Wise Monkey News is here to provide young people an opportunity to discuss the issues that affect their lives. We hope that, through your participation, this website serves as a forum for the development, exchange, and expression of ideas that will prepare us to assume our positions as the leaders of tomorrow's world. Have something to say?
Eating away at perfection
by: Christy Scheuer - printed on 03-27-2002
It begins quietly
in certain female children:
the fear of death, taking as its form
dedication to hunger . . .
Louise Gluck, "Dedication to Hunger"
"I don?t think that you can judge who?s struggling and who?s not struggling," Lisa Herring reflects. "People used to say to me, 'You have straight A's. How can you do something like that?' But eating disorders are most common among high stress people.
Bringing Democracy to the land of Mao
by: Christy Scheuer - printed on 11-28-2001
Dr. Jianli Yang, who spoke at the University of Portland on Thursday, November 15, has been officially charged as a traitor by the Chinese government. In 1989, Dr. Yang helped to lead the Chinese democracy movement, which culminated in the student rally in Tiananmen Square in which 30 students were killed for speaking out against communism in China. Consequently, he was exiled and placed on a list of 49 dissidents who are strictly forbidden to return to China.
When life on the streets meets the yellowbrick road
by: Erin Goodling - printed on 02-27-2002
What began as a mild interest in the homeless issues of Portland (thanks to my morning bike commute past Dignity Village, Portland's tent city), soon became a logistical understanding of homeless youth services in Portland (thanks to a term paper for Br. Stabrowski's Urban Politics class at the University of Portland). Shortly thereafter, I found out that my friend, Scott, works at Yellow Brick Road, the street outreach component of Willamette Bridge Youth Services.
Do not be afraid of big birds
by: Isaac Vanderburg - printed on 10-24-2001
Those West African tropical storms sure make for great conversations.
Like this time, two years ago, on the way to Ghana (the first time mom had returned in 30 years), on a lurching Ghana Airways 747 with 16 people on board. The plane left from London at one in the morning, so before the storm hit there hadn’t been much talking going on, just sleeping sounds and the occasional hiss of a pop can or flight attendant’s beep.
Los jornaleros: Day labor on the San Francisco peninsula
by: Jessica Jenkins - printed on 03-27-2002
They cluster together on street corners in the early morning hours, intently watching the passing cars, looking for any sign of a potential employer. They are as young as 17 and as old as 52. Nearly all are from Mexico or Central America, and the vast majority of them have no legal immigration documents. They wait each morning, sometimes for hours, for the lucky job in gardening, construction, carpentry - basically anything they can get.
Nagasaki to Portland: the Hanford nuclear reservation connection
by: Isaac Vanderburg - printed on 03-28-2001
When I was young, I would make parachutes by connecting the four ends of a bandanna to a fishing weight using four pieces of red yarn. Somehow the unfolding corners and the perfect billow and the gravity of it all produced a phantasmagoria of wonder, so much so that I would bunch the whole thing together and dart it back into mid-air, just to see if it all happened again.
Today I imagine that if I had looked up as a boy and saw the parachute that Katsuji Yoshida saw, with its impeccable aerodynamics and noble descent, I would have been excited just as he was.