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?
“Don’t ask, don’t tell” an archaic notion
by: Emily Marie Dinges - printed on 03-28-2001
Discrimination. That’s an icky word. It is defined as “treatment based on class or category rather than individual merit.” Unfortunately, that’s exactly what the United States military is doing today: discriminating against gays and lesbians.
Before 1993, gays and lesbians were barred from serving in the military. President Clinton worked to change this and the compromise solution, “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was born.
Nurturing our Bodies/Nurturing Mother Earth
by: Tim Crump - printed on 03-28-2001
My morning bicycle ride to the University of Portland is one of the few times in the day that I feel good, truly and deeply good, about what I am doing. In our lives, so many of our decisions and actions involve trade-offs. To keep the apartment warm we have to turn up the heat and burn more energy. To learn more about an important subject, we print out an article, using a few more sheets of paper.
Will the EU open the gates to Turkey?
by: Casey O'Connor - printed on 02-20-2002
Since the Republic of Turkey?s creation in 1923 by Kemal Mustafa Ataturk, the pursuit of Western-style modernization and prosperity has never been easy. Coups, violence and political assassinations have plagued the state, which straddles Europe and Asia. Currently, Turkey is trying to move one step closer to western integration by attempting to become the first majority Muslim nation to gain membership in the European Union.
World immigration standards need to change
by: Mono Vergara - printed on 03-27-2002
For a few minutes please forget about what we see in the media. Forget about that nonsense axis and all the other issues that "our leaders" tell us that they are important. Stop for a few minutes and look south, to the south of our world. Picture Africans swimming in the strait of Gibraltar, South Americans banging pots and pans, Cubans who die in the Caribbean every other day and lonely Mexican women running through the Arizona desert.
Questioning nature's world view
by: Isaac Vanderburg - printed on 04-25-2001
Last Thursday night, some 2000 years after the death of Jesus, a group of UP students gathered in Buckley Center auditorium to discuss two videos about the salmon in the rivers and the smoke in the air. After 60 Minutes assured the students that economists and salmon don’t get along, Ted Koppel assured them that neither do politics and the global atmosphere. Enraged by the evident injustice, students eagerly chortled over the issues, assuring each other that Bush is bad, alternative energy is good and the woman on Koppel’s program who had opposed the Kyoto clean-air agreement was typical of those damned pro-oil types.
Monologues Increase Awareness
by: Jamie Worley - printed on 09-25-2002
The Vagina Monologues. The first time I heard the title to this play, I had to suppress a giggle. I looked around at my classmates, trying to gauge how I should react, all the time rolling the word off my tongue. Vaaagggiiinnnaaa …