While 2019 should have been a year to celebrate the sincere efforts of rugby's bravest blossoms, it ended instead in yet another of the serial scandals of its leader's blushing blossoms.
Having sidestepped Moritomo, Kake Gakuen and who knows how many other cover-ups, it seems Shinzo Abe can disregard accountability for even the most blatant misuse of public funds to throw away on cronies.
Certainly the most serious abuse of all is the prolonged attempts to trash Japan's peaceful Constitution which might have won a Nobel Prize but for all the behind the scenes meddling that ordinary taxpayers never see.
Abenomics, the fake financial policy that he has claimed fame for, is a continuing farce. At best it lines the pockets of those hidden few who pull his strings to keep him in power and cement their own megatons of flesh.
Fukushima has been removed from the public's eye and attention. The government's unscrupulous handling of that alone should have been their cue for a disgraced exit.
Instead, plans for Japan's suicidal nuclear and military buildups push on apace, while nothing at all has been done to make Japan a country where its citizens even want a family or future any more since the problem became apparent to everyone in the 1980s.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.