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?
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.
The Death Penalty is state sponsored murder
by: Kawai Washburn - printed on 03-06-2002
What is justice?
Stop and think about it for a second, because it's a difficult question to answer. Often, what may seem fair, right and just to one person is nothing of the sort to another person. What is the appropriate response to a crime? Indentured slave labor in barren wastelands has been tried. Solitary confinement in a sensory deprivation cell is another alternative. Then, of course, there is always the option of just killing the criminal.
Our Ugandan Sister
by: Sister Catherine Mukimba - printed on 01-31-2001
American Poverty vs. African Poverty
In America, the real poverties are loneliness and isolation. This poverty stems from society’s individualism and materialism. I do like the independence in the U.S., for it allows any hard-working citizen to reach the heights of one’s hard labor. People in Africa can work equally hard but the social environment doesn’t favor individual development. In Africa, much of poverty is material.
New York Attack causes mixed emotions
by: Meighan Doherty - printed on 09-26-2001
Photographs capture moments in time unlike any other artistic medium. Throughout history there have been many images that have spoken volumes about memorable events from the past, such as photographs from the Great Depression, Watts, Columbine, and the Oklahoma City bombing.
The photographs from the recent attacks on America are no different from any other historical photographs in that the images one sees in those pictures will leave a lasting impression on us for years to come.
Finding Spain: No stone is without a story
by: Hank Smith - printed on 02-28-2001
España . . . España . . . ESPAÑA! It hit me when I heard these words from Carmela, the lead character in a Spanish play set during its civil war of 1936-1939. España…Spain, for some reason, took on a greater amount of significance. Carmela, in fact, was saying these words to foreigners, members of the International Brigade, those soldiers that came from around the world to defend Spain’s republic from a fascist threat.
Breaking stereotypes: A fangirl speaks up
by: Kattie Gardner - printed on 04-24-2002
Growing up, the naive little girl that I was, I used to think that comics were nothing more than a bunch of boys running around in tights, shooting at each other with rays coming out of their fingers. The thought of picking up a comic book and actually reading it seemed silly and childish. I pictured comic readers as being nerdy little fan-boys who lived in their parents? basement and spent hours debating the finer points of D&D.