BobHarris.com - The BBC Great Lakes Service

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

Juan Cole

The BBC Great Lakes Service

Tag it now -

Tuesday, 29 November 2005

Bopping around the less traveled bits of the BBC site, I accidentally discovered something wonderful: the BBC Great Lakes Service.

For a moment, I wondered if they were translating the news into midwestern American dialect, with frequent references to bowling, high school football, and lake effect snow.

It is not, however, anything we'd recognize back home on the shores of Lake Erie.

Sorting out what the hell these webpages actually say is the most fun I've had all day. What follows is my attempt to share the experience in a glance.

This fellow, for example, is definitely the Pope. He's saying something about how the gatolika kiliziya has renewed its straight-men-only policy regarding imibonano mpuzabitsina. And this from a guy who wears Prada shoes.

And then there's this story, about how the Bush administration ntiremeza amasezerano ya the Kyoto emissions targets, dragging its feet again in Montreal about carbon dioxide wonona ibirere the same way leta zunz'ubumwe za Amerika has since the damn thing was signed.

Wow, is that ever a cool language.

Of course, simbizi if what I just wrote made any sense. But usually simbizi squat in general.

What language is that, you ask? Good question. I'm honestly not sure. I don't see the answer on the BBC site. As near as I can Google, it's Kinyarwanda or maybe Kirundi, but that's my ass talking, and it speaks with a thick accent in English, much less Bantu languages. Anyway, since the Great Lakes of Africa would be the bit around Rwanda and Burundi and Uganda and such, that's a logical guess, and I've proceeded accordingly. But simbizi just about bupkus here, honestly.

I'm sure somebody out there knows. Uvuga ikirundi? Uvuga ikinyarwanda? Ejo bite? Warasaze uri umusazi? Or just mildly nuts? Urakoze in advance for any reply. And yego, I screw up the noun classes.

Anyhow, here's my point: seeing this makes me suddenly wonder what sort of computer services exist around those parts. There must be some, of course, or the BBC wouldn't bother. This is something I've simply never thought about. And then I realize how much else I don't know about the area. Which is to say: everything.

Like you, I've read about genocide, poverty, dictatorship, and general mayhem. But I've also read that things are getting better of late. If one believes the news, things have improved at least from abject horror to perhaps a more tolerable level of general misery. But the truth is, I know nothing. And I'm suddenly curious.

So I wonder. Maybe a kid from the other Great Lakes will have to find out more and perhaps even visit. There's so much to learn.

Amahoro.