Listening ideas for 6 May 2011

The Economist
Slow change in Cuba
A veteran from the Bay of Pigs and a student have different views on how their country has fared under communism
(review, feed)

The Partially Examined Life
Locke on Political Power
Discussing John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government (1690). What makes political power legitimate? Like Hobbes, Locke thinks that things are less than ideal without a society to keep people from killing us, so we implicitly sign a social contract giving power to the state. But for Locke, nature’s not as bad, so the state is given less power. But how much less? And what does Locke think about tea partying, kids, women, acorns, foreign travelers, and calling dibs? The part of Wes is played by guest podcaster Sabrina Weiss.
(review, feed)

WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show
The Life and Times of Big Bill Broonzy
Bob Riesman tells the life story of Big Bill Broonzy, a major figure in American blues and folk music. Reisman’s groundbreaking biography I Feel So Good: The Life and Times of Big Bill Broonzy, traces Big Bill’s career—from his rise as a nationally prominent blues star to his influential role in the post-World War II folk revival to his overseas tours in the 1950s, which ignited the British blues-rock explosion of the 1960s.
(review, feed)

New Books in Public Policy
Michael Auslin, “Pacific Cosmopolitans: A Cultural History of U.S.-Japan Relations”
How have the United States and Japan managed to remain such strong allies, despite having fought one another in a savage war less than 70 years ago? In Michael Auslin’s Pacific Cosmopolitans: A Cultural History of U.S.-Japan Relations (Harvard University Press, 2011), the author, an Asia expert at the American Enterprise Institute, explores the history of cultural exchange between the United States and Japan, and how important that exchange has been, and continues to be, from a political perspective.
(review, feed)