President Barack Obama walks with his daughter Sasha after a visit to the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii January 1, 2012 in Honolulu. From 3rd left: The President’s daughter Malia, wife Michelle, niece Savita Ng, brother-in-law Konrad Ng with his daughter Suhailia, and sister Maya Soetoro-Ng.
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After visiting his grandfather’s grave here, President Obama took his family to the East-West Center, which is hosting an exhibit on his mother’s anthropological work.
“Through Her Eyes: Ann Dunham’s Field Work in Indonesia” includes photos and artifacts from the years she spent conducting research there.
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President Barack Obama and the First Family leave the National Memorial of the Pacific at Punchbowl after visiting his grandfather’s grave
A visitor looks at photographs taken during fieldwork in Indonesia by S. Ann Dunham, President Barack Obama’s late mother, during an exhibition at a gallery at the East West Center on the University of Hawaii at Manoa Campus, November 9
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President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama talk with Irish President Mary McAleese and Dr. Martin McAleese during a courtesy call in the Drawing Room at the President’s residence in Dublin, Ireland, May 23, 2011
Oh, any excuse to take a trip down this memory lane:
Today is President Mary McAleese’s last day in office – she served 14 years (14!) as Irish president.
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Sun Times: Today, in her keynote address to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Business Steps Up: Hiring our Heroes event, First Lady Michelle Obama announced that the International Franchise Association (IFA) which represents 1,100 franchises has committed to hiring 80,000 veterans and military spouses by 2014. 5,000 jobs of this commitment are promised to wounded warriors.
Mrs. Obama also announced that the Military Spouse Employment Partnership (MSEP) – which Dr. Jill Biden helped launch at the Chamber of Commerce last summer and which includes nearly 100 companies and organizations – has committed to employ 20,000 military spouses. These organizations include companies like Microsoft, Home Depot and Citi and franchises like UPS, Guidant Financial and Data Doctors. Together, the commitment by the International Franchise Association and the Military Spouse Employment Partnership represents a commitment to hire 100,000 veterans, wounded warriors and military spouses by 2014.
Statement by the President on the State Department’s Keystone XL Pipeline Announcement
November 10, 2011
I support the State Department’s announcement today regarding the need to seek additional information about the Keystone XL Pipeline proposal. Because this permit decision could affect the health and safety of the American people as well as the environment, and because a number of concerns have been raised through a public process, we should take the time to ensure that all questions are properly addressed and all the potential impacts are properly understood.
The final decision should be guided by an open, transparent process that is informed by the best available science and the voices of the American people. At the same time, my administration will build on the unprecedented progress we’ve made towards strengthening our nation’s energy security, from responsibly expanding domestic oil and gas production to nearly doubling the fuel efficiency of our cars and trucks, to continued progress in the development of a clean energy economy.
The Atlantic: ……After lunch, the group took a walk, with Barry running ahead. A flock of Indonesian children began lobbing rocks in his direction. They ducked behind a wall and shouted racial epithets. He seemed unfazed, dancing around as though playing dodge ball “with unseen players,” [fellow American and friend Elizabeth] Bryant said. Ann [Barack Obama's mother] did not react. Assuming she must not have understood the words, Bryant offered to intervene. “No, he’s O.K.,” Ann said. “He’s used to it.”
NYT: The photograph (note: not the one above) showed the son, but my eye gravitated toward the mother. That first glimpse was surprising — the stout, pale-skinned woman in sturdy sandals, standing squarely a half-step ahead of the lithe, darker-skinned figure to her left. His elastic-band body bespoke discipline, even asceticism. Her form was well padded, territory ceded long ago to the pleasures of appetite and the forces of anatomical destiny. He had the studied casualness of a catalog model, in khakis, at home in the viewfinder. She met the camera head-on, dressed in hand-loomed textile dyed indigo, a silver earring half-hidden in the cascading curtain of her dark hair. She carried her chin a few degrees higher than most. His right hand rested on her shoulder, lightly. The photograph, taken on a Manhattan rooftop in August 1987 and e-mailed to me 20 years later, was a revelation and a puzzle. The man was Barack Obama at 26, the community organizer from Chicago on a visit to New York. The woman was Stanley Ann Dunham, his mother. It was impossible not to be struck by the similarities, and the dissimilarities, between them. It was impossible not to question the stereotype to which she had been expediently reduced: the white woman from Kansas……
President Barack Obama is presented with a gift in honour of his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, by Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono during a state dinner at the State Palace-Istana Merdeka in Jakarta, November 9
Politico: At an emotional dinner in Indonesia, President Obama thanked his hosts for giving him a medal in honor of his mother and for serving foods that were his favorites as a child growing up there. ”I promise it won’t take so long before I come back,” Obama said in a toast, according to the pool, adding that he was “deeply moved.”
“The fact that you would choose to recognize my mother in this way speaks to the bonds she forged over many years with the people of this magnificent country,” he said. “She believed we all share common aspirations: to live in dignity and security, to get an education, to provide for our families, to give our children a better future, to leave the world better than we found it.”
