Month: December 2025

You Were Always a Good Friend to Me

photog Literature, Movie Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Movie Reviews , , , , , ,

As all who have followed my website know I’m a connoisseur of the various film versions of Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol.”  And I’ve opined before that the premiere version of the Ghost of Jacob Marley is Frank Finlay’s portrayal in the 1984 version with George C Scott as Scrooge.

Here is the whole scene:

Now, why do I say it’s best?  Technical presentation?  Acting ability?  Faithfulness to the book?  Emotional impact?  Actually, all of the above.  In all aspects of the scene this version is head and shoulders above all the rest.

The makeup on the ghost is wonderful as are his costume and the pattern and details of his fetters.  Even his eyes appear to be those of a dead man.  Finlay’s reading of the lines is masterful and the emotions he provides are wonderfully potent.  And the lines selected are the best selection from any of the versions out there.  And the climax of his performance is his outrage when Scrooge tells him, “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob.”

Marley howls, “Business!” Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

This one speech is easily seen as the reason for the whole story.  We see the partners face to face and we see what Scrooge cannot.  Marley was what Scrooge is; a terrible human being who cared not at all for his fellow creatures, their pain and suffering.  But death and judgement have taught him the error of his ways and in his shame and penitence he wants to save his old partner from himself.

And because he was as Scrooge is, he selects the instruments that have the best chance of reaching into Scrooge’s heart and mind and shaking him out of his evil habits and awaken in him the knowledge that the most precious treasure on this Earth is the chance to use our time to comfort those around us and recognize the kinship we all should have.

So those are the main points.  But even small bits contribute to this “Marley.”  When the ghost appears Scrooge demands to know what it wants of him.  Untying the funeral kerchief from around his head, his bottom jaw drops wide open with a loud clicking noise to indicate that he is a corpse.  Only once his mouth is unbound can he answer. “Much!”

So, yes.  This is the best Marley.  And George C Scott provides a fitting foil for Marley’s mission.  He is suitably impenitent and uninterested in Marley’s gift of potential reclamation.  When told of the three separate spiritual visits he asks Marley if they could all come at once and save time.  All in all, he is completely undeserving of Marley’s gift.  But as we shall see the scope of the gift that Marley procured manages to finally break through Scrooge’s shell of callousness.

Well done Jacob Marley.

So Now I’ve Got a Publication Date

photog Current Events, Literature, My Fiction, OCF, photog's Corner, Science Fiction / Fantasy , ,

Update:

The Book Detail Page went live on Amazon:

Amazon book page

Wohoo!

I started loading the files for the e-book and paperback on Amazon.  The release date will be 21JAN2026.  I’m doing a last review of the text to find typos and “literary infelicities” before I hit the button and make the pre-release page live.

I’m setting up a page on the site (link directly below) for the marketer to direct traffic here.

Coming 21JAN2026 – The Sniper by Jake Barter

I have to admit I’m more excited about this than I thought I would be.  I’m especially looking forward to getting the paperback proof copy.  I’ll put it on the shelf of my bookcase in the living room between my copies of The Iliad and The Odyssey.  After all Homer has only produced two books in the last three thousand years and I wrote one in less than a decade!

I think today is the first time i started thinking about the next book in the series.  Bogey’s had his work.  I’ll let him off the hook and let Connors recruit some new folks to wrestle with the political chaos that has enveloped America after the events in “The Sniper.”  For this one i’ll have to map out a series of events.  I can’t just wing it.  Maybe I’ll do a “future history” timeline like Heinlein did for his alternate history stories.

I think in these later stories I might like to have a moon base.  It’s definitely not an unbelievable technological stretch and it would give the stories a less claustrophobic feel.  Mars just seems too difficult and with a fractured America I doubt the resources could be imagined available for something as challenging.

But that’s just a spit-balling thought.  I’m going to have to do some serious thinking before I just jump into it.  It’ll have to feel right.  And then I’ll have to come up some new characters.  I think I want some technical types in this story.  And I’ll have to think of what is going to happen to poor President George Chastain.  I’ll left him holding the bag with a bunch of states in basically open revolt.  He inherited this mess and he has my sympathy but I’m afraid it’s not going to get easier in the next book.

And in the next book I might try my hand at my first love story.  I’ve left Paul Connors and Grace Boghadair sort of up in the air.  With bogey out of the limelight maybe it’s time to see whether those two have a future.  Well, I’m no romance novelist but maybe I can come up with a believable plot to get those two together.  After all she is a widow looking for a husband and you can’t find a more eligible bachelor than the richest man in the world.

Well, I’ll attach the links to the Amazon pages for the books and the author (Jake Barter!) as soon as they’re live.  Meantime here are my cover shots.

The Land of Opportunity

photog Current Events

It appears that the globalist establishment in the West (Europe and the Anglosphere) are attempting to simultaneously merge with the Third World and disappear.  By disappear I mean erase their ethnicity, history and culture and become a melting pot something along the lines of Brazil.

And despite the best efforts of people like Donald Trump they seem to be succeeding.  The chaos that emerges from unlimited third world migration is a pretty frightening spectacle.  The recent series of brutal attacks, rapes and murders by migrants against law-abiding Americans and the unconcerned reaction of city and state officials to this onslaught is instructive.  The lesson to take away is clear.  There is no one out there to protect you from these invaders.

Your only course of action is to minimize your exposure to migrants.  First and foremost is to live in countries, states and cities that actively search out migrants and arrest them.  Currently the United States under Donald Trump is such a country.  But within the United States, the blue states and even the blue cities within some red states maintain pro-migrant policies that allow them to live here without fear of arrest or deportation.  So, the first order of business is leaving these “sanctuary” jurisdictions.  And that should be a major improvement in your ability to avoid being harmed by migrants.  And in general, staying out of large cities anywhere will be a good policy.  Large cities attract migrants because of the many opportunities to find employment and blend in.

Now as we’ve seen, the Democrats, when they come into power will suspend all activities by ICE and the border guards and just allow millions of illegals to steam in.  So, if we have a Democrat in the White House after Trump we may be in a situation where migrants are present throughout the country in large numbers.  At that point, the only way to decrease your odds of being harmed by migrants would be to live in a red state that allows you to take active steps to protect yourself.  You’ll need to live in a community that supports a robust police force that actively pursues criminals and prosecutes them to the fullest extent of the law.  Ideally a liberal use of the death penalty would be the optimal strategy.  Other things you can do include living in a gated community with private policing.  But this is very expensive and only practical for the very wealthy.  Alternatively, citizen patrol programs can have a beneficial effect.

As a last resort, you can look into other countries where law and order are a priority.  Recently even a place like El Salvador has had enough of crime and cracked down on their gang members in a remarkably effective way.  Now El Salvador is not a place you’d want to live in.  But I think if the United States continues to vacillate back and forth on important priorities like immigration there will be more Americans leaving for safer places.  Places that come to mind are in Eastern Europe (Hungary, Czechia, Poland) and South America (Chile, Argentina).  But who knows, maybe there are several other countries that are fed up with crime and dysfunction.  Someday soon someplace beside the United States may be considered the land of opportunity.