Word: bullet
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...church. In the end, not every Catholic--certainly not every American Catholic--considered Pope John Paul II's explosion a joyful noise unto the Lord. But the 264th occupant of the throne of St. Peter was no more silenced by their misgivings than by the assassin's bullet he survived in 1981 or the progressive ailments, including Parkinson's disease, that he withstood for at least a decade. He pursued God's truth with a fearless, anachronistic, nearly stunning purity of purpose, and the world was left to adapt as it might...
...during his weekly audience in St. Peter's Square, shots rang out, and he toppled back, his white cassock stained red. Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turkish rightist and a murderer who had earlier written a letter threatening to kill John Paul, was trying to follow through. The bullet passed within millimeters of a major artery and within inches of several vital organs. "Mary, my mother," John Paul gasped as he collapsed. Doctors removed part of his intestine and, over the next few days, replaced almost all his blood with transfusions...
...known to prostrate himself before her statues. Since the shooting occurred on the anniversary of the 1917 apparition of the Virgin near Fatima in Portugal, he was convinced he owed his life to her. He made a pilgrimage of thanks to Fatima, and the near fatal bullet was fitted into a jeweled crown worn by her statue. In 1983, out of the same wellspring of faith, emerged an act of stunning virtue: his forgiveness of Agca in the would-be assassin's jail cell...
...what is now Tokyo. Overshadowed not just by Tokyo to its east, but also by Osaka to its west, Nagoya languished, developing a reputation as a backwater among many Japanese (and a complete cipher to most foreigners) despite being Japan's fourth largest city. When a new generation of bullet trains between Tokyo and Osaka was introduced in 1992, the original schedules didn't even include a Nagoya stop. Two decades ago, a comedian named Tamori got laughs by mocking Nagoya's dialect, which he likened to cats' mewling...
...need for clocks, weathermen or juries in Basin City--Sin City to you. It's always night, always raining and every dispute is resolved personally, often by a bullet to the groin. Men are the walking wounded, with scarred faces and psyches. Women are trophies, to fight for, possess or smash. Noir doesn't get gnarlier than in the corpse operas of Frank Miller's graphic novels or Robert Rodriguez's ultra-vivid movie of three of them...