Listening ideas for 10 August 2011 (2)

Leonard Lopate Show
Building America’s Superhighways
Earl Swift discusses how the U.S. interstate system changed the face of our country. The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways follows a winding route through 20th-century American life, from the citizen-led “Good Roads” movement, to the driven engineers who conceived of the interstates and how they would work, to the protests that erupted when highways reached the cities, displaced people and carved up neighborhoods.
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Scientific American Podcast
The City That Became Safe: What New York Teaches About Urban Crime And Its Control
UC Berkeley School of Law professor Franklin Zimring talks about his article How New York Beat Crime in the August issue of Scientific American
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Radio Lab
Damn It, Basal Ganglia
The basal ganglia is a core part of the brain, deep inside your skull, that helps control movement. Unless something upsets the chain of command. In this short, Jad and Robert meet a young researcher who was studying what happens when the basal ganglia gets short-circuited in mice...until one fateful day, when things got really, really weird.
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Listening ideas for 10 August 2011 (1)

Social Innovation Conversations
B.J. Fogg - 2011 Stanford Healthcare Summit
How do we get individuals to practice healthier habits and influence positive behavior change? The "Behavior Wizard" offers technology-based solutions in this audio lecture from the 2011 Stanford Graduate School of Business Healthcare Summit. B.J. Fogg, Director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University, bring his insights from the tech world. In decades studying how computers and mobile apps can be used to bring about behavior change, Fogg found new applications for the health sector in promoting positive habits.
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Het Marathon Interview (VPRO)
Ian Buruma, kosmopoliet
Zijn boek over de moord op Theo van Gogh: Dood van een gezonde roker, baarde opzien in 2006. Vanuit zijn woonplaats New York, plaatste hij pittige kanttekeningen bij het lage land aan de Noordzee. In 2004 al werd hij als commentator 3 uren aan het woord gelaten door Djoeke Veeninga.
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New Books in Sports
Evander Lomke and Martin Rowe, “Right Off the Bat: Cricket, Baseball, Literature & Life”
Martin Rowe and Evander Lomke have long recognized the commonalities between cricket and baseball. Their book Right Off the Bat: Cricket, Baseball, Literature & Life (Paul Dry Books, 2011) points out those analogies in an erudite yet readable style. The book is a primer to both sports. They give a brief and comprehensible explanation of what happens on the field. But more important to them are the lessons of the sports’ histories, the patterns of their cultures, and the deeper attractions they have for their fans. In the book, and our interview, Martin and Evander talk about the slow meander of time at a game, the expanse of green spaces under summer skies, the guarantee of the familiar and the thrill of the unexpected. If you are new to cricket or baseball, you will find their book a gratifying guide. And if you are already a fan of one of the sports, you will gain a new appreciation and new insights when seeing it alongside its cousin in the bat-and-ball family.
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