Greetings from Santa Barbara. It’s paradise. I know, in ye olde Vermont, where I live, it’s mud season and it was ghastly when I left. And we’re getting a bonus snowfall of 20 inches this weekend. Here it’s balmy and exotic, but you’d think I’d never seen a flower before, or a ray of sunshine. I’d visited only once, and for a day, about 20 years ago. This round, in two packed days, I did in-depth visits to two of this lovely city’s museums, toured the unforgettable Lotusland, a unique botanical garden, saw the studio of the wonderful sculptor Alex Rasmussen, who works in aluminum, and went to a National Review Institute donor event.
I’m a fellow at the Institute, which is a nonprofit, so donors support my work. It was a very fun evening and consistent with my lifelong view that right-of-center people are happy, worldly, curious people while left-of-center people, earnest to be sure, are — with exceptions, to be sure — blinkered, tight, and holier-than-thou. I think you need to believe in the imperfectibility of humankind to have a sense of humor.
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