When I was in junior high, patches were pretty sweet.  Everybody had denim jackets, and everybody wanted them to have patches.  In my time, I’ve proudly displayed patches from Ski Santa Fe, from Yellowstone Park Service Stations, and from County Line Hunting Club, which were places where I recreated, worked, and shot animals from time to time (in that order).  This light fare from the Times is also about patches, but of a different kind.  Black ops patches, which shine a dark light on a dark corner of the nation’s government.

One patch shows a space alien with huge eyes holding a stealth bomber near its mouth. “To Serve Man” reads the text above, a reference to a classic “Twilight Zone” episode in which man is the entree, not the customer. “Gustatus Similis Pullus” reads the caption below, dog Latin for “Tastes Like Chicken.”

Part esprit de corps, part gnosticism, part patriotism, these patches are pretty awesome to look at.  And in some ways, they reveal that black ops people are people, too.

In an interview, Mr. Paglen said his favorite patch was the dragon holding the Earth in its claws, its wings made of American flags and its mouth wide open, baring its fangs. He said it came from the National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees developing spy satellites. “There’s something both belligerent and weirdly self-critical about it,” he remarked. “It’s representing the U.S. as a dragon with the whole world in its clutches.”

I think it’d be pretty awesome if I were to do something, one day, that merited a patch like that.