Russell Frank
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There’s Nothing Funny About a Censored Cartoon
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One of the joys of teaching journalism is that I can count on the news itself to provide made-to-order lesson plans. Take what happened at the Washington Post last week. […]
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Happy Chrismukkah!
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It’s a harmonic convergence: Christmas today/Hanukkah tonight. I have excellent credentials as your columnist-du-jour: I’m Jewish but I’ve twice married women who grew up with visions of sugar plums, not […]
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Psst, Wanna Rent My House Next Weekend?
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If I were smart about money – which I’m not – I’d quickly get me one of those short-term rental permits from the Borough of State College, rent out my […]
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Spencer Bivens: A Thankful Giant Is Back in Town
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Last week was awards week in Major League Baseball. Spencer Bivens didn’t win any of them. His team, the San Francisco Giants, didn’t make the playoffs. Free agent outfielder Juan […]
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Election Post-Mortem – and I Do Mean Mortem
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The morning after the Great Debacle, I lay down in my backyard and gazed at the sky. Inside, on my laptop, was the ephemeral – politics, presidents, punditry. Out here […]
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Ain’t No Cure for the Pre-Election Jitters
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I’m known as a calm guy. Where others overreact to difficulties, I under-react. Where they spin worst-case scenarios, I believe — correctly, usually; naively, at times — that nothing really […]
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College Life in Ukraine: School Bags and Sandbags
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I addressed a colleague’s journalism class last week — a routine (and enjoyable) aspect of academic life. Two things about this guest shot were anything but routine. One was the […]
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First They Came for the Newspaper Racks
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I’ve just spent the past 24 hours locked in a campus storage closet. I was standing around the Willard Building minding my own business when, like a lifeguard rescuing a […]
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Pet-Eating Immigrants: Something Borrowed, Nothing True
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Newcomers make old-timers nervous, especially if the newcomers are different from the old-timers, whether those differences are skin-deep, culinary, linguistic, religious or cultural. When I moved to California’s Sierra Nevada […]
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Ask Your Elders About Their Lives Before It’s Too Late
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RIGA, LATVIA – A wall bearing the names of the 70,000 Latvian Jews who died in the Holocaust stretches the length of the courtyard of the Riga Ghetto and Latvian […]