You said just what I was thinking. That is, Gladwell, a Jew, through some twisted lineage, has become a propagandist so I also did not read his last two books. Well, he works for The New Yorker so must be under pressure to produce propaganda.

Thanks for the correction. I wonder if Surowiecki is a pen name for Gladwell for as you said, the style is the same. Gladwell is erratic. His books What the Dog Saw and David and Goliath are both nonsense IMO. The first was just unreadable and the second is propaganda. David and Goliath is a repeat of a common motif in folklore, for example the Tortoise and the Hare and others. The so-called Old Testament is a rehash of many creation myths with some Gilgamesh epic thrown in. Christians would be better to throw out the Old Testament that portrays an angry, vengeful God, who would smite you for the smallest transgression. But, as George Carlin said, he loves you. Did he love Lot's wife, who dared defy God and look back at something— Sodom and Gommorah — burning? It seems to me that looking back was a small and normal act that did not require turning her into a pillar of salt but then who am I to question the Jewish God.

Sometimes you and I see things amazingly similarly. I am not religious in any traditional sense but am spiritual and that is what I always tell my very old mother who always asks about my "religion" when I see her. Since we're on the subject, I do not like the word supernatural since any event or entity is either natural or does not exist.