Children of Abraham

Wednesday, August 22, 2007
11:00 PM

So it is around 11:00pm and I should be sleeping…especially after how tired I have felt all day long. However, I made the mistake of watching the provocative CNN documentary done by Christiane Amanpour titled, "God's Warriors." Having so much family over in Muslim countries fighting the "War on Terror," I wanted to watch. The program only made me mad. Mad that religion is used to control the way people think, act, and live. Over and over again during the program I couldn't help but think that the Jihadist movement is just a ploy to unite the Islamic people and form a powerful nation. Religious fervor is a strong motivator for so many people who are fighting on the other side of this war. I was also struck at the apparent lack of freedom. The religious leaders don't believe in giving their people a choice, but rather to limit their options so the people will chose according to their religious tenets. For example, in Iran one of the towns puts on a play that depicts the martyrdom of the grandson of Muhammad. Though the story calls for the role of females, men portray the females because having an actual woman on the stage will tempt the men. The local that was explaining it said that men have much more to be tempted with these days, so they have to limit the temptation.

The jihadist movement wants to establish Islamic rule which will force all to follow Islam. There will be no freedom, only the strict Moslem law. Hearing the crazed religious fervor of these "freedom fighters" is enough to scare most people, I think. Having three of my immediate family members either already over there or leaving over the next couple weeks probably doesn't help to ease the situation. I am proud of my family and what they are doing, though I'm also upset with the way the war has been handled. I don't have any solution, but it is easy to point out all the problems.


Seriously, why can't we just chill out?

In other news, more related to my medical school journey, I shadowed a local Radiologist today. He is in the Army and works at the military hospital. He tried to convince me that Radiology was what I wanted to do, and he actually did a pretty convincing job. They make a ton of money, can work from home, and can take a ton of vacation every year. By the time I got out of residency, I could probably read films from a beach somewhere in the Caribbean if I wanted to. I don't know what I want to do, but hopefully shadowing different doctors will give me a better idea. Ideally I would like to go to the department of the specialty that I want to go into, tell them what I want to do, and ask them how to do it. That way I can get in early on and ensure greater success later down the line. If only I could figure out what I want to do...