BobHarris.com - Kenya needs a welding shop

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

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-- 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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Kenya needs a welding shop

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Thursday, 18 August 2005

Also a posho mill and a sugar cane farm.

My friend Ethlie's nephew Mathieu is a filmmaker who started out trying to document the HIV/AIDS pandemic in rural Africa. Motivated by what he has seen, however, he is now focusing more on trying to help set up basic education for an entire generation of children in a Kenyan village.

Where are these kids' parents? Dead, too many of them, from HIV.

Thinking long-term, Mathieu and the local leaders have figured out a bunch of businesses they could start which would quickly become self-sustaining, with the revenue going to educate the kids long-term.

This isn't something where the money goes to some corrupt African bureaucracy, or half of it goes to administration costs, or the project is some damn thing that just makes it easier for big business to move in.

This goes straight to the folks who need it, to do exactly what they need to get started. And then they're up and running. The metaphor he's using: they've built the farm. Now they're just hoping somebody can chip in some seeds to get started.

They don't need much.

Doing the math, if everybody who visits this site between now and next week chips in just one dollar, once, they'll have enough to get all three basic businesses off the ground.

I bet we can do that.

Personally, I'd love to see how much good happens if we all chip in five bucks.