“Doubts cast on suicide strategy,” the Taipei Times reports today. Is the government finally taking action against sloppy, inefficient, and bungled suicides? No, it turns out that legislators are criticizing the Department of Health for doing too little to reduce Taiwan’s suicide rate. Over 4000 people did themselves in last year—far more than in the happy Philippines or Thailand, the Land of Smiles, but still fewer than South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, or blue-balled China. And no one in Asia comes close to Japan, where Internet suicide pacts are the rage.

The Department of Health will devote themselves assiduously to the problem, but they are too late to save the Taitung man who hung himself yesterday after police accused him of murdering his Vietnamese wife by train derailment. Now I understand why my friend was reluctant to let me ride the train to Shulin last weekend—she was afraid of copycat killers.

I suppose I’m lucky to be alive, but it’s all just a roll of the dice, isn’t it? As my dear aunt would say, “What’s for you won’t go by you.”