo. Pullman, Washington might be the hardest locale to reach in college football, but it shouldn't matter to a man who spent 10 years in Lubbock, Texas. Mike Leach's mind is isolated from the rest of the world, something he efforts to explain (and mostly succeeds) in his autobiography.

Leach's system is simple - spread the offense enough so there's always more guys than they can cover. It's only how he explains it that's difficult. His success is also prolific - just check the numbers at Valdosta, Kentucky, and Texas Tech - with the one year he helped kickstart Oklahoma under Bob Stoops. It's reasonable to expect he'll do the same at Washington State.

His reputation as a swashbuckler is perpetuated mostly by himself. And the circumstances around his exit from Texas Tech are still a source of conflict - legal action against former broadcaster Craig James, and the network that formerly employed him, is still out there. I won't comment on that but I enjoyed the unconventional book.

Either way, the Pac-12 is fortunate to have all this spicy new blood in the league, not to mention Jim Mora, Jr. at UCLA.

The SEC is still king until the king is dead, but the Pac-12 may soon be ready for the throne.