Fingers

If you're a big fan, you already knew what was coming in the season finale. But it didn't make it any easier -- or less heartbreaking -- to watch. The majority of the Season 3 "Downton" finale, or the "Christmas special" as its called in the U.K., took place in Scotland, where the whole family (minus Branson) visits the Highlands home of the Dowager's niece, Susan, and her husband, Shrimpy. Most of the trip included bagpipes, hunting, more bagpipes and Scottish reel dancing. But more on that later (and more on O'Brien meeting her Scottish lady's maid doppelganger)

Second baseman Alexi Casilla continues to improve from the finger injury he suffered Sunday at Tampa Bay, but he is once again out of the lineup with Ryan Flaherty earning the start Wednesday against the Los Angeles Angels. “It still hurts a little bit,” Casilla said. “It'll be sore. I haven't thrown yet. I'm going to throw and see how I feel.” The switch-hitter said he is having trouble gripping the ball and applying pressure when he throws. He threw once Tuesday and was going to attempt to throw again before Wednesday's game.

Regarding job growth in Maryland, it seems to me that Gov. Martin O'Malley's plan is to keep his fingers crossed and hope that federal money keeps flowing into the state. The strategy has worked before because Maryland is home to federal agencies and installations that have kept the funding spigot open wide. It has also allowed Mr. O'Malley and other demagogues to engage in class warfare and rail against "the rich" and "big corporations" because the feds will always keep Maryland afloat, right?

Orioles second baseman Alexi Casilla will be absent from the starting lineup for a second straight game because of a finger injury suffered in the ninth inning of Sunday's win at Tampa Bay. Casilla said X-rays on his right index finger were negative, but he tore a ligament and is still waiting for the swelling to die down. He tried to throw Tuesday and still had difficulty. “I was trying today,” Casilla said. “I just threw one, and that's it.” Ryan Flaherty will start in Casilla's place again Tuesday against the Los Angeles Angels and bat ninth.

Polly Purcell was hurting."It was the worst pain I've ever had," said the Mount Hebron junior.That can happen when you break two fingers.Field hockey is not a sport in which injuries are common, although plenty of bumps and bruises go with the game.A free hit, however, can be a dangerous situation. Opposing players are 5 yards away, trying to stop the ball with their sticks. Many times the free hit goes airborne, and the defensive players are just lucky to get their bodies out of the way.Purcell wasn't so fortunate last Friday when the Vikings played host to Glenelg.

Q. My husband works in construction finishing Sheet-rock. Sandpaper and spackle dust dry his hands out so the tips of his fingers are often split and painful. A friend suggested wrapping the split fingertips with electrical tape. Amazingly, his fingers healed in a couple of days. This is a trick of the trade I thought you would like to know. A.Thanks for this remedy. People also report success putting Vaseline, Vicks VapoRub, Bag Balm or Udder Cream on their hands at night and covering them with cotton gloves.

"Art upsets," as Cubist painter Georges Braque said once. That truth still holds in Bolton Hill, as Maryland Institute, College of Art student Steve Jones found out yesterday when his five "Fingers of Fear" caused a tempest.In the latest skirmish between art and propriety, Jones, 22, was asked to remove one of the fingers in the pink ceramic and concrete sculpture he had installed on a median strip near the institute in time for Parents Weekend on Sunday. One of the fingers, which has a condom over it, could easily be mistaken for something else, institute officials decided.

A Glen Burnie woman was injured Wednesday when she tried to grab a knife from one of three men who robbed her of $5 in Glen Burnie early Christmas morning, county police said.Jennifer Marie Wolfe, 24, was treated for cuts to her fingers at North Arundel Hospital and released.Wolfe told police she was walking on Crain Highway near Nolpark Court about 1: 45 a.m. when three men approached. One pulled out a knife and demanded money, police said.Wolfe gave the men $5 and a pack of cigarettes and then grabbed at the knife and cut her fingers, police said.

A 25-year-old Taneytown man, who severely cut the ends of two left fingers while using an electric wood shaper at his house about 3:30 p.m. yesterday, was flown to the Raymond Curtis Hand Center at Union Memorial Hospital by a state police MedEvac helicopter.Eric Peterson, of the 3600 block of Walnut Grove Road, was taken to the Northwest Middle School for the flight by a Taneytown medic unit after paramedics treated him at the scene.His condition was not immediately available, and emergency officials said they had no information on how the injury occurred.

It's been a few days since the last terrifying food report. I believe a study showed that eating too much turkey can cause severe sneezing attacks if you fail to first remove the feathers.So if you are looking for something to worry about, you might consider the concerns of Hank Blumenthal.The Blumenthals dine out a lot, and Blumenthal says he has noticed something that bothered him enough to bring it to my attention and suggest that the public be made aware of it."Have you ever gone to the men's room in a nice restaurant," he says, "and observed how few men wash their hands before leaving?"

One day after a strong defensive and offensive performance by Alexi Casilla, the reserve second baseman's name wasn't in the Orioles' starting lineup Monday. It likely would have been, but Casilla jammed his right index finger in a ninth-inning steal attempt Sunday against the Tampa Bay Rays. Although he was supposed to test the finger while playing catch before Monday's contest, Casilla said pre-game that he didn't think he would be able to start without dealing with some pain.

It took almost 56 years, but I've finally mastered my table manners, and in the process learned something about the curious and controversial history of the fork. And all it took was two hours of bearing up under Carol Haislip's patrician gaze as she waved the silver instrument of torture with the twisted prong known as a "butter pick" through the air, perilously close to my throat. Possibly, the danger was all in my mind. It's true that I lack the higher, lower and intermediate social graces - I am a child of the lawless '70s, after all. And it's equally true that I had never fully grasped silverware's potential for inflicting bodily harm until I attended "Fish Forks and Finger Bowls," a seminar that teaches table manners to adults.

February can be the cruelest month. In the midst of the cold, gray winter bleakness, it's tempting to daydream of a simpler life without hard work, heavy lifting or personal sacrifice, where nobody ever has to pay more in taxes yet all necessities of modern transportation — from airport runways and port dredging to eight-lane highways and bus lines — are magically provided. In other words, how easy it would be right now to be a Maryland state senator or delegate opposed to raising the state's gas tax from 1992 levels.

Et cetera Loyola trio are Preseason All-Big East in women's lacrosse Loyola junior Marlee Paton and sophomores Annie Thomas (John Carroll) and Sydney Thomas were unanimous selections to the Preseason All-Big East Conference women's lacrosse team, while the Greyhounds were picked to finish second in the league's coaches poll, the conference office announced Wednesday. Syracuse, the 2012 NCAA runner-up, earned all eight possible first-place votes in the pole, while Loyola garnered one. Coaches could not vote for their own team.

Brenda Frese wasn't about to let No. 10 Maryland relive its indignation of three years ago against Towson. That's when her nationally ranked Terrapins came to the Towson Center for an early season tuneup only to watch the Tigers pull off perhaps the biggest upset in school history. This time around, there would be no letdowns. Alyssa Thomas had a game-high 23 points and 13 rebounds in just 23 minutes, as Maryland held host Towson without a basket for spans of more than 8 minutes in the first half and 6 minutes in the second, building an insurmountable early lead on its way to an 88-43 win. "Different team.

Before threatening to shoot the employees at a Mount Vernon art supply store and stealing $335 in cash, the robbery suspect made a crucial mistake, police say: touching two newspaper boxes outside of the store. Kevin Younger, 50, is now facing federal robbery and gun charges after police traced the prints to him, an identification bolstered by witnesses who picked him out of photo lineups as the suspect, records show.  The robbery occurred on Sept. 27, 2011, in the first block of W. Chase St. at the Utrecht Art Supply store.

Writer-director James Toback is equally euphoric and enraged over the reaction to French director Jacques Audiard's The Beat That My Heart Skipped, which opened Friday at the Charles Theatre. Euphoric, because Audiard has remade Toback's one-of-a-kind cult movie Fingers (1978) in a way that honors its source with its own verve and originality. Enraged, because some of the new movie's fans, who never got Toback's work, have contended that it improves on Toback's film by making the plot more "realistic."

Seven-time American League batting champion Rod Carew and the major-league career record holder for saves, Rollie Fingers, are expected to be in the forefront when the 1991 inductees to baseball's Hall of Fame are announced tonight.Both players were on the ballot for the first time this year.In 19 seasons with the Minnesota Twins and California Angels, Carew posted a lifetime batting average of .328 with 3,053 hits. He was AL Rookie of the Year in 1967 and Most Valuable Player in 1977.Fingers, who played for the Oakland Athletics, San Diego Padres and Milwaukee Brewers, recorded 341 saves in 17 seasons.

Nearly two weeks into the preseason, Ravens Pro Bowl outside linebacker Terrell Suggs said the replacement referees would have little impact on the outcome of games if the Ravens performed well. "We [the players] get paid to make plays and if we do our jobs, then we take the game out of the hands of the officials," Suggs said. "The outcome of a game should never come down to a referee's call. " Amen. The injured Suggs hasn't been able to play this year, but maybe he should talk to his teammates before they play the New England Patriots here Sunday night.

Once again, The Sun laments the Baltimore City schools failure to improve delivery of service ("Absence of achievement," July 18). Another in a series of hand-wringing postures questioning why the schools don't find a way to reach out to children who display chronic absenteeism, or inability to control their behavior in the classroom. When will the folks who continue to write these editorials realize that the problem isn't entirely the school system's? Has anyone looked at the background of the at-risk children in question?