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?
Our business world
by: Meghan Molenda - printed on 10-24-2001
Many of us know no other way to exist other than by relying on millions of other people everyday. We may not personally have contact with them, but we encounter different objects into which they have put their labor. The great majority of us cannot make our own clothes; much less sew on a button. A box of macaroni-and-cheese is the extent of our cooking experience. These are just two of the simple everyday challenges that we do not have to worry about, because we do not have to know how to make clothes or cook a meal.
Japan's Forgotten People: The Ainu
by: Kukiko Iwamoto - printed on 04-11-2001
A widespread belief about Japan is that it is a homogenous nation. But there are minorities in Japan. About ten thousand years ago, people lived in the northern part of Japan (now called Hokkaido) who were ethnically separated from the rest of Japanese population by their different lifestyle, culture, and language. These people were called “Ainu” which means “human being” in their own language. Today, the Ainu are considered an indigenous people.
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.
Japanese pretzles
by: Mono Vergara - printed on 03-06-2002
The evil pretzel never left Mr. Bush's throat, but rather decided to twist around when he was speaking at a press conference in Tokyo. Mr. Bush said he had talked about "devaluation" with Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in a previous meeting. As always the "less ignorant ones" (Mr. Bush's staff) later clarified that Georgie had made a mistake: he meant to say deflation instead of devaluation.
Dial Tone. Part I of IV
by: ben muse - printed on 09-25-2002
Tom McGovern picked the ringing phone up off the counter. “Hello.” “Hey, Dad, howya doing?” Tom’s body tightened. There was silence. “Luke, I haven’t heard from you for a while.” He wrapped and unwrapped the phone cord from around his hand. The microwave made a humming, sucking sound in the background as it cooked his dinner. “I’ve been real busy, with my new job and all. I told you about that, right?”
An American Dream from Thailand
by: Outhorn Keophelia - printed on 04-25-2001
In 1975, at the tail end of the Vietnam War, 35-year-old Sisouk Keophila, his wife Sengphet and their three-year-old and one-year-old daughters were struggling to break free from war-torn Laos. Searching for a way to escape from the communist-ruled country, the Keophilas finally found an opportunity to flee to America.
In 1978, Trinity United Methodist Church in Salem, Oregon sponsored the Keophila family to come to America.