True.Coincidentaly there is another case popped up in Japan related a cop got busted for
談合.NHK is also making NHK special on 脱談合 this sunday.(June 3)probably under production for months before Matsuoka’s suicide.
http://www.nhk.or.jp/special/

Impressive that he was the first since the war – I did not realise that.

“Matsuoka hanged himself in his parliamentary residence Monday. He had been under fire for political money scandals, but had rejected opposition party calls to step down.”

Aurelia George Mulgan has just released a book on the guy that I was going to get for a little light holiday reading. Other readers of this blog might now be interested.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0731537572?tag=obserjapan-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0731537572&adid=1VNSDBN4SKJ4STSPWDW9&

I believe the thesis of George Mulgan’s book was that the system of patronage that was entrenched after the 1960s is still alive and well in Japan, no pun intended. Given that Matsuoka was her major case study, I wonder if his suicide is a sign that such behaviour is no longer acceptable. In other words, will George Mulgan have to reconsider her thesis?

MF and Gen: ““Hung” is passive voice, as in “I was hung out to dry,” but “hanged is the past tense of “to hang.””

No – both wrong. It is merely a different verb. The past and past part. of hang as in the neck-stretching kind are both hanged. So in the passive it is still “he was hanged”. See the following example:

“Hussein was hanged for his role in the 1982 Dujail massacre, in which 148 Iraqis were killed after a failed assassination attempt against the then-Iraqi president.”

So there are two verbs:
Generic hang: hang hung hung
Execution hang: hang hanged hanged