The Wednesday Morning Group Home Fall 2015/Winter 2016 Winter/Spring 2015 Calendar Important Info Childcare Newsletters Past Speakers In the News Fall 2015/ Winter 2016 Speaker Schedule September 2015 October 2015 November 2015 December 2015 January 2016 September 2015 September 9 - Welcome or welcome back! Goldie Blumenstyk is one of the world's most respected higher-education journalists. Technological innovations and disruptive market forces are buffeting colleges and universities at the very time their financial structure grows increasingly fragile. In American Higher Education in Crisis?, Goldie describes the forces and trends that have brought the education system to this point, and highlights some of the ways they will reshape America's colleges in the years to come. She hones in on debates over the value of post-secondary education, faculty tenure and growing administrative bureaucracies, and questions how the money chase in big-time college athletics, revelations about colleges falsifying rankings data, and corporate-style presidential salaries have soured public perception. Visit Goldie Blumenstyk's web site to learn more. Book signing event (Cash or check only) September 16 - Among the multitude of his novels, James Grady is best known as the author of the espionage thriller Six Days of the Condor, which was famously and successfully adapted to film as Three Days of the Condor, starring Robert Redford and directed by Sydney Pollack. Grady’s Hollywood work also includes script writing for HBO, CBS, FX, Stephen Cannell and John Woo. Internationally, France honored his career with its Grand Prix du Roman Noir and Italy awarded him its Raymond Chandler Medal. During college he worked for US Senator Lee Metcalf (Montana) and during the post-Watergate era, he worked with muckraking investigative journalist Jack Anderson. He is a bookish cinephile who also enjoys the study of Tai Chi, swimming and listening to progressive rock. Book signing event (Cash or check only) September 23 - No Lecture September 30 - Septime Webre was recently appointed artistic director of The Washington Ballet after serving as artistic director of American Repertory Ballet. Much in demand as a choreographer, he has created works that appear in the repertoires of many companies worldwide. As a dancer, Mr. Webre was featured in works by George Balanchine, Paul Taylor, Antony Tudor, Alvin Ailey and Merce Cunningham, as well as in principal and solo roles from the classical repertoire. Currently, he sits on the board of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington, has been honored by Young Audiences of the District of Columbia and has received a number of fellowships for his choreography. Learn more by visiting the Washington Ballet web site. October 2015 October 7 - “Road crashes remain the single greatest killer of Americans traveling abroad,” said Rochelle Sobel, founder and president of the Association for Safe International Road Travel. ASIRT is a nonprofit organization that promotes road travel safety throughout the world via education and advocacy. She founded ASIRT in response to her son Aron’s death in a 1995 bus crash in Turkey. Twenty-five year old Aron, along with 22 other passengers from many countries, was killed just two weeks before his graduation from the University of Maryland Medical School. Rochelle serves as a member of the World Health Organization’s Global Road Safety Steering Committee and has presented on the issue of global road safety at numerous forums and conferences, including the United Nations Stakeholders Forum on Road Safety, the NAFSA Annual Conference, the Sixth National Conference on Injury Prevention and Control and the “Dinner and Debate on Road Safety,” hosted by French Ambassador Pierre Vimont. Visit the ASIRT web site for more information. October 17 - When Hunter Thompson was born, there was little to no understanding of transgender adults, much less children. As a girl, Hunter always played with the boys and felt like a boy until puberty. "Everything went haywire for me," he said. By 18, Thompson contemplated suicide. Hunter, a divorced acupuncturist, raised four children before he transitioned from female to male in 2006. His oldest daughter, who was 27 at the time, was fine with the news. But his 17-year-old daughter freaked out. Hunter did not come to an understanding of himself until adulthood, after marrying and bearing four children. He has lived the challenges adults face as they recast themselves in their true identity and is open enough to share. October 21 - Fulbright scholar Tim Tate is co-founder of the Washington Glass School. He has shown nationally and beyond, including the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, SOFA New York and Chicago, Art Basel Scope in Switzerland, the Art Miami at Art Basel-Miami, the Luce Foundation Center for American Art at the Smithsonian, the Renwick Gallery and commercial galleries from Washington to London and Berlin. His awards include Rising Star of the 21st Century from the Museum of American Glass, the Virginia Groot Foundation Award for Sculpture, three Artists Fellowship awards from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the Mayor’s Art Award. His work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery, the Mint Museum, the Fuller Museum, the Katzen Art Center of American University, the Milwaukee Art Museum and Vanderbilt University. For more information, visit Tim Tate's web site. October 28 - Some Trip Advisor samplings: "Virginian now jealous of Silver Spring. Very good outdoor beer garden with homemade micro brews and creative BBQ menu. Outdoor section is big with communal tables. Well behaved dogs welcome." And, "They love their beer here! Just tell your server what kind of beer you like and you'll be presented with a few great options to choose from. They haven't led me astray yet. Staff is universally friendly, hip and knowledgeable." Denizen's Brewing Company (the ONLY female-owned and operated brewery in the state of Maryland!) will help us celebrate Oktoberfest with some delicious beer tasting before noon. Roll out the barrel......... Click here to visit the company's web site. November 2015 November 4 - Jeanne Allert has an eclectic career history: from high school English teacher to instructional designer to technology director to Internet consultant. She is an international public speaker, technical trainer, industry author and has served as adjunct faculty for several universities. Jeanne is the founder and executive director of The Samaritan Women and a compelling speaker on the topic of domestic human trafficking. She is the chief architect behind their spiritual healing program and spends a great deal of time educating medical, social work, and mental health professionals about the unique needs of trafficking victims. Her work has been featured in numerous articles and in the 2015 documentary In Plain Sight. She is a member of the Department of Homeland Security Blue Campaign and graduate of the FBI Citizen’s Academy. Learn more at www.thesamaritanwomen.org. November 11 - In her years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Adele Levine worked on a team that became the world leader in amputee rehabilitation. And no matter the injury, physical therapy began the moment the soldiers emerged from surgery. Days at Walter Reed were intense, chaotic and heartbreaking, but they were also filled with camaraderie and humor. Working in a glassed-in fishbowl gymnasium, Levine, her colleagues, and their combat-injured patients were on display at every moment to tour groups, politicians and celebrities. Some would shudder openly at the sight—but out of earshot, the PTs and the patients cracked jokes, played pranks, and compared stumps. With dazzling storytelling and insight into this hidden world, her M*A*S*H-meets-Scrubs-style novel, Run, Don’t Walk introduces a motley array of oddball characters including: Jim, a retired lieutenant-colonel who stays up late at night baking cake after cake, a surgeon who only speaks in farm analogies, a therapy dog gone rogue and Levine’s toughest patient: the wild, defiant Cosmo. Visit Adele's web site to learn more. Book signing event (Cash or check only) November 18 - Karen Keating owns Photo Works, a teaching photography studio at Glen Echo. She is an accomplished, professional and admired photographer, teacher at the Field School and featured artist at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria. She recently hosted world-renowned photographer, Ernesto Bazan (a man with an incredible heart and creative eye), who spent years photographing and teaching in Cuba and was subsequently asked to stop holding workshops or leave—which he did—and he can never return!! Click here to learn more and see Karen's photos. November 25 - Amelia Segal is a Meteorologist with StormTeam4. A native of Frederick, Maryland, Segal has wanted to forecast the weather in Washington, DC since she started studying meteorology at Penn State University. In fact, she graduated from college early so she could start working! Her first job was with CNET in State College, Pa. While forecasting weather there, she became very familiar with weather phenomena such as lake effect snow, which helped her land her next job as weekend meteorologist for WJET/WFXP in Erie, Pa. To Amelia's delight, Erie recorded its second snowiest winter on record during her first year there. The opportunity to be closer to family and friends brought her back to DC as a member of Washington’s number-one weather team. She brings extensive experience covering snowy winters, spring storms, and summer heat. December 2015 December 2 - David Plotz, former deputy editor of Slate, has been a feature writer, political columnist, media columnist, and gofer, among other jobs. He has also freelanced for many magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Reader's Digest, Rolling Stone, New Republic, Washington Post and GQ. He won the National Press Club's Hume Award for Political Reporting about South Carolina's gambling industry. Harvard degree in hand, he also worked briefly (and miserably) as a paralegal at the Department of Justice, learning that he really didn't want to go to law school. Currently, he is CEO of Atlas Obscura, an organization that bills itself as the definitive guide to the world’s wondrous and curious places such as miniature cities, books bound in human skin, bone churches, balancing pagodas and homes built entirely out of paper. Visit www.atlasobscura.com for more details. December 9 - Cathy Barrow is the author of the food blog Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Kitchen. The Huffington Post recently praised her new cookbook, Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Practical Pantry, as "an astonishing collection of practical and essential preserving techniques, canning, brining, curing, cheese-making for the modern kitchen and today's cook". Barrow writes a monthly DIY column for the Washington Post and has written for the New York Times, Garden and Gun, Southern Living, Modern Farmer and NPR, among others. She appeared last month on ABC's The Chew teaching Carla Hall how to can tomatoes. You can catch Barrow soon on an upcoming interview on The Splendid Table. Visit the Mrs. Wheelbarrow web site for more information. Book signing event (Cash or check only) December 17 - Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop meets every week at the DC Jail where juvenile inmates incarcerated as adults come together to discuss a work of contemporary literature and to write. They use books, creative writing and peer support to awaken members to their own potential. Co-Founder and Executive Director Tara Libert will discuss the book club and how the Free Minds community continues to support members throughout their incarceration and after they return home. She will be joined by a Poet Ambassador, one of the many young people who, through their involvement with Free Minds, have become powerful voices for change in the community. Visit www.freemindsbookclub.org. December 23 - Chris Palmer is a full-time professor, speaker, author, and environmental and wildlife film producer. He has frolicked with dolphins and whales, come face-to-face with sharks and Kodiak bears, camped with wolf packs, and waded hip-deep through Everglade swamps. Over the past thirty years, he has spearheaded the production of more than 300 hours of original programming for prime-time television and the IMAX film industry, work that won him and his colleagues many awards --- including two Emmys and an Oscar nomination. And from this treasure trove of experience comes his newest controversial and entertaining memoir about the dark side of wildlife filmmaking: Confessions of a Wildlife Filmmaker. Chris serves as Distinguished Film Producer in Residence at the School of Communication at American University where he founded the Center for Environmental Filmmaking. Visit www.ChrisPalmerOnline.com to read more. December 30 - No Lecture January 2016 January 6 - When author Ruth Kassinger became frustrated by plants that failed to thrive, she set out to understand the basics of botany to become a better gardener. She retraced the progress of the first botanists who banished myths and misunderstandings and discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, roots choose their food and hormones make morning glories climb fence posts. Transferring her insights to her own garden, she nurtured a "cocktail" tree to bear five kinds of fruit, cured a Buddha's Hand plant with beneficial fungi and got a tree to text her when thirsty. Combining science and botanical knowledge with reflections on her personal quest to become a better gardener, illustrated with black and white drawings, A Garden of Marvels is a journey of discovery that offers fresh and unexpected insights into the natural. Visit Ruth's web site for more information. Book signing event (Cash or check only) January 13 - Dr. Robynne Chutkan is the founder of the Digestive Center for Women in Chevy Chase and operates and teaches in the gastroenterology department of Georgetown University Hospital. She is the author of Gutbliss, which discusses bloating and the source of many chronic health problems including arthritis and diabetes. Her latest book is called The Microbiome Solution: a Radical New Way to Heal Your Body from the Inside Out, which discusses how antibiotics and our Western diet and lifestyle have starved our systems and cause us to crave sugar and be tired all the time. Dr. Chutkan has a way forward to help us reverse the damage, replace the important bacteria and restore health and wellness via her “live dirty, eat clean" philosophy. She is dedicated to helping her patients live not just longer but better lives. Visit www.RobynneChutkan.com to learn more. January 20 - Food historian Joyce White is the foodways consultant to Riversdale House Museum in Riverdale, MD, guest curator for the Maryland State Exhibit for the Southern Food & Beverage Museum in New Orleans, LA, and was the consultant for the restoration of the kitchen in Annapolis’ William Paca House. She will educate us about teatime across the centuries, chronicling the history of the tea drink and the tradition of taking tea as an afternoon snack or evening meal (including the differences between high tea, low tea and afternoon tea --- they are distinct!). The classic tea food treat will also be discussed, culminating in a deliciously delightful lavender shortbread tasting! Visit www.atasteofhistory.net for details. January 27 - Established in 2011, the Adah Rose Gallery promotes artists living in the United States and beyond with rotating exhibits and artist talks. Gallery founder and independent curator Adah Rose Bitterbaum previously served as the director of Studio Gallery, and began her career as a lawyer also working in public health, education and college counseling. Through their exhibitions, they spotlight established and emerging artists in an intimate gallery environment. The gallery is a dynamic place and hosts artists talks, panels on issues in the art world, maintains an active intern program and shows art in a variety of spaces including law firms, pop ups and a number of art fairs each year including PULSE New York, PULSE Miami, The Silicon Valley Art Fair and the Dallas Art Fair. Contact us: The Wednesday Morning Group wmginfo@wmgroup.org Report Abuse|Powered By Google Sites