By Polly Cleveland, on April 20th, 2024% 
For years, I had coped with Tom’s growing dementia at home—until that November night two years before, when he pushed his scarlet Nitro Rollator down the middle of Columbus Avenue, lit up in the headlights of oncoming cars. (“I’m going to Mexico,” he declared, “And don’t you try to stop me!”) When I agonized about the staggering cost of care at 305, the memory doc tried to reassure me: “In two years, he’ll either be dead or a zombie and you can bring him home.” . . . → Read More: That Time of Year
By Polly Cleveland, on December 27th, 2023% 
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. . . . → Read More: You’re Invited to A New Year’s Eve Celebration of the Life of Tom Haines
By Polly Cleveland, on December 27th, 2023% 
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 recognizes her and even says a few words. And his broad smile still brings joy to everyone around him. . . . → Read More: Happy New Year 2024 (originally 12/16/23)
By Polly Cleveland, on December 18th, 2023% 
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. . . . → Read More: Thomas Haines, Biochemist Who Founded the CUNY Medical School, Dies at 90
By Polly Cleveland, on December 3rd, 2023% 
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 Haines. . . . → Read More: True Affirmative Action: Give Those Without Privilege a Fighting Chance to Get Privilege
By Polly Cleveland, on May 3rd, 2022% 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 betrayed. Ten years ago they promised reforms. But nothing changes.” . . . → Read More: The Last Tour Guide to Leave Cuba
By Polly Cleveland, on February 14th, 2022% 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 bank suddenly went bankrupt. Bank runs began across the country, railroads failed, businesses cut wages and laid off workers. The police beat up unemployed protesters. A young San Francisco journalist, Henry George, struggled to keep his newspaper going and his family fed. Appalled by the suffering he witnessed, he sat down to write a book that would change the world: Progress and Poverty (1879). . . . → Read More: Henry George: Prophet of the Gilded Age
By Polly Cleveland, on December 10th, 2021% I have reluctantly placed Tom at 305 West End Assisted Living on the locked 6th floor. . . . → Read More: Tom Haines Jay Walks Again
By Polly Cleveland, on December 8th, 2021% 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 a confused determination to break the pattern. . . . → Read More: Review of: These Walls Between Us: A Memoir of Friendship Across Race and Class, by Wendy Sanford
By Polly Cleveland, on July 25th, 2021% Black men’s wages as a percent of White increased rapidly after World War II, only to level off at a bit over 55% after the 1970s. That’s a paradox: If racism causes the Black-White wage gap, how come the gap closed dramatically while Jim Crow laws remained in effect, and then stagnated even as Black education improved and overt racism declined? . . . → Read More: The Black-White Wage Gap: How Inequality and Monopoly Amplify Racial Discrimination
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