As a high school student, I consider myself well informed in the political arena. I understand the ideas of welfare programs, taxes, and social policies. When deciding who to support in an election, I learn about the platforms of candidates before I start jumping from one to another.
Today I saw a headline that really interested me. The largest religion in the world as of today is Islam. Islam surpassed Roman-Catholicism. It is amazing to me how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, religions with such similarities became mortal enemies.
Upon recent interest, I have been asking myself one question. Who really holds power in Iran. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is picked by Iran's Assembly of Experts. Elections for positions with in this body are held every 8 years. This body is almost entirely dominated by Conservatives.
The "election" in Russia was yesterday and ended with Dmitry Medvedev, Putin's hand picked candidate for President winning 70.23% of the Russian vote. From the naked eye, looking at this it makes you think, wow, the Russian people have pretty consistent beliefs. This is not so.
I am a Senior in high school with just a semester left. I know where I am going to school. Now there is one thing I really don't know. What should I study? How do you pick a major in college?
I take a course at my high school called AP Comparative Government. Recently we had a debate on globalization. China is a country that in some ways is being hurt and helped by an international market. China is the leader in textile products as does so with large usage of sweatshop labor.
It was the end of Sophmore year and I knew I had a big task ahead of me. My parents had told me it was time to start considering what colleges I might be interested in going to. We went to a book store and bought a college guide that rates schools. Following this my parents helped me narrow a book of thousands of schools to just 40-50 schools. From there on I was on my own.
“Divine governments … set themselves the task of making man into what he should be. To juxtapose ‘democratic’ and ‘Islamic’ is an insult to Islam. Because [sic] … Islam is, in fact, superior to all forms of democracy.” - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini 1979 [Source: The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis - Alireza Jafarzadeh
