User:Rotterdarned

I'm an American and a retired Commodities Trader, who lived with my wife and kids for more than fifteen years in various countries wherever I was posted in Asia, Africa and South America. Throughout this period, I continued my childhood hobbies of music, investigative journalism and creative writing (lyricist and musician with a number of artists, ghosting most as my professional field demands a lack of 'arts celebrity'). I've written curricula and lectured in those studies at my Alma Mater - a well-respected university for its College and Grad School Departmental Studies in International Trade, International Affairs, Journalism and Creative Writing. I've done the same at another well-respected State University, which is one of our nation's ten largest. I have four adult kids of whom I'm very proud (2 adoptive, 2 genetic), three of whom are married with children of their own, three with PhD's in their fields. With the exception of the youngest who is still matriculating Yale, the rest live overseas. They all share my passion for music and writing with the older three regularly guest lecturing in their chosen fields at major universities in US, UK and FR. My wife and I taught them to be fearless in their pursuit of the truth, yet wary in choosing appropriate people with whom to share it. We also taught them by our own example to live life on their own terms at any cost. While it is certainly true in the poetic sense that "the truth can set you free," it is equally true in the literal sense that sharing those truths in the wrong venues or with the wrong people can get you killed - it wasn't necessary to convince my kids of these things because they were exposed to such verities with their own eyes at a very young age. My wife was murdered in South America in 1990 as "collateral damage" when my eldest was only 12. Two years later, their grand mother was murdered by her husband, my former stepfather. Lucky for them, my wife and I had chosen to bring them up in parts of the lesser and more usually least developed world where life is cheapest - I happened to be posted to such places. In hindsight, my three eldest consider such parts to be highly more evolved than we in the Western World. We're all avid Pro certified SCUBA divers who get together when we can to dive the dozen wonders of the undersea world, most recently in Palau. We are not religious in the slightest nor do we believe there is a God in anything remotely near the commonly accepted sense. In closing for now, we believe, unlike Lenin, that opium is the opium of the masses, and our preferred brand of Marxism was best outlined by a family affair known as the Marx Brothers.