Mitch's Blog

Following up on my friend Steven J. Vaughan-Nicols' article praising the Perplexity search engine, I decided to do a fast, spontaneous test.

Reading the news over lunch, I saw that an actress named Jill Jacobson had died. The obit said she was in Star Trek.

I said to myself, “I wonder who she played on Star Trek?”

The article said she appeared on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Deep Space Nine.”

First I asked ChatGPT what characters she played. ChatGPT replied that she only ever appeared on TNG. I asked about DS9, and it said she had not appeared on that show.

I searched Kagi. Interestingly, Kagi turned up several articles titled “Who did Jill Jacobson play on Star Trek”—the exact words of my query.

I know that’s a common SEO trick (“What time is the Super Bowl?”) but would not think that would be implemented for such a specific question.

Google’s AI summary says “Vanessa” on TNG, with no mention of DS9.

And here is Perplexity’s answer — complete, concise, and impressive.

What’s the real answer? I can’t say for sure; I’m not a superfan of those particular iterations of Trek. However, I consider the Memory Alpha wiki definitive on issues of Trek lore, and it agrees with the IMDB.

Hamilton Nolan:

If billionaires are destroying our country in order to serve their own self-interest, the reasonable thing to do is not to try to quibble over a 15% or a 21% corporate tax rate. The reasonable thing to do is to eradicate the existence of billionaires. If everyone knows our health care system is a broken monstrosity, the reasonable thing to do is not to tinker around the edges. The reasonable thing to do is to advocate Medicare for All. If there is a class war–and there is–and one party is being run completely by the upper class, the reasonable thing is for the other party to operate in the interests of the other, much larger, much needier class. That is quite rational and ethical and obvious in addition to being politically wise. The failure of the Democratic Party, institutionally, to grasp the reality that it needs to be running left as hard as possible is a pathetic thing to watch. When the current situation is broken and one party is determined to break it further, the answer is not to be the party of “We Want Things to Be Broken Somewhat Less.” The answer is to be the party that wants to fucking fix it. Radicalism is only sensible, because lesser measures are not going to fix the underlying state of affairs.

And if the decline of labor unions is robbing the working class of its most powerful tool and undermining the general health of society, the reasonable thing for the labor movement to do is not to play footsie with a political party that has shown repeatedly through words and deeds that it stands against the existence of organized labor. The answer is spend every last dollar we have to organize and organize and strike and strike. Women are workers. Immigrants are workers. The poor are workers. A party that is banning abortion and violently deporting immigrants and economically assaulting the poor is not a friend to the labor movement, ever. (An opposition party that cannot rouse itself to participate on the correct side of the ongoing class war is not our friend, either–the difference is that the fascists will always try to actively destroy unions, while the Democrats will just not do enough to help us, a distinction that is important to understand.)

…

When political pundits and strategists and party operatives anchor their sense of reality in a bygone era that no longer exists, they are bound to misjudge what is happening now. They are bound to fail to recognize the reorientation of the national landscape, the tilting of the ground that requires a lean left in order to keep things stable. There is a class war, it is being won by the rich, and they are about to stage an enormous offensive for the next four years. Position yourselves accordingly. It is one thing to fight against great power and lose. That is part of fighting. That is forgivable. What is not forgivable is to see all this coming, and to choose to continue to stand in the same place and say the same things and advocate for the status quo and pretend that America just needs to “get back to normal.” “Normal” has been broken for the lifetimes of most of the people alive today. Radicalism is only getting more and more correct. Recognize it or get run over.

Schools say they’re spending the money on legal fees, added security, additional staff time and additional costs for community, school board and government relations, according to a report by Diana Lambert at the Times of San Diego. Districts are picking up the financial burden of staff turnover related to conflicts and because staff had to take time away from other duties to deal with conflict.

Half of superintendents surveyed said they’d been personally harassed at least once during the school year, 10% said they’d been threatened with violence and 11% had their proprty vandalized.

“A Pennsylvania superintendent called the emotional stress and anxiety ‘nearly crippling.'”

This article doesn’t say who’s causing all this strife, but I bet it’s the usual MAGA/Qanon/anti-vax/anti-LGBTQ/Dominionist suspects. Trans people and drag queens aren’t bothering anyone.