Interview with H. John Lyke and Kathryn L. Robyn, authors of Political Straight Talk

Inside the Book:

Title: Political Straight Talk
Author: H. John Lyke with Kathryn L. Robyn
Publisher: iUniverse
Genre: Political
Format: Ebook

In writing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, our Founding Fathers established a democratic republic with a solid political basis. What they wrote was the political map that future representatives would need to follow to conduct the people's business in an efficient and effective manner. As long as they faithfully carried out the people's will, our democracy and republic would function in a way congruent with our forebears' wishes.

What in the world happened?

H. John Lyke, a board-certified psychologist and professor emeritus at Metropolitan State College of Denver, and the author of multiple political psychology books, suggests that ever since George Washington retired as captain of our ship of state, subsequent presidents and members of Congress have failed to use the sailing chart of the Constitution. Instead, they've chosen to pursue their own and their political parties' self-interests.

Lyke uses psychological principles to explore the reasons why our government has fallen so low, and in the voice of a kind but determined therapist, he offers simple and viable solutions to get us back to following our map.

The Interview:

Could you please tell us a little about your book? 

Kathryn: Political Straight Talk, like its subtitle states, is a prescription for healing our broken system of government. The book starts as a continuation of the discussion of John’s previous books, The Impotent Giant: How to Reclaim the Moral High Ground of America’s Politics and What Would Our Founding Fathers Say?—How Today’s Leaders Have Lost Their Way. First we lay out the vision the Founders of the United States of America had for a democratic republic with liberty and justice for all, the interpersonal processes of integrity they called upon to come to agreement in creating the documents upon which our overall mission of freedom (The Declaration of Independence) and the structure that would maintain that (The Constitution) were based, and the many ways we have struggled to live up to that vision throughout our history, by turns failing and progressing. Our view is that at our current crossroads, we are failing. The rest of the book talks about ways to fix that, including a discussion of psychological processes needed to restore the leadership and citizenry to sanity, four amendments to the Constitution to address persistent systemic issues with power and alienation in politics, and a call for love, for without empathy, compassion, and love for all the people, not only our democracy, but the planet itself will likely be lost in our grandchildren’s lifetime. 

Who or what is the inspiration behind this book? 

John: I became interested in history only as an older man, never having really had the opportunity to study it at school. I read everything I could get my hands on about our Founding Fathers and was particularly inspired by George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and though he was not an original Founder, one might say he was the first founder of the country as a free state, Abraham Lincoln. Though very different men, they shared an implicit and passionate sense of what our second president, John Adams, referred to as “public and private virtue,” the twin qualities of integrity they each believed no democracy could survive without. I looked around for that quality in our leadership today, and found it wanting. I decided to explore why. 

What cause are you most passionate about and why? 

Kathryn: We are both passionate about the importance of love in all decision-making by government and business, in addition to our personal lives. When money or profit is the valued goal or motive, oppression and alienation will result, because the profit mentality is built around the idea of scarcity. The idea that we are all in competition for resources and successful outcomes has grown beyond the small business model into the realm of government, as if there is not enough liberty and justice and well-being itself to go around. Love has the opposite view: that with all of us pulling for everybody, there is plenty to go around, not just for liberty and justice, which should be free to all, but resources as well. In a healthy family, you don’t just feed some of your children and one parent; you make sure everyone is equally cared for to reach their potential. The same must be true in a democratic republic. 

Do you have any rituals you follow when you finish a piece of work? 

Kathryn: I’d like to say I dance a jig, but the knees aren’t what they once were. [Laughs.] But we did talk on the phone and share a nice grin. 

John: Since I’m 84, dancing a jig is out of the question. That’s because if I ever knew the steps involved, because of my age, I wouldn’t remember them today. Besides, my arthritic leg would prevent me from dancing even if I knew the steps! 

Who has influenced you throughout your writing career? 

John: Kathryn! I’ve said this many times, and though Kathryn gets embarrassed by it, I can’t say it enough that when I found her as an editor, my writing life changed to something I could respect and feel respected for. That was a great gift to me in my life, not just as a writer, but as a human being. Plus, over the years, she has unselfishly served as a marvelous catalyst for me to strive for excellence; it indeed has been an honor and a privilege to have received her generous tutelage over the years. 

Kathryn: Thank you, John! I have been an avid reader since I was a child; consequently, my influences are abounding. But I’d have to say that it was songwriters from Joni Mitchell to Paul Simon and Johnny Mercer to Beyoncé that have given me the sense of story, rhythm, and imagery with which I try to keep the reader engaged and turning pages. 

What are some of your long-term goals? 

John: To heal our beloved country! To get a national discussion going that brings back integrity as the number one quality we look for in politicians and infuses love into the electorate as well as the leadership when making laws that affect We the People. 

Kathryn: It’s a gargantuan task admittedly, but I think my efforts also lean in that direction. 

Meet the Author:

Dr. Lyke earned his master's degree in clinical psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia and his doctorate at Michigan State University. He is a board-certified psychologist and professor emeritus at Metropolitan State College of Denver, and was a clinical psychologist for the State of Colorado for many years. He has written the political psychology books The Impotent Giant and What Would Our Founding Fathers Say: How Our Leaders Have Lost Their Way, and co-authored a psychology self-help book, Walking on Air without Stumbling. He lives in Denver and has three grown children and four grandchildren. To find out more, please visit lykeablebooks4u. com, where you can read more about him as well as follow his current and archived blog posts.

More important to John, however, is that you join the discussion at lykeablebooks.wordpress.com, where the blog originates and you can post your comments.

Interview with Lauren Joichin Nile, author of Race: My Story and Humanity's Bottom Line

Title: Race: My Story & Humanity’s Bottom Line

Author: Lauren Joichin Nile

Publisher: iUniverse

Pages: 539

Genre: Biography/Memoir

Format: Kindle

Purchase at AMAZON

Lauren Joichin Nile introduces what she believes is humanity’s racial bottom line with a compelling account of her personal experiences growing up in 1950’s and 60’s segregated New Orleans. In so doing, she posits what she believes is humanity’s universal racial story.

Lauren explains how starting out from Southern Africa, fully formed human beings, over thousands of years, walked out of Africa, populated the entire rest of Planet Earth, and over 2,000 generations, physically adapted to their new environments, gradually taking on the appearance of the many races of modern-day humanity, making all of us literally one, biologically-related human family.

She then provides an abbreviated account of some of the most significant events of humanity’s racial history and an explanation of how that history has affected the American racial present. She also analyzes a number of controversial topics, including whether there are truly superior and inferior races.

Finally, Lauren shares what she believes are the specific actions that humanity must take in order to heal from our wretched racial past, realize that across the planet, we all truly can love one another and as a species, walk into a wiser, more empathetic, compassionate human future.

Lauren Joichin Nile is an author, keynote speaker, trainer and licensed attorney who specializes in assisting organizations in increasing their emotional intelligence, compassion, and productivity. The goal of her work with organizations is to help create environments in which understanding and kindness are valued and as a result, every person is equally welcomed and uniformly appreciated irrespective of all demographic differences. The goal of Lauren’s speaking and training in the greater society, is to help the human species grow in both wisdom and compassion.

Question 1:  Could you please tell us a little about your book?

In my book, RACE:  My Story & Humanity’s Bottom Line, I introduce what I believe is humanity’s racial bottom line with a compelling story of my personal experiences growing up in 1950’s and 60’s segregated New Orleans.  In so doing, I posit what I believe is humanity’s universal racial story.  I then explain how starting out from Southern Africa, fully formed human beings, over thousands of years, walked out of Africa, populated the entire rest of Planet Earth, and over 2,000 generations, physically adapted to their new environments, gradually taking on the appearance of the many races of modern-day humanity, making all of us literally one biologically-related human family.

Question 2:  Who or what is the inspiration behind this book?

There is no question that my sincere passion for helping humanity to mature beyond racism, colorism, sexism, nationalism, classism, ageism, ableism, heterosexism, homophobia, religious bigotry, and all other forms of xenophobia provided the inspiration for the book. What deeply inspired me to write it, specifically, is my passion to educate, and in the process, to open minds and soften hearts.  My greatest wish for my work is that it will help us as human beings to see the Divine in ourselves and ourselves in each other.

Question 3:  What cause are you most passionate about and why?

One of my two greatest passions is spreading the message across the planet that all human beings, all seven-plus billion of us on our beautiful, tiny Earth, are literally one genetically-related human family, that we are a brilliant species and that we are Divine.  I see my book as an instrument of that message.

Question 4:  Do you have any rituals you follow when you finish a piece of work?

I actually do.  I sit in meditation and express deep gratitude to The Creator for the guidance and inspiration that helped make the work possible.

Question 5:  Who has influenced you throughout your writing career?

Unquestionably, my mother, Mrs. Selina Gray Joichin.  My mother’s indescribable love and powerful life lessons of compassion, poise, maturity, dignity, citizenship, deep concern for the less fortunate and hope for a just and compassionate world, have been my foundation throughout my life. Her example continues to inspire me to this day.

Mahatma Gandhi, and Dr. King have also had a significant impact on my thoughts.

Question 6:  What are some of your long term goals?

I would love to be a public speaker for the rest of my life, crisscrossing the planet with my message of the oneness, the brilliance and the divinity of humanity. 

Question 7:  Do you have a favorite excerpt from the book?  If so, can you share it?

The following is an excerpt from Chapter I:  “My Racial Memoir:  The Making of a Compassionate Activist.”  It is taken from an article that I wrote for my law school newspaper in 1984. While I’m not sure that it is my favorite excerpt, it is one which seems to deeply resonate with readers.

I wish that for a day, for just one day, I could make half of America’s white population experience American society as black Americans experience it.  Twenty-four short hours would suffice.  What would they experience during those twenty-four hours?  They would experience the American culture from a perspective which for most, would be shattering, shattering myths, stereotypes, pre-conceived ideas, lies.  Within those brief twenty-four hours, they would gain an awareness of the subtleties of racism of which they otherwise may have remained totally ignorant.  They would ex­perience being the fourth person in a super-market check out line, seeing the three peo­ple ahead of them receive a friendly "hello" from the cashier and they not a word; they would experience white people's assump­tion that they are interested in only “black things", which manifests itself, for exam­ple, in white peoples' questions to them regarding what they think about Jesse Jackson's campaign or Dr. King's birth­day becoming a national holiday, or some other such 'black concern". They would ex­perience what it feels like to have white peo­ple tell them all about the black people whom they have known in the past. They would experience what it feels like to be in a society in which the vast majority of its members harbor an entire set of often un­conscious but nonetheless firmly entrench­ed beliefs and attitudes about them  which are based almost exclusively upon the color of their skin, i.e. that they are less in­telligent than white people and that they lack the full range of human emotion, sensitivi­ty, and sensibilities which white people, by their very birthright, naturally possess - the ability to appreciate nature's beauty, to be touched by a poem, to look up at the stars with awe. In essence, they would experience what it is like to be thought of and respond­ed to as inferior, to lose their individuality, to be responded to as "a black person", to lose their personhood, to be dehumanized. They would no doubt see quite clearly that many white people are totally and utterly unconscious of their preconceived notions about black people. They would see the specific ways in which many white people relate to black people differently from the way in which they relate to other whites, and they would understand, no doubt with far more depth than "real” black Americans, that the ways in which white people relate to them is the result solely of their social conditioning. They would see clearly that most white people are not deliberately or maliciously racist but they would truly and experientially understand that that lack of deliberateness and malice does not alleviate the pain of losing their in­dividuality, their personhood, a big piece of their humanity. They would see clearly that it does not alleviate the pain of being objec­tified, the pain of dehumanization.

I am convinced that it can be fairly safely assumed that most white people, after only half of that day, would probably be driven to cry out, "I’m white! I’m white! This is going to wear off in only twelve hours! I’m white!" Most could simply not take the be­ing classified, being responded to by automatic impulse on the basis of the color of their skin, walking through city streets and just being in society in general with the knowledge that when many white people look at them, they, (white people), see a black per­son first, their gender second, and not much else. With their exclamations, they would in essence be proclaiming and reclaiming their full personhood, their humanity. They would be shouting to the world that they really are “a regular person".

After those twenty-four hours had elaps­ed and the 'black/white" people had returned to their ordinary state, I would love to sit in on a discussion group in which the 'black/white" people try to explain to the inexperienced half of the white persons present what it was like to be black for a day. I would love to listen to them attempt to explain how differently they, the inexperienced half, responded to them (when they responded to them at all) as black people, what it felt like to be denied the common courtesy of a "hello" from a supermarket cashier, to have white people talk to them about 'black things", obvious­ly with the assumption not only that they are interested in nothing else, but also that they probably don’t know much about anything other than "black concerns". I'd like to listen to them try to explain what it felt like to walk into a movie theatre, bookstore, restaurant, classroom, one's work environment. . . and be one of a very few or the only black face present. I would like to hear them describe what it was like to experience the American media and advertising industries as a black person. I would absolutely love to listen to that conversation.

My thirty years of experience as a black American unequivocally inform me that the inexperienced white people would res­pond to their comments and perceptions with total skepticism and even disbelief. They would be utterly unable to hear, to really hear, to listen to the descriptions of the patronizing, rote manner in which the inexperienced white people related to the “black/whites”.  Without actually having liv­ed as a black person for a period of time, albeit a very short one, there is simply no way for the inexperienced whites to unders­tand the experience of being black in the U.S.  Finally, they would for the very first time truly understand that most white people simply do not see the racism in their interactions with black people.

 MEET THE AUTHOR

Lauren Joichin Nile is an author, keynote speaker, trainer and licensed attorney who specializes in assisting organizations in increasing their emotional intelligence, compassion, and productivity. The goal of her work with organizations is to help create environments in which understanding and kindness are valued and as a result, every person is equally welcomed and uniformly appreciated irrespective of all demographic differences. The goal of Lauren’s speaking and training in the greater society, is to help the human species grow in both wisdom and compassion.

Book Feature: Dancing with Detective Danger by Lynn Crandall

Inside the Book:

Title: Dancing with Detective Danger
Author: Lynn Crandall

Release Date: June 24, 2013

Publisher: Crimson Romance

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Uncovering secrets and exposing truth are all in a day's work for private investigator Sterling Aegar. But when her latest case threatens to reveal her own buried feelings for an old love, Sterling runs for cover. A body in the bathtub and pleas from a jilted wife to find her wayward husband mean a welcome break from the usual humdrum cases Sterling and her sister, Lacey, are called to investigate. But when Sterling's old flame, Detective Ben Kirby, walks into the murder scene, she feels her world spin out of control. Danger from thugs and murderers poses no greater threat than the peril she'd suffer if she lets daredevil Ben get too close. Seeing Sterling for the first time in two years is for Ben like drinking in a healing tonic. He could never forget the way it felt to run his hands over her delicious curves or the way she touched his soul. She remains the one person who can make the emptiness in his gut go away. Finding the murderer is his job, but protecting Sterling from seriously dangerous people is his mission. As the case unfolds, Sterling and Ben not only solve the murder and locate the missing husband, they confront secrets that set them each free from a painful past.

BUY HERE:

AMAZON|B&N

Meet the Author:

I started spinning stories as a child when I tried to entertain my younger sister at night when we were supposed to be going to sleep. In the dark, my stories typically took on a scary or paranormal element -- didn't do much to put us to sleep. Today, I hope my stories still fail to put readers to sleep, but rather take them on a journey. That's what I've been on since I decided to make writing my focus. As a reporter and magazine feature writer, I truly enjoy learning as I work on stories. As a romance writer, I enjoy doing the research and following an evolving story of my characters. I'm still learning as I go.

CONNECT WITH LYNN: WEBSITE|FACEBOOK|TWITTER

Interview with David Clapham, author of The Special and the Ordinary

Inside the Book:

Title: The Special and the Ordinary
Author: David Clapham
Publisher: iUniverse
Genre: Coming of Age
Format: Ebook

John Haworth, despite innate shyness, has floated upward in a comfortable English home environment under the influence of much older sisters and their friends. After he begins a new school in the early fifties, the seven-year-old is looking lost when a classmate, Martin Holford, decides to take him under his wing. And so begins a long friendship.

Ordinary rules of life apparently do not apply to the confident Martin except, perhaps, when he allows his mischievous humor excessive free rein against the self-important. While on separate coming-of-age journeys, Martin and John get on fine, despite John's occasional resentment about Martin's ability to bounce back after perpetrating 'wrong notes' against the wealthy while John slaves away attempting to make new music sound modern. John, who has no desire to be to be an apathetic musician like his viola teacher, unfortunately lacks the talent, personality, and love of limelight to match his glamorous piano teacher or Katherine, the singer he accompanies on the piano. Now all he has to do is somehow find his place amid an uncertain career as a ghost composer where chances come as infrequent as success.

The Special and the Ordinary shares the unique story of two young people as they come of age and step into the future, each with a different idea on what it means to be true to themselves.

iUniverse awarded The Special and the Ordinary the 'Editor's Choice' designation. Here are excerpts from the enthusiastic editorial reviews:

"Definitely a worthwhile read, I recommend The Special and the Ordinary to lovers of literary fiction." - Pacific Book Review

"...heartwarming and uplifting." - Kirkus Reviews

"The writing is clear and refreshing, with clean sentences that move the story along at a brisk pace." - Clarion Review

                                            The Interview:

Could you please tell us a little about your book?

'This coming-of-age tale follows childhood friends, John and Martin, from their youth to adulthood as they grow up in the industrial city of Porterfield, Britain, during the post World War II eras of the 1950s and 1960...John's "ordinary" persona is shy, intelligent, musically disposed, and exudes a serious approach to establishing himself as a musician...But, on the other end of the spectrum is Martin, whose "special" persona is charismatic, intelligent, precocious and exudes a lax approach to his path in life...While John works diligently to become rooted in the world as a classical musician, Martin easily flits, from being an evangelist to a faith healer to the legal field...

Who or what is the inspiration behind this book?

Most of us encounter friends or colleagues, or have other members of the family, who are distinctly more talented or ambitious or charismatic than ourselves. What should we do about these 'special' people?

I wanted to discuss how 'special' people can get away with behavior that is unacceptable from ordinary people; and to present ordinary people finding satisfaction in their lives.

What cause are you most passionate about and why?

Maintaining liberal values at a time when they are particularly under threat.

Do you have any rituals you follow when you finish a piece of work?

I find a good editor to help rewrite the novel, particularly as regards the organization of the narrative.

Who has influenced you throughout your writing career?

Novelists I admire most combine a serious side with humor, like Dickens, Mark Twain, Evelyn Waugh, and Barbara Pym among others. 

What are some of your long term goals?

I am writing a more ambitious book, an historical novel about some pioneers of genetics. 

Meet the Author:

David Clapham grew up in in Sheffield, England and studied botany at Oxford. After working at the Welsh Plant Breeding Station in Aberystwyth, Wales, he moved to Uppsala, Sweden, where he still lives today. David and his Swedish wife Lena have two children. He has also published Odd Socks with iUniverse in 2013.