The Frank Forum

Cooperstown, New York. For non-baseball loving Americans this is a small town in upstate New York but for baseball aficionados it is a sacred place. One of the four or five considerations when picking out the eventual location of our family cabin upstate will be its proximity to Cooperstown (within two hours), where The National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum is at. It's a place I've still never been to. And am waiting until the children are old enough.  As we turn the calendar to a New Year, and a pivotal year, so to another Hall of Fame class to be inducted gets voted on. Who votes on it? Initially and exclusively, baseball writers. What a gig that would be, huh? Thankfully, in the last decade or so many reforms have been done to allow a veterans committee (made up of Hall of Fame players to give passed over players a second chance) and a legends committee (to consider players from eras long past) to balance out the writers. That being said, from most accounts the basebal...

  Phone calls can be inconvenient, awkward, and even anxiety-inducing. That's certainly a sentiment shared by today's zoomers, who are painfully introverted and conversation-averse. Rather than hear your friend's voice on the other end of the line, we opt instead to shoot a lazy text, perhaps accompanied by an emoji or two. While texting is easy and time-effective, it is an action devoid of real human interaction. When we pick up the phone and engage in dialogue, however, we are hearing the unadulterated sound of the other person's voice, and that is inimitable.  In an op-ed published in Business Insider yesterday, Mia de Graaf remarks on the Gen-Z phenomenon of letting incoming calls go to voicemail: When I see a call from a non-relative flash on my phone, I might pick up, but I often don't. I'm working, or making food between meetings, or lost in a social media rabbit hole that I'm simply not ready to extract myself from. Sometimes I'm sitting smooth-...

As the Christmas holiday fast approaches, modern Americans everywhere largely enjoy the celebrations historically dedicated to the birth of Christ from the safety of their homes. Spending the occasion in relative comfort and convenience, while enjoying plentiful food, an abundance of presents, warm and tolerable housing conditions, and overall the general ease that comes with modern living, it is fair to say that the minds of most contemporary citizens are far removed from remembering the plight of their ancestors some 247 years ago. The plain truth of the matter is that had it not been for the sacrifices, courage, and bravery of General George Washington and a ragged band of scantily clothed and barefoot American patriots, the modern state of Christmas affairs in America would likely appear much different. In fact, it is likely there would never have been a United States at all. Therefore, the author found it to be fitting and proper, as we approach the Christmas holiday, to remember ...

  On Wednesday, December 20, I, once again, had the awesome privilege of interviewing Alan Ehrenhalt, author of The Lost City: The Forgotten Virtues of Community in America, and former executive editor of Governing Magazine. When we last spoke in April (you can find that interview here .), Communitarian pioneer, Amitai Etzioni, was still alive, and the "loneliness epidemic" was still largely unreported. Alan and I had much to catch up on... Frank Filocomo: I wanted to start by asking you about some of your recent work in Governing. I just read your article, Is there a Place for Super Market Socialism? I'd love to know how that came about.   Alan Ehrenhalt: I saw a small news item about the mayor of Chicago considering city-owned supermarkets. From there, I looked into the fiasco involving Whole Foods going into an underserved neighborhood, and there was a lot to say about that and why that happened and whether something could be done about that in the form of a public o...

In the realm of American music, the emergence of ghetto rap as a powerful voice in expressing socio-political concerns has been a notable development. Often associated with marginalized communities, ghetto rap artists share intriguing parallels with American conservatives in their approach to addressing social and political issues. This essay explores the surprising similarities between American ghetto rappers and conservatives, shedding light on the ways in which both groups use their platforms to articulate their perspectives on societal challenges. While on the surface it may seem that ghetto rap and conservatism are worlds apart, a closer examination reveals shared values that form the foundation of their expression. Both groups often emphasize individualism, self-reliance, and personal responsibility. Ghetto rap frequently champions the idea of overcoming adversity through personal agency, echoing the conservative emphasis on individual freedoms and limited government intervention...

  It's embarrassing to admit this, but... I really only started reading about two years ago. Before that, reading was the most mundane, yawn-inducing task I could think of. It wasn't fun or energizing; it was dull and torturous.  When I was in high school, I wasn't particularly scholarly, to put it mildly. While I did well, I didn't excel. Most, though not all, of what I read was required for my various classes. Though, now that I think about it, there were various poetry books and short stories I enjoyed. Lawrence Ferlinghetti's,  A Coney Island of the Mind;  Philip Schultz's,  Failure;  and Nikolai Gogol's,  Diary of a Madman  come to mind. I also enjoyed the dystopian works of Paul Auster.  Barring these few, but notable, exceptions, I did not read. This, in turn, effected my diction, and still does to a degree. I recall one particularly embarrassing moment in a mathematics class I took freshman year. On the first day of class - which is, ...

The last month or so has been a difficult time for the former American monoculture. No one is quite sure when it stopped, but more and more evidence of its absence is all around us. And when I say monoculture I’m not talking about demographics. I’m talking about the shared experiences that people within a land and a country, which has borders, have to remember. The traumatic version of this is still evident. If you’re a baby boomer and older, it’s the “where were you when Kennedy was assassinated?” question and if you’re Gen X or a millennial it’s “where were you on 9/11?”  These are both traumatic days for the country and a group of people called Americans. Both stretched beyond America onto the world, were experienced around the globe to varying degrees, and evidence of America’s once unchallenged role in the world. But there is also a positive version of these moments that reflect not tragedy and trauma, but joy and shared culture.  Much of this change from mono to subcultu...

     With the annual Thanksgiving holiday only days away and the fall season rapidly coming to an end in the United States, the average American is likely looking forward to quality time spent with family, friends, and a hearty feast. While the spirit of gratefulness and the thankful nature of the holiday is frequently stated in advertisements and on products, it is a safe bet to state that the majority of Americans are unaware of the true origins, reasoning, and intentions of the uniquely American holiday. In years past, school children would often learn about the "first thanksgiving" while attending grammar school all over the country. Tales of the Pilgrims sailing across the Atlantic Ocean and eventually landing at Plymouth Rock, the Mayflower, "Squanto" the Native American, and other historic figures and themes usually comprised the story. Recently, many activists on the left wing of the political spectrum in the media, public office and especially academia have...