If it smells like a Duck...

It is Friday the 13th and that seems like a lucky day to me.  Maybe we had more luck than we know this past week.
Everyone is getting a lot of humor out of the sign language interpreter for the Nelson Mandella's memorial. It's funny, an interpreter for the deaf signing gibberish at an event the whole world is watching.  It is much like a Saturday Night Live sketch with Garrett Morris yelling at the camera through cupped hands. However, as the details of the event come out it becomes a little less comedy sketch and more like a sinister plot.  

According to the LA Times the man who stood only feet from the most powerful leaders in the world was clinically diagnosed with schizophrenia. He heard voices inside his head and he spent a year and a half in a hospital jail for his problems.  He was known to be violent with sudden outbursts of anger and once took a clerk hostage inside a courtroom. 

The man admits to his condition and says now that he was having "an episode" while he was on stage with president Obama. He was hearing voices and "seeing angels".  In the Times he was quoted as saying that the episode was probably brought on by the excitement and the importance of the ceremony.  He basically broke under the pressure. Fortunately he did not get violent. 

At the least, the people responsible for vetting this guy to be on stage were derelict in their duties; at worst it was a terrorist plot that did not play out.  To add to the mystery, the agency responsible for getting this guy to the podium is gone.  "Vanished into thin air" is the quote from South Africa. 

Now if I owned the agency that supplied this guy, I too might disappear from a public relations angle if nothing else.  It can't be good business to be the agency that sent an "illiterate" signer to the big show.

But playing the role of conspiracy advocate as I do,  what if this was a "front" company who got this guy to the podium that day.  The company knew he had uncontrolled violent outbursts capable of harming people and could crack under pressure. Just get this guy next to world leaders in a stressful situation and see what happens. 

If he cracks and becomes violent he would  be the "lone crazy" who snapped.  Damage would have been done, this guy would be the patsy.   The people who got him there (the agency) would have "vanished into thin air" and the chain of responsibility would be broken. The plot would end with a mental problem.

There are so many political terrorist plots that are interrupted, this could have been the bomb that didn't go off, but in the perfect cover story it was just a confused sign language interpreter. You can bet that no one will look into this as anything but a "comic" situation.   

I personally think that the minute it was determined that his sign language was gibberish he should have been quietly removed from stage. First of all, he was not doing the job he was supposed to do, and secondly... most importantly... he could have been sending instant signals to coordinate a larger plot of attack. 

Perhaps I read to many crime stories.  Still this whole thing seems like a very odd duck.  You can bet that it won't go any further than this blog.  I guess there is no story if there is no story, but in some ways it seems that a crisis event was diverted by sheer luck. 

As you were,

Jay