Russell Frank
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Candy Is Dandy, but Keeping Your Student Visa Is Sweeter
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In my campus mailbox last week I found a sandwich bag filled with “fun size” packs of Skittles and Laffy Taffy. They weren’t for me, as an unsigned message, handwritten on a blue Post-it note, made clear: Hello. Could you give this to Jack for me? I read your article and I feel awful, I…
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The ICE Man Cometh to Penn State
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Jack is an international student at Penn State. I’m not going to tell you his real name, where he’s from or what he’s studying because I don’t want to reveal anything that might make his situation more precarious than it already is. Last week, Jack received an eviction notice from the landlord of us all,…
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Coach Franklin’s Staff Accidentally Texted Me Their Game Plans
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Penn State football coaches included me in a group chat about its next game against Ohio State. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started getting caught for touchdowns.
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Announcing the Million Alte Kaker March
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The term anticipatory obedience is popping up a lot these days to describe educators, politicians and bazillionaires who are crawling on their bellies like reptiles before anyone is forcing them to do so. As Timothy Snyder writes in “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century,” people will preemptively do what they think the authorities…
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‘Paranoia Strikes Deep in the Heartland’
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Among the many Valentines I received on Feb. 14 was one that appeared to be from Penn State Human Resources informing me that I needed “to complete a new I-9.” Googling, I learned that I-9 is a proposed interstate highway connecting Bakersfield to Stockton in California’s Central Valley. Hmm. I’ve driven from Bakersfield to Stockton…
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D-E-I is D-E-D
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Dear National Science Foundation, I am in the midst of preparing an NSF grant application and, as I am sure you can appreciate, I want to make sure that my proposal does not run afoul of new evaluation criteria inspired by our 47th and hopefully last president (long may he live before passing the royal…
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Forensic Expert Challenges Key Evidence as Hearing Begins in Subu Vedam’s Pursuit for a New Trial
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About 100 people received a crash course in forensic anthropology in Centre County Court in Bellefonte on Thursday. It was the first installment of a two-day hearing to determine whether key evidence was suppressed when Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam was convicted of murdering Thomas Kinser in 1980. Vedam, now 63 and serving a life sentence in…
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Will Subu Vedam Prevail?
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Updated 12:28 p.m. Feb. 5 with new hearing times. It all comes down to the size of a bullet and a bullet hole, measured in fractions of an inch. Subramanyam Vedam, imprisoned 42 years on a murder rap, will be back in court on Thursday, hoping a ballistics expert will convince a judge to grant…
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Trump 2.0: Smile Though Your Heart Is Breaking
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Some of my friends don’t like it when I say Donald Trump is ridiculous. A pie in the face is ridiculous, they say. Trump is dangerous. I agree he’s dangerous. Just look at that blizzard of Day One executive orders. But it’s better for my mental health if, like an editorial cartoonist or a late-night…
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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. Ann Telnaes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, presented a draft of a drawing to her editor that depicted four men and a certain cartoon mouse in…