I live in Los Angeles and work professionally with artists and photographers; every dinner party my gal and I attend invariably descends into a genteel war, with about 10 couples lined up to take shots at me from all angles of the periphery. Frankly, I enjoy it, and look forward to stridently uttering the things that leftists read about people in red states believing in, but have never actually heard defended in their presence. It is the intellectual equivalent of an athlete running up the sand dunes; for keeping your mind fit and knowing your facts, it is the perfect exercise. Thankfully, my gal, who leans further to the left, isn’t embarrassed; so long as I’m able to forward my case with coherence and butress it with solid research, she seems to find the fireworks amusing. Afterward, her friends all huddle around and ask her some commiserating variant of: “What’s it like to live with a barbarian.” Today, I’ve got to put on my IDF tee-shirt and ready myself for the battle of Santa Monica.
