Gideons: Too Bad they Don't Distribute Tolstoy

I was in a hotel room the other day and pulled out the bible from the drawer in the end-table under the lamp.  I guess you could say I was bored.  Very bored.  I was also curious - not to read the scriptures, I am not at all religious - but to answer the nagging question: Who in the hell is Gideon and why does he does he put his bible in hotel rooms?

I know Gideon is a character in the bible and, like most people, I have heard the term "Gideons Bible" at various random points in my life.  I have certainly come across my share of copies in hotel rooms from Honolulu to Hong Kong to Moscow. Honestly, without much thought or consideration, I had always assumed that it was a particular type or translation of the bible, similar to the King James Bible. Or maybe a version that excerpted the sections dealing with Gideon and his doubts about God.  What I didn't realize, but found out through a bit of Googling this morning, was that I was wrong.  What it is is a worldwide organization of men - only men, although members' wives can become 'auxiliaries' - devoted to distributing bibles.  And not just any men either. Gideons only accepts as members "professionals and businessmen".  Does that mean a factory worker cannot volunteer to distribute bibles?  Apparently so.  For some reason, only professional men are considered capable of placing bibles into hotel rooms.  Is the thinking that otherwise they might have to worry about theft of the merchandise?

I suppose I should have been better informed as I grew up in a small town only 20 miles from Janesville Wisconsin, the place that Gideons Internatonal was founded 100 or so years ago.  But I've been in the town hundreds of times and never saw any advertisement or mention of the connection.

Fine by me.  

The Bible Shortage?

I don't typically criticize philanthropic organizations or non-profits, but the work that Gideons does seems so tragically wasteful in the world that we live in.  I'm sorry, but I can't help but think what a waste of time, money, resources and effort it is to stick bibles into hotel rooms.  Last year, according to their site, the organization had revenues of approximately $150 million.  Imagine if that much money, and the efforts of an energized volunteer base, were put into something useful, like ending hunger or helping the poor.  Or what about promoting literacy, without which there is not much need for bibles in the first place?

Is there really a shortage of bibles in this world?  It's my view that anyone who actually wants a bible most likely will find access to one.  Most churches hand out copies to their parishioners.  I have never heard about poor people in developing countries suffering because they don't have a bible.  They suffer because they don't have enough food or can't read and write.

Does Anybody Read Them?

Another thing is that, to the extent I have checked them, the hotel-room bibles always appear untouched and unread.  The organization is apparently touchy about this subject because it is the first issue addressed in the FAQ section of their site.  According to them, each bible has a six-year life span and is read by approximately 25% of travelers.  Yeah, right.  0.25% more like it.  The bibles I've seen, with their unblemished covers and stiff binding, appear untouched by any actual reader.  In this age of the internet, wouldn't it be easier to work out a deal with the hotel chains to send each guest an electronic copy by e-mail?

And one point of bible etiquette:  are the bibles only for reading in the room or is it acceptable to take your copy with you when you check out?  If not, is it considered stealing if you do?  Just wondering.

The Gideons web site states that their mission is to "reach the lost".  If that is truly their mission they seem to have found a wonderfully bizarre means of doing it.  Is there really a higher percentage of 'lost' people in the Ritz Carlton or the Hilton down the street?  They must have a tremendous miss to hit ratio.

Another interesting tidbit is that they distribute literature to members of the armed forces, but in this case what they distribute is not the same bibles that they place in hotel rooms but only copies of the New Testament.  I wonder why that is?

I Vote for Tolstoy

Which got me to thinking.  If distributing books is what they like to do, what about distributing something else?  Imagine how great it would be to enter a hotel room knowing that the drawer contained some random, varied selection of the world's great literature.  Readership of the classics would skyrocket.  Or, baring that, maybe a selection from the Times bestseller list.

Just a thought.  In my dream hotel I would check into my room to find a copy of Anna Karenina or Farewell to Arms in my desktop drawer. I've been meaning to read those for ages.

Fact in Fiction: Fact or Fiction?

We read a newspaper article and expect it to be true.  Journalists are fired for 'fabricating facts', which is really just a polite way of saying 'telling lies'.  The same goes for memoirs and other non-fiction.  Remember A Million Little Pieces?  It's still out there but is now marketed not as a memoir but as a "semi-fictional novel", whatever that is.  But what about fiction, literary and otherwise?  How should facts be used and, if they are, is it ok for the author to fudge them, take creative license?

I began to think about this after an aspiring author in my writing group read a chapter from his novel about a patient in a mental institution in the 1960's.  The patient was purely fictional but the institution was based on a real place.  Fine, right?  Of course.  That's what authors of fiction do after all: blend reality and make believe by taking real things from their real lives to create an imaginary world.  The old writer's adage - write about what you know - assumes just this type of melange.  But this author was worried, uncomfortable about taking creative license with the facts.  He wasn't sure where to draw the line.  Which got me to thinking: is there a line?  Do authors of fiction owe their readers some fealty to the facts?  Are there any rules of thumb?

Find a Balance

In my experience, the first rule of thumb is to find a balance.  It goes without saying that authors of fiction often use facts.  It is, in fact, this very blending of reality and make-believe that can make fiction so enjoyable.  I recently read Owen King's Double Feature and found his descriptions of movie making to be informative and enjoyable while, at the same time, firmly connected to the story that author was trying to tell.  So too with another book I recently read: Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue.  Reading his descriptions of Oakland I felt as if I was actually there, had actually seen the places he described.  And the descriptions were not gratuitous but essential to understanding the characters, who were firmly of their time and place.  In these books facts are a tool, a device used to make a lie - the fiction - engrossing and believable.  The authors find a balance in which facts further the story they are trying to tell.

On the other hand, who among us has not read a novel that becomes bogged down by facts.  I find this to be particularly true with genre fiction, in particular, thrillers.  Page after page of detailed descriptions of weapons.  Pedantic, detailed descriptions of geography that read more like a page from a textbook. Dan Brown, master of the genre though he may be, is in my opinion guilty of this sin with his overly-detailed descriptions of architecture and Renaissance paintings.  The details do not so much further the plot as broadcast to the world the author's intensive research and mistaken belief that the facts must be as interesting to his readers as they evidently are to him.  The equation has been inverted: facts should be for the writer to use in furtherance of his story, not for the reader as an attempt by the author at forced edification.

Don't Be Sloppy

The second rule of thumb is to be accurate.  If you decide to use facts, then give your readers the courtesy of thoroughly researching them.  It is one thing to knowingly veer from the facts in furtherance of your story but another to use facts that you think to be true but which are not.  Readers can be a demanding lot.  If you have your protagonist driving around in a green 1974 Mustang convertible then they have a right to be raise a ruckus (Mustangs only came as hardtops between 1974 and 1982). Research is for you, the author, not your readers: it gives a good author the ability to write with authority on a topic in which she may not be expert and to pick and choose the particular facts that further the story instead of regurgitating a textbook page on, say, virulent strains of SARS.  

Research also then gives you the ability to take creative license, which should always be a conscious, informed decision, not a mistake.  It was just this issue that troubled the writer in my group. He wanted to base his novel in a particular time but use a psychiatric term that was no longer in use at that time. He was uncomfortable about doing this because, he said, it wasn't accurate.  Whether to take artistic license or not is a decision that he, as the author, needs to take for himself.  But what is crucial is that he is doing it consciously, knowing, based on his research, what is factual and what is not.  

One way to address artistic license is to be upfront about it.  Many fiction books are prefaced with an author's note such as this:  “Readers may note that we have taken certain liberties with ....”  In my view, this approach is perfectly fine and much preferable to taking license and not admitting it.  But in the end, it is the author's decision.  Some fact-focused readers may object to artistic license but then, after all, we are talking here about fiction.  As long as the fact is fudged consciously, then it is the author's decision whether or not to do it.  

Be Believable

Readers read fiction knowing it to be false but with the hope of being drawn into a world that feels real. Judicious use of facts is a wonderful way to do this, a way to blur the line between reality and make believe in order to draw the reader into the story.  And, in fact, the facts may not be facts at all but pure make believe.  The author's task is to make it believable.  Maybe your story depends on a special, one-of-a-kind car, faster than any production model ever made.  That's fine as long as it feels like a real possibility.  But if you are describing someone who puts the pedal to the metal in his Toyota Corolla and takes it up to 250 mph, all of a sudden you are no longer believable and your readers will be lost.    Fiction, after all, doesn't have to BE real, it just has to FEEL real.

My Personal Experience with Healthcare.gov: How I Tried and Failed to Enroll

With all the talk lately about healthcare.gov I decided to give it a whirl, see if all the doomsayers chanting that the site was an abject failure were right.  I also had my own personal motivations, of course: I am currently uninsured, priced out of the existing health care market because of my status as a self-employed independent contractor.  So you could say I set out on my adventure hoping that the naysayers were wrong and that I would find myself some affordable health insurance.

During the years I have been uninsured I have never become sick, so in some sense view health insurance as an unnecessary luxury I cannot afford.   I’m 43, good health, no preexisting conditions.  But the fact that I am just one illness away from financial ruin has always nagged at me.  This worry prompted me many times over the years to explore my options, but the overpriced plans with humongous deductibles that were presented to me were worse than a viable option: they were nothing more than highway robbery that would do little, if anything, to protect me should I actually become sick.  I just could not justify spending more on my health insurance than my mortgage for such skimpy, scant coverage.  As a result, I have been a passive supporter of the president’s initiatives, hoping that the law would fix what my own experience has shown to be a broken system.

So on November 10 at 12 p.m. Central Time I logged onto the site.  At first glance, I was pleasantly surprised.  The site is well-organized and professional, pleasing to the eye with clearly marked tabs to answer common questions and easy to navigate features.  In that, it is a far cry from many out-of-date, poorly designed governmental web sites I have seen and used in the past. 

A notice in bold type at the top of the site caught my eye.  The notice listed various times when the online application would be unavailable.  At least the times were defined.  What struck me was this vague warning:  “Between Saturday evening, November 9 and early morning Tuesday, November 12, there will be times when … you will need to return on Tuesday afternoon to review and submit [your application].”  I interpreted this to mean that there was a strong possibility that I would be able to fill everything out but be required to return in several days to actually apply for coverage. 

With warnings like this that basically admit that all your efforts to apply may be in vain, I can see why many may be deterred from using the site.  But I decided to press forward.  I clicked on my state (Wisconsin, one of the states whose governor defaulted into the federal system) and was instructed to create an account.  I clicked on the large, blue ‘create account’ button at the top of the screen and….nothing happened.  The button gave the impression of being clicked (it turned gray and appeared to be depressing when I clicked on the mouse) but did not take me to an account page.  I continued to click for approximately five minutes to no avail.  I returned 30 minutes later, then an hour later, then two, and was still unable to create an account. 

So in my case, even the dire warnings to the effect that I may be unable to complete my application were inaccurate.  Unable to create an account, I was unable to even begin the process.  This was even worse than what I expected when I set out to enroll.  What I’d expected (and hoped) was to be able to finish the process, see my options, but be required to come back at a later date to actually enroll in coverage.  I plan to return to the site in the coming days, as I’m sure this is no doubt a temporary problem. 

I do have some sympathy with the designers of the site.  It is clearly a massive undertaking and very complex.  It has to account for a large number of individual variations including, for example, providing different sites and systems depending on which state the applicant is from. 

In the interest of fairness, I should note that the site also provides the option of applying by phone instead of online, meaning presumably that even with the site’s dysfunction people who call should still be able to enroll (I didn’t try this option).

I am optimistic that all the assurances we’ve heard will come true: that the site will eventually be fixed and everyone who wants to will ultimately be able to enroll.  What is unfortunate is the deterrence.  Obamacare needs people to enroll to be successful.  The site’s problems may very well deter the very populations they need for success: those, like me, who are relatively young and healthy but who want coverage to assuage that nagging doubt at the back of their mind that they could be ruined by an unplanned illness.  It is this sector of the population, raised on the internet and the flawless workings of Amazon.com, who will be least sympathetic to the failures of the site. 

The problems discredit what in many respects is a good and noble program to fix a broken market.  As an uninsured American I support Obamacare and hope that the site’s defects will ultimately be resolved.  But Obamacare now has a black eye that will be hard to overcome.  In addition, the problems harden a stereotype harbored by many in the population that if, given the chance, the government will invariably screw things up. 

There were many who wanted Obamacare to fail, and this unfortunate, unnecessary screw-up provided them with the ammunition – the proof – they craved.