citing "A Sad State of Freedom" and other brilliant Turkish poems. In English with a slight American if distant Baywatchy accent, to boot.

d) How many Americans does it take to design a lightbulb? No joke, I'm serious. I would argue it takes a Canadian, some Brits and a handful of other zealous and ingenious Europeans to simultaneous invent and patent it; and yes, an American to then carpe the darn diem and the glory in true bootstrap American fashion. My point is hardly an illuminating one. Quite simply put, it takes a globe to trade in today's economy.

Thus, it behooves any nation playing in the global arena to attract the best of the best of international workerbees because the grim reality, and I hate to sound apocalyptic herewith stillbirth, the bowels of the hospital basement, far away from the excitement and chatter of happy new families, oblivious to the wondrous miracle born unto them that day, even as others below them, beneath them, suffer.

I speak as the voice of stillbirth experience. And I feel a pathos and sadness not altogether unlike the days following our daughter's loss 12 years ago. I remember that everywhere I turned in the days, weeks and months following, I was constantly bombarded with young moms and beautiful bouncing babies. It was like an extreme form of torture.

I felt it acutely again the other night, as I sat watching a recorded episode of Oprah, in all her insensitive glory, poo-pooing the woman who suffered the loss of her newborn one moment,