I put my fingers in the Mediterranean at Caesarea

Roman aqueduct

I finally get to see a Roman aqueduct. This one brought water 5 miles to the city of Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast of modern Israel. Herod the Great had his palace there. He also built a deep-water port, a 3,500-4,000 seat theater, and a hippodrome (horse-racing stadium). Plus, the beach is great. Archeologists figure that 35,000 to 40,000 people lived there. How do they figure that? They multiply the capacity of the theater by ten.

Inside Jerusalem

This photo shows a street inside the Old City of Jerusalem in the Arab Quarter. This is a sharp contrast to the scenes of glorious buildings we usually see. Notice the timbers shoring up the arch--this is common in the Arab Quarter. The city is ruled by Israelis who routinely neglect maintenance in Arab areas.
Jerusalem is a 3-dimensional city where many people live and share the space with tourists and religious authorities. The streets are negotiated by people on foot and by small carts. The many steps are only minor impediments. Shops line the main streets which are not much wider than this one.

Field near Bethlehem

The shepherds could have been tending their sheep in a field like this. (The olive trees are a later addition.) See how stoney the ground is. Every part of Israel we saw was stoney like this. In most areas the stones had been gathered up into walls or to terrace the hilly lands.

Finally, a photo

I have been resisting posting my photo, but here is one. Taken at the Mediterrean shore of Israel at the Roman ruins of Caesarea Maritima, an upper-class city built by Herod the Great.

Thought inspired by Lincoln's birthday

Becoming older has provided me with interesting ties with the past. On Lincoln's birthday, I remembered that D's great-grandmother Whippple, whom I first met when she was 100 (and alert enough to place me in her family), said that when she was a child she saw Lincoln's funeral train as it came through Illinois. I wasn't born until 70 years after that event, but it is real to me thru a person I knew.

Jerusalem 2

This is a familiar view. It shows women's section of the Western Wall or Wailing Wall. No one was wailing when we were there--they were real quiet. This wall is actually a huge retaining wall started by the Romans to create a level area at the top of the large hill Jerusalem sits on. Look at the bottom rows of stone, the large ones. Those are the Roman ones. Above this was the 'second temple' of Biblical reknown.

Jerusalem 2

Jerusalem 1

Jerusalem is a very old city. This photo shows a Roman-era part which is the lowest level. Nearby we had mint tea (regular tea with mint leaves floating in it). Roman vestiges are seen in many places. The blocks of stone are larger than later ones and show a particular beveling along the top edges. The old city has been built and destroyed and renovated over and over in the past 20 centuries plus. Nothing remains of the times before the Roman occupation in the 1st and 2nd centuries although it was inhabited for 1,000 years before that.

Jerusalem 1

Steering wheel vs airbag

Some of us have talked about the new ideas about where to put your hands on the steering wheel. Earlier this week, Mythbusters, the TVshow, explored whether or not one's thumbs could be blown off by the airbag. They decided it was a myth, but that thumb damage could happen if the thumbs were held on or near the cover plate of the airbag. Their video clearly showed that there is no danger of the hands hitting the face. The airbag pushes them off to the sides.

Does that settle it?

Television and the Inauguration

Yesterday's historic inauguration brought back a memory; that the first time I watched television was the inauguration of Harry Truman on January 20, 1949. That seems like ancient history even to me.

The way it happened was that my 8th grade classmate, Judy Blevins, had a TV in her home--probably the first one in the neighborhood. Her father was a partner in King Studios, an advertising company.

They invited our class of 12 and teacher, Arno Wiehle, to watch the inauguration. Of course the screen was probably 7" so it was a moving snapshot, but it was TV and it was happening right then. Try to imagine the scene: the parents, the class and teacher, their three younger children--all crowded around a black-and-white 7" screen.

And now I have a new high definition 37" screen to watch all by myself. My old 25" regular color TV was 'inadequate.' Is this progress?