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?
The Equal Rights Amendment: Why women are still not full citizens
by: Cassie Terry - printed on 09-25-2002
Some questions on citizenship: are you a native-born American (not a green card holder)? Is your criminal record free of felonies? Can you vote? Can you run for office? Can you sue or be sued? Are you male? If you answered no to any of these questions, your rights are not being protected by the constitution. Yes, that is right, girls. The law of the land does not afford you equal rights. In fact, the only women’s right formally protected by the constitution is your right to vote. Only recently has the law recognized a woman’s right to equal protection.
Catholic Ethics Necessitate Life Style Change
by: Isaac Vanderburg - printed on 12-07-2000
The Pope John Paul II warns “Modern society will find no solution to the ecological problem unless it takes a serious look at its life style”. However here on the bluff our ‘life style’ has been without such a look since the school’s founding in 1901. At the University of Portland, mountains of Pepsiâ cups are mined and leveled daily. The blue ore is filled then drained of fluid, eventually finding itself in a classroom trashcan with other Pilot waste that should be recycled.
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.
Remembering time for Ramadan
by: Melody Sheybani - printed on 11-28-2001
Just a week ago, I was in one of my late afternoon classes when one of my class-mates made a comment about the accuracy and the completeness of my religion. This made me feel sad inside about the lack of knowledge we have here on our campus about other religions and the fact that we sometimes make comments and become judgmental toward things without knowing the actual reasons behind some rituals and practices.
Finding the Columbia River
by: Dr. Frank Fromherz - printed on 01-23-2002
"I've known rivers, ancient, dusky rivers, my soul has grown deep like the rivers." The great Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes wrote these lines while aboard a train. He was on his way to Mexico to visit his dad. The poet, who had just finished high school, "grew deep like the rivers" as he crossed the Mississippi, and thought about a people whose memories stretched across the Nile, the Congo, and the Euphrates.
El Salvador: Liberating the poor, liberating ecology
by: Jessica M. Jenkins - printed on 01-23-2002
Raul's family has no rice this year. As peasants in the northern mountains of El Salvador they live off the land, so when the land suffers so do they. In good years, they can eat corn, beans, rice, and vegetables, and have just enough left over to sell in order to purchase tools, clothing, medicine. The problem is that the good years have been few and far between as of late. Within the past ten years, both drought and hurricanes have struck Central America with extreme agricultural instability, bad for any farmer but devastating for subsistence growers like Raul.