CONSPIRACY THEORY? Or just a conspiracy? A reader writes to note some odd events in Memphis. It’s pretty well summed up in this story. Harvard virologist Don Wiley disappeared in Memphis and was found dead. A fake-driver’s license ring involving Middle Eastern men was broken up, and Katherine Smith, the state driver’s license examiner who was involved in it was murdered. (More details on that case here). Now the chief medical examiner, O.C. Smith (I don’t know if he’s any relation to Katherine — apparently not, as the story doesn’t mention it) who handled both autopsies has been attacked and left bound with barbed wire and with a bomb attached to him (he was found and lived).

Authorities are blaming anti-abortion types for the latest attack, but you have to wonder about all these coincidences. It’s, er, like something out of a thriller novel.

UPDATE: There’s a story in today’s (Tuesday’s New York Times with further details on why the authorities are blaming a particular (unknown) letter-writer, though this story suggests the writer is more interested in the death penalty than in abortion.