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?
Students speak out: An interview with Daoud Chaaya
by: Ryan Bemis - printed on 11-03-2000
“As a kid, I remember coming home from the airport in my home in Lebanon. There were so many terrorist scares [because of the tension between Arab nations and Israel] and the security was so tight. Officers would sometimes ride with us and escort us home. There were endless “check point” booths along the road. It took us 3 hours to get home. Now, because the security is not as tight, it takes us like a half hour! This tight security sometimes was an invasion of privacy.
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.
Movies Galore!
by: Claude Pomerleau C.S.C. - printed on 02-06-2002
I don?t recall a Christmas/New Year cycle with so many entertaining and challenging movies, domestic and foreign. Vacations are usually twilight zones when it comes to movies. Not this year.
First, the political thriller "Lumumba." It only lasted for a few weeks in December, but it is showing this week at PCC?s Cascade Festival of African Films. It?s a moving political biography of the first Congolese leader after independence from Belgium in 1960.
A lesson in education gaps
by: Charity Adolf - printed on 10-18-2000
When you think of the American school system, what comes to mind? Is it negative? Does it make your body become tense and your stomach turn to knots? I know this is what happens to me at times, and I am going into the field of education! Thinking about the school system in the United States provokes thoughts concerning the lack of funding for our schools, the increasing needs of students, the growing class size, the decreasing diversity of classes and opportunities and, especially, the ever-widening gap between high socioeconomic schools and poor, underprivileged schools.
The U.S. flies solo in Iran
by: Casey O'Connor - printed on 02-06-2002
President Bush, in his recent State of the Union address, grouped Iran with Iraq and North Korea in what he termed an "axis of evil." He has since kept up his hard line rhetoric, stating that the three countries have been "put on notice." Putting Iran in the same category as Iraq and North Korea is seen by many in the international community as rather extreme and based on shaky evidence. European countries fear that such a confrontational stance toward Iran will be counter-productive and may inhibit recent moves toward liberalization and reform within the strategically significant Middle Eastern state.
Hope for natives...but can society's attitudes change?
by: Kathy Kenny - printed on 02-14-2001
“They’re different, just not the same as us. They aren’t capable of achieving our standards. They’re backwards alcoholics…”
These are some explanations given to me as to why Native Americans have so many poverty problems and face such stern racism throughout the country. Once a population between 6 to 20 million, the Native American people have been eliminated to only a population of 2.4 million, although they began the century with a population of only 200,000.