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Illustration: Mark Hammermeister

Our Cheating Hearts: Honor, Integrity and Playing by the Rules are All Out of Style

“I guess I’m not as cynical as you are,” Neil Barofsky, former watchdog for the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program and presently the busiest cynic caught up in the government’s entanglement with the banking business, told The Observer.

In a time when everyone seems to be cheating—and most everyone getting away with it—we’d put it to Mr. Barofsky that there doesn’t seem to be much percentage in honest behavior. If Wall Street executives, tween idols and journalistic heavyweights are shirking the rules to get ahead, doesn’t it make sense for the commoners to do the same? Read More

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Illustration by Dale Stephanos

Outward Bound: Celebs Struggle To Keep Sexuality Secret(ish), But Media Make Mischief

At a crowded movie premiere in Midtown recently, The Observer witnessed a young movie and TV star—a dashing young man who’s been involved with several starlets despite whispers about his close relationships with other men—sitting for the entire party in close conversation with a well-groomed gent, even as his co-stars circulated. As we passed, the Read More

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Web_Zuckerberg_Dale_Stephanos

Facebook is People!: Why I Quit Mark Zuckerberg’s Online Collective Data Farm

Last Friday, as his brainchild company went public, Mark Zuckerberg’s face filled the multistory video screen adorning the Times Square Reuters building, his image a grinning, pasty vision of triumph—little brother as Big Brother.

In the 30 seconds after the bell rang at the NASDAQ exchange, more than 80 million shares were traded, and with the IPO (really the night before, when the underwriting banks bought the stock from Facebook), Mr. Zuckerberg made $25 B.

But he wasn’t making any money off me. Read More

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Blogger Breastfeeds 3-Year-Old on Cover of Time [Picture]

Blogger Breastfeeds 3-Year-Old on Cover of Time

Thanks to Ann Romney, Hilary Rosen, and the absurdist theatrics of the presidential race, the ancient human condition known as motherhood is having a controversial moment. This week, TIME jumps into the fray with a cover story on “attachment parenting,” the school of child-rearing popularized by The Baby Book. Baby Book author Dr. Bill Sears prescribes breast-feeding into toddlerhood, letting babies sleep in your bed, and wearing babies around all day in a sling. Read More

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The Wrecking Ball Comes for Daisy Buchanan

On the farthest edge of Sands Point, L.I., the house known as Lands End stood wind-battered and decrepit, its face scarred from years of relentless salty gusts ripping off the top of Long Island Sound. In its last days it lingered there on the shore, barely past the water, as a colossal relic from the Read More

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It’s SOS for the S.E.C.! Polite Mary Schapiro Polices the Plutocrats

Few cops are as well liked as Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro. “Oh, Mary is just a really nice, good person,” former S.E.C. commissioner Isaac Hunt told The Observer. “I don’t think anyone doesn’t love Mary.”

“Mary is extraordinarily smart, open-minded and her integrity is absolutely above reproach,” said Susan W. Phillips, an Read More