BobHarris.com - God cheers for the Cleveland Indians, loves iced mochas, and has an appendectomy scar

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

Rude Pundit

God cheers for the Cleveland Indians, loves iced mochas, and has an appendectomy scar

Tag it now -

Tuesday, 17 January 2006

Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans, not quite the speaker MLK was.

I don't point out the obvious here because it's as if the mainstream won't mention it. Quite the opposite: a Democratic mayor says something stupid, it's Headline News. A Democratic former vice president accuses the sitting president of intentional repeated criminal acts, it's sandwiched between a space probe and a cake for Ben Franklin. (Gore would have gotten more coverage if he'd taken hostages, spilled toxic waste on a highway, or both.)

I mention Nagin here out of basic fairness: sure, it's offensive when the Pat Robertsons of the world invoke some weird notion of god as projections of their own ego and desires. But it should obviously be just as offensive and idiotic when someone else does it, too.

If not, then I hereby justly declare that God Almighty, the Infinite and Unknowable, Creator of All That Is Beyond Comprehension, is cheating on his diet with a tuna sandwich at the moment. He also bats left-handed but throws with his right, loves the ketchup-flavored Twisties snacks you can buy in southeast Asia, and hasn't played the banjo in almost a year.

Oh -- and God Almighty really, really thinks it's incredibly stupid-sounding when anyone claims with certainty to speak for Him.