Conspiracy theories...

Does anyone else think that THIS is just a little bit too much of a coincidence!?!?! For those of you who don`t follow any Japanese news, for the past few years and particularly in the past few months there has been a debate raging in Japan about allowing females to succeed to the throne. There have been no men born into the royal family since 1965 and as a result there has been a move to change the laws and allow the daugher of the current crown prince to become Empress when her father dies. Here is an article for anyone interested: Succession crisis The Crown Prince`s wife, Masako-sama used to be a very high-powered diplomat and they got married quite late in life and after one public miscarriage (who knows how many there really were) she gave birth to Aiko (whose name means child of love) and is now in her early 40s so everyone seems to have given up on her having anymore kids. She is currently out of the public eye alot due to a stress-related illness which is blamed on pressure within the castle (from the Imperial Household Agency, who sound like a bunch of old nazis.. not so much from the Emperor) to produce a male heir. The Japanese public seems to be split into three camps, the "no women should ever be head of any family, let alone the royal family" camp, the "Aiko-san should definitely be Empress and her Mum is very cool and the idiots at the castle should stop pushing her to have another baby" camp and the "we have a royal family? what are they around for?" camp. Distant members of the royal family (I guess they would be Lords/ Earls in the UK) have made comments that a woman should never be allowed to be Empress for fear that she falls in love with a "blue-eyed foreigner" and contaminates the blood-line. The whole thing drives me completely insane and it just shows you how little Japan has actually changed since the decision was originally made to make the succession line a purely male one. The original decision was made in the 5th/6th century when people in the court (probably ancestors of the current Imperial Household Agency Nazis) became concerned that the Empress was being too heavily influenced by a Buddhist priest who she had fallen in love with. Now you can understand that given the way of thinking at the time (right or wrong) people being chauvanist xenophobic bigots was expected but in the new millenium, I don`t think they have any excuse! Anyway, amidst all this furore, the wife of the younger prince who is 39 and has two kids in Elementary School/ junior high suddenly falls pregnant. Now I know that surprises happen and I know that there is a chance that this pregnancy is just a happy event but let`s face it, with the timing it just stinks of being a planned, engineered pregnancy. Who wants to bet the baby will be a boy (thereby making him next in line to the throne and setting Japan back another thousand years or so..) ??!