Take me out to the Ball Game
Ah, where would baseball be without those ballplayer trading cards, especially when the concept of “home team” has lost all meaning in these days of everywhere recruitment? Anyway, trading-card themes are not limited to the world of sports, as most of my readers will know. A novel use for such cards came to my attention when I was going through the July 2025 edition of ‘Harper’s Magazine’, which featured an example of a card from Kawara, a town on the Japanese island of Kyushu. These cards feature pictures of middle-aged and elderly men from the town whose heavy-hitting status is determined by “his perceived value to the community.” Setting aside the possible legal implications of this, it is, on the whole, kind of nice. After all, there are some people, not necessarily confined to Japan mind you, who appear to be attempting to foment generational warfare, decrying the amount of money moved from state coffers to pay for their piddling pensions. Don’t ask where the lion’s share of that money goes, though, please.
The doorbell rang. I got up and checked the video intercom, but no one was there. I went to the door, checked the peephole and no one was there. Intrepidly, I opened the door just a crack, and there he was, standing just a few centimeters high.
“Hi, Jack,” the Lep said cheerfully.
“How did you manage to ring the doorbell?” I asked.
“We have ways,” he replied.
“Well, come on in. Want a drink?”
“No, thanks. I just came to see what you’ve been up to,” he said.
I told him about the piece in Harper’s and that that had inspired me to create my own set of cards. Each featured a picture of a real state official with a made-up name that was evocative and provocative and a spurious but revealing quote that candidly exposed his/her true colors. I displayed the full set on the dining room table and went through each for the little guy.
Card #1, Name: The Right Honorable Cleansing Clyster, Minister of Finance: “I’ll clean it out as swiftly as possible.”
Card #2, Name: Mums de Word, Minister of Communication (a.k.a., Minister for Propaganda and Enlightenment): “All I can say is, ‘We truly hate speech.’ We hate the haters because they hate!”
Card #3, Name: Colonel Crustus Colander, Minister of Defense (sic): “I never met a military contractor I didn’t like.”
Card #4, Name: Mr. White Elephant, Minister of Special Projects (and you know what that means): “You can’t kill ‘em: you can only feed ‘em. The gift that keeps taking.”
Card #5, Name: Dr. Perpetually Safective, Minister of Health: “Remember: if it’s neither safe nor effective, it’s probably delicious.”
Card #6, Name: Ms. Creature of Carbon, Minister of Energy: “I will refrain from making any statement regarding my responsibilities until I hear from Brussels, WEF, and unspecified NGOs. All I can say now is that I am rather fond of pepper spray. It’s the spice of life, the state’s favorite condiment!”
Card #7, Name: Mr. Quiz A. Ling, Minister of Culture and National Identity: “Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha! Etc., etc., etc.”
I went on to explain to the Lep that the beauty of these cards, aside from the candid messages, is the status of the official images of the grandees thereon, democratically elected and seemingly brought back on a regular basis (recycled?). The photographs are in the public domain, so they are FREE—a wonderful word, rarely employed these days—to use. And their marketing is sure to appeal to many people in more than a few benighted nations. Remember how popular Garbage Pail Kids were way back in the 1980s?
The Lep smiled and sang, “And it’s one, two, three strikes you rise in this hall of shame.”
“Kakistocracy forever!” I shouted.
Jack Napes is an Irish writer based in Tokyo. His creative output is nearly all political and social satire. He is the author of “A Visit to the Parasitological Museum” (Number Eleven Magazine), “An Immodest Proposal” (Dodging the Rain), and the poem “The Fear-Itself Litany” (The Corbett Report Subscriber Newsletter), as well as the novella Travels with the Tribe: Killing Gravity in Woke Times, which is available from Kobo Writing Life, as a digital download for about the price of a can of beer in Tokyo. Help him buy a six pack. He can be reached at travelswiththetribe-mail@yahoo.co.jp or on X @jacknapestribe and will respond if so inclined.