Question of Taste

Did I step over the line when I joked that Rachel Lucas is dead? It gets hard to step over the line with humor about distant subjects, but Rachel had been a big part of the blogosphere and that’s more like making a joke about someone we know. Personally, I’m frustrated by her dissappearance, and I guess I did it out of a hope to provoke some answers.
Anyway, I like making fun of Commies and hippies because we all hate them, but things become quickly unfunny for me if I feel I’ve distressed someone. So was that joke over the line?