Exploring Indonesia's Election of Joko Widodo as the Nation's 7th President!


On Tuesday 0f  this week Joko Widodo, often better known by his abbreviated name Jokowi was named President-elect of Indonesia. Jokowi collected 53% of the vote over his opponent Prabowo Subianto, who withdrew from the race prior to the completion of the count and is contesting the election! Currently, Jokowi is Governor of Jakarta, a post to which he will return, until the start of his official term as the 7th President of Indonesia, which begins on October 20, 2014.
Now the question becomes two-fold, first who is this Joko Widodo and the second does an election in Indonesia really matter. Well, maybe the second question should really come first, does an election in Indonesia matter, to answer that question let’s explore a little about Indonesia. From Wikipedia” Read More

Exploring Indonesia’s Election of Joko Widodo as the Nation’s 7th President!

On Tuesday 0f  this week Joko Widodo, often better known by his abbreviated name Jokowi was named President-elect of Indonesia. Jokowi collected 53% of the vote over his opponent Prabowo Subianto, who withdrew from the race prior to the completion of the count and is contesting the election! Currently, Jokowi is Governor of Jakarta, a post to which he will return, until the start of his official term as the 7th President of Indonesia, which begins on October 20, 2014. Read More

William Burt patents the "Typographer" the first typewriter! (July 23, 1829) Then the Solar Compass and Equatorial Sextant!

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On this day in 1829 William A Burt patented the “Typographer”, which was a predecessor to today’s typewriter. According to Burt, the typographer was the first constructed and operating typewriter in the world. Through the years Burt has been referred to as the “father of the typewriter”
Burt’s great-grandson Austin Burt, built a working model of the machine for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Burt used a parchment copy of the original patent (No. 5581X) as a guide. It took him a month to construct the model because many of the parts had to be made by hand! Here’s a picture of the  model taken at the University of Minnesota, where the young Burt was an engineering student, and where the model was on display prior to being taken to the World’s Fair in April of 1893.
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From Wikipedia: Read More

July 21, 1947 – Emmett Kelly portrait on the cover of Life Magazine? Music by Murray Mclauchlan!

Originally Posted at Me,Myself, Music and Mysteries….

One of the events that was listed yesterday, on This Day in History was that on July 21, 1947,  Loren MacIver’s portrait of Emmett Kelly as Willie the Clown appeared on the cover of Life magazine.  This sent my mind off in several directions. My first thought was that I didn’t know which portrait of Emmett Kelly this was, as I have seen a few over the years. So I headed to Google and searched for the portrait….I found this 1947 Emmett Kelly painting by Loren MacIver at Kenyon College’s Digital Kenyon. But what I didn’t find was  a cover from LIFE magazine…. Read More

Exploring the Bebop Classic – “Donna Lee” – Charlie Parker & Miles Davis and others!

Hard BopLast week when I went to the library, one of the books that I checked out on jazz was Hard Bop: Jazz & black music 1955-1965.  by David H. Rosenthal. Rosenthal is a free-lance jazz critic whose articles on music have appeared in Down Beat, Jazz-Times, Keyboard,the Village Voice and other publications. Hard Bop is his first book about jazz. Read More

Past Reads: May 1987 – A First Encounter with Loren Estleman’s – Amos Walker!

So let’s all  go ….down to Dumas Walker!

No, no oh, yea of afflicted with ADD – Amos Walker not Dumas! you duma-ass…..

Motor City BlueOk so when I looked back at the actual dates in my Book Journal, I see that the first book listed IS actually Motor City Blue by Loren Estleman. The book was first released in 1980, and by that time Estleman was already up to book 6, but I went back and started at the beginning. It appears, I was underwhelmed! Read More