BobHarris.com - These Puzzling Anglicans

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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Juan Cole

These Puzzling Anglicans

Tag it now -

Tuesday, 19 October 2004

Let's see here. High-ranking Anglican leaders are a-blither at the idea that members of their order dared ordain a gay man as a priest.

How strange. I am so surprised.

Let's see if I can get this straight: Men who pretend to know the conscious will of an infinite being... who wear medieval garb chiefly to invoke a superstitious mindset, not because it relates directly to the ancient Roman human sacrifice they celebrate... and whose traditions only even exist because Pope Gregory (who once got in a fevered row over whether resurrected bodies had physical heft) sent the nutjob St. Augustine (who considered sexuality itself a form of divine punishment -- even claiming that infants sinned in wanting their mother's breast) north to keep the Celts, a conquered people, from going back to their own damned religion...

... these folks are suddenly not acting in a rational manner?

Can this be?

No, this makes no sense at all.

UPDATE: Several readers have pointed out that in the above rant, I thoughtlessly conflated two different Augustines -- the errand boy to the Celts and the anti-sex guilt-tripper were, in fact, two different guys. Been a while since I crammed on this stuff, and I appreciate the feedback. Very thankful to have such knowledgeable readers.