Not Quite So New!
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"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... unlike his buzzer skills, his comic timing never fails"
-- The Wall Street Journal
"Pulls you in like a good sports story"
-- The New York Times Book Review
"Endearingly frank... jubilant... lighthearted and fast-paced"
-- New York Newsday
"A surprisingly touching memoir"
-- Entertainment Weekly
"Hugely funny"
-- Mental Floss
"Like Jeopardy! itself, it covers a lot of ground and in snappy and informative fashion"
-- Associated Press
"Down to earth and entertaining, even for non- Jeopardy! fans"
-- The New York Daily News
"A very funny writer... the book works like gangbusters."
-- Ken Jennings, 74-time Jeopardy! winner, holder of numerous other Jeopardy! records
"Effortlessly funny and informative... tender, human, and very wise... A must for anyone who loves Jeopardy!, or has ever seen it, or is breathing."
-- Joss Whedon, creator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
"I haven't seen Jeopardy! since I was a kid, and yet I was charmed and amused by Bob Harris's fascinating and surprisingly suspenseful book. Through sheer force of personality, he takes this brainy TV show and makes it funny and easy to relate to."
-- Ira Glass, creator and host, This American Life
"Eccentric, energetic, and engaging"
-- Publishers Weekly
"The perfect gift for any Jeopardy! fan... I was thoroughly entertained"
-- USA Today, "Pop Candy"
"Surprisingly compelling... a funny and in-depth look at what it takes to win"
-- Long Island Press
"Wise, honest, and very funny... I wish I'd written it. Then again, I wish I'd won $127,000 and his-and-hers Camaros on Jeopardy!, too."
-- Jeff Greenstein, writer/producer, Desperate Housewives, Will & Grace, Friends
"Cleverly executed... solid entertainment"
-- Kirkus Reviews
"Answer: A hilarious, engaging and highly entertaining book. Question: What is Prisoner of Trebekistan? (All right... that was sort of a lame Jeopardy! joke. But what can I say? It's a great book.)"
-- Paul Feig, creator of Freaks and Geeks, author of Superstud and Kick Me
"A surprisingly intimate, entertaining book."
-- Orson Scott Card, author of Ender's Game
" Prisoner of Trebekistan is funny, enlightening -- and just might help you win a million bucks on Jeopardy!"
-- A. J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All
"If you don't buy this book -- this funny, learned, charming, and surprisingly moving book -- I will make it burst into flames in your hands."
-- Arthur Phillips, author of Prague and The Egyptologist
"A keeper for anyone who's even remotely a fan of Jeopardy!"
-- TVSquad.com
"If you enjoy... self-aware, geeky good humor, this could actually be your favorite book of the year."
-- The Stranger
"Highly entertaining... laugh-out-loud, absurdist funny... hilarious"
-- Akron Beacon-Journal
"Hilarious... a true treat for all Jeopardy! fans."
-- Strand Bookstore
"Everything you'd hope for... surprisingly compelling... deftly woven together... this sweet, fascinating book is a great read."
-- Book-blog.com
"If super-intelligent space aliens invaded our planet and demanded to interview one member of our species to ascertain whether or not we human beings were logical, bright, kind, and entertaining enough to be allowed to continue, I would nominate, with all my powers of persuasion, Bob Harris."
-- Emo Philips, comedian
"A masterful job of describing the feel of Jeopardy! in the heat of battle... I knew that Bob was a great guy and a fantastic Jeopardy! player. Now I've found that he's also a wonderful writer. I think I'm starting to hate him."
-- Brad Rutter, top money-winner in Jeopardy! history
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“Revelatory... wryly funny about some very serious subjects... Harris's sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating... witty, horrific, and necessary.”
— Boston Globe
“Only Bob could make a user’s guide to our increasingly hostile world this absorbing, this breezy, and—ultimately—this hopeful.”
— Ken Jennings, author of Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs
"Brave... irreverent... charges into the thick of the globe's myriad simmering wars... hilariously relaxed."
— New York Observer
“Fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly: NOT TOTALLY DEPRESSING. A gimlet-eyed look at the world we endure that’s also suitable for enjoying with a gimlet.”
— John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise
and correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Main
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Who Hates Whom
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Tuesday, 25 September 2007 |
As you've probably already heard, about 100,000 of our fellow humans marched in peaceful opposition to a brutal regime yesterday, led by maybe 1000 Buddhist monks in full-on saffron gear waving six-color religious flags.
AP photo
Burma may seem far away, but it's not. Significant oil reserves, for example. Changes here, if nothing else, could affect how much you pay at the gas pump down the road. Also, it's ruled by a thuggish dictatorship opposed by most of its own population, and we all care about that on principle, right? So, big story. Theoretically.
Obviously, we'll root for the guys in burnt sienna togs holding pics of the Nobel Peace laureate, but nobody knows what happens next.
Thing is, for those relying only on TV news, nobody knows what already happened, either.
Out of curiosity, tonight I taped an hour each of two of CNN's signature shows -- the "Situation Room" (where the main situation usually seems to be Wolf Blitzer needing to speak in headlines! every third word!) and "Prime News with Erica Hill" on CNN's Headline News channel. So just how much airtime did an unprecedented march against one of the world's most despicable governments get?
Prime News with Erica Hill: zero minutes and zero seconds.
To anyone mistakenly relying on this program, the vast protest in Burma simply didn't happen. Although there was time to mention Mike Tyson's latest arrest, possible criminal charges against Britney Spears, a tapestry in Florida that kinda looks like the Virgin Mary, and -- I kid you not -- an extended discussion entitled "Does God Watch Sports?" Speaks for itself.
The Situation Room with Howlin' Wolf: one minute, fifty-two seconds, total, including a pre-commercial tease.
After a half-hour of designated-enemy baiting (Ahmadinejad's impotent idiocy contrasted with the speaking styles of Castro, Chavez, and Khruschev) and pointless yet heavily-hyped chat with Donald Trump (why? because he's so terribly hard to find on TV?) -- and only after reporting on a new study finding that (quoting CNN's graphic) "Too Much, Not Enough Sleep Can Kill You" -- one brief report on Burma, almost completely devoid of history or context.
Wolf tossed to a young lady named Abbi standing at a big TV showing a QuickTime movie downloaded from the internet, which she proceeded to point at, confirming that these were indeed monks in "MEE-ann-mar," and this was footage from the internet, and the Burmese government doesn't like it. Back to you, Wolf!
(Think I'm exaggerating? Read the transcript.)
So. Aren't you still a little curious about why tens of thousands of Burmese might join this monk-led protest? Or just how oppressive the Burmese government might be? Who exactly is this Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, now in her twelfth year of house arrest? And how is she descended from a key luminary in Burma's independence struggle, and therefore inseparable with national identity for many democracy activists? Why is it called Myanmar by some people and Burma by others? What's the difference? Where the hell is Burma, anyway, and why did the British and Japanese fight over it? What about the influence of China, and its oil companies, and those of other countries? Is it still a big source of opium? And what's the deal with boycotting teak? Are we still supposed to do that?
That's all in the Burma essay in Who Hates Whom. And it's only five pages long. Including a map showing roughly where the major oil pipelines and opium producers are.
Who Hates Whom exists because today's pattern was no exception. It'll be repeated elsewhere tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. The sad reality: TV news shows generally are not there to deliver you information that you can use -- they exist to deliver you... to the advertisers. You're the product being bought and sold. And the most efficient way to do that is to inflame, to excite, to bring back recurring characters (Donald Trump, coming up next!), good guys and bad guys. It's a news show, involving actual news, to about the same extent that Cheez Whiz involves actual cheese.
(If you need further proof, why else would a perfectly intelligent CNN anchor bother to conduct a lengthy segment rambling on about whether or not an unknowable infinite invisible deity is personally invested in televised sports, for f*** sake? It sure as hell ain't for the news value.)
 So last year, I was in my editor's office, and we were bouncing around ideas for my next book. Not intending to pitch this, actually, I made one offhand comment about how it would be cool if there were a little guidebook, called, I dunno, Who Hates Whom or something, detailing most of the major conflicts in the world with little maps and photos and short essays, all crunched down short enough that you could bone up on Iran or Sudan in one trip to the can. Next time tens of thousands of people are pouring into the streets, or something blows up somewhere and you're, y'know, a little curious what the hell is going on, and you'd like something that doesn't involve Britney Spears being shot by Phil Spector, this book would be handy.
A year later, Who Hates Whom hits bookstores today. It ain't perfect, mind you -- wars are high-flux situations, books require months of lead time, and I'm neither infallible nor a real expert on anything -- but it's the best I could squeeze together, small enough to fit in your jacket pocket.
Meanwhile, let's just hope that the Burma chapter in some future edition will have a very happy update. Instead of the messier one that the government decided on last time.
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Prisoner of Trebekistan
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Sunday, 23 September 2007 |
 I am so happy and proud to know this guy.
My good Trebekistan buddy David Madden, holder of the second-longest consecutive-game win streak in the history of Jeopardy!, is hiking the entire east coast of the U.S. -- from Edmundston, New Brunswick just over the Canadian border all the way to Key West -- while raising money for Fisher House, which provides temporary hospital-adjacent housing for families of wounded soldiers.
When I tell you over and over that Trebekistan is filled with incredibly cool people, this is what I mean.
And whatever you think of the war -- and David and I think along pretty similar lines -- there are now thousands of fellow Americans who were put in harm's way as a result, and they and their families have to pull together now and find a way to get through it. This is a pretty amazing (for David) and easy (for us) way to help.
He's got a blog up and running now, plus a couple of cool photo albums, if you'd like to see what it's like to walk 3000 miles for charity.
Toss in a penny a mile, and that's thirty bucks. Or throw in two pennies. Or three. Donations are tax-deductible and Fisher House gets absolutely top ratings from charity watchdogs.
Bright guy, David. Also, and more importantly, good.
Let's do some good now, too.
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The War On Tara
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Saturday, 22 September 2007 |
See, this is why we can't have anything nice in this house.
The Dove of Peace should never have let him have those last five beers.
(From an idea by alert reader Dan.)
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Activism
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Friday, 21 September 2007 |
And I'm sure you're hearing all about it in the US press. Probably can't even turn on the TV or the radio without seeing something about it. Ahem.
Sigh.
PS, added as a somewhat crass but fully sincere afterthought: Come to think of it, picking up a copy of Who Hates Whom might not be a bad thing for the day. Can't solve a problem without taking the time to try to understand it.
Whole reason I wrote the book, actually.
(Well, that, and the paycheck. But the other reason was bigger. You'd believe that if you saw the check.) |
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Pudu
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Friday, 21 September 2007 |
As you may have seen mentioned here before, this site's tiny mascot has also been chosen as the symbol of the Chilean version of the One Laptop Per Child movement, which is using these a series of adorable little soft figures as part of the campaign.
Turns out the talented source of this cuteness is named Lizette Greco, and her Flickr set of puduitude is presented in slide show form here. Prepare to want one for yourself.
Thing is, the money you'd spend on it could help put a laptop in a kid's hands. So that would be even cooler and cuter.
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Travel
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Wednesday, 19 September 2007 |
Because you can never have enough Iceland.
And now, here's pretty much the entire Reykjavik skyline:
That's the Hallgrimskirkje (Hallgrim's Church), a sort of Lutheran-meets-Batman thing. And this really is much larger than anything else in town. Reykjavik is teeny; its population is only about half that of Akron. All of Iceland, in fact, apparently has only half as many people as the Akron metro area, on an island as big as Ohio.
Downtown was hardly deserted, though -- this was the annual Culture Night, Reykjavik's biggest event of the year, a joyous city-wide evening of singing, dancing, museum-visiting, and alcoholism.
The local brand, Viking, is fresh and delicious and usually delivered with Scandinavian precision to an actual fill-line, almost as if it were medicine. Which, during the long winters, it probably is.
The highlight of Culture Night for me was a demonstration of an Icelandic violin. (By Santa!) This sounded just like a regular violin, only if it were pleading for its life while being submerged in cold water by its neck.
St. Nick here actually rocked, even with the medieval design. And he seemed truly passionate about the subject. Given a choice, I'm sure he probably wouldn't have designed a violin by basically putting strings on a french bread. (If you think my nicknames for the man are silly, he actually goes by Diddi Fiðla, "Fiddle Daddy." So. Your call.)
Strangely, the titles of Icelandic multilanguage dictionaries were just as musical.
Islansk, ensk, islansk, densk! Islansk, spansk, islansk, fransk! Lemme hear you now! Catchy as hell, the reference section.
Pleasant surprise: the modesty of the president's official residence, which is just an 18th-century schoolhouse behind an old church by the water, with no gates or visible security of any kind.
This is Iceland's White House. But this sort of blissful non-security was only beginning. Wait until you see the domestic air terminal.
More shortly.
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Who Hates Whom
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Wednesday, 19 September 2007 |
Ahoy!
Today be International Talk Like A Pirate Day, which reminds me: as a bonus, Who Hates Whom also includes listin's o' t' most buccanneered waters on this green earth.
Careful eye wit' yer booty off t' coasts o' Somalia, Bangladesh, or t' southern Philippines, mateys -- an' dasn't paddle through t' Strait o' Malaka without yer heavy arms, lest ya be lookin' t' be keelhauled, swashbuckled, and stripped o' ye treasure by t' scurvy dogs.
Ahhhr, says I.
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Who Hates Whom
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Tuesday, 18 September 2007 |
My new book is available next week, although you can order right this second if you want to:
Who Hates Whom: Well Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts, And Various Things Blowing Up — A Woefully Incomplete Guide™.
It’s exactly what it sounds like — a brief, pocket-sized paperback guide to about 35 of the world’s major conflict zones, complete with original maps, illustrations, and photographs.
Frankly, if you’ve ever wished for a book that allows you to look up who’s who in Sudan in one trip to the can, here it is.
Is it any good? I have no idea, honestly. There were a kajillion compromises in getting this thing down to pocket size.* But I worked hard on it, and so far, WHW has picked up some kind praise from John Hodgman of The Daily Show, Ken Jennings from Jeopardy!, comedian Emo Philips, and — of all things — Men’s Health magazine, which chose it as a “Must Have” in their September issue. (Will reading Who Hates Whom therefore give you tighter abs? Possibly.)
If you enjoy the occasional political stuff on this blog, or if you liked the general vibe of last year’s Prisoner of Trebekistan, you might dig it. I hope you will.
*It’s not up yet, but I’ll have WhoHatesWhom.com at least partially up sometime next week with extras, deleted stuff, source notes, errata, etc.
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Stuff I like
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Monday, 17 September 2007 |
More kindness in the last 48 hours, and more thanks are in order.
First, to the Dodgers, who on Saturday treated all of Team Pudu to an entire box right behind third base, practically on the field.
"Practically on the field" isn't hyperbole. Just a few years ago, before these new seats were added, our rumps would have actually been in foul ground in the field of play. When Alex Gonzalez hit a 3-run homer in the first, you could even hear the third baseman grunt his disapproval.
So, a big thanks to Ellen and the kind folks at Dodger town.
On Sunday, Team Pudu also found ourselves all tuxed up and wandering into the Emmys, right there on the red carpet like the big kids. (Sorry for the subpar pics here; only cellphone cameras were allowed in.)
This was hardly an exclusive gig; there were almost as many people at the Shrine Auditorium as had been at Dodger Stadium the day before. Still, the TV business is often described as being about the size of a large high school; if so, then the Emmys are the big high school talent show, but with lots of actual talent bounding around, only a fraction of which gets televised. Rest assured: conversation with people who write ripping dialogue for a living is a pretty good time.
Favorite moment: the surprise Tony Bennett mini-concert in the middle of the Governor's Ball. I mean, I'm just standing there, catching up with some people, and hey, that's Tony Bennett!
Awesome fun weekend in puduland. Many thanks to all involved.
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Iraq
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Friday, 14 September 2007 |
The L.A. Times story is here. Not surprisingly, the Pentagon dismisses the estimate out of hand, but as Jon points out, it's right in line with this extrapolation of last year's Lancet study, which was also dismissed out of hand, despite using widely-accepted methodology.
Meanwhile, when random Americans were polled a few months ago by the Associated Press, the median guess for the death toll was under ten thousand.
Obviously, we really have no idea how many innocent people have died in Iraq. But there's at least a fair chance that however bad you may think Iraq is, you might need to multiply it by one hundred.
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Iraq
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Friday, 14 September 2007 |
Rep. John Boehner's communications director has now provided an excuse for his boss's already-notorious comment to Wolf Blitzer that the blood of Americans is a "small price:"
"Wolf asked about the money spent in Iraq, and that’s what Mr. Boehner was referring to when he said our troops’ efforts are critical for the safety and security of our country."
This is, of course, precisely the excuse rather easily predicted -- and, as described in advance, a rather horrifying admission that when confronted with both dollars and American blood in the same question, the GOP's leader in the House only hears the dollar amounts.
The predictability of the current leadership's inhumanity would be almost funny if it weren't so goddam awful.
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Pudu
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Friday, 14 September 2007 |
Again substituting puffins for pudus, since puffins may be the pudus of the tiny-aquatic-bird world anyway...
Forwarded by alert reader Billie after my Iceland trip, specifically this post about the annual Puffin Rescue on the island of Heimaey:
I just hope the one on the right isn't thinking this is some sort of mating ritual.
Because, well, splinters.
Lots more Iceland stuff I'd like to post if I ever get a minute. In the meantime, if you ever get the chance, just go.
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