Another new issue of Harper's, another bunch of great quotes from great articles:

"Religion is like baseball...great game, bad owners."
-- Steve "Orbit" Hovley.

"Among students of the Washington talk-show circuit [Tim] Russert enjoys the reputation of a prosecutor so fierce in his cross-examinations that politicians supposedly tremble when crossing the threshold of his studio, afraid that he will expose them as cheats and liars. On the showing of his conversation with President Bush, the reputation is undeserved. The questions were polite, few of them followed with the indignity of a request for further clarification, and it was impossible to escape the impression of a prep-school headmaster listening to the richest boy in the senior class explain how and why he had burned down the library and the gymnasium."
-- Lewis Lapham