Growing up in Harlem, I had the chance to practice with a Negro League team. At fifteen, I was over six feet tall and a fair athlete, but my skills didn't come close to some of the players I saw.

As a child I wanted to be a professional athlete or lawyer.

One of the lessons learned during the Vietnam War was that the depiction of wounded soldiers, of coffins stacked higher than their living guards, had a negative effect on the viewing public. The military in Iraq specifically banned the photographing of wounded soldiers and coffins, thus sanitizing this terrible and bloody conflict.

When we think of war, the tendency is to picture young soldiers only in their military roles. To a large extent this dehumanizes the soldiers and makes it easier for society to commit them to combat.

We already know that kids who get put in front of TVs instead of interacting, this is not good in all kinds of ways. And it's just not good for their cognitive - it's not good for their social development - I mean, that is incredible that kids in kindergarten... We should be moving away from screens at all levels of education, not moving into them.

You can learn from everyone, the president or the cleaner. You need teachers in life, but they're not always school teachers or professors. You learn from ordinary people. You learn from travel, from just walking down the street.

I thought: 'My education is driving a wedge between me and the people I love.' And then I wondered: 'What would happen if it were possible to increase a person's intelligence?'

I can tell you about the education programs, because that's where I lived and worked.