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?
Deforestation, our two-faced friend
by: Nicole Ulacky - printed on 10-10-2001
The snowball of events that has caused our current planetary environmental condition was started long ago. It has been handed down, generation to generation, only to grow with each successive passing. We can thank our parents and grandparents, and grandparents’ grandparents, and all of those before them, for throwing us into a phase of environmental degradation that is nearly unfixable. To say the least, the environmental problem facing our generation is of enormous proportion.
American Politics: Three's a Crowd?
by: Jon Reitzenstein - printed on 11-03-2000
International Students at University of Portland who watched the presidential debates in the Cove the last couple of weeks must have felt they were at a Ping-Pong match. Maybe they wonder how the United States figures they can accurately and fairly represent the majority of American's with just two political parties. The ball is going back and forth between two people while millions sit back passively and watch until it is time to stand in line and pick one or the other.
It's time to stop short sighted policies
by: Ryan O'Connor - printed on 04-11-2001
The environment has no checkbook. Polar bears cannot vote. The ozone is unable to write an incensed letter to the editor.
Given this it is remarkable that two of the three major presidential canidates in last fall’s election were considered friends of the environment. A stark change from any previous election—last year’s campaign featured discussion of the Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming, tax credits for polluters, the fate of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the horrible symptoms of our nations addiction to fossil fuels.
Romero’s Legacy of Liberation Call and Challenge
by: Dawn Hunter - printed on 11-15-2000
Within the Catholic Church, a new approach to theology has blossomed during the second half of the twentieth century. This theology is now known throughout the world as the theology of liberation.
This theology is astonishing because its deepest insights did not spring from the minds of scholars in Europe, but rather from small communities of the poorest and least literate men and women in Latin America.
What exactly is the meaning of the mystical word 'mantra'?
by: Kelly Maggi - printed on 10-24-2001
Since the debut of this column two months ago, readers have brought one question to me repeatedly: “What in the world is a mantra???” I hope that this will answer your question.
The Modern Mantra:
I use modern mantra in this column. A modern mantra consists of a simple phrase or a couple of words that are meant to help one get through the day or a particular situation. You probably already use these without knowing it.
Illness, coverup at Umatilla Chapter one of five: setting the stage-- workers fall ill and questions arise.
by: Jim McCandlish, J.D. - printed on 11-03-2000
Congratulations. You live 175 miles west of where 12% of our nation’s stockpile of chemical weaponry is stored at the Umatilla Chemical Depot near Hermiston in northeastern Oregon.
A deadly nerve gas called "sarin" (injuring 5500 and killing 12 in the 1995 Tokyo subway attack) and a blister agent called "mustard" (popularized by the Germans in WW I) are stored in an area known as "K Block"--89 earth-bermed igloos (also called "bunkers") in a geometric configuration worthy of thegarden at Versailles.