Tuesday, October 30, 2007

In Scandal's Sweet Embrace

"Who ever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers..."

- Blanche DuBois, A Streetcar Named Desire


T'is is a small detail, but an infuriating one--one that separates scamp from scoundrel.

Yesterday, in his testimony to the Diet, former Defense Vice Minister Moriya Takemasa admitted that in addition to the 200 plus round of golf at 50%- 70% off the cost of the green fees, the paid-for mahjong games, the dinners at the yakiniku restaurants (What is it with bureaucrats that when they misbehave, they have to see meat cooking meat before them?), he accepted from the former executive of Yamada Yōkō two sets of golf bags with phoney name tags on them, facilitating Moriya's recurrent ruse of signing in at the course clubhouse under an assumed name.

Even after all the other gifts, when out on his forbidden excursions Moriya depended upon his buddy to shell out the money necessary to provide him with a believable alias.

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