#sci-ence

I got this question several days ago, and it's taken me a while to think of an answer. I think it's been hard because initially I didn't have a great reason for pursuing medicine. But as I have progressed in my studies, I've found new reasons why medicine was the right fit for me. So I'll try to explain it.  

1. Elementary School through middle school: I was ambitious. That was all the reason I needed at first. I wanted to be a doctor because that's what smart, ambitious people did in my mind. Plus after years of sitting around a law office waiting for my mom to get off work (she was a paralegal), I saw that law was very boring. So medicine was the logical choice in my mind. 

2. Middle and High School: I liked science. My ambition led me to an interest in a career medicine, and my nerdliness found its home in science. Oh, I'm going to be a doctor? Well it's a good thing I get a mini high from figuring out genetics puzzles and from cutting open rats and pigs!

3. High School and college: I liked missions. I had surrendered to a call that I believe God placed on my life. I knew he wanted me to tell people about Him, and I also knew that he had put interests and skills in my life for a reason. So I combined my ambition, interest in science, and love for missions and decided once again that medicine was for me.  

My point is that we shouldn’t be jumping to the conclusion that the media is conspiring against American citizens based on a single magazine cover. These differences are most likely due to sales research — what picture will make an American buy my magazine? What picture will make a European buy my magazine? With this angle, maybe Americans should be looking inward for what crap they’re more likely to buy.

So perhaps this a bit of old news (for the Interwebs, anyway), but I've still seen images of the Time magazine cover discrepancies. I just found this article (via Sci-ence.org--a webcomic to check out if ever there is one) and it debunks the issue pretty well.

I think Maki of sci-ence.org's comment sums things up pretty well:

I saw this today (because “we have a blog?”) and my naive reaction was “They don’t want us to get any ideas (regarding revolution)!!” But then I thought some more and I came to the sad conclusion of “No, it’s more like U.S. readers don’t care/want to care about world topics.”