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button  Sunday, May 4, 2003   The Great Sasuke faces up to
political reality  Two recent news items prompted an interesting
digression in Asahi Shimbun's unattributed "Tensei Jingo" column
April 23. Making initially veiled references to Lower House
lawmaker Kenshiro Matsunami's alleged links with underworld
figures and the election last month of professional wrestler the
Great Sasuke to the Iwate Prefectural Assembly, the article
pondered the "faces" that people wear for the public.  After
explaining the etymology of "persona," a Greek word that
originally meant the masks worn by actors onstage to depict
character, the column stated that sometimes a person's mask got
stuck, and the wearer is subsequently "corrupted by his
personality." In the case of Matsunami, the mask that he wore in
the Diet "didn't quite fit" and fell off when the scandal was
exposed.  Whatever mask Matsunami was wea