Apr
27
2025

Roadside Picnic

(paid link)

I really wanted to like this book better than I did. The very first page seemed designed to appeal to me, a transcript of a radio interview with Nobel Prizewinner Valentine Pillman:

Interviewer:… I suppose that your first important discovery, Dr. Pillman, was the celebrated Pillman radiant?

Dr. Pillman: I wouldn't say so. The Pillman radiant wasn't my first discovery, it wasn't important, and, strictly speaking, it wasn't a discovery. It's not entirely mine either.

If you're like me, you've already cast Bob Elliott as the interviewer, and Ray Goulding as Dr. Pillman, delivering those lines with impeccable comic timing.

Unfortunately, the rest of the book doesn't continue with that nostalgic wackiness. Although Dr. Pillman does show up later to explain the book's title.

Aliens have made a brief visit to Earth years ago, in six "Visit Zones". The Zones are dangerous, filled with mysterious and incomprehensible objects and forces. Visitors are subject to violence, hallucinations, and changes to their biology. Yet, the "stalkers" are tempted by possibilities of retrieving some alien technology that will make them rich. For most, it's a bad bet.

Pillman's guess is that the aliens landed on Earth simply as a "roadside picnic" spot, a place to stretch their legs (or whatever), have some lunch, see the sights, and then carry on to their actual destination. And so, humanity is left with trying to make the most of alien litter.

The main character is Redrick "Red" Schuhart, one of those stalkers. The book details his three expeditions into one of the Zones, filled with danger and disaster. In the final installment, he's in search of the "Golden Sphere", which is alleged to grant the owner's wishes. No spoilers, but this is not the kind of book where everyone, or anyone, lives happily ever after.

Don't let my low rating dissuade you from reading this. Theodore Sturgeon gave an earlier version (Soviet-censored) a rave; Ursula K. Leguin wrote the forward for this recent definitive, restored, edition; she finds it swell. The Wikipedia page lists the many other honors and plaudits the book has received over the years.


Last Modified 2025-04-27 10:54 AM EDT

The Adjustment Bureau At Work

I am a sucker for state-by-state rankings, and so my eye was caught by this Liberty Unyielding article: ‘The Mississippi Miracle Is Real,’ Gov. Tate Reeves Says Of Soaring Educational Outcome.

Well, good for Mississippi, but… whoa, what's this?

You'll note that "adjusting" the National Assessment for Educational Process (NAEP) scores did Mississippi a huge favor here, with its "Adjusted" red-line score significantly bigger than its "Unadjusted" blue-line score.

And (uh oh) exactly the opposite happened with New Hampshire, way down at the bottom, with a decent "Unadjusted" score getting "Adjusted" down to mediocrity.

(If you click over to Twitter, you'll get a longer chart with more states. New Hampshire's not actually the worst; that honor goes to Oregon.)

So what's going on with the "adjustment"? A little googling sends us to the relevant Urban Institute article: States’ Demographically Adjusted Performance on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress. From back in January:

Earlier today, the federal government released the 2024 scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP is the only nationally comparable measure of student achievement that is reported for every state on a regular basis, but comparing states’ NAEP scores is misleading for many purposes because states serve very different student populations. For example, more than 20 percent of children live in poverty in Alabama and Mississippi, compared with less than 10 percent in New Hampshire and Vermont.

For nearly 10 years, the Urban Institute has published adjusted scores that capture how well students in each state score on the NAEP compared with demographically similar students around the country. We determine these adjustments by calculating how each individual student who takes the NAEP scores relative to students nationwide who are the same gender, age, and race or ethnicity and have the same free and reduced-price lunch receipt status, special education status, and English language learner status.

Well, that explains a lot. Although it's amusing that this shows up just one day after Pun Salad highlighted AOC's strident demand that "we" not let "them" separate us into black/white/latino/urban/rural/etc. pigeonholes. The Urban Institute does its "adjustment" by dividing the kiddos by a multi-dimensional array of demographics, going way beyond AOC's categories.

Anyway: The UI's accompanying table shows how this kicks New Hampshire in the teeth:

  • NH ranks #4 in unadjusted 4th-grade math scores; adjustment sends us down to #40.
  • NH is also #4 in unadjusted 4th-grade reading; adjusted: #34.
  • For 8th-grade math, the adjustment drops NH from #9 to #31.
  • And finally, 8th-grade reading: NH goes from #4 to #20.

I'm aware that with so many levers and weights on its adjustment algorithm, the Urban Institute could probably get any result they wanted. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt, and admit that just maybe New Hampshire schools, given their student demographics and lavish funding, are providing mediocre outcomes.

Also of note:

  • Big if true. Christian Schneider breaks the sad news: Bad People Do Terrible Things. He takes on Pete Hesgeth and Donald Trump, pretty easy targets, but here's someone who I imagine with a cuckoo-clock door in this forehead:

    Republican Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, who’s so dumb he’d starve to death if he got trapped in a grocery store, recently demanded hearings into the “real cause” of the 9/11 terror attacks in New York City.

    Johnson will fall for literally any bogus conspiracy theory. He believed the COVID-19 vaccines actually made the pandemic worse and told the public the virus could be cured by using mouthwash. He denied the violent nature of the January 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol, saying “people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law." And now he’s a 9/11 truther.

    This is not a man who should be congratulated when he gets things right, like when a toddler manages to poop on the toilet without help. He is a man who has severe mental defects that cause him to live in a delusional world inhabited only by insane people.

    Johnson just barely got re-elected in 2022. Here's hoping he'll be gone in 2028, replaced by someone saner.

  • Cancel culture is alive! Ryan Holiday writes at the Free Press: This Is the Lecture That the Naval Academy Didn’t Want Me to Give.

    I was supposed to give a talk at the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland on April 14. I found out about 20 minutes before I was due to go onstage that it wasn’t going to happen. The lecture was about wisdom and how to cultivate it. It was a staunch defense of reading widely, perhaps especially, books you don’t agree with. The Naval Academy’s leadership had learned I was going to challenge the terribly sad fact that this wonderful institution had banned 381 books from the academy’s Nimitz Library, on the orders of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

    They asked me to delete this part of the speech. I declined. My lecture was canceled.

    For the record, I'm not a fan of school and public libraries pushing woke propaganda and porn on the youngsters. If you think that makes me a "book banner", fine.

    But we are talking about the Naval Academy. Even the dimmest plebe should be able to handle exposure to (for example) How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi without turning into a disciple. I assume that books on the "other side" remain on the shelves.

  • Dear Baby: Welcome to Dumpville, Population: You. Jeff Maurer is hopeful: God I Hope the Obamas Get Divorced. Skipping past the skimpy "evidence"…

    Michelle has denied the divorce rumors, and the pair were recently spotted at a DC restaurant — kind of the Greasy Pete’s of Georgetown — so there’s probably no “there” there. But if there’s not, I’m disappointed. I would be thrilled if the Obamas got divorced. Don’t get me wrong: I want both of them to be happy, and I want their kids to be happy, too. But “I want them to be happy” doesn’t mean “I hope they stay married” — who knows which path would make them happier? Hopefully they do; I definitely don’t. I just hope that they get divorced because I’m divorced, and I think it’s good to periodically remind people: Divorce happens, and there shouldn’t be a stigma around it.

    There is still some stigma around divorce. Granted, the stigma is much less than it used to be; divorced women used to get treated like dogs back when “respectable” women had the luxury of being treated like cattle. These days, divorce is frowned upon less, but you still have something of a scarlett “D” on your chest — it’s kind of a monogram-sized “D”, like the logo on a polo shirt. Talking about your divorce in a casual setting is like talking about your butthole in a casual setting, it weirds people out, and that goes to show that divorce is still seen as generally bad, and not a thing that simply happens.

    Um, well. I can't recommend brutal honesty when you're talking about a friend's, or even an enemy's, one-way ticket to Dumpville. Leave that to them and their therapist.

    For those who need the reference to the above snark: