Forget Facebook.

There is a new trend. It is rapidly rising within airport bathrooms. I blush to tell you that many do not flush the toilet.

It is anecdotal evidence, but on Monday—across the country—four out of four toilets needed a cleansing flush before use. Ever the cultural analyst, I've been swishing this trend around my head. Why no flush?

1. No time.  Not one second to lose! Onward! She wants the front of the line at the baggage carousel, the prime seat at the gate...to hurry up and wait.

2. Conscientious objector. Some folks oppose the draft. Others oppose the drift of water down the pipes. It is the public expression of this conviction to which I object.

3. Dayists. They believe you should only flush on Thursdays.

4. Phobias. There is a fear of flushing. A fear of centrifugal force. The fear of drought. Fear of sudden loud noises. Fear of tight places. There is a lion in the pipes.

5. Temporary blindness. None is so blind who will not see. Have you ever heard of acute-onset macular degeneration? There is no looking back.

6. Mild dementia. An entire generation of boomers find the sequence of sit-stand-flush-leave confusing. These are the gentle souls who gaze at the mirror wondering why they came to this spot, with a strong suspicion  there is something they forgot. Yes, darling, there is.

7. Technical assumptions. Not every potty is a smart potty. Not every smart potty is that smart.

8. Pigishness. Not to put down swine, but some folk are that way.

There is no easy way to arrest this stagnation. If love covers a multitude of sins, then courtesy flushes when others don't.

Superstar lawyers and math whizzes and software engineers appear at first blush to lie outside ordinary experience. But they don't. They are products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy. Their success is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky—but all critical to making them who they are.

Malcolm Gladwell, in Outliers, strikes a blow against individualism. When he looks carefully at the super successful—outliers—he examines the generation, class, ethnicity, and culture of the outlier. Granted, an outlier like Bill Gates has genius.  But that alone cannot explain Gates' success. Gladwell tells us why. This engaging book is a string of stories illustrating both the opportunities and the legacies given to many outliers, some whose names are household words, others more obscure. Gladwell discusses the 10,000 hour rule: that to excel at anything you must spend at least 10,000 hours working at it. In the story of Korean pilots, Gladwell discusses frankly how our ethnicity affects our success and/or failure.

While I've been digesting this book, I thought of an outlier in the blogging world: Ree Drummond of The Pioneer Woman. Many of you knew her as a homeschool mom on the Well-Trained Mind forum. She started a blog in 2006 that quickly exploded into a Big Deal. If you look at Ree's gifts, you will find a writer whose appeal crosses cultural lines, a little naughty for some and wickedly funny to the rest. She parlayed her story of city girl transplanted to a cattle ranch into an entertaining story compete with cliff hangers. But Gladwell would urge us to look at where Ree is from, what opportunities she was given. My theory is that she is a marketing genius. In one sense she bought her audience, offering regular giveaways for high-ticket items. She had the capital to give away Nikon cameras and $500 Amazon gift cards, converting the number of clicks into advertising revenue. That alone would not have been enough to keep her audience, but it attracted them in the first place. The daughter of a surgeon, she was raised with the expectation of hard work and excellence. This does not  diminish Ree's writing, Ree's photography, Ree's cooking, Ree's everything: she just didn't do it alone.

Happily, my favorite part of this book is the introduction. Happily? Yes! Because you can go Amazon click on Look Inside! and read it yourself. It tells the story of Roseto, PA, a community whose medical history is so much better than the norm that researches spent years working to crack open its secret. The answer, revealed in the eleven page introduction, is profound. I urge you to read it.

In the continuing saga of synchronicity, in one of my current reads, The Creative Habit, which predates Outliers, Twyla Tharp employs the same reasoning of Outliers to explain Mozart's success. You can also read this by following the link, clicking Look Inside!, and entering Mozart in the search box.

If Alexander McCall Smith were to write a book about an Indian matchmaker, The Marriage Bureau for Rich People would be the book. Light and delightful, exotic yet familiar, this cheerful book charmed me.

Through Mr. Ali, a retired government clerk, and owner of a newly opened marriage bureau, and his assistant, Aruna, the details of daily life in India are displayed. How, for instance, offering a drink of water to a guest is traditional courtesy, necessary for basic hospitality. That doesn't sound earth-shattering, but if you fail to offer the glass of water, great offense is given/taken. Zama names many of the Indian dishes/customs, but always offers an explanation. Some of the caste and religious distinctions are harder to grasp, but don't distract from the flow of the story.

Gentle humor pops up like marshmallows in hot chocolate.

He scowled and turned to Ramanujam and said, "Take a seat." He added, sotto voce, "You are taking our daughter, what's a seat?" 

What I appreciated the most about Marriage Bureau is the perspective it gave me on arranged marriages. 

I never expected this of you.... Have you no thought of your family's honor? And what about [her sister's] future? Which respectable family will accept her into their household if you have a love marriage? I am disappointed in you. You are the last person I expected to do something like this.

We don't marry for love. You know that. Love is supposed to follow marriage, not the other way around. A marriage is not just about two people. It is about two families.

Even better for understanding arranged marriage was this first-hand essay, First Comes Marriage, which Zama wrote for the New York Times. I am impressed and intrigued by Farahad Zama. Raised in the slums of an Indian coastal city, he was raised from the slums by the encouragement of his parents and his love of books. His acknowledgement at the end of the book made me smile: This book would not have been possible, but for [...] My two boys, who think that all writers will be as famous and rich as J. K. Rowling. If only. 

Thank you to Laura, without whom, I would not have known about this title.