Here locally in Berkeley Springs, tree leaves are all turning green. Even redbud is now mostly green. In the fall, the leaves will all become red and yellow before falling to the ground, In tropical Latin America, the whole process unfolds just in the last 2 weeks of December, when leaves all fall off, coming back again by early January.
Wild flowers of every color are now emerging all around West Virginia.
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Trump administration ends Miami Catholic Charities funding. Here's why
What had Leo said that Donald Trump considered so offensive? He had issued a strong message urging leaders to stay out of wars and avoid self-idolatry, which Trump took as a personal insult.
NY Times, Surgeon Who Removed Wrong Organ From Patient Is Charged in His Death
Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky tried to persuade his colleagues in the operating room that the liver he had removed from a 70-year-old patient was a spleen. A liver is a fairly large organ, a spleen, not so much. They really don't look the same at all. Even you and I could tell the difference. Of course, without a liver, the patient died. The careless surgeon has been rightly charged with the patient's death.
In Monteverde, where mist showers the forests and tourists zip line through the canopy, a few of those cast out by the United States have slowly built a fragile sense of home.
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Seen below is one of many Spanish interpretation requests that I can no longer fulfill. No need for Spanish interpretation right here in Berkeley Springs, but I am apparently still on the DC roster. Interpreting was very interesting part-time work that I performed for several years after returning from the Peace Corps in Honduras. But being sworn to secrecy, I cannot talk much about it. Interpreters are witnesses to a great many intimate human dramas. Some have been so impactful that they are hard to forget, including matters of life and death taking place in hospitals, courts, private homes, and jails. Here is one memorable case: a little girl was asked to point out on an outline of a naked human figure just where her step-father had been touching her. I said that in Spanish while looking at her, not at the drawing. But you can probably imagine where where she actually pointed.
Of course, living now in West Virginia, I did not respond to the following job request: You are requested to be available for a 1-hour job in Washington, DC on April 17, 2026, at 10:00 AM, with job # 1779326. Be available for the job in Washington, DC.
When I was working as a Spanish medical interpreter back in Washington, DC, not so very long ago, none of the other interpreters were native English speakers. All were native Spanish speakers, as English speakers were simply unable to learn Spanish well enough to pass very rigorous oral tests. That is probably also true for interpreters of other languages. Most native English speakers just don't have incentives to totally master another language, since English is now the universal language. I happen to have learned Spanish at an early age. A few Spanish-English interpreters I met in Washington, DC, had been raised in bilingual households in Puerto Rico. Interpreters of other languages had quite infrequent work, as here in the US, Spanish is the most common second language because of our geographical location. Sometimes, I was given assignments in error for Portuguese speakers from Brazil, but since the 2 languages are similar, we were able to manage. I still miss that very interesting and important work.
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