Opinions

This year has been quite a newsworthy one, with events around the globe rousing the public and inspiring a slew of intriguing headlines. But a few weeks ago, one headline in particular really shook Americans: “Pizza a Vegetable? Congress Says Yes.” Some found this news ridiculously amusing; others were outraged. But everyone can take a deep breath — Congress did not actually declare pizza a vegetable. They did, however, say that two tablespoons of tomato sauce on pizzas served in school cafeterias count as a serving of vegetables. It’s a theoretical and mathematical question, really. According to Congress, two tablespoons of tomato paste has as much nutritional value as half a cup of vegetables.

I write from Sidi Bou Said, a touristy seaside town outside of the Tunisian capital, which Lonely Planet has informed me was once home to Michel Foucault. It's December 8, 2011 — the middle of the last month of this eventful year — and about three days after I had anticipated arriving in Tripoli, Libya. But upon arrival in Tunis, I found a more general air of concern than I had anticipated. Not only was nearly everyone I spoke to discouraging me from attempting to cross the land border, but apparently it was not possible to fly either. When I expressed my bewilderment to a Tunis Air employee — "What does the closure of the border have to do with your flights to Tripoli?" — she kindly brought me up to speed: about two weeks ago, Tunis Air suspended all service to Tripoli after armed people there boarded a plane full of (obviously unarmed) passengers. The men who boarded the plane with their weapons were thowar, she said — revolutionaries — and they came in search of some Gaddafi-loyalists who were trying to flee Libya.

It’s hard to believe that two weeks ago, this place was occupied by protesters — that the walls were covered in graffiti, the windows blocked with hand-painted signs, the escalators barricaded. But it was indeed occupied, and thanks to the administration, it stayed occupied for an entire week.

We are a group of students who acted to establish the occupation of the Study Center at 90 Fifth Ave. that began on Thursday, November 17. Our enthusiasm for the occupation was grounded in our ambitions to open an autonomous space in support of the Occupy movement, which recently had a hasty eviction from Zuccotti Park. We wanted to secure a base for connecting protests and struggles across the city, giving impetus for the further development of the burgeoning student movement.

They continued to stare and say nothing, for the doors had opened and the crowds were filing in. As the three friends took their seats, one of them suddenly looked back as if to say, “I know what you meant and I don’t like it.”

Some call it thievery; we called it Gnome Hunting.