Friday 22 August 2008

Shooting Blanks



Throughout the summer, one finds these Aztec-patterned red and black bugs swarning over trees and bushes in great orgies. After hearing the suggestion that these bugs were not indiginous or invasive but rather introduced as a biological weapon during the Second World War--a story that I never heard a second time, I became convinced that I had seen the same bug-orgies in Oklahoma.
In an effort to disrupt domestic German food production, these insects were air-dropped over the fields. The story seems even more plausible given that I have only found such large accumulations on and around US Army bases, which were mostly created from occupied German army installations. The story never concluded that this bit of biological terror was very effective.