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 need for change in America's high schools

by: Ryan O'Connor - printed on 01-23-2002

A bull's eye has been strapped to the back of the public education system. Republicans, Democrats, the Christian-Right, Libertarians, rich, poor, black, red, white, brown, everyone has discovered to root of societies ills-today's high schools.

Most public schools today are in fact a microcosm of society: numerous factions competing for limited resources, with those with the loudest, strongest, most visible, supporters commandeering the spoils.

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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.

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Will the EU open the gates to Turkey?

by: Casey O'Connor - printed on 02-20-2002

Since the Republic of Turkey?s creation in 1923 by Kemal Mustafa Ataturk, the pursuit of Western-style modernization and prosperity has never been easy. Coups, violence and political assassinations have plagued the state, which straddles Europe and Asia. Currently, Turkey is trying to move one step closer to western integration by attempting to become the first majority Muslim nation to gain membership in the European Union.

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Helping Alaskan honey buckets

by: Maia Nolan - printed on 04-10-2002

Spring has come at last to Anchorage, Alaska. After a record-breaking St. Patrick's Day storm that dumped more than two feet of snow on the city in just over 24 hours, canceled school for two days and left residents piling snowberms up to six feet high as they dug out, it was starting to seem like winter was here for good. Today, though, the sun is shining and a new, unfamiliar substance is starting to replace the ice: pavement.

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Binge drinking: The bridge to Alcoholism

by: Kelly Maggi - printed on 09-26-2001

I like to drink beer. I like the smell, taste, and texture of it; I like to go to bars and restaurants that serve it; and I like to be with friends when I drink it. I like to get a small buzz going sometimes. I am happy to say that this is the way I feel about beer, because I’m responsible when I drink it. I never get behind the wheel after drinking, I never drink alone, I drink in moderation, and there have been few instances in my life in which I have been drunk to the point of losing complete control of myself.

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Spain struggles to close economic gap in a changing Europe

by: Hank Smith - printed on 01-31-2001

The final descent of my flight from Atlanta to Madrid was an amazing stress reliever. Gone were the common annoyances of any flight: the crying babies, the tiny seats, the airplane food. In their place grew my excitement for what was to come. Finally I had arrived in the land of Don Quixote, of bullfighting, the land of passion described by Hemingway. I stared out my window at the land below. Olive trees!

I spent my first week in Madrid with friends in Moncloa, a trendy, university-dominated neighborhood, experiencing the young, exuberant culture of a country catching up after 40 years of a repressive dictatorship.

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