BobHarris.com - Whose side are we on, anyway? Certainly not our own...

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

Main

HRW

Whose side are we on, anyway? Certainly not our own...

Tag it now -

Wednesday, 30 March 2005

Who has the Bush administration chosen as the acting director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service?

A former chief lobbyist for Safari Club International.

That's an extremist trophy-hunting organization which promotes the competitive killing of rare species.

Naturally.

According to the Humane Society, some of these "sportsmen" kill captive animals to get their trophies.

Seems to fit right in with the post just below. Also, read this from Canada, which still has a functioning national news media, concerning the same massive study: Earth has suffered irreversible damage.

Y'know, some days I honestly don't see any mechanism in American society capable of even recognizing the terrific, fundamental cruelty being done to our future, much less addressing it. Hell, the most tenuous grip on reality has become irrelevant to mainstream dialogue on a stunning variety of topics, often even considered suspicious, anti-American, or (perhaps worst of all) unrighteous.

The very best people I know in this country are too often consumed merely with trying to slow down the lunatics. Energy that should be spent putting out global fires is being wasted refighting the Enlightenment. And giant chunks of a properous populace with no goddammed excuse is genuinely, truly, sincerely more concerned with the voting on a TV talent show than voting for their actual government.

Last year, I wandered the ruins of Troy, where you can witness the rise and fall of almost a dozen different civilizations, all stacked up in the same spot. Every single one of them thought they knew what they were doing. When then end came (as it always does), every single one of them returned to the dirt, their gods dead, their epic struggles wasted and forgotten, and their most treasured creations reduced to inscrutable shards.

You and I and all of us are not the privileged product of millennia of human improvement. We do not occupy a privileged luxury box from which we can view the mistakes of the past from above as they parade for our amusement. We are on the ground, in the dust, and making the same short-sighted decisions, this time on a fantastically grander scale.

What disturbs me this morning, other than my own part in the waste (which remains large, as it must be for anyone living in the highest-impact society yet designed), is a growing sad realization:

Suppose for a moment that an international movement began with the genuine potential to start pulling humanity back from the precipice. Just imagine it, briefly. Let a few details of its shape and scope and necessities bounce around in your brain for a few seconds.

And now let's consider: if such a movement actually existed, would America's government, media, and populace be likely to join?

Or would this most heavily-armed nation in human history -- the one where an advocate of killing rare species for fun is currently about to become director of a key wildlife post -- be vigorously, furiously opposed?