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?

Friendlly Fair Trade Coffee

by: Peter Kelley - printed on 04-24-2002

College students are beginning to demand Fair Trade Coffee. It has universities around the country organizing clubs, protests and full marketing campaigns in support of this coffee and its environmental and socio-economic qualities.

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A Bush fan Speaks out

by: Interview with Joe Mellon - printed on 09-11-2002

I pretty much see two different arguments for why we shouldn't invade Iraq. The first is the emotional plea, and that's complete garbage. It lacks common sense and represents an extreme inability to deal with reality.

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Los jornaleros: Day labor on the San Francisco peninsula

by: Jessica Jenkins - printed on 03-27-2002

They cluster together on street corners in the early morning hours, intently watching the passing cars, looking for any sign of a potential employer. They are as young as 17 and as old as 52. Nearly all are from Mexico or Central America, and the vast majority of them have no legal immigration documents. They wait each morning, sometimes for hours, for the lucky job in gardening, construction, carpentry - basically anything they can get.

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‘That’s the thing about Christmas in Ghana’

by: Isaac Vanderburg - printed on 01-31-2001

It is an organic story, really. In 1969 two Peace Corps volunteers went to Ghana, West Africa. They taught English to the Twi-speaking children of villages called Aducrom and Laarte. They ate fufu and banku and redred and nkatiekwein. They did all the things that volunteers do: teach, travel, work, wander, laugh and cry. Of course, they couldn’t help but to love the kids they taught, love the work they did, and love most of Ghana in general.

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A pace protester reflects

by: Casey Terry - printed on 09-11-2002

Had it been any other day, the ungodly hour at which I was awoken would have caused quite a riff between mother and me. Instead, it left us huddled close together, staring at the TV screen in shock and horror. Like most Americans, I cried for the devastating loss of life.

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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.

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