Monthly Archives: February 2020

Sonny Rollins is, by any reasonable estimation, a genius. He is jazzs greatest living improviser, able to imbue his solos with wry humor, surprise, brilliant logical form and profound emotion. Time and time again, he created something miraculous out of thin air, and he did it until he could do it no longer. The 89-year-old played his last concert in 2012, and in 2014, he stopped playing saxophone altogether, a result of pulmonary fibrosis. That doesnt mean well never hear music from him again Resonance Records will release a set of previously unissued performances this fall but it does mean that Rollinss colossal record as a musician is a thing of the past. I wanted to know how a musician whose playing was always attuned to the present has forged a new life in the shadow of that stark fact. Happy is not the word, said Rollins, seated on a couch under a large painting of Buddha at his rambling home in Woodstock, N.Y., but I am the most content Ive ever been. I have most things figured out.

You never made any formal retirement announcement. Did you ever want to say goodbye to the people who made up your audience? Well, no. The reason my retirement happened quietly was because my health problems were gradual. I didnt expect them. I wasnt quite sure that I would never be able to play again. It took me a while to realize, Hey, thats gone now. But the people? Im glad for their love but I dont feel that Im worthy of anyone saying, Wow, Sonny! And this is going to sound funny, but my highest place musically was not about playing for a crowd. I played a couple of concerts early on where I was out in the open in the afternoon. I was able to look up in the sky, and I felt a communication; I felt that I was part of something. Not the crowd. Something bigger.

Rollins at age 14 in Harlem. From Sonny Rollins

I only realized when I spoke to you a couple of years ago that you had to give up the saxophone. So much of your life had been about using music to fulfill your potential as a person. Now that you dont play, is fulfillment still possible? When I had to stop playing it was quite traumatic. But I realized that instead of lamenting and crying, I should be grateful for the fact that I was able to do music all of my life. So I had that realization, plus my spiritual beliefs, which Ive been cultivating for many years. All that work went into my accepting the fact that I couldnt play my horn.

Tell me more about that work. Im working toward why Im here what its all about. At this point in my life Im well, I dont want to say satisfied, but I feel that Im closer to an understanding. Its always been my idea that the golden rule is a good thing, but I wasnt quite able to understand if the golden rule was possible. If somebody is playing music and Im playing music and were in a saxophone battle, I still have to play my best, regardless of the other guy. It has nothing to do with my trying to make him feel bad because playing music is for a higher cause. So I believe living by the golden rule is possible. Not only possible but the reason were here.

Were you playing for a higher cause on something like The Serpents Tooth with Charlie Parker and Miles Davis? In your solo you quoted the melody of Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better). That wasnt intended as a provocation? If I was so stupid to have to implied that, then I was ignorant. I was in Miless band at the time and Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better) was just one of the riffs that we played. It had nothing to do with my attitude about Charlie Parker. I would never say that to him. But I take your criticism. I might have been a foolish young boy playing that to his guru. If there was a little of that, it was sophomoric. I was ignorant. I am still ignorant about many things.

Rollins, right, and Miles Davis at the New York Jazz Festival in 1957. Bob Parent/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Im also thinking about when you played with John Coltrane on Tenor Madness. Theres a part of that performance where you guys were trading fours and he played a lick and in response you played the same lick but with the notes reversed. That wasnt meant as one-upmanship? David, I dont believe Ive mentioned this to many people. When I played with Coltrane, I had the impression and back then it was true that I was much more popular than him. I remember what Kamasi Washington said about Tenor Madness: Sonny, you werent even really playing. I wasnt really playing. Coltrane was playing. I was only playing halfway, because I thought that I was the guy and that Coltrane was this young whippersnapper. That was my mind-set. It was immature.

So you were holding back to show your status? Exactly. I dont want people to think that Im saying, Oh, wow, I could have played much better, but thats the story of Tenor Madness. My attitude on it wasnt right.

I was poking around in your papers, and I saw a performance note you wrote for Elvin Jones that I thought was interesting. You wrote that when you were playing rubato on a certain song, he shouldnt look in any direction but yours. Why not? I wouldve said that to him because when Im playing rubato, which would mean when Im playing solo, that presents a perfect opportunity for somebody to relax: OK, Sonnys playing by himself so let me wipe my head or drink water. I wanted the band to be all together even when I was playing by myself because we were all still in the song. People would take their concentration away. I didnt want that.

I also saw all these very detailed instructional notes youd written about saxophone technique and harmony. Did you ever consider publishing any of it? I thought about doing things like that but my stuff is unorthodox. I once had a young guy that wanted to study with me. I said, No, man, go to Coltrane. Coltrane will get you on the right course with fingering and technique. All these things that I might have been writing, I didnt feel they were applicable to other people. So I didnt pursue them.

One of the most inspiring things about your playing was how alive you were to the possibilities of a given musical moment. Did that openness translate to your life? Thats a very profound question. I can look back and say, Gee, that was a good solo, but I dont know if it had anything to do with a spiritual or ethical thing. I did some bad things when I was playing my horn. We all knew Charlie Parker was using drugs, and we said, Wow, Im going to use drugs if Im going to end up playing like that. That got a lot of guys using drugs and stealing and whatever else drugs made you do. I know great musicians that werent trying to be good people. A lot of people wouldnt think Miles was a very spiritual person though to me he was and Coltrane was a very spiritual individual. Does that have to do with their music? Possibly. I dont want to say that theres no connection between the way you behave and your music. But its something which I havent been able to figure out.

Rollins during a Sonny Rollins Volume II session at Van Gelder Studio in 1957. Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images

Do you think music has an ethical component? I can hear music that elevates me, but on the other hand theres martial music thats made to make people go to war. So music is neutral. It has nothing to do with ethics. Music is not on the same level as trying to understand life. Were here for 80-something years. One lifetime is not enough to get it right. Ill be back in another body. Im not interested in trying to get that technical about that because I dont need to know. What I need to know is that being a person who understands that giving is better than getting is the proper way to live. Live your life now in a positive way. Help people if you can. Dont hurt people. That works perfectly for me, man.

Are you ready for your incarnation in this life to be over? You mean do I feel ready to die? Dying, its funny. Everybody is afraid to die because its the unknown. But my mother died. My father died. My brother died. My sister died. My uncle died. My grandmother died. Theyre all great people. If they can die then why cant I die? Im better than they are? Its ridiculous to feel, Oh, gee, I shouldnt die. My body is going to turn into dust. But my soul will live forever.

Is there anything youll miss about this life? No. Theres a big picture, which is the afterlife, and this life is a little picture. Theres also karma: What you do, youre going to get it back. So this life is a trip, man, and youve got to go through it. I know Ive done a lot of stupid things and hurt people. Ive got a lot of stuff that Im paying for, and Im trying to get good karma by not trying to hurt somebody or doing things for my own pleasure or aggrandizement.

Does believing in the transience of life mean youre not nostalgic for jazzs past? Or your own life in jazz? Wayne Shorters still here, but Miles is not here. Max Roach is not here. Trane is not here. Monk is not here. Do I feel nostalgic about that? No. These guys are alive to me. I hear their music. OK, Charlie Parker is not in his body, but everything about Charlie Parker is here to me in spirit. Any time of day, any time of night, I might think of Miles, and the spirit is there. Occasionally I go, Gee, I cant hang out with Dizzy Gillespie or Clifford Brown after a gig. I think about that, but its receding. Those guys I dont worry about them not being here in the flesh. Im not going to be in the flesh, either. Youre not going to be in the flesh, either, David. So what? Its OK.

Rollins recording at the the Radio House in Copenhagen in 1968. Jan Persson/Getty Images

This is slightly random, but Ive never seen you talk in much detail about when you played on a Rolling Stones album. How was trying to fit into their music? Mick Jagger, I dont think he understood what I was doing, and I didnt understand what he was doing. My wife was the one that persuaded me to do that recording. I said: Man, the Rolling Stones. I dont want to do any record with the Rolling Stones. Id considered them and its faulty not on the level of jazz. But my wife said, No, no, you must do it. So I said, OK, let me see if I can relate to what they are doing; let me see if I can make it sound as good as possible.

Could you? Not really. I know theyre a very popular rock band, but they were derivative of a lot of black bands, right? Isnt that what they do?

Well, yeah. Right. It might be wrong for me to feel that way because I do like a lot of white artists. I like the Beatles. Paul McCartney is a good tunesmith. But the Rolling Stones, I didnt relate to them because I thought they were just derivative of black blues. I do remember once I was in the supermarket up in Hudson, New York, and they were playing Top 40 records. I heard this song and thought, Whos that guy? His playing struck a chord in me. Then I said, Wait a minute, thats me! It was my playing on one of those Rolling Stones records.

Something Ive heard musicians talk about is losing their sense of self when theyre playing, and how thats when the best improvisations can happen. What does that say about the true nature of the self? It says that there are divine moments in this world. This world is not what its cracked up to be. This world is just a place to pay off our karma. Thats all. Theres something huge happening, and its a matter of feeling. Its different than having book knowledge. The thing Im talking about is more like intuition. Something is there. Ive had experiences which have allowed me to know that.

Experiences that happened while you were playing? Ill tell you one. I was in France playing at a place called Marciac. I was staying at a hotel a little ways out in the country. I liked to stay at nice hotels. The band stayed at another hotel, and if they could afford it, they could stay at this hotel; Im not trying to be above them. Anyway, the night before the concert I lost my partial. I needed it to play. I was very concerned. I didnt know what to do. I called up the front desk. I said: Listen, I have a dental partial, which I misplaced. Can you please look through the garbage and find if its there? They said, Well look and see. So while I was searching, I looked up and I saw a vision of what was like a window opening horizontally. It opened just a bit and there was something I saw; colors behind that little opening. It was such a revelation. I said, Wow, what was that? Then I looked down on the floor and there was my partial. I cant say, Oh, man, therefore theres a God. Its not about that. But this happened to me and for months, even years, the feeling coming out of my body I was elevated.

So you took this vision as a confirmation of the existence of something greater? You could call it a confirmation. That was a beautiful thing that happened to me. Something else happened a long time before that, David. When I was about 9 years old I was living up on Edgecombe Avenue in Harlem. I used to live on the block between 150th and 155th Street. It was one long block of houses and there was a shortcut there from St. Nicholas Place to Edgecombe Avenue. People would walk through the shortcut to get to the subway. So one day I went up on the roof, and there was part of the roof, the mortar, that was loose. I thought it would be a great idea if I dropped the loose part down and scared somebody walking through the shortcut. So I did that and when I dropped it I realized, If this hits somebody, theyre dead and there was a guy walking through the shortcut. I prayed like I never prayed before. I asked God, Please dont let it hit this guy. I prayed and I prayed and it didnt hit him. Somebody could say, Sonny, you were lucky. Maybe so. But I knew that I was communicating with something greater and it worked in my favor.

Rollins waiting backstage at the Berkeley Jazz Festival in California in 1979. Ed Perlstein/Redferns/Getty Images

This is a crazy thing to bring up but lately Ive been listening to your music and associating it with the pharaoh Akhenaten. Maybe its just because I wanted to see the Mets production of Philip Glasss opera about him and everything has gotten jumbled in my mind. But let me just throw it out there: Is Akhenaten significant to you in any way? Oh, very much so. Years ago, I began reading about Egypt. Akhenaten went against the old order. He was a break from some of the other Egyptian theology. He was a maverick, and I felt sympathetic to that. Akhenaten was a guy that influenced me a lot to be serious.

Im glad my shot in the dark wasnt useless. No, not at all. I was very much into Egyptology. That was another thing to learn about life, and learning about Akhenatens seriousness is another reason why, in a sense, I hate this world. Its so inconsequential. Sure, there might be a good movie or this or that but we dont have time for it. Instead we have to try to get some wisdom.

Does that mean your music was inconsequential too? I didnt say everything was inconsequential. I can listen to some beautiful music, I can see a beautiful painting, and I wouldnt dare to say theyre inconsequential. But the majority of what you see out here is inconsequential. Eating ice cream, wanting to have sex with some broad Oh boy, shes beautiful and all that stuff the seven deadly sins. You have to get above that. Because if you dont do it in this life, its like what the guy said in the commercial: Pay me now or pay me later.

Have you made plans for what will happen with your unreleased recordings when youre not around? After I get out of this planet Im not going to have any say about whats going on, so Im not worried about that. And, boy, I agonize over my music; I wont have to agonize about it anymore. Thank God.

Do you play any other instruments now that you dont play the horn? The communion I had with my horn, the things I tried to do, I cant get otherwise. I do have a Fender Rhodes piano upstairs. In fact, I think I should get a piano, a real piano, and play around. Id probably get something out of it. But its not like it would be a continuation of where I was at with my horn. I feel like that thing is broken.

Is your relationship with silence different these days? Thats an excellent question. I used to look at TV a lot. Then I realized, this is very negative. Images and lies and bad for your eyes: I made sure that mantra got in my head, and I stopped looking at TV. I do listen to the radio. Im trying to get away from that. Silence to me is meditative. To get into that silent space is a huge thing. But even today Ive had the radio on so much. Its something Im working on.

Do you ever get lonely up here in Woodstock? On occasion. Fortunately not too often. I like being alone, actually. I have my yoga books. I have my Buddha books. I have a lot of spiritual material that I need to get with. At my age, all my friends are gone. At one time I began to lament that and then I said, No, this is good that I have nobody to call and waste time talking. Every now and then I do go, Yeah, man, Im lonely, let me call somebody up, but to me thats a weakness. I have to deal with myself. Thats what it gets down to for each of us. Understanding is up to you. Its up to me. Theres no escape. I got pains and aches all over but spiritually, man, I feel better than Ive ever felt. Im on the right course.

David Marchese is a staff writer and the Talk columnist for the magazine.

This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations.

Read the rest here:

Sonny Rollins Is at Peace. But He Regrets Trying to One-Up Coltrane. - The New York Times

Religious liberty is cherished by all Americans as a foundational element of what our country values. Sadly, the Trump administration has distorted and weaponized religious liberty to attack the LGBTQ community.

House Democrats are providing much-needed accountability today as the House Oversight Committee convenes for a hearing on the topic. But progressives should be wary of buying into the Trump administrations and religious rights framing of the issue. Its not about religion.

Im baffled every time I hear President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump endorses former White House physician Ronny Jackson for Congress Newly released emails reveal officials' panic over loss of credibility after Trump's Dorian claims Lindsey Graham thanks Trump, bemoans 'never-ending bull----' at South Carolina rally MORE, the religious right and, yes, sometimes progressives fall into this trap as well pitting religious liberty and LGBTQ rights against one another. As a gay Christian, my right to religious liberty and my right to marriage equality played an equal role in my marriage being recognized legally by my country and religiously by my church. Conservatives suddenly invented this religious liberty argument as another means of trampling the dignity of other LGBTQ Americans, many of whom are people of faith.

Its sad to see the American ideal of religious liberty tarnished by turning it into a license to discriminate. Its sad because we have so many real threats to religious liberty today, including the ugly rise of anti-Semitism and the Trump administrations travel bans involving largely Muslim countries. Protecting the rights of religious minorities to be able to live with dignity should unite all Americans across the political spectrum.

There are also real attacks on the LGBTQ community by the Trump administration. These attacks impact many aspects of LGBTQ Americans lives, including health care, employment, housing, education, commerce, sports, military service and more. But these attacks arent about religious liberty any more than Bob Jones Universitys racist interracial dating policies were actually about religion. Theyre about the troubling use of religion by people who want to discriminate.

People of faith exist on both sides of the divide over whether LGBTQ Americans should be free to live without fear or discrimination. Solid majorities of all major religious groups in the U.S. support laws protecting LGBT people from discrimination in housing, public accommodations and the workplace, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. Even a majority of the religious groups most opposed to these kinds of protections white evangelical Protestants support the idea.

Thats why many religious groups have taken action for LGBTQ rights such as rallying support for the Equality Act. The bipartisan bill passed the House of Representatives last year and would clarify and add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected characteristics to existing civil rights law, including the Civil Rights Act.

Faith groups also have filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in support of Title VII prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, opposes the Equality Act and is fighting LGBTQ rights at the Supreme Court. One in three of Trumps nominations to the federal circuit court have a history of anti-LGBTQ bias. They may repeat over and over again that they are defending religious people, but that doesnt make it true.

I am grateful that progressives are highlighting the ways the Trump administration is misusing religious liberty to undermine the protections for LGBTQ people that were expanded under the Obama administration. But lets not give into conservatives framing of the issue. Instead, lets remember that President Obama himself cited his own Christian faith in supporting LGBTQ rights.

[Michelle Obama and I], were both practicing Christians, President Obama reminded the nation in his groundbreaking interview to support same-sex marriage in 2012. And when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf but its also the golden rule, you know? Treat others the way youd want to be treated. And I think thats what we try to impart to our kids. And thats what motivates me as president.

Faith motivates many LGBTQ people and our allies in our ongoing struggle for equality. Lets not cede all the talk of religion to the religious right, when many people of faith see things differently.

Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons is a fellow with the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress.

Original post:

No conflict between true religious liberty and LGBTQ rights | TheHill - The Hill

Facing a barrage of attacks from his Democratic rivals and hawkish questions from moderators, Sen. Bernie Sanders said during the presidential primary debate in South Carolina Tuesday night that political leaders must face up to America's long record of toppling democratically elected governments overseas.

"Excuse me, occasionally it might be a good idea to be honest about American foreign policy," Sanders, the Democratic frontrunner, said as Pete Buttigieg and former Vice President Joe Biden attempted to slime the senator over his comments on Cuba's education and healthcare systems and falsely accuse him of being sympathetic to authoritarianism.

"That includes," Sanders continued, "the fact that America has overthrown governments all over the world in Chile, in Guatemala, in Iran."

While pundits were not pleased with Sanders' remarks, progressives applauded the senator's willingness to speak candidly about the United States' sordid record overseas.

"A golden rule of Beltway orthodoxy is that candidates should never criticize U.S. foreign policy even when the criticisms are both factual and correct," tweeted Jacobin staff writer Luke Savage in response to CNN commentator David Axelrod's criticism of the senator's comments. "One of Bernie's strengths is his unwillingness to concede to this sort of elite taboo."

"Nobody on the debate stage except Bernie has the guts to say the truth about the legacy of U.S. foreign policy," added Nikhil Goyal, a PhD candidate at Cambridge University.

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Others echoed Savage and Goyal:

Thank you Bernie. I so appreciate your honesty about the fact that US foreign policy has wreaked havoc in so many places around the world for so long, including #Iran.

Time for a fundamental change. #Bernie2020 #DemDebate

Azadeh Shahshahani (@ashahshahani) February 26, 2020

Bernie just gave the most honest assessment of American foreign policy thats been heard on a presidential debate stage in more than a decade possibly ever. #DemDebate

Collin Rees (@collinrees) February 26, 2020

After Republican Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin tweeted that Sanders was "digging his grave" by "blaming America" for overthrowing governments, progressive foreign policy analyst Elizabeth Beavers replied, "Imagine thinking 'blaming America for overthrowing governments' is anything other than historical fact."

"Guatemala, Iran, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Honduras, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, and many, many others would like a word," Beavers added.

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'In Chile, In Guatemala, In Iran': Sanders Applauded for Highlighting US Record of Overthrowing Governments Around the World - Common Dreams

Searching for a new job is a time-consuming endeavor. By some estimates, the typical worker takes about six weeks to apply for, interview and finally land a new job offer. And across any industry and level of work, there's one step to the process that's bound to slow down even the most qualified and enthusiastic candidate: the cover letter.

But findings from one new report offer some motivation to draft a good elevator pitch, even in a time when cover letters are becoming increasingly optional.

According to a survey of 200 hiring managers from ResumeLab, a resume advice site, 83% of HR professionals agreed with the statement "a great cover letter can make me decide to interview a candidate, even if I don't think their resume is good enough."

That means, out of every 10 resumes where the applicant might not have the right work history, set of skills or management experience, eight job seekers are likely to advance, as long as they can make up for it in their cover letters.

A majority of hiring managers said cover letters were crucial to their hiring decisions, and 77% give preference to candidates who submit one, even if they're deemed optional on the application form. A similar share always expect the document, even if they're not required in order to apply.

While cover letters can give candidates a leg up on the competition, they come with a major caveat.

Companies are increasingly relying on applicant tracking systems, often shortened to ATS, and artificial intelligence software to review resumes. These algorithms scan resumes for specific words and phrases around work history, responsibilities, skills and accomplishments to identify candidates who match well with the job description.

Ian Siegel, CEO of jobs marketplace ZipRecruiter, estimates more than 70% of resumes are now reviewed by robots before they reach a human reader.

That means resumes, and how they're written, matter first and foremost.

To be sure, the ResumeLab survey was designed to measure the impact of a cover letter only after a resume passed an ATS scan and made it to a human reviewer, explains Maciej Duszynski, career expert and researcher behind the study.

Siegel offers three recommendations for a resume to make it past the bots:

1. "Use standard file types no more trying to stand out by putting your resume into Photoshop," he tells CNBC Make It. Instead, "Use Microsoft Word or Google Docs to give something the parser can parse.

2. "Check your grammar and spelling. It seems obvious, yet a surprising number of job seekers don't do it.

3. "Clearly list your skills and make it easy for the parser to understand your years of experience," Siegel says.

If possible, Siegel says to demonstrate mastery of each skill by listing your years of experience learning or using each one in your work history.

While workers should be detailed about their qualifications on a resume, they need to be quick and creative when it comes to their cover letter. Siegel estimates that hiring managers spend an average of 20 seconds reviewing a given cover letter.

The majority of hiring managers from the ResumeLab survey said the most important thing they're looking for in a cover letter is the applicant's reason for wanting to join the company.

Siegel agrees this is one of just three things job seekers should include in their cover letter.

"The golden rule of applying to a job is showing specific interest," he says. "A lot of people write cover letters to describe their background and explain why they're a fit for the role. But I would start my cover letter with the sentence, 'I'm so excited to apply to this job because ... ' and fill in the blank about the business."

Beyond that, Siegel boils down the most important things to include in a cover letter to three points.

"Show enthusiasm, show you've done research, and show you want to come in there and make a contribution," he says.

According to the ResumeLab survey, hiring managers also find cover letters helpful in understanding anything surprising about the candidate's work history, such as a reason for changing careers or explaining an employment gap.

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The only 3 things you should include in a cover letter (Hint: It's not your qualifications) - CNBC

Sometime on Tuesday, November 8, 1960, a 66-year-old widower and self-described moderate Republican went to his polling place in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to vote for his states junior senator for president. Never the most forthcoming of men, Norman Rockwell hadnt told his family he was backing John F. Kennedy. Hed painted portraits of both candidates for the Saturday Evening Post, and he just didnt like Richard Nixons face.

It was only a short walk down Main Street from the two-story Colonial house supposedly once occupied by Aaron Burr, whose derelict red barn Rockwell had converted into his fastidiously tidy studio. Hed called Stockbridge home since relocating from rural Vermont six years earlier, mainly for proximity to its renowned Austen Riggs psychiatric center. His second wife, Mary, who struggled with alcoholism and depression, had been a chronic patient there.

In those newly cosmopolitan times the Mad Men era, for shorthands sake the Anytown, USA, that Rockwell had depicted on hundreds of Post covers was becoming a curio at best and an object of derision at worst. Nixon still espoused a mealy-mouthed fealty to those pseudo-Rockwellian virtues. By choosing Kennedy instead, Rockwell might as well have been casting a ballot to hasten his own obsolescence. But nobody could disagree that hed had a good run.

Born in 1894 on Manhattans Upper West Side, Rockwell had never shown interest in any other career besides commercial illustration. Before his 16th birthday, he had dropped out of high school to enroll at New Yorks Art Students League. Untempted by the bohemia of Greenwich Village and seemingly indifferent to (or unnerved by) the concept of a love life, he had business cards printed for himself while he was still in his teens.

Most midcentury Americans would have had trouble fathoming the idea that Norman Rockwell had ever been that young or unknown. In the four and a half decades since his Post debut in 1916, his humorous vignettes of awkward situations and glowing ones of social and domestic rituals had defined the nations most idyllic self-image. From Andy Hardy movies to Frank Capras Its a Wonderful Life, Hollywoods version of homey American verities was by and large a facsimile of Rockwells.

But by the time he cast that vote in 1960, his perspective was growing increasingly remote from the bulk of his fellow citizens lived experience in cities and postwar suburbs. The concept of kitsch had begun following Rockwell around in print like one of the lovelorn puppies he would include in a painting whenever he was at a loss for an effect (a habit that he would later mock).

Worse, the Saturday Evening Post wasnt the national arbiter it had been. A few months after JFKs inaugural, the magazine would promise jittery advertisers a drastically modernized look under a new editor-in-chief who promptly recanted the Posts endorsement of Nixon the previous fall. The demotion of Rockwells Main Street America to the Rat Packs Nowheresville wasnt explicit, but everybody got the gist.

Its unlikely he even considered retiring. At ease only when at his easel, he took little interest in hobbies or even in his family. Not the most well-rounded of men, Rockwell, when asked to describe his leisure activities by Edward R. Murrow on CBSs Person to Person in 1959, responded that he couldnt think of any, except the countless hours he spent tearing up diaper cloths for use as paint rags.

In any case, he was obviously too sedate to change his spots, no matter how speedily the country around him was changing. That would have been most peoples guess, at least.

It would have been spectacularly wrong. The tumultuous 60s would convert Rockwell into an overt social liberal and the eras unlikeliest practitioner of polemical art.

Even the Norman Rockwell Museum cant make sense of his late-life political transformation. Amid the familiar Rockwelliana on display there is 1964s The Problem We All Live With which his biographer Deborah Solomon, in her 2013 book, American Mirror, calls the most famous painting of the civil-rights movement as jarring as it must have been in the pages of Look magazine more than 50 years ago. But it was only the first of his 1960s paintings to upend everything Norman Rockwell stood for.

Indeed, one of the minor marvels of the 60s was that the period made Rockwell happier than hed ever been. The hippies he came to dote on had a word for it: liberation.

After Mary died unexpectedly of coronary heart disease in August 1959, her husbands vestigial social life centered on a Stockbridge mens club called the Marching and Chowder Society. Its members met once a week to chew over the news of the day, from the nuclear arms race to the Souths roiling battles over desegregation.

Up until then, the average lamppost had taken a livelier interest in current events than Rockwell did. His only concessions to topical urgency had come between Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. Besides proselytizing for democracy with his epic Four Freedoms series (a quartet of paintings depicting freedom of speech and worship as well as freedom from fear and want the last of these featuring his celebrated image of a familys Thanksgiving feast), hed regaled Post readers with covers featuring a regally posed Rosie the Riveter and a youthful soldiers homecoming. But then hed gone back to his familiar tableaux, seemingly unaffected by Elvis Presley, suburbias advent, or the Cold War and certainly not by Brown v. Board of Education, Rosa Parks, or Little Rock.

Rockwell had every reason to feel personally un-implicated in the countrys burgeoning racial strife. Theres no record of him encountering black-white tensions during his youth in New York City and New Rochelle, nor, later on, in relatively isolated (and white) Vermont or Stockbridge. As for his Saturday Evening Post America, it could have been what Ronald Reagan had in mind when he notoriously reminisced about the days when we didnt even know we had a racial problem a we as defining, if far more damning, than the one in The Problem We All Live Withs title.

The Post banned illustrations showing African Americans in anything other than menial roles. Rockwell had generally been docile about that. Very little in his Post work had prepared his audience for how unambiguously and provocatively he declared himself on the subject of desegregation in his Look magazine debut.

At the time, most white Americans still thought of racial injustice as a problem only Southerners wrestled with. The contest between Kennedy and Nixon ran its course without civil rights being much of an issue, with one dramatic exception. In October 1960, a month before the election, Martin Luther King Jr. was jailed after leading an Atlanta sit-in. In a surprise move, JFKs brother Robert F. Kennedy publicly intervened to help secure his release. The Kennedy familys actions while Nixon cautiously kept mum would abruptly change the equation. African American voters significantly bolstered JFKs razor-thin margin of victory.

Rockwells only involvement in the 1960 election, aside from voting, had been his portraits of Kennedy and Nixon. His son Peter (one of the three he had with Mary) remembered Rockwell grousing that the problem with doing Nixon is that if you make him look nice, he doesnt look like Nixon anymore. As the magazines preferred candidate, Nixon got the cover dated closer to Election Day, not that it did him any good.

Never fond of television, Rockwell probably went to bed without watching the evening news on November 14, 1960, just under a week after Kennedys victory. If so, he wouldnt only have missed the sight of a knackered Nixon shaking hands with the new president-elect in Key Biscayne, Florida. Hed also have missed a mob of white New Orleanians howling abuse as they witnessed the unthinkable: a quartet of US marshals escorting a 6-year-old girl named Ruby Bridges as she entered school to attend first grade.

Bridges was one of just four African American first-graders whod been chosen to integrate the citys school system. But at least Leona Tate, Tessie Prevost, and Gail Etienne got to enter McDonogh 19 school as a trio. Bridges, flanked by the marshals, went up the steps of William Frantz Elementary School on her own.

Not that anybody knew her name. To readers and viewers of most news outlets, she was simply the little Negro girl, and so she remained until the 1990s, when the adult Bridges was reunited at a Black History Month event in New Orleans with one of her real-life escorts and the painting.

What drew Rockwell to the subject three years after the fact? His interest may have been sparked by the writings of psychiatrist Robert Coles, whod met with and counseled Bridges and her family. The artist may have read John Steinbecks 1962 bestseller Travels With Charley, whose concluding chapter contains his eyewitness account of the havoc outside the school on a typical day in the autumn of 1960. One passage, in particular, vividly anticipates the central figure in Rockwells painting: a glimpse of the littlest Negro girl you ever saw, dressed in shining starchy white, with new white shoes on feet so little they were almost round. Her face and little legs were very black against the white.

Yet Rockwell unmistakably had Ruby Bridgess ordeal on his mind before either Coles or Steinbeck weighed in. His most ambitious painting of 1961 was The Golden Rule, which featured more than two dozen people of all races and faiths illustrating the caption Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Two of them are African American: a man in a pointedly middle-class white shirt and tie as well as a neatly dressed girl prominently placed in the foreground. In an early version of The Golden Rule, which is the one propped today in the artists studio at the Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, the girls hands are simply clasped in prayer. In the final painting, theyre clutching two schoolbooks.

Not many Post subscribers in 1961 were likely to miss the allusion to the child whod gotten so much news coverage the previous autumn. Segregationists certainly didnt; they sent Rockwell the only hate mail hed received in his 45-year career. But his relationship with the Post had been deteriorating in any case. Its editors had concluded that his brand of folksy humanism was pass. They also seemed uninterested, as The Golden Rule hinted, that their former mainstay had a burgeoning interest in more provocative social themes. That summer, the new regime unveiled its plans for a revamped Post, including art work ... considerably more abstract than anything that has appeared in the magazine. Rockwells sardonic response was his very funny January 1962 cover, The Connoisseur, depicting a stocky gent in bankers gray pondering a Jackson Pollock riot of splattered red, yellow, and blue.

His imitation Pollock was expert enough to delight the artist Willem de Kooning. But The Connoisseur proved to be the last of his great Post covers. Just five months after it was published, Rockwell got new marching orders, and they rankled. He was to be confined from then on to producing portraits of statesmen, plus the occasional celebrity.

Terrified of ending his relationship with the Post, he tried to oblige his bosses. But in May 1963, he scrawled a remarkably agonized 3 am lament: All of this debasement, depression, unsatisfaction. Isnt this the answer if necessary, die doing something worthwhile. A worthy end ... not humiliating fear and groveling. Have I got the sustaining courage to cut it through? Cut the knot myself not die groveling.

Four months later, he wrote the Posts latest art director that hed come to the conviction that the work I now want to do no longer fits into the Post scheme.

His major emotional sustenance during this period came from his new wife. Fourteen months after Mary died, after a brief acquaintance, he married Molly Punderson, a 64-year-old schoolteacher who, as biographer Solomon puts it, was not known to have had any male suitors before they wed. But Rockwells marital needs had never been primarily sexual, and he knew what he could count on from her: You will help, be with me, admire me, he addressed Molly in that same insomniac cri de coeur. I have the courage with you.

Rockwells final Post cover, for the memorial issue commemorating John F. Kennedys assassination, that November, was a reprint of the artists 1960 JFK portrait. But by then, hed already signed up with Look. The rival to Henry Luces Life magazine, the more politically adventurous Look had no misgivings about the unlikely image Rockwell proposed as his debut, despite how it diverged from everything he was famous for unless, of course, that was part of its appeal. On October 1, 1963, art director Allen Hurlburt wrote him, As you know, Dan [Mich, Looks editor] and I are very excited about your idea for a painting of the Negro girl and the marshals. ... In checking our production schedules I find that we should have the art work by November 10 to make an early January issue.

Rockwell told Hurlburt hed gotten a head start on the painting, having identified a willing model: I already have the 7 yr old little girl and she is perfect. Her grandmother is sewing the white dress for her. ... Be assured I am very excited about the picture. Excited wasnt a word hed often used about his assignments for the Post.

Rockwells search for the perfect little girl may seem odd, given the common belief that Problem simply replicates a news photograph. But that misconception is an unwitting tribute to how completely the real episode and Rockwells depiction of it have fused in our collective memory. Aside from the basic situation, virtually every detail of the picture is Rockwells invention.

His usual MO was to sketch or paint from photographs of local residents, who would come to his studio and then follow his directions as they struck various poses. Hed employed a photographer named Bill Scovill virtually full-time since 1953, and it was Scovill who likely took the reference photos for The Problem We All Live With.

Only two African American families lived in Stockbridge then. Rockwell was friendly with the patriarch of one of them: Bill Gunn, whod posed for The Golden Rule and also chaired the Berkshire County chapter of the NAACP. Rockwell became a lifetime member in October 1963, around the time he began working on The Problem We All Live With.

Two of Gunns granddaughters were approximately the right age to stand in for Bridges: first cousins named Lynda and Anita Gunn. Lynda ended up doing most of the posing. Anita and other members of the Gunn family, who had been invited to observe the photo sessions, enjoyed the Coca-Colas that Rockwell passed around. For Lynda, the tricky part was balancing herself on two wooden boards front foot tilting upward, back foot tilting down to simulate walking. It was an old device of Rockwells, and he also used it for the separate reference shots of her four adult escorts.

At least two of the burly men who posed for the painting were authentic US marshals sent out from Boston to oblige him. Another was Stockbridge Police Chief William J. Obanhein, who, oddly enough, would later enjoy a peculiarly 60s-ish fame of his own as the Officer Obie of Arlo Guthries 1967 hit song Alices Restaurant.

But well never know which of Bridgess escorts he impersonated. In one of Rockwells boldest breaks with representational convention, the marshals are painted from their shoulders down not just faceless but headless. While that doesnt dehumanize them, exactly if anything, it makes their determined bearing more eloquent nothing could better emphasize Rockwells understanding that the moments emotional truth lay in Ruby Bridgess solitude. Of course they were terribly disappointed that I didnt show their faces, he would explain years later. But if Id shown the four faces, you wouldnt have seen the little girl.

Rockwells depiction of Bridges was another matter. He chose to darken her skin tone, making it darker, in fact, than that of either Lynda or Anita Gunn. Today, such artistic license deliberately darkening a subjects appearance as a way of overemphasizing race and provoking the viewer would be seen as racially insensitive. But he plainly hoped to disconcert Looks readers by making her blackness the pictures central issue. Paradoxically, that also made her unmistakable individuality more arresting.

Except for the somewhat too-vivid yellow of the marshals armbands arguably, the pictures only flaw and the almost bridal whiteness of the little girls dress, which is one of its masterstrokes, the only patch of color thats meant to draw the eye is the stain on the wall behind them, the residue of a flung tomato. (It took me ten tomatoes to look as though it had really splashed, Rockwell later recalled.) But its not as prominent as Problems most shocking ingredient today: the all-caps racial slur scrawled on the wall.

With its decapitated marshals and the diminutive Ruby walking in stark profile, the painting is among Rockwells most stylized. There is even an artificiality to the way the four bodyguards left arms are cocked back so that the viewer can see their badges as well as the court order tucked into the lead marshals side jacket pocket. The artist has pared down the actual event to its essential meaning an atypical treatment for Rockwell, who loved to pack his canvases with incidental detail.

Whats strikingly absent, except by unpleasant implication, is Rockwells most durable theme: community. The mob heckling Ruby Bridges is nowhere to be seen, and only gradually does it sink in that its because were looking at Bridges and her escorts from the mobs point of view. We can only dissociate ourselves from them by refusing complicity.

When the Look issue came out, Rockwell was in Moscow, which would have confirmed white bigots worst suspicions even or especially if theyd known he was participating in a cultural exchange program at the US Information Agencys behest. He didnt return home until early February, entirely unaware of how The Problem We All Live With had been received.

According to Solomon, he was greeted by sacks of disapproving mail from readers that Looks editors had forwarded to him. The negative letters were venomous: Anybody who advocates, aids or abets the vicious crime of racial integration is nothing short of a traitor to the white race, and a traitor to the illustrious white founders of this country, wrote G.L. Le Bon of New Orleans. THE WAR HAS JUST BEGUN!

But there were supportive letters, too. Chester Martin of Chattanooga, Tennessee, wrote, I have never been so deeply moved by any picture. ... Thank you for showing this white Southerner how ridiculous he looks. The truth is pretty hard to take until we get it from a Norman Rockwell. Onetime Negro League third baseman turned real estate broker and occasional poet David J. Malarcher was stirred enough to send Look a poem hed written in honor of the illustration, including these verses: Their hands are tense / Their gait is rare / Their arms are ready for the fray / The little girl is unaware / That she is history today.

Another approving letter came from a self-described former Rockwell debunker whod once scoffed at how maudlin and commercial his work was. Permit me now to choke on my words. ... YOU have just said in one painting what people cannot say in a lifetime. In his thank-you letter, Rockwell modestly explained that I am [sic] just had my seventieth birthday and I am trying to be a bit more adult in my work.

Adult is an interesting choice of words for a man his age. When Mary was alive, Rockwell had plunged into therapy, almost as if he couldnt stand the idea of Mary monopolizing the shrinks attention. He had sessions twice a week with Erik Erikson, the analyst to whom we owe the locution identity crisis. Erikson was famous mainly for his work with troubled children, and the most beloved illustrator in American magazine history occasionally resembled one. The side of Rockwell that had never matured left him uncommonly dependent on validation from others, maybe now more than ever.

As a result, Hurlburts encouragement thrilled him. Besides offering specific recommendations that Rockwell happily accepted it was Hurlburt who suggested the marshals be depicted with their arms back he provided the support and approval Rockwell craved. I dont want to sound slushy or sentimental, he wrote Hurlburt in the spring of 1966, but I cant resist writing you to tell you how much your creative art direction has meant to me. You have given me the opportunity over and over again to paint pictures of contemporary subjects that I am fascinated with.

The most unsparing picture he ever painted was the accompanying illustration for a 1965 Look article called Southern Justice. As unknown today as Problem is famous, Murder in Mississippi was Rockwells depiction of the June 21, 1964, killing of civil rights workers Mickey Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney two white New Yorkers and a local African American volunteer by Klansmen and local police. Spooky, harshly lit, and almost barren, its as close as Rockwell ever came to Goyas Los Desastres de la Guerra.

Because the exact circumstances under which the three men died werent known, Rockwell struggled with deciding how to portray their final moments, initially including their killers in the frame before reducing them to looming shadows. What stays constant is his depiction of the victims: one dead, one dying, one grimly preparing to meet his fate.

Sprawled on the ground, Goodman has already been killed. Schwerner is still standing, his head turned in profile to gaze at his executioners. Linking the two white men is Chaney, whos been shot once and is on his knees, clutching Schwerner with both hands for support. Schwerners right hand has pulled him close in an embrace, tugging up Chaneys T-shirt to expose his bare back, Rockwells way of emphasizing both Chaneys race and his vulnerability.

Rockwells unusually detailed notes on the murders are a moving testimony to his determination to do right by the civil rights workers. He remarked on Goodman and Schwerners beatnik sneakers and blue jeans. In one poignant observation, he wrote that they had, all three, had haircuts the day before. The reference photos also emphasize his emotional commitment. His son Jarvis modeled as Schwerner, and Rockwell himself posed for a detail photo of Chaneys bloodied hand gripping Schwerners bicep. Both the hand and the bicep are Rockwells.

It could be the most strangely haunting picture of Norman Rockwell anybody ever took. Because his facial expression doesnt matter, hes gazing placidly at the camera, wearing a slight smile. Yet, consciously or not, by impersonating Schwerner and Chaney simultaneously, hes claiming an identification with both victims one black, one white.

I tried in a big way to make an angry painting, he wrote to Hurlburt in May 1965. If I just had a bit of Ben Shahn in me it would have helped. Its an interesting wish, since the very left-wing Shahns Depression-era paintings had derived their force from semi-grotesque distortions that were utterly at odds with Rockwells innate naturalism. As it happened, Hurlburt apparently agreed; Look opted to print not Rockwells final version of the scene but one of his rawer preliminary studies. Only 18 months into their association, this was the acid test of Rockwells trust in his new patrons. Initially disgruntled, he ended up conceding that All the anger that was in the sketch had gone out of the finished painting.

Look would never print a Rockwell picture that angry again.

During the next five years, Rockwells paintings on contemporary subjects for Look were hardly confined to indictments. Hed simply gotten more selective in the aspects of modern America he found worth celebrating. He painted more than one picture championing the Peace Corps: I love ... the ideals and the performances of these young people, he told Hurlburt. He boosted Lyndon Johnsons war on poverty. Maybe most endearingly, he was besotted with NASA, producing gadget-happy depictions of the space program.

Even the third and last of his major civil rights paintings for Look struck a relatively hopeful note, amounting to a reconciliation of the Norman Rockwell of yore with his new focus on topicality. New Kids in the Neighborhood featured a pair of black children and a trio of white ones sizing each other up as a moving van is unloaded behind them. The benign mood is undercut only by a detail that isnt easy to spot even face-to-face with the original and that must have been indiscernible in Looks reduced reproduction: a white woman peering from a nearby window, her expression conveying worry, verging on hostility.

Rockwell hardly wanted New Kids in the Neighborhood to be his last word on the subject. But he and Look were unable to agree on the much grimmer painting he proposed next. Existing in multiple versions, none of which seems to be fully finished, Blood Brothers depicts two men one black, one white dying side by side in a pool of their intermingled blood. The point, of course, is that you cant tell whose blood is whose.

Initially, Rockwell wanted to set Blood Brothers in the ghetto, in the parlance of the era. But Look urged him to transpose the scene to Vietnam, which would obviously have implied a different set of pieties. Rockwell gave the revision a dutiful try. By late 1968, however, he was grumbling, I think I want to go back to the ghetto.

Either because of that impasse or some other dispute, he and Hurlburt eventually abandoned the idea. But if the combat zone version of Blood Brothers had seen print, it would have been Rockwells only painting for Look to deal with the Vietnam War head-on. He may have balked because the concept left his personal position on the war unstated, and he and his wife, Molly, were both staunch in their opposition to it.

As citizens, he and Molly werent shy about letting Lyndon Johnson know where they stood. An uncooperative sitter when Rockwell had painted the new president in 1964, LBJ likely grew weary of the stream of telegrams from the couple demanding negotiations instead of bombing. But a Rockwell artwork directly attacking the war would have been too polarizing for Looks editors, and it appears he never proposed one.

What he could do was agree to paint philosopher and peace activist Bertrand Russells portrait for the very left-leaning Ramparts in 1967. Almost a quarter-century after tackling the Four Freedoms for the Pentagons Office of War Information, he firmly refused a Marine Corps request to produce a propaganda poster. I was supposed to do a portrait of a soldier in Vietnam kneeling over to help a wounded villager and love shining in their eyes, Rockwell told Womens Wear Daily in 1968. I thought about it a lot, and my wife said, You cant do that and you know you cant. [So] Im doing John Glenn instead. The first American astronaut to orbit Earth was the kind of Marine Rockwell had no problem lionizing.

By the late 60s, he often heard from older fans who wondered why he couldnt go on giving them those sweet old pictures like you used to do. But Rockwell was unmoved. You cant make the good old days come back just by painting pictures of them, he snorted. That kind of stuff is dead now and I think its about time, he told another interviewer.

After a lifetime of diffidence, Rockwells interviews from the end of the decade are remarkably energetic and cocky, militant, even. Without disavowing his earlier work I couldnt have had my tongue in my cheek for 50 years he never stopped insisting that red-cheeked little boys and mongrel dogs no longer typified America. Now its all sex or race troubles, he remarked, homosexuality or college riots, and I think its a great challenge. Even more startlingly, he declared in that pivotal year of protest, 1968, that he couldnt paint the Four Freedoms now. I just dont believe in it.

A different kind of freedom entranced him instead. Rockwell was enamored of the counterculture, not least for its visual clat. I think the hippies and the Yippies are wonderful, he told the International Herald-Tribune. I think of everybody as models, and Im so goddamned sick of business suits with conventional haircuts, like I have. In 1968, Rockwell pointedly included a hippie couple he in a fringed jacket, she with a flower in her hair among the concerned citizens in The Right to Know, his last political painting, which shows a multicultural cross-section of Americans staring accusingly at an empty leather chair. (The captions mention of wars we do not want finally made his position on Vietnam explicit.) Touchingly, among the faces all dramatically underlit is the artist himself, his hand tenderly resting on the young womans arm.

Rockwell desperately wanted to paint beat poet Allen Ginsberg as well as Bob Dylan and his family. While nothing came of either project, Rockwell did paint two of Dylans onetime sidemen when he agreed to do the cover art for guitarist Mike Bloomfield and organist Al Koopers album The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper. Its one of his most carefree paintings, showing Bloomfield smoldering through ice-blue irises and looking more sensual than any other man Rockwell ever painted, as Vanity Fairs David Kamp noted in a 2010 essay.

Nonetheless, Look expected Rockwell to do his due diligence in election years, even if his enthusiasms lay elsewhere. Tasked with painting the 1968 presidential candidates Gene McCarthy, Bobby Kennedy, and Hubert Humphrey among the Democrats; Nixon and New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller among the Republicans he chose to render all of them with two faces: the Rockwellized version of Greek masks of comedy and tragedy. (He wanted to paint independent segregationist candidate George Wallace in front of a funereally black background, but Look vetoed that one.)

As had been the case in 1960, the eventual Republican nominee the hardest man I had to paint, ever was a challenge. [Nixons] got a mean eye, he said. And then he has these big chestnuts in his jowls. That August, with the Republican convention done and the Democrats debacle in Chicago looming, Rockwell wrote to Hurlburt, I was delighted to have you call me yesterday and tell me that I dont have to paint Mr. Nixon again.

But he did. Once Nixon won, Rockwell had to paint him as Mr. President. Its now the only Rockwell painting in the National Portrait Gallery, and this time around, he managed what hed once said was impossible. His subject looks like a nice man who is, nonetheless, unmistakably Richard Nixon. At any rate, Rockwell as no one else did captured Nixons eternal, tentative, thwarted wish to be the good-hearted person he wasnt, which is the paintings peculiar beauty.

Despite his aversion to the new president as a subject for portraiture, Rockwell had voted for him this time around. Whatever prompted his choice loss of heart, alienation from the Democratic Partys 1968 shambles, or credulous hope that Nixon might actually end the war in Vietnam it was a wan coda to the most dramatic and exhilarated (indeed, the only) self-reinvention of his long career.

Largely sidelined after 1972 as he developed dementia, eventually dying in 1978 at age 84, Rockwell never painted another significant picture again.

Tom Carson is a National Magazine Award-winning writer whose work has appeared in Esquire, GQ, the New York Times, the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and other publications.

Excerpt from:

The Problem We All Live With and the political awakening of Norman Rockwell - Vox.com

Not well, eaten too fast, or consumed the wrong thing? There are plenty of reasons why a pet might vomit inside your home, and its the way of the world that itll be on your carpet rather than the hard flooring it would be simpler to clean up.

Its not one of lifes most pleasant tasks, but cleaning cat or dog sick off the carpet can be hassle-free. Find out how below and don't miss more tips on how to clean a carpet in our guide.

Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, 16...

Mystic Moments Citric Acid,...

Minky M Cloth Anti-Bacterial...

Good news! You've got much of the cleaning kit in your cupboard already (and if not, a dash to the shops will kit you out it's not complicated).

1. Scrape up as much of the vomit as you can. A bit gross, but using a plastic kitchen spatula and piling it into a pile of toilet roll will work and you can flush it down the loo (and put the spatula in the dishwasher).

2. The golden rule? Dont rub at whats there as youll push it into the carpet.

3. Then sprinkle baking soda on to any stain thats left, leave for 10 minutes and vacuum.

4. Next, mix a good squirt of washing-up liquid, a tablespoon of white vinegar and around half a litre of warm water, and use the solution to blot and lift the stain with a clean cloth.

5. Apply cold water on a second white cloth to rinse, and leave to dry.

6. Repeat steps three to five if necessary.

Read the rest here:

Pet sick on the carpet? This buy WORKS, plus it's cheap (and you've already got it) - Real Homes

Maurie Backman, The Motley Fool Published 7:00 a.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020

Most Americans dread tax season. It can be costly, confusing and complicated. But theres some good news: there are fewer changes this time around. USA TODAY

Credit cards may be a helpful tool for consumers, but they should be used for the convenience and benefits they offer.

A large number of families fall back on credit cards out of necessity, and new data shows that medical costs are largely to blame.

About 69% of families with children say they make sacrifices to keep up with their medical expenses, according to anAflac survey. Thirty-seven percentof families rely on credit cards to pay their billsand deal with the aftermath.

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Credit cards are a great way to earn rewards for the things you buy, but when you fail to pay them off, you run into trouble.

Any time you carry a credit card balance, you automatically sign up to pay interest expensive interest on the things you charged. Too much credit card debt can negatively affect your credit score by driving your credit utilization into unfavorable territory. Utilization speaks to the amount of available credit you use at once, and a ratio above 30% is harmful to your score.

If you're forced to rely on credit cards to pay your bills and you rack up a high enough balance to exceed that 30% threshold, your credit score is likely to suffer, making it more difficult for you to borrow money the next time you need to.

If health care expenses drive you to have an unhealthy relationship with your credit cards, your best bet is to rethink your budget and build some emergency savings. That way, you'll have cash reserves to tap when your medical bills come in higher than expected.

Ideally, your emergency fund should have enough money in it to cover three to six months of essential bills, but if you can't hit that target, save as much as you can. A good bet is to sock away enough cash to cover your annual deductible, since you'll need to pay it before your insurer picks up the tab for your health care services.

Factor health care into your budget in a realistic fashion. Take a look at what your insurance premiums, deductiblesand co-pays cost, and figure out how much you should reasonably expect to spend each month. Account for those one-off situations that may pop up on occasion, such as a hospital visit. You dont need to plan on one every month, but it wouldnt hurt to budget for one visit a year. Aflac reportedthat 37% of families who went to the hospital within the past two years had to pay $500 or more out of pocket. Twenty-three percentspent $1,000 or more, so if your costs are similar, divvy that figure up among 12 months, so you set money aside as you need to.

Finally, take advantage of a health savings account, if you're eligible for one. To contribute to one of these accounts, you must be enrolled in a high-deductible health insurance plan, defined as an individual deductible of $1,400 or more, or a family-level deductible of $2,800 or more. The funds you allocate to a health savings account go in tax-free, which means you reap instant savings, lowering your financial burden on a whole and making it easier to keep up with your health care spending.

Medical bills are often unavoidable, and they can wreck your finances if you're not careful. If health care expenses drive you to rely on credit cards to an unhealthy degree, it's time to come up with a better plan before you wind up in a world of debt with no escape in sight.

The Motley Fool owns and recommends MasterCard and Visaand recommends American Express. Were firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approvedor endorsed by included advertisers. The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.

The Motley Fool is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news, analysis and commentary designed to help people take control of their financial lives. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.

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More than a third of families rely on credit cards, survey says. Here's why you need to be careful - USA TODAY

After being quiet for most of the day, the Vegas Golden Knights sprung into life in the final minutes of the Deadline to send seismic waves throughout the NHL.

In the market for a puck-moving defenseman, the Knights decided to head down a different path in order to bolster their roster.

Reading and analysing the market well, the front office opted to pull the trigger on a stunning trade for elite goalie Robin Lehner.

The Golden Knights sent a package containing Malcolm Subban, prospect defenseman Slava Demin and a 2020 Second-Round pick to the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for Lehner.

It was a three-team trade with Vegas also getting back forward Martins Dzierkals, in addition to sending a 2020 Fifth-Round pick to the Toronto Maple Leafs for retaining 44 percent of Lehners $5 million cap hit, with the Blackhawks also retaining salary.

No one saw this kind of move coming and the aftermath is clear; the Golden Knights now have one of the best goaltending tandems in the entire National Hockey League.

Lehner is a clear upgrade on Subban and, given some of his stats over the last couple of years, you can make a case for Lehner being one of the elite goalies in the NHL.

After all, he was a finalist for the Vezina Trophy last year after helping to backstop the New York Islanders to the Second Round of the postseason with a 25-13-5 record, a 2.13 Goals Against Average and a .930 Save Percentage.

With his stock never higher, Lehner signed for the Chicago Blackhawks in the off-season on a one-year, $5 million deal.

He posted a 16-10-5 record with a 3.01 Goals Against Average and a .918 Save Percentage for the Hawks, and he emerged as the better goalie in Chicago over Corey Crawford despite being on a bad team.

And, despite allowing 32 goals in his last nine starts, Lehner ranks 11th in the NHL this year in Save Percentage (.918) and 13th when it comes to goals saved above average (10.1).

In other words, Lehner has been more productive than Fleury this year and will be able to carry this team on his back if needed.

While Fleury will still be the main man going forward, the Golden Knights now have the opportunity to rest their future Hall of Famer down the stretch should they see fit, given that they now have a high-caliber backup in place.

Plus, like the Boston Bruins last year, the Knights will now have the luxury of riding two elite goalies throughout the postseason and, as Ive said before, you dont win championships without great goaltending.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS DECEMBER 27: (L-R) Dylan Strome #17 and Jonathan Toews #19 of the Chicago Blackhawks congratulate Robin Lehner #40 after a win against the New York Islanders at the United Center on December 27, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois. The Blackhawks defeated the Islanders 5-2. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

But, this move was somewhat a removal from the norm for the Vegas Golden Knights who dont usually touch rentals.

They are famous for steering clear from expiring contracts, as seen last year when they quickly locked pending UFA Mark Stone down to a long-term deal after trading for the two-way forward from the Ottawa Senators.

The Knights also did the same with Max Pacioretty, only trading for the forward from the Montreal Canadiens once they knew that an extension was possible.

However, in this instance, the Golden Knights have broken their own golden rule and wont be signing Robin Lehner to an extension.

General Manager Kelly McCrimmon seems content with waiting until the summer to hold talks with Lehner over a new deal, as backed up by the below quote he gave to nhl.com/goldenknights:

It is a risk, of course, given that Lehner could walk as a UFA in the off-season, while there is no guarantee that the goalie will agree to terms on a new deal in Vegas anyway.

After all, Fleury has two-years remaining on his current deal which carries an Average Annual Value of $7,000,000.

With Lehner likely to want significantly more than the $5 million he signed for in Chicago in the summer, that is a lot of cash to stump up for two goalies.

So, it is highly possible that we could be about to witness the first true rental in the short history of the Vegas Golden Knights.

And the fact that GM Kelly McCrimmon was willing to take that sizeable risk highlights how desperate this organization is to win a championship.

They clearly feel they have all the pieces to make a real run this year, hence the blockbuster trade to significantly bolster their goaltending.

As already mentioned, Lehner is a clear upgrade on Malcolm Subban who was 9-7-3 this year with an average 3.18 Goals Against Average and an even worse .890 Save Percentage.

In other words, Subban clearly wasnt getting the job done and, as a result, the Knights pulled the plug and instead added a guy who can help them to win now.

Lehner can split the load down the stretch with Fleury, meaning that both goalies will be fresh and raring to go for the gruelling playoff schedule.

Then, if needed, Lehner can step up in the postseason or fill the void should anything happen to Fleury.

Make no mistake about it, the Golden Knights saw an opportunity present itself in Lehner and they grabbed it with both hands.

They have ignored their own advice by going down the rental road, but it will hardly matter if this franchise goes all the way and wins a Stanley Cup in the summer.

Thats why the risky move to trade for Robin Lehner without the guarantee of an extension is the clearest sign yet that the Vegas Golden Knights only have one interest this year.

And thats winning.

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Vegas Golden Knights: Lehner trade highlights the will to win this year - vegashockeyknight.com

The stock markets are finally reacting to the coronavirus threat this week, with major indexes turning negative. With markets resembling the onset of the financial crisis of a decade ago, investors are looking at a potential threat to the global economy a true black swan event, if the coronavirus outbreak spills over into a pandemic.

With a downturn comes value opportunities, though, and with the markets taking a hit, there are bargains galore at the moment. But investors should refrain from buying stocks simply because theyre cheap; some homework still needs to be done. As Warren Buffett prescribes, investors should seek long-term value creation and understand the businesses that they are buying a stake in.

Three excellent choices for the risk-averse Canadian exist in Fortis (TSX:FTS)(NYSE:FTS), Northland Power (TSX:NPI), and Manulife Financial (TSX:MFC)(NYSE:MFC). Covering utilities, green power, and insurance, all three stocks are essential buy-and-hold choices for the extreme long-range investor looking for assets that will not only survive a prolonged downturn but will also provide regular, dependable income.

Fortis represents the best of Canadian utilities, and the thesis for holding it during a market crash is clear: all households and businesses need power. Meanwhile, Northland Power satisfies a strategy that involves stripping out fossil fuels from a portfolio and replacing them with assets that tap into the green economy a global trend that will become extremely important, as the world turns away from hydrocarbons.

Manulife, as the countrys most popular insurer, is also a recession buster. No matter what the economy does, no matter how badly impacted the stock markets, people need insurance. Manulife is a market leader in this area, and, as such, its stock supports a wide-moat strategy built around only the most stable dividend-paying companies. The stock is on sale (along with the rest of the TSX), down 16% this week.

Paying a 4.8% dividend yield, Manulife is a fairly rich stock and definitely worth packing in a TFSA or other long-term savings account. With its 3.8% yield, Northland Power is another rewarding stock to buy once and forget about. Its wind power operations are particularly interesting and bring strong geographical diversification to the energy production segment of a portfolio.

With its 3.3% dividend yield and exemplary track record of payments, Fortis is as strong as its name suggests. One of the few stocks on the TSX thats been only negligibly impacted by the sell-off this week, Fortis is down just 2% on average over the last five days. Its 36-month beta of just 0.12 further indicates its extreme resilience to market turbulence, making for a reassuring stock to pack in a portfolio.

Stocks fell into a correction Thursday, with markets in their worst condition since the 2008 financial crisis. But this doesnt mean that investors should stop buying. The golden rule is to know what you hold and carry on holding. However, contrarians and strict value investors alike looking for the best low-risk, high-quality stocks have ample opportunity to buy knocked-down shares right now.

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But China has been less rigorous about following the golden rule of fighting pandemics transparency. In the early days of the outbreak, internet users in the country appeared unable to find advice on what precautions they should take, and analysts in Hong Kong claimed links to foreign articles including estimates and the location of new cases were blocked. Two citizen journalists who posted videos about the outbreak went missing.

Other countries including Italy, focus of the largest outbreak in Europe, and South Korea, with the largest number of cases outside China, have also moved to lock down affected cities and restrict the movement of the population.

But in Iran, while schools, universities and some religious seminaries have been shut in response to an outbreak in Qom, south of Tehran, senior clerics rejected a proposal to close its holy shrine, which draws visitors from across the world, claiming that linking the virus with the city was part of a US plot to undermine the religious institution.

Whether efforts to contain COVID-19 prove sufficient is looking increasingly precarious. They may only have bought a breathing space as the outbreak evolves into a global pandemic.

If that is what we face, it will be a major challenge for our world. An effective response will require the involvement of all peoples, the contribution of all sciences, the engagement of all employers and employees, and the collective capacities of businesses.

As David Nabarro, WHO special envoy, says, ensuring populations have access to accurate information they can rely on is paramount. With trust in politicians in short supply, it is to senior scientists and clinicians who can speak with authority that we must turn.

As the focus shifts from containment keeping them from infecting us to mitigation keeping us from infecting each other (for example, by cancelling mass events) transparency, openness and collaboration will be essential.

Every citizen may be at risk and every citizen involved in the response. Doing it well, as a truly global community, can only happen if there is full and generous collaboration among all local and national governments, in ways that explicitly avoid attempts to gain political advantage.

We have learned that we do best if we are willing to share what we know (and do not know), and do all we can to ensure that no person, no community and no nation is left behind.

Professor the Lord Darzi of Denham is a surgeon and director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London. He was a Labour health minister from 2007-9.

Excerpt from:

Only global cooperation will stem the spread of coronavirus - Telegraph.co.uk