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Orioles GM Mike Elias, hush on 2024 payroll plans, says team’s 2023 ‘shortcomings’ fall on him

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:25:37 GMT

Mike Elias’ focus Thursday was reflecting on 2023. But plenty of questions face the Orioles in the months before the 2024 season begins.In an end-of-season news conference Thursday morning, the Orioles’ executive vice president and general manager said the team’s inability to advance past the American League Division Series after a 101-win regular season falls on him, not the players, and made no promises the club would carry a higher payroll next season.Before fielding and answering questions for almost half an hour inside Camden Yards’ auxiliary clubhouse, Elias first thanked the members of the Orioles’ roster, a group of players who brought Baltimore its first AL East title since 2014 despite several forecasts the team would finish last in the division.“I’ll never forget getting the chance to work with these guys, and luckily, we’re gonna be working with many, many, many of them going forward,” Elias said. “We ...

‘The Road Dance’ sweeping tale of love, trauma & war

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:25:37 GMT

The lavish, Scottish gothic-romantic entry “The Road Dance” is based on the bestselling 2002 novel by John MacKay and set against the magnificent location of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides just before and during World War I. The people, a crofting community in the windswept hills live modestly in small stone-walled, thatch-roofed homes, where they tend sheep and plant potatoes.But the surroundings are breathtaking. When the story’s protagonist Kirsty Macleod (Hermione Corfield, “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword”) discovers that her beau Murdo MacAulay (Will Fletcher, “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”) has been hiding a copy of Charles Dickens’ “The Old Curiosity Shop” inside the cover of a Bible, she whispers, “Sacrilege.” The form of Christianity practiced by her and Murdo’s people is as severe as the weather. Murdo, who has returned from the military where he worked as a typist, also admires the work of American poet Robert Frost. Kirsty and Mu...

D’Onta Foreman — pushed out of the running back mix early — is ready for his opportunity with the Chicago Bears: ‘This is what I do’

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:25:37 GMT

D’Onta Foreman has been here before — biding his time, waiting for his shot. And suddenly the opportunity arises.Tennessee Titans running back Derrick Henry fractured his right foot in 2021. The Carolina Panthers traded running back Christian McCaffrey in 2022. The Chicago Bears lost three running backs to injury in the same game Oct. 5 in a 40-20 win against the Washington Commanders.The first two times, Foreman felt as if he delivered for the teams that called him into action. And he’s hoping to do it again Sunday for the Bears against the Minnesota Vikings at Soldier Field.“Honestly I was prepared for that moment. I’m prepared for this moment,” Foreman said. “This is what I do. I’m calm. I’m confident. And I’ve just got to go show it. I feel like a lot of people are counting me out. I’ve been seeing a lot of stuff about myself. So I’ve got to go prove something.”Foreman called it “cr...

‘Dangerous Waters’ sails familiar seas with skill

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:25:37 GMT

Ray Liotta, 67, died in 2022 in his sleep in the Dominican Republic while making “Dangerous Waters,” and while his presence in the film is severely truncated, it turns out that the low-budget action thriller from director-cowriter-cinematographer John Barr (“Blood and Money”) is better-than-average. One thing giving the film an interesting slant is its setting for the most part on the high seas.The film’s notably resilient protagonist Rose (the talented Odeya Rush, “Lady Bird”) works the graveyard shift at a Florida hotel, while her mother Alma (Saffron Burrow, speaking in a workable American accent) works the swing shift at a local diner.Alma’s new boyfriend Derek Stipes (Eric Dane) has invited Alma and Rose on a 10-day voyage aboard his sailboat by way of vacation. Alma is gung-ho; Rose not so much, especially after she finds Derek’s AR-15 decorated with a dagger-through-a-rose symbol stowed under a seat cushion. OK, I never said the film was subtle. Barr and co-...

Bork, Molineaux & Rodgers: Polarized America needs a shared story

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:25:37 GMT

About 250 years ago this fall, the Boston Gazette republished several inflammatory editorials calling for opposition to the Tea Act 1773, the most recent of numerous onerous impositions by the British Parliament.In response, Samuel Adams dusted off the plans he had used to prevent implementation of the Stamp Act. According to the book “American Tempest:” “He would send his mob to frighten East India Company agents into resigning, then prevent ships from landing and offloading their tea.”  However, this time, the brewing resentment would culminate in a piece of public theater that would launch a new nation.The resulting Tea Party was held in Boston Harbor on Dec. 16 of that year. Patriots, dressed as Native Americans to disguise their identity, dumped 46 tons of tea in the water.  It became the story that ignited the imagination of revolutionaries throughout the colonies, united in their desire for liberation from the shackles of an oppressive, distant authority.For sever...

BSO spotlights Shostakovich’s rebel journey

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:25:37 GMT

Who never wrote a bad note? If Mozart springs to mind, you’re in good company. Boston Symphony Orchestra music director Andris Nelsons would agree with you. But next to Wolfgang Amadeus, Nelsons would also offer up a more controversial choice: Dmitri Shostakovich.For a decade, Nelsons has been exploring Shostakovich with the BSO. The project has won the maestro and symphony an armful of Grammys and may earn them a few more when the final installment of the recordings of the composer’s symphonies, featuring nos. 2, 3, 12, and 13, is released on Oct. 20. And that exploration continues this week, through Oct. 15, with Nelsons conducting Yo-Yo Ma through both of Shostakovich’s cello concertos at Symphony Hall.Nelsons, who grew up in Latvia during Soviet rule, learned about Shostakovich as a boy in music school.“I remember reading Russian books that said, ‘15th symphony of Shostakovich is a milestone, a wonderful work where the confused artist has lost his orientation and then he finds t...

‘Joan Baez I Am a Noise’ captures voice of iconic artist

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:25:37 GMT

Executive produced by Patti Smith, “Joan Baez I Am a Noise” begins with the artist digging through a large collection of notebooks, drawings, videotapes and recordings. She is excavating one of the most remarkable and notably political artistic careers in American history. A lifelong advocate for civil rights and a staunch, early opponent of the war in Vietnam (and later the war in Iraq), Baez has combined musical stardom with political outspokenness in ways that few have before or after her heyday. For people who grew up in the 1960s, Baez, who made her debut on Harvard Radio and in clubs in Boston and Cambridge in the late 1950s, was a powerful voice in more ways than one.A tall, slender, olive-skinned “Madonna” as she was often described, Baez was hard to pin down. Was she white? Was she Black? Both? As it turns out, the artist, who spent 60 years on the road, performing and trying to make the world a better place, was of Mexican descent with a Quaker background.The film, directe...

Editorial: Sorry Far-Lefties, America stands with Israel against terror

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:25:37 GMT

You can’t walk back antisemitism. Nor can a mea culpa camouflage support for terrorists.Many who followed last weekend’s attacks on Israel by Hamas terrorists with cheers for the massacre and tacit blame for the victims are finding that out the hard way.Take the elitist students of the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups who wrote a letter blaming Israel for the attacks and found themselves ridiculed as being “intellectually weak and morally repugnant.”Their critics were being nice. The backlash mounted.Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman called for the signatories to be named so that companies could make a point not to hire them. Other execs followed suit.After their lesson in consequences, many students couldn’t remove their signatures from the letter fast enough. In this day and age, however, digital trails follow us all, as a truck which made its way around Harvard Square Thursday displaying the alleged names of those who signed the Harvard letter demonstrates.The s...

Dear Abby: MIL’s cranky cat is on hubby’s last nerve

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:25:37 GMT

Dear Abby: My mother-in-law, “Irma,” is a peach — she’s the sweetest person in the world. She will do anything for anyone to lend a helping hand. Two weeks ago, she fell and broke her femur, which resulted in a significant hospital stay and needed rehabilitation. My wife and I have been taking care of her house and managing all her other daily tasks while she recovers, but one of these has become an issue.Irma has an old, needy, unfriendly cat (“Mehitabelle”) we have taken into our home during all of this. She hisses and growls at me constantly and won’t allow me to give her medication, which is required twice daily. Irma loves her kitty and asks about her often.We have two cats of our own, so we created a home for Mehitabelle in an upstairs bedroom in an effort to keep all the cats in the house amicable. (She doesn’t get along with one of ours.) My wife and I have managed this so far, but things have grown dramatically worse.In additi...

Israel’s military orders civilians to evacuate Gaza City, ahead of a feared ground offensive

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:25:37 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s military directed the evacuation on Friday of all of the hundreds of thousands of civilians living in Gaza City ahead of a feared Israel ground offensive. The order comes after Hamas militants, and the United Nations said Israel has warned it wants the evacuation of all 1.1 million people from the northern part of the Gaza Strip.The directive, which comes on the seventh day of the war after a deadly Hamas assault on Israel, directs residents of Gaza City to flee deeper south into the Gaza Strip, a narrow coastal territory. Israel’s directive charged that Hamas militants were hiding in tunnels under the city.“This evacuation is for your own safety,” the Israeli military said, in a warning it said was sent to Gaza City civilians.The flurry of directives could signal an impending ground offensive, though the Israeli military has not yet confirmed such an appeal. On Thursday it said that while it was preparing, no decision has been made. Israel delivered an eve...