The Manuscript 2.0

Dear friends and family,

At long last, I have completed my a new manuscript entitled Courage in Poverty. It's about the people whom I met as a volunteer in the U.S. Peace Corps in Ukraine and as a staff member at Raphael House, a shelter for homeless families in San Francisco.

This manuscript is 239 pages long in Microsoft Word, totaling about 72,000 words. I would love to have your comments on it. However, I'd like you to tell me that you actually want to read it. I had thought about sending a copy to everyone I know, but reading a manuscript is no small commitment, and I didn't want to foist it upon you.

So here's the deal: if you want it, I will send it to you as an MS-Word attachment. You can make all sorts of corrections and comments in the file if you like, just save it under a different name, for example, sticking your name at the end of the file name. You can enable tracked changes if you like that, use the "insert comment" feature, or simply use different-colored text for your comments. Or, you could use Word's highlighter feature if you just want to draw attention to a paragraph that makes no sense. Any comments you could make would be very appreciated -- even if you don't get through the whole thing.

Paper copies are available by request for free, but those require greater commitment. If you want a paper copy, you have to agree to actually read the thing within a month and mail it back to me. The paper and toner involved in printing a copy of a manuscript adds up to $5-$7, which I can deal with, but I need to know who really wants one. I like paper better myself because computer monitors tire my eyes out and I read faster on paper. Writing all over the margins with pen or pencil is fine.

Dr. Nordquist -- you get a paper one just because you made lectures so enjoyable without ever resorting to videos or Powerpoint presentations, the true thought-suckers of the classroom.

For those of you familiar with the first version of this manuscript, No Earthly Victory, this new one retains some of the stories and characters from that journey, but it takes a different tack, focusing on the stories of the people whom I met, and on the importance of finding a manner of service in which you feel you're really giving your heart rather than having it taken through guilt. It also describes the people whom I met in San Francisco at the homeless shelter, which the old manuscript had not done.

It's a less religious manuscript. The old one had focused a great deal on my spiritual journey and the enigmatic state of the church in Ukraine, which I still think would make a good book, but there are about six Orthodox publishing houses that publish things in English. Five of them rejected it and the sixth one just plain forgot. Still, I take the opportunity to describe the really cool monasteries and cathedrals I got to visit in Ukraine.

The curse of the author is the inner critic, nagging at him about problems in the cohesion of the story or whether it's even interesting. The inner critic tells him to quit and do something more productive. So, here are some of the questions I've been having through it.

• It doesn't really have a plot. It's non-fiction, which usually doesn't, but the glue that holds the chapter together is simply that I met these people where I was serving in Ukraine or San Francisco, and I really admired them. Is that enough?
• Is it too long? Are there parts that drag? I remember the middle 300 pages of the final Harry Potter book made me want to shout "Get on with it and stop freezing to death in that @$&% tent!" but I knew I'd miss vital plot nuances if I skipped forward. There's no explanation of Snape's true motivations at the end of this manuscript.
• Can anyone think of a better title? I'm not exactly crazy about Courage in Poverty -- it sounds too much like the titles of Barack Obama's and John McCain's books about their "vision for America" and stuff like that.
  

So, if you want the manuscript, let me know. If, by some chance, you have lost my e-mail address, you can click here to get it back. erut...@yahoo.com You have to solve one of those annoying warped-word things to get it, sorry.

In Christ,
Thomas Eric Ruthford

The Library: Sanctuary for the Unemployed and Bored

Today I went to our storage locker to find a pair of pants for my wife that she needs at her new job. This 10x10 storage locker contains all of our belongings right now and has done this since October. We are still living with my parents. We have found an apartment where we'd love to live, but we lack a certain thing: income that pays the rent.

I spent about an hour there, going through every box I could reach, but not finding the pants, which are part of the uniform at PetSmart, where she is going to lead dog training classes. I did, however, find a CD that has been causing me all sorts of trouble. I checked out "Family Tree" by Nick Drake from the library back in September. I put it in the CD player and enjoyed it very much. Then, when we moved out of our apartment, I forgot the CD was still in the player. We put all of our belongings in the storage locker, and when the "your item is due" notice came, I searched for the CD in the room where Miri and I live at my parents' house, until I had an "Oh no!" moment and realized it was locked up. I renewed the CD three times, and then the library wouldn't let me renew any more and started charging me ghastly fines.

Today, while searching for the pants, I happened upon the CD player, pulled it out, found an electrical outlet in the ceiling of the storage facility, plugged it in and started cycling through the CDs in the caddy and found it. So now I can get out of "library jail."

This storage locker is kind of a symbol for our "in between" existence. I don't like to be "in between;" I like to feel like I am going someplace and doing something. I know that as Christians we have to accept everything that happens to us as a blessing because everything that God gives us -- trial or help -- is so that we can dwell in heaven with him for eternity. So what value does "in between" have? All I can think of is the dragons from the Anne McCaffrey books that my sister used to read and how they'd "go between" and teleport as part of their efforts to save the planet from raining Death Thread. I certainly would be willing to be "in between" to defend the planet against the Thread, so would someone tell me where to go to report for duty?

Alas, it's not that simple. But, I can go to the library and check out books, which keeps me busy. Here are a few that I've been reading recently:

State By State: A Panoramic Portrait of America. This a collection of fifty short essays, one about each state in the union, in tribute to the WPA travel guides written during the New Deal. I had no idea the WPA had made these travel guides, but they seem to be required reading for any rambler seeking the "soul of America." I only actually read three or four of them before I had to give it back to the library (they wouldn't let me renew it with my holds) but I really want to read it some more.

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, by Naomi Klein. This book is liberal brain candy, which goes in to great detail about what happens when developing countries get too much capitalism too fast. The theme of the book is to criticize the effects of Milton Friedman's free-market ideologies. A very telling point is that the U.S. government spent great amounts of money having Friedman and members of his Economics School at the University of Chicago travel the world and spread free-market capitalist thought, and they also funded lots of academics from socialist-leaning countries in Latin America to come visit the University of Chicago. The government saw Friedman and his ideology as a means of combating worldwide Communism, and promoted it through covert means, overthrowing several democratically elected governments.

But, Nixon himself drove Friedman nuts by implementing price controls and wage controls at home, and Friedman ended up calling Nixon the worst president he'd worked with. Klein is a talented writer, and she's also very liberal, which made me feel obligated to read some things from the other side.

In Defense of Globalization, by Jagdish Baghwati. I didn't understand a single of his examples. After 70 pages, I just gave up.

Discover Your Inner Economist, by Tyler Cowen. Amusing but forgettable.

The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy - If We Let It Happen, by Arthur B. Laffer, Ph.D, Stephen Moore, and Peter J. Tanous. This book's publication date was particularly unfortunate. It came out two months before the market meltdown at the end of September, and spends 300 pages talking about how higher taxes are going to kill the financial system if the Democrats get power. And then, the financial system killed the financial system because a lack of bank regulation allowed the world's investors to kite checks consisting of homeowner's mortgages, and create a whole bunch of wealth that didn't really exist.

It includes such priceless assertions that since the stock market tripled to 3,000 by the time Reagan left office (Reagan was a tax-cutter), and then tripled again to 11,000 by the time Clinton left office and made it all the way to 12,500 in 2008. Therefore, they say, the Dow ought to be able to get to 120,000 by 2020. "If Washington politicians do no harm, and stay on Reagan's road, that could be accomplished," they say.

Rather than teach me much useful stuff about supply-side economics, the book has more taught me why I dislike it -- it's a mathematical solution to a political problem. They talk for chapters about how their way, low taxes, is the way to maximize growth and make people rich. They try to sell me on how this helps the middle and working class by making them a little richer (and they admit that the super-rich become super-super-rich). They talk about how insuring incentives are the way to create a true meritocracy, where the most hard-working and the creative get rewarded. But they operate under the arrogant assumption that I actually want to live in a country with all this new wealth sloshing around. And, while I would agree that hard work should be rewarded, I have to ask how much room does a meritocracy have at the top if everybody takes the bait and works hard?

My graduate school textbook (written by Ben Bernanke, before he was the Fed chairman) made it clear that economists shouldn't offer an answer for which economic decision is more moral, any more than physicists should be deciding how atomic weapons should be used. This dreadful book made it clear to me that the study of economics needs to be put in its place. The question of how to best serve the people, and which consequence of a government choice would be better, belongs to politicians.

Anybody know of a conservative economics book that's written well? Okay, rant over. Now I'm taking this book back to the library.

OTHER NEWS

Uh... you're probably getting the idea from this post that I haven't had a lot to do. This is true. I apply for a lot of jobs. I've had four or five interviews, no offers. Miri is enjoying her part-time job at the zoo, and she's getting a second job at PetSmart and is now in training. She says it's stressful to work with humans again.

I have been delighted to discover the podcast for NPR's Wait, Wait news quiz. My favorite joke I've heard there is that Hilary Clinton listing off facts about the Botswana diamond industry sounded like Hermione Grainger as Secretary of State. So true.

So let me know how you are!

We Interrupt This Life To Bring you...

I am hearing a voice broadcasting through the room: "We interrupt this life to bring you the following important bulletin: We are putting your life on hold for a while. You have food, shelter, clothing and water right now. Apply for jobs all you like, but it's a week before Christmas, and no one is going to want to schedule job interviews until January. Look at apartments all you like, but you won't have the money to start rent payments.

"Feel free to move about the reality, but there is ice on the roads that is not your standard Seattle slush-for-a-day-then-leave stuff. Your usual cost-free method of getting about, bicycling, isn't going to help you much on ice. This is not a time for starting new adventures; it is a time for being thankful for what you have. You are a reasonably talented person, but this is as far as you're getting right now. This is not a time for thinking about where your talents ought to be taking you. Making plans based on your hopes being fulfilled is going to make you unhappy. That only works if you're Barack Obama. The mess that you are in right now was caused by everybody feeling entitled to success, causing reality to be overpriced.

"Please be assured that the space-time continuum is functioning as it should. Your movement through time plus your movement through space will always equal the speed of light. If you don't seem to be going anywhere in space, you're going all sorts of places in time that people in spaceships don't get to have. Enjoy this time while you have it. We will inform you when we restart your life."

Your government loves you

I got back from an airplane trip to find the contents of my suitcase was rearranged. At first I was afraid something had been stolen, but then I found a note from the Transportation Safety Administration assuring me that my underwear was safe to put on.

I'm proud to live in a country where the government cares that much about its citizens.

Las Vegas: It Makes Everybody Want To Do Something Bad

One rule about Las Vegas is that regardless of what your moral orientation or strength is, you'll suffer from strong, destructive temptations. If you suffer from alcoholism or a gambling addiction, your problems are obvious. The same goes for those who love lots of food -- the buffets will drain your wallet and stretch your belt. If you're a sex addict, the pornographic playing-card-sized handouts from scraggly men on Las Vegas Boulevard will connect you to whatever kind of stimulation you need to implode your soul.

If, however, you don't suffer from any of these temptations, you'll still discover that your rather conservative mindset has a volatile nature when challenged. After a short while, you'll be tempted by some vulgar behaviors of your own, flipping off or cussing out the hustlers on the street, taking a megaphone with you as you walk, screaming "Move faster you fat ------- tourists!" An assault of images of what appear to be nude acrobats in positions that you would call vulnerable if they were humanly possible on a big screen TV the size of a tennis court advertising a show called "Zumanity" by Cirque du Soliel will make you consider taking advantage of Nevada's lax gun control laws to shoot holes in the bright body blaster above the boulevard. Or worse, upon being asked by a cocktail waitress in a top that reminds you of a balcony with no railings what you'd like to drink, you demand to see the manager just so that you can punch him in the nose for making her wear such a trashy outfit to support her kids.

My wife interviewed at Seigfried & Roy's Secret Garden to be a tiger trainer. I went along for the visit, and I can think of more than a few people I'd like to feed to those noble, toothy creatures.

Las Vegas, maybe?

Hi all,

Miri has been asked to fly down to Las Vegas to interview with Seigfried and Roy for a tiger-trainer job. We're going on Sunday.

I had a job interview today for an executive director job. They brought out the whole board of directors to grill me for an hour. I think I did all right, but I'm not sure I want to be a fundraiser (which seems to be what they're really looking for).

So Miri and I are both in transition right now, feeling a little stuck there. This classic Sesame Street song summarizes how we feel right now:

A 30 to 40 percent chance of scattered employment

In meteorological parlance, there are these two words about rain that pop up a lot: scattered and isolated. When you have isolated showers (or thunderstorms) moving through an area, that means that a storm will do something, somewhere, but for any given observer, he only has a 10 to 20 percent chance of getting rained on. Scattered means that more rain is coming and a particular spot has a 30 to 40 percent chance of getting rained on. Growing up in Puget Sound, most of my life has been lived on days expecting scattered showers.

And now, I am getting into a situation of scattered life. I have looked at seven apartments, called 10 others, applied for 20 jobs and had one job interview (although the rejection letter just came for that one). In viewing the apartments or applying for these jobs, only about 30 percent of them seem remotely interesting -- but I feel obligated to make the queries anyway because we need to live somewhere and be able to pay the rent.

The apartments have mostly been all right, although a few have been ghetto or rent-controlled. The reviews of these complexes on the Internet, however, have been atrocious. I've been trying to determine if this anti-landlord invective has any merit, or if only cranky people go on these sites to wish fire, brimstone, locusts and frogs upon distant descendants of their former apartment managers because they took too long to fix a washing machine.

Some of you may be wondering how we ended up back in Puget Sound with a life like the weather. I guess this is where the cheery part of this blog entry starts. Miri got a JOB!

Yes, an actual paying job as a zookeeper taking care of exotic animals. She works part time at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma in the Asia exhibit. This is a very good thing as Point Defiance is one of the best zoos in the world. She gets to work with Asian river otters who sound like squeaky toys when they're vocal, tapirs, anoas, porcupines, Sumatran tigers, gibbons and siamangs. She feeds them and cleans their areas. (But don't worry, it's a protected contact facility, meaning the humans and animals never get to play.) Having a part-time job at Point Defiance is a resume builder job, meaning that they employ you for a year or two and then you have to go work somewhere else. (They rarely promote their own people into career positions.) We are hopeful that one of the other two zoos (Northwest Trek or Woodland Park) will hire her later.

I am searching for a job, and we're really hopeful that after I get employed, we can rent someplace to live that's halfway between the two jobs. If you happen to have a friend trying to rent a duplex, let us know.

We have gotten to do some fun stuff recently. On our anniversary, we went to a bed and breakfast south of Spokane and got to drive around in the Palouse country. Here's a picture of Miri at Kamiak Butte:


Click on the photo if you want to see more from that trip.

Miri's parents came to visit us in Spokane, and we went to Lake Coeur D'Alene to go canoeing. Robin and Grant happened to be coming through on their way to Missoula that day.

The other really cool thing we've gotten to do was a hike up at the Sunrise area of Mt. Rainier National Park. Here's a picture of Miri pointing at a black bear:


I got some pictures of Mr. Bear, but if you want to see them, you've got to click on the picture to get through to the album. That's kind of a cheap ploy, isn't it, but you want to see the album now, admit it!

So that's the news from Ruthfordville. Write back, say hi, tell us how you're doing. Jisa the dog wags her tail for you.