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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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Almost the minute the tsunami hit, cricketers (like anybody else with a
shred of decency, which leaves out our president) were itching to find
ways to help the victims across Asia.
That very day, the Aussies were playing Pakistan at the Melbourne
Cricket Ground (a match I'd been looking forward to attending for
months, incidentally). Almost immediately, the entire Oz side
donated their fees for the entire five-day test to the relief effort.
And that was only a fraction of the contributions which poured in from cricketers from all over the globe.
The
latest effort: yesterday's one-day benefit match between two
all-star sides: Asia vs. the Rest Of The World, whose best players had all
gathered together to help.
And what happens next?
Why, the Rest Of The World unhesitatingly kicks Asia's ass.
In a friendly, afterwards-we'll-buy-dinner-and-oh-here's-a-few-million-bucks kind of way, of course.
God, that's just delightful.
PS -- this is from my day at the MCG: pace bowler (think: fastball
pitcher with a headlong running start) Jason Gillespie flings one
toward a promising young Pakistani opener (leadoff hitter) named Salman
Butt, who batted well until being run out (a bit
like caught stealing) on a dumbass rookie mistake. Oh well. The most
intriguing story of the day, though, was the acting Pakistani captain,
Yousouf Youhana, the only Christian on a team from a country where
cricket and religion compete to see who has the most unnerving
lunatics. After the team's dismal showing in Perth about ten days
earlier -- Pakistan lost by almost 500 runs -- the fans back home were
burning Youhana in effigy. Not figuratively -- literally.
Burning. Him. In effigy. And you thought New York fans were rough.
So how did the kid respond under genuinely insane pressure, against
some of the best bowlers in the history of the game? By batting
all afternoon, scoring over 100 runs all by himself. When he was done, 60,000 Australians gave him a standing ovation. And I'm sure more than a few fires back in Pakistan were happily snuffed out.
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