Bob Dylan in Beijing: No Sellout. KPFK Wed. 4/13

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Did Bob Dylan sell out when he sang in Beijing and Saigon this week?  Maureen Dowd says yes — what Bob did is “worse than Beyonce singing for Qaddafi.”  But SEAN WILENTZ says it’s not true — Bob did not bow to government demands that he not sing what Dowd calls “iconic songs of revolution like “The Times They Are a-Changin,’ ” and “Blowin’ in the Wind.””  Sean teaches history at Princeton; his new book is BOB DYLAN IN AMERICA, and he wrote a reply to Maureen Dowd at The New Yorker website.  We’ll listen to some of the songs Bob sang in Saigon and Beijing.   PLAYLIST: “Ballad of a Thin Man,” “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” “All Along the Watchtower,” “Highway 61 Revisited.”

ALSO:  Japanese officials now admit the radiation release from Fukushima is as bad as ChernobylDAN HIRSCH will explain — he teaches at UC Santa Cruz and heads Committee to Bridge the Gap.

Plus:  In Obama’s deficit speech today he contrasted his vision of “the kind of future we want” with the Republicans’.  We’ll have commentary from HAROLD MEYERSON, he’s editor at large of The American Prospect and he writes a column for the Washington Post op-ed page.