What is a split-second decision you made that changed your life?
I failed the last year in high school and couldn't be bothered with education anymore. I was about to take a crap low pay job with some evening studies into accounting (family didn't want me to leave school all together - this was to please them). I had only one passion - trading. My family told me I was a hopeless miserable piece of existence and they weren't surprised I failed high school.My mathematics and economics teacher told me in firm words that I was an idiot and should try high school again. She told me she will apply for me to universities in London to study mathematics.She kept her word.During my first lesson back the next year she told the entire class that “this kid - me” is going to university in London if he passes with a 85% score in maths - minimum. If he does so - she would feed the entire class with cake.I passed with a 92% score in maths. She gave everyone cake. And I was called forward during graduation.Within a few months I was in London and I finished my first semester with straight A's. I did this for the entire first, second and third year, finished as top of my class and got a job before I graduated in an American financial institution working on the structured finance department.PS - when my family knew I passed my degree with straight A's they laughed at me - and told me I was an idiot for wasting so much time at high school.There was no contact until much later when my grandfather died and they visited the funeral. When I was standing in line to shake hands - they asked me why I'm not talking to them anymore. They said - they haven't done anything wrong in their opinion. They told me they were disappointed that I didnt grow up as they hoped I would do and the lack of contact is all my fault. The last they told me was that I would regret that.. I was baffled.Since then I've never seen them again. In this split second I realised that family is just something you are born with. If it wasn't for my math and economics teacher I would have never made the career I've had now. I have worked in many countries throughout the world - traveled as risk consultant everywhere (New York and and London as base) and I've met extraordinary people all over the world before I hit the age of 30. If I would have listened to family I would have been held back all my life.
Who were the real Ancient Egyptians, black, white or Arab?
For sure they were not Arabs!!You can even ask the current day Egyptians. Even they would not ascribe the ancient history of the place they now occupy to their Arab ancestors.The question is answered right on the walls of and numerous monuments and ubiquitous artefacts found in the well preserved great pyramids. The people who built the pyramids and other collosal land marks knew that one day their history and heritage will be “stolen” that was why they built such enduring monuments and used hieroglyphs and pictures depicting both everyday life and sacred rituals and rites even though they had alphabetical writing.The “original” Egyptians were black. But please note that Egypt at its height was much much larger than what you see today which was cut haphazardly by the Europeans when they carved up Africa amongst themselves. It stretched down south all the way into parts of east and central Africa, with tributes coming from all these places making it very rich.To really talk about Egypt you would need to be specific with regards to the time or period as Egypt changed hands since it was conquered by Alexander the great (after who the ancient city of Alexandria is named ). It was the greatest kingdom in the world and also the center of learning of technology, arts and science.People from all over the world came to learn in its sacred places which at some point was off limits for europeans until the “holy pharaoh” allowed them in freely and reduced egypts army as he hated war.There are many ancient accounts that detail the physical descriptions of the teachers and inhabitants of Thebes (wesat in ancient egyptian) and the were black.The longest river in Africa is the Nile with its delta situated in Egypt so its only natural that they lived and bred with other black kingdoms like Ethiopia and what European scholars call Nubian kindoms.Please do not get me wrong, at some point in its history there were many races living and trading in Egypt as it was also a commercial powerhouse. Its position between 2 continents and the natural connectivity provided by the great Nile meant that people and commerce was natural.its current inhabitants conquered it in AD 641 and continue to hold it. Today Africa has many races, black, white, Arab and many versions brought about by long term inter breeding like Berbers.This is not about racism or because I am black African, it is simply the TRUTH!!!
If evolution is true, then why are there no fossils of intermediate species?
The paleontologist Ted Daeschler once summed it up beautifully for me when I asked him a similar question: "They're all transitional species."Think of dogs. They descended from wolves. Two different species - but technically they can still interbreed, and there was probably a long time where they did so regularly and were indistinguishable. Today we have so many breeds, probably at least one of them (let's say chihuahuas) will eventually branch into a different species, but in the mean time those chihuahuas can interbreed with most kinds of other dogs (and technically still wolves) - so where does one species end and the other begin? Even if we extrapolate a million generations into the future and imagine an uberchihuahua, its own species that can no longer interbreed with dogs or wolves, and another million generations to the flying uberchihuahua, yet another new species that doesn't breed even with the uberchihuahua, there's still a gradient. Who are we to say that generation 190,000 is the "species" but generation 1,245,000 is a "transitional species"? All species are a transition between what came before and what came after. We are, as Dr. Daeschler said, "all transitional species."In fact, the term doesn't even make sense unless it's in context and we're discussing the transition from one specific form to another. When future evolutionary biologists ask, "What animals were transitional between wolves and flying uberchihuahuas?", the answer might be "dogs." So in that context, dogs are the transitional species. In another, it might be the wolves, the uberchihuahuas, or even the chihuahuas, since future paleontologists would have no way of knowing they were the same species as Great Danes and other dogs who have completely different skeletons.