THE FUTURE ISN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE

Some latest stats on our little township, which, unlike most of the rest of Japan, increased in population across the board, though only slightly, to 22,965: 17 more men, 33 more women, 20 more families than last year. The oldest resident is a woman aged 103; the oldest male is 96. Four individuals in the township are centenarians; all are women; 170 folks are in their nineties. These numbers should change radically, especially downriver and downwind, once the prefecture at the vanguard of tomorrow has pioneered the future by advancing ever forward, holding high the triumphant banner of progress as manifested in the spanking new state-of-the-art industrial waste gasification incinerator that's scheduled for construction on the once-revered mountainside just above the formerly honored lake in the previously protected forest.

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