Strange Fruit

When I first heard the news about Bill Sparkman, the census worker in Kentucky that was found hanging, I must admit I thought he had done himself in.  The information that was initially released gave me the suspicion that the poor guy was feeling victimized and persecuted and had killed himself for sympathy and maybe a release from his role as a single parent.  He was apparently touching the ground as well.

Occasionally you hear stories about people who do take their own lives or otherwise victimize themselves and try to pin blame on somebody else to elicit sympathy. It seemed a classic textbook case.

Apparently that is not so. News out today that the body was completely bound and gagged in a way that an individual would not be able to bind his or her self.  Jerry Weaver, the man who found the body, came out today and said that it was definitely murder.  The body was apparently naked except for his socks and his hands and feet were completely wrapped with duct tape. His census badge was taped to his head and shoulder area. His clothes were located in a near bye abandoned pickup truck. Fed was written on his chest with a felt pen. The FBI has asked that Census work in the rural Kentucky county be temporarily halted.

No one knows at this point if the perpetrators were moonshiners, meth heads, or radical conservatives.  And if law enforcement does know, they aren't talking. But the reality is that Michele Bachmann, the nutcase congresswoman from Minnesota, has been railing against the innocuous Census Bureau for months. I am sure that law enforcement has not ruled out that the death might be a result of her twisted hate speech.  She refused to answer questions today about her complicity in inciting violence against government workers.

I don't know who is responsible for this poor guy's death.  I hope that the authorities can track the bastards down. But it once again reinforces the notion that words have power and consequences.  That unbalanced and paranoid people can be sent into a deadly and murderous rage when provoked and manipulated, even  by the foolish babble of idiot politicians and congresswomen.