The Nation on the Olympics

he Winter Olympics have been to NBC what icebergs were to the Titanic. With the exception of the prime-time figure skating competition Tuesday, ratings have been subterranean, as the Torino Games have been routinely trounced by everything from American Idol to the Home Shopping Network. Thus far the network's $613 million investment looks like it would have been better spent on Betamax stock. A question worth asking is why? The answers speak to everything that's wrong with the arrogance of television networks and the hypocrisy and jingoism at the heart of the games. Let's go through it point by point.

Gladwell at ESPN

This week's exchange is with Malcolm Gladwell, the best-selling author of "Blink" and "Tipping Point" as well as the longtime cleanup hitter for the New Yorker. You would never think that the most successful nonfiction writer alive would double as a huge sports fan ... but he does. So I couldn't resist the chance to exchange e-mails with him intermittently over the "http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060302">past six weeks.