Talk to Me, Baby
Woodstock organizer Michael Lang will be at the Newseum on Sunday.
Monday:
>> Catch Senator Barbara Boxer at Politics and Prose at 7 p.m. for a reading from her second novel, Blind Trust, which "centers on second-term Democratic senator Ellen Fisher, who is caught in an increasingly nasty struggle with the aggressive Vice President as she prepares to chair potentially explosive hearings on national security issues." If ever a book needs an all persons fictitious disclaimer, it's this one.
Tuesday:
>> The 14th Street Busboys hosts an author event with Marjorie Cohn at 6:30 p.m. She'll discuss and sign Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent, which "takes readers into the courtroom where sailors, soldiers, and Marines have argued that [the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq] are illegal under international law and unconstitutional under U.S. law."
Wednesday:
>> The Shirlington Busboys hosts their monthly sustainable living series, G.R.a.S.P., tonight at 7 p.m. This evening's forum focuses on biodiversity and climate change, and features author Susan Jewell, of Gators, Gourdheads, and Pufflings: A Biologist Slogs, Climbs, And Wings Her Way To Save Wildlife.
>> WaPo journalists Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson are out and about this week, with two events promoting and discussing their new book The Battle For America 2008, which analyzes the 2008 presidential campaign and its "undercurrents of race, gender, and class." Either catch them tonight at 7 p.m. at Politics and Prose for free, or hold off until Saturday for their 2:30 p.m. Inside Media discussion at the Newseum, which requires paying a museum entrance fee.
>> Or, from 6 to 7:15 pm. tonight, catch A Commemoration and Discussion of the 1989 U.S. Invasion of Panama at the Rasmuson Theater of the American Indian Museum. NPR's Juan Williams, La Prensa de Panamá's Betty Brannan Jaén, professor John Dinges, and former Panamanian ambassador Juan Sosa discuss the invasion and its ramifications.
Thursday:
>> Visit with Smithsonian Orchid Collection Specialist Tom Mirenda tonight at an illustrated lecture which will focus on orchid conservation and how plant and animal conservationists must collaborate. Get there at 6:30 p.m. to meet and mingle (and grab a drink at the cash bar), then stay for the lecture at 7:30 p.m, both at the National Zoo's visitor center auditorium. Free, but reservation is required.
>> At 6 p.m. in the McEvoy Auditorium of the American Art Museum is a lecture focused on the Materials and Techniques of Man Ray. Conservator Paul Messier will discuss the artist's techniques in the context of the late 1990's discovery that some photographs attributed to Man Ray were forgeries.
Sunday:
>> Today's 3 p.m. Inside Media event at the Newseum is titled The Road to Woodstock and features event organizer Michael Lang, who "offers a revealing look at how one concert grabbed its share of headlines while capturing the social and political spirit of the decade."
Next Monday:
>> The 14th Street Busboys holds what is sure to be another powerful book talk this evening at 6:30 p.m. Dwayne Betts, who was convicted of six felonies at age sixteen and served eight years in adult prison, discusses his new book A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival and Coming of Age in Prison. The book chronicles the author's exploration of "profound questions about violence, freedom, crime, race, and the justice system" as he is "utterly alone ... with the growing realization that he really is not going home any time soon."
>> The Spy Museum features some of the most knowledgeable and interesting experts in their lecture events, and tonight's guest, military interrogator Matthew Alexander, looks to be no exception. In How to Break a Terrorist, he'll share the methods he used to break members of Al Qaeda, and sign his book How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq. Tickets cost $12.50.