Monthly Archives: May 2022

The School for Swallows

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One of the great things about owning a barn in the Midwest is that every spring and summer it becomes a home for barn swallows. These strikingly beautiful visitors are endowed with navy blue backs, cream-colored undersides, a dab of orange under the beak, and distinctive forked tails.  They build their nests high up in the rafters of buildings and barns,… Read more »

Cracking the Code

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During World War II, America’s Office of Strategic Services – the precursor to the CIA – was assigned the task of devising subversive ways to help defeat Japan.  Some of the OSS’s initiatives could best be described as non-traditional.  More than two million dollars were invested in the development of the “bat bomb.”  Project managers hoped to drop thousands of Mexican… Read more »