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?
Protecting Freedom
by: Celine Fitzmaurice - printed on 03-28-2001
My views on US military and foreign policy changed drastically one January day in 1989. I was travelling on a delegation to Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala with 20 students from my college and we woke up that morning in a hotel room in Guatemala City. After breakfast we boarded a bus and traveled through the Guatemalan countryside to the tiny village of Poaquil, San Jose where a series of “disappearances” had reportedly just taken place.
State of the Union: The Empire Rolls Back
by: Ryan O'Connor - printed on 02-06-2002
"Let?s roll."
President Bush, at the climax of his State of the Union address, tossed the nation his latest attempt at a national catchphrase. Somehow ?let?s roll? is supposed to become this nation?s mantra.
Tired of fighting evil terrorists and rogue nations? Sick of seeing our young men and women perishing while bombing and shooting other nations' futures? Let?s roll.
Let?s roll onward, toward our place in history.
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.
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.
Where did hope go?
by: Hank Smith - printed on 02-06-2002
"Okay. The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He?s enjoying the wind and the fresh air ? until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore.
"'My God, this is terrible,' the wave says 'Look what's going to happen to me!"
"Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, 'Why do you look so sad?'
"The first wave says, 'You don't understand! We're all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn?t it terrible?'
"The second wave says, 'No, you don't understand.
Service for a year, service for life
by: Andy Sherwood - printed on 02-20-2002
'It is so funny that I'm involved in a year of faith based service.'
That is exactly what I was thinking about during the President's state of the Union Address last month. When the President asked every American to give to years of their lives to service.
At first I gasped and thought to myself, 'please, not another year.'
But then I realized that GW was talking about making a life-long commitment to service.