Ross Books

I am not an academic or one who professes any profound intellectual knowledge of Buddhism. I am a practising yogi with only experience of the teachings to convey. In seeking enlightenment I must say this commentary was most profound in both my experience and understanding of life.

I received a large taste of emptiness and the self by reading and rereading the "seventy Stanza's". It cleared up the confusion about relative and absolute truths and paved the way for me to see life in a clearer view. This book also opens the way for further studies of the nature of mind in a most detailed way.

This is not an easy reading and if one believes it is, then one doesn't understand. It is easy to fool oneself and believe they understand but once that happens, life becomes a series of challenges that dare you to understand what you think you "know".

Taking the mind to it's limit of understanding and opening another realm of knowledge also encompasses the heart and this is where one can become befuddled. Living and knowing emptiness on a moment to moment basis is empowering in alleviating all suffering. for oneself and others.It isn't an intellectual exercise that one masters today, it ust be kept in one's conscious, so periodic rereading is required. Each reintroduction is more revealing and if my words annoy or bother your intellectual abilities, then you haven't understood.

I have taken a couple of courses dealing with Buddhist philosophy so I have some background in the area but I am far from an expert.
That being said, this is about as clear an explanation of this core Buddhist concept as you are likely to find

It's a great book, exactly what I was looking for. It's composed of 2 volumes; one which talks a little about aboriginal art and spirituality and then goes into a brief explanation about each work and the artist. The second volume contains full page color images of the works discussed in the first volume. Its clear, easy to read and the works are great, from a wide range of aboriginal communities within Australia. I would definately recommend this book to those people that love reading about art.

The book has two parts. The first explains the symbolism in Australian Aboriginal painting, while the second shows a collection of paintings. It's a magnificient book! I recommend it to anyone interested in this kind of art. My only regret about this book is that I didn't buy it when I spotted it in a bookstore in Paris.

This book is invaluable for naturalists who live in Mecosta County. It must have taken Mr. Ross many hours and persistent dedication to put together such an exhaustive compilation. Being a birder, I especially appreciate the arrival/departure estimates he lists for every species. An added plus are explicit directions locating natural areas in the county, and what you may see there. While I purchased this book to compare bird notes, I have found everything about the book to be of interest. He includes extensive and easy to read history, geography and geology chapters--even offers notes about caring for injured/orphaned wildlife, and he supplies additional reference sources. If you love nature and are lucky enough to live/travel through Mecosta County, MI, this book is a must-have. How fortunate we are to have such a passionate naturalist among us; Mr. Ross writes good newspaper articles too. I hope to see more books and articles authored by him.

My parents own a cabin in Mecosta and we love it up there, it is like holy ground. I believe it is what pushed me to get a degree in fisheries and Wildlife. It would be wonderful if more local communites had a resource like this.

This book is an excellent introduction to the artist Chiura Obata. Illustrated with photographs, drawings, watercolors and woodblock prints, this biography (aimmed at younger readers but very informative for all) recounts his life story including the major highlights and upheavals. Obata loved the "great nature" of wilderness. This love of nature enabled him to live through hard times and flowed into his work. His unique training in traditional Japanese art combined with western sensibilities and appreciation of the natural environment enabled him to find unique paths to visual expression.

His story is an interesting one and worth investigating. This is a very good place to start. Recommended.

Nature Art with Chiura Obata describes not only the life of a contemporary Japanese artist, but also depicts a man who maintained his spirit and dignity when he was interned with fellow Japanese Americans during World War II.

Chiura Obata was born in Japan in 1885. His older brother and wife were unable to bear children of their own, so they adopted Obata when he was five years old. Obata showed a talent for art at any early age, and his rigorous training began immediately in his new home.

Most interesting to Obata was the nature around him. He studied plants, birds and animals. He learned to make his mind calm and to use all his senses, not just his eyesight, when he was observing his subject.

In 1903, at the age of 17, Obata set sail for California, where he fell in love with the Pacific Ocean, the mountains, the redwood trees and Yosemite National Park. He also encountered prejudice and survived the earthquake of 1906. Through it all, Obata ultimately became a teacher at the University of California in Berkeley.

This book is filled with fascinating old photographs, reproductions of Obata's beautiful sketches and paintings, along with art exercises for budding artists who want to try out some of Obata's techniques. The exercises encourage readers to follow their feelings and draw nature as they see it. I found this book perfect for a presentation on Japanese Art to a second grade class.

When Obata and his family became internees in 1942, he recorded the story of their imprisonment through art. Even though their accommodations were dirty and depressing, Obata encouraged his people to see the beauty of nature in order to survive. He organized an art school and students would carve sculpture from tree stumps and build lamps from old car parts.

Obata became an American citizen in 1952 and lived to a ripe old age.

One of the best books I've read on negotiating. The authors have an insight into this complicated world and explain just how easy it is to have a successful negotiation so everybody wins. I am in real estate and must negotiate all the time with buyers, sellers and attorneys. This book has certainly made a compelling difference in my approach and I'm more successful. Thanks

This book offers a multitude of effective negotiation strategies for dealing with business people, friends, family, and casual encounters. Using a "win-win" philosophy the authors provide chapters on principles of negotiation, skills that make negotiation work, negotiating obstacles, negotiating with difficult people, and how to assess and gain success in different settings and situations. All the information is presented clearly and comprehensively, with lots of illustations, and there are many practical suggestions and step-by-step solutions about how to handle tough problems. Highly recommended!

This is one of those books that turns things inside out and outside in so that you can better understand the world we find ourselves in. I know of no better way to compliment the contributors to this fine book then to quote from a master himself (Eduardo Galeano)......."The looking-glass school teaches us to suffer reality, not change it; to forget the past, not learn from it; to accept the future, not invent it. In its halls of criminal learning, impotence, amnesia, and resignation are required courses. Yet perhaps- who can say- there can be no disgrace without grace, no sign without a countersign, and no school that does not beget its counterschool."........

A book any critical thinking person should own. It is incisive, scintillating, timely, revolutionary, illuminating, compelling, well researched and documented, a compilation of the most important educational authors in the USA.

THE NIGHTMARE AND THE DREAM charts new ground in analyzing the impact of hip-hop on African-American political culture. By going beyond a mere inquiry into the dynamics of hip-hop in the post-Civil Right era--a limiting perspective that a majority of contemporary hip-hop works fall prey to--Ross goes back in time to the nineteenth-century and locates a recurring phenomenon that has continued into the twenty-first century. The Dyad Syndrome of dual conflicting political leaders has plagued black communities from the era of Frederick Douglass and Martin Delany to the life and times of W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, and Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan. According to Ross, this syndrome haunts the `Weltgeist', or world-spirit, of hip-hop as well, whether we talk of the tensions between Notorious BIG and Tupac Shakur, East Coast and West Coast rappers, or artists such as Lil' Kim and Foxy Brown. Ross provides a moving narrative that weaves in and out of well-known black figures in addition to musicians and politicians whose lives have been disavowed in historical memory. Select figures represent archetypes of a "Dream" vision full of the Horatio Alger story in blackface, while others embrace a nihilistic conception of the "Nightmare" reflecting the realities of rampant injustices facing black agents since the founding of the American republic. So where do we go from here? With Du Bois's ideas of double-consciousness and second sight serving a mediating role, Ross details the tensions and ultimate public reconciliation between Jay-Z and Nas as a prime example of how hip-hop, like black politics, can progress forward positively, in solidarity, despite the obstacles. Ross's final tale is not a nihilistic one such as that of the mythical Sisyphus, bound forever to repeatedly push rocks up a hill only eventually to fall down. THE NIGHTMARE AND THE DREAM uniquely spells out a radical existential injunction made famous recently by Toni Morrison, Cornel West, and Barack Obama: hope can result after we come to terms with the dialectics of partisan conflict. Dax-Devlon Ross's brilliant textual achievement is a must read for anyone concerned with the future of hip-hop, African-Americans, and new directions in late modern America as a whole.

Book Review by Dan Tres Omi

In the last several years, there have been quite a few healthy tomes written about hip hop culture. Unfortunately, a large portion of that bunch tends to place hip hop culture outside of Black culture. Much of what is written about hip hop culture seems to remove it from the context of Black history particularly. Of course they point out how hip hop is a Black and Latino manifestation of an oppressed creativity but they leave it at that. There is no connection made to the Black Arts movement or the Black Freedom Rights struggle of the fifties, sixties, and the seventies. Dax Devlon Ross, a prolific and independent writer, brings it all home in The Nightmare and the Dream.

In one book, Ross summarizes points made in Harold Cruse's classic The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, W.E.B. DuBois' Souls of Black Folk, and Dean E. Robinson's Black Nationalism in American Politics. What makes The Nightmare... stand out is how Ross connects the dots to Black Nationalism and hip hop culture. Using the Hegelian dialectic, Ross uses Nas and Jay Z as his subjects when discussing the internal conflict in Black America between Black Nationalism and assimilation. Like Robinson, Ross does a careful deconstruction of Black leadership in the United States. He does a wonderful job of explaining DuBois' double consciousness, but Ross does not stop there.

Ross begins with a hardy overview of the history of Black leadership in the United States. He begins with Frederick Douglass and his public beef with Alexander Crummel. Ross explains how Douglass enjoyed the spotlight and refused to allow anyone else to share the stage. While Douglass felt that fully embracing American culture is the key to Black Liberation, Crummel preached a more radical Black Nationalism. Ross breaks it down from that point on. In the final chapters, Ross brings it home by using the conflict between Biggie and Tupac and later Nas and Jay Z.

The book will force the reader to peruse the books mentioned above and requires a great amount of meditation. Like any hip hop purist or Black intellectual, I questioned Ross' choice of subjects in Nas and Jay Z. After putting down the book, I must admit that Ross did a thorough job of stating his position. What I enjoyed about The Nightmare... is the author's call for us to really look at our culture critically. We often complain that those outside of our culture have no respect of it. However, we are just as guilty as our detractors since we refuse to really analyze the impact our culture has on politics and economics in the United States. We refuse to see hip hop culture as a subculture of Black culture. We refuse to approach hip hop music from an intellectual perspective. Ross urges us to do just that. From this mindset, one can understand the author's use of Jay Z and Nas. Like the Black leaders discussed in The Nightmare... Ross points out how during the time that many of them lived, they were vilified, disregarded by mainstream voices, and at times under appreciated by the very same people they attempted to help. Many participants of hip hop culture do the same thing when it comes to our icons.

For a short book, Ross covers so much. As stated before, it will force readers to seek out other books. I think this is Ross' intent. We should challenge ourselves. We should broaden our horizons. We should connect the dots since we will be the ones writing the history. It will not be too far fetched to say that The Nightmare... is an important book. Ross places a huge magnifying glass on what has happened within hip hop culture in the last ten years. What makes the book special is that Ross is one of our voices. He is one of us. This makes his voice much more authentic. He not only knows what he is talking about, but he is a fan of the music and a participant in the culture.

Edward Marston is the pseudonym of Keith Miles, a fairly prolific and extremely good writer of mainly Elizabethan and medieval mysteries. He has also written mysteries under his own name with both sporting and golf backgrounds. However it is primarily the books that take place earlier in history that I am interested in. He read modern history at Oxford and has had many jobs, including university lecturer, but fortunately for all his readers, he turned to the writing profession.

The star actor of group of players called Lord Westfield's men, Laurence Firethorn is more than eager to seduce a lady. Unfortunately the lady in question is the wife of the Lord Mayor elect. A clandestine meeting between the two is arranged at London's Nine Giants inn. In the meantime the landlord of the actors' home base is troubled by a plot to take over the ownership of the inn. A young actor is subjected to a horrible assault and a waterman pulls a mangled corpse from the river Thames. The drama comes to head at the annual show, organised by the incoming Lord Mayor, as his barge moves slowly down the Thames.

Edward Marston bring to life the sights and sound of Elizabethan London so effectively that the reader almost feels transported back to the narrow stinking streets of old London town.

...

Originally published in 1991, The Nine Giants is the fourth in a series published by Poisoned Pen Press of The Queen's Head, The Merry Devils, and The Trip To Jerusalem. Set in London during the period of romance and swashbuckling, The Nine Giants is a story of love, murder, the stage, and politics all rolled into one. Westfield's Menis a theater group sparked by the genius of the handsome and naughty Laurence Firethorn, whotranslates his enthusiastic performances to trysts with select female admirers, whether marriedor no. It is up to his book keeper, Nicholas Bracewell, to keep everything afloat. But whena body washes up on the Thames, and Nick's girlfriend Ann Hendrik's house and life is threatened, that Nick actually swings into high gear.. Not only does Nicholas minister to the needs of fickle actors around him, he also discoversthe rather elaborate plot hatched by a greedy politician, involving murder, intrigue, and conspiracy. The Nine Giants is a witty and ribald frolic, with the intensity of murderous greed at its core. Marston's characters are hilarious, the action is non-stop, and his use of language is pure bliss to the reader's inner eye. Elizabethan London resembles the political intrigues of today's world. This is a delightful read, with constant action and entertaining insights.

Shelley Glodowski
Reviewer

"Nine... Ten... and Out!" is a book full of drama, comic touches, sadness and joy. What goodness, strength, and innocence that is the man Emile Griffith.

And then tragedy... as in the documentary (Ring of Fire), so in the book: when Emile meets Benny, Jr., 40+ years later, it is hard not to be moved.

I have to confess that prior to "The Ring of Fire," Emile Griffith's sexuality never occurred to me, one way or the other. I was also unaware of his later career as a trainer, and knew nothing of the mugging, nor the matter of being generous to a fault, to his very own detriment. What is shown is that Emile seems very capable of making the most of what he has, with a smile, and that ain't a bad thing (forget what any of the so-called Elitists would say).

While it's sad to read about the mental deterioration, and everything that can be inferred therein (boxing, mugging, age), it's clear the last thing Emile would want is to be pitied. All said and done, I have nothing but affection and admiration for this truly great warrior who, as Ron Ross shows, also happens to be a very good guy.

The drama is delineated with strong narrative, sound judgement, moments endearingly comic, and with Ross's always very human touch. Who can ask for more?

This is a unique story of a remarable man--Emile Griffith, the Middleweight & Welterweight Champion of the World. Emile's story has been sitting there, waiting...waiting, just waiting to be told for years. I have always wondered who was going to be the one to tell it. I'm happy it is Ron Ross, a sensitive and knowlegeable writer and soul.

Barney Ross is one of the heroes of my childhood. He is one of the fighters who held crowns in two divisions. He was a role model for me , and other Jewish kids not simply because he was a Jewish fighter(There were lots of Jewish fighters in those days) but because he had incredible guts and was a true champion.
I saw quite a few of his fights including the fight mentioned in the fine review written on this website in which Ross took a tremendous beating from Henry Armstrong and refused to go down.
His autobiography tells the story of his hard-times orphan childhood, and his coming to be a fighter. It also tells of how he volunteered for service in the Second World War and received a Silver Star for heroic action on Guadacanal. It was on Guadacanal where he was severely wounded, and received huge doses of morphine that he became addicted, an addiction which would have disastrous consequence in the rest of his life.
He tells his story with modesty and frankness. This is the story of a true American - Jewish hero, and one of the great boxers of his time.

Of all the world's heroic figures,I've had the closest bond with
Barney Ross,who died of cancer at 58 in January,1967,the year of my Bar Mitzvah;in fact,he won the world's lightweight title on June 23,1933 by decision over Tony Canzoneri-34 years and a day before I read my Haftorah.I do not believe it is a coincidence that in 1933,the year Hitler came to power in Germany,
Ross won the world title;if The Torah had been written in the twentieth century,Ross would've had a starring role in it.Since it wasn't,we'll have to settle with 'No Man Stands Alone.'Aside from that,there was a horrible attempt at a movie about him called 'Monkey On My Back',starring Cameron Mitchell and sort of another attempt of a movie about him,which became 'Body and Soul' about a fictitious Ross,with John Garfield,who wouldn't play Ross because he didn't want to play a junkie;Ross sued and won in both cases.The fact is ,he became addicted to morphine after his experience at Guadalcanal in World War II,for which he probably should've won The Congressional Medal of Honor;he didn't have to be there-he enlisted in the Marines in his thirties after his boxing career,in which he was the first boxer
to hold titles in three weight divisions,retiring with a record of 72-4-3.He went into his last fight with Henry Armstrong on May 31,1938 with a not quite healed from one of his wars with Ceferino Garcia.He was 29,took an incredible beating,refused to go down-and rallied in the last round;when it was over,the crowd was silent.Armstrong later said
he was glad he didn't fight Ross in his prime.The former rabbi of my synagogue,Noah Gamze-then at The Loop Synagogue in Chicago,remembered Ross having to decline the honor of lifting The Torah because of broken hands.In fact,Ross,born Barnet Rasofsky was supposed to become a rabbi;this went out the window when he was 13 and his Orthodox father was murdered in his small grocery store
in Chicago.The family was split up-and for a time, Ross ran errands for Al Capone;Capone finally told him,"Here's a twenty.Buy your family something and go back to school or get a job...look I told you something.Now beat it before I get mad."Ross later tried to run guns to Israel in the 1948 war-19 years before The Six Day War,which ended days before my Bar Mitzvah;if anyone is looking to make an autobiographical movie-'No Man Stands Alone' is a unique and terrific choice.