Early Obama: The Occidental Years

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/19/garden/turf-all-s-fair-in-love-and-listings.html?pagewanted=2

When Tom Grauman and his wife, Caroline Grauman-Boss , who have lived in their one-bedroom apartment on Morningside Drive since 1991, heard that a neighbor was recently offered $440,000 for an apartment, they realized their home was worth about four times what they paid for it.

The couple, who have a 5-year-old daughter, would like another bedroom. But even if they made a hefty profit on a sale, they aren’t sure they could find a bigger place within their price range in Manhattan. “It seems like everybody is sitting on properties that are worth a lot more than when they bought them, but nobody can afford to move within the areas that they want to live,” Mr. Grauman said.

http://www.interpelago.com/company.html

Interpelago, Inc. helps organizations create supportive social networks for the constituencies they serve. Formed out of an independent collaboration between people who work in education and software, the company’s pilot programs at schools across the country have realized unprecendented community participation and dramatic time and cost savings. Please contact us to learn more about our pilot programs.

Team

Caroline Grauman-Boss

Caroline has been teaching professionally for nearly 30 years. She has held positions at leading universities and independent schools, including Columbia, Princeton, Baruch, Trinity School, The Ethical Culture Fieldston School, and Rye Country Day School. In addition to her work with students, including most recently helping at-risk 11th and 12th grade public school students meet state graduation requirements in reading and writing, Caroline writes and edits texts and curricular materials for popular AP and college history textbooks distributed by a major academic publisher. Caroline holds an M.Sc. in Political Philosophy from the London School of Economics and an M.Phil. in Politics from Columbia University. She earned her A.B. in Political Science at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Caroline and Tom live with their daughter Beatrice in Friday Harbor, Washington.

Tom Grauman

Tom has been designing, developing, and managing the creation of award-winning software titles for more than 20 years. From 1986 to 1996 he worked for Microsoft in Redmond, Washington. Tom has consulted with numerous companies on software initiatives, including projects at Privacy and American Business and Sony’s US and Tokyo Design Centers in conjunction with Sony Research Labs. In 1997 he founded the Realmail® Company to realize his vision for next-generation, spam-free, Internet messaging, Realmail®. In addition to his own patents, including three for Sony, Tom has contributed to interaction designs that have become industry standards. In 2003 he was selected by a leading New York City independent school to create a web application to coordinate their 3,000 person community. Tom holds an A.B. in English and American Studies from Occidental College and is a 1983 Fellow of the Thomas J. Watson Foundation. He lives in Friday Harbor, Washington with his wife Caroline Grauman-Boss and their daughter Beatrice.

http://armageddonoutahere.wordpress.com/

...”Chandoo said he doesn’t know which professors Obama was referring to in his book. Asked when he last saw Obama, Chandoo said he has not seen nor talked with him since before Obama became a U.S. senator. However, under “community member” the White House listed Chandoo as a guest at Obama’s Ramadan dinner last fall.

When asked about that, Chandoo acknowledged from his home in Armonk, N.Y., that he attended the dinner. Despite the fact that fewer than 70 people were in attendance, Chandoo added, “I did not get a chance to see the boss.” He then said he shook hands with Obama in a receiving line.

Chandoo said he has been in touch with Caroline Grauman-Boss over the years. She did not respond to a request for comment.

Burton, now deputy White House press secretary, also did not respond to a request for comment.

Drew’s encounter with Obama’s early political thinking adds to the mystery that has shrouded his past.

For more than a year during the campaign, the media were aware of Obama’s ties with the Rev. Wright, for example, but the press did not reveal them until Obama was far ahead in the primaries.

Obama has contributed to the lack of knowledge about his past by refusing to release early documentation about his life, including his college and Harvard Law School transcripts and his senior thesis at Columbia.

Referring to Obama’s quote from “Dreams from My Father” that he associated with Marxist professors, Drew says, “What he’s not saying is that he was in 100 percent total agreement with those Marxist professors. When you understand that, Obama’s later associations and policies make more sense, including why he was taken in by Rev. Wright’s ideology.”

found this at Atlas Shrugs:

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/09/its-ramadan-at-obamas-white-house.html

Mr. Hasan Chandoo, Oppenheimer & Co. $100,000 donation bundler and the Pakistani friend whose family opened their home to Obama during his 1981 visit to Pakistan.
Over at Free Republic (hat tip Laura)

“For some reason Barack Obama has never mentioned his three week stay in Pakistan in any of his writings. On the infamous San Francisco trip in which Obama called small town Americans “bitter” he also bragged that he had more foreign policy credentials than Hillary Clinton and John McCain. One of the things he listed on his resume was his extensive foreign travel including a 1981 trip to Pakistan. However since this admission, slip of the tongue, or however you would characterize it, Obama has never mentioned this trip again.
Although his campaign manager did discuss it when pressed:

As a freshman, he quickly became friends with Mohammed Hasan Chandoo and Wahid Hamid, two wealthy Pakistanis In 1981, Obama transferred from Occidental to Columbia. In between, he traveled to Pakistan - a trip that enhanced his foreign policy qualifications, he maintained in a private speech at a San Francisco fundraiser last month. Obama spent “about three weeks” in Pakistan, traveling with Hamid and staying in Karachi with Chandoo’s family, said Bill Burton, Obama’s press secretary.

The Chandoo he was referring to is Mohammed Hassan Chandoo which this website claims is now a major campaign bundler for Obama:

Bundler: Hasan Chandoo

Employer: Oppenheimer & Co State: NY Bundler Status for 2008: Bundler for Barack Obama, raised at least $100,000.00

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.