Egyptians

CAIRO - A mechanic hammered a fender and boys wandered amid tin and rust as Adham Bishr, his opinions flaring on an agitated afternoon along the Nile, said Egypt's next president should give him a job, not tell him how to worship God. Men gathered around Bishr in a scrap of shade, arguing over inflation and politics before disappearing into the grit and anger of a neighborhood at Cairo's edge. The men, mostly unemployed drivers, mill hands and laborers, want work; their sons, college students with dim prospects, wonder whether the future will bring enough money to take a wife.

CAIRO - Seizing a moment in history they never imagined, the two old men walked arm in arm into a polling station on a day that was thoroughly and wonderfully Egyptian: Opinion polls were unreliable, intrigue was high, and there was a sense of destiny to rekindle the grandeur of the nation's ancient past. But it was also unlike any other day in this troubled land that has veered from euphoria to disgust to resilience: The name Hosni Mubarak wasn't on the ballot, and the two men didn't already know the outcome when they walked into the polling booth in an election that was as thrilling as it was unpredictable.

Egyptians moved further beyond the legacy of former President Hosni Mubarak's strongman rule by voting overwhelmingly to amend the nation's constitution and head swiftly toward parliamentary and presidential elections, according to results of a referendum announced Sunday. The referendum, which calls for judicial oversight of elections and limited presidential terms, was the first step to bring Egypt closer to a democracy after decades of corrupt one-party rule. The outcome is expected to spur chaotic, if exciting, races for parliament and president in coming months.

CAIRO - A mechanic hammered a fender and boys wandered amid tin and rust as Adham Bishr, his opinions flaring on an agitated afternoon along the Nile, said Egypt's next president should give him a job, not tell him how to worship God. Men gathered around Bishr in a scrap of shade, arguing over inflation and politics before disappearing into the grit and anger of a neighborhood at Cairo's edge. The men, mostly unemployed drivers, mill hands and laborers, want work; their sons, college students with dim prospects, wonder whether the future will bring enough money to take a wife.

They waited for hours in long lines, but they weren't impatient. They knew that when they emerged from polling stations and proudly waved fingers stained with pink ink, they would have freely expressed their will at the ballot box ? at last. More than 45 million Egyptians were eligible to vote Saturday on a set of constitutional amendments designed to pave the way for parliamentary and presidential elections later this year. Many said it was a cathartic moment that began to purge years of pent-up political frustration and elections draped with a democratic fig leaf during the decades of former President Hosni Mubarak's rule.

The job that Ahmed Amin thought came with a lifetime warranty is gone. Like millions of Egyptians over the decades, Amin left his native land to work in the Persian Gulf. In 2005, he was hired as a construction engineer in Dubai, the boisterous and glittering financial hub of the United Arab Emirates. But when the global financial crisis hit hard this year, skyscrapers stood unfinished and Amin was fired. "The last four months have changed the face of my whole life. I had a job that I was more than content with.

In your March 20 issue Mike Revzin's article, "In China, the Price Is Right, but Not for All," is about how foreigners not of Chinese extraction are expected to pay higher prices while touring China. There was more of the same in Egypt. On a 19-day tour I was incensed by signs in several hotel lobbies listing the cost of the rooms, with rates for Egyptians about 60% of what other nationalities were charged. HIAWATHA ESTES Northridge

A tear rolled down Eweis Abdullah's cheek, but his voice didn't crack or waver. He had told his story of injustice often over the years; a cadence settled over it. He was born a farmer's son, running through his father's wheat fields and growing into a man who raised cattle and chickens at the edge of Cairo. The land became more valuable as the city grew, and local police officers, armed with pistols and threats, decided they wanted it. "I was a well-known merchant. I was respected," he said as he stood in a downtown courthouse hallway unrolling papers that recorded years of outrage.

When Rahma Mohamed steps out of her son's line of sight, he begins to tremble. She rushes to cradle the 23-year-old's thin frame, kissing his stubbly cheek. "Relax," she murmurs. "I'm here next to you; you're all right. Don't cry. " Since Jan. 28, when security forces beat him and ran him over during the protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, Mahmoud Mohamed has been unable to speak, walk, eat or use the bathroom on his own. His head is a tapestry of scars and bandages, tubes sprout from his neck, and his palsied hands are clasped in front of a now-bony chest.

Egyptian authorities scrambled fighter jets low over a crowd of thousands of protesters in the capital city of Cairo Sunday afternoon as a sixth day of mass protests got underway and the military announced full control over major cities, Arab television showed. There were also reports of protests against the 30-year-rule of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt's second city of Alexandria. Residents stood guard against potential looting in their neighborhoods. Al Arabiya television reported that shops have been targeted in a rash of looting incidents and that the army had arrested an unspecified number of outlaws in the act of stealing.

MOVIES One of the great films of noir intrigue, "The Mystery of the Double Cross" finds a man bound to inherit a fortune when a mysterious warning to, yep, avoid the "double cross" proves prescient after a woman bearing the mark enters his life. Coincidence or harbinger of doom? Either way, it's a must-see engagement of the episodic series in 8mm format. Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., L.A. 7:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat. american cinematheque.com.

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt - The stage along the sea was a politically crafted advertisement for Egypt's diversity: An unveiled woman chatted with a bearded Islamist and a retired soccer star shared the spotlight with a young hero from last year's revolution. A roar erupted from a crowd, mostly students, when a white-haired man in a linen blazer raised his arms. As fireworks flashed in the night sky, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh called for national unity to end military rule and unrest that have soured the euphoria since Hosni Mubarak was forced from power.

The love story in Penelope Spheeris' "I Don't Know" is more than boy-meets-girl. The 18-minute black-and-white short shot in 1972 starts in an elevator where a lesbian meets a transgender man and the two become lovers (then exes) while French music plays. These are the sort of expectation-defying stories that will be told with "Same Sex/Different Sex: Queer Identity and Culture," part of the Filmforum's Alternative Projections exploring experimental film in Los Angeles. Spheeris, whose later directoral credits include the era-defining "Wayne's World" and the 1981 punk documentary "The Decline of Western Civilization," shot "I Don't Know" while in film school at UCLA.

CAIRO - Egypt's curious gallery of presidential candidates reveals how much the nation has changed yet how deeply it still echoes with voices connected to the repressive rule of deposed President Hosni Mubarak. The country's revolution brought new faces, including Khairat Shater, onetime political prisoner now running as a candidate for the Muslim Brotherhood. But the revolt failed to sweep away prominent, if shadowy, challengers from the past, most notably Omar Suleiman, the former leader's spymaster and confidant.

CAIRO - The men gathering outside the yellow mosque agreed: Adulterers should be stoned to death, the hands of thieves cut off. "But not now," said Kareem Atta, waiting in a cool breeze for the sheik's car to roll up next to the Koran sellers. " Sharia law must be gradually put into place so it doesn't shock the system. You can't cut people's hands off if you first don't give them financial justice. " The young students, engineers and laborers are followers of Hazem Salah abu Ismail, a lawyer and holy man whose poetic blend of populism and ultraconservative Salafi Islam has turned him into a leading presidential candidate.

EL HUJAYRAT, Egypt - The sheik walked through his courtyard to a room where sins are purged. When a man picks up a gun and fires it, Sheik Mohamed Abul Ismail is summoned to dispense justice, often before the grave is dug. Suspicious, with a temper as unpredictable as a water bug, he is a keeper of peace in a land prone to vendettas and a farming village accustomed to funeral processions trundling through the dust along wheat fields. He greeted an outsider the other day; men at the barbershop next door popped their heads out when they heard the word "journalist," a profession the sheik likens to droughts and crop-eating insects.

An Egyptian diplomat who had been abducted at gunpoint in the Gaza Strip was released early today in what his kidnappers called a "goodwill gesture." Palestinian police said they picked up Hussam Almousaly at a mosque in Gaza's Zeitoun neighborhood. Egyptian diplomatic officials confirmed Almousaly was back home in Gaza City. The Al Ahrar Brigades, a previously unknown Palestinian group that claimed responsibility, called for the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Egypt.

Ancient Egyptians revered cats and other animals and took as much care in preserving them as they did with humans, British experts reported in Nature. Researchers had believed that the Egyptians simply wrapped the animals in coarse linen bandages and dipped them in preservatives.

The $26-million OzIris roller coaster at Parc Asterix will dive underwater in front of a sorcerer's temple as part of the French theme park's new Egyptian-themed land. PHOTOS: OzIris inverted coaster at Parc Asterix Debuting April 7, the Bolliger & Mabillard inverted coaster's elaborate Egyptian themes include an obelisk monument, pictogram carvings and sphinx statues that maintain the characteristic humor of Asterix, a popular French comic book and the theme park's titular character.

The headlines reflect a previously unknown cruelty: a woman gunned down in a rich Cairo neighborhood, a rash of carjackings, a deadly soccer riot, a stream of smuggled arms that have given muscle to criminal gangs once easily outgunned by police. The revolution that inspired this country one year ago has set loose a menacing air that Egyptians find unfamiliar. Bristling beneath the political battle for power against the ruling generals is an insecurity over crime and a bitterness that has darkened Egypt's congenial nature.