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September 22, 2016
"The Power of the POTUS:
The Executive Office of the President from FDR to GWB"


Robert F. Holzweiss

On November 8, Americans will elect the 45th President of the United States. While the 2016 election and its unusual campaigns are being heralded as "extraordinarily important" by both major political parties and the media, what difference does it make who wins the White House?  How much power and influence does the U.S. President really hold? Is a powerful President a welcome development...or a threat to the Constitutional order? How should other branches of government respond?

Join Dr. Robert Holzweiss, a presidential scholar from the George Bush Library at Texas A&M University, as he discusses the power of the President and how Presidents from FDR to GWB expanded the power of the office to address social, economic, international and political problems, and how the growing power of the Chief Executive is in turn challenging the traditional role of Legislative and Judicial Branches of government.

Robert earned a BA in American History from St. Bonaventure University in 1990 and an MA in American History from Texas A&M University in 1992. Dr. Holzweiss completed his PhD. in American History at Texas A&M University in May 2001 with a specialization in business and economic history and 20th Century America. His dissertation, Politics, Profits, and the Public Interest: Government, Railroads, and Interest Groups 1827–1976, examines the role of politics in the Penn Central bankruptcy and the creation of the Consolidated Railroad Company, better known as Conrail.

During graduate school, Dr. Holzweiss interned for three summers at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Maryland where he served as an archival and curatorial assistant. He started his career in June 1996 in the archives at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum. In August 2014, Dr. Holzweiss was promoted to Deputy Director and currently manages the archival, museum and administrative functions of the Library.
 

11:30-1 pm
Thursday, September 22, 2016
​
Janis Sneed Banquet Room
Blinn College Student Center Brenham 
Luncheon/Lecture Fee: $25
Register by September 15
Robert Holzweiss
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Tuesday, October 18, 2016 – 5:30pm
Washington County READ
Reception & Readers' Theatre


Unity Theatre

The culmination of the 8th Annual Washington County Read, will be a free reception, open to the public, at Unity Theatre with refreshments, a dramatic reading, presented by Unity Theatre, and an interactive discussion with Honorary Chairs: Rev. Randy Wells, Executive Director of Faith Mission, and Dr. Walter Jackson, Superintendent of Brenham ISD. In addition, various Washington County community members will have their personal stories related through a multi-media display.

In his novel, City of Refuge, which won the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction, award- winning author and longtime New Orleans resident, Tom Piazza, tells this story as if the reader were experiencing the harrowing events before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. This page turner is a “must read” for all who followed, in utter disbelief, the life-altering events that took place during the hours, days before, and the weeks and months after Hurricane Katrina.

The story unfolds in the deep mid-August heat of the oppressive New Orleans summer of 2005, weather reports gave warnings about a huge hurricane swirling in the Gulf of Mexico. As national newscasts and meteorological reports show Hurricane Katrina taking aim at their beloved city, two families -- one black, one white -- must make decisions that significantly shape the rest of their lives.
“So detailed, so rich with New Orleans atmosphere, and so believable… it’s like living through the storm again. It’s a book that finally explains what happened and why people in New Orleans did what they did” says the Baton Rouge Advocate.
 
"Whatever Tom Piazza writes is touched with magic. As a former longtime New Orleans resident, I was astounded at how brilliantly Piazza captured (in vivid detail) the nuances of his City of Refuge. Although this is ostensibly a Katrina novel, Piazza transcends genre or pigeonholing in what is one of the most deeply humanistic portraits of people coping with cataclysm since The Grapes of Wrath." – Douglas Brinkley (borrowed from Tom Piazza’s website)

The READ is grateful to the two community leaders for serving as Honorary Chairs.  Rev. Wells encourages those who were affected by the storm and who want to share their stories to call Lifetime Learning at 979-353-1089.

In the coming months, speakers will review City of Refuge for community and service groups within Washington County. 

Books are available to check out at the Nancy Carol Roberts Library and the Blinn College Library. Books are available for purchase at the Book Nook and HEB.

Free to the public. No registration required.
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Our last event for 2016:  Friday, December 9th                     

                                Join us at Noon for a Brown Bag Lunch and
                                                      Doug Cason's lecture:


The Rise of the Ugly & the Breaking of the Renaissance Window
 
How can ugly art be considered beautiful and beauty be out of fashion?
Was it the invention of the camera?
Possibly political revolutions in France?
Maybe it was a reaction to rapid industrial progress?

In 1907, a man named Picasso challenged and changed the world of art with a revolution of ideas and paint that still boggles the casual viewer today. Blame him.

This coming presentation will follow the rapid decline of the traditional modes of art making and illuminate the reasoning behind Modern Art and how it related to the modern times that followed and why you should care.
 
Douglas Cason is a full time member of the Art Faculty at Blinn College in Brenham and teaches Art Appreciation, Art History, Painting and Drawing. He is originally from Ft. Worth, Texas but now lives in Brenham, Texas. He received his MFA in painting from the University of Houston in Houston, Texas and a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin. Cason’s work is included in various private and public collections including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and has been shown in state, regional and national exhibitions at Avis Frank Gallery in Houston, Texas; Parlor Gallery in Asbury Park, New Jersey; Antebellum Gallery in Los Angeles, Cole Art Center in Nacogdoches, Texas.
Noon-2 pm
Friday, December 9, 2016
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Conference Center
Blinn College Student Center Brenham
Lecture Fee: $22, Includes Brown Bag Lunch
​
Register by December 2
Douglas Cason
If you don't want to buy tickets online, download the Fall 2016 Events PDF brochure below. Print and complete it, and mail it with your check to:
       Lifetime Learning
       P. O. Box 513
       Brenham, TX 77834


fall_2016_schedule.pdf
File Size: 877 kb
File Type: pdf
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979.353.1089
PO Box 513
Brenham, TX 77834
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