Scott Reynolds wrote:

> On 7/8/2003 8:04 AM, masayuki yoshida wrote:
>
> > Then, how about this topic - why dozens of school head
> > committed suicide recently in Hiroshima, your prefecture.
>
> Have there really been dozens of such suicides? That is shocking.
>
> I remember the first such case, a couple of years back when singing
> Kimigayo at school ceremonies was made compulsory by the education
> ministry. At the time it was said that the principal who took his own
> life found himself trapped between the conservative education ministry,
> whose orders he was compelled to obey, and the leftist teachers union in
> his district, which was also being obdurate on the issue. He felt he had
> no way out,

He could have quit or retired. Just like anyone else who killed themselves.
These people are sadly mistaken if they think even their own deaths will
succeed in changing people's minds.

> and killed himself.
>
> That incident was widely reported, but I don't remember reading about
> dozens of other suicides. I wonder why they have not been made more of
> by the press. Perhaps it's like executions in Texas -- they've become so
> commonplace that no one seems to notice or care anymore.

Precisely. They might just get mixed in with the other 31,000 Japanese
suicides per year.