"The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding."

When I grow up, I want to be Malcolm Gladwell.

I just got done reading his recent book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, and it is one of the best written and most enjoyable reads I have had in quite a while.

Gladwell first came onto my radar late last year, when I saw a clip of him on The Colbert Report. He seemed very subdued and soft spoken, and very out of place in the full glare of Colbert's rapid-fire wit. Despite this, I sensed that Gladwell had a sharp mind, and I was won over by the quiet forcefulness of his ideas. Plus, he had this crazy hair that I thought was pretty cool.

So my brother in law gave us Blink for Christmas, and I picked it up a couple of weeks ago for some "distraction reading" (the types of books I pick up to fill gaps in days when I'm not writing myself or reading something specific for my class preparations). When I do this type of reading, I often put the book down pretty quickly, as I get easily bored with a lot of popular titles.

Not so in this case.

Having spent several years as a science correspondent for the Washington Post, and later as a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine, Gladwell has honed his writing to a fine journalistic edge. He has already penned several bestsellers, and seems to have no limit to the amount of popular books he can produce.

Gladwell writes in a very conversational, engaging style. It almost feels as if he is perched in the chair next to you as you are reading, and the two of you are just tossing ideas around. The ideas, in this case, are more interesting, however, than those that pop up in your average casual conversation.

Blink is preoccupied with the human capacity for what Gladwell calls "thin slicing." This is his term for the instantaneous, gut level decisions that we make, that often turn out to be much more accurate and incisive than those decisions over which we expend a great deal of time, research and deliberation.

As but one example, my favorite portion of the book was the chapter entitled "Paul Van Riper's Big Victory," in which Gladwell becomes a fly on the wall for a set of war game exercises conducted by the American military in 2002. The event was intended to be a showcase of the latest in reconnaissance and strategic technologies. Think about those Air Force recruitment commercials you've seen lately -- "It's not science fiction; It's what we do every day" -- that sort of stuff. The Big Idea was that during the war game simulation, the armed forces would use all this new technology, and veteran commander Van Riper would play the part of a rogue general in the Middle East theater. It was supposed to be a rout.

However, as Gladwell's account unfolds, things did not turn out the way the military brass anticipated. The very technologies that were deployed to keep the commanders abreast of every last detail of field operations quickly overwhelmed both the high-level and mid-level officers, leading to hesitations. Meanwhile, Van Riper and his fictitious factions of zealous rogue armies very quickly exploited every tactical advantage, leading to some rapid, stunning, and quite embarrassing defeats for the American forces in the war game.

Gladwell points out that information, in itself, is neither a good nor a bad thing to have. It is, instead, knowing which information is essential in a given exchange that makes the difference. This is as true on the battlefield as it is in the worlds of fine art, education, music, and taste-testing.

During the course of the book, we are introduced to leading psychologists who demonstrate how this "think slicing" capacity we have leads us to make really excellent (and truly horrendous) decisions. Along the way, we encounter a researcher who (supposedly) can read faces so acutely that he can judge, just by looking at someone, their motivations and sexual orientations. We also learn that most people, when put under pressure, reveal reflexive tendencies toward bigotry and racial profiling that are unintentional, but nonetheless very measurable.

Gladwell does not just present these facts, but frames them in a series of ethical questions that helps the reader to see that these sorts of insights into the human mind might actually, if applied, make the world a slightly better place. "This is the real lesson of Blink," he writes. "It is not simply enough to explore the hidden recesses of our unconscious. Once we know how the mind works -- about the strengths and weaknesses of human judgment -- it is our responsibility to act" [276].

What I enjoyed most about the book was Gladwell's seemingly endless ability to make interesting connections. How did he find all of these people? It seems like he spends his time traveling to various locations, following one lead and then another, having fascinating conversations and gleaning these nuggets of vital knowledge. It strikes me as a very similar approach to the one taken by the folks at RadioLab, only there it's sound and here it ends up on paper.

This book is the real deal. It's informative and inspiring. I got done reading it and the first thing I thought was, "I want to write like that. I want to have conversations like that."

Seriously. Even if I never will achieve his cool hair, I still want to grow up to be Malcolm Gladwell.


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There are two colors in my head, kid, eh?

Awaiting February 2nd: Everything in its right place.

Just plain PHAT

You know, I have a friend who teaches folks how to play violin concertos on the guitar. Now I just stumbled across Eric Stanley, who added these catgut licks to the Trey Songz joint "Say Aah." And what he drops is, quite frankly, mad fresh.

First, I am not sure I am allowed to be talking like this. Second, I don't care; I am smiling.

Brother West on Democratic Socialism and the legacy of Dr. King

Cornel West, honorary chairperson of the Democratic Socialists of America, spoke earlier this week with Tavis Smiley of Public Radio International about socialism and capitalism, as they apply (or don't) to the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama.

Listen to the interview here.

Just in time for (next year's) Christmas

“Art is permitted to survive only if it renounces the right to be different, and integrates itself into the omnipotent realm of the profane.”

~ Theodor W. Adorno

C'est Interresant

I was just tidying up my corner of cyberspace when I came across a blip on the radar that intrigued me.

Apparently there is a blog in France, Things Which Must Be Disseminated, that picked up one of my old posts.

I can't vouch for the rest of the content there (I've only just discovered it, and have not done much exploring of the rest of the posts) but I was a bit tickled that someone around the globe found some use for something I had to say. Glad to have folks reading. Thanks.

2009 Update and Holiday Letter

Advent 2009 and New Years 2010

Dear Friends,

To say that this was a crazy year would be an understatement. So much has happened since our last holiday letter it seems impossible to fit it all onto only a couple of pages. We'll do our best to fill you in on the highlights, at least.

In January of this year we were still in Nashville. Kira had graduated from Vanderbilt with her master’s degree in December, and at the start of the New Year 2009 she was a few months in to her chaplaincy internship at Baptist Hospital. David had defended his dissertation in December, and was hard at work getting the rewrites done and last pieces in place to turn it in and be finished. We were both very involved in teaching at our parish, Christ the King, though the constant schedule of mentoring, on top of worship, was starting to wear on us a bit. David was also hard at work with a new semester of teaching at American Baptist College, and was working slowly but surely on his book for Yale University Press.

Winter took a sad turn in mid-February, as we learned of the passing of David's mother from lung disease. Kira and David traveled to Columbus, Georgia (David's home town) to see to her affairs and arrangements. They were well supported during this time by family and friends; thought the sense of loss has not yet fully passed.

March brought some distraction, due to a very hectic travel schedule for David. During the month he presented papers at conferences in Durham, North Carolina, in Indianapolis, Indiana, and in Manhattan. In addition to this, he was invited to come to the University of Virginia for several days to present some of his research to the doctoral students in the religious studies program there. During these travels Kira and David became experts at using Skype, a computer program that allows you to talk for free with your laptops. This was a welcome blessing of the Internet age.

As spring progressed we were winding up our long association with Vanderbilt University, and April was full of wonder as to what would happen next. Though David had sent out many job applications in the previous months, the bleak economy had diminished our hopes for a firm offer for the following year for teaching, so April was a month of waiting and hoping. Little did we know.

In late April we were surprised and overjoyed to discover that Kira was pregnant, and that we were going to be parents. We were excited and scared at the news, given the uncertainty of our income for the following year. God was gracious with His timing, however. On the evening of the day we found out Kira was expecting, David got a call from an old graduate school colleague informing him of an opening for the following fall at Christian Brothers University in Memphis. It was a last-minute position, filling a vacancy that had come too late in the year for a normal search. Would David be interested in applying?

Needless to say, David was interested. So he sent in his application and waited on pins and needles as the process took its course over the next couple months. In the meantime, David had the opportunity to receive his doctoral gown and hood at graduation. Both Kira's parents and David's father, brother and step-mom traveled to Memphis for the event, which gave Kira and David the opportunity to give them the good news in person about Kira's "delicate condition." The next weekend, Kira and David were off to Gambier, Ohio for her brother's graduation from Kenyon College.

In June David traveled to Halifax, Nova Scotia for several days to present a paper at the Catholic Theological Society of America conference. When he returned he was happy to learn that he had made the list of candidates to be interviewed for the Christian Brothers' position. The telephone interview went well and David was guardedly hopeful that there might be a job for him in the fall. Kira had her first ultrasound, and we were elated to see an image of our tiny baby, and to learn that mama and Kritter (as we've begun calling the child) were both were healthy and fine.

In early July word came that David had been chosen for the Christian Brothers position, and we began some frantic planning and packing to prepare to move. This was complicated by two major trips that occurred during the month. First, David had been invited to spend another week at UVA, this time meeting with biblical scholars from around the globe who work on an interfaith dialogue project known as Scriptural Reasoning. Then, at the end of the month, Kira and David traveled for a week to Oak Island, North Carolina, for a vacation with Kira's parents at the beach. In between, we made a whirlwind trip to Memphis and hunted down a house to rent that was somewhat affordable and near enough to school for David to be able to walk to work, and made plans to move the first week of August.

All this time, Kira was continuing very successfully in her residency as a chaplain, and was highly praised by her supervisors and co-workers for her skills and poise with patients and their families.

In August David moved to Memphis with the boxes of books and furniture, and Kira moved into the home of her friend and co-worker, Kim Sheehan, in order to finish out the final weeks of her residency. During this time we again got very good at using Skype. David traveled back to Nashville on the 18th for our two-year anniversary, an occasion that was made all the sweeter with another healthy prenatal visit, this time with the first chance for us to hear Kritter's heartbeat and see some amazingly detailed sonogram images (though we elected not to learn whether it was a girl or a boy).

In the first week of September Kira finished her residency and said goodbye to Nashville. David had already been teaching at Christian Brothers for several days by the time she joined him in Memphis, and they set to work finishing the unpacking of the boxes and beginning the arranging of the house.

While David was happy to be employed, it was unclear what was in store for Kira, particularly since she was arriving in the city already quite well along in her pregnancy. A good friend (in fact the wife of the Vanderbilt colleague who had called David about the CBU position in the first place) put Kira in touch with the Church Health Center, a local nonprofit focused on faith and wellness. At Kira's first meeting with them, she signed a contract with them as a freelance writer, and began working thirty hours a week from home on various projects for the center.

In October David took a trip to Montreal for the American Academy of Religion conference, where he had some job interviews and started to work on some advance publicity for his book. He also had an interview at Christian Brothers for the permanent position of the job he now holds (he was hired as a visiting professor for this year). We were also paid a visit by David's dad and step-mom, who were passing through on the way home from visiting his brother in St. Louis.

Kira and David traveled to Washington, Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving and spent the weekend with Kira's parents and extended family. This was the last big trip we would take this year.

Now we have a new perspective on Advent. Kira and the baby are both very healthy, and she is very pregnant. We are counting the days until her projected due date (early January!), and anxiously awaiting the arrival of our new family member.

Meanwhile, we both keep writing, keep unpacking, keep organizing, and keep praying. Our prayers are for you and yours, this holiday season, for your health and happiness, and for a blessed New Year. Merry Christmas, and know that you are remembered and loved,

Fondest regards,

Kira and David