Iraq Ink

Dante does eyebrows.                                                                    screen shot

"Anyone who works with the U.S., it changes your culture." So says a 26-year-old former security contractor. This is Baghdad, but that statement could have been made almost anywhere. The man who made it is in line for a tattoo, which proves his point. Tats are just on the edge of being accepted in this religious, conservative society. The tattoo artist he's seeing also once worked for the U.S., as an interpreter. In fact, it was a soldier, himself a tattooist, who noticed the young man's drawings and suggested he consider that line of work. Now he has his own shop in a cosmopolitan neighborhood and works on everyone from militia members to moms (story, video): http://www.latimes.com/world/great-reads/la-fg-c1-iraq-baghdad-tattoo-20150108-story.html#page=1