Inside Obama's Extended Family

Autobiographical novel details abuse, doesn't mention president

(NEWSER) - For Mark Ndesandjo, Barack Obama is something of a monster. Not the president, but their father, Barack Obama Sr. Ndesandjo, full name Mark Odoth Obama Ndesandjo, has just released an autobiographical novel depicting the Obama patriarch as a brilliant-but-violent drunk who beat him and his Jewish-American mother, and while some of the book is fictional, the abuse isn’t, he tells the Washington Post. More»

Reminiscing comes in profile about his time in Indonesia

(NEWSER) - Barry Obama was just 6 years old when Ann Dunham decided to take him to war-torn Indonesia, and Sunday’s New York Times Magazine examines the reverberations of that decision. On the surface the answer is simple: She was following her second husband, Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian native who’d been called back to serve in the army. But the article offers a revealing look at Dunham’s life there. Some tidbits:

• The young Barack (then Barry) was subject to constant racial discrimination; once, when other children threw rocks at him, Dunham told a friend, “He’s OK. He’s used to it.”
• When Lolo got a job with a US oil company, Dunham refused to socialize with the wealthy American wives of the other execs. She once complained to a friend that Lolo “was becoming more American every day.”
• One former servant for the couple says that Dunham once emerged from an argument with her husband with a bloody nose—though author Janny Scott notes that no one else even hinted at any abuse in the relationship.

Family members question 'car accident' story

(NEWSER) - The official story is that President Obama’s father died after crashing his car into a tree—but Obama’s family in Kenya fears foul play had a hand in his death, according to a book Peter Firstbrook is working on about the Obamas. Though Barack Sr.’s car appeared to have hit a tree, “he didn’t look like somebody who was involved in an accident,” the president’s cousin told Firstbrook. His grandmother told a similar tale. "His body was never broken, his vehicle was not badly crashed. He was just dead after the accident. Not even much blood was seen." More»

(NEWSER) - President Obama wrapped up the recreational side of his travel weekend by visiting the Grand Canyon and peppering park rangers with questions about it, the Arizona Republic reports. With Michelle, their daughters, and other members of the Obama clan, the president marveled at a view he last witnessed at age 11. Asked if it appeared the same to him, he said, "It does!" More»

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama's half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng is moving with her family from Hawaii to Washington for the next several months, reports the New York Times. Soetoro-Ng, the daughter of Obama's mother Stanley Ann Dunham and an Indonesian father, has quit her job as a high school teacher to write a book. Her stay in DC will mark the first time brother and sister have lived in the same city in years. More»