<p>MHC: My older S would probably have had a similar response to the lunch as your daughter. Given that she was deferred at Elon your D may not want more reasons to love the school until she knows she is accepted. If this meeting won’t be something that would support her chances for admission then I wouldn’t push the meeting. Perhaps the girls can communicate via e-mail or FB, establish contact and meet if she is accepted. It is however so nice that the Hillel is so supportive.</p>
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<p>@mhc48: my kids would feel uncomfortable with that too. I would probably not insist on a face-to-face with the Elon student, but rather would ask that my D chat with him/her online. There’s nothing to lose from exchanging a few e-mails or talking on Facebook. It may lead to a direct meeting.</p>
<p>As to the shooting, I am so, so saddened. I am definitely for gun control and don’t believe the nonsense that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Phooey. I would not draw the line, however, at letting my child go to school in Arizona or Vermont or Texas (Alaska seems very unlikely) on the basis of their gun stance. There are crackpots everywhere and I can only hope that they are far and few between.</p>
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<p>College43: FWIW Texas does require a permit for a concealed weapon to be carried, I don’t know that that makes us a whole lot safer, but Levirm mentioned states that concealed weapons could be carried without a permit.</p>
<p>Its so sad to hear about another American tragedy in Arizona.</p>
<p>mhc, I am wondering if the invitation had been directly to your daughter and not to or through you, whether your daughter would have been more receptive.
Teenagers are such a conundrum! They want so desparately to be independent, to the point of denying our very existence, often rejecting things just because they were our ideas, and at the same time are not really mature enough for this independence.</p>
<p>mhc: my daughter actually took Ms Luberoff up on that offer last April (surprisingly to us)and has actually become close friends with the girl she had lunch with…honestly, I can’t remember how it occured but I do know that it was organized without my input (in other words, the girl contacted my daughter and they made the arrangements)…</p>
<p>when we revisited in September (to decide on ED application) she stayed with her in her dorm overnight…</p>
<p>It was extemely important to my daughter that she feel comfortable socially in the environment at ANY college she was interested in; she met with students almost everywhere she was seriously considering…</p>
<p>It is understandable that since she was deferred that she would have a “bitter taste”…I can’t emphasize enough, though, that this particular connection could have significant influence…please PM me if you want…</p>
<p>on a completely different subject, how did any of you figure out that Gabby Giffords was Jewish? not something I would have picked up by anything in her profile (including her husband, Mark Kelly , who incidently grew up nearby…)</p>
<p>rodney - one news article linked to an article about her wedding, which mentioned it had been performed by a rabbi, so I googled a bit. Also, the letter from the Scripps College president posted on the thread about the shooting mentioned that she was Arizona’s first Jewish female US representative. (Rep. Giffords is a Scripps alum.)</p>
<p>ahhh…I see…I did hear that she attended Cornell at one point; was she an Arizona native or a transplant…?</p>
<p>I think she is an Arizona native, went to college at Cornell.</p>
<p>She was born in Tucson, received a BA from Scripps and a Master’s in regional planning from Cornell.</p>
<p>rodney, the fact that Congresswoman Gifford was the first Jewish Member of Congress to represent her district was in the NYT this morning.</p>
<p>President Obama has ordered a moment of silence and for flags at U.S. public buildings and military facilities to be flown at half-staff for the victims of the shootings in Arizona that targeted U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the White House announced Sunday.</p>
<p>At 11 a.m. EST on Monday, “I call on Americans to observe a moment of silence to honor the innocent victims of the senseless tragedy in Tucson, Ariz., including those still fighting for their lives,” Obama said in a prepared statement. “It will be a time for us to come together as a nation in prayer or reflection, keeping the victims and their families closely at heart.”</p>
<p>I did not realize until watching the news today that the bullet actually went through her brain - from the back of her skull to the front. Amazing that she is still alive. Latest I saw on the news tonight is that she is now in a medically induced coma - but her surgeon seems quite optimistic.</p>
<p>Here’s more:</p>
<p>SIERRA VISTA — Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords remains in critical condition and is being kept in a drug-induced coma except when
doctors at University Medical Center need to ascertain if she can
respond to verbal commands.
During a press conference this morning two UMC doctors — Peter Rhee, the UMC trauma director and Michael Lemole, chief of UMC neurosurgery — said the congresswoman remains in the intensive care unit, but is responsive when taken out of a medically induced coma.
The pair said brain swelling could impact her recovery. But Rhee said he remains optimisic.
A section of Giffords’ skull was removed to help alleviate the swelling
and once recovery is further along it will be replaced over her brain,
Lemole said.
“Brain swelling can occur anytime,” he said.
The doctors said the bullet entered Giffords’ skull from the back on the lefthand side and exited from the front left side of her face.</p>
<p>[Post</a> Mortem - Jewish folk singer Debbie Friedman dies](<a href=“http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postmortem/2011/01/jewish-folk-singer-debbie-frie.html]Post”>http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postmortem/2011/01/jewish-folk-singer-debbie-frie.html)</p>
<p>Debbie Friedman, who combined American folk music with Hebrew liturgical texts to create a popular contemporary form of Jewish music, died today at a hospital in Orange County, Calif.</p>
<p>She had been hospitalized for pneumonia, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post. Ms. Friedman was in her late 50s.</p>
<p>Her career began when she was a young woman during the Vietnam War era, when music by the likes of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan was popular.</p>
<p>At the time, Ms. Friedman, who played the acoustic guitar, was attending a Minnesota synagogue. She found services there “dull and passive,” she told the New York Times in 1998.</p>
<p>“It infuriated me,” she said, “and I wanted to do something about it, provide an avenue of expression that was meaningful. And it came so easily, as if the music was already there, waiting to come out.”</p>
<p>Her first song was a melody set to a prayer, “V’Ahavta,” about loving God. She went on to record more than 20 albums and to perform widely, including at New York’s Carnegie Hall.</p>
<p>One of her best known songs is “Mi Shebeirach,” a prayer for healing that she performs in the soundtrack of the YouTube video below. The camera is a bit shaky in places, but the sound is good.</p>
<p>OMG rvm…terrible, sad news on all acounts. :(</p>
<p>SOOO sorry to hear this. Thanks for sharing.</p>
<p>levirm: that’s what I get for going online BEFORE I read the NYT…just read it…thank you…</p>
<p>and so sad about Debbie Friedman…</p>
<p>I am so, so sad about Debbie Friedman. I don’t think I realized what a tremendous impact her music has had on my life, on my Jewish journey through conversion, and on the Jewish family DH and I have raised.</p>
<p>PRJ, I feel the same. I just went to youtube and spent 1/2 hour listening to different Debbie Friedman songs. Simply beautiful. May her memory be a blessing.</p>
<p>So sad about the tragedies this weekend. </p>
<p>On the topic of colleges, with the new year beginning, it feels like my HS junior’s college search process is moving from preliminary (theoretical?) to real. I appreciate all the opinions and experiences offered here about different colleges, and hope that we can continue to work on developing as broad a list of potential options as possible. The dialogue on the ‘Western Colleges for the 3.0-3.3 student’ thread is interesting - covering the range of smaller colleges (ie Willamette) to large state u’s. You all have brought many good colleges to this thread. Are there others we haven’t considered?</p>
<p>It has been a very sad weekend indeed. How frustrating that people who met the shooter could see tragedy coming from this young man but could not prevent it. </p>
<p>On a brighter note. I did hear back from Richie in a PM. He apologized and I think he totally gets it and has learned from the experience. We can’t ask for anything beyond that. I’ll post his reply if he says it is okay. It really was quite nice.</p>
<p>wow, I’m glad he had the decency to respond to you. I’m equally glad he understands why his remarks were so offensive.</p>
<p>spectrum - that’s great re Richie - and I think you have established the model we should use going forward - educate and counsel rather than pounce and criticize. Well done!</p>