My sister sent me a Thank You card last week, a gesture of gratitude for my help hanging a ceiling fan on her porch. She is very good about that sort of thing, acknowledging kindness received and reciprocating. It is one of her many, many lovable traits. She cooks well too, hosts great parties, and…

For Dan, whose friend was charged with blasphemy. Religion is the true origin and original form of all institutions – Rene Girard The good thing about blasphemy laws is this: they are explicit. You know where you stand. In the absence of explicit blasphemy laws any person with power over his or her fellows can…

Rene Girard read Dostoevsky in 1961 then predicted the rise of western Wokeism. He wrote a whole book about it: Deceit, Desire, and the Novel. A little later he predicted the Based revolution. It happened just like that but it might have happened otherwise. Girard might have read Gogol. There is really no accounting a…

‘Reciprocal escalation and one-upmanship governs’ mimetic rivalry, the ‘rivalry resulting from imitation of a model,’ writes Rene Girard in I See Satan Fall Like Lightning. I certainly hope so. My Sister One-Upped Me My sister is a good cook. No, that fails to capture her kitchen genius. She made her famous Monkey Bread one Sunday…

Rehoboth Beach, Delaware is hometown to Joey, peacemaker and defender of the bullied, who also happens to be our president. It also happens to be a great place to see mimesis in action. All beach towns are. Any place devoted to fashion serves that purpose but beaches better than most because most everyone there dresses…

Our Three Amigos I had three nearly identical conversations with three of my amigo over the last month. I’ll call them Steve, Chevy, and Martin after the original Three Amigos who starred in the 1986 film. You know the story, or maybe you don’t: The people of a Mexican town called Santa Poco hire three…

Leftover Salad “Does anybody want this?” my son asked while waving a cling film clad bowl at me and my wife, “If not I’m going to blend it up and make spaghetti sauce.” He just pulled leftover Mediterranean salad from the fridge: fresh cherry tomatoes, lovely hearts of palm, zippy pickled hot cherry peppers, sweet…