Azaleas are blooming.

 

         Azaleas are of all colors here are blooming right now.

The weather is quite mild with so many wild flowers blooming and the trees all leafing out. Spring is such a wonderful season, a season of hope, new growth, 

and the promise of nature's bounty.

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The Hippocratic Oath is a foundational ancient Greek ethical code for physicians, whose basic principle is "do no harm.".

A surgeon who has kept on killing his patients, as mentioned in the last posting, needs to be arrested and prevented from ever practicing medicine again. 

Son of 2nd patient who died after Florida surgeon operated on her describes family’s heartbreak: ‘It’s just not right’

On the previous posting, I wrote that a Florida surgeon named Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky

had tried to persuade his colleagues in the operating room that the liver he had just removed from a 70-year-old patient was actually a spleen. A liver and a spleen are of different sizes and don't look at all the same. That patient died and he was not the only one dying after surgery was performed by Dr. Shaknovsky. There was a second fatality and there may have been even more. Shaknovsky has been charged with these patients' deaths and must no longer be allowed to practice medicine. He now belongs in prison after actually killing his patients instead of improving their health and wellbeing. 

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8 children killed in mass shooting in Shreveport, Louisiana, police say

SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) — Police say the Louisiana gunman who shot up two houses early Sunday had killed seven of his own children and wounded their mother, as well as killing another child. Shreveport Police Department spokesperson Chris Bordelon said Sunday evening that the suspect, Shamar Elkins, shot the mother first and then killed eight children, seven of whom were his own. The victims ranged in age from 1 to about 12 years old. The mother and another woman are in critical condition. Elkins died after a police pursuit.

On the subject of mass killings, as per my own research, mass killings in the US and Canada have always been carried out by individuals born male, though occasionally by those born male who later "transitioned" to present themselves as female. I have never found a case of a mass murder committed by someone born female. Can someone actually change their birth gender? There are hormone treatments and surgery, but the brain remains in the birth gender. 

As for the "right to bear arms," that so-called "right" urgently needs to be modified for the modern age, with all remaining gun sales outlets, like those right here in Berkeley Springs, given a subsidy to shut down the business. Guns are becoming more dangerous in an increasingly mobile and crowded world. Gun are not even needed any more for hunting, because hunting is no longer required to provide our food. Let the shrinking number of wild animals still occupying our forests remain living there freely. We really don't need to kill them. If gun enthusiasts like to fire weapons, they can always do so at a shooting gallery, as in Switzerland. 

Nor are guns needed for self-defense in the home, since most end up killing the occupants instead. It's actually much safer not to have any weapons at all at home. Most thieves now attack online, not by invading private homes. The man in Shreveport who killed 7 of his children and another child and wounded his own wife, could not have harmed so many without a gun. His gun did not protect his family at all, in fact it actually killed them. Without a gun, he might have become angry with his wife, perhaps hurting her or one of the children, but he would not have killed anyone. 

The National Rifle Association is woefully out-of-date in opposing any and all gun control legislation. 

According to Google: 

The National Rifle Association (NRA) is considered conservative and is deeply aligned with the Republican Party. Since the late 1970s, it has focused on promoting gun rights, heavily supporting conservative politicians and opposing gun control legislation, with about 77% of its members identifying as Republican.

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  Now on to Africa with Pope Leo.

While traveling in Africa right now, Pope Leo has continued speaking out, saying his time on the continent offers a message of peace that the world needs to hear. During a peace meeting in Bamenda, Cameroon, Leo said:  “The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants, yet it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters." On hearing those words, Donald Trump has taken great offense. Why would Donald Trump simply assume that Pope Leo was talking about him?  

Pope Leo says remarks about world being 'ravaged by a ​handful of tyrants' were not aimed at Trump: report

Meanwhile, President Trump has continued to believe that Pope Leo's actually was talking about him, though Leo has denied it. So Trump has now taken funding away from Miami Catholic Charities in retaliation. Catholic convert VP JD Vance has been put in an awkward position in this feud of Trump's own making, but Vance needs to step forward now as a peacemaker. Trump must remove the funding block that he has placed on Catholic Charities, taking away $11 million in funding in his anger over Leo's remarks, as many children and refugees are now suffering as a result. 

          Meanwhile, thousands have haled the Pope in Cameroon.

When I was traveling in Africa, I noted considerable enthusiasm for Catholicism there.  

Google says: Catholicism in Africa is experiencing rapid growth, with the continent holding over 20% of the world's Catholics (approx. 288 million by 2026). It is the fastest-growing region for the Church, driven by high fertility rates and young populations, particularly in nations like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria. The Church is highly vibrant, often integrating local culture, and is a significant provider of education and healthcare.

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Before color photography and film allowed realistic depictions of everyday life, painters through the ages bore witness about how people actually lived.

These intimate paintings by American artist Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) are now on display at the National Gallery in Washington, DC.