Barack Obama

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Obama, Sr. (born in Nyanza Province, Kenya) and Ann Dunham (born in Wichita, Kansas). Barack Hussein Obama (born August 4, 1961) is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and a member of the Democratic Party.

Obama grew up in culturally diverse surroundings. He spent most of his childhood in the majority-minority U.S. state of Hawaii and lived for four years in Indonesia. Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention while still an Illinois state legislator. Since announcing his candidacy in February 2007, Obama has emphasized ending the Iraq War and implementing universal health care as campaign themes.

As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, Obama co-sponsored the enactment of conventional weapons control and transparency legislation, and made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Obama's parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. His father went to Harvard University to pursue Ph.D. studies, then returned to Kenya, where he died in an auto accident when the younger Obama was twenty-one years old.

Islam Beyond Allah: Apostasy or Necessity?

There are millions of atheists and agnostics of Muslim heritage. How should we define or classify these individuals?

washingtonpost.com Mon, 30 Jul 2007 11:11:03 EDT

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/30/BL2007073000604.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns
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In her January 2007 Salon article asserting that Obama "isn't black," columnist Debra Dickerson writes: "lumping us all together Zwith ObamaZ erases the significance of slavery and continuing racism while giving the appearance of progress. His mother married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian foreign student, with whom she had one daughter, Maya.

He entered Harvard Law School in 1988. Born to a Kenyan father and an American mother, Obama grew up in culturally diverse surroundings. The donations came from 104,000 individual donors, with US$6.9 million raised through the Internet from 50,000 of the donors. The first, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, was published after his graduation from law school and before entering politics.

In March 2007, speaking before AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobby, he said that while the U.S. "should take no option, including military action, off the table, sustained and aggressive diplomacy combined with tough sanctions should be our primary means to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons.

Obama was sworn in as a Senator on January 4, 2005. He flew his wife and two daughters from Chicago to join him in a visit to his father's birthplace, a village near Kisumu in rural western Kenya.