Russell Frank
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What’s So Funny? Ask My Students in 16 Weeks
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Next week I’ll begin teaching a course I’m calling Humor in Journalism. (Don’t tell my students that I plan to distribute Groucho glasses on the first day of class to put us in the right mood. I want it to be a surprise.) Perhaps, with wars raging, Earth burning and the leading presidential candidates ranging…
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Like It or Not, This Is What Democracy Looks Like
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A couple of cops were among the 150 or so folks in the standing-room-only crowd that turned out for Wednesday night’s State College Borough Council meeting. They weren’t needed. The meeting, which culminated in Council unanimously passing a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, was emotional, but civil – amazingly so. Mayor Ezra Nanes…
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Tonight at 6: State College Takes Another Crack at a Ceasefire Resolution
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Russell Frank offers two columns this week. For a lighter read, click here. A resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza is back on the table for State College Borough Council. Council will consider a rejiggered version of the resolution today at 6 p.m. Two weeks ago, council had pulled back the previous iteration of…
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Can I Borrow a Cup of Vodka? (It’s Not for Me, It’s for My Tineola Bisselliella)
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Russell Frank offers two columns this week. For a more serious read, click here. At 9 a.m. on Saturday, I asked Mary across the street if she could spare some cheap vodka. She didn’t bat an eye, and not because I’m known as the neighborhood drunk. In fact, I had no intention of drinking the…
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No Ceasefire Resolution, but a Heartening Exercise in Civics and Civility
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My snap response to the Gaza ceasefire resolution considered by State College Borough Council on Monday night was an eyeroll. After the requisite litany of “whereas-es,” council would, if the resolution passed, urge the Biden administration to call for a ceasefire, the release of hostages and prisoners and a “fair peace.” Which of course would…
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Of Gratitude and Inquietude
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I’m across the bay from San Francisco this week, visiting the newest member of the crew and the first grandson, Marcus James, born last month, thriving and calm. Marcus is only the latest manifestation of my family’s knock-on-wood luck: generation after generation of healthy babies, growing up in a land largely spared the ravages of…
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Summoning the Ghosts of Elections Past
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The obvious solution to Joe Biden’s over-the-hill problem: We rewind to 2008 and pull a switcheroo. Make Uncle Joe the presidential nominee and Obama the running mate. That way, we get Biden at a much sprier 65 from 2008-2016 and Obama at a more seasoned 55 when he succeeds Biden in 2017. And then Obama…
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We All Grieve
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Concerned friends want to know how I’m doing. Not because I’ve had a health crisis or a family crisis. Because I’m Jewish. I appreciate their asking. They’re right to think Hamas’ wanton taking of lives and hostages on Oct. 7 was especially traumatic for their Jewish friends. And the more details that emerge, the more…
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Want to Live Longer, Pennsylvanians? Start Packing
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“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” – Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) I’ve long thought it would be handy if, on the day we were born, we were given a sealed envelope containing the date of our death. That way, when we got to the…
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I Can’t Hear You, I’ve Got a Candle in My Ear
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Sometimes we columnists put ourselves in harm’s way so that you, our readers, won’t have to. That is why I spent part of my Sunday afternoon with a lit candle in my ear. For the record, I did not purchase Wally’s Natural Ear Candles because I have an ear wax problem. Nor does Wally claim…