Category: Essay
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I Got Scammed Three Times this Month (And I Thought I was Too Smart)
“(Fraud) Alert: Your Chase ATM/Debit card has been suspended. Please call 1-814-201-6859 to verify.” In a panic, I call the number from my landline…
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A Tomb for Tommy
Last month, little orange Tommy the canary began wheezing. Tears filled my eyes as I watched him tumble from his perch only to flutter up and fall again.
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You’re Invited to A New Year’s Eve Celebration of the Life of Tom Haines
Polly is sad to report that Tom died Sunday afternoon, December 17. For a week he refused food and water. Slowly he faded away until, like the Cheshire Cat, all that remained was his smile.
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Happy New Year 2024 (originally 12/16/23)
August 9, Tom blew out the candles on an oversized cupcake to celebrate his 90th. Two bouts of summer pneumonia have put him in hospice. Bedridden, on oxygen and with pressure sores, he dines on purees and thickened liquids. Just before Thanksgiving, Polly brought him home from 305 West End Assisted Living. He still sometimes…
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Thomas Haines, Biochemist Who Founded the CUNY Medical School, Dies at 90
He overcame a childhood in an orphanage and personal tragedies to found an innovative medical school to affordably educate minority and other disadvantaged students. In 2020, he was recognized for his achievement by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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True Affirmative Action: Give Those Without Privilege a Fighting Chance to Get Privilege
Among successful people who start from nothing, some take all the credit themselves and despise those left behind. Witness that member of the Horatio Alger Club, Justice Clarence Thomas. Others acknowledge the help they received and devote themselves to giving back. Witness investigative journalist Greg Palast, scourge of vote-suppressing politicians. Witness also my husband, Thomas…
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The Last Tour Guide to Leave Cuba
Mike in hand, our tour guide stands at the front of the bus. “This will be my last tour,” she announces. “I am not the same person I was six years ago. Then I was hopeful. There was so much work I didn’t have time for a break. Now it’s different. My generation, we feel…
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Henry George: Prophet of the Gilded Age
In 1873, Mark Twain published his satirical novel, The Gilded Age, an era magnificently recreated in all its greed, ruthlessness and ostentation in the new HBO series of the same name. Railroads were the hot investment of the day, fueling a frenzy of land speculation. In September of that year, a big New York City…
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Tom Haines Jay Walks Again
I have reluctantly placed Tom at 305 West End Assisted Living on the locked 6th floor.
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Review of: These Walls Between Us: A Memoir of Friendship Across Race and Class, by Wendy Sanford
I picked up the new book of my college classmate, Wendy Sanford, and immediately found myself plunged into some of the contradictions of my own life. Like me, Wendy came from a wealthy family totally, obliviously, dependent on the “help.” Like me, she grew from taking that arrangement for granted, to a cringing awareness and…