i am actually doing a report on rap and selected this book expecting some insight...i was surprised. it seems like some of this was even just put here to take up space; i was dissapointed, expecting something better from costello. a point of view not needed in most situations. of course, ten years ago it might have been close to adequate--now it seems totally inadequate to use in my report.

David Foster Wallace and Mark Costello are too cute by half in this book, and it is horribly out of date. (Just to give an idea, A Tribe Called Quest, who were considered an elder statesman group when they broke up two years ago, had not yet released an album when this book was published.) But most of the analysis of rap's place within popular culture remains somehow applicable to the current scene if you are willing to do a bunch of critical work along the same lines and ignore the dumber flights of fancy. Still a fun book to read and a fun book to debate. Not to be missed if you remember when LL Cool J was good and you have read anything by a master of postmodern philosophy.

costello and wallace examine rap culture and rappers as they influence our society. although at times it seems like they are being narrow minded, this book examines what shapes society and how society can react to these things. the book goes well beyond merely rap music and examines how society is influenced and how it influences. anyone who reads this and sees it as simply a look at rap music is missing the entire point of the book.

Which is fair enough. I mean, to get these three classic movie bad guys together, you need to bend a few rules. A damn good idea, but in this case, extremely poorly executed. They should have just left it alone. One star for the monsters, one star for the cover.

Well I can't deny it...i absolutely love the Alien, Predator and Terminator. So when I heard of the crossover that pit all 3 against each other, I was thrilled...until I bought it and read it, that is.

This is probably the most convoluted and bizarre story yet in the Aliens vs. Predator universe. It hardly consists of any of the 3 fighting each other at all...at least not to the extent of which the cover and blurb on the back would have one assume. The story tells of John Connor and the resistance defeating Skynet, only to have Skynet reawakened years later by Terminators that have gone into deep cover, posing as scientists. To assure victory, samples of Alien DNA have been used to construct a new generation of Terminator, which the Predators see as a great threat of war.

If it sounds ridiculous...it is. The story is bizarre and goes in all different directions. And worse yet...it spins off of Alien: Resurrection. That alone makes me not like this comic, aside from the bizarre story and sub-par artwork. The story even has Ripley 'become' a Predator. So...she's human, she's Alien, and now she's Predator. The book just gets worse and worse as you go on.

I suppose if you are a fan of any or all of the characters, like I am, it should pique your interest. But the sloppy and senseless story combined with the elements that made Resurrection such a bad movie, not to mention the lack of attention paid to detail both in artwork and in story, just make this comic unreadable. This is a crossover that had so much potential, and it could have been in so many different, better ways...but it turned out to be nothing more than an attempt to throw 3 popular franchises into one book as a cash-graber. Buy this if you are a collector and want it for your collection, but don't bother reading it. Otherwise just stay away from it completely.

AvPvT is a very interesting plot, but the it gets one star off because the Aliens are only featured in three pages at the most, and they weren't drawn as well as the predators or terminators. How do each of the three races fit in the story? The Terminators are using Alien anatomy to perfect their combat effeciency, and the Predators have come in to stop that. The story follows Ripley, after Alien Resurrection. She is forced to follow Call and her friends to infiltrate a military compound to stop the Alien research that is going on there. The mission goes wrong when they encounter a Terminator/Alien hybrid and a band of predators that kill most of the team and cause havoc, and you figure it all out from there. The story was rushed for a book of this length, and a lot of events happen waaay too quickly, and some events take too long. For instance, one part where the team witnesses a terminator/alien hybrid fight a predator takes 12 pages, while an event where two terminator/alien hybrids single handedly attack and destroy 2 military bases, and wipe out an entire fleet of ships takes 10 pages!!!! AvPvT gets a point off for that. However, it gets 3 points for art and creativity. The art is about as close as you'll get to an anime styled AvP comic, it was all well drawn with a lot of effort and very original. The idea of how the story continues off Alien Resurrection is very original, the way the plot uses the three sides is original as well, though the aliens deserved more credit. Its a unique book. If you want an AvP book with unique art and story, this is it. But if you want something with more bite, with more of a realistic yet cinematic feel, consider getting Stronghold.

The Ground We Share is by no means a pioneering or revolutionary work in the area of serious interreligious dialogue. The book is an edited transcript of a week-long retreat that took place in Hawaii, during which Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, and Robert Aitken-roshi, a Western Zen master, sat down and chewed the religious fat in front of a tape recorder during the early 1990s. It is informative more in the sense that we are privy to an actual verbal dialogue between men of different faiths than in the sense that something revolutionary is happening. (Buddhist-Christian dialogue is not a new field.)

The overarching theme of the discussion was practice, but within that framework the topics ranged from sexuality to student-teacher relationships to everyday morality to philosophy.

Disappointments first: the preface informs us that the morsels of dialogue are no longer in their original order, but were edited with an eye toward subject coherence. It might have been more interesting had the original spontaneity and choppiness of the dialogue been preserved. The book in its present state feels somewhat stilted.

Brother David also proves disappointing in two respects: first, because he has studied Zen under some of the same masters who taught Aitken-roshi, he does not approach the dialogue with a recognizably traditional Christian theology. He happily agrees with most or all of what Aitken-roshi says because he has found his own way of interpreting Christianity in a manner friendly to Zen. While this is laudable in and of itself, it makes for a dialogue between two polite fellows who agree too readily on all topics. I have never read a more conflict-free book, and I wonder to what extent such a book would benefit those Christians whose theological proclivities are more middle-of-the-road than Brother David's.

Brother David's other fault is his volubility. An Austrian by birth, Brother David has carried over into English the germanophonic tendency to speak in long, exhaustive paragraphs. The transcript is dominated by his lengthy discourses, making Aitken-roshi sound at times either meek or uninterested.

The dialogue is occasionally reminiscent of the story of the Zen master who was hosting a philosophy professor. The professor, in an attempt to impress the master, began expounding almost as soon as he entered the master's dwelling. The master, saying nothing, began pouring tea into the professor's cup. As the professor talked, the master continued pouring until the cup began to overflow. Startled, the professor cried, "Stop! No more will go in!", at which point the master said, "So it is with you. If you wish to learn something, first you must empty your cup." Brother David is obviously a learned, well-traveled individual, but I was left with the impression that his cup was full.

Despite these faults, the book is excellent as a study of how decent, civil interreligious dialogue could and should take place. It wasn't exactly a dialogue between equals (the more taciturn Aitken-roshi ends up making the deeper impression), but it produced a clutch of insights worth dwelling upon. For those looking to round out their Zen-Christian reading, I would heartily recommend this book, which also includes a fabulous list of references in the back.

Very good example of polite monastic dialogue, but one wonders how useful the mainstream Christian will find it. Enjoyable all the same.

Sorry to disapoint the creationists, but your poster boy, Foster, misses just about every mark. Foster is no scientist, in fact he is an embaressment to science.

Normally, I do not write reviews, but could not let the review I found on Amazon regarding Foster's work go unanswered. Apparently, Foster violated that reviewer's religious beliefs and since he could not address anything Foster presented he resorted to a shallow, untrue and vitriolic spate of name-calling. For example, Foster does not - contrary to that reviewer - promote the doctrine known as "creationist", and even incorporates a form of evolution in his assumptions, and allows Darwin to speak for himself. The Philosopher Scientists is perhaps the best work any layman could ever find that masterfully addresses and reconciles science with religion, and does so based entirely upon science and mathematics that anyone can understand. Any honest or objective reader is left with no other possible logical conclusion. Foster is not presenting a personal philosopy. The book is not a catalogue of supposedly unanswerable phenomena as is often the case in creationist writings. There is none of that here, and I imagine that many creationists would also reject Foster on "religious" grounds. Foster masterfully addresses entropy and what observers may call its opposite "specificity". These, along with the most significant theories and milestones in the physical sciences, are illustrated in simple and easy to understand examples. The mechanistic entropic schools of thought are brought into harmony with relativity, quantum physics, the uncertainty principle, etc.

Even I understood it.

The appendix even includes an very brief overview of scientific thought from Natural Theology through Darwin's evolution, the 2d Law of Thermodynamics and Mechanical Models - leading to something called "Supernatural Science". Anyone familiar with Nicola Tesla, or with Energy Medicine, or with any of the cutting edge researches going on in the physical sciences will see - with the aid of this book - that it is undeniable that this "Supernatural Science" is the now newly emerging paradigm.

Although Foster is introducing something earth-shaking, he is as dispassionate as science and mathematics - as only a scientist could be. It is the force of the proof and the implications themselves that are compelling. Perhaps what impresses me most is that this book does this in a mere 179 pages. But this should not be surprising since it took 32 years to write - 32 years to refine. I think it is one of those books that will be overlooked and forgotten until the world catches up to its irresistable logic. Once it does, if Foster is not long forgotten by then, it will be required reading in every school. Professional scientists won't be required to read it, because their working assumptions will be in perfect harmony with its - by then - obvious conclusions.
I am ordering a second copy today because I want to share it, but I do not want to risk not having one of my own.

This book is a pretty straight forward and easy to carry in lab coats during calls on pediatric floor.The author tried to incorporate most of the common problems faced by the house officer on the call. The organization of priorities and therapy is excellent.The only negative aspect is that it does not replace any textbooks or manuals in pediatrics; one has to read other books for individual diseases and their management. Overall it is absolutely worth it's price and useful for junior pediatricians

A very difficult read. I am college-educated, did OK on my SATs, consider myself intelligent, but found so much of this book went right over my head. So much of what this author had to say could have been written with a lot more clarity. I felt like I was reading someone's disertation. A lot of big words that were not needed. It made the reading of this book unenjoyable.

I really found this work to be intriguing as an insightful commentary on present-day Argentine culture and society. The broad selection of topics addressed by Foster reflects the diversity of cultural themes that define Argentina and its porteño citizens. The Dirty War, Mafalda, and the role of public performance protest are all addressed in a scholarly fashion - allowing for a discussion of popular culture in a unique and academic format. I recommend this book to anyone with a base knowledge of Argentine culture and history interested in examining at a closer level of investigation the social/political components of recent Argentine cultural development.

Really not worth reading. Poorly written but more than that the author never forms conclusions. Re: OJ he was a 'consultant' for the defense so his 'objectivity' is severely compromised. He suspects OJ is innocent but offers no other idea as to what happened. He suggests a UFO autopsy may or may not be real. He is inconclusive in suggesting Vince Foster killed himself. When it's not downright unbelievable it's downright boring. Further he fawns at everyone including Lee, Ito, and the Today Show hosts; he's nice enough too to put in a good word for his wife. Don't bother.

I found this book to be a waste of my time. The fist in many book that I have read about the O.J. Trial.
I found the first review from "Reader in Somerville, N.J." to be a waste of time also since they put the same review...word for word in every review they give. How can that help you with a book when a person just repeats thier views over & over for every book. Answer=It can't.

These chapters came from cases where his knowledge was crucial in exposing official mistakes of showing weaknesses by the prosecution. The accuracy and fairness of crime lab evidence are entirely dependent on proper identification, protection, and transfer of evidence from the crime scene. The Introduction explains how a seeming accident was found to be murder by analyzing the entrance wound and the position of the shotgun. Forensic pathology investigates sudden, violent, or unexplained deaths. 75% of all deaths are from natural causes, 75% of the rest are accidental. About 1.5% are suicides and homicides. Many of the most controversial cases on record have involved medical examiner systems, due to political influence (p.9).

Chapter 1 deals with the Trial of OJ Simpson, and the evidence for guilt or innocence. One of the biggest mistakes was to not get a forensic pathologist to the scene immediately; important evidence was lost forever (p.34). Nicole's stomach contents were discarded; if empty, then 3 or more hours elapsed since her last meal. Page 43 tells of the high error rate in laboratory testing of blood and other specimens. Nicole's uncorroborated diary wrote of being followed to a "Payless shoe store". Would a fan of fashion and style ever go there? Page 49 says there is NO regulation on DNA testing, or of the astronomical percentage estimates. Page 59 tells that two weeks after the murders there was no blood on those socks; weeks later there was! Page 67 says no cuts were seen on OJ's hands on the flight to Chicago. Page 70 tells of Cochran's wearing that knitted cap; to me, it looked like a child's cap.

Chapter 2 discusses the suicide of Vincent Foster, and how rumor mongers blew it up into a fantasy (p.81). Chapter 3 tells of his investigations into the aftermath of Waco. This was a tragedy that never should have occurred (p.100). Chapter 4 tells of a shoot-out in Cleveland; the coroner's staff was guilty of deliberate, willful, and clever deception (p.114). Chapter 5 tells of a shooting in Chicago where "this whole operation may have been nothing more than a political assassination" (p.131). The State Attorney and the police officers involved in the raid were charged, and found at fault (p.134). Chapter 6 deals with the 1989 Oakland earthquake. Many who died would be alive if state and local emergency management officials had done their jobs quickly and efficiently (p.142). The autopsy reports were done by the lowest bidder, and the reports had the lowest quality (p.146). Chapter 7 tells of the nightclub fire in 1977 Cincinnati. Many did not die of burns or smoke inhalation, but from invisible and odorless toxic fumes (p.162).

Chapter 8 explains why a fall from a high building was homicide and not suicide or an accident. Chapter 9 investigated the mysterious death of a government opponent; it was an accident. Chapter 10 tells of the unexpected death of a government official; it was a natural death. Chapter 11 tells of the execution of a maid that caused an international incident. Chapter 12 deals with the swine flu panic of 1976, a result from using "Legionnaires Disease" to allocate money and authority to the CDC and FDA (p.231). At least 52 people died after receiving swine flu vaccine. Chapter 13 tells of a man serving a life sentence for stabbing his wife and her parents. Fingerprints found at the scene did not match the suspect, the victims, or those who were in the house before the murders (p.247). After the State forced the defense lawyer off the case, he was convicted at the third trial (p.258)! Pages 259-60 tell why a jury will convict even if the evidence is unconvincing! Chapter 14 tells of his viewing of an 18 minute videotape of an autopsy on an unknown being. He could not say it was a hoax.

I am a PH.D candidate of Wuhan University, China.My research field is rice gene isolation and clone. So I want to buy this book.