Today’s Daily News had one eye-opening spread on page 16 and page 17.
Page 16 has a story about a young mother, Natasha Velez, who was fired from her job at a Chipotle branch after under doctor’s orders she had to take off two weeks because her boyfriend had beaten her up and broken one of her fingers: Chipotle sued by woman who says she was fired for taking time off after attack by abusive boyfriend – NY Daily News.
Her boyfriend was arrested. Ms. Velez has filed a lawsuit against Chipotle for “back wages, a new job and unspecified damages.”
Then, on the opposite page 17, a story the News entitled, “$36M Hoopla: Wall St. big sues for home court advantage:” Finance big files $36M suit over Southampton nixing basketball court plans – NY Daily News. And don’t overlook the photograph, taken possibly from a helicopter, of this guy’s sprawling estate. (The “finance big” is Howard Lutnick, the chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald, the company that lost 658 employees in the Twin Towers catastrophe.)
Oh my, I thought. Could there be a more powerful description — it reads like a punch in the gut —of the vast distance in this country between people struggling to make a bare living, and the very few people struggling to spend their obscene wealth, and sulking in courtrooms because a municipality has laws saying no, you can’t build your own basketball court?
These two links were to be my post. But then when I traveled to the Daily News on-line version to “grab” the links, I found two more articles making this unhappy point:
Pathmark manager tossed Bronx mom out of store “because you’re black”: suit – NY Daily News.
Brooklyn landlords illegally harassed, targeted rent-stabilized tenants: suit – NY Daily News.