My kids, born in 2019 and 2021, are wild about the original Mickey Mouse cartoons from the 1920s and 1930s. A few months ago, we stumbled on YouTube across this delightful 1929 short of skeletons dancing in a graveyard. From there, we discovered a trove of oldies now available on Disney+, and recently the streaming service began offering five episodes from the original season in 1955 of the Mickey Mouse Club.

There’s surprisingly little Mickey Mouse on Mickey Mouse Club, so I’m amazed it holds my kids’ interest. They did science experiments and song-and-dance routines, stuff like that. And they open, after the fabulous animation and the famous theme song – that we quickly turned into a “Mickey Mouse!” “Donald Duck!” call-and-response gag – with a “newsreel for kids.”

The reason I’m telling you all of this? Because a totally bizarre item on the newsreel was datelined Ann Arbor! It’s a ninety-second report, which is not on YouTube so far as I can tell, about a program at University Hospital, “a happy hospital for 3,000 youngsters every year.” Evidently, seventy years ago they cheered up sick kids by letting animals run loose around the patients’ rooms. “Well, who’s this?” the announcer asks. “It’s a coatimundi from South America, playful as a kitten,” he answers as this overgrown rodent climbs down into a bed where multiple kids, including one with two legs suspended in midair in casts, lay. A beat later, we learn that “three-year-old Jane Dibble isn’t lonesome, thanks to Mortimer the Mouse.” There are also rabbits, a lamb, and an ostrich. “You might say it’s almost fun to be sick with such playmates,” the voice marvels.

Umm, OK. How do I top that?

With your news, of course! We have a new U-M president, the embattled Washtenaw County sheriff is drawing more scrutiny, hundreds marched in honor of the mom shot to death by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, and the Trump administration ripped crucial mental health treatment away from a major local nonprofit in the dead of night only to reinstate it later in the day.

This was last week’s most-clicked link.

– Steve Friess, editor

P.S. Observer editor-in-chief Brooke Black will be at Argus next Friday, January 23 from 8 to 10 a.m. It’s her first stop on a “listening tour” to meet community members, learn what they feel are the most important issues facing Ann Arbor, and shape the Observer’s future coverage. Mark your calendars!

1. New year, new president: Syracuse chancellor Kent Syverud, who had planned to step down from that job in June, will be the U-M’s sixteenth leader, the Regents decided on Monday. Unlike last week’s blockbuster U-M hire, Syverud has deep ties to the university, Ann Arbor, and the state – he earned his law and economics master’s degrees here, it’s where met his wife, a fellow student, and where he taught law for a decade. He remains at Syracuse until the summer, when he’ll take over for interim president Dominico Grasso as the permanent replacement for Santa Ono, who quit to pursue an unsuccessful bid to be president of University of Florida. Syverud is sixty-nine and had planned to retire but for the Maize-and-Blue siren’s call of his alma mater. The U-M community responded with cautious optimism. In a letter to the Syracuse community explaining his decision, Syverud wrote, “For someone who has spent their life in service to higher education, this call to return to the university that first inspired my path is profoundly meaningful.” Read more

2. Streets fill with anger over ICE killing, tactics: Local demonstrators held a vigil on Friday for Renee Nicole Good, the thirty-seven-year-old mom in Minneapolis shot to death by an ICE officer as she appeared to be trying to comply with a demand to leave the roadway in her car. The next day, hundreds turned out as part of Ann Arbor Indivisible’s “ICE Out For Good” march and rally against the Trump administration and ICE violence. On social media after the rally, mayor Christopher Taylor said the city would refuse to assist ICE in its efforts to round up and deport undocumented immigrants. Read more and watch our TikTok from the demonstrations.

3. Two data center developments: Attorney general Dana Nessel has asked the Michigan Public Service Commission to reconsider its December decision to grant DTE permission to enter into contracts with the developers of the 1.4-gigawatt OpenAI-Oracle server farm planned for Saline Twp. “I remain extremely disappointed with the Commission’s decision to fast-track DTE’s secret data center contracts without holding a contested case hearing,” she wrote. “This was an irresponsible approach that cut corners and shut out the public and their advocates.” Meanwhile, U-M has scheduled a January 29 open house where the public can ask questions about the school’s planned $1.25 billion “high-performance computing facility” collaboration with the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Ypsilanti Twp. Registration is required for the event, which will run from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Ann Arbor Marriott Ypsilanti at Eagle Crest. It’ll be the first such event to actually take place in Ypsilanti Twp. 

4. Jewish Family Services panics over surprise, later-reversed defunding : The nonprofit says it learned “in the middle of the night” early Wednesday that the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration had terminated an ongoing five-year, $3 million grant that started in 2024 to provide mental health services through JFS’s Thrive Counseling. It was part of a sudden $1.9 billion rollback of some 2,000 SAMHSA grants around the nation focused on mental health and substance abuse counselling on grounds they no longer align with the priorities of the agency. On Thursday, the New York Times reported that the cuts had been rescinded after a vociferous, bipartisan pushback, albeit with no comment from the administration. JFS, the only local agency so far to indicate it had been defunded, vowed not to halt treatment for its clients and launched a concerted online campaign to replace the funds with donations. On Thursday afternoon, JFS CEO Anya Abramzon thanked supporters and donors. “Day to day, we navigate an ever-shifting and chaotic landscape of new policies, sudden decisions, and crises that emerge without warning, often with little regard for the human lives they impact,” she wrote. “Yet in the midst of that uncertainty, this community has been unwavering.”

Ann Arbor’s observer: Shelley Daily fills her profile of former editor John Hilton (above) with a torrent of charming and fascinating details that remind us just how lucky it was that the beloved monthly magazine ended up under his stewardship. In 1982, he traded his $39,000 assembly line job at Ford for a $13,500 staff writing position; nearly four decades later, he says, “I could not imagine a better life for myself.” Click on the link if only for vivid, beautiful sentences like this about a custom shared by Hilton and his wife, Eve: “They often lie at opposite ends of their big living room couch, laptops open, with their toes touching.” Read more

Something Blue: The city is accepting applications from property owners for the Bluebelt program, Anna McLean writes, a new effort designed to safeguard the sourcewater that feeds Ann Arbor’s drinking water system by buying up conservation easements on land adjacent to upstream creeks, wetlands, and groundwater recharge areas. Landowners don’t need technical expertise to determine whether their property qualifies; all they need is a creek with a natural buffer, around 100 feet of vegetation on each side, or to be identified as an important groundwater recharge area. The city will coordinate with regional land conservancies to identify parcels for protection. Read more

What She Said: A reader asks our advice maven how to find a usable, current paper map of Ann Arbor. Evidently, they’ve been “relegated to antiquity in favor of their digital age progeny.” Read more

Ann Arbor Restaurant Week kicks off Sunday: More than fifty eateries are set to offer special deals and tasting menus during the annual six-day event that runs through Friday, January 23. To see who is participating and what they’re offering, click here.

Papa Johns returns: It’s been more than six years since the last Ann Arbor store closed, but the chain is back with its new site in the Colonnade, Dave Algase writes in this month’s Observer. The store is one of more than 275 franchises owned by Canfield, OH–based Bajco Group, including the nearest Papa Johns, in Ypsilanti Township’s Fountain Square Shopping Center. Papa Johns is the fourth-largest pizza chain in the U.S. 

Carsons American Bistro to rebrand: The restaurant off Plymouth Rd. closed January 10 for redesign of the interior to have a “brighter, more vibrant atmosphere with updated finishes and refreshed décor,” MLive reports. Carsons opened in 2005 and is owned by Mainstreet Ventures Restaurant Group, which also owns Real Seafood Co., Palio, Stillwater Grill, and The Chop House. A new name or concept has not been announced. 

Expanding a dementia-friendly community: Jim Mangi, whose late wife was diagnosed with the condition at fifty-seven, founded Dementia Friendly Saline in 2019 to support caregivers and educate the community. Last year, Cynthia Furlong Reynolds reports in this month’s Observer, Mangi extended its scope and changed its name to Dementia Friendly Services to encompass the whole county. Along with the Ann Arbor Kiwanis Club, DFS hosts events like “Fall Frolic” in October, in which adults with memory loss and their caregivers donned festive hats or robes and ate treats, listened to musical performances, and enjoyed a private shopping session at the Kiwanis Thrift Store.

Ypsilanti Meals on Wheels adds eighth route: The nonprofit’s president told WEMU last month that it would expand its reach in the new year, and sure enough last week on Facebook it announced that Old National Bank is sponsoring the effort. YMoW delivers weekdays to dozens of low-income residents over age sixty.

$5 radon kits available: For National Radon Action Month, the county’s Environmental Health Division is offering home tests for the colorless, odorless radioactive gas that is the leading cause of lung cancer among nonsmokers in the U.S. The kits are available at Salem, Sharon, Superior, and Ypsilanti township halls as well as at the Ypsilanti city clerk’s office and the Washtenaw County Environmental Health offices. For addresses and hours, click here. The cost rises to $15 per kit after January.

By Jennifer Taylor

Friday: Join local crafter Beth Battey for a “Hygge Evening at the Library” to crochet, knit, and do jigsaw puzzles with a virtual fireplace and mellow music, in a celebration of “hygge,” a Danish term for cozy contentment. 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., AADL Downtown lower level program room. Free. 

Saturday: Watch professional ice carvers use chainsaws and other tools to make ice sculptures at the Dexter Ice Fest. Also, a cookie-making station, ice skating demos, and a cocoa crawl, with free samples as long as they last. 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Main St. and Monument Park, Downtown Dexter. Free.

Sunday: Hear local book collector Dan Freidus discuss “Expat Cookbooks: Expressions of Identity and Community While Living Abroad,” showing items from his collection of over 1,500 expatriate cookbooks. 4 to 5:30 p.m., Culinary Historians of Ann Arbor, AADL Downtown, 4th fl. Also via YouTube; get URL at culinaryhistoriansannarbor.org or aadl.org/events. Free. 

Monday (Martin Luther King Jr. Day): At Ann Arbor Art Center’s “MLK Day Drop-in,” design and create a quilt square that reflects what you love about community. Individual squares will be stitched together to form a collective quilt. Open to all ages and skill levels; kids under twelve must be accompanied by an adult. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., A2AC, 117 W. Liberty. Free.

See the Observer’s online calendar for many more local events. 

Tell a friend about a2view

For Sponsorship and Advertising information 
Email:  [email protected]

Did this email get forwarded to you? 
Sign up to receive a2view direct to your inbox.