Obama's Sister Moving to DC

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.

Half-siblings, step-family of president are famous now

(NEWSER) - New York takes a look at President Obama’s far-flung—and now famous—family, complete with a handy PDF diagram and nicknames to help you remember who is who. George, the youngest half-brother, is arguably the (second) most famous, thanks to a minor drug arrest followed by a memoir deal, but there are quite a few more:

• Maya Soetoro-Ng: Obama’s half-sister, from his mother’s second marriage, she is the only sibling he knew growing up, and is the closest to him.

Kansas-born Ann Dunham worked to uplift the poor in the world's most fractured places

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama’s mother is sometimes described just as “a white woman from Kansas,” but Ann Dunham possessed an indomitable spirit and fierce open-mindedness that profoundly shaped her son. Dunham was a single mom and social activist who worked in Indonesia and Pakistan, and consulted for the World Bank and USAID. Bloomberg looks at one of the women behind the man who would be president. More»

He is his mother's son: David Maraniss

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama titled his memoir Dreams From My Father, but "Dreams From My Mother better evokes his story," writes Washington Post editor and Obama biographer David Maraniss. The president is very much a reflection of his mom, the Kansas-born Stanley Ann Dunham who married a Kenyan and later an Indonesian. "She was a searcher," writes Marannis in a Mother's Day tribute, a woman who earned a doctorate in anthropology and was endlessly "fascinated by other cultures and ways of living." 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»