VOX: Sanitizer might feel like a modern-day, scientific, and more clinical upgrade to soap. But I’m here to tell you that soap — all sorts of it: liquid, solid, honeysuckle-scented, the versions inexplicably only marketed to men or women — is a badass, and even more routinely effective than hand sanitizer. We should be excited to use it, as much as possible. That’s because when you wash your hands with soap and water, you’re not just wiping viruses off your hands and sending them down the drain. You’re actually annihilating the viruses, rendering them harmless. Soap “is almost like a demolition team breaking down a building and taking all the bricks away,” says Palli Thordarson, a chemistry professor at the University of New South Wales, who posted a viral Twitter thread on the wonders of soap. In a recent phone call, he explained why soap is such an effective Covid-19 killer and why it’s so important to soap your hands for at least 20 seconds. MORE

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ordinarily we would not post another media outlet’s content in full, usually just a few paragraphs and a link to the web site of origin for the complete article. However, the following information is too important, smartly-reasoned and elegantly rendered — in short, too essential — to remain locked behind a paywall in this moment of impending doom. So with all due apologies to Foreign Policy we are re-posting it here in full. Because sometimes looting is justifiable. Doomsday is one of those times.

FOREIGN POLICY: Whether you are reading this in your living room in Vancouver, office in London, or on a subway in New York City, you need to think hard, and fast, about two crucial questions: Where, and with whom, do you want to spend the next six to 12 weeks of your life, hunkered down for the epidemic duration? And what can you do to make that place as safe as possible for yourself and those around you?

Your time to answer those questions is very short—a few days, at most. Airports will close, trains will shut down, gasoline supplies may dwindle, and roadblocks may be set up. Nations are closing their borders, and as the numbers of sick rise, towns, suburbs, even entire counties will try to shut the virus out by blocking travel. Wherever you decide to settle down this week is likely to be the place in which you will be stuck for the duration of your epidemic.

To appreciate what lies ahead for the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, pay heed to Italy, France, and Germany. The United States, for example, is currently tracking exactly where Italy was about 10 days ago. France and Germany, which track two to five days ahead of the United States, are now revving up measures akin to those taken by Italy, including lockdowns on movement and social activity. In a matter of days, the United States will follow suit.

If you live alone, have no family members or close friends who require your special attention, and have no alternative living space, you have no decision to make. You are where you will be for coming weeks.
Many households are now swelling as colleges and universities close, sending students to their parents’ homes, and young adults find themselves facing financial ruin amid the shutdown of theaters, restaurants, gig economy work, construction sites, and other forms of employment lacking job protection and home leave assistance. These young adults may also choose to return to their parents’ homes, or to secondary residences owned by friends or relatives.

As employers shift to work-from-home status, white-collar workers with salaried jobs need to consider where best to hunker down, allowing them strong Internet access and a home work setting. For workers whose jobs require physical presence at a work site, such as custodians, factory workers, security guards, construction personnel, taxi drivers, and the like, the relocation option is decided—stay put. But many may lose their jobs, either temporarily or permanently, due to the epidemic, and the prospect of six to eight weeks without an income stream is excruciating. Anybody facing that prospect should immediately negotiate with their landlords, mortgage lenders, and utilities, seeking long-term payment options, and scour for information regarding their legal rights if threatened with eviction, power shut-off, or lost credit due to epidemic-spawned nonpayment.

Because elderly people, particularly those with underlying medical conditions, are at special risk for severe reactions to COVID-19, including death, many families are making choices to move closer to their aged loved ones, or bring them to live with their adult children and grandchildren. These can be painful decisions, particularly if the elder’s health requires daily attention or features dementia. As the epidemic worsens, it will become increasingly dangerous for such elders to travel: Tough choices must be made immediately.

Once tough location decisions have been made, the household must be readied for a long siege. While panic-buying has led to stockpiles of toilet paper and hand sanitizer, getting through eight months of confinement with others will require a great deal more, both physically and psychologically. This is especially true for households that span generations.

Long-term confinement that includes children undergoing remote schooling and adults trying to work requires designated spaces for each individual, a powerful Internet signal and Wi-Fi router, and a great deal of shared patience. Everybody in the household must understand how the coronavirus is spread, and what steps each should follow to eliminate their personal risk of passing infection to others in the home.
The virus is transmitted by droplets and fomites—it isn’t like measles, capable of drifting about in the air for hours. It dehydrates quickly if not inside water, mucus, or fomite droplets. The size of the droplets may be far below what the human eye can see, but they are gravity-sensitive, and will fall from an individual’s mouth down, eventually, to the nearest lower surface—table, desk, floor. You do not need to clean upward.

However, a newly published study, backed by the National Institutes of Health, found that the virus survives in “aerosols for up to three hours, up to four hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel.” This means an uncleaned surface can pose a risk to members of the household for a very long time—a doorknob, tabletop, kitchen counter or stainless steel utensil.

Both the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Occupational Safety and Health Administration have posted cleaning guidelines, indicating which simple, inexpensive products can eliminate the coronavirus from surfaces in your household or work areas. Give special attention to the most commonly shared surfaces in your home or work area: door knobs, light switches, phones, faucets, toilet handles, kitchen utensils, computer keyboards, and remote controls.

The virus is killed by ultraviolet sunlight, and air flow will hasten dehydration. Do not create air flow by turning on building central air systems—you will spread contamination. If there are windows, open them wide and leave them open whenever weather conditions allow. If there are curtains or shades, open them and let sunlight pour in.

If available, wear latex or heavy-duty dishwashing gloves while cleaning anything that an individual suspected to be infected with COVID-19 has had contact with. Place all used gloves and other disposable contaminated items in a bag that can be tied closed before disposing of them with other waste. Wash hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds immediately after removing gloves.

If you live in an apartment, condominium, or co-housing facility, ask management to post signs limiting the number of people allowed to share an elevator to however many can fit in the cars while maintaining a distance of three feet from one another. Elevator buttons should be cleaned regularly. Deliveries should be left in a common area, such as the building lobby, rather than having outsiders use the elevators and knock on household doors.

And all residents should be asked to please be mindful of contagion courtesy, covering mouths when coughing or sneezing and teaching children to do the same. After coughing or sneezing into hands, do not touch public surfaces in the building such as elevator buttons, banisters, and door handles.

Both the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Occupational Safety and Health Administration have posted cleaning guidelines, indicating which simple, inexpensive products can eliminate the coronavirus from surfaces in your household or work areas. Give special attention to the most commonly shared surfaces in your home or work area: door knobs, light switches, phones, faucets, toilet handles, kitchen utensils, computer keyboards, and remote controls.

The virus is killed by ultraviolet sunlight, and air flow will hasten dehydration. Do not create air flow by turning on building central air systems—you will spread contamination. If there are windows, open them wide and leave them open whenever weather conditions allow. If there are curtains or shades, open them and let sunlight pour in.

If available, wear latex or heavy-duty dishwashing gloves while cleaning anything that an individual suspected to be infected with COVID-19 has had contact with. Place all used gloves and other disposable contaminated items in a bag that can be tied closed before disposing of them with other waste. Wash hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds immediately after removing gloves.

If you live in an apartment, condominium, or co-housing facility, ask management to post signs limiting the number of people allowed to share an elevator to however many can fit in the cars while maintaining a distance of three feet from one another. Elevator buttons should be cleaned regularly. Deliveries should be left in a common area, such as the building lobby, rather than having outsiders use the elevators and knock on household doors.

And all residents should be asked to please be mindful of contagion courtesy, covering mouths when coughing or sneezing and teaching children to do the same. After coughing or sneezing into hands, do not touch public surfaces in the building such as elevator buttons, banisters, and door handles.

It’s also important to prepare psychologically. Every family or couple has its issues, and tensions can amplify during long confinement. Common sense can ease the shared suffering. If children are undergoing remote schooling, and parents are simultaneously working remotely, everybody needs headphones, plenty of computer bandwidth, and a designated workspace. Before stores close, make sure every user has proper cables, headphones, batteries, adapters, and other tools of the computer trade. Printers, if they will be used, require paper and ink: Have plenty on hand.

Everybody needs routines, including exercise and recreation. Shared burdens of cooking and cleaning should be offset by shared play and fun. Boredom and stress can suck the lifeblood out of a person. Before your home goes on lockdown, make sure your download accounts for movies and television are paid. There are plenty of good books around the house, and games and decks of cards are handy. Plan now for your state of siege. Don’t delay. Choose where you want to survive the pandemic, with whom, and how. Your window of opportunity to act is shrinking, very fast. [via FOREIGN POLICY]

THE INDEPENDENT: A video has emerged of Donald Trump talking about cutting the US pandemic response team in 2018 – days after claiming that he knew nothing about the disbanded White House unit. Mr Trump said of the pandemic team that “some of the people we’ve cut they haven’t been used for many, many years and if we ever need them we can get them very quickly and rather then spending the money. I’m a business person, I don’t like having thousands of people around when you don’t need them.” MORE

The take away from I Know Who You Are And Saw What You Did is this: As an Internet user your rights are exactly none. Actually, that’s not true, you do have the right not to use it. But assuming you have waived that right, know that you are being watched, probed and profiled, your footprints are being tracked from your front door to the furthest reaches of the digital ether and back. They know who you are and what you did. Somewhere there is a file being kept on you. They know a thousand things about you. Preferences, locations, affiliations. Your best hopes, your worst fears, your darkest desires. Data miners have been hoovering up your digital chem trails and selling them to marketers, corporations, employers, and law enforcement. Anything you say or do, can and will be used against you, according to legal expert Lori Andrews, author of I Know Who You Are And Saw What You Did.

Andrews is a law professor whose work assesses the social impact of emerging technologies. She directs the Institute for Science, Law and Technology at Illinois Institute of Technology, where she teaches a class on the Law of Social Networks. She is the author of 14 books. Her groundbreaking pro bono litigation caused the National Law Journal to list her as one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.

Andrews thinks the online world needs the kind of constitutional protections we enjoy in the offline world. If Facebook’s 750,000,000 million people makes it the third largest nation in the world, she argues, it should have a constitution. She’s even gone to the trouble of writing one.  Tonight at the National Constitution Center, Andrews, along with Kashmir Hill, a blogger for Forbes, and New York Times reporter Jennifer Preston will consider what the Constitution would look like if the Internet and social networking was around in the time of the Founding Fathers.

PHAWKER: For the benefit of the reader, explain the premise of your book.

LORI ANDREWS: The premise of my book, is that our online self has become more important than our physical self. One in five college admissions officers look at Facebook pages in deciding whether to admit students. Thirty-five percent of employers say they won’t hire someone who’s got pictures of themselves in provocative dress or with a wine glass on their Facebook page. And I advocate a constitution for social networks to make sure we have freedom of speech, privacy, the right to a fair trial—the sort of protections we have in the offline world.

PHAWKER: Do you get annoyed when the media calls you a “privacy advocate,” like it’s some sort of esoteric minority interest, like Marxism, or bestiality, or something?

LORI ANDREWS: I think that there are a lot of the people in the media who say people should know better than to post a drunken Facebook photo, and employers should have the right to that information, but pretty soon you can win those people over by pointing out that data aggregators are collecting information about them that they wouldn’t want made public. There’s a case going on in California right now, where NebuAd, a marketing company, made a deal with service providers to put hardware on the Internet service providers network and actually collect every e-mail, every Skype call, every action that each user of the Internet in that locality made on the web and made deals to sell that information to advertisers. They might be pharmaceutical companies who want to advertise something because of a personal health comment that you made in an e-mail to a friend, or the Google search you did for a symptom, even though it might not have been about yourself, and third parties are offering that information to employers. They might not want to hire someone who has a medical condition that would cause the person to miss work five days a year. So, you might be denied opportunities based on information about you that you didn’t know you were disclosing. So, pretty soon, I find the very media that thinks it’s not about privacy, and about openness are panicking and asking me ‘What can I do about this?”

PHAWKER: Playing devil’s advocate here, if you would codify this into law, wouldn’t that mean that anything that’s on the Internet then becomes inadmissible in court?

LORI ANDREWS: No, I actually think we should apply the world that we value offline, online. So, for example, we do have the right to a fair trial and so a women’s past sexual history can’t be admitted in rape cases. But now criminal courts are saying, “Well, let’s admit the fact that she filled out a sex survey online, or that she has picture of an old boyfriend to try to undermine her creditability. Or women are losing custody of their kids, because they posted a sexy photo on Facebook, or because they say they “like” “National Weed Day.” So, as opposed to other evidence, where there would be an actual investigation to see whether the child is safe or not, courts are admitting this without any view toward the usual rules of the game, of asking whether it’s relevant, or whether it’s authentic, or related in some way to the case. And so people might see a few courts that have turned down this information. I remember one of them, the ex-wife was trying to have the children taken away from the ex-husband, because he published a picture of his new girlfriend in a French maid’s costume, and also had a video of someone shooting Ronald McDonald in the face. Now we may all have different opinions about how appropriate that is, but it’s pretty clear that you shouldn’t take that as evidence that he’s a bad dad.

PHAWKER: Are you telling me the Constitutional guarantees don’t apply to anything online?

LORI ANDREWS: I’m saying that courts have thrown up their hands in a way that has not happened with other technologies. So I’ve worked in the past with medical technologies, genetic technologies, and forensic technologies, and all those instances, judges have been willing to apply fundamental concepts like privacy. With respect to the Internet and social networks, judges have erroneously failed to protect rights. And judges have said “an e-mail should be just like a postcard.” So anything in an e-mail—the hotel I’m staying at now, or my credit card number—all that is public. Well, that doesn’t make any sense, and it also doesn’t comply with the offline rules.

PHAWKER: Could a reasonable case be made that the use of this information, as you’re describing it, would be a violation of a defendant’s or a litigant’s Fourth Amendment rights?

LORI ANDREWS: Absolutely. I think a lot of it isn’t about regulating the Internet per se, but regulating the native uses that are made of it. But so far, I’ve found case after case where this information is being used to prove a point where it doesn’t necessarily stand for that. So, if you see a 7th grader making gang signs on a MySpace photo, right now, courts will say that it shows that he’s a gang member. When in reality it could be that that he was bullied at school, and he’s making gang signs to try to appear tougher than he is. So there’s a way in which information is taken as truth by the courts. And now, we’re even seeing people gaming the system, where the new girlfriend makes up a Facebook page in the name of the ex-wife, in order to help her husband win custody. So maybe it’s that judges are less savvy about social networks, and are willing to take this evidence as truth, when it isn’t necessarily.

PHAWKER: Is that an actual incident, where a girlfriend made a fake Facebook profile?

LORI ANDREWS: Yeah, those things happen. There was also an incident where kids get their penalties enhanced by wearing “gang colors” on their Facebook photos. I looked up the Los Angeles police department’s definition of what “gang colors” are, and they include plaid—think of any hipster—or all black—think of any New York art opening. And so this information is being used inappropriately. It’s intriguing to me, that the the defendants are beginning to fight back, in subpoenaing the cops’ Facebook and MySpace pages, and one defendant is being tried in possession of a gun in violation of his parole, actually used a cop’s MySpace page setting of his mood as “Devious,” to prove to the jury that the cop had planted the gun on him, even though, that emoticon might not actually indicate what the cop did, or didn’t do. Fascinating, don’t you think?

PHAWKER: Entirely. Are you one of these people who feel that the way we freely share personal information on social networks we’re like the lobsters jumping into the pot?

LORI ANDREWS: I think that people don’t realize that even seemingly innocuous photos, you having a glass of wine at a wedding, might be used against them, but it’s also really tough, because the social networks keep changing the rules of the game. At first, Facebook promised everybody that all their information would be private. Then, Facebook made your friend’s pictures public. So that might seem innocuous, but what happened was there were people in the U.S. who had friended people in Tehran, or had relatives in Tehran, and if the U.S. person posted something against the Iranian government, what happened was the now public pictures of friends were used to arrest and beat up family members and friends in Iran. So a very simple thing like all of a sudden making friend’s pictures public could have huge ramifications. And yet, Facebook did that with a flip of the switch and not giving users adequate information, and so you might have seen that there was a recent settlement between the Federal Trade Commission and Facebook that requires Facebook to tell people when they’re going to change the rules, and give people a chance not to be part of that more public approach. And a lot of people say, “Oh, privacy, let’s just get over it,” and that “it’s a new era,” that people don’t care about privacy as much because look at all they post, but 65% of people do use Facebook privacy settings, and their concerns about privacy are even higher among younger people, who kind of get it, that they might lose a job or have other bad things happen to them, based on what they posted.

PHAWKER: Getting back to Facebook changing the rules all the time with very little notice—why is that? Why do they constantly make people feel like they are unwillingly in a game of three card monty with their private information?

LORI ANDREWS: I think the users of Facebook think they are the consumers, when they’re actually the product. Facebook makes $1.86 billion a year through taking people’s private information and making it available, and using it to target ads. So if I email a friend that I’m going to go on vacation in Florida, do a Google search about it, or post something about it on my Facebook page, that becomes information about me that can be marketed to, say, travel agencies, or local attractions in Florida. And so, less privacy is always better for Facebook, because it gives them more information to sell. The more you say, the more they can track you through your friends, and the more, the better.

PHAWKER: We hear a lot about this data mining that you’re talking about, that every consumer choice is being recorded somewhere. Does everybody in this country have a vast file being kept on them somewhere?

LORI ANDREWS: Well, there’s one company that’s called Axciom that has 1500 pieces of information on 96% of Americans. Their former CEO has called it “the biggest company you never heard of.” They have everything from your political party, to whether you’ve ever taken drugs for incontinence. And some of the ways in which data aggregators get this information is by putting cookies, or web beacons, or flash cookies on your computer. And, amazingly, when consumers have gone to court and said “that marketing group should not be collecting information about me without my consent,” courts have said it doesn’t violate wire tap laws, or the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or any of these federal laws because the courts have said one party’s consent is enough. And so if Facebook, or Amazon, or Dictionary.com says it’s OK for a third party company to collect information about you—that’s fine. The company doesn’t have to ask you for your personal consent. And I think that’s wrong—it’s your information, they should have to ask you about collecting it.

And the most troubling thing that in California now, an ad company called NebuAd has made deals with Internet service providers to put hardware on the ISP’s network to collect every transmission that every Internet user on that ISP makes. Every email, every Skype call, every search on the web. And what NebuAd said when they were sued for various privacy invasions, was that if we can’t be liable under these federal laws because we have the ISP’s consent, and therefore don’t need the consumer’s consent, how can we be liable under the state laws in California, which actually has a Constitutional privacy provision. Now that case will likely settle, and we won’t have any precedent. But to me, that is amazing! When I go to make a purchase, when I put my social security number in to get a fishing license, or use my credit card to order a flight on Southwest Airlines, or email my doctor about a prescription change, I don’t think that the company is going to pick that up, and use it to market things.

PHAWKER: Hasn’t the groundwork for that already been laid, with the way the NSA currently hoovers up all web traffic and keeps it in massive databases? If they want they could look at every e-mail you ever sent, every web search…

LORI ANDREWS: I do, in my book, talk about the 350 search terms that Homeland Security looks for in your e-mails — but that’s different, in that they don’t make it available to potential employers. They’re not commercializing my data, which I find really problematic.

PHAWKER: Aren’t we already pretty far down the slippery slope? Five years ago when all this was made public information, that the federal government had made arrangements with every major carrier (AT&T, Verizon, etc.) to put taps on everything, and the American public just kind of shrugged.

LORI ANDREWS: I think we should totally fight for those rights in both areas, vis-à-vis government, and the commercial sector. For example, I do not think the cops should be able to get information from social networks without a warrant. That’s another area where I think the rules should apply as they apply offline. It’s the 225th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution, which is why I’m excited about launching the book in Philadelphia where the Constitution was drafted. I’m advocating a Constitution for social networks that is very much about applying those Constitutional rights we already have to a new setting.

PHAWKER: If social networking had been around when the Constitution was drafted, how do you think it would be different?

LORI ANDREWS: First of all, there are big parallels—I actually think you should have a right to connect, and be troubled by things like governments trying to come up with a “kill switch.” I think that, very much, is akin to freedom of press. I think that you should have the kind of free speech on social networks to be able to say things that are critical of your boss or your job. But I think there would be some other rights, like a right to privacy of place, and so I think about the Pennsylvania case where they gave high school students laptops from the school, and then unbeknownst to the students or their parents, officials at the school would turn on the cameras, and take pictures of the kids in their bedrooms.

PHAWKER: Getting back to the “kill switch” that you mentioned, you’re talking about the way the Egyptian government was able to shut down the Internet during the Arab Spring uprisings?

LORI ANDREWS: Yes. An equivalent approach in the U.S., was being considered prior to Egypt. In Egypt, they were able to do it by calling the handful of Internet service providers, and having them shut down. We’ve got thousands [of ISPs] in the U.S., but some of the things being considered are requiring digital tags to be put on transmissions, so you can indicate where they’re from, and having Homeland Security be actually able to refuse to allow the transmission, actually turn off some with certain digital tags, so being able to turn off transmissions from a particular place, or from a particular set of individuals, and you can see how that would totally conflict with a primary Constitutional right to connect. It’s funny, some countries are way better than the U.S. about this kind of thing, like Estonia has a right to connect that includes even having Internet access points within a certain distance of your home, and being able to access the Internet for free, if you can’t otherwise.

PHAWKER: Where does that whole “kill switch” thing stand currently, in this country?

LORI ANDREWS: There’s still legislation that’s being talked about along those lines.

PHAWKER: So it’s still in the talking stage?

LORI ANDREWS: There’s been some bills introduced that would give Homeland Security that power, but they haven’t been passed yet.

PHAWKER: Do you find it disturbing that so much American software technology is being exported to dictatorships and used to track down dissidents on Internet? People are being arrested, beaten, imprisoned or killed and it was this American software that made it all possible?

LORI ANDREWS: There is a call among some in Congress to look at the digital monitoring software exports the same way we look at weapons exports, and actually require companies to disclose who this is going to, and for what purposes. And it seems like some of the software used to punish those people for the uprising, to jail, and so forth, came from the U.S.

PHAWKER: A lot of the time it’s sold to a third party, who then sells it to Syria, or then sells it to Iran or Egypt and the American company just shrugs and says they can’t control what happens to their product after they sell it.

LORI ANDREWS: There are some people in Congress who have concerns about that, and are trying to do something about it. It’s very much akin to selling weapons abroad, and putting restrictions on what the purchasing country can do, but you raised a good question about how effective that really is.

PHAWKER: Why are none of these things we area talking about being addressed by Congress? I’m asking this question rhetorically because I already know the answer: Because Facebook and other big data companies give massive amounts of money to congressional candidates and hire lobbyists to strong arm any that that can’t buy. If campaigns were publicly financed, and corporate special interests couldn’t give politicians any money, do you think a lot of these things you’re talking about would actually have been addressed a while ago?

LORI ANDREWS: I think certainly it would make a difference to have publicly funded campaigns. I think also many people don’t know this is going on. Until I started this book, I didn’t know about data aggregators. I didn’t know about sites like Spokeo.com,, where you enter a person’s name, and it’ll tell you their estimated worth for a free subscription, and then for more money, they say they can give you any photos that are published on the web. So part of it is that we don’t even realize that this is happening to us, and there are a couple people in Congress—Al Franken, Patrick Leahy—who are trying to do something, but often what they’re trying to do is very narrow, like limiting law enforcement use. So we really need someone to come up with a more comprehensive approach to what’s going on, and ways to handle it. That’s why I thought “the Constitution,” which people are really aware of. They know about the Miranda rights, and so forth, and I think we should have a similar kind of warning system, that says, “you have the right to remain silent.”

PHAWKER: Dictionary.com is one of the most aggressive, in terms of putting cookies on you, is that correct?

LORI ANDREWS: They put 233 cookies on your computer when you use their web site, according to The Wall Street Journal.

PHAWKER: Jesus! Is there a “silver bullet” solution to all this, or is it going to be incremental—one thing at a time?

LORI ANDREWS: I think we should change the default position—no data collection, unless we opt in—that would take care of a lot of this. And then maybe some laws about third parties, for example, employers can’t Google an applicant, and then not hire them based on what they find there.

BY AARON STELLA I’m still not in the house I purchased last April. It was, livable when I bought it, albeit in need of some serious face lifting, which always has its snags and surprises. Like, throwing up some dry wall should be a relatively painless process—unless there’s three layers of petrified wallpaper covering what were once beautiful plaster walls which means you have to frame out the whole house before dry walling; or, tearing out water damaged dry wall in the kitchen only to find a larger-than-life brick Jenga puzzle teetering precariously overhead because some brain trust didn’t use enough mortar when he built the damn kitchen add-on. (Sigh). The thing is, home owning, whether its a finished house flush with premium appliances or the black diamond of fixer-uppers, is a full-time commitment. Nothing to be afraid of, but it can be a helluva headache, so knowing your limits, both financially and mentally, is essential to finding the right house and preserving your sanity.

In our last edition, we tackled the mortgage pre-approval process for FHA loans. Now it’s time we gaze into the ol’ crystal ball to see clearly into your future of homeowning. What kind of house do you want to live in, and why? What do you notice when first cracking the door to new property? When I first began house hunting, nothing less than my dream home would do. Though, I hardly had the salary or the capital saved to afford the gussied up row home I wanted, which made touring one thrill-less dwelling after another feel more like trash picking than house hunting. In a certain sense, I didn’t know what I was looking at; in another sense, I simply lacked vision—the ability to see beyond the fissured drywall and mica countertops common to the homes within my price range.

Developing that vision, however, relies on your ability to understand how properties appreciate. Real Estate Rule Number One: Property value is only relative to its surroundings (aka “Location, Location, Location!”). Even if your house is a dump and stays a dump during your residency, if the location is good, your house will appreciate. To assess the value of a property, a realtor or appraiser pulls comps (comparisons) of surrounding properties within a three block radius that have sold in the past three to six months, either from public records, or, from TREND — a Multiple Listings Service database used by brokerages to facilitate the sale of properties. Then, the realtor or appraiser assesses the collective value of the property’s finishes and features, with which, in conjunction with the comps, allows them to determine the market value for a property. Alright, excruciatingly technical, I know, but it’s good to hear it explained, well, technically. In reality, however, buyers determine property value. In the same sense that you could live in a dump and have it appreciate, you can also sit on some serious swank while it stagnates or depreciates if nothing around is selling.

Needless to say, all the above was explained to me by my broker, and that’s what drove me to buy a home that would yield the maximum profit via appreciation. Now, out of the relatively finished homes we saw on our hunt, many of which I could’ve live in for a time and been happy, nothing really had the potential we were looking for — that is, until we stumbled upon this brick three-story row in the heart of the Newbold neighborhood, near the South Philly Taproom, at the corner Mifflin and Hicks streets. It offered over 1,300 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 1 bath, quaint back patio, eat-in kitchen, hardwood floors, and was priced like a donkey with a broken leg at the fair.

After touring the property and returning to the office, we ascertained that this zip code had been enjoying some serious appreciation over the past year, with no signs of stopping. Still, while livable, the house hadn’t been upgraded in decades. For its true potential to shine through, it would need some serious work, meaning I would need to find some serious cash. Well, I’ve never robbed a bank before, but desperate time calls for desperate measures. Maybe I could pay off my college tuition while I’m at it. Kill two birds with one stone, right? New house, no tuition. Supreme paradise. But before I pulled the pantyhose over my face, my broker me informed me about a special type of mortgage I could get call a 203K FHA loan. The loan provides the borrower with up to 35K for renovation costs (contractors, labor fees, materials, etc…). The best part is that the 35K gets lumped into the rest of your mortgage. It’s a really fantastic option for first time homebuyers looking for a leg-up with renovations. Still, the road ahead would be long and arduous: acquiring the mortgage wouldn’t be a cakewalk (no mortgage is, really) not to mention the headache of all the renovations, finding roommates and furniture. “Ah, hell,” I thought. Daddy saw what he wanted and he’s gonna get it somehow. Like all things, really, you might have to do the damndest Riverdance of your life, but first time home buying exposes some uncharted fathoms of fortitude you probably never realized were there. And where it starts, after you’ve picked your first home, is making a savvy offer, and getting the mortgage. All coming up next time, folks. Until then…

PREVIOUSLY: So You Want To Buy A Home

PREVIOUSLY: So You Want To Buy A Home Pt. 2

BY AARON STELLA Never buy your first home for love; buy it for money. Embracing this maxim will maximize the considerable benefits of first-time home ownership. As I mentioned in our last edition, people don’t typically buy a home until they’re ready to settle down, and it’s this mindset that prevents many people from home owning and securing wealth until later in life. Your dream home doesn’t have to be your first; make it your fourth, and by that point you should be able to buy it in cash.

After I got serious about buying my first home, I had to assess whether or not I was eligible for a mortgage. To do this, I went to a mortgage broker who ran me through a mortgage pre-approval, which determines two things: one, how expensive a home I can purchase, and two, whether or not I meet the minimum requirements to acquire a mortgage. The type of loan I sought was an FHA loan (Federal Housing Administration). Due to recent market conditions, most first time home buyers opt for FHA loans since it requires the least money down (3.5% of the total purchase price, compared to the 5%, 10% or 20% down required by other types of loans). In addition to the 3.5% down, you must also have a credit score of at least 620 and two consecutive years work experience in the same field. If you meet those requirements, the mortgage broker will assess your debt-to-income ratios. Da-Da-Dum! Now now, don’t get caught up in all the numbers. Like I said in our last edition, getting mortgages are just like trying to get juiced up student loans. So let’s take this step-by-step.

Credit: Luckily enough, by time you get done with college, you’re credit score is usually healthy and untarnished, so long that you didn’t (ahem) spend yourself into oblivion on Chinese take-out and Red Bull. I did, however, apply for two credit cards and bought pizza on them once a week, and paid them off monthly, which gave my score a little more beef than the average grad by graduation time.

Work Experience: I received a BA in English at Temple, and now perform writing-based tasks for CITYSPACE. According to a lender, I have four years of work experience under my belt in the English/writing field by merit of my college education. If I’d changed jobs from, say, magician to UFC cage fighter to underwater basket weaver to Storm Trooper in the past two years, no matter how qualified a Storm Trooper I might have been or how much money the Galactic Empire paid me, if I don’t have two consecutive years of documented experience as a Storm Trooper that lux-condo on the Death Star will just have to wait. Still, good mortgage brokers have been known to work a bit of magic (especially for the Galactic Empire) so don’t lose hope altogether if you’ve only been a highly paid Storm Trooper for a year or so.

Debt-to-Income Ratio: Unfortunately, my student loans did not help my debt-to-income ratios. Now don’t go screaming into the hills because of the numbers. Trust me, it’s not as bad as it seems. So, the prerequisites for an FHA loan dictate that a borrower can spend no more than 43.5% of their gross monthly income — after subtracting monthly debts — on their mortgage. This fixture is used to lower the risk of the borrowers defaulting and to help them maintain their quality of life (I’m looking at you, big spender). So, let’s say you make $2,500/month gross, and your total debt is $300/month (student loans, car loans, credit cards, etc.). Energy bills, cell phone bills, and your membership to the polar bear club do not factor in. After subtracting the $300/month, you’re left with $2,200/month to play with. Now, take 43.5% of $2,200/month, which works out to you being able spend up to $957/month max on your mortgage.

Still awake? Now to see how much of a mortgage you’re eligible for, using this savvy equation here: for every $100,000 you borrow, expect to pay around $600/month for the mortgage, which means, if FHA guidelines allows you to spend a maximum of $957/month on a mortgage, then you can afford to borrow a little under $160,000. Now, just because 160K defines your max doesn’t mean you should go running to purchase a 160K home. Believe it or not, you can get a finished home for much less than 160K in a good part of town, when you’re making, what, $32,500 a year? The house will probably have a couple of bedrooms you could rent out, allowing you to potentially live for free and still collect on all the tax breaks. Not a bad deal. Not bad at all.

Well, that about covers the process for mortgage pre-approval process. We’ll get deeper into the mortgage process in later editions. Keep in mind everyone’s situation is different: there are a plethora of variables that determine how much your mortgage payment will be, and what type of mortgage is best for you; however, now you have a base of knowledge from which you can approach acquiring a mortgage, and, more importantly, house hunting, which we’ll be covering in our next edition. So stay tuned, folks. We’ll be back with more.

PREVIOUSLY: SO YOU WANT TO BUY A HOME Pt. 1

BY AARON STELLA “Oh Osh magosh me? A house? Mortgages and mahogany? Brunches and backsplashes? Go pick on someone your own size!” Was what I told my broker/boss at CITYSPACE, a real estate agency, when she asked me if I was considering buying a house anytime soon. That was November 2009. I was 24-years-old and in my sixth month employed at CITYSPACE as their Web Content Associate. I possessed relatively little knowledge about real estate and home owning, and to me, people just didn’t purchase homes until they’re ready to settle down.

A few weeks after my broker poked me about the house thing, she drove me deep into the heart of South Philadelphia under the pretense of buying me lunch. As we passed through the neighborhoods, she outlined each one’s financial history, including what certain properties sold for, taxes, trends in architecture, interior design, surrounding amenities, culture, nightlife—you get the picture. “Let her have her moment,” I thought. But then she pulled over. Beside us stood a handsomely weathered stucco row home with a blue “for sale” sign buttressed out the façade. Inside, my broker remarked at the quality of the hardwood flooring, choice of tiling in the kitchen and bathroom, size of the bedrooms, lack of a washer/ dryer and HVAC and feng shui of the floor plan altogether. She then asked my opinion of the place. I wasn’t diggin it, so we set off for another property, then another, and another, and another, until we finally found one that got me all shiny. And five months later on April 6th, 2010, I settled on my first home, which is currently under renovations. I expect to be in and settled before June.

Welcome, my friends, to the intro edition the First-Time Home Buyers Column. Now I’ll be honest, I’m not a REAL-TOR or real estate savvy by nature. I don’t go dashing over to the Inquirer newsstand everyday to get my average house price statistics and I don’t cozy up for a nice read of Philly’s real estate blogs on my morning routine, because frankly, real estate, from a non-homeowner’s perspective, can be frightfully boring, and for a prospective and/or current homeowner, acutely maddening. Acquiring a mortgage will make you want to drink (they’re like trying to get student loans on steroids), working with contractors will feel kind of like asking a refrigerator to pass the LSAT, and the prerequisites for home owning will seem like they change every time you look over your shoulder. So I’d be lying if I said it was all gumdrops and sunshine. But consider this: to own your first home is to begin your education in the ways and means of the ownership society. It’s also possibly the safest, fastest and most sustainable way to accumulate wealth: it’s stock you can live in, essentially (in the same vein that you can’t live in your GE or Hulk comic book stock), tax write-offs are plentiful, and heck, it’s your house, you can mess it up, dress it up, take it salsa dancing or let it sit pretty and still profit from the equity when you two decide to part.

But we’ll tackle more of that later. For the time being, I’ll be chronicling my foray into home ownership, and my education about wealth management. I want ya’ll to know about this stuff. The good, the bad and the ugly. Frankly, because you need to know — and the sooner the better. When you really think about it, the ownership of property is where everything begins and ends. So my hope is that, by sharing my experiences, I can help equip future home owners with the savvy they need to make educated decisions and equip others similarly, thereby creating a more competitive market, better products and more equal conditions for everyone. Huzzah! So again, welcome to the first edition of the First Time Home Buyers Column. Until next time, folks…

BY AARON STELLA GAYDAR EDITOR Hey pals and gals. Got a quick one here for ya. Editor-in-chief JV shot me an email the other day (thanks boss) alerting me to a new development in the Christian coteries: apparently, it’s not enough now to censor the sex (nudity), violence, substance abuse, and demonic images (oh lord) in video games, homosexual content is now on the chopping block. According to Tumeroks, a blog dedicated to covering the development and growth of online games (Warhammer online, World of Warcraft, Diablo 3, etc) a Christian conservative investment firm called The Timothy Plan has just added homosexual content to the list of no no’s parents should be aware off before purchasing video games for their impressionable offspring. According to the the Timothy Plan’s website, “[We are] not attempt[ing] to ban video games, or dictate whether people should play them. This [list] is purely meant to inform parents who are concerned with the moral content/issues contained in video games and make available to them information which is not easily found.”

Now, I’m all for parents monitoring the activities of their children/adolescents—to an extent. But consider this: all the games included in The Timothy Plan’s “30 most offensive” list require that purchasers must be 17 years of age. Seventeen-year-olds are going to buy whatever they want; there’s not much you can do about that. With that in mind, I’m guessing that the “30 most offensive” list is intended for parents buying video games for their nearly pubescent and teenage brood. If that’s the case (The Timothy Plan does not specify), why are staunch Christian parents even considering buying video games for their kids like Fallout 3 and Manhunt 2—games where it it’s part of the fun to watch your enemies evaporate into blood and to loot their carcasses to make ends meet?

And about the whole video game homophobia: do you really think that exposing adolescents to homosexual content is going to influence their orientation? Like so: “Oh, those two men are kissing. I’ve never seen that before. What a novel idea!Hmm, I wonder what Timothy’s doing right now? Next time I see him, I’m going to give him a big smoocharoo!”

Folks, there is no legitimate study that exists that shows a correlation between video games/TV violence and violence crimes in the real world, much less homosexual content and the actual number of homosexuals in the general population. With that said, however, there is a reason video game makers put age restrictions on the games, and they hope that parents would abide by them (mind you, that’s purely allotted to the violence and graphic displays of nudity, not homosexual undertones). Here’s an idea: instead of cocooning their kids from realities they’re going to eventually encounter (unless they become cloistered monks or nuns, but even that’s no guarantee) why don’t parents spend time with their kids and educate them about what they’re watching/playing on the television? Like so: “Oh, there on two men kissing on Timothy’s video game. Timothy, why don’t you pause that for a moment so we can have a little talk.”

RELATED: Gay Video Gamers On MySpace

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Users of all current versions of Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer browser might be vulnerable to having their computers hijacked because of a serious security hole in the software that had yet to be fixed Monday. The flaw lets criminals commandeer victims’ machines merely by tricking them into visiting Web sites tainted with malicious programming code. As many as 10,000 sites have been compromised since last week to exploit the browser flaw, according to antivirus software maker Trend Micro Inc. The sites are mostly Chinese and have been serving up programs that steal passwords for computer games, which can be sold for money on the black market. However, the hole is such that it could be “adopted by more financially motivated criminals for more serious mayhem — that’s a big fear right now,” Paul Ferguson, a Trend Micro security researcher, said Monday.

“Zero-day” vulnerabilities like this are security holes that haven’t been repaired by the software makers. They’re a gold mine for criminals because users have few ways to fight off attacks.The latest vulnerability is noteworthy because Internet Explorer is the default browser for most of the world’s computers. Microsoft said it is investigating the flaw and is considering fixing it through an emergency software patch outside of its normal monthly updates, but declined further comment. The company is telling users to employ a series of complicated workarounds to minimize the threat. Many security experts, meanwhile, are urging Internet Explorer users to use another browser until a patch is released. MORE

PHAWKER: We Recommend Mozilla Firefox.

RELATED: Nearly half of the women questioned by Harris Interactive said they’d be willing to forgo sex for two weeks, rather than give up their Internet access, according to a study released Monday by Intel, which commissioned the survey. While 46 percent of the women surveyed were willing to engage in abstinence versus losing their Internet, only 30 percent of the men surveyed were willing to do likewise. The U.S. survey, which queried 2,119 adults last month, found that the gap grew even wider for both men and woman who were 18 to 34 years old. For woman, the percentage of those willing to skip the sheets in favor of the Web rose to 49 percent, while it climbed to 39 percent for men. MORE

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is a letter sent to Phawker Gaydar Editor Aaron Stella by his mother, explaining her decision to vote for McCain despite her son’s attempts to convince her otherwise. Both agreed to Phawker publishing it along with a rebuttal.  Astute readers will recall Sylvia Stella’s proud mom remarks and constructive criticisms in the COMMENTS section of Aaron’s Gaydar columns. She currently resides in Cullman, Alabama.

Dear Aaron,

I have read quite a bit on both Obama and McCain. I am voting for McCain. People fought and died for our right to vote. A vote is not a philosophical statement. It is a transfer of power. It is a pragmatic act to preserve, as much as possible under the circumstances, the common good and to limit the evils that threaten it. The vote can be used just as much to keep someone out of office as to put someone in. Ideally, one candidate would be viewed as the best choice. To my way of thinking, there is no “best” candidate.

In this election, the reality is that several unsatisfactory candidates will be elected. So I am using my vote to create what I believe will be the better outcome and to limit the damage. I disagree with Obama on a number of counts and/or am not convinced that he has a plan that can work. I feel he has contradicted himself saying he will do one thing and then saying he will do something else, when the 2 cannot co-exist (like the EFCA, I may have the letters wrong, that will make unions much easier to start in all companies and will cost employers much more money and cause many companies to have to send jobs overseas- Obama promises to sign this bill. But, he also says he will take away take tax benefits from companies that send jobs overseas. His plan for employees will end up making it so tough on employers that companies will end up either sending jobs overseas or going out of business.)

I feel McCain has a much more practical take on things and knows how both business and the government work and can make things happen. In reading the websites of both, I don’t see that much difference in certain issues. In others I see a vast difference. I think Obama is making some promises that will be impossible to keep. So I have looked into many areas about both candidates.

I have to say, in the final analysis, that I think this quote from JP II sums up things:

“Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights — for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture — is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination”. (Christifideles Laici, 1988)

I felt so sick when I was pregnant with you that I actually considered whether I could go through with an abortion because I didn’t know how I could possibly go through with the pregnancy. I obviously decided I could not get an abortion. I felt it would be wrong. Not because the Church said so. Because something deep inside me was very aware of you, alive, in there. It would have been no different to kill you before I saw your face than to do it now. I knew it was wrong. I had to persevere through the pregnancy. So, I know that going through a pregnancy that is intolerable (due to illness, due to any other reason, physical or psychological- even a pregnancy resulting from a rape) is so, so difficult. But the fact that we CAN do something about it does not mean that we SHOULD do something about it.

Well, I am going on and on here. Anyway, so I’m voting for McCain. I appreciate your sharing all that you did with me. I figure Obama is going to win. Especially after his 30 min ad before the World Series (by the way, congrats Philly!). But I still have to vote my conscience as do you. Love you!

-Mom

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Editor responds after the jump.

Dear Aaron,
I have read quite a bit on both Obama and McCain. I am voting for McCain. People fought and died for our right to vote. A vote is not a philosophical statement. It is a transfer of power. It is a pragmatic act to preserve, as much as possible under the circumstances, the common good and to limit the evils that threaten it. The vote can be used just as much to keep someone out of office as to put someone in. Ideally, one candidate would be viewed as the best choice. To my way of thinking, there is no “best” candidate.

Sure there is. One candidate has voted with George Bush 90% of the time.  During George Bush’s tenure, we have seen a major attack on our homeland, we have gotten bogged down in two no-exit wars, a major American city was taken offline by a hurricane, the housing market collapsed and Wall Street melted down, all of which triggered a deep stateside recession, a global financial crisis and the gloomiest economic outlook since the eve of the Great Depression, we started torturing people in secret prisons and using the government’s awesome surveillance powers to spy on American citizens, and we have managed to completely squander whatever goodwill, admiration and respect the rest of the globe once had for America. A vote for McCain, is a vote for four more years of George Bush. Is not the repetition of the same behavior over and over again with the expectation of a different outcome the very definition of insanity? It is, according to Albert Einstein. That is why the only sane choice is Barack Obama.

In this election, the reality is that several unsatisfactory candidates will be elected.So I am using my vote to create what I believe will be the better outcome and to limit the damage. I disagree with Obama on a number of counts and/or am not convinced that he has a plan that can work. I feel he has contradicted himself saying he will do one thing and then saying he will do something else, when the 2 cannot co-exist (like the EFCA, I may have the letters wrong, that will make unions much easier to start in all companies and will cost employers much more money and cause many companies to have to send jobs overseas- Obama promises to sign this bill. But, he also says he will take away take tax benefits from companies that send jobs overseas. His plan for employees will end up making it so tough on employers that companies will end up either sending jobs overseas or going out of business.).

Man, this sounds like the farmer has convinced the turkey to vote YES on Thanksgiving. Businesses don’t like unions because it means they can no longer dictate terms of employment on a take it or leave it basis. THEY decide how much you work and how little you get paid. THEY decide  how much health care you don’t get, how short your vacation is. And so they fight unions tooth and nail, often using disinformation, intimidation, violence and fear. The latter would include the threat of closing up the business or moving overseas. Sure unions sometimes go too far and become self-defeating, killing growth or aggravating management to the point they shut down and move operations elsewhere. But if you actually studied the data on this, you would find that the overwhelming majority of companies go out of business or move overseas because of piss-poor management decision-making, naked greed, and or felonious corruption. Remember Enron? 

I feel McCain has a much more practical take on things and knows how both business and the government work and can make things happen.

By his own admission, McCain doesn’t really ‘get’ economics, and defers to his advisers on this matter. His chief economic adviser, Phil Gramm, is not only responsible for the de-regulation of Wall Street that lead to its recent meltdown, he declared  that  we are “a nation of whiners” and that all this talk of economic difficulty was just a ‘state of mind’. Tell that to the 9,000 people that used to have a job at Lehman Brothers, or the 2.5 million people that lost their homes this year, double the rate this time last year. Combine all this with McCain’s bizarre grandstanding during the The Bailout talks: the phony suspension of his campaign (instead of rushing back to D.C., he stayed in New York and did a Katie Couric interview) the call for postponing the debate (this is a steady hand? this is grace under pressure?), the big talk of rallying Congress to action (three days after McCain declared that he was optimistic that an agreement was reached his fellow Republicans in the House killed the bailout package) and then just showing up at the debates despite a vow that he would not debate until a deal was struck, and acting like none of this ever happened? THIS is the man you trust to get the economy out of the ditch?

In reading the websites of both, I don’t see that much difference in certain issues. In others I see a vast difference. I think Obama is making some promises that will be impossible to keep.

Surely you have heard the Obama campaign rallying cry of YES WE CAN. Well, its not just a slogan. It is informed by the united-we-stand-divided-we-fall premise this great democracy was founded on, along with an abiding belief that if the people come together and work towards a common goal, there is really nothing that is ‘impossible.’ Consider this, if I asked you two years ago, which one of the following do you think would be on the verge of winning the presidency a day before Election Day —  A)The wife of the most popular Democratic president in recent memory with the full weight of the Democratic party machine behind her. B) The white, Republican war hero nominee with 30 years in the Senate. Or C) A young, black and largely unknown junior Senator from Chicago with a weird name and an exotic background. — which one would you pick? Not Obama. Of course, not. Nobody expected this, nobody predicted it, and the vast majority said it could never happen. And yet, here we are.

So I have looked into many areas about both candidates. I have to say, in the final analysis, that I think this quote from JP II sums up things:

“Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights — for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture — is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination”. (Christifideles Laici, 1988)

I felt so sick when I was pregnant with you that I actually considered whether I could go through with an abortion because I didn’t know how I could possibly go through with the pregnancy. I obviously decided I could not get an abortion. I felt it would be wrong. Not because the Church said so. Because something deep inside me was very aware of you, alive, in there. It would have been no different to kill you before I saw your face than to do it now. I knew it was wrong. I had to persevere through the pregnancy. So, I know that going through a pregnancy that is intolerable (due to illness, due to any other reason, physical or psychological- even a pregnancy resulting from a rape) is so, so difficult. But the fact that we CAN do something about it does not mean that we SHOULD do something about it.

I am sensing you are a single issue voter, and my guess is that when you get right down to it, your problem with Obama is that he is not Right To Life. I can appreciate the profound moral weight you assign to this single issue, but, with all due respect, I think given the enormity of the crises facing our country, this is both irresponsible and unpatriotic. There has been a lot of reckless talk about patriotism from the McCain camp. But if ever there was a time to question someone’s patriotism, it’s when your country is so obviously headed in the wrong direction, and there is a surging majority joining together to try and get it back on track, while others stand by with arms folded, refusing to help, whether out of fear or anger or a single issue they have declared a deal-breaker. Sometimes I wonder about those people. Obama supporters are full of disagreement and dissenting viewpoints, but have all put aside our pet issues for the time being because the need for change is so dire. This country is broken, and we need everyone to roll up their sleeves and fix it. Come lend a hand, Sylvia, it’s not too late.

Well, I am going on and on here. Anyway, so I’m voting for McCain. I appreciate your sharing all that you did with me. I figure Obama is going to win. Especially after his 30 min ad before the World Series (by the way, congrats Philly!). But I still have to vote my conscience as do you. Love you!-Mom

[Photo by SWEETIE PIE PRESS]

BY COLLEEN REESE Almost every time I pass a cafe, it’s like there’s a magnet in there and my pockets are full of heavy metal. Usually I’m curious about brewing methods or about whether or not they bake their own pastries. I look for things that are memorable and exclusive. Seldom do I walk away surprised or intrigued. Too often they settle for corporate mediocrity, offering Pepsi products at their independent businesses, re-evaluating their menus to better appeal to the same people who drink Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee with extra cream and sugar. When I walk into a real cafe I expect to be pulled a good strong cup of coffee, one that demands to be sat with in a low lit room in wooden chairs with brightly colored vinyl cushions or at least, a cappuccino dry enough to actually taste the espresso. I want to luxuriate in the passion that once surrounded cafe culture, when people still knew the difference between arabica and robusta (for that matter, when arabica was offered more often than not). I want to see someone ditch the apron and risk a few more minutes out of their day in order to coax out the best flavors out of whatever it is that they make.

There are, of course, those who still nurture their cookery like its their children. They are still here–wiping down mismatched tables and second hand chairs, like they are living an unfinished memoir of what old world cafe culture used to be. So when I passed by the small sign on the sidewalk for Soy Cafe on N. 2nd Street (between Fairmount Ave. and Green St.) and ventured inside, I almost felt relieved. Relieved to see that there was still a fringe of worthy while American cafes. The small fridge at the very front of the store was stocked with Puerto Rican fruit juices, Vitamin Waters, and bottles of mineral water. Orbit gum and hard candies I had never seen before were presented in small ceramic bowls and pastry tiers at the front counter. The cafe extends length wise to offer seated tables with one long, rich-looking wooden bench stretching across the entire run of the store.

Soy Cafe is most well known for its homemade soy milk and vegan-friendly options. However, the carnivores and veggie-shy are not left to go hungry. Soy Cafe offers several hearty meat-based wraps, including a Spicy Tuna wrap and a Turkey Avocado wrap. The Turkey Avocado is served with one of their homemade condiments: soy mayonnaise. They also offer homemade apple carrot ginger dressing, garlic mustard, and soy cheese. The wraps tend to range in a pricier category than most other Lincoln Bites, starting at $6.50 and ending at $7.75 but are still worth mentioning for a casual dinner date. For the penny savers, Soy Dots come in 15 and 30 piece options for $2.75 and 5.00, respectively. Soy Dots resemble something like a bite sized, fluffy pancake but taste more like a waffle and come in three different flavors: chocolate, vanilla, and green tea. For those who don’t have time to sit and eat, smoothies and “Anytime Bites” are available those on their way to catch the El (Spring Garden Station), which is only about two blocks away. The “Anytime Bites” include a bowl of edamame (soy beans), and vanilla oatmeal served with a honey soy milk. The variety of smoothies can act as meal-like substitutes (like the Funky Monkey, a blended drink with banana, peanut butter and oatmeal) or as cool-down treat (the MilliVanilli: peach, banana, vanilla, soy milk and honey drink — but mostly tastes like vanilla soy milk blended with ice).The hot drink menu musters up a smattering of coffee and non-coffee beverages, all served in glass or ceramic. The Hot Apple Soy goes for $2.75 and tastes much like the apple version of a soy hot chocolate hybrid on a health kick. The apple cider takes the back seat to the steamed, homemade soy milk topped with a bit of ground cinnamon and a surprising half inch of froth, which I drink gratefully in respect to a craft which is all too often neglected (frothed milk, that is). And although the apple is an afterthought to the soy, the cider does its job in creating a soothing and spicy drink.

The Lincoln Bite: Honey Nut Sweet Toast (two slices of whole wheat toast blanketed in fresh slices of bananas drizzled in honey with a handful of almonds, $3.75) and a small coffee, if possible the Sweet Love blend by Jim’s Organic Coffee ($1.45, coffee which I’m not so proud to say I spent last week’s tip money on for half a pound), total of $5.20 (plus tax). I’m only willing to bend the five dollar rule for a truly good cup of coffee.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following letter is in response to this week’s episode of GAYDAR.

DEAR AARON
Very well-written! As all the great writers suggest, “Write what you know.” Well, you did! Let me tell you a little story my mother used to tell me…

There was a young man who went off to work in the Peace Corps in the African jungle. He was there 2 years and finally would get to come home to his family on their farm in the mid-West. In anticipation of this, he wrote his parents telling them that he was bringing home with him his fiancee, the girl he had chosen to marry. She was, he explained, the most beautiful girl in the village and the daughter of the chief. When he arrived home, with him was his fiancee. She was black as night with a bone through her nose (and this, children, was in the days before civilized people CHOSE to willingly put bones through their noses)! His parents were appalled and could not imagine how their red-haired, freckle-faced son who had been raised on a farm could fall in love with a woman so very different from himself.

What they did not realize, and what the son had not realized either, is that his decision to marry was made in isolation from the life he had lived and to which he would return some day. While in the small African village, with little contact with the outside world, he gradually adopted the standards of the people there, making all his comparisons to what he had become accustomed to in that village. She may have been a beauty in that little village and the daughter of the tribal chief to boot, but back in Kansas she did not compare quite so favorably.
I have made a short, funny story into a long-winded morality tale. But the point is that it can be self-limiting (to say the least) to allow our perspective to become too narrow.

Some quotations come to mind:
Discretion is the better part of valor.
Moderation in all things.
A closed mouth gathers no feet.
And here is one from some old (round about 100 BC, I think) Roman fellow named Terence. He said:
That is true wisdom, to know how to alter one’s mind when occasion demands it.
But I would like to adapt it to express my take on the present blog situation by saying:
That is true wisdom, to know how to edit out names of persons and places, when the occasion demands it. (Mr. Editor-wasn’t it you who entitled one of my posts “Mother Knows Best”?)

-YO MAMA 🙂
AKA, AARON STELLA’S MOM
Alabama

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is in response to Aaron Stella’s GAYDAR column last week.

DEAR PHAWKER,

Very colorful! Most of it quite true too! I must comment however that there were and, no doubt, still are many people there who attempt to live good Christian lives, as did your family. I particularly know of some children of members who are away at colleges around the country and are doing all they can to lead true Christian lives. They don’t have a clue about any ulterior motives, hidden agendas, or misguidance in the community and might be shocked and hurt by what you have written. That community began with genuine Christian motives. But, gradually, as they distanced themselves from Church guidance and began to disdain the Church (as weak and misguided) and to look to themselves for wisdom, things started to go sour. That community, as many others (some of which have been disbanded by Bishops and Archbishops), was a magnet for codependents. Unfortunately, it still manages to “fly below the radar” of most church officials, and, so operates unhindered even today. I, too, could go on forever, but I have a life to live. So, I’ll just remind you of something about The Alleluia Community you neglected to mention: the only graceful way to leave The Alleluia Community is death. Anyone who leaves in any other way, prepare yourself for shunning. And anyone who publicly says anything negative about the community will become the subject of the most awful rumors. Keep writing, honey! But keep a tough skin!

SYLVIA STELLA

(AKA AARON’S MOM)