Anyone Else Still Terrified of Online Banking?

Delving into my (irrational?) cyberwar hysteria.

It has actually been a few weeks now since the news first broke about suspected North Korean hackers paralyzing three major banks in South Korea―not to mention the two largest broadcasters in that country―but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. Truth is, I'm a little irritated if I have to so much as wait in line too long to get access to my money: To have my life savings held hostage by anonymous online thugs is almost unthinkable.

What Not to Buy: 12 Christmas Gifts No One Wants to Find Under the Tree

Lookin’ at you, obsessive Skymall shoppers.

You know the feeling. You’re standing in some crowded store scanning the racks and racking your brain for the perfect gift for someone on your list. The clock ticking, the crowds heaving, your whole body sweating in a store that’s 89 degrees and playing "Jingle Bell Rock" on a loop, you start to suffer from a certain holiday-specific delusion that alters all your original intentions and  makes everything in the place look like an amazing idea. (“I know he said he wanted a sweater, but oh my God, he’s going to looooove this hat that looks like a fox’s head.”) Now the question as to whether the retailers do this on purpose—that is, create an environment that allows them prey on your weak holiday moments in order to move products you would never otherwise buy— is beside the point. The point, everyone, is that there are just some things, no matter what the shopping conditions may be, that you should never, under any circumstances, purchase as a Christmas gift for anyone you care about. Or for anyone, really. Here, a list of those things you should avoid this season.

What Would You Do if You Were Trapped on Subway Tracks?

Who hasn’t wondered that? How New York’s horror story plays on more fears than one.

Most of the headlines this week have been terrible, but I wonder how long we will be haunted by one image in particular: Poor Ki Suk Han on the cover of the New York Post, captured helpless on the train tracks just moments before he was struck and inevitably killed.

How Facebook Changed the Way We Vote for the President

When did voting stop being a private act?

One of my more vivid memories from my childhood is stepping into the voting booth with my mom in 1988. I was in elementary school at the time. The polling place, in fact, was actually inside my elementary school gym, which gave the moment a sort of surreal, dreamlike quality, seeing all those clunky official-looking machines in the very spot I had just played kickball just a couple days before. It was 1988, Bush/Dukakis, and I would tell you who Mom voted for, but the thing I remember most from that entire experience is that I was sworn to secrecy. I was to tell nobody. “Voting,” she said, “is very private, Christy.”

Parental Prejudice: Why Is It Perfectly Acceptable to Hate Moms?

We’re living in the most tolerant age in American history—unless you have the audacity to bring your toddler out in public.

It's a pretty broad generalization to say this, but I'm going to do it anyway: Much of my generation (Generation X? Y? Pre-Millennial?) is, if not fully inclined toward tolerance, is at least disinclined toward intolerance. (I mean, how many of us 20-to-40-somethings are boycotting a certain brand of buttery, delicious chicken sandwich right now because we think it's a chicken sandwich born of intolerance?) I don't mean to assert that we don't all have our individual unfair prejudices—I have a friend who won't talk to anyone wearing a fedora; myself, I simply cannot bear adult Twi-Hards—but if the motto for children of the '60s was “Make Love, Not War,” then that of their grown adult children in the 2000s might be “Live and Let Live.” Unless the people we're talking about living and letting live happen to be parents who live in the city. In which case, all bets are off.

The Old Daffy’s Should Become a Wegmans

Because going to four different stores for cheese, groceries, cleaning supplies and baked goods is getting a little tedious.

When, a few weeks back, I heard that Daffy's on Chestnut would be closing down, two thoughts hit me immediately:

 
1. Damn. Where will I buy all my tights now? And ...
 
2. Please, please let them fill the space with a three-story grocery Trader Joe's. Or Acme. Or Wegman's. Anything with lots of groceries, and lots of checkout lanes.
 

Alas, the only rumors of a new tenant I’ve heard involve a Forever 21. Blerg.

Why Do Women Need More Expensive Deodorant Than Men?

Plus other products—including Bic pens—that shouldn’t be gender specific.

The total stupidity of both the “invention” and the marketing of that new line of Bic “For Her” Pens has been, in my opinion, well worth the debacle, if only for the hilarious sarcastic reviews that came out of it. (If you haven’t seen 'em already, Google “Bic for Her” and your faith in mankind will be redeemed).

12 Smelliest Places in Philadelphia

The scent of our city isn’t always good, but it’s always recognizable.

A while back I read a fascinating article in GQ that ranked the smelliest cities in the planet. Philly wasn't on the list (for once!), but I took special note anyway because the author, Chandler Burr, the magazine's scent critic and a sort of well-known smelling expert, wrote this: “Cities, like people, have their own smell, their own body odors and perfumes that take on personalities.” He went on to write rather prettily about places like Bogota, with its smell of “new car, concrete and aftershave” and New Orleans, with its “soporific scent of humidity.” its perfume of dead moss...

Hiding Philly’s Homeless Doesn’t Make Our City Better

Just look at the beauty of Sister Cities Park to see why.

My favorite new spot in the city, hands down, is Sister Cities Park. Inga Saffron went so far as to call the transformation of “this tiny shard of land” a miracle, and she's totally right: If ever there could be a tribute to what a fountain, some benches and a bright little café can do for an empty patch of land, Sister Cities is it. Over the course of a few months, the place went from zero to modern-day Seurat painting, and today you can see families picnicking there and kids in bathing suits running through the sprays of water coming up from the bluestone and people from all walks just sitting and enjoying the little urban oasis.