As my first and last reading in postmodernism, what immediately stood out was the turgid obscurity of the writing. Random page:

"Apel's rebuttal of Albert's anti-foundationalist argument via the charge of performative contradiction assumes that the a priori validity of logical rules must be assumed". Example would be nice, but definitions and examples are scarce and would cramp the author's style.

After a few pages, a greater realization: one can read for pages and not encounter an actual idea. Words, chosen for ambiguity, arranged on paper so as to have no meaning when considered in sequence.

The book is unimportant in two ways: it is hypocritical and has no utility. It is an abstract game in which the author depends on 3rd-order natural-language word definitions to avoid committing to anything specific. Well, almost.

ON IT'S OWN TERMS, the book is necessarily a final (meta)attempt to provide the universal mechanism to avoid "cognitive dissonance", the discomfort felt when exposed to another viewpoint. But that assumes that cognitive dissonace is something all seek to avoid. Thus, there is the rejection of absolutes, itself based on a specific assertion -- the assumed universal/absolute desire to resolve cognitive dissonance.

Given the record of intellectuals and academia in jumping on-board intellectual frauds from Marxism to Keynesian economics to Freudian psychology to Kinsey sexuality (See "Degenerate Moderns" by Jones) only to see them collapse in ruins of error after thousands of Ph.D's and careers were built around them, post-modernism can be seen as a self-defense mechanism for academia. An attempt to declare that all human reason is inadequate, there being no truth. "We could only have failed so monstrously if human reason itself is unreal".

Self-centered arrogance. Human reason is fine, albeit finite. It is demonstrably irrational assumptions of academic elites that are unreal:

1. "There are no absolutes".Comment: The statement claims absolute knowledge, thus contradicts itself. (There is the temperature absolute zero. Has much to do with entropy, thus the cause-effect direction of time, with all THOSE consequences). Question: Do you suppose there are no absolutes or there are people who PREFER there are no absolutes, so they can do what they want?

2. "Everything is relative". Comment: Contradicts itself, being another absolute assertion of truth even as it claims there are none. Meaningless.

3. "We can't know anything with certainty". Comment: Except, it seems, this one belief. Which, being an example, is thus self-refuting and meaningless. It asserts an absolute truth as it claims one is not possible.

4. "What a person believes is the result of social, psychological or chemical conditioning" Comment: Then this belief is also the result of such conditioning, invalidating its significance to an equal extent.

5. "There is no truth". Comment: If true, the statement is an example contradicting it's assertion. Another impossible statement that excludes itself.

6. "Only empirically verifiable or falsifiable statements have any meaning". Comment: This idea cannot be verified and prohibits itself from being simply assumed true. It is thus impossible.

Post-modernism was invented to protect elites from the cognitive dissonance that comes with recognizing the irrationality of the assumed "enlightened" beliefs above. (That, and to amuse the French: "Jacques, I can't believe the Americans bought into us AGAIN...finally, revenge for all those 'I Love Lucy' reruns.")

Once these beliefs are recognized and eliminated, human reason does well. The reasoning that requires the above to be self-refuting statements allows one to construct the mathematics to send a spacecraft 30 million miles to another planet and arrive within 100 meters. Human reason does well if started from a certain point.

The author, of course, doesn't deny any of this (and cannot), just constructs a preemptive defensive fog of imprecise words so as to cover all bases simultaneously. This fog is dependent on using implied but less common alternate word definitions. For example, when trying to address the charge of self-refutation, it turns out the charge must be "unloaded".

"Refutation" has too precise a meaning, thus the post-modernist has to "unload" the charge of self-refutation instead of "refuting" the charge of self-refutation. "Unload" is typically used with respect to physical labor. By switching it to refer to a logical operation, the author creates a vagueness of meaning that allows the reader to fill with imagination or assumption. Deeply dishonest, intentional miscommunication.

She writes "for the self-refutation charge to have logical force (as officially measured), the mirror-reversal it indicates must be exact". First, I wonder how, ON HER TERMS, she can know this. Second, I wonder what "mirror-reversal" logic is. Third, on her own terms, how and who "officially measures" logical force"?

There may be a suggestive parallel to post-modernism in science. Mathematical reasoning often contains infinite series summations, or sometimes, additional small terms in the expressions. For computational reasons, these expressions are often truncated to an approximation. Thus the spacecraft arrives 100 meters off target after 30 million miles. The error has little to do with the arbitrariness of human reason. 3rd order and higher terms were deliberately neglected, not worth carrying.

I think post-modernists fixate on these infinite series (without knowing about them, being verbalists), missing the bigger picture that to put a spacecraft down within 100 meters conclusively demonstrates successful reasoning of high order, including the precise boundaries of what one doesn't know. I suppose covariance mapping would be shocking revelation to a post-modernist.

While the book is UNimportant ON ITS OWN TERMS with respect to reason, it is very significant for academia. It promotes intellectual suicide of the current ruling elite that has failed so badly. Even as modern academics eat this stuff up to protect themselves from facing the awful recognition of the concretely false assumptions of humanism that frame their lives, it nullifies their intellectual existence and prepares for the collapse of degenerate institutions, making way for the new. Thus, some hope; the dead-wood is clearing itself. If it doesn't go fascist, universities might be in good shape in 20-30 years.

The previous (hostile) reviewer noted that this was his "first and last" reading in postmodernism.

It shows.

In fact, his objections to Belief and Resistance are entirely anticipated in the book itself.

In this book, Herrnstein Smith extends the arguments in her earlier _Contingencies of Value_, showing how belief patterns can be sustained and effective without reference to "objective" truth. It _does_ take a certain patience to get used to her style, which here, even more than in her earlier books, is qualified sometimes nearly to the point of disappearing. But in fact, the particular idiom she has developed is a consequence of her intellectual journey, and the book is a serious defence of a serious philosophical position.

Another potential problem is the "occasional" nature of some of the pieces. Unlike her earlier works, Belief and Resistance collects pieces originally written for various forums, and often in response to critiques of her earlier formulations. Because of this, the opening and closing chapters (especially the material on Habermas) seem not to fit fully with the central argument. But that argument, particularly in the title chapter and the chapter entitled "Doing without Meaning," is presented brilliantly and (despite the wilful misunderstanding of the earlier reviewer) clearly.

There is nothing outstanding about this book. The information is very complete but the layout/format is bland. There are few photographs and most images are in black and white/lineart. I'll use it because it is prescribed for the course but it wouldn't be a choice.

This book is too brief and does not explain rationales in detail. Subjects are scattered throughout the book which makes it difficult for studying.

The book is a compilation of 7 quilt designers flower quilts. These quilts were pieced with some having applique added. The designs are all unique but there are better books on quilting designs and applique. I would not recommend this book.

This book is a compilation of 7 quilt designers work. Each designer created a quilt using piecing techniques to create the look of flowers. There maybe additional appliqued flowers with the pieced design but not always. I feel there are better books on quilt pieced designs and applique designs than this one although all these designs were unique. I would not recommend this book.

The book's title already tells about its content -- ghost stories from Canada. A big part of the book are narratives about people's supernatural encounters who shared their stories with the author. In the introduction, Barbara Smith points out that people have occasionally been "so overwhelmed by their experience that they have not been able to recall all the details. " (p 9) That's understandable, yet what remains is the doubt that a thorough research of circumstances could have helped to fill the gaps. Additional to the first-hand experiences people kindly shared with Barbara Smith, the author tells some more or less spooky folklore tales from all over Canada. She even adds the tragedy of "one ship [... which] will haunt our collective consciousness forever." (p 93) One may wonder why she felt the need to add the Titanic's horrible fate in a book about Canadian ghost stories. Barbara Smith doesn't fail to explain that to her readers: "My purpose here is to remind you that the ship will always be connected with Canada. The Titanic sank onto the underwater Newfoundland Ridge, and many of the recovered bodies are buried in Canadian soil in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Oh yes, and aboard the Titanic was an ancient, evil, Egyptian mummy whose ghost is known to have left a trail of deaths in its ruinous wake." (p 97/98) What has the Egyptian mummy to do with Canada?

The book is divided into six chapters -- "Haunted Houses," "Transported To Beyond" (ghost stories about traveling in or around Canada), "Spirit Snippets" (supernatural experiences from callers to various phone-in shows on radio stations), "The Spirit's Inn" (haunted hotels), "Historically Haunted," and "They Came Back" (incidents of people's spirits coming back). Despite the interesting theme, Barbara Smith's presentation of those ghost stories makes them sound boring. It just isn't enough to quote people having told her that "the ghost is said to still haunt the house." (p 57) In which way? Why? Such details are missing throughout the book.

However, something else is not missing -- Barbara Smith continues to enumerate the other ghost stories books she already published. At one point she even mentions having presented "a writing course to aspiring authors [...] for several years, at least a couple of times each year." (p 238). Those remarks aren't really professional -- she could have mentioned her earlier works and activities in the introduction or maybe in a final conclusion. However, they are out of place during a story, interrupting it rather than letting it flow. The author's narrative style strives to address the reader by asking questions like "Is there such a thing as ghosts? Isn't there such a thing as ghosts?" and to include the reader in the immediate answer: "I don't think we can ever know for sure." (p 10)

Readers hoping for "chilling paranormal tales" and "spine-tingling stories of the supernatural" as promised on the book's back will be disappointed by "Canadian Ghost Stories," yet readers who are just interested in Canada's ghostly folklore without deeper research or detailed description of a haunting might be well entertained by Barbara Smith's ghost stories collection.

Author Barbara Smith has writing style that's clean and keeps interest, but GHOST STORIES OF HOLLYWOOD was a disappointment. Much of the information she reports comes from sources this reviewer is already familiar with and Smith's historical integrity is dubious.

This Hollywood theme collection of ghost folk tales are sorted by their various settings, including the spirits' former homes, hotels, forms of transportation, public places, graveyards, theaters, and studios. Some legendary greats and forgotten souls of the film and TV industry appear as central characters in these stories, either as ghosts or witnesses. This volume is also liberally illustrated with black and white photos of the haunted sites and superior pencil portraits by Arlana Anderson-Hale.

Jayne Mansfield is still seen sunbathing by the pool of her celebrated home, the Pink Palace, and no matter how many times subsequent owner Ringo Starr tried to repaint the walls, her favorite color still bled through. John Wayne visits his beloved yacht, THE WILD GOOSE. Sharon Tate had a precognitive vision of "the image of a human form tied to the stair rail, bleeding from slashes to the throat and quite obviously dying." For many years, a mysterious woman in black regularly visited the final resting place of Rudolph Valentino, who some believe frequents the costume department of Paramount Studios.

The lack of research effort put into this 2000 volume is painfully obvious. With the exception of personal experiences Smith relates, there is little consultation with primary sources, such as direct interviews with eyewitnesses or references to documents with first-hand accounts. Most of the stories she delivers are amalgamations of material that's been published before and not even accurate. Since this reviewer has already done quite a bit of research on Jean Harlow, she'll be used as an example.

Smith quite obviously used both HAUNTED HOLLYWOOD, by Hans Holzer, and HOLLYWOOD HAUNTED, by Laurie Jacobson and Marc Wanamaker, for Harlow's story without even realizing that each book was talking about a different house. Holzer documented events of the home Harlow shared with her mother and stepfather on Club View Drive in West Los Angeles while Jacobson reported on the house where she lived with her second husband, Paul Bern, on Easton Drive in Beverly Hills. The phenomena Smith reports are all attributed to the latter. Smith also attests that Harlow died from kidney damage from a beating by Bern, one of the biggest falsehoods rumored in Hollywood. Bern never physically abused Harlow, the nephritis that brought on her early demise was a gradual growing infection from an attack of scarlet fever she had as a teenager. Still, it is interesting to note that two of Harlow's former homes are now haunted.

Marilyn Monroe also makes several "appearances" in this anthology. This reviewer won't deny that the phenomena occurred, but the claims that Monroe are responsible are unsubstantiated, especially with the number of different locations where she was allegedly seen. Many people would like to befriend famous personages. If death negates that possibility, then some will accept posthumous encounters as a way of becoming closer to them. Monroe, with her special charisma, particularly dazzles people. A lot of blondes have passed through Hollywood--not all of them famous--and nothing verifies that any of these sightings were Monroe. One fact Smith reports on Monroe that this reviewer has been able to confirm is that her soul was reborn about 1980. She was no anomaly in the spiritual evolutionary process. She passed through the white light on death, so Monroe sightings are likely wishful thinking on the part of the people who make the claims.

Part of being a good ghost folklorist is doing a bit historical sleuthing. A stray error in detail can be forgiven; however, some of Smith's infractions are more serious. The accounts of Mansfield and Wayne have a ring of truth behind them, but, since Smith fails to verify other information she supplies in her book, can they be trusted? GHOST STORIES OF HOLLYWOOD makes fun, entertaining reading, but it is unreliable for anything else.