Little Polly Flinders
Sat among the cinders
Warming her pretty little toes.
--anonymous nursery rhyme

The mayor of Nagasaki is a coreligionist of my Papist wife, and a heroic man. Extreme rightists, armed with ordnance provided by the Yakuza, periodically try to assassinate the mayor of Nagasaki. They've put at least one bullet in him already, because he says incorrect things about the Holy Family in Tokyo. And yet he stands firm as an eighteen year old's hard-on. That's how much heroicity of virtue this old mackerel-snapper possesses. The mayor of Nagasaki is definite beatification material, a man of genuine spirituality.

But his chamber of commerce is a complete failure. Nagasaki's Ground Zero is even tackier than Hiroshima's, with its array of eyesore statuary from various other vanquished burgs across the globe. You wouldn't catch Michael Jackson laying wreaths at their hypocenter. Or even Mother Teresa, for that matter (if she wasn't already sitting on the right hand of our Heavenly Father)--although I guess it depends on how much money you slipped her, and whether you could score enough amyl nitrate poppers to keep her happy on the plane, and whether you could recruit a couple really cute Filipina pinkies who were willing to dress up like nunnery novices and let her whip their naked bottoms with a rosary and gnaw on their toes in the hotel.

Tom Bradley lives in Japan. He has been kicked out of China. He is the author of much, including the unfortunately dubbed Sam Edwine Pentateuch, a series of five novelistic werks. Visit www.tombradley.org for further examinations and information. As always, we welcome him heartily...

PROFESSOR SAM EDWINE AND HIS GRAD STUDENT LOUNGE AROUND A MARINA, DISCUSSING THE DENTITION AND DIET OF A RIVER HOBO

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