STEAL THIS MAGAZINE.(editorial choices of some current periodicals)(Brief Article)

The New York Times Magazine has long been known for its blend of left-leaning articles and ads catering to the wealthiest Americans. Feature stories laud liberal politicians and cutting-edge cultural trends. A weekly "Ethicist" column tries, for instance, to liberate readers from feeling obliged to practice private charity (support of the poor, you see, is really the government's duty). Sprinkled in between are ads for hip fashions, apartments and country estates costing millions, and expensive private schools and camps. Other items of interest to the rich include a "Luxury Travel Guide" and ads for "wealth management" services.

There is nothing novel, of course, about the phenomenon of "limousine liberals" who pride themselves on left-wing political sympathies without letting that cramp their indulgence in conspicuous consumption. Recently, however, disturbing new hints of outright moral nihilism have crept into the Times Magazine. Over the past several months it has published a story on a vicious Kentucky thug whom it treated as the moral equivalent of the crusading prosecutor he murdered; an "Endpaper" in which the author boasted of her youthful occupation of kidnapping dogs from wealthy Manhattan owners for ransom; a sympathetic account of a gay New Yorker who once participated in cannibalism while living and practicing group sex among a primitive Amazon tribe in the 1950s (a high point in his life); a feature on the ...