Op-eds & Commentary

During the past few months ever since AUC has terminated the con­tract between Delicious Inc. one can argue that there has not been a drastic change in service or quality. The only difference that can be felt or seen is the new variety. However, most of the outlets either opened up after half of the semester was over or closed down for an undisclosed amount of time.

I could go on and rehash the events from its inception, but I've decided to focus on a more recent event:

On October 4, 2012, an AUC stu­dent held an AUC intern against his will on the AUC campus.

My concern is the decision taken by some AUC security guards to sit and merely watch the student inter­rogate the intern.

I understand that security has limited power, however, if all else fails they should have made sure that the intern was allowed to depart campus safely and board the bus to go home.

Since the revolution more Cairenes have been spending more money on more dining out than at any other time in the history of this city. Perhaps it's an end-of-days scenario and people want to go out with a bang. Perhaps it's pent up demand after months of being trapped at home eating nothing but chicken and rice. Or perhaps it's the need to escape the responsibility of preventing the parental units, who have also been trapped at home, from tear gassing each other. Although I have no statistics, I'm willing to bet that the birth and divorce rates are at an all time high as well.

I waited for inspiration to strike before I start to write this piece, I waited and I waited and...I waited. While waiting, I skimmed the Wikipedia entry on Thomas More, Suzanne Collins' Mockingjay (and appreciated the marginalization of teenage angst and romance in it). I drank a caramel frappe that left an icky aftertaste. And then I found myself giving this column a title that is much like a prompt, because I needed a boost...a trigger. You can be the judge of whether the prompt actually serves its purpose.

"There's one hole in every revolution, large or small. And it's one word long ... People. No matter how big the idea they all stand under, people are small and weak and cheap and frightened. It's people that kill every revolution." - Spider Jerusalem, comic book gonzo journalist from the future once said. Or will say.

The donkey has been treated unfairly. Throughout Arab pop culture, donkeys are referred to as dumb animals and the various nomenclatures for its cousins (baghil, ja'hish, etc) have all been used to demean people.

Someone who you want to label as an incompetent buffon might be called a donkey (humaar). A pedestrian who crosses the road ahead of incoming traffic, for example, might invoke the casual commuter's ire and receive the pop euphemism of the Equus africanus asinus.

In case you haven't heard, AdBusters, the magazine that first called for "Occupy Wall Street" movement in 2011, has called for the world to join in Chicago on May 1 in their latest "tactical briefing". In an hour #OccupyChicago began trending on Twitter in seven cities including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle and Washington DC. Most cities expressed excitement but many at "Occupy Chicago," including myself, expressed reservations.

Is Egypt floating toward oblivion? That is a question we find ourselves raising, and we tend to respond to it with a simple nod or shrug, then utter "the revolution is not over." Some took the easy way of just feeling the country, while others are still clinging to a distant glimmer of hope that the army might not have absolute power after all.

The Egyptian society has been subdividing into different groups for the past 20 years. It was only when the oppression was partially lifted with the ousting of the former president that these divisions came to surface.

A year ago the NDP won 91% of seats in parliamentary elections. Now, they're a finished chapter in Egypt's political history, remembered as the regime's patronage system. A new chapter was started recently, when millions of Egyptians voted in free and fair multi-party election.