Laundry and dishwasher detergent pods have become standard cleaning products in many households, giving traditional liquid and powder detergents a run for their money. And now, the people at O-Cedar, makers of the cult-favorite EasyWring Microfiber Spin Mop (the best mop we’ve tested), have gotten into the business of detergent pods with the introduction of pre-portioned pacs designed for use with their mop systems, as well as any other type of mop and bucket.
I saw the O-Cedar Pacs on Amazon, and I had to have them. I don’t especially love mopping, but I do have the classic O-Cedar Spin Mop, and I’d been alternating between using it with diluted dish soap and more traditional mopping agents like Fabuloso and Mr. Clean Multipurpose Cleaner.
After using O-Cedar’s mopping pods for a few months, I’ve found that mopping feels less like a dreaded chore, and I love how clean my floors look when I’m done. In informal testing, I’ve found them to be the best floor cleaning agent I’ve tried.
They come in two scents, Crisp Citrus and Lavender. I bought them both! O-Cedar boasts that their mopping pods are “a pick-me-up for your senses,” and, to some extent, I’ve found that to be true. They do smell very good, and I find that I look forward to using them, which is … weird because, again, I don’t especially like mopping! But I do like mopping with these pods, and the way they smell — and the way they leave my home smelling after I’ve used them — does suggest that my senses are enjoying a bit of a pick-me-up.
Why O-Cedar Pacs are a score
The O-Cedar mopping pacs solve a problem created by the (often very misguided) cleaning content on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, namely that they provide a good alternative to using laundry or dishwashing detergent pods to create a floor-cleaning solution for mopping.
The problem with using laundry or dishwashing detergent pods to clean floors is that they’re not formulated for cleaning hard surfaces, and they contain ingredients that can cause costly permanent damage to floors, at worst, or leave residue behind that attracts and traps dirt, leaving floors in a feedback loop of filth.
Ideally, mopping should be done with a diluted cleaning solution that is formulated for the type of flooring you have (e.g. hardwood, laminate, tile, etc.). But truth be told, using pods is just more fun. I don’t know why! But they’re appealing, and so the O-Cedar Pacs are a welcome new product that fills a void in the cleaning-supplies market.
The other problem the pre-measured pacs solve is the very human tendency to use way, way, way too much when dispensing cleaning agents of all types. This is true in laundry, it’s true in cleaning kitchen surfaces and it’s definitely true that most of us are using too many suds to clean our floors. Residue from cleaning products can leave just-cleaned surfaces looking dull and dingy. It can even attract more dirt, as soil particles adhere to the detergent that’s been left behind. You may have heard sayings like “more detergent doesn’t equal more clean” and that’s very true, but it can be hard to break the habit of overusing cleaning products. The O-Cedar pacs solve that problem by measuring out the right amount of cleaner for you.
While these pacs are very effective and lots of fun to use, there is one downside: the price. At $1 per pod, they aren’t necessarily expensive — but they’re not as cost-effective as using traditional mopping solutions. But if you’re passionate about floorcare or if you really like nicely scented cleaning products, it’s worth taking the O-Cedar Pacs Hard Floor Cleaner for a spin.
December 29, 2023 at 12:57AM
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiOGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNubi5jb20vY25uLXVuZGVyc2NvcmVkL3Jldmlld3Mvby1jZWRhci1wYWNz0gE8aHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAuY25uLmNvbS9jbm4vY25uLXVuZGVyc2NvcmVkL3Jldmlld3Mvby1jZWRhci1wYWNz?oc=5
Under $25 scores: O-Cedar’s mopping pods make cleaning hard floors a breeze - CNN Underscored
40: The United Nations reports that 40% of Gaza’s population — nearly 900,000 people — are facing famine conditions and may starve to death as not nearly enough aid can enter the enclave amid Israel’s ongoing bombings and ground operation. With 85% of Gazans displaced from their homes as well, the UN says “the only remaining hope is a humanitarian ceasefire.”
2: Maine became the second state after Colorado to disqualify former President Donald Trump from its ballot after Secretary of State Sheena Bellows concluded that Trump had incited an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. The decision is likely to be appealed in state court. California’s Secretary of State Shirley Weber, on the other hand, declined to remove Trump from the Golden State’s ballots, and the Supreme Court is expected to clarify the question nationwide if it rules on an appeal to the Colorado decision.
90: Around 90% of the money that foreign investors poured into the Chinese stock market in 2023 has already been withdrawn, amounting to around $30 billion dollars in outflow. Investors seem spooked by the ongoing turmoil in the property market, and despite improving metrics, may not see a long-term upside to keeping their money in China.
568: Britons, rejoice! The promised freedoms of Brexit are finally materializing, as pubs and restaurants will once again be able to serve 568 mL portions of wine, a quantity otherwise known as a British pint (not to be confused with the pitiful 473 mL Yankee pint). European Union rules had forced the proud British tippler to take their wine in half-liter portions, like some Frenchman. Cheers! To 68 milliliters of liberty!
21: The Colombian city of Barranquilla has unveiled a 21-foot tall bronze statue of its most famous daughter, pop queen Shakira. A member of Colombia’s large ethnic Lebanese community, Shakira developed her signature “hips don’t lie” dance style in the city by introducing Lebanese belly-dancing alongside other styles in Colombia’s rich repertoire.
December 29, 2023 at 06:37PM
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMixQFodHRwczovL3d3dy5nemVyb21lZGlhLmNvbS9uZXdzL2hhcmQtbnVtYmVycy9oYXJkLW51bWJlcnMtZ2F6YS1mYWNlcy1mYW1pbmUtbWFpbmUtYmFucy10cnVtcC1vbi1iYWxsb3QtY2hpbmFzLWludmVzdG9yLXdvZXMtYnJleGl0cy1yZXdhcmRzLWZpbmFsbHktbWF0ZXJpYWxpemUtYW5kLXNoYWtpcmFzLWxhcmdlci10aGFuLWxpZmUtdHJpYnV0ZdIBwgFodHRwczovL3d3dy5nemVyb21lZGlhLmNvbS9hbXAvaGFyZC1udW1iZXJzLWdhemEtZmFjZXMtZmFtaW5lLW1haW5lLWJhbnMtdHJ1bXAtb24tYmFsbG90LWNoaW5hcy1pbnZlc3Rvci13b2VzLWJyZXhpdHMtcmV3YXJkcy1maW5hbGx5LW1hdGVyaWFsaXplLWFuZC1zaGFraXJhcy1sYXJnZXItdGhhbi1saWZlLXRyaWJ1dGUtMjY2NjgyMTA0NA?oc=5
Hard Numbers: Gaza faces famine, Maine bans Trump on ballot, China’s investor woes, Brexit’s rewards finally materialize, and Shakira’s larger than life tribute - GZERO Media
With a major deadline to repay a pandemic era loan on the horizon, Rod Castro says he feels like he's performing a "juggling act" while trying to figure out the best way forward.
"I haven't written myself a paycheck or cashed a paycheck in about three months," he told CBC News. "Right now, all we're doing is just trying to keep every single dollar in the business."
Castro owns two restaurants in Ottawa — 10 Fourteen and Pubblico Eatery. Like many small business owners, he took out a Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) loan to help cover some of his costs when he was forced to close his doors during the pandemic.
The CEBA program offered interest-free loans backed by the federal government. A business could apply for up to $60,000 through the program. Any business that repays the bulk of the loan by January 18 can see up to $20,000 of the loan forgiven.
Businesses don't have to pay interest on CEBA loans right now, but the loans will start accruing five per cent interest after January 18.
With that deadline fast approaching, Castro said he isn't sure what his plans are yet.
A business can refinance their CEBA debt — essentially by taking out another loan at a higher interest rate — and still qualify for the forgivable portion.
Castro said paying the loan out of pocket would mean using up the cash his restaurants have started taking in recently from hosting holiday parties — even as he anticipates slower business in January. He said he's also not thrilled about the prospect of paying higher interest on a new loan.
"What do we do? Do we take a loan out or do we just empty the bank account? And that's where we're at right now," he said. "That's the juggling act right now."
If a business decides to refinance their CEBA loan, they have until March 28 to have part of the debt forgiven.
Dan Kelly, president of the CFIB, says the government recently clarified rules on an extended deadline for businesses looking to refinance their loans. (Sue Goodspeed/CBC)
Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), said some of the rules around refinancing weren't made clear until recently.
"There's a whole host of administrative questions around this special extension that the government didn't have answers to until [early December], which is pretty outrageous," Kelly said.
The government recently noted that businesses looking to refinance first need to apply to the financial institution that originally provided them with the CEBA loan. Businesses can then look elsewhere if they are turned down by that institution, or want to look for a better offer.
In order to qualify for the March 28 deadline, a business must apply for refinancing by January 18. After that date, five per cent interest will be charged on the CEBA loan — but a business that secures a refinanced loan by the March deadline and repays the outstanding principal can still receive partial debt forgiveness.
Nathan Hynes at his restaurant Sand And Pearl in Prince Edward County, Ont. (Submitted by Nathan Hynes)
Like Castro, Nathan Hynes, owner of the Sand and Pearl Oyster Bar in Prince Edward County, Ont., said he's still weighing his options.
"It's a huge additional expense at an inopportune time for a lot of small businesses and restaurants," Hynes said of the option of taking on a higher interest rate with a refinanced loan.
"Inflation is really hitting people [and] I think restaurants are the first thing that people sacrifice," he said. "I know that it is that way for me and I'm in the restaurant business."
Hynes said that while his bank pre-approved him for a refinanced loan, he's looking at other options, such as adding it to his mortgage.
"You just do the math and find out which one's more economical and which one you can handle," he said.
Both Castro and Hynes said businesses that don't have the option to refinance are in a bad place right now.
"That's going to be terrifying for a lot of businesses," Castro said.
Some businesses unable to refinance
Kara Deringer, owner of the Pink Gorilla restaurant in Edmonton, said she doesn't think she'll be able to refinance her CEBA loan and won't be able to pay off the loan in time to qualify for the partial forgiveness.
"I've been looking at a variety of creative options and just hitting roadblocks ... one roadblock after another," she said.
Like other business owners, Deringer said she's been feeling the pinch from inflation and higher interest rates. She's said she's taking on side jobs to pay down her CEBA and other debts.
"Small business owners, what a lot of people don't always realize is, ... we're sometimes funding our businesses out of our own pockets. So even when there's increases in personal costs, like our mortgage goes up, that reduces our ability to fund our businesses at times," she said.
Kelly said many small businesses still haven't seen their incomes return to pre-pandemic levels. He said he fears that some might start going under if they don't make the forgiveness deadline.
"That extra $10,000 or $20,000 worth of debt that they will take on could be the straw that breaks the camel's back," he said.
Hynes said he knows of other businesses "that are in a much tougher situation than I am."
"I think this is going to put a lot of people out of business and it deeply disturbs me," he said.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland says she understands the forgiveness deadline is causing businesses some anxiety. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
In September, the government announced an 18-day extension to the forgiveness deadline. But advocacy groups such as the Canadian Federation Of Independent Business (CFIB) and Restaurants Canada have been pushing the government to extend the forgiveness deadline to the end of 2024.
In October, Canada's premiers added their voices to that call. Earlier this month, federal NDP small business critic Richard Cannings wrote to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and Small Business Minister Rechie Valdez asking for an extension.
But the government seems reluctant to push the deadline back.
Freeland was asked by a reporter earlier this month if she'd reconsider the request to extend the forgiveness deadline. She said that while she knows the deadline is worrying some business owners, they have until 2026 to repay the loan in full and five per cent interest is "reasonable."
"I know people have some anxiety about it, which is completely understandable," Freeland said. "You have three years to pay it back, and the rate of interest charged over those three years is really, really reasonable."
A spokesperson for Freeland's office told CBC News that roughly a fifth of CEBA loan holders had fully repaid their loans and qualified for partial forgiveness as of the end of August. The spokesperson said the department expects more businesses will pay off their loans closer to the deadline.
Nobody's asking for a handout. Nobody's asking for a bailout. All we're asking for is time. That's that's all the ask was. And to be told no is literally very disheartening.- Rod Castro, restaurant owner
But Kelly said an extension would allow more businesses time to get back on their feet.
"I'm not suggesting the government subsidize these businesses. Businesses do fail," he said.
"But failing because they took on damage from the pandemic, because they were ordered to close down for month after month — it just seems like very short sighted policies."
Hynes said not extending the deadline is "incredibly heartless."
"Postponing it another year would not kill them," he said. "It's just another one of those things, too, where you feel kind of slighted as a small business as opposed to big business. You feel like this wouldn't happen to a bigger industry."
Deringer said a year's extension "would mean the world" to her.
"I have tears in my eyes, actually, because it really would mean a lot," she said.
Castro agrees.
"Nobody's asking for a handout," he said. "Nobody's asking for a bailout. All we're asking for is time. And to be told no is literally very disheartening."
December 31, 2023 at 04:00PM
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiWGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNiYy5jYS9uZXdzL3BvbGl0aWNzL3NtYWxsLWJ1c2luZXNzLWNlYmEtbG9hbi1kZWFkbGluZS1mb3JnaXZlbmVzcy0xLjcwNjMwODTSASBodHRwczovL3d3dy5jYmMuY2EvYW1wLzEuNzA2MzA4NA?oc=5
Small businesses facing hard decisions about CEBA loan forgiveness deadline - CBC.ca
Their parties are expected to be the largest in the Netherlands, France, Italy and Hungary after the EU-wide vote in June, which is seen as a battle to end Brussels’ overreach into national sovereignty.
Nationalist parties from Poland, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Slovakia and Cyprus are also expected to return the most, or equal most, MEPs to Brussels and Strasbourg.
More than a third of all MEPs are predicted to be at the very least critical of the EU in a European parliament that has long been dominated by pro-EU groups – up from around 25 per cent a decade ago, excluding the UK.
Within that group, hard-Right parties firmly opposed to Brussels and often anti-migration, are predicted to compose up to 25 per cent of MEPs, compared with just 11 per cent a decade ago.
Nigel Farage led Ukip and the Brexit Party to victories in European parliament elections in 2014, a breakthrough year for Eurosceptic parties, and 2019.
“Ukip and the Brexit Party were ahead of their time. The populist surge that we are going to see in the European elections next spring will mark the beginning of the end of the EU in its current centralised form,” said Mr Farage.
“Gosh, I could have led a big group!,” he joked, referring to the pan-EU alliances formed by like-minded parties in the parliament.
Mr Orban, Hungary’s hard-line prime minister, chose Judit Varga, his former minister of justice, to take the fight to Brussels after clashing with the EU over the rule of law and migration.
Ms Varga said she would fight the campaign to show European voters that there was an alternative, and to battle for a conservative majority in the parliament next year.
“The voice of the sovereignist voters cannot be ignored,” she told The Telegraph. “Change is needed in Brussels, it is time to talk about reality and the people’s everyday life instead of listening to the lies and the denial of truth from the Brussels bureaucrats.”
She added: “If we do not make a change in June, in 50 years we will not recognise the Europe we know today.
“They will flood the continent with a mass of migrants, they will betray the national minorities, the Christian roots of the founding fathers and erase the culture of consensus/unanimity.”
After Mr Wilders won an unexpected Dutch general election victory in November, Matteo Salvini, the deputy prime minister of Italy said “a new Europe is possible”. He leads a pan-EU alliance of hard-Right parties in the European parliament
Soft or virulently Eurosceptic parties will be the largest, or joint largest, in 10 of the 27 EU member states, according to national polling analysed by Europe Elects.
Half of all MEPs returned from France, Italy, Cyprus and Hungary are expected to be from a Eurosceptic party.
There will still be a large majority of pro-EU MEPs. However, the increase in hard-Right MEPs could have a real impact on EU legislation, especially if they vote with the influential and establishment centre-Right.
MEPs have the power to amend bills in negotiations with EU governments across the majority of European laws.
The hard-Right parties are likely to join one of two Eurosceptic groups. If they band together to form political groups, they qualify for more EU funding and speaking time in the parliament.
The expected winners include Poland’s Law and Justice, which was ousted by the pro-EU Donald Tusk after eight years in power following elections in October. While it was the single largest party, it did not have enough support for a majority, but is set to win the European elections.
Belgium’s Vlaams Belang, which is kept from national power by a coalition of establishment parties, is set to win in the EU’s own backyard.
So is the Sweden Democrats, which is propping up a Right-wing coalition in Stockholm, which has adopted anti-migrant policies in return for its support.
The other expected winners include Ms Le Pen’s National Rally, Ms Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, Mr Orban’s Fidesz and Mr Wilders’ Freedom Party.
Mr Wilders is still attempting to form a coalition government but Ms Meloni and Mr Orban are already prime ministers, which grants them access to European Council summits.
Heads of state and government in the council give political direction to the European Commission and will decide on the next leaders of the major Brussels institutions after the June election.
Slovakia’s Robert Fico, a pro-Russian Left-wing Eurosceptic nationalist, bolstered the hard-Right in the influential council after winning elections earlier this year.
Hard-Right parties are predicted to make big gains in a number of national elections across Europe next year.
There are elections in Austria, Lithuania, Croatia, Romania, Portugal and Belgium in 2024.
In 2023, the average proportion of hard-Right MPs in national parliaments hit its highest level since 2010 at around 14.3 per cent. Based on current polling, this will be exceeded in 2024.
In Austria, the hard-Right Freedom Party has been leading the polls for months. A five-poll average currently has the pro-Russian party at 31 per cent.
In Belgium, Vlaams Belang is currently expected to see its seats increase by five to a record 24, making it the largest in the chamber for deputies, even if it is unlikely to be part of a future coalition.
In Portugal, Chega is currently polling at more than twice its vote share in the previous election at 16.4 per cent. It is expected to remain the third-largest party but narrow the gap on establishment parties.
The Alliance for the Union of Romanians is polling at 18 per cent – twice its 2020 vote share.
“Clearly the result of the recent Dutch elections should be a warning for the EU,” said Elizabeth Kuiper, associate director at the European Policy Centre think tank in Brussels.
“If more populist parties gain momentum there is a risk that EU countries will become more inward-looking, and positions will shift due to changes in government.
“Clearly the mobilisation of voters expressing political discontent needs to be addressed at the EU level in the years to come.”
She added that Brussels would have to prove it could solve social problems, including a fair transition to net zero, to prevent more populist victories.
“Populist parties will present themselves as the saviours of the welfare state and turn their back on the EU,” said Ms Kuiper.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, has warned that the European elections are as “dangerous” as the next US presidential election when Donald Trump could return to the White House.
“Parties that can play on fear in human beings and offer bad responses to good questions can attract the support from the European population,” Mr Borrell, a Spanish socialist and former European Parliament president, said earlier this month
December 31, 2023 at 02:00PM
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiW2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRlbGVncmFwaC5jby51ay93b3JsZC1uZXdzLzIwMjMvMTIvMzEvYmVnaW5uaW5nLW9mLWVuZC1mb3ItZXUtaGFyZC1yaWdodC1zdXJnZS_SAQA?oc=5
'Beginning of the end' for EU as we know it after surge in hard-Right support - The Telegraph
The most important thing with alcohol is to get into a situation where you are happy with your drinking. I used to be a very heavy drinker: 60-90 units a week. I can’t tell you how life-changing cutting down has been. To me, life is in colour without drinking, whereas before it was very grey and drab.
I would encourage a sense of experimentation in January. It doesn’t have to be all dry. Try to do things a bit differently. If you usually have a drink at a gig, try a dry gig, or go for a meal and have the alcohol-free options. I used to think going out relied on alcohol, and that without it everything would fall apart. Now going to the pub with my mates is the good bit and the alcohol is optional.
2. Don’ttry to lose weight – make it a bonus, not the focus
I don’t subscribe to dieting. I understand that weight loss is often a goal, but you have to nail the basics first so your body can thrive.
Make sure you eat well, varying your diet rather than counting calories. The more variety you have, the happier your gut will be. Your gut health is linked to all kinds of things, from the way your brain works to the condition of your skin and your energy levels. If you have more energy and feel better mentally, you are more likely to want to move more and eat well.
When people are looking to lose weight they think they should do lots more exercise. In fact, as with everything, if you want to increase what you are doing you should do it gradually, otherwise it can put stress on your body, which can hinder weight loss. Stress upsets many different systems inside you, so trying to relieve stress is probably the number one thing to do, above everything else.
3. Don’t try to sort out your entire home – declutter one area at a time
When you chip away at your home in tiny bits, such as your sock drawer, you still get a mini euphoric feeling that you’ve made an impact. And when you finish on a high, with a sense of completion on that small area, you are more likely to carry on to the next area. A huge part of this sorting is lessening the number of choices you have to make daily. If there is excess stuff in the way it crowds your brain, and makes everything feel more stressful. While I was cooking recently, I pulled out my junk drawer in the kitchen, and by the time the vegetables were cooked, a first edit of that drawer was done.
4. Don’t start writing a novel – keep a diary first
The greatest way to start a novel is to be a diarist first. Even Graham Greene used to write 500 words every day. Getting into a diary habit is fantastic, because you will start to notice the people and places around you. All of these fuel character and plot, and help with dialogue. And you can practise your voice, how you sound when you are really you, rather than the you that you are on social media.
The other great thing about a diary is it can help you work out all the things that are stopping you writing a novel. It could be the neighbour coming round for another cup of tea, or your mother asking you to sort out her internet.
They are also good for winning an argument as you can go back and check things: if you’re a diarist, the moral high ground is constantly yours.
5. Don’t attempt to shout less at your children – learn to say sorry when you do
Sarah Ockwell-Smith, parenting expert
Don’t be tempted to try to become the perfect gentle parent who never shouts or loses their patience with their children. There is no such thing as a perfect parent, every single person slips up, including me, a so-called expert. You’re only human, and parenting is really hard work: life gets in the way, and it is impossible to stay calm all the time.
Instead, lower your expectations of yourself and aim to be “good enough”; this is far more realistic. The most important thing, and perhaps the best parenting-related resolution you could make, is learning to apologise to your children after you slip up. Psychologists call this “rupture and repair”: it simply means recognising that you’ve been shouty, or over-punitive, and making things right with your child.
6. Don’t cut out all ultra-processed food – make a few easy swaps
Priya Tew,dietitian
Can you bake flapjacks and swap those for a cereal bar, cook a meal from scratch instead of a ready meal, or make your own bread once a week? Reducing ultra-processed foods, rather than cutting them out, is more achievable in the long term and enables you to still enjoy the foods that bring you pleasure, too.
7. Don’t quit social media – find other distractions so you are drawn to it less
If you find yourself spending way more time than you think is useful or healthy mindlessly scrolling social media, resist the urge to quit these services all at once. Those who succeed in sustainably repairing their relationship with technology tend to start by first developing higher-quality alternatives to these distractions.
These include rediscovering hobbies, spending time with people you care about, seeking awe and beauty in nature, and producing things of tangible value, such as uplifting art or joining a useful community organisation.
When you have filled your life with meaningful pursuits, the allure of shallow distraction diminishes. So take a month or so to upgrade your analogue life before you turn your attention to simplifying your relationship with the digital.
8. Don’t obsess over more sleep – embrace waking up, and rest will come
Dr Guy Meadows, co-founder and clinical lead at Sleep School
Instead of fixating on achieving the elusive eight hours of uninterrupted slumber, focus on nurturing a healthier relationship with your sleep. Getting frustrated or anxious when you wake up during the night is counterproductive. In fact, the more you react this way, the longer you’re likely to stay awake. Night-time waking is entirely normal – it is rooted in the way our sleep cycles function.
Learn to welcome those moments of wakefulness and use them as opportunities to cultivate self-kindness through rest and mindfulness. Instead of tossing and turning in bed, engage in a quiet activity such as practising a breathwork exercise or reading a comforting book. Paradoxically, by accepting night-time waking rather than resisting it, you create a sleep-conducive environment where your brain feels safe, allowing sleep to occur naturally.
9. Don’t commit to an unrealistic savings plan – nudge yourself into small gains
Rather than focusing on how much you should be saving, and feeling like a failure when there is nothing left at the end of the month, set up a few automatic ways of putting aside tiny sums frequently without noticing. Many banks now let you round up every spend on your debit card and save the difference: say you spent £3.50 on a coffee, the cost would be rounded up to £4, and 50p transferred automatically from your current account into a separate “roundup” savings pot.
Apps such as Plum and Chip analyse your bank account and move small amounts into a savings pot based on what you can afford. Or consider a savings challenge (Monzo lets you automate them): save 1p on 1 January, 2p on the 2nd, through to £3.65 on 31 December and you’ll have nearly £700 by 2025. Use cashback sites to earn a percentage of your shopping on everything from groceries to utility bills.
Turn your active focus on more frugal living. Before you buy anything online, leave it in your basket for 24 hours, unsubscribe from tempting email newsletters, and nudge yourself out of spending by paying with cash or forcing yourself to type out your bank card details at every checkout.
10.Don’ttry to change your partner – commit to nagging each other less
Susanna Abse, psychotherapist
New year resolutions arise largely out of shame and guilt. Many people spend a lot of their time preoccupied with their shortcomings: fretting over their weight, their drinking and, of course, their love life. Perhaps the best resolution any couple can make is to try to mutually push back against this, to agree not to create an atmosphere that amplifies these feelings of failure.
The “You never”, “You shouldn’t” or “You should” conversations we have with our partners are nearly always unhelpful, and erode loving feelings. So stop the mutual critical voices that so many couples live with; celebrate and accept each other’s limitations. After all, we all want to be loved for ourselves and not for our rock-hard abs.
So stop tutting when your partner reaches for the ice-cream, and telling them off for not using their gym membership. Instead, be mindful of not making your loved one feel any worse about their shortcomings than they already do. Celebrate the qualities you chose them for in the first place, and turn down the dial on the negative, picky voices that seem to sit so unkindly in most of us.
11. Don’t plan lots of big trips – find wonder on your doorstep
Once-in-a-lifetime trips are all very well, but there’s so much wonder to be found on your doorstep. Make 2024 the year that you step outside every day, for however long you’ve got. If you have a minute, just stand and breathe, or look up at the moon each night. If you’ve got 30 minutes, go for a short walk. If you’ve got longer, explore a place you’ve never been before. Get to know your local landscape deeply, in all weathers and seasons. It’s free, sustainable and you’ll get a daily dose of joy, instead of waiting to go away.
12. Don’t aim to eliminate work stress – establish healthy work/life boundaries
Polly Robinson, executive coach
It can be hard to set boundaries between work and your personal life, especially when we are working from home or constantly available via email. Use your phone’s “do not disturb” function to turn off notifications from work contacts in the evening and days off. If you work away from home, use the return journey to reflect, think about the good things that happened that day and let go of more challenging aspects, while exploring what could be different next time. Writing this down can help to get it out of your head, even if you wake up in the night worrying about work. Use the notes or reminder function on your phone, or carry a notebook to write down the things you need to do tomorrow – and let it go until then.
13. Don’tfeel under pressure to make new friends –nurture your inner circle first
What friendships should you nurture the most? The ones that start with a generosity of spirit – the idea that we think the best of each other, whatever happens, and that if we have an issue, we are able to speak about it with loving clarity. You might only encounter one or two people in your life for whom this holds true. That’s fine!
According to Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology, we should think of friendship as existing in layers. The first layer consists of the people you’d call at 4am in a crisis – and we only really have enough time to pursue these sorts of friendships with up to five people. They are the ones you should pay attention to the most.
14. Don’t stop buying clothes –just buy more secondhand
The evils of the fast-fashion industry and also the not-so-fast fashion industry are well known, so take a year off shopping for new clothes. Apparently, we wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time. So I’d like to make an appeal for the other 80%. A fun way to do this is to turn all your hangers the wrong way round. When you wear an item, replace the hanger the logical way. With this simple game you can see, immediately when you open your wardrobe, which clothes you have worn and which clothes are still waiting hopefully.
But you can make an exception with charity shops. It’s good to browse in these and rescue beautiful items, many of which are thrown away when not bought. My top tip is to head for the menswear and look among the jumpers. There is often a luxury cashmere jumper with only a moth hole or two. Wash carefully, sew up the holes and stay warm until spring.
15. Don’t train for a marathon– work on your 5K
Cory Wharton-Malcolm, running coach and Apple Fitness+trainer
The beauty of the 5K lies in its versatility. Regardless of where you are on your running journey, the 5K can be fun as well as rewarding. If you’re starting out, it’s a great milestone to aim for. If you’ve been running for a while, it’s a great distance to start experimenting with pace to help you push for a PB. It can also help you become a more efficient runner by building endurance, speed and strength. This helps you in the 5K, but also in longer distances from half marathons to marathons.
December 31, 2023 at 02:03AM
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMilAFodHRwczovL3d3dy50aGVndWFyZGlhbi5jb20vbGlmZWFuZHN0eWxlLzIwMjMvZGVjLzMwL2RvbnQtcXVpdC1ib296ZS1qdXN0LWRyaW5rLWRpZmZlcmVudGx5LTE1LXdheXMtdG8tY2hhbmdlLXlvdXItbGlmZS13aXRob3V0LXRyeWluZy1hbGwtdGhhdC1oYXJk0gGUAWh0dHBzOi8vYW1wLnRoZWd1YXJkaWFuLmNvbS9saWZlYW5kc3R5bGUvMjAyMy9kZWMvMzAvZG9udC1xdWl0LWJvb3plLWp1c3QtZHJpbmstZGlmZmVyZW50bHktMTUtd2F5cy10by1jaGFuZ2UteW91ci1saWZlLXdpdGhvdXQtdHJ5aW5nLWFsbC10aGF0LWhhcmQ?oc=5
Don’t quit booze – just drink differently: 15 ways to change your life without trying all that hard - The Guardian
In William Faulkner’s novel, Sartoris, someone asks the title character, Colonel John Sartoris, why he had fought for the Confederacy so many decades before. “Damned if I ever did know,” replied the aging veteran, now a pillar of his community in fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi.
Of course, we know why Colonel Sartoris raised arms against the United States. So does anyone with a high school diploma — assuming they used up-to-date textbooks. And so did Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the Confederacy, who in 1861 famously asserted that the “cornerstone” of the new Southern nation rested “upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
All of which makes it disappointing, though not surprising, that at this late date — almost 160 years after the Civil War — Nikki Haley, a leading contender for the GOP presidential nomination, shares Colonel Sartoris’ selective amnesia on the topic. When asked a softball question this week about the causes of the Civil War, Haley, a former South Carolina governor, flubbed the answer, calling it a “difficult” question and mumbling on about “basically how government was going to run — the freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do.”
This morning, Haley qualified the comment on a radio show called “The Pulse of New Hampshire,” and followed the clean-up job with a press release, stating: “Of course the Civil War was about slavery. We know that. That’s unquestioned, always the case. We know the Civil War was about slavery. But it was also more than that. It was about the freedoms of every individual. It was about the role of government.”
But as Haley must know — after all, as governor of South Carolina, she presided over the removal of Confederate flags from the Statehouse — many Americans do question the fundamental fact that slavery precipitated the Civil War, and her equivocation played into a long-standing agenda to rewrite American history. Haley was effectively parroting the Lost Cause mythology, a revisionist school of thought born in the war’s immediate aftermath, which whitewashed the Confederacy’s cornerstone interest in raising arms to preserve slavery. Instead, a generation of Lost Cause mythologists chalked the war up to a battle over political abstractions like states’ rights.
With red states doing battle with American history, seeking to erase the legacy of violence and inequality that counterbalance the great good also inherent in our national story, it’s worth revisiting the rise of the Lost Cause, not just to remember how damaging it was, but to confront just how damaging it still is.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, the work of interpreting the rebellion fell to a small group of unreconstructed rebels. The pioneers of Confederate revisionism included wealthy and influential veterans of the Confederacy like Jubal Early, B. T. Johnson, Fitz Lee and W. P. Johnson, who helped formulate the Lost Cause myth that would take hold by the 1880s.
The narrative strains were simple. They painted a picture of Southern chivalry — mint juleps, magnolias and moonlight — that stood in sharp contrast with the North, a region marked by avarice, grinding capitalism and poverty. The rebellion, by this rendering, had been a legal response to the North’s assault on states’ rights — not a violent insurrection to preserve chattel slavery. Even Confederate veterans like Hunter McGuire knew that to admit the war had been about slavery would “hold us degraded rather than worthy of honor … our children, instead of revering their fathers will be secretly, if not openly, ashamed.”
The myth gained steamed by the end of the century, largely because of the work of organizations like the United Confederate Veterans (UCV), the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), groups that offered a compelling story that people could wrap their minds around — including many Northerners, who were eager to put the war behind them. Because the Lost Cause emphasized heroism and honor over slavery, it venerated military figures like Robert E. Lee and swept politicians like Jefferson Davis under the rug. So it was that in May 1890 over 100,000 citizens gathered in Richmond for the dedication of a statue of Lee.
The decade saw hundreds of towns across the former Confederacy raise similar monuments to their heroes and war dead. These marble and steel memorials were often planted in town squares and by county courthouses to help sanitize not only Confederate memory but the new Jim Crow order. After all, if secession had been a noble thing, so was the separation of the races.
The signs of revisionism ranged from subtle to clear. During the war, for instance, Confederate soldiers had keenly embraced the term “reb,” but the new gatekeepers of Southern memory abandoned the term. “Was your father a Rebel and a Traitor?” asked a typical leaflet. “Did he fight in the service of the Confederacy for the purpose of defeating the Union, or was he a Patriot, fighting for the liberties granted him under the Constitution, in defense of his native land, and for a cause he knew to be right?” Equally important was figuring out what to even call the war. It couldn’t be the “Civil War,” which sounded too revolutionary. It couldn’t be “the War of Rebellion” which smacked of treason. In the late 1880s, the UCV and UDC approved resolutions designating the conflict that killed 750,000 Americans the “War Between the States.” The term stuck for generations to come.
It wasn’t just Southerners who suffered willful memory loss in these years. Jaded by the experience of Reconstruction and in the thrall of rising scientific racism, many Northerners were equally eager to remember the war as a brothers’ quarrel over politics rather than a struggle over slavery and Black rights. The jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who began the war as a committed abolitionist, later erased the roots of the conflict and celebrated the battlefield valor of both Union and Confederate troops. “The faith is true and adorable which leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted duty,” he said, “in a cause which he little understands, in a plan of campaign of which he has little notion, under tactics of which he does not see the use.”
Of course, historians agree that most Union troops did know why they were fighting. So did Holmes. But years after the fact, he was willing to forget. As were tens of thousands of veterans who attended Blue and Gray reunions well into the 20th century, including a massive camp gathering of 25,000 people who gathered at Crawfish Springs, Georgia, in 1889, near the Chickamauga Battlefield, for a picnic and public speeches. These mass spectacles helped Yankees and Confederates rewrite the history of the 1850s and 1860s, ostensibly in the service of national reunion and regeneration, but also in a way that fundamentally reinforced the emerging culture and politics of Jim Crow.
The Lost Cause mythology was more than bad history. It provided the intellectual justification for Jim Crow — not just in the former Confederacy, but everywhere systemic racism denied Black citizens equal citizenship and economic rights. Its dismantling began only in the 1960s when historians inspired by the modern Civil Rights Movement revisited the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction, adopting the views of earlier Black scholars like W.E.B. DuBois and John Hope Franklin, who always knew what the war was about and had shined a spotlight on the agency of Black and white actors alike.
That’s why the recent retreat to Lost Cause mythos is troubling. One would think that a Republican candidate for the presidency might be proud of the party’s roots as a firmly antislavery organization that dismantled the “Peculiar Institution” and fomented a critical constitutional revolution during Reconstruction — one that truly made the country more free.
With GOP presidential candidates waffling on the Civil War, rejecting history curricula in their states and launching political fusillades against “woke” culture, it remains for the rest of us to reaffirm the wisdom of Frederick Douglass, who in the last years of his life stated: “Death has no power to change moral qualities. What was bad before the war, and during the war, has not been made good since the war. … Whatever else I may forget, I shall never forget the difference between those who fought for liberty and those who fought for slavery.”
December 29, 2023 at 03:03AM
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiYGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnBvbGl0aWNvLmNvbS9uZXdzL21hZ2F6aW5lLzIwMjMvMTIvMjgvbmlra2ktaGFsZXktY2l2aWwtd2FyLXNsYXZlcnktaGlzdG9yeS0wMDEzMzI4MdIBAA?oc=5
Opinion | Why Was It So Hard for Nikki Haley to Say 'Slavery'? History Has the Answer - POLITICO
‘Maestro’ is a labor of love, and as its director and lead, Cooper has poured himself into it—but at some point all of the effort becomes noticeable, and all of Leonard Bernstein’s magic becomes lost
Amblin Entertainment/Ringer illustration
In several respects, Leonard Bernstein was a man split in two. Dreaming of becoming the first great American conductor but finding more success as a composer for Broadway musicals, he also struggled with his sexuality, marrying a woman he loved but regularly cheating on her with men. His life was a balancing act, his ego pulling him in different directions—between self-fulfillment and self-preservation, self-interest and altruism. So perhaps it makes sense that Bradley Cooper—cowriter, director, and star of the Bernstein biopic Maestro—seems to be wrestling between reverence for his subject and a need to prove himself.
There’s a lot of TV out there. We want to help: Every week, we’ll tell you the best and most urgent shows to stream so you can stay on top of the ever-expanding heap of Peak TV.
Maestro has an unabashedly operatic style, from its visual language to its performances. From the start, director of photography Matthew Libatique (who already worked with Cooper on the actor’s wildly successful directing debut, A Star Is Born) juggles between über-intimate close-ups and dramatic camera angles and movements. As young Bernstein learns that he will get to conduct the New York Philharmonic at the last minute that same evening, he rushes out of bed, leaving his male lover there, to take in the view of the empty auditorium of Carnegie Hall, the camera sweeping before him, the huge space dwarfing him. Bernstein’s extravagance is mirrored in the camerawork. Yet even this inciting moment doesn’t entirely work—the too-smooth digital look of that camera movement juts against the analog authenticity of the movie’s black-and-white color scheme. And that’s just the first of many stylistic—perhaps even hubristic—leaps through which Cooper tries to bring together Bernstein’s private and public lives.
Cooper had been working on bringing Maestro to the screen since 2018, but in his Variety “Actors on Actors” interview with Emma Stone, he explained how he’d been passionate about conducting since childhood, pretending to conduct to a recording of Tchaikovsky’s “Opus 35 in D Major” for hours. He’d had “years and years of rehearsal inside of [him],” he said, or at least a burning desire to play such a character for a long time. All of this is very evident in how particular Cooper’s choices and points of focus are. Combining Bernstein’s art and his more ambiguous real life in an impressionistic medley in which the walls between stage and home disappear, Cooper aims for something both raw and almost dreamlike, but the final result feels overdetermined, at once too polished and not precise enough. In his own acting as Lenny (as everyone called Bernstein), Cooper reaches for an extreme kind of realism and imitation, adopting the gestures, voice ticks, and wrinkles of his protagonist in such a committed way that the prosthetic nose, in this context, almost doesn’t stand out so much. What does, however, is the effort required, and not just of Cooper, but of everyone involved.
As a filmmaker, Cooper seems to have been very concerned with recreating the buzzing, bohemian atmosphere and way of being that Bernstein and his fellow artists shared, with scenes of artists talking passionately about music and movies and singing around a piano until the small hours. But he’s only captured an idea of what that energy must have been like—the overlapping exchanges and full-throated laughter often feels forced and mechanical, bereft of any sense of true, underlying connection. Lenny’s meet-cute with his eventual wife Felicia (Carey Mulligan) plays like two people quipping with themselves rather than speaking to each other. And by being so committed to nailing such specific beats, Cooper misses the things that actually matter: the composer’s warmth; his benevolence; the pleasure that radiated through him when he would relish in his passion.
What Maestro does capture is the sense of two people sharing a life together. Smartly avoiding the usual traps of the biopic, Cooper focuses on Lenny and Felicia’s relationship, in small stolen moments and a few major turning points. These intimate scenes help paint a picture of what happiness looked like for the Bernsteins. But Cooper’s fluctuation between frankness and artistic suggestion ends up making their struggle amorphous and mysterious. We find again the fast progression through changes that was also present in A Star Is Born, but which in that film wasn’t as frustrating, perhaps because we understood that the degradation of the couple’s relationship was largely due to Jackson Maine’s alcoholism. Maestro also faces a greater challenge than A Star Is Born, in that its real-life couple did not meet a classically tragic end—they actually reconciled despite the strain that Bernstein’s disavowal of his sexuality put on their marriage. The answers and conclusions of this story are much more complicated—a level of nuance to which Cooper’s deconstructed and flamboyant approach can’t rise. The subtleties of Bernstein’s life are only glimpsed, as though Cooper couldn’t choose between showing the real person and paying homage to the artist. But this man’s troubles weren’t an acting exercise for him, nor were they for Felicia, whose cancer diagnosis is exploited for maximum pathos.
Cooper does seem to truly love Bernstein’s work, and his focus on the artist’s conducting makes for some beautiful and impressive moments. Even those, however, appear more like personal challenges for Cooper to conquer than instances of musical excellence intended for the viewer. In A Star Is Born, Cooper seemingly understood that the film needed Lady Gaga’s presence and musical talent in order to function. The duets between Jackson and Ally were rousing because they showed the intimacy and connection the two shared. In that same conversation with Emma Stone, Cooper explained his decision to re-record all the music that Bernstein conducted or created: “I knew that if I put his music in the movie, then that would do everything that a biopic would ever do anyway—if you want to learn about Martin Scorsese, you just watch all his films, rather than watch an interview.” Thus, for Cooper, the challenge of conducting six minutes of Mahler’s “2nd Symphony” at Ely Cathedral as Bernstein represented an opportunity to try to recapture the artistic essence of Bernstein and share it with the viewer, as though to become a vehicle for it. But is such a thing even possible, especially when we’re talking about the sheer artistic expression of a person? Unlike the couple at the center of A Star Is Born, Cooper’s Bernstein feels detached from his surroundings—and while some of that makes sense for a man so unsure about his own identity, it doesn’t justify the distance one feels between him and his audience. Cooper wanted to literally become Bernstein, but he worked so hard at it that he seemingly forgot why he—himself, but also Bernstein—wanted to make music in the first place.
Manuela Lazic is a French writer based in London who primarily covers film.
December 29, 2023 at 07:49PM
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiY2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRoZXJpbmdlci5jb20vbW92aWVzLzIwMjMvMTIvMjkvMjQwMTgyMTUvYnJhZGxleS1jb29wZXItbWFlc3Ryby1tb3ZpZS1sZW9uYXJkLWJlcm5zdGVpbtIBcGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRoZXJpbmdlci5jb20vcGxhdGZvcm0vYW1wL21vdmllcy8yMDIzLzEyLzI5LzI0MDE4MjE1L2JyYWRsZXktY29vcGVyLW1hZXN0cm8tbW92aWUtbGVvbmFyZC1iZXJuc3RlaW4?oc=5
In ‘Maestro,’ Bradley Cooper Is Trying So Hard - The Ringer
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73006546/BradleyCooperMaestro_AmblinEntertainment_Ringer.0.jpg)
