Ahmadinejad Ate Their Votes!

Alteration of Photo I took as the plane approached Houston, on my flight to the east coast

Original: http://www.fotolog.com/richnature/39449575

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In honor of an important local writer and teacher, Morton Marcus, who recently passed away, I am going to share some of his writings:
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THE MAN WITH THE MOUSTACHE

The man with the moustache is heavyset and browned, tanned by days of sitting with his companions on the wharf,joking, smoking, and drinking beer on the shores
of this Balkan village on the Adriatic Sea. "Pivo, pivo," he calls, and his admirers scoot to get him can after can from a nearby store. Scars on his arms and cheeks, calloused, grasping hands—he’s a rough one in a rough crowd, and the first day my wife and Iappear, our eyes lock as we size each other up—middle-aged men from different countries, if not from different worlds.Then, having seen enough, his gaze slides to my wife. Oblivious, she spreads her towel and settles recumbentand sighing in the sun. He mutters something to his friends, who laugh, then turns to me and lifts his chin, jaws tight,and glares. My jaws tighten too, and I glare back.

The muttering, the laughter, the stares—for four days
it’s the same. Even today, the ritual is repeated,
but more as a formality, a weary greeting between men who recognize each other in passing but do not share language, customs or any common thing.
The hours pass in the hot, sun-drenched afternoon.
The man and his friends drink, swim, shout and laugh. He dog-paddles, dives, splashes and swoops, and an hour ago rose to the surface with an object in his hand that he placed gently on the pier—a black spiny creature big as his palm. The man remained in the water,only his head and shoulders showing above the wharf, as his hands caged the spiny thing, coaxed it this way and thator nudged it forward with a finger to make it move. For all that prodding, the animal remained inert. But the man never grew impatient, and his examination
was so intense that every so often, as if coming up for air, he would dart an almost embarrassed glance around the pier, or toward his preoccupied companions who roughhoused on the landing twenty yards away. Then he would return
to his find, turning it over and pressing it gently,
all the while bending his head close to the quills
like a watchmaker studying the interior of a clock.

He was so absorbed, he never noticed me watching him from beneath a tree, as his thick fingers first
became a cradle, then pushed the creature forward
as if it were an infant he was teaching how to walk.
The man’s jaw went slack as his absorption rose
and he became oblivious to everything around him.
Once he rinsed the animal below the pier.
Next he lifted it to the slab again and caressed
the spines and belly. But no matter what he did,
the creature lay there and wouldn’t move.
Finally, as if releasing a bottle with a message inside,
the man lifted it again, turned, and offered it to the sea, watching it for several minutes as, I guess,
it got its watery bearings and crawled away.
The man shivered, shook himself free, looked up,
and caught my gaze. His chin hardened. He glared.
Then, suddenly, he relaxed and nodded. I nodded back.

http://mortonmarcus.com/
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