New Title?

Yesterday while editing my manuscript yet one more time, a new title came to mind: The Flight of the Barbarous Relic.

Pros: 1. For fiction, titles are almost always symbolic rather than literal, and this would better fulfill that expectation than the current title. 2. No one has used it yet, according to a Google search. 3. It calls attention to the story's opening action, which is the foundation for the rest of the novel. In this sense, "The Flight of the Barbarous Relic" is a better fit to what I've actually written.

Cons: 1. "The Flight of the ___" is a prosaic pattern for titles. It sounds almost computer generated. 2. Though it connects strongly to the story, it doesn't convey my message as directly as "Jolly Roger Dollar." 3. Not only does it fail to reveal my message as well, it serves to hide it. How many laymen have heard of the phrase "barbarous relic"? My guess is, not many. So, if they see the "Flight of" title they will be left scratching their heads. If they see JR$, they could conceivably make the connection between piracy and the federal reserve note. I'm assuming most people understand what "Jolly Roger" means.

I'm still thinking about it. For the record, I ditched my original title because it was too sentimental and prosaic - The Crimson Rose.

Also for the record, I've added some more family videos to my YouTube collection, which now stands at 10.

Barbarous-relic.com

For the past week I've been using iWeb 2.0.2 to create the new barbarous-relic.com (BRC). Since iWeb is built to work with .Mac, I had to acquire a new version of Panic's Transmit to use as my FTP client. It works beautifully with iWeb development and is worth the $30 price.

There are limitations to iWeb, but none too serious for what I want to accomplish. iWeb gives you a broad selection of themes to build from, but I haven't seen a way to modify the underlying layouts of those themes or create your own. But I've been working in a hurry and have consulted the help and tutorials only briefly when I was stuck, so I may have missed something. You can't group (or ungroup) objects in iWeb, but you can paste grouped objects from other apps. If you attempt to drag an object outside the current layout, it gradually disappears, though the selection handles still show. Given that my last experience with creating a website was coding my own HTML, I find iWeb very pleasant and efficient. This version comes with iLife '08.

Inasmuch as my web site is dedicated to exposing the fraud of fiat money and central banking, and given Ron Paul's current popularity and our intellectual alignment on money and banking, I've added a special Ron Paul section to BRC. I already have a stub for Rothbard and may do sections for others, including the guy sitting here typing this.

I'm having some trouble with fonts. I'm using Helvetica, which works fine in most cases but in others the text appears squashed, as if it's in a small font size. There are variations of Helvetica to choose from, and I will try one of those to see if I get consistent results.

After I get my novel uploaded, I will make the prolog and first three chapters available as a free PDF download from BRC.

Google videos

Posted "It shouldn't be like this" on Google videos today, which is available here. The video window on Google is twice as big as the one on YouTube, so that part is nice. Google videos is still in beta, though I had no trouble uploading. The poster frame can't be changed, however. I'm sure Google will get around to making that an option.

I'm planning to do at least one more presentation and post it far and wide. Perhaps something on the order of "Common fallacies about the Fed."

Came up with a temporary image for my Kindle upload. Used iDVD from iLife 8 to acquire the theme, though the particular theme I chose was available on iDVD 6, which I never owned.

iLife 8 arrived early afternoon, and I was able to install everything except iMovie 8, which was no surprise. iPhoto is much nicer than the version I had been using, and of course iDVD, with the help of Grab, allowed me to come up with something to fill in the blank for the book image on Amazon.

It Shouldn't Be This Way

Using Apple's Keynote '08 with support from iMovie HD, I put together a presentation about the fiat dollar and posted it on YouTube last evening. Called It Shouldn't Be This Way, it features a clip of Ron Paul telling Ben Bernanke he can't lower interest rates without creating more money, which depreciates the dollar and cheats savers, among other things. It also includes two brief excepts from the Why We Fight trailer.

A link to the video is also posted on Barbarous-relic.com.

I wish the quality of the YouTube video matched the quality of the Keynote presentation on the computer. Originally, I tried saving a portion of the presentation as a QuickTime file, but the results were unacceptable -- the embedded videos especially. By choosing File > Send To > YouTube directly from Keynote I had much better resuilts, though still far from ideal. I'm quite pleased with Keynote at this point. I found only a couple of quirks, which for a package that does so much is more than I expected. It ran fine on my 1 Ghz G4, too.

The second-last slide of the presentation features a promotion for my about-to-be-uploaded novel to Amazon, The Jolly Roger Dollar.

Purpose of movies

In article on LewRockwell.com today, Charlie Reese said, "When people go to the movies, they want to be entertained, not depressed or lectured." To bolster his assertion he cited the line of legendary producer Samuel Goldwyn, who reportedly said that if he wanted to send a message, he'd use Western Union.

Movies should entertain. They should also say something. It's pretty hard for even the dumbest movie not to deliver some kind of message. But wouldn't it be nice if we came away from our entertainment with a better understanding of issues that affect our lives critically? Al Gore won a big propaganda victory with An Inconvenient Truth. How about a few inconvenient truths for Gore and his carbon-neutral buddies, entertainingly packaged?

Later in his article Charlie quotes Ayn Rand favorably. Rand's novels are a masterful combination of message and entertainment. If Atlas Shrugged ever makes it to the screen a lot of people will be outraged if the producers soften or obliterate its messages. The difficulty in finding producers brave enough to stand behind its messages is one of the biggest reasons it remains unproduced 50 years after its first publication.

Movies and the entertainment industry generally do send powerful messages, just not the right ones. How many movies portray businessmen favorably? How many portray politicians as good guys? Or our Good War as an exercise in unprecedented mass murder and state growth? Songwriters write patriotic songs to sanitize the state's wars and motivate subjects to sacrifice themselves. I have yet to see a movie that portrays Lincoln or FDR as the monsters they were; they're usually treated as saviors.

Notwithstanding Goldwyn's comment, the entertainment industry is not merely a messenger but an important one, especially for statist causes.

Apple's Keynote '08

This latest version of Keynote looks like it might be what I need to create the promotional video for my novel, The Jolly Roger Dollar. You can create a self-running presentation with video, animation, and voice over, among many other things. I also like its opacity control tool and the Alpha tool for eliminating unwanted background color. It's still too early to know if I can use it effectively, but I'm greatly encouraged at this point.

Preston opening presents

My grandson Preston on Christmas Day. He'll be three in March.

Judge Andrew Napolitano on Lincoln

Lew Rockwell said many people want the Judge to be Ron Paul's running mate.

Are people like Paul and Napolitano a necessary first step for getting rid of state rule altogether?

Katie's Near Miss

Katie, my senior twin daughter by three minutes, is planning to move from Savannah to Atlanta soon to begin graduate studies at Georgia Tech in January. She's been looking for a decent place to live near campus.

She contacted a realtor in Atlanta for help, and one their agents directed her to a three bedroom house with hardwood floors and a fenced backyard on Atlanta's south side that was renting for $1,000/month plus utilities. Feeling pinched for time and needing someplace to live, she gave the go-ahead to her mother to work out a rental agreement with the agent.

Before signing, I agreed to drive to the rental from Lawrenceville and check it out.

I lack the competence as a writer to do the neighborhood justice. It reminded me of war zones I've seen in film clips. The photos posted here will convey some of what I saw, but they can't express the horror I felt at the thought of Katie and her boy friend Petar attempting to live in that area.

The rental's porch afforded a panoramic view of the Atlanta federal penitentiary. Blighting that view were the properties across the street from the rental. Given the massive amount of litter in the area, it was highly unlikely there was any trash pickup service.

And check out the picture of the rental itself. You'll notice it looks recently painted and has a retaining wall in front built from landscape timbers. You'll also notice there's a guy lying on the porch with his legs resting on the first step. He and the door looked that way the first time I drove by. They looked that way the second time too. Was he dead? I don't know, and I didn't get out of the car to investigate.

Turns out it wasn't that close to the Tech campus.

Katie's still looking.

Hanna

Another friend of Kim's, Hanna Dettman, has offered to do a cover for my novel. Hanna's an artist who has done some beautiful line drawings of Kim's son Preston as well as her husband David paired with their boxer Rebel. She also has an outstanding gallery posted online. Fortunately for me, Hanna is pro-liberty and therefore very distrustful of government. I sent her a synopsis of JR$, and she thinks she can have some ideas worked out by the end of the week. I'm looking forward to the results with great excitement.

Beth's Ron Paul Pumpkin

As late in posting as this is, it is still worthwhile.

Beth Gilleland and my daughter Kim are friends and former co-workers. For Halloween, Beth created a stencil of Ron Paul's face then carved a pumpkin from the stencil. The result was outstanding. Notice Ron Paul's initials running down the left side of the image. Not as clear in this picture is "08" running down the other side. The Ron Paul Campaign Staff had this to say about Beth's work:

That is AMAZING! It certainly brought a smile to our tired faces. Thank you so much. Please thank the artist from us too.

I have wondered what other comments she received about the carving. I also wonder what she did with the pumpkin after Halloween. I would find it impossible to destroy.

Standing next to Beth is another of her friends, who did a carving of Randy Travis.