By Drew Grant 3/23/12 2:47pm

Ethics

Is this "ethical?" (Getty Images)

The Best Reader Responses from ‘Ethical Meat’ Challenge in The New York Times

Earlier this week, The New York Times‘ Ethicist Ariel Kaminer announced a contest: Carnivorous readers must defend, in 600 words or less, why it is ethical to eat meat. They’ll be up against tough judges: Peter Singer, Michael Pollan, Mark Bittman, Jonathan Safran Foer and Andrew Light. (Yes, it’s already been noted that none of the panelists are women.)

Although readers are told to send in their entries to ethicist@nytimes.com, of course the real meaty matter can be found in the comments section of the article, where vegans and organic farmers rip into each other like the savage beasts we essentially are. (Why bother trying to define “ethics” as it applies to different standards of living and nutrition, which sounds really hard, when one can just start up a flame war with some other pseudo-intellectual whose ideas are different from your own?)

Here are the best comments. Read More

By The Editors 1/31/12 7:13pm

opinion

Mr. Liu’s Lunacy

It has become clear in recent months that City Comptroller John Liu lives in an alternate universe. He seems to think he still is a credible candidate for next year’s mayoral election. He apparently believes that the public will forget about his false promises to identify his fund-raising bundlers—as the law requires. He presumes to lecture Wall Street about ethics, even though his campaign treasury is under federal investigation.

And now Mr. Liu, in partnership with his friends in the labor movement, seems intent on blocking public employee pension reform—which is nothing less than a financial life-or-death issue for both the city and the state.

If Mr. Liu had any shame, he’d keep his head down and hope that the ongoing probes of his murky fund-raising practices don’t hit too close to home. If he had any self-awareness, he’d know better than to go public on an issue that both Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg rightly see as absolutely critical to New York’s fiscal health in the 21st century.

But Mr. Liu seems intent on calling attention to himself. Read More

By The Editors 7/19/11 7:33pm

opinion

Murdoch and His Critics

Regarding the scandal that has roiled Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire, a few things seem clear. The phone-hacking scandal in London is deplorable. Journalists have violated the privacy of ordinary citizens and, it is alleged, the law of the land in the United Kingdom. Tabloid reporters from the now-shuttered News of the World showed a Read More

By Emily Witt 4/07/11 4:31pm

Ruses

Immaterial Nonpublic Information

Raj Rajaratnam’s defense team would like you to forget about all those phone calls and offshore accounts and millionaires and focus on the real injustice: a reporter has used some anonymous (or, if you will, “concealed”) sources.

Raj Raj’s publicity squad has declared an unlikely war against Susan Pulliam, ace investigative reporter at the Wall Read More

By Azi Paybarah 3/10/11 5:28pm

Ethics

Cuomo Reminds Lawmakers He Has the Moreland Act Up His Sleeve

Andrew Cuomo is using the arrests of two Democratic state legislators to underscore a point he made while attorney general and now as governor: that Albany’s dysfunction extends deeper than passing budgets on time and normal partisan gridlock: it’s rooted deep inside the inner workings of the legislature, and hidden behind opaque disclosure rules.

The Read More

By Azi Paybarah 3/08/11 6:06pm

QUOTES

'Virtual Agreement'

“We have virtual agreement on the issues in the ethics law with the governor.”

–Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, signaling what would be a major breakthrough on a key component of Governor Cuomo’s ambitious agenda.

By Matt Coyne 2/16/11 6:13pm

Ethics

Why Building Things in New York Comes Down to What You Learned (or Didn’t Learn) from Mom and Dad

New York real estaters met at NYU’s Schack Institute on Wednesday morning for a brief breakfast forum on construction ethics. While the mafia wasn’t represented—possibly because of the mass arrests last month—their presence could’ve gone a long way to help filling up the empty seats.

“Here at New York University we’re trying to instill Read More