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?
VITW Stands Against Iraqi Sanctions
by: Tom Frieberg - printed on 11-03-2000
On Monday, November 11 the University of Portland Offices of Volunteer Services and Campus Ministry will host peace activists from the group Voices in the Wilderness. The group’s mission is to end United Nations economic sanctions currently imposed on Iraq (which have been in place for a decade, since the Gulf War). This is a valuable opportunity for the campus community to study and reflect on a critical issue involving ethics, US foreign policy, nonviolence, military dictatorhips and human rights, the merits of various ways to influence public policy, and more.
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.
American Politics: Three's a Crowd?
by: Jon Reitzenstein - printed on 11-03-2000
International Students at University of Portland who watched the presidential debates in the Cove the last couple of weeks must have felt they were at a Ping-Pong match. Maybe they wonder how the United States figures they can accurately and fairly represent the majority of American's with just two political parties. The ball is going back and forth between two people while millions sit back passively and watch until it is time to stand in line and pick one or the other.
Kenji-san ni shoten o atteru - A focus on Kenji
by: Teresa Abbene - printed on 04-11-2001
“The biggest difference between the U.S. and Japan is that Americans describe every single detail. I have a friend living in Japan who is from the U.S. and every time we talk he drives me crazy! He’ll ask me, How’s it going? And I’ll answer, Fine. OK. And he’ll ask again, How?”
Aside from Americans’ insistent focus on details and feelings, Kenji Ishikawa likes living in the U.S. Kenji is a 23-year-old senior majoring in sociology.
Minority Nations in UK Don’t Need Unity
by: Chris Costello - printed on 11-15-2000
The United Kingdom’s principle island of Britain is composed of England, Scotland and Wales. Scotland, with a population of 5 million, and Wales, with roughly 2.7 million inhabitants, are known as the UK’s minority nations. Meanwhile, the mass majority of the UK resides in England, nearly 50 million. With such discrepancies in population, one ponders whether these minority nations can fully express themselves within the UK.
Ancestral Voices: Rediscovering two cultures in ruins
by: Ben Muse - printed on 09-11-2002
In the thick, green jungle of the Peten region of northern Guatemala lies one of the great cities of the worldÂ’s memory; Tikal, once a bustling city with towering pyramids housing the bones of deified leaders and a burgeoning acropolis, sits half excavated form the decay of the jungle.