Did Someone Say... New Podcast?

 

By Frank Filocomo and Troy M. Olson

We don't always post on Tuesdays, but when we do, it's because episode one of The Frank Forum podcast is now live on YouTube! 

That was a Dos Equis reference, for those who remember the meme. Perhaps I'm dating myself a bit here...

Anyway, you heard right: every other week - or fortnightly, if you're a logophile like me - we'll be posting an episode of our brand spanking new audio/visual podcast.

I know what you're thinking: "Oh great, another podcast! We need that like a hole in the head!" Well, listen: This one's different. We swear!

Troy and I recognize that "the I needs the We to be." In other words, Americans are all so desperately lonely, and both Right and Left manifestations of liberalism have left much to be desired. Namely, purpose and belonging. 

We'll discuss how we introduce the "We" back into a culture that has so gratuitously overemphasized "Me, Me, Me." 

We hope you'll join us on this communitarian journey. 

And thank you to the fine lads at the New York Young Republican Club for giving us a platform to conduct this podcast. 

Find episode one here:

Grateful To Be an American

 

By Frank Filocomo

This is not a political blog, nor will it ever be. 

But some things are so egregious, that I feel a need - nay, a duty - to call them out.  

Last week, a gaggle of DSA-endorsed Leftist radicals won their respective primaries in three New York congressional districts: Brad Lander in NY-10, Claire Valdez in NY-7, and Darializa Avila Chevalier in NY-13. 

These three are not the Democrats that my parents grew up with, and, at times, voted for. No, these are revolutionaries. They detest Americanism, and, by extension, Western Civilization. 

As University of Pennsylvania Law Professor Amy Wax would rightly ask of these Marxist, pseudo-intellects: "Does the spirit of liberty beat in their breast?"

The answer is an unequivocal and resounding no. 

Now, at this point, some might ask, and perhaps exasperatingly so: "Frank, why are you wading into the world of political punditry? This is supposed to be a blog about 'the revitalization of America's distinct civic culture.'" 

If you find yourself asking suck a question, I hear you. But, as stated earlier, some things are so offensive, and so rebarbative, that they must be addressed. 

This goes beyond politics; this is about who we are, and, perhaps just as important, who we are not.

Since the beginning - 250 years ago, that is - we've been a people who have embodied an ethos of ordered liberty, self-governance, and a dedication to the pursuit of human flourishing. 

This is the country that my father, born in Southern Italy, emigrated to in 1960. My dad's old hometown, while beautiful (just look up a picture of Roccella Ionica, a town in Calabria), was devoid of economic opportunity, or of any chance of upward mobility. 

My father (left) and my late Uncle Frank (right) on their way to America

America provided my father, not just with better economic opportunities and schools (there were no colleges in Calabria until the University of Calabria was established in 1972), but with a new identity, tethered to an awesome inheritance and history. 

My father, along with a great many other immigrants, many of whom I have met, is forever grateful for having become an American. 

An ascendent group, however, hates America and actively seeks to dismantle it, starting at the founding. 

Darializa Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old professional college student and victor of the Democrat Party primary for NY-13, called America a "f**king disgrace." 

What's more, in 2019, Chevalier tweeted the following: ""I forgot to get napkins so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me."

2019 Tweet from Darializa Avila Chevalier

This doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of this Marxist trio's long history of disgusting, anti-American and anti-Western smears. 

If we are meant to be, as Amitai Etzioni writes in his 2019 book Reclaiming Patriotism, "members of one overarching community with a shared set of core values and interests," then we must thoroughly reject and condemn the above sentiments. They are incompatible with Americanism. 

Sadly, we must shake hands with the fact that the DSA wing of the Democratic Party is, indeed, ascendant. 

It will be up to thoughtful Democrats - and Americans of all stripes, for that matter - to discard the warped, revisionist packaging of America that the Mamdani-ites are selling, and put forth something better. 

The Social Isolation of Remote Work

By Frank Filocomo

Working from home is certainly convenient, but it can also be socially isolating.

I'm a remote worker. 

My commute is from my bed to my desk, which is pretty nice. 

I spend a lot of quality time with my 19-year-old cat, Vinny, too. He's a regular on my organization's weekly Zoom staff calls. 

At my last job, I took the train from South Brooklyn to our office in Midtown Manhattan: a commute of about an hour and change. 

There's no doubt that I'm grateful for my current situation - very grateful, indeed - but I'd be lying if I said there were no downsides. 

By virtue of working remotely, I am largely cut off from social connections from the hours of 9-5. 

Sure, there are exceptions to this, particularly thanks to Zoom, but it's mostly just me, myself, and I... and Vinny the Cat, of course.

In an article for NPR, Rhitu Chatterjee reports on a new study in Science that documents the drawbacks of remote work, particularly as it concerns lack of social connectedness. 

From the editor's summary:

After the pandemic, workers in remote-capable jobs spent more time working alone and avoided social activities with their friends, remaining more isolated both during and after work. This pattern was most pronounced among remote workers living alone: They spent entire days without human contact and their mental distress, use of mental healthcare, and antidepressants increased acutely.

The study's authors, Chatterjee writes, "found that workers in remotable jobs had experienced a 58% rise in hours spent alone compared to people in non-remotable jobs. These workers also saw a 72% rise in chances of spending their whole day with no human contact."

Humans are not built for this...

In Reclaiming Conversation, a book that I have included in Frank's Bookshelf: Recommended Reading for the Communitarian Mind, Sherry Turkle writes about the impromptu meetings and face-to-face conversations that used to be part and parcel of in-person office work. 

From the book:

Audrey Lister, a partner at Alan Johnson Miller and Associates, has worked at this large Chicago law firm for more than twenty years. She joined the firm straight out of law school. Lister talks about her early days at AJM, when she and her colleague Sam Berger were just starting out together. The two young associates would knock on each other's office doors and visit all the time. Lister says that this kind of close relationship made 'work feel like family,' 

When we work remotely, however, we miss out on these surprise office visits and workplace camaraderie.  

This begs the question: Do we all need to return to the office in order to engage in social interaction? 

My answer to that is a simple no. 

Remote work is the way of the future, whether we like it or not. 

Many have remarked that remote workers are more productive than in-office workers, and offices themselves are significant expenditures. 

So, while I commend employers who are setting the clock back and mandating in-person work, remote work isn't going anywhere. 

Thus, it is up to us work-from-home employees to introduce social connections into our day-to-day routines. 

That means: go to the neighborhood diner for your lunch break and make an attempt to familiarize yourself with the waitstaff; schedule touchpoints with your colleagues over Zoom, or if possible, in person; and, perhaps most importantly, go out after work. 

That latter point is imperative.

Work needn't be your whole life. As I always say, look to see what your community has to offer. 

Whether it be a darts or pool league, book club, open mic, or whatever, remote workers must make socialization a priority. 

I Was Raised in 'Tocque-ville'

 

By David Churchill Barrow

The fabric of our society is unraveling, but we are Americans, and we can stop that unraveling and begin “sewing the repairs,” if you will. 

It was a crops farm upon a few dozen acres of upland surrounded by swamp (yes, I am a genuine “Swamp Yankee”) in a little New England town that made Andy Griffith’s Mayberry look like Manhattan. My mother died when I was two, and when my WWII Marine father looked at me, he may have seen a glimpse of my mother. He seldom raised his voice to me, let alone spank me (in the days when most children were spanked!). When I was 12, he built a little cabin in the woods behind our house for me and my friends so I could grow up carefree. This scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade makes me tear up, because it sounds like my father talking.

Did I get away with much? Not in THAT town. Everyone knew my dad. He was a Selectman, which also made him a police commissioner. Any dangerous or destructive shenanigans were sure to get back to him. On the other hand, folks would give us kids a ride if they saw us walking somewhere, and the nurse who lived across the cornfield would patch up my inevitable cuts and bumps. I was raised to call our closest neighbors “Aunt Betty” or “Uncle Joe.” So long as I kept my grades up and our only full-time cop, Hubie, didn’t have to stop by and have a chat with my father too often on my account, I was free to come and go as I pleased.

In Democracy in America, Tocqueville cited the New England town meeting as a source from which American exceptionalism sprang. We had one every year, where the town’s citizens themselves were their own legislature. These could be entertaining to say the least. This scene from Blazing Saddles brings back fond memories. For years my father was up on the stage with his fellow selectmen, the town’s only lawyer (with whom I would later apprentice) serving as moderator. When I came of age, I played a minor role as planning board member. There wasn’t much to plan, but I got to march in the Memorial Day parades along with my dad.

Russell Kirk pointed out decades ago that there are only two alternatives to these extended families of voluntary association: atomic individualism, or compulsory collectivism.

This was a town where Burke’s “little platoons” and Tocqueville’s “associations” grew like weeds. Burke saw these “platoons” as cultivating the natural desire God placed in mankind to be in communion with one another. As Marcus Aurelius wrote in his Meditations, we are made to cooperate with each other as hands are to feet. The larger attachments, love of country, and regard for humanity in general, spring from these “platoons” and do not arrive sua sponte. Russell Kirk pointed out decades ago that there are only two alternatives to these extended families of voluntary association: atomic individualism, or compulsory collectivism.

We see the consequences of atomic individualism all around us: loneliness, suicide, despair, depression and general hopelessness (Frank has often written upon this subject, see his latest on Gen Z loneliness). Some call this “freedom,” but it is, as John Adams called it, “the freedom of the wolf.”  As for compulsory collectivism (a position approached by the far-left today) we need only look to the 20th century horrors of Nazism, Mao’s cultural revolution, or Cambodia’s killing fields for just a few examples of where that road can lead.

The fabric of our society is unraveling, but we are Americans, and we can stop that unraveling and begin “sewing the repairs,” if you will. It can start right outside your front door. If you have kids, go outside, push them ahead of you, and leave the electronics behind. Maybe get a dog and walk around, or go to a local dog park. You’d be surprised how many neighbors you will meet that have dogs, or just want to get acquainted with yours. Join and support a local church, civic organization or charity doing much that is good in your neighborhood. Find out who might be elderly or in need of a friend. Find what Frank calls a good “Third Place” beyond work and home, where spontaneous connections are made, much as they were in the iconic “Cheers” bar. Erosion is slow but certain. Our local communities are our foundation, and it needs shoring up, if we are to continue to be what Lincoln called “the last best hope of earth.”

David Churchill Barrow is a Massachusetts “Swamp Yankee” descendant of William Bradford and Myles Standish of Pilgrim fame, who grew up on a farm that has not been sold since first built in the early 1700s.  In that farmhouse still hangs the commission of James Churchill as a captain in the Massachusetts militia signed by John Hancock, and the sword of Thomas Churchill, a Navy engineer who served in the Blockade of the Confederacy.  He met his wife, MaryLu, in high school. They were married in 1979 and have three adult children. MaryLu is a former elementary school teacher. Today they live just outside Tampa, Fla. They are the authors of And Justice for All, Even Redcoats,  and are working on their next novel about the Pilgrims. David also writes for PJ Media.

A Roundabout Way To Make Communities Safer

 

By Frank Filocomo

American cities ought to be walkable and safe. That shouldn't be too much to ask. 

Unfortunately, though, our car-centric culture has made pedestrian safety an afterthought. 

Just read Streetsblog to get a taste for how dangerous many of New York City's intersections are.

This, from a recent Streetsblog article:

Will the city wait until a kid is killed before making a notoriously dangerous Queens neighborhood safe?

That’s what parents who send their children to the Baby Steps daycare in Rego Park are wondering after another near-miss right in front of the early childhood education facility that took out the front fence as well as crushed a memorial to a cyclist killed by a driver in 2017. That crash was in the same week in April 2025 when another driver struck a 5-year-old crossing the street.

Americans, however, need not be subjected to these dangerous intersections. 

In an instructive article for Public Square, Robert Steuteville makes the case for roundabouts as a safer alternative to the all-too-quotidian traffic light intersections:

Roundabouts force cars to slow down, thus creating a safer environment for pedestrians to navigate. What's more, unlike the traditional intersection, roundabouts keep traffic flowing. 

Carmel, Indiana, Steuteville writes, has a whopping 158 roundabouts. 

From the article:

A city with few traffic lights, such as Carmel, needs few turn lanes—which blow out intersection dimensions and make crossing distances much longer. Instead, crossings at roundabout intersections are broken into two, giving pedestrians refuge in the middle. Well-designed roundabouts slow traffic to 20 mph or less—speeds that are much safer for people outside of cars.

This is the way, and other cities should be taking notes. 

According to Dr. Virginia Sisiopiku of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, roundabouts reduce severe crashes by 78%. 

I'm convinced: roundabouts work. So, the question is: why don't we have them all over the country? 

Conversations at Baseball Games

Citi Field, 5/29/26

By Frank Filocomo 

On Friday, I went to a Mets vs. Marlins game with my good friend, Laik Green, whom, despite being a New Jersey- resident and former part-time New Yorker, is a fan of the latter. "The Fish," he usually calls them. 

To be sure, I'm a life-long Yankees fan. My father, upon coming to this country by way of Calabria in 1960, quickly became a diehard fan of the ole Bronx Bombers. He used to listen to games on his little radio. And that was when they sucked! 

Anyhow, on Friday, I was, along with Laik, a Marlins fan, too. 

Laik and I are baseball fans, so we we're pretty dialed in the whole game. In fact, most of our conversation consisted of strategy, play-by-play commentary, and other rank punditry. 

Sure, we spoke about other things, but, for the most part, we were invested in America's Pastime. 

The whole time, I couldn't help but notice the Zoomers to the left of us who were standing in a circle, talking, and facing away from the action for the duration of the game. Laik and I were confounded.

If socialization was the point, why do it at a baseball game and not at a bar? 

Then, I thought to myself: Are we doing this wrong? Should this be a time for non-baseball-related banter? It just didn't make sense to me...

But then I reminded myself: Quality time with friends can be spent in relative silence. 

I think there's a bit of a misconception about what it means to have a good hang, so to speak, that conversation must be flowing the whole time, like how a radio show isn't supposed to have any "dead air." 

That is false. One need not be loquacious to have a good time with friends. Sometimes, just being in the presence of people whom you care about is enough. While the two of us were laser-focused on the game, we still exchanged the odd quip and took time between innings to get hotdogs and over-priced beer. 

When it comes to conversation, sometimes less is more.