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Editorial: Transportation in Massachusetts needs real fixes, not ‘possibilities’

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:10:16 GMT

If you thought that the state’s Department of Transportation needed to tackle the many safety and service issues that have plagued the troubled agency, you’d be wrong.According to the Healey Administration, what’s needed is an Office of Possibility.As the State House News reported, this new office is intended to “bring experimentation” and “different ideas” to the DOT.“Government works in sort of a probability mindset, right? Where you’re taking very little risk, you’re working with experts that are already known to you. So the theory here of a possibility government, is can we take slightly larger risks, knowing that not everything is going to work out? That failure is an outcome. But can we do that on a scale that is small enough where we learn, and we improve the thing until we get it right?” said new Chief of Possibilities Kristopher Carter..In simpler times, that was called “throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.”This Office of Possibility...

‘Barbie’ doesn’t live up to the hype

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:10:16 GMT

First of all, let’s state the obvious, “Barbie” is a 1-hour and 54-minute advertisement for a Mattel toy. After months of hype, the often boring and mediocre live-action “Barbie” has arrived, narrated in silky tones by Helen Mirren and amusingly riffing on the 1968 film landmark “2001: A Space Odyssey.”“Barbie” was directed by Greta Gerwig (“Little Women”) and co-written by her and her indie film-making husband Noah Baumbach (“The Squid and the Whale”). It begins with Barbie (Margot Robbie) living in the pink, idyllic, matriarchal “Barbieland” where we first meet her and her friends based on the many iterations of “Barbie,” including a President Barbie (Issa Rae), residing in a pink White House. In the form of Robbie, Barbie is very nice and polite, a Stepford wife in the making, you might say. She is “Stereotypical Barbie.” She has diverse friends, including Black, Asian, Latina and trans Barbies.The original Barbie is admittedly an impossible standard for most little girls, ...

Councilor Kendra Lara’s crash: The police body camera screengrabs

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:10:16 GMT

“Is she alive?”That was the first comment made by the 83-year-old owner of the Jamaica Plain home where City Councilor Kendra Lara slammed the Honda Civic she was driving into at 4:27 p.m. on June 30. It was all picked up on police body camera video.The owner was stunned to see a car almost in her house, but she first asked about the victims.Lara’s 7-year-old son suffered a bad laceration over his eyebrow and both the District 6 councilor and her son were taken to Children’s Hospital. The police body camera footage released late Thursday shows police calmly helping Lara and her son first along with firefighters and EMTs and then investigating the crash second.A police officer takes a cell phone photo of Councilor Kendra Lara’s crash. (BPD body camera video screengrab.)Lara, according to the audio on the footage, lied to police when she said “No” she did not have her license with her adding: “I can bring it,” she says on video.Tha...

Howie Carr: COVID Panic infected freedom of choice

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:10:16 GMT

Where do I go to get my reputation back?Back in May 2021 I was canceled from YouTube, and not for the first time.“Our team has reviewed your content and, unfortunately, we think it violates our medical misinformation policy.”The charge: that I had discussed “The Non-Existent Flu Season” with a Colorado ophthalmologist and online commentator, Dr. Brian Joondeph.The reason we discussed it on my radio show was simple. Because just as the Panic was ginned up and hundreds of thousands of Americans were being reported as victims, suddenly, virtually no one was dying from influenza.At the time, I would occasionally interview Joondeph – usually about the CDC’s own statistics. Believe me, we were very careful, because both of us knew what the Deep State was capable of doing to heretics.One recurring theme on my show back then was the fact that to keep the Panic going, the Democrats were not telling the truth about COVID death statistics.Remember the motorcyclist killed in an Orlando traffic ...

Prep School All-Scholastics and league All-Stars

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:10:16 GMT

Ari Bloom (Waring) MBIL boys lacrosseAlessandra Cristiani (Portsmouth Abbey) EIL girls tennisGiulia Colarusso (Groton) ISL girls lacrosseCaitlyn Dion (Pingree) EIL softballKofi Fordjour (Roxbury Latin) ISL boys trackJonathan Garrity (Newman) MBIL boys tennisJackie Giordano (Brooks) ISL softballJosiah Gomes (Belmont Hill) ISL boys trackZuriel Jimenez (St. George’s) ISL girls trackJaylin Johnson (Chapel Hill-Chauncy Hall) MBIL boys lacrosseDani Longuemare (Portsmouth Abbey) EIL softballShannon Mahoney (Montrose) IGC girls lacrosseGrayson McClements (Noble and Greenough) ISL boys lacrosseRiley McClure (Pingree) EIL boys lacrosseBrady Miller (Belmont Hill) ISL baseballLydia Morris-Kliment (Winsor) EIL girls trackCole Oberg (Roxbury Latin) ISL boys tennisObi Onwudiwe (Portsmouth Abbey) EIL boys trackMatthew Parella (Portsmouth Abbey) EIL baseballNathan Rothschild (Concord Academy) EIL boys tennisAyla Sahin (Tabor) ISL girls trackMariana Shulman (Newman) IGC girls tennisJoshua Smith...

‘Closer to Vermeer’ a feast for art-lovers

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:10:16 GMT

What makes Johannes Vermeer aka “the Sphinx of Deft” so unique? Is it the way the artist, who lived from 1632 to 1675, bathes his subjects in natural light? The faces of his famous, frequently female subjects appear to glow from within. Is it the complexity of his grasp of perspective? Vermeer’s tiled floors look like mathematical experiments. Was anyone as fond of tiled floors (and Turkish carpets) as Vermeer? We’ve seen “Girl with the Pearl Earring,” a 2003 fiction film about Vermeer (Colin Firth) and the young servant girl (Scarlett Johansson), who was his model and assistant for the painting of the same name. “Close to Vermeer” is a record of a Vermeer exhibit that gathers together 37 Vermeers from Europe and the U.S., including one “The Girl with Flute,” whose authenticity is disputed.The film largely follows Gregor Weber, who describes himself as a scientist and serves as the director of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Weber is a year from retirement. But first he wa...

Tepid ‘Theater Camp’ not ready for opening night

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:10:16 GMT

I’m sure “Theater Camp” sounded like a good idea. Why not make a film, a mockumentary in fact, that was a throwback to those old movies in which Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney save the day by “putting on a show.” The number one problem for “Theater Camp” is evident from the start. To begin with, naming your theater camp in the Adirondacks “Adirond ACTS” is not funny. The line between clever and just plain stupid is fine, indeed. But it must be respected.When Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris) faints and fall into a coma, her supposedly (but not really) business savvy son Troy (Jimmy Tatro, TV’s “Home Economics”) takes over her theater camp, where the artistic directors are Amos (Ben Platt, who also co-wrote the original songs) and Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon). Amos is gay. He and Rebecca-Diane are best friends (Platt and Gordon are childhood friends). Glenn (Noah Galvin, Platt’s real-life partner) is the underappreciated technical supervisor and teacher of stagecraft (i.e...

DePetris: Can the U.S. and U.N. do anything about Haiti?

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:10:16 GMT

Last week, the United Nations Security Council, a body typically riven by substantive disagreements among its permanent member states, managed to come together on Haiti. The small, impoverished nation of 11.5 million has been in a desperate state even before its former president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in his home two years ago. The U.S. and Russia don’t agree on much these days, but both are sufficiently like-minded to call for an international intervention force that would help the Haitian National Police take back control of the country.Unfortunately, while most recognize some form of outside involvement is necessary, nobody wants to lead the effort. This includes the United States, which has its own controversial history dabbling in Haitian politics. (The U.S. occupied the country for nearly 20 years early in the 20th century.) The Biden administration has hoped to persuade Canada to take ownership of an intervention, but Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has demur...

Dear Abby: Aging mom refuses to discuss the inevitable

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:10:16 GMT

Dear Abby: My mom turns 85 this year. When my father died of congestive heart failure 10 years ago, our family had a clear understanding of Dad’s wishes about the end-of-life care he wanted. We knew he didn’t want “heroic measures,” like a feeding tube or to be on a ventilator. Since Dad had been sick for a few years and he was open to these discussions, Mom felt confident making choices for his care when he could no longer communicate his wishes.With Mom, it is a completely different story. She refuses to have conversations about this with my siblings and me, and accuses us of being “morbid.” Although she has a will, she has made no decisions about a proxy or for her care. Do you have any suggestions for how we can help Mom feel more comfortable having these conversations and documenting her wishes? — Loving, Not Morbid, DaughterDear Daughter: Offer your mother resources that normalize discussions about end-of-life wishes and care. Helping ...

1-year-old killed in North County shooting identified

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:10:16 GMT

FALLBROOK, Calif. -- A 1-year-old girl who was accidentally shot and killed by her 3-year-old sibling has been identified, authorities said.Jessa Osmera was announced as the deceased, Lt. Joseph Jarjura with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department said in a news release Thursday.The shooting occurred Monday around 7:30 a.m. in the 1100 block of South Stagecoach Lane, according to law enforcement.When deputies arrived on scene, they found Osmera with a head injury. Carlsbad Unified School District passes ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging’ plan Authorities determined Osmera's sibling got ahold of an unsecured gun and shot the 1-year-old.The victim was taken to a hospital where she died from her injuries, the sheriff's department said. There were no other injuries in the shooting.Detectives continue to investigate as no arrests have been made at this time.The name of the 3-year-old will not be released.Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call the Hom...