The Marriage of Obama's Parents: 'In Name Only'?

American Thinker ^ | March 8, 2014 | Shawn Glasco

[Flotsam_Jetsome]

So when did Ann's and Obama Sr.'s "whatever happened happened fast" wedding happen? For no apparent reason, confusion abounds among Obama's biographers over the wedding date:

1. Dreams claims that Ann and Obama Sr. were in married "in 1960"; similarly, Mendell's 2007 book claims that the couple were married "sometime in late 1960" when they "slipped off alone to the island of Maui"; and both Obamaland (2008) by Ron Jacobs (with contributor David Maraniss) and a 2007 Washington Post article claim that the two were married "late in 1960."

2. A 2007 Chicago Tribune article vaguely claims that Ann and Obama Sr. were married "six months before" Barack's birth on Aug 4, 1961 -- or, in other words, sometime in early 1961.

3. An April 2008 Time article by Amanda Ripley, as does Maraniss's August 2008 article, gives a specific date of February 2, 1961 for the wedding, apparently based on Ann's and Obama Sr.'s 1964 divorce records – mysteriously appearing on the web. But since fake documents have been known to appear on the web, Obama's biographers, Ripley and Maraniss, might want to verify the 1964 divorce documents – especially since a Feb. 2, 1961 marriage date for "Ann and Obama Sr." wasn't reported in any Honolulu Advertiser or Honolulu Star-Bulletin marriage lists from February 1961. Take the February 8, 1961 Star-Bulletin, which listed eighteen marriages from Feb. 3, Feb. 4, and Feb. 6, and no Feb. 2 marriages, and the February 7, 1961 Advertiser, which listed eleven marriages from Feb. 2 to 4, including two Feb. 2 marriages.

[Fred Nerks]

Obama Sr. married schoolteacher, Ruth Baker, five months after his divorce to Ann Dunham, the mother of President Obama. The relationship produced two sons, Mark Okoth Obama (1965) and David Opiya Obama (1967-1987). The couple filed for divorce in 1973, and Ruth remarried a year later to Tanzanian businessman, Ndesandjo, and the two boys took his name. Mark, who holds a BSc (Physics) from Brown, an MSc (Physics) from Stanford and an MBA from Emory, runs a China-based internet consulting firm. His brother, David, died tragically in a motorcycle accident in 1987.

http://2012.presidential-candidates.org/Obama/Siblings.php

So for anyone still following this, Mark was born in 1965, the family group photograph shows Ruth holding Mark as a toddler, the dark boy who was photographed sitting next to zero, was born in 1961, so that same dark boy was FIVE years old in that family group image.

There’s no room for a ‘David’ in any of this story. ‘David’ is just the name they gave to the dark child whom Mary babysat in January 1961. And when you figure it out, you’ll have had the same epiphany we did. The light will eventaully go on.

[MHGinTN]

Oh my!

[MHGinTN]

placemarker

[little jeremiah]

The mythology doesn’t fit the known facts or timelines.

I kept trying to stuff Stanley Ann into the “Mother” slot and it just kept not fitting. Especially when I read the “Auntie” thread and learned about the Anna S. Obama in Seattle. Stanley Ann just did not fit, I’d already realized the Kenyan could not possibly be the father.

When I stopped trying to jam Stanley Ann into a hole she did not fit into, things became much more clear.

[Fred Nerks]

Nice of you to say so, but don’t let it get to you. Ayres did his job well, the majority have bought the myth and as someone famous once said:

Lies travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its pants on.

The author of ‘Dreams’ is laughing, he once said ‘one day we will have the presidency of the United States’ and it looks like he’s succeeded. He knew what buttons to push, he knew that an entire generation raised on Disney would be easy to fool - it’s the Wizard of Oz all over again.

Telling the truth is a revolutioanry act, according to Orwell. I now know what he meant. I’m being fought tooth and nail and people are being warned behind my back to not communicate with me because I’m dangerous. I’ve been a member here since 2003 and a bunch of fools who can’t read or add up are calling me a subversive.

Let them have the government they apparently deserve. The son of the kenyan goat herder and the little teenager from Kansas. It’s so pathetic - straight out of some cheap comic book. Goodnight America.

[little jeremiah]

Well, the story isn’t over, yet.

Plenty of people read but say nothing, and the activist acrimony on threads is one reason why.

But people still read, and the CCP press conference is in the wings.

[Yaelle]

Yeah, I tried to figure out if his own gramps was molesting him, but the description sounds too much like Obama’s description of visits with Frank from the book. Some of the details of visits had to come from Obama and not ayers. Plus Frank was Very Loose morally especially sexually.

And remember so was ayers, proud to have slept with all genders and races.

[Fred Nerks]

It was a leftwing thingy in the sixties, I was aware of it in the city where I grew up, so even in staid old Australia, morals were being attacked as bourgeoise. Now those same folk are guarding their daughters and despairing of their homosexual sons. It’s a sad state of affairs when your children take drugs because the parents said it was ok in the sixties, and now they have to bury their over-dosed children and grandchilren.
There’s still nothing in that Poem that identifies either who wrote it, or who it might have been about. Both the men it might have referred to had large earlobes and wore dark hornrimmed glasses.
Both drank, we are told. And if they also smoked pot, that’s the prime suspect imo. It removes the normal, natural inhibitions and taboos.
Either way or in any case, he was an idiot to make that poem public. And it still reads more like FMD wrote it. A poet, zero never was. I’m in two three or four minds about it...child molestation is a serious charge, be the perp dead or alive.
It affects the entire family. It would be an awful legacy for the children of Frank.

[Fantasywriter]

This is what you said, Fred:

‘Yet the dark child Mark claims is he, is at least five years old in 1966.’

But it turns out Mark never said any such thing. I am frankly quite surprised. Your statement is open and shut: Mark said he was five yo in ‘66. But he never said that. Why would you say he did when he didn’t?

[Brown Deer]

http://youtu.be/J2oQYQfxj7s

[Fred Nerks]

‘Yet the dark child Mark claims is he, is at least five years old in 1966.’

IS EXACTLY WHAT I WROTE.

The dark child is claimed to be Mark in the family group image.

It is I who claims the family group image dates from 1966. No one said that Mark was born in 1966. I'm showing that Mark was about a year old in that family group image.

As we are debating, be my guest and show me where I am wrong, but you mustn't use 'Dreams' as proof of the existence of 'David' because that's the ORIGIN of the David myth.

The only time I am aware that Mark referred to his age was when he told an interviewer he was seven or eight when his parents separated. They separated in 1973. That brings you back to 1965, just as is shown in the ages stated for Mark as I posted in further comments on the matter.

Which makes him about a year old in that family group in which he's shown where Ruth is holding him.

You can name him what you like, but that five year old boy in that group isn't Mark, as you are expected to believe. Mark is the child Ruth is holding. The dark boy was born in 1961. Mark was born in 1965...over and over again...and that's because the two little boys are zero and one other, born in the same year.

Zero and the dark boy were both born in 1961. One went to Kenya and the other showed up in Hawaii. Now which one is supposed to be 'David'?

[Fred Nerks]

And the very best of luck to him, he’s married to a chinese girl and I hope they are very happy, although one wonders if any of that real estate in his name in the US ever actually belonged to him or not.

Alpharetta, wasn’t it? We located one address on Google Earth and found it was a vacant lot. It all seems such a long time ago now.

[Fantasywriter]

Yet the dark child Mark claims is he, is at least five years old in 1966.’

IS EXACTLY WHAT I WROTE.

But Mark never claimed he was at least five years old in ‘66.

‘It is I who claims the family group image dates from 1966.’

But you have no independent corroboration of that date. You are guessing at a date for the photo based on your theory. So the photo in no way bolsters your theory. If you had independent verification of the date of the photo then it would be useful to your theory. But if you use your theory to date the photo, then it is valueless as evidence. Your argument reduces to, ‘I am right because I am right’.

[Fred Nerks]

And you are reduced to being unable to debate me. All you can offer is ‘you are wrong’ - and that’s useless, it offers nothing.

[Brown Deer]

Your argument reduces to, ‘I am right because I am right’.

Funny, that's what I was thinking about the person who wrote that comment.

[Fantasywriter]

Do you have an independent date for the group/family photo? Not one you’re guessing at, but an outside source that dates the photo definitively?

[Brown Deer]

[Fantasywriter]

‘It is kinda odd, not alot of pics or info bout david at all.. Was there any info about his death found you know of? news paper, other pics, funeral, death certificate? Thx’

David grew up in a Third World country in the sixties and seventies. Most of the kids in these countries established little or no internet/newspaper presence. You can’t speculate that a particular person, in these circumstances, never existed due to lack of search engine hits. [Actually, David Obama/Ndesandjo produces a lot of hits, but that’s only because his half brother went on to become famous. The average kid in his circumstances lives an obscure life at best.]

David’s immediate and extended families acknowledge him. So do the various researchers into Obama’s life, both liberal and conservative. In fact, you can’t find anyone who knew Mark Ndesandjo [David’s brother] or the Ndesandjo family during David’s time on earth who claims David never existed. If he really were a fabricated person, one of the more serious researchers into Obama’s past would have unearthed that fact by now. [By ‘serious’ I mean ppl who travel and do on-the-ground investigations, as opposed to ppl who have never visited Kenya, much less spoken firsthand to anyone who actually knew David growing up.]

To underscore & repeat that point: the only ppl who question David’s existence are those who’ve never traveled to his birthplace and interviewed such ppl as his family, friends, teachers, etc. They claim that because Obama mentioned him in Dreams, this means he’s not real. But Obama mentions many real ppl in Dreams. He mentions Mark Ndesanjo, and he is real. Mark affirms that he had a brother named David. Mark, more than total outsiders, knows whether he had a particular brother or not.

Suppose I say I have a younger sister, and someone who has never met me or my family says I don’t? They say they can’t find enough early-info on the Net to confirm my sister’s existence. I say, ‘I grew up with her. She’s real’.

Who are you going to believe?

Now let’s say my sibling died when she was twenty. The family has often visited the grave, and still grieves for their lost daughter/sister/cousin/niece. Yet a person who has never visited the grave, never spoken to any of us, and never checked local birth and death records, claims my sister never existed.

Who are you going to believe?

If the ‘Mark never existed’ proponents were serious, they would at a minimum contact his brother, Mark Ndesandjo, and put their questions to him directly. He could reveal the year in which the family photo was taken. He could, if he wasn’t too offended by the questions themselves, give specifics about his brother’s life and death. He could lay this matter to rest if given the chance.

And that is why, though his internet address is readily available, he will never be given the chance.

[Fantasywriter]

Btw, there is a photo on the cover of Mark Ndesandjo’s new memoir, Cultures, of David and Mark together. David looks pretty miserable, but it’s a good photo nonetheless. .

http://b-i.forbesimg.com/evacairns/files/2013/12/Cultures-Front-Cover-654x1024.jpg

[Click on the image for a larger view.]