Cool September day in Shenandoah Valley, Charlottesville

By Lynn R. Mitchell

It’s an overcast, cool mid-September day in the Shenandoah Valley — perfect for college football throughout America. While SWAC Niece, a second-year Echols Scholar at the University of Virginia, is at that game along with her parents and friends (game time was 3:30pm EDT; at half-time Virginia is leading Notre Dame, 14-12), two other games were on the horizon today.

Earlier SWAC Son-in-Law’s alma mater Florida State won their home game over South Florida, and Texas niece who is third year at the University of Michigan saw her Wolverines win over Oregon. So far, so good. Now we just have to get a win for UVa.

Univ of Michigan reverses decision to block ‘American Sniper’ … coach weighs in

Michigan Football will watch “American Sniper”! Proud of Chris Kyle & Proud to be an American & if that offends anybody then so be it!

— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) April 9, 2015

By Lynn R. Mitchell

On Wednesday, the University of Michigan allowed the protest of 300 students to cancel a showing of “American Sniper, ” the movie about decorated U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle who served four tours in Operation Iraqi Freedom and was killed two years ago by a disturbed former soldier he was trying to help (see Univ. of Michigan cancels ‘American Sniper’ screening: ‘Made students feel unsafe’):

A scheduled movie screening of “American Sniper” at the University of Michigan was abruptly cancelled Tuesday after nearly 300 students and others complained the film perpetuates “negative and misleading stereotypes” against Muslims.

“The movie American Sniper not only tolerates but promotes anti-Muslim … rhetoric and sympathizes with a mass killer,” according to an online letter circulated among the campus community via Google Docs that garnered the signatures.

The signers were mostly students, but also some staff, as well as the Muslim Students’ Association and the president of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, a Palestinian solidarity group at UMich.

Three hundred students is a tiny percentage of the 43,710 students who attend the university.

By late Wednesday, the University reversed its decision (see TOTAL RECALL: UMich will show ‘American Sniper,’ calls decision to ax it ‘a mistake’):

How snowy is it? University of Michigan closed today

By Lynn R. Mitchell

Sunday evening as we sat around the kitchen table talking with friends, my sister’s phone rang. I noticed her eyebrows knit together as she looked at it and then answered the recorded message from officials at the University of Michigan, where her daughter is a sophomore, notifying families that classes would be closed today, Monday, February 2. A fierce snowstorm had caused heavy snow that was piled a foot deep at that point and expected to continue into Monday. The weather forecast suggested Ann Arbor could receive up to 18 inches of snow before it was all over.

To put it in perspective:

This marks just the second time in 37 years that the school has canceled classes due to inclement weather. In 2014, U-M officials canceled classes on Jan. 28, after temperatures dropped to a record-setting 11 degrees below zero with wind chills approaching minus 30 degrees. Before that, U-M had not closed its campus due to severe weather was during a snowstorm 36 years ago in January 1978.