What follows below is an excerpt from a piece I recently wrote for Pajamas Media. The piece can be read in its entirety here.

The first time I was accused of “stealing food” was back in the late 1980s. It was World Fair week on my Boston-based college campus, and representatives from several of the other Middle Eastern student groups accused us, the Israelis, of “stealing” their national food and claiming it as our own. That food was, of course, hummus, and we, of course, were not impressed by their position. As I recall, we thought it was, in fact, a rather preposterous accusation, and I’d like to think we let them know we thought so.

And here we are in 2009, where hummus libel is an issue once again. There was great joy in Lebanon recently as a group of Lebanese chefs broke the world record for making the largest plate of hummus, and rightly so. After all, it isn’t everyday that Guinness world records are broken, especially records of such unique, tasty distinction. What made this record-breaking moment so special, though, what really made the organizers happy, was that not only had they made history, but by doing so, they’d emerged victorious and brought pride to Lebanon. And what was it, exactly, that made this particular achievement so sweet, do you ask? It’s quite simple, really. The previous world record for creating the largest plate of hummus was held by a group in Israel…

Read the rest of it here.

The Hebrew calendar is not usually the calendar I use – indeed, I would be hard-pressed to name the months, and listing them in the proper order is simply beyond the scope of my abilities. That being said, however, I can tell you that, according to the Hebrew calendar, 14 years ago today (or rather, tomorrow, if we are going to get technical about it), I was at the Safari in Ramat Gan. With my parents. I had a stomach ache. And that evening, after we dropped my parents off at the airport for their return flight to the United States, the parking lot attendant handed us our change and told us that he’d heard a rumor that Yitzchak Rabin had been shot.

He didn’t know for sure, and for the duration of our drive home, I flipped between the radio stations, hoping to find even a sliver of information that would confirm what we’d heard moments earlier. Not a word. We jumped out of the car as soon as we pulled into our driveway less than twenty minutes later, unlocked the front door and turned on the television. By then, of course, the story had been confirmed. Following a demonstration for peace in what was then known as Malchei Yisrael Square in the center of Tel Aviv, someone had managed to get close enough to shoot the prime minister.

Just as I will never forget what I did that day, I will also never forget the numbness I suddenly felt when his death was announced, the feeling that suddenly, everything had changed.

In those days, I was not a big fan of his beliefs – that only came later. I was mourning the act, mourning the loss of my innocence, in a way. I simply did not want to believe that someone could hate so much, that someone could be so at odds with the path of another individual, to the point where murdering them seemed like the only option. Most of all, I hadn’t wanted to believe that something like this could or would happen in Israel, despite the passion with which we argue, and despite the fierceness with which we hold our ideals and beliefs. I hadn’t wanted to believe that such an act could be carried out by one of our own.

And what a tumultuous 14 years we’ve had since that night. Always wavering on the brink between peace and war, sliding back and forth between hope and hopelessness. These days, I’m closer to the latter. Governments on all sides seem to be competing for the title of most outrageous (and as if to prove my point, the president of Lebanon has apparently claimed that Israel arranged for a Katyusha rocket to be fired from Lebanon into northern Israel on Tuesday in order to keep tensions running high), and the terms “peace” and “quiet” are hardly synonymous. The Turks are snuggling up to Iran and Syria, and thanks to our current foreign minister (who is clearly the biggest governmental mistake since the appointment of our current defense minister), we are snuggling up to no one.

According to a recent, in-depth study known as the Global Peace Index, Israel is ranked 141^st out of 144 countries in terms of how peaceful it is. Only Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq are worse off. The numbers are disturbing, to put it mildly, and my initial reaction was that the study was somehow skewed. To be honest, I still have trouble accepting the picture presented in the study, though now, two days after a heated argument with a good friend, I can say that the scores awarded to Israel in different categories are probably more accurate than I was  willing to admit when I initially saw them. Whether or not you are prepared to accept the results of the study at face value is not really the issue, though. We are clearly in bad shape. Our lives are relatively quiet, but these days, peace seems more elusive than ever. I am not looking to point fingers; I’m not going to fault one party over another, for I truly believe that the blame can be shouldered quite equally.

Earlier this week, my five year-old son asked whether he would serve in the army, and I knew in my heart that I could not give him the answer that I wanted him to hear, for at this moment in time, I truly believed that to say no would be to tell him a lie. At this moment in time, I do not believe that we are even close to being on the road to peace.

I admit it. I love the Internet. I love the opportunities it offers, I love having so much information at my fingertips. I love social networking sites and chat applications, and I love the way the Internet makes it so easy for me to keep tabs on friends and loved ones, no matter where they are in the world. When you think about it, it’s quite amazing, really. We have this medium that allows us to reconnect with our past, to maintain ties with those who helped shape the people we are today. We are rekindling old friendships and reminiscing about our youth, remembering who we were and showing off the people we’ve become.

Thanks to the Internet, I have several real-life friends who I originally made contact with online. On the flip side of that, I’ve also got friends I’ve met only a few times – amazing, wonderful friendships maintained almost solely over the Internet. I have friends of friends I’ve “met” through Facebook, some of whom I’ve met in real life, but many of whom, I haven’t.

And speaking about those friends you don’t know, the ones you’ve never met… The Internet has managed to create this whole new breed of friend. You’ve never seen them in person and maybe never will. It might begin with a few thoughtful comments left on someone’s blog or exchanges in an online forum. It could start when one friend sends an email to a group of their friends and includes you in the group. Those initial comments and emails set off a chain of responses, and before you know it, years have passed and you find yourself with a group of “friends” scattered throughout the world, friends whose voices you’ve never heard, friends whose laughter is expressed to you through terms like “LOL” (Laughing Out Loud) or “ROFLMAO” (Rolling On the Floor Laughing My Ass Off). The possibilities are endless, with paths crossing in the most random of ways, creating connections and sparking friendships.

But that seems weird, doesn’t it? Friends you’ve never met? Good friends you’ve never met? Developing feelings for someone you’ve never met? And on the face of it, it does sounds rather bizarre. Think about it. You exchange emails where you share your thoughts and dreams and even just the more mundane aspects of your life. You make each other smile and laugh (or at least that’s what you imagine you’re doing, since you can’t actually know for sure), and you support one another through the difficult times. On the one hand, you’re missing out on basics like body language and speech nuances, but on the other hand, the power of the written word can be, shall we say, awesome. But still. Are these relationships real? Can an ongoing written exchange of hopes and ideas truly be as good as the “real” thing? Can it be better? I know what I think.

How about you? What do you think?

Little One: Mommy, do you want shushi?

Me: Sushi.

Little One: Shusi?

Me: Sushi.

Little One: Susi?

Me: Sushi.

Little One: Sushi. Ok. Mommy, do you want shushi?

This coming January will mark eleven years since we lost our first son, and while the brunt of this tragic episode is long behind us, I suspect that the repercussions will last forever. There will always be little reminders, times when I will be taken by surprise, moments that will cause me to hesitate, to pause before reacting. I am at a loss as to how to respond when a Facebook quiz asks about the birth of my first child, and innocuous, innocent questions leave me lost in thought. Sometimes, it is simply easier to maintain a certain degree of levity through denial than to complicate things with the truth.

That’s not to say, of course, that the birth and subsequent death of our first child is a secret. It just means that I often find myself having to decide whether or not disclosure is appropriate in different situations. It means that some of my friends are aware of the difficult, painful path we traveled while other friends are not. Again, it isn’t a secret, just a story that has yet to be told. There is a time and a place for everything. And last week, we decided it was time to tell the Little One about the brother he’ll never have the chance to meet. It was something we’d talked about several months ago, something we felt needed to be done. We wanted to do it during the summer in order to give him time to get used to the idea before heading back to school. One day last week, it just seemed right.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, either from him or from us, though it was a scene I’d envisioned many times. He was curious, taking in what we told him and processing it as much as his age would allow. We told him stories and showed him a photograph, answering his questions as best we could. He enjoyed looking at the photo, and when he asked me who was cuter, him or Elad, I told him that both of them are beautiful. When he asked if our home was also Elad’s home, I told him that it was, but that Elad had been very sick and had stayed in the hospital. Later on, he asked me if I loved Elad, and told me he knew that Elad was in heaven. I answered that I did love Elad, just as I loved him, and then told him that Elad was somewhere else as well. I told him that Elad would always be in my heart, just as his grandfather and his dog would always be in his heart. The Little One became quiet as he processed this, and then changed the subject.

He has since been to the cemetery as well, though he I think we succeeded in making him believe that it is simply a special place where we can go when we want to remember Elad. He asked me why our dog’s stone (we’ve marked the burial spot) doesn’t have writing on it like Elad’s does. I reminded him that there are lots of other stones there, and the writing makes it easier for us to find the right one. When I pointed out that there are no other stones near his dog’s stone, he responded by asking what would happen when his uncle’s dog died, concerned that we wouldn’t know which stone was which.

Death is not a new idea for the Little One. He knows that his dog died (and even told my parents’ neighbors that he “had a dog, but he’s dead”) and he remembers his paternal grandfather, who died nearly two years ago. He never had the opportunity to meet his paternal grandmother, but we’ve made sure that he knows her name and can recognize her in pictures. With Elad though, it’s the first time he’s been old enough to even partially grasp the idea of death and dying. He’s not there yet, but it was important to us that he grow up with this knowledge, that it not be a secret, discovered accidentally or shared at a later age when he might resent us for keeping it. I’ve experienced a range of emotions during this period – relief that he finally knows, fascination with the ideas that are clearly forming in his mind and the questions borne from those ideas. Perhaps there’s also been a bit of disappointment that he hasn’t shown more interest, even though I know that this may come as he matures and begins to understand more. After all, it’s hardly fair to expect a five year-old to show emotion for the brother he never knew, or to have a wisdom and understanding of these things that goes beyond his years. Most of all, though, this process of removing the burden of an untold story has been intensely cathartic. We have finally begun to banish the elephant from the room.

Butt. Poop. Budge. Intrigued? Amused? Slightly repulsed? Join the club. These were just three of the new words that the Little One learned to use with great gusto during his two weeks in an American day camp last month. Of course, it now seems like ages since we were in the US, but the reality is that we’ve been back for just over a week.

Truly, we had a month filled with escapades and exploits, not to mention what certainly seemed to be more than our fair share of encounters of the watery kind. We managed to squeeze in three days by the Delaware Water Gap with dear friends, rafting down the Delaware (and reveling in an onslaught of happy memories of long lost summers in a camp just up the road), sightseeing, eating, drinking (which seemed to happen with greater frequency than usual, though rarely in excess), and being quite merry. As much as I can be merry, that is…

We made it to two amusement parks. One was small and close to home, where I had the privilege to meet up with two old school friends (both of whom could probably make a fortune by selling their secrets for not aging) and their gorgeous children – a four year-old girl and a four-and-a-half year old boy. It was wonderful to spend time with these fabulous women, and the children really seemed to enjoy each other’s company. Until “the incident”, that is. Until a certain four-year-old girl (who will most certainly be keeping her parents perpetually on their toes, and who has been voted most likely to throw a house party when her parents are out of town, though hopefully not until she’s at least seven or so) tried to hug and kiss the Little One goodbye. Oh, the horror!

Imagine this scene, if you will – a beautiful little girl chasing an increasingly frantic Little One in circles around me, with the Little One calling out (in English, albeit with a slightly Israeli accent), “no Mommy! I don’t want!” I just know he’s going to regret this when he’s a hormonal sixteen year-old looking over my shoulder at pictures of her when she’s 15 and stunning, as she inevitably will be. Our girl was apparently not used to being rejected so firmly, as she later commented to her mother, “why wouldn’t that boy let me kiss him? If he had, he’d have seen that it was ok…” High-fiving the little boy goodbye in the parking lot appeared to be acceptable, however, and I was charmed to learn that he asked his mother before going to sleep later that evening if she thought that “his new friends missed him”. If he considers me to be one of his new friends, then the answer to that question would be a resounding “yes”.

And then there was day camp. Two action-packed, fun-filled weeks at the local JCC day camp, and while camp is probably deserving of its very own post, you’ll have to make due with a few of the highlights.

• The Little One earned a certificate at the end of the session for having received a high number of stickers given out to campers for being nice. His counselors couldn’t get over how nice he was or how polite he was, always holding doors for everyone. Who’d have guessed that the Israeli kid would beat out the American kids in such a category?
• Thanks to two weeks of swimming lessons and free swim sessions, the Little One is no longer afraid to go in the water by himself, and is quite happy to show anyone who’d care to watch that he can put his head under water. Hurrah! Now I just have to figure out why he doesn’t actually move when he swims…
• As in most Jewish camps, the campers learn songs in Hebrew. In the Little One’s case, the songs were taught by an American, which resulted in him coming home one day singing songs in Hebrew with an American accent. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t persuade him that he wasn’t singing in English, but rather in American-accented Hebrew.
• Despite being a Jewish-themed camp, approximately half the campers weren’t Jewish. My parents even noted at the open house prior to our arrival that there were several mothers in hijab. In practical terms, this meant that every morning, little Muslim children were starting off the day by singing Hatikvah, Israel’s national anthem, learning about Judaism and Israel, and picking up words and songs in Hebrew. And if you think that’s amusing, you’re really going to roll your eyes over…
• Occupation Day. One day of the session was dedicated to campers talking about what they wanted to be when they grew up. Personally, I’d have gone for a less explosive term like “Profession Day”, but hey. That’s just me. I can still remember reading the weekly email update to see what special events were on the schedule when suddenly, there it was. Occupation Day. “Huh?” I read on. “Ohhhhhh. I get it now.” Only in America can you find Muslim campers in a Jewish day camp, singing Hatikvah and celebrating Occupation Day (alongside their Jewish friends, no less). Positively heartwarming, isn’t it?

Clearly, it’s very difficult to do justice to a month-long journey in one (rather long) blog post. Therefore, I’ve decided to spare you the blow-by-blow description and throw in yet another list of highlights, given that it worked so well above. For those of you in the know, feel free to add other choice vignettes to the comments.

• For only the second time in all of our years living abroad, NRG and I managed to coordinate our trips “home”. Our sons – born only 17 days apart – bonded just as we’d hoped they would. Not that we’d have given them much of a choice… We spent part of the fourth of July together as well as a day at Six Flags Great Escape. A great day was had by all, despite the forecast of rain (20 minutes in the afternoon, when we were already in the water park) and the second mortgage required to pay for food, beverages and games. Oh, and if anyone tells you that you can easily navigate around the falling/shooting water on the Lazy River, I can vouch for the fact that they are l-y-i-n-g. Trust me…
  Despite our busy schedules, we managed to get together several times. What we did not do, however, was go to the greatly anticipated Billy Joel-Elton John concert. It was canceled. Or rather, postponed. Obviously, a postponement didn’t really help us. Apparently, Billy Joel was sick, and his doctor ordered him to rest. We were devastated. Gutted. We went out to dinner instead, and our waiter, while sympathetic to our plight, was not willing to sing any Billy Joel or Elton John songs, despite our attempts to convince him otherwise.
• On our last night, we took the Little One to a restaurant called The Pasta Factory in order to catch an old high school friend of mine in action. The Little One, who was initially rather disgruntled over the fact that we wouldn’t take him to Chuck E. Cheese (damn those television commercials!) , warmed up to Mr. Twisty right away, giggling and laughing at his jokes and balloon skills while I managed to sneak in a few adult conversations between gags. If you’re in the area, definitely check this guy out. He’s a consummate professional and a really nice guy. I guarantee he’ll make you laugh.
• I won’t bore you with the gory details, but suffice it to say that there was a lot of shopping. Clothing aside, I finally managed to find a suitable laptop bag, which definitely wasn’t easy! If you’re looking for a functional (read ugly) laptop bag that looks like a laptop bag, you’ll have lots to choose from. If, however, you are a woman looking for something stylish, something that doesn’t really look like a laptop bag, well, good luck with that. Definitely a hole in the market on this one, folks.
  In addition to the laptop bag, I joined the ranks of iPod owners, acquiring a sexy little iPod Touch as a birthday present from my parents. I’ve loaded it up with applications, photos, podcasts, games and music, and honestly can’t understand how I never thought to buy one before my mother suggested it as a possible gift. What beauty… What functionality… Sigh…
  And of course, all the tiny empty spaces in our suitcases were filled with aliens of the “cytoquada” kind. We are now the proud owners of an alien creation chamber, an Omnitrix, and a wide assortment of colorful, scary little creatures and other related paraphernalia.

All in all, this was definitely one of our more successful trips to the US. We are finally over our jet lag (three cheers for vodka – hurrah!), and the Little One is once again using more Hebrew than English (though the words “butt” and “poop” still pop up with dizzying regularity). My heart is full. My wallet is empty. And so begins our return to normal life. Normal being a relative term, of course…

The Little One and I are in the swimming pool, and he is holding onto me. Suddenly, he reaches out, pulls at the top part of my bathing suit and peers inside.

“Little One,” I said, removing his hand from the striped fabric. “You can’t do that. There are other people around.”

“But Mommy,” he said innocently. ” I just wanted to look inside…”

And then he grinned.

Greetings, my faithful readers. Those of you who have been reading this blog for at least the past month should be well-aware of the little saga involving a certain song (“Thank You”, by Lionel Bastos) I received for my birthday, a song that I’d been searching for on and off for eight years. Following that post, a number of people asked how they could hear the song, and while I did send it on to a few people, I’m happy to report that Lionel recently uploaded this incredible tune – one that I never tire of hearing, no matter how many times I listen to it – to his MySpace page.

Go on, then. Take a few moments to listen to “Thank You” and the other amazing tunes that my new favorite singer-songwriter has on his site. Love that voice, Lionel!

When I gave birth to the Little One, I almost died. The pregnancy itself had been a difficult one. Questionable genetics combined with a bad obstetric history (and that would be putting it mildly) dictated that I would be watched carefully, and that we would always err on the side of caution. Once we cleared the initial genetic hurdles, I found myself faced with such issues as the unexpected discovery at week 16 of an incompetent cervix (resulting in urgent surgery to put in a cerclage and me working from home for the remainder of the pregnancy) and the subsequent diagnosis of gestational diabetes. To make matters worse, I was utterly depressed. Despite the fact that the pregnancy was progressing relatively decently – if not smoothly, the fear that something would somehow go horribly wrong was never far from my mind. Four failed pregnancies led me to believe that the odds were not in my favor, which meant that I basically spent my entire pregnancy holding my breath and waiting for something to go wrong.

Nothing in my wildest dreams – or nightmares – could have prepared me for what I experienced when I gave birth. The bleeding began once my son was out, and it simply wouldn’t stop. The placenta wasn’t coming out and my uterus wasn’t contracting as it should have. In short, I was hemorrhaging. I suddenly felt weak and sick, and as the blood drained from my face and I turned white, I heard my husband pleading with me to stay awake.

As the medical team worked feverishly to get my body to do what it was supposed to, I was consumed by sheer terror; I was sure that I was dying, and even began to think about my husband having to raise our son as a single parent. An anesthesiologist was hovering outside the room, ready to rush me into surgery in the event that the doctors wouldn’t be able to stop the bleeding, which would have necessitated the removal of my uterus in order to save my life. Fortunately, we didn’t reach that stage. The doctors managed to stop the bleeding, employing a number of often painful techniques and persevering until it worked. I received four units each of blood and plasma, and was hooked up to oxygen after they discovered that my oxygen saturation levels were low. I remained in the delivery room for approximately twelve hours after giving birth, at which point I was moved to a room in the maternity ward that was directly across from the nurses’ station.

While the doctors in the hospital refused to discuss it, my own doctor confirmed what I already assumed to be true. My life had been in danger, and I could have died. While the birth itself had been fairly routine, my condition deteriorated rapidly within an hour. There was no indication that what I had experienced was in any way related to the problems I’d had during the pregnancy. What had happened to me could happen to anyone, without any prior warning.

And that’s why I was so utterly appalled by this article in last Friday’s Haaretz Magazine about unassisted home births. Don’t get me wrong – I can certainly respect that there are some women who are turned off by the hospital experience, or that some women wish to give birth naturally and with no painkillers (I, on the other hand, informed the nurses every ten minutes or so that without an epidural, I wouldn’t give birth…). I also realize that most births tend to proceed as they should, and that complications are minimal. But what about those few births that go wrong, those births that go so spectacularly off course that the lives of the mother and and/or the baby are in danger? What do you do when you’re giving birth alone in your bathroom and your baby won’t come out? What do you do when the bleeding just won’t stop?

I was shocked by the women in the article, angered by what I perceived as being ignorance and misguided priorities. Isn’t it more important to survive a birth procedure that might not be precisely to your liking than to die as a result of the “perfect” birthing experience? I realize that given my own background, I may not be the best person to judge. Perhaps I am overly sensitive when it comes to such issues, but I cannot help becoming incensed by women who naively believe that nothing can happen, that despite all of the medical technology placed at our disposal, they are prepared to turn their backs on modernity in the most extreme manner possible. Some of you will condemn me for being judgmental, and I accept that there’s truth in that. I just cannot help but think that had I chosen this path, my son would not have a mother.

For those of you under 30, this post just might not be for you. You lot have always known what a fax machine was, and unless you grew up with a Mac, your computer always came with the Microsoft Windows operating system. Opening and closing virtual windows on your computer comes as natural to you as opening and closing real windows comes to us.

When I was in elementary school, taking home one of the coveted school computers from the library meant bringing home a keyboard of sorts (of which I have little to no recollection), a small black and white television for use as a monitor, and what I can only assume was a modem that would allow me to connect to the local network. Picking up the phone receiver (which was, of course, not cordless – this was the 70s, after all, when the only portable phone we knew of could be found in the car of Jennifer and Jonathan Hart), I’d dial the requisite number, wait for the appropriate series of tones to sound, and then place the receiver in the modem. I’d log on to the network (my chosen ID was “ringo”, reflecting my early love of The Beatles), and using the limited tools at my disposal, exchange crudely formatted (but quite well-written, of course ) messages to others on the network – other local students who’d also managed to score a computer for the weekend.

Remember these?

I played games like “Eliza” and “Dungeons and Dragons“, and used my proudly acquired – though clearly inadequate – knowledge of BASIC to create simple programs. We all learned BASIC in school, and the geeks kids who were evidently more clever than I were testing the waters with programming languages like Fortran and COBOL. There were no graphics. There were no colors. To be honest, there wasn’t much of anything.

Computers were not central to my life while growing up. Indeed, they were barely of any interest to me at all. In university, I was the proud owner of a Brother word processor (two, actually, after the first one was stolen during a break-in), and the less than proud owner of a failing grade in my first university-level computer course. I passed it with flying colors the second time around with a different teacher, so I hope you’ll indulge me and allow me to blame my earlier failure on what was so obviously an instructional glitch.

Somewhere along the way, though, something changed. At some point, I unwittingly discovered – and embraced – my inner geek. Days spent sitting in front of the computer began to get the better of me, and I found myself becoming curious – intrigued, even. With the advent of the internet, I was utterly smitten. I was amazed by the capabilities, by the virtual doors it opened. Think about it! Think about what you can do! If you’re persistent, you can find information about anything. Or anyone… You can make purchases, you can make travel plans. And when you make those plans, you can even get your bearings long before you arrive, thanks to programs like Google Earth. You can see the sights without leaving home, or take a tour of your hotel while wearing your pajamas (or while not wearing them, though if that’s the case, I may or may not want to know…). You can find old friends and make new ones; you can find songs (or they can find you…).

Longing to poke that special someone? Got an irresistible urge to throw a sheep at your high school crush? If you answered yes to either of these questions, then you should be on Facebook, of course, the website that lets you do almost anything to your friends and loved ones. Start a snowball fight or a food fight with your mates (or with your favorite blogger, but remember that she plays dirty), fling office supplies at your colleagues (because face it – they’re all on Facebook too). Challenge me to a word game, though I should warn you – I can be very, very competitive.

And how about those gadgets you keep around the house? You know, the ones you can use with your computer? iPhones and cameras and scanners, oh my! Seriously, could you have imagined 10 or 15 years ago being able to use your cell phone to access your email? How incredible is it that I can connect my camera to my computer and send you a photo via email, which you can receive on your cell phone anywhere in the world – within seconds? Not that I’m going to, of course, so don’t be getting your hopes up. Requests, however, may be considered (get your mind out of the gutter! You know who you are…)…

Less than 20 years ago, I was amazed by the act of being able to send a piece of paper through my phone and have that content come out on someone else’s phone somewhere else in the world. Today, my five year-old son begs me to allow him to watch VOD, and I’m quite certain that he already knows more about it than I ever will. My father just got his first mp3 player. He’s waiting for me to arrive and assist him with the mindboggling task of filling up this credit card-sized gadget with nearly 1000 songs and old radio show recordings. The player was a Father’s Day gift from my mother, and the process of getting it loaded up is a Father’s Day gift from me. It will undoubtedly be a time-consuming technological labor of love, and as I compile a list of suitable download sites, I think to myself, what a wonderful world…