EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Have you ever stopped to think about yourself and your story? If someone were to write your memoir what would it say? We all seek some level of authenticity but have trouble removing the labels and finding our whole story. Welcome to Dropping In with Diane Dewey. In this program we’ll explore diverse stories on identity to help determine what is truly yours. Now here is your host Diane Dewey.

Diane: Hi everyone. Welcome to Dropping In. we’re here live with Sid Balman who’s in Washington DC to gather us around the proverbial campfire in West Texas for his book Seventh Flag. On Dropping In we bring you diverse stories about identity as we ourselves struggle to make sense out of what’s happening now. The truth is stranger than fiction said George Byron and our reality right now is painful and difficult. We hope you’re safe and well. It’s Easter and Passover this weekend. In the season of second chances and potentially rebirth to a hopefully more and just and better world we send warm greetings.

Despite all the odds we feel more connected to strangers now than ever. This passage from James Baldwin reminds me of what we do here at Dropping In. for while the tale of how we suffer and how we are delighted and how we may triumph is never new it always must be heard. There isn’t any other tale to tell. It’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness. Today, my guest is someone who writes fiction that sounds like it could be true. Sid Balman is a rock star. It also happens that we do rub elbows together. Sid, he and I hang out together at family holidays so it’s a brother-in-law of sorts. Seventh Flag is Sid’s first novel and it comes with a breadth of knowledge. Sid is a Pulitzer Prize nominated national security correspondent. He covered wars in the Persian Gulf, Somalia, Bosnia Herzegovina and the Kosovo and has traveled extensively with two American presidents and four secretaries of state on overseas diplomatic missions.

With the emergence of the web and the commoditization of content Balman moved into the business side of communications. He helped found a news in syndicate focused on the interests of women and girls and he served as a communications chief for the largest consortium of US international development organizations. Quite a hefty resume. He’s also led two successful progressive campaigning companies and launched a new division at a large international development firm centered on violent radicalism which is a subject in his book Seventh Flag. There are also other security issues on behalf of governments and non-profits that he has worked on behalf of. He’s a fourth generation Texan as well as a climber, surfer, paddler and benefactor to Smith College. Sid lives in Washington DC with his wife and kids and two dogs. Sid, I would add to this resume don’t forget that you’re a ninja barbecuer. It’s wonderful to have you with us. Thanks so much so much for joining us on Dropping In.

Sid: Thank you Diane. Nice introduction particularly the part before you got to me.

Diane: Listen, you’re the star. I know that you and your book inspire quite a bit and our listeners can find you at www.sidbalman.com for a shot of you can see Sid with the U2 rocker Bono and see for yourself. Sid, just tell us for a moment here how did that come about that shot, that beautiful shot of you and Bono?

Sid: You don’t think he really wrote all of those songs do you? The truth is I was the brains behind all.

Diane: It’s the big reveal.

Sid: I will answer that question. I just want to give a shout out to my friends and my readers in this really tough time. I connect with you through my book than through other ways but keep the faith baby and better times are coming. The picture with Bono back during the times when I was working with that large international development organization. We had a conference and Bono was our guest for three days. This was back in the Bush administration, the second Bush administration. I was what they call in the business is body boy which means that for those two or three days I would lead him through crowds as you see me doing there or make sure his Guinness was the right temperature or things like that.

Diane: Those are important things.

Sid: The most important things and it seems a little pretentious but my publicist thought that would be a picture to put on the website. Who am I to argue?

Diane: Body boy. Okay, this is big. It’s just really nice. It’s a nice association. I do want to get right to your book. You’ve written a really compelling book Seventh Flag published by Spark Press. It’s a work of historical fiction and it has real authority. I think there are two voices at work. There the journalist in you and the author. The book is in its second printing so congratulations on the success of Seventh Flag Sid.

It resonates for me at Dropping In because of the themes of identity that stand out right away to me. There are many others but I’ll get to that first because that’s why we’re here. You’re from a suburb of Dallas, Texas and the book Seventh Flag is set in a town in West Texas called Dell City. You write the character, about the character Deuce, all these are great names. Deuce says Ray, this is a quote. He’s had a death in his family of his grandfather but Ray was still his grandfather you write. His profane death shattered Deuce’s
Illusion of what Dell City was to him, the foundation on which he stood in a shifting world. I just got to wondering right away how much of identity derives from where you’re from and what’s your take on that?

Sid: Wow, I wrote that? That’s pretty good.

Diane: It’s pretty damn good right? It’s about the hometown Dell City so but how does it weigh in to the other factors and identity?

Sid: Well um so I would draw on two things here. One is how identity is linked to those that context that surrounds you when you’re born, where you’re from, what your religion may be, how devout you are. Then there’s that identity that you sculpt within yourself as you grow and mature and become the person that you become. A lot of that second part is what we choose. That goes a little bit to the story of this country, the story of America, the story of the United States, a country of immigrants, a country where I guess pretty much all of us except for indigenous peoples, the first Americans come to pursue their dream.

Diane: They come to do their sculpting.

Sid: Quick sort of answer to that but I think that at least in this country you can as I said sculpt who you want to be and live where you want to and be that person but in the end it’s all about the authenticity that you have within yourself and not the trappings you choose to wear.

Diane: Getting those coherent with one another. That they’re cogent to one another. You talked about the identity of America and you started to do so I think beautifully. You’re going to hear yourself again here. It is incredibly well written. Life in Dell City had followed the arc of a nation whose people served as a beacon of optimism and opportunity after the Great War but over the next eight decades lost that innocence in a world where radicalism had metastasized into every community. I think it’s really interesting here because you start to really uncover and really unravel for us the scapegoat mentality. You talk about the brutal optimism that emerged after the United States 9/11 nightmare bolstered by the quote “tenuous victory in Iraq and the capture of Saddam Hussein”.

You described it as a different kind of attitude than there was after the World War II. Can you tease that out a little bit more for us? I mean you’ve started to allude to the fact that people are trying to sculpt their identity here as immigrants. It’s not working. There’s a scapegoat mentality at work, at hand. What’s changed over time do you think?

Sid: Let me just take a little step back for your listeners. Just because the book themes cover so you’re touching on so many things. As you said the book starts just it’s a historical fiction and it starts just after World War II. It traces the worldwide experiences of these two families that live in this small west Texas town. One is a prosperous farming family. The other is a family of Syrian, Muslim immigrants to help them carve a farming empire out of the high desert. That is kind of the first part of this book.

The second part deals with what you just alluded to Diane which is what has changed this country and of all places and iconic and that was what I wanted to do was to use the what I consider the most iconic setting a farm, a ranch in West Texas to tell that story about this creeping radicalism that has overtaken this country. This is not when we talk about radicalism and that’s an area in which I’ve worked. It’s not just um jihadist radicalism or it’s the far right as well.

I think our current political phenomenon has really pried the lid off a cauldron, the cauldron of people of white extremism that is to me the most dangerous element in our country right now. That’s what I really wanted to tell was why are people in this country become so radicalized. What is it? What radicalizes them and where is it headed? In the middle of that are these people are these victims. That’s why just quickly you have two characters who are profoundly radicalized. One is in the Syrian Muslim family who is recruited by Isis. The other is in the prosperous farming family. A white guy who’s recruited by the far right. They both without any spoilers, they both meet rather distasteful end.

Diane: I think this intertwining, being able to show this evolution through the intertwining of two families is genius because first of all it’s relatable. It’s understandable and I do want to acknowledge something that I think you just alluded to. Thank you for framing the book out for us because I of course neglected to do that. There are these two families living in West Texas but I do think that what you’ve just said about the thing that’s overlooked in the whole kind of body count of extremism is that there is no at the core, this is your quote again. “At the core of their violent radicalism there is little difference between an ISIS bomber in London and a white supremacist shooter in Charleston.” I think that is a big stake right there that you’ve taken hold of. I really commend you for it. Has there been backlash from the book that you’ve experienced as a result of this statement making?

Sid: Well I mean there was that sniper out there the other day. No, well there has been sort of predictable, some predictable backlash less than I thought actually. When the book came out in late October I went on a very lengthy national tour and into some of these very, very conservative areas. I went to Dell City even. I was actually very pleasantly surprised that there was no nastiness, no bitterness. People just embraced it. I think that the reason that they did is because of the even-handed way that I handled it in the book.

Not to get too wonky or anything here but radicalism is the way I look at it at least in my work is that it is a public health issue. Very much like this virus that’s ripping through this country and it metastasizes in the same way for different reasons but it metastasizes and spreads in the same way. There’s certain reasons for it. Feelings of incompetence, injustice, maybe brutality on behalf of law enforcement, sometimes an emotional or physical handicap but it’s very much a public health sort of approach that I think works rather than a bag them and tag them approach.

Diane: Exactly and sorry didn’t mean to interrupt. I mean I just have to say though I think it’s even-handedness and also I think you snatched something out of the air. People recognized the truth in it that somehow you didn’t fabricate or use hyperbole to try to make a point that was so exaggerated and crazy it sounded like everything else that we listen to. Sorry.

I think that just the logic of it. I guess I want to also now that you’ve approached the subject and we’re in at the deep end here. Covid 19. I mean from a logistical point of view right now we don’t see mass shootings or terrorist acts right now because there’s not large groups forming. A lot of this activity that Seventh Flag talks about has apparently gone underground. We’ve got about a minute left and then I’d like to come back and talk about the foment that’s created by the economic shutdown and the minority groups and fringe groups and the mainstream that’s suffering right now and the foment that’s created by bigotry and the xenophobia that we are experiencing in order to quote “protect ourselves”. Don’t go away. We’ll be right back with Sid Balman in Dropping In.

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Has your manuscript languished because you can’t find the direction it wants to take or have you lost the motivation to finish and polish it for publication because it can be such a big formidable task? Let Diane Dewey help you resolve your writing issues. Diane’s manuscript coaching offers help with sticking points like the arc of your story and how to flesh it out, finding the inner story and what you want to say, developing your message revelations that become your reader’s takeaways, helping to rally the motivation to finish your project and what to do next. We can analyze, edit and advise you on publishing. Who are the next collaborators on your writing path? If you seek resolution to these and other questions please contact Diane Dewey author of the award-winning memoir Fixing the Fates. Find her at trunordmedia.com. That’s T-R-U-N-O-R-D.com or on her author’s page dianedewey.com. Diane can also be found through social media. Connect with her through the links on the show page.

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You are listening to Dropping In with Diane Dewey. We’d love to hear from you if you have a question or comment about the show. Send us an email to ddewey@trunordmedia.com. That’s the letter ddewey@trunordmedia.com. Now back to Dropping In.

Diane: Welcome back everyone. We’re here on Dropping In with Sid Balman, author of Seventh Flag. It’s a momentous book. It has a lot of impact in terms of the way we think about our identity as a country and our evolution and our attitudes. Right now we’re talking about the whole pressure cooker that exists because of Covid 19 and the exacerbation of a lot of instigating issues that have ceded towards creating radicalism in the first place, disenfranchised minorities and in one passage of the book the root of the problem you write in dealing with the underlying reasons people become so alienated and incensed that they would do the unthinkable like turn themselves into human bombs and blow up a bus full of children. The stigmatization of minorities by populist politicians greedy for votes fanned the fire of hatred into an inferno of radicalized flame.

I guess I’m wondering Sid because you do straddle two voices here. You are a seasoned journalist and an author but in your view because we left off at this point is this what you would call the irrevocable march towards anarchy because we are experiencing so many more incendiary influences?

Sid: A couple thoughts on that Diane. I’ll try to be brief. My greatest uh fear in this current crisis was a breakdown of order in society starting with petty crime and leading to a situation where those who believe guns are the answer will begin to use them. We haven’t seen much of that yet although I had a just very briefly a good friend of mine, daughter was driving home from a grocery store the other day innocently. Someone who might have been homeless, I don’t know. They’re not sure threw a tire iron through her passenger window and injured her very gravely for no apparent reason. It’s a shocking crime.

In reflecting on that it gets to the root of what is radicalism. I mean this idea of income. This whole crisis has laid bare one of the most serious issues I think in society today which is income inequality. I’m not preaching take the money from the rich and give it to the poor but it is striking how unequal it is, how when it comes to ventilators and health care and bailout and mortgages. I mean it’s homeowners who are getting relief on their mortgages. Landlords are not giving any relief to the people who can’t afford. I think that if we are to talk about anarchy and revolution it will express itself as a result of that type of inequality.

Diane: I think that there is, this is at the heart of it the income disparity. There is not one, the International Monetary Fund, there is no body that speaks to this disparity with any sense that it’s healthy. The major banks, all, everyone has condemned it as a uh a radicalizing factor for sure but also one that is not sustainable in terms of helping communities sustain themselves or much less grow.

I mean I think that’s absolutely right to get to that very heart of that. I think we should actually since we’re not recommending answers here but we’re just observing that this is the crucible that we’re in. We’re going to look at how that plays out and what our role can be in helping it play out in a healthy way. I do want to go back to your other voice which is your author voice and ask you because obviously we’ve just delved on some pretty tricky issues. What kinds of stories? What characterizes the kind of stories you want to write about.

We had Craig Pittman on a couple weeks ago. He was talking about, he wrote about, writes about Florida weirdness, corruption, sleaziness, unexpected twist. This is what draws him. I wonder because obviously now we’re talking about a subject matter with this book that if it wasn’t even-handed could make some people twitch. I’m just wondering what drives you or draws you as an author? I know you’re writing a second novel now. What draws you to the page?

Sid: Well certainly not the money.

Diane: The subject matter.

Sid: That’s a big question and it’s a good question. What comes to mind immediately is the idea of or an image comes to mind immediately, the image of a single person trying to stop the tsunami. The single Chinese protester in Tiananmen Square standing in front of the tank. The idea of almost I don’t want to stay comic but exaggerated heroism particularly of underdog. Communities that pull themselves out of the fires of destruction like the phoenix rising from the ashes. Victories of spirit against great odds.

Also I like to write, I mean just myself personally I like to write about adventure, adventurous types of things even sort of exaggerated adventures type of thing. In some ways I think you need to be larger in life in your art today to break through because social media has distorted things so dramatically. Heroism and sex if you will, sort of a place for people to retreat a little bit and to maybe find their better self.

Diane: Escape into and maybe go inward. I think that this sense of exaggerated heroism and the lone dove, I think that that’s interesting and it is apparent in your book as this is a sense of swift justice I mean that accompanies life in rural Texas on football teams, high school football teams weigh in on this. There’s a part to play in hunting scenes are also in the book. I think that there is a quote, that’s your epigraph who gets to kill? Who is Deuce? Who is like god? I wonder if you relate that to this lone, this lonesome person.

Sid: As part of my research for this book I spent some time up at West Point, the US military academy. Several of the characters attended West Point. It’s an amazing place. Anyone who hasn’t been there I would commend. It’s like stepping back into a history book but they have a chapel there, quite a beautiful chapel. I was sitting there one day and there’s a stained glass window that has that inscription in Latin “Quis ut Deus”. Who is like God? That quote played into the first book as one of the characters is getting ready to go to war and it’s conversing through a letter with his grandmother about what it would mean to kill, who has the right to take a life and does taking a life mean that you are like God which of course is a profound hubris.

It also plays into my second book which is, the second book in a series of books about these similar themes with some of the same characters and some of the same geographies. It’s interesting to me having spent a lot of time around the military how much religion resides in the way they operate, in the way they motivate. That has been a theme really since I mean you go back into history.

Diane: God is on our side.

Sid: Yes God is on our side, the Spanish Inquisition. People can draw their own conclusions about that but wars like this current war we’re in with the coronavirus present opportunities to advance religion. I mean I know for example not to be too controversial that in the State of Texas, my home state they have interpreted abortion as a non-essential procedure and banned it during this period.

Diane: Isn’t that convenient.

Sid: Yes well I mean I don’t, we all have our views on it but I do find it an odd sort of thing to stick into this whole debate.

Diane: There’s a reprioritization that happens without any consultation or kind of democratic input but let’s get back to sex because that could be a fun subject here. I know what you’re talking about. The way the hierarchy of needs that happens in this pandemic is going to declare policy in a certain way and it is disturbing but you mentioned the idea of sex and violence. I have two different questions coming. One is when you were talking about why you write and providing us an escape hatch from our daily lives which goodness knows we need.

One of the radicalized figures in Seventh Flag is radicalized through the process of watching internet porn and then goes through a dark portal. It comes out on the other side. I wondered if you thought first of all did then sex equate with his radicalization as in sex equates for an arson let’s say. Secondly do you think that social media drives like Google and entities like Facebook and Twitter, do you think they have a better handle on this or has it just been allowed to run rampant?

Sid: My favorite subject so you’ve pried the lid off a huge subject. I have my opinions and I’ll share them freely. The way that in my experience working with radicalized populations and I’ve done it all over the world in my previous work, many different types of religions and even in prison. I think the way that or what I’ve been told by those who have gone down that path is that they view pornography and sex as a fruit of conquest. It’s sort of the rape and pillage mentality. In a place like Syria, in ISIS controlled Syria you have these horrific accounts of these ISIS fighters who take these young girls as their brides and do as they please. They are justified in some ways by those who interpret what they worship as justified.

It affects this problem. In some ways it’s about control in some way. In other ways it’s not about that at all but I think that’s how it plays into the whole radicalism. A lot of times in other contexts, in other radicalized context impotence is something that radicalizes some of these people. That’s the theme as you know in the books.

Diane: It’s power.

Sid: There’s this whole movement, this sort of…

Diane: Hang on. Hang on just a second Sid. I’m glad you’ve taken this lid off and I’d love to be able to talk about it forever. We’ve got a couple minutes left. Do you think that and I’m going to just give you a quick yes or no question. Janine Cummings in American Dirt, do authors have the right to, this may be a question you don’t like, to write from the point of view of another culture? Quick yes or no? You’ve done it. You done it well because your research is extensive. Are you on the on the sort of affirmative side of that even now?

Sid: Yes and yes. One expresses their art in the way they want. I mean did Leonardo da Vinci have the gravitas to portray the Last Supper.

Diane: Which by the way I’ve seen now with Zoom images across the top with the 12 disciples and only Jesus at the table. Don’t go away. We’ll be right back with Sid Balman on Dropping In.

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Has your manuscript languished because you can’t find the direction it wants to take or have you lost the motivation to finish and polish it for publication because it can be such a big formidable task? Let Diane Dewey help you resolve your writing issues. Diane’s manuscript coaching offers help with sticking points like the arc of your story and how to flesh it out, finding the inner story and what you want to say, developing your message revelations that become your reader’s takeaways, helping to rally the motivation to finish your project and what to do next. We can analyze, edit and advise you on publishing. Who are the next collaborators on your writing path? If you seek resolution to these and other questions please contact Diane Dewey author of the award-winning memoir Fixing the Fates. Find her at trunordmedia.com. That’s T-R-U-N-O-R-D.com or on her author’s page dianedewey.com. Diane can also be found through social media. Connect with her through the links on the show page.

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You are listening to Dropping In with Diane Dewey. We’d love to hear from you if you have a question or comment about the show. Send us an email to ddewey@trunordmedia.com. That’s the letter ddewey@trunordmedia.com. Now back to Dropping In.

Diane: And we’re back with Sid Balman, author of Seventh Flag published by Spark Press. It’s absolutely a tour de force. Sid Balman is working on a second novel. What’s the title Sid?

Sid: Murmuration.

Diane: Murmuration and do we follow these characters as well or are we in a different subject?

Sid: Yes, there’s significant overlap with characters and geography. It includes all of, many of the characters from the first book but most prominently my favorite character Adam Zarqan who is a Syrian Muslim immigrant to Texas. The barrel racer, kicker on her brother’s football team and a military sniper who goes to Somalia during the war. That’s where it begins. It also revolves around the same themes of immigration and radicalism and particularly on the white supremacist side, income inequality. It even has a virus in there. I was writing prior to this current virus but it fits right in.

Diane: I wondered if you felt as though you had been prescient because I felt there were a number of things that were prescient in this as well. At the very end you have the book of Revelations which by the way is the only apocalyptic document in the New Testament canon. That felt very prescient to me that you talked about who is like God from the book of Revelation. There’s also the passage from the Quran when the earth is rocked and her last convulsions. We’re going to try not to despair but there is a sort of sense of are we really in some kind of last reverberations that we need to seize and kind of take control of to correct some of these widespread disparities.

I do want to just offer our listeners lest this sound far-fetched I’m going to ask Sid just to recount the whole way in which the Syrian immigration and the Muslim rootedness in West Texas occurred Sid. It’s the story of the Dromedaries right?

Sid: Well that’s a fun story. One of the fun stories I found in my research so I’ll just tell it here. Of course well maybe your listeners don’t know but Texas has more Muslims than any other state in this country. In part there’s a reason which I use as a device to get my characters to Texas but this is a true part of history. Back in the middle 1800s president Franklin Pierce, who was an innovator? First to install hot water in the White House for example. He and his Secretary of War, they called it then Jefferson Davis from Mississippi decided to launch an experiment whereby they would incorporate camels into the US Cavalry. They felt they’d work very well in desert environment. They live on indigenous vegetation creosote cactus. As everybody knows they can go a long way with no water and they can carry a lot of weight and move pretty quick.

They imported thousands of these camels and hundreds of camel handlers from the Middle East and North Africa. They landed in Indianola, Texas just south of Houston. Made their way to desert southwest and began this experiment to supplement the US Cavalry with camels. Ultimately it failed for three reasons really. Camels are quite ornery animals. They don’t get along with horses. The cavalry didn’t particularly see camels fitting into their brand. I was slumping around the desert on a camel. These were pony guys and then the Civil War came along.

These camels were sold to circuses and prospectors but the handlers, the camel handlers, the Muslims stayed. Many of them made their way down into Texas and hence one reason for the population. To this very day if you go to court side Arizona there is a monument to one of the original camel handlers. His name was Hadji Ali but in America we like to make nicknames so they called him Hi Jolly. There’s a monument to him. A pyramid, of course pyramid shaped rock with a camel on the top and an inscription to Hi Jolly.

Diane: So great. Just think of the cowboy boots you’d have to wear to be riding on a camel. I really like it. I think it’s too bad but it led to this book. That’s a great outcome because the book takes off. We go off on this wild ride from the camels. We have the merging of these and I would say they’re sort of intertwining again of these two families the all-American Laws and the Zairians, who are the Muslims. All American Laws obviously had some immigrant antecedents as well as they’re not Native Americans but these two families intertwine beautifully, personally, intimately and in their history.

At the end of the book I’m going to jump through to the end of the book here. It’s not a spoiler because Jack Law, who’s the patriarch of the Law Family. He’s 100 years old so by saying that he died it’s not going to be a big spoiler alert but he writes this letter and obviously Sid Balman is the creator of the letter in Seventh Flag. I’ll just quote it here. “Look around you in the room white, brown, Christian, Muslim, Syrian, American, Texan. This is your family. These are the people you can count on. Not those clowns in Washington, Austin, Syria or anywhere else where they tell you how to think, how to pray, who to kill. Each of you has a part in me through your blood, blood spilled or sweat. We make each other immortal and it’s my honor to live on through you. Be good to each other. Protect one another. Hold each other close.”

I’d like to think that that’s actually a message to all of us. In this in this scene it was his last will and testament, part of his last will and testament. My question for you Sid is this vision of the Seventh Flag which is a historical, another historical fact that. The seventh flag would represent this diverse group of people who populate the Texas state and exist in this tolerant cooperative way. I wonder if you could just tease it out for me because I thought about it a lot reading your book what the difference is between this vision and the vision of the melting pot of American melting pot.

Everybody was supposed to become like one, like the same. There was a lot of inherent racism in that. This strikes me as being different. Could you tease out the difference of the vision between Seventh Flag and the American melting pot?

Sid: That’s interesting Diane. Interesting. When you say that everyone’s supposed to go into the melting pot they all come out the same. That’s something that makes me think. It doesn’t sound right to me. It isn’t. It really isn’t right although there are those who have felt blending in was a better path to success but just to step back for a second. Just for your listeners in the title everyone’s familiar I think with Six Flags over Texas, the amusement park. It’s a globalized brand. It represents the sixth sovereigns over the state of Texas. When I was a kid we lived not too far from the original Six Flag. I mean there was no better day than when we all would pile in the car. My parents would take us to six flags for today.

The seventh flag however in my conception is what you were touching on Diane, this new American identity, this amalgam of religion and races and genders and genderless. All of that is under this new seventh flag. I think that the friction from that that we’re feeling today that we felt so strongly since Barack Obama was elected, the tea party emerged, Donald Trump was elected and his constituency has emerged is that people feel as if their identities, what they view as the identity of America of them as Americans is threatened.

I think that my personal view is the wrong way to look at it. I think it doesn’t take anything away from you to have more diversity. It only adds to what you are and to what we are as a nation. I would add that it’s irreversible. There is no turning it around. Those who don’t like it are going to have to get used to it.

Diane: Right. That’s the key to life but I think where we are right now and a lot of the enforcement of let’s say borders are closing, lots of xenophobia right now. The great other that’s spreading this disease and of course paranoia is found by the disease of Covid. I mean I couldn’t agree with you more in your vision and the necessity of diversity. The sheer bottom line respect of it at the level of humanity but I’m wondering about it being threatened and jeopardized again because of a sense that we’ve got to protect ourselves from the other. This is something that feels like it’s encroaching. I don’t know if you have that sense but maybe you could comment on that.

Sid: Just the very, it occurs to me the very notion of social distancing, I hate that expression but staying in place in your house. That’s to me the perfect metaphor for what you just described. Are we as a nation going to shelter in place for eternity exactly? I would ask you how does that feel to you. You like that and if you don’t which I don’t think anyone does then the alternative is to open up. This virus there’s so many metaphors in it. I mean closing the border to prevent something you can’t see from coming in.

I mean I think I was thinking the other day what would it be like if we could see this virus. It was actually something we could see lurking around, sitting on people, coming out of their mouth. What would it be like then? What would this this invader look like then and how would we react?

Diane: But it’s an invisible specter.

Sid: What emerges from this time I think just as everyone says is this is a historic point of delineation in the world, a historic point for globalization, a historic point for non-globalization? What comes out of this I think will be a profoundly different world than it was prior to it. I for one can’t wait.

Diane: I’m right there with you. I think we need to join forces to engage people that this kind of, I mean I think that people do feel extremely connected to one another and one another’s welfare. A lot of that does have to do with our awareness of people dying and people dying in wards without loved ones and compassion that we’re feeling. It’s not looking at color or gender or preference or orientation or any of that stuff. I think that you’re right. The shelter in place metaphor is a brilliant one that you made of our country. Of course we’ve got a review, we’ve got to look at medicine as science and science is the thing that needs to be observed here but if there’s a silver lining and that’s it in terms of globalization and understanding ourselves better. It might take that for us to break down our barriers, our interior barriers and our sense of barriers to have a real community like the one that was envisioned in the Seventh Flag.

I do also want to talk about there are other places mentioned in the book. It’s quite a global sweep. There are two instances where characters in the book go and they’re both women Iola and Adamar go to India for healing. There’s some scenes of sort of shedding layers of pain and baggage to be able to come to a sense of peace with oneself and a rebuilding of oneself.

I wonder if we’re all going to metaphorically flow down the Ganges or come to a point where we realize that this material, the material world that we’re living in and the disparity of the haves and the have-nots is at the root of a lot of these diseases and the care that we give to one another not being universal. I do hope that we as a society do have that kind of reawakening.

Let me in this age of Covid, let me just give one last Sid Balman, writing in Seventh Flag. He talks about enlightenment. It seeps in over time. We’re repeatedly getting a tap on the shoulder like you said Sid and maybe with this virus we are headed for enlightenment. We can only hope inshallah. I just want to thank you so much Sid Balman. You’re a terrific guest. You can find Sid on twitter @SidBalman. Facebook Sid Balman Jr. and thanks for a great conversation. Happy Cedars. Happy Easter. Happy non-believers. Happy Easter bunny and remember those of us who take who are taking care of us. Show them some love and be safe everyone. Thanks Sid.

Sid: Thanks Diane.

Thank you so much for dropping in. Please join Diane Dewey again next Friday at 8 AM Pacific Time and 11 AM Eastern Time on the Voice America Variety Channel. We’ll see you then.