At 61 I pride myself on the fact I can still do everything I could when I was 25.

Only difference is that when I do now, it hurts for days...

(This where it belongs?)

Yes, they really hate America.


Gentlemen and ladies,

Guro Marc Denny did me the honor of inviting me on to this forum, and I've been remiss in jumping in. I'll introduce myself at greater length later, but in brief: I'm a single dad, a journalist, a martial artist (PTK and Wu Wei Gung Fu.) I lived from 1991 to 2004 in Eastern Europe: Poland (where my son was born), Bulgaria, Serbia, and traveled around the region quite a lot. I lived a year in Saudi Arabia as well.

My blog site is stephenwbrowne.com and you can find out more about me there.

The topic I'd like to get a discussion started on concerns my thesis which is briefly - yes, the left hates America, and I believe I know why.

See the first of a series I wrote about it a while back, which I really need to distill into a more succinct article, but the basic thesis is here. Two men, Abraham Lincoln and Francis Bacon showed my why the people who are arguably the most fortunate individuals in the history of the human race hate the civilization that gifted them beyond the reach of ancient kings.

http://www.stephenwbrowne.com/2006/10/western-civilization-and-its-discontents-part-1/

Lost! That's how I got to Poland in 1991. I was heading to Japan...

Hi, I'm a new member here, at the kind invitation of Mark Denny.

My name is Stephen Browne, I'm 61 years old. I am first and foremost a father to two children Jerzy Waszyngton Browne, age 11, and Judyta Ilona Browne, age 6. Unfortunately a single father trying to do best by my kids.

My son's name is Polish, he was born in Warsaw two weeks after 9/11, which is how he came to be named "George Washington Browne."

My daughter is named for Jerzy's godmother, and her namesake, Judith Hatton, now sadly deceased, and a dear friend in Lithuania, Ilona Daukene, who died in the mushroom poisoning epidemic that hit northern Europe some years back.

Judith Hatton was an Englishwoman, the wife of a KGB agent (from SMERSH no less) who defected to the UK after WWII.

Martial arts-wise, I am ranked Dai saam (3rd degree black sash) in Wu-Wei Gung Fu, Recognized Instructor in Pekiti Tirsia Kali, and intermediate to advanced ranking in about a half-dozen others.

In the years 1991-2004 I lived in Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Saudi Arabia, and traveled throughout Eastern Europe quite a lot.  I was elected Honorary Member of the Yugoslav Movement for the Protection of Human Rights in 1997.

I returned to the States to get formal training in journalism after getting some really great stories as an amateur. I interviewed the wife of a murdered dissident in Belarus, and covered the election that brought down Milosevic from the streets of Belgrade.

I'm now paying my dues, starting from the bottom again and a rural daily newspaper in Minnesota.

I love the martial arts, but have not had the opportunity to train as much as I'd like, nor am I 25 anymore, but determined to "walk as a warrior all my days."

Very pleased to meet you all