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Actual Books
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
“Fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly: NOT TOTALLY DEPRESSING.”
-- John Hodgman,
author, The Areas of My Expertise and correspondent for The Daily Show
"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... his comic timing never fails"
-- The Wall Street Journal
"A surprisingly touching memoir"
-- Entertainment Weekly
"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
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Home
BobHarris.com
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Travel
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Friday, 05 March 2010 20:03 |
Update: welcome to everyone popping over from my Peru travelogue on BoingBoing.net today. I think you'll particularly dig the videos.
Oh -- and if you imagine your group would want me to come by and speak, here's who you want to call.
Last year I was asked by Web Directions North, a gathering of assorted bigshots from Google, Yahoo!, etc. -- people who literally convene to design the next phases of the Internet itself -- to deliver the closing keynote. The subject? The future of the Internet's influence on global culture and politics.
Naturally, my take on it was illustrated with people dancing in the streets, teenage males being given fake boobs, and coffee made from civet poop.
I'm happy to tell you it got a long standing ovation.
And now you can see the whole talk online here.
It's broken into bite-size pieces, organized loosely by the point I'm making, each about the length of a pop song.
The first chunk is below. If you dig it, click to the YouTube page with the whole shebang.
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Kiva and Microfinance
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Wednesday, 24 February 2010 02:06 |
 Quick note of appreciation to the good folks at the Pacific Asian Affairs Council, who brought me out to Honolulu, set me up at the University of Hawaii, and arranged for me to keynote their summit on microfinance.
I had a total blast and met a ton of cool people. And seeing so many young people get excited about a sense of connection with the developing world, and the ability to touch lives halfway across the globe -- that gave me a huge boost of enthusiasm for my own work. So I defintiely received at least as good as I gave.
Thanks to everyone at PAAC. Hope to see a bunch of you in Vietnam next!
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Stuff I like
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Saturday, 06 February 2010 15:33 |
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In case you missed it, I was asked to write a Bones episode this year, it aired a couple of weeks ago... and here it is, available for streaming at the network's website.
Incidentally, even though it says "Written by" and then my name in the credits, stuff like this is always a massively shared enterprise, so credit belongs in huge part with the entire writing and producing staff.
Very cool and fun bunch of people. And I'm happy to report it was their highest-rated episode since 2008!
Great experience, this was. Thanks to everyone involved! |
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Site updates
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Wednesday, 20 January 2010 03:57 |
Webmaster Colin has updated our software, one benefit of which is that my Twitter feed can now appear in the right-hand column. If everything works (including me), there should be photos, links, and all sorts of goodness over there. Longer posts will still go in this space.
Another effect of the changes: the addresses of many articles here have changed, so inbound links from other sites may be broken. If you've wound up here on the main page by accident, that's why the search box is now near the top of the page.
You may also find some odd formatting and such while we clean up the loose ends, but things mostly seem to be working out great. And if the page is displaying at a funky width, there are little white icons at the far upper right for twiddling with that.
Thanks! |
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Stuff I like
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Saturday, 05 September 2009 22:43 |
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Circular Reasoning, a new puzzle I designed and wrote for the op-ed section of the New York Times, is up!
My brief companion essay is here, and the introductory essay by novelist Arthur Phillips, who introduced me to the editors, is here.
It's meant to be hard and yet amusing enough that you'll want to share it with a friend or family member and work it together as part of your long holiday weekend. Did my best, anyway. Enjoy!
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Kiva and Microfinance
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Saturday, 05 September 2009 16:43 |
Goes to this group of 20 small entrepreneurs in Trou-du-Nord, Haiti.
If you're just tuning in, I'm writing a book about microfinance for Bloomsbury. Kiva is quickly becoming the microfinance equivalent of eBay. Great place to start if you're interested.
Want to do something cool today? Go visit, open an account, and loan a few bucks halfway around the world. (Hundreds of loans now, I haven't lost a dollar yet. That's unusual, but their default rate is less than two percent.) It's not charity; you get the money back, they get to build their business, and you get to keep loaning the money right back out, over and over if you like.
My plan is to make 1000 loans this year. I'm a little behind right now, but I'll catch up. After that, I'll just keep re-loaning the same money over and over. It's a great addiction, if you're looking for one. Highly recommended.
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Stuff I like
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Monday, 03 August 2009 20:18 |
Jane accepts the Program of the Year award for Battlestar Galactica at the Television Critics Association Awards on Saturday.
I think the other three women were her backup singers.
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Prisoner of Trebekistan
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Tuesday, 07 July 2009 16:33 |
I just saw the new Xerox logo for the first time (I guess I don't buy office equipment much) in the background of the Dodgers game. My first thought: why did Xerox (left) adopt the symbol on the Kyrgyzstan flag (right)?
Obviously a coincidence. Still: small, weird planet we live on.
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Prisoner of Trebekistan
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Friday, 26 June 2009 15:27 |
If you're looking for the book that Jeopardy! mentioned out loud tonight (!):
It's right here:
And while you're here, kick off your shoes, poke around, scroll down, hit the Travel or the FAQ if you're curious or click over to the Trebekistan section if you want more Jeopardy!-related stuff, and otherwise make yourself at home. Thanks for stopping by.
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Media
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Monday, 22 June 2009 14:49 |
CNN trying to look cutting-edge by using Twitter is like 1950s radio trying to look high-tech by describing what's on TV.
(btw, if you haven't noticed, you can follow my own Twitter feed here. Enjoy my random brain farts of 140 characters or less!)
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Kiva and Microfinance
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Friday, 19 June 2009 11:03 |
To Ugandan coffee merchant Max Musiime and her group, to replace business funds pulled out to help the 10 kids she cares for and to buy another bicycle for her employees.
So far, not one loan has defaulted.
Easiest way to do good I know.
Share the planet! Go do some Kiva.
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Kiva and Microfinance
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Tuesday, 16 June 2009 01:18 |
Yesterday morning, for the first time in my account, three loans -- to a Nicaraguan tailor, a Peruvian student, and a Filipino grocer -- were paid in full.
Sure, you can pocket the money when it comes back. (Which is almost always does -- Kiva's overall default rate is currently less than two percent. Given recent stock market downturns, you may well do better with Bolivian woodworkers than the S&P.) But where's the fun in that?
So today, the $25 that came back from Nicaragua, I sent to a student in Costa Rica. The cash from Peru went to another shopkeeper in Uganda, and the money that came in from The Philippines went to a teacher in Mozambique.
When your loans get repaid and you shuffle the money off to somebody else, it feels like you're running your own tiny foundation. It's really fun.
And remember: this costs me virtually nothing, other than the time value of the money while it's out of my hands and the rare one or two percent of loans that default. (That said, I haven't had a single default so far.) And for that fair price -- a few farthings above free -- you get to reach across the world like this:
Neat, huh?
Now that repayments are starting to keep my account almost reloaded on its own, this is starting to look like a lifetime hobby.
It's one you might enjoy yourself.
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Who Hates Whom
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Friday, 05 June 2009 17:37 |
Just found out. I had no idea anyone in Japan even knew the book existed. Neat.
First time I've had something like this happen. I don't have to translate or anything — the Tokyo publisher is doing all that stuff.
Still, nihongo wo renshu suru hitsuyou ga arimasu. (I need to practice my Japanese.) Arigato!
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People in weird black robes
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Tuesday, 26 May 2009 11:09 |
So the state Supreme Court has come to its decision, to wit:
Gay marriage is like a 1920s spitball — illegal unless you did it before the rules changed.
Idiotic we even have to have this discussion.
As the joke goes, gay people should have every right to feel as miserable, trapped, and full of recrimination and grief as straight people.
Btw, one of the most successful spitball pitchers of the 1920s was named Urban Shocker.
Make up your own punchlines. |
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American Culture & Other Scary Things
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Thursday, 21 May 2009 00:17 |
Thank you for your attention. I have an announcement to make:
[throat clearing noise]
I can climb another mountain. I can make it thru the pain. I can even weather the hurricane.
[another throat clearing noise]
What I cannot do is tolerate hearing those @#$%ing horrible lyrics ever again.
That is my boundary.
That is all. Return to your homes.
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Kiva and Microfinance
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Sunday, 17 May 2009 20:16 |
You've probably noticed the big Kiva thingy on the right side of the page.
Click it and you'll find yourself at Kiva.org, which is the coolest, fastest, easiest, cheapest way of doing good on for strangers on the other side of the planet I've yet seen.
I visit the site almost every day now, and I'm enjoying the process immensely. I've made 241 Kiva loans into 41 countries so far this year, and I can't imagine stopping. Here's a map generated by Kiva's site -- imagine reaching around the world this easily without even leaving your desk:
Kiva acts as basically an eBay for doing good -- a clearinghouse for making microloans worldwide. You browse, you find somebody in the developing world you want to help, you click and send them $25 or $50 or whatever, and they get a loan at a substantially lower interest rate than they could get on the informal market at home. Anybody who has ever tried to pay off a credit card understands what a difference this can make to people working to climb out of poverty. You don't keep any of the vig -- the middlemen all get a teeny piece -- but you do get repaid in full more than 98 percent of the time. (Not one borrower on my account has missed a even single payment so far.)
This isn't giving someone a fish, and it isn't even teaching them to fish -- this is helping people who have been fishing for years to buy themselves a new boat. Plus, you get paid back, after which, you either pocket the money or just keep re-loaning it out.
Since a lot of these loans help whole families or even finance things like clinics that help entire communities, Kiva has made it possible for me to help literally thousands of people on five continents -- at near-zero long-term cost.
How frakking cool is that?
It really does work, and in a lot of developing-world situations, it's arguably better than simple donations, which can cause unexpected economic dislocations. Hand a kid in some countries $25, and you've probably bought him a bunch of meals -- but you may have also taught him not to be a doctor, if doctors aren't making a living. But if you and a thousand other people loan the doctor $25 each to open a clinic, the entire village may have a completely different future.
The guy who pioneered the idea, Muhammad Yunus, won a Nobel Peace Prize. Damn straight. The folks at Kiva deserve some kind of medal, too.
Click on over. Give it a try.
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Prisoner of Trebekistan
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Sunday, 17 May 2009 01:21 |
Sometimes weirdness completely outpaces all expectation.
 Turns out tonight was the taping of GSN's first Game Show Awards. Suddenly Ken Jennings and Ed Toutant -- whom you've previously glimpsed here when the three of us played an Jeopardy!-style exhibition match, and here when the three of us were 3/4 of Team USA in the European Quizzing Championships -- were both in town.
Next thing you know, we're all sitting in the Wilshire Theater surrounded by Charo, Meat Loaf, Bob Barker, Cloris Leachman, Monty Hall, and dozens of other people I grew up watching on TV.
If you'd asked me on Wednesday, I'd have told you I had no plans at all this weekend. Now I've got Rip Taylor's confetti in my pockets.
Rip Taylor's actual confetti, people.
I can't give away any details, but it's one of the more delirious TV productions I've seen. Highly recommended.
My thanks to Ken, Ed, Paul Bailey of the Game Show Congress, and some kind GSN PR people for interacting in ways that led to me finding myself in a ringside seat.
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Stuff I like
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Sunday, 29 March 2009 19:22 |
Congrats to the beloved Jane Espenson on her two Streamy Awards last night for her Battlestar Galactica webisodes.
Very cool, Jane.
Granted, Two Streamys still sounds like a cabaret act. Not one you're dying to see.
Still. Two!
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Who Hates Whom
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Tuesday, 03 March 2009 18:04 |
A few thoughts on today's ambush, a story given barely any coverage in the U.S., but dominating the news across South Asia. It's only the biggest story in the world for about one quarter of human race right now. (If you read this post in the next 24 hours, chances are this live feed from an Indian headline news service will still be all about the attacks.)
First, a personal note: I've been a fan since the first time I saw Muttiah Muralitharan (pictured, right) bamboozling my beloved Aussies in one of the first matches I ever saw. I've watched them in person several times, most recently in Grenada at the 2007 World Cup (where I took this photo and many others). I've even got a jersey I wear sometimes. The shooting freaked me out, and I spent half the night watching Indian TV on the dish trying to find out what happened.
I understand if it's hard for Americans to care about a bunch of guys with strange-to-us names like Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene. But I hope you'll understand that they're every bit as cool and talented as your favorites on the Lakers, Steelers, Cubs, or whomever you follow.
And they're actually much bigger stars. Cricket is the sport in South Asia, maybe as big to sports fans there as all American sports combined are here. And since the population of South Asia is nearly five times larger than the United States, it's fair to guess that India's Sachin Tendulkar may be an order of magnitude more famous in absolute terms than, say, Derek Jeter.
How big of a story, then, would it be if the bus carrying Team USA at the World Baseball Classic were suddenly attacked by a dozen men with machine guns, grenades, and even rocket launchers?
What just happened in Lahore is arguably bigger. And here's the thing: very probably, it wasn't even an attack on the Sri Lankans, really, but more of an attack on the ideas of peace and elected government.
Cricket is one of the few things that all sides in South Asia's various conflicts have in common. It's a powerful symbol. Ten years ago, when Pakistan's team toured India for the first time in years, it was a massive source of peaceful gestures and hope between nations. Five years later, after another period of renewed tension, India toured Pakistan, again raising the hopes of hundreds of millions of people for peace.
The Indian team was scheduled to tour Pakistan again this year -- right now, as a matter of fact -- but the attacks on Mumbai changed all that. India are currently touring New Zealand instead. Sri Lanka agreed to visit Pakistan in their place, basically returning a favor from years earlier, when Pakistan toured Sri Lanka despite security concerns stemming from Sri Lanka's own civil war. The Sri Lankans were only in Pakistan, ultimately, as a gesture of international cooperation, faith in Pakistan's future, and friendship. The Pakistan government absolutely guaranteed the Sri Lankans' safety.
And now this.
There's nothing inherently political about the Sri Lankan team, nothing that would ordinarly provoke this sort of violence. Yes, Sri Lanka's government is engaged in a brutal crackdown against Tamil rebels, but that fight is a world removed from the major issues of Lahore and Punjab, and besides, there are Hindu Tamils and Buddhist Sinhalese on the team, so it's not a potent symbol of the government anyway.
Therefore, it's reasonable to assume that this attack was a plan originally meant for the Indian team, and carried out against the Sri Lankans despite the change.
This makes particular sense if the true political target was much larger than any mere cricket team.
Consider the most immediate, most predictable fallout of the attacks: many observers are now forced to conclude that Pakistan's government can't really guarantee anyone's safety. Not exactly something that strengthens a country.
Meanwhile, hardline voices within Pakistan will probably begin blaming India for the attacks (as they even did in the wake of Mumbai), further escalating tensions.
In addition, international sides will probably stop touring Pakistan entirely, and Pakistan's own team will even have trouble scheduling tours abroad, since prospective hosts will fear the possibility of violence on their own soil. This weakens one of the few reliable civilian bridges to peace.
If your goal is weakening a civilian government that wants peace, yeah, you'd still carry out the plan, sure, whether it's a busload of Sri Lankans or Kiwis or anyone.
With no arrests yet, it's impossible to state with certainty just who is responsible for the attacks, but the results are so clear and inevitable that it's hard not to conclude that the attacks were at least sponsored by one of the many factions opposed to the elected government -- major Taliban and Al Qaeda-connected Islamist groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba (the folks who brought us Mumbai), their military and ex-military allies, and/or an alphabet soup of smaller, allied factions with more parochial interests.
Making the picture even fuzzier, few such incidents in Pakistan result in actual punishment. So unless someone claims responsibility or there's a major series of arrests, we may never find out who the gunmen were.
That said, the Asian media is leaping to conclusions as badly as U.S. media usually does. Dozens of reports are repeating several claims which are questionable on their face: the attacks were well coordinated, executed by men who had clearly been trained, and nearly identical to the attacks on Mumbai. And therefore, the blame must lie with the same people.
Um... no.
These attackers chose to ambush in a traffic circle, a location that not only doesn't trap the vehicle, it doesn't even require it to stop moving. (Which, thank all gods and a driver who borrowed their balls, is precisely why everyone on the team bus survived.) The videos make clear that attackers were firing from vulnerable, open positions. The attackers apparently did not pursue the target bus when it wasn't stopped by the first engagement. And when confronted with armed response, the attackers eventually fled.
Contrast this with Mumbai, where coordinated teams with high-tech doodads trapped their victims, secured their positions, pursued multi-phase plans, continued their assault for days and to the death, and fully expected to die as part of the plan.
Other than involving bagloads of weapons and bad guys, the attacks were in some ways significantly different.
Not that pointing this out in a damn blog post is gonna make the tiniest difference. Just venting.
I've just been sad and pissed and sick to my stomach and wanted to vent. I mean, they friggin' wounded this kid, the most exciting young bowler in years.
Meanwhile, the U.S. media won't even bother to describe a major event in a country at the fulcrum of the key foreign policy and security issue of our lifetimes.
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