Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday brings partly sunny skies, a one-third chance of afternoon thunderstorms, and a high of eighty to Whitewater.

There are three public meetings scheduled in the city today. The Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM, a Fiber Optic Feasibility discussion takes place at 6 PM, and the Fire & Rescue Task Force meets at 7:30 PM.

On this day in 1997, the U.S. Air Force dismisses claims of an extraterrestrial crash in 1947 New Mexico:

On this day in 1997, U.S. Air Force officials release a 231-page report dismissing long-standing claims of an alien spacecraft crash in Roswell, New Mexico, almost exactly 50 years earlier….

On July 24, 1997, barely a week before the extravagant 50th anniversary celebration of the incident, the Air Force released yet another report on the controversial subject. Titled “The Roswell Report, Case Closed,” the document stated definitively that there was no Pentagon evidence that any kind of life form was found in the Roswell area in connection with the reported UFO sightings, and that the “bodies” recovered were not aliens but dummies used in parachute tests conducted in the region. Any hopes that this would put an end to the cover-up debate were in vain, as furious ufologists rushed to point out the report’s inconsistencies. With conspiracy theories still alive and well on the Internet, Roswell continues to thrive as a tourist destination for UFO enthusiasts far and wide, hosting the annual UFO Encounter Festival each July and welcoming visitors year-round to its International UFO Museum and Research Center.

Yet, for it all, there are still conspiracy theorists who claim something happened, trying to bolster their claims using videos like this supposed alien autopsy footage:

(Really like the somber, portentous music…)

Here’s Puzzability‘s Tuesday game:

This Week’s Game — June 23-27

Camp Out

Hey, take a hike! For each day this first week of summer, we started with a phrase, removed the four letters in CAMP, and rearranged all the letters to get a new word or phrase. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the longer one first.

Example:

Automobile that your employer lets you use; preschool writing implement

Answer:

Company car; crayon

What to Submit:

Submit both pieces, with the longer one first (as “Company car; crayon” in the example), for your answer.

Tuesday, June 24

World’s oldest yachting competition; more impertinent

Good morning, Whitewater.

A new week begins with a sixty percent chance of showers and a high of seventy-nine. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:37 PM. The moon is a waning crescent with thirteen of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1927, a newspaper reports on plans to adopt Pres. Coolidge into a Sioux tribe:

The Sioux County Pioneer newspaper of North Dakota reports on this day in 1927 that President Calvin Coolidge will be “adopted” into a Sioux tribe at Fort Yates on the south-central border of North Dakota.

In anticipation of the president’s upcoming visit to the Black Hills region of North Dakota, the Sioux County Pioneer reported that a Sioux elder named Chauncey Yellow Robe, a descendant of Sitting Bull and an Indian school administrator, suggested that Coolidge be inducted into the tribe. The article stated that Yellow Robe graciously offered the president a “most sincere and hearty welcome” and hoped that Coolidge and his wife would enjoy “rest, peace, quiet and friendship among us.”

Coolidge’s public policy toward Indians included the Indian Citizen Act of 1924, which granted automatic U.S. citizenship to all American tribes. On personal moral grounds, Coolidge sincerely regretted the state of poverty to which many Indian tribes had sunk after decades of legal persecution and forced assimilation. Throughout his two terms in office, Coolidge presented at least a public image as a strong proponent of tribal rights. However, U.S. government policies of forced assimilation remained in full swing during his administration. At this time, all Indian children were placed in federally funded boarding schools in an effort to familiarize them with white culture and train them in marketable skills. In the meantime, however, they were separated from their families and stripped of their native language and culture.

At the Sioux ceremony in 1927, photographers captured Coolidge, in suit and tie, as he was given a grand ceremonial feathered headdress by Sioux Chief Henry Standing Bear and officially declared an honorary tribal member.

Photographs of the actual event are truly odd –

On this day in 1911, an aviation first:

1911 – First Home-Built Airplane Flies

On this date Wausau native John Schwister became a pioneer in Wisconsin aviation by flying the state’s first home-built airplane. The plane, named the “Minnesota-Badger,” was constructed of wooden ribs covered with light cotton material. Powered by an early-model aircraft engine, the “Minnesota-Badger” flew several hundred feet and reached a maximum altitude of 20 feet. [Source: Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame]

Puzzability begins today a new week’s puzzle series, entitled, Camp Out:

This Week’s Game — June 23-27

Camp Out

Hey, take a hike! For each day this first week of summer, we started with a phrase, removed the four letters in CAMP, and rearranged all the letters to get a new word or phrase. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the longer one first.

Example:

Automobile that your employer lets you use; preschool writing implement

Answer:

Company car; crayon

What to Submit:

Submit both pieces, with the longer one first (as “Company car; crayon” in the example), for your answer.

Monday, June 23

Jodie Foster film about a home burglary; prominent constellation with a belt

Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday brings a mostly sunny day with a high of eighty-two. We’ll have south winds at around five mph.

Well, of respondents to the FW poll on World Cup viewership, a majority said they’d take a pass (58.62% not watching, with 41.38% watching).

For those who are watching, or as a way to tempt a few more to watch, it’s the United States against Portugal today at 5 PM CT on ESPN. Here’s a brief game preview from two British analysts:

On this day in 1944, Pres. Roosevelt signs the G.I. Bill:

…President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the G.I. Bill, an unprecedented act of legislation designed to compensate returning members of the armed services–known as G.I.s–for their efforts in World War II.

As the last of its sweeping New Deal reforms, Roosevelt’s administration created the G.I. Bill–officially the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944–hoping to avoid a relapse into the Great Depression after the war ended. FDR particularly wanted to prevent a repeat of the Bonus March of 1932, when 20,000 unemployed veterans and their families flocked in protest to Washington. The American Legion, a veteran’s organization, successfully fought for many of the provisions included in the bill, which gave returning servicemen access to unemployment compensation, low-interest home and business loans, and–most importantly–funding for education.

By giving veterans money for tuition, living expenses, books, supplies and equipment, the G.I. Bill effectively transformed higher education in America. Before the war, college had been an option for only 10-15 percent of young Americans, and university campuses had become known as a haven for the most privileged classes. By 1947, in contrast, vets made up half of the nation’s college enrollment; three years later, nearly 500,000 Americans graduated from college, compared with 160,000 in 1939.

One may be a critic of most government spending, without being a critic of all; it seems wholly right that those who fought to defend this country (and the free, civilized peoples allied with us) were deserving of educational and other benefits at the war’s (blessedly victorious) end.

On this day in 1943, Joe McCarthy shows himself, not for the last time, to be a bum:

1943 – McCarthy Breaks Leg in Drunken Accident
On this date future senator Joseph McCarthy broke his leg during a drunken Marine Corps initiation ceremony, despite a press release and other claims that he was hurt in “military action.” Although nicknamed “Tail Gunner Joe”, McCarthy never was a tail gunner, but instead served at a desk as an intelligence officer. In 1951 he applied for medals, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded to those who had flown at least 25 combat missions. The Marine Corps has records of only 11 combat flights McCarthy flew on, and those were described as local “milk run” flights. Many of McCarthy’s claims were disputed by political opponents as well as journalists.

Good morning, Whitewater.

A new season begins. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:37 PM. The moon is a waning crescent with twenty-nine percent of its visible disk illuminated.

We’ll have a high of seventy-nine today and a one-third chance of afternoon thunderstorms.

Humanity played a role in the unfortunate extinction of the passenger pigeon, but Safya Khan-Ruf writes that perhaps we were not wholly responsible for their demise:

Once the most numerous bird species in North America, passenger pigeons went from numbering in the billions to being extinct in less than a century. Their decline has been mostly blamed on intensive hunting. But new research suggests that the human impact coincided with a natural decrease in population size, resulting in Martha, the last passenger pigeon, dying in 1914.

Robert Zink, from the University of Minnesota, describes the story of a billion passenger pigeons passing one spot during a migratory passage. He estimates that it meant “nearly 400,000 birds per minute, stretching across the sky.” Flocks could block the sunlight for hours as they moved in mind-boggling numbers. On the ground, the passenger pigeons ate acorns, beechnuts, and chestnuts but also soft fruits.

Regan Early, lecturer in conservation biology at the University of Exeter, said, “They were a keystone species that had incredible effects on the landscape. They came, dropped bird poo everywhere, and devoured the fruit crops in the forests. Their excrement was toxic to plants, and when a flock roosted on trees, they could break all the branches through the sheer numbers perching.”

On this day in 1788, New Hampshire ratifies the U.S. Constitution, and being the ninth state to do so, assures that a sufficient number of ratifications to bring the Constitution into effect.

On this day in 1949, southern Wisconsin gets her first drive-in theater:

1949 – Southern Wisconsin’s First Drive-in Movie
On this date Southern Wisconsin’s first outdoor, drive-in movie, the Hi-Way 26 Outdoor Theatre, opened on Milton Avenue in Janesville. The screen was 33- by 46-foot. [Source: Janesville Gazette]