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On a happier note, I'm passing on to you a link I received to the bigger museums and art collections of the world. Enjoy!

This will link you with the biggest museums, galleries and art collections in the world...

https://artsandculture.google.com/partner

05/15/21 12:11 AM

#5649

Stay safe over there Judy.

Sorry, I didnt mean for my picture to imply anything about rockets. My rockets are purely hobby rockets and operated under safety rules of NAR and Tripoli and only for the fun of a saturday afternoon.

05/16/21 10:59 AM

#5650

Hi Bruce!

Honest - your picture hugging a rocket never entered my mind as being an "attack" on me!!! And besides, unlike you, when I think "rocket" or "missile", I do not get a mental PICTURE. What I get is a SOUND. Or plural, SOUNDS. First, the siren warning, then the boom or loud thud. Like the thump when a firework is fired....

Since 2018, I live in a city of 95,000-ish people, Modiin, and our last warning siren was on Thursday, the 13th. However, every night we are treated to the sounds of nearby booms, some louder than others, usually barrages lasting several minutes, and several times a night. Modiin is not significant in any way, really, and the terrorist rockets seem to have become more accurate. Ummmm, well actually, MOST of the places devastated by rockets are not "significant", just residential.

BTW, If you want to read about a pretty cool strategic move on Israel's part, google (try on ynet news English) "The IDF land incursion that never came" . It was positively brilliant!! This article gives all the details.

Hope you have a great weekend. How's your weather? It is gorgeous here.

05/16/21 11:02 AM

#5651

Forgot to say "THANK YOU"

05/16/21 04:16 PM

#5652

Judy I am impressed and amazed by Iron Dome. So little time to react and such phenomenal precision! The IDF must have known something like this could happen - barrages of thousands of rockets necessitating thousands of interceptors. I am also amazed or rather outraged that even as Israelis warn Gazans where they are aiming, trying to hit military hardware and not people while Hamas deliberately tries to hit towns, homes, the airport, that some in this crazy world prefer to side with that. Nauseating.

My question is, how does Hamas assemble all those rockets, and install all those launchers? I know they put them right in the middle of densely populated areas, putting the civilian population at risk and in fact getting them killed. I remember when the IDF literally forced Jews to leave homes they had built in Gaza. The hope was that the Gaza residents and Hamas the government they elected would turn the Mediterranean beachfront into hotels, resorts, and so on. What did they do? Pumped raw sewage into the sea. That's been the modus operandum in Gaza literally and metaphorically.

05/17/21 10:10 AM

#5653

Hi Paul -

Yep, the technology of the Iron Dome is very impressive. In order to try to overcome its 90+% success rate, Hamas is now employing the crude (but inevitably successful) counter-strategy of throwing over 100 missiles at one target at the same time to overwhelm the Iron Dome. This has had limited success, in that a few missiles have gotten through and done considerable damage to property. HOWEVER, Israelis have been thoroughly indoctrinated about how to protect themselves when they hear a siren, and loss of life has been miraculously low. When I lived in Beersheva, I had 60 seconds to get to a "safe space" before a rocket could land (if it got through the Iron Dome); I now feel rich that I have here in Modiin another 30 seconds! When my daughter was doing a course in Sderot years ago, she had only 45 seconds altogether to find safety..... Beginning in 1995, I believe, all construction of new homes and apartments had to have a "safe room" in the home or apartment. My personal nightmare is being caught going somewhere in my car, or outside, too far from a safe space or underground shelter, so I am stuck at home, reliving the recent COVID lockdown all over again......

All that said, I just read an article on ynet that there are several former IDF soldiers who operated the Iron Domes during their army service who have become sick with various cancers. This needs to be investigated like pronto, even though it seems unlikely.

05/17/21 07:53 PM

#5654

Judy,

We are all glad you are able to stay safe.

It didnt occur to me that my picture could be a mistake until I hit send the first time and saw it. So I quickly updated the text..

Thats an awful lot of rockets. Its hard to imagine that they are producing those rockets in Gaza. Should we assume that the bulk of the rockets come from Iran or from Russia? And what pays for all those rockets. I assume Hamas doesnt have oil to sell?

As for weather here, its been pretty nice here the last week, and expected to be pretty reasonable for the next week, but warmer.

I will see if I can figure out how to change my picture. this time. Well I tried. But now I get two photos instead.

05/18/21 08:47 AM

#5655

Hi Bruce,

I know that we have gurus to direct you how to change your picture. Maybe Ira? The updated picture is really nice!!

Well, it can be assumed with a pretty high degree of accuracy that the rockets come from Iran. I don't hear that Russia is involved. Paying for the rockets? Hmmm. Every country that sends support to Iran pays for the rockets! And BTW, very little of money that is sent to Gaza to help its citizens, to pay for hospitals, to supply food, very little actually goes to these goals. Most of the money is taken by Hamas and goes into Hamas pockets.

I totally lost it a little while ago. Heard just a snippet that a reporter was saying about foreign powers looking for "symmetry" comparing Hamas bombing versus Israel's. I started yelling at the TV (never a good sign for me) and waving my arms. SYMMETRY??!! How can any rational human speak of symmetry when Hamas and the jihadis aim to destroy residential areas and kill as many people as they can, while the aim of Israel is to destroy terrorist infrastructure, arsenals, tunnels, etc. and kill as many TERRORIST LEADERS as possible? That isn't symmetry, is it? Am I missing something?

Sorry for the rant. My brother's kibbutz (David Holtzer WHHS 1967) was attacked several times today while I was watching TV....... They are fine, but I am very tense....

05/18/21 04:09 PM

#5656

Pardon me for interposing myself here but first Bruce I think that if you navigate to your own page by just picking yourself from the list of our entire menagerie there are links to upload photos and little camera icons to pick which one sums you up to the Class of 1964.

As far as Hamas goes I hear they were elected. Same for various other tyrants all over the world which tells me that there are a lot of fools among the human race. There's a song that goes "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" but some on this planet have a lot more fools than anyone deserves. Voting, democracy don't work if vast numbers of people don't know or care what's in their own best interest, and allow themselves to be guided by greed, racism, hatred, and lies. We are lucky here in America where political candidates would never even dream of lying or appealing to racism to garner votes.

05/19/21 09:28 AM

#5657

Paul, When Hamas was elected in 2005 (literally and sadly a lifetime ago for many Gazans), their platform was humanitarian, and one of its "wings" was deveoted to charity work. They certainly did not campaign on their terrorist "wing". I truly believe that the vast majority of people who voted for Hamas back then were duped, and not fools. That said, they have seldom stood up to these tyrants and bullies when their true face was known. I am sure that there were opportunities for the terrorized people of Gaza to stand up against Hamas, but were seldom, if ever, taken, so the tyrant just became stronger. Try not to judge the ordinary folks of Gaza.....

05/19/21 07:12 PM

#5658

Judy of course you know that these conversations are completely public, I know it too, and might as well say that you have a more compassionate heart than I do. Maybe that's because I live in a country where there are people who have a similar stance as Hamas towards "the other" - former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer pointed out on NPR today that Hamas advocates the murder of Jews world-wide - and they vote. The worst mass-murder of Jews in the history of America was carried out at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, not far from where I live, Philadelphia. I won't say the murderer's name and I won't name the politician that he said he admires. But yes we've got 'em here. If you can't read it, the Jan 6 insurrectionist's shirt reads "Camp Auschwitz."

I will say that every situation is different and listening to Dermer draw the same line you draw between the Palestinian people and Hamas that you draw I have to admit that I too must sympathize with the suffering of the Palestinian people and realize that maybe they have had no real choice in elections in Gaza. I understand that one of Hamas' ways of dealing with dissidents is throwing them off rooftops. It is Hamas that has given them no choice and has also given Israel no choice.

05/20/21 10:07 AM

#5659

Paull, were you ever in Israel for a visit?

05/20/21 03:46 PM

#5660

Judy no I haven't. I know nothing of what it's really like. Mexico and Nassau, that's it for my foreign travel.

05/21/21 10:13 AM

#5661

Paul, I think most Americans do not get out of the States often. You are blessed with so many wonderful vacation spots at home!

05/23/21 04:28 PM

#5662

Gail Weintraub (Stern)

A sad post. I have just learned that our classmate, Irving Crandall, died in his sleep last night. I will post again once I learn more. I join classmates in remembering Irv and sending condolences to his family. May his memory always be a blessing.

05/23/21 09:42 PM

#5663

Thanks Gail. Sorry to hear about Irving Crandall. He was a good dude. At least like in the song "The Gambler" - "The best you can hope for is to die in your sleep."

Judy - it looks like the world is an unsafe place. The beach in New Jersey will have to be the extent of my vacationing for a while.

05/24/21 09:37 AM

#5664

Gail Weintraub (Stern)

Paul and others--

Please post memories of Irv Crandall on his In Memory page. Thank you.

05/24/21 10:29 AM

#5665

Becky Payne (Shockley)

I was very sad to hear of Irv Crandall's death. He lived not far from us in St Paul, and John and I had several pleasant meals with him in past years. I always found him to be an interesting and kind person. We had not heard from him for quite a while, and he did not respond to an email I sent him a few months ago, so I wondered how he was doing. I did attend a lovely memorial service several years ago for Suzanne, his second wife, who had developed Alzheimer's. I also met his sister from Cincinnati at at that time.

05/24/21 12:11 PM

#5666

Dale Gieringer

Sorry to hear about Irv Crandall. Thoughtful and good-humored fellow. We were in classes together most every year. His younger brother Richard dropped by to visit us some years ago. Sursum ad summum omnes.

05/24/21 12:30 PM

#5667

Ira Goldberg

One of the nice, fairly quiet gents in our class. I'm so sorry to learn of Irv's passing. His face came to mind immediately.

06/12/21 03:37 PM

#5668

Hello WHHS,

Seems like the message forum has been rather quiet recently.

So this is a call for new topics to enliven this forum.

Nearly all have moved into retirement now, resulting in a shift of interests from those professional topics of 40 to 50 years to some new topics such as hobbies, volunteerism, writing that next novel, caring for grand kids or aging parents. Possibly also involving selecting a new location for a down sized retirement home.

Let us hear from all of you, what are you up to now? Whats your favorite thing? How do you plan to celebrate your next holiday. How about July 4th? Where will you be? How will you celebrate the biirth of a nation where the design of the government was specifically focused on insuring democracy for the people rather than being run by the whims of the "King"?

What about favorite books, movies, vacation locations, books or music?

What special thing you learned at WHHS that made you specially happy you had learned it in your later life?

Tell us all about your favorite pets. What are their favorite behaviors, or tricks, or abilities. :)

Some of you may wish to discuss new boyfriends, girlfriends, or what your spouse is up to now.

Want to brag about your parents or grandparents or someone in your family tree? My dad was dating my mom while he was learning to fly a P38 during WW II. He was a naval aviator at Parris Island I think. Looks like they got married the minute the war was over.

Want to talk about highly interesting people in your life? Or someone who was your most significant mentor? Or a significant event in your life?

Anyway, Lets hear from all of you WHHS 64! Everyone included! Pick a topic and tell us about it!

Bruce (apparently named after a Scottish King 1306-1329?).

06/12/21 05:15 PM

#5669

Well Bruce seeing your photo makes me wonder what you and others have to say about what we called UFO's, now called UAP's - something like Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. I hear they scoot away fast - obviously if they are intelligent either living or AI they don't want to fall into our hands, after having witnessed what we do to one another on this planet. I have mentioned before that only light travels at the speed of light and the nearest solar system to ours is 4 1/2 light years away. If something could go at 10% of the speed of light it would take 45 years - at 18,600 miles per second. At 1% of the speed of light or 1,860 miles per second, 450 years. Can we imagine a vehicle going 1,860'miles per second? I have read that if we want to think and talk about this stuff we have to talk about many generations of people traveling along, with diapers, beer, and of course a way to watch the Super Bowl back on Earth, not to mention toilet paper. So for me, the idea that the more extraordinary the claim is, the more convincing the proof must be remains in effect. I think what the Navy pilots saw were more likely advanced drones than extra-terrestrials.

About the country - we have to remember the Pilgrims etc came to get away from a tyrannical monarchy. The founders did create a democracy but with slavery. This place practiced slavery for about as long as it's been outlawed. Right now some appear to favor a return to monarchy, with a king as you mentioned, and to hell with free and fair elections, and although I doubt slavery will be made legal again white supremacy is ascendant with that crowd. Evidently it never left. But the experiment in democracy is hanging on, although in many places only by a thread.

As far as what I do when not at work - still banging around on the gee-tar

06/12/21 08:05 PM

#5670

Way To Rock Paul!

As for UFOs, etc, 1) a 4 year flight may seem impractical to us humans, but nothing for a drone, and perhaps nothing for living creatures with different evolutionary history. 2) As I have said before, living creatures on different planets in different solar systems may experience different forms of physics and therefore have developed a broader understanding and experience, and 3) perhaps the intelligent life forms on different planets in different solar systems could well have focused their energies on more useful and constructive technologies and less on war and greed 4) Seems to me that when we observe acceleration that seems impractical to us, it just means that we are observing mastery of a technology most of us humans are not familiar with.

06/12/21 09:07 PM

#5671