BobHarris.com - The view from Channel Four

Books! Actual books!

"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... 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

"Snappy and informative"

-- Associated Press

"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

"A surprisingly intimate, entertaining book."

-- Orson Scott Card, 4-time Hugo Award winner, author of Ender's Game

"Funny, enlightening -- and just might help you win a million bucks on Jeopardy!"

-- A. J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All

"A masterful job of describing the feel of Jeopardy! in the heat of battle... I knew 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

Books I'm Getting

Who Hates Whom:
Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts,
and Various Things Blowing Up —
A Woefully Incomplete Guide™

“Revelatory... Harris's sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating... witty, horrific, and necessary.”

— Boston Globe

"Brave... irreverent... charges into the thick of the globe's myriad simmering wars... hilariously relaxed."

— New York Observer

"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

“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

"All three [presidential] candidates should read all three of these [recommended] books, but McCain gets first crack at Bob Harris's "Who Hates Whom“... a lighthearted overview of the insurrections and civil wars in the world today."

— Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought, in the New York Times Book Review

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Antiwar.com

The view from Channel Four

Tag it now -

Monday, 01 November 2004

Thanks to the miracle of absentee ballots, I'll be viewing the returns from here in the UK, where my friends Jovanka and Jonathan have been kind enough to stash me for a while.

Last night, I once again saw America through different eyes, this time through a Channel Four documentary on America's crazed political system and its activists. The contents were nothing startling to anyone paying attention, but the program's manner was striking: the presenter, a passionate gent named Peter Oborne, had the actual liberty to say obvious things out loud, calling the sham televised campaign events and hand-picked shills in attendance precisely what they were -- fake -- to a degree unthinkable in American "news" programming.

I could give a dozen details, but here's the basic difference: David Copperfield pretends to levitate his assistant. Wolf Blitzer shows up and breathlessly asks him how long he plans to continue. Larry King asks him how it feels to levitate someone. Rush Limbaugh spins the act of levitation to favor Bush, while pretending not to. Bill O'Reilly does the same, while grabbing the assistant's ass. Democrats spend more energy trying to feign levitation than presenting a viable alternative to make-believe.

And then comes the British reporter, pointing out the obvious, that nobody's really flying. Which is obvious to anyone who isn't part of the groupthink, which is to say, the entire world.

The Americans ignore the unwelcome visitor, and then complain: why can't everyone else see the magic?

And that's what it looks like from America's strongest ally.

We have a long way to go. But the first step is removing the biggest trickster from center stage.