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
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“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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Main  FAS
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We must still confront the Baby Stewie Holy Death Zombies |
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Tuesday, 24 May 2005 |
The deal about the Deal, as far as I can see...
The trio of extremist judges who will now dance right into lifetime
appointments are all walking travesties, but it turns out all three are
headed for courts that are already stacked with scary right-wingers.
So in the near-term, at least, the GOP's biggest win here actually
affects little.
I take a moment to note that I'm seeking consolation in the fact that
many of our circuit courts are already controlled by lunatics.
In the short-term, however, it's a win. A lot of great stuff has been protected here: the
constitutional role of the Senate in the appointment of the judiciary,
plus the importance and validity of Senate rules which ensure at least
a measure of bipartisan support for lifetime appointments. All good.
In the medium-term, it might be nothing at all. The wording is vague
enough in places that the entire agreement might unravel the moment
Bush nominates Gonzales or some other torture-friendly nutjob to the
Supreme Court. And Rehnquist is likely to hop off the bench shortly.
If Bush pushes the confrontation by appointing an extremist (and
that's his style; after all, he's still traveling with his little Social Security
snake oil show, despite the clear fact that the public has decided it
wants no such thing), this whole magilla starts all over.
Long-term, however, the very notion of Senate rules having any meaning at all
has itself been put on the table. And if the last few years have shown
us anything, it's that what's unimaginably extreme today can be spun
into conventional wisdom tomorrow.
Compulsive executive secrecy, lies to Congress, elective war in defiance of virtually the entire
world, nationalized surveillance databases,
imprisonment without trial, torture without accountability, reporters on the White House payroll, elections with no paper trail, and
dozens of other concepts complete alien to any basic understanding of
what America is supposed to be have all become a part of the daily landscape.
They push for a foot and we surrender an inch. But fanatics never
stop. So gradually we're all pulled along. Inches become feet become
miles.
So victory is ours: we only gave an inch this time. Again. It's clear Reid didn't have the votes to win on the floor, or this
compromise wouldn't have happened. Compared to the remaining
alternative, this deal looks pretty damn good. And seeing Frist fail
in his attempt to win the White House by turning the keys of government
over to James Dobson certainly feels good.
So what do we do now? Short-term, I think it's time to call the Senators
who compromised and praise the holy crap out of them. We're probably
going to need them again in a few months.
Medium-term, we start working even harder on winning in 2006. Even if
the filibuster deal holds, that's the expiration date. We gotta beat
the torture party at the polls this time or we very likely will lose the courts, the constitutional system of checks and balances, and likely the nature of the entire democracy itself.
This is doable. The Undecideds out there often got that way by looking
at two political parties with relatively similar visions and a
political system that often minimizes their ability to affect the
ballot choices. And to a sad degree, correctly so.
But I'd bet most folks won't stay Undecided about attempts to
create a one-party state. Most good Americans aren't Undecided about
having their Social Security slashed by the same liars who are getting
thousands of people killed in an unnecessary war. I don't see anybody staying Undecided once the shiny new death chamber at Gitmo starts executing people who have been denied legal representation.
We can get the Undecideds just by telling them the truth.
But however this particular battle plays out in the next few years, the basic long-term dynamics of our
situation haven't changed a bit. Tens of millions of Americans --
possibly as much as 30% of the country and growing -- are still
afflicted with a whole series of bizarre notions, to wit:
• that corporations whose sole legal
purpose is to maximize profit and externalize costs are trustworthy
stewards of the public good, and thus deserve legal and political power
unavailable to individual citizens
• that the politicians and media figures who serve these institutions
most slavishly, mouthing their deceptive PR and inviting them into the
backest rooms of media and government, are the most devoted servants of
the working American public
• and that when (and only when) the name of a specific deity is invoked
by these amoral creatures, their work in rolling back and attacking
virtually every social, political and environmental protection takes on
the holy glow of a just, generous, and loving God of infinite power who
nonetheless has chosen to reveal himself only to a minority of humankind
Believing any of these notions requires a stunningly fictitious,
invented version of even basic history, economics, and several hard
sciences, one which puts the believer and his or her life reassuringly
in the center of the noblest people in the greatest country in the
history of God's creation. (You're familiar with the rough outlines if
you've consumed even ten minutes of typical talk radio or Fox News.)
It's a comprehensive if altogether false and destructive worldview,
hypnotic in its pervasiveness and seductive in its constant massage of
the believer's ego, which is then usefully instructed to identify with
the corporate state and lash out like a raging infant at anyone who
dares intrude on the constructed reality.
In short, we still have tens of millions of hypnotized Baby Stewie Holy Death Zombies.
And they vote.
We have no means yet to return large numbers of them to reality. It's also not entirely clear such a feat is possible.
Yes, the constitution is intact for another day. And for this I am
happy and grateful, and I applaud everyone for their efforts. I hope
we keep going.
If we are to stop measuring our victories in inches surrendered, then
like the fanatics on the other side we cannot stop now. We must
realize what we are up against.
We must still confront the Baby Stewie Holy Death Zombies.
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Loan a Few Bucks, Change a Few Lives
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