President's Half-Brother Hospitalized

Granddad was jailed, beaten for 2 years in '50s Mau Mau uprising

(NEWSER) - British jailers tortured Barack Obama's grandfather during the struggle for Kenyan independence, his family tells the Times of London. Hussein Onyango Obama, who worked as a cook for a British army officer, was arrested in 1949, aged 56, and imprisoned for two years. There he was subjected to daily whippings and horrific sexual torture that left him permanently scarred, according to his widow, Sarah Onyango. More»

What, did you expect her to like it?

(NEWSER) - Is someone a little put out that she didn’t get a holiday card from the first family? Sarah Palin was recently on Fox News criticizing the Obama family’s pic , noting that the card—which features Bo Obama in front of a White House fireplace—focuses on the dog instead of “family, faith, and freedom,” which she finds “odd.” She was also peeved that the card includes no mention of Christmas or even a Christmas tree, the Los Angeles Times reports. More»

But says he's still got work left to do

(NEWSER) - President Obama says the first family would be just fine if they were just a regular family. “If I said, ‘You guys, I want to do something different,’ they’d be fine,” Obama told the TODAY show this morning. “They’re not invested in daddy being president or my husband being president.” He added that if Michelle “didn’t think that what we were doing was worthwhile … she’d be the first to say, ‘Why don’t you do something else that’s a little less stressful?’” 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.

Chefs try to stay cool amidst Secret Service crush

(NEWSER) - Barack and Michelle Obama love to eat out, but how do restaurants handle a presidential visit? David Hagedorn of the Washington Post asked chefs around town, and found that the key is to remain calm. “We are in the business of creating perceptions,” says one general manager. “We can’t freak out, and we can’t put all our energy into that one person.” Still the evening is decidedly upended when the president’s massive motorcade rolls in. More»