Tom’s World – 04DEC2025 – The End of “Our Democracy”

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TomD

Here’s a column by Christopher Chantrill, whom I’ve been following religiously for several years. He has several uncommon, shall we say, takes on the political landscape.

A Commoner Manifesto Pushing Back Against the Revolution of the commoners Christopher Chantrill Dec 03, 2025

“Our situation is not whether to have a republic or democracy. Our situation is what to do after the failure of the educated-class project of the last 150-200 years. Obviously, the educated class wants to hang on.”

…

“Problem for any ruling class is that, at the end of the dynasty, the rulers are not sending their best: Biden, Harris, Walz: see what I mean? And so, even though they have sat majestically on the throne for decades and won world wars and saved workers and blacks and women and gays from a fate worse than death, when it comes to the crunch, they don’t have the ability and the skills and the cojones to realize that they have screwed up, that their regime is incompetent and corrupt, and that dynasties don’t last forever.”

Hailing Frequencies Open!

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Back in the 1960s we had a tv show called “Star Trek.”  It starred William Shatner as James Tiberius Kirk, the captain of the starship Enterprise.  And for one hour every week Kirk and his crew of four hundred able-bodied men (and women) warped their way through the galaxy seeking out new life and new civilizations and boldly went where no men had gone before.

And wherever they went Lieutenant Uhura kept them (mostly) in contact with the Federation using a form instantaneous contact called sub-space communication.  I say mostly because something called sub-space interference would be invoked whenever it would be useful to the plot for the Enterprise to be incommunicado.  This would allow Kirk to show initiative and break with inconvenient policy like the Federation’s Prime Directive against interfering in the technological development of more primitive civilizations.  Of course, Kirk broke this rule about a million times in the course of the show.  But you know, there was dramatic tension while they sorted out their feelings about this rule.

But getting back to sub-space communication, it was instantaneous.  Which was needed to make the stories work.  After all, radio waves are electromagnetic waves and propagate at the speed of light.  The Enterprise travels many times the speed of light (maximum about 1000 times the speed of light).  So normal radio communication is essentially useless for them.  They could beat their radio message back to Earth by a factor of as much as a thousand-fold.

But here’s the thing.  Suppose you want to write a story where faster than light space travel is impossible but instantaneous communication with other stellar systems is possible?  What would be the dramatic possibilities of such an arrangement.  Well, basically, it allows the writer to imagine radically different cultures and organisms sharing ideas and information across the entirety of the cosmos.

You could have a supremely old race teaching a young one how to avoid all of the dangers that it experienced.  And they could teach them about their future.  Suppose a race on a planet is circling a star that is about to explode.  What would they want to pass on to the universe?  Maybe some religious insight or a supremely beautiful musical composition or maybe just their name; so, they would not be forgotten after they die.

Now of course instantaneous communication is as completely untethered to scientific reality as warp drive is.  But I can still see how using it in a story without FTL space flight would present story lines that aren’t as well-explored as ones where FTL space flight exists but “sub-space” communication does not.

Now all this being said, I will say that Lieutenant Tawny Madison, played by Sigourney Weaver in the movie Galaxy Quest really improved on Lieutenant Uhura’s performance as communications officer.  Her costume was significantly skimpier and showed much more cleavage than Lieutenant Uhura ever did.  And Madison didn’t need to wear an ear piece to hear the computer tell her what the ship was doing.  All she had to do was repeat what everyone else could hear over the ship’s speaker system.  Now that was progress.

03DEC2025 – This ’N’ That

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Finally, a breathing space!  I don’t have to do anything for almost a week.  I spend my time working on getting my book ready for publishing and watching Christmas movies.  I confess that I overindulged on turkey and the fixin’s around Thanksgiving and am still recovering from caloric excess.  But after some vigorous exercise today I’m back in shape for what lies ahead.  And that looks like snow and ice removal!  Dunwich is up to its old tricks.  Instead of three inches of snow we’ve gotten a day of rain which probably will turn into a half inch of ice tonight.  Oh, the pain, the pain.  Luckily neither Camera Girl nor I are compelled to leave the Compound tomorrow so I can slowly work on the driveways.  I wish I had more tube sand but even a hundred pounds or so of it should be enough to prevent the whole thing from resembling an ice-skating rink.

I noticed that the latest fake crisis is horror over cigarette boats filled with fentanyl being blasted out of the water.  I can conceive of no better targets for the US military than narcotraficantes heading for US coastal waters.  What clearer priority do we have than preventing these people from selling poison to our people?  Don’t they realize that Saint George of Floyd was killed by a fentanyl overdose?  Surely that must give them pause.  But Democrats are always looking to side with evil against us.  They can’t help it.

Well, enough about that.  Now, how about those kooky Somalis in Minnesota?  Good old Tim Walz was handing over hundreds of millions of dollars in fake aid to the Somalis and they were sending it to terrorists in Somalia.  Even his own state employees blew the whistle on him and even the New York Times is exposing the sordid details of his cover-up.  Trump said that Walz is severely retarded and I think it’s hard to deny it.  Of course, this doesn’t add to the reputation of Minnesotans for keeping this bozo in office.  Now, of course it isn’t everyone in the state but it’s a clear majority that seems okay with government fraud as long as it goes to a constituency that will vote reliably Democrat.  We’ll have to wait and see if Trump’s Justice Department can find a judge willing to honestly hold Democrat crooks accountable.  Lately it doesn’t seem to be the case.

And finally, early indications are that Hollywood is throwing in the towel on woke entertainment for children.  Disney and its peers have lost so much money on woke movies for children and young adults that they’ve sworn off woke lecturing for the foreseeable future.  For at least the next year or two they’re going to try and remember what “wholesome” means.  No more trans kids, girl bosses or obligatory race-swapping of traditional characters.

Well, anyway, that’s the plan.  But can they do it?  I tend to doubt it.  I’m not even sure they would know an exciting adventure story if it reached out and bit them on the butt.  But it’s hopeful that they’re even trying.  At the very least it means that a whole bunch of woke writers, directors and actors will be out of work for the next year or two.  And that’s a beautiful thing.

Well, Spin the Wheel

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If a brutally long and tedious day starts and ends with good news, does that make it a good day? I would have to say yes. This morning started with the book cover for “The Sniper” arriving. And after returning from a long, grueling day trapped in the bowels of a drab New England city, bored almost to desperation, I finally have a deadline for the launch of my book. It will be out sometime between the middle and end of January. Now granted, that can be as much as two months from now but just putting a stake in the ground is what I need to coordinate the whole crazy flying circus of an effort. Covers and EPUB files and pdfs and key words and discount deals and reviews and project pages and pseudonyms and email lists and Amazon ads and heaven knows what else. Yes, a day that starts and ends well is a good day.
I was pleasantly surprised at just how accurately the cover art portrayed the scenario and the mood of the story. And the quality of the drawing exceeded my expectations completely. I’m extremely glad I went in the direction I did instead of a more generic cover. If for no one else than for myself. It makes the book real.


Now I have to confess that I have no idea whether what I’m trying to do makes any sense. Can a book from an unknown author with an extremely niche audience break out and find a generously sized audience? My rational engineering side says the odds against it are long. I’ll say one in a thousand.
But at the same time, a part of me is anxious to take the plunge. And that is exactly what I’m doing. It’s a roulette wheel spin with a big pot of my money plunked down on double zero. What could be more fun than that? Well, I guess winning would be more fun. But that’s well beyond my power to ensure. I’ll have to let fate have her say.
I guess now I know how every author since Homer has felt when his creation is about to be unveiled. And I’ll say it’s a good feeling. As Kipling said:
“When ’Omer smote ’is bloomin’ lyre,
He’d ’eard men sing by land an’ sea;
An’ what he thought ’e might require,
’E went an’ took — the same as me!”
Every teller of tales is part of the long tradition. You make up something in your head and you want to see if the audience resonates to the same vibration you felt. But the worst fate would not be if a lot of people didn’t like it. The worst is if no one ever hears it.
Achilles in the Iliad wanted to die for glory, for immortal fame. Well, I’d prefer to live but I’d forego any profit if I could guarantee that a million people read my story. That would be a form of immortality. Well, spin the wheel.