BobHarris.com - The Nine Most Important Reasons To Vote For Kerry

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

The Nine Most Important Reasons To Vote For Kerry

Tag it now -

Monday, 25 October 2004

NOTE -- this post will stay here until after the election. New posts are below.

ELECTION EVE UPDATE: Instead of returning to the bench, Rehnquist is now undergoing heavy-duty chemo and radiation, the course of treatment experts say you'd expect if he is, indeed, far worse off than has so far been acknowledged.

UPDATE: Salon reports that, despite most media accounts, Rehnquist may be gravely ill:

Numerous medical studies only mention tracheotomy -- in which surgeons cut a hole into a patient's windpipe to aid breathing -- as a treatment for a rare form of thyroid cancer called anaplastic carcinoma. According to the University of Virginia Health Center, "anaplastic carcinoma is an extremely serious and aggressive thyroid cancer which often results in the death of the patient … within several months of diagnosis."

And from the Los Angeles Times:

The most dangerous form is anaplastic... "one of the most malignant types of cancer known to humans," said Dr. Yuri Nikiforov, a pathologist and thyroid expert at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine... Fatality rates top 95 percent in the first year after diagnosis...

A tracheotomy indicates that the tumor threatened to obstruct Rehnquist's windpipe, and that the tumor is fast-growing, according to several outside thyroid specialists. "At his age, having had a tracheotomy, the first thing that comes to mind is... anaplastic thyroid cancer," said Dr. Peter Singer, chief of clinical endocrinology at USC's Keck School of Medicine.

Make no mistake: we are likely about to decide the balance of the Supreme Court for a generation.

John Paul Stevens, age 84. Cancer survivor.
William Rehnquist, age 80. Currently hospitalized for thyroid cancer.
Sandra Day O'Connor, age 74. Cancer survivor.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg, age 71. Cancer survivor.
Antonin Scalia, age 68
Anthony Kennedy, age 68
Stephen Breyer, age 66
David Souter, age 65
Clarence Thomas, age 56

Only Thomas is below conventional retirement age. And while Bush has played coy about whom he would appoint, his record is clear.

Charles Pickering, for example, has been consistently hostile to civil rights and voting rights issues while siding with cross-burners (literally) and advocating increased enforcement of Mississippi's laws making interracial marriage a crime.

Bush announced his appointment, in defiance of Congress while they were recessed, on the Martin Luther King holiday weekend.

Bush's other recess appointment that weekend was Alabama's William Pryor, who has called Roe v. Wade "the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history" -- even when pressed to consider the Plessy v. Ferguson separate-but-equal ruling or the Dred Scott black-have-no-rights-at-all decision.

Spend a little time researching Pickering and Pryor. Please don't take my word for it. Google around. See what Bush really considers important in his judges.

And don't lose sight of the wink-at-his-base symbolism involved: Bush appointed these two horrific nutjobs... on the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. You can almost hear him snickering.

Fortunately, because Pickering and Pryor were end-run recess appointments, they expire at the end of the year. We're not stuck with them forever... yet.

Giving George W. Bush another shot at one, two, or three seats on this court would change the course of civil rights, voting rights, women's rights, and every issue most Americans dear for a generation.